Glass Shallot by Adam Baer

Go to Music School -- Just Go to a Better One

A few days ago, an op-ed columnist in the New York Times wrote that he didn't think his kid should transfer into a music school. Today, Fred Bronstein, dean of the Peabody Conservatory of Music, responded in the Times. It's a strong, smart statement that takes the piece's headline literally, emphasizing "training" musicians "attuned to their communities" who should be "effective communicators, educators, entrepreneurs, audience development experts and citizen-artists." But there's more to be said on that issue.

I'm a former Peabody student, and I say that if you have the talent and determination, you should go to music school. It's one of the best things that I ever did with my life. It filled my soul and trained my brain to accomplish many other things, including serious writing projects. I'm a big believer in the humanities, and as a musician from a family of musicians, I wanted the immersion in music that they had enjoyed beyond the pre-college music conservatory. But I simultaneously attended Johns Hopkins' separate Arts & Sciences undergraduate program, and I graduated in 2000, a bad time to go to music school. Back then, the older classically oriented ones like mine (Peabody is the country's first conservatory), weren't designed yet to teach students what they really needed to know as the Internet was growing. They were experimenting. But schools that emphasized popular genres like the Berklee College of Music were leaps and bounds ahead, especially with respect to getting students fluent with digital and business.

The issue now isn't really whether or not you should go to music school. It's how strong is the school you want to attend? How well will it train you to be a musician-plus today? Sure, you can go to music school, study an instrument, composing, history, and theory--and you can learn the practical stuff on your own. But you really ought to ensure that you have your sights set on the realities of our time and that the music school you choose really does teach all of its students (maybe even as a "core") the following: business (especially entrepreneurship but also management, marketing, arts administration, contract negotiation, and financial skills); technology (app development, coding, UX, digital production for all genres [hip-hop, pop, songwriting, etc.], recording, video, engineering, music and sound editing for media/entertainment); music education; writing; arts advocacy; film/media composing; and IP/copyright law, as well as perhaps public health (!).

I have long appreciated Columbia University's "core curriculum." Music schools have always had a version of their own, consisting of theory, ear-training, lessons, etc. But now they need new ones full of required courses and skills assessments--it's not just about supplementing music classes with languages and the humanities or intros to the good things that Bronstein mentions (Peabody is lucky to have him). Courses in these subjects need to be authoritative and leave students with strong skills. They need to be practical and effective. I'm asking for a lot, but that's what the world asks of you as a musician, or as any kind of creative professional. So, schools: Please partner with media companies, music publishers, tech startups, small businesses, independent artists, more community schools. Add incentives. Stress the requirements beyond music skills. Stress that these are music skills.

I studied the violin at Peabody while attending Hopkins, but I live in Hollywood now, consult on music and work as a writer, journalist, and editorial content strategist. My first job out of college was at NPR; they hired me to be a cultural producer with a specialty in digital, but getting that gig was a bit of blind luck (although I knew how to code), based mostly on the fact that I'd published music criticism in the Washington Post. I would have benefitted so much from even a few of the aforementioned extra classes. Recording was available at my school, but it was a highly specialized degree program track. So, too, music education. These things were not stressed as necessary for everyone. But they were, and they are critically necessary now. A student at a great music school shouldn't have to learn Logic in an Apple Store.

What's great, though, is that Peabody is now poised to do this as an entity owned by Johns Hopkins University, and Bronstein says he's devoted to the cause. But it should be reiterated that I graduated from college 15 years ago, and Peabody was not moving on these things nearly quickly enough, even though it had been owned by Hopkins for a while. I have great hope for future music students, but also some words of advice: Double-degree program with a university. Or, even better, something new and singular that blends two types of schools like Hopkins and Peabody more seamlessly. That's what I tried to do with my program, and eventually I only took one degree (my Arts & Sciences B.A.). The Music School as a template for higher education needs to evolve more quickly and comprehensively for the sake of all musicians as well as those who will move into other fields while using their music skills. The great music that we love will be thankful.-- Adam Baer

 

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You're (Probably Not) Ending Your Emails Wrong

Cheers, Best, Peace. Lately, a lot of people are claiming that we end our emails wrong. I get it. As a journalist and writer/editor I've emailed with usage hounds for years, seen all the permutations. To date, "Warm best" remains the creepiest/funniest email closing that I've ever received (though it came from a kind teacher with stellar writing chops, so when I'd see it, I'd just laugh, call it Affectedly Endearing).

My take on today's valedictions may be a little contrarian. Despite the well-meaning advice offered in this piece that advocates for the death of email closings, I still use "Sincerely" sparingly, and more often, "All best" (rarely just "Best," which often seems cold). "Sincerely" isn't--or, rather, doesn't have to be--"fake." It's not when I use it, and come to think of it, anything that "warms" up "best" today in our icy Bot-times seems considerate. 

That said, I'm also fine with never signing off, especially in short social or business communiques; sometimes that's the code two people follow. But it's nice to treat others the way you'd like to be treated. So if a colleague or friend goes to the trouble of signing off with a closing, I'll sign off with something. There's still a large population of people who'd consider it rude not to sign off, and I'd hate to hurt their feelings because I choose to live on Twitter. 

Maybe I'm getting warmer as I approach my personal best (best = old, right?). Maybe I see where my professor was coming from. All I know is that I also happen to like it when someone who has sent a significant "letter" signs off with something sincere--whether it's "Sincerely," "Seeya," "Stop, Collaborate, and Listen," "Cease and Decist," or "Slades," a slangy combo of "see you" and "later" that my brilliant wife invented. 

Hasn't this has gone on long enough?

Take care,

Adam Baer

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The Believer Interview with a Luthier (who makes guitars for Arcade Fire, The National, Beck, Cat Power, Fred Armisen) -- by Adam Baer

A number of years ago, well before this subject was written about elsewhere, I learned about, met, and began interviewing, the Silverlake-area guitar luthier and music-shop owner Reuben Cox who uses found materials to make equisite instruments that harken back to a period of American guitarmaking that has slipped away. Reuben, a photographer with credits from The New Yorker and New York Times, had opened a place called Old Style Guitars on the eastern/southern edge of the neighborhood -- before it had become hip. Still, bands like The National would drop by and play secret shows in his driveway. And quickly, the place became a node, a scene, for some of the best elite rock musicians in the country: You could see Richard Reed Parry from Arcade Fire there, Chan Marshall, Devandra B., Bobby Womack, Beck, Sufjan Stevens, Alexi Murdoch, Andrew Bird, tons of studio players, even Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein. It was something like a micro Laurel Canyon for our time, inside a little box with lots of wires and wood. But it's hard to place significant articles about such esoteric subjects in the focused, news-oriented consumer magazines. So, I waited, and then an option to do something creative came up with one of my favorite magazines,  The Believer. Now, I have turned the piece, which at last ran in The Believer's 2014 Music Issue, into a multimedia digital thing, with videos of The National playing at the store, a fetishistic guitar slideshow, and even a video of Arcade Fire using one of Reuben's guitars in Helsinki. Check it out at this URL, where I hope that it will live for a long time. http://logger.believermag.com/post/100588053844/interview-with-a-luthier-i-e-someone-who-makes

My thanks for reading, watching, waiting, and listening.

Adam Baer

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Coachella 2016: Sufjan Stevens and Gallant Perform Prince's "Purple Rain"

LinkedIn Congratulations

I appreciate how LinkedIn asks you to "congratulate" a connection on his/her birthday. One's best accomplishment is, to be sure, Not Having Died Yet.

