Tom & Alissa

I skim a lot of blogs relating to arts and culture during the day, and things catch my eye, but I hate to repeatedly blog little links here. I’ve been experimenting with Tumblr and I think it’s the right way to do it, leaving this blog for stuff that’s actually about us (hence the name, right?).

Ergo, I give you Culture Log.

I’ll be blogging several links and quotes and things per day that I find interesting. It’s all completely subjective. Tumblr doesn’t provide commenting features, which I’ve fallen progressively more out of love with anyhow, and it makes it very easy to quickly blog all kinds of media. Culture Log has an RSS feed, so feel free to subscribe . . . or not. This is mostly for my own edification and for anyone else who wishes to look over my shoulder and see what I’m reading.

Friday night was great fun, listening to Michel Gondry talk about his work (he is kind of hilarious), watching a couple of his music videos - the Rolling Stones, Bjork, and the White Stripes - and hanging out with friends old and new. After a champagne reception with the Man Himself, we ate in Times Square, at a place that I think probably specializes in giving the “authentic American experience” to tourists. Not so much, but eating in Times Square is basically an exercise not unlike eating at one of the “authentic” places in Disneyworld. Suspend all disbelief, ye who enter here. And it was good chili.

I got home around 1:30 am, which was kind of a bad idea since I had to be up before six to pack and shower and catch a train. But we did all of the above and made our train with a few minutes to spare. By eleven we were in Albany with my Mom.

We went to the Tulip Festival in Albany’s Washington Park. I have to say that I lived in the general Albany area for twenty-one years, but had never really gone to the Festival except once to see my aunt dance, and we didn’t stay past the performance. Oh, my. Mom says the paper reported that 30,000 people were there; you could have fooled me, and I walked around in a bit of a daze, saying I had no idea there were that many people in Albany, period. There were street fair-style food vendors (we had gyros and split a funnel cake), booths for all kinds of crafty pursuits, bouncing castles, a petting zoo, two stages with bands, and a whole bunch of artists, which we enjoyed very much and even bought a Japanese-style cherry blossom painting by an artist from Massachusetts. We wandered about for a bit - the weather was sunny and warm and perfect - and then headed back to the house.

We spent the afternoon sitting around and chatting with Mom, mostly about politics (yes! us!), and then headed to Marmora Cafe, on River Street in downtown Troy. Now, I went to school in Troy for four years, and there wasn’t much to eat there, it seemed. A good Chinese restaurant and a loosely middle eastern restaurant, plus some pizza joints and the local brewpub (which, admittedly, was great), seemed to round it out. So I’m always a tiny bit dubious of Troy when it comes to eating, mostly because everything that’s sprouted up there in the three years since graduation is in areas of town I’ve never managed to be able to find very easily.

But, hurrah! We walked into Marmora and the owner said he was out of food. Disappointed, we started to turn away, but he said he thought he had a little bit left and could probably make us a nice platter. We almost left, but then decided to go for it, and fifteen minutes later there was a huge platter with tabouli, a lot of different kinds of hummus, baba ganoush, cheeses, strawberries, some kind of falafel ball with a sweetly spiced beef inside, and pita wedges. We ate like kings and thanked the owner profusely before driving out to the Colonie marina for a boat ride with the Womers. All in all, a perfect Saturday.

On Sunday we got to go to Terra Nova - always a treat - then went to my aunt’s house for Mother’s Day chicken and some time with the family. We had to leave pretty early to catch a train back, which got us home by 7:30 or so. Naturally, I cooked up some dinner and we watched The Machinist, which neither of us had seen, though we both distinctly remembered watching the trailers when it was coming out. It was less creepy than I thought it would be, but more than Tom thought. Whatever the case, it was beautifully shot and very solid. It was also very hard to watch Christian Bale, who lost something like 60 pounds for the role. He looked so emaciated. And to think, he did it again for Rescue Dawn. That man is one committed (and brilliant) actor.

