timoni.org

Something funny I noticed, perhaps you have noticed it, too. You know what futurists and online-ists and cut-out-the-middle-man-ists and Davos-ists and deconstructionists of every stripe want for themselves?…They want white linen tablecloths on trestle tables in the middle of vineyards on soft blowy afternoons. (You can click your bottle of wine online. Cheaper.) They want to go shopping on Saturday afternoons on the Avenue Victor Hugo; they want the pages of their New York Times all kind of greasy from croissant crumbs and butter at a cafe table in Aspen; they want to see their names in hard copy in the “New Establishment” issue of Vanity Fair, they want a nineteenth-century bookshop; they want to see the plays in London, they want to float down the Nile in a felucca; they want five-star bricks and mortar and DO NOT DISTURB signs and views of the park.

Richard Rodriguez for Harper’s, “Twilight of the American Newspaper”

I was in the airport and really wanted to read this essay so I took the magazine to the counter and the lady said 7 dollars and I about DIED. And then I read this wonderful, wonderful essay that I adore and want all my blogfriends to read but YOU CAN’T ACCESS IT ONLINE. I know this a complicated choice which I have hardly even considered so who am i to whine but: UGH. Anyway, don’t worry, harper’s already sassed me about this.

Anyway I edited out the mean parts of this paragraph because 1. they are too close to home and 2. i think it diminishes the nuance and truth of which he is saying which I agree with wholeheartedly!

But isn’t that what everybody wants? That stuff? Why does that have to change? So we want to be in Vanity Fair or say, Harper’s!, but we also want to link to it on our blogs; we want to stay at that hotel but we want to find it online after reading a buttload of recommendations and asking our Internet friends where to get the best croissant. I want my iPhone to navigate me to the 19th century bookshop and I want to take pictures of it and squeal about it on Twitter. I want my five star brick and mortar to have free wifi and I want it to be good.

But a felucca? I don’t know what the fuck that is.

— meaghano

Yup. I can’t quite tell the tone from the excerpt, but it sounds like Rodriguez is saying that futurists, online-ists, cut-out-the-middle-man-ists, Davos-ists and deconstructionists either have said they don’t want these things, in the past, or are somehow hypocritical for wanting these things. But of course we want these things. In fact I think my generation* wants these things more than any generation in living memory. Look at our shoes, for god’s sakes; look at our weddings. Look at our books.

*With all the necessary qualifications for education, social status, country, blah blah.

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Is it normal to wear the same bra for weeks?

laurao: I used to have this discussion with my lovely college roommate. She changed her clothes — all her clothes — every day. I, on the other hand, can wear the same pair of pants for days at a time. Ditto for bra. Most of the rest gets changed regularly.

Other ladies? Thoughts?

Somebody told me once that, like shoes, your bras will last longer if you switch them out, wearing them for a day, then giving them (at least) a day to “rest”. So I almost never wear a bra two days in a row (I have maybe five I wear regularly). They all get washed about once a month.

★ Permalink society clothes habits

- Anatomy of a Hipster #144., by indierawk

Wait, what? Don’t they mean “Coachella,” not “Lollapalooza?”

(I dislike and try to ignore hipster-bashing-by-hipsters, normally, but this was too confusing to ignore.)

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An extension of the above sentiment is our new WME Boot Camp. I am excited to announce that Jackie Warner and co. are on board for twice a week workouts alternating with krav maga. I understand that many of you have “stress management issues” and require daily yoga, pilates and massages in order to beat back the daily tides. I do not want you to learn how to Zen out. I want hungry, aggressive teams that roam L.A. like feral animals, hunting for their next meal. Boot Camp is mandatory for all except those who have already completed the Navy Seal certification offered at Endeavor last year. There will be a final exam and just a heads up but it will require stealth extraction of an A-lister from a rival agent.

….Are you angry/upset/disgusted/disappointed/sad about the changes that have occurred? I don’t care. Note that there is no suggestion box near the executive suite. There is a reason for that. If I’m at lunch, in the men’s room, driving my kids or in the elevator with you, I do not want to hear your thoughts about the merger. Your feelings/ideas/thoughts do not interest me and any attempt to share will be construed as a verbal letter of resignation.

Internal Memo From Ari Emanuel, via Crackpotress.

(Ari Emanuel is the real-life inspiration for Entourage’s Ari Gold.)

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I think that, in general, everybody is eccentric. Aside from a small minority of people that are as one-dimensional as they appear, I think most people have a secret life. Most people are extremely interesting. Anybody that you see just walking down the street is probably a very interesting person. I don’t think that artists are necessarily more interesting than non-artists. Someone like Salvador Dali, who was just performing all the time, I mean, his whole life was a performance. He probably seemed more interesting than other people. If you’re not envisioning the world looking in it at you, you’re not documenting all the things in your head.

