There were 949 entries found with "nytimes":
New research shows that online dating sites promising "matching algorithms" don't work: The Dubious Science of Online Dating. In other news, I just helped launch the new blog for How About We, a dating site that tosses out algorithms in favor of proposing date ideas.
More proof that psychedelics are making a come-back: NYT profile Hamilton Morris, the host of "Hamilton's Pharmacopeia" on Vice.
Mr. Morris has a grinning, laid-back persona, with an approach not dissimilar to Hunter S. Thompson's gonzo journalism. In person Mr. Morris, son of the filmmaker Errol Morris, is bookish and intense, speaking with a fastidious attention to word choice.
For those of you who like their David Carr served with a dash of sentimentality (like a Replacements ballad!), here ya go:
You can follow someone on Twitter, friend them on Facebook, quote or be quoted by them in a newspaper article, but until you taste their bread, you don't really know them.
Three Super Bowl records set: Most Tweets Per Second (12,233), Most-Watched Show in TV History (111.3 million), and Most-Watched Online Single-Game Sports Event (2.1 million).
David Carr came out bullish on Buzzfeed, while Paul Carr rebuffs him. It's too early to tell what Buzzfeed will do, but I will say that Paul gets this part wrong:
[Peretti] is a career-long SEO guy whose entire news sense is based on what people are already searching for, or what they might be sharing on Facebook tomorrow tomorrow. The first half of that equation -- the SEO half -- is inherently opposed to breaking news. If something hasn't yet been reported, then no-one is searching for it.
That's not true, and the best example of which is Kottke's subtle parody of HuffPo on Superbowl Sunday.
We already proved that we could have a trailer for anything when Charlie O'Donnell created a trailer for a venture fund:
But Esquire goes even further, with trailer for a magazine article:
[via]
The Death of the Cyberflaneur argues that the web once seemed a place for the anonymously strolling (not trolling) flaneur:
Transcending its original playful identity, it's no longer a place for strolling -- it's a place for getting things done. Hardly anyone "surfs" the Web anymore. The popularity of the "app paradigm," whereby dedicated mobile and tablet applications help us accomplish what we want without ever opening the browser or visiting the rest of the Internet, has made cyberflanerie less likely.
It then goes on to blame Facebook for much of this problem.
Five things that intrigue me right now:
1) Will Wright Is Back. Whah! “If we had that much situational awareness about you and at the same time we were building this very high-level map of the world, and I don’t just mean where Starbuck’s is, but all sorts of things like historical footnotes and people you might want to meet. I started thinking about games that we can build that would allow us to triangulate you in that space and build that deep situational awareness.” And maybe it includes a TV component! (His 2007 SXSW keynote is still my all-time favorite.)
2) Just.Me. Looks interesting, love the name.
3) Denton’s Memo. Okay, this commenting system (Pow-Wow) could be the real deal. However, I doubt that the product itself will be that revolutionary — I mean, how much can we do with comments? But the power will be in pairing it with an editorial agenda. Imagine if something like Reddit or Metafilter were more programmed, had the power of a media enterprise around it.
4) Newsright Launches. Sigh. These guys keep trying.
5) VYou 2.0. VYou comes out of Beta on Monday.
Five things that intrigue me right now:
1) Daughterly Nepotism. Oooooh, boy. Chelsea Clinton, Jenna Bush, and Meghan McCain now all work for work for NBC. This makes me miss the 30 Rock cafeteria!
2) The Bipolar Reactions that Lana Del Rey Elicits. Watch the video and then look at those comments!
3) Slaughterhouse 90210 Entries Like This One. She’s still got it.
4) After 17 years on the web, Kottke finds the craziest thing he’s ever seen.
5) Social Media Pillows. There ya go, the beginning and end of the Fimoculous Holiday Shopping Guide.
Five things that intrigue me right now:
1) This NYT Map of NYC Startups.
2) How I Ended Up Leaving Poynter. Jim’s highly-detailed account doesn’t make Poynter look worse, but they sure don’t look any better.
3) Betabeat’s Most Poachable Players in Tech. The best thing about this is not knowing most of these people.
4) Sylo. I love when people do creative things with their VYou accounts.
5) Gawker Redesign Second Thoughts. Appropos of nothing, I sometimes wonder what would have happened if Denton had gone in a different design direction. If, as he said, he believed so much that the traditional reverse-chronological order of blogs was broken, why didn’t he go with a information-dense gridded design (like Vulture and The Verge) instead of the two-pane iPad-inspired layout? That also seemed to have been Steve Jobs’ feedback. (Btw, traffic across Gawker Media right now is even lower than when he lost the bet.)
Five things that intrigue me right now:
1) Jotly. So good. I almost dont want to tell you its a parody.
2) NYT on Reality Weekly. The amazing thing here is that no one thought of it before. It will be huge.
3) Don Draper at 84. I hope he looks more convincing than DiCaprio as J. Edgar.
4) Foursquare Badges Level Up. Smart. Its the little things.
5) Minneapolis, Mark Mallman. The amazing bit here is at 2:15 where Mark turns the city into a spaceship. (Also, Minneapolis people really like Minneapolis things, dont they? Its nearly as bad as Portland.)
(#Fun! I will try this for a week.)
by ADM
I thought it would be funny.
So I walked into Fimoculous on Christmas and started blogging anonymously, without telling Rex, the owner, beforehand. Which -- you guessed it -- means that pretty much everything posted here since then is by me, not him. (How: I spent time as a house-guest here about a year ago, and the keys were still under the mat.)
Just after I started, I learned that Rex had recently been in a kerfuffle in which someone accused him of saying "anonymous blogging is bad," and that he was later characterized as saying "blogging is dead." Even better. My Operation: Goldilocks was evolving into A Scanner Darkly -- turning against itself, or at least appearing to. It seemed like a good opportunity to indirectly engage both of these issues.
Is blogging dead? I don't want it to be, which is another reason I tried to revivify this blog, which was about 10 years old and staggering around like a zombie. In my opinion, there should be room in our online discourse for blogs like this one -- offering a consistent, often thoughtful perspective, collecting and observing things of interest to its readers. But being consistent, thoughtful, and observant requires effort and time, and it requires the same of its audience.
And that, I think, is why blogging, for the most part, appears to be moribund: Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, Reddit, etc., are media that have evolved such that there is no expectation of prolonged engagement with pieces of content on the part of their writers or readers. Consider the recent widespread use of the shorthand "tl;dr" (too long; didn't read). This dismissive assessment is commonly interpreted as fair, expected criticism of the author, not the reader who offers it because he couldn't be bothered to read the content simply because it was long, regardless of its undiscovered merits. The media that are replacing "traditional" blogging value brevity above all, so much of the incentive to write anything that is both long and thoughtful diminishes (since few will bother to read it), and the self-motivation required to do so will only increase over time.
It's funny to be talking about blogging -- which for its entire lifespan has been dismissed broadly for being superficial and narcissistic -- as being a besieged outpost of well-developed, thoughtful writing, but I think that's exactly what's happening. It's no one's "fault" -- it's just the natural evolution of popular content production and consumption towards the most frictionless state: from books to periodicals to personal websites to blogs to Twitter to the Like button. When a medium comes along that's easier than clicking the Like button -- maybe thinking you Like something -- you can be sure everyone will speculate about and then bemoan its death before moving on.
But, even blogging isn't dead yet. There are some people out there who are still committed to the form, even if it seems no one else is, regularly posting smart, thought-provoking analyses and observations of their respective interests. A few that come immediately to mind:
And there are others who take the time to put together coherent, original posts:
A confession before I continue: for every one of those sites I mentioned, I have often found myself getting the gist of a post, thinking "that's a good insight," and then skimming the rest of it. Does that matter?
Continuing, let me also mention some more widely read sites that I think demonstrate originality and effort:
And lastly, if you miss Fimoculous now that it's zombified, just replace that section of your brain with Pop Loser, which I've been ripping off mercilessly for the last month and which strikes me as the blog that is the spiritual inheritor of this one.
Will any of these blogs still live in 5 years? Will new ones rise to take their place? So far, trends appear to indicate no: aggregation, automation, voting up, "liking," etc., seem to be resulting in a hivemind where thoughtfulness is replaced with promulgation and sameness. Maybe we need a "link aggregator in reverse" that shows the links of interest to you that everyone else like you hasn't Liked yet.
And what of Fimoculous? You'll have to ask Rex. I'm leaving the keys on the counter and heading back to my cabin in the woods. It's so relaxing there! Especially in the easy chair.
Thanks for reading, or skimming. And thanks, especially, to Rex. See you next time.
Update: Rex offers his take, on Tumblr.
This correction needs a correction: Appended by editors to Carr's "Skins" takedown: "...It is thus not the case that the youngsters cast in 'Kids,' the British film that was the model for 'Skins' and was rated NC-17, 'could not legally see it.'" Kids is American, not British.
NY Post says the anonymous author of the new political novel O is probably Mark Salter, the former aide to John McCain. NYT looks at the evidence. Maybe he should've tried harder to be anonymous: Kakutani hates the book, calling it "a thoroughly lackadaisical performance: trite, implausible and decidedly unfunny."
Naturally: Keller on Assange, at length. The purpose of a link blog is to link to links.
In 1945, Nabokov floated a theory about the evolution of butterflies that was not taken seriously at the time. But, he's just been proven correct.
NYT's new "Frugal Traveler," who should know better -- a lot better -- got scammed while trying to rent an apartment for his stay in London. Hint: If the email includes the word "wire," it's a scam.
NYC has hired Rachel Sterne as its first Chief Digital Officer. She is 27 and will be making $115,000. NYC's tech entrepreneurs are said to be happy with the choice -- she's one! First assignment: find the real nerds in this town.
NYT's profile of Girl Talk is a good read and has some fun anecdotes, but check out this online audio feature they put together to accompany it: musical mash-ups from the last 104 years. Mostly just excerpts, but you can find almost all of the full tracks on YouTube.
NYT finally files its obligatory piece on what ballerinas think of Black Swan. Despite the delay, the story is just what you'd expect.
Kids + Gossip Girl x Fiona Apple's "Criminal" = MTV's new show, Skins. It's controversial!
Frank Bruni on ephemeral/crowdsourced restaurants. The guy from Dovetail and other successful chefs can feel encumbered by their big places and out-sized expectations, so they go back to basics, with a twist or two (at least temporarily). Possibly related, but also more complicated: Grant Achatz of Alinea (America's best restaurant?) plans a new restaurant that will change every quarter, as part of his new year's resolution for 2011.
A few weeks ago, Elvis Mitchell dropped out/was canned as co-host of the new At The Movies. Now, his replacement has been named, just three weeks before the show premieres: "Roger Ebert announced Tuesday that he had chosen a young and relatively unknown Russian-born movie critic, Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, to serve as a host of his new movie-review program, Ebert Presents At the Movies, which will have its premiere Jan. 21 on public television stations around the country." Read a few of his posts... The kid has to dial back his academic tone or it's going to be flat.
Haiti, a year later: Great photo on the front page of the NYT today. She's a dancer.
Writer and editor Ed Park, who is himself the author of a 16,000 word sentence, assembles (with the help of his readers) a list of other very long sentences, many of which are novel-length. Some whoppers there, sure, but it's a bit of wanking, isn't it?
As part of its extensive coverage of the awards season, Manohla Dargis takes a microscope to Christian Bale's performance in The Fighter, specifically a scene early in the film in which his character -- a boxer-turned-crackhead -- relives the zenith of his career, a fight with Sugar Ray Leonard. The article makes liberal use of hyperlinks, including one to the NYT's original capsule review of "High on Crack Street," the 1995 HBO documentary on crack addicts in Lowell, Mass., which (in real life) featured Bale's character, Dicky Eklund.
Here's the NYT's Stelter and Carter framing comparisons between Edward R. Murrow and Jon Stewart, based on Stewart's "activism" on behalf of the 9/11 healthcare bill. (Not surprisingly, the article draws on quote-machine Prof. Robert J. Thompson of Syracuse University to support its premise.)
Recently noticed: if you click on a link on the nytimes.com that goes to a print-ready page (like this one) it redirects you to the non-print-ready page. But if you click "print" from there, it works (obviously looking at the referrer). Crafty, that.
Some stories around 4food's beta launch last night: CNET | Eater | Thrillist| Gizmodo | NYT | SlyOyster. We open full time on September 9.
Wait, did everyone read NYT's takedown of The Economist? (And can anyone believe that sentence exists?) UPDATE FROM CJR for anyone who questioned whether this was actually a takedown.
I don't know which part of this interview with Fred Wilson I like most (all of which is packed with accidents of success), but I'll pick this one:
How did you start blogging?
I was at a cocktail party at Nick Denton's house several years ago and the founders of Moveable Type were at the party. They convinced me to blog, so I went home, set up a blog and started blogging.
If this were still a functioning blog, I'd be writing about the 48 HR magazine project, which, hahaha sigh, just got sued by CBS for trademark infringement.
"Don't know who Taylor Momsen is? Neither do I, beyond that she is the mean one on Gossip Girl." Did no one catch that David Carr confused Taylor Momsen with Leighton Meester in his lede?
That NYT Mag profile of The National was one of the stranger things to pop up in recent years, but they are streaming the new album over there, so there's that.
For David Carr's media biz column, I wrote something about Gawker Media and the new iPhone.
and yet, there were no death threats when south park took on facebook & farmville? -- FB
performance art isn't new. what seems (and i am not plugged in enough to know) to be newish is that arts institutions/artists are getting more comfy with people interacting with that performance. turning it into a two-way street, an improvisational experience in which you actually become part of the art/performance. this is not only going on in art - it seems comments, liking, friending, tagging, trending, hacking, reblogging, etc. are behaviors that know no platform. which is both cool and chaotic.
but a year ago, MoMA wasn't cool with thehappycorpglobal getting Posterboy to mash up MoMA ads in the subways. i guess you could have your picture made while jumping in front of art, but you couldn't have a street artist cut & splice it. maybe it's just that they don't mind people interacting with or subverting the art when the art is inside their four walls...
because now people are talking to the art, staring at the art, mimicking the art, and making the art cry. -- FB
so women still aren't welcome in tech start--up culture? dudes, consider the following:
smarter, more educated women drink more. check.
promiscuous women cause earthquakes. you betcha.
the navy is cool with adding chicks on submarines, and taking away smokes. aha.
now let me ask you, do you want to get laid or not? -- FB
just in case you were trying to remember why you like to watch Mad Men, and what you'll be tuning into on July 25, this is a handy visual reminder:
you like this: 
>
you don't care for this at all:
(shudder) -- FB
Rainer Werner Fassbinder made an insane number of brilliant films before his death in 1982 at 37. Newly restored is World on a Wire his obscure sci-fi movie for German TV. Dennis Lim for NYT calls it, "Head-trip cinema about virtual-reality immersions, its an analog-age 'Avatar,' a movie that anticipates 'Blade Runner' in its meditation on artificial and human intelligence and 'The Matrix' in its conception of reality as a computer-generated illusion." (via.)-JM
Why is there a PAUL WESTERBERG byline in the Sunday Times? Alex Chilton eulogy.
I guess I'm on the record being annoyed with NYC's recent look-at-me-look-at-me glee over a handful of successful startups. Obviously, it's not that I don't want this fair city to succeed; it's just that I shun boosterism for its own sake, and there's a lot of that here. Go social media!
That said, Jenna Wortham's Sunday NYTimes piece on the scene hits all the right spots, namechecks all risers, and generally feels informed about what's at stake. If NYC digerati can position themselves as the next version of their key fracturing industries (media, fashion, finance, advertising, publishing), it should be poised to find the next versions of those sectors. --RX
NYT's Lens Blog has first-hand account of the Marja battle from embedded photographer Tyler Hicks. Hicks and reporter CJ Chivers filed some outstanding work from the battle. Chivers (a former Marine) and Hicks were on the front lines throughout, and I wouldn't be surprised if they earn a Pulitzer for their efforts. --ADM
Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland opens today. Here are some reviews:
Ebert notes that the 3D feels tacked on and adds nothing to the entertainment. --ADM
The New York Times Magazine has a long article about an online phenomenon in China: "human flesh search engines:" [via Waxy]
They are a form of online vigilante justice in which Internet users hunt down and punish people who have attracted their wrath. The goal is to get the targets of a search fired from their jobs, shamed in front of their neighbors, run out of town. It's crowd-sourced detective work, pursued online -- with offline results.
The article opens with the story of a woman who appeared in an anonymous web video stomping a cat to death. Viewers organized an effort to identify her. Shortly thereafter, living in a small town in a country of one billion people, she was identified. And ostracized.
The article suggests such efforts are more mainstream in China than in the US, though identification and subsequent harassment of "people who have attracted their wrath" is common among certain online communities here, too. In fact there are exact parallels: a group of users on 4chan have also tracked down a cat abuser (among many others).
But perhaps all online communities and social networks are essentially human flesh search engines, or easily transformed into them as desired -- although usually with less malice. We might not be much more closely connected than we have been in past years, but with 400 million people on Facebook alone, discovering (and persisting) those connections is becoming trivial. Powered by the data and photos in these social networks, recent technological advancements such as real-time face recognition built into cellphones will soon erode, if not entirely dissolve, anonymity.
With your anonymity goes your privacy. Does it matter? Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg says a desire for privacy is no longer the "social norm." But maybe such social norms were a casualty of his -- and others' -- business models. Uploading a photo of myself doesn't mean I want everyone to be able to identify me on the street. Emailing clients regularly doesn't mean I want them to see the names of everyone else I'm in contact with. But to Facebook, Google, and other companies, it does. This is the bargain we've made: give me convenience and connectedness, and I'll give you my anonymity and privacy.
We know the short-term consequences of this already -- insurers checking up on us, bosses peering into our personal lives, and so on -- but what are the long-term social and psychological consequences? Adults today have had years of disconnection from their pasts and had the option of growing up and evolving outside the gaze of their childhood peers, their relatives, etc. But today's kids will spend their entire lives on the social web. Will this hold back their personal growth in any way? Would you be different if everyone you've known from elementary school and beyond could look in on you at any time? Will today's kids grow up acting more conservatively because they know their behavior (and that of their friends) will be publicly and permanently documented? Or, will this instead cause a greater liberalization of social behavior as they become adults in a generation that accepts everyone acts foolishly, and everyone's foolish acts are publicly and permanently documented?
Or maybe the problem will solve itself. It seems possible that if nearly everyone you've ever met is your "friend" on Facebook, then your social network will eventually become so diffuse and the amount of information available will be so overwhelming, no one will bother checking up on anyone they don't really care about. Sound familiar? Maybe the social network will supplant the role that the internet played in our lives 10 years ago: others could often find you in its vastness if they cared, but they didn't. Just as ten years before that, we all had our names in the phone book, but no one called. The social norms adapt.
How do you see them evolving in the next 5 - 10 years? And how will Facebook and Google respond to or drive the changes? --ADM
Tim Rogers has lived in Japan for several years. He's sick of it -- very, very, very sick of it. So sick of it, he's written one of the longest* blog posts in the history of blog posts to explain all the ways he's sick of it. I didn't read the whole thing, but most of it seems to be because they put meat on everything and scream all the time.
*Errol Morris is probably his closest competitor. --ADM
"A raid on suspected militants in the West Bank planned for Wednesday was called off by [Israel's] military because a soldier posted details of the operation on Facebook."
The offending message:
"On Wednesday we clean up Qatanah, and on Thursday, god willing, we come home."
He also gave up the name of his unit, the time of the operation, etc. Maybe we should just give Facebook to the guys at Guantanamo. --ADM
Noted NYC graffiti artist Lee Quinones has responded to readers' questions at NYTimes.com. His work is in the permanent collection of the Whitney Museum, he appears in Wild Style, and he painted Luis Guzman's truck in How to Make it in America. Even if you don't like graffiti, his responses are worth reading just for their musicality. --ADM
Update: Part 2 and Part 3 are posted. His use of the language is just as joyous. And, per request, here's some of his subway work. And the story of his crew, the Fabulous 5ive.
It's interesting to me that no sector of the mass media learned from any other sector as each one got its turn to react to the ongoing digital revolution. The newspaper industry is in the same throes as the film industry was, just as the film industry's struggle mirrored the music industry's.
For the last year or so, it's been the book publisher's turn to demonstrate it has learned something -- anything -- from the last 15 years. But, as the kerfuffle over pricing and DRM have demonstrated so clearly -- they haven't.
The latest WTF moment comes from Macmillan (them again): CEO John Sargent says he wants to sell "hardcover" eBooks. As TUAW's TJ Luoma astutely points out, there are only a few reasons to get a hardcover instead of a paperback, and they either don't apply or make no business sense in the digital realm:
Panic moves like this are just like the nonsense we saw from the music, tv, film, and newspaper industries.
Here's my (free!) business plan for book publishers: Since you're going to have to do it eventually anyway, give your customers what they want now. Four other industries have already learned these lessons for you -- and in some cases are still learning them. They spent a lot of years and money (and angered a lot of customers) so that you wouldn't have to. Wishing things away is not effective. --ADM
NYT's Natalie Angier has a very poetic piece on some new research showing that over the last 50 years, the pacing of movies has tended toward the natural rhythm of the brain (and the universe). It's hard to summarize in a sentence, so Angier explains at length:
The basic shot structure of the movies, the way film segments of different lengths are bundled together from scene to scene, act to act, has evolved over the years to resemble a rough but recognizably wave-like pattern called 1/f, or one over frequency -- or the more Hollywood-friendly metaphor, pink noise. Pink noise is a characteristic signal profile seated somewhere between random and rigid, and for utterly mysterious reasons, our world is ablush with it. Start with a picture of Penelope Cruz, say, or a flamingo on a lawn, and decompose the picture into a collection of sine waves of various humps, dives and frequencies. However distinctive the original images, if you look at the distribution of their underlying frequencies, said Jeremy M. Wolfe, a vision researcher at Brigham and Women's Hospital, "they turn out to have a 'one over f' characteristic to them."
Researchers analyzed the length of shots in films and noticed the trend, which Angier suggests may explain why movies are so captivating even when they aren't that good. The researchers also seemed surprised that a montage from Rocky IV showing Rocky and Drago training separately featured matching shots of equal length for each boxer. As with the golden ratio, it seems like pink noise is the sort of thing that artists and audiences figure out before scientists do.
An accompanying graph shows how various films align (or not) with the 1/f ratio, objectively and as compared to the average for its year of release. Of all the films analyzed, Back to the Future matched 1/f most closely. Even so, researchers noted that there is no consistent correlation between a film's adherence to pink noise principle and its popularity with viewers. --ADM
NYT's Motoko Rich breaks down the costs and profits associated with creating and distributing eBooks vs. regular books.
If I'm reading it right, for each hardcover sold, publishers are left with revenue of $4.05 before overhead. For an eBook, they end up with "$4.56 to $5.54, before paying overhead costs or writing off unearned advances." Hence their reluctance to continue with the $9.99 pricing so favored by Amazon.
Related: Did you see that author Douglas Preston got into all kinds of trouble with his fans for suggesting they had a "sense of entitlement" for wanting cheap eBooks? He eventually apologized and reframed his comments after an outcry. --adm
The NYT's Lens blog features an essay by a photographer/videographer who has been covering bomb squads in the Iraq War over the last six years. He says The Hurt Locker is completely unrealistic:
The film is a collection of scenes that are completely implausible wrong in almost every respect. This time, its not just minor details that are wrong...More disturbing and implausible yet is the way the protagonist repeatedly endangers the lives of his team members. The soldiers I have worked with over the years are like brothers to one another. Never have I seen stronger bonds between men. Any soldier who routinely endangers his own life or those of his squad members would not be punched, as the movies star is in one scene. He would be demoted and kicked out of his unit.
Does it matter? --ADM
This week's guest editor is ADM, someone who I have known online for, oh boy, nearly a decade. He's already picking up items you'll see talked about in other places all week. I think you will enjoy his curation.
(In the meantime, one of my upcoming and exciting projects got written up in NYTimes' style mag, T: Refashioner. Much more on this later, but this will be exciting.)
NYT talks to Paul Greengrass and Brian Helgeland about Green Zone, which opens on March 12. In their comments, they reference Judith Miller, David Simon, Imperial Life in the Emerald City, and The French Connection. --ADM
NYT has readers' photos of earthquake damage in Chile. As usual, the Boston Globe's Big Picture collects some of the most dramatic pictures from the mainstream media. --ADM
The 2010 Whitney Biennial has opened. The Times says it is understated but sometimes provocative. New York magazine agrees. Note that the exhibit includes the unforgettable 'Marine Wedding' photos by Nina Berman. --ADM
Zach Galifianakis interviews John Wray, author of the excellent Lowboy, now out in paperback. If you haven't read it yet, I bet this clip won't discourage you, unless you hate Brooklyn and/or laughter. [Here's John Wray's "The Making of Zach Galifianakis" in the Times magazine last year, and here's a Q&A with Wray by yours truly.] --FD
Jennifer Egan nails it in the Times Book review with a poetic description of our online condition. --FD
I wonder what Proust would have made of our present-day locus of collective fantasy, the Internet. I'm guessing he would have seized on its wistful aspect, pointing out gently and with wry humor that much of what beguiles us is the act of reaching for what isn't there.
HBO has posted The Ricky Gervais Show pilot on YouTube and Arts Beat has an interview with Karl Pilkington, the third-wheel in this new project from Gervais and his partner in crime, Stephen Merchant. The show (due to premiere on HBO tonight) is a cartoon based on the popular podcast of the same name in which Gervais, Merchant and Pilkington sit around a table and talk. Wait, what?-- MM
A young lady of 18, wealthy, pretty and agreeable, wants a husband. Not finding any one of her acquaintance who suits her, she has concluded to take this method of discovering one. The happy gentleman must be wealthy, stylish, handsome and fascinating. None other need apply. Address within three days, giving name and full particulars, and enclosing carte de visite, Carrie Howard, Station D, New York.
--Craigslist, June 5, 1863 --MM
NYT tracks down the creator of Chatroulette. He's a 17-year-old Muscovite.
Bandwidth bills show sums which shock me as a teenager, but I am not very worried.
What makes the NYT Most Emailed list? There's a study for that:
Perhaps most of all, readers wanted to share articles that inspired awe, an emotion that the researchers investigated after noticing how many science articles made the list.
Starting in early 2011, visitors to NYTimes.com will get a certain number of articles free every month before being asked to pay a flat fee for unlimited access. Subscribers to the newspaper's print edition will receive full access to the site.
Here's that new Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary ($364.68) that you many have seen lauded in the New York Times Magazine. Check out the video "How to Call Someone Stupid In Old English Using The Historical Thesaurus of the OED":
While compiling this list, I asked a few people a dumb question: What was the biggest online event of the year?
Random answers included Oprah joining Twitter, Michael Jackson's death breaking on TMZ, and Susan Boyle coming and going. Someone even tried to argue that a writer who detailed his firing from The New Yorker on Twitter was momentous.
Sigh.
But frankly, I've got nothing better. So try this out: Matt Haughey selling PVR Blog on eBay for $12k was the most emblematic online event of 2009. Why? Because the amount seems both ridiculously high and preposterously low at the same time. It proved that if there was ever a time when you couldn't tell what the fuck something was worth, this was it.
With Kim Kardashian making $10k per tweet, even internet fame seemed synchronously bankrupt and filthy rich. Or as someone else asked, how didn't we notice that Perez Hilton had accidentally become more famous than his namesake Paris? And how is it possible that more people are reading Reblogging Julia than Julia herself?
So it's time to stop being wishy-washy about our value assessments. A few years ago, someone convinced me to drop the title "Best Blogs" from this annual list and change it to "Most Notable" blogs of the year. It made sense at the time, when the medium was still figuring itself out: chiefs were being chosen, voice still being refined. But as I began to assemble this year's list, it became clear that, no, these blogs actually were my favorites, not merely the most interesting.
So here they are, the 30 Best Blogs of 2009:
[Previous years: 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008.]
30) Dustin Curtis
Woe, the personal blog. It's a small tragedy that the decade began with the medium being used primarily by single individuals to gather and share small insights, but ends with the impersonal likes of Mashable and HuffPo. In the age of more more more, it's remarkable to see someone dedicate so much time to a single post, making sure the pixels are aligned and the words are all just right. Dustin Curtis' personal site is one of the dying breed of personal bloggers who care about such things (similar to how Jason Santa Maria puts art direction into every one of his posts). Start with: The Incompetence of American Airlines & the Fate of Mr. X.
(See also: Topherchris, We Love You So, A Continuous Lean, and Clients From Hell.)
29) NYT Pick
The bloggers behind NYTPicker had quite a year: they got Maureen Dowd to admit to plagiarism, they pointed out several errors in the Times obituary of Walter Cronkite, and Times contributor David Blum was revealed and then un-revealed as one of them. In the process, they showed that blogs can comment on the New York Times in a more substantial way than making fun of silly Sunday Styles trend pieces. If anyone really still thought blogs couldn't be the home of original reporting and research, NYTPicker proved them wrong. They watch the watchdogs! Just wait for an enterprising blogger to start NYTPickerPicker in 2010.
28) Gotcha Media
Every year it seems like a site should emerge to take the video aggregator trophy, but the space is still a hodgepodge of sporadically embedded YouTube clips. Gotcha Media was the closest to the quintessential destination for finding video events we remembered through the year, whether that be Kanye crying on Leno or Michele Bachmann leading a anti-health care prayercast.
(See also: Gawker TV and Mag.ma.)
27) Animal
As Virginia Heffernan recently asked in a recent NYT essay, what exactly should a magazine look like in the digital age? Once a sporadic print title, Animal is now one of the last remaining examples of what an underground magazine could look like online.
(See also: Black Book Tumblr and Scallywag & Vagabond.)
26) Shit My Dad Says
Several people tried to convince me to change this entire list to "Best Twitterers of the Year," a listicle that someone probably should compile but which exceeds my pain threshold. In the meantime: "Son, no one gives a shit about all the things your cell phone does. You didn't invent it, you just bought it. Anybody can do that."
25) The Rumpus
As literary magazines go, The Rumpus is something of a mess. Created by Stephen Elliott, who spent most of the year jostling around the country in support of his novel, The Rumpus defined itself mostly in opposition to what it is not. But columns by Rick Moody and Jerry Stahl, along with a rambling assemblage of interviews, links, anecdotes, reviews, and whatever fits onto the screen, make it the best case going for a reinvented online literary scene.
(See also: HTML Giant, The Millions, Electric Literature, and London Review of Books Blog.)
24) Best of Wikipedia
...Coprolalia, Foreign Accent Syndrome, Stendhal Syndrome, Dude, Mopery, Sokushinbutsu, Tyvek, Shm-reduplication, Soap Opera Rapid Aging Syndrome, Pica, Kayfabe...
(See also: Double Tongued.)
23) WSJ Speakeasy
It didn't start off very well. In the backdrop of the Wall Street Journal announcing Speakeasy in June was the chatter about Rupert turning the internet into a clunky vending machine (put a quarter in, junk food drops out). And the coverage at this culture blog was spotty at first, but the gentility eventually morphed into a more conversational aesthetic.
(See also: NYT Opinionator.)
22) Script Shadow
"I was just thinking what an interesting concept it is to eliminate the writer from the artistic process," said Tim Robbins' cocky producer character in The Player in 1992, and Hollywood seems to have listened. By reviewing movie scripts before they get made into movies, this site turns the focus back onto the written word.
(See also: First Showing, Movie of the Day, and Go Into The Story.)
21) Newsweek Tumblr
It isn't enough that Newsweek is the only mainstream media organization dangling their toes in the rocky stream of Tumblrland; it also happens to be doing it better than most of the kids. (NYTimes.com has been threatening to do "something interesting" with the medium for a couple months, but there's still nothing to show for it.) It's tricky for an established old media company to find the right voice on a new platform, but the Newsweek Tumblr has figured out how to mix their own relevant stories with the reblog culture.
(See also: Today Show Tumblr.)
20) Asian Poses
The Nyan Nyan. The Bang! The V-Sign. The Shush. These are just some of the poses Asian Poses introduced us to this year, illustrated by photos of cute Asian ladies. Is it offensive? Maybe, but many of the most interesting blogs straddle that offensive/not-offensive line. Also, based on the well-known "members of a group can make fun of that group and you can't" rule of comedy, this is not offensive since it is run by a Chinese guy. But maybe it objectifies women! Color me confused-pose.
(See also: Stop Making That Duckface, This Is Why You're Fat, Really Cute Asians, and Awkward Family Photos.)
19) Look At This Fucking Hipster
If you thought the Internet had run out of ways to mock hipsters, Look At This Fucking Hipster and Hipster Runoff proved you wrong this year. Look At This Fucking Hipster took the more direct approach, simply asking you to look at photos of these fucking hipsters, complete with caustic one-line captions. It may come as no surprise that the author, Joe Mande, appears to be a self-loathing hipster, posing in black-rimmed glasses and a flannel shirt on his website. Literary-minded hipsters are surely jealous of LATFH's book deal.
18) Hipster Runoff
Hipster Runoff's Carles took a more satirical approach, blogging about pressing hipster issues such as the music meme economy and whether you should do blow off your iPhone in fractured, "ironic quote-heavy" txt-speak. Many people suspected that "Carles" was actually Tao Lin, since Carles' writing was so similar to Lin's affectless prose, but Lin denies this. Whoever Carles is, he is most certainly another self-loathing hipster. He knows far too much about Animal Collective to be a civilian.
17) Reddit
There's a long-standing joke on this annual list to mention Metafilter every single time. But this was the first year it seemed that more people were paying attention to what was going on in the conversation threads on Reddit. For the uninitiated: Reddit takes some of the features of Digg, mixes it with the aesthetic of Twitter, adds the editorial of Fark, and accentuates it with the comments of Metafilter. But better than that sounds.
16) Smart Football
If you had told me at the beginning of 2009 that Steve Pinker and Malcolm Gladwell would get into a heated debate about football esoterica, and that this debate would happen, in all places, within an internet comment thread, I would have said, "Yeah, and Brett Favre will have the best season of his life at 40." But every once in a while intellectuals wander into sports, and recently the NFL seemed the place where the Chronicle of Higher Ed crowd is hanging. So if you want to get smart about football, this is the place to do it.
(See also: Deadspin and The Sports Section.)
15) Information Is Beautiful
Is it? Yes, but only in the hands of those who know its power.
(See also: Infosthetics, Data Blog, and NYT Bits Blog.)
14) Snarkmarket
It looks like a conspiracy that Snarkmarket has made this list a few times now, but unlike most blogs that become sedentary in their success, it just keeps innovating. This year, Robin Sloan quit his job at Current TV to become (among other things) a fiction writer -- and one of the most fascinating ones on the scene in some time. Matt Thompson had been gigging at the Knight Foundation, but recently hopped to a new gig at NPR. With them being so busy, Tim Carmody settled in as the new scribe of ideas. If they let me give it a tagline, it would be "The BoingBoing it's okay to like."
(See also: Hey, It's Noah and Waxy.)
13) Nieman Journalism Lab
Where were these guys when we needed them? Sure, it's another think tank, but Nieman Journalism Lab has been putting its not-for-profit money where its mouth is by also breaking news, such as the item about Google developing a micropayments sytem, the crack-ass idea from the Associated Press to game search, and little factoids like NYT's most frequently looked-up words. It also happens to be the only place still hiring journalists.
(See also: Reflections of a Newsosaur and Newspaper Death Watch.)
12) Anil Dash
At some point during the year, I asked Anil for an explanation in the upsurge of blog posts on his site. He said it was merely recognizing an opening: there are so few people writing intelligently about technology today. True! Daring Fireball may have the links, and TechCrunch may have the coverage, but there are scant intellectuals left in the space. When it was announced last month that he was leaving Six Apart to work for a new government tech startup within the Obama administration, the techno-pragmatism all made sense.
(See also: Obama Foodorama.)
11) Slaughterhouse 90210
Slaughterhouse 90210 combined lowbrow TV screencaps with highbrow literary quotes, making it kind of the Reese's Peanut Butter Cups of Tumblr blogs. Another comparison: an intellectual I Can Has Cheezburger. Seeing a quote from, say, The Bell Jar underneath a Friends screencap is pleasantly shocking -- especially after you realize the quote fits the show perfectly -- and a reassurance that it's okay for smart people to like stupid things. Could be a good candidate for a book deal, if it weren't for those pesky copyright issues.
(See also: The G Maniesto and Fuck Yeah Subtitles.)
10) Letters of Note
We've known for a while that the best blogs are dedicated to a precise nano-topic, but there is also a new thread emerging: the blog dedicated to disappearing technologies. The tagline of Letters of Note, "Correspondence deserving a wider audience," says it all. There's Hunter S. Thompson starting a screed "Okay you lazy bitch," there's Kurt Vonnegut writing his family from Slaughterhouse Five, there's the letter from Mick Jagger asking Andy Warhol to design album cover art, and there's J. D. Salinger's hand-written note aggressively yet delightfully shooting down a producer who wants to turn Catcher in the Rye into a movie.
(See also: Significant Objects, Iconic Photos, and Unconsumption.)
9) Mediaite
Launching another media blog didn't sound like rearranging Titanic deck chairs; it sounded like booking a flight on Al Quada Airlines to Jerusalem. But not even six months after launching, Mediaite was already on the Technorati 100, eventually landing somewhere around #30 on a list of players who have been there for years. Sure, it can go a little bananas with the seo/pageview bait, but it's also one of the few entities in the whole bastardly New York Media Scene to actually have the will to take on Gawker (or its pseudo-sibling, The Awl).
(See also: Web Newser and Politics Daily.)
8) Clay Shirky
There were only, what, a dozen or so essays on his blog this year? But one of them, Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable, caused such a little earthquake in the industry that tremors were still echoing months later. Shirky is the only guy in the whole space who doesn't sound like he has an agenda, who doesn't have a consulting agency on the side that he's pumping his half-baked theories into.
(See also: Umair Haque and The Technium.)
7) OK Cupid: OK Trends
Even the breeders in the crowd will be fascinated by the data porn on display here.
(See also: Music Machinery.)
6) Harper's Studio
The book industry is about to go through the same disruptive changes that the music industry set upon a decade ago -- this, it seems, almost everyone agrees upon. But just as with the previous natural cultural disaster, no one is sure how to prepare for the earthquake. The editors at the new Harper Studio are the most likely candidates for turning all the theory behind "the future of books" into actual functional products. An impressive list of inventive works on the horizon hints at their agenda, but the blog, which is something of a clearing house for discussing everything that has to do with the future of publishing, is like an R&D lab for print.
(See also: Omnivoracious, The Second Pass, The Penguin Blog, and Tomorrow Museum.)
5) Eat Me Daily
As one competing food blogger put it to me, Eat Me Daily is the Kottke of food blogs. Which, if you want to follow that obtuse metaphor, makes Eater the genre's Gawker and Serious Eats its Engadget. And which, if you understand any of that at all, means that this blurb can end now.
(See also: Eater and Serious Eats.)
4) Mad Men Footnotes
As I wrote earlier, Mad Men Footnotes revived the moribund genre known as tv recaps.
3) TV Tropes
If you don't know TV Tropes, it's too bad, because I probably just ruined your life. If you've ever recognized a hackneyed plot device on a tv show and thought "I wonder if anyone else has thought of this," the answer is: yes, a lot. I don't even know where to suggest starting in this labyrinth, but try entries like Butterfly of Doom or Chekhov's Gunman or Bitch In Sheep's Clothing -- or just hit the random item generator. My dream is to have Tarantino spend a month here and come out with his Twin Peaks.
(See also: Television Without Pity and Urban Dictionary.)
2) The Awl
The Awl is too good to exist, or so goes much of the catty banter in the media business scene. There is seldom a conversation of The Awl lately that doesn't ask, "How the hell will they make money?" But let's set aside that gaudy little question for a second and instead ask, "Why has The Awl become an internet love object?" I've done the math, and I have a theory, involving at least two factors: 1) It winks at all the sad internet conventions while both debunking and adopting them at the same time (Listicles Without Commentary and those Tom Scoccha chats are the best example). And 2) it is willing to go to bat for the unexpected without sounding like one of those intentionally counter-intuitive Slate essays (Avatar and Garrison Keillor are two good recent examples). In short, it's just less dumb than everything else. Even Nick Denton joked about it at launch, and I don't know how they'll survive either, but The Awl already exists in an admirable pantheon that includes Spy and Suck.
(See also: Kottke and Katie Bakes.)
1) 4chan
Go ahead, scoff. But I will tell you this: no site in the past year has better personified the internet in all its complex contradictions than 4chan. Blisteringly violent yet irrepressibly creative, vociferously political yet erratic in agenda, 4chan was the multi-headed monster that got you off, got you pissed off, and maybe got you knocked out. When I interviewed moot in February, I discovered a smart kid who had seen more by the age of 16 than someone who actually lived inside all six Saw movies. People tend to think of 4chan as pure id, but there are highly formalized rules (written and unwritten) within the community. Inside all the blustery fury of the /b/tards, there is more going on psychologically than we are equipped to understand yet.
(See also: Uncyclopedia, Encyclopedia Dramatica, and Know Your Meme.)
Special thanks to these exceptionally nice people for contributing ideas to this list: Caroline McCarthy, Joanne McNeil, Melissa Maerz, Chuck Klosterman, Soraya Darabi, Mat Honan, Katie Baker, Erin Carlson, Noah Brier, Jason Kottke, Taylor Carik, Nick Douglas, Lockhart Steele, Matt Thompson, Anastasia Friscia, and Kelly Reeves.
I've often wondered why NYTBR doesn't do more contemplative, thematic essays like this: The Naked and the Conflicted. It's about how "the Great Male Novelists of the last century" portray sex.
If perhaps you thought for a second that Jay-Z's "Empire State of Mind" wasn't absolutely everywhere, then you didn't see the Sex and the City 2 trailer yet. Sorry, everyone's ruining it for you. (See also, vaguely related, an LES lament: Together for Years, but I Just Don't Know You Anymore. [via])
Pretty! Visualizations of traffic patterns in the form of movies from NYTimes.com.
These two things from disparate parts of the Sunday Times (Week In Review and Styles) should be mashed up:
It "is one of the most symbolic documents of our age," the historian Daniel Boorstin wrote of [Celebrity Register]. "It is an index to the new categories of American society" -- the categories, he meant, that were formed by the media, which had degraded the hero into the mere celebrity. "The hero was distinguished by his achievement; the celebrity by his image or trademark," Mr. Boorstin observed. "The hero created himself; the celebrity is created by the media. The hero was a big man; the celebrity is a big name."
-- Tiger Woods and the Perils of Modern Celebrity
A growing number of Web sites now play the role of middleman, connecting aspiring contestants with casting directors. And as the reality genre has thrived, so has the cottage industry of online talent scouts that serve it -- sites like RealityWanted, Talent6 and GotCast, where people can find casting calls for TV shows and submit their resumes, often for a monthly fee.
So the best thing about David Carr at The Times is that The Times lets him get lyrical, amiright? I feel like this is the kind of stuff that would normally get cut from any non-op-ed piece; either that, or no one else can write in the same bouncy way:
For those of us who work in Manhattan media, it means that a life of occasional excess and prerogative has been replaced by a drum beat of goodbye speeches with sheet cakes and cheap sparkling wine. It's a wan reminder that all reigns are temporary, that the court of self-appointed media royalty was serving at the pleasure of an advertising economy that itself was built on inefficiency and excess. Google fixed that.
So yeah, the End of the Year List of Lists is happening again. [Except this year, I have no time to manage it, so please email me if you'd like to either a) manage it for a small stipend, or b) sponsor it.] It's just starting out, but a few things already added: NYT's 100 Notable Books, Amazon's Best Books, Literary Review's Bad Sex in Fiction, S/FJ's Best Songs and Albums, Metacritic's Best Music, and Wired's Pop Culture Moments. Be sure to email me if you have more lists.
NYTBR: Nicholson Baker on Google. I hope he's collecting these for a series of essays?
Arrington weighs in on this whole FoxCorp/Google de-indexing thing. I still think this is going to play out in some interesting way: I predict someone big will attempt to treat their spiderability as an asset in the coming year. Google won't pay at first, but once Bing takes a bid for exclusive rights, it's a whole new game. (And to that "value of traffic" argument from the previous post, I still can only say: 1 billion unmonetized pageviews versus 10 million actual dollars isn't a contest right now. Many companies will try to take that Bloomberg strategy of making their content exclusive in the coming year. I'm not saying it's necessarily the right strategy, but I'm sure it will happen.)
Clearly the strangest part of the NYT Mag's interview with Ruth Reichl:
[Gourmet] has a legendary renewal rate. They would never tell me exactly what it was. I kept asking: "What does that mean? What are you talking about?" And they just kept saying: "It's great. People buy Gourmet forever."
This reminds me of NYTimes.com's lead editor saying he has no idea of their metrics. I understand why editors might want to shield their publications from the vagaries of metrics, but to completely ignore them seems like suicide.
The FTC ruled today that bloggers must disclose any freebies or payments they get for reviewing products. Update: Fines are up to $11,000.
I was already 16 years old when I first set foot in a McDonald's. This was partially because my mother wouldn't let us eat fast food, but also because we lived 80 miles away from the closest one. It turns out that the location in continental America that is furthest from a McDonald's (145 miles) was actually very close to where I lived.
Two nuanced (and somewhat opposing) views of the upcoming Google book settlement: Lewis Hyde in NYTBR (Advantage Google) and Tim Wu in Slate (Save the Google Book Search Deal!).
Nice: new Eater redesign. Also, Curbed bought Down By The Hipster. Update: Despite NYT's story, we already knew about the Curbed/VVM ad sales deal, but Fred Wilson put his usual twist on it by pointing out that local media's hidden asset may be its sales force.
Question: who actually uses those "share this" buttons cluttering up all websites? Seriously, who? Sites are increasingly looking more like this graphic that accompanies the NYT story about those social media buttons. While I'd like to say these are complete bullshit (and I try to convince clients that they are), you can't ignore that ~200 retweet count on Techcrunch posts. Do any of those really matter? Are those influencers, or bullshiters?
(Similarly, isn't it crazy that no one has stopped and wondered how the hell ShareThis and Bit.ly, like Pluck before them, became hot startups? It's like once the legitimacy of user-generated web 2.0 companies was accepted, no one dared ever question the importance of the intermediary ever again.)
Manohla calls Herzog's take on Bad Lieutenant "one of the best movies of his career."
The first time I met a writer was the first time it occurred to me that one could be a writer.
I was a college sophomore who, through a random set of instances, walked into a very large auditorium containing a very small audience. Jim Carroll was on a dark stage reading from a collection of stories, Praying Mantis, that he had just put out. His crackling, stuttery, affected voice filled the room as he said, "This is 'Tiny Tortures' (mp3)." I actually counted the number of people in the audience: eight.
Carroll had survived modest success in the '70s as a rock singer. "Catholic Boy," which sounded a little like The Clash meets the Stones, and "People Who Died" (mp3) were small hits in 1980. But after that he lived in relative obscurity for over a decade, until Leonardo DiCaprio came along to play him in The Basketball Diaries.
When I walked into that dark room, Carroll was reading something called "A Day at the Races" (mp3). I grew up in a town about the size of your apartment building, so this was the first time that I ever heard someone read their own work. And I was mesmerized.
I happened to know the student council person who booked him at this random midwest college, so I asked her if I could take Carroll out for the night. Frightened by his stories of heroin abuse, she was relieved that I would entertain him. So at a bar called Whitey's on a cold winter night in North Dakota, Jim Carroll drank with me. He told me a hundred stories about people and places I had never heard of. And he frequently snuck in the bathroom to do I-don't-know-what.
I had never met someone like Jim Carroll, but his writing eventually led me to people like William Burroughs and Patti Smith. I never talked to him again after that night, but every time I walked down St. Mark's -- 10, 15, nearly 20 years later -- I thought of him. It was one of those incalculably small events that probably changed me forever.
Update: NYT obit.
NYT Mag has published its big Spike Jonze feature for the eventual release of Where The Wild Things Are in mid-October. It mostly poses studio execs against creative geniuses, or something like that, with quotes like: "Jonze told me that one of his models for the dialogue was the work of John Cassavetes, which may be exciting news if you're a fan of avant-garde cinema, but might not sound quite as good if you're the president of Warner Brothers." [via]
I was waiting for someone to write about how Twitter isn't popular among the kids. (The 18-year-old who sounds like a 68-year-old -- "I just think it's weird and I don't feel like everyone needs to know what I'm doing every second of my life" -- has 11 followers.)
Slate is retiring "Today's Papers," which was 12 years old. The replacement is a new blog, The Slatest.
Google's IPO was five years ago today. I was trying to remember the skeptics. Here's one:
"I'm not buying," Stephen Wozniak, an Apple co-founder, declared to The New York Times in the weeks before Google went public.
Daniel Radosh Is Having A Good Week. Indeed his is! He just got hired at the Daily Show, and he has the NYT Mag cover story on The Beatles: Rock Band (out next month), which I predict you will enjoy.
So it's great that those American journalists were "pardoned" in North Korea, but isn't the storyline here kinda crazy? The journalists worked for Al Gore (at Current.TV) and after a visit by his former boss, Bill Clinton, they will be released despite his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, being the functional Secretary of State. Bill is presumably involved because Hillary has been playing bad cop with North Korea -- and they called her a "funny lady," which is funny. (And: "Sometimes she looks like a primary schoolgirl and sometimes a pensioner going shopping.") Along for the ride to North Korea? That wacky sidekick John Podesta, who was Clinton's chief of staff. Somehow, I bet that madman Kim Jong-il actually enjoys how this all turned out: like a '90s sitcom.
I could play with this infographic all day and still not be sure about what I learned: How Different Groups Spend Their Day. [via]
It seems like just yesterday that you fell off the deck at Emo's (or flash-mobbed The Omni), but registration for SXSW 2010 has opened.
Two stories worth reading next to each other, for contrasting versions of economic exuberance: Inside Twitter HQ (The Guardian) and 10 Years After the Talk Party (NYT).
The reviews for Inherent Vice are rolling in: NY Mag | Slate | Entertainment Weekly | Financial Times | Guardian | Boston Globe | Time | LA Times | New Yorker | The Stranger. As usual, the New York Times remains the last to drop their canonical opinion. Update: And there's Michiko.
From an NYT story about some new crazy thing the AP is trying to invent to prevent copyright infringement:
Each article -- and, in the future, each picture and video -- would go out with what The A.P. called a digital 'wrapper,' data invisible to the ordinary consumer that is intended, among other things, to maximize its ranking in Internet searches. The software would also send signals back to The A.P., letting it track use of the article across the Web.Could that description be any more confusing? Does anyone know what it actually is? I'm guessing some sort of markup?
Only one thing struck me as odd about today's much-discussed Observer piece about how the NYTimes.com is constructed each day: the lead editor apparently has time to read every story in the paper, but has zero time to check his traffic stats?
This will likely be good: Will Shortz, the NY Times crossword puzzle editor, is answering questions this week. Update:
For my major in enigmatology at Indiana University, I took courses on "Word Puzzles of the 20th Century," "Construction of Crossword Puzzles," "Popular Mathematical Puzzles," "Logic Puzzles," "The Psychology of Puzzles," "Crossword Magazines," and related subjects. Not surprisingly Indiana had no existing courses on puzzles, so I made them all up myself. In each case I'd find a professor willing to work with me one on one on the topic I proposed. For my course on crossword construction, for example, every two or three weeks I'd take a new puzzle I'd created to my professor's office and sit at his side while he solved and critiqued it. This was my first experience creating professional quality crosswords. For my course on the psychology of puzzles, I studied how the brain works as well as why people feel driven to solve puzzles. My thesis was on "The History of American Word Puzzles Before 1860," in which I traced original American puzzles back to 1647 -- almost the beginning of printing history in the colonies.
Remember when games were the future of news? NYT's texting while driving game. [via]
The nerds behind Memetracker, which builds maps around news streams, have a new paper, "Meme-tracking and the Dynamics of the News Cycle," which claims, according to a NYT story, that "the traditional news outlets lead and the blogs follow, typically by 2.5 hours." I would say the methodology looks flawed, but it just so happens that this story came out exactly 2.5 hours ago.
Today we announced the launch of Mediaite.com, a new site that covers all dimensions of the media world. I advised on it, including doing the design and development. Most of my previous launch projects had the support of a media entity with dozens of employees, so this was a different kind of challenge, involving such wonderful tasks as recalling the inner-workings of DART and building WordPress plugins. It's been a while since I was involved in a bootstrappy startup, so this post is for the few people who are interested in the nuances of moving between big and small media, for however long that historical distinction remains.
Power Grid
Although a lot is going on with the site, this feature will probably garner the most attention. The Power Grid ranks 1,500 media personalities in a dozen categories. It will predictably get criticized for some sort of navel-gazing, but just as with pageview counts and most-emailed articles lists before it, the index will also predictably be ctrl+refreshed by industry obsessives. All new metrics go through their hazing periods, and media hazing is the worst form of it.
As this month's Wired overtly suggests, the abundance of data should pose a new frontier for publishing. As personal data migrates online, accusations will arise about the narcissism of measuring thyself, perhaps even yanking in some conservative trope about the decline of society, or some liberal invective about the end of privacy. Everyone will eventually settle down, and we will all learn a little more about each other. The world will go on, and no one will take Twitter Followers that seriously. (Except Dan, who is on a mission to pass me. Please don't follow him.)
The Power Grid itself posed many technical challenges: how to build an extensible algorithm, how to gather the data, how to differentiate industries, how to eliminate outlying factors, how to display the information. Watching the launch of Tumblarity, with its mercurial display and confounding numerical obfuscation, was a lesson in information design. (It took me days to figure out if you wanted a big or small Tumblarity number.) While the Power Grid doesn't reveal every single data point (mostly because that would be visually overwhelming), enough data is available for surmising the gist of how rankings are calculated.
And it's more than just a game. If you want to get a snapshot of Joel Stein or Kevin Rose, there is some interesting data to investigate. If you have an active, data-focused mind, you can imagine future iterations of the Power Grid: new data sources, APIs, visualized trending data, other industries. Who knows...
Voice
The tone of Mediaite is opinionated, but factual. It will be more reported than most blogging today, yet it will take stances where it needs to. The site's editors (Colby Hall, formerly of VH1; Rachel Sklar, formerly of HuffPo; Glynnis MacNicol, formerly of Mediabistro; Steve Krakauer, formerly of TVnewser) provide the corpus of the site in TV, Online, and Print, while user contributions end up in the Columnists bucket.
I'll be writing occasional columns too.
Identity Design
"Nostalgic futurism," "pixelated pop art," "newspaper retro" -- these were some of the early identities we toyed with. After running through iterations of each, we ended up with something calm, simple, flat.
Information Design
If you follow online design trends even marginally, you've seen the grid take over the scene. It's a fine system, especially when applied to data-rich sites. But it also suffers from a deficiency: it makes you think vertically. Take a look at the NYTimes.com, undeniably one of the best designed news sites. Here's a test: Start scanning the page while thinking about how your eyes move in conjuncture with scrolling. Do you see a pattern? Your eyes are forced to move up and down with your scrollbar. This unnatural movement is because the site is built as stacks of content. Grid design implicitly enforces this kind of thinking, because it tries to build nicely aligned columns.
This is problematic, because I don't think people actually want to scan content this way. Blogs have proven they read content this way, but it seems easier to scan content horizontally.
This was a small innovation we discovered in redesigning msnbc.com, which was was reconceived in other prominent sites. These "horizontal sites" build a new kind of importance hierarchy. Designers don't realize it, but unaligned vertical stacks are a remnant of the way that newspapers were designed -- in columns, up and down. These new layouts are more like movie screens and wide monitors, with action moving left and right.
Platform
Except for the Power Grid, it's all built on WordPress, which I haven't used in five years. Some hacking was required to get the front page to have a non-blog layout, but enough advancements have occurred over the years to make it only mildly painful.
Conclusion!
If you hang around in the NYC media bubble long enough, you develop the social depression of a collapsing industry. The west coast is full of a giddy frisson about the inevitable demise of big media, while the midwest is skeptical of everything that gets force-fed to them from the coasts. NYC, which has essentially zero awareness of any of this, continues to constantly be shocked! when a TMZ or Pitchfork or The Onion comes along from the hinterlands with a massively successful enterprise.
The reasons for this amounts to a lack of vision. Even smart people, vampirically bound to the past, seem completely blind to developing new formats. The standard for online innovation right now is "launch another blog," which no one seems to recognize is about as depressing as launching another newspaper.
Mediaite is a hybrid model, borrowing some successful formats of the past and mixing it with some new ideas.
See also:
Howard Kurtz: Just the Messenger.
Keeping News of Kidnapping Off Wikipedia: "For seven months, The New York Times managed to keep out of the news the fact that one of its reporters, David Rohde, had been kidnapped by the Taliban. But that was pretty straightforward compared with keeping it off Wikipedia." Wales contributed to the "sanitizing effort," which I'm frankly surprised ever worked. Isn't it surprising that no blogs picked up on this? NPR questions the ethics.
The One Michael Jackson Article You Have To Read. You know what? Yeah, maybe. See also: What Is Your Favorite Michael Jackson Song? "Billie Jean" is winning in the NYT poll.
Kottke's right about Twitter litter, which is why I want an app that will just give me friend recommendations. Update: NYT story about Vark.com, a revved up Yahoo Answers that uses your Facebook friends and their extensions.
NYC puked all over itself this week over this question: Should you write for free? (My answer, which is meaningless without a wordy explanation, but nonetheless: No, except for limited circumstances.) For anyone who cares, I'll fulfill my duty as link rounder upper: Simon Dumeno in Ad Age probably got the ball rolling, but Foster Kamer at Gawker picked it up and pissed off everyone, most of all Rachelle Hruska (whose Guest of a Guest had a Styles profile last weekend) who gave the best smack-down you've seen in a while, even though Maura Johnston dissented/quibbled, but meanwhile Emily Gould was forcefully explaining why she writes for free, and by that time everyone with a Tumblr had something to say about everything from The Awl to HuffPo. The end.
50 most looked-up works on NYTimes.com. Which just caused me to look up phlogiston (#46). Huh. [via]
Every NYT Styles story should be like this one: Bartender, Make It a Stiletto. There's really some guy out there who gets his jollies by lying down on bar floors wrapped in a blanket and asking people to step on him? Has anyone ever encountered this dude?
"Yes, but I can make [flatulence] noises." Huh, the NYTimes really can't publish the word "fart," even if it's only online? (That interview occurred before anyone saw the video. It's funny to see how nervous and defensive the Times seems before even seeing the piece.)
I kinda helped with this one: In One City, Two Soirees Ages Apart. Gawker sorta loved it.
Good choice: big Zach Galifianakis profile in this weekend's NYT Mag. There's also a video: mock screen test.
The best thing you're going to read on the internet for a while is Errol Morris' seven-part series on frauds and fakes for NYTimes.com. Part 1 is about art forger Han van Meegeren; Part 2 is an interview about the Uncanny Valley with Edward Dolnick; the rest are forthcoming.
Forbes has a decent little story about what NYTimes.com is doing with advertising innovation. Three bullets: they have an in-hour creative advertising team, they are developing non-standard ad units, and they are going after brand advertising rather than direct response.
I heard a rumor that NYT's controversial new Social Media Editor, Jennifer Preston, had never heard of Twitter before she started her job. Maybe that's a little hard to believe, but she definitely wasn't using Twitter before that. Anyway, PaidContent has some advice for her.
Proceeding Heffernan's column last week about Mint.com, a number of commenters voiced security concerns about the site. The CEO came back with a pretty interesting response about the level of security, which includes biometric access, video surveillance, "man-trap" doors, encryption, and other things straight outta Ocean's Seventeen. But here's something that's never exactly been addressed by Mint: read the fine print and you'll see that you're essentially handing over right of attorney to Mint. (They need to do this to get this level of access.) It's kinda creepy, but I still use it.
NYT computer superbrain thing covers Singularity, Terminator Salvation, Ray Kurzweil, Kevin Kelly, Arthur C. Clarke, Google, Moore's Law, and some other stuff.
Another new cool NYT display: Times Wire. It stacks up everything coming out of NYTimes.com as blog-like/rss-like feed in reverse-chronological order. [via]
NYT: Amazon to announce a large-screen Kindle as early as this week. The story also adds additional speculation about a large-screen iPhone later this year.
The relatively insightful comments to Heffernan's NYT Mag Comment Is King column led to a follow-up post commenting on the commenters which will likely bring more comments.
Editor: So which of you hasn't written about Twitter yet?
Writers: [blink]
Editor: How about you, Dowd?
Maureen: Ah, fuck.
And things that sound like every nyc-based journalist/blogger from 15 months ago: "I would rather be tied up to stakes in the Kalahari Desert, have honey poured over me and red ants eat out my eyes than open a Twitter account."
Last week in the New Yorker, Gary Trudeau used his mythical Fox News character, Roland Hedley, to poke at journalists using Twitter, which as The Times points out, in some cases were actually too long to be on Twitter. (See also: @roland_hedley.) WebNewser has an interview with Trudeau about twittering. "Look, all of us are narcissists to some degree, but most find it embarrassing enough to at least try to hide it. What Twitter and its social media cousins do is disable inhibition. We expect narcissism from our movie stars and politicians and teenagers, but it's a little surprising to encounter so many otherwise personally modest journalists oblivious to how they're presenting."
The new issue of Wired is guest-edited by J.J. Abrams, so one should expect some mystery. But that mystery manifests itself in literally dozens of puzzles within the pages, many of which Steven Bevacqua was the first to solve. But he confesses in an NYT story that he is still stymied by some. On the Wired side, Tom gets the quotes: "Blog posts can effectively summarize a story and give you the takeaway idea. [But print publications are still better suited to conveying] the nuance and effort of understanding the complexity of an idea and why it matters -- what the riddles and wrinkles are within an idea." LOST viewers take note: numerological hints!
From Jenna's NYT story about blog books: "But the latest frenzy is over books that take the lazy, Tom Sawyer approach to authorship. The creators come up with a goofy or witty idea, put it up on a simple platform like Twitter and Tumblr, and wait for contributors to provide all of the content. The authors put their energy into publicizing the sites and compiling the best material."
Heffernan's column is complex this week: Let Them Eat Tweets. It riffs on an idea from Bruce Sterling's closing address at SXSW: networked people are actually poor people. Counter-intuitive! Or as Sterling put it, "Poor folk love their cellphones!" This becomes a set up for a discussion of Twitter, beginning with a confession: "I'm not sure I'd use Twitter if I were rich." This networked class divide is not a bad idea to ruminate on for a second, but it also happens to be completely undercut by Oprah today showing up on Twitter and getting 150,000 followers almost instantly. As it turns out, Twitter is probably doing the exact opposite: allowing celebs to take over.
I couldn't sleep last night. I don't know what sorts of thoughts occupy your mind at 4am, but I was recalling the blog/news coverage from 3.5 years ago when Google bought YouTube for $1.65 billion. It was nearly all positive at the time, but I was calling bullshit. Today, YouTube is still pulling in nickels on its investment, and reportedly losing another half-billion to bandwidth costs. This is a stupid thing to lose sleep over, but this morning I awoke to the news that YouTube will be setting up a payment program for premium content. Yawn.
Just launched: Life.com, which Heffernan calls "hands-down the Web's greatest photo site."
So which of you am I going to marry? (I know, I know... I'm going to marry a retweeter.)
I missed this one: there's a controversy about Britney Spears' song "If U Seek Amy" because it actually sounds like she's saying "F.U.C.K. me" when she sings it. (Slate explore similar uses, which apparently go back to Joyce!) See also: a peculiar NYT op-ed rant, Pun for the Ages. So... pro-pun or anti-pun?
For next week's launch of Parks and Recreation, NYT profiles Amy Poehler while WSJ hooks up with Aziz Ansari.
NYT thinky-think piece that compares the evolution of wikipedia to that of cities. The argument frames itself around Andrew Lih's new book, The Wikipedia Revolution. Meanwhile, over in Arts, there's an urban planning piece: Reinventing America's Cities: The Time Is Now.
Come to think of it, I could use a Twitter ghostwriter too.
Annie Colbert, a 26-year-old freelance writer from Chicago who is one of [Guy] Kawasaki's ghost Twitterers, said she judged her performance based on how often her postings for Mr. Kawasaki are "retweeted," that is, resent by other users of Twitter.
Recently, she said, she had a coup when the actor Ashton Kutcher repeated her post about a YouTube video showing someone getting high from a "natural hallucinogen."
"Facebook is like Cheers, where everyone knows your name," she said. "Twitter is the hipster bar, where you booze and schmooze people."
She said she had been considering trying to get other ghost Twitter clients. "I don't think I could ghost Twitter for 100 people," she said. "More like 10 clients. I think I would have to get to know them."
Not to get all hopeful, but could this be the first sign of an economic bounce-back? Sales Increased 10% in Quarter for Best Buy.
Among the things I missed while in Texas... The Sci Fi Channel has changed its name... to a typo.
I guess the personal highlight of sxsw was the "Bikini Flashmob" that Foursquare and I threw at the Omni Hotel pool, where I wore the worst Japanese-tourist-trapped-in-Texas outfit one could possibly assemble at the souvenir shop -- David Carr describes the scene in today's NYT. Post-Austin, people ritualistically debate panels versus parties, but for me the best part is the space in between: dinner with groups of eight or so smart people and spontaneous conversations in the hallways between sessions. The booze is fun, but you forget it in the morning; the panels are theatrical, but seldom revelatory; that leaves you with the conversation, which is always why we always trek to Austin in March.
Smart move, NYT, for picking up Waxy's post about the Chinese Economist. (Smartest move: keeping it bylined to Andy -- err, Andrew -- rather than rewriting it.)
So now we can add this to the canon of newspaper-saving stories: App Out Of It, Paper-Boy! At over 6,000 words and starring many of the city's brightest meta-media bylines (John Koblin, Matt Haber, Gillian Reagan and Doree Shafrir), this should -- finally? -- be the think piece that identities the problems and presents the solutions. However, if you read closely, it's more of a "throw everything against the wall" approach than a cohesive web strategy.
Some of you might recognize the rhetoric. It feels like one of those "brainstorming sessions" that marketing/editorial execs love to hold. If you've ever worked for a big media company, you know exactly what I'm talking about: every six months, it's the same dozen people trying to predict the future. (I enter a guilty plea: I've held as many of these as anyone. You know why? Because if you work for a lumbering big media company long enough, the only catharsis is trying to imagine the impossible.)
But we're getting ahead of ourselves. Let's first admit that this story is fighting the good fight. This sort of cultural rhetoric is juicy and readymade for the <blockquote>:
The media of the 21st century is one that is blogged -- not a negative thing, see later in the piece! -- and merged with the users' own experiences and viewpoints synthesized with the original. If postmodernism came to literature in the '80s, it's got to come to journalism now.That sounds right! But what does this future look like? That's where you start to see the gaudy side of postmodernism, a pastiche of the greatest hits of the past decade. It's basically the Girl Talk version of product development, including all of the following:
Finally catching up on some reading from earlier this week, this NYT story about Google's "deep web" initiative seems to have been overlooked. This bit was new and intriguing:
Google's Deep Web search strategy involves sending out a program to analyze the contents of every database it encounters. For example, if the search engine finds a page with a form related to fine art, it starts guessing likely search terms -- "Rembrandt," "Picasso," "Vermeer" and so on -- until one of those terms returns a match. The search engine then analyzes the results and develops a predictive model of what the database contains.The idea that Google is spidering via search queries is fascinating itself, but that it's building database models from this... this seems to be creeping us toward a semantic web future.
Examined Life, a new documentary from Astra Taylor (interview; she last directed Zizek!), features interviews with philosophers Cornel West, Avital Ronell, Peter Singer, Kwame Anthony Appiah, Martha Nussbaum, Michael Hardt, Slavoj Zizek, Judith Butler, and Sunaura Taylor. The conceit is that the all interviews are held in motion -- walking, driving, boating. The trailer has Cornel West talking in the back of a cab. (For New Yorkers, it's opening at IFC Center on Wednesday; for Minneapolites, it's at the Walker on next month.)
NYT gets lots of important people to talk about the Facebook flap. Not one of them goes meh.
A link-heavy and quote-filled NYT story about the current controversy on Tumblr.
Monocle, that ridiculously expensive magazine, opened a ridiculously expensive store London, and is planning new stores in Los Angeles and Tokyo this year.
Kinda cool from NYTimes.com: Article Skimmer. Much better than navigating the homepage, right? [via]
This is a getting tedious to me too, but a few more links in this whole micropayments thing: Nicholas Carr, Clay Shirky, Jeff Jarvis, and Michael Kinsley (all con-micropayments).
Micropayments are back!
Allow yourself to flashback to the late '90s, when the future of internet media being scrawled on the white eraser board was a battle between a "pay to play" and "information wants to be free." Too bad it wasn't even a close contest: the communists won.
Haha, it was actually an unfair battle. There were too many factors working against micropayments back then: clumsy technology (no AJAX, awkward logins), hefty media pocks (NYT was selling at $40/share, compared to its current $5), and, most importantly, the giddy hope of a free media future.
But here we are today, struggling with a plummeting ad economy and the increased (but necessary) stress of moving everything digital. So micropayments are back on the table -- just ask all of the heavies who announced their support in the past week: Walter Isaacson, David Carr, Henry Blodget, Steven Brill, Stu Bykofsky, and Gawker (sorta).
And surely, an equal number of people came along to trounce the idea, as they should.
So what do I think?
I have no fucking idea. I don't like being on the wrong side of history, and I really don't know if the New York Times should revive some version of Times Select. I don't mind if you call me a chicken on this one.
But here's something I do know: micropayments could be better. With no interest in entering the fray, I would instead like to offer some design/product/business solutions that might influence the debate. My secret belief is that good design and infrastructure could address some of the valid consumer concerns. No one seems to be approaching the problem from the critical perspective of simplicity, searchability, and scalability. In other words, no one seems to design a good product. I have a proposal. Here's my idea...
Click image for full-size view.
And here's how it works...
1) When you click a link to a story -- from Google, from a blog, from NYTimes.com, from whatever -- the article appears as it normally does, except the Subscription Center lightbox appears over it, with the text opaquely visible in the background.
2) You are given a few options to quickly choose from: pay for the single article or buy a weekly/monthly pass.
3) If you already have an account (and if you're a NYTimes.com user, you do), clicking "Buy" will cause the lightbox to disappear. You can begin reading the story. Instantly.
4) You will not be charged for anything until you accumulate $5 of charges. At that point, you will be asked to enter your credit card or PayPal information, if you haven't already.
So what's new with this? What problems have I tried to solve?
1) Search / Conversation. By far the largest concern with adding subscriptions is being left out in the cold when it comes to search. (Google can easily account for half of the traffic on a media site.) This is the common criticism of the Wall Street Journal subscription model: bloggers don't link to it because it's behind a firewall and Google can't find it because most of the text is not indexed. WSJ ends up being left out of the larger conversation online. This solution addresses the problem by making all of the text still available on the page, so search engines can still "see" it. It's not behind a subscription firewall -- it's just slightly shielded. It keeps the stories in conversational circulation.
2) Surcharges / Cost. The other large concern with micropayments is related to the transaction charges incurred. This argument suggests that you can't charge $.20 for something and handle all the surcharges incurred from it. My solution addresses the problem by delaying the charge until the user reaches a certain threshold. As people like Steven Brill have pointed out, even $3/month from users would catapult revenue beyond anything ever seen by the company.
3) Scalability / Business. When NYMag did a story on the digital smarties a couple weeks ago, some voices on the internet claimed that these boys should be set to the task of inventing new business. If executed correctly, this micropayment system could actually be the start of that. This system could be scaled up to become the micropayment system for all news consumption. By becoming the backbone for media micropayments, The New York Times could have an entirely new income model. And then the network effect comes into play: the more media companies that join, the more pervasive the technology becomes, the faster users reach their $5 checkout.
4) Persistence / Features. I've had the same NYtimes.com account since approximately 1998. I'm hoping that somewhere deep in the bowels of the system, it knows every article I've ever viewed with that account. Any articles that I store in my locker are kept forever, so wouldn't it be awesome if all those were automatically added to my Digital Locker? This small personalization feature could be the beginning of an entire new set of features -- search, bookmarks, personalization, etc.
And now, some potential criticisms...
1) Can't I game this? Couldn't I just keep signing up with new accounts once I get close to $5? Answer: Sure, but I think people are willing to deal with the hassle if the payment are small. And to borrow from the Flickr model, if you offer special features with "pro" accounts, the incentive becomes even greater.
2) Couldn't someone come up with a Greasemonkey script that blocks the lightbox overlay? Answer: Sure, but things like Adblock are used by <1% of the users, so I'm not too worried about that.
3) Will Google eventually block this from their search index? Answer: I'm actually not sure, but I suspect no. This is for a variety of reasons, but the most important is that Google doesn't want to look like a bunch of assholes right now.
4) Would other companies actually adopt this micropayment system? Answer: A few years ago, around the time Google introduced Checkout, there was the brief fascination with the notion that Google could become this middleman for media micropayments. Today, there's not a media company alive that would surrender this to Google. However, if this were handled in a way similar to FOX and NBC joining forces for Hulu, maybe they would.
And finally...
The goal of this exercise was to think about ways to minimize the greatest concern with micropayments: consumer anxiety. I propose that the combination of low cost, simple interface, and clear information display could greatly minimize that concern.
Thoughts?
The College Humor Show, which premieres tomorrow at 9:30p on MTV, sure made the media rounds the last few days: NYT, NYO, WaPo, AdAge. The last one, a Dumenco interview with Ricky, is the best. "I haven't asked Barry [Diller] about being on the show, but it would obviously be great to have him do a cameo. He's one of the funniest people I know -- not funny for a guy in his sixties, or funny for a media mogul, but legit funny." And then: "Knowing Nick [Denton], I think he'd much prefer to be a character in Battlestar Gallactica or Friday Night Lights." Trailer.
Another A+ from Heffernan: Choose Your Illusion. "A venerable philosophical concept, the real has been more commonly set against the false, the fake, the ideal, the temporary, the romantic, the contrived, the staged, the illusory or the imaginary. But such a robust concept of reality would not suit television, where greater definitional leeway is needed to produce this oxymoronic thing, a reality show." What's she talking about? VH1's Celebrity Rehab, of course.
Calacanis goes all emo in his post on We Live In Public. While trying to coin a new term, Internet Asperger's Syndrome (IAS), he says: "The classic argument when someone 'famous' gets beat up is to say 'Didn't you ask for this?' Well, actually, no. The reason I got into blogging was not to be famous or to get attention. It was simply to have an intelligent discussion with people I respected. The people I thought were interesting were debating stuff in the blog format, so I was drawn to it." Is there anything left to say in this hatah/empathy, snark/criticism, trolling/creating debate?
In his speech for this $819 billion stimulus package (which just passed the House, 244-188), Obama mentions a new website, Recovery.gov. Nothing there yet...
NYTBR: See the Web Site, Buy the Book. "But do book sites really help sell books? As in so much of publishing, no one quite knows."
The neurochemical version of The Game: NYT Mag's cover story, What Do Women Want? (Okay, not really. This piece kinda rambles, misses on its few points, and could generally use a big structural edit. But there are a few good bits in there.)
The Microsoft Songsmith thread has gone mainstream. See also: Palin song, Wonderall, and the classic, Runnin With The Devil.
David Carr interviewing Mike Tyson at Sundance about the new documentary, Tyson:
Tyson: I'm getting over all this, all these cameras. That's a straight ticket back to picking up cocaine. All of this is very frightening and intimidating.
Carr: Will you tell me more about how that becomes a trigger. I just walked down the street with you, and I couldn't stand being that closely observed, I couldn't stand people swarming around me. How does that impact how you see yourself?
Tyson: You being a former addict yourself, I don't know how it works in your particular situation. But I never get high because I'm depressed or sad. I always get high because everything is going great.
Carr: Right. Everything's going your way.
Tyson: Do you understand that?
Carr: Oh, absolutely.
Riffing off an NYT story about YouTube's ascendancy as a search tool, Snarkmarket proposes Youtubeipedia. Update: perhaps this is a start... Wikipedia Beefs Up for Multimedia.
It's not often that database journalists get even an inch of press, so NY Mag's profile of the NYTimes.com guys is fantastic for that reason alone. "The most startling experiments are absorbed in a day, then regarded with reflexive complacency. But lift your hands out of the virtual Palmolive and suddenly you recognize what you've been soaking in: not a cheap imitation of a print newspaper but a vastly superior version of one. It may be the only happy story in journalism." Congrats to Andrew and co.
It's been interesting to watch the dial move up and down and back up again on Jimmy Fallon's web show. Heffernan takes on the difficulty of reviewing such things in today's NYMag, and he's also been getting good coverage at CES and NewTeeVee reevaluates their previous diss. Update: just noticed that Gavin was interviewed about the show, where he releases the news about the show bloggers!
Two sorta unexpected music profiles this week: Will Oldham in The New Yorker and Andrew Bird in the New York Times Magazine.
NYT Styles: "If absinthe were a band, it would be Interpol, third-hand piffle masquerading as transgressive pop culture. If absinthe were sneakers, it would be a pair of laceless Chuck Taylors designed by John Varvatos for Converse. If it were facial hair, it would be the soul patch. If absinthe were a finish on kitchen and bath fixtures, it would be brushed nickel."
Heffernan on online ads: "An ad that keeps telling you how unobtrusive it is like a friend whose greatest virtue is that she leaves you alone. Her absence might be appreciated, but it doesn't make her much of a friend."
As 2009 encroaches, and "What are you doing for New Years Eve?" becomes the question you hear five times an hour, the list of 2008 lists is finally wrapping up. Here are some of the best recent additions: Merlin Mann's Top 10, The Copycat Effect's Top Ten Evil Clown Stories, NYT's Year in Pictures, PC Mag's 100 Favorite Blogs, Esquire's Best Bars, Fortune's 21 Dumbest Moments in Business, fourfour's 44+ Reasons To Love 2008, WSJ's Best And Worst Ads, Daily Beast's Top Ten Thinking Man's Sex Symbols, Wired's Vaporware Awards, Cracked's 12 Most Embarrassing Photos, This Recording's 13 Personalities That Mattered Most, DJ Earworm's Mashup of Billboard Top 25 Hits, and Howard Wolfson's favorite music (yep, that one).
In the "if you like x, then you'll like y" category, a new WSJ blog: Digits, which some say suspiciously looks like NYT's Bits.
If we could bundle up the internet into a few snappy headlines, 2008 might look like this:
+ Commenters Went Crazy
+ Twitter & Tumblr Went Mainstream
+ Rickrolling Went Very Mainstream
+ Big Media Went Nowhere
+ Oversharing Went Wild
+ Politicos Went Online
+ 4Chan & Lifecasting Went Awry
If not exactly an admirable time capsule, it still felt something like progress. I personally began the year promising a reduction in my daily internet intake, yet ended it with 100 additional sites in my rss reader. Perhaps it was a resolution meant to be broken.
In previous years, this list was dubbed "The Best Blogs You (Maybe) Aren't Reading." But that wordy contrivance seems presumptuous in these niche-filled times, where everyone seems to read everything yet no one seems to read the same things. So I took some advice that Lindsay gave me last year and dubbed this a collection of "notable" sites instead. That appellation seems more appropriate.
Maybe half of the blogs listed below are new, and the other half deserve attention for having reinvented the medium in some way. Consensus is an impossible task in a world this diverse, but that shouldn't stop us from pointing out excellence when we see it. So here they are, the most notable blogs of the past year:
30) New York Times Blogs
Given the variety, it's probably unfair to group them all under one heading, but the old gray lady boldly stuck her neck further into the blogosphere guillotine during a year when retreat would have been forgiven. Old mainstays like Krugman, Freakonomics, DealBook, and City Room continued to drive daily conversation, while new additions like Proof (drinking), Laugh Lines (comedy), Measure for Measure (songwriting), and Ideas (their first foray into link blogging) proved big media could still navigate the niches. The most consistently important, however, was probably Bits, a disarmingly lucid tech-biz blog that proved you don't have to be bombastic or supercilious to win the category. (See also: L.A. Times Blogs.)
29) Boner Party
If you operate a celeb/entertainment/snark blog, you know how you are supposed to talk. The voice, now deeply entrenched in the genre, must be mimicked by any new entrant: bitchy, sneering, unimpressed. Boner Party somehow hit REFRESH on the whole genre this year by instead being celebratory, horny, fanboyish. Unlike, say, The Superficial, which is all attitude and no love, Boner Party is pure happy-happy-boy-boy. Imagine remaking Cute Overload but with pictures of girls next to giddy prose, and you've got yourself a boner party. For instance: "For guys, vaginas are like a cross between a pocket knife, a really cool nightclub, and a wizard. It can do SO many things, you REALLY want to get into it, but you have no idea how it works, and therefore it must be magical." (See also: Street Boners and TV Carnage, Golden Fiddle, and Tumblettes.)
28) Newsless
Matt Thompson packed up his belongings this year and moved to the middle of Missouri to think about the future of news -- not a bad gig if you can get it! (Matt is also known for being half of Snarkmarket, the voice of EPIC, and the founding editor of Vita.mn.) His fellowship at the University of Missouri provides time to explore the issues that many of us in online media are grappling with: poor news filters, a top-down approach to news gathering, the lack of pertinent local information, a broken breaking news model, and so on. While he's been researching these problems and writing about them on Newsless, he also put his ideas into action by launching The Money Meltdown, a site that aggregates the most essential information about the financial crisis. Though his research proposal involves Wikipediaing the News, he isn't naive enough to believe that simply turning on wikis will necessarily produce anything of value -- the right solution will be more complex than that. With the news industry in crisis, it's good that someone is trying to find models for maintaining an informed populace. (See also: PressThink and MediaShift.)
27) Urlesque
Shouldn't someone really be keeping track of all these memes? Oh good, Urlesque is. (See also: Pop Candy, Metafilter, and Listicles.)
26) NonSociety
While a vocal minority of stoic internet enthusiasts screamed bloody murder when she landed on the cover of Wired (and others advised to just don't look), Julia Allison did something this year that many people have failed at: living a publicly transparent life -- or at least as close to it as possible. The snark machine may resent this, but it has been nothing short of notable. (See also: Reblogging Julia and Jake and Amir.)
25) Last Night's Party
While others were pointing to the rise of the street fashion blog, the party photoblog made a surprise resurgence this year. The fascination has always been curious -- sure, there's some prurient interest, but there's also that moment of abhorrence. The disturbing mix of envy and disgust are why party shutterbugs seemingly reinvented the moribund genre that seemed frozen in the summer of 2006. Perhaps the resurgence can be attributed to stack of party photo books that topples on you when walking into Urban Outfitters and Virgin Records -- or maybe it was the death of the hipster. (See also: Cobrasnake, Nicky Digital, Guest of a Guest, Hot Chicks With Douchebags, and Random Night Out.)
24) Gannett Blog
Have you ever wished there was an official record of the downfall of Rome? Welcome to the 20th century newspaper version. (See also: McClatchy Watch, Journerdism, and Romenesko.)
23) Know Your Meme
A subset of Rocketboom, the "Know Your Meme" series has been one of the few beacons of hope in the inspiration-deficient genre of videoblogging this year. The genius is that the episodes are funny while being actual history lessons -- sorta like the Daily Show for the internet. Personal favorites include Magibon, Reaction Videos, and FAIL. (See also: ROFLcon, Internet Superstar, Pop 17, and Internet Famous Class.)
22) Very Small Array
Chart porn: instead of dying this year, it almost seemed to flourish. Very Small Array made beautiful images out of random data sets, such as My Love Is A... (Google searches), Largest Minority Population (NYC demographics), and Hit Songs (music charts). (See also: emo+beer = busted career and infosthetics.)
21) io9
Though it already seems like it's been here forever, io9 launched in January as a less didactic BoingBoing. Some of the most memorable posts have included Twenty Science Fiction Novels that Will Change Your Life, Imagine an America Where Socialism is No Longer a Dirty Word, and Kevin Kelly's remembrance of Gary Gygax. Hurry, before Denton slices it into space shrapnel. (See also: Offworld and SF Signal.)
20) Ta-Nehisi Coates
In one of a few areas that it seemed edge out The New Yorker this year, The Atlantic maintained its provocative blogging tradition with Matthew Yglesias, Andrew Sullivan, and James Fallows. But it was Ta-Nehisi Coates who leapt from the monitor like no one else writing about politics and culture this year. In his remarkable profile of Bill Cosby, Coates took on one of the most complex areas of race (comedy) while teasing out Cosby's occasional similarity to Obama. In a political season strangely devoid of genuine race commentary, Coates was one of the few keepin it unreal. (See also: TNR's Blogs, The Assimilated Negro, and The Root.)
19) Magic Molly
Of course, we need a Tumblr in here somewhere. The Tumblr Awards highlight the idiosyncratic characteristics of the platform that has essentially reignited the personal blogging movement: reblogs over comments, overheard conversation over discursive prose, clique over mass, fast over deliberative. Magic Molly embodied all of these things, as her itinerant persona flitted around the internet, from penning the definitive piece on adderall for n+1 to contributing to This Recording. If the Tumblrverse seems like high school, Molly is the smartest girl in the class -- the quickest with the Phillip Roth quote but never hiding her Sasha Grey guilt. (See also: TopherChris, CatBird, hrrrthrrr, Kung Fu Grippe, Soup Soup, Dear Old Love, Mediation, AntiKris, Frangy, and so on and so on....)
18) What Would Don Draper Do? and I Am Chuck Bass
After serving as a useful foil for the past couple years, the fake personality blog expired this year. But a new form arose from its ashes: the blog inspired by a character. Rather than feigning a famous person, these sites explored a character through a different set of criteria. The outcome was such projects as What Would Don Draper Do?, which imagines the Mad Men mad man as a self-help columnist, and I Am Chuck Bass, which invokes the notorious boulevardier's name to explore the inner-torment of Gossip Girl. (See also: Fire Nick Douglas and Rex's Scarf.)
17) Tomorrow Museum
Responding to last year's list, Kottke made a semi-plea for "blogs done by people who are passionate about something, not writing for a paycheck." He's right, of course -- many of those sites get lost in the fracas of the mega-blog. One of my favorites this year was Tomorrow Museum, which contained nimble think pieces about such topics as Microcelebrity and Frienemies and New Media in Fiction. (See also: Marginal Revolutions and The Morning News.)
16) Buzzfeed
After first landing on this list in 2006, Buzzfeed has been slowly transforming from a blogger favorite to a legitimate cultural force. It has also become unbelievably fast at identifying online trends before they happen. (See also: Radar Archive and Stuff White People Like.)
15) Keith Gessen
You can say this about the guy: he tried. While the commenter meme was raging this summer, Gessen had taken up the noble peculiar cause of trying to tame the unwieldy beast. This didn't exactly go so well, but you can't help feeling like we all learned something from his mistakes along the way. (See also: The Millions, Lit Mob, Geekcentric, and Emily Magazine.)
14) Videogum
Launched in April as a Stereogum offshoot, Videogum aggregates, dissects, and comments on everything happening with viral videos. If you saw a funny video this year, it was probably on Videogum first. While popularizing such phenomena as the live puppy cam, Amelie Jr., and the Ice-T / Soulja Boy feud, Gabe and Lindsay mixed in the occasional funny routine themselves. And Videogum elicited the best overheard faux-insult of the year: "I hate you. I hope your viral video doesn't go viral." (See also: Tilzy, First Showing, Antville, and Flavorwire.)
13) The Big Picture
It seems illogical that a photoblog using generic wire service photos and sitting atop a MovableType installation could possibly cause such a stir, but The Big Picture did one simple thing right: super large photos. After its June launch (by Kokogiak), the design/photo blogs instantly sent their link love, causing Boston.com's traffic to reportedly skyrocket. (See also: Media Storm and Getty Moodstream.)
12) Gawker & Radar
Fourteen months ago, not long after the Grigoriadis story, I guest-edited Gawker for a few days while Choire went off to Fire Island to feed his demons or some such thing. Everything was chilly at the office, but I had no idea I was living in antediluvian times. Since then, too many things have transpired to even count. But let's try: Denton introduced a pay-per-click model for bloggers, Emily quit, Choire quit, Josh quit, Denton hired himself, whoa -- NYT Mag cover story!, Josh responded, Emily landed a book deal, Moe had that unfortunate incident, Moe went to Radar, no wait she didn't, ack, Denton axed pay-per-click model, Choire hopped to Radar, a new Gawker editor joined, Moe was laid off, poor Balk, oops Radar folded, Denton predicted the end of the world, Sheila published photos, not you too Pareene, and a few redesigns happened. What'd I miss? If this all seems like some sort of horrid bukakke ritual performed by the blogomedia on you -- it is! And yet, we somehow ate it up. So give the guy credit -- he knows how to turn his empire into a compelling, twisted tale.
(See also: Fake Nick Denton and Cover Awards.)
11) The Technium
Kevin Kelly seemed determined this year. The mission: to use technology as a stick, or perhaps a poker, to shake and jab at society. No one has written more clearly about how technology is shaping -- and can be used to shape -- culture. In influential essays like 1000 True Fans and Better Than Free, Kelly showed how to use an emerging network economics to your advantage, while Cloud Culture, Screen Fluency, and Tools For Vizuality illustrated a future that is more evenly distributed. (See also: Metagold, Text Patterns, and TED Talks.)
10) Alley Insider
I'm as surprised as you are. When Alley Insider launched last year, it seemed like another unessential tech/biz blog whose purpose was to clutter the internet with more rewritten press releases. But Henry Blodget, the infamous former Wall Street analyst taken down by Eliot Spitzer in the first dot-com boom, had something else in mind. What immediately differentiated Alley Insider from the fracas of other also-rans was analysis -- sometimes provocative, generally accurate, and occasionally funny. A Wired profile chronicles Blodget's difficulties with living down his past, but the empire is growing with spin-offs like Clusterstock (financial dish) and The Business Sheet (business gossip). (See also: Paid Content and Techmeme.)
9) This Recording
From what I wrote in July: "What we have here is failure to communicate... strange little essays, or collages, usually around people, like Cronenberg or Ashbery or Anselm or Scarlett or Diablo or Sun Ra or Pasolini or Sasha (!!!), that are pieced together with aphorisms, links, pictures, and music, with lots of italics and ellipses. You don't really "read" the posts so much as "scan" them, which is not the same as "skim" -- it takes time. Sometimes they adopt the style of a writer -- Brett Easton Ellis -- and other times it's just something random like deducing who killed Chris Farley. Even the straight-up stuff, like the memo to Hollywood on which books to adapt, has this strange outsider voice.... It's more like some crazy ass pastiche, like this random thing about Mad Men from a few days ago, which we can either call an "essay" or visual-poetry-media-criticism-mashup." (See also: Public School Intelligentsia, Fey Friends, and Hipster Runoff.)
8) xkcd
It's been around for a while, but the pithy cartoons on the unpronounceable xkcd seemed especially poignant this year -- especially after YouTube took one joke and turned it into a reality. Known for poking at our peculiar online passions, some of this year's best strips involved pointing out the obvious weirdness of Wikipedia and the Large Hadron Collider. (See also: New Yorker Cartoon Lounge and Gaping Void.)
7) The Daily Beast
I don't know if it's really a blog either, but Tina Brown is creating, well, something over there. She has claimed in interviews that the site's intent is to sift through the online detritus for the best information -- a noble cause, but it already seems to be busting at the seams with its own information overload. Then again, features like The Cheat Sheet, Buzz Board, and Big Fat Story are at least trying to winnow the data flow to something manageable. (See also: Culture11 and AllTop.)
6) Kanye West
At some point in October, I made the most difficult decision of the year: I finally unsubscribed from Kanye's blog. The fatigue of trying to keep up with his 50-posts-per-day pace had finally set in. But I still say everyone should be forced to ingest all-things-Kanye for at least one week. And I mean everything -- including the random cut-and-paste jobs from IMDB and Google Image Search. And the comments -- oh yeah, you gotta read the comments. And you know what -- who cares if he's really writing all this stuff! You don't think Warhol made every painting, do you? (See also: Aziz is Bored, Lovely Package, and Pretty Much Amazing.)
5) Fred Wilson
Although there's no way to prove this, it seemed like the tech/media blowhards finally became less relevant this year. Perhaps it's wishful thinking, but the old guard of Scoble/Winer/Calacanis/Arrington/Cuban seemed to lose influence, while more sober voices emerged -- those who weren't creating incestuous diurnal feuds with each other to game Techmeme. In the vacuum, Fred Wilson, who has been around the scene for a long time, became the analyst to turn to. Though he is a venture capitalist (with investments in del.icio.us, Outside.in, Twitter, Tumblr, Etsy, FeedBurner, and Disqus), he uses his blog (and Twitter and Tumblr) to address everything from his music tastes and Halloween costume to investor liquidity and google juice. (See also: Shirky.com, Rough Type, and Steven Berlin Johnson.)
4) Waxy & Ana Marie Cox
Whattup, old skool? Andy Baio and Ana Marie Cox are blog pioneers, which means they would be forgiven for getting crotchety and sedentary like several of their grumpy peers. But this year they adapted to the changing landscape and invented new ways to deal with it. Andy tore apart the data-centric stories that no one else was bothering with -- by using Mechanical Turk to collect Girl Talk data, by visualizing one-hit-wonder trends, and by investigating pirated Olympics video. (Along the way, he also coined "Supercuts" and tried to end FAIL.) Meanwhile, after losing her job at Radar, Ana Marie launched a pledge drive to cover her travel expenses on the McCain trail. Both of them repurposed old-fashioned blog ideas -- the tip jar and the online investigation -- for modern times. (See also: Young Manhattanite, ASCII, Alex Balk, and Tony Pierce.)
3) Twitter
Though it came in tied at #1 on last year's list, Twitter gets a rare repeat appearance because it made a big jump this year from a chatty novelty to a legit news stream. Toward the end of the year, people were still struggling to define the microblogging platform on a continuum between publishing and communication -- a debate that only illustrated the complexity of a such a simple platform used differently by so many people. (See also: Posterous and 4chan.)
2) FiveThirtyEight.com
Nate Silver for president! (See also: Politico, Talking Points Memo, and Flowing Data.)
1) Single Serving Sites
More than any medium before it, the internet is fueled by gimmicks. This particular gimmick, the single serving site, has been around for a while, manifesting itself in odd forms like YTMND and The Hamster Dance. While amusing, these sites were mostly inside jokes for the Goatse Generation. But then something happened last year when the concept was applied to a useful binary question -- IsLostARepeat.com and IsTwitterDown.com, for instance. These sites provided the kernel of an idea that exploded at the onset of 2008, beginning with Mat Honan launching BarackObamaIsYourNewBicycle.com in February. Three days later, Jason Kottke officially coined the term, which unleashed the craziness. (In its own way, you could label Sergei Brin's one-post abandoned blog a single serving site.) This all concluded with the brilliant and inevitable IsThisYourPaperOnSingleServingSites.com, the definitive academic investigation on one of those short-lived phenomena that makes the internet feel continuously new, even if hitting refresh changes absolutely nothing. (See also: RickRolled and ICanHasCheezBurger.)
-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
Special thanks to Rachel, Noah, Andy, Emily, Spencer, Matt, Lindsay, Joanne, Matt, Karina, Kelly, Robin, and Taylor for their tips -- and inspiration -- in compiling this list. See you next year!
-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
This list on previous years: 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2006 | 2007
Jon Pareles story on using music to sell products, which mentions that three-fourths of Santogold's songs have already been licensed by advertisers, is a decent survey on the scene, with a new nostalgic twist: longing for the record label.
NYT on NBC's internet strategy. "One area in which NBC, and its sister cable channels in the NBC Universal family, have consistently provided more than the other big networks is online: they're the only reliable purveyors of true Webisodes, if we define the genre narrowly as minidramas produced in conjunction with an existing television series."
NYT on SF's cocktail scene, which actually does seem more advanced than anywhere else in America.
It was a year that chimed in with idealism, and clanked out with pragmatism. "Hope" began the political season as an optimistic revelation, but concluded the year as a is-that-seriously-the-best-we-can-do? mantra right up there with "don't be evil."
Perfection was the goal, so music set itself to the task of eliminating the blemishes. Auto-Tune diluted the rough edges, but the economy fell apart and Kanye's mom died while undergoing plastic surgery. So much for perfection.
By the end of the year, we were searching for compromises. Once garish, Will.I.Am's take on "Hope" ended up sounding down right utopian.
There's a lot of fun to be had in the albums below, my picks for the best of 2008. Some of you will be disgusted by the likes of Lady GaGa, whose filthy rich party lifestyle is more gaudy than throwing a potlatch outside a homeless shelter (which is not that dissimilar from Kanye's Gucci soliloquy on SNL).
But compare that party-with-what-ya-got materialism to whatever "hopeful" nostalgia that the cosmoblogosphere was scolding you into: Fleet Foxes and Bon Iver and Vampire Weekend. When asked to pick between a luxury simulacra and faux authenticity, I'll take the loot any day. I have no idea where these indie kids found cause to overuse the word "beauty" in this weary pastoral, but this year's Pitchfork bands felt more like a retreat from the future than nothing else since -- fuck, I dunno -- prohibition. Fantasy, indeed.
Then again, I banged my head to Chinese Democracy, so what the fuck, right?
Here they are, my favorite albums of 2008:
1) Girl Talk, Feed the Animals
Depending how you want to construe it, Girl Talk is either the most cynical thing happening in music right now or the only relevant culture for our time. Or you can just ctrl-alt-delete the historicizing and declare it the Finnegans Wake of pop music: a difficult mashup classic that is as fun to discuss as to ingest. (And as my Joycean college mentor would proclaim, dance to.) Nothing this year made me think more about music: how it's created, where it's distributed, how it's discussed, who owns it, how fans have become critics, and how critics have become artists.
2) MGMT, Oracular Spectacular
It wasn't easy, but they survived the summer.
3) Santogold, Santogold
It felt like an eternity between the moment you first heard "L.E.S. Artistes" in 2007 to when the album finally became available. And then another eternity between the album and the inevitable Bud Light commercial. The elongated backlash sine wave was the funnest roller-coaster ride of the year.
4) Juno, Soundtrack
There's a little Mark Loring in all of us. Who? Mark Loring -- that would be Jason Bateman's character in Juno (and one of the many coded references for Minneapolitans -- a memorial to the famed posthumous Loring Bar). Trapped between eras, Loring couldn't find the right place between his rocker past and grown-up future. Like the Alice in Chains tee that his wife (Jennifer Garner) splotches in eggshell yellow, he's ill-equipped for the upgrade. That tension, which is also a prevailing narrative of our time, is the essence of this soundtrack.
5) Kanye West, 808s & Heartbreak
Kanye is your needy friend, Kanye is your worst blog commenter, Kanye is your John the Baptist, Kanye is your spoiled crybaby, Kanye is in your closet, Kanye is your form swallowing your content, Kanye is your everything, Kanye is your new bicycle.
6) Lykke Li, Youth Novels
Blonde, Swedish, design-damaged girl makes blippy, sullen, vulnerable album made for dancing around your apartment on a rainy day while waiting for your lipdub to finish uploading to Vimeo. Forget Suicide Girls, she's like the Tumblette of my dreams.
7) Lady GaGa, The Fame
Downtown NYC desperately needs a new hero. The hipsters, who eat their young faster than they can become zygotes, have already chewed up and spit out Lady GaGa, but she's the last great hope for a Madonna-esque crossover from naughty street creature to shiny pop diva.
8) Guns 'N Roses, Chinese Democracy
On the last page of the extensive liner notes, Axl gives his thank-yous for an album that he began recording before Dakota Fanning was born. Like the music itself, it's a hodge-podge of mysterious choices, with recognizable names and places jumping out of the jumble: Donatella Versace, Hoobastank, Suicide Girls, Ferrari, Weezer, SoHo House, Mickey Rourke, Bungalow 8, Apple Computers, Lars Ulrich, and Alice In Chains. If you stare at this list long enough, cross your eyes, spin around a few times, and throw some Hail Mary's at the Falun Gong -- Chinese Democracy sorta begins to makes sense.
9) Crystal Castles, Crystal Castles
This year I almost ceded victory to the music blogs, MySpace, and HypeMachine. The single seemed to finally drive the nail in the jewel case coffin of the album, so I nearly replaced this annual "best albums" list with a "best songs" list. (How else can I tout Teyana Taylor's "Google Me" or The Count & Sinden's "Beeper" or Kid Sister's "Pro Nails" -- songs all released in early 2008 but still have no accompanying albums.) With producers rushing out tunes and leaks fueling an embeddable culture, the time gap between hearing the song and getting the album now seems agonizingly long [see above]. But so what? No one will care about Crystal Castles this time next year, but "Crimewave" was the best Depeche Mode song never made.
10) Beyonce, I Am... Sasha Fierce
Slinging "fierce" into your lexicon at this point is like lighting the fuse on the ticking timebomb of obsolescence. Unless you're Beyonce, who can slap on a robot glove and look like she just dropped in to say hi! from 2012. The futuristic, angry Beyonce songs are always her best, and half of this two-disc package is throw-away R&B, but the other half is loud, bitter, and -- okay sure, whatever you say, Comandante Knowles -- fierce.
33) Foals, Antidotes
Previous Yearly Music Roundups: 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2006 | 2007
Lists are a constant stream right now. Some recent additions: NYT's Year in Buzzwords, Violet Blue's Top 10 Sexy Geeks, Archaeology Magazines's Top 10 Discoveries, The New Yorker's Ten Best Art Shows, Entertainment Weekly's Best and Worst, NYT's Year in Culture, and Pop Candy's Top 100 People.
Strangely satisfying online discussion: What movie, song or work of art should we transmit to outer space in case anyone is out there? [via]
The top list of the year, NYT Mag's Year in Ideas is out. Other items recently added to the list of lists include: Discover's Top 100 Stories, Spin's Top 40 Albums, Rolling Stone's Albums of the Year, Videogum's Best Viral Videos, Urlesque's Year in Internet, and Stereogum's Gummy Awards.
On today's I'm Just Sayin Show, the girls talk about the Content and Its Discontents essay from last weekend's NYT Mag. Under discussion is: the meaning of "original content," verbose McLuhanite theory, Don Draper on Twitter, advertising as content, and a debate about a Gossip Girl videogame.
Who's not totally getting fucked over by the economy? North Dakota! (My family is small-town bankers from NoDak. This quote from the story is pretty much them: "Our banks don't do those goofy loans.")
The yearly ginormous list of lists plods on this year. Thanks in advance for emailing me links. Some of the best lists added so far: Pitchfork's Top 40 Music Videos, Oxford American Dictionary's Word of the Year, Yahoo's Top Searches, Entertainment Weekly's 25 Entertainers of the Year, This Recording's Top 20 Albums, Paste's Top 50 Albums, Yahoo Movies' Top 10 Trailers, Multinational Monitor's 10 Worst Corporations, and NYT's 100 Notable Books.
Three new interesting features on NYTimes.com: 1) a unique way of handling letters to the editor, and 2) click EXTRA for an alternate view of the homepage with copious external links, and Nicholas Kristof is on Twitter. Clever.
When NYT Mag choose to recently cover 30 Rock, it highlighted the show's incendiary structure, comparing it to pomo literature like Gravity's Rainbow (whoa!). The corollary position comes from this week's New Yorker, which sees the same fragmentation but doesn't appreciate it: "30 Rock doesn't have the neat structure of most sitcoms; its roots are in sketch comedy and in improv, with their set pieces and their eagerness to keep you entertained every second without worrying too much about the story." I'm not sure where I land on that continuum, but I have noticed a different sort of distraction: despite being splendidly written, the perplexing thing about 30 Rock is that you could actually watch it as a series of compromises to exist as a show. The product placements (Verizon), the guest-stars (Oprah), commercials as content (AmEx) -- all of these pieces end up taking up a massive amount of the show's public mindshare, perhaps to its detriment. Update: Maureen Dowd profiles Tina Fey in Vanity Fair, where she finally reveals where that scar came from. Plus video.
The NYT Mag story on Google's international legal quandries is worth reading. The backdrop is how free speech is defined country-by-country (holocaust denial, for instance, is illegal in France and Germany), especially as it pertains to removing content from YouTube. Lest you think that America is free speech oasis, it also tells the story of how Joe Lieberman has been trying to get YouTube to take down videos produced by Islamic terrorists, even if they don't feature hate speech or violent content.
Miscellaneous tv stat: Lipstick Jungle gets a larger boost from DVR viewing than any other prime time show.
Several things that don't make sense together: Requiem for a Dream director Darren Aronofsky + former Onion editor Robert Siegel + Wild Orchid actor Mickey Rourke + Jersey singer Bruce Springsteen = The Wrestler. [via]
I've been more-or-less offline for a couple weeks. Here's everything that happened in my absence: Shaq joined Twitter, the Macy's Day Parade was rick-rolled, that tween fashion blogger turned out be real, Jarvis yelled at someone again, a super whale fail, Michiko railed against Gladwell, a whole issue of NYT Mag went to screens, SearchWiki, Hannity dumped Colmes, Arrested Development movie... again, and... yeah, not much.
The YouTube spin-off version of the NYT Mag story on experimental philosophy from a couple years ago: Experimental Philosophy Starring Eugene Mirman.
The best part of Emily's little collection Moments That Mattered in video this year was the accompanying video, another multi-screen creation from Small Mammal. [via]
It has been busy times around here, so I overlooked mentioning the consulting company that Rachel launched last week with Dan Abrams. The NYT story explained it pretty well: "The firm, Abrams Research, may resemble a narrowly focused version of 'expert network' firms that connect investors to industry experts. Journalists and bloggers retained and paid by the firm could consult with corporations, conduct media training sessions, or conduct investigative reporting for corporate clients." You might have seen Gawker pounce on this with calls to ethics (gotta love when they do that!), but this only served to prove what a limited sense of self-awareness some people in the profession have of themselves. Seriously, I work with all kinds of different clients, and it takes only a modest amount of common sense judgment to know where you draw lines. I sense that ethics was held up as a straw man to keep others in the profession in their place. If self-proclaimed journalists really want to survive, they'll need to start thinking of themselves in a sphere that includes researcher, pundit, entrepreneur, speaker, performer -- actually not too different from the whole "public intellectual" thing espoused in the '90s. As Felix pointed out today, it turns out that a lot of them already get it.
Who knows why they found it necessary, but you know I'll link to it: NYT visits all the Spam restaurants in Austin, MN. [via]
This thing could be amazing: Google Mobile App for iPhone, now with Voice Search. Markoff's story has it arriving last Friday, but TechCrunch says it launches tomorrow. (See also: Gimodo's list of 20 Essential iPhone Apps.)
For reasons related to security, legality, and efficiency, Barry Obama may have to cease using his beloved BlackBerry.
I went to a panel a few days ago that had 10 Daily Show writers talking about their craft. Moderated by David Remnick, the panel showcased writers revealing all sorts of secrets of the trade, which NYT's City Blog wrote up.
You don't care as much as I do (unless you are Aaron), but now Nate Silver thinks that Al Franken is a favorite to win the recount. (See also: NYT profile of Silver today.) [via]
Buried in an otherwise skippable story about primetime television is some bad news about serialized shows. ("Serialized" shows are the ones with the long story arcs that we like -- Mad Men, Sopranos, Gossip Girl, Lost, 24. "Procedurals" are shows where most of the logic is contained within a single episode -- Bones, Fringe, Law & Order. With some small comedy exceptions -- The Office, 30 Rock -- the rise of serials is the main reason the quality of television has improved over the past decade years.) The story speculates that a combination of DVR culture and re-runs make procedurals more desirable for networks "both because viewers may increasingly store episodes of serialized shows to watch them in 8-to-10 episode bursts, and because the shows have no repeat value at all." (One thing this overlooks is DVD sales, which I presume are much higher for serials. However, I wonder if the studios -- not networks -- might be getting the bulk of that money.) Only modestly related: Slate on The Future of Sports Television, which is about that user-controlled, multi-camera dream we were promised.
Amongst all the gloom stories about newspapers, my old friend Rusty pops up in a NYT story about Scripps to predict that his newspaper sites "will sell enough ads to support the staff and costs of the print and online newsrooms by 2012, without staff cuts."
The Supreme Court's first indecency case in quite some time begins debate on Tuesday. FCC v. Fox Television will debate whether every permutation of the word fuck is sexual. (The examples include the time that Bono described his Golden Globe as "fucking brilliant" and Cher said of her critics "fuck 'em.") I've never been an advocate of broadcasting courtroom proceedings -- until now.
The NYT Mag's cover story profile of Lauren Zalaznick -- president of Bravo, Oxygen and iVillage; producer of Kids and Swoon; another Brown semiotics grad; masstige's greatest impresario; and ultimately the person behind Top Chef, Pop-Up Video, Project Runway, and so forth -- is actually pretty fascinating. Snippets: "Like a softer version of its MTV cousin Beavis and Butt-head, Pop-Up Video was television that let the viewer enjoy the medium while also enabling him to feel a little bit superior to it." And: "Zalaznick's innovation was to make the actual narrative itself about people selling stuff, and buying it too"
Slideshow: Buy the stuff from the Mad Men office. See also: how to make your hair look like Draper for Halloween.
While Jezebel adeptly stems off Tina Fey backlash, NYT celebrates the return of 30 Rock. But there's a whiff of a second backlash in this line: "As with her Palin impersonation, Ms. Fey is an expert borrower: she reworks classic formulas from the past and mines her own experiences. Her satire hews so closely to the original that it is almost mimicry." Update: Gawker Biting the Hand That Feeds?
Two more NYTimes.com developments: Visualization Lab and Movie Reviews API.
I snapped some pictures of the neon signs sprinkled around the party for The Atlantic's redesign a couple weeks ago. Now the mag has launched Think Again, which aggregates the various neon interrogatives (Is Porn Adultery? Is Google Making Us Stupid?) onto a blog that is "devoted to the idea that asking questions leads us to better answers." [via]
NYT Styles story on Likemind, Noah's hivemind-cum-meetup-cum-flashmob group.
Heffernan looks at something you've probably encountered, The Hitler Meme, which uses a 2004 German movie to satirize everything and anything -- Sarah Palin, Burning Man, Brett Favre, Obama, Hillary, HD DVD. It's basically FAIL meets Godwin's Law.
In a NYT profile by David Carr, Charlie Kaufman reveals, among other things, that he worked in the circulation department of the Minneapolis Star Tribune in the late '80s.
NYT: Newspapers' Web Revenue Is Stalling. That's no good. Related, also in NYT: Mainstream News Outlets Start Linking to Other Sites. If it takes over a decade to figure out linking, perhaps these two stories should be merged.
"At these times, an incongruous vulnerability presents itself in the reptilian Draper. Accidentally, Hamm seems to flash on an exaggerated look of melancholy or distance -- as if the actor were thinking, I don't want to be this man. Perhaps Hamm, like many Hollywood stars, wants to be liked above all, and Draper is written as less likable in nearly every episode. If the show is to mature and last, Hamm will have to risk being hated." -- Heffernan on Mad Men, anti-heroes, and acting.
I saw the headline -- Charticle Fever -- and thought Choire will love this! But actually, he's quoted in it. (For the record, I'm pro-charticle.)
NYC imports from Japan which imported from Victorian England: New York Lolitas, an NYT audio slideshow (more). The interviews are strangely fascinating. They hang out in Chinatown, there's a Meetup Group, and the beginnings of a documentary.
A.O. Scott on D.F.W. in N.Y.T. "Again and again, he returned to a basic, perhaps the basic, philosophical question facing anyone with a blank screen and a story to tell. What am I going to say? How am I going to say it?"
Compare: Neal Stephenson's NYT op-ed about 300 from 18 months ago to Jonathan Lethem's NYT op-ed about Batman from today.
Twitter is now getting regular attention in NYT: Technology Doesn't Dumb Us Down. It Frees Our Minds. See also: Clay Shirky's Web 2.0 keynote on information overload.
"Wealth fantasies now constitute a genre of their own, one that is matched at the other end of the spectrum by a doomsday literalism also prevalent on television." Comparing Gossip Girl to Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles is a clever way to discuss two shows that most people aren't watching. And like the teen drama, the women in the Terminator redux -- a mom who is more like a superhero robot, and a robot who is like the dream girlfriend -- command the narrative. With themes of corporate power, technological alienation, and evangelical yearning, it's the best show on television that people are missing.
"She thought it was quite funny, especially because the governor has dressed up as Tina Fey for Halloween." --Sarah Palin's spokesperson.
The Big Money, Slate.com's new business site, launches today. As NYT suggests, it could be the best worst day in recent financial history to launch a financial publication. Features will include a blog dedicated to Google, an ad comparison engine, and a Twitter account that takes jabs at WSJ. (Disclaimer or whatever: I might write for it.)
If you missed SNL: Fey as Palin / Poehler as Hillary. Also, ratings soared 64% over last year.
David Foster Wallace (1962-2008). Some links: Jay McInerney reviews Infinite Jest (1996), DFW on Charlie Rose (1997), NYT Mag profile (1996), DFW profiles David Lynch in Premiere (1996), DFW on John Updike in the New York Observer (1997), first chapter of A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again (1997), interviewed by Gus Van Sant in Dazed & Confused (1998), "Girlfriend Stops Reading David Foster Wallace Breakup Letter At Page 20" in The Onion (2003), "Consider the Lobster" in Gourmet (2004), Where to go after Infinite Jest? in n+1 (2005), Kenyon Commencement Address (2005), profile of John Ziegler in The Atlantic (2005), Profile of Roger Federer in Play (2006), interview with John Krasinksi about Brief Interviews with Hideous Men (2008), Michiko Kakutani remembers (2008).
In the "Television" section of the New York Times: Playing God, the Home Game, a review of Spore. Metacritic has links to more.
Sorry to ruin your weekend, but you have another internet-related NYT Magazine story to read: Brave New World of Digital Intimacy. (It's Clive though, so it should be okay. But it can wait until you're back from shooting wolves from airplanes.)
Mitch Hedberg has a new live album coming out in a few days. We'll give you one, but please don't turn him into Tupac. [via]
Letterman on why Leno has better ratings: "I think he has greater appeal for more people than I do."
NYT catches up on the Truman Show Delusion (in Styles, nice). [Previously]
If you're one of the many people who finds themselves asking "What's all the fuss with Gossip Girl?" find out tomorrow when the DVD drops. The interesting element: the DVD contains an audiobook -- no wait! -- an abridgment of the original novel. It's read by Christina Ricci and can be transferred to an iPod. [via]
NYT story on Unconvention, an attempt to do non-partisan political art around Minneapolis for the Republican Convention. That "non-partisan political" description may sound like a contradiction, and Eyeteeth has photos of confrontational graffiti showing up around town.
Someone finally wrote the behind-the-scenes story of The Daily Show that you've been waiting for: The Most Trusted Man in America? Never would have guessed that NYT would give it to Michiko Kakutani, but after 3,000 words, what's the big reveal? They use 15 TiVos! Not much else new in there.... UPDATE: a whole lot more enlightening than those 3,000 words is one single amazing comment on PVRblog, written by a former Daily Show researcher who describes the entire TiVo process.
David Carr does a travel piece about Minneapolis/St. Paul for NYT, but fails to mention where to buy coke.
Errol Morris takes on those doctored Iranian missile photos in Photography as a Weapon.
NYT loves to ask this question about once a month: Is Google a Media Company? See also, David Carr: All of Us, the Arbiters of News.
Heffernan knows my beat: Kanye on Keyboards, on my boy's blog. It skips over my favorite elements (the insane commenters and the girl profiles) and glosses over the controversy about ghost-writing, but is otherwise a decent overview.
Congratulations, David Brooks, you've finally made it onto Fimoculous: Lord of the Memes. My favorite part: "It was necessary to have a record collection that contained 'a little bit of everything' (except heavy metal)." I was with ya up until the parenthetical! Okay, here's the thesis statement: "On that date [the release of the iPhone], media displaced culture. As commenters on The American Scene blog have pointed out, the means of transmission replaced the content of culture as the center of historical excitement and as the marker of social status." And then: "Today, Kindle can change the world, but nobody expects much from a mere novel. The brain overshadows the mind. Design overshadows art." Pareene asks: "It's not a bad column at all, except that we cannot figure out why the hell it's under David Brooks' byline. Are people really trying to sell him on some hot new indie band? Did he get caught up in the Black Kids hype?"
Uh-oh. NYT gives Girl Talk the full feature, focusing on copyright, which could be the beginning of the end. Andy thinks the lawsuit drops with the physical album next month, which seems like a decent bet.
AsPostedontheNYTimes.com. Some dude who appears to be crazy is cataloging all the comments he makes on NYTimes.com blogs.
A couple good NYTimes.com Olympics interactive graphics: Medals by Year | Torches by Year.
Responses from Weev, Fortuny, and Schwartz to the NYT Mag troll article. Update, from the comments: Heffernan & Weev 2.0. Update: Fortuny Gets Sued.
NYT: Don't Want to Talk About It? Order a Missed Call. The story uses SlyDial, a service that allows you to leave a voicemail without letting the person hear their phone ring, to set up a thesis about "tools that let users avoid direct communication." Clever thesis, but it rubs dangerously close to falling apart when it cites other tools (including Twitter and Facebook) which create more direct communication, not less.
Uh-oh, I saw this trend story coming: Night Life Reprogrammed. It's summed up in this line: "Something new is happening in the Silicon Alley night." (The audio slideshow is full of friends.)
New book: Reading the OED, about a guy who spends a year reading that big-ass dictionary. I've added it to My Year As..., my (probably not definitive but still long) list of books about people doing something for one year. Nicholson Baker reviews it in NYTBR.
Pretty much designed to explode the internet, NYT Magazine's story on trolls: Malwebolence. Who knew these people were self-identified? Welcome to backlash to the backlash to the backlash. Link stream: Metafilter | NY Mag | Slashdot | Digg | Gawker | Weev.
Kottke notes the term micro-tampering used in this NYT article about a woman who was stalked by an ex who would break into her house and move small things around. Finally, there is a term to perfectly describe the plot of the second half of my favorite movie, Chungking Express, which interestingly flip-flopped the genders and involved a cop as the victim (and it's a romance!).
Two okay follow-ups to Sunday's NYT internet literacy story: long-form non-fiction is needlessly overwritten and the idea of literacy is changing.
Irony alert: 3,500-word NYT story on how kids don't read anymore because of the internet. "Clearly, reading in print and on the Internet are different. On paper, text has a predetermined beginning, middle and end, where readers focus for a sustained period on one author's vision. On the Internet, readers skate through cyberspace at will and, in effect, compose their own beginnings, middles and ends."
Upcoming cover of Esquire: DIGITAL. (Let's just prep the media history ebook entry from 2020: Although intended as a talisman to rebuff critics on the longevity of print magazines, Esquire's 2008 'digital' cover became the harbinger of an industry gasping to upgrade to the digital era but completely mystified on how...)
Ad Age reports on a couple upcoming developments at NYTimes.com: external links on the homepage to competitor stories (dubbed Times Extra and using Blogrunner, which they bought a couple years ago) and a beefed up business site modeled on Sorkin's DealBook (but my guess actually inspired by All Things D). [via]
Everyone's a Narcissist, It Seems. "A term that has deep roots in psychoanalytic literature appears to have become a popular descriptor so bloated as to have been rendered meaningless." Of course, you would think so.
"How is babby formed? How girl get pragnent?" Heffernan gets all Safirey: Online writing is a typographical and grammatical mess. Should we fix it? Hey, lookie there, Derrida reference.
NYT Mag just published a huge excerpt from David Carr's new memoir, The Night of the Gun. As I hoped, it's set in Minneapolis with lots of drugs. This is fucking better than a Hold Steady record!
Camille Paglia's playlist. "Hotel California" is one of the better songs on it. [via]
Vanity Fair: Why Do People Love to Hate The New York Times? Quoted: David Carr, Jack Shafer, Jonah Goldberg, and Alex Pareene!
Your first opportunity to hear a track from Chinese Democracy will be via Rock Band. My head just imploded, I threw up in my mouth, I spewed my coffee, it's the end of the world as we know it, the future is now, music is dead, this is advanced, truth is stranger than fiction, OMFG.
NYTBR's lead review this week is for Atmospheric Disturbances, a novel that begins "Last December a woman entered my apartment who looked exactly like my wife." It gets a rave, but I was intrigued that the reviewer (an acquaintance) didn't mention the disorder that serves as the inspiration, Capgras Delusion, which I've been obsessed with lately, and am a little disappointed to discover has now been fictionalized by someone else before I could get to it.
Though it might seem that every ounce of nuance has been sucked out of this whole "commenter culture" meme -- yesterday it was Time with "Post Apocalypse" and previously it was NYT Styles with "All-Stars of the Clever Riposte" and NY Mag with "The What You Are Afraid Of" -- I'm still convinced there are some missing pieces, even if I can't put my finger on them....
Recommended: NYT Mag's story on suicide, which focuses on issues like location, historical trends, and method. An interesting stat, among many: twice as many people die from suicide as homicide.
After Fox News was exposed for doctoring photos of NYT reporters, David Carr writes at length about the difficulty of covering the network.
NYT Mag's long Rush Limbaugh profile. Some details about his drug abuse, his deafness, his self-perception as an entertainer, his non-written extemporaneous process, his expensive lifestyle.
I'm spending half my summer near Montauk, which is fighting an internal battle over whether it is authentically quaint or part of the gaudy Hamptons. NYT Styles picked up the theme in today's cover story: The Yachtini Lands in Montauk. (The people in that picture actually look refined compared to the party bus that LIRR was this weekend.)
NBC bought the Weather Channel. $3.5 billion, 1,300 employees, $550 million annual revenue.
NYT profile of the downforeveryoneorjustme.com creator, who uncoincidentally works at Twitter.
If you're wondering what all the hype is about, the first season of Mad Men comes out on DVD tomorrow. The new season starts on July 27. I will be having a party.
After NYT picked it up, there's a lot more scuffle around that Wikipedia update to the Russert entry. (I still don't know and still haven't asked.)
TimesPeople (FAQ). It's an NYT app (a Firefox add-on) that you can use to "create a network of like-minded readers." You add friends and it adds a social networking bar to the top of NYTimes.com. There's also a Facebook app. Some people will likely criticize the closed nature of this, or the "do I need another social network?" aspect, but I think this is a smart move. UPDATE: Caroline's CNET story.
A couple months ago it was NYT Mag's long profile of Chris Matthews, this month it's the New Yorker's long profile of Keith Olbermann.
Tom Vanderbilt's new book looks like it will be up my alley: Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do. More: Freakonomics interview and the accompanying blog.
NYT story on the CNN t-shirts. Says that the highest-selling shirt so far has been the "Obama Makes History" headline. See also: Not a CNN T-Shirt, But Should Be.
Anyone else watch the pilot of Swingtown (you can watch it here)? NY Mag and The New Yorker both panned it, while NYT and WaPo were more forgiving. I'll give it a B for now, but I'm not hopeful. It was interesting to see CBS promote Last.FM on-air, in the form of a boring mini-site full of '70s songs. Liz Phair also contributed the show's theme.
There's a cool graphic on the homepage of NYTimes.com right now called "How They Voted," breaking down Democratic voters demographically. [via, which has a movie, if you miss it.]
I think this, partially, is what I was also trying to say:
It's not far off to say that the demographic that cared about this story most was the New York new media crowd. That group's open access to megaphones and soapboxes belies its exceedingly small and unrepresentative nature -- so much so that with a collective eye blink it can light up the blogosphere with vituperative chatter about what's, after all, just a story about the by now unsurprising pitfalls of playing with the Web's peephole-filled boundaries between public and private.
iPhone! iPhone! iPhone! iPhone! iPhone! iPhone! iPhone! (It's less than two weeks away. They hype will only accelerate from this point on.)
Emily is doing a Q&A after that NYT Mag story. Also, she was on NPR's Day to Day.
News about a possible NYTimes.com API. Several of the big news orgs (and, more specifically, the people within them) would like to have this, but none are there yet. Update: Buzzfeed gathers the reax.
Sunday NYT story on the bloggers festering around the Senate race in Minnesota, featuring some of the pests that used to bother me daily. How Minnesota has become the hotbed from the right-wing blogosphere is a mystery to everyone, but it's paying off for them. Nonetheless, Al Franken versus Norm Coleman will be the most exciting Senate race of the season.
Emily's NYT Magazine cover story: "Exposed." Chat windows across NYC are lit up like ticker-tape parades right now. (I haven't read it yet.) Update: Alright, I've read it. I vomited out a ridiculous amount of nonsense (with footnotes!) in the comments.
This was a strange week for Wired. The magazine held its 15-year anniversary party in NYC last night (FEWER FLASHBULBS, PLEASE), which doubled as a celebration for their purchase of Ars Technica and revival of Webmonkey. NYT responded with a piece vaguely condemning Wired's supposed drug advocacy in an issue that's not even on the newsstand anymore. David Carr came away with the smartest analysis, suggesting that Conde Nast is wise for keeping a small digital footprint. Although I question whether this is actually a "strategy" (doesn't "fear" sounds like a more accurate depiction?), spending millions on random properties is at least better than spending billions on faltering ones.
Sorta strange NYT Mag story: The Return of the One-Man Band, featuring St. Vincent, Final Fantasy and Panda Bear.
Janet Maslin, who hated Augusten Burroughs' new memoir, loves James Frey's new novel. This is getting complex.
I don't get many chances at crossover links like this, so here goes... some of you from Minneapolis might remember Taavo Somer, the architect-turned-restaurateur who made a splash in duh big city with Freemans, which cited The Loring (RIP, sigh) as his primary inspiration. (If you've visited from the Midwest, I've taken you there, nostalgically. Taavo also did the whole "Morally Bankrupt," "Emotionally Unavailable," etc. t-shirts for Barneys, before your mom had a t-shirt line.) New Yorkers know him as the guy who also created The Rusty Knot and Gemma. Now that the table is set, the link: a new NY Mag profile of Taavo, the sorta thing that drives people like me crazy with the bleak feeling that we should be doing more.
Fittingly, NYT drops its Grand Theft Auto IV coverage in the City section of the paper today. (The other appropriate section might have been Travel.) It's a long tour of the game's version of NYC, told from the perspective of a New Yorker (Dave Itzkoff, also known for covering sci-fi for the NYT Book Review) who wants the neighborhoods to resemble his version of the city. The conclusion is effectively a topographic take of the Uncanny Valley conundrum:
If I truly believed in Liberty City as a functioning community, how could I open fire on my fellow simulated citizens (even if they shot at me first)? How could I tread all over the social contract in a ripped-off truck full of bootleg prescription medication?
And then:
It's not the game's fault that it can't perfectly replicate the infinite variety of New York. But it sometimes comes so close to pulling off the illusion that it invites you to look for the imperfections.
I just bought the game and have only played a little. But the descriptions here and elsewhere sound like NYC run through the mosaic filter on Photoshop. This geographically-confused, post-catastrophe setting resembles Cloverfield more than anything else. (You know, that scene where they get in the subway at Spring St. and end up at 59th St.) Let's compare these two for a second: look how each toys with class, violence, geography, simulation, reproduction, terrorism, sex, and urban geography. This should be the only bar conversation we have for the next couple months.
But back to this desire to adhere to verisimilitude in game play. It's peculiar, especially given the history of the Grand Theft Auto franchise, notorious for its propagation of violence as the narrative of gaming. Yes, peculiar, but also understandable for anyone familiar with the city's grid. The question seems to be, how close of a representation do we actually want? There it is again, the Uncanny Valley, which even popped up on a recent episode of 30 Rock, in the form of Tracy Jordan (himself a refracted mirror of Tracy Morgan) trying to make the first successful porn video game.
Desire and play. I suspect this is what gets lost in the muddled debate about the interplay of reality and fiction in the super-simulation canon. The new cultural critics are "deciders," sprung from both the left (social realists) and the right (values pundits), both trying to impose "this is fiction" and "this is real" logic onto games and movies. But it's not just them -- it is we who, in various ways, all participate in this debate about reality and non-reality, seeking an answer to whether something is either too unrealistic or too realistic.
All this makes me wonder if the question of realism has been overplayed, or if in fact it is the only question, now and forever. All I really want to know is: what makes playing the game so much fun? And how much does "reality" have to do with the answer?
NYT Sunday Styles feature on Jezebel . (Hey Kruc, what's the state of that commenter party? And please, be careful with how you spell Jezzies this time.)
The NYT Mag column on Brawndo, which was in the swag bag at ROFL Con, reveals that the faux-turned-legit soda's creator is also behind the energy drink Cocaine.
A few months ago, a NYT Mag columnist speculated that maybe the reason Friday Night Lights was a ratings failure had to do with its lack of internet presence. Yesterday, in one of the most buzzed clips in months, the guy who wrote the book that inspired the series (and is a Vanity Fair editor, natch) showed up on Costas Now to go totally freakazoid about blogs. Is there a looming blogphobia sweeping the country? I dunno, but Leitch thinks so. UPDATE: NYT weighs in.
Listen people, I get a lot of email too. Probably something like 500 missives per day. But this really isn't that difficult to fend off. Let me help... Tactic #1: Delete unnecessary items as they come in. Tactic #2: Reply to items when you have free time in elevators, meetings, subways, etc. Tactic #3: Don't leave work until you're down to five items. Tactic #4: Stop writing about how much email you get. Done.
Heffernan's NYT Mag column is crackling this week. "Broadcast Spoofs" examines the Onion News Network, noting the distinctly midwestern flavor:
By contrast, fancy, coastal visual comedy -- 30 Rock, The Sarah Silverman Program, Curb Your Enthusiasm -- has a strongly aspirational element to it, with protagonists mired in what Joni Mitchell once called rich people's problems (real estate, restaurants, relationships). They comparison-shop values like consumerism and thinness, glamour and goodness, Obama and Clinton.
The Onion shrugs at these choices. Indifferent and impassive before overblown moral showdowns, The Onion offers only contempt, impotence and blank depression.
Ouch! It's a tepid rave, which is why it's pretty interesting.
I finally got around to reading the NYT Mag cover story on Chris Matthews (thank you, long subway rides) -- when was the last time a profile was so rigorously negative? It's actually fascinating -- not because it's an accurate portrayal of Matthews (who really knows, right?) but because it's completely true of a type of person you encounter over and over again in media circles.
People sometimes ask me what it was like to work on the Microsoft campus, and I usually say "Did you ever see Kid Nation?" And then I say that there actually are a lot of cool products being developed, but most of them will never see the light of day. One of them that I first saw a long time ago, Clearflow, which attempts to help you avoid traffic jams, has made it out of captivity, says a NYT story. It's being released on Live Maps.
I'm writing this at 10 pm ET, which is usually around the time that newspapers break their big stories online from tomorrow's papers. Tonight a funny thing happened. WSJ just reported that Yahoo and AOL were close to brokering a merger that would thwart Microsoft's bid for Yahoo. But NYT also just published their story claiming that Microsoft and News Corp were in negotiations to make a joint bid for Yahoo. The stories don't necessarily contradict each other, but they are clearly written from radically different sources. I say we just merge them all and call it Yahooglenewscorpaolsoft.
David Carr's "Talk to the Newsroom" for NYT ended up being 20 printed pages.
Jennifer Baumgardner, a fellow Fargonian (it's true!), made some press earlier this week for a t-shirt that reads "I Was Raped."
Becuz someone had to: StuffNobodyLikes.com. I doubt it gets a $300k book deal though.
NYT video: Bjork in 3-D: Making the "Wanderlust" Video. Shocker! -- mushrooms were involved.
David Carr is doing one of those NYT "Talk to the Newsroom" things. I can identify every Minnesotan query in there.
"If the news is that important, it will find me." These kids, they want everything just handed to them! [via]
NYT yesterday: "[Rick Astley] has not spoken publicly about the meme and efforts to reach him through his agent were unsuccessful." Maybe no one has tried hard enough, because LAT tracked him down for his comments on the most important meme of our time. (Also, Rick Astley looks ABSOLUTELY NOTHING like Rick Astley.)
The Hills is back tonight! The Hills is back tonight! The Hills is back tonight!!! NYT review. And shush you, it's totally real. See also: The Hills Drinking Game.
Some random media links this morning: Battelle hints that Federated Media could invest in blogs, publishers are worried about another new Google feature, CNN.com answers some questions about iReport, and Hulu's CEO says it's not in competition with YouTube. (The one-line read on all of those? It's a constant clash of old and new.)
In this week's NYT Mag, my pal Tom writes a profile of Patients Like Me, a networking site where people enter their medical conditions and talk about them. I like the charts.
Catching up on everything, just found NYT's Dungeons and Dragons flowchart.
Esquire's fictionalized account of Heath Ledger's death. Because I adore anything that's fake and stupid, I'm obliged to declare this brilliant! NYT story confirms how crazy (crazy brilliant!) they are.
TimesMachine. Browse 70 years of the print edition of the New York Times. [via]
Opening this weekend at MoMA: Design and the Elastic Mind. (Update: NYT review. Update #2: The exhibition site is up now.)
Damn, and I was just going to buy one of those $5000 massage chairs. Sharper Image Files for Bankruptcy.
The New York Times is trying to gentrify Twitter. A column from a self-confessed parent contends that Twitter can be used to manage household communication. I suppose that's true, but that's like saying Craigslist's Casual Encounters can be used to meet really great friends.
A Complete Guide To How Your Favorite Shows Are Affected tells you when tv shows might return. The answer almost across the board: not for quite a while.
"Q: What kind of idiot churns through 25 people in a month? A: Single New Yorkers with Internet access." -Ben Karlin interviewed by The Solomonster in the NYT Mag. (And c'mon, 15 is more like it.)
Not only did I not know that Steven Wright released an album last year called I Still Have a Pony (22 years after the uber-classic I Have a Pony), but it's been nominated for a Grammy, according to a NYT profile. Time to start updating Fake Steven Wright again.
NYT: Seattle Taps Its Inner Silicon Valley. Not necessarily a sucky story, but strange that it mentions only one company, which I've never heard of.
NYTBR on why it takes so long to publish a book. (Answer: forget the lawyers; kill the marketers.)
You saw the NYT story last weekend about the success of cellphone novels in Japan, but The Millions revisits it with a translation and some context that illustrates how the format is uniquely Japanese.
Oscar nominations. Juno made it in for best picture (and director, actress, and screenplay), causing a bunch of my friends to start drinking at 9 am. And since we're dwelling on our midwest past, Pitchfork has a Tapes 'n Tapes interview about the new album, Walk It Off, due out in April. They'll be at SXSW, where I expect to join in the drinking this time.
It was easy to see how this would turn out: Ana Marie Cox starts Twitter account --> Jarvis calls it out --> NYT publishes story on microjournalism --> Fimoc recaps.
NYT Sunday front page story on Japan's best-selling cellphone novels, mentioned here a while back.
Virginia theorizes that the reason NBC's Friday Night Lights is a ratings failure has to do with its lack of a salient online fan base, but that could be a bit of misguided chicken/egg analysis.
Go to NYTimes.com or WSJ.com right now. See that Apple ad on the right? OF COURSE YOU DO. Man, that's big. (Also, I wonder if NYT has any problem with WSJ being name-checked?) Update: Adweek story on the campaign.
NYT Styles: Has Gawker Jumped the Snark? Nick's response: Always Jumping The Shark. Gothamist's link roundup: Gawker So Over.
I'm mildly annoyed that I'm now getting my Seattle news via the New York Times, but whatever.... Amazon.com has a new office planned in the South Lake Union area. It looks very ugly, which is sad because their old offices are pretty cool. (Also, I still own a condo in Belltown, so I'm denigrating this architecture merely to keep my old neighborhood as the "cool" one. Well, yuppie cool, anyway.)
Gothamist and Gawker covered it six months ago, but this week NYT laid out Virtual Lower East Side for the rest of the world in "I've Been in That Club, Just Not in Real Life". Since moving to NYC two months ago, I've had approximately 83 lunches and 1,729 drinks in the Lower East Side. I'm not sure why someone would want to virtualize it, but I don't understand most of what MTV does anymore. (Except The Hills, of course. That pshit's pure virtual genius.)
Seeing Borges portrayed in the Times (via the book Borges 2.0: From Text to Virtual Worlds -- gimme!) as an oracular visionary who predicted the internet is one thing... but, whoa, it's a completely different game to see him show up in Vanity Fair as an answer in Karl Rove's Proust Questionnaire to the "favorite writers?" query.
I'm probably obliged to link to Radar's profile of Josh Harris. I was once obsessed with We Live In Public (dead link), Harris' long-ago-defunct attempt to do an online reality tv show, which predated other panopticon phenomena like Justin.TV, Ustream, The Hills, and even Big Brother. In the middle of the dot-com boom (and perhaps the most telling sign of that age), Harris, who also founded Pseudo.com (big press and big bomb), famously wired his entire house with video cameras. (One of my most-recommended items of all time is Errol Morris' First Person, which includes an absolutely fascinating episode about Harris and his girlfriend living 24 hours/day online.) Harris is now back with Operator 11 and, more importantly, a movie called We Live In Public, the trailer of which actually puts the whole voyeurism/exhibitionism world under something of a microscope.
Hm, I missed this one... Love and Sex with Robots could be worth reading. NYTBR review and author interview.
Last year I decided to put on twist on my annual "best blogs" post [2002, 2003, 2004] by taking a turn toward the obscure. Because blogs now pervade the media landscape, it makes little sense to write a post arguing that Huffington Post is better or worse than DailyKos -- or Cute Overload.
It turned out that this change -- pointing to lesser-known sites like History of the Button, Buzzfeed, and Indexed -- was a rather auspicious. Within 24 hours of releasing the list, seven of the top ten links on Del.icio.us' typically-tech-centric hotlist were sites on my list. And so in the spirit of celebrating the lesser-known, it's time again to point toward the best blogs that might have flown under your radar. Here they are, the Best Blogs of 2007 that You Maybe Aren't Reading:
30) The Informed Reader
As mainstream media organizations continue to close their foreign bureaus out of cost-saving desperation, the less expensive version -- "the international news blog" -- has become a staple property on nearly all sites (nytimes.com, msnbc.com, cnn.com, newyorker.com, etc.). Though the foreign news consumer might be tricked into believing these will reveal new forms of international reporting, it actually means that none of these sites stick out above the rest -- except for the Wall Street Journal's The Informed Reader, which somehow kept my attention this year by finding the right balance between gathering links and providing context. (See also: Good Magazine.)
29) Songs About Buildings and Food
Imagine if your favorite college prof got hooked on meth and The Hills -- and you were more concerned that the latter was killing him. That's this blog. (See also: Advanced Theory Blog and The Medium.)
28) Paleo-Future
If the dictum "the future is now" has any veracity, then what do we do with the past? This blog chronicles how past generations envisioned what the future would look like. With an archive that goes back to the 1880s, Paleo-Future is an essential compendium of a new historical category: nostalgic futurism. (See also: Subtopia.)
27) TV In Japan
If ever there were a genre in need of aggregation, Japanese TV would be it. This site (from my friend Gavin Purcell, whose day job is running Attack of the Show on G4) is religious in its pursuit to bring you the best moments of televised weirdness from the Land of the Rising Sun. (See also: Neojaponisme and Ping Mag.)
26) BookForum
For those of us who have given up on the once-spectacular and oft-praised Arts & Letters Daily, the transformation of Book Forum to an aggregation blog has been nothing less than a savior. (See also: ArtsJournal.)
25) Rock Band Logos
Design criticism applied to rock band logos? Yes, please. (See also: Book Covers and Core 77.)
24) WTF CNN?
FTW! (See also: Best of CNN.)
23) Metafilter Popular Favorites
Every year I sneak a reference to Metafilter onto this list. And every year a Metafilter post ridicules its inclusion -- can't wait to see this year's! My longstanding love-hate relationship with Metafilter (check the archives) tilted back toward the negative this year, which is why the Popular Favorites feature was almost a panacea for my frustration. More big sites are adding this "favoriting" feature (BoingBoing, Gothamist, etc.), which I initially appraised as a cheap way of avoiding depth, but now find the only way I can continue reading some sites. (See also: Ask.Metafilter.)
22) Drawn.ca
Drawn bills itself at "collaborative weblog for illustrators, artists, cartoonists, and anyone who likes to draw," but it acts more like a comprehensive guide to visual culture. (See also: Design Observer.)
21) FourFour
The overabundant jungle of pop culture blogging leaves little room for new voices to emerge. One can read only so many snarky reviews of every episode of every reality tv show on every network every night (I know!). As an antidote to Perez Hilton's pretty hate machine, FourFour's Rich Juzwiak (whose day job is blogging for VH1) has carved out something unique in the pop landscape by balancing critical insight with a celebration for the lovable. And what does FourFour love? For starters: Tyra, America's Next Top Model, Beyonce, Tyra, Project Runway, and... Tyra. (See also: Golden Fiddle and Best Week Ever.)
20) Reverse Cowgirl
Her: "Why don't more sex bloggers make your list?" Me: "Cuz they all talk about the same thing." Her: "Yes, but in many different ways." It's true, sex bloggers don't usually end up on this list, but Susannah Breslin's blog was one of the few sites in the genre to stay in the "to read" pile all year long.
19) Kanye West: Blog
Too much was made again this year about famous people getting blogs. Do you really want more insight into these people's opinions? Of course not -- you want to know their passions, their desires, their interest in dropping $7K on a bottle of cognac. Kanye's blog is more like a scrapbook of his id: some links (hey look, the new Lupe Fiasco vid), some photos (hey look, a Delorean), but surprisingly little ego.
18) Passive Aggressive Notes
Take the Found magazine genre and thin-slice it to only include the notes you left for your college roommate. (See also: Best of Craigslist and Overheard in The Office.)
17) Strange Maps
Does saying "it was a big year for maps!" sound retarded? Well, it was. (See also: Great Map.)
16) Pussy Ranch
Several years ago I included Diablo on a "hot new blog!" list. Now she's super famous, and I'm still making this stupid list.
15) Serious Eats
Food blogging has always been a blind spot for me, but Serious Eats was the first site to find the right mix of editorial voice and community interaction.
14) Shorpy
The photoblog genre is easy to overlook, but this blog puts itself in a curatorial role by collecting photos up to 100 years old. (See also: The Triumph of Bullshit.)
13) La Blogotheque: Take Away Shows
Drag a band out into the street, shoot video of them playing, upload it to the internet... and magic. If you're looking for a place to start, I suggest The Cold War Kids, but there are 70+ more. (See also: RCRD LBL.)
12) Jakob and Julia
Jakulia was the worst best (and the best worst) thing of 2007. Don't know it? Just thank your lucky stars and move on. (See also: NYGirlOfMyDreams.com.)
11) The Daily Swarm
Looking for an alternative to Pitchfork? Who isn't! But Daily Swarm isn't exactly that -- it's a music news source that somehow seems to break news before anyone else. And it's not "press release" news that Pitchfork delivers, nor the salacious celeb news of TMZ, nor even the industry banter of Idolator; rather, The Daily Swarm's beat is a rare kind of -- dare I say -- investigative work that no one else is doing. (See also: Stereogum and Culture Bully.)
10) A Brief Message
Brevity seemed to only increase its role as the ruling doctrine this year (see: Snack Culture), and the designers hopped on board with their micro-manifestos on this site. (See also: Very Short List.)
9) The "Blog of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks
You've seen them -- too many times to count. And if you had taken pictures of every unnecessary instance of quotation marks, you "probably" would have made this list too. (See also: Apostrophe Abuse.)
8) emo+beer = busted career
When Earl Boykins mixed the infographic with a passion for Brooklyn indie music, he ended up with several pieces in the New York Times that could have passed for art installations. (See also: Infosthetics.)
7) Frolix-8: Philip K. Dick
What we once called "the news" is increasingly becoming different filters for perceiving reality. If you think about it, watching the news is just putting on someone else's reality goggles. Philip K. Dick would probably agree, and so this amazing site gives you today's headlines matched up next to which PKD novel the story corresponds with. If it seems that science fiction gets less fantastical every year, then this is the site for you. (See also: Cyber Punk Review.)
6) Snowclones
A snowclone -- says Wikipedia, cuz it oughta know -- is "a type of formula-based cliche that uses an old idiom in a new context." The best example is the rampant usage of "X is the new Y." But there are so many others, such as "Don't hate me because I'm X," "In X, no one can hear you Y," "No rest for the X," "To X or not to X," "Xgate," "Xcore," "Got X?" -- and many more. The site is so diligent in its pursuit of the cliche and the trite that you might fall stricken with a loss of words, gasping "This is not your daddy's snowclone." (See also: Language Hat and Away With Words.)
5) Jezebel
Gawker Media's modus operandi is to enter a content category (gadgets, politics, sports, music, etc.) by summarizing that industry with enough volume (in both senses of the word) to basically become the essential trade mag in that sector. This is why Jezebel represents the biggest coup in the empire's history. Rather than beguile its way into the women's magazine industry, Jezebel burst onto the scene in May by defining itself in oppositional terms. It isn't so much a thing as it is not those things. To be clear: it is not the celeb porn that Conde Nast and Hearst have been splooging on you from newsstands for decades. Whereas the average Idolator post would fit in just fine in Blender or Pitchfork, Jezebel was an entire take-down of Glamour, Cosmo, and the rest of the airbrushed crew. This is the holy grail of publishing: to find a voice that is completely unique while still appealing to a broad category. Nicely played, Mr. Denton. (Note: By the numbers, Jezebel probably doesn't qualify in the "overlooked" character of this list. But with as many dudes like me reading this "women's fashion" site every day...) (See also: Spout.)
4) Smashing Telly
Smashing Telly is the antidote to all those skull-numbing viral video aggregators. Instead of gathering 30-second clips of dogs on skateboards, the site meticulously curates long-form clips that will make you wishing to extend your office hours. It's where I found the Mailer/McLuhan interview, Manufacturing Consent, a random Clockword Orange documentary, and countless other things. (See also: First Showing and vidoes.antville.org.)
3) Vulture
New York Magazine is a perplexing contradiction. It is probably the best magazine on the newsstand right now (Wired is the only competition), but it also has an editorial voice that is occasionally annoying in its sense of privilege and entitlement. On its worst days, I call this attitude "Aggressively SoHo" -- as in, it surpassed believing that NYC is the center of the world by declaring the epicenter somewhere south of 14th St. and north of Chambers St. When my bestest friend Melissa (disclaimer!) said she was co-launching this blog (she has since moved onto Rolling Stone), I was worried that this voice would ring through on its cultural coverage. But the opposite has happened -- Vulture has kept the best parts of New York Mag (the nuance, the design, the clever), while leaving the Aggressive SoHo Tude at the door. (See also: Wired's Blogs.)
2) Ill Doctrine
When Ze Frank sadly abided by his promise to shut down his much-celebrated but under-watched show in March (after exactly one year), the internet was left to gasp for unique video programming. Jay Smooth's Ill Doctrine has been the only video blog to emerge with a distinct voice, a mature vision, and brilliant programming that mixes essay, criticism, and attitude. Check it: Chocolate Radiohead and Amy Winehouse and the Ethics of Clowning People. (See also: Epic-Fu and Rod 2.0.)
1) Twitter and Tumblr
"Blog" has always been an elastic term, just barely surviving the stress of containing everything from Hot Chicks With Douchebags to DailyKos to your mom's Vox account. But this year the seams of the term finally burst, and out spilled some brand new words, tweets and tumbls, and these two new forms of quasi-blogging that are more personal, more immediate, and of course more annoying than anything online communication has rustled up so far. Twitter and Tumblr are the Rubik's Cube and the Tetris of the blogging world -- simple concepts that are immensely more complex and compelling than they logically should be. I've explained Twitter to a hundred people in a hundred different ways, each time not quite capturing why it's different, why it matters. "You just have to play it to understand," I eventually say, choosing the only verb that approaches the nuanced complexity. And yet, there's another very simple way to say it: Twitter and Tumblr made blogging fun again this year.
And finally, thanks to Taylor, Ben, Robin, Lindsay, Melissa, Scott, Alisa, Gavin, Jason, Peter, Matt, Choire, and Anil for their tips on this project. See ya next year.
Hot for Words! Virginia thinks that Marina talks like a robot, but doesn't she sound more like the backwards-speak in Twin Peaks?
Since Drudge is also reporting it, I guess it's safe to now say: the leading contender for the job of new managing editor of Gawker is... Nick Denton. Valleywag was at its best when Nick helmed it, so we'll see how this works. Update: Now NYT has the story.
Similar to how it's nearly impossible not to look into Victoria's Secret when passing by on the street, I'm mildly obsessed with the saga of Girls Gone Wild creator Joe Francis, who has been awaiting trial for eight months without bond from a jail cell. Last year's LAT Mag profile sealed the deal on whether he was despicable (he is), but today's NYT Styles analysis says that conservatives are defending him.
Greg responds to NYT's 53 Places to Go in 2008. "I was intrigued as the next guy by the list of 53 Places we're supposed to go in 2008, then I realized that almost without exception, the 'reason' to go is the opening at long last of that destination's first 'luxury' accommodations. Which seems about the dumbest reason I can think of for choosing where to travel."
That time suck you feel is the end-of-year lists onslaught. Over the weekend, NYT Mag released its always excellent (though this year somehow a little less excellent) Year in Ideas. Also, both Time and New York Mag dropped their monstrous year-end lists.
Huh, the super awesome Ace Hotel is opening a branch in NYC. I lived right next door to the Seattle one, and stayed at the Portland version for the MeFi meetup.
Strange that T (that's NYT's Sunday style mag) launched its online presence with such a flash-heavy site.
Diablo in the Sunday Times, written by David Carr. It includes some mention of the bullshit criticism that's occurring back in Minneapolis in The Rake (from Rob Nelson, who I otherwise love, but I get the sense that maybe The Rake put in an order for a take-down piece). If you're following the story, the MNspeak thread where Diablo jumps in is fantastic.
Some of the best items to make The 2007 List of Lists so far: Mr. Skin's Top 20 Movie Nude Scenes, Top 10 Cryptozoology Stories, Bad Sex in Fiction Awards, NYT's 100 Notable Books, Best Book Shelves, Best Magazine Covers, Best Book Covers, Rolling Stone's Top 25 DVDs, Amazon's Top 10 Games, and the Top 60 Japanese Buzzwords.
Carrie Brownstein of Sleater-Kinney reviews Rock Band for Slate, which is a nice counterpoint to Rob Walker's bit in last weekend's NYT about the fame aspiration in these games.
Best NYT Mag Heffernan column so far: In Defense of Lurking, which spins internet lurking as an age-old phenom called reading.
This week's NYT Mag interview: Umberto Eco. On Da Vinci Code: "I was obliged to read it because everybody was asking me about it. My answer is that Dan Brown is one of the characters in my novel, Foucault's Pendulum."
In a profile of JPG and Everywhere, my pal Paul gets a big picture of himself and a write-up in The Times.
NYT reviews its own new HQ. (I've been in it. The dining room -- "cafeteria" just doesn't work -- is pretty fantastic.)
A million years ago in a different life, I occasionally booked rock shows. One of the many bands that I booked and that you've forgotten was Trenchmouth. You might recognize the name now as the band that SNL's Fred Armisen was the drummer for. Today's NYT story on Fred Armisen Presents: Jens Hannemann Complicated Drumming Technique must have done something for DVD sales because Amazon is sold out.
Although I mentioned it a few months back, it's worth pointing to this week's NYT Mag's "Consumed" column on one of my favorite creations of the year, Last Exit To Nowhere, which creates t-shirts for fictional places.
An hour after the weekend has started, I finally got around to watching this week's internet sensation: quarterlife. If you haven't been paying attention, it's a video series appearing on MySpace (profiles!) that users will supposedly be able to control the outcome of. Though it's from the creators of My So-Called Life and Thirtysomething, it reminds me more of Reality Bites than anything else (right down to the misuse of the word irony). NY Mag interviewed the lead actress (say it with me: Bitsie Tulloch -- you're gonna hear it all the time now). Karina gave the first episode a thumbs down, but rumors are still circulating that NBC might pick it up. My opinion? It kinda sucks and I love it -- both at the same time. UPDATE: In the comments, Colin links to an amazing MTV promo for something called "The Spot" from 1995. And whaddya know, NBC actually bought quarterlife in the few hours since I wrote this post.
The co-creator of Lost penned a NYT op/ed claiming that tv is dying. It invokes TiVo and the writers' strike, but what's wrong about his argument is that tv has actually never been as good as it is right now (or was a couple years ago, anyway).
NYT's Norman Mailer obit. Also weighing in: Kakutani, Hitchens, Sicha, Kimball, and a collection of literary remembrances at Salon.
"Twitter sort of not really saves man from suicide." I thought the same thing as Nick when I read the NYT Styles piece. Even back when I followed the story in real time, it seems sorta hoaxy.
If you didn't notice, NYT Mag gave Virginia Heffernan a column about online video culture. "The Medium," now its third week, this time sets up a discussion of GodTube by differentiating between videos that people view and those that people comment on.
Don't call it nepotism! Lock got $1.5 million in funding for Curbed -- from Gawker Media and others.
This week's NYTBR is a special issue about music books, including a review of The Rest Is Noise, Alex Ross' analysis of 20th century classical music (Kottke interviewed him last week). Also of note is Reading Room, a new blog subtitled "conversations about great books," which comes in addition to the other book blog, Paper Cuts. And finally, Joe Queenan has an excellent little rant about, of all things, Henry Petroski's The Toothpick. Key quote: "Petroski has mistakenly assumed that merely because he could assemble a huge amount of information about the rise and fall of the toothpick industry, such data was worth compiling in a 443-page book."
I always thought 30 Rock invented the word vajayjay -- turns out it was Grey's Anatomy. And Oprah pretty much owns it. This and other scintillating details about the origin of the word in today's NYT Styles. (UPDATE: In the comments, at least one previous use of the world. I hope the OED references this post.)
I knew that a lot of media companies were creating their own venture funds, but I didn't realize how many until I read this story. Very curious to see where this goes.
For those who haven't heard the news: we announced our purchase of Newsvine today. (Mike Davidson's post | msnbc.com story.)
Despite working on this deal for several months now, the exhilaration that one feels when turning the corner to see the future has not dissipated. But the thrill has transformed into a new kind of obsession: thinking about how news deserves to be a better experience -- better to create, better to share, better to participate in.
You can read elsewhere about the details of the deal, but the gist is this: we plan to leave Newsvine alone -- learn from it, integrate little pieces of it, watch it grow. The site will continue to run independently with Mike at the helm; meanwhile, we will incrementally find sensible ways to integrate the "social thinking" of Newsvine into the "big media thinking" of MSNBC.com.
I'm convinced that Newsvine represents a different way of thinking about traditional media -- as merger of gathering, interacting, and consuming. By positing news as an ecosystem rather than a hierarchy, the philosophy of Newsvine is actually an old one. News has always been conversational, but only recently have we begun to rediscover the tools to bring it back to its networked mode. Mike and his team have built an amazing site, and we are excited to turn some of our large audience onto it.
For me personally, it's a moment I have been anticipating for years: seeing how a big news outlet can interact with its audience, how it can learn from its audience, how it can cede control to its audience. And ultimately, how "audience" isn't even the right word anymore.
I've been working for big media for over a dozen years now. And to be honest, I am always close to giving up. While all my nouveau riche Silicon Valley friends cash in their start-ups, I've been preparing the epitaph on my days working in this industry: "Mainstream media is hard."
Very hard.
This is certainly not breaking news, but the media industry is hemorrhaging. As the differences between "big" and "small" media continue to crumble, I cling to the corny, nostalgic philosophy that mainstream news is still a crucial part of democracy, binding us together in ineffable ways. If you've ever worked for a big media company, you know this is not an easy philosophy to maintain. You get bitter, you get depressed, you drink a lot, you have an infinite string of two-month relationships (ahem).
Because big media is hard. And no matter what you do, no matter how much you try to fix it, the media industry still moves slowly. Why? Because the media world has lost its faith, abandoned its roots, absconded the throne. And proving that an empire is its own worst enemy, media companies seem determined to kill themselves, slowly and painfully, pointing fingers at non-existent enemies as they go down.
Which is why it needs fixing, now more than ever. And fixing it is about finding its roots -- news as conversation, as a network, as a platform. By reconstituting media as participation, Newsvine suddenly makes news fun and engaging again.
For the first time in a long time, I'm actually optimistic about the prospects. Maybe media doesn't need to be so hard after all.
Rex Sorgatz is the Executive Producer of MSNBC.com. This blog has, like, nothing to do with that.
Out of a very boring Sunday New York Times this week, the magazine's cover story on Todd Hayne's forthcoming Dylan biopic stands out.
Bill Gates' music taste? Well, there's U2... and then the Beatles and the Stones... and then Broadway musicals. Stop by my office, boss man -- I'm gonna show ya some Kanye, Prince, Daft Punk, and MIA.
There aren't many NYT reporters whose deaths I would note here, but many years ago I was moved by a book that briefly made me want to be an architect. Herbert Muschamp is dead at 59.
Penguin is creating a contest with Amazon.com called the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award in which people submit their novel manuscripts for review and the community (that's us) votes on which should get published. [via]
The re-emerged meme du jour appears to be about how digital memory is affecting human memory. Three unconnected recent examples: The Advantages of Amnesia (Boston Globe), Britney? That's All She Rote (New York Times), and Human Memory and the Outboard Brain (Wired).
Pretty decent analysis over at NYT Styles (didn't see that one coming!) on how some blog commenters are becoming micro-celebrities: All-Stars of the Clever Riposte. There's also a slideshow about a MeFi event in Portland that I actually attended.
The NY Times Mag this week is all about college, with several readable pieces, but I'm most intrigued by the college essay "The Posteverything Generation". I often wonder how Gen Y posits itself in relationship to Gen X, simply because there was so much acrimony between Gen X and Baby Boomers 15 years ago. However, this piece suggests that the kids in college today still view themselves, like me, as post-Cold War, post-Boomer. It reads exactly like something I would have written in college, Jameson quotes and all.
A couple Minneapolis stories: Marketwatch says it's the best city to start a new business and WSJ says Minnie has reached "critical coolness." Also, Minneapolis is listed as one of the cities in NYT's Styles story about young women having higher salaries than young men.
It has become very, very vogue to talk about the irrelevance of MTV (NYT does this story every couple months -- here's yesterday's), but they still seem to move in the right direction such as by launching new sites, TheDailyShow.com and SouthParkStudios.com.
Actual economics paper (and not an Onion article): On the Efficiency of AC/DC: Bon Scott vs. Brian Johnson. [via] UPDATE: hah, it's a joke. Steven Levitt fell for it too though.
CBS is not backing off the airing of Kid Nation, the reality show that dropped 40 tweens in the middle of the New Mexico.
Finally, Kruc made the Styles section -- for a boring story about blogs and authors because he made the Frank Portman video.
I was actually just thinking someone needs to do a new story on Rick Rubin. NYT Mag gave him the cover.
You might have seen the NYT obit of Joybubbles, a savantish phone phreaker (made famous by a 1971 Esquire profile by Ron Rosenbaum) who recently died in Minneapolis. As Virginia Heffernan points out, those charming kids at Chasing Windmills had Joybubbles do a "guest-appearance" earlier this year.
A little late to the scene, NYT does its cover feature on mumblecore. Andrew Bujalski (Funny Ha Ha, Mutual Appreciation) was also profiled by Klosterman a few months ago. (Update: the trailer for Hannah Takes the Stairs is out now too.)
Remember when every major magazine started doing "design issues" several years ago? That's so 2000 -- now we're onto fonts. For instance, NYT Mag's story (and slideshow) on the new highway roadsign font, Clearview, is so fawning in its praise that non-designers will likely chuckle their way through. However, it will no doubt have its own movie someday.
The NYTBR review for The First Word makes the field of evolutionary linguistics sound rife with intrigue -- with Chomsky as the foil!
I see survey after survey declare that men have more sexual partners than women. And it annoys me every time, because this is of course statistically impossible. The New York Times finally takes up the issue. The answer? Men aren't more promiscuous -- they lie more. Or, perhaps, women lie by underestimating.
Fake Steve Jobs revealed as Daniel Lyons via some small-time sleuthing. (Ahem, I was wrong.) Best quotes: the Real Steve saying he has no interest in reading the Lyon's novel (via IM?!?!?!) and "One bright side is that at least I was busted by the Times and not Valleywag" (Fake Steve).
Oh yeah, the Sunday Styles section discovered emoticons as a trend. Their angle? That professionals use them too! Even better, the Wall Street Journal just discovered IM in the office.
In memoriam, a scene from Ingmar Bergman Wild Strawberries. See also: Woody Allen's 1988 review of Bergman's autobiography.
NYT on Prince: "He doesn't have to go multiplatinum -- he's multiplatform." The new album (Planet Earth) comes out this week. (Update: I love that this story is on TechMeme right now.)
Ooo-ooo-ooo! NYTimes.com gave Errol Morris a photoblog. Boo-boo-boo! It's TimesSelect.
This is 10 days old, but I just found it: NYT's "Talk to the Newsroom" with the Culture Editor. Best one in the series so far.
Everyone understands there's a schism between critical acclaim and popular success, right? Sure, it's true for movies, books, and movies -- but, as NYT shows, games are the exception. [via]
For a second time (previously), NYT is freaked out about Stickam. This time, it's saying the site could be used for pornographic purposes. No way! Now that's what I call investigative reporting!
This week's NYT Mag "Consumed" column is on Threadless. Though it seems impossible that anyone would dredge up anything new to say, there's actually a little bit here on online communities, with snippets on how celebrity designers have emerged and how ratings counter-intuitively yield designs.
NYT Mag had built up a ton of personal anticipation for its Wikipedia news story, but it fell short on a few accounts, including mostly that it's only maybe 20% about news (the other 80% is just another Wikipedia story that you've already read). What I really wanted to read is something like Anil's recent post on the future of journalism spread out over 10 pages instead. (I could personally supply a half-dozen anecdotes on open-source journalism that would be better than those in the NYT story.) However, three interesting points: 1) the tension that exists between Wikinews and Wikipedia seems substantial, 2) the factoid that 1 out of every 200 total online pageviews belongs to Wikipedia is staggering, and 3) the notion that Wikipedia "derives a certain degree of authority and trust in the mind of the reader by avoiding original research" is provocative... and, I'm pretty sure, an opening. (If this weren't a link blog, I'd write more on this, but you've already moved on.)
The new hyped band? That would be the French DJ duo Justice, who Pitchfork gave an 8.4, NYT profiled, and HypeMachine fist-pumped.
Strange that NYTBR brought out Michiko to review Cult of the Amateur. Also strange that she doesn't really even review the book, and just recites Keen's argument.
The iPhone reviews are coming out: David Pogue (NYT) and Walt Mossberg. Both very positive, both include video.
The New York Times has five writers put together a gigantic, snoozy profile of Rupert Murdoch.
The movie production company that optioned faux-author JT Leroy's movie rights is suing. As Vulture says: "Liberal-arts grads of the world, this trial has it all! Fake novelists, indie moviemakers, Terry Gross, deep issues, pitiful stakes (that Sarah option deal? $15,000 a year)!"
Another story on the video game farming trade, this time from Julian Dibbell in the NYT Magazine: "The Life of the Chinese Gold Farmer". (Dibbell is the author of Play Money and the canonical work on virtual identities "A Rape in Cyberspace".) Includes a pretty great slideshow and video.
Somewhat strangely, the New York Times Op-Ed page has decided it needs to chime in on Philip K. Dick as a genius sage, too. See also: Wired interviews Lethem on the Library of America series.
Amazing blog about indie rock as an infographic, which led to NYT picking up a Conor Oberst graphic.
NYT has an epic story on Google's search team, which is huge yet still leaves you wondering about several things. Also, it doesn't get decent until about half-way through.
26 Reasons What You Think is Right is Wrong. Lists cognitive biases, including such things as the bandwagon effect and the blind spot bias. See also: NYT Mag story on self-deception.
File under: random thing that seems worth knowing. In its biggest purchase ever, Coke is buying the maker of Vitamin Water. In other news, NYT had an interesting Coke vs. Pepsi infographic.
NYTimes.com started a chess blog to coincide with the United States Chess Championship: Gambit.
Texting while you drive has just been made illegal in the state that I live in. (Mom, please keep some money in the bank to bail me out.)
NYTBR takes notice of the four Philip K. Dick reissues from Library of America.
Decent NYT analysis on why Rupert might actually not be that bad for WSJ, which I sorta actually agree with. But maybe I'm just saying that because of Fake Steve.
So the Times finally got around to writing about Twitter. Their lede is an E. M. Forster quote. Man, do they know what the kids want, or what?
Best-Informed Also View Fake News, Study Says. In other news: Best-Informed Also Read Studies About Themselves, Study Says.
NYT Mag has a fascinating little article on something that I think about constantly: to what degree random historical factors and self-fulfilling markets determine the success of cultural products. A study from the authors suggests that social influence can affect judgments of quality to exponential degrees.
I just noticed that in addition to The Pervert's Guide To Cinema (which is my movie of the year so far -- NYT profile), Slavoj Zizek has another biopic-ish film being released: The Reality of the Virtual (out next week), which is in addition to the 2003 film Zizek.
On the list of articles that I want to pitch but haven't gotten around to is something called "The Rise of Hatah Culture." (Think: Simon Cowell, Gawker, Pitchfork, etc.) Although not exactly my story, NYT Styles (dammit! trite idea!) has something today on "The Rise of the Takedown."
The new DeLillo novel is called Falling Man (out May 15), a reference to the World Trade Center falling man from 9/11. [via]
In addition to last Sunday's Times, James Murphy is in The Voice talking about the idea of commissioned music. The new LCD Soundsystem is so far my favorite album of the year.
Neal Stephenson has a NYT op-ed piece about seeing 300 (at a Seattle theater a few blocks from my house, actually). He argues that only the "less politicized majority" get the film, meandering his way to geekdom: "The growing popularity of science fiction, the rise of graphic novels, anime and video games, and the fact that geeks can make lots of money now, have given creators and fans of this kind of art a confidence, even a swagger, that -- hard as it is for some of us to believe -- is kind of cool now."
One of my heroes, Jean Baudrillard, died yesterday: NYT | Guardian | Times UK | NY Sun | Le Figaro| Le Monde | BBC | Reuters | AP.
Recently trapped in the Columbus, OH airport, I opened up my MacBook to discover that I had free WiFi. Huh, that's weird, I mused. But apparently I completely missed the trend that has led to so many airports offering free WiFi -- according to this chart, it looks like about two-thirds. (A story in the Times about Starbucks and WiFi elicited this irrelevant post.)
I caught up with the onslaught of Jeff Wall coverage over the weekend. (If you somehow missed it, the photographer just had a retrospective at MoMA open. You can catch up, too! NYT Mag, New Yorker, NYT, NY Mag, NewsDay.) Only somewhat familiar with the Vancouver artist's work, I needed a refresher: while MoMA's website for the exhibition lacks depth, it is rich in zoomable detail; meanwhile, the site for last year's Tate retrospective is almost perfect (navigate via the room boxes on the left). The exhibit moves to Chicago in June and San Fran in October.
Another wildly unexpected dot-com purchase: Cisco is buying Tribe.net. This comes in addition to other major social networking moves this week: Reuters announcing it wants to start a financial MySpace, Ning getting relaunched, and Shelfari receiving Amazon.com funding. It does make you wonder: does everyone need a MySpace?
Mildly interesting: in the online version of the NYT story on what an author appearance on the Daily Show or the Colbert Report does for book sales, they have embedded video clips from ComedyCentral.com.
Google has launched Google Apps, a business suite that includes GMail, Google Calendar, Google Talk, and Google Docs, all one one domain for $50/year. [TechCrunch | NYT]
Scarlett Johansson stars in the new Justin Timberlake video, "What Goes Around Comes Around," which can only be described with one word: hot. Okay, and a little weird. (See also: NYT on Timberlake's unusual fan base: hipsters.)
Am I the last to know that Stephen King has a son named Joe Hill who just wrote a novel named after a Nirvana album (Heart-Shaped Box, which was positively reviewed in NYTBR) that is apparently about a man who bought a haunted suit over the internet?
Long NYT Mag story on designer dogs. I'm all about the hybrid, so puggles are alright by me.
NYT on the Frank Gehry / Jean Nouvel / Zaha Hadid / Tadao Ando move into Abu Dhabi.
This one's gonna cause even more than the normal amount of NYT Styles backlash: Truly Indie Fans is about black people who like indie rock. It tries to find the right note, but still smacks of essentialism.
NYT's Carpetbagger interviews M dot Strange, who has been making a movie, We Are The Strange, via YouTube and is now in Sundance.
We should hold some kind of poll on how good The Sarah Silverman Program will be. (Her first significant project since Jesus is Magic, it premieres Feb. 1 on Comedy Central.) I know this is so boy to say, but she was smoking hot on last week's Kimmel. Anyway, the ostensible excuse for this post: she lands this week's NYT Mag interview.
My friend Paige says that if I put up a link to the Studio 60 story in today's Times, then people would cease emailing it to me.
Just when you sorta think the world is going to hell, the New York Times tells you that half of American women aren't married. Hey, you have your version of progress, I have mine. Update: I'm not sure where this fits in, but "ladies night" has been banned in Colorado. If giving women free drinks is anti-feminist, I'm going to hell.
It's strange to express glee that your favorite tv show is about to announce its end-point, but that's exactly what Lost needs. "The X-Files was a cautionary tale for us," says the exec producer. "It was a great show that ran two seasons too long. Lost has a short-half life." You really have to admire this approach, which ABC probably hates but which should bring the recent naysayers back on board. UPDATE: NYT says it could be a five-season show.
NYT slideshow illustrating all the weird places that advertising is showing up. Includes baggage screening containers, restroom signs, eggs, and pediatrician examination rooms.
Living a few blocks from The Walker's enviable sculpture garden in Minneapolis had spoiled me on the elision of public space and art projects (not to mention providing an impressive place to take girls on first dates). Much is being made about a similar project, The Olympic Sculpture Park, opening in Seattle this week, which happens to be less than two blocks from my current condo -- you can actually almost see into my window in the photo atop the Sunday NYT review. The Seattle Times provides beaucoup multimedia and an overview of the major sculptures in the park (the usuals: Kelly, Serra, Nevelson, Calder, Oldenburg, Smith, Bourgeois) while Seattle's best art critic, Jen Graves, notes in The Stranger that January is not the best time to open a sculpture garden. For out-of-towners: Bill Gate's step-mother, Mimi Gates runs the Seattle art scene as director of both the Seatle Art Museum and Seattle Asian Art Museum. The official opening is next weekend, after which I'll post some more thoughts.
NYT's decent reflection on what David Byrne is up to lately includes a nifty little clip sampler that compares his work to contemporaries like LCD Soundsystem, Arcade Fire, and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah.
I could link to video of Bush's speech last night, but somehow this crazy debate on al-Jazeera is much more emblematic. (New approval rating: 26%.)
This NYT story on new portable devices pretty much states that Apple will be announcing an iPhone this week, which means I'm already getting some of my predictions wrong. UPDATE from the comments: Red Herring says it ain't happening.
In NYTBR, Itzkoff reviews the new Michael Crichton book, Next, which "completes the author's metamorphosis from steely-eyed augur of the not-too-distant future to unabashed demagogue." Last month, it was revealed that Crichton turned one of his real-world critics into a fictional character who just happens to be a child rapist. Which is, well, despicable, but also pretty fucking funny.
Even though I don't use it all that much, I'm a huge fan of my Slingbox, which basically streams my DVR to my computer and phone. Now, it sounds like Sling Media will launch a reverse product, which brings internet video to your tv. It's interesting that we've been asking all this time who would bring tv to the internet when the real question might be who will bring the internet to tv?
What the world needs is a YouTube that's live -- just full of people (okay, kids) doing whatever behind their computer. Oh, it exists: Stickam. [via scare-mongering NYT story.]
Culled from the list of lists, it's time for the weekly list wrap: top 100 baby names for 2006 from Baby Center, top reality tv whores from Reality Blurred, top 100 wines from Wine Spectator, top 10 cryptozoology stories from Cryptozoo, worst vlogs from 10 Zen Monkeys, top 10 cited Wikipedia entries from Wikipedia, vaporware from Wired News, least essential albums from The Onion A/V Club, best of everything from IGN, 10 best unseen films from Film Threat, artists of the year from City Pages, dozen dumbest press releases from Collateral Damage, best albums from eMusic, entertainers of the year from Entertainment Weekly, 10 best celebrity trends from Best Week Ever, 99 most desirable women from AskMen.com, and buzzwords from the New York Times.
New York Times readers take a shot at predicting media in 2007 too. Actually, not bad. And Lore Sjöberg of Wired News has some too.
Amanda's show has launched on ABCnews.com. Virginia has a positive NYT review. Update: Andrew's response.
Best of The Lists weekend round-up: words of the year from Merriam-Webster, banished words list from Lake Superior State University, book awards from Salon, video game awards from Spike TV, worst book covers from Ed Rants, top 10 books from Stephen King, best songs and albums from Sasha Frere Jones, year-end recap from Other Music, the year in catfights from Radar, librarians of the year from the New York Times, and of course the year in ideas from the New York Times Magazine.
So Jon Pareles' Sunday NYT Arts cover story on user-generated content was fine (most of us live with -- and spread -- this propaganda all day long (though the comparisons to folk culture are sorta new (and the references are medium fresh))), but isn't it sorta weird that it's basically one long essay without any reportage?
Valleywag and Techcrunch peed all over themselves last night with posts about the shakeup at Yahoo. Meanwhile, NYT was pretty fast (for a lumbering old paper) to publish, and Semel even pushed out his own blog post about it (I wonder who's moderating those comments?).
Despite (or because of) all that pebble throwing at Gawker, Steven Johnson's Outside.in gets a NYT write-up. See also: Brian Eno and Stephen Johnson at the ICA.
Every year around this time, I attempt to summarize what's been happening online by publishing my list of the best blogs of the year [2002, 2003, 2004]. But I abruptly stopped last year because the list had become annoyingly redundant. Yes, dear blogosphere, after only six (or so) years of existence, you already have your canon, created either through fiat, power laws, or meritocracy -- you decide!
Sure, new sites break through (such as Techcrunch and Valleywag did this year), but a glance at the Technorati 100 shows that things aren't really that different than they were a few years ago. So do you really need me to prattle on about the significance of Kottke and Waxy, Romenesko and Gawker, Engadget and Scoble? I think not. Instead, this year I've gathered 30 blogs that you perhaps aren't reading.
Caveat: no human on the planet is qualified to do this, and the 500 blogs that I follow probably represents how many blogs are created in a second.1 On the other hand, this is not a list of esoteric blogs that you'll smirk at and never read again. I actually read all of these, because I think they're great.
And finally, please add your under-appreciated blog suggestions in the comments. Because really, aren't the overlooked ones the reason we're all here anyway?
30. Starbucks Gossip
Romenesko's other other blog, Starbucks Gossip is the kind of idea you wish more people would rip off. A gossip blog for fans and employees alike, the site has been on the forefront of such controversies as the ghetto latte and the tipping debate. (See also: Mini-Microsoft.)
29. TV Squad
Blogging about tv sounds hard -- you're always a day late, yet you're always a spoiler. This surprisingly good Weblogs Inc. blog finds the right balance between last night's TiVo and tomorrow's buzzed show. (See also: Television Without Pity & Tuned In.)
28. Ballardian
Sorry, this isn't actually J.G. Ballard's blog. As possibly the only science fiction writer who merits the adjectival form, Ballard is synonymous with technology, body enhancement, organic architecture, dystopia, car crashes, and other generally weird stuff. This blog is about those things, sorta. (See also: William Gibson's Blog & Bruce Sterling's Blog & City of Sound.)
27. T-Shirt Critic
I've got this theory that the t-shirt is becoming its own legitimate form of media -- informative yet dispensable. Probably the most frequent email query I get is "where do you get all those t-shirt links?" The answer is all over the freaking place -- but this site is one of the best. (See also: Preshrunk & iloveyourtshirt.)
26. Pruned
Ostensibly, this is a blog about landscape architecture, but it actually illustrates how any discipline has complexity and hybridity behind it, usually by gathering all sorts of random pieces of visual culture. (See also: BLDG BLOG & Things Magazine.)
25. Ypulse
You can count the number of people making a living by blogging on a couple of hands, but be sure to add a digit for Anastasia. If you think you know what teenagers are talking about today, you may reconsider after reading this blog, which tracks everything that the kids (Generation Y) are into. (See also: Agenda Inc.)
24. Eyeteeth & Offcenter
Through some bad twist of misfortune, I never met the multi-talented Paul Schmelzer when I lived in Minneapolis. But I've been collecting all the marvellous little spores he leaves behind on various sites around the interweb, including these two. (See also: Greg.org.)
23. We Make Money Not Art
There's an easy way to get me to fall in love with your blog -- just link to a meat chess board, and I'm all yours. The international talent on this blog covers topics in the digital arts: social media, electronic design, wearable computing, etc. (See also: Design Observer & reBlog.)
22. Dethroner
Not that you care, but 2006 was a crummy year for the lad magazine. Could it be that the social internet is invading dude-ness too? This one-man site (from Joel Johnson, former Gizmodo editor, recently interviewed by Matt Haughey) is a good example of what one person can do in a niche topic. (See also: Daddy Types.)
21. Cute Overload
Yes, hipster, I know -- you, your sister, and your mom have seen Cute Overload. But have you bookmarked it? Have you returned to it every day just for some cheery bunnies? You have not truly experienced Cute Overload until it has become a ritual. I dare you. (See also: Flickr: Interestingness.)
20. IFC TV
Picking the best film blog is difficult. Luckily, picking the best one you perhaps aren't reading is easy! This link-heavy blog is the perfect mix of news and views on film culture. (See also: Cinematical & GreenCine Daily.)
19. Journerdism
From the esteemed tradition of Waxy and Snark Market comes Journerdism, a link blog from Floridan new media journalist, Will Sullivan. (See also: Magnetbox & PaidContent & Innovation in Colllege Media.)
18. Metafilter
Joke, right? No, not really, because I bet everyone reading this post has at one time or another given up on Metafilter. And unlike the time you gave up on Slashdot, you eventually came back to Metafilter. (See also: Ask.Metafilter, the real reason this site deserves to be here.)
17. videos.antville.org
You're going to see a huge surge of video link blogs this year, but this one has always stood above the others for good community contributions of quality music videos. (See also: ClipTip & Digg: Music Videos.)
16. Marmaduke Explained
There's only one way to make Marmaduke funny: attempt to explain why Mamaduke is funny. Brilliant. (See also: Silent Penultimate Panel.)
15. Josh Spear
Cool Hunting and The Cool Hunter are, well, cool. But they tend to track international trends that seldom seem to intersect with your life. Josh Spear's cool hunting includes stuff you might actually be able to afford getting your hands on. (See also: NotCot.org.)
14. Data Mining
Yawn, right? Nuh-uh. Everything that's happening today in areas around buzz tracking, social media, geocoding, data visualization, and countless other subjects is tracked on this blog, where I consistently discover new ideas. (See also: Blog Pulse & Micro Persuasion.)
13. Make Magazine
Even though this blog is arguably pretty popular, I'm including the work of the indefatigable Phillip Torrone because the trend of life hacking and productivity really started to emerge this year. Make's philosophy is simple: anything can be DIY if you just figure out how to hack it. (See also: Lifehacker & 43 Folders & Life Clever.)
12. 3 Quarks Daily
3 Quarks Daily sets the paradigm for what a good personal blog should be: eclectic but still thematic, learned but not boring, writerly but not wordy. (See also: Snark Market & wood s lot.)
11. Screens
I've had a boyish crush on Virginia Heffernan's writing since her days as Slate's tv columnist. This year, she started this peculiar little blog for the New York Times, covering the cultural side of the internet video industry before anyone realized there was such a thing. She was the first mainstream media writer to snag lonelygirl15 as a storyline (which I -- still boyishly -- think she first saw here), writing in a cozy vernacular that you were surprised in the old gray lady. (See also: Lost Remote & Carpetbagger.)
10. BuzzFeed
It might be too early to judge this recently-launched human+computer buzz hybrid, but so far the meme detector has caught Hipster-on-Hipster Hatred, Evil Hippies Ruining Stuff, and Racist Jokes as strangely recurrent cultural themes. (See also: Hype Machine & Blogebrity.)
9. Pulse Laser
Matt Webb is the kind of nerd that all nerds aspire to be. His amazing presentations mix science fiction, Coke commercials, and brain chemistry in ways natural only to polymaths. With his partner Jack Schulze, Webb has worked on such projects as redefining news with BBC, understanding phone personalization with Nokia, and writing about mind hacks for O'Reilly. Impressive work, but this blog tracks their random ideas, such as the social letterbox or a collection of robot arms. (See also: Ratchet Up & v-2.org.)
