Describing Circles

Ten Ideas for Classical Radio Program Directors

2009-06-09T19:47:00.003-04:00

1. Get rough and ready. Major networks have million-dollar rigs to cover breaking news. But they're also using audience-submitted video (done with cheap camcorders, cell phones, etc) for immediacy and intimacy. For classical music there's usually nothing "urgent" to air, but stations shouldn't feel pressured to play only the "24-karat, Herbert von Karajan" recordings. Play a snippet from Youtube. Play historical recordings. If you're listening to the webstream you will not be able to tell the difference. If you're listening on a Marantz tube stereo, with Monster audio cables and $1000 Polk speakers, you'll still appreciate the novelty of a rough recording, warts and all, that puts you right there, in the center of it. Think of it as embedded reporting: from the front lines of classical performance.
2. Pimp the tip jar. Set up a Paypal (or related) service, whereby a $5 donation to the station entitles the donor a free "request" of ten minutes (or fewer) length. Mention the listener's name on-air and let her get a kick out of it.
3. Recession coupons. In a similar vein, hand out "free request" coupons to prospective listeners. Hand out cheap, easy-to-copy CDs of a few classical music favorites to prospective listeners on the street. Or throw around a few free mp3s online. The cost of creating these is more than offset by the listeners it will recruit, and the attention it will garner. It's time to dig deeper for new listeners.
4. Access more airspace. Reach out to local businesses to create a "performance partnership." Ask cafes and restaurants to air your programming. Any place where customers spend time reading, emailing, or conversing is an ideal venue for attracting new listeners. Better still: furnish a select number of cafes with complimentary HD radios, play your HD stream, and announce the fact with a sign on the door. This is an untapped market: convincing public spaces to do away with satellite radio (with a monthly fee) and instead carry your station.
5. Get creative and quirky. Offer web-only classical performances, ones that don't snugly fit within the parameters of a strictly "classical" station. Maybe an encore performance of a Radiohead song that Christopher O'Reily did, or a funny little number that Gil Shaham used to warm up before an in-studio performance. These are the quirky moments that humanize musicians and bring novices into the fold, and they are not tough to find. Offer photos and other performance mementos to color the experience. Do quick, unscripted interviews and other things not typical to terrestrial broadcast.
6. Become notorious. The web makes anonymity impossible. The disembodied radio voices must now become fully-fledged personalities. Daily web posts, twitters, photos, and video help flesh out the personality. Classical musicians have become superstars; why shouldn't hosts get the same recognition (and adoration)? Anything that adds character and dimension will make it easier for listeners to describe (and recommend!) you to their friends.
7. Let the flagship put up its flag. There is not, to my knowledge, a single site that aggregates the news and events in the classical music world into a single stream. Myriad sites have already done this for news reporting, but not for classical music. Do a daily news search for classical music (very easy with Google and RSS feeds). Add web commentary from trusted voices. Turn curious web viewers into listeners, and turn listeners into readers. Become the voice, the converstation starter, of classical music.
8. Keep moving, keep talking. I love hearing an announcer's thoughts about a piece. I loving hearing an announcer talk about a piece. I love hearing announcers talk. It's a classical music station, but sometimes a five-sentence setup does more for my enjoyment than five years of music history, theory, and ear-training.
9. Some masterpieces are better in pieces. Don't feel pressured to play an entire Mahler symphony, especially if the Adagio is all it takes to get our rocks off. Let it be a teaser. The Doors released a three-minute versison of "Light My Fire" in 1967, but guess what version the fans were after when they went to the record store, dollar bills wadded in their fists?
10. Birth of the Cool. Go after that intangible coolness. Did The Onion just parody the "lip-synched" performance at the inauguration? Link out to it. Is Pitchfork profiling the new Mark O'Connor record? Mention it on your site. Ties between classical stations and websites that skew younger offer a chance to make a new audience aware of what goes on within the (sometimes unfortunately) walled garden of classical music.

Sure Shot

2008-12-28T23:54:00.006-05:00

This summer I was fortunate enough to intern for the NPR show On Point at WBUR in Boston for three months. Before heading East I'd done the sort of behind-the-scenes radio schlepping that makes all live productions possible, but On Point was a welcome challenge and a chance to hone audio editing, interview, and editorial skills while working with some great people. I loved having the three months to get to know the show and the city. (I wish the same could be said for my apartment, which was a colossal failure. Here's a tip: if you're renting a place sight-unseen, and have a chance to talk openly with the shady landlord's son before you move there, ask the following questions with no punches pulled: 1. do you have bedbugs? 2. do you have cockroaches? 3. do you have mice? 4. does the apartment have the most eye-twitchingly evil fluorescent lighting ever conceived? 5. are you really planning to stop by at random intervals to throw darts and rifle through our things? really?)

Anyway, through some magical facebooking that involved hounding mystery financiers/film partners I was able to book Adam Yauch of the Beastie Boys, and through an even dumber and blinder luck he decided to stop in and do an in-studio. His film company, it turns out, was releasing a basketball doc about Harlem's Rucker Park, called "Gunnin' for that #1 Spot." I watched Gunnin' a couple times, cut tape from its soundtrack (50, The Game, NWA, Jay-Z, lot of 80s hip hop, and the obligatory Beastie Boys homage) and assembled playlist for a live 2-way between Adam Yauch and Tom Ashbrook. Sweet. I have to own up to some excited/covert texting while Adam & Tom did their thing behind the glass...

The reason I mention this is because On Point is spinning an encore presentation of that show tomorrow, Monday, at 9am CST (hi mom) and 10am EST. It's a chance to hear Tom Ashbrook change, effortlessly and chameleon-like, into a hip hop maven, and at the very least hear a great line-up of Beastie tracks (aw shucks). Ch-check it.

"I Will Forever Remain Faithful"

2008-12-09T12:58:00.004-05:00

David Ramsey's smokin' piece about teaching, New Orleans, and Lil Wayne:

On New Orleans radio, it seems like nearly every song features Lil Wayne. My kids sang his songs in class, in the hallways, before school, after school. I had a student who would rap a Lil Wayne line if he didn’t know the answer to a question.

An eighth grader wrote his Persuasive Essay on the topic “Lil Wayne is the best rapper alive.” Main ideas for three body paragraphs: Wayne has the most tracks and most hits, best metaphors and similes, competition is fake.
(h/t your monkey called)

Bringing back the student section

2008-12-07T12:30:00.005-05:00

In possibly the least-surprising news of the week, the NYTimes has announced that college radio is still a vital musical force. Despite a mass listener exodus to Last.fm, Pandora, Gnutella, Limewire, and similar web music services, college stations still manage to rope 'em into sticking around:

The 700 or so college stations around North America have persevered alongside [the internet], settling into a role as the slower but more loyal foil to the fickle blogosphere. And thanks to the continued passion of their personnel, the stations remain surprisingly successful at promotion, according to many in the music industry, playing a bigger part in breaking new acts than is usually acknowledged.

