Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Done for whose sake and to what end

The word "Mission" came up during the Dead Trees workshop. How it was important for a publication to be Mission driven.
Cause, y'know publishing is no walk in the park. And some days, you ask yourself why you do it.

Do you run a newspaper to serve your mission or for the sake of putting out a newspaper?

The way certain news agencies answer this question might actually explain why some of the mainstream press looks more like entertainment and less like news these days. They have ceased to be about anything besides staying in business. Which means attracting attention to sell ads and make money. Thus excessive coverage of Britney Spears' shaved head.

The word "Community" came up. The point was made that "the ethnic press" covers issues relevant to immigrant communities all over the country. In this case the "ethnic press" might have more to do with whether you speak english and how long you and yours have been in the States ... not just about the color of your skin.

Do you run a newspaper that supports, reflects, and meets the needs of a community?

The word "Institution" came up. Do you support, serve, and protect an institution because it exists and has stability or do you do so because of its mission, because of the vital role that it plays in a community?

It was here where someone expressed the sentiment that institutions only have a value, can only justify their existence in relation to a mission or a community (perhaps both.) And when they demonstrate an irrelevance to their target community or their mission is acheived, they should be disbanded.

Imagine if you were to take the word institution and replace it with the word "Corporation."

I wonder how many corporations essentially have outlived their usefulness but continue to carry on through collusion, corruption, bribery, through the application of power and money and influence gained by becoming a big nasty corporation.

Surely, if you have a goal and you achieve it, you'd want a round of high fives, a trip to Disney World, and a brief respite before picking up a new goal.

Why go out and try to snow everyone into helping you propagate your existance? (as a company or organization.)

If you pick a really big or impossible goal maybe you won't achieve it, you'll fight and fight to get there and then stop.
And give someone the opportunity to pick it up and continue.

A clever young man I know used to talk about how an organization ought to have the kind of structure where anyone could be put in charge and things would run smoothly - with the right structure and culture, authority could decentralize and devolve to its entire membership and everyone could get on with doing their collective thing.

How's that for living the dream?

Tuesday, February 27, 2007

That is the question

One of the workshops at the NYC Grassroots Media Conference was entitled: "Dead Trees: Small Magazines and Newspapers in the Digital Age."

Sitting on the panel were Chris Anderson, Francesca Firoentini, Juana Ponce de Leon, and Josh Breitbart. It was in a way an autopsy of recent organizational deaths in this independent media community. And also a discussion of what happens in their wake.

From a publishing standpoint, everyone is asking whether there is a point to words printed on paper. Publishing does not seem to be a super-robust business. The digital age is a bitch. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch worries about it. At the place-I-try-not-to-mention-where-I-spend-most-of-my-weekdays a consciousness of this question exists. Hell, even the New York Times worries about it.

At the end of last year, in the world of books there was the bankruptcy of the book distributor Advanced Marketing Services

In the independent small press universe there were the collapse of the Independent Press Association and the closure of Clamor magazine. This closure, probably among many others I have not heard about.

Sad times for Dead Trees.

But that's not exactly what I am here to talk about. The question posed in this workshop was: If print is as dead as everyone says, why do it? It costs a lot. It's hard to do. And it's hard to do without losing money. One person at the workshop recounted how she works on a journal that lost money for 40 years. 40 years at a loss.

There was some lively discussion on things including the Digital Divide, but no clear answers by the end of the session. But before we cleared outta there, a young woman stopped us and wanted to know the answer. She creates a zine. The question of the relevance of dead trees hits at the heart of the labor of her love. "I have to know!" she said.

Chris Anderson replied that the question to ask yourself is: "Does doing it on Paper create social change in a way that is different from other media?" He extended this question out further to this question: "How does media create change?"



How does media create change?

Media introduces you to people. To ideas. To groups. To organizations. To activities. To events. To situations.
It can introduce you to allies and help you identify enemies.

It can introduce new words into your vocabulary. Words that represent new ideas or refine old ones.

Media can make you feel. It can make you cry. It can make you angry. It can make you laugh.

