Archives for Arts & Culture
Kathleen and I are taking a little trip to Miami and a cruise to the Bahamas. You can follow along on Twitter (@jerrybrito & @kathleenohearn) and on Flickr where I’m tagging trip photos with “0508“. Wish us well!
Facebook needs a salary field
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We really seem to be moving towards a more personally transparent world and, as long as it’s voluntary, I’m not sure that’s a bad thing. I know I certainly share salary information with peers in my professional circles. As an economist quoted in the article points out, how else are you going to determine the market price for your talent? “Robert H. Frank, an economics professor at Cornell, said that an open flow of information is deemed crucial by young professionals who think of themselves as free agents, not company men.”
Finding out that someone with a similar job is making more money than me isn’t embarrassing, it’s a godsend. It tells me my skills are valued and that I’m in demand. It can also highlight options. I know lawyers who graduated with me who are making close to double my salary, but are in the office twice as much as I am. Knowing this is valuable information for both of us.
Those seeking to free the Jefferson 1 should take note: The NYT today has an article about a “silent rave” that took place Friday in Union Square in NYC: “More than a thousand people, most of them young, gathered for a dance party without audible music, known as a silent rave.” No one was arrested. The story also goes into the pedigree of such flash mobs.
Prof. Philip Parker has developed computer algorithms that collect publicly available information on a given subject, turn them into books that are then printed on demand or delivered digitally. “Mr. Parker has generated more than 200,000 books, as an advanced search on Amazon.com under his publishing company shows, making him, in his own words, “the most published author in the history of the planet.” And he makes money doing it.”
I’m thinking of taking on this project in 2008: taking a photo every day for a year. Kathleen should be interested in this photo project.
Merry Christmas!
How have I not heard of scribd.com before? It looks like the Napster of books. Here is a full copy of Christopher Hitchens’s God is not Great. Here is Getting Things Done by David Allen.
Marjoe Gortner: Huckster or hero?
Recently I saw the terrific 1972 documentary Marjoe recommended by Christopher Hitchens in God is not Great. It tells the story of Marjoe Gortman, a child preacher who since the age of four was trotted around by his parents at tent revivals to much (lucrative) fanfare. As Hitchens explains,
A decade or so later, Mr. Gortner exacted the best possible revenge for his stolen and empty childhood, and decided to do the general public a favor in order to make up for his conscious fraudulence. He invited a film crew to follow him as he ostensibly “returned” to preach the gospel, and took the trouble to explain how all the tricks are pulled. This is how you induce motherly women (he was a handsome lad) to part with their savings. This is how you time the music to create an ecstatic effect. This is when you speak of how Jesus visited you personally. Here is how you put invisible ink on your forehead, in the shape of a cross, so that it will suddenly show up when you start perspiring. This is when you really move in for the kill. He keeps all his promises, telling the film’s director in advance what he can and will do and then going out into the auditorium to enact it with absolute conviction. People weep and yell, and collapse in spasms and fits, shrieking their savior’s name. Cynical, coarse, brutish old men and women wait for the psychological moment to demand money, and start counting it gleefully before the charade of the “service” is even over. … The film Marjoe won an Academy Award in 1972, and has made absolutely no difference at all. The mills of the TV preachers continue to grind, and the poor continue to finance the rich, just as if the glittering temples and palaces of Las Vegas had been built by the money of those who won rather than those who lost.
I’m not sure on whom exactly Hitchens thinks Gortman exacted his revenge. I pity his marks as much as I pity him. Related to Hitchens’s point that the film made no difference, I was most interested in the evangelical’s reaction once Gortner’s true self was revealed. Unfortunately that isn’t in the film. The only info on Wikipedia is this: “At the time of the film’s release he generated considerable press, but the movie was never shown in theaters in the Southern United States, based on the fears of the distributor over the outrage it would cause in the Bible Belt.” I can’t find much else, even on Westlaw.
After he left the preaching circuit, he recorded an unsuccessful album and portrayed a series of minor characters in TV and the movies, including stints on Kojak, Fantasy Island, and The A-Team. After the 1995 entry on his IMDB page, the trail goes cold, and one of the top Google results for his name is a page titled “Dead or Alive? - Marjoe Gortner,” which doesn’t have any answers. If anyone has any information, I’d be curious to learn more. Here are some excerpts from the documentary:
Can a church get too popular?
The Washington Post had a long piece yesterday on the Apple Store phenomena and its possible decline.
Not 18 months ago, cultural essayists and architecture critics would wander into flagship Apple Stores around the world (SoHo! Fifth Avenue! Regent Street!) and go long and poetic about Apple’s revolution in hipster elegance, the clean lines, the retail frontier. And indeed, these are beautiful places, pluralistic to the point that you can use their bathroom, and check your e-mail on their display Macs, and be among friends you always dreamed of having, somewhere. It was a glimpse at a world where everyone is smart, and agreeably diverse, and able to spend lots of money. Now you have to brace yourself to walk into the Apple Store. The question so recently was: What is the Apple Store doing to us, as a people?
Now the question is: What are we doing to it ?
Can you smother a store to death?
Very much worth a read if you’re a fanboy or interested in commercial culture. I love how the essayist, Hank Stuever, works in the Apple-as-religion meme:
Joanne McNeil is still the most interesting blogger I know.The specialists and geniuses are in their black Apple T-shirts, wearing name tags (Adam, Matt, Luis and the endless supply of Ryans, and an occasional Jen).
And talkingrillyfast. Rillyrlyfst. Allfthem. Glare-eyed, too happy with themselves, like Jesus people holding up one finger on 1970s street corners. They know you aren’t One of Them, but they forgive you. Nothing expresses both virtue and contempt like forgiveness. That’s life in church. They know what Steve Jobs wants of them, and they live to serve.
Was the RIAA deputized in Drama case?
The NYT Magazine has a feature this weekend on DJ Drama, the Atlanta mixtape producer whose studios were recently raided by SWAT teams at the apparent behest of the RIAA. It seems like the writer was working on a profile before the arrest. One thing that struck me:Kilgo works in the R.I.A.A.’s Atlanta office, and in the weeks before the raid, the local police chief said, R.I.A.A. investigators helped the police collect evidence and conduct surveillance at the studio. Kilgo consulted with the R.I.A.A.’s national headquarters in advance of the raid, and after the raid, a team of men wearing R.I.A.A. jackets was responsible for boxing the CDs and carting them to a warehouse for examination.
Men wearing RIAA jackets carting away CDs? Were they deputized? How’s an industry group involved in an alleged crime scene? Even if they consulted in the case. And really, RIAA jackets? Please.
Guilt and loathing about IM
Like many people, I have a love-hate relationship with IM. On the one hand, I see it’s potential for useful and efficient communication. On the other, it can be an invitation to interruptions, which for long periods of time cause me to stay away from IM. In a recent interview, Bruce Schneier had this to say about e-mail:
One of the properties of the Internet is that it takes interactions out of their normal social context. If I were at a gathering and I saw someone who I wanted to talk to, I would see him in context. If he were mobbed with people, I might decide to talk to him later. If he were engrossed in work, I might decide to say hello in passing. If he looked bored, I would be more likely to engage him in conversation.
The Internet lacks this context. When you send someone an e-mail, you send it into the void. Is the recipient busy? Is he feeling like talking? Has he been deluged with dozens of similar e-mails? You have no way of knowing.
The same applies to instant messaging, but I think this lack of context is worse for IM. The reason is that while e-mail is an asynchronous form of communication, while IM is not. That is, even if I’m busy when you send me an e-mail, there’s no expectation that I have to answer it right away–or at least there shouldn’t be. It should be perfectly acceptable if I answer you the next day. The “I” in IM, however, stands for instant.
Researching this topic, I’ve read a bunch of articles on IM etiquette, and I’ll list the good ones at the end. However, one in particular by Rafe Needleman captured exactly what I have felt for a long time:
I have not solved the interruption problem of IM. My half-way solution — which is not a good one — is that I don’t start my IM application with Windows. I have to consciously turn it on.