I stayed home from work today with sore sinuses and head, venturing out only to buy groceries. I spent most of the rest of the afternoon watching eight (count ‘em) episodes of Battlestar Galactica, Season 3, which is of course brilliant. We have one disc left and then will probably start watching Season 4 on Hulu. We love the show, but I think we’ll be glad when it ends so we can finish Six Feet Under and start a new drama (The Wire? Sex and the City? The Sopranos? the possibilities are endless).

I’m hoping to be back on my feet tomorrow. Tom has a long, but relatively simple week this week (so far - schedules seem to change maniacally on this project), and I have nothing in particular planned but work until this weekend (which is very full). This is my last week before summer classes start, and I am very much hoping to have finished Moby Dick by Monday night. I’ve made a good dent in it already. Tom is also reading it, and we have two copies so we can both bring it along during the day. Thankfully, it’s none of the stuffy Victorian novel we were expecting. Actually, it’s hilarious and quirky and messy, and we are greatly enjoying it. Good thing, since I’ve got six weeks of studying it up ahead.

After realizing that I am going to have a lot of time to myself in the next two months while Tom does the whole production thing and I had no classes, I figured I should just knock out a few more credits (because, well, the more credits I have, the sooner I can graduate and move out into the big bad world, or at least onto more school). So I’m taking a class on Moby Dick (and literary criticism) in the English department. I’ve never actually read it, though I am pretty sure I read excerpts in high school, so I’m looking forward to it.

We have an awful lot buzzing and brewing, but nothing much to report. Stay tuned.

You can join ConversantLife’s new profile system and be my fan! Or even my friend, if you’re feeling ambitious.

Rather than being at Calvin like, oh, pretty much everyone in the universe right now, I’m still at work, hoping to have the magazine packaged at at the front desk for the printer to pick up on Monday. Hurrah!

So I’m going home once that’s done to start trying to gather research for my paper. Not to jinx it, but I’m postulating something along the lines of how the “new” evangelical film, produced by filmmakers from outside “the church”, has a lot in common with the classical definition of kitsch. I think I’ve got a lot to draw on for that. (If you’re in IAM, you know what I mean, but I do have a lot of scholarly work to back it up as well.)

Happily, today was delivery day at the house; the cable guy came to hook up our internet, the new bookcase was delivered, and the refrigerator has finally arrived (hurrah for groceries again!). Oh, and yesterday we got a coffee table, so now I finally have a place to scatter all my papers and set down my cup of tea while I work, since I don’t have a desk. Tom uses our desk and his job requires a lot of papers to be around all the time. I don’t really mind. After sitting in front of a desk all day at work, it’s nice to work from the comfort of the couch.

I have grand plans to spend most of tomorrow writing reviews for three books that only just came in the last couple days, watching a film and writing a review, wading through the five scholarly books I have from the library and tagging what’s useful, hopefully getting the skeleton of an outline down, then heading off to a pre-Tribeca Festival press screening and a friend’s staged reading. It’s times like these that I have a love-hate relationship with being a writer; on the one hand, it’s pretty easy for me to start writing a paper. I’ve gotten past the whole fear-of-the-page thing by now, since I’m always under the gun. On the other hand, it’s surprisingly hard to write scholarly work when you’re used to turning out Paste-worthy snappy writing. Academia seems not to look kindly on wit. My academic prose will never be too dry, but I have to kick myself into big-word mode.

It’s nice to be able to use big words, though. I’d gotten out of the habit.

Via Relief Journal, which is running an excellent series on why writers need technology - veteran blogger/author J. Mark Bertrand explains why writers, especially those who like to, you know, get published, should blog:

It’s 2004. The Art & Soul Conference at Baylor University. I’m in the lobby between sessions, browsing at the Eighth Day Books table. Minding my own business, in other words, in sharp contrast to everyone else. They’re networking. All of them. Somehow they’ve managed to meet up over the course of the event, to learn each other’s names. Not me. I’ve kept to myself. I’m a social moth.

