Owlspotting

If it would be available I’d add “putting someone through a table” to my Amazon wish list. Boy, that would be quite a day. Until someone figures out transformative pro-wrestling experiences make a perfect gift (like the whole dying on your birthday experience Sean Penn bought Michael Douglas in “The Game”) I’m stuck with paying $50 to watch WrestleMania and dealing with self-induced credit card cuts.

And pay I did. On Sunday I watched WWE’s WrestleMania 22 on a webcast; I hooked up my laptop to the TV, set the speakers on a table facing the couch and devoured some pizza and coke while doing play by play:

“He’s bleeding like a faucet, JR!”

“You are right King — the monarch of the mat had turned his face into a runway for his fists!”

“Yeah, he bust him up well, fed him a stew of his own teeth!”

“This is carnage!”

Cool manly man stuff. And since I paid to see the show, I’m still trying to get an essay about it printed somewehere (anywhere!). Below are some choice quotes. I assume I’ll print it here in its entirety when it gets rejected from all the places I sent it to (Slate already said they’d rather print a week’s worth of receipes for making toast):

“There were druids, worms, a casket, lingerie, ladders, thrash cans, middle fingers and prayers. It was one of those Sunday nights when a man gets hammered with a bat wrapped in barbwire and then tackled off the ring apron onto – and of course through – a burning table.”

“Wrestling allows for a displacement of self – you can for or against any of the guys in the ring and you need no excuse for your actions and allegiances. You could hate or love everybody: the Arabs, the Canadians, the Mexicans, the hobo-looking brawlers and the perfect-body Adonises. Whatever you choose you’re guaranteed to go to bed happy because you watched a great show.”

Speaking of the WWE — here’s a great immigration-themed story in the Onion headlined: “WWE: Illegal Mexican Wrestlers Taking Smackdowns American Wrestlers Don’t Want.” Here are some choice quotes that put mine through a table any day:

“These masked luchadores are hard-working, energetic, and always willing to learn new skills that Americans consider beneath them — such as being powerbombed from the top turnbuckle or chokeslammed though the announcer’s booth (…)”

“The WWE just wants these men for cheap labor they can use at non-televised house shows,” Sweet said. “They believe luchadores lack the looks, personality, or basic speaking skills to headline main events. Even if one did succesfully climb to the top of the company ladder, he would immediately suplexed off of it and through a table.”

I have been waiting to see the cherry trees blossom since I moved to DC. This spring ritual is one of the calling cards of the city. Every year at the end of March (or begining of April) the more than 3,700 cherry trees bloom along the Tidal Basin and hordes of people from everywhere come to see it happen. These cherry trees have no fruit but they remain a symbol of the ciry — enough to convince a class of kids that the cherry should be picked as the official fruit of the district.

We went to check out the National Cherry Blossom Festival and here is what we saw.

Click here for a short clip of cherry flowers that we also shot today.

Somebody asked me recently: What is courage in American journalism. He gave me abour two hours of in-flight thinking time, during which I wrote the folowing:

“For Aristotle courage was the middle ground (“the golden mean”) between cowardice and foolhardiness.

I believe that in American journalism courage is the middle ground between carelessness and complacency.

For thousands of journalists around the world, courage evokes — rightfully — publishing despite fear of government  prosecution or even physical harm. That’s courage in countries is which lawlessness rules and I’ve seen it in my own country plenty of times even after the fall of communism.

But I believe that in America, despite current pressures on the media and a rise in government propaganda and attempts to silence the press, the act of publishing is not where the courage lies.

Courage lies in the act doing the reporting.

Courage lies in flying in the face of economic hardship, loss of readership and constant hammering from blogs and interest groups. Courage is having the patience to not do the story everyone else will do, the willingness to break master narratives and the fortitude to challenge common assumptions.

This certainly includes revealing faults in the government’s actions, exposing corruption, or showing abuses of power because so little of these benefit from a devotion to bringing them to light.

