Chicago

Well, back from Chicago. My brain feels less comatose than it did when I first got back. I love the Old Town School of Folk Music, the location of FMC's Chicago event. Being there reminded me quite a bit of working at a dance school during college and having to thread my way through little kids in tiny tap shoes to get to my office. Trip and event were good and I was proud to have been a part of it.

We stayed at this wacky bed & breakfast, complete with pottery collection, photographs, collections of all sorts, and great breakfasts. The website makes the place look straight-laced, but in person it's more like The Real World should've been housed there. My photos here.

I caught the end of the second day of the Hideout Block Party - wished I'd seen more. I enjoyed Ratatat, who on stage weren't the same band that I have on cd; they were much better live. Saw the beginning of Hercules & Love Affair's set, but it didn't seem like the right timing or venue for them. DJs belong in sweaty, crowded clubs - not in half-empty parking lots on Sunday night.

As to the event, I didn't see more than 10 minutes at a time, but I gotta go check out some of the releases by the Numero Group. They had great stories and I would've loved to have let them keep talking! Also cool to meet Dave Harrell, proprietor of Digital Audio Insider, a smart, well-written blog about making money making music.

Anyway, before, during and after all that, diversions have been the name of the game:

Burn After Reading. Well, I wish it could've decided what sort of movie it wanted to be. Dumb guy comedy? Political thriller? Hmmm. Decide and all else shall follow. Without that fundamental question answered though, how do you make all the rest of the decisions?

Top Hat had some of the best dance sequences I've ever seen on film. Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers' "Cheek to Cheek" is a masterpiece.

Darjeeling Limited was navel-gazing but oddly affecting. I was sceptical at first, but by the end, I bought it.

The director's cut of Amadeus was a perfect slow quicksand of tragedy and left me wanting to violently wipe the smirk off Salieri's face.

The Gorge

Professionally, I've always been a jack-of-all-trades. I've liked it since doing a little of everything saves me from boredom. However, the downsides are that a) it's hard to sell cohesively on a resume b) you're never quite qualified for any specialized position and, c) you're forever qualified for more similar positions at low-paying non-profits where they can't afford more specialized people.

When I took the Events Organizer job at FMC at the beginning of the year, I didn't think much of the future, only that it got me out of an assistant gig. Then we decided to have three events in the coarse of two weeks in two different cities this fall. It'd be an understatement to say that there's been a learning curve. I've had lots of help and I'll certainly do it better next time. But interestingly, I haven't felt ill-equipped for the job.

Most definitely, over the last six weeks or so, it feels like my world has gotten progressively narrower. I work. I sleep. And everything else gets third billing: eating, friends, running, whatever.

However, the unexpected part of this narrowing focus of my days is that while my world has narrowed, it's also gotten deeper. That's because a lot of the parts of my jack-of-all-trades experiences have come into play and they make more sense within the context of this particular job. All that that random stuff that's crammed into my head has coalesced this summer into a job and I've learned more about all of it along the way.

Learning so much so quickly has felt sort of like that dog sticking his face out the window of a car on the freeway and having to turn his head at times because sometimes the onslaught of smells is just too much. But notice he keeps turning back into the wind to get more? That's been me. And it's been fun.

Anyway, if you know any musicians in Chicago on September 22 or New York City on October 6, please send them the links to our websites. These events will be a great chance for musicians to learn more about making a living making music in the 21st century and some of the policy issues that affect the process. Come on out and and pack the house!

Moving On

My old boss Jenny once made the point that you shouldn't spend your time on the platform making the other side's case for them. That idea came back to me while watching the speeches at the two conventions. I know the Dems like to take the high road (and I love 'em for it), but that tack presumes there's honor in this season of silliness.

I had planned a comparison of the Michelle Obama and Cindy McCain speeches, but Cindy McCain only gave hurricane relief messages. Thank goodness there's less of a need for hurricane relief than initially expected. As for that other woman on the campaign trail who's unwittingly bringing new meaning to the word "sexist," I can't deal with talking about her anymore.

To add a necessary dose of levity to my life, I've been watching the first season of How I Met Your Mother. What took me so long? I heart Neil Patrick Harris.

Since I'm congenitally incapable of decorating, I'm in mild awe of Apartment Therapy. Boing Boing, however, hipped me to the Fish 'n Flush. Rad. Huh?

Caught My Morning Jacket this week at D.A.R. Constitution Hall. I've never understood what the big deal was with their live shows. I get it now: Jim James has scads of charisma, he's overflowing with the stuff. I couldn't stop watching. I still left an hour into the show since it's been long days at work, but was glad to go. I was curious that there weren't more hippy types and that there so many gray-haired folks. It was also definitely a night of bromance. I love that word.

I wrote about Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone a few months ago. This morning, I came across this NYTimes Magazine article about social networks and how they've changed as a result of Twitter and Facebook. The article in some ways could've been one of the chapters on the 21st century that was missing from the book.

How could I not smile?

All About Expectations

Well, life moves along briskly. Organizing three events simultaneously has been a challenge for me - partly because of the newness factor and partly from the sheer quantity of things to think about. It's been a good challenge though since I have a minor adrenaline beast living inside me at times...and moments like these feed that beast.