“Hey, aren’t you—”

I turn to find a smiling man at my elbow. People are always saying I remind them of someone. Usually a crazy brother-in-law. I start to say, No, I’m not.

“—Mark Bertrand?”

“No, I’m . . . Oh.” Yes, actually. I am.

“I thought so,” he says. “I read your blog.”

That explains it. At least half the people I know, I met through my blog. Only I don’t usually meet them. Not without planning it in advance. The crazy thing is, for a brief shining moment, I feel like a celebrity. Somebody knows me. Somebody’s familiar with my work.

And the thing is, he’s not the only one. I got an e-mail this week from someone who’d read my book and enjoyed it.

“I’ve been reading your blog for a year and half.”

And then you bought my book. That makes you think, doesn’t it?

I can’t count how many times this has happened to me. It’s always weird when you’re meeting someone for the first time and suddenly you realize from the way that they’re acting that they read your blog. And conversely, it’s a bit strange to meet someone and then realize you read their blog.

And I haven’t even written a whole book yet.

I can’t be the only person who’s apprehensive about the just-confirmed Office spinoff being added to NBC’s fall line-up.

I don’t want things to chaaaaaaange . . . Although, who knows, it could be fun.

Google, as we all know, has the best April Fools’ jokes. The ones we ran across:
- Tom pointed out Gmail Custom Time.
- The Google Wake Up Kit.
- And, if you try to add an event to your Google Calendar, you can now click the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button, which may schedule, say, a date with Tom Cruise, Matt Damon, Johnny Depp, or any number of dashing celebrity types.

Those are the two apps we use on a daily basis. Anyone find anything else?

Something went funky with our comments database table yesterday, but I managed to fix it through the wonder that is Dreamhost. We’re back. Comment away.

I’ve done some tweaking of the Books and Film pages here. Most notably, I’ll be trying to track with our film viewing as we go along; I’ve also added some extra links to both pages. Check it out.

The 92nd Street Y blog (which, to be honest, I didn’t know existed before now, but I’m very happy to find it), mentioned my summary of the Robert Alter/Marilynne Robinson program a few weeks ago. Fascinating how small the internet is!

If you rush, you can get a few different Moleskine City Notebooks for $1.99 at Amazon. But they’re flying off the shelves.

3938 words so far. So far, so good.

In other news, we are going to Sufjan Stevens’ symphony at BAM tomorrow night, and I have a birthday this weekend.

Also, I am exhausted today. Why? I don’t know.

Of late, I’ve gone back and re-read my husband’s old blog entries, which start in May of 2004. We’ve known each other for two years and been married for a little more than one, and so it’s a bit mind-blowing to think that his “previous life” (and mine, too) were not so long ago. It just doesn’t seem possible.

Life’s so funny.

The new Radiant magazine website is up! And I’m a contributing blogger to “The Pulse”, Radiant’s blog about TV, music, movies, books, and art. First post is here!

Very rainy here today, but somehow still warm. Strange. Also, other New Yorkers, has the trash on the sidewalks smelled especially awful to you this week? It’s made me gag far too many times the last few days.

Last night we went to the Co-op to finally join, which we did, enticed by the proximity to our own home and the impressively inexpensive food; the produce is not too much cheaper but much fresher than surrounding grocery stores, but it is local and organic, and everything else there (meat, cheese, snacks, drinks, bulk grains, the list goes on) is so much more cost-effective than anywhere else in the vicinity. I can finally get Clif Bars (an integral part of my daily diet) for $1 apiece.

The co-op here works differently than the one to which my family belonged in Albany, which allowed non-members to shop at higher prices. At the Park Slope co-op, only members can shop, and each adult member of the household has to work one 2 3/4 hour shift every four weeks, which comes out to 13 shifts per year. So, between the two of us, we need to work 26 shifts per year. And my husband, who is amazing, is working something like six shifts this week and next to get us ahead. He worked one today already and is going back to work another this afternoon.

