November 2006

• Morphosis has its Bilbao moment–in Paris. Keep building in L.A. Thom Mayne!
• Step away from the chocolate! The Hollywood Rennaisance Hotel is watching you.
• Book Soup joins the podcasting craze.
• Danny Devito is funny for the first time in years. The secret isn’t booze though, it’s proximity to Barbara Walters. Seriously, how did The View get to be releveant again?
• Mel Gibson embraces Michael Richards, wants to send a note. Cuz you know, he’s now the grand wise wizard of racist remarks that America has already forgiven. Oh, wait– no we haven’t. We still think you’re a racist asshole.
• GTD Your Life: Get all 8 Productive Talk with David Allen sessions. Seriously life-changing stuff.
• Our Blue Tomorrow: Salon looks at “Generation Dem“.
• You’d think watching videos of people playing video games would be boring. Not when they’re playing the Wii.

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Today, Rosie O’Donnel’s R Family Vacations (your family is Rosie’s family, see?) is opening up reservation spots for their first land-based trip–to the city of Brotherly Love. The “R Family Philly Weekend” takes place on March 10-11, 2007 and only 400 lucky people will get to attend. Call 866/ 732-6822 to reserve your space.

I know this is where I’m supposed to say something snarky about Philedelphia, but it’s hard to fault a city that has faithfully courted the gay community for years. And while cheesesteak and the Shrine of St. John Neumann aren’t exactly shrimp cocktail on a luxury cruise liner, R Family promised that this trip won’t be an also ran to their first trip, which was such a big deal, they made an HBO documentary about it. Maybe Showtime will film this one. Couldn’t pass it up.

The “R Family Philly Weekend” includes:

• Deluxe overnight hotel accommodations at the Hyatt Regency Philadelphia at Penn’s Landing, located on the historic Delaware River waterfront
• A welcome lunch at the National Constitution Center, with special guests Benjamin Franklin, Betsy Ross and George Washington
• A 50′s-themed bowling party
• An R Family Broadway Brunch at the Hyatt Regency
• Optional activity for those who come early on Friday, March 9: An exclusive tour of Independence Hall after-hours, followed by dinner at the City Tavern.

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There’s an interesting article in the current issue of The Atlantic about the future of the neswpaper. Rather than seeing the web as the death of traditional media, the article offers up the idea that editors and writers will become independent brands– a cross between blogger, professional journalist and social network administrator and that publications will use these brands to feed readers to their traditional media sites.

One of the interesting points brought up by the article is that, in the future, the news will happen first on the web and readers will then go to traditional media for the analysis and commentary. Well, the future is now. The Carol Channing story I covered here last week as news, will show up as a news analysis in the next issue of Frontiers. I posted the emails and statements I got from Channing and her publicist here because it was news, but also as an experiment to see what would happen if I linked my work in the magazine with what I do online.

I’m really reticent about blogging. To be good at it, you have to post ten-twenty times a day and I wrte for a living already– adding to the workpile to have a blog seems a lot like vanity. But I’m curious what would happen if I broke down the barriers between this site and the rest of my work– if I treated it not as a seperate project and entity, but as a sort of Grand Central Station of all the various projects I have. It’s a truism that a writer is part magician– you should never let the audience see what goes on behind the curtain. I think it might be interesting to experiment in being a transparent artist and journalist. Rather than showing just the final product, also allow the process to be a part of the work as well.

This will undoubtedly be a messy endeavour, but I’m going to start implementing some of the ideas of The Atlantic article, as well as a few of my own and see what happens.

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