…the almost right word

Everyone is watching, talking and reading about the DNC. It is, obviously, quite historical. However, somehow, among all the excitement and drama, we are still missing certain headlines. For example, how come I only found two mentions of this incident? Here is a brief recap, for those who aren’t in the know…

On Tuesday, a demonstration took place in which arrests were made. In an effort to document the arrests, a young CODEPINK woman (Alicia) was photographing the police and their aggressive behaviors. Apparently one of the local sheriffs wasn’t too pleased:

The sheriffs were NOT appreciative of Alicia’s attempt to photograph the incident. Thus, in an over-the-top, some might even say unprofessional response to Alicia’s citizen journalism, the Denver sheriff (shown in the video), apparently bashed the diminutive young woman with his baton, knocked her to the ground, and left her sprawled across the pavement in pain.

After being helped to her feet by witnesses who were shocked at the officer’s seemingly unprovoked aggression, Alicia was approached by on-site media who asked what precipitated the altercation with the sheriff. When Alicia began to tell the media what happened, the sheriff, in still another questionable act, grabbed her, collared her gruffly, whisked her off the premises, and arrested her.

This whole incident was caught on video, though some of the relevant footage is missing. When I first watched it, I was in shock. I had to review it multiple times to fully digest what happened. To be honest, I’m not sure if it was just people getting carried away (no pun intended) at a protest. However, I’m unclear what the grounds are for arrest in a situation like this one.

The question remains, how do we miss this stuff? Why isn’t this making the cover of The New York Times? Isn’t it just as important as other DNC events? Or are we already living in a “police state?” Has apathy regarding such footage become second nature?

This morning, many internet-perusers are reading about Obama’s declaration of a Vice Presidential running-mate. In fact, Wikipedia has already updated their Joe Biden page to include the mention that, he is, indeed, “the presumptive Democratic Party vice presidential nominee in the 2008 presidential election as running mate of presumptive presidential nominee Barack Obama.”* Meanwhile, I am considering what will happen if Obama doesn’t win. I know, I know. *Gasp* Don’t talk about that! Doubt will only harm the potential success of this revolutionary election. But shouldn’t we address this issue? Shouldn’t we wonder, what if?

To put it simply, Slate states that an Obama victory would mean seeing “our legacy of slavery, segregation, and racism in the rearview mirror.” Conversely,

If Obama loses, our children will grow up thinking of equal opportunity as a myth. His defeat would say that when handed a perfect opportunity to put the worst part of our history behind us, we chose not to. In this event, the world’s judgment will be severe and inescapable: The United States had its day but, in the end, couldn’t put its own self-interest ahead of its crazy irrationality over race.

Personally, I am extremely concerned about this election, and I know I’m not alone. What does it mean for the future if McCain becomes president? I see the hope that Obama represents. I see the potential. But I also see it all suddenly, and easily, fading away.

To the rest of the world, a rejection of the promise he represents wouldn’t just be an odd choice by the United States. It would be taken for what it would be: sign and symptom of a nation’s historical decline.

If we truly are the “melting pot” nation, then shouldn’t we be represented by someone who isn’t white? I worry that our country’s racism will hold us back. I worry that we will stay in Iraq until 2011. I worry about the freedoms we do have, and where they will go, about the progress we have made, and what will happen to that progress. If Bush is looking to repeal parts of the Endangered Species Act, if he is reconsidering Roe vs. Wade or calling for a ban against same-sex marriages, what will happen if another Republican is elected to the White House?

* Wikipedia’s footnote for this quote states that information was “retrieved August 23, 2008″ from Obama’s website.

I just finished “Everyone Will Remember Me as Some Sort of Monster,” the Rolling Stone article on the December 2007 Nebraska mall shooting. Thinking back, I can hardly remember hearing about it in the news. And this is, in part, the point of the article.

It was a big story. For about a week. Immediately after the shooting, the media descended on the woodsy suburb of Omaha known as Bellevue (population 50,000), where Hawkins had been living, and began some hit-and-run reporting. But that soon sputtered out. After it was discovered that the shooter had a history of mental illness, the national media left town, and then when it came out that he’d recently been fired from a job at McDonald’s, even the local guys dropped the story and went back to reporting on the weather. That was pretty much the extent of the digging, as if losing the opportunity to flip burgers was what drove the teen to murder.

