Context & Continuity

Mahler: A Complete Update on the Occasion of his 150th Birthday.

We (that would be you and me, Sarah) are blessed with an amazing selection of amazing recordings of Mahler's symphonies.

The first one that comes to mind is the insanely wild Bernstein / Columbia complete recording.  Completests will note that Berstein's second recording of the complete Mahler Symphones for Deutsch Gramophone is better only on the merit of its sonic fidelity.

The next one that comes to my mind is by Bernstein's protege, Michael Tilson Thomas and I don't think I'm including that here just because Maestro Thomas is the home town team.  This version is more thoughtful than passionate and perhaps that's because Maestro Bernstein had a monopoly on passion.

A recent issue of the Forward includes a story about Mahler on the occasion of a his 150th birthday and EMI's release of a sixteen-disk collection of Mahler's complete works with no less than nine, count them, nine comparative performances of "I Am Lost to the World."  The EMI edition, Mahler: The Complete Works, 150th Anniversary Box, is price only at $48.18 at Amazon and strikes me as a bargain, especially in light of the fact the conductors for the set include Simon Rattle, John Barbirolli, Otto Klemperer, Klaus Tennstedt and George Szell.  That's a line up that would do the Yankees proud.

I haven't read many reviews yet of this edition, but am confident it's a good investment and as soon as I'm able to scratch together the investment, I'll let you know what I think.

WSJ, 6.12.10: A "Thought Experiement" about Classical Performance

Earlier this month, I blogged about the future of classical performance, springing off an article published in the Saturday Wall Street Journal.  I have returned, spurred on by another article about the topic, once again in the same paper, today's edition.  Terry Teachout has written what he calls a thought experiment about the basic necessity of classical performance in what he describes as third-tier markets.  The article also cuts at the intersection technology's impact on the very need for classical performance.  Notice this:

Is it possible to make such a case for regional orchestras? Most, after all, offer a predictable mix of ultrafamiliar classics and soufflé-light pops programs. If I lived in a city with such an orchestra, would I attend its concerts? A century ago I would have said yes, because live performances were the only way to hear music you didn't make yourself. But downloading and the iPod have made it possible to hear great music whenever and wherever you want. Is there any point in going to hear a pretty good live performance of a chestnut like Beethoven's Seventh Symphony, Elgar's "Enigma" Variations" or the Schumann Piano Concerto, all of which figure prominently on Pasadena's five subscription programs for the 2010-11 season? For a fast-growing number of Americans, the answer is no.

I speak as a devout believer in the power and permanence of Western classical music. But if I were the head of the Podunk Foundation and had to choose between funding the Podunk Philharmonic and a nonmusical group identical in quality to Palm Beach Dramaworks or the Nelson-Atkins Museum, I'd dump the orchestra in a heartbeat. The best regional theater companies and museums provide an aesthetic experience that cannot be duplicated by any other means. Not so third-tier orchestras. Their primary historic function has been rendered obsolete by technology, in much the same way that many of the historic functions of regional newspapers have been usurped by the web. You don't have to buy a ticket to the Podunk Philharmonic to hear Beethoven's Seventh any more than you have to buy the Podunk Times to figure out what movie to see on Saturday night.  [more]

I might have to second Mr. Teachout's opinion about the Elgar and Schumann, especially since I have a live Jacqueline du Pré's live version Elgar's Cello Concerto under the baton of her husband, Daniel Barenboim on my own iPod and doubt if anyone will ever surpass her interpretation.  But that's just it.  I have a doubt.  And I believe in progress and serendipity.  I have hope and faith too.  I've attended enough live performances to believe that something might happen that will be absolutely transcendent. 

I also have to pay attention to Mr. Glenn Gould's stated aesthetics that technology killed the need for performance.   He made an emphatic and finely crafted argument and lived out the courage of his convictions. 

I can't speak for the "third-tier" orchestras, but I think I believe that we're probably better off with them than without them. 

WSJ, 6.4.10: A Maestro for the Masses

I've read about André Rieu before and, when I did, I wrote him off as the latest instantiation of Peter Nero or Mantovani or the 101 Strings.  Maybe Liberace.  In other words, my deeply bred snobbery relegated him to a popularizer who probably didn't deserve serious consideration.  --Today I read this in the Wall Street Journal: 

Mr. Rieu grossed about $96 million on tour last year. That haul landed him at No. 6 among the world's top touring acts, according to Billboard's 2009 tally—ranked just below U2, Madonna and Bruce Springsteen, and above Britney Spears, Coldplay and Metallica.  --And he has his sites set on the U.S.

Now, in all fairness, I grew up listening to Montovani and 101 Strings and I even saw Peter Nero in concert.  I also listened to E. Power Biggs, the Philadelphia Symphony under the baton of Eugene Ormandy and watched every single episode of the Young People's Concerts because I was completely enthralled by Leonard Benstein and remain so to this day.  My snobbery informs me that good music doesn't need to be "dumbed down." 

Maybe I'm wrong.  It's widely know that classical music can't draw a crowd to save its life -- literally.  Classical music radio has become way too scarce and, unless one has the means to listen to internet radio, there is no selection whatsoever, especially when it comes to hearing anything "classical" that's been written in the past 100 years.  

So, maybe, I should be showered André Rieu with flowers instead of brickbats.  Maybe I need to update my opinion.  Maybe, in this day and age when the San Francisco Symphony's radio partner is all the way up the road in Sacramento, I should get over my snobbery and start grasping for something that looks like straws instead of gold and silver.  I won't be throw my money at any CDs by Mr. Rieu, but I won't be throwing any brickbats either. 