For more comments about managing to stay alive, check out my new advice column at The Awl: "Ask Somehow Still-Alive Guy."

Thanks, and live strongly skeptical about people who tell you to Live Strong,

Adam Baer

 

New Way to Read Music -- Not Especially Noteworthy

Recently, I published a VQR piece on the future of sheet music, including a bit on new apps and notation literacy. In related news bloggers are pointing out a new music notation system called Hummingbird (depicted above). I looked it over, tried it out. It borrows its method of displaying rhythm from piano rolls, showing us the amount of time a note should be held, like GarageBand and other music software. What's more, it points up for sharps and down for flats, which a demanding violin teacher might do with a pencil. Aside from that, it's deceptively complicated and requires learning different symbols. How much easier it would be for someone who has never learned music, or lacks a teacher, is questionable.

New systems (and apps) are best when they solve problems, but learning to read Western music notation isn't a problem that requires a solution. It's not easy. But like learning to read English, it's eminently doable, and fraught with fewer variables and exceptions. Reading Western notation—and there have of course been many precursors to what we use now, as well as many alternatives, including Braille and an integer-based system—has also proven to be good for your brain, and we don't need to simplify it. The current sharp and flat note symbols work fine; you just have to remember them.

Hummingbird appears to be a nicely designed dumbing-down, and not an especially noteworthy one in an age of design-fetish and how-to videos. Shortcuts—like guitar tablature—should really be shortcuts. This new system basically just makes reading music different, and it doesn't seem to allow for new ways to notate sounds that we cannot yet notate. I'm in favor of new music technologies and notation systems, but Hummingbird should first show me why Western music notation is a problem, and why Hummingbird is a necessary alternative. For now, especially given our abundance of online music-education resources, it's not.

For more information about alternative music notation systems that may solve what some perceive to be standard notation problems, check out The Music Notation Project.

 

The Future of Sheet Music, My Family's Literature (Spring '13 VQR Essay)

In 2004, when I first wrote about digital sheet music, for the New York Times, pre-iPad, new gadgets were just being sold to display it for traveling musicians like David Bowie's bandmate Mike Garson and violinist Izthak Perlman, both of whom kindly spoke to me for the story. But sheet music has always been a weirdly tense topic, full of salespeople and schemers: Back then, Harry Connick, Jr. (who, of all technologists, has a patent on a digital sheet music reader), had chosen not to comment on the topic but the way my editor had re-arranged my reporting on his lack of interest angered his representative, enough to insinuate legal threats (so, basically sheet music made friendly Harry Connick want to sue me). Then there was the CEO of one of the companies who claimed repeatedly that he had nothing to do with another, which we only found out after digging through his lies to us after the fact. The story -- its subtext, anyway -- turned into a piece about two companies suing each other. Not our intention.

Sheet music should not inspire fights and deception. Or should it?

In my new Spring 2013 VQR piece, "Sound + Vision," I argue that sheet music is literature (a method of storytelling), and I try to explain how it functioned that way for my family as well as discuss its future and some advocates' fears that fewer people seem able to and interested in reading it now more than ever. Is that true? It's hard to know, and I hope that my guess is wrong. What I do know is that a lot of people are creating innovative sheet music solutions for the digital space, and that despite music-budget cuts, plummeting keyboard instrument sales, and music store deaths, a lot of kids and adults want to play music. It's no surprise that the world is always changing, but notated music is in fact coming along for the ride. And thank Life that it is. I want more children to grow up being read to from the piano, or some kind of instrument, and being able to read that way themselves. 

Did Facebook Delete A Writer's Attempt to Use Timeline as a Narrative Tool?

Today I posted "content" in an attempt to use Facebook Timeline in a humorous, narrative way; I was kidding a little, but I thought it could be fun to really use the software to create a comedic, serialized micro-narrative made of short status updates. The post was commented on by a couple of friends, and then removed by someone other than me. I then discussed this in another status update with those same friends. That was then promptly removed by someone other than me. I then reposted the content twice, and now I do not see any of this on my page. If Facebook would like people to care about its IPO -- and that's a foregone conclusion, they do, because billions of dollars are concerned, but let's talk about regular people -- they should not delete writers' attempts to use their tools to create and engage with an audience, in jest or more serious ways. The aforementioned content (copied below) is far from genius and merely average, but I posted it here, which is less "buggy" a virtual "place" and likely watched by fewer programmers who police and react to user content. Perhaps this was all just FB software problems...but if so, who can trust FB with content you do not backup elsewhere. I mean, what if this stuff was actually good?

Here is the attempt at humor I posted, related to the ABC Show Revenge. Do you find it inappropriate?

"When I was 10, a high-school senior in my Monte Cristo-like neighborhood was hired to hang out with and shoot hoops with me before my parents returned home from work. One day, the kind young man suggested I find someone to buy me a tape of Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run.” So, I did, and the next time he appeared, he “borrowed” it, never to return or answer our many calls again. Now, as a rational adult, I plan to use Facebook Timeline, narratively, to track down this man for a final confrontation. Would any of you care to follow this meaningful adventure? I shall call it “My Facebook ‘Revenge’ / Season One: Born to Run.”

I shall move slowly, follow clues, keep my emotions at bay, and friend anyone close to this man and his especially heinous crime, crossing each one off my list one by one. It will be sweet to one day recover this low quality recording, if it still exists, uncompressed and possibly warped. But the ultimate prize will be hearing this man sing under duress the lyrics: “The highway's jammed with broken heroes on a last chance power drive / Everybody's out on the run tonight but there's no place left to hide.”

 

AFTERNOON UPDATE: Facebook was briefly down this morning, and I wouldn't want to think they'd target one person, so it's quite possible that's what happened. Still, the "dangerous"  keywords used in my posts could have triggered a moderator or bot to remove them at different times (people observed their staggered removal individually), and the critique and untraditional use of Timeline the day after FB's IPO announcement is definitely something they might try to quash. 

The important issue remains: Can we trust FB to hold our original life-content as Timeline promises? I'd use a few backups, and make sure you already own the rights to anything you publish anywhere.

extremely original facebook-status updates from my network, posted during tonight's debate

In Chronological Order, from the most recent:

1. Mr. V "is mad that Joe the plumber just charged me 250,000 to unclug a drain."
    COMMENT: "I want his publicist. Dude's gonna be on Entourage next week."
2. MS. X "is watching the debate. thank you dvr. thank you."
2. MS. Y "thinks an angry old man sitting across the table from world leaders is NOT something I want."
3. MS. A "wouldn't call Palin a "role model" for this woman."
4. MR. C "is wondering if anyone knows a good plumber."
    COMMENT: "Plumbers do not pay taxes. They get paid in cash. And like waiters, they do not declare and pay taxes on a good portion of their independent income. Most plumbers make more than teachers, police, or fireman. So the candidates should have picked a teacher or lumberjack or barrista as an example"
5. MS. A "pro-choice doesn't mean pro-abortion, a-hole."
6. MS. F "thinks Obama is a class act."
7. MS. T "is thinking McCain doesn't know he's on split-screen."
8. MS. E "thinks McCain looks and sounds desperate"
9. MS. F " is amazed at Obama's restraint."
10. MS. F "wants to know what the Great Society was... I must not have been paying attention in American history."
11. MS. F "thinks McCain is really grasping..."
12. MS. G "is debate."
13. MR. V "is not going to hold back when watching the debates."
14. MS. J "knows her autistic kid is in good hands with Sarah because she 'understands special-needs children.'"

