Tuesday, May 13, 2008

1:49 PM

The Neural Buddhists - New York Times:

Over the past several years, the momentum has shifted away from hard-core materialism. The brain seems less like a cold machine. It does not operate like a computer. Instead, meaning, belief and consciousness seem to emerge mysteriously from idiosyncratic networks of neural firings. Those squishy things called emotions play a gigantic role in all forms of thinking. Love is vital to brain development.

Researchers now spend a lot of time trying to understand universal moral intuitions. Genes are not merely selfish, it appears. Instead, people seem to have deep instincts for fairness, empathy and attachment.

Scientists have more respect for elevated spiritual states. Andrew Newberg of the University of Pennsylvania has shown that transcendent experiences can actually be identified and measured in the brain (people experience a decrease in activity in the parietal lobe, which orients us in space). The mind seems to have the ability to transcend itself and merge with a larger presence that feels more real.

This new wave of research will not seep into the public realm in the form of militant atheism. Instead it will lead to what you might call neural Buddhism.

1:49 PM

1:49 PM

Robert Rauschenberg, Titan of American Art, Is Dead at 82 - New York Times:

Cage meant that people had come to see, through Mr. Rauschenberg’s efforts, not just that anything, including junk on the street, could be the stuff of art (this wasn’t itself new), but that it could be the stuff of an art aspiring to be beautiful — that there was a potential poetics even in consumer glut, which Mr. Rauschenberg celebrated. “I really feel sorry for people who think things like soap dishes or mirrors or Coke bottles are ugly,” he once said, “because they’re surrounded by things like that all day long, and it must make them miserable.”

The remark reflected the optimism and generosity of spirit that Mr. Rauschenberg became known for. His work was likened to a Saint Bernard: uninhibited and mostly good-natured. He could be the same way in person. When he became rich, he gave millions of dollars to charities for women, children, medical research, other artists and Democratic politicians.

A brash, garrulous, hard-drinking, open-faced Southerner, he had a charm and peculiar Delphic felicity with language that nevertheless masked a complex personality and an equally multilayered emotional approach to art, which evolved as his stature did. Having begun by making quirky small-scale assemblages out of junk he found on the street in downtown Manhattan, he spent increasing time in his later years, after he had become successful and famous, on vast international, ambassadorial-like projects and collaborations.

12:04 PM

2:39 AM

Feds to Collect Millions of DNA Profiles Yearly, Stay Out if You Can | Threat Level from Wired.com:

The feds will soon be collecting about one million DNA samples a year under a new program that lets federal agents collect cheek swabs from citizens merely arrested for any federal crime or from any non-citizen detained by federal agents -- including visitors to the country who have visas.

The intent is build a massive database of DNA samples (.pdf) that police can use to catch rapists and murderers, but even the innocent should fear being in the database, due to the vagaries of how cold case DNA searches can easily pinpoint an innocent person.

2:36 AM

2:36 AM

How to spot Photoshop chicanery:

After a New Yorker profile implied that "king of the photo touchup" Pascal Dangin had airbrushed photos taken by Annie Leibovitz for Dove's high-profile "Campaign for Real Beauty," the company issued a statement last Friday explaining that Dangin had only removed dust and performed minor color corrections. Is it possible to determine whether the Dove photos were retouched?

Maybe, but it would be very difficult. Amateur retouching can leave seams where two different images are spliced together. But in the case of an expert retoucher like Dangin, visible signs would have been diligently scrubbed away. Additionally, since images can be distorted when they are compressed into other file formats (PDF) or printed in a magazine, any apparent smudges or irregularities in one of the Dove photos might well be artifacts of the photo's reproduction, rather than signs of tampering.

1:01 AM

Monday, May 12, 2008

9:44 PM

Microsoft tries to put a ceiling on ultra-low-cost PC power - Boing Boing:

Microsoft is aggressively pushing a new low-cost version of its operating system intended for use with "ultra low cost PCs," competing with Linux on machines like the Eee and the One Laptop Per Child XO. However, Microsoft isn't willing to sell the low-cost license to any ULPC -- rather, the company has set out onerous conditions governing the maximum spec of these machines: 10.2" screens and no more than 80GB of storage, and no touch screens allowed.

Microsoft is trying to distort the market for cheap, tiny laptops by setting up artificial incentives to manufacturers to limit the power and capability of their lowest-cost units -- even if a vendor can figure out how to put more storage, a bigger screen, or a touchscreen into its machines, Microsoft doesn't want it there, and they'll punish any vendor that tries by refusing to license XP Home Edition on the same preferential terms that lower-spec machines get.

The key term here ls "Ultra Low Cost" -- note that this is not the same as "Ultra Low Spec. The primary market for these super-cheap machines are kids and poor people, and they'll be the collateral damage in Microsoft's crusade.

12:50 PM

11:57 AM

The Theatre: The Theatre: The New Yorker:

HOW THEATER FAILED AMERICA

Mike Daisey brings his monologue about the current state of the American stage to the Barrow Street Theatre. Opens May 16. (27 Barrow St. 212-239-6200.)

