Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

teevee

Acting Agents, Resizing Smart, Blue Collar to Middle Class, Indie Rock Stars, et al

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Speaking of which, here are the links I’ve accumulated since last week.

I’m a great fan of Television Without Pity, a snarky website that recaps all of the best (and worst) serialized television shows, so imagine my delight to find their new feature “Ask An Agent.” Sure, you’ve seen talent agents in movies and teevee shows, but are they as heartless (and charming) as Entourage’s Ari Gold? TWP correspondent Wing Chun examines every angle with Canadian super-agent Bryan Misener, including perspectives on the differences between Hollywood and Toronto.

In a random hunt for some sort of Madonna content (god only knows what) I came across a Drowned World Tour recap on Troubled Diva, which I have since taken a bit of a liking to.

If you are a communications or graphic design nerd of any size, Communication Nation’s post on smart image resizing is absolutely required viewing. That’s the sort of thing I’ve always imagined computers would be able to do. Amazing.

What If No One’s Watching puts words to a sensation I’ve experienced but never been able to articulate: transitioning from working class roots to middle class adulthood. Now, I don’t fall so squarely into “working class,” but I (and my family) have definitely shifted upwards into the “middle class” category in my lifetime.

The transition has never been a threat or a disheartenment to me, but sometimes in my newfound yuppy life I am caught off guard when I realize that hardly anyone I know or work with has, say, been on food stamps before. At least Lindsay and I can reminisce about standing in line for government issued cheese.

Did you know that theversion of “Labor Day” in other countries such as Germany correlates not to their own nationalist labor movement, but to that of the United States? I sure didn’t, but Theatrical Milestones offers an explanation. Also, foodie blog Ethicurean draws a dotted line between unions and America’s agriculture.

Oh, and a link from Epi: Organic To Be.

Okay, I can admit I am not an automaton, and some things make me laugh. Such as this narrative eBay description linked by Writing Aspirations. The seller (a blogger) took an unusual approach to describing her product that, in this case, garnered something like a 3000% markup over what she originally paid.

Sometimes a link gets so memetacular that you can witness it sloughing through your RSS feed, as an illustrated coffee guide has been recently. Usually I ignore these sorts of things, but I cannot tell you how often I’ve explained the contents of this chart to family members and co-workers since my barrista days came to a close. I’m going to post it in my freaking cube for reference.

Longtime read Coolfer informs me that uber-producer Rick Rubin is now the co-head of Columbia records (via a great NYT article). And, yes, the idea of this one heavily bearded wise man saving the entirety of the music industry is a little hyperbolic, but clearly he comes down on the side of artist development, if only based on how many bands he’s produced where they’ve wound up sounding more like themselves than ever before.

And, while we’re on the topic of music, I must reiterate my addiction to my two recent mp3blog finds The Yellow Stereo and Philly-based Some Velvet Blog. Why? Because they like indie music, but they still have good taste – a trait critically missing from those who wet themselves over every yowling tuneless indie band that galumphs down the pitchfork pike.

Georgie-James is one of the rare bands that shares genre-space with our Arcati Crisis duo. Listen to “Cake Parade,” which is especially Gina-ish. I hope we get that catchy when we fill out to band size. The Magic Numbers seem to be in that category as well, except Gina can sing circles around their chick(s).

Säkert is cool, and all the more catchy for not being in English. I’m also inexplicably into “Summer In the City” by The Boys And Girls Club. Amos The Transparent seems to have some merit, but is not making my needle quiver, so to speak.

Closing out the music topic, Scott Andrew. He was half of the fabulous Pet Rock Stars, who wrote and recorded two songs from across the country during Blogathon 2003. In the intervening years he’s become the rocker/blogger than I’ve always aspired to be, seamlessly integrating his music into his page while keeping it a blog.

Scott has a new record coming out, the progress of which you can follow back to the cover shoot, or even the decision about whether it was going to be an album or not.

I would support Scott in concept, except for he’s an amazing singer and songwriter, so I can support him in reality instead. I’m looking forward to catching up to him a bit this year.

(Also, note to self: you have three days left to sponsor the new Mieka Pauley disc, which is going to be excellent. Check out her mindbendingly awesome “All The Same Mistakes” on Myspace.)

Finally, some quick hit links.

Ffffound is, in the words of Fresh Arrival: del.icio.us for cool photos you find online. Handy when you’re looking for a post topic in a pinch.

From the increasingly beloved MLarson: Indexed Blog, which is easier to see than to explain. Monome, an intriguing Philly-based design interface that frankly makes no sense to me but is still quite fascinating (note to self: maybe interview them?). You don’t need a plan, you need skills and a problem. A sentence truer than you think.

From the lengthily adored Make You Go Hmm: G.ho.st is a virtual desktop, useful if you work across several different computers each day. Aerogel is the lowest density product currently known to man, which I only halfway understand (decent explanation here) and will have Gina elaborately describe to me over the weekend. PriceProtectr tracks the things you’ve bought in case the price drops soon enough for you to get a rebate. Did you know that Amazon will refund the difference in price within 30-days of purchase? I bet you didn’t.

Fin: Heather Champ with my photo of the week.

I so did not violate any confidentiality agreements by writing this post.

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How to write this post and not get fired? It’ll be tricky.

You all know by now I work in communications for a major Philadelphia company, and I love it. I get paid to do things I would probably be doing at home by myself anyway, as frightening as that concept is.

What you might not know (because I haven’t mentioned it in about seven years) is that I had a childhood obsession with the Price Is Right. I loved the One Bid, I loved the Showcase Showdown.