10 days since updating anything on Facebook, and I have to say, I feel such so clogged with  unexpressed emotion, I just don't know what to do...

Oh, snap. And smile.

Some people wonder what I do when I'm not taking pictures (ha, says the writer too busy to blog as much as he should). But this thorough look at the best new digital cameras, from Conde Nast's Men.style.com, did come from the keyboard of my humble Vaio. If you need a recommendation...Concerning Sony's newest pocket cam, I write:

The key enhancements come under the hood, and include a host of new features based on face-detection—most notably the so-called Smile Shutter, which automatically waits to shoot until your subject grins. As for getting your subject to play along, well, you're on your own.

Didn't someone once call patience a virtue? Maybe that was likeability.

google's lively: everything but

I have a complaint about today's social networks. They're not keeping
us from breathing fresh air enough.They're not distracting us from
enough human interaction. They're just too, like, static. You log onto
your Facebook account, and all you can do is play interactive Hold'em,
look your friend's travel photos, chat with anyone online, and send
video messages. That is, when you're not obsessed with Scrabulous
wars, reading someone's instant mobile status "message," avoiding come-ons from old schoolmates you don't want to know, or commenting
on someone else's life. No, what we really need is a three-dimensional
social networking model, where we can take the form of customizable
avatars, decorate our virtual homes, and really see our fake computer
selves receive virtual hugs as opposed to just being told that someone
sent one our way. Because that would feel so much better and humanize
social networking, right? Google thinks so.

Today's announcement--and I'm sure you've read about it
everywhere--that Google's launching a beta version of its new "Lively"
tool for creating three-dimensional social networks, offering users
their own spaces--please give my avatar, a fit and worryless writer
with a Scrooge McDuck-like pool of money, a virtually architecturally
significant mid-century home in the virtual Hollywood Hills as well as
the non-flaky and honest virtual pals and coworkers it comes with as
long as you're still hammering the details of this one out--basically
means that some people don't think social networking has taken over
enough of our lives.

We're just not distracted enough at work--apparently procrastinating
the perpetual checking of e-mail that would take you away from the
moment too much already is not the step we need to return to, lest we
actually go one more level back into reality and shut down the 100
virtual communiques we're constantly having with people around the
globe every minute. Maybe the Mac users among us--and trust me, I'd be
one of them if the new Macbook keyboards came with forward-delete keys
and long-life batteries--will get a chance to avoid this dive into yet
another level of virtual life: Lively only works for Windows. Makes
sense to me: Vista is so annoying--so reliably computer-crashing--that
you might as well give up on productivity from the start.

I'm insane, sure--but I know I have a problem. I just returned to the
U.S. from a lot of time in Italy, where my Roman cousin keeps his
laptop in a closet and only takes it out (connecting it to his network
with a real wire!) when he wants to do some dedicated Web surfing for
such frivolous tasks as purchasing airline tickets and making sure his
bank transfers worked. Which is not to say that all of that sun-soaked
boot of a country moves at his blinding pace. But even among the
Americanized Milanese, Venetians, and Romans--even among the pazzo
club kids texting each other from the driver's seat of their Smart
cars--there's still a different concept about what the Internet and
our constant communication is there for in Italy. Hell, I tried three
cellphone services, throughout major Italian cities, and I frequently
had so many connection problems that I eventually didn't check my
e-mail every few minutes. Sometimes I even went a few days. And that's
when I wasn't in a rural area, where life is obviously slower, you
might know most of the people in your town, and it's actually
considered a pleasure to socialize without an evite setting the time,
date, and spot. Facebook may seem "static" to the Lively developers,
but it seems to be more than so many people across the world can and
want to handle already.

It's ever-so-groundbreaking, this plea, I know, but let's slow down a
bit and show Google that even though Second Life is thriving, all of
us Facebookers and LinkedIn users don't need Lively. Don't want it.
Maybe we're not the target audience anyway. OK. But in that case,
let's still take some sort of a stand and rip our kids away from the
thing; blindfold them from the news and ways of downloading the social
bomb. It's bad enough that we have two levels of virtual life away
from our oh-so-simple wireless-e-mail-driven lives already. Do we need
another tool to push real living even deeper into the chasm of
impossibility?

liking it rough

Some adventure travelers are so hard on their gadgets, they need stuff that can take a beating. I just need rugged electronics because I'm not sitting in the padded office. See my survey of the category for Conde Nast's Men.style.com, the online home of GQ and Details magazines.

Stop Mattel from Scrabulous Facebook Raid!

[Cross-published on The Huffington Post]

Though I've somehow ended up as a professional writer, I never enjoyed Scrabble as a kid. I found it too wonky, or maybe I just had too small an attention span—when I had free time from music or words, I preferred to let my mind rest. Figuring out the exact place to drop a word like "fanworts" so that I could "achieve a righteous bingo," as my school's Scrabble fanatics liked to say, didn't seem like fun to me. I preferred smashing tennis balls. Or figuring out my taste in film.

But then, a few months ago, I began writing an article about social networks, which led, of course, to joining Facebook. I don't blame anyone else for what ensued. But yes, like most of America, I became quickly obsessed with the devilish social network, rife with time-wasting "apps," especially because I had a lot of time on the road, in isolation. Far be it for me to read more than I had to read for work: I could figure out what German philosopher I think like—well, according to whatever college sophomore created the personality quiz of the day (these were and reamin hardly trustworthy exams of one's values, but that's what's kind of fun about them--OK, not fun, but pleasantly distracting).

But with Facebook came a more virtuous diversion: Scrabulous, an interactive way to play a "scrabble"-like word game--a take on the form--with your "friends" wherein you were also given a list of all the geeky two-letter words acceptable to the dictionary and a game board that wouldn't allow you to throw down an invalid word. As well as a way to look some words up should your vocab need a little jumpstart. In fact, you could even throw down a word you didn't know as long as it worked. Say, "amu": the name I gave myself as a toddler. Apparently, "amu" is a word, according to Scrabulous dictionaries, which are close but a little looser than Scrabble dictionaries. I use "amu" all the time now. And I still haven't bothered looking it up. I've also used the word "speedo" much to my editor-friend's chagrin. And I'm not cheating. This is the scrabble-like variation for me, I decided. I can play this. I can use it to reconnect with true, far-flung friends. And I can win at it! [S]crabble--the form, not the product--is finally fun for me.

But today I learned of an extremely sad if predictable piece of news. Reuters is reporting that Mattel, the corporation that has the rights to Scrabble, the product, outside the U.S. and Canada, has asked Facebook to remove its Scrabulous application. Hasbro, Inc., the company that holds the U.S. and Canadian rights wasn't mentioned in the story. But I'm sure they won't be far behind.

Surely, the makers of Scrabulous, which can be played over the Internet or through e-mail—i.e. you don't need to use Facebook to play it—were aware of the inevitability of such a problem. But I don't see how it can't be rectified much in the same way that a thousand companies make Tetris-like clones. Does a company that owns the rights to Scrabble own the rights to the idea of the word game?

According to Wikipedia—purveyor of all accurate information (ahem)—Scrabble is also known as: "Alfapet, Funworder, Skip-A-Cross, Spelofun and Palabras Cruzadas" throughout the world. In fact, when Alfred Mosher Butts invented the game in 1938, he created a challenge based on another: an older word-related game he had fashioned called "Lexico." It was then sold to a Connecticut lawyer, then to other game manufacturers. (Parker Brothers rejected the game!). And it's even been a daytime gameshow hosted by none other than Chuck Woolery.

