Video killed the Radio Starlet

While I'm still in the swells of podcast love, I have a newfound level of cool for radio personalities. NY Mag did a profile on 16-year-old Keili Hamilton, the youngest radio DJ on WFMU, an indie station broadcasting to NYC and Jersey. She makes me cure my parents for letting me listen to hours of Broadway soundtracks instead of PJ Harvey when I was little.

Advertising Backlash

Commoners are finally getting smart about how to get corporate attention. $$$$. The show Chuck on NBC is being threatened with cancellation. There is a small but strong band of fans of the show that are petitioning to save the show. But instead of writing letter to the network that will never get read for fear of anthrax or revolution, fans are going to speak in the language of the corporation - advertising dollars. Subway is a major sponsor of the show with product placement sprinkled throughout episodes. On the night of the finale (tonight) fans are encouraged to buy footlong subs to let the advertisers decide if they want to pull out of this gold mine of customers.

I'm wearing it as a joke

I could watch 30 Rock a hundred times and always find some new quip buried under the plot. That's why I watched last night's episode 3 times (one for every glass of wine I poured). When Liz and Jack google "la viuda negra" to uncover Elisa's dark secret, this is the website they find. Liz: "Blue writing on green...Why??" My web design prof would have been so proud. We spend an hour of class last week looking at the world's worst websites.

Also, per the AV Club, during the montage of Tracey JORDAN'S stomach there is a clip of Tracey MORGAN flashing his stomach during a chicago news broadcast. Trying to hunt down the clip now.

And lots of special guests for the finale!

Fighter of the Night Man

I'm starting to get shaky with the lack of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia in my life. But until the new season premieres (if you find the date PLEASE tell me), I came across the personal blog for one of its writers, Sonny Lee. In the absense of new episodes, this site is a great look at the inside workings (or not working) of the machine that churns out the Seinfeld-on-crack show.

Its a Mad Mad World

What are we going to tonight, Brain? The same thing we do every night Pinky - Try to take over the world!

A favorite topic of mine is trying to understand the breadth and depth of the Google infiltration of our digital lives. As part of Mad magazine's 500th issue, they give their theories on what goes on behind the primary colors of the Google offices.

At the Palm of your Hand

Somewhere between the too tiny keys of a blackberry and the 6 lb weight of a laptop, a hybrid laptop has emerged. I saw a girl on the #8 bus this morning with an 8 in mini laptop in her lap, typing away in Word. She had one of the most popular of this emerging product, the Aero Aspire One Netbook. Not only does it go easy on your shoulder at only 2.2lbs, but easy on your wallet as well. Most netbooks cost under $500. I am conversational at best at tech spec language but I believe the money savings comes from the low quality drives and screen.

Per my tech geek dad: "They're designed primarily for web browsing and email, so they have a very basic operating system, like XP or Linux, no CD drive (so you can't load software onto them except via download), a small (like 16 or 32 GB) solid state hard drive (like that used in an ipod Nano or shuffle), and a wireless network interface. You can't open a word document or spreadsheet, or anything like that, unless you're using something like Google Docs."

Doc has been researching buying one before he leaves for Fiji next month per the recommendation of lots of returning Peace Corps volunteers. They are very easy to travel with and if you run it with Linux, there is less of a chance of catching some ravaged computer virus from the South Pacific. They have a battery life of 5-6 hours, which is good if your going to be living a hut for 2 years. Most come with build in webcams so your friends and family back in the US can track the length of your dreadlocks over 2 years. Or to connect with an elementary school in the US to teach the youth about volunteering and the vastness of the world. The possibilities are endless!

Lost in the pages of Wired

Wired mag, in all its geeky glory, handed over the reins to JJ Abrams for their May issue. And yes, he is just as much of a mindf*ck in print as he is on TV as the creator of Lost. The issue is dedicated to mystery, puzzles, clues, theories, and more. Grab your magnifying glass and basset hound for this one. There is another layer to this editorial. Abrams has created a cerebral riddle hidden within the pages of the magazine. The prize is unclear, aside from true mastery of codes and patterns. Steven Bevacqua was the first to successful solve the riddle; NY Times walked through the tests that he conducted to discover this hidden website.

This issue is interactivity without the use of technology (All of the clues are within the pages, none on the Wired website). A major strain to the magazine industry has been the shift to digital. This excitement and sense of being part of something within the tangible pages of the magazine pulls the read into the pages at a new level, reading between the lines and noticing details they may normally skim over. It may be a novel gasp of fresh air for print magazines, but if its getting people to turn pages and think critically about text, then its fresh air all the same.