You might be extremely eccentric, and you’d have no idea. In our band, everybody thinks that every other member of the band is totally crazy, that they are the only sane one. It’s probably like that with all groups of friends. It’s some weird aspect of the human condition that we think everyone else is crazy, except for ourselves.

of Montreal’s Kevin Barnes interviewed by Jay Hathaway for Suicide Girls

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There are a couple of coffee shops in San Francisco, for example—and I won’t name them only because I don’t want to encourage crowds—where there is silence because everyone is engrossed in their laptops. You can walk into these places and 30 or 40 pairs of eyes are illuminated by screen lighting. There is no conversation, not even recognition of other human life forms. Perhaps the most bizarre sight is a table for four, with four dedicated souls ignoring each other and having eyes only for their homework, gossip sites, or IM.

Should Starbucks ban laptops?, in CNET

There’s a general assumption in articles like these that it would be better—not just financially beneficial to coffee shops, but flat-out better, say, for humanity—if folks socialized more, and typed less, in coffee shops. This assumes a few things.

That people go to places like coffee shops because they want to talk and meet other people and not, for example, enjoy a pleasant cup of steaming brew while musing, daydreaming, or thinking deeply in a place designed for relaxing imbibition.
That when folks are on their computers, they’re not socializing.
That there is something wrong with sitting silently but comfortably in a group of similarly-engaged companions if that activity involves one’s laptop (quiet study groups, or people reading books, appear to be above criticism).
That it is better to talk to the people around you than to be silent and engrossed in an activity.
That choosing one’s computer over contact with strangers is bad.
That one should reasonably expect a coffee shop to be a lively and social place.
That working on a laptop excludes the possibility of conversation, with friends or with strangers.

I think that most folks who have worked on laptops in coffee shops for any period of time would know most, if not all, of these assumptions aren’t true. The coffee shops that I have known and loved best, the ones with the strongest community, are those that allow people to comfortably do whatever it is they’d like to do at that coffee shop.

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…there are more kids than I ever, in my wildest dreams, thought possible, that love Third Eye Blind and consider them their favorite band EVER. I don’t know how this happened. I really, really, really don’t. But it did. I don’t really understand how it could, and would love to be enlightened. But seriously, kids think Stephen Jenkins is a fucking hero genius, while lots of people over the age of 27 had absolutely no idea he was even relevant. While those of us over 27 had left him for dead, basically, Stephen Jenkins was being hailed by the kids as their biggest musical influence and inspiration. What. The. Fuck?

Well, now you know.

I was talking to one of my musical heroes recently and she asked me what the 90s revival was all about. When I told her “Well, I’m glad you’re sitting down because when I tell you what i know, you might faint or cry: The 90s revival is all about Third Eye Blind. It’s not about Nirvana, it’s not about Hole, it’s not about Pearl Jam, Green Day or Beck whose constant stream of musical input has lasted til now. It’s not about any of the bands that Rolling Stone or SPIN hailed as the saviors of mankind… it’s all about Third Eye Blind.

ultragrrrl’s THIRD EYE BLIND EXPLAINED, via nikography

Third-Eye Blind is definitely the sound of the nineties. The nasal tone, the weird pronunciation, the heavy guitars* of “Semi-Charmed Life” instantly scream 1997—unlike the above-mentioned Nirvana: “Nevermind” sounds as fresh as the day it was released in 1991.

It’s understandable that folks would want the sound of the nineties to be one of the best bands of the nineties, but that’s not going to happen any more than Radiohead will ever be hailed as the sound of the 00s. Although, like ultragrrrl, I thought of Third Eye Blind as a joke band, I get it. I can see why the kids like it.

*See also: Blink 182, Live.

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from In Which Molly Reviews True Blood For Your Amusement, via spangley

ERIC IS NOT AMUSED.

(Now that I’ve finished the Southern Vampire Mysteries, I’m getting a little bored with the TV series. In the books, Bill sucks, Jason is boring, and Sookie and Eric are some of the most lovable pulp literary characters I’ve ever read. Oh, and there are FAERIES. In the television series, there are a lot of butts, Eric is a psycopath, and Sookie is irritating. About the only good thing the added was Layfette—who, oddly, manages to be as spunky and charming as the book’s version of Sookie.)

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Look, I’m drinking a martini and giving a presentation at Sterling-Cooper!

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The correct answer to the classic trick question “Have you stopped beating your wife yet?”. Assuming that you have no wife or you have never beaten your wife, the answer “yes” is wrong because it implies that you used to beat your wife and then stopped, but “no” is worse because it suggests that you have one and are still beating her. According to various Discordians and Douglas Hofstadter the correct answer is usually “mu”, a Japanese word alleged to mean “Your question cannot be answered because it depends on incorrect assumptions

mu (via benw

Oh man. I wish I’d known about this word last week.