My point? It's part of popular culture, a recipe that can be reinterpreted like a pot pie. And now no one can own the idea of the game. Maybe certain companies own the rights to Scrabble's name and certain words for techniques used in that official game product. But at this point in time, this word game we're discussing should be considered a public-domain challenge. Much in the way a crossword puzzle isn't owned by anyone. [S]crabble is a form—it has become a form. It isn't just something you can buy. And you can't claim ownership to a form. Well, you could try, but that just wouldn't be cool. Intellectual property here is a rather vague matter, and I'm glad in this instance.

Expectedly, upon hearing this news, many of my friends contacted me, including one prominent computer software executive: What are you going to do now? she asked. She knew of my obsession. My answer? Create a Facebook group promoting a new way to play and to fight Mattel. Scrabulous has certainly brought me a lot of time-killing joy over the last few months. But it's also given me a whole new and improved way to procrastinate, which is part and parcel of the writer's trade. In the past, when I was trying to avoid work, I'd watch a film, play a sport, or sit by my pool listening to music. I might even sit and do nothing. And that's not the same as meditate. I'd rarely engage my mind in anything productive. But Scrabulous has given me a way to procrastinate that makes me a better thinker and writer. I can now drop "fanwort," "luteolin," or any of my recent lucky bingos into conversation and yes, my current writing assignments. I also think it's sharpening my logic at a time when the Internet and even some of my work is dismantling it.

Sure, I'm the most unlikely Scrabble devotee you're ever going to meet. But that's exactly why the scrabble-challenge-loving community should heed my call. It's the form we love, and the online version of this game only builds love for that. In fact, I now want to play the official board game with friends when I have free time. I'm more likely to purchase a fancy, branded Scrabble set. But if Scrabulous leaves Facebook—leaving me to answer one more ridiculous personality quiz (let's be honest: these aren't making me happier or smarter) or to send one more virtually hatching egg gift to a person I see every day--I may not want to continue this new love affair with word games. It's that tenuous, this love affair. It's hanging by a virtual string.

Left to my own devices by the demise of Facebook Scrabulous, I may just retreat to the procrastination of yesteryear and rarely desire to do anything that a lazy writer didn't used to do when he was trying to avoid the next assignment. I may turn to some far-less self-improving activity. I may look for answers in the (pomegranate juice) bottle. In public conversations. Or in a Wii!  So let's band together and fight. If we don't, it will be a longstanding shame. For my readers, Scrabble, and for thousands of other virtually social, procrastinating writers me.

Bad "Air" Quality

As I write on Conde Nast's men.style.com today, the latest Apple MacBook--called "the Air," and no, Michael Jordan isn't endorsing it--definitely doesn't make traveling with a computer as easy as I had hoped it would. By removing the optical drive, Apple has found a way to force you to use its new iTunes movie rental service ($4 a movie, $5 for an HD flick, though you can't watch that on a MacBook). Plus, Jobs didn't offer a more powerful battery. The new "Air" isn't just three pounds heavy (I've seen many lighter laptops before). It only runs for 5 hours with everything going--meaning WiFi and other internal features. Is Apple aware that many red-eyes with today's airport delays can keep you in a Boeing cabin for over 6 hours? How about the fact that we may still want to use our DVD's on the road--not only is this a move to oust Netflix, it's a move to increase Apple's monopoly on our minds. Although, as Mr. Jobs noted, the iTunes rental service works with all major studios. But what about rare stuff? Screeners? Home films? Must we digitize and backup everything? Seems like a lot of work. Anyway, the laptop's $1800, and that's hardly a deal when a similarly thin travel notebook from a few companies runs for more time and offers more travel-friendly features, such as internal GPS. As Pablo Picasso once wrote, "our future is in the air." Possibly. It's just not in the MacBook Air.

shallot gear. so you're still looking for a gift...

I didn't pick and wax poetic on the following technological hits for GQ/Details's Men.style.com year-end collection. I use each and every one of these items in my daily routine. That is, before I chopper myself to my private island off Fiji and tip my hair with gold flake as I watch all new films in Real (3-)D.

An excerpt concerning video games, about which I know less each year:

Sure, Halo has the name recognition (and, OK, the sales), but BioShock elevates the action shooter into something close to an art form. And while the impressionistic graphics (think Blade Runner underwater) and intuitive game play are great, what really differentiates the game is the highfalutin narrative, which is intended as a retort to Atlas Shrugged. Pretentious? Maybe a little. But it's still more fun than reading Ayn Rand.

Why Glass Shallot?

Because we're part of the problem.

A New Definition of Eco-Conscious

There was a time when Umberto Eco meant the world to me. I was a young college student, flooded with the "brilliance" of the postmodernists, and eager to lap it up. But I always found it sort of funny, all this meta-thinking about meta-thinking, all these linguistic symbolisms and academizing of pop culture. I even remember a friend and I mocking the titles of our new university classes: "Towards realizing deconstructionist comprehensions of the French fry's representation in popular culture as a symbol of both deliciousness and death." '"The Popular Semiotics of "Is": "To be" in our political theater." You get the idea.

At any rate, Umberto Eco was often our voice of reason. He took the postmodern movement somewhere sensible. He made us laugh, he laughed at himself, told great tales, and he qualified what soon became a rampant nonsense-parade.

So I wanted to like his new book: "Turning Back the Clock: Hot wars and Media Populism." That's why I reviewed it in today's S.F. Chronicle Book Review. But things didn't go exactly as planned.

Have a read:  "Eco takes critical look at war, Mel Gibson in 'Turning Back'," San Francisco Chronicle, December 16, 2007

my so-called stylish life

Whether it's riding a new electric bike, trying to get a better night's sleep at an extraordinary expense, or searching for tennis shorts that don't actually look silly with the help of Tom Ford, there's always time for an editorial contribution to The New York Times's T: Style Magazine.

Why Glass Shallot?
Because it's more fun to go window-shopping in the newspaper.

Slacking on

More relevant now since the XM+Sirius partnership, I wrote the following on Conde Nast's Men.style.com today:

"Somewhere between the perfectly curated iPod playlist—which, let's face it, can be a pain in the ass to create—and the unwelcome randomness of radio lies the new Slacker music service. After collecting your preferences, the aptly named outfit does the heavy lifting for you, predicting other tunes you'd appreciate to create a "station" just for you. Don't like what you hear? You can skip up to six unwanted songs per hour (or you can spend $7.50 a month and pass over as many as you want). A Web-only version went beta earlier this month, but a nicely designed handheld device—features include Wi-Fi, a four-inch video screen, and a car kit—is on its way this summer. Thanks to that wireless capability, it'll keep adding new choices and constantly update itself based on your preferences: Skip the Whitesnake tune that brings back all those bad memories once and you should be spared similar torment in the future. Naturally, anything this custom-tailored would need to have quite a library, and the service delivers. It's partnered with three of the world's top music companies (Sony/BMG, Universal, and Warner) in addition to several indie labels, so it's already primed with two million songs. Sounds like the hardest-working slacker in the business."

