The Twitter Inversion

April 5, 2009 | Arts & Culture | Business & Commerce | People & Society

Perhaps another time I could elaborate further on the profound nature of Twitter's interaction model. There are flaws, but it's wired us together in as many ways as there are participants. Today, by way of illustration, here is a screenshot view into a couple of minutes of my Twitter stream:

The stream actually starts on the bottom, so right off the bat if we want to experience time progressing in the familiar direction we are reading from bottom to top, the opposite of what we expect. Thus, leaving Kansas, we hear from some characters. Context is everything.

Daniel Jalkut owns Red Sweater Software, makers of the fine MarsEdit, the weblog editing tool upon which I sculpted the very words you're reading. We've corresponded by email on a couple of topics. Nice guy. Lives about two hours south of here (in Boston) and I've always thought I should get myself down to one of the various meetups in that area and say hello sometime. His tweets and posts are each of equal quality.

Next up, Howard Rheingold, an old online friend from The WeLL, who lives in Northern California. When I got fully online in 1988, Howard was there waiting, pointing the way. We met during Internet 1.0 at the offices of Caucus Systems, maker of a well-designed multi-user conferencing system similar in interaction structure to The WeLL. I doubt I'll ever forget riding the DC metro with Howard in his bright orange silk suit, hand-painted leather shoes, and white derby. You can turn heads dressing like that. It's unlikely Howard remembers me, but no matter, I love you too buddy.

OM_o is the Open Museum (online), produced by Heritance, where I am a director serving on the board with several others, including friends and founders Maureen and Jeff Doyle. The visual design of openmuseum.org is a fork of the xhtml/css codebase I wrote for GiftEcology.com (nee Handmeon.com). I usually always check the links posted here because the objects are interesting and the stories are good. And they're friends and I'm on the board and I usually have thoughts on the interface evolution and I'll probably see them soon so I want to stay up to date with the project.

And then, look, right there, just above OM_o is Maureen, who lives in Vermont. Always nice to see her. But wait, I don't like seeing those duplicate Tweets – no no, that suddenly feels like PR. I need to email her a link to this blog post, because I want to encourage people to never do this. Don't multi-tweet with pasted text. Adopt a specific identity for each posting account, or simply tweet for yourself, as yourself. Using that imperative to make a leap to the broader issues around 'social media marketing,' I pretty much agree with everything in this 10-minute video by Perry Belcher. (Some language not safe for work.) He's coming from the Internet marketer perspective but watch it anyway, he's right on beat with the social media rap. In another video he claims to have earned in excess of $50 million on the Internet, and also that he has personally paid over $10 million to Google AdWords advertising. If you're thinking about making money online he's probably a good guy to listen to. But whatever you think about that he speaks for me on current business best practices using Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube.

Above Maureen is my close friend and all-around great person Meg Maker from New Hampshire. You should go and read Maker's Table, her food and wine blog, right now – this post will still be here when you get back. I've known Meg 20 years, we've worked together in many different roles and structures, and we see each other socially many times a year.

Above Meg is Dave Winer, a brilliant, visionary, hard-working nerd of the first order, who lives in Berkeley, California. Dave was instrumental in creating among other things, RSS, which is what blogs use for subscriptions; podcasts, which are now ubiquitous; and outlining, which is taken for granted but wasn't really in use much prior to Dave's "ThinkTank" and "More" software. Dave also kind of invented the idea of "bullet charts" for presentations, sort of a proto-PowerPoint feature built into More.

Finally at the top, Dan Benjamin, who I've never met or corresponded with, but who I came across because in 2007 he wrote the best-ever articles on Ruby/Rails/MySQL/etc Mac OS X installation and configuration. I think he lives near Orlando, Florida. We've corresponded a bit via Twitter. He posted something about BBEdit and opening projects, and I @replied (quickly) along the lines of, "X doesn't just work?" To which he @replied me something snotty, like "@notio, no, obviously, X doesn't just work." (I paraphrase.) [See update below.] I felt horrible, like I'd annoyed the Master, and wondered if he'd make it so that my specific computer could never read his website again, but then several other people who I also follow @replied him with the same idea, before they saw his response to me. So then I didn't feel like quite such a dunderhead. Dan's a very serious meditator, so I know in my heart that his tone to me was not personal but was just part of his practice.

Now, take another look at that screenshot and tell me: Are these, you know, inane, unnecessary, frivolous, 140-character "messages?" To me, because of the context, not so much – it reads like human conversation. Not transactional messages between humanoids, but conversation between people. If you've ever transcribed recorded conversation literally you know it's really something to read – you can hardly follow it. If I think about conversation as "messages" then most conversations don't pass for quality of messages. But what's nice about human conversation is that it has all sorts of structures and processes and norms and degrees of freedom so we can actually get to know each other and find common interests, aside and apart from the transactional and informational quality of messaging.

In that two-minute snapshot of my Twitter stream I am updated on lives and perspectives, and am provided opportunities to further engage with links to several topics. I can reply if I want, or not. Some people I know well, others only through this medium. It's not email, it's not threaded, you have to be concise, the company is growing quickly and there are a lot of hiccups.

And yes, there are ways to sort-of spam Twitter and people are discovering ways (cough, TweetBlast, cough) to make sales with viral Twitter schemes, but there's one big difference.

If you don't like your Twitter stream content, you can un-follow people, and you'll never hear from them again.

How different from email lists, where names are shared and sold and the spam never stops. Here attention is earned, not demanded. That inversion makes the whole thing worthwhile, because even if Twitter dies, we'll have experienced this form of communication.

This new form is such that the listener is in control of the attention paid to talkers, and once you experience this you will never want to go back to letting the broadcast-era talkers attempt to dominate your attention and listening. This interaction model started with RSS subscriptions, and has now hit the mainstream with Twitter.

The future? Let me know when I can watch the most creative advertising whenever I want. That will be fun.

Update: Dan Benjamin commented below, and due to a problem with my TypePad ID I am unable to write a comment response on my own blog. Gotta get off this platform. In any case, I don't mean to overstate the case – I'm sure whatever Dan said was reasonable, because after reading him for several years I think he's a reasonable guy – my intent was to convey my internal horror of tossing off a flip comment to an expert. Apology accepted, with my own apology added for good measure!

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Introduction to Grateful Dead

January 8, 2009 | Arts & Culture | Life

So, you have a new friend, and one day she says, "You should burn me a Grateful Dead CD because I'm really not familiar with anything they've done." You say, "Sure," and a few minutes later your head explodes as you reel from the possibilities. It takes a week of full-time leisure-thought to sort it all out and find an entry point....

The catalog is vast. 30 years of concert performances. Over 3,000 shows, most of them available as recordings! Hundreds of songs in the repertoire. Dozens officially released concert CDs. Thousands upon thousands of authorized private non-commercial concert tapes and discs. The Internet Archive has 2,854 multi-hour downloads online, and it's certainly incomplete.

You start by wondering how your friends might answer this question. So you ask a few, and their first response is to laugh. "Wow, not sure. I don't know...." is the typical response before their voice trails off.

Do we start with the old experimental shows? (No.) Or the most modern powerhouse shows? (Maybe.) The middle years, at the peak of their creativity? (Possible.) Pigpen-era? Keith-ear? Brent-era? We certainly know enough not to start with the Vince era.

Do I burn something I like? Or something I think she will like? Do I pick something with clean sound, or something gritty, real, and otherworldly? Do I choose an official release so it's nicely edited, or a tape I recorded myself in the '80s?

When people asked this during the college years I'd just give them a copy of whatever I was listening to at the time. It was always changing, there was always more. If they liked it, or even if they didn't, we'd just bring 'em along the next time the Dead were playing nearby and see if they caught the live magic lightening. Or maybe they liked it a lot, and wanted to drink from the fire hose – they'd bring over a tape deck and spend the weekend copying cassettes. Tape flip every 45 minutes. Oh, the slow lazy days of real-time dubbing. Roll another one.

Today, virtually none of this is possible. We have only the recorded legacy, and a lot of it. Today, we burn 70-minute CDs in 14 minutes.

For starters, let's eliminate the studio albums. Although there are some worthy of listening, there's no sense in starting there. The Dead experience revolved around live performance. Maybe a Dick's Pick concert release? But then what to say? That 1971 show that turned Donni into a raving Deadhead? The 1983 one with a chunky Scarlet Fire? The '77 Fox Theater shows? That weird '74 Alexandra Palace show that makes you feel like you're tripping just listening to it? Maybe that '73 Oklahoma show because it has such a hot summer beer-drunk lazy vibe?

Dick's Picks narrows it down but doesn't really help the selection process. Maybe we should just have an all-Dead weekend and see how that goes....

How about if I just burn the five-disc chronological set, So Many Roads? This was put together by scholarly Deadheads, with carefully selected songs and thorough liner notes. It flows well, and you can start in the middle and work out toward the early and late years. But you don't want to overload. She just asked for a sample, a taste, you don't need to deliver a box-load of discs to paw through.

Maybe Dozin' at the Knick, that's a pretty safe bet. The playing is quite tight; the polish meets anyone's standards, and it's from a good era. But somehow, no. Can't tell you why. Probably a good second round offering.

What about an audience recording, like Lewiston 1980? Well, that was a short-lived thought. It is a rockin' fantastic show, and it seems like every Deadhead I know was there, except for me. And the audience recording on archive.org is a fantastic representation. But, man, that show is dead to the core. I think it's best left to round three or four.

What about a multi-track release like Go to Nassau? This was a contender, and I listened to it on my commute for two days. Strong contender. But, like Dozin', not quite right. A little too rock 'n roll, not enough representation of the thoughtful, mellow side. Yes, I know that High Time is rarely played and it's well-played on this release, but still.

It came down to eras. Late '70s, early '80s, or late '80s/early '90s. Each has their charms—and there are other options but these seem best for introductory material—and it depends a lot on what the prospect likes and listens to already.

In the end, I decided on the remastered versions of Reckoning and Dead Set. Two live recordings from 1980, when Brent was new but settled in, and highly polished in production. Reckoning is all acoustic, so you get the Folkie Country Dead, and Dead Set is electric, with the more typical sound. The innovative recording technique pioneered new ground, and the band, rarely allowed to play sophisticated and intimate venues like the Warfield Theater in SF and Radio City Music Hall in NYC, rose to the occasion with fresh, tight ensemble playing. The remastered versions are two discs each, with a lot of bonus material. It's still four discs – what can a deadhead say? – but split in half by the acoustic/electric difference.

I figured if that floats then round two will be a single show (complete experience), from the west coast (home field advantage), in a small venue (raise the stakes), from the Dan Healy era (psychoacoustic sound effects). So we're talkin' probably the Greek or the Frost, maybe Ventura, from the 1980's.

On a plane to Detroit I listened to a soundboard from 6/19/1989 (Greek Theater). It's a serious contender. The headphone experience was something else. The harmonic vocal processing, the stereo exchanger effects, the setlist, Garcia's heartfelt Candyman, Crazy Fingers, and Knockin' – really brought me back, I tell 'ya, even on a plane.

I think a full survey of the late-eighties Greek and Frost shows is in order, but if you had to choose today you could do a lot worse than the 6-19-89 at the Greek.

[I wrote this in August, 2006, but never posted it. I think I had intended to link up a lot of the text and never got to it. Decided to post it today without the link farming.]

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Mostly Twittering

October 14, 2008 | Arts & Culture | Business & Commerce | Products & Opportunites | Technology

Thoughts are shorter-form these days. Twitter is a good place to follow me. Example:

New Macbook video: http://bit.ly/1xNvDH Awesome emo marketing, utter techporn, richly deserves to be parodied.

So there's that....

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Here Is What Is

September 12, 2008 | Arts & Culture

It's a beautiful work of art, expressing a unique vision of music-making and the creative process. It is officially 93 minutes long, but there's another hour or more of extra footage, just as good as the main event. It is Daniel Lanois's movie, Here Is What Is, and I recommend it without hesitation. (Previously)

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Byrne/Eno Return!

August 18, 2008 | Arts & Culture

Big news in music! The Website The NY Times story. And, the tour!

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The Death of Postmodernism And Beyond

June 23, 2008 | Arts & Culture

This is the first philosophy article that ever seemed relevant to me.

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Desiderata

June 19, 2008 | Arts & Culture

It's worth reading Desiderata once in a while:

Go placidly amid the noise and the haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.

As far as possible, without surrender,
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even to the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons;
they are vexatious to the spirit.

If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain or bitter,
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs,
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals,
and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love,
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment,
it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be.
And whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life,
keep peace in your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

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Loop and chill

May 19, 2008 | Arts & Culture | Nature & Environment

One-hour hand-recorded 54MB mp3 of Ocean Beach waves, San Francisco, 2008-05-14. Loop and chill. A gift, via Jessamyn.

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The day there was no news

May 14, 2008 | Arts & Culture | Business & Commerce | People & Society

At least I can dream...

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All you need to know about fashion photos

May 13, 2008 | Arts & Culture

New Yorker:

Pascal Dangin is the premier retoucher of fashion photographs. Art directors and admen call him when they want someone who looks less than great to look great, someone who looks great to look amazing, or someone who looks amazing already—whether by dint of DNA or M·A·C—to look, as is the mode, superhuman. (Christy Turlington, for the record, needs the least help.) In the March issue of Vogue Dangin tweaked a hundred and forty-four images: a hundred and seven advertisements (Estée Lauder, Gucci, Dior, etc.), thirty-six fashion pictures, and the cover, featuring Drew Barrymore.

Emphasis added.

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Spirograph

May 9, 2008 | Arts & Culture | People & Society | Products & Opportunites

Gwad, I loved the Spirograph.

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Letter to JG

May 2, 2008 | Arts & Culture

And, completing the morning's blogging, a beautiful 1996 letter from lyricist Robert Hunter to his friend and primary writing partner Jerry Garcia, one year after Garcia's death.

Your funeral service was one hell of a scene. Maureen and I took Barbara and Sara in and sat with them. MG waited over at our place. Manasha and Keelan were also absent. None by choice. Everybody from the band said some words and Steve, especially, did you proud, speaking with great love and candor. Annabelle got up and said you were a genius, a great guy, a wonderful friend, and a shitty father - which shocked part of the contingent and amused the rest. After awhile the minister said that that was enough talking, but I called out, from the back of the church, "Wait, I've got something!" and charged up the aisle and read this piece I wrote for you, my voice and hands shaking like a leaf. Man, it was weird looking over and seeing you dead!

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One consequence of specialization is extinction

May 2, 2008 | Arts & Culture | Business & Commerce

Sobering reflections from Robert Rich, on making a living as a musical artist in the long tail, based on his life data from the past 30 years.

In reality the life of a "microcelebrity" resembles more the fate of Sisyphus, whose boulder rolls back down the mountain every time he reaches the summit. After every tour I feel exhausted but empowered by the thought that a few people really care a lot about this music. Yet, a few months later all is quiet again and CD/downoad sales slow down again. If I take the time to concentrate for a year on what I hope to be a breakthrough album, that time of silence widens out into a gaping hole and interest seems to fade. When I finally do release something that I feel to be a bold new direction, I manage only to sell it to the same 1,000 True Fans. The boulder sits back at the bottom of the mountain and it's time to start rolling it up again.

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Synchronizing Five Metronomes

May 2, 2008 | Arts & Culture

via Kottke.

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RIP Albert Hofmann

April 30, 2008 | Arts & Culture | People & Society

At 102.

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Quote of the Day

April 15, 2008 | Arts & Culture | Business & Commerce | People & Society

Scott Heriferman: "Sadly, no time to really get into Twitter. For me, to stay healthy AND lead a needed meme (meetup to go from 5M to 500M people, ~$10M to $100M+ rev, and 20K to 200K successful meetup groups), can't get sucked in."

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Revolution Fashion Show 2008

April 14, 2008 | Arts & Culture

Saturday we went to the Revolution Fashion show in White River Junction (VT). I brought the new camera, and I learned a lot about using it. Witness the top 30. I made 300 photos, culled 100 that were junk, and tried to select the top 30 to tell a story through the titles.

Tech details: Nikon D300 w/Sigma 30mm/1.4 lens, @ ISO 3,200 without flash. For the runway show, I used Aperture mode, set at f1.4. For the dancing I used Shutter mode at 1/60. On the runway I was a lot happier once I figured out center-weighted metering. The matrix metering was blowing out the highlights, and the spot meter was hit or miss on the moving target. Auto-focus was set to dynamic AF (21 points) continuous, and that worked really well. Active D-Lighting was set to 'normal,' which is supposed to bring the highlights down and the shadows up at the sensor, prior to recording.

I should say I'm not entirely pleased with the quality, especially of the skin tones. But, it was dark in there, and the stage lights were bright, and I was the only person shooting without a flash. And, I'm learning!

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Thriving Office

April 12, 2008 | Arts & Culture | Business & Commerce | People & Society

The Sounds of Success:

Home businesses know they must seem successful to become successful. So they play Thriving Office while on the phone. This valuable CD, which is filled with the sounds people expect to hear from an established company, provides instant credibility.

It's amazing what the world has come to.

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Shine A Light

April 4, 2008 | Arts & Culture | People & Society

Martin Scorsese has a new film opening tonight, a musical documentary on the Rolling Stones, filmed in 2006, called Shine A Light. It's big news in the Intertubes Classic Rock spaces. Here's the trailer (2:44):

And here's Jumpin' Jack Flash, the (complete) first song from the movie (4:10):

What strikes me most is how healthy they look. Even Keith. Well, he's a little worse for the wear, but judged by his own standards even Keith is lookin' good.

To gain some perspective on all that, check out this version of Honky Tonk Woman from 1969 in Hyde Park (3:09):

Now, that is some classic rock, eh? Meanwhile backstage, here's an amusing outtake from an MTV television ad from the 1980s (1:48):

Kids, don't try this at home.

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You Can't Be Serious

March 18, 2008 | Arts & Culture | Governance | People & Society

From the middle section of a longer interview with the rapper DMX:

Are you following the presidential race?
Not at all.

You’re not? You know there’s a Black guy running, Barack Obama and then there’s Hillary Clinton.
His name is Barack?!

Barack Obama, yeah.
Barack?!

Barack.
What the fuck is a Barack?! Barack Obama. Where he from, Africa?

Yeah, his dad is from Kenya.
Barack Obama?

Yeah.
What the fuck?! That ain’t no fuckin’ name, yo. That ain’t that nigga’s name. You can’t be serious. Barack Obama. Get the fuck outta here.

You’re telling me you haven’t heard about him before.
I ain’t really paying much attention.

I mean, it’s pretty big if a Black…
Wow, Barack! The nigga’s name is Barack. Barack? Nigga named Barack Obama. What the fuck, man?! Is he serious? That ain’t his fuckin’ name. Ima tell this nigga when I see him, “Stop that bullshit. Stop that bullshit” [laughs] “That ain’t your fuckin’ name.” Your momma ain’t name you no damn Barack.

So you’re not following the race. You can’t vote right?
Nope.

Is that why you’re not following it?
No, because it’s just—it doesn’t matter. They’re gonna do what they’re gonna do. It doesn’t really make a difference. These are the last years.

But it would be pretty big if we had a first Black president. That would be huge.
I mean, I guess…. What, they gon’ give a dog a bone? There you go. Ooh, we have a Black president now. They should’ve done that shit a long time ago, we wouldn’t be in the fuckin’ position we in now. With world war coming up right now. They done fucked this shit up then give it to the Black people, “Here you take it. Take my mess.”

Right, exactly.
It’s all a fuckin’ setup. It’s all a setup. All fuckin’ bullshit. All bullshit. I don’t give a fuck about none of that.

We could have a female president also, Hillary Clinton.
I mean, either way it doesn’t matter. I don’t care. No one person is directly affected by which president, you know, so what does it matter.

Yeah, but the country is.
I guess. The president is a puppet anyway. The president don’t make no damn decisions.

The president…they don’t have that much authority basically?
Nah, never.

But Bush pretty much…
You think Bush is making fuckin’ decisions?

He did, yeah, he fucked up the country.
He act like he making decisions. He could barely speak! He could barely fuckin’ speak! Can’t be serious. He ain’t making no damn decisions.

Well Barack has a good chance of winning so that might be something.
Good for him, good for him.

Then come the comments!

crocker says: fucking wow. DMX has lost his fucking mind.

sooch says: why didn’t he just bark through the interview?

DirtDogggy says: Only naive young fucks wouldn’t understand what hes talking about, the wiser you get the tougher life is, he’s far from dumb, he knows who Obama is retards, he was trying to make a point, that it doesn’t mean fuck all no matter who wins the election. I’ve bin saying the presidents a puppet on a string for years, finally someone said it, it doesn’t even matter who wins it’s just a matter of timing whether people like them or not, presidents just push the button they make no decisions on their own or have any origional ideas. I have a feeling X is right, the black mans going to take the heat for fucking up the US/world but it’s really a big chain reaction of recent years of fuckery by all the politicians and presidents put together.

Diz says: Man, what the fuck kind of interview is this. I know the interviewer was ready to get the hell out of there. DMX has lost his fucking mind. But you know what they say, some of the best artists are fucked up anyway. Hopefully good music is on the way.

Real Talk says: X is on drugs, it’s no secret. He’s got a drug problem. It’s sad but that’s rock n roll man. If a normal person is on drugs, they can’t eat. If a musician is on drugs, they still got money coming in. He’s like Ozzie Osborn wit it. Hopefully he’s not completely gone, you know? I hate to see people become just a shell of what they used to be.

via Kottke via ah.

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U23D at IMAX

March 13, 2008 | Arts & Culture | People & Society | Technology

One good thing about living in the society of the spectacle is that every once in a while it produces something truly mind-blowing. In this case, a U2 concert movie filmed in a new 3D technology, playing on the huge IMAX screens. Unbelievably good.

The experience is nothing like previous 3D movies. This is absolutely convincing, beautiful and glorious, with presence and immediacy. Band members exist in 3-space, walking around, moving toward and away from you. The drum kit looked especially impressive, with a depth and lighting that you just have never seen on screen before.

The technology is produced by 3ality Digital. Here's a semi-technical article on the production from Film & Video magazine's January issue. Even better, this companion article on software post-production has a lot of interesting details:

The toolset also allows for multiple convergence points. “This is something that doesn’t make sense at all in 2D,” says Postley. “You can have not only multiple 3D layers, but each one of the layers has a different focal plane or convergence point. If I took a shot of Bono, a shot of Edge and so on into editing, I can cut up the images and layer them to make them look like they’re standing in the same depth in the screen. It’s a 3D effect for which there is no 2D corollary.”

Here's a page written by a guy hired to do the Stereoscopic Depth Balancing:

Because so much of the project was edited in fast paced, "MTV" type cuts, and almost every scene involved multiple layers and special effect composites, we were faced with continuous alignment and dynamic artistic placement issues. This gave us opportunities to experiment with and learn from freely floating objects, people and backgrounds in a "dream-like" visual montage. We learned to "hand off" changes of depth from near to far and back again, smoothly guiding the eyes from scene to scene. The result is comfortable viewing through disolves and quick cuts, and an 84 minute movie that doesn't strain the eyes or induce headaches.

The sound also rocks hard. The clarity and auditory spatial focus seem to follow the visual focus. And the lighting is very dramatic. Crisp everywhere, with lots of variation and shading, as well as the usual knockout punches that concert light can deliver.

It's simply a tour de force of concert movie immersion. I certainly want to see it again and get the perfect seat, half-way up in the center. Kathryn and I saw this in Baltimore and sat low, in the 3rd or 4th row, far off to the side – pretty bad seats, and it was still impressive.

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Copying Makes Evolution Possible

March 4, 2008 | Arts & Culture | Nature & Environment | People & Society

Susan Blackmore in Wired:

The whole idea of a meme is that it's information that is copied with variation and selection. So any idea that is copied from person to person is a meme. But an idea that you think up for yourself and is not expressed is not a meme. The emphasis has to be on copying, because that's what makes evolution possible.

[Some memes] succeed because they're good for us or they're true or beautiful or useful and we select them for those reasons. Some other memes succeed, in spite of not being beautiful or true or useful, by using tricks. So religions, for example, have some value, but by and large they're false ideas that use tricks to get into people's heads -- threats of hell, promises of heaven, the allure of being a good person or of God loving you. There are also memes that trick you into thinking that you're going to get popular or that you're going to get rich or that you're going to get a bigger penis, whatever it is. [Ed: ambiguous 'it.']

Wired asks, What will [the future] look like?

Well, it will look like humans are just a minor thing on this planet with masses (of) silicon-based machinery using us to drag stuff out of the ground to build more machines.

As Kottke said of this quote, Good times.

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And Then Came New Hampshire...

February 25, 2008 | Arts & Culture | People & Society

The maker of that video has a new project alive. You can add your own photo to the montage of video. Very innovative. And beautiful heartfelt text on the Creators page. Bravo.

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The Point and Pixish

February 12, 2008 | Arts & Culture | People & Society | Software

The Point looks really interesting.

The Point is a social platform for people to solve problems they can’t solve alone. Start an ultimatum, fundraiser, or social contract. Whatever the cause, use a campaign to bring it to the tipping point.

Also, beautiful minimalist design.

Bonus link: Pixish, Visual Assignments For Creative People. Less beautiful design, but still very nicely done. It was this week's favorite new website design, until I saw The Point. Not a bad week for web design, when you've got two solid choices in the first two days.

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Fully Immersed in Something

February 1, 2008 | Arts & Culture | People & Society | Products & Opportunites | Technology

For when you truly have money to burn, Ultra Geeky Home Cinemas.

Instead, perhaps consider this? (All 4:21 are worth it, lyrics and images.)

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A Way To Live

January 25, 2008 | Arts & Culture | People & Society

A life. Some projects. A very thoughtful five-minute "game." (Read the creator's statement.) If you want, you can support this life.

Update: I didn't know it at the time I wrote this, but the Wall Street Journal covered the game in today's issue.

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On Twitter

January 23, 2008 | Arts & Culture | People & Society | Software | Technology

rentzsch: yay morphed a client meeting into client work-time. "Nothing new to talk about, how about I just keep working?" "Sure." I love sane clients

I never understood Twitter. I checked it out way back when, probably around when it first started, readin' the blogs and all, and I just didn't get it. "Okay, you're supposed to answer the question, 'What are you doing?' – I guess you post from mobile phones or something – SMS, I think that's a phone thing – because posts are limited to 140 characters! What can be said in 140 chars? Well, maybe someone will probably use it."

I signed up for an account though, mostly to landgrab the esteemed and coveted notio member name. I'm not sure I ever went back, even after I read about Twitter taking off and getting popular. I just figured, "I don't really have a modern phone, pretty sure it doesn't do SMS, and gosh ain't the kids just crazy these days with their Internets??"

Then in early January a friend was flying out to Iowa, and he said, "I'm on Twitter BTW. I usually post when I travel." And I said, "What is the deal with Twitter? I just don't get it." He said, "You have to get a desktop client, like Twitterific. Then subscribe to a few people, look at my friends and then look at their friends and subscribe to the interesting ones. You can't use the website this way, you need the integrated view. They're calling my flight, gotta go."

So I downloaded Twitterific, and did what he said, and it only took about half a day, before, suddenly – bing! – the bell rang inside my head. It turns out that keeping Twitterific on the the background is like sitting in a cafe where everyone there is a friend. The 140 char "restriction" drove behavior toward a new style of online banter, sort of a synthetic conversation made up of everyone announcing presence to each other. It's not really better or worse, it's just really different.

I "followed" my friend over two days, as he made his way through his business trip. Here are some examples to give you a sense of the flow:

It's Jan 2nd, can we stop the Christmas music playing at the airport yet?

Delayed twice already. Looks like I'm missing my connection.

Can someone at Gate 36 in Cincinatti please tell the woman cutting her nails in public that it is disgusting.

Next to Mike Wallace while checking in at the Marriott.

Shorter than I expected.

DSL line just went down... to the backup we go.

Up and running on the backup DSL. That was a little stressful... but better now than 8:00

Romney has conceded Iowa

They are calling it for Obama here.

Adam Nagourney is an intense typist.

The live band at the Ron Paul party next door is playing "When will I be loved"

Teardown time.

Done. I'm outta here.

Happy to see and hard to beleive but the airport is totally mellow.

It's got its own vibe, doesn't it? Poetic, in a way. I had a real sense of what was going on in his life. A tight connection, over two days. And each of those "tweets" was read in-line with several other folks on-going comments and announcements. When people subscribe to each other's tweets you often see people reply to each other, in public, using the "@" to cue the recipient, as in, "@notio are you making a point?"

All this just goes to say that Twitter is an interesting place to play, and I missed it the first time because I tried to box it into existing mental models. On its own terms it's radical and super-interesting. For instance, back to that quote from the beginning:

rentzsch: yay morphed a client meeting into client work-time. "Nothing new to talk about, how about I just keep working?" "Sure." I love sane clients

Anyone who has ever worked in a professional services capacity will recognize several nuggets of humorized truth in rentzsch's tweet. It conveyed to me a complete emotional state. I laughed out loud, smiled, and when I happened to see Twitterific ask, "What are you doing?" I wrote, "Writing about twitterific"

@notio

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On Brazil

January 20, 2008 | Arts & Culture

When I was at the Unbroken Chain conference someone brought up the movie Brazil and when they learned I hadn't seen it the whole room became animated with encouragement: "Oh man! You have to check it out! Wow, never seen Brazil... Dude, it's awesome, you won't believe it."

Well, okay then. We watched it last night. What struck me was the similarity to the Bush administration. Even Wikipedia alludes to it:

Brazil's bureaucratic, totalitarian government is reminiscent of the British government depicted in George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, except that it has a buffoonish, slap-stick quality totally lacking in that particular novel.

Certainly the most unusual movie I've seen in a good long time. A more engaging plot – in fact, discernible – than Eraserhead. For cinematographic scope, Prosper's Books was probably stronger. If those two didn't throw you off, you'll enjoy Brazil.

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Running Out of Ideas?

January 17, 2008 | Arts & Culture | Business & Commerce | Life | Software

Amusing one-line review of Handmeon, pointing to the Boston Globe article:

Handmeon.com is a cool idea, perhaps showing that Web 2.0 entrepreneurs may be running out of ideas.

Well, I laughed out loud. He goes on to say, "Actually, I do think it's a pretty interesting social experiment." Thanks Pito, for taking a look.

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In Praise of Melancholy

January 17, 2008 | Arts & Culture | People & Society

The Chronicle:

Ours are ominous times. We are on the verge of eroding away our ozone layer. Within decades we could face major oceanic flooding. We are close to annihilating hundreds of exquisite animal species. Soon our forests will be as bland as pavement. Moreover, we now find ourselves on the verge of a new cold war.

But there is another threat, perhaps as dangerous: We are eradicating a major cultural force, the muse behind much art and poetry and music. We are annihilating melancholia.

My favorite line: "One would think that Keats's life would have fostered bitterness in him, but he remained generous in the face of his difficulties. He didn't flee to the usual 19th-century escapes: Christianity or opium..."

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The Game Was Completely Up

January 14, 2008 | Arts & Culture | Business & Commerce

The Economist:

In 2006 EMI, the world's fourth-biggest recorded-music company, invited some teenagers into its headquarters in London to talk to its top managers about their listening habits. At the end of the session the EMI bosses thanked them for their comments and told them to help themselves to a big pile of CDs sitting on a table. But none of the teens took any of the CDs, even though they were free. “That was the moment we realised the game was completely up,” says a person who was there.

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The 50 Most Loathsome People In America, 2007

December 28, 2007 | Arts & Culture | People & Society

Possibly the most sarcastic link ever posted at Notio. Also probably the funniest; an instant classic. Via Kottke, with whom I post the following excerpt:

9. You

Charges: You believe in freedom of speech, until someone says something that offends you. You suddenly give a damn about border integrity, because the automated voice system at your pharmacy asked you to press 9 for Spanish. You cling to every scrap of bullshit you can find to support your ludicrous belief system, and reject all empirical evidence to the contrary. You know the difference between patriotism and nationalism -- it's nationalism when foreigners do it. You hate anyone who seems smarter than you. You care more about zygotes than actual people. You love to blame people for their misfortunes, even if it means screwing yourself over. You still think Republicans favor limited government. Your knowledge of politics and government are dwarfed by your concern for Britney Spears' children. You think buying Chinese goods stimulates our economy. You think you're going to get universal health care. You tolerate the phrase "enhanced interrogation techniques." You think the government is actually trying to improve education. You think watching CNN makes you smarter. You think two parties is enough. You can't spell. You think $9 trillion in debt is manageable. You believe in an afterlife for the sole reason that you don't want to die. You think lowering taxes raises revenue. You think the economy's doing well. You're an idiot.

(Told you it was nasty. The other 49 are much funnier. Totally NSFW, language-wise.)

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The Spectacle Has Not Quite Yet Been Supplanted

December 26, 2007 | Arts & Culture | People & Society

Based on my suppertime family viewing, I like Jeopardy better than Wheel of Fortune. I also note, based on a one-hour television ad review, that nobody can sleep, everyone has stomach upset, most people have aches and pains, and many people are depressed. You probably couldn't give away a Buick Lucerne to anyone I know, much less get them excited about a Red Tag Sale. The public seem to prefer fake gratuitous violence over authentic honest sexuality –nipple-slips, coochie displays, and butt flashes aside; celebrities are people who have nothing to offer but their appearance (c.f. above), and when you reduce complex interdependent issues down to 10-30 second "news" summaries, everything is banal, and frequently, simply, wrong. Thus, as has been my practice since 1980, I continue to have little need for television.

Instead, you might want to read this report (and followup discussion) by Howard Rheingold about the philosopher Jurgen Habermas' lack of thoughts "about the state of the public sphere, now that the broadcast era has been supplanted by the many-to-many media that enable so many people to use the Internet as a means of political expression." It takes half as long as a 30-minute tee-vee show, and has at least a million times more intellectual nutrients.

Also, untrained Shi Tzsu puppies are frequently annoying, though exceptionally cute.

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State of the Music

December 24, 2007 | Arts & Culture | Business & Commerce

Wired Magazine has done us a public service by hiring David Byrne to report on the current state of the music industry. It results in two feature articles: David Byrne and Thom Yorke on the Real Value of Music (with a striking photo!), and David Byrne's Survival Strategies for Emerging Artists — and Megastars. Both articles include long audio clips of the conversations, with Thom Yorke, Brian Eno, and others. It's what modern online journalism should be.