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It makes me wonder what people a hundred years from now will think of our popular fiction, our popular movies. What do we take for granted that they will find odd, and perhaps even distasteful? You can already see some obvious candidates in things that are still accepted, but barely, like smoking. How curious it is to see a movie in which everyone is puffing on a cigarette - for example, in Good Night and Good Luck, where Edward R. Murrow is shown delivering prime time television news with a cigarette between his fingers. What will people think of our enormous steak dinners and obese portions of food? That’s on the cusp of changing. What will they think of our profligate use of fossil fuels and other non-renewable resources? Our assumption that the American way of life will go on forever, just as it is, much as the British thought their empire would go on forever? What about our assumptions about unlimited technological progress? Will science fiction visions of star flight or “the Singularity” seem as quaint as “the White Man’s Burden”? Above all, what will they think of the appalling amount of waste in our culture? Have you ever walked through a tourist area - say Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco - and seen entire stores devoted to schlock, made in developing countries by people who must scratch their heads in wonder at a people so wealthy that they can afford to spend money on things that are so utterly and obviously useless?

Tim O’Reilly (via azspot, peterwknox) (via marco

I think about this sort of thing all the time. How we view the past versus how past peoples thought of themselves, and extrapolating that out to how future peoples will view us—it’s really the only way to keep any perspective.

Having said that, a lot of these questions are leading, eg: “Above all, what will they think of the appalling amount of waste in our culture?” Most likely something similar to what we think about the heavy pollution and exploitation of the Industrial Revolution now; it was appalling, and when it got to a point that financial gain didn’t outweigh the ethical horrors, laws were passed. No more chimney sweeps.

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Realization

I just found out “Hey Paula” and “Blowin’ in the Wind” were both released in 1963. At first, I couldn’t believe it; really, were our folks honestly singing along to duets about post-high school marriage before spring graduation, then getting high and listening to Dylan in their dorm rooms come fall?

I did a bit of digging around to see if I could find a similar case. Turns out both “OK Computer” and “Spice World” were released in 1997.

Fact & a half: History comes up with some strange bedfellows.

—Timoni

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spangley:

campfire goods, inc. tee - midwest represent!

(shout out to my fellow buckeye @sinned for telling me about this fine purveyor of midwestern & other-themed goods!)

I have totally made this hand gesture before! Represeeeeeeeeeent.

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TechCrunch plans to release illegally obtained documents about Twitter

So some guy calling himself “Hacker Croll” stole hundreds of confidential documents from the Twitter founders, and he sent copies to TechCrunch. That blog’s founder, Mike Arrington, says the documents include people who interviewed at Twitter, floorplans, and security passcodes.

So of course once Mike (a former lawyer) saw this was some heavy illegally-gotten shit, he stopped reading, right?

Nope! He and his team read the docs all night. And MIKE PLANS TO PUBLISH SOME OF THEM.

I’ve never liked TechCrunch, but before now it was mostly personal preference or distaste. Now it’s major. IF YOU EVER, EVER, EVER READ OR LINK TO TECHCRUNCH, YOU ARE NOW SUPPORTING A SITE THAT UTTERLY DISRESPECTS ALL PRIVACY AND RULE OF LAW. THEY ARE SCUM.
—nickdouglas

Oh come on. This is the a ridiculous tempest in a teapot. If anyone believes this is rare, unique, or even remotely unorthodox, you may as well stop reading the news. How do you think we learned about yellowcake, or the pentagon papers, or that Apple is planning a tablet PC? Someone, somewhere, broke a law to learn these things or leak these things. This is how news WORKS. Do you think Steve Jobs like forgot to get a factory to sign an NDA or just called up the China Times and said “hey we’re gonna build a tablet PC. Don’t tell anyone I told you?” Do you think that however the WaPo learned about Cheney’s plans for an assassin squad was LEGAL? The shit was TOP SECRET. Someone broke the law to tell them. The only difference here is that Arrington is being on the up and up of where he got the info, and letting us judge the motivations of the hacker as well. And to call them illegally-obtained documents is disingenuous. Arrington didn’t break any laws. They landed in his inbox. — rickwebb

That said, Mike no longer gets to question why people spit in his face. —lauraglu

Agree with rickwebb & lauraglu, although for my money, Techcrunch is doing the best it can to be open and it’s laudable they’ve decided to only publish the “newsworthy stories.” They’re not being slimy, but they’re certainly being treated as if they are. People really like to hate Techcrunch.

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Something very, very strange is happening at the Powell Street BART station, via ¡Mucha Melisma!

From Jason:

The long, eastern corridor at the Powell Street BART station terminates at a metal “wall” at the 4th/Market portal. The crack between the metal panels reveals that the massive corridor continues for a long distance and curves to the right.

Along the center of the corridor, however, is a long, sad parade of luggage that goes off into wherever that mysterious corridor goes.

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timoni.org

Timoni Grone is a web designer in San Francisco. This is her blog.

Read more about her here, or follow her on Twitter, Flickr, or other places around the internet.

Realization