The Circle of Life

Just when we are all ready to shovel the dirt on the still-warm body of 20th century media, it seems there might still be some use for it. Sherman’s Travel, a discount travel website has decided it’s time to publish a quarterly magazine out of its web content. I’ll sidestep the question of whether this is a good idea due to the economics of the travel industry, and instead focus on this idea of new media finding uses for more traditional outlets. There’s already the radio show Open Source that develops much of it’s content online on their blog. But my favorite example is our good friend Eric Zorn. Eric is a columnist for the Chicago Tribune who keeps a really great blog on the Tribune site. The blog references and continues discussion from many of his columns that appear in the paper. But the blog has taken on such a life of its own that the Tribune has now given Eric’s blog it’s own weekly feature in the Sunday paper. So it’s a columnist with a blog with a column (rub eyes with squeaky sound). What’s next, a website with a radio transmitter?

The Soundtrack of My Lunch

A few months ago, the Beachwood Reporter had a great breakdown of the live music that gets played at Potbelly sandwich shops here in Chicago. In a nutshell, it’s acoustic folk ballad versions of VH1 hits (In a word: awesome!). My recent fav has been one dude who plays the song “Jumper” by Third Eye Blind (who knew an acoustic guitar and a single voice could move a room to tears..) Yesterday, as I was sifting through random material on Odeo, I came upon a real gem that belongs in the rotation: an acoustic version of Outkast’s “Hey Ya”. (Click here to listen. UPDATE: Video now available on YouTube UPDATE2: Video taken down…) It’s hard to believe it was just a mere 2 years ago we were collectively shaking it like a Polaroid picture at every wedding, bar mitzvah, and prom we could get our hands on. Oh, you say you want to play at Potbelly’s? Here you go. Just promise me you’ll play “Skulls” by the Misfits.

The corpses all hang headless and limp
Bodies with no surprises
And the blood drains down like devils rain
We’ll bathe tonight

I want your skulls
I need your skulls

Oh wait – somebody already beat you to it.

You Know It’s a Fun Wedding….

…if my family is involved. I was away for another week – this time for my cousin Christian’s wedding. In my family, a wedding means throwing a huge party under the big top right in our backyard. So days and days of hard work go into preparing for the event – and are then handsomely rewarded come Saturday night. Picture 1 (at left) greeted us immediately following the ceremony. Picture 2 was taken a few minutes later. Ahhhh, relief. More evidence of good fun can be found here. The best part, the happy couple had a great time, and were last spotted headed north towards Mackinac Island for a nice little honeymoon. Congrats to Christian & Katy. Now, it’s back to important business of blogging about things other than my vacation.