In other music news, Daniel Lanois has started a grand experiment, with Red Floor Records. Hi entire back catalog is available for download, with mp3 and high-res wav versions each available for the same $10 price. He has a new movie arriving in March, with the soundtrack available now.

Our first new project available on the site is 'Here is What is'. This music is a direct soundtrack representation of the music that exists in our feature length documentary film also titled 'Here is What is'. For those of you who might not know, the film is a camera following me around over the course of a year, in and out of recording studios documenting once and for all the way it really happens.

I'm very excited by his Omni Series:

For every song of mine that gets released there is an abundance of material that does not. These pieces,  often favorites of mine remain unheard, so Red Floor and I have decided to release this body of work as The Omni Series. At the moment we are planning six cds. Each will be thematically assembled to represent a certain part of my work.

The SSEYO guys, makers of the generative music software Koan (no longer available) have launched two new products via Intermorphic: noatikl furthers the generative music cause, and liptikl does the same for lyrics.

And finally, every year or two I tune into the Brian Eno wavelength, which is best done at the news page of Enoweb. There are dozens of interesting links there for your deep-fringe avant-garde reading pleasure. Good diversions from the family dynamics this time of year. ;)

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Chocolade Haas

December 2, 2007 | Arts & Culture

Poignant, funny, weird, sad: Chocolade Haas (2:35)

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Quote for the Day

November 18, 2007 | Arts & Culture | Life

"It is by deferring mediocre actions and by being utterly intent on foreseeing the unforeseeable that we prepare ourselves for being thoroughly contradicted by happiness." —Gaston Bachelard, The Dialectic of Duration, pg 63.

The Unbroken Chain blogging fiesta didn't materialize (deferring mediocre actions), but it was a rilly rilly great weekend. I met some fine people who are sure to be long-term friends, and got some positive reaction to the ideas and potentials I put forth. The level of discourse, the warmth of the folk, the awesome power of the music, the fun times – one of the best social weekends in many years. There will be followup.

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Free Guitar, But You Gotta Pass It On

November 15, 2007 | Arts & Culture

While I'm attending the UMass Dead conference (warning, possible blogging fiesta), I hope to give away a virtually new Ovation Legend acoustic guitar. It's a Handmeon, so whoever receives it has to promise to also give it away. If you'd like to own it for a while, register at Handmeon and bookmark the object, requesting to host it. We'll see if there's any uptake.

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Handmeon in the Local Media

November 10, 2007 | Arts & Culture | People & Society

The Valley News published a great story about Handmeon today:

"In tiny offices in Hanover, three men are trying to use the Internet to infuse with spirituality an activity that's become increasingly fraught and expensive: gift giving. Their company's quiet launch, built up over the past few months, coincides with the gift-giving season.

"Handmeon will favor people who have much to give. A person with a lot of gifts to offer is likely to get a lot in return. But as much as Handmeon is about giving, it's also about building connections. It's a social networking site, a sort of Facebook or MySpace for adults." —Alex Hanson, Valley News

I was so happy I wrote a blog post about it over on the company blog. Thanks to Alex and James for a super job.

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Arrau's Chopin

November 6, 2007 | Arts & Culture

I am giving away a 7-disc set of Chopin's piano works ($55) over at Handmeon, and in the process did some writing about the collection and how I've related to the work. I'm going to continue to post for a week or two, ruminating on the compositions, before I send it on its journey.

If you register (free), you can not only comment on posts, but you can bookmark and request the Handmeon for yourself. As it travels from person to person, collecting the impressions of its hosts, you can either read along, or join the conversation, or, if the stars align, receive it as a gift from someone. Take a look and see what you think.

About the process: I started thinking about making this a Handmeon about a week ago, after listening to all seven discs on a single Sunday. I knew that I wanted to talk about my reaction to the music, and how much of an impression it had made on me. Tonight, when I sat down to create the online presence, I first wrote the inscription, which introduces the idea of why it's a Handmeon. Then I created a series of posts – but just wrote the titles and saved them. Now I had, essentially, an outline of what I was going to write about to start. I wrote the first five posts in rough form, then activated the object so it was visible online. The I started this blog post, and then pointed to it from the Handmeon blog. [Yes, I am now writing about this in three places, in three different contexts.] All this took about an hour, or maybe an hour and a half. It was an enjoyable was to spend the evening, having some fun with words, creating some meaning around some beautiful music, preparing to pass it along to someone else – someone I may not even know. But that someone, if they listen to the music, will be moved. And hopefully if they also read the sojourn(s) they will be moved to write about it as well.

There's a "share this page" link on the Arrau's Chopin home page. If you know someone who might appreciate all this, please send the page to them, or point them here to learn more. Thanks.

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Except You

November 5, 2007 | Arts & Culture | Governance | People & Society

Bravo. Probably the most important factor in the next US Presidential election is getting young people to vote, no matter what. Maybe this campaign will help.

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Halloween Costumes Based on Bob Dylan Lyrics

October 31, 2007 | Arts & Culture

Brilliant. My favorites are "Einstein disguised as Robin Hood," and the "Preacher with 20 lbs of headlines stapled to his chest." Though I suppose "Man in the long black coat" has some appeal for lazy simplicity...

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Handmeon RSS

October 26, 2007 | Arts & Culture | Life

Handmeon now has an RSS feed. It's a pretty interesting view into the site. Have a look and check out the diverse topics our early users are engaging.

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Unbroken Chain Conference

September 27, 2007 | Arts & Culture | People & Society

I am so registered for this.

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Dailylit

September 20, 2007 | Arts & Culture

What an interesting idea: Read books in small daily chunks by email or RSS. I've subscribed to Pride and Prejudice, and scheduled the 149 parts to be delivered at 7:30 pm each weekday day. Free!

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Apple's .plan

September 11, 2007 | Arts & Culture | Business & Commerce | Products & Opportunites

In Unix culture there is the idea of the ".plan" (dot-plan) file. It lives in the user's home directory, and is a place to write updates about your life or work. It pre-dates blogging and Twitter by nearly a hundred years, but was typically updated much less frequently than either. The id software founder and programmer John Carmack had a somewhat famous .plan file for a while, blending both hardware-level graphics programming explorations with high-speed car racing on airport runways.

I think of Steve Jobs' live presentations as Apple's .plan file. What's new, what's up, what they are thinking about. The mainstream press focuses on the "literal" facts of the show – price cuts, happy customers, annoyed customers, new partners, projected earnings, impact on margins, etc. – while the Mac digerati focus on interpretations from the Mac/iPod/iTunes/iPhone ecosystem.

Here's all you need to know about the recent show, though it's still worth spending the 90 minutes watching the online stream if you are a student of design, marketing, or product and business development.

• Ringtones: Apple is making it fun to make ringtones. Customers are not just buying them, they're making them. You can select any segment of the song, up to 30 seconds long, choose the looping, and it automatically adds the fades and syncs with the iPhone. Oh, and, by the way, the price of the song plus the ringtone is $1.98, less than the current phone carrier offerings. Sell to the prosumers, and ignore the legacy carrier approach. [Update: Gruber says there's room for improvement.]
• iPod Nano: Revising the best-selling mp3 player in the world. New shape, and thinner. More memory for same price. The real news in this is that there are some major product design changes are under the hood. Pitched repeatedly as the "enhanced user interface," the new iPods are driven by OS X, the same foundation as the iPhone, and today's Mac OS. This is a very big deal, as an entirely new (and very rich) software platform is will be running on several million devices, offering new features like coverflow, along with potential bugs and the following requisite updates. [Update: Yup.]
• iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store: The fundamental change that iTunes brought to the market, from the consumers point of view, was the 30-second preview of every song, prior to buying. Instead of buying something based on a recommendation, you now buy based on what you hear. IOW, a measurement of the industry's product merit was put in place. Prior to that the industry was measured on their ability to market product – now they are judged by whether the product is worth buying. Big diff. Is anyone surprised their sales are off? It's not piracy, gents, its your product. Nuf' said. [Update: Oh, the iTunes wi-fi music store? Accelerates the changes. More below.]
• Partnership with Starbucks: This extends the music preview and buying experience away from the computer and into the retail environment. Moves offline buying experience from music as store, to music as environment. Music stores tried selling coffee, didn't work too well. Coffee stores selling music, this will be a blockbuster. Shows what's playing now and the last ten songs played in the store. Because the physical roll-out will go through 2009, both companies will have incremental yet cumulative increases, and will have another dimension of progress to announce for the next two years. Expect more deals at other retail stores. [Major update: see below.]
• Everything you need to know about Howard Schultz's presentation on the Apple stage: If you sell an addictive product, customers will buy it very frequently, and you'll need to open a lot of stores to keep up with the demand. As the business progresses, you'll make so much money that you'll need to invent brand extensions to consume the cash. Steve and Howard are both old hippies, and they both thank their sweet lucky stars that they get to do all this for the love of music. Thank you very much.

Update: There's one other thing worth noting here. Twice now, this year, Apple has done deals with another very large company, and convinced them to make fundamental changes to their "business operating system" – that is, the software that runs their customer-facing operations – to get the partnership deal. The first was AT&T, who had to modify their cellular telephone network software to create "visual voicemail." Visual voicemail is a fundamental change in how the customer interacts with their device, their carrier, their messages, and therefore their whole cell phone communications world.

The second instance is with Starbucks, who will be installing the capacity to upload to iTunes HQ, in real-time, what song is playing at this moment is each and every Starbucks cafe around the world. This will become an international real-time cultural baraometer, par excellence. It becomes possible to imagine a "flash" hit single, that spreads around the world and could sell a million copies in an hour. In effect, Apple has announced Phase III completion of their re-engineereing effort on the music business. Phase I was the iPod. Phase II was iTunes. Phase III is persistent purchasing, buying whatever music you want, wherever you are.

Much bigger news than the iPhone price cut is this idea of Apple entering the enterprise software ecosystem. Instead of typical enterprise deals where the vendor supplies software or hardware to re-engineer, say, the purchasing department, Apple is doing customer-facing enterprise deals, where they build or specify the software customers use. This is huge. Major huge.

Even better, there's a Sarbanes-Oxley rule where companies have to spread the revenue accounting of a product over two years if the company provides free updates that add features. Apple is doing this with the iPhone, AppleTV, and maybe some other products. This means that the revenue growth will show up slowly, over time, without much notice. Until say, in 2009, when they're still recognizing revenue from your iPhone purchase last month, and you've already bought another one, maybe two.

You can safely go very long on Apple stock.

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Introducing Handmeon

August 31, 2007 | Arts & Culture | Life | Products & Opportunites

Okay, enough with the hints. In January I started a new company with two co-founders, and today we released the second major revision to our first product, Handmeon. To quote some draft marketing material:

Handmeon turns giving into a shared creative experience. Inspired by ancient circles of exchange, Handmeon lets people create renewable resources of expression through gifts endowed with history and trajectory, humor and thought. Rejecting material consumption and accumulation, Handmeon seeks a return to giving as a vehicle for human connection.

The basic idea is to take an objet, perhaps something small, perhaps something beautiful, perhaps something with an interesting background, and create an online presence for it. You upload a photo, write an inscription, and make blog posts regarding the object. Eventually you give it away, and the new keeper can write posts and enjoy the objet's sojourn with them. As the object moves between people, you can see the travels with integrated Google maps. After 4 hops, or 20, or 40, the object develops a rich history, accumulating stories online.

In other words, we're playing with the integration and separation of the real-world and the Internet. These objects are passed from one friend to another – when you hold an object you received it from a friend, and you'll give it to a friend, perhaps in person, perhaps by mail. And they'll give it to a friend, perhaps one you haven't yet met. The object becomes a connecting thread between a line of people, all connected one friend to another. I'm hopeful that it will expose the connections and therefore the interdependencies between people who haven't ever met.

You can take a tour, or explore the site to get a sense of what the early adopters are doing. For instance, Kathryn wants to learn more about meditation. Trippy the Frog wants to travel. The Roller just completed a sojourn with Jer. John wrote a post about a brush with celebrity. Jeff went meta, right out of the gate. And so on. You can create public, private, and secret objects.

To make money, we'll sell the permanent tags that turn objects into Handmeons and give them a URL. So the creator buys a tag, and everyone else can claim, post, and release the object for free. Speaking of free, right now the tags are free – so go register and order some! Make some Handmeons! See what it feels like to imbue something with meaning online, and then give it away. Experience the gratitude that this act of generosity engenders. You can create the online Handmeon before your tags arrive, so you can get started right away.

Eventually we'll charge money for the tags. Pricing is not set, but we want it to be affordable, maybe three tags for $12.95 or something. We have to model the object's long-term pageview cost and whatnot, and we haven't finished that yet. Three tags for $19.95 is probably the highest price we can imagine right now.

Of course, there's a blog, newly minted. We're going to try for one solid software release each week for a few weeks. Comments are on over there, and we are actively looking for feedback and enthusiastic participants. Come over and play in this new interaction space!

Oh, and, as a self-funded startup, we're looking for links! Tell your friends. ;) Thanks.

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Idiomatic Learning

August 28, 2007 | Arts & Culture

Link for the day: Learn English Today. Example: Like a dog with two tails.

[N.B. Highly irritating javascript window resizing on that site. Very 1994.]

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Raising Frame at Faerie Camp Destiny

August 2, 2007 | Arts & Culture | People & Society

I am in awe of this side project Matt is doing. It's all there, design discussions, preliminary renderings of the frame, photos from logging and clearing, and today, this fantastic human-powered frame-raising movie. (4:00)

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Bunny Emoticons

August 1, 2007 | Arts & Culture

"they're out of control."

 

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The Dashed Line In Use

July 31, 2007 | Arts & Culture

Nearfield: I’ve had trouble justifying my excitement about this intricate visual detail, so I thought it would be good to collect a bunch of examples from over fifty years of information design history, to show it as a powerful visual element in ubicomp situations.

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FontBook

July 28, 2007 | Arts & Culture | Products & Opportunites

I'm trying to hold back, as a nod to the budget, but I'm not sure I'll be able to resist much longer. (FontBook)

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Katie Hutchison Studio

July 28, 2007 | Arts & Culture | Nature & Environment

An architect in Salem MA blogs:

Inspired by the simplicity of New England vernacular buildings and landscapes, Katie Hutchison Studio composes and promotes meaningful architecture and design.

Some great stuff there.

Primer: House Garden

Primer: A Recipe for Architectural Charm

Design snapshot: Vineyard elemental outdoor fireplace

Current project: West Tisbury House.

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Sticker Bumpkins

July 12, 2007 | Arts & Culture | Life | People & Society

About three months ago, I saw that Don had an Obama bumper sticker on his car, and I said, "I want one of those." So I went to the website, and much to my surprise, there was no way to buy a bumper sticker. No swag at all. Crazy.

I decided to send them a comment, but to do so I had to register on the site. Sigh. So I registered, and sent a message to the effect of, "I want to buy a bumper sticker; what the heck, eh??" Then I went back to work.

About a month later, I got a phone call at home. "Hi this is Dave from the NH Obama '08 campaign. I just wanted to check in and see how you thought the campaign was going so far." I said, "Seems great to me, except I want a bumper sticker, and I can't figure out how to buy one online. You should sell them for $20 or something." Dave said, "Yeah, they're really hard to get. You know, we're going to be opening an office in downtown Hanover, I'm sure we'll have them there once we open." "Cool," I replied, "just let me know." "Okay, thanks," he said. And that was that.

Then about a month after that, I was walking down Main Street and saw Tom, who, as it turns out, is doing some volunteering for the Obama campaign. He was with Graham, who is with the political desk of the campaign, visiting from Manchester NH and talking to people. Tom introduced me as an entrepreneur (simply because I can spell it quickly) and Graham said they were going to be starting a business for Obama group, and he'd love to have me attend some of those events. "Cool," I said. "Will I be able to buy a bumper sticker there?" Told him about the website, and the phone call, and said, would love to advertise for you guys; what's with the sticker shortage? He said, "Yeah, they're really hard to get." We exchanged cards, and I went to the post office.

The next day I got an email from Graham that began, "I was lucky to meet you yesterday..." And I thought, what a great way to get someone's attention. "Lucky to meet me," – maybe I'll get a bumper sticker!

About a week ago I got an email from the Obama campaign, saying, hey, we heard your pleas and cries and wailing in the night, and finally got around to opening an online store so you can buy all that swag you've been asking for. Cool, I thought, I'll check that out someday. It's about time.

Then today I was finishing a sandwich at the office and someone knocked on the door. "Yo," I said. In walks this tall lanky young friendly kinda-goofy guy, who says, "Are you Michael J.?" "Yup," I said.

"I heard you wanted an Obama bumper sticker," he said, as he handed me the goods. I nearly fell over. "Wow! This is like a precious commodity!," I exclaimed. "Yeah, they're really hard to get," he said. I said, "I went on the website, and I couldn't believe they weren't selling them." Then Dave said, "Yeah, I was talking with Graham, and he said you wanted one." I laughed out loud. "You were talking with Graham?!?!?" Like, this is the modern political campaign. Including intrastate backchannel discussion about getting Michael J. his Obama bumper sticker? My mind reeled. "Yeah," he said, "I came a couple of times last week, but you weren't here." Three words: O. M. G. I'm thinking, here's this guy, walking the streets of Hanover, searching for Michael J., with a single Obama bumpersticker in his hand! It's like they invented some weird, inefficient, but personal, and effective, distribution mechanism.

I guess you can just order them online now, but this one is more special than that, because they made me beg for the bumper sticker – they're so hard to get no one has ever hardly seen one – and then in the end they send a guy dedicated with a singular focus to this one task, not even carrying a backpack with literature or other swag, or anything, and it makes me feel like they'd do anything to deliver this to me. How odd is that?

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Fake Steve on the iPhone Launch

June 29, 2007 | Arts & Culture | Products & Opportunites

I'm just going to post the whole thing, to save you the effort of the click.

Today we make history. Today we change the world. Today we put a dent in the universe. Today -- June 29, 2007 -- we release iPhone. It has taken years of work from all parts of Apple. First advertising, of course. Then feng shui consultants, and design and engineering and manufacturing. Countless emergent designs, countless meetings, countless all-nighters to make every part of the iPhone, from its custom-made integrated circuits to its sleek glass screen and metal case, absolutely perfect. To those of you who serve under me at Apple, I say this: Yes, I have berated you, and insulted you, and exasperated you. Yes, I've fired your friends for no reason, and made you work harder than you ever thought you could work. Yes, I've taken you away from your spouses, your children, your transgendered domestic partners. In some cases your devotion to me has cost you your marriages. You've sacrificed a great deal for this. But has it not been worth it? For the rest of your life, you'll be able to say that you were working at Apple when the iPhone was introduced. You were here on the day when the course of human history was changed forever. Plus, you'll get a free 4-gigabyte iPhone, a $500 value. Not bad, right?

Already, around the United States, thousands of Apple faithful are lining up outside our retail shrines, waiting for iPhone. Some will approach on their bare knees, like pilgrims approaching the shrine of the Virgin of Guadalupe in Peru. Just a few minutes ago we received a report that Apple faithful are also lining up outside retail shrines around the globe, even though those stores do not have iPhones and will not have them for months, maybe years. The response is, in a word, stunning. We are saving the satellite photos showing the clusters and will use them as part of our promotional material. Apple employees, view these photos and see what you have done, and then go home and tell your children -- those smallish people who live in your house, the ones you haven't seen in a couple of years -- tell them, You see those people suffering outdoors, enduring the heat and rain and monsoons just so they can get a cell phone? I did this. This was my work.

To those Apple customers who are already congregating in thousands outside our retail shrines, I say: Thank you, much love, and namaste. You have endured taunts and jeers and the incessant attention of a media starved for material in the midst of a slow summer news cycle; you've been spat upon, abused, attacked by police with firehoses and nightsticks and guard dogs; you've peed into bottles and lived on junk food. But you stuck to your principles. You remained true to your beliefs, the core one being that yes, you are special, and you deserve to be among the first in the world to obtain a device that combines telephony, Web browsing and music playing. Yes, we'll still be selling these devices a week from now, and the week after that. But you want yours now. You're making a statement. The world is hearing you.

Let's be honest about why this is happening. This is not a fad. This is not some phony hyped-up astroturfing Microsoft campaign. This is a genuine outpouring of love and enthusiasm and excitement from people whose souls have been stirred by the wonder of technology and the ability to communicate with other human beings in ways that have never before been possible. That's what this is about. It's about communicating. It's about connecting. It's about bringing the world together in common cause. It's about saying, Look, I realize there's something bad happening in Darfur, and there's some kind of AIDS epidemic in Africa, and there's some crazies who want to blow us all up, and there's a war in Iraq where thousands of people are dying for no reason -- and yes, those things are important, and someday we may take to the streets to say something about them, if we can think of anything to say about them, but for now we Americans take to the streets for this cause. Right here, right now, we take a stand. This is our moment. From pole to pole, from north to south, from east to west, let the message go out. We are Americans, and we have values. Hear us, world. Hear us and say, Wow.

The iPhone stands for something very simple -- freedom. Apple faithful, you march today in the tradition of the marchers at Selma, in the tradition of Gandhi at the Salt March to Dandi. You have made your point. There are some things, you said, that are worth suffering for. I am proud to have given meaning to your life. I am proud to have invented iPhone and designed iPhone and brought iPhone to the world. I feel, in a way, humbled by your adoration. But in another way not humbled. Anyway. My whole life has built up to this moment. I believe that this is what I was put on the earth to achieve. I thank you all for sharing this historic day with me.

Namaste. Much love. Peace out.

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Making Happy

June 22, 2007 | Arts & Culture | Life

via Chris Glass:

From Stefan Sagmeister's presentation at TED:

Complaining is silly. Either act or forget.
Thinking life will be better in the future is stupid. I have to live now.
Being not truthful works against me.
Helping other people helps me.
Organizing a charity group is surprisingly easy.
Everything I do always comes back to me.
Drugs feel great in the beginning and become a drag later on.
Over time I get used to everything and start taking if for granted.
Money does not make me happy.
Traveling alone is helpful for a new perspective on life.
Assuming is stifling.
Keeping a diary supports my personal development.
Trying to look good limits my life.
Worrying solves nothing.
Material luxuries are best enjoyed in small doses.
Having guts always works out for me.

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Women In Art

June 6, 2007 | Arts & Culture

Video of the day: Women In Art (2:52). 500 years of female portraits in western art. Beautiful and amazing.

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Video of the Day

May 29, 2007 | Arts & Culture

Sixteen seconds: Try That Bike Stunt

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Both Sides Are Equally Human

May 14, 2007 | Arts & Culture | People & Society

The Storytellers: Why Are Most Artists Liberal?

Stories, by their nature, have some sort of conflict. Otherwise, they would be boring. Conflict, by its nature, has at least two sides. To be able to write these two sides well, the artist has to understand, deep inside, that both sides are equally human. The more he portrays the other side as human, the better the story. The less human the other side, the more flawed the story.

That puts artists on the humanistic side of most ideological battles throughout history: against racism (the other race is people, too), against slavery (slaves are people, too), for feminism (women are people, too), for the rights of children (children think and feel just like adults), against child labor, for gay rights (homosexuals are just as human), for the downtrodden, for the poor (they are just like us, only poor), against most wars (because the other side bleeds red, too, and mourns with the same pain), and against most religions (in particular, against the religions that claim its followers are ‘the chosen’ and those who are not will not get into heaven and/or are inferior in some way).

In conclusion, then, you don’t have to be a liberal to be a good storyteller. But the better your story is, the more of a liberal you are. (Unfortunately for aspiring writers, that does not work the other way round: you cannot aspire to be liberal and hope that will make you a better artist.)

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A Big Inside Joke on Several Levels

May 12, 2007 | Arts & Culture | People & Society

No, silly, not the Bush administration – LOL!!

Better, David McRaney's fantastic article on Internet communication culture and sub-cultures, called A Special In-Depth Analysis L337 Katz0rz:

Still, a fusion of sorts between learned, direct language and rapid, practical digital missives takes place with Leetspeak and macros. Both relay a great deal of information in a small burst of code. Each depends on the receiver of the information having working knowledge of the culture and its references. In a sense, these serve as argots, and help identify both sides of the information transfer as belonging to the subculture where they appear. The in-joke is part of the communication. The separation of ingroup and outgroup helps drive the rapid evolution of both leetspeak and macros.

Someone uses lol, which turns into the spoken “l-o-l,” which then becomes “lol” but sounds like “lawl,” and at some point someone in a forum thread, in response to something funny, puts up an image of Lal, the name of Data’s daughter from a single, obscure “Star Trek: The Next Generation” episode. It’s a big inside joke on several levels, and the creator gets golf claps for pulling together all these references into one simple understatement. Everyone who gets it belongs in the ingroup, and the behavioral cycle is encouraged and repeated.

That post is full of win. The comments are gr8, 2.

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Widespread Acknowledgment of the Magic

May 8, 2007 | Arts & Culture | People & Society

Via David Gans:

Proclamation from the Mayor of the City of Ithaca, NY

Whereas, the Grateful Dead have been recognized by many highly credible organizations, individuals and entities including the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as significantly important and integral to the musical and social fabric of our contemporary culture, and whereas, on May 8th, 1977 the Grateful Dead performed in Barton Hall on the campus of Cornell University in the city of Ithaca New York, a concert that is widely acknowledged and regarded as a defining and transcendent occasion and example of the art of contemporary musical improvisation, collaboration, musicianship, and performance, and whereas, many tens of thousands of individuals who were not in attendance that night in Barton Hall, have become knowledgeable & familiar with the extraordinary nature of the performance on May 8th 1977 through the trading and sharing of recordings of the show, and whereas, the cultural identity and perceptions of Ithaca as a community, have been informed and bolstered by the widespread acknowledgement of the magic of May 8th, 1977, and whereas, it has been said many times by many people that, “there is nothing like a Grateful Dead concert.”

Now therefore, be it resolved that as Mayor of the City of Ithaca, and in heartfelt recognition of the thirtieth anniversary of the May 8th 1977 concert performance, I declare May 8th 2007 as Grateful Dead Day in the City of Ithaca.

University Chancellors praising Lou Reed, and Mayors cheering the "transcendent occasion" of a memorable Grateful Dead concert—is there something in the water?

Have a listen.

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Turning Cosmic Litter Into Gold

May 7, 2007 | Arts & Culture

One good reason to be better connected with my alumni association (read: write big checks), is to get invited to events like this.

Lou Reed '64 Honored for Achievements in Music, Writing, and Artistic Expression

“We have an alchemist in our company tonight,” Bono announced to the crowd. “Lou Reed not only inhabits his chosen universe, but he also creates it. Lou has turned the cosmic litter of this city into gold.” Bono, U2's irrepressible front man, was among a parade of luminaries who had come to New York 's way-beyond-hip W hotel in Union Square on April 26 to fete the “Mad Monk of Rock” at Syracuse University 's Arents Award Celebration.

It was no stretch to call this party a star-studded bash. The presence of Reed, Bono, and David Bowie earned it that much. But the guest list did not quit: Marty Bandier '62, chair and CEO of Sony/ATV Music Publishing; hotelier Ian Schrager '68, who later hosted a rooftop after-party at his fabulous Gramercy Park Hotel; and photographer/filmmaker Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, whose 1998 biodoc, Lou Reed: Rock and Roll Heart, provided screen clips for the celebration. Entertainment mogul Rick Dobbis '70 emceed the festivities, which took place just blocks from Max's Kansas City , where Reed played with the Velvet Underground in the group's glory days, including the final gig, some 35 years ago.

“As a social psychologist, I can't resist thinking a bit about why this community of Lou's friends, fellow artists, and fellow alumni has come together tonight,” observed SU Chancellor and President Nancy Cantor. She praised Reed's courage, compassion, engagement, and honesty, characterizing him as a “timeless poet” and “muse for us all.” “Our mission is to instill the value of meaningful engagement to make things better … and to understand that it may take a ‘walk on the wild side' to do it,” she continued, quoting Reed's 1972 solo breakout hit.

It is a little known fact that Reed majored in English at SU, and less known still that he graduated with honors in 1964....

College presidents saluting hard-edge underground rock stars. Now that's my kind of party.

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Tulsa Oklahoma

March 19, 2007 | Arts & Culture | Travel

Kathryn and I went to Tulsa for a few days to visit her parents. Other than picking up the flu en route it was a great trip. Here are some links to photos of our activities.

Last of the Breed Concert featuring Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, and Ray Price. Great show. True country. The show was at Oral Roberts University. Huh? Willie Nelson at Oral Roberts?

Maple Ridge Neighborhood. It's amazing what a boatload of oil money can buy.

Downtown Art Deco Buildings. It's amazing what many boatloads of oil money can buy.

Philbrook Museum. Someone's summer house, turned into a museum. The visiting exhibit, Changing Hands, Art Without Reservation, was fantastic. Very bright, colorful, modern, dramatic pieces. Bought the catalog.

Tulsa is a very enjoyable city. The downtown was a little deserted, and there's the usual city issues, but they've mostly contained the sprawl to one district on the south side, and there are a few interesting cafe and boutique districts. The quality and quantity of art deco was astounding. If you like interior architecture, it's a great destination.

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Dylan Hears A Who!

March 8, 2007 | Arts & Culture

Unbelievable mash-up of Bob Dylan singing Dr. Seuss. The amount of editing involved melts my brain. via

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Hot Apple News

March 6, 2007 | Arts & Culture | Products & Opportunites

Apple Unveils New Product-Unveiling Product

The iLaunch, as the new product is called, was then raised up from below the stage, prompting the audience of technology journalists, developers, and self-professed "Apple fanatics" to burst into a five-minute standing ovation.

Microsoft announced they are working on a similar competitive product.

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Not Yet Within Range

February 28, 2007 | Arts & Culture | Life | Technology

For some reason, I am now craving a Leica M8 digital rangefinder camera, with the 16-18-21mm, the 28-35-50mm, and the 90mm lenses.

This is absurd, since that would be about $15,000 in camera equipment, well outside not only my budget, but also my socio-economic caste.

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Compare and Contrast

February 27, 2007 | Arts & Culture | Business & Commerce | People & Society

Today in links:

A $1,000 brownie

Brûlee’s "Brownie Extradordinaire with Saint Louis" is a chocolate brownie made with Italian hazelnuts, dusted with edible gold powder and served with a very rare port. After each bite, the dessert captain squirts a mist of the vintage port on your tongue with a $750 atomizer, which incidentally is yours to keep.

Stock markets around the world plummeted today

In percentage terms, it was the worst day for the market since March 2003. In terms of points, it was the steepest slide since the first day the market resumed trading after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

So it goes.

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Rapid Serial Visual Presentation

February 11, 2007 | Arts & Culture | Software | Technology

Reading this interview with Cory Doctorow (by RU Sirius, nonetheless), I discovered Rapid Serial Visual Presentation (of text).

The speed-read shows you one word at a time, and it shows them at a speed that’s determined by a little slider. And it pauses a little after a comma, and longer after a period, and longer after a paragraph break. And you can crank it way up and it just rockets past. And you’re getting every word. It’s kind of meant for very small screens, and it really feels like you’re doing something weird to your brain. It really feels like you’re tweaking your cognition in ways that it was not intended to be tweaked. It’s very transhuman.

Worth researching, methought. If you want to see a simple example without loading your own text, here is Cory's book Eastern Standard Tribe pre-loaded into SpeedReader online. Just go to that link and move the slider to the right and set the speed you want. Following are brief instructions to experience RSVP with any text you want.

Download this simple Java-based app that runs on Mac, Windows, and Linux. Then grab some text. I used the text file of Yochai Benkler's The Wealth of Networks, but you can use any plain text file you want. Dump the text into the "speederText.txt" file, add "START_SPEEDER" at the top of the file, save it, and open "textExample.html" in your web browser.

The first thing I notice, reading the Acknowledgments, is that, hehehe, the word "I" is all but invisible. I imagine people hear that invisibility too, when you write with a lot of "I's" in your sentences. So I think I should probably stop using "I" when I express myself.

After ten minutes of play, is there is a difference in perception between fiction and non-fiction? Cory's book seems easier to "read" than Yochai's, but the in addition to being non-fiction, Wealth is written from a legal perspective. It could simply be more dense, no matter slow or fast.

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Chopin Polonaise-fantaisie #7 by Claudio Arrau

February 8, 2007 | Arts & Culture

Yesterday morning, waking up at 5:00 but then drifting off to sleep again from 6:00 to 7:30, heard the most amazing piano concerto. Tracked it down via the VPR playlist (thank you!!), and finally tracked down the CD on Amazon. Welcome to my wishlist, oh Claudio Arrau.

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Notes on Arial

February 8, 2007 | Arts & Culture

If anyone ever recommends to you Arial for a primary typeface, these links will turn out handy.

LifeClever: There are two types of people in the world: those who can tell the difference between Helvetica and Arial, and those who can’t.

The Scourge of Arial: Despite its pervasiveness, a professional designer would rarely—at least for the moment—specify Arial. To professional designers, Arial is looked down on as a not-very-faithful imitation of a typeface that is no longer fashionable. It has what you might call a "low-end stigma." The few cases that I have heard of where a designer has intentionally used Arial were because the client insisted on it. Why? The client wanted to be able to produce materials in-house that matched their corporate look and they already had Arial, because it's included with Windows. True to its heritage, Arial gets chosen because it's cheap, not because it's a great typeface.

Amazon book review: The title page, the headings, the captions and the examples are all typeset using one of the the dullest, ugliest sanserif typefaces ever designed. Arial lacks character and individuality, as it was conceived by its makers (the Monotype company) as a substitute for Helvetica (made by Monotype's competitor, Linotype). Arial was drawn to match Helvetica's character width but to have slightly altered letter appearance. The result is a set of letterforms that, indeed, look like imitation of something else. Since nowadays, Arial is included on practically all personal computers, one cannot imagine a choice for a typeface that would be less original. But it's not necessarily the lack of originality that disqualitfies Arial as a typeface suitable for this sort of book. Arial simply has poorly drawn letterforms, and the Black variant (used on the title page, section titles and in the running headers of each page) is simply ugly. Practically any other grotesque (sanserif) typeface would have been a better choice for this book.

We know you have a choice in typefaces, and we thank you for flying with Notio Typography.

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Web 2.0 In Just Under 5 Minutes

February 7, 2007 | Arts & Culture | People & Society | Technology

Tour de force video explaining how Web 2.0 is changing the nature of online interaction.

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True Stories

January 11, 2007 | Arts & Culture | People & Society

Sometimes, you can't make this stuff up.

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Completely Redefining What You Can Do

January 9, 2007 | Arts & Culture | Business & Commerce | People & Society | Products & Opportunites

I will be one of approximately 143,215,697 people to mention this today or tomorrow, but this is as close as it gets to product-orgasm. Cell phones have sucked forever, and this is a whole new game.

iPhone combines three products — a revolutionary mobile phone, a widescreen iPod with touch controls, and a breakthrough Internet communications device with desktop-class email, web browsing, maps, and searching — into one small and lightweight handheld device. iPhone also introduces an entirely new user interface based on a large multi-touch display and pioneering new software, letting you control everything with just your fingers. So it ushers in an era of software power and sophistication never before seen in a mobile device, completely redefining what you can do on a mobile phone.

The picture is so good you are nearly drooling. [Note switch to second-person voice for a bit of self-revealing distance.] This product is far, far better than I expected, even with all the pre-hype. It's a big year for Apple. See also, no slouch either: AppleTV.

David Pogue comments on it all. Better, this Time magazine article on the culture and attitude that produces an object like this. And, Joshua Allen on some of the potential problems with Apple's approach.

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Periodic Table of Visualization Methods

January 7, 2007 | Arts & Culture

Periodic Table of Visualization Methods. Mouse over each cell to get an example.

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Typographic Pinups

January 2, 2007 | Arts & Culture

Taking the cake, so to speak, in the 'adult weird' category, is a calendar of (female) pinups, created entirely with typographic characters.

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Strong Medicine

December 25, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Life | People & Society

Between the rampant consumerism, the killing carried out in the name of God, and your everyday garden-variety family dynamics, it takes a heckofalotof positive, weird, and funky energy to keep the cultural balance this time of year. In an attempt to stay sane, the past three days I've deep-listened to:

* Frank Zappa's, We're Only In It For The Money, Lumpy Gravy, and Civilization Phase Three. (That right there should tell you something, when those three albums are the description of sanity.) [Those are all really good Wikipedia links for learning about Zappa's music, which is worth doing, hint.]
* Bob Dylan's Blood On The Tracks and Modern Times.
* Grateful Dead, Truckin' Up To Buffalo, July 4, 1989.
* Phil Lesh and Friends, Live at the Warfield DVD, May 19, 2006 (twice!). This is some hot jamband-inspired jazz improvisation, showing off John Scofield tearing it up with Larry Cambell. Joan Osborne on vocals.
* Radiohead's Kid A. ("...one of the most challenging pop records ever to achieve such commercial success.")

I've also browsed Love In America, an article on interpersonal triangles by Thomas Fogarty, an MSW thesis written by a friend (regarding the effects death-anxiety has on end-of-life caregivers), and the New Yorker Complete Cartons.

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I Am The Slime

December 23, 2006 | Arts & Culture

A little pre-holiday Frank Zappa for you, I Am The Slime:

I am gross and perverted
I'm obsessed 'n deranged
I have existed for years
But very little had changed
I am the tool of the government
And industry too
For I am destined to rule
And regulate you

I may be vile and pernicious
But you can't look away
I make you think I'm delicious
With the stuff that I say
I am the best you can get
Have you guessed me yet?
I am the slime oozing out
From your tv set

You will obey me while I lead you
And eat the garbage that I feed you
Until the day that we don't need you
Don't go for help...no one will heed you
Your mind is totally controlled
It has been stuffed into my mold
And you will do as you are told
Until the rights to you are sold

Thats right, folks...
Don't touch that dial

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Cliche Finder

December 22, 2006 | Arts & Culture

Clever: Cliche Finder, by Aaron Swartz.

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Car Security Hacks

December 20, 2006 | Arts & Culture

The post begins:

So, you know those cars with that keyless entry pad? The one under the driver's side handle?

And ends with:

I am going to give you a sequence of minimal length that, when you enter it into a car's numeric keypad, is guaranteed to unlock the doors of said car. It is exactly 3129 keypresses long, which should take you around 20 minutes to go through.

In other words, if you press the sequence of 3,129 numbers he presents, you will get yourself into any car with a keyless entry system.

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JibJab's Year in Review

December 14, 2006 | Arts & Culture

This will be making the rounds: Nuckin' Futs: JibJab's animated year in review.

Bonus blast from the past: Big Box Mart

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Wordie

December 11, 2006 | Arts & Culture

Confidential to Hannah: This Wordie thing appears to be another excellent opportunity to avoid writing. ;)

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Teenar, Girl Guitar

December 4, 2006 | Arts & Culture

Speechless

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I Can't Help It, If I'm Lucky

December 4, 2006 | Arts & Culture

Just quoting a lyric from the weekend, no hidden meaning.

Someone's got it in for me, they're planting stories in the press
Whoever it is I wish they'd cut it out but when they will I can only guess.
They say I shot a man named Gray and took his wife to Italy,
She inherited a million bucks and when she died it came to me.
I can't help it, if I'm lucky.

Blood on the Tracks is a monstrously fantastico piece of work. [Liner notes]

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One Bank, One Card

November 20, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Business & Commerce

Here's a new video for all you U2 fans: One (4:49).

Spoiler: Corporate execs wearing ties in a typical hotel conference room co-opting the song with celebration lyrics of their merger. Funny. Sick. Unbelievable. Horrible. Capital-C Culture.

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Does the News Matter?

October 20, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Governance | People & Society

Aaron Swartz speaks for me:

But finally, I'd like to argue that following the news isn't just a waste of time, it's actively unhealthy. Edward Tufte notes that when he used to read the New York Times in the morning, it scrambled his brain with so many different topics that he couldn't get any real intellectual work done the rest of the day.

I agree, and it's a hard habit to break.

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Speaking of the Onion

October 19, 2006 | Arts & Culture | People & Society

Hadn't checked in with them in a while.

Christian Rock Band Cleans Up Hotel Room: Hotel staff at the Highway 82 Best Western found the suite occupied over the weekend by members of the Christian rock band Ruggid Krøss swept, dusted, scrubbed, and readied for immediate occupancy.

Area Man Going To Go Ahead And Consider That A Date: Anthony Pennline, 28, decided Tuesday, following a random encounter at a coffee shop with 26-year old acquaintance April Geyer, that their cordial, 45-minute conversation along with his offer to walk her home basically constituted a date.

Area Woman Emotionally Invested In Jennifer Aniston's Well-Being: The divorced 41-year-old dental-office receptionist and self-proclaimed "Team Aniston" member said she felt an "uncanny" bond with the $8-million-per-picture superstar. The two have never met, and are not expected to.

The song remains the same.

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The Tao of Holding Space

October 19, 2006 | Arts & Culture | People & Society

Chris Corrigan has posted a great book connecting the Tao Te Ching and Open Space:

It is a collection of interpretations of the 81 short chapters of the Chinese classic Tao te Ching as they apply to my experience of holding space. I started this book three years ago, when I began noting parallels between Lao Tzu’s words and my experience of leadership, facilitation and living in Open Space.

Thank you Chris! [Download]

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Obesity, Diet, and Activity

October 13, 2006 | Arts & Culture | People & Society

Hood Center: Children with TVs in their bedroom are significantly more likely to be overweight than children who do not have a TV in their bedroom.

[ My friend Scott Chesnut created and produced the design for this site. ]

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Gadgetoff

October 11, 2006 | Arts & Culture | People & Society | Technology

The New Yorker reports on this year's Gadgetoff event:

When asked what he planned to do with his three and a half minutes, he said, “I’m going to demonstrate how you can transfer data faster with snails than with broadband.”

Then he showed a slide of a snail hitched to a tiny chariot with DVDs for wheels. If each disk contains 4.7 gigabytes of data, and if the snail (chasing a scrap of lettuce) travels at 0.000023 metres per second, the snail-system performance rate is over thirty-seven megabits per second. That blows ADSL out of the water.

Also: robot soccer, magic lock-picking keys, and an "enormous vibrating-balls organ."

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Rosanne Cash

October 10, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Life

Saw Rosanne Cash Saturday night at Dartmouth. Fourth row center. Amazing performer. Amazing band. Much more transformative than Amiee Mann a week earlier. Rosanne is Johnny Cash's daughter by his first wife (Vivian Liberto, not June Carter Cash). Cash's husband, John Leventhal, was the guitarist, and my comment after the show was, "Watching him made me realize how average most guitar players are."

The most poignant moment was her arrangement of Ode to Billy Joe, originally by Bobbie Gentry. I haven't heard this song, nor thought about it, in 35 years, but I could have sung the lyrics word for word. Somewhere along the line it was burned into my memory. Cash's performance was slow, moving, deliberate, and chilling. Afterward she commented, "That song is like a Walker Evans painting." Right on.

There was a Q&A after the show with her, the video director, and the producer. Maybe a hundred of the 900 audience members stayed. Eventually I asked a variation of my stock artist forum question, "How do you sync up with the audience, and how does the audience influence your performance, and what do you do if it's not gelling?"

Cash talked about how she has a bag of tricks to regain her center, and commented that sometimes you don't want to sync up with the audience because, you know, you don't want to sync up with some audiences."

I jumped in, "How can we be a good audience?" People giggled. She said, "Oh my God I love you, I want to come down there and kiss you." And continued on to say, more or less, "just listen." The producer elaborated, as I recall these three days later, on listening with intent, and feeling the music in you, and engaging with the performance in a heartfelt way. And then they moved on to another question.

I myself know how to be a good audient. My intent with the question is to give the performer a platform to educate the audience about engaging with music and performance at a level deeper than passive entertainment consumption. Especially the stoic New England elites. It's a softball question, but sounds serious because few people think about music or listening with any depth.

Walking out my date said, "Only you, Notio, could ask a question that made the star say she wanted to kiss you, and then have the producer get all touchy feely about listening." Yup, could be true.

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The iPod Suit

September 14, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Products & Opportunites | Technology

From Eleksen, the iPod suit:

The Bagir suit jacket integrates Eleksen’s ElekTex® smart fabric touchpad technology, which transforms a lapel into a five-button electronic control panel. The ElekTex-enabled iPod Suit is both fashionable and functional. The suit is machine-washable and wrinkle-resistant, making it the ideal choice for today’s music-savvy and style conscious business professionals.

My life is now complete.

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Life of Matt

September 14, 2006 | Arts & Culture | People & Society

My friend Matt Bucy leads an interesting life (cf Tip Top Building). He has two blogs—here's a recent excerpt from each:

lukoil faggot at aloofdork

if i had been with a group of gay men i'm sure there'd have been a lot of cat calling and name calling right back at him. but it was just me and for some reason, i didn't resist him, i just told him the truth. i felt great afterwards. i don't know if it made any difference in his life, but it brought home to me that telling the truth, honoring myself in the face of attack and more importantly respecting and honoring the attacker is a weapon powerful enough to interrupt patterns of violence and hatred.

timberrrr framing at Faerie Camp Destiny:

the magic of timberframing, for me anyway, is the joinery. i've said a couple times to folks when showing them chiselwork: "you're not just whittling away here, you're creating a relationship!" you spend the day, sometimes longer, chipping away at a timber, working your way down to some lines that don't necessarily make any sense to you. you do your best to create the smoothest most accurate work you can, often betrayed by eagerness and impatience. the wood works with you sometimes, against you others. each cut is a new challenge asking you to be present and attentive.

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Crony Capitalism at it's Finest

September 8, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Business & Commerce | Governance | People & Society

Industry Note: The Rot at the Core, Special Disney Crony Capitalism Edition

Of course, neither move - coypright extensions or side payments to politicians in the form of propaganda - are in the least good for the economy, because they destroy more value than they create, through the stifling of potential innovation, competition, and new capital formation. This is crony capitalism at it's finest - we make your propaganda, you protect our assets; this is the kind of anti-capitalism that ends up destroying economies (hi Japan).

Right on.

[Background]

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From the Mailbag

September 8, 2006 | Arts & Culture | People & Society

Subject: Get a Diploma without the hassle!

Good day Notio!!

There are no called for tests, classes, books, or interviews !

Fetch a Bachelors, Masters, MBA, and Doctorate (PhD) diploma.

Have the earnings and approval that comes with a diploma !

No person is passed by

Anonymity ensured

Buzz Us Tonight +1 (270) 818 72 44

Good Anytime

Hmm, that might look nice on the wall. OTOH, it's probably a credit card capture-scam, so I wouldn't recommend dialing that number....

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Engrossment's That Are Not Even Their Own

September 7, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Life | People & Society

Excerpt from On the Shortness of Life:

You really must leave the ground and turn your mind's eye upon these things! Now while the blood is hot, we must enter with brisk step upon the better course. In this kind of life there awaits much that is good to know—the love and practice of the virtues, forgetfulness of the passions, knowledge of living and dying, and a life of deep repose.

The condition of all who are engrossed is wretched, but most wretched is the condition of those who labour at engrossments that are not even their own, who regulate their sleep by that of another, their walk by the pace of another, who are under orders in case of the freest things in the world—loving and hating. If these wish to know how short their life is, let them reflect how small a part of it is their own.

—Lucius Annaeus Seneca

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Complex Problem Solving

September 5, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Business & Commerce

Very interesting diagram of complex problem solving processes. Mousing over almost anything brings up more depth. Rewards exploration at the expense of obscuring details.

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The Business Card Menger Sponge

August 28, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Science

If you had 66,000 business cards sitting around, what would you do with them? Make a Menger sponge? Wow, me too!

The primary goal of the Business Card Menger Sponge Project was to build a depth 3 approximation to Menger’s Sponge as shown above, out of 66,048 business cards. This can be done by building 8000 business card cubes of 6 cards each, linking them together and using the additional cards to panel the 18,048 exterior faces of the sponge, giving a more pleasing finish to the final structure.

In order to build the sponge, I devised a decomposition of the overall structure into simple units that almost anyone can learn to make, which can then be assembled into the whole. The finished sponge measures slightly over 54 inches (140 cm) on each side and weighs about 150 pounds (70 kg).

Nine years of effort, with several hundred card folders across the country. And OMG!—includes instructions on how to build your own.

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TMI: Kundalini

August 24, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Life | People & Society

Sanatan Society:

Kundalini Yoga: The roused Kundalini energy moves upwards in the central nadi, the Sushumna, passing through each of the lower chakras to reach the seventh, the Sahasrara Chakra. This process is known in Kundalini Yoga as the piercing of the chakras and represents the merging of the female with the male.

Kundalaini Teacher:

Headaches: Most Kundalini headaches are caused by too much energy in the head. Many people are accustomed to releasing energy downward, into the Earth. This works if they are spiritually awakened, but not Kundalini awakened, or only using prana.

Lust/Lack: While some Kundalini teachers advocate abstinence, I am not one. I believe in the Wiccan ideal, "All acts of love and pleasure serve the Goddess." Sexual tantra has been used to facilitate the awakening process, for millennia. Sex with an awakened person can cause awakening. (Something to beware of, once one reaches the stage of being Shakt-contagious... awakening can be horrific for the unprepared, so be discerning in your choice of lovers.)

Jargon alert.

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NPR Tufte Interview

August 24, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Science

Six-minute NPR interview with Edward Tufte.

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Is Psychoanalysis Elitist?

August 22, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Life | People & Society

Was digging around the unblogged writing archives, and found this half-formed thought from July 22, 2003.

A comment has been raised that psychoanalysis is the most narcissistic and elitist of pursuits. I'm beginning to wonder if "elitist" is like "affirmative action" – defined on the fly to suit and argument or perspective.

Sure, rich people do analysis. And so do poor people. And smart people and undereducated people. I'm not sure what the label adds to the discussion.

Is self-discovery and self-knowledge ONLY narcissistic? Is self-awareness ONLY elitist? Should poor people not have access to the advantages of self-knowledge? Should we, as a species, abandon psychoanalysis and by extension formal inquiry and introspection because only some people can afford it?

No, much better that in many places analysis is on the rise. An increase in therapists will drive prices down, just as in Berkeley massage is so cheap as to have created a barter economy. Most therapists are not rich – some are, but plenty are doing it for the love of soul and as a way to increase the evolution of consciousness. This process takes eons, and simplistic labels simply enforce the status quo.

As regards narcism – it may be culture, it may be our place in our collective evolutionary path, but we are a narcissistic people. (cf fashion, makeup, designer eyeglasses, rolex watches, and blogs). What analysands find, however, is that by having an outlet for narcissism they bring LESS of that into their other relationships. You can't will narcissism away – you have to pay attention to it, listen to it, and nurture its healing.

It is likely that a root cause of narcissism is a lack of parental attention in childhood (unproven generalization alert). If this is so, we might want to consider if the two-income, high-materialist lifestyle is the best approach to parenting. It might be better to ditch one income, live a little less large, and spend more time with family and community. Or, perhaps, take a deep look at why one might want to raise children in the first place. Is it because you want a dependent, someone you can control, someone to grow in your image, someone to listen to every word you say as if it comes from God herself? If so, try analysis – it's much cheaper than children.

So. Everyone can afford children but cannot afford a few hundred dollars a month (full boat, no insurance, no reduced rates) for analysis? There's something here other than elitism.

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Where the winds hit heavy

August 22, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Life

Fred Wilson posts an mp3 of Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash singing Girl of the North Country. Stunning.

Well, if you're travelin' in the north country fair, Where the winds hit heavy on the borderline, Remember me to one who lives there. She once was a true love of mine.

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Continuing Examples of Music Industry Stupidity

August 21, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Business & Commerce | Products & Opportunites

This is worth a lengthy quote:

NY Times: Now the Music Industry Wants Guitarists to Stop Sharing

Lauren Keiser, president of the Music Publishers’ Association, says guitar tablature Web sites reduce the earnings of songwriters.

In the last few months, trade groups representing music publishers have used the threat of copyright lawsuits to shut down guitar tablature sites, where users exchange tips on how to play songs like “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door,” “Highway to Hell” and thousands of others.

“People can get it for free on the Internet, and it’s hurting the songwriters,” said Lauren Keiser, who is president of the Music Publishers’ Association and chief executive of Carl Fischer, a music publisher in New York.

So far, the Music Publishers’ Association and the National Music Publishers’ Association have shut down several Web sites, or have pressured them to remove all of their tabs, but users have quickly migrated to other sites. According to comScore Media Metrix, an Internet statistics service, Ultimate-Guitar.com had 1.4 million visitors in July, twice the number from a year earlier.

The publishers, who share royalties with composers each time customers buy sheet music or books of guitar tablature, maintain that tablature postings, even inaccurate ones, are protected by copyright laws because the postings represent “derivative works” related to the original compositions, to use the industry jargon.

So, let me get this straight. There are 1.4 million web surfers addicted to guitar tablature. And there is an existing legal arrangement where the publishers share royalties with the artists.

Listen up bubba, this right here is what we call a strategy: The publishers should license the websites to use the material and find the natural market price point.

D'oh, he said.

I mean, come on! This is not rocket science. Charge $0.99 a song for guitar tablature PDFs and see what happens, fer cryin' out loud! There might be varying degrees of sophistication among the PDF products, and maybe some tabs are worth $1.49, or even $2.99 per song. Maybe some are only worth $0.49 or $0.29. Who cares? Internet distribution removes friction. You can make money at any price by scaling to the market.

Instead of shutting them down they should be creating a new market.

I can't even believe people are this dumb sometimes.

So here's your Web 2.0 startup solution: Define a standard XML format for guitar tablature, and a server-side translator to take this XML, render it through template(s), and generate PDFs on the fly. Optionally, develop and support some sort of digital rights management scheme that is not ridiculously onerous. Tie this into a mass-customized MLM marketing, e-commerce, and community-driven web interface, and get started in the indie low-budget music scene. Build an audience, and a revenue stream, and sign on the heavyweights. At some point they will realize that while it might be worth reverse engineering the software and building their own system, they can't replicate the community.

Then you have your liquidity event, as they say.

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Weekend Fun, Friday Edition

August 18, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Governance

George W. Bush reads Camus

August 11: My anger at The New York Times subsides somewhat as I skim Foucault and Sartre. Surveillance serves its disciplinary function only if the populace is conscious of it. And if Americans aren't wrenched from being-pour-soi to being-en-soi (at least in relation to an observer who is Other) by the objectifying gaze of the state -- well, then the terrorists have won.

August 14: Back in Washington. Dick exults that the foiled London terror plot and the tightened airport security should keep voters' minds focused on national security through the midterms. Naturally, I think of Cottard, the shady entrepreneur in La Peste who comes into his own only when the city of Oran is under plague quarantine, and say so. Dick seems nonplussed.

It's absurd, and funny. And it's the only post this week, so having saved you a bunch of time, you'll just have to read it to humor me.

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Helvetica, The Movie!

August 8, 2006 | Arts & Culture

Very exciting. A movie about a typeface.

Helvetica is a feature-length independent film about typography, graphic design and global visual culture. It looks at the proliferation of one typeface (which will celebrate its 50th birthday in 2007) as part of a larger conversation about the way type affects our lives. The film is an exploration of urban spaces in major cities and the type that inhabits them, and a fluid discussion with renowned designers about the choices and aesthetics behind their use of type.

I kid you not, there will be a viewing party at my place when the DVD ships. (via)

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The Collision of Two Tendencies

August 7, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Life

Hannah, bless her heart, happened to quote something from The Little Prince that spoke to me, and created an hour of research unrelated to any of my pressing commitments.

The dominant idea in the story of The Little Prince is to be found, of course, in chapter XXI, in which the little prince meets, tames, and says goodbye to the fox.

—Adieu, dit le renard. Voici mon secret. Il est très simple: on ne voit bien qu'avec le coeur. L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux.

You can only see well with your heart. What is essential is invisible to the eye. The fox adds a corollary to this:

—Les hommes ont oublié cette vérité, dit le renard. Mais tu ne dois pas l'oublier. Tu deviens responsable pour toujours de ce que tu as apprivoisé. Tu es responsable de ta rose...

People forget this truth, but you shouldn't forget it. You become forever responsible for what you tame.

Marie-Louise von Franz, in her amazing Jungian interpretation of the story, writes (pg. 94ff):

It can be said that the fox teaches the little prince the important value of the here-and-now, and with it, of feeling. Feeling gives value to the present, for without it one has no relationship to the here-and-now situation, and with it comes responsibility, and, through that, a formed individual. [...] The fox is here on earth and that friendship must last, for otherwise it is meaningless. [...]

For instance, if a man has an obligation to his anima and also to the woman with whom he made friends or married, then he gets into the typical duality situation of life where one always has a real conflict and a double pull, and is always torn between obligations to this side of life and to the inner or other side. That would be the realization, or the crucifixion, the basic truth of life, that life is double and is a double obligation. Life itself is a conflict because it always means the collision of two tendencies. That is what makes up life, but that realization escapes the little prince completely or he escapes the realization.

Thanks Hannah. Thanks Marie-Louise. I hope I can recover from this reeling mind-bomb and deliver on my obligations today, the ones on the outside, not the inner ones, and at the same time not escape this realization.

N.B.: Do not literalize Saint-Exupery's story, von Franz's interpretation, or my reference. For metaphorical use only.

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Small-Scale Music Marketing

August 3, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Business & Commerce | Products & Opportunites

Last weekend I recorded my friend Chris and his band, testing out the new gadget. I sat in the second row and held the recorder in my hand on my thigh. Considering the situation, the recording is surprisingly good.

I gave Chris copies of the audio and the .wav file, and encouraged him to post it online. Of course, the band needs to make the decision as a group, and they might want to break it into tracks instead of one 56 minute piece, but the idea was to put it out there.

Chris responded:

I don't think I'll post the whole thing -- our playing isn't up to our snuff throughout -- but definitely snippets.

My internal reaction was, "What if the Grateful Dead or Phish had only put out their perfect playing?" Rarely did a full Dead or Phish show contain flawless playing. We never would have heard anything but official recordings under this criteria. It's also worth noting that I listened to the recording the day after the performance and didn't hear a single error—not that they don't exist, just that the typical listener is not working from the score to easily hear or find mistakes.

Chris' music is much more formal and structured, so you could argue that this style should have a higher quality standard than rock 'n roll. But I would retort by pointing to the boatload of lame classical releases which pale in comparison to the premiere performances of any given composition. Chris' response got me thinking about what I would do if I had a band and wanted to spread the music (assumption alert: they may not want to spread the music). Here's what I consider the basics of small-scale music marketing.

On the website, have a music archive page, and put up mp3's of every show, or at least put them up on Archive.org and point to them there. (This is what Oshe did before they broke up.) Then, sell compilations of the best cuts. Create CD-length "albums" that you can buy (or download from iTunes) that have good flow, that put things together in a new way, that are built around a theme, whatever.

The basic idea is to give away the full-length works for the hardcore fans, for people who went to the show, for people who are going on a long drive and want a full-length work, etc. Then sell the "best of" discs/downloads as the consolidated snapshot. List these at the top of the music page. Feature them on the home page of the website. "Lead" with them, as they say in journalism. Encourage your hardcore fans to buy the compilations to support you, even though they already "own" everything. Present it as a new experience, the Band's Choice, as it were.

This is the model that the Grateful Dead pioneered in the '60s and '70s. Use the free trading to drive people to the live experience. Give away full performances, because what people want to pay for is a unique experience, either live in person or via the "official" CDs. The advantage of putting up everything comes later on, when someone discovers your music and wants to dig deep. Now they've got a huge archive to listen to, and while they're focused on you for a few weeks or months they'll tell their friends, who will go check it out too. If there's just a bit of music posted, you can't create the depth of engagement. And that depth is what will hook people.

Now, having decided what they should do, it might be good to ask them what their goals are. Oh, wait, did I reverse the order?? Sorry, I was acting like a manager, getting all tactical first, not a consultant, starting with the goals. Oh well, this is only what I would do after all.

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Campion Wine

August 2, 2006 | Arts & Culture

Backup brain: Recommended by Fred Wilson.

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Too Cool to Bluff

July 31, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Life

On today's errand walk, another sudden lyric occurrence, in isolation, apart from the song, leaving me wondering.

She was too pat to open and too cool to bluff

If you follow that link, you'll find I got a lot more than I bargained for. After some preliminaries, there's a lengthy excerpt from my old haunt The Well, where (notimetohate), writes:

My take on "She was too pat to open and too cool to bluff" is that he could tell she was satisfied with where she was at and she wasn't going to initiate a conversation/friendship with him. And he could tell if he started it, that he couldn't match what she had and would have to bluff, but knew that wouldn't work with her.

Then (mellobelle), whom I met when I visited Lexington, KY in 2004, and who is totally cool, said:

Scarlet Begonias has my favorite woman in it of all the women in the Dead oeuvre. She's cool, she's together, she's so confident and not afraid of drawing attention to herself, she wears scarlet begonias in her hair and bells on her shoes. She has no need of the singer, has that exactly right. Altho', I think she enjoys his company for the evening, but when the evening ends, she's done with him. And she doesn't fake her interest. (Too cool to bluff)

There's more, lots more. Craig Dudley starts with a poker game explanation, goes on to write 1,300 words full of interpretive wisdom, and wraps up with:

That’s what I see in the song: A description of a relationship gone bad, but also the singer’s realization that it’s okay for relationships to go bad--it doesn’t mean that one (or both) of the people had to be a bad person. Innocence isn’t lost just because we make choices and choose to be ourselves, even when it might lead to conflict or loss of love.

More perspectives than you could shake a stick at. If I try to do a gender inversion on the characters in the song my brain locks up and goes blank, pointing toward a huge opportunity for learning.

....in the strangest of places if you look at it right....

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Song of the Day

July 25, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Life

Orchestra Nodding.mp3 (3:46)

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What Matters

July 24, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Life

Falling asleep last night it occurred to me that in the past few days I have

• Really gotten motivated playing guitar, reminding me how much I loved playing when I was young. It's hard to remember that in the mid-1970s I was the best guitar player in my school district, and I just walked away from it. WTF.
• Made a simple music video, reminding me that I have at least two screenplays I'm hoping to write. A couple of years ago I had good traction on the first outline. Now, a distant memory.
• Printed some of my photographs, reminding me that my grandfather taught me how to work in the darkroom and I've always loved playing with images. My photography work is on a four- to five-year binge cycle, and I'm ready for another one.
• Continued writing, currently focused on the blog, reminding me that in addition to the two or three screenplays I have at least one novel and and one or two non-fiction projects I'd like to accomplish. This is in addition to any business writing, which probably includes one or two short works.

I have a passion for many parts of my work, but really, it sure seems like the list above is what deeply matters to me. So if you see me online or in person, maybe you can ask me about that stuff as encouragement. Life goes on, plenty to do, work is busy, etc., but the four areas above are where I'm really trying to work. It's easy to forget, and life is short.

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Weekend Snapshot

July 23, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Life

After seven hours of financial straightening (I'm probably one-third through the project) I offer 15 minutes of guitar snapshots.

Detective Mystery.mp3 (2:01)

Swimming.mp3 (4:19)

Dee Vee.mp3 (1:48)

Simple Chords.mp3 (2:01)

Big Noise.mp3 (3:58)

Are You Fire.mp3 (2:36)

Now it's all about dexterity and stamina (ain't that always the way) until I start to work out specific song themes. And maybe learn what the heck I'm doing. I'm going on feel here, and have little understanding of how guitar tuning works, intellectually. That's an unusual space for me, normally I think it first and feel it later. This is the opposite. There's sure to be some learning.

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Rainy Ghost of the Golden Age

July 22, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Life | Nature & Environment

An impromptu music video I shot this afternoon....

Rainy Ghost of the Golden Age (YouTube, 4:35)

A mood hit and I grabbed the camera and restarted the song. The video compression makes it hard to tell how hard it was raining, and hard to see the ghost. But watch carefully and pay attention, and you might catch a glimpse.

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Guitaring

July 22, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Life | Products & Opportunites

On Thursday I picked up the guitar for the first time since at least January. The last time I had callouses on my fingertips was at least a year ago. Around that time I had wanted to build a positive feedback loop with my playing, and rented a gadget that connected to the computer to record my guitar doodles. But it was too much setup hoo-ha—get the computer out, fire up software, close down other apps, plug the box in, set the levels—I just wanted something physical where I could press a button when I was hacking around and immediately capture the moment. So I didn't buy the gadget and didn't get a feedback loop in place.

But Thursday I had a lot of fun playing, and I removed some disincentives by setting up the guitar processor on top of the stereo and keeping the guitar plugged in. And then I remembered a new gadget I saw a few weeks ago. The Edirol R-09 is about the size of a deck of cards, and records high-quality sound on SD memory cards. I was able to borrow one for the weekend (thanks Chas!), and last night played around.

Here are some of my experiments, about 20 minutes total. Most of these songs don't go anywhere, they're more like chord explorations and emotional states. I'm pretty happy with them, especially given a first effort. I've sequenced them into something of a flow, for those that dare listen to the whole set.

Sweeping Birds.mp3 (1:22)

Interior Waves.mp3 (3:20)

Minor Grunge.mp3 (4:46)

Tangerine Mining Company.mp3 (4:17)

Eee Space.mp3 (4:03)

Swoop.mp3 (1:08)

The Edirol recorder is pretty sweet, and the built-in mics are better than decent. It's a complete splurge, but I think I'm going to buy this on Monday instead of returning it to the store. Add in some stealth mics, and there might be some undercover recording returning to my future.

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Perfect Music Marketing

July 21, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Business & Commerce | Products & Opportunites

This whole weblog thing is pretty amazing. I wrote that post the other day on finding music – it was a toss-off, essentially, a cool service that made me think about how I used to find music and how much harder it is now (for me). Then, in the comments, this:

Hello Michael J.

I liked your post on finding music. It's funny how more options means more hassles. But here's another way to find new music. Have it come to you. My name's Kevin Griffin. I'm a singer songwriter out of Boston. I noticed you like Paul Simon. He's been one of my favorites for many years. My music's even been described as if Paul Simon and Johnny Cash were sitting around a campfire singing eachothers songs, that's me.

Anyway, I'm still not good at this self promotion stuff but I have a new song that was just named a semi finalist in the International Songwriting Contest and I'm trying to get new ears to hear it. So here's my link to Itunes so you can check it out.

Here´s the link to ITUNES and the lullaby.

http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?id=157683341&s=143441

Thanks and I hope you like the music. If you do, let me know.

Kevin Griffin

Now, it would be easy to say, "Yo, no self-promotion on my blog!" But that's not what I feel at all. What I feel is, Cool! Why? Kevin notes my post. He references my previous post on Paul Simon. He connects himself to that lineage. He has social proof in the form of an award. He clearly states he's trying to get more people to listen to the song and his music. He thanks me. He signs his name.

Kevin, rock on buddy. Perfect music marketing. The opposite of music industry PR spin. The opposite of hype. You didn't tell me I'd love it – you said you think it's like some other things I love and maybe I'd like to check it out. You link to iTunes, the default mechanism for easy previewing. You link to your website so I can explore more.

How did Kevin find my post? Who knows? I have somewhere between insignificant and non-existent tracking systems in place on Notio. He's never commented before. I don't know if he dropped in on that post or has been following along for three years. It doesn't matter. He respects the medium, and is using it effectively. I'm happy to promote that comment to the top of the fold. Well done.

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Finding Music

July 18, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Business & Commerce | Products & Opportunites

Finding enjoyable new music is hard. [Is that "is" of predication or "is" of identity?] Radio gave up the ghost years ago due to industry consolidation. Now all we have on the dial are programmed playlists driven by payola. I can drive for hours and hear the same manufactured songs over and over regardless of the city, state, or region. So let's agree: Radio is a cultural wasteland, only slightly better than TV. Yes, there are exceptions, especially around colleges, but even then a lot of them suck.

The iTunes Music Store is a bit better, if only because I can drive my choices, and I can bail out of the 30-second preview whenever I want. Plus you get the browsing-helpful "customers who bought X also bought Y." And, one-click instant gratification. What's not to like? Well, Apple's DRM I suppose, but it hasn't gotten in my way so far, and the terms are reasonable IMO.

Today comes MusicLens a graphical dashboard which allows you to set musical parameters and then returns a list of songs that match your criteria. You can preview the songs, and I suppose there's some way to buy them. I like this better than Pandora because I can change the settings, myself, on the fly. Worth playing with.

Update: Fred Wilson posted today about music discovery too. Must be in the air.

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E-Prime

July 17, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Nature & Environment | People & Society

From The Sourcebook of Magic, pg 351ff:

Alfred Korzybski (1933/1994) warned that the "is" of identity and the "is" of predication present two dangerous linguistic and semantic constructions that map false-to-fact conclusions. The first has to do with identity—how we identify a thing or what we identify with. The second has to do with attribution—how we project our "stuff" onto others and things without realizing it.

E-Prime empowers people to not fall into the "is" traps of language. E-Prime refers to English-primed of the "to be" verb family of passive verbs (is, am, are, was, were, be, being, been).

Writing, thinking, and speaking in E-Prime contributes to "consciousness of abstracting" so that as we make our maps of the world we recognize how they differ from the world. E-Prime enables us to think and speak with more clarity and precision by getting us to take first-person.

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More Philling Photos

July 13, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Life | Travel

Executive summary: Wednesday July 12 at the Champlain Valley Expo near Burlington, VT. Live music mid-week and the guilty irresponsible feeling that comes with. Pouring rain all day and night. Dancing in the mud. Crowded covered grandstand. Happy happy people.

The Benevento/Russo Duo opened the show at 4:00. This was the scene during the middle of their set. We got there early enough to take third row seats in the grandstand. Most of the dirt you see will soon turn to mud and then be filled up with people.

Phil Lesh & Friends, first set. Songs: Good Lovin', They Love Each Other, Rubin and Cherise, Desire, Suraree.

Kathryn has seen a lot of live music, but none of the Dead- and Phish-related jamband variety. She is however a sociology grrl, and in addition to enjoying the music, high-quality people-watching ensued. The character in the foreground wearing the orange hat was dancing in the aisle, him bad, and as he noticed the usher coming he danced up three rows and into his section as she walked by. As she walked past he danced back down into the aisle. He was invisible as far as she was concerned.

Phil's second set. Songs: You've Got to Hide Your Love Away, Scarlet Begonias, Viola Lee Blues, Phil & Mike Gordon Bass Duo, Help On the Way, Slipknot, Franklin's Tower, Not Fade Away. Midnight Hour.

Full house. Not sold out, but comfortably full. You can see in the foreground the grandstand has become much more crowded in the aisles. Trey played onstage for the whole set. During Help I remembered walking across Main Street last week, crossing between the Post Office and Molly's, and suddenly, in the middle of the crosswalk, the startled opening of Help On the Way popped into my consciousness. I remember thinking, "That's probably the one song I'd like to hear Wednesday." So, I got my wish, even though I forgot I had one.

Remember that "dirt" we saw earlier? A fond memory. Dancing, walking, running, and standing in the mud. I think you get the idea.

Trey and Mike, with the Duo. Songs: Drifting, Trouble, Tuesday, Hap-nappy, Goodbye Head, Something for Rockets, Shine, Mud City, Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey, Dragonfly. Who Are You (with Page).

Two things seem to happen at rainy outdoor shows: 1) The band plays really well, being sympathetic with the audience outdoors in the rain; and 2) They play it loud. I don't know why this is, but it was damn loud during this set. The music was driving, rock electronica, with many minor chords and dissonant sounds. Some of the light show was beautiful, rainbow fingers playing over the audience for instance, but some was a blinking brutish barrage of colors and intensities. The music was assaultingly loud, and when I found myself wincing and twitching every time this one particular drum was hit (every few seconds), I dug around the backpack for hearing protectors. We smiled. We could listen now. Even wearing hearing protectors it was plenty loud enough. And this was 200 feet from the stage. I can only imagine up front. People seemed to like it, but my left ear was ringing a bit even 12 hours later when I woke up. Ugg.

When we left after the "first" Trey and Mike set, we thought there might be a big jamed-out second set with the hometown boys – Page McConnell had already joined Trey and Mike onstage with Phil's band for Midnight Hour and there might be more. But we decided to beat the traffic and it's good we left early because it rained hard for much of the drive home, slowing us down. And it turned out they only played the one encore, so we missed almost nothing and saved an easy hour, maybe more, getting out of there. The audience had a great time. The rain was an annoyance but didn't affect the mood. People were happy, smiling, dancing. Top-notch live music in northern New England doesn't happen every day, so let's enjoy ourselves.

The one downside: "I tell 'ya sonny, back in the day, I could stay up until 2 or even 3 AM and still go to work the next day. Now, I go to bed at 1 AM and I'm a-wiped out the whole next day. I am not getting any younger for these things."

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AI@50

July 13, 2006 | Arts & Culture | People & Society | Software | Technology

Meg Houston Maker is doing some fantastic live blogging of the Dartmouth AI@50 conference.

This gathering celebrates, explores, and, to an extent, reprises the original Dartmouth Summer Research Project in artificial intelligence of 1956, which proceeded "on the basis of the conjecture that every aspect of learning or any other feature of intelligence can in principle be so precisely described that a machine can be made to simulate it." John McCarthy, then a Dartmouth mathematics professor, and his colleagues Marvin Minsky (Harvard), Nathaniel Rochester (IBM), and Claude Shannon (Bell Labs) coined the term "artificial intelligence" in their funding proposal to highlight the role computers may play in simulating (or bettering) human intelligence.

It's some of the best live blogging I've ever seen — she could do this for a living.

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Nine Lives Is Nine Too Many

July 13, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Business & Commerce | Technology

If the Internet turns into this, then I'm switching it off. Please, god, no.

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Examples of Categories

July 11, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Business & Commerce | Life | Nature & Environment | People & Society | Products & Opportunites | Science | Software | Technology

Art: Leonard Cohen and Sonny Rollins on live TV. (Thanks Jon.)

Commerce: Do Patents Encourage or Stifle Innovation?

Culture: On media elitism and the "derivative" myth

Technology: On playing with my Holux GPS unit...

Cool: Velcro Being Pulled Apart

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Paul Simon's Live Surprise

July 8, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Life

Vacation, Friday night. There must be some live music around here. Oh, Paul Simon in Burlington. That sounds good. Bought a single ticket the night before the show and got dead center last row before the soundboard. A perfect seat for this event. Although most of the audience was sitting down the whole night, I could stand and dance without bothering anybody.

I'd never been to the Champlain Valley Exposition, in Essex Junction, VT (one exit north of Burlington). It's a farm fair summer venue, and as these things go, it's not too shabby.

It doesn't have the luxe that SPAC offers, but it's a big step up from a hockey rink. Outdoors in the cool night air of Vermont, high-quality lights and sound, with birds flying above and a light breeze, world-class musicians, a fine performance in a beautiful setting.

It's good to go to a non-Jamband concert every once in a while to see how the other half dances. Before the gates opened I asked a ticket taker, "What are the rules?" She said, "Rules??" I replied, "You know, can we bring in water bottles, cameras, food, or backpacks? What about beach balls, glow sticks, and laser pointers?" She said, "No one has told me about any rules, normally you just walk in." This got an eyebrow raise out of me—maybe she hasn't been told, but usually there are rules.

But it turns out she was right: No apparent rules! No pack search! No body search! There wasn't even anyone there to check my backpack or pat me down. They tore my ticket and I walked in.

Of course, there were rules, they just didn't announce any of them in advance. For instance, right after I took this picture:

An usher walked over and said, "The artist has requested no photos of any kind." Oh, okay. I know what they're really trying to prevent are flashes, and people with cameras acting like killjoys to people just trying to enjoy the show. It's unfortunate that the only way to avoid those two bad behaviors is to ban all forms of the behavior. I know how to set my flash to 'off' and I only take a few pictures a set. But, as we know, rules are rules, (unless you're the President).

Here's my annotated setlist:

• Gumshoes
• Boy In The Bubble
• Slip Sliding Away—Very dark and slow and smokey.
• You're The One—Nature gives us shapeless shapes, Clouds and waves and flame. But human expectation, Is that love remains the same. And when it doesn't, We point our fingers, And blame blame blame.
• Me & Julio
• How Can You Live In The Northeast—Weak as the winter sun, we enter life on earth. Names and religion comes just after date of birth. Then everybody gets a tongue to speak, And everyone hears an inner voice. A day at the end of the week to wonder and rejoice.
• Mrs. Robinson
• Love Me Like A Rock—[I note here that this show is very song-oriented, which is a departure from the Jamband scene, where they, well, jam more.]
• That Was Your Mother—Along come a young girl, She's pretty as a prayerbook. Sweet as an apple on christmas day. I said good gracious can this be my luck? If that's my prayerbook, Lord let us pray.
• Duncan
• Graceland—And she said losing love, Is like a window in your heart. Everybody sees you're blown apart. Everybody sees the wind blow.
• Father & Daughter
• Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes
• Still Crazy After All These Years
• Cecilia

At this point we were headed for the encores, and I decided to take another photo.

First encores:

• You Can Call Me Al—A man walks down the street, He says why am i soft in the middle now, Why am I soft in the middle, The rest of my life is so hard. I need a photo-opportunity. I want a shot at redemption. Don't want to end up a cartoon, In a cartoon graveyard.
• The Only Boy Living in New York
• The Boxer

Second encores:

• Wartime Prayer—I'm trying to tap into some wisdom, Even a little drop will do. I want to rid my heart of envy, And cleanse my soul of rage, Before I'm through.
• Bridge Over Troubled Water—Sail on silver girl, sail on by. Your time has come to shine, and all your dreams will run their way. See how they shine, oh, if you need a friend, I'm sailing right behind

At the end of the show a solid 10 minute firework display.

The promoter of this show is a friend of mine. I saw him and his wife backstage before and after the show, and unfortunately only 4,000 attended. The capacity was something like 13,000, so they took a bath; very unfortunate. The promoter puts up the financial guarantee for the artist, rents the facility, hires the stage and security, etc. They earn out based on ticket sales. In this case, it's possible they wrote a very big check so that Paul Simon could play for the first time in Vermont. Since the show was a Friday night, I'm assuming the $80/$50 ticket prices were the deciding factor.

And he told me that, yes, there would be entrance searches for the upcoming Phil show Wednesday. So there you have it, audience profiling and discrimination even right here in Vermont.

The big surprise for me was that Simon only played three songs from the new album, Surprise. I love Surprise, so I was surprised to read in a review from an earlier show in Montreal:

If there were lulls in last night's set list, they came with three songs from Simon's recent disc, the disappointing Surprise. In future years, it's hard to imagine any of that album's songs staying on the set list.

We'll see about that. Certainly there aren't the dance numbers that Rhythm of the Saints had (a career peak work of his). But both You're The One and Surprise were critically panned when I think they're very thoughtful and contemplative albums.

The local show review was favorable, save for the fact that the author has no friggin' clue about how sound reinforcement works:

Why do some touring acts (including Simon) postion the key sound-mix decision-makers onstage, where they don’t have a prayer of hearing what the crowd is hearing?

Uh, dude, check it out: There's this big white tent in the middle of the floor in the audience? It's called the "soundboard." And the guy there, in the middle of the audience, is mixing the "house sound." He controls what you hear. What you see on stage is the "monitor mixer," who provides an individual stereo mix for each of the on-stage musicians. He's on the side of the stage so they can yell over, or point, to make something louder or softer. He's got nothing to do with the sound in the hall.

Sheesh, editors, please fact-check. Or use Google. Are you trying to emulate bloggers or something?

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Great Bass, Lesh Philling

July 4, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Life | Technology

Right up until Sunday, the day of the show, I wasn't sure if I'd go to see Phil Lesh & Friends at SPAC. I'd been sick for two weeks, the first week full-blown, with all symptoms known to (wo)man, and a second full week with the phlegmish hacking cough. Symptoms had died down by Saturday, but I didn't want to travel unless I was going to have a great time – I could have a good time at home.

When I woke up I felt good, and balancing continued R&R vs. dancing until midnight, I decided to let the hotel decide. If I could easily get a reasonable room the morning of the show, I was good to go. Let's have fun. First call, at the Super-8 over by the big Wal-Mart – across from the Home Depot and Target, right off the exit, before you get to the Best Buy, Bed Bath & Beyond, and EMS – the Super-8 had a room for the in-season typical $125. Therefore, it's a deal, we're on the road, pack it up. Figured on a 3-hour drive in holiday weekend mid-day traffic. It was 11 AM, and the show started at 5.

I arrived at about 4:15, after stopping at the hotel to change. Surprisingly, I got a great parking spot in the VIP area just off the back entrance by the reflecting pool. One reason might be that as I drove down Avenue of the Pines and hit the traffic directors, there was a sign that said, "Main parking lot [arrow right]; VIP parking [arrow left]." Everyone was going to the main lot, but I just turned left, no one seemed to care, and drove into a shaded parking spot. Got out of the car, stretched, looked around. No one was walking after me or hollering, and people of the tribe were grilling and chilling so I decided: Parked.

The reason to see concerts at SPAC is that if you get there early you have a very nice State Park scene for hanging out.

I've been coming to concerts here since 1983, when those trees were a lot shorter. There's a lot more crowd control now. Back in the day they'd put 34,000 people here, with multiple delay towers for sound, and it was crazy spinning sweating hippies even at the way-back of the lawn. Now they top out more like 25,000, and there's never any delay towers beyond the house system hung on the back of the balcony. And instead of a couple dozen ushers and a virtual autonomous zone, there are hundreds of ushers and you can hardly go visit a friend across the aisle without answering for it. But it's still SPAC, a New York State Park, manicured for our dionysian pleasure, with its marble stall dividers, lush green lawn, old pine trees, brick outbuildings, waterfall, bridge, and ravine. It just doesn't get much better than this for rock 'n roll, so stop complaining already. We're lucky they let fools like us in the place with the terror alert at Code Yellow (soon rising again as we approach November).

June 30, 2006 – The United States remains at an elevated risk, Code Yellow, for terrorist attack. The Department of Homeland Security continues to analyze intelligence and closely monitor events as they unfold overseas. At this time, there is no credible intelligence to suggest a specific or imminent threat to the homeland.

Back in the real world, sans propaganda, people were enjoying themselves at a cultural event. First up was the Benevento-Russo Duo, who I'd never heard, or heard of. They seem pretty young, so I think this is a big gig for them:

Keyboard player and drummer. I would call the music I heard intense, pattern-oriented electronica. Driving, tight, cranked. Very well-played. Enjoyable, and a pretty danceable 45 minute set. Worth exploring.

Next up were Trey Anastasio and Mike Gordon, former Phishmates. What I didn't realize is that they're playing with the Duo. They set up as a foursome and played a little over an hour:

Those guys totally rocked out. After the second tune, which contained more than one killer jam and a spectacular close, the guy next to me (who I didn't know) looked over and said, "Dude! That was totally like the old days!!" Indeed it was. When those guys hit the groove they nearly got the gold ring. Surprisingly good, and not just a nostalgia act. The Duo adds a modern element that takes Trey and Mike into the 21st century. Recommended.

Here's a wider shot to get a sense of the indoor scene:

Toward the middle of the set a guy named Blake showed up in the aisle in front of me. A little while later he turned and asked, "Did Mike play the acoustic [guitar] yet?" No, not that I remember. A few minutes later they jumped into "Who Are You?" by The Who, a classic-rock surprise prize, and along the way Mike did then pick up the acoustic for that little ditty in the middle of the song and the guy Blake turned around and high-fived me. "Psychic!," he said. Of course, he had been on the road and this was his third of four shows, so he might have had some sub-conscious low-frequency pattern-recognition going on there.

Above, in the left of the frame, you see Leigha, who's currently working as a bartender in New Paltz, NY. She was with a couple who drove up for the day. We had talked a bit during the set, I don't remember how it started, I think maybe I asked her something, since one of the things I'm doing these days is learning how to talk to random people. I'm more of a closer, not much of an opener, so I'm practicing. At the break her friends went to get water, so she and Blake and I talked for a while.

Blake was having a good time, as they say, and Leigha and I were pretty much drinking water and hanging out. We talked some facts like wherefrom, schools, tour plans. Blake had been to Bonnaroo last month, and Leigha had been for the past three years but not this year. I asked them what they liked about it. He said, "Good bands." Leigha? "I think the community, the feeling you get when you're there." Like how? "Well, like when you're walking by a campground and some people are cooking eggs and you say, 'Oh, that smells good!' and they say, 'We have extra, do you want some?' Stuff like that happened all the time." [Well, this is a lot better than talking about college.]

So I asked, "What do you think creates that sense of community? The world needs more of that, what can we do to create that, to bring that out in people?" She thought for a minute and said, "I think it has to do with being open, and being nice to people, and helping people along the way." I said, "So, if we can be open and vulnerable in more situations, just engage without preconceptions, then maybe it rubs off on other people or something?" She replied, "Well, at the least it's a couple more open and engaged people in the world, and that can't be all bad." At this point Blake suddenly blurted, "Man, you guys are deep! I am in no shape to talk about stuff like this." [No wonder guys get a bad rep.]

Leigha smiled. I winked at her, and thought, "Is this the state of competition for dates these days? Blake, dude, have something to talk about!" We chit-chatted to include him. Turns out Leigha has a master's in literature and the environment, a program she heard about when she was teaching English in China. I asked her if I could take her picture. She wasn't comfortable with that. She asked me where I lived, and why I liked it there. She asked Blake what he did for work. Turns out he's a mortgage broker in the sub-prime sector – "We help people save their homes, even if they have bad credit; We loan them the money ourselves for 7% a year for two years, then it converts into a regular loan; I mean, yeah, at that point it's 13%, so I guess that's why they call us the predatory mortgage market, but I can sleep at night, at least these people have their houses, they wouldn't otherwise."

Okay. Time to go get some water. Handshakes all around. Good eye contact.

Placed a bet with myself: When I return either Leigha is with her friends and Blake is gone, or Blake is there and she's gone. Zero probability of anything else happening. I walked up through the lawn, and it had filled in quite a bit:

Bought four waters, two liters to drink and two 16 oz to give away. Went to the men's room. Wandered around the vending and food options. Considered the beer tent and skipped it. Took some crowd pictures, but that seemed to generate slightly bad vibes. Makes sense. Headed back inside. Blake was there alone, natch. I won the bet. Gave him a water. "Wow, thanks!" "Just building community. Leigha split?" "She said she'll be back."

When Phil came out, I was surprised to see Joan Osbourne with them. She had played with The Dead, but never with Phil & Friends. I didn't know she was on the tour. When Chris and I saw this band in December, I remember thinking it was early in the tour, and they would get a lot better. Now it's three tours later, and it's the lineup we saw in Boston, plus Joan on vocals, and Greg Osby on sax. They were a lot more together, and Joan adds an important vocal component for this band.

The show had something of a slow entrainment for me. Good Times, okay soundcheck opener. Sittin' on Top of the World did get a nice groove going with some jazzy fiddle and horn jams. I usually dig Direwolf, but this was kind of poppy. It didn't have any kind of deep or thick or fur-lined groove happening. Then Joan sang Peaceful Valley, a Ryan Adams tune. Slow and sweet, southern bluegrass country. Maybe too slow that early in the set.

Then I'm not sure what happened, maybe a bus came by and I got on, that's when it all began. Suddenly we were in Fennario, and everyone—band, audients, Audience—was locked in. Bang, in a heartbeat. Best Peggy-O ever, no doubt about it. So beautiful. Then a slow solid stomping Althea. Can't talk to you without talking to me, We're guilty of the same old thing. Thinking a lot about less and less, And forgetting the love we bring.Very deliberate and smokey. Magic is possible when you take the time to rehearse. Some of the sax solos and improvisation sounded more like a baroque ensemble than a rock band.

I heard a lot of interesting tempo changes, perhaps micro-tempo changes, in Peggy-O and Althea. Subtle shifts in the pacing, slight changes in the exact placement of the one, stretching and compressing the elasticity of time. Very skilled and polished, I thought. But there's a guy on the Internet who seems to think they didn't have it together:

Everything was well performed, but the band had a tough time getting on the same page during Peggy-O, which was to bad condisering how well I heard them play it in February. Althea was pretty smoking to close the set and featured some great playing from all, even Osby. This was my first time seeing and hearing this band with Osby and I really have to say that he did not add to much. He sounded like he was struggling at times and like he is trying to figured what key the songs are in for the entire performance of the tune. I really wasn't impressed with him at all. But in his defense he is still getting to know the material and he hasn't spent much time with the band, and I'm sure it will get better as it goes along.

Huh? Greg Osby is a master player. What he was playing during those two songs probably went over the heads of most of the audience. It's more likely our critic was listening to his expectations and not open to the brand-new, fresh, never-before-heard music in the room. Greg Osby trying to figure out the key? Get a grip.

Thus ended the hour-long first set. Seemed super-short, since I only connected deeply with the last two songs. I stayed in place for the break. I wore my new favorite t-shirt and stood up and showed it off whenever I could.

When I first saw someone wearing this shirt at Dairy Day I laughed out loud. The day before I'd seen a "got democracy?" t-shirt on a friend and this was even better. More direct. Cutting. But then I realized the back of the shirt shows the seven cooperative principles and it's a co-op movement t-shirt! Happy happy joy joy!

A 60-something usher glanced at the shirt and as he checked my ticket said quietly, to himself, "Ok, got principles, that's a good one." Smiled and pointed down the aisle and handed me my ticket. Mostly the hippies laugh and the crew-cuts look away. Meme injection project continues apace.

One thing I don't like about the new and improved well-managed SPAC are video ads played during intermission. Granted, they're silent, so it's not too intrusive, but you can't really escape the video screens. The variety was amazing. Here's a sampling, so you can avoid these merchants that leech off the good vibes of counter-culture rock 'n roll: Jeep, Hinekin, GE, State Farm, Marriott ("be treated like a star"), fye, Fetzer wine, Appleby's, Verizon, livenation.com, Rockstar Energy Drink, Best Buy, Dunkin' Doughnuts ("iced coffee in nine flavors"). Etc. You'll notice they get no link love from Notio.

Okay, second set opened with New Speedway Boogie. It's unlikely I will ever forget Joan's inflection delivering One step done and another begun, in I wonder how many miles? Spent a little time on the mountain, Spent a little time on the hill, Things went down we don't understand, but I think in time we will.

Three rows in front of me there's a woman in her late-20s or early-30s. She's wearing an erotic asian art t-shirt. Not exactly like the art linked (I didn't yet find a copy online) but similar. A guy could never wear this shirt. And, doesn't she get hit on constantly wearing that? Maybe it's a way to separate the men from the boys, so to speak. It's certainly a conversation starter, and possibly an immediate ender too, all rolled into one. Maybe it intimidates people so they don't approach her?

Nice lengthy and considered jam going into He's Gone. Nothing left to do but smile, smile, smile.

Into Uncle John's Band. It's a Buck Dancer's Choice, my friend, better take my advice. You know all the rules by now, and the fire from the ice.

They're teasing Truckin' during every jam between songs, so I wonder if it will be the set-closer payoff. The show is error-free at the level of the song. They're remembering the lyrics or using the monitors—and not a decade too soon. There may be a musical faux pax here and there, but I don't hear anything obvious and it's probably at a level that most won't notice. I don't think anyone missed a lyric all night, nearly unheard-of in the land of the Dead.

Joan leaves the stage, and Phil and Greg lead a free jam which issues a transfer to Unbroken Chain. I love this song, and they seem to play it a lot when I'm in attendance, and I like that. November and more as I wait for the score, They're telling me forgiveness is the key to every door. A slow winter day, a night like forever, Sink like a stone, float like a feather.

We forgive Phil for singing because he wrote the song and it's so good. His voice has been shot for years, and he's kind enough to hire other singers for most of the tours, but there are a few songs he still sings. Tonight was very strong, with some sort of Eleven-ish jam in the middle. Totally sick, as my college buddy Bug would say. Then back into Chain. Amazing.

Long pause. Band resets. Joan returns. We wait quietly. Count off, click click click pause. Morning Dew. Please god let Joan sing it. Yes. Thank you. Beautiful. Calm. Strong. Respect.

Short pause. Trey walks out and plugs in. Quiet free jam to start. Trey in the lead. The band is trancing, hypnotic, looking nowhere, listening everywhere. Trey might already be drooling. Thought it was going to be Tomorrow Never Knows because of Joan's throaty vocalizations during the intro. She sounded like a sax, then Greg came in to carry it on. Suddenly:

Into The Wheel. You can't go back, and you can't stand still. If the thunder don't get you, then the lightning will. Unlike any previous Wheel ever. Trey and Phil are in the lead; the band is supporting Trey. Harmonic, soaring, waves crashing, round and round, then back to the song. Exit jam sounds like TNK again. Smokin'.

Into Not Fade Away. Rock out closer. During the jams Trey is playing hard and Joan is standing in front of him dancing with him, smiling. I'm laughing; they're having a great time. She's got her back to most of the audience, he's an audience of one. She spins around to sing her verse and then turns back to him. Joan and Trey trade places, Joan dances with Greg while Trey jams across Phil with Larry. Rock 'n roll, baby. At the peak Joan is vocalizing at the top of her game, totally putting out for that song. While the band brings it home to land she steps back and looks left, looks right, and smiles with satisfaction. Her boys done good.

Rap for organ donors, then Casey Jones. House lights. I sit for a while and listen to the crowd. Happiness. I stand near the aisle for a while and show off the t-shirt. One nice thing about staying inside for a bit is the interior view glowing gently like a spaceship.

Leigha never came back. Next time I'll invite her to come with for water, not leave her with the sub-prime mortgage broker.

Rather than sit in traffic I walk around the park for a while. Men's room. Wash up in the cold water. Some trash pickup. Drink some more water. Take in the post-show view. Walk on the grass under the tress to the car. Drive to the hotel. Eat some peanuts. Look at the photos. Twelve hours earlier I was packing, now it's over.

_{Thanks to Rob Clarke, who recorded, mastered, and uploaded the show before I even got home to download it. You can also buy an official soundboard recording.}

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Stadium Arcadium

July 3, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Life

The new double-album by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Stadium Arcadium, really rocks. People were raving about it, and I liked the single I heard on the radio (Dani California) , so I splurged and bought an actual physical CD – made of atoms no less. None of them ephemeral DRM encrypted bits for the Peppers!

This is a great summer rock and roll album filled with screaming guitar, power chords, great harmonies, narrative lyrics, and danceable dance rhythms. It's outrageous how much fun you can hear in the music. They are just rockin' out the whole hour and twenty-two minutes.

After four listens I notice there are half a dozen styles on the work. Rock, disco, rap, hip-hop, funk, ballad. Maybe more. Very diverse, held together by the drive. A brief review of the lyrics indicates that at least some of the songs are related to a major breakdown of some sort. I've never listened to the Chili Peppers before, so I don't know the history. Very well-composed music though. Great piece of work.

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Concert Etiquette

July 3, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Life | Travel

Overheard at SPAC:

Why do you carry a lighter to rock concerts? You don't smoke.

—Sometimes people ask for a light.

But smokey rooms suck. Why would you help smokers by offering them a light?

—Because if, at a rock concert, someone asks for a lighter, the chances are good that you'll have the option of getting a toke on a joint, should you so desire one at that particular moment in time.

But don't people smoke cigarettes at concerts? You don't want a toke on a Winston. Don't the chimneys ask for a light more often?

—Well, that happens sometimes, but not that much.

That doesn't make any sense. A lot more people smoke cigarettes than smoke pot.

—Yeah, but, cigarette smokers are addicts. They usually have their kit prepared to keep the juices flowing. Pot smokers are, by definition, stoners. And stoners usually forget stuff like lighters back in the van.

That's kind of funny you're gaming them like that.

—No gaming here. It's all about catalyzing the win-win.

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Narrative Selection Bias™

June 29, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Life | People & Society | Site Maintenance

Doug and I had an interesting exchange in the comments that's worth bringing to the front page.

I pulled a quote from a blog post and out of context the quote had a different meaning. A reader could get the wrong idea. So this is a formal disclosure statement that Notio is extremely biased. I am citing material that is interesting to me, possibly for reasons unknown, possibly unknown even to me. It's an interpretation, not an "objective" perspective. Essentially, you can't trust anything you read here.

Just thought I'd mention it.

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Notable Quotes

June 23, 2006 | Arts & Culture | People & Society

From this week's New Yorker:

Fine Tuning: Reassessing Radiohead

Radiohead has much in common with the Grateful Dead, including passionate fans who follow the band from city to city, trade bootleg recordings of shows, puzzle out the meanings of the band’s cryptic lyrics, and (in Boston, at least) dance badly while smoking expensive-smelling weed. But Radiohead’s main interest is not improvisation, nor do the band’s affinities to modern classical music and electronica mask the fact that its dominant syntax is pop. The songs mutate briskly, and are larded with hummable motifs. Even when Jonny Greenwood is fiddling with a radio and Yorke is ululating toward the great unknown, the band obeys an internal clock that arrests its elaborations before tedium defeats wonder. —Sasha Frere-Jones

Acid Redux: The life and high times of Timothy Leary

After his experience with Mexican mushrooms, Leary read [Aldous Huxley's] “The Doors of Perception” with excitement. This was a style of mystico-pseudoscience that suited him perfectly, a kind of shamanistic psychology delightfully immune to empirical challenges. As it happened, Huxley was then lecturing at M.I.T., and Leary arranged a meeting. They had lunch at the Harvard Faculty Club, which was, and remains, the unlikeliest venue in which to plan the future of a psychedelic movement. But that is what Leary and Huxley did. Huxley’s idea was that, if the world’s leaders could be turned on, the lion would lie down with the lamb, and peace would be at hand. The vision was appealing to Leary. It was, after all, simply psychiatric social work on a global scale, and administered not to convicts and juvenile delinquents but to the political, social, and artistic élites—much more fun. —Louis Menand

Comment: Name That Tone

The point is that mental and physical development never stops, no matter how old you are, and development is one of the things that make it interesting to be a being. We imagine that we change our opinions or our personalities or our taste in music as we ripen, often feeling that we are betraying our younger selves. Really, though, our bodies just change, and that is what changes our views, our temperament, and our tolerance for Billy Joel. We can’t help it. The chemistry has altered. — Louis Menand

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Beautiful Evidence

June 19, 2006 | Arts & Culture

My copy has arrived. Very bad for productivity.

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From the Mouths of Babes

June 16, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Life | People & Society

What do 1st and 2nd grade students wish for? Mostly the same things you and I do. Excerpt:

• I wish thar was mor peas in the world
• I wish pepol wloud be treted farly
• I wish evey body could go to scool
• I wish to have more fun
• I wish everybody had food

Will make you laugh and possibly cry for the honesty.

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Making Money on the Internet (cont.)

June 12, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Business & Commerce | People & Society | Products & Opportunites

Video blogging is hot. Robert Scoble is leaving Microsoft for PodTech.net (whose servers are so overloaded they can't even load a homepage).

And then, he mentions this:

Yesterday I was talking with Amanda Congdon, one of the co-founders of Rocketboom. Her videoblog is now seeing about 300,000 viewers a day. That's, what, a year or so old? Did you know that advertisers are now paying her $85,000 per week? That's almost as much money as I made in an entire year of working at Microsoft.

Rocketboom is pretty idiosyncratic—if they can make $85K a week, lots of other people can too.

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Love, Taste, and Sublime Dignity

June 11, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Life

Grateful Dead keyboard player Vince Welnick died June 2.

John Perry Barlow:

When Jerry Garcia died, Vince was alone among us in his wretched sense of utter loss. He attempted suicide about six months later, thereby 86ing himself from any further creative interaction with what was left of the Grateful Dead. As a culture, we were never big on emotional vulnerability. Like a caribou herd, we had learned, over a long period of time, to leave our cripples behind on the tundra rather than risk the entire local genome. That's life, Dude. Devil take the hindmost.

It's likely that Vince, while not exactly disliked, was the fans' least-favorite of all the GD keyboard players. In his defense, he was stepping up just as Jerry was stepping down, and it's a rare show from those years that's worth listening to aside from archival investigation. But those few are hot. I suppose all this is just inside baseball, or the family's dirty laundry. But maybe it's important to know that for all the joy and light in the front of the hall, backstage was complicated and dark. Many in the audience thought they wanted to get backstage, but having been there once or twice, trust me, it's not what you want. What you want are the results, the output, the benefits, the feelings, the buzz, the tribe, the cosmos—but no one need visit the sausage factory. Maybe backstage was once expansive and puckish, but after the shady characters arrived around '77 or '78, you'd best keep your distance. Garcia told the assembly of concerned family and friends "I see you got your list out, say your piece and get out," and it was then a long slow decline, all the sadder since we watched it unfold before us, in slow motion over 15 years. [c.f. Boreal.]

Robert Hunter:

In the aftershock of the tragic death of Vince, an amiable man and a fine musician, the Grateful Dead is once more a target of public disdain, fueled by passion and indignation. Its ethics and humanity are being publicly questioned on a deeply troubling level. Sic transit gloria mundi. Do I know the score? To a degree. But I'm not concerned here with either justifying or condemning the attitudes which make a group of musicians, who must seal themselves together in that intimate time capsule called a tour, make the decisions they do concerning who they want to travel with and why. It's not necessarily democratic and it's not always pretty. They choose what they choose for reasons as much personal as professional.

But what if what you read is only half true? What if events tally but the interpretation placed on them is wrong? What if events have justifying precedents and antecedents of which you are entirely unaware? Or, if aware, interpret by a code of valuation foreign to the situation of participants? Are you willing to throw over something you truly prize on the basis of hearsay? Listen - I know these people. They're bastards. Yet I find myself here trying to interject a little perspective into their public scorching because they're my bastards. They played the songs I helped write with love, taste and sublime dignity. You know what I'm saying because you heard it too.

A shelf of books could be written and still only lightly perturb the surface of who the Grateful Dead were, are, and why. A book must have a point of view and I submit there is none extant sufficiently wide and informed to do more than tease curiosity. That possibility probably passed with Ramrod. Think of something approaching your own life's complexity of nuance and multiply it by the number of characters in our scene, past and present, and put the spotlight of the world on it - see what I mean? There is an official Grateful Dead story, chronological highlights which are largely, and rightly, Garcia oriented, but no possibility of a comprehensive estimation. It wasn't a story, it was life.

I may personally believe the only answer is to continue creating one's art while being careful not to live beyond one's means, physically or psychically. Sure. But that's not what people want to know. What they want to know is: who's to blame? Not the music. If the music were to blame they wouldn't be asking the question in the first place. Play the recordings. I put as many clues there as I could. In a way, they are one long letter to the Grateful Dead. The tensions involved created art. I think that art lives. Go there for answers.

The rest of our lives will offer a parade of heros passing. Dylan, Phil, Bobby, Billy, Mick, Keith, Carlos, et al. God rest ye merry gentlemen. Please don't be sad, if it was a straight mind you had, we wouldn't have known you all these years.

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Fire Dance With Me

June 11, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Cooperatives | Life | Travel

The CCMA party was held at The Compound in Atlanta. Weird place. Had fun. The tent had fans, but acted like a greenhouse, so it was pretty hot in there. The indoor area had A/C, but they left the doors open so it wasn't that cool. Really loud; hard to talk. Kind of a weird smell in there. Good dance band. There are apparently secret rooms that some people saw before the lockdown that had large beds and huge monster showers with five showerheads and stuff.

