Glass Shallot by Adam Baer

The Pressure to Say You're OK on the Stupid Cancer Show

 The Stupid Cancer Show had me on for a second time last night, and it was a roiling good time. The entire show's funny and informative, and my segment at about 24:30 takes us through an op-ed I wrote for the Los Angeles Times called The Pressure to Say You're OK. We also discuss asking the hard questions as cancer survivors--which include money questions and billing practices for a chance at financial transparency--as well as how recently the hospital associated with my alma mater (Johns Hopkins) decided I owed them thousands of dollars without me ever having seen a doctor there! Crazy but true, and the hunt for money to pay for this imaginary medical work only took a year to quash. Listen to the show right here.--Adam Baer

Related articles

Good Morning by Gustav Mahler

Itzhak Perlman, an Honest Appreciation in the Los Angeles Times

J.S. Bach Violin Week with Gidon Kremer

Each of the six Bach sonatas and partitas for solo violin feels like a day of the week to me. Of course, there's nothing for Day 7; Bach was religious. I've thought a lot about this idea, and I've realized that the reason I feel this way has to with each musical work's key--for example, d minor is dark, serious and somber; C major pure; E major ebullient. But it also has to do with each piece's specific mood, the musical ideas, the harmonies, the statements. That they appeared in the Bach violin work manuscript in this order matters, too, although why start the first sonata on a specific day? Did the Bach pieces help shape the way I feel about days of the week or vice versa? I'll never know because I've been playing them since I was very young. Here, below, I've associated each work with each day of the week, as played by Gidon Kremer.--Adam Baer

Monday -- Sonata No.1 in G minor

Tuesday -- Partita No. 1 in B minor

Wednesday -- Sonata No. 2 in A minor

Thursday -- Partita No. 2 in D minor (including the famous Chaconne )

Friday -- Sonata No. 3 in C Major 

Saturday -- Partita No. 3 in E major

 

 

Related articles

Itzhak Perlman, an Honest Appreciation in the Los Angeles Times

Good Morning by Gustav Mahler

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

You're (Probably Not) Ending Your Emails Wrong

The Pressure to Say You're OK -- by Adam Baer, The Los Angeles Times

 

Here's something charitable you can do before 2016 that will cost you nothing. Accept and defend “health diversity.” -- Adam Baer, The Los Angeles Times

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

 

Related articles

Itzhak Perlman, an Honest Appreciation in the Los Angeles Times

Good Morning by Gustav Mahler

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

Related articles

Itzhak Perlman, an Honest Appreciation in the Los Angeles Times

Good Morning by Gustav Mahler

Are Riptides and Currents as Dangerous as We Think?

Saw something online that blew my mind about how to deal with riptides, so I wrote this quick thing for Men's Journal. I'd read it and watch the video if you ever plan on going into the ocean.

Related articles

Itzhak Perlman, an Honest Appreciation in the Los Angeles Times

Good Morning by Gustav Mahler

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

Beyond the Boundary Principle, A New York Times "Couch" Essay -- by Adam Baer

When I first heard that the New York Times was running a series of Opinionator essays about psychology and psychotherapy called "Couch," I was pretty sure I'd have something to submit. I've not only a seen a few professionals in this field over the years, but the woman I married eventually became a stellar clinical psychologist and neuropsychologist in Los Angeles. I like to kid that she's never had the good fortune to be my doctor, but that's of course true: I was never her patient, and she wasn't in this line of work when we met. She first started as a scientist, a researcher.  At any rate, I decided that I'd write a piece about the key psychologists in my life, especially because two of them had massively differing approaches, and in fact, one passed away while seeing me with the same disease as me -- and never told me she was sick (such are boundaries). If you've made it this far, here's the link to the story that ran in the New York Times Couch series. Have a read and tell me if you still don't approve of strict boundaries like those which the selfless cancer therapists live by. I hope this honors them in some way. -- Adam Baer

p.s. Some people upon reading this piece don't get the sense that I had tried to honor these people in my life while still being truthful about my experiences with them. The very act that I have told these stories is an act of honoring them, and one can't change a couple of intriguing non-fiction stories into pure praise when one is composing this sort of journalism piece. I also did leave out a lot of info about my experience and both characters (as well as my wife). I don't want to have to say this -- I hope that some people get it -- but the piece itself is in a way a commentary on what we should share and what we shouldn't. And that every case is different, so hard and fast rules may exist but must like music be interpreted with good taste (for example, I could have shared my wife's name and advertised for her, but I didn't; nor did I want to intrude on the life of someone else's family). Thanks to all who read and corresponded with me about this essay. It wasn't easy to write but I felt that it could do some good to share it, and I hope it brings attention to the clinical psychologists (Ph.D.s) who work with cancer patients and their families while continuing to contribute to important research. If you want to donate to a cause look up the good people in your area who do this, and help them.

Related articles

Itzhak Perlman, an Honest Appreciation in the Los Angeles Times

Mindfulness Therapy May Help Ease Recurrent Depression

Jenji Kohan Has a Husband, His Name is Christopher Noxon, and We Spoke About his Stellar Novel

The congenial Christopher Noxon knows what it means to be a Plus One (something about weed, the color orange, and a talented woman called Jenji). Anyway, we talked about this subject and Chris' new novel Plus One for The Believer. You can buy the book here: http://www.amazon.com/Plus-One-Christopher-Nox…/…/1938849426 But you can read our interview by clicking here.

