February 2008 Archives

GIRLS ROCK!" OPENS NATIONWIDE MARCH 7
NY, LA, San Francisco, Berkeley, Chicago, Portland and Seattle on
Opening Weekend.

THE MOVIE (rated PG)
At Rock 'n' Roll Camp, girls ranging in age from eight to 18 are
taught that it's OK to sweat like a pig, scream like a banshee,
wail on their instruments with complete and utter abandon, and
that "it is 100% okay to be exactly who you are." They are taught
by indie rock chicks such as Carrie Brownstein from Sleater-Kinney
various lessons of empowerment from self-defense to anger
management. At the end of just one week, all the bands perform
songs they've written with their new bandmates for over 700
people. "Girls Rock!" follows several campers: Laura, a Korean
adoptee obsessed by death metal; Misty, who is emerging from a
life of meth addiction and gang activity; Palace, whose heavy
metal sneer belies her seven years, and Amelia, an eight-year-old
who writes experimental rock songs about her dog Pipi. What
happens to the girls as they are given a temporary reprieve from
being sexualized, analyzed and pressured to conform is truly
revolutionary.

THE FILMMAKERS
"Girls Rock!" is truly a labor of love. During the three and a
half years of production Shane King [aka COUSIN SHANE] and Arne Johnson [aka the man who should have had my BABY!] have
mortgaged houses and cashed out retirements to finish their first
film, while hundreds of others have come out of the woodwork to
help make this film a reality."

Needless to say, I am extremely, very much excited for this event.

So, it's next Friday at Cinema 21 (where we all went to movies when we were kids!) and I'll want to go to the 7 PM showing -- if you want to go with me, let me know in the next couple of days and we can order tickets en masse here (or you can just get some for yourself).

I really enjoyed Drew's analysis of Obama and Hillary's Flickr accounts. I'm not sure that what we see doesn't say more about their staff than their personal choices, but I guess their choice in staff says something about them, in itself.

From Drew's entry:

"Now my main interest is in profiling the candidates based on their social network pages. Basically you can tell a lot about a person by the way they have their sites set up. Since Obama and Clinton are the most interesting to watch of the bunch, I decided to take a closer look at their flickr pages ... There is a great profile and picture on Obama’s profile. I notice he must have some money saved up cause he does have a pro account that costs almost $25 for a year."

Thanks, Drew!

I managed to fall asleep last night after listening to ""Guided Relaxation (Garden)" twice. I kind of love it, actually -- you can hear traffic in the background at a couple points. (Can I find a traffic sound podcast?)

My dissatisfaction with iTunes as a podcast manager makes me wonder how Panic's Audion would have handled them -- which I never used, but enjoyed reading about, and now wish I could use.

After being sick and basically sleeping 2 days straight I now find myself with insomnia on a night when I have to get a lot of work done tomorrow. Not for the first time, I'm looking for podcasts to put myself to sleep and thought I'm mention some of the interesting finds.

Since sleep is the new water, I better get busy! and have I mentioned to you that audio is the new video? (Also: wool is the new cotton - but that's another post).

Here are some things that look interesting -- although not necessarily sleep related (I say "look" instead of "sound" because I haven't actually listened to them yet).

(BTW, I'm getting more and more dissatisfied with how iTunes handles podcasts -- including, among other things, the fact that it's hard to link to them. I think they are due for an upgrade or some competition.)

The Smithsonian has several podcasts that look promising, especially the American Folkways collection podcast, co-produced with CKUA radio. Each episode is longish (an hour or so). Two bad it's only 24 episodes long!

You know, I like that old time stuff, so maybe I'll like the Woodsongs Old Time Radio Hour Podcast? eh ... after a 20 seconds listen, not so much. It's not old timey enough.

I'm not really what I consider a "Hawaii" person, but I still think I could get into this beachwalk podcast. And she agrees -- sleep is the new water (I also like the dog-action -- I could happily watch a video podcast of dog walks on the beach.)

I'm now getting tired, if not actually sleepy. I'm sad because all I've found are dopey new age relaxation music podcasts. I want more atmospheric stuff, not flutes. More field recordings like the framework field recording thing, but without any jarring metallic grinding sounds in the middle.

I'm going to give "Guided Relaxation (Garden)" a go of it -- I'm psyched about the "5 mins of cricket sounds at the end." Plus, it was "created as a New Year's gift during the oil crisis of 1973-4."

Good night!