Chair Dancing

Long time no blog. Alas, my handy open ISP network - named HannahBanana - seems to have disappeared, so I pretty much have to be at work to get online.

Lots going on with work as usual. We're putting on a one-day festival of wonkyness for musicians. Putting on events is always a marketing game, but I find the challenge of integrating more multimedia to be the stuff I look most forward to working on - some questions via video to break up the panelist talk, a live webcast perhaps, our own personal roving newswoman maybe in addition to the usual archiving. Anyone been around when Google Moderator was in use? Anything interesting you've seen or heard about in use in conference-land?

In music news, maybe you've heard that iTunes is dropping DRM and going to tiered pricing? EFF suggests that the labels held DRM over Apple's head as leverage for tiered pricing which makes sense given Steve Jobs' previous statements on DRM. I only wonder why anyone should care? It's too little too late regardless of why. Though The Lefsetz Letter manages to get excited enough to use exclamation marks like they were going out of style, he covers all my exasperated points, too.

I've been sort of keeping up on the latest movies, too, which is unusual for me. Caught Gran Torino last weekend. Clint Eastwood plays the non-PC curmudgeon that you like despite his crankiness. I'm still not sure what I thought. I was part of an audience that found the entire movie hilarious - every swear, every epithet, every slur. And they weren't laughing in that way people laugh at Chris Rock because he manages to make the truth funny. Yes, the outrageous factor WAS funny, but after a while, I wondered if it wasn't a cop-out to so easily defang this guy's anger and disappointment with life and make them into an episode of All in the Family. Then I wonder how much of my opinion is colored by the people in the theater with me? Can anyone say over-thinking?!?

Enjoying the new School of Seven Bells album Alpinisms which is a dreamy electronic pop that reminds of Peter Gabriel a bit. However, I write this while listening to Justice's live Fader 50 mix. It's over a year old, but it's 34 minutes 38 seconds that I can't make it through without at least a little chair dancing.