Three films a day

[OK, I shouldn’t write these too early in the day. I was about to push out something I learned about progressive politics when the phone rang. I now know this is the big thing of the day, so I’m going with it.]

JTS, one of my high school friends called me this morning with a bit of a bombshell.

“Guess who I just got email from?”
“Uh… ”
“You’re never gonna guess, so don’t bother: Bobby Rosenberg”

Heh. Bobby (now Robert) was our valedictorian—smartest guy in our class by a mile. In the last ten years or so JTS had many times expressed an interest in knowing exactly what the good Mr. Rosenberg (one of the cool, classy people from HHS class of ‘89) was up to. We knew he’d gone to Columbia, but we’d lost track of him after that.

Turns out (as the link above shows) he wrote a book; it was recently reviewed in the New York Times, which is precisely how JTS was finally able to track him down. I’ve never known Bobby (er, Robert) that well—I think the longest conversation I had with him was when he phone interviewed me for a senior profile in the school newspaper (the piece never ran)—but I may have a chance to visit him, since he lives in Arizona now (and not far from where I’ll be). I’d certainly like to talk to him about his experiences because he was always a fascinating and bright fellow.

Slightly relatedly, I also found out that BJP is still working on his feature film. I hope to send him a cake when the movie comes out.

I learned a lot today, all of it quite wonderful. Some bits can’t be shared, while other pieces of info wouldn’t make much sense to anyone. So, instead, I’ll concentrate on a little thing.

I’ve always treated history as a record of human adaptation. I don’t care at all about the big names or incidents, except to appreciate how they connect to the larger context which made them significant. With that in mind, it’s probably clear how happy I am that I’ve stumbled across the Shrinking Cities project, since they’re about studying and encouraging the adaptations brought about when a city starts to shrink.

As their page on the “Culture of Shrinkage” notes:

Shrinking cities are often the starting points for cultural innovation. Whether in music, art, or architecture, in literature, photography, or film – a wide variety of new developments in popular and high culture emerge from these urban crisis sites. These are often part of novel cultures of everyday life based equally on the potentials and the difficulties of these sites. They often thereby make an essential contribution to redefining identities and mental milieus and thus offer important approaches for conceiving models of action. In the framework of the project Shrinking Cities, we will investigate and document some examples of genres, such as music, film, architecture, and visual art, in the first phase. This will formulate an important basis for the development of the on-site projects of the second phase.

Bless them.

via worldchanging

I’m no longer an academic but boy oh boy do I wish I’d had access to something like RedLightGreen when I was a student. From the site’s about page:

Founded as the Research Libraries Group in 1974, RLG is a nonprofit membership corporation of universities, national libraries, archives, and other memory institutions with remarkable collections for research and learning. We collaborate on projects that bring these collections online, help deliver them around the world, and support their preservation in digital form.

RedLightGreen is one of our newest projects. It is designed specifically for undergraduates using the Web—and the libraries that support them. RedLightGreen.com delivers information from RLG members about more than 130 million books for education and research; and it links students back to their campus libraries for the books they select.

In fact, it almost makes me wish I was still a student. Almost.

via AbjectLearning.

I’ll admit right now that I’m not in love with the idea of a disaster-survival game. I know I’ve taken great pleasure playing through gamed up war scenarios (both as general and soldier) and there’s really no difference. After all, both are historical events, complete with dying, and you’re being given an opportunity to take part in facile re-enactments. But for simple emotional reasons I can’t get behind “You’re on the Titanic. Now… live!” any more than I would support “Middle Passage: The Game”.

I guess for me, it’s the context that matters. For better or worse we’ve been simulating war (abstractly and otherwise) for entertainment purposes for centuries. Profitting off of that is dirty, but I can live with it. We’ve been doing the same with disasters, yes. But I’ve always felt much more uneasy about it. And just as I will not watch the twin towers fall in a movie, I won’t be a part of their falling in a game, either.
—
Funniest sentence I’ve heard today: “The lesbians up the street have a horse.” (thx, Edna)

I haven’t posted anything here in a while but very little has changed.

I’m still very easily amused by sentences like the following throwaway line in Scott Maben’s article about the relationship between Disney and the University of Oregon: “Likewise, fans have shunned the muscle-bound mallard known as Robo-Duck that was unveiled at Autzen Stadium two years ago.” Robo-Duck? Yes, Robo-Duck. I’m still laughing and I read the piece hours ago. (via Copyfight)

My appetite for new-to-me music is still voracious. Here are some of the more interesting music-related findings I’ve had since Friday. I listened to Arcade Fire’s album for the first time Sunday and I really liked it, especially the gem of a song that is “Rebellion (Lies)” (currently up at said the gramaphone, incidentally). I can’t get enough of the pop genius leaking from Rogue Wave’s “Every Moment” (available for download from Sub Pop) though I think my favorite song on the album is still “Be Kind + Remind”. The lovely Edna had me track down Nancy Sinatra’s cover of Morrissey’s “Let Me Kiss You” for her and I’m happy she did. While the late Elliott Smith’s “Twilight” (available for download from Epitaph Records) doesn’t demand obsessive repeat listens, it still hints at exactly what I loved about him. The Decmeberists’ “Everything I Try to Do, Nothing Seems to Turn Out Right”, which I found out about through yesterday’s installment of “We Are the World”, is probably going on my next CD, though I tend to change my mind a lot on these sorts of things. I’m just now getting acquainted with the second disc on Legacy Edition of Jeff Buckley’s Grace; I love “I Want Someone Badly”. I think “Shopping Bag”, the first single from De La Soul’s latest album, is a bit “cluttered” (for lack of a better word) but sonically engaging all the same; don’t ask me about the lyrics—I only just heard it for the first time and it takes me about five listens til they sink in. I’ve downloaded “A Night at the Hip Hopera” but I haven’t bothered listening to it yet; due to some odd personal defect I can’t get into most mash-ups (exception: 2 many DJs’ “Smells Like Booty“). I think I’ll be ready to listen to it when I expect exactly nothing from the experience. I’m almost there.

And yes, I still like soccer. World Cup Qualifying continues on Saturday and the following Wednesday. For the United States this means a weekend match in San Salvador followed by a home tussle with Panama at RFK (Wednesday’s game is live on ESPN2, for the exactly zero of you who care). Depending on the results I’ll either be very confident about our chances to go through to the next round or I’ll be spending a lot of time drinking. Our recent road form isn’t exactly inspiring (and history doesn’t favor us winning in El Salvador, either) so I’ll settle for another draw on Saturday. We must beat Panama, though. If we win both we’re through to the next round no matter what anyone else does. That would be nice.

There’s more that hasn’t changed. I don’t feel like typing it (see? I’m still lazy, too).