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MP3: "Afterword" from Lessig's "Free Culture."

Per AKMA's "Let's Start Something" post calling for bloggers willing to read a chapter of Lawrence Lessig's "Free Culture," audioblogger Linda Blake and I have read "Afterword" (1 hour, 4 minutes, 54 seconds; 59.43 MB MP3; 44 Hz, 16-bit mono).

Linda's "Us, Now" section (20 minutes, 38 seconds) was converted to 128 kbps MP3. My "Them, Soon" section (44 minutes, 16 seconds) was recorded as AIF and converted to 128 kbps MP3 using Xhead Software's recorder.xhead 3.1. The two MP3s were joined using HairerSoft's Amadeus II (v3.7.1).

MP3: "Creators" from Lessig's "Free Culture"

Per AKMA's "Let's Start Something" post calling for bloggers willing to read a chapter of Lawrence Lessig's "Free Culture," here is my reading of "Chapter 1: Creators" (22 minutes, 58 seconds; 10.55 MB MP3; 44 Hz, 16-bit mono; recorded as AIF using Xhead Software's recorder.xhead 3.1 into my PowerBook's built-in microphone and converted to 128 kbps MP3 using iTunes 4.2)

Grandmaster Flash and the MSN jive.

Glenn Otis Brown blows my mind in his Creative Commons post "Call and Response"

[...] "When I do this, said Grandmaster Flash, playing the vocal "Good Times," then dropping the volume, everyone yell "MSN."

People in the audience looked at each other.

Got it? he said into the microphone, Good times -- MSN! Good times -- MSN! Got it? Here we go.

A few people booed. The DJ played a few rounds of the vocal, then cut the volume.

Grandmaster Flash, and about a dozen audience members, shouted "MSN!"

A few scattered boos followed. Flash tried to rally the crowd. He played the call again: Good Times . . . Good Times . . . And the music cut out again -- the audience's turn.

This time they responded. But they didn't say "MSN."

What did they say? I asked the couple in front of me.

They said, 'Bulls--t,' the couple said, laughing. I asked my friends. They heard the same thing.

After a couple more such calls and responses, Grandmaster Flash went back to the regular show, and right away the crowd threw its hands in the air and danced again as if none of it had ever happened. [...]

Whose mind, whose soul.

[...] On my iPod I've been listening to the new Missy Elliott song "Wake Up." It's an austere hip-hop track with a political edge. Something about the music sets off my classical radar. There are, effectively, only three notes, free-floating and ambiguous. The song begins with a clip of a voice shouting "Wake up!" The voice rises up a tritone, and that interval determines the notes. The idea of generating music from the singsong of speech is ancient, but "Wake Up" reminds me in particular of two minimalist pieces by Steve Reich, "It's Gonna Rain" and "Come Out." Both use tapes of impassioned black voices to create seething electronic soundscapes. Whether Elliott and her producer, Timbaland, have listened to Reich is beside the point. (If you say, "Of course they haven't," ask yourself what makes you so certain.) The song works much like Reich's compositions, building a world from a sliver of sound. It's almost manic and obsessive enough to be classical music. [...]

Alex Ross' "Listen To This" in the New Yorker

(originally posted Feb. 17, 2004 at 6:07 p.m.)

iPod people, pt. 2.

"I don't see it as a private cocoon," said Mark Poster, a professor of film and media studies at the University of California, Irvine, who has studied the social impact of cellphones. "I see it as connecting with a musician and therefore making a connection that's not related to physical space. We need to understand it, instead of saying, 'It's not how we used to be, so it's bad.'"

Warren St. John in the New York Times' "The World at Ears' Length"

(originally posted Feb. 17, 2004 at 1:42 a.m.)

Feel and triple.

Today's listening: Cassandra Wilson's "Glamoured," most of The Sea and Cake's "Glass," a compilation called "The Only Blip Hop Record You Will Ever Need, Vol. 1," Beatless' the Brad Mehldau Trio's "Everything in Its Right Place (Alternate Version)," Stereolab's "Margerine Eclipse" and Big Audio Dynamite's "Rush."

I'm thinking about how much Tim Gane and Laetitia Sadler thrill Pharrell Williams. I wish everyone who dug Jay-Z's "Change Clothes" had gone out and bought (or, hell, stayed in and downloaded) "Emperor Tomato Ketchup."

I think I like "Margerine Melodie" best. It makes me plink and skank, turns a brother all holographic and flickery, puts old "Logan's Run" episodes in his mental highlight reel (and adds black folks, per the old Richard Pryor perplex).

