 |
||
You are what you read. And what you see. And what you hear.
I am Heath.
Who are you? 
Email Heath at heath at mediadiet dot net about items of possible impact, interest, and intrigue. Or just to say hey! (Portions of our correspondence might make its way back here. If this makes you feel uncomfortable, be sure to let me know.) Send me links. Use Delicious, and tag them for:h3athrow.
AOL IM: h3athrow Delicious Links: Twitter Bits
Online: Steal this button and link to Media Diet.
Logo by Joe Szilagyi
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
 |
Friday, May 16, 2003
From the In Box: Books Worth a Look XII On your site (which is very nicely designed and informative, by the way), I found you had written this regarding Skydark Spawn. Another of the men's adventure series published monthly by Gold Eagle, a division of Harlequin, this is one of the few series not ghostwritten by mulitple authors Actually, Deathlands has been written by multiple authors since 1995. There have been eight writers spread out over 30-odd books since Stoneface. Skydark Spawn was the first Deathlands novel written by Edo Van Belkom, and from what I've seen posted on the review section of JamesAxler.com, the book appears to be not very well received. Actually, that's putting it mildly. The Destroyer [series] was/is written primarily by one author as well as the Outlanders series, which also bears the James Axler house name. Since James Axler does not exist and never has, people who write books under that name are not ghostwriters, they're contributors. So Deathlands most decidely is a multiple author series. Although Outlanders and the Destroyer have occasionally featured books by fill-in writers, those are the only two series still primarily guided by single authors. In the case of Outlanders, the author who originated it is still writing it which makes it unique among Gold Eagle's current output. So...I'm just sayin'... -- Anonymous Media Dietician Interesting! Thanks for setting me straight. I'll have to check in front of the book to see if someone is thanked for their contributions to the work -- the modus operandi in the Executioner series at least. When reading the book -- and previous editions in the series -- I don't recall tips of the hat to writers. I continue to be fascinated by series books, particularly the Gold Eagle line. If only they would offer single series subscriptions! Workaday World XXXI I just got the weirdest thing I've ever received in the mail at work. Dave at the front desk emailed me that I had an extremely large UPS box for me at the front desk. Shipped from a Crate & Barrel in Elizabeth, New Jersey, the box contained a single blue couch cushion and a gift card.   Only problem is, I don't have any friends named Kenny. And I haven't hosted anyone other than my mother and Cory Doctorow in recent months. Is this a joke?    Our theory is that this Kenny person stayed with a friend recently, perhaps sleeping on their couch and either drooling on or otherwise damaging a single cushion on that couch. So he sent a replacement cushion upon arriving home. I'm tempted to keep the cushion -- it's got a handle! -- or to gift it to the parking attendant at Joe Tecce's who kneels to pray to Mecca every day. But I think I need to contact Crate & Barrel and arrange the blue cushion's return. This, I will do Monday. The only other thing I can think of is that my occasional mentions of the Big Blue Couch on Church Corner inspired a Media Dietician to send me this cushion. Wouldn't that be a kick if it were the case! Anchormen, Aweigh! XXII The Anchormen show and Handstand Command anniversary has attracted some attention in the local rock press. In the Boston Globe, we earned a brief mention in the Go! Weekend column that says, basically, that if you can't get into the sold-out Stephen Malkmus show, you should go to the Anchormen show instead. Woot! And in the Boston Phoenix, the Anks rate as one of the Editors' Picks. After blipping past the Rock 'n' Roll Rumble, the Phoenix says the following: Meanwhile, Somerville's favorite geek-punks, the Anchormen, continue their advocacy for the overeducated, underemployed, and attention-deprived indie masses on Nation of Interns (Unstoppable Records), an album of smart-assed history lectures set to a squall that veers from MC5-esque fuzz blasts to chimp-rocking post punk blurts to something approaching melodic satisfaction. Tonight they'll celebrate the disc's release with their compatriots in Somerville's Handstand Command collective, the Operators, as well as Asian Babe Alert and the Reaganauts, a group of Northampton indie-rockers playing Minor Threat and Black Flag covers. "Chimp-rocking"! For Media Dieticians not in the Boston area, Chimp Rock is actually a bonafide musical genre -- one that is even mentioned in Trouser Press. Comprising bands such as the Swirlies, the Dambuilders, Fat Day, and Kudgel, which even released a record called "Chimp Rock Is Dead," the scene spanned Boston and Cambridge in the early '90s. I don't know if the Anks are quite Chimp Rock material -- I mean, the Swirlies! Fat Day! -- but it's certainly flattering to be held in such high company. Calloo. The Free-Range Comic Book Project XXV This is an installment of Media Diet's Free-Range Comic Book Project. Cyberforce Vol. 2, #23 (Image, early June 1996). Writer: Brian Holguin. Artist: Kevin Lau. Location: On top of a fire extinguisher box in the Sound Museum in the South End. For more information on this project, please refer to this Media Diet entry. Thursday, May 15, 2003