Reminds me of the Caravan of Dreams in Fort Worth, TX which had some odd rumors and secrets surrounding it for years—there were tales of rites and rituals and various Magik. Marla and I saw a memorable Horace Silver performance there in 1987. After the waiter stopped by a few times and we hadn't ordered anything, I called him over, put a $20 bill on the tray, and said, "We're not drinking anything but water tonight, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't get a tip." He was very happy at this, and offered to move us to a more private table in a darker spot with a better view. We took it, and he was able to put a higher-profile couple in the prime real estate we had been holding down.

Anyway, back here in 2006, the highlight at the CCMA party was a fire dance.

There were two performers, and they had several sequences. It was pretty fun, and they got a big response. I uploaded eight photos. Four of the photos are at standard shutter speed, and the other four are at eight-second exposures. And here is a low-res five-minute movie of one of their sequences.

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The Difference Between Heaven and Hell

June 9, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Cooperatives | Life | People & Society

I'm at the Consumer Cooperative Management Association conference in Atlanta. This morning Peter Couchman from the Midcounties Co-operative in England (near Oxford) presented a (probably well-known) parable during his keynote address. I paraphrase:

There once was a highly developed Buddhist guru who had the ability to transport himself to any place in the universe. He decided to investigate Hell. Upon arrival he found a lush green valley with perfect moderate temperatures, beautiful flowers, clear sparkling water, and snow-covered mountains. In the middle of the valley there was a large table with every known delicious food available. But the people at the table were moaning and screaming in agony. All they had to eat with were six-foot chopsticks, and no matter how hard they tried, no matter what technique they used, they couldn't get the food into their mouths and it was driving them insane.

The guru decided to visit Heaven. When he arrived he found a scene much like the first. A beautiful valley, green and lush, with flowers, trees, and plants of all varieties. In addition, there was a similar table piled high with fantastic food from all over the world. The people gathered at the table were happy and joyful, laughing and talking. They had the same six-foot chopsticks to eat with, but instead of trying to feed themselves, they used the chopsticks to feed each other.

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Never a Still Moment

June 8, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Life | People & Society | Travel

To give you a flavor of the multi-media nature of modern baseball, here is a short video clip of the national anthem from the game last night.

Notice the thin horizontal video screens over the third-base line (and presumably over the first-base line where we were sitting). The effect of these was to have motion in your peripheral vision at all times. This is where the hatchet icons marched, like the hammers in Pink Floyd's The Wall and where all manner of on-going stimulation appeared.

The video was shot with my still camera, and compressed by YouTube, so the quality is not up to reference standards, but I think you get the idea.

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Home of the Braves

June 8, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Life | People & Society | Travel

Thanks to my friends at CDS, I was able to enjoy The National Pastime tonight: The Atlanta Braves vs. the Washington Nationals at Turner Stadium in Atlanta. I uploaded 15 photos to Flickr.

There's so much to say, and it's so late to say it. Even though we were outdoors, watching a live event, it was unbelievably multi-media. The screen was huge and bright. In the photos, you can see the sun shining on the field, and it's brighter than the screen in my living room.There are cheerleaders now in baseball—someone said, "You gotta stick with the National League, they're more misogynist." Every moment of the game is branded—the Holiday Inn Instant Replay, the NAPA Cap Shuffle, fireworks coming out of a Coke bottle. I can't even begin to name them all. There were all sorts of behavioral conditioning—short snippets of songs that had specific audience responses, an electronic repeating tomohawk logo that ran around the horizontal screens in a chopping motion that cued the audience to make a chopping motion with their arms, etc.

It was a fun time, especially going with a dozen people, some of who were big baseball fans, and some of whom hadn't been in 10 or 20 or 40 years. The game itself was fairly pedestrian, with hardly any hits, but it had its moments of excitement and tension. It was faster-moving than I remember it, and I missed a couple of big plays just because I was exploring camera settings for a moment. The irony level was set to max pretty much as soon as we walked in the place (see the photo of the booth selling "The future of Ice Creme" for instance) and it was so American you couldn't believe it. I'd go again, especially with a better camera and an attitude to drink Budweiser in plastic bottles washing down a big honking hotdog and a $6 bag of peanuts. Who knows, I might even go for some cotton candy and a Sno Cone for desert.

[Update: Kottke & Megnut and friends attended the Yankees/Red Sox game at the same time.]

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Tufte's "Beautiful Evidence" About to Ship

June 6, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Business & Commerce | People & Society | Products & Opportunites

Very interesting thread on complex bookmaking. Start around March 9 to pick up the recent info. He's self-published 1.2 million books since 1983, and the detail with which he prints these books is unbelievable. Highlights from the link above:

• We await a test printing of some of our color tints (e.g., hows does 2% yellow compare with 3% yellow?).
• We'll start printing April 25, with some 29 press OKs....
• On the first form printed, we'll set the color of the type (the density of the black used for the type, separate from the black used in images) that we'll be aiming at throughout the book. (The separate blacks for type and images allows independent adjustment of type and image while on press.) There remain some difficult color issues despite our pre-press tests and that is why we do all our own OKs. The press OKs will pretty much take all my time for the next 2 weeks.
• Form 6 is being "perfected" in the printing jargon, with both sides printed in one pass on a 10-color work-and-turn or perfecting press, so that in one pass of the paper through the 10 presses, 5 colors are printed on one side of the paper, the paper is turned over, and 5 colors are printed on the opposite side.
• Major issue now is the carton for mailing single books; the total weight of book and carton is just over 3 pounds, which is a substantial break point on shipping prices. We found a lighter shipping carton that works well to protect the book, but of course it is made in Switzerland.

The colophon should be fascinating. You can order the book here. My pre-order might arrive before I return home!

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Dashes Are Not Just for Running and Salt

May 31, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Life

My punctuation questions provoked good comments, including a grammar correction from Meg (which created the opportunity for a [third {level of} parenthetical] comment) and two professional citations from Hannah:

Per Strunk and White, third edition, Elementary Rules of Usage #8: Use a dash to set off an abrupt break or interruption, and to announce a long appositive or summary.

A dash is a mark of separation stronger than a comma, less formal than a colon, and more relaxed than parentheses. . . . Use a dash only when a more common mark of punctuation seems inadequate.

I complained that the S&W doesn't seem to distinguish between varieties of dashes, and Hannah had to invoke authority:

You're just begging for me to drag out Chicago, aren't you? Seriously, man, dashes, en-, em-, or otherwise, have specific uses. En-dashes mostly replace the word "to" in a span of numbers or hyphen "in a compund adjective when one of its elements is an open compound . . ." (see CMS 15, 6.83-6.86). Em-dashes are used as S&W describe (see also CMS 15 6.87-94). Of course, when communicating with typesetters, proofreaders specify the type of dash required.

My only quibble now is wondering if "typesetter" is still the correct term, or should it be "typographer?" In either case, I guess rules are rules, which drives improvisers like me crazy. But if George Bush can be The Decider, then I guess the Chicago Manual of Style can be The Reference. And I can be Back To Work! Or at least, Back To Work.

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Resonant Rice

May 30, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Science

For all the psychoacoustic shamen out there: What happens if you pour rice on a steel plate and subject it to high sound pressure? It makes interesting patterns as the frequency rises.

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What Up That?—Yo.

May 29, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Life | People & Society

My brother-in-law said this yesterday at the Circle-Y barbecue. It made me laugh. The phrase has just enough words to convey something, yet not enough of them to resolve the ambiguity. Add the street slang (he's a law officer) coming from a white boy (though, from New Jersey) and somehow it just stuck with me.

What up that?—Yo.

The punctuation is important and I'm not sure I've got it exactly right. The first three words (What up that?) need to convey disbelief, the observational shock of the instigating incident. The italics emphasize the implausibility of the situation — its un-heard-of nature or characteristics. It is posed as a question, indicating an attempt to grasp the surprising or unfamiliar.

But the final word (Yo.) quietly expresses a slow, sad, shake of the head; a smirking "I knew it would turn out this way," and a superior arch in the eyebrows. This might be followed by a short sigh, with a second shake of the head, perhaps closing the eyes briefly, as if to mourn the dumb-ass under observation. The closing period carries the finality of judgement. Appeals are heard at the discretion of the speaker.

Connecting the two utterances with an em-dash (as above) attempts to unify contradictory – if not schizophrenic – ideas into a single sentence. The two phrases are connected, in that one prevents the other, and vise versa; but also, simultaneously, one requires the other to exist. In this view, the connecting punctuation (which probably has a technical name from grammar class [Notio: "Are there rules for this kind of stuff?" Meg: "No, you had to have been paying attention in elementary school." {grammar updated based on a comment; which also gave me the chance to use a third level of parentheses}]) – the connecting punctuation carries the flow of the whole expression.

Bringhurst says, "Use spaced en dashes – rather than em dashes or hyphens – to set off phrases." [Aside: the definition brilliantly models the correct behavior.] "What up that?—Yo." has two phrases, but that doesn't quite describe the phenomenology upon hearing them. Bringhurst provides a second clue: "Use the em dash to introduce speakers in narrative dialogue." Ah, perfect! There are two phrases, so we should separate them with an en dash surrounded by a normal word space. But the phrases are contradictory – as if they were spoken by two different people – therefore we should use a closed em dash—like this.

Ideally we'd follow the em dash with a thin space (M/5) but we're writing with web fonts; we don't get M/5 thin spaces this decade.

So that's one take on it. How else might you punctuate this construction?

Update: The jury of our commenters has specified the correct punctuation as: "What up that? Yo." It's settled. If you ever need to write that phrase, that's how you do it.

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Which is Weirder, the Beard or the Tie?

May 25, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Governance | People & Society

VT Senator Patrick Leahy with Bob Weir, May 23, 2006. It looks like a good time was had by all. More.

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Nike+iPod

May 23, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Business & Commerce | People & Society | Products & Opportunites | Science | Technology

Amazing advance in product sophistication. Apple partners with Nike on a blockbuster idea. Buy special (Nike) running shoes with a sensor in the footbed. The wireless sensor talks with a small receiver pluged into the dock connector of the (Apple) iPod. A special version of software takes over the display, and adds voice feedback cues over your music. When you get home, the iPod syncs your stats into iTunes and nikeplus.com, where you can get all kinda bling charts and razzle-dazzle trending of your sweat sessions. Of course, coming soon are Nike Sport Mixes, Workout Mixes, and informative podcasts from the iTunes online store. Rocka Rocka or what?

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What Filmmakers Do For Fun

May 19, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Business & Commerce | Products & Opportunites

Here's a novel idea: Make a film, and charge people $1 to be listed as a producer. The result is a one-second film with 90 minutes of credits.

THE 1 SECOND FILM is a 70mm non-profit collaborative film bringing thousands of diverse people around the world together to create film history: 'The biggest shortest film ever made.' Virtually anyone can help produce this film by donating $1 or more. Our end-credits are estimated to last 90-minutes and will include a feature-length 'making of' documentary. All profits raised by our finished film will benefit the Global Fund for Women.

It gets better:

The one-second film consists of 12 giant frames (9ft x 5ft paintings) made simultaneously by hundreds of participants during an all-night event.

These Internet denizens sure know how to have fun.

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Gratuitous Name-Dropping

May 16, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Life | Software | Technology

[Attention conservation notice: This post contains little of actual value.]

I spoke with Jeffrey Zeldman today. (I just have to say it again—I spoke with Jeffrey Zeldman today!)

A client is evaluating technical vendors. One of the prospects wrote a strong proposal, really kind of in-your-face for this small northern New England college, but she was from New York New York so I just took it as par for the course. I got to the last page and her first reference was Zeldman.

Well, that got my attention. Zeldman is One Of The Most Famous Web Designers In The World. He wrote a great book that introduced a lot of us to the very real possibility of standards-based web design. He operates Happy Cog Studios, a web design consultancy, and also runs a well-trafficed weekly newsletter for web developers called A List Apart.

Long story short, we're calling references. I emailed Zeldman and asked for ten minutes on the phone Tuesday morning or anytime Thursday. He wrote back and said sure. I called at the appointed time, and we chatted for about 15 minutes. He worked with The Potential Vendor (The Subject Under Discussion) on a project for the New York Public Library. He likes her. Thinks she's a good designer. Delivered the goods on the project. All that stuff she said was probably genuine, not bull.

So that was pretty much that. I thanked him and we hung up. I sent a thank you email and promised not to blog his phone number. Then I went to a six-hour project meeting and came home exhausted.

Mañana. Namaste, y'all.

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Flying Carpet

May 14, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Business & Commerce | Nature & Environment | Products & Opportunites

Great idea:

This project consists of an aerial view of the Sacramento River that is woven into a carpet for the floor of a pedestrian bridge connecting the terminal to the parking garage. This image represents approximately 50 miles of the Sacramento River starting just outside of Colusa, California and ending about 6 miles south of Chico.

This is a beautiful way to connect people with the beauty of nature in a manner and location they don't expect. I wonder if this was expensive or really hard to do? I have seen architectural magazines with advertisements for putting your own photographs onto laminated ("formica") countertops. And I think you can have your own wallpaper made. So this completes the interior design customization palette.

Of course, better to just get yourself outside, but still.

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Political Action Videos

May 10, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Governance | People & Society

Wow. Check out this political ad (1:23) from a US Senate race in PA. "Our President is a criminal...."

Handheld, black & white + color, kids, aggressive language, no holds barred. Of course, in one sense it's still cynical – taking advantage of our unrest with The System, but still, you gotta hand it to the guy for taking a stand. All too rare today. Witness this anonymous blog, for instance.

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We Put On Gloves and Dug In

May 7, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Business & Commerce | Life

Lynne and I went for a walk down the road today. Ran into neighbor S., who, like Lynne, is a massage therapist.

S: I went to a two-day cadaver workshop last month!

L: Oh, excellent!

S: There were about a dozen of us. There were four cadavers, two up, two down, cut wide open. We put on gloves and dug in. It took a few minutes to get used to it, and then it was okay.

L: That sounds awesome.

S: This one was on the sacrum and hips. The same guy is doing one next month on the neck.

L: Oh, that would be really cool.

I didn't faint, even though I have in the past hit the floor from far less explicit conversations than this.

[Note to CIA/NSA/DIA/DHS/TSA: A really good immobilization strategy for me is to describe details of the gore, or perhaps the neural sequences the pain of a specific injury would cause.] [Updated the post for clarity.]

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Opening Space for Ourselves and Each Other

May 5, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Business & Commerce | Life | People & Society

Chris Corrigan posts some (great) current thinking on the Four Practices of Open Space. I hope he and Michael actually do get a book written about their experiences. Spending three days with them was life-changing, in many subtle but persistent ways. One example: staying in touch with Ashley, and thus seeing posts like this.

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Linkfest

May 1, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Life | People & Society

Minor procrastination battle raging. Productive but difficult. Hence:

• Ever wonder what it's like to become an expert in the press? Ph.D. student Danah Boyd helps you out. "I talk to press every time i'm in my car, in the airport and walking around. I spend a good 15 hours a week addressing press right now. It's exhausting. I can only get back to a fraction of those who contact me and i've missed most TV and radio opportunities because i can't just jump when people ask me to jump."
• Kathy Sierra reports her experience with the Shangri-La Diet. "It claims to do just one thing--cause your body to want/need less food. Period. In other words, you know that feeling you have after you've eaten a huge dinner and you think, "I'll never eat another bite ever again" -- this so-called "diet" makes that feeling happen much earlier, after a much smaller meal."
• You should really check out the Stephen Colbert video. The one I pointed to yesterday was incomplete. Here's a full version. Salon comments: "Then he turned to the president of the United States, who sat tight-lipped just a few feet away. 'I stand by this man. I stand by this man because he stands for things. Not only for things, he stands on things. Things like aircraft carriers and rubble and recently flooded city squares. And that sends a strong message, that no matter what happens to America, she will always rebound -- with the most powerfully staged photo ops in the world.'"

Okay, back to work!

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Bush Does Not Laugh

April 30, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Governance | People & Society

The Happy Tutor educates us on the meaning of Steven Colbert's savage roast satarizing Bush. [video]

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Refreshing Authenticity

April 30, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Business & Commerce | People & Society

Meanwhile, in looking to see if Umair had posted on the dumbest move this week™, I saw he pointed to this.

What a riot! Columbia Business School Dean Glenn Hubbard, who was in the running to be the new Fed chairman, issues a parody video set to "Every Breath You Take," poking fun at Ben Bernanke, who got the job.

This is the opposite of the Times move. First, it's riotously funny and very well done (as opposed to vaporware). Second, it pokes fun at the author, the subject, and the band (instead of thinking it's going to actually matter). Third, just how many professionals would be willing to take this risk, to be this authentic, to speak in a human voice without press releases? Certainly not the Times. I have several academic clients, all constrained by the institutional voice. I've seen this up close, at the point of decision.

Oh, if only more organizations could act with the spirit of carnival that this video demonstrates.

Breaking Update: We received an electronic communiqué from Doug, saying CBS.Chick.2007 is reporting that the star of the video is a student, not the Dean. Whoops, bad reporting on Notio's part. Wisdom of the crowd in action, right there. But still, the fact that this video is going out under the banner of the School is admirable. And worth another laugh, even with the student actor. He's a grad student, at least.

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Idea No. 22

April 28, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Life | People & Society

Some of my loyal readers are already subscribed to the Signals vs. Noise feed; to you I apologize for the repetition. Just skip ahead to the last three paragraphs now. For everyone else:

Could you live like this?

A slide show (NY Times) of commisioned pieces from the collection of Ohio art collector Andy Stillpass, “one of America’s most radical and eclectic contemporary-art collectors.” This is what happens if you decide to spend your fortune by having artists run around your place rearranging books, filling drawers, painting the house, etc.

Rob Pruitt’s “Idea No. 22 ‘Fill a desk drawer with gravel and make a secret Zen garden’” (1999). [with photos]

Related: There is Nothing Wrong in This Whole Wide World (photos/description) was a 2004 public installation at Adobe Bookshop in San Francisco. The store allowed its 20,000 books to be reclassified by color. McSweeney’s interviewed Chris Cobb, the idea man behind the event. [with links]

Sure, okay, rearrange the known world - bookstore or kitchen or bedroom.

Art.

That's a thought.

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Neil Young Gets It

April 28, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Business & Commerce | People & Society

Neil Young has a new album, Living With War and he is working the digital network to best effect.

"Living With War will stream on NeilYoung.com beginning Fri, Apr. 28th. The album will be available at digital retailers beginning May 2nd. CDs will be available in stores early May."

Listen to the whole album free.
The Blog.
The MySpace profile.
The YouTube video.

The video interview on MySpace is fantastic. He gets key ideas of liberty and freedom onto national TV. Spread the word.

(Greendale is a masterpiece, by the way. You should really see the movie.)

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Just For The Irony

April 27, 2006 | Arts & Culture

Video: Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, and Vince Welnick of the Grateful Dead sing the National Anthem in Candlestick Park, San Francisco on April 12th, 1993.

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Fun While Flying

April 26, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Business & Commerce | Travel

Chris Pirillo mimes the airplane safety instructions. Hilarious. [via Scripting News]

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April 24 New Yorker

April 21, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Business & Commerce | People & Society

Just a mention that the current issue of the New Yorker has a number of great articles around the theme of "Journeys." Especially fantastic is Anthony Lane's European Journal contribution on low-cost air travel. It's literally littered with witty asides that resonate with anyone who gets on a plane more than once a year. I was laughing out loud the whole time.

The article is not on the web, and the contents page doesn't have a dedicated URL, so no links to all that.

One thing that is online is editor David Remnick's comment on Al Gore, with which I wholeheartedly agree.

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Stuff You Don't Have Time To Read Either

April 17, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Business & Commerce | Life | People & Society

• The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom (book, wiki, free pdf).
• Collaborative Thesaurus Tagging the Wikipedia Way (abstract, pdf, author's blog).
• Integral Communication (review, master's thesis pdf).

They all look great. Wish I had time to read them. Maybe next year.

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Pay Special Attention To Human Faces

April 15, 2006 | Arts & Culture | People & Society

Berkeley economist Brad DeLong experiments with video. A worthy 2:45 of your attention.

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A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall

April 12, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Life | People & Society

Oh, where have you been, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, where have you been, my darling young one?
I've stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains,
I've walked and I've crawled on six crooked highways,
I've stepped in the middle of seven sad forests,
I've been out in front of a dozen dead oceans,
I've been ten thousand miles in the mouth of a graveyard,
And it's a hard, and it's a hard, it's a hard, and it's a hard,
And it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.

Oh, what did you see, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, what did you see, my darling young one?
I saw a newborn baby with wild wolves all around it
I saw a highway of diamonds with nobody on it,
I saw a black branch with blood that kept drippin',
I saw a room full of men with their hammers a-bleedin',
I saw a white ladder all covered with water,
I saw ten thousand talkers whose tongues were all broken,
I saw guns and sharp swords in the hands of young children,
And it's a hard, and it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard,
And it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.

And what did you hear, my blue-eyed son?
And what did you hear, my darling young one?
I heard the sound of a thunder, it roared out a warnin',
Heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world,
Heard one hundred drummers whose hands were a-blazin',
Heard ten thousand whisperin' and nobody listenin',
Heard one person starve, I heard many people laughin',
Heard the song of a poet who died in the gutter,
Heard the sound of a clown who cried in the alley,
And it's a hard, and it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard,
And it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.

Oh, who did you meet, my blue-eyed son?
Who did you meet, my darling young one?
I met a young child beside a dead pony,
I met a white man who walked a black dog,
I met a young woman whose body was burning,
I met a young girl, she gave me a rainbow,
I met one man who was wounded in love,
I met another man who was wounded with hatred,
And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard,
It's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.

Oh, what'll you do now, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, what'll you do now, my darling young one?
I'm a-goin' back out 'fore the rain starts a-fallin',
I'll walk to the depths of the deepest black forest,
Where the people are many and their hands are all empty,
Where the pellets of poison are flooding their waters,
Where the home in the valley meets the damp dirty prison,
Where the executioner's face is always well hidden,
Where hunger is ugly, where souls are forgotten,
Where black is the color, where none is the number,
And I'll tell it and think it and speak it and breathe it,
And reflect it from the mountain so all souls can see it,
Then I'll stand on the ocean until I start sinkin',
But I'll know my song well before I start singin',
And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard,
It's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.

—Bob Dylan

Copyright © 1963; renewed 1991 Special Rider Music

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An Awkward Third Bridge Steak

April 12, 2006 | Arts & Culture | People & Society | Travel

Idle Words ("brevity is for the weak") brings us Argentina On Two Steaks A Day:

The classic begginer's mistake in Argentina is to neglect the first steak of the day. You will be tempted to just peck at it or even skip it altogether, rationalizing that you need to save yourself for the much larger steak later that night. But this is a false economy, like refusing to drink water in the early parts of a marathon. That first steak has to get you through the afternoon and half the night, until the restaurants begin to open at ten; the first steak is what primes your system to digest large quantities of animal protein, and it's the first steak that buffers the sudden sugar rush of your afternoon ice cream cone. The midnight second steak might be more the glamorous one, standing as it does a good three inches off the plate, but all it has to do is get you up and out of the restaurant and into bed (for the love of God, don't forget to drink water).

The afternoon steak is the workhorse steak, the backbone of the day. It's the steak that gets you around the city, ensures a successful nap, steers you into the bar and (most importantly) gives you the mental clarity to choose the right cut of meat in the restaurant that night. Misorder the first steak and you will either find yourself losing steam by eight o'clock, when no restaurant is open, or scampering to find an awkward third bridge steak, to tide you over until dinner.

It's a great bit of food writing.

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Quality of Life

April 6, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Business & Commerce | People & Society

I read an alumni profile recently of someone who graduated in 1950, and is quoted as saying,

"I worked there from sophomore year through senior year. The work paid much of my way through college."

He worked as a waiter at the college-owned restaurant. I wonder if you could pay your way through college today, on campus, as a waiter? An Ivy League college?

These are questions that define quality of life for me. It's not about the vastly increased bling, or the so-called time-saving machines and so-called paper-saving computer equipment. It's about affording the basic building blocks of progress. Shelter costs, educations, literacy, numeracy, consciousness. On these measures it's hard to argue we're better off than in 1972, when my Dad bought a nice house near the center of town for the price of a department manger's one year salary. Today that same house is easily double the cost of a similar salary. Maybe close to triple.

Our education system is largely a factory producing people for last century's jobs. 17% of Americans are illiterate. If there were rising numeracy then Bush wouldn't get away with rampant spending amidst top-tier tax cuts. And we know consciousness is not evenly distributed. I guess we live longer, if you can afford health insurance.

And.... and.... what are some other ways we're better off, as a society, since 1972? ("We have blogs" is not a valid answer!)

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Live Better, Longer, and Even Forever

April 5, 2006 | Arts & Culture | People & Society

jwz supplies this gem of a link: Awakening Discomforts.

Inside the apartments, known as Reversible Destiny Lofts, the floor of the dining room slopes erratically, the one in the kitchen is sunken and the study features a concave floor. Electric switches are located in unexpected places so you have to feel around for the right one. A glass door to the veranda is so small you have to bend to crawl out. You constantly lose balance, gather yourself up, and occasionally trip and fall. There's no closet space; residents will have to find a way to live there. "[The apartment] makes you alert and awakens instincts, so you'll live better, longer and even forever," says Arakawa.

If they didn't cost $763,000 I'd move there is a heartbeat!!

Exercise for the reader: Am I joking?

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N-Dimensional Web 2.0

April 5, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Business & Commerce | Life | Nature & Environment | People & Society | Products & Opportunites | Science | Site Maintenance | Software | Technology | Travel

Many people are trying to define "Web 2.0" – what it is, what it means, how to build Web 2.0 apps, what makes a company a Web 2.0 company, etc. All of those efforts fall short, because Web 2.0 is n-dimensional. Web 2.0 is "reflecting more complex multivariable situations.¹"

Today I learned of a new dimension to Web 2.0. Chris² invited me to join a beta of CollectiveX, a new Web 2.0-ish social widget. To invite someone you have to set a temporary password, and when they log in they change it to whatever they want. Chris set my password to "ratdoggy." Ha! Now that's a good one. This made me laugh out loud, and when I told Meg³ she lost it too. What's so funny?

Well, it creates a strong but secret connection between the title of a recent post I wrote – wherein "maybe too much information" was offered⁴ – and an unrelated client task. Chris' password was an acknowledgment that he read the post. Maybe even he liked it. And he certainly knew it would make me think of that post in the middle of the workday. But in any case "ratdoggy" is not in frequent usage (Google: "Did you mean: ratdog?") and his reference expanded its sphere of influence.

Which is like a link, just not a web hyperlink. It was a link from one mind to another, from one blog post to a work moment, from a concert review to a social software login, from my original post written on a couch in the lobby of a cinderblock hotel in Charlestown to my colleague's laughter at the password in an office building in Hanover, from all that to this post which you are reading now. Links, links, links, everywhere you look. Which makes me smile.

And that seems to be the common element of a Web 2.0 app – that it makes you smile, somehow, in some way that maybe you never have before.

---

1) An Introduction to Chemometrics. A report given as Session F of Educational Symposium No. 17, The Use of Statistical Methods in Formulating and Testing of Rubber at the 130th Meeting of the ACS Rubber Division by Brian A. Rock, Ph.D. in October, 1985.

2) Blog updated according to a complex precision timing schedule involving the highway, the moon, the clouds, and the stars.

3) I did not invoice for this minute of laughter, nor did the client utilize any official company time or resources in reaction to the laughter event.

4) Plausible Story, personal communication.

---

Now, how many new links can you find in the above footnotes?

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Ratdoggy Style

April 2, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Life

I'm in Boston for a SoL consulting gathering. Conveniently, Ratdog played across town at the Orpheum Theater last night. Technically, I'm staying in Charlestown at the Constitution Inn, which is in the Navy Shipyard, which is sort of a planned community built in the 1700's.

I left the hotel and walked to find a restaurant. Stopped at the generically named "Bistro" and sat at the z-shaped bar. After I ordered I got out the bus schedule and the local map to figure out my options. There was an escort across the corner of the bar waiting for her first call, and she asked where I was going. Turns out you can walk to North Station from here, and I took her instructions and headed out after supper. I stopped at the guard station to checkpoint my wayfinding, and then again at the final navy yard guard station.

You end up walking through a wild backstreets neighborhood parallel to the radical new bridge, behind the Bank North Garden, nee Fleet Center, nee Boston Garden. I stopped several times to verify my orientation, and every time they pointed me straight ahead, just that each time it was a different direction. So after about half an hour, without too much zigzagging, I found my way to the Boston Common, and heard the drums.

The tribe was gathering, but it turns out the drums were played by a homeboy on five gallon buckets. Patchouli and related scents were in abundance. One of the first things I saw was a woman beating up a blind guy near a subway exit. His cane was flailing, and he was on his back covering his face, as she twisted his nose and beat the side of his head with her hands and pulled his ears and kicked him in the chest and screamed at him. I was struck dumb by the sight – it's not every day you see a chick beating the hell out of a blind guy, but eventually a few of the Deadheads broke them up and she stormed off cursing while the guy got up and got his bearings and poked along. It all happened in less than a minute.

The next thing I saw was a couple of 40-something parents walking with their teenage girls, stuck in the sidewalk traffic jam of miracle seekers and paraphernalia vendors. The girls were wide-eyed and smiling, and the parents were tight-jawed and worried, and pulled them quickly through the crowds. Hehehe – curiosity was sparked; they will return.

I walked toward the theater, and remembered the last time I was here, six or eight years ago, for Blues Traveller. We had backstage passes, but no tickets. So Tenz walked us to some pretty darn fine seats up front, and when the rightful owners came he talked them out of getting security by waving his laminated tour pass telling them we could all fit. Which we could, sort of. It was miserable. I can tolerate a lot of ambiguity, and put up with a lot of crap at rock concerts, but this was pushing it. Plus, the show sucked. Bad sound, drunk audience, amateur playing. The only worse times I remember were the show where a guy in the row behind me vomited on my back (that was pretty bad) and the time the teenage jerks were throwing cigarettes into Cheryl's hair from the balcony above. I think that was probably Cheryl's last rock show – she had a run of bad luck in her first few concerts, and it wasn't very encouraging. The Orpheum Blues Traveller show wasn't that bad, but I wasn't planning to see them again, or rushing back to the Orpheum.

Anyway, as I walked down the little side street that fronts the theater, the tour buses were parked right there by the entrance. This made me laugh, because it meant the band was hanging out right in front with the audience – I've been on those tour buses, and everything you've read or heard is true. Much better to park them behind the theater, because what happens backstage is best left backstage, but I guess you can't park back there at the Orpheum, or maybe they didn't get there early enough to get a parking space?

Once inside I bought a 20-oz beer ($8) and hung out. I met seven year old Cora Blue, who was at her second show with Mom and Dad. She went to Danbury last week, on a school night, and she like it a lot, but Mom got yelled at by the teacher the next day, saying she shouldn't take her daughter to concerts on school nights. Everyone's entitled to their opinion, I suppose. Cora likes Playing In The Band, and Ramble On Rose. She said she liked dancing to Playin' and I explained that it's fun to dance to because it's written in 4/10 time, which means if you're normally counting in fours, like 99% of the songs written, then you get a never-ending cycle effect, since the count is 4-4-2 and when you're in the 2 you're halfway through the third 4, so to speak. She nodded and said, "Cool."

The show opened with Jack Straw, jamming between every verse, and halfway through I knew it was going to be a way better show than the one Lynne and I saw in Northampton last week. Emphasis on way. It turned out to be an awesome performance, fantastic and flawless with an enthusiastic and energized audience. Jack Straw flowed into Cassidy which flowed into Birdsong. That triplet was probably 40 minutes and they hadn't stopped yet, moving right into Odessa.

[An imaginary version of this blog post would link to each song in the set, extract a personally meaningful lyric to highlight, and relate my comments to support the metaphor. This isn't that post. Instead, here are someone's photos, and a setlist, as a nod to formality.]

During Odessa a Beautiful Usher came into our aisle, to check tickets of the aisle in front of us. The Beautiful Usher stopped in front of me, and apologized, but she had to clean up this aisle, pointing in front (where there were a couple of people for every seat). The Beautiful Usher pulled out her flashlight and leaned over the seats to start checking tickets. This had the effect of grinding her (also beautiful) butt into my crotch. I was simply unwilling to stop dancing during this minor inconvenience, and the Beautiful Usher kept doing her job, pressed into me. This combination turned out to be not unpleasurable. Eventually she was done hassling the people in front of me and the Beautiful Usher stood up and turned around. She said, "Sorry!" And I said, "You're not going to stay and dance??" She laughed, "Ha! I wish!" and the Beautiful Usher moved along. But at that point I knew what the blog post would be titled.

Then the band (you remember there was a band playing, right? I was a bit distracted) went into Lazy River Road, a very thick Deep Elem Blues, finally landing on Greatest Story Ever Told. I thought this would be the last song of the set, but they jumped right into a crankin' Help On The Way – we were now completely out of control – and then a really, really kick-butt Slipknot to end the set. Wow.

During intermission I scoped out my neighborhood. The guy next to me was too wasted to speak, but he was quiet, so that was neutral. The 50-something Harley babe on the other side apparently only talked to people with long gray hair, so I didn't qualify. The two guys in front of me were from Strafford VT, just up the road. This was a mail-order ticket faux-syncronicity. If the people filling tickets have time they try to put people near other geographically-related orders. You sure don't get this kind of service from Ticketmaster.

The second set opened with an acoustic Black-Throated Wind, and moved into Dylan's Hard Rain's Gonna Fall. During Hard Rain I was dancing so hard that my fingernail caught the pen in my front pocket and I accidentally flung it somewhere in front of me. Oh well. The band headed into a fast-moving Good Morning Little Schoolgirl, and we still danced. They played a smoking Althea, and we danced some more. They moved into Ashes & Glass, and a lot of people sat down. I didn't – it's one of the better recent-vintage Weir tunes, which I like for it's harmonic structure and the interesting jam before the last verse. In this case they jammed not after every verse, but after every line of every verse, bringing a whole new concept of "jam-band" to the song. After another semi-lame drums and keyboard segment – which seems to exist solely so Bobby can leave the stage and take care of business – they dropped into Sugaree, a long slow romp which could possibly pass for the ballad near the end of the show, save for the fact that you can dance to it in almost any style or speed. They headed for a jazzy jam, which I thought might be the Wheel but turned out the be the end of Birdsong, which I forgot they hadn't finished, and then the jam out of Birdsong landed on the ending segment of Cassidy which I also forgot they hadn't finished – blowing me away. I figured dollars to doughnuts that Franklin's Tower would close the set to complete the normal Help > Slip > Franklin's triple-play, but they played an over the top One More Saturday Night which brought down the house. A stunning end of the set, from Sugaree onward.

