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A Nice Pastrami Sandwich…

July 20, 2012 by 4 Comments

It started in Poland. And Romania and Russia. And, of course, Germany. Two million Jews, long separated, settled in the US, many  in a small parcel of Manhattan known as the Lower East Side. They lived in tenements, they bought food from pushcarts. and in time, those pushcarts became markets and small sit-down restaurants.

A century later, not much remains. Except Katz’s, of course. The corner of Houston and Ludlow Streets has seen its share of changes–from a Jewish community to a dangerous place popular with drug addicts and ne’er-do-wells, to its modern incarnation as home to various dot.coms, NYU students, and those with enough money to live in the neighborhood. It’s the oldest deli in the country, and among the survivors. (Not a bad starting place: learn some Yiddish from Katz’s.)

Pastrami on rye from Katz’s on NYC’s lower east side. To the left, a half-sour pickle, and to the right, a sour pickle.

Like good barbecue (which uses similar cuts of beef, including the brisket and the navel), the proper preparation of pastrami requires a great deal of loving care. It’s dry-rubbed, then allowed to cure for as long as two weeks, then smoked for about five hours. It’s a costly process that involves a few dozen steps, some at the meat processor, more at the store. Most stores cut corners and buy meat injected with flavor. The best stores have their own processes, including the best way to cut the meat (always hand-cut, never by machine!) A good sandwich contains about a half pound of the succulent, slightly fatty, slightly salty, slight smoky red meat; a ridiculous sandwich, served, mostly, to tourists who now frequent Manhattan’s The Stage and the Carnegie Deli (both located between Times Square and Carnegie Hall), weighs a pound. (These are very smart, if very full, tourists. The pastrami at both the Stage and the Carnegie smells, and tastes, fabulous. But there is lot of it!)

Sadly, I’ve just named half of Manhattan’s Jewish delicatessens. In times past, New York’s kosher delis (not always completely kosher; times change), there were dozens. Now, there are a handful. All good. Some better than the best. Katz’s is in the better category, a definite must-do for visitors to Manhattan. Arguably, the reopened 2nd Avenue Deli is better still. There’s Artie’s on the upper west side. Sarge’s is a good neighborhood place (once, I sat next to Abbie Hoffman). On Manhattan’s upper east side, Pastrami Queen is another good choice. (Update: I recently tried Pastrami King in Merrick, on Long Island; it’s the newer version of the Queens, New York Pastrami King, and, to be honest, rather under-spiced, lightweight and devoid of interesting flavor—but the dining room was a white tablecloth design and sadly the deli sandwiches occupied a relatively small portion of the Pastrami King menu;; I’d give it a meh.)

Sliced pastrami from the reopened 2nd Avenue Deli in Manhattan. One of the world’s best, it rose from the ashes in 2007, and remains very popular in its new location on east 33rd street, a mile or two from the original lower east side site.

So what’s so special? Start with a good pastrami sandwich. The flavor is powerful, sweet and peppery, salty and smoky, a blend that smells wonderful and tastes even better–when the meat is prepared the right way, it’s over-the-top, or as Food Network’s Guy Fieri would say, “a one way trip to flavor town!” Pastrami can be eaten on a roll, but it is so much finer with good crusty Jewish rye bread (must be fresh). Many people insist upon a dark brown mustard (Gulden’s), but I’m not a fan. I do, however, insist upon both half-sour and sour pickles on the side. A proper pickle will make a cracking sound when you bite in, and will explode with some juice. The appropriate beverage accompaniment would be a (vanilla) cream soda or a black cherry soda, made by a long-time Brooklyn brand: Dr. Brown’s. If you’re a purist, Dr. Brown’s Cel-Ray soda is an even better choice (it’s made with celery seeds). Dr. Brown’s soda is still independently made, and you can (and should) buy it in New York City and Florida grocery stores (or online).

Again, the source is 2nd Avenue Deli. In a kosher deli, these come from, just for sitting down at the table. In most places, you’ll get a small stack of sliced rye bread and maybe some cole slaw, too. BTW: the egg-shaped light-colored pickle is pickled plum tomato, a sure sign of a deli that knows what it’s doing.

Okay, back to the deli menu. For some, the powerful punch of pastrami is too much, so the fall-back choice is corned beef. This is not Irish corned beef, but it is similar. It’s salty and a bit smoky, but not peppery. It’s milder. It’s delicious–but beware of corned beef sold in places that are not serious about their pastrami. The result will be salty, but ordinary, just a wad a salted meat. Of course, you can go for roast beef or turkey (often freshly cut), and these are just fine, but not so different from what you will find elsewhere. Sometimes, you’ll find rolled beef (sort of a cross between pastrami and roast beef), and often, you’ll find tongue. Yes, cow’s tongue, sliced as deli meet. The tongue is cured, like corned beef, and it tastes great, but then, you find yourself thinking that you are eating a slice of a cow’s tongue, and well, pastrami may be an easier choice.

A good pastrami sandwich can be quite filling, not something you should enjoy alone. Bring a friend. That way, you can rationalize a side dish. And there is no better side dish than a potato knish (KUH-nish). It’s a fist-sized potato dumpling, filled with mashed potato, onion and spices, then baked in a very, very thin pastry shell. Actually, even better (and even more filling, a meal in itself) is the kasha knish. Kasha is a buckwheat groat, enjoyed either as a knish or as part of another deli favorite, kasha varnishkis (same kasha, this time with pasta bow ties and, in the best delis, a thin brown gravy).