TechCrunch, 5.24.10: Carol Bartz To Michael Arrington: “F*ck Off!”

Many people have said many things about high tech public relations, but no one ever said it's easy or without risk -- or reward.  Michael Arrington has been holding sway over the high tech journo pack for a couple of years now, coming out of no where and creating a lovely perch for himself.  Now, we be able to see the inflection point in high reign. 

Mike met up with Carol Bartz, CEO of Yahoo, at one of Mike's conferences. According to the transcript on Mike's site, Mike ran true to form.  

MA: So how the fuck are you?

And it went downhill from there.  But much to Bartz's credit, she was not cowed nor did she shirk from the opportunity to serve Mr. Arrington some of his own medicine. 

MA: Is your pitch kind of BS though?

CB: Steve Jobs came back to Apple in 1997 — the iPod came out 4 years later. 3 years after that is the first time his market cap grew. It took 7 years. I’ve been here a few months. Give me a break. You are involved in a very tiny company.

MA: Very tiny.

CB: It probably takes you a long time just to convince yourself what to do. So fuck off. 

I haven't administered the survey to my peers yet, but I'm fairly certain any number of PR folks are ready to greet Bartz with a high five.  

TechCrunch transcript here.

Recommended: "How to socialize your website."

This article posted by Kipp Bodnar doesn't exactly break any new ground but it does offer four steps or paths each of which will work, for sure.  See for yourself here.             

 

What You Should Have Read in this Sunday's NYTimes

Out of the Loop in Silicon Valley

Oh.  Someone noticed that women don't rise to the top in Silicon Valley.  My opinion is that this particular ... situation isn't restricted to the wonderland of Silicon Valley, but from sea to shining sea.  America has high expectations on our "new" culture and values.  That doesn't excuse us, but it doesn't let us off the hook either.

Another potential backer invited her for a weekend yachting excursion by showing her a picture of himself on the boat — without clothes. When a third financier discovered that her husband was also a biking enthusiast, she says, he spent more time asking if riding affected her husband’s reproductive capabilities than he did focusing on her business plan.

Ultimately, none of the 30 venture firms she pitched financed her company. She finally raised $1.8 million in March 2008 from angel investors including Golden Seeds, a fund that emphasizes investing in start-ups led by women.

[more]

Eve of Destruction

A book review by Michael Gross of Michael Lewis and Roger Lowenstiein take us backstage on Wall Street. So if you’re showing up late to this party, you had better come either with a strikingly original take that offers an enhanced understanding of the debacle or with an elegantly constructed narrative that covers the story from origins to bailout. Michael Lewis has done the former; Roger Lowenstein has done the latter.

[more] 

I've been following Mr. Lewis appearances in the media and he's perfectly perfect in his enthusiasm for the topics he covers.  It's reminds me of George Plimpton, the guy who knew he was the luckiest guy in the world because he wrote about everything that interested him. 

Indecision-Making

Book Review by Virginia Postrel

A congenial writer, Iyengar is less hard-edged and ideological than Schwartz and less glib than Malcolm Gladwell, who she says encouraged her to write this book. “The Art of Choosing” should appeal to fans of both writers. It’s full of the experimental results that make for good cocktail party chatter, but it offers fewer explicit lessons. Iyengar favors exploration over conclusions. “Isn’t this interesting?” she asks, rather than “Isn’t this awful?” or “Isn’t this useful?”

[more] 

This is very reminiscent of John Gardner's Grendel: Alternatives exclude.

Welcome to Confederate History Month

by Frank Rich

Most Americans who don’t like Obama or the health care bill are not racists. It may be a closer call among Tea Partiers, of whom only 1 percent are black, according to last week's much dissected Times/CBS News poll. That same survey found that 52 percent of Tea Party followers feel “too much” has been made of the problems facing black people — nearly twice the national average. And that’s just those who admit to it. Whatever their number, those who are threatened and enraged by the new Obama order are volatile. Conservative politicians are taking a walk on the wild side by coddling and encouraging them, whatever the short-term political gain.

[more]

Russia and Poland: A Blood Feud Rooted Deep in the Past

Russians who hoped for reconciliation saw reason for optimism. Alexey Vasilyev, deputy director of the Russian Institute for Cultural Research, went to Poland’s embassy. “This is a tragedy that can join us, that can unite our two countries,” he said. “All of us who love Poland and Russia’s friendship with Poland want this to happen.”

[more]

The Rolling Stone, 4.15.10: Looting Main Street

I confess that I'm not a regular reader of the of the Rolling Stone, but I've been reading and hearing so much about Matt Taibbi, I decided to give him a try especially as his article in the current issue is "Looting Wall Street."

If you want to get all Glenn Beck about it, you could lay the blame for this entire mess at the feet of weepy, tree-hugging environmentalists. It all started with the Cahaba River, the longest free-flowing river in the state of Alabama. The tributary, which winds its way through Birmingham before turning diagonally to empty out near Selma, is home to more types of fish per mile than any other river in America and shelters 64 rare and imperiled species of plants and animals. It's also the source of one of the worst municipal financial disasters in American history.

Back in the early 1990s, the county's sewer system was so antiquated that it was leaking raw sewage directly into the Cahaba, which also supplies the area with its drinking water. Joined by well — intentioned citizens from the Cahaba River Society, the EPA sued the county to force it to comply with the Clean Water Act. In 1996, county commissioners signed a now-infamous consent decree agreeing not just to fix the leaky pipes but to eliminate all sewer overflows — a near-impossible standard that required the county to build the most elaborate, ecofriendly, expensive sewer system in the history of the universe. It was like ordering a small town in Florida that gets a snowstorm once every five years to build a billion-dollar fleet of snowplows.

