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Maybe I Should Just Put This Post in My Signature Line

I’m steadily getting my Gmail and work email count back down to zero with the help of The Email Game, Saneinbox, and some increasingly intense conditional filters. As I’ve gotten close to zero, I’ve realized a few things that I didn’t realize before I began working

I’m steadily getting my Gmail and work email count back down to zero with the help of The Email Game, Saneinbox, and some increasingly intense conditional filters. As I’ve gotten close to zero, I’ve realized a few things that I didn’t realize before I began working with so many freelance writers and photographers, co-workers, and publicists:

— Every email you answer generates another 1-3 emails: More questions, more thoughts, more “thank you!”s and “got it!”s. I’m guilty of this too, but I blame others for this — everyone else sends “thank you!” emails to finish off a thread, so then I feel like I have to send these emails too. It’s pointless.

— Sometimes, even most of the time, a writer or photographer answers their own question if you give them an hour or two.

— People you don’t want emailing you are only encouraged to email you more when you send them an email telling them you aren’t interested in whatever thing they’re offering you.


And these are all problems, because email makes my day look like this (screenshot from RescueTime):

Rescuetime

So, what’s the solution?

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TheInterviewr - A Web App for Recording Interviews

Now that I’m a full-time editor again I haven’t interviewed anyone in about a year, so I haven’t kept up with new apps and tools for interviewing and transcribing. Actually, that first part isn’t 100% true. I just interviewed my friends Chris and Courtney about their

Now that I’m a full-time editor again I haven’t interviewed anyone in about a year, so I haven’t kept up with new apps and tools for interviewing and transcribing. Actually, that first part isn’t 100% true. I just interviewed my friends Chris and Courtney about their upcoming wedding. For that in-person interview I used Dictamus on my iPhone, which automatically sends the file to Dropbox. Once it’s in Dropbox, Wappwolf automatically converts it to MP3. It’s awesome!

I also just recommended theinterviewr.com to someone because of its clean interface. It’s a website that lets you schedule interviews, place calls, and store your audio. According to a recent blog post, they’re going to add low-cost transcription services, too. (EDIT: Looks like they added it, it starts at $1/minute for a 10-day turnaround, which is average for online transcription, but you can definitely find someone on craigslist for cheaper). That could potentially make it an all-in-one solution to interviewing and transcribing.

Since I haven’t been doing many phone interviews, I haven’t used the site, but I tried scheduling a call in advance to test it out anyway. You just fill out a screen on the site that asks for the interview day and time, and your number and the number of your interview subject. I don’t think the program automatically called me, like I expected it to. Or, if it did, maybe I didn’t pick up. I do that — or don’t do that — a lot. Later that night I tried simply adding in the info and placing the call, which worked perfectly. The call quality both on the call and on the recording was clear, not amazing, but definitely better than Skype. There was little delay. And when I ended my call the audio was there, ready to download or play in the browser immediately.

The interface is simple: a calendar for scheduling, a simple address book for keeping call contacts, and, on the interview screen, a place to keep notes both before and during the call. The log is actually really clean and nice:

There are just two major problems.

— No volume meter. I talked about why I need a volume meter before. Basically, when you aren’t using a physical tape recorder, when you can’t see the button pressed and the tape spinning, that digital meter becomes the most comforting thing in the world. You want visual confirmation that your recorder is, in fact, recording.

— No way to record without placing the call yourself. Most writers and journalists place their own calls, of course, so this isn’t an issue. But many entertainment journalists have to rely on publicists connecting the calls, so they usually call you. This won’t work for those calls.

And there’s one minor problem: cost. TheInterviewr charges .20 cents per interview, .10 per interview if you buy a $12 one-year membership. They start you off with a $5 credit, though, so it’s easy enough to try.

One possible worth-it situation is if you are interviewing someone overseas. Though I haven’t tried it, you could, hypothetically, get a cheaper call by routing it through TheInterviewr’s service, so their US-based number calls you, while they connect you to the overseas number. Again, haven’t tried it, but it could work. According to their FAQ, international numbers are fine, and their calls come from a 206 number.

Update: The Interviewr’s Roger sent me a few clarifications. Here’s his email:

I happened across the post you made on the site, and just thought I’d point out a couple things..

1) cost.. The price is per call, which when you look at most phone system, those are per-minute usually. And our per-call price is the same international. Obviously, we can’t operate a call system like this for free, so we have to charge somewhere. What we do charge is actually well-below industry standard though, where some places would charge 12-20 dollars a month, not 12 a year. And the feedback has been positive from our other users.

