Evan Williams sobre Twitter

Lecturas de John Irving

I read Charles Dickens when I was 14 or 15. It might be hard for many 14, 15-year-olds today to read Dickens. That language seems so old fashioned, if not exactly dated, to us now -- the amount of detail, the sheer complexities of those stories and plots. But those were the novels I read that made me want to write novels. If I had read, frankly, some more modern or post-modern novels at the time, I might have wanted to do something else. I've always been a fan of the 19th century novel, of the novel that is plotted, character-driven, and where the passage of time is almost as central to the novel as a major minor character, the passage of time and its effect on the characters in the story. Those old 19th century novels, all of them long, all of them complicated, all of them plotted. Not just Dickens, but especially Dickens, but also George Eliot, Thomas Hardy. And among the Americans, Melville and Hawthorne always meant more to me than Hemingway, Faulkner, Fitzgerald. I'm not a modern guy.

Entrevista de trabajo

... hay una instantánea Polaroid colgada en la pared a modo de obra pictórica de grandes vuelos. Una pareja abrazada. El momento deja entrever un día de excursión por una zona boscosa. No parece fuera de México. La fotografía está pegada a una pared con corcho. Ninguna raspadura evidente. Bajo la vista y veo mis zapatos. Nadie llega. Comienzo a desesperarme. Procuro no lucir incómodo. Esta entrevista de trabajo no necesita un gran respaldo académico. Sólo requiere de una concentración férrea. Llevo los condones que me pidieron y una sencilla solicitud de empleo.

De pronto, el silencio resulta perturbado. Un tipo me pregunta si estoy listo. La frase me parece distante e indescifrable. Digo que sí, y asiento con la cabeza al mismo tiempo. Me pide que me levante y conforme lo hago mi vista apunta por última vez a la fotografía

Al otro lado del pasillo mal iluminado se escuchan voces. Me siento como un campeón boxístico al que le aguardan 12 rounds. Pero yo no tengo guantes Cleto-Reyes. Mis puños van desnudos. Una reducida audiencia me espera. Se notan absorbidos por una curiosidad maligna. Podría decir que casi adolescente.

Del grupo de seis personas, una mujer, cuya edad debe rondar los 40 años, me pide la solicitud.

-Pendejadas necesarias, tesoro- alcanza a decirme.

Le doy el papel. Sin más preámbulos, me dice que me desnude. Se toma la precaución de revisarme el pene. Una especialista formada en las calles. Tiene guantes de látex que le cubren las manos. Parece que es con ella mi debut, lo medito. Ya sin nada encima me preguntan mi nombre. Se los digo. Me parece cómico que me saluden. La habitación no es muy grande. El público parece impaciente. De pronto me doy cuenta que me equivoqué. Mi gran acto sería con una joven de apariencia acapulqueña, que bien podría pasar como la hermana de José Agustín.

Otro tipo de memorial para Michael Jackson

WTF

MORELIA, Mexico (AP) -- Employees of a Mexican cell-phone store say thieves broke in overnight and took over three dozen fake display phones, leaving behind real models and money.
Call it a case of dead cells, but in the brain.
Employees of Telefonica Movistar in the city of Morelia say they arrived Tuesday morning to find the store broken into.
But further examination showed the only things missing were hollow plastic replica phones completely useless for making phone calls.
Employees say the dimwitted thieves overlooked real cell phones and cash located in another part of the store. Store owners nonetheless reported the theft to local police, who are investigating.
It's safe to say the thieves won't be calling to turn themselves in.

Twitteros del mundo de los medios

De acuerdo con Ad-Age estás son 25 personas a las que deberíamos seguir en Twitter:

Jason Calacanis, founder of Weblogs, TechCrunch50 and Maholo
Follow: @JasonCalacanis
Tweet: "At Michael Eisner panel on television: 'jay leno at 10pm is the death rattle' for network tv. #aif09"

Ian Schafer, CEO of interactive agency Deep Focus
Follow: @ischafer
Tweet: "Proof that it's never been easier/cheaper to create good content. The LARP (live action role-playing) Rap. http://bit.ly/bbx7V"

Peter Hirshberg, chairman of the Conversation Group, an agency he co-founded; former Gloss.com CEO and Apple marketing exec
Follow: @@hirshberg
Tweet: "#aif09 TV panel waxes poetic about content, skirts issue of how it gets paid for. ABCs Westin: if content is good, we'll figure out $$$ (!?)"

