That Shiny New Thing

Diane Mermigas: On Media » Blog Archive » Tech’s Paradox: The Internet Bypass

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One of the Strangest, Most Ill Conceived Articles I've Ever Read

Yesterday in the Paper of Record one Guy Trebay, whom I often enjoy reading, wrote a bit of a treatise on the hipness and 'cool' of Marc Jacobs. While there are plenty of grammatically fascinating paragraphs like the following...

“I love Marc,” said Mr. Lucas, who filmed scenes from his hard-core gay pornographic film “La Dolce Vita” at Mr. Jacobs’s Bleecker Street shop. “I just wish he didn’t have such an addiction to miserable boyfriends,” added Mr. Lucas, who has been in a monogamous relationship for many years, referring to Jason Preston, a former male escort and intermittent partner of Mr. Jacobs — who has not.

Or off-the-wall quotes that are too absurd to be believed, even if it comes from the mouth of Courtney-It's-All-Steve-Coogan's-Fault-Love...

“I come to Marc because he stuck with me when I thought all I had was $2,800 in the bank,” she said. “Even though it turned out I had eight million I didn’t know I had.”

My true personal awe stemmed from the following, "

Cool, in the sense of a Marc Jacobs show, is like acupuncture. A mysterious electrical network regulates the system; manipulate one point and you trigger a remote response. The brain may be involved, but no one can tell you quite how. And, although it is possible to diagram the energy vectors (music to fashion to art to pornography) it would be impossible to dissect them under the knife.

As a person who has been going to acupuncture twice a week for the past three months, has more than a passing interest in at least three of the four 'energy vectors' which Mr. Trebay touches on AND has been told on more than one occasion that my logic is sometimes loopy at best, I can't even begin to parse the above and have to wonder if the copy editor was recovering from some sort of terminal summer cold which had resulted in a sleepless night of Nyquil and Air Conditioning cold sweats so that when they stumbled upon said sentence, glanced at it, tried once, maybe twice, and then just said, 'WTF...'

The Perils of Automation and Context

In case you can't read it. This is a program listing from TV Guide for Oprah yesterday. And it says, "How often do you clean? Hidden filth inside your ho."

Don't be a Drive-In

It's the media meme of the moment pour moi. 'Don't be a Drive-In'. This is equally applicable to TV, Radio and Newspaper. To Portals, Game Developers and Publishers. Straight up. Don't be a Drive-In. The nostalgic pass offered up by the Times on the demise of Buffalo's outdoor screening park is just one more graphical nail in the coffin of 'the Way We Were'.

And where it took upwards of 50 years for the rise and fall of this particular televisual format, one need only look to the left and right to see metaphorical drive-in's and their demise everywhere you turn.

Maybe The Sun Will Shine Today

Caught Wilco last night at the Greek Theater in Berkeley. Can't say I was blown away. My day started fantastically enough I went to go see my friend Janis here and saw some wicked technology that will change the way we consumer our media. Classic Silicon Valley Office Park - which is to say death seemed to be being manufactured behind cubicle walls and beneath fluorescent lights.

Rolled up to SF in my metallic blue mustang convertible and had lunch with my friend Zane Vella who has been working here which seems pretty chill. Cool designers making great shit as it were. We discussed the Burn - he in his new Orange with Brass Polka Dots - Disorient shirt - over lunch at this lovely place - Farina. Most delish - warm grilled octopus salad and some commentary by the esteemed Mr. Vella that octopuses were mightily intelligent. Then I went to the land of panini and he journeyed to the special pasta - a lovely flat noodle - nearly a paparadelle, which he asked to return - but they explained it was room temperature.

Somehow talk of Wilco came up and Zane opined he would be joining the festivities. We ro sham bo'ed for lunch and I lost. The loss possibly coming when Zane said, "Two out of three."

To home, the dr.s (clean bill of health!)and had some  excellent New Yorker reading on jumping out of space capsules at about 50,000 feet. Line of the piece - X jumped out of the plane at 50,000 and fell to earth bleeding from every orifice. And then with a wish and a flourish, off to Berkeley to catch Wilco. It was rush week which presented it's own comedic possibilities and harrowing flashbacks of bad decisions and questionable judgment.