It can make you ask questions.

Change the questions that you ask yourself.
Change the questions that you ask of the world around you.
Change your mind about what questions are worth asking to begin with.

It can change the way you think. Change the way you dream.

Media can change your expectations.
Change what you consider to be an acceptable answer, or an acceptable standard.

It can rearrange the furniture in your head.
Or help you redecorate it entirely.

And when that happens to you who knows what solutions you will find.
Solutions to the problem.
Answers to the question.
Who knows what you will say,
What you will do.


And if you, then why not someone else.
If that person then why not another and another.

I do not know how media creates change.
But I do know that change happens and Media plays its part.

As Francesca Firoentini said - "It's the radical tradition."

Monday, February 26, 2007

Agent of the Plague

A coupla weekends ago I was in Chicago for two days. I am very much wanting to tour with the Mystechs next summer. So I flew in to muddy the pictures with my mug and sprinkle my vocals on the new album. 'Twas a whirlwind two day tour in which pictures were taken of me as soccer mom with grocery bags full of bombs, as a corporal in the Army of the Apocalypse, and in heavy metal swimwear. Yeah. Well, you had to be there.

The next day EH stuck me in a dark padded closet with a microphone and some headphones and I did some singin'. Longest timeout of my life. I sang a song in German. The devil made me do it.

And the other thing I did while out there was catch the Plague. After the Tuesday train adventure I felt a little tired and flushed on Wednesday. Thursday, I was felled by the Plague. I took two days off from work. On the first I slept, sweated and shivered. On the second, I slept coughed and caught up on episodes of the Show with Zefrank and Heroes. Blessed be Youtube!

That's two of the five sick days that the workplace will grant me with pay. So my health goal for the rest of this year to to stay healthy enough to have one sick day to use on the day after my birthday. Brown bottle flu. It's a doozy.
Or maybe I should just take the financial loss. It's only money.

*Sing from the gilded cage birdie! Tweet! Tweet!*

The Plague has travelled from my sinuses to my chest to my lungs. And from there perhaps to my belly and then out my, er, ... toes?

A smart girl would have stayed in all weekend and taken it easy with gallons of tea, OJ, chicken soup, canned mandarin oranges, and saltines. (for those of you brung by Googl-o-matic this would be called: Things to eat and drink when you are sick)

No smart girls here at Things to Do. I had my heart set on the NYC Grassroots Media Conference. I have not worn an activist-like hat for at least a year now. I miss activists.

So I got up early-ish and caught a train into the city. I went to be among men and women committed to saving the world. It was great.

Got eye-talian with e23 who came in on the Chinatown bus for that very purpose.
Went to a moving out party hosted by The South, formerly refered to as KS.
The South insisted that we go to the Beauty Bar. So we did. They were playing the hits from the 80's and I, sick, sober, and riddled with the Plague, was magically transported back to junior high. And the only thing to do when that happens is dance like a fool.

This week I spread the Plague far and wide. The RM caught it. e23 caught it. I think my downstairs neighbor caught it. Possibly the entire activist community in the Greater NYC area have it. The entire Beauty Bar. Subway riders in lower Manhattan and Brooklyn and perhaps a little corner of the office as well. I hear a familiar cough echo from the other side of the open office and I wonder if that is my handiwork or that is the next germ I am slated to catch and carry.

Thursday, February 22, 2007

Could you do without it?

Could you spend 24 hours without your computer?

March 24th has been declared to be "Shutdown Day." A day in which people agree to shut off their computers and do something else for the day.


Someone in the livejournal community "Daily Granola" posted about it and I was surprised at the response. Most of the comments to the post were along the lines of : "I could do it but what would be the point." or "I couldn't possibly do it I need the internet like air or sunshine." Addicts!

I know of what I speak, it takes one to know one. I don't know if I could do it.

Alternative uses for your laptop You might not want to try this at home.

Wednesday, February 21, 2007

too many 5am wakeups

I was on a train back and forth to Boston from NYC for a total of maybe 9+ hours today.

On the trip out I slept.

