Needed: New Paris Peace Talks

Advice, Please:

Now that Tim and I are in the harsh new social environment known as the PTA, we're part of an email communication system in which each new posting to the PTA discussion board is also delivered as an email message. I appreciate this immediacy, because it'll remind me constantly of PTA meetings, changes in class schedules, and so on. However, I fear the immediacy as well, because it is an easy way for conversational wildfires to start and rage furiously and unproductively. To be specific: the school is working full-tilt on its upcoming Carnival, which is our only schoolwide fundraiser of the year and very important to our budget. A parent wrote in to say that her 5-year-old felt too pressured to sell $1 raffle tickets for the carnival and this was a problem that the parent community needed to fix. Her post was several paragraphs long, however, and was not as well-worded or well-edited as it could have been. Consequently, several parents who are hard at work on the Carnival (and deeply stressed out about it) felt criticized by other parents just at the time when they needed to feel community support.

Was this tension handled by one parent calling up the other parent and saying, "Gee, we're having some hard feelings about this, how can we work this out and move on?" No. It played itself out in waves of various parents posting from the perspectives of: a) hostile; b) defensive; c) suggesting a big summit to overhaul school fundraising; d) impugning other parents' child-rearing abilities; e) calling for a school-wide party to celebrate the school-wide carnival; d) calling for a special peace summit ..... on and on.

The email tsunami might have seemed pretty funny if I wasn't a member of the fundraising committee.

So here's a question: Plenty of internet sites address email etiquette like, "don't post in all-caps," "be nice to newbies", how to use the little carrot-marks as quotes, and so on. But have you seen anything about how to avoid this type of 'reply to all' Sturm und Drang, or how to reconcile it once it has run its course? I figure plenty of PTAs out there have experienced precisely this situation before.

Thanks.

Warrants Issed for Richard Gere and Shilpa Shetty

via The Associated Press

NEW DELHI -- A court issued arrest warrants for Hollywood actor Richard Gere and Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty on Thursday, saying their kiss at a public function "transgressed all limits of vulgarity," media reports said.

If convicted, Gere and Shetty could be fined, jailed for three months, or both.

Sure, it's news, and they scooped the Bollywood fan sites on this one, but the AP totally missed out on this: Aishwarya Rai will take her husband's surname to be known as Aishwarya Bachchan.

And this: Bollywood is planning to "remake" Charlie's Angels.

Batman: Defenders of the Night

Via Boing Boing, a jaw-dropping six-minute Batman & Robin fan video.

Link is to "Chris' Invincible Super-Blog", where the YouTube video is embedded along with a running text commentary, including the identification of the single greatest line in anything, ever, spoken by "Bruce Wayne" at 1:27:

"I've been looking into something. There's a series of robberies all over... a bunch of technology companies all over. At least seven or nine security guards have been killed already."

The Farm Bill: Eaters Come Last

Michael Pollan's lucid explanation of The Farm Bill. As Pollan describes it, it's not the farm bill, it's The Food Bill. You should care because it's only up for reauthorization every five years.

As a rule, processed foods are more “energy dense” than fresh foods: they contain less water and fiber but more added fat and sugar, which makes them both less filling and more fattening. These particular calories also happen to be the least healthful ones in the marketplace, which is why we call the foods that contain them “junk.” Drewnowski concluded that the rules of the food game in America are organized in such a way that if you are eating on a budget, the most rational economic strategy is to eat badly — and get fat.

This perverse state of affairs is not, as you might think, the inevitable result of the free market. Compared with a bunch of carrots, a package of Twinkies, to take one iconic processed foodlike substance as an example, is a highly complicated, high-tech piece of manufacture, involving no fewer than 39 ingredients, many themselves elaborately manufactured, as well as the packaging and a hefty marketing budget. So how can the supermarket possibly sell a pair of these synthetic cream-filled pseudocakes for less than a bunch of roots?

For the answer, you need look no farther than the farm bill. This resolutely unglamorous and head-hurtingly complicated piece of legislation, which comes around roughly every five years and is about to do so again, sets the rules for the American food system — indeed, to a considerable extent, for the world’s food system.