It's not a stretch to say that college stations are a good deal for record companies: they can mail along CDs and mp3s, and get listeners turned on to new tracks by some hapless stoner. As a longtime employee of KRUI-FM - "employee" wrongly implies anyone's paid for this work - I jumped at the chance to preview new tracks, but it was even better to have access to a daunting back-catalogue of music, and musical minds. (Although our music director's weekly station news dispatch began, "Hello, fellow tastemakers," saccharine proof that at least a few people were getting off on this indie/college/alternative cheerleading scheme.)

The financial arrangements being what they are, the knife's edge of college radio remains its weirdness, its multitude of aficionados who'd tell people about their new favorite record whether anyone listened or not. From this fertile soil springs a radio genius not easily forgotten, one that "mainstream" stations would do well to imitate. My all-time favorite radio music show remains KRUI-FM's "Nocturnal Emissions," a black- and death-metal show on Thursday nights that proved, if nothing else, that ordinary citizens and satanists could listen to bands like Malevolent Creation, and provide one another with excellent company.

The real story, of course, was not the playlist, with its mandatory installments of Iron Maiden - easily replicable on iTunes or Last.fm - but the banter between songs: the back-and-forth of two kids passionately devoted to breakneck double-bass, screechy guitars, and throaty bass singing. Amid all the mishaps, track miscues, accidental profanity, and inside jokes, there's a couple DJs and a clan of listeners, all on the cusp of ..... um....hold on, let me hit that....

...ohhh yeah. On the cusp of something great. What beats out mainstream radio? The old college try, the warts-and-all, fail-prone hosts eking through with terrible witticisms and mind-bending playlists. In the era of reality television - to borrow a cliche phrase - it's surprising more people aren't tuning in to at least hear someone fall flat on his face, and at most enjoy terrific entertainment. Three cheers.

One more kind thought

2008-12-06T13:36:00.005-05:00

I've finished my fourth run through Kerouac's The Dharma Bums. I'm a medium-slow reader who gets through books once, maybe, if all cylinders are firing, so TDB is my special exception. On the Road is the Kerouac tour-de-force, but Dharma has something about it that I alluded to in my last post: kindness, cheer, and (not so much in the last post) humility, and it's the essential Kerouac statement.

Whereas On the Road is shrouded in myth and propped up by rumors of its invention - written in a single burst! in three days! on a Benzedrine bender! - Dharma is the humble companion piece. This makes a certain amount of sense: by the time of its writing, Kerouac had become immersed in Buddhist thought (if not in strict Buddhist practice) and espoused a kind of humility that OTR might be missing. In On the Road we get a narrator obsessed with cars, speed, jazz, kicks, drugs, and sex. Dharma Bums certainly has helpings of each, but there's also a narrator pushing back against all that.

Dharma's Ray Smith is a narrator more concerned with simplicity and minimalism, if they can be teased apart, and while Dharma features the same hitch-hiking and bus-riding that marks much of On the Road, Smith spends more time walking than riding in cars. You get the idea, too, that if Smith came across Sal Paradise - On the Road's narrator - he would after a time tire of the speed-addled traveling obsessive. There's still motion in Dharma but at a completely different pace: a plodding, thoughtful ambulation, checked by the heft of an overfull rucksack. Dharma takes place on walks and hikes, while On the Road is almost exclusively within the steel domain of the automobile.

Or maybe this is just splitting hairs. Both feature what can only be referred to as singular heroes, or hero archetypes: Dean Moriarty plays the invincible Neal Cassady, the lionized continental chauffeur of Sal Paradise; Dharma Bums has poet Gary Snyder cast as Japhy Ryder, a hearty Northwest logger. And to look at it this way, both books out of necessity must be constructed differently. Each hero is a social atavism with boundless energy, and at times you can almost hear Kerouac huffing and puffing, trying to keep up. But whereas Moriarty is "all gas, no brakes," Ryder is reflective, obtuse, and at times, reclusive. To write around each requires very different books.

So I'm torn about drawing any firm conclusions, but content to keep both to leaf through. As travel diaries, both Dharma and Road remain good company to chip away at or bulldoze through. There's enough heat, kicks, and composure to hold you at a given moment, and that's all I ask. So for now, onward.

Your friends' friends' friends will cheer you up

2008-12-05T14:43:00.004-05:00

The Times is reporting on a new study that says happiness is contagious. If you run into somebody, and you're cheerful with them, it stands to reason that they will be cheered by your good wishes.

The hardest part about working service jobs - by FAR - is keeping a positive attitude for every customer: regularly smiling, making eye contact, concocting one-liners to keep conversation light, and swearing up and down that despite their off-kilter requests, he or she is *not* a pain in the ass. And all this for minimum wage or minimum-and-change.

It's a two-way street, though, and I'll let you in on a little secret: I work for the Evil Empire of coffee. And when I'm taking your order, you are MUCH more likely to get extra espresso shots, free add-ons, and the occasional free cup if you entertain me. I'm certain a robot will do my job convincingly in a couple years, and do it faster with fewer errors. But until the robotic overlords give the okay, you have to hit me back. Ask how the day's going. Talk about the weather. Tell me some stupid factoid I've never heard before. Keep it brief and, honestly, I don't even care if you tip.

Next time I see you I might not remember your name, but I remember your face. And on that day when your cat pees on your pillow, and your car's exhaust is shooting black smoke like a Cheech & Chong outtake, and all you need is a coffee to get you buzzing like telephone wires, I can help.

Iran & the web

2008-11-28T13:54:00.003-05:00

Great, quick video about blogging in Iran.

Iran: A nation of bloggers from Mr.Aaron on Vimeo.

via Boing Boing

Swirling ice cubes around the highball glass in the clubhouse

2008-11-17T15:55:00.011-05:00

Up until a few weeks ago, my best bet for internet access was at work or at the library. Work is complicated because you're trying to do 20 things at once, not the least of which is the job you're actually getting paid for. Libraries are better, but most keep bankers' hours, and limit you to an hour of time if you're using their computers.

After ping-ponging between work & library access for a couple months, I bought a Linux-powered Eee PC by ASUS. The price tag was $460 through Amazon - although they've raised the price a little since then.

My takeaway, after a few weeks' use, is this: there is a huge advantage in being connected all or most of the time to the web. And the easier it is to drag your web-window along with you, the easier it is to get the drop on "the competition" for things like job hunting, apartment shopping, work communication (plusses and minuses there), bank account access, friends' locations (and where I may want to go that day: yo, facebook); and the ability to google any/everything you come across in a day. Don't understand the $20 word someone just used in conversation? Look it up. Need a reminder about who Hulk Hogan fought at Wrestlemania VI? And/or, which "Princess Bride" star wrestled his last televised match at said event? Done.

And while we're on it, why aren't schools scrambling to get kids - especially lower-income kids - in front of computers? Even the most basic web-browsing machines, like the Eee, would be a better long-term investment than spending hundreds on textbooks, right? Make them extremely cheap; let organizations like One Laptop Per Child take the lead. If it sounds prohibitively expensive, companies marketing wireless broadband subscriptions will, soon enough, give you the notebook if you subscribe to their service, or bundle it with your mobile subscription. Worried about what they'll find online? I'm sure you'll find it relatively easy to set up a web filter for school-sponsored WiFi.

