It was not a good time for the arts. We barely worked at all, and could not obtain a commission to present our songs during the five-day festival of Minerva. The atmosphere was grim and deteriorating daily. An occasional lyrical collaborator of ours, primarily a writer of Atellan farces, had just been burned alive in the amphitheater for penning a line which had an amusing double-entendre. Another collaborator, best known for the short poem in hexameters titled “Reply to Brutus’ Eulogy of Cato,” was accused of homosexual relations, both active and passive, with Mnester the comedian, and, as punishment, was sewn up in a sack with a dog, a cock, a snake and a monkey, and cast into the river. All pantomime actors and their hangers-on had been expelled from the city. People could now be executed for carrying a coin bearing Augustus’ head into a lavatory or brothel. Foreign kings were detained in the capital – Maroboduus the German, Rhascuporis the Thracian, Archelaus of Cappadocia – all of whose kingdoms had lately been reduced to provincial status.

We survived on meager payment from the occasional private concert given on a Sunday afternoon in the quarters of a wealthy family originating from Aricia, which boasted many ancestral busts of senators. Woe to us, the payment from these private concerts was made in barley bread instead of the customary wheat ration. While we played for varying members of the family, others congregated in the anteroom and gesticulated violently, plotting an attack on the Senate House to kill as many senators as convenient, bickering and accusing one another of incompetence for a recent failed attempt in which the ringleader did not give the agreed upon signal of letting his gown fall to expose his shoulder.

We waxed reflective on more prosperous times. Gone were the days when our great patron and protector held sway, and we were paid handsomely for our performances: ten packs of grain and an additional ten pounds of oil, fresh hand-pressed cheese and green figs of the second crop. Back in those days of vanity, we would find the time to soften the hair on our legs by singeing them with red-hot walnut shells. Who among us cannot recall our great benefactor, resplendent in his glory, the abolisher of the half-per-cent auction tax, attending the garrison Games and throwing down javelins at a wild boar let loose in the arena? On the discovery of his passing, because of the dark stains which covered his body and the foam on his lips, poison was greatly suspected. With his death announcement, the populace threw their household gods into the streets, and princes shaved their beards as a token of profound grief. Not knowing how to survive in this difficult environment, we debated whether to consecrate all our songs jointly to Neptune and Mars, and cautiously venture back into the wild interior, with the intention of subsisting there indefinitely. How else could artists such as we hope to practice their art in such godless times?

There’s a lot more where that came from on the Twenty % Tippers’ website. No idea what they sound like but they’ve earned a following with these subway flyers.

Previously: The Christ Conspiricy [sic]

Speaking of nerdy widgets, HarperCollins and Random House just came out with their own book widgets while I slept. 

Both widgets allow you to read and search books, but the Random House widget is the clear winner for its self-contained design. Contrast it with the clunkier HarperCollins one.

For a good example, check out the widget for Random House’s Meta Math by Gregory Chaitin. My only gripe is they should make these things easier to find on their site by putting them all in one place.

But while I love the idea of museum podcasts, in practice most are a letdown because museums are there to display things, and audio analysis of things on display at faraway museums induces a curiously empty feeling. Video is a much better medium here. Guided audio tours designed to accompany museum visits are another story and may represent the the best use of an iPod since the Sex Pistols were first loaded onto one.

The bright spot in this area though are historical society podcasts. There aren’t many of them but they’re all memorable:

• Kansas State Historical Society: Cool Things Podcast: Mickey Mouse panties, moon rocks and chainsaw chairs. Any questions?
• Kansas State Historical Society: A Kansas Memory Podcast: Real stories culled from letters, diaries and other historical documents.
• New York Historical Society: Hidden Sites of Slavery and Freedom Tour: You can take your own guided historical walking tour around the city via cell phone (1-800-895-8161), video, video podcast, audio podcast or words embedded on paper. Points for offering every format possible and not caring whether or not it still qualifies as a podcast.
• Los Alamos Historical Society Podcast: Oral histories of the Manhattan Project, featuring singing nuclear physicists.

There must be more.

Gore Vidal: “The last time I sat on this stage, I was afflicted by a fly. An awful fly that kept buzzing around my head as I spoke. After a while, I realized the fly was the late Truman Capote.”

Gary Panter: “Paul [Reuben, aka Pee Wee Herman] and I just pitched an animated version [of Pee Wee’s Playhouse] to Cartoon Network: Earth is destroyed. Pee Wee’s Playhouse is in outer space. Pee Wee falls asleep until the year 1999. The characters are mutated. And he hates them all.”

The notes don’t do him justice, but Panter was the funniest guy I’ve ever seen at the Y.

Any other compulsive note-takers in the audience at these things are encouraged to send us your quotes.

New York-based Providence types may be interested in the fact that tonight, October 10, Gary Panter and Matt Groening will be riffing off each other at the 92nd Street Y. Panter was kind enough to answer some questions for the 92Y Blog, and he also wrote the foreword to the Wunderground exhibition catalogue. Here’s how the “father of punk comics” speaks of the “Providence aesthetic”:

The punks were kind of grey ironic insincere killers of Pepperland, too. Energetic, but sometimes lacking color. Then punk, which predicted NO FUTURE, lasted thirty years, and then finally, but not lastly, when you least expected it, along comes FORT THUNDER!!! SPACE HIPPIES IN ARCHIGRAM CRAWLING CITIES once again. WOOKIE YETI QUISP HOLODECK RAINBOW CRAWLING CITIES. CHECK IT OUT. BE THERE OR BE SQUARE!”

Interrelated: Lightning Bolt x Muppet Bolt on YouTube.

I think the best bet for companies thinking of advertising in feeds is to publish a feed yourself. It will be more effective in the long run. Ads in feeds are not working for me as a feed subscriber—I aggressively tune them out. And feeds themselves are advertisements for the publisher. Old definitions of “advertising” and “content,” which were birthed with broadcast media, quickly fall apart in this domain.

The same goes for companies who want to show up high in Google results (which is everyone): Publish a blog that’s worth reading. You’ll do better in Google. It’s a matter of determining what’s more cost-effective and realistic: advertising elsewhere or publishing your own. Publishing no longer costs anything but it does require manpower. For overall impact in this environment though it will outdo advertising when done right.

If you’re familiar with the 92nd Street Y’s programming, a Y blog is really a no-brainer. With hundreds of programs taking place daily, there are a lot of interesting things happening just begging to be explained, linked and written about in a human voice. The challenge is finding the time and resources to blog about even a small percentage of it.

Throughout the development of the 92Y Blog, I looked hard for comparable blogs from other major cultural institutions and came up short. If you know of any good ones, please send them my way. I would love to see what other folks are doing in this space.

1. Be open and honest about it. Get “meta” about it. If everyone on the internet is talking about your new campaign, mention this fact. Mention the surges in traffic you experience. Show that you share the same reality as your readers.
2. Make fun of yourself and your new campaign.
3. Read Cluetrain first.