Courage also includes covering the ideas that shape society at the present moment, tearing down the horse-race model of covering politics, and telling the stories of ordinary people around us. Courage is setting aside the press release and stepping out of the newsroom, it’s taking three stories to profile a Muslim imam, three stories to explain how democratizing in the Middle East really works, four to show the drama of dying children, or an hour on the radio to explain how haphazard the effort to capture terrorists really is.

Courage is not being lazy and doing a lot of work — sticking to the principles of the craft in an age when everyone predicts the end of traditional media and no one appears willing to throw money onto the table.”

I never attempted to hide my weakness for singer-songwriters who can perform with little else but an acoustic guitar. You can’t hide behind an acoustic guitar and it’s the surest path to musical doom if it doesn’t give authority to your voice and, especially, your lyrics.

Jenny Lewis knows that and watching her perform last night at the Birchmere felt almost voyeuristic as it all seemed so sincere. Lewis, the lead singer of indie rock outfit Rilo Kiley, is touring behind a solo album, which she described as a “sort of soul record.” Add some touches of country music and great writing and you have “Rabbit Fur Coat,” the perfect album to listen to when day breaks.

If Jenny Lewis sounds too honest on her record is because she can write. And her writing stops short of pathetic and achieves a balance between overly metaphorical and excruciatingly plain. I actually believe her press packet on this one:

Few writers today could pull off the melodic and verbal sophistication of the slideguitar fueled “The Charging Sky” – in which the narrator gambles with her life, only to come face to face with God – and then, of course, doubt: “but what if God’s not there? / but his name is on your dollar bill / which just became cab fare.” – but Jenny makes it seem remarkably simple. And all listeners will swoon with longing and cringe with recognition upon hearing the devastatingly lovely “Melt Your Heart” (“when you’re kissing someone who’s too much like you / it’s like kissing on a mirror / when you’re sleeping with someone who doesn’t get you / you’re gonna hate yourself in the morning”).

Seeing Jenny Lewis only validated the beauty of her album. I’m happiest — musically speaking — when I can find an album that doesn’t make me want to skip tracks. The last three albums I found that come close to that were The Decemberists’ “Picaresque,” Connor Oberst’s “I’m wide awake it’s morning” and Tilly and the Wall’s “Wild like children”

Take some time to listen to Lewis. It’s worth the effort.

Download from “Rabbit Fur Coat”:
– Melt Your Heart

* You can listen to an interview with Jenny on NPR, here.

Legati-va bine centurile pentru ca s-a ridicat limita de viteza pe autostrada informationala.

Numarul americanilor care consuma stiri online zilnic a urcat la cifra record de 50 milioane (un sfert din populatie) arata un studiu publicat joi de Pew Internet & American Life Project.

Cresterea numarului consumatorilor de stiri se datoreaza in mare parte cresterii conexiunilor broadband. Astazi, rata de penetrare a Internetului in America e 70 la suta (in Romania e 20 la suta); mai mult de o treime din acesti utilizatori folosesc conexiuni de viteza. Legatura dintre cresterea numarului de conexiuni rapide si cresterea consumului online de stiri e puternica — cei care au Internetul in priza toata ziua consuma mai multe informatii si acceseaza mai multe surse.

Cresterea numarului consumatorilor de informatii online se datoreaza si cresterii nivelului de intelegere a Internetului si imbunatatirii continutului si ofertei media.

E de mentionat ca cifrele sunt foarte clare in ceea ce priveste mediul informational preferat de cei sub 36 de ani: Internetul. Generatia tanara — daca putem sa-i spunem asa — foloseste Internetul ca principala sursa de informatie. Cea mai mare lovitura in acest segment de populatie au suferit-o ziarele locale.

Generatia tanara pur si simplu nu prinde gustul obiceiurilor traditionale. Un episod recent din comic strip-ul Zits spune intreaga poveste.

Studiu spune clar ca nici cei mai batrani nu sunt mai prejos cand vine vorba de navigat. Nivelul consumului de stiri online se situeaza in jur de 40 la suta in toate cele trei categorii de varsta (sub 36, 36-50 si peste 50). Diferenta — dupa cum spuneam mai sus — sta in faptul ca cei tineri nu consulta surse off-line.

Browsing the Web this morning I came across an intriguing little story in the Chicago Sun-Times about a Romanian man who was sent home to Romania after immigration officials found him living in the O’Hare airport.

The story is fascinating to me as a journalist and I wish it told a more complete story of this man — remember the similar premise of the Tom Hanks movie, The Terminal? I wanted to know how one lives in a terminal, why he did it, why he hasn’t contacted his family, why they were not there for him, why his marriage plan failed etc.

But that’s another story I guess. This one does end with the common misconception that Budapest is the capital of Romania. I did my civic duty of e-mailing the reporter and asking for a correction.

I said: “You write: ‘There are no direct flights from Chicago to Budapest.’ That’s all fine and dandy, but it’s irrelevant since Budapest is the capital of Hungary, which is not Romania. Bucharest (Bucuresti) is the capital of Romania and from what I now there are no direct flights to and from Chicago either.”

When do you decide to unsubscribe from a magazine or a newspaper?

What are the conditions that need to be met for one to pick up the phone (or the mouse), call the circulation department and say in the most sour tone possible: “Listen, your publication has become about as useful to me as ribbed toilet paper. What I’d like you to do is to stop my subscription and add ‘we are editorially impotent’ to the list of reasons. Oh, and tell the editor that if he/she is supposed to be a visionary, they’d better use that talent to creating an in-house newsletter rather than content leaving the building.”

Seriously now. We subscribe to a lot of stuff: The Washington Post, the Sunday New York Times, The Atlantic, The New Yorker, Harper’s and Esquire. None of those has made me think of quitting them as much as Esquire has.

I believe that dropping your subscription is an act of conscience. When you can get most magazine titles under $25 a year, it’s certainly not a financial stand. There is defiance in the act of cancelling a subscription, so much that you feel the need to let the publication know it has dissapointed you.

I used to take Time, Newsweek and Rolling Stone back in Missouri and after two years decided not to renew. It wasn’t money — I was taking a stand against crap. Some might ask why the hell it took me so long to realize that news magazines don’t provide content anymore?

I took so long because I needed to make what I feel is an important decision. Does either Time, Newsweek or Rolling Stone have the capacity to surprise me? Despite all the crap they print, is there a possibility that once every couple of issues there will be an amazing story that was worth the investment of time (again, this is about time as money rather than money per se)? And there wasn’t. I did not feel that possibility existed. The frequency of pleasant suprises was so low, it became a chore to flip through the pages.

Esquire is now under similar review. Their last four issues were packed with Bill Clinton-loving crap, a series of Maxim-like tips and tricks to ged laid, a slew of quick reads crammed in the front of the book, silly celebrity profiles and a host of average stories I can find in other magazines. It’s obvious I’m not the only one thinking these thoughts as the magazine has printed letters from a fair number of readers saying more or less: “you are starting to suck. I’m cancelling my subscription!”

Esquire doesn’t start from the low rating Time or Newsweek had so the likelihood of me dropping this subscription before it ends in late summer is small. But the review I’m putting Esquire under begs the question: How do you know when a magazine or a newspaper has stopped satisfying your reading needs? How do you know when to quit them?

* You can also read an account of my first six months as a subscriber of the Washinton Post here.

Last June I was learning to come to terms with the New York City music scene and a phenomenon I only brushed against during my time in Missouri. Rampant musical hipsterism or indie snobbery as I called it back then was the constant pursuit of the unknown, the not yet recognized “next big thing.” It was trend spotting for the common man, scouting bands in dark clubs trying to find the perfect ansamble; ideally one that prints CDs in a damp basement while applying shoe polish for make-up.