Related articles

Itzhak Perlman, an Honest Appreciation in the Los Angeles Times

Good Morning by Gustav Mahler

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

You're (Probably Not) Ending Your Emails Wrong

My Rare Disease, and the One Guy Who Might Erase It -- by Adam Baer

A lot of you know I've had cancer(s). That it's been tough, that I've been given the chance to write about it. And that I am lucky to have great health insurance. However, what many readers may not know, even if you've read my work, is that buried in a piece for Harper's Magazine that I published I talk about having a malignant tumor in the base of my skull (not my brain) called Chordoma. The piece makes it clear that I continue to live with it. But to make it more clear, this is one of the rarest diseases in America, and very few people, save for the generous experts who have to date saved my life with surgery and radiation and management, know what to do with chordomas, including a lot of doctors and researchers.

Of course, we're living at a time when a researcher might figure out an ever-better treatment. But a tiny portion of the population may not realize that this silent, fatal disease and its treatments force us to perpetually fight terrible side-effects (among them, the very serious condition of social isolation), and that if this is just one of the cancers you have/have had, life is never "OK," even if you do your best to make everyone around you feel like it is, lest you seem stranger, weirder, more of a reminder of everyone's mortality, a guilt-inducer. Rarer.

At any rate, the guy linked to in a few sentences is pretty much the only one of our generation, without an MD or PhD, working really hard to lead research and other programs that may help people with this specific rare disease. He and his foundation deserve serious support. His name is Josh Sommer, and his non-profit is called Chordoma Foundation. I'm ashamed that I haven't been more vocal about him and his work over the years, and that most times I don't want to read about this one of my diagnoses. But on a day like today, when I have questions about a certain drug that I need for one late effect of a previous cancer treatment, something that might make my chordoma worse, a question that cannot be answered, I feel lucky that Josh is doing what he does. This call for support is long overdue.

I hope that you read about Josh, and back his group. I learned that I have (a) chordoma because of an incidental MRI taken because of headaches. That means that many other people can have it, and that it can be less rare than we think, because who gets head MRIs for no good reason, and who looks into the heads of the deceased? I'd hate to learn of one more person suffering from this deadly problem, but it's highly possible, and that -- not any sympathy for my situation -- is why I posted this. People with chordoma are often told they may only live seven or ten years.

Some of us who've had the advanced treatments and surgeries are optimistic about living a lot longer, but we could be wrong. Josh, and the people he's working with, are not living in the vagaries; they are living and working for change in the now, and they don't feel their job is done with just one magazine article that appears to be a book review. I hope that I can help them more, and that you may decide to allocate some of your disposable income and time to help them, too. -- Adam Baer

Related articles

Beyond the Boundary Principle, A New York Times "Couch" Essay -- by Adam Baer

The Day Paul Mazursky Changed My Life (RIP)

Itzhak Perlman, an Honest Appreciation in the Los Angeles Times

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

Related articles

Itzhak Perlman, an Honest Appreciation in the Los Angeles Times

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

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.

 

Why the Oscars Need a "Best Soundtrack" Category

Today I have a piece in The Atlantic in which I persuade the Academy Awards to create a "Best Soundtrack" category that would honor the artistic work of insightful music supervisors, who should be given the same awards as art directors and other creative film staffers. There wasn't much room to get into a large discussion of the best soundtracks ever created much less those of this year. But as I wrote, the "art is in the curating of the mix," and in that spirit, I offer you up the one-song but internally eclectic soundtrack to my life. OK, seriously: that song and this one.

UPDATE: A reader commented on the piece with an intelligent response. The comment and my reply are below. 

• A "Best Soundtrack" category would be interesting... although it would immediately create confusion among viewers with the "Best Original Score" category, would it not?

• Adam Baer

  It could, and I'm a big supporter of composers. One idea, then, is to create two categories for music: "Best Soundtrack" and "Best Original Music." That way scores can continue to be awarded individually, but the rare individual song could be singled out as well. Is it easier to write a song than a score? That's not really the issue, especially when many of today's scores are bits and pieces of incidental music cues. This would allow us a chance to still award composers for their important work (something important to me) and offer an award for a full soundtrack, including a score and playlist of pre-written/recorded songs.--Adam Baer

 

Update #2: The other strategy they could employ is two music categories: Best Music Direction (like art direction, which would include soundtrack), and Best Original Music. --Adam Baer 

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...

worried about your moral footprint this week? new blogs to check out.

You don't have to be of the Hebraic persuasion to admire the new raucous gripe blog, Don't Judge Me. For those musically inclined, the Shallot is also digging Cassette from My Ex and, as if it needs any help, Smith magazine's new six-word memoirs project. Shallot, however, continues to write long--at least, for the printed the page.

Oh, My Word: Omaha's "Whatevs" Disaster. News as it Breaks.

