September 2004 Archives
I received an email from Sean Hannon, author of the Jekyll & Hyde letter to the editor, and it turns out he has just started his own website. On the site Sean posts some other letters to the editor he's written along with some protest artwork he's created. Sean has had 23 letters published in 5 local Connecticut papers in the last two years and he pointed me to two of his favorites. Here are links and excerpts from those two letters:
Who Lit All Those Fires?
Who ARE these men in whom so many have placed their trust? How do they pretend not to have had any part in misdirecting our thirst for vengeance at an easy target? This misconception of who really attacked us did not suddenly appear from nowhere. It was nurtured and insinuated and innuendo-ed into existence by those men who now are saying in effect, “Oh, you believed that? Well, you didn’t hear it from us.�
Fear of the Unknown
This infection… fear of the unknown… is governing our perceived need to topple a foreign nation based on our suspicion that it is a threat to us. No longer needed is proof that another country is directly threatening our survival. We are now willing to embrace the spectre of war, and dispense carnage and untold human suffering, all because the hairs on the back of our neck are standing up… from what might happen.
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On USAbroad.org they have posted an interview from Der Spiegel with Woody Allen. The whole interview is worth reading, Woody has some interesting things to say about US politics and the 2004 election and he's not afraid to say them. What really jumped out at me, though, was this exchange:
Spiegel: Why have you, as a chronolist of Manhattan, not included September 11th in your films?
Allen: I don't find politics profound enough to deal with it as an artist. The story of human beings is composed of murder, only the cosmetics and the decorations change: 2001 some fanatics killed Americans, and now the Americans kill Iraqis. And when I was a kid, Nazis murdered Jews. Now, Jews and Palestinians are butchering each other. Politics has been volatile for thousands of years, and meaningless, because everything repeats itself. But, as a citizen I vote, or course.
Woody deals with the interactions people have between each other, a far more interesting and varied topic than politics could ever be. While the political players may change, the storyline never really does. I don't really have any kind of insightful commentary on this, I just think it's a fascinating observation that I wanted to share. Read the whole interview, it's worth it.
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The following letter to the editor appeared in the Norwalk Hour on 9/29/04 in the Letters to the Editor section. I received this in an email from my mother this morning along with this message:
Hi all,
The following letter to the editor appeared in my local newspaper this
morning. For those who know The Hour, it was quite a surprise just to
find anything so thoughtfully structured and beautifully written
within its pages. Even more than that, however, it was heartening to
see something that has so troubled me articulated so effectively.  As
the author says, the coming election is about far more than Bush and
Kerry's personalities, it's about the future of democratic ideals in
America. I have taken the liberty of typing it up -- it definitely
deserves wider distribution!
I am sick with dread about the election on Nov. 2.  Who am I?  Just
about every civilized person on the face of this planet.  This
election is not, as many radio and TV news personalities would have
it, a horse race popularity contest between Incurious George and
Flip-Flop John.
It's a referendum on the character of America.  Too much has happened,
and too much has come to light, for it not to be so.
By now it must be clear to every American that we are at war; not just
against terrorists, but with ourselves.  Over the last three years, we
have been battling over the right response to the 9/11 attack, and who
the right target is.  We've fought over who is a patriot, what
questions should or should not be asked, and what torture is and when
it is ever OK.  Our populace and our Congress remain evenly divided
and deadlocked in a deeply polarized and hostile embrace.
We present to the world the pitiful spectacle of a once-respected Dr.
Jekyll wrestling with his darker demon: a gentle soul hunched over in
painful spasms, lashing out with monstrous clenched hands and
shrieking like a tormented animal.  They watch in horror as our
collective Hyde gains dominance, and the brute mollifies his inner
terrors with inexcusable acts of inhumanity and thuggery.
I speak of the unapologetic bombing of people who did not, and could
not, harm us; of the indiscriminate torture of detainee in Guantanamo,
Iraq and Afghanistan; of the reckless imprisonment and abuse of
hundreds of immigrants innocent of terrorism and the havoc brought to
their families here at home; of the secret surveillance of our own
citizens; of our government's labeling as "terrorist sympathizers" all
who dissent and refuse to march in lockstep.  The most frightening act
of all is the quietest: the willingness to look at all of the above,
and merely shrug it off with the attitude, "well, you gotta break a
few eggs to make an omelette."
It is no exaggeration to say that the world will be holding its breath
on Nov. 2.  There's a reason that their prayer is for a certain
outcome. It's a question of which part of our American character will
emerge victorious: the thoughtful, caring and respected good doctor …
or the deceptive, unthinking and brutish liar.
Sean Hannon
Weston
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I may be a bit behind the times on this one, but I have recently begun reading The Morning News religiously. I can't reccomend it highly enough. It's basically a daily online comedy magazine with the occaisional bought of seriousness or politics thrown in. Their three most recent articles have all been great.
