Washington Post: “But offering free programming directly to the consumer over the Internet may threaten to cannibalize the existing television business, analysts said. Network affiliates, which have traditionally cut deals with programmers to distribute content in regional television markets, will have to find ways of hanging on to their local audiences….’This probably makes the trend toward online video irreversible,’ said Phil Leigh, an analyst with research firm Inside Digital Media Inc.”
Month / April 2006
Journalistic Kids These Days
David Halberstam on Iraq: “Halberstam, who has written about other presidential administrations and war decisions, isn’t sure he will write about Iraq. ‘Part of me wants younger people to write it,’ yet there is the challenge of figuring out ‘how we have gotten it so wrong and why the Democrats behaved so poorly,’ he said.”
This is a good point. Where are today’s David Halberstams? Why is Seymour Hersh digging up all the dirt (again) while the Believer staffers devote their precious resources to Modest Mouse? For that matter, while this is a start, if Ben Kunkel is hot shit and n+1 represents a new world order, why isn’t he in Tehran right now digging up dirt?
New Single Not of the Streets
Kim has tracked down a single from The Streets’ new album. It’s an interesting new direction, but I’m a bit concerned. You see, part of Mike Skinner’s appeal is his no-bullshit lack of melody. Now the wanker has started singing instead of rapping, which sort of takes away from the grime and grit that made the first two albums so appealing in the first place. Skinner’s now saying, “You can’t stop fucking pop stars.” That’s a far and unfortunate cry from the passive and humdrum hell he captured so well in “Could Well Be In.”
Eisners Announced
I was beat to the punch by Powell’s, but the 2006 Eisner nominations have been announced. Warren Ellis and Chris Ware have landed the most nominations. But there are also nods to Brian K. Vaughan (Y: The Last Man is a Mabuse fave), Alan Moore, and Kyle Baker for two self-published efforts. Alex Robinson was also nominated for Tricked in the “Best Graphic Album — New” category.
And speaking of Warren Ellis, he’s put up three of his comics scripts for public perusal, if you’re of the curious persuasion.
Me Thinks Momus Doth Protest Too Much
Cry me a river, Momus. There is a very specific reason why I don’t own an iPod, a Zen Micro or even a shitty Discman. (I did own one of the latter, but I destroyed it about three years ago in mock anarchist mode in front of a few friends when it began malfunctioning.) It’s because I enjoy room tone and the sound of natural space, even that occupied with a dim tune coming from an overhead garret. It’s because I love riding the subway and the buses lost in a book or fascinated by a group of people or overhearing some salacious cell phone conversation. It’s also because I value my ears. When I do any kind of audio engineering, I want to bring a fresh concentration to what I do. I don’t think humans were designed to be exposed to constant 24/7 audio input. I suspect, however, that the MySpace generation born just after me doesn’t yet know this.
It should be noted that humans can, in fact, say no to things such as television and portable audio recorders. One can also befriend neighbors and come to terms with precisely the kind of volume level that might aggravate them (or likewise). If a schmuck like me (who is often socially inept) can find a common level of respect among his neighbors, then so can Momus.
In other words, I take objection to Momus’s premise that the American landscape has been irrevocably saturated by music. I live in the Haight. It can get quite noisy from time to time. But I did take care to move into a pad that had affordable rent and solid walls. Forward thinking and planning can get you into desirable environments. Tolerance too.
But here’s another existential trade secret: by exposing my ears to the natural din of conversation during my MUNI commutes and within my inner sanctum, any sort of audio onslaught, whether it be my neighbor blasting jazz or the Fiona Apple obsession the folks at my local coffeehouse is not only more tolerable, but it can be tuned out, provided that some sanctuaries still remain.
I’ll be more concerned if they start piping wretched elevator music into the subways.
Two Forms of Comics
YouTube: Harvey Pekar vs. David Letterman (August 31, 1988)
The Bat Segundo Show #30
Author: Erica Jong
Condition of Mr. Segundo: Taking care of fish-related housekeeping.
Winner of Philosophical Contest: John Barlow
Subjects Discussed: Maintaining a conversational and confessional tone, finding a voice, being known for Isadora Wing vs. poetry, Pablo Neruda, the current status of poetry, on sleeping with Martha Stewart’s husband, personal mistakes, why Jong wrote about Andy Stewart, sexism in the publishing industry, Dan Brown and The Da Vinci Code, Opus Dei, reader misconceptions of Fear of Flying, the chick lit ghetto, Jennifer Weiner, Molly Jong-Fast, on the lack of serious reviews of women’s fiction, the 1970s publishing environment vs. the 2000s publishing environment, the gender gap in literary fiction and the Canadian loophole, Mary Gaitskill, Brokeback Mountain, Annie Proulx, Kelly Link, American vs. international reputation, literary trends over the years, writing Toni Morrison her first fan letter, and Erica Jong the closet linguist.
