Hustler of Culture
The ‘hometown” edition…
*Beverly Cleary’s beloved Ramona character will have her own movie (via Arts Journal).
*Recap of the only-ok season finale of Gilmore Girls. Probably doesn’t help that the creators are leaving the show (via Jenny Traig).
*Kitten Mosh Pit. Awwwww. (via Willo).
*Old Sesame Street videos. Booyah! (via Kottke).
*NPR Report on New York City’s last great typewriter repairman.
In the reading queue this week…
*Why we hate self-published authors (via the Powells.com blog).
*Sarcastic take on what it takes to be an artist in NYC (via Butts in Seats).
*Depressing but probably true assesment of publishing in the UK (via Buzz, Balls & Hype).
*Salon’s Audiofile now has a podcast (via Large Hearted Boy).
*A look at the 5 year history of Netflix envelopes (via Signal v. Noise).
*A tribute to the departed Lingua Franca magazine (via Arts Journal).
*The San Francisco International Film Festival has begun!
*It’s my brother’s 30 birthday this week. Happy Birthday Matt!
In the reading queue this week…
*Charlie Chaplin was born today, Easter Sunday, in 1889. He died on Christmas Day, 1977 (via The Writer’s Almanac).
*Artful takedown of Michiko Kakutani in Slate (via TEV).
*The Financial Times analyzes Web 2.0 (via Micropersuasion).
*Why two tier book pricing needs to go (via New Pages).
*Erin McKean was the guest blogger at Powell’s this week, where she had this great essay about the future of dictionaries. I’m a huge fan.
*Merlin’s Mann’s five suugesed Flickr tags. My favorite was #3. ““My Defenseless Child In A Funny Shirt I Made Him Wear.” (via Kottke).
*Valleywag charts what your social network choice says about you.
*I had such fun doing this list that I’m going to write another real soon. Maybe even today.
*Film Festival starts this week. Yay!
A bumper sticker, amongst several dozen, that read “Voting is a Witch’s Rite.”
Yes. Yes, it is.
On my mind and in the Weekend-trip-tp-the-gym reading queue…
*The Grups article everybody’s yapping about (via Matt Haughy).
*Slate sees Lou Dobbs going batshit as the beginning of the end of objectivity in journalism.
*Salon interview with Michael Pollan about his new book The Omnivore’s Dilemma where he looks at the enivronmental and social impact of our favorite sorts of meals.
*There’s a generational change happening in the upper reaches of America’s elite magazines. The new editors of the New Republic, The Paris Review, Atlantic Monthly and Harper’s are all under 40 white males. So perhaps its not that radica l (via Arts Journal).
*Molly Ivins rips Tom DeLay a well-deserved new one.
*How to make yourself miserable as an artist. Sound advice (via Willo).
*I <--heart--> point and click games.
*All Over Coffee is one gorgeous cartoon.
*As jealous as I am that the Hot Docs Film Festival is going on in Toronto right now, our own San Francisco International Film Festival is right around the corner. Yay! (via Consolation Champs).
My del.icio.us folder is piling up so I thought I’d empty these out before the festivities begin this weekend.
*Record labels are now delaying release of legal downloads in order to spur on sales of new albums. Sounds like desperation to me because as Tim Quirk of Rhapsody puts it “very single track that you are worried about is available for free whether you want it to be or not.”
*An assload of articles in US News & World Report about the current state of the publishing business (via Readerville).
*R.I.P Octavia Butler. Same to Kirby Puckett.
*Trader Joes is heading to NYC.
*Jesse James Garrett on why Myspace’s hideous design actually works (via Matt Haughey).
*The Get Human Detabase. On a crusade for improved customer service.
*Urban Noir on NPR. Which rhymes. Oh and features my friend Laura Lippman (via Tigerbeat).
*Now that I’m in Austin, posting switches to audio for the duration of the festival.
Then it begins again…
I so want rotating electrical outlets in my house. Like now (via BoingBoing).
According to the Writer’s Almanac, February 21, is the birthday of Chuck Palahniuk, Erma Bombeck, David Foster Wallace and W.H. Auden. How’s that for a quartet?
On my mind and in the RSS Hopper this week…
*I spent an ungodly amount of time on Wikipedia the other night looking up entries for The Olympic Games, rituals surrounding The Olympic Torch, the opening ceremonies and Eric Heiden. Time well spent.
*On the Media did a killer program this week all about the media and Middle East coverage. I dug.
*Yes, Barry Manilow has the #1 album in the country. In 2006. And pigs wear pajamas.
*Can MTV stay cool? When was the last time it was (via Micropersuasion)?
*In light of the James Frey mess, Sherman Alexie had a few things to say about Native American literary hoaxes.
*Transcript of Craig Newmark’s keynote speech at the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies (via Tigerbeat).
*Where are the female film critics? (via my friend Danyel).
*SXSWi. T-Minus 25 days and counting.