"The Education of Elisabeth Eckleman: Freshman Year": Elisabeth Eckleman just left home, and has a lot of difficult decisions ahead of her. Sarah Hepola follows Elisabeth’s life and lets you make the tough choices for both of them. In this installment, Elisabeth loses her high-school boyfriend and drives to college with her parents. You decide what happens next.
"The Guilfoile-Warner Papers: Improving Kerry": In 2001 Kevin Guilfoile and John Warner lampooned the new president in their book, My First Presidentiary. Now, with the real possibility of four more Bush years, they discuss the issues facing today’s voters. This week: how to fix Kerry’s image.
"The Non-Expert: Hipster": Experts answer what they know. The Non-Expert answers anything. This week Andrew Womack explains how being a hipster is not necessarily a bad thing, and shows how to determine if you are, in fact, really one of them.
So go read those articles. Check it every day. Grab their RSS feed and enjoy some good writing.
Update (6/26/05): As I was going back through old entries adding categories, I realized this was really a Newly Discovered, so I have adjusted it accordingly.
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In a fascinating marketing move, Green Day is offering custom CDRs with the artwork of their albums on the discs. For $7.99 you can order:
A 5-pack of custom printed blank recordable CD-Rs featuring the color artwork of Green Day. A coordinated color slimline case is included with each CD-R. The five CD-Rs feature classic artwork from Green Day albums Dookie, Nimrod, Warning and the new album American idiot, as well as a rare photo of the band.
Here's what they look like:
It's seems like a pretty interesting move for Green Day's label Warner Brothers to make. It is certainly an implicit acceptance of file sharing by giving people legitimate looking CDRs to burn their music. While the website quotes, "Burn responsibly. Download music legally and burn your own Green Day compilations," it's hard to believe that Warner Brothers would be that naive. It seems incredibly hypocritical of the company to be fighting against all these downloaders while at the same time selling a product with the kind of underlying implications that these CDRs have. I have to admit that when I first saw this I thought it was incredibly cool that the label would choose to do this, but as I write and think more about this it's starting to upset me. Warner Brothers is a major player in the music business and it seems as though they're trying to have their cake and eat it too. While I'm impressed with the company's vision and forward thinking on this as a marketing move, I have to question the mixed message here.
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To anyone who clicked on the link to 'Guy breaks up to his girlfriend via PowerPoint' after about 1 pm today I apologize for what you saw. Apparently the person whose website this was hosted at was not entirely happy with all the publicity and decided to put a very lewd picture up. It was not a pleasant sight, which I found out when I tried to show the site to my sister (to which she responded "I'm gonna vomit" over and over again). Unfortunately, the bookmarks on the right side of my site are an RSS feed of my del.icio.us bookmarks posted with javascript. This means that I have to wait until the javascript refreshes the feed for the link to go away. If you're reading this and you still see the link, consider yourself warned. If you missed the photo, consider yourself lucky and if I find another link to the PowerPoint presentation I will post it, because it was very funny. Also, I apologize for being so slow on the posts this week, for whatever reason I was feeling fairly unmotivated over the last five days and just haven't gotten around to doing much of anything. As an apology, here are a couple links to keep you busy (as usual all during the week I was keeping my del.icio.us bookmarks updated).
- Since 1980 the President has been correctly predicted by whose Halloween mask sold better.
- Signs you may be a hipster.
- New York Times editorial looking at the speech styles of Bush vs. Kerry. This is worth reading, Kerry is putting himself in a dangerous position by taking a pretentious approach.
- Transcript from Jon Stewart on the O'Reilly Factor.
- Upcoming.org is a social calendar. You can subscribe to an RSS feed for your area and then add events and see who else is going. It's a cool concept that I need to play around with more to decide if it's actually useful.
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I missed Kerry on Letterman, but here's the top 10 list from the show [via WBAY]:
10. No estate tax for families with at least two U.S. presidents.
9. W-2 Form is now Dubya-2 Form.
8. Under the simplified tax code, your refund check goes directly to Halliburton.
7. The reduced earned income tax credit is so unfair, it just makes me want to tear out my lustrous, finely groomed hair.
6. Attorney General Ashcroft gets to write off the entire U-S Constitution.
5. Texas Rangers can take a business loss for trading Sammy Sosa.
4. Eliminate all income taxes; just ask Teresa to cover the whole damn thing.
3. Cheney can claim Bush as a dependent.
2. Hundred-dollar penalty if you pronounce it "nuclear" instead of "nucular."
1. George W. Bush gets a deduction for mortgaging our entire future.
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Warning: Sappiness to come, read at your own risk.
Since this is my page and I can do whatever I want, I'm sending out birthday wishes to my Mom. Happy Birthday! Thanks so much for everything you've done for me, I'm more grateful than you'll ever know. I love you.
