Gene Rodenberry font deli/grocery sign.
Category Archives: Uncategorized
PLA Blog guest-posting
I’ll be guest-posting on the PLA blog for the next few days, thanks to Nate Hill.
My first posting is about a Young Adult Library Association (YALSA) Institute on Serving diverse populations of teens.
NYT: Request for converter box coupons overwhelming.
The NY Times reported yesterday that democratic leaders are calling for a delay in the shift to digital television broadcast, slated to shift on Feb. 17. Millions of households still depend on an analog signal for their news and information on television. The converter box is the only way to receive a digital signal on an analog TV, but the effort to get the word out, as well as assistance for those who cannot afford a box on their own, has been slow and quiet.
Meanwhile, I’ll be interested to see what comes of the campaign to get the Obama adminsitration behind funding a digital infrastructure that is a once clearly needed and all but ignored by major media. The consortium of public interest groups that have launched Internetforeveryone.org introduce a rather radical concept – at least in business circles – recognizing that Information, like other precious resources is important enough to make a develop a public works project effective enough to make access to the Internet as ubiquitous as television has become.
It is sure to be an uphill battle that will challenge some of our most trusted sources of news and information, which have profited from being so necessary in our daily lives.
Great Christmas gift: Book of Surrealist Games
My sister always gives me the best gifts. Her card read: “This should keep you warm.”
Posted in Personal history, Uncategorized
Recognizing the cities’ poor…
Photo Credit: Jeffrey Putnam on Flickr
Yesterday’s Daily News ran a story on the letters to Santa written by children who were not as concerned with getting a PSP as much as having clothes to keep them warm and enough food to keep from starving. This is one of the first times I’ve seen any of the newspapers latch on to a story like this (though I doubt very much it is the first time this sentiment has been expressed by children in Crown Heights, where the poverty level has been fairly consistent even when time were good.
Posted in Uncategorized
‘Fuel Dump’ Scharpling’s Twitter Novel…
Maybe in the sprit of the “cell phone novel” reported on in this past week’s New Yorker, Tom Scharpling, host of my favorite radio program ever, “The Best Show on WFMU” (it really is both of those things) is now writing a novel, ‘Fuel Dump’ on his Twitter feed.
So far, a character named Michael Richards, a celebrity of sorts, seems to be in a very dark mood despite his lavish surroundings, as he remembers mistakes of the past. Though I only know names like “Brentwood” and “La Cienega” from reading L.A. crime files of the rich and famous, I feel like I’m there with Michael as he complains about his GPS system’s fickleness. I really hope this novel continues to develop. What other creative writing is developing on Twitter? I’d love to hear about it!
A ride on the “Nostalgia Train”
On Sunday, I got the chance to catch the “Nostalgia Train” on its run from Queens Plaza to 2nd Ave along the V line. The trip brought back a flood of memories – not because I ever rode an R-4 subway car in ‘real life’ (too young for that, thanks) but because as a kid, I regularly visited the Transit Museum and its collection of antique cars and buses. As the old subway trundled along the heat and ozone generated from the old motors was really the best part of the experience, considering that nowadays, a ride on the subway is clean, air conditioned, sterile – even the brusque voice of the conductor has been replaced by the pleasant, automated ‘Shining Time Station’ – like voices.That reminds me, the MTA has also been touring one of their classic buses from the “Jackie Gleason” era, but I can’t seem to find any info on the MTA Website about the tour and I forgot my camera on the day the bus sat outside the Library at Grand Army Plaza.
On the way back to Queens, I ran into a couple of friends and their kids taking the ride to Rockefeller Center. One of the kids happily assured me “we’re not on a real train.”
The Nostalgia train runs from Queens Plaza to 2nd Ave for two more Sundays, December 20th 21st and 28th.
Posted in Personal history, Transportation, Uncategorized
Real Estate + Recession = Weird Deals
A few blogs reported on this last week, now the Times has picked up on it, the ‘Obama clause’. It’s time to brace ourselves for the effect of plummeting real estate prices in New York. For those who surmise that they’ll be able to afford that huge loft space that was always out of read, you’re in for a rude awakening. But the really sad news is that developers, desperate to make a deal, are willing to inject such gimmickry into their prospectus. Let’s all pray that times get better real fast or pretty soon we’ll be seeing the sales pitches taking on a decidedly less sophistocated air:
‘The McCain-Romney clause’ – between now and Nov. 4, buyers will know if they will be able to back out of their contract, dependent upon the McCain’s campaign decision to keep or drop Palin at the last minute (Palin stays, the contract is binding/Palin goes, buyers are released from obligation).
‘The Santa clause’ – as long as every family buying into the new development in question is able to celebrate Christmas (or their winter holiday of choice), shareholders are released from their obligations to inhabit the units for 2 years or get stuck with a flip-tax.
‘The Britney-Madonna clause’ – buyers signing an agreement to allow famous people to live in the building are given a break on their common charges (unspecified).
Posted in Uncategorized
NY Times Article on ‘Street Lit’
Street Lit is easily dismissed by those with a more refined taste as
crude and facile dramas that do little towards proposing solutions to
societies ills(and often seem to celebrate them). On the other hand,
readers want stories that they can relate to, so for those who literacy
advocates in the inner city, this kind of fiction is a godsend.
[NY Times] ‘From the Streets to Libraries’
Posted in Uncategorized
