Guardian of the Non Sequitur

Slate Daily Podcast includes a variety of weekly podcasts on different subjects.  I think i prefer the Culture Gabfest (FB) infinitesimally more than the Political Gabfest (FB), which is to say it teeters back and forth as to which I prefer each week.

One thing they do is have each gabfest participant “endorse” some cultural item each week.  Movie, television show, book, music, it can be almost anything, usually in the entertainment genre.

I often remember weeks later “there was that /insert item here/ that they mentioned” and I just can’t remember it.  My Google Foo is relatively good, but finding a list of them is not easy.  So, I’m going to see if writing them down myself will help.  I highly recommend making this podcast regular listening.

Feb 16, 2011; No. 126; ”Church of High Modernism And Puppies Edition”

Dana’s pick: Susan Sarandon, Geena Davis, and writer Callie Khouri’s commentary track on the new 20th-anniversary Blu-ray edition of Thelma & Louise.
Julia’s pick: The 1940 romantic comedy The Shop Around the Corner.
John’s pick: Thomas Mann’s essay “Herr und Hund” (“A Man and His Dog“).
Steve’s pick: Montreal bar Bily Kun (French).

I mentioned a while back that I saw the Google Street View car pass while I was working on the building.  Then, not too long ago, Dwight mentioned that he saw someone in the street view before he visited for the first time.  I finally got around to checking it out myself. Bill painting.

All the world’s a stage.

The Chron.com (The Houston Chronicle’s web site) re-visualized it’s site some time ago, using their new green logo.  (Everyone loves to be green)

But their micro image, known as a favicon, seems to be vestigial.  I never like the old icon, with a built in pointer on it.  I know the pointer was their whole logo, but the favicon could have done without it.  And they prob’ly want to “green it up” with the rest of their site.

The fall television seasons are kicking themselves into life. Hulu makes it much easier to catch the many pilots flying furiously past. The 2002 Alice Sebold book The Lovely Bones seems to have it’s hand heavily on a new offering from ABC: The Forgotten.

I recently finished watching the two seasons of Dead Like Me on Hulu.  That show started in 2003, and has been likened to The Lovely Bones because the main character is a young girl who dies and continues to watch over her family.  It differs in that the main character is living an afterlife as a grim reaper rather than just watching over the family.  The Showtime broadcast of Dead Like Me was quite good, particularly because they weren’t limited in their language by US broadcast television standards.

Now there is a movie adaptation of The Lovely Bones in post production, directed by Peter Jackson (of Lord of the Rings) no less.  With that in the collective consciousness, this new ABC series presents itself.

The main character in The Forgotten is played by Christian Slater.  The role is a much better one than his last: My Own Worst Enemy, which started repeating itself in the second episode and luckily didn’t make it past nine episodes.  It’s also available on Hulu, please don’t waste your time.

The pilot was done well, but I think it could have dropped most of the partial narration by the dead girl.  It almost comes off as a clash of two stories.  Are we trying to tell the stories of the volunteers searching for the identities or are we there to hear the story of the dead?  I’m also wondering how many of the public will liken next January’s movie to the series that started this September.

I thought this was pretty cool.  Is it Eggs Benedict? (From Science Friday …)

I think this NYT Article (Who’s Driving Twitter’s Popularity?  Not Teens.) misses the mark drastically and sows trite generalisms.

“Twitter’s unparalleled explosion in popularity has been driven by a decidedly older group. That success has shattered a widely held belief that young people lead the way to popularizing innovations.”

Who decided they were older?  (Oh, for one and Industry Analyst – Never trust an Industry Analyst, they study the past.)  I’d say the popularity has been driven by the age group that came of age with computers and the Internet.  Who widely holds this belief?  Has this belief really been shattered?  For a short article with a lot of mouth and not a lot of money (i.e. column inches), Claire Cain Miller.

The only thing “youth tech” about Twitter is it’s cost.  Free is in their ballpark.  So it’s obviously other forces that have kept them from overwhelming it.  I think you could actually do quite a bit of sociological work on the exact factors, but I’ll take a swing at some possibilities and let the academics start there and prove me wrong (or partially right).

First, younger children are protected by their parents from Internet Boogey Men.  Some children are directed, others scared into submission, some over-the-shoulder chaperoned.  Twitter began and evolved in a very raw form.  Not one that in any way was child friendly.  And little flash (other than the cute name and bird) or content (other than initially adult techies, and later adult celebrities – Aston Kutcher aside) to attract them.

I think the main reasons are ones of psychology and sociology.  (And Miller covers these toward the end of her article.)  Even though Twitter accounts can be locked up, the service works best in the open.  Children spend most of their waking hours experiencing life directly with their friend network.  Jim and Jane were both in Miss Johnson’s English class when she tripped and fell, they don’t need to tweet about it, they’re going to laugh about it together.  And the hormone riddled youth are more about sharing secrets and are still learning social skills by doing that, and usually poorly.

When we’re five, the world goes all the way to the end of the block.  When we’re teenagers it goes several miles past the high school.  As we age or knowledge and interest expand but most often into thinner and thinner specialties.  To share common honed interests our connection tentacle out across the state, nation, and world.  It takes a certain amount of raw years to get to that point.

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So, typical of most newspaper articles, the first two paragraphs made me think Miller was a mindless bozo who totally missed the mark, and the remainder of the article settled down, was interesting, and avoided it’s overstated initial assertions.  I’m not sure if today’s editors do this, or if it’s self editing/censoring by writers.