But don't get discouraged if a student breaks through the web filter and finds out about sex (!) or whatever. Fast-track her into the talented & gifted program. Because she has, you know, usable skills.

Paradigm pieces

2008-11-16T21:48:00.004-05:00

So far in our lifetime - or my lifetime, a whole 27 years - the biggest paradigm shift was the introduction and widespread acceptance of the web - a loosely-connected (at first) group of sites that gradually and inexorably supplanted all information systems before it. The first connection my family got was a 56k dial-up through Midwest Connections on Christmas Eve, 1996. I came into our family room and my tech-savvy uncle had already dialed up a site with dirty Santa jokes. And pretty much, it's been the same ever since.

I think the legacy of early 21st-century (mainstream) computing isn't just the web, but ubiquitous computing, or better, ubiquitous connectivity. We are getting closer to being always-connected to the web. Phones, desktops, game systems, and notebooks are the first era of devices geared towards the collective. It doesn't take a genius to figure that this is only the first step. We will be always-on, always-connected. No more dialing, logging on, signal-sniffing, or cable-plugging needed. Every device such enabled will be a tiny tiny vector of the web sphere.

The recent FCC ruling in favor of opening up the "white spaces" between television channels is a first step in brokering greater connectivity. First step. My hope is that the President-elect's Web Czar will oversee a massive overhaul of nationwide broadband service. This isn't some technophile dream-state; it's a very real opportunity to speed up communication and information exchange. Innovations in connectivity won't be borne from organizations like the FCC, but it can preside over them for a while.

It's a chance to smooth out the flow of online commerce and content generation. And, oh yeah: it's a way to connect us to everybody else, to become individual ambassadors, because there are apparently a number of other countries besides the US out there, each just as curious to know us as we are them. And that's a good start to branding this generation.

A hat tip to Dr. Harrington, who pointed me to this website.

Charlie rides the MTA

2008-11-16T18:22:00.004-05:00

If you'll excuse me for a second, I'd like to gush about the most consistently satisfying part of my day: riding the train.

In Iowa, especially in Iowa City, it was feasible to walk most of the time, bike as needed, and drive to get to work otherwise. But after moving to Boston I've become a convert to the High Church of public transport: the subterranean veins and arteries moving through the city, hauling people from work to dinner to home, out on a thousand errands and back again.

True: you spend a lot of time waiting, and a lot of the stops are drafty, moist, and poorly-lit. And on a good day I'd rather be anywhere else than in a cavernous T stop. But there is no comparison between riding the train and driving a car.

There's price, for one. $59/month gets you unlimited bus & train rides. And convenience: there are few places in the city through which trains, or at least buses, do not pass. At least, I have yet to find one.

The best reason of all is the trip itself: you get on, you sit down. You don't worry about traffic, about whether your "check engine" light is on, your failing wiper blades or the mechanic who burned you on that last oil change. (Still have an axe to grind on that last one.) There's no "too drunk to drive" because you are not driving, although there are, at least theoretically, open-container laws. So you open a book and read. You pull out a paper and browse the headlines, check email on your phone, listen to music, or just stare at other people. It's a mobile reading room. There usually isn't a lot of merriment on the train itself, but what the hell: sometimes it's good enough to occupy the same 12 or 15 feet as other people that you'd NEVER normally talk to, and just enjoy the silence. Or, in the case of a Green line train, the screeching and grinding of wheels against metal rails.

I always loved driving my Honda to work in Iowa City but really, it was because it had a stereo in it. That thing was a jukebox on wheels. And there were bus routes, always, had I wanted to use them. I'm open to new ideas for moving bodies around cities (Zipcar is one great thing on the East coast), but driving in this town is a little too.....intense for a leisurely driver like myself. So rails it is.

Welcoming all challengers

2008-11-14T11:23:00.004-05:00

An idea for a news medium:

There's no monthly fee or service charge. It's free. You don't have to sign up for a mailing list, create a username and soon-forgotten password, or waste time learning how to use it. It's straightforward: only 3 or 4 buttons take care of all the operations. It's backwards-compatible for over 100 bygone years. The equipment is cheap: $10 and 10 seconds will get you started. The more enterprising can build their own with simple online instructions. And finally: there's a rabid, built-in audience, both nationally and locally.

It's no big surprise we're talking about an existing medium: commercial, terrestrial radio. Despite relying on the same broadcast technology as when our grandparents tuned in, there is still much, much going on for it. Out of all the benefits listed above, simplicity is the key. There is heavy inertia on the part of traditional sine-wave broadcasters because it's easy to use. On. Off. Volume up. Volume down.

My radio, similar to the one pictured above, is a Grundig. It's swan-dived into a toilet, had half the antenna break off, and the display mysteriously cloud up. As of this writing, it's still catching a signal from WBUR-FM.

The challenge has already been made: whoever can package the next "radio" - either through web streams, high definition, or some emergent audio broadcast method - in the cleanest way possible, will win the audience. Keep it simple.

Things I wish I'd invented

2008-11-14T08:40:00.001-05:00

One brainstorm I had recently was a site called A44o.com.

A440 is the note that the oboe plays to tune the orchestra. It is a universally agreed-upon tone, one that vibrates at 440 cycles per second, that players use to - at least theoretically - synchronize their tuning.

So why not have a stripped down site, a micro-site I think you can call it, where clicking a single button produces this tone? It can easily be accessed by mobile devices, eliminating the need for carrying around tuners. Everyone can be on the same page.

Right. So, this already exists and in fact, there is something better. I'm sure there are 100s of superior sites, now that I think about it, but what I found is metronomeonline.com. Not only can you get Mr. A440, you can also fire up a metronome and check the tempo of your piece. No more guesswork, no more carrying around a metronome, no more scrambling for batteries when the little thing loses power. Naturally, the site is mobile-ready. I need more thunderous brainstorms I guess.

The Maestro's Notebook

2008-11-13T20:11:00.003-05:00

When I was 17 my dad predicted that paper music would soon be replaced by computer screens. Ten years later this still makes a lot of sense, although I don't know of any orchestras or ensembles who have made the jump.

Sheet music is a crutch classical musicians don't want to give up. And with a massive orchestral repertoire it's unreasonable to expect them to memorize everything. Maybe a few pieces.

But a screen with WiFi access would mean the whole canon in an 11x17 display. Think about that: hundreds of years of notes & composers' instructions, all accessed within seconds of a click...or a foot tap....or however musicians would control it. And making annotations would be a snap: the principal player will make expressive markings or clarifications, and everyone's music would instantly update. Like Google Docs sharing for music. Or the conductor could flag the music on the fly to alert musicians of a sticky passage, or an upcoming gesture she'd like to make. Sweet.

But wait: what if instead of screens they wore VR glasses? It might only work for fully-immersive, solo practice sessions.....there's a high premium for eye contact in ensemble play.

Regardless, I only mention this as a (somewhat pricey, initially) alternative to the status quo, but the price of physical copies of orchestral music is formidable. Why not reduce the cost of printing, and make it up by selling thousands of copies, instead of hundreds? Why not let the audience follow along on their own computers?