Rachel Sterne, CEO of hyperlocal citizen-news platform GroundReport
Follow: @RachelSterne
Tweet: "Twitter's secret sauce: it's a platform, not a destination. 80% of participation is through third parties. http://bit.ly/3AiLy @GuardianTech"

Howard Rheingold, "online instigator" and author of "Smart Mobs"
Follow: @hrheingold
Tweet: "Revised draft of Crap Detection 101 now up, will add resources as they are suggested: http://bit.ly/HZjPm"

Chuck Peters, CEO of the Gazette Co. in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, working on the "concepts for a new ecosystem of local information"
Follow: @cpetersia
Tweet: "Focus on the network, not websites, when designing content http://bit.ly/H4m0a"

Mary Madden, senior research specialist, Pew Internet and American Life Project
Follow: @mary_madden
Tweet: "Snip from Judith Donath's fascinating talk today: "Our society is a tug of war between honesty and faking different signals"

Vanessa Pappas, director of programming at Next New Networks, whose online TV networks include Barely Political and Channel Frederator
Follow: @v_ness
Tweet: "joost no longer trying to compete with hulu or Youtube, changes business model http://bit.ly/tgO0g"

Fred Wilson, managing partner at Union Square Ventures, which has investments in companies including Twitter, Boxee, Clickable and Outside.in.
Follow: @fredwilson
Tweet: "Looking forward to peter lugers tonight with @jsepoch. Were gonna talk about earned media and 70 year old authors who self publish"

Miles Nadal, chairman and CEO, MDC Partners
Follow: @milesnadal
Tweet: "The expected pickup in Advertising Spending in the second half of 2009 is being deferred to Q1 2010 at the earliest."

Alan Meckler, chairman-CEO of WebMediaBrands, which runs Mediabistro, Internet.com and Graphics.com
Follow: @alanmeckler
Tweet: "HuffPo NYC is only going to burn more money for this PR grabbing blog. Now there are about 100 (1000?) blogs covering NYC in depth."

Dana Boyd, researcher at Microsoft Research New England and a Fellow at the Harvard Berkman Center for Internet and Society
Follow: @zephoria
Tweet: "Is generation a meaningful category for analysis today? (Not that generation was universally meaningful before...)"

Muhammad Saleem, writer and social media strategist
Follow: @msaleem
Tweet: "Amazon isn't blinking. Says buh-bye to Rhode Island and Hawaii (in addition to North Carolina): http://digg.com/u179yW"

Wired Research, offering research notes from Wired magazine's fact-checking department
Follow: @WiredResearch
Tweet: "In Q1, VC investment in the US, spread across 549 deals, reached just $3 billion - the lowest quarterly level since '97."

The Knight Foundation, trying to help "transform both communities and journalism"
Follow: @knightfdn
Tweet: "5 tips from a news entrepreneur bootstrapping her biz, from the Knight Digital Media Center: http://bit.ly/o7gG2"

BBH Labs, the "innovation unit" at BBH
Follow: @BBHLabs
Tweet: "Spike Lee #Cannes: Same way you don't have to go to filmschool to be filmmaker you don't have to work in agency to make ads (via @tim)"

Jack Lail, director of news innovation at the Knoxville News Sentinel
Follow: @jacklail
Tweet: "I'd certainly agree that newspaper coverage of the industry's troubles has been shoddy & shallow. Sadly, that may be par. (via @yelvington)"

Ryan Sholin, director of news innovation at Publish2, "online news evangelist everywhere"
Follow: @ryansholin
Tweet: "Whoa, FriendFeed adds themes. Yes. Love it. Helvetica! http://ff.im/-4DBKb"

