Filed by Bil at 9:00 am under Fightin' Words, Stuff to Read, The Media
No Comments

Quick point of interest: while reading a post from socialmediaexaminer.com (don’t judge) about social media trends in business (I beg you don’t judge), I somehow found my way to a different article about what’s new this week in social media (for the love of Pete don’t judge). I took the time to watch a video about an iPad-only magazine, because for some reason every video I’ve ever seen on Vimeo has been between moderately and awesomely cool. I don’t know how Vimeo attracts cooler users than YouTube, but it does.

Richard Branson Launches Project, an iPad-Only Magazine: Project is “the first global magazine app for creative people about creative people.” Do you think this is the future of publishing?

PROJECT magazine demo - issue 1 from PROJECT on Vimeo.

(Keep reading…)

Filed by Bil at 2:42 pm under Fightin' Words, Stuff to Read, The Media
No Comments

Print is not dead. Don’t say print is dead. Not even cassette tapes are dead, so print certainly still has a place in the world.

Print is, however, more specialized than it used to be. There aren’t quite as many books or magazines as there were ten or fifteen years ago, and there are definitely fewer news publications. In my time here in Chicago, I’ve seen at least three highly popular weekly print papers cease paper production altogether.

What this means – among other meanings – is that people who print things are much more discerning about what to print and what not to print. The e-mail revolution is a win for trees, but for writers, it narrows your chances of getting your work into print, and it drastically reduces your odds of getting paid to write.
(Keep reading…)

Filed by Bil at 8:44 pm under Fightin' Words, Stuff to Read, The Media
No Comments

So - as I took a break from preparing for the future to take a glance at what’s happening in the present, I couldn’t help but notice World Cup scores. Team USA is out, but for once in our lifetime, we got closer to the cup than England, France, and Italy did. Had I been paying closer attention to Twitter feeds and Facebook status updates, I might have known that sooner.

But something struck me: I didn’t need to know that any sooner than I did. Its relevance to my life is pretty low. The World Cup is just something I take a mild interest in every four years.
(Keep reading…)

Filed by Bil at 4:58 pm under Fightin' Words, Stuff to Read
No Comments

I’ve been thinking about poetry lately. It’s true it sounds differently when you speak it aloud than when read inside your mind. It also sounds differently when you whisper it to yourself than when you shout it to a crowd.

I discovered the magic of whispering poetry quietly out loud for one’s own self this afternoon. I’m in the laundromat, and I whispered some poetry to myself between two noisy washing machines because I didn’t want anybody else to hear me. That would have been, you know, weird and embarrassing.

What I heard was mine and mine alone, and somehow it felt like now it existed in reality instead of just on a page. Funny, too, how it feels like if I knew anybody else had heard it, that would have depreciated the solidity of the words in the universe, as though if other people heard it, too, then it would have been just some collective dream instead of my own tangible experience. Funny, I say, because that’s pretty much the definition of crazy. But I know how I feel, and I won’t back down.

Also, I’ve discovered Darwin Deez. The weirdness and the beauty just keep coming.

Filed by Lance at 6:00 pm under General, Hatemail, Love, Stuff to Read, The Arts, The Media
1 Comment

I ran across THXTHXTHX [via], and thought it’s really interesting. Thank-you-note-blog. An Anti-Hatemail!

Filed by Lance at 3:35 pm under General, Hatemail, Shameless Plugs, Stuff to Read, The Arts
No Comments

Here is every Hatemail we recorded last Sunday, presented in a slightly different format for your visual delight:

Filed by Lance at 10:41 pm under General, Love, Religion, Stuff to Read, The Arts
No Comments

I remember a story told about one of my favorite composers, Arvo Pärt, that when he was just beginning his career, he went to see a monk. He told the monk, “I would like to learn to write prayers, because I think it could help my music.”

The monk said, “No, no. Every prayer has already been written.”
(Keep reading…)

Filed by Bil at 2:16 pm under Shameless Plugs, Stuff to Read
1 Comment

I only check my mail once every three or four days or so. My mailbox is hard to see, so I tend to forget about it, and when I do remember, it’s usually late at night when I don’t feel like descending three flights of stairs just to throw out a bunch of junk mail.

So this weekend when I finally remembered to check it, I discovered I had received what I’ve been anticipating for what feels like a year: Pith Magazine, containing my poem in print and my $5 paycheck for said poem. Hell. Yes.
(Keep reading…)

Filed by Bil at 10:46 pm under Fightin' Words, Stuff to Read
No Comments

Returning to the sentiment that journalism in the iPhone age is a constant battle between quality and quantity, I would like to point out sports journalism hasn’t suffered any, because it’s pretty much always sucked, and there has always been too much of it.

Florida HS football team defends 83-0 rout
(Keep reading…)

Filed by Bil at 12:44 pm under Shameless Plugs, Stuff to Read, The Arts
No Comments

I’ve got a lot of reading to do — there are two plays from other people upon which I actually have a direct effect in the coming months, so I’d really better get started. But I wanted to jot something down about what I’ve been seeing recently. I feel like lately, I’ve been seeing plenty of theatrical productions, some of it good, some of it not so good. Some of it was so bad that it’s still fresh in my mind even though I saw it months and months ago. The one great thing about both good and bad plays I see is that they inspire me to do better.

I’m especially inspired and very excited – VERY excited – about Dream Theatre’s upcoming production, “The Black Duckling,” in which I play a hopeless romantic poet. It’s an excellent script, and I feel as eager about this role as any other I can remember. It’s a silent melodrama, so it’s a new kind of challenge, and I get to wear a sweet beret. What more can an actor ask for than a new challenge and hip headwear?
(Keep reading…)