Highly recommended.

[more]

McKinsey Quarterly: The Internet of Things.

I've been involved in hooking up things like light bulbs, refrigerators, HVAC, security, etc. to the internet ever since Ken Oshman came up with the bright idea for a company called, Echelon.  (That would turn the dial back to a breath-taking 1989, dear.) 

Anyhow, the McKinsey Quarterly has now had sufficient time to ruminate on the topic and brings their thoughts forward to us. 

Here are some of their pearls of wisdom:

But the predictable pathways of information are changing: the physical world itself is becoming a type of information system. In what’s called the Internet of Things, sensors and actuators embedded in physical objects—from roadways to pacemakers—are linked through wired and wireless networks, often using the same Internet Protocol (IP) that connects the Internet. These networks churn out huge volumes of data that flow to computers for analysis. When objects can both sense the environment and communicate, they become tools for understanding complexity and responding to it swiftly. What’s revolutionary in all this is that these physical information systems are now beginning to be deployed, and some of them even work largely without human intervention.

...

The widespread adoption of the Internet of Things will take time, but the time line is advancing thanks to improvements in underlying technologies. Advances in wireless networking technology and the greater standardization of communications protocols make it possible to collect data from these sensors almost anywhere at any time. Ever-smaller silicon chips for this purpose are gaining new capabilities, while costs, following the pattern of Moore’s Law, are falling. Massive increases in storage and computing power, some of it available via cloud computing, make number crunching possible at very large scale and at declining cost.

....

Companies can begin taking steps now to position themselves for these changes by using the new technologies to optimize business processes in which traditional approaches have not brought satisfactory returns. Energy consumption efficiency and process optimization are good early targets. Experiments with the emerging technologies should be conducted in development labs and in small-scale pilot trials, and established companies can seek partnerships with innovative technology suppliers creating Internet-of-Things capabilities for target industries.

[more]

Recovery.

I've been thinking about this word lately for two reasons:  first, reality TV is chock-a-block with shows about people going into 'recovery' for numerous reasons and this has led to a society with recovery on the mind.  In fact on one of the recent network morning shows, a woman advocating pre-emptive recovery was interviewed. 

Of course the second reason, the word 'recovery' is being bandied about regarding our economy.  And, just the other day, Mr. Vikram Pandit, CEO of Citigroup and probably one of the smartest people in any room, told a Congregational committee that he believed his industry needed more regulation -- eventhough he believed that his own company was well in hand.  

And suddenly these two definitions of Recovery collapsed in my mind.  Now, I don't know that much about twelve-step programs, but as I re-call one of the first steps in recovery is admitting one is out of control.  --So now I'm wondering if we will be able to move beyond this addmition of lack of control and move on the the second, third and subsequent steps in our twelve step program.

Which brings me to another point, one that literally caused me to tear up over my morning coffee and newspapers.  Specifically, it was a report about education in the U.S. and where various states and the Distric of Columbia rank.  And that made me think of values.  And that made me think about the people in this country who can't get healthcare.  And then that made me think about the fearless sons and daughters we're sending to rick their lives in Afghanistan and Iraq.  --And that made me think about Values again.  

And I found myself wondering, out loud, where are our values?  What have we done to walk so far away from values that so many of us believe in personally but collectively,  They vanish like the fog in my neck of the words as the sun climbs towards its zenith. 

In my tradition, we would say it is a shandra that our government, the institution that's supposed to be in our service is such a disservice to so many and a stumbling block. 

Crying Wolf...

This morning, I had the pleasure of listening to one of my many favorite radio shows, Forum, on KQED-fm. The host of the show, Michael Krasny, was away and I can't recall who was sitting in for him but that's not the point. The guests today were John Nichols, Washington correspondent for The Nation and co-author of "The Death and Life of American Journalism " and Robert McChesney, professor of communication at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign and is other half of the co-authoring team.

Here's to the segment.

As an engaged, professional witness to the mass slaughter of media and unsettling effects it has on some of the people I most admire, the topic interested me and during the interview, the authors repeatedly made the point that there is a four to one ratio of public relations people to journalists and the authors used this fact to leverage their point that journalism in the United States has a knife at its throat.

Excuse me, but as someone who attended the University of Missouri School of Journalism and practices and performs the Dark Arts of public relations for far too many years, I have come to know many journalists and many public relations .... people. So I was not impressed by this cited fact. In fact, it made me giggle when I thought "I wouldn't break a sweat until the ratio is something on the order of twenty to one." And I started to think about creating a series of jokes along the lines of "How many public relations people does it take to write a press release..."

Now, at this juncture, it is important for me to point out that I am not damning the entire population of my profession because I have met many very intelligent and creative and wonderful individuals along the winding way of my career and I treasure their friendship and they know who they are. Instead, I'm just pointing out that there is no one in my profession who deserves to be celebrated and honored such as I.F. Stone, R.W. Apple, Hunter S. Thompson, Morely Safer, Amy Goodman, Bob Woodward and the thousands of unknown scribes who cover car wrecks and write the words set in agate type on the sports page.

And it would behoove you to listen to the aforementioned interview as the authors express their astonishment that is was completely SRO @ Powell's Bookstore in Portland, Oregon. One might think that the crowd suddenly appeared out of thin air instead of the work of some public relations person.

Please. Spare me.

