Xark!

Filling that Gap, People-style

The band Radiohead has released their new album, "In Rainbows", via digital download, as I'm sure many of you have heard. I received my download pass last night (about 2am), and was impressed by how smoothly and efficiently the whole experiment worked. Within a few cyberseconds, the album was on my computer.

But one thing immediately struck me -- no cover art! This pretty much blew my mind. It's almost impossible now to find a product that doesn't pay close attention to its packaging, but in the world of music, the album cover is a sacred and inseparable part of the whole; often equaling and sometimes surpassing the experience of the music itself. What other medium can do a minimalist gesture like the Beatle's "White" album and have it recognized as an artistic statement? Sure, there are good and bad album covers -- but no cover at all? That seems to go against the soul of music consumerism as I've come to know it.

And the technology has followed this trend. The first generations of iPods were music-only, but subsequent models brought the ability to show the cover art, to the point now where the latest iPods let you navigate solely by album art, demonstrating how the technology has finally caught up with listeners' sensibilities. We need our cover art.

No no, Radiohead -- this will not do.

Left with this gaping gap in my new music experience, I did what any thoughtful person of my generation would do, which was to Google around and see if someone had solved my problem for me. I was thrilled when I came across a site with tons of homemade cover art for "In Rainbows." Some of these designs are incredible, and all clearly are labors of love. Now I'm spoiled with choices as to which one I want to pick for my iPod!

And this leads me to wonder: Although there are claims that official cover art for the album is coming soon, was Radiohead a bit cleverer than I had given them credit for? Releasing a pay-what-you-want album to the masses, and then encouraging fans to produce and distribute their own cover art.... Could this be the most participatory music experiment of the digital age? Stroke of genius, or happy coincidence? Either way, I got to experience an album and my thoughts about music in general from a new angle, and am thrilled by the creativity and energy of those others out there on the other end of my Wi-Fi.

Rockin' good news.

Farrah's Katrina Ballads/CNN mashup

Cooper & Landrieu - Katrina Ballads from OPP on Vimeo.

For those of you who haven't seen this yet, this is the mashup Farrah Hoffmire made of a performance of Katrina Ballads at the 2007 Piccolo Spoleto Festival and the original CNN footage that inspired the passage. I think it's brilliant. Farrah and Mitchell run this on a loop in a viewing booth at the events they stage on OPP's Hurricane Katrina Media Tour (which, by the way, is going on tour with Ani DiFranco in November).

IvoryTowerz: Burning Man diary

IvoryTowerz is publishing a multi-part diary from this year's Burning Man Festival, which wrapped up earlier this month. I can't get enough of it.

I also dig this video...

Organic Process goes live

Over the past few weeks I've been helping out some friends of ours with a website they've been remaking, and I've waited to write about their project until the site went live.  But this is not about their site (which is a perfectly nice site, designed by the fine folks at Fuzzco): This is about creative people who are redrawing the lines between art and journalism and activism and commerce.

Her name is Farrah Hoffmire. His name is Mitchell Davis. They both grew up in Summerville, both graduated from C of C. She started off to be a mental health counselor but became an artist. He started off as a musician but became one of the founders of BookSurge.com, one of those magnificent little software-commerce marriages that's just so smart it practically squeaks when you rub up against it. When BookSurge sold to Amazon a couple years ago, Farrah and Mitchell moved to Seattle to help integrate their company into the mega-bookseller's operations. And while they were out there, Farrah decided to learn to make films. That was the spring and early summer of 2005.

In late August of that year, Katrina struck the Gulf Coast and swamped New Orleans. A few weeks later, Farrah packed up her camcorder and headed to the Delta, where she began recording her own personal history of the aftermath of the storm.

New economy comix

Sometimes people don't really seem to get what I'm talking about when I get on a rant about copyright, or the "new media economy," or the rise of "the creative middle class."

Hell, sometimes I don't know what I'm talking about when I get on those rants.

But here's a cartoon that EXPLAINS IT ALL.

So go read it already...

Kurt Vonnegut: And so on.

Now I'm thoroughly depressed, and it's only 8 a.m.

Photocopied Nostalgia

Over the last several years, I had been looking for an old friend—Scott Whipple--through occasional Google searches and other internet sleuthing, all to no avail. Whenever I talked to someone with whom I attended undergraduate school at Appalachian State University in the early 80s, I would ask if they knew what had happened to him. Outside of the odd rumor or two, no one seemed to know what had happened to him.

Two weeks ago, I was tipped off that Scott was mentioned in an advertisement for a poster for sale over on eBay (believe me, this wouldn’t be the strangest way that I have found an old friend). When I opened the link I had been provided, I found a poster for sale, with a description provided by an early roommate of Scott’s, describing the circumstances under which the poster had been made. Exchanging information with the seller, I found another dead end when I was told that he, too, hadn’t heard from Scott in over 20 years.

Nonetheless, I was absolutely charmed by what he had for sale: an old mimeographed piece of paper advertising an R.E.M. show at PB Scott’s Music Hall in Blowing Rock, NC back in 1983. It was a show that Scott had sponsored and organized, early in the band’s career (when you could book them for a thousand dollars), and Scott had done it on guts alone, as he didn’t have the money to cover the fee if it had failed.  (Sidebar:  the show was in Blowing Rock rather than Boone, the home of ASU, because Boone was in a dry county).