The popular side dish–easy to make at home, in fact–Kasha Varnishkes as served, perfectly, at 2nd Avenue Deli. Click on the pic for lots more images of menu items.

Hey, this blog article is already getting long, and we haven’t even left Manhattan. There’s good stuff to be eaten in the other four boroughs, and (many would say) even better stuff in Los Angeles (where the NY delis best customers moved), and wonderful surprises in a handful of other places in the US and abroad. The tour continues next week.

Meantime, if this article has made you hungry, two options. First, get yourself to Manhattan this week. (Katz’s is open late.) Second, dig into Save the Deli by David Sax. Nobody knows more, and I suspect, few people care more, than this traveling author.

Filed Under: International, Travel & Food Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Avoiding Long-Term Commitment: The New Job Market

July 18, 2012 by Leave a Comment

I was surprised to learn that most college presidents last about six years before moving on. A friend, who consults in the space, explained, “in many institutions, it’s just an impossible job.” Browsing through my LinkedIn connections, my first connection (his last name begins with “A”) is Len, a PR guy. Len has occupied nine different jobs since 1986; his longest stint was 6 years, and in today’s marketplace, that seems to be both (a) rare and (b) a long time. The February, 2012 issue of Fast Company ran an article entitled “The Four-Year Career” and declared “career planning” to be “an oxymoron.” The article points out that the average U.S. worker’s median level of job longevity is just 4.4 years.

The job market can be enormously frustrating, but deep down, most people understand that the economy is shifting–and that companies require employees for a period of years, not decades. In five years, Facebook has increased its her base from 10 million to 800 million; the first million Palm Pilots sold out in 18 months, and the first million iPhone 4s units sold in 24 hours; eBooks accounted for 1% of consumer trade books sold in 2008, and now, the number is over 20%. As the pace of change accelerates, the need for the same employees in the same seats evaporates. And, to counterbalance, as the pace of change quickens, the reasons why an employee would want to remain in the same seat for, say, five years, become less compelling for individuals in pursuit of active, productive careers.

But wait! There are at least two more pieces to the puzzle.

Cheryl Edmonds, featured in the Fast Company article about Four-Year Careers. To read the article, click on Cheryl’s picture.

The first is career switching. Not job swapping, but wholesale shifts in careers. Returning to the Fast Company article, Here’s Cheryl Edmonds, age 61, who shifts from engineering (1977) to a retail art business (1988) to corporate marketing at HP (1995), then heads to China to teach English (2009) before landing a fellowship with Metropolitan Family Services in Portland, OR (2011) in hopes of finding a new career in the nonprofit sector. Whether the person is 30 or 60, we’re seeing lots of these stories–people navigating the career marketplace as they might choose their next dog (whose longevity is likely to be longer than any current job), or vacation.

The second missing puzzle piece is formal education. Old thinking: go to college, train for a career, get a job, go up the ladder. Now, not so much, certainly not for a large population of liberal arts majors, and nowadays, even law school graduates are encountering a much-changed market for their trained brains. How to provide a proper college education for the likes of Cheryl, above? Marketing major? Engineering major? Liberal arts major? Get a degree, work for a few years, get another? I know a young woman whose college debt exceeded $100K, paid off half of it by taking a corporate job in supply chain management (thrilling!), hated it, sold real estate for a minute-and-a-half, then ended up in nursing school where she picked up a new $50K in debt to add to the unpaid $50K from her first degree. So here’s a system that’s not working very well at all.

On the positive side, all of this tumult leads to a far higher degree of personal control over one’s life than ever before. It also leads to a way of thinking that is counterintuitive for many Americans–if you are going to enjoy this degree of control, you need to think differently about your financial expectations, and about the management of your money. Multiple jobs in a single industry–you can expect to earn more money with every step up the ladder. Multiple careers–you will experience lateral steps, and you may earn less money in the next job, perhaps for a while, perhaps for a long time. (Freedom is not free.) For the entrepreneurs and business wizards among us, the constant jumps present fabulous opportunities to build wealth. For those who do not want their lives to be dominated by work, for whom a 40 hour week is more than enough, the less-fluid government and nonprofit sectors may be better places to work, but even employers are beginning to think twice about the ways they have operated for so long.

Filed Under: Learning, Trends Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

FROM: Miss Claire Brown, 6/25/1951……RE: Color TV

July 18, 2012 by Leave a Comment

History marked time for one memorable hour today, and within its span, the promise of the greatest of all the miracles of mass communication became a reality.

At 4:30 PM, Eastern Daylight Time, color television’s triumphal entry into the public domain was emblazoned officiallyacross the log of man’s progress. In the 60 minutes that followed, this newest ,miracle among the electronic marvels was born.

Premiere, the Columbia Broadcasting System’s widely heralded full hour of star-studded entertainment, featuring Arthur Godfrey, Ed Sullivan, Faye Emerson, Garry Moore, Sam Levenson, Patty Painter, Robert Alda and Isabel Bigley, the New York City Ballet, the Bil Baird Marionettes, and Archie Bleyer’s Orchestra, took its place in history as the first commercial color television broadcast to the public. Brief addresses by Wayne Coy, Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, William S. Paley, Board Chairman of the Columbia Broadcasting System; and CBS President Frank Stanton signalized, in a dedicatory vein, the start of regular color television broadcast service to the public by the CBS-TV Network.

The history-making broadcast was carried in New York by WCBS-TV, as well as by CBS-TV Network stations in Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington, D.C., the color signals going out over the stations’ regular transmitters and on their regular channels.