It’s a depressing time in which we live. A 19 year-old kid is so traumatized by his family and upbringing — the only “way out” he can see is to kill himself. I think of the hours he spent playing video games, drinking beer in his car, passing time in one institution or another. I think of the depression and self-destruction. And then I think about the sudden disappearance of the story. Where did it go? What was so important that the country quickly forgot about this shooting? Are we all so accustomed to hearing about these events that they have become that easy to ignore? What happens when we continue to ignore them?

Less than a decade ago, in the aftermath of the Columbine High School shootings, teen murder was such a horrifying novelty that it occupied the entire national conversation for months. But these days, teenage shooters come and go on TV with such regularity that their sprees hardly seem surprising anymore; on the contrary, it feels almost naive to be shocked. In the end, the Robert Hawkins mall massacre — the bloodiest episode in Nebraska since the Charles Starkweather murders of 1958, and one of the deadliest rampages in American history — amounted to just a few days’ worth of news and infotainment. Within two weeks of the shooting, Von Maur was speed-cleaned and reopened, just in time for the Christmas rush.

Apparently Christmas shopping is more important to Americans than acknowledging, than remembering the tragedy.

I direct you to the hilarity that transpires around our beloved President Bush.
This is, by far, one of my favorites:

And there is something that continues to crack me up about these…
(Note the captions, both courtesy of Gawker):

“This is all you have to show for the past four years of your life?”

“Kidding, heh. Actually I’ll take this now.”

When it comes to celebrity buzz blogs, What Would Tyler Durden Do is the way to go. We all know the name comes from Brad Pitt’s Fight Club character. The man behind WWTDD is actually on MySpace, though his profile picture is questionable. His description of the site, however, is right on: “”What Would Tyler Durden Do” is a blog focused on bringing you the latest gossip and news about rich and famous celebrities.  And then making fun of them.  Why?  Because fuck them, that’s why.” Perez Hilton has got nothin’ on this guy.

It’s here — the moment we’ve all been waiting for: the release of the American Sexpress Card (term coined by the Daily News). The card is proof, certification that the cardholder is STD-free.

This STDFree Certification was developed by a Manhattan-based company. It is, indeed, a credit card that conveniently fits in your wallet. The idea is that every cardholder has a member number, and anyone can call and “check up” on another member.

More than 15,000 people nationwide have signed up for the STFree service, launched in 2004 by Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, native Eli Dancy. Dancy, a former club promoter, said he saw “a lot of irresponsibility” in his neighborhood and created the STFree card to help raise awareness.

Remember that scene in Gattaca? Uma Thurman’s character does a little “background check” on Ethan Hawke. She’s given a computer-generated document of his personal information — health risks, intelligence level…Looks as though Gattaca is not too far away.

NYMag’s Daily Intel came up with a hilarious set of segues to the card:

•  “Isn’t the view from my rooftop lovely? Here’s my STDFree card. Why are you still wearing your top?”

•  Subtly, in the elevator to the apartment: “Let me just get my keys. Oh, look what fell out of my pocket! It’s my STDFree card! Anyway, aren’t you so excited to see Christopher Walken on SNL?”

At the end of July, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice traveled to New Zealand. Little did she know that she would be met with protesters.

The AUSA, one of the country’s largest student organizations, offered a $5,000 reward for a citizen’s arrest of Condoleezza Rice. The AUSA states that Rice’s role in overseeing the Iraq invasion, and continued occupation, is in direct contradiction with the Geneva Convention. New Zealand citizens believe Rice is responsible for sanctioning war crimes and torture:

“Rice is the public spokesperson for an illegal and immoral occupation that has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths and the continued oppression of the people of Iraq. We believe Rice should be arrested and detained in accordance with the law and tried fairly at the International Criminal Court for her role in these war crimes,” said AUSA International Affairs Officer Omar Hamed, who moved the motion for the reward at Monday’s AUSA Executive meeting.