J-Franz: A DFW in the Making?
Mr. Orthofer is well ahead of us. It looks like Jonathan Franzen has a new book, but it’s not a novel. It’s a memoir. Even worse, the book’s called The Discomfort Zone. We suppose that J-Franz should be extolled for truth in advertising. But we wonder if Franzen is venturing down the same unfortunate road as DFW. Like DFW, Franzen, after a major absence from writing (five years for Franzen, ten for DFW), has failed to write a novel after a well received title. After all, if David Mitchell has the cojones to follow up Cloud Atlas and offer a major departure in form, shouldn’t DFW or J-Franz have similar brass balls to follow up their highly regarded novels? Or perhaps the British have more courage and the American writers are just plain chicken.
Written APE, Oral APE
The SFist offers a written APE Report to which we would have offered a parallel, had we not saddled ourselves with nearly four hours of audio to organize and sift through.
Interestingly enough, of our grandiose comics haul, Fart Party Comics, despite its nom des ordures, has proven to be one of our favorites, with its chronicle of twentysomething life and random violence. Fortunately, we did chitchat with Julia Wertz at one point.
To Hell With the Hardcore Journalism…
…the Rake shoots (and drinks) straight, sans notes, with Charles D’Ambrosio.
Ron Burkle: Good for the Merc?
ITEM 1: Ron Burkle wants to buy the San Jose Mercury News.
ITEM 2: Jared Paul Stern caught on tape trying to extort $200,000 from Ron Burkle to print positive Page Six items. Burkle said no. Stern says he was set up, with the transcripts “edited by Burkle.”
ADDITIONAL GRAY AREAS: Unknown.
You make the call.
Berlusconi Defeated?
Facing Low Approval Ratings, Bush Steals a Page from the Amazing Kreskin to Justify War
Saratoga Gets Its Rocks Off
Metroblogging SF has the scoop on some extremely wacky rock sculptures down in Saratoga. Apparently, the municipal government believed that stacking rocks in the middle of a traffic island would be a fantastic idea. The idea here was to promote public art, but Simon Rodia this clearly wasn’t. The rock structures were ugly and were situated within a foot of the actual road, meaning that a rock from one of the structures could easily fall into the road or smash a windshield. The cost to erect this lawsuit-waiting-to-happen was $40,000. The cost to remove it is $15,000.
In other words, the City of Saratoga has now wasted $55,000 over a good deal of rocks. Hopefully, future efforts at public art will face greater aesthetic and financial scrutiny.
And More Links
- The home where Dickens completed Bleak House has been partially damaged in a fire.
- Marion Meade takes on Dorothy Parker. (via Chekhov’s Mistress)
- Don DeLillo’s new play Loves-Lies-Bleeding gets some coverage. Is it okay if I crack a few Henry James jokes? (via Sheila Heti’s #1 Fan)
- Over at I Love Books, folks are ranking Ulysses‘ chapters by their comprehensibility.
- Jim Crace digests Francis Fukuyama. (via Jenny D)
- Laila points to Haze, the latest Campo Santo production. We’d go, but not only are we profoundly exhausted, but there’s this horrible tax thing we’ve got to take care of this week.
- Holy shit! Lizzie Skurnick hasn’t disappeared from the face of the earth!
- Profile of Sengealese novelist Aminata Sow Fall.
- Sheila O’Flanagan: “I enjoyed the suits and briefcases and high heels. Then I got this urge to write.”
- Caitlin Flanagan, perhaps the only woman boosting Eisenhower-era values in the 21st century and a writer mistakenly identified as “intellectual” by the likes of the Atlantic and the New Yorker, blogged at Powell’s last week: “We laugh at the conformity that led to the ‘squareness’ of the Fifties, but we often forget to honor that decade’s emphasis on character, conscience, and civic responsibility that led to some of the great social achievements that followed, including civil rights and the women’s movement.” In fact, it was this emphasis on “Occupation: Housewife,” a woman’s second-tier status to a man (conscience!) and the “civic responsibility” of doing nothing more than cooking and cleaning that led women to call bullshit on the idea that they were somehow lesser than men. That anyone could “honor” this, without citing a single reason why, much less restrain laughter at celebrating such antediluvian values in the 21st century, is perhaps a vital clue that Ms. Flanagan is out to lunch, out of touch, and wholly unqualified to write for any media outlet.
Roundup
To my profound surprise, attrition has (sorta) kicked in. Corpus currently revolts, mind counters. But in the meantime:
- Beverly Cleary on NPR. (via Rarely Likable)
- Is Dale Peck the worst Tournament of Books judge of his generation?