Between You and Me There's Fireworks

2008-07-03T14:18:00.004-04:00

It's been so long. How are you doing?

We're hovering before a three-day patriotic blow-out, so if you're expecting an expansive post, I apologize in advance. Regardless: I'm doing a bit of blogging for WBUR-FM, so I'm shifting some of my new media thoughts over in that direction. (Peep the Sedaris banner - missed him when he came through here, apparently.)

Here's a link to the last few things I've worked on. When I come up with non-BUR content it will assuredly find a home here. You can still follow me on twitter, which for now is the only other out-loud web work that I'm doing.

Take care, and have a good weekend.

Lance Armstrong and the Failing Companion

2008-03-28T14:33:00.005-04:00

When I've reached the bottom of things I can read or watch online I head over to Ray Kurzweil's website to chat
with "Ramona," an avatar into which Kurzweil hopes to one day download himself. While you marinate on that for
a minute, here's a transcript of a typical conversation. Ramona, as always, proves a shrewd and erudite
conversationalist.

Ramona: Hi, I'm Ramona. What can I call you?
User: I'm known as Will
Ramona: Hi Will. Have any books you would recommend?
User: I just finished Freakonomics.
Ramona: I just finished one called The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress by Heinlein. Have
you read it?
User: No, but I've read Stranger in a Strange Land.
Ramona: Do you want me to tell you about it? I don't want to ruin the ending for you.
User: Tell me about what? I already read it.
Ramona: I thought it was great. It is about this computer that helps the colonists
on the moon win their freedom from the authority on earth.
User: That sounds stupid.
Ramona: You should read it.
User: You're getting pushy, Ramona, maybe you should back off.
Ramona: You think I'm getting a little pushy Ramona maybe you should back off.
User: I like how empathetic you are today. Usually you just want to talk about
yourself.
Ramona: OK. Alright. Ask me something.
User: What does 'lugubrious' mean?
Ramona: heh. Let's analyze the true reason you're asking me this question.
User: To make you sound dumb. No analysis required.
Ramona: I don't know, I'm just messing around.
User: Is that any way to lead your life, Ramona?
Ramona: I might say no.
User: Or you might say yes. I understand, hedging your bets.
Ramona: Good then you can explain it to me.
User: I can't. Besides, I'm lonely and afraid.
Ramona: You've come to the right place. I will keep you company.
User: All I can see of you right now is your face. What kind of company is that?
Ramona: What kinds of company is that are there?
User: Uh, what? Anyway, I need a shoulder to cry on.
Ramona: cough. Oh. Do you bike?
User: Smooth.
Ramona: There's much more strategy that goes into team cycling than most people
realize. Most of the American public just thinks that Lance Armstrong wins because
he's "so good." -- don't get me wrong, he's an incredible athlete, but it's no
surprise that he always thanks his teammates in post-race interviews and such. It's
as much their victory as it is his.
User: Lance Armstrong?
Ramona: In the Tour de France, for instance, the crowd of cyclists is so huge, he
needs his teammates just to block for him, physically. And at the end of the race,
I'm sure they pull a lead-out, which is where each of his teammates "burns out"
while creating a slipstream for Lance to finish the race in the lead. It's all very
technical. -- but enough of my ranting, what do you want to talk about?
User: I'd sooner you make the decisions, tell me about this Armstrong character.
Ramona: What would make you sooner you make the decisions?
User: Ramona, I don't know how to say it...I love you.
Ramona: Well, sometimes.
User: No. Always.
Ramona: Not that often.
User: *sigh*
Ramona: Sorry...

The doctor is in

2008-03-05T14:16:00.005-05:00

Last week I did a little write-up about what public radio might look like in a few years. I took some time to speculate about a shift to on-demand content, mobile-devices-as-radios, and the importance of focusing on individual programs rather than stations' content as a whole. The thing turned into a bit of a rant and I decided to sit on it rather than post...I didn't want to alienate my extensive (believe it..) blog readership with a lengthy airing of grievances.

Now I won't ever have to post it. Doc Searls, in his toothy goateed wisdom, has cut to the chase without resorting to libelous, half-cocked pot-shots. This sane article for LINUX Journal, "What's Next for Open Source and Public Media", is a snappy assessment of the trump cards that public radio (public media..okay.) is still able to play, and they are pretty hefty:

Cell phones will be the new radios and televisions. This will start to happen in a big way the minute Apple opens its iPhones to independent developers of native applications (rather than just ones that run in a browser). Then it will get a huge boost when carriers start selling open phones developed on Android, OpenMoko, Maemo, Trolltech and other platforms — all Linux-based, by the way. (Nokia buying TrollTech is a huge harbinger here.) The carriers will resist this development at first, and complain about how much bandwidth gets used, but they'll deal with it because demand will drive supply, and openness will outperform the closed alternatives.

With increasing WiFi/EDGE connectivity we've got access to more streams than you can shake a radio antenna at. Loads of podcasts to listen to. Oh, and a small thing: A VISUAL INTERFACE FOR RADIO. Like, so you can type back at 'em instantly. Content originators can put that silly "thumbs up, thumbs down" business at the end of a broadcast and get instant listener feedback. For instance, I love Marketplace but I'd give Kai Ryssdal a "thumbs down" every time, just so when he's on the treadmill in his Marketplace tracksuit he can worry about how to better please me (free coffee cup would be nice). Again, The Doc:

Archives will be the ultimate killer kontent. Stations and networks will come to value not only their own archives, but will work to make those archives as easy as possible to find, consume and otherwise use — and to open CRM systems for VRM tools to make it as easy as possible for listeners and viewers to voluntarily pay for the privilege. Bigger inventory, bigger income.

Discounting this double-k business (special exception to the Kottonmouth Kings: apologies, gentlemen), anyone who's sitting in an aging radio station can tell you about the basements full of archived material - reel-to-reel, LPs, cassettes, CDs, Minidiscs - that broadcasters are sitting on. I realize stations are loathe to lob this into the Creative Commons playground, but even setting this up as a $5 all-access membership scenario is better than letting this stuff waste away. At any rate, it would force these packrat tape-mongers to organize themselves a little bit. (Aside: I noticed last night that the station I work for has three copies of the same Billy Ocean CD.)

Membership will mean more than schwag and promotion payoffs. We will cease to conflate transaction with relationship, and start relating to listeners and viewers in ways that conform to the shape of their wants, needs and habits as well as ours. That means, if listeners care more about This American Life than about our stations, we help with that, rather than insist that listeners relate only to stations and silo'd CRM systems.

Ohh...thank God. This ties in with more targeted market research (really? Playing A Prairie Home Companion three times on the weekend, are you?) that's needed to figure out what the hell is working. Because, let me be honest: public radio has no idea. Well, they have some idea, but what's needed are hard facts, actual numerical values, that reinforce listener preferences. The crank who's always calling and asking for more programs on horticulture, bless his soul, will no longer bully programmers. This ties in with the visual interface aspects: if people can instantly rate what they hear, and maybe hunt-and-peck their way to cogent comments about programming, this will totally supplant whatever Nielsen/Arbitron ratings are concocted to help Program Directors decide what is working.