Originating in CBS-TV’s Studio 57, at 109th Street and Fifth Avenue, New York, the color program was transmitted from Studio 57 by coaxial cable to CBS-TV’s Master Control in the Grand Central Building, New York, and carried from there by telephone cables to the WCBS-TV transmitter and by cable to the network. Thousands of the public, as wellas public and industry leaders and members of the press, saw the color inaugural in the five cities carrying Premiere. Many of the public who had completed home made conversions of their black-and-white sets also wereable to see the historic broadcast in color in their homes. Typical were the two junior high school youngsters in Newark who last week revealed they had been watching CBS color television transmissions for the past 18 months.

In New York, Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt and Bernard Baruch were among the dignitaries and newspapermen who watched the inaugural on color receivers installed at CBS headquarters. There were also several showings in New York by dealers who are making color television eqUipment which they soon will have ready for the public. Among these were Colortone Inc., which had more than 400 dealers watching the inaugural on sets installed in its downtown headquarters, and Muntz-TV, which showed its new companion-piece in action to the public at its Queens headquarters.

In Boston, the public watched the program on a receiver set up in the Jordan Marsh Department Store, first store in the country to order color television equipment florstore use; Boston public leaders the press viewed the broadcast on CBS-Columbia sets installed in the Hotel Somerset’s Grand Ballroom.

The Philadelphia public saw the color show on a set installed in the lobby of WCAU, CBS affiliate, with clients, public leaders are press watching the program on another color set in the WCAU Auditorium. Baltimoreans viewed the show on sets installed by WMAR-TV in the lobbies of the new Sun Building and the old Sun Building. In Washington, D. C., WTOP-TV had sets in the Warner Building and at its transmitter at 40th and Brandwyne. In addition top government officials viewed the color inaugural on a set in the Hotel Carleton.

The Premiere broadcast was a breathtaking spectacle. His famous red hair and freckles lent an added brilliance to the wit and charm ofArthur Godfrey as he sang and quipped; a  bronzed Ed Sullivan greeted a new audience in a. setting vibrant with full, natural color; Faye Emerson was hostess. On still another stage that brought to viewers all the richness of paintings from the Metropolitan Museum of Art and ·the Museum of Modern Art; and members or the New York City Ballet “were ecstatically colorful in Maurice Ravel’s “La Valse,” staged by Sol Hurok with choreography especially for television by George Balanchine.

“Photo Credit: Ralph Morse / Time & Life Pictures / Getty Images”
“Licensed by Getty Images to Ed Reitan” – (photographed off the screen)
George Balanchine Ballet from “Premiere”
The first commercial CBS Color Television System Colorcast
June 25, 1951

Garry Moore and Sam Levenson added a note of comedy mixed with philosophy, against a setting as vivid as their artistry; Robert Alda and Isabel Bigley of the smash Broadway musical Guys and Dolls sang a duet; the Bil Baird Marionettes cavorted in a riot of hues; and “Miss Color Television” herself, Patty Painter, a. veteran of more than 1,000 CBS color demonstrations and transmissions, brought to life the full, rich, rich colors of the commercial products introduced by the new medium’s pioneer advertisers.

Sixteen national advertisers participated in the epoch-making inaugural, constituting what is believed to be the largest such group ever to sponsor collectively a single network broadcast. The pioneering advertisers were General Mills, Lincoln-Mercury Division of the Ford Motor Company, Longines-Wittnauer Watch Company Inc., Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer, William Wrigley Jr. Company, Revlon,Thomas J. Lipton Inc” National Biscuit Company, Toni Home Permanent, Monarch Finer Foods, Procter &Gamble Company, Standard Brands Inc., Quaker Oats Company, Best Foods Inc., Pepsi-Cola Company and Liggett & Myers Tobacco Company.

Fred Rickey, executive producer for color at CBS, produced Premiere and shared directorial duties with Frances Buss, under the over-all supervision of Jerry Danzig, CBS color program supervisor. Set designers were Paul Sylbert and Michael Baronoff.

The launching of CBS’ regular color television broadcast service to the public was accomplished merely by the addition of the three color cameras, plus monitors and associated control room equipment, to black-and-white studio facilities already existing before the inaugural program in Studio 57, which was chosen for the color broadcast simply because it had suitable time availabilities.

So effortless was the inauguration or regular color television service that the necessary technical work and installations in the studio were made in a 12hour period, between 10:00 PM last Wednesday, and 10:00 AM, the following morning, when rehearsals for the first commercial color telecast started.

A cue, thrown this afternoon from the control room of CBS·TV’s Studio 57 to technical personnel on the studio flooritself, opened the color Premiere. A still life picture of an orchid and a book was transmitted to waiting thousands, and the curtain was raised on history’s first commercial color television broadcast.

Today’s inaugural broadcast, establishing regular color television service to the public by CBS-TV, will be followed by daily morning and afternoon network-programs, commercial and sustaining, beginning tomorrow. A pattern of gradual expansion will be carried out, with a color schedule of approximately 20 hours a week expected by fall.

First of the regularly scheduled color programs, which will have its premiere tomorrow (Tuesday, June 26), is titled The World Is Yours! and features Ivan T. Sanderson, noted naturalist. The five-times-weekly show (CBS.Color TV, 4:30-5::OO PM, EDT. Mon. thru Fri.), “starring the earth’s natural treasures,” will be sponsored in its initial telecast by General Mills. Frances Buss will direct the CBS production, in cooperation with Ivan Sanderson Productions Inc. The World Is Yours! will present the wonders of the animal, vegetable and mineral worlds as “a sort of intellectual vaudeville show, informal in manner and functioning without benefit of script, featuring Ivan Sanderson and his “friends, II who comprise a bewildering array of nature’s creatures, including distinguished representatives of the human species. A frequent Visitor and featured participant will be Patty Painter, “Miss Color Television.”