I have a shaky confidence in the American people and their olfactory ability to sniff out bullshit even when it's served to them on the fine china of corporate.america. I have mixed opinions about this week's decision of our Supreme Court that corporate.america has the same right to speak as any individual. On the one hand, I believe that corporate.america has the right to pay me huge amounts of money to better express its point-of-view. On the other hand, my previously stated shaky confidence in the American people's ability to tease out the fact from fiction and opinion is exactly that, shaky. Afterall, this is the same public that eats up heaping helpings of entertainments that should surely insult our so-called intelligence. Perhaps the pursuit of Unobtanium in Avatar is a wake up call to us that coporate.america has pegged us as suckers. Money ≠ Speech.

Perhaps we will never get our fill of lurid and debased entertainments that do their level best to undermine our self-respect and civilization. As for me, I will remain optimistic about the uncontrollable internet as a medium so vast that is has room for perfectly positive expressions of our humanity, the Better Angels. In Elizabethan England, the choice of entertainments were bear-baiting and Shakespeare. And Jane Austen's day, the novel was still looked down and many Well-Respected people disparaged it as a waste of time and energy. From that point of view, the internet would make their minds quail, quiver and dissolve.

Perhaps Beckett puts it best: "I can't go on. I must go on." And we can also rely on the trusty, never rusty apothegm, plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

In the meantime, Amazon has delivered to me The New York Review of Books edition of Edmund Wilson's history, To the Finland Station with a foreword by Louis Menand and I will soldier on.

T/ Best newsstand in San Francisco.

On Friday, November 6, 2009, Fog City News will celebrate its Tenth Anniversary.  On the one hand, Fog City News is a big too fancy and a bit too small to be a truly great newsstand, like Dina news or Universal New in NYC or the Harvard Square Newsstand in Cambridge.  When I was a very young man laboring in the caverns of Manhattan, making and spinnig news, I would run off to Universal News to get the out-of-town newspapers that had printed my stories. 

But we've come here today to commemorate Fog City News.  If you like newsstands.  And if you like chocolate.  And if you're in San Francisco.  Then you need to visit Fog City News.  Fog City News is where I was able to acquire the issue of French Vogue edited by Sofia Copolla.  It is a long narrow room and you can't reach the magazines on the top rack because it is so high.  And as if that wasn't enough, it does have the most exquisite chocolate one can buy. 

Go.  See.  Buy.  Repeat. 

     

If it weren't for the internet, I'd never know about...

A new type of cloud that's been "discovered." 

Isn't that beautiful?

[more]

What I hope you read in this Sunday's newspaper...

Will Books Be Napsterized?, By RANDALL STROSS

On Comedy’s Flying Trapeze, By CHARLES McGRATH

Advantage Google, By  LEWIS HYDE

Just Outside San Francisco, a Wild Coastline, By ANNE LAWRENCE GUYON

Jewish History, Popcorn Included, By A. O. SCOTT

WNYC - Our Lenny

A 13-day Exploration and Celebration of Leonard Bernstein’s Enduring New York Legacy

Some excellent on-demand shows here:  [more]

I would prefer to believe otherwise...

I've heard two different news stories now, news stories about how Michael Jackson's death has prompted the public to empty Amazon's warehouse of anything related to the King of Pop.  And news stories about how  iTunes has recorded a huge rush of downloads. 

I would prefer to think that some public relations person wasn't sitting around and then BAM!  "Hey, I've got an idea..."  But if it wasn't the public relations person, then it was the journalist who was noodling around and the said, "Hey!  I've got an idea..." and then called the public relations person at Amazon or iTunes.  And the public relations person spilled.  I thank my luck stars that's I've stayed mostly clear of that. 

I write "mostly clear" because, in the course of a career in corporate propaganda, stuff happens.  For example, I used to take the very early train to work back in 1999 and I rode a shuttle bus from the train station to the 3Com campus.  As the shuttle bus made the corner, there are four television news vans, fully lite, microwave masts fully extended and I could tell that they were already doing stand ups on the sidewalk in front of one of the Palm buildings.  All the heads in the bus turned to me - I knew everybody and everybody knew me and what I did.  I asked the the bus driver to drop me off and he obliged me. 

So, it's about 6:00a in November and the first thing I do is introduce myself to the the assemblage and find out what the heck was going on.  So they proceed to tell me that an Egyptian airliner had gone down and one of the passengers was an employee @ Palm.  They said they wanted to interview people arriving at work and ask them about the guy, Kurt Schwenk. --Well, that struck me as very inappropriate so I decided to put them in a cage.  I invited them into the Palm cafeteria for fresh coffee and donuts.  Once we got into a keycarded area of the campus, in a room, that would give me a chance to keep them off the street asking random people about some dead guy who they probably didn't even know. 

In 1999, I had Special Powers @ 3Com and a card key that let me in to most everywhere, including the Palm cafeteria.  @ 6:00a the cafeteria was just getting warmed up for the breakfast crowd and the coffee was brewing and the donuts had been delivered.  So far, the plan was working out.  I got everybody to sit at one big table and told them that I was going to find out what was going on so I could help them out. 

At the time, Palm was being led by a 3Com executive who was a placeholder until the Real Guy could be recruited.  He was famous for showing up to work early, and, sure enough, he was at his desk when I dialed up his cellphone.  I gave him a quick sketch of the situation and recommended that he come down, give the four assembled news teams a statement so that we could get them the hell off campus.  And I told him to leave his Palm at his desk because we wouldn't want to see the CEO of Palm doing a product demo in the context of the death of an employee.  He said that made sense, grabbed his jacket and came downstairs with me.  