[This is actually being posted by Deirdre, but since Tim's already signed in, I'm not going to bother with my own i.d.]

This American Life Completes Documentation Of Liberal, Upper-Middle-Class Existence

This American Life Completes Documentation Of Liberal, Upper-Middle-Class Existence

Zing!

And we also learn that it's much easier to parody Sarah Vowell than we ever suspected.

Lumbergeeks

Catching up on episodes of Ryan is Hungry, a twice-weekly videoblog on the intersection of green and tech cultures by Ryanne Hodson and Jay Dedman.

This episode, from back in February, highlights Longleaf Lumber (mill in Maine, showroom in Massachusetts), a company that reclaims lumber from the past couple of centuries of human construction (barns, factories, etc.), remills it, and resells it as flooring and other products.

Longleaf's Marc Poirier leads a brief tour of the lumber yard, displaying an incredible depth of lumber knowledge. I've never been quite sure whether those experts on Antiques Roadshow know everything they're saying (or if they've looked it all up in reference books off-camera), but Poirier is clearly the real deal.

Click to view

Gere kiss sparks India protests

Protestors are burning Richard Gere in effigy, after he publicly kissed Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty at an AIDS awareness event, in a recreation of one of his moves from Shall We Dance?

More conservative Indians, no fans of Bollywood to begin with, are burning Shilpa Shetty in effigy.

Shetty, no stranger to contreversy, is not only a Bollywood actress, but the winner of the UK's version of Celebrity Big Brother, as well as an activist for HIV/AIDS awareness and PETA.

Although Ms. Shetty is a fixture in the celebrity "news" each week on "Namaste America" and "India Waves," we've seen none of her movies, including the notable release from 2004, Phir Milenge, a remake of Jonathan Demme's 1993 Philadelphia. The film featured Ms. Shetty in the role originally taken by Tom Hanks and future Mr. Aishwarya Rai, Abishek Bachchan (the Big B's son), in the Denzel Washington role. But with all references to homosexuality removed. And the requisite musical numbers thrown in (more video montages than dance numbers, though).

Gere has apologized profusely for any embarassment he's caused Ms. Shetty, and for his own cultural blunder.

I was going to enter a joke here about waiting for him to apologize for one of his lame movies, but I really haven't seen any of them.

Pearls Before Breakfast - washingtonpost.com

The Washington Post Sunday magazine pranks the commuters of the L'Enfant Metro station in Washington DC. That guy over there playing the violin for change? That's not some guy. That's Joshua Bell. And that violin is an 18th century Stradivarius.

Fascinating experiment on context and perception.

A wee bit smug, taking potshots at the Federal employees rushing to work, who won't even so much glance at the musician. By the same token, though, it's a call to reflect on how many details in the urban sphere we filter out.link

YouTube - Doctor Who and the Beatles

(from Boing Boing)

The Beatles make an appearance on Dr. Who in 1965, during the William Hartnell era (Hartnell was the first of the ten actors in the lead role over the show's three and a half decade run)

In seventh grade, I wouldn't ever have had a chance to see a William Hartnell episode, but if I'd known about the Beatles/Dr. Who crossover, it would have blown my twelve year old mind.
Link

I Can't Think of A Caption For This

White House Senior Advisor Karl Rove (left) performs a rap dance with comedian Colin Mochrie during the entertainment section of the annual Radio and Television Correspondents' Association dinner. Reuters photo by Jason Reed

[Mochrie is a cast regular on "Whose Line Is It.." He also plays one of the Keebler elves.]

WashPo: Heated Words from Mr. Global Warming

A theatrical summary of Al Gore's latest testimony on Capitol Hill.

(Who's going to play Al Gore in the biopic twenty years from now? Will Alec Baldwin be too old?)

NYT: The Year Without Toilet Paper

Welcome to Walden Pond, Fifth Avenue style. ... Colin Beavan, 43, a writer of historical nonfiction, and Michelle Conlin, 39, a senior writer at Business Week, are four months into a yearlong lifestyle experiment they call No Impact. Its rules are evolving, as Mr. Beavan will tell you, but to date include eating only food (organically) grown within a 250-mile radius of Manhattan; (mostly) no shopping for anything except said food; producing no trash (except compost, see above); using no paper; and, most intriguingly, using no carbon-fueled transportation.

