what is a quince?

Every time I think about that man in the audience asking where my sweater came from (click) I can't help thinking of White Men Can't Jump, when Rosie Perez finally gets to bring it with "foods that start with the letter Q."

I still have a couple of rewrites to do before graduation on Wednesday, but you better believe that by Thursday, I'll be celebrating over Quahogs and Quarterdecks. 

CLOSETTOUR

First I was Gathering String (click), then I was trying to solve the Sartorialist's Dilemma (click), but now I've landed on CLOSETTOUR (click).


I know, it's been a bit of an identity crisis, but that's what getting dressed is like sometimes. The blog you see at CLOSETTOUR right now is just the beginning of what I hope the project will grow to be. I'll write more as it develops, but for now, please note that CLOSETTOUR is the new Sartorialist's Dilemma.

"It sounds like an animal. It came from the Planet CLOSETTOUR!" Joe Walker, hyperlocal blogger, The New York Times

I think he meant it sounds like a planet. Come visit me there! (Click.)

rising tides, ferocious waves

You might remember that last week (below) I gave you a peek through the door of the Bryant Park Library into my old-school (microfiche!) research via iPhone. The week before that (further below), I was indulging in magazines and martinis, considering what the future of journalism might hold for yours truly. Now, with CUNY's J-school graduation just two weeks away (!), David Carr gave a quick synopsis of what he perceives to be the "Fall and Rise of Media" in today's Media Equation column (click.)

Mr. Black on the ferocious NZ waves, 2008

When I finished it, I exclaimed aloud, "F-yes! Thank god I read that to the end!" It was this bit that got me:

For every kid that I bump into who is wandering the media industry looking for an entrance that closed some time ago, I come across another who is a bundle of ideas, energy and technological mastery. The next wave is not just knocking on doors, but seeking to knock them down.

Somewhere down in the Flatiron, out in Brooklyn, over in Queens or up in Harlem, cabals of bright young things are watching all the disruption with more than an academic interest. Their tiny netbooks and iPhones, which serve as portals to the cloud, contain more informational firepower than entire newsrooms possessed just two decades ago. And they are ginning content from their audiences in the form of social media or finding ways of making ambient information more useful. They are jaded in the way youth requires, but have the confidence that is a gift of their age as well.

For them, New York is not an island sinking, but one that is rising on a fresh, ferocious wave.

One hell of a kicker, right? That's us, knocking down doors with our iPhones (or respectfully photographing them at the Bryant Park Library.) Graduation, here we come. Now back to work.

Pssst!

Shhh...secret research at the Bryant Park Library, observed by iPhone.

Microfiche!

Literary lions, guarding the gate.

magazines and martinis

"Drink for reward, not for inspiration."

A New York Times columnist told me that a few years ago, as I was entertaining the thought of quitting my job at Edun to get a graduate degree in journalism. (He was about to speak on a panel; I offered him a drink.)

In any case, tonight I ignored said columnist's advice and drank for both reward and inspiration. It was a long week. As you likely know if you're reading this (since there's a solid chance you're related to me), I'm looking down the barrel of my final weeks of journalism school while interning at one of the bastions of long-form print journalism. Tonight, in the descending elevator at Condé Nast, one editor mentioned he was ready for a martini. Me too, I thought--but I would have mine at home.

I was exhausted, and furthermore, I knew Jeff Jarvis (click), was expecting our notes from CUNY's New Business Models for News conference. They called this forum a Hyper Camp, which I just love because it reminds me of Mike Myer's hyper-hypo, one of the great SNL skits of all time.



In all honesty, I don't think my notes from my short (is there any other kind?) stay at Hyper Camp need to be that extensive, because if you're really that interested, you were probably reading the tweets of everyone that was thumb-dancing on their blackberries around me while I took notes--in my notebook. I'm tempted to just scan them in, as we did my notes from Cynthia Rowley's Spring 2010 show(click), but alas...here's what I thought was interesting from the Hyper Camp (I love it!) meeting about Community Engagement and Marketing--from my notes in my notebook. I'll make bullets, in case anyone's averse to paragraphs.

• Mary Ann Giordano (click) said Brian Stelter (click) told her it takes a year for a blogger to build an audience, and that they have to be their own marketers.



• Debbie Galant, who founded Baristanet (click) said everyone in her family learned to blow up balloons in the early days of building her business--there's a specific helium proportion she recommends for longevity. You could email her for that. She also talked about the importance of readers' tips, citing the example of Baristanet's reporting a Monday night microburst, which is actually like a small tornado, even though it sounds like a meteorological event invented for Hyper Camp.



• Soraya Darabi (click), who manages online social media for The New York Times, told the bloggers on the panel to go where their audiences are (meaning websites they frequent), start a conversation, and if it doesn't catch, move on. Seems like good advice in general, no? (Darabi, btw, looks like she's probably had a fair deal of practice playing hard to get--for someone who specializes in virtual presence, she's rather striking in person.)



• David Cohn of spot.us (click) called himself a "relentless self-marketer." Next to that I wrote, that's just hustle. Nothing new there. He also said the transparency of his website's reporting made it appeal to civically minded people, that it takes a year for an audience to respond to you and trust you, and that it doesn't require a budget, it just requires sweat.



• Tina Kelley (click), of the Maplewood branch of The New York Times' Local Blog (which lots of CUNY students--click, click, click, contribute to), pointed out the problematic nature of covering contraversy in her own neighborhood. Debbie summed that up nicely, citing the motto of the Lake Wobegon Herald: "We have to live here too."

I might be dealing with a little of that myself.

the sartorialist's dilemma

As I mentioned Monday, this Gathering String thing is a work in progress, and I've already moved it. And renamed it. It's now called the Sartorialist's Dilemma, and it resides here: (click). I would love your comments as I embark on this project, combining two inspirations, The Sartorialist (click) and Michael Pollan's Omnivore's Dilemma (click) in an effort to figure out: What to wear?

Many of you, dear friends and family, have been collaborating with me on this for years. As you well know, this is no new dilemma for me.

Help me figure it out: click. I really would love your comments in regards to the project!