The encore started with Mark playing bass instead of guitar, Robin on guitar instead of bass, a roadie on drums, the drummer on piano, the horn player on keyboards, and Bobby on trombone. The song sounded a little familiar, but I couldn't place it. [Turned out to be Get On The Bus.] In any case I realized it was April 1st, and that explained it. One by one the switched to their regular instruments while the song played on, and then on a single downbeat they arrived at Franklin's Tower. They didn't seem rushed, even though it was 11:40, and played a longish driving version. Even the laggards danced at this, knowing the show was about to end, and when the house lights came on everyone was exhausted and satisfied. (You can order an official recording of the show here.)

Left the building close to midnight. The understated picky Deadhead would say, "Good show." It was better than good, and I needed it. Got to bed at 1:30 old time, 2:30 new time.

Then, four hours later I was waking up. Two hours after that I was sitting in a circle for check-in, and then we played with Legos in a group aspirations exercise until lunch. My play date continues. Cora Blue would be happy at this.

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Slices Through The Banal

March 29, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Business & Commerce

Brilliant culture hacking: The Bureau of Workplace Interruptions.

We harness interruptive technology to expose the secret possibilities of the workday. As a time-stealing agency, the Bureau of Workplace Interruptions works directly with employees to invisibly insert intimate exchange into the flow of the workday. Our promise is to create interruptions that challenge the needs of our users and the social and economic conditions of the modern workplace.

Listen to this "highly scientific survey" with Karen. The funny thing is it could be a real business as well as an art project. People would pay for this!

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Welcome to Notio

March 27, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Life

Welcome, Big Picture readers. Barry pointed you to the Kid's Today post. Thanks for visiting. You might also want to check out some of the greatest hits:

• I've written a lot of personal posts this year, including Expressing Anger, Jung's Typology vs. Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, Gaston Bachelard: Subversive Humanist, Your Song, Broken in Two Yet Still Functioning and I Love You.
• Every once in a while I am greatly annoyed by technology. Microsoft ftpd Madness is representative.
• My post on the Chris Bliss juggling video, and the followup on Jason Garfield's subsequent mean-spirited parody continue to generate comments.
• Posts on consumerism include a recommendation of Champion Chip Cookies, a Hot Tip For Online Electronics Buying, and A New Kind of Showerhead.
• I am very interested in good governance, especially open, transparent governance based on honesty and integrity. I think hybrid cooperative business structures are a good way to generate entrepreneurial participation. See Minnesota 308B Cooperative Act for some additional info.
• A while back there was an epic post on Frank Zappa's serious classical compositions. Notable for it's length – pushing the limits of a blog reader's attention – as well a rare anecdote about meeting Frank.
• Occasionally I post some of my photographs, and snapshots even, on Flickr.

Here's a link to the RSS subscription feed, if you're interested in following along. Thanks for stopping by.

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Ambient Advertising

March 26, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Business & Commerce | Products & Opportunites

Elegant in-bathroom advertising. What can one say? It's probably just the beginning. via Wealth Bondage.

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All The Rage

March 23, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Life | People & Society

Finally, I may be in step with a style trend, just this once.

Whenever a countercultural trend becomes a mainstream one, there is a natural tendency to look for deeper meaning. Do beards that call to mind Charles Manson suggest dissatisfaction with "the system"? Are broody beards, like the dark and somber mood of the fall fashion collections, physical manifestations of a melancholia in the air?

Not that I knew anything, or did anything that put me in step. Style has just caught up with me. Of course, styles will change soon enough, and I'll appear out of step again. But if I wait long enough, it will come back around. Doing nothing has its advantages.

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Top 'O The Morning

March 21, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Business & Commerce | Life | People & Society

I like the brand-new Google Finance for its page layout and information density. Lots of Ajaxy goodness throughout – check out that slider under the long-term graph!

Billmon exposes the hypocrisy that is John Snow, Bush's Treasury Secretary, standing in for arrogant overpaid CEOs the world over. Not that every CEO is arrogant and overpaid, but certainly some are, don't you agree?

Danah Boyd on the differences between MySpace's success and Friendster's failure. Required reading for online community builders. Also has some notes about the impact high-profile social software failures might generate in the legal or regulatory space.

Michael Crichton on a federal circuit court's decision that thinking can violate a patent. Patently absurd.

A 20-year study determines that whiny, insecure kids usually grow up to be conservatives, while confident, resilient, self-reliant kids mostly grew up to be liberals. Admit it: You thought to yourself, "No surprise."

Katrina went to a Television Preview Screening. She found it sickening; let this be a lesson to you.

The Economist on open source collaboration. Makes a point I have mentioned in the past: Open source is very good at optimizing existing technology, but not necessarily good at innovation – might require a few more years to play out, but that's the current thinking. Linux is a very good replacement for a plethora of Unix; Wikipedia is optimizes human knowledge editing. Open source is an excellent process innovation but that is not the whole game.

Adaptation offers two excellent articles on the personal economics of a post-hydrocarbon century (1, 2). These are important and valuable contributions to the planning for "powerdown." Summary: You should worry less about losing electricity and growing food than losing your job and home.

Finally, from email: I am blessed with wonderful, generous, and appreciative clients, as well as thoughtful, helpful, and supportive friends. Plus, the sun is shining and I have a clear, open day with no appointments. My time is my own. If I can't have an upbeat productive day today then I don't know what it will take.

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Danah Boyd

March 19, 2006 | Arts & Culture | People & Society

So this "crazy, overachieving, passionate, activist grrl" Danah Boyd is pretty interesting. Her ETech presentation, G/localization: When Global Information and Local Interaction Collide, got a lot of pixels this week for good reason.

My name is danah boyd and i am a PhD student at the School of Information (SIMS) at the University of California, Berkeley. My research focuses on how people negotiate a presentation of self to unknown audiences in mediated contexts. In particular, my dissertation is looking at how youth develop a sense of individual and cultural identity in "public" online environments like LiveJournal, Xanga and MySpace. Additionally, i am concerned with how digital publics do not look like the physical publics that we traditionally consider.

Prior to my current project, i studied blogging, articulated social network services (e.g. Friendster, Tribe.net, LinkedIn...). I have written papers on a variety of different topics, from digital backchannels to social visualization design, sexing of internet interactions to creating artifacts for memory work.

• Website
• Blog
• Papers
• M.S. thesis

Worth paying attention.

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On Being A Bad Internet Citizen

March 18, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Life

I'm sorry, I just can't help myself:

• Cute Overload Kittens
• Kitten War
• Rate My Kitten
• The Daily Kitten
• Cute Little Kittens

Father, please forgive me.

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Better Than Baseball's Best Burger

March 17, 2006 | Arts & Culture

Competing with Baseball's Best Burger for "optimum method to cheat the executioner," my brother tells of a visiting salesman who raved about the deep-fried hot dogs at Rutt's Hut in Clifton, NJ.

If they installed Internet slot machines or offered quick and easy stretch mark treatments, maybe I would stop in the next time I'm nearby.

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Diss'n Chris Bliss

March 14, 2006 | Arts & Culture

You may remember the Chris Bliss juggling video I pointed to a while back. From the comments I learn the juggling community is annoyed that a simple routine has gotten so much attention. And, in modern re-mix form, there is an even better routine set to the same soundtrack. In a gymnasium. With five balls instead of three. And way more tricks too. Thank you commentor "dj!"

Also, the 33-pound cat posting continues to get comments.

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Tour Tickets

March 13, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Life

According to the folks at GDTS-TOO, I will have an extra ticket for each of the following Ratdog shows:

• Thursday March 23, Northampton, MA.
• Friday March 31, Hampton Beach, NH.
• Saturday April 1, Boston, MA.

If you live in the Northeast, or want to fly in for the shows, and you'd like to join me at a great jazzy blues dance show, send an email. If you don't know my email leave a comment here with your email.

Update: Northampton, claimed! Hampton Beach claimed! Boston claimed!

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Ultimate Insight Is The Booby Prize Of Life

March 6, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Life

A variation of the above phrase wandered past me in email today, and I wondered if the writer had made it up, or if it was one of those long-lived Internet-revived quatable-quotes kinda deals.

A review of Stephen Yenser's "The Consuming Myth, The Work of James Merrill," provides the title quote:

The est people used to say "Ultimate insight is the booby prize of life." We would guess that the booby prize for an American poet is to have some scholarly University Press put out a 350 page, closely printed, totally cryptic, highly footnoted, turgid, dogmatic investigation of one's works.

I wonder if they liked the poetry, even if they didn't like the book. Richard Stayton's interview with "writer's therapist" Dennis Palumbo is interesting:

Now, the thing about writers is that they're so therapized. They've been in therapy for years, and they'll lay out a lot of their family dynamics for me. But as I always say, "Insight's the booby-prize of therapy." That means change doesn't come from insight. You need insight and awareness to understand what's going on. But change comes from courage, the risk of challenging those meanings everyday. If you're someone who believes, for example, that if you get angry you're a bad person, then you could have all the insight in the world as to where that comes from when you were a child. But every day you're going to have to risk showing a little anger and seeing that people around you don't fall over dead. And until you challenge that as an adult and go, "Wow, I got angry, and my loved ones still love me. Nobody thinks I'm a killer, and it doesn't mean I'm a terrible person." Until you challenge that in the here and now, you're not gonna change.

Working on it, dude. Tracy A. Turner has an interesting (and detailed) page on distinctions :

The ability to create and draw distinctions is one of the most powerful and empowering abilities that human beings have. To be able to distinguish does not mean that we separate what we distinguish, it means that we perceive clearly, we differentiate, we discriminate, or discern. The distinctions of transformation are unique and demand rigor. If you've ever participated in an arena that creates and supports transformation, from religion to some corporate cultures, you'll recognize some of these distinctions. Many of these will be familiar to any transformational graduates, including the Forum at Landmark Education.

Insight vs. Breakthrough - 1. The booby prize. 2. A breakthrough is what occurs when you take committed action on an insight.

Abundance - 1. When you experience your experience, there is no lack.

Acceptance - 1. It's where we start to make a difference. 2. No good or bad, no right or wrong. 3. Being with. 4. Accepting that there is nothing we can do about the past. 5. Beyond acceptance is responsibility.

I can relate to that! Have you heard of The Association of Happiness for All Mankind (AHAM)? I hadn't, but that's a great mission statement, encoded right there in the name of the organization. Their page on experience begins:

“Intellectual understanding is not enough, it is only knowing ‘about’ a thing. It is the booby prize. You must experience whatever it is you think you know. Only by thoroughly and completely experiencing your experience will genuine Completion actually occur.” - Arunachala Ramana

There's a ton of hard-to-pronounce words on their site. Must be serious. Finally, speaker and consultant Richard Thieme says:

Understanding how the system works is the booby prize. Using that understanding to make a difference is the prize - and that requires timing and the ability to enter the system, build trust, and use that window of opportunity to intervene in appropriate ways to shift behaviors in desired directions. So energy and information will flow in a way that’s aligned with the leader’s objectives.

Rock on, he said.

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Non-Rolling Stones

March 3, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Life

Plausible Story kindly contributes to the Interweb with this rock-solid excerpt:

There was a wall in him that no one reached. Not even Clara, though she assumed it had deformed him. A tiny stone swallowed years back that had grown with him and which he carried around because he could not shed it. His motive for hiding it had probably extinguished itself years earlier. . . . Patrick and his small unimportant stone. It had entered him at the wrong time in his life. Then it had been a flint of terror. He could have easily turned aside at the age of seven or twenty, and just spat it out and kept on walking, and forgotten it by the next street corner.

So we are built.

—from Michael Ondaatje's In the Skin of a Lion

It seems to me that we can take on these stones at any time in life, and they calcify at different rates, and then they are like psychological or spiritual kidney stones, which cause a lot of anguish to eliminate, depending on how long we've held them and how deeply they've calcified. What we need is a selective, fast-acting, stone-melting technology product! ;)

This is probably all too much thought applied to some beautiful poetic prose, but such is the intricate New England stone wall I have built, with the help of many others.

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Hotel Marlowe, Cambridge, MA

March 2, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Business & Commerce | Life | Products & Opportunites | SoL

While I was in Boston (Cambridge), I stayed at the Hotel Marlowe; first time. The Marlowe is part of the Kimpton Group boutique chain - "Every hotel tells a story" - found in all the upscale cities you'd expect. It is very close to the SoL offices, and attached to the Cambridgeside Galleria mall. I had heard from SoL staff that people either love it or hate it, and I can see why, and I love it. The reason I love it is that they are going after an aesthetic. Success or failure, you judge, but they have attempted Hotel As Art.

Things to like:

Leopard-style carpet. How cool is that? Probably done to cope with their pet-friendly policy, but it's a lively change from boring brown.

Cool Leopard-style robes. Use in the room, and optionally purchase upon departure for $120. Wore mine every night and morning. Warm, weird, different.

Free wi-fi throughout the entire building, plus Ethernet in the rooms. This was great, and easy to set up. My only criticism here is that throughput was a paltry 20-30K/sec. Things were kinda pokey; they need a speed upgrade.

Four sampler CDs on the in-room stereo. The labels said, Please enjoy during your stay and leave in the room for the next guest. Hey, no problem, I got iTunes right here. 20 minutes later I have four promotional samplers of music including "Frequent Flyer: Buenos Aires," (2 discs), "Suite Life volume 1," and "Rosa (zipper)." All have multiple bands, and they were all found at Gracenote, so I know that the songs are!

"Om Away From Home" - an 8-panel 4"x4" full-color guide to hotel yoga, produced with Yoga Journal. There's an in-room tee-vee channel with all-day Yoga instruction. They provide a free Yoga Basket for in-room use that includes a mat, strap, block, and free issue of Yoga Journal. You can buy the basket, or have it shipped to your next destination. The guide shows five simple postures that can be done with typical hotel props like a blanket, a side chair, an empty wall, and a carpeted floor. They encourage you to take this with you, so I dropped it in my suitcase and will find it the next time I'm away. Sometimes all you need to get started is a starting point. I found this and the CDs a brilliant way to provide me some real value and remember this chain in the future.

Free wine bar in the lobby from 5-6 PM every day. A red and a white featured wine. Gathering spot, learning moment, socialization opportunity.

"Wines of the World" - a 16-page 3"x6" guide to wines presented by the Kimpton Wine Club. Wine expert Leslie Sbrocco provides comments on two wines per month, which are featured at the free evening wine bar. So now I have this kicking around on the kitchen table, and if any of them catch my interest I can try to track them down. The guide provides URLs for each vinyard, and Kimpton has their own monthly by-mail wine club with three price levels ($29/month to $125/month for two bottles.)

"Kimpton Style" - a style guide cum catalog, where you can buy accessories that style each of their hotels. The catalog is organized by hotel, showing a room and then keying the products to what's in the room. Candles, robes, linens, lamps, pillows, beds(!), plates, glassware, etc. 24 pages, full color.

So I'm walking out of there with four new mix CDs, a hotel yoga guide, wine notes on 24 interesting wines, and a catalog of stuff to buy to reinforce the lifestyle. That is some modern marketing think applied to business-class hotels. These guys have done their homework, and are thinking about the experience beyond the basics.

Anything I didn't like? Well, paying $22.80 for a bowl of oatmeal, three bacon slices, a glass of orange juice, and a cup of green tea is a bit much, don't you think? The $18 hamburger and coke was a stretch too. Their 'net connection was too slow, as noted above. $20 a day for parking is the going rate, but it's annoying.

I was there three nights. Two of those were paid by my hosts. My one night expense, with incidentals for three nights - parking, two meals, taxes - came to $291.07, which can take your breath away. Maybe I'll feel better about the price if I buy some stuff out of their catalog. I'm certainly digging the new music.

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Malcolm Gladwell Has A Blog (Finally)

February 24, 2006 | Arts & Culture | People & Society

It's about time!

In the past year I have often been asked why I don’t have a blog. My answer was always that I write so much, already, that I don’t have time to write anything else. But, as should be obvious, I’ve now changed my mind. I have come (belatedly) to the conclusion that a blog can be a very valuable supplement to my books and the writing I do for the New Yorker. Link

Of course, because he's using white type on a black background, it's unreadable. But the XML feed works just fine in your newsreader.

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Photos of Cuba

February 21, 2006 | Arts & Culture | People & Society | Travel

Hannah has posted her photos from Cuba. I'm waiting to hear the whole story - I thought it was illegal to visit Cuba, or something. Maybe W made an exception? In any case, they're great photos! Update: More photos from someone else on the trip.

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Passion of The Boss

February 21, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Life

Ever wonder why Bruce Springsteen became so popular? Watch this piece of rock theater and wonder no more. August 15, 1978 at the Capital Center in Landover, MD. An 11-minute impassioned performance of Backstreets. Watch him define the early days of the soft piano intro. Watch as the power ballad takes form.

Listen to a young Bruce sing a story, of younger love, memories of growing up, exploration, yearning. Then betrayal, abandonment, loss. Listen to his voice, soft and then thunderous. Contrast the clear high piano with the distorted grunge guitar. Consider the depth embodied in the song. Wise beyond his years.

Watch the performance take on a dark edge as Bruce improvises around a memory. Watch the close-up, dark eyes doubled with the long-shot bright guitar. Think about Springsteen's quote in the recent Bob Dylan documentary where he says that hearing Dylan sing, such as it was, gave him voice - if Dylan can succeed with his voice, anyone can.

Listen to the compositional structure of Backstreets, how the song changes as they approach the beginning, middle, and end. Listen to the crowd, who know all the lyrics, singing along, powering The Boss and the band in a frantic sweaty dance of mutual elevation. Bruce's shows were longer than the Grateful Dead, even into the '80s. He put out this energy for three or four hours a show, non-stop, for years.

Take a gander at his background: Son of a bus driver and a legal secretary, raised in a tough New Jersey borough, Bruce is an unlikely singer-songwriter, an unlikely star. Not particularly photogenic, a little rough around the edges, but with a guitar and a song all that disappears. Realize when this performance took place in his career: He started performing in late 1969, but didn't form the E Street Band, or record his first album until 1973. This performance is five years after that. Imagine playing a 15,000 or 20,000 seat arena five years after starting out. The drama and passion in this performance shows you why he caught fire. When you have that passion, and a determination, your gift can really shine, sometimes in unpredictable ways.

Hat tip to Fred Wilson, a VC at Union Square Ventures in NYC, for the link that prompted this brief reverie. You never know where your links are going to come from....

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Unbroken Chain

February 20, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Life

November and more, as I wait for the score

"Petersen contrasts the unbroken chain of authority, of the preacher and his hounds, of the hypocrisy of religion epitomized by "They say love your brother, but you will catch it when you try," with the unbroken chain of natural existence, of individuals in the world whose conscience is the true authority: 'unbroken chain of you and me.'" (link)

Here's a nice 14 minute version from a Phil Lesh & Friends show I saw in Boston, on December 1, 2005. (Link goes to a 64K mp3 file; there are also higher quality versions available.) There's a pretty hot St. Stephen that follows immediately thereafter, if you want the rock 'n roll closer.

Listening for the secret, searching for the sound. Inquiry and introspection. Asking questions and listening for answers. Secret searching sounds. Sink like a stone, float like a feather. Contradictions. Ambiguity. Holding both at once. Sinking and floating. Feathers, stones.

Unbroken chain of sorrow and pearls
Unbroken chain of sky and sea
Unbroken chain of the western wind
Unbroken chain of you and me

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The Candor of Grown Children

February 19, 2006 | Arts & Culture | People & Society

The Happy Tutor, a thoughtful, mild-mannered, and quite reasonable person in real life, wrote this apocalyptic post about the loss of tolerance and lust for power that is overtaking our society in March 2005:

My Fellow Consumers! Here's to Freedom. May it pass us in our misery untouched. History is not for the squeamish. It will be written in whatever style they choose, preferably candid and complacent, by the victors, and liberals are not in the running. Their era is over. Their style is dead for any honest public purpose. They will follow meekly enough, or rise above, whether on the cross or the gibbet - or fall short, when the moment comes. My fellow Liberals, Welcome to the Dump. Here at least we can write like friends, God's spies, as Lear said to Cordelia. Let us cherish these moments together. Let come what may, a Band of Brothers and Sisters, speaking out candidly whatever the cost. Thank God, no one is listening. Are they?

It's a keeper.

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Baby Snakes

February 18, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Life | People & Society

While writing that epic Zappa post a while back, I noticed that I had never watched Baby Snakes. That seemed like an unfortunate oversight, so I ordered up the DVD and watched it this week.

This, gentle reader, is a masterpiece of weird. Officially billed as "A Movie About People Who Do Stuff That Is Not Normal," Baby Snakes celebrates Not Normal and deploys live concert footage, fantastical clay animation, and backstage sophomoric humor to confound the senses and defy categorization. There are long sequences of audience participation on stage, dramatic cinematic interpretations of complex compositions and driving rock beats, an interview with an artist a few peas short of a pod - producing amazing, surreal animations - and rock guitar god tributes. I think Monty Python might have copied the Zappa formula, leaving out the music parts.

In an effort to promote this amazing cinematic accomplishment, I have extracted and posted the 2-minute theatrical trailer (4.8MB .mov file). I encourage you right-click the link (Mac users: Ctrl-click) and download it to your computer in case you want to watch it more than once. Is it worksafe? That's hard to say. It's not obviously un-worksafe, but it's not typical family entertainment. Best to get your own copy to watch in the privacy of your home.

I highly recommend the film; a more unique cultural artifact from 1979 will not be found. I myself hope to watch it several more times with friends, but it's not immediately clear who, exactly, is willing to sit through two hours and forty-five minutes of Intercontinental Absurdities. It's worth it though; it's likely you've never seen anything like this.

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Friday Link Love

February 17, 2006 | Arts & Culture | People & Society

Dave Pollard: Health, Education, And Learned Helplessness: "Our education systems prepare us for dependence on employment by large corporations and government organizations. Why? Because this is the most 'manageable' way to run the system, and conveniently keeps us in our place. If the system were to equip us to be independent entrepreneurs, there would be a number of unpleasant consequences for the established wealth and power hierarchy[...]"

The Happy Tutor wrote a beautiful post celebrating Chris Corrigan: "Power is not in the center, nor at the top of a hierarchy, nor in the head or the long tail of an A-list distribution. Power is in the network, in what was once called "the body of Christ," or "the body politic," or the common weal, or the holy spirit. Dismembered, torn apart, into consuming and producing selves alienated from one another and ourselves, the body of Christ will rise again, and it will have nothing to do with the Pharisees and White Sepulchres, the paltry Caesars and pundits, who have taken his name in vain. Market Freedom is dicing at the foot of Cross. Market Freedom is on the March. But when the soldiers arrive at the tomb, they will find it empty. He whom they seek is everywhere, wherever two or three are gathered in his name."

John Robb checks in with a note on the Cantarell oil fields in Mexico: "If the pessimistic scenarios outlined in the PEMEX study come to pass, it will be very serious. The loss of nearly 1.5 million barrels a day of production capacity within three years will be very difficult to overcome either from other Mexican fields or from new production in other countries. Unlike political stoppages from exporters such as Iran or Nigeria , depletion can't be put right. Mexican exports will be seriously reduced or perhaps even eliminated forever."

Apple embedded a poem in their new Intel-based Macs: "Your karma check for today: There once was a user that whined/his existing OS was so blind/he'd do better to pirate/an OS that ran great/but found his hardware declined./Please don't steal Mac OS!/Really, that's way uncool./(C) Apple Computer, Inc."

Winning The War On The Internet: "Government communications planning must be "a central component of every aspect of this struggle", she added. "The longer it takes to put a strategic communications framework into place, the more we can be certain that the vacuum will be filled by the enemy. In a related speech to the Rooster Foundation, Smoky Joe, Candidia's Chief Misinformation Officer, said some of the Wealth Bondage's most critical battles were now in the "newsrooms. Our enemies have skilfully adapted to fighting wars in today's media age, but... Wealth Bondage has not," he said."

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Your Song

February 14, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Life

I sat on the roof and kicked off the moss

As we were finishing dinner at Molly's tonight Elton John's Your Song came over the Musak. It's one of the sappiest songs ever written. On the other hand, it's one of the best love songs ever. I've thought about it both ways many times over the years.

But hearing it tonight got me thinking about junior high, when I played it on acoustic guitar supporting the chorus at the Opera House. I think John Nichols, my instructor, might have been playing piano. It was a big deal, no doubt about it, and I must have rehearsed that song dozens of times in the weeks leading up to the performance. I knew every note, every vocal inflection, every nuance - I probably could have played the song backwards.

The performance went well, as I recall. I was nervous, being a shy introvert. But I was also the best guitar player in the school system at the time. So I just did what I could do, which happened to be better than anyone expected, which turns out to be a winning formula.

I remember at one of the dress rehearsals I was standing there in the front with my guitar strapped on, and Mr. Nichols was talking to the chorus. Chris D. was horsing around, and knocked the piano, where Mr. Nichols' vintage Martin guitar was leaning. The guitar started to slide to the floor, and you could hear the whole chorus take a breath, and I reached over and grabbed the neck, saving the guitar. Mr. Nichols calmly thanked me, put the guitar in its case, expressed his fury by telling Chris to cut the shit (a major word to use in front of 60 junior high schoolers) and reminded Chris that I had saved his life. I think people were pretty focused the rest of the rehearsal.

At some point later that year, or early the next, Mr. Nichols told me he had taught me everything he knew about the guitar, and now it was up to me to practice, learn songs, and go to the next level. That was pretty much the end of my playing guitar. Though I still own two, and hack on them now and again, I wish I had continued to play and hadn't given it up for synthesizers, tape decks, and mixing consoles. I didn't play as well as Jimi Hendrix was all I knew, so why bother trying. Had I only heard Joni Mitchell, Crosy, Stills, Nash & Young, American Beauty, Workingman's Dead, or any of a hundred other folk rock tunes I would have realized that I could play in that style as well as any 13-year old kid alive, and I might have continued.

This would be an easy place to blame my parents for not encouraging or insisting that I continue, but what can you do with a teenager?

During my freshman year at college, I had come home to visit and heard Mr. Nichols was ill - some sort of cancer is what I remember, but I could be wrong. He was teaching sixth grade music, and I went over to visit in the middle of the school day. Just walked into the classroom, and said Hi. He had the class practice some exercises, and we talked for five or ten minutes. He was pleased to see me, and I thanked him for being such a big influence in my life - I still loved music, and I wished I played more, but his four years of lessons were an important part of my life. He didn't mention that he was ill, but I think we both knew why I was there. He smiled when we were wrapping up, and I remember he gave me a hug when I was leaving. I left thinking that I should really pick up the guitar again, a thought that still runs through my mind every few years.

I've only thought about Mr. Nichols, his Back 40 String Band, and the accomplishment of playing Your Song perfectly in front of a few hundred parents and peers a few times since then. Funny that an "okay" dinner with lots of sappy early '70s songs would be the trigger to bring it all back, but that's the magic of music.

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Interview with Christopher Alexander

February 9, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Nature & Environment | People & Society

Christopher Alexander's recent work, The Nature of Order, is a 2,000 page, four-volume masterpiece that lays out a holistic view of how space, and especially built space, impacts our humanity. I summarize, as Vice President Dick Cheney once said, Big Time.

The Phenomenon of Life: The Nature of Order, Book 1
The Process of Creating Life: The Nature of Order, Book 2
The Luminous Ground: The Nature of Order, Book 4
A Vision of a Living World: The Nature of Order, Book 3

I have been browsing these books for over four years, and I'm still not ready to actually read them, because I'm concerned that they will be so engrossing that I will have to drop everything in obsessive consumption. Like all of Alexander's works, they have a very high reverie quotient, and it takes long, enjoyable afternoons and evenings to move through the spreads.

Kenneth Baker, a SF Chronicle art critic, reviews the books and then interviews Alexander at home in England.

Reading the first book of Christopher Alexander's four-volume magnum opus "The Nature of Order" reduced me to silence. I went about my business for weeks afterward, unable to tell anyone how exciting and dismaying I found the ideas it contains.

The succeeding volumes as they appeared hammered home my conclusion that I would have to reckon professionally and publicly with this work and its author, whom I had met already once or twice.

This sort of philosophical crisis happens seldom, probably too seldom, to critics. It happened to me because Alexander, a practicing architect who taught at UC Berkeley for 35 years, explained more to me about the world I see, and the potential place of the arts in it, than anyone else has.

For best results, read Alexander subtracting all literalism. This quote from the interview, for instance, can be applied to architecture, as well as many other aspects of life:

"If you start something, you must have a vision of the thing which arises from your instinct about preserving and enhancing what is there. ... If you're working correctly, the feeling doesn't wander about. If you have a feeling-vision of the thing -- a painting, a building, a garden, a piece of a neighborhood -- as long as you're very firmly anchored in your knowledge of that thing, and you can see it with your eyes closed, you can keep correcting your actions. ... It's not a question of holding onto every little detail, but of holding onto the feeling."

Baker's pieces are a fine overview to the work, and I highly recommend the books as part of any practice of long-term reflection on large-scale systems.

As an aside, for a guy who has devoted his life to the impact of space on consciousness, patternlanguage.com and natureoforder.com are two of the worst websites on the entire Internet. It's like they totally missed the fact that the web is a spatial medium. There's a lot of information there, but good luck navigating it. Somebody send him a copy of Weinberger's book.

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Fear Is Everywhere

February 8, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Business & Commerce | People & Society

On the lowercase cover of mtj: massage therapy journal ("keeping you in touch"):

4 tips for a safer practice, p88

how to protect your business, p64

You don't have to look too far for fear.

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Felice Varini Had a Good Idea

February 7, 2006 | Arts & Culture

OMG! Check this out. Felice Varini creates 3D painted rooms which, from one angle look like weird random lines, but from another resolve into a specific pattern.

More photos. And videos.

This has got to be the best thing since the invention of latex. Latex paint anyway.

I'm going to buy me some paint this weekend!

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Visions of Johanna

February 7, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Life

We see this empty cage now corrode

The students are building a snow sculpture for winter carnival. I wish I had my camera with me. Takes dedication, since they have to truck the snow in from who knows where - the mountains, I guess. So they have scaffolding, ladders, plywood frames, etc., all holding this big hunk of fragile snow in place so they can carve it into some sort of character. It sits in the middle of the brown grassy quad - the so-called "green" - a monument to white, to what might have been, to winter carnival's past, to what could be, if we only work hard enough, build it up from scratch, carve off what we don't need, and turn it into something beautiful, or at least sustainable.

"Inside the museums, Infinity goes up on trial"

I wonder if it's fun. Could be, I suppose. Certainly a challenge. It might create a feeling of accomplishment, if they can make it work. Unless the temperature goes to 45 degrees again and it all melts into the mud. Odds are probably 50/50, given the recent history.

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Malcolm Gladwell

February 7, 2006 | Arts & Culture | People & Society

Good profile of Malcolm Gladwell in the New York Times. Particularly nice are the two mp3 clips of the interview. Interesting to hear his voice in conversation. Not that he's unaware of the theater of the interview, but conversation is a little more "in the moment" than reading words.

"People are experience rich and theory poor. People who are busy doing things — as opposed to people who are busy sitting around, like me, reading and having coffee in coffee shops — don't have opportunities to kind of collect and organize their experiences and make sense of them."

One of the perks of being a best-selling author: Receiving $40,000 per speaking engagement. One of the challenges: having to write lengthy disclosure statements about potential conflicts.

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Chris Bliss

February 6, 2006 | Arts & Culture

Once there was a way to get back homeward

Fantastic promo video of juggler Chris Bliss interpreting the Beatles' Golden Slumbers, Carry That Weight, and End from the Abbey Road disc. Click "Must-See Finale" on the linked page.

Update: I just watched this again. Totally inspirational, partly because the song is so good. But he's really in the zone, and he knows it.

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Gaston Bachelard: Subversive Humanist

February 4, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Life | People & Society

Well, it's been over 16 hours, and no one has taken up the "Dreams vs. Hope" challenge. Granted, the first eight of those hours would have been "Friday night after work" and in my heart of hearts I know that not all of my readers are rushing home to check in on the Notio Inquiry. And then the next eight hours were after midnight, or early Saturday morning, and most people were sleeping, at least euphemistically.

So I guess it's up to me to rise to the occasion and consider this question.

As we've seen, Thich Nhat Hanh believes hope is an obstacle. I resonated with this when I read it ten years ago, and I resonate with it today. Which is not to say I'm not a hopeful person - but perhaps "hopeful" is best thought of as "optimistic." At least most of the time, modulo the human condition.

Gaston Bachelard was a postal clerk who eventually rose to teach at the Sorbonne. I understand Bachelard primarily through the vectors of phenomenology, the rehabilitation of imagination, poetics, and especially reverie, even though his oeuvre is grounded in epistemology and the history of scientific thought. Mary McAllester Jones writes:

Bachelard was always a polemical thinker, believing, as he declared in La Philosophie du non (1940), that "two people must first contradict each other if they really wish to understand each other. Truth is the child of argument, not of fond affinity."

Bachelard likes to describe himself very simply as a reader, not out of intellectual laziness or false modesty, but because of what happens when he reads: "is not the reader's imagination...revealed to be purely and simply the movement of quickly changing images?" and more strikingly, "it would seem that the reader is called upon to continue the writer's images; he is aware of being in a state of open imagination." Reading poetic images brings us "the experience of openness, of newness," new images, new language, new possibilities in the world and in ourselves. What [Bachelard] brings to it is an attitude of mind, a willingness to accept and not reduce complexity, to take reading a poem seriously, as an aspect of our relationship with something other than ourselves.

What Bachelard reads is images, not ideas. In his first books, these are images of fire, water, air, and earth; later they are images of space - cellars and attics, shells, corners, the cosmos; and then in his last book, images of a candle flame. He reads material and dynamic images, neither perceptual nor rational, nor expressive of lived experience, images which are written, which are in and through language. He modifies and subverts Freud, and eventually, in his second series of books on poetry (1957-61), he rejects psychoanalysis, preferring phenomenology. He does so because psychoanalysis is reductive; it reduces images to the unconscious, the unconscious to lived experience, to infantile social experience in particular. Bachelard modifies Freud by making the source of poetic images not the unconscious ... but rather what he calls an "intermediate zone" on the threshold of consciousness and thought. Bachelard's material images, in which man and matter are conjoined, spring from "the zone of material reverie that precedes contemplation."

