Joho the Blog: Bacon rulz (not). Thanks to the irascible and vegetarian Doc Weinberger for pointing to the fabulous Bacontarian blog. Latest posting is about the dilemma of referring to bacon as a “side dish”; one of the commenters says, “I think we should start a movement to have a ‘side of bacon’ ordered at a restaurant refer to an entire side of bacon, or half a pork belly minus the ribs.” Right on.
Day: February 22, 2005
Subscribe to what I’m listening to
Craig asked for an RSS feed for his iTunes so he could share what he was listening to. Turns out that’s a feature of Audioscrobbler, the community app for sharing your playlists. With a simple plug-in for iTunes for Windows or the Mac, you can upload everything you’ve listened to, and your friends can subscribe to the content in RSS (1.0).
Frinstance, here’s my Audioscrobbler feed. The only problem: what do you do with the information once you have it? Here Audioscrobbler is missing an opportunity. An automatic “buy on iTunes” or link to a tune excerpt, where available, might be pretty damn cool—and might make some money.
The politics of Beethoven
Tin Man: Sing Softly. Interesting story from my friend the Tin Man about being asked to identify himself as a member of the Gotham Chorus, not the Gay Gotham Chorus, for the sake of a bunch of Baptist college girls who were paying to sing in Carnegie Hall with them. I like the solution that Mipiel identifies in the comments: “after the concert, casually walk hand in hand with Matt until the Baptists can see, and then give each other a big hug and kiss. Then walk away as if nothing happened. If they’re unable to accept that gay men (and lesbians) are ordinary people just like them who do ordinary things like singing Beethoven that’s their problem, not yours.”
Still, it sucks all the way around—sucks for Tin Man and Matt, sucks for the Alabama kids that they have to be protected that way, sucks for Tin Man’s former glee club director that he, even as the concert manager, didn’t feel he had enough power to turn the occurrence into a “teachable moment” for his Southern guests.
I’m reminded, by contrast, of Robert Shaw, who regularly integrated Southern hotels and restaurants as he traveled around the country in the ’40s and ’50s with the Robert Shaw Chorale. Or Donald Loach, who directed the Virginia Glee Club from the 1960s through the 1980s, who integrated diners at truck stops in rural Virginia with his integrated Glee Club at the same time that the state was mounting its Massive Resistance campaign.
Farewell, Uncle Duke
MSNBC: Writer Hunter S. Thompson commits suicide. Dr. Gonzo’s insistence on eradicating the illusion of objectivity in his reporting paved the way for the blog world’s embrace of subjectivity. Unfortunately he wasn’t able to overcome his demons.
I feel a little like I did when Elliott Smith killed himself. Not quite the same sense of loss—I wasn’t that emotionally connected to Thompson—but the same anger. There is no bigger opponent for some of us than our own black angels of darkness.
Committee to Protect Bloggers finds first cause
BBC: Global blogger action day called. Two Iranian bloggers, known as Mojtaba and Arash, have been imprisoned in Iraq, and the new Committee to Protect Bloggers has declared today “Free Mojtaba and Arash Day.” Mojtaba was arrested for reporting the arrests of three fellow bloggers on his blog; Arash for keeping a blog called Panhjareh Eltehab (The Window of Anxiety) which focused on the arrests of bloggers and online journalists.
The original post has instructions on how to contact Iran’s UN representation (Iran has no US embassy).