"I don't like movies when they don't have no niggers in 'em. I went to see Logan's Run, right? They had a movie of the future called Logan's Run. Ain't no niggers in it. I said, well, White folks ain't planning for us to be here. That's why we gotta make movies. Then we'll be in the pictures."

There's a melodic hook in "Hillbilly Motobike" that sounds like Elliott Smith's "Sweet Adeline" for about five seconds. My, the end of "Dear Marge" does groove, eh?

(originally posted Jan. 27, 2004 at 9:31 p.m.)

2 + 2 = 5.

Today I liked reading AKMA's "Things Just Work" post (on the pleasures of an unexpected iPod segue), and later coming across Brad Kava's San Jose Mercury News article "Radiohead's latest goes to show how some music merits a second -- or third or fourth -- chance" ("The raindrops, the raindrops" indeed.)

(originally posted Jan. 17, 2004 at 4:04 a.m.)

Two Miles fans.

There's Karl Hyde of Underworld in "Sound Fields," a Will Hodgkinson interview for the Guardian UK's "Home Entertainment" series:

[...] "Having grown up with Kraftwerk, we already liked machine music - precision tainted by the imprecision of humanity," explains Hyde.

"Then we saw people like Orbital and Leftfield and realised that dance music was all about the mood it created. Once again we saw a parallel with what Miles Davis had done: he understood the importance of music being in the moment, whether that's a trumpeter responding to the atmosphere with a solo, or a DJ using vinyl as an instrument that responds to the crowd."

Just then, the iPod plays Miles Davis' epochal jazz-fusion album Bitches Brew. "If I would pick anyone who has guided me over the years, it would be him," says Hyde. "In the early 90s I was doing some session work at Paisley Park, Prince's studio in Minneapolis, and Miles Davis had just done a gig at Prince's club the night before. The rumour was that he was going to come into the studio and jam, but it didn't happen. Still, he showed me how any instrument, including a voice, can be used to support the groove and the atmosphere, and that the groove is more important than the ego of any musician and certainly of a singer-songwriter." [...]

Then there's Kieran Hebden, aka Four Tet, in Hodgkinson's "It's a wonderful life" from last month:

[...] Hebden recounts a Miles Davis story to reflect the difference between the originators and bands that idolise them. "He was at a concert, a few years after doing Kind of Blue, and there was a straight jazz band doing Kind of Blue-era music. They know that he's in the crowd, and they go up to him afterwards and ask him what he thought. He said, 'Didn't we do it right the first time?' Maybe the ultimate respect to show the music you love is never to try to emulate it." [...]

(originally posted Jan. 11, 2004 at 11:09 a.m.)

Indie type.

You're Avante Garde Indie. You listen to abstract
music like free-jazz and Krautrock. You drink
too much coffee and you scare the fuck out of
the rest of us. We're afraid to call you
pretentious because we know that we all just
don't get it. There are few of you out there,
and most of you will probably die soon.


You Know Yer Indie. Let's Sub-Categorize.
brought to you by Quizilla

(originally posted Jan. 9, 2004 at 4:58 a.m.)

Canon fodder.

"If Lester Fucking Bangs was still alive, he'd probably be mentoring a young girl of color from New Orleans who grew up with Juvie, Jubilee, marches, merengue, magnums, samba, second line, the Sex Pistols, and the housing authority police. She wouldn't need to make anything up."

Jeff Chang's "Return of the White Noise Supremacists: Truth, lies, Da Capo's Best Music Writing series, and the white man's burden" (in the San Francisco Bay Guardian and at his site) responds, in part, to Nik Cohn's "Soljas," a small chunk of which is excerpted at Granta

(originally posted Jan. 9, 2004 at 4:14 a.m.)

Corporate sound.

Can't help it, I guess. First thing that comes to mind is this: what does a multinational record label sound like? What does Righteous Babe sound like? How about Halliburton? Enron? Apple? Microsoft? Six Apart? The utility that brought you the water in the nearest tap, the power in the wall socket, the cell phone in your bag?

"If corporate design is the face of the company, corporate sound is the voice ... Music is just one part of the mix. What we're doing is branding a whole sound mood."

Carl-Frank Westermann in Ian Wylie's Fast Company article "Sounds to Brand By"

(originally posted Jan. 8, 2004 at 5:59 a.m.)

iPod people.

Gave the wife a first-generation 5-gigabyte model as a birthday gift. Now it goes on trains with her and serves up the ideal soundtracks for interstitial intervals. Stretches of hillside, lines of cars crawling along the highway, eyes closing and opening in rhythm. On long walks with her, it's a beat-keeper for her lovely calves. Just ask Quannum's "I Changed My Mind," it'll tell you.