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I just read Marc Canter's brief thoughts on the A9 user interface. For those that don't know, A9 is the new search engine by Amazon that has been met with some hype. Not only does the engine save your search history and allow you to display image, movie and book search results simultaneously, it also allows you to keep a diary and bookmarks on searches. Those diary and bookmark entries can then be searched alongside your normal web or image source. They've essentially created a web search application, rather than just another engine. Here's the description from Why Use A9.com:
The web is easy to use, but using it well is not easy. We are inventing new ways to take search one-step farther and make it more effective. We provide a unique set of powerful features to find information, organize it, and remember itâ€â€all in one place. A9.com is a powerful search engine, using web search and image search results enhanced by Google, Search Inside the Bookâ„¢ results from Amazon.com, reference results from GuruNet, movies results from IMDb, and more.
Beyond just the features, the user interface is very straight forward, including resizable windows for your different searches and buttons on the right side of the screen that allow you to turn on or off different options such as image, movie, etc.
One thing I am a bit annoyed about is that the bookmark and diary functions are only available to users of the toolbar, which is currently only available to Internet Explorer users. I know it must be hard to develop multiple toolbars at once and IE is certainly the most popular browser, but if you're trying to get adopted by an early adopter crowd wouldn't it be a smart move to include a non-IE toolbar? Just a thought. I know I would have installed it and at least given the features a spin for my own curiosity, but instead I'm left to guess what it must be like.
Finally, I have some non-review thoughts on A9 and the future of search. I really like moving all these different features into one realm, but I must admit that I'm disappointed that none of them are social. Wouldn't it be amazing if A9 used del.icio.us for it's bookmarks and a blog-like application (or even Pasta, which allows people to write plain text diary-like entries and post them to del.icio.us). Add RSS feeds to the different functions and it's an incredibly powerful tool that could really transform the web. (Hell, if you threw an RSS aggregator into the mix I can't imagine I'd ever go anywhere else.) A9 has created something really interesting, but I would expect Google to take the reigns on this one being that they already have something like Blogger in place. It's especially interesting in the face of all the Google browser rumors. I am impressed by Amazon for taking the lead and developing an innovative, thoughtful and somewhat-useful product, but I can't imagine they'll be able to keep up in the search game for long.
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Since it's now officially football season, and I really can't think of anything else to write about, here's my rundown from a Sunday of football followed by some other random, non-football, non-computer, non-internet, non-rss and maybe even non-dorky tidbits.
Football Randomness
1. The Bears beat the Packers the right way. Thomas Jones pounded the football rushing for 6.8 yards per carry. The line looked solid, Rex had time to throw and Jones ran behind Tait for big yardage all day. Even with the win, no sports writers outside Chicago had anything very interesting to say about the game. Don't the Bears deserve some credit for beating a team that was touted as the Broncos when Terrell Davis came as Elway was in the twilight of his career?
2. The 49ers vs. Saints was the ugliest game I've ever seen. Not that I was watching it all that closely, but every time I looked up it was a fumble. There's something about the Saints that I just don't like. Aaron Brooks seems to put together a fantastic game and follows it up with a huge disappointment, I just don't get them. Not to mention, if Deuce is out for any extended period of time. Not that I have a problem with Aaron Stecker (who was white in Madden 2000), but I hardly think a lifetime backup who's had some great NFL Europe campaigns is going to help a team who never seems to have the heart they need to win like the Saints.
3. The Jets are good, I take back all those bad things I said. Curtis Martin just kept running and Pennington is awesome. Props.
4. Bill Parcells is really fat.
5. It's good to see the Chargers are the Chargers again. How bad must it be to be LaDanian Tomlinson? Here you are, one of the three best RBs in the league, on a team that pulls Drew Brees for Doug Flutie. Sad.
6. Eric Johnson has about 150 yards in two games for SF.
7. I got in a discussion today about who would win in a basketball game between the Johnson Cousins of Keyshawn and Chad. I'd have to go with Chad. Keyshawn probably has great handle but can't find the basket. (Plus, as Josh said, Chad's got the gold teeth.)
8. I really never thought the Texans would open the season 0-2, especially with games against San Diego and Detroit.
9. I'm still not sold on Jacksonville. While I haven't watched either game, I do know they won week 1 on a prayer throw against the Bills and then they beat the Broncos 7-6. While the latter is more impressive to me, they're really going to have to get a rushing game going at some point. Is Fred Taylor done? What's the deal?
10. I think the Eagles win tonight. Westbrook will have a big game and an overrated Vikings defense will be exposed for just that.
11. The Giants created 7 turnovers and only won by 6 points. I guess that's what happens when, as a team, you get 28 rushes for 62 yards. Not good at all.