In other news, our New Yorker hard drive came at some point this week and the guy who runs the photo studio below us had received the package, so he caught us on our way out the door last night and handed it over. It’s great. I’m so excited that all the original cartoons and ads are preserved. If you like the New Yorker, or just like good writing, I think it’s well worth the cost.

Fall sparks creativity, I think. Tom and I have suddenly both started new writing projects. Here’s to hoping it lasts.

Friday night was my first time home since Wednesday morning. We had plans, but they got cancelled. We watched The World, a slightly strange but still coherent Chinese film about workers at a low-budget Epcot-style place in Beijing, interspersed with random thirty-second cartoon bits underscored with Asian pop. I have a really difficult time liking Asian cinema in general, but this one was okay.

Saturday we slept in and cooked breakfast, then went to a small screening of the film Tom worked on in February (just us, the directors and their wives, and the writer). So much fun. It’s great to see something that you were deeply involved with coming together.

We came home and watched Fracture (Anthony Hopkins, Ryan Gosling), followed immediately by Primal Fear (Richard Gere and a mind-blowing Edward Norton) - in doing so, we inadvertently were marathoning movies by the same director. Despite its melodramaticly stupid name, Primal Fear is probably the better movie - but Fracture is worth renting.

On Sunday after church we went shopping, then cooking, and then had a few people over for dinner. I made dijon-dressed new potato salad and hamburgers, and Tom cooked the hamburgers on our new indoor electric grill. They were pronounced by two present as “the best hamburger I’ve ever had”. So, a success for us. We make them with beer and Worcestershire sauce and onions and jalapeno peppers, and I think it makes a difference. Stayed up late discussing life.

We’d originally planned to go to the beach on Monday, but we just didn’t feel like making the long train trip and decided to go out to brunch (Los Pollitos II on 5th Ave in Brooklyn - cheap and yummy) and then went to Prospect Park for a few hours to read books and watch people flying the biggest kites I’ve ever seen in my life, with 8-foot wingspans. I finished Lolita - what a crazy book, but I bow at the feet of Nabokov. Came home and turned the leftover meat into tacos and watched The Wind Will Carry Us, an Iranian film that was surprisingly lively and funny. I was expecting something much more akin to other films I’ve seen from roughly that part of the world - slow, quiet, focus on the cinematography - but this was much funnier, with great dialogue.

I guess this is the start of the school year, which is the start of fall, which means everything starts in earnest again. I got up and took the long route running this morning, managing to cover over 3 miles, mostly running - a record for me, as I have a lot of trouble breathing and I’m trying to push through it. I think I’ve come to understand the concept of pushing through a “wall” better, though. Once you get past it, you start to feel like you could run forever.

Also, we’re returning to small group for the first time in a year, since we got married. We’re trekking out to Jersey City tonight. It’s sort of our old small group (though almost none of the same people), so we have grand hopes. It’s not a long way for me from work, but it’s a little longer for Tom, from Brooklyn; still, it takes a little over an hour, and we spend that much time getting to places in Manhattan.

Tomorrow we’re hoping to go back to IAM’s weekly Wednesday morning breakfast-and-discussion-group, from which we sort of took a break when I couldn’t go any more because of my job and Tom was working more consistently. But we’ll hopefully be back.

Tomorrow is also our first anniversary. :)

Some recent favorites from other Flickr photographers:

Click on the image to go to my photostream . . . the individual photos are linked from there.

As you can tell, I’m really into still life.

Hello, faithful readers. We are indeed back in a very sweltering New York City, and have been since Sunday night.

In case you missed the memo, we were in Boston for a couple weeks and then in Albany. We had a wonderfully relaxing and rejuvenating time. I will soon be posting sort of a “roundup” of what we did (I wrote our activities each day in a Boston City Moleskine). But briefly, in many ways we did the literary loop of the general area, including Cambridge, Concord, and a whole lot of historic areas, plus a couple of concerts, a lot of phenomenal foodie experiences, and plenty of just sitting in TeaLuxe and reading. I finished a lousy book and a much better one and started two others. And we froze in the chilly Massachusetts weather; not that it was very cold, but we were in sweltering-NYC-mode when we packed and didn’t have enough sweaters. C’est la vie. Oh, and my brother successfully graduated from high school. We are officially old.