[At right: Carbon-free commute on a scooter through the snow.]

Pop Songs and Kyries

The second time I heard Blake Jones play live, I didn't have to listen through the door. I could actually see him play. This was at the 2005 Rogue Festival, where once again he was my venue manager. This time, with his "Ill Advised Solo Show," Blake sang and accompanied himself on acoustic guitar, and playing tunes on the subject of politics and religion. Songs like Dylan's "When the Ship Comes In," and a lot of originals, like "Don't You Be Stealin' My Jesus," a lament from a liberal Christian who finds the political influence of the religious right maddening.

Upbeat songs, mostly. A warm and welcoming stage presence.

But no theremin. None of the toy pianos and lush wall of sound his friends, fellow musicians, and reviewers adore him for. His one gig in San Francisco this year was when I was out of town.

Third time's a charm: Finally, this year in Fresno, Blake was fronting "Send the Trike Shop to Liverpool," a concept concert which was nominally a fundraiser to pay off the Visa card debt that accompanied their recent booking of upcoming gigs in Liverpool. A ha! Now I could hear it! Bookended between pitch perfect covers of "Strawberry Fields" and "I Am the Walrus," the Trike Shop brought Blake's songs to gorgeous life. Now I understood the comparisons to Brian Wilson. This wasn't just infectious nod pop, it was toe-tappingly fun retro DIY avant-goodness. (It was also the loudest thing I've heard in the past decade, but it was my choice to sit in the second row in the nightclub directly in front of the six foot high wall of speakers).

The Trike Shop's Myspace page prominently features their Frank Zappa tribute. If you're like me, and not familiar with the Mothers of Invention and their charms, it's hard to see Blake's pop roots here.

Their Garageband page has just two songs, but they're pop heaven. "Snapshots" calls to mind Nilsson and the Beach Boys. "Clever Things" evokes Ray Davies by way of Jonathan Richman. Both seem like they came out the same era as the Beatles' Rubber Soul and Revolver.

And, if you'd like to hear Blake's theremin, check out his CDBaby page (last track).

Theremin Killed the Radio Star

The first time I saw a theremin was at a science museum. Can't remember if it was in Boston, or San Francisco, or Chicago. You could play with it, but the sound was annoying, and a visit to a science museum, with its multitudes of attractions, wasn't the best place to focus long enough to coax any music out of it.

The first time I saw a theremin in live performance was at my office Christmas party (which features as a longstanding tradition, a talent show). Dan Bluestein sang "Witchta Lineman," accompanying himself on guitar and theremin (quite a feat, that)-- the theremin he had built himself. I seem to recall it involved a battery and two crescent wrenches, one of which he operated with his foot.

In 2005, at the Rogue Festival in Fresno, my stage manager Blake Jones informed me that he'd miss one of my shows, as his own Big Loud Pop Show he'd organized for the Festival would conflict. By the time I'd finished my show and got to the venue, it had long since started, and sold out, so I stood out on the sidewalk and listened through the door. A local Western Swing band, the They Can't Hardly Playboys, was ripping through "Hot Rod Lincoln," and after that, there was, unexpectedly, a samba, with an otherworldy tone taking the lead, sliding up and down the melody of Ary Barroso/S.K. Russell's "Brazil." I asked a couple of folks also outside the door: "What is that sound?"
"Pedal steel?" one suggested, and this didn't seem too farfetched, given the previous song.
Later, Blake confessed that indeed, it was a theremin, and that he himself had played it.

A year later San Francisco musician pc muñoz, who I went to high school with, would hire Blake to play theremin on his new recording project, and casually mentioned he was seeking a spoken word artist. Blake suggested a storyteller from Berkeley that he'd seen in Fresno recently, namely me... which is how I ended up on a CD with some of the East Bay's best jazz musicians.

This year I finally got to see Blake play the theremin live, as he covered "Harlem Nocturne," with his band, The Trike Shop.