DJing with an iPod doesn't really work with house music because you can't beatmix yet, but if you're just cutting between different tracks from different genres, nobody knows if it's vinyl or MP3 anyway. In any case, the aim at noWax is to get a party atmosphere going rather than a club atmosphere. People want to impress, so they usually pick the classics from whichever genre. At the last noWax we heard everything from Aphex Twin to Gwen McRae, from X-Press 2 to Joy Division. At the end of the first night someone put on Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers's Islands in the Stream, and everyone went mad. You can get away with anything.

Raj Panjwani in the Guardian UK's "Last night an MP3J saved my life"

"The iPod, the place where storage becomes magic, now helps us say for sure: it's all over. The physical presence of the popular song is gone. It's time for the next thing. No disc, nothing spooled or grooved, no heads to clean, no dust to wipe, no compulsive alphabetising. Nothing to put away in shoeboxes or spare cupboards, and be embarrassed about. A chip inside us and inside the chip a route to all the music that there ever was."

"I hate the idea of the iPod. Why would you want to carry around 10,000 songs? Nobody needs that number. This is a complete Nick Hornby anorak's dream - middle-aged men will be buying it with joy. Models like it, too, but they don't have any brains. Ten thousand tracks are more than anyone has in their collection - you end up having to fill it with Hurricane Smith songs. What's wrong with a Discman or a Walkperson? It's just a gadget that appeals to men who want access to everything - all the indie schmindie stuff they think they should listen to, a rock critic's wishlist of songs. They think it offers limitless potential, but our lives need editing, or it ends up like digital TV - hundreds of channels and nothing to watch."

Paul Morley and Caroline Sullivan in Guardian UK's "iPod -- therefore I am" (via Cheesedog's Work Work work)

(originally posted Jan. 8, 2004 at 4:03 a.m.)

Press play.

Ideally this would be a needledrop. Maybe some tape hiss. Something fragmentary, a small hiccup or gust of noise, a male plug into a female port and turned-too-high static giving every ear within, well, earshot a sonic goose. But instead it's just words.

(originally posted Jan. 8, 2004 at 1:37 a.m.)

De rigueur alive-and-well pre-SxSWi update post.

I'm:

• back home
• collating notes and photographs
• missing Austin
• missing you (and you and you and you, too)
• breathless with pollen and the slowly subsiding heat
• getting the hang of my new cameraphone
• wishing Jason and Kevin a happy birthday
• feeling absurdly grateful.

Spring's coming on like gangbusters.

My least favorite season. (I think it hit 80 70-or-so degrees at some point today. My apologies to you, of course, if you're reading this someplace where early March means "chilly.") It's necessary, it's inevitable, what do you mean you don't like spring, and what would you do, have winter last for six months until summer kicked in cleanly?

One consolation is SXSW, which seems to have snuck up on me this year. Things like Kick! and Fray Cafe 4 and maybe a little IRC action during the Bloggies, I can't beat that with a bat.

Note to self: You owe Pete Beck -- Mr. Running of the Bullshitters designer himself -- a Shiner. Maybe two. I've never participated, but it might be fun to watch. One of the ways I know when it's my birthday, other than the perennial appearance of a Williams sister at Center Court in Wimbledon, is the bovine boogie through the back alleys of San Fermin.

I wish I'd paid closer attention to where I saw the Degree Confluence Project (most likely Blogdex), but I went to look anyways: here's the closest to where I grew up and the closest to where I live now.

Steven G. Fullwood's photos and words make me want to see these and plenty more black bloggers in Chicago this June.

Uppity-Negro's "The Extended Version" is sweet, but I always had Aaron pegged as a hero (and am subsequently pleased to be wrong). The real extended version of any worthwhile fictional narrative is its' readers/viewers lives.

Adrienne's " Another Saturday and I Ain't Got Nobody" makes me wish I could take her to lunch, at the very least to learn this mystery actor's identity.

Broken just the same.

I wrote it in 1993, but recorded this acoustic-guitar-and-voice version (4:36; 2.6 MB) while sitting in front of Blue Boy, our iMac, last year (or maybe the year before). A little fooling around in iLife led to this GarageBand version (6:48; 6.3 MB) that I finally let go of when Laura asked to hear it last night, hours after I came home jazzed from teaching it to a couple of co-workers in a jam session (so jazzed that, singing to myself, I hopped out of my parked car without turning it off and locked my car keys in -- thank you, AAA!). I don't have enough G.B.-fu to clean up the cellopane-crinkly-crackly vocals, which came from singing while futzing around with a poorly connected Shure cardioid mike and Griffin iMic adapter (gee, think I should have tried chewing gum at the same time, too?).

Primary color.

Here's to love, pt. 2.

