A Blog About Nothing in Particular
Quick shout to Eric Smith, who is something of a bloggy wunderkind here in Philadelphia. We’ve never met properly, but he and I have slowly built what I hope is a mutual admiration society as we wend our way through the dense thicket that’s known today as content creation and curation.
If you’re not hip to what he’s up to, do yourself a favor and catch up. It’s worth noting that Geekadelphia is one of my favorite local reads.
I love everything about the Awl (and have been meaning to pitch them, too), but one of my favorite reads there has been Sam Biddle’s Diary of an Unemployed Class of ’10 Philosophy Major in New York City. Is it wrong to think it sounds like Goethe’s Werther? Just hope he doesn’t meet a woman named Lotte.
You can read his entries here.
(N.B. Must be said that this strikes awfully close to home, having spent the better part of ’02 in a hot Brooklyn apartment wondering what it was I was going to do with my life.)
It’s going to be one of those seasons. Read Beerleaguer’s great post on what’s going on with Jayson Werth to glimpse inside the clubhouse. Snakebite hurts!
Update: Bill Baer has even further insight over at Crashburn Alley.
Want to know the secret to quality blogging? It’s easy: publish or perish. It’s a lesson I’ve tried to give myself here, off and on, for a good, oh, six (seven?) years since the days I was an underemployed ex-grad student railing on Blogger. With every relapse I promise to write more. To recommit to this often very rewarding, if little read, blog. Too often it’s in vain.
I know I’m not alone. One of the methods I think I’ll employ to revive Kensington Blues is to reach out to the local blogosphere more frequently. You know, the power of positive reinforcement. Not only is it good to encourage the folks you like most online, it’s mutually rewarding. Just the sort of thing to make you get back into the game.
In light of this, I thought I’d mention two folks whose work hasn’t gone unnoticed by this reader. Marisa has brought her old standby, Apartment 2024, back to life with a lovely assortment of photos and brief descriptions. It’s the sort of thing that I often dream of doing, a thought that usually culminates in me wondering if it would look better on WordPress or if I should just ditch and move to Tumblr. It’s the perfect way to document a life. No hifalutin manifestos here, just great pictures and notes on a simple, elegant life. Hats off!
I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention my co-worker Karl Martino’s work over at Philly Future. Karl’s been the caretaker there since my earliest days of discovering the Philly blogosphere. You want someone up to their ears in hyperlocal? Karl’s been doing it before that became a buzzword. Hell, I’ve often thought that if philly.com were serious about reinventing itself, they’d ask Karl what he was able to figure out so long ago.
Lately, Karl’s been playing curator once again, bringing a bit of that Daring Fireball mojo to the site. If you’re a cynic like me who thinks blogging is, like, totally dead, think again. Karl’s still finding great folks doing cool stuff in the Philly area. Stop over there and spend some time catching up.
I think I speak for everyone when I say that Geeta’s take on Brian Eno’s Another Green World for the 33 1/3 series was hotly anticipated. I can think of few titles in the series that generated as much excitement from the time her pitch was accepted to publication. Those who waited will be richly rewarded by her insightful look into Eno and his approach to recording his landmark album, Another Green World.
Geeta avoids the landmines that surround a work like this. She brought her A game when it came to researching this book, digging up cool quotes and getting great input from the people who helped Eno make this record. She doesn’t fetishize Eno’s genius; rather, she investigates his methods to demystify the way in which Eno made the album. For anyone who’s been intimidated by Brian Eno as a monolith, this is a great way to get into his work, and the book offers a glimpse into his approach to his later ambient works that makes them much more accessible.
For a book series that can be pretty hit or miss, Geeta’s take on Another Green World sets the bar high for other authors who want to dissect an album they love. Congratulations, Geeta! It was well worth the wait.