Some people in our church became possessed, some months ago, by the very good idea that people might donate all or a portion of their forthcoming economic stimulus rebates to charity. Many conversations ensued. Our church has come up with its own strategy to encourage its members to do that. In addition, the local Interfaith Council ran a little op ed in the local paper, penned by yours truly.
Since it was published on the day la bambina was born, I missed it. Here's the link if you're interested.
For about a year now I've been receiving a daily Yahoo group mailing called "Media Squatters." It's a bunch of media nerds like Douglass Rushkoff discussing marketing, politics, and consumer culture. Most days I don't have time to really follow the conversation, but today someone shared something really great.
It's a panel show that lightheartedly dissects how advertising works and, as the show's catchline says, "how it works on you." Each episode features a snarky little host joined by four advertising "experts" who offer their witty suspicions about the motives and methods behind major advertising campaigns. It's a bit glib and self-satisfied, yet it also stops short of sanctimony. For example, one of the running gags of the show is called "Sell It," where executives from well-known advertising agencies try to out-do one another in crafting a commercial for the unthinkable. In the first episode, the unsellable product was Japanese whale meat. The execs participate eagerly, openly acknowledge that theirs is a craft that can hock garbage and gold with equal vigor.
Give it a look. You can subscribe to new episodes using iTunes. Below is a clip from the first episode (Note the content warning at the beginning).
Seriously, waiting to have a baby is the best way to sightsee.
Our due date was last Tuesday, May 13th, and so for the past two weeks we have been treating each day as if it could be THE day: the bag is packed and goes with us in the car (along with the giant blue "birth ball").
Walking is supposed to help bring on labor. So we've done a lot of that.
We've walked around the local botanical garden.
We've walked around the local college campus and taken in the university art museum.
We've walked around all morning at the Los Angeles Zoo
Meredith even took a picture of me.
If baby doesn't hurry, there's no telling what I'll look like.
Two weeks ago my buddy Alan told me this crazy story about how he'd received this random phone call from a Rocky Mountain News reporter asking about his mother. I listened intently (I've had breakfast with Alan's mother) as he narrated a saga of lost family jewels that had been recovered by this reporter and the unexplainable search for their owner.
Well, that reporter printed the story, and you can read it here.
Just a few of the more remarkable excerpts:
She opened the envelope. Inside were silk pouches. Inside the pouches was jewelry. Jade. Gold. Pearls. Coral. Necklaces and rings and earrings. A small gold Buddha figure, studded with diamonds.
Then this:
She and her colleague spread the jewelry out on a table in a back room near a vault in the treasurer's office. The bank reported the box abandoned in 2005, which told McKee that rent had not been paid for at least five years. It belonged to Nora Wang, address unknown.
And here's where my boy makes his appearance:
I troll the Internet and start making calls. Two hours later, I find an ex-brother-in-law in Memphis, Tenn. Ten minutes later, I reach his nephew, Alan Wang, Nora's son.
"I can't believe this," he says. "Do you know how long we've been looking for this box?"
"Do you know what's in it?" I ask.
"Jewels," he says. "They came from my grandmother and my aunt. Some date back to the Mongolian empire. We've been looking for this box for 10 years. We thought it was stolen. You have no idea what this means."
He says his mom will break down when she hears, that the jewelry was the archive of family memory and she always said the one thing she wanted was to see it again.
Seriously, how often do you get a story like this? What's lost is found; altruism wins the day; we're all connected.
Good news is always good, but sometimes it's really good. Something tells me this news is really good.
There it was last night, the proud American Idol taking to the stage as a featured performer on the blockbuster show's penultimate episode. Introduced as the winner who has gone on to conquer not only the charts but Broadway as well, Fantasia Barrino stormed the set with three back-up dancers, pink hair, and audibly gnarled vocal cords.
Two minutes into the performance I was thinking, "What exactly is happening here?"
It's a fair question, and one that NPH readers have inquired about throughout the day. Really, what was that? A comeback performance by an established star, or a wild and desperate trainwreck?
P.S.: A special thanks to Fantasia Barrino for reminding "Idol" viewers what musical excitement looks and sounds like with her fiery, funky rendition of "Bore Me (Yawn)," from her last album. Unpredictable, raw, dangerously close to chaotic, Fantasia's performance recalled how the best music on television once felt -- like something breaking through the screen. Simon, of course, looked horrified. Thank goodness he wasn't a judge at Janis Joplin's audition.
But in the force field of inertia and calculated wholesomeness that is "Idol," it's as if she's been put on mute. Even so, Fantasia's performance is way grittier, far more spontaneous, than anything else on the show.
Judge Simon Cowell looks terrified. And that alone, folks, is worth the price of admission.
I'll give Moraes that the it was gritty and spontaneous. Those are virtues in a musical performance, but they don't really make for good tv. And American Idol is TV. If nothing else, Fantasia shocked Idol viewers awake, viewers who have been lulled to sleep by week-in-week-out meticulously packaged 90 second lullabies.
You tell me if it's the same performance. Or did the producers replay the ending from Archuleta's dress rehearsal performance? In the first one, the young crooner's voice audibly gives out as he transitions to his falsetto. In the second, it's flawless.
I have a suspicion the producers of American Idol really want the wunderkind to win.
