Apple gets another pound of flesh

All right. I did it. I ordered the 10.5 OS. I was pissed when they released 10.4 soon after we got our Mac....It was one more reason for L to be convinced that Apple was an expert in sucking users dry rather than crafting elegant hardware. (This leads to at least one "fun conversation" w/ my brother, who gets his paycheck from Apple, during any given visit to AZ....but I digress...)

I remember being floored as a colleague of mine in school was so INTO getting his 10.4 in the mail....Like it was opening night for a film he'd been waiting YEARS to see....I can recognize the need for upgrades, and even the need for paying for it...But it still made us miserable that this $1000+ machine we'd bought seemed already....out of date. This must have been what the folks who didn't wait for the Video iPod felt like. Or the folks who saw the iPhone price plummet. Still, Apple stock continues to go through the roof, and my bro (who gets stock options as part of his gig, to the best of my knowledge) continues to wax rhapsodic about Steve & Co.

I guess there's something to it, because I just ponied up over $100 for the new OS (maybe we can work out some of our surfing bugs this way? maybe???).....But I do it with a sense of inevitability and even resentment, rather than excitement.

Here's a link to Apple's "guided tour" of the new OS: http://www.apple.com/macosx/

Me, I hope I don't crash the hard drive upon installing....Computer Love, indeed....

Lucky Dube, RIP

I just found out this morning that Lucky Dube, a giant in world reggae, was killed in front of his children in an apparent carjacking this past Thursday. He came out of South Africa, but his impact was truly global. What a waste--what a loss.

When I was doing work for WFHB in Bloomington, I got a chance to review his last album, called THE OTHER SIDE. The title track to that is brilliant--seek it out if you have a chance. Not finding that on the global jukebox that is YouTube, I offer another clip to get a sense of who he was and what he was on about.

The Good Ol' CBC

So I had to get up REALLY early one morning this week (the reasons are already hazy to me). Like usual, I turned on the radio, but instead of going to one of my usual suspects (NPR, ESPN radio) I kept going, I guess trying to pull in the Cleveland AM station (WTAM--1100)....

I guess I never got there, as instead I found a local outlet of the Canadian Broadcasting Channel (the CBC)....I used to listen to the CBC when I had a bad bad BAD job at a mall in the Twin Cities, and Quebec was THIS CLOSE from secession.

Anyhow, the local CBC on AM is on 1070, from Moncton, New Brunswick. If you'd rather check them out on the web, you can click and stream from this link: http://www.cbc.ca/informationmorningmoncton/

Of course this begs the question of what Moncton looks like. Which, apparently, is something like what you see above....

Has anyone travelled much in New Brunswick and/or Nova Scotia? I sense a summer roadtrip in the making.....

How's Your News (revisited)?

I was listening to a podcast of THIS AMERICAN LIFE while running this weekend, and the show did a repeat of a feature they did on a film called HOW'S YOUR NEWS? (The website for the movie, which includes a link to this radio feature, is: http://www.howsyournews.com ) I got a chance to see it a few years back, and thought it was great--especially the music! There's some real wisdom swirling around, here.

As a taste, here's one of the reporters talking about Texas....



Now I lived in Texas for two years, and I'd say this is pretty spot on.

These developmentally disabled reporters are folks that, in the pre-nonlinear computer editing, pre-camcorder era, had little to no access to be the SUBJECT of media output, much less the PRODUCERS of such output.....This is a nice example of what Jenkins might call the grassroots-enabled production. Check it out!

boom boom boom boom

Only a few weeks until school starts, and then we're in for some serious blogging shenanigans, so I think I need to spend the next few weeks in "training camp" (aka rural Lithuania) getting myself up to speed.....

As an opening salvo, let me sing the praises of Robert Palmer's book DEEP BLUES (1982), which I nicked from my dad's bookcase on this past week's trip to AZ. My dad has the advantage of age AND wisdom, which means that it takes me a while to catch up with him....and beginning to grok the blues is just another example. From my dad, I got into John Lee Hooker, Mississippi John Hurt, Rainer Ptacek, Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters....yadda yadda yadda. Palmer's book helps provide a clear, encompassing cultural history of Delta blues....a good a roadmap as anything I know to start getting into the blues.

Here's an early '60s clip of John Lee Hooker, as an appetizer:



We're heading to Lithuania tonight, so we'll see how I do with postings....But we'll be in touch.

Click "shuffle," press "play....

The question has been raised by Jason....what's on my mind? Heck if I know.

But I can one-up that: what's on my iPod? The next ten songs are generated at random off my server....And as an added bonus, I'm embedding video clips of the songs or something quite similar....Play along at home!

1. Neil Young, "Let's Impeach the President"--No kidding, this was the first song that came up. Hmmm: I'll give you one guess who I didn't vote for in '04. This was the "single" off of LIVING WITH WAR....I haven't heard the new/old live disc that came out this summer. I grew up w/ Neil Young records from as young as I could grasp my dad's vinyl copy of FOUR WAY STREET.