I wrote at the end of one of my posts: “(…) I enjoy sharing and sticking around. Hell, I went to see Marilyn Manson tour behind his greatest hits record. It doesn’t get more uncool than that.”

Recently I was making a CD of mp3s for Elle (we call these “Bufnita’s musical songs“) and, as I was gathering stuff, I started thinking about why I “share and stick around.” Why would anyone in their right mind admit to having had a Manson-phase of self-destructive anger when the man today is little more than a puppet on high heels, posing emphatically for Vogue. VOGUE! The Antichrist is in the pages of Vogue, a top magazine choice of upscale dental offices everywhere. Women giggle over the pages of Vogue — not use them to absorb the blood from self-inflicted knife wounds.

I did have a Manson phase — a huge one. I used to go to bed listening to “Fundamentally loathsome” and “The speed of pain.” I used “The beautiful people” and “Rock is dead” were mainstays in a playlist I used to boost myself in front an exam (a playlist which had Bloodhound Gang’s “I hope you die” as the climax).

Music has always been there to help me figure out myself and the world around me. And it stayed around because it’s not a reminder of pathetic phases (well, a little) but a memory trigger. The playlist I made for the gym has songs from European techno-heads Scooter, Euro-dance outfit Aqua and Swedish dentist Dr. Alban.

These are to many — musically speaking — forgettable moments of early 1990s European dance music. But they were my early nineties. The first three records I purchased — back in 1992 — were New Kids on the Block, Roxette and Dr. Alban. Back then I — and other Romanian kids — spelled rap as “repp” or “rapp” and believed rock music must be really awful because those dudes with hair certainly looked awfully dirty.

By the mid-nineties I had a serious collection of a few hundred tapes (no CDs in Romania yet) the great majority belonging to some type of sub-genre of dance. There was E-Type, Imperio, Solid Base, and of course Sonic Dream Collective — my claim to euro hipsterism since not many had heard about it. I loved collecting this stuff so much I used to make mix tapes (and print elaborate labels which I had designed in CorelDraw): best of spring, summer, fall, winter and at the end of the year I used pen and paper to compile the top 100 songs and burn the as many as possible on two 90-minute tapes. I think I produced the best of 1995, ’96 and ’97 before quitting.

I shunned this music through my college years as failed relationships began to accumulate and started down the path of music more suitable to grieving than Britney Spears’s “E-mail my heart.” My first moment of rock hipsterism came when I discovered Linkin’ Park before Hefe — a DJ at a Bucharest rock club that hosted an alternative rock night every Tuesday. I spent so many nights in Fire, jumping and screaming that I couldn’t believe I was the same person going crazy after each Fun Factory release.

Why me and rock had not interacted much before college is a mystery that still needs to be uncovered (for some strange reason I did own Green Day’s “Dookie”). But I began falling for the guitars, the screams, and yes, the lyrics — rock might have bad lyrics, but try to beat dance music — a genre in which Mr. President sang in a song called Coco Jumbo: “Turn around scream and say Columbo. Now I gotta go, so coco.”

Music has seen me as an upbeat dancing tomato, a skeptic screamer and more recently as self-accepting of my musical past. It was sometime last year that I began scouring the Internet for the music of my teenage years and even more recently that I accepted my past as a Limp Bizkit fan (Re-arranged rocked!).

Making that CD for Elle I understood that I like the music because those first 30 seconds of a song take me to some other place in some other time. I have a hard time listening to full songs sometimes because I get on a memory-binge and feel the need to stuff myself with the past. So I start one song and then jump into another and so on until I am satisfied enough to turn to the present.