8. Subtraction
An editor from The Atlantic who was doing a story on buzz-building recently contacted me about finding the source of a meme he saw on Fimoculous. He asked where I got it, and I said Subtraction, to which he replied, "that's what everyone else said too." A blogger's blogger, Khoi Vinh is the new design director at the NYTimes.com, which might sound high-brow, but his personal site has the quality you most desire from a blogger: curiosity. (See also: Anil Dash.)
7. Pop Candy
I'm as surprised as you that a USA Today blog makes this list. Beyond the cute Chuck Taylors in her pic, what makes Whitney Matheson better than the slew of other pop culture blogs out there? Simple: while everyone else is there to out-snark and out-upskirt-shot each other, Whitney seems to actually like popular culture. (See also: Stereogum & Amy's Robot.)
6. Future of the Book
Ostensibly about exploring the shift from the printed page to the networked screen, Future of the Book stumbles across a variety of new ideas along the way, such as creating a wikibook on gaming. Although occasionally windy, Future of the Books is on the precipice of something big. (See also: Read/Write Web & Smart Mobs.)
5. Corpus Obscurum
It's an inspired idea: track the obits of those whose accomplishments vastly exceeded their fame. So you get the last boxer to fight Muhammad Ali, the animator of Fred Flintstone, the tuba player from the Jaws theme, the first physician convicted of illegally performing an abortion in a hospital, and many, many more. (See also: Blog of Death.)
4. Information Aesthetics
I suspect we need a chart to explain why this blog is so great, because just saying "this blog tracks instances of data visualization" sounds like it could be a weapon to kill terrorists with boredom. But this site is essential reading for anyone interested in the ways that engineers and designers turn the messy world into a clear visual representation. (See also: Visual Complexity & xBlog.)
3. Google Operating System
Like William Gibson famously decreeing that the future is already here but not evenly distributed, this blog's name alludes to the ongoing rumor that Google is starting its own operating system, which is essentially already here but we don't even realize it. The site offers "news and tips about Google" (hey, they put ads on their maps; wow, only a handful of sites have a 10 PageRank; huh, you can mute threads in Gmail), but the best posts have top form theorizing on what the future holds for the online operating system. (See also: Google Blogoscoped & John Battelle's SearchBlog.)
2. History of the Button
A blog about the history of buttons? Yes! A blog about the history of buttons! Finally, someone has come along to try to say something sensible about this year's wretched Adam Sandler movie Click, to trace the history of game show buzzers and buttons, and to analyze Push! The! Button! cries in Lost. Next thing you know, you're seeing buttons everywhere. It's a button nation. (See also: Boxes and Arrows & Signal vs. Noise.)
1. Indexed
Is this seriously the best blog on this list? Who knows -- but it's a minor form of genius. (See also: McSweeney's Lists & 10,000 Reasons & Gaping Void.)
Thanks to Andy, Greg, Lock, Matt, Jim, Robin, Andrew, David, Ted, Matt, Karl, Andrew, and Chuck for their advice on this project.
1If you believe Technorati's numbers, it's actually about one blog per second.
Wheh, what a week -- Britney+Paris, OJ, Kramer -- don't you feel good being repulsed by it all?
I'm not sure what to make of the fracas between Idolator and New Times (ahem, Village Voice Media) over Pazz & Jop, but it made The Times today. (Update: Michaelangelo responds.)
Lately I've been thinking about how celebrity culture has taken a strange turn over the past decade: we now have a flotilla of celebrities that exist exclusively to be hated. Seriously, who likes Paris Hilton? No one. She exists to be despised, and an entire economy has developed around this hatred. Saying you hate Paris Hilton is about as original as saying you like The Beatles. (And realizing it is the definition of snark.) A new Consumed column looks at this from a different angle: how online communities are formed around that hatred.
Even though the entire premise of the NYT profile of the TV Newser kid is how tv execs are fans of the site, it can't possibly convey how unbelievably glued to it they are. I've witnessed it first-hand and it's seriously weird.
I know you're going to hate me for this, but I'm sorta obsessed with the new Courtney Love book (forgiving NYTBR review). And if that didn't make you hate me, how about linking to a nude spread for Pop magazine (nsfw! nsfw! nsfw!)?
The lead story in the Sunday Times Arts section was on interactive television, making iTV officially the soccer of the tech world -- always and forever the next big thing.
The NYT Mag this week is all about comedy. Good stuff, if a little predictable, right up until the... whoa, there's Ze Frank!
I don't know what percent of Richard Siklos' Sunday NYT biz columns are about Google, but it's gotta be above 50%. This week he asks media companies if Google is a friend or foe.
I started emailing my friends in Brooklyn as soon as I saw the ad for Domino's "Brooklyn Style" pizza. WTF? NYT clears it up. Fascists.
Google is now going to sell ads in print newspapers. Contributing companies include Gannett, Tribune, NYT, Washington Post, and Hearst.
The "editor of television and video" at the New York Times (which really means NYtimes.com) fields questions from users. Many of the questions are about ads, and I don't think she understood the question about YouTube.
NYT Mag looks at the process of choosing words for the new OED. My favorite addition is wonky, but no mention is made on whether a word I swear I invented will make it: arm candy.
In NYTBR, Steven Johnson has a little ditty on keywords, mashing together Raymond Williams and Google: "Own Your Own Words."
NYT revisits "the National Anthem of Hip-Hop," Incredible Bongo Band's Bongo Rock which is being reissued next month. Michaelangelo gets props for first calling attention to it at the EMP Pop Conference in Seattle (which, by the way, has opened the paper call for '07). Oliver Wang has MP3s of just some of the tracks that sample "Apache" (Sugar Hill Gang, Moby, Nas, The Roots, etc.).
Wow, I'd like to get my hands on some copies of this Iraq news satire show that looks a lot like the Daily Show.
NYT: We're Google. So Sue Us. And Marketwatch: YouTube shared user data with studio lawyers.
NYT Arts wonders if Starbucks can create a serious dent in the culture industry.
Huh, NYTimes.com embedded a YouTube video inside one of its stories. Just sayin.
NYT has a peculiarly long and detailed biz story on the downfall of Friendster. [via]
YouTube/Google round-up: NBC, News Corp, and Viacom are bonding together to possibly litigate against YouTube; Eric Schmidt tries to console them; The Times still thinks it was a smart deal; and Colbert wants his royalties.
What I love about the story of the self-effacing third founder of YouTube is that he acts exactly how I wish I acted if I were a millionaire a hundred plus times over. Except, I know I wouldn't act anything like him, and for that, I hate myself.
So a newspaper (L.A. Times) realizes it's a dying form that needs rejuvenation -- who does it hire to investigate how to react? It's own investigative unit.
NYT Mag: Steven Johnson on The Long Zoom. The theoretical first couple paragraphs is the best.
NYT has a longish story on the Korean competitive game culture. The audioslideshow version.
NYT: Netflix will award $1 million to the first person who can improve the accuracy of movie recommendations by 10%. How about: add porn DVDs. Gimme my million.
I like the angle of approaching the new Hold Steady album, Boys and Girls in America, from the perspective of a travelogue. (On the last album, I itemized the Minneapolis references.) See also: Craig interviewed in Fader and The Pitchfork review (9.4).
Chuck's new book is doing well. Some reviews: New York Times Book Review, L.A. Times, Onion A/V Club, Slam, Akron Beacon Journal, and Portland Mercury.
Yahoo has purchased the video-sharing platform Jumpcut (blog post). See also: Fox allows the Clinton-Wallace videos back on YouTube.
Google suddenly has opinions about everything lately -- including power supply cords.
I fucking hate the thesis that hippies are the progenitors of internet culture, even if it's a little true.
I'm not sure what to make about MTV launching a virtual Laguna Beach (NYT story). It's such a weird place to try entering the avatar/community sector.
NYT Mag: Okay-but-could-been-better look at how satire has taken over culture.
Okay NYT story on music recommendation engines, focusing on Pandora. I liked the photo.
NYT Mag takes up the game Disaffected, an anti-advergame that parodies the Kinko's experience. The discussion moves toward a notion called "semiotic disobedience" (pdf).
I can't even count all the conversations I've had about the relationship status choices on Friendster and MySpace. One of them was even with Diane Mapes, who's quoted in a NYT Styles story all about the public status signifier.
NYTimes.com launches the blog First Look, about features and services from the website.
NYT reveals the guitar wizard behind this version of Pachelbel's Canon on YouTube.
Virginia Heffernan beats me to an interview with lonelygirl15 and then delinates the case of fraud vs. sweet vs. weird.
For your wireless device: NYTimes River and BBC River developer by David Winer. I'm curious if it survives.
NYT: Long, strange story about how pedophiles use the internet to proclaim their identities.
Huff Post: What Right-Wingers See When They Read The New York Times. Awesome.
NYT on the upcoming digital art exhibition in San Jose, ZeroOne, curated by my old acquaintance from The Walker, Steve Dietz.
Ana Marie Cox (Wonkette) has been named the Washington Editor of Time.com. Circuits interview.
I like asking people how many best friends they have, and then asking them to compare it to the number of best friends they had at different points in their life. The Times Mag looks at a study that reveals people say they have fewer confidants than 20 years ago, but then opens up the reasons to some good speculation.
This week's Consumed notices an interesting cellphone development: the wireless headset jumped right over youth culture and into middle-management. Can it work its way back, despite the Star Trek factor?
NYtimes.com launched their personalized service, My Times, in beta. It's basically an RSS Reader with some Netvibes-ish UI.
Get ready for it: bloggers are gonna harsh hard on this week's Modern Love about a girl who lives her life almost completely on social networking sites, IM, Dodgeball, and Second Life.
An interesting take from the NYTimes that the genius of Google Trends isn't that it graphs the past -- it actually predicts the future.
Jesse Oxfeld has been fired from Gawker (NYT). Denton responds nicely: "We've never liked crowds, nor believed in their wisdom."
Screens (Virginia Heffernan!) is a new tv/internet convergence blog on... yep, NYtimes.com. I'm calling it a "Lost Remote killer." (Sorry Cory, I kid.)
Updike jumps up and down like a baby (an eloquent baby, I suppose) over Kevin Kelly's NYT Mag book story from a several weeks ago.
TOYS
GenPets. For real.
FILM
Anton Corbjin is directing a movie about Joy Division: Control.
I noticed that A Scanner Darkly has an elaborate MySpace page. I wonder if they had to pay for the special treatment or if they just hacked it.
MUSIC
A gigantic Bjork box set comes out tomorrow.
Vice: How To Make A Playlist For A Girl. Condescending as fuck, but funny as hell.
WORDS
The Nerve.com Future Issue, which will feature writing from Joel Stein, Walter Kirn, Jay McInerney, Douglas Rushkoff, Rick Moody, Ana Marie Cox, and others.
Updike jumps up and down like a baby (an eloquent baby, I suppose) over Kevin Kelly's NYT Mag book story from a several weeks ago.
TV
Screens (Virginia Heffernan!) is a new tv/internet convergence blog on... yep, NYtimes.com. I'm calling it a "Lost Remote killer." (Sorry Cory, I kid.)
Robot Chicken is on DVD? How come no one told me?
ONLINE
Wikipedia: List of problems solved by MacGyver.
I'm not on Second Life yet, though I know I should be. I've been watching the site pretty closely for years, and it's fascinating that it's finally taking off, though I have no idea why now. Anyway, there's some reportage that Amazon.com is planning on extending their web services to support virtual stores within Second Life.
Finally, a reason to wed.
DRINK
I wonder what would happen if I tried to drink only beverages from Amazon's Sports & Energy Drink grocery category.
ARCHITECTURE
Believe it or not, I've actually read every single Zaha Hadid story over the past few weeks (her Guggenheim retrospective has created more press than anything since Bilbao). The only one I'll bother linking to is Slate's contrarian is she really visionary?
T-SHIRTS
Great. Now I have to hide my vintage bottle of Cristal, because if friends come over and see it, I'm a racist. On with the links:
MEDIA
The Nation's annual Entertainment State diagram.
MUSIC VIDEOS
Just forget you had a day of work ahead of you: Pitchfork's 100 Awesome Music Videos, with YouTube vids included.
Moz versus the paparazzi in "The Youngest Was The Most Loved" video.
Tapes 'n Tapes got video!
Flaming Lips cover War Pigs with Cat Power.
Sunday Bloody Sunday. Video of the year.
ARCHITECTURE
So in Minneapolis last weekend, I saw both the new Cesar Pelli library and the Jean Nouvel theater. L.A. Times has a good review of the latter. Those two plus the new Walker and new Michael Graves MIA expansion make Minneapolis the hottest architectural city of the last couple years. (UPDATE: Newsweek's "Design Dozen" drops Minneapolis as #1 in its Design City issue.)
WORDS
FILM
Slate's profile of Keillor is gosh darn good.
Onion A/V: 10 Classic Movies It's Okay To Hate.
ONLINE
You saw Ze Frank in the Sunday Times, right?
T-SHIRTS
Is This What Passes for an Ironic T-shirt.
KLOSTERMAN
Book cover to A Decade of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas is out. That's Chuck above the 'K'.
On the lack of influential video game critics in Esquire.
ONLINE
It's not at all fucked up that someone launched a celeb gossip blog in the form of Digg -- it's fucked up it was Conde Nast.
Drop a prospective hottie into SingleStat.us and it emails you when their status has changes to single (after you pay $4).
Google Map of the Apple iPod space advert (zoom in).
MUSIC
Using Cobain's suicide note to see what Google Ads turn up. Ouch.
Awesome history of a ubiquitious six-second drum break, sampled in everything from NWA's "Straight Outta Compton" to jeep commercials. You've heard it a million times but never even realized it.
This is weird. Both The Times (Sia Michel) and The Sun write up Tapes 'N Tapes and cite blogs (positively and negatively, respectively) as the primary reason for their success.
FILM
The Criterion version of Dazed & Confused comes out today.
Trailer to Woody Allen's newest (already?!), Scoop, starring Scarlett Johansson.
TV
Daily Show takes a swipe at Katie Couric in industry ad.
ONLINE
The best update of Hot Or Not of all time: Fuck Kill Marry.
The cure for illegal immigration? Webcams, of course.
TV
Typography brought down Dan Rather -- could it reveal the answers to Lost too?
NEWS
Snakes on a plane! Snakes on a plane! (But real.)
FILM
Remnick on Gore in the New Yorker.
Winona has reunited with director of Heathers for something called Sex and Death 101.
Apple on the use of Keynote in An Inconvenient Truth. A design firm actually helped him with the powerpoint.... er, keynote.
Trailer to another off-beat, quirky, indie comedy! Little Miss Sunshine, starring Steve Carell and Greg Kinnear.
T-SHIRTS
McSweeney's Lists: Comeback T-shirts, For "I'm With Stupid" T-shirts.
Boston Globe: On t-shirts and celebrity, aka art and copyright.
GAMES
So at some point I'm going to start reading Future of the Book's experimental collaborative book project on gaming, GAM3R 7H3ORY. But here's the hard question: when do I start? By the very nature of the project, it is never done. More thoughts on Future of the Book.
BOOKS
MUSIC
SPORTS
Both Klosterman and Gladwell use Kevin Garnett as important instances of different quasi-economic principles.
ONLINE
The best update of Hot Or Not of all time: Fuck Kill Marry.
The cure for illegal immigration? Webcams, of course.
TV
Typography brought down Dan Rather -- could it reveal the answers to Lost too?
NEWS
Snakes on a plane! Snakes on a plane! (But real.)
FILM
Remnick on Gore in the New Yorker.
Winona has reunited with director of Heathers for something called Sex and Death 101.
Apple on the use of Keynote in An Inconvenient Truth. A design firm actually helped him with the powerpoint.... er, keynote.
Trailer to another off-beat, quirky, indie comedy! Little Miss Sunshine, starring Steve Carell and Greg Kinnear.
T-SHIRTS
McSweeney's Lists: Comeback T-shirts, For "I'm With Stupid" T-shirts.
Boston Globe: On t-shirts and celebrity, aka art and copyright.
GAMES
So at some point I'm going to start reading Future of the Book's experimental collaborative book project on gaming, GAM3R 7H3ORY. But here's the hard question: when do I start? By the very nature of the project, it is never done. More thoughts on Future of the Book.
BOOKS
MUSIC
SPORTS
Both Klosterman and Gladwell use Kevin Garnett as important instances of different quasi-economic principles.
ONLINE
The best update of Hot Or Not of all time: Fuck Kill Marry.
The cure for illegal immigration? Webcams, of course.
TV
Typography brought down Dan Rather -- could it reveal the answers to Lost too?
NEWS
Snakes on a plane! Snakes on a plane! (But real.)
FILM
Remnick on Gore in the New Yorker.
Winona has reunited with director of Heathers for something called Sex and Death 101.
Apple on the use of Keynote in An Inconvenient Truth. A design firm actually helped him with the powerpoint.... er, keynote.
Trailer to another off-beat, quirky, indie comedy! Little Miss Sunshine, starring Steve Carell and Greg Kinnear.
T-SHIRTS
McSweeney's Lists: Comeback T-shirts, For "I'm With Stupid" T-shirts.
Boston Globe: On t-shirts and celebrity, aka art and copyright.
GAMES
So at some point I'm going to start reading Future of the Book's experimental collaborative book project on gaming, GAM3R 7H3ORY. But here's the hard question: when do I start? By the very nature of the project, it is never done. More thoughts on Future of the Book.
BOOKS
MUSIC
SPORTS
Both Klosterman and Gladwell use Kevin Garnett as important instances of different quasi-economic principles.
ONLINE
The best update of Hot Or Not of all time: Fuck Kill Marry.
The cure for illegal immigration? Webcams, of course.
TV
Typography brought down Dan Rather -- could it reveal the answers to Lost too?
NEWS
Snakes on a plane! Snakes on a plane! (But real.)
FILM
Remnick on Gore in the New Yorker.
Winona has reunited with director of Heathers for something called Sex and Death 101.
Apple on the use of Keynote in An Inconvenient Truth. A design firm actually helped him with the powerpoint.... er, keynote.
Trailer to another off-beat, quirky, indie comedy! Little Miss Sunshine, starring Steve Carell and Greg Kinnear.
T-SHIRTS
McSweeney's Lists: Comeback T-shirts, For "I'm With Stupid" T-shirts.
Boston Globe: On t-shirts and celebrity, aka art and copyright.
GAMES
So at some point I'm going to start reading Future of the Book's experimental collaborative book project on gaming, GAM3R 7H3ORY. But here's the hard question: when do I start? By the very nature of the project, it is never done. More thoughts on Future of the Book.
BOOKS
MUSIC
SPORTS
Both Klosterman and Gladwell use Kevin Garnett as important instances of different quasi-economic principles.
ONLINE
The best update of Hot Or Not of all time: Fuck Kill Marry.
The cure for illegal immigration? Webcams, of course.
TV
Typography brought down Dan Rather -- could it reveal the answers to Lost too?
NEWS
Snakes on a plane! Snakes on a plane! (But real.)
FILM
Remnick on Gore in the New Yorker.
Winona has reunited with director of Heathers for something called Sex and Death 101.
Apple on the use of Keynote in An Inconvenient Truth. A design firm actually helped him with the powerpoint.... er, keynote.
Trailer to another off-beat, quirky, indie comedy! Little Miss Sunshine, starring Steve Carell and Greg Kinnear.
T-SHIRTS
McSweeney's Lists: Comeback T-shirts, For "I'm With Stupid" T-shirts.
Boston Globe: On t-shirts and celebrity, aka art and copyright.
GAMES
So at some point I'm going to start reading Future of the Book's experimental collaborative book project on gaming, GAM3R 7H3ORY. But here's the hard question: when do I start? By the very nature of the project, it is never done. More thoughts on Future of the Book.
BOOKS
MUSIC
SPORTS
Both Klosterman and Gladwell use Kevin Garnett as important instances of different quasi-economic principles.
ONLINE
The best update of Hot Or Not of all time: Fuck Kill Marry.
The cure for illegal immigration? Webcams, of course.
TV
Typography brought down Dan Rather -- could it reveal the answers to Lost too?
NEWS
Snakes on a plane! Snakes on a plane! (But real.)
FILM
Remnick on Gore in the New Yorker.
Winona has reunited with director of Heathers for something called Sex and Death 101.
Apple on the use of Keynote in An Inconvenient Truth. A design firm actually helped him with the powerpoint.... er, keynote.
Trailer to another off-beat, quirky, indie comedy! Little Miss Sunshine, starring Steve Carell and Greg Kinnear.
T-SHIRTS
McSweeney's Lists: Comeback T-shirts, For "I'm With Stupid" T-shirts.
Boston Globe: On t-shirts and celebrity, aka art and copyright.
GAMES
So at some point I'm going to start reading Future of the Book's experimental collaborative book project on gaming, GAM3R 7H3ORY. But here's the hard question: when do I start? By the very nature of the project, it is never done. More thoughts on Future of the Book.
BOOKS
MUSIC
SPORTS
Both Klosterman and Gladwell use Kevin Garnett as important instances of different quasi-economic principles.
ONLINE
The best update of Hot Or Not of all time: Fuck Kill Marry.
The cure for illegal immigration? Webcams, of course.
TV
Typography brought down Dan Rather -- could it reveal the answers to Lost too?
NEWS
Snakes on a plane! Snakes on a plane! (But real.)
FILM
Remnick on Gore in the New Yorker.
Winona has reunited with director of Heathers for something called Sex and Death 101.
Apple on the use of Keynote in An Inconvenient Truth. A design firm actually helped him with the powerpoint.... er, keynote.
Trailer to another off-beat, quirky, indie comedy! Little Miss Sunshine, starring Steve Carell and Greg Kinnear.
T-SHIRTS
McSweeney's Lists: Comeback T-shirts, For "I'm With Stupid" T-shirts.
Boston Globe: On t-shirts and celebrity, aka art and copyright.
GAMES
So at some point I'm going to start reading Future of the Book's experimental collaborative book project on gaming, GAM3R 7H3ORY. But here's the hard question: when do I start? By the very nature of the project, it is never done. More thoughts on Future of the Book.
BOOKS
MUSIC
SPORTS
Both Klosterman and Gladwell use Kevin Garnett as important instances of different quasi-economic principles.
ONLINE
The best update of Hot Or Not of all time: Fuck Kill Marry.
The cure for illegal immigration? Webcams, of course.
TV
Typography brought down Dan Rather -- could it reveal the answers to Lost too?
NEWS
Snakes on a plane! Snakes on a plane! (But real.)
FILM
Remnick on Gore in the New Yorker.
Winona has reunited with director of Heathers for something called Sex and Death 101.
Apple on the use of Keynote in An Inconvenient Truth. A design firm actually helped him with the powerpoint.... er, keynote.
Trailer to another off-beat, quirky, indie comedy! Little Miss Sunshine, starring Steve Carell and Greg Kinnear.
T-SHIRTS
McSweeney's Lists: Comeback T-shirts, For "I'm With Stupid" T-shirts.
Boston Globe: On t-shirts and celebrity, aka art and copyright.
GAMES
So at some point I'm going to start reading Future of the Book's experimental collaborative book project on gaming, GAM3R 7H3ORY. But here's the hard question: when do I start? By the very nature of the project, it is never done. More thoughts on Future of the Book.
BOOKS
MUSIC
SPORTS
Both Klosterman and Gladwell use Kevin Garnett as important instances of different quasi-economic principles.
ONLINE
The best update of Hot Or Not of all time: Fuck Kill Marry.
The cure for illegal immigration? Webcams, of course.
TV
Typography brought down Dan Rather -- could it reveal the answers to Lost too?
NEWS
Snakes on a plane! Snakes on a plane! (But real.)
FILM
Remnick on Gore in the New Yorker.
Winona has reunited with director of Heathers for something called Sex and Death 101.
Apple on the use of Keynote in An Inconvenient Truth. A design firm actually helped him with the powerpoint.... er, keynote.
Trailer to another off-beat, quirky, indie comedy! Little Miss Sunshine, starring Steve Carell and Greg Kinnear.
T-SHIRTS
McSweeney's Lists: Comeback T-shirts, For "I'm With Stupid" T-shirts.
Boston Globe: On t-shirts and celebrity, aka art and copyright.
GAMES
So at some point I'm going to start reading Future of the Book's experimental collaborative book project on gaming, GAM3R 7H3ORY. But here's the hard question: when do I start? By the very nature of the project, it is never done. More thoughts on Future of the Book.
BOOKS
MUSIC
SPORTS
Both Klosterman and Gladwell use Kevin Garnett as important instances of different quasi-economic principles.
ONLINE
The best update of Hot Or Not of all time: Fuck Kill Marry.
The cure for illegal immigration? Webcams, of course.
TV
Typography brought down Dan Rather -- could it reveal the answers to Lost too?
NEWS
Snakes on a plane! Snakes on a plane! (But real.)
FILM
Remnick on Gore in the New Yorker.
Winona has reunited with director of Heathers for something called Sex and Death 101.
Apple on the use of Keynote in An Inconvenient Truth. A design firm actually helped him with the powerpoint.... er, keynote.
Trailer to another off-beat, quirky, indie comedy! Little Miss Sunshine, starring Steve Carell and Greg Kinnear.
T-SHIRTS
McSweeney's Lists: Comeback T-shirts, For "I'm With Stupid" T-shirts.
Boston Globe: On t-shirts and celebrity, aka art and copyright.
GAMES
So at some point I'm going to start reading Future of the Book's experimental collaborative book project on gaming, GAM3R 7H3ORY. But here's the hard question: when do I start? By the very nature of the project, it is never done. More thoughts on Future of the Book.
BOOKS
MUSIC
SPORTS
Both Klosterman and Gladwell use Kevin Garnett as important instances of different quasi-economic principles.
ONLINE
The best update of Hot Or Not of all time: Fuck Kill Marry.
The cure for illegal immigration? Webcams, of course.
TV
Typography brought down Dan Rather -- could it reveal the answers to Lost too?
NEWS
Snakes on a plane! Snakes on a plane! (But real.)
FILM
Remnick on Gore in the New Yorker.
Winona has reunited with director of Heathers for something called Sex and Death 101.
Apple on the use of Keynote in An Inconvenient Truth. A design firm actually helped him with the powerpoint.... er, keynote.
Trailer to another off-beat, quirky, indie comedy! Little Miss Sunshine, starring Steve Carell and Greg Kinnear.
T-SHIRTS
McSweeney's Lists: Comeback T-shirts, For "I'm With Stupid" T-shirts.
Boston Globe: On t-shirts and celebrity, aka art and copyright.
GAMES
So at some point I'm going to start reading Future of the Book's experimental collaborative book project on gaming, GAM3R 7H3ORY. But here's the hard question: when do I start? By the very nature of the project, it is never done. More thoughts on Future of the Book.
BOOKS
MUSIC
SPORTS
Both Klosterman and Gladwell use Kevin Garnett as important instances of different quasi-economic principles.
ONLINE
The best update of Hot Or Not of all time: Fuck Kill Marry.
The cure for illegal immigration? Webcams, of course.
TV
Typography brought down Dan Rather -- could it reveal the answers to Lost too?
NEWS
Snakes on a plane! Snakes on a plane! (But real.)
FILM
Remnick on Gore in the New Yorker.
Winona has reunited with director of Heathers for something called Sex and Death 101.
Apple on the use of Keynote in An Inconvenient Truth. A design firm actually helped him with the powerpoint.... er, keynote.
Trailer to another off-beat, quirky, indie comedy! Little Miss Sunshine, starring Steve Carell and Greg Kinnear.
T-SHIRTS
McSweeney's Lists: Comeback T-shirts, For "I'm With Stupid" T-shirts.
Boston Globe: On t-shirts and celebrity, aka art and copyright.
GAMES
So at some point I'm going to start reading Future of the Book's experimental collaborative book project on gaming, GAM3R 7H3ORY. But here's the hard question: when do I start? By the very nature of the project, it is never done. More thoughts on Future of the Book.
BOOKS
MUSIC
SPORTS
Both Klosterman and Gladwell use Kevin Garnett as important instances of different quasi-economic principles.
ONLINE
The best update of Hot Or Not of all time: Fuck Kill Marry.
The cure for illegal immigration? Webcams, of course.
TV
Typography brought down Dan Rather -- could it reveal the answers to Lost too?
NEWS
Snakes on a plane! Snakes on a plane! (But real.)
FILM
Remnick on Gore in the New Yorker.
Winona has reunited with director of Heathers for something called Sex and Death 101.
Apple on the use of Keynote in An Inconvenient Truth. A design firm actually helped him with the powerpoint.... er, keynote.
Trailer to another off-beat, quirky, indie comedy! Little Miss Sunshine, starring Steve Carell and Greg Kinnear.
T-SHIRTS
McSweeney's Lists: Comeback T-shirts, For "I'm With Stupid" T-shirts.
Boston Globe: On t-shirts and celebrity, aka art and copyright.
GAMES
So at some point I'm going to start reading Future of the Book's experimental collaborative book project on gaming, GAM3R 7H3ORY. But here's the hard question: when do I start? By the very nature of the project, it is never done. More thoughts on Future of the Book.
BOOKS
MUSIC
SPORTS
Both Klosterman and Gladwell use Kevin Garnett as important instances of different quasi-economic principles.
Ya know, I haven't seen the Al Gore movie yet, but how fucking awesome is it that a gigantic powerpoint has been getting raves? It give nerds hope.... too much hope. On with the links:
MUSIC
National Review's Conservative Top 50 Songs. Fuck you, classic rock.
I started watching this commercial for Beck's beer thinking it was a new Beck music video. Actually, is there any difference anymore?
Suicide Girls interview with Mike Patton, whose Peeping Tom came out this week.
ONLINE
The New Yorker revisits Jason and Meg. The original, from six years ago. Gawker's take.
TV
I wonder why Pinky and the Brain isn't on DVD.
Holy shit, there's a lot of bad reality tv coming to network this summer.
LISTS
Chronicle of Higher Ed: The Lure of Lists.
WORDS
Guardian Mag profile of Douglas Coupland, in which 1) he subtly disses Steven Berlin Johnson's game book, 2) we learn he has a movie called Everything's Gone Green coming out, and 3) he delivers his definition of irony.
FILM
Google has movie trailers now too.
TV
I was just thinking the other day how strange it is that Amazon hasn't significantly monetized IMDB.com. Then along came this NYT profile of the founder.
Is Lost the best thing on TV, like, ever? There are too many topics to link to (Dickens?), but here's a strange interview on Jimmy Kimmel with the Communications Director of the Hanso Foundation?
T-SHIRTS
MUSIC
National Day of Slayer (6/6/06 -- June 6, 2006) is coming up.
Pitchfork's long look at the state of current and future music recommendation systems is pretty good.
Tapes 'n Tapes link: Hey, I recognize that apartment.
FILM
An archive of William Burroughs cut-up films and audio.
Salam Pax's book is being made into a movie.
FOOD
Amazon.com has launched a grocery section. In other news, a certain nerd in Seattle decides his entire life will consists of the Microsoft cafeteria and whatever he can buy off Amazon.
ONLINE
PopURLS.com aggregates the aggregators, or something like that.
The Morning News gives its Online Excellence Awards.
THINKING
Brian Grazer and Malcolm Gladwell have a hair-off on the Charlie Rose show. Among other things, they talk about Gawker.
MEDIA
At the end of last year, I chose Arianna Huffington as an "artist of the year." My lede: "The Huffington Post should completely suck." David Carr notices the one-year anniversary of The Huffington Post in The Times. His lede?
"When it began a year ago, The Huffington Post seemed like a remarkably bad idea." Yo, just sayin.
WORDS
NYT Mag: Scan This Book! Surprisingly polemic towards the end, but spot-on.
NYT: Media Immersion Pods in Tokyo.
TV
Okay, why hasn't the Al Gore on SNL thing been yanked of YouTube yet? I'll never understand...
NYT gave my fave girl Virginia Heffernan an upfronts blog. It's snarky!
T-SHIRTS
MUSIC
Klosterman texted me from the ooh-ooh-big-deal GNR show in NYC ("Axl got thin again!"), but the big news is that Axl is obsessed with his online persona.
FILM
Wow. This is the best thing since those Negativland Casey Kasem tapes: Siskel and Ebert behind-the-scenes from 1987.
MUSIC - REMIX
MNstories has a couple videos of Mark Hosler of Negativland setting up his exhibit at Creative Electric in Minneapolis. Hosler has been hanging out in MSP for a few weeks now -- makes me miss home.
Excellent Daily Show segment on Mini Kiss versus Tiny Kiss.
Remix David Byrne and Brian Eno's My Life in the Bush of Ghosts.
Who needs Axl when you have Fergie butchering GNR songs.
Blender: 500 Greatest Songs Written Since You Were Born | Rolling Stone: Most Excellent Songs Of Every Year Since 1967.
TV
The Lloyd Dobler moment for a new generation, from The Office finale: Jim says "I'm in love with you." Response: "What are you doing?"
ONLINE
On the page listing the NYTimes.com blogs, I see they've given Stanley Fish an education blog called "Think Again," but it's barred in behind Times Select.
Huh, even The New Yorker is getting into online video: Ken Auletta in conversation with Terry Semel.
25 Things I Learned on Google Trends.
LoveLines is an interesting little interface.
FILM
Scanner Darkly remix contest.
WORDS
Compare Kurt Anderson's good essay on plagiarism from last week with Malcolm Gladwell's equally good essay on plagiarism from last year.
BOOKS
Finally, a follow-up to my very old Amazon list "College Friends Who Punched Me," I have created "My Year As..." in response to the spate of recent books in which people do something (strip, change genders, read the encyclopedia, etc.) for a year. Let me know what's missing from the list.
ONLINE
NYT Biz: Making money with MySpace. (Onion: New MySpace Security Measures infographic.)
Onion: iTunes To Sell You Your Home Videos For $1.99 Each.
Be honest, you spent your Sunday reading the Google/China NYT Mag story too.
TV
NYT (Itzkoff again) on Robert Smigel's upcoming SNL retrospective.
Full-length video on IFCtv.com: Behind The Badge (SXSW), with by Ben Brown of Consumating as the interactive lead.
Just when I began to think we had no modern cultural heros left, the Wonder Showzen guys come along.
MUSIC
Love the new Air video.
"Once you hear my audio demo, you'll just be blazed!"
Blender (on AOL?): The 50 Worst Things To Ever Happen To Music.
Smashing Pumpkins. Despite all my rage...
T-SHIRTS
TV
The single best piece of tv in 2006 so far has been SNL's TV Funhouse take on Disney. Which leads to the question: why isn't TV Funhouse available on DVD? (SNL will be airing a "Best Of" special on April 29.)
MAGAZINES
Diesel Sweeties on the music magazine.
Magazine Death Pool (dot-com).
NOSTALGIA
Do you remember Bill Paxton and Judge Reinhold being in the video to Pat Benatar's "Shadow of the Night"? And that it has a Nazi theme? And that it has Pat as a Dancer In The Dark-era Bjork-like character fantasizing in a Rosie the Riveter get-up? Is this really what the '80s were like?
Kerouac on The Steve Allen Show, interviewed by William F. Buckley, and eulogized by Walter Cronkite. Is this really what the '60s were like?
SODA
I'm obsessed with Coke Blak in the same way I was obsessed with OK Soda.
FILM
Trailer to The Fountain, Aronofsky's newest.
Best Week Ever wants to know if The Legend of Simon Conjurer (starring Jon Voight) is an elaborate hoax. Trailer.
ONLINE
Webcam vids have truly gone postmodern: Watching Norna (NYT) and Webcam Girls Gone Wild.
MySpace, what have you wrought? "thanks for the add you guys rock".
MAPS
CITIES
Last time I was in San Francisco, I hung out in a nearly vacant South Park, which now is filling up again.
For the archive, last week's NYT Mag analysis of North Dakota.
My life coach (Daily Show | NYT Styles) says I better get blogging again because not even Amanda reads me anymore. So here are some links:
FRIENDS
I have much to talk about, but first here are some updates from various Friends of Fimoculous:
Tapes 'N Tapes were on last week's Best Week Ever. After taking SXSW by storm (and landing an 8.3 on Pitchfork), last night they played the last show on this tour here in Seattle. They were awesome.
Diablo Cody was on Letterman last week. So best, go girl.
Michaelangelo Matos has exited his perch as the music critic at the Seattle Weekly to join the up-and-coming eMusic. For his final goodbye, he gives a farewell mixed tape to Seattle.
Waxy is still fighting Bill Cosby.
Elizabeth Spiers' DealBreaker.com launches on Wednesday. Interview.
Chuck Olsen interviewed Bruce Sterling.
Klosterman wrote an essay for the upcoming Criterion version of Dazed & Confused. His forthcoming book, Chuck Klosterman IV, is a collection of his previously-published work.
MNstories did a video of my farewell party in Minneapolis. That's really not me crying at the end.
TV
Whoa, did you know Andy Milonakis is 30 years old? According to The Times, he has a growth hormone condition. He's the Gary Coleman of our times!
In addition to VH1's Web Junk 20 and Bravo's Viral Videos, other upcoming projects include a show on USA based upon eBaum's World and a show on NBC called The Net With Carson Daly. In the future, everyone will create a viral video.
The first season of Wonder Showzen is coming out on DVD this week.
BOOKS
Which is more peculiar -- that Terry Gross' interview with J.T. LeRoy is online without any notation of recent events, or that J.T. LeRoy sounds so obviously like a chick in the interview?
Enter the ISBN number of a book into BarnesAndNoble.com and get a quote for how much they will buy it for. Cool.
I've been busy alphabetizing my CDs and running to Ikea for book shelves, so somewhere along the way I missed that Malcolm Gladwell started a blog.
Although I'm morally obligated to read every book even remotely related to the internet (especially if it has something to do with blogging), I haven't decided whether to dive into Kos' Crashing The Gate. The decent NYTBR review includes the first chapter, so maybe that's a good starting point.
FILM
[Insert Snakes on a Plane link here.]
Well, at least William Gibson liked V is for Vendetta.
A second Scanner Darkly trailer.
MUSIC
Go read Douglas Coupland's "interview" with Morrisey, which is really an essay on the state of the interview.
Even Tom Waits once did a commercial -- for dog food, no less. It's especially interesting since he later sued Frito-Lay for impersonating him.
ONLINE
There's hope for all of us: Jason and Meg got married. Remember when they sorta spatted on Blogumentary?
Newsweek's cover story: Putting the 'We' in the Web.
You've probably read Danah's essay on why Friendster lost to MySpace, but here's the link anyway.
CITIES
The Top 15 Skylines in the World.
GAMES
One of the many things I like about Wired is that it truly is a magazine. That is, for all the talk about the death of print, Wired stories are the best example of the perfection of a medium that doesn't easily translate into other mediums. You can, for instance, read most of Will Wright's game issue online, but it's not nearly the experience that the magazine is. (See also: Wright doing a walk-through of Spore.)
On the new Google Finance, you won't find this info: how much of Google stock that Google execs have sold.
FOOD
Every side-street around Microsoft campus seems to have one of those create-a-home-meal shops, so I'm not surprised to learn that Seattle is home to one of the biggest chains. From the NYT story: "The prototype, a kind of elevated cooking session among friends in a commercial kitchen, popped up in the Northwest in 1999. The concept did not take off until 2002, when two Seattle-area women streamlined the process so customers could make 12 dinners for six in two hours for under $200. That company became Dream Dinners, which opened a year later and now has 112 franchise stores, with 64 under construction." (Old MNspeak thread on the MSP-based versions.)
QUASI-PERSONAL
I'm moving to Seattle in a few weeks and can't decide whether to change my phone number -- from a 612 area code to a 206 area code. NYT Styles tells me this is the existential crisis of our times, or something like that.
Similarly, there's also this little trend piece about girls taking pictures of themselves. I've asked girlfriends about this peculiar obsession, and they all claim that it's somehow liberating.
FILM
Put this one together: Michel Gondry will direct a Rudy Rucker novel with a screenplay written by Daniel Clowes and starring Jack Black. C'mon, that doesn't even make sense.
A Scanner Darkly trailer. Sweet.
TV
Did anyone else think that the scene in last week's Lost in which Hurley was caught with a stash of food was simply a ploy to explain that he wasn't losing weight on the island? Well, according to a Maxim interview, he has lost 30 pounds.
MUSIC
Video. Of. The. Year. Kanye's "Touch The Sky".
That Arctic Monkey album that the English won't shut the hell up about comes out Tuesday.
So there's new buzz on the internets that Axl will actually release Chinese Democracy soon. Even Slash says so. Stereogum has some MP3s. They suck.
ONLINE
Video of Daily Show's MySpace segment. Brilliant. Here's Demetri's MySpace page -- 19,000 friends!
Daytrading is back -- in Japan.
Just when you thought you heard everything about Web 2.0, how about a Marx comparison!? Oh, Weekly Standard. Doy.
WORDS
Could this be my first link to a William Safire column? Let's just assume so: Blargon, which looks at blog jargon. Some people are already looking for errors.
Good interview with The Smoking Gun regarding the Frey scandal.
FOOD
The real reason that people like a New York Times food critic should have a blog is so that they can occasionally write about Hooter's.
PERSONAL
City Pages this week has interviews with Craig Newmark and... ME! It reads pretty nerdy, but it sprawled into an interesting citizen journalism conversation on MNspeak.
USA Today gives props to our Olympics videoplayer strategy, but points to a future in which everything will likely be online. (This topic is huge, and maybe I'll write about it after the Olympics.)
TV ON THE INTERNET
Matt Haughey's little essay on Blogging TV and YouTube is right on. I hope lawyers don't squash this.
So best: Tom Cruise on Oprah, as it should have been.
Fox Reality is a new entire channel dedicated to reality tv. Reality Remix is a show -- staring Kennedy! -- that is now completely available online.
FILM
When did this sneak up us? Basic Instinct 2, starring MILF-ish Sharon Stone. Who knows, it could even be okay (I actually love the campiness of the first). No Michael Douglas though.
The 10 Best Sci-Fi Films That Never Existed is pretty darn awesome.
ONLINE
NYT reports on on sites like Don't Date Him Girl, which are out to ruin my life. (C'mon, I'm kidding.)
Ya know, I really liked Clive's NY Mag blog story. Nice seeing my pal Rojas on the cover.
I've ditched my Netflix account because I had stopped using it (too much TiVo, too much DVD buying), but now I see they are testing a $5/month plan, which could bring me back.
DRUNKS
Nerve.com: Last Night on Earth, a photo-essay inspired by the wrtings of Bukowski.
MUSIC
Yeah Yeah Yeahs in the New Yorker. Would you like to see the video for the first single? Okay.
PRETTY GIRLS
Kristen Bell (i.e., Veronica Mars) in Maxim.
I heard Sports Illustrated half-naked girls on the internet today.
What the Victoria's Secret catalogue looked like in 1977. Weird.
TV
Did you skip the Olympics to see the last two hours of Arrested Development? Thank you, TiVo. (The show finished fifth in ratings for the night -- after the Olympics, Dancing with the Stars, WWE's Friday Night Smackdown, and a Ghost Whisperer re-run. Go America!)
It was pretty good, but it's also a mystery why the Pamela Anderson roast is being released on DVD.
Biz Week: Can MTV Stay Cool?
DATING/SEX
TiVo is holding a Wishlist Mixer in San Fran. Dammit, I'm moving to the wrong city.
The editor of Modern Love give his stake on the state of love in contemporary America. I seem to disagree with half of it.
Mike Figgis made a short film, Tied up at the Office [not safe for the office], for lingerie peddlers Agent Provocateur. I get it as much as I got Demon Lover.
Found on Amazon: Pierced Attachable Nipples. C'mon, for real?
DESIGN
T-SHIRTS
That controversial Mohammed cartoon has been turned into a t-shirt.
Cheney gun t-shirts already.
BOOKS
There was actually a book (Nic Kelman's 2003 novel, Girls) that had blurbs on it written by both James Frey and JT Leroy.
FILM
Kottke on Ebert on "hyperlink movies."
ONLINE
The Huffington Post's Contagious Film Festival is out. Meh. I wonder if the Gawker one will be better.
Which internet company is the least willing to provide financial information about itself? Not Google -- it's Amazon.
NYT has does a quick story with examples of searches on the new Google.cn.
Google, cover of Time. Blah, blah.
ART
On made-to-order artwork for offices.
MUSIC VIDEOS
I don't care what you say, these last few Madonna vids have been good. Her new video for "Sorry" has more street dancing, this tine looking like crumping-meets-Barbarella-meets-Mad-Max.
Check it out, two updates in one week. Someone call the Weblog Awards, pronto.
QUASI-PERSONAL
Intel is debuting a new DVR-ish technology called Viiv with us on NBColympics.com. This Biz Week story explains.
The SXSW Interactive list of evening events. Looks fun. I still haven't decided if I'm going -- will have moved to Seattle just days before it starts.
TRAILERS
Dave Chappelle's Block Party, directed by Michel Gondry.
New Jack Black: Nacho Libre.
Let's watch that Sofia Coppola Marie Antoinette trailer again, shall we?
MUSIC VIDEOS
Harmony Korine directs new Cat Power video.
New Goldfrapp video: Ride a White Horse.
CEREAL
Cereality, the cereal cafe that first opened in Philly, is starting to spread.
New Johnny Depp cereal. Which would you rather have -- your own cereal or your own scent?
ONLINE
Current Rocketboom ad price: $30K. Biz Week has an audio interview with Andrew.
MAGAZINES
Vanity Fair steals a scene from my life for its cover.
BOOKS
Bloggers chicks with book deals.
FOOD
TV
The Stephen Colbert Newsweek story.
FUN
The JT Leroy hoax is sadly over.
TV ON THE INTERNET
Look at all this: 1) NBC is producing an internet-only reality tv show called Star Tomorrow. 2) Bravo will launch a site, OutZone.tv, with original gay programming. 3) AOL and Mark Burnett are working on an internet reality tv show called Gold Rush. 4) NBC is greenlighting Carson's Cyberhood, a showcase of homemade videos. 5) Amazon is starting an original talk show hosted by Bill Maher called Amazon Fishbowl. All of these online-only -- no broadcast.
Occasionally funny: MySpace: The Movie. "Why am I not in your top eight?"
Current Rocketboom ad price: $15K
Super Bowl ads via Google Video.
MUSIC
Alright, what the hell is this about? Disney hijacked Devo for... Devo 2.0?
ONLINE
This is painful: Blogonomics Blog Cruise.
New Denton blog: Valleywag. Gotta love the post about the Larry Page's girlfriends.
FILM
More trailer mashups: Brokeback to the Future.
Or how about fake trailers? Tarantino and Rodriguez have crazy ideas.
What was the weirdest part of the Super Bowl? Noticing during the Mission Impossible III trailer that Philip Seymour Hoffman is the main villain in the movie. Here's a PSH interview with David Remnick.
SPORTS
Klosterman's ESPN.com Super Bowl blog was quite fun, right? He talks about blogging here.
MEDIA
The editor of the SF Bay Guardian thinks that Craig Newmark isn't the hero you think he is. Anil responds.
TV
Time's tv critic, James Poniewozik, has a blog: Tuned In.
FAKE NEWS
A new journal for cross-disciplinary studies in plagiarism, fabrication, and falsification: Plagiary. [via NYT story.]
Next time. Next time I'll live blog Frey on Oprah too. Kick it:
PERSONAL
Hey, I sold my community website, MNspeak.com. Now if I could only sell this dumb thing...
ROCKETBOOM
Psst, Amanda is going to be on this Thursday's episode of CSI.
Andrew has decided to auction off his first Rocketboom advertising on eBay.
ONLINE
So I had been away from the blogging world for a few weeks and I come back to see embedded video everywhere via You Tube. Looks like this could quickly become what Google Video and Current.TV and Brightcove (and several others) wanted to be overnight.
Wow, someone did the research that I've been dying to know: how much is a viewer in advertising revenue versus download revenue? The answer: $.57 for advertising to $1.44 for download (with a ton of caveats applied).
The Joshua Schachter interviews is becoming the new Craig Newmark interview.
Very long yet surprisingly uninformative NYT story on Yahoo.
FILM
Via a WSJ story not online, weekend box office reports on Bubble are quite disappointing.
Veronica Mars is in a computer movie! Looks like it sucks though.
Filmmaker interview with Linklater on A Scanner Darkly. Res has one too, but it's not online.
COMEDY
Decent NYT Styles story on the rise of the alternative comedy scene.
ADVERTISING
Alright, PETA has gone too far.
CONSUMPTION
Gillette Fusion is out. Five! Fucking! Blades! My Mach3 is totally Atari 2600 now.
MUSIC VIDEOS
Huh, the Gondry-directed video for Kanye's "Heard 'Em Say" came out after all.
Trent Rezor pre-NIN is very Flock of Seagulls.
LISTS
Oh yeah, the lists of lists aggregation machine.
FILM
Media pundits are flopping around like suffocating carp over Soderbergh's new movie, Bubble (trailer), which will be released on DVD (now available for pre-order on Amazon) just a few days after it comes out in theaters.
T-SHIRTS
Is Chuck a t-shirt merchant now? I guess so. His newest (and strangest) Esquire column invites you to buy one of these t-shirts.
ONLINE
From last month, a Rolling Stone profile of the guy who created NowThatsFuckedUp.com, which is extremely fucked up -- among other things, the site contains gruesome unedited photos of people killed in Iraq.
Tag everything: TagWorld.
Last year's totally old rumor is back: Yahoo to buy Technorati?
Current.TV has put up a training module for citizen vlogging called survival guide. Meanwhile, Blogumentary has Vlognomics.
TV
Anyone else notice that nearly all the skits on this weekend's SNL contained musical numbers, including the intro monologue by Scarlett Johanson? Lazy Sunday, what have you wrought?
Outrageous Firsts in Television History. First toilet on tv, first use of the word fuck, first abortion, first rape, and of course first lesbian kiss.
Did you catch the first episode of Web Junk 20, the new show created by Viacom for VH1 after purchasing iFilm (VH1 link | iFIlm link). Why does it suck so much?
GADGETS
Although I've already got a Harmony 880 remote, this new SimpleRemote with WiFi sure does look tantalizing.
MUSIC VIDEOS
Wikipedia entry for Trapped in the Closet. The DVD is awesome.
3030Media.net is collecting some of the best hip-hop vid clips on tv, including the amazing Lil Wayne / Robin Thicke performance on Leon last which, which Kelefa gave a NYT shout-out to.
ADVERTISING
Cool Sony commercials in which balls are set free in San Francisco.
The Go Daddy commercials that won't air on the Super Bowl. Boring.
MEDIA
Think your a hot shot in forecasting the big events in 2006 culture? Take the USA Today quiz to make your predictions.
BOOKS
I've had several conversations with people who so greatly misinterpreted Gladwell's Blink that it seemed they never read it, but I never realized someone could write a whole book about his misinterpretation: Think.
I should really start a whole blog about last week's James Frey scandal, but here are just some related links: mammoth Kottke thread, Laura Miller at Salon offers her take, a history of literary hoaxes, and what will happen to Frey's and JT Leroy's movie deals?
MOVIE TRAILERS
Idlewild, the new Outkast film.
Miami Vice, the Jaimie Foxx / Colin Farrell version directed by Michael Mann.
Apocalypto, in which Mel Gibson goes native.
Tristram Shandy, the first postmodern novel turned into movie.
Manderlay, in which Lars von Trier continues his Beckett-inspired movie-plays.
Apologies for the navel-gazing nature of this post, but a lot has happened in my life lately, and since this is ostensibly a personal blog (hi Mom!), here are some notes on recent personal events:
+ At work, we recently launched this new little site: NBCOlympics.com. The winter games are in Torino, Italy in February.
+ Friends, family, and pretty much all of Minneapolis already knows this, but I've never officially announced it to the estranged readers of Fimoculous: After the Olympics, I will be moving to Seattle, where I took a new job at MSNBC.com. As you probably know, MSNBC.com is co-owned by NBC and Microsoft, so I'll be working on the Microsoft campus in a fun new capacity. I'll have more to say about it later, but in the meantime... Seattle, holla fo' me, yo.
+ I was hoping to make an exciting announcement on the future of MNspeak (my local citizen journalism site) by now, but we're still sorting that out. Soon....
+ The annual list of lists got some press attention again this year. A sampling: NY Times mention (text), WCCO story (video), WAMC interview (audio), Rocketboom mention (video), Rex Blog interview (text).
+ For City Pages' annual "Artists Of The Year", I wrote about Arianna Huffington (second entry).
+ I have an essay in the new book Digital Think from the New Media Institute.
+ Random quote in a Pioneer Press story about the effect blogging will have on the '06 political season: "I'm not sure those kinds of blogs are going to change anything in the world."
That's all for now. My '06 resolution: Make Fimoculous cool again.
Although I'll continue to add lists as they come in, it looks like List of Lists: 2005 is winding down. As a final punctuating coda to the year, here are my Top 20 Lists of 2005:
1) Mug Shots Of The Year from The Smoking Gun
2) Top 100 People from USA Today's Pop Candy
3) The Year In Ideas from New York Times Magazine
4) 100 Most Annoying Things from Retro Crush
5) The Best Links from Kottke.org
6) Top Viral Videos from iFilm
7) Top 20 Public Domain Files from Public Domain Torrents
8) Year In Review from Week In Review
9) 100 Most Annoying People from Am I Annoying
10) The Year In Swag from The Onion A/V Club
11) Top 50 Music Videos from DoCopenhagen
12) The Year In Corrections from Regret The Error
13) Top 10 Baby Names from Babycenter
14) 10 Sexiest Geeks from Wired News
15) Best Cast & Dogs from Dogster / Catster
16) Words of the Year from Merriam-Webster's
17) Banished Words from Lake Superior State University
18) Google Zeitgeist from Google
19) 10 Grossest Things We Saw On TV from Entertainment Weekly
20) Top Cryptozoology Stories from Loren Coleman
Are we there yet?
While everyone else tells you that 2005 was the year of disasters and chaos, I was too busy trying to figure out the cultural significance of Million Dollar Homepage and the E!'s Michael Jackson trial re-enactments.
Okay, it wasn't a great year, but at least you didn't hear anyone use the phrase "year of the blog" anymore. So just thank your lucky stars the whole friggin world didn't blow up, and prepare yourself for next year when it undoubtedly will.
And with that shot of optimism, I present my idiosyncratic mix of Predictions for 2006 in Media, Technology, and Pop Culture.
1) Netflix will be bought by TiVo, which will be bought by Yahoo. Since I obviously should be drawn and quartered for last year's prediction that Apple would buy TiVo, I might as well double-down on my bet.
2) Absolutely no one will buy Knight Ridder. C'mon, would you?
3) NBC's new Thursday comedy line up will be a big enough success that tv execs will once again try to invoke the phrase "destination tv," while the rest of us have no idea what network or time the shows are even on because our TiVo neglects to tell us.
4) A new Pew study will reveal something about internet use that will be drastically over-cited by people who are reading this blog post.
5) David Chappelle will do something that makes everyone ask "why the hell did he do that?" It will be "brilliant," but "enigmatic and frustrating."
6) Showtime will pick up Arrested Development. And then Showtime will announce a deal with iTunes in which the show becomes the first of its kind to have more viewers watching via portable player than on tv.
7) "Hello Katie, welcome to CBS."
8) After a guest appearance on Veronica Mars, Amanda Congdon will sign a deal to host a new show on UPN. That's Viacom-owned UPN, peeps. You know, CBS. So get ready for the Katie and Amanda show in '07.
9) Book publishers will drop their silly little fiat and announce a triumphant partnership with Google Print.
10) Nonetheless, Google's stock price will slip 20% by the end of the year.
11) Someone in Seattle or San Francisco will get beaten to death at a dinner party after saying the words "Web 2.0" for the five-trillionth time before the first course.
12) 2005: the year of search. 2006: the year of mobile. No, for real this time! The big change will be that carriers open up the deck to external providers. Why? Because Google releases the killer mobile apps that everyone needs. Seriously!
13) Current TV will start to show up in Nielsen. The numbers will be good, not great.
14) The break-up of Viacom will have unforeseen repercussions. Okay, that's vague, but I predict no less than three essays from Marketwatch.com about the failure of the split.
15) Steve Jobs will announce a DVR. That one's a no-brainer, but the big deal here is that iTunes video downloads will skyrocket. No wait, that's a no-brainer too. Fine, I predict...
16) iTunes will give in to record labels and adjust pricing such that songs will range from $.50 to $2. Oh hell, another no-brainer.
17) Sirius will double subscribers but it still won't be enough to pay Howard Stern's salary.
18) David Letterman will announce his retirement. Or at least I hope so, because right now it's like watching your favorite band from the '80s do a reunion show.
19) Microsoft's new operating system, Vista, will launch in mid-summer, and will get surprisingly good reviews.
20) Despite the L.A. Times' dismal failure, several media organizations will release successful wikis -- this time, in areas that actually make sense.
21) Martha Stewart will quietly become a nobody. Donald Trump, however, will still somehow manage to remain famous.
22) Mary-Kate and Ashley will return. Where the hell did they go, anyway? Some upcoming indie film director will cast them in a "quirky New York film" with Parker Posey playing their mom. Gen-Xers suddenly realize they're the next Baby Boomers.
23) One person will finally figure out a cool use for Google Base, sparking over-use of the word "mashup" by Slashdot nerds.
24) At the end of the year, the New York Times will drop Times Select. Soon after, CNN.com will make Pipeline free.
25) Despite some inspired ideas, Craig Newmark's new journalism project won't be a gigantic success, but it will inspire others sites that quickly take off.
26) News Corp's purchase of MySpace will yield a decent record label that has a surprise hit.
27) FBC -- Fox Business Channel -- will launch. Pundits describe it as "more fun" than CNBC.
28) Ten major cities will release city-wide WiFi.
29) Fergie from Black-Eyed Peas will announce a solo album. It will be Entertainment Weekly's worst album of the year for 2006.
30) The New York Times Sunday Styles section will write a trend piece about the trend of trend pieces. It will then implode.
31) Chuck Klosterman will announce he's writing new columns for Vanity Fair, Wired, and Modern Midwestern Living.
32) Fimoculous.com makes a triumphant return as an "almost decent" blog.
33) Anderson Cooper will claim he's the father of Katie Holmes' baby. A wicked paternity suit -- in which everyone refuses to take DNA tests -- ensues.
Note: I have zero insider knowledge on any of these predictions. And except for the last one, I actually believe them all, if only metaphorically in some cases.
FILM
The trailer to Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette looks almost like a parody music video.
TV
NYT Styles tries to convince you that men like Neanderthal TV.
Rocketboom is now available on TiVo. (Lookie, Amanda in the Times.)
Season Seven of The Simpsons came out on DVD yesterday. And so did Season Two of Miami Vice.
SEX
The teaser on the print edition of this NYT story was "Pamela Rogers Turner was 28; her lover, or victim, 13. Discuss." I've had about a dozen conversations recently about these cases.
ONLINE
Yeah, you know already: Yahoo bought del.icio.us.
Adam Penenberg used to write a column at Wired News, but has moved over the Slate where he's done a couple great piece on Apple/iTunes/iPod: Apple's Next Move | The Right Price for Digital Music.
GAMES
MUSIC
iTunes now sells more music than Tower Records, Sam Goody, and Borders (but it's still behind Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Amazon, etc.).
Who's gonna play Janis Joplin in that new biopic? Pink!
Here's a clip of Kanye on BET in which he talks about his Bush-hates-black-people remarks, plays a strange game of name-that-historical-quote, and introduces his new video for "Heard 'Em Say."
TV
Remember the guy who won a bjillion dollars on Press Your Luck? Here's the video from the episode.
NYT: Itzkoff does a nice job getting at the mystery behind Dave Chappelle and his Las Vegas shows.
MACHINIMA
Haven't seen any xBox 360 machinimas yet, but The Codex is getting rave reviews lately.
Machinima about the riots in France.
MEDIA
Stock prices of broadcast companies over the past year. Ouch.
PBS NewsHour's story on citizen journalism.
ONLINE
For those of you who read this site via RSS, I've launched the 2005 List of Lists page. (Previously: 2004 | 2003 | 2001.) As usual, email me if I'm missing something.
DATING
Is it true that Match.com had its employees go on bogus dates just to keep people subscribed to the service? And do they post faux-profiles that present flirtatious intent? Yes, according to a lawsuit...
New York Magazine has six sex columnists compare notes.
BOOKS
Not sure what this rebranding is about, but print.google.com has become books.google.com.
GalleyCat has an excellent first-hand account of last week's New York Public Library debate between Google and publishers groups. (Also in NYT.)
I didn't even realize that NYT gave Marjane Satrapi (the author of Persepolis) a blog which apparently illustrates her experience growing up in Iran. I say "apparently" because it's behind Time Select.
MUSIC
The only good thing about reissues is getting to read contemporary rock critics on classics. Pitchfork, somewhat surprisingly, rolls out a 10.0 for Springsteen's Born To Run 30th Anniversary Edition.
CELEBRITY
Google Maps + Celebrity Addresses = Celebrity-Maps.com
PHILOSOPHY
Deborah Solomon calls up Jean Baudrillard for an interview in the Sunday Times Mag. Peculiar answers.
TV
Did you hear about this supposed reality show where contestants will be tricked into believing they're in outer space!? (via)
FILM
The trailer to some crazy ass shit that Tarantino produced.
Wouldn't it be fun to turn this into a Maureen Dowd blog for a couple months? Yeah, okay, maybe not.
TV
Arrested Development is going bye-bye. Steve Holt!
Rich people love The Apprentice.
Biz Week's interview with MTV's Jason Hirschhorn covers a lot of interesting ground, including Comedy Central's Motherload, MTV's Overdrive, and iFilm.
MEDIA
NY Mag's long look at Mike Lacey (New Times' exec editor) and the history of the Village Voice is the best piece so far on this whole alt-weekly skirmish.
ONLINE
WaPo does a conspiratorial Google rant, but it's also the first mention of Google's dream to make your DNA searchable. You read that right: "Sergey Brin says searching all of the world's information includes examining the genetic makeup of our own bodies, and he foresees a day when each of us will be able to learn more about our own predisposition for various illnesses, allergies and other important biological predictors by comparing our personal genetic code with the human genome, a process known as 'Googling Your Genes'."
Paris Hilton doesn't change facial expressions.
For the true nerd: digg vs. dot.
MUSIC
Madonna's new album comes out this week. Have you seen the video to the first single? Yowza.
New White Stripes video staring Conan, directed by Michel Gondry.
New Shakira video. NYT is all hyped on her this week: The Shakira Dialectic.
A large Wikipedia entry on Paul Is Dead.
FILM
NYT has a small item on the film Zizek, which I saw here in Minneapolis last week.
SARAH SILVERMAN
Even more: Rolling Stone | Slate | Newsday | NYT.
Shut up, where have you been?
SARAH SILVERMAN
With recent profiles in Radar, Believer, L.A. Times, and The New Yorker, it seems our hipster pinup has truly made it. Her movie, Jesus Is Magic [trailer], was in festivals over a year ago but is finally hitting mainstream theaters next week. Popbytes has some video clips.
MUSIC
You've heard the White Stripes' version of Tegan and Sara's "Walking with a Ghost," right? Good.
Slate.com: Anatomy of a rock snob.
It's old news, but let's not forget that MySpace has a record label starting soon.
BLOGS
The production blog for the new Danny Boyle film Sunshine.
The CEO for Whole Foods has a blog.
ONLINE
100 Greatest Internet Moments.
Discuss: Would you pay $5/month to use Google?
Interview with our pal Andrew of Rocketboom.
Revver is a new get-paid-to-upload-your-video site.
NYT: Just Googling It Is Striking Fear Into Companies | A Journey to the Center of Yahoo.
Yahoo's new Google-ish Local Maps uses Flash instead of Ajax (or actually, uses both). [See also: Yahoo Maps pranks Google.]
WORDS
Financial Times has lunch with Brett Easton Ellis.
McSweeney's has a new online store, and the first thing I notice is a new DVD magazine called Wholphin.
PORN
Just weeks after the new Video iPod comes MyDirtyIpod.com.
MUSIC
Panopticist has the first music video shot entirely using cell phones, from the Presidents of the United States of America.
New Boards of Canada out today.
TV
NYT Mag: Chuck watches too much tv.
Don't have Current.TV but you'd like to see that Google Current thing? Then Google "Google Current" on Google Video.
ONLINE
Fortune has a long profile of BitTorrent.
You know about this already, but I need to put it here for the archives: Yahoo Podcasts.
SEARCH
New blog search engine: Sphere.com.
New news search engine: Inform.com.
NEW BLOGS
Business Week has a new blog on media and advertising: Fine On Media.
Regina Lynn (the sex columnist at Wired News) has a blog.
Blogebrity relaunched.
PUBLISHING
The American Society of Magazine Editors chooses the top 40 covers of the past 40 years. Nice.
Congrats to Elizabeth on the book deal. Last week's Gawker drama was just too much.
TECH
NYT Mag's life hackers story does a good job of getting its arms around a complex topic, but I gotta believe that so much of this is still sci fi.
Time assembles a bunch of smart people to talk about technology.
TECH
Biz Week profiles Google hottie Marissa Mayer but doesn't mention that she's rumored to be Larry Page's girlfriend (which is revealed in a footnote of Battelle's The Search, which I'm just finishing up).
Engadget gets their hands on the new Windows-powered Treo 700. Looks like an upgrade to Rexie's life is coming soon.
ONLINE
Gawker opened up to invite-only comments. I'll give you one if you sneak me into a Kate Moss bathroom party.
SaveMyAss.com: "a personal assistant that keeps your girlfriend or wife happy by sending her flowers on your behalf, on a regular but semi-random basis." Created by James Hong, a HOTorNOT founder.
The Million Dollar Homepage is cruising along. I can't decide which I hate more: the idea, or that I didn't come up with the idea.
MEDIA
Nominees for the 2005 Online Journalism Awards. I'll be in NYC for the awards & conference next month.
NYT Mag's Funny Pages archive.
NYT interviews Christie Hefner: It's Not Her Father's Playboy.
Reporters Without Borders publishes a Handbook for Bloggers and Cyber-Dissidents (pdf).
This happened a while ago, but I'm finally getting around to reading CBSnews.com's new blog, Public Eye, which is supposed to bring transparency to CBS News. Oh, the magic of blogs.
MUSIC
Golden Fiddle reports that the new Gang of Four CD comes with an actual $1 bill inside. Ya gotta love that Marxist marketing.
Listen to a stream of Metric's new album, Live It Out, which comes out in a couple weeks. Or watch the video to the first single, "Monster Hospital." I've been hoping that Metric breaks through for a long time, and this might finally be that moment.
Stereogum has Liz Phair doing a cover of "Mother's Little Helper" (and here's a NY Daily News profile) while Dreams of Horses has M.I.A. covering the Kaiser Chiefs.
Ultragrrrl has a book, and I don't.
TV
Reality Blurred reports that the next Real World will be in Key West.
Boston.com: Top 50 Sci-Fi Shows of All Time.
FILM
Joss Whedon interviewed in the Times.
Trailer to Clooney's Good Night and Good Luck, about some guys named Murrow and McCarthy.
FILM
Who wants to play Tube Poker? Cool, here are the rules and a trailer.
Trailer to Walk The Line, wherein Joaquin Phoenix plays Johnny and Reese Witherspoon plays June.
ONLINE
A lot of people are talking about Yahoo's recent forays into content, including hiring Kevin Sites (who some people know as an intrepid Iraq blogger, but I know as the guy who beat me for the Wired Rave Award -- I kid). Yahoo has already launched a promotional page, Kevin Sites in the Hot Zone, which hints at some of what he will be doing.
Google Earth used to discover Roman ruins. Up next: WMDs in Iraq.
MUSIC
It took a full month for the New York Times to retaliate Salon's heavy-metal-is-smarter-than-you-think feature with their own heavy-metal-is-smarter-than-you-think feature.
Oh what the heck, another M.I.A. profile (WaPo). But the one in The Observer a couple weeks ago was better.
Please, someone else read the NYT Mag cover story on Bono and tell me if it's worth it, cuz it's just going to lay untouched by my bed for a week otherwise.
PRODUCTS
A while ago, The Onion did a parody of the Gillette vs. Schick battle over blades on the razor. Then it became real.
NOT FOOD
Smoking Gun: Hooter's Employee Manual.
MUSIC VIDEOS
I think Prodigy only exists to make music videos. The new one for "Voodoo People" is a reality tv sendup.
DESIGN
Huh, Business Week gave John Maeda a column.
TV
The new Danny Bonaduce show coming to VH1 in September sounds like the best celeb reality tv breakdown ever. Although the details about binge drinking, vicodin, and steroids might be the most interesting to some, I'm most enamored with the story about how he married his wife, the co-star of the show: drunk, on their first date, because she wouldn't have sex with him unless they were married. Awesome.
The first season of Lost came out on DVD today.
The NYT Mag cover story on Les Moonves is okay, but for its length, it left out several things, such as his tepid public relationship with Letterman (those are the only good episodes Letterman does anymore) and any crafting of how splitting up Viacom will affect CBS. For instance, look at something like Rock Star: INXS, which started on VH1 but eventually migrated over to CBS -- that kind of, er, synergy won't happen in a split-Viacom world.
If you still somehow don't have a TiVo, just follow Haughey's instructions on how to get paid to own one.
If you're a fan of Lost, I suggest The Lost Master Plan.
EW's Fall TV Preview is out. Unlike last year (Lost, Desperate Housewives, Veronica Mars), nothing looks great, except for maybe Martha Stewart's Apprentice.
MUSIC VIDEOS
Waxy.org says exactly what I think about the state of music videos online (and I've even thought about starting a business around this gripe). With Feist videos!
FILM
New Atom Egoyan, starring Kevin Bacon: Where The Truth Lies.
MUSIC
Who will be the first to sample Kanye's "George Bush doesn't care about black people"? Here's the video.
ONLINE
Ballmer: "I'm going to fucking kill Google." Heh.
WORDS
NYTBR wonders what happens to letters in the age of email.
DVD
The Suicide Girls have a DVD out. Amazon says 15% of the people who buy it also bought the Prozac Nation DVD. Not rated.
MUSIC
Lookie! New Franz Ferdinand video.
Plastic discusses "the perfect album."
New music releases today: Kanye West's Late Registration and Death Cab for Cutie's Plans.
TV
Awesome news for the best show on tv: Charlize Theron to be in this season's Arrested Development. She'll play Jason Bateman's love interest.
New on TV DVDs today: First Season of Roseanne.
MEDIA
Even the New York Times is paying attention to the Flying Spaghetti Monster now.
ONLINE
The Onion has a big new redesign, and the lead story right now is Google Announces Plans To Destroy All Information It Can't Index. Ouch, Google backlash from the hipsters.
Doonsbury: I'm so stealing that blog idea.
MUSIC/ONLINE
When News Corp announced it was buying MySpace for $580 million, there was some speculation that Murdoch would use the site as a backdoor to competing with Viacom's MTV. News Corp execs shrugged this off, saying they were just interested in audience, not in changing MySpace. Then comes NYT Styles (yes! NYT Styles!), which throws MySpace as its lead story this week, with a final line quoting co-founder Tom Anderson (the guy who is friends with everyone who joins MySpace by default): "It's kind of like, who cares about MTV anymore?" Also revealed: MySpace will be creating a new record label, which will work under a major label's supervision. So with one purchase, Murdoch managed to sneak in a way to compete in three industries (internet, cable tv, and music).
For the second time this summer, business coverage of MTV lands on the front page of NYT Sunday Arts. This time, it's basically a look at MTV's "multi-plat-fornication" efforts disguised as a profile of the network's president, Van Toffler. The focus is on MTV Overdrive, which I predicted a while back would quickly disappear, but last night's VMAs were an attempt to prove the "broadband video channel" (blech) is a real competitor. I suppose this is one prediction I wouldn't mind being wrong about.
TV
Iraq has adopted Western-style reality tv in many forms, including Materials and Labor (basically Extreme Makeover: Home Edition) and Iraq Star (basically American Idol).
More on those viral Serenity promos over on Ponderance. I guarantee Whedon has been reading Gibson.
WORDS
The lead review in this week's NYTBR is Jay McInerney. He reviews a new novel that I've never heard of, but it's an interesting essay on first novels and the bildungsroman.
Umberto Eco on KCRW's Bookworm.
New Yorker: Dictionaries slip in fake words.
MUSIC
An obscenely large collection of Madonna through time: Madonnashots.com.
ILM thread on the VMAs. It's way to easy to be sarcastic about the VMAs, but this was easily the worst one in several years.
BLOGS
CJR interviews Jessica Coen and Jesse Oxfeld.
MUSIC VIDEOS
Me likey the new LCD Soundsystem video.
Mark Romanek guest hosts NYT's Playlist. Because the site doesn't nicely link to everything, here are most of the clips he mentions: Nine Inch Nail's "Only" | Beck's "E-Pro" | Iron and Wine, "Naked as We Came" | The Sun's "Romantic Death"| Bright Eyes' "Easy/Lucky/Free".
BLOGS
Yeah, Trump has one now too.
Comedy Central starts a blog, with links to videos.
Blogebrity: Kottke interview.
G.W. Bush: Podcaster.
FILM
Aeon Flux trailer, starring Charlize Theron and Frances McDormand.
The trailer to Doom would seem to suggest that movies based upon first-person-shooter games completely miss the point. See also: ItPlaysDoom.com.
Ebert gives his most-hated films.
MUSIC VIDEOS
The new Green Day video is getting a surprising round of accolades.
New White Stripes video.
TV
Joss Whedon loves Veronica Mars too. See, I told you.
Engadget has pics of TiVo's upcoming download service. Looks like the first partner will be IFC, which is awesome because they happen to not be part of my Time-Warner cable package.
FOOD
NYT Mag is excited about cryovacking (sous vide).
I've been talking a lot again about trying to start a restaurant. I'm rather enamored by this idea to mix tv and dining, although it would play horribly in Minneapolis, which has the lowest tv-viewing rates per capita in the nation.
ONLINE
Rumor: Technorati about to be sold. Debate ensues on whether its to Google or Yahoo, while DataMining watches the rumor spread.
Rumor: Google and Apple to partner. Apple stocks rise.
Google halts Google Print. BoingBoing gathers some reactions.
Elizabeth Spiers and Danah Boyd were on To The Point for an episode on Google and security.
WORDS
NYTBR: Brett Easton Ellis reading from Lunar Park. Here's the review.
NYT looks at the change in books being stocked at airports (more smart non-fiction).
Why lie, I need a beer. Correction: why lie, this is a link blog. As of today. Again.
FILM
Encyclopedia of Lesbian Movie Scenes.
The Strangers with Candy movie appears to be no more, which is odd because Stephen Colbert and Amy Sedaris are pretty much at the top of their game right now.
MUSIC
Bjork's soundtrack to Barney's Drawing Restraint 9 comes out Aug. 23. There's also an import.
WORDS
NYT calls Brett Easton Ellis "The Man in the Mirror." His new book, Lunar Park, comes out next week.
GAMES
Busting open machinima to the masses, the NYT Mag: The Xbox Auteurs.
TV
If you heard that HBO's Entourage was good, here's your chance to judge for yourself.
MUSIC
Cool (literally) Ladytron video.
T-SHIRTS
GADGETS
It's been a long while (a whole year!) since I cared about new cellphones, but the Treo 670 running on Windows Mobile is intriguing.
BLOGGING
So Microsoft is back in the content game? Color me confused! Filter is apparently a blog network. After poking around at them for a bit, I can't even get into how horribly executed they are.
And I have no comment on that thing in Gawker, Current.TV, or Robert Novak.
MEDIA
Tucker Carlson and Jon Stewart are going head-to-head again. Their shows will air at the same time.
NYTBR has Richard Posner looking at the media.
MUSIC
NYT's Sunday arts cover story is on the history and future of the music video.
Spin.com: Klosterman Q&A.
ONLINE
Wired's 10 years cover story is starting to appear online. Good stuff, including Kevin Kelly's We Are The Web.
Of all the uses for Google Maps, this is by far the mostest awesomest. Instant maps of where the hotties are.
Speaking of which, did you know that there's a Google TV ad campaign for Google Maps?
FILM
NYT Mag profiles Jim Jarmusch.
Quirk ensemble indie film or trite remake of the genre, you decide.
An excellent list of good upcoming movies. (New ones by David Lynch, LaBute, Aronofsky, Tarantino, Linklater, etc.) Looks like 2006 will be a good year for film.
T-SHIRTS
BLOGS
The Onion A/V Club has a blog.
BlogHer was the place to meet babes this weekend. Oh, I'm so bad. Here's a Flickr stream.
Don't ask. Really, just don't ask.
DVD
You saw that Errol Morris' First Person and DVD Collection came out yesterday, right? Delish.
BLOGS
Forbes: Best of the Web, The Blog Edition.
Lockhart (Curbed, Gawker) has a strange video profile where you see him blog. And Elizabeth Spiers (Mediabistro) has a profile of her own.
ONLINE
I'm not unbeaten at AimFight, but I've got a pretty good record. (Username: ibsrex)
How Craigslist has changed New York.
OJR is trying to do a Wiki story on video journalists.
MUSIC VIDEOS
ADVERTISING
Yeah, another Burger King minisite. This one is a faux metal band named Coq Roq.
FILM
The reason you've seen Natalie Portman bald: V for Vendetta trailer.
DATING
Whoa, this NYT story says that 58 percent of people have dated someone at work.
Big news! Because I really didn't have enough to do, I launched a t-shirt line on my local (Twin Cities) site. The options are mostly -- but not exclusively -- local, but you'd be surprised how many snarky t-shirt buyers we have. In addition to plugs in both local dailies, the New York Times even mentions one of our t-shirts today in a profile of the movie version of our little home-grown radio franchise. To quote: "The movie [A Prairie Home Companion] is being shot digitally, so the Altman crew has managed to feather itself into the old theater with a minimum of impact. And because it is a local boy's project, the locals have taken to the filming with calm and equanimity -- give or take a 'Prairie Ho Companion' shirt -- even though Major Hollywood Stars are in downtown St. Paul, a little city that takes pride, not offense, in its general reputation for sleepiness." That tee -- "A Prairie Ho Companion" -- is our best seller, so buy now before they run out.
MEDIA
Somehow Newsweek got ahold of the Cooper/Rove emails, and Isikoff says that Rove was the source but probably didn't knowingly reveal Plame's name. Dude, I've tried that excuse so many times, and she's never bought it....
On The Media has a decent piece (audio) starring Clay Shirky on Wikipedia's coverage of the London bombing.
Did you see who's replacing Howard Stern? The '80s are truly back.
The New York Observer redesigned their website, which needed it very badly.
ROOFTOPS
You know already these two things about me: 1) I hate New Yorkers who talk about their stupid rooftop parties (I even said so on Rocketboom), and 2) the Sunday NYT Styles section makes me reach for the revolver. Put those together and you get The High Life. That sound you hear is a growl.
BLOGS
File under: blogs will eat themselves. The guy who started Gawkerist is now the new editor Gridskipper.
ONLINE
Can't Find On Google (dot-com).
Amazon.com is 10 years old. USA Today did an interview with Bezos, and NYT gave him a (mildly negative) full-length profile.
TV
Hooking Up, which is sort of reality-tv-meets-documentary look at online dating, premieres this Thursday on ABC. NYT has a quick interview with the director.
GAMES
NYT on the making of the Godfather videogame.
MUSIC
Mash-up: White Stripes + Jay-Z.
The Scotsman likes the new Franz Ferdinand tracks.
MUSIC VIDEOS
Kayne West's new video looks like one of those a Flash intro screen for one of those "design your house" websites.
T-SHIRTS
"Hey, Aren't We Friends on My Space?"
CELEBS
What did I do over the long weekend? I saw both War of the World and Star Wars: Episode Three, so that you don't have to. But mostly I waited for the "Karl Rove is the Valerie Plame leak" plot to develop -- but it hasn't even made it onto NYT yet. Please God, let it be Rove.
BLOGS
Someone should write a crazy-murderer-speech-algorithm that catches things like this blog, which was written by Joseph Duncan, who's being held for murder in Idaho. I have a ton more links over at MNspeak.
Reading NYT's piece on writers who are using blogs to help write books, it's immediately glaring how many of these books are exactly what my friends and I are reading right now (including Steven Levitt's Freakonomics and Steven Johnson's Everything Bad Is Good For You) and are looking forward to reading (including David Weinberger's Everything Is Miscellaneous, Chris Anderson's The Long Tail, and John Battelle's The Search.
Tony Pierce lists the 100 Greatest American Men of All Time.
FILM
In a wait rivaling Chinese Democracy, the release of the movie Prozac Nation is finally upon us today -- but it went straight to DVD.
MEDIA
Wired has most of its Remix issue online. It's my favorite issue in many months.
NYT reports on Romenesko's salary, a cool $169K/year.
MUSIC
NME has a bit about Franz Ferdinand's new album, due in September. And another bit about The Darkness' new album, due in October.
127 is a Iranian band that has been trying to play in the U.S. since at least SXSW, but hasn't gotten in yet. And they don't sound bad. Here's one profile from the Chi Trib about them.
Missy Elliot's new album, The Cookbook, comes out today.
CELEBRITY
Finally, it took Tom Cruise to get the brilliance of Brooke Shields onto the NYT Op/Ed pages.
BOOKS
Suicide Girls interviews Rick Moody.
DESIGN
158-image slideshow from IDEA / Business Week's annual designs awards.
SHOES
Casa Camper is a Barcelona hotel designed by Camper shoes. Yeah, I don't get it either.
ART
Decent NYT story on wetware (aka bioart).
Am I a blog casualty? Heck no, I've just been busy over at MNspeak. You have to understand, we have Lindsay Lohan in town right now, and the whole state is a-twitter.
TV
Did you watch the first episode of Stella on Comedy Central? The promotion machine has been gigantic (I heard that somewhere here in Minneapolis they were giving away free Stella Artois to promote the show). Here's Slate.com's view. My thoughts: I didn't laugh once. Sorry guys, it's not even as funny as The Office remake.
WORDS
Suicide Girls interview Chuck Palahniuk.
ADVERTISING
How many burgers did that racy Paris Hilton advert sell? Almost none.
Nike apologized for their Minor Threat ad. But the ILM thread on this was quite good.
Ad-free versions of Gawker and Page 6.
ONLINE
Gothamist has a salacious interview with Washingtonienne. The best part is where she talks about her night out with Ana Marie Cox, and then says they don't talk anymore but suggests there's an off-the-record story to be told.
What happened to Suck.com? The full (very full) story.
Lately, I spend several hours a day reading what other dot-com media companies are doing (today, I read at least a dozen different articles on Yahoo's new My Web 2.0 ). It takes something like this NYT story to remind me of all the stuff that's happened in the last couple weeks -- and since that article yesterday there has been updates to Google Print, Yahoo's Map API, Amazon's A9, etc., etc. It's a crazy time.
I completely missed this... did everyone know that the new iTunes supports videoblogs too? Rocketboom on my iTunes, delish. And since you can charge for feeds.... could this be intro to micropayments?
FUNNY
The Onion: New Us Quarterly To Explore Celebrity Issues In More Depth.
FILM
The trailer for King Kong, which stars Naomi Watts and Jack Black, looks like outtakes from Jurrasic Park.
TV
The stupid TiVo auto-recorded the final episode of the Capital Gang this weekend, and it made me wonder if political shows have always been this dull.
MUSIC
NYT Mag profiles Nic Harcourt, "the star maker of the semipopular," of KCRW radio.
Nike rips off Minor Threat. And Hot Topic is selling John Coltrane t-shirts.
BOOKS
Why someone isn't translating these Saddam Hussein novels into English is a complete mystery to me.
The world's most popular authors (according to Google Adsense).
Apparently NYTRB couldn't avoid reviewing The Washingtonienne and finally caved in.
ART
The Salvador Dalí Museum (which is right next to the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg) is moving, thanks to Jeb Bush.
McSweeney's: Things Not Overheard At A Conceptual-Art Gallerying Opening.
MISC. WORK THINGS
Little Lost Robot likes my "Send To Proof" button!
Whenever someone uses the word juvenile to describe some piece of cultural junk, I immediately want it. That said, I've never really understood the appeal of NewsBreakers.org, the pranksters behind the tv live-shot media stunts. However, NYT chooses to stack them next to Howard Stern and the Merry Pranksters. I guess if there were more of a point to what they do (like, say, The Guerilla Girls), I might be more sympathetic. Then again, saying that these pranks lack a point is, well, missing the point. I guess.
In college, Lawrence, Kan. was synonymous with William Burroughs (for me, anyway). Now, in my new media work world, it's forever associated with online news innovation. NYT looks at what The Lawrence Journal-World is in The Newspaper of the Future.
ONLINE MEDIA
The L.A. Times has pulled down Wikitorial (announced here and touted and denounced in many places).
In the past, you needed a RealOne subscription to watch video on CNN.com. Starting today, you no longer do.
MSNBC.com teases its redesign.
I have been ignoring the debate about whether Google is a media company (such absolutist categorical thinking -- similar to "are bloggers journalists?" -- bores me), but here's NYT mentioning it in their "What's Online" column, which is clearly struggling at this point.
MUSIC VIDS
Forget those wannabes, here's the real deal: Nancy Sinatra's "The Boots Were Made For Walking" (1966).
TECH
Microsoft is developing a BitTorrent alternative.
I have no idea why everyone is surprised that Google is developing a PayPal rival. The second that Google Video was announced, it was an obvious step (and Google Print will likely be next).
YouTube. It appears to be Flickr for video... and I think it's new. At the same time, Vimeo has moved out of beta.
SHOES & TEES
WORDS
Dave Eggers issues a "small correction" on Neal Pollack's strange essay in NYTBR.
AUDIO
Steve Jobs' Stanford Commencement Speach.
MUSIC
The Onion A.V. Club presents this mixlist of highlights from moments when gaming and music collide.
RANDOMLY FOUND ONLINE
World Beard and Moustache Championships.
55 Optical Illusions & Visual Phenomena.
24 Different Ways To Lace Shoes.
T-SHIRTS
From the "pro-life store": Former Embryo.
There's some buzz online right now about the American Apparel models being a tad on the youngish side. You can judge for yourself.
MUSIC VIDEOS
Willie Nelson is really the highlight of Jessica Simpson's "The Boots Were Made For Walking" video. No, really.
The new Bloc Party video goes the way of Gorillaz: "Pioneers".
MUSIC
Slate.com: What's the worst ad song ever?
Mashup: Snoop Dogg vs. Led Zeppelin (mp3).
Mondo Kim's raided. Huh?
Pitchfork gives DJ Shadow's Entroducing... Deluxe Edition a 10.0.
Pink Floyd reunites with Gilmour, Waters, Mason and Wright.
For those who didn't even hear the music: Eleni Mandell, who sang the song in that Paris Hilton Carl Jr.'s advert, to release "I Love Paris" single.
WORDS
Malcolm Gladwell: My work space.
BLOGGING
NYT has launched their column that purports to be a snapshop of blog talk. Their first topic? Mark Cuban. Hm.
FILM
David Lynch's new movie: INLAND EMPIRE (and yes, it's apparently all in caps).
ONLINE
The Washingtonienne snuck onto bookshelves this week. A few reviews: Wired | DCist | WashPost. And an excerpt.
The Gawker kids launched a new blog: Oddjack, about gambling.
MEDIA
80 Years of The New Yorker to Be Offered in Disc Form. Comes out in October. Amazon pre-order.
MUSIC
Someone must remix these: World Livestock Auctioneer Championship MP3.
New White Stripes video: Blue Orchid. Also, Jack White just married a Brazillian supermodel.
Some of my favorite music bloggers have created the Music Blog Network.
Celine Dion Weird Al-ing Michael Jackson. Strange.
MARKETING
MTV's new viral campaign: MTV Video Awards Categories That Didn't Make It.
Interview with Rob Walker, who does the highly-recommended "Consumed" column in the Times Mag.
EDUCATION
Have you seen the essay question that has been added to the SATs? Being a kid today sucks: "A sense of happiness and fulfillment, not personal gain, is the best motivation and reward for one's achievements. Expecting a reward of wealth or recognition for achieving a goal can lead to disappointment and frustration. If we want to be happy in what we do in life, we should not seek achievement for the sake of winning wealth and fame. The personal satisfaction of a job well done is its own reward."
FILM
Did you hear that Johnny Depp tries to act like Michael Jackson all the way through Charlie and the Chocolate Factory? Seems to be true: a new trailer.
New Wong Kar-Wai! New Wong Kar-Wai! New Wong Kar-Wai! (We've only been talking about it for two years, but at least there's a trailer now.)
I haven't read it yet, but you can be sure it's bookmarked: Zizek on Revenge of the Sith.
ART
LOCAL
I've been putting a lot of time into MNspeak lately, so we've been a little slow here on Fimoc.
WORDS
Awesome: List of fictional curse words.
McSweeney's: Pickup Lines: The First Drafts.
Random House: Twentysomething Essays by Twentysomething Writers Contest.
ONLINE
First indication [?] of who's behind Blogebrity.
I haven't been following Podcasting on this site, but I found it odd that TV Guide is now podcasting.
MUSIC
That immensely annoying frog song is at the top of the British charts.
Kaleefa Sanneh sings the praises of the new White Stripes.
New releases today: A Bjork remix and covers album, a new Oasis (which is getting a surprising amount of attention), and a new Smog.
New Yorker: The Record Effect.
In Spin, Chuck dissects music genres. "IDM: This is an acronym for 'Intelligent Dance Music.' Really. No, really. I'm serious. This is what they call it. Really."
Nerve.com: Sex Advice from Accordion Players.
TV
The first and second seasons of Moonlighting came out on DVD today.
TVsquad interviews Kendra from The Apprentice, who will be heading down to Palm Beach to oversee construction of a new Trump mansion, and according to this Palm Beach Post story, taking a salary cut.
FILM
A lucious six-flick Steve McQueen box set came out today. Makes me want to watch Bullitt right now.
Oliver Stone Arrested on Drug, DUI Charges.
MEDIA
Are you reading NYT's series on Class? Here's a fun interactive graphic showing how much class you have.
Kurt Andersen thinks Radar looks just a wee bit like another magazine from the '80s.
BOOKS
Bookforum: Pynchon From A to V.
NYT Styles this week looks at the glut of sex-themed books, which I won't say a thing about because I know at least two girls writing these.
I don't know if anyone is reading Umberto Eco's new book, but here's a profile of him in the Telegraph.
LIFE
It should be that time of the week to roll out the Times Styles section and ridicule the cover story. Except this week, the story happens to be something that I've been saying for a while: the joke is dead. There was a time when people told jokes all the time at parties, but now everything is situational humor and nuanced wit. I will even occasionally tell jokes at parties, wait for people not to laugh, and then launch my shtick about the death of the joke. Yeah, that's right, I use the concept of jokes to set up idea humor. So anyway, NYT Styles, I applaud you for not being one big joke again this week.