What intrigues me about all of this is how to actually get people to use services like this--will my short posts do it? The more I podcast my favorite radio shows, and the closer I get to filling my 80GB iPod, the more I realize that I really would just love someone else to help me through a few hours of music programming. No one loves supervising a cinematic moment with tunes more than me, but some good surprises are arriving less and less frequently, and now options exist to help when KCRW is broadcasting depressing news. Listen up, yo.

shallot gear

Cnn.com has posted an interview they conducted with me about some of my favorite travel gear. Please note, my birthday is just around the corner!

ces: oh-so-substantive

Some cultural journalist, I'm not sure who, decided to secretly troll the halls of the urban hell that is the Consumer Electronics Show looking both for bizarre instances of what Borat may call "Technology for Make Benefit Americana" (see above) and, what the hell?, some gadgets. This is what he returned with, at least concerning the latter subject: The Best of CES, Men.style.com.

Bad Apple

Trust no one: That seems to be the theme at this year's MacWorld, where Apple actually released the iPhone that gadgetheads had been jabbering on about for over a year. But how come no one knew it was going to happen for sure? How come no one knew what it would look like? How come no one leaked the info anywhere? Engadget points us to the Fortune article that tells the story. If anything, it is a sad tale. Apple has figured out a way to retain a hold on hearts and minds in a business previously based on bytes. I applaud its designs, I worry about its tactics and what they mean for the future of marketing and group think. A group that wants our devotion but doesn't need the press, doesn't want the press, can't keep the press off its backs, is a group that's more interested in mind control than in improving lives with its products. I remember when Apple seemed like a life-affirming organization. Now, despite my love for the iPhone, I'm more worried about Cupertino's hold on the world than I am Microsoft's. Think different, indeed.

lessons learned

I have not written about the James Kim travel tragedy yet, but I was proud to be a part of his writers' community and had happily met him at conferences full of life-sucking journos who never acknowledged just how fun even a boring day of work could be. Needless to say, when James was reported missing, I was shocked and became passionate about trying to help. When he was found the way he was found, on the day he was found, I was aghast. His father has now written a very important op-ed in the Washington Post. I think that instead of focusing on the press-conference-heavy day-before of the annual Consumer Electronics Show, the tech community, for one, should read this piece, and take steps to help James's father in his mission. He's right: It's abominable that James is gone, and he could have been saved were it not for people who don't do their jobs right and use the significant advances already available. Forget about new plasmas and MP3 players for a day, and read this: The Lessons in My Son's Death. [via Beef] P.S. It wasn't widely discussed but Elliot Von Buskirk's remembrance of his friend really opened up this discourse about how America can mess something like this sort of a rescue up. He wrote: "James' body was found Wednesday by one of four helicopters paid for by the family. Although some rescuers had reported seeing a flash of light near him from their helicopter, by the time they arrived at the location, it was too late. I could go on and on about the tragedy of someone so well-loved being found dead after being missing for eleven days, with a full-fledged search not starting until about a week after the Kim family went missing, as well as the fact that the family had to fund the helicopters themselves, but that's not the point right now." Elliot was right. At the time. However, now that a month has passed, we must mobilize to make sure this sort of thing never happens to a domestic traveler again. In the meantime, give to the Kim family.

lightening up with the best product design of 06

See the best industrial design of the year according to yours truly. Year in Gear.

rocking the cradle

Remember Kurt Vonnegut bringing tears to your eyes with the innovative concept of ice-nine in Cat's Cradle? He wasn't so far off.

everbody hates patricia

First, Patricia Heaton, supermarket scab (as in she led the revolt against the supermarket workers that made my neighborhood Albertson's even suckier), showed up on TV spewing right-wing evil. Now, she's trying to thwart stem-cell research. Patricia, do you even realize that you were probably the most replaceable actress on the show that will support you for the rest of your life? I guess knowing you don't make an impact in the workplace must force you to stand up for your political beliefs, even if they're stupid. But at least we know what we're dealing with, right? (Sorry, Raymond fans.)

[via Bodyhack]

be still my heart--never!

Chris Mandra, musical pioneer, NPR innovator, and all around cool guy, has a new instrument: the Mandrum. It's a "real-time wearable interactive electronic music interface." You must check it out.

the work-work

How can I say as someone looking for new ways to feel better that researching this story wasn't extroardinarily pleasant work...Adventure Spas (Men's Journal 8/06)

Smartphones, however, may be the end of me. (Travel + Leisure, 8/06)

a journalist's request?

This new phone records your conversations onto antiquated micro-cassettes. With all these new hard-drive cellphones that play your new favorite anthems, how come we can't produce one that digitally records our conversations?

gigabeating itunes

One to Watch, Men.Style.com - which, by the way, just won a nomination for excellence from ASME.

getting sirius (or xm)

Not that long ago, satellite radio seemed like a solution in search of a problem: why get it for free when you can pay? But, with names like Stern, Snoop, and Dylan now available only via satellite -- not to mention the slow death of quality broadcast radio, thanks to behemoths like Clear Channel—$13 a month is pretty damn reasonable. If you're interested in trying to make a decision about which network is right for you -- or if you're curious about how set up your new satellite radio life -- I've got a casual guide up at the GQ/Details site, Men.style.com. Check out the FAQ (sadly, it contains  references to bodily functions I didn't write), and then take a look at the radios you may want to invest in. My one tip is to forget the entire enterprise if you're interested in finding quality classical music that rivals what terrestrial has to offer. Both networks are sadly behind the curve (unless, of course, you can't get NPR where you live) mostly because they're invested in trying to make money and gain more subscribers from different pools of people. Sad but true.

The Year in Product Design

I curated and wrote this Gear of the Year: Design piece for GQ's Men.style.com. It's not the literary work of the year, of course, but I took my responsibility seriously, and enjoyed the challenge: to pick the best designed products--those that won my respect for their form and function, including five that abused our senses (see Prince's Schimmel piano above) and five we're looking forward to. Delve.

sparkling whine: the 05 digital gripe list

Since I write about culture and tech as well, I thought I'd start a little annual tradition. Here are my gripes about 05's gadgets in relation to how they hindered my enjoyment of culture, my job, my life. Call it the Digital Culture Gripe list, installment 1. Collect them all, add to them, and share with your friends.

1. Sirius s50 portable satellite radio product. This device, for all its jet-black beauty and sleek goodness, doesn't work at home unless you have an FM radio to run it off. And while plenty of true music lovers might rail me for this admission, I do not have a traditional stereo system or FM radio in my current domicile. So I can only download content onto this player while it's in my car (say hello to true Grand Theft Auto), and then play songs back to myself when I come home. Not what a portable satellite radio player should be. And I own Sirius stock.

2. Push to voicemail on cellphones. It took me a while to start loving cellphones. I say that because I don't love them yet. Verizon Wireless is supposed to have the best network, but it's terrible in my apartment, where I spend much of the day. SMS spam is a new problem, to boot. But my most important gripe about how cellphones have bothered this writer in 05 was by continuing to force me to make a phone call into my voicemail, and then inputting my passcode, simply to hear my messages. By god, cellphone companies: Simply put a button on these devices, let the phones download voicemail messages as audio files as they hit us, and let us play them back to ourselves on demand with one push of a button. Or else, do it walkie-talkie style. As it is, I waste three minutes every time I have to retrieve a cellphone message. That's three minutes I could have spent listening to a new song.

3. iPod speaker system companies. Build us some long-long-range remotes with big LCDs that actually allow us to search our iPod's menu. I am not satisfied sitting near your device and squinting into my iPod's dark screen so I can try to figure out which Shostakovich Prelude or Radiohead bootleg  I'd like to hear. You are supposed to be a solution. Take yourself seriously.