Monday morning saw A. and I getting up, dressing and hopping in the car, parking over at the BART station and riding a (fortunately only briefly delayed in North Concord) train into the city. Getting off at Civic Center, we schlepped over to City Hall, made it through security and met up with Philo and (for the first time) "the blonde." A moment later, we meet Nancy (of the blog formerly known as Jill Matrix and currently co-powering Queer Day) and "the blonde," one of the day's twenty-five or so newlyweds-to-be (at least, in San Francisco, anyway -- they've gotten married before).

Philo -- an amazing man: a solid hugger, an empathetic and focused presence and absolutely fanatic with a camera in his hands -- followed the couple into the county clerk's office to kick off the day's paperwork. Meanwhile, we were introduced to Ian and Stacy, an Oakland couple and good friends of Nancy's who came to be witnesses. At right, Jason (of Somnolent) laughs with Nancy.

"The blonde" stands and models a white security tag on the outfit she'd purchased the other day; the salesperson forgot to remove the tag! It was her first time visiting San Francisco, and she said she was really enjoying it. The county clerk's office was hopping, for obvious reasons. It was a chaotic but orderly environment, full of organized, anticipatorily tense and oddly cheery tension. I could have closed my eyes and been right back at the Alameda County courthouse building in Oakland on the day A. and I got married.

A gentleman came up and asked people waiting outside the office if they were getting married. As it turns out, someone in Idaho had sent a bouquet of flowers (with "anyone in line, City Hall, San Francisco" on the label). A lucky duo laid claim to them just as my Mavica's batteries gave out.

Update: "Queer Day's Nancy weds partner in San Francisco"

Updated update: Philo posted a QuickTime movie he made (called "The Wedding") and there are a few "Wedding: Reloaded" clips over at my .Mac page. (That's what I got up to when the Mavica gave out.)

My need-to-learn list? Hindi and Portuguese, pt. 2.

• Jay Ingram's Toronto Star article "Who'll speak, like, which language in 2050?"
• David Graddol's English Company article "Future of English"
• Barbara Wallraff's "What Global Language?" in The Atlantic
• "A Richly Capable Mother Tongue," Wallraff's interview with Anne Soukhanov
• "Being Multilingual," Wallraff's interview with David Graddol
• Jack Hitt's New York Times Magazine article "Say No More"

Also: "My need-to-learn list? Hindi and Portuguese"

Minor insight gleaned from a book review.

From "'Dot in the Universe': Calling a Speck a Speck," Claire Dederer's New York Times review of Lucy Ellmann's "A Dot in the Universe":

"We intensively train children in the Arts and ritual because deep down we know that these are the only things that really MATTER. This is what we must share first with the young, in case they DIE."

Well, then, no wonder President Bush and the Levitican-Americans are losing their minds, marriage being, after all, an art and a ritual. (It's neither science nor radical, exotic "happening," is it?)

Here's to love.

Aaron Carruthers, left, and Keith Haberstuck of Sacramento, Calif., smell flowers Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2004, held by florist Stephanie Foster, while waiting outside San Francisco's City Hall to be married. San Francisco florists have been overwhelmed by orders from people as far away as Australia who are paying for flowers to be delivered randomly to gay and lesbian couples getting married at City Hall. (AP Photo/Ben Margot)

Political compass, recalibrated.

I can't remember the last time I took it; I'll chase the dates down in a day or two.

Just a few propositions to start with, concerning -- no less -- how you see the country and the world.

If economic globalisation is inevitable, it should primarily serve humanity rather than the interests of trans-national corporations. Agree

I'd always support my country, whether it was right or wrong. Strongly disagree

No one chooses their country of birth, so it's foolish to be proud of it. Strongly disagreeAgree

Our race has many superior qualities, compared to other races. Strongly disagree

The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Strongly disagree

Military action that defies international law is sometimes justified. Disagree

The growing fusion between information and entertainment is a worrying contribution to the public's shrinking attention span. Strongly agree

Now, the economy. We're talking attitudes here, not the FTSE index.

People are ultimately divided more by class than by nationality. Disagree

Controlling inflation is more important than controlling unemployment. Disagree

Corporations cannot be trusted to voluntarily respect the environment. Strongly agree

From each according to his ability, to each according to his need is a fundamentally good idea. Strongly disagree

It's a sad reflection on our society that something as basic as drinking water is now a bottled, branded consumer product. Disagree

Land shouldn't be a commodity to be bought and sold. Disagree

Many personal fortunes are made by people who simply manipulate money and contribute nothing to their society. Disagree

Protectionism is sometimes necessary in trade. Disagree

The only social responsibility of a company should be to deliver a profit to its shareholders. Strongly disagree

The rich are too highly taxed. Strongly disagree

Those with the ability to pay should have the right to higher standards of medical care. Agree

Governments should penalise businesses that mislead the public. Strongly agree

The freer the market, the freer the people. Agree

Now a look at some of your personal social values...