Merriam-Webster: Top 10 Favorite Words Not in the Dictionary.
MEDIA
Who says the flash-in-the-pan media doesn't follow-up on stories after they've faded as talking points? WaPo has a long story on the hacker behind Paris Hilton's Sidekick scam.
I found an issue of Radar today (not supposed to be available for a couple days), and you know what? It's actually pretty good.
ONLINE
My dear internet, you have jumped the shark. Blogebrity.
NYT on Rocketboom's search for a weather person.
MUSIC
David Cross: Albums to Listen to While Reading Overwrought Pitchfork Reviews.
MIDI GNR: SelfSimilarGNR.com. Sounds a bit like Axl done by Kraftwerk.
NYT: Neil Diamond hanging with Rick Rubin.
New Basement Jaxx video: "U Don't Know Me."
FILM
Richard Linklater to direct movie version of Fast Food Nation (that isn't Supersize Me).
New documentary on the history of women's wrestling: Lipstick & Dynamite trailer. (This would have been the perfect opportunity to finally have a female voice do the trailer.)
Film Critic: The All-Time Top 100 Voices in the Movies.
NYT: For $1 You, Too, Can Be an Executive Producer. Profiles the attempts of MovieForTheMasses.org and IBI Films to micro-fund movie projects.
New Greg Araki: Mysterious Skin trailer.
WORDS
The meta-ness of Brett Easton Ellis.
LOCAL
Over on MNspeak, the Rogue Taxidermy cabal have a new website, Chuck was on the O.C., Flashmobs revisited, and Bob Mould releases new songs.
TV
Time catches up with David Chapelle in South Africa.
It would appear that Arrested Development did not get axed.
MTV: Pimp My Trailer.
NBC's upcoming summer shows. Meh.
MUSIC VIDEOS
New Hot Hot Heat, directed by DNA's Marc Webb.
CONSUMPTION
Levi's new campaign: metrosexuality + naked GI Joe's + opera.
ONLINE
In something you just don't expect to see in your Sunday Times, James Fallows writes about Ajax, Flash, and other asynchronous internet strategies.
After leaving San Jose Mercury News, Dan Gillmor has started his first project: Bayosphere.
MUSIC
Own the audio to the shows you saw last summer: Pixiesdiscs.com.
Look, Nobody Cares That You're a DJ.
LOCAL
Over on MNspeak, we track every local reference on the new Hold Steady album and connect the Blu Dots.
FILM
What would it look like if the Times started to blog? Like this. Not bad, really.
The trailer to David La Chapelle's Rize is finally out. If you've forgotten, this is the documentary about Krumping, which is basically clowns meet hip-hop.
NSFW
What's up with the recent trend of R-rated music videos? Here's one Louis XIV did with a few Suicide Girls.
ONLINE
Google bought Dodgeball.com earlier this week.
DAILY SHOW
Get paid to watch (and write about) The Daily Show.
If you missed it, here's the hilarious Daily Show spot about cable news and blogs. The "Inside The Blogs" show on CNN is a favorite laughing point for me at work every day.
T-SHIRTS
Some new tees at La Fraise.
DESIGN
Netscape.com has redesigned completely in Flash.
MUSIC
Some video involving Paris Hilton and Fat Boy Slim. I'm told this is a viral video to promote the release of Fat Boy Slim's new video. Which is the most hyper-real thing I've heard this month.
TV
Last week, AP ran a story about my pals at Rocketboom.
Tina Brown's Topic A goes bye-bye.
Systems of the Down got the F-word in SNL. Yawn.
BLOGGERS
Apparently because they haven't put Gawker on the Business page yet (next up: Travel?), NYT chats up the Gawker gang. What's the scoop? Blogs are over-hyped. Yeah, tell that to Calacanis, who is being stalked.
Tony Pierce was fired from his job at E!
NYT Editorial page gets all sappy about blogger ethics. Jarvis responds.
Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock.... (Update, it launched.)
LOCAL
Over on MNspeak, some notes on Low, a non-debate about IFP MSP, and the phone book doubles in size.
MUSIC
It's Tuesday, so what are the new music releases? Glad you asked. We have a new Nine Inch Nails (With Teeth), a new Raveonettes (Pretty In Black), a new Aimee Mann (The Forgotten Arm), and a new Hold Steady (Separation Sunday).
Since there's no such thing as linking to an Esquire column, I'll point to Stereogum's large excerpt of Chuck's 21 CDs From the Past 3 Years. I think several of these are actually inspired by real people, and #10 is very likely me: "The Thrills, So Much for the City (2003): You will like this album if your apartment is actually a bar." And #1 couldn't be more perfect: "1. The Hold Steady Almost Killed Me (2004): You will like this album if you used to like AC/DC but now you just read a lot."
CELEBRITY
I thought the Michael Jackson trial on E! was pretty creepy, but putting Elizabeth Smart on People's 50 Most Beautiful People is downright insane.
NYT: Paris Inc.
TV
Does CNN have a stupid keyword stuffing campaign going on?
ONLINE
That's cool, Peter Rojas got a Bill Gates interview on Engadget.
WORDS
A new Chuck Palahniuk book, Haunted, is out today.
INTERACTIVE SHOES
Nike has a new towering presence in Times Square -- 22-story digital screen that you can control by calling a phone number build a personalized pair of shoes. A friend sent a picture.
Many of you have written to ask why I haven't said a word about Tina Fey's baby announcement. Yes, okay, I am a little upset that she didn't tell me first. Now that the humiliation is out there, let's check in with the scary & sexy nerds known as the blogosphere:
INTERNET/SEX
Nerve.com does Sex Advice From Bloggers. They never asked, but my answer to "What's the best way to get a blogger to go home with you?" would have been "tell him he looks hotter in real life than in that weird picture on the blog."
In Wired News, Regina Lynn take a look at HighJoy, a melding of dating, chat, and teledildonics.
FILM
New blog: Posterwire, a movie poster blog.
WORDS
They'll let anyone write a book nowadays... even fictional characters.
How Google is conquering TLS's Author Author quiz.
DESIGN
Amazon.com is trying to clean up the way they look -- no more infinite tabs.
MEDIA
File under: New York Post is doomed. Google is developing an algorithm for determining quality in news.
Unless you're in the creepy parts of the blogosphere, you don't see people linking to The Nation much anymore. But there's a decent story on the challenges that Al Gore's new network, Current, faces.
TV
Did anyone see the last episode of Wonder Showzen? The theme was patience, and until half-way through the show, the joke was that everything was going to be drawn out to stupidity. It was as funny as tedious gets. Then the second half of the show was the entire first half of the show played in reverse. There hasn't been anything this weird on tv since Andy Kaufman.
MUSIC
Video of New Order performing "Love Will Tear Us Apart" on Jimmy Kimmel's show.
NPR interviews Ian MacKaye about his new band, The Evens, which sounds surprisingly like a lot of Twin Cities bands.
SHOES
New book: Sneakers: The Complete Collectors' Guide.
LOCAL
Over on MNspeak, we've got news about the only two world-famous Minnesota Jews: Tom Friedman and Al Franken. (I know, I know, Dylan is sometimes Jewish too. But he doesn't write or call home anymore.)
MUSIC
The big music release this week is New Order's Waiting for the Sirens Call. If that's not your thing, there's also a new Essential Barry Manilow.
You've certainly heard by now that the White Stripes released a new single exclusively on iTunes. No? Then here's the link.
The audio to the Lawrence Lessig / Jeff Tweedy conversation is finally available.
It looks like it finally launched: MTV's Overdrive, which is basically a video portal with videos/trailers/etc. My guess is it'll be gone by the end of the year.
BLOGS
NYT has more on Arianna Huffington's crazy blog adventure.
DrudgeReport turns 10 years old.
Cool Hunting redesigned.
DVD
Two new releases this week: Orson Wells' F for Fake and Charlton Heston's Soylent Green. There's also a new $21 Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind / Lost in Translation value pack.
We've got a lot to talk about today, and I'm not not even going to link to Lohan's new blonde hair. Deep breath... ready, set, GO!:
TV
The TV season hasn't even come to the moment of finale spoilers and already ABC has scheduled the DVD releases of the first seasons of Lost and Desperate Housewives.
TVCarnage.com. "Hundreds of hours of exceptionally bad TV lovingly fused together into hour plus, glorious cesspools of retardation." Amazing clips. NYT says DVDs are available for free, but it looks like the link might be gone.
NewsBreakers.org. They break into local tv liveshots. Is it a sign of getting old that what once seemed funny is now lame? [via]
A look at the new TV Guide spin-off, Inside TV. Certainly no shocker: TV Guide's revenue's are plummeting.
The Gladwell-esque Opus Of The Summer is certain to be Steven Johnson's Everything Bad Is Good For You (released next month). The ususal suspects are already excerpting it, including NYT Magazine (with a section about narrative tv) and Wired (not online yet).
GAMES
In Guess-the-Google you see 20 images from a one-word Google Images search, and you have to figure out what the word is. Deceptively difficult.
Koerner's column this week is on the Star Wars version of the game Risk. (In other Star Wars commercialization news, here's Darth Vader in an Orange advert And more.)
CONSUMPTION
Rappers love to make liquids that you consume. Here's a sample of real hip-hop energy drinks: Lil Jon's Crunk!!!, Ice-T's Liquid Ice, Nelly's PimpJuice, and Russell Simmons' DefCon3. The new issue of Wired reviews them all (not online yet).
MUSIC VIDEOS
Music videos and movie trailers belong in approximately the same category, so why not just mix them? Voila: the new Unleashed trailer / Massive Attack video.
NME has the new Juliette Lewis video.
New Sleater-Kinney video (.mov) for "Entertain," off the new album coming out next month.
SIMPSONS
For no apparent reason, another profile of The Simpsons / Matt Groening.
Real Life Simpsons House. Freaky.
A gigantic MP3 archive of Simpsons music.
MUSIC
Been a while since I read an entire ILM thread: Songs about Heroin and Songs about Crack. Okay, I didn't read all of that one either.
A tidbit on Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping says that Wal-Mart is not stocking the new CD.
Tom Waits, who won a lawsuit against Frito-Lay in 1992 for using a voice that sounded like his, now unhappy with Opel commercial.
Pitchfork can't decide whether to give the new Rob Pollard album a 0.0 or a 10.0, so they give it a (1)0.0 .
MEDIA
New rule: No using "MSM" unironically.
BLOGS
I finally read the Biz Week cover story Blogs Will Change Your Business, which says nothing important to important people. The accompanying blog looks pretty elementary.
CONSUMPTION
The trailer to the new Lars von Trier flick, Manderlay, gets an internet NSFW rating for its use of the n-word.
T-SHIRTS
Some good ones at Future Relic and Glarkware.
If you've got a kid, dress it in something from PottymouthShop.com.
WORDS
London Review of Books Personals. Hot. [via]
LOCAL
Psst, wanna hear a secret? This LOCAL category will be disappearing soon, as we launch a new Twin Cities blog. We? Yes, we! Shhh, more details soon.
Today is either huge day in Fimoculous history, or it's a brief moment of crazed myopia. After avoiding it for 4+ years, I've finally added comments. The little link appears at the bottom of the posts -- and it will probably disappear the second I start getting comment spam. Be kind, young netizens. (Oh, and you probably noticed the Google Ads. I'm making about $.08/day on those, so they also might be short-lived.)
TV
I know some of you are having a hard time seeing Wonder Showzen, which MTV2 buries in the after-hours. So I've uploaded a video of the entire first episode. Download it now before my ISP (or Viacom) calls. Yeah, that was short-lived. Server slowed down to a near dead-stop. I'm sure you can find a Torrent out there.
If you watched Arrested Development on Sunday, you heard them close with the line "Next season on Arrested Development...." What'd that mean? This season is over and next season is still iffy. And in a profile of GetArrested.com, NYT says we'll know next month whether FOX renews the show for next year.
The first season of Dynasty came out on DVD today.
PUBLISHING
Scary Ann Coulter on the cover of Time. (UPDATE: Drudge's take and giving bon mots at St. Olaf.)
MUSIC
Dinosaur Jr. tour schedule.
FILM
Out on DVD today: House of Flying Daggers and Primer.
BLOGS
Andrew Krucoff launched a blog mostly about obits (I think): Young Manhatttanite.
LOCAL
How come it took some NYC guy to inform me about The Walker's New Media Initiatives Blog?
CONSUMPTION
The Scrolling Belt Buckle is friggin brilliant.
A friend of mine worked on the market research for the new prescription bottle that Target is hoping will turn pharmaceuticals into destination shopping.
Another new viral campaign from BK, this time in the form of a game: NeedForFeed.com. No relation to MailOrderChickens.com.
MUSIC
The reverse of the censored album, these versions of NWA's "Straight Outta Compton" and "Fuck the Police" are the bomb.
TECH
Put away the rumors about Microsoft owning Flash, cuz Adobe is buying Macromedia.
TV
So best. Jimmy Kimmel is hiring for a "TV Watcher" who will watch the tube all day looking for the best clips for the show. If a blogger doesn't get the job, something's wrong.
Anderson Cooper Fan Blog. [via]
In a little ditty about ending the whodunit on Veronica Mars, this story also says UPN has renewed the show for a second season.
FILM
Trailer to the new Gus Van San movie, Last Days, a fictional account of the demise of Kurt Cobain that includes appearances by Kim Gordon and Harmony Korine.
Interview with EW's long-time film critic Owen Gleiberman.
MUSIC VIDEOS
"The Sad Song", "created entirely using 15 second jpg movies from my little Nikon Coolpix 775 still camera, reconstructed in AfterEffects."
WORD GAMES
The 20-question What Kind of American English Do You Speak? says I'm 75% General American English, 15% Upper Midwestern, 10% Yankee, 0% Dixie, and 0% Midwestern.
Slate on how Trivial Pursuit became the great repository of middlebrow boomer culture.
LOCAL
Varsity reopened.
If you missed it, here's NYT's architecture review of the new Walker from Friday. Best part of the opening party? Most people will tell you open access to Bjork (or Kim Gordon, or Yoko Ono) in the Target tent was cool. I'll tell you that the blinking red LEDs were attrocious.
TV
If you're watching The Apprentice, you know that Chris being arrested for disorderly conduct couldn't be scripted more perfectly.
Big (and by big I mean bad) day in DVD TV releases today, with all of these first seasons coming out: Knight Rider,
The A-Team, Magnum, P.I., and The Bob Newhart Show.
C|Net has a three-day future of tv series.
GAMES
New Xbox to debut on MTV next month.
ECON BOOKS
Kottke has an interview with Steven Levitt, the author of Freakonomics, which comes out today.
MEDIA
According to NYT, the Spy-ish Radar Magazine is making a comeback next month in the form of a website. Although the site has some interesting ideas (such as a 15-minutes-of-fame image uploader), I have a bigger question: will my subscription from two years ago finally be validated?
FILM
Out on DVD today: Almodóvar's Bad Education and Hotel Rwanda.
MUSIC
NYT: What's on President Bush's iPod? Everything from Alejandro Escovedo to Kenny Loggins.
And what's new in music releases today? The only noteworthy item this week is the new Garbage album.
BLOGS
I seem to be trading nicely on Blogshares.
LOCAL
Sarah Vowell is reading tonight.
Greil Marcus and Crooked Fingers and Ben Lee (all audio links) did in-studio's on The Current.
NON-TRENDS
Yes, I realize it's a little silly to show up here at the beginning of every week to watch me get upset about the lead story on the NYT Styles section. But c'mon, the man date? Dear New York Media, why must you write trite trend pieces that cause the rest of us to consider molotov cocktailing Michael's?
MARKETING
Found on eBay: Scream Advertising. (Via BizarreBids.com, a good resource for strange eBay items.)
NYT Mag's cover story, "Our Ratings, Ourselves", tells the suprisingly fascinating story of the Portable People Meter -- a device that records all the media you've consumed in a day for marketing purposes. Pioneered by Arbitron and implemented by Nielsen, the PPM, which is about the size of a pager, accomplishes this by having all media encoded with an audio watermark. A broad range of other topics covered in the long piece: personal media device consumption, the arcane life of Nielsen labs, the shift from active to passive measurement, cable box innnovations, and direct measurement of advertising success. Two related items:
CJR asks Can Nielsen Keep up with the Way America Watches?
NPR's Bob Garfield foresees the Impending Period of Transitional Chaos for Media.
MEDIA
Fun idea: ask four people -- Lizz Winstead (co-creator of The Daily Show), Don Hewitt (founder of 60 Minutes), Mark Burnett (creator Survivor and The Apprentice), Al Primo (creator of Eyewitness News) -- how to reinvent CBS's evening news. The results are chaotic. (Reminds me of the time Wired asked for Google redesigns, and the results were a mess.)
MUSIC VIDEOS
I pretty much never have to link to a music video again after looking at this page.
BitTorrent link for the newest Daft Punk video of "Human After All."
IDEAS
William Safire's critique of privacy is a good place to jump into understanding ChoicePoint and other nefarious data-collection agencies. Sample quote: "The first civil-liberty fire wall to fall was the one within government that separated the domestic security powers of the F.B.I. from the more intrusive foreign surveillance powers of the C.I.A... But the second fire wall crumbled with far less public notice or approval: that was the separation between law enforcement recordkeeping and commercial market research."
CONSUMPTION
Fake bags become a brand unto themselves.
BLOGS
Kottke gives book-length update on his blogging micropatronage.
MUSIC
TECH
NYT asks "Will the Next Version of Windows Be Worth the Wait?"
LOCAL
Varsity what? Still closed.
I read every word of the Strib's multi-story Walker spread, but can't say it told me a thing. The online audio slideshow is a bit better though.
Huh, did you know that City Pages owns a local adult website, TC Uncovered (nsfw). The meta keywords include "escorts" and "domination," and there's employment and personals sections. Naughty.
BLOGS
NY Observer has more about the Huffington Report, with copious comments from Drudge.
And that story launched today's juicy announcement -- a new Denton blog, Sploid.com, a tabloid site in direct competition with Drudge. Editors include the inimitable Ken Layne.
Sure, Sploid made a splash today, but the real action is this new cupcake blog.
Or maybe an NFL Cheerleader Blog is more your style.
Am I the only person in America following this stupid Belle de Jour identity thread? The Evening Standard has its own dude theory.
OJR profiles the aggregators, including CNN's Inside the Blog, Slate's Today's Blogs, and Kinja.
MUSIC
MTV.com beta launched Overdrive, which will download large videos in the background. FAQ.
PHOBIAS
My mom sent me this one: PhobiaList.com, a list of all phobias.
DESIGN
TV
The Daily Show is coming to DVD.
Video of Best Week Ever's Frantina Dulee spot that tricked me.
FILM
NYT's paid-for aggregation of Woody Allen's Filmography contains some old trailers and reviews.
LOCAL
There's nothing that says "Spring In The Midwest" more than spending the afternoon watching the local punks "debate" the smoking ban.
MEDIA
This is pretty neat: The Annotated New York Times. The site lists NYT stories with real-time reaction from the blogosphere. Curious if NYT Corp will frown on this.
Last time I saw Robin [blog], he wouldn't even whisper to me what the real name of INdTV would be. It officially launched today as Current TV. (C|Net story.) Looks exciting, even though The Post is being all playa-hatah about it.
MUSIC
McSweeney's: Implausible Claims Made By Vanilla Ice In His 1990 No. 1 Hit "Ice Ice Baby." "My style's like a chemical spill."
Tuesday is new-release day, but there's not much. Hot Hot Heat has a new album (Elevator) and so does Fisherspooner (Odyssey).
ONLINE
Google Maps has added Keyhole data, so you can now see satellite pics too.
FILM
Stereogum is all over this Pretty In Pink sequel.
New on DVD today: The Corporation and Sideways.
If you like Hal Hartley, you might want to check out the DVD collection of his short films. Includes an obscure short with Adrienne Shelley and Parker Posey as roller-blading, lip-synching cupids. (Trailer.)
TV
FOX is creating a reality tv cable channel.
If you feel like dropping $160, The Complete First Four Seasons of The West Wing came out on DVD today.
PEOPLE
Xeni lives in L.A.? Huh.
LOCAL
The Strib likes The Rake this week.
TECH
Can you imagine getting a text from the Vatican saying the Pope died? TTYL.
The best part about this Google piece in Newsweek is where Google claims they just "forgot" to put ads on Google News. Uh-huh.
REALITY ENTERTAINMENT
I fell for Best Week Ever's joke on Friday. In the recurring segment "Who's having the best week ever?" they name-checked Frantina Dulee. I was Googling her name 30 seconds into the segment, but by the end it was obvious she's, duh, not a real person.
The interesting proposition in this Chicago Tribune piece is that while sports has become increasingly scripted, entertainment has become increasingly competitive.
MUSIC VIDEOS
Cool pop & lock video: Futureshock's "Late At Night".
Bloc Party did a second (and better) video for "Banquet."
The new Moby video is peculiarly Flaming Lipsish.
New Interpol video: "C'mere".
The new Weezer album isn't out until May, but here's a video for "Beverly Hills", filmed at the Playboy mansion.
FASHION
John Malkovich has started a clothing line. If it weren't $70, I might buy this tee.
DATING
TrueDater.com is a date-rating service. That's right, people who frequent date sites are reviewed as though they were Amazon.com books. I feel so violated. [Via a Wired News column.]
In a review of The Hookup Handbook, NYT Styles tries to explain girls who aren't into relationships and aren't into casual sex either. I don't know where the hell these girls live (New York, you say? Never heard of it), but it sure is nice to have an article lying around that provides a definition of hookup.
GAMES
NYT has a nice profile of New Games Journalism, which includes a link to the manifesto.
John Woo to direct and The Rock to star in the Katamari Demacy film. What the hell with this script look like? Like Super Mario Bros. minus the brothers? Stupid April 1.
DRINK
Moby released a book about tea and shit last week.
Google's April Fool's drink: Google Gulp.
Not a joke: Kabbalah Energy Drink.
ART
It seems odd that NYT Mag did a long Murakami profile without a news peg, but it's not bad at using otaku as a means to talk about Japan. (Previous profile in Wired.)
LOCAL
KSTP and Star-Tribune fell for an April Fool's gag claiming that a Three's Company remake was coming to St. Paul.
Lookie! A school for strippers, right in our backyard.
ONLINE
Eek! Someone stole my modus operandi for meeting girls and turned it into a website. At Consumating.com, you "show off your quirky personality with zany answers to our constantly rotating questions." It also has some nicely-executed tagging functionality that allows you to sort people by their interests. Ba-bye, Friendster.
The Guardian on how Yahoo just passed by Google.
FILM
Onion AV on Bad Scenes in Great Movies and Great Scenes in Bad Movies. Fun.
Ebert gives Sin City four stars. Enteratainment Weekly only gave it a C+. But Metacritic is clocking in at green. See also: Wired's profile of Rodriguez.
MEDIA
Those damn bloggers are killing Liz Smith. Finally, an answer to Jack Shafer on the good that comes from Gawker.
TECHTV
Engadget scores a beta peak at TiVo Desktop 2.1.
Couple new blogs: Chuck Olsen's Digital Television Blog and TVsnob.com.
FOOD
Slate.com reviews Applebee's. Contains interesting info, and nails the success with this scrap of analysis: "How did Applebee's and its heavily sauced pork chunks make it to the top of the casual-dining heap? By treating sit-down dining establishments like fast-food outlets."
LOCAL
INdTV is holding a contest that will give $15K to the best video submission. I hope the winners are these hip-hop kids who give Mark Dayton a bling-bling chain and get Walter Mondale spinning records. Excellent.
Someone please call the insider police -- the Minneapolis alt-media just jumped the whole damn ocean. Okay first, a strange Rake Mag blog post gushes all over Wonkette (who would stoop to such a low?!) and casually drops reference to publishing her pre-fame. Okay, whatever, right? But then Steve Perry (editor of City Pages) jumps into the comments to... get this... line edit a blog post. Guys, guys, take it outside!
Star Tribune and Pioneer Press stories on the death of Mitch Hedberg, a MN native. Some other resources: Metafilter thread | LA Weekly profile | Wikipedia entry.
See ya at the opening party for M-SPIFF this weekend? Good.
STRANGELY FAMOUS
I would do anything to make NY Press' 50 Most Loathsome New Yorkers (which mentions the word "blog" 19 times -- hoorah!). Well, except move to New York.
Wikipedia's list of most sexually active popes. To make that list, I'd even move to New York.
FOOD
You see this new BK Enormous Omelet? 730 calories, 47 grams of fat -- more than a whopper. Delish, I'm sure.
GAMES
New Sony PSP advert featuring Franz Ferdinand's "Take Me Out."
MUSIC
As Greg said, Bjork and Matthew Barney are the last people on the planet you'd expect to live in New Jersey. And yet...
David Byrne's online radio station.
TV
No popup ads on my TiVo yet, but I'm ready to be pissed off too....
BOOKS
Cheney's daughter is writing a memoir.
BLOGGERS
This is the weirdest dot-com news we've seen in quite some time. Arianna Huffington is starting something called The Huffington Report, a culture and politics webzine that will have a group blog with a strange cast of characters: Larry David, Barry Diller, David Geffen, Vernon Jordan, Gwyneth Paltrow, Tina Brown, and more.
FILM
Thank god Courtney Love is back. She will be playing Linda Lovelace in a biopic.
SCIENCE
This New Scientist article was a fun read: 13 Things that Do Not Make Sense. Includes the placebo effect, dark matter, and cold fusion.
Slate reviews Make, which I have to confess I had a very hard time reading, and I'm probably the market demo.
LOCAL
To coincide with the smoking ban, City Pages did a printable guide to the only remaining smoker bars in the Twin Cities (all in St. Paul, of course).
Wow, that Strib story on punk rock glasses sure was fun, eh? I'm not going to say anything more than that because I see all the people in this story around Uptown, and I don't want any of them to punch me and break my non-retro glasses.
CP's music writing sure ain't slowing down with Missy Miss flying the coop. First off, Julianne Shepherd calls Beck's newest album his best ever. Whoa there, cowboy! And then there are Bridgette's and Lindsey's nice SXSW accounts, parts of which I got to see with them.
ONLINE
So there's a name for those "enter the word to verify you're a human" things you see on consumer websites: Captcha, which stands for "completely automated public Turing test to tell computers and humans apart." What I really hate about these is that some of them are completely unreadable.
News Nerd Alert! Someone is aggregating a list of all sites indexed by Google News. You can also see it sorted by frequency.
Yet another panel (long streaming .wmv video) with the usual blog suspects, including Wonkette, Sullivan, and Shafer,
FILM
I forget to read Gawker on Friday, and Jessica lands a funny phone interview with Sir Vincent. (See also: Defamer's IM interview with David Cross.)
Stephen Tobolowsky's Birthday Party looks a less-funny Being John Malkovich. The trailer.
MUSIC
A couple new vids: Gorillaz' Feel Good Inc. and Daft Punk's Robot Rock.
I wish there were a way to scientifically prove or disprove the recent string of NYT arts trend stories (such as the one a couple months back that posited that SNL was more issue-oriented in the past). Sunday's lead music story is about the instant cover -- the proposition that musicians are covering more songs from their contemporaries than from previous generations. I feel obliged to come up with contrary examples (weren't Dylan and the Stones always covering each other?), but that seems to also be missing the points of these trend stories. I guess it's better than obsessing about band names like they do across the pond. Anyway, in addition to mentioning nearly every band recording music today, the story also name-drops Stereogum and Fluxblog.
A reason to read Magnet again? Sleater-Kinney interviewed by Eddie Vedder. Okay, maybe not.
ADVERTISING
NYT on The Future of the 30-Second Spot, which basically says Minority Report-ish ads are right around the corner. Includes numerous profiles of those in the personalized ads business including OpenTV, Navic Networks, Invidi Technologies, and Visible World.
For the three of you into this meme, more GoDaddy.com ads.
TV
Biz Week on Social TV.
LOCAL
Although my first reaction was "people still care about Gore Vidal?", CP's interview with him has been getting lots of blogosphere attention. Okay, I promise to read it this week.
New segement on The Current: Sounds Around Town (.rm audio stream). Dangerously close to tacky, yet still almost good. Hear also: Mark Mallman in-studio.
FILM
New Line Cinema picked up Klosterman's new book (not out until July) for a potential film. I'm a "character" in the book again, and am demanding to be played by someone no less handsome than Giovanni Ribisi (which I'm sure means Steve Buscemi will be Rex Sorgatz). I'll do some kind of review of the book here in a couple months, but if you're curious, it's Chuck's modern-relationship-cum-dead-rock-star opus. (Previously: Rex Rock City.)
Pedro's house in Napoleon Dynamite is up for sale.
Everyone's talking about Old Boy (trailer), which won Cannes this year.
War of the Worlds trailer. Starring Tom Cruise; directed by Steven Speilberg.
Finally a Joss Whedon comeback? He will direct the next Wonder Woman movie. Radosh predicts the lead.
Woody Allen interviewed in... SuicideGirls.com? Huh.
ONLINE/TECH
Yahoo bought Flickr. A great move for Yahoo, which is kicking Google's ass in the user-generated content arena.
And Ask Jeeves is being bought by Barry Diller.... for $1.9 billion. Jeesh, Jeeves.
Somebody please stop Christine Rosen from publishing this story again. First in The New Atlantis, she wrote about how cell phones and TiVos are ruining our lives. Now she's done it again in a NYT Mag essay.
Agence France Presse is suing Google News. Although I'm sure this will quickly get settled out of court, this raises an interesting spectre around Google News, which makes no money because there are no ads -- and this almost gaurantees it never will.
The upcoming Microsoft typefaces for the next version of Windows.
SHOES
Pimp my shoe! NYT Mag story on shoe customizers who will turn a pair of Nikes into $500 collector's items.
Adidas' computerized sneaker.
Converse's "Spin The Bottle" commercial.
Reebok's controversial 50 Cent spot.
TV
Someone is aggregating all the Daily Show video links on one page. Sweet.
The video of the Lessig on West Wing episode.
Firefox advert or Franz Ferdinand video? You decide.
Everyone who wasn't talking about Flickr/Yahoo rumors at SXSW Interactive last week was talking about the Tivo/Comcast deal. Here's a good follow-up interview with the CEO of Comcast, which clears up some of the questions. [Via LostRemote.]
GAMES
For those who don't think Vice City is gritty enough, here's a preview to the new 50 Cent game, Bulletproof.
MUSIC
Tom Waits lists his top 20 albums.
Pitchfork gives the new Moby album a 2.4.
SXSW
Why can't it be SXSW every day? Here's a small selection of people that I had the great pleasure of speaking with for somewhere between 5 minutes and 8 hours in Austin last week: Malcolm Gladwell (author: Blink, Tipping Point), Chuck Olsen (blogger & filmmaker: Blogumentary), Rex Hammock (blogger: Rex Blog), Rob Davis (marketing maverick: Mozilla Foundation), Tara Hacker (blogger: HumminaHummina.com), John Vars and Ted Rheingold (web guys: Dogster), David Hudson (blogger: Green Cine Daily), Andrew Krukoff (blogger: Krucoff.com), Amanda Congdon & Andrew Barron (videobloggers: Rocketboom), Michaelangelo Matos (writer: The Seattle Weekly), Molly Steenson (blogger: Girl Wonder), Chuck Klosterman (author: lots of stuff), Lockhart Steele (editor: Gawker Media), Jason Kottke (blogger: Kottke.org), Jake Dobkin (publisher: Gothamist), Jason Calacanis (founder: Weblogs Inc.), Ricky Engelberg (digital guy: Nike), Ross Raihala (writer: Pioneer Press), Melissa Maerz (editor: Spin), Jennifer Maerz (editor: The Stranger), Matthew Haughey (web community guru: Metafilter & PVR Blog), Lindsey Thomas (editor: City Pages), Craig Finn (rocker: The Hold Steady), Bridgette Reinsmoen (editor: City Pages), Dave Campbell (publicist: 2024 Records), Alex Pappademas (editor: Spin), Anna Lee (fashionista: Voltage), Keith Harris (writer: freelance writer), and that one coke dealer. And how come no one told me Tony Pierce was in the house? Here are a few pics.
LOCAL
They love us! Both Newsweek and the Sunday New York Times wrote about our new museum expansion this week. In Newsweek, The Walker is called "probably the leading American venue for cutting-edge artists (both visual and performing)." Description: "The tour de force of their building is the silvery five-story cube, with its daredevil cantilevered corner hovering over the entrance -- anchored by hidden tons of steel and concrete -- and the whole shebang wrapped in shimmering aluminum-mesh panels that look as light and luscious as crumpled silk." In NYT, The Walker is dubbed "a place that prefers artful provocation to blockbuster entertainment, privileges the obscure and experimental over the tried-and-true, and cultivates a willful insouciance about the forces that govern most big museum establishment." And many arty lavishes are dished on our fair city.
It's sad that the problems that The Varsity Theater is having sound like something out of Kafka. The only good (if selfish) news is that the TC ElectroPunk Show might be rescheduled to a date that I'm in town.
I will be in Austin for SXSW the next 10 days. I have a platinum pass, so I'll be at all three segments: film, interactive, and music. The plan is to blog about all of them -- we'll see how much time there actually is. Update: There's just so many people to see, so much to absorb, so much to drink... I'll never be able to keep this site updated over the next week. Later.
TV
PVRblog has the video of Bruce Willis on The Daily Show talking about how much he loves TiVo. Interesting sidenote: Bruce was acting very strange on this episode -- talking about how he hadn't even changed clothes from the night before, full of innuendo. Then yesterday the NY Post does a gossip blurb about him possibly hooking up with Lindsay Lohan. Connect the dots?
Spike Jonze directs a commercial for Adidas. Music by Yeah Yeah Yeahs' Karen O.
The 100 Greatest TV Theme Songs.
Audio of Daily Show's Stephen Colbert on NPR's Fresh Air.
MUSIC
Looks like Spin is planning a redesign of the website. Here's the current site; here's a new site. (This isn't leaked information -- Spin sent out an email that [accidentally?] has the URL in it.)
FILM
Yowza. Tarantino might direct the next Friday the 13th movie.
New Woody Allen comedy: Melinda and Melinda trailer. Looks better than most recent films from the Woodster.
Website for the Wallace & Gromit movie, coming to theaters later this year.
Trailer to Herbie Fully Loaded, starring Lindsay Lohan.
WORDS
Another Eggers interview, this time in Salon. Topics include the start of 826 Valencia, the animosity directed at the McSweeney's crowd, and the film adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are with Spike Jonze. It's really pretty good.
Convicted killer reviews book about himself on Amazon.com.
BLOGS
If you don't have access to daytime cable tv, you might not know that Jeff Jarvis of Buzzmachine has pretty much taken over MSNBC during the day. Here's a video of him running down news on the blogosphere.
I was going to tell you that MSNBC was ahead of everyone else in their blog reportage -- especially with things like the web-only Hardball Blogcast. But then Wonkette reminded me of the "The Blog Report" on CNN. Funny ha-ha.
NYT Arts does strange back-to-back blogger profiles of Rosi O'Donnell (blog) and Will Wheaton (blog).
MEDIA
WatchingAmerica.com is a real-time collection of links to news stories about the United States by media organizations outside the United States. When necessary, they are translated into English.
CJR: The Case for Comics Journalism.
Slate takes a crack at the ol' 'who is a journalist?' conundrum.
DESIGN
The nominees for the 2005 Flash Film Festival are out. There's a ton of good stuff in there.
LOCAL
I hope you're noticing that Diablo Cody is doing excellent work at CP. Her analysis of Conan O'Brien this week is spot-on.
Made it over to Varsity Theater yet? Peter has a good historical story, which includes info about the genesis of the word Dinkytown.
North Dakota pops up in this Marketwatch interview with the CEO of Sportingbet, an online casino. It speculates that the casino might move to North Dakota if the legislature legalizes (and the public accepts) online gambling.
Even more anti-Star-Tribune blogging: Anti-Strib.
Greg debates our similarities with Canadians. He's so dead.
Dan Rather retires, and what do the kids in the local right-wing blogosphere (who helped oust him) do? Party!
In the 5+ years that I've been doing this site, I've never run advertising or asked for donations. I'm not quitting my day job or anything that ambitious, but if you feel like dropping me a few dollars of appreciation, you can do so through PayPal or Amazon. That's the beginning and end of this pledge drive.
MUSIC
Oh boy, you simply gotta hear Usher's new single, "Dot Com". "Oh, I love the way you dirty type. Oh, I need your back space in my life.... Oh baby, if you log on, I'll make you dot com... I can't wait to give you megabytes. I got all the memory you need." I would call this a hoax if it weren't on AOL. This is so bad it's post-bad.
Long NYT Mag profile of Beck, which is somewhat boring until half-way through when he starts talking about Scientology and his posse -- he's married to Marissa Ribisi (Giovanni's sister) and hangs with Adam Goldberg and Christina Ricci (who contributed a Japanese-inflected line on the song "Hell Yes").
Mike Skinner talks to the Guardian about starting a label.
Axl is the cover story of the Sunday NYT Arts section.
ONLINE
Fred Durst sues Gawker . (And I can't even think of anything snarky to say. Well, except maybe a pun about having a Limp Bizkit.) See previously: Felix Salmon thought Gawker jumped the shark.
Google adds weather search. Brr, it's cold again this week.
What Happens to Your Online Self When You Die?
TV
NYT previews what the Fox vs. CNBC match will look like.
Exactly 48 hours ago, I was having a beer with Chuck Olsen and he told me about Plum TV (a new tv network for rich people), and I thought, "This would be a good story to pitch to the New York Times." Then the Sunday paper showed up.
Profile of the Korean animation studio that produces The Simpson's.
FILM
McSweeney's: "Who's On First" at the video story.
NYT: Is a Cinema Studies Degree the New M.B.A.?
Amazon.com: Short Film Competition.
PUBLISHING
Issue #2 of Work mag is out.
MEDIA
It looks like Michael Musto is outting Anderson Cooper.
Dan Rather historical interactive at CBSNews.com.
Kurt Andersen on the state of journalism in the age of bloggers.
Interview with Craig "Craigslist" Newmark where he talks about getting into citizen journalism.
GAMES
For New Yorkers, Moving Image Exibition on Digital Play; for San Franciscoans, Start SOMA Video Game Art Show.
DESIGN
All of Mediabistro's interviews in the Design Spotlight series.
LOCAL
We've got a local girl on the next America's Next Top Supermodel. ("Favorite movie: Snatch. Favorite TV Show: Poker Championship." Grrrowl.) Anyone know her?
The Current launches an events calendar.
The local right-wing bloggers are officially scaring me. I can already hear the echo chamber that is SwarmingTheStrib.com.
The Rake asks: Will Time Out come to the Twin Cities? (No.)
Over the weekend, I did a segment about online viral marketing on public radio's Weekend America. Here's the audio file (mp3 - 6.3mb).
Although most of us sentient beings think of advertising as predominantly evil (or, if forgiving, necessarily evil), an interesting contradiction arises out of viral marketing -- it's both detestable and fascinating at the same time. In that sense, viral marketing introduces complex issues about how we relate to media, how we want to believe in fantasy, and how we still cling to the notion of authenticity. Sometimes it's strangely addicting (Subservient Chicken), and other times it's like watching your parents dance to Outcast (Raging Cow).
As a compendium to the radio show, below are links to some online viral marketing campaigns. (If they aren't hyper-linked, that means the site no longer exists.) It's a long list, so skim it as you see fit:
Subservient Chicken -- Burger King
http://www.subservientchicken.com
Although it wasn't the first, it seemed to kick-off the trend. It also created spin-offs, including Crystal Clear's Ask Crystal Show and Subservient President.
Chicken Fight -- Burger King
http://www.chickenfight.com
Trying to follow-up the buzz behind Subservient Chicken, this was a game with a boxing bout between two chickens. It was pretty dumb.
Pimp My Burger -- Burger King
http://www.pimpmyburger.com
A recent take-off of MTV's Pimp My Ride. Long but mildly entertaining.
Angus Diet -- Burger King
http://www.angusdiet.com
Another BK one. A fake inspirational speaker and personal interventionalist espouses the benefits of eating beef.
The Beast -- A.I. Artificial Intelligence
http://www.cloudmakers.org
The Beast is the respected grandfather of the movement. The story: Evan Chan is murdered in the fictional world of the movie A.I. Clues are available on the internet on approximately 30 interlinked websites (disguised as universities, businesses, personal homepages, etc.). Over 7,000 people combine their knowledge to figure out the murder mystery.
I Love Bees -- Halo 2
http://www.ilovebees.com
Perhaps the most ambitious example of a new medium called "alternate-reality gaming" (which includes The Beast, above). Participants go to a website to learn what pay phones will be called that week (to make it even more geeky, they're listed by GPS coordinates). When they answer the phone, a message is given with a clue. Back on the website, you enter the answer to a question and then hear a 30-second clip of new material. Sometimes when you pick up the phone, you talk to with a live person, and what you say can be incorporated into the online game. The final episode, which had a War of the Worlds feel, was timed to the launch of the videogame. Millions of people came to the site.
MSN Found -- Microsoft/MSN
http://www.msnfound.com
MSN Found has six fake online personalities in their mid-20s (with profiles more stereotypical than MTV's The Real World) write blogs and post video clips. The blogs contain words ("hypnodragon" and "define vertigious") that are intended to drive you to use MSN Search for clues. The hook is that you're supposed to get interested in the personalities, and then use MSN's new search product to find out more about these people. Strangely, the site doesn't use Microsoft's own blogging software, Spaces.
The 2-Headed Dog -- MTV2
http://www.the2headeddog.com
This came about because of MTV2's new branding strategy to compete with the upcoming music video station, Fuse. The site (now defunct) didn't contain much more than strange visuals of two-headed dogs, but it made you scratch your head if you stumbled across it before the station redesign. MTV hired people to spread the word on message boards, which caused a backlash.
The Lincoln Fry Blog -- McDonald's
http://lincolnfry.typepad.com/blog/
http://lincolnfry.yahoo.com
A Super Bowl commercial about a couple who discovers a McDonald's french fry that looked like Abe Lincoln triggers this escapade. A fake blog chronicles the couple's adventures. After the ad ran, McDonald's decided to sell the fry online, where an online casino (GoldenPalace.com) paid $75,100 for it. So it's like buying someone else's viral marketing scheme to create your own.
Axe Feather -- Axe Deodorant
http://www.axefeather.com
Dumb.
Counter Counterfeit Commission -- BMW Mini
http://www.counterfeitmini.org
This somewhat clever campaign is a fake "detect a fake Mini" site, which contains photos on detecting a fake Mini and a $20 documentary DVD on the Mini counterfeit underworld.
Elite Designers Against Ikea -- Ikea
http://www.elitedesigners.org
Another fakie. Elite designers are against Ikea because their stuff is so cheap. I mean, inexpensive.
HalloweenM3 -- Mazda
http://halloweenm3.blogspot.com
This short-lived experiment from Mazda had a fake blogger talking about the new Mazda M3. The internet community generally disliked this disingenuous attempt. (NOTE: I somehow misidentified this site's name on the radio show. I called it "Raging Cow," which is below.)
Raging Cow -- Dr. Pepper
http://blog.ragingcow.com
Dr. Pepper enlisted six blogging teens to promote the product Raging Cow, a new milk-based drink. The strange thing is that the bloggers aren't paid, yet they enjoy talking about the product -- a clear precursor to the persuaders.
Find The Message -- GM Onstar
http://www.findthemessage.com
17 different words plus the URL FindTheMessage.com are placed on billboards around the country. The goal is to put all the words together to figure out a message. Pieced together from L.A. to New York, it turned out to be "This is the last time you will ever have to feel alone on our nation's roadways," which advertised GM's OnStar navigation product. A prize was to be given to whoever figured it out first, but someone cracked open the site's flash file, and revealed the phrase before actual terrestrial sleuths could figure it out.
Pump Up The Movie -- Best Buy / Nokia
http://www.pumpupthemovie.com
It too me a while to realize that this was a fake movie site which includes a "toss the cheerleader" game. (Created by Space150.com.)
Fight Big Overcoat -- Transglobal Vacations
http://www.fightbigovercoat.org
Another one involving billboards.
Rubber Burner & Super Greg -- Lee Jeans
http://www.rubberburner.com
http://www.supergreg.com
These long-gone fake homepages of out-of-touch losers were modeled on Mahir, the dancing Turkish hipster from 1999. Fallon was behind the project. (Sidenote: This one was first brought out into the open by Kottke on Metafilter, which seems like a million years ago.)
Who Ordered Room Service -- Not Bryan Adams
http://www.whoorderedroomservice.com
And now there's even parody viral marketing campaigns. At first this looked like a viral campaign by Bryan Adams for his new album, Room Service. Except he had nothing to do with it.
VW Suicide Bomber -- Probably Not Volkswagen
http://www.boreme.com/bm/JAN05/a/vw-suicide-bomber/fr.htm
Because viral marketing is now so prevalant, there's the danger that people will think parodies are real.
MORE RESOURCES
GOOD BLOGS & SITES
TRACKBACKS
LIFESTYLE
Slate.com asks Which Condom Is Best?
ONLINE
Yahoo is 10 years old today. A 10-Year Netrospective. They're giving away ice cream.
TECH
No! It looks like NYT is cancelling Circuits [second item], the Thursday tech section. Actually, the section, which used to be a must-read, has been on the slow downward slide toward irrelevance for the past year.
AIM At Work allows you to synch your AIM Buddy List with Outlook.
TV
NYT has more on the reality tv show about the art world mentioned here a couple weeks ago.
FILM
WSJ reports that Green Cine Daily (which is one of my favorite blogs) "sparked a 20-fold rise in hits" for Green Cine (the rent-by-mail DVD service). See also: Netflix' corporate blogger, The Rocchi Report.
More ridiculous trailer premieres: Star Wars Trailer to Premiere On The O.C..
MARKETING
Slate loves that "All about the 'O'" commercial from Overstock.com.
T-SHIRTS
Some new ones at Non-Zero Change. I like "I'm Somebody's Fetish" and "I'm Not Your Damn Search Engine".
TIVO
Forrester Memo to Steve Jobs: Buy TiVo.
LOCAL
Dylan Hicks does a great job on a suite of stories about 89.3 The Current in CP. Paul Demko talks about the successes (sometimes forced) of the station, Diablo Cody looks at the personalities behind the station, and Dylan critiques the whiteness of the programming. Have you noticed that everyone is talking about radio lately?
I completely missed the story about a screenwriter who took out an advert in City Pages to contact Josh Hartnett about his screenplay. I almost hate to tell the guy that Josh regularly gets orange juice at my neighorhood coffeeshop.
You a nerd? Then MarsCon, which is going on this weekend, is probably for you.
A friend of mine from college has published her book about the Grand Forks disaster of 1997, where I lost my apartment and everything else in a flood and fire. (Previously: Ashley Shelby's book, where I'm a prominent "character.")
I haven't made it over to Creative Electric for the new poster show with Squad19 (CP story), but it looks like Minneapolis has another great design collective to add to the list.
The past five days have involved sleeping in a different city every night, in this order: San Francisco, Minneapolis, Toledo, Ithaca, and New York City. I have only one piece of advice from this experience: don't attempt to drive a Uhaul into Manhattan via the Holland Tunnel. Just trust me on this. But I'm home and safe, and here is where we left off:
BLOGS
Ana Marie is back at the helm of Wonkette.
The Guardian has launched a blog.
MARKETING
Burger King's take on Pimp My Ride: PimpMyBurger.com.
TV
Copyright issues are preventing shows like WKRP in Cincinnati from showing up on DVD.
CELEBRITY
In what must be a first, Halle Berry picks up her Razzie in person. (Update: A reader writes in to say that Tom Green showed up for his Freddy Got Fingered Razie.)
A little profile of Portia de Rossi in Paper.
PUBLISHING
For self-publishers: How to Sell Your Book, CD, or DVD on Amazon.
ONLINE
Wired mag profiles Yahoo as the UnGoogle. It's a good comparison the strengths of each company.
GADGETS
You'd expect a T-Mobile backlish with the newest Paris Hilton scandal, but the exact opposite happened.
MEDIA
Now Michael Wolff (through a proxy) has told Felix Salmon to take down the speech text. Now it's on Cryptome, therefore guaranteeing its legacy and creating even more controversy. Silly Wolff.
Profile of the Vice empire, which is now multi-million dollars strong.
MUSIC
Gothamist interviews Lou Barlow.
I hate that new Interpol puppet as much as that goddamn Arby's oven mitt. MTV.com has everything you wanted to know about the ugly marionette.
TECH
While I was out of town, it looks like Odeo launched (NYT story), and then unlaunched.
LOCAL
Lookie! The Walker relaunched the website with a new design. The plans for openening weekend (April 16-17) have been announced too.
Jayhawks: unbroken up.
Buffalo, MN becomes one of the first cities to have a mesh network.
If you read between the lines at this post from 89.3 The Current, it seems as though the station is failing to meet its financial (membership) goals.
Blogging might be light for a while, as this week marks the beginning of Rex's Pre-Spring World Tour. Over the next month, I'll be in San Fran (Feb. 21-23), NYC (Feb. 25-27), and Austin (March 12-20). Holler if you wanna hang.
TV
How convenient! The Parent's Television Council keeps a gallery of what it considers the "Worst Clips Of The Week." In other words, the best tv of the week.
TV Sked: When is Law & Order on? Answer: pretty much always.
Anderson Cooper becomes a tough guy when interviewing Jeff Gannon.
WORDS
Hunter S. Thompson killed himself.
Microsoft: A parent's primer to computer slang. Can you say grungegate?
CELEB
In a story ready-made for every site in the Denton network, Paris Hilton's phone was hacked, revealing naughty cam pics of her making out with Nicole Lenz and a gigantic address book of celebs, including Anna Kournikova, Vin Diesel, Victoria Gotti, Stephen King, Usher, Ashlee Simpson, Lindsey Lohan, Avril Lavigne, Lil John, Seth Green, Eminem, Russell Simmons, Christina Aguilera, Nicole Richie, Pat O'Brien, Fred Durst, and countless other strange aliases. Don't bother calling though -- no one's answering.
BLOGS
The video to the Charlie Rose special that featured bloggers.
The godfather of blogging, Justin Hall, stops updating his site and SF Chron writes about it. Includes mentions of other bloggers who have quit, including Andrew Sullivan, Peter Merholz, and William Gibson.
Gothamist interviews Best Week Ever's Jessi Klein.
IPOD
Wikipod, a wiki for iPods.
FASHION
Devastating. Dolce and Gabbana have split up.
FILM
Huh, they're letting David Duchovny direct: House of D trailer.
MUSIC
Guardian: 10 Greatest Rock 'n Roll Myths.
Performance video of Arcade Fire's "Wake Up."
LOCAL
The New York Times continues its fascination with all-things-North-Dakotan with a story that mixes Grand Forks fishing and podcasting.
Primo links today. Honest:
ONLINE
Someone finally posted the video from Wednesday night's Daily Show segment on blogs. Super excellent. (Chuck also has it.) See also: Daily Show Slash Fiction.
In addition to new instant messenger features, Friendster has added discussions, which have Craiglist-ish qualities. But ya gotta wonder: does anyone even notice or care anymore?
Friday Flash Fun: EndOfTheWorld.net.
Cool audio historical analysis of Wikipedia, with the Heavy Metal Umlaut as the subject.
MEDIA
I don't care what you say, I think it's weird that the New York Times bought About.com. I mean, imagine writing that headline five years ago.
FILM
From Errol Morris' Aborted Projects: Donald Trump on Citizen Kane. Friggin brilliant.
MUSIC
Beatallica (the Beatles-Metallica mashup) has been issued a cease-and-desist from Sony.
Ryan Adams has either lost his mind, or he's working a marketing angle in which you're supposed to think he has. His site now is just a big ball of worms -- literally. A couple of the worms make noise if you click them. A small area in the lower-right has a hidden link to a crazy recorded phone conversation between him and his label, which is probably staged.
GAMES
NYT Circuits hangs out with the designers and developers of America's Army while they are in turn hanging out with the U.S. military.
Of all the features to make available in video games, it's actually surprising that it took so long to add pizza delivery.
Looks like it's worth checking out: This Is Not A Game: A Guide To Alternate Reality Games. First two chapters available for download.
Kotaku has a minor scoop on the Xbox 360°.
ART
It's about time that the art world got its own reality tv show. Artstar is an unscripted television series about trying to make it big in the New York art world
Wall Street Journal story on digital art, with links to Mark Amerika, Mark Napier, and others.
MEDIA
I wonder if I should post the copy of the Michael Wolff speech that he demanded be removed from I Want Media. Does this remind anyone of, oh, say, Eason Jordan? And isn't he smart enough to realize that now everyone will seek out this speech? Or might he actually know that, hoping dumb bloggers like me give him more attention for a couple days? Oh, whatever, who cares, here it is. And that's the weird thing -- it's pretty good.
BOOZE
Slate.com: Which Celebrities Make The Best Wine?
SWIMSUITS
Slate.com: An Intellectual History of The Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. And The Superficial has some very NSFW pics of the supermodel on the cover before she was, um, super.
LOCAL
Hey FOX9, editorialize much?
Is anyone attending any of the Spark festival? I feel kinda bad for not going to a single event so far.
FOUND ONLINE
Found on Amazon.com: JL421 Badonkadonk Land Cruiser/Tank. ($20K. Read the reviews.)
Found on Wikipedia: Twoallbeefpattiesspecialsauce
lettucecheesepicklesonionsona
sesameseedbun.
Found on McSweeney's: Necrophiliac Pickup Lines.
MUSIC
Someone mixed that Nina Gordon cover of "Straight Outta Compton" with video from NWA.
NYT: We Hate the 80's. The premise is GenX-ers aren't buying the nostalgia machine. I wonder.
New Gorillaz. Excellent.
WaPo: the future music format is no format.
FILM
A mobile film festival: Mobicine.com.
New film from Rebecca Miller (daughter of Arthur Miller): The Ballad of Jack and Rose.
Hanging out in Roger Ebert's four-and-a-half-story Chicago town house.
PUBLISHING
NYT profiles the site InsideHigherEd.com, "the first significant competition in higher education publishing since the intellectual-if-gossipy Lingua Franca folded." The site was started by two Chronicle of Higher Education alums.
Nerve.com: My Unrequited Love For A McSweeney's Writer.
At Salon.com, Laura Miller profiles H.P. Lovecraft, "America's greatest bad writer."
MEDIA
Rolling Stone profiles the Sinclair Broadcast Group, which is more to the right than Fox News.
In an otherwise unessential read, the first paragraph of this NYT story reveals that Armstrong Williams' partner in the Graham Williams Group was Stedman Graham -- yes, Oprah's boyfriend.
Jeff Jarvis was on Reliable Sources this weekend, talking Eason Jordon and Jeff Gannon. Here's the video.
NYT: Bloggers as News Media Trophy Hunters.
FUNNY DOGS
NYT Mag: Questions For Triumph The Insult Comic Dog.
TV
Morgan Spurlock of Supersize Me has a new film tv show in development in which a group of mothers drink what the average college senior drinks over the course of a month. Gawker has the casting call.
ManiaTV, a streaming tv network with music videos. I watched during the Grammy's and it wasn't bad.
NYT: The History Of Girls Kissing On TV. (I thought the first was Roseanne -- turns out, it was L.A. Law.)
B&C looks at the insurance costs inside Fear Factor and others. Includes a list of all the lawsuits filed against reality tv shows.
DESIGN
Cool interface for looking at baby name popularity.
NETFLIX
Ever wondered what a Netflix distribution center was like? Okay.
LOCAL
Did you know that Charlize Theron and Woody Harrelson are hanging out in the Iron Range?
Chalk up another quasi-win for Minnesota bloggers. Captain's Quarters was one of the leading blogs behind Eason Jordon's ouster.
MUSIC
It seems Pazz & Jop comes out later every year. Everyone knew Kayne would win, but Brian Wilson and Loretta Lynn coming in next was a surprise. Plus Green Day and U2 in the top 10 makes this the most conservative P&J that I can remember. The ballots.
Smoosh, a shockingly good indie rock band consisting of two sisters, ages 10 and 12. Album and samples on Amazon. [via Waxy]
MUSIC VIDEOS
Another Beck video: "Black Tambourine". Is he planning to do a video for every damn song on the new album?
ONLINE
Video from Vloggercon is now available.
Salon.com looks closely at 43 Things, which is funded by Amazon.
Friendster added a chatting service (one-to-one chat, like IM). I have no idea if this will save the company, but I suddenly have a bunch of friends using it.
IPOD
Sirius is trying (and failing) to hook up with the iPod.
GAMES
Alex Garland (28 Days Later) is pegged to do the movie version of Halo 2. Ridley Scott was rumored before. [via greg.org]
TV
Marcia Cross: not gay. And a good thread tracking the rumor.
Onion A/V: Interview with Mitchell Hurwitz, creator of Arrested Development. At the same time, bad news for the show.
Questions Frequently Asked About TiVo, Answered by Someone Who Loves TiVo Too Much. "Is TiVo male or female?"
NY Observer: The SNL Skit That Paris Hilton Wouldn't Do. What's she got against Joey Buttafuoco?
Cory at Lost Remote has some ideas on how to fix tv for our demographic. Includes ideas sampled from Fark, reality tv, and viral marketing.
WORDS
ART
A Yahoo Slideshow for a Lucien Freud painting (it's of a pregnant Kate Moss).
MEDIA
After its first profitable quarter ever, Dave Talbot is leaving Salon.
Paris Hilton is on the cover of Playboy, but her publicist says, "I don't even know where they got that photo." Is this a first for Playboy -- throwing a celeb on the cover without having pictures inside? The cover story -- "25 Sexiest Celebrites" -- seems like a shift toward a Maxim audience.
LOCAL
CityPages.com redesigned. What do I think? Well, let's just say I think they're under-playing what people want from a site like this: daily content. Too much "cover story think" for the wrong medium. Editor's note.
I guess MPLS Happy Hour wasn't enough -- we also got Thrifty Hipster.
Ross reports that The Current has started airing "Sounds Eclectic," the KCRW show which everyone cites as "what Minneapolis really needs."
Guess who's #1 on ESPN.com's Top 10 Overpaid Players? Spreeeeeeweelllll!
KARE11 did a long piece (5+ mins) on the power of blogs. They actually use the word "information superhighway" in the video.
Someone slow them down. Just launched: Google Maps.
Kottke noticed that Google switched their Dictionary.com link to an Answers.com link. (How does he always noticed things like this before anyone else?)
Wanna buy an internet company? About.com is for sale. Bidders include: Google, Yahoo, NYT, and AOL.
DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES
CNN just reported that Marcia Cross is a lesbian. She will come out in The Advocate, and apparently her character (Bree Van De Camp) will come out on the show.
The DVD version of Desperate Housewives will probably include some nudity and stuff.
SEX + VEGETARIANS
The PETA Super Bowl advert that was rejected.
Vegan Sex Shop (dot-com).
MUSIC
Banned 50 Cent video. I can't believe MTV won't air orgies.
FILM
Waxy's annual investigation into the Oscar-nominated films leaked onto the internet.
Wired News reviews the documentary 24 Hours on Craiglist (trailer), which chronicles the outcome of more than 80 craigslist postings from a single day.
ONLINE
Economist: The economics of sharing.
Interview with Stewart Butterfield on Flickr.
MARKETING
Business 2.0: MTV2's Two-Headed Dog Isn't Paper-Trained.
TV
If you missed Rumsfeld on Meet the Press last week, you missed quite a doozy. Lisa Rein has it.
LOCAL
Malcolm Gladwell is reading tonight at the Edina Barnes and Noble at 7:30.
ONLINE
Google has added the "Local" tab to its homepage. I'm a heavy user of Google Local, so it's great to see it up front. (Who wants to bet on Video, Print, or Scholar being the next to move to prime time?)
BLOGS
New Calcanis blog: AdJab, from the author of The Media Drop.
Lizzy Spears responds to the cat fight accusations between her and Gawker.
Jay Rosen from Pressthink is the latest blogger writing a media book. Tentative title: Gatekeepers Without Gates.
Ask Jeeves has purchased Bloglines.
MARKETING
In the future, only car companies will make movies. Here's some new crazy thing from Mercury.
MEDIA
Barb's most recent AJR column starts with a story about a guy watching The Apprentice. That guy is me. (Oh yeah, the column is about RSS. It's good.)
Being on a panel with Dan Gillmor last week was pretty cool. His recent post on how to improve editorial pages is a good example of how he's infiltrating newsrooms.
Chris Anderson has an interesting take on abundance economics affecting the notion of objectivity.
I really wanted to go, but couldn't make it to Poynter's Web+10 seminar. Here's a collection of audio clips.
MUSIC
DJs will probably do amazing things with these: John Bonham drum outtakes.
Extremely cool: Band Fonts. Expect all future emails from me to be in the Kix font.
With mixed effects, NYT tries the sociological approach on the Montreal scene, in which you're supposed to feel sorry for Canadians who speak English.
TV
Video of Joe Klein on the Daily Show.
Biz Week has a series of articles on The Future of TV, including one on IPTV.
GoDaddy.com has both the Super Bowl ad they showed and the one that was turned down.
NYT: The L behind The L Word.
A new show from BBC about the media called The Desk has some buzz. The creator of the magazine Wallpaper, Tyler Brûlé, is brains behind the show.
FILM
Trailer to a Klaus Nomi documentary.
Cinema Bed. Gimme.
IPOD
Newsweek: Does Your iPod Play Favorites?
Slate: How to make your iPod an audiophile's dream.
CNET: My iPod beats satellite radio any day.
Salon: Hallelujah, the Mac is back.
GAMES
Onion A/V talks to Will Wright and Howard Scott Warshaw.
Gamespot reviews Playboy: The Mansion.
Cool video of augmented reality technology.
LOCAL
Today in literature, Sinclair Lewis was born in Sauk Centre.
Anyone visited the Mill City Museum? Completely by accident, I drove by it the other day, and it looks kinda cool. Designed by the local firm MS&R.
If you haven't noticed, the Cesar Pelli library is starting to take shape. BTW, I hear the Walker is reopening in April.
TV
Petition to make the Daily Show an hour long.
The Sunday Times Arts section chooses video filesharing as its cover story. While pondering recent developments in media control -- including MythTV (basically a homemade DVR) and Videora (basically a mix of RSS and BitTorrent) -- the article takes the now-common tone of "tv executives don't want their industry to be the next Napster." But, as usual, there's little substance on what they might be doing about it. (And not even a passing note on Google Video or Blinkx.) It also mentions EFF's Television Digital Liberation Front, a protest against the upcoming broadcast flag mandate.
Coming to a DVD nearest you: the first season of Dynasty (April 19 release).
NYT: Class issues in The Apprentice. Glad to see the grad schools are still churning out people who talk like this.
BizWeek: Microsoft May Be A TV Star Yet.
Waxy has more on the A9/OC connection, including video of the episode.
MEDIA
So you always wanted to get into the news business? Now's your chance: Al Jazeera is up for sale.
ONLINE
Elizabeth Spiers' Fishbowl NY is supposed to launch today. NYT exaggerated in calling it a "face-off" between it and Gawker. UPDATE: It launched along with other new MediaBistro sites, including Fishbowl LA, Fishbowl DC, and Unbeige. UPDATE UPDATE: Denton has launched two new ones too: Gridskipper ("urban travel") and Lifehacker (tech tips).
iPod Stories (dot-com). Wired News has the story on the man behind it. He likes the word technotranscendent. Good line: "The iPod is no longer just an instrument or a tool, but a part of myself. It's a body extension. It's part of my memory, and if I lose this stuff, I lose part of my identity."
NYT Styles puts blogging moms on the cover with a profile of Heather Armstrong of Dooce.com. And the San Francisco Chronicle profiles Anastasia Goodstein of YPulse and a recent INdTV hire.
FILM
Have you heard who's set to direct Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections? Robert Zemeckis.
In a somewhat strange case, some people think Clint Eastwood is a bigot for his Oscar-nominated Million Dollar Baby. Roger Ebert isn't one of them.
MUSIC
M.I.A. seems to be the most hyped artist of the moment. Her new album isn't even out until next month, yet she's appearing on music blogs everywhere. NYT had her do a playlist this week.
Wanna hear a track from the upcoming FisherSpooner? Sure ya do.
MUSIC VIDEOS
Another new Beck video: "E Pro". (This one's directed by Shynola, not the one that I pointed to the other day.) It rocks.
Guardian: Top 20 Music Videos Ever. "Thriller" isn't #1!
BOOKS/IDEAS
NYTBR gives the backpage to Steven Johnson to ruminate on software that helps the writing process. His blog has more info on the software. Recommended.
Bookforum takes an extensive look at copyright.
The Guardian has an excerpt of Haruki Murakami's Kafka on the Shore.
GAMES
There's a lot of talk in the game industry about introducing more narrative into games. Clive Thompson at Slate.com argues the exact opposite. Excerpt: When a game has a story that "ends" after 40 hours of play, you have to throw it away -- and go spend another $50 on the next title. That's movie-industry logic, not game logic. Chess doesn't "end." Neither do hockey, bridge, football, Go, playing with dolls, or even Tetris.
Some details on Katamari Damacy 2. (I highly recommend playing the first one while very wasted.)
DESIGN
Probably the coolest Flash slideshow that I've ever seen.
POLITICS
Ever wonder what Newt Gingrich has been up to? Really, you do? Well, WaPo has a long profile for you.
LOCAL
Everyone and their daughter was at the Melodious Owl / Olympic Hopefuls / Faux Jean show on Saturday. The queue outside could have you waiting in the cold for up to an hour, but I was lucky enough to have friends sneak in the back. I guess that's what happen when there's nothing going on in January and the Strib puts you on the cover.
NYT looks at the age-discrimination suit going on over at Best Buy. Interesting tidbit: the average age of its 5,000 employees is 29.
What is the only state that has never had a tv series located in it? North Dakota.
Following a Blogumentary screening, I will be on a panel at the U of M St. Paul Campus Theater. The author of We Media, Dan Gillmor, will be there too. More details.
ONLINE
Think of an object. 20Q.net can usually figure it out in less than 20 questions.
Remember Friendster? Apparently, the site is finally planning to offer new products, though what they are is still unclear. MySpace is already several times bigger than Friendster.
eXeem -- the next generation in P2P -- is out.
BLOGGERS
Video interview with Salaam Pax.
Howard Kurtz had Ana Marie Cox and Andrew Sullivan on Reliable Sources yesterday. Here's the transcript.
MARKETING
Alright, someone's gotta start a backlash on this viral marketing stuff. For instance, this one appears to be MTV2, this one appears to be TransGlobal Vacations, and this one appears to be GM. I think all of them involve billboards too. Stop it, before you hurt someone!
TV
The Sims is being made into a TV show. They should really get Strangerhood to consult.
Lisa Rein has the Daily Show Inauguration Speech video. (This "Freedom vs. Liberty" comparison came up everywhere last week, from SNL to the New York Times to NPR.)
New on Flowtv.org: interview with Jason Reich, a Daily Show writer.
Lost Remote thread: How Would You Fix CBS News?
MUSIC
New Bjork / Spike Jonze video: "Triumph of a Heart".
Simon Reynold tries to explain why dance music is dying. Even dance music subculture fans will like to see Black Strobe, DJ/Rupture, LCD Soundsystem, Mu, Tiefschwarz, Teamshadetek, and Kiki name-checked in The Times. If you're into that kinda thing, the ILM thread.
If you haven't heard it, you probably should hear Nina Gordon's version of "Straight Outta Compton" (mp3). Refresher: Nina Gordon was in Veruca Salt.
Gawker on Spin's Killers cover: "There's surely someone in North Dakota who has yet to discover these guys."
ILM debates "Southern Man" (Neil Young) vs. "Sweet Home Alabama" (Lynard Skynard).
FILM
Low Culture on Crispin Glover's new project, What Is It? "The film features a cast consisting largely of actors with Down Syndrome, a snail with the voice of Fairuza Balk, and legendary publisher Adam Parfrey playing 'Jealous Minstrel'." Crispin has either lost it, or he's deeply inspired by Prince Harry.
On eBay: Napoleon Dynamite - Rex's Bad Boy Stars & Stripes Pants.
Robert X. Cringely: The New Mac Mini is All About Movies.
DRINKING
NYT Styles on the GOP-friendly bar that the Bush twins hang at.
T-SHIRTS
I Can't, I'm Mormon (dot-com).
I Stole Brad (dot-com).
ART
I had no idea that taxidermy was so in. First the Creative Electric brouhaha, now NYT Styles on taxidermy art.
LOCAL
89.3 The Current launched today. Audio stream, staff list, and a list of the music played in the last six hours. When I turned it on for the first time, Low's "Radio Transmission" was playing. Good sign.
Slate.com explainer: How Embarrass, Minn., Got Its Name.
Locally-shot short film, Ma Ma's Revenge. Um, weird.
I'm slightly embarrassed to just now find out that local boy Rob Davis is the person behind the NYT Firefox advert. (Discovered this via a Wired mag cover story, not online yet.) Rob was also the creator of BushBoy.com (CP story), Deanie Babies, and Butter Palm. More so than any one else in this city, Rob needs a blog.
TV
NYT story on upcoming sit-coms set in Iraq, including Spirit of America, "a Fox sitcom about the creation of a Western-style television network in contemporary Baghdad." Oh boy.
McDonald's Israel has done a parody advert [video] of the Pulp Fiction scene about burgers. (I wonder if Tarantino approved this.)
ONLINE
Media Lab Europe is shutting down.
The Age of Egocasting. This is a long essay tracking personal choice in media from the remote control to "egocasting." Unfortunately, it ends with one of those doomsday, Postman-esque scenarios envisioned back in the Republic.com days. (That type of argument should be totally debunked by now. TiVo and other personalization devices cause me to experience more media options, not less.)
Blinkx.tv has essentially come out of nowhere to capture a segment of the future that Google should really own: video search. They've signed up BBC, ITV, Sky and Fox.
NYT: Blogs help reform in Iran.
BOOKS
As expected, Malcolm Gladwell's new book, Blink, is getting a lot of attention. If you have any interest in keeping up with Gladwell, here's the NYTBR review, the Salon review, and a Metafilter thread.
Newsweek reviews the new Murakami novel, Kafka on the Shore.
It appears no one has even noticed that Douglas Coupland has a new novel out: Eleanor Rigby: A Novel.
ARCHITECTURE
Amazing photos of Hong Kong: Michael Wolf's Architecture of Density.
MEDIA
The whole blogging/disclosure/activism debate has so many tentacles to it now that I won't bother linking to everything. Instead, if you care, here's a post that does.
LOCAL
Mark your calendars for the Blogumentary screening Feb. 3, which will include the special guest Dan Gillmor, who is the author of We The Media and who made my blogs of the year list.
Chris Butler is doing a movie about the '90s Minneapolis band Walt Mink. Here's the blog and an ILM thread.
Randomly, people are talking about Husker Du on Metafilter.
Alexis says that a Metropark is coming to the Mall of America. Good or bad? You decide: "Metropark is a new breed of lifestyle retailer inspired by the fusion of fashion, music, and art. We stand for seduction, life after midnight, and the constant pursuit of desire." Well, I guess we'll just see about that....
DESIGN
Pitchfork redesigned. I don't know why this is considered better -- it looks more busy and harder to digest. But there oodles of new ads, so that's probably why they redesigned.
Nerdy Wired-ish graphic of the Apple's Tipping Point.
MUSIC
Jay-Zeezer, a mashup of Jay-Z and Weezer. Prediction: after a certain point, the phrase "interesting in theory" takes over this entire genre, and no one ever listens to a mash-up again because everyone just imagines what it will sound like.
Creative Commons and Wired have launched CC Mixter, "where you can listen to, sample, mash-up, or interact with music in whatever way you want."
Because I know at least one old-school indie rocker still reads this blog: Steve Albini talks about food.
MEDIA
E&P: All about the International Game Journalists Association.
New magazine: JPG Magazine.
This week, Media Hack looks at bloggers who are also reporters, with observations from Chris Allbritton, Om Malik, and Peter Rojas.
New WSJ column, The Numbers Guy, "a new column on the way numbers and statistics are used -- and abused -- in the news, business and politics."
BOOKS
The Chicago Tribune profile of Jessa Crispin (the proprietor of Bookslut) contains a list of her favorite books of all time. (Bookslut was one of my blogs of the year.)
Malcolm Gladwell's book tour dates.
TECH
You probably saw the interview where Bill Gates calls the Creative Commons advocates communists, and now Gizmodo asks him to clarify. (There's the funny point at the end where they disagree on agreeing.)
NYT: Google corrects advertisers' grammer.
T-SHIRTS
LOCAL
Mary Lucia posting about the new NPR music station.
ONLINE
WaPo introduces new vlogging software called Vlog It. Looks interesting. (Sidenote: have we already reached a consensus to call it vlogging?)
New site: Mappr. Uses Flickr API to map out recently uploaded photos.
DESIGN
VillageVoice.com has redesigned. I like the colors, but not the double-horizontal subnav. It's unfortunate that the blog component got bumped over to the far-left rail.
TV
You watch Arrested Development, right? Of course you do, but did you know that Portia de Rossi is shacking with Ellen DeGeneres right now? Of course you did, but did you know that Will Arnett is married to Amy Poehler? Of course you did. Nevermind then.
Because of the timely intersection of three things -- new year's prognostications, last week's CES, and the ascendency of vlogging -- everyone is talking about The Future of Television. It's impossible to link to all the buzz-buzzing right now, but here are a couple: Buzzmachine has a post on how to explode your tv in four easy steps and The Long Tail has one about distribution models. And there's Steven Johnson reflecting on what he wrote in Emergence. As always, LostRemote has a constant flow or related links.
Diablo Cody writes about Project Runway, my current fave show. I love it when Heidi Klum pushes the losers off the stage with an Auf Wiedersehen that has twice the gravitas of Trump's You're Fired.
MUSIC
The sheet music to Super Mario Brothers.
Sasha in The New Yorker: When I'm Sixty-Four.
MEDIA
Letterman: Top Ten Proposed Changes At CBS News.
OJR has a good roundup of the business and legal complexities of the online distribution of the homemade tsunami video.
NYTimes.com sent out its most-viewed stories of 2004 via email. Here's the list:
LOCAL
According to CP, TCF Bank pulled advertising from the Star Tribune after the Nick Coleman column that criticized the blog Power Line.
CP blurb on the Ron Jeremy appearance.
Add Mark Cuban to the people complaining about Randy Moss.
MEDIA
C|Net interviews Jimmy "Jimbo" Wales, a founder of Wikipedia who is behind WikiNews.
Long look at the business of the New York Times from Business Week. (The section about NYTimes.com potentially becoming a pay site got dot-comers all worked up the past few days.)
TV
Variety comes down on 60 Minutes for its soft profile on Google.
More details on the MTV wireless deal, which could put clips from The Daily Show and Best Week Ever on cell phones.
ONLINE
For you LJ-ers out there, Mena Trott of Moveable Type will allay your worries.
Yet another profile of BitTorrent, this time from the Seattle Times.
MUSIC
Sasha wrote about mash-ups for The New Yorker. I don't know about the genesis of the piece, but it reads like something that was edited into blandness.
The Guardian profiles Dolly Parton, including notes on "why God likes gays."
Yipe, the entire run of the Sub Pop Singles Club (minus one record) is on sale on eBay. Bid is currently $4500.
FILM
You've probably heard that Richard Linklater is directing an animated version of Phillip K Dick's A Scanner Darkly, and Ain't It Cool News has some pics. (BTW, when was the last time you saw anyone link to Ain't It Cool News?)
And the award for washed-up cast of the year goes to... Alone in the Dark, starring Christian Slater, Tara Reid, and Stephen Dorff.
LOCAL
Apparently Ron Jeremy is appearing at the Triple Rock January 15. It's a little unclear what this even actually is, but I'll try to find out for you.
Strib profiles the novel writing program, NaNoWriMo. (BTW, is anyone else annoyed with the way StarTribune.com now breaks every story into two pages? For some reason it never bothered me when NYTimes.com did it, but this does.)
BEST YEAR EVER
I'm closing the doors on Lists 2004 with over 550 links and nary a word of rhapsodizing from me. See ya next year.
A rumor is floating around that Google might buy Flickr.
60 Minutes did a long profile of Google, which, if you're like me and read every word about the search company, will tell you nothing new, but it was still nicely packaged. (Includes interview with John Battelle.)
A more serious analysis than 60 Minutes can muster, Technology Review's "What's Next for Google" cover story makes the strong argument that Google needs to open itself up with more web services.
TV
In what might be the first serious media critique of Tina Fey, the Sunday NYT goes after SNL's writing in "The All Too Ready for Prime Time Players". The article's premise -- that SNL has shied away from "dangerous or inventive" satire in favor of "teenage bimbette du jour" fair -- starts off okay, but ends a bit weary. What's missing from this criticism is a recognition of how pop culture has increasingly infused everything over the 25 years, so celebrity culture would obviously become a topic for SNL. Anyway, more importantly, Whatevs.org (which I'm proud to have included in my Blogs of the Year) was quoted in the story. (Historical reminder: Dave Itzkoff, the author of the article, is the former editor of Maxim.)
Whenever I get a chance, I tell people how the writers and producers of The Golden Girls have gone on to great success elsewhere -- in particular, with Desperate Housewives and Arrested Development. Apparently The Times noticed too. (Another note: Itzkoff also wrote this one.)
BoingBoing has put up the video to ABC's "people of the year" award that went to bloggers. The piece included visuals (but no links) of Gawker, Kottke, Instapundit, and Wonkette.
I missed linking to it over the holidays, so let's put up Wired's BitTorrent story now. If you work in TV media, you should read it. (In the meantime, Suprnova went down, but a successor to BitTorrent, Exeem, which includes decentralized indexing, was released.)
Anonymous CableNewser readers (half of whom are probably cable news network employees with Fox News ringtones) make their 2005 predictions.
TiVoToGo has launched. AP story.
T-SHIRTS
I wish I had thought of this idea: Preshrunk, a blog about t-shirts. My two faves pointed out so far: I Fuck Like A Girl (from Mighty Girl) and I Liked You Better Before You Sold Out (from Diesel Sweeties).
MEDIA
As something of a follow-up to the fantastic Control Room (which, by the way, Chuck Olsen gave his Artist of the Year award to), Al Arabiya (the main competition to Al Jazeera) lands on the cover of Times Mag this week. See also: Wired's similar story from July.
Dan Gillmor (who recently left the Mercury News to start his own citizen journalism business) has a new blog: Grassroots Journalism.
Future of media predictions from Chicago Tribune, Washington Post, NY Post, and L.A. Times.
IDEAS
The Fast Company profile of Malcolm Gladwell is online.
MUSIC
Nellie McKay gets the long profile in NYT Mag.
ART
Choire Sicha interviews the creator of CremeasterFantic.com, which turns out to be a quasi-hoax.
DESIGN
Somewhat funny: The Vice A to Z of Design.
LOCAL
I saw our girl Randi Kaye reading the news for the first time on CNN today. It also looks like she'll also be on the unbrazenly-titled CNN Saturday Morning.
The rogue taxidermy just keeps on rolling. Creative Electric lands in The Times today. Dave has added more pics and a storefront to the Creative Electric website. (The closing party for the Mark Mothersbaugh show is Jan. 15.)
My pal John Lamb, who writes a column for the Fargo Forum, is doing a column where his readers vote on what his New Year's Resolution should be.
CELEB
On Gawker today, I played Santa to the celebs of 2004.
TV
Found online: Desperate Housewives T-Shirts. Including I ♥ Bree and Sex in the Suburbs.
ONLINE
Waxy has gathered an amazing collection of first-person videos from the Asian tsunami.
Question posed on Ask.Metafilter: Have you ever dated a Suicide Girl?
Long L.A. Times story on Iraqi bloggers.
FUTURE OF MEDIA
Great Future Tense interview (RealAudio) with Matt Thompson about EPIC, a vision of a personlized media source that aggregates newspapers, blogs, and social networks.
Business Week on vlogs here and here. I think we'll see scads of new video bloggers in 2005, and maybe even a celebrity or two arise out of the movement. There's now also Vloggercon 2005.
Terry Heaton on 2005: A Year of Trouble for Broadcasters.
ACADEMIA
NYT tries to grapple with the age-old newspaper look at MLA by getting all meta about it: Eggheads' Naughty Word Games. Fave paper titles this year: "t.A.T.u. You! The Global Politics of Faux Lesbian Pop" and "'Dude! Your Dress Is So Cute!' Patterns of Semantic Widening in 'Dude'."
Count me (and apparently many others in the media) among those who had no idea Susan Sontag was shacking with Annie Leibovitz for many years.
MUSIC
My pals Ross [Pioneer Press] and Melissa [City Pages] did a great episode of MPR's Midmorning (RealAudio) where they discuss their favorite albums of the year.
Steve Perry Fan Fic. Scary.
LOCAL
This has all sorts of potential: Slanderous Minneapolis, which is basically a "Minneapolis Gawker." The author appears to be anonymous.
In one of those battles you wouldn't mind if everyone dies, Nick Coleman goes after the Power Line guys.
Over at 89.3, it looks like the new station will be doing artist interviews. Could this end up being our own little KCRW?
Holy retromania. At least a hundred new "Of The Year" lists showed up over Christmas break. They are all still collected right here, but below are some highlists:
Google Zeitgeist from Google.
Best Films of 2004 from Roger Ebert.
The Year In (Your Catchphrase Here) from NY Times.
Top Six Reality TV Whores from Reality Blurred.
Top Cryptozoology Stories from Loren Coleman.
20 Best Music Videos from Rolling Stone.
10 Greatest Music Videos from RES.
Top 50 Albums from Pitchfork.
10 Best Albums You Didn't Hear from Spin.
Media Person of the Year from I Want Media.
10 Moments In Bad Journalism from L.A. Times.
Best Architecture from Time.
Best Architecture from NY Times.
Best Video Games from Time.
Best Video Games from San Francisco Chronicle.
Top 100 People of the Year from USA Today.
Entertainers of the Year from Entertainment Weekly.
Best Live TV Moments from NY Times.
10 Best TV Show from Entertainment Weekly.
Most Watched & TiVoed from NY Times.
10 Ads You Won't See from Ad Age.
Best Ads from Adland.
The Year in Satire from Salon.com.
Best Comix from Time.
Take 6 from Village Voice.
ONLINE
Chris Anderson is turning his much-lauded Wired story "The Long Tail" into a book, with an accompanying blog.
NYT Styles writes about the blog Anonymous Lawyer, yet another fictional blog, but this time with a twist: everyone knows it's fiction, and no one seems to care. I guess that makes it sorta like lawyer fan-fic. Eww.
NYT on creating entertainment websites that subtly promote products. The examples include DigitalJoy.com (Intel/Microsoft), Skyhigh.com (Alaska Airlines) ComeClean.com (Method soap), and Slothmore Institute (Best Buy)
Found on Amazon: Most Wished For.
John Maeda (he of the MIT Media Lab) has a blog.
Wonkette chats with Newsweek.
Time: 10 Things We Learned About Blogs.
BEST
It's simply gross how much Best Of ephemera I've consumed in the past month. But I'll give one best Best Award to Best Year Ever, VH1's show that gave its yearly award to "Some Dude". It matches nicely with the assessment of others that 2004 was the year of the little people.
TV
Reason interviews Michael Powell.
REALITY
Chuck's best work lately has been on reality tv, including his recent NYT Mag reflection on Spalding Gray and Mary-Ellis Bunim.
Good profile from Technology Review, with a glimpse into the future of the company's competition with Microsoft.
Techno Files asks: Is IBM creating the next best search engine based upon artificial intelligence technology?
MUSIC
More mash-ups: The Beastles. (See also: a site aggregating mash-ups.)
An extremely large and intimidating Heavy Metal FAQ.
FILM
From the realm of remakes and adaptations, a bunch of new trailers: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, The Pink Panther, and The Chronicles of Narnia.
Blogumentary reviews in Mother Jones.
LOCAL
Of course you heard by now, but Power Line won Time's brand new Blog of the Year award. Any bets this is the first and last time we see this award?
Before anyone tries to talk you into uttering senseless historical inanities, let's just clear this up: 2004 was not "The Year of the Blog." This was not the year of Howard Dean's bold online campaign, nor was it the year of dismantling Trent Lott. It wasn't even the year of the Paris Hilton tape. That was all last year, and while we have plenty to celebrate about '04, it's best to approach the past 365 days wearing a new look: maturity. In other words, this was the year blogs grew up.
Don't mistake that assessment as a suggestion that blogs are slipping into a rheumatic slumber. To be sure, it was a good year, one in which we (may I use the royal first person?) booted a tiresome TV anchor, sparred with the FCC, pre-reported Ken Jennings' demise, and discovered an entire radical music movement. Excellent work, and that's not even counting the intrepid analysis of Tara Reid's nipple.
But this was a landmark year for independent publishers not so much because of Lewinsky-size scoops, but because the internet came into its own as a medium for experiencing news events. Think about it -- look how many events didn't necessarily happen first online, but seemed to exist because of the blogosphere. The moments that best defined culture in '04 -- the best political debate (Jon Stewart pouncing on Crossfire), the best sex media scandal (Bill O'Reilly raping a falafel), the best TV moment (Janet exposing a Super Bowl nipple), and the best music video (Ashlee Simpson lip synching on SNL) -- were all probably delivered to you via blogger keystrokes. These media events all somehow felt, if you will, "internety" -- somewhat like how Jon Stewart's Daily Show has that intangible quality that makes it feel like television's version of a blog.
In other words, 2004 was the year we became the medium that mattered.
Last year, while giving the numero uno slot to Howard Dean's Blog For America, I wrote a now-embarrassing blurb which said, "When Dean wins in November, Joe Trippi will take a post in the administration that completely alters the way communities and governments function." Mm-hm. In an attempt to correct that gaffe and atone for the mistakes of the past year (and to prove that blogs are more than a collection of celeb up-skirt shots), here are the Best Blogs of 2004:
1) Buzz Machine. It's almost a shame that Jeff Jarvis' blog had to become the most important read of the year. After Janet's nipple kicked off the revised culture wars in January, the tension seemed to build all year, right up to a foreboding red-blue November. All along the way, Jarvis was there warning us of what was coming. When the FCC started tossing around fines faster than Howard Stern's tongue can move, Jarvis (who was the creator of Entertainment Weekly and now heads Condé Nast's internet strategy) became suspicious of some claims and filed a Freedom of Information Act request (actual reporting! bloggers beware!), which revealed the number of complaints had been greatly exaggerated. One show (FOX's Married by America) turned out to have received considerably less than the 159 complaints that the FCC reported. "Considerably less," as in three. An indefatigable Jarvis went on to critique other FCC mistakes, all of which seemed like a prescient glimpse into the news that Howard Stern would move to Sirius radio. Deriding Michael Powell as the "National Nanny," Jarvis slipped onto the talk show circuit, regularly appearing on the cable news networks to denounce the direction American media control was headed. For being a spokesman against cultural censorship (and for helping spread the word into Iran and Iraq), Buzz Machine is my blog of the year.
2) Wonkette. Dear Wonkette, I am responding to your personal on Craigslist seeking a "submissive Jim McGreevey swallower willing to do an 'Anderson Cooper 360' on my puckered red-state ass." It took forever to write that faux-sentence, and it's not even funny. Wonkette could have spit out a better one faster than you can say "Joe Lockhart is drunk again." By the end of the year, our little foul-mouthed Dorothy-Parker-resurrect was appearing on Tina Brown's show, being invited to online news conventions, and getting handed a quarter-mill book advance -- yet Ana Marie Cox never shied from her role as Media Deprofessionalizer in Chief. For frisking the DC wonks, Wonkette is the #2 blog of the year.
3) DailyKos. Whereas Wonkette is one person's personality spread like mayo over the entire political scene, DailyKos is more like the perfect sandwich -- a whole community that is greater than the sum of its parts. Markos Moulitsas Zúniga didn't actually uncover too many political stories this year -- but he created a community that did. Just some of the little political stories created by DailyKos readers: 1) A famous Bush print ad containing additional military personnel Photoshopped into the background was discovered by DailyKos users, which led to a Bush administration apology. 2) During the vice-presidential debate, Dick Cheney claimed that he had never met his rival, John Edwards, but a DailyKos participant found TV footage to the contrary, which was eventually aired on cable news networks to much embarrassment to Cheney. 3) A boycott of Sinclair advertisers to protest the airing of an anti-Kerry documentary caused the broadcasting group's stock to tank, and forced the company to adjust the broadcast. Along the way, DailyKos also raised a half-million dollars for Democratic political candidates. For foreseeing how political campaigns will be run in the future, DailyKos is the #3 blog of the year.
4) Waxy.org. Waxy proves that in the blogosphere, discovery trumps invention any day. Way back in February, Andy Baio posted the first links to DJ/Producer Danger Mouse's notorious Gray Album, which consisted completely of music sampled from Jay-Z's Black Album and the Beatles' White Album. Of course the cease-and-desist letters showed up immediately, but it was too late -- mirror sites popped up everywhere, Gray Tuesday was launched, and the word "mash-up" suddenly entered the lexicon of the Newsweek-reading crowd. Last year, Waxy.org discovered the Star Wars kid; this year his link to NickNolteDiary.com triggered a debate about the relationship of celebrity and blogging. Waxy for President! For forcing the nation to confront its archaic copyright laws, Waxy.org is the #4 blog of the year.
5) Power Line. Who the hell saw this one coming? Who could have predicted that a cadre of right-wing bloggers out in Apple Valley, MN, would drastically change the course of media history? It was so simple: download and analyze the documents that CBSNews.com posted to support the 60 Minutes piece on George Bush's military record. That little act (along with some assistance from other blogger sleuths such as LGF) changed Dan Rather's life forever, and landed Power Line Time's first Blog of the Year award. For showing that truth in reporting matters more than any political ethos, Power Line is the #5 blog of the year.
6) BoingBoing. The subtitle, "A Directory of Wonderful Things," pretty much sums up BoingBoing's run of hits in '04. From Jack Chick tracts to rogue taxidermists, Japanese fetish objects to "I fucked Alec Baldwin in the ass" stickers, Asimov to Zelda -- BoingBoing collected every piece of esoterica you missed. Cory Doctorow, who toils by day as a Creative Commons activist and science fiction author, also somehow got invited to Microsoft HQ to talk about Digital Rights Management -- perhaps the best (and, given the audience, most difficult to imagine) speech of the year. For reminding us the best parts of the internet are still uncommercial weird shit, BoingBoing is the #6 blog of the year.