2. Sara Tavares, "Balancê"--This is a track I came across when I was DJing world music at a community radio station in Bloomington, IN. Tavares is of Cape Verdean descent, but born and based out of Portugal. Gorgeous voice--gorgeous melody.



3. Madeline Peyroux, "Was I?"--My wife is a huge fan of Peyroux, and I'm a convert....We missed her live twice in the last year, and we won't make the same mistake three times in a row. Peyroux does a killer Patsy Cline cover on this disc (DREAMLAND).



4. Lô Borges, "Equitorial"--This is a track from one of the first world music collections I ever had, the David Byrne-compiled BELEZA TROPICAL: BRAZIL CLASSICS 1.



5. Andrius Mamontovas, "Pauksčiai"--What do you know...this is the guy whose videos I have YouTubed on the bottom of my blog....I got a chance to interview him a few times for my various projects, and also saw him live several times off of this 2000 album whose title translates as EVERY WINDOW LOOKS TO THE SKY. Here's another track from that album, recorded live @ Lithuanian TV:



6. Mahala Raï Banda, "Iest Sexy"--Brilliant track that arrived on the sampler with the British world music magazine SONGLINES a few years back. Roma brass with a Justin Timberlake-esque swagger. Infectuous. The clip I found seems to be staring down Borat without blinking...



7. REM, "Electrolite"--REM and U2 were the bands I grew up with through high school, college, and beyond....Saw them on the DOCUMENT tour in 1987 or 1988, which was--wait for it--my freshman year at Gustavus. Yep. Do the math. I was previously unaware they had redone "Shiny Happy People" w/ the Muppets. Who knew?



8. Maria Bethânia, "Sonho Meu"--What's this?! Yet another track off of BELEZA TROPICAL?! Do you ever wonder if your electronics are trying to tell you something? Here's something a little more contemporary from Brazil:



9. Lush, "Scarlet"--Back when you all were pondering the pros and cons of kindergarden (!), we were agog over a four-piece out of England who sounded dreamy and loud as all get out. Search for "shoegazing" on Wikipedia for kicks. How did they come up with those harmonies? This is a track from one of their early EPs....Sadly, the band went defunct when the drummer killed himself. Here's another single from this period called "Sweetness and Light."



10. Os Mutantes, "Bat Macumba"--OK, three Brazilian songs from 10 at random?! I think not. This is from the import compilation TROPICALIA--A BRAZILIAN REVOLUTION IN SOUND. Os Mutantes translates as "The Mutants," if I remember right, and you can hear how they're messing about in the studio big time. Late 60s / early 70s? But the clip is from a more recent tour...



So that's newest latest here at the Ingvoldstad household. Hope there's something there you like!

Got podcasts?

Something I've started to use this spring has been podcasts....once I realized how painfully easy it was, I was in....The biggest problem is that it's like subscribing to more magazines and / or newspapers than I can keep up with...Every now and then you just have to write off good intentions and hit the DELETE button liberally.

So I'm curious to know: do you all podcast? Audio or video? Which do you particularly like, and why?

Because THREE (3) is a nice round number, here are three of my faves, to get the ball rolling.....

1) DIGITAL PLANET (BBC [British Broadcasting Service])--When I lived in Europe, I had a shortwave radio receiver, and fell in love w/ listening to the BBC. Now, of course, you can access all their various streams on the Web (a good thing, seeing as they've stopped shortwave service to North America), yet having to coordinate times to catch particular shows can be tricky. Podcasting has become my BBC radio TIVO....although not everything I'd like is available (o why won't they podcast EUROPE TODAY?) Still, I do get several streams, including a news digest and a commentary magazine. DIGITAL PLANET is notable for its weekly foray into new ways technology is being applied and implemented....I remember J wondering how much further cell phones could be pushed last week in class--and I think we all wonder that about any number of technologies...DIGITAL PLANET is something of a mind-stretcher that has opened me up to a wider range of technological potentials (and pitfalls too, but mostly potentials....it maintains a positive spin on tech world).....more info at http://www.bbc.co.uk , or search in iTunes.

2) THIS AMERICAN LIFE (NPR [National Public Radio] / WBEZ-CHICAGO)--Part of the Sunday Family Ritual in Bloomie was reading the Sunday papers in bed, listening to WEEKEND EDITION until 10, then THIS AMERICAN LIFE for the next hour after that. Ira Glass is brilliant--we got to see him on a tour preparing to try to move the show to Showtime as well....But as a radio guy, he's tops. The show excels at throwing you curveballs, truly "making the familiar strange." We're going to use a comic book he put together on how to do a radio show for my COMM 399 "Radio Studies" course this fall....more info at http://www.npr.org , or search in iTunes.