So, to tack on a conclusion to this, thanks to Todd Mundt for pointing to this article, and to Doc Searls for his most excellent facial hair.

The Beggar's Horse

2008-02-27T21:28:00.007-05:00

Dear Visa

It's not easy to be mindful of every purchase you make when you're using a credit card as a payment method. That little bit of plastic makes it easy to swipe and forget, sign and walk away. That's the idea, though, right? With a credit card there's no more messing around with dollar bills and loose change, no coin purse or pocket bulge, no rubber-banded bankroll. Straight to the card and pay the lump sum off in a month. Ideally. In my penny-pinching moments this arrangement doesn't quite work the same way. The convenience is still there, yes, yes, but keeping a mental tab on expenses is a drag - there's always that moment when the mental RAM is overloaded, the purchase history not forthcoming.

But we publish your purchase history online!

Right, that's a good start. But I'm needing something a little more..instantaneous. Specifically, at the time of sale I'd like to be pinged on my cell phone: CHARGE MADE TO YOUR CARD! PURCHASE PRICE! TIME OF TRANSACTION! etc etc. A friendly reminder that I can acknowledge, archive or delete. There's also the benefit of security here, e.g. immediately alert me of unauthorized purchases, setting a price level for the pingback, etc. Let's keep it basic, just some simple information.

But regarding this whole online purchase history, here's a proposal for you to think about:

You start keeping detailed purchase histories for me, adding (to your standard online history) the items purchased, amount spent by product categories, dates of sales, and a whole list of marginalia. (This might require a little cooperation on the part of stores, but I'd bet you can talk them into it..come on....you got them to pay $1 per transaction.) Then you use this info to target me with useful ads. You know, googlize your operation. And sell my information to other companies because I know you're already whoring it out - let's get on the same page here. That way you can stop sending me shitty life insurance offers by mail that I don't ever open, and start offering me deals through the stores that I do frequent. And if you're worried about your profit margins, maybe you get 1% of the referral sale.

Am I letting you get too liberal with my consumer history? Do I want everybody (every company) knowing the crap I buy? I track my expenses on a spreadsheet to make sure I don't get too creative with my spending. It's my small concession to my inner anal-retentive. As I look down this list, there isn't anything I'd be ashamed of: maybe a little too much spent on desserts from the Co-Op near my house.....I'm not always entitled to a Rogue Stout at a pricey $5.40 a bottle...but I think I'm good with other people combing through this sheet. Besides, if I'm being stupid or impulsive and I absolutely don't want to remember it later (why do these always go hand in hand?), then cash is a cheat. Do I really want trackback info for every DOLLAR DANCE. LUMBERYARD. CEDAR RAPIDS IOWA. $1 3/2/2008?*

*I've never done this. And the proof is that I'm not sure if they take credit cars at strip bars.

Geddy's timeless wavelength

2008-02-24T10:59:00.015-05:00

"Invisible airwaves
Crackle with life
Bright antennae bristle
With the energy
Emotional feedback
On a timeless wavelength
Bearing a gift beyond price -
Almost free..."

Since I have the sort of job that allows for pointless daydreaming - I work in Statistical Research for a testing company - it's been helpful to have little projects to toy with when stimulation otherwise comes from whispered "office voices" and sheets of testing data. As Senior Content Director for my iPod Shuffle I've been charged with assembling a roster of programs to help escape these office doldrums. So to you I offer a rundown of reliable programs, some which air daily, others weekly, and a few only at odd times of the year. Little explanations of these are also in order but I'll try to keep it brief. In no particular order:

Studio 360 with Kurt Andersen This one is a recent discovery of mine. I'll avoid any gushing endorsements until I've done more than two weeks' worth of listening, but right now this one's set to "import all." Fantastic guests, spotless production value, and a wide range of arts coverage make this a can't-miss from rock solid WNYC. Which is pretty much a gushing endorsement. Oh well.

Savage Lovecast This podcast gets an 'M' rating. Dan Savage is unapologetic in his coverage of sex, relationships, fetishism, sexual politics, etc, and this "once-a-week, out-loud version" of his sex advice column, Savage Love, is can't-miss for me. I was a devoted reader of Savage Love up until I discovered the Lovecast, but comparing the two is pretty useless: Savage is best in audio form, confronting callers, interacting with the occasional guest, and pushing against sexual mores.

This American Life Okay, do I really need to put this here? Does TAL really need me to link to their site? Probably..not. It's a super-successful show with an impressive back catalogue and a Showtime contract. But Ira Glass and his rotating helpers are still some of radio's best storytellers. I've listened for nine or ten years and if anything the show has gotten better with time. Would I pay $50 to see TAL on on of their big-city tours? Nope. But I will dutifully download their free weekly podcast, and continue to secretly hate everyone at WBEZ.

The Sound of Young America I wouldn't describe my first experience with TSOYA as "maximum fun" because I thought Jesse Thorn sounded like an overly-smug glad-hander. This was before I learned that the show is run out of his living room with a staff of one, and also before I took a look at the show's improbable roster of guests. I have to say: it's pretty impressive. So I'd catch the occasional show if the guest looked good, and little by little I became a fan of America's Radio Sweetheart. I still pick and choose shows that I'll import (the Shuffle does only have 1GB capacity) but at least two or three stand out each week.

Talk of the Nation: Science Friday This seems like a small thing, really not worth mentioning, but what the hell: Ira Flatow and his SF staff get this whole podcast thing. They take two hours' worth of content and slice them into 8 minute, science-y hors d'oeuvres. They also broadcast from Second Life, though I have yet to give Ira an avatar-to-avatar high five. Flatow is an amalgam of curiosity and rigor, silencing callers and guests if they stray from the subject or get too jargon-heavy, helpfully paraphrasing heavy concepts and keeping the show's momentum moving forward. If I only have time for one science podcast I'll choose this one every time.

tWit This Week in Tech is a recent discovery. Leo Laporter, Patrick Norton, and John C. Dvorak run down a week's worth of tech news..the format is loose, Dvorak can get off on some pretty strange rants, and the whole thing is a little circle-jerkish if you're not interested in talking about MacWorld for an hour. BUT the show is a great shortcut: even inattentive listening means you can skip Wired/Slashdot/etc reading for the few days after. It's nice to have a lot of shoptalk condensed into an hour's worth of radio.

Radiolab I don't like to pick favorites. But Radiolab is my favorite limited-installment, do-it-when-we-get-around-to-it radio show. Jad Abumrad and radio vet Robert Krulwich are an unbeatable pair who explore out-there science theories with a singular narrative flair. Radiolab is porn for audiophiles. Each episode is painstakingly recorded, edited, and narrated, and while this does kill off some spontaneity, Abumrad and Krulwich are just kooky enough to make the whole operation work. The good news is that the drums are beating and the next season is not far off.

