Dancing

Watching The Chorus Line last weekend brought back memories of high school when I actually knew huge portions of it. It's a dreadful movie - oozing self-important melodrama, missing some of the best dance numbers, and containing every bad 80's haircut possible - but my recollection of dancing it is one of glitz-filled excitement and sheer terror.

Terror owing to my stage fright, but it was also hitherto the most awed moment of my 12 or 13 years. It was a show that people knew so it felt important that we were doing this professional piece and it had all the crazy glammy costumes and endless rehearsals and a weekend of shows! Stage fright be damned, I thrilled to the show biz of it all.

Anyway, The Chorus Line arriving in the mail started the trifecta of dance.

The documentary Ballerina had some beautiful dancing in it but the narration was so dispassionate and clinical that I'd have sworn they were talking about the mating of some rare species of bird. Too bad, since they missed an ideal opportunity to find out more about the art and the artists.

To complete the trio, I caught Bill T. Jones at The Kennedy Center performing a vaudeville-themed dance/theater show called "A Quarreling Pair". Fun times and the q&a afterward was cool, too.

It all half made me want to dig out my tap shoes and find a class...we shall see.

Hype

I am not at SXSW this week. So, I won't sitting here bragging, but I'd be hard pressed not to read about it, between the tweets, facebook, and the bloggers. Six-word band reviews that are surprisingly informative. Stubbs - been there, but never had the BBQ. This film looks cool...and it's now queued up on Netflix.

Chris Cornell releases a crappy album. Trent Reznor slams him. Chris Cornell retaliates incoherently. Via Tweets.
\m/ (>_<) \m/

Speaking of albums, you can either change how you design covers for a 1 inch square view or you can let the interwebs do it for you.

I feel hyped and contrary (and cheap) when it comes to the iPhone, but the ability to use it as a modem might finally sway me. This is an interesting point that gives pause for the pay-for-your-apps portion of Apple's revenue stream. Idolator vents, and makes another point.

Things I've like this week:

- The crazy pro-lifers always present abortion as having devastating emotional consequences (and women, of course, are too feeble-minded to understand this so they must be forced to see ultrasound photos before they have the procedure, so it'll all be gosh-darn clear), but putting a child up for adoption has always seemed like the more harrowing option to me. Then, and now.

- Despite not owning a record player, I'd buy this for kitsch value in a heartbeat.

- 3-D dragonfly wallpaper

- And last but not least, I was a late convert to Battlestar Galactica (thanks, Mark). Last night's series finale wasn't perfect, but it was the same character-driven sci-fi that I love to watch. The best sci-fi, like the best entertainment, isn't about the McGuffin or the monsters, it's about people and how they react to adversity.

That's Rich

I love walking home from work while listening to This American Life. It gets me out of my head and satisfies the need for a story. This was their latest well-executed effort at lessening the modern jackass effect when discussing anything related to a bank. Their previous shows from May and October are excellent, too. Collectively, they gave me a warm fuzzy when I realized I sort of understood this.

Also, big props on act 2 from their Valentine's Day episode where they featured two amazing and brave little transgendered girls.

By now, everyone's seen Jon Stewart take down CNBC. 60 Minutes though matched CNBC's performance with this fluff piece on the FDIC.

Really. If you believe that, I got an ugly brown mp3 player to give away to...ahem, sell...Wired. No wonder the only place I see "Fast Company" magazine is on an airplane.

In other news, Apple is getting greedy with its new Shuffle. You now can only use Apple's (crappy and uncomfortable) headphones with it or you won't have volume or skipping control. Third-party manufacturers will have to pay extra for a special chip that enables the additional functions. That's rich.

The intern book club finally finished Larry Lessig's Remix. I think it'd be good for your dad to understand "the new digital economy" and how people use culture now. But for you and me, it's a tad simplistic and seems to aspire to more than it reaches. Jonathan Zittrain's Future of the Internet is next.

Club Passim now serves beer. Going there used to be an exercise in drinking cranberry juice when all you wanted was one single beer to make the folk go down better.

Holi!

OK, off to go see The Class and maybe finish off my Netflix backlog? A red envelope with In Bruges awaits.

Faulty Introductions

Well, it's time to do a link dump since I've been sick and/or gimpy most of the week (the bad, bad gym beat me up). Now doing fine and on to the links!

Civility and the filibuster, will ne'er the twain meet? I gotta say, if a constant threat of filibuster means that it actually takes 60 votes to pass something, either nuke it or just say that, skip the sit-ins and marathon readings of Winnie the Pooh (more like "The Hill" since Pooh would actually be interesting) and get ON with it already. Otherwise, it's just obstructionism - from both GOP and Dems, I might add. Good comment thread on that post as well.

Author's Guild, meet the mainstream music business, you might have a lot in common. Amazon's new Kindle can read your ebook aloud to you. The Author's Guild doesn't like that because it might get in the way of the audiobook format and diminish income. In addition to stacks of other reasons that this is stupid, text-to-speech conversion is hardly illegal since the computer you're reading this on can probably do it, too. So, of course, Amazon rolls over.

Sebastien Tellier: Lecherous and French and visiting from the 70s. Oh, yeah.

Money I can spend. This presumes that you actually want to spend time on myspace as well? Do you know anyone who doesn't use Myspace grudgingly?

Sigh, but how can you not celebrate the people and the technology? And other sigh because this is just creepy and sad.

I always wanted red hair, though of course, not actually on me as I am now since it would look funny.

Dear Facebook: I know, I know, you're just trying to be more like Twitter, but could you not eff it up like last time? Love, me