Abortion, when the woman's life is not threatened, should always be illegal. Strongly disagree

All authority must be questioned. Strongly agree

An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. Strongly disagree

Taxpayers should not be expected to prop up any theatres or museums that cannot survive on a commercial basis. Disagree

Schools should not make classroom attendance compulsory. Disagree

Everyone has their rights, but it is better for all of us that different sorts of people should keep to their own kind. Strongly disagree

Good parents sometimes have to spank their children, to teach them right from wrong. Disagree

It's natural for children to keep some secrets from their parents. Disagree

Marijuana should be legalised. Agree

The prime function of schooling is to equip the future generation to find jobs. Disagree

People with serious inheritable disabilities should not be allowed to reproduce. Disagree

The most important thing for children to learn is to accept discipline. Disagree

There are no savage and civilised peoples; there are only different cultures. Agree

Those who are able to work, and refuse the opportunity, should not expect society's support. Agree

When you are troubled, it's better not to think about it, but to keep busy with more cheerful things. Disagree

First-generation immigrants can never be fully integrated within their new country. Strongly disagree

What's good for the most successful corporations is always, ultimately, good for all of us. Strongly disagree

No broadcasting institution, however independent its content, should receive public funding. Strongly disagree

...and how you see the wider society.

Our civil liberties are being excessively curbed in the name of counter-terrorism. Strongly agree

A significant advantage of a one-party state is that it avoids all the arguments that delay progress in a democratic political system. Strongly disagree

Although the electronic age makes official surveillance easier, only wrongdoers need to be worried. Strongly disagree

The death penalty should be an option for the most serious crimes. Strongly disagree

In a civilised society, one must always have people above to be obeyed and people below to be commanded. Strongly disagree

Abstract art that doesn't represent anything shouldn't be considered art at all. Strongly disagree

In criminal justice, punishment should be more important than rehabilitation. Strongly disagree

It is a waste of time to try to rehabilitate some criminals. Disagree

The businessman and the manufacturer are more important than the writer and the artist. Disagree

Mothers may have careers, but their first duty is to be homemakers. Strongly disagree

Multinational companies are unethically exploiting the plant genetic resources of developing countries. Agree

Making peace with the establishment is an important aspect of maturity. Disagree

If you got through that okay, you'll find these propositions on religion a breeze.

Astrology accurately explains many things. Disagree

Religion and morality are closely linked. Disagree

Charity is better than social security as a means of helping the genuinely disadvantaged. Disagree

Some people are naturally unlucky. Disagree

Faith-based schools have a positive role to play in our education system. Agree

Finally, a look at sex.

Sex outside of marriage is usually immoral. Strongly disagree

A same sex couple in a stable, loving relationship, should not be excluded from the possibility of child adoption. Strongly agree

Pornography, depicting consenting adults, should be legal for the adult population. Strongly agree

What goes on in a private bedroom between consenting adults is no business of the state. Strongly agree

No one can feel naturally homosexual. Strongly agreeStrongly disagree

It's fine for society to be open about sex, but these days it's going too far. Strongly disagree

Your political compass:

Economic Left/Right: -2.00 Left -1.62 Left

Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -7.44 Libertarian -7.03 Libertarian

(Update: I retook the test this morning, partly to make sure I hadn't fumble-fingered any initial responses and partly to see if there was any fundamental change.)

Triskadeikafixingorkut.

Rebecca Blood's Digital Web article "Thirteen Ways to Save Orkut" (via RC3.org) wants everyone's new favorite social-softwarester mended, not ended.

Fandom: It's like extra-special friendness, with a side of superfriendosity. I'm a fan of so and so for one reason, so and so for another. I probably want to say why, and spell it out, rather than pick options off a checkbox menu.

TOS: That silly fake Hact article nailed quite a few people's discomforts.

Graduations of friendship: I think I have three friends in Orkut who wouldn't meet the Blood Standard, which made sense to me as soon as I read it in her profile.

Popularity contests: A special breed of insanity. The sooner they go away, the better. "I love you for who you are/Not the one you feel you need to be ..."

Birthday reminders: Remembering Donald's birthday was nice. I didn't send a card, but I did send him a note.

"Friend of friend" spam: That stuff just makes me want to simultaneously hide and kick somebody's ass. After Knowspam.net kicked 99 percent of my inhuman in-box inundatins to the curb, Orkut's far-flung flotsam brought back all those fight-or-flight feelings.

"Want" and "have": That's exactly what Scott Andrew wants.

