the world has turned and left me here

own my phone

I know you love my phone. It loves you. Or should I say, it will learn to love you. With its sleek design, time-saving features and unparalleled reliability, how could you refuse to trade me an item of roughly equal practical and aesthetic value for it by end-of-month?

How could you turn your back on the pure joy you will receive when you discover it has rebooted randomly, and the joy of deja vu when it does it again 15 minutes later? Life may be full of surprises, but it isn't full of enough surprises, you must admit. You need technology to create them for you--after all, it's only fair, since technology took them away.

How could one possibly forego a text messaging system that doesn't integrate with your contacts, period? How could you pass up typing their names all over again in T9 and submitting to a web form that subjects you to a minimum of three lengthy clicks to do anything while you watch "receiving...sending..." progress bars the whole time play across the screen like a tennis match between two stoned manatees?

Guess what: you can even take this baby down in the subway! Of course, with no signal down there, you can't do much else but watch it actively search for 15 minutes straight with no exponential backoff algorithm, then fall down on its own sword when the battery runs out. So that's why I always pleasurably turn the phone off when I go underground, and pleasurably wait another 30 seconds for it to boot up when I emerge. Are you saying you have a problem with pleasure?

Like I say, it's probably a little too cool for you--your best friends might think you've finally started playing the status game. They'll go home, crack open a beer and wonder if it's still cool to call and tell you about their issues with girls. Especially with you cradling this sick lodestone of power the whole time.

it's a little strange playing here

Blonde Redhead kicked off their new American tour tonight at the Apple Store in Soho. Hundreds of people waited in the cold in a line that stretched all the way around the block. The concert itself was free and open to the public, but the first 50 or so people got theater seats up front. I was one of these frozen chosen.

A lot of little things went wrong for them. After launching into the first song, Kazu realized she hadn't even mic checked, so she called for a restart. Amadeo's cable had a loose connection on "23" and kept cutting out. Later, he broke a string, and rushed the guitar off stage for repair,

"He always changes his guitar strings, and I never do, but somehow it always happens to him, and never to me" Kazu explained to us. "Bad karma."

But worse than all the technical difficulties was the feeling that they just weren't comfortable up there. Yeah, I know, it's the beginning of the tour. But the theater area of the Apple Store--which had all the trappings of a corporate presentation space--couldn't have helped. At the right moment, Jobs could have come out in a turtleneck, thanked the band in stride and unveiled the new product-unveiling product.

Notwithstanding, they had their moments. Twice during the brief four-song set they noticeably lost themselves in the music, forgetting their surroundings and engaging each other directly in that interplay that has become the hallmark of their live shows.

As for the music itself, those cinematic swirly textures from the last album are still there, but you can hear the harder edge creeping back in. Maybe they're returning to their roots. Or maybe they're veering off in a new direction. Either way, I plan to see them again at Webster Hall on May 9th, where they're hopefully more comfortable and confident.

Amadeo summed the gig up nicely between songs: "It's a little strange playing here."

haste

Reality has a speed limit. I woke up this morning to a day full of appointments in my neighborhood, and thought boy, wouldn't a bike be nice right about now. New brake pads were a prerequisite to this. So I ran down to the bike store and back, put on the Goldberg Variations, and set to work.

I haven't really messed with my bike since I rebuilt it in Seattle, but the adjustment zen was still there for the channeling. Finally, five minutes before my first appointment, things were in working order. The Goldberg Variations closed with the aria--a perfect coincidence--just as I headed out the door...with flat tires.

pixelator

"Pixelator is an unauthorized on-going video art performance collaboration with the New York City Metropolitan Transit Authority, Clear Channel Communications, and its selected artists."