Non-Football Randomness
1. Britney Spears got married in a secret wedding. She also reached a new level of white-trashness by serving chicken wings and hamburgers at the wedding. [via Whatevs via The Sun]
2. Rick James had nine different drugs in his body when he died. While that's not all that surprising, it wasn't any of the drugs that killed him. Now that's impressive. [via MTV]
3. The FDA has approved a home defibrillator without a prescription. Can you imagine the fun you could have at a party with that thing? Colleges beware. [via MSNBC]
Links Randomness
1.Five things it would probably be disingenuous for me to rap about
2. A guy found a camera memory card in a cab in New York City and is now posting a picture a day as the person whose card it was
3. British American Tobacco commercials from David Lynch, Coen Brothers, Roman Polanski, Wim Wenders and Robert Altman
4. The best ways to dispose of a dead body with your own flair and elegance
5. The 50 Weirdest Guinness World Records, including number 16: "longest time with a nail in the head" (22 years by the way)
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I have written a few times about what I thought was the genius of Gmail's invite system (read 7.22.04: "Has Gmail Already Reached its Trucker Hat Phase?") as a way to create desire and excitement for a product. Well, according to the program manager of Gmail (as reported by Scoble), it's not that at all.
First session I attended? I met Chris Uhlik of Google. He's the program manager of Gmail and the Google Toolbar and a few other things. He gave a talk at 11 p.m. to well after midnight. I asked him why they only give out a few Gmail accounts at a time. Remember, I thought it was sheer marketing genius. Turns out it wasn't. Turns out they don't have enough server capacity to deal with everyone who wants an account. So, when they buy a new server and get it installed they hand out another round of invites. Heh, their server salesperson must cheer everytime he or she sees more invites being advertised on weblogs.
Whatever the case, Gmail is a great product and the invite system certainly created quite a buzz around it. I really enjoy using it, though there are certainly a few features I'm waiting for (like groups for contacts -- is this possible and I'm just missing something?).
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Just wanted to point everyone to an article by my friend Charlton McIlwain in The Gadflyer. In "Blacker Than Thou", Charlton discusses the similarities between the approaches of Spike Lee and Alan Keyes in bringing up the authenticity of blackness in some people. For Keyes that person is specifically Barack Obama, his opponent for a Senate seat in Illinois. Charlton writes:
Republicans know that they can do little to draw African American support away from Obama in Illinois. They know they cannot win the seat. But they recognized that they have a national stage – a historic one with two black candidates running for the U.S. Senate, and in a battleground state for the presidential election – for white conservatives to dictate, through a black mouthpiece, what it should mean to be black in America, and what the face of black politics should look like. Their ultimate goal is not to recruit more blacks; it is to dilute any notion that there have been and continue to be issues and positions that distinctively affect black people – or any minority for that matter. Black authenticity is political sleight of hand to claim that race doesn't matter any more, to weaken public interest and tolerance in pursuing race-based issues such as voting rights, civil rights, affirmative action and the like. It's the only explanation that makes any sense of Keyes' remarks.
The question of what makes one person more black than another is one that has plagued the black community for some time and reinforcing this idea in political debate is both wrong and dangerous.
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Today I was trying to remember the name of the bad 80's fashion that put tiger print stripes in the color of your favorite football team onto a pair of parachute-like pants. When I did a Google search for the terms 'tiger,' 'print,' 'football' and 'pants' I didn't come up with any relevant results. In order to remedy this for the next person that might be interested in the topic I have decided to put all those words into one entry so hopefully they'll be able to get right to the answer. (I'll throw in 'bad 80s fashion,' just in case that's in the search. While I'm at it let me add 'zoomba,' which one person told me they were called and 'ugly,' which they were.)
In fact, they are called Zubaz. Here's a nice pair of Bears Zubaz. And a picture to fill your craving:
In all seriousness, it is fairly interesting that there's no good way to annotate a search result to help people who may be searching for that same thing in the future. When you do a search for something it would be nice if you could add search terms to existing webpages so that others can more easily locate them. I'm not sure there's a good way to do this, but it would be very interesting. I've been checking out A9, the new search engine from Amazon.com and they allow you to makes notes and hold onto bookmarks from your searches, but I don't think these are open to anyone but you. It would be much more interesting if they had incorporated a system like del.icio.us. What if there was a search wiki where anyone could edit the entries, or at least search terms that allow people to reach a page. I know this would cause all sorts of problems with spammers who would take advantage of this open enviornment, but what about situations where people find holes in search? Just a thought that came out of trying to find the name of an amazingly ugly pant.
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Wired posted an article today about librarians standing up to the Patriot Act. Since I wasn't very nice to librarians in my writing about 'the dangers of Wikipedia,' I decided it was only fair to show that they're not all clueless. Here's an excerpt:
While mainstream media have blandly stood by as the free flow of information is threatened, some librarians have been agitating. They have been collecting signatures -- close to a million of them -- to petition the government to amend portions of the Patriot Act. They have purged circulation records. They have pushed elected officials to propose legislation to exempt libraries from government snoops, and have worked with more than 300 cities across the country to adopt measures to weaken the most extreme aspects of the law.
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Apparently The Postal Service made a video for their cover of the Phil Collins song "Against All Odds" which will be in Wicker Park. You can watch the video in Real either Hi-Res or Lo-Res.
I can't really decide how much I like the song, definitely way different than the stuff off Give Up. A lot more guitar and less synth. I'm very curious to see if they come out with another album.