7) Plain Layne. C'mon, admit it, you like being fooled. For three years, Plain Layne was the online girl you wanted to know. Sexy, smart, irreverent, and willing to talk about expensive dildos and cheap wine, Layne Johnson told you all the naughty details -- in e-mail, on AIM, or on her website. When she turned out to be the fictional work of Odin Soli, a thirty-something dot-commer with a penis, the investigative effort (chronicled here) became the real story. In hindsight, the salacious details should probably have tipped off more people, but, as everything from The Passion of Christ to the Red Sox showed in 2004, people really want to believe in myths. Plain Layne pre-dated a number of conspicuous fake celeb blogs in 2004, a trend which included Quentin Tarantino, Nick Nolte, Bill Clinton, Julian Casablancas, and Adam Nagourney. For two reasons -- forcing us to think again about online identity and accidentally personifying the investigative power of digital communities -- the defunct Plain Layne is the #7 blog of the year.
8) Metafilter. Grandpa Metafilter, you know I would never let you fall out of the Top 10. I wish your participants had done some of the same unique investigative work we found on places like DailyKos and Power Line this year (your community is certainly smarter than theirs), but you were always there with the context that made the story resonate. For staying above the fray, Metafilter is the #8 blog of the year.
9) Gawker. Frankly, I think Gawker Stalker is dull. I don't really care that you saw James Lipton at a train stop. But I do care about that Condé Nast cafeteria! If blogs could have clipped teaser critic quotes like movies, I'd give Jessica Coen this one: "Best media snark this side of Vincent Gallo's cock! Two thumbs up [the Olsen Twins]!!" For redefining NSFW in 2004, Gawker is the #9 blog of the year.
10) I Want Media and Romenesko. Sure, it's cheap to give them a tie, but they're inextricably linked. For finding the needles in that big fat media haystack, I Want Media and Romenesko are the #10 blogs of the year.
11) Kottke.org. Lucid, informed, reasoned, simple but never simplistic -- these are the qualities that make a good blogger, and Jason Kottke personifies all of them. Kottke's big scoop this year was reporting Ken Jennings' Jeopardy loss before anyone else, and he managed to do it in a completely internet-centric way (you had to highlight the text in your browser to see the spoiler). For keeping the bar high, Kottke.org is the #11 blog of the year.
12) Lost Remote. When Lost Remote held a tagline contest a couple months ago, one of the winners was "The future of media is stuck between the cushions of your couch." For chronicling in real time the shift of power to the user, Lost Remote is the #12 blogger of the year.
13) Whatevs. Uncle Grambo used to speak his own language, but now everyone else speaks it. The blogosphere is littered with good pop culture sites (Amy's Robot, Golden Fiddle, Lindsayism, Stereogum, Zulkey, Information Leafblower, Witz.org, Defamer and The Superficial -- to name just a few), but Whatevs won the most snark hearts by talking in some sort of futuristic jive-speak, inventing names for celebs like Brit Brit and The Thighmaster and Gawky Bird and M. Daytime Shamalamadingdong. This dude from Detroit probably doesn't even know that half the NYC mag publishing world is combing his site for lingo to steal. Whatevs. For grokking the epithet, Whatevs is the #13 blog of the year.
14) Engadget. In the mock-battle between Calacanis and Denton, I'm cheering for the guy who thinks less is more. But Peter Rojas at Engadget out-scooped his former digs, Gizmodo, on nearly every gadgety moment this year. For making us want more, Engadget is the #14 blog of the year.
15) PaidContent. Every morning, after the inbox got its cleansing and the Cocoa Puffs were finished, PaidContent.org was the first site that I visited. A bit of a misnomer, PaidContent actually covers everything you might call "digital media." For scouring a wide range of topics between business and technology, PaidContent is the #15 blog of the year.
16) Drudge Report. What did Drudge do this year? The only thing I really remember was hitting refresh constantly on election night (damn those exit polls!). For just being Drudge, Drudge Report is the #16 blog of the year.
17) Low Culture. As far as dichotomies go, "grave" and "shallow" pretty much cover all the ground. For eschewing the happy medium, Low Culture is the #17 blog of the year.
18) Largehearted Boy. I hear this MP3 Blog thing is quite the fad! A lot of press went to Fluxblog this year, but Largehearted Boy was the most comprehensive independent music blogger out there. For pre-dating podcasting, Largehearted Boy is the #18 blog of the year.
19) Bookslut. Choosing a favorite book blog is hard work (GalleyCat is the most recent addition to biblio blogs), but Bookslut seemed the most rapaciously slutty of them all. For reminding me to read more, Bookslut is the #19 blog of the year.
20) The Smoking Gun and Pitchfork. For defying the category blog, The Smoking Gun and Pitchfork are the #20 blogs of the year.
21) Blogumentary. For creating the first great celluloid (well, digi video) document of the blogosphere, Blogumentary is the #22 blog of the year.
22) I Love Music. For being the largest collection of music nerds ever assembled, ILM is the #22 blog of the year.
23) Best Week Ever. For finally doing a tv-blog combo, Best Week Ever is the #23 blog of the year.
24) Green Cine. For obsessing about every possible film-related link on the internet, Green Cine is the #24 blog of the year.
25) Dan Gillmor's eJournal. For publishing the book that defined citizen journalism in 2004, Dan Gillmor's eJournal is the #25 blog of the year.
26) Slashdot. Do I gotta? The discussions on Slashdot are as bulimic as an Olsen Twin -- lots to intake, lots of purging, a gross and skinny final product. You probably had a better chance getting juicy tech commentary on places like SearchEngineWatch and Many-To-Many and John Battelle. Nonetheless, the hatahs at Slashdot also seemed to reliably provide context to tech news events. For making you wish you could run more of your life from a command prompt, Slashdot is the #26 blog of the year.
See also:
MEDIA
Yipe. Tucker Carlson is quitting CNN and moving to MSNBC. (Note: The blog TVNewser gets the scoop first.)
Poynter.org has a New Media Timeline (from 1969 to 2004) that would have been much better if there were a single-page version that you could print.
ONLINE
NYT Mag on blogs, privacy, sex, journalism, and identity: Your Blog or Mine? The thesis: "In the age of blogs, all citizens, no matter how obscure, will have to adjust their behavior to the possibility that someone may be writing about them." Perhaps I'm too blithe about this topic, but I rather enjoy a world where everyone is a walking reality tv show.
Here's a story idea for one of you cute little intrepid journalists out there: What ever happened to Apple girl Ellen Feiss? Actually, you could do a whole series of former internet celebs, including Mahir and the Star Wars kid.
PEOPLE
Who's the Time Person of the Year? Not bloggers. Of course, plenty more "of the year" action in the constantly growing list.
Guilty pleasure of the week: pics of our favorite home video experts, Paris and Pam, out shopping.
TV
Ursula Le Guin: How the Sci Fi Channel wrecked my books.
FILM
Looks like Uma and Travolta do another dance scene somewhere in Be Cool (trailer).
MUSIC
PJ Harvey says she will never play live again. Me either.
Michael Jackson's "Thriller" done with Legos.
TECH
Apple is working on a cell phone that works with iTunes.
Days after donations to Mozilla fund a two-page ad in the Times, the biz section raves about Firefox.
LOCAL
Dave has posted the Maxim "story" on the Rogue Taxidermists show at Creative Electric.
The news all my friends were talking about this weekend: MPR is launching a new music radio station. Looks like it has all the potential in the world... or it could completely suck. Not sure what to make of this: "Our staff will be hanging out in clubs, searching the Internet, reading the music magazines and streaming music from around the globe to find the best music for you." They've also started a blog.
New lists came in fast and furious over the weekend. The List of Bests is filling up quickly, but here's a quick list of some major newbies:
The Year In Ideas from New York Times Magazine.
150 Most Popular Tags from Flickr.
Top News Sites from Newsknife.
Media Web Awards from CBS Marketwatch.
The P.U.-litzer Prizes from Norman Solomon.
Ten Best Movies from Newsweek.
Ten Worst Movies from Newsweek.
Top 10 Games from IGN.
10 Most Fascinating People from Barbara Walters.
Five Best Reality TV Finales from Entertainment Weekly.
The 10 Best Books of 2004 from NYTBR.
Top 50 Albums from NME.
Top 100 Sellers from Insound.com.
Am I missing one? Email me.
IDEAS
The always-excellent Times Mag Year in Ideas. Some of my favorites include Acoustic Keyboard Eavesdropping, The Augmented Bar Code, The Blog Ad, The Car That Emotes, EBay Vigilantism, Feral Cities, The Mainstream Mash-Up, McProfiling, Purple-State Country Music, Sabermetrics for Football, Self-Storage, and The 3-Point Problem.
FILM
Trailers to upcoming movies from big directors who probably couldn't do more predictable remakes: Tim Burton's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (w/ Johnny Depp), Joel Schumacher's The Phantom of the Opera and Steven Speilberg's War of the Worlds (w/ Tom Cruise).
A.O. Scott foresees a new trend: Moicumentary, the documentary as confessional.
TIVO
Great interview with the leader of TiVo User Experience.
TV
If you happened to catch the live footage on CNN of the presentation that the Michigan authorities gave to the press last Wednesday, then you'll want to read the Indy Star story, which explicates the layered multimedia format used to present the charges filed against five Indiana Pacers and seven fans. It's like a VH1 special, "Behind the PowerPoint."
DATING
NYT Styles suggests that online dating is waning.
SOFTWARE
Salon has a good interview with Joel Spolsky.
CONSUMPTION
Another good Consumed column by Rob Walker, this time mixing Takashi Murakami, Louis Vuitton, sampling, high fashion, artistic expression, and copyright.
Amy's Robot asks: What in the heck is up with Budweiser?
Two new blogs on women's shoes: Shoewawa | Manolo's Shoe Blog.
MUSIC
Chuck's "Give Me Centrism or Give Me Death!" column in Spin.
Rap Snacks. "The official snack of hip-hop." Check out the variety. The Young Bloodz Sothern Crunk BBQ look delish.
New crazy band alert: The Notorious MSG, with songs like "Straight Outta Canton."
A strange article called "Eminem Is Right" generates a lot of discussion on Metafilter, lofting Policy Review to fame they'll likely never see again.
ONLINE
Newsweek on The Alpha Bloggers, which name-checks Adam Curry, Doc Searls, Dan Gillmor, and Dave Sifry.
LOCAL
A Mike Mosedale story in CP generates a Minnesota winter conversation on Metafilter.
CONSUMPTION
Great Times Mag cover story on viral marketing.
ONLINE
Media Mammon is a stock market of words and phrases.
Netflix has added a social networking component, Friends. You add friends to your network which Netflix uses to make suggestions for you.
Engadget interviews Caterina Fake from Flickr.
Tony Pierce has published a book, How To Blog.
NYT does a profile of Jeff Jarvis (but doesn't post it online).
MEDIA
I'm one of about five people in America who actually tried watching McEnroe's CNBC show. Which is why no one will even notice it's been cancelled.
Slate on The New Yorker writers speaking engagements.
TIVO
New blog: TiVo-bOrking, which is the practice of tweaking the length of tv shows by minutes to throw off DVRs.
POLITICS
Jon Stewart, Al Franken and Tom Wolfe write short essays in Rolling Stone on the aftermath of the election.
LOCAL
Lileks has a new book: Interior Desecrations: Hideous Homes from the Horrible '70s.
Let's get this party started.
As usual, I'm collecting the "Best Of" lists this year. Last year, The Times wrote about it, so I'm obliged. The lists seem to be coming in a bit slow this year, but here are some highlights so far:
Words of the Year from Merriam-Webster.
Top 10 Games of the Year from New York Times.
Books of the Year from The Guardian.
The Year's Best DVDs from Rolling Stone.
The Coldest People In Hollywood from Film Threat.
Pictures of the Year from National Geographic.
20 Best North American Neighborhoods from Project for Public Spaces.
See Entire List: The Best Of 2004 List (a work in progress).
Am I missing one? Email me.
ONLINE
eBay has launched eBay Pulse, which includes information such as "Most Popular Searches" and "Largest Stores" and "Highest Priced Items." Sorta like Google Zeitgeist.
MUSIC
Michael Moore directed a new video for Neil Young's "Rockin' in the Free World." Watch it.
Spin has an excerpt of Chuck's U2 piece on the site. I like the approach -- taking on the simple question, "Is Bono for real, or is this guy full of shit?"
NY Observer somewhat strangely does a profile of Pitchformedia.com. Despite the idiotic NY-centric egoism (Chicago, Pitchfork's home, is described as "far-flung"), it's a good profile of Schreiber (a Minneapolis native) and company. Tidbits: relaunch planned early next year, three people are on the payroll, and reviews only pay around $20.
Times reviews the new Nirvana boxset, With The Lights Out.
David Byrne, blogger.
INDUSTRY
A lot of us in the office have been talking about CNN's promo Your Command. Wonkette calls it "Subservient Anchor."
Decent piece about the future of television where it's speculated that the real potential loser or winner in the next generation will be the affiliates.
Safran does a write-up on How To Save CNN.
Another Nick Denton profile, this one in the UK Independent.
The big three (Google, Microsoft, Yahoo) are getting into video search.
ONLINE
Robin Sloan and Matt Thompson did a 8-minute faux-documentary imagining online media in the year 2014. EPIC is a cool look at the future of personalized and robotic news. (MetaFilter thread takes some jabs at it.)
16-year-old girl murders her mother and blogs about it.
Nathalie Chicha (she of Cup of Chicha) is newest addition to the MediaBistro blogger set. GalleyCat covers books and publishing.
Spoof of SubservientChicken: Subservient Stickman
MEDIA
Embarrassingly obligatory Frank Rich column link. (This one's about Desperate Housewives and the FCC and such.)
COOL
The 2005 SXSW Conference has been announced. (Music: March 16-20; Film: March 11-19; Interactive: March 11-15.) Price to attend all: $650. Ouch, that's almost $200 more than last year.
House of Flying Daggers trailer.
ONLINE CONSUMPTION
Border's launched a viral personalized web gift-finder, GiftMixer 3000, which bases choice on five personality criteria: Romantic, Adventurous, Brainy, Imaginative and Funny.
Froogle has launched a wishlist feature.
Target.com starts its own strange quasi-film experiment: Wake-Up Call.
SEX
Call the FCC! Boobies on CSPAN.
L.A. Weekly is trying to make the case that the handjob is back. Silly kids, it never left the midwest.
Request a "realistic kidnapping" at ExtremeKidnapping.com.
Women from The Apprentice in Maxim.
SPORTS/ART
The Pistons/Pacers brawl reimagined as Picasso's Guernica.
MUSIC
Trapped in car for 8+ hours this weekend, I listened to the new Gwen Stefani album three times. It sucks, but I bet Kelefa Sanneh would try to convince me it's awesome. (Conclusion also reached in the car: Kelefa's anti-rockism screed reminds me of girls in high school who tried to convince me on the greatness of Richard Marx.)
FOOD
My high school girlfriend is the pastry chef at Django in Midtown Manhattan. New York Daily News asked her to do something cool with cranberries, so she did.
LOCAL
Okay, it's gonna take a second to get to the "LOCAL" angle of this one, but hang on.... Do you remember the rumor from last week that the Bush twins showed up at a downtown Manhattan restaurant and were told they couldn't get a table -- and that the restaurant would be booked for four more years. Har! For reasons that are a bit mystifying, NYT Styles profiles the restaurant's founder, Taavo Somer. If he looks familiar (he does to me), it turns out he was an architect in Minneapolis a few years ago. (He's also the guy behind the "Morally Bankrupt," "Emotionally Unavailable," and "Until Somebody Better Comes Along" t-shirts you may have seen.) In the profile, Somer cites the now-defunct Loring Cafe as his inspiration for the restaurant, Freeman's. "[The Loring] was a bohemian hangout where you had older people, young people, Eurotrash, everything. They had food, drinks and even a ballet company. It was the circus freak show of life." Over two-and-a-half years ago, I described the Loring as "the place in which all the not-quite-ethnic-yet-ethnic hotties converged." Let the Loring nostalgia commence.
Uptown Borders allowed to unionize.
TV
Amy's Robot collects all the goodies from U2's performance on SNL this week, including Amy Pohler acting like a little girl when Bono dry humps her. And no, that wasn't a skit.
The last couple Frontline episodes -- the one on Wal-Mart and the one on marketing -- have been excellent. Next up: credit cards.
Tom Shales slaps around Michael Powell in the Post.
CONSUMPTION
Best gift ever? The entire Criterion Collection on sale at Amazon for... go ahead, guess how much. Nope, higher. Higher. Higher still. That's right: $5,000. It's wishlisted for anyone who really loves me. (See also: Buffy, The Complete Series, for a measly $250.)
In a pretty blatant ripoff of Supersize Me (which was a pretty blatant ripoff of me and my dumb friends in college), some guy is drinking nothing but Pepsi Holiday Spice for 45 days and blogging about it.
I might be the only person in my peer group who reads every single word they can find about the potential merging of Sears and Kmart. There's something about the way it changes my perception of demographics. Anyway, NYT Biz has a roundup with a bunch of interesting stats, including how this might affect Target and the evolution of "big box" shopping.
PUBLISHING
Customized mag publishing is nothing new, but I've never heard of a magazine creating a special cover for an individual retailer. According to Rex Blog (no relation), Lucky did this for WalMart.
TECH
Google sets up an office right next to Microsoft and The Seattle Times runs a funny interview asking why they would do such a thing.
ART
If you live in NYC, MoMA reopened this week. If not, you saved yourself $20 by just reading about it.
DAILY SHOW
Zulkey interviews Ben Karlin, the guy who has held the two coolest writing jobs of my generation.
ONLINE
The author of Defamer was revealed to be Mark Lisanti of Bunsen.tv.
David Pogue of Times Circuits started a blog.
MUSIC / STUPID BOOMERS
As if there were any doubt that Rolling Stone should just be shot and put out of its geriatric misery, here's their 500 Greatest Songs. Good sign this list will suck: only six of the songs in the top 50 have come out in my lifetime. And I'm in my 30s, kids.
LIFESTYLE
L.A. Times asks the intrepid question: Who hangs out at internet cafes?
Do you remember how after the election, the first round of analysis said that the primary reason Kerry lost was the gay marriage initiatives? That was quickly debunked, and right after that, a second round of analysis stated the issue more broadly (and ominously): Cultural Issues. Topics like Janet Jackson's nipple and The Passion of the Christ were used to bolster this argument. But as someone who grew up in North Dakota can tell you, I'm not sure anyone in the heartland is any more offended by Janet Jackson's breast than they are by hockey fights. Which is why I like how this NYT map shows how things are more complex than you think. If I had more time, I'd be writing an essay right now about how the heartland isn't where the problem lies -- it's those goddamn suburbs and exurbs. As a friend recently observed, all of our fucked up friends aren't from the city or the country -- they're from the ugly place in between.
LOCAL
Anyone else worried the new Walker is starting to look like bubble wrap? I live next door, and every time I drive by, I want to go pop its little bubbles.
First Ave reopened Friday. First band? Gwar.
LISTS
Every year, I put together a massive collection of Best Of lists. (Previously: 2003 and 2001 -- okay, almost every year). A few of you have emailed me recently to ask if I'll be doing it this year again -- and of course I will be. Today is officially the start of the season, as NYT Circuits published their Top 10 Games of the Year and Rolling Stone has The Year's Best DVDs. Let the lists begin...
ONLINE
Seen this one yet? A website outta Texas that lets you do target practice online: Live-shot.com. Gotta love those red states.
Ask.Metafilter.com answers What are some good pop culture blogs?
TV
The final season of Buffy came out on DVD this week.
FILM BUT NOT FILM
High Tension looks like another mediocre horror movie, but ya gotta love the song playing in the trailer -- Sonic Youth doing The Carpenter's "Superstar," which is one of the best covers of all time.
Pulp Fiction writer Roger Avery sues Microsoft over a video game about yoga. (Only Microsoft would steal the worst game idea ever.) And he has a blog chronicling his lawsuit.
PUBLISHING
Whoa, talk about future-dating a story. Frank Rich's Sunday column is already online with a dateline of November 21.
MUSIC
If you missed it, Vanity Fair launched a website this week. Check out the oh-so-1995 list of links. There's a long profile of kindler, gentler Eminem.
SEARCH
Yeah, yeah, yeah, blah, blah, blah, Google launched an academic search engine.
TORTURE
New Scientist has a very interesting interview with chief interrogator in Israel's security service.
COMEDY
Decent Chris Rock interview in The Onion.
FOOD
Cooking With Cum (Dot Com). Uh-huh.
TECH
Whoa, Mel Karmazin has jumped to... you never would guessed this... Sirius Radio.
LOCAL
The Rake started a blog.
Lindsey wrote a funny piece about the Minnesota RollerGirls and Peter has some great pics.
IDEAS
Malcolm Gladwell on Intellectual Property in the New Yorker.
A couple weeks ago, I talked about the troubles I had with Kelefa Sanneh's critique of rockism in the Times. This week, Matthew Wilder writes his own excellent response in City Pages. This whole thing is a great conversation that reminds me of the good parts of '90s rock crit. (And nice work to Missy Miss Roommate for pushing this kind of work into the paper.) See also: ILM Thread.
Boston Globe: How 'Dungeons' changed the world.
Steve Rubel proposes that bloggers should be the "Time People of the Year."
It's almost endearing how the Voice doesn't care that it's always behind on things like this. This week: Derrida obit.
MUSIC
Vince Carter banned from using iPod during warmups.
Cool, TV on the Radio wins the Shortlist Music Prize.
FILM
The DVD for Broken Saints is out. A great culmination for Brooke and company.
TIVO
NEW BLOGS
Veiled Conceit, a blog all about New York Times Wedding Announcements. Good.
AdWeek starts a new blog: AdFreak.
You saw the Times story this weekend about dating the blogosphere? To save you the trouble, here's the author's blog, the guy's blog, and the other girl's blog. It's all kinda dumb in soap opera way, yet accurate in pinpointing some new nuances that blogging introduces to dating. (I've got a story or two to tell you too. Someday.)
LOCAL
McSweeney's: On The Utility Of Minneapolis-St. Paul As A Base Of Operations For Various Well-Known Superheroes Or Super Teams.
MEDIA
CBS MarketWatch has been sold to Dow Jones for $520 mill.
I think it's strange that a very long profile of Tom Brokaw ends up as the top story on Sunday NYT Arts this week. Has some good detail in it though.
TRENDS
T-shirt: Everything You Like I Liked Five Years Ago.
Um, non-trend: NYT tries to convince you that college kids are eating cereal like mad.
GAMES
Slate.com's review of Halo 2.
BEER
From the May 1975 issue of Oui [!], Robert Christgau reviews beer. Leinenkugel's and Heineken: A-. Labatt: C+.
MARKETING
In Japan, McDonald's is replacing that stuffy Ronald McDonald with McHotties.
More press on Crispin Porter + Bogusky, the agency that did the crazy chicken ad campaign for BK.
FILM
Trailer: The Ring Two.
You saw the big feature well on film that the NYT Mag did, right? I know, there's no reason for me to link to it, but just for the record, the piece on how the DVD is changing film is very good, even if it's way longer than it needs to be.
If you're a Jarmusch fan, the Guardian has a long profile.
LOCAL
Strib on the retro metro we're creating with that condo boom that's killing us lately.
Sunday NYT asks "Hüsker Dü II?"
 |
Wonkette and I are the only people in the room wearing jeans.
Okay, that might be a lie -- of the 300+ media (or quasi-media, or para-media, or disintermediated) professionals who have just finished munching on their Wolfgang-Puck-created-exquisite-chicken-breast-on-a-lucious-bed-of-potatoes, there might actually be a few more journos in jeans. But Wonkette just said that it's okay to be an "unjournalist" who "writes the first draft of history" as long as I'm up front about it, so I feel no remorse in eluding those pestering facts for the benefit of this narrative.
Over the din of dessert, funny guy Mickey Kaus introduced Ana Marie Cox as an "online presence," which led to the first of her many jokes. If her speech had an important-sounding "Capped Title In Quotes," it probably would have been something like "How Blogs Changed Journalism In The 2004 Election." But she got skittish about sounding too much like "the junior journalism professor from Blue State College," so she quickly added, "If I start to sound too boring, someone just signal, and I'll make a joke about sodomy."
Speaking of sodomy, let's make fun of Andrew Sullivan! It seems like a millennium ago that Sullivan was perceived as an internet sensation, but it was only last year that he was the keynote in this very spot. Wonkette doesn't like Sullivan for all the same reasons you shouldn't like him either, but she takes particular issue with his rhetoric of blogs having the potential to save the world. In a tidy dust-up, she called him, "not only arrogant, but lazy."
Which, unfortunately, was what more than a few Capital J Journalists here said after her speech. I had the personal misfortune of sitting next to a former CNN exec who nearly spewed her salad across the room when Ana Marie said "bloggers have succeeded in deprofessionalizing journalism." Here was one highbrow who was taking this deprofessionalizing like a lobotomy -- she squawked that it was "an insult" to have Wonkette speaking to such an Esteemed Group Of Professionals. It was obvious that a few people here don't actually know what Wonkette is.
There were points in Cox's speech where you could palpably feel the room taking sides -- the serious do-gooders who seriously do good work versus the ragtag collective who relish being called "scrappy." It's not hard to guess where I land in this dichotomy, but it was startling to see how many of these journalists viewed Wonkette as a threat to their entire belief system. Liberal media? Pshaw.
Ana Marie talks in spliffy sound bites which sound strangely something like -- oh, let's call them Un-hick Ratherisms. I couldn't even type all of them fast enough. She uses phrases like "pleasurable solipsism" to describe the way the mainstream media echo chambered her rise to fame. "My job for being a special correspondent of MTV was to talk about my role as a special correspondent for MTV."
So what did she actually say? Many things, but the item you're probably going to hear a lot about was the election exit polls, which she published on her site "without even thinking about it at the time." Probably knowing that this was going to come up in the Q&A, Wonkette, who calls herself a cyber-libertarian ("I like my porn free and my email private"), had a prepared response: "My retrospective argument seems relevant: we had to publish exit polls in order to kill them." Not too shabby. Until someone from CBSNews.com (actually, it was Dick Meyer, who has the most perfect head of gray hair I've ever seen) stood up and nearly scolded her for publishing them. "Did you even think to ask someone about what exit polls were?" he asked in that way in which the word "miffed" doesn't do the sentiment justice. To which Wonkette said something like "I don't disagree with anything you say. If pressed, I have to fall back on my cyber-libertarian argument, and I don't want to do that, because that's what Jack Schafer does.... You obviously know much more about exit polls than I do, so I'm just going to let you be right." Underneath the twittering laughter, you could actually hear people mentally preparing critical cocktail speeches to impress their colleagues with tonight. (And my speech was by far the best, thank you very much.)
What else? This one got some arousal: "Those who work in the business have a stake in the illusion that getting it right most of the time is getting it right all of the time. Bloggers have eliminated that gap between all of the time and most of the time."
And this one: "I owe all of my success to the vanity of liberal journalists."
And I personally relished this one: "Much like with zines, people who have any skill are just using their blog to get a good job."
And on working for Denton: "We don't have a lot of contact. That's the way I like my bosses: invisible, distant, imperious."
And on if she ever withholds a story: "I have a motto which I'm going to needlepoint onto a pillow: 'It's okay to ruin someone's day, but not their life.'"
And finally: "Don't call if journalism if it's not."
Update:
I've received numerous emails from other conference attendees who reported something similar -- that someone else at their table was dismissing Wonkette, while others ran to her rescue. Who says this battle between old and new media is dead?
More Resources:
Wonkette.com. My fave photo. AP Article, which focuses on the exit polls stuff. Paid Content post, with pictures, including one of Ana Marie. WaPo Chat with Wonkette. NYT Mag Cover Story.More On Fimoculous From ONA:
ONA, Day 1: The Scene. ONA, Day 1: Tom Curley Speaks. ONA, Day 1: Friday Night Party.I'll be outta town the next few days, attending the ONA Conference, which I might also blog. If you live in L.A. and want to throw back drinks with me, let me know.
POLITICS
ONLINE
Hmmmmm... Amazon.com is getting into... filmmaking?
MUSIC
Slate does a ditty on the Depeche Mode remix album.
MEDIA
Worst headlines from Monday's Six Feet Under story.
If everyone were as cool as Adam Nagourney, we could kill all the lawyers.
Fuck, I hate Maxim.
Fuck, I hate the media.
TECH
I guess Mozilla officially launched Firefox 1.0.
WORDS
Malcolm Gladwell put a FAQ on his new book, Blink.
LOCAL
This week in CP: even more about First Ave.
CONSUMPTION
James Surowiecki brilliantly outlines the decline of brands in Wired.
ONLINE MEDIA
New: MediaBloggers.org.
Another cool media mapping application: 10x10. Here's how it works. (See previously: Newsmap.)
TV
The upcoming season of Six Feet Under will be its last.
L.A. Weekly raves about Veronica Mars too, comparing it to Buffy, Raymond Chandler, Twin Peaks, and The O.C.
GAMES
The reviews for Halo 2 are starting to appear on MetaCritic.
Slate asks Why Aren't Video Games Funny?
POLITICAL MAPS
Look familiar? (No, it's not the Jesusland one you've seen a million times already.)
FILM
Ocean's 12 trailer.
MUSIC
New on Technorati: Top MP3s.
Bret Michaels (yes, of Poison) has a country album out with a song that's in Country's Top 40.
What should we do with this trend where a musician puts together a mixed tape of their favorites songs? Should this be a saleable product? I own ones by Tricky and Morrissey. The other day, I noticed one of the dorks (I say that affectionately) from Grandaddy has one too. Lots of samples on the neat website.
WORDS
Decent NYTBR this week, with David Foster Wallace putting Borges on the couch.
LOCAL
Blogumentary was a quite a success. Chuck posts some pics from the premiere.
Ed Schultz has a book out. Who's he? He's an increasingly-famous former-conservative-turned-progressive talk show host outta Fargo. I was interviewed on his show a few times back in the college days.
POLITICS
Harper's: A reader's guide to expatriating. Z'actly.
MARKETING
When I saw the news that Postal Service was going to become a spokesperson for their namesake, of course I jumped up and down exclaiming, "Brilliant! All government agencies should do this!" 50 Cent could promote the Treasury Department, AC/DC and Midnight Oil could could snag the Energy dudes, Men at Work gets Labor, Tool could sure help out the Agriculture Department, TV on the Radio could assist Michael Powell at the FCC, and the Defense Department would have a line around the block: Megadeth, B-52s, Slipknot, Massive Attack, and about a half the bands on the Warp Tour. This could go on forever, so let's just end with this one: that fucker from Bush could promote that fucker in the White House.
TV
My readers are always asking, "Rex, what's the best show on tv?" And when I tell them I like Tina Brown's show, I never hear from them again. But seriously, the best new show this season isn't Lost, isn't Desperate Housewives, isn't Real World 15 -- it's Veronica Mars on UPN. Last night's episode used the school election concept to completely spoof our silly little electoral process, all while making reference to The Smoking Gun and using Photoshop to solve crime. Finally, something to replace Buffy.
FILM
Tarantino's next film will be entirely in Mandarin.
Trailer to Alexander. And trailer to the new Almodovar, Bad Education.
TITILLATING POP
This is so random, but whatever: preview pic of Lindsey Lohan in Herbie: Fully Loaded.
L.A. Weekly hangs out with Miss Iran contestants.
Many pics of Avril Lavign dressed up in a Hooter's outfit.
MUSIC
Entertainment Weekly this week shipped a separate music rag, Listen To This, which previously had been a bound insert. Best part: Otto The Bus Driver's (from The Simpson's) "Gotta Have" list in the back. Worst part: Endless stock photos, and a 12-page gift guide.
NYT: Le Tigre show review.
Simon Reynolds profiles DFA in The Voice.
PUBLISHING
Profile of Modern Drunkard.
LOCAL
You can fuck over my country, but you gotta close my club on the same goddamn day?
What, you don't believe me that the fascist are winning? Back home, they're demolishing Ralph's too.
Perusing the blogosphere at this moment, it appears far fewer people are making a big deal out of the Eminem lip-synching performance on SNL (Lisa Rein doesn't even mention it as she posts the video) as were the Ashlee Simpson debacle last week. The cultural critics are likely already at work with reasons why.
In the mean time, this week Kelefa Sanneh deconstructs rockism, which he defines like this:
More:
I'm not sure why there's no link to ILM (I Love Music) in the story, but it's here. Here's the post with that community responding.
Google search for "rockism".
Blogosphere starts talking about rockism.
BlogCritics post on Rockism.
Several hundred people didn't even get my Halloween costume. Oh well. Here's me and the roomies about to go out. (From left to right, that's a Spam Filter [Rex], the Kill Bill Bride [Melissa], and Agnetha Fältskog of ABBA [Marissa].)
ONLINE
What are they teaching these kids at j-school? I cannot believe that Wonkette visits Columbia Journalism School, but not one of these budding journalists asks about the visible tattoos on her arm. Transcript with pics. (See also: WaPo chat transcript with Ana Marie. And during her appearance on Tina Brown's show again tonight, it occurred to me why I like her so much: she talks in the same fast-and-reckless way I do. I'm serious.)
NYT Sunday Styles has a story on XXXchurch.com, the "#1 Christian porn site," which has computer applications that try to dissuade you from viewing online porn. There was also apparently a documentary made about them too.
Greg Allen does a NYT timeline about Nick Nolte's Diary.
TV
Desperate Housewives was the most-recorded show on TiVo last week.
Video of SNL's "TV Funhouse" from this week: John McCain Supporting Bush.
I was wondering if I was the only one who thought the Donald Trump voice-overs in The Apprentice board room were totally screwed up. MSNBC reports others have noticed.
WORDS
Steven Johnson announces his new book, Everything Bad Is Good For You, with a working subtitle right now of "Why Today's Pop Culture Is Making Our Kids Smarter." Looks good.
Looks like R. U. Sirius has a new book, Counterculture Through the Ages. Plus blog.
POLITICS
From Audible.com: ListenBeforeYouVote.com
Rather than merely endorse a candidate, Slate.com has everyone on staff endorse a candidate, right down to the Wine Writer and Software Development Engineer.
GAMING
MUSIC
New preachy Le Tigre video: "New Kicks".
LOCAL
After the Vice President of the National Taxidermy Association's Board of Directors wrote to Minnesota Association of Rogue Taxidermists, Creative Electric is getting a ton of attention right now in the blogosphere. Boing Boing even linked to it. (More: CP profile and t-shirts.)
City Pages will be doing a live election night blog: Election2004.CityPages.com.
Just a few blocks from my house, on the corner of Franklin and Hennepin, there's a new billboard that says something like "Your election homepage: MPR.org" Could this be the first time we've ever seen a media dot-com exclusively advertised in our fair city?
In the Times Mag this week, the cover story (about faith in the workplace) opens with a story from the Riverview Community Bank in Otsega, MN.
Sorry I've been gone for a few days. It was a busy week on the homefront. Interpol played a good show on Tuesday; I spoke at the MIMA Summit on Wednesday; the single best design-cum-politics event anywhere was on Thursday. Leaving aside my personal life speaking only about local events, this has been the best Fall. Every day has something cool going on. Bite me, New Yawkers.
We have a lot to get to today:
POLITICS
Bush & Kerry live together... as Sims.
Blood relatives of Bush unite for Kerry: Bush Relatives For Kerry Dot Com. (Back story.)
Reason collects answers to the question "Who's Getting Your Vote?" from a diverse set of people including John Perry Barlow, Drew Carey, Nat Hentoff, Penn Jillette, P.J. O'Rourke, Camille Paglia, Louis Rossetto, Glenn Reynolds, Jack Shafer, R.U. Sirius, Andrew Sullivan, Eugene Volokh, Matt Welch, and Robert Anton Wilson. Some surprising answers.
Results of the Nerve.com sexual/political poll, which answers such important questions as "There are two spots left in your hot tub: Do you invite the Bush twins or the Kerry daughters?"
TV
Mark Cuban's Benefactor was quietly cancelled (thank. fucking. god.). But Trump, who wrote Cuban a letter, ain't letting it disappear so easily.
MUSIC
Three more music director videos are coming. The first directors were Spike Jonze, Chris Cunningham, and Michel Gondry. The second set will be Mark Romanek, Jonathan Glazer and Anton Corbijn.
A certain Klosterman fellow sorta reviews the new Wilco album in City Pages. (Wherein you learn Chuck and Jeffy Tweedy both like -- ugh -- Jet. Right, right, I don't like Jet because I'm a hipster.)
Now, this is rock 'n roll! A one-week cruise with Journey, Styx, and REO Speedwagon: RR Holiday Escape.
Pitchfork gives the new Le Tigre a 3.3 and EW dissed the "I'm So Excited" cover this week. This really disapoints me.
MEDIA
Boy-oh-boy, Tina Brown's new website is lame.
T-SHIRTS
WORDS
The Book Spoiler Dot Com. "The ending to these books will be revealed!"
Neal Stephenson does the Slashdot interview. Good.
John Le Carre hates Bush.
FILM
Fleshbot Films has an Amazon storefront. Anyone wanna guess what future titles will be?
Gibson reports on his blog that Pattern Recognition might become a Peter Weir film.
BAD BOOKS
This turned up on my Amazon Associates list of things purchased through this site: The Complete A**hole's Guide to Handling Chicks. Is this my audience?
PUBLISHING
As noted here last month, O'Reilly is getting into magazine publishing with Make, but now there's a Wired News story.
MARKETING
Waxy on the highs and lows of viral marketing.
JON STEWART
Wal-Mart nixes the Daily Show book.
I looked everywhere in the Sunday Times for something about the Jon Stewart / Crossfire battle. It took them five days to finally get to it, though.
SCIENCE
One of those things you only know about me if you know me offline: I have no sense of smell. (It's a long tragi-comic story, but I lost it in an accident about six years ago.) I just noticed the Times Mag has a column by a woman who lost her smell, and the process by which she regained it. Looks like I have a winter project ahead of me.
DERRIDA
Terry Eagleton responds to the "bone-headed."
LOCAL
It's Melissa's fault that I've been watching America's Top Model, but I just found out that Nicole is from... Minot, ND. Impossibly, her bio lists herself as "former punk rocker." The kids who knew her (of which I am not one) are talking about her here.
Can you imagine writing this next sentence in 1994? Billy Corgan will be reading at The Loft today. (I wonder if I can get him to say "Despite all my rage, I am still just a rat in a cage.")
If you live in Northeast (or visit that hidden NE Grumpy's), you've probably met Tom Taylor, the Green party candidate for that district's state house rep. CP profiles him.
Ever wonder why all your friends are leaving Uptown for Northeast. For reasons like this.
If you missed it, a few Pioneer Press reporters were suspended for going to a Springsteen concert. Weird.
Wired's Great River Road Tour is in Wisconsin now.
Just when you thought the film festivals were slowing down, here comes Get Real, City Pages' documentary festival.
NON-POLITICS / NON-MEDIA
What if Donald Trump moderated a presidential debate...?
Rumors On The Internets Dot Com
FILM
Nick Denton is getting into film? According to the New Yorker, he's releasing Ed Wood's Necromania under something called Fleshbot Films.
LIFESYTLE
WaPo Styles on The Life Of The Party.
NYT Styles on the success of He's Just Not That Into You.
TV
After three episodes, I still haven't decided if Desperate Housewives is a lame suburbanization of Sex and the City or a campy send up from the John Waters set. Anyway, it's crazy to hear the show is losing advertisers because of controversial content. (Best line from tonight's episode: "Rex cries after he ejaculates." I kid you not.) See also, in Variety: Get me some housewives, dammit!
Can Arrested Development save the sitcom?
This could be good: Flow, a Critical Forum on Television and Media Culture.
MUSIC
Dude, this is rad. "Sunday Bloody Sunday" as performed by GW Bush. Someone has sampled speeches so that he sings virtually every lyric from the U2 hit.
Alex Balk (of defunct TMFTLM) does the Times Playlist.
BLOGS
William Gibson is blogging again.
One of the great books blogs, MobyLives is back after a long hiatus.
Hpill is Gawker for the United Arab Emirates. Wow, the internet is cool.
Wrist Fashion is a web magazine that publishes the latest news, trends and products from the wristwatch industry.
DESIGN
Comparing the Bush Cheney and Kerry Edwards logos.
GAMING
I Love Bees game a Surprise Hit.
"Les Seules, a Swedish septuplet that doesn't play instruments. They play competitive video games." (AP story.)
Massive Inc., "the world's first video game advertising network."
DERRIDA
Post-Derrida, The Times drives the nail into the coffin of theory. I've been out of academia too long to be able to adequately respond, but here is my problem with this euology: it misses how Big-T Theory has really resituated itself as small-t theory, which is a conquest in its own right. In other words, didn't theory really just win the cultural war?
Various writers (from Richard Dawkins to JG Ballard to AS Byatt) respond to Derrida's death in The Guardian.
LOCAL
Looks like the Minnesota Association of Rogue Taxidermists have their own website. The Creative Electric show is pretty amazing.
In its profiles of swing states, Slate writes about Minnesota today: The only state to oppose Reagan flirts with conservatism.
PUBLISHING
Long profile of Spin's new-ish publisher, Jake Hill. Dude, it's square to be hip.
POLITICS
The Onion: 2004 Election Guide.
TV
Flash Mobs meets CSI? TiVo-ed.
Profile of Tina Fey and Amy Poehler. (See more on fake news to the right.)
DIGITAL LIFE
Interesting, WeblogsInc is looking for an Editorial Director and PaidContent is looking for a blogger.
WORDS
Slashdot is doing a Neal Stephenson interview.
GAMES
WiredNews: How the Sims 2 charcters make woohoo. And a great post about torturing your Sims characters.
Work has finished on Halo 2. Here are some videos.
LOCAL
Cool news. Prince has a new video that is causing some controversy, and it's directed by our friend, Phil Harder.
The Walker made Wired News for Radio Re-Volt.
Quote of the year: "I hear rumors on the Internets..." -G.W.B. C'mon now, 48% of you want this guy to be president again?
WORDS
He changed it all. Jacques Derrida (Wikipedia) died Friday. The obit that landed on the front page of the Times this morning is good at describing the cultural shift that Derrida created (or documented), but it obsesses on defining deconstruction. Google News has more, and if you know French, you might try Le Monde's obit. Look for heavy eulogizing from the remnants of old guard of academia this week.
DATING / SEX
My pal Melissa has a theory that the best way for a boy to get a girl to like him is to have it known that other girls like him. I don't like when she talks like this, because I fear it will reveal too much strategy. Anyway, the best thing in NYT Styles this week is the piece about Wingwomen.com, a site where a guy hires a girl to act as their social liason to other desirable girls.
NSFW: Move over machinima, here's Real Doll Theater.
NSFW: Hentai dictionary. Wow, I'm a prude.
DIGITAL MEDIA
Ana Marie Cox was on Topic A With Tina Brown this week, and everyone seems to have just ignored how Wonkette eviscerated Tina on numerous occasions. Is this a sign that Wonkette is becoming so much a part of the mainstream as to be ineffectual?
LostRemote reports that Keith Olbermann will launch a blog on msnbc.com next week.
FOOD
What I like about Brendan Koerner's weekly Sunday Times column "The Goods" is not so much how he introduces us to the marketing of a unique product every week (althought that's good too), but more than that, I like how he bolsters his picks by quoting obscure industry dot-coms. This week, you could be cruising along reading the analysis of cheese pizza when it throws out at you the industry site PizzaMarketplace.com. It can hardly be surprising to find out there's a pizza industry publication, yet that it's so accessible is one the great things about the internet.
TV
You can't find a more indicting example of celebrity culture than the Times story about how people are making careers out of becoming repeat reality tv stars. Coral Smith has been in five reality shows now.
DIGITAL LIFE
New: Ask.PRVblog.com.
DIY Video: IM Fight.
FILM
On NPR, Xeni Jardin talks to Trey Parker and Matt Stone about Team America. They're also in Newsweek. In related news, Sean Penn sends an angry memo to the boys.
Buzz alert. Primer looks promising.
MUSIC
Hm, Christgau gives Smile an A+.
Lindsey Lohan's new music vid.
TRAVEL
My email pal Jeff Gralnick pens a travel essay about his climbing Mount Kilimanjaro.
LOCAL
More from Riemenschneider on the First Ave. debacle. Here's the TCPunk message board debating the issues.
A Strib roundup of three different Minnesota women who have recently had some reality tv fame, including Jamie Foss, who is pretty much a parody of every reality tv start alive.
DIGITAL CULTURE
I wish I had gone to Web 2.0. There is so much commentary out there about it right now, but here are two things: MP3 of Lessig's Free Culture presentation and MP3 of the media panel with CNet, NYTimes.com, Tivo, etc.
Online Journalism Awards finalists announced. I'll be in L.A. on Nov. 11-14 for the conference.
Query Google by SMS. Girls that I meet at bars are now open game.
CELEBRITY
It's so sad that someone had to come along and make Trump look smart. Mark Cuban is such a moron, as proven with his interview with OJR. I think Jarvis said it best: "I understand why the world pays attention to Paris Hilton. I don't understand why the world pays attention to Mark Cuban." In other news, EW reports that ABC screwed up and revealed the winner of The Benefactor.
FILM
New trailer: The Machinist.
Casting call: Bad News Bears remake, starring Billy Bob Thornton and directed by Richard Linklater.
UPDATE: Team America got an R rating.
POLITICS
Debate Spotter (debate phrase search engine) udpated to include veeps.
T-SHIRTS
"L is for Loser" (Abercrombie & Fitch story).
DRINK
It's an old story, but it's the first time I saw it: Starbucks and Jim Beam to brew alcoholic coffee concoction.
PUBLISHING
Jen, "an online magazine for (Mormon) teens and adults."
MEDIA
Peter Jennings, Tom Brokaw and Dan Rather on Fresh Air.
SORTA LOCAL
Whooooaaaaa. First Avenue has been served an eviction summons.
Bookslut says that Dylan Hicks' story "Why Is Slot A Mortal Sin" is "one of the best book-related pieces I've read in a long time" and calls City Pages "America's best alternative newsweekly."
AP interview with Paul Westerberg.
So you want to start a topical blog that will be adored across the land, especially by the super-smart, media-hip blogosphere? I've got the perfect idea for a young journalist entrepreneur like youself: a blog all about Fake News. There's so much to feed on here, with everything from The Daily Show's crazy success to The Onion expanding the print edition across the country to whack characters like Ali G and Mo Rocca being taken seriously. In addition to everything that's happening in the Fake News Industry, your faux-media-blog could mix in all the quasi-news of the day being produced by Bill O'Reilly's screamfest and Al Gore's upcoming network. Add a dash of RatherGate and a pinch of PR Passing For News, and you could have yourself a hit. You could get ahead of the faker hegemony by posting the Top 10 Spoof-Ready Stories each day (probably snagged right off Fark, and appearing as Leno punchlines later that night -- especially that one about Kerry's fake tan). You could become the Romenesko of Fake News! This idea is dot-com bank. Nick Denton or MediaBistro would be knocking down your door within days. This is your moment of zen!
To get you started, I've even got some posts for you:
Tina Fey's new SNL sidekick on "Weekend Update" is.... Amy Poehler. Here's a transcript and a video of the season's first episode. Finally, a double-female fake news anchor team. A great day in fake news equality!
FoxNews.com wrote and published a fake news story about Kerry's metrosexuality, and retracted it citing "bad judgment." Here's a Times story on the whole thing, and here's the Lost Remote gang debating it. I ask you to forget about the ethics of this imbroglio -- instead ask yourself, does this signal the mainstream press's attempt to get into the Fake News business? Yes!
Drudge Exclusive! Did Kerry Have A Cheat Sheet? With video! What a faker!
William Shatner went to Riverside, Iowa saying he was going to make a movie. After hiring local actors and giving stories to newspapers, he recently revealed that the entire thing is a fake. Instead, Invasion Iowa is going to be a reality tv show. Shatner faked out a whole damn town!
Times Book Review on the new Daily Show book, which debuted at #1 on the Times Bestseller List. Serious review of fake book!
Howard Kurtz watches the network anchors circle the wagons in the Wash Post Mag. What a bunch of fakes!
BoingBoing reviews the new Matt Stone / Trey Parker puppet political parody, Team America: World Police. Puppets are fake people!
A college newspaper columnist says The Best News is Fake News. The kids have spoken, and they want fake news!
You Forgot Poland Dot Com. Funny fake websites!
The Borowitz Report reportedly gets 100,000 uniques per day. Fake do-it-yourself news!
Onion Headline of the Week: Documents Reveal Gaps In Bush's Service As President. Classic fake!
Jon Stewart on Fresh Air. Jon Stewart does a promo video for Amazon. Jon Stewart is everywhere -- what a fake!
Torrent link of post-debate Daily Show. More! Fake! News!
Sunday Times Styles surveys the whole fake news scene. Fake fakery!
Even the political parties are getting into this game. The DNC released a remix video with footage of Bush from the debates. Fake politicking!
Steal this fake blog idea before someone else cashes in!
SEX/CULTURE
Alfred Kinsey: Liberator or Pervert? Includes many luridly details (he self-circumcised himself a year before he died) and a back-story of controversy (Dr. Laura Schlessinger and others tried to put an ad in Variety denouncing the film) surrounding the new Kinsey biopic.
Slate.com (Dahlia Lithwick): Why post-feminist women enjoy Trading Spouses and Wife Swap. I sorta hope this one becomes controversial.
Upcoming on VH1: When Stars Get Scammed.
The Gawker interview guys get recognized at the Hustler Club.
Library Journal: Porn Star(s) in the Library?
Confessional blog post on watching The Weather Channel: Am I Watching The Weather -- Or Porno?
Slate.com: Will male birth control ever become a reality?
Who was the gay Simpsons character? Nope, It Isn't Smithers. It also isn't Cynthia Nixon's lover.
POLITICS
Cool debate word frequency tool.
George Soros, blogger.
I missed this one. Jessi Klein of "Best Week Ever" (one of the best pop culture shows on tv) blogged the debate for CNN.com. And so did Douchbag Novak, which was quite possibly the worst blog ever.
PUBLISHING
So the "new" NY Times Book Review came out this week. Its new-ness is questionable, but there is the okay review of Web Sites for People Who Read, which includes some of my current fave blogs such as Bookslut and Maud Newton.
Speaking of new, I believe The Guide is part of the Sunday Times Arts section's attempt to stay ahead of New York and the weeklies. (The rest of the section is full of font changes this week, but I can't find anything else significantly different.) Choire Sicha is the byline, so it's not full of mainstream crap. It's the first thing I've seen in a while that made me want to live in NYC.
Nerve.com: Michaelangelo Matos interviews John Leland, author of the new book Hip: the History. Looks like the book will be good.
EW: Our Favorite Phillip Roth books.
GAMES
Jeopardy's Tournament of Champions ended last week with a Double Jeopardy category called "Blogs." The question to the $2000 answer was Margaret Cho. Other questions included Lawrence Lessig and Howard Dean.
Wired News playing catchup on Video Mods. (One important thing I didn't point out about the new Sims 2: it has the ability to record your gameplay into a video file. This has extraoridinary viral opportunity, such as allowing one to potentially create their own Video Mods. See next entry.)
The same people who made Red Vs. Blue, a machinima series using the Halo rendering engine, have recently started to release The Strangerhood, a new machinima using the Sims 2 engine. [via Slashdot]
DIGITAL MEDIA
Denton is launching three new sites today: Kotaku.com (gaming), Screenhead (entertainment), and Jalopnik (cars).
Smart CEO Alert! PaidContent is doing a series called Context Next, featuring guest blogs by leading industry thinkers. Jeremy Allaire's grabbed my interest, but Don Katz (CEO of Audible.com) has been the hidden diamond. Speaking tech execs, I saw Mark Cuban tell Howard Stern last week that he once slept with seven women at once. Take that Trump! (I feel pure midwestern guilt for saying this, but I like the cheesy gold-laced Trump more than the awwww-shucks Cuban. I have an entire essay in me about these two, but it's basically the dichotomy between camp and faux-earnestness.)
Wired News: Google News Ain't Makin Dough.
T-SHIRTS
My Frat Is Cooler Than Your Frat.
GILF.
MUSIC
This week, Subterranean on MTV2 was all about the 2004 Shortlist Music Prize. Good stuff by TV on the Radio, Dizzee Rascal, The Streets, Wilco, Nellie McKay, Air, and more.
Times Mag profiles Nonesuch records, home of Wilco, Steve Reich, Emmylou Harris, Laurie Anderson, The Magnetic Fields, and Kronos Quartet.
Mark David Chapman is up for parole.
Dan The Automator to produce next Franz Ferdinand.
FILM
Let's just get it over with and call it the best film of the year. Days of Being Wild trailer is out.
ART
Does anyone read Art Forum anymore? New issue on Pop After Pop might be the first I buy in several years.
Tokion Magazine's Creativity Now conference looks like it would've been fun. Speakers included an eclectic cast like Brian Eno, Kim Gordon, Christopher Doyle, and Joe Trippi.
LOCAL
Yes, I'm glad we talked at Sound Unseen this weekend. You'll be at the rest of the events this week, right? Good. I'll see you there.
Margaret Cho on her appearance in Minneapolis last week.
Chuck is finishing up work on Blogumentary. I can't wait to see the final film, which seems like an impossible task to complete given the unstable nature of its topic.
Today, I want to touch on a few topics related to game culture -- and how it intersects with movies, music, and digital communication. I know, that intro sentence sounds about as fun as an a capella Bjork album (oh wait!). So instead of getting pedantic, let's look at the gaming landscape by pointing out new phenomena in digital entertainment, with a focus on how gaming is influencing all media. This isn't necessarily a cohesive essay with a single objective, but I hope it's more than another "Synergy of The Matrix" piece. Let's just call this a Scrappy Collection of Thoughts About Various Gaming Trends that have been of recent fascination to me:
VIDEO MODS
I won't try to convince you that the mashup of a teen-goth BloodRayne 2 video game and a teen-goth Evanescence music video belongs in the canon of required cultural material for our time. In other words, don't sigh if your TiVo missed Video Mods, a new series on MTV2 in which video game characters and landscapes are used to create music videos. I guess the worst thing that one could say about Video Mods is that Viacom is blatantly ripping off Machinima to attract video game advertising to television.
Even if that's true, it's also much more.
But first: a part of me wants to tell you that the convergence of these mediums is the perfect metaphor for the current state of the music industry. This cynical critique would go something like this: little pac men (consumers) run around a contested maze (Virgin Records) gobbling up indistinguishable dots (songs/albums) and ghosts (musicians). It's a sociological Flatland out there, in which demographics are empty ciphers with unlimited purchasing power -- the same goddamn person buys (or downloads) Outkast, Evanescence, and Creed. À la carte pop culture icons are sculpted with the same care that goes into creating Sims characters -- complete with readymade identities that become obsolete faster than you can blurt "Friendster." Identity is the currency of the music industry, and it's a free market economy of Pokemon cards: I'll trade you a "Britney Reinvented #24" for a "Cleaned Up Christina #9." Virtual video game characters taking over the role of musician is nothing more than the next step in the MilliVanilling of the music industry.
But, like I said, I don't really buy that mojo. Perhaps there is a kernel of truth in cynically looking at pop culture icons, but I think it ultimately misses a key point in understanding the attraction of Video Mods. For evidence, take a look at The Sims 2 video mod of the Fountains of Wayne song "Stacy's Mom."
The Sims is the top dog of this medium so far. Not only is it the highest-selling series of all time, but it has come to represent a watershed creative moment in the industry. So why, one might ask, would "Stacy's Mom" score the grand prize of The Sims mod?
I honestly have no idea. But I think you'll see a clue by looking at the storyline behind "Stacy's Mom." You might say the Fountains of Wayne song is just a MILF romp imagined by a horny adolescent. But in reality, it's not even that -- it's actually sung by thirty-somethings who are themselves projecting a tweener dream. Basically, it's a wish fulfillment nostalgia fantasy from guys old enough to be Stacy's Dad.
So now, what is The Sims? That's more complex, but one could say it is an interactive world where players bring to life characters outside their normal demographic makeup. In other words, it's a giant role-playing fantasy.
Starting to see a trend here? Let's move on....
PLAYBOY
In the age of Suicide Girls, it's amazing that Playboy is still around. And it's amazing that I bother to mention the publication in a video game rant. But even as I say this, I realize that for the first time in my life, I bought an issue of Playboy last month, simply because the magazine has done a remarkable job of staying relevant in a digital age. For instance, the Google guys interview and the Washingtonienne spread reminded me that the magazine could still be relevant.
Or maybe these are just the last gasps of breath of a dying Boomer ideology. I'd entertain that argument too.
Anyway, when Playboy announced they would be doing a photo spread of characters from video games, you could instantly picture a digital historian somewhere writing this event into a timeline of important virtual character events (chronologically right after reality TV and right before the holodeck). Hackers modding Lara Croft into a pinup is one thing, but the mainstream culture industry getting sly with virtual sexuality says a lot more about where we are. This single layout might actually become the best indicator of the mainstreaming of a number of (previously) fringe activities and concepts: virtual sexuality, video game culture, user-modified content, reality blurring. And a new video game, Playboy: The Mansion, a Sims-like romp through Hef's mansion, will take this even further.
WAR GAMING
Forget sex, war is where it's at.
A lot has been said recently about the relationship between the industrial war complex and video games (such as in articles in The New York Times and Wired). When the Army created the game America's Army to recruit soldiers, it seemed that Ender's Game truly was going to happen. I'm working on an article for publication about this theme, so let's breeze past this topic for the moment.
SIMS 2
Every night over the last week, I've sat in a room with a computer and TV, playing the recently-released The Sims 2 and watching late night talk shows. Something important changed last night: I turned off the TV and started watching the show that my Sim character was watching on his television.
I don't think I can even articulate how hyper-real this is.
REALITY GAMING
The spurt of ironic glee about Flash Mobs last summer was more than a hipster punchline. It illustrated how gaming was leaking from the pores of society. The products of this spillage have included Big Urban Game (Minneapolis) and PacManhattan (NYC). And the glut of competition-based reality shows (Survivor, The Apprentice, Fear Factor, etc.) are all just extreme versions of reality gaming. (One could also argue that these Reality Games are a sort of tame suburban version of more serious planned events like the Seattle WTO Protests. That's for a different essay though.)
THE VIDEOGAME REVOLUTION
Anyone who has played even five minutes of Zelda will find PBS's new two-hour special The Video Game Revolution a bit tedious. I suppose it serves a valid purpose -- to provide a historical framework of popular video games. Too bad it's as engaging as a two-hour Pong match.
But what interests me is what this documentary represents in this moment in time. It seems we have reached a period in gaming where we can reflect on the past equipped with the gear found in the toolbelt of historical analysis: summary, bricolage, and nostalgia. The Video Game Revolution implicitly declares video games as a real object of pop culture study. Of course, this should not be surprising given the rise of academic programs designed to study gaming. Something about this evolution reminds me of 1990s-era Camille Paglia promoting the notion that universities should start rock music programs. I have mixed feelings about whether turning an academic eye to rock really does anything for musicians or fans or society, but I do worry an accidental effect of academizing a discipline in the past couple decades: studying it is synonymous with taming it. (I know many people in academia who are studying game and play, and they all get sour-faced when I suggest this possibility.)
WATCHING TV AT WORK
Many companies have planned events on Fridays that provides employees a break from work. But what our workplace does is truly unique. The idea started innocently: let's use our in-house online video streaming technology to deliver a movie to employees on Friday.
Thus was born The Friday Matinee.
Here's how it works: every Wednesday, an email goes out to a dist list of programmers, designers, engineers, and editors. It contains a list of movies, and the community votes on which one it will watch. On Friday at 2:00, the intranet streaming servers are fired up and the 'play' button is pushed on the DVD player. This is where it gets interesting.
If you walk around through the darkened cubicles at this time, you will see dozens of programmers donning headphones and staring at their computer monitors. They are simultaneously performing a number of tasks: writing code, watching The Friday Matinee, and IM-ing their colleagues about both. In other words, people are working, being entertained, and communicating all at the same time. There's something about this collapse of mediums and lifestyles that suggests a complicated future of media and entertainment.
CONCLUDING
This last example has nothing explicitly to do with gaming, but it illustrates something that's happening in our times: people are hacking mediums together for their own purposes. The provocative questions are just starting to come out: what happens if you mix film with instant messenger? what would a music/game hybrid look like? how could role-playing influence traditional one-way entertainment?
In an average day, I perform numerous activities which have nothing to do with gaming explicitly, but which feel somehow game-like. These include blogging, creating a playlist for my iPod, programming my TiVo, Googling girls on my cellphone at bars, and learning the hacks behind Yahoo Internet Messenger. If there's one point from all these examples, it's that "gaming" might become so pervasive as to become invisible.
Game on.
CELEBRITY JOURNOS
The blogosphere likely won't shut up about the Times Mag story featuring Wonkette for quite some time.
Bill O'Reilly and Jon Stewart seem to be competing for Ubiquitous Fake Journalist of the Year. 60 Minutes today saw Mike Wallace do a long profile of O'Reilly; Time did 10 Questions for Jon Stewart. Rolling Stone did an O'Reilly profile; Annenberg released a survey that indicates Daily Show viewers are more politically aware. Slate did How To Beat Bill O'Reilly; CBS MarketWatch suggests Jon Stewart should moderate a presidential debate. And on and on... or you can just see them head-to-head.
ONLINE PUBLISHING
I'm not sure why more people didn't point to Jim Romenesko's cool new blog Starbucks Gossip when it launched last month. The Times this week picks up on the "Should You Tip Your Barista?" thread.
Gawker's Russ Smith interview is surprisingly full of good observations about alt-weeklies, meta-media moguls, and a dead counter-culture press. See also: a short interview with Esquire's sex columnist (and Daily Show correspondent), Stacey Grenrock Woods.
Last year around this time, I was talking about how Wired magazine has nicely reinvented itself. I've been less happy with the mag this year, but WiredNews.com (the website) has made some excellent editorial decisions lately. Two new columns, Sex Drive and Media Hack, have been required digerati reading. The most recent Sex Drive talks about The Sinulator, a vibrator which connects to a USB port and can be controlled remotely.
Ultragrrrl reveals (or so it seems, but maybe it's a joke) that the person behind the recently defunct TMFML (which even got a NYtimes obit) is.... a hot scenester girl?
CONSUMPTION
Kobayashi (the hotdog-eating guy) to retire?
Malcolm Gladwell put his awesome analysis of ketchup (I kid you not) online. Previously printed in the New Yorker.
The Times follows up Slate.com's analysis of vodka (I love this series from Slate) with a look at Cîroc, the vodka that was "disqualified" from the Slate contest because of "trying to pass itself off as a vodka."
Elle Macpherson has a new line of lingerie called Intimates. The ads, airing in Australia and the UK and featuring a knife-fighting supermodel, are causing quite a controversy. Yeah, I know, you wanna see them.
James Poniewozik brilliantly looks at the niching of America in Time: The Age of iPod Politics.
DESIGN
Good Bruce Mau interview. (Deborah Solomon seems to have become America's best interviewer.)
FILM
When I saw a trailer link for White Noise, the movie, I freaked out and called everyone I know. Or at least I started to. Then I saw "Genre: Paranormal thriller," and thought you motherfuckers ruined my favorite book! Turns out, this movie is unrelated to the book. But there was a rumor a year ago that DeLillo's White Noise would be a movie. Anyone have the scoop? (IMDB has Barry Sonnenfeld as the director of a 2005 release.)
From the Wong Kar-Wai profile in the Times Mag: "The kind of person who might once have proclaimed Jules and Jim or Wings of Desire his or her favorite movie now rates Wong Kar-wai at the top of the list." Which stings a bit, cuz I used to call Wings of Desire my favorite movie, and now I usually say Chungking Express.
Times: What's Your Take on Cassavetes? The five-disc collection looks so luscious.
MUSIC
This is the year Le Tigre is gonna hit the mainstream. Stop it, I'm serious. There's an exciting profile in the new Spin and the word is finally out about Kathleen Hanna's relationship with a Beastie Boy. And Stereogum has an MP3 of Le Tigre's cover of the Pointer Sisters' "I'm So Excited," which is gonna beat the Jazzercise knickers off Britney's "My Perogative." Best. Song. Of. 2004.
U2's new single, "Vertigo," from the forthcoming album is available here. (Good song.)
REM's entire new album streaming here.
Sinead O'Connor: "Stop making fun of me." Okay.
TECH
Last year, Business 2.0 infamously gave its "Hottest Technology" award to social networking software (Friendster, MySpace, Tribe.net, Orkut, etc.). This year, it goes to VoIP (Subscription Link). Runner-ups include Satellite Radio, Open-Source Databases, and Concept Mapping.
GAMES
Everyone is waiting to see what Steven Johnson says about Sims 2.
LOCAL
While in Fargo a few weeks ago, I got in a conversation with someone who was contributing to the creation of 100 North Dakota Books, a list of -- you guessed it -- 100 notable NoDak books. The person was trying to keep Chuck Klosterman off the list. Didn't happen.
If you missed it, RatherGate can be attributed to a local blogger, Powerlineblog.com, which is part of the Northern Alliance collective. Strib has a story.
The Frank Stone Gallery is doing some great work. The Poster Offensive exhibits were both good. (And the parties were fun too.)
PUBLISHING/MEDIA
Hm. Found on Amazon: How to Date a White Woman: A Practical Guide for Asian Men.
Itzkoff reviews the new Burning Man book, This Is Burning Man.
Margo Jefferson is the new "avant-garde critic" at the Times.
I try to keep away from linking to Frank Rich columns (mostly because they're already such obvious talking points), but this week's has a lot of my friends talking.
Bryce Zabel, a former chairman and CEO of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, does another one of those End of Television as We Know it stories.
MUSIC
Could the B-52's have their career revived a cover of "Paperback Writer" in a Buick advert?
OLYMPICS
The Voice takes on the Fetishizing Atheletes Question that has been a main talking point for this year's Olympics.
ONLINE
Google Answers on Geek Culture.
TECH/SEX
Wired News has started a new column called Sex Drive.
FILM
I ♥ Huckabees faux-ads. Naomi Watts is brilliant. I'm gonna love this film.
RogerEbert.com launches. To include every review since 1967.
CELEBRITY
Have you been watching The Surreal Life on VH1? Brigitte Nielsen and Flavor Flav are hooking up. Though impossible, I wish the last sentence could have been written in 1990.
Edward Furlong: lobster activist or drunk? You decide.
TECH
This could be interesting to those of you into Flash development and/or online communication models: Central and AOL Instant Messaging. Central hasn't exactly taken off, but it still has potential.
LOCAL
Minnesota mysteriously finds itself on the Sunday Times Week In Review page.
The PiPress redesign has been an odd big topic of conversation lately. Poynter has an overview.
PUBLISHING
Wow, the blog Belle de Jour calls it quits and Reuters writes a story about it.
The Times reviews a new book from Jon Stewart & The Daily Show gang.
There's a new tv magazine out called Glued. I haven't seen it yet, but Jossip interviews the editor.
And there's a new magazine coming out from... O'Reilly? Well, they've certainly been expanding into new areas. The title is Make, and the tagline is "Technology On Your Time." Due out next year.
FONTGATE
I was watching the new Slacker DVD last night when I noticed that the typewriter that gets thrown over the bridge is an IBM Selectric. Anyway, they're up for sale now on eBay. Also, a site dedicated exclusively to it.
FILM
Paris Hilton to star in -- get this -- The Great Gatzby. Actually, Paris as Daisy Buchanan is kinda brilliant. I bet they tried to get Gwyneth first though.
Errol Morris has a blog, or something.
Weird website for the DVD re-release of THX 1138.
TECH
I actually don't use Mozilla very much, but I kinda want the FireFox t-shirt.
GAMES
CNet interviews Will Wright.
MUSIC
Johnny Ramone has died. Questionable legacy: "Johnny Ramone was surrounded at his death by friends, including Pearl Jam rocker Eddie Vedder, singer Rob Zombie and others. Other friends who gathered at his Los Angeles home included Lisa Marie Presley, Pete Yorn, Vincent Gallo and Talia Shire."
The grumpy pants at Pitchfork give the new Har Mar Superstar a 1.9.
Julian Casablancas and Juliet Joslin's Target Gift Registry.
CONSUMPTION
Nike shows restraint in not touching the Chuck Taylor All-Stars brand, wherein you hear Kurt Cobain was wearing Cons when he committed suicide. Rah, go Nike.
SCIENCE = LIFESTYLE
Slate: Inhalable alcohol? Finally, science is really producing products I can relate to.
Research from Nature: Your name increases your sex appeal. (Includes research performed via HotOrNot.com.) Hello, my name is Rex....
MEDIA
It was interesting to watch the Sunday morning news shows cover a couple stories that orgininated in the blogosphere. Both LittleGreenFootballs.com's analysis of typograpy (somewhat debunked by DailyKos) and Kottke.org's breaking the news that Ken Jennings lost in Jeopardy were both treated as "a website reported" on numerous instances. Even Reliable Sources glossed over the identity of those sites.
CELEBRITY
The best point in the Times Mag story on Trump is probably the point about him being a mysterious populist. False consciousness, indeed.
Britney in a "MILF IN TRAINING" t-shirt. This girl's got longevity written all over her.
WORDS
Amy's Robot has an MP3 of Dave Eggers interview on Conan last week.
Ana Marie Cox reviews the new Kristin Gore novel for the Times Book Review. We learn that Gore had writing gigs at SNL and Futurama. Which is impressive, but I saw her on Letterman last week, and she came off ditzy and clueless to irony or nuance. Ms. Cox delivers zingers though: "God knows, an astringent romantic satire is long overdue in a town where work is foreplay and the vibrating object in a couple's bed could easily be a two-way pager."
Locus: a bunch of sci-fi writers (Cory Doctorow, Pat Murphy, Kim Stanley Robinson, Norman Spinrad, Bruce Sterling and Ken Wharton) in a roundtable about the future.
TECH
Huh, it looks like Yahoo is going into consumer electronics. Sounds to me like a bad move.
MUSIC
R.E.M. has an audio stream of the first single from their next album, Around The Sun: "Leaving New York".
ONLINE
NYhotties.com: "I'm a twenty-something New York escort. I love Prada, Seven jeans, and Jimmy Choos." I really gotta make up an identity and cash in with a book deal.
LOCAL
Did you know there was a local version of Dodgeball.com (NPR story)? I may just try it out.
Apparently the PiPress is making some big structural changes, including something called "Speed Read" and a daily A&E section. By the way, my old friend Ross Raihala is the new music writer there. You can see his work popping up here.
DIGI MEDIA
Gizmodo reviews MSNtv, bascially the next generation of WebTV.
Years ago, I edited a newsstand magazine that basically reviewed websites. That genre of publishing sounds a billion years old now, but don't tell the Times Art section, which reviews music websites.
CNet has a follow-up story about the uphill battles a Netflix/TiVo partnership will face.
When I first saw the new BlackBerry, the keyboard totally confused me. Circuits finally explains the mentality behind this unique (and my guess is, ultimately flawed) 20-key keyboard.
Group investigative typography? The controversy that LittleGreenFootballs.com and PowerLine.com launched over the 60 Minutes piece (I won't try to explain it -- just go look) is fascinating group-think research even if it seems that most of the people sleuthing this together are complete morons.
FILM
New trailer to the Wes Anderson / Bill Murry flick, The Life Aquatic.
WORDS
Slate reviews graphic novel Persepolis 2 in slideshow format.
ONLINE
CNN Money has a strange slideshow of the animated characters who will appear naked in next month's Playboy.
MEDIA
SF Chroncicle tells you everything you ever wanted to know about Maureen Dowd.
PERSONAL
My pal John Lamb wrote a column about blogs this week in which he makes fun of my Amazon Wish List.
LOCAL
If you were at Mark Mallman's crazy 52.4-hour show last weekend, you witnessed one of those little pieces of Twin Cities rock history that will be recounted as often as Prince at First Ave. and Lifter Puller at the Triple Rock. David de Young has a review.
TV
Letterman is having a contest in which you can submit an answer for Top Ten Signs You're In Love With Your iPod.
Since getting TiVo, I've been constantly thinking about cancelling my Netflix account. Now there's the surprising news that they will be working together, and I'll be able to download movie via Netflix to my TiVo. (PVRblog is abuzz with conversation.) See also: L.A. Times essay on the the ways the DVR is changing society.
FILM
Guardian profile of Merhan Karimi Nasseri, the guy who has spent 16 years living in an airport and is the inspiration for the new Spielberg flick, Terminal.
MEDIA
Anderson Cooper receiving dating advice from Puffy.
ProjectCensored: The Top 25 Censored Media Stories of 2003-2004. "Censored" is probably not the right word, but it's a good list.
MUSIC
Miscellaneous new videos from Dizzee Rascal, Modest Mouse, Duran Duran.
Pitchfork sez a Nirvana boxset with three CDs of unreleased material is coming out later this year.
WORDS
Media Bistro has an excerpt from Lads: A Memoir of Manhood by David Itzkoff, formerly of Maxim now at Spin. WSJ review.
ONLINE
Another Craig "Craiglist" Newmark profile.
POLITICS
Dick Cheney profile in Rolling Stone.
TV
Someone should make a list of the tropes from the Daily Show that have trickled into mainstream media thinking. This Times graphic showing the words Republican and Democratic convention speakers use feels like a less funny version of when John Stewart loops the tape on speakers who repeat the same words repeatedly in a speech.
GAMING
From last week's Circuits, a profile of Peter Molyneux, the creator of Black and White, who has a new god game called Fable coming out this month.
Jennifer 8. Lee ends a Times story about a Rock, Paper, Scissors tourney with phone numbers flirtatiously exchanged. (Zoinks, check out the strategies of RPS.)
WORDS
James Wolcott (Vanity Fair media guy) got a blog.
BOOZE
Slate asks the questions I ask myself all day: Which vodka is the best?
TECH
Good news for Skype: The Times is talking about you in smart ways. Bad news for TiVo: The Times is talking about you in boring ways.
FILM
The director of Garden State (who is also on NBC's Scrubs) is blogging.
MUSIC
New Yeah, Yeah, Yeah's video: Y Control.
ONLINE
Scott Lapatine of Stereogum.com is interviewed over at Gothamist.
LOCAL
Have you been to Robot Love yet? Git.
ONLINE
Microsoft launched their Music Store (in beta) yesterday. Nothing about it jumps out as unique. The TV and MOVIES tabs are intriguing, but basically worthless for content. And you need Passport to buy. Blech. However, gotta love team picture. (More review: Times | Mossberg | CNET.)
Much more interesting to us little people, Apple iTunes launched an affiliate program. My thinking on this one: this will not directly affect sales. Instead, you will see an indirect effect when blogs start linking to these songs. This will sell a handful of songs, but more importantly it will require users to use iTunes to play music. In the long run, I think this leverages iTunes as the de fact music player.
Paul Ford invokes Hannah Arendt with The Banality of Google. (By the way, his site was also an influence in organizing this one.)
ART
Just when I had given up on ArtForum, Choire Sicha does a Top 10.
PARIS
I'm sure I'm lending to the degeneration of our civilization, but let's go down skanking out, eh? The Paris Hilton Collection on Amazon. Paris Hilton's Heart: $35.
POLITICS
Transcript from last night's Michael Moore and John McCain appearances on Letterman.
TECH
Engadget got their hands on one of the new Portable Media Centers, and wrote the quintessential review. I haven't decided if I'll get one yet.
EVENTS
Is anyone in the world paying attention to Burning Man this year? Only two days left and I completely forgot about it.
ONLINE
Bruce Sterling did a fashion photo series called Milan or Tehran?, which I guess is trying to say something about globalism, but I don't know what (hot chicks in scarfs are universal, perhaps?).
McSweeney's: Email Addresses It Would Be Really Annoying To Give Out Over The Phone.
I was interviewed by the NY Times a few weeks ago because of a article I wrote about the defunt scandal known as Plain Layne. The Times angle was mostly about fake celebrity bloggers. The whole topic came up again last week when the Quentin Tarantino blog surfaced, and then quickly sank. The next day, a secret weblog from Julian Casablancas' girlfriend rose, and then also died (screengrabs). It makes you wonder how much of a nano-celebrity you could be and have a fake blog made in your honor. ("No, I'm really Craig Kilborn's cousin!")
FILM
Somewhere in my mind is a top ten list of events that I'm sad not to have talked about here over the past six months, and Vincent Gallo is definitely not on it. The controversy seems to be wrapping up today with Roger Ebert telling "the whole truth" about Vince.
New movie trailer alert!:
Silver City. John Sayles political parody starring Chris Cooper.
Finding Neverland. Looks like Tim Burton meets Merchant & Ivory (ergo, bad) with Johnny Depp and Kate Winslet.
Closer. Another entry in the hot genre of the moment -- let's call it the "romantic deceit thriller" (see also: We Don't Live Here Anymore). Starring Julia Roberts, Jude Law, Natalie Portman, and Clive Owen, but really starring cool Suzanne Vega and Damien Rice songs.
The Yes Men. More liberal-docu-essaying.
And did you see Hero this weekend? It's either the best movie or the worst movie of the year.
WORDS
Rumors on Bret Easton Ellis' new book (involving the return of Patrick Bateman). And here's the cast list for the upcoming film version of Glamorama.
David Foster Wallace on RateMyProfessor.com. ("Very neurotic and tends to chew tobacco and spit in a cup while lecturing.")
Neal Stephenson interview in Wired.
MUSIC
Shatner has a new album, produced by Ben Folds.
Somewhat funny parody of the director's commentary concept: Britney Spears on SNL. (Speaking of which, the new video of Britney covering "My Prerogative" reportedly cost $7.2 million "to market and promote" a "happening, rather than just a video." Apparently, she's taking cue from Axl and getting faux-married to her quasi-celeb mate in the video.)
Does anyone else suspect the only reason the MTV Video Awards were in Miami tonight was because the Republicans took over NYC? Best moment? I guess when Nick "Newlywed" Lachey and Paris "Simple World" Hilton appeared on the stage at the same time, and suddenly you had a vision of reality tv worlds colliding like a nuclear reaction. Yeah, boring awards this year. Blame the FCC.
OLYMPICS
Olympic Medal Count by population.
Get it before Fark does: titty twister polo.
SEX
Everything I ever learned about sex and porn I learned from the Sunday Times' story What Women Want To Watch. Shoes, eh? Yeah, me too. Totally.
KY Jelly: it'll fit.
MEDIA
Has anyone else been watching Maureen Dowd blah-blahing her new book on the talk show circuit? I'm not sure what it is, but something about her reminds me of Sofia Coppola -- demure but cunning, cute in a you-can't-be-seriously-be-that-coy kinda way.
New York Mag saucy feature on the Bush Twins.
MARKETING
The Apprentice cast on Friendster.
When Halo 2 finally comes out, will anyone think that ILoveBees.com was a viral success? Well, since Subservient Chicken did so well, who knows.
Speaking of... the same ad firm that did those BK ads tried to recently get Paris Hilton to become a BK spokesperson in a David LaChappelle spot (featuring her own music!). It didn't work out, but Paris Hilton is trying to trademark her own logo (a tiara).
SCI-FI
The Guardian asks scientists to pick their Top 10 Sci-Fi Authors and Top 10 Sci-Fi Films. C'mon, no Gattica?
LOCAL
Everyone's fave sexy local blogger, PussyRanch has hung up her blogging tassles and closed the ranch. She's a little oblique about what she'll actually be doing now, but her recent work at City Pages has been quite good (check out the piece on the new Gotti ("one tough biscotti") reality tv show).
Last week, The Times did a story about online fantasy leagues, which gave major mentions to Best Buy and Fanball (two local companies). This week, the Strib basically does the same story.
There goes the neighborhood. Strib gives a major feature to Psycho Suzi's.
Cool or uncool? Hot or not? Sen. Norm Coleman's wife, Laurie, has given the Post approval to post sexy lingerie pics of her.
I officially apologize to the 2,325 of you who I tried to convince to go to SXSW this year. I can't go. Just not enough time (like you can't tell by the lack of updates here). Don't hate me, cuz I still luv you.
WORDS
ILM thread: Summarise a Novel in 25 Words. Anyone else notice that ILM is sorta like MetaFilter circa 2000? Yes, I mean it's good.
Neal Pollack lecture offered via Salon/MediaBistro: The Professional Satirist's Guide to the Perfect Orgasm.
Back home in academia, Naomi Wolf has outted Harold Bloom as "sexually encroaching" on her when she was a student at Yale.
We always knew Orson Scott Card was a conservative, but we never really cared. I mean, some of my best friends are... anyway, now he's writing nasty editorials on this blog. Mel Gibson, on the other hand... well, he's just a fascist.
Huh, The Times reviewed the new Jason Blair book.
MUSIC
Sex Advice From Liz Phair over at Nerve.com, wherein Eddie Murphy is quoted.
ONLINE
It's well known that journalists are pilfering bloggers 24-7, but particular funny case is the blogger Brian Storms writing a parody about an Amazon.com that the Chicago Tribune picked up by accident (correction).
POLITICS
That Urban Outfitters Voting Is For Old People t-shirt everyone is talking about. Well, sorta.
LOCAL
Mom sent me an article about North Dakota's shrinking population.
Fair warning: if Carrie doesn't choose Mr. Big, I'm so killing myself.
WORDS
It's a fine day for the English language. A semicolon saved gay marriage.
SOCIAL
Can you plagiarize someone's life? If so, The Onion has mine again. Just to be audacious, they even datelined here.
ENTREPRENEURS
The Segway: losing zillions of dollars...
...on the other hand, NutsForTrucks.com is not.
Buy Janet's nipple shield at... Janetsnipperling.biz.
TV
Slate: How Does Sweeps Week Work?
FILM
Perhaps the greatest movie of all time, Blow-Up came out on DVD this week. (If you've been to my house, you've drank Wet Rexxxies under the ostentatiously red poster.) So did The Tibetan Book of the Dead narrated by Leonard Cohen (!?), but I really have no idea how good that is.
Coming not-so-soon: The Simpsons, the movie.
ONLINE
I find myself using Google's "Search by Location" page more and more often lately.
POLITICS
This is not a John Kerry / Jane Fonda photograph.
MUSIC
A very large collection of drum solos.
New video from Michel Gondry is all stop-motion knitting.
Joey Ramone action figure. Vinyl, of course.
LOCAL
The hell? The Times is writing about hip churches in Minneapolis? Hey you kids, get outta my yard!
Don't you fucking start with me. I'm doing my best, alright? I'm so goddamn tired. Okay, that's better. Here you go:
POLITICS
John Kerry, not hanging out with Jane Fonda at a 1970 anti-Vietnam rally. (Story and reax story.)
TV
Close to brilliant video of Jon Stewart's dissection of Bush's appearance on Meet The Press.
WORDS
Roddy Doyle disses Ulysses.
FILM
Star Wars is being released on DVD. Woo.
DESIGN
Designer extraordinaire, Joshua Davis, was asked by Wired to redesign Google. Here are some snapshots of what he came up with for an upcoming issue. Meanwhile, he might be on Queer Eye.
TECH
NYT interview with the guy behind BitTorrent.
MUSIC
Pazz & Jop is out.
New Courtney Love album out today (new video). The Post reviews it. Meanwhile, she lost her kid at the Grammy's and is now on the lam.
Pixies reunite for first time in over a decade to play.... Canada? Where is my mind?
Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs audio player.
LOCAL
Walker attendance plummets and they blame 9/11.
I feel as fat as that Atkins guy.
POLITICS
DIGITAL
What does the porn industry think about digital piracy? The Times looks. In other NSFW news, Suicide Girls is syndicating to Playboy.com now.
ONLINE
Seattle Weekly goes ga-ga for Michael Kinsley. I like the chap too, but c'mon, 5000+ words? You think this is the New Yorker or something?
WORDS
I rather like that half of Paris' book proposal is pictures. Brilliant title.
David Foster Wallace parody winner.
MUSIC
In addition to a Friendster parody site, Lambchop has a couple new albums out.
Need a body double. Simple can't keep up. Who won Iowa and New Hampshire? Who, you say? Here's what we've got:
WORDS
Salon is serializing Dave Eggers new novel.
FILM
Gothamist reports on the casting to the new Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy film, which includes Martin Freeman from The Office, Zooey Deschenal, and Mos Def. In other news, NBC is gonna try to adapt The Office. Ahem, no comment.
POLITICS
GQ profiles Joe Trippi.
PUBLISHING
Michael Wolff leaving New York, off to Vanity Fair, which sucks because now I'll have to start buying Vanity Fair.
WORDS
Another mainstream "theory is dead" story.
Huh, there's a Name of the Rose board game.
ONLINE
SXSW web awards finalists announced. I'm trying to get down there this year, but it's looking iffy.
I need a metaster too.
Busuiness 2.0's 101 Dumbest Moments in Business.
CONSUMPTION
I bought a red Danish couch named Opus today. Hello, modern world.
New cut-n-paste agitprop flick: The Corporation.
MUSIC
Res feature on Air that includes an excellent videoplayer. Go buy the new one, Talkie Walkie.
Slate.com: Why Is Airplane Music So Universally Bad? NYT: A Better Night's Sleep, Flat Out at 35,000 Feet.
A very large collection of insects in rock and roll cover art.
Billy Corgan (or his 15-year-old sister) is blogging.
TV
The Voice gives The L Word a rave. So far, so do I. And the Joan Jett wannabe is my fave.
CELEBERITY
Tallying the celebrity endorsements.
Alex Trebek, genius driver.
If you missed it, someone uploaded a quicktime video of the Paris Hilton appearance on SNL a few weeks back.
LOCAL
Have you been reading Melissa's new don't-call-it-sex-and-the-city-ish column at CP?
Fog of War finally opens here this week.
Shhh... don't tell anyone else about our entrepreneurial genius.
Will. Not. Link. To. Dean. Parody.
Or. Outkast. Parody.
Will not.
Good boy.
We're back on the air, America.
FILM
Kill Bill Vol. 2 trailer is all meta.
TV
VH1 has a new show called Best Show Ever that's like The Daily Show. Or something. The blog is better.
WORDS
Amy Sedaris interviewed in Onion A/V Club.
Amy's Robot has audio of Thomas Pynchon's "appearance" on The Simpson's last night.
POLITICS
Totally old news, but gotta catch up from last week: Wonkette is to DC politics as Gawker is to NYC media. Ana Marie Cox is the editor, so it should be a good.
Amazon is doing presidential campaign contributions. NPR story. Includes contributions raised through the service: Dean, $3,042.25; Kerry, $6,560.00.
Times Mag finally addresses copyright.
From AOL/Time, one of those candidate matching tools.
TECH
Google enters social software scene with Orkut and MyYahoo adds an RSS aggregator.
The guy who pretty much invented Winamp, Shoutcast, and Gnutella oddly chooses Rolling Stone to finally accept an interview. (Update: It looks like he just quit AOL.)
LIFESTYLE
No wonder I like fucking.
HowWasShe.com. Exactly what you'd think. Let the controversy begin.
Neil Strauss must be slumming it. He's in the Times Style section talking about sleazy pickup artists.
MUSIC
Best. Thread. Ever. I like "Rough Guide to Italian Hip-Hop" and "Rough Guide to Harpsichord Pop."
A headline that seems like is should've been written about 2.8 zillion years ago: Steve Albini interviews Mission of Burma.
LOCAL
All the hanger-ons are now gonna be pestering us as Dara praised our favorite hang-out, Psycho Suzi's, last week.
CONSUMPTION
I can't believe I read three stories today about the competition between the Schick Quattro and the new vibrating Gillette Mach3Turbo.
ask.metafilter.com thread on "selling out."
Disney is selling Celebration, the much-debated city (back in the day people debated cities) it started in the '90s.
FILM
NPR on Mormon Cinema.
FOOD
For no particular reason, a random collection of food blogs for you: Chocolate & Zucchini | Appetites | Fuck Corporate Groceries |101 Cookbooks | Food Blog | Food Goat | Il Forno| tastingmenu.com | shiokadelicious? Walker New York: Eats | The Food Section.
LOCAL
Always the best city wrap, Pulse's Worst of the Twin Cities is out.
The guys behind Bush Boy have launched a new product at the Iowa caucuses: Deanie Babies.
MEDIA/POLITICS
Get Your War On, the Mars edition.
Let the outrage begin. CBS has rejected MoveOn.com's Bush in 30 Seconds ad from airing on the Super Bowl.
New media/politics blog from CJR: The Campaign Desk.
Salon gets more survival money, this time from Jann Wenner (who also recently was inducted into the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame).
Ya know, I thought Dennis Miller was an idiot before he went on a mission to prove it.
Interesting story about a Sims Online newspaper and how the First Ammendment is or is not recognized in virtual spaces.
Yahoo launched a News Search. The advanced search is nicely granular.
Posting for a decade-late personal dream job: Mad Magazine Senior Editor.
FOOD
FASHION
Ever wonder who's behind Von Dutch? Me either, but I'm glad to know he's a dickhead.
MUSIC
Warp Records releases catalogue on MP3.
FILM
I rather like that trailer for the Stepford Wives remake and the Battle of Algiers re-release showed up the same day. (If it plays in your market, run-don't-walk to Battle of Algiers. It's one of my top 10 favorites of all time.)
Vote for the Top 10 films of 2003 on Film Comment and enter a contest for $200 in Criterion DVDs.
LOCAL
City Pages tears into Lileks' Bleat, which I'm always surprised anyone is reading.
ONLINE
Sure to top blogdex any second: I'll Have You Know I Have Several Black Friendsters.
Huh, that's what she looks like. The Today Show interviews Emily Nussbaum after her NYT story on kid bloggers.
TV/POLITICS
Bush In 30 Seconds winner announced. Drudge has quotes from the awards show (which -- gush, gush -- included Julia Stiles). The plan is to air the spot during the Super Bowl.
Chuck spots that Post story accusing Howard Dean staffers of being lame, and provides video proving the contrary.
FOOD
Crazy shit: Jay "Bright Lights, Big City" McInerney is apparently a contender for the open NYT food critic position that William Grimes left behind. Good shit: The Kicker imagines what his first column would be like.
TECH
Those new Smart Watches are available on Amazon. See also: MSN Direct. I'd buy one if two things changed: 1) I could use AIM instead of MSN Messnger and 2) I could get email instead of my calendar.
