New Plog

I know the question on everybody’s mind is, “why hasn’t there been a new plog since December?” Well, I haven’t been taking many pictures, sadly. It’s probably because my battery life is getting so low that I can only take a few pictures at a time. I’ll be sure to get a new battery before next week’s trip to Austin, where I will more than likely take a zillion pictures and post them here or on Flickr while I’m down there. I have to admit, the ease of use and popularity of Flickr may kill the plog. People who come to my journal barely seem to notice the plog’s existence anyway.  I may start referring to it as Sneaky Photography, because I recently acquired that domain name and pointed it to the plog. I just have to get the link out there.

Google and the New Economy

Here are some very enlightening quotations from a recent article on Google at Time magazine:

ERIC SCHMIDT (CEO): “The company isn’t run for the long-term value of our shareholders but for the long-term value of our end users.”

LARRY PAGE (Founder): “If we were motivated by money, we would have sold the company a long time ago and ended up on a beach.”

Bravo, boys. Here’s to what I hope will begin a revolution toward an economy where profit is secondary to the greater good and to personal satisfaction.  If that sounds ridiculously optimistic, consider this: a hundred years ago industries thrived because they filled a need, a necessity, and profit was derived from that, but today it seems like the tenor of business in this country is one of want, of convenience. We are finding ever more luxuries with which to fill our lives. The middle class is doing much less physical labor. We’re getting to a point where necessity is no longer the mother of invention, convenience is. Our lives are so convenient now that many more of us have the option of taking a job we enjoy versus a job we’re forced into. I feel like trade skills are falling off while interchangeable office skills are on the rise. In that environment, there exists more freedom to choose a job you enjoy. Your daily aim then becomes doing your job well because you care about the work.

I’m not saying this is widespread right now, nor will come to pass for the entire populace any time soon, but I really think it might be possible. Give it a thousand years and we’ll see. The danger between now and then becomes finding something enjoyable for everyone to do. Today there are so many members of my generation and younger who are so affluent that they’re bored to tears and psychologically abused by an army of marketers trying to sell them unnecessary trinkets and pleasures. They have no idea where to start looking for something about which they can be passionate. They need mental, emotional and spiritual food and they’ve got Kelly Clarkson and MTV. We’ve traded in physical hardship for psychological stress. For everything you gain, you lose something I suppose.

Anyway, that all just popped in from out of nowhere. Not sure if it’s coherent but oh well. Thinking about those two statements and how they run completely counter to traditional capitalism brings me a great deal of joy. Maybe change can start at the top for once.

Deaths All Around

The long shadow cast by the death of Don Knotts[1] has perhaps obscured your awareness of other, lesser known luminaries who have recently passed away. 2006 has brought us the news of the deaths of two of the remaining Cowsills, Billy and Barry. Who are the Cowsills, you say? They’re actually the group upon whom The Partridge Family was based, a family band of teens and a mom that fused the gooey pop of the Monkees with the harmonic inventiveness of the Beach Boys. Take a listen:

The Rain, the Park and Other Things (right click to save as…)

I’m pretty sure the tunes were written by Brill Building songwriters, but we don’t hold that against the Monkees, do we?[2]

We also lost avant-garde jazz guitarist Derek Bailey. I only have some random remixes of his stuff, and since it’s skronky, atonal electric guitar, I’ll spare you a sample.

1.) Can death cast a shadow?
2.) Yes.

Introducing…Sparky McCorkindale!

It has been an interesting and exciting day. The main reason is that I have learned that the keyboardist for Jellyfish, Roger Manning, is playing at South by Southwest on my birthday, March 17th. I have already planned to attend SXSW from the 15th through the 19th, and in addition to Roger, another of my all-time favorites, The Soft.Lightes are playing that same day. Not a bad way to turn 30.

Also, I have been immortalized by the marketing department of Mr. Electric. Today they had us put up a coloring book for kids. They had to come up with names for the characters….and so one of them is named Sparky McCorkindale. Click here for the PDF (5 MB).

Something else I’m excited about is that I just discovered the Toon Disney channel, which has The Tick on EVERY DAY!

Snakes on a Plane!!

Samuel L. Jackson is starring in a movie called Snakes on a Plane. Seriously. He says the title was part of the appeal. Apparently it’s just crazy enough to work, because the Net is already awash in parodies and jokes. If the old adage is true about there being no such thing as bad publicity, this is a good test case:

Snakes on a Plane at Wikipedia
Snakes on a Plane at Wired
Snakes on a Plane 2: Planes on a Snake
Cartoons and T-shirts

Quoth Jackson: “That’s the only reason I took the job: I read the title.”

I just ordered the t-shirt.