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In today's Time's there's an Op-Ed from John M. McCardell Jr., former President of Middlebury College in Vermont. The piece is titled "What Your College President Didn't Tell You," and includes a few very non-traditional reccomendations for making colleges better. While all make sense in one way or another, the one that really jumped out at me was this:
To lawmakers: the 21-year-old drinking age is bad social policy and terrible law. It is astonishing that college students have thus far acquiesced in so egregious an abridgment of the age of majority. Unfortunately, this acquiescence has taken the form of binge drinking. Campuses have become, depending on the enthusiasm of local law enforcement, either arms of the law or havens from the law.
Neither state is desirable. State legislators, many of whom will admit the law is bad, are held hostage by the denial of federal highway funds if they reduce the drinking age. Our latter-day prohibitionists have driven drinking behind closed doors and underground. This is the hard lesson of prohibition that each generation must relearn. No college president will say that drinking has become less of a problem in the years since the age was raised. Would we expect a student who has been denied access to oil paint to graduate with an ability to paint a portrait in oil? Colleges should be given the chance to educate students, who in all other respects are adults, in the appropriate use of alcohol, within campus boundaries and out in the open.
And please - hold your fire about drunken driving. I am a charter member of Presidents Against Drunk Driving. This has nothing to do with drunken driving. If it did, we'd raise the driving age to 21. That would surely solve the problem.
This is surely not a very popular position to take and I think it's interesting that McCardell was even willing to print this (even in ultra-liberal Vermont, I don't know how popular this idea is). What he's saying makes sense, though. Every argument against the drinking age has been heard, so I won't go through them. But there is little doubt that a drinking age of 21 has been ineffective in keeping those underage from obtaining and drinking alcohol. Why not end this fight and lower the age? Maybe they can even start teaching kids about being safe with alcohol, rather than taking the abstinence approach that has worked so well for educating children about sex.
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As I was walking to work this morning I began to think about September 11th. I wasn't thinking of it because we are two days removed from the three year anniversary, rather, I was thining about it because it was a beautiful cloudless day in September. That's what will always stick out in my mind about that day three years ago: the image of walking up Third Avenue to Grand Central with blue sky ahead of me and grey sky behind me.
While I was reminiscing this morning during my walk, I realized that the anniversary had meant very little to me or people I know. I had not done anything special on September 11th other than take note that the Towers of Light (or whatever they're called) were up. It just didn't seem like something that I needed to celebrate or remember in that way. I had heard that there were all sorts of television specials planned, but I certainly didn't watch any. September 11th as a holiday seems like something for the rest of the country, not for New York.
I felt the same way about visiting Ground Zero. I've never been and only walked by for the first time a few months ago (I purposely avoided it before that). I know that the buildings fell because I watched it happen out my window on Lafayette Street. I saw the faces of people covered in dust, I really don't need to see the aftermath, cleaned up or not. Essentially, Ground Zero became a place where people who were not in New York on that day could go and feel like they were part of the experience, that they were sharing the pain. I hate to sound like a cynical New Yorker, but they weren't there and can't possibly understand what it felt like to be here. It was an experience like nothing I can explain and it's one I share with every other person that was on this island that day. I don't mean to exclude the rest of the country, but I just always felt like it was an insincere connection they were making with the experience. It was as if so many could really understand what it was like by buying a T-Shirt, a FDNY hat and visiting Ground Zero. They don't have the real images permanently etched in their minds, just the ones from CNN and Time Magazine. I remember watching men in suits covered in dust buying beer at 11 in the morning because they didn't know what else do with themselves. I also remember having to cross a police barrier with armed patrolmen and show ID to get home.
I don't mean any disrespect to the rest of the world, it's just always been something that bothered me. I feel as though I own that event, all of us who were there that day do. To watch all these people come in and coopt it is hard to deal with. I'm in no way saying that I'm right, and I'm sure there are victims families who feel like for them, this is a far different and more emotional experience that it was for me. I'm also leaving out those who were in Washington, another city attacked on that day. I'm just speaking as someone who lived and currently lives in New York. For me, and I think for many of us, this didn't feel like an attack on America, it felt like an attack on New York. Frankly, most of New York doesn't even associate itself with the rest of the country. We are an island that would probably secede if it could.
In the end, I can't even refer to the day by one of the many labels it's been given. It will always be September 11th for me. 9-11 or 9-1-1 just seem wrong, like people are cheapening the event by shortening the name. I don't get upset really upset about it when I hear it, but it's just not something that I can do. It's kind of amazing how a little blue sky in September can bring all these feelings to the surface.