The news is slowly creeping out of Nebraska Methodist Hospital. But apparently three ordinarily healthy septuagenarian Omaha librarians are still in critical care after suffering simultaneous cardiac arrests this morning when they were struck by news so grammatically and linguistically abominable that they could not maintain homeostasis. Margaret Dubrovic, 71, head librarian at Omaha's central library system, was reportedly enjoying a routine morning when her latest copy of The New Yorker magazine arrived in the mail. Allegedly, Dubrovic looked forward with great verve to the arrival of her private subscription copy and had been rumored to read half of the entire periodical well before the end of morning on delivery days with friends and co-librarians Betsy O'Neill, 74, and Edith Cooper, 76, both of whom also suffered cardiac arrests. But this morning the group happened upon what junior librarian Thomas DeBouef, 23, could only call "literary blasphemy of the highest proportions." The insidious word "whatevs," a slang term for "whatever" used by the so-called Britney Generation and the blog whatevs.org, apparently found its way into music critic Sasha Frere-Jones's recent review of the latest Coldplay album. And while the estimable writer had likely used the term in the most tongue-in-cheek manner, it even appeared as a one-word sentence--capitalized, of course. "He didn't have to go that far," said DeBouef, whose grandfather Eli, 89, also works in the library as a volunteer and suffered minor whiplash from today's events. "There's no doubt in my mind that the act of literally seeing such a word, if you can call it that, printed in the magazine these ladies have held so dear to their literary hearts for so many years caused their simultaneous tragedies. It's a damn shame." Of course, one Generation X reporter cannot help but wonder, in the words of character Carrie Bradshaw from the HBO show "Sex and the City," what septuagenarian librarians were hoping for from a review of a Coldplay album in the first place. "They weren't as shocked as many of their friends were that The New Yorker had taken to reviewing popular music so substantively over the last few years," added Debouef.  "They rather liked Coldplay, and as the article said, they often played the album 'Parachutes' during their afternoon tea sessions as a means to relax from the stress of their jobs." For now, however, the implicit danger posed by a simple unsubstantiated slang term such as "whatevs" is all an entire community can cling to for some explanation as to why their best librarians are on leave from the city's hottest reading room. More news as it breaks. In the meantime, get better, girls.

do you "get it?"

Have you seen the funniest copywriting ad on the Internet? Here it is:

"You’re a Copywriter who gets it, and you wonder why other people don’t. You understand that meaning comes not from the words, but the experience. You don’t write copy, you start conversations. You understand the transformational power of a network. And you think about connections – between brand and consumer, between consumer and consumer, between websites, emails, banners, TV, print, and direct mail. You have ideas. You have talent. You work hard. You play hard. And you’re the next Copywriter at [company name redacted] – Los Angeles."

Since when did meaning "come not" from "the words?" If that's true, the meaning of this ad is that professional copywriting is a joke (no surprise), because "the experience" of this ad is that  non-sequiturs and cliches produce money, and that it's easy to please corporate parrots who just "want to get onto the same page" and "reach out" to you so they can make more money off mind-"loving" members of our fair society.

Vaya con dios, wannabe copywriters!

yvette siegert: benching books from times square with zeal

Yvette Siegert, the young and exceedingly talented Columbia instructor, poet, and New Yorker editorial staff member, has finally been given a public forum in the form of, yes, a blog. New Yorker blogs may be obvious references, but what you should know about Siegert, the author of The Book Bench, is that she's not only a voracious and reliable book-scene correspondent; she's eminently qualified to tell us the backstories behind the books while remaining highly literate in the world literature field and so damn likable that you would never go wrong following her advice about what to read. Way to go, New Yorker! You've got a blogger who will literally change the way the magazine reaches the online book world and the readers to whom it caters. See The Book Bench as soon as possible, and watch for much, much more from Shallot friend Siegert.

the new crop

It’s true: The Shallot will no longer live a bi-coastal American life for the next thirty days. Rather, we intend to get bi-continental on your brain. That is, I will be stationed in Italy through the end of June, but I also will soon ask a guest editor to introduce herself. Your host will be a talented LA writer with far-reaching cultural interests and just the right amount of skepticism. While she pens bi-weekly dispatches and more quippy additions, I may chime in with observations about: travel, America's political profile abroad, food, international arts and culture, and the only European country I grew to love in my early twenties. It’s an interesting time to visit, in the wake of reviewing Umberto Eco and certain health conditions, considering, as I often do, the slowing down (if not the eradication) of my digital life in favor of returning to a more natural existence. But then where would the Shallot exist if I turned off the laptop? If the blog has done one thing for me all these years—aside from providing a waystation for my work (from literary to vapid, draw your own conclusions)—it has allowed me to put some parts of myself out into the ether that other vehicles just wouldn’t allow. I have too many stories (fiction and non)--to say nothing of the momentary surge of short ideas I wish to share--that I should have submitted, should have pitched, should have marketed, perhaps, if I had cared more over the years about making myself “known,” as I grow less confident about the so-called market for such work. Alas, I left music performance for a similar reason: I just don’t care to “perform” for an audience. Blogging, when it’s best for me, is about practicing some (casual) element of my craft for a small group of eyes, largely composed of people I know or have grown to know. Or will get to know. Or should know.  I’m not sure how the forthcoming guest editor feels about the form. But I do know she’s doing bang-up work on her site while diving in with lots of energy into this world we call publishing. Give her some of the love (and by love, I also mean good-spirited bile) that you’ve given me, and she will likely respond in kind, engendering the brand of dialogue that the Shallot enjoyed in its earlier, more active years. If I jump in now and again, and I will, it may even be in photo or video form. But I will also be at work on a long-term project as well as travel articles, so let’s make a date to reconvene in a short while and enjoy some new Shalloteering in the meantime. Cheers.

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.

some real new year's bubbly

In the current issue of Nextbook, Emily Barton's essay from the forthcoming anthology "Brooklyn Was Mine," takes us into a forgotten world of true Brooklyn seltzer-love, introducing us to Eli, the seltzer man. Finding this old-world, high-end delivery service that puts store-bought seltzer to shame, she writes:

Eli’s seltzer is more expensive than the kind we got in the store, so we don’t drink it with the same abandon, and the taste is different: saltier, more metallic, sharper. Learning to control the pressure was trickier than we’d expected; we had a few days of wet countertop before we mastered it. Even with soy milk, it makes phenomenal egg creams. But more important, we like having the crates and bottles in our kitchen, a tie to this city’s past. I like the connection to my father’s childhood, my aunts’ and uncle’s childhoods, and a world that was based around neighborhoods, where you knew the people who lived next door and ran the shop around the corner.

No beverage was more prominent in the home of my Sheepshead Bay grandparents than true, high-end seltzer (without the high-end price), and for the record, my Long Island born father still romances about properly carbonated egg creams. I used to even think as a little kid that seltzer was a specifically Jewish drink. But upon visiting my wife's Abruzzo-born Italian family in Bay Ridge last week, guess what I was served? One hint: It wasn't Pellegrino.

Why Glass Shallot?

Because we spit out "club soda" with verve!

oh, please offer us some...intelligent variety

I had a funny discussion the other day with another New Yorker living in LA. He said he felt like an "expat" here: a "big fish living in a small pond," in his telling--at least when it comes to meeting people who think beyond headlines. I didn't exactly agree or make the statement, but it wasn't the first time I heard it. Luckily, I've met tons of brilliant people in my new fair city. But I've sought a lot of them out. You don't always converse with new ones in line at El Pollo Loco. But my tales of serendipitous philosophical chicken-joint communion will have to wait.

Funnily, another friend just pointed out that Variety, Hollywood's glory trade mag (Ari Gold once called it the "school paper" on Entourage), linked to my Sweeney Todd piece earlier in December. The blog's quote? "Adam Baer claims that 'Tim Burton "re-invents the movie musical" with 'Sweeney Todd.' Really?'"

I had to laugh when I saw that. Did the blogger even realize that the actual subhead of the article--written by someone other than me--made it very clear that "re-inventing the movie musical" is what the filmmakers claim, and that I simply reported what they had to say? Probably not, because short-order blogs and especially movie-trade blogs meant for D-people aren't exactly the most accurate places to get your news.

Read the story that I wrote carefully. There's hardly any criticism in the piece, save for a very careful statement that reads: " [Sweeney's] as entertaining, artistic and efficient as anyone could make a 'Sweeney Todd' film that might appeal to a broad swath of moviegoers." While I believe the movie is entertaining and a great shot at creating a Hollywood movie version of Sweeney, save for a lot of the singing, I don't go beyond that point. I'm not hired to be a critic here. And I'm actually pleased with that fact.  So argue away with each other. I'm not jumping into the fray as a film or music critic on this one.

And that's the way it was supposed to be. I was paid to tell other peoples' stories in this case. Additionally, I write that:  "The key, therefore, was not to produce a performance film like Ingmar Bergman's "The Magic Flute" but to create an original movie genre: a consciously present-day spoke-sung music-film with younger actors, no traditional singers and a cinema-grotesquerie style, full of viscous slashes of blood." But this isn't my opinion. It's implied that the "key" belongs to the filmmakers.  This is the opinion of those interviewed--see forthcoming Steven Sondheim quote. It's factual reportage.

In Sondheim's words: "You can't just adapt stage musicals for the screen. You have to re-create them."

If I had been hired to critique the film, I might have printed all kinds of comments that discuss this recreation of genre and what Sweeney means to music and film. But I wasn't. And I'm not going to do it here and undermine my story. I stand by it. And if its sub-headline should read that the filmmakers' claim they've created a new genre--and if I should go on to give you those opinions--well, that doesn't mean I'm making the critical statement.

Frankly, after a childhood of conservatory composition, mainstream movie-loving, and a decade of criticism, I don't think Sweeney re-invents the movie musical; I think it adds new elements to it as filmic entertainment.  As I wrote: " Sweeney's new Burtonesque world is a visceral, inflated experience only film can provide."

But please, Variety blog, read between the lines before misquoting reporters on critical statements they, personally, haven't made. This sort of reaction to a story about Sweeney Todd is exactly what worried me when I learned such a meaningful and complex piece of music-theater was going to be fed to the multiplex crowd--and those who blog for those who feed them. Perhaps I should have asked the producers if they were worried about how the insider movie press would handle the movie and the primary press it might inspire--as opposed to how audiences across America would handle it. Happily, I left a midwestern theater the other day after seeing the movie in its completed version to find goth teenagers singing "Nothing's Gonna Harm You..." Sondheim doesn't need anyone's help connecting to any brand of audience.

upright citizen regresses further

After having seen numerous shows at the Upright Citizens Brigade theaters in both NY and LA, I have to say, it's pretty sad knowing that Amy Poehler, one of the founders, is so far along in her career, and that the other three guys, who can be funny, aren't. One of the things that strikes you when you first see a UCB long-form improv show--especially a free one--is how many very young college kids come out for it. And how well, these aging middle agers--the three guys who founded the troupe with Amy--play to them (Amy is always somewhere else, though I have caught her a number of times, and she's delivered the goods, ratcheting up a performance as long as coked up Seth Myers isn't a guest, or worse, the unfunny Horacio Sanz). Now, from Joystiq, however, is a video from the chief UCB man-child Matt Besser, doing shtick on gamers. I'm not offended. I'm not a gamer. But Besser, man, come on: You don't have to keep skewing young to get a laugh. As the sharpest tool in the UCB box, it should be evident that hitting the right comedic note by now is no longer just indulging the USC freshmen. Hell, look at Conan. He's found a way to stay college-funny but age, brilliantly. For now, that is.