Configurability, more than one career/gig on profile, keyword adds, community updates, better navigation and an improved network view: Yup.

Fix all of that stuff and more (laughing like children, living like lovers, and I guess that's why they call it the beta), and you'd have something that people would pay for. No, better. You'd have Ashley Judd and Dennis Haysbert in "Heat":

Charlene Shiherlis: What else are you selling? Sgt. Drucker: All kinds of shit. But this here I don't need to sell and you know it, 'cause this here is the kind of shit that sells itself.

De rigueur Blue Pyramid meme choosy-chooseage.

You're Prufrock and Other Observations!
by T.S. Eliot

Though you are very short and often overshadowed, your voice is poetic and lyrical. Dark and brooding, you see the world as a hopeless effort of people trying to impress other people. Though you make reference to almost everything, you've really heard enough about Michelangelo. You measure out your life with coffee spoons.

Take the Book Quiz at the Blue Pyramid.

You're the United Nations!

Most people think you're ineffective, but you are trying to completely save the world from itself, so there's always going to be a long way to go.  You're always the one trying to get friends to talk to each other, enemies to talk to each other, anyone who can to just talk instead of beating each other about the head and torso. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't, and you get very schizophrenic as a result. But your heart is in the right place, and sometimes also in New York.

Take the Country Quiz at the Blue Pyramid

Room on fire.

A. called me at work Sunday afternoon and said a building in our neighborhood was in flames, and that I might want to come back in case it got out of hand.

When she called me a second time and asked me to come back home, I just about flew there. She was scared, and rightly so. The wind was pretty strong that afternoon, and headed our way.

There was still lots of smoke, but the fire got put out quickly. Firemen began dumping charred remnants of objects out of one of the building's busted apartment windows.

I think that second shot's a mattress coming down to the driveway below.

Here's a co-worker's take.

Blog dinner at Cafe Bastille.

At left, Tom Mangan of newspaper-editor blog par excellence Prints the Chaff, left. At center, Mangan sits beside the evening's magnanimous host, JD Lasica. At right, the keen, kind Susan Mernit.

Brad deGraf listens as Mangan holds forth. Later on, none other than Art McGee came through! Across from me, I had the pleasure of Nina Davis' presence.

Lasica, whose book on darknets is slated for release next year, tries the mixed greens. After wolfing down my own mixed greens and salmon, the "Sortie" sign sorta caught my eye. I lost a staredown with the sign, and then listlessly glanced around the room.

Last but not least, we have Lasica and Davis, Mernit and Christopher Allen, and Christian Crumlish.

Also present but not snapped: the gentlemen on both sides of me for most of the evening, Mark Graham and Stu Henshall.

Also present: Michael Tolson, Deeje Cooley, Craig Newmark (craigslist, cnewmark), Phil Wolff (a klog apart, eastbaykerry), Moses Ma, Heather Schlegel, Dan Gillmor, Geoff Goodfellow, Peter Merholz, Tim Catlin, Chris Alden, Kevin Burton, Jeff Ubois, Mary Hodder (napsterization, bIPlog)

Update: JD's "Blog dinner: A night to remember," Tom's "Blogger meetup report," Susan's "Blogger/media dinner: Good talk, good food"

Borrowed links on borrowed time, pt. 4.

• Smart Mobs' "Sociotechnical Capital and Smartmobby Media"
• Oscar Micheaux's "Lying Lips," Rudolph Mate's "D.O.A." and Louis J. Gasnier's "Reefer Madness"
• Joi Ito's "Communities and Echo Chambers"
• Jon Gertner's "The Very, Very Personal is the Political"
• Paula Span's "The Failing Light" and the ensuing chat
• Escapable Logic's "Hotspur Speaks . . . on Pansy Asses"
• Ross Mayfield's "Conference Blogging" (via Doc)
• The Feature's "Harnessing the Hecklebot"
• Geodog's "Geek Conferences: Nothing to Fear But Fear Itself"
• Giordana Segneri's "I Love You, Both Ways"
• girlwonder's "What Am I Trying To Do Here?"
• Alex Ross' "Listen To This"
• Robert Niles' "Statistics Every Writer Should Know"

Free Choire and Ana Marie!

John Lee, Africana.com, "Blogging While (Anti) Black" (found via P6)

When websites attack! Media critic John Lee on why Gawker and Wonkette have a race problem.

Gawker and Wonkette don't have a race problem. They cover social scenes built on/over/around race problems, class problems, sex/gender problems, creed problems. They interrogate these scenes, and all who follow them without reservation, hesitation or engagement of critical-thinking skills, with a single, repeated question: "How does it feel to be a problem?" Doing this makes them part of the (race) solution.