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I'm trying to make this a somewhat regular occurance (hopefully monthly). So here's another installment of the albums that got me through the month. I've also been working on my top 50 for the year (I'm well aware that people shouldn't have a top 50 albums, but I do, so sue me). Here's a sneak preview:
1. Kings of Convenience – Riot on an Empty Street
2. Ted Leo & The Pharmacists - Shake the Streets
3. Rilo Kiley - More Adventurous
4. Moonbabies – Orange Billboard
5. Franz Ferdinand – Franz Ferdinand
6. The Killers – Hot Fuss
7. Iron & Wine – Our Endless Numbered Days
8. Erelend Oye – DJ Kicks [Still debating whether a mix album can make the list]
9. Joanna Newsome – The Milk-Eyed Mender
10. Of Montreal - Satanic Panic in the Attic
Here are 3 August albums:
Rilo Kiley - More Adventurous: Rilo are at it again, making another fantastic album to follow up The Execution of All Things. It's a bit slower than the last one, but it's still great to listen to and Jenny Lewis is absolutely amazing.
Song: "Portions for Foxes"
The Cardigans - Long Gone Before Daylight: I'm a sucker for female lead singers, what can I say? They're a more traditional sound than Rilo, whatever that means.
Song: "You're the Storm" or "And Then You Kissed Me" (There isn't really anything that's jumped out at me, it really just works together)
Maritime - Glass Floor: I'd think I'd put this band in the same category as The Shins. They're poppy, but in a nice, acoustic way.
Song: "Someone Has to Die"
I really am not great at reviewing albums. I just like them and have a great deal of trouble explaining why. Most of the time I just want to say "this album's fun to listen to." I'm good at figuring out what people will like based on their taste and can explain the connections between sounds, but when it actually comes down to describing my own tastes I find the process almost impossible. When asked to explain what kind of music I listen to, all I can really do is rattle off a list of whatever's gotten the most play on my MP3 player lately. This actually gives very little insight into my general attitudes towards styles and genres. I know I like female lead singers and I tend to like acoustic-type music. I like listening to depressing music sometimes, but there's also other times I prefer to listen to upbeat, poppy stuff. What's the point of all this? I'm not exactly sure, but I felt as though I needed an explanation for my poor album reviews. Just check those albums out and decide for yourself, if you can describe them better than I, more power to you.
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Well ladies and gentlemen, the time has almost arrived. Get ready for
a booze filled evening of music and cameras. The party has arrived.
When: Friday, September 10, 2004
Where: Remote Lounge (http://www.remotelounge.com)
Street: 327 Bowery (Between 2nd and 3rd)
Time: 8 - Late A.M. (Or, as usual, until I pass out)
DJ: Me from 8-10 (Taking special requests including Men at Work)
Drink specials: $3 Pabst Cans & $4 Vodka Drinks from 8-10
Price: Free before 10 P.M. ($5 on my list after 10)
Once again, here's the rundown of the evening. I will be DJ'ing from
8-10, spinning a mix of house and whatever the hell else I feel like
playing. You will be dancing I hope. It will be free to get in during
that time and drinks will be cheaper than usual. If for whatever
reason you will be getting there after 10 please email me your name
and the number of people coming with you (or their names) so I can add
them to my list allowing you all to get in for $5 instead of $10. (If
you've already sent me your name, you don't need to do it again,
you're already on the list.) Bring your friends and anyone else you
want, as usual the more the merrier. So come on down, drink some Pabst
and have a grand ol' time watching people on the cameras at Remote
Lounge (and say happy birthday to Al). If you haven't been there yet,
you're in for quite an experience. Any questions, just ask.
That's the word,
Noah
P.S. Guaco, queso, taco, loco.
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I just wanted to post a link to a very interesting essay by Paul Graham titled "The Age of the Essay." In it, Graham illustrates the problems with the current state of essay writing, especially in schools. Graham examines the very idea of the five paragraph essay and brings up some, of its many, problems.
The topic sentence is your thesis, chosen in advance, the supporting paragraphs the blows you strike in the conflict, and the conclusion-- uh, what is the conclusion? I was never sure about that in high school. It seemed as if we were just supposed to restate what we said in the first paragraph, but in different enough words that no one could tell. Why bother? But when you understand the origins of this sort of "essay," you can see where the conclusion comes from. It's the concluding remarks to the jury.
In the early stages of writing, it was basically speech on paper. This is a pattern that appears in the first few years of any new medium. For example, television was essentially radio you can see in towards the beginning of its existence. The problem here is that when you are stuck using the past medium you do not fully explore the possibilities of the present one. By presenting arguments just as you would orally, you are missing the point of writing, which allows you to work through your own thoughts without someone there to interrupt you. I see writing as a dialogue with yourself, rather than the monologue that is presented in so many five paragraph essays.
Graham brings up the source of the essay, a book published by Michel de Montaigne with "essais." "Essayer is a French verb meaning 'to try' and an essai is an attempt," explains Graham. "An essay is something you write to try to figure something out." It should not have a thesis statement because that would mean that you already had a set conclusion, rather the essay should explore the question set forth and try to answer it looking at the issue from both sides.