That done, I’m wide open for interruption. Some interruptions are good. If my buddy Tom down the hall wants to go out for lunch, an IM is a good way to set it up. If our product manager, Karen, has a quick question about a feature story we’re posting to CNET.com, IM is a useful way to communicate. But if friends or family members from outside work just want to chat, well, as much as I’d love to talk to them, I tend to get rather focused during work and don’t always have the time or the spare mental cycles for a warm, personal conversation. So I have to type, “I’ll ping you later,” and then suffer IM guilt for the rest of the day.
The problem with IM is that there is no easy way to set up plausible deniability for ignoring an incoming communication. By contrast, if your phone rings and you don’t want to talk, you just don’t pick up, and nobody’s the wiser. If your IM is showing “available” and you don’t reply to a message, you’re a jerk. On some IM programs, you can set individual availability states per buddy, but it’s a pain in the neck to manage. What I want is a global availability setting that shows me as neither “away,” nor “available,” but rather, “possibly available.” Then if I don’t answer a message, I can claim I was away from the office.
This is why I just don’t run my IM program most of the time.
And I think that’s why a lot of people don’t log in to IM. The problem stems from different expectations by different people about what IM is for or how it should be used or when. I’m generally of the opinion that long conversations should be carried on over the phone or in person. This goes double for catching up chit-chats unless the other person is somewhere to which international calling rates are prohibitive. For me, few things are worse than an IM that reads, “Hey, how have you been?”
As Needleman writes, I feel lots of guilt for saying that. What a jerk I must be since the other person is a friend being friendly. But to my mind, if you want to catch up, give me call. Another reason I feel guilty is that I must not really mean what I’ve said because I find myself engaged in some chit-chat conversations that are certainly worth it. For example, I have a good friend who just joined the Army and shipped off for basic training. He obviously can’t call me whenever he wants, but he does have access to IM (incredibly). Catching up over IM in that case makes perfect sense.
So, having pinpointed my inquietude, my next question was, who is breaching etiquette here? The interruptors or my jerk ass? As it turns out, both. I’m definitely to blame for not adjusting my status setting. I pledge to do it from now on. But I do have to say, as Needleman points out, that sometimes I’m busy but still very willing to answer quick IMs if they’re substantive. They don’t even have to be important or pressing, just a real purpose. Setting my status to “Busy” will be read by many as “Do not disturb,” which is not what I mean. But setting it to “Available” will be read as free for anything. My plan of attack will be to try to set a custom message that conveys my level of availability. I’ll let you know how it goes.
That said, there are some norms we should all follow when we initiate IMs. From a couple of the articles I’ve read:
Knock first: Open every message by asking whether you’re interrupting (”Is this a good time to talk about Davis?”). On your end, learn to say no when you’re busy: “Can’t now, how about at 2?” or “Later, OK?”
Don’t chat for long: If you have several things to discuss, use the phone. Also, because, as Schneier pointed out, there are no cues in cyberspace (no looking at one’s watch, no natural pause that leads to a goodbye) IM conversations can last painfully forever.
I’d love to know you’re thoughts on this, so I’m turning comments on. Here are some good articles on IM netiquette:
- Inc.com - IM Etiquette 101
- Forbes.com - Instant Messenger Etiquette
- Morgan McClintic - How to use IM
- Anne Zlenka of Web Worker Daily posted the bee-in-my-bonnet article How to Annoy People Using Instant Messaging and Stowe Boyd responded with the snarky Instant Messaging Etiquette. Boyd is the author of a 20-page report on the subject, Enterprise Instant Messaging: Ethics, Etiquette, and Best Practices (PDF).
Something else I don’t get
I’ve explained before that I don’t get MySpace and am afraid I might be getting old. Something else I don’t get is Twitter. What am I missing? Liz Gannes at GigaOm today:Your phone buzzes, and you learn your pal Suzie is out at lunch. It buzzes again, and you find out your web calendar going through an outage. The wonders of invasive-by-choice technology!
As Steve Jobs would say, “Yech!”