2) If you are a subscriber, then you can actually have calls come from any number you want it.

3) We are releasing a browser phone shortly, but will give you volume control via your computer, but not getting into too many details til it’s available. :)

4) Transcriptions, yes, they may be cheaper on Craigslist, but we actually have a team of professionally trained transcriptionists working with us, and our main transcriptionist actually teaches at a transcription school locally. As for the prices, they are actually based on industry standard, and has actually been well received as well as we have already done over two dozen transcriptions since it launched.. FYI, it actually launched a couple weeks early for our 12 dollar a year subscribers, as they also get access to features early.

We’re actually not that new-ish, we’ve been in business for over a year, and have dozens of interviews being conducted every day, sometimes more.

Other factors with us, is we provide top-notch support and answer most tickets within minutes usually to help resolve any issues.

Anyhow, this ended up being longer than planned, I just wanted to point out a few things :)

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Drafts is Quicksilver for Your iPhone or iPad

I am still devoted to Quicksilver, even though other, friendlier launchers like Alfred, have overtaken it in the Mac app launcher field. I spend a lot of the time I save using Quicksilver wishing that other applications were as elegant and simple as Quicksilver. Drafts is a newish iPhone app,

I am still devoted to Quicksilver, even though other, friendlier launchers like Alfred, have overtaken it in the Mac app launcher field. I spend a lot of the time I save using Quicksilver wishing that other applications were as elegant and simple as Quicksilver.

Drafts is a newish iPhone app, and it’s the closest thing I’ve found to Quicksilver for Mac, but for your iPad/iPhone. You launch Drafts and it presents you with a clean screen. Type some text, then decide where you want to send it: To a new text message, to a new email ready to be addressed and sent, to Twitter or Facebook to post, to Evernote, to your calendar to create an event, to Omnifocus to create a new task, or to your Dropbox as an appended line to your “Ideas” file. You do have an Ideas File, right? I do, right next my Enemies List in Evernote. Here’s a fuller list of the services you can send text to:

Drafts is especially awesome if you also have Activator (available for jailbroken iPhones), an app that lets you assign all kinds of button combos and gestures to system preferences or app actions. That way you can also set up a single button, shake, or swipe trigger to launch Drafts. Did I mention it also lets you use Markdown?

Edit: Now it looks like Drafts will have email templates to send to ifttt, another favorite of mine.

It seems silly to get excited about a blank screen, but these clean, simple apps are exactly what I get excited about on the iPhone. They get out of your way. Realizing that is what made me realize that Quicksilver was its closest cousin.

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If you care about something you should measure it

Over the last couple years I’ve become a huge believer in self-quantifying.  It started with Your Flowing Data, a website that let me take measurements of whatever useless bits of biographical information I wanted to keep track of: The number of times I ate lentils that year, what movies

Over the last couple years I’ve become a huge believer in self-quantifying.  It started with Your Flowing Data, a website that let me take measurements of whatever useless bits of biographical information I wanted to keep track of: The number of times I ate lentils that year, what movies I watched, how stressed I was, for example. But I started to notice that the simple act of tracking and having to record my choices influenced the choices I made. I began using my iPhone to track almost anything involving behavior I wanted to change or improve. I’ve gone through a lot of tools, but here are the ones I keep going back to.

Track Your Happiness

Track Your Happiness is a survey project that is part of Harvard PH.d student Matt Killingsworth’s doctoral research. The website sends you a short survey twice a day via email or text. It asks you questions about where you are, what you’re doing, how many people you’re with, and how happy you feel. They each take about two minutes to complete. After a couple months of steady data, the website begins sending you correlations between things like your mood and how much sleep, exercise, work, and social activity you’ve reported.

This can tell you a lot. For instance, I am happier indoors that out (that probably has a lot to due with winter, though I began the survey in the fall. ) So. okay, I’m not outdoorsy. You maybe guessed that by the subject of this blog post. But I didn’t know that I was also happier the less people I had around me, down to about three. Three is where I’m happiest before my happiness just drops. Guess that makes me kind of an introvert. One other surprising thing, at least for me: I am happiest when I want to do something that I have to do. I wasn’t happiest doing whatever I wanted. I need to enjoy something I have to do (work, chores, etc). I like work. That’s something to keep in mind if I ever win the lottery or want to retire.

Fitbit

The Fitbit is a wearable device that can track your steps, calories, stairs climbed, and sleep. I bought this thing on a