Archive for November 19th, 2009

Cahiers du cinéma.

Thursday, November 19th, 2009

In their infinite wisdom (and for once I do not mean that in a snarky way) the National Film Board of Canada has put the classic documentary Project Grizzly online. For free.

For those of you who don’t know about Troy James Hurtubise or the Ursus Mark I through VII, you have a real treat in store. Just remind yourself from time to time that, yes, this is a documentary.

(It looks like the DVD is out of print, but readily available used from Amazon.)

(Hattip: Jason Kottke.)

Posted in Geek, Movies | Comments Closed

High weirdness by radio.

Thursday, November 19th, 2009

Austin has a decent radio station, KGSR, with a strong concentration on local and Texas music. That station has been at 107.1 FM roughly since Jesus was a second lieutenant.

At least, until today. According to the Statesman, KGSR is moving to 93.3 FM effective this coming Friday, replacing the hip-hop station that was on that frequency. The old 107.1 frequency is going to become yet another Spanish-language, “Regional Mexican” station.

The new station, whose name and line-up will be announced at 5pm on Monday, November 30th, will include personalities already familiar to Austin’s Spanish-speaking community, as well as dynamic, new talents. Advertisers will be able to reach the active Hispanic market of Central Texas beginning Wednesday, December 2nd via 107.1 FM.

As Lawrence put it, “Why not just go ahead and print the press release verbatim, you farking ho?”

The Statesman‘s questionable journalism aside, there are some interesting things going on here.

  1. Is it really worth changing your long-time frequency and risking the loss of existing listeners in order to gain an estimated “100,000 more” prospective listeners? I will be interested in seeing how the ratings change after the switch.
  2. The parent company of KGSR, Emmis Communication, has an interesting history with the Hispanic community over the past few months.  Back in July, two hosts of a talk show on one of the AM stations were suspended for two weeks, and the show cancelled, after one of them repeatedly used the term “wetback” on the air. Oddly enough, Emmis announced on Tuesday that they were bringing back the show and both hosts after everyone goes through diversity training. As the linked article notes, another pair of hosts on one of the FM stations were also suspended for one week after using the term “wet vacs” “in suggestive and insulting ways“.

I’m not a radio expert, but all of this seems odd.

Posted in Media, Music | 1 Comment »

Random notes: November 19, 2009.

Thursday, November 19th, 2009

The artist Jeanne-Claude, wife of Christo and his collaborator on “The Gates“, has died.  (NYT obit here.)

In other news, the Oakland Raiders have benched JaMarcus Russell, their number one draft pick in 2007. Per NFL.com, the Honorable Mr. Russell has a quarterback rating of 47.7 (at the time of this writing) which places him 30th. The only player he outranks at the moment is Derek Anderson of Cleveland, with a 36.2. To quote Gregg Easterbrook, “If every attempt by a quarterback falls to the ground incomplete, his rating is 39.6.”

“On Wednesday, the LPGA released its 2010 schedule, and despite the loss of 13 tournaments from two years ago, 17 open weeks in the season and a few TBDs (to be determineds), there is optimism among tour officials and players.”

Fine. Just as long as it stays off my television. (Since I don’t have cable, the Golf Channel is perfectly okay.) The only televised sport I hate more than golf is women’s golf. (I have nothing against playing golf; though I’ve never done it myself, I’m sure it is a fine sport. But watching golf – men’s or women’s – is about as exciting as reading transcripts of Roman Hruska speeches.)

Posted in Art, Christo, Clippings, Loser, NFL, Obits | Comments Closed