This Is Where I’m From #4

You go, Scott Hoffman. Scott has organized an anti-bigotry movement in Harrison. From talking to my mom, I hear it’s getting a little split on the issue of homosexuality, but these things take time. For those who don’t know, Harrison, and Northern Arkansas in general, has a near-zero black population and is generally known as a haven for the KKK and other white supremacist groups. It’s a status based more in perception than in actual fact, though. The old urban legend [1] goes that the grand wizard of the Knights of the KKK came into the Harrison post office for bulk stamps for his operation, and they gave him a packge of Martin Luther King, Jr. stamps. Not sure if it’s really true, but I think it exemplifies most of the population’s stance on the issue.

1.) Harrison is rural, so does it still qualify as “urban”?

How Am I Not Myself?

Some notes from the long icy weekend of staying home:

The DVD commentary by writer/director David O. Russell on I ♥ Huckabees is something I highly recommend. It reminds me of a companion study guide as Russell is given the room to expand on the ideas the film presents. When I first saw the movie, I just enjoyed it as a clever head scratcher, plus I went to a late show and was sleepy at the time. I know my date fell asleep, and I think I may have as well. But after watching it again, I realize it’s a great movie for anyone with an interest in Zen or Existentialism or philosophy in general. It’s a great unpacking of a lot of important concepts for modern, thoughtful living.

I also recommend Kentucky Fried Movie.

Much of my weekend was spent in the music room playing either keyboard or guitar. I plowed through a stack of Guitar One back issues. On the piano I discovered something completely new to me: the black keys spell out an E flat pentatonic minor scale. This means that anything you do will sound cool if you use the E flat key as your tonic. Even better, that black keys are raised, so there’s more lattitude for sloppy playing. This struck me as a tremendous metaphor for music in general: the white keys spell out the traditional C Major/A minor scales that form the basis of European classical music while the black keys spell out the pentatonic scale, the basis for all blues and rock music. Ebony and ivory indeed.

I also got my cool, and apparently rare, Quik Lok tiltable keyboard stand last week. It had been on backorder from Sam Ash for so long I had given up hope of pretending I’m Tom Brislin.

Another pleasant surprise: I never noticed my copy of John Coltrane’s Blue Train had a CD-ROM feature. The bad news: the disc is from the mid-90’s. Meaning it wouldn’t work quite right and I think I accidentally installed Quicktime circa 1997. Oh well, a video and tons of audio interviews will make up for that.

And finally, Bill Graham’s vault. So many vintage posters, t-shirts, and more from the late San Francisco promoter/manager extraordinaire. He is generally credited with inventing the rock concert as we know it, and apparently he was quite the pack rat.  While much of it is super-expensive vintage memorabilia, there are some cool reproduction t-shirts that I’m thinking about getting.

The Film of Tomorrow

“The film of tomorrow appears to me as even more personal than an individual and autobiographical novel, like a confession, or a diary. The young filmmakers will express themselves in the first person and will relate what has happened to them. It may be the story of their first love or their most recent; of their political awakening; the story of a trip, a sickness, their military service, their marriage, their last vacation…and it will be enjoyable because it will be true, and new…The film of tomorrow will not be directed by civil servants of the camera, but by artists for whom shooting a film constitutes a wonderful and thrilling adventure. The film of tomorrow will resemble the person who made it, and the number of spectators will be proportional to the number of friends the director has. The film of tomorrow will be an act of love.”

— François Truffaut, published in Arts magazine, May 1957

I couldn’t help but read that through the lens of blogging. In a few more years, blogs may morph into video podcasting for everyone, and then Truffaut will have been 50 years ahead of his time. Bloggers certainly aren’t filmmakers by any stretch of the imagination, but it still seems like an eerily prescient quotation. I also think it applies to my thrilling adventures with digital photography. I’m certainly no civil servant to the camera.

On a related note, I went to Suncoast last night, and DVDs were all 30% off, and I STILL bought nothing. I’m holding out for 50% off because nobody else cares about the DVDs I want (for example, Truffaut films and other snooty Criterion collection discs).

Happy Hallmark® Day!

I took Stinkfoot to the vet this morning because his left front paw doesn’t appear to be working. He’s been hobbling around for a few days. The vet gave him a shot and some antibiotics, and said if he doesn’t improve in a couple of days to bring him back for an x-ray. As I was waiting for the bill I heard a couple of the nurses talking about Valentine’s Day. One of them said, “we don’t do Valentine’s Day. It’s a Hallmark holiday.”

I can see her point. As much as I actually enjoy having a day to spread love around, for those of us who don’t have a significant other it’s a bit depressing. Like Christmas, Thanksgiving and New Year’s, Valentine’s Day is one of those days where single people feel culturally compelled to be doing something special. If we’re not, we’re inevitably depressed. I imagine it’s similar to being a lonely Jew on Christmas.

As a side note, thank heavens for myspace.com, where people can send odd pictures and leave notes for people rather than buy cards or even e-cards (good ones are really hard to find) for Valentine’s Day.