11:57 AM

2:45 AM

The Fortress of Jason Grote: I'm back!:

I wonder if that's why I and others get so down on theater so often - it's impossible to reproduce that triumphant endorphin rush when one isn't at an opening night, so the whole thing feels ephemeral and a little depressing. I'm sure other artists feel this too, but instead of being left with a film, book, album, or whatever when it's all over, all I'll have left is the script and some reviews.

***

Lucky Grote--I don't even have the script.  ;)

Seriously, there's something to this--it's extremely ephemeral, but so is life itself. It's the most difficult and honest part of the theater--that it is written on the air as it is spoken and immediately dies in that moment. I do believe that in an age dominated by commodification it is also the trait that may prove to be theater's salvation.

2:44 AM

2:42 AM

Theater - Summer Stages - New York Times:

CAPITAL FRINGE FESTIVAL July 10-27. More than 100 performing groups will take over the capital in this third annual festival that offers drama, comedy, improvisation, clowning, dance, mime and more in about two dozen performance spaces. One highlight: the monologist Mike Daisey will skewer the Department of Homeland Security in “If You See Something Say Something” (July 11-20) at the Woolly Mammoth Theater Company, one of the participating theaters. (866) 811-4111, capfringe.org.

12:51 AM

12:48 AM

How to answer the people who think you’re nuts? « FreeRangeKids:

I quote crime stats that show a child is 40 times more likely to die in a car accident than by being abducted. I appeal to common sense. I remind people that a couple of generations back, a 9-year-old probably would have had a part-time job. And then I ask the interviewer, “Didn’t you get to run around and do things by yourself when you were a kid?”

“Sure!” comes the answer, but “times have changed.” Once they get that out of the way, they go in for the kill: “How would you have felt if something DID happen to your son?”

“Uh…bad?”

So much for my years of media training.

What I really want to say is: “Terrible! Earth-shaken! I’d be cursing God — and especially the radio hosts who asked Him to zap my son just to teach me a lesson! But, Mr. Fulminator, sir, don’t you see there’s something sick about immediately and endlessly envisioning the very worst? Isn’t that the very definition of paranoia? And isn’t it wrong to teach kids that they are incapable of taking care of themselves, that they can’t trust their community, and that it is better for them to live a virtual life inside, where life is programmed, than a real life, outside, where they can glory in the wonders of the world? Are you ever going to let your kid GROW UP?”

That’s what I’d like to be able to get out, but it sounds a little hysterial and it’s not exactly pithy. So if you have any amazing zingers that really seem to open people’s eyes (or shut their mouths), we are all eager to hear them.

12:44 AM

12:42 AM

Survive a Nuclear Blast - Wired How-To Wiki:

In a traditional nuclear exchange warning times might be as little as three to four minutes (for the UK and Europe) or from 15-30 minutes for the U.S. and Canada.

Air raid sirens (if they still exist in your community) and public emergency systems would be put to use to notify you of an impending attack. Do not ignore these! Even if you feel your community may not be at risk in a nuclear exchange you should still find shelter as only the enemy knows all of the targets that will be hit.

In a large scale nuclear exchange the tactic of using an electro-magnetic pulse from a high-yield nuclear weapon detonated high above a target country or area would most likely be used. This would cause all sorts of electronic devices to fail from cell phones to automobiles.

If you notice that all vehicles and electronics in your immediate area have failed all at once then it is almost a sure sign that a nuclear attack is imminent.

On the other hand, nuclear attack from a terrorist might come with little to no warning, in which case you must know what to do immediately.

In either case the following steps do apply.

12:41 AM

Sunday, May 11, 2008

5:46 PM

Tonight's the final night of the run of HOW THEATER FAILED AMERICA at the Public. I'm excited, but not the way I imagined I would be back in December when this began to come together. I anticipated that this would be a charged conversation, and I hoped it would be successful, but I didn't imagine that we'd sell out every performance--with people lining up outside with SIGNS to get tickets--and be arranging an immediate Off-Broadway transfer to the Barrow Street. I like to think big, but the success of this show has broken through any expectations I could have had, both professional and emotional.

I'd like to thank the good people at the Public who've allowed this to happen: Mark Russell, who was inspired and crazy enough to let us do an untested piece for a night at Under The Radar in front of hundreds, Shanta Thake who believed in our work and helped arrange this run, Jo Lampert and Alex Onish, who have tirelessly worked beyond the call of duty on this show when the media was blowing up, Robbie Saenz de Viteri and Ruth Sternberg for their technical assistance and generosity, Maria Goyanes and Liz Frankel for the supportive advice and wise counsel, and finally Oskar Eustis, who gave his blessing for performing a piece that challenges the American theater within one of its finest institutions.

I'd also like to thank the staff at Joe's Pub, the servers and waiters and staff, who have been solicitous, kind, and incredibly skillful in the space during the performances—thank you for being so conscientious, it has made an immense difference.

To one and all, I hope that we work together again soon.