Ah - the but the show. Opener was trying too hard. In announcing his CD was available he said, "Hey you can buy it and talk over it at home - just like you did here." Wilco was tight. Too tight. Lights were good. Band was solid. Guitar wizardry was in order - but lacked imagination. Lacked improvisation.

And On Your Deathbed You Will Have Total Consciousness...

This one really needs very little explication or commenting.

Mr. Bill Murray - star of so many laughing marathons I couldn't even begin to count was pulled over drunk driving in a golf cart in Stockholm.

Yes. Sayeth the police chief in what has to be the most choice understatement since the British Coroner said of Brian Jones' death in that pool in England lo those many years ago, "Death by Misadventure..."

"I have done this since '68 and I've never experienced anything similar," said Detective-Inspector Christer Holmlund of Stockholm police.

I say, "SKol!"

OH SHIT - They're Slowing Down

Well it appears we've peaked. And I don't mean in that middle age kind of way - but that's happening as well. No, at the end of a boom cycle not since since, well the era of Pets.com, we seem to have hit the top of another curve that had seemed to have no end in sight. Media Saturation. WE are, for the first time ever, showing signs of not consuming MORE media than we had in the previous year.

The report which can be found here isn't all Voldemort and Boogeymen. It highlights the on demand nature of the content producer and consumer and that the latter, aided by enabling technologies, has simply become more efficient with his media habits.

The slowdown in media consumption in 2006 represents a saturation point, Kivijarv said, but that doesn't mean Americans are waning in their hunger for the offerings on the vast media menu. Rather, he suggested, "on-demand" digital technologies allow consumers to be more efficient. Instead of leafing through several sections of a newspaper, readers are able to call up the two or three articles of interest to them, almost immediately on a newspaper's website, he said.

So it's not that the Sky is Falling. More, hey, look at the Sky, was it always that color? And are those clouds on the horizon?

And we're Back....30 posts in 30 days

Sometimes a fella gets in a groove and said fella can see around corners, can hear the wind when it lies still and on days like that said fella finds his bar tabs taken care of, his girls bouncy and light and his pronouncements accepted and revered. This has not been one of those times. First the back surgery (ouch) and then starting a new job - well it's an interesting pairing of events to take on at once. But if not me, who? And if not now, when? These are easy questions with easy answers.

That said I mumbled something to my friend Noah that I would be posting 30X in 30 days and that begins today. (It was supposed to start yesterday but well - it didn't).

There are three highlights:

The obituary of Joybubbles  in the Paper of Record yesterday. A deaf genius who hacked the phone  system by perfectly mimicking the  dial and ring tones. There was just something so magical about this guy who decided to live this playful life inside his mind and fuck with  the system  and live  his own life where he was called Joybubbles . It  just delighted me and made me appreciate of the human canvas. Saccharine  alert: In our day to day as we move bits and bytes in the service of products and processors the human is the first thing lost and well Joybubbles, Joybubbles reminds us, at the end of call, the email, the IM, we're all human.

Look, I'm Cuddly

The Rupe.

So close to the rube. But at the same time not. Was no one else repulsed by this photo, this truly nausea inducing photo of one Rupert 'my middle name is rapacious' Murdoch floating in the New York Times. Oh look, I'm just your average run of the mill media baron in late decline...Nothing had been quite so horrific since the Times had written of how Rupe needed to unload his triplex downtown prior to moving into his $44 million duplex uptown.

How Can Anyone as Hot as Natalie Portman Possibly Get Hotter?

This is Natalie Portman.

This is Global Poverty.

This is what Natalie Portman is doing about it. Natalie Portman Video Diary #1

Add to My Profile |   More Videos">Natalie Portman MySpace video

That's hot. That's hotter than hot. Padamame is getting down with the program in a real and pragmatic way. And is there a better cross-section of cause and distribution than Village Banking, Star Wars Hotness, and MySpace? Name it. I dare you.