Condalmo

Kurt Vonnegut, Wal*Mart enthusiast?

Unlikely.  And yet, behold, their new logo, at top:
 

At least their self-awareness is improving.  (via)

One.

Rest comfortably in our new Condalmo-branded bed.

And have a good weekend.  (via)

The missus.

She is starting a blog.

Garden post.

Planted the garden yesterday.  The composter didn't see too much action last summer, but check out what fruit it bears anyway.  I sifted out the larger chunks with my elder daughter, leaving this beautiful black goodness.  If I could post the smell here, I would: so deep.  I like saving everything and that includes money.

Strunk and Whitey.

Though they reserve the harshest judgment for professional, do not assume that white people will cast a blind eye to your grammar mistakes in email and official documents. They will judge you and make a general assessment about your intelligence after the first infraction. Fortunately, this situation can be improved if you ask a white person to proof read your work before you send it out. “Hey Jill, I’m sorry to do this, but I have a business degree and I’m a terrible writer. Can you look this over for me?” This deft maneuver will allow the white person to feel as though their liberal arts degree has a purpose and allow you to do something more interesting.

Hiatus.

No, not because Condalmo favorite Remainder got eliminated today.  (It must be said, though - I thought Wiggins got faint praise, and McCarthy got a bunch of sour grapes.  But I enjoy Liberman's Language Log, and appreciate his willingness to part with the book - e-mail me for my address, Mr. Liberman.  I'll give that little orphan a good home.  Condalmo's the name, Gmail's my game.)

The hiatus is because of my upcoming exam.  I don't think I've talked about it much here, but my graduate degree is in clinical counseling (and rehabilitation counseling - largely work around assisting people with disabilities in employment - though my interests fall more in the clinical field) and I've got my licensing exam coming up shortly.  Private practice as a therapist (mental health, possibly specializing in elder issues) is the eventual goal.  First, the exam, and then we'll see what comes next.  So things are going to go quiet - no, really - around here for a while, while I direct my attention to the studies.  It's been some time since I was in school, so I want to be thorough in my reviewing. 

I'll be checking my e-mail periodically (Mr. Liberman) but will be avoiding fiction, this site, and my Google Reader.  Especially the reader.  It just ate twenty minutes of my evening.  Back, you monster!

Not necessarily the way they happened.

A friendly PSA from the staff here at Condalmo: available next Tuesday. 

In the future, everyone is rich.

T'dah:

Amazon Kindle: the future of reading?  Not likely, not at $400 a pop.  This article can be summarized:  "This new revolutionary device does not have (insert desirable feature here), but Bezos expects that future versions will."  While Amazon sells you a BetaMax, someone (Apple, probably) is making the VCR. 

Pajamas, baby. Pajamas.

I love this; I really do:

What Happens at Blog World Stays at Blog World

Viva Las Bloggers!

Bloggers and blog readers are gathering today for the first annual Blog World Expo in Las Vegas. In addition to the non-stop panels, a “Pajama Party” will be held Thursday night at the Hard Rock Hotel.

New media!!  See if you can spot Ed Champion in the above photo.  (Hint: green.)  The photo caption is not my idea, but the photo/caption might make a good logo.  The article continues:

Visitors to the booth get a free Pajamas Media sleep mask.

Sleep?

I note with interest and befuddlement (I just now stumbled across this whole Pajamas Media thing, don't laugh, the First Life's been sort of hectic lately) that when I point at that "visitors" link on the PM page, a LingoSpot bubble opens (is inflated?), and tells me that articles related to aforementioned "visitors" apparently include:

• Our Degenerating Media [ Part 1 ]

  10/18/2007

• To kill or not to kill

  09/14/2007

• Confessions of a Perpetual Adolescent

  10/23/2007

Words escape me.  Off to bed, oh glorious night off, sans 21st-century new-media-branded sleep aid.

Nobody told me this was happening tomorrow. Why has nobody told me?

