Television-Impaired VII
John Brunner's The Sheep Look Up, which I finished reading on the T this morning (look for a three-month Books Worth a Look entry in early December), has got me thinking about the coming Apocalypse.

If Mad parodying the Onion is one of the signs of the Apocalypse, what about a Dr. Who episode written by the late Douglas Adams?

Thanks to Slashdot.

Music to My Eyes IV
I'm still a little miffed with Other Music for closing their Cambridge store and running back home to New York City, so I was less than pleased when they mismailed their mailing list recently. People started replying to the list instead of complaining directly to Other Music, saying the usual stuff like, "Why are you people emailing me?" "Other Music, your mailing list is broken," and "Will you people please stop emailing the list?

Then a fellow sent an email to the group that brought a bit more sunshine to my day. It read:

It could be worse. People might even try promoting things like this.

Every so often, I send out an email to the team at work titled Web Site of the Friday (or whatever day of the week it is, natch), so I sent this out just now. It triggered the usual, "How do you find this stuff?" responses.

Sometimes, you don't find it; it finds you. Happy Friday.

Music to My Ears XVIII
With absolutely no thanks whatsoever to one Joe Germuska, I am now irreparably addicted to and in love with Epitonic. Where else can you go to learn more about and listen to musical groups such as Bride of No No, Ex Models, Les Sans Culottes, Red Shirt Brigade, and the Styrenes? Insound? Not so much. Insound, I dub thee No. 2. And that's only because I'll visit Epitonic to listen to stuff and then visit Insound to order some of it. Ooh. Feel that quiver? I just felt my record budget increase.

North End Moment XXIX
My boss just got back from picking up his lunch at an Italian deli not far from the Scotch & Sirloin building. His order: a sandwich without tomatoes. Here's what happened:

Vinny: Whaddya got against tomatoes?
Bill: Nothing. I just don't like 'em. Never have.
Vinny: So whaddya put on your macaroni? Oil?
Bill: No tomato sauce. That's different. The medium is the message, right?
Vinny: Ya know, it's funny. I love raw onions. I hate grilled onions. But you give me grilled onions with peas, and I love it! Does that make any fuckin' sense?
Bill: That's what keeps life interesting.
Vinny: You're right. I'll see ya my man.

May you all lead interesting lives.

Media Meet Space II
The boring, oft-described "subversive" magazine Vice is sowing its seeds by extending its brand to embrace clothing stores, a record label, and a book deal. Please. Has anyone actually read the thing? Name drop all you want, but comparing Vice to Answer Me, Forced Exposure, or Grand Royal just doesn't make any sense beyond parallels to occasionally controversial business and cross-marketing savvy. Just because people buy an "underground" mag doesn't mean that it's not a rag. I'd much rather read Foul.

Thanks to I Want Media.

Weather Report VII
I don't know what it is, but it's amazing how much a day can make. The beginning of this week, I was rather out of sorts and disgruntled, and the skies were grey, heavy, and thick, obscuring the sun and bringing rain. Today, it's clean, clear, cool, and crisp, and my energy is much higher. Maybe it was the movie, maybe it's the weather. Regardless, I much prefer how this day is starting.

The Movie I Watched Last Night XL
Before Night Falls
I've never read a word of Reinaldo Arenas' writing, but Andrea had this DVD at home, and we wanted to stay in last night, so we watched it. And watching this biographical movie based on Arenas' memoir Antes Que Anochezca makes me want to read him. And to write. I think that those are the two best things you can say about a movie about a writer, no? Arenas was a gay Cuban dissident poet during the early days of Fidel Castro's dictatorship in Cuba, and the movie tracks his developmental years as a child, time as a rebel, emergence as a writer, and eventual oppression as a homosexual intellectual. The most powerful sequences of the film, which is shot in an occasionally documentary manner, include Reinaldo's hallucinations while in solitary prison, his time hiding with other radical artists in a near-destroyed church, and his escape to New York City, where he dies of AIDS. Despite the film's moving representation of the importance of intellectual and creative expression, public speech, and group assembly, a couple of things threw me. One, Arenas' relationship with his mother is never fully explained or resolved, and there are a couple of details that cloud its reality -- his comment on her move to Miami and his hallucination about a refused reunion. Two, Johnny Depp plays two roles, which come across as one -- and that confuses the narrative. First, Depp plays Bon Bon, a prison queen who helps Arenas smuggle a book out of prison. Then, Depp plays Lieutenant Victor, which at first led me to believe that they were one and the same person -- and that Arenas was tricked into smuggling his book only to get caught. It seems that Depp's dual role, while confusing, was indeed a dual role. The one saving grace about that is the sexual ambiguity inherent in both. While Arenas didn't seem to be attracted to Bon Bon, his smuggling savior, the scene in which Victor interrogates him is awash with homosexual tension, albeit potentially hallucinated. All in all, a movie worth watching, even if you haven't read Arenas. I know that I now must. And I hope that some day, I write something so important that I have to hide it under a roof or smuggle it out of a country. Then again, maybe I don't.

Mention Me! XVIII
Traffic today is a bit heavier than average, so I went into my referral logs to see what was up. While Media Diet hasn't been Slashdotted, it has been Metafiltered courtesy of one Brian K. Seems he liked the recent post about Mad's parody of the Onion.

I feel like I should welcome all of the folks coming here from Metafilter. Hello! Welcome to Media Diet! Thanks for coming. Pull up a chair. The keg's in the back. No, no... the other back. Yeah, that's the way. (Who let him in?)

I also feel like I should let folks know that I came across the parody thanks to the Oooh! Oooh! Oooh! It's My Turn to Type thread in the Books & Literature discussion in the Atlantic's Post & Riposte forum. Credit adequately given, we are now left to entertaining our new guests.

Among the Literati XVII
Gareth Branwyn, patron and perhaps even saint of all things technological, has drafted a guide to suck-less writing. It's a clever, catchy look at crafting better writing for the Web.

Thanks to BoingBoing.

Focus Coups
Jim O'Laughlin, a writer and reading series host in Iowa, regularly adopts various consumer personas to participate in focus groups that are short on attendees. He's pretended to shave with certain razors, want a job in the aerospace industry, like a certain beer, or watch certain TV shows. In a recent piece for the Web zine La Petite, he shares some of his adventures in marketing and corporate manipulation.

Thanks to Utne Web Watch.

From the In Box: Street Art II
Dallas spends $50,000 at each new rail station for art designed to reflect the local community -- pillars, sculptures, mosaics, etc. DART also sponsors poetry contests periodically -- winners are then printed on colorful posters and displayed inside buses and trains. One of the winners has also won the national poetry slam. NYC transit has some cool stuff, too (if you know where to look). Took a great tour a couple of years ago. If you are really interested, the American Public Transit Association could connect you with locations of interesting transit art here and overseas. Oh yeah -- not a train station, but I came through the Copenhagen airport last year. Very cool art, including a large raku fountain in a terminal lobby and a flock of large multi-colored fused-glass seagulls suspended in a sunny concourse. -- Terri Adkisson

From the In Box: The Restaurant I Ate at Last Night XV
John Brunner's The Sheep Look Up: I really like that book. Did a video book review of it once when I was doing video. Prescient, as most of the things he was writing about in the late '60s and early '70s have come to pass.

When 911 happened, I pulled it out again to look at the last few pages where he talks about the United States declaring war, but not knowing against whom. A year on, we're not quite in that position. We have declared war on everybody and anybody in the world we want to. -- George Mokray