Second or the regularly scheduled color programs, Modern Homemakers,” will make its bow before the color television audience, as a five-a-week series, on Wed., June 22 (CBS-Color.TV, 10:30-11 AM, EDT Mon. thru Fri,).

A cookery and homemaking program conducted by culinary expert Edalene Stohr, Modern Homemakers will specialize in menu-planning, food preparation, and demonstrating the eye-appeal of well-prepared foods, with emphasis on other facets of homemaking as well.

Opening of regular color broadcasting acted as an additional spur to the public to order color equipment from television dealers. Manufacturers or color TV adapters and converters reported they are receiving thousands of calls for such equipment. Typical was Arnold H. Klein, Vice President of Colortone Inc., who said his company was turning its full facilities over to the production of adapters, and that he expected to have 3,000 units in the hands of distributors by the weekend. He said he had received calls for more than 5,000 sample units from leading department stores and distributors from all over the country.

More info. A complete rundown on color TV’s early history. And, a review.

Filed Under: Trends, TV & New Media Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I Want to Watch TV on My iPad (The Plot Thickens)

July 18, 2012 by 1 Comment

Last week, a U.S. district judge provided Aereo with a go-ahead on TV that we’ll be able to watch on our mobile devices, but that oversimplifies an interesting story. Here’s the original article, plus an update that, I am certain, will be rewritten once again as the legal dust-up continues. Some of the issues are significant, and will resonate beyond this particular venture. Worth reading.

Here’s the original story published on March 6, 2012:

You’re looking at an array of television antennas. These antennas are used to capture local broadcast signals that you can watch, if you pay a monthly subscription fee, on your computer, tablet, or phone. Aereo (formerly Bamboom) is the company behind the scheme, and, as you might expect, they’ll be spending a lot of time in the legal system as they argue with broadcasters regarding the rights and wrongs of live retransmission (that is, if Aereo is to survive, the broadcast networks want to see monthly cash–just like they receive from the cable operators).

Ah, the free airwaves, the ones that broadcasters use for the public good. Ah, the intellectual property that broadcasters carry over those airwaves, the IP that cable service providers pay to carry. Ah, the unresolved legal gotcha!! Any company that attempts to make those signals available via a secondary distribution scheme must pay for the right, or so say the broadcast networks.

The price for the service? $12 per month. The debut date? March 12. The place: for now, the New York metropolitan area.

For cord cutters, this may be a terrific deal. But it’s unclear whether the courts will block Aereo’s progress, as they have with ivi.tv and others who attempted to climb the walls of the castle without paying the required tribute (or, as I’m adding in my updated version of this article… others who attempted to challenge the current system of copyright and payments for distribution rights to intellectual property).

Slingbox? That’s okay. Over-the-air mobile TV? That’s not ready yet, except in a few markets on a test basis. Watch over-the-air TV? Sure. Watch via cable or satellite? As long as you’re paying for the privilege. Watch on another device? Nope, not yet. Or, maybe the answer is yes. We’ll find out in a few weeks.

_____

Here’s the update that I wrote on March 12, 2012:

From Bloomberg: Predicting a “great fight” with traditional media companies, billionaire Barry Diller said he plans to expand his new Aereo Web-based television service to 75 to 100 cities within a year, reports Bloomberg.

Diller, speaking at the South by Southwest Interactive festival in Austin, Texas, noted that efforts by Walt Disney Co. and other media companies to cite copyright violations were “absolutely predictable,” since entrenched companies always protect their turf, the story says.

Want to know more? Here’s a bunch of links:

The tech explanation:

http://www.techspot.com/news/47467-aereo-offers-tv-over-internet-with-antennas-engineered-to-comply-with-law.html

The consumer angle:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/dorothypomerantz/2012/02/29/how-much-are-you-willing-to-pay-to-cut-the-cord/

The business story:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204059804577229451364593094.html?mod=wsj_share_tweet#printMode

The investment story:

http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/news/2012/02/14/iac-l20-million-aereo-barry-diller-vc.html?s=print

_____

Here’s the update as of July 17, 2012

Again from Bloomberg (July 13, 2012): “A U.S. district judge this week allowed Aereo to continue operating while television networks pursue a copyright lawsuit against the company. Aereo captures broadcast signals with small antennas and streams them to devices such as Apple Inc. (AAPL)’s iPad, without paying for the programming.” As a result of the ruling, Diller is now planning a nationwide rollout.

As I pondered what all of this might mean, I read an essay on TV NewsCheck’s website, written by television executive Lee Spieckerman. I contacted him, and we spoke for a while about the ruling and its implications. In short, he believes that Judge Nathan bungled the decision:

“We see loopy rulings from Federal judges all the time, and I think this fits into that category… She misread the governing law!”

Spieckerman’s argument is based in part upon law and in part upon common industry practice. His legal argument tracks back to a 1993 law which requires operators of paid television systems to secure the necessary rights from local broadcasters. The concept is called “retransmission consent” and that ruling has proven to be something of a windfall for local broadcasters as a result of the fees paid by cable operators in exchange for this consent. According to  Spieckerman, these fees are now worth about $2 billion to the commercial broadcast network, plus an additional several billion dollars to local stations. This, plus the additional revenues from political advertising resulting from the Citizens United decision, provide the advertising base necessary for local television news to survive. (Seems to me, we should all understand the economics and consequences of this new approach to journalism funding–a worthwhile topic for a future article). Back to his other argument: “there is no tradition in this country for renting antennas–nobody rents antennas!”