I have been up to my ears in work of every variety since I got back and have barely had time to relax, so more later.

I spent Saturday writing, mostly, and Tom was at work. I turned out a behemoth of an article and I’m uncharacteristically having a hard time cutting it down. Through a bloodletting I managed to get 400 words cut today but I still may have 400 more, which means cutting a major point. Thankfully, I have a good editor, so we’ll see what she says.

Yesterday was my darling husband’s 25th birthday. We had a grand time after church at lunch with 15-or-so people at Khyber Pass (Afghani). We chose it partially because there’s inexplicably never anyone there when we go. The food is great, the price is right, you can sit in the window if your group is small enough, and we’ve been half a dozen times.

Tom’s parents drove us out to Brooklyn and helped install the air conditioning, thankfully, so we slept soundly last night for the first time in a month (cool air, and since the windows were closed, we didn’t hear the trucks or the very loud drunk people that are invariably outside at 3am). Bliss.

Finally getting around to the meme that SuperFastReader aka Annie-from-church tagged me for.

The rules:

1: Each player starts with 8 random facts/habits about themselves.
2: People who are tagged, write a blog post about their own 8 random things, and post these rules.
3: At the end of your post you need to tag 8 people and include their names.
4: Don’t forget to leave them a comment and tell them they’re tagged, and to read your blog (I won’t do this because I’m pretty sure the people I tag read my blog regularly :D - clearly, I’m that vain).

Eight random facts you probably don’t know about me if you’ve mainly read my blog:

1. I play five instruments (piano, flute, violin, organ, and I’ll count cello and guitar each as a “half” as I’ve never taken lessons on either); if you count recorder as an instrument, then six. I was very nearly a music major; piano is my first love, and I played in a handful of juried competitions as a high schooler.

2. When I was 14, my family moved to the country - we’re talking about as rural as you can get and still be in driving distance from Albany. I had a dozen laying hens (and two roosters, but that was a mistake). I didn’t like the country.

3. I was homeschooled for sixth grade through high school graduation, and in the meantime skipped the eighth grade.

4. I was originally accepted to RPI as an arts major, with arts scholarships, but chickened out at the last minute and switched to information technology.

5. I still haven’t seen Titanic.

6. When I was a little kid, I was squeamish about touching pictures in books that freaked me out; giant bugs with ugly eyes, gooey gross things, etc. But I liked to play with worms.

7. For a very long time, all my hobbies had to do with the “womanly arts” - and as a result, I’m a fairly accomplished sewer/knitter/crocheter/embroiderer. I don’t do much of any of those any more, but I do like to knit. Though not in the summer.

8. My very first chapter book series was the Little House on the Prairie books, followed by all of Beverly Cleary’s books. I have odd gaps in my reading that I’m trying to fill (I’ve never read Lord of the Flies, and I was 21 before I read Catcher in the Rye and I really didn’t like it at all), but I become more and more hopelessly in love with the literary fiction of today and who knows if I’ll ever catch up.

And I tag:
Laura, Tracy, Amanda, Alisa, Josh, Katherine, Tala, and Dwight. Just kidding. But wouldn’t you like to read that one?

This blog must have become very popular in the very recent past; in the last 24 hours we’ve had nearly 1,500 spam messages caught in the Akismet filter (which anyone running Wordpress should definitely install). Overall we’ve only had around 7,500 spam comments. Interesting. :)

Tom met me (somewhat unexpectedly) for lunch.

And he brought these, which you can see against the lovely backdrop of my cubicle:

We had the IAM conference all weekend. It was successful, and we all agreed that the overall program grew in coherency. Dick Staub was the moderator and did a wonderful job, and we got to hear from visionaries such as Daniel Libeskind and Jeremy Begbie (who was completely delightful), among others. I shot lots of pictures - our lens is intensely capable of taking great photos in a very dark room, sans flash - and Tom manned a video camera most of the time.