Between work and the political theater, it's been a full week. Michelle Obama's impassioned Tuesday address made me wonder what Cindy McCain's going to say next week and will it be any different? I certainly don't want a 2-for-the-price-of-1 President so it makes sense to me that spouses' speeches, if they have to be given at all, stick to more neutral topics.

But in a year when a woman came closer to the Presidency than ever before, it's sad that wives are not only relegated but expected to address topics of hearth and home and standing by their man. To address the spin campaign in place to alienate the Obamas from voters, the yardstick of success for Michelle Obama was in how much she could humanize her family and show that they, too, had lived an authentically American life. Despite any number of opinions about more controversial issues, there was no way she could have given any other kind of speech - even if she'd wanted to.

My objection isn't to how her success was measured. After all, she had a goal and she hit her mark admirably.

My point is that the role of humanizer was always going to fall to her. As smart, talented and remarkable as she might be in her own right, her role was always going to be that of supportive wife. High profile, non-political male spouses are still relatively rare, but you and I both know that no husband would be expected to give a speech like the one Michelle Obama gave on Tuesday night.

Other Democratic Convention thoughts: I liked the fire in Kerry's address. Wish he'd given that speech a few more times four years ago. I'd like to note that CNN compared the two conventions' scheduling strategies to Spinal Tap, i.e. "you got two Clintons? Oh yeah? Well, we got two Bushes." Yup. And then Wolf Blitzer just confessed to lurving The Barenaked Ladies. Me, I always look forward to John King and his maps.

I'm glad I'm in DC this fall. 'Nuff said.

Hair Here

I was in Boston and at the Cape last week visiting family. Since I've been swimming semi-regularly at the new pool down the street it wasn't quite as much of a shock to go into the ocean as it normally is. Equally fun was biking around a bit while I was there. It was a fairly uneventful few days that featured a lot of missed connections and doing the hurry-up-and-wait. And since I took my job with me, it wasn't exactly a vacation either, but enjoyable all the same. See photos.

While in Boston, I realized how rarely one sees unnatural colored hair in DC. In addition to spying the usual manic panic shades, I complimented this teenage girl at the airport on the fantastic color of her hair: blue in the back and beautifully shifting to teal in the front. Her mom, seated next to her, smiled. (Cool mom.) Not only that, I ran across a couple of 6 or 7-year-old boys with mohawks. I see plenty of mullets in DC - not worn ironically I think - but otherwise people seem to prefer a more strait-laced look here.

Went to see Dr. Zhivago yesterday but ended up being a half-hour late and seeing Man on Wire instead. Great documentary on Philippe Petit - the man who walked a tightrope between the tops of the two World Trade Center towers in 1974. Go see it.

Plucked out of the Internet ether:

The term "modern jackass".

Reinventing yourself as a frosh? Check. That's assuming you can find your dorm room though.

Freedom.

Walmart employees are copyright maximalists, dontcha know?

NYTimes cracks on French horns and the people who play them.

Still not joining the twittering masses, but interesting points all the same.

Jen, yet again, makes me tear up.

Sporting Rant

The Summer Olympics have never appealed to me. Has anyone else heard the name "Michael Phelps" enough? Somehow he's even managed to overshadow those anorexic, overworked little girls in leotards that everyone fawns over, ahem, or as they're more commonly known: women gymnasts. I find the medal count crass. And while I don't deny the athletic ability it takes to play beach volleyball - this from someone that used to avoid the volleyball in high school gym class, not like Daria but close - I have a hard time taking a sport seriously if it needs sand and a bikini. All the while, the network strings you along in between as many mentions of Michael Phelps as possible.

Or maybe I'm just being contrary.

After all, at what other point in time do you get to see synchronized divers from Mexico on primetime television? There is the argument that the Olympics are a shared experience for a large part of the planet, an unusual occurrence still. The Summer Olympics are also far more accessible to many more countries than the Winter Olympics ever will be - after all, no pickup hockey in Kenya. I even got a little swell of feminist pride the other day when I happened upon women's professional cycling for the first time. Lance who?

*sigh*

OK, I'm done ranting and praising in somewhat equal parts. I promise to talk about something else in my next post.

Eat

I'm nearly done reading Michael Pollen's The Omnivore's Dilemma. I'm coming to the conclusion that there's no sustainable, ecologically-healthy way to eat other than growing my own food and living off the industrial agricultural grid. Being vegetarian, even if I wanted to go that route, apparently wouldn't change a whole lot. As educational as it's been to read about how food gets from from field to plate, I'm left wondering: where does that leave the conscientious urban consumer after they've been to the farmer's market?

Sticking with the theme: Aesop Rock's carefully thought out list of Top Ten Cereals and Retro Kids Cereal Boxes - just check out what they thought your kid self would want. (The post was written, by the by, by the guy who dreamed up one of the ultimate geekfest events, the Buffy Sing-a-Long, which is now in mothballs because of legal issues.)

I was sad to learn that Cookie Monster no longer says: "Me want cookies!!! Omm, nom, nom, nom!!" Apparently, political correctness and the mommy state (literally) took over and he now says "cookies are a sometimes food." Where o where is the childish glee in that? Trust NPR to notice, but at least the rumor that he'd be turned into a Veggie Monster was a hoax.

Finally, a bit of food-related wackiness, courtesy of Boing Boing, a whole photo blog dedicated to documenting banana peels on the streets of London. No doubt, some of these bananas, could've used a Banana Guard. God, I love the Internet.