Hustler of Culture
Much as I and my bedding need this, I have my doubts that it’s so easy. Doesn’t mean I won’t try (via Dansays).
UPDATE: These instructions suck. I’ve tried it 4 times now and still end up with a lump of excess sheet at one end of the folding. Suzan took me through it. Seems on corners 3 and 4, you need to straighten the seams to keep the sheet from bunching inside the folds. But the instructions leave out that part.
*My friend Keith Knight has illustrated a great new book called A Beginners Guide to Community-Based Arts. Their supporting organization The Crossroads Project create a network of community-based artists, educators researchers and organizers.
*The New York Observer profiles the relaunched Paris Review. The journal has redesigned its pages and overhauled its staff looking to maintain its position of literary esteem in the media-overloaded 21st century.
*Webzine 2005 is next week! Check out this great clip about the last Webzine in 1999.
I’ve got my ticket. Do you?
Eons ago I linked to WORDCOUNT, which links every word in the english language by commonality of use, then promptly forgot what it was called. My buddy Emily Hambidge just linked to it as part of her Weekly Roundup. Thanks EH.
“The” is the most commonly used word in the English language followed by “of” and “and”.
Emily just sent me a link to the Really Free Market, a once a month garage sale in San Francisco where everything is free. What a neat idea.
It’s the last Saturday of the month, which means tomorrow. I think we’re going.
Though I don’t use Flickr much myself (because I don’t own a camera), I love it’s weird groupings, collisions of simple creativity and manic lateral thinking. Like this one, inanimate objects that look like human faces (via Kottke.org).
So I’m pissed that I missed National Ice Cream Sandwich Day, which was earlier this week. And that I wasn’t in Los Angeles where I could get one from Diddy Riese: Ice cream between two cookies for $1, still the best deal around.
Instead I’m in Vancouver serving as a guest faculty member for this. Which has been a lot of fun so far.
So ever since the release of iTunes 4.9 and their lavish embrace of podcasting (say what?), I’ve been meaning to post about the podcasts I regularly download. Consider it this week’s edition of Sunday Mornings Shards. Due to the rigors of book touring, I’m long overdue so please consider gently.
Podcasts: I’ve been stung. I’m a full-blown radio addict (at least 3 hours a day, often many more) and have craved something like "TiVo for radio" for at least a few years now. Thanks to sites like Public Radio Fan and friends now working in the business, I hear often about new radio programs I’d like to try. But there’s no way to guarentee or even hope that I’ll be in front of my computer at X time on Y day and have an uninterrupted hour to enjoy it. Which is why podcasting is such a great thing. You subscribe to a "feed" (so need to worry about what that is. it’s a stupid term anyway) from the podcast produceer (Podcast Alley is a great directory of them) and use a piece of software to download the program to your desktop. Now you don’t have to be listening to the radio at exactly the right time to hear On the Media. Now, On the Media comes to you and you listen to it whenever you like.
Pre-iTunes 4.9, I used a piece of software called PlayPod, which was fine. I still had to relabel everything after downloading and move it to appropriate folders on iTunes so I could listen to podcasts while commuting or at the gym. Since i use iTunes anyway for updating my iPod, 4.9 puts them all in one place, labels everything and lets me stop a podcast in the middle then pick up again without having to hold my thumb on Fast Forward for 20 minutes.
So 4.9 has been great for my purposes. Not every show I like has a podcast (Fresh Air, This American Life, what up?) so for those I use Radio Time and Audio Hijack which are ok but improving I hear.
Below is a list of what podcasts I listen to in order of frequency. I’ve included the subscription URL, which you put into iTunes or whatever software you use for downloading, when it asks you to "subscribe".
As soon as I get it:
On the Media (subscribe): Weekly roundup of media-related news and features out of New York City. I used to miss this show every Sunday because it conflicted with my friend Roman’s program.
Rumor has it OTM’s listenership has doubled thanks to podcasting
Dawn & Drew Show (subscribe): Wisconsin husband and wife blathering 3-5 times a week. Much much funnier than it sounds. Some of the first podcasting "celebs."
Ebert & Roeper Movie Reviews (Subscribed through iTunes): I just found this. I never remember to watch their show on TV. This weekly version has no commercials.
Assload of programing from KCRW (info): Los Angeles’s KCRW was the first major public radio station to take the lead in podcasting, offering nearly all of their non-music program for download as soon after broadcast. I listen to their 5 minute commentaries (Art Talk, On the Beat and Overbooked) without fail and their half-hour entertainment shows (The Treatment, The Business, Bookworm) while driving, flying or cleaning house. The Politics of Culture works better in the abstract than in execution but I love the title so I hold out hope.