Best regards,

md

3:19 PM

2:56 PM

Crazy Frog - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

Crazy Frog is an animated character used in the marketing of a ring tone based on The Annoying Thing, a computer animation created by Erik Wernquist. Marketed by the ringtone provider Jamba!, the animation was originally created to accompany a sound effect produced by Daniel Malmedahl while attempting to imitate the sound of a two-stroke moped engine. The Crazy Frog spawned a worldwide hit single with a remix of "Axel F", which reached the number one spot in the United Kingdom, Turkey, New Zealand, Australia and most of Europe. The subsequent album Crazy Frog Presents Crazy Hits and second single "Popcorn" also enjoyed worldwide chart success, and a second album entitled Crazy Frog Presents More Crazy Hits was released in 2006. The Crazy Frog has also spawned a range of merchandise and toys, and two video games.

2:54 PM

2:54 PM

2:53 PM

'My daughter deserved to die for falling in love' | World news | The Observer:

For Abdel-Qader Ali there is only one regret: that he did not kill his daughter at birth. 'If I had realised then what she would become, I would have killed her the instant her mother delivered her,' he said with no trace of remorse.

Two weeks after The Observer revealed the shocking story of Rand Abdel-Qader, 17, murdered because of her infatuation with a British solider in Basra, southern Iraq, her father is defiant. Sitting in the front garden of his well-kept home in the city's Al-Fursi district, he remains a free man, despite having stamped on, suffocated and then stabbed his student daughter to death.

Abdel-Qader, 46, a government employee, was initially arrested but released after two hours. Astonishingly, he said, police congratulated him on what he had done. 'They are men and know what honour is,' he said.

2:40 PM

12:04 PM

12:04 PM

11:48 AM

1:18 AM

Saturday, May 10, 2008

For those who do not know, Andrew Cyr and I grew up together in Fort Kent, Maine, and were recently reunited after Andrew heard me on Studio 360. Performing with his Metropolis Ensemble was the best possible way for us to reconnect after almost twenty years, and I had a fantastic time. Below is a short sequence from the concert.


Sports et Divertissements - Tennis

Erik Satie's Sports et Divertissements (1914) arranged for chamber orchestra by David Bruce, performed on Thursday, April 10, 2008 at The Times Center in New York City. Featuring Mike Daisey (narrator), and the Metropolis Ensemble led by conductor Andrew Cyr. Video by Timothy Bakland; sound by Ryan Streber.

4:21 PM

4:15 PM

RIP Chicory - A Brooklyn Life:

Just taking a moment to mourn the neighborhood's best fried chicken, greens and various roasted veggies. Also, I'll miss the burger.

1:17 PM

11:32 AM

11:31 AM

11:24 AM

11:23 AM

10:55 AM

2:22 AM

J.K. Rowling should lose her copyright lawsuit against the Harry Potter Lexicon. - By Tim Wu - Slate Magazine:

As sympathetic as I am to Rowling and her rights as an author, the answer is no. There is a necessary and healthy line between what the initial author owns and what follow-on, or "secondary," authors get to do, and Rowling is running over that line like the Hogwarts Express. The creators of H.P. Lexicon may not be as creative as Rowling, but they are authors, too, and deserve a little respect from the law.

At issue are the giant fan-written guides like the H.P. Lexicon or the Lostpedia (for the show Lost) that try to collect all known information on topics like Harry's pet owl or the Dharma Initiative. Rowling takes the position that she, as the original author, has the right to block the publication of any such guide. In her words: "However much an individual claims to love somebody else's work, it does not become theirs to sell."
Click Here!

But Rowling is overstepping her bounds. She has confused the adaptations of a work, which she does own, with discussion of her work, which she doesn't. Rowling owns both the original works themselves and any effort to adapt her book or characters to other media—films, computer games, and so on. Textually, the law gives her sway over any form in which her work may be "recast, transformed, or adapted." But she does not own discussion of her work—book reviews, literary criticism, or the fan guides that she's suing. The law has never allowed authors to exercise that much control over public discussion of their creations.

2:15 AM

1:30 AM

Aerialist at Martin's closing party.
12:18 AM

Friday, May 09, 2008

8:28 PM

2:51 PM

2:48 PM

Our Looming Housing Crisis | Slog | The Stranger | Seattle's Only Newspaper:

I was speaking with a friend this weekend about two couples who, like Myhrvold, worked in tech, got rich, retired, and built insanely elaborate mansions—excuse me, houses—in the area. Microsoft and Amazon and other tech companies, which are all located here for entirely arbitrary reasons (and could pick up and move tomorrow), created hundreds of millionaires and a quite few billionaires. My friend—who isn’t rich, but associates with richies—figures that two hundred or more these tech-money mansions—excuse me, “houses”—have been built over the last twenty years by tech millionaires with more money than taste.

Hey, it’s their money, and they can spend it however they like. God only knows what kind of monstrosity I’d build—or have built—if I had Myhrvold’s money. Probably something like this on top of Beacon Hill.

