A place for my stuff

A combination of factors leads me to wonder if this blog will survive the transitions churning daily in my life and in the world of technology:

1. Facebook satisfies my urge to pass along photos, links and smartass commentary. More people are on it than will ever be on this blog, and everything on that platform is so much more convenient to use for all involved.

2. I’m writing less. I find myself with fewer things to ponder as I get older. Rarely do I find thoughts that require developing and fleshing out. Maybe my brain is drying out with age and Facebook is forcing me into compressing my creativity to fit their bite-sized spaces; or maybe I’ve just got more things figured out.

3. I’m using Flickr more often; tracking the days of my life visually rather than in text. I even started a Tumblr because it’s so easy to post photos directly from my phone. Perhaps WordPress has some new tool for aggregating activity across Flickr, YouTube, Facebook, etc., that I can implement to keep this space useful. I’ll do some digging. Or maybe someone out there can tell me? Basically I’d like WordPress to do what Tumblr does – aggregate anything link-based: a YouTube favorite, a photo upload from my phone, an article, a Flickr photo.

Maybe I just need to use WordPress to do monthly summaries of everything. A Best-Of repository. Stay tuned.

I promised myself I wouldn’t let another month go by between blog entries, but once again I’ve failed, due mainly to equal parts creativity drought and space/time acceleration. So, for no other reason than to mark time for future reference, here is some condensed bloggage:

SXSW – 2010 was a slow year for me at SXSW. No super-exciting shows, the bizarre cold snap kept me from hanging out with my sister and her kids, I missed the guitar convention and record show, and I missed Linus of Hollywood. Oh, and Alex Chilton died on my birthday. Still, it was nice to get some sunny days of biking around. And Tara is becoming quite the chef.

Meat Loaf – My friend Aly had a conflicting engagement last Wednesday so she sent me to a small album preview gathering at The Hit Factory for Meat Loaf’s new album. I got to meet Meat and listen to the bombastic new record (featuring Steve Vai, Jack Black, Brian May and more) in a nice studio with sandwiches and cookies. Score!

Colleen – My virtual friend Colleen became real a week ago when I met my longtime Flickr bud in realtime. She’s putting out her first children’s book, Hamster & Cheese, and was doing a women’s author panel at the NYPL (where I finally got my library card).

Easter brunch – I was invited to a fellow Arkansan’s gathering of other Arkansans, so it was nice to meet new people from old places. Even if they were all distressingly young and insanely pretty.

Greenberg – Director Noah Baumbach did a Q&A after the premiere of his new film Greenberg at BAM. Very cool to see him in person, as I’ve been a fan of his for a long time.

Lucas – Corey Haim’s early death prompted me to head over to J&R after work to find a copy of Lucas on DVD. It’s still a heartbreakingly great movie, and it makes me wonder if Haim might have had more in him than his hearthrob marketing allowed him to use.

The General Electric Building – Man, is this place a temple to electricity or what? It was the home to RCA then GE before Rockefeller Center was completed. Check out the sides, the deco carvings, the subway entrance.

Books – I tallied up my books today. The unread outnumber the read by about 5.

Moving – As mentioned earlier, I’m in search of my own place, but now my roommate is moving back to Tennessee. Whatever happens, this is the end of a chapter for both of us. Hopefully the new chapter for me begins with central heat and air and lots of natural light.