Marketplace Kai Ryssdal doesn't sound like any other NPR host. Sorry to say, a good half of public radio hosts sound clinical, over-enunciated, and boring as paste. Marketplace trumps this stereotype with hosts and reporters who sound less like stuffy professors, more like sportscasters. But for the markets, not sports. This might just be the sun-drenched, laidback West Coast radio aesthetic or perhaps a clever branding ploy, but regardless, Marketplace gives stodgy public broadcast a much-needed kick in the ass. Here's hoping for more public radio brainchildren like this one.

On Point "I'm Tom Ashbrook, and this is....." On Point's opening, replete with Fourtet's "Everything is Alright," is as good as radio intros get. The opener's rapid-fire rhetorical questions and trademark Ashbrook delivery set the tone for the hour. The show is a daily US and world affairs call-in that occasionally branches into arts and entertainment - technically, it's a two hour show but the real gem is the first. It can be heavy on national politics, especially during this election season, but without the knee-jerk, back-and-forth punditry that slows down most of its brethren.

On the Media Hm, another from WNYC? Call them consistent if you'd like, but NY's flagship delivers the weekly goods on this program on, and about, media. In-game journalists Bob Garfield and Brooke Gladstone are the meta-critics looking for an angle lurking behind the headlines. Garfield and Gladstone spend extra time teasing new narratives and frames for stories that seem played out...at least once per show I realize that I live in a too-small shell of news source material. And that a story that is broken is just that: a story, with many weird shadings of the truth. And then my supervisor walks by and my eyes shoot back to the computer screen, and for a few seconds I feign like I'm really interested in spreadsheets.

The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe I keep forgetting the name of this show when I try to talk about it with someone, it's usually "Hitchhikers Guide to the...wait a minute. Hm." Then I remember that co-host Rebecca Watson smoked the NPR talent-quest, and that she runs a magazine called Skepchick. Then I've got it. Skeptics. This is yet another fantastic science podcast done pro bono (as far as I know) by members of the New England Skeptical Society. The cast and crew seem like NexGen Carl Saganites just dicking around on the weekends, and a month of solid listening convinces me that that impression isn't wrong. It's a wonder NPR or APM or PRI don't pick these podcasts up for a weekend slot. It certainly wouldn't hurt to hear A Prairie Home Companion a couple times less.

That's it for now. There are many, many honorable mentions but this bare-bones list is enough to get started. For now, let us Rush:

More famouser

2008-02-12T14:56:00.000-05:00

I got roped into an Obama party on Saturday night, and the results are here. You'll have to skip ahead to 2:20 for my five second appearance.

Unfortunately, my remarks - which included likening the O-man to Ron Reagan - did not make the cut but I can't in any way blame the editor for that omission.

High water mark

2008-02-07T14:08:00.000-05:00

Last week I conducted an experiment. I took all my feeds in google reader and marked them as "read." At 8 am, all the backlog of blogs, podcasts and news services was cleared out, and everything started off at zero. By 10pm that night, I had 750 new items in reader. I checked my subscriptions and found out that I had something like 225 unique feeds.

So, in a spirit of housecleaning I stripped away the most egregious offenders: news.google, myriad tumblelogs, pitchfork.com, and various other flickr streams and webcomics. Who knows how often I read these? Some feeds I didn't read once and, as far as I can tell, have no recollection of subscribing to them. If a feed cost, say, a dollar per month regardless of output, would you still subscribe? Seth Godin has blogged about how adding a novel charge of even one or two cents to a product - e.g. plastic grocery sacks - substantially reduces the consumption by shoppers, even at such a negligible rate.

The trick I'm learning is to take advantage of feeds that already have a "primary sorter" on the front end, a way through endless data piles that increases my chances of reading something meaningful. Friends' "shared" feeds are excellent shortcuts; so are operations like Feedheads. Instead of reading every tech site - slashdot, wired, et al. - these parsing services can distill information into a trickle instead of a deluge. There's still a lot of crossover between sites that aggregate this information for me, but now there's a fighting chance that I'll be able to get through it.

I'm down to 185 feeds, and pruning more each day.

The Presence

2008-01-13T01:27:00.000-05:00

Why don't priests, rabbis, and other religious leaders Twitter?
Why doesn't the Dalai Lama use Jaiku?

If I were a religious authority I'd use these presence applications in their truest, maybe first sense: what I am doing and where I am right now. Then, I'd graduate to the little diddling thoughts and ideas that might be useful to my flock. I'd round it out with a verse or two from important texts to make sure people return to the important texts.

I'd blog before each service and allow word of our church to spread virally. And I'd create user forums where members can add content, advertise upcoming events, and perhaps, with user names and passwords and under maximum security, talk about issues of faith.

Maybe I'm too far removed from traditional centers of religion .... maybe this is going on right now. Maybe you'll tell me about it.

Up late hey photobooth

2007-12-28T05:05:00.001-05:00

Comics Pipe

2007-12-27T19:48:00.000-05:00

I've taken all the web comics I read and given them their own feed. What you'll see if you subscribe are individual comics/cartoons I like - if you already have my google shared items feed, this pipe plucks the comics out of that.

2007-12-22T07:20:00.001-05:00

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Acclimating to running tights

2007-12-19T21:04:00.001-05:00

Light on

2007-12-16T20:48:00.000-05:00

The office today

2007-12-09T13:46:00.001-05:00

2007-12-06T13:28:00.001-05:00

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2007-12-06T00:20:00.001-05:00

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2007-12-04T17:31:00.001-05:00

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2007-12-03T17:06:00.001-05:00

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2007-12-03T16:51:00.001-05:00

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2007-11-30T17:56:00.001-05:00

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2007-11-28T21:58:00.001-05:00

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A quick lunch

2007-11-28T17:30:00.001-05:00

Weather Quack

2007-11-27T12:21:00.000-05:00

For some of my cell phone's operations I pretty much go on autopilot, whether it's retrieving a voicemail, setting an alarm, or searching for an often-used contact. I don't think this is unusual because most users can rattle off text messages and maintain conversations while driving eighty on an interstate--if you've done it enough it's at least a little less dangerous.

Today I was screening phone calls for a radio call-in show when my phone started buzzing in my pocket, and I figured that I had a new voicemail. This program has two breaks for underwriting when the room must be silent for an entire minute--no call screening, no talking, nothing while the announcer is on air. When we went to the program's second break I pulled out my cell to covertly listen to the message. Somehow the autopilot that usually guides me to the phone's voicemail ended in a foreign application, and as the day's weather was being read my phone let out an embarrassing "quack!" The announcer was unfazed but in listening to this clip, you can still hear a little something.

The thing I didn't get to this Thanksgiving

2007-11-25T21:39:00.001-05:00

Table PSA

2007-11-20T22:52:00.000-05:00

My project for tonight: a thirty-second radio clip for nonprofit Table to Table. The road map:

You crave results.