This is an idea that goes very well with the web. Exploring a topic is only a click away and thanks to things like trackbacks on blogs, you can now see both positive and negative commentary alongside whatever you're reading. What is more, gone are the days when only those deemed worthy of publishing could publish. The internet is a more complete realization of writing as a democratic medium. One of Plato's early worries about writing was that only those rich enough to learn to write would be published and therefore views would not vary widely enough. Who knew he'd be so forward thinking? With media consolidation at an all time high, we are seeing an unprecedented level of one-sidedness from the media (not necessarily liberal versus conservative, but rather consensus views of pro-wealth and pro-deregulation). Graham sees the internet as a welcome change to that. "Anyone can publish an essay on the Web, and it gets judged, as any writing should, by what it says, not who wrote it. Who are you to write about x? You are whatever you wrote."
On the internet, people are judged on ideas, rather than titles. The web is a meritocracy: Google ranking comes from how many inbound links you have rather than how many visitors or how rich your are. Because they're publishing on their own, they are bound only by their own rules. Of course there is a negative side to this. In an interview I did recently, someone referred to this problem as the 'drudgerization' of the internet. 'Drudgerization' is a process where no one has to fact check anything and journalistic integrity takes a back seat to the speed at which you can get a piece to print (or HTML). With all that said, however, these online writers are able to take their own approach to writing, rather than being bound by things like journalism school teachings.
This includes meandering along (something which I am certainly guilty often guilty of). Graham suggests that "an essay is supposed to be a search for truth. It would be suspicious if it didn't meander." Graham even includes the source of the word: "The Meander (aka Menderes) is a river in Turkey. As you might expect, it winds all over the place. But it doesn't do this out of frivolity. The path it has discovered is the most economical route to the sea." Writing is about getting to your final conclusion and letting people join you on your trip there, rather than about trying to convince them of some grand point your making in an obviously calculated way.
I think in a lot of ways the internet is bringing some flare back to this style of writing. By giving anyone a place to publish it is making the act of writing exciting and helping it to realize its potential. What is more, computers are helping people to think of the medium in a different way. Once something's written, it's not set in stone. Rather the process is more fluid than it was in the past. I would argue that computers make it easier for me to just get rid of some writing I don't like. I don't need to think about it too much, I just read it, delete it and move on. Nine times out of ten, this was the right move. Drafts exist in a different way than they did before, rather than a first, a second and a third, I tend to work through it as I go. When I do make it to a final, I've reworked it any number of times, but mostly a paragraph here and a paragraph there.
In Graham's essay he compares good writing to creating good software. "You start by writing a stripped-down kernel (how hard can it be?) and gradually it grows into a complete operating system. Hence the next leap: could you do the same thing in painting, or in a novel?" Using the computer, or the applications created for it, as a metaphor seems to be something I've been noticing more and more lately. This morning I read a Wired article titled Kingpin . It is about the three digital media moguls who purchased the Professional Bowling Association (PBA) and helped to revamp it. The article quotes Chris Peters, 1/3 owner and Microsoft employee 105, who explains that reworking a sports organization is a lot like making software. "When you have a season, you can do revs . . . You launch version 1, put it out there, see what you did wrong, and you come out with version 2. It's a process I understood well. You don't spend 10 years on a grand plan and then finally put something out there; that's just stupid. You've got to have a constant product cycle."
It fascinates me that we're seeing people using a new medium to help them better understand an old one, rather than vice-versa. I expect that this is a sign that the internet is really coming into its own. Can you imagine people looking back after television had caught hold and saying that radio was, in effect, television without the images? Computers are doing more than just ushering in a new medium, though, they're also bringing us to a new digital age. More and more people are using digital metaphors to help them better understand the non-digital world. This makes sense because digital media tend to be more closely associated with the way humans think and interact and therefore lend themselves well to helping us better understand the world around us. What better way is there to understand six degrees of separation than seeing it mapped out on a social networking site? How can you look at the way information propagates in a better way than watching it move through the blogosphere? The digital age, which we are only on the brink of, is altering the way we understand everything around us, not just writing but relationships and business as well.
I think that's all I have to say for now. So have I followed Graham's rules of an essay? I certainly meandered. I'm not sure I started with much of a question, though, other than 'how can I write about this article I just read in a semi-interesting way?' I kind of concluded with something that I didn't really see myself getting to when I set out to write. (I guess that's good?) In the end, I do believe I have a better understanding of what Graham meant when he talked about the problem with the essay now that I have actually hashed out the issue myself. I find it fairly interesting that I came to the conclusion that digital media has a huge effect on preceding media, like writing. Was it a success? As Graham suggests, and I agree, that's up to the reader to decide.
With that said, I will leave you with one last quote from Graham's essay which clearly illustrates the connection Graham sees between writing and the internet:
If you're curious about something, trust your instincts. Follow the threads that attract your attention. If there's something you're really interested in, you'll find they have an uncanny way of leading back to it anyway, just as the conversation of people who are especially proud of something always tends to lead back to it.
