Looking for a possible positive within the welter of creative-class layoffs triggered by the economic crisis? Mark Deuze* points us toward what’s being termed a “shadow media,” in which layoffees bind together in informal networks (Deuze locates several Facebook groups) to commiserate and, perhaps in the near future, collaborate. It makes sense, really: [...]

5) While reading the review of The Boards of Canada’s Music Has the Right to Children: “The incredibly simple melody of the short ‘Bocuma’ becomes a lump-in-the-throat meditation on man’s place in the universe through subtle pitch shifts and just the right mist of reverb. The slow fade-in on “An Eagle in Your Mind” is [...]

Something about art imitating life, and then life sadly one-upping that art. Much more here. (via)

A bit late, I know. But I’m assuming that many people reading this feel like the first day back to work is really the first day of 2009. So.
I’ll leave my appreciations for School of Seven Bells, Ssion, Women and the Dø to reside on my other blog. Like the past year, this [...]

Okay, one more. It’s worth it.Michael Kaufmann is writing a science fiction novel that draws heavily on Aztec Cosmology, Sun Ra, Jainism and Mount Meru, hip-hop culture, and the vernacular of spam. He helps put out and promote records. He doesn’t understand corn-hole, The Colts, or smoking in bars but he is [...]

Happy New Year. The following is the last in the series of my friends’ year-end posts. It’s also the best one. In case you missed it, my year-end mixes are buried in here somewhere, and my year-end lengthy write-up is forthcoming, as well.
Jennifer Lynn Jones is a second-year doctoral student in the [...]