From the In Box: The Blogging of Business Sadly, there's nothing easy like this at all that I know of that is easy to implement. If you would put out the call for programmers to cook up some sort of PHP/Perl parser of XML feeds, I'd be more than happy to guinea pig it on my box. My own attempts at writing one were crappy to a waste of time (so far). -- Joe Sizzle This might be a project for LazyWeb then. What I would like to be able to do is create a Web page adjacent to my blog that compiles ongoing posts from blogs that I frequent -- something akin to LiveJournal's Friends post aggregator, which handles LiveJournal posts from people you link to as friends as well as outside RSS feeds... or Stephen Downe's Edu_RSS, which collects feeds from sites that he's identified as appropriate for that aggregation page. Think blogroll or bookmarks, only with recent posts all on the same page, including links back to the original, independent blogs. You could add and remove sites that are part of the syndicated compilation as your reading roster changes, and posts would be displayed in chronological order regardless of their source sites. Corollary: The Blogging of Business Tony Perkins' new Web network project AlwaysOn now offers member blogs. So far, only three members have begun personal blogs within the service, but I like the format better than that of Ecademy, of which I'm also a member. It's nice to see Perkins finally introduce proper blogging to the system instead of just calling every single piece of content -- member contributed and otherwise -- a "blog." We'll see where this goes! While I can see some value in collective, focused blogging services such as this and Ecademy, I'm not sure I understand the value of being part of a content compiler rather than running my own blog. Part of Media Diet's charm, I like to think, is its independence -- even though I am, oh, so ever loosely affiliated with Cardhouse. What I would like to see -- and what Tom McManamon of the Nebraska Company would like to see -- is an RSS feed- or LiveJournal-like Friends content aggregator in which blogs I follow all find a home in one metablog. I add, I subtract, I control. Or bloggers can loosely collectivize to create a metablog that syndicates posts to their respective, independent blogs. Then we could read by tribe or by individual mind. Is anything like that available or in the works? Technofetishism XXXVIII My mom and dad were able to get their new Ergo Audrey up and running yesterday, even sending me a couple of enthusiastic thank-you emails. But when they tried to add a new email address specifically for my mom to use with their local ISP, Audrey gave up the ghost. Their local tech helper hasn't been able to figure out what's what, and I've posted a couple of queries for assistance to Audrey-related discussion boards. If any Media Dieticians are Audrey enthusiasts and are willing to help troubleshoot via email or phone, email me. We'd appreciate the help! Electronic Entertainment Expo 2003 Media Diet would like to welcome its first guestblogger, Kurt Squire. A research manager for MIT's Games-to-Teach project in the comparative media studies department, Kurt works with students and staff to develop conceptual prototypes for the next generation of interactive educational entertainment. He is also co-founder of Joystick 101, a Web-based community of gamers, designers, critics, academics, and researchers interested in the in-depth study of video games. Joystick 101 features game criticism, news, reviews, previews, and interviews. For the rest of this week or so, Kurt will be filing Media Diet reports live and on site from the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles. Media Diet is glad to have Kurt on the team! Welcome. Wednesday, May 14, 2003
Blogging About Blogging LIX In addition to Blogger's Recently Updated page, Blogger also offers a Fresh Blogs RSS feed now. Awesome. Music to My Ears XXXIX When I stayed with Jim Munroe during a recent trip to Toronto, I asked him whether the phrase "no biggles," which he uses in Everyone in Silico, is actual Canadian slang. Turns out that it's not, that Jim forgot he'd even included that phrase in the book, and that he doesn't even know what it means -- or why he liked it. Nevertheless, he was so inspired by my visit and the phrase that he writ this little ditty. Now, I've written songs about people before -- mostly girls I have crushes on -- but I don't think anyone has ever written a song based on something I've said or done. Yay! Sites on the Side of the Road VII Stephen Shapiro, former head of Accenture's process excellence practice and author of the book 24/7 Innovation is planning a three-month tour of the