I acted as emcee and introduced the executive to the assembled journalists and opened the floor for questions.  The executive held up pretty well but I could tell he had no idea who Kurt Schwenk was.  And so forth until one of the reporters asked the CEO if he had a Palm on him that they could take a picture of.  The CEO looked and me and kind of gulped and then produced the latest, greatest Palm device with wireless access which inevitably lead, of course, to a product demo. 

While all this was going on, I had alerted 3Com security that I needed a couple of guys next to me right now.  I started to wind down the conversation and then told everyone that this was done and it was time to move on.  One of the reporters, and I remember this so very clearly, asked me if I could give her a picture of Schwenk.  I was taken back a bit and told her that I didn't have a picture of him.  Then, she asked me to go up to his desk and see if there were any pictures of his family.  By now I was in position and told her that I wasn't going to do it, and I let the security guys know that we were done here and that they should help the four news crews back to their vans and made sure everyone had my business card. 

One hour later, I get a call from that same reporter who had asked about the pictures and she asks me, "Can you send me a picture of him, the one you have on for his badge."  I told her that I wouldn't do it and I recall saying it in a rather sternly inflected voice.  She replied, "Ok, then I'll just go to the DMV and get it from them."  I wished her luck.

I'm no saint.  I decided that I wasn't going to be a journalist as I was covering my third student suicide listen to the telephone ring at the home of his parents so I could ask them how they felt about it.  I knew then and there that my momma didn't raise me for this type of work and looking out into the future, I knew there were going to be a lot more calls like this in my future.  --No.  That was it for me.  And so I ended up in book publishing and one thing led to another.  High tech PR is, generally, a very competitive profession but I don't have to deal with pulling people's lives open and shine a bright light on what I find. 

On 9/11, in addition to everything else, a collegue and I organized a truck full of Wi-Fi gear to be delivered to the Red Cross in Manhattan and told the twenty some odd guys we had based in Manhattan to help install it.  We did it because it was the right thing to do.  And we did get one piece of coverage on that.  But that wasn't why we did it.  My collegue, Karin Bakis, and I lost a dear friend that day and we did it because we could and it was the right thing to do. 

I'm just saying, some PR people at Amazon and iTunes have to figure out what part they're going to play in the story -- or not.  I don't know if anyone took that call at Amazon or iTunes or if the reporters got the information off the websites.  My gut tells me that someone in PR got a call -- and took the call.  I don't have to do that. 

McKinsey & Co.: Pages from Alessi’s Handbook.

I want to call your attention to two things at once.  First, I'm posting about another article from McKinsey's website.  This one is about Alessi, the Italian design / manufacturing company.  According to the article, Alessi has an "0pen" approach to design and works with several different artists / designers such as Michael Graves and Phillip Stark. 

In this interactive feature, a narrated slide show takes you through Alessi’s history of collaborating with designers and the creative approach behind its innovations. Next, a video interview with CEO Alberto Alessi brings you deeper into the development process; Alessi explains how working with constraints can help refine designs. Finally, an interactive graphic lets you navigate through his tool for assessing new designs. This formula, which Alessi developed himself to measure risk and success, is an interesting example of how one company is applying structured measurement to the creative process of innovation.

The article and multimedia presentation is very interesting and highly recommended.  [See it here.]

Here's the second thing I want to call your attention to:  It's my humble opinion that McKinsey could make it a smidgen easier for people to leverage their digital assets.  This article is a case in point.  Of course the reader can find the link nestled under Mr. Alessi's photo that launches the interactive presentation.  Perhaps that could be made more obvious and integral to the article? 

Well, that's what I would do.

The Economist, 2.26.9: Primates on Facebook

Come on, you knew it all along, didn't you.

THAT Facebook, Twitter and other online social networks will increase the size of human social groups is an obvious hypothesis, given that they reduce a lot of the friction and cost involved in keeping in touch with other people. Once you join and gather your “friends” online, you can share in their lives as recorded by photographs, “status updates” and other titbits, and, with your permission, they can share in yours. Additional friends are free, so why not say the more the merrier?

But perhaps additional friends are not free. Primatologists call at least some of the things that happen on social networks “grooming”. In the wild, grooming is time-consuming and here computerisation certainly helps. But keeping track of who to groom—and why—demands quite a bit of mental computation. You need to remember who is allied with, hostile to, or lusts after whom, and act accordingly. Several years ago, therefore, Robin Dunbar, an anthropologist who now works at Oxford University, concluded that the cognitive power of the brain limits the size of the social network that an individual of any given species can develop. Extrapolating from the brain sizes and social networks of apes, Dr Dunbar suggested that the size of the human brain allows stable networks of about 148. Rounded to 150, this has become famous as “the Dunbar number”.

[more]

Kurt Andersen: Obamaism

This is from Mr. Andersen's wonderful essay on Obama as published in the November 9, 2008 issue of New York magazine.  If nothing else, please read the first four paragraphs:

When we were growing up, the future was the 21st century, and the future was going to astonish us.

And so it has, eight years in, and not just with whiz-bang gadgets. We were astonished by the attacks of September 11. By the administration’s bungling of the Iraq War. By Hurricane Katrina’s scale of destruction and the administration’s incompetent response. By the realization that global warming is possibly out of control. By the teetering of the global financial system.

Yet none of the 21st century’s OMFG events has been any more astonishing than what happened last week. Not just a Democratic president, but one elected with the third largest majority of any Democrat in the past one hundred years; not just a resoundingly victorious Democrat who lacks (for the first time since most voters were born) a southern accent, but who nevertheless won three southern states; not just a big-city northern Democrat whose name recognition was close to zero 1,500 days ago, but an eloquent Ivy League intellectual; and, of course, not just an unknown smooth-talking pointy-headed neoliberal with an exotic upbringing, but, yes, an African-American.