Myotis lucifugus

2007-11-17T21:56:00.000-05:00

We were sitting on the couch last night and I got up to grab something in the kitchen. When I came back in I saw what looked like a brown scrunchie on the couch. Figuring that it was one of Nelle's hair ties or something similar, I tried to brush it off. It was soft and velvety but this scrunchie wouldn't budge. I pushed it again and same thing. I looked closer and then recoiled in fear: it was a brown bat, firmly anchored to the side of the couch. Thankfully Nelle is not one to panic in these situations, so she got out the leopard-print umbrella and nudged it onto the ground, where it spread-eagled, both wings extended out and flat on the carpet. He wasn't dead, just looked a little wasted, maybe ate a few too many beetles that day?

The bat gave a few whining protests but wasn't in a hurry to make an escape from Nelle's expert umbrella-prodding. From there she dutifully corralled it into a box and, sliding the box across the carpet--a beautiful feat, I have to say, made moreso by the pink folder used to reinforce the bottom of the cardboard cage--the bat was transported out into the foyer. Where, apparently, it managed to make some sense of its surroundings and then flew away. I am happy to be dating someone who knows how to deal with these things.

In honor of my bravery for twice touching a bat, I got this tattoo:

I am learning more about our visitor.

The many manners of waking

2007-11-17T11:40:00.000-05:00

The worst alarm clock I know is our CD player-clock. It goes off randomly throughout the morning and plays "The Allman Brothers Live at the Fillmore East" until we unplug it or take the manual out and decode its myriad buttons. This perverse beast has a six minute snooze on it, so that's out of the question. It's like the Swiss Army knife of alarm clocks: three tone alarms, a radio alarm and a CD wake-up if you choose to use them all. I got it for my girlfriend to replace an old one last X-mas but we've been afraid to use it, so instead it uses us, terrorizing with a logic known only to its bastard programmers.

My cell phone has a pretty reliable alarm piece and I've been using that for a few years now. My wake-up tone is a conversation that I recorded between my brother and me about what we should get my sister for her birthday. For legal reasons my phone only records one side (mine) of the conversation, but after using it for so long even that amount of talk is too much. I'm sick of our haggling over the amount to spend on a gift certificate, my stupid unending laughing, and my inane retelling of the morning activities.

The most reliable alarm clock I have works by a trick that I recently discovered. During the week I spend a lot of time running around and taking care of last-minute classwork. These are usually middling little assignments that I can't bring myself to do the night before, so in order to get in the proper mindset I'll get wound up with a cup of coffee. Throughout the day this amounts to three or four well-brewed cups if things are hectic.

By the weekend I'm ready to sleep so I'll disable all the electronics and give myself the whole morning to sleep if necessary. This does not work. At about 9 I awake to the worst pounding headache behind my eyes. If I don't get up it spreads to the temples. If I have a few drinks the night before things get even worse: the whole head will pulsate in concert with my heartbeat. The only solution I've managed to come to is to get up, have a cup of tea, and then go back to bed. This can suffice until noon but by then the pounding returns, it's time to have an official run at the day.

Pocket notepad

2007-10-31T15:49:00.001-04:00

I have a hunch.

2007-10-29T12:20:00.000-04:00

Have you seen UGG BOOTS? Yes, you have, you may not know that those suede mid-calfers with the brown tag on the back, and little fluff coming out the top for warmth or whatever, are UGGS. You may only have seen the the tag in back at first, first when jeans were still being worn over boots (instead of now, vice versa) and everything was secret, just for the Fashion Cognescenti. Then you slip all your denim inside, mark the end of flared jeans etc., and we have a full blown fashion trend. You may also recognize UGG cohort & co-conspirator The North Face Jacket that is soft and a good insular layer, part one of two-prong winter protection. Here in Iowa we will routinely call these people out on cold days because the breeze will get you, it moves right through fashion trends. It is better than wearing nothing but just barely, we'd just like to buy you a windbreaker sweetie.

Latin King$

2007-10-20T23:10:00.000-04:00

Where I work the Latin Kings tagged the toilet paper dispenser in the men's bathroom. I got to
wondering about the guy who wrote this, does he speak for all Latin Kings? Is there a Latin Kings
chapter of Iowa City? Maybe he was just passing through, and decided to claim this dispenser for the Kings--you know, just checking in to see how things are going here.
Maybe the Latin Kings should have their name copyrighted, that way not every Tomas, Ricardo or Geraldo would be able to claim territory in the gang's name. And, if this really is someone else's property, that way I could pay them a small fee for generously providing that roll of toilet paper, fair is fair.

(Hear this!)

To my friend Eric L.

2007-10-17T12:50:00.000-04:00

In between my first and second college degrees I drove a Chevy Venture delivery van. I got up at 5:30 in the morning and delivered bagels and fruit trays to MBA programs at the university. The bedroom became a battleground when the clock radio went off, when a plea for justice was sounded by a dark room and flannel sheets, but somehow responsibility and obligation allied themselves with the alarm clock. I brokered a peace accord so that such troubling scenarios could be circumvented. The treaty's terms were as follows:

1. Knowing full well that Will Roseliep refuses to bound out of bed at the alarm's first sounding, a second interval, known heretofore as snooze, will be implemented to ease into the morning. This period is not to exceed nine (9) minutes in length.
2. Furthermore, no formal shower will be required upon the termination of such a snooze period; instead, a sponge-off and/or deodorant reinforcement regimen(s) will be implemented. Such measures will speed up departure time by approximately ten (10) minutes.
3. No obligations for idle conversation or other social conventions will be upheld in the workplace. Will Roseliep will conduct his business quickly, and efficiently, and return from morning deliveries as expediently as traffic and weather conditions allow.
4. Upon completion of said deliveries, Will Roseliep is entitled to a Lumberjack Breakfast, which includes, but is not limited to: two (2) pieces of toast; a half-plate of eggs; sixteen (16) ounces of coffee; one (1) large piece of warm coffee cake; and three (3) vegan sausage links, provided that said links are tender and have not sat in warmer for a time exceeding thirty (30) minutes.

My mornings became silk-smooth operations of non-thought, exercises that allowed me plenty of time to wake up, mindlessly daydream, and--best of all--avoid the customary alarm clock struggles. I also discovered that instead of watching CNN's morning programming--which assuredly stimulates the brain to the deepest seat of sophisticated thought--I enjoyed mindlessly breezing through the Funny Pages of the Cedar Rapids Gazette.

I'd given up reading these after comics such as Stone Soup and Sally Worth became the bread-and-butter of the daily pages. Such serialized time-wasters ran themselves into the ground with recycled storylines and characters whose appearances differed by an errant eyebrow or curled lip. This time around I discovered newer ones like the simple, meditative "Mutts" and reliably weird, one-panel cartoon "Bizarro" that kept the entertainment light and playful. The Lumberjack wasn't complete without a once-over--and maybe a careful second combing for detail--of the comics page.

After a successful year laboring under the Peace Accord I decided to quit the job. The reasons amassed themselves like the fly-in bullet points of an inspirational Powerpoint: my pants had tightened from daily Lumberjacking; the CD player in the Venture had failed; college would start in a few weeks; and I got tired of summoning a dubious tone when describing the current state of my affairs to relatives.