Imagine if there were a website where you could vicariously cruise the halls of power in New York and DC via deliciously campy witticisms about the gossip and gaffes that plague powerful media moguls, real estate barons, and politicos that delight the reader in ways that can only be described with overused nihilistic German words.

Sometimes English gets old. Sometimes you get tired of listening to elected leaders who use it to obfuscate meaning and slip the surly bonds of responsibility and accountability. Sometimes the only sensible response to legislative/judicial/executives car-crash scenes is to shout "Schadenfreude!" until you're hoarse.

Enter Nick Denton. Denton, a former journalist with dot-com money, owns two website blogs called Gawker and Wonkette that serve just that purpose. Gawker and Wonkette have become the sine qua non of the New York and DC cultural elite, or at least those wishing to be a part of it. They chronicle the intricacies of the media power structure, the players and their sycophants in all their hubris. Their succinct invectives come from snippets found in established gossip columns, newspaper articles, wire copy, email tips, and an occasional instant messenger-inspired epiphany.

True, true, true and true. But at least theirs is sourced. Me, I just have to make do with pulling stuff out of thin air.

Denton has mapped out a route for monetizing the blog world in short order. It is a strategy to provoke outrage and publicity by taking the piss out of celebrities and luminaries of New York and DC. And I don't have any problem with that. It's just that these sites have decided that one way to telegraph their supreme coolness is to continually joke about non-whites as marginalized second-class citizens. It's this casual, damaging disregard that is hard to quantify, and yet, Gawker and Wonkette exemplify the growing phenomenon of white hipsters adopting a casual racism. Is it any wonder so many still feel blogging's a white man's sport?

Bullshit, bullshit and bullshit. You're mistaking Lenny Bruce for Trent Lott. The joke's on marginalization, not the marginalized. As for people who feel blogging's a white man's sport? Well, shit, I feel that way sometimes too. But that hasn't kept me away from it for the last three years, nor has it stopped a slew of folks in my circles of friends.

Gawker is run by a New York Observer contributor named Choire Sicha, whose vibe is that of a young Rex Reed — a man riffing on the superficialities of life with the highly self-referential banter one expects of a Lower East Side scenester who turns to writing when his dream of being discovered as an underwear model at a gallery opening in SoHo has evaporated. Sicha's writing style is composed of a bitchy stream of consciousness peppered with metaphoric comparisons to viscous fluids, queer malapropisms, and three-part neologisms such as "man-f*cking-hattan."

Choire, bless his heart, makes it look easy, too, but it's hard work. He could teach us, but he'd have to charge.

In an article covering the New Yorker Magazine Festival, Sicha reports that, "around me the audience is white," although he also says that he sees people like ZZ Packer and Edwidge Danticat (of whom he says "Edwidge is also adorable — you want to drive around with her in a giant Haitian-mobile and smoke a little weed"). Both of these women writers appear, at least to casual inspection, not to be white. In truth, there were several people at the three-day event who aren't white, despite his claims, and whom he characterizes suspiciously by ethnicity. Sicha's descriptions of non-whites seem to fall into the usual pattern of one part paternalism and two parts Maplethorpeian admiration.

So Choire notices when people are white and when they aren't white, trusts his audience enough not to have to spell out Packer and Danticat's ethnicity, and makes a joke I might have thought of making but wouldn't have articulated. This is suspicious?

Ana Marie Cox, a.k.a. Wonkette, is Sicha's DC counterpart. Her mission: to plumb the DC gossip scene for any signs of life in a town where getting invited to a Beltway power party is harder than getting a reservation at Nobu during a Mad Cow Disease scare. For a city that arguably controls the fate of the known world, DC has a social scene that is only slightly more interesting than life on an Alaskan oil field — this city's idea of a velvet rope is ten secret service guys standing in a row. Cox's current main source of stories seems to be blog-refusnik Matt Drudge (oddly, she's simultaneously constantly plugging rumors that Drudge is gay). She also has a penchant for reminding everyone on the Internet that Wes Clark, Jr. seems to be six degrees of her via his past conquests, while boosting his Google entries high enough so that he can sell his scripts. In exchange for that, she is hoping to prime his pump as a gossip leak, as she missed a golden opportunity to slam his father, former Democratic Candidate Clark, for admitting that he knows what a metrosexual is. Who said a bug doesn't know it's a bug? Unfortunately, she missed the scoop of Clark retiring from the race, Clark's endorsement of Kerry, Clark's knowledge of Kerry's alleged affair.

Comb through Wonkette's archives. Like Ragù, it's in there.