4. Cellphone TV clips. EV-DO services are not broadband speed, my friends. And your clips suck. $15 a month to watch a few Jon Stewart monologues among all your dumb pop videos and weather forecasts with only passable buffering speed in big-ass airports is the most collossal waste of money I can think of. Plus, doesn't most of America spend its time in cars, and at work? When am I supposed to watch you? It's not like you work on subways.

5. Pricey GPS navigation devices with MP3 players. I cannot enjoy my music when I'm constantly trying to figure out how to correct the navigational mistakes you have made. I am aware of error quotients. I am human. But you are not. Get me where I need to go, or else don't advertise yourself as the expert. I can plug my iPod into my stereo and write my directions on a piece of paper. I shouldn't have to know the area I'm using you to navigate. Plus, it's actually kind of fun to find something on my own. Call me a Beat. I dare you.

6. Bluetooth headsets that switch from music to cellphone rings. You're great, except that you're going to give me brain cancer. I loathe you, and hence cast you all to hell.

7. Any device that claims to take digital notes for me with a stylus or QWERTY "thumbboard." I have tried you all in bookstores or movie theaters or cafes where I need to record my thoughts and story ideas. I still prefer paper.

8. Text message users that choose to use the form for anything more complex than telling me what time to meet them somewhere, and passively request lengthy responses from someone without a Sidekick and a trust fund. You are adding more distractions to my life, and I'm already quite distracted. So much so that the latest David Foster Wallace essay collection has sat on my desk, half-read for a week since I bought it. And that is a record for a DFW release in the home of Baer. Stop texting me about your personal life. Phone conversations work for these issues, but in-person meetings are better. Make time for them, and perhaps you won't have time to amass all the personal anxieties about anxieties you must text me about.

9. Web video. You're fantabulous. The only problem is that whenever someone wants to watch you, everyone wants to watch you, and you stream at such slow rates (even on T1 lines) that you aren't worth my time. Don't be cheap with bandwidth. Imagine what life would be like if you had the budget of a Midwest symphony orchestra.

10. iPod Nanos with sensitive voice recorder plug-ins and software that turns voice comments into text. Where are you? I need you for my interviews. Microcassettes cannot be trusted for all their nostalgic charm, and I believe you, not the children, are our future.

big shot

As Supertramp once said, give a little gift. Mine is this guide to high-performance digital cameras, just in time for the holiday season. I'll be honest: When faced with each new assignment like this--as opposed to, say, profiling a musician, ranting about culture, or writing a personal essay--I wonder what I have to offer my audience. Clearly there are people who know more about digital photography than me--take, say, digital photographers. And clearly as more and more magazines and newspapers get more and more obsessed with the gaggle of consumer technology available there are too many people buying products they simply don't need. Consider, for instance, the tourist at L.A.'s Grove I saw last week, strapped with a $10,000 digital camera--replete with big-ass power flash--all to snap a photo of his loving wife in front of a fountain. A fake fountain in an outdoor mall, mind you. What I mean to say with this is that when I write something about cameras, I am, often, consciously attempting to explain why you don't need a certain product as much as I am trying to highlight one's gifts. I, for one, don't need a digital SLR camera that costs more than $800 (don't know what SLR means? check the guide). But some of you National Geographic photograhers may. I just know that I'll probably play with mine for years, adding lenses, messing with speed and light meters, and likely still be able to publish my shots alongside my travel stories, as I am beginning to do. The cameras are that good now. See for yourself, and by all means, if you must capture a mall-shopping trip--here or abroad--please don't use anything other than a point and shoot. Or else I'll take a picture of you. And share it.

nostalgia

Does anyone remember when it was a fun and exciting experience to receive the holiday season Sharper Image catalogue? Peering through this year's edition, I can't seem to find a product that hasn't been written up in the local newspaper, to say nothing of all the glossy magazines that help me pay the rent. We have now officially begun living in The Future. So for God's sake, someone pass me one of Marty McFly's flying skateboards, and let's start giving each other books as gifts again. I think I've blogged so much, I've forgotten how to read.

part of my reality pod

So, reality. I recently wrote a teeny primer on podcasting for Parade magazine, and while it isn't the most in-depth, ruminative article about the practice or the subculture it has spawned (see Wired's piece about podfather Adam Curry), I didn't write it with such a goal. It's more for people who still don't really know what a podcast is, or how it is changing the media landscape--especially now as video podcasts (or vodcasts) get more popular and soccer moms (and I had one when I was a soccer kid, so please don't think I'm being derisive) download "Lost" episodes on iTunes. I might also claim responsibility for outfitting coverboy Usher with Numark's new iDJ--the best gift available for the budding iPod MC. Want more gift ideas from someone with too many tech PR contacts? See my annual Travel + Leisure tech guide, or this Men.style.com gift guide I helped curate.  Me? I'll just take the new Sony Cyber-shot. I'm tired of all that lens-changing at the supermodel photoshoots. (Of course, you can just be sensible and buy nothing...)

life resource

This will be useful.

[via Lifehacker]

it's time to operate

So Diddy either wants to be or thinks he is an MVNO, or haven't you heard? What's an MVNO? Why, it's a Mobile Virtual Network Operator: a cellphone marketing company that leases network capacity from a true cellphone company (Verizon Wireless, say) and sells its own character-driven brand of phone -- one that these days exploits the speed of 3G networks and lets you download music and movies. Confused yet? Read this trend piece on MVNO kingpin Peter Adderton --  and see Jonathan Bing for important thoughts on the tech's Hollywood marketing implications.

frame of reference

I have written a piece about buying a camcorder for GQ's Web site. Because, you know, what I really want to do is direct. (Click here for my [hopefully entertaining and informative] FAQ.)

On the upside, I used as a resource some great guidance from filmmaker and designer Hillman Curtis, whose fourth book, Hillman Curtis on Creating Short Films for the Web, just hit shelves. See some of his inspiring work here (my favorite is the "Spinal Tap" Film on Film). And follow some advice from Stanley Kubrick Curtis holds dear: "Perhaps it sounds ridiculous but the best thing that young filmmakers should do is to get hold of a camera and film and make a movie of any kind at all."

new jack city

Admit it: You just read Wired for the articles. Right. Uh huh. Well, then, you of all people, Shalloteer, should know deeply this post's sheer lack of necessity. Of what do I speak? Oh, you mean you don't know? Well, in this month's cover story, Variety editor/author Jonathan Bing doesn't just give Peter Jackson and his "King Kong" remake effort the full Wired treatment, replete with active verbs and long-form insight. He applies some of the "philosophy of marketing" magic that he dishes weekly in his column, Hard Sell. The gist? That Jackson's finally got enough power to teach virtual PR seminars to the Hollywood flacks collecting good corporate benefits packages on the assumption that if they simply smile, kiss journalist's asses, and hock one-sheets out of the back of their Beemers, they're doing their jobs. No way, say the online "making of Kong" diaries Jackson posts regularly from Weta, his personal New Zealand movie city. Good PR can actually come from substance, authenticity, enthusiasm, and a little insight about online community-building. Especially when you're dealing with a director like Jackson, whose dutiful fans just need a few regular content feedings to keep them alive and well enough for Kong to hit it big on opening weekend.