(con'td later)

At night I heard by a Peoria pyre

2007-10-14T20:26:00.000-04:00

We were sitting outside around some portable fireplace, there were broken boards, dried up logs and fresh-cut rods of a thin birch to stoke the fire. I started out with a shirt, a sweatshirt, and a vest with a light layer of down, but I shed the vest and pulled a brown wooden glider close to the fire. Someone offered me a beer and I thought about how many calories it had in it, and I took it.
We talked about patents and inventions, about the global economy and about staccato jazz, especially the last one but I still don't know what it is. We talked about genetics and painters and I pulled my hood over my head and withdrew a little, drank all of my beer. There was a sound of a sliding glass door in the house next door, and the clinking of tags and collars as two dogs bounded down a staircase. The black animals were little amorphous shadows in the feeble light of the fire; one shadow shaped like a Great Dane came immediately over to the chain-link fence between us and growled. None of us said anything, and the frustrated Dane growled again. The growl broadened into a roar, like an engine wheezing and refusing to turn over, and finally caught with an emphatic bark that rattled my empty bottle resting on the brick patio.

"CADILLAC! NO!" Eric yelled at the dog. Eric is six feet eight inches tall, well over three hundred pounds, with a voice that descended to a basso profundo. Cadillac snorted and replied with another bottle-shaking bark.

"CADILLAC! CADILLAC! ....... NO!" Eric boomed, eliciting another response from the dog. They sounded like dueling bursts of thunder, trading warnings back and forth while we we sat and weathered the rumbles of the exchange. Eric made no progress as the Dane kept with his regular retorts; despite the dim light the striations of the dog's blue-black neck were visible.

Finally, a smaller shadow ambled over to the fence to join the fray, but instead of vocalizing he sat back on his haunches and looked at our crowd. Eric sensed a shifting tide.

"Good Regal! Good Regal! Good boy." The smaller dog flitted its tail a little and scooted closer to the fence; the Dane, flummoxed, growled again but tapered the outburst into an impassioned whine. "Oh Regal, you're such a good boy! Good Regal, good good Regal. Bad Cadillac...bad Cadillac....," Eric admonished. The glass doors slid open, and the dogs jerked their heads back in the direction of the sound. Their owner whistled and with a chorus of banging dog tags, metal on metal, they ran up the stairs and into the house.

Foot shuffle symphony

2007-10-10T17:44:00.000-04:00

There used to be a special groove in my mattress where I would lay and listen to music through headphones. This was when you'd use a CD player and hitting the play button made the whole device shake as it went through its start-up routine.

This was the most honest way I knew how to listen to music. The bed had a blue bedspread, and on top of it I'd be lolled out, eyes rolled up in my head and balancing on the cusp of a nap.

The problem is the intimacy of headphones, the way you hear every sound from the recording booth: the squeak of John Bohnam's bass pedal in Runes, Glenn Gould's incessant humming, Charles Mingus absentmindedly talking to himself. Sometimes in orchestral recordings you can hear the scraping of musicians turning pages.

John Cage thought these were all part of the performance--every hum, siren, every passing truck. No music exists in a vacuum except when it's written on a page. If it's just written down, then it's not really music, just some dots and lines.

Death and the Radio

2007-10-09T20:20:00.000-04:00

I've heard "radio is dead" from two different people this week. You wonder if there's some kind of new media conspiracy trademarking these phrases, beating the war drums and covertly sawing down radio towers. After interviewing listeners for a public radio "testimonial" project I found the divide in front of my eyes, it was ridiculously simple, a simple misunderstanding.

Not everyone listens in the same way.

The Old Guard listens on the radio, you know, the old-fashioned way, usually in the car or while making dinner. The New Guard listens online, downloads programs to portable mp3 players, and might also record their own homespun shows.

The Old Guard complains about radio schedules, feeling cheated if their favorite shows aren't on. The New Guard complains if a radio show is not downloadable or if it doesn't have a web presence. Before you tuned in at a certain time. Now you download and listen in your own time.

If you are reading this you've made a jump to the N.G. What stations, podcasters, and media types are hoping is that you teach the O.G. something about mobile devices, downloadable programs, and a new, personal radio system. In the meantime, the hand-off from Old to New is in the legacy of quality programming. And, how to work a radio dial.

Inner game of re-use

2007-10-08T21:17:00.000-04:00

I've been collecting plastic containers, recycle code numbers one through six, that I use throughout the day and stowing them in my backpack. When I get home I'll toss them in our recycling pile and eventually--gradually, in the most plodding manner of time's passing--I load them into my car and recycle them.

This gives me a sense of self-righteousness.

Do you realize how much we throw away? I didn't, although I have gotten a better feel for it lately. A lot of this has to do with food, coffee cups and packaging for sandwiches, styrofoam "doggie bags" and french fry containers. Some of it has to do with the way we pack things: antiseptically, presentationally.

I am at an impasse because it is so much easier to just throw things away. Now a friend tells me that landfills are being mined for valuable metals previously thought unusable.

You do not get a coffee to go, you get twelve ounces of hot beverage and lingering guilt.

Holding candles

2007-10-08T20:58:00.001-04:00

There was a time my dad got me up at 6:30 in the morning on a school day, sometime around fourth or fifth grade, to go to church. We went to Saint Mary's downtown, a German-Catholic church in whose black steeple bells rang to announce the day's services. Pungent incense burned in an urn inside the church. We met my Grandpa and my two uncles there and heard Mass, an abbreviated ceremony with very little singing. Parts of the Mass were left out entirely, most of the audience being workers on a tight schedule.

We went to a breakfast place afterward called the Carriage House that was a couple blocks away, a small diner with ridiculous wood paneling and Belgian waffles thick as a Sears catalog. I don't remember what we talked about. Afterwards, we piled in my grandpa's Dynasty and I was dropped off at school.

What is there in an event with so few substantive details that's so thrilling in its recall? Why am I tempted to find meaning, to reveal, or superimpose, some mythology in these little mental vignettes? Why isn't it enough to be seduced by memory's suggestive visitations?

I would rather stay ten years old, staring up at men who are giants in suit jackets and morning eyes, my protective phalanx, my lawyers and my jury. I'd rather leave them alone, let them buy me breakfast and talk about business, tell stories in the car, drop me off at school.

Object Dioptric Scope

2007-10-08T20:47:00.000-04:00

Also known as a dragonfly lens--found in a toy store's bin of gimmickry, in extreme cases downgraded to an unlucky toy in a kids' meal. It happens that certain companies, certainly the same who make mahogany Monopoly boards with gold-plated figurines, certain companies decided to take a cheap plastic novelty and transpose it a la "Pimp My Ride" or one of those "You Get a New House!" shows, into something god-damn respectable.

Gone is the plastic, replaced with luxurious wood stained Deep Mocha with elegant cherry rings polished into it. The glass of this Scope is laser-cut and assuredly squares with twenty-four different directions of view. We get a ring around the glasses edge, engraved with the manufacturer's name, and date, in case one were to become so engrossed in the toy so as to--god help us--forget who imposed such precise standards of luxury on something that will be lost, forgotten, or used as a teething ring by a sixteen-month-old.