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| Sunday, May 5, 2002 |
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Cinco de Mayo on rails 
| | I'm heading up to San Jose by train today. Unless they have wi-fi on board, I'm wide of the Net for the duration. |
| | With all the celebrating in downtown SJ, I just hope it won't be too big a hassle to get from the train station to the car rental place at the airport. I'm pulling in around 8:30pm. |
| | If you ever have the chance, by the way, I highly recommend taking Amtrak's Pacific Surfliner up the coast from L.A. Beautiful ride. Cheap too. |
Genre reviewed by New York Times
| | On the other hand, such obsessions probably help him more than they hurt. No matter what a blog may actually say, its more visceral effect is to prove, again and again, the irreducible individuality of the blogger. Blogs provide a counterweight to the increasing unreality of mass journalistic culture -- its quality of having been processed beyond the realm of the recognizable, its frequent tone of unearned authority. They're the antidote to the blow-dried anchor, the unsigned editorial, the pronunciamento of the token credentialed expert. David Weinberger, in a smart new book about the Web called ''Small Pieces Loosely Joined,'' notes that human fallibility -- mistakes in movies, books and articles; the faux pas of public figures -- is one of the most popular topics of online discussion. In nitpicking, he says, we seek evidence of the man or woman behind the mystique: ''We get to kick in the teeth the idealized -- and constricted -- set of behaviors known as professionalism.'' |
| | All this teeth-kicking, of course, distracts from the dutiful ingestion of headlines that is supposed to be the job of the good citizen. That's why blogs irk some traditional journalists. They know that they and their colleagues, being human, make mistakes, and don't see the point of dwelling on them. But bloggers do. They understand full well the hierarchy they're helping to topple when they force an expert back inside his imperfect skin and reduce him to just another blogger among many. |
| | And thus the Cluetrain keeps rolling, no? |
| | By the way, there's another piece coming up (is it out today? just a guess) in another New York paper. |
| | Thanks to Buzz for the link. |
It doesn't get better than this
| | Went to see Arturo Sandoval and his band last night. The setting was an university performance hall with assigned seating. We were near the back. By the end of the show everybody was standing up, dancing and clapping. For the long encore we worked our way down to the edge of the stage, in what would have been the mosh pit if the average age of the audience wasn't fifty. There we went nuts dancing and grooving to the music. We were closer to Arturo than some members of his band. It was heaven. |
| | I love both Cuban music and jazz, and I should have been a drummer. I clapped so hard in rhythm with the music that my hands are blue with bruises this morning. I can hardly type. (Real good for the arthritis too, I'm sure.) |
| | Arturo is an stretched-out polymath as a musician. Best known as a trumpeter, he's also a first-rate pianist and drummer, an extraordinarily dextrous vocalist, and a commanding yet lovable performer. In one of his numbers he sang a kind of scat in the manner of Al Jarreau or Bobby McFerrin, mimicing various instruments so perfectly, and artfully, and in such good humor, and while sometimes also playing drums, keyboards or trumpet... it was one of the most amazing things I've ever seen in my life. |
| | The whole band was also fabulous too. It was one of the best performances of anything I've ever seen or heard anywhere. |
| | If his current tour comes near you, go. Stay to the end. You won't regret it. |
4 gone conclusions
| | I am of the opinion that May 4, 1970 was the day Youth Culture completed its ascendancy to dominance in the United States. The process had begun fifteen years earlier in movie theaters across the country as the electrifying downbeat of Bill Haley's "Rock Around the Clock" opened The Blackboard Jungle, a shocking film for its time, and ignited the rock 'n' roll explosion. |
| | He goes on to say why. Very insightful piece. |
Less wires, more blog
| | Sifry's Alerts is Dave Sifry's new blog. Dave is one of the founders of Sputnik, a cool new wi-fi company. Needless to say, his blog is strong on wireless news. |
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