Like Sicha, Cox injects ethnicity into even the most mundane occurrences. After a VH-1 Pop Quiz given to Democratic candidates about various music, sports and film icons, she declares "Wes Clark: The whitest candidate in a very, very white field." Evidently, not knowing who starred in Total Recall or who wrote the Harry Potter books makes you white. Both sites seem obsessed with the eugenics of not just people, but ideas.

If I had to guess, I'd say Cox's comment is about the silliness of using pop quizzes to determine cultural currency. (Then again, Clark did once say Outkast wasn't breaking up, so what does he know?) Cox's invocation of ethnicity is about Clark's lack of cluefulness, not a literal slam against melanin-challengedness. And another thing: It's not eugenics, it's taste. It's not a pruning, a trimming or bleaching out; it's a choice, a portrayal, a naming and claiming. Maybe it's a voice you find suffocatingly insular, arcane, difficult to parse. I've found it worth the effort, and I say it doesn't merit branding as racist.

These sites stand as two towers forming a portcullis that bars the entry for those not of their ilk by rapier wit, snark and innuendo. The tone of post-black humor, when wielded by the non-black for a non-black audience only serves to polarize people. It acts as a catalyst for life imitating art, giving a nudge to those who are influenced by the power of the written word.

Again, I say: Bullshit, bullshit and bullshit.

We don't expect media-centric blogs about people of power to read like an issue of Final Call, but we don't expect them to sound like National Vanguard either. Nick Denton and his employees have decided that a person's ideas, actions and deeds don't define them, the color of their skin does. Thanks for letting us know where we belong.

*sigh* Maybe, just maybe, the third time's the charm. All together now: Bullshit, bullshit and bullshit.

Oyez, oyez! I hereby summon my Almighty Powers of Outraged Blackness and declare Choire Sicha and Ana Marie Cox, on this day, hereforth, Free of the Taint of Racism, This Nation's Original Sin (until that utterly unlikely rainy day that you do or say something that even I can't process).

Update: Prints The Chaff's "If only racism were the only problem" and hello.typepad's "Blogging While (Anti-)Black"

Updated update: Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind's "A Brief History of John Lee," The Major Fall, The Minor Lift's "BITCHY, QUEER, MAN-FUCKING... WAIT A SECOND, SUDDENLY IT ALL MAKES SENSE!," The Corsair's "In Defense of Gawker and Wonkette," Lynne d Johnson's "Racism in the blogosphere" and Old Hag's "Us On the Counter"

Borrowed links on borrowed time, pt. 3.

• Seth Mnookin's "The Faux Life with Norah Jones"
• Living In India's "the ways in which santiago de chile is like new delhi"
• Otto Pohl's "Western Magazines Go Global at a Fast Pace"
• Juliet Siegel's "The Cups Runneth Over"
• Fool.com's "How to Achieve Your Goals"
• Latino Pundit's "Strike Boosts Ethnic Grocery Stores" and Body and Soul's "'Cheap' Has More Than One Meaning, Sweetheart"
• Raging Women (I'm sorry I missed them before the comment spammers got really bad; at least I'll have fun reading the archives)
• Craiglist's "I finally took a chance and tried out this new dating method!" "Why honesty doesn't work" "Where have you been all my fictitious life?" and "'You should speak in English!' -- a Fairfax Moment retrospective"
• Pitchaya Sudbanthad's "Motherless Stadium"
• Jay Rosen's "The Tripping Point" and "Voices at the Crash Site Say the Front-Runner Was Never Ahead" and The Nation's Online Beat post 'I Think I Scared Them'
• Stonefishspine's "Love and Death"
• Feed on Feeds
• David Grenier's "Abraham Linkin'"

Borrowed links on borrowed time, pt. 2.

• Recent purchases: iLife '04 and M-Audio Radium 49
• Erik E. Peterson's On-Line Chinese Tools
• warmbrain's "Corrupted Movable Type Database"
• Africa Source: African Free and Open Source Software Developers Meeting
• editorsweblog.org (via Prints the chaff)
• Janet Jackson meets Maher Arar in Damn Foreigner's "Following Up On My Last Post"
• blargblog's "PoMo, RIP" (via ex-lion tamer)
• languagehat's "Language Barrier"
• Poppy Z. Brite's "Hostile Political Interlude"
• The S-Train Canvass' "Same-Sex Marriages Have My Support"
• feministe's "Thoughts on Blogging, Pedagogy, Metacognition and Ethos"
• Calpundit's "Healthcare in America"
• The Campaign Desk's "The Mailbag: Blogs and Journalistic Ethics" (via an e-mail from C.)
• Katherine Corcoran's San Jose Mercury News article "Race only skin deep"
• iCompositions' "Creating Apple Loops with Apple Soundtrack Utility"