And speaking of the present. Let me assemble a mix tape of what I am today — although you have to remember that today there are parallel playlists on my IPod that proudly play uncool music from a different time (you can probably play — if not download — all these songs using The Hype Machine):

Bright Eyes – Landlock blues
The Decemberists – Engine driver
Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins – You are what you love
Tilly and the Wall – Do you dream at all
The Arcade Fire – Intervention
Feist – Mushaboom
The Arcade Fire – Cold wind
Tegan and Sara – You wouldn’t like me
Sia – Breathe me
Kaiser Chiefs – Everyday I love you less and less
The New Pornographers – Twin cinema
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah – The skin of my yellow country teeth
The Boy Least Likely To – Be gentle with me
Colin Meloy (of The Decemberists) – We both go down together

If you’re curious about some of the euro-dance gems I mentioned, I’ve uploaded a few. Check them out:

1. RMB – Spring (probably the ultimate “running song”)
2. Sonique – Sky (think red bull and vodka in a gigantic open air club just feet away from the sea)
3. Mr. President – Coco Jumbo (I still can’t believe I own this)
4. Sonic Dream Collective – Oh baby all (topped my best of 1995 list)

(Articol scris pentru HotNews.ro si publicat original aici.)

In 2005 aproape 2,000 de jurnalisti american si-au impachetat birourile in cutii si au iesit din redactii poate pentru ultima oara. In ultimii cinci ani, ziarele americane au pierdut sapte la suta din forta de munca, aproape 4,000 de oameni. Viitorul ziarului american si al presei traditionale e in centrul raportului anual “Starea Mass-Media 2006” facut public astazi de catre Proiectul pentru Excelenta in Jurnalism, o organizatie non-profit in Washington, D.C.

Incertitudinea asupra viitorului ziarelor e doar o componenta a unui raport exhaustiv (peste 400 de pagini) ce analizeaza evenimentele care au afectat presa americana in 2005.

“Ce se intampla, concluzionam, nu e sfarsitul jurnalismului traditional”, scriu autorii in acest al treilea raport anual in introducere. “Dar asistam intradevar la o schimbare seismica in modul in care publicul se informeaza despre lumea din jur. Jurnalistii isi pierd puterea de controlori ai informatiei. Cetatenii isi asuma un rol din ce in ce mai activ ca editori si chiar creatori de stiri. (…) Jurnalistii trebuie sa-si redefineasca rolul si sa identifice care sunt valorile de baza pentru care trebuie sa lupte”.

Tom Rosenstiel, directorul executiv al organizatiei si fost jurnalist pentru Los Angeles Times si Newsweek, spune ca o serie din tendintele observate in 2005 sunt universale. Una din cele mai importante tendinte este impactul pe care tehnologia si diversificarea surselor de informatii il are asupra oamenilor, spune Rosenstiel. Paradoxal, cu cat numarul celor care distribuie continut media creste, cu atat numarul subiectelor abordate scade.

“Cand ai mai multe media in competitie, fiecare are o audienta din ce in ce mai mica, care la randul ei determina investitii minime in colectarea informatiilor”, spune Rosenstiel. Presiunea de a avea ce au si ceilalti face organizatiile media sa se lupte pe aceleasi subiecte, servindu-si din ce in ce mai putin publicurile. Pe Google News de exemplu pot fi pana la 14,000 de articole intr-un singur moment. Dar de fapt ele sunt despre aceleasi 24 de evenimente.

