hooves on the turf

How to be a good consumer

This in the email from the Nation:

Postal regulators have decided to extend special favors to the nation’s largest publishers, like Time Warner and Hearst, while unfairly burdening smaller and independent magazines with much higher postal rates…

Clicking on the stamp will let you send a message to congressmen and chairmen and other such folks, which is dandy if you’ve got the time, all that preparation to land in someone’s Junk folder. But why not just boycott all these useless magazines from Time Warner and refuse to pay for their other products, especially AOL, whenever you can? And if you absolutely must, buy that Sopranos DVD or whatever, rip it off on to your computer, make your friends copies, and sell the original through Amazon or eBay. That’s how you revolt!

Andrew Bird at Union Hall – pics, vinyl, hipsters

Okay, it’s been an entire week since the “secret show” at Union Hall, but the Brooklyn Music Lovers Wanting Their Art Pure was nowhere as severe as this Gawker post makes it sound- there was an assertive keeping-the-music-pure request by the same Lou Dobbs prompter, however, and this one said, “Play more small shows in New York!” to which the whole room applauded and Bird shrugged obediently after finishing to sling his guitar: “Okay.” There was also a spinning, two-faced gramaphone type of a thing, which as it turns out is a gramaphone amp that a man in Chicago makes. Someone asked what that was for, and Bird said it was to throw around the sounds of his violin. Someone asked if there was a pet name for it, Bird welcomed suggestions: one I heard, and thought pretty good, was “Spinderella”. Continue Reading »

Sunday: Brass Convergence in Prospect Heights

UPDATE: Due to predicted weather condittions the rally has been moved indoors (Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church at 85 South Oxford Street), but Matthew is still calling for brass players.

Matthew Fass, bandleader of Brooklyn-based Zagnut Cirkus Orkestar, is calling all brass players to come out with their “honking instruments” and stimulate the sound of 1400 cars that would be parked at the corner of Vanderbilt and Dean street should three enormous parkling lots be built as planned by Eliot Spitzer and Mike Bloomberg. The convergence will be part of a bigger rally, and he’s asking everyone to meet at the corner of Carlton & Pacific street at 1 PM Sunday April 15th.