Blogging since 1998. By David Wertheimer

Category: Internet (Page 8 of 40)

links for 2009-05-06

  • Great, evil writeup of the grub at the new Yankee Stadium. I keep telling people: IT'S STILL JUST A BASEBALL STADIUM.

    At the end of the day, you're attending a ball game, with all the wonderful lowbrow treats that implies: outdoor seating, weather variances, sticky floors, people yelling. No amount of haute cuisine, good or bad, will change that fact, nor can it justify huge ticket price increases.
    As Mitch Albom said a few weeks back, "I don't know anyone who ever came home from a sports event talking about the food."
    (tags: baseball food)
  • Pandora's definition of Janet Jackson's music includes "extensive vamping." From the Pandora FAQ: "Vamping is a term that refers to extended improvisation over a repeated chord change." I never knew vamping was a technical term. Fascinated (and wiser)
    (tags: music words)
  • "If you were a child in the '70s or the '80s and were allowed to go visit your friend down the block, or ride your bike to the library, or play in the park without your parents accompanying you, your children are no less safe than you were." I am so heavily in favor of letting my boy be a child on his own terms.

links for 2009-04-29

The Awl

A week on, I’m really enjoying The Awl, Choire Sicha and Alex Balk’s new project. (And I’m not just saying that because Choire is a friend. Hell, I don’t even know what Balk looks like.)
There’s something starkly refreshing and pleasant about the site, greater than the sum of its parts: forced lack of design, missing headlines, unironic self-consciousness. With a crack staff of professional writers but no publisher overhead, the site is as snarky as it damn well pleases, but not in an off-putting way. It’s more of, “This is how we feel, read it if you like, wander over to one of Nick Denton’s sites if you must, we’ll still be here. Fucker.” Well, okay then. And so I’m reading it all day.
I’m also a fan of the subject matter, which, thanks to its writers’ sensibilities, hews toward the Spy/Radar/Gawker-circa-2003 detached observer’s angle. The Daily Show-style news dissection is a nice addition to the daily RSS routine, and it’s varied enough to keep me paying attention.
The juxtaposition of top-quality, to-the-moment critique and messy, low-budget blog hasn’t been executed quite like this, at least not in some time, and not by a staff. Choire and Alex ostensibly have a business model up their sleeve, but as of now, the site is creeping along, filled by a roster of un- and underemployed bloggers. It’s a fascinating experiment, and one that, even if it cleans up before it turns platinum, will no doubt make for great reading. I wish them much success.

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