Ken Doctor, newspaper vet turned analyst at Outsell, blogger at Content Bridges
Follow: @kdoctor
Tweet: "Content Bridges: 1Cast hits mobile/video/social trifecta with iPhone news video app. http://bit.ly/kHPJH"

Peter Kafka, Media Memo blogger at All Things Digital
Follow: @pkafka
Tweet: "Illegal downloads, meet suspicious stock sales: The Pirate Bay saga gets even murkier http://bit.ly/1875gR"

Kurt Andersen, co-founder of Spy magazine, host of "Studio 360," columnist, novelist
Follow: @KBAndersen
Tweet: "BTW, in a novel 10 years ago, I created an all-celebrity-death news show ("obitutainment") called Finale http://snipr.com/kxhk7"

Ana Marie Cox, national correspondent for Air America Radio and former Wonkette
Follow: @anamariecox
Tweet: "My life is complete: I have seen former WH correspondent Richard Wolffe discussing Michael Jackson's children's future on the TV."

David Kaplan, correspondent for PaidContent.org
Follow: @davidaKaplan
Tweet: "With all the newspaper layoffs the past few years, I wonder hope many celeb obit writing jobs have been cut"

Brenna Hanly, emerging media specialist/assistant planner at Mullen
Follow: @brennahanly
Tweet: "You may not like change, but you'll like irrelevance even less -- quote from our new Emerging Media Room."

George Kliavkoff, executive VP and deputy group head, Hearst Entertainment and Syndication
Follow: @Kliavkoff
Tweet: "'I made the change from a common thief -- To up close and personal with Robin Leach' #favbiggielyrics"

Desánimo electoral

Ayer me decían "no tengo ganas de votar, no soy activista, lo que pasa es que trabajo con mucha gente humilde y al ver por lo que pasan, simplemente no me dan ganas, es una especie de decepción". La gente humilde de la que me platicaban incluía a gente que no tiene para pagar el gas o el agua, apenas tienen para lo mínimo. Hay una persona, me cuentan, que perdió un seno y su situación es precaria. Sus dramas familiares coinciden con el gasto de los partidos, el despilfarro que se ve en la propaganda electoral. Estamos en medio de la crisis, señalan, porque los partidos no dijeron, la situación está tan mal que recortaremos nuestro gasto a la mitad y destinamos los fondos a otra cosa, es decepcionante."

Por esos y muchas otras razones, hay gente con marcado desánimo y hace unos minutos vi esta foto subida por un usuario de twitter bajo el título "No soy dibujante, pero que bonito voto":



Es una lástima que la desilusión y el deterioro de la credibilidad de los partidos, lleve a estas manifestaciones.

Death Cab for Cutie-Little Bribes

Kinky-Those Girls

Lo de los bajos sigue y no hablo de luchadores

Sólo mencionar que Billie Jean tenía el mejor bajo de la historia provocó muchas críticas para quien se atrevió a decirlo y que está al aire durante las primeras horas del domingo en Imagen 90.5. Investigué quién era el bajista y resultó ser Louis Johnson:



Al tipo lo apodan Thunder Thumbs... con mucha razón:



Según entiendo, Quincy Jones llamó a Thunder Johnson como "closer" en la grabación de Billie Jean:

Lista atractiva

Hay mucha expectación en Estados Unidos, porque las próximas semanas y varios meses serán especialmente intensos en el mundo editorial. Se esperan los nuevos títulos de escritores emblemáticos. La lista es larga y por demás atractiva:

Julio:
Dave Eggers-Zeitoun
William T. Vollmann-Imperial

Agosto:
Thomas Pynchon-Inherent Vice
Richard Russo-That Old Cape Magic
Roberto Bolaño-The Skating Rink
Richard Powers-Generosity: An Enhancement
Lorrie Moore-A Gate at the Stairs.
Kazuo Ishiguro-Five Stories of Music and Nightfall

Septiembre:
Pete Dexter-Spooner
E.L. Doctorow-Homer & Langley
Margaret Atwood-The Year of the Flood
Nicholson Baker-In The Anthologist
John Irving-Last Night in Twisted River
William Trevor-Love and Summer.