It snowed last night.

Today I will attempt to fly to Pittsburgh, spend the day there, and return tomorrow night. “Attempt”, because who knows, with this weather. On the other hand, at least I’m not going to Chicago.

Is there a job out there that just requires you to read (at least nominally) good books all day long? For gobs of money?

Because I want that job.

It was a somewhat edited weekend, with work cutting in at all angles and reducing it a bit. But some much-needed R & R was spliced in.

Right.

We, very late on Friday night, watched Dirty Pretty Things. We’d both heard of it but neither of us had seen it; however, I’d recently interviewed Stephen Knight, the writer, about his work on Amazing Grace, so we wanted to see it. We had differing reactions but I think we both liked it. Audrey Tatou is divine. This is the first time I’d hear her in English; of course, she had a Turkish accent, but it worked.

Saturday was a lot of feeling under-the-weather and trying to survive; Tom was at “the office” all afternoon and I dragged myself into Soho to try and find an inexpensive suit for a presentation I have to give this week at Columbia. I did not succeed and felt more miserable for trying, but I did pick up two enormously expensive and heavy two-terabyte hard drives from the Apple store for the film project (not bought by us, thankfully) and lugged them to BAM, to get tickets for Edward Scissorhands, and then convinced a cab driver that yes, he could drive ten blocks to my apartment. And then we brought food to our friends the Pesnells, who just had a baby twoish weeks ago. She is beautiful and tiny.

Possibly most notable event of the weekend: the first disc of the American version of The Office came (I was torn - British? American? - but being in an office right now in America, I opted for the latter, plus, Steve Carrell!!!). I watched the first four episodes, including the pilot, and giggled. Exactly my kind of humor, exactly appropriate.

Jim: If I got promoted, then this would be my career. If this was my career, I’d throw myself in front of a train.

We had lunch after church yesterday with Angela and her friend/neighbor who’d come to church with her, and we had fascinating conversations and then bolted across town so Tom could interview a set intern and I could run errands. Tom bought long underwear; necessary in this weather when you’re outside for 12 hour days, just standing and yelling “Quiet on the set!” repeatedly. And then we came home and I slow-cooked baby back ribs (ridiculously easy) and we whiled the evening away on our laptops.

Speaking of, Tom is on Day 1 of shooting Cult of Sincerity today, so if you see him in Williamsburg, holler. Or don’t, rather, but wave. He’s the assistant director.

Things you should check out:
• 8apps - I think I’m addicted to online productivity tools, and I think it’s Ken’s fault. In any case, this one is one of the more full-featured I’d seen. Add me if you see me on there.
• I love these sheets!
• Because I like to talk about awards: the Bloggies nominations are up. Sometimes a good way to just find a good new blog to read.
• Web design in 2006 roundup.
• The recipe I used for our baby back ribs. Insanely easy.

behold
the virgin shall conceive
and bear a Son,
and shall call His name Immanuel
(God-with-us)

the people who walked
in darkness
have seen a great light;
those who dwelt in the land of the shadow of death,
upon them a light has shined

for unto us a Child is born,
unto us a Son is given;
and the government will be
upon His shoulder.
and His name will be called
Wonderful, Counselor,
Mighty God,
Everlasting Father,
Prince of Peace

“comfort, yes, comfort My people!”
says your God.
“speak comfort to jerusalem,
and cry out to her,
that her warfare is ended,
that her iniquity is pardoned;
for she has received from the Lord’s hand
double for all her sins.”

the voice of one
crying
in the wilderness:
“prepare ye the way of the Lord;
make straight in the desert
a highway for our God.
every valley shall be exalted
and every mountain and hill brought low;
the crooked places shall be made straight
and the rough places smooth;
the glory of the Lord shall be revealed,
and all flesh shall see it together;
for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

isaiah, 700 B.C.