[via Joystiq]

shallot on parade, episode 43

I just learned from the cool people at Six Apart/Typepad that my blog is one of their “featured” sites today. Coolness. I really should say as someone who assesses technology quite frequently that this is an excellent blog application. I've said it before to friends, but what the hell, why not render it officially Shallot-approved on the day of our big, global blog-communion?
Welcome, new readers. Now, you may be curious about this site's purpose and goals.  You’re right, you over there in the corner of your St. Louis loft: I don’t chronicle my experiences as a club bouncer or write only on sustainable seafood. My blog isn’t a celebrity or media gossipIST, nor is it a localized cityIST or entertainment verbER. It’s hard to categorize my blog. I call my posts cultural shards, but they’re also personal shards. I rarely write or speak about the concept of the Glass Shallot because I’m the kind of writer who feels we really shouldn’t have to use language to explain everything. Think about it, and maybe it will begin to mean something to you, or maybe you’ll drift off into a thought about how the shmucky guitar player who lives next to you resembles John C. Reilly on barbituates. So far, this site has become nothing more than it was from the start: a personal interests blog run by a working writer--one who covers a lot of different topics as well as writes creatively. You sometimes get my articles, sometimes my thoughts on the news or other articles. Sometimes my thoughts on crackhead rockstar wannabes. Or lobstermen. Or health politics. Or a fictional humor casual. You will also sometimes get someone else’s thoughts on something curious. You could call these posts Web vagaries; I rather like that term, had just spoken about it the other day with a friend who reads Shakespeare the way I read op-ed columns. Would that it were the other way around: that’s one of my goals for the year. That and hearing someone laugh at a line in my new film. The latter seems more plausible at the moment. And I’ve never even slept with Harvey Weinstein--high five! But above all, I’d like you to notice that as hard as the Shallot may be to crack, it’s subtly sweet underneath whatever onion-y sharpness you may notice on its nose. At least that’s what the cook intends. Let's mix metaphors and move on! Click on the post-continuation to read Typepad's very kind words.

hyperlink movies

In today's edition of Kottke.org there's a bit about how Roger Ebert calls Syriana a "hyperlink movie" (a concept allegedly founded on Mark Bernstein's blog in 2003). I wholeheartedly agree, but don't believe Ebert is the only critic now making these connections in print. In David Denby's review of the film, the New Yorker critic writes: "[Gaghan is] a Web-era filmmaker—distance is just a form of connection." I took this idea as a jumping off point in December to discuss how the film's form is emblematic of its message, but that I didn't feel like it worked. Certainly not as well as Traffic. In fact, I simply found it a way to manipulate people bred on this system of information-linking. This is, after all, the easiest way to incite anxiety in a viewer like me who had the Internet at age 17 and often has to flood my mind with linear methods of storytelling just to remain a clear writer. To understand hyperlink films, however, it might be best to take a trip to the source: hypertext. In this article for the NY Times about e-mail fiction, I scratched the surface, though did manage to bring in some thoughts by hypertext scholar Noah Wardrip-Fruin. Get into this world, I tell you, and you might not find a way out. But hey, maybe it will help you feel more comfortable viewing Syriana. Such that you may actually enjoy the thing.

why is eminem the only one allowed to constantly announce the fact that he's "back"?

In the spirit of blogger self-referentiality, I must take this moment to declare my shock that the same amount of people (about 650 a day) visit my blog whether or not I post something. I have gone on long hiatuses before (is that right? hiatusES?). And each time, I return with the same results. Is it because I blog about newsworthy stuff that pops up on Google a lot? Is it because you all really like me? I'm happy in all cases. And of course, feeling like I owe something to this new world that, unlike publishing, doesn't just forget you if you take a break. So allow me to add some historical context to all the discussions on Alex Ross's blog and in both the LAT and NYT about online classical music. I began covering this world in 2000 for the NYT and The New Republic Online when sites like Classics Today, Global Music Network, and Andante launched. At the time, forward-thinking TNR was even paying me to review webcasts as a new form of music listening experience that deserved a new kind of criticism (I can thank my brilliant editor at the time, Jeremy McCarter, for indulging and supporting this interest; Jeremy is now NY Mag's stellar theater critic). Anyway, you can read some of these prehistoric online music pieces below the jump, including essays about Pierre Boulez introducing Andante and Pinchas Zuckerman teaching online masterlcasses. And you thought taskmaster-induced fear wouldn't transmit over broadband Internet fat pipes.

favorite tv theme song meme

Ken Levine got in on the TV theme song meme, and I must add my two cents, given that I come from the younger generation and that I'm not, I hope, a moron. My one addition is that I'm going to include TV theme music, which sometimes isn't a song but just absolute instrumental sound. (Keep in mind, this isn't exclusively TV score music, so the sounds from "Lost" won't be on this list.)

Alas, my 10 picks for TV music openers:

1. Magnum, P.I.
2. The Sopranos
3. Curb Your Enthusiasm (not available online, but this bad ringtone is funny)
4. Diff'rent Strokes
5. Knight Rider
6. Nip/Tuck
7. Love Boat
8. Bewitched
9. Baretta
10. The Jeffersons

Honorable Mention: Taxi, Welcome Back Kotter, Moonlighting, Northern Exposure, Adam-12 (How could I resist?), CHiPs

Kottke's 2005: A Web less destructive, or How not to get lost in the surf

Jason Kottke has clearly got a hold on what makes a great blog, and part of that is the beautiful skill of compiling links for an audience with a discernible, unique character. Check his best links of 2005 (my subjective favorite is this interview with David Foster Wallace) and get lost on the Web in a good way, for once. My second favorite Kottke 05 link: Surf smart and read Jon Krakauer's 1995 Outside magazine piece on  late big-wave God Mark Foo's last ride, and bask in what great  magazine writing should be.)

the games we play

Bleary-eyed as a flu victim can be, I recently found interest in how Radosh takes compelling issue with James Suroweicki's Slate piece about the dangers of videogame graphics that skew too real, and I'm with him. But I did write a piece for The New Republic over a year ago, pegged to the release of the first Atari Flashback, that made a few claims fairly pertinent to the argument. My take?

[A]s game-developers create more sophisticated real-life-like titles, it becomes harder and harder to simply "play" a game. What emerges instead is a highly corrupting and advanced form of intriguingly retro Dungeons-and-Dragons role-playing: The game, which on the surface practically begs for you to play with a buddy in your living room, is so complex, so enveloping, so escapist, you become a part of it yourself, and hence lose any ability to socialize honestly. In the latest version of John Madden's football game, for example, there are so many mind-numbing plays and customizations for you as coach to choose from, you may as well be playing yourself (in fact one option is to simply call a play and let the thing unfold in front of your eyes without manipulating the control pad). Faced with the broad cultural proliferation of such games, network football telecasts have even begun to emulate a 2004 video game's camera perspectives, creating for TV-watchers a violent reality flip-flop and hence coloring real sport trivial and fake (if not oppressively real) on the tube.

Dumbed down, have you not noticed how all football telecasts look like Madden these days? For that reason, I'm down with Radosh on how zombie-ish the players look in Top Spin tennis. It's when the characters don't look zombie-ish but realish that we have a problem. Interpretations of reality are always fun things to escape the real with, true attempts to reproduce reality are what give me the heebie-jeebies.

revelation

I have realized that when I post about comedians, I receive five times my average number of visitors more than when I post about something political, classical-music-related, or completely unrelated to something zeitgeisty. Am I fool for not having realized this sooner? Maybe. Will I begin to post only about comedians in search of more regular visitors? No. Is there a limit to how many pointless rhetorical questions blog readers are willing to stomach? Probably.

talk about making the world blue

See Radosh for an authoritative look at the new meaning of the two-word combination known as Prussian Blue. Who knew the German Army pigment, the so-called first of the industrial revolution, was known for creating a quick-drying stain?

A very swaggerific new year

I don't know what's funnier: That, along with fellow displaced (and plenty of freaky) new Angelenos, I attended free Yom Kippur services at the Laugh Factory yesterday* -- only to emerge on Sunset and be told by a cop while crossing the street to stay put before a stunt car comes screeching around the corner. Or how about Jonathan Kiefer's newest Film Flaneur column: a hilarious open letter to movie industry marketeers.

*A sincere thanks to the club, actually: As you probably read in my Larry David post, there aren't too many other places for a casually observant Jew to rock the High Holidays for free.

all adams, all the time

I didn't get a chance to attend the premiere of the John Adams-Peter Sellars opera "Doctor Atomic," but I'll be damned if Alex Ross hasn't made me feel guilty about it. (I kid.) My point, of course, is that the grand, poetic, and insanely thorough music-historical piece Ross has about the making of the art work in this week's print edition of the New Yorker isn't his only gift to anyone interested in history, harmony, science, or politics. Supplementary materials -- from a contemplative photoblog from his California travels to links that point to other pertinent critical assesments of the piece -- are currently live on The Rest Is Noise. Sadly, I, too, can't provide much of my folder of Adams writings online -- an interview about his 9/11 paean from the NY Sun and an essay on my passion for his music from Symphony magazine only exist in print form, to say nothing of all the reviews. But if you've actually gotten through all the (far more pertinent and profound) Atomic stuff and want to read a three-year-old Slate piece on why the NY Phil asked him to commemorate 9/11 back in '02, here ya go.

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.

real genius

There's just so much genuis here, the *glassShallot staff often has to nap every 30 or 40 minutes just to remain fresh enough to take it all in. Don't believe us?  Be gone! For the reverent, however, we couldn't help but notice how many bonafide GENiuses we were able to cover this year. Geniuses, at least in the estimation of those who dole out the $500,000 MacArthur grants. In no particular  order, this year's *glassShallot/MacArthur geniuses are:

1. Marin Alsop (see Brahms CD, second from top, reviewed in LA Times)
2. Jonathan Lethem (who got a great *gS review in the SF Chronicle)
3. Aaron Dworkin (ok, we never wrote about this influential music educator, but he seems to be a genius to us!)
4. Ted Ames (an uncommonly virtuous assistant in the Great Gefilte Fish-off)
5. Joseph Curtin (a luthier who makes violins far too great and expensive for the virtual factory workers bringing you this enlightening Web content to ever slack off, lest they never upgrade their instruments to wooden boxes of the sweetness-caliber that Mr. Curtin produces).
6. Claire Gmachl (the subject of a forthcoming lead profile article to run in Stuff Magazine's new babe-a-liscious quarterly scientist-shopping insert, "Laser!")

Other geniuses [MacArthur]

mood theory

Lesson No. 4678 in How to Option Your New Novel For Big Bucks and Then Some: Write a "complicated" multi-character narrative about Hollywood evils, and then go on the Huffington Post talking about how the book is utterly unfilmable and you never, ever, want to direct.

I had my Hollywood moment. It's not that I would turn down an opportunity to be adapted (there are a couple of stories by me optioned at the moment), but I don't need it. It's just icing on the cake. As I said in 1997, movies are a particularly good billboard for a book. Movies need fiction and literature more than vice versa, because literature is where most of the genuine takes place. I don't want more fame, power, or influence. I sort of get uncomfortable with that kind of thing. I just want to be able to keep writing.

