• My Time at TLA Video

    The past ten years were host to the great­est chal­lenges and joys of my life. I start­ed the decade as a tough-mind­ed grad stu­dent at the New School for Social Research. Some­where along the way I turned an unpaid hob­by into a career. Crazy, huh? In between times, I made the best out of under­em­ploy­ment,…

  • Resolutions, I’ve Made a Few

    I’m look­ing over the res­o­lu­tions I made last year. Hilar­i­ous! Apart from final­ly find­ing a theme I could live with and a cou­ple easy plug-ins for the right rail, I’ve done noth­ing that even resem­bles my goals for the year. In light of this I’m going to take some advice from Paul Rud­d’s char­ac­ter ‘Kunu’…

  • I Ran My 2nd Philadelphia Marathon

    Want a marathon pro tip? Have a race plan. It’s the only way you’re going to live to tell the tale. You know what I did wrong this year? I did­n’t have a race plan. Unlike last year, the world inter­vened, mak­ing it hard­er for me to train at the lev­el I did in 2008. It…

  • Music’s Mystique Mistake

    One of the things I’ve been see­ing recent­ly are peo­ple say­ing that music has lost its mys­tique. I could­n’t agree more. There’s a great line in Guy Debor­d’s Soci­ety of the Spec­ta­cle that applies here I think; to para­phrase, the things that sep­a­rate celebri­ties from the rest of us are pow­er and vaca­tions. That was…

  • I Biked the Strike

    I biked the SEPTA strike last week. It was­n’t the romance Philly Bicy­cle Coali­tion might have you believe. In fact, it was down­right dan­ger­ous for any­one who tried to nav­i­gate the traf­fic-choked streets. How about a recap? There is no safe, reli­able route from any­where north of Spring Gar­den to Cen­ter City. The exist­ing bike…