Watching a theremin performance is fascinating, because the performer never touches the instrument. It's also not visually stimulating, because the slightest movement on the part of the performer produces a great variance in tone, so tackling an actual melody involves a limited range of movement.

So here from YouTube is a video introduction to the theremin by Jon Bernhardt, who not only tells what a theremin is, but tackles a pop hit from the 80s. And while this is wrong on so many levels (especially his jacket), I have to say, the novelty of the theremin fits the novelty of the song. Enjoy.

What is the Rogue?

(via The Fresno Bee)

Multimedia feature on Fresno's Rogue Festival, posted on YouTube, with footage from the first weekend, including a bit of my show (I saw the video camera outside the theatre... didn't know he came inside).

Gummy Bear Chandelier

Artist Ya Ya Chou even says, "remains fresh even after two years after it's made!"

Dylan Hears A Who!

Seven classic Dr. Seuss stories done up as 60s Dylan-gone-rock-and-roll.

"Green Eggs and Ham" as "Bob Dylan's Dream #115"
"Oh, The Thinks You Can Think" a là "Like a Rolling Stone" (wait; that's not what I meant. my brain's seizing up. i'll correct this reference and get back to you)

Complete with faux vintage album art and vinyl surface noise.

Awesome.

Let's Get Ready to Rogue

Heading down to Fresno this weekend for my third Rogue Festival.

Nice to see The Fresno Bee remembers me.

"Dr. Who on Holiday"

(discovered via KFJC's Norman Bates Memorial Soundtrack show)

What's geekier than KLF's 1988 "Doctoring the TARDIS," a novelty mashup of the theme to British Sci-Fi series "Doctor Who" and Gary Glitter's "Rock and Roll (part 2)" that went to #1 on the UK charts?

What about Dean Grey's 2005 mashup of KLF's 1988 hit with Green Day's "Holiday"?

Take one instrumental TV theme, combine one novelty rock anthem primarily used now for NBA team entrances, and Green Day's growly punk pop energy. Might be geekier, but it actually improves upon KLF's version.

Hear the MP3

Watch the YouTube Video

(from Dean Grey's American Edit album featuring mashups of Green Day's entire American Idiot album, which lasted an entire 10 days on the Web before the lawyers from Warner Brothers served up a cease-and-desist order. Boing Boing was all over the American Edit event, but I ignored it, not being a fan of Green Day. So, consider this a late entry.)

The Best Mac and Cheese Ever? Really?

Tom has been blogging for, what, five days?, and already he is presenting what he says is the best mac and cheese recipe ever.

Dried mustard? Hot pepper sauce? Eggs?!?

If he'd gone all nutmeg on me I would have telephoned the Brooklyn Police to have him hauled away, but as it is I'm left thinking there's something funny in that Hudson River water they drink out there.

Because I am that kind of friend I will inform Tom that the best mac and cheese ever can be found in Issue 3 of Martha Stewart's Everyday Food magazine (May/June 2003).

Ingredients:
- 1 pound shredded white cheddar cheese
- 8 ounces cream cheese
- 1 1/4 cups whole milk
- 1 tablespoon melted butter (plus more for greasing baking dishes)
- 1/2 pound elbow macaroni
- 1/4 cup storebought or 3/4 cup homemade bread crumbs
- salt and pepper

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Butter four 14-ounce ovenproof dishes. In a small bowl, toss 1 tablespoon of melted butter with breadcrumbs and 1/4 cup cheddar.
2. Cook macaroni; drain.
3. In a large saucepan over medium heat, bring milk to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low; add cream cheese, cut into cubes. Stir until melted, 2 minutes. Gradually stir in the remaining cheddar until melted, 5 minutes. Add the cooked pasta, salt and pepper. Toss to combine.
4. Divide the mixture among prepared dishes. Bake until bubbling, 10 minutes. Remove from the oven; sprinkle with the breadcrumb mixture. Bake until golden, 10 minutes more.

Ok, so the recipes do share the preposterous level of cheese (3/4 pound against 1/2 pound macaroni). And here the whole milk and cream cheese take the place of Tom's evaporated milk and extra butter.

I still don't get what's with the eggs. Just make carbonara for crying out loud.