Slate offers up a pretty stirring and incredibly fascinating look at the role of online social networking in yesterday’s tragedy:

MySpace holds a central position in this drama. This morning, it was noted on Fark.com that the shooter identified by police, Cho Seung-Hui, did not have a presence on MySpace—another sign of his outcast status. There’s a two-fold disappoinment at this fact. For the angry, no way to leave a flaming message (or worse). For the media, it’s as if his MySpace page would have held the key to his motive, as if the online life of college students is where they hide their true selves.

The article links to a number of facebook memorial pages created in memory of some of the victims, including this group for sophomore Caitlin Hammaren, the creator of which wrote this firm yet very gracious note directed at what appears to be a somewhat overaggressive press:

To those reporters who have been trying to contact me: I would love to help, however I have put this group up as a memorial to my neighbor and friend, Caitlin. I did not realize doing so would result in so much support, and it would be wrong of me to go any further with this and supply you guys with information and photos of Caitlin without the consent of her parents.

To those members who read this: if you want to talk to some of these reporters (look in discussion board) feel free to express any feelings or memories of Caitlin, I would just appreciate if you kept in mind her family. I do not know if even having this page would be ok with them, so until I talk to them, please do not share any personal information or anything that you would think might offend/upset her family. Thank you.

Another facebook memorial here, for freshman Emily Hilscher, which too included a rebuke of the press.

Despite overwhelmingly positive reviews, an endorsement from the greatest documentary filmmaker of all time, and an Academy Award nomination, I just couldn’t bear to get through this movie; I think we shut it down about 15 minutes in.

An even handed portrayal of contemporary American evangelicalism? Sure. Valuable insight into a potent American political movement? Looks like it. But any documentary featuring a woman whose only wish is for the christian youth of our country to be as God-crazed as the sons of suicide bombers and 9/11 hijackers isn’t one I’m going to be able to stomach.

Some pertinent thoughts on the life and work of Kurt Vonnegut:

The time to read Vonnegut is just when you begin to suspect that the world is not what it appears to be. He is the indispensable footnote to everything everyone is trying to teach you, the footnote that pulls the rug out from under the established truths being so firmly avowed in the body of the text.

Rest in peace, friend. And thank you.

Oh, and here is a drawing of an asshole.

Jack Shafer joins in the chorus of criticism against David Sedaris for embellishing aspects of his non-fiction:

Sedaris and company want to erect a penumbra that shields humorists from criticism when they blend fiction into their nonfiction but still insist on calling it nonfiction. The logic behind this is difficult to follow. If writing fiction is the license Sedaris and other nonfiction humorists need to get at “larger truths,” why limit this exemption to humorists? Let reporters covering city hall, war, and business to embellish and exaggerate so they can capture “larger truths,” too.

As editor of a popular online magazine, I recognize Shafer may be wary of fabricated non-fiction. But there’s a difference between embellishing situations in a humorous personal memoir and publishing an article about a guy who fishes for monkeys.

Reporters “covering city hall, war, and business” are writing as means of delivering factual information to their readers; they traffic in facts and we read their work (hopefully with a healthy dose of skepticism) in order to draw our own conclusions about the state of the world.

The writers of personal memoirs, on the other hand, present the conclusions up front, trafficking in something greater than the mere sum of the real-life minutia of their lives. It doesn’t matter to me if Sedaris’s brother never really referred to himself as The Rooster; I’m ok with some slight embellishment so long as it allows Sedaris to write, “Certain motherfuckers think they can fuck with my shit, but you can’t kill the Rooster. You might can fuck him up sometimes, but, bitch, nobody kills the motherfucking Rooster. You know what I’m saying?”

If the writing’s good, then, fuck it, it doesn’t much matter where it came from, I’m just happy it’s out there. You know what I’m saying?

Memoirs don’t deliver facts, they deliver something much bigger: personal truth and stories of life that are consumed more like fiction than like dry news. Sure, memoirs may be popular because readers feel a closer connection to stuff that actually happened to someone else. But all great memoirists, from Sedaris back to Mark Twain, are really just great story tellers. And, as anyone who has ever told a story to anyone else will know, you gotta editorialize just a bit, otherwise it’s just not worth telling.

I’d like to think most readers of personal non-fiction are savvy enough to be satisfied with that.

After devoting the past month to back episodes of The Wire, it’s tough to return to mere-mortal television. But Lost is still a pretty good show (this season’s “buried alive” episode notwithstanding).

While Lost is all up in that internet ish like whoosey-whats-it, this is something I hadn’t seen before: a blog by Lost stuntwoman Heather Poohs, double for Evangeline Lilly’s Kate.

I didn’t realize stunt people had agents. (Or blogs).

From the AP:

In last week’s episode of the Web drama “Lonelygirl15,” teen pals Bree, Daniel and Jonas are on the road, running from the mysterious evil group “The Order” when Daniel spots Bree clutching a small, lime-green box.

“What’s that? Daniel says.

“Ice Breakers Sours Gum,” Bree replies as the camera zooms in for a close-up - on the box.

After offering it to her buddies, Bree playfully pops the last four pieces into her mouth with a giggle.