Rick Moody on his new book, The Diviners. [via Huffpo]

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.

giving bach

This -- the musicmaking not the blogging -- is what I wished I could have done for the people of New Orleans. Alas, I am relieved to see and hear it happened. [via Jan Herman]

from put me on update to just put me

It seems the Chicago joke(ste)r behind putmeonupdate.com -- an online campaign to win a guest spot on SNL's news minute -- has retooled his project. What awaits is anyone's guess. The question, though, is why? Has he taken a page out of the book of Andy Milonakis and decided that simply videoblogging as simply and stupidly as possible will get him on TV? Seems to work, no?

milonakis miloshnakis

Don't Cry For Me, Milonakis
TV Review: MTV's Andy Milonakis Show
for The New York Sun
By Adam Baer

A couple of months ago, when I first read in Variety that the 29-year-old Lower East Side comedian Andy Milonakis had scored a development deal with MTV to write and produce his own comedy show, I phoned my editor at this newspaper and asked for an assignment to interview the man. He wasn’t just newsworthy as a local comic made good. He had gotten noticed in a particularly zeitgeisty manner: He had made homemade videos of his sketches. He had posted them on his blog. And he had then heard from writers at the ABC late-night show "Jimmy Kimmel Live" that they: a) found his work hilarious, b) had sent it up to the Oz-like Mssr. Kimmel, and that c) he just might be taking his comedy from the bowels of Downtown New York to that more culturally astute neighborhood called Hollywood.

No, the Internet wasn’t exactly new, but video-blogging -- so successfully, in fact, that it could result in a development deal -- was. So I was particularly surprised when MTV denied me an opportunity to interview their new star. Was Mr. Milonakis shunning the opportunity for press? Did he feel, with the considerable Hollywood muscle of such A-list players as Jimmy Kimmel and the people who bought “Britney and Kevin: Chaotic” behind him, that he simply didn’t need notice in a New York daily newspaper?  I was vexed.

My confusion has dissolved, however, upon witnessing, a few Sunday nights ago, the premiere of “The Andy Milonakis Show”: twenty scripted minutes of one to two-minute sketches -- a senseless video blog on the fastest T1 line known to man.

Milonakis, it seems, didn’t deny us an interview because he felt above the level of local press. He most likely denied one because, as he has proved in his television debut, he doesn’t have anything original to say.

The cherubic, chubby-cheeked man-child with the high voice and ill-fitting shirts began his TV debut by opening a giant Pez dispensor in the shape of a chicken -- only for said chicken to then speak to its owner the words: “You’re a fat murderer.” The rest of the show’s opening continued in this random, pointless vein.

Picture the scenarios: 1) Andy walking up to random Lower East Side seniors thanking them for their tapioca pudding. (See the humor? Andy has never met these people before, and they might get confused as opposed to annoyed because they’ve actually lived longer then 29 stunted years.) 2) Andy speaking to his dog as his dog dreams of shooting him. 3) Andy placing a delivery for Chinese food only for the delivery man to arrive to find Andy bound to a chair with peanut butter slathered on his face. (At which point, Andy asks the man to apply more peanut butter to his doughy chin, then screams at him.) 4) Andy accidentally cutting his finger off while chopping vegetables and then taping it back on.

This is certainly what I would have e-mail my boss about were I lucky enough to have scored a writing job on Jimmy Kimmel Live.

Of course seeming higher than thou isn’t necessarily a fair way to approach comedy scripted for the mature audience that enjoys MTV’s “Sunday Stew” programming. Yet as a young man who isn’t so far out of Ashton Kutcher’s age-range, I admit that I do, occasionally, watch “Punk'd.” I do enjoy the car-modding show “Pimp My Ride.” And I do -- he admits sheepishly -- ocassionally surf the Internet while (this season's particularly bland season of) “The Real World” blares in the background.

Just because a channel and its most heavily watched primetime slot is skewed to teenage tastes, after all, doesn’t mean you have to completely dumb down its offerings. But what Milonakis's show proves -- in a latter portion of the program, he makes a homemade advertisement for spoons, explaining their many, unique, uses -- is that you don’t have to be funny to get a comedy deal. You just have to look freakish, immitate some David Letterman "man on the street interviews," and scream common-sense observations. And it will help considerably if you can lower the country’s collective attention span even more powerfully than the Internet by throwing piles upon piles of super-short clips on top of one another so that: a) there’s absolutely no cohesion to your show, and b) your viewers won’t crave any next week -- from you or anyone else.

Towards the end of Milonakis’s debut show "Crunk" rapper ‘Lil Jon -- famous, among other things, for screaming the word “What” with his phlegmy bass-baritone -- makes an appearance. He speaks to Andy through his TV, then jumps out of the box to share and spit some “Fruity Pebbles” cereal in the comedian’s face. The semantic threads of reality TV are knotted here in the most distasteful bundle. The conceit is that ‘Lil Jon is so big -- so untouchable -- that this reality-thwarting act could only have been dreamed up by a crazed boy-comic who makes Internet videos in his apartment.