Protesters stood outside the Government building while Rice met with officials. They burned American flags, raised signs calling her a War Criminal, and attempted to bring attention to the controversial issue of Free Trade. Over the course of the protests, the $5,000 reward was doubled by another New Zealand student organization. “Although several people turned up to the demo with handcuffs, the chance to nab Rice didn’t present itself. Police refused to cooperate in the arrest of this war criminal, giving the irrelevant excuse that she is a visiting dignitary.”

Needless to say, Rice was not arrested. However, the movement to hold her accountable has clearly begun. IndyMedia states that the New Zealand Police “can now consider themselves accessories to war crimes.”

I’m going to jump on the band-wagon and tell you about “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog” (be forewarned: that is only the beginning of this post’s extensive linkage). You may or may not already be familiar with this latest craze in web-series — It’s a Joss Whedon project. Whedon is most well-known for his role as Writer, Producer, and Director on the hit series “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” As a much-deserved side note, I would like to mention that I laughed heartily while mocking this show before I finally gave in to watching it. It is, as many claim, genius, whether you’d like to admit it or not. “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” is more than just a story of a badass, blonde, SoCal chick who uses the word “like” in every sentence. The series is thought-provoking, smart and hilarious.

But back to Dr. Horrible.

Whedon began this project during the recent Writer’s Strike. Despite the trend of unsuccessful web-series, the Whedon family stood by Dr. Horrible:

“Dr. Horrible,” you see, has the Internet cooked into its DNA. Rather than being a top-down, studio controlled production, it began earlier this year as a kind of dinner table brainstorm between Whedon, his brothers Zack and Jed, and Jed’s fiancée Maurissa Tancharoen…“We’re family, and we’re sitting here doing nothing,” recalled Tancharoen. “So let’s get together and write something, whether it’s for $100 or whatever it turns into.”

Little did they know that Dr. Horrible’s premier would crash the server, leaving people across the country impatient and disappointed. Fortunately, the series can also be seen on Hulu, as well as iTunes. But hey, Hulu is free.

As I’ve mentioned before, I have great disdain for spoilers, so I’ll make this quick — “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog” begins with a video blog featuring Neil Patrick Harris. Harris is cast as Dr. Horrible himself, singing his woes away. Nathan Fillion is Captain Hammer, Dr. Horrible’s nemisis. Harris’ character struggles to be evil, to be a menace to society. However, his heart clearly belongs elsewhere — Penny, a long time crush, becomes Dr. Horrible’s laundry buddy. One can say that she clouds his judgement in the fight for evil. “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog” is wacky, silly, and near perfect. My only complaint? It’s too short.

One of the most influential skateboarders of all time is “re-emering,” claims the NYTimes. Serving the final months of a four year jail sentence in a half-way house, Jay Adams is hoping to attend the upcoming X Games in Los Angeles, California.

Adams was a member of the Z-Boys, the skateboarding rebels sponsored by Zephyr Skateboards in the mid-1970s. You’ve probably heard of him from the movie, Lords of Dogtown, or the documentary by his pal, Stacy Peralta, Dogtown and Z-Boys. He has been called “the original seed,” “the soul” of the Dogtown movement — he was spontaneous, creative, and ruthless. Adams said, in an interview via mail while he was in prison, “I believed we paved the road people are going down right now. Somebody’s always gotta be the first ones. We just got a li’l bit radical and rowdy before anybody else.”

He was originally arrested in 2005, after being caught in a Hawaii-California drug deal. Adams is now 47 years old and still struggling with the aftereffects of a nearly life-long drug addiction. Since his release, he has been the facilities manager at an indoor skate-park in Southern California. He literally cannot escape his passion for the sport: “I love skateboarding, always have and always will…I get the same feeling now as I did when I was a seven-year-old boy.”

Scenes from Dogtown and Z-Boys show Adams as a punk-kid, always pushing the boundaries and questioning authority. He was, and remains today, a revolutionary.

It looks like General Augusto Pinochet’s daughter is entering the political realm. The BBC reports that Lucía Pinochet Hiriart will run in a Santiago municipal election in October. In 2007, Lucía, along with her mother and siblings, were all detained based on the suspicion of aiding Pinochet in embezzlement during the dictatorship. The eldest son was the only not cleared of the charges.