OK, so I’m looking at the so-called “poster” (pictured above), and I can’t help but smile at a large array of memories , of R.E.M., of who I was at the time. Ultimately, I decided to bid for it, even though it is literally a Xeroxed sheet of typing paper. While my resources are limited, I stupidly didn’t expect it to go for much. Afterall, we are talking about a Xeroxed copy of a copy of a copy. And, as we’re repeatedly told, authenticity is dead. If so, I could make my own poster. Why do I bid? I supposed I did feel that nostalgia was a bit more warranted in my case, as this is a material piece of my own history. I was there, in Boone, when those posters were hung. Like everyone else, I have something of a soft spot for my own mythical past.

While I felt a bit silly bidding what amounts to a full tank of gasoline on a sheet of paper, I was absolutely stunned when the bidding went to almost $250.00.

When graphic artists get bored

Last one, I promise. Very cool stuff. Makes up for Thor. I promise.

Handbill No. 1

Dan's Friday links, etc. (2.10)

NEWSFLASH! ONE WEEK OF ROCKETBOOM ADS SELLS FOR $40K ON eBAY: And the winning advertiser is someone named Starfinder5, whose bid bested a $31,200 offer by an unknown eBay nube called 6520brad. There were 105 bids.

We'll expect detail in today's episode, but for those of us wondering how these new media forms are going to shake out, this bears watching.

RANDOM FIND: I have found the Greatest Book Critic Writing in The English Language Today, and his name is Noel Hurley.

WHICH VIBRATOR IS RIGHT FOR YOU? Via Alternet: "Kat's on-the-job training had taught her a trick to determine which vibrator might be right for you: Touch it to the tip of your nose. It's also right there on Sue Johanson's website, episode #036: Try the nose test -- if it makes you jerk your head back, these vibration are too strong for your genitals." (Freelance writer Liz Langley)

AFRICA TOO WEAK TO FIGHT H5N1 (BBC): A reminder that bird flu doesn't have to turn into a human pandemic to have profound effects:

Officials at the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) say Africa's monitoring systems simply are not adequate to cope effectively with outbreaks... "The reason we've been so concerned is that veterinary systems throughout Africa are weak," said Samuel Jutzi, director of the FAO's Animal Production and Health Division.

WE'RE NOT THE ONLY ONES TALKING ABOUT CARTOONS: Via Steve Outing's E-Media Tidbits (Poynter Online), the CEO of Topix.net blogs about what happens when they put a geo-locator on the IP addresses of commenters on the Danish cartoons controversy. Answer: They're coming from around the world.

And here's George Friedman writing in Tuesday's Stratfor Geopolitical Intelligence Report:

The explosion in the Muslim world over the publication of 12 cartoons by a minor Danish newspaper -- cartoons that first appeared back in September -- has, remarkably, redefined the geopolitical matrix of the U.S.-jihadist war. Or, to be more precise, it has set in motion something that appears to be redefining that matrix. We do not mean here simply a clash of civilizations, although that is undoubtedly part of it. Rather, we mean that alignments within the Islamic world and within the West appear to be in flux in some very important ways.

SPEAKING OF CARTOONS: These days its not uncommon for more than half of our daily traffic to be people who come to Xark via image search engines. The most popular image? World's Ugliest Dog. Second most popular? "Growing Up Hippie No. 4." Probably a dozen people a day download this image.

For the record, there are actually only three published cartoons in the "Growing Up Hippie in the 1970s" series (No. 5 here). And the first one was No. 3. I never drew a No. 1 or a No. 2. Why? Because I'm just not hung up on that whole consecutive order thing. I grew up hippie, remember? Anyway, traffic counts seem to suggest I should write less and draw more, particularly if I'm drawing cartoons that have popular image search terms in the filename.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: WaPo reports that what Gonzales told the Senate about the secret eavesdropping program ain't what the White House told the FISA judges. Can't say I'm surprised at this point. By the way, was anyone else unimpressed by Bush's non-informative claim (well, actually, it's not even that -- more of a nudge-wink inference) that his illegal spying program somehow thwarted shoe-bombers from stealing a plane and flying it into some building out in Los Angeles? Excuse me, but how do you hijack a plane, post-9/11, with a shoe bomb? "OK, let me into the cockpit, so I can crash the plane and kill all of you, or I will make my shoe explode, and maybe put somebody's eye out. Allah akbah!" It's just not very convincing.

WELL, DUH: Newsflash (National Journal): "Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, testified to a federal grand jury that he had been 'authorized' by Cheney and other White House 'superiors' in the summer of 2003 to disclose classified information to journalists to defend the Bush administration's use of prewar intelligence in making the case to go to war with Iraq, according to attorneys familiar with the matter, and to court records."

CHUCK NORRIS: The whole Chuck Norris meme is now officially dead, according to our oldest son, a junior in high school. Apparently it's just soooo December 2005. So throw out your Bustedtees "Hero" shirts and try to keep up. (Actually, I don't care -- I'm far too old to be hip, and I still think the "Young Chuck Norris" music video is pretty funny).