But here’s what I wonder: What is going to happen in twenty or thirty years when the tech booms millionaires start to die off? Who is going to buy all these sci-fi movie mansions with Mesozoic gardens? A lot of insanely elaborate, insanely expensive houses are going to come flooding onto the market all at once—places that cost tens of millions of dollars to build—and there’s no guarantee that our region will have the millionaires—billionaires—it’s going to take to buy up all these houses when they come up for sale in twenty or thirty years.

So who’s going to buy up all these houses in two or three decades? Who’s going to live in them?

2:48 PM

1:51 PM

Reality Sandwich | The Awakening of Teotiwakan: A Paradigm Shift to the Living Cosmos:

On March 21st 1968, when Regina turned twenty years old, she and the four Secret Guardians of the Tradition, went into the cave at the base of the pyramid and performed a ritual ceremony to awaken its heart, its energetic center. According to the Tradition, this center serves as a synchronous resonant chamber that amplifies earthly and cosmic energies. After the ceremony Regina explained to the Guardians of the Tradition that there remained four energetic seals on the pyramid.[U3]

These seals had been put in place by the Toltek and had the effect of inactivating the pyramid's geo-energetic resonant function. Regina and the Guardians knew that the spiritual energies of the Earth were once again moving polarities, from the Himalayas to the American Cordillera. It was the Tibetan Lamas who needed to perform the rituals necessary to break the first three energetic seals and only then she and the Secret Guardians could break the fourth seal, which sat at the top of the pyramid.

Mexican agents murdered Regina on the night of October 2nd 1968. She was shot from a helicopter during the infamous student massacre that took place in Tlatelolko. Regina died on top of the small pyramid at Tlatelolko surrounded by the four Secret Guardians of the Tradition and the Witness, Velasco Piña. The Guardians buried her body in a well-hidden cave in the Istaksiwatl.

1:50 PM

1:28 PM

Little Brother >> Blog Archive » HOWTO anonymize your digital photos:

If you take enough images with your digital camera, they can all be compared together and a unique signature can be determined. This means that even when you think that you are posting a photo anonymously to the internet, you are actually providing clues for the government to better tell who you are. The larger the sample size of images they have, the easier it is them to track down images coming from the same camera. Once they know all the images are coming from the same camera, all they then have to do is find that camera and take a picture to confirm it beyond a reasonable doubt.

It is important to remove this noise signature so that you cannot be tracked down. I cannot guarantee any of these methods will work beyond the shadow of a doubt because the woman doing research for the government on how to find the signature is very good. I can only promise that this will make their work more difficult.

1:27 PM

1:27 PM

It Isn't Easy Being a Genius - New York Times:

The foundation avoids using the term "genius," and stresses that the award (worth $500,000) is for creativity. Most people, however, play up the genius label. I got my first taste of this the morning the awards were announced. As I left home to get coffee, my neighbor leaned from his second-story window, still in his pajamas, and yelled: "Hey, Jimmy Neutron! I didn't know I was living next to a genius."

Within days, I began to receive requests from family, friends and strangers to evaluate various pet theories, some well founded, some half-baked, ranging from the therapeutic benefits of magnets to the location of the missing dark matter in the universe. People sought me out for answers and insights, usually prefacing their question with, "You're a genius":

"We just saw 'War of the Worlds': are there aliens out there?"

"What's the difference between an alligator and a crocodile?"

"Does it really take seven years to digest chewing gum?"

"How do you weigh someone's soul?"

12:52 PM

11:19 AM

MacNN | House passes Pro-IP copyright protection act:

The House of Representatives on Friday approved the controversial Pro-IP Act, a bill which is designed to protect intellectual property by imposing more rigid punishment in the case of copyright infringement. Ars Technica writes that the bill passed with a vote of 410 to 10, but has yet to be voted on by the Senate. Among the details of the bill, one segment states that law enforcement agents would be able to seize property from those charched with copyright infringement.

11:16 AM

Thursday, May 08, 2008

International ferry terrorism search called off: they were just tourists - Boing Boing:

Since last summer, the FBI has been on the lookout for two men who were seen taking a deep interest in a car-ferry in Seattle. The men were believed to be terrorists, plotting to blow up the ferry.

Actually, they were tourists who'd never seen a car ferry and thought it was cool.

8:48 PM

8:24 PM

8:23 PM

8:20 PM

Eric Haseltine (kottke.org):

Right at the end of the session, interviewer Jane Mayer asked Haseltine if perhaps the Bush administration is overreacting to terrorism...if the mindset that danger lurks everywhere is appropriate and realistic. He replied that since he got involved in the intelligence community, he doesn't sleep well at night. "I know too much."

8:03 PM

3:55 PM

3:55 PM

Here's audio from my appearance on PRI's FAIR GAME yesterday—I was on a show with Goldfrapp and Jimmy Carter, which I mention because I was always under the impression that if those three things come together, the world ends.