It’ll be interesting to see how new-media programming like this learns to make money. Though this type of product placement seems a little clumsy, almost like a wayward Mentos commercial.

UPDATE: The video is here on the lonelygirl15 website, yet doesn’t appear on YouTube. What’s up with that?

In response to my better half’s reaction to this previous post:

The distinction I was going for here was really one between highly involved obsessive music types and casual fans. The obsessives, which I generally referred to as “music fans” (maybe too general a term) are the type of folks whose every waking moment is consumed with popular music; they spend over 20% of their income on CDs, they blog about their favorite bands, they own a guitar they can’t really play, they frame vinyl and hang it on their walls as art. That sort of thing.

The “non-fans”, on the other hand, may like a few bands or artists here and there, and they’ll buy the occasional popular CD, but they do so not because of some deep and abiding love for the art and craft of music, but rather out of a semi-routine participation in American consumer culture––an essential (and positive) aspect of modern American existence. We wouldn’t be Americans were it not for our occasional purchase of super synthetic, kind of terrible American pop-music. It’s just what we do.

And there’s nothing wrong with that, and no need to place a value judgement on anybody relative to their placement on the spectrum between “non-fan” and “music fan”. That’s not what I was going for, and I apologize to all the Nickleback fans among us.

And really, if you have to judge, you gotta give the edge to the “non-fan,” as they certainly have the upper hand in terms of “normalcy” and “humanism” and “non-assholiocity.”

Some insight on the concept of “critc-proof” music and movies from CNN:

“There are some bands that, let’s face it, are critic-proof,” said Nathan Brackett, a senior editor at Rolling Stone. “Just like there are some movies that are critic-proof. Nobody is really reading the reviews for ‘Norbit,’ you know? And nobody’s reading Nickelback reviews either.”

I find it interesting that news analysis of the entertainment industry always seems to boil down to these misguided populist arguments that critic “taste makers” are simply out of touch with mainstream American music fans.

But it’s not just music critics who think Britney Spears sucks. It’s tons and tons of regular people. Trash talking Nickleback isn’t just a hobby of Pitchfork Media, it’s a natural response to their terrible terrible music.

Of course there are folks out there who genuinely like these bands (although, in my experience, such fans tend to know these bands suck, they just don’t really care). But the majority of these mind-boggling record sales aren’t being made to “music fans”, so to speak, but to regular folks who don’t care too much about music, yet buy the occasional album and listen to a handful of the songs every once in a while, as part of their role as members of Jane-schmo consumer-America.

There’s really nothing wrong with this, pop-music is business, but there isn’t some deep and interesting secret relative to the divide between people whose lives revolve around music (ie music critics) and people who like to buy things (ie all Americans, the majority of whom aren’t really that into music).

Here’s general counsel Michael Fricklas defending Viacom’s decision to sue YouTube for giving their company tons of free publicity potential copyright violations under the DMCA:.

Is it fair to burden YouTube with finding content on its site that infringes others’ copyright? Putting the burden on the owners of creative works would require every copyright owner, big and small, to patrol the Web continually on an ever-burgeoning number of sites. That’s hardly a workable or equitable solution.

Come again? That seems like the only equitable solution to this problem. Otherwise YouTube’s entire operation would be centered around weeding out offending content, policing its users from committing a “crime” the company itself was not complicit in.

The magic of web 2.0 is entirely dependent on the concept of user generated content. That’s how these dominant post-bubble dotcom giants can run the most popular sites in the world with only a handful of employees. But I’m not convinced that simply by harnessing the power of the masses YouTube is now somehow responsible for everything they do; just because the technology YouTube developed can be used to violate DCMA rights protections doesn’t mean it’s YouTube’s fault when such violations occur.

It’s up to the owners of intellectual property to seek out violations of their ownership, not the companies who run the technology by which carefree users can commit (harmless) crimes.

Actor in a quirky indie film just out of Sundance:

Lead singer/rapper in folk/pop/hip hop group:

Super Bowl pitchman for Outback Steakhouse:

Voice over artists of instructional Apple videos (??).

UPDATE: Ok so it’s very much not him in the Apple QuickTour. I am, however, somewhat interested in seeing the focus group results that led Apple to choose a guy with a slight Australian/Kiwi accent to voice their corporate videos. Perhaps it’s coincidental.

This is special:

I kind of liked that movie.

This incredible:

I’ve had a beat off of Dilla’s album “Donuts” set as my cell phone ring tone since sometime late last November. Every time my cell phone has rung over the course of the past five months, I have heard this song, usually in short, inconvenient snippets. This beat enters my life on a hyper-daily routine, interrupting me while I take a shower, while I’m scrambling to make dinner, while I’m trying to relax with my water colors.

And yet…

I still love this fucking song.

I’ve never had a cell phone ring work this way. The default Cingular ascending scale makes my spine crawl. Europe’s “Final Countdown” no longer reminds me of Gob Bluth’s prancing magic routines; it’s like prying off my fingernails with broken shards of chalkboard.

Yet not Dilla’s “Worikonit.” I pop in “Donuts,” perhaps the greatest collection of hip hop beats ever, and it gets my head bobbing in that special way hip hop heads bob heads; it can’t be helped, it’s too beautiful.

Here’s to you, Dilla.