Tag: colinmarshall

Colin Marshall › Portland Diary II

~ Mark

Talking about Portland, Colin slides in a few interviewing tips he’s picked up:

One mentioned starting off with explicit follow-up questions to those asked by previous interviewers. Another described how, given his interest in architecture, he thinks about conversation as a means of discovering the structures — intellectual, aesthetic, social, commercial — his interlocutors see themselves operating within. (Yeah, I totally get off on ideas like that.) Another praised Jon Stewart’s technique of setting down his hand on the table before him to subtly signal that he has a question about what his guest’s saying at that moment. I’ve been trying these out here in Portland. They work!

Colin Marshall › Portland Diary II

~ Mark

Notebook on Cities & Culture S2: San Francisco and Portland by Colin Marshall — Kickstarter. Get your wallets open. I was a proud backer of the first season, and now this one as well. And check out THIS shit:

For $1000 or more, you’ll be the guest in one of season two’s episodes. I’ll come to you (within North America only, at least for this season) and we’ll record a conversation about the culture you create and the city you create it in. I’ll also thank you by name in all of season two’s episodes. This sounds like a joke, and I partially made it an option so the other options would look cheaper by comparison, but in the unlikely event of a $1000 pledge, I will totally do it.

Colin’s a great, great interviewer. Whoever snapped up that offer was wise.

The Millions : Nobody Hearts L.A.: A Personal Los Angeles Canon

~ Mark

Readying myself for a move to Los Angeles, I naturally turned to literature, but I decided to avoid the region’s richest, oldest, most beloved literary currents: its unflinching examinations of Old Hollywood, its hardscrabble outsider odysseys toward the kingdom of celebrity, its hard-boiled tales of murderous intrigue and complex deceit beneath the palm trees. Those novels became iconic for a reason, but I had to ask: given Los Angeles’ practically unfathomable size and diversity, what other kinds of literature does it offer?

The Millions : Nobody Hearts L.A.: A Personal Los Angeles Canon

~ Mark


http://mlarson.tumblr.com/post/1076079432/audio_player_iframe/mlarson/tumblr_l896r4VPFW1qa2j8c?audio_file=http%3A%2F%2Ftraffic.libsyn.com%2Fcolinmarshall%2FMOI_Put_This_On.mp3

putthison:

Adam and I visited the wonderful public radio program (and podcast) The Marketplace of Ideas, and they’ve just posted the show.  A lot of in-depth talk both about our philosophies of dress and about the behind-the-scenes of Put This On.

My favorite idea from this interview: style qua semiotics.

Colin Marshall: Openearedness

~ Mark

I went to City Skies Electronic Music Festival again last night and it reminded me of Colin Marshall’s post:

Take heed, experimental music-loathers: it’s not that us enthusiasts possess (or believe ourselves to possess) some higher discernment that allows us to draw infinitely more pleasure from the same sound waves you can’t stand. It’s that we enjoy the culture surrounding it.

Or at least I do; it’s the one live music “scene” whose adherents don’t irk me in some distinctive way. The experimental crowd lacks the pious immortal-worship of jazz fandom, the dried-out shushery of the classical set or the pro forma disenchantment/enchantment of young rockdom, replacing it with a relaxed yet eager openmindedness. Or openearedness. Whatever. The point is that they’re willing to listen seriously and see what sort of an art experience results, pretty much no matter what.

Colin Marshall: Openearedness

~ Mark

Satisfaction is a product not of where you are, but of where you’re going. To get calculistic, it ain’t about your value, it’s about your first derivative (and maybe your second). In this light, statements like “When x happens, I’ll attain happiness” don’t make sense, but ones like “While x is happening, I’ll be happy” make somewhat more.

Colin Marshall.