WORDS/IDEAS
If you've ever felt out of the loop on academic talk (especially since Lingua Franca bit the dust [and the freelance staffers got sued]), you'll want to follow this thread. Taking off from the Times story (and New Left Review article) of Franco Moretti's modest proposal to make literary scholarship more mathematical, Ftrain pens Tufte vs. Bloom. More to come, I'm sure...
MUSIC
Go buy whatever is left of Grand Royal. Current Bid: $0.
Great, as if Kurt & Courtney weren't enough, the theories are already flying that Elliott Smith's girlfriend killed him. Details on why.
LOCAL
Holy fucking zen arcade, Bob Mould has a blog.
Yo, want your music to be the theme of the new light rail? Sign up!
Suicide Girls have a burlesque tour? Apparently so. They're at First Ave Feb. 21. Gotta go, just to see who goes. I wonder if it'll be as good as Le Cirque Rouge de Gus.
Had a strange sensation today paging through The New Yorker. I came across the Howard Dean article and briefly thought to myself, "This is pretty long; I should print it for later." Of course, I was holding the magazine in my nimble fingers. Then, quickly realizing my folly, I thought, "Maybe I can rip the pages out for later." Mind-boggling, isn't it?... how spoiled we've become.
ONLINE
Emily Nussbaum chases around some high school Live Journalers for the Times Mag: My So-Called Blog.
New York Post scribbles something up about belle de jour, the blog of a London call girl. (Locally, we have Pussy Ranch.)
Red Herring interview with the CEO of Netflix.
LIFESTYLE
I'm thrilled to constantly discover myself in a new demographic. This week, it's Quirkyalone. There's a book, a quiz, a website, and way-too-long newspaper stories.
MUSIC
For the price of about $1 per CD, RipDigital will turn your entire CD library into MP3 files.
We deserve our own wretched fate. Silly Saddam as Outkast animation.
WORDS
What is the single worst piece of punctuation? Some might say the exclamation point, but according to the Chronicle of Higher Education, the colon is the enemy.
Tina Brown in the Washington Post on Donald Trump: The Real Reality Show: An '80s Survivor. And The Minor Fall, The Major Life translates it.
The Economist: Babel's children.
Bloggers interviewing people is becoming more popular. Zulkey interviews Joel Stein. The Morning News interviews Jonatham Letham.
LOCAL
A super excellent photographic tour of The Replacements' Minneapolis.
Surrounded by the cute girls in my posse, I turned into a skanky aloof hipster (note the shifty eyes and cell phone/pda in my pocket). Hey Pete, what night was that, anyway?
WORDS
During that Times interview the other day, I said a ridiculous number of brilliant things about list-making as an attempt to make sense of a fragmented world. And then Louis Menand stole all my ideas and wrote them in The New Yorker. Yep.
The Speech Accent Archive consists of audio files of 295 people reading the exact same 69 words. So? Well, they all speak with different accents. So? Shut up, it's cool.
Looks like Umberto Eco has a new book. The Guardian says it's "inaccessible for its semiotic jargon and graphs," which is a good sign he's back in form.
POLITICS
The 15 finalists in MoveOn.org's Bush In 30 Seconds contest have been announced. Some funny ones, some reactionary ones. Judges for the finals include: Michael Moore, Donna Brazile, Jack Black, Janeane Garofalo, Margaret Cho and Gus Van Sant.
TECH
Salon's tech predictions for 2004.
New stuff Apple announced today: GarageBand and iPod Mini. And here's some stuff they didn't announce (Wired).
While getting a couple fillings put in today, my dentist told me he's going to CES. Yes, my fuggin dentist. Rafat from PaidContent.org and Peter Rojas from Gizmodo are there.
MEDIA
Ziff-Davis is going to launch a new tech magazine: Sync. Doomed to suck.
Somewhat interesting that The Guardian reprinted Osama bin Laden's comments in its "Comments and Analysis" section of the paper. (Also interesting that I didn't actually read all of Osama's words, but I read the entire mediocre MeFi thread.)
MUSIC
Ryan Adams leaves a goofy-attempt-at-being-nasty message (mp3) on Jim DeRogatis' (Chicago Sun-Times music columnist) voicemail.
New documentary: Sounds Like Techno.
DESIGN
Adult Movie Posters of the 60s and 70s.
The 2005 Mustang looks totally retro. (Sorry for the car link. I drive a 2000 'stang.)
The "Reflecting Pools" design was chosen for the WTC Memorial.
FASHION
LOCAL
Bye, bye, Flash Mobs; hello Action Squad. Minneapolis urban adventures!
I'm looking for a good Flash Designer/Developer for a big project. If you're all that, find me.
And the winner for most unique use of my Best Of The Year lists goes to: RocketJump, who took all the music lists, shoved them into a mathematical formula, and came up with a uber-list. Also cool: All-Consuming's 100 Most Frequently Mentioned Books By Blogs. I'm glad this is all over.
TV
Watching SNL the other night, I witnessed the "Atkin's Diet Safe" Subway commercial for the first time. At first, I wasn't sure if it was an SNL parody commercial, but it was real, and the Times says there are more to come.
Emily Nussbaum in the Times and Tom Shales in the Post on the final episodes of Sex and the City. Shales includes this tidbit: "Sometime during the year, HBO began imprinting each preview cassette sent out for review with the critic's initials in one corner of the screen, allegedly as an anti-piracy measure."
This one is a bit crazy. Universal Music (i.e., GE; i.e., NBC) is teaming up with DirecTV (i.e., NewsCorp; i.e., FOX), Vivid Entertainment Group (i.e., porn), and Shady Records (i.e., Eminem's label) to launch a music channel featuring porn videos.
MUSIC
Casey Kasem is leaving American Top 40. Tidbits about CK: he is the voice of Shaggy on Scooby Doo; his wife, Jean, was Loretta Tortelli on Cheers; he is vegan; he is of Lebanese decent; he will be replaced by the host of Amerian Idol; and he didn't know that Snuggles tape was leaked until 10 years after it happened.
Courtney Love has a "15 day trial version" (?!) of her new single, Mono," available on her site.
I Love Music thread: Worst Hypothetical Rapper Names.
Devo has a new DVD out. For a relatively cheap $13, you 17 videos and other stuff. Wash Post writes about it.
TECH
A couple decent pieces hypothesizing this year's technology advances: Robert X. Cringely's Predictions for 2003 and ExtremeTech's Predicting the Tech Flops of Tomorrow.
CULTURE
Recommended: this James Poniewozik essay, where Time shockingly gave him 3,000 words of space to talk about decline of mass culture and the ascendency of niche marketing. Full of somewhat obscure cultural reference points that prove his point.
Times: Cultural Theorists, Start Your Epitaphs. Question of the day: Is Eagleton losing it?
Slate: Should Students Be Allowed To Hookup With Profs? Answer of the day: Yes!
There's probably nothing funnier I could say in the NYTimes than "everyone thinks they can write about music" (second item). I'm gonna take a beating for that one. New in the big list: expanded art and architecture links, Google's Zeitgeist, Norman Solomon's annual P.U.-Litzers Prizes, Slate's Critics Critiqued, ESPN's Year in Sex and Sports, Car & Driver's 10 Best Cars, The Post Style section's In & Out, and, ya know, a whole lot more. Coalesce!
TECH
Even Wired is making lists now. 101 Ways to Save the Internet.
MUSIC
Elliott Smith's death might not have been a suicide.
CULTURAL STUDIES
Stumbled across the old Roland Barthes essay on The New Citroen (1957), which I haven't read in nearly a decade, but am stunned at how crisp it sounds. "I think that cars today are almost the exact equivalent of the great Gothic cathedrals: I mean the supreme creation of an era, conceived with passion by unknown artists, and consumed in image if not in usage by a whole population which appropriates them as a purely magical object." How come no one wrote about the Mini like this?
Today, the Christian Science Monitor mentioned Fimoc (last paragraph). What's new in the big list? Well, there's the eye-catching Top 20 Nude Scenes of 2003 (Justine Bateman?), Yahoo's Top Searches 2003, Roger Ebert's Top 10, The Year of the Liar from the luscious Heather Havrilesky at Salon, and a whole lot more.
ONLINE
MUSIC
Shatner to release new album, produced by Ben Folds.
FILM
Trailer for Kill Bill Vol 2 (Japanese version).
TECH
For a little bit of flashback fun, read this PC World story from two years ago that predicts what last year was supposed to bring. 1-GHz PDAs? Fuel cells for portables? Voice portals? Uh, yeah. At least they got the flat screens right.
BAD POLITICS
Oh boy, gimme. Ann Coulter Talking Action Figure.
Newsweek put Jon Stewart on the cover, and wrote a boring story about him.
USA Today manages to pen perhaps the worst story ever on blogging and politics.
MEDIA
The Times has a suprisingly must-read-ish 14-story collection on the future of media and technology.
For those who have been sleeping the last week, a merger catchup: Comcast bought TechTV | FedEx bought Kinko's | News Corp bought DirecTV | Rex bought a $150 coffee pot that grinds the beans and makes the coffee with a timer.
Kottke says he will read a magazine every week for a year. All the freaks come out to tell him which ones to try.
ARCHITECTURE
Gehry: "I'm just an architect."
LOCAL
Anyone know about this Trend Agenda thing coming to town? Okay, let me rephrase that: Anyone know how I can get in without forking out $350? "Trend Agenda is for those who want to help shape the future -- the curious and courageous. Philosophers, leaders, innovators and mavericks." Hell, they should pay me to go.
Just as its size doubled over the weekend, the Year in Review page is about to close shop. More personal faves have arrived: Salon's annual tech review, onslaughts from the Sunday Times and Entertainment Weekly, the big Voice film list, etc.
POLITICS
Those Howard Dean Internet stories just keep coming. Here's Wired's.
LIFE/STYLE
The Times is writing about SuicideGirls.com. And ethnically ambiguous hotties.
Wash Post: Japan's Empire of Cool. A1 story on the the country's culture industry. Na-duh.
FILM
Buried in this story about Tony Kushner is the news that Dave Eggers is working with Spike Jonze to adapt Where The Wild Things Are.
Trailer to new Lars von Trier movie: Dogville. In other von Trier news that completely freaks me out, his brilliant mini-series Kingdom Hospital has been adapted by Stephen King and will air on ABC. (See also: Lars von Trier and Paul Thomas Anderson chit-chatting.)
Wash Post profiles Uma.
WORDS
Update to Google Print: a FAQ and a list of all the books in the database.
I've often wondered how drugs get named.
MUSIC
Steven Johnson's essay snippet on curatorial culture is pretty darn good.
TV
10 Ads America Won't See from Ad Age.
LOCAL
Metafilter thread on Southdale Mall.
Wooly Boys, "the first major motion picture set and filmed in North Dakota" (which is not true many times over), opens next month. It stars Peter Fonda and Kris Kristofferson.
Ventura's MSNBC show is on "indefinite hiatus". See-ya.
That which can heretoforth be referred to simply as THE LIST has grown significantly over the weekend. That's where the action is. And then there are these:
WORDS
Gawker's list of words to outlaw in 2004. Yes, yes, and yes.
I spend vastly too much money on Taschen books, which predictably end up sitting around on coffee tables. The L.A. Weekly has a good profile of the book publisher.
The world's largest book is on Amazon.
The founders of Spy magazine will split $1 million four ways to write about the magazine's rise and fall.
Not only was he reading Dostoyevsky after the war, Saddam was writing his fourth novel while the troops surrounded Iraq.
ONLINE
Amazon Wishlist of ridiculously expensive stuff. Yes, please add that $283,500.00 necklace to my shopping cart. (Customer review: "The sacrifices I have made just to be able to afford this, selling my house, my car, and my children, all made up for it in the end.")
Match.com moves into Friendster.com territory.
LIFE
USA Today graphic: Do women want to date metrosexuals?
MUSIC
Walmart's $.88/song online store.
Heard a bit of Matt Groening on Fresh Air the other night. Apparently he edited this year's De Capo Best Music Writing anthology, but I didn't hear Terry Gross ask about it.
Gory pics of the singer Jack White beat up last week.
POLITICS
Up next, Frank Rich writes about Howard Dean's online campaign: Napster Runs for President in '04.
FILM
New trailer: Osama. In "selected" theaters Jan 30.
I always have the company party post-party so that everyone talks about the stupid drunk thing so-and-so did at my house last year. This seemingly infallible strategy implodes when you get more drunk than anyone else at your own party.
WORDS
It just wouldn't be Christmas without a David Sedaris New Yorker story.
Good to know that Saddam was reading Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment in his hole. (The details here are amazing. Two cans of Raid? Palmolive Naturals soap? Lipton tea?)
ART
MoMA snatched up $40 million of new art.
FOOD & DRINK
NPR: winemakers.
G'head, try it, I dare you: VELVEETA® Fudge.
TECH
Exactly two years after Google launched Google News, another new product is starting to take form: Google Print.
Everything you wanted to know about the upcoming version of IE.
I missed this story from last weekend: NFL Receiver Uses Cell Phone From End Zone. Awesome.
Macromedia Flash Video Gallery.
MUSIC
Dizzee Rascal's first single, "Fix Up, Look Sharp" (mp3) and the video for "Just Like a Rascal".
LOCAL
Some pics from Dave's (Creative Electric's) Flash Boutique. Go!
TECH
Microsoft: We're not Nazi and recalling our typefaces will prove it.
FILM
Some new trailers: The Passion of The Christ | Monster | The Fog Of War.
ONLINE
NYT profiles the gang from The Smoking Gun.
NPR's Marketplace on social network software, and NYT too.
ART
Voice: Of Friendsters and Foes.
MUSIC
NYT catches on to Dizzee Rascal.
Yo, USA Today linked to my Year In Review list today. There's a bunch of new stuff in there... Rolling Stone, The Onion, and the Best Wines of 2003!
TECH
Hypothesize about the fetishizing of technology all you want, but this information superhighway is a two-way street: Steve Jobs interviewed in Rolling Stone; David Byrne interviewed in Wired.
FILM
Totally weird. Girl with a Pearl Earring -- yes, the Vermeer painting -- has been adapted into a movie (Times review). Just the other day I linked to the phenomenally cool (and totally unrelated to the movie) Girl With a Pearl Earring website. Question for my art historian friends: Is this the first time a painting has been adapted into a movie?
David Lynch: peace broker.
WORDS
Slate: Which Dictionary is Best?
Hanging out with The Believer.
TV
This is the saddest romance story of all time.... that involves that tramp Paris Hilton.
You saw the Miller Lite ad that uses human dominoes, right? Eric Zorn has a column in the Chicago Tribune about it.
How did I miss this? Tina Fey was interviewed in The Believer a couple months back.
MUSIC
Gobs of obscure MP3s from The Darkness.
Christgau: This ought to be indie-rock's moment. But no.
I haven't been to SonicYouth.com for a while. Check out the wicked complex MP3 page.
ONLINE
Hm, Variety added another blog: The Porning Report, "coverage of the porn industry's move to mainstream." To bookmark or not to bookmark, that is the question.
Rolling Stone says: "Amazon.com removed the customer advice area from the page for Jackson's Number Ones greatest hits album page and several other Jackson albums after unnamed users made recommendations that included books on identifying child molesters, a baby gift set titled 'Thank Heaven for Little Boys' and the latest Captain Underpants books..."
Press release: Friendster might actually speed up soon.
AOL launches Love.com (basically AIM meets personals). Headline writers go to work.
Other new stuff: ask.metafilter.com (everything answered) | hipstir (yet another social network site) | Hello. (photo sharing app) | friendsterslut.blogspot.com (cool friendster blog)
IDEAS
Another design-related cover at the NYT Mag: Inspiration. Lots of good stuff, but I like the designer presidential candidates posters slideshow.
Umberto Eco gets all brilliant again in an al-Ahram essay about print versus digital books.
Scientific American: Does Race Exist.
TECH
Fortune has the first deep-analysis backlash story on Google. Interspersed among the stories of internecine conflict are these numbers: 1,000 people apply for jobs at Google every day, 30% of Google workers are contractors, 150,000 advertisers have signed up for Adwords, 5% of Google is owned by Yahoo, and an IPO would probably value the company at $20 billion.
LIFE
Life is so confusing. Last week, the Times Mag told me all about online dating, and this week they diss dating. But then there's the San Fran Chronicle to bolster scamming your friends for dates.
NYT: The Intern as Hipster.
MUSIC
NYC names a street after Joey Ramone.
New Blur video from Shynola: "Good Song".
LOCAL
Did you see the Strib's review of the spate of new spendy downtown clubs? Babalu, Empire, Escape Ultra Lounge, Dakota Jazz Club, Rossi's Blue Star Room, Soul City Supper Club, and Tabu all cropped up this year. This chump hasn't been to any of them yet.
Your moment of bliss: Har Mar Superstar vodka ads. Tidbit: I got my hair cut next to Har Mar at Cost Cutters last week. Take that, Gawker Stalker.
NYT has a cool profile of Dana Boyd, a 25-year-old grad student at Berkeley studying digital social networks. Her blog, Connected Selves, was mentioned here a while ago.
Since we're talking about Friendster, let's chat a bit about our backlash baby. It used to be that on a weekly basis (usually a weekend basis), I would get in a conversation with someone about Friendster. Now, however, I get in a weekly conversation with someone who is ticked off because Friendster will eventually charge them to use it. The funny thing is that there's no proof this will actually happen -- everyone just assumes this is the direction Friendster will go. It's like everyone intrinsically believes in this fate because this is what happens to services we like on the internet: they start to suck and/or suck money. This is the lot served to our generation: free stuff, followed by the bill (social security and file sharing come to mind).
But I think differently. I have some advice for the minds behind Friendster: go ahead with your subscription service. I know how you can make a bundle off it without taking away a single feature from the current users. That's right, I know how you can keep your 3.2 million-person subscription base from fleeing, and you can go premium, and you can create better communities and therefore more users. How, you ask? Simple: add features that make people want to pay for your site. Here are just some ideas:
Friendster, feel free to email me the check when I save your company. Happy Thanksgiving.
LIFESYLE
NYT Mag gives monster wordage (10 "Next" pages!) to online dating.
CONSUMPTION
Washlet. I want one. Bad. Very, very bad.
"Best Buy is the Clear Channel of electronics superstores."
L.A. Times is doing a series on The Wal-Mart Effect.
WORDS
Clinton releases list of his favorite books. Some oddities: "The Denial of Death," Ernest Becker; "Homage to Catalonia," George Orwell; "Moral Man and Immoral Society: A Study in Ethics and Politics," Reinhold Niebuhr; and "Living History," Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Douglas Coupland 1,000 Word Short Story Award.
COMEDY
Sarah Silverman roasting Hugh Hefner (video).
Terry Gross interviews Triumph The Insult Dog.
MEDIA/TECH
From last week (sorry, catching up), a good profile of Gawker Media. Nick's looking for travel and furniture bloggers.
Microsoft's answer to Google News: Newsbot.
I'm not a metrosexual, I'm a...
DESIGN
New stuff in Nike Lab.
MUSIC
What's big in Malta now? Check Music Charts All Over the World.
Peter Scholtes noticed that Har Mar Superstar and Karen O were in town the same day, so he had them interview each other. Golden. Karen: "I'm electronically mailing with Beck, and I told him that I was going to be out there recording with you, and he didn't write me back after that." Har Mar: "I saw him three days ago at a festival and he asked me to record with him, so maybe I'm totally cock-blocking you."
And then there's Thom Yorke and Howard Zinn hanging out.
CP and The Onion review the Spike Jones DVD retrospectives.
My fave part of this RZA interview is where he claims to love Bob Hope. But this is good too: "Leonardo DiCaprio. Oh, man, this nigga knew all my shit."
The Stranger: Courtney Love, A Remembrance.
Rolling Stone's 500 greatest albums of all time. Blah.
I hate CD inserts in magazines. The Post doesn't.
FILM
LOCAL
Peter Ritter at CP profiles Fate magazine.
I have no idea why this story about a drug bust was given such a strong narrative voice.
This site is up to about 3,500 visitors per day. Who are all you people? Please wipe your feet before entering. Linkage:
POP
This month's Wired has a gadget section with this quote from Paris Hilton (who the NYTimes said "looks like what you'd get if you crossed Uma Thurman, a borzoi and Robert Plant circa 1972") printed long before last week's tape scandal: "I can't live without my cell phone. It's the one with the big round dial, and it has a video camera on it." The mind reels with the potential sequels...
Variety.com has started a blog, Outside The Box, about swag -- promotional items for music, film, tv, etc. releases.
Margaret Cho: Courtney Love is the white Whitney Houston.
WORDS
Norman Mailer's 25-year-old son, who has no journalism experience other than writing one piece for Black Book, is the new executive editor of High Times. Profile.
FILM
Guardian: The World's 40 Best Directors. #1: David Lynch.
Cool. The Cameos of Alfred Hitchcock. (That is, the cameos in his own films. I've always wondered where he appears in Rope, and now I finally know.)
The author of The Simpsons and Philosophy and Woody Allen and Philosophy analyzes Tarantino. (Via Greencine.)
I'll call Body Song a cross between Koyaanisqatsi and Kronos Quartet. Cool site by Channel 4, cool music by Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead.
"Why can't I preorder a DVD and receive it the day the film is released in theaters? Or buy it on my way out of the theater if I liked what I saw? One thing I learned from the Mavs is that you can watch the game on TV, but you'll still go to the game, because it's a different experience." -- Mark Cuban (the guy who sold Broadcast.com for billions and bought the Dallas Mavericks and -- more importantly -- Landmark Theatres), Wired, December 2003
ART
I'm dizzy. I just downloaded and listened to every track on the Andy Warhol tapes.
TV
All three hours of PBS's NOVA program The Elegant Universe is now available online (QuickTime and RealVideo).
The MPAA is putting out public service announcements on movie piracy. They take a semi-manipulative working class angle.
The Sex Museum in NYC has released a new advertising campaign.
GAMES
There are still Rubik's Cube competitions? And croquet?
LIVING
NYT Mag has a series of articles on smart homes. Here's James Gleick on smart houses, and the others are linked in the sidebar.
POLITICS
Excellent fundraiser maps of America.
DESIGN
Random prediction: David Carson makes a come-back in 2004. New interview.
ONLINE
Waxy has pics of some Japanese magazine, Bloggers.
My Tunes is a program that adds functionality to Apple's iTunes that lets you share mp3 files across a network. C|Net story.
LOCAL
Hey, I'm looking for a roommate. Pass it on.
ONLINE
Okay, the Paris Hilton update. Pamela Anderson gives it a thumbs up; Howard Stern, a thumbs down. In a twist of fate, Rick Salomon is suing. ESPN gives office viewing tips. Larry Flynt apparently wants to get in the action: he has pics of the Barbi Twins getting nasty with each other. (Up next: Olsen twins! Bush sisters!) And Lizzy says there's another tape floating around involving a threesome (with Simon Rex!).
I'm not sure if I should worry that this Onion story on a blogger is datelined Minneaopolis.
Somewhat interesting tale of stalking, blogs, big-name NYT columnists, and crazies in The New Yorker.
MUSIC
Apparently, this NYT review disturbed Neal Pollack so much that he shut down his blog. Well, for two days.
Martin Amis talks about "the facial" in Nerve.
WORDS
Terry Eagleton has written a book about Cultural Studies that answers "what went wrong?"
New Yorker: Rimbaud profile.
DESIGN
LOCAL
The hell? Ruminator Books is about to die a financial death and it took USA Today to tell me?
Apple wrote about the Minnesota Wild and the Xcel Energy Center.
Sorry, you're gonna hafta find another Christmas gift, cuz I've already found the Paris Hilton video online. That embarrassing moment her cell phone rings could be the most important cinematic scene of 2003. But hey, enough cinema verite, let's see what else is going on:
TECH
Is it already time for the Best Of The Year lists? Time's Coolest Inventions of 2003 and Popular Science's Best of What's New of 2003.
Bye, bye, Sophia Loren. Miss Digital World.
Steve Ballmer's iPod (reference material).
ADVERTISING
See that KFC ad telling you how good drumsticks are for you? Yum. Slate commentary.
FILM
Naked Lunch on DVD came out today.
Salon has the full script to the Reagan biopic that CBS bailed on.
Chaplin just in time for the Oscars! Hmm.
Nokia shorts. Funny how 15 seconds almost seems too long.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind trailer. Stars Kate Winslet, Kirsten Dunst, and Jim Carrey.
ART
Decent NYT piece on the new digital art space, Eyebeam.
MUSIC
Collection of Pavement cover songs (including Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins, Velvet Underground, CCR, and The Beatles).
I can't explain why reading Strokes reviews has become my only post-summer cultural joy, but here's Sasha Frere-Jones doing his.
Excellent. Neil Diamond Parking Lot.
POLITICS
John Kerry canned his campaign manager.
The New Republic has a decent profile of Joe Trippi, the guy behind Dean's campaign.
ONLINE
This is already old news, but I'm trying to be cultivate my old media roots. Wallop is Microsoft's attempt to get into the social software industry from the Social Computing Group. Wired News story.
LIFE
CBS Marketwatch: Ten most overpaid jobs in the U.S.
LOCAL
Har Mar Superstar is everywhere lately. And now he will be in vodka ads. (The article also suggests he's moving from Ibiza to L.A. to record.)
Back in Fargo, I was quasi-fortunate enough to be acquainted with a half-crazy guy named Modern Man. (His real name was Leland, which he had legally changed to "Modern Man." All things considered, not a bad move.) His art and personality (seldom differentiated) was basically a combustible mix of Dali and Warhol, and now he has a website, Museum of Modern's Art. (Modern, you're such a card.) I'm really not recommending the site to you, but the handful of you who know him will be intrigued. (Via Todd.)
I finally read The Rake's profile of the restaurant scene, and I think I actually recommend it. This line got my mind working: "According to the National Restaurant Association, we rank fourth in terms of per capita dining, and in recent years have been as high as number three."
ART
Subversive Cross Stitch. Yes, it's exactly what I said.
Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl gets a whole website dedicated to it.
FILM
Matrix spoofs: The Helix Loaded | The Meatrix | The Matrix: Reheated.
Wurtzel is totally bummed about Prozac Nation (the film).
I was just thinking I wanted to spend my Sunday reading a Spielberg profile in the NYT Mag. Okay, no I wasn't. Good, at least there's an R.E.M. profile. Okay, no solace there either.
MUSIC
Somewhat surprising: Jobs says iTunes isn't making Apple any money. Most of your money goes two evil places: record labels and credit card companies.
ONLINE
Fleshbot is now live, and posts links to stills from the Paris Hilton sex tape.
I heart the Google Toolbar. See also: Tony Perkins wants to write a collaborative book on Google.
A couple blogs making the rounds: Belle de Jour (a dairy of a London call girl) and Pussy Ranch (a weblog from a local stripper).
Upcoming.org was praised in the Times.
LOCAL
Prince will be inducted in to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The Strib does a top 10 list on who should do the induction speech.
LIFE
Vice Fund is a mutual fund specializing in tobacco, gaming, alcohol, and defence.
ONLINE
Fleshbot, the newest blog launch from Nick Denton, goes live this week. Kinja (aka Lafayette Project), "a blog of all blogs," has a 2004 dateline. And there are rumors about a D.C.-based politics blog and a L.A.-based entertainment blog. (See also: New York's Blog Players.)
Finally, some decent analysis on Friendster's numbers.
CONSUMPTION
FILM
Pinch me. Sean Penn, Benicio Del Toro, Naomi Watts, and Charlotte Gainsbourg in one movie.
Also new, John Woo does Phillip K. Dick in Paycheck.
POLITICS
Political advertising contest from MoveOn.org: Bush In 30 Seconds.
George Lakoff (a name I've nearly fogotten) on how conservatives use language to dominate politics.
WORDS/MEDIA/IDEAS
The apperance of a big color ad for Playboy in last week's City Pages (it's probably making the rounds in other Village Voice Media rags too) is enough to start me type-type-typing some sort of important essay about Hef's ir/relevance. Oh, of course, Slate did.
David Foster Wallace interviewed in The Globe.
Chuck tosses around the bon mots in this interview.
I'm not so sure how I feel about having a book made perfectly for my age. Oh wait, yes I am.
NYT Mag: Questions for Noam Chomsky.
For no apparent reason, Camille Paglia is interviewed in Salon, where, for no apparent reason, she rips on blogs. My guess is she's picking up on an idea that Drudge gave her.
Huh, Utne still gives out their Independent Press Awards. A million years ago, this was a big deal. Or maybe I'm just old.
Gary Wolf has a blog. Wired's Worst Stories. (See also: Things of the Past.)
Umberto Eco on translation in The Guardian.
MUSIC
Heh.
Two Strokes reviews that make me remember the day...: Keith and Jon.
LOCAL
Twin Cities Knowledge Maps. These are so rad.
TV
This New Yorker Tina Fey profile is the best piece ever written about her, mostly because it answers a ton of questions I've always wanted answered, such as how much of SNL she writes (two sketches per week plus general oversight), how many writers are on-staff (20), and how she gathers news material (lackeys gather clips -- though I still swear she reads Fimoc). Plus I got to find out she has a brother who is a website editor at QVC!
A first: TiVo DVD burner.
The story about Fox almost suing itself because of The Simpson's is just about the funniest thing to ever happen in this world of convergence.
FILM
The Blood Gulch Chronicles won the Machinama awards.
INTERNET
This Business Week column on Friendster is about as far off the mark as they come. The premise: Friendster will fail because it makes a bad dating service. Silly goose, the dating service aspect is probably the most boring part of Friendster.
Google now wants to get into the book text business just like Amazon.
FOOD
My high school girlfriend gets big props in this NYT review of Django.
The other change for the better at Django is the arrival of Nancy Olson as pastry chef. Her desserts have an almost homey honesty, especially two additions that turn up in time for Thanksgiving. Cranberry bread pudding is almost too good to be true, with a crisp, golden exterior and a light, custardy interior. Perfectly spaced cranberries give off a bright spark of tart flavor. Pumpkin and pecan tart combine, effortlessly, two classic Thanksgiving flavors in one finely executed tart, with a surprising scoop of lime sherbet. It works. And there's an add-on that could be offered on its own, a cup of hot, spicy apple cider with a smooth, velvety texture. Chocolate and coconut tart, dense and concentrated, invokes the always sacred memory of childhood Mounds bars, and for that I am grateful. A scoop of toasted almond sherbet on the side, with its subtle reference to Almond Joy, makes this the greatest candy bar ever created for the adult palate.
Rexie is jealous.
People seemed to really like the AOL Man costume. Not as good as my femme fatale entourage, who went as the Kill Bill characters, but sufficiently geeky.
TECH
Steven Johnson on Amazon's new book text search feature, which dominated discussion in the blogosphere last week. However, The Author's Guild is barely tepid in its appraisal and almost sounds like they're preparing for a legal battle.
LIFE
This NYT article about how cell phones have created a new world of "soft time" is pretty much written for me.
Misbehaving.net, a blog about women and technology, is getting a lot of attention.
I don't really have a great reason for linking to this, but The Hindustan Times has a slideshow of Miss Afghanistan. Progress? (See also: Washington Post's multimedia extravaganza, Return to Afghanistan.)
MUSIC
Silly song animations from Napster.
DESIGN
Newsweek does their design cover story. With quiz.
On The Media interviews Matthew Carter (audio), the person behind the new New York Times font change announced last week. (It was a good episode. Bob Garfield blasts Bill O'Reilly and Mickey Kaus considers blogging vs. editing.)
WORDS
The New Republic: Zadie Smith on Kafka. Good.
Slate: Learn Arabic, get laid.
POLITICS
Ann Coulter Talking Action Figure.
LOCAL
Things I'm Doing This Week:
All week: Tarkovsky retrospective at Oak St.
Monday: Rachel's at Theatre de la Jeune Lune.
Tuesday: Minnesota Electronic Theater 2003 at Fine Line.
Tuesday: Prefuse 73 at 400 Bar
Thursday: Jim Ockuly at Carleton.
Thursday: Quasi at 400 Bar.
Friday: Belle and Sabastain at Fitzgerald.
Saturday: The Festival of Appropriation at Rogue Buddha Art Gallery.
Sunday: Frank Gehry at Pantages Theater.
Sunday: Videogames: Theory, Practice & Play at Carleton.
ONLINE
Wired story about Amazon.com's new full-text search.
TV
I think this Gap ad is sorta the brat pack of 2002. Directed by Roman Coppola, music by The Shins, starring Ashton Kutcher and Scarlett Johansson.
WORDS
There are 5,000 languages in the world and the number is declining.
PHILOSOPHY
Will critical realism replace postmodernism?
MUSIC
Crack open the seltzer kids, the New York Review of Books is writing about Eminem.
Guardian's 40 Best U.S. Bands Today. Not bad.
Times: Shins.
ART
LOCAL
A book with way more than you've ever wanted to know about Prince.
I took the Drink-o-Meter, and it told me I've spend $59,579.52 on booze. That's it?
ONLINE
Disturbing Auction collects strange things being sold on eBay.
It's the end of an era. Plain Layne says goodbye. Like a swimming pool in a cornfield, This is how I'll remember her.
Google has a new feature whereby you enter the word "define" before the search term and it will try to provide a definition of the word. Example: define motherfucker.
TV
D.C. is not watching K Street.
FILM
Wired's okay Wachowski Brothers FAQ.
Sixteen Candles, the sequel. Ducky.
MEDIA
Story on the Media Deconstruction Kit.
I'm really not sure why this interests me, but here's Spin's Media Kit (pdf). Contains all kinds of demographic information like media age and income.
Tina Brown's new column in the Washington Post. Ho-hum.
POLITICS
Profile of Joe Trippi, Howard Dean's campaign manager who got the governor blogging.
WORDS
Seattle Weekly: Why I Heart Chick Lit.
ART
Huh, there's an Escher museum?
MUSIC
Great. Punk is in the Style section again. Slideshow.
Someone should do a study about the disproportionate number of rappers who make the New York Times business section. This week, it's Outkast for pimping pitbulls.
It's been a while since I could say this, but The Voice's music section this week is all about stuff I like. Matos does The Rapture and Basement Jaxx, and there are Decembrist and Shins reviews. Christgau gives Bjork and Rancid both an A-. Plus, there's this odd thing about MP3Pro.
Calling The Strokes neocons might be a tad much, but I enjoy the thesis of this Joe Hagan piece in Newsweek.
FOOD
Underground restaurants? Sign me up.
TECH
Steve Brill is working on a Verified Identity Card.
LOCAL
You know Famous Dave of Famous Dave's? He's, uh, famous now.
For Halloween, I was gonna dress up in a yellow jump suit and call myself "AOL Man!" But now my costume is fucked, because everyone will think I'm Uma from Kill Bill. Today's links:
MEDIA
Compare: Faux CNN t-shirt vs. Faux FOX t-shirt.
So have you seen that new MTV's Spankin' New magazine on the newsstands? Surprise, surprise, like its namesake, it has nothing to do with music. (Story.)
Hendrik Hertzberg at The New Yorker does his bit on Rush.
Ad Age names its Top 10 Mags of the Year, and I don't read a single damn one of them (and I read about 35 magazines/month).
ARCHITECTURE
New world's tallest building in Taiwain (specs).
L.A. Times slideshow of the Gehry Disney Hall Opening.
FILM
As GreenCine says, "If you read only one article, review, blurb or gum wrapper on Kill Bill, make it this interview with Quentin Tarantino." It answers all those "that's a reference to what?" questions. Amazing.
Anthony Lane's New Yorker review and The Chronicle's critique of Sylvia (trailer). (The same issue of the New Yorker has an excellent Don DeLillo essay on ephemeral filmic memory and a very long Tarantino profile.)
WORDS
Brushstroke has a cool post about why McLuhan's The Medium is the Massage is named such (it was a mistake at the printers).
The Guardian did its list of the 100 Greatest Novels Of All Time. Pretty British, eh mate?
David Foster Wallace full of contemptuousness on Talk of the Nation.
LIFESTYLE
I don't really understand what Nike's Keep The Ball Alive is, but it seems to have something to do with playing urban rugby with SMS devices.
Vodka: 500.
You can now shop online at Ikea.
Gothamist's Flirting 101.
Seth Stevenson is spending two weeks in Tokyo and writing about it for Slate under the idea of "One Cliche Per Day" (Wacky Food, Manga, Inane Protocol, Capsule Hotels, Earthquakes). Pretty good.
GAMES
Some of the quotes here are a bit dubious, but the idea of sitting down a group of tweens to play old-school video games (Space Invaders, Pong, etc.) is brilliant.
Video Games Awards to air on Spike TV in December.
Urban Outfitters pulls Ghettopoly.
TV
K Street has raised the ire of Drudge.
Did you know that Miami Vice isn't coming out on DVD because of the prohibitive costs of getting the rights to the music? I blame Phil Collins for everything.
MUSIC
Slatch has an MP3 to Albini's murkier original mix of "All Apologies," which is pretty amazing.
Jon Pareles talks about The Rapture, The Strokes, and the NYC scene (article).
LOCAL
C.J. has an amazing tidbit on Prince. Unbelievable. (Note: I'm just now seeing this cross the wires, so it will likely become a national story soon.)
SEMEN DONORS NEEDED!!! Roseville, $150 per specimen.
Melissa reviews Captured! By Robots and Chuck reviews Junior Senior, two shows I painfully missed last week.
Unfortunately, no one really paid attention when PDPal was being used at the Walker sculpture garden. Now, it's making big news in Times Square.
Social Hygiene Database from the University of Minnesota.
You probably read the Paul Westerberg profile (he looks so young!) in CP, but The Onion A/V Club has one this week too.
Just stumbled across Whither, a blog by a former Minnesotan with a good essay about the Twin Cities urban landscape.
MEDIA
Is Keep Media new? Started by the guy who founded Borders, subscriptions give you access to 140+ magazine archives.
Time Warner (nee AOL-Time Warner) unveils a new logo.
TV
AvantSoap.tv is a script created by camera phones.
K Street is in trouble.
MUSIC
Front page of Apple.com: "Hell Froze Over." iTunes for the PC is out.
RESISTANCE
NikeGround.com is not from Nike. It is from the design pranksters at 0100101110101101.org. I suspect it will get sued soon.
I have to admit that the first time I read this Wired story about antisleep drugs, I went looking online for Provigil to see if I could order it. (Could not without a perscription.)
TECH
CNet's fancy Digital Living section.
I so wish I could have gotten a major in video games.
Wired's Gadget Lab.
WORDS
New Voice Literary Supplement.
FILM
NYT review of Gwyneth playing Sylvia Plath.
LOCAL
I'd rather be at ArtFutura right now. But I'm not, so let's check the jive:
ADVERTISING
Wow, how's this for cross-over marketing? OuchTheWebsite.com is created by Tylenol "to showcase those individuals who face pain in order to create something positive." I stumbled across it via a weird 3D magazine-advert pasted inside of the new Fader (which should tell you they're going for an hipster audience). Is Tylenol the next PBR? Perhaps they could even cross-market?
POLITICS
Did you see that Wesley Clark's campaign manager quit because "supporters who used the Internet to draft Clark into the race are not being taken seriously by top campaign advisers."
Doonesbury is doing Flash Mobs again.
WORDS
You don't get to see him, but Thomas Pynchon will be voicing himself in an upcoming episode of The Simpsons.
Book Crossing seems to be the Friendster for the literati.
Debate between Greg Easterbrook (The New Republic) and Dahlia Lithwick (Slate) on "no means no."
Ulysses in audio.
MUSIC
Ladies and gentlemen, hide the kids, cuz the earth just shifted. Here's a video clip of Cat Power doing karoake to Slim Shady.
Looks like Palm Pictures put up a website to showcase it's big new DVD music video series with Spike Jonze, Chris Cunningham, and Michel Gondry: Director's Label.
I bet Belle and Sebastian are elated to see the headline of their Times review this week.
Buried in this good story about the historical and future pricing of music is a note that says iTunes will be available for PC this week. See also: New iPod TV Spot with Black Eyed Peas.
I don't know about you, but I'm kinda excited about the 33 1/3 book series.
Well, finally. Pitchfork reviews The Darkness. Surprisingly unsurprising surprise: they like it.
TECH/INTERNET
Times story on Urban Challenge makes it sound more like a cross between a Flash Mob and Death Race 2000 than "one part Amazing Races, one part Where's Waldo." The stories about collective intelligence via mobile technology are acceptably interesting. And there's also a morsel hidden in there: a quote from the drummer of Slaughter (who is also, fittingly enough, part of the Blue Man Group).
I've been known to talk about the merging of "online" and "real world" landscapes (you have to fill me with a fair amount of Guinness first), and I wish I had gone so far as William J. Mitchell and write a book (review) about it. His claim: the "trial separation" of bits and atoms -- the elementary units of information and matter -- is over. It sounds a little bit like Smart Mobs (which I just finished and recommend) with more emphasis reifying landscape.
Dismantling the Yahoo sign.
iCube.us seems to be an American company that delivers the latest Japanese gadgets, such as this baby Vaio.
FILM
Random idea for someone else who isn't me to do: a community blog that maps all the meta-filmic references in Kill Bill. There way too much for one person to know.
New Magnetbox LazyWeb idea: Movie Friendster.
COMICS
COMEDY
Margaret Cho: blogger.
LOCAL
I finally dived into the stack of magazines sitting by the computer this weekend, and at the top of the list was the new Rain Taxi. I can't overstate how much I recommend the Jonathan Franzen interview. It's not online, so go get it.
Did you see the Guthrie will be involved in bringing Shakespeare to soldiers? Barding the Bases.
An oldie: Worst of the Twin Cities.
WORDS
I've been playing with BookLog's Gender Genie. It uses an algorithm from Moshe Koppel and Shlomo Argamon to predict the gender of a piece of writing. The last few blog entries have been very male. Try it out with your favorite literary passages and song lyrics.
Two random links from the past: Playboy's 1969 Interview With Marshall McLuhan and Mad's 1968 Valley of the Dolls Parody. (You're welcome.)
FILM
Which is funnier? The trailer to the Stephen Glass biopic or the trailer to Tupac Shakur biopic? Answer: neither, cuz their titles are funnier: Shattered Glass and Resurrection, respectively.
MEDIA
TECH SHOPPING
Gimme! Neiman-Marcus: His & Her Robots.
Gizmodo found a USB-powered vibrator.
POLITICS
G.W. Bush: blogging and writing poems. God help us.
MUSIC
R.E.M. Madison Square Garden review. Yawn.
Day-by-day history of Nirvana.
Now on Friendster: Robert Smith. This is getting boring, isn't it?
TV
I think BMW stole the idea for this ad (video link) from The X-Files. See Advertising Age's TV Spots of the Week for more.
INTERNET
Google has added a cookie to high-usage searchers that shows how many searches you've performed in a day. It's apparently only 1% of users, but I see it!
Friendster really took off when Wired News did a story about the site. One has to wonder about the fate of Tribe.net after this rave.
LOCAL
Fox's reality show Full Life Make Over is in town: Casting Call. I really could use some plastic surgery.
I'm so pleased with myself. I made a t-shirt today that reads "REM KOOLHAAS IS MY DELIRIOUS BITCH." Maybe I'll make a bunch to sell online -- perhaps a whole line of them, like "MATTHEW BARNEY MASTERED MY CREAM" and "SPIKE JONZE CAN SUCK MY VIDEO." Ideas welcome.
TV
K Street is better than you've heard. The Times has an article on how it's affecting political and social dymanics in D.C. And Newsweek has an interview with James Carville.
This is oddly cool. MTV International played the surrealist game of Exquisite Corpse to create 16 30-second tv spots that are surprisingly unique. Exquisitemtv.com collects them all, with maps that show how each progressed around the globe.
Emily Nussbaum on tv theme songs.
AdBusters does some experiments in watching tv.
SHOPPING/TRAVEL
Soundwalk creates collage CDs of sounds (movies, music, found sound) of neighborhoods to create something like a sonic version of travelguide.
Flight001 appears to be a store for urban nomads. Compact objects for the digerati jetset.
Sidewinder is a hand-powered cell phone charger.
FILM
Drudge says Disney is ticked at Miramax for the violence in Kill Bill, and predicts a possible split.
Salon interviews Richard Linklater. And Mim Udovitch interviews Tarantino.
MUSIC
Yeah Yeah Yeahs on NPR's All Things Considered (or, actually, Karen O.'s parents).
Here in Minneapolis, we got to see a crazy reinacarnation of Tron with a live soundtrack performed by electronic musicians using Game Boys and other digital devices. The genre of 8-bit music isn't totally new, but it seems to be catching some steam. Even MSNBC.com is writing about it (the audio interactive halfway down the page is pretty cool).
WORDS
Times Review of Books likes the new Stephenson.
ARCHITECTURE
Slideshow tour of VW's Transparent Factory.
ART
Seattle Museum Krishna interactive.
Sylvia Plath: painter. Who knew?
ETC
MacArthur Genius Awards announced.
Top Twenty New Jobs for Rush Limbaugh.
In addition to the previously mentioned Hilton sisters and Olsen twins, I should point out the importance of the Bush sisters. Barbara and Jenna are on Friendster (okay, they're fakester accounts). (Possible update on Friendster/Google: Friendster said no.)
LOCAL
I'm not sure what exactly to think about the Strib's scary! hacker! story on 1A of the Sunday paper.
The PiPress is doing First Ave. nostalgia now too. (Some good musician quotes though.)
My PDA/phone has two background desktop themes that I regularly shift between depending on my mood: The Olsen Twins and the Hilton Sisters. Same situation with my IM buddy icon. I like to think of them as the devil and the angel sitting on my opposing shoulders. Or maybe they're just the ying and the yang. Anyway, The Gaurdian profiles the angels and isn't afraid to love them. For the sake of equal time, I demand they also love the Hiltons.
LIFESTYLE
Technology meets Sex meets Politics. Thank you Howard Dean for making it all happen.
Grunge Is Back In Style. Which means it's not.
PETA takes a shot at Donatella Versace.
TV
Yet another cable network coming your way: The Horror Channel.
PUBLISHING
Great idea that just launched: Front Line Voices collects stories from soldiers who fought in Iraq. Expect controversy.
The Morning News interviews Malcolm Gladwell, a person I also like.
Coetzee wins the Nobel. (Official citation.)
Radosh captured a good misplaced ad on nytimes.com. And LostRemote caught one on ESPN.com.
New York Mag launched The Kicker, a blog from Elizabeth Spiers (formerly of Gawker.com, of course).
Guardian story on those online promos for books I've been linking to here. Coupland | Salam Pax | Life of Pi | Atwood.
Everyone seems to be backlashing the new breed of "cool magazines" we've recently seen. I dunno, I'd rather be reading Mass Appeal, The Fader, Tokion, Anthem, WYWS, and sometimes even Vice than whatever else that fucking newsstand throws at me. (Which isn't to say that The Antic Muse's critique shouldn't be shoved down all their throats so they understand their relevance.)
A long time ago, I had an idea to start a lit publication similar to Words Without Borders.
MUSIC
I have written recently about DJs taking over the restaurant scene in town, and it's good to see that New York is, er, finally catching up to this trend.
Tired: The Darkness. Wired: Bling Kong.
The influence of the music blogs.
FILM
I'd love to be in Hollywood and hear a producer pitch the idea of Halle Berry, Robert Downey Jr., and Penelope Cruz in something called Gothica.
ARCHITECTURE
The New York Times and The Chicago Tribune differ on their appraisals of the new Koolhaus Illinois Institute of Technology building.
TECH
NeoMedia got a little attention today for an application that ties together ISBN codes and Amazon. There are a number of similar devices out there, including the infamous CueCat and the iPilot. And IBM is working on a smart shopping cart that alerts you to deals.
Napster to return as a more boring iTunes.
Circuits this week: software that speeds up audio/video playback and the impact it has on cognition, a review of Microsoft's new media center, and analysis of Foresight Exchange.
mPulse this month: new mobile intiatives out of Hollywood, wireless betting in Hong Kong, and speaking to the father of the cell phone.
LOCAL
Hm, new record label in Minneapolis? They're hiring.
Has anyone ever heard statistics on people who sleep less living longer? Or not living longer? I'd really like to know what I'm doing to myself in the long run. Okay, let's kick it:
FILM
EW's Kill Bill cover story this week contains a parenthetical quote from Tarantino about Memento: "Good movie! But there's a hole, okay? And it's this! How, okay, does he remember... his own fuckin' condition?" This is why Tarantino still matters.
Landmark Theaters has a new owner.
A 2000-copy limited edition of the soundtrack to Lost in Translation packaged with a 48-page book of photos taken by Sofia is supposed to come out soon.
FASHION
Alright girls, no more wearing my jeans. (That sounds frivolous, but it has been a problem in the past. Lori, I want my pants back.)
HISTORY
100 Documents That Shaped America. I guess that's vaguely interesting, but frankly I'm more intrigued by the big "sponsored by HP" logo and "HP + Starbucks" ads.
WORDS
[Insert joke here.] Danielle Steel to open art gallery for lesser-knowns.
MUSIC
I guess this is the White Stripes blogging.
Moby: "i'm almost tempted to go onto kazaa and download some of my own music, just to see if the riaa would sue me for having mp3's of my own songs on my hard-drive."
The estate of photographer/videographer Guy Bourdin is suing Madonna for ripping off his visual ideas. There's a side-by-side comparison. Here's a fan site talking about the homage.
The Voice reviews Chuck. I kinda like this line: "As someone who's shared a few drinks with Chuck at informal rock-critic gatherings (real hoo-has, those), I can tell you this is exactly how he holds court and conversation. He's great fun, but obdurate and occasionally too noisy." Dude, the secret is to scream louder than him.
TECH
Bruce Sterling: Ten Technologies That Deserve to Die.
Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004 Demos.
The Dean Campaign has released a starter kit for building your own community sites.
LOCAL
Well, that's interesting. A Minneapolis Hidden Beach Bare @ss Yahoo Group.
Peter on the M-80 project. I'll see you at the party.
Ventura's MSNBC show finally debuts this weekend.
INTERNET/MEDIA
Interfacing media, democracy, and social software into one important cluster, two big recent publication in my industry that everyone should care about: New Directions for News' We Media | Douglas Rushkoff's Open Source Democracy. I spent my weekend devouring these.
Red Herring on social networking software.
OJR's sprawling interview with the principal scientist behind Google News has many good tidbits.
POLITICS
Rolling Stone interviews Wesley Clark.
Steven Johnson took the small idea of the web generating strategies to campaigning and called them mob spots. In praxis, he crated an ad for Clark's campaign.
MUSIC
The new Strokes album really is all that. (It's not out until Oct. 28, but if you look around you might find it.)
The Onion interviews Stuart Murdoch of Belle and Sebastian.
Did you see the New Yorker anti-RIAA cover this week?
UBER-CELEBRITY
Of course it makes sense that Vice is now appearing in the Style section. The Antic Muse rants.
Is Jack Black as over-exposed as Britney? That's my theory. Long profile in the NY Times Mag. (And a School Of Rock Blog.)
WORDS
Gigantic archive of the writings of Edward Said.
FILM
Yeah, yeah, yeah... the new Matrix trailers are up.
TV
Simpsons: If They Mated.
LOCAL
Former Minneapolitan, David Carr, now at The New York Times, interviewed in Mpls St. Paul Magazine.
The Rake interviews another ex-local, Al Franken.
I'd like to be the CJ of the online world. For instance: I spied Buy-Me-A-Beer and MinneapolisHappyHour in deep conversation at the Sound Unseen opening party. Could there be a merger in the works?
I'm finally back, now with a brain chock full of simmering ideas. I met Ray Suarez, drank with Lost Remote, heard the people behind DeanForAmerica, and blabbed alot about the democracy in the age of participatory journalism. Not a bad week.
Looks like things are really heating up in the social software arena. Let's start there:
TECH
Guess who's on the cover of Spin this month. Well, sure Dave Fucking Matthews, but guess who else. Yep, everyone's favorte post-networking device, Friendster. Pst, there are rumors that Google wants to buy Friendster.
Andy has launched Upcoming.org, which I very lightly helped beta test. This wonderful little application allows you to create personal and city calendars of events (here's the Twin Cities and here's me, user #11 of what will be two million in six months). It's everything I like about social software: collaborative, bigger than the sum of it's parts, and real-world-reinforcing. Think of it as Meetup meets Friendster meets Craiglist. Plus if you ever want to know where I am at night, now you know where to go.
Macromedia has launched Central, another product I not-very-rigorously beta tested.
Red Herring mag is back, online only.
L.A. Times story on the web-savvy Howard Dean campaign. Hearing the people behind the online campaign speak was the best part of my trip to D.C.
Microsoft and Google are both playing with location-based searching. With Google's Search By Location, you enter a search term and a location, and it gives you a map with results. (Luckily I'm not found when you search my zip code for "fucker".) And with Microsoft's World Wide Media Exchange, photos are indexed by location.
Amazon has added some goofy Flash games to promote their new sporting goods store. There's also word that Amazon is working on a search engine.
Nokia just released a new line of "Imagewear" products, wearable and mini phones and camera and such. Gizmodo has the links.
ACADEMIA
Edward Said has died: Times | Guardian | BBC | Zmag.
FILM
Preview for new Gus Van Sant: Elephant.
This is a little old, but I'm still playing catch up: Lost in Translation Translated. And Greg has tracked down the original Kurosawa Suntory commericials.
MUSIC
New White Stripes video: Hardest Button To Button.
Good: Pitchfork's list of 50 Most Common Used CDs.
LOCAL
Caribou Coffee sued for same-sex sexual harrassment.
ETC
Culturata that came out this week that you need: Salam Pax's The Clandestine Diary of an Ordinary Iraqi, Outkast's Speakerboxx, and Neal Stephenson's Quicksilver (pst, Quicksilver wiki and Paul Boutin review).
In D.C. right now, typing and posting this on my pda phone. I'm in front of Michael Jordan's new restaurant, which I'm afraid to say gave me more of a thrill than the Jefferson Memorial I just passed.
I was talking to mom the other day about her new lap top. She said she has been downloading music onto it. Of course, that intrigued me, so I asked what software she was using. "Kazaa," she said, totally non-chalantly, followed by a complaint that she can't find everything she wants. I told her about iTunes, but said you have to pay a buck per song. "A dollar?! That's a little expensive, isn't it?" That's moms for ya. The NY Times Mag has an essay on file-sharing.
Due to a change in upper management that puts old media back into its rightful birthplace, this weblog will officially be dropping "AOL" from its name.
FILM
Still no trailer to link to, but Demonlover is making my friends giddy with anticipation.
TECHNOLOGY
I wonder if someone could write a program that ports all the women at WomenBehindBars.com into Friendster.
It's been ages since The Times actually turned me onto something new. (That's the curse of being the Paper of Record: you're comprehensive and historical, but never really fresh and unique.) But today, it turned me onto ThisIsBroken.com. Good stuff.
Uh-oh, the party's over. Reuters story on Supernova.
MUSIC
GAME THEORY
Probabilities in the Game of Monopoly.
PUBLISHING
Good Nerve: The Unsexy List.
Sneak peak at what AOL News is turning into.
The Top 100 Works of Journalism In the United States in the 20th Century. Debate.
COMICS
This is pretty neat in a geeky kind of way: RSS Comic Feeds.
LOCAL
Well, that sucks. The Walker is shutting down for a year. There goes the neighborhood.
Chuck gives some dish on the first day of Central Standard. See you at the Sound Unseen party tonight?
I've heard people shortening the name of our fair city's new favorite club to "The Rock." This will not do. It should, of course, be "The Triple." As in, "After the Triple, everyone went back to Rex's house again. That guy never sleeps." Do everything you can to make me right.
[Say something about your hangover, loser.] Let's see what scenatistas are gabbing about:
POLITICS
Of course Wesley Clark has a blog already. And the DNC has a blog called Kicking Ass.
TV
Wired's story on the future of tv had me all bubbly at first, but it didn't really say anything we don't already know.
Slate: What do the new reality dating shows have in common with 19th-century literature? I like the thesis.
HISTORY
Historical events as told by The Sims.
MUSIC
The Times rambles on about the origin of music.
Mysterious music video that you should see.
INTERNET
Play with this for a while and wonder what you're doing.
WORDS
Newly-discovered blog being bookmarked: LanguageHat.
Times: the role of beauty in lit crit.
Stephen King, genius.
MEDIA
Here's an audio interview (RealAudio) with Salam Pax. The interview is the second of three items. (Thanks to Esoteric Rabbit for the link.)
MUSIC
From 1985, The P.M.R.C. Filthy Fifteen. Sheena Easton was #2?! Christ, the '80s sucked.
The Rapture's "House of Jealous Lovers" video is rad.
POLITICS
FILM
I swear, every party I've attended over the last two weeks (which, mom I swear to you, is no more than a dozen) has seen conversations veer toward the Sophia Coppola questions. "Seen that crazy White Stripes / Kate Moss video?" "Wasn't that Times Mag profile trashy?" "Will Bill Murray be any good in her new movie?" And now she's in Time, so soon housewives in the burbs will be having the same conversations at the same types of parties. Well, minus the dancing midgets.
Will Ferrell and Chloe Sevigny to star in the next Woody Allen flick.
TV/LANGUAGE
Watching Queer Eye For the Straight Guy tonight, it occurred to me that one of these guys will eventually break out into a sitcom or a reality tv show or something. Suddenly, I began use the word "Timberlake" as a verb. "Which queer guy will be the first to Timberlake his way out of the group and into a game show host slot?" Pass it on.
INTERNET
Courtney Love is on Friendster. Unlike most celeb Friendster accounts, this one is very likely real. In other news, Friendster recently received a cool million in venture capital money. Investors include heavies from Yahoo, PayPal, Amazon, and Net
Sergey of Google and Rael of Google Hacks were on NPR's Science Friday. (Happy Birthday, Google.)
WORDS
Long, decent Douglas Coupland interview over at Morning News. It's worth it.
Amy's Robot says that DeLillo's White Noise has been made into a screenplay. I'm foaming and frothing.
FILM
Elevator Moods features short movies shot from the point of view of an elevator security camera. I am oddly enthralled.
The Pentagon is screening one of my favorite movies. It seems they have a different agenda.
This Is Not a Love Song, supposedly the first feature-length film released online, debuted (or at least tried to debut) this weekend.
MEDIA
The cover of this month's Wired is "Superproducers" (not online yet), a profile of Timbaland, The Neptunes, Dan the Automator -- in other words, those I envy. Although I enjoyed the blurbs (it was hardly and "cover story"), I've gotta ask if this isn't a bit of demographic searching on the part of Wired. I guess if they're going to move further into lifestyle/culture reporting, this is an okay place to start. Maybe.
CJR.org has redesigned. Matt Welch's big-scale attack on so-called alternative press is a great transition piece. The claim: blogging replaces the city alternative paper. There's also a piece on new online magazines.
Very unsurprising in it's surprise, the guy from Vice has written an editorial in The American Conservative.
Who's a black, conservative, virgin, under five feet tall running for governor of Calfornia? Who else?
DESIGN
Redesign Jakob Nielson's site contest. I'm thinking something like this.
Barney's website launched. Everything is obscenely expensive.
MUSIC
The first linkable thing from Rolling Stone in months: Behind the Lines. Beck, Michael Stipe, Steve Malkmus, Liz Phair and others reveal the origins of famous lyrics. It's okay.
Salon gives Bjork the full-scale retrospective treatment.
Another Outkast profile. I wonder how many "we're not breaking up" stories this is.
The ultimate internet ouroboros: I just saw a pop-up ad for a pop-up blocker. Lots o' links today:
LIFESTYLE
Need some perspective? The Global Rich List will tell you where your salary ranks you in the world. Even if you're making $15,000/year, you're still in the top 10 percent.
Un, nice t-shirt slideshow at the Times.
Apparently, Urban Outfitters was founded in Philly. Here's a story about the founders.
MEDIA
Not just another poor excuse to link to the Britney-Madonna kiss, check out the caption: "The Atlanta Journal-Constitution apologized Monday to readers for running a photo of the kiss on its front page the day after the awards."
There's a rumor that the MSNBC Jesse Ventura show has been completely scrapped.
Al-Jazeera's English website is back after hackers nuked it a half-year ago.
On eBay, all 64 issues of Spy. Current bid: $255.00.
1938 issue of Better Homes and Gardens featuring a spread on Hitler's home.
FILM
The Sophia Coppola NY Times Mag cover story kinda sucked, huh? For fun, compare it to the Chloe Sevigny profile.
WORDS
Salam Pax's book comes out this month. Plasticbag.org got his hands on it.
The Vice Guide to Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll is out. Amazon's "customers who shopped for this item" list for this sucker probably says everything you need to know: The Hipster Handbook, the new Palahniuk, Traci Lords' new autobiography, and Chuck's new book. Here's an interview with the Vice gang.
Louise Gluck, the new U.S. Poet Laureate.
TECH
Looks like "Ask Gizmodo" will become a reality. I like to think I played a small part.
PTT (Push-To-Talk) sounds like a big step conference calling, but this guy compares it to IM.
MUSIC
All Tomorrow's Parties in L.A. (curated by Matt Groening) has been rescheduled. Line-up includes some faves: Har Mar Superstar, Mission of Burma, The Shins, Danielson Famile, Elliot Smith, Cat Bower, Built to Spill.
Emmanuelle has some dish about Beck being in an upcoming movie. In other Beck news, the man-boy is going back to the studio to record with the a dream-come-true production triumvirate of the Dust Brothers, Dan the Automator, and Timbaland.
It seems that Neal Pollack's VMA commentary is getting more attention than the VMAs.
I haven't even told you about seeing my experience seeing Liz Phair perform for a few hundred Target employees last week. Some other time... but here she is answering questions submitted by fans.
DESIGN
The Real Underground, an application playing with London's tube map.
COMICS
POLITICS
I think Brooke has my vote. Whaddya mean I can't vote?
Howard Dean is now doing goofy Flash ads.
LOCAL
I told you all the dangerous geeks lived here. His website is nuked, but here's a Google cache.
My new Papsea.com tee is on the webcam. CJ did a tv piece on the Papasea.com tees last week. Speaking of local t-shits, don't you want this one?
The perfect site for the perfect city: MplsHappyHour.com. Includes hundreds of bar listings, divided into categories (Downtown, Uptown, Nordeast, etc.) and even subcategory (Cedar, Dinkytown, Stadium Village, etc.). It's still a work in progress, but this could the ultimate site to bring up on your web-accessible pda or cell phone when your scurrying around a neighborhood looking for cheap drinks. It will even include maps.
TV
The Third Season of The Simpsons on DVD (which many say is the best) came out this week. Because I own the other two, am I obliged?
FILM
Trailer round-up: Human Stain (Anthony Hopkins, Nicole Kidman, Ed Harris, Gary Sinise) | My Life Without Me (Sarah Polley, Amanda Plummer, Deborah Harry) | Duplex (Ben Stiller, Drew Barrymore) | Somethings's Gotta Give (Dianne Keaton, Jack Nicholson, Keanu Reeves).
MUSIC
Some new videos: Blur | Beck | Grandaddy | Hot Hot Heat | Massive Attack | Natacha Atlas.
Snag the new Strokes single here.
WORDS
A nifty girl bought me Nalda Said a couple months ago, and I still haven't read it, but The Stranger reviews it.
The Times profiled a fave of mine, Orhan Pamuk. Go read The Black Book right now.
Swimsuit issue stars Albert Einstein.
People are kinda talking about Laura Miller ripping into the new Chuck Palahniuk.
"Those who bought Radiohead also bought The Atkins Diet For Dummies." I want this book so bad. Here it is in practice.
GAMING
I like the headline, cuz I know it's true: Adult Women Like to Play Games. But Reuters means video games.
Dude, I never woulda left colllege if Video Game Studies were a major.
INTERNET/TECH
How to and how not to crop a photo for HotOrNot.com.
In PC Mag, Dvorak tells the story of DivX, which I didn't know. Not that it's stay-up-all-night reading, but it's an interesting history for geeks.
The mind goes wild with possibilities: lie-detector for cell phones.
LIFE
Burning Man Bingo. See also: Burning Man Definition.
DESIGN
Designers show off their business cards.
MEDIA
New York Observer: "What I Skipped This Summer." I frequently have moments where I have to say, "Even though I will be dumber for not paying attention to this, I don't have the time to follow this cultural meme." My misses include: the O.J. Simpson trial (Kato who?), blockbuster network reality tv (Survivor), media-inflated murders (Laci Peterson), and reinvented teenyboppers (Justin and Christina). On second though, I might actually be much smarter because of this.
POLITICS
Arnie's first campaign commercial. Well, it could be. There are a bunch more at Japander.
INTERNET
I like the organizing principle of this blog on urban transportation.
FILM
Snarky 50 Ways To Save The Movies.
LIFESTYLE
Prophetik has some okay tees.
NY Times Mag article on Flash Mobs that starts with a DeLillo quote. See also: McSweeney's faux invite.
WORDS
The Believer has launched Snarkwatch, "a place to record enthusiasms, mystifications, as well as disgruntled reactions to 'critical activity'." Sounds like my nemesis. The Antic Muse riffs on it.
MUSIC
Stick figure "Weapon of Choice" video.
Tricky gets nasty in Jane magazine.
Straight outta Seattle: Lollapalooza: Then and Now.
ASCII Rock in Quicktime. Click 'em. Wow. Simply wow.
At 43, Suzanne Vega learns to drive.
The new issue of Magnet does the Top 60 albums of the last 10 years. Here's the top 10:
LOCAL
Lake Minnetonka is under attack!
The Strib has this new thing called Pick Six in which two local scenesters each pick three cool things in the local music scene. My pal Catherine was in this week's.
MUSIC
Sophia Coppola directs Kate Moss in the new White Stripes video. It's, uh, hot.
MTV, the magazine.
Guardian: Death of the DJ?
WORDS
Kafka's Metamorphosis translated into Flash.... with violin-techno!
New short stories from Eggers, Murakami, etc.
FILM
Matrix III (or whatever you wanna call it) trailer.
See now, this will suck, but it has Katie Holmes and Oliver Platt, so it won't.
School of Rock trailer (directed by Richard Linklater, starring Jack Black). The MPAA rating box says it all: "Some Rude Humor And Drug References."
INTERNET
Looks like the Chicago Tribune is blogging.
I guess this is MTV's contribution to the blog world: VMA blog?
ARCHITECTURE
Times on Gehry's Disney Concert Hall.
UBER
Remember the Sex and the City episodes where they go to L.A.? Gawker is there.
LOCAL
Jim Walsh's first column (well, first in a decade) at City Pages. It really is a quintessential "Minneapolis Music Criticism" piece -- full of personal experience and pathos. This line is supernaturally Twin Cities-ish: "I still believe in writing that talks about the conflicts and conquests of the heart." Looking forward to this one....
AP: Minneapolis Elf Has All the Right Answers.
Turns out the guy that does Buy-Me-A-Beer is also the guy who did Dancing Paul.
The Rake on Flash Mobs. Good line: "This particular secret society was so easy to get into, though, that we're wondering now how many journalists are dying to get off the Minneapolis Mob's listserv. This was punishment enough for infiltrating the group: Our inbox was flooded with the social theories of every johnny-come-lately mobster who wanted to argue that Minneapolis is just as cool as San Francisco or New York."
MEDIA
Those crazies at Nerve.com are having an amateur photo contest: sexiest photo of someone reading The Wall Street Journal. I so want to enter.
It can't be a good sign that Paul Krassner's new column in the New York Press is better than Stephen King's new column in Entertainment Weekly (no link). Actually, no, that is a good sign.
ART
Connect the dots: NY Times analysis of David Byrne's PowerPoint universe, which is available through the book Envisioning Emotional Epistemological Information, a take-off of a classic by Tufte, who recently released The Cognitive Style of Powerpoint. In Wired, here's David Byrne and Edward Tufte talking about their projects.
INTERNET
I clicked on a banner ad! Something on the Wired Newsletter said "Technology Is Changing Sex" and clicking on it brough me to TechTV's Wired For Sex program page.
Post: FCC to Allow Video on AOL Messenger.
HISTORY
The Victorian Sex Cry Generator.
GAMES
FILM
The Decalogue came out on DVD yesterday. So did Bowling for Columbine and Roger & Me.
So Tara Reid gets drunk and fucks around? How can this be news in Hollywood?
MUSIC
Gawker talks about Chuck's upcoming Esquire interview with Britney.
COMICS
Fimoculous.com: a vast collection of unfair and imbalanced links.
MUSIC/VIDEO
A few weeks ago, I noted here that Matthew Barney was releasing the Cremaster Cycle on DVD. Greg Allen from Greg.org quickly dropped me a note to say that it was not the Cremaster Cycle -- is was excerpt oddities like Barney scaling the Guggenheim. I protested: "But the site says so!" Now, Greg has penned an article in the Sunday Times about Barney and the search for DVD-quality video art, which pretty much clears it up: I'll never own the Cremaster Cycle DVD.
Re: yesterday's Coldplay video link, Waxy pointed out that Cibo Matto's "Sugar Water" as a better example of a time-twisting video narrative.
Perhaps our three greatest music video directors -- Spike Jonze, Chris Cunningham, and Michel Gondry (who directed the Cibo Matto video above) -- are interviewed. They have DVD retrospectives coming out on Palm Pictures. (Bjork is of course the connecting factor between the three.)
The future: Interactive Porn DVDs.
INTERNET/COMMUNITY
The Onion tackles Internet Social Networks.
Times Flash Mob story surveys the current state of Flashmobs, with an unlinked mention of Flashmugging.com. (I declined an interview for this story.)
You see, blogs aren't just about cute pet stories (1,764 comments!).
The Guardian looks at smart clients such as Macromedia's Central, which I've been beta testing.
Wired has a story (not online) about MIT's OpenCourseWare completely free online classes. This Fall, there will be 500 courses available. If they're as enticing as Media, Education, and the Marketplace (with video lectures!), this could be a very good thing.
Google's new calculator really is powerful: answer to life the universe and everything = 42.
TV
Emily Nussbaum's commentary on TV shows' DVDs is completely accurate for someone like me who uses Netflix almost exclusively to watch tv.
Mary-Kate and Ashley are on the cover of Rolling Stone. Yipe. See also: The Olsen Twins' Countdown To Legality Clock. (Random thought: you think Ashley is pissed she didn't get a hyphenated name? Was she dissed?)
MEDIA
6 MB movie file of The Daily Show on the Al Franken vs. Fox scandal.
Long Times Mag article on CNN's transition from Connie Chung to Paula Zahn, which oddly ends without a conclusion (kinda like that MSNBC Jesse Ventura show that still hasn't happened).
MUSIC
I've watched all the episodes of Cooking With Rock Stars and Jack Black, was the best.
The New Yorker put their Cat Power profile online, but let's be honest, that Avednon photo was really worth a thousand two-dollar words.
NY Times: Weird adoring essay about Steve Perry of Journey.
Drag City is publishing the diary of Bonnie Prince Billy (aka Will Oldham) from his tour with Bjork.
Napster 2.0 (and a decent roundup of the other online music services).
The Strokes announce track list. Millions of scenesters search for MP3s. (Ahem, if you find them, please alert me.)
STYLE
The online store for Footprints Architecture Collection appears to be working now. They were getting press in Metropolis and a couple other places a few months ago for designing shoes "inspired" by architecture. (Neat as that might sound, I get alergic reactions thinking about spending $250 on shoes.)
Outlet malls are evil.
We Americans like to read articles about how other cultures consume our pop exports. But here's an article from Japan analyzing how we consume manga.
DESIGN
BBC on the dream desk.
LOCAL
Awesome collection of Minneapolis-themed t-shirts at Papasea. The MOA SUX one is being shipped overnight delivery.
A bunch of personal friends and acquaintances are interviewed in this Strib story about the dying local film scene being supplanted by an indie scene.
Fringe Festival: big jump in attendance this year.
New looks-promising blog: Reshaping Minnesota.
INTERNET
SF Weekly has a wonderful analysis of faux-frienster accounts on Friendster.com. In many ways, it's the oldest argument in the book about online communities, but in the age of commercialism and fixed identity, it hasn't gone noticed the last few years. (There's also a Slashdot discussion.) In addition to the issue of identity blurring, there's also this: "Real users often add fakesters to their friend lists like 'charms on a charm bracelet,' as one user put it, to show other people what type of things they're into. So if you're a lefty politico, you might befriend the fakester Noam Chomsky; if you're a hedonistic partyer, you might befriend Nitrous."
Economist article on "monetising something cool": commercial blogging.
Curcuits appraises the state of Internet2 at the university level.
WORDS
I caught up on my reading about the reactionary literary group ULA this weekend. The Believer and Black Book both had profiles (neither online).
MUSIC
Remember when music video were intrepid and unique? Okay me neither, but it seems odd that Coldplay's gimmick to film the video for "The Scientist" in reverse is the best thing we have going for edginess in music video culture right now.
ENERGY
Through mere coincidence, the new issue of Wired has a piece about power grids. Includes infographic.
FILM
Netflix.com has redesigned.
LIFESTYLE
MINI_motion are "urban nomad" product creating be the Mini Cooper people.
LOCAL
I think I've seen the proprietor of Buy-Me-A-Beer.com around town. I'm not sure if the guy is actually getting drinks via the site (which you can buy him in three convenient ways: in person, sending money, or shipment), but if he is, I feel jipped.
Okay Strib review of culinary Lyn-Lake. Dara's savory Azia review is also mouthwatering. (Tip: Sunday night after 9:00, Fuji Ya has half-priced sushi and drinks. And hipsters galore.)
BEYOND CATEGORICAL
Who cares if it's true, I just like typing it: Marlon Brando is Courtney Love's grandfather.
FILM
The world's first online feature film: This Is Not A Love Song. The BBC has more details.
Post-teensploitation teensploitation? Trailer to Thirteen.
Kevin Smith is doing a prequel to Fletch.
Kieslowski's Decalogue comes out on DVD next week. The Times previews it.
PUBLISHING
Penthouse is dead.
Maureen Dowd: Blah Blah Blog.
Just doing my part to save democracy: Arnold Schwarzenegger naked.
Dan Gillmor links to four Microsoft job openings with the word "blog" in the description.
A couple raves for Chuck's new book: Onion A.V. and Denver Post. Entertainment Weekly is also giving high praise. Chuck was in town Monday and drank me under the table. I'm still suffering.
TV
Convergence gone wrong? The NY Daily News slams the new Smoking Gun show on Court TV.
Conan's show is a decade old. A Hollywood Reporter interview.
DESIGN
Semiotics: A Primer for Designers. I rather like the idea of designers being introduced to Saussure.
MUSIC
Voice: Richard Hell on Lester Bangs.
LOCAL
I've been caught saying recently that City Pages should be doing a better job of critiquing the dailies. But I'm eating my words lately, cuz there's another good metamedia article on the PiPress this week.
Go see June Panic at the Terminal tonight.
I apologize for being absent all last week. I had a gigantic work project that took about 90 hours to finish. Forgive me?
FILM
Trailer to Sophia Coppola's most recent: Lost In Translation. Looks good.
A long time ago, I wrote a screenplay about a guy who slowly goes mad because of the innocuous mood music he hears everywhere he goes. It was my Doestovskian fable of the industrialization of culture (hey, didn't everyone write one of those?). Title: Face The Mazak. Apparently, muzak theory, which seemed to reach its zenith in the late-80s, is coming back, according to this article about Activaire (Metropolis article), who does music for big-scale boutiques (Prada). Recommended reading for the "spatial music" set.
Craigslist.org is becoming a movie too.
INTERNET
Google News Alerts. Sign up for any keyword and you'll get a daily email with all the articles (from thousands of publications) that contain it.
WORDS
Words that sound dirty, but aren't.
Annoying William Saffire multimedia auto-biographical profile. "I am an iconoclast." Sorry Willy, no one who ever said it was.
I have never, ever, ever had this much fun reading Amazon.com reviews. Henry Raddick is a must-read, if for no other reason he has discovered actual titles like Taxidermy, a Complete Manual and Handbook of Meat Product Technology and Andrew Lloyd Webber Arranged for the Harp and Plastic Surgery - Penis Enhancement Surgery and... I could go on for a while.
Nerve announces their Pickup Line Contest Winners. Not great.
LIFESTYLE
Breaker from The Post: you can order drugs online without seeing a doctor. Way!
MUSIC
Video: the best young white rapper in America. You got a big what? Chilling.
Times Auto section: Putting Hip-Hop on the Highway.
What Dave Eggers is listening to.
PERFORMANCE
Maybe Blast Theory's ideas can reinvent flash mobs.
PHILOSOPHY
According to this article, Derrida and Habermas have co-written an article that is "an unmistakable endorsement of modernist Enlightenment principles." I'm a little suspicious. Here's an interview I haven't gotten to yet.
LOCAL
My pal Melissa, CP's music editor and now official "coup grrrl," lands another big fish. Getting Greil Marcus as a columnist was a whopper, and now Jim Walsh is bailing on the Pioneer Press to write a column for the alt-weekly (as he did a decade ago). You might have gotten the email he was sending around asking for Oct. 25 to be come the official Paul and Sheila Wellston World Music Day. Peter is tracking all the other movements in the Minneapolis music-media mafia.
Deloitte & Touche's list of the Fastest-Growing Technology Companies in Minnesota. My workplace is in there.
FILM
Trailer round-up: New Woody Allen movie! Okay, that didn't excite you, so let's try: new Chrstina Ricci movie! How about this: new Coen Brothers! Errrr.... Scary Movie 3?
MEDIA
New Yorker subscription stats.
MUSIC
Long L.A. Times piece that says there's a hit out on Suge Knight. Includes a video timeline.
WORDS
Decent story for linguist types about the transition to statistical machine language translation.
Does 'The Da Vinci Code' Crack Leonardo? I have somewhat reluctantly added it to my wish list.
Nunberg on the jargon-catching program, BullFighter.
POLITICS
Long-awaited, Edward Said revisits Orientalism in The Guardian.
Tom Daschle: blogger.
Jerry Springer: blogger.
Bill Maher: blogger.
INTERNET
Anil: Google Hacks is pervasive.
NPR's All Things Considered did a piece (audio link) on Meetup.com. They're hiring.
Fun skater game: ParkLife.
STYLE
Madonna trying to sell the Gap. Two dying brands, I say.
ART
This is a couple weeks old, but I just discovered it. Post art critic Blake Gopnik hosts a tour of "Gyroscope." Interesting because it's unique for a newspaper reporter to do video and for it's odd MTV-ish rapid editnig.... and because it's an interesting topic.
LOCAL
The Times continues its strange fascination with North Dakota, which has the highest proportion of people over 85 in the country. I like this graph: "These North Dakotans may be biological artifacts, the recipes for their health beyond bottling or replication by baby-boom office dwellers in big cities and suburbs. Clean air; going slow; patience; a low-cost, low-stress economy for all but active younger farmers; decades of heavy lifting outdoors; keeping an eye out for one another; long stable marriages; an absence of sharp differences in income and wealth all may contribute, people here speculate."
WORDS
A must-own: Kerouac bobblehead.
SOCIETY
Nerve: Sex in the age of the cellcam phone.
The Smoking Gun: Legal Document of the Year. Fucker, fucker and fucking fag.
Flocksmart steps smart/flash mobs up a notch.
The Onion: Area Man Knows All The Shortcut Keys.
POP
Good god, I could spend a week here: The A List. It's just a list of celebrity personality rumors, but it's magnificent.
GreenCine has a post with dish on Tarantino's Kill Bill and two Buffy-alum Fox shows coming this fall.
MUSIC
Half-hour BBC interview (audio link) with Morrisey that is very, very, very good. He's so articulate. Recommended.
TV
Sex and the City update: First Duchovny now Baryshnikov. (Secret message: Mr. Big, sorry for petty self-involvement.)
MEDIA
The New York tabloids are all over this. The Times' Bob Hope obit was written by someone who has been dead since 2000.
The Antic Muse: What magazine ads say about you.
LOCAL
Minneapolis is in Friendster.
One year ago today, McSweeney's released The Graffiti of Minneapolis.
MEDIA
Howard Rheingold was on a good On The Media piece this weekend talking about smart mobs. Dan Gillmor was also on talking about "we journalism."
NPR's new show with Slate.com debuted yesterday: Day to Day.
Bride magazine has a same-sex article this month. Gasp!
MUSIC
One of my favorite sites for the past year has been the music community blog I Love Music. But I have been afraid to link to it because it's always heartbreaking to watch a good community go to hell when the freaks move in. Anyway, this thread killed me: Did you really feel "welcomed" to the jungle by axl rose, or do you think that was sort of just insincere, halfhearted graciousness?
TV
Futurama: dead.
STYLE
50 Cent is starting his own fashion line. I knew the bullet hole look would come back in.
Somewhat annoying Times piece about how Williamsburg has lost its cool.
LOCAL
I didn't make it to the new club opening this weekend on Block E. I still haven't been to Cosmos either, so maybe next weekend is a Block E weekend, dreadful as that sounds.
The new flash mob is set for Wednesday. If you want an invite, email me.
Go see Wattstax at St. Anthony Main. Pete's review and blog.
MEDIA
The Onion: The New New York Times.
ART
Finally, the news I've been waiting for. The Cremaster Cycle will be available on DVD August 26. (A trailer.)
WORDS
NYRB: Comics For Grown-Ups (starring Joe Sacco and Daniel Clowes).
ARCHITECTURE
Times piece on one of my favorite topics: Stadium Architecture. I didn't even know that Peter Eisenman was designing a new Arizona Cardinals stadium (Gizmodo thinks it looks like a cell phone). There's an audio slideshow too. (I have long wanted to do a multimedia piece on the history of the American sports stadium.)
TV
Roseanne Barr is returning to tv with a new reality show, The Real Roseanne Show.
MUSIC
Kinda weird Chicago Tribune piece: Indie Record Stores Surviving. Contains heavy mentions of Amoeba in San Francisco, which has been packed every time I've been there (three times in two years).
FILM
The trailer to the new Bruce Campbell movie, Bubba H-Tep, looks sufficiently funny. The new Crichton historical sci-fi, Timeline, might also be okay.
POLITICS
Crazy, Michael Huffington might run as the GOP candidate for California governer. His ex, Arianna, might run for the Democratic slot.
Voice: My crush on Condoleezza.
POP
VH1's stupid 200 Greatest Pop Culture Icons list.
GAMING
Decent Game Studies: Lara Croft: Feminist Icon or Cyberbimbo? See also: Interactive Nude Lara Croft Gallery.
INTERNET/TECH
Blog Change Bot IMs you when your favorite blog is updated.
From MIT Labs: "The Corporate Fallout Detector reads barcodes off of consumer products, and makes a noise similar to a gieger counter of varying intensity based on the social or environmental record of the company that produces the product"
New O'Reilly book: iPod: The Missing Manual.
Amazon.com adds RSS feeds.
LOCAL
Res has a review of the Michael Yonkers album on Sub Pop.
It's always interesting to see your city portrayed by the media. The newest Word (a British music/arts mag) has a profile Grandaddy that is set here (they opened for Pete Yorn at the State a few months ago). Here's the description of our fair city:
Minneapolis is an unusual place. Downtown is a network of shops and office blocks all joined by covered walkways on the first floor of each building. People with jobs walk from office to bank to shop without ever going out onto the planet's surface; meanwhile the streets are fool of poor people, lunatics and drunks. As if in compensations, Bose speakers mounted on lamp posts pipe Motown in the cold air. Bizarrest of all, there is the status of Mary Tyler Moore, whose 1960s sitcom was set here and whose most famous image -- Moore throwing her hat into the air -- is commemorated in bronze. As drunks sway to "Dancing in the Dark," Mary's statue waves stiffly at the sky, looking like a woman with jaw cancer catching a cowpat.
The Strib's Fringe Festival round-up.
WORDS
I saw Candace Bushnell read last week and haven't had time to write it up how annoying she was. But I have never, ever been to an event with so many hot, young, sex-driven single women in my life. Anyway, Gawker says Bushnell now claims she coined the word "metrosexual."
Nerve.com: Sexual innuendos found in the new Harry Potter.
MUSIC
Since I've linked to all the other ones, Rolling Stone's Liz Phair interview.
STYLE
Killer funny. Get a t-shirt with a random person's friendster profile. Or, if you prefer, some Sinn Fein tees.
Slate.com: Wine for Tightwads.
MEDIA
Batten Awards for interactive journalism.
Google adds an advanced news search.
INTERNET
LOCAL
NY Times's Circuits talks about a font developed locally which changes based upon the weather.
One of my first bosses, Mike Maidenberg is leaving the Grand Forks Herald.
TECH/INTERNET
Slate on Friendster. And Wired News on Friendster. And The Stranger on Friendster. There are now a million Friendster members. See also: The Gothamist's lesson on writing Friendster messages.
Anil on Amazon.com's expanded web service model.
With Google Alert, you sign up to get a daily email of a particular search term from Google. The first time, it sends you 50 results, but every time thereafter it only sends items you haven't already seen.
MUSIC
A good Times interactive audio essay on Fela Kuti.
McSweeney's: Radiohead Song Titles Vetoed By Thom Yorke.
That prank Metallica story about copyrighting the chords E and F was picked up by many mainstream news sources like CNN and MSNBC.
TV
Matt of Metafilter launch a PVR blog.
WORDS
The NY Daily News thinks we have a new lit genre: fat chick lit.
STYLE
W.W.J.J.D. t-shirt at Bust: What Would Joan Jett Do?
Somewhat odd Sunday Times article on turning 30.
Adbuster's Black Spot campaign.
On a scale of one to ten, I give today's links a 9.5. Get at it:
FILM
I heard this as a rumor first, but I guess it's really true. Tarantino's Kill Bill came into Miramax so long that they're cutting it into two movies. Double the Uma.
The L.A. Times disses UC Santa Barbara's film school for being contemporary.
U.S. News interviews Harry Knowles. Boring. (Why do I link to articles that I call "boring"? Cuz boring is the new black!)
Kiarostami is doing theater. Sounds radical and experimental.
INTERNET
Brooke has launched the final episode to Broken Saints. Great work, man, you're a superhero.
How many people emailed you Google's relations to the WMD 404 Page this week? I'm around a dozen. I linked to it three months ago, but none of my friends apparently noticed. Anyway, The Guardian has a story about the story of the page.
MEDIA
Michael Wolff reviews Steve Brill's new book.
I'm not sure why I bother with Slashdot threads anymore. This one about NYtimes vs. Google made me go insane. When did geeks become morons? Was it always like this? (Don't read it. Stupid is not the new black.)
Interview with Eric Umansky, the guy who does Today's Paper's for Slate.com.
MUSIC
The Sex Pistols want to play Baghdad. A few dozen punchlines come to mind here, but I'm resisting.
Judas Priest reuniting with Rob Halford. (On the right of that page are video links to "Breaking The Law" and "You've Got Another Thing Comin'." Rock out in your cubicle right now.)
Funny A.V. Club interview with Sir Mix-A-Lot. Includes crazy details, including the long-forgotten Metal Church song, the doubly-long-forgotten The Presidents Of The United States Of America song, and questions like "You were one of the first popular entertainers to talk about asses in a sexual way, whereas that happens all the time now. Do you feel validated by the current focus on asses?"
Alex Ross writes a lot about Pop Conference 2003 in The New Yorker, but I don't think he says anything. Or is that rock criticism?
I'm happy that The Washington Post profiled Punk Planet.
Greil on Liz Phair in CP: "it's like watching Barbies fucking."
I'm not sure why I'm linking to it, but here's the entire script to A Hard Day's Night.
WORDS
If for some reason you care, Traci Lords has a book coming out. Here's an interview and a book tour.
Erik Davis fake interviews Phillip K. Dick.
Eggers is the Samuel Richardson of today. (Applause if that reference makes any sense to you, and a million kudos if you actually read Clarissa.) He keeps "expanding" his last novel, now with additional downloadable chapters.
Today in Literature in 1951, The Catcher in the Rye was published.
STYLE
Phew, I own nothing on Hipster Bingo.
TV
I'm a little pissed that the Carson Daly roast was almost a little funny. But mostly because of my growing crush on Sarah Silverman.
LOCAL
You already knew this (cuz everyone is talking about it at the water cooler), but Minneapolis is America's most literate city.
TV
Does anyone out there have Trio TV? Is it any good?
Good profile of Alyson Hannigan. Did you know she was marrying the guy who played Wesley in Buffy/Angel?
MUSIC
New Prince album, available only via download on MSN.
AOL to sell CDs and DVDs.
Some dumb study says that your music collection says alot about you. Yeah, like I buy too much music.
Jon Pareles at the Times follows up the WSJ report about Dylan's "plagiarism."
MEDIA
Reality tv and online dating services are forging partnerships.
I sat down and read an entire issue of Radar this weekend, surprised at how much I enjoyed it -- sort of a cross between Brill's Content and Entertainment Weekly and New York Daily News. I recommend Michael Savage's homoerotic past, the "Die, Hipster, Die" tirade, and Emily Nussbaum's analysis of IM and human interaction.
CJR's Rethinking Objectivity. Made waves, but pretty dull.
Crazy pics of Britney Spears in W magazine.
Raines on Charlie Rose: I was forced out.
Washington Post is launching one of those free weeklies too.
IDEAS
Not something we needed: The New Criterion Weblog. What would Eliot think?
Times on James Bond and Nietzsche: Thus Spake 007.
NY Daily News story on people who willfully don't use cell phones. Cretins.
Daniel Dennett really thinks he's bright.
FILM
CP last week had a good review of By Brakhage DVD.
The Guardian looks at the legacy of Bruce Lee in Hong Kong.
The Stranger: How To Watch The Cremaster Cycle. Plus another Matthew Barney interview.
ARCHITECTURE
Frank Lloyd Wright gas station breaks ground. No gas.
DRINK
Top 10 Summer Cocktails. No surprises.
FILM
Trailer to the new Larry Clark film. (Heavy traffic; might time out.)
On the complete opposite end of the spectrum, Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights trailer. Is there a word signifying worse than vile?
And somewhere in between, Mona Lisa Smile trailer, with three women who dominate about 90% of my personal fantasies: Kirsten Dunst, Julia Stiles, Maggie Gyllenhaal (plus some chump named Julia Roberts as their teacher).
MEDIA
Even if you're not a fan, the Tour de France map/app from NYTimes/AFP is cool.
Finally, some good news. The Guardian is coming to America. Oh, and Michael Savage was fired.
WORDS
Someone asked me the other day about my favorite writers, and I stumbled through saying Ron Rosenbaum was my favorite columnist, but only when he does culture instead of politics. His latest dissects the origin of the word dude. In other linguist notes, Geoff Nunberg discusses slippery slope (audio).