On the trip back I attempted to converse with people with my spotty cell phone reception and I watched the movie "Domino" on my laptop. Keira Knightly is for the most part utterly unconvincing as the socialite, model turned knife throwing bounty hunter. Then again, I don't run with that crowd so how could I possibly know. I do wish that I had less of a fear of death and more of a propensity towards violence cause she was really cool and I wish I could be cool like that.

All that time on a train ... leads me to think that the Agatha Christie novel "Murder on the Orient Express" was pretty brilliant. I can see how the train totally lends itself towards murder plots as compared with other modes of transport.

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

just five

1.
For lack of milk (didn't want to steal from the RM) I used beer in my Mac and Cheese (with Spirals).
Unfortunately, the zeal of my cookery cooked the alcohol out of my late night snack. *damn!*
But it was fun to stir the mix and watch the sauce get all frothy like beer poured into a glass by an amateur.

2.
"Vanessa, She's a vegetarian. Yeah
She won't eat anything that walks or swims in an aquarium.
I told her beef was here to stay
I told her 'meet me halfway'
Now she's gone and I don't care
'cause she's a vegetarian, yeah"

-The Robinsons of New Orleans

I'm not gonna lie, this is what my band would sound like. If I ever got a band together.

I got them together looking for the NYC band called The Robinsons.
I want these bands to fight in an ultimate showdown for the exclusive right to this band name. I would pay to see that.

3.
I have started to say "Whatev." Sometimes I form my hands into the letter "W" when I say this.
*sigh*

4.
"The future is the intersection of choice and interruptions."
-Christopher Locke and David Weinberger

Delete the word "future" and insert "life."
Delete the word "choice" and insert "intention"
Delete the word "intersection" and insert "collision"

Put the cap tightly back on the bottle and shake vigorously.

5.
A some weeks ago I met a young man who mocked me for using the word "vociferous."
Vociferous: marked by or given to vehement insistent outcry.
It's been a while since someone has mocked me for my vocabulary.
He didn't get any action either.

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

almost human

In these ever so long days of being the right tool applied to the wrong job.

The tightrope walker's dance of diplomacy and politess.

These days that stretch into myriads of lists and lists and lists crowded with mind crashing minutiae.

Time spent trying to decrypt the best way to stay the chess piece better kept than sacrificed.

I occassionally peer through the electronic window at my cubby into the world at large.

And there

I sometimes find you, my friends, in places that you choose to leave traces of yourselves, and feel for the briefest of moments ... almost human.

Thursday, February 08, 2007

train games

It started with a game called "Is my boyfriend on the train?" I would look around and find the cutest guy. Then imagine what it would be like to date him. Until one of us exited the train. The first one to leave is the dumper.

Then there was "The theme of the train." I would sit on the train and look around searching for a theme that would encompass the experience of that particular trip. Some are on myspace.

Then, I spent some time trying to read on the train. I read "Chuck Klosterman IV: A Decade of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas" and "Real Food: What to Eat and Why" by Nina Plank.

And now I have started to play a train game I like to call "Subway Stop Chicken." I get drowsy on the ride home and I try to nap as long as I can without sleeping through my subway stop. I open one eye at the stop before and go back to sleep trying to cut it as close as I can.

Wednesday, February 07, 2007

devious corporate strategies

"Over the next few years, as he (Alfred Sloan of GM) refined his notion of obsolescence, he saw that style could date cars more quickly and reliably than technology. In manufacturing terms, psychological obsolescence was superior to technological obsolescence, because it was considerably cheaper to create and could be produced on demand."

-Giles Slade from "Made to Break: Technology and Obsolescence in America"

Even when you know this rationally, it's hard to resist.

Tuesday, February 06, 2007

ask not what your country can do for you

I ran across this article in Men's Style via Digg.com

About Tom Coburn Republican senator from Muskogee, Oklahoma. Very interesting.

He's on a one man mission to to set fire to the government pork barrel. And unlike those of us who claim that we don't care what people think of us. It seems like he actually doesn't.