People.  I can't do this all on my own.  Some people have their Doctor Who, some people their Battlestar Gallactica.  Me, I like it where there's always music in the air, and the birds sing a pretty song.

Observations:

• That is not the recipe for the cherry pie.  What ironic staffer came up with that nonsense?
• Should you buy it?  This will convince you.  If you need convincing.
• The "alumni enjoying current success" section is good for a laugh.  Outdated!  (Ferrer and "that guy who played Windham Earle" were recently reunited on Bionic Woman.  So I hear.)  Meanwhile, where's Andy? Hank got Lost.
• The first soundtrack CD is probably my most-listened CD, ever.  The second CD - from the movie - has its moments, but also some unbearable clunkers.  In what's sure to be the only review of this CD anywhere - as I'm likely to be one of about nine people who actually seek this out - I'll let you know.
• Lastly:  the work day just ended, my friends.  (UPDATE: As of right now, I can't seem to get my "midget widget" (seen below, after the click) to operate correctly.  God willing, I'll never again have occasion to put those words together in that particular sequence.)

A meta-commentary on the sad state of modern news.

Meta due to a "perfect storm" of the following circumstances:

1. My use of the hackneyed, over-employed phrase "perfect storm";
2. My taking the time to comment on this on a purportedly "literary blog";
3. My exposure to this news, despite having purged myself (so I thought, beeb) of news sources that truck in this sort of nonsense;
4. My unpleasant-to-consider prior exposure to the backstory, which
5. leads me to actually consider this good news, despite it having no bearing on my life whatsoever, nor any bearing on the lives of most Americans, save in a completely puerile way;
6. My satisfaction about this news, despite 5) and the overall negative impact a focus on this sort of nonsense likely has on culture;
7. The too-meta-to-consider implications of my consideration, kept to myself among co-workers, that "Chong is right";
8. My insistence on finding a meta-quality to this nonsense, thus supposedly justifying this probably ill-considered late-afternoon post;
9. And, finally, because if you don't already know what I'm talking about, there's an extremely good chance you will now: 

"Hilton screamed."

(On the subject of mixing entertainment with news:  apparently, the man also suffered from uncontrollable mating urges that caused screaming, shirt-rending, and a normally repressed violent nature to emerge.  The surgery was a success, however, and he is expected to live long and prosper.  BBC, you let me down twice in one day.)

Lost in Twin Peaks.

Today in Twin Peaks news here at Condalmo: one copy of Season Two, barely used, for sale.

Although its creators have long since moved on, the show continues to cast its spell. Frost confirms that a comprehensive DVD boxed set of the entire run, including the pilot, will be released "within a year."

Grrr.  Me and my itchy trigger finger.

Also, in keeping with the subject, the direct Lost/Twin Peaks connection comes to light:

"It was so zeitgeist-y," says Damon Lindelof, co-creator of "Lost," one of the show's direct descendants. He fondly recalls watching every episode with his father, who kept a binder of detailed notes and clues. "Everyone was talking about Cooper and the Log Lady and apple pie," Lindelof says. "Everything was so fresh . . . The vibe David Lynch and Mark Frost created was new and exciting."

"Instead of just saying, 'Oh, [so-and-so] killed Laura Palmer' -- which is the way 'Dynasty' or 'Dallas' or 'Falcon Crest' would approach the mystery -- 'Twin Peaks' went into this other realm. That certainly, in a positive way, inspires a fair degree of our storytelling [on 'Lost']," Lindelof says.

I guarantee you, Mikhail sprung fully formed from Lindelof's mind.  You can take that to the bank.

Are you (Nugent) experienced?

I think I'll subscribe to this site based on this carefully considered post about Imus.  Two excerpts for you, the first is the lead:

---

MIKE WALLACE: "You told Tom Anderson, the producer, in your car, coming home, that Bernard McGuirk is there to do nigger jokes."

DON IMUS: "Well, I've never--I never use that word."

TOM ANDERSON: "I recall you using that word."

DON IMUS: "Oh, okay, well then I used that word. Of course, that was an off-the-record conversation."