Digging deeper with Mr. Spieckerman, and the real argument emerges. This is all about copyright infringement, and protection of distribution rights associated with intellectual property. Judge Nathan’s ruling begins to disrupt a system by which cable operators compensate owners of cable networks and local stations. ESPN receives $4.69 per cable subscriber–do the math and that’s about $50 per year per subscriber multiplied by 100 million subscribers, and that’s $5 billion per year in subscription fees. Spieckerman believes local broadcast station fees to be 20-50 cents, but acknowledges that these deals are confidential. (Consider that Comcast, Time Warner, and other cable operators charge consumers charge those 100 million subscribers over $1,000 per year–1o0 million x $100 = $100,0o0,000,000, or $100 billion, also good raw material for another Digital Insider article.)

Of course, the local station operators are anxious to negotiate with Diller’s Aereo. And Diller is anxious to go with the Judge’s ruling because it requires no fees. For now, according to Bloomberg,

We’re going to really start marketing… Within a year and a half, certainly by ’13, we’ll be in most major markets.”

To which Mr. Spieckerman counters:

Who is going to be next? This is a pandora’s box, and when you start circumventing and tearing down the few elements there are in the industry and inviting the destruction of an important industry. If I have any intellectual property that I want to distribute, I do not want anybody able to steal my material.”

Filed Under: Mobile, TV & New Media Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Brooke’s Illustrated Guide to Media Theory

July 16, 2012 by 1 Comment

On the Media host Brooke Gladstone, in cartoon form, illustrated by Josh Neufeld for The Influencing Machine, “a media manifesto.”

Brooke Gladstone is a brave woman. In the interest of explaining why media matters, she loses her head, plays the fool, embeds an Intel chip in her skull, becomes the robotic vitruvian woman, takes on the whole American political system (from its start in the 1700s), allows herself to be drawn in a hundred goofy ways by cartoonist Josh Neufeld, and…while on the high-wire, without a net…attempts to tell the truth about media and its influence on the ways that we think, believe, and act. In the early stages of this graphic non-novel’s development, it was “a media manifesto in comic book form.” Close enough. (If you’re interested, here’s how they did it.)

The Influencing Machine is now a paperback comic, the equivalent of a graphic novel, I guess, but it’s not easy reading. It’s a well-researched, deeply thoughtful examination of why media behaves as it does, how media interacts with law and government, and the interaction of history and philosophy. Pictures and the graphic novel style keep things light, and concise, but this is not a book to be read once, and it’s not a book to be read quickly. The starting point is news and public information, which may seem appropriate, but for most people, most media consumption is not news or information, it’s entertainment. And in that domain–which should include children’s programming, scripted comedy, scripted drama, and the variety shows that keep the masses satisfied (and have for centuries)–media’s influence is powerful, but rarely mentioned here.

She begins with a Victorian era story about machines that control people’s minds–or the fears that such a thing might someday exist.

Then, she explores the ideal of a perfect balance between effective governance and free flow of truthful information…only to find that such a balance is always outweighed by the government’s need for control.

Quoting German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860):

Journalists are like dogs–whenever anything moves, they begin to bark.”

Most profound–and most evident in today’s journalism–is “The Great Refusal.” Simply stated, by Gladstone, “Few reporters proclaim their own convictions. Fewer still act on them to serve what they believe to be the greater good.” With pressure from government to suppress potentially important information (for example, think: embedded journalists and the trade-offs they must make), and lacking the necessary resources to provide information based upon research and time to consider the story so that it can be presented in context, most journalists simply parrot press releases or official statements. Along the way, they must steer clear of various biases, and play within what most people perceived as reasonable boundaries. This behavior gets everybody into trouble because the whole point of journalism should be uncovering stories that ask the difficult questions…but the system is not set up to encourage, fund, or accept that kind of journalism. Instead, posits Gladstone, we live within a comfortable doughnut. What’s more, any journalist who strays finds himself or herself either (a) famous, at least for a while, or (b) difficult to employ. The risk of the latter is very real, and so, the status quo rules.

And so it goes, as Gladstone attempts (and is drawn to be) a bird of a feather, flocking together in homophily while watching global warming destroy habitat–she calls the phenomenon of groupthink “incestuous amplification” and illustrates it with references to global warming and weapons of mass destruction. She considers reasons to be okay and reasons to panic. She wonders about dumbing down and frets about the half  of Americans who never read literature. She briefly touches on intellectual property laws, and G.K. Chesterton’s statement about journalism:

Journalism largely consists of saying ‘Lord Jones is dead’ to people who never knew Lord Jones was alive.”

And she wraps up with notions of globalism, and the ways that news is now a 24/7 global enterprise whose stories may affect us all.

There are few answers here, and the questions, well, they’re often difficult to shape and impossible to answer. At least she’s asking the questions, and placing herself in the middle of a digital storm. Thank you, Brooke, for steering clear of the obvious text presentation (mea culpa here, I’ll admit, as I write another few hundred words of text). The visual presentation, and the illustrations by Josh Neufeld, bring important ideas to life. And if there’s any interest in continuing the adventure to explore the many unexamined territories in the media landscape, count me among your first readers.