In 1957 Bachelard turns from psychoanalysis to phenomenology precisely because this offers a better account of reading. However, he modifies Husserl as he did in his work on science, insisting on the dynamic relationship between subject and object, so that the reader's consciousness is changed by what he reads.

- Gaston Bachelard, Subversive Humanist, Texts and Readings (1991)

So when Bachelard says

We can accomplish nothing good against our will, that is to say, against our dreams. The oneirism of work is the very condition of the worker's mental integrity.

he is trying to infuse all of our activities, all of our lives, with an endless joy in making images as we make the world. It is not just what the reader reads, but what the person does - every moment is an opportunity to infuse our living with dynamic images, allowing our imagination to lead us, as it reacts with where we are, what we are doing, and recursively, what we are imagining.

This is much different that the idle longing of hope. When I think of "one who is hopeful," I think of passive daydreams, infused not so much with possibility, probability, or even plausibility, as with an idealized and disconnected image of perfection. In this perfect hopeful world, things work out according to the script in our heads, driven by our previous experiences and infantile impressions created in our family of origin. In this way, hope is aligned with psychoanalysis in Bachelard's view - reductionist, limiting, and of the past, not the future.

Instead, by living in the moment, by paying attention to the images we create as we work, as we read, as we dream, as we meditate - as we live - we draw our consciousness every moment toward the larger sphere of the infinite. We are not reducing the possibilities to fit our notio, we are alive in the openness of all possibilities. We then react and respond to these images both imaginatively and materially. We are changed by what we read, and also by what we imagine. We observe phenomenologically, and we then observe how our observation changes. Even as we "cram the oven with shovels-full of coal," and "challenge the oven to a duel of energy." The result: "To participate no longer in heat as a state but in heat as growth, to assist enthusiastically the becoming of its growth."

In this, Bachelard gestures toward David Bohm's work on the dynamic aspects of soma-significant and signa-somatic implicate and explicate orders of meaning-making in quantum physics. But that's a reading for another day.

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The Reciprocity of Dream and Work

February 3, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Life | People & Society

What would a week of philosophical and psychological inquiry be without a bit of Bachelard? This excerpt is originally from La Terre et les reveries de la volonte, translated by Colette Gaudin in a volume titled On Poetic Imagination and Reverie:

If, passively, as an idle visitor, you find yourself in the stifling atmosphere surrounding a china kiln, then the anguish of heat takes hold of you. You retreat. You do not want to look any longer. You are afraid of the sparks. You think it is hell.

Nevertheless, move closer. Take on in your imagination the work of the artisan. Imagine yourself putting the wood into the oven: cram the oven with shovels-full of coal, challenge the oven to a duel of energy. In short, be ardent and the ardor of the hearth will shoot its arrows in vain against your chest; you will be invigorated by the struggle. The fire can only return your blows. The psychology of opposition invigorates the worker. [...]

To participate no longer in heat as a state but in heat as growth, to assist enthusiastically the becoming of its growth – its active, qualifying quality – grants immunity against the very excesses of fire. The worker is no longer the servant of fire, he is its master. [...]

Take away dreams and you stultify the worker. Leave out the oneiric forces of work and you diminish, you annihilate the artisan. Each labor has its oneirism, each material worked on contributes to inner reveries. Respect for deep psychological forces must lead us to keep the oneirism of work safe from any harm. We can accomplish nothing good against our will, that is to say, against our dreams. The oneirism of work is the very condition of the worker's mental integrity.

Exercise for the reader: Reconcile Bachelard's requirement for dreams with Thich Nhat Hanh's recommendation to avoid hope.

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Marriage (As A Dada Concept)

February 2, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Life | People & Society

I wondered what Frank Zappa had to say about marriage. After all, he and Gail were notoriously devoted to each other, and they were married from 1966 though Frank's death in 1993. They raised four interesting children with unique names (Moon Unit, Dweezil, Ahmet Rodan, and Diva), and they ran a business together, with Frank writing, recording, editing, and mastering music, and Gail manufacturing, promoting, and distributing it. They seemed to have it all worked out.

So I pulled down his autobiography, The Real Frank Zappa Book, and there's a whole chapter on the subject! Here are a few choice nuggets:

This division of labor works best when we see each other the least. Don't get the wrong idea from that - Gail is also my best friend. If you can't be friendly with your spouse, it's not going to be much fun to live together. Friendship (let's get maudlin now) is a very important dimension. I think that a marriage without friendship has to be pretty dreadful.

Gail has said in interviews before that one of the things that makes our relationship work is the fact that we hardly ever get to talk to each other.

We talk about business when we have to, but the rest of the time we don't talk at all. The other factor that has kept things interesting is that when I'm touring - which has been almost every year since we got married except 1984-1987 - I am gone from the house six months out of the year.

Even when I'm not touring, our work keeps us on different schedules. The Cottage Industry - getting out records, tapes, CDs, and videos, the mail order business and everything that entails - is sufficiently complicated that, in order to handle all the chores, I have to work the night shift and she has to work the day shift. We see each other on the edges when the shifts change.

If I worked the same hours she does, nothing could get done. Gail has to be awake during the day because the kids have to go to school and she has to handle the telephone. My schedule sort of twirls around the clock. I can't stay on nights all the time because every night I work an extra hour or so, editing, or recording, or on the Synclavier, or, presently, on this fucking book - pushing it a little later each night - but then, once I go to sleep, I want to grab eight or ten hours, and so my "day" keeps changing around. Every three of four weeks I'm back on daylight - and I dread it, because I can't get anything done. The phone rings all the time. All those questions Gail was dealing with when I was sleeping on the day shift, now I have to answer - live, in person. I can't edit - I can't write - I can't do anything because of the constant interruptions.

So there you have it. One perspective on a successful marriage. I wondered what Gail had to say about it, and found this interview from 1997:

SECONDS: When you saw him, you knew he was the one.

GZ: I heard a chorus of voices and they said, "This is it."

SECONDS: He was a sex symbol in those days, if I'm not mistaken.

GZ: I think you're into some fantasy. I never thought of him as a sex symbol. Frank promoted himself and the band as a bunch of ugly guys who played fantastic music. [...]

SECONDS: When Moon was born, did Frank become more of a homebody?

GZ: He was extremely prolific and he always enjoyed working on his craft. He became more financially able to explore different ways of recording and different musical ideas. It's expensive to be a composer and Rock & Roll is what paid for his habit. It was a by-product of his real interest -- writing music. Both Frank and I are straight-ahead and conservative in terms of what we consider the appropriate way to raise a family and conduct a stable environment. [...]

SECONDS: Hmmm ... in conclusion, what was the funniest thing that ever happened between you and Frank?

GZ: We got married and managed to stay together for twenty-eight-and-a-half years. That's the joke.

We'll take that as confirmation of a happy partner!

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Upper Valley Community Band

January 29, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Life

Lynne and I had a dinner date last night and after eating at Three Tomatoes we spent $5 each to see the Upper Valley Community Band at the Opera House. It's hard to tell when a "band" ends and when an "orchestra" begins, but I'm pretty sure when you've got 65 people on stage, and a conductor, and they're reading sheet music, it's more like an orchestra.

The primary reason we attended is because my brother-in-law, whose has a day-job as the police chief of a nearby town, is at heart a composer who has written something like 400 pieces for jazz, big band, and orchestra. He was premiering a new piece written for this band, and was conducting it on stage.

There were a couple of hundred people there, and though we weren't the youngest, we didn't bring the average age down much. I think what impressed me most about the whole thing was the "just folks" nature of it. I really wish I had brought my camera, but imagine everyone on stage in their "Sunday best" with the result that "Sunday best" means a lot of different things to different people. Cotton country dresses, tweed sport coat, three piece suit, polyester slacks, velvet evening gown, etc. The diversity in background of the players was amazing; very much a community effort.

At the start of each piece, a Distinguished Gentleman came out from the wings and introduced the work, providing a bit of background and history. At the beginning of the concert he welcomed us, and invited us to "honor our country and our flag by rising to sing the Star Spangled Banner - the flag is right over there" pointing to stage right. Everyone stood, even me - why not, I thought, this isn't the time to make a stand against jingoistic excess - and faced the flag, and did our best to remember the words. I even put my hand over my heart the way the Distinguished Gentleman was modeling. I looked around and realized there were a lot of WW II, Korean War, and maybe even WW I vets in attendance, and they take this sort of thing seriously. Ironic detachment and post-modern multi-cultural "God loves all people" philosophy were in short supply.

Anyway, the band was pretty darn good. It's not the Vienna State Opera, but it wasn't a hack job either. Tim's piece was called the UVCB March, and it was strong and well-played. I think the band really likes having a resident composer and they seemed to work hard on his piece. They did a nice job on the ballad With Quiet Courage, and the Learner and Loewe musical medley brought fond memories of recognizable show tunes. Gershwin's An American in Paris is a jazz-based piece with more complexity, and they suitably satisfied my "reverie quotient." What's Up at the Symphony was a cartoon medley, and you'd have to get up pretty early Saturday morning to hear all these themes in one day. They played a Benny Goodman medley, and closed with another march. Unfortunately, they didn't play any Frank Zappa compositions.

Then the Distinguished Gentleman came out again and thanked us for coming, and said they'd like to play for us now, God Bless America. The band launched into it, and from above the stage a brightly lit American flag descended with much drama. They encouraged us to sing, which was quite amusing - other than the three title words, how many of those lyrics to you know? At the end, Lynne said, "And God bless everyone else too." Right on, sistah.

All in all, a great Northern New England community event.

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Frank Zappa Listening Party, Week Three

January 28, 2006 | Arts & Culture

Frank Zappa has always been one of my favorite artists, and I've been on a real Zappa listening spree lately. Many people think of Zappa as some sort of weird offensive freak, which he is, but he is also a serious and prolific composer. With 75 albums, including many doubles and some triples, his catalog can be broken down in several ways, but for this post I consider the "classical" work and the "rock and roll" work. There's also an "early period" which I don't listen to much, and doesn't resonate with me in long sequences. Here is an official discography (pdf). iTunes has 56 of the 75 Zappa albums. (But the following inline links go to Amazon for CD purchases.) The official Zappa website is really "fun" but ultimately very lame - hard to navigate, and omits critical information such as what year the material originated.

The "serious" work:

• The Yellow Shark, performed by Ensemble Modern, conducted by Frank Zappa and Peter Rundel. An excellent live performace of some of Frank's most complex pieces. The Ensemble was very dedicated to the work, and it shows in the music. If you're dipping your toe in the classical Zappa oeuvre, start here.

• Civilization Phaze III. Frank's last release of new material, and his masterwork. Highly developed musical themes, performed on the Synclavier, and most unplayable by humans due to the layering and complexity, not to mention the odd tempos and rapid tempo changes. This double CD is a beautiful, lush, operatic, and cinematic work, but not for easy listening in the background. Prime track: N-Lite, an 18 minute stunner.

• "Oh No! ... just another Frank Zappa Memorial Barbecue!" by Le Bocal. This is a French big band stretching the work in a radically new direction. It's very upbeat, with horns, scorching guitar, and an operatic interpretation of The Idiot Bastard Son which is LOL funny. This is a very exciting development in the elaboration of Frank's canon.

• The Zappa Album, by Ensemble Ambrosius. Along with the Le Bocal above, a favorite of my recent listening. This is something of a Finish music school joke, superbly executed: Playing 20th century electronic music on 17th century baroque-era acoustic instruments. The styles are surprisingly well-suited, and Zappa's longtime arranger and Synclavier transcriber Ali N. Askin weighs in with liner notes expressing his bemused astonishment: "Would the music still have that uniqueness of being entertaining and heavy at the same time?" His answer: Yes!.

• Ensemble Modern plays Frank Zappa: Greggery Peccary & Other Persuasiions. This work was originally envisioned as part of The Yellow Shark, but Franks's cancer prevented further participation. The dedicated Ensemble Modern turns in a serious disc.

• Strictly Genteel. A "greatest hits" of Frank's classical work. It has many of the major themes. If you generally like and listen to modern art music (i.e. "classical" music) this is a good entry point to "Zappa The Composer".

The "rock 'n roll" work is perhaps best represented by the ill-fated 1988 tour, which yielded three excellent albums, Make A Jazz Noise Here, The Best Band You Never Heard In Your Life, and Broadway The Hard Way. Each is a fantastic, played-live-no-overdub tour de force of complex, driving, ensemble playing. All this stuff is excellent for iPodding at the gym. Stunt guitarist Mike Kneally has written a tour diary of his experiences, and it's riotously funny reading. Even funnier, really, is his story of auditioning for Zappa's band, which starts about halfway down his long-form bio page.

• Jazz Noise includes some great political commentary on the then-current Jimmy Swaggart prostitution scandal, some moderne musique concrete in Star Wars Won't Work, some heavy-metal stomping in Stevie's Spanking, and a gorgeous rendition of Strictly Genteel.

• Best Band is worth it just to hear this group take on Purple Haze, Sunshine of Your Love, and Stairway to Heaven. Also noteworthy is a reggae version of Johnny Cash's Ring of Fire.

• Broadway is the most overt political and opinionated, destroying Jesse Jackson, Republican lies, and religious fanatics, among others. Includes a nice cameo by Sting, singing Murder by Numbers.

• The definitive collection of live material is distributed across six double-discs, You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore, vol 1-6. It's hard to recommend one over the others; if you're buying these you're sort of in the club and will likely own them all. I suppose starting with vol 1 and vol 2 is as good as any entry point. They're all excellent.

• Finally, the 1980 studio album, You Are What You Is provides a pretty solid overview of why people find Frank's lyrics offensive. Herein he offends most every segment of society including gays, women, Deadheads, dumb people, pro-military cheerleaders, nightclub goers, new age mystics, country music, truckers, drug addicts, televangelists, and suicide attempts. And a few others along the way. It's outrageously, sophomorically, Truthfully funny, and essentially Frank is using this style to promote the idea that we are what we is - don't get hung up about it. The thing is, he is emphasizing and punctuating his piercing commentary with subtle and dramatic musical reinforcement. When they drop into Harder Than Your Husband they play a perfect rendition of a country music song, but the lyrics savage the genre.

If you'd like a visual example of Zappa's live shows, check out the 60 minute Does Humor Belong In Music DVD, recorded August 26, 1984 at The Pier in New York City. (The soundtrack is also excellent, with a different song selection than the DVD.) The stage antics and personalities of the musicians really drive home how much fun they had playing this incredibly difficult musical material. Truly a talented ensemble led by a very gifted composer, whatever the style or genre.

I met Frank in October 1983 at the Audio Engineering Society convention at the NYC Hilton. He was near the elevators with his bodyguard (Frank was shorter than me [even!] and always had a bodyguard) and I approached to ask about recording The London Symphony Orchestra sessions. He had used only PZM microphones, very new at the time, and it was a radical technique. Frank decided not to get on the elevator, and lit another cigarette while we talked. He thought the technical aspects of the recording were excellent, but he was disappointed with the union musicians on the project. They didn't put their heart into it (later this would come to be known as "putting the eyebrows on"). They took too many breaks, and didn't rehearse until they arrived the first day. His music is way too difficult for that style of work. You have to be committed. He asked about why I was at the show - I had invented a psychoacoustic sound processor and was looking for sales or manufacturing partners - and he said, "Good luck; these motherf'kers never listen to new ideas. You'll fight tooth and nail every step of the way, only to give up in frustration. But it's worth trying. Don't let the bastards get you down." (Frank was right.) Around now the next elevator opened up, he said, "Nice talking to you," and got on. Just as the doors were closing he realized he still had a lit cigarette and stuck his arm out to me to take it from him, "Thanks." I took Frank's cigarette, the doors closed, and up he went. I looked at the lit Winston, and a woman next to me said, "You'll cherish it forever," and smiled. I laughed, crushed it in the ashtray, and went to look for my ride to Madison Square Garden. The next six hours deserve their own post someday - it was an extended series of synchronistic events and a Very Good Time (first St. Stephen in 4 years).

In writing this post I remembered a day in December 1993. I was at the Dartmouth Bookstore, browsing the CD section, just rummaging around, when I came across the new Zappa release, The Yellow Shark. I took one look at the cover and thought, "Right, Frank's really sick, I forgot, he has cancer, and it's been a while, this is probably his last release." The cover was so sad, I stared at it for a long time thinking about Frank. The show in Hanover when I was in high school. The show during my first semester at college. Listening to Shut Up And Play Your Guitar late, late, late into the night with my housemate. The cigarette and the elevator. The photo was so honest - he was worn down, tired, yet still working. It was about 4:20 in the afternoon. I bought the record, and listened to it when I got home. The next day, I found out Frank had died, the day before, in California at about 1:30 PM, just around the time I tuned into that wavelength. (A similar thing happened when Garcia died.) The Yellow Shark wasn't his last release - Civilization Phase III was complete but not yet in distribution - but it was a culmination of his ambition to have real musicians play real instruments so he could hear his work live. I miss Frank, and I'm glad that younger musicians are still interested in performing and interpreting his catalog of entertaining yet heavy music.

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GTI Project Fast

January 26, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Business & Commerce | Products & Opportunites

Volkswagen has launched what must be an online viral marketing campaign for the new GTI.

Dear Michael J.,

You have been chosen by the Volkswagen GTI Mk V research and development team to take part in a nationwide research experiment exploring the psychological and social concept of "fast."

To take part, please visit:
http://e.vw.com/a/tBD2TOmAQU8iiAcPMnoAHVDnpah/fasturl

NOTE: We ask that you please DO NOT share this link as it may skew the results of this experiment.

I can't believe they want to keep this secret! That is a guaranteed method to get the link passed around. Go check it out.

My brother is a Volkswagen GTI owner - the perfect car for commuting into Manhattan every day, apparently - and last year he got a call from a market research firm to participate in a study for the next-generation GTI. A couple of people showed up at his house one evening, and spent a couple of hours asking questions and showing various design studies for car shape, front grills, taillight designs, interior options, color selections, etc. I'd be interested to know how many of those study participants buy the new car because they feel they had a say in the design decisions. That's an expensive way to "buy customers," but television ads are very expensive, and if you took the total television budget and instead spent it on personal qualitative research, it just might be far more effective.

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The Drawback of Religious Education

January 22, 2006 | Arts & Culture | People & Society

Excerpt from The Problem of the Puer Aeternus:

As you know, Christ is the shepherd and we are the sheep. This is a paramount image in our religious tradition and one which has created something very destructive, namely, that because Christ is the shepherd and we are the sheep, we have been taught by the Church that we should not think or have our own opinions, but just believe. If we cannot believe in the resurrection of the body - such a mystery that nobody can understand it - then one must just accept it. Our whole religious tradition has worked in that direction, with the result that if now another system comes, say Communism or Nazism, we are taught that we should shut our eyes and not think for ourselves, that we should just believe the Fuhrer or Kruschev.

As long as the leader is a responsible person, or the leading ideal is something good, then it is okay. But the drawback of this religious education is now coming out very badly, for Western individuals of the Christian civilization are much more easily infected by mass beliefs that the Eastern. They are predisposed to believe in slogans, having always been told that there are many things they cannot understand and must just believe in order to be saved. So we are trained to be like sheep. That is a terrific shadow of the Christian education for which we are now paying.

- Marie-Louise von Franz, 1959.

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Internet as Meme Machine

January 18, 2006 | Arts & Culture | People & Society

There are a few key websites to track if you want to find all the weird, unusual, cool, and bizarre links. Then people like me forward them to people who are not tracking the master-meta sites (as if I have time, heh). You can find pointers in my archive.

In the meantime, check out these two links, which somehow seem to summarize all of pop culture in an instantaneous way.

• Paris Hilton Doesn't Change Facial Expressions

• Lindsay Lohan Doesn't Change Facial Expressions

I'd like to see one with a homeless man and another one with Bush's smirks.

Bonus link: "Maria Dahvana [spent] one year responding positively to all flirting and saying yes to literally anyone who asked her out. The ensuing 150 dates included a homeless man, several non-English speakers, 10 taxi drivers, two lesbians and a mime." [As you might expect, she's written a book.]

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Steve Jobs Movie Posters

December 30, 2005 | Arts & Culture | Technology

The magic of Photoshop.

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Linked lists

December 29, 2005 | Arts & Culture | People & Society

It's the end of the year, and plenty of people (thanks Jason) are generating "best of" links, jogging memory and generating smiles.

• Culture hacking: Improv Everywhere ("We Cause Scenes") stations a tuxedoed bathroom attendant in the Times Square McDonalds, and records the action. Complete with annotated photographs, and a video clip.

• One (more) reason to live in San Francisco: PARK(ing) – artists install a temporary, portable public park into a two-hour parking spot. Nobody thinks like this in Hanover, let me tell you. Well, maybe in Rio Blanco, but that's in Vermont, what would you expect? Plus, it's cold here half the year.

• Theory of Democracy: Long Sunday checks in with an important post on the fundamental strength of Democracy ("...democracy institutionalizes conflict through the regular and periodical redistribution of power and permanent rules controlling contests."), and the tendencies that undermine it ("There is always a possbility that the logic of democracy will be disrupted in a society in which the foundations of the political order and the social order vanish [...] in which the exercise of power depends upon conflict"). C.f Cheney and Nixon.

I've been spending the week learning more programming, hence the (very) inside joke of this post's title.

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This One's For All You Writers Out There

December 23, 2005 | Arts & Culture | People & Society

Doonesbury is bite-sized amusing today. Alex is writing her college application essay. Her dad looks on.

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Plausible Story

December 18, 2005 | Arts & Culture | People & Society

My friend Hannah has an excellent new blog, called Plausible Story.

Recent news indicates that 1 in 20 Americans is illiterate in English, despite increasing college graduation rates. I suggest Americans might be innumerate as well – 1 in 20 is 5%, and if people understood that 5% of the country could not read or write simple English, we would have a good understanding of why the President can repeatedly and without apology break the law, and violate the constitution, and claim that he will continue to do so, while most people just go Shopping. Perhaps worth a comparison to other fascist and totalitarian propaganda efforts. Bonus link for extra credit reading.

The reason I bring all this up is that Hannah is highly literate, writes really well, and her blog's premise – "Where stories might even be true" – intersects nicely with the state of "news" today. Go take a look; if you like what you see, subscribe – and more importantly, leave a comment which will serve to encourage her! (FYI: It's a TypePad blog, and they've had some techical issues recently, in case you see odd behavior over there.)

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Or Perhaps Implied Comment

November 21, 2005 | Arts & Culture | Nature & Environment | People & Society | Science

My local paper had an interesting collection of stories on their "Close-Up: Science" page today. I pass them along without comment.

• Oral histories show another side of leading scientists
  Reviews the Caltech Archives Oral History Project. A storehouse of interviews with giants of American science and engineering, started in 1978, now encompassing 227 bound volumes, with 53 online, and several more in process.

• Fit muscles, fit brain?
  Daily light exercise appears to reduce oxidation in the brain. Oxidation causes damage to lipids and DNA via free radicals. I'm radically simplifying, no doubt, but it appears oxidation bad; exercise good.

• Study: Trees beat the heat
  Southern-dwelling trees and shrubs moved rapidly north 55 million years ago to survive during a period of global warming. "Rapidly" means they moved about 1,000 miles in 10,000 years.

• Study: No psychological damage from Navajos' use of peyote
  Repeated use of peyote produces no psychological problems or adverse effects. In fact regular (monthly) users had better moods and a greater sense of psychological well-being. A series of test involving spatial skills and strategic reasoning showed no difference between users and non-users.

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Milton Glaser

October 12, 2005 | Arts & Culture | Business & Commerce | People & Society

Chip Kidd interviews the designer Milton Glaser. Highly recommend.

On parental influence:

CK: How did your parents feel about your wanting to become an artist? I assume that’s what you always wanted.

MG: Yes. I tell the story: At the age of five I made that decision. In my parents I had the perfect combination—a resistant father and an encouraging mother. My mother convinced me I could do anything. And my father said, “Prove it.” He didn’t think I could make a living. Resistance produces muscularity. And it was the perfect combination because I could use my mother’s belief to overcome my father’s resistance. My father was a kind of a metaphor for the world, because if you can’t overcome a father’s resistance you’re never going to be able to overcome the world’s resistance. It’s much better than having completely supportive parents or completely resistant parents.

On retirement:

CK: Any plans to retire?

MG: Oh god, no. There is nothing I fear more than the idea of having to retire. I fear retirement more than death.

CK: [Laughs]

MG: I think the worst scam that was ever performed on the innocent American people is this idea that retirement is desirable. It’s only desirable for people who really hate what they do.

CK: Yes.

MG: But for us, who basically are in the activity that is so interesting and compelling and has the ability to sort of enter into the world, by God retirement is the absolute last thing I would dream of.

On designing the I Heart NY logo, and social change:

MG: Well, it was the mid-seventies, a terrible moment in the city. Morale was at the bottom of the pit. I always say you can tell by the amount of dog shit in the street.

CK: Dog shit.

MG: Yes. There was so much dog shit because people didn’t feel that they deserved anything else, right? I mean you were just walking through all this dog shit day after day, in this filthy city, garbage, and so on. And then the most extraordinary thing happened: There was a shift in sensibility. One day people said, “I’m tired of stepping in dog shit. Get this fucking stuff out of my way.” And the city began to react. They said, “If you allow your dog to crap on the street, you have to pay a fine of $100,” and within a very short time it became socially untenable to allow your dog to shit on the street. Now, I don’t know what produces those behavioral shifts, right? From one day where it’s OK, and then suddenly the city simultaneously got fed up and said, “It’s our city, we’re going to take it back, we’re not going to allow this stuff to happen.” And part of that moment was this campaign. More than anything else it was a device to encourage tourism.

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[SoL] Alain de Vulpian on the Process of Civilization

September 21, 2005 | Arts & Culture | Governance | SoL

de Vulpian provided a 25-page paper, "Listening to Ordinary People," in advance of the conference (Word doc). It lays out the main arguments of his book, "A l'ecoute des gens ordinaires. Comment ils tranforment le monde," (Paris, Dunod 2003).

Here is one of the introductory paragraphs from the paper:

I have reached the conviction that we are in the epicentre of a developmental process of civilisation that is carrying us elsewhere, transforming western culture in depth and possibly preparing the way for a worldwide civilisation. What do I mean by a developmental process of civilisation? Norbert Elias, the great German sociologist, gave body to this concept of a "chain reaction of chain reactions" that involves power holders, institutions, organisations, communications, ordinary people, manners, customs, the social fabric, technologies that are emerging or becoming established, and so on. It transforms a civilisation and gives life to a new society. No-one has designed, desired or piloted this chain reaction of chain reactions. It has occurred spontaneously, it is continuing and is now spreading to other regions of the planet.

He goes on to discuss four major areas affecting civilization in the 20th century:

• Ordinary people become more autonomous and in touch with inner resources.
• An extremely complex social fabric is self-organizing.
• Scientific and technological innovations synergize with other transformations.
• New forms of governance begin hesitantly to emerge.

He looks at each one of these in depth (summarized in the paper, complete exposition in the book), and wonders if we are engaged in a new stage in the evolution of man and society. I will quote the final paragraph of the paper:

There is an opportunity for human progress whose birth we can try to facilitate. But it is very clear that nothing is yet decisively acquired. Our hypercomplex and living society is also, like all living things, the seat of pathological processes. The therapeutic procedures, regulators or immune systems that are spontaneously developing are not yet properly effective, in particular because many governments and old-fashioned but still powerful enterprises are not playing the game of a living society. They display ideologically partisan, hierarchic or predatory attitudes, rather than therapeutic, interactive ones, and accumulate mistakes and maladaptations that encourage the appearance of perverse effects. Instead of participating in concerted, adaptive regulation, they throw oil on the fire and accentuate the turbulences. Beyond a hypothetical (because unmeasured) threshold of turbulence, the entire anthropo-sociological process could bifurcate into disastrous directions.

This work deserves a significantly longer treatment than I have energy for at the moment. Perhaps even a study group to digest the main ideas. In short, he surveys 50 years of social science and develops the main threads of societal changes that have occurred. He summarizes several different societal aspects that I had noticed, but hadn't named. He describes societal shifts that have affected both my work and my family. He provides a hopeful scenario, which I had not been able to generate based only on my own observations.

I highly recommend the paper, though with the caveat that I don't read much sociology, so I don't have much context for the work. I found it engaging, insightful, and worthy of discussion.

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Today's News

September 18, 2005 | Arts & Culture | Life | Travel

The short version:

1. Lynne has arrived.
2. Over a dozen new photos loaded onto Flickr.
3. The Internet connection at the new hotel is terrible, making more than brief interactions smash-things frustrating.

Monday is more Vienna, Tuesday is an 8-hour train to Strasburg France.

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MuseumsQuartier

September 13, 2005 | Arts & Culture | SoL

I have posted three pictures from the conference site (1, 2, 3). From their website:

The MuseumsQuartier Wien first opened in 2001. It now features almost 50 different facilities for contemporary art and culture and is one of the ten largest cultural complexes in the world, attracting some 2.7 million visitors each year.

This is an absolutely amazing facility. It is a mix of galleries, event halls, dance studios, and art museums with significant holdings. It is a public space, so the conference-goers mix with a diverse population. There are restaurants, bars, an outdoor courtyard. You can see from the interior shot that even the main hall has a capital-D design. It is far removed from the typical beige hotel ballroom that hold most of these functions. An inspiring space to hold a big-think conference. I'm sure I will post more photos from here.

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Saving The Appearances

August 12, 2005 | Arts & Culture | People & Society

Joshua Allen posted a great review of Owen Barfield's Saving The Appearances. He closes with a quote from Barfield which I found interesting:

Here is a choice quote that summarizes several arguments from various parts of the book; arguing that memory (aka semantic web) is a post-totemic idea that depends on lossy symbols. "As soon as unconscious or subconscious organic processes have been sufficiently polarized to give rise to phenomena on one side and consciousness on the other, memory is made possible. As consciousness develops into self-consciousness, the remembered phenomena become detatched or liberated from their originals and so, as images, are in some measure at man's disposal. The more thoroughly participation has been eliminated, the more they are at the disposal of his imagination to employ as it chooses."

I posted this comment:

I'm curious about his use of "participation" in that last quote. Do you think he means "the more time has gone by" or perhaps "the less 'attached' we are to our images" or maybe "the more we observe - during the event - and the less we participate, the better our imagery?"

Seems like all of my interpretations are weak. My reading of Bachelard supports the idea that modern culture is imagination-deprived, so I'm sympathetic to Barfield's resonance with increasing imaginative capacity.

(When casual readers tackle Bachelard they often start with The Poetics of Space, but The Poetics of Reverie is the one that deals with imagination and consciousness.)

Saving the Appearances was recommended to me ten years ago, but I never got around to reading it. Your review provides good encouragement.

Update: Joshua responds (copied here for my backup brain):

He goes into quite a bit of depth regarding the word "participation". He refers to the usage of the word by Durkheim, Levy-Brune, and Aquinas and uses in that same sense. He even points out that Aquinas used the word on every page but one in his treatise "on consciousness" :-) The basic idea is that the observer puts a filter on what is being observed -- when we think about phenomena of the natural world, we are thinking about something that has already been altered, or "participated" by our lense. Korzybski made the point that the map is not the territory, and Perls stressed that the "map" itself can be rather individualized. But regardless of whether our maps are shared or not, they all involve some participation. This is all pretty well accepted since Gestalt.

In this passage, he's talking about the fact that purely logical systems operate only on themselves, and are basically divorced from the external world. We can manufacture memories of things that we never perceived with our senses, and we can discuss ad nauseum things that never *could* be perceived with our senses. The next step (he goes on to argue), is that we can imagine things that wouldn't be perceived in the external world, and then manipulate the external world to create what we imagined. Then people increasingly dwell in these completely fabricated animatronic worlds (themselves populated with representations meant to be taken as realities) like Disney Land, Whole Foods, etc.

This is very interesting: "and then manipulate the external world to create what we imagined." It fits well with setting intent, creating your own reality, expecting your desired outcomes, and other sometimes-useful, often-timeless, and frequently new-agey ideas regarding the relation of the internal and external worlds.

I should really get around to reading the book.

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For Typographers Only

June 27, 2005 | Arts & Culture | Life | Software

If you want to have multiple paragraph bullets with correct left-justify formatting, you have to use a soft return. That means in order to get the correct paragraph spacing the "bullets" style should be set for a "space before" and not a "space after." Someday I should make a decision matrix of what kinds of styles need space before or after. Headlines, for instance, need space after, and sometimes space before too, but not always. And, by the way, check that your tabs line up from style to style or else for instance the bullets tabs will look different than the rest of the text. Robert Bringhurst is at once a blessing and a curse. It's my favorite book, and my biggest time-sink. Now back to work.

[Update: And when you change space-before and space-after settings, make sure you go back through the whole document and make sure that it hasn't re-flowed your text, changing all the page numbers and un-linking your section pages. That can really twist your knickers right up against the deadline.]

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Unique Handcrafted Jewelry

June 23, 2005 | Arts & Culture

As jwz called it: Jewelry From the Barbie Slaughter. Quite amazing.

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Entertainment ruminations

June 15, 2005 | Arts & Culture | Business & Commerce | Products & Opportunites | Software

World of Warcraft, the "subscription-based massively multiplayer online role-playing game," by Blizzard Entertainment, now has 2 million subscribers. Each player has purchased the CD-ROM for $49.99. In addition, there are three monthly payment plans: The month-to-month subscription plan costs $14.99 per month, the three-month plan costs $13.99 per month, and the six-month plan costs $12.99 per month.

Conservatively, there was a one-time revenue stream of just under $100 million dollars, and an on-going monthly revenue of just under $26 million (just under $312 million annually). They are opening the game up in China soon, where there are 500,000 players in the open beta period. It's not hard to imagine cumulative revenues of over a billion dollars, or perhaps two.

Blizzard has 250 game designers and developers, so figure maybe another 100 in marketing and administration. Annual revenue per employee is therefore around $1.1 million. A standard rule of thumb for a normal business is that you need $100,000 per employee to break even. $200,000 is excellent. At one point Microsoft was doing around $500,000 (I don't know what they do today). By this measure, in 2003, the top 10 software companies ranged between $340,000 and $788,000. Point being, online gaming is profitable.