--60 Minutes interview, July 1998

"I'm a good person."

--Don Imus, April 2006

"Phil, there are a lot of very nice guys in the Ku Klux Klan."

--my Aunt Betty

---

The talk radio world, one that Imus worked hard to shape, is one where overpaid white guys who did well in the voting for the title of "Class Clown" at their respective high schools sneer at blacks, women, gays, what have you, in a dismayingly self-congratulatory tone. The self-congratulation comes not from the cleverness of their material--nobody could be that self-deluded--but from the fantasy that they're speaking truth to power and taking on The Man by being, and here hold tight while we flash back to the thrilling days of 1993, "politically incorrect." Their natural audience is people who hate their lives and, at least for a few minutes a day, like to imagine that they're outlaws by listening to some peabrain on the radio make fun of, say, homeless people or the victims of the 2004 tsunami. This stuff is not hard to do.

---

It's hard to see this sort of thing, isn't it?  I have family members who will excuse racism and bigotry from media figures - your Imuses, your Glenn Becks, your Bill O'Reillys, your Michael Savages - based on other attributes they find appealing - charisma, political persuasion, "patriotism," "firm stance on immigration."  The new patriotism is about saying whatever you want to regarding whatever non-white, non-straight, non-male individual - because of course it's never about them being black, or a woman, or gay, it's about something else, ostensibly - and making noise about how "they're going to say I'm non-PC", wearing it like a badge of honor. 

And then I'm told that I'm not keeping up with the news, because I don't watch it on television.  Doesn't seem like I'm really missing out.

(via.)

Dan Green, those drapes aren't going to hang themselves, you know.

OK, so I'm reading The End of Mr. Y - again, when many trusted sources speak highly of a book, chances are I'll get to it eventually.  So far, pretty mixed feelings; enjoying it a lot, but every so often a slap in the face: this is a novelization of "Being John Malkovich."  Trap door in the copying room?  Occupying someone else's mind?  A good source assures me that I should ignore these misgivings and continue, that I will be rewarded.  So, I continue.

Meanwhile, let me thrill you with another non-book-related post about Twin Peaks.  All the cool kids are going back to town (and so am I):

Coincidentally, I too have been re-watching Twin Peaks. While no one would ever accuse it of being a traditionally structured whodunit, I have been struck the second time around by how tightly plotted it actually is, in its own meandering way. The first time I saw it (the whole series straight through), I had the feeling the writers were making it up as they went along, the story developing the way it needed to in order to accomodate the large cast of bizarre characters. This time it seems clearer that the solution to the crime is implicit from the beginning and the clues seem more coherent. I'm enjoying the storytelling more with this viewing, rather than the, er, quirky characters and their outrageous exchanges with one another. (Although those are still good. Albert to Agent Cooper: "Senor Dipstick has, shall we say, a wandering mind.")

However, it's pretty apparent that since Twin Peaks David Lynch has only left conventional storytelling farther and farther behind. The very idea that storytelling is something that can be "crafted," workshopped until it makes sense to everyone, seems to be deliberately travestied in such films as Lost Highways and Mulholland Drive (and apparently as well in Inland Empire, although I haven't yet been able to see it.) This approach is not bringing him any lucrative (or even workable) distribution deals, but it is making for some fascinating narrative art that will undoubtedly be attracting an audience long after the safer, merely well-made films and fiction of our time have passed beyond recall.

We've started the series from the pilot and have only had time for... well, half of the pilot.  (A three year old slows things down when you're watching a show about a violent murder.)  Interesting that Dan notes the lack of a workshopped quality to Mulholland Drive - a movie that was, in its first form, a pilot for ABC; when they rejected it, he developed the ideas into a feature-length film, and to my mind it's clear which parts of the movie were part of the pilot and which weren't.  Some of them, anyway.