In 2006, Lucía praised her father for having fought a “flame of freedom” during the military junta of 1973. She had intended to run for an independent seat in Parliament in 2007 prior to her arrest. Although a municipal position has limited power, speculations are being made that the acquisition of this seat would “test the political climate for the 2009 presidential election.”

The country’s first female president was elected in 2006 — Michelle Bachelet was one of the many who disappeared during Pinochet’s regime. She was held and tortured at Villa Grimaldi, a notorious detention center in Santiago (I visited Villa Grimaldi in my time in Santiago. They’ve turned the concentration camp into a public park of sorts, commemorating the deaths and losses with beautiful trees and statues, while still mainting the enormous watchtower that existed during the dictatorship). In 1975, Bachelet and her mother were exiled to Australia. She did not return to Chile until 1979, when the totalitarian regime was brought to an end with a plebiscite. Despite Bachelet’s personal experience with such atrocities, she has led Chile on a path of true progress. In 2007, she passed a law allowing girls, 14 years and older, to receive the morning-after pill without their parent’s consent. This is an enormous step in a nation which has been controlled by the Church for decades.

I can only wonder if progress like this will continue if Chile’s citizens support the election of Pinochet’s offspring.

a friend sent me an article, published by new york magazine, titled “au revoir, new york ‘literary’ scene.” the article is about a blog post that caught the mag’s eye — the revolution will be tumblrized, written by a 20 year old nyu student, jessica roy (of this blog). she’s a typical indie kid — dark eyeliner, a headband on her head, blogging about “stuff.” this girl, however, “had just recently suffered her first really demoralizing new york media experience.” she wound up at a new york-writers party in “multi-million-dollar brownstone in brooklyn:”

A part of me longed to be absorbed into that elite circle of Ivy-educated literature nuts who have co-opted what it means to be a writer in New York. Because these days, if you’re not with them, you’re being mocked by them. I have thin skin, so I figured the former would be my best bet.

Until the other night, when the people whose Internet personas I had admired appeared to me in the flesh…

It just was all so fucking fake. These people that I had admired my entire New York existence — they all disappointed me. I don’t understand how people can exist in such a dishonest way and still call themselves writers. Isn’t it the responsibility of a writer to be honest? And why would you uphold a conversation with someone whom you’re going to talk shit on while walking back to the G train? They’re living in a box, where they only talk to others who have read Gessen’s book and think it sucks but will tell him it’s brilliant because they need his approval.

I did not move to New York to return to high school, but that’s exactly what it felt like.

in a sense, she appears to be emily gould reincarnated. in case you’re just tuning in, gould is a blogger who published an article (months ago) in the new york times magazine entitled, “exposed,” in which she publicly reevaluated her career and her participation in the controversial manhattan gossip site known as gawker. although i notice similarities between jessica roy’s article and gould’s, roy actually notes that gould was at this disappointing new york writer’s party — she is mentioned in the article as someone who was part of the “demoralizing new york media experience.” roy’s article isn’t nearly as long as gould’s nytimes piece, so…read it.

i recommend it because i get it — i have always believed that i would have to move to new york if i wanted to become a “writer.” i believed i could never “make it” anywhere else. i’m only recently abandoning this concept, and i admit that it’s an ongoing struggle. obviously this girl, jessica, feels similarly: new york = success. unfortunately disappointment can be a big part of this so-called “success.” i know it, even though i haven’t quite experienced it. ::side note…i guess i should give myself some credit for actually having published my writing (thanks to the sfreporter and the santa fean, both of which deemed my stuff publishable). sometimes i forget that i can call myself a writer, but i guess that’s a different story, for a different time::

of course, jessica roy is heading to paris in an effort to escape new york before it poisons her. me? yeah, i’m jealous.

p.s. yesterday’s post at jessica’s blog is titled about that elephant in the room. (a la emily gould herself who, after her nytimes article, acknowledged the “elephant in the room” in a blog post. isn’t there a contradiction here? isn’t jessica claiming that gould is part of the poison?) jessica’s post is a retort to all the petty assumptions one can make after reading the nymag piece — mighty bold of her, if i do say so myself.