- Ben Yagoda on Michiko Kakutani: “The qualities most glaringly missing from Kakutani’s work are humor and wit. Maybe in an attempt to compensate, she writes one or two parody reviews a year….Talk about cringe-making. They are so awful, from start to finish, that you cannot avert your eyes, much as you would like to.” Indeed. A thinker without a sense of humor is like a soldier without a bayonet. He may as well hole himself up at the barracks.
- Dan Wickett tackles the issue of review dates vs. publish dates, and the Literary Saloon follows up.
- Yann Martel: “‘Everyone, at one point, has to start integrating the Holocaust into their lives.” This Holocaust: Can you find it at Crate & Barrel? And does it go well with the rococo prints and the setee?
- Abigail Nussbaum takes on the Hugo novelette nominees, the short story nominees and the novella nominees.
- It looks like the odds we calculated were wrong. (Then again, we somehow figured that Mitchell was beneath the Conde Nasty highbores and that, as a result, they wouldn’t be covering him.) It looks like The New Yorker is the first to break ranks, remarking that Black Swan Green “has the subtlety of a watermark.” Although, Daniel Zalewski’s review also mistakenly suggests that Mitchell’s renown hasn’t translated into America. Really? Glowing reviews from nearly every media outlet? Considerable discussion among literary geeks? SRO crowds at bookstores? Maybe the Central Park West crowd might pooh-pooh Mitchell as “middlebrow.” I don’t know. But is this because Cloud Atlas has sold 100,000 copies in the States or because certain writers might be jealous of a young writer has come along with four novels transcending both popular and literary waters? By that measure, let’s discount John Updike, John Barth and Philip Roth from literary credibility. After all, their books sold pretty well during their early careers. They couldn’t possibly be any good, could they?
- B.R. Myers’ photo revealed. (Yes, sadly enough, we were curious.)
- WTF? James Blunt, ice cream and a 16 year old girl? Mike Tyson is a troubled soul. (via Quiddity)
Robinson
Aside from the fact that I somehow mixed up Han Solo with Greedo during the Eisner-Pekar Questionnaire, the panel went very well. Thanks to all who attended. APE podcasts forthcoming.
George Saunders Kicks Deborah Solomon’s Ass
Q: Your new collection of short stories, “In Persuasion Nation,” presents America as a commerce-saturated but happy place where children go to live with market-research firms and giant Twinkies run through fields of flowers. Is it fair to call you an ecstatic appreciator of trash culture?
Excuse me. Can we require readers to read my books before they continue with this interview?
Well, If There’s a Chronicle Quota for Only One Bay Area Litblogger, I Couldn’t Think of a More Deserving Person
Oscar Villalon remains deaf to my queries, but at least my pal Scott Esposito cracked the Chronicle today. And I’m very happy for him. Truly. No bullshit.
A Nation of Forensic Vagina Inspectors
New York Times: “There are other countries in the world that, like El Salvador, completely ban abortion, including Malta, Chile and Colombia. El Salvador, however, has not only a total ban on abortion but also an active law-enforcement apparatus — the police, investigators, medical spies, forensic vagina inspectors and a special division of the prosecutor’s office responsible for Crimes Against Minors and Women, a unit charged with capturing, trying and incarcerating an unusual kind of criminal.”
It’s the End of the World…
I Am an APEman
My bag bulges with comics. I lost track of the number of people I talked with after #15. And I went over my spending limit, um…just a tad. What I can say is this: unlike last year, there will be no written report. But there will be a three-part Bat Segundo podcast: two parts interviews on the floor, including an unexpected interview with Daniel Clowes (whose last name I badly mispronounced) along with many people who you likely don’t know about and who have some interesting ideas about comics. Some of the interviews are thoughtful. Some of them are batshit crazy. (Wait until you hear the interview with the people from Hot Gay Comics.) But all are quite entertaining and should give you a sense of just how much fun Alternative Press Expo is. To all the cartoonists I passed over, I am sorry. I’m just one guy and I can’t talk with everyone.
I also tracked down Top Shelf’s Chris Staros (with help from Alex Robinson, who I’m pleased to report is as nice a guy as they come) and got the inside track on Alan Moore & Melinda Gebbie’s upcoming Lost Girls, which I’ll report here later. For now, I have a party to attend and a panel to prepare for tomorrow afternoon at 3:30 PM. If you can’t make it, that will be Part 3 of the APE Podcast Trilogy. But rest assured, for those thinking they won’t get something live that they can’t get from a download, we will have a visual component in place. The producer tells me that Mr. Segundo is miffed at having to be employed more frequently than usual.
Segundo Feed Fixed
We’re back in business. And a few minor bells and whistles have been added. (Thank you, PodPress!)