I did, however - getting back to Twin Peaks - get an impression during the second season that the writers were, in fact, making it up as they went.  Without Lynch around to steer the ship, we were given the Nymphomaniac Teenage Nadine storyline, the James and the Giant Dorks storyline.  Painfully bad stuff.  When the story stuck to its roots - Laura, the killer, and then Earle (though that, at times, was also a little bit on the stupid side) - there was a sense that they knew where it was going.  I just don't think they were prepared for it to go longer than a season, or maybe they weren't prepared for the size of the second season requested by ABC. 

Which is something the folks behind Lost claim they have kept in mind - I read somewhere they planned from the beginning for six seasons, that they know where the story is going, what they are going to do.  Since it's highly doubtful they've already got seasons three through six completely written, they'll of course be coming up with some of it as they go; hopefully, we won't get an overnight nymphomaniac with an eye patch running around this time.  (You don't really think he's dead, do you?)

Clown brouhaha in Florida.

Seems some people don't want the clowns brought in.  Excerpt:

Public art "is the city's wardrobe," Virginia Hoffman, a sculptor and former chair of the city's Public Art Committee, says          from across the table.       

"And," adds Beth Surdut, another artist, "do you really want it to look like Bride of Chucky fallen into Ronald McDonaldland?"

Though police say there is no link between the artists' criticism and the vandalism, the attacks on the statues have clouded          what exhibit detractors say was an important debate over public art.       

Frank Creaturo, a local painter hired as a clown repairman, says he has been called on to patch up 27 of the 50 clowns, which are shuttled to his downtown studio in moving vans. The attacks have been so vicious that he has had to mend some with the same Bondo putty that auto-body shops use on dents. His own artwork – abstract paintings and street scenes of old New York – has been pushed to the back burner. "People will pass by the studio and go, 'There's the Clown Doctor'," he says. "Forget about Frank Creaturo the artist. Now I'm being called 'The Clown Doctor'."

Then he excuses himself. A clown statue at the airport has been beheaded, and he has to go.

                           

Insert your favorite Twin Peaks doughnut quote here.

Via the AP:

How about a Buzz Donut or a Buzzed Bagel? That's what Doctor Robert Bohannon, a Durham, North Carolina, molecular scientist, has come up with. Bohannon says he's developed a way to add caffeine to baked goods, without the bitter taste of caffeine. Each piece of pastry is the equivalent of about two cups of coffee.

This is the promise of our forefathers, coming to fruition.  We live in blessed times, my friends.

Watch out for falling liars!

Wal-Mart, the biggest thing to happen to organic food since God?  Mmm, not so much.  Excerpt:

When staff at The Cornucopia Institute surveyed Wal-Mart stores around the country last September, analyzing the giant retailer's decision to sell a wider variety of organic food, they discovered widespread problems with signage misrepresenting nonorganic food as "organic."

More than four months after informing the company of the problems, which could be interpreted as consumer fraud, and two months after filing a formal legal complaint with the USDA, the federal organic regulator, many of Wal- Mart's deceptive signs remain in place.    

"Rather than correct these problems, Wal-Mart instead attacked us in the media trying to discredit our organization," said Mark Kastel, codirector of the Wisconsin-based organic watchdog. "They could instead have simply sent out an e-mail to store managers and corrected the problem."    

New store inspections throughout Wisconsin have found that Wal-Mart stores are still selling nonorganic yogurt and sugar identified as organic, and designated organic produce sections continue displaying many nonorganic items, among other abuses.

The Frozen Cup.

Sometime over the past weekend, we left a coffee cup (paper) on top of the car by accident.  It snowed and freezing-rained and such and the cup was still there when I left for work this morning.
The reactions on peoples' faces, all day long, was priceless.  Six good samaritans tried, walking up to my car, to warn me; all six laughed heartily when I said "I know; it's frozen there."  One guy slapped his knee with laughter, and proclaimed across two lanes of traffic "I hear that, man!"  Many people looked and smirked, thinking I was a knucklehead who was in for an unpleasant surprise when I reached for my non-existent coffee.  Others gestured and tried to pantomime "There's a cup of coffee on your roof, dude" to me.  I had the biggest laughs about people who just looked completely confused by what they saw. 
Felt good to bring smiles to so many people today.
I had envisioned doing a daily post on this until the cup fell off - and it could have gone on for many days, with the weather we're having.  But then, end of the day, going to pick up my little girl, I'm waiting at a light and I hear a suction-y "crunch" on my roof, and look to my right, and there's a woman holding my cup.  "You left your coffee on the roof," she said.  "I know," I said, mournfully.   