Our friend Angela blogs a lot and it’s hard to keep up with all of it, but this post of hers from a few weeks ago struck me as so insightful and encouraging for why we should continue speaking the truth, I thought it deserved reposting here:

Driving back down here, David was telling me about taking some friends around the Capitol building who remarked, These people are talking to nobody. Which, for the uninitiated, Congressmen are, indeed, usually talking to a bunch of empty seats with the tape recorder rolling. But David said, No, they’re talking to posterity. Which is a great way of thinking about it. And judges really do read these transcripts when they are interpreting legislation to figure out what the lawmakers intended…Ocassionally it’s a surprise who finds you as a result. But you figure, with a few exceptions, it’s the choir that’s approaching you. And it’s nice to be appreciated, but so what, you found each other. What about the bad guys. Do they care? For the little bit of posterity that will want to know, for the noise that percolates to the street, for the guy who just might be on the fence that day, I’ll keep speaking into the record.

Last night, I worked late on the IAM website. Tom was catering. I finally went to bed at about 1am, and I heard him come in not long afterward. We are tired this morning.

As a result, someone (::coughgrinwhowasit::) didn’t affix the pressure valve on the Mukka properly and it proceeded to pressurize, pop off, and cover the entire kitchen in a nice light brownish cappuccino. Yumm. Including the ceiling. And did I mention this happened in the middle of a discussion about the potential benefits/stupidities of minimum wage?

There are various and sundry movies being released this weekend that may or may not be worth seeing: Flags of Our Fathers (Clint Eastwood on Iwo Jima), Marie Antoinette (I know it was booed at Cannes, but really, can the French be expected to cheer a movie about that woman?), The Prestige (Hollywood - not so good with keeping magician movies released far enough apart to make them distinguishable from each other, and it’s not just magician movies - witness the recent release of Infamous), and Running With Scissors (which I was personally rooting for becasue the trailer rocked, but is getting horrifically bad reviews).

I have succumbed and started using del.icio.us. I know there are other social bookmarking apps out there, but frankly, I like the vaguely renegade Web 2.0-defiant look of del.icio.us. It’s like Wikipedia. No bubbles or 3D, just straight-up hypertext.

Good concerts upcoming - The Weepies on December 2 at the Canal Room, and Over the Rhine doing two back-to-back shows at Joe’s Pub on December 7.

I procured the new Craftivity book via Felicia and am madly in love. I have a serious aversion to “crafts”, stemming from some scarring experiences as a slightly dorky twelve-year-old with craft books from the 70s in the public library that smelled of old milk. But this is cool. Interesting projects with actual lovely results, from knitting to wood stuff to glass etching and some bizarre things like underpants made from T-shirts and crocheted skulls. And it’s all nicely designed and photographed.

And to leave you on a cheery note: The 7 Worst Fonts Ever. I think I picked this up from kottke. I’m grateful that they included Bradley Hand and Papyrus in the mix. Bleh.

I read this short clip in Brew Cultures weekly email, which came from a Relevant Magazine article by often film critic Brett McCracken. It’s certainly where the battle’s being lost:

Our world today, however “flat” or “global” it may be, does not seem to encourage big-picture thinking. The ocean of information that surrounds us is easier than ever to navigate, but harder and harder to grasp on a holistic level. We are always three clicks away from any fact or figure or answer we may want; we are the most informed, mediated, equipped, positively-reinforced generation ever, and so why are we retreating into our iPod-capsulated, ethnocentric, blissfully-ignorant zones of comfort? Is it just too daunting to make the most of our information overload, quiet and focus our minds and try to answer the big questions?…What we lack today is a mind for making connections. We have all the tools for hyperconnectivity and every resource for every fact and truth as yet discovered by humankind. But in this overwhelming vastness of puzzle pieces and pixels, we are too fatigued and apathetic — or perhaps too skeptical — to try to pull back and see the immense picture that emerges when things start clicking together.