March 2004

Political activist and MIT linguistics professor Noah Chomsky started up a personal weblog a few days ago called Turning the Tide. I found it by way of a Dutch weblog that recently linked to one of my entries.

My favorite human from my days at Scribner-Snyder High School in Scribner, Nebraska, emailed me yesterday to say she and her husband will be moving to Boston for a year. She got an internship at the Museum of Fine Arts via her grad program. This is really good news. This is better than if Sondre Lerche showed up at my house to perform a private concert for me and a few pals. (If Sondre would like to do this, he is certainly more than welcome. How about once Sandy and Dave get to town?)

I have been working on exploitboston.com lately and I want to finish up some work on it this weekend. Spring is a good time for some website house keeping and catching up on projects that have been lingering and collecting dust. So, in the spirit of “if I write it down maybe I’ll actually do it”, here’s what I’d like to accomplish this weekend:

• Work on/clean up the garden.
• Add 20 events to Exploit Boston!
• Talk to potential conspirators about contributing 5 events each week to Exploit Boston! on a particular topic such as art/museums, food, music, etc. Michael is contributing book/literary events.
• Revive Free Agent Boston’s website so the files are back where they should be and there’s a roster of events for the next six months.
• Create a page on Exploit Boston! about the Boston Book Crawl, talk to potential Boston area webloggers about contributing and send a proposal to a local independent bookstore about their involvement.
• Help organize BloggerCon parties.
• Create a mini-site for my event planning/freelance services.
• Create a page on Exploit Boston! about citizen journalism and ways to contribute to EB! on related projects. Followup with people who already expressed an interest.

OK!

Last Fall I helped Wendy Koslow at Harvard’s Berkman Center find a venue for the Bloggercon pre-conference party. We ended up on the 2nd floor of the Hong Kong Restaurant in Harvard Square. Seems like most everyone had a good time. This time around I think it would be fun to have it at 38 Cameron. They’ve got a really interesting event space in Cambridge (near Davis Square down the bike path and just off of Massachusetts Avenue past Porter Square). And as an added bonus, they’re setting up wifi this weekend. They can accomodate up to 150 people. How many people from BloggerCon would show up? Maybe it would be better to have it there on Friday night as a pre-BloggerCon event and not Saturday night (as I was originally going to suggest.) I posted a discussion topic over at the BloggerCon website in case anyone is interested in offering up ideas and suggestions.

Bob Mould (Hüsker Dü, Sugar) has a blog? Allright! Thanks to the link on Brad Searle’s site, I just spent a few minutes reading through some of Bob’s recent entries. The other day he wrote about what it’s like relating to new music as you get older, etc. There’s something inexplainably cool about being able to read a website describing (in first person) the various thoughts and tidbits of a favorite musician.

An example would be, oh, something like “I liked Crazy Rhythms the first time around” ; it doesn’t mean I think any more or less of The Strokes (remember them?), but the emotions they evoke, due to their sometimes uncanny resemblance in look and feel, are attached to my youth, and to the why and where of that original moment. It’s the way we describe things, using comparison and reference, that speaks on our own personal experiences, the things we hold important and lasting.

CVB Space, Cynthia von Buhler’s huge artist loft at 407 West 13th Street in the meat packing district of New York City is available for private party rentals. Anyone who has a spare $1000-$3500 burning a hole in their pocket should let me know. I’d love to help throw a party there!

Throughout April, CVB Space is home to “Growing”, a group show of artists mostly from Europe. The opening reception is April 1, 6pm-8pm. Check out the CVB Space website for the event calendar.

(This is a work in progress inspired by this.)

acronyms, live music, bats, Boston every season except winter, bourbon with coke and two lime slices, candles, fountain pens, frozen grapes, iced chai NEVER hot, independent bookstores, independent music, independent web, lima beans, office supplies, peonies, people watching on the bus, musicians who don’t hold back like Rose Polenzani and Sondre Lerche, sushi, tempeh, throwing fabulous parties, nostalgia, Nebraska now that I don’t live there anymore, connecting people/making introductions, genuine smiles for no good reason, receiving a handwritten letter, sleeping in under a pile of blankets, learning something new, collaborating on a project, cooking brunch for friends, wifi throughout the house especially on the porch sitting on the couch with my feet up, sharing music with friends, mixed tapes, pugs, surprises, road trips with no specific destination, reconnecting with someone after a long time, bed & breakfast inns, the hope that Moxy Fruvous will tour again someday, checking most everything off today’s to do list, life.

Karl Dotter brought his college radio show “Connect the Dots” back to life for a few hours tonight. Listen to the shoutcast stream 9pm-11pm EST. He’s on air at KSCU 103.3 FM, Santa Clara.

Combine this with this [via Wendy] and you have the perfect “about” page.

I’m doing a little computer housecleaning and found this bit of good advice. It doesn’t have a source on it. I’m not sure where I found it.

The World We Live In

People are illogical, unreasonable and self-centered;
Love them anyway.

If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives;
Do good anyway.

If you are successful, you win false friends and true enemies;
Succeed anyway.

The good you do today, will be forgotten tomorrow;
Do good anyway.

Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable;
Be honest and frank anyway.

Give the world the best you have to give and you get kicked in the teeth;
Give the world the best you have anyway.