1:37 PM

12:36 PM

Wednesday, May 07, 2008

6:05 PM

Link

3:23 PM

A Midget Among Giants - Books - The Stranger, Seattle's Only Newspaper:

Seattle is home to the largest book retailer in the world. Amazon.com may have spread its catalog to engulf lawn mowers, potato chips, diapers, and—literally—kitchen sinks, but, as its recent push for the Kindle e-book reader has proven, the company still wants to retain a major presence in book sales. And Amazon is staying in Seattle for the foreseeable future: In December it signed a deal to move from its Beacon Hill headquarters to a brand-new six-block, 11-building campus in South Lake Union in 2010.

It'll be sad when Amazon isn't based out of the looming Pacific Medical Center building anymore. Its weird, sulky omnipresence mirrors the company's relations to Seattle. It's obviously there and recognizable, but it seems aloof, apart, like a kid who has taken his ball away from the other children on the schoolyard but still lingers on the edge, unable to fully extricate itself.

Most Seattle companies contribute a lot of money—a lot of money—to the Seattle arts scene. It's considered being a good neighbor. It's not mandatory, but it is, at the very least, polite, and it's a necessary kindness, because taxpayer funds to the arts are slim and most arts organizations wouldn't be able to operate without these giant windfalls from corporate philanthropy.

Amazon, which posted a $476 million profit last year, has refused to return repeated e-mails and calls from The Stranger about the company's seemingly nonexistent contributions to the Seattle arts scene. Internet searches for any sign of philanthropy on behalf of the company prove fruitless. Lists of donors for organizations like the Paramount Theatre, the Seattle Art Museum, the Pacific Northwest Ballet, and the Experience Music Project read like a who's who of local corporations: Every major bank is represented and even national chains with a significant local presence like Macy's are major contributors.

Amazon.com isn't on any of these lists.

3:00 PM

11:15 AM

1:58 AM

Tuesday, May 06, 2008

Bill Henson at the Opera - Shoot The Blog:

What I was interested in terms of Paris Opera series was that whole strange business of finding oneself with a whole lot of other people gathered in a darkened space, such as the opera, awaiting some special event. There is something quite magical about it. I've always found that people sitting in the dark just waiting for something is the most haunting sort of experience. It seemed to me it was a common experience, a universal thing that everyone feels, really, at some point or another.

9:20 PM

How Do They Take This From Him?:

There is no calculation that currently gives the Clintons a majority of the popular vote. There is now no mathematical possibility of them getting more delegates. Obama has won by far the most states. He has raised far more money; he has 1.5 million donors, mainly small sums. He has crushed her among new voters and young voters; and as a black politician, his support spans all races and classes. And recall: he is a freshman senator with a very funny name against the biggest brand name in American politics and a worldwide celebrity whose chief campaigner was a former two-term president of the United States.

9:13 PM

6:54 PM

6:26 PM

2:10 PM

iMac turns 10 - The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW):

It was ten years ago today that Steve Jobs mounted the Flint Center auditorium near Apple's campus and revealed the product that would save Apple, and become the best selling computer of all time: the iMac. It is hard to believe that this cute little guy is ten years old, but it is true.

2:09 PM

2:09 PM

Gothamist: Slowed Atlantic Yards Project Could Mean Empty Lots:

The MAS renderings take as a starting point Ratner’s recent admission that the economic downturn will stall most of the proposed construction for the time being. But since he still intends to raze everything in the project’s footprint and break ground on the stadium and one building, the MAS slideshow envisions a desolate expanse of vacant lots surrounding a lonely arena for decades to come.

11:52 AM

11:34 AM

Yahoo stock plunges? (kottke.org):

On Jan 31, the day before Microsoft offered $31/share for Yahoo, YHOO was at $19.18/share (market cap: $26.4 billion) and MSFT was at $32.60/share (market cap: $303.6 billion). At the close of trading today, YHOO closed at $24.37/share (market cap: $33.5 billion) and MSFT was at $29.08/share (market cap: $270.8 billion). In other words, the Microsoft offer increased the value of Yahoo! Inc. by more than $7 billion and decreased the value of Microsoft Corporation by almost $33 billion. In still other words, in attempting to take Yahoo by force, they let an amount equal to Yahoo slip through their fingers. Why isn't anyone writing about Yahoo's amazing stock gains and Microsoft's plunge?

11:34 AM

11:33 AM

iPhone is most popular camera phone on Flickr - The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW):

While we're on the subject, I'll offer my tip for taking decent iPhone photos. Unlike nearly every other camera ever made, the iPhone exposes an image when the "shutter button" is released, not depressed. With that in mind, here's the three step process I follow

1. Press and hold the "shutter button"
2. Compose the shot
3. Release

The tendency is to compose the shot and then tap the button, often resulting in blur. Try this method and watch the results.

11:01 AM

Monday, May 05, 2008

10:56 PM

At the Soho Rep Anniversary Party
6:49 PM

3:51 PM

Clinton, Nixon; Nixon, Clinton | Democracy in America | Economist.com:

SIX days ahead of the North Carolina primary comes a story of real sleaze—not Jeremiah Wright-style buffoonery, but Nixon-style illegality designed to dupe and disenfranchise voters—that should surprise precisely nobody who has been following and covering this campaign. A group called Women's Voices Women's Vote (WVWV), which claims to have been "created to activate unmarried Americans in their government and in our democracy" has been placing robocalls to voters across North Carolina that seem designed to fool them into thinking they have not yet registered to vote. Many of the voters who received those calls are black. Voters in 11 states have complained about similarly deceptive calls and mailings that have been traced back to WVWV this primary season.

