Extra Criticum

Dear ESPN Spammers. I'm afraid you may have made a wrong turn somewhere. This is Extra Criticum, not Extra Innings.

Over the past few days a number of oddly cryptic comments have appeared on various posts throughout the site, all authored by one Linda2077. Spam comments on blogs are generally easy to spot as they usually contain an overt pitch for a product or website. But Linda2077 was a bit more subtle. Perhaps she has a fancy title to match her spamming acumen. Something like: Senior Director of Pseudo Grassroots Enthusiasm? All her comments were vaguely specific and yet each contained the name of at least one major player of the NFL. On a post about early Obama administration efforts to motivate artists to address social issues, Linda added something cryptic about Greek gods or something and then, threw in some player's name. Forgive me if I've already wiped the specifics from my hard drive.

In any case, her oeuvre has now been sent to the appropriate authorities for further investigation. With a little luck, Linda will land in a place more hospitable to what she's selling. After all, we've all got something to sell. There's no crime in that. It's just helpful to pick the proper street corner before you head out on your day.

Big thanks to EC author John Yearley for spotting this cyber-Willy Loman.

A Visit To The Cherry Orchard, Live, Sort Of

This week I visited a cherry orchard to experience something I’ve been avoiding.  I discovered that it’s actually pretty good.

Five years ago the Metropolitan Opera, led by its new and intrepid General Manager Peter Gelb, pioneered simulcasts of operas to cinemas around the country.  (The Met calls it a “cinemacast.”)  Gelb’s bravura move was accompanied, in classic opera tradition, by a chorus of skepticism and prophesies of doom.  Guess what?  It’s been a success.  Mind you, not on the scale of LinkedIn’s IPO or Facebook, but these days any success in the performing arts counts as a big success.

Big shots who don't need social media don't understand why us nobodies use it

My guess is that New York Times executive editor Bill Keller gets all his phone calls returned. I'll bet that he has party invitations for every night of the week and has strangers trying to get his attention at every conference room and cocktail bar he steps into. I don't think he means to brag about this, but that what he's doing when he wonders aloud why we need stuff like Twitter and Facebook:

The most obvious drawback of social media is that they are aggressive distractions. Unlike the virtual fireplace or that nesting pair of red-tailed hawks we have been live-streaming on nytimes.com, Twitter is not just an ambient presence. It demands attention and response. It is the enemy of contemplation. Every time my TweetDeck shoots a new tweet to my desktop, I experience a little dopamine spritz that takes me away from . . . from . . . wait, what was I saying?

Be Careful What You Wish For: Everyone's backstage now. And, it's a bit crowded. Not to mention, uncomfortable.

Theatres everywhere are opening the doors to their rehearsal and production process in hopes of expanding ticket sales. Here are just a few examples of the myriad videos available online in which cast, crew, directors, writers talk to the camera about what they intend to do and how they intend to do it.

Three Pianos video promo

The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide to Capitalism, Socialism (with a key to the scriptures)

Mark Taper Forum backstage tour

Bonnie & Clyde

There's just one problem. No one has any evidence that any of this meta-content actually increases ticket sales. Or, if there is real hard evidence of this, I haven't seen it.

facebook: where some rules apply only to the little guy

If you try to add more than 4 new friends to your facebook profile you get a little self-righteous pop-up message that says something like: "It seems as though you may be trying to use facebook for commercial purposes, outsided its intended use. If this continues, your profile will be deleted." (Okay, I am paraphrasing, but you get the gist.)

That's all well and good, I suppose, but then, how do they explain this?

Challenges to Facebook's primacy

This just in courtesy of Thomas Cott (of You've Cott Mail). An interesting piece by Garrick Schmitt on the Advertising Age blog:

Until recently there has been no real alternative to Facebook as a social platform, but now a small band of upstarts and open source social technologies are beginning to challenge Facebook in the same manner that Firefox began to test Internet Explorer nearly six years ago.

To read the entire piece, click here. To check out Diaspora (The privacy aware, personally controlled, do-it-all, open source social network), click here.