We need to talk about all of this stuff because the forces that demand silence are both powerful and ubiquitous. Even if it’s complex, even though it’s difficult to form into digestible bites, even if most people wonder why we’re obsessed with the way that media works, ought to work, and, sometimes, doesn’t work at all.

Below, some sample pages:

Filed Under: Books & Print, Learning, TV & New Media Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Big Empty Boxes

July 14, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Just in case you missed it, Slate published an interesting article about a new Amazon strategy that could turn the remaining big box stores into empty boxes. After a decade of placing warehouses in far-off places, Amazon is investing more than $1 billion in warehouses near large population centers, near New York City, Philadelphia, Washington DC, with up to ten warehouses in California, and more. With warehouses so close to large numbers of customers, Amazon will likely offer next day delivery for very low prices, and, perhaps most intriguing, delivery within just a few hours of online purchase. That’s the part that makes me wonder about the future of visiting, say, Staples or Best Buy, or, for that matter, my local supermarket. The term “complete domination of the retail industry” comes to mind.

Sure, it’s the natural evolution of business. The local hardware store is eliminated by Home Depot, and a few decades later, Home Depot is eliminated by an online service that requires no retail presence at all. Yes, it’s dismaying to see empty retail stores. And yes, it’s pretty cool to see the iPad that you ordered at 11AM in your mailbox at 4PM the same day. It’s consolidation. It’s progress. And along the way, we eliminate some local jobs, become cozier with a 24/7 consuming lifestyle, and lose just a bit of social interaction. I don’t know if any of this is good or bad or something else entirely, but I’m pretty sure we all ought to be discussing these ideas and what they mean. There’s something distinctly creepy about just having things happen to us, to lose little bits of our towns and our stores to a high-efficiency corporation reliant upon new forms of robots to do the pick-and-pack. In time, I suspect deliveries will be made not by men and women wearing UPS uniforms, but logistical robots who drive better, don’t get lost, and know what time you’re scheduled to be home so the delivery can be made “in person.”

Filed Under: Trends Tagged With: , , , , ,

Gigapixel Images (Updated)

July 12, 2012 by 1 Comment

Consider this: your new-ish digital camera shoots images containing roughly 10 megapixels. That’s old news. All of the cool people are shooting images with 100 times as much resolution. Images with 1,000 megapixels!

Of course, these images are huge. Too large to print. But not too large to view on the web it’s difficult to take in the stunning clarity of the whole image, but it is fun to pick any part of the gigantic image and appreciate the clarity.

There are digital gigapixel panoramas, and digital gigapixel macro (close-up) images. But before you even consider making one yourself, you need to develop a plan and a process. think

in terms of shooting a series of panoramic images where the top, left, bottom and right sides must be perfected aligned with the image above, below and to each side. It can be done, but most tripod heads are not designed with this precision requirement. To do the job in the best possible way, take a look at the GigaPan EPIC Pro, a programmable mount.

Good video tutorials here.

If you’re interested in learning more, one very good source is the spring 2012 issue of a terrific new international photography magazine called c’t Digital Photography. Click here for access for past issues.

Here’s the world’s largest indoor image. Click to see the image the 360 cities site, where you can explore the Strahov Library in astonishing detail.

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UPDATE: A team at Duke University posted a letter to Nature magazine. In a story published by DPReview, a theoretical design exists for a 960 megapixel camera that’s small enough to be used in the field. As they’ve imagined the new AWARE-2 camera, their work led to a design that arranges a series of cameras in a hemispherical arrangement, pointing at a single, spherical lens that the team have dubbed the ‘gigagon.’ The use of a single lens avoids the cost and complexity of having specialist optics on each sub-camera, while the curved design scales more easily than a flat array of cameras. The team believes this approach would continue to work for up to 50GP cameras.

From DPReview: “A diagram showing the hemispherical arrangement of the sub-cameras, and their relationship to the ‘Gigagon’ main lens (top right).”

Filed Under: Art & Photography, Creative, Trends Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

21st Century Debate

July 10, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Although the series has been on the air for over five years, I discovered Intelligence ² within the past twelve months. Last night, I watched Malcolm Gladwell argue that college football was a bad idea because it involved the bashing of heads, and that, surely, there was some other game these people could play that would not, you know, involve bashing the heads of students (or anybody else, for that matter). On his team: Buzz Bissinger (he created Friday Night Lights, a popular TV series about football). Bissinger (see in the screen shot below) was strident, fierce and passionate in his well-researched beliefs: (a) colleges and universities should not be in the business of entertaining the masses, and (b) they should not be in the business of providing a farm system for professional football. On the other side, predictably, were two articulate football players who have moved on to bright careers (presumably, they, too have been beaten on the head several thousand times, but seemed to be okay with the way things turned out). Both were associated with FOX Sports: Tim Green and Jason Whitlock. In the advanced game of debate, their arguments proved to be less convincing.

Football is not high of my list of things I care about, but the debate was compelling (and, having now watched several episodes, it’s fair to say that some are very passionate and others are not as much fun to watch). The series is called Intelligence Squared. There are two teams and three rounds. First round: each team member presents his case, his ideas in detail. Second round, they mix it up by arguing with one another. Third round: closing arguments. What’s the point? At the start of each show, the audience at NYU’s Skirball Center votes on a straightforward question: “Should college football be banned?” (yes, the question is black-white and there are grey areas, discussed during debate, but not a part of the ultimate vote on the simple question). Panelists answer questions from members of the audience. End of show: now that they have been presented with convincing arguments, the audience votes again. One team wins (Gladwell-Bissinger), the audience applauds, and we’re done for the evening.

