Bookmarks for November 11th through November 13th

These are my links for November 11th through November 13th:

Back to the future of weblogs

For the past couple of weeks I have been mostly blogging at Vox, where I can set my posts to ‘private / friends / family’. Yeah, like LiveJournal, but I’ve never felt at home at LiveJournal – it doesn’t look or feel like blogging to me there, and I’ve never got my head around its bizarre GUI.

Back when I started (98/99) blogging appealed to me because of the small and friendly community of people involved in it. A couple of hundred webheads, mostly American. When blogging spread and reached The Netherlands, things quickly got nasty.

The second wave of early Dutch bloggers took delight in bullying. I quit my Dutch blog very soon after and retreated back to my English blog(s) where things were still quite peaceful. And then blogging went world wide, it went A/N, it went political, it went… fucking mental. And part of me went: ‘oh, you’re no fun anymore’.

In an article in Time Out Chicago Mena Trott says:

“When we were developing Vox, it was for the type of people who didn’t have blogs. But along the way, we found that our early adopters—people already really comfortable with blogging, who were testing it out and giving us feedback—fell in love with it.”

“Being online can be fun. We want to capture that. This is supposed to be pleasurable. If you want to write posts that never get troll comments, that are just for your friends, that’s completely acceptable.”

“What we’re trying to capture is how we felt about blogging in 1999, 2000, 2001.

“That your community is small enough that you’re just with people who care about you. You’re communicating with people you know. And that’s a way to express yourself more.”

And that’s exactly how I feel. So I’m blogging at VOX for the smallest group of people you can imagine and it doesn’t matter because I stopped caring about readership numbers (which have dwindled dramatically) on my personal weblog quite some time ago.

I still have to figure out what to do with eachman.com, but I may just make it a link or aggregate blog.

Still crazy after all these years

Maria Mckee

Performing in Amsterdam for the first time in ten years, Maria McKee seemed surprised (though you never know with her) so many had come out to see her.

Personally, I had expected a bigger crowd. The Paradiso staff had made their main room more intimate, putting tables and large plants down and moving the soundstage up a good way towards the stage.

She played all my favourites. Even the oldies: Breathe, Dixie Storms, Shelter, Wheels… fabulous to hear them all again, as well as tracks off her new album ‘Peddlin’ Dreams’. Unpredictable and slightly mad (she says) as ever. Another one of those ‘criminally’ underestimated artists I like so much.

Setlist: You Are The Light, I Can’t Make It Alone, Am I The Only One, Peddlin’ Dreams, High Dive, Wheels, The Horse Life, Shelter, Turn Away, Sullen Soul, Worry Birds, If Love Is A Red Dress, Dixie Storms, Barstool Blues, People in the Way, In Your Constellation, Everyone’s Got A Story, Breathe, Life Is Sweet.

Some photos

Second thoughts about this malarkey

Hmm. I don’t like WordPress at all. I don’t like that I don’t have a linky blog. I hate that I have to add a plug in to be able to do something as simple as upload images. I have to click around so much, my pen tool’s worn out. And most of all I hate having 1000+ ‘draft’ posts and no way to either publish or delete them in one go. I’m not keen on its GUI either.I like the design of my site, though, even if the bulk of it isn’t mine. I just made it prettier. But WordPress has to go. Soon. Maybe I’ll go back to MT for a while, until I figure out how to port this design (with the ‘first post – different look’) to Pivot.Elsewhere, Tom Coates minimalises even more — up front, in your face, lovely.

It’s the season of giving! No it’s not, but I’m feeling generous. No, I’m not, but Flickr just awarded me a couple of free Flickr Pro accounts to give away. Want one?

Continue reading

Corbijn directs Ian Curtis biopic

God, sorry, Anton Corbijn is set to direct a biopic of Joy Division’s Ian Curtis. It’s going to be Anton’s first feature film. This is great news and hopefully only the beginning of this new twist to his career.

More details at NME.com, who seem to think Anton’s German. Arseholes.

Continue reading

U2log.com first among many, not money

I was just going over to Plasticbag’s to steal their comment disclaimer for u2log.com when lo and behold, Tom writes:

“U2log.com – one of the first and best single-subject magazine-style weblogs. I’m not a great fan of U2, but it’s still an impressive site – and more importantly was created way before Gawker media and the current fad for commercial webloggery. I wonder if it makes any money…”

Finally, someone recognises U2log.com. I always feel it’s been ignored by web pundits — probably because they find its subject matter distasteful. I think I entered the site into the Webbies twice without being short listed while the much younger and more derivative Whedonesque got in without problems.

Do we make any money? No, we don’t. We don’t make any ‘big’ money. We make pocket money. Enough for me to buy my many editors a Christmas gift. Enough to pay for bandwidth over-usuage. We’re probably in the Top 5 U2 fansites, but nowhere near the largest. We get 5000 to 7000 (front)page hits per day and just had our busiest day last week at 23000 page hits.

We started this site as a joke, just some old IRC friends mucking about. Our style reflected this. We were irreverent, with a Brit/Aussie type humour – unlike any other U2 sites. Always taking the mickey out of the band. These days we’re rather professional, with press accreditation and access to big events, old skool reporting and what have you, but we’re still doing it because we’re obsessive about documenting the band and still in love with the music.

Joss Whedon posts to Whedonesque.com

TV- and filmmaker and creator of the Buffy, Angel and Firefly series Joss Whedon posts to our site, Whedonesque.com:

Honestly, I come here so often it’s embarrassing. But this is the source. I get to find out what my actors and writers are up to, what movies I’m directing… it’s excellent! See, I’ve secretly been kind of a fan of me for some time now. I’ve seen everything I’ve ever done. I’d love to meet me, but I’d probably just stare and not be able to say anything witty or anything.

But also:

So many people are acting like there’s little difference between Kerry and Bush and that is not the case. If you’re for Bush I doubt I can sway you but if you’re one of those people grumbling about politicians all being the same I’m begging you to look hard at the facts and at the smirking face of the man who is doing more damage to this country than any president in my lifetime. We cannot let apathy decide our fate. I’m sounding all soapbox-y but I am truly afraid for our economic infrastucture, our dwindling natural reserves and most of all our place in the world. We need to act.

Whedonesque.com is a relatively new site to the Buffyverse, unlike places like The Bronze where Joss and the other Mutant Enemy writers generally post. Which is why we’re quite chuffed.