marcusharwell.net

I tried putting an acronym up there, but it got unwieldy. I have no good term to substitute for media, even though it’s easily confused with news media. No, wait, let me just have a quick look at a thesaurus . . .

Nah, nothing jumps out at me. “Creativity Roundup” is just pretentious and silly, “Art” means visual art to most people. I’ll leave it and hope I think of something else if I do this again.

MUSIC

Okay, I haven’t mentioned it yet, but this year I’m trying to avoid buying any music that falls under the RIAA’s umbrella. I’m getting a subscription to eMusic, and checking RIAA Radar for everything I want, barring those I know are self-published, like Brad Sucks and Jonathan Coulton. That said, I received Spymob’s terrific Sitting Around Keeping Score for my birthday, so it doesn’t count. Another great album was originally RIAA-shackled, but Steadman has offered up Revive for free downloading, so go get a helping of ear candy.

BOOKS

Small Gods, by the irritatingly great Terry Pratchett is my bedside reading. Dave Eggers’s A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius is read at work on breaks. There are others barely started that are too numerous to enumerate.

TV

All hail Netflix, because that’s how I’m watching most of my television these days. Battlestar Galactica, and Carnivale top the list. DVR’ed are Lost, Good Eats, Daily Show, Colbert Report, The Soup, Venture Bros., Dresden Files . . . Hm, that’s rather a lot. I suppose I’m still watching most of it from the box, albeit 90% time-shifted.

FILM

Liked Little Miss Sunshine, bored to tears by Capote, underwhelmed by Pirates of the Caribbean 2 (but loved Johnny Depp), and liked Idiocracy, although, and yes I know it’s a cliche, it’s no Office Space.

PODCASTS

I lament the end of The Show with Ze Frank, as well as the Penn Jillette show. The Sound of Young America finally got me to subscribe. Keith and the Girl are still funny, though I can’t keep up with an hour plus nearly every day. And I like Channel Frederator, Cory Doctorow, and Idolator.

That ought to do it for now.

General

Mom sent a link to an article on a couple of new fiber art exhibitions in New York. The piece’s accompanying photo is an interpretation of the Mona Lisa in spools of thread, done by Devorah Sperber in 2005. What would Leonardo make of it?
At least it’s something he could acknowledge as possible in his time. It’s a work he would have a reference for, technology he’d be familiar with. He wouldn’t have time to check out the new methods of creating art, even photography. He’d be overwhelmed by the web, television, cell phones, computers, cars, planes, iPods, film, and junk food. So much so that he might not have the presence of mind to ponder all the thousands (millions?) of tributes to his own work.

We are overwhelmed by information. Imagine how a man plucked from time, even a genius of Leonardo’s caliber, would cope with it all. Would he go crazy consumer, gorging on Big Macs and downloading more porn than he could possibly watch? Or would he shut down, get curmudgeonly, and rent a Kaczynski-like shack in the Italian countryside and rail against the evils of the technoverse? A good SF story lies in the latter concept, an awful Will Ferrell movie in the former.

General