As the print media continue to be overtaken by the Internet, and pundits declare that all writers in the service of ink and paper should put down their quills and fire up their TypePad blogs, there remain some true believers who keep the flame of print-lit alive. Stoked by sheer pluck, determination and the magical properties of their wayward imaginations, many of these folks work for McSweeney’s.

you may or may not have already realized — i’m a mcsweeney’s fan. i read dave eggers‘ first couple books and continued to follow mcsweeney’s authors and publications. oh the glory of it all, written by sean wilsey, a mcsweeney’s author, is one of my favorite books of all time. mcsweeney’s is creative, original, and continually pushing the boundaries. eggers says, regarding the name of the american publishing house:

[My family] would always get letters from someone named Timothy McSweeney … He claimed to be my mother’s long-lost brother…[Letters] would always include flight plans, like he was planning on coming to visit. I don’t know if he’s real or not. My relatives deny it, but who knows?

in may, l.a. weekly published an article describing the success of mcsweeney’s. in fact, they call the american publishing house, “the most important publisher of independent fiction today.” in a world that is grappling with the onset of the e-book, mcsweeney’s forges ahead in an effort to keep the physical manifestation of literature alive. the article describes the wide range of artwork that can be found on mcsweeney’s covers, from books like what is the what?, to their monthly magazine, the believer (edited by vendela vida, eggers’ wife). the artwork is an attempt to do away with book covers and create a work of art in the book itself.

discussion of the electronic revolution is prevalent (check out a friend’s post on the topic) — we’ve seen vinyl come and go (for the most part), c.ds went with it. now, we approach a time in which books are actually under questioning. will they survive? or will they turn into mp3s, easily downloadable from the interwebs and virtually nonexistent in a physical form? will mcsweeney’s have a vital impact on the future of publishing? After all, you can’t have an embossed tri-fold jacket on a Web site, states the l.a. weekly article.

p.s. take a look at this site, which i also added to my sidebar: a blog that chronicles book cover artwork, some of which happen to be from mcsweeney’s (thanks to sean, who blogged about this site awhile back).

a few months ago, rolling stone published an article titled “china’s all-seeing eye.” the article’s subhead read: With the help of U.S. defense contractors, China is building the prototype for a high-tech police state. It is ready for export. the article details the investments made in preparation of a truly totalitarian society, one that the u.s. supports. over the past two years, more than 200,000 security cameras have been installed in one chinese city alone. the majority of these cameras, developed by a quickly advancing technology corporation known as “l-1,” (a company with offices around the globe, including many in the u.s.) are hidden under the guise of lampposts. l-1 is continually working to develop more and more technology designed to watch your every move. they capture your face on camera and create what is called a “face print” — essentially the exact same as a fingerprint, only more dangerous. of course, many representative of the technology claim that it is only dangerous for criminals. in fact, this is stated multiple times throughout the article. it begs the question, how does one define a “criminal?” the cameras are just part of this system to control the public.

Remember how we’ve always been told that free markets and free people go hand in hand? That was a lie. It turns out that the most efficient delivery system for capitalism is actually a communist-style police state, fortressed with American “homeland security” technologies, pumped up with “war on terror” rhetoric. And the global corporations currently earning superprofits from this social experiment are unlikely to be content if the lucrative new market remains confined to cities such as Shenzhen. Like everything else assembled in China with American parts, Police State 2.0 is ready for export to a neighborhood near you….Liu Zhengrong, a senior official dealing with China’s Internet policy, has defended Golden Shield and other repressive measures by invoking the Patriot Act and the FBI’s massive e-mail-mining operations. “It is clear that any country’s legal authorities closely monitor the spread of illegal information,” he said. “We have noted that the U.S. is doing a good job on this front.” Lin Jiang Huai, the head of China Information Security Technology, credits America for giving him the idea to sell biometric IDs and other surveillance tools to the Chinese police. “Bush helped me get my vision,” he has said.

the writer of the article describes his experience of reentering the u.s. after his trip to china. he mentions the jfk security cameras and customs line, the “fly clear” brochure he receives as he exits the airport terminal — a brochure advertising “an easier way to travel” via the scanning of ones fingerprints and irises, after which you are given a “clear card” with a biometric chip that allows you to pass easily through security. the end of the article reads: Later, I look it up: The company providing the technology is L-1.

go on, continue fooling yourself into thinking that we’re a democracy, a free nation. but we’re on the verge of some serious changes. personally, i have hope that, if obama wins, these changes will be delayed, if not prevented. but perhaps that is my naiveté speaking. if our current president is the “inspiration” for this repressive form of technology, what does that say for the future of our country? what does that say for the present?