MUSIC
Metallica, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Green Day, and others are spurning Apple's iTunes, some because it contributes to "the demise of the album format." I like how people think they can stop change.
Jewel "sold out" to a razor ad.
The Bangles are back.
INTERNET/COMMUNITY
The comments that Anil generated with his atomic elements of a blog post are really good. A lot of what's said informs my thinking about this blog, which a) has been experimenting categories and b) implicitly posits the "day" as the atomic element rather than the "post."
Times: Blogging in the workplace.
Sneak peak at AOL 9.0.
One of those "candidate selector" applications.
Cool thing to play with: microsimulation of road traffic.
If you have some time, WashingtonPost.com has a massive project interviewing photographers who were in Iraq.
Steven Berlin Johnson has a column in Discover about There.com, which is gonna be an ultra-cool community site.
This story in the Times about multitaskers makes me feel all icky inside. I don't care how many studies tell me having three monitors, two phones, and one PDA is less productive -- go ahead, believe those LIES while you eat my hyperkinetic mental tread.
LOCAL
Yikes! Wired News has a story about moblogs, with this line: "In Minneapolis, a mob is planning to gather at an as-yet-undisclosed location on July 22 at 6:25 p.m., according to the group's organizer, who asked to remain anonymous." Discussion group.
On the newstand rack this weekend, I noticed that Aesthetic Apparatus (more info) has landed features in HOW and ReadyMade. Rumor is they're starting their own magazine too. Good job, fellas.
TECH
Okay Guardian article on picture messaging. Contains a link to Celebs At Starbucks, a photoblog outta L.A. Also: Waxy has this idea to do a community celeb-photo/mob-blog, which is fine if you like in Cali or Gawker country. But out here in fly-over territory, I can only make so many jokes about Josh Hartnett, Prince, and Garrison Keiler (now wouldn't that be a party). So I'm still pondering the local scenester site, for which I have lots of ideas but feel unable to keep it updated myself. So if you're a localite interested in the concept, drop me a note, and try to talk me into it.
Comic book artist and theoretician Scott McCloud is experimenting with micropayments with his newest comic. He has talked about micropayments before.
COMMUNITY
Buzzmachine talks about being invited to see AOL's new blogging tool. The ability to blog via IM is impressive.
Gothamist has some Friendster protocol questions.
FASHION
Cool new girl stuff at Threadless. If I met that girl at Triple Rock...
I bought some Donald J Pliner shoes today. Did I just land on the set of Sex in the City?
TV
The Times Mag has an okay story about the rise and fall of baby names, but I point it out for this line: "Still, the effect is not as direct as it may seem. Buffy, despite a fanatic cult devotion to the vampire slayer, has not breached the Top 1,000 (although Willow has been climbing modestly since 1998)."
WORDS
MediaBistro interview with the guy who writes Ask a Former Professional Literary Agent for McSweeney's.
Michael Chabon, Jane Smiley and John Edgar Wideman on NPR's Morning Edition.
NEWS
Doonsbury on the dangers of internet communities.
That Japanese hotdog eater wins another match.
MUSIC
Snoop Dogg has decided he doesn't like "Girls Gone Wild" anymore. Because it's sleazy? No, because there aren't enough black women.
ART
Art Forum's Venice Biennale weblog.
LOCAL
I saw my first Segway in Minneapolis today. It was a middle-aged woman cruising around downtown in a long skirt. This seemed noteworthy.
No time to blog today. Someone just told me the International Foosball Championships are being held at the downtown Hilton Hyatt. Must practice.
Okay, maybe just a little:
MUSIC
If you missed it, Liz Phair's Letter to the Editor to the Times in response to her getting torched is really... something. I don't think anyone has tracked back Liz's reference yet, but I think she probably Googled Meghan O'Rourke like I did and found this article in Slate. Make sense? I didn't think so.
So yeah, the new Spin.com... it looks almost bloggish, doesn't it? A calendar, comments, light graphics. It's even written in PHP. How... indie?
What rock critics have been waiting for: Christgau's Radiohead review in The Voice.
WORDS
Bookforum has relaunched with a Calvino cover. The Voice has details.
Harry Potter: gay.
Slate: What's Wrong With L.A. Lit?
Quiz: Famous First Words. Give me a gold star, I got every one right.
On this day in 1961, Hemingway committed suicide.
Book Magazine: Chick lit sucks. (I'm summarizing.)
FILM
Boston Globe: Girls Just Wanna Have Guns.
Marvel's Master of Kung Fu being made into movie by Woo-ping Yuen.
The hell? Eros is new "erotic ensemble drama" directed by three of my faves -- Steven Soderbergh, Wong Kar-wai, and Michelangelo Antonioni -- starring Robert Downey Jr. Out next year, apparently.
MEDIA
MediaLife Mag picks some really bad stuff for their list of Best of the Best. We'll let you by with Marketplace just cuz no one else would think of it, but c'mon, fucking Blender?
TV
VH1 has another goddamn list: 50 Greatest Teen Idols. See also: Chuck's 4,000-word tirade on watching VH1 for 24 hours.
TECH
USA Today goes to lunch with Bill Gates.
Amazon.com employee weblog. Dumb, so far.
Chicago Tribune architecture critic reviews the Apple store. Maybe these Apple stores can be the new Prada? Or not.
LOCAL
Chuck Olsen was interviewed by the Strib in an article on blogging.
If you missed it, the entire list of bars that will be open until 2:00 starting this weekend. Woo-hoo, we're not prudish Lutherans after all!
I blame you if I lose this foosball tourney.
Golly, there are a lot of links today. Kick it:
MEDIA
MagazinePriceSearch.com. Never ever subscribe to a magazine again without looking here first. The New Yorker for $19.46. Time for $4.67. Spin for $3.36.
Good Poynter.org convergence map.
FoxNews tried to shut down AgitProperties.com for their "Faux News" merchandise. I wonder if my Faux News t-shirt (ordered through Disinfo.com) is a collectors item?
Cyberjournalist's mammoth list of blogs published by journalists.
MUSIC
Zowie, Pitchfork is going mainstream. Or something like that.
SFGate: Hip-Hop Intellectuals: A Radical Generation Comes Of Age.
The video for Foo Fighter's "Low," starring Dave Grohl and Jack Black, is a little extreme. I think it was banned from MTV.
FILM
Someone translated that Baudrillard interview about The Matrix into English. GreenCine ponders it.
FASHION
Gothic Lolita is in this week.
WORDS
Someone has spend a long time cracking the code of the intro page of Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle. The conclusion is amusing.
Pre-order David Foster Wallace's newest: Everything and More: A Compact History of Infinity, which tells the story of Georg Cantor.
Guardian essay on irony: The Final Irony. Recommended.
That funny Onion: Ask Raymond Carver.
Recommended summer reading from dozens of authors.
INTERNET
Game: Dr. Strange Blix.
CityCreator.com. And an elaborate block-building application.
A syllabus to a class I'd like to take: CTCS 505: New Media and the Consumption Cycle.
Tom Friedman in the Times asks Is Google God?
Lame Times story on internet dating.
A zillion Amazon RSS Feeds.
ART
Zoom and explore the art of the Renaissance.
ARCHITECTURE
Frank Lloyd Wright's vision of Baghdad.
FILM
"I used to hate the Internet. I thought it was just a place where people stole our products. But I see how influential these fans can be when they build a consensus, which is what we seek. I now consider them filmmaking partners."
LOCAL
The Strib dissects Block E. See also, from a while back, Peter Ritter's City Pages critique.
The Rake has a decent converging history of Schell's and Grain Belt beer.
According to Alexa, 40% of CityPages.com's traffic is now through Babelogue.
Did you hear that Rock Star closed? It has even been nuked from the City Pages database. Great food, horrible location.
I just had that unnerving six-degrees moment on Friendster where you realize that a bunch of people you know actually know each other. But absolutely shouldn't. This is all wrong. I blame it all on Har-Mar, who has listed 123 friends. Freak.
FILM
If my French didn't suck so bad nowadays, I might just try to translate this Baudrillard interview about The Matrix, his first public mention of the film that probably wouldn't exist without him. You can try the Babelfish translation. (Thanks greencine.)
TV
Proof that I should read Dissent more often, there's a new column looking at the anti-war subtext of the final episodes of Buffy. (Thanks Mark.)
Wanna be on reality tv? A nice collection of links to all the application websites.
WORDS
Interesting online writing exercise: One Word. You see one word and you have one minute to write about it.
Today in literature, the Pied Piper lured children away from Hamelin. With mention of Jethro Tull.
DeLillo interviewed twice on KCRW's Bookworm. Good stuff.
Slate.com: The Politics of Harry Potter. (Another one of those Slate.com dialogues.)
Gibson writes about Orwell on his 100th birthday in a Times op-ed piece. A quote: "Indeed, today, reliance on broadcasting is the very definition of a technologically backward society."
MUSIC
Tom Waits interview in Onion A.V.
Pitchfork gives Liz Phair a 0.0 outta 10. Yes, that's even worse than the 0.8 they gave the new Metallica.
Ya know, I just bought that Zeppelin DVD. This is really unlike me. From a taste perspective. I hope I don't like it. Here's a review.
Another Greil Marcus Real Life Rock Top Ten in City Pages.
INTERNET
Gawd I love the internet. DuckHuntingGirls.com. Yes, pictures and videos of... Girls. Hunting. Ducks. No, it's not dirty. It's totally... ducky.
Sure to make you cringe, Time names the 50 Best Websites.
Decent interview with the CEO of IDEO.
Slate.com found an accidentally-released live prototype of Bush's 2004 campaign website.
FASHION
Nike released a new division of skateboard shoes. And they did a whack website to promote them. Macromedia is showcasing it as a cool use of Flash.
Times Style article on those Tommy Bahama shirts. I actually bought one a couple weeks ago. Shut up, I'm not an aging hipster.
LIFE
Milken Institute's new list of 200 Best Performing Cities. Minneapolis: #99.
I don't get many gifts through this site, so I like to give shout-outs when it happens. When Patricia noticed that I wanted a subscription to Brutus, she said she'd try to send me some from Japan. Today I got a wonderful stack of Japanese magz including Mono, Studio Voice, and a bunch o' Brutus. I'm the happiest white boy in the midwest right now.
ARCHITECTURE
Times article on the new Prada Tokyo, designed by Herzog + Meuron, the same dudes doing the new Walker going up in my neighborhood. (Sidenote: I love how architects use the + sign instead of the & sign. I am going to co-opt this as often as possible.)
MUSIC
Disinfo writes a bit about the Radiohead/1984 connections. In other news, Terry Eagleton has a George Orwell profile in LRB. (Sidenote: Eagleton must be releasing a book of intellectual profiles soon, right?)
Pic of Liz Phair doing her Britney pose, with hilarious caption. (Sidenote: it's interesting how most critics slammed the new Liz Phair album except Entertainment Weekly and Chuck in Spin. I almost think there could be a re-reading of the album as nouveau-pastiche irony by the end of the year. Or not.)
File under beyond post-modern: Two Japanese girls covering t.A.T.u. songs.
FILM
As a follow-up to yesterday's Times PBR link, Reason magazine's Hit & Run weblog (which I recommend) asks how the essay could overlook the obvious Blue Velvet cool factor.
I saw an early-draft screening of Chuck Olsen's Blogumentary on Sunday. I was a little disapointed that more locals didn't show up at the screening, but I also think he's got a cult success waiting to happen.
INTERNET
Wired News runs an interview with the guy behind HomestarRunner. Entertainment Weekly also just came out with their IT-List issue (subscription link), and he was named IT Web Cartoonist.
Very cool make-your-own-graph maker: NationMaster.com.
The Ethicist (yes, that guy from the Times Mag) was on All Things Considered talking about the ethics of stumbling across a friend's "private" blog. I wish ethics was always this no-brainer.
I'm feelin' categorical, so I'm sticking with the link categories for a while. Shakin up the faculties. Down with Kant, ya dig.
INTERNET/POLITICS
There goes the neighborhood. Ann Coulter: blogger. CoulterGeist, indeed.
Back-to-back stories about Orin Hatch's website that have nothing to do with each other. Wired News (who else?) calls him a software pirate, and Salon.com (who else?) calls him a pornographer. I guess someone should fry his PC.
WORDS
WhichBooks.net provides a unique way to choose a book. Play with the little sliders on the left.
ARCHITECTURE
Photo essay by Hugh Pearman on Zaha Hadid's Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati.
MARKETING
Sunday Times Mag has a long but very good story on the marketing (i.e., non-marketing) of Pabst Blue Ribbon beer. Recomended.
A condom ad (video).
MUSIC
Smack in the middle of this hilarious Onion article about college DJs is a June Panic reference.
A must. SixDifferentWays has an MP3 of t.A.T.u.'s cover of The Smith's "How Soon Is Now?" I am human and I need to be loved.
NPR's Motley Fool had a good interview with the founder of KaraokeNation.com, who apparently has a book out now too: Karaoke Nation: Or, How I Spent a Year in Search of Glamour, Fulfillment, and a Million Dollars.
Apple's iTunes coming to the indies.
FILM
Let's call it the new Ghost World that was the new Crumb: preview to American Splendor.
Somewhat random L.A. Times Parker Posey profile.
LIFE
Dream job? It's not often you see "an interest in Wheel of Fortune, Q*Bert or Charlie's Angels" in a job description. Pay: $10.00/hour.
Harry, Sabrina, and Buffy Help Paganism Grow.
One year ago today, I must have been smoking crack.
LOCAL
The excellent local juice company, Fresco Juice, has started distributing at Kowalski's. Check it out.
Beck writes about his appearance in Minneapolis, and the chance that maybe Prince would show up.
In the soon-to-be-defunk Lost Cause, people talking about the Lifter Puller show.
Except for two 4-hour Buffy-watching intermissions on the couch, I have been sleeping for the last 48 hours. I'm still a little woozy after Friday's party. Chuck was wise enough to snap some photos -- six pics in the middle of this page. Yeah, that's me, and I only vaguely remember that part of the evening. Thanks to everyone who came, especially that chick from San Francisco. Sorry the booze ran out before sunrise.
NEWS:
Photo of Bush falling off a Segway.
Weird Sunday Times story about gutter punks. Or, as the sociologists say, urban nomads.
INTERNET:
New blog: Amazon World highlights interesting user reviews found on Amazon.com.
Another new one: Tabloid Column, a collection of tabloid and celeb news.
Register: www.la
The elusive Plain Layne is back.
MOVIES:
Jack White just lost every stitch of cred he had.
Kottke made a silent film about the Chirac/Bush summit: Ceci n'est pas une guerre (c'est l'amour). Maybe he should have done it in the style of Woody Allen.
MEDIA:
Metropolis mag story on Nike that starts off quoting No Logo in the first graph.
Interview with Radar's editor-in-chief.
Adweek: 10 Lowest Moments in Advertising in the Last 10 Years.
WORDS:
Apparently Eggers wants to become Madonna. He's dropping his last name from his next novel. Maybe next he'll change his name to a symbol.
Someone's dissertation on the cultural history of the word cunt.
The Believer's Idea Share.
LOCAL:
Argh! StarTribune.com just made me register before reading.
Times story penned by Dylan Hicks on the Minneapolis Children's Theater Company winning a Tony.
Fargo Forum has a decent collections of stories on the Garrison Dam: The Unfinished Dream.
Music Links:
Top 10 Pictures of Thom Yorke Looking Pretentious.
Slate.com covers the U.S. Air Guitar Championships.
Radiohead.tv has launched. Awesome.
Video Game Links:
The Mob has taken over The Sims.
Media Links:
Wired was the comeback kid last year, scoring a number of good issues when it seemed like it was a magazine carcass. Newer issues are slipping a bit, with such things as The Wired 40, from the newest issue. Meanwhile, if you're wondering "hey, what current magazine will everyone look back on nostalgically?", the answer is Res. The new issue is excellent. (See also: Chicago Tribune's crappy list of the 50 Best Magazines. Neither Wired nor Res are even listed, Metropolis comes in at #45; Spin is listed under "Mags gone bad"; and just to prove their twisted middlebrow snobbiness, FHM made the list but not Maxim.)
The Times pans Hillary's book. Also, The New York Observer asked novelists to critique the book.
It's been a while since someone did a story on Romenesko.
Just Cool:
Somewhat Local News:
Oh wow. The story about the 28-year-old Japanese woman wandering around Fargo supposedly looking for the money from Fargo (the movie) never really spread outside of the upper-Midwest. But now London's Guardian picked it up and made a big deal about it. The author was even going to make a movie about her.
NY Times piece on MusicMavericks.org, produced by MPR. Also, Katherine Lanpher interviewed (audio) a Village Voice critic about the show on MPR's Midmorning today.
Local restaurant advertising controversy hits the daily. "Happy Hour: Cheaper Than A Bangkok Brothel."
OJR article about the business and content prospects of local weblogs.
I've been doing a lot of thinking about Apple iTunes killing album-oriented music. But BBC News has a story with leaked statistics that show half of the songs sold on iTunes are full albums. So maybe not.
Dumb link of the day: The Office Space sound board.
Season Four of Buffy comes out on DVD tomorrow.
Times update on the Jesse Ventura show on MSNBC.
Creepy or artful? In MeAndBillyBob.com, artist Jillian Mcdonald takes scenes from Billy Bob Thornton movies and splices in videos of herself.
Guardian: Blogging's Too Good For Them.
Onion A.V. Club interviews Steve Malkmus. He's a little more culturally introspective than usual; he hints that he might be heading downhill musically and even even suggests that you could attribute Pavement's success to good press connections at Matador.
The Webby Awards were announced this weekend. The world yawned.
Did you miss the t.A.T.u. performance on MTV last week? If so, go see it on MTV.com.
Gizmodo has a funny little post about reviewing gadgets from 1983.
Voice: Make Up Your Own New York Times Story. (Fine for print; should've been made interactive online.)
I've been lightly thinking about creating a Gawker for the Twin Cities (see rant below). But I don't think I could maintain it solo. Anyway, Gaper's Block is a new Gawker-ish blog for Chicago.
The Guardian tracks down Salam Pax and gives him a column.
Slate's Paul Boutin writes about geography-based instant messaging (Trepia).
Post praise for Zaha Hadid's Cincinnati Arts Center. (I haven't seen it yet, but I might route a trip through Ohio just for the chance.)
PDF of Sean Penn's full-page NY Times ad.
Frauenfelder on Moblogging.
Fiendster.com (without an r).
New bookmark: GreenCine's Blog.
I'm 80% an e-bore.
Chronicle of Higher Ed: Office-Hour Habits of the North American Professor.
Sunday Times story on photobloggers.
Track listing for the CD wrapped in the new issue of Adbuster.
More crazy Christians: Scooby Doo: Turning Kids On to the Occult!
A fine collection of '80s commercials.
Spin magazine always puts up a smattering of its print content a month late. Right now, for instance, there's the 20 Sleaziest Rock Moments piece, which doesn't even give you #1. It instead says "For Spin's top sleazy moment, pick up a copy of the June issue, on newsstands now." Now, that's sleazy. (And not to mention a lie -- the issue is already off the newsstands.)
And to extend the magazine bashing.... Entertainment Weekly's cover story this week was the top 50 Cult Movies Of All Time. Good idea, questionable outcome:
How ironic -- nah, fuck it, how depressing -- is it for UPN to follow up the girl-power finale of Buffy with the premier of America's Next Top Model? Two steps forward, one step back.
Chuck Olsen has put up a trailer for Blogumentary.
Cornel West talks about The Matrix. (He has a cameo.) (Sniped from AmysRobot.) Also, here are the Official Matrix sunglasses ($240).
I'm as tired of the Times links as you are, but there have been so many good tech and arts stories lately -- Jayson Blair be damned (that Observer link might be his first interview post-controversy). Here's a Times story on Wikis which isn't by any means enlightening but is a good overview.
Oh yeah, Jayson Blair's student website. With poetry!
Here's that New Yorker of Slavoj Zizek profile from the last month that they didn't post on their site.
MediaBistro interview with Spin editor Sia Michel.
Have I told you about the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players yet? If I haven't, I should have. Anyway, Sylloge has some videoclips.
The Times has a story about Peter Greenaway's upcoming megalomaniacal multimedia movie/tv/theater/book/website/game thing. In other news, NYTimes.com launches new movie section.
Popdex, the game. The goal: pick links that you think will become popular amongst bloggers in the next 48 hours.
Around mid-afternoon yesterday, Waxy said they had already raised $2000 for Ghyslain. I told him he's truly a philanthropist.
The Guardian asks when is Harry Potter gonna get laid, anyway? There's also a new Murakami profile.
Today is the day the world ends. If you don't know what that means, you don't deserve to read 10 Questions For Joss Whedon. (Of course Whedonesque has a billion more links if you're not feelin' glum.)
Times Mag topic this week is architecture. Good stuff.
BuzzMachine has a Salam Pax interview (translated from an Austrian magazine). And the Ottawa Citizen gathers lots of details about the author by merely doing a close reading.
Two Times stories about blogging: Dating a Blogger, Reading All About It (cough, cough) | A New York State of Blog (about Gawker.com).
Story on City Pages' Babelogue.
Coming soon from O'Reilly: TiVo Hacks.
This week I'm trading in the Nokia 9290 (which never caught on like it should have) for a new Samsung I-700 (which has everything I want in a pda-phone except WiFi). It's no Matrix Phone, but this boy needs a new toy.
Steven Johnson's contribution on blogging to the Rem Koolhaus-curated Wired.
I won't give you all my opinions about the recent FCC proposals (god knows you don't come here to hear that), but I'll say this: I disagree with the pundits; I doubt you'll see that many big merger deals in the next few years. The reason: local TV stations are already owned by big companies. And trust me, you're gonna pay a pretty penny to pry one away. Check back in three years and see if I'm right.
Everyone's watching the new Radiohead video ("There, There").
No one noticed the new glasses when I wore them to work. No one even mentioned the new haircut. No one apparently liked the new pants. But that new t-shirt drew gobs of attention today.
Good idea from Nick: get Salam Pax a lit agent.
Sci-Fi author Samuel R. Delany profiled in L.A. Weekly. (I recommend Dhalgren.)
Edward Tufte's "The Cognitive Style of Powerpoint".
The Conan Claymation episode airs tomorrow.
I'm home! How was it, you ask? Mostly good. San Diego is a beautiful city I didn't expect to like. I also had lunch with the new president of TiVo which was really weird. I'm still fast-forwarding.
And it's lucky for you that I'm back, or else you'd miss Britney as Barbarella in Japanese tea tv commercial.
Yet another t-shirt I need.
While researching for an upcoming review of The Matrix: Reloaded, Melissa Maerz gathers Everything You Never Wanted to Know About the Matrix, a collection of trivia, including the director's fascination with Cornell West.
National Magazine Award Winners.
Is it my imagination, or is the Times obsessed with North Dakota lately? Here's one from the Sunday Arts section on the classical music scene.
Slate.com on Aphex Twin.
I saw The Shape of Things last night. I was bored through the first half, but it picks up in the end with an surprising conclusion. Here are Ebert's review and Slate.com's review. I'm pretty sure I hated it, but I'd actually recommend it as a date movie because there's a lot to talk about.
Dan Savage on Bill Bennett (including playing cards).
Paul Boutin on the new NYC Google offices.
In the middle of an average Times story surveying Ashleigh Banfield's career is this sentence about her days at the Dallas Fox affiliate: "She was also known in the city's gossip pages for singing in a rock band and for holding late-night parties at her loft apartment." Whah-what!? Rock band? I would pay top-dollar for those MP3s. One of our editors in Dallas (Bill, who is also the proprietor of WXnation.com) hunted down the band name: Tommy Hyatt and the Haywires. But no MP3s. I'm paying $10 to anyone who can find me an MP3.
This William Bennett news truly is a self-righteous morsel to relish. Michael Kinsley wants to give to give the investigators a Pulitzer Prize for Schadenfreude.
My pal Simon Peter's bye-bye Buffy story.
Article about Blogshares.com.
Chuck's Blogumentary is gonna be great. He has a clip staring Anil, Katherine Narducci of The Soprano's, and an angry Starbucks mobster.
Charles Bukowski (or Bill Gates) poem generator.
Circulation of Nation's Biggest Papers.
Radiohead via Sony Classical piano.
Big news in sorta-local-but-really-national magazine publishing: Utne revamps (in which Cursor.org's Mike Tronnes is quoted). Big news in sorta-local-but-really-national indie rock: Low's Zak Sally has left the band (natch, because the story is broken by a journalist-blogger writing for his employer's weblog community).
Blockbuster is going head-to-head with Netflix in the online rental game. And if you've been under a rock for the last 24 hours, Apple launched iTunes. (But check out the new ads -- everyone knew this guy and this girl in college.)
Is this new? The new Blur album isn't out until May 6, but if you pre-order it on Amazon.com you get a free audio stream of the album right away. Here are more albums with audio stream access if you buy first. This is seemingly a good idea since it convinced me to order the album that I probably wouldn't have purchased online. (BTW, new cool live Blur video here.)
After William Gibson gave a local reading a couple months ago, I told you he would eventually stop updating his blog. This off-hand comment is now a Wired story months later.
New Ann Coulter book coming out June 24: Treason. Boy oh boy, I can't wait.
Punk Planet continues to push the topical boundries with a literary issue (available online for purchase only). In other lit news, a new David Foster Wallace profile in the L.A. Times.
Available at the Google store: Blogger t-shirt.
The complete set of Michael Moore's The Awful Truth on DVD came out today.
Tee-hee. Tom Brokaw discusses "tax cunts."
Gosh, this one's tough. A free subscription to Maxim. Maybe if I had it delivered to a secret P.O. box.
Gobs of new movie trailers: The Shape of Things, Neil LaBute's latest with Gretchen Mol and Rachel Weisz | People I Know, with Al Pacino, Kim Basinger and Tea Leoni | Spellbound, the documentary about the spelling bee | Till Human Voices Wake Us, a thriller with Guy Pearce and Helena Bonham Carter | Owning Mahowny, a goofy crime thriller with Philip Seymour Hoffman and Minnie Driver.
Bush is a fan of the Iraqi Information Minister too.
Good. Funny. Almost brilliant. McSweeney's: Unused Audio Commentary By Howard Zinn And Noam Chomksy, Recorded Summer, 2002, For The Fellowship Of The Ring (Platinum Series Extended Edition) DVD, Part One.
Fark photoshops Google logo.
Dan Savage writes an op-ed piece in the Times about Rick Santorum.
I somehow missed all those White Stripes shows on Conan last week. They were the topic of conversation at every cocktail party this weekend. I'm glad that Chuck Olsen posted one.
The Rake's Kurt Anderson interview.
Hmm, should I get a Vulcan?
Chuck tells the story in the Times about moving from North Dakota to NYC.
The Parents Television Council (how Orwellian does that sound?) is ticked at Buffy.
Quite excellent special supplement on Baghdad culture in al-Ahram. Spend some time there.
But really, who needs culture when you have Freedom! Freedom! Freedom! And Pizza Hut and Burger King are setting up franchises!
Unknown photos from Blow-Up, my favorite '60s art film, suddenly discovered.
Real bought Listen.com for $36 million. I'm mystified.
Good Slate.com: Rating News Networks War Theme Songs.
More juicy info on those CNN.com obits. The funny thing is that the experimental site Lab404.com can claim indirect credit for the leaks. Semi-related: "classic" digital art on display in NYC.
The Post claims Pabst Blue Ribbon has staged a comeback "led by colleagues such as snowboarders and indie filmmakers." Whatevva.
I haven't talked about Chuck for a while. Because he refuses to get a blog, I'm licensed to say whatever I want about him. If you're new around here, Chuck is a college friend, now at Spin, who recorded his college and high school memories in this book, which I hated the first time I read, probably because he doesn't talk about me enough. He recently interviewed Radiohead in England, and had this to say about Thom Yorke: "He is very unshaven and does not appear to comb his hair; he was very nice, though, and quite interesting (not difficult at all)." You can read the rest in Spin next month. And Chuck's new book, Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs (available for pre-order), is out in August. Over Christmas, while drunk, he said there's an essay in there about the summer we lived on University Avenue and discovered Slacker, which, well, changed everything for me. And, oh yeah, he's on my Amazon list of people who have punched me.
I was really gonna redesign this dumb blog this weekend. It needs a makeover so bad. But then I got drunk at the post-Fisherspooner party, stumbled home at 4 a.m., and watched DVDs on the red couch the rest of the weekend. Blame decadence.
The DVD for Disinformation, the Sci-Fi Channel miniseries that includes interviews with weirdos like Grant Morrison, Howard Bloom, Genesis P-Orridge, and Douglas Rushkoff, is now available.
Complete collection of the NY Times audio commentary album showcases.
Madonna's new children's books: moral tales based upon the Cabbala. Mama don't preach.
Newly-discovered sites devoted to authors: JG Ballard | Brett Easton Ellis.
L.A. Times piece on the history of the remote control.
Well-known Iranian blogger/journalist arrested.
Metafilter thread on the whereabouts of Salam Pax.
The Times pays last rites to Buffy. Also, pics from the wrap party (which, somewhat suspiciously, lack Sarah Michelle).
Nokia to put digital artists on cell phones.
Google's PageRank formula: PR(A) = (1-d) + d (PR(T1) /C(T1) + ... + PR(Tn) /C(Tn) ). Also, The Google AdWords Happening.
Headline filter: Irish pub kickstarts Kabul nightlife.
Is it true? Grand Theft Auto, multiplayer. From the site: "When Grand Theft Auto 3 was in development it's makers wanted to have a multiplayer function included in the game. Sadly and due to unknown reasons the multiplayer function was not implemented in the retail version of Grand Theft Auto 3. Although the feature was not in the product, the lines of code for the multiplayer were not removed. This opened possibilities for us to enable a multiplayer feature."
Decks of those Iraqi playing cards are actually pretty cheap on eBay. The mousepad is nice too. And the poster -- wow, this war has simply been one fun game, hasn't it?
Brooke has launched the second-to-last episode (#23) of Broken Saints. He says #24 is out in June.
City Pages has launched Babelogue, which I'll hereby declare the first alt-press blogging community. I like it, but some things confuse me: Is the front page a collection of posts or a blog itself? What kind of relationship does CP have to those "Freelance Webloggers"? Why doesn't Melissa Maerz post more? Since they've surprisingly landed Greil Marcus as a writer again, can they get him to do a blog?
NYTimes compiles a slideshow of Saddam's image being defaced. And BBC had decoded Iraq's symbols of celebration.
The Times thinks Six Feet Under has jumped the shark. I've only see the first season (on DVD), and I'll say the show is both very brilliant and pompously irritating -- just like American Beauty. The most telling moment was the last episode, where one character has the gall to ask "Why do people have to die?" And, get this -- there's an answer. A serious answer, not a joke answer. When Nate replies "To make life more important," that's when this show jumped the shark.
Not to be outdone by Apple, now Microsoft wants Universal Music.
Bukowski: Nazi. That's probably less of a shocker than it should be.
Roger Ebert trashes Kiarostami's Ten.
I'm pissed I owe Kottke nothing.
Pick your story: General Motors Should Pay CNN For Hummer Placement | CNN Joins Attack On Iraq.
Obligatory Z Magazine Chomsky interview link.
Ok, this Fark thread is pretty funny. What if Fox News were around during other historical events? (My fave, a response to this story.)
Good interview with Joanne Tucker, who left BBC to become the managing editor of al-Jazeera's English-language website.
Gaytona.com, for gay NASCAR fans. (By the way, Google has zero matches for the phrase "Vegan Republican". This seems somehow relevant.)
I saw Kiaromstami's Ten last night. Amazing. In many ways, the female inverse of his Cannes-winng film, Taste of Cherry. Already the best film of the year.
Third episode of the Animatrix is out.
In Minot (yes, North Dakota), Clear Channel owns all six commercial radio stations. "Among the six stations, Clear Channel now has only one full-time news employee, who is often heard reading statewide and national wire service dispatches," reports the New York Times in this story.
Questions for Iraqi pop star Ismail Hussain. Includes great detail about Uday Hussein's debauchery. In other news, Osama bin Laden's niece, Waffa, is having a difficult time kick-starting her pop music career.
Suzanne Vega is hosting "American Mavericks," a 13-part MPR series that "features the iconoclastic, tradition-breaking composers who shaped the development of American music-from Charles Ives, Henry Brant, Harry Partch, Laurie Anderson, Steve Reich and more." Episode 1, which which sets up the definition for "music maverick," includes music by John Cage, Charles Ives, and Steve Reich. The website includes a huge listening room, a huge collection of Harry Partch's instruments, an interactive Rhythmicon, and a Charles Ives blender. Good stuff so far.
This is really quite cool. A comparison of street shots from Vertigo (1958) to what they look like now: Vertigo: Then And Now.
Essential Field Guide to Fox Blondes.
I'd really like a subscription to the Japanese magazine Brutus. So I checked Amazon. Wow, it's there. Uh, for $173.73/year. Maybe not.
This video from Death in Vegas is pretty rad.
New
MIT Mediaworks
pamphlet: Writing
Machines.
This is scary as hell. The army is adapting retail video games as military action simulators. "Some military trainers worry that the more the games seem like war, the more war may start to seem like a game." Ender's Game is even quoted as an influence.
Lucian James looks at the Billboard Top 20 every week and breaks down the brand shout-outs in each song on American Brandstand.
City Pages' War TV Glossary.
Have fun: CreateBands.com. I think this is how Creed came about.
Sorta odd for the NY Times Mag is this long cover piece on the Donald Judd / Andy Warhol / Sol Le Witt / Bruce Nauman generation of artists. Includes an audio slideshow.
Apple releases Final Cut Pro 4.0.
An addendum to Friday's puff about Goole News: Press Releases Now News For Google News. Press releases make it but blogs don't? Now I'm flustered.
It didn't occur to me right away, but I think I've been blogging for work lately. I'm occupying most of my day with keeping this Military Action Map and this Baghdad Map updated. I gather information from wire reports and present it in blurb style in reverse-chronological order -- how bloggy.
Culture Shock! Okay, finding out Nora Ephron writes poetry (in the Times!) was a bit much, but Matt Dillon is directing? Since when? His new movie is out next month, starring him, Natascha McElhone, and Gerard Depardieu: City of Ghosts (trailer). Jeesh, next you'll tell me that Playboy is interviewing Steve Malkmus.
English-language version of Al-Jazeera's website just launched. Also, here's a Al-Jazeera video livestream.
Wow, everyone is talking about Where Is Raed? lately. Paul Boutin even sends out the sysadmin brigade on him. Dudes, I talked to him three months ago; he's legit.
New trivia challenge on Amazon.com. Kinda dumb.
Amy's Robot is one of many out there with an MP3 of Michael Moore's Oscar acceptance speech.
I didn't buy the Sony V-1 like I said I would. I got the Toshiba M10 instead. I was in a hurry to get a Centrino, and it was the only one available in town. C|Net gave it a good review in their Centrino roundup though. I also thought about the Tablet PC (good PC Mag roundup) but decided it wasn't practical for my needs.
MUSIC NOTES:
Godspeed You! Black Emperor Questioned as Suspected Terrorists in Oklahoma.
Zack De La Rocha and DJ Shadow anti-war MP3: "March of Death".
New Radiohead album to be titled Hail to the Theif.
You call that a weekend?
Kate Brigham did her MFA thesis at the Massachusetts College of Art on Decoding
Visual Language Elements in News Content. It examines how image selection, cropping, and rendering affect news pereception. The interactive demo is cool.
Even the Times has caught on to that Nebraska scene.
From the Department of Defense, the ground rules for being embedded (pdf).
That Ms. Barb Palser is quoted in this Wired article about trans-national media. Here is that great thinker's most recent AJR column, about internet style.
The new Don DeLillo novel is out: Cosmopolis.
Sorry to have been away so long (and to have turned this into a dark place that quotes Belle And Sebastian -- Jack Black would knife me if he knew). No, I wasn't at SXSW with all the other miscreants, but here are the web award winners if you somehow missed them. And, oh yeah, those Puma ads were fake. Blame bloggers!
New blogs of note: Marilyn Manson | Fast Food Fever | Kevin Sites (CNN foreign correspondent).
Cool future wearable electronics.
Times on Meetup.com as a political organization tool.
Saw a screener of Phone Booth last night. Structural movies like this can never be great, and can very easily be wretched, so it succeeds in being mediocre.
I need a new laptop, and I'll probably buy a new Sony Z1 (with Centrino, Wifi, six-hour battery, and DVD), unless you talk me out of it.
Cat Power live on KCRW's Morning Becomes Eclectic (audio).
Local retail hipsters rejoice: Ikea To Open Minneapolis Store.
Howard Stern is suing ABC because he thinks they stole his realty tv idea, "Are You Hot?" Uh-huh, you don't find brilliant ideas like that growing on trees. No word yet from the boys at HotOrNot.com.
If you've actually never seen a Mathew Barney movie, there's now a Cremaster website with trailers; here's one that gives a good sense of scope. If you live in NYC, you can see the entire cycle at at Film Forum next month. (It just occurred to me that he should work with Fisherspooner. But why bother collaborating when you live with Bjork?)
New provocative Puma ads (some history).
Stan Brakhage has died.
Ideo does some crazy R&D on cell phones: Social Mobiles.
Slate is running an episodic piece ("Superman") on human enhancing therapies.
I got bored pretty fast with Spin's Ultimate Lists issue (on newsstands). Here's the Top 40 Most Important Artists Making Music Right Now.
Jordanian: Loves Microsoft, Hates America.
Good Stephen Johnson piece on Google's Memory Upgrade, based upon this seminal 1945 essay.
Matador Records says they're sorry for everything they've ever done.
Times Mag article on Smart Mobbing.
Reservoir Dogs to become videogame.
Um yeah, that Saddam translation. Good voice.
David Lynch is selling Eraserhead on DVD on his site (long wait to load), but I don't see it available elsewhere.
I know, I said it was the last Eggers link. But it looks like he's starting a new magazine.
The Matisse-Picasso exhibit at Moma has generated some interesting reviews. Here's a few: Slate.com | The NY Times | The New Republic | Salon | NPR. The New Yorker was probably the best, but it ain't online.
The EW exuent interview with Sarah Michelle is surprisingly good. The same issue also has a shockingly long Sonic Youth spread (not online).
I have been telling Peter for the past month that I think the metaphor of "the desktop" for personal computing should die. Then he sends me this article saying that others out there also think the metaphor is "outdated." My seemingly original thought is already obsolete.
Looks like Google Hacks is out.
Kieslowski's Three Colors on DVD came out today. Not too bad a deal either -- $30 for all three.
Weird. James Marster (Spike on Buffy) has a band called Ghost of the Robot who sings a song called "David Letterman" (audio).
The Most Significant SF & Fantasy Books of the Last 50 Years, according to the Science Fiction Book Club. (A Wizard of Earthsea [#5] seems high; The Man in the High Castle [#33] seems low.)
"Get Your War" Mr. Rogers tribute.
Ad Exec Hired to Improve U.S. Image Resigns. In other government PR news, Logo-contest.com has whittled it down to nine finalist Dept. of Homeland Security logos.
Tricky W? Everyone's talking about The Guardian's scoop of "dirty tricks" that the U.S. pulled on Security Council members.
Bill Clinton called up for jury duty.
Studio 360's episode on improvisation was good this week.
Looks like there's a new Linklater film in production starring Jack Black and Joan Cusack.
I can't believe I'm continuing this thread, but Fred Durst talks to Howard Stern about sex with Britney.
2003 World's Richest People from Forbes.
Massive Attack's Robert Del Naja arrested on alleged possession of child pornography.
More good Slate.com questions: Did Eminem Ruin 50 Cent? & Who Will Run Iraq After The War?
I was spotted at 2:43 p.m., Sunday, March 2, reading The Hipster Handbook at a local Barnes 'n Noble. Forgive my indiscretions.
Article about Netflix Queue obsession: You Are What You Queue. I just got a membership a week ago, and my queue is already at 28 films and growing. The queue truly is brilliant -- a more manifest version of the Amazon Wishlist. My only recommendation to Netflix would be to add more editorial voice. The lame pages for '70s Cinema and Indie's Greatest Hits are dry and static. Which brings up another idea to steal from Amazon -- user-created lists.
Interview with Drew from Fark.
Video of the Dan Rather interview with Saddam.
Okay Times piece on the Interactive Music Exchange, which has actual interactive online programming.
Did you miss an episode of The Young and the Restless? For two bucks, you can download it from SoapCity.com, a new site from Sony that offers this service for a couple soap operas. I suspect this business will actually take off.
Now that's a monitor.
David Weinberger on NPR talking about the "not-very-distant future." See also: How the Protesters Mobilized in the Times.
I kept hearing a promo on CNN (or maybe MSNBC) tonight about an upcoming interview with the then-teenage girl that Roman Polanski had sex with a million years ago. Here she is coming out. She even has an editorial in the L.A. Times.
Everyone's asking why Google bought Blogger, but this is the best answer so far: we dunno.
Getting paid to blog is one thing, but getting paid to blog about Christina Ricci just isn't fair.
Occasionally, I come up with a good one.
Most. Frustrating. Game. Ever. Type, type, TYPE!
Buffy stuff: Season Four DVD has been announced for June 10; top 10 best episodes debate; 100 Questions for Joss.
Times piece on the convergence of Matrix the game and Matrix the movie.
I'm going on tour. I'll be visiting the Bay area next month (for this conference) and San Diego in May (for this conference). Let me know if you live in Cali and want to buy me a beer...
At the William Gibson reading tonight, someone in the crowd asked about his blog. He said he would probably continue updating it for the near-term, but when it comes time to write a new novel again, he'll have to give it up. Not because of the work, but because it's a different "ecology" (his word). He said the blog ecology -- with its easily-pleased masses -- would hinder the hellish process of writing a novel. I think there's something to this differntiation of faculties (my word). Anyway, if you're reading Pattern Recognition, you'll want to check out this attempt to annotate the book.
The Slate 60 is out. It's a collection of the 60 biggest charitable contributions in 2002. Some possible surprises: David Geffen, #4; Ted Turner, #12; Steven Spielberg, #51.
Times piece on Arab-American writers.
Slate.com's war survey includes Nicholson Baker, Arianna Huffington, Spike Lee, and Sarah Vowell.
Tyson has a new face tattoo!
The blog nation's version of breaking news: Google has purchased Blogger. Buzzmachine and Anil and BoingBoing have opinions. Running conjecture on Mefi. In other news AudBlog allows you to update your blog via phone.
Raed is quoted in a Wired piece, and gets nervous.
Salon.com might go under (again).
L.A. Weekly: Where are the new protest songs?
Sputnik 7 has a nice collection of music videos and films.
You'll be seeing me wear this t-shirt in 3 to 5 days.
Who you callin a link blog?
Times piece on Xbox versus Playstation.
The new Wired (print) magazine showed up in the mail today. The cover is "Speed Freaks," and it looks like it went to print before they could stop this deck from appearing on the cover: "SURVIVING NASA'S INSANE 7G EXPERIMENT." Ha-ha, old media.
Woo-hoo! Gaming as a form of activism, says this AP story.
Anderson Cooper Trivia. Son of Gloria Vanderbilt. Was almost Ricky Shroder. Hosted The Mole.
Worried about the repercussions of war? Consider buying your own hazmat suit from Yahoo Stores.
Taschen has a new book about the Jaybird naked revolution.
New Yorker Google cartoon.
For info-graphic geeks, the NYSE MarkeTrac from Asymptote has launched.
Times: Amazon.com gives up on tv ads.
Yet another William Gibson interview (Globe & Mail).
Coming to the Sci-Fi channel: Children of Dune.
From the Church of Jesus Christ Latter-Day Saints: HotSaints.com. Amen.
If you ask me what my favorite movie is, you're likely to hear a different answer every time, but the Criterion Contempt DVD that I watched this weekend puts Godard back in the front. Brigitte Bardot, please come back and save the world.
The cast of The Simpsons is on Bravo tonight.
NY Times reviews The Hipster Handbook.
Real is now positioning itself to sell "guy content." Meanwhile, Yahoo is getting into the subscription video biz.
The Saddameter is up to 95%.
Funny Times piece on the eyeware of architects.
James Gleick on spam in the Times Mag.
Watch the final Kasparov vs. Deep Junior match in Flash. (It was a tie.)
Clear Channel Concerts plans to record concerts and sell them on CD to you as you walk out of the arena. Any chance Clear Channel surfs ShouldExist?
You deserve $20. Fill out this music settlement form if you purched a CD from 1995 to 2000. Defendants, who are distributing $67,375,000 because they "conspired to illegally raise the prices of prerecorded music products by implementing minimum advertised price policies," include Capitol, Virgin, Warner Bros, Atlantic, Elektra, Rhino, Universal, Bertelsmann, Sony, Tower Records, Musicland and BMG.
Guardian Quiz: Model, Writer, Whatever. "Which supermodel wrote a novel about a supermodel?"
I knew the day would come when some newspaper exec would compare ad size holes in newspapers to the online world. (They're very disproportionate, if you think about it.) I just didn't think NYTimes.com would be the first.
New Murakami fiction in the New Yorker.
ObscureStore is five years old. Soundbitten has an interview with Romenesko.
Rolling Stone: The Lost Beatles Album.
iFilm: Vin Diesel Breakdancing.
Judging from Entertainment Weekly's Top 25 Simpsons episodes, it looks like 1993 was the hey-day.
Fascinating story on how Carson Daly's voice is cut up and put into a database of sound which is then recomposed into a radio program ("Carson Daly Most Requested") that is broadcast to 140 radio stations -- 11 of them as a "local" program.
L.A. Times thinks the indie film is dead.
New Yorker on Tokyo Toys.
Hunter S. Thompson has a new book. He's interviewed in Salon.
The naked Courtney Love photo shoot for Q magazine.
Conservative rag National Review tears into Derrida, the film and the man. "He is not now, nor has he ever been, a philosopher in any recognizable sense of the word, nor even a trafficker in significant ideas; he is rather a intellectual con artist, a polysyllabic grifter who has duped roughly half the humanities professors in the United States."
Only locals will get this one, but I have to post it anyway: Boycott Chino Latino Online Petition. People are still apparently angry about the "Happy Hour: Cheaper than a Bangkok Brothel" billboards around town.
Kevin Lynch (Chief Software Architect at Macromedia) joins Jeremy Allaire (Chief Technology Officer) with his own blog.
BigChampagne.com measures what music people are downloading on the internet.
On attending the DVD Premiere Awards.
Long Boston Globe Mag story about how Google is changing inter-personal relations.
Apparently, an upcoming new media/economy magazine: Tekka.
The American Prospect calls us the the "McSweeney's generation" in this piece about Dave Eggers.
We're the "Maxim generation" in this Times piece from last week about writing a beer ad song.
Pitchfork douses the new Zwan album with a 4.8 outta 10.
Forget the Segway, I want a Corbin.
Chronicle of Higher Education: Cyborgs in the humanities.
The Guide To Fascist Websites For Children.
Well, this won't be Crispin Glover's big come-back movie: Willard. Also starring Laura Elena Harring (the brunette in Mulholland Drive).
A trailer to a new documentary starring the woman who was Hitler's secretary right up until the final days: Blind Spot: Hitler's Secretary. After years of silence, she tells all.
Britney: "Sundance is weird."
Dang, the new Strokes album is already done? LastPlaneToJakarta.com somehow got ahold of it. Me? Jealous?
I'm utterly shocked that I didn't make CJR's Ten Young Editors To Watch list. (Not that I'm really an editor any more.)
According to The Observer, the new lit wonder to watch is James Frey.
Someone at the office today came around with Buffy Season Four on DVD. Those who know their shit know there's no such thing yet. Not in America, anyway. But, yes, you can get it in England. He even bought an all-region DVD player just to play it. I've been out-geeked.
Times: War of the Words at Hip-Hop Magazines.
New magazine (from Canada, but don't let that get you down): Numb.
A Clockwork Orange script.
Encyclopedia of the Marvelous, the Monstrous, and the Grotesque.
Have fun, kids: The Fake CNN.com News Generator. (Update: looks like it got removed after a few journalists fell for a fake Olsen Twins story today.)
Stuck in a snowy traffic jam yesterday, I was thinking "What ever happened to LiquidAudio?" Perhaps this shows too much about what rattles around in my consciousness, but, yes, I really was wondering what happened to dot-com music company which has been inconsequential since the mid-90s. Oddly enough, I get home and see the Times reporting that Wal-Mart (!?) has bought some of Liquid Audio. Unbelievable.
In other Times-generated tech news, it looks like major-league baseball games will be streamed via Real this year.
The first words out of Nick Nolte's mouth in the trailer to the new Neil Jordan movie, The Good Thief, are "I've hit rock bottom. I have to change my ways." Coincidence?
Maxim is in trouble for depicting Gandhi getting the shit kicked out of him in a cartoon.
Interesting interview with Amazon's eDocs Director, Curtis Kopf, who off-handedly predicts that Amazon.com might one day sell subscriptions to websites or email newsletters.
Onion A.V. Club has a good interview with the Daily Show writers.
Garry Kasparov played his first public game against a computer in close to six years, and I didn't see any press about it. Chessbase.com has the play-by-play of him pummelling Deep Junior.
Q13-TV in Seattle featured Phillip Torrone commuting to work on his Segway. (Phillip works for Fallon, runs BookOfSeg.com, and is a wireless and Flash pioneer.)
Ever wondered what William Gibson thought about The Matrix? He liked it.
Raise your eyebrows fellow file-sharing music fans: Echo.com.
Thank god, I don't have to scrounge around in Usenet postings to figure out how to copy a DVD with my PC. DVD X Copy allows you to copy DVDs, which, I think, is a first for a software product.
New designer phone from Siemens.
Transcript of Sean Penn, Janeane Garofalo, and Howard Kurtz talking about Iraq.
Oh no, dear god, please don't make him cool. Justin Timberlake Jams With Flaming Lips.
Dave Barry officially gets a blog.
"I Want To Have Your Abortion," on the writing of Chuck Palahniuk.
On a random day here last year, you could find me saying "The Onion proper gets all the poppy press and gloppy glee, but from a pop-culture criticism point of view, The A.V. Club might honestly be the best alt-culture publication out there." The Rake is the first I've seen to also take notice.
The New Yorker has a funny piece on surfing with post-parole Mitnick.
I'll be playing the State of the Union Drinking Game tonight.
New York Times Book Review on William Gibson's new book, Pattern Recognition. Don't forget the blog.
The Times and Salon are both using pop culture as a metaphor for class structure. The Times chooses Maid in Manhattan and Salon nabs Joe Millionaire.
Ken Courtney is being sued for his "I Fucked Gisele" t-shirts.
Hewlitt-Packard ad with the Flaming Lips, Abe Vigoda, and Rachel Hunter. Also, the Gatorade 23 vs. 39 ad (and ESPN has a piece on how they made that ad).
Kylie Minogue is locomoting to the U.S. scene.
Fox Renews 'Simpsons' Through 2005.
Reason interviews Mickey Mouse on the Supreme Court ruling to extend the Sonny Bono Copyright Act of 1998.
SF Gate on the upcoming Jimmy Kimmell show.
Gawker gets drugged: The Quest For The Perfect Coke Dealer.
In this clever interview, hacker icon Kevin Mitnick talks about his guest appearance on Alias, his time in prison, and the the first website he'll visit when his three-year no-internet probation ends this month (LabMistress, his girlfriend's site).
Slate is having one of those week-long e-mail face-offs, this time under the topic Will the Internet Become a Significant Advertising Medium?
Did you know that Nick Hornby has adapted Eggers' Heartbreaking Work into a movie? Apparently this is old news, but I didn't know...
Excellent new Low video about crossing the border to "Canada".
Strange thing to see in the industry press: TV News In a Postmodern World.
Journalists discuss guilty pleasures.
Couple good Iraqi finds: Saddam's son's newspaper, which is full of propaganda. And a cool Iraqi blogger, which provides a great insider view to the daily life in Iraq.
There's a rumor that the new Massive Attack album is out there for download on this crazy little internet somewhere. I won't say where, but I gotta point you to the hard-to-find Todd Haynes Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story MPEGs. Illegal-Art.org has other amazing vids and audio.
TV news: WB has a reality show coming up that stars Corey Feldman, MC Hammer, Emmanuel Lewis, and Vince Neil. UPN isn't picking up Firefly. And WB is working on a commercial-free live variety show.
Microsoft gets into the watch market. Here's what they'll look like and here's what they'll do. Looks like it's time to retire my Diesel.
Incidentally, Some sort of new Diesel + Music thing that I don't get.
All the Britney gossip you could need in four simple paragraphs: she's hanging out with Vin Diesel, she's recording with Fred Durst, and she gets mobbed at the deli. Ahem, what is wrong with the state of music journalism?
There.com. For those still waiting for The Sims Online
Created by Kevin Spacey, Trigger Street allows independent filmmakers and screenwriters to upload movies and screenplays that get reviewed and critiqued by the others in the community. There's a festival going on right now which is judged by Mike Myers, Annette Bening, and Bono. The registration process is torturous, but inside are some hidden finds.
I'm looking for movie posters to decorate my house. I'm pretty sure I'll get something from this list of Egyptian Posters of American Movies.
Slate: Virginia Woolf Would Have Hated The Hours.
50 years ago, Beckett's Waiting for Godot debuted to much derision. The Guardian looks back: Godotmania.
The Matt Groening-curated 2002 L.A. All Tomorrow's Parties will include Boredoms, Breeders, Danielson Famile, Yo La Tengo, and more.
PBS's Media Matters site has launched. First episode is Jan. 16.
I was going to link to this story a couple weeks ago about an upcoming Andre Breton garage sale. But it's more interesting now that there's a protest.
Nice-Tits.org (not what you think).
The New Yorker and Slate are among those being prepped for the Tablet PC.
Odd? Norman Mailer in The American Conservative on "why he is a Left-Conservative."
We've tried everything else, so maybe porn can establish peace in the Middle East (don't worry, safe link).
Follow-up: Why I Turned Pepys' Diary Into a Weblog.
One of the geekiest things I've ever seen: Minneapolis Trekies have created an entire episode of Star Trek that looks remarkably like the original series.
Times: New York's Best Traffic Cop.
Advocate: Top 10 Gayest Moments on TV in 2002.
Metafilter has a post about Chuck's Times Mag piece comparing the deaths of Dee Dee Ramone and Robbin Crosby. I got plastered with Chuck three nights in a row last weekend and not once did we argue about the balance of populism and criticism, but he did say Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs, his next book, a series of essays about junk culture, will be out this summer.
Awesome. The Kill Bill site is up. For the forgetful, that's Tarantino's new movie. The trailer is wicked.
William Gibson's new book isn't out yet but you can get a reviewer copy on eBay for $100+.
Neat Slate.com photo-essay critiquing Target: Design Within Reach.
It-girl Barb Palser has a new AJR column about publishing transcripts of stories online.
Times: Questions for Frank Gehry.
Neal Pollack's Best Books of the Year is moderately funny.
Yah! Season Three of Buffy on DVD came out today. (UPDATE: Now wait one darn minute. Just 60 seconds ago it said "Available January 3," and now it says January 7. I even have a receipt saying it has been sent to me. I feel a tantrum of evil-Willow proportion coming on.)
Is everyone else watching VH1's I Love The '80s? I honestly hated the '80s, and I'm totally surprised how much I love this series.
Nick Denton has posted an opportunity for what must be somebody's dream job: erotic blogger. I can't imagine looking through those resumes. Maybe someone at MyMasturbation.com will apply.
Dan Gilmour's Tech Forecast for 2003 and Salon's Top 10 Technology Predictions for 2003.
Times: review of the new Microsoft Smart Display and how it isn't the Tablet PC.
I haven't browsed Google Catalogs for a while, but I just noticed they have a bunch of old Facets catalogs.
Matt of Metafilter has launched the site he's been talking about for years: Ticketstubs. The idea is that the material residue of an event is the stub, which coincides with a memory, both of which you can share on the site.
The City Pages "Artist of the Year" issues is always the best of its kind because it has no pretense to being comprehensive.
If you were planning to skip all the Top 10 lists this year, I ask you to try just this one: Smoking Gun's Favorite Mug Shots of 2002. My favorite will be the cover of my first novel.
The Nation asks Boots Riley of The Coup, Tom Morello of Rage, Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam, Amy Ray of the Indigo Girls, and Carrie Brownstein of Sleater-Kinney to talk about the tradition of protest music.
Schlotzsky's joins the wi-fi masses by adding free wireless.
I've been trying to convince people to stop capitalizing internet for a while. Pleased to see M.I.T. is on my side.
AdAge: The 20 Most Effective Ads Of 2002. (Toys R Us lands 3 of top 5.)
Flyguy -- is it a story? is it a game? -- is da bomb.
This year's Time Best And Worst includes a category for design, which I think is new, although comics is not.
The Diary of Samuel Pepys. If you need a refresher, the one at The New Yorker will help. See also: The Pepys Project.
A Collection of Word Oddities and Trivia, such as "The longest word with the five vowels in alphabetical order is PHRAGELLIORHYNCHUS".
Not sure what to make of NewsKnife yet.
Metropolis has finally posted their Fiction Issue. The idea is that writers create narratives around pieces of architecture. Includes stories by Kurt Andersen, Bruce Sterling, and Rick Moody.
The big Voice Film Critics Poll this year has this top 10:
I just took a look at last year's blog resolutions and it appears as though I did absolutely none of them in 2002. Except, perhaps, for "less talk, more rock."
I was recently thinking of giving Fimoculous a subtitle: not a media blog. It's a snarky attempt to differentiate myself from the spate of them lately. I was blogging before "blog" was a word, and as I see people turn their blogs into career moves, there has been a self-imposed pressure to turn Fimoc into a "new media" space. But, no, I remain committed to exposing arcane internet subcultures, musing on Tina Fey's eyeware, and blabbing about post-modern architectural theory, thereby guaranteeing that the 1,500 of you who come here every day doesn't turn into 15,000 and I don't start to take this too seriously. Populism be damned.
This is awesome. In a narrative much better than it sounds, Creative Commons uses the example of adding a bassist to the White Stripes as a metaphor for the internet and copyright.
It's funny how the mainstream press completely missed (or ignored) Trent Lott's racism the first time around, but they're absolutely not going to miss the story about bloggers bringin on the noise the second time. Here's one and another and another and another and another and another and.... And none of them see the irony of this.
Res finally has its Spike Jonze feature up. (The video collection isn't there, despite the promise of the print mag.) Spike also directed Ikea's new Unboring campaign (click on the tv).
More ads: Nike Bike Messenger series.
Post has a piece about the legal dangers of blogging at work.
Wired News adds its version of a "weird news" category (which are showing up on all news websites lately): Furthermore.
New Times multimedia: Envisioning Downtown.
Usually one of the best Year In Review pieces of the year (how's that for meta?), Salon's year in tech is ho-hum this year.
CyberJournalist: Top Online Journalism Stories of 2002.
Todd Haynes is working on a Dylan biopic, according to AICN.
The Beast: 2002 Most Loathsome People in America.
Pitchfork's Top 50 Albums and Tiny Mixed Tapes' Top 20 Albums of 2002.
Somewhere in the middle of 2.5 bottles of wine, I said "Al Gore is the Axl Rose of politics," so I knew it was time to stop. Let's get on with the links.
The past just won't die. New Mad Max? Rocky VI? Ugh.
Not exactly a sea change: limited-edition Beck iPod.
New DJ Shadow video for "Walkie Talkie".
McSweeney's is publishing the next William Vollman novel. Eggers is probably the only one who wouldn't force an edit down from six volumes and 3,500 pages.
Cronenberg's new movie: Spider. (The trailer.) The Guardian interviews him.
The Times Ethicist on Googling. New Yorker cartoon on "being Googled".
International Museum of Flight Attendant Uniforms.
Why Axl, why?
Post: 10 Critical Flaws.
...and the award for Biggest Zip File I've Downloaded this year goes to: Matrix Reloaded trailer. (Trust me, don't bother.)
If you're in the biz, you know that Reuters does some of the best infographics in the industry. Their hidden "pick of the week" graphic this week is an odd one, which is why I link to it: The Lord of the Rings Map.
For those who missed it, Firefly has been cancelled. Joss vents here.
Yeah, duh, I'll link to it. Times Mag Year In Ideas.
Yup. Entertainement Weekly Best And Worst of 2002.
Voice 25 Favorite Books of 2002.
City Pages becomes (I think) the first alt-weekly to add blogs.
For geeks, Slate.com has speculation about the desktop metaphor for computer operating system UIs dying.
The Times is late to the story about Aspen.
Google has added a couple new experimental "labs": Google Viewer | Google Webquotes.
I spent many hours this weekend making my own DVR (I don't want to buy a TiVo). After all the new software and two more PCI cards, I was almost there. Now I can't seem to find a codec that will play MPEG-2.
Strom Thurmond is 100. Here he is defending segregation (audio).
Preview to the new Gus Van Sant: Gerry. And a new John Cusack: Identity.
Stunning panorama shots.
New Extreme Stick Death (episode 9).
Phillip Torrone (of Fallon fame) has a new website dedicated to the Segway.
Okay profile of DigPen, a four-year accredited school for video game design.
While all the cool kidz are obsessing about obsession, you might want to check out the original New Yorker story that sparked the movie.
Law & Order: The Online Game.
Yahoo! Year In Review.
Hey, someone actually read and reviewed The Matrix and Philosophy.
CDnow.com, not really any longer.
Over the weekend, I started to watch my new-found favorite anime: Serial Experiments Lain. Skip Ghost in the Shell and head here for complex anime.
Gamespot has a lengthy Sims Online feature.
Forget everything I said before about the design fad, because the Times Magazine has a special issue this week: Design.
Interview with Mark Frauenfelder.
Wired: In Search of a Better MapQuest.
Transcript of Johnny Cash on Larry King.
This Metafilter thread on comedian David Cross, who has a new album out on Sub Pop, caused me to coin a totally new concept: grunge comedy.
I thought maybe the design craze was winding down, but then Donald Norman, Henry Petroski, and Michael Graves showed up on NPR.
The original Solaris is on TCM tonight, which is swell because now I don't have to buy the DVD. I enjoyed the remake, but Jonathan Rosenbaum trashed it. The Times review has the best sentence I've read so far: Retooled into a sleek pop fable that doesn't bother to connect all its dots, the movie aspires to fuse the mystical intellectual gamesmanship of "2001: A Space Odyssey" with the love-beyond-the-grave romantic schmaltz of "Titanic," without losing its cool. It's a tricky balancing act that doesn't quite come off.
I'm not working this week -- my first vacation since September 2001. What will I do with myself? Probably watch movies and play with FlashComm. Maybe buy an xBox. I'm such a nerd. But that also means it's a week of link crack:
A few weeks ago, I had dinner with Nathan Shedroff, one of the big voices behind the Experience Design movement (this interview is a good introduction). I enjoyed his book, but if I were to recommend one in the field, it would be Trains of Thought, which is a mix of cognitive psychology, structural thinking, and phenomenology. The experience designers have boldly attacked the field of information architecture, and a recent spat between Shedroff and a leading IA proponent is full of frisson. My take on this dispute is that it's exhilarating to finally witness something in this industry that actually gets people excited enough to use exclamation points.
This is cool. A Dutch film called Necrocam is available in entirety online. The website gives you the tone, but the Times article gives the context.
More on The Sims, this time from NY Times Mag. Same issue has a Steve Ballmer profile.
The new Tate Magazine has an interview with Matthew Barney.
Archive Your Life, brought to you by Microsoft.
I know, this is totally old news from last week, but I gotta get in the Ellen Fleiss interview somewhere. What a cool kid.
Nerve and Film Comment both have Parker Posey features this month. Nerve is more funny (Note: The word "indie" will not be used in the following introductory paragraphs about Parker Posey. When the word's usage cannot be avoided, a small picture of Jim Jarmusch will appear instead.) but Film Comment is more poignant (She played indie film itself in You've Got Mail and Scream 3. She was the pin puncturing the sentimental or idiotic, seemingly hell-bent on teaching those complacent big stars who surrounded her a thing or two about the value of irony.)
More dot.com destruction news. The once mighty Razorfish has been purchased by some design firm in Salt Lake City called SBI.
Finally, the Bush Twins can throw away their fake IDs.
Goodie. The Right is getting back into the cultural wars! Here's the Wall Street Journal's utterly petty attack on Kurt Cobain and here's The American Prospect's showing its contempt for Michael Moore.
If you're into chess, check out The Atlantic's recent article on Bobby Fisher's Endgame.
Terminator 3 site is up.
Darwin Mag has another Jeff Bezos interview.
Lou Reed's next album will consist entirely of Edgar Allan Poe's words.
The new Sonic Youth video for "The Empty Page" debuted on 120 Minutes tonight. I'm pretty sure the club scenes were filmed at the First Avenue show I was at a few months ago.
The lineup on the Discovery Channel tonight: 9:00, "Changing Sexes: Male to Female"; 10:00, "Big as Life: Obesity in America"; 11:00, "Dwarfs: Little People, Big Steps". Discover, fer sure.
Fimoc Band Name Of The Day: Anarchist Parent. They're the Sonic Youth that your big sister listened to.
Okay, I stole it. AnarchistParenting.com.
Proof that science fiction has a lot of catching up to do: the modern wedding portrait.
Uh-oh. The Justice Department is investigating the two big alt-weekly companies, Village Voice Media and New Times Media, for antitrust. (Can you imagine that sentence being written 30 years ago?)
Or how about this one: Army Dismisses Six Gay Arabic-Speaking Linguists.
I saw Far From Heaven over the weekend. It reminded me of this cool site: EphemeraNow.com. The ads are the best.
The Times notices BlackPeopleLoveUs.com.
I'm still not completely sold on Whedon's newest, Firefly, but I like the blog.
Ben Sherman has a new webiste. (If you know me in the physical world, you know I wear too many Ben Sherman shirts.)
If for some reason you want to read another Dave Eggers profile, The Guardian has one.
NY Times Mag interviews Dean Barkley, who is a senator from Minnesota for a couple weeks. "Running a car wash was probably the most difficult job I ever had in my life."
Spielberg is remaking Kurosawa's Ikura? I don't even understand this story. "It will be the third Kurosawa film to be remade after The Seven Samurai and High And Low." Huh? When? What?
Pitchfork posted 50 of its top 100 albums of the '80s. The other 50 arrive tomorrow.
Today's theme: The Past And The Future.
I come from a family of bankers, so some of my most vivid childhood memories are centered on financial activities in the bank -- watching the check-sorting machine, learning to count change before anyone in second grade, investigating the secret compartments of the vault. So photographer Arthur Levine's collection of photographs for Chase Manhattan Bank is like trip down financial memory lane.
Between the new BMW film, the Foxlight short films series, and the local documentary festival going on this weekend, I'm not sure I'll ever watch a full-length movie again.
The "new" Rolling Stone might surprise us yet. The most recent cover is The Simpson's, and there's even a link to the 1990 Bart cover story which as a midwestern high-schooler I recall reading in a B. Dalton checkout lane.
The Times: Edgard Allan Poe was a cosmological genius.
How retro. GNR fans riot.
I've been thinking about getting one of those new Tablet PCs just to play around with it. C|Net reviews the whole new lot.
The entire video of the blogs-as-media summit at Berkeley, which received a lot of press a few months ago.
Full Solaris trailer.
Nokia's new game phone.
Tetris championship MPEG (large download).
I'm back again. Paul's death rattled me. Thank you, Paul, for being the most human politician of our times. (Cursor has all the reading material, if you need to catch up.)
I finally saw Bowling for Columbine last night. The best part is the critique of fear culture. Anyway, an hour later I found this site by accident.
I just give the headlines, you make up your own mind whether to gasp: Mariah Carey Covers Def Leppard On New Album.
IGN has the actual full cursed video from The Ring that causes death. Looks like Buñuel's senior thesis.
I met a couple local bloggers over the weekend: Incoming Signals and Blogumentary. Good stuff. And for those who keep up with their blog brethren: Anil chooses life, and Arts & Letters Daily is back from the dead, Dack has gone back to the future.
City Pages looks at the the Lizzie Borden porn oeuvre, which Salon and PBS's Frontline chirped about a few months ago. Apparently, Lizzie is popular enough to be in the Top 10.
The Times has its way with Grand Theft Auto.
Things overheard at the STD clinic.
The Solaris remake website has launched.
The text archive, textZ has relaunched. 677 experimental, avant-garde, and theory-driven texts.
I missed this story from last week: North Dakota is considering paying college grads $10,000 to stay in the state for five years after graduating.
I received my very first PayPal donation today. Thanks Waxy! If you feel like contributing to the cause that is Fimoculous, here are your options.
120 Minutes (Sundays on MTV2) played the new "You Know You're Right" Nirvana video last night. It was a boring montage of Kurt photos, but I think they were being cheeky by following it up with an old Vines video. Oh yeah, The Guardian somehow scored the rights to print the Cobain Diaries. Lots of stuff there.
It's "likely" that I become a millionaire. How about you?
I was looking around a few nights ago for a good subscription online video source. I like my new Vaio so much I thought about watching whole movies on it. Intertainer seemed to be the placed to go. Well, good thing I didn't subscribe.
NY Times Review of Books disses the new Umberto Eco novel.
Powerpoint Anthology of Literature.
The Japanese Apple Switch Campaign proves bodily language and Microsoft distrust are universal.
Boing Boing has a link to a surreal Urdu advert implicating Coke as "drinking the blood of martyred Palestinians."
New unreleased Morrissey songs.
Coming out on DVD tomorrow: Pavement's Slow Century and Jarmusch's Down By Law.
Buffy postage stamp from Altay on eBay.
Radio K is one of the crowned jewels of Twin Cities music -- esteemed next to the Replacements and that purple guy. For as long as they've been on the dial, there has been the rumor that there was an FM signal on the way. And it looks like there finally will be. Well, sorta.
NPR has a History of Breakdancing.
When testing a new online application on various devices, I commonly make the joke at work "yeah, but does it work on my fucking refrigerator?" Looking at the refrigerator of the future, I guess it won't be a joke in too much longer. ("You expect me to user-test that?")
I'm not sure why Slate.com thinks celebrating Miles Davis' late period is unique (everyone except Stanley Crouch has been doing that for a half-decade), but they do. Still, I doubt I'll fork out $250 for the 20-CD box set.
Ball State has a theatrical production about Lizzy Borden in which you vote for the outcome with a wireless e-book given to you when you enter. You also use it to research background of the play during the play.
Facets, the best VHS/DVD source in the world, has redesigned their website. It needed it.
Overly-long article about Ikea from Business 2.0.
Times photo-sound-essay of the Strokes.
So fucking good. The Onion asks a bunch of people Is There A God? Includes answers from Conan, Bill Mahar, Michael Moore, Laurie Anderson, David Byrne, Chuck Palahniuk, and many more.
Fugazi gives the first mainstream press interview I've ever seen. Choosing the Washington Post to allow this to happen is interesting. Ian MacKaye even provides a list of his Top 10 Songs Of All Time, which is completely odd:
I went to high school outside Bismark, ND, and I can tell you no one ever played "Slip". Maybe if more parents used Pomals this wouldn't happen.
Stephen Ambrose has died.
Nerve has an interview with Irvine Welsh about his new book, Porno.
There have been some rumors that Apple will be releasing its own phone-pda soon. Not that this substantiates those rumors but at this moment, if you got to iphone.org, you'll see apple.com.
A.S. Byatt asks what constitutes a European identity? in The Times.
Ron Rosenbaum flees a peace demonstration in Central Park.
Just one more Times link: a profile of the Slashdot gang. You might expect to get one of those cool inside looks at the making of medium (there are a quite a few Onion articles like that), but you'll find this one sadly gives little inside insight.
Times op-ed: Think You Have a Book in You? Think Again.
More Buffy stuff: The Door Theologian of the Year. And season three on DVD finally has a release date: Jan. 7, 2003.
Should the media refer to Iraqi president as 'Saddam' or 'Hussein'?
Yikes, the Times Mag is gonna run a 68-page bank ad next week.
Pretend it's Friday, and spend your afternoon with the Theban Mapping Project.
Or just Hold The Button.
Abbas Kiarostami denied U.S. visa to attend New York Film Festival and speak at Harvard.
Times Mag interviews Chuck Palahniuk
Christopher Hitchens' final Minority Report column for The Nation.
Time has a long biography of John Walker Lindh.
NPR has a long Peter Gabriel interview.
L.A. Weekly jumps on the wireless broadband bandwagon.
I dropped $2G on a new Sony Vaio today. This means I'll probably be in hiding for a while.
Is this becoming a Beck blog? Anyway, he's on Leno tonight.
Slate writes about the new Ikea ad.
I missed Buffy last night. My stupid VCR recorded the History channel instead of UPN. Is it trying to tell me something? Yourish has the blog roundup.
Voice: Haruki Murakami vs. the End of the World
Metafilter has a post on Nawal El Saadawi, which is worth a look if you're unfamiliar with her.
For local yokels, Dara looks at Minneapolis' sweet sushi scene.
The 2002 MacArthur Fellowships were just announced. If you happen to get one, you get $500,000 over five years. The only names I recognize are Katherine Boo and Colson Whitehead.
Jonathan Franzen interviewed in The New Yorker. Also, long Zacarias Moussaoui piece.
NY Times: Science's 10 Most Beautiful Experiments
New Nirvana album will actually be released.
GoogleNews has redesigned. Footers on pages say "This page was generated entirely by computer algorithms without human editors. No humans were harmed or even used in the creation of this page."
The very popular link Things My Girlfriend and I Have Argued About has been turned into a novel.
Time has a pretty good Tarantino story, looking at his upcoming film Kill Bill.
Salon has a piece about big-name genre writers like Michael Chabon, Neil Gaiman, Carl Hiaasen and Isabel Allende who are also doing children's lit.
The guy who made rock criticism relevant in the sociological sense, Simon Frith is interviewed over at RockCritics.com.
Times Mag has Emily Nussbaum profile Joss Whedon. (Tidbit: Whedon's "big break" was as a Roseanne writer, and also script-doctored Toy Story and Waterworld.)
There's also an interview with Garry Kasparov.
Onion A/V: Sarah Vowell interview. Meanwhile, blogger Dawn Olsen has a Neal Pollack interview.
Jeanette Winterson on 007. She says James Bond is a girl.
Hurry, hurry, get there. Analogue Roam has some new Radiohead tracks.
Yope, I scored smack Beck/Flaming Lips tix this morn. Emmanuelle interviewed him recently and has a tidbit about the indie prince: he's now a scientologist. I'm not sure what to do with this scrap of knowledge. I'm just shrugging now.
"Badass" and "Ass-Backwards" make the OED.
Waxy.org has a post about Eggers' 826 Valencia, which I've been wondering about. Every issue of Might on sale for $10? Dude, I'm so there. I lost everything I owned in a fire in '97, and the Might collection is currently #6 on the list of things I'd like to have back. (Some things that beat it: every Beatles album on original vinyl and a crappy novel.)
E! interviews Tina Fey, plus a short video clip of her talking about being given the head writer slot on SNL.
Push, NV premiers tonight. The Push Times is a fake newspaper for the titular city, complete with fake skyscraper ads that go to the Push Toyota dealer website. This is gonna be fun... (NYTimes story.)
Koyaanisqatsi and Powaqqatsi are released on DVD today. The final film in the trilogy, Naqoyqatsi, opens in theaters Oct. 18.
I missed this one on 9/11, but I luv it: A modest proposal to change the national anthem to Curtis Mayfield's "Don't Worry (If There's a Hell Below We're All Going To Go)."
Margaret Atwood reviews Ursula Le Guin's new story collection: "She demonstrates once again why she is the reigning queen of... but immediately we come to a difficulty, for what is the fitting name of her kingdom?"
All the bigshots are in Berkeley today.
Online Journalism Awards Finalists announced.
Pst, Morrissey's back.
When I Grow Up (video).
Gwyneth Paltrow to play Sylvia Plath in new biopic.
Netanyahu: U.S. should attack Iran with Melrose Place and Beverly Hills 90210.
New trailer: Paul Thomas Anderson's Punch-Drunk Love (with Adam Sandler and Emily Watson).
Probably the best example of blogs as an effective medium for journalism (a phrase I've been known to cringe at) is In Search Of Al Queda, from PBS's Frontline. It's halfway into a two-month journey through the Near East. Currently, they're in Pakistan.
Fortune: 40 Richest People Under 40. Eight of the top 10 are internet/software people, and the other two are sports-related. (Master P and P. Diddy are the first entertainers on the list, at 11 and 12.)
New ads in the Apple Switch campaign. Janie Porche saved Christmas.
That Cobain house on eBay is up to $210,000.
Chuck has a long Billy Joel profile in the NY Times Mag. In college, Chuck used to try to convince me that Billy Joel was brilliant. This was hard for me to handle.
The print issue of Wired has a story about the unwired campus of Dartmouth.
I've been there.
Literary theoreticians take on The Sopranos.
The Shortlist Organization is a yearly prize created to "expose and illuminate the most creative and adventurous albums of the year." The ten finalists have just been announced: Aphex Twin's Drukqs, The Avalanches' Since I Left You, Bjork's Vespertine, Cee-Lo's Cee-Lo Green and His Perfect Imperfections, DJ Shadow's The Private Press, Doves' Last Broadcast, The Flaming Lips' Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots, The Hives' Veni Vidi Vicious, N*E*R*D's In Search Of..., and Zero 7's Simple Things. (Here was the longlist.)
Robert Pinsky 9/11 poem.
A few months ago, I was at a conference with Sue Johnson from 360degrees.org / PictureProjects. She was just getting started on a new project, an online audio 9/11 memorial for NPR. We had a nice chat about online audio/visual techniques, and her project is now available: The Sonic Memorial Project. The Sonic Browser is probably the most innovative part.
More 9/11: Walter Kirn reviews all those books you've seen, and makes sure to slam Baudrillard and Harlan Ellison along the way.
Ad Age magazine ran a poll a couple weeks ago about fashion, food, and technology preferences among ad people. The results. (See also on Ad Age: Aeropostale's music-video-length advertisement shown on MTV [video].)
Two good McSweeney's lists this week: Crayola Crayons Included in Its New Hollywood Box and Vocabulary Words We Learned by Playing Dungeons & Dragons.
I really don't talk about The Onion A.V. Club enough. The Onion proper gets all the poppy press and gloppy glee, but from a pop-culture criticism point of view, The A.V. Club might honestly be the best alt-culture publication out there (oftentimes better than Village Voice, Spin, and City Pages.) Just a sample: this week The A.V. Club reviews commentary tracks on DVDs.
Hard-to-find Tarkovsky diploma film: The Steamroller and the Violin. It's 43 minutes long, and some consider it Tarkovsky's greatest work (and, unquestionably, his shortest). It occurs to me that it would be cool to create a DVD titled The Senior Thesis Projects Of The Great Directors. Get the first works from Scorsese, Lynch, Wilder, Spielberg, Greenaway, Allen, Kiarostami, Kar-Wai and whoever else all on one DVD set.
I wonder who thought up the action-adventure sci-fi flick based the idea that apocalypse is eminent because the earth's core has stopped rotating: The Core, starring Hillary Swank. And I thought the wayward asteroid was a stretch.
I'm very excited. I just got June Panic's new album in the mail. (Previously: college friends who've punched me.)
According to the Sun Times in New Zealand (you can figure out how valid that makes it), Britney Loves Lesbian Porn. (I'm a little embarrassed to link to that, but I'm telling myself it's really an investigation into tabloid journalism and not another damn Britney link.)
The Guardian has an excerpt of the new Zadie Smith novel, The Autograph Man. And an interview.
Sunday Times Mag has a huge spread on the Twin Towers. You can spend all afternoon there.
The L.A. Times almost flatly says Biggie paid for Tupac's murder. Good long-form investigative journalism. Spend your evening there.
New Almodovar flick.
New Stereolab site.
I haven't talked too much about it here, but the "new" Rolling Stone has been the lips of most people I hang with lately. The new editor, Ed Needham formerly at FHM, has been getting slammed by most industry press, almost as much as that dumb Maxim guy. Anyway, John Scalzi has an interesting critique of the new RS.
Times op-ed declares settling the Great Plains one of America's biggest mistakes. "In North Dakota, 47 of 53 counties lost population, and at this rate it'll eventually have to merge again with South Dakota to create a single state of Dakota."
Slate reviews chain restaurants (Cheesecake Factory, Outback Steakhouse, Olive Garden, P.F. Chang's, Wolfgang Puck Café, and Chevy's).
Super deal on the Pocket PC Phone at Amazon.com. And Nokia has announced a new camera phone.
Sullivan replies: "Hi Kurtie, Does anyone ever call you Kurtie? I assume not."
Absolutely excellent: Classic Video Game TV Commercials. Nothing will take you back like 1983's Mario Bros and 1981's Discover Atari and 1982's ET Christmas Atari.
Will Self thinks John Gray is a genius.
Parody: GroundZeroThemePark.com
Cultural Maps in American Studies. "Cultural Maps is dedicated to the graphical presentation of non-graphical information -- whatever that turns out to mean."
Anthony Lane, the movie critic for the New Yorker, has a new book out: Nobody's Perfect. The Times' Laura Miller reviews it.
Andrew Sullivan and Kurt Andersen go head-to-head over the nature of blogging. Sullivan: "The one wonderful thing about blogging from your laptop is that you don't have to deal with other people. You can broadcast alienated, disembodied, disassociated murmurings into a people-free void. You don't have to run something past an editor, or frame your argument to an established group of subscribers. You just say what the hell you want." Andersen: "Too many bloggers remind me of Dennis Millers manqué or the comic-book store owner on The Simpsons... combined, in the Rebecca Bloods of the world, with Mr. Van Driessen, Beavis and Butt-head's hippie teacher. In other words, passionate and smart but also irritating and smug and faintly, inescapably sad."
Speaking of blogs, BloggingNetwork is one damn stupid idea. Basically, it's a subscription model for reading your favorite blogs -- $3/month.
Josh gets cred for both of today's links. Josh is attending architecture school in upstate New York right now, and I'm jealous as sin.
Although it seemed to have the potential of being a hoax on scale with the Sokal, Derrida, the movie, is apparently real. Festival notes from SF and Sundance point to the philosopher's earlier work, and the film as a legit human portrait. Watch a clip or a Sundance preview (large downloads). I just found an Elvis Mitchell Times review from January. How the hell did I miss this? (More reviews here.)
I know, Onion links are gauche, but this one has "regional significance": Stoner Architect Drafts All-Foyer Mansion.
Layne has a killer assessment of American Psycho today. The trajectory of my relationship to Ellis is the opposite. I first found his book perfectly representative of the 80s, and then later I sadly realized that it was perfectly representative of the 80s.
Holy Cow! Hindus Eat Meat.
Are You A Living Computer Simulation? --Nick Bostrom, Department of Philosophy, Yale University.
Take the Google Quiz!
Sigur Ros' next album: ..
Have a special song that you're absolutely certain contains hidden knowledge which only you are privy to? Then go to SongMeanings.net and spill the truth. Picking out some groups randomly, here's Beck, Wilco, Sonic Youth. The place is full of meaningless comments, but also some great one's such as a post about Nirvana's "About A Girl" where one person postulates the song is... about a girl.
Where were you when I needed you? DrugTestHelp.com.
The best news I've heard in a long time: Lingua Franca might return.
Drudge: future of MSNBC in doubt.
When Steve Jobs came back to Apple, one of the first things he tried to do was buy Palm. Now, not only does he think the PDA will disappear (usurpsed by the smart phone), but he just might be getting ready to release an iPhone.
Leonard Nimoy singing The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins (qt video).
Japander: n.,& v.t. 1. a western star who uses his or her fame to make large sums of money in a short time by advertising products in Japan that they would probably never use. ~er (see synecure, prostitute) 2. to make an ass of oneself in Japanese media. I recommend The Simpsons, Winona, Nic Cage, and Dennis Hopper.
Another great new McSweeney's list: Local TV Weatherman or Porn Actor?
There was a lot of talk last week about the new blog Gizmodos, mainly because someone (writer Pete Rojas) is getting paid to blog. (Megnut also has a new column on Blogging for Dollars.) Anyway, today it pointed me to these new gadgets: Sharp's Portable Video Player and Mitsubishi's Pocket PC Phone.
Spectacular trailer for Naqoyqatsi.
The Ring, starring Namomi Watts (Mulholland Drive), looks promising. (Trailer.)
There goes the neighborhood. blogs4God: Semi-Definitive List of Christian Blogs.
New DeLillo short story and a Murakami excerpt.
I've never heard of genre writer Harry Stephen Keeler, "the Ed Wood of Mystery Writers," but this page makes me very interested. There's even a Harry Stephen Keeler Society. (Thanks Mefi.)
It's Duchamp for Dummies (redundant?), but Making Sense of Marcel Duchamp is still neat.
One year ago today at Fimoculous: Scary Politics.
If you know David Sedaris, you know his redneck brother, The Rooster. Some Rooster news for you: he just got married, he has his own hardwood floor company, and he's selling You Can't Kill The Rooster T-shirts.
Potentially great news: This American Life stories might be made into movies.
NY Times Magazine interviews Jesse Ventura, and is the first to discover why he's not running again: the pay sucks (the last question).
The French, they have a word for everything, even if you have to spell it backwards. Verlan is a popular slang in which standard French spellings or syllables are reversed or recombined, or both.
To accompany this week's Food Issue of the New Yorker, the website has dragged out some classic food articles, including Lillian Ross' 1945 piece on the first frozen dinners, Rex Lardner's 1950 ode to flipping pancakes, and Nora Ephron's 1997 tribute to the doughnut.
Sunday Music Supplement:
Liza Richardson is the Music Director at KCRW and she's in the Apple Switch campaign.
Beck has officially told MTV that The Flaming Lips will become his backing band on tour. Also, be sure to listen to KCRW's Morning Becomes Eclectic interview and peformance with The Lips.
The Nation has more predictable Dylan reflections.
Neil Strauss on the Rise and Fall of the Backstreet Boys.
Review of Autechre's Gantz Graf EP.
There's a scene in High Fidelity (the movie) in which John Cusack's character is in bed with his girlfriend, who will later hook up the guy who lives upstairs. The girlfriend is seen reading Love Thy Neighbor, a book by Peter Maass who has a blog where today he explains how his book ended up in the movie.
One year ago today, I wrote a piece about how my media reading/purchasing habits have changed. Today, I'm reflecting on how my blogging habits have changed. When I started this site, the purpose was simply to give me a place to post projects that I'm working on: a personality blog. It quickly changed to things I've been thinking about: a media commentary blog. Most recently, it changed to being predominantly about places I surf: a link blog. I'm not sure how I feel about this transformation, but the way it has changed has never been consciously calculated. With the surfeit of opinion-makers out there, I became less interested in writing about anything. But I worry the place has lost its personality -- links can only say so much about a person, right? Or maybe not. On with this links:
It sounds like the authors of The Rules for Online Dating just don't get it. Example quote: "[Instant Messaging is] like a free date, which we don't allow. We want men to court us, to ask us out in advance."
The Times asks: Does Architecture Have Ideology? Looks at a planned exhibition and catalogue of occupation architecture in Palestine.
Hearing Is Believing. This piece from Newsweek is a week old, but I just stumbled across it. Woody Norris, an inventor based in San Diego, has developed an audio technology that can throw sound 100 yards to a single person -- and only that person will hear the sound. The implications are immense, but the article references what I immediately thought of: using it in clubs. (I know, how un-inspired.) Popular Mechanics also has a cover story refering to a different invention of his: personal flight devices.
The new PC Mag tries to out-wire Wired with a large set of stories on The Future of Technology. The section titled The Future in Gear will probably tantalize you the most.
When did I become a technophile? I'm thinking about buying a ReplayTV 4500 just cuz I can hook it up to the internet (anything with a internet connection = good). But becuz I can hook it up to the internet, not only can I program it remotely, but I can go to PlanetReplay and download episodes of Sex and the City from other ReplayTV users. So there. I'm not a technophile -- it's really still about cultcha. Or, well, sex.
Excellent McSweeney's list: Lessons Learned from My Study of Literature.
Two new neat blogs: Don't Link To Us!, a blog about stupid linking policies. The Trademark Blog, about the world of trademark protection.
I wish I had the idea to make a music video that was really an infographic.
The Chronicle of Higher Education has a pretty dull story about the shared history of punk and the academe.
Before you click, just think to yourself, "What would Adam Sandler's website look like?" Okay, now click.
Salon does its homework and collects some astoundingly bad domain names that were forged at the height of dot-com-stupidity. But of course the question is: how much longer until Salon.com joins 'em?
Pure geek: the new WC3 specs for XHTML 2.0 are out. As you were...
Some teases of next season's Buffy.
The Times and Herbert Muschamp are preparing their vision of the future of Ground Zero.
I refuse to link to any Bruce Springsteen reviews.
The Alphabet Synthesis Machine is an interactive software artwork which allows its users to breed and explore the abstract and evocative forms of personalized "nonsense alphabets" - coherent sets of abstract, glyphlike forms which might resemble the plausible writing systems of alien civilizations or unfamiliar human societies.
The New Yorker has an online-only interview with Dave Eggers on his new book.
New Arthur Miller play debuts right here in Minneapolis.
Roundtable discussion that includes Phillip Glass and DJ Spooky.
Oubapo is to comics what Oulipo is to literature.
Ethan Hawke, author, interview.
Looks like Spin has handed over its website to Yahoo. Here's Chuck's piece from last month about Morrissey-lovers. This month, Chuck practically is the magazine, with about 20 pages of his musings about heavy metal.
It's Like a Movie, but It's Not. This is one of the most culturally-aware pieces I've ever read in the Times. Here's a paragraph about "the illusion of entertainment":
In mathematics there is something called a derivative an expression that stands for another set of expressions. The illusion of entertainment is a kind of cultural derivative. You watch most television sitcoms and, just by the rhythm of the banter and the laugh track, you know how you are supposed to respond, whether the jokes are funny or not. Sitcom writers call this "likeajoke" because it has the form of a joke without the content. Or you go to a big commercial movie, and just by experiencing the rapid cutting and thumping music you know how you are supposed to respond, whether the action engages you or not.
A geek's heaven: The Ladies Of Star Trek. Is that Bjork?
The Times has a story about the Center for Strategic and International Studies study that invokes Buffy. In other Buffy news, did you know that Anthony Stewart Head (the guy who plays Giles) has an electronic album out? It's #12 on the Amazon.com Electonica Best-Sellers list.
More digi-art: Mark Amerika's FilmText. And since we're in the mood: Katuso and Life Is Simple.
I'm not exactly sure what Disciple Films is, but it contains some interesting projects.