3) THE CURRENT SONG OF THE DAY (MPR [Minnesota Public Radio])--They blip me a new song for free every weekday that their hipster station is breaking. Invariably songs are piling up, but when I dig through I find some real jems amidst the so-so tracks....Also like the idea of them promoting local (MN) artist about once a week....(Wouldn't you like to get blipped new local Mass Music weekly? Being a recent transplant, I know I would, anyway....Dropkick who?).....Best track since subscribing: The Stooges' "My Idea of Fun"! More at http://minnesota.publicradio.org or on iTunes....

Come to think of it, all these podcasts originate from non-commercial public radio. That fits my listening pattern otherwise these past few years.....

So how about it? What kinds of podcasts do you all enjoy?

Making Media Now....

...That's the name of the conference I was able to attend this last Friday at BU (thanks to my departmental travel grant). It was a one-day gathering of local media producers, with a particular emphasis on going digital. Highlights:

CAMERA SEMINAR--John Rule of Rule Broadcast Systems showed a series of High Definition (HD) cameras now out on the market for sale and/or rental. HD has become industry standard, and while high-end cameras are going for $25k and up, they're available for rental (which is usually the way productions go). My curiousity was piqued by the Panasonic P2, which was referred to as a "21st Century Bolex" (look it up)....A P2 is still a hefty investment for the department, but I Have A Dream....

DEMYSTIFYING DIGITAL FORMATS--720p vs 1080i vs 1080p....HD vs SD (Standard Definition! Who knew?)......The panel was moderated by Ed Krasnow from Massasoit, who was excellent....Conferences like this are ways for folks like us to finally meet one another, even if it seems crazy that we have to go to Boston (or points further) to do it....

PUTTING IT ALL INTO PERSPECTIVE--David Tames spoke as we finished our box lunches (mmmm, roast beef) on how he saw digital convergence finally locking into place. It felt like he gave us homework assignments, but in a good way. Need to check out blip.tv and joost (pronounced JUICED, I think some Estonians put that together if I am not mistaken)....Also, in addition to the aformentioned Henry Jenkins book CONVERGENCE CULTURE, he also recommended THE WEALTH OF NETWORKS (2006), THE LONG TAIL (2006), and THE FUTURE OF WEB VIDEO (2006)....

PRODUCING AND DELIVERING SHORT VIDEO ON THE WEB--David Tames of kino-eye.com and the lunch talk moderated this panel that was 2/3rds industry, 1/3rd academia. Mike Hudack from blip.tv and Joe Hurd from VideoEgg both discussed their video platform business models...Both are worth a look if you're interested in video blogging or seeing what folks are putting up as far as non-TV "TV shows" on the web....Anna von Someren from MIT had the most provocative take of the three, from my perspective. In discussing web aesthetics, she shifts away from things like cinematography and editing, emphasizing instead the importance of the end-user, emphasizing the importance of "context-based content," participation, and dynamism....To me, von Someren seemed to gesture towards our 220 discussion of multi-platform narrative from last week.

MAKING CONTENT INTERACTIVE--Michelle Haslell is a web consultant and co-founder of NYC-based Missing Pixel. Go to their site www.missingpixel.net to get a sense of the businesses connecting traditional and new media. To produce and maintain a low-end site, they're getting $1-15k; for mid-range, $25-60k; and high-end stuff nets $80-150k. The work flow necessary to make any interactive site worth its bandwidth is eye-opening....

Conferences like this are important for the mental stimulation, for the networking, for the product exposure, and for the teaching resources I'm able to bring back home. My advice: keep an eye out for opportunities to attend such conferences this next year....Heck, think about PRESENTING at one of these conferences! A good place to start is the BSC Undergraduate Research Symposium, held every semester....why not you?

Syllabus 2.0

I sat down yesterday in the backyard, and found myself revamping the syllabus. Why do professors do such things? Behind the scenes, I think we like to think we're good tinkerers. Or, at least, that tinkering is important.

Moving a syllabus used in a regular semester to a 4-week summer session takes some adaptation. Plus, I'm going from 20-25 students down to a half-dozen. Constraints and opportunities...and Syllabus 1.0 wasn't taking full notice and advantage. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

No coincidence that I finished Henry Jenkins' CONVERGENCE CULTURE for 396 prep yesterday...Jenkins gestures towards media literacy, and in particular the fostering of a more participatory media culture, as his key pedagogical issue. Reading him this month (both this and FANS, GAMERS & BLOGGERS) pushed me to have students make blogs like this. But with a class of six, I realize I can bring in some additional production stuff the textbook offers and still keep it managable.

So a few chapters in theory are off, a whole week on media production practices is on, and a third chapter of media debates (docs & reality tv) are also now in the mix.

Plus, time-management issues gesture towards in-class screenings. Mr Ledezma would be proud of me.

Now if I could only get someone to post a comment....

Hope this doesn't B to the L-O-W

What can I say--this is a test run....Seems to me that everyone taking a media class in 2007 should have their own blog....Can I get a witness?!