“I’m really in the way as a person,” he said. “The myth has taken over. I find myself an appendage. I’m no longer necessary. I’m in the way. It would be much better if I died. Then people could take the myth and make films.”

i became enamored with hunter s. thompson during my “beat” phase. i read fear and loathing, watched the movie a handful of times, and then dove into tom wolfe (the electric kool-aid acid test was an amazing book, and so well written — far superior to i am charolette simmons, one of his most recent novels). i compare the two writers only because of a comparison made in the nytimes article:

“I would argue that Hunter and Tom Wolfe are the two most original voices to come out of journalism in the last century, and it’s no coincidence that they both worked for Jann Wenner at Rolling Stone…”

indeed, thompson was an original.

“gonzo: the life and work of dr. hunter s. thompson” is a documentary comprised of rare footage (including home movies, audiotapes and excerpts from unpublished writing) and narrated by johnny depp. i’ve read repeatedly about depp’s fascination with thompson. he spent an extensive period of time living with the man and studying his every move, in order to perfect his performance for “fear and loathing.” i caught an interview once, with depp and hunter thompson himself — the similarities between the character in the movie, and the character in real life (because yes, he was a character) were uncanny.

the film is currently awaiting release, but it’s already saved in my queue.

Thompson, whose defects of character could occupy a separate ZIP code, was not just an original, he was also a patriot and a romantic. Working from the far reaches of the culture and often lucidity, Thompson, who died in 2005 at 67, changed the way that much of America thought about itself, in part because his version of journalism threw a grenade at the bland convention of formal balance and straight reporting.

miss gould’s book proposal has now been “leaked” to the press. i actually discovered this on gawker’s home page, a site i have never looked at, until today (seriously); yes, that’s the website that she spurned in her nytimes article (not that i blame her). gawker actually links you to a new york magazine article on her upcoming book — and the heart says, “whatever.“ the article’s introduction is on the verge of brutal:

Oh God. We seem to have gotten a copy of former Gawker editor–recent Times Magazine cover subject–chronic-oversharer Emily Gould’s book proposal, And the Heart Says, “Whatever.” We’re not going to pass judgment, not even about the title.

she obviously has something in her writing, or in her writing style, that attracts people — i’ll read her book (which is a “fictional memoir” — i think that’s the best way to describe this “new genre.” it certainly is an accurate description of our ole pal, james frey. and david sedaris is now discussing his own creative embellishments). an image of one paragraph from the gould mauscript was published by new york magazine. most of the comments are rather…negative (yes, i know i should not be surprised).

i just don’t feel ready to pass judgement based on one paragraph.

did anyone catch this article in vanity fair? granted, reading it online is rather difficult since there is an image of angelina jolie’s HUGE cleavage in the sidebar…and the article is six pages long. but, next to that emily gould article i wrote about incessantly, this was probably one of the most worthwhile online reads i have had in a while.

the article is on james frey, yes, that controversial name that either sends you running and screaming or intrigues you to no end. me, i’m intrigued. yeah, frey fracked up. we all know that. but he still wrote that book, and wasn’t it the book that we were impressed with? so what if the story wasn’t factual, the writing was impressive. vanity fair spent a considerable amount of time with frey in order to present “his side of the story” as accurately as possible. in the article, we learn that frey was inspired by writers such as kerouac and bukowski — he wanted to do something different, he wanted to break the rules. i admire that. the article goes on to critique the complications of the publishing industry and the memoir trend that has taken us by storm.

conclusion? i am going to read his latest book, bright shiny morning. it takes place in l.a., why wouldn’t i?

side note: a fellow blogger read this book and wrote a short critique of it in her most recent post!

remember when, months ago, i posted a bit from a nytimes article about the “end of vinyl?” it literally claimed that vinyl (yes, those are records…as in actual albums) was on the endangered species list. how surprised am i, then, when rolling stone publishes an article about the resurgence of vinyl!?

