on the shore of the ultimate sea

I’ve got a new job! This just went out over the e-wire, and here it is now for some edification.

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Greetings,

My term as Creativity’s associate editor has come to a close.

I’m still under the Ad Age umbrella, though, and have exciting work ahead of me.

As of next week I’m moving into a role programming and developing content around Ad Age and Creativity events–recruiting speakers, creating leading content around concepts and panel agendas, making sure everyone knows what’s coming up, etc.–as Ad Age’s events content manager.

While it’s a disappointment to see my part in the day-to-day reporting in Creativity’s exciting world diminish, I’ve got something new to be looking forward to: shaping how we interact with you, dear reader, in the live space, how we help confer knowledge and make deeper connections.
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Halldór Laxness by Einar Hákonarson, 1984

For me, one of the more fun and exciting parts of meeting people who write stuff for a living comes when you skip onto something, appreciate it, and, looking back at the byline, realize a respected colleague has written it. That’s more or less what happened the other day when I followed a link from Arts and Letters Daily to this article, “Becoming Halldór Laxness” at the incipient The National out of the UAE. Turns out, it’s pal (and old roommate) Sam Munson reviewing restless Iceland native Laxness’ The Great Weaver from Kashmir. Munson says it bears resemblance to “other works of hectic spiritual heroics” such as Knut Hamsun’s Hunger, which is enough for me to check it out.

In other news barely related to our credit-crunched North Atlantic friends, another chum, Dustin Long, who wrote a novel called Icelander, has provided some year-end recos over at The Millions.

To continue this terribly tenuous connection, I had an icy landing on Friday, barely escaping New York’s snowfall to be blown headlong into a huge Michigan dump. And guess what was on TV that night? Well, Johnny, nothing but a beautiful documentary about an Icelandic band Sigur Rós, Heima.

So, Nick, you ask, what’s the takeaway? And of course I ignore you because “takeaway” is one of those terrible beige middle management words we should actively conduct disgust towards. I guess, though, check these books out, if you’re interested, or have some late-game gift-giving to do for someone who loves reading.

I’m in my own private Iceland in Michigan for a few weeks, but I’ve recently uncovered some childhood treasures I want to bring to you soon, a little treasure trove you can consider your holiday treat.

I used to think Parish Nation comprised only my immediate family and the proud stragglers of a once-mighty horde in the British Isles. Looks like I have some cousins I didn’t know about! I may just be able to put aside the obnoxiousness of wearing something with your surname on it (Chief, I’m looking at you, and I’m sorry) and pick up a T-shirt, if only to get geared up and show at a party these guys are throwing flashing my birth certificate or work ID around (‘Hey, guys! Look, I have the same name as your company! Let’s party!). Comedic shenanigans may ensue. Terribly dorky, pity-filled, ‘yo this guy really wants to hang out with us so why don’t we just let him’ shenanigans.

Here’s another dollop of cream from last week’s history, skimmed off the top of a bucket of delicious Internet milk.

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I’ve become accustomed to having Google’s technologists be one step ahead of my brain in terms of new web items. I get riled about the lack of email storage, along comes Gmail. Bummed about IM-blockers in the office? Gmail chat. Lately I’ve been wondering how to keep a synchronization between the dozens of cool things I scope at the office daily and my surfing at home. There’s clearly no way to follow up on every strange link that comes across the Internet (especially since I’m such a dedicated employee, pathologically averse to letting nonsense gnaw at productivity), so logging the things that get sent over IM, served up in my newsfeed reader (FeedDemon, if you were wondering) and mailed over is a high priority. I toyed with running Firefox, Gaim and other things on a USB drive and bringing it home and doing the same from the laptop but the lab rats at Google came to the rescue again with Browser Sync. Basically you install it in Firefox and it keeps your history, bookmarks, extensions etc in line between several machines.

‘What does this mean for me?’ you ask? Well, it makes it easier for me to dump a bunch of links to wild and crazy stuff on you. So enjoy.

Since it’s mostly video stuff I won’t turn this page into a monstrosity by embedding every one. Here goes.

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I’ll be back in Detroit until 2007 kicks off, so here’s a dose of holiday reality from Mad Mike Banks and German DVD mag Slices.

Just got back from a short trip to Japan–check back in a bit for a little video travelogue but until then scope the photos.

Self reference time! Post-Euroswing I’ve had to relearn the most basic human motor functions, including complex cognition and not expecting chilled bottles of champagne lurking at every turn and beaches packed with delirious hedonism. Unravelling? No, I’ve tied up several loose ends in recent weeks in several strange twists of fate.

The first came in Cannes, a few days after I left the techno madness of Barcelona behind. I was dining at a quaint Italian restaurant called Arcimboldo when I noticed a guy at the table next to me was wearing a M.A.N.D.Y. T-shirt. I had to mention something, and when I did he introduced himself as Peter Hayo, a founding member of Get Physical and producer of many fine dance records. He was in town as part of his other concern, Perky Park, a company that does music production for commercials and otherwise. His two co-conspirators, Walter Merziger, Arno Kammermeier are also known as Booka Shade. So, naturally, I asked him about a rumor I’d heard, that they produced Aqua’s “Barbie Girl.” The rumor delighted me–that the popularity of a silly Danish pop song I’d found so much delight in could have been been responsible for the genesis of one of the biggest forces in contemporary dance music would have been an utterly fun piece of cosmic coincidence. Alas, not so, entirely. Hayo and chums just remixed the track for Universal Music, and, as you know, it spent a significant amount of time on the charts, and, subsequently, fattened the Perky Park synth fund.

The second weird, ‘What the?’ techno moment came after I returned, and got a tip from a diligent German about the closeness between the group awarded the Titanium Lion at Cannes and work done by pfadfinderei, Bpitch’s design gurus. Turns out, shaping barcodes to make them look cool while still functioning is a pretty routine concept in graphic design. So kids, don’t believe everything the awards shows tell you.

Also worth noting, on recommendation from this man I picked up some Hans Fallada, which, some months and many pleasurable pages later, turned out to be appropriate here.