The blank slate, and what is wrong with it.

Seeping into blog posts everywhere is reaction to George Will, with the latest attack on blogging by the "mainstream media".  (I already hate this post.  Mainstream media?  Which is what?  Calgon, take me away.  I shouldn't be allowed online between Christmas and New Year's.  Plus, I've only seen one reaction to it, and I'm only reacting for lack of anything better to gripe about.  Even worse, the more I type, the more Will would seem to be vindicated, each sentence another nail in my coffin, another bowtie on his headboard.  Nevertheless.)

There are, however, essentially no reins on the Web -- few means of control and direction. That is good, but it vitiates the idea that the Web's chaos of entertainment, solipsism and occasional intellectual seriousness and civic engagement is anything like a polity (a "digital democracy"). Time's bow to the amateurs who are, it strangely suggests, no longer obscure, and in the same game that Time is in, is refuted by a glance -- which is all an adult will want -- at YouTube's most popular videos.

Time's issue includes an unenthralled essay by NBC's Brian Williams, who believes that raptures over the Web's egalitarianism arise from the same impulse that causes today's youth soccer programs to award trophies -- "entire bedrooms full" -- to any child who shows up: "The danger just might be that we miss the next great book or the next great idea, or that we will fail to meet the next great challenge . . . because we are too busy celebrating ourselves and listening to the same tune we already know by heart."

The fact that Stengel included Williams's essay proves that Stengel's Time has what 99.9 percent of the Web's content lacks: seriousness.

OK, well, when you get into hyperbole like that last lazy statement, you're way off track.  Let's not nitpick over statistics that are unprovable, though - we could argue the "seriousness" of personal journals at length, but my debate club days are over. 

That Brian Williams quote, though, raises some interesting questions.  Given the fracturing of our culture's focus so many times over, there's little in the way of a common shared experience, except when it comes through the shared experience of focusing on ourselves - i.e., the personal blog.  Which isn't really a shared cultural experience, since the personal bloggers are writing about themselves.  I can see that, a bit.  Who is the trusted news source of today?  Does anyone think it's possible to have another Edward Murrow?  (Olbermann?)  And do we need him/her?  I think it's sort of a problem with picking out particular voices in a din of millions - so much information, so many sources, and so many people more interested in being entertained than anything else.  Over anything else.  And Williams' pondering of our inability to meet "the next great challenge" because we're too busy adding links to our blogs is made even more interesting by the idea that there's already plenty of challenges facing humanity, and America (right within our own borders) that apparently aren't "great" enough for Williams, or an active majority, to consider.  Our eyes aren't on the ball; they're on the football, the YouTube, the Dancing with the Stars.  Am I wrong?

Which certainly doesn't excuse Will's lazy defense of the old guard.  But he does touch on something with that Williams quote, I think. 

I also think I've nearly managed to get my panties unknotted, so more of the smiling book goodness will appear here next week, and I'll go back to ignoring Will.

Resolving to be less grumpy.

Or not.  Via the Powells.com newsletter:

INTERMISSION WITH BROCKMAN, BLOGMASTER:

Rather than find things to improve about myself, I like to ring in the New Year by making lists of resolutions for the special people in my life, to help them pinpoint and fix the qualities that aren't so great about them.

Herewith, my resolutions:

TO ADRIAN:
1. Pay less attention to conversations across the room that have nothing to do with you. Try to chime in with your unsolicited opinion as close to never as possible.
2. Wear flattering clothes that fit your body type. 'Nuff said.

