NYT Newsriver is baaack! (for awhile anyhow)

Here is a geeky link: http://nytimesriver.com/

This is a revival of Dave Winer's newsriver for the NYT.
If you like it, tell people about it and tell him how cool you think it is
on his comments page, which is at http://scripting.wordpress.com/

All text, in feed order, all links lead to printer friendly versions of the
stories. He just restored it, I have written him like a nut asking for it back after he killed it.

No nonsense and lots of peripheral newsreading. Cool, huh?

It is interesting to see how much more of the paper I check out when it is just a big old text list with links. The NYT podcasts are way more accessible this way as well.

Question I wished I had asked Frank Stella

Saw Mr. Stella at the 92nd st Y this past week. He was sharp as always.
Lots of notes & thoughts...

"What about David Carson, Mr. Stella?"

I wonder if the best use of abstract, non landscape space is in fact the
work of the Raygun/Beach Culture designer. By using typography and
photography he gets past many of the complacent tricks of boring painters.

The space Carson creates is non illusionistic.

My prejudice is Picasso over Malevich and late Stella over early Stella.

The battle of Serra's torqued ellipse (Apollonian) and Stella's jam
sessions (Dionysiac) is a dance of T Rexes that is inspirational to me in
a kind of Marvel vs. DC way.

Is Kasparov Available to Run for Prez?

Just read this. Naturally, this guy looks better than the choice we have in the USA.

©Joseph Sywenkyj for The New York Times

"This regime is getting out of touch with the real world.
It's a deadly combination of money, power and blood - and impunity."

Attaturk Youtube example of bloggy wit and relevance

As a followup to the idea of bloggers as source, compare the NYT coverage
of the Turkish YouTube ban with BoingBoing's entry. The AP/NYT's coverage
is garbled and even makes the Turkish government's action look more
ominous than it is. The BB coverage is less hysterical, more informative AND wittier.

As per Jay Rosen, we do need dedicated journalists in some form, but this
is an interesting example of the shift.

Camus wrote somewhere of the need for critical journalism, a paper that
would criticize the other papers. Perhaps we are seeing that emerge in the
blogosphere.

Despair quote from The Cruise

"If you need advice on how to appear as a debonair individual despite
interior feelings of despair, let us know."

"I don't expect them to understand it because they've never done it. I'd
like to see THEIR double decker bus tour."

Timothy 'Speed' Levitch

We Are All Sources Now

I haven't really understood why Dave Winer got so pissed off at "mainstream media", even as I sometimes bought his criticisms of individual instances of stupidity. But his post clarifying bloggers as primary source (at least in some instances), rather than consumers of news is good.



An interview with Jay Rosen is here.



The thread connecting Do It Yourself ethics/aesthetics to all of this interests me.

Dave, your argument is starting to gel. You have made any number of criticisms of old media in the past, but this is a critical one.






I look at the loop as a fluid one (even if the existing hierarchies don't appear to represent it that way). Source->Newspaper->Blog and then (maybe)->Newspaper is what that existing map looks like. But now it's Source->Blog->Newspaper->Source->Blog. The reality may be more spaghetti than this neat little line. Call it a Spaghetti of News instead of a River!







This dynamic is more fluid when the source is part of the story, as it is with tech issues(for example), than a report on a single incident. Then the feedback whine commences! If Jobs had a real blog instead of a manifesto on DRM * and he responded to the "Comments" on his DRM screed -- the "Comments" being the newspapers, record company whores, bloggers, then you would have a juicy example of this feedback in action.







Not everyone will have or wants a blog, but anyone CAN. This is town meeting democracy + D.I.Y. writ large. Hmmm... "We are all Sources now."







*(not that I didn't agree with his manifesto, not that I don't like the form, b/c manifesti are cool--and not that I don't love FSJ...)

Wussy Boys VS. Fascist Skanks

The Ann Coulter "faggot" routine would be more stupid shit from that skank if she hadn't been intro'ed by skeevy nutjob Mitt Romney at some GOP Night Rally.

Henry Rollins made this awhile ago, but I consider it my patriotic duty to post a link.



Also, this gives me a chance to link to Big Poppa E's brilliant Wussy Boy Manifesto, which is in my own personal Top Ten this week.

Silver Surfer poster

There is a Silver Surfer poster on phone booths all over NYC advertising what is likely another craptastic comics movie.

It is not anywhere as cool as Kirby's Silver Surfer.

But for me it is still like a religious icon. Even if all the solo Silver Surfer comics were lame as shit, even if Black Racer got better dialogue, there is still a call to (Marvel)mania that stirs the spirit.

If they wanted to do a good Silver Surfer, they would give Bruce Timm the project and do it through Pixar. Frozone had the vim!