The Trippy Dream Factory of David Lynch
Inland Empire, David Lynch’s latest, opens today in NYC, and hopefully very soon here in the sticks. Here’s the NYT review. I’m looking forward to it, but with some trepidation. It weighs in at one minute shy of three hours.Larry David interview
Here’s video of a one hour interview with Larry David on The NYT’s “Arts & Leisure Weekend” program. He goes into detail about his writing process and the origin of many Curb and Seinfeld storylines and gags.Fraternity boys sue Borat
The RV frat boys from Borat who made racist and sexist remarks on camera are suing for “loss of reputation” among other things. When I saw the movie I couldn’t believe the things they were saying and I thought to myself, they deserve everything that’s coming to them. They now claim they only made those remarks because they were duped into thinking the film would only be shown outside the U.S. So I guess they still meant everything they said. Also, here’s a story about the woman who hosted the dinner party from the movie. Sure, it’s hard not to feel bad for her and her guests, but to my point about condescension, she repeatedly refers to “American toilet training.” What’s American toilet training?We support your war of terror!
Writer Melik Kaylan has an op-ed in the WSJ today about the Borat movie. (I’m convinced Kaylan only wrote the article so he could use the word “coprophagy,” which I had to look up, but that’s another story.) The article criticizes Borat née Sacha Baron Cohen for his “bullying nihilism.” Kaylen first immunizes himself by writing that “Mr. Cohen has made it uncomfortable for anyone to declare publicly their dislike of Borat without sounding like the enemy of fun[.]” If you criticize Kaylen’s view, then you’re being a bully, too, or worse, a sheep. I’ll take my chances. I can certainly understand how folks with conservative sensibilities could find Borat crude and unfunny. But Cohen is as much a nihilist bully as Allen Funt was. Bonus: Russia bans the Borat movie.Federal Censorship Commission?
In an op-ed in the WSJ, NBC Universal’s Bob Wright body slams the FCC’s think-of-the-children media rules. “So an FCC policy intent on ensuring that there will be nothing on broadcast TV that is inappropriate for kids during certain hours is doomed to failure. Do the math: 85% of households have cable and satellite, leaving 15% receiving broadcast TV only. Two-thirds of those households do not have kids under 18. Thus, the FCC appears to be basing its actions on a policy that is relevant to 5% of households. Moreover, government efforts to regulate content are invariably riddled with unfortunate consequences.”Bush to hold talks on Ali G creator after diplomatic row
From the Daily Mail: “US President George Bush is to host White House talks on British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen. Cohen, 35, creator of Ali G, has infuriated the Kazakhstan government with his portrayal of Borat, a bumbling Kazakh TV presenter. And now a movie of Borat’s adventures in the US has caused a diplomatic incident. The opening scene, which shows Borat lustily kissing his sister goodbye and setting off for America in a car pulled by a horse, had audiences in stitches when it was first shown last week. Kazakhstan president Nursultan Nazarbayev is to fly to the US to meet President Bush in the coming weeks and on the agenda will be his country’s image. President Nazarbayev has confirmed his government will buy “educational” TV spots and print advertisements about the “real Kazakhstan” in a bid to save the country’s reputation before the film is released in the US in November. President Nazarbayev will visit the White House and the Bush family compound in Maine when he flies in for talks that will include the fictional character Borat.”Public Nuisance
My article on public access television for Doublethink magazine is now online. You can read it here. In it I explore the unique shows on cable access, the folks behind them, and who pays for it all (hint: it’s not them). A taste:
The most notorious public access show, however, might be The Great Satan at Large, a live call-in show produced in Tucson, Arizona, in 1991. The show featured a masked “Sexecutioner” who partially undressed women and fondled their breasts. It also contained exposed genitalia, masturbation, clips showing mutilation and real or simulated murder, and discussions with callers about bestiality and anal sex.Of course, those shows are the exception and not the norm of public access television. Nevertheless, they are a testament to the uncensored nature of public access. Uncensored not just in the sense of being free from editorial control, but also free of any check by market forces. For this same reason, the vast majority of public access television is not controversial, but simply banal.
Below is Harvey Wiesenberg, a very sweet guy who is one of the producers I interviewed for my article. He hosts a UFO-related show on Manhattan Neighborhood Network called Invasion Earth. (Photo by Alison Grippo.)
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This is the personal site of Jerry Brito, a lawyer and writer in Washington, D.C. He’s an academic researcher and the creator of Unclutterer and several other blogs. More »
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