United States to research his forthcoming book Creative America. Starting June 1, Shapiro will ring the country, hitting major urban areas as well as smaller cities in between. Seems like a fascinating project! Street Art V A cartoonist friend of mine stopped by the Pearl store on Central Square earlier this week to hang up posters for the Cambridge Comix Festival, which continues this weekend. Word is thatthey've gotten rid of the big bulletin boards they used to offer for community fliers -- and now have a small one that is labeled for arts events only (i.e. no roommate searches or music-related events). In addition, you now have to have a manager initial your poster before it can be posted. My friend asked if he could put up his poster, and the staff told him no. He persisted, explaining that there are gallery shows involved in the fest -- and that it's art related -- and the woman said, "Well, even if I let you put it up, my manager will just take it down." Apparently, there were grafitti-related posters posted on the board previously, and the Pearl staff is cracking down on inappropriate fliers. That's where comics rank at Pearl: below grafitti art. Not quite high art enough to promote at Pearl. Technofetishism XXXVIII My mom and dad have been online for several years now, but my mom has never taken to the Net -- or the PC -- like my dad has. Part of it is where they have the computer set up at home. It's kind of in my dad's "space," and because he's the primary user, my mom is often frustrated when he changes the desktop and file setup. She can't find what she's looking for, and even if she learns how to do something, she often has to relearn as files and applications move around. While my dad just got a new laptop to use as their primary computer -- dedicating their old desktop to operating his model railroad -- I thought it'd be a good idea to get my mom something that she could use to get online, email family, and so forth. Something that would be hers. Something that would be in her space. So I bid on an old Ergo Audrey from 3Com on Ebay. Originally introduced in 2000, the Audrey was a Net appliance offered as part of a proposed Ergo line of consumer electronics devices to be used in the home. Designed by Ideo, Razorfish, and 3Com, the Audrey is a sleek device with a petite countertop footprint. No longer available via retail -- and no longer supported by 3Com -- the Audrey has emerged as a quaint technological artifact ripe for hacking. While I don't expect my folks to tweak their Audrey so it's networked, streaming MP3's, or a Linux device, I've already received two emails from my mom, sent from the Audrey -- in the kitchen. And that's a good thing. Finally, my mom can get online her way in her space on something that is hers. Even though 3Com discontinued the Audrey, the company deserves thanks for helping to bring my family closer together. Anchormen, Aweigh! XXI The new Anchormen CD, Nation of Interns, has arrived! We met late last night to practice for Friday's show, with Leslie joining us on the alto saxophone to work out Romeo Void's "Never Say Never," a fine no-wave song, indeed. This is what Friday's set list will look like, in no particular order:
While everyone else was working on the Romeo Void cover, I took a break to go to the restroom. Returning to our space, I saw an apparently drunk man rising out of the cubbyhole corner over by where the payphone used to be. Later on, he came to our room, let himself in, and drunkenly told us that he was a neighbor and that we had no right to make so much noise. We told him that we did and ushered him out of the room -- "You have to leave." -- to finish practice. When we were all done and leaving to head to the Abbey Lounge in Somerville for a drink, he was passed out sleeping on the floor between the pool table and the old piano. A trailing line of liquid from the garbage made it look like he was drooling profusely. He would snort and shift, so we knew that he was mostly OK, but we called 911 anyway. Meeting the two paramedics downstairs, we took them up to the fifth floor, where they roused him, ascertained that he wasn't hurt or injured, and helped him downstairs in the elevator. We left them with him on the street, trying to shoo him off to one of the area homeless shelters for the night. We probably could have woken him up and ushered him out of the building ourselves, but I think calling 911 was the right thing to do even if it was kind of a false-alarm hassle for them. What if he'd been hurt? What if he'd protested or gotten violent? I think the authority of their uniforms and the ambulance were good to have on hand in what could've been an awkward situation. He was no Evan Dando, that's for sure. Tuesday, May 13, 2003