As CD sales continue to decline and MP3s are traded without thought, the left-for-dead LP is staging a comeback. In 2007, according to Nielsen SoundScan, nearly 1 million LPs were bought, up from 858,000 in 2006. Based on to-date sales for 2008, that figure could jump to 1.6 million by year’s end…Sales of turntables — which tumbled from 1.8 million in 1989 to a paltry 275,000 in 2006, according to the Consumer Electronics Association — rebounded sharply last year, when nearly half a million were sold.

well, then the article goes on to mention cat power’s latest album (oh how i once adored cat power back in her moon pix/what would the community think/you are free days…where did those days go?), and portishead’s latest album, which are both available at more common music distributors like amazon and best buy. could it be true that the claim made in that nytimes article was false? ::gasp:: are lp’s rebounding? do any of you semi-faithful readers (it’s not a diss, i assure you) out there still listen to vinyl? or am i the only one who prefers such stone-age technology?

Clinton to Suspend Campaign on Friday
Senior Adviser Says She Will Also Endorse Obama
By ADAM NAGOURNEY and MICHAEL LUO 8 minutes ago
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton is moving to suspend her campaign after Democratic members of Congress urged her to leave the race.

an open letter to senator hillary rodham clinton,

they’re right.
give it up.
seriously.

–the a.r.w.

and now for the neverending questions:

can he really win the election???
is this country really ready for a “president of color?”
and please, for the gods’ sake, hillary as possible vice president candidate?
isn’t that just going backwards???

so, there i was. delving deeper into a sense of depression. i will quote the unreliable narrator here, since she put it so well: …professional oversharer and Gawker blogger Emily Gould reevaluates, basically, her entire career, in a post that for some reason I can’t fully explain scares the everlovin’ beejaysus outta me. it certainly scared the everlovin’ beejaysus outta me. i actually had to remind myself that i’m not the same blogger as gould. i had to step back from reading her nyt article, and her blogs.

and then the comments on the new york times website came. a flood of a thousand people responding. ninety-five percent of them criticized her. some of them even criticized the new york times for publishing the article. comment number one: At first, I thought I was reading the sophomore page of the student newspaper at Harding High in Yokelville, Ohio. Then I realized that it was the New York Times. Just awful. comment number two: Dear Emily - First of all, you should be grateful to this newspaper for allowing you this mega-blog about blogging. Will the cure for cancer get this many pages? it goes on and on and on. eventually i found a couple that were reminiscent of my first reaction to her article: The first thing that I noticed about your piece, Emily, is how well you write. You’ve got one hell of a voice, and it’s comforting, somehow, to know that there is intelligent life, however sparse, to be found out there in the blogosphere.

suddenly, i realize that i need to learn to be critical…all over again. i originally learned this in college. at some point, i just began to question. but when i read gould’s article, i read it from this strange perspective that i have — the perspective of a blog-beginner who is searching for her voice, for her style. i admired emily’s voice. but it isn’t my own. for a brief moment, it mistakingly felt like it was mine.

i’m intrigued by this event, this moment in “blogging history.” it is a movement, in a sense. and i have begun to take part in it. i’ve begun to appreciate it. it’s excited me. the choice of the nyt to publish her article is an interesting one. they must have known the reactions that would come. essentially, they used her to represent the movement. and indeed, it is an accurate representation. and one that does, in some ways, represent my own place in the movement. but those ways are few.

i am not looking for more readers in order to reassure myself that i’m valuable. or clever. or funny. i am excited by an increase in visits because it means that perhaps something i am saying resonates with other people. perhaps it’s a way to connect. and clearly, a way to express myself and explore myself. yes, it may be a public exploration. but what is wrong with that?

i don’t want to shower, ever.
i don’t want to go to my doctor appointment at 4:30.
in fact, i almost never want to leave the house again.

there is a tension, an anxiety.
it’s in my pores and my muscles.
i think i’m grinding my teeth.

i think it began with emily gould’s article.
it got worse when i began working.

things calm for a moment, when mice parade comes on the itunes shuffle.
i am no longer caught up in my stress.
i breathe easily.
i read a blog.
inspiration returns.

and i am left wishing there were more hours in the day.