n-judah love song

hot sand, good times.

(cross-posted mostly from my top seekrit Comet blog.)

I know many folks love SXSW, or Coachella, or whatever your flavor of overly long, loud, overpriced music gathering might be. Someplace where you not only put up with being surrounded by throngs of people trying to see the same act, but you get absorbed in it. Alternately annoyed with the logistics, and also kind of never want to go home.

For me, that's Winter Music Conference: kicking off my shoes in the sand to shake a tailfeather to the best new tunes, walking on the beach watching the sunrise (rise!) on the ocean, asshole bouncers, deco buildings, the best people-watching on earth, sandcastle sculptures, café cubano, street musicians.

I'm eating via the fabulous guide to the good eats in Miami from my dear Culocho.

It's exhausting, there's a million other places to go for the money, I may never go again, it's the bling bling Burning Man, right, right, I know. Hey, it might be underwater before I get the chance to go next!

Look for some sure-to-be embarrassing photos on Flickr, and I'll see yall Tuesday!

what is Real?

I saw this posted here the other day, and a touching email I got this morning put me in mind of it again.

"You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand."
- from the Velveteen Rabbit

There's more wisdom in children's books than we sometimes give them credit for.

ease of use.

There's a few things that I really like to do that I don't often make time for, and other, easier technologies have started to replace them.

One of these is reading the New York Times on a Sunday. Not the online version, the real thing. Preferably with good company and good coffee.

It's a leftover, I'm sure, from my record store days, but  Adam and I went to Amoeba the other night and were both in a sort of giddy fever pitch flipping through the sale vinyl. I once made the mistake of getting rid of all the jewel cases to my cd's. I know it's made moving a lot lighter, but there's something about holding the actual album in your hand that iTunes just can't replicate. Not for better or worse, because I'd rather carry an iPod than lug cd's around, but - still.

Another is going to the movies. Actually GOING. And it's annoying to get there, it's too expensive, the popcorn usually sucks (unless you're at the Red Vic) and usually, nothing good is actually playing. I've probably seen three movies in the past six months, and only because I knew these deserved to be seen on a big screen - King Kong, Brokeback Mountain, and V For Vendetta. All of them awesome. V For Vendetta I saw this weekend, and not only did it totally rock, but it was interesting to hear who in the packed theater got which jokes.

Netflix, iTunes, online papers, craigslist, it's all just so easy now that sometimes I'm amazed that it's really only gelled recently. How did I know anything at all before Google?

Also, while we're making things easy, can I have back Kozmo?