New blogs I've stumbled across, or been meaning to post about, of late:
The Convex Mirror: a blog about art in New York, which may or may not be written by someone living in this very apartment (not me, and not the cat, above, pictured hogging the reading material behind the blog's title).
Sexagenarian And The City: my friend "Mimi's" blog about being a (nearly) sixtysomething on the dating scene in New York...hilarious and utterly true, every word of it...
The Poetry Snark: does what it says on the tin. Merciless interrogation of the many sacred cows of the American poetry scene.
Edward Champion's Return of the Reluctant: a literary blog which makes me feel dizzier than do the Elegant Variation, the unread pile of New Yorkers in my sitting-room and the Strand Bookstore combined.
Ed Park's Blog: Aptly entitled The Dizzies, this is another literary blog, by a co-founder of the excellent Believer magazine. Ed Park's first novel is due out later this year.
Brit in Brooklyn: Great photography, commentary on how developers are gobbling up this and other boroughs, and depressing hurricane-related news (if it hits, Brooklynites are goners. Oh well)
Monday, March 12, 2007
Some New Haunts
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Caesar And Cassius With A Satellite Modem
I don't usually talk to people on the subway. Not even if I know them. Not even if I got on the subway with them. But this morning, on the L to Manhattan, I overheard a conversation which combined (in the space of two minutes): Shakespeare's Julius Ceasar, a daily videoblog and podcast, and a round-the-world-on-a-trawler trip starting tomorrow. I did the unthinkable and stuck my nose in. And here's what I got: a link to Bill Bowles's website, which kicked off in earnest yesterday and will kick off in a different form tomorrow, when he starts his world voyage (not in the cardboard vessel pictured here, I should clarify). He calls himself an "Interactive World Traveller" and has a background in film and theatre. Equipped with a satellite modem, he's planning to blog every day from tomorrow from wherever it is he ends up. Today, he podcasted from Brooklyn - somewhere in Bushwick, I think - where he and his actress sister gave Shakespeare his turn on the waterfront.
I know that videoblogging (vlogging) and video podcasting are well up and running by now in the blogosphere, but at the risk of sounding like a fogey (well, I am over 25...ancient in blogging terms), I don't know much about this type of blogging, and I don't have any video blogs on my blogroll. So, while it might be old hat by now, I was still really interested by what Bowles had to say about his project and about the ramifications of vlogging for traditional forms of journalism:
It dawned on me a few months ago, that if you had all the right gear, (camera, laptop, sat. phone, solar panels) a person could be a new sort of independent journalist; uploading video stories from anywhere in the world, while maintaining one’s creative freedom. I figure that within a few years, most travelers and bloggers will have this sort of gear, and we’ll have thousands of un-affiliated reporters roaming the globe, sending out news as part of a diverse open-source media network. I don’t really consider myself a journalist, but I’m interested in trying out the concept to see what happens.
I think it was the incredibly casual way his sister dropped into the conversation that he was about to sail around the world with his video camera that really piqued my interest. Even when I'm taking the subway to Manhattan, it feels like a major operation. Maybe that's the difference between the vlogger and the blogger. Or maybe it's just that they don't have wireless signals on the subway. Yet.
Any vlogs or video podcast recommendations out there?