Geocache Me If You Can Oh, I love my new Geko 201. It's going to totally change how I think about place -- and being in between places. Last night, as my mom and I walked through the Public Garden and Boston Common to the Park Street T station, we used it to keep track of what direction we were walking in and how far we'd gone. I can't get over the fact that satellites in orbit around the Earth are sending messages to this little green device in my hand. This morning, I took a break from work to try to find my first Geocache in the North End. I couldn't find it and started feeling self-conscious because there were other people around. I went back during a brief lunch break and still couldn't find it. It looks as though they've recently planted some shrubbery in the area, perhaps laying new cedar chips and cleaning up some of the trash accumulated over the winter, so it might no longer be there. I'll wait for a less overcast day to see if my accuracy improves. Until then, there's a Geocache not far from where I live. Maybe I'll track that down tomorrow evening. I work at N 42o 21.895' W 071o 03.489'. Satellites are speaking to me! Music to My Ears XXXVIII A colleague of mine, Charlie McEnerney, is host and producer of a new Web radio program called Well-Rounded Radio. Intending to eventually pitch his music interview segments to various radio stations, Charlie, a former contributor to IndyMusic and MovieMaker -- and a musician in his own right -- offers several of the episodes to date online. Musicians featured so far include the Willard Grant Conspiracy, Tanya Donelly, and Clint Conley. Deb Klein of Hi-Fi Records is even featured as part of the Well-Rounded Raves segment, raving about the Thermals. Nice! Monday, May 12, 2003
Magazine Me XXXIII There must be something in the water these days. What is up with all the new magazine launches? Former Red Herring editor Jason Pontin is launching the Acumen Journal of Sciences. And Audrey is a new mag aimed at Asian American women. I can see some potential in a business magazine about the life sciences, but in a niche already crowded by some not-so-good magazines such as A and Yolk, will Audrey rise above? Thanks to I Want Media. The Movie I Watched Last Night LXVII While my mother was in town for Mother's Day and Kurt and Geraldine's wedding, we watched a couple of movies on the Big Blue Couch at Church Corner: Friday: The Straight Story Based on a true story, this 1999 David Lynch film produced by Disney tells the tale of a 73-year-old man who embarks on a six-week journey from Iowa to Wisconsin on a riding lawn mower. It's a slow-paced, gentle movie that's quite different than Lynch's usually dark narratives, and its emotional weight and importance is impressive. Richard Farnsworth's portrayal of Alvin Straight, the aged hero of the film, is solid, as is Sissy Spacek's role as Straight's developmentally disabled daughter. For the most part, the movie is a linear hero's quest, and the story unfolds through vignettes as Straight encounters various characters along the way: a pregnant runaway, a helpful family, and eventually, the brother for whom he set out on his journey. The Straight Story is a story about family ties, honor, perseverence, and redemption -- as well as about pride and love. While I expected more of an emotional resolution or apology at the end, when Straight is reunited with his brother (portrayed by Harry Dean Stanton), the quietly accepting conclusion is impact enough. A sleeper, but substantial. Saturday: Night on the Galactic Railroad Admittedly, I picked up this 1985 anime directed by Gisaburo Sugii mistaking it for A Chinese Ghost Story. But the confusion was not regretted. Based on a 1927 story by Kenji Miyazawa, the anime is a modern fable about two friends who embark on a quest for self-realization and -understanding on a mysterious train that takes them to various stations. Along the way, the youths encounter various characters and scenes that contribute to their moral and philsophical learning and development. Although the anime is quite beautiful -- and the soundtrack appropriate for the film's dark mystery -- the pace is somewhat slow. Regardless, by building the young heroes' emotional and social development on a quest for one's father and independence, Sugii communicates many of Kenji's ideas and ideals to good effect. In fact, this is an interesting parallel watch to The Straight Story because both portray linear quests for understanding. When the end arrived, I was slightly surprised and dismayed by the anime's initially dissatisfying conclusion, but then another aspect of the story was introduced, and it wrapped up quite nicely. Despite an overly Western and Christian philosophical leaning for a Japanese fable, the film's animation and soundtrack is luch and impressive, and the overall effect is one of care and growing confidence. Event-O-Dex LVI May 16: Anchormen CD release party and Handstand Command third anniversary celebration with the Operators, Asian Babe Alert, and the Reaganauts at the Milky Way in Jamaica Plain. The Free-Range Comic Book Project XXIV This is an installment of Media Diet's Free-Range Comic Book Project. Crimson #17 (DC/Wildstorm, April 2000). Writer: Brian Augustyn. Artist: Humberto Ramos. Location: On a seat near Baggage Claim 7 in Terminal C of Logan International Airport. For more information on this project, please refer to this Media Diet entry. |
Last.fm Playlist
Confblogs: Sections: Things to Do: Honorary Media Dieticians: Media Morsels: |