There's a quote in the article

“In any election,” he is fond of saying, “you should vote for the person who will give up the most if they win.”

And this is a thought that has occurred to me as well.

Monday, February 05, 2007

obviously

What do you do when a young man tells you his last name and says "I want you to Google me," ?
Well I guess you google him.

open up my eager eye

At a place called the Continental they sell 5 shots for $10.
Hoards of college kids and the recently graduated come in to order trays and trays of them.

If you ask the bartenders for a really cheap drink they roll their eyes and tell you that all the drinks are really cheap.
In NYC $3.50 - $4 qualifies as really cheap. It's not bad, actually. But some days you need to get more for less and on those days this might not be the right place.

The RM, KS and I sang along to "Mr. Brightside" by the Killers a total of three times while in that establishment.
We sat together at the bar but I think for each of us it was a totally different experience.

For KS, it was merely an extension of the familiar in his life.
For the RM, it was perhaps a slightly embarassing revisting of a time passed.
For me, it was purely an sociological expedition. A peek into how the young live and interact.

A curly headed young latino with a faux hawk did a shot with KS and me. He insisted that we do them through little red bar straws. I think it helps you drink liquor that tastes icky, quickly. But I can't remember.

According to KS, the Continential in a former life was one of the great music venues of the fair city. Patti Smith played there. Blondie played there. A place not known for its layout or acoustics, rather a place where legendary bands (and probably lots of really crap bands) got their first chance to play. And from that it has morphed into a place with a decent jukebox, a ridiculous drink deal, and booths that smell like armpit. (Although, I'll bet they have always smelled that way.)

Sunday, February 04, 2007

looking for love in all the wrong places

I took the pina colada song off the "You should message me if" section of my online dating profile. Thing is, I don't know what to put in its stead.

The RM suggests - "You should message me if: You like meat. 'cause I like meat."

Running through a variety of options -

"You should message me if: You find cynicism and hyperbole sexy."
"You should message me if: You wait until at least the third date to drop trou."
"You should message me if: You have seen the softer side of Sears."
"You should message me if: This is your United States of Whatevah"
"You should message me if: you find disorganization and clutter, charming."
"You should message me if: you like crowds, will eat anything, and don't have a problem with sleeping the floor."

*sigh*

I really don't know who should message me.

Thursday, February 01, 2007

To the Nines

1. I woke this morning with the following thought that I later shared with CK. I really don't understand why Marge Simpson stays with Homer. Seriously.

2. Door number one or door number two? How about borrowing a chainsaw and cutting out a door of your own?

3. Today was the day of stupid emails at work. I sent emails that made me look stupid. Apparently people are forwarding me emails expecting me to read the whole dang thread ... not because they are too lazy to start a new one.

4. Tomorrow I am taking a guitar lesson. A very expensive one with a very talented artist. I hope that it's helpful and not a collosal waste of lettuce. At the very least I will sit in the presence of someone whose work I admire for one hour. (Is this to a music fan analogous to a lap dance to a man?)

5. Yesterday, I had a cup of hot chocolate that was not very sweet. It was chocolately bordering on bitter. Skating around bitter. And it was delicious.

6. People keep asking me why I don't date guys my own age. If I were a man, they would congratulate me with a touch of envy.

7. All that ran through my head repeatedly today during the first leg of my commute was:

Indie: Throw me the Whip!
Guide: Throw me the Idol!
Indie: Throw me the whip!
Guide: The Idol.

*throw*

Guide: Adios, Amigo.

8. I have been loitering at an online dating site. I look but I don't get in touch. I feel like I'm window shopping. RL describes it as "Shopping at the Man Mall."

In my profile I declare that people should message me

"If you like pina coladas, and getting caught in the rain.
If you're not into yoga, if you have half a brain."
It's a reference to a cheesy song from the 80's

9. On IM with PC he encouraged me to get married so that he and FC could come to my wedding and dance with the Priest. (Which I did at his wedding. His priest was a very accomplished swing dancer) I replied that he might be dancing with my priestess. A comment which definitely gave him pause.