This May Just Break My Gaming Celibacy
And That Resurrection Thing? Never Happened…
New York Times: “An early Christian manuscript, including the only known text of the Gospel of Judas, has surfaced after 1,700 years, and it portrays Judas Iscariot not as a betrayer of Jesus but as his favored disciple and willing collaborator….Here Jesus is said to entrust Judas with special knowledge and ask him to betray him to the Roman authorities. By doing so, he tells Judas, ‘you will exceed’ the other disciples.”
But On the Upside, It’s Better Than Getting Stuck in a K-Hole
McCall: “New findings indicate that when the popular Red Bull energy drink is consumed with alcohol, it actually reduces the user’s ability to recognize loss of motor skills….’The myth is that you take Red Bull and alcohol and you are going to be Superman, but it is a bad combination,’ said Dr. Lawrence Kessler, of the ER-DOX Clinic in Amityville. ‘I have young patients who come in dehydrated, their hearts racing too fast. They think you are doing an ‘upper,’ the caffeine in the drink, and a ‘downer,’ the alcohol, and you go sideways, but you end up crashing.'”
WGA Sets Itself Apart from Other Top 100 Lists by Adding One More
The Writers Guild of America has named the 101 greatest screenplays. The list can be found here.
For Full Service Massage, Suicidal Tendencies Will Do
Seattle Post-Intelligencer: “I love listening to Nirvana when doing deep-tissue massage.”
Bringing New Meaning to Self-Love
From Warren Ellis:
Forrester Tells People What They Want to Hear
The big news going around the podcasting community is this Forrester report, which asserts “that only 1% of online households in North America regularly download and listen to podcasts.” Of course, since the actual six-page report is hidden behind a $249.00 walll, we can’t exactly corroborate the methodology behind this sweeping assertion. Nor is there any indication on how these “online households” are defined or determined. How many people were tested? Where were they tested? Were they dial-up or broadband?
Without these terms established, I really can’t see how anyone who believes in the scientific method can get into a big fuss over this. For one thing, Charlene Li’s math seems considerably off to me. If Forrester claims that there are “just 700,000 U.S. households” using podcasting, how did the two million downloads of The Ricky Gervais Show (after the first seven shows) happen? Surely, a substantial bloc of those downloads were American.
Granted, I’m just as skeptical about the Web 2.0 propaganda as anyone else. But if podcasts are a bust, why are so many companies spending so much money putting them out? Is so much VC riding on a long tail effect? A hunch? Or is this because the web stats (a far more verifiable figure than Forrester’s “we’ll tell you how we did it if you drop three C-notes” ruse) confirm a growing audience of listeners?
Of course, for those who Want to Believe, here are some fundamental reasons why Forrester’s “studies” should be called into question.
1. New York Times (February 20, 2005): From CEO George Colony’s own mouth: “Forrester, as it turns out, as it comes out of the recession, is really a portfolio company.” Colony has also insisted over the years that Google will be eclipsed by Microsoft, Yahoo and AOL.
2. CNet (October 7, 2003): Forrester releases “integrity policy” after Forrester stacked the deck in favor of Microsoft concluding that Windows was cheaper for companies to run than Linux (study paid for by Microsoft, with Forrester using a mere 12 companies as the basis for their results) and another bought and paid for by PeopleSoft. Because of this, software companies are now forbidden from publicizing Forrester results. In other words, Forrester Research commissions deficient studies, asks the companies to pay for them and orders them to keep their mouths shut after telling them what they want to hear! Brilliant!
3. ZDNet (November 17, 2005): George Colony: “I foresee a world in which even enterprise applications like financials, ERP (enterprise resource planning), and supply chain software will be advertising-funded.” Sure, because, as the 191 million+ downloads of Ad-Aware have demonstrated, everyone loves spyware and adware that cripples their OSes!
4. And then there’s bullshit from Colony in the Contra Costa Times (July 31, 2005): “Yet the president of Forrester Research, George Colony, who met last week with Hurd, is convinced that the company’s new chief will impose a sharper focus on HP when he unveils Phase 2 of his plans for the company. The only reason he did not do so earlier this week, Colony said, is that he has not been there long enough to devise a new strategy.”
Really, George? You mean, with all of your seer-like powers, you’re essentially telling us that a new CEO needs to settle and assess a situation before developing a game plan? Wow, that’s like Economics 101!
It’s only natural that newspapers are jumping onto this story like crazy. Because like the Microsoft people commissioning the Forrester study back in 2003, they’re hearing exactly what they want to hear. Podcasting is dead! Long live podcasting!
Well, if you want to believe this without proof or confirmable data, then you may as well believe that George Colony has five testicles in his nut sack.
[UPDATE: Looks like the sample pull was 5,015 computer users and that many of those surveys didn’t have broadband. Where were these people located? How was this representative sample obtained?]