The influence of Stanford Professor James Fishkin is evident here. Deliberative Polling also involves a baseline vote, then immersion in fact-based information seasoned by strong opinion, with a re-vote after the information has been received and processed.

A look at the website suggests that this is modern media done properly. Of course, you can watch or listen to the whole debate (or an edited version, audio+video or audio only). You can listen on about 220 NPR radio stations, or watch on some public TV stations. Or, you can watch on fora.tv. For each episode, the site features a comprehensive biography on each of the four debaters, a complete transcript, and a rundown on the key points made by each debater, along with extensive links to relevant research. In short, you can watch an episode, then read a lot more from the debaters and from the thought leaders who influenced the debaters’ opinions. It’s presented in a  clean, easily accessible (non-academic) way. You can easily dive right in, learn a lot in a short time (if you wish), or spend a few hours to deeply consider what was said, why it was said, and why the voting audience did or did not change its collective mind.

The topics are provocative (and always simplified so they can be stated as a yes/no question for voting). Some examples:

BTW: If you like this sort of thing, you should spend some time at fora.tv, which features an abundance of intelligent, well-informed, well-researched lectures and discussions. Much of the material is free (advertiser and foundation supported). Fora.tv goes in directions that TED does not. And isn’t it interesting that there are now hundreds of these smart media outlets now available on the internet? In their way, they are taking the place of the 20st century dream of public television…with a broad range of ideas presented from every part of the world, abundant links to related ideas and research. Much of it is free, much of it is provocative, and very little of it is actually seen on television.
Filed Under: Learning, TV & New Media Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Secrets of the Rijsttafel

July 8, 2012 by Leave a Comment

The rijstaffel at Ramayani. For link, see below.

Three things you need to know: (a) translated from the Dutch, the word means “rice table;” (b) in order to taste this Indonesian speciality at its best, you should consider traveling to Amsterdam, where rijsttaffel has been popular for several hundred years; (c) the dish, or, more accurately, the presentation of dishes is a blend of Dutch and Indonesian, and not quite native to either place; and (d) for reasons I don’t understand, this appealing combination of Asian food has never found its place in America.

A typical Dutch rijsttaffel usually consists of several dozen small dishes (often, forty dishes is the count), so this is the kind of meal that you’ll want to enjoy with several friends. Beer is your most likely accompaniment: the most popular Indonesian beer is a lager called Bintang, but if you’re dining in Amsterdam, you’ll find a wide range of superior Dutch and German beers just about everywhere.

A good rijsttaffel will feature dishes that highlight specific colors, spices, flavors, and textures. At first, the textures may be off-putting as they may run from crunchy to soggy to runny to gelatinous. And the array of colors may overwhelm. Relax–there’s just a bit of everything, and there’s no law that requires that everything be tasted by every person at the table.

From Wikipedia, banana leaves, rice, and a meat filling. It’s called lemper.

The grilled banana leaves–green in color–are likely to be lemper. Inside, there’s a bit of sticky rice and a meat or fish filling (think in terms of an Asian tamale) with rice in place of cornmeal.  Also wrapped: lumpia, which will be familiar as a deep-fried, crispy spring roll.

Golden in color, perkedel are a mix of ground meat and mashed potato, fried up so that it looks like a flat meatball. If you are familiar with frikadeller (flat Danish or German meatballs).

From Wikipedia, an Indonesian fried rice platter with shredded egg omelette, meat floss, and a pair of spiced meat dishes. And more.

Nasi kuning will be familiar as fried rice, often served on a larger platter surrounded by serundeng (a relish of coconut and spices), urap (cooked vegetable salad, often shredded, also with coconut), balado udang (shrimp in a chili sauce). Sometimes, the rice is served in its own bowl, and these side dishes are served among the many small bowls that fill the rijstaffel.

You’re likely to find some flavorful soups and stews, too. Sayur Iodeh is a coconut soup with vegetables (jackfruit, various types of Asian squash, melinjo, and more. Semur is a beef stew in a sweet soy gravy with ginger, onions, garlic and other (generally) familiar spices.

Pisang goreng is more of street food, and perhaps, more of a breakfast or lunch snack than a dinner staple, but you’ll often find this sweet dish on the rijstaffel as well.

Ayam gurang is fried chicken with special spices. Satay will also be familiar–it’s marinated meat on a thin skewer. There are various curries, some similar to those you would find in an Indian restaurant, some with different spices (a curry is a blend of spices, not a particular spice, so variety should come as no surprise).

From Wikipedia – Traditional sambal terasi served on stone mortar with garlic and lime.

Keep your eyes open for the sambal dishes–the dishes made from peppers of every variety and every degree on the Scoville Scale. Indonesians love their peppers, and it’s not unusual to find several sambals on the buffet, including dishes made with lemon, mango and other fruits, including the (very smelly) durian. Not all sambals contain pepper.

Of course, specialties abound. For example, Indonesia Restaurant (see below) features Kepiting mask telor, which is crab served on egg with sweet and sour sauce. And you may find something different, just for the sake of giving a new food a try, as with the same restaurant’s mutton satay.