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Since I've been fairly lazy lately and haven't really been updating much I decided to write up another links roundup. These are all stored in my del.icio.us bookmarks, and normally these links would be shown on the right side of the page. However, for whatever reason my links aren't working at the moment and I've been too lazy to figure out how to fix them. So without any futher ado, here's some links that might be worth checking out (with excerpts from the pages):
Real dish on life after 'The Real World'
As MTV's The Real World enters its 15th season Tuesday, what better time to recap several significant seasons and catch up with some of the more popular alumni? USA TODAY's Susan Wloszczyna gets the scoop on what they're doing, and how they were affected by having a camera document their lives while they share a groovy pad with young and restless strangers.
Freddie's Blog
Ruff ruff ruff ruff ruff ruff ruff ruff!
KCRW: Morning Becomes Eclectic
Morning Becomes Eclectic is committed to a music experience that celebrates innovation, creativity and diversity by combining progressive pop, world beat, jazz, African, reggae, classical and new music. Recognized nationally as a forum for promoting a wide range of music ahead of the curve, the three-hour show has become a very attractive whistle stop for both established and emerging artists from around the world.
WriteInMelGibsonForPresident.org
There is for all practical purposes no real difference in the stated objectives of Mr. Bush and Mr. Kerry. It's tweedle dee or tweedle dumb. Why waste your vote on one or the other when the effective end result would be the same?
If you believe that our country should embark on a different, more positive course then consider making the effort to write in Mel Gibson for President on Nov. 2.
Motley Crue Members Set for Reality Shows
Motley Crue members Tommy Lee and Vince Neil have signed on to star in separate reality shows.
Yury and His MagicBike
Thanks to this week's protests of the Republican convention, the streets of Manhattan have become an outdoor gallery for the latest trends in the fusion of art and digital technology.
A loose network of tech-savvy activists has been working for monthsâ€â€in some cases yearsâ€â€to construct intriguingly bizarre electronic contraptions for creative resistance. This new breed of wireless activists is moving the Internet's power off the screen and into the streets.
Everything You Need to Know About Writing Successfully - in Ten Minutes by Stephen King
THAT'S RIGHT. I know it sounds like an ad for some sleazy writers' school, but I really am going to tell you everything you need to pursue a successful and financially rewarding career writing fiction, and I really am going to do it in ten minutes, which is exactly how long it took me to learn. It will actually take you twenty minutes or so to read this essay, however, because I have to tell you a story, and then I have to write a second introduction. But these, I argue, should not count in the ten minutes.
The Jews vs. The Drug Dealer
What follows is a true story sent to me (and a few other friends) by a friend who we'll refer to as Bob. Only names have been changed. I laughed my ass off while reading it. You may or may not, since you do not know Bob. But I couldn't let the story remain in obscurity.
The Boys From 'South Park' Go to War
After 9/11, they, like many others, could not understand why people around the world seemed to hate America, nor why so many liberals seemed bent on criticizing everything it does. Three years later, Mr. Parker and Mr. Stone say they hate the war in Iraq, but suspect it might be necessary. They think President Bush is stupid, but they can't stand John Kerry either. "We hate both of them," Mr. Parker confirmed. "They're both retards. We have to choose between a"  four-letter word  "sandwich and a"  same four-letter word  "sandwich." O.K., so they're not exactly nuanced.
What is RSS?
A basic tutorial introduction to RSS feeds and aggregators for non-technical people from Software Garden, Inc.
Tricks of the Trade
For every occupation, there is a catalog of secrets only its employees are aware ofâ€â€such as how waiters with heavy platters know to look straight ahead, and never down. Armed with a bag of reader mail, Matthew Baldwin unfurls a whole lot more true insider knowledge.
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Apple released it's new iMac and, not overly surprisingly, it looks like a giant iPod. In fact, they even mention the connection to the iPod in the first line of the product description.
What if you could fit your whole life  all your music, all your photos, all your movies, all your email  in a computer as fun and useful as an iPod? Now you can. Introducing the futuristic iMac G5 in 17- and 20-inch widescreen models. The entire computer, including a G5-based logic board, slot-loading optical drive, hard disk, speakers, and even the power supply  dwells inside the enchanting display. Modern living starts at $1299.
I've mentioned before that I believe we will see a huge increase in Apple computer sales as a result of the iPod and it is clear that Apple is seeing this connection. They really are a very smart company with an incredible flare for design.
In other news, I recently got a new G4 at work and have taken quite a liking to it. Although I could never have imagined myself saying this, I believe my next computer will be a Mac. With all the trouble I've had with my PC lately it seems like a natural fit. As more and more applications move online the OS you're running on will mean less anyway. Plus, I really like the Apple-T command for opening new tabs in Safari. If I can be converted, almost anyone can. (For those of you still using Internet Explorer, get yourself over to Mozilla.org and download Firefox, tabbed web browsing is where it's at. It gets rid of all those annoying windows when looking at a bunch of web pages at once.)
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