bad talk

What, exactly, is Google Earth if not a very easy way for very bad people to do research on the next place they want to ruin? OK, fine: I get that satellite imagery and 3D terrain shots can combine to create a pretty useful geographical tool. Still, Google Talk (the company's new IM and Internet phone service) is driving me crazy. Sure, now that eBay bought Skype -- the most famous free Internet phone service -- it's good to have at least one Internet phone technology owned by people with supposedly benevolent hands. But ever since I signed up for Google Talk, I get little "Gmail Notifier" boxes that appear in the lower right hand corner of my screen not only telling me I have new e-mail in my Gmail inbox but giving me a taste of what those e-mails say. This is very, very annoying for someone who feels compelled to check his e-mail all day. And sure, I'm certain I can get rid of them. But why, when ignoring the problem allows me to go on this sort of rant? I admit it: I get lots of strange, compulsive pleasure from going to the Gmail Web site: logging in, just hoping to see a new message. Or dreading one, for that matter. Either way, I shouldn't have to know I have new e-mail -- and know what the messages say -- before I want to. I have already killed what was once a somewhat decent attention span in service of checking my e-mail all day. Now, I can get interrupted by my e-mail like a cellphone ring and lose out on the strange joy I get from wondering what people are writing me. The next tech product to take the world by storm? A computer without Internet capabilities for writers who actually want to remember why they became scribes and get something done at a keyboard. I am working on the prototype right now. It will look something like this.

letter from the sharapovasphere

From Maria Sharapova's revelatory blog, which should, I hasten to say, have been updated post-U.S. Open:

I also listen to my iPod all the time. I love music. The new Coldplay is sooo good. I can’t stop listening to that. Also, I’ve been into a lot of Dance and Club music. It keeps me moving. Sometimes I have to dance on the plane cause I can’t control myself.

What am I reading? Fashion magazines. Lots of them. All that I can get my hands on. After reading a good novel, it’s great to flip through magazines. As everyone knows I love fashion. I can’t get enough of it. It makes me want to go shopping. Doesn’t that sound fun?

Um, yes. But not as fun as reading her take on Tolstoy would be. That, not the new chicklit tome of the month, is what teenage Russian tennis stars built in Florida's Blonde Tennis Star Factory consider good novels, right? Let the gossip start here then. I'm breaking the NDA I signed with Sharapova Enterprises to leak to the world the luminary's newest media move: intellectual. Look for a 3,000 word Sharapova essay on Isaac Babel in an October issue of the The New York Review of Books. And remember, you didn't learn that here. Not unless you want a visit from Yuri and Slava.

at long last: the senior season o.c. political report!

It's been some time since we contributed an original O.C. political report, and even though it would please us at GS headquarters as much as the next Seth Cohen-wannabe to mock the oh-so-subtle "switch to Cingular" message present in the first ad campaign for Motorola's iTunes phone** (which conveniently ran during The O.C. premiere's first commercial break), we couldn't exactly let all of Josh Schwartz's hidden political messages go. So much has changed, after all, since Seth embodied the Bush presidency's feelings about people who make less than $100,000 a year by announcing to fresh-faced Summer: "I just can't be friends with you!"

that's what they all text

A few days ago, I posted about SMS spams - my (ex) friend Foot Locker, in concert with that new kid S'lifter.com, decided to text me some vital info, and I wasn't feelin' it. Well, as it happens, the punks responded to my q about how and why they got all up in this bidness:

To answer your question about how we received your number and to ensure you understand that we're not a telemarketer or a firm that obtains cell phone numbers illegally, here's the explanation:   We recently partnered with Foot Locker  and the only way we would have been able to send you a message is if you willingly gave it to Foot Locker (or one of their subsidiaries  Lady Foot Locker, Champs Sports, and/or Footaction) to be a member of their loyalty program. As you know, membership in the Foot Locker program is completely optional, and people provided their cell phone number to them in order to be notified of special events, promotions and the like in exchange for coupons and member benefits.   Our text message would fall into the promotion category, which is why you received our invitation.  Importantly, we very much wanted to make it very clear that anyone who received our text message was given the option to opt out of receiving future messages (same with Foot Locker, and if you want to opt out of their membership program, you'll have to contact them directly.) Also, along with the introductory message was an option to "opt out" of this particular promotion. However, if he wanted to opt out of Foot Locker in general he should contact them directly.   

Get that? The only problem, though, as I have written this oh-so-caring gang, is that I never submitted my phone number to Foot Locker. As I've stated, that cat's persona non grata, yo, and he always has been. So now Slifter's doing some high-class P.I. work to see where they got my digits. Updates to follow. In the meantime, think twice before answering that text. A-train out.

tech thought of the day: message and die

Some of you know I write about tech. Some think I write about violinists -- or film, or travel, only. And still, some others thankfully think I just write jokes. And scripts, essays, and stories. Anyway, I cover all of these topics, and participate in all of these writing forms, each for a different reason. The reason I cover tech, though, is unique: It confuses me. I'm not a techie by design. I never wanted a cellphone. I never wanted to be as reachable as I am. To be as electronically fragmented.  I never wanted to suffer from the attention-span-shortening that is almost certainly due to feeling compelled to check my e-mail all day long. So when I write about tech, I'm doing it to find solutions to these problems. Ways to make life easier now that we have literally no choice but to be so reachable, so connected, so digitized. New products that actually work in human ways. My tech thought for today, therefore, is: Why, in God's name, can your wireless phone carrier charge you for receiving a text message when you have no way to screen that text the way you would screen a call? And why do you still have to pay for it even if you choose to ignore it?

For instance, yesterday I got a text message from my good friend Foot Locker (FL). You see, Foot Locker had something really important to tell me right away -- so important it had to be sent in text form while Foot Locker was, presumably, in a meeting with our mutual dog The Athlete's Foot. The message text?

"Foot Locker & S'lifter, the hottest kicks & str8 2 ur phone Goto http"//slifter.com on ur phone's browser -- Reply OUT 2 opt out."

Now, who can blame Foot Locker for having to tell me this right away? Clearly it was worth imposing on me the $.25 I pay everytime someone texts me. What you don't know, however, is the beef Foot Locker and I have been in for the past year. You see, FL got all up in my face one day. Said some crazy-wrong stuff to me 'bout how I'm frontin' and hatin' and whatnot. So I decided to freeze FL out. I tapped those digits that keep tele-thugs from knowin' your cell, and figured FL would get the mizzessage. Yo, I was wrong tho, cuz, check it, apparently those digits didn't keep FL from knowin' anything. And when he texted yesterday, y'all, I had no option but to pay for all his funked-up SMS shee-oht -- whether or not I chose to read or snub it -- according to Verizon (V-dog) Wireless. We can't be responsible for who texts you, V-dog said. But I said, yo, that ain't fair. I never gave my number to FL, and couldn't even peep that it was him who was textin'. And by the way, you sayin' that even if I could, I'd still have to pay? Oh yeah, V-dog said. That's what you signed on for when you went and got your bad self all up in that mobile wireless stuff like you did.

The moral of the story? We're all screwed if we can still get texts -- texts we must pay for -- from spammers even after we've taken all the steps we can to block them and hide. I just hope FL gets the message and doesn't sick his posse on me, yo. One text perpetrator, I can handle. Any more, and you're askin' for war.

push to freedom: tech suggestion for today

All these new cellphone companies are flaunting  "push to talk" feautures. How about "push to voicemail"? Am I the only one going insane for having to phone my own voicemail number *and* enter a password every time I get a message? VC companies, you know I'm onto something. It can be done, so let's get crackin'.

audiating outkast

A couple of days ago, Beeferman sent me a link to a NY Times article that seemed completely in line with a strain of thinking that has had me captivated for years. The piece, "Neuron Goes Awry, and Brain Becomes iPod," is a look at doctors who are researching the nature of musical hallucinations. Of course, it has always seemed like common sense to me that: a) there's a reason you can't get certain tunes or songs out of your head, and that b) there's a reason that certain tunes return to plague your mind at certain times. I always thought it rather Proustian: I would hear some cheesy '80s song by Eddie Money when my brain decided during a college date that I felt about as insecure at that moment as I did when my seventh-grade girlfriend asked me to kiss her on some rickety amusement-park ride that was, indeed, oscillating to the turns of Mr. Money's saccharin melody. Likewise my recent and involuntary obsession with an OutKast song that seems to play in my head whenever I venture into Urth Caffe -- does buying acidic overpriced coffee among wannabe celebrities make me feel hip-hop? (I assume there's no explanation for hearing Ravel on the Upper West Side of Manhattan -- unless I think of how Parisian and Monet-like those views of Riverside Drive in the 100's can seem to someone who has spent too much time looking at impressionist city-scenes).

