Archive for September, 2006

By Popular Demand: Spoken Word Links

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September 29, 2006

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Before further ado, I give you: the Spoken Word page at NoCategories

You see, I got an email from Dan who writes,

I found your website very interesting on the things you have listed for Spoken
Word Poetry. I wrote down some of the links you gave so I can check them out. I am glad that
I came across your website. It seems to hard to find any sites with, or, about
spoken word poetry. Maybe somebody should start a site called the spoken word poets alliance or
something, that way we could all be found much easier.

To that end, I have created a place for that sort of content, a page, for now, on NoCategories.net. I’ll start by collecting resources, for people who want to find out about spoken word. That list will probably grow to include links to podcasts, homepages, and MP3 recordings by spoken word artists themselves. If the whole thing ever outgrows all that, I suppose it coul dmove to its own home, where it can grow to include a forum/bulletin board for spoken word enthusiasts (unless there’s one already?)

Working through Feast and Famine

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September 20, 2006

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The cliché about contracting, self-employment or freelance work is that there are alternating periods of feast and famine. I can attest to that! With this recent “feast” of work on my plate, there’s been an inversely proportional famine of everything else in my life.

About a month ago, I took a six-month, full-time contract for a non-profit humanitarian organization, here in Baltimore city. I love the work here, because they have a use for my various skills, not just one of them. Being a humanitarian non-profit, they avoid the stuffiness common to most office settings. Being an international organization, the place definitely appeals to my wanderlust. My job description is essentially: read, write, edit, and arrange – the stuff I do best.

I jumped at the chance to do this job, but what about my other freelance clients? I was fully-employed before this job came my way, and I couldn’t just drop everything for a new job. When the going gets tough, the tough work overtime, and so I have, to the tune of nearly 60 hours per week for about a month and a half now. A typical day: I wake at seven, commute to an office, struggle with tight deadlines there, all day,Work then I return home, eat if I’m lucky, meet with clients, and work ’till midnight, or one, or three…

What happened to my social life? It now consists of a few passing comments during, or on my way to, work. What happened to sleep? Bah! Who needs sleep! What have I been writing lately? Don’t ask, I’ll cry. Will this manic lifestyle eventually cause me to collapse? Yes, onto a nice bed of money, which will feed me for the immediate future. Don’t get me wrong, I’m working hard, but it feels good to be acomplishing so much.

I can see the light at the end of this tunnel, but I haven’t quite reached it. Websites for my freelance clients are nearing completion, including The Gallery Players, a theater in New York, turtle555.com, a home page for my photog friend back home in WV, and a portfolio for Creative Landscape Arts in Baltimore. That last project, I accepted it the same week as this larger full-time contract, against my better judgment, but hey, it hasn’t killed me yet.

This weekend, to preserve my sanity, I’m heading to the hills. My best friend is hosting a harvest party at his place, far from the city, the internet, and most importantly, far from all this work. I hope to recharge my batteries enough to complete the last of this work, before returning to my life again. Then, I can finish my spoken word project, revise my book of poems, and tart that play I’ve been meaning to get to. When this is all said and done, I should probably have more, not less, time to live with, since I wont be searching for work for a few months.

National Gazette

Posted

September 12, 2006

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Recently, I was duped into believing that I could work for a revolutionary kind of journalism. I should have known better. The terms “revolutionary” and “journalism” are only sporadically related, at times like the French Revolution or the radical sixties, if they’re related at all.

My misadventure with the apparently fraudulent USA Voice is over for me now, and, reflecting back on it, I’ve given some thought to the allure, the idea that suckered me into almost falling for it. It’s a nice idea – democratic journalism. An incredible number of people out there seem to agree with me, and many of them were also tricked, because they, too, were excited about the idea.

So why not do it? Why not actually make the publication USA Voice claims to be? I’ve begun to seriously consider the idea. First, I decided address a call-to-arms to the people I’ve met because of the USA Voice debacle. Couldn’t we do this the right way; couldn’t we make an independent, democratic publication using internet technology? Of course we could! What are your thoughts on the subject?

Then, I decided to see if anybody else is doing this. "Anybody else", I mean, aside from the usual suspects, the major news outlets, the established internet publications, etc. I found one, very interesting project called The National Gazette. The project does seem to be slower in development than the initial plan indicated, but I think the final product will be interesting, worthwhile, and even legitimate! The Austin-American-Statesman newspaper reports:

The National Gazette is a new on-line newspaper slated for publication this summer.  Dan Croak, the publisher, states on the paper’s website that it aims to continue the tradition of the defunct paper of the same name started by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison in 1791 to spark public debate.  According to Croak in the Prediction Markets Google Group the publication will include information market coverage.

“The National Gazette editorial board strongly believes that goal is best achieved using an ‘architecture of participation,’ the business model best exemplified by Wikipedia, eBay, and Amazon.com,” states the pre-registration e-mail (hyperlinks added).

Coupling modern communications technology with Jefferson’s and Madison’s desire to harness public opinion to influence policy should add an interesting flair to the current offering of user generated news and debate sites like digg, Newsvine, and Gather along with wikis and blogs.

For more information about and to pre-register for the National Gazette visit its website at www.nationalgazette.org.  To learn more about Croak visit his Blogger profile that lists the blogs he contributes to.  Previews of the site’s layout are posted at Jason Santa Maria’s blog post “ In Progress: Site Design” and Cameron Moll’s blog post “In Progress: Logo Design.”

I like that the National Gazette reflects an era when “Freedom of the Press” was popularized. I like its appeal to the people. For instance, on the Gazette’s photography page (hosted by flickr, no less) the Gazette has this to say:

Submit your photos to be published in the soon-to-be-launched National Gazette! We’re looking for talented, original photographs from the community. This follows exactly the philosophy behind the National Gazette, which encourages the best upcoming writers to submit their work to our weekly publication.

We place a high emphasis on design, which is why we hired two well-known graphic designers to build a beautiful, emotionally engaging web site that is easy on the eyes and tugs on the heart. You can let them inspire you at their sites as well: Jason Santa Maria and Cameron Moll.

We place a high emphasis on empathy, as well. Our content at the National Gazette seeks to understand what makes our fellow men and women tick, and we do our best to care for others.

We love playfulness and whimsical prints as well. A central aspect of our publication is its futures markets game, which allows our community to participate in a zero-sum game of predictions and probabilities, pitting everyone’s knowledge and opinions against one another in an attempt to aggregate the collective wisdom of the crowds into a prediction of the future.

Most of all, we love photos that show meaning about the world. Beauty is one thing. Purpose and transcedence are something else altogether.

I am confident that two respected professionals like the designers mentioned above would only be involved in a top-notch publication, and for that reason I’m willing to overlook the long absence of any public developments from this project (the last was 139 days ago). Honestly, I’m also tempted to beat them to the punch, though I think that would be a bit tricky.

I am excited about the prospect that there might be a National gazette, and newspapers like it. I wonder if anyone out there would be interested in starting one, or something like it, or even in partiipating in that one. What would such a publication be like?