How sad, however, that the opposite is true: Not only does neither character deserve his fame, however miniscule it is. Neither character is fantastical. Each is as everyday as that random, forgettable schmuck who screams at you on the street on your way out to run an errand. And when’s the last time you laughed with, as opposed to at, someone like that?

wise up, gatsby

The writer Ken Foster (The Kind I'm Likely to Get, The KGB Bar Reader, Dog Culture) has an unusually interesting discussion with Aimee Mann (pictured above) in today's Westchester Journal News -- and one detour finds the literary songstress naming F. Scott Fitzgerald as one of her influences. Read more.

if you don't know me by now

Larry David on why he supports John Bolton.

lachey lane

According to this Craigslist ad, a mere $1,000 buys me the month of May separated by just one street from the fabulousness of the sparring Newlyweds. This, to answer everyone who asks me this question on a daily basis, is why I moved to L.A.

sister, you're mine

How interesting it is when certain (morally, ethically, grammatically) inconsistent media outlets align themselves with qualitative journalists to provide themselves instant street cred in their own pages. To wit: Gawker's claim that L.A. Weekly's super-principled Hollywood columnist Nikki Finke is its "Sister-in-Ink." Sure, Gawker published a great exchange between Finke and a GQ magazine editor who represents her image of what's wrong with the entertainment media. But was Finke consulted on her new sibling-adoption by the King of All Blog Media? And if not, how does she feel about it? I can't imagine -- and keep in mind, I'm just wondering aloud -- that she looks upon Gawker any kinder than she does Graydon and VF. Clearly, she shouldn't.

google montage

See Beeferman for an explanation and introduction to the Google Montage, which does in image a form a little bit what I attempted with my recent post, who is adam baer? Who ever thought an Internet montage of photos that relate to my name would have my cherubic college-senior face juxtaposed against Britney Spears, a giraffe, some original montages by Guggenheim-award winning artist Adam Baer, Alain de Botton, and Jerry Seinfeld? Note to Adam Baer, the artist: If you are out there and aware of me, please think about dropping me a line. Perhaps we can chat about our observances of each others' Web existences and post the results.

shameless cousin plug

Beeferman is getting ridiculously funny: See the Mac Culkin/Vladimir Putin controversy and all his humor about The Gates.

i have been a bad blogger

I know this. But thanks to a lovely stomach flu and various other pressing issues, my blogging has ceased for the longest amount of time since *glassShallot's birth on November 1, 2004. Travel has also been a reason: I've been out of town on various assignments, and since I can't decide which new laptop to buy (at this point, money isn't an issue; a guy who has actually been paid to write Condé Nast-sanctioned laptop buying guides can't actually find one he likes), it hasn't been easy for me to work on the road. My criteria: a 12 inch screen, 3-pound weight, DVD drive, and 5 hours of battery life. It doesn't exist. Or does it? Let me know if somehow you've found something I've missed. (Also check other tech guides on MP3 players and handhelds if you're in the market for new toys). Less techy/servicey stuff to come soon.

the blogroll grows

So I've added some links to the blogroll without mentioning them, and I'm thinking that wasn't such a great idea, especially because they deserve your attention.

Chromasia is an award-winning photoblog by David J. Nightingale. On it you will find beautiful pictures. I'd elaborate but in this case less is more. Check it out.

The eponymous Angry John Sellers is an equally personal blog produced by a very funny magazine writer in Brooklyn. I recently met him at a magazine dinner (we contribute to the same publication) and am proud to say he made me feel like I have a lot to learn. Watch for his forthcoming book on indie rock.

Radosh, brought to us by Daniel Radosh, the writer of many thought-provoking New Yorker Talk stories among other things, continues to inspire with issues disparate ranging from Scarlett Johannsen, porn, and neo-Nazis to the iPod shuffle, Dan Rather, and Malcom Gladwell.   

Megnut, a great techie I have yet to meet, offers me recipes, tech rumors, cultural opinions, and photoblogging info I find indispensable and entertaining.

And James Wolcott, well, what to say about James Wolcott? Do you know who he is? He's crazy. He's brilliant. He's offensive. He's not. He's a Vanity Fair columnist who thinks he's God, and quite often he can persuade you that he's right.

And articles like these cost money, to boot

Lesson #47 in How to Run a Dog of a Webzine Yet Still Pull in Enough Undiscerning Readers To Stay Afloat: Publish an article about how this year's (um) "best" comedic attempts -- from "My Big Fat Obnoxious Boss" to "The Joe Schmo Show" --  actually showed respect for thinking adults. And I quote:

After years of turning to soggy, reheated "Saturday Night Live" sketches for our comic fix, after years of renting the same Monty Python movies and watching as shows like "In Living Color" and "Kids in the Hall" came and went, 2004 was the year that satire sank its razor-sharp teeth into a mainstream audience. Scathing, sophisticated humor seemed to spring up all over the place, from trusted old friends like "The Daily Show," "Doonesbury" and the Onion, to unexpected and bold new sources like "My Big Fat Obnoxious Boss" and "Team America." Suddenly nuanced, even odd humor is warmly embraced -- and not just by stoners and comedy enthusiasts who can recite the punch lines from every Mel Brooks movie ever made. From the bold and bizarre comic stylings of David Chappelle to the strange postmodern twists and turns of "The Joe Schmo Show," we were finally -- after what feels like a lifetime of Adam Sandler vehicles -- treated to comedy that wasn't targeted at an 8-year-old audience. But how did we go from fielding a steady flow of insipid comedies starring Tim Allen (who keeps hiring that man?) to watching Ali G quiz Pat Buchanan about whether or not Iraq has "BLTs"?

Now, I won't argue that Chapelle and Ali G are funny (brilliant, no, but yeah, they induce laughs). What I will say is that anyone who runs a piece about how extraordinary and adult-respecting this year's comedic entertainments have been is clearly just trying to win over the people who both produce and consume such mediocrity. Adam Sandler may be childish, his films low-brow and less than challenging, but if Salon doesn't think stuff of that caliber (or lower) didn't make up the majority of this year's entertainment fodder, than it deserves the financial problems it will endure forever.