Everyone loves a makeover story

Laura gave me a tutorial on Google Reader and RSS feeds this week, something I should have learned about a year ago. As with most new gadgets, I am overwhelming myself with the opportunities I suddenly have. I already have 11 blogs in my feed. And as I was surfing around looking for blogs to flood my mind with, I realized how sorely neglected and behind my blog has become. Because I always want my posts to burrow deep in your mind and make you think about pop culture in a new way, my posts are a little lengthy. And all the cool kids' blogs are short and snappy. 

So its time for a new format. Something less intimidating, quicker, lighter. One or two paragraphs about anything cool I learned that day. Because in the world of media and the blogosphere, there is something new to discover everyday. My main goal is going to be to post something daily. Something. I'm sure I will still find myself ranting about the societal impact of various pop culture artifacts. But to avoid avoiding writing for the sake of the intimidation of writing 5 paragraphs about the value of quarters in a coin-laundry city, I am going to focus more on content and less on length. 

Ready. Go!

It's Podcastic!

Podcasts are a new exploration for me. I know it may seem outdated in this day and age of technology whizzing by and always something new coming up to outdate the old. But after taking a class last quarter about technology and culture, I’m ready to critical analyzes anything digital to come my way. This week it happens to be podcasts.

I starting looking at podcasts in iTunes to find some new music so that Justin doesn’t have to spoon-feed me all my playlists (although his lists are chocolaty delicious!). I discovered that bowtie-and-tweed NPR has taken some advice from Stacey and Clinton and has been putting out fresh-faced podcasts on pop culture and indie music. NPR’s series “All Songs Considered” has a podcast of live shows with great quality and some interviews mixed in. Yesterday I was in DC with the Ting Tings, listened to She & Him at the Newport Folk Festival during a rainstorm, and was at the Santa Barbara Bowl with Radiohead. All without leaving my cubicle! I explored the NPR podcast website a little more and found a pop culture feed with interviews and commentary on all things bohemian. I always put podcasts in the category of radio, with commentary introducing music. But this idea that I can get my news and gossip told to me while I settle into my desk every morning instead of having to scroll through website is awesome! Embrace the laziness! So after enlisting Justin’s help on some recommendations (there is no hope of me ever finding good music without his guidance) I have a preliminary list of podcasts I shuffle through each day

NPR All Songs Considered Live

NPR Pop Culture

USA Today: Pop Candy

Bands under the Radar

Indie Feed: Big Shed Audio Documentaries

PRI: The Sounds of Young America

I'm drunk on the possibilities that these podcasts hold for me. The biggest set back to having a real job in the that I have to hold my blog-surfing until the evening and inevitably my attention is entranced by Toddlers & Tiaras or Planet Earth. But now I can listen to an interview with the cast of Always Sunny while doing my data entry. These niche radio shows are more informal, relaxed, and less forced than the Clear Channel propaganda of regular fm radio. I feel like I'm listening in on a conversation with my ahead-of-the-curve friends with soothing voices and witty repertoire. I feel less alone in my beige world of paper-pushing because I'm paper-pushing while listening to a report on teaching university courses in Second Life and discovering bands like Miss Li. Multi-tasking like it was truly meant to be!

Justin had a similar take on the podcast listening experience "Podcasts don’t have to adhere to record label mandated playlists. In fact, most of the time, they feature album tracks that don’t get pushed by labels as singles. You can listen to them on your own time, they are portable, and you don’t have to deal with commercials. They seem more personal than internet radio. If I don’t listen to then at work, then in my car."

One of the most surprising discoveries I have made while exploring this new art genre are audio collages. I initially found a Big Shed podcast about an audio producer, Zak Rosen, and his audio collage put together during his study abroad in Spain. I'm still trying to fully understand the format but the basic idea is that one goes about their day (preferably somewhere sweet like Rio de Janeiro), recording all the sounds of the streets and citizens of said sweet location, and cutting it and mixing it down into 10 min of beautiful day-to-day sounds and sayings. Although it seems choppy and a nuisance at first, I realized how oddly interesting and engaging it sounds to not have a visual to create a concrete scene. You can develop the scene as you picture it with the sounds. I think there is some soothing element to the buzz of noise pollution (spoken like a true city girl yes?). I sleep in the dead of winter with my window open so I can be rocked to sleep by the sounds of Lincoln ave, the drunken fights of college kids at the Lincoln Park bars, and the ambulance sirens heading to the Children's Hospital. I am comforted by the movement of people and cars outside. So I guess it should follow suite that I am enjoying drowning out the sounds of the menopausal women in my office with the sounds of chatter and horns. And in general the podcasts make me feel more connected and social (in some digitally-isolated way) to the rest of the world when I can listen to these podcasters talk about all things pop culture and awesome and feel like they are talking to me. I realize this seems sad and desperate to reach out to the world via a podcast feed while sitting in my cubicle cell, but we have to use the technology available to stay connected and informed.