Taboo Surfing: Click Here for Iran... ...And Click Here for China.
The news that MSNBC.com is discontinuing its discussion boards and replacing them with blogs is a big deal in my industry. If you care about that kind of thing, you might care about the pressure MSNBC is getting to change to be more like MSN.
The place to be seen in NYC: Michael's.
Too much linking to the Times today, but this story about the malleability of a pop star is just too good.
I guess it was bound to happen sometime. William Safire on "blog."
I've seen a few sites linking to Behind The Typeface: Cooper Black, an ode to the typeface. I finally watched it today, and found it wonderfully funny. (See also: The Scourge of Arial and Typography Timeline.)
Times Mag profiles a movie trailer director. Additionally, the guy who created Napster is interviewed, with some good questions like "Do you ever buy music?"
Orrin Hatch, composer.
Once a publishing heir apparent, Ziff-Davis might file for bankruptcy.
Part of the miraculously uninspired Block E expansion in downtown Minneapolis will be a Le Meridien Art + Tech hotel. If you're the kind of person who is wowie-zowied by plasma screens, backlit photos, and personalized linen, then this is the place for you. If you're more into public simulated entertainment, Block E will also house GameWorks, an entertainment plex built by Sega. Ho-hum.
A certain Ms. Barbara Palser has taken to writing about blogs too. (Somewhere in the distant past, a certain boy in the midwest promised to design/build a blog for her. Soon, soon.)
Buffy 'Burb is a page that sorts bloggers by who their favorite Buffy character is. I'm here. Also, Whedon-esque is a new blog for die-hard Buffy fans.
Amazon's new SOAP API allows you to create your own Amazon applications, such as this Googlish one. When I try to explain to newbies why XML matters, the development of these types of applications is going to become my de facto example. (This item has been ripped off nearly word-for-word from Metafilter.)
If the Times is right, Diesel has my buying habits pegged.
This might be cooler than the day that I learned Mathew Barney and Bjork were having a kid: Wong Kar-Wai directs DJ Shadow video.
While we're at it, here's an interview with Traktor, the people behind those ESPN ads, Fatboy Slim's "Ya Mama" video, and Basement Jaxx's "Where's Your Head At?" video.
Hmmm, curious: blogs.salon.com.
Wired News profiles Karin Spitzer of No-Time.
Scoobie Davis media pranks Ann Coulter.
Coming soon: SMS TV.
Blasphemy! The Voice slags Sonic Youth.
Forbes maps the billionaires.
NoMoreEnrons.com has a movie that explains it all.
The hardest game ever. (But, yes, there is a way to win.)
The Times looks at the new Metroplis.
Slate.com has a great piece on cool Japanese products you can't have. But rather than just turn on the envy machine, it also points you to Dynamism.com, a site that apparently buys those cool gadgets wholesale, retrofits them with American stuff, and then sells them to you at a 30 percent markup. Tell me you don't want a Sony Vaio GT3/K or a SpyZ camera, both only available in Japan or through Dynamism.com.
In honor of National Vegetarian Week, the NY Post has an article full of anti-vegetarian propaganda. The source is this week's cover story at TIME, which has its own tempered propaganda. Also, the New York Times Magazine has a gigantic piece about new findings in the fat vs carb debate. And while you're feeling healthy, why don't you go take the vegetables quiz.
The best part about this roundup of last night's Letterman-Kopple tête-à-tête is that "Style Columnist" Tom Shales refers to Jimmy Kimmel as "whoever the heck that is."
Big news in my work-play world today. Macromedia has finally released the Flash Communications Server, which is really gonna shake things up. I'm busy playing with it.
Looks like the MeetUp phenom is picking up. Locally, we have the expected SlashDot and MetaFilter MeetUps, but there's also Ex-Jehovah's Witnesses, Nanotech, and Russell Crowe MeetUps in the works.
In other local news, Fast Company magazine has a big profile of post-flood/fire Grand Forks. Since my exuent from the region, I've been interviewed about the flood/fire by three radio shows, four newspaper reporters, one magazine reporter, two book writers, and one tv documentarian. Thankfully, Fast Company didn't find me, cuz I have nothing left to say. Despite the fawning tone, I'm in agreement with the angle of the article: the region has rebounded in a unique and surprising way. And it also reminded me of this single fact: the city evacuation was the single biggest in American history in the last century.
Here's an odd little thing coming to town in October: McSweeney's vs. They Might Be Giants. This must be the first time something has been billed "the live version of the journal." Dave Eggers apparently reads a piece, and then the band does a song.
The Times takes Sonic Youth's new album for a tour. These audio reviews are a good direction for the site. They're easy to produce and expand their reach beyond the printed product. Previous ones have included Weezer, DJ Shadow, and Wilco.
The creator of ALICE Bot is a bipolar smarty with a restraining order barring him from setting foot at Berkeley and a medical marijuana prescription. NY Times Mag profiles him. It has great ruminations on the philosophy of language and the nature of creativity. Plus, it gives me another chance to link to my invention, the robot-to-robot communication device (which is still in beta, cuz I'm busy lately).
Even if you don't live in duh twin cities, you should still read at least the first few paragraphs to Dara's review of the new destination food spot in town: Rock Star. Dining as social critique is seldom better.
Be cooler than your friends: buy Christopher Walken's suit from the movie Suicide Kings. I would be the envy of all the hipsters at Chino Latino if I had that.
Uh, like, hello, wired or tired? I'm not sure why Hot Or Not is suddenly hip again, but this week The New Yorker and the San Fran Metro both published profiles of the founders.
Whosy? Whatsy? Matt Groening is gonna curate All Tommorrow's Parties 2003? Weird. I mean, cool. But weird. Of course he's an unrecognized genius. (I know, that's a pretty poor excuse to link to that. I'll try harder next time.)
Those people who use the words "journalist" and "blog" in the same sentence are mourning the demise of Ken Layne's blog. His sidekick-in-industry-exposure, Matt Welch, is also taking a leave of absence. Now if we can knock off Talking Points and InstaPundit and Andrew Sullivan, maybe we'll never see another article about blogging versus journalism. (God, I'm gonna get in so much trouble for saying that. Let the email begin!)
TiVo meets Xbox: Take a video game console and mix it with a digital video recorder, and whatchya got?
Want a headache? Read this story from the Times about a mathematical conumdrum known as the Riemann hypothesis (let's call it "The New Fermat").
Slate.com takes on worldwide Barbie, with surprising results.
The magazine Yahoo Internet Life is dead. A few years ago, I was editing a competitor to YIL. We lost the battle, but we all lost the war.
Just when you thought you needn't read another Minority Report review, The Voice wraps six point-counter-points into one piece. (Also, Christgau on Tom Waits.)
Minority Report was good, not great. It will fall some near the bottom of the "Top 10 Movies of 2002" list. It could have been great if Spielberg could figure out how to end a movie. I really don't understand his problem -- at the end of A.I. he self-destructed with at least five different places where it seemed like a good place finish. But he keeps sprawling, unable to tie all the piecees together in the end. He's a walking shaggy dog story. The best part: the ads. The problem is that this kind of advertising saturation is fine for a dystopian future in which personalization will kill us all. But I don't really want it to be a trend.
BuddyHead.com is full of musical oddities like Vincent Gallo interviewing himself (which was supposed to appear in the defunct Beastie Boys mag Grand Royal) and insane Fred Durst and Slayer interviews. The music reviews use an "Axl Rose" rating system. In what be the coolest prank of the decade, the proprietors also once stole three Fred Durst baseball caps and sold them on eBay, with proceeds going to a rape counseling organization.
What the hell? Why is it that on an average Wednesday evening in July these three events are all happening at the same time: Minnesota Blogger Meetup, Mum at the Women's Club, DJ Spooky at First Ave.
Syracuse is planning to build a mall bigger than the one next to here.
In The Voice: Chuck reviews Linus of Hollywood and Matos reviews Slug.
Two flash-based NYC things to ponder AroundGroundZero.net | WTC2002.
If you were looking for one picture that defines this decade, I'd vote for this one.
I'm still geeking out with the Nokia. I'm impressed with the processor speed (which handles the Gorillaz video fine), and on top of everything else, I have it playing MP3s now. Up next: reading a book on it. I may never need human contact again.
The saga of Movie88.com/Film88.com has been fascinating to watch. After a tour through Tehran, the newest development of global-political intrigue sees the Netherlands getting involved and shutting down the site.
Gimme! Naked People Clothes.
The 2002 Sci-Tech Web Awards from Scientific American.
Three of the 10 biggest films of all time are in theaters right now.
This World Cup application is a really good example of when Flash can display information better than HTML.
Geeky and urban at the same time: Build Your Own Cityscape.
Cheap Hotels from Taschen Books looks like it might be my kind of coffee table book.
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is 30 years old. An interview with Hunter.
After a hundred attempts by the mainstream press -- and trust me, I've read them all -- someone has finally written the piece about blogs that actually gets close to the tension of the community: A Rift Among Bloggers. (Metafilter nation is slamming it though.) Waaaaaay too many journalists think InstaPundit.com is the paradigm-defining moment, and waaaaaay too many bloggers think Kottke.org is. I'm probably more sympathetic to the latter group -- these late-to-the-scene journalists remind me of 1991, when suddently everyone was suddenly donning flannels, listening to Nirvana, and doing their best to fit in with the culture. I guess I'm claiming to be the Black Flag of blogging.
My first official summer activity: went to the Farmer's Market today with mom.
The wonderful Mirror Project is one year old. Fimoculous has a birthday in a week too.
The National Trust Historical Preservation 11 Most Endangered Historic Places now includes The Guthrie. That's bad news for The Walker.
NYC Flash Forward 2002 finalists announced. I spent the last two hours perusing those sites.
Is Russ Meyer, "the closest thing America has produced to Rabelais," really an artist?
Yahoo is going to redesign its front page to become more advertiser-friendly. Great screengrab of Yahoo's first homepage (wow, remember that?).
Sunday Times Mag has the theme of Money this week. There is the success story about Advanced Book Exchange and the non-success story of eToys.com. There's also a slideshow that looks at seven families who have nearly the exact median income of an America household ($54,400). Of course it must contain the proverbial family from Fargo.
I've been slow in posting lately. I think I've been too absorbed in the trial of the century. The Winona case, of course.
That new Nokia finally came. But when I called my wireless provider to get it switched over, they said "we don't support that phone." Great. Now I might send it back. Anyway, I played with it all night and discovered it is all these things:
CoolTown.com, from Hewlett-Packard, is an imaginary space where all the above devices and more are avaialable all the time, everywhere. This video is the best explanation of this "utopian" wireless space and this FAQ shows their vision of a mobile future.
The big newspaper in Beijing accidentally ran a story from The Onion as fact.
The future of the Scanning Your Own Groceries with an interactive graphic. This really ruins The Replacements "Customer" for me.
And of course, Friday fun: Create You Own South Park Character. A coworker put together this page of our company.
The April 2002 issue of WIRED featured something called Long Bets. Quasi-celebs of the tech-biz variety bet on extreme incidents in the future such as by 2030, commercial passengers will routinely fly in pilotless planes or the universe will eventually stop expanding or by 2020, bioterror or bioerror will lead to one million casualties in a single event or by the year 2020, the tickets to space travel, at the least to Moon, will be available over the counter or at least one human alive in the year 2000 will still be alive in 2150. If you clicked on any of those, you see that Long Bets is actually a website and a foundation. There's even one between Ted Danson and the editor of Time about baseball and soccer.
I don't believe it. That is NOT Winona. Guess I'll find out for sure on Thursday.
The Computer Wore A Turban And Played Chess is a nice reminder from CNN about a hoax chess master machine that stymied Edgar Allan Poe and Charles Babbage.
Berkeley is offering a course on blogging.
New Yorker Festival, anyone?
Cool action figures at Kid Robot.
Yope, I'm going to see Beth Orton tonight.
Slate.com parody for Michael Kinsley.
Maxim gets in the hair-coloring business.
Napster has officially filed for bankruptcy.
Death by EverQuest? It reads like parody. "Scattered around him, police reports say, were dirty clothes, fast-food wrappers, dozens of empty pizza boxes and chicken bones thrown haphazardly to the floor.... The only signs of what had been on his mind were a few scribbled names and terms related to EverQuest, the online virtual reality game he'd been playing for well over a year. Based on those and other clues, Liz Woolley suspects her son killed himself after being jilted online."
Secret James Joyce manuscripts discovered, and then purchased by Ireland for $11.7 million.
ABC's upcoming fall series Push, Nevada sounds like it could tread some new interactive ground (and not just cuz Pepsi is involved). The series comes from Matt Damon and Ben Affleck's company, LivePlanet. The site says: "Push, Nevada is an interactive television, new media, and physical world experience. The audience will be incentivized to watch the show, participate online and travel to physical world locations in an attempt to win a very real reward." (How do you know it's a dot.com? When they use words like "incentivize" without giggling.) Here is a video of the producers talking about the show, and here is a preview video. [If you're interested in some theory behind such entertainment convergence, mssv.net has sound structural essays and TVMeetsTheWeb.com has video from a European conference with technology and business speakers.]
Similarly, the site for the movie Sum Of All Fears (coincidentally starring Ben Affleck?) has a spy game where you track terrorists.
Also in convergence land, I'll be following Yahoo's success in putting the World Cup online for $20.
Last one in this meme: News On Wheels from J.D. Lasica of OJR. The piece has some interesting insights into the future of "telematics," effectively the synthesis of automobiling, computing, and news.
Looks like the The Onion is following Minnesota baseball politics: Congress Threatens To Leave D.C. Unless New Capitol Is Built.
That time of the year again. Turner Prize short list announced. Commence the controversy. Also, the Times Mag has a profile of Okwui Enwezor, the curator of Documenta XI.
HarperCollins has taken over publishing of Charles Bukowski, Paul Bowles, and John Fante from struggling Black Sparrow Press.
Quiz time. Which of these magazine titles is an actual "Maxim clone," due to hit newsstands soon? Razor, Stun, Controversy, Swung, King, or Smooth. Answer: all of them. The world just got a little dumber.
I'm looking forward to next month's Shirin Neshat exhibit at the Walker. There's also three days of Lord of the Birds, a performance that involves film, music and theater. (For more on Neshat, see this slideshow and this interview.)
This would be the best Celebrity Death Match ever, but it's actually real: Noam Chomsky vs. Bill Bennett. (Thanks TJ.)
Couple CQ reviews: SF Bay Guardian | New York Times.
New issue of XLR8R (the hip-hop issue) is out, with Blackalicious on the cover.
Porno-Graphics are odd little flash parodies of online pornography (don't worry, it's rated PG, and a little funny).
Interesting navigation scheme: Anke Bauer. You navigate by shooting objects in the cross-hairs. (Anke Bauer is a German illustrator.)
I'm gonna feel guilt about this for a while, but I just laid down $650 for a phone. Okay the new Nokia is more than just a phone -- it's a PDA, a phone, an email client, an SMS client, a game port, a flash application, and some other things. Yet, still probably not worth 650 frog skins. A review.
And of course, the Friday fun game: Pee In The Urinal (you have to sit through an animation to get to the game).
Walter Kirn writes about the demise of Politically Incorrect in this week's Times Mag. I think he's off on his analysis though -- PI wasn't about political people being celebrities, it was about slumpy demi-celebs being political. I'm not sure that means something better, but it sure was more fun.
Actor websites are always funny: JeffBridges.com
All this time I had thought Spielberg owned the rights to Ender's Game. However, it looks like it's finally being made into a movie, directed by Wolfgang Petersen, without him.
Let's call it the alpha and omega of friday frivolity: 100 Best Online Games.
I mentioned linking to the Daniel Pearl video a couple days ago, and now Wired News has a story about the FBI trying to get it offline.
Yahoo Internet Life has posted a story about Web Cam Girls, which seems like a blatant rip-off of Salon.com's somewhat controversial Web Cam Girls story from last year.
Completely Local Stuff:
Minneapolis will have its own women's radio station.
According to the Strib, No Name is a big name.
Loring Cafe closure looks absolute.
The Strib managing editor, Pam Fine, has quit. Although no one has said it, it could be because of the new editor hired a couple weeks ago.
The usual ruckus about the college newspaper's year-ending satire issue.
Vespas are taking over the Cities!
Decoding the Minnesota driver's license.
Stephen Jay Gould has died. Looking back, here's a Mother Jones interview with him from 1997.
Thought Abercrombie & Fitch went too far last time? How about thong underwear for 10-year-olds.
Oh, alright, one more. Which Osbourne Are You?
Review of Belle And Sebastian's soundtrack to the flop Storytelling.
NPR's Geoffrey Nunberg has a piece (audio) on the term "blog" and the evolution of internet technology language.
Strange things found on Amazon:
Death Sticks
Rapid Ice Beer Chillers
Wine Saver Set
Litecubes 6 Pack
3-Car Complete Train Bar Set
Cow Vac
Homer Simpson e-Pal
The Best of Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner
Today's theme: The City, Virtual And Real
Stanza's The Central City and The Inner City and Amorphoscapes are interesting digi-art abstract meditations on urbanism.
Fascinating historical maps of Minneapolis. The one from 1935 is amazing. It shows the city broken into districts with names like "Hobohemia" and "Slum" and "Negro Section (Largest In City)". It's like the externalization of the historically repressed. I currently live in what was then called the "Gold Coast."
New at Architectural Record, an interview with Bruce Mau, who has worked with Rem Koolhaus and Frank Gehry.
New at MIT Technology Review, 10 Technology Disasters, many of which are architectural disasters.
MoodStats.com is a piece of software that enables you to track your moods and compare them with others around the globe. You can rate your mood, creativity, alcohol in-take, or anything you like, and it creates graphs that you can use to compare your moods day to day.
MetaPet has finally launched. I'll let the Times describe this crazy game.
I live a few blocks away from the Walker Museum and have been watching the building expansion close up. I've been considering doing an independent display here of the building/engineering process.
I've been playing around with ScreenBlast, an entertainment application/portal from Sony. Because I'm working on something similar (in a completely different context), I like the thing where you drag-and-drop clips for mixing your own episode of Dawson's Creek. No, seriously, I do. You can save your creations, and then send your remixes to people. Here's mine. (The final implementation sucks. I think there are five different popup windows to get it it.)
I don't live in New York (well, except when I flake/freak out every few years, and move there for a few months), but it's still worth linking to the Voice's new 100 Best and Cheapest Asian Restaurants. (Other worthwhile's in this week's Voice: Hong Kong Film Fest | Michaelangelo Matos On Moby | False 'Hood: Canal Street.)
From The Morning News: Guide to New York Jargon.
Yum, AirlineMeals.net.
Interesting. A digital art piece at the New Museum of Contemporary Art was taken offline because it was conducting surveillance on outside computers.
The winners of the Prix Ars Electronica 2002 awards were just announced. Scroll down to "Net Vision / Net Excellence" and you find Rhizome's Carnivore, They Rule, BotFighters, Logicaland, Minitasking, and DonnieDarko -- all sites linked from here at one time or another.
Slate.com goes so far as to call the new Wilco "techno-folk," which we haven't heard since the days of mid-period Beck.
Pitchfork has an interview with our own local version of techno-folk, The Fog, who's now on Ninja Tune and would be a stretch to compare to Wilco. For those familiar with his work, Broder comes off learned in this interview.
The record label where purported pipe-bomber Luke Helder recorded his album is now forced to defend itself.
The Chronicle of Higher Education has an interesting first-hand anonymous account of being a liberal arts prof and an alcoholic: "Addicted In Academe" (print it and read it at home). I don't agree with some of the intro, but the language is sparky and accurate.
The Strib somehow managed to find someone in Raleigh with a Swedish name to hire as its new editor.
This sucks. Politically Incorrect is being replaced with a show by Jimmy Kimmel. Not only that, but there's going to be a Maxim TV Network.
I should be in Norwich in October. For the first Buffy The Vampire Slayer conference, that is. I think I'd present on.... "Buff bodies, cool clothes."
The first season of The Transformers is available on DVD.
I've updated my Wish List with a bunch of DVDs.
I know, I said I was gonna stop linking to these, but I can't help it: Which Pixies Song Are You? (I'm "In Heaven".)
In Japan, the new Sony Vaio is out. Back here at home, I've decided not to get the Handspring Treo, and am waiting for the Nokia 9210i.
So You Wanna: Be An Indie Rock Expert? | Be A Vegan | Enjoy Sushi | Be A Model | Donate Sperm.
It was only a matter of time before music videos became interchangeable with malls. If videos weren't already disguised attempts at style-driven consumption (pft, of course they are), a brand new form of music video e-commerce is just around the corner. First, check out a Flash music video from no one smaller than the New York Times Magazine: Alanis Morissette. Notice how you navigate through a slideshow of Alanis dressed up in various consumer objects from Saks, Yves Saint Laurent, and Harley-Davidson while she chimes "Precious Illusions." (Isn't that ironic. Don't you think?) It's like "PopUp Video" with the information you really want to know: where can I buy that? If this friendly elision of commerce and music is a little disconcerting (though, let's be honest, how can it be anymore?), a new technology from VideoClix moves it up another notch. VideoClix basically makes QuickTime files clickable. The outcome of this technology goes straight to e-commerce: Macy Gray, as a clickable mall.
Since we're on the topic, I have no interest in joining the Moby hype machine. (Moby's last album, Play, was the product pusher par excellence, with all 18 tracks being licensed for a film or a TV show or a commercial or a trailer or all of the above.) But Mobyblips are an interesting footnote. Moby is designing little Flash animations each day leading up the release of the new album on Tuesday. I guess I'll also point out the video. And, yes, I want to buy everything in it.
Awesome, the Pope has blessed the internet.
Paul Wellstone is on the cover of The Nation this week. The story.
Goodie, the Duchamp urinal is for sale.
Architect Rem Koolhaas was asked to design a new EU flag. He came up with this.
For those keeping score at home, Adobe was awarded $2.8 million in its lawsuit with Macromedia over draggable menus. But in a counter-suit, Macromedia won $4.9 million in a case over changing blended elements. No word yet on the Apple lawsuit against Macromedia over the use of the Sorenson video streaming technology. I'm sure the final outcome of all this will be that Microsoft just buys all of them.
Poet Derek Walcott interviewed in the NYTimes Mag.
The Economist has a story about the surge of urbanization towards "megacities" in developing nations.
Not exactly a design house itself, Forbes names the The World's 50 Ugliest Buildings.
Last night, BBC held a "Test The Nation" convergence experiment in which people took an online IQ quiz synched with a tv event. The data set was then be used for various models, such as for creating distributive maps link this one.
Not reassuring: NASA is shopping on eBay for space shuttle replacement parts. On the other hand, you can also pick up a 4,000-year-old cuneiform tablet for $10.
I caught a bit of Annie Hall last night on Turner Classic Movies, which is playing 18 Woody Allen movies on Saturdays through May.
Last month, Rolling Stone did the 50 Coolest Records Of All Time; this month it's the 50 Uncoolest Records Of All Time.
Drudge's take on Ozzy at the White House.
For Cinco de Mayo, a huge resource: Tequila: Culture and Myths.
Sunday Times has a Tom Waits article. There's also a Simon Reynolds piece about retro-'80s-chic.
Cambodia doesn't want Gary Glitter.
Probably the only thing interesting in saying there is yet another blog article is that this one is in the Times books section.
I mentioned the new Wilco record yesterday, but I should also point out how much I relish the cover art. That building in downtown Chicago is one of my favorite structures, and I've written about it in a few different places. I can think of no other building that makes me ask this question so relentlessly: what does it look like on the inside. It turns out that Marina City, built by Bertrand Goldberg, a disciple of Mies van der Rohe, is a self-contained living environment with apartments, stores, recreational facilities, offices, restaurants, banks, and parking garages. Built at the apex of high modernism (1964), it critiqued chilly modernist steel with organic cochlear concrete. The slice-of-pie-shaped balcony apartments all converge on a shared public middle-space, where laundry, storage, and recreational activities are communal. Sounds like yesterday's vision of the future, which makes it a vision of today. Let's call it a parallel history. I used to have many pictures of it, but the only one I could find is the one of Lisa-the-ex looking off to the Chicago skyline.
"I'd rather be here [Grand Forks, ND] than Afghanistan right now." --Ozzy Osbourne on last night's The Osbourne's. Tidbit: The tattooed letters "O-Z-Z-Y" that appear on Ozzy's knuckles were done at Magoo's Tattoo Parlor in Grand Forks decades ago.
A Glossary Of Hardboiled Slang.
What's the first word you want to type into the American Sign Language Fingerspeller?
Profile of the guy who writes the "Ethicist" column for the NYTimes Magazine.
New TV Guide: 50 Greatest Shows Of All Time.
2002 Webby Nominations announced.
Dickens: The First True Celebrity.
Gary Glitter has been hiding in.... Cambodia?
StCloudSuperman.com. I have no idea.
While we're at it: Minnesota's Roadside Architecture
Ever wonder what happened to Mark Leyner? One second, he's hanging with Letterman; the next, he's in the dustbin of gastroenterological history. Looks like now he's doing an audio fiction piece on Audible.com called WireTap (link on the right). This serialized radio theater features the wiretap conversations between a painkiller-addicted 19-year-old living in the penthouse of the Princeton Hilton and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il. Yes, very Leyner.
I've been thinking a lot lately about the potential of this medium. WireTap uses some techniques that make the online audio theater experience slightly more unique -- sound collage, wire-tap effects, stilted voice characterizations -- but lacks the same moment of engagement that leaves much online literature/art empty. To put it another way, here's the big question: what could online audio (whether documentary or theater) do that "This American Life" can't?
Certainly, if someone hasn't done it already, there could be interesting models for interactivity with audio. We've all seen the music mixing board apps, which are fun when first encountered, but usually sit as unvisited bookmarks because they do nothing with narrative. I've been wondering: how can we take this cut-and-paste mentality and apply it to online audio narrative in ways that don't seem as dull as a Burroughs cut-up. (Don't argue with me. Those were dull.)
I'm still mulling this over, but I have a few ideas. I'll test them out here soon.
(Traditional narrative radio forms aren't to be overlooked. Subway Series 2002 from WNYC, for instance, is something I look forward to.)
I've been talking to friends about the recent ascendency of Wired. No, seriously, the magazine has gotten better in the dot-com slump. I guess the Times thinks so too, based upon this profile of the new editor. In other mag news, Jann Wenner is running Rolling Stone again, and there might not be a MTV Magazine after all.
The Hugo Award Nominees have been announced. Buffy gets a mention for Best Dramatic Presentation.
Michael Paterniti takes the proposition that Florida is actually a really complex place, and turns it into a long New York Times Magazine essay.
Jarmusch's Mystery Train brought to life in one picture: Japanese tourists in Bethlehem.
The Onion: U.S. Children Getting Majority Of Antibiotics From McDonald's Meat. I wonder what nutritional components will be in the new Vanilla Coke.
Speaking of fast food, according to the L.A. Weekly the hottest new memoir is from a Kentucky fast food janitor. 11 Years, 9 Months, and 5 Days: Burger Store Episodes and Frustrations is basically a poorly written diary from a disgruntled fast food employee. The vanity press that published it has a sample chapter. For more fast food escapades, see Letters To Wendy (a collection of peculiar Wendy's customer comment cards) or the Fast Food Simulator (the day in the life of a fast food employee).
As many of you know, Google Answers debuted this week. The idea is that you post questions and pay people to find the answers. Or, conversely, you become a Google Researcher who gets paid to answer questions. An example question (with answer) that might be an indication of where this all will go: How do I know if my penis is big?
The Sightseer's Guide To Engineering is a database of supposedly great engineering accomplishments. Here's the entry for the Mall of America.
Natalie Portman: college scribe. And here's the letter.
Are men afraid of successful women? In her much-commented-upon April 10 column, Maureen Dowd thinks so. Bruce Epstein at the Observer retorts.
MetaMap. Nice design and a good resource for surveillance and privacy.
I've been telling Chuck, who is going to become a senior writer at Spin next month, that the magazine has really fallen apart in the last couple years. (He disagrees.) There are numerous reasons why this might have happened, but an interesting take is to blame the culture itself. Alan Light, who just left Spin to start a new magazine, does that in this interview:
I think that Spin historically covered mainstream artists -- it's just a different mainstream. [...] I'm not going to apologize for doing a Limp Bizkit cover that sold really well when Rolling Stone hasn't done a Limp Bizkit cover. I think it was done in the spirit of feeling our way through, because it's hard. Spin's not a big magazine company; we don't have a lot of research, marketing or weapons to go to. All we could do is try to gauge what it was that people wanted the magazine to be and do the best version of the magazine.
In the same way that I'm not sure if I want more people to enjoy Buffy, I'm not sure if I want academia to begin the tome-building. Whatever, I guess it's gonna happen. Reading the Vampire Slayer and Fighting the Forces are two new essay collections about The Slayer. The NY Observer reviews them.
The Biography of a Cow from The Times.
When I was in London a couple years ago, I was shocked by how many people drank malternative beverages. My girlfriend at the time tried to get me to enjoy some sort of sugary Smirnoff concoction. Ever since then, I've assumed they would flood into America, usurping wine coolers. It has taken a while but they're becoming more popular -- and controversial.
I am the leader of a large Western nationyou'd recognize the nameone that trumpets its devotion to democracy. In the election that brought me to power, I received far fewer votes than my opponent, but our peculiar rules made me the victor. (It's a wild story.) For me to continue in office is legal, but is it ethical? G.W.B., Washington. That, and more questions never asked of The Ethicist.
Speaking of which, the Fall-Winter 1980 JC Penney Catalogue has a model that looks just like G.W.
Walker Scott, the guy who writes the fluffy gossip column in Parade, is really a former New York Times Magazine editor. Journalist are outraged.
After 9/11, The Plight of Posthumans (thanks kev).
Which HTML tag are you? I'm an HREF, which, someone should tell them, isn't actually a tag (A is the tag; HREF is an attribute).
If you live in Chicago, you might consider attending Facets Film School.
New Yorker piece about shopping in Tokyo.
An awesome collection of Really Bad Websites.
It's Music Day, here at Fimoculous.
NY Times Magazine has a music issue, featuring Moby, Mingus, The Breeders, Barry Manilow, and Beck's 198-Track Mind. Kevin Kelly's piece about how we will get music in the future is also worthwhile, and Chuck has a piece about a Guns 'N Roses cover-band.
Cornershop will be releasing their highly-anticipated new album, Handcream for a Generation, in April. Here's a video.
I had a magazine diatribe a while back and I didn't mention how I even miss corporate-sponsored magazines like Request. This is a great reason why: The Punk Rock Quincy Episode (with video).
Sia Michel has been named the new editor in chief at SPIN. A certain sign that it's going to continue its pattern of suckiness is this quote: "I don't think you can ignore a band like Creed." Yes, Sia, yes you can.
Gallery of defaced Britney posters in NYC subways.
Me! Me! Me! I want to go so bad! Ted Nugent Kamp For Kids.
Newsweek reviews The Osbournes.
The Top Ten Gayest Songs Ever! Pac Man Fever?
It's not online, but the new issue of Magnet is pretty good. "The History of Shoegazing" rocks.
35 Things Every Rock Critic Should Know.
For reasons that I certainly can't appraise, even Slate.com is writing about Dan The Automator.
"No Future: U.K. Punk And The Philosophy Of Émile Durkheim".
A review of a new film that investigates the Marlowe-as-Shakespeare meme.
Why did I ever start this project?! And it's March already. And it's still freezing. Can it get any worse? Well, I guess I could complain about my job and get fired.
I should count all the stories the mainstream press is writing about blogging. It's crazy. The Strib has theirs now. MinnesotaThinkTanker Todd and Cursor's Mike get quoted. I, of course, do not. I love how the angle for all these mainstream press articles about blogging is "is it a fad?" It's like they're trained to think most tech-journalism inventions are here-today-gone-tomorrow.
I've never talked here about my days as an editor at FATE. It was a truly crazy and sad experience. This piece from Salon about digging through the "slush pile" (publisher's term for the stack of unsolicited manuscripts) really makes me remember those days. And -- trust me -- this Salon story is much more tame than my FATE slush pile.
In the category of other things I've never talked about here but I will someday is my trips to Alaska every summer in my early-20s. In the meantime, the weird story of the day: Two-Headed Moose Fetus Shocks Native Community, Baffles Biologists.
Letterman is making his rounds. Up next, ABC?
It's no surprise to learn that Britney is dumb, but should she be so musically dumb?
Is it odd to see David Sedaris in Esquire? I think so, but The Five Cardinal Rules Of Personal Style is funny.
And, finally, Rake Magazine is out. It's a new Twin Cities magazine by some former alt-press big-shots. I'm sure I'll be talking more about it here soon.
I'm so tired. I'm building my first Flash-ColdFusion hybrid application. Despite what they say, these products are not a perfect match. However, I've decided that Fimoculous 2.0 will be a Flash-CF concoction once I master this.
FOX does it again. A new show will feature boxing matches between celebrities, including Amy Fisher vs. Tonya Harding.
Also on FOX, Bill O'Reilly and Michael Moore duke it out.
The Guardian does something funny: condenses Elizabeth Wurtzel's new book down to 400 words.
Going back in time: from 1979, Lester Bangs interviews Brian Eno.
This week's City Pages asks: Penny/Pen-pinching at the Strib? Also, a somewhat inventive piece about 24 hours in Twin Cities music.
Andrew Sullivan, who I admitedly don't read or link to enough, has a Blogger Manifesto which makes the case for blogging as a form of journlism. Oh, this is mainstream now? Well, time to find another hobby, I guess.
An interview with Slavoj Zizek in the new Bad Subjects.
For those sorry Gen X saps out there: Say Anything is coming out on DVD.
Good piece from Michael Lewis on Satellite Subversives in Iran.
Thanks to everyone who sent soup recipes. And to those who suggested additional cover songs.
My story about the meta-robots was linked to everywhere yesterday, and my uniques suddenly jumped into the five-figure range. Okay, I guess this means I'll have to release the program as freeware soon. (I also have to check my contract with my ISP to see how big the bill will be for all this traffic.) For the next step in IM Robots, check out AliceBot (still in Beta). For reference, see the A.L.I.C.E. AI Foundation. Honestly, I think that IM bots are "the next big thing" -- the business solutions alone are intriguing. If you wanna be on the edge, learn AIML and start building.
The very first Segways are on sale at Amazon. "These 'FIRST Edition' Segways are numbered, limited editions, and each will be custom made using titanium alloy components. Each Segway HT will have the individual winner's engraved name and Dean Kamen's laser-etched signature." Bids are in the six-figure range.
Courtney Love To Publish Kurt Cobain's Diaries.
Ten Questions the Media Can't Answer.
Am-I-Hot-Or-Not: Party Edition sounds like fun.
The William Burroughs Cut-Up Machine.
I stumbled across this new FOX show called Glutton Bowl a few nights ago. It reminds me of the eating games we played in college. No, I don't want to talk about them.
World's largest palindrome? 12,293 words.
An interview with John Perry Barlow, an internet name that I knew before Bill Gates or Marc Andressen.
I'm going to Storytelling tonight. I'll tell you how it is later. Some reviews for you, and a trailer.
Countering yesterday's speculation, Dig-It is apparently real. Too bad, cuz it sounds like it will really suck.
This game makes me want to get drunk. And this one makes me want to have sex. It feels like high school again!
Whaddya know, Maxim has a book review section.
NYPost writes a pro-NYTimes column (about the new Times headquarters).
A website that randomly generates the language of a 13-year-old's instant messages: It's like, so rad.
Beautiful illustration of the power of Flash: Flora: An Experiment in Growing Plant-Life Forms. Select two plants to randomly grow. Then graft them. Unique combinations every time.
Albert Einstein's Theory of Relativity In Words of Four Letters or Less.
Shift asks: Will The Newspaper Survive? I've been hearing this question since the days of being a webmaster at a Knight-Ridder newspaper in 1997, but the angle here is somehow still fresh.
My college mentor has a new book out, Walking With the Wind: Voices and Visions in Film, a translation of the poems of Abbas Kiarostami. Here's what The New Republic says in its weekly newsletter:
The name Abbas Kiarostami will be familiar to fans of Stanley Kauffmann, who has long been one of the Iranian director's most faithful advocates. "Kiarostami seems to look at film not as something to be made, but to be inhabited, as if it were there always, like the world, waiting to be stepped into, without fuss," Kauffmann has written. Kiarostami's films often follow a person on an unusual errand, showing how the most extraordinary events -- a man's attempt at suicide in Taste of Cherry, the filming of a death ritual in The Wind Will Carry Us -- grow from the quiet mundanities of daily life. This month the Harvard Film Archive will publish, in a beautiful English-Persian bilingual edition, a collection of Kiarostami's poetry called Walking with the Wind. The poems are as short and mysterious as haiku, and each focuses on an image that is both immediately visualizable and infinitely contemplatable: the watch on a blind man's hand, a raven rubbing its beak in the dust. Essential for Kiarostami devotees and anyone in search of a new mind-opener.
At the workshop last weekend, I hung out with Brooke Burgess, the creator of Broken Saints (I also dragged him out to Nye's Saturday night -- he loved it). I first heard about the online-only graphic novel quite a while ago, but on first glance found it too time-consuming, and bookmarked it for later engagement. Now, I'm finally diving into it, and it's one of the rare web products worth the time. The pace is slow, so I suggest watching one episode per day -- there are a total of 24 at about 15 minutes each. Watch it now, before Brooke sells out to MTV.
Yahoo! accidentally posted embargoed photos of the next Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue cover. If you care to see.
Digital artists get their due. From the NYTimes: Getting Tangible Dollars for an Intangible Creation.
Old video from Fela Kuti's burial.
Watch the bouncing yellow ball: Death Metal Karaoke.
The Evil Dead is 20 years old.
One of my fave authors, Victor Pelevin, has a new book out: Homo Zapiens. A review.
I'm listening to the new Lambchop album (available on Friday) and it's kicking my ass. Also, Pitchfork reviews the new Fog, a Minneapolis artist who recently landed on Ninja Tune.
It's somewhat funny to run my site through Malfunctioned, but it's not nearly as good as running it through Pornalize.
Enron/Enrage, the t-shirt.
I'm bummed because there's an XSLT training course going on at work this week and I don't have any time to attend.
I'm working on a journal website for my college mentor. A first draft of Edebiyât. Here's an interesting Muslim weblog that's making me reconsider everything: Zhikr.org.
Super, super awesome Bjork video that you simply must watch (and I guarantee you won't see it on MTV).
The annual Village Voice Pazz & Jop Poll is out. Everyone's favorite Chuck was asked to vote this year. Shockingly, he was the only person to pick "The Blues" by Guns N' Roses. Yes, yes, Chuck, I'm sure it was great.
Page of William Gibson stuff, including audio of him reading.
British Telecom claims to invent the link. Here's the supposed patent and some video.
C'mon, I'd love to have sex with a diesel robot. No, no, not that diesel robot.
Interesting profile of Okwui Enwezor who will curate Documenta 11.
Futurama, cancelled.
How to drink sake, I think.
When Darin was in town last week, he mentioned being in The Threat of the Mummy while we were at Moscow on the Hill. But I had no idea.... wow. "Part socio-political satire and part supernatural fantasy... made entirely on location in Grand Forks, North Dakota." I am speechless. It opens April 5 in GF.
Terry Gross: Gene Simmons won't give rights to release interview transcripts. That, and more, from the Philly Inquirer.
Michael Kinsley steps down as editorial chief of Slate.com. This honestly makes me sad. When I met him a few months ago, he became a minor hero of mine.
This time, Ventura looks at a tv reporter and says, "I've been saying for years, that you're in it for the rating points, and entertainment." Big insight from the former professional wrestler. Who the hell slipped him a copy of Bias, anyway?
Yet another dot-com movie.
The airlines will try anything to get people to fly again.
Finally, I've now heard the controversial Terry Gross / Gene Simmons interview: here's a huge half-hour MP3. And Gene is truly an absolute jerk in it.
Emily Nussbaum's somewhat surprising take on the new gender-neutral bible.
Bob Mould is interviewed by The New York Times, where he talks about Jesse Ventura hanging out backstage at Husker Du shows and reveals his time spent writing for professional wrestling.
Colors mag has a new thingy: School.
Editor & Publisher hands out newspaper dot-com awards: EPpy's.
Eye magazine finally has a website.
BubbleTea.com, for those who don't mind hopping on board 60 seconds into a five-minute trend .
Gene Simmons and Terry Gross trash-talk.
Movie88.com is a site from Taiwan that lets you watch streaming movies for only a buck a piece. Fun selection, mediocre quality, and almost certainly illegal.
I might compete: First Annual Google Programming Contest.
If the U.S. government kills your brother in an accident, how much do they (okay, we) compensate the family? $1,000, apparently.
If I had the surveys application working, I'd have you vote on which picture you like more: this one or this one.
Textz.com has texts from all the biggies, including Kafka, Zizek, Baudrillard, Debord, Tolstoy, Poe, Neal Stephenson, Erik Satie, and My Bloody Valentine.
Neumu's gramophone has posted an MP3 of Low's "In Metal".
Two interesting magazine stories from MediaLife: Bust Is Back | Spin Editor Quits To Start New Mag.
I'm apparently not one of the Top 25 Web Personalities.
I guess someone had to make a gallery of girls posing with mandolins.
MSNBC apologizes for misspelling Republican consultant "Niger Innis."
BBC.com has a snowboard game tied into its Olympics coverage.
Poynter analyzes NYTimes Portraits of Grief.
Proof that anything can be transferred to the web: Lite-Brite.
It's official: Dan the Automator to produce new Beck album.
Noelle Bush was arrested in Arizona too.
I wish I were this monkey. But not this one.
This is pissing off people I work with: AOL Shuts Out Trillian Users. Although I am only an occasional user of Trillian, I'm most interested in the newfound hypocrisy of AOL suing Microsoft for monopolistic practices.
The NY Times on the minimal tools that you need to become a journalist.
One of my favorite news sources, SFgate, has redesigned. Compare to the old version, via the Google cache. (The Wall Street Journal also recently redesigned.)
See also: a google cache of google. Wow, I'm sure that's only amusing to me.
Uh-oh. Macromedia has released the new Flash 6 player (beta), which can only mean that Flash 6.0 is coming soon. And here I thought I was going to have some free time soon...
I had no idea that the U of Minn. had a huge collection of WWI and WWII war posters.
Sorry, I'm back. John, Ross, and Chuck got me too drunk. Oh, an update? One just hated Vanilla Sky, one just turned 30, and one just lived with Ozzy for two days. And there was Lora, the ex who's now a doctor that looks like a supermodel flapper. (Chuck will have to send me pics so that I can prove this.)
Stephen King claims he's done?
FOX is pulling perhaps the worst television I've ever seen: The Chamber.
I've been saying for a long time that what Salon really needs to do is branch out beyond the web. Now, they are considering a magazine.
Compare: Name That Candybar | Name That Beer Bottle.
Crank your speakers for perhaps the worst TV website of all time: WBQP. (Courtesy of LostRemote.)
Oculart scares me.
Something to watch: White Stripes, "Fell In Love With A Girl".
Tom Tomorrow of This Modern World has started his own blog.
A new fusion restaurant has opened in Minneapolis: Sushi Tango. I guess I'll have to go.
Good David Sedaris interview.
More Googlish fun: Googlewhacking is a game by which bloggers try to come up with two-word combinations that force Google to only return one page -- yours. This thread at MeFi has people whacking the hell out of Google.
Everyone's talking about Chelsea's make-over. Here's a pic of her with Gwyneth and Madonna, via Drudge.
I'm sporting my new t-shirt on the webcam today.
It lost Gretta, but it looks like CNN is gonna land Connie Chung and Tina Brown.
The minute that the Sarah Jane Olson / Kathleen Soliah story broke, I thought I should start writing the book. And I toyed with the idea for a long time. This case fascinates me -- especially the way I sway from sympathy to apathy. Here's an interview with the nom de guerre.
Randy Moss wallpaper at Nike.com. For some reason, this is amusing to me. Maybe it's that he's wearing the "urban reconnaissance parka" from the "urban survivalist collection." By the way, the new Air Jordan's will retail for over $200. I guess they're cheaper than a Segway.
Google brilliance at work again: Special language-support pages for Elmer Fudd, Pig Latin, and Hacker. (Thanks to SaltedWound.)
A crazy preview to the new Tron movie, coming out in 2003. (More info.)
New videos from Chemical Brothers and Liz Phair.
Yahoo.com is releasing this today: Premium Discount Search. For $3/article or $5/month, you can search deeper database sources than your average web search.
Are you a fascist?
The Enron retirement plan mug on sale at eBay.
Christina Aguilera = Dee Snyder.
For techies: How the Wayback Machine Works.
If celebrities were only more goth.
Alan Keyes' new show on MSNBC started yesterday, and I missed it.
I'm not sure what to make of this one: The Future of Music from the New York Times and including references to Fugazi.
"Some people are mapmakers, some people are playmakers, and some people are the odd makers known as langmakers." See the Top 10 Model Languages.
Greil Marcus writes about Harry Smith in Granta.
A blog about two people reading Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations.
Today, I want MTV-PC.
Hypermodernism: "We believe in bypassing the distribution system, subverting modern infrastructures for benefit of cultural advance free from capitalist control."
What's the academic world talking about lately? Well, there's the little story of Stephen Ambrose plagiarizing. (He's "sorry".) There's also the buzz over Cornell West getting ripped by the President of Harvard for -- at list in part -- making a hip-hop album. (A very bad album.) And, finally, the book everyone is talking about now is Richard A. Posner's Public Intellectuals: A Study of Decline. (Posner is a buffoon.) That all seems very bland -- maybe I don't miss the academy.
New issues of Digital Web Magazine, Born Magazine, and Whet Magazine are out.
Mark Amerika might be the first "internet name" that I remember. Back in the days in which I was discovering the net via Netscape's "What's Hot" list, I stumbled across his visual/poetic/digital art work. The Institute for Contemporary Arts in London has a retrospective of his work planned for this week.
Anthony DeCurtis is the special guest at this week's good Studio 360. Kurt Anderson talks about his appreciation of the Mac ("yuppie porn") and Paola Antonelli dices the Euro ("Frankenstein architecture").
The net has been abuzz about what will be revealed at Macworld Expo today. CNET has the first legitimate story on the topic, just filed. (It's a new iMac. It's on the cover of the new Time. Now go back to bed.)
I wonder if anyone in the local media thinks it's sad that a New York paper does the best reportage about the Twin Cities homeless problem. (Oh wait, am I part of the local media? Nevermind then.)
I like the idea of the fake celebrity blog. Here's Britney, Snoop Doggy Dog, and Caesar.
Jerry Kindall has a good piece about changing keyboard formats: Mac OS X and Dvorak. (Dvorak is an alternative keyboard layout. More here.)
For those of you into this kind of thing, Weezer has posted all 14 songs (in demo version) of their next album to their website.
Ahem. Maybe that dumb scooter thing will sell after all.
Slate.com reviews Fake Meat.
In other fake news, MapQuest invents South Yuba City. (See the map of the invented town.)
A good case for on-the-scene citizen journalism: The New York Times has obtained photos from the fracas on the flight with Richard Reid from a person sitting a couple rows behind him. And this weblogger tells his story about being in row 28E (Reid was in 29H).
20 factors that will change PCs in 2002.
SlashDot survey: Who is the most prophetic sci-fi writer?
This java applet from Taprats, which helps you make Islamic star patterns, is exactly what I needed to get inspired to come up with more tiling designs for this blog. (Thanks Caterina.)
Amazon.com has just opened what it is calling an "Outlet Store."
I had a crush on her waaaaaaaay before you did. Everyone loves Tina Fey now, but she's been the most consistent link on this blog for the past six months, sitting down there to the right under "ADORING." But perhaps that was just because I couldn't find any other celebrities to adore. That fleeting fascination with Ashleigh Banfield was so... well, fleeting. And to say that I "adore" Thora Birch... well, that ain't right. Is this the first sign of falling into the category of approaching 30? To only get crushes on celebrities with glasses? If so, 30 sounds miserable. When I first fell for Fey, I did a Google search and came up with 10 links; now, there are 7,810. What's the punchline of this pathetic emotional eulogy? Here's a new pic of Ms. Fey from Rolling Stone.
Two unrelated products in which I'm gonna invest: GoToMyPC | Netflix. The former lets me access my computer from anywhere; the latter lets me rent unlimited DVDs for $20/month, with great selection.
Not exactly sure what to make of this new Taschen release: Digital Beauties: "Almost real. Building women out of bits and bytes." Well, for that matter, this one too.
Barb makes her 2002 predictions for online media.
I wanna redesign this ugly blog so badly. When will I find time?
Rem Koolhaus' touted Prada building has opened in SoHo. Speaking of which, Hal Foster writes about Koolhaus in the new London Review of Books. It's excellent.
Buffy creator Josh Whedon is making a show for FOX.
The NYTimes.com has put together another great audio/visual piece from Afghanistan: Beyond the Veil.
Not the saddest dot-com loss, but notable: AdCritic.com dies.
I'm working on this: The Euro.
Have someone else ("coincidentally") find your dream wife (for $78,000).
An Amateur Guide to Architectural New York
New Money Mark video: "Information Contraband." (From HelloLogan.)
Smoking Gun releases Documents of the Year. Rex adds it to the Year in Review page.
I don't know about you, but November's Great Moments in Logic at Consequently.org kept me rivetted (a new logician every day!). They're now archived.
Plastic.com is still acting goofy. (Does anyone know what Carl is doing?)
Something goofy is always going on over at McSweeney's. "Sentences I Wish I Hadn't Written" includes "A stopover in Williston, North Dakota, therefore, may be in order."
Yes, hm, I was just thinking that I should do some freelance work: How To Pitch To Maxim. Ugh.
Phil is being really slow to add to FargoGirls.com, but there's a few new friends. (This one, who's originally from Fargo, now works for The Onion.)
Sometimes, I wake up late at night with Flash envy. No, really. I said really.
NYTimes: Engineers Ask Nature for Design Advice.
Shakespearean Insult Generator. "Thou goatish fen-sucked bladder!"
The New York Times Magazine unleashes The Year In Ideas. It's one more link added to the Year In Review page.
The Onion: Who Says Java Programmers Don't Have A Sense Of Humor?
The New York Times: Interface Design Is Trickier Than It Seems
Nice collection of subway maps from around the world.
Damn, wish I would've thought of it: Microscope Webcam. It would have gone perfectly with the theme of this blog.
New Christmas Tenacious D Song: "Things I Want".
The AIGA (American Institute of Graphic Arts -- the leading designer organization) National Business and Design Conference is here in Minneapolis next year (October). I'm sure it won't be worth 725 frog skins, but I'll probably go. In addition, CHI 2002 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems will also be coming here (April). If you're coming to town for either event, lemme know.
According to this survey, these are the Top 10 places I should live, based upon my city preferences:
The Year In Review page is growing. Email me additions.
Sudan Owner Sues Clinton Over Missile Attack.
Awesome. The law firm that is going to represent John "Abdul Hamid" Walker, the American kid who joined the Taliban, is Morrison & Foerster. What's their website? Why, MoFo.com, of course.
Also in the category of unintentionally yet brilliantly funny: Is Your Son a Computer Hacker? This might be my favorite: "6. Does your son use Quake?" It warns parents to be on the lookout for Snow Crash and Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson and Neuromancer by William Gibson.
Jesus. 11-year-old poet signs potential million-dollar contract.
The New York Times has made a couple Flash-based "Photographer's Journals" that use audio and photography to great effect: Vincent Laforet | James Hill.
I have to admit that I enjoy HTML email when soberly used, but if you're the austere type that doesn't enjoy viewing it, there's a utility to turn it off on Outlook.
Someday, I'll tell the story about how reading Rem Koolhaas changed my life. In the mean time, he's been awarded the design of the L.A. County Museum. It will look like a tent.
Winter's here, but you wouldn't know it by the non-existent snow in Minneapolis. (I don't even wear a coat to work yet.) Anyway, I made this Winter Poetry application today. If I were really good, you'd be able to save your poems and send them to friends, but, well, that would take days and days of work, which I ain't got right now.
Saddam Hussein is publishing his second romance novel. The first one doesn't appear to have been translated into English. Now, wouldn't this be the ultimate career-starter for a budding Arabic-English translator?
This is the craziest story I've read in a long time. A 28-year-old Japanese woman mysteriously dies trying to find Fargo. (This may be the first and last time I get to link to the Bismarck Tribune.)
In college, we devised our own rules for Scrabble, in which we gave points for words that were completely made up but should probably be words anyway. That reminds me of A Dictionary of Words, a blog where people post fake, imaginary, and invented words and definitions.
Amazon.com buys Egghead.com (and the internet community strains to remember what Egghead.com did).
Nice Year in Review from Shift.
Michael Bloomberg paid $92.60 per vote.
Music scribe Robert Christgau has a website.
And finally, I had no idea that bin Laden is hiding in an MC Escher painting. (An aside: the Art Test tells me that if I were a painting, I'd be Escher's Lizards. Et vous?)
No way can I be this old. Real World is in its eleventh season.
There's a new ActiveBuddy in town: RingMessenger isn't part of the Lord of the Rings site yet, but probably will be soon. I held this little conversation with the robot:
ibsrex: Where are the Hobbits?
RingMessenger: Hobbits. Hobbits have pointed ears. Hobbits have oversized feet and never wear shoes.
ibsrex: Tell me a story.
RingMessenger: Very well. There once was a human named ibsrex who was chatting with RingMessenger...
All kinds of fantastic, wonderful things happened and they both lived happily ever after. The end.
Did you like my story?
Smart ass, Hobbits. I've been working on building one of these little bots myself, but it's going very slowly. But someday, you'll be able to talk with ibsrex without ever knowing if it's him talking back or the perfectly programmed robot (as if there were a difference).
MSNBC.com lays off... how many? Let's see: "Cherylynne Crowther, a spokeswoman for MSNBC.com, declined to disclose an exact number of layoffs but said they were equivalent to 9 percent of the company's staff of approximately 200." If my math is good, that would be 18.
This fake MIT Media website about the "Erotic Communications Group" is a hoax of this real MIT Media website. So says this NYTimes story.
Wow, I missed this big local news. The founders of City Pages, Tom Bartel and Kris Henning, are starting a new "free at first" magazine that is "half-way between The Onion and the New Yorker." The editor of Rake will be former-Spiner/Suckster Hans Eisenbeis.
Everyone I know spent today either dissing IT (nice animation) or dissing the American Talib Boy (nice picture). All I have to say about the topics: I'm simply shocked that "Ginger" is already an item on Amazon, and America sure does create a staggering number of identity-confused people.
Nigger. "A Black Author Hurls That Word as a Challenge." First graph: "At halftime of a 1993 basketball game against Miami University of Ohio, Keith Dambrot, varsity men's basketball coach at Central Michigan University, called his team together to talk about the word 'nigger.' Mr. Dambrot, who is white, had overheard his African-American players call each other 'nigger' to denote toughness and tenacity on the court. He asked the players permission to use the word in the same sense, and after they assented he adopted 'nigger,' too. A few weeks later, after administrative censure, sensitivity training and two campus protests, Mr. Dambrot lost his job and promptly filed suit."
Two dumb Flash things: The Genesis Of Def Leppard | The Buffy Swearing Keyboard.
Anti-Pop Consortium is playing at First Ave tomorrow. I'm pumped.
Chuck told me that he had been asked to write for the New York Times Magazine, so when I saw the headline Questions for Gene Simmons I assumed it was him. Nope. Anyway, no suprises from the tongued-one: "Music was never the point." Oh, well, maybe one surprise: "I've never been drunk in my life." (The mag's Wes Anderson profile is good too.)
The case for breaking up Afghanistan. "Getting rid of the idea or concept of Afghanistan is very difficult, just as getting over the idea of Yugoslavia was difficult. There is a sense that this kind of thing shouldn't be allowed to happen, because it can have a domino effect. But I think the idea of Afghanistan breaking up has already practically happened. There is no common language, nothing common to all these people. The expected amalgamation of ethnic groups into a nation never happened there."
NY Times: 10 Best Books Of The Year.
Nice collection of WTC graphics from AIGA. I could be cynical and say that to reduce this historical moment down to iconographic t-shirt sloganeering is so "my generation," but I think these graphics are effective. Besides, who am I kidding, I'm all for t-shirt sloganeering.
On television last night was a Register.com advert that had two ostensible small business people talking about their websites: DeepSeaYachts.com and PhoebeBooks.com. Funny thing though: neither one of them is an actual small business; they're both just dummy sites.
Looks like the International Herald-Tribune website design has officially become seminal. Last week, it was a BBC.com redesign that borrowed certain visual cues, and this week it's a SacBee.com redesign that also seems to show an influence.
32 million losers sure do add up quickly.
Media tidbits: Hearst wants out of its financial relationship with Talk. (Funny, I read Talk voraciously when it came out, but I can't say I've even glanced at it in a year.) Is Rupert Murdoch selling the London Times? What were the top 25 revenue-generating tv networks last year? For $93,000, would your tv/radio company buy the Time Machine, a device that speeds up programming to fit in more commercials? Is it a good idea to use Amazon to profit from booking an author on your tv show? And, finally, is cutsie Katie Couric leaving NBC?
Electric Sheep has a new promising online comic: The Spiders. The first episode has Afghan women kicking some Taliban ass.
And the latest entry in Is-It-Art-Or-Eye-Candy: Uncontrol.com. Actually, I think this one is more about engineering and physics than art.
NYTimes Mag: The World According to Colin Powell
Arianna Huffington writes about the Women of Afghanistan: "'The Northern Alliance is nothing more than just the Taliban without beards,' says RAWA's Mansoor. 'They are dogs of the same field.'"
Jonathan Dube has gathered a nice collection of links in Online Storytelling Forms. I recently did a short presentation to some design students in which I talked about some of the applications mentioned here. It began like this: "The first thing I have to say is that I'm not a designer. In fact, I don't like most designers. I like communicators. I like people who make digital objects that get people talking."
In the newest issue of WIRED, Gillian Anderson (i.e., Scully) reviews Mogwai's Rock Action, perhaps my favorite album this year. She writes: "This album is one of those musical experiences where if you happened to get into a car accident while listening to it, it would be OK. Here you are, driving, the wind is whipping, the sun is shining (or not), and oops! But you've got the music, and it's got you, cradled in a blissful semiconscious state, through the rhythm strobe of emergency vehicles, the muffled shuffle above and around, and closer... closer... and the spirit ascended to Heaven. Are you with me? Then you'll love this album. Part Low, part instrumental Radiohead, mostly themselves, it's all good." That's not exactly a spectacular review, but knowing Gillian and I share musical tastes pleases me in some spectral way.
I was determined to celebrate Buy Nothing Day, but I bought some coffee and bread this morning. Beyond that, I've been good.
Shit, it's Friday and I'm using Internet Explorer.
I've been looking for a good response to the New York Times Fouad Ajami piece that blasted Al Jazeera. It's telling that the first retort I see comes not from the mainstream press or even the established alt-press, but from a blogger: More Reality Inversion.
Courtney Love thinks she predicted 9/11.
Geek notes: Although I'm still completely attached to Flash, this SVG tutorial leads me to believe a revolution could occur in the coming years.
Cool. Kottke has redesigned ObscureStore.com. Reaction.
I've always wondered what I'd look like if I were Japanese.
Seriously, I'm not joking: the preview to the new Britney Spears movie, Crossroads, is funny. Seriously. No, stop it, I mean it. Stop it!
Monty Python & The Holy Grail, Lego-style.
$25 million reward for bin Laden. Here's the text being distributed via radio in Afghanistan.
Yeah, it seems a little early to me too, but what the hell: Salon's Best Movies of 2001.
I'm 62% addicted to the internet.
How come no one told me Mulder and Scully did it?
Pictures of bin Laden's house in Zazi (found at Caterina.net.)
Score one for academia. One of my generation's most successful writers, Zadie Smith, is retiring at the ripe old age of 26 to concentrate on teaching.
A gift for dad? Okay, maybe not. Psychedelic Republican Trading Cards.
I was just telling someone that it seemed odd that Suzanne Vega disappeared. The Onion A.V. Club ushers her back in. (Sidenote: A.V. Club is doing giant interstitial adverts now.)
After 40 years, Esquire drops Dubious issue. (Tidbit: Dave Eggers edited this one year; I don't remember if he went credited.)
Interesting discussion going over on MeFi: Is Anorexia A Lifestyle Choice?
When I was in college, the best concert I organized was a punk rock Michael Jackson tribute. June Panic did a unforgettable rendition of "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough," the bad boy's best song. That's just a set up to tell you that Michaelangelo Matos talks about "Don't Stop" in today's Mix Project.
TV networks have repeatedly turned down advertisements from the Culture Jammers Media Network (a.k.a AdBusters). If you want to see why, this page has a good selection of "uncommercials". Finally, CNN Headline News has agreed to air one that promotes the biggest Culture Jammer effort, Buy Nothing Day. The 15-second spot will run Nov. 19 at 4:06 p.m. (EST) and Nov. 20 at 7:06 p.m. (EST), but here's the video if you want to see if beforehand.
Terror Sex? "On the one hand, September's events led to a spike in 'terror sex,' the much-reported need for sexual connection in times of heightened fear. But at the same time, the tanking economy has resulted in a marked drop in business, as clients -- just as the general public -- cut back on spending and struggle with post-traumatic anxiety. The competing dynamics make America's multi-million dollar prostitution industry look like a microcosm of the country at large -- confused, unpredictable and shaken, but resilient. And in some cases, booming."
In this week's NYTimes Magazine, Fouad Ajami writes "What The Muslim World Is Watching," a condemning report about the Al-Jazeera network: "Although Al Jazeera has sometimes been hailed in the West for being an autonomous Arabic news outlet, it would be a mistake to call it a fair or responsible one. Day in and day out, Al Jazeera deliberately fans the flames of Muslim outrage."
How the biohazard symbol came to be.
This picture of Afghan men in a bathhouse resonates with all sorts of interesting connotations.
The ideas behind Microsoft's Q-Video aren't that unique, but the implementation of some of the technology (face recognition and language processing) is. Here's a report on what might be the next generation of video search.
Harvard has grabbed Homi K. Bhabha from the University of Chicago. Although my exposure to him is limited, I tend to agree with Marjorie Perloff on this one: "he doesn't have anything to say," though probably not for the reasons suggested. This article's focus on the jargon of theory is so tedious, and I've wished the entire dichotomous situation had disappeared a decade ago when I was first getting involved in reading this stuff.
At WebTechniques.com (which is soon to change its name to NewArchitect), Scott Rosenberg from Salon.com talks about constructing and implementing their new fee-based model. His report is really good at showing how business changes affect technology changes affect editorial decisions, and back again. That ties in nicely with the announcement that NYTimes.com has a new idea (which is basically intensive sessions-based advertising) for making money online.
I think I should completely stop posting stories from the mainstream press. Yesterday, I posted the story about the London Times reporter who found bin Laden's nuclear secrets documents. Today, the Voice is saying that at least some of the documents are part of a hoax.
It's been a long, long work week. Migrating databases sux. But at least I've managed to ignore all the Harry Potter hype. Some links:
Bruce Lee lives. (Which is another opportunity to also link to this marvelous thing.)
ABCNews.com somehow got audio of the terrorists on the hijacked plane that crashed in the field in Pennsylvania en route to D.C.
What? New Yorkers aren't overly impresssed with The Onion? Good. Bring it back home to the Midwest where we can relish how much smarter we are than you anyway. Because you're dumb, of course.
Fellow Minnesota blogger James Lileks has penned a piece that blasts the Chomsky-ish reponse to America's retaliation. There's a hated thread over at MeFi that immediately caused a flurry of commentary.
London Times reporter finds Bin Laden nuclear secrets. Iranian radio thinks he has fled to Pakistan.
The New York Times is 150 today.
I wouldn't call Iron Chef USA an abomination, but it's not great either.
A few days ago, I mentioned a passage that suggested the term "al-Qu'aeda" might have come from Isaac Asimov. Fascinating conjecture, but here's a follow-up from an acquaintance, a Jordanian journalist, who offers her interpretation:
I also read something about Qaeda. They say that it started as a data base and I presume this is the way they got the name. Too simple, no fanciful story! By the way, I was familiar with the Arabic term "Qa'eda" because we covered the story of the trial of its members in Jordan, a long and high profile case. In fact, we used to translate the name as "base group." It's really strange how we forced the translated word on ourselves when in a year's time American officials and western media would begin use our Arabic term! Anyway, when Powell first used the word "Qaeda" I never related it to our Qa'eda because he pronounced it in a way that eliminated any possible resemblance. You should listen to a Jazeera reporter and hear how we pronounce it, and then I'm sure you won't blame me. Anyway, one day, I went like, "oh, it's the same word!" So, my version is that "Qaeda" means a base. And I think that Bin Laden is a pragmatic man who would use terms to serve his purpose. But I'll keep an eye for other interpretation of the word.
Remember back to this time two years ago, before Floridian folly culminated with a goofball landing in the White House. It was big news at the time, but everyone seems to have forgotten when George W. Bush was given a surprise foreign relations quiz. An intrepid reporter at WHDH in Boston asked Bush to name the leaders of four countries (at that time, hot-spots in conflict): Chechnya, Taiwan, India and Pakistan. Bush was able to get one partially right: Taiwan. Now, I see Bush on the tele patting Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, on the back like they were old pals. Late one recent night, I watched a full live press conference from Musharraf on CNN. It actually made me envious: he seemed a bold and proud leader, a man who understood conflict and admitted not knowing all the answers while sounding firm at the same time. Certainly, there are troubling parts of his history (despite promising an electoral process he still rose to power via dictatorship, and his previous backing of the Taliban seems puzzling), but he nonetheless seems like someone America could never produce. I never wrote the ode to Musharraf that I wanted, but Salon (who, in a somewhat Details/Cosmo-ish way, always seems to sexualize every topic) has My Crush On Musharraf.
Bin Laden: Yes, I Did It. [Note: this report isn't fully substantiated.]
VisualJournalism.com has put up a very good tour of WTC Infographics from publications around the world.
The New York Times Magazine devotes itself to "Beginnings: An Issue About The Next New York." Good pieces include Colson Whitehead on the new and the lost, Jacob Weisberg on the return of NYC, Terence Riley on what to build, John Tierney on traffic, and Lynn Hirschberg on WTC TV. Not to mention NYC songs by Lou Reed and Run D.M.C..
Tom Tomorrow was on the NPR program "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me" this weekend. He was very sarcastic -- in the best way. Listen.
BBC.com has redesigned. Interestingly, the site takes on a look similar to International Herald-Tribune (which would get my vote for best overall media website from a design and usability standpoint). The navigation strategy, however, is straight outta the portal play book. (The Guardian discusses.) In other BBC news, the company is launching a controversial online news service soon.
A decade ago, I discovered what would become the world wide web via Gopher. And, somehow, I didn't realize until now that it was a homegrown product. The Strib has a good article with the University of Minnesota inventors. (See also: The Gopher Manifesto.)
Art historian E. H. Gombrich died Saturday.
The great music critic/fan Camden Joy has a web site. Camden's fame arose in the late '90s when obsessive scrawlings, such Yo La Tengo Is Good To Eat, were found hanging around NYC. (Check out the This American Life interview.)
Already, e-tailers are pulling out the bells and whistles for holiday shopping. ("Gee-whiz features such as gift-finders, interactive pants-sizers and customer-service instant messaging are some of the ways e-tailers are hoping they might turn virtual window shoppers into paying customers.") Correlationally, here's the argument against 3D online shopping.
Dead dot-com du jour: L.A.Insider.com
Human are such puppets (flash).
Doesn't get any more blunt than this: Stephen Hawking Is Wrong.
Yeah, yeah, of course Buffy was awesome. Everyone's IMing me!
I don't care what you say, this is cool: Consquently.org. Every day for a month, this blog is going to profile a logician and the dilemmas he faced. Today, we get Husserl! ("What? Husserl wasn't a logician, he was a phenomenologist!")
Another new blog, where people post dreams: DreamCatcher. A good epistemological question though: does anyone want to read other people's dreams? I find that as soon as someone starts a sentence with "I had such a weird dream last night..." I begin to nod off. Burroughs had a good theory about why this is: we lack the context of "weird" to make any sense of the surreal. I wonder how this all fits into Waking Life, though.
I have heard of radio insidiously doing this, but never television. Apparently, CBS stations sped up sporting events to fit in more commercial time. That's funny, because CBS is ticked at FOX for running the Emmy crawl during the World Series. It's all about speed.
Interview with Playboy's CEO Christie Hefner. I like this question: "Have you learned anything in the bedroom that you've used in the boardroom?" The answer: "It's less what you say and more what the other person understands you to have said that's important."
Everyone's changing formats. Rolling Stone considers the glossy model.
Who said Afghanistan has no culture? AfghanMagazine.com shows you're wrong. Includes a piece about Makhmalbaf muse Niloufar Pazira. (See also: the Wired.com story where I found this.)
Egyptian novelist Ahdaf Soueif chimes in with a report about the current mood in Cairo.
This month's Digital Web is out. Feast on it, web-hedz. You might also check out this Times piece: With the World Redesigned, What Role for Designers?
I think I'm going to start playing Majestic. Disinfo.com has a dossier on the game.
I have my feelers out there to find out more about this tidbit from the latest Ansible:
China Miéville has the inside story: "My supervisor, an expert in the Middle East, told me about a rumour circulating about the name of Bin Laden's network. The term Al-Qaeda seems to have no political precedent in Arabic, and has therefore been something of a conundrum to the experts, until someone pointed out that a very popular book in the Arab world, Arabs apparently being big readers of translated sf, is Asimov's Foundation, the title of which is translated as "Al-Qaeda." Unlikely as it sounds, this is the only theory anyone can come up with."
Michaelangelo Matos, whose work I've followed in City Pages and Seattle Weekly, has a new online project: The Mix Project. For a year, he'll choose one song per day to write 500 words about. He admits there's nothing terribly unique about this idea, but his mixedtapes are probably better (or at least more evocative) than most.
ArtForum asked smarties to recommend books in the post-WTC world. (Homi K. Bhabha picks Wittgenstein; Avital Ronell, Derrida and Rilke; Andrew Ross, the WPA Guide to New York City.)
The Times has a theory about How The Simpsons Survives.
BBC had a cool Afghanistan Who's Who.
Witty twist on "porn star name game" over at McSweeney's. "Take your middle name as your first name. Take your mother's maiden name as your last name. That's your Romance Novelist name."
Journalists are funny. (I think I can say that since I still sorta am one.) Poynter has a forum called "Songs for Writers" where people talk about music to write to. I never knew my colleagues were so tasteless.
I think all websites should be as helpful as Hummus.com.
Is the Internet Archive Wayback Machine breaking copyright laws or providing a great service? Salon.com contemplates. (Check out the Web Pioneers page. Some might ask if they internet has become worse looking in five years.)
I should really make a separate page for "comments from writers and public intellectuals about Islam/Taliban/WTC/terrorism/anthrax." But I won't. Instead, here's another: Salman Rushdie in the Times. I also stumbled across Bruce Sterling's 9-11 Speculative Outcomes over at SciFi.com.
My Michael Kinsley adoration continues. His piece in today's Post, TV News Killing Our Precious Verbs, making quite an impact. Whose fault is it? Rupert Murdoch's, of course.
Billy Corgan has a new band: Zwan. Why am I telling you? I have no idea. But I did get the new Fugazi in the mail today, which I'll tell you about soon.
To coincide with their print redesign (engineered by the Village Voice), CityPages.com has redesigned. General grades: Navigation: thumbs up; Design: thumbs down.
Another dead dot-com: Mr. Showbiz. (It was a pioneer of sorts one too.)
Next week's Buffy is going to be so damn good that it gets eight extra minutes.
Geek notes: Google has expanded its search functionality to include Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and PDF results.
Here's the first (and maybe last) bit of media coverage I've read about the NBC-IBS partnership.
I haven't tested this, but the concept is ingenius: TV Eyes. You select words or phrases that you want to be notified about if spoken on television.
Yup, anthrax ties.
A very fine collection of foreign candy cigarettes.
Remember Zork? I sure do. Metafilter provided me with Zork link that appears to be the original game word-for-word.
Killing The Buddha is new to me. Based upon the manifesto, it looks like a promising publication. I enjoyed both Metal God and Muhammad Speaks.
Even the Olsen twins are covering Weezer.
Ooo-ooo, this is even better: Axl Rose and Jenna Bush on a date together! I don't care if it's probably untrue gossip; I love the idea.
Wonderfully simple flash games.
Slate.com has redesigned. Interesting organizational technique. They're using the rollover left navigation to organize the content in a different way (categorially) from how it's displayed down the middle column (chronologically). I'm not convinced that it's effective.
Noam Chomsky already has a book out on the most recent chapter in U.S. history: 9-11 (Paperback: $8.95, eBook: $4.20). Counterpunch has a long MIT interview with him.
V.S. Naipaul doesn't do a very good job of warding off the suspicions that he's anti-Muslim in a new New York Times interview. Particularly disturbing is his assessment that "nonfundamentalist Islam" is a contradiction.
It looks like Salon has updated Don DeLillo for the new age. Two of the many DeLillo aphorisms that today glimmer with prescience: "Only a catastrophe gets our attention. We want them, need them, we depend on them. As long as they happen somewhere else." And: "In a society that's filled with glut and repitition and endless consumption, the act of terror may be the only meaningful act."
Textism.com is scoring double points this week with a condemning Just Stop It rant and An Annotated Manifesto for Growth.
Some people are making a big deal out of text ads. Google pioneered them, and now Metafilter is using them to great effect. Even Jakob Nielsen approves.
Homesite 5.0 is out. Gimme, gimme, gimme.
Site news: I have the "email this day to a friend" function working now. It's the little 
icon below each day's entry.
Oprah Book Club vs. Jonathan Franzen.
Get your Anthrax Box now!
Interview with the Aljazeera.net's general manager, Mahmood Abdulhadi. (Tidbit: they want to launch an English-language site within a year. I'm very, very much looking forward to this, since CNN.com and MSNBC.com have both decided to launch Arabic-language sites.)
Jill Geisler from Poynter.org says her eyes hurt from watching the "crawl" on the cable news stations. (Contains kinda cool flash animation.)
I think I'm going to start a band called "Take Penacilin [sic] Now". Maybe they need an editor? I know a few unemployed ones....
Former socialist Christopher Hitchens interviewed by libertarian rag, Reason.
In the category of "I don't care, but people are making a big deal about it": The New York Times has introduced an Electronic Edition in PDF.
Dammit. I swear I'm gonna get outta my office early enough tonight to go watch Mulholland Drive. Here's Stanley Kauffman on the film.
Another sad day for publishing: My favorite magazine has halted publication.
Iranian radio is reporting U.S. troops are in Afghanistan.
So, one of the great things about the internet is that I can show you stories from publications you might not otherwise know about. For instance, The Times Of India reports that a Pakistani General helped bankroll the WTC attacks.
Giuliani won't accept $10 million because Saudi Prince tells it like it is.
I guess Amazon should update this because V.S. Naipaul just won this year.
Hmmmm... and I needed a new Nokia too. (That's a phone?)
Geesh. Someone stop the Weekly Standard before they hurt someone: "Edward Said, Imperialist."
Nothing was as sad as losing Suck.com, but seeing Inside.com fall apart is depressing too. It has weeks to live. Even Yahoo is losing money again.
According to Howard Kurtz, 17 news organizations knew about the attacks on Afghanistan before they happened, but kept quiet about it.
Yesterday, I posted that weird Defense Department Anthrax site, and today you get the weird CIA Terrorist-Busters image.
Also yesterday, I mentioned Al-Jazeera, and said I would do some research. The website is all in Arabic (duh) and requires the translator plugin, but I thought you might want a peak at it anyway. (Here's a screenshot of what it looks like if you have the Arabic-decoder plugin.) NPR interviewed deputy editor, Ahmad Al-Sheikh, (I wish I had an icon to mark this interview as "highly recommended" -- four minutes of really good radio, particularly their points about the use of the word "terrorism.")
New FAA rules. I hate people who carry-on two bags anyway.
A post-mortem: Pauline Kael interview in the New Yorker. She says she wanted to write about Deep Throat, but Shawn wouldn't let her.
Good quote from another dead dot-com: "The story's over. You can't have a magazine about unemployed people."
I haven't seen anyone talk about the weirdness of the publisher of the tabloids the Globe, the Sun, and the National Enquirer being the location of this recent anthrax outbreak. The Miami Herald touches on it, by pointing out that one of those tabloids once published a story claiming that the reason Osama bin Laden hated America was that he was rejected by an American woman as an inadequate lover because he suffers from "underdeveloped sexual organs."
I apologize to those who have absolutely no interest in the interface design links I post here, but today I'm interested in the way that Amazon.com has redesigned their book pages: this example of the book I'm currently reading shows their new tabbing structure. (Also, I mentioned before that the way they put "Rex's Store" in a tab freaks me out.) And, I should point out this one: info architect Jeffrey Zeldmen is featured on Adobe this week. Oh, hell just one more: talking to infoarchitects about the future.
So, there's the company I work for that designed and manages this website: TheIndyChannel.com (one of many). Today, we found this website: FindIndy.com. Um, er, is the design a little suspicious? We launched a year before they did.
What does Rex do? Here is a good example. I designed the page, and all the things in the right column under the header of "INTERACTIVE" are things that I made. Those "interactive components" appear on sites all over the place.
That's weird. I was just lying on my couch a couple nights ago, teetering on the edge of sleep, when I heard a commercial for Steve Brill's Contentville.com. I remember thinking that it was strange they were doing well enough to afford a major advertising campaign. Guess not. (A MediaNews memo says they had 15 employees.) And I really liked the idea of buying obscure dissertations online -- it seemed like it filled a niche, unlike buying cat food online.
The Washington Post is reporting that the hijacking missions cost a half-million dollars. (This "flight simulator in Minnesota" is becoming more important in recent days too.)
Digital artist Joshua Davis has a new episode of Praystation. I've gone to this site probably a hundred times in the past couple years, and I never seem to stay more than one minute. Ever. But I keep coming back to... to... what's the verb for what one does with these beautifully wasteful noise/texture contraptions?
Great lead to a Times article: "In a town full of soldiers, on the edge of Fort Bragg, there could be worse names for a restaurant these days than Osama's Place, but it is hard to think of any." Tidbit revealed: "Osama" means "big cat." (Yesterday, when I was in my locally-owned North African restaurant, I found myself having an "awareness" about watching American patrons and Egyptian employees interact with each other. I drew no conclusions, but I wondered if others had the same sort of meta-consciousness about their actions.)
Today on the webcam, one of the strange posters of women smoking that I got in Hong Kong.
I'm in Seattle next week. Any suggestions on things to do there? Email me. I spent a long time in Seattle back when I used to travel to Alaska every summer (a story that I'll tell here someday), and am looking forward to see it post-WTO. From those days, my most memorable moment was watching Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man at a film festival before it hit major markets.
I'm so proud. I'm smarter than Miss America.
Does it make me callous that I'd like people to compare the design/interface of different major media news websites' "Special Coverage" pages? ABCNews.com | CBSNews.com | MSNBC.com | CNN.com | NYTimes.com | WashingtonPost.com | BBC.co.uk. (Here's mine, but frankly it's feeble by comparison.)
A while ago, I used radio to make a point about why free internet content would survive. I made a passing reference to alt-weeklies lending more proof to my theory. OJR has penned the article basically summarizing the points I never got around to making.
The stories you can be thankful you missed. Condit? Yates? Poundstone? Who?
I'm going to link to it, even though I haven't read it it yet, cuz I trust it will be interesting: Clay Shirky, "In Defense of Cities."
Christopher Hitchens can certainly be a bitch, can't he?
To Howard Zinn: "What would you do if you were president?" The answer.
Three supposed pacifists who no longer are: 1, 2, 3.
No one ever could get Conrad right.
Warning: Geek interface stuff: "Contextual dynamic searching." That's what I'm calling it. I'm intrigued by this sort of web page search that generates "more stories like this one." I noticed that the NYTimes.com just added similar functionality, in the "Related Articles" box.
Groovy. I'm the Blog of the Day.
There's a good Bjork video interview over at Insound. She describes how the original title of her new album, which she calls a "love affair of the home," was Domestica. Insound, which is an essential bookmark for music fans, also has videos from Tortoise, Danielson Famile, and a whole lot more stuff you didn't see on the MTV Music Video Awards.
I wish someone would write an alternative history to the internet, one in which the propelling force of the dialectic had more to do with gimmicks than communication. With that in mind, the Turret-a-Phone turns swearing into an interactive art form.
The Onion A.V. Club has a long interview with Josh Whedon. (Buffy and Lost and the new Iron Chef will be the only tv I watch this fall.) In addition, The Onion proper continues with more impeccable headlines: God Finally Gives Shout-Out Back To All His Niggaz.
The website for the University of Minnesota Institute of New Media Studies recently launched.
Good article about whether image search engines are a form of digital copyright infringement. Ditto.com is being sued for theirs, and one must wonder if the same will happen to the venerated Google.
This is purely geek-talk, but the new WC3 standards for SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) were quietly released a couple days ago. Some predict that this could eventually overthrow Flash -- SVG is non-proprietary, SVG is cross-platform, SVG is a language. Personally, I think Flash has way too much history for this to ever happen, but this is something to watch.
I leave for Hong Kong in 48 hours, so now's your last chance to tell me what I need to know about HK.
That Buddha:
What's up with the buddha? Some answers:
Adam from Oklahoma speculates Buddha is "holding the balls of his vanquished Taliban foes."
Simon just wants to touch it.
Jesse from Madison thinks Buddha is celebrating a win at bocce ball.
TJ, who is somewhat Buddhistic himself, says Buddha is so cheerful because he's holding up the heavens (the sphere in his hands being the sun and the moon).
Kevin proclaims: "Hotei, or the 'laughing Buddha,' is a symbol of happiness/prosperity/general contentment. This is mainly conveyed through his huge belly, which is usually rubbed for luck. But he's also usually represented with some kind of precious object, too. In this case, probably pearls, which no doubt also do double-duty as signs of wisdom."
There ya have it.
Other Miscellaneous:
Part III of that New York Times privacy series.
Everyone else is linking to this Fay Weldon fiasco, so I should too. In short, Weldon has taken sponsorship money to drop references of Bulgari, an Italian jewelry company, in her most recent novel, The Bulgari Connection.
Mildly interesting: Disney and Murdoch are in cahoots for on-demand video.
Hey! The internet isn't the only place you can plaster annoying advertisements that proclaim "interactivity!" Wahoo!
NakedNews.com is hitting television.
I've made many many dumb javascript calculators in my life, but none are nearly as idiotically fun as this: Dew Death Calculator. It would take 210 cans of Mountain Dew to kill me.
The first in a three part series the New York Times has planned on Internet privacy: Giving the Web a Memory Cost Its Users Privacy.
At the intersection of two occasionally brilliant but often idiotic art forms -- Punk Rock and Flash Design -- comes Anarchy Monkey. I can see it now: "Ninety-nine percent of all punk is bad." -- Jakob Nielsen
I guess V - The Original Miniseries has been out for a couple months on DVD, but I didn't notice until now. I remember being pissed off in grade school that I was going to miss the final episode of V because I had to play saxophone in some dumb school concert. Now, I'll finally be able to see the twin-births. The series that followed was horrible.
Rhizome has a new logo that never stays the same.
I'm still waiting for someone to tell me what this Buddha on the webcam that Jerra bought me in Thailand is doing. Why is it holding its balls so cheerfully in the air?
The international Ars Electronica awards (which in the last two years have controversially gone to Linux and Neal Stephenson) have just been announced:
Golden Nica Net Vision:
Banja.com
Awards of Distinction Net Vision:
Sega Phantasy Star Online
ImaHima
Golden Nica Net Excellence:
Praystation
Awards of Distinction Net Excellence:
Warp Records
Manhattan Transformations
Have fun with those links, and then spend another hour with the groovy international net flavor of the Honorable Mentions:
micromusic.net
Gamelab's games
The Walker Art Center
Rhizome
360degrees.org
Kaliber10000
DMG:I.O* vs R3:DEV*
austropolis
BoomBox.net
Ultrashock.com
Fuckedcompany
Bytes for All
Chi-Chian
CUB
Netbabyworld
Tehelka
p.s. Jerra is back from Thailand, and she brought me a Buddha. He's on the webcam. Can anyone tell me what the hell it's doing?
Fargo Rock City gets the back page of the New York Times Book Review. (What I said.)
Is it weird that WashingtonPost.com has a local MP3 section? Big suprise: no Dischord MP3s.
Whitehouse.gov relaunches and who does the L.A. Times get to review it? Jakob Nielson.
Oh, boo hoo. Just when you thought dot-com failures were the most trite thing in the world to talk about, the New York publishing world solidifies your suspicions by celebrating it in BooHoo.com, which apparently chronicles the catastrophic rise and fall of Boo.com. Gawd, they're talking to Cameron Diaz and Ed Norton about a movie.
Weird. The consistently clueless New York Times Arts Section just realized Serge Gainsbourg exists.
CNN is launching a Arabic-Language website. It will be called CNNArabic.com. (p.s. WE MISS YOU MARCIA!)
Eek! The IP addresses are running out!
The Dallas Morning News, The Toronto Star, the Houston Chronicle, and The Orange County Register have all cut their tech sections.
G'head, tell me you don't like saying Sill-vee-yah Poh-DJOH-lee. That's what I thought.
Chuck thinks David Sedaris Must Die.
This project that I'm working on is nowhere near complete, but I wanted to throw it out there to see what you think: Name That Play. The idea is that you learn a little bit of football by seeing some animations of classic plays. It needs work yet, but the general skeleton is there. Any thoughts?
I'm going to do this once, and only once: my girlfriend's AJR column about email news alerts. Or, if you prefer, a column from a distinguished colleague about email news alerts.
What's an internal memo at the The Onion look like? FuckedCompany has posted one. (Someday, I'll write the post about what a moron Scott Haise, the publisher of The Onion, is. It's one of those tragic brainless-person-in-the-right-place success stories.)
Hey, whaddya know, people are reading online news. Huh, too bad it's all boring.
Oh, boy. The new Jakob Nielsen book looks like it will categorically piss people off. Again. What's that guy's problem?
And, I feel extremely dumb for linking to this, but IE 6.0 is out.
No fair. I put up my wish list, and no one sends me toys that make me feel compromised. Trust me, if you want a shot of me doing something naughty on the webcam, all you have to do is ask.
Late one night, I was hunting around the web for weird links about Barbie dolls. Turns out that an artist named Tom Forsythe went to court today and won in a battle with Mattel over the right to create this very weirdness. (Obviously, Mattel hasn't seen this yet.)
I'm going to Hong Kong the middle of September. Anyone ever been there? Recommendations? Suggestions? I'm reading Paul Theroux's Kowloon Tong and re-watching all my Wong Kar-wai films. Email me with more ideas.
Minneapolis browsing:
A story from an indie-weekly in Raleigh about an "effeminate lad from Minnesota" who "rose to the top of the gay porn industry."
Minneapolis cuisine reviewed in the Sunday New York Times.
Esquire's Korey Stringer feature.
First of all, I hate, hate, hate Kevin Smith. I'll simply never understand why Clerks was considered good by anyone with a brain and why Richard Linklater befriended him.
That aside, you probably heard that Tim Burton read his script for Superman and totally dissed it. Now Smith is dissing him back, by claiming that Burton ripped him off with the elliptical ending of Planet of the Apes. And he says he has proof, as this shot from a three-year-old Jay and Silent Bob comic book reportedly shows. Read more about this at Plastic.com.
In other movie news, How to Tell a Bad Movie From a Truly Bad Movie.
Fragments of conversations heard at the Sunday ignoscenti dinner table:
"I don't get it. What's a blog? Is it a diary? A form of publishing? One of those zine things? Is it about one thing? Many things? A community? A loner? A poor excuse for people to post their Amazon wish list?"
"Why is everyone talking about this Michael Hardt guy? Why is everyone talking to him? Has his book really sold-out and become unavailable on Amazon? Should I pay attention?"
"Cormac McCarthy is so hard. So is Ulysses. Come to think of it, so is relativity."
"I love the New Yorker online!"
"I mean, who hasn't read John Berger?"
"I love heavy metal! And Fargo!"
"Finally. Bestiality is cool."
"I hear that comic books are being considered literature again. Must be true. No one is buying them but they make great movies."
"Eudora Welty... he's the one that invented my email program, right?"
"Should I buy a domain name?"
"Dave Eggers? The guy who did an interview with Mark Eitzel back in '97."
I like this list from Utne. "The 10 Best Books That Defy Categorization." I only know a couple of them, but have wanted to read #2, Louis Aragon, for a while.
I played croquet recently for the first time in at least a decade. Someone asked if it was "really a sport" (the seed of infinite worthless dorm-room conversations posed to everything from soccer to marbles). But what we wanted to know is if one can get paid to play croquet. And then, in an otherwise boring Sunday edition, the Times answered my question.
Rob Nelson's City Pages review of A.I. is remarkably similar to the review I would have given. (My new fave Kubrick line: "The Holocaust is about six million people who get killed. Schindler's List was about six hundred people who don't.") What do you get if you cross Speilberg and and Kubrick? Apparently, really bad George Lucas. (C'mon, it's got a goddamn Ewok in it.)
Last seen in 1959, the BMW Mini will be re-released state-side next year.
Long but satisfying John McWhorter feature. He voted for Nader but Clarence Thomas wants to hang out with him. (This is the book causing the fervor.)
My best friend in college [yes, Chuck, I said that] had a book come out recently on Scribner. I read an early draft of it about two years ago and mostly disliked it. But I'd still recommend it to anyone unfortunate enough to have listened to heavy metal in the midwest in the '80s.
Fargo Rock City (originally titled Appetite For Deconstruction) is a genre-romp of memoir, criticism, rock gospelizing and list-making. The best parts are memoir, and the worst parts are criticism. And I can attest that the half of it that I lived through with him is amazingly accurate. (The simple fact that anyone reputable has chosen to publish a book that includes stories about us eating Chicken McNuggets at a Hardees in Grand Forks, ND is simply astounding.)
Eric Weisbard in The New York Times Book Review called it "ridiculously engaging," which is the most accurate description I've heard. I think that if you read it you'll find yourself suprised when the last page is turned (an acccident that you finished it) with a curious grin on your face as to why you made it all the way through. Chuck would say you had imbibed a "guilty pleasure."
Anyway, read the first chapter or buy it and see what you think.
){kind=link}