TO DUSTIN:
Nothing kills a punchline like a cogent analysis (i.e. "That's so funny because it exposes the folly of our social compacts..."). Please don't ruin it for the rest of us.

TO NOAH:
You're 35 and still living in your parents' house while trying to decide what to do with your life. Guess what: it's half over already. Do anything.

Raw deal.

Some fans burning, indeed.  This Herald article points out the trend of re-releasing CD's with "bonus material" - not many years later, as with the remastering/re-release of Miles Davis' "Kind of Blue" (for example), but months later. 

Bruce Springsteen’s “We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions” came out in April as a DualDisc (one side a CD, the other a DVD). In October it appeared again in a new “American Land Edition,” that included five additional songs on a CD, and four additional performances on a separate DVD.

Or perhaps you bought Neil Diamond’s “12 Songs” last year. A “Limited Edition” version released this month throws in a second CD of alternate takes and demos for virtually the same price you originally paid. Is this any way to treat a dedicated fan?
“Labels traditionally repackage albums to capitalize on the holiday shopping season or to goose sales of initially underperforming product,” said Doug Brod, executive editor of Spin magazine. “It’s almost as if die-hards are being penalized for buying a CD fresh out of the box.”
This holiday season, Neil Young fans have felt that sting, too. His May release, “Living With War,” reappeared last week in a more costly, limited-edition version titled “Living With War - Raw.” Along with a DVD, fans get stripped-down versions of the first CD, with louder guitars and without the 100-person choir heard on the original CD. Young says it’s the better of the two.

I'm a die-hard Neil Young fan, and I was excited about buying "Living with War" - when he rocks, he holds nothing back, and the idea that he whipped this album up in a frenzy of anger over the Bush administration's lies was tantalizing.  Except that the album is kind of a dud, an "Are You Passionate" with a little more noise and not a lot of Rockin' in the free world.  If you know what I mean.
So now we get the better one, months later.  Are we supposed to think that Neil wasn't allowed to release this this first time around?  He can do whatever he wants.  (Greendale.)   It's sad to see him getting roped into this sort of last-throes effort on the part of the music industry to stay relevant - an incredibly unsuccessful, misguided effort.

On the sixth day of Christmas.

On this Sixth Day of Christmas, six geese sit a-laying on your front lawn. Eggs. I have always admired these elegant, graceful white waterfowl. It saddens me that the hatchlings will not emerge before I send workmen to burn the nests.

First, the good news. Then, the Lost Highway news.

Mr. Lynch, why no Lost Highway DVD? 

iF: Will we be seeing LOST HIGHWAY and TWIN PEAKS season 2 on DVD anytime soon?

LYNCH: For sure. That [TWIN PEAKS Season 2] is coming out next spring. I think so. [LOST HIGHWAY] is all color corrected and timed and the high-def master is ready. I think Universal owns it now and LOST HIGHWAY did not make a lot of money at the box office, so they probably have it way low on some list for DVD. I don’t know when they’ll get to it, haven’t heard a thing. Write to Universal!

You're the boss.

Not Book Related: "Damn good coffee? And hot?"

In the interest of pointing my nose in the right direction, I've added a category for posts that are not exactly book related, but are still of interest to me and worth sharing.  With that in place, I'll be more on topic.  Most of the time.

This one, I had to second guess myself a couple of times - how much of my own fanboy dorkiness should I expose my readers to? - but, in the end, it's too good not to share: David Lynch is launching his own line of coffee. 

You've got to give yourself a little Season Two of Twin Peaks every day.

I've got good news.  That show you like is going to come back into style.

There is a God.  Bold added for emphasis:

David Lynch was his charming, inscrutable self at the Brattle Theatre Sunday. In town for a screening of his new movie, "Inland Empire," the director took a few questions, but answered obliquely. Asked, for example, about the bunnies in his new film, the "Blue Velvet" director said, " They're not bunnies, they're rabbits." Lynch did manage to make a little news, announcing that the second season of his long-ago TV series "Twin Peaks" is coming out on DVD next spring. At that, the crowd erupted in applause.