But, I loved nothing more than I loved Plinko.

I was obsessed with the way the penny slid into the board and plunked back and forth and to and fro down the pegs before it finally wound up in a prize slot.

You might not understand how those two facts are connected to each other. Here’s a hint:

Right now, somewhere in Philadelphia, there is a fully functional Plinko board.

I can’t tell you why there is a Plinko board, or where the Plinko board is, because it’s … well, it might be a trade secret? Like, if I were to reveal the purpose and location of the Plinko board, the reason behind my termination would be “dissemination of trade secrets on the internet.” I think.

What I can reveal is that within the last month my co-workers’ “duties as assigned” meant they had to acquire said Plinko board, and that when I walked one of said co-workers to the parking lot today I came within one hot second of climbing onto the roof of her mini-van like a fucking ninja and riding that sucker through rush hour to the location of the Plinko board.

I have been promised photos, and possibly even a video demo, of the Plinko board in action. Yet, pester, plead, and outright beg as I might I could not obtain permission to play, touch, or even view the Plinko board at its secret location. And, after tomorrow, it will be gone, whisked away by the cruel whims of fate (and/or the decrepit liver-spotted claws of nigh unknown game show dieties).

However, though I may be barred from visiting the Plinko mecca, or enlisting you to help me gain entry to it by some nefarious means, I have taken away one important thing from this experience:

I now know that there is a life-sized, fully-functional Plinko board that can be delivered to the Philadelphia metro area.

And, I’m pretty sure I have a high enough credit limit to rent it for the weekend…

Weird Is Relative

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Last week at work everyone was buzzing about Emmitt Smith winning some sort of television show about dancing.

Since I am totally divorced from the magical land of time-suck known as television I thought they were just putting me on. You have to admit, it does sound improbable, aside from the fact that it’s altogether blasphemous for such salt-of-the-earth Philadelphians to be happy about a former Dallas Cowboy winning anything.

Yet, strange as it all seemed, it was true. My work friends once again took this opportunity to mock me for my self-imposed teevee blackout, as if i had given up using adjectives or basking in the light of the sun.

I wanted to shoot back, “How many concerts have you been to this month? How many have you recorded? And how many blogs (over a thousand) have you read?”


Of course, my weirdness doesn’t end in my eschewing of the boob tube. Another point of endless fascination is that I don’t drive – I don’t even have my license. I’ve had my permit a few times, and am actually flirting with getting it again, but when it comes down to it I’m distrustful of cars, and moreso of the people who drive them.

Still, people always ask, “Why wouldn’t you want to own/drive a car,” and in my head i complete the sentence “…in the city recently named as the second-most expensive in the country to do so?”

Usually my tv blackout wins out against non-driving as weirdest trait, but a competing one is my flirtation with vegetarianism – which is patently ridiculous, as my current state of consumption is incredibly lax in comparison to when I was a rules-obeying vegetarian for my latter teen years.

By comparison, my current rules are so loose i can hardly coin a term for them … lacto-ovo-pesco-broth-o-vegetarian? I’m not trying to make a statement; i just don’t like red meat, and i eat healthier on the whole when I can’t rely on variations on chicken nuggets for every meal.

A few years ago it would have all gotten under my skin, crawling around in my subconscious, making me doubt myself. Now it’s more like, eh, if they tried it they’d understand. Because, all weirdness is relative.

Endless Intake (or, Thoughts on Identity)

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I often move through my life feeling as though I have no walls – no resistance to the personalities and pop culture surrounding me.

For years I absorbed the opinions and styles of everything and everything else so much so that I had trouble getting a handle on who I was underneath it all. My opinions and reactions were just a collection of easily identified demographic influences – everything to do with what I consumed or the image that others projected on me, and very little to do with me.

I often manifested this uncertainty of self by acting out – needing to grow out my hair, or to wear flashy clothes and makeup, or to be the loudest most-opinionated person in a room. I still like doing all three of those things from time to time, but now I see that – taken as a whole – they were just my way of trying to create a tangible, distinguishable identity. No one could ignore or forget the long-haired boy in body glitter and black vinyl arguing with you at the top of his lungs.

My outgrowth of that phase might be why explain why I have given up radio and television altogether. People often express shock and horror at the fact that I don’t watch television at all; it’s as if they cannot comprehend even the idea of it. Too many people define themselves by the television show they spend the most time watching, and as a minor-league obsessive-compulsive and a major-league fan I was primary amongst that demographic.

After over two years of media deprivation and gainful employment I feel like I have a better handle on “me” than ever. I’ve found enough of my own opinions, tastes, and stories that I no longer need them to be sublimated by the tightly written copy of others.

However, aside from locking myself in my room I still haven’t found a way to resist the influence of people, and how they make me feel so fuzzy around the edges as their traits osmose into me. I pick up other people’s handwriting as if I am made of silly putty, the curves and splines of my letters easily influenced. My manner and style of speech is just is easily swayed.

I like blogging because it is a way of taking back me. I’ve always been the most comfortable with the written word, and keeping a written archive of my experiences and feelings allows me to re-experience – re-absorb – the aspects of me that matter the most. It makes it easier to get back in character because it represents the most crystalline, most consistent version of me.

I might not ever have a defense against the barrage of media and opinions that greets me each day as I set foot on my front step, but I now also have something much more indelible at my center. And that’s a good feeling.

Anyanka

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One day i will be able to watch the finale of Buffy and not cry every time Anya is on screen.


If only we could get a little teevee running the finale at the side of the stage, i could cry in the play.