Back in The High Life
Clever, those kids at Philly.com. Restore Blinq to an honored spot on the Philly.com blogroll, and maybe they can get some more new tricks from this old hound. Not sure what I have to say, since my blog reading has been more avocational than vocational lately. That's no so bad, though. So, here's what's been on my screen.
Jon Pareles' blog in the New York Times, which I checked out mainly to learn the identity of the fawning, preening softboy with asymmetrical hair (AFI?) that I turned off so quickly during Bravo's breakfast, lunch and dinner with Live Earth. What I did see: A spirited Crowded House set from Sydney with some smart ad-libbing by Neil Finn; a dozen? gold-clad Chinese sirens playing a funked up Mozart's 40th on primitive strings; Al Gore's remedial clapping; Red Hot Chili Peppers,but mainly to figure out if that was Will Ferrell on drums. No, silly. He could nail down the beat.
Speaking of nailing it ... Inquirer editor David Sullivan continues advancing the cause of that thing that we do. Basically, he argues, there's a lot more fight left in newspapers, and we need to get great at that which we do best. Whether or not that continues to be distributed on fishwrap remains to be seen. He writes from the trenches:
Readers have told us for years that they don't have time to read the whole paper. A sorry excuse, we respond; look at all we do for you? If we could, we'd give you even more to read, and you darn well better be grateful. After all, everyone we know reads the New York Times. Does anyone we know ever say the New York Times should be smaller?
Something else that crossed my desk, a from-the-right evisceration of Howard Eskin. Instapunk wrote of WIP-AM's Wolfman:
Eskin's only real expertise is in-depth knowledge of Philadelphia's teams and their histories. This he gets from being a born Philadelphian (nobody can mangle the pronunciation of the letter "P" -- as in 'WIP' -- like a Philly native). He also has learned the mysterious feature of talk radio Phil Hendrie has exploited to become a cult phenomenon. The people who call in to a radio show are a tiny subset of those who listen, and the callers will keep calling and keep being as stupid as you dare them to be. Eskin's bread-and-butter fans would never call him because his whole shtick is torturing callers for the entertainment of those who listen for the easy pleasure of feeling smart; i.e., smarter than the tireless victims who don't ever get the joke. Unlike Hendrie's application of this principle, which is creative, funny, and sometimes inspired, Eskin's exploitation of dim bulbs is akin to masturbation. His whole act is designed to solicit calls only from the dumbest rocks in the box, and putting them down strokes his own insecure ego on a continuous basis.
Maybe you've read about the Seven Wonders of the World we've just picked by Internet vote. Counterpunch wonders whether we really ought to be recognizing a "monument to death."
Finally, a five-year-old article from the Stanford Daily about "the truer sound" of Uncle Tupelo. And speaking of great, gone bands, a Trip Shakespeare page with concert footage and promotional goodies.
finding the time between the lines of copy.