Let's give thanks for these stickers

What's worse than radiation? RADIOACTIVE PIRATES:



The new symbol is aimed at alerting anyone, anywhere to the potential dangers... to ensure that its message of "danger - stay away" was crystal clear and understood by all.

A trickle

One's life is a little stream. Families can combine into creeks. Whole communities can become rivers. Most people have some innate sense of this, and those who are socially inclined can learn to navigate these waters. But it takes a certain social deftness to sense the vast tides of human nature. Most people get so caught up in the eddies and rapids of their own lives that they cannot be open to these great, glacial movements. It is a rare opportunity. How rare, I'm not sure, because I currently feel barely able to see over the next rock. My waters have been turned inward, caught in a whirlpool that has eroded away at the depths but has not gone anywhere. I hope and plan to pull away from this, to join and invigorate my communities, big and small, with my own uniquely enriched current. I believe I am already possessed of a significant social acuity. I perceive the glints and swells of the streams around me with a modestly happy clarity. I hope one day to adapt that perspective; to sharpen, and broaden, and sharpen and broaden and so on, so as to sophisticate myself to sense those vast tides. Occasionally I feel the gravitas of the distant ocean's slow breathing, but I hope one day to rest my head over its heart.

"I am a serious dude who loves Spongebob"

Last semester I was working with an arts integration program at the Oracle Charter School. The school was not a great place. Middle school is a rough time for everyone, but some middle schools are more enriching than others. Oracle was a place where the strains of adolescence were constantly compounded by a student culture of near-constant derision and a faculty culture of every-man-for-himself disempowerment. This was a place that seriously needed the arts, but the students were so guarded that it was like pulling teeth to ask them to do something creative. Whenever the slightest point of creativity broke the surface it was all we teachers could do to nurture it before the environment inevitably crushed it back under the surface. The triumphs were small, but meaningful. The following poem was written by a student in 6th or 7th grade. I believe it speaks volumes about the processing of the author's internal life and the prospects of his external life.


Spongebob by Nijio Porter

I am a serious dude who loves Spongebob
I wonder why the sky is blue
I hear the phone ringing loudly
I see a book about Spongebob
I am a serious dude who loves Spongebob

I pretend that I could meet Spongebob
I feel so light in the water
I touch the top of my doghouse
I worry there will be no more Spongebob
I cry when I miss Spongebob when he is on
I am a serious dude that loves Spongebob

I understand that animals are dumb
I say reading is good
I dream I would be famous
I try to do good in school
I hope I will have a life
I am a serious dude who loves Spongebob

Music in your Ear

Here you are on a blog, undoubtedly aware of the "blogolution" that has taken the media away from The Media. You can now get your news, sports, editorials, humor, advice, and everything else tailored to your tastes by forsaking the mainstream newspapers and television outlets and following a trusted voice in the blogosphere. This de-centralization of communication has, like anything else in this internet age, opened the door for a few brilliant but otherwise-unheard voices, and millions of hacks. I don't really keep up with my digital world enough to sort it out for myself. I mainly dip in based on recommendations by people I trust or links from other websites. I am happy to know that there are armies of watchdogs poised with fingers on their keyboards, and I am generally content assuming that they are watching out better than I could. I'm glad I'm not responsible for knowing everything about everything so I can focus on improving the world in the most efficacious ways I can.

That being said, I'm a big fan of music and I was excited when music blogs started popping up. The internet, man. Again, I haven't really invested the time in sifting through the catalogue. Most of it is still written by hacks. The biggest problem with music people try and share on the internet is that is almost exclusively falls into two categories: The first is garbage by "up-and-coming artists" that some distribution company paid to have promoted based on how well the artists wears jeans and not by the actual worth of the songs (see most of the Starbucks songs of the day. Sorry, employer). The second internet-music plague is the "unearthed gems" people will post of known artists from before they were famous or from some rare bootleg, or of unknown artists that are completely off the radar of anyone not related to the band. The problem here is that most of these recordings are unknown for a reason. No one has heard that bootleg of The Lox freestyling on guerilla radio in 1997 because he was high as hell and could barely speak his name, let alone piece together a rhyme. No one has heard that Japanese power-pop band because they are not good at writing music. Or performing music. Really the only reason they managed to get a song recorded was because someone made the guitar chord for them and told them when to hit the strings. This is the most embarrassing manifestation of indie-rock elitism. But here are some things the internet has provided for me that I think are worth passing on:

Aquarium Drunkard - This is really the most solid music blog I've found. It consistently walks the line between unheard/interesting and relevant/quality. They tend to explore a specific time period of a genre or group. The columns are short, interesting, and unpretentious. The mp3 selections will give a high-quality overview of the point they're making. I also like how they swing from current indie rock to rootsy musical history lessons.

Second up is MIXIW (pronounced "mix-you"), which is a pairing of musical blogs around a central theme. This one came to my attention because my mans Josh is the editor. The little introduction at the top of the main page explains it as well as I could, so you should just check that out. Unfortunately, most of the archives were recently deleted due to some website problem, but it's starting back up as strong as ever and they've re-posted the fantastic Remixmix (my name). In college Josh and I talked about and shared music constantly, so it's especially fun for me to see how his tastes have evolved and what has remained consistent.

Finally are two links that are using the internet to change the way we think about purchasing music. Instead of griping about the sad state of the record industry or how illegal downloading is ruining the lives of rockstars, these people are shifting the paradigm. Paste Magazine puts out a great periodical, packages it with a mix-CD, and it now offering the chance to name your own price for their high-quality services. I won't tell you how much I paid, but I will tell you that you should do it. Similarly, and this isn't exactly breaking news, Radiohead is not attached to a record company and is selling their newest album exclusively on their website www.inrainbows.com/. I can't say enough good stuff about the quality of this record. You can pay as little as 45 pence (about $1) for the processing fees, or anywhere more than that, and you automatically get the DRM-free download of the whole record. No middlemen adding the costs that are burying the record industry; just the band, the music and you.

If you have anything else to recommend, I'm always open to suggestion. Considering I've spent years being interested in where the internet was going to guide my musical journey, it's kind of sad that this is all I have to show for it. Hopefully the example of these, and others like them, will effect a real shift in how music is found and even experienced. Until then, rest assured that I'm going to keep buying CD's and going to shows like an original old-school gangsta.