For those of us born since World War II, never in our adult lifetimes (as the next First Lady undoubtedly meant to say last winter) has any single event made us prouder of our country—and for those of us who live in this city, never have we felt more completely in sync with it. We’re all Dorothy, stunned at having just stepped out—tripped out, one might even say—from a half-wrecked black-and-white reality into a strange and glorious new Technicolor world.

Please may I have more...

I tried to resist...

... blogging this bit of brilliance, but have succumbed.   So, in case you haven't read it yet...

So, in case you don't know the back story, Maureen Dowd once "dated" Aaron Sorkin.  Last week, Ms. Dowd asked Mr. Sorkin to write the dialogue between Mr. Barak Obama and President Jed Bartlet.  (Isn't this more than just a little bit like fanfic?)  Read on...

BARACK OBAMA knocks on the front door of a 300-year-old New Hampshire farmhouse while his Secret Service detail waits in the driveway. The door opens and OBAMA is standing face to face with former President JED BARTLET.

BARTLET Senator.

OBAMA Mr. President.

BARTLET You seem startled.

OBAMA I didn’t expect you to answer the door yourself.

BARTLET I didn’t expect you to be getting beat by John McCain and a Lancôme rep who thinks “The Flintstones” was based on a true story, so let’s call it even.

OBAMA Yes, sir.

BARTLET Come on in.

BARTLET leads OBAMA into his study.

BARTLET That was a hell of a convention.

OBAMA Thank you, I was proud of it.

BARTLET I meant the Republicans. The Us versus Them-a-thon. As a Democrat I was surprised to learn that I don’t like small towns, God, people with jobs or America. I’ve been a little out of touch but is there a mandate that the vice president be skilled at field dressing a moose —

OBAMA Look —

BARTLET — and selling Air Force Two on eBay?

OBAMA Joke all you want, Mr. President, but it worked.

BARTLET Imagine my surprise. What can I do for you, kid?

OBAMA I’m interested in your advice.

BARTLET I can’t give it to you.

OBAMA Why not?

BARTLET I’m supporting McCain.

OBAMA Why?

BARTLET He’s promised to eradicate evil and that was always on my “to do” list.

[more]

This is getting freakish

Just received another email from Hillary and it sets my mind to work trying to remember why my relationship with Hillary is beginning to feel so familiar.  And then it all comes back...

The summer between my sophomore and junior year.  I'm going to summer school, as usual because who really wants to spend the summer at home in Arkansas.  I've got a good part-time tutoring gig with the athletic department, a stool at the local bar and a cue behind the counter at the pool hall.  I'm taking some graduate level English classes and living off campus in a wonderful derelict house across the street from the food co-op.  Life is good.

I spot someone in one of my classes and she's very quiet and very cute and I like that type.  One thing leads to another and we go out to see Heaven's Gate and then have a cocktail and it becomes very clear very quickly that she's as crazy as a loon -- and this is a permanent condition and not just a bad reaction to Michael Cimino's movie masterpiece.  A year earlier, insanity wouldn't have dissuaded me or dampened my affections.  There were periods of my life when I thought madness was kind of charming, but by this stage in my life I've come to grips with the fact that it is Very Unproductive so at the end of our evening together I've decided it's been an ok evening (I liked the movie) and our lives would continue headed in different directions.

Except they didn't. 

Of course she was in one of my classes so I couldn't exactly avoid her especially when she decided to sit next to me.  Then there were the casual invitations to head over to Bradey Commons after class to enjoy the air conditioning and study together and that seemed rather innocent, but I could tell that, through her madness, she didn't see it that way and I could feel myself being inexorably pulled ever deeper into her vortex.  --But we never went out on another date, I swear. 

She started popping by the house after shopping at the co-op.  Then, she started appearing there empty-handed of an excuse altogether.  I did the right thing and told her that we really weren't "seeing" each other and she seemed surprised by that.  She didn't take it well.  Neither did her room mate, who called me up to let me know this.  Neither did her mother back in Maryland.

So, now I'm still getting these emails from Hillary and from Maggie Williams and from Chelsea and I want to tell them, "Look:  we're just friends, ok?  I need some space to breathe."

Sometimes, late at night, I wake up convinced I've heard someone in the driveway and I picture her, after the bar's closed with a stomach full of bitterness.  She's standing in my front yard staring up at my window, thinking about how I'm probably going to vote for Obama and feeling fury rising in her throat. 

I never should have shown any interest, but it's too late now.

Things I Like...

Music.  Doesn't everyone?  I've survivied the roller coaster rides of different formats and has been fairly successful getting what I really want into a digital format that's almost convenient.  There have been hard disk failures, some dead end streets, and etc., but, overall, I'm doing ok. 

What I've come to praise today is a service that does what it's promises and promises something that you might want.

MP3Tunes makes a simple proposition and does a lot of heavy lifting in the background.  Install a little app next to your music files and open an account.  The app will automatically copy all of your music up to MP3Tuness server for safe keeping.  But, while your files are there, would you like them cleaned and washed, retagged, re-collated into the correct album play order, re-titlte with the right title, etc.  Very nice feature.  Then, of course, all those fixes become synched to your local files. 

Perhaps your in your office and you don'thave your iPod or the particular album you have a yen to hear isn't synched to your iPod.  No problem.  Log on to MP3Tunes and open up it's player (which is a dead ringer for iTunes), find your tracks and rock on. 

Maybe you want to have your music files at work as well as at home.  No problem.  Install the little app leave it on over the weekend and , voila.  All your music is there on Monday morning. 

I'm very happy with the service and highly recommend it. 

What's the Frequency, Kenneth?

I've always been a radio person. 

When I was growing up in Fort Smith, Arkansas, and my parents put me to bed, they would turn on a small radio by my head.  During the season, the station joined the St. Louis Cardinal's baseball network, at one time the largest radio network in the U.S.   Stan Musial and Bob Gibson played then and no one else was more important in the entire world.  Off season, the station played bingo as sponsored by the local Piggly Wiggly and I fell to sleep hypnotized by the announcer saying, "B-2 ... B-2.  Remember folks, Piggly Wiggly has a special this week on pork loin and you shouldn't miss out.  B-2.  ..." 

As an undergraduate, I was finally exposed to NPR and a Pacific station and if you don't know what Pacifica is you should look it up because it's something special.  Susan Stamberg was the smartest, nicest person you could ever want to meet and Bob Edwards helped start a show called Morning Edition.  My dear friend Stu Hackel had a program on KOPN, the Pacific station, and it was called The Fox's Minstral show and on hot summer nights I would hang out with him and we'd open the windows and Stu would play any song he wanted to. 

In New York City, there was both a Pacifica and NPR affiliate, of course, and the most beautiful girl in Brooklyn introduced me to WOR, and WEVD.  (And if you can tell me which presidential candidate's initials created the call letters for WEVD I'll buy you a cup of coffee.)  We listened to Lynn Samuels, Paul Gorman, Simon Loekle, David Garland, Delphine Blue, Amy Goodman, Bob Fass, Citizen Kafka, Larry Josephson, David Rothenberg, Peter Bochan, Steve Post, Jonathan Schwartz, John Schaefer and many, many more.  We also listened to WBGO, especially Michael Bourne.

In San Francisco, we listen to KCSM, KQED and we're lucky enough to just pull in KXPR and KXJZ out of Sacramento.   

And that was a very long introduction to the topic at hand.

It would be completely remiss of me...

... not to mention that today, Glenn Gould would have turned seventy-five had time and the tides carried him more gently along the way.  One of the several pieces of media today that remember Mr. Gould includes this one from the Public Radio International Program, The World.  If one scolls to the bottom of the page, there will be the link to the audio clip about a new, posthumous recording of the Goldberg Variations.  The producer of the album believes that Mr. Gould would have excised his sining from the recording had he but the means.  --I don't believe that for a second.  He was a brilliant sonic engineer and performer.  Were his vocalizations anything but deliberate, they would have been excised and never heard instead of a voice that now echoes through time.

Bach: The Goldberg Variations 1955 Performance: Zenph Re-performance

Everything under the sun is in tune

I indulged myself and, as i was paying bills, watched a television documentary from a series called Classic Album that originally aired on VH-1.  This particular installment was on Dark Side of the Moon.

First, it is difficult for me to fathom that this music is more than thirty years old.  But what really grabbed me is a comment made by David Gilmour.   Near the end of the documentary, he said that he really wished he had an opportunity to hear the album straight through for the first time.   And it struck me that this was so sad a thing.   He had never heard the album the way almost everyone else in the world had heard it.  He built it, take-by-take, song-by-song. 

Imagine that. It strikes me as something almost quantum:  "I can't see it because I created it."

The New Yorker, 5/7/7: Shouts & Murmurs

What I Am

by Ian Frazier, May 7, 2007

One of my jobs around the house is to load and run the dishwasher. I believe I do this job very successfully. The other day, I loaded both racks, top and bottom, according to a special method that I have. Then I turned the machine on. As a result of some mishap, during the wash cycle a number of the dishes were broken, including a serving dish with a pattern of leaves and olives which my wife had particularly liked. While unloading the dishwasher, she discovered the breakage, and she brought the pieces of the dish to show me. I expressed sympathy and then began to describe my method of dishwasher loading. This did not make much headway with her, because she disagrees with my method and in fact has asked me several times not to use it. I kept trying to explain, and in the course of the discussion just for a second she lost control and said something hurtful and unkind. I will not go into details, except to say that she referred to me as an “idiot” (quotation marks mine).

O.K.; point taken. Based on some of the things I do and their consequences, her characterization of me is not inaccurate, as far as it goes. What I object to isn’t so much that as the terminology employed. Quite simply, “idiot” is not a nice word to call somebody, and I find myself asking, as Mr. Welch did of Senator Joseph McCarthy, “Have you no sense of decency, sir?” Throughout my life, I have had to struggle to keep from thinking of myself in the limiting way that word implies. So, for the record, I would like it known that I am not an “idiot.” I am a person who suffers from idiocy. Nobody knows what it is like to deal with crippling bouts of idiocy while trying to lead a normal life. The last thing I need is for somebody to make it harder by pointing out what an “idiot” I am. [more]

ZBS: Steer With Your Ears

The summer of 19..., well, it was long ago and far away.  I was living in Astoria, Queens and on Friday nights on WNYC there appeared a radio serial, Moon Over Morocco produced by ZBS.  It became deeply imprinted on my head.  So I did some research and learned that this was one of several different radio productions from ZBS and that it has a long and illustrious history as a recording facility in Fort Edward, NY. 

The first, and most important thing about ZBS productions is how well written they are.  The second thing to notice is how well-produced they are.  Using a technique called binarual recording, they are able to capture and create sounds that are some of the most amazing things you'll ever hear. 