Celalate cinci tendinte observate in raport sunt:
– ziarele care au suferit cel mai mult din punct de vedere al tirajului si publicitatii sunt marile ziare regionale care au dominat jurnalismul american timp de doua decenii: Los Angeles Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, San Jose Mercury News etc. In ciuda acestui lucru, ele sunt singurele organizatii care continua sa expuna problemele de la nivel local si regional si sa-si dedice resursele investigatiilor cu acoperire nationala.
– la cele mai multe companii traditionale, idealistii au pierdut batalia impotriva contabililor — adica cei care au access la visterie au tras linie in nisip si au spus ca nu cred ca investitia in redactie si in jurnalismul de calitate le va aduce mai multi bani.
– totusi, in ciuda dificultatilor economice media traditionala a intrat puternic in tehnologie. Zeci de ziare americane si canalele nationale de televiziune experimenteaza serios cu blogurui, podcasturi, video-audio si o serie de resurse complementare pentru cititorii care migreaza online.
– problema pentru media traditionala e ca Google si Yahoo i-au continutul produs de acestea pe gratis. De urmarit in 2006 va fi daca cei care produc continutul preluat de Google vor incepe sa ceara bani pentru el; sau daca gigantii online vor produce ei insisi continut original — o directie in care Yahoo a inceput sa miste de ceva vreme.
– poate cea mai presanta intrebare ramane daca si cand Internetul va reusi sa aduca in media banii pe care i-a adus publicitatea traditionala. La rata actuala de crestere — cu conditia ca publicitatea traditionala sa stagneze — Internetul nu va fi capabil sa sustina un ziar pana in 2017. Analistii sunt foarte sceptici in ceea ce priveste potentialul Internetul sa aduca banii cu care media americana s-a obisnuit in ultimele doua decenii.

Una din intrebarile la care nu exista inca raspuns e impactul pe care cetatenii il vor avea asupra viitorului media. Proponentii unui viitor condus de cetatenii — in care ei produc continutul si tot ei il vand (un scenariu imaginat intr-un filmulet extrem de inteligent aici) — sunt destul de deconectati de realitatea actuala.

Cu toate ca blogurile si initiativele cetatenesti sunt in crestere, ele se bazeaza pe continut creat de media traditionala si pe comentarii asupra evenimentelor observate si urmarite in general tot in media traditionala. Studiul PEJ arata ca abia 5 la suta din continutul blogurilor americane poate fi considerat jurnalism si colectare de informatii.

Rosenstiel spune ca deocamdata publicului ii pasa de valorile si principiile pe care sunt cladite ziarele si posturile nationale de radio si televiziune. Dar pe masura ce noua generatie se intaleaza la conducere, Internetul va deveni incet incet rege in diseminarea informatiilor. Intrebarea e, spune Rosenstiel, ce se va intampla atunci cu indepedenta, acuratetea si procesul verificarii informatilor.

Pe acelasi subiect:
– Internetul, groparul presei traditionale (RO, din Dilema Veche)
– Journalism vs. future (EN)
– Let’s stop pretending journalism is a meritocracy (EN, Poynter)

NOTE: Although this post is in Romanian, it refers to an article I wrote in English about the Romanian blog world. Read it here.

La inceputul lui februarie anuntam ca scriu un articol despre ce va insemna 2006 pentru bloguri in Romania. Predat cateva saptamani mai tarziu, articolul a aparut astazi in revista de limba engleza Vivid.

De cand am predat articolul si pana la aparitia lui au avut loc o serie de intamplari care imi sustin ipoteza ca 2006 va fi “the year of the blog” in Romania:
– Evenimentul Zilei si-a lansat un serviciu de bloguri
– HotNews.ro a dat drumul la un blog
– Radu si Dragos au facut podcasturi
– A avut loc RoBlogFest
– Realitatea TV au intrat si ei in podcasting
– o caruta de articole — mai bune sau mai putin bune au aparut in media romaneasca.

Mai jos e “nut-graf-ul” articolului. Citeste articolul pe Vivid.

“[andressa’s] blog took off in what could become the “year of the blog” in Romania – a year when the form could mature, consolidate its popularity and perhaps become an acceptable reference in media, culture or even politics. It’s happened in other countries and the indication is that it could happen here too. Several estimates put the current number of Romanian blogs at around 10,000, a figure that has steadily grown by 100 per cent every six months, according to Carmen Holotescu, who tracks the Romanian blog world for her company Timsoft. The online version of Evenimentul Zilei, ran by long time Vivid writer Alex Ulmanu, recently added four blogs to its site, and a Bucharest radio station devoted a two-hour show to blogs. Other traditional media, which have largely ignored the phenomenon as it blossomed elsewhere, are jumping on the bandwagon. There are so many articles being written about the trend that bloggers introduce them as “yet another story on blogs.”