Imagine My Suprise...

79% Geek

Tired of Broadcast TV? Make Internet TV!

Big props to The Participatory Culture Foundation for launching MakeInternetTV.org, your one stop site for everything you need to know to roll your own video and get it online.

There's info and instructional videos on equipment, technique, editing, licensing, publishing and even tips for promoting your video baby. Plus, everything is linked to the MITV wiki, where anyone and everyone can share their questions and know-how.

Here's a quick video clip featuring Dean the Elongated Man to tell you more about it:

Make Internet TV: Introduction

We're all very lucky to live in the Internet Age, don't you think?

It's Coachella 2007 – wave to the shark!

Coachella 2007 kicked off today...and I feel perfectly fine not being there for the first time in four years. Last year's line-up was a bit dodgy but I went anyway. This year's simply was not worth the trip (certainly not worthy of a three day festival).

A week or two back my wife showed me a full page in that month's Marie Claire magazine, I kid you not: "What to Wear to Coachella". If there was any doubt in my mind about passing on this year's festival, that clinched it for me.

(But have fun, Steve. I know you'll the the most out of it!)

See also:
Jamie in the basement
Festival Madness

Kurt Vonnegut: 1922-2007

Kurt Vonnegut died today.

I can't tell you how much I loved the man, because he really got it. Life. America. The Human Condition. He was our generation's Mark Twain.

Love this quote the NYT pulled from God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater for his obituary:

“Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you’ve got about a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I know of, babies — ‘God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.’ ”

So long, thanks and farewell, sir.

Gettin' stewy with it!

Still trying to figure out what happened to DJ Shadow between The Private Press and The Outsider? It's called 'hyphy' and Jody Rosen over at Slate has got the 411 for the rest of us:

Go Dumb: Why hyphy is the best hip-hop right now

31 Days of Seven Soldiers

In early 2005, undisputed comics genius Grant Morrison debuted an enormous undertaking: a series of seven four-issue miniseries and two bookend issues that intertwined to tell one giant meta-story. Each mini starred a different C- or D-List character in their own revitalized and stylistically unique adventures. Collectively they were The Seven Soldiers of Victory, but while their storylines intersected along the way and culminated in one climactic battle, none of the seven characters ever meet one another. And it was some of the most challenging and head-spinning writing in comics since...well, since the last thing Morrison wrote.

Reading the mega-series end-to-end and understanding just some of the multiple layers of meaning contained therein is a difficult enough task, but the prospect of doing an exhaustive analysis of each issue – that's like trying to explain the ending of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

So in honor of the imminent release of the fourth and final volume collecting this magnum opus, I present to you: 31 Days of Seven Soldiers.

My hat is off to you, Greg Burgas! I hope someone somewhere gives you a degree in Morrisonism.

Grant Morrison in rare form!

Here's a great Grant Morrison piece I found on Google Video (unfortunately I can't recall who tipped me to it). Witness the quaint description accompanying the upload:

A scottish man talks about magic, aliens and individualism. This is the shit. Everyone must watch.

This appears to be sometime circa the Invisibles era, as he doesn't much talk about this stuff lately – although he's still happily slipping it into his subversive mainstream superhero work. Enjoy!

Gnarls Barkley: "Canon-making in action"

This entertaining and insightful piece by Jody Rosen in Slate looks at what exactly it is about Gnarls Barkley's “Crazy” that makes it the pop standard of 2006.

Crazy for “Crazy” – Highly recommended reading!