After listening to many different productions, my favorite is still Moon Over Morocco and highly recommend it.  It tells the story of Jack Flanders, a recurring character across many different shows under the title, Travels With Jack.  In the case of Moon Over Morocco, ZBS also incorporates sounds recorded by Paul Bowles.

Recently, I had a wonderful experience.  Just to see what would happen, I played the opening of Moon Over Morocco for my nine-year-old, a very opinionated young lady.  And she fell headlong in love with it and couldn't listen to it fast enough.  And I always hear something new every time I listen.  Recently, ZBS announced it is releasing Moon Over Morocco in its original radio format, fifty episodes, and is even making it available for free download before offering on CD. 

And it wouldn't be fair for me to conclude this post without attributing the source of the title, Steer with you ears."  This is from another master of audio production, Ken Nordine, who produced a series of programs called Word Jazz.  Mr. Nordine is due many kudos too.

The McKinsey Quarterly: The CEO's role in leading transformation

The McKinsey Quarterly offers a free email subscription and access to a few, select articles.  Free.  Great value.  Its latest update includes an article entitled The CEO's Role in Leading Transformation.  Here's the sub-head: "The CEO helps a transformation succeed by communicating its significance, modeling the desired changes, building a strong top team, and getting personally involved."  Highly recommended. 

Although the article doesn't go into tremendous detail about the "communication" aspect of leading transformation, but of course it's interesting  to me that it leads with this.  The article also includes this: "Sharing success stories helps crystallize the meaning of the transformation and gives people confidence that it will actually work." 

A lot of the work I've focused on during the past ten years has focused on "executive communications" and, truth is, it has steadily become the most demanded service I offer.   So, a friend of mine recently called me up and  to quiz me on executive communications -- and I was quite pleased I passed the test.  The gist of the quiz is based on Moses and his brother, Aaron.  When asked to lead the Jews, Moses tells God that he might not be up to the challenge as he doesn't speak well.  "Lord, open my breast, and do Thou ease for me my task, Unloose the knot upon my tongue, that they may understand my words."   Midrash says that Aaron's role was to help the people understand Moses.

Anyway, I encourage you to enroll for the free emails from McKinsey and, to help you see the value, I'm gifting you the free .pdf that was distributed to members this week. 

Download the .pdf of The CEO's Role in Leading Transformation

This is not a political post

In today's media, Vice President Dick Cheney is quoted as saying, ''a policy of retreat.''  His audience was an aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk, an aircraft carrier at Yokosuka Navy Base near Tokyo.  I'm sure he received a very enthusiastic reception.  --Let's not review the politics, just the rhetoric because this administration seems to have an issue keeping some essential points of rhetoric straight. 

We'll establish the starting point for this as the administration's "war on terror."  Media starlets ranging from Jon Stewart to Maureen Dowd have criticized the administration for mixing up the concepts of strategies and tactics.  Terror is a tactic.  War is a strategy.  Nation building is a strategy.  More democracy is a goal.  Better health care is a goal.  --This is not an easy rhetorical framework to manage.  I've written many public relations plans and learned how to do this from a master of the art and craft.  Most public relations plans are structured under sub-heads like "objectives," "strategies," "tactics" and "measurement." 

But back to today's example:  Cheney's rhetoric is that  retreat is a policy.  I believe that retreat is a tactic and would prefer to leave the tactics of how to win a war to the Pentagon and other military experts.  If I were in a battle and the officer in charge said it was time to retreat, I would absolutely believe and trust him (or her).  So, rhetorically speaking, Cheney believes these military tactics are actually elements of policy and does anyone really care? 

Well, I do, obviously.  I believe language is sacred, literally.  In the political and business realms, language is not all but it plays an important and vital role.  And when --  either by accident or design -- our rhetoric is sloppy, then we can't expect much in return.  In Cheney's case, history will assay the results in the kiln of time.  In the meantime, I will leave you, gentle reader, with a quote from the 1985 NYTimes obituary of Robert Fitzgerald, a professor of rhetoric and oratory at Harvard.who translated many of the classics of the Western Canon.  I've carried this with me for more than twenty years now.  It's something Fitzgerald wrote for the fiftieth anniversary report of the Harvard class of 1933:   

So hard at best is the lot of man, and so great is the beauty he can apprehend, that only a religious conception of things can take in the extremes and meet the case.  Our lifetimes have seen the opening of abysses before which the mind quails.  But is seems to me there are a few things everyone can humbly try to hold onto:  love and mercy (and humor) in everyday living; the quest for exact truth in language and affairs of the intellect; self-recollection or prayer; and the peace, the composed energy of art.   

There are reasons for me to believe that the current administration either doesn't, or can't, appreciate Fitzgerald's framework.

As it has been...

This has been a repository of media coverage and other articles of my work.  As I've turned in this made-up career, I'm receiving encouragement from friends to post here more frequently on issues pertaining to public relations and not just the work of my own hands. 

I have a mental list of Important Thing's I've Learned and one is about opinions.  The setting for this lesson was after a couple of beers in the hallway of a dormitory at the University of  Missouri and my teacher was a peer, Rob Horn (aka "Tooter").  The lesson was based on a riddle.  Why are opinions like (a certain anatomical part)?  Because everyone has one and they all smell bad.  And I've carried that lesson close to me for several years now and it's influenced what I've posted here perhaps too much.  So, now you can expect to see more opinion and commentary here, for better or worse. 

And I would deeply appreciate any guidance you have to offer me. 

Worlds of Awe...

...Try it.  You might like it.