Snow: The Vocal Edition

A while back, I posted a little musical mix called, "Snow."

Well, here's a little update on that. It's the vocal edition, complete with lyrics. Here it goes: click here to listen....
Snow in the City  

What snow in the city sounds like to me

So, when I have a snow day crazy things can happen. Garageband things. Looking out at all those fluffy flakes floating down inspired me to pull out the keyboard Sarah gave me for Christmas and scratch out a few notes...

For all of us watching snow flutter past our porch lights tonight, here's what snow sounds like in the city...

The Future of Reading: How magazines can be better than ever

Apple's iPad has been unveiled, and it's potential as a web browser and electronic book reader has people like Josh Quitter thinking about the future of reading in an outstanding, forward-thinking piece focused on how the Internet could impact traditional print magazines.

Personally, I love magazines. I think they have the best chance of any current print format to survive the switch to digital because mags already integrate multiple media.

The visual component is an integral part of the experience. If properly harnessed, the multi-media capacity of the web allows for a richer reader experience than print alone. With the web, features like supporting video, interview audio, and flash animated maps and charts can be used along with the typical photos and graphics.

To survive, magazine outfits need to take three steps:

1. Offer full digital versions for much lower subscription costs than on newsstands.

2. Use the money they save from print production to flood the virtual pages with interactive multi-media content. Maps to click, drag, and scale. Photo slideshows. Audio and video from the interviews. Interactive charts. Links for further reading from past issues.

3. Boost interactivity by providing comment and response mechanisms for digital edition consumers. Schedule chats with the author. Allow a reader to annotate a portion of the article, make comments and publish them to the page. Other viewers could opt to see these annotations - like a collaborative pdf document.

Perhaps the changing tastes of readers is a by-product of a more formally educated population than we had 30 years ago. In college, you can't get by with writing a paper and citing only one source. In college, you learn that most people's writing is influenced by their personal views and not fully objective. As you are exposed to a variety of ideas, you find that often every perspective on a topic has some foundation in fact and can contribute to the discussion.

Perhaps that's why the next generation of readers wants conversation as much as they want information. They want their news and information from multiple sources and from a variety of perspectives. They don't merely want to be told, they want to be shown.

This is a lesson that every traditional medium can learn from as we transition to an increasingly digital age.

  

A book about a book about me?

If I were to write a book someday -- I mean a work of fiction -- I know what I would write. It would be a book about me writing a book about me.

A first person account of me constructing a third person account about myself for national consumption.

The me I would write about writing about wouldn't be a Me that friends would recognize. Neither "Me" (the one writing and the one writing about the process of writing) would be me exactly. They would be the Me's I would be if I let me be myself without being concerned with convention or with being comprehended.

Me (both of them) would be the character I wish I could be or that I'm relieved I'm not -- depending on my mood.

The first person third person autobiography would most likely poke fun at how most people construct what they think is reality based on their desire to be accepted by others based on their perception of what other accept.

And it would be a chance for me (this Me) to write like I think and not translate my thoughts into conventionally composed, single themed streams so others can follow. I could write in rivers, not streams.

"The Convention" would be a good title. That's where Me would get inspired to leave and write about himself. He would write a journal about writing a book about himself while dabbling in writing the book. The journal would be first person and the book would be third person.

And that's how I would write about me writing about Me.