Guess which Democratic candidate WVWV's founder and president, Page Gardner, has donated $6,700 to (hint: it's not Barack Obama). Guess whose election campaign Joe Goode, WVWV's executive director, worked for (hint: it was in 1992, and it was a winning campaign). Guess whose chief of staff sits on WVWV's board of directors (hint: it was the president who served between two Bushes). And guess whose campaign manager was a member of WVWV's leadership team (hint: it's Hillary Clinton).

3:48 PM

3:29 PM

Theatre Ideas: Nicholas Martin Repeats the Theatre's Biggest Lie:

Of course, part of the problem is that someone like Martin, who is in a position to actually employ young actors, doesn't want to actually grow good actors, he just wants to pluck them ripe from the tree. They have to be "really, really good" before he'll touch them. It is the super market approach to theatre, where somebody else does the spade work for you. George Steinbrenner is the ultimate example of this in action -- don't develop players, just buy them after somebody else does the work.

3:28 PM

3:11 PM

Pawn Shop:

Epstein: Basically, they're all parables. Endgame is a parable based on the simplest everyday lives that people lead. And since we are people, we lead these lives. And minute by minute, line by line, and some more than others, every single thing in the play is translucent. And you do understand it. You do recognize it. You do recognize what it means. And you do recognize yourself in it. Because it's presented as a parable, not as a piece of realistic theatre; it has a coating of mystery over it. But then, underneath this coating of mystery — the fact that it's not a realistic, kitchen-sink drama — is, actually, a kitchen sink. And it's usually pretty funny. I think the lines you have in the play, Elaine, where you say, "Nothing is as funny as unhappiness" — that's what the play is proving. It's funny to watch these people be unhappy, because they're unhappy in ways that we all recognize.

12:48 PM

12:48 PM

The deep contradictions of Christian popular culture:

At a Christian retail show Radosh attends, there are rip-off trinkets of every kind—a Christian version of My Little Pony and the mood ring and the boardwalk T-shirt ("Friends don't let friends go to hell"). There is Christian Harlequin and Christian chick lit and Bibleman, hero of spiritual warfare. There are Christian raves and Christian rappers and Christian techno, which is somehow more Christian even though there are no words. There are Christian comedians who put on a Christian version of Punk'd, called Prank 3:16. There are Christian sex-advice sites where you can read the biblical case for a strap-on dildo or bondage (liberation through submission). There's a Christian planetarium, telling you the true age of the universe, and my personal favorite—Christian professional wrestling, where, by the last round, "Outlaw" Todd Zane sees the beauty of salvation.

At some point, Radosh asks the obvious question: Didn't Jesus chase the money changers out of the temple? In other words, isn't there something wrong with so thoroughly commercializing all aspects of faith? For this, the Christian pop-culture industry has a ready answer. Evangelizing and commercializing have much in common. In the "spiritual marketplace" (as it's called), Christianity is a brand that seeks to dominate. Like Coke, it wants to hold onto its followers and also win over new converts. As with advertisers, the most important audience is young people and teenagers, who are generally brand loyalists. Hence, Bibleman and Christian rock are the spiritual equivalent of New Coke. Christian trinkets—a WWJD bracelet, a "God is my DJ" T-shirt—function more like Coca-Cola T-shirts or those cute stuffed polar bears. They telegraph to the community that the wearer is a proud Christian and that this is a cool thing to be—which should, in theory, invite eager curiosity.

Straightforward, if somewhat crude, merchandizing so far. But there is also another level of questions, which the creators of Christian culture have a much harder time answering: What does commercializing do to the substance of belief, and what does an infusion of belief do to the product? When you make loving Christ sound just like loving your boyfriend, you can do damage to both your faith and your ballad. That's true when you create a sanitized version of bands like Nirvana or artists like Jay-Z, too: You shoehorn a message that's essentially about obeying authority into a genre that's rebellious and nihilistic, and the result can be ugly, fake, or just limp.

12:15 PM

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11:42 AM

11:37 AM

11:36 AM

Mukesh Ambani, the fifth rchest man in the world, is... (kottke.org):

Mukesh Ambani, the fifth rchest man in the world, is building the most expensive single family residence ever, a $2 billion -- yes, BILLION -- 27-story skyscraper in downtown Mumbai.

11:36 AM

11:35 AM

New York Times:

“How Theater Failed America,” Mike Daisey’s monologue, will move from a sold-out run at Joe’s Pub to a six-week engagement at the Barrow Street Theater. The final show at Joe’s Pub is on May 11; performances begin at the Barrow Street on May 16.

