Day: August 16, 2008

Categories
The Next Good Idea

Old School: A Universal Greeting

Yesterday, Wired pointed out one of the more simple inventions of Thomas Edison.  And it occurred yesterday 131 years ago.  Sure, Alexander Grahm Bell invented the telephone, but the wizard of Menlo Park came up with what we needed to really get the conversation started.   

Who gets the credit the for today’s variations (“Yo”, “‘s Up?”)?  Simple good ideas to put people at ease.
Categories
The Next Good Idea

Increase Teachers’ Salaries

Talk about a poor investment in our future…  My sister teaches in the NYC Public High Schools.  Coming from a long line of educators, I have forever been shocked at how little teachers are paid in this country.  If salaries are evidence of how our culture values something, it’s clear no one is really concerned about education.  It only makes sense to put our greatest emphasis on education.

The film blog Thompson On Hollywood, hipped me to a new doc that David Eggers and Vanessa Roth are working on that will hopefully wake us up to this situation.  There is also a good related website called theteachersalaryproject.com that points out many things, like half the teachers have to hold down a second job to survive on the starting salary and teachers make 88 cents on the dollar to comparable positions.

Evidently, a lot of this is collected in the book: Teachers Have It Easy: The Big Sacrifices and Small Salaries of America’s Teachers, that Eggers co-authored.
Categories
Bowl Of Noses

Real Live Pokemon!


Well, maybe not “real”.  And maybe not “live”.  But sorta.  

We’ve been trying to figure out a way to make Pokemon’s debut in The Bowl and Worth1000 “nose” the way.  Check this out; about 50 or so Pokemons make the transition into the photo world across their two contests.

Categories
Issues and Actions

Humanity Lobotomy

The team behind the indie hit FOUR EYED MONSTORS is making a doc on Net Neutrality and needs everyone’s help.  They have a trailer up here.  Check it out.


Save the Internet | Rock the Vote

Categories
These Are Those Things

Jeffrey Lewis Is The Truth Of Now

Early this year, we stumbled into a show at Joe’s Pub.  We were there to see some folkie that there was some buzz about.  Luckily there was some guy all alone at his table with great sight lines and we invited ourselves to join him.  Then Jeffrey Lewis took the stage.

Somehow we knew nothing about Jeffrey.  He wasn’t whom we came to see.  On top of it all, he was even performing his own songs but those of the Anarcho Punk band CRASS who I also knew absolutely nothing about.  The night remains one of my favorite rock events ever!  Okay, not quite X’s Wild Gift tour at Boston’s The Channel, with Mission of Burma opening, but still, right up there, and that other one was sooo long ago.
Jeffrey has an incredible body of work.  I have now bought or otherwise acquired virtually all of it and it thrills me repeatedly.  The songs are consistently a blast, funny & wise, and occasionally work their way deep into my subconscious.  I love his comic books, but his histories (The History Of Lower East Side Punk, Of Communism, Of The Fall) really get me.  Now he’s written something on the NYTimes’ consistently great Measure For Measure blog that is the music equivalent of Jonathan Lethem’s piece on influences earlier this year.
I look forward to this world where Jeffrey Lewis continues to consistently makes all kinds of stuff to delight and wake us up.  There’s so much of it out there, I am going to have to make it a couple of posts, so stay tuned.
The Complete History of Punk Rock:

The History Of Communism (Parts 1 & 2):
Categories
Bowl Of Noses

Styles Of Animation #2

Okay, so now I have to admit TV commercials can be good.  United Airlines has been doing a great campaign, giving home to styles of animation not seen elsewhere.  I particularly LOVE this one (which is very reminiscent of David Eisner’s work).

Another good one of theirs is this one below.  Here’s to paper cut out animation!