I also loved the guilty pleasure that Justin told me about:

"I also listen to an old man’s podcast, NPR’s Writer’s Almanac, hosted by Garrison Keillor. Its on everyday and features history about that particular day and a poetry reading. Its relaxing for some reason...NPR is way cooler than I thought it was"

I wonder what other odd things people listen to on their iPods. God that sounds like a great social experiment waiting to happen...

Gossip Girl for the Soul

Call it girlie, but I will still make you think….

- Amy Winehouse’s name has started to pop up in the festival lineups for this summer. At first my heart skipped a beat at the chance to hear her seductress voice again but, alas, one must take her track record into consideration. Will she even show up? Will people come just to see her fail in the public spotlight again? I want so badly to believe that her months of gallivanting around the Bahamas topless are going to produce a renewed talent and a new album. I mean, when you think about it, what better therapy is there that returning to your natural state on the beach with ocean and hammocks and pineapples without the threat of social inebriation or conformist clothing? I’m still rooting for you Amy, the state of music needs that refreshingly timeless voice back.

- Elsa Fisher can’t catch a break. With the unfortunately upcoming release of her new movie Confessions of the Shopaholic in the midst of the Recession hurricane, she is being pegged as naïve, ignorant, and uncompassionate to the current fiscal situations of Americans to produce a film that satirizes the excessive spending habits of one NYC chick. But there is so much more to this situation that it doesn’t seem reasonable to boil down the current economic attitude of the country to the gig of one actress. First, perhaps this is actually the PERFECT time for this movie’s release. One prime function of movies is the sense of unreality and escapism that they allow the viewer to fall into. I know that's why I read books and watch movies; to try to feel what the story is giving. So when nobody can afford to buy shoes and purses and things, what is the harm in spend two hours in a dark room, sitting in royally velvet red overstuffed seats and remember what it was like when you could. Most mainstream film genres (romantic comedies in particular) do not claim to be real life, but to use their magic of cinematography to evolve real emotions in viewers. Second, I understand that when an actor signs up for these gigs, they are giving up their image to be the “face of” a project. And unfortunately Isla is feeling the blow of this fact. But we are rational, knowledgeable people and we understand the basics of film. There are hundreds of other people that make a film a reality. Why aren’t the critics looking to Jerry Bruckheimer? To Touchstone Pictures? To Disney? If you’re going to criticize, don’t pinpoint one scapegoat; look at the bigger picture (and everyone that created it). Third, Elsa has been trying to get her big break in US film for years, and much to her credit, she is on her way up. Her breakout roll in Wedding Crashers followed by her marriage to satirist gold Sasha Baron Cohen has picked up her public image as a comedienne. She needed a starring roll to push herself into the category with comedian goddesses like Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, and Mindy Kaling. According to Wiki, she has co-written a scrip called “The Groupies” with Amy Poehler. Yes Please! So she got the call from household-name-making Disney to do this silly romcom and took the opportunity to make a solid name for herself. Her intentions did not lie in oblivion to the economic depression, but perhaps to hamper people’s frets of grey skies and empty streets of fifth ave or, hell, just to make people laugh.

- Its official, the love-em-or-hate-em ladies of Sex and the City have all signed on to do a sequel to the epic movie. I won’t hide the fact that I am a S&C fan, but even I have to raise an eyebrow at this move. I always thought the movie was to tie up lose ends and answer long standing questions left at the finale of the show. But really, WHAT is this going to be about? I ask this a current gen Yer. Then I had a thought…what if the audience is shifting. I’m thinking that a story about Samantha’s early retirement at 50 and the other ladies baby-making plans doesn’t quite grab my attention the way their quips of love conquest wins and loses did. But to others, it probably is. What are the thoughts and situations that independent, proven-worthy women work through after their years of gallivanting around the single life? So of course I’m going to go see it at its release in 2010, but will have to take a difference mindset in there with me. And for me, the excitement of a single 20-something’s life and love lies in the premier of He’s just not that into you tonight