Compare to movies: The top-grossing film of all time was Titanic in 1997. They took in a little over $600 million dollars in eight years. The #100 top-grossing movie was Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (who knew?). Since 1991 (14 years) The Prince has taken in $165 million - just about the annual revenue of World of Warcraft.

Of course, it's nice to be able to spend (or squander) that level of resources on entertainment. In a few years, as the price of oil goes from $50 a barrel to $60, then $75, then $100, and suburban salarymen are living in their SUVs at the office four nights a week to save gas money on commuting, we'll all fondly remember these glory days of "robust economic activity." I wonder where our food will come from?

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In Memory of Cal Expo (5/93)

May 25, 2005 | Arts & Culture | Life

I, you know, have accommodated myself to this
new world -- a world where
the magic is everywhere, and, yes,
I'll say it plainly, nowhere.

Suffused with the feeling of "You HAD
your magic, didn't you? and Lord,
you knew it, were a glutton for it,
ate at an all-you-can-eat
magic banquet
for so many years,
decades even,
how can you complain?
Piling gluttony
on top of gluttony, that is,
to pile self-pity
on top of so much
satisfied desire."

But like someone who had a
true love,
whose true love
passes from this Earth,
the ordinary comforts and modest
joys that sustain
those who never met
their true love
now seem meager, a
starvation diet
for such as us.

Yes, I know
I took too much pleasure,
tried
to be worthy of it
even when they were
handing it out
to the plainly
ungrateful.

But
still. That joy became a sort of
compass, pointing toward a
something
that felt more like me
than even
the small me I know I
am now.

The knowledge that
this joy was not permanent, not
a place to take refuge
was always
there, in the music
that was
the joy. A lot of good
it does to know
that I should have
been listening
harder, when
I wish I could forget
what I know now --

that some joys,
as much
joy as there is, lying
everywhere in plain sight,

are irreplaceable.

-- Steve Silberman

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Walter Murch

March 10, 2005 | Arts & Culture

Walter Murch at Transom.org. From Jay Allison's introduction:

"If you work in sound or film, you will come to know the name Walter Murch by your colleagues' tone when they say it. This is the man responsible for movies you remember for the dance between sound and picture--he shaped them both--The Conversation, The English Patient, Apocalypse Now, Cold Mountain--and those are just a few of his picture editing and sound mixing credits. He has won multiple Oscars in both categories and is, well, generally regarded with some awe.

Walter has created for Transom a new essay called Womb Tone as a companion to his lecture, Dense Clarity - Clear Density, now illustrated here with sound and film clips, detailing Walter's process. It's amazing. Take a chair in the classroom, and sit quietly."

Walter's Book, In the Blink of An Eye, at Amazon.

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Scent of A Robot

March 9, 2005 | Arts & Culture

Really choice live action/animated rap video by Pete Miser. Language and visuals are work-safe, but the concept probably isn't.

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On Directing Film

November 27, 2004 | Arts & Culture | People & Society

I read this book by David Mamet yesterday. It's a concise 107-page summary of directing for motion pictures, based on a course he taught at Columbia in 1987, after he had finished his second film (following many plays and stage productions). Here are a few excerpted paragraphs:

The job of the film director is to tell the story through the juxtaposition of uninflected images – because that is the essential nature of the medium. It operates best through juxtaposition, because that's the nature of human perception: to perceive two events, determine a progression, and want to know what happens next. [...]

If you aren't telling a story, moving from one image to another, the images have to be more and more "interesting" per se. If you are telling a story, then the human mind, as it's working along with you, is perceiving your thrust, both consciously and, more important, subconsciously. The audience members are going to go along with that story and will require neither inducement, in the form of visual extravagance, nor explanation, in the form of narration.

[Michael J. sidenote: Alfred Hitchcock once said, "When the screenplay has been written, and the dialogue has been added, we're ready to shoot." The implication being that you write as little dialogue as possible, after you have told the story through images first.]

They want to see what's happening next. Is the guy going to get killed? Is the girl going to kiss him? Will they find the money buried in the old mine? [...]

If we don't care what happens next, if the film is not correctly designed, we may, unconsciously, create our own story in the same way that a neurotic creates his own cause-and-effect rendition of the world around him, but we're no longer interested in the story being told. [...]

That's when it stops being interesting. So that's where the bad author [...] has to take up the slack by making each subsequent event more diverting that the last; to trick the audience into paying attention.

The end of this is obscenity. Let's really see their genitals, let's really endanger the actor through stunts, let's really set the building on fire. Over the course of the movie, it forces the filmmaker to get more and more bizarre. Over the course of a career, it forces a filmmaker to get more and more outre; over the course of a culture, it forces the culture to degenerate into depravity, which is what we have now.

This book was originally recommended to me by Robert Fritz, to help cultivate the skill of thinking visually. It's a good read for that alone. But it's obviously helpful for the budding storyteller, to focus energy on the story, and not the "message," the cleverness, or the ironic self-consciousness. Two of the chapters demonstrate by example using transcriptions of dialogue with students, deciding on a few scenes and beats to express the idea of an imaginary film's throughline.

If you've never seen one of Mamet's films, a good place to start would be either Glengarry Glen Ross (1992, winner of a Pulitzer prize), or The Spanish Prisoner (1997, a fantastically intricate story).

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The Seven Basic Plots

November 26, 2004 | Arts & Culture | People & Society

Very interesting review of a new book about narrative story forms. Excerpt:

The histories of the novel and of storytelling ran together until the early 20th century; since the 1920s, that history has been one of formal drift, away from the novel as a social form that described how characters live in relation to others, a drift that gathered decisive momentum in the 1970s, as self-consciousness was joined to irony. You may object that the novel, as a result of the century's bitter fragmentation, is no longer required to satisfy EM Forster's tentative claim that "Yes - oh dear, yes - the novel tells a story"; that Joyce's linguistic pile-ups have embarrassed us out of anything so simple; that readers are too aware to acquiesce any longer to the novelist's authority to tell them that, "It was a snowy Sunday afternoon in February," and that Charles and Emma Bovary have gone with Homais and Léon to see a new flax mill near Yonville.

The first of these objections assumes the novel is a vulnerable form, easily manipulated and destabilised. That assumption is hardly borne out by its tumultuous 400-year history. The final objection, that it is no longer as easy to hoodwink readers as it used to be, is simply a slur on our grandparents. And a further obfuscation has grown up: the notion that there is a difference between novelists and storytellers. The assumption here is that the novelist is a creature of form and language, while the storyteller is occupied with the lesser act of narrative. There are several possible rebuttals to this distinction, depending on your literary tastes, but it is salutary to quote a defender of the contemporary literary novel, Fiammetta Rocco, one of this year's Man Booker judges: "Reading 132 books in 147 days... you learn a great deal about why so many novels - even well-written, carefully crafted novels, as so many of those submitted were - are ultimately pointless."

The question for me and my not-so-novel writing project has been: Will a simple, well-written story that explores characters and their lives, in a realistic setting — in other words, a novel cognizant of sociology as well as psychology — be relevant and accepted by an audience? One voice says, "Write for yourself; ignore any idea of 'acceptance.'" That may be true, though it feels like a dodge — why is it so bad to want an audience, and isn't writing just for myself a bit selfish? On the other hand, I do realize that the most personal and particular writing often turns out to resonate with the widest and most general audience.

This review, and the book under discussion, say that in fact the qualities I'm aiming for are exactly what's missing in publishing today. So apparently that excuse for procrastination is eliminated.

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I Am Charlote Simmons

November 22, 2004 | Arts & Culture | Arts & Culture

I read Tom Wolfe's new novel last week. A super-smart country girl from Sparta, NC heads off to the prestigious Dupont University to explore the life of the mind. (My comments will not spoil the plot.)

The book is getting fairly bad reviews. NPR panned it. David Brooks in the NYT found at least something to like. This three-day dialogue in Slate covers the basics and ends up kinda balanced. Here's NPR's 8-minute interview with Wolfe, along with an excerpt. I rather liked the book, so I'm glad I read all the bad reviews after I had read the work itself.

The book does have a couple of flaws. For instance, the language is probably exaggerated in its vulgarity. But perhaps not by much. I mentioned that I was reading this to an Academic Dean and an Admissions Dean this past week, and both had heard the reviews (but not read the book) and said it didn't sound accurate. I'm sure students talking to their Deans don't talk in "Fuck Patois," but I bet the dormitory slang approaches Wolfe's patter. The fraternity scenes certainly had the ring of truth.

And there were a couple of inconsistencies that would have been caught with better editing. Example: A description of six students riding in a Suburban SUV, with one leaning against the window, across from the sliding door. Of course, a Suburban has four doors; the scene was probably originally written with a van in mind, when the author realized that ultra-cool college students don't drive mini-vans, silly, and changed it to an SUV.

Chalk all this up to a choice between delivering the 700-page tome in time for holiday sales, or making it 5% better; the publisher choose the sales. I forgive them. The fact that a 70-year old white guy could write a convincing college novel from the perspective of a female lead is something quite amazing.

The book is not "about" sex, contrary to much publicity. But let us congratulate the PR people on getting that thought into the mediasphere, where I'm sure it will help sales. The book deals with a lot of sex, sexual overtones, and a lot of non-erotic sex scenes. But don't get all excited, this isn't Fear of Flying.

To me the book is "about" assimilation, transformation, and recognition. And status. Lots of status. What gets assimilated, transformed, and recognized are aspects about oneself, one's upbringing, one's nature — and one's status. Some of these aspects are obvious and clear, and some are subtle and ambiguous. I could address this more directly if I were willing to provide spoilers, but let's say that the ending is cleverly tied to the title, and that the resolution, while satisfying storytelling, leaves me uncomfortable about some aspects of human nature. The result being: Good book; I've got some things to think about in the days following.

My memories of college are expansive, fun, exploratory. Some other memories of college life this book resurfaced for me were loneliness and distance. Memories like being the first one into the dining hall to eat and get out of there so I wouldn't be seen eating alone; general roommate alienation — being randomly thrown together with someone who is neither a friend or a companion; long walks wondering what everyone else thought about a topic of the day. And I was a popular, engaged student with lots of friends! I can only imaging what some people went through.

[An interesting read lately has been Aaron Swartz's weblog. Aaron just entered Stanford and his day-by-day accounts provide "real-voice" support for much of Wolfe's main thesis (modulo the sex). History lesson: Aaron won the ArsDigita prize for software engineering in 2000, when he was 13.]

One of the most powerful passages in the book describes Charlotte's depression. I have never experienced anything deeper than a miscellaneous malaise, but in reading this 100 pages of self-pity, self-loathing, and complete hopelessness, I felt sick to my stomach.

The plot is pretty good, with three sub-plots revolving around Charlotte's primary story, and the whole thing wraps up nicely at the end, without much contriving. As a budding writer I could see a bit of the backstage mechanics, but I was looking for them. Example: When Adam was rushing up to the stage at the rally, to talk to the professor, I thought, "Dude, don't go there!" But a while later, it was clear that in order to establish Adam's credibility, that scene, or one similar, had to occur. It's hard to tell if this is good or bad. Like I said, I was looking for plot mechanics, and I found some. As an aside, the four main characters align pretty well with the King, Warrior, Magician, Lover archetypes.

I Am Charlotte Simmons is a breezy read. It was both an enjoyable trip down memory lane, and a current calibration to college life. It's as "accurate" as any other fiction, with a satisfying story and somewhat surprising (but resonant) conclusion. There are worse ways to spend 20 hours, as Charlotte could attest.

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I Am Charlote Simmons

November 22, 2004 | Arts & Culture | Arts & Culture

I read Tom Wolfe's new novel last week. A super-smart country girl from Sparta, NC heads off to the prestigious Dupont University to explore the life of the mind. (My comments will not spoil the plot.)

The book is getting fairly bad reviews. NPR panned it. David Brooks in the NYT found at least something to like. This three-day dialogue in Slate covers the basics and ends up kinda balanced. Here's NPR's 8-minute interview with Wolfe, along with an excerpt. I rather liked the book, so I'm glad I read all the bad reviews after I had read the work itself.

The book does have a couple of flaws. For instance, the language is probably exaggerated in its vulgarity. But perhaps not by much. I mentioned that I was reading this to an Academic Dean and an Admissions Dean this past week, and both had heard the reviews (but not read the book) and said it didn't sound accurate. I'm sure students talking to their Deans don't talk in "Fuck Patois," but I bet the dormitory slang approaches Wolfe's patter. The fraternity scenes certainly had the ring of truth.

And there were a couple of inconsistencies that would have been caught with better editing. Example: A description of six students riding in a Suburban SUV, with one leaning against the window, across from the sliding door. Of course, a Suburban has four doors; the scene was probably originally written with a van in mind, when the author realized that ultra-cool college students don't drive mini-vans, silly, and changed it to an SUV.

Chalk all this up to a choice between delivering the 700-page tome in time for holiday sales, or making it 5% better; the publisher choose the sales. I forgive them. The fact that a 70-year old white guy could write a convincing college novel from the perspective of a female lead is something quite amazing.

The book is not "about" sex, contrary to much publicity. But let us congratulate the PR people on getting that thought into the mediasphere, where I'm sure it will help sales. The book deals with a lot of sex, sexual overtones, and a lot of non-erotic sex scenes. But don't get all excited, this isn't Fear of Flying.

To me the book is "about" assimilation, transformation, and recognition. And status. Lots of status. What gets assimilated, transformed, and recognized are aspects about oneself, one's upbringing, one's nature — and one's status. Some of these aspects are obvious and clear, and some are subtle and ambiguous. I could address this more directly if I were willing to provide spoilers, but let's say that the ending is cleverly tied to the title, and that the resolution, while satisfying storytelling, leaves me uncomfortable about some aspects of human nature. The result being: Good book; I've got some things to think about in the days following.

My memories of college are expansive, fun, exploratory. Some other memories of college life this book resurfaced for me were loneliness and distance. Memories like being the first one into the dining hall to eat and get out of there so I wouldn't be seen eating alone; general roommate alienation — being randomly thrown together with someone who is neither a friend or a companion; long walks wondering what everyone else thought about a topic of the day. And I was a popular, engaged student with lots of friends! I can only imaging what some people went through.

[An interesting read lately has been Aaron Swartz's weblog. Aaron just entered Stanford and his day-by-day accounts provide "real-voice" support for much of Wolfe's main thesis (modulo the sex). History lesson: Aaron won the ArsDigita prize for software engineering in 2000, when he was 13.]

One of the most powerful passages in the book describes Charlotte's depression. I have never experienced anything deeper than a miscellaneous malaise, but in reading this 100 pages of self-pity, self-loathing, and complete hopelessness, I felt sick to my stomach.

The plot is pretty good, with three sub-plots revolving around Charlotte's primary story, and the whole thing wraps up nicely at the end, without much contriving. As a budding writer I could see a bit of the backstage mechanics, but I was looking for them. Example: When Adam was rushing up to the stage at the rally, to talk to the professor, I thought, "Dude, don't go there!" But a while later, it was clear that in order to establish Adam's credibility, that scene, or one similar, had to occur. It's hard to tell if this is good or bad. Like I said, I was looking for plot mechanics, and I found some. As an aside, the four main characters align pretty well with the King, Warrior, Magician, Lover archetypes.

I Am Charlotte Simmons is a breezy read. It was both an enjoyable trip down memory lane, and a current calibration to college life. It's as "accurate" as any other fiction, with a satisfying story and somewhat surprising (but resonant) conclusion. There are worse ways to spend 20 hours, as Charlotte could attest.

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What do you want to create today?

November 8, 2004 | Arts & Culture | Business & Commerce | Life | Products & Opportunites

Ten or twelve years ago I was talking a lot about the choice between being a "creator or consumer." Today, I re-affirm my choice as creator.

This is about more than "being creative," whatever that means. It's about making things, making connections, making artifacts, making a difference. It's about playing my small role to improve life; to create instead of critique.

We have some significant opportunities for change, and there's no reason not to participate.

Which is another way of saying, We've got some major problems in the world, and we better get going.

Yes, I am depressed at the election results. I am depressed that a 3% majority is considered a "mandate" that "earned political capital." There are lots of things to be concerned about, and if we focus on "fixing what's wrong," we'll fail. The game's too swift, the target is always moving, and it's defined by someone else. (OTOH, if the information in those links turns out to be true, we've got a major problem on our hands.)

No, we must decide how we can contribute. We must choose how to apply our energies. We must figure out how we can "be the change we want."

Here is one possibility: During my career, I have created, co-created, or been the team leader on nine commercial products. I'm a "1.0" product guy. For a long time, and maybe again soon, my slogan was "from concept to customers." The 1.0 product launch needs a wide variety of skills and insights: customer research and requirement analysis, engineering capability and sequencing, prototyping, creating marketing materials, building lots of relationships, raising money, pitching pitching pitching. I do all that, working with other smart committed people, pushing the 1.0 out the door, and then help find specialists and experts to keep it rolling.

Now I'd like to take this entrepreneurial attitude and work on products that have a larger impact. That mean something to the world. How about alternative fuels? How about medical products? How about innovative education products? How about products that might build shared understanding, common ground, self-awareness, a sense of interdependency and wholeness - in any arena?

I own and operate a professional services firm with expertise in organizational learning and product development. I'm looking for introductions, conversations, collaborations — fuel for the fire. Let's stay in touch. Tell me about the opportunities you see, the changes you'd like to create, and let's see how we might work together. Or at least, let's keep each other in the loop. It's a big world out there.

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Carnival

August 25, 2004 | Arts & Culture

For anyone who wonders what it's like to go to a large rock and roll festival these days - not a corporate branded affair, but a middle-of-nowhere major-committment visionquest TREK, you could do a lot worse than to spend half an hour at:

http://www.sover.net/~hackmohr/captive.htm

This is a day-by-day journal by a local resident of Coventry, VT - site of the recent Phish "end-of-band" concert. 70,000 people travel to a town with a poulation of 1,012. The rain and mud were so bad that they were using tractors to tow cars INTO the parking lot! Between 20,000 and 30,000 people had to ditch their cars on the interstate highway and WALK between 12 and 15 miles, with all of their camping gear, (and food and beer, etc.) to get to the show.

This website demonstrates both why I couldn't bear to go to that show ("too much end-of-the-world behavior," I told friends) and why I wish I went (shared sacrifice builds community). While reading I laughed out loud several times and smiled the whole time. Good God - youth devoted to music. There's hope for the world yet.

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The Warrior, Child and Thief

January 11, 2004 | Arts & Culture

Tarragon tales and barley bales
Bread and puppet tears.

Toil to farm this misty soil
The yield and need
Both rots and feeds
The warrior, child and thief.

The stories told
Help sooth our souls
While we pursue our gold.

Our efforts green
The scorched red seed
And pound the stone to dust.

MJY - October 1992

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Prayer To Continue

January 11, 2004 | Arts & Culture

Gather silk
And cotton leaves,
A feather bed
Beneath the trees
Will keep the bees
From stinging.

Go now off
And leave your home,
Keep your strength --
This undertow
Pulls many in,
And keeps the sin
Afloat.

Breath and paddle
Tread and stroke,
Mind your own
When others won't.
Keep the faith
Against all odds,
Raise your head
And fill your lungs,
The trees to see
The clouds to touch
The rain pours in --
Never enough.

MJY - October 1992

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That's Mr. Aurora Borealis to you

November 4, 2003 | Arts & Culture

Whoa! NASA Aurora photo gallery. Hey, this is a pretty good reason to pay taxes! Who else is going to collect this artwork. Via Doc Searls.

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Should exist

October 24, 2003 | Arts & Culture

Now that I'm totally addicted to the iTunes music store, what should exist is the ability to buy a PDF of the sheet music of any song in the catalog.

I just re-discovered "Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy" (Elton John). What a seminal musical experience for me. Brings back the memories, I tell 'ya. And now I want to play it on my guitar.

I found the album via the "Celebrity Playlists" feature. Poked around, looked at a few, and then Sheryl Crow had this song listed I said, "Oh, yeah. Is that on here?" And indeed, moments later I had bought it. Listening to it now. Awesome customer experience.

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Onsale 9 AM

August 8, 2003 | Arts & Culture

turned the corner on the park and there were like 40 people on the steps of the opera house. thinking quickly i grabbed my cell phone figuring that if the line moved slowly i'd call from the line and it might be faster. almost got hit by a car crossing the road. not really, but they wouldn't have stopped if i hadn't been fearless. approached the steps and realized it was kids summer camp and they were waiting for the bus. i was first in line at the box office. had 15 minutes to kill so went inside the theater to look at seating. decided rows 6-10 (F-J) were probably best. if he's solo then close is better, but if there's a band it will be killer loud. went back to wait in line. two other people showed up. we talked concerts. chick there was hoping for solo because otherwise it would be killer loud. told her about hearing protectors. dude there took his mom to the '82 portland dead show i love so much. first throwing stones that night. opened the box office five minutes early. could have had any seat in the house. decided on F 105-106. on the centerline, naturally. (bruce cockburn [fan site] comes to my turf october 21.)

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Sexual Orientation

August 3, 2003 | Arts & Culture

Parents: Are you concerned about your teenager's understanding of sex and sexual activity? Do they know about "the birds and the bees" but you're not sure if they know "how to do it?" If they are doing it are they getting as much as they possibly can from the experience? Would you like their first sexual experience to be positive, gentle and have an educational context? If so, then our Sexual Education eXploration (SEX) summer camp is for you!

SEX Camp is a place where bright, attractive teenagers go to learn first-hand about sex. All topics are covered in depth with person-to-person "hands-on" instruction. Our camp counselors are well-balanced, kind and gentle lovers who will help your teenager experience sexual experiences in a safe, positive environment. The counselors not only handle the "physics" of the experience, but the deep emotional feelings as well. Our 1:1 camper-counselor ratio ensures that your camper will have the same lover through the whole program. They'll build a strong relationship and experience plenty of foreplay, fondling and fun. We're full of respect, but we're not shy!

Three-Day Course Modules: Our three-day program covers the important basics such as eye contact, body language, first touch, closeness, kissing, advanced kissing, partial and full nakedness, full-body foreplay, cunnilingus, fellatio, multiple orgasms and intercourse (top, bottom, doggy and a few trick positions).

Full-Week Course Modules: Our full-week program includes all of the three-day modules plus additional advanced topics such as morning sex, the nooner, sauces and food as sexual tools, sex in the shower, rhythms of sex (nightly and weekly), anal stimulation and penetration, masks, personas, dress-up, light bondage and spanking.

The Basics: Every program includes critical preparation topics such as anatomy, condoms, diaphragms, the pill, lubrication, useful supplies to have on hand, and introduces beginner sexual aids like dildos, butt-plugs and videos. We also cover, in both three-day and full-week programs, important closure topics such as maximizing post-coital glow, cuddling, nuzzling, waking up together, and talking directly about sexual experiences.

The Setting: SEX Camp is held in a beautiful, natural environment that is conducive to quiet, intimate and intense personal growth. There are miles of nature trails, singing birds, flower gardens, gorgeous sunrises and sunsets, and a great clothing-optional beach for soaking up the sun.

The Accommodations: Each camper has the private use of one side of a duplex, with their counselor assigned to the other side. Each has a private bathroom and separate entrance. This arrangement allows the camper to have privacy when desired, and also allows for the variety of two Learning Locations.

The Counselors: Our camp counselors are selected for their inner beauty as well as their damn good looks. All counselors undergo extensive pre-screening, testing and training. We personally check their factual knowledge as well as their individual technique. They are dedicated to their campers and are able to imply lasting bonds of friendship. We staff all major personality archetypes to insure a perfect match with the camper.

Added Benefit: When leaving camp most of our campers experience the heartbreak of losing a lover, providing an opportunity for you as parents to nurture, counsel and support your teenager through this difficult emotional experience. Imagine how beneficial it is to have a predictable first heartbreak - your teenager will make better choices about future partners and as a result will have a healthier sex life.

Optional Post-Camp Follow-Up: For a small additional fee, our counselors will continue the relationship when the camp session ends. Occasional letters, email and IM allow for a smooth separation process and help the camper integrate the sexual learning experience into their everyday lives. Sorry, telephone contact is not possible.

Optional Multi-Counselor Package: For a large additional fee, your camper can learn from as many counselors as desired, in addition to their Primary Counselor. We staff a separate team for the Multi-Counselor Program so that the camper can experience the feelings of guilt, shame, abandonment and betrayal when "cheating" on their Primary Counselor. In addition, Multi-Counselor Team consists only of highly experienced returning counselors who can safely take the camper to "the next level."

Important Notes: Campers must have reached the age of consent in both their home state and the state of the camping program. Your camper chooses their counselor based on first-come first-choice. Sign up early for the best selection. Counselors are tested for a full range of STDs every three days.

Adults: Check out our SEX Camp programs for mid-career adults looking for a little variety or a fresh new start. Get the education you always wanted in a safe, healthy positive environment.

Job opportunities available. Call for more information.

(Note to ultra-literal readers: The above is satire. Take a deep breath. Write some poetry. Your congressperson doesn't actually care, don't bother calling them.)

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Begin with the end in mind

July 25, 2003 | Arts & Culture

Michael J. is trying to hustle us out the door but the most amazing psycho-musical event just occurred and I had to report. Chill out dude, what's the rush?

Grateful Dead, Fox Theater, Atlanta GA, May 19, 1977, second set: An eleven minute Terrapin followed by an eleven minute Playin'. They're drifting around the cosmos, exploring measures of ten; I'm taking a shower, packing, snacking; 20 minutes later they're still noodling along and then suddenly they sing the final line from Uncle John's Band: "Woh, oh what I want to know is how does the song go?" and I think, "Did they just play Uncle John's? Wow, really smooth transition from Playin', I hardly noticed." And then, BANG, Garcia hits the opening chords of Uncle John's, plays a beautiful solo to start the song and leads into the first verse - starting the song by playing the ending. This is the sort of musical head games they pulled off all the time in the Good Olde Days. Since the audience was in various stages of deconstructive consciousness the groupmind impact was phenomenal, leaving us today with only the phenomenological documentation. Praise be the vault releases.

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Comes A Time

July 20, 2003 | Arts & Culture

From day to day
just letting it ride
you get so far away
from how it feels inside
You can't let go
cause you're afraid to fall
till the day may come
when you can't feel at all

Comes a time
when the blind man
takes your hand
says: don't you see?
got to make it somehow
on the dreams you still believe
Don't give it up
you've got an empty cup
only love can fill
only love can fill

-- Excerpt from "Comes A Time" by Robert Hunter. There's a very nice version on the aforementioned concert release.

What makes time elastic? No, wide-eyed, not drugs. This is serious.

Music makes time elastic by entraining our emotions with a larger group, which includes both the musicians and the audience group-mind. Subtle changes in the sonic rhythm create physical sensations (via hearing), and this triggers thoughts, memories, dreams and reveries. In some ways, the better the music, the better the dreaming while listening. This elasticity frees us from our linear perspective and lightens our mind. Music is a universal joy, in all cultures, through all time.

What makes time inelastic? The steady drone of asexual press releases, so-called factual news accounts, quantitative reductionism and amoral political manipulation.

Is it any wonder that we suffer from a lack of imagination today?

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Dick's Picks 29

July 20, 2003 | Arts & Culture

Dude, 1977 was a good year for the Grateful Dead, and they've just released two complete concerts on six CDs -- Fox Theatre, Atlanta, GA (May 19, 1977) and Lakeland Civic Center Arena, Lakeland, FL (May 21, 1977). Check it out. Some fantastic music. I received my discs last week and I'm still digesting them, but, for example, the Terrapin > Playin' > Uncle John's > Drums > Wheel > China Doll > Playin' on disc three will not disappoint.

Music, as a mode of communion, is well understood within tribes such as the Deadheads as well as the Catholics and Southern Baptists. I remember going to a run of shows in Albany NY in the early '90s, and camping at a nearby campground. As a professional Deadhead, I knew enough to get there early for the best campsite, and when Dave and I were signing in, the friendly woman at the desk asked, "Are you a Follower?" I said, "Pardon me?" She said, "Are you seeing the Dead tonight? Are you a Follower?" I was heistant, having been previously denied accomodations based on my tribal associations. "Yes," I said simply. She replied, "That's great. I know exactly how you feel. I'm religious myself. I've been a Follower for years. Haven't seen the Dead, but I found Jesus years ago. There are a lot of you here today. Bathrooms are down the path, showers over there. Drive slowly and watch out for kids on bikes. Have a good time tonight." Most hotels and campgrounds are tolerant of the Dead crowd, but not at all welcoming. We walked out of the office with our heads spinning.

We left early to go hang out in the ultra-cool downtown Albany parking lot / vending scene, and when we returned after the show around midnight the campground was FILLED with Deadheads. Drumming, tripping, singing, dancing, talking, building campfires, making love. They sold out not only the campsites but a huge open field for tents. Great scene, and a major cash-cow for the owners. Followers take care of each other.

Thanks, Michael J., for inviting me to tell some stories.

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To Ms. Flocon

March 14, 2003 | Arts & Culture

To the visitor who wrote, "I would like more information on your project as I am Flocon's daughter." Please email me: michael@notio.com

It's an art project. I haven't made any progress since the February 9th weblog entry. Still very much on my mind. I tried to borrow "Chateaux en Espange" via Inter-library loan, but apparently there are only four copies in American libraries and that book does not circulate. After re-reading both essays I think making an approximately one hour movie covering both works is a doable project. Or at least a doable reverie. I've not yet worked in documentary film.

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A play I guess

February 9, 2003 | Arts & Culture

For two days I've had an idea for a performance that I can't get out of my mind. Tonight I worked on it for a few hours and decided it's probably a play, though one where music plays a central role. So maybe it's more like an opera? Not sure if there will be singing.

There's a lot of dialog and only a few characters. The four sets are a dining room table, a psychotherapist office, a cafe, and a business office. These sets are built on a turntable that rotates around the musicians, who are in the center of the action. The primary set can appear to the left or right of the stage centerline, creating two perspectives for each set. I don't know if it will be effective or not to have filler scenes happening on the three background sets. It might be too distracting.

Downstage left is a male performer practicing the internal arts of Tai Chi, yoga and meditation. Downstage right is a female performer who comes out of the shower and 'gets ready to go out' by shaving, trimming nails, combing hair, putting on makeup, etc. Each of these two performs continuously throughout the play, somewhat independent of the action.

The play is about our Work, and how we represent this to ourselves and to each other. Music acts as a central organizing principle; a soundtrack to our lives.

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Matisse Picasso

February 9, 2003 | Arts & Culture

I need to make plans for this exhibition at MoMA QNS in New York. February 13 - May 19, 2003. Entrance via $20 timed ticket. Or, groups of 10 or more can tour the Museum during nonpublic hours by arranging a one-hour private guided tour conducted by a Museum lecturer for $40 per. Sure seems like doing both is worthwhile.

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A Reverie of Will

February 8, 2003 | Arts & Culture

While Lynne was testing her remote viewing capabilities this afternoon, I scanned engravings from the book "Paysages" by Albert Flocon and Gaston Bachelard. Flocon did the engravings (in copper) and Bachelard wrote phenomenological essays about them. You can read English translations of the French in The Right To Dream, a collection of assorted essays on the arts and literature.

Here's one of my favorite images from the series:

Bachelard: "But everyone who labors dreams a cosmic dream: the engraver of the plain is about to discover a great dream of the labor of the earth. Indeed, beneath his hard, monotonous toil we find the field becoming belly, breast, torso, body. The soil begins to take on the relief of a wooed and courted form. [...] It makes this plate a veritable Rorschach test for the analysis of the proprietary instincts. Its two great expanses evoke the ambivalence of all possession: earth or woman? Or rather: earth and woman. The great dreamers do not choose."

I scanned these images because I have in mind to make a short movie with Bachelard's text voice-over'ed Flocon's images. The idea is that I want to create a soundtrack, including vocal performance, music and psychoacoustic effects, to support the visual and poetic imagery. I want to take a textual and visual artifact from 1950 and create a temporal and auditory experience suitable for 2003.

Real Hollywood blockbuster material, eh?

Update, March 14: To the visitor who wrote, "I would like more information on your project as I am Flocon's daughter." Please email me: michaelj@notio.com.

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Dick's Pick

January 29, 2003 | Arts & Culture

An "Interview From the Vault" with David Lemieux, official Grateful Dead archivist, from August 2001.

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Origami pinhole camera

January 6, 2003 | Arts & Culture

Amazing: "To simplify these cameras as much as possible I made them out of the 11x14 inch photo-paper itself. There is no film in the camera because the camera is the film. Like a salad bowl made of lettuce leaf, and consumed with the meal, the camera doesn't exist after its utility is fulfilled. There is no machine. It is more of an arrangement than a thing."

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Phish cracks the online music code

January 6, 2003 | Arts & Culture

Phish has the right idea for online music downloads.

1. Concerts available within 48 hours of their performance. Plus a continuously expanding archive of earlier recordings.
2. Reasonably-priced MP3 (~$10) and high-quality SHN (~$13) files. Price varies by length of show.
3. Clear, easy ordering system and reliable downloads. Reports are upwards of 145K/sec on cable modems. Compare this to the usual Internet music download: I spent two weeks grabbing bits and pieces of a 1GB Other Ones concert from Furthernet. Further.net is a great distributed service network, but it's not a paid service, so users will never have the incentive to try to make the service more reliable than it already is.
4. No artificial platform restrictions, i.e. Mac OS and Mac OS X work fine, as does Linux, or whatever.
5. As they say in the FAQ, "shackle-free unencrypted files". Combined with a sensible concert taping policy you have the formula for financial success. Connect with the fans directly and use the recording company contract for distribution, not promotion.

If only the Grateful Dead would take this approach. Yes, I'd still buy the Dick's Picks CD releases, but I want much more availability, like shows I've seen that are unlikely to make it to mainstream distribution. They should have started this years ago. And, while I'm carping about the Dead, time for a new website design guys!

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Beck - Sea Change

January 4, 2003 | Arts & Culture

May I just say, again, how marvelous the new Beck album is? I can't get over it. Beautiful acoustic guitar, symphonic string arrangements, weird electronic noises, perfect moody songwriting. I just play it over and over. And when it's not on the stereo, I sing it to myself.

I hadn't noticed this before, but he has an official limited edition iPod available.

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What if I saved _all_ my stubs?

January 2, 2003 | Arts & Culture

Very cool: "Ticket stubs are everywhere, one of the many receipts in our daily lives - but we all save some from time to time. The Ticketstub project is a place where you can upload scanned images of your saved stubs, and tell a story about that night, that concert, that movie, what happened on that date; basically, ask youself why you saved the stub as a reminder."

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