1:34 AM

1:34 AM

Sunday, May 04, 2008

Cross-Theater Pollination of Off and Off Off Broadway - New York Times:

This spring the barrier between these two worlds seems to be becoming more porous, with forward-thinking Off Broadway companies increasingly acting like curators of the woolly Off Off Broadway scene, using their resources to bring attention to worthy work that might otherwise be limited to small audiences. These ad-hoc collaborations are healthy for everybody, exposing new voices to new audiences, freshening the bloodstream at some of the city’s established Off Broadway companies and providing the luxury of ample resources for artists used to scraping by.

3:16 PM

Saturday, May 03, 2008

9:17 PM

Microsoft Withdraws Its Bid for Yahoo - New York Times:

Microsoft said Saturday that it was abandoning its blockbuster bid to acquire Yahoo after the two companies could not agree on a price.

The breakdown in the talks followed a meeting on Saturday morning in Seattle between Microsoft’s chief executive, Steven A. Ballmer, and Yahoo’s chief and co-founder, Jerry Yang, according to a person briefed on the discussions.

At the meeting, which also included Yahoo’s other co-founder, David Filo, and Kevin Johnson of Microsoft, Mr. Ballmer increased Microsoft’s offer to $33 a share, but Mr. Yang said Yahoo would not sell for less than $37 a share, this person said.

Microsoft’s decision to walk away is the latest chapter in a three-month-old standoff that began when Microsoft made an unsolicited offer to acquire Yahoo in an effort to compete more effectively with Google in Web search, advertising and services.

9:17 PM

9:17 PM

Can we please stop pretending she has a plausible chance to win the nomination?:

That exhausts the possibilities. Not one of them is plausible. So, please, let's stop pretending there's much suspense about who the nominee will be. As an arithmecrat, I will not consider anyone the winner until a candidate achieves 2,025 delegates. But neither am I obliged to believe Hillary Clinton has a decent shot. She doesn't.

7:37 PM

6:45 PM

How Theater Failed America - On Stage - OregonLive.com:

Is Daisey being naive? Pining for some bygone era when small communities of crafts persons grew their own food and performed Shakespeare?

Uh...no, not pining for that. Yikes!

6:44 PM

6:44 PM

Daisey's 'Theater' goes Off-Broadway - Entertainment News, Legit News, Media - Variety:

Mike Daisey's monologue "How Theater Failed America" has been picked up for a six-week Off Broadway run beginning later this month.

Written and performed by Daisey, show is currently in the midst of a run at Joe's Pub that ends May 11. Production, which earned favorable reviews, has been playing there since April 14.

1:26 PM

2:18 AM

Friday, May 02, 2008

Gas-Tax Tussle:

Embracing intellectual obtuseness and deflecting criticism with charges of elitism is a tactic George Bush often deployed while campaigning. It's striking to see Clinton do it because she has been a regular and harsh critic of Bush's blindness to expert opinion. It's even more striking to hear her aides actually sound like Bush administration officials. When I asked Communications Director Howard Wolfson if the Clinton team could offer any intellectual ballast for the gas-tax vacation, given that so many policymakers had criticized it, he said, "The presidency requires leadership. … There are times when the president does something that the group of experts, quote unquote, does not agree with. Presidents get advice and then act, and that is what Senator Clinton is doing." Or, as George Bush used to put it: A leader leads. Even if off a cliff.

6:44 PM

5:29 PM

Finally, Microsoft and Yahoo in Merger Talks - Mergers, Acquisitions, Venture Capital, Hedge Funds -- DealBook - New York Times:

After a months-long standoff, Microsoft and Yahoo are in active merger talks, a person involved in the discussions said.

Microsoft, which had threatened to abandon its bid, has increased its offer “by several dollars,” this person said. The merger talks represent an enormous breakthrough following weeks of behind-the-scenes discussions without any progress. Exact terms being discussed could not be learned.

The talks would explain the silence from Microsoft this week as it has refused to disclose its plans, despite threatening to bring a proxy contest if Yahoo didn’t reach a deal with it by last Saturday. Seven days have passed without any announcement from Microsoft about how it intends to proceed.

4:28 PM

4:28 PM

DHS grounds air marshalls for having names similar to the no-fly list - Boing Boing:

"According to this article in the Washington Times, some air marshals are being forbidden entry to the airplanes they are supposed to protect, as they have similar names to people on the no-fly list. Another nugget from the article- Chertoff says just one airline is seeing some 9,000 false positives EVERY DAY from this list."

4:10 PM

4:10 PM

BIG MOUTH ARTSY SCHMARTSY:

Mike Daisey ruffled some feathers a couple of months back when he wrote an article in a Seattle newspaper claiming that the American theater machine had basically failed on delivering the American theater dream to the nation.  Not only had they failed, he said, but they were essentially sticking it to the artists who were giving their lives to the stage.  Is Mike just an angry guy?  Far from it.  This guys loves him some theater, and when you here him talk to me this week, you'll know that he is smart, cagey, and forward thinking.  Mike doesn't have all the answers, but who does?