I know it’s difficult to imagine all of this in a single meal (and I’ve named less than half of what you’re likely to find in a rijsttaffel), but as I say, the dishes are small, and all of this is intended to be shared by several people. But do you really need to travel to Amsterdam to enjoy this dining experience?If all of this is sounding a bit like a cross between Indian food and Chinese dim sum, you’re getting the right idea. I wish I could communicate more about the delicate, powerful, varied spicing and “mouth feel” of these dishes–it’s great fun to jump from one dish to a very different one–but you’ll need to fly to Amsterdam or try one of the restaurants below for that experience. A rijsttaffel is not the sort of dish that any reasonable person would prepare for casual dining at home.

Well, no… you could poke around Yelp and find some viable options closer to home. I did, and here’s what I found:

Indonesia Restaurant – Philadelphia. Choose from one of four different rijsttaffel menus, priced at $15, $17.50 or $20, $25.

Hardena/Waroeng Surabaya Restaurant, also in Philly. Very popular.

Mie Jakarta – No surprise that some of the best Indonesian food in New York City can be found in the international borough of Queens.

Java Indonesian Rijsttafel – This one’s in Park Slope, Brooklyn.

Satay Sarinah – A more upscale place in Alexandria, Virginia, outside Washington, DC. Very instructive website.

Borobudur – Great place in San Francisco. Very instructive menu online, too.

Jayakarta – Berkeley, California

Ramayani Westwood – Los Angeles, California. Unassuming, but a great neighborhood place.

Bandung – Madison, Wisconsin

Indomania – Miami Beach, Florida

For updated information, visit Dutch in America from time to time.

And how about the best rijsttafel restaurants in Amsterdam and Europe?

Tempo Doeloe Indonesia – Amsterdam. Good detailed menu info here. Check online for latest reviews.

Sampurna – Amsterdam. Probably the best choice; consistently great reviews.

Kantjil & de Tijger – Amsterdam. Upscale with a varied menu. Temptations abound, but talk the group into joining together for the rijsttafel–you’ll be glad you did!

Bali Bali – London, in the West End.

Here’s a look at just a few of the rijsttafel dishes served in Amsterdam’s Kantjil & de Tijger restaurant.

Filed Under: International, Travel & Food Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Beyond the Easel – Serious Field Work

July 6, 2012 by 3 Comments

I visited B&H Photo in Manhattan with a sketched diagram in my hand, hoping to find something that would allow me to attach a shelf to my tripod. When I was using the tripod only for still photography, the need was there, but minimal. When I started using the tripod for drawing and painting (with a sketch board firmly attached to the tripod head), it became clear that I needed a place for my pastels, my paints, the water, the paper towels. When I added videography, the tripod kept the camera firm and fluid, but I needed a handy place for the microphone, the iPad, the Zoom audio recorder, and other supplies.

After trying to rig something on my own, and failing, I started visiting local hardware stores, and was able to cobble together a solution involving perforated steel strips and cotton twine. At best, I had devised a temporary solution. Entering B&H, my hopes were not high.

Then, I spotted a large, flat piece of plastic called a Tripad. Aha! This was the solution. As you can see in the image, the Tripad surface extends from two of the three tripod legs. The genius part–the part that I never considered when I was doing my own (lame-o) inventing was a brace that fit over the head of the tripod and supported itself by hanging onto the far leg. B&H has lots of tripods, and I happened to find myself there around dinner time, when the busy store wasn’t too crowded. The Tripad worked: it was stable, not too large, and, quite perfect. The surface measures 15 inches wide and 11 inches deep (plus the part that connects to the tripod legs); the second triangular piece fits over the head and onto the leg. It weighs three pounds and holds eight. It comes along with me, but mostly when I travel by car; it’s little heavy and large for casual use, but durable and solid for professional applications. Here’s the video; see for yourself. The Tripad costs $99, and you can buy it here.

Now, back in my inventing days, I was thinking (though never seriously) about a setup that might involve not a full shelf but a pair of arms extending, on the perpendicular, from the tripod legs. There is an artist’s tripod with this design (Mabef M27), but I could never quite figure out which search terms could be used to find such a contraption on Google.

Then, I got lucky. I found the Easel Butler: Maximillian (or, for friends, Max). I liked the site immediately: the device “weights less than two bananas.” And that turns out to be true. In ounces, that’s 11.5, and in length, it’s 14 inches. There is a metal brace that slides over two easel legs. The brace has two holes: into each hole, you place a metal rod. The rods are kept in place by rubber o-rings (which you must be careful not to close, especially when working in the field). There’s a bag that attaches to the far side of the easel, a counterweight. With Max’s arms outstretched, I was able to place a full box of pastels without once worrying about an accident due to instability (clumsiness is, of course, another matter entirely). Easel Butler sets up in an about a minute, and requires about as much time to strike and put away. It comes with a nice little bag. It’s sturdy, well-thought-out, and well made. And the whole package is light enough for anyone to take along, and small enough to fit into a suitcase so it can travel with you, anywhere in the world. Want to see it in action? Watch this… Or just buy it here for $37.95.

I’m happy. A month ago, I was traveling some inept path with no real understanding of how to solve a problem. Now, I have two good solutions, each well-suited to a particular creative application. Below, some additional pictures that may convince you to invest, or, at least, to think differently about the way you work when you create.

Here’s the Tripad on a trip to Mount Everest.

I hadn’t considered this possibility before, but the Easel Butler allows one pair of arms to be attached to all three sides of the tripod. For a pastel artist, or a serious videographer or photographer, this is a terrific (and extremely cost effective) solution. Lightweight, too!

Here’s a more relaxed, in-the-field version of the Easel Butler in use. Very, very simple.

Filed Under: Art & Photography, Creative, Mobile Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,
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