Where should we eat tonight?

By kate on May 12th, 2009

As a Blackberry user, I’ve long been jealous of Urbanspoon‘s excellent iPhone application, which includes a slot-machine randomizer to help you decide upon a restaurant. While it’s still not available on the Blackberry (despite my pleas), anyone with a Flash-enabled browser can now use the slot machine!

Seattle restaurants on Urbanspoon

You can use it right here on this page, on the Urbanspoon site, or you can embed it in your own website.

Filed under: technology, work | 1 Comment »

Goodbye Seattle P-I

By kate on March 17th, 2009

It’s a sad day in Seattle as the Seattle Post-Intelligencer stops its presses for the last time. I wanted to write a post today about what our society is losing as newspapers close down, but I re-read my 2005 post, “Why Newspapers are Still Relevant,” and realized it’s all pretty much there (except the new sense of urgency and despair I now feel).

We won’t entirely lose the editorial voice and professional journalism from the P-I as it continues online, although from what I can tell, these will be provided by a skeleton crew of less-experienced employees. And you know what? I’m the kind of dinosaur that still prefers a newspaper, �so I’ll be resignedly reading the Seattle Times. I’m sure I’ll see relevant and important P-I articles online as they pass through the blogging echo chamber, but that’ll only be supplementary.

I’d like to explore a fantasy for a minute, if you’ll bear with me. Those of us who specifically appreciate what a paper paper can offer (e.g., large format, skimmability, article curatorship) are certainly a shrinking group, but there are still hundreds of thousands of us out there (if not millions). I accept that the old-school printing press/delivery approach is becoming expensive and obsolete, but maybe there’s another solution that technology can offer us. What about a home printer that works as usual, but with the addition of a spool of newsprint? Imagine a software back-end that allows an editor to do his or her editorial work to digitally create a newspaper (or even several variants), and then “publishing” it online to any subscribers with such a printer. This could be an editor at a single paper, or someone syndicating content from multiple sources. Those with a printer could even do some small-scale distribution if they found it worth their while.

As our numbers shrink and we become less attractive to advertisers, the onus falls more heavily on paper readers to pay for our preference, and this is one way it could work.

Filed under: current events, media | Comment now »

Simple Gifts

By kate on January 20th, 2009

‘Tis the gift to be simple, ’tis the gift to be free
‘Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be
And when we find ourselves in a place just right
‘Twill be in the valley of love and delight.

‘Tis the gift to be gentle, ’tis the gift to be fair
‘Tis the gift to wake and breathe the morning air
And everyday to walk in the path we choose
‘Tis the gift that we pray we may ne’er come to lose

‘Tis the gift to be loving, ’tis the best gift of all
Like a quiet rain, it blesses where it falls
And if we have the gift we will truly believe
‘Tis better to give than it is to receive

CHORUS:
When true simplicity is gained
To bow and to bend we shan’t be ashamed
To turn, turn will be our delight
Till by turning, turning we come round right.

Today, at the inauguration ceremony of President Obama, a quartet of musical greats played a song specially arranged for the occasion (by John Williams) called Air and Simple Gifts.

As moved as I was by the swearing in and Obama’s speech, hearing this music moved me the most. Simple Gifts is a traditional Shaker song that my dad used to sing to me. He learned it during his childhood in Pennsylvania. I’m not much of a singer, but I chose that song to be the one I’d sing to Ruby as a lullaby. Not only is it a traditional family song, but the plain, simple lyrics perfectly illustrate the values I want to pass on to my child.

When the first notes of Simple Gifts rang out from Anthony McGill’s clarinet, I was overwhelmed with joy. Joy that our new president’s team had selected this humble American folk tune to share before assuming a mantle of such power and prestige. With the whole world watching, the quartet could have played any of the hundreds (thousands?) of songs celebrating pomp, greatness, victory, or heroism. Instead, we were offered a beautiful tune that reminds us what is really important in life: the simple gifts of gratitude, fairness, gentleness, love, and humility.

Filed under: about, current events, family, life | Comment now »

Grade school flashback

By kate on January 7th, 2009

Outgoing Vice-President Dick Cheney
congratulates Vice-President-Elect Joe Biden

(I couldn’t resist)

Filed under: current events, humor | 1 Comment »

Suspended art fascinates me

By kate on January 4th, 2009

Nightmoves

This week, I finally had a chance to visit Lawrimore Project, a great contemporary art gallery here in Seattle. I was contemplating Nightmoves, by Michael Simi, which is a large circle of suspended figures that plays eerie vocal music. It reminded me of a piece of art I saw in 2004, Cosmos by Boris Achour (image to follow). I realized then that a lot of the art that has struck me most over the years has been things suspended near the ground. I’m trying to figure out what’s so compelling about something next to me hanging from the ceiling.

I think it’s the implied movement; that even though the pieces often hang still, they hold the potential for movement. They are “still” like a person standing still, rather than still like an inanimate object. Most art never moves (or moves intentionally), but suspended art is subject to chance.

Suspended art also offers its weight as a subject. You can see the air underneath it, and its weight pulling down on the string(s). These are objects that, left alone, would lie on the ground, but are hovering among us instead. If they’re light, our movements make them tremble. If they’re heavy, they defy both gravity and our proximity.

I’d love to read some art criticism / analysis on this subject, but the keywords are too common for me to find anything useful. (I’m familiar with Calder’s mobiles, but I put them in a different category because they’re typically hung high above the viewer and interact with their audience differently.) If anyone can point me in the right direction, I’d appreciate it.

Below are a few more of my favorites (ones I’ve seen in person). Read the rest of this entry »

Filed under: about, art | 1 Comment »

Just trying to get through the next 30 hours or so…

By kate on November 3rd, 2008

Until now, I would have described my mental outlook on the election as “uneasy” verging on “cautiously optimistic”. Then I read this wrenching post on the Stranger Blog that dug up all the shock and mourning I went through in 2004, and my state descended more into “terror”. I don’t agree with every detail of the post (such as blaming racism for everything, when plain old fundamentalist social conservatism is also to blame), but the emotion is pitch-perfect.

I went through a lot of anguish four years ago. (If you want to dig through my archives and find the pure bile that resulted, you can; I’m not going to link it.) I bitterly clung to the Urban Archipelago idea. Thinking of that misery now still makes me emotional.

Please, America. Don’t crush me again tomorrow.