A cool way to promote a brand new musical online

Prospect Theatre has a teaser video on their website for their new musical, The Hidden Sky. In it, we see only screen pans across drawings but we hear some of Peter Foley's arresting score underneath a narration which, given the sci-fi content of the piece, provides us with the background. It's an innovative approach worth examining.

A Paranoid Conspiracy Theory of 21st C. PR: Could the Jackman cell phone video have been manufactured?

So most loyal readers of this blog know that it was here where the September 13, 2009 incident involving Hugh Jackman and a rude and oblivious Broadway ticket-holder first broke. So, I can tell you here that this really happened and I witnessed it and thought it worthy of sharing with y'all. [see: Hugh Jackman Talks to Woman in Row P]

That said... I couldn't help but wonder about the odds of something quite similar happening again not two weeks later at the same Broadway show but this time well within the sightlines of a hand-held videocamera so that within hours the video had gone completely viral.

Yes it's true I'm a Certified BCAT TV Producer and I need YOUR HELP

Firstly, I am thrilled to be a BCAT (Brooklyn Community Arts Television) Producer and am now about to live a vision I had 10 years ago on public access television.

My actor/comedian/musician friends and I are working on a "Talk/Variety" show with me as the Host - hoping it will be a cross between Chelsea Lately, Craig Ferguson (The Late Late Show) and, yes it's true, Howard Stern (I am known for my potty humor and mouth).  There's only one major difference and we're not ready to reveal that just yet.

Where Memory, Community, and Art Meet: Part II

In Part I we were introduced to Marianne Petit, artist, animator, and teacher, and her project Recollecting Adams. Here, we're going to get specific.

Was it difficult finding the three minute nuggets in their recollections?

Well, I easily have an hour or more collected per person and there are easily a bunch of incredible stories told by each person. I'm glad they sound like three-minute nuggets! There's a bit of audio editing at work--some episodes are quite edited, and others less so. It depends upon the person. I don't really edit the content of the stories or the spirit in which they're being said, so the truth is I don't think anyone has ever really noticed that I edited their interview!

Where Memory, Community, and Art Meet: Part I

Marianne R. Petit is an artist, animator, and teacher. As an associate Arts Professor at New York University’s Interactive Telecommunications located within the Tisch School of the Arts, she teaches courses in digital media, collective storytelling, and oversees the Technology and Social Justice and Assistive Technology curriculum. In addition, she is the co-founder of Greylock Arts, a non-commercial arts space located in the Northern Berkshires dedicated to technology and emerging arts practice. Her artwork has been broadcast on the Independent Film Channel and has appeared in festivals and exhibitions internationally. For more about Marianne and to see some of her work, visit her website.

 

Tell me about Recollecting Adams? 

Recollecting Adams is an episodic illustrated storytelling project. It's a year long project, with new episodes launching approximately every two weeks. It uses first person storytelling and very simple animation to paint a portrait of Adams, a small town located in the Northern Berkshires.

 

Put Words in Mister Softee's Cone Contest: Best Lyric Wins Big!

In the recent flurry of commentary over our four 2nd looks at the 1985 film, After Hours, it came to light that Andrew Altenburg had been trying to put lyrics to the Mister Softee ice cream truck tune for years. See following quote:

Well, I never did actually finish the Mr. Softee lyrics but maybe now that I have a little extra time on my hands (see my post from late yesterday) maybe it's something I can work on...

We at Extra Criticum decided to help him finish this vital cultural project by soliciting you, our readers, as our best resource. Come up with your lyric to the Mister Softee tune (provided in mp3 below) and you may win one of several as-yet-undetermined door prizes as well as the satisfaction of knowing that you have breathed new life into this classic tune, a fixture of the New York City landscape for at least 25 years. [Enter your lyrics in the Comments section below]

Download MrSoftee

Heat Of the Moment

I have something to reveal. Something no one who immerses himself in pop culture should admit and that is that I am always at the end of every trend. It’s true. If you see me embracing a trend, it is over. I am the harbinger of the end of fads. I resist and resist and embrace it just near the end. I’m like the human equivalent of Oprah because once she’s covered a trend, girl, you know it’s way past it's expiration date.

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