According to this article, however, current findings on the topic...

"support recent work by neuroscientists indicating that our brains use special networks of neurons to perceive music. When sounds first enter the brain, they activate a region near the ears called the primary auditory cortex that starts processing sounds at their most basic level. The auditory cortex then passes on signals of its own to other regions, which can recognize more complex features of music, like rhythm, key changes and melody."

The piece also says that:

"There is no standard procedure for treating musical hallucinations. Some doctors try antipsychotic drugs, and some use cognitive behavioral therapy to help patients understand what's going on in their brains. "Sometimes simple things can be the cure," Dr. Aziz said. "Turning on the radio may be more important than giving medication."

The point, I guess, is that we're all in lots of trouble -- and I'm assuming that if you read this blog, your brain is as much of an iPod as mine is -- now that the digital revolution has made it possible for us to nostalgically revisit so many dark corners of our musical memories on such a regular, consistent basis. The upside, of course, is that for any of us interested in making movies, it will only get easier to produce the ideal soundtracks to the eventual motion pictures we currently call our imaginings.

 

net gains

Think all service journalism is useless? Read my new tennis racquet buying guide and please tell me otherwise. I've got to admit that this was one of my most fun and worthwhile assignments (right up there, ahem, with covering Bush v. Gore at the Supreme Court in 2000), and I don't mind that all I had to do in the course of it is test products. I adore tennis and take my racquet-buying very seriously. Which is why it's interesting that after messing around with all these new sticks, I like my old Head iRadical (see above) just fine. It's not that new racquet technology doesn't matter; it's just that I made the right choice for me two years ago and am not ready for a change. Make the decision for yourself and feel free to write with questions my FAQ may not answer. I'm high on racquet lingo these days and excited to babble about it as I sit out this Wimbledon on the DL. (What's next in my tennis journalism hopper? A far less service-y piece about a unique tennis travel experience. Stay tuned.)

the road not taken

Reason #311 to pursue that Pulitzer Prize with merciless determination: Your employer will eventually let you write poems about German luxury cars -- in the newspaper! The L.A. Times's Bard of Cars Dan Neil on Mercedes's new SLK350:

Attend me well, lords and ladies,
And my song of brave Mercedes,
A company that's struggled a bit, of late,
With reliability most unfortunate.
Though recent reports from J.D. Power
Have been as depressing as Schopenhauer,
One thing our fathers found,
You can't keep a German in a lab coat down.

And so it goes...

episode 673 of service journalism helps pay the bills

Four small tech pieces in today's N.Y. Times, and I think they're calling them "Geek" pieces now. Which is funny, because, in high school, on the materialistic South Shore of Long Island's culturally thirsty Nassau County, I felt categorically deprived from Geekiness and hence had to, you know, get out and socialize. Without a computer and consistently behind the tech curve, I spent my afternoons in spoiled friends' homes where new Mac laptops, Zack Morris phones, and big-ass TVs took up more carpet space than leather furniture from Roche Bobois. Am I reviewing this stuff now to give that narrative conflict in the novel  of my adolecent life some sustainable form of closure? Doubtful. It's just fun. See why after the jump.

the phone-in update

See this set of headphones? How much do you think it costs? Looks pretty lux, no? Those soft white earpads might even look like they're made of Ethiopian sheep leather (be truthful, you knew there were sheep in Ethiopia; you just didn't know they gave their lives for headphones). Well, good guess, because that's what $3,000 and a dream gets you from the one German headphone heavyweight amping up audiophile fetishism like it's the next de rigeur Hollywood club theme. This is but one set of the 999 Ultrasone edition7's in existence  -- the best headphones in the world bar-none -- and I'm not happy I got to play with it this week. It sounds so clear, clean, balanced, warm, and detailed, I experience an intense depression. How would I go back -- even to my budget Grados? Does "Dark Side of the Moon" really feature all those extra layers of sound? Are my iPod's MP3 files as tinny and rough as I think? No, this didn't happen. I'm not writing a big headphone test piece. I dreamt it all. My imagination is overactive. The bastard.

take me out (of business)

The Sony PSP is out. You've undoubtedly read about it in your local newspaper. It's a video iPod-cum-tiny Playstation built on the Nintendo Gameboy mold, spread wide.  And it's Sony's one shot to win back some street cred among people who actually choose to spend their money on middlebrow gadgetry. You see, Sony's electronics division hasn't been doing so well (surprise). The company's frighteningly overpriced Vaio laptops don't really provide anything unique -- and by now only sway style whores who fear the Mac switch.  The Network Walkman, Sony's answer to the iPod, isn't selling, mostly because it requires users to sign onto converting their music to the company's proprietary ATRAC audio file format. Even Sony's Cyber-shot digital cameras -- one of which I recently purchased on the recommendation of a professional paparazzo -- force you to spend more on recordable media (its Memory Stick duos cost way more than proletarian CompactFlash cards). And let's not forget that our beloved Sony innovators (from Japan) are trying to adapt to a new CEO, Howard Stringer, a Brit. So you can see why the PSP has so much riding on it. Sony isn't going to lower its prices. It's going to try to use a handheld gadget to power the conglomerate through its tough times -- much in the same way Apple used its iPod. The problem? The PSP isn't an iPod. For one thing, it requires you to buy new games *and* movies recorded on a proprietary Sony format (yes, the company would hate it if you could actually use its products in conjunction with other brands -- especially since it owns the rights to so many films). More damning, the product isn't unique. Sure it can surf the wireless internet, sure it's cooler than the Texas-Instruments calculater-chic Nintendo DS. The problem, though, is that it forces you to adapt to it -- as opposed to the iPod, which *invited* you to try it out. On top of this, Sony is marketing the thing with perhaps the most overplayed anthem of the year, Franz Ferdinand's "Take Me Out." I suppose we are supposed to listen to the youthful hipness of the song, the message of its lyrics, and associate it with this lifestyle-changing object the way others have associated U2's "Vertigo" with the discombobulating brilliance of the iPod. But here, too, Sony has tried to hard and thought too little. "Take Me Out" can't be a new anthem. It's already been played between scenes in the staid NBC "Friends" spinoff "Joey" (to name just one common place it's everpresent). It's already the soundtrack to the bridge-and-tunnel Friday night parties that happen in has-been clubs. It's already commercial. It's devoid of originality, and that's antithetical to a product promising to revamp one's life. Sony, what are you doing? With all your resources you're making a mockery of yourself. It's well-intentioned of course. But if a 28-year-old pajama-wearing writer who has never worked in either the consumer electronics or entertainment business can figure out your weaknesses, that's got to be a sign that signing a new CEO should just be the beginning for you.