There is no better source.  Weather report: real sunny!

Also - this being a book blog, after all - Augusten Burroughs is being called a Freyalific fraud - same link (above) for that article.

You say "opinionated," I say "fascist"; let's call the whole thing off.

Back in college, I went through a brief CNN Headline News worship phase.  Like others with their Weather Channel, HN offered gentle rhythms of news to provide just the right combination of information and background noise.  I took many a good nap to HN. 

You can't go home again.

The New York Times (12/4/06), profiling new CNN Headline News host Glenn Beck, called him "brash" and "opinionated," with an "unfiltered approach." The conservative talk-radio host-turned-cable news announcer, the paper reported, "take[s] credit for saying what others are feeling but are afraid to say."

The Times mentioned one of the things Beck has said recently, to newly elected U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), a Muslim: "Sir, prove to me that you are not working with our enemies."

Not exactly napping material.  Not exactly keeping-down-your-lunch material, either. 

"Inland Empire" teaser trailer.

Can't watch it myself, being at work with no computer sound and a poor bit of bandwidth, but I'll bet you can.

Obama this and Obama that.

At the risk of becoming yet another voice in the chorus about which this post is written, I have to say that there is truly very little interesting information coming out about Barack Obama.  The Harper's piece finds something to raise an eyebrow at - energy ties! - or so they would like, for they at least understand that there isn't much value to a puff piece.  That said, it's still flacid.  Mr. Smith does not exist, and there's going to be something about anyone that aspires to that ideal, something to point at and raise that eyebrow.  Honestly, if Obama is completely the outsider, he's going to be unable to play the game that is politics. 

The Morning News offers little more this morning, except some details about the man's physical stature and some well-thought observations about how he will appear with middle America, a summary of his appeal-to-date - a "last week, on Days of our Obamas".  The most useful thing to be taken from the article is the title: Consuming Obama.  That, in a nutshell, is how we take our politicians these days - as commodity, as something sold to us.  Obama is popular right now, and pity the news organization that doesn't keep up in the ratings race by telling us what we probably already know, lest we go somewhere else to find out that the man has large ears and an earnest style. 

I like Obama, and am displeased with myself for liking him, because I honestly know no more or less than the average well-informed follower of politics.  Which is not enough - not enough to choose a president.  But the less we demand to know about our leaders, the less we'll be told, and so it goes. 

Pope to test condoms.

Make of it what you will.  Clearly, we are looking a new era of hands-on papal research. 

Hot cup of Black Gold.

Had a link to the site for a while now, down there on the right:  Black Gold. 

Finally in Maine: it's going to be playing Sunday, November 12th at Portland High School Auditorium, 6:30pm, free admission.  Then again on Monday, November 13th, 7pm, $6/$4 at SPACE (538 Congress St., Portland, details at www.space538.org) 

Good news for fans of "This American Life."

Direct from TAL central:

COMING THIS MONDAY: FREE THIS AMERICAN LIFE PODCASTS!

We're thrilled to announce that starting this Monday, October 16,
we'll begin a free weekly podcast of This American Life.  Each week's
show will also be available as an individual download, free for a week.

New shows will be posted on Monday mornings and will be free for
seven days.  After that initial week, the show will migrate into our
300+ show archive.  There, you can download from the iTunes Store or
Audible.com for only 95 cents an episode.  Or you can listen to shows
for free anytime (even once they're in our archive), via streaming
audio, with our "Flashy" new streaming MP3 player.

If you'd like to sign up for the podcast, visit this page:

          

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/pages/podcasts.html

To visit our archives at Audible:

       

http://www.Audible.com/thisamericanlife

Or to go directly to our shows at the iTunes Store:

       

http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewArtist?id=181471774

Note: those of you who subscribed to pay-per-episode podcasts via
Audible will receive a full refund.  You don't have to do anything;
you'll automatically be credited.  Visit this page for details:

       

http://www.thislife.org/pages/faq.html#audiblerefund