Listen

3:58 PM

3:53 PM

More Greeks, Please - Theater - The Stranger, Seattle's Only Newspaper:

Open Circle is the young existentialist of theater companies—it doesn't have any money, but loves to brood over ideas, preferably dark ones. In its 15-year history, the company has produced Jacobean bloodbaths, works inspired by Kafka and Cocteau, and annual adaptations of H. P. Lovecraft stories with little more than a few tables, chairs, and folding screens. Their productions demand an audience's willingness to look past the novice acting and Dumpster-diver sets and appreciate their ardor. The artists of Open Circle are true amateurs—their theater isn't always good, but it's always made with love.

3:53 PM

3:47 PM

3:22 PM

1:45 PM

Scrappy Jack's World-Wide Theatricals and Dime Museum: may day:

It's a beautiful day and I've no reason not to expect more of the same, more sunshine and beautiful days, but just the same, Life has shown itself to be a tricky bastard and a fast-moving son-of-a-bitch as well.

So let's all hold on to whatever and whoever is close by and see if we can't get through the rapids ahead.

I'm thinking of Curt Dempster this morning.

God bless, Curt. Hope there's more funding up in Heaven than there is down here and that all of the dead playwrights are signed up for your celestial Marathon.

1:45 PM

1:28 PM

12:38 PM

11:41 AM

The Miley Cyrus Message, in the Eyes of Schoolgirls - New York Times:

Fifteen. It’s also the age at which a girl, even a girl at a competitive alternative high school like Beacon, might be just on the cusp of outgrowing her love affair with Miley Cyrus, the 15-year-old performer (and star of the Disney Channel’s “Hannah Montana” show) who recently posed for Vanity Fair in suggestive, if artful, photos taken by Annie Leibovitz.

“My friend loves her,” said one 15-year-old sophomore who wouldn’t have class for another hour. Eye shadow and blush with a hint of glitter were brushed across her perfect face, giving her the look that Barbie gets when some young girl decides she could have even prettier pink cheeks. “Well, she love-hates her,” she corrected herself. Once her friend saw the pictures in Vanity Fair, “She called her a slut.”

It stung to hear the word; another version of it came up a moment later. Looking quickly at the image — Ms. Cyrus with her hair damp, her back bare, a sheet draped over her front — another Beacon sophomore looked not so much shocked as disturbed. “Is this who we’re supposed to be growing up to be?” asked the young woman. She wore sunglasses, a tight baby-T and short shorts over black leggings. “I don’t want to be that,” she said. “It’s sending a message that girls are supposed to be whores.”

Dressing sexy, as she and so many of her classmates do, was one thing. Dressing in bedding, seemingly otherwise unclothed, was apparently quite another: contemptible, an actual evocation of sex itself. It’s a paradigm about this generation of teenage girls that’s perplexing to anyone who’s aged out of it: They exude sexuality, even as they’ve internalized a language of shame and anger around it, a language that makes anyone who crosses some ever finer line of appropriate behavior a slut or a whore.

11:28 AM

11:28 AM

Mike Daisey's How Theater Failed America to Transfer to Barrow Street Theatre: Theater News on TheaterMania.com:

Mike Daisey's solo performance piece, How Theater Failed America, will transfer directly from a sold-out, critically-acclaimed run at Joe's Pub (concluding May 11) to Off-Broadway's Barrow Street Theatre, May 16-June 22. Jean-Michele Gregory will direct.

11:13 AM

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Thursday, May 01, 2008

It's really gorgeous.
7:15 PM

Sound check at the gorgeous synagoge.
7:12 PM

5:55 PM

For Immediate Release, May 1, 2008

IT’S ABOUT THEATER, FAILURE, PASSION, AND HOPE.

MIKE DAISEY’S
“HOW THEATER FAILED AMERICA”
TRANSFERS TO
OFF-BROADWAY’S
BARROW STREET THEATRE

LIMITED 6-WEEK ENGAGEMENT
MAY 16 – JUNE 22 ONLY

BARROW STREET THEATRE
(27 BARROW STREET @ SEVENTH AVENUE SOUTH)

HOW THEATER FAILED AMERICA, Mike Daisey’s monologue about theater, failure, passion, and hope, will transfer directly from a sold-out, critically-acclaimed run at Joe’s Pub to a strictly limited 6-week engagement at Off-Broadway’s Barrow Street Theatre.  Created and performed by Mike Daisey and directed by Jean-Michele Gregory, the show begins performances at the Barrow Street Theatre on Friday, May 16.  Final performance at Joe’s Pub: Sunday, May 11.

Mike Daisey has been called “the master storyteller...one of the finest solo performers of his generation” by the New York Times.  In HOW THEATER FAILED AMERICA he sinks his razor-sharp wit into a subject he knows well: the American theater, from the sublimely crass to the genuinely ugly.  From gorgeous new theaters standing empty as cathedrals, to “successful” working actors traveling like migrant farmhands, to an arts culture unwilling to speak or listen to its own nation, Daisey takes stock of the dystopian state of theater in America: a shrinking world with smaller audiences every year.  Fearlessly implicating himself and the system he works within, Daisey seeks answers to essential and dangerous questions about the art we’re making, the legacy we leave the future, and who it is we believe we’re speaking to.

HOW