Future Tense (subscribe): Five minute commentaries (this one on technology) are great for breaks in work or the cool down period on a treadmill.
Writer’s Voice Radio (subscribe): Weekly interview show for book lovers from my local radio station. Podcasting for them is a stroke of genius.
Pinky’s Paperhaus (subscribed through iTunes): "Podcasting Writers Who Rock." Writers DJ and talk about books. Produced by the indomitable Carolyn Kellog.
Sometime Yes, Sometimes No:
Forum (subscribe): San Francisco’s signature call-in public affairs program will have 1 or 2 topics a week Im interested in. But since they are an hour long, I usually save up and listen when on a long trip.
Dailysonic (subscribe): Morning Edition for Generation X. Out of NYC. Great program but the daily barrage keeps me a few shows behind.
IT Conversations (subscribe): I pick and choose speeches from different tech conferences that interest me. Tons and tons of stuff here so you have to be descriminating.
The Theory of Everything (subscribe): Benjamin Walker’s Boston-based weekly program is genius. Imagine Andy Kauffman getting his hands on This American Life. I have to be in the right frame of mind for it but when I am, Daymmmnnnnnnn.
Friends and ‘casts I’m trying out:
My friend Eric Rice is a media empire of one. His podcast The Eric Rice Show (subscribe) is the tip of the iceberg.
Baratunde Thurston is a Boston-based comedian I’ve befriended over the last year or so. He does a homegrown radio show called The Front Porch Podcast (subscribe) that I dig.
ThoughtCast is another show out of Boston that interviews scholars and academics (subscribe).
I’m also subscribed to iPodarmy, The Book Cast and NextBook’s podcast, even though I haven’t listened to them yet.
What are your favorite podcasts?
Justin, my college roommate who makes his home here in Chicago, was kind enough to pass along this Chicagoist interview with Mr. T, I guess to make me feel at home?
On my mind and in the reading queue this week. The "one’s own bed" edition. Zzzzzzzzzzzz.
*I Want Media offers an assload of well-curated media-related news stories everyday. A great resource if impossible to keep on top.
*Urban Bush Women is celebrating their 20th anniverary.
*Bruce Sterling asks "Can Technology Save the Planet?" (via World Changing)
*I’m eager to read Business Week’s cover story "The Power of Us" about how Internet-style mass collaberation is changing the world of business.
*Ron Kovic’s Vietnam War memoir Born on the Fourth of July is being rereleased. AlterNet has an excerpt of his new introduction.
*The solution to cold delivered pizza? Make it in the van (via The Artful Manager).
*The art of sign painting is coming back to Coney Island.
*Playpod is my new best friend. Whips iPodder cold. Listening to podcasts no longer resembles hunting for a missing sock.
*Radiotime continues to suck, in case you were still interested. It’s recording right now on my iMac which means it’s about 1 for 56.
*Question: How do these guys do a radio show when they live in different cities? Can you record a Skype conversation and, if so, with what?
*Book #2 has begun. I’m playing around with DEVONthink (as recommended by Steven Johnson) and it’s got me all excited about the research. It’s a study of the effect 21st century technology will have on the high arts. Wish me luck.
Because you’re probably sick of hearing about the bee oh oh kay (stolen outright from Wendy) and because I have a summer’s worth of talking about it ahead of me, I’m gonna scatter some web crumbs that have been keeping me distracted from larger, eh, bookish matters at hand.
*The 92nd St. Y, the most lavish Y in the known universe, now has a blog.
*While on the road, Suzan has grown sick of the 20 newspaper pile-up on our doorstep. Since we both work at home and live in a 3rd floor walk-up, by the time you get downstairs to grab the Times and the Chronicle, you’re kinda out of that pleasant morning paper haze. And the pile of newsprint I toss into the recycling bin every week seems a waste. So I think we’re going to stop home delivery for a while and try getting the news we need via both paper’s RSS feeds. Suzan’s a fan of the LA Times, which has one lame RSS feed created by a contractor. Huh? Welcome to 2005 you sagasses.
*On that note, Salon isn’t much better with one massive dump of an everything they print feed. Who reads every section of salon? Or any periodical? I expect better from a publication that’s been so forward-looking in other ways.
*Last RSS bit: Thanks to BEA and too much time in strange beds, I’ve been adding an assload of feeds to my reader. To wit…
*Feeds from Litblog Co-op members Ed Champion, Bookdwarf and publication The Book Standard.
*The blog from the film adaptation of RENT.
*The Kweskin Report, a new blog about the future of arts management.
*Did you know Kriss Kross was still around?
*Kamikaze Hearts made beautiful soulful, folky heartland music that I first heard on Daily Sonic. They’ve got a ton of mp3s on their site too.