Octubre:
Dave Eggers-Where the Wild Things Are
Jonathan Lethem-Chronic City
A.S. Byatt-The Children's Book

Noviembre:

Michael Lewis-The Big Short
Philip Roth-The Humbling,
Jonathan Safran Foer-Eating Animals


Vía The Millions

Bloc Party de estreno

El video de One More Chance, el más reciente sencillo de la banda, y muy divertido por cierto.

Se contagia la alegría y el desenfado

Si estuviera en Sasquatch pasándomela bien con las bandas, el clima y haciendo a lado cualquier mortificación, también me habría sumado a este tipo.



Vía Contricanis

La mosca, el pato y ahora...

Nuevo video de White, Benson y Co.

The Raconteurs "Old Enough"

Angel de Indiana

Estaba viendo en Stereogum que U2 también honró a Michael Jackson en su concierto de Barcelona y Bono lo llamó Angel of Indiana. De hecho Angel of Harlem se convirtió en Man in the Mirror y luego en Dont Stop Til you get enough:



El setlist:

01 "Breathe"
02 "No Line On The Horizon"
03 "Get On Your Boots"
04 "Magnificent"
05 "Beautiful Day"
06 "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" / "Movin' On Up" (snippet)
07 "Angel Of Harlem" / "Man In The Mirror" (snippet) / "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough" (snippet)
08 "In A Little While"
09 "Unknown Caller"
10 "The Unforgettable Fire"
11 "City Of Blinding Lights"
12 "Vertigo"
13 "I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight"
14 "Sunday Bloody Sunday"
15 "Pride (In The Name Of Love)"
16 "MLK"
17 "Walk On" / "You'll Never Walk Alone" (snippet)
18 "Where The Streets Have No Name"
19 "One"
////
20 "Ultra Violet (Light My Way)"
21 "With Or Without You"
22 "Moment of Surrender"

Billie Jean de otra forma

¿Esta versión es mejor que todo el disco nuevo de CC?

Primero la mosca y ahora...

Iron Man vs Bruce Lee

Qué desobligado

Luego de correr peligrosamente por algunas calles con mi perro (A.K.A. don Alberto) y escapar de un pastor belga, hice una playlist y supuse que tendría tiempo exacto para terminarla y llegar a tiempo a una junta, pero fallé. No me alcanzó el tiempo, al menos tengo en fila estas malditas canciones, espero suene bien, es más de una hora, más vale así sea:

1 Periodically Doble or Triple - Yo la Tengo
2 Lamb and the Lion - The Mae Shi
3 Sock you in the face with love - The XYZ Affaire
4 Firts Communion- Ganga Gang Dance (remix de TV on The Radio)
5 Summertime Clothes - Animal Collective (remix dam funk)
6 1901- Phoenix
7 Love is a wave - Crystal Stills
8 I´m confused -Handsome furs
9 In the dreamlife you need a rubber soul - The Clean
10 The Rake´s song - The Decemberists
11 Young hearts sparks fire- The Japandroids
12 Sacred tixter - Sonic Youth
13 False Jesii Part 2 - Pissed Jeans
14 Last night on earth - Green Day
15 Last dance - The Raveonettes
16 Gauze - Red Red Meat
17 Nothing to give - White Lies (M83 Remix)
18 Use somebody - Kings of Leon
19 Murder in the city - The Avett Brothers
20 In my secret life - Katie Melua
21 Alternative to love - Brendan Benson
22 Starting over - The Black Lips
23 Green river - Real Estate
24 Molalatladi - BLK JKS
25 Something is not right with me - Cold War Kids
26 Straight to hell - Lilly Allen & Mick Jones
27 The bitch went nutz - Ben Folds
28 Shut your mouth - The VonBondies
29 Angela - Jarvis Cocker