In which I pointlessly reply to Mathew Ingram’s piece: “Memo to Malcolm Gladwell: Nice Hair, But You Are Wrong” which is a reaction to Malcolm Gladwell’s New Yorker piece “Small Change: Why the revolution will not be tweeted.

Stone’s tweet proves Gladwell’s case. He reduced the argument to picking on Gladwell’s appearance. Your article amplifies that, going with a headline that Gladwell is “wrong” then somehow (correctly) conceding Gladwell’s main arguments on their face, but then claiming he still doesn’t get it because he failed to join in the chorus about how great social media is.

Re:Liu Xiaobo, you write “Has Twitter led to his release? No. But as Stone argues, it has given Chinese citizens a way of talking about him”

You understand this is in no way refutes Gladwell’s point, right? This is affirming Gladwell’s case that getting people “talking” is of limited real value. Why would you even mention this? This is exactly what Gladwell was talking about.

The response to Gladwell’s points has illustrated the true power of social media: TO mobilize a lot of reactionary “OMG NO HE DIDN’T” jibber-jabber without actually considering his points in a careful, rational way, and certainly without refuting them in any convincing way.

Can communication tools help? Yes? Are they a revolution in themselves? No. That has to come from us. When someone points this out, it behooves us to stop gleefully banding together to tear him down, and look for ways to incorporate his points into a stronger worldview.

There are some lyrics here I can’t figure out:

“Getting Used To Uselessness“
by Jon Langford & Skull Orchard

getting used to uselessness
getting used to uselessness
getting used to uselessness
getting used to uselessness

never knew the tenderness
lost his only friend
never had much sympathy
or kindness in the end

rags to riches, move on up
from hunger into ???
drank a cup of bitterness
where’s the sin in that?

getting used to uselessness
getting used to uselessness
getting used to uselessness
getting used to uselessness

youth is squandered, tossed away
before did us begun ???
unhappy traffic claims us all
a new day on the run

hey hey, fantastico!
hit the top and then you’ll know
create, destroy, confess
getting used to uselessness

getting used to uselessness
getting used to uselessness
getting used to uselessness
getting used to uselessness

always conscious of our power
always conscious of our chains
power slips away but. yes
something else remains

after all our time
and the killing that was made
live and die before the middle ???
happy to play the victim again (useless!)

getting used to uselessness
getting used to uselessness
getting used to uselessness
getting used to uselessness

I no longer wish to think of Her. I know it is over. I want to move on. As such I feel it would be helpful if you, brain, would cease drifting to her during every lull in my mental timeline. And, I would like to choose to stop having so many things remind me of Her. There is no rational reason for it. I would like to be free of Her. This seems logical, I hope you would agree.

Thanks,

Me

and i won’t

Trane will always make me think of her, and that won’t ever, ever, ever stop hurting.  Today is the anniversary of the birth of John Coltrane.  So, I’m going to be slightly more fucked up today than usual.

Waltz for Koop sampled Coltrane’s “Greensleeves”

Here’s John Coltrane himself on TV. Hard to imagine what TV used to be like. What music used to be like.

And finally, if you can go here, you can hear Lucinda Williams sing “Righteously”, the song that marked the beginning of the love affair — notable for the line “Be my lover don’t play no game, Just play me John Coltrane.”

What a fucking world.

Her voice still echoes from September skies
the clouds, the light, the way the heart lies
and someday they’ll leave me
no more to deceive me
those wicked and wonderful carousel eyes.

S!

As heard in your bungalow last night, the song “Rollin and Tumblin’” is a song with a great history. We love Muddy Waters‘ version of course:

…and it has inspired a raft of covers, and perhaps all of rock n roll while it was at it.

My most recent favorite version is Jeff Beck‘s version, when he got Imogen Heap to do the vocals. It’s pretty intense.

Imogen Heap seems like she might be up your alley. Currently a moderately successful solo artist, she was for a time in a duo called Frou Frou that really decimated me personally. I worshipped their one single album and wore it out — more of a chill out vibe to this though — it still gives me goosebumps, much like you do

She writes rich, literate lyrics that bear many, many listens.

But back to the subject at hand and how “rollin’ and tumblin’” so easily rhymes with moanin’ and fumblin’ in my head right now. And that leads to many other images that would have been suitable for certain explicit “Lit Night” evenings.

Happy Friday,

M

Neat Thing #1

Putting every New Yorker on paper
Story in the L.A. TImes. (Yeah, the L.A. Times. don;t ask me why)

“Artist Jason Polan has an ambitious goal: to sketch all 8.3 million people in the city. He captures his unsuspecting subjects eating pizza, riding the subway, catching a train.”

My take: He probably gets less flak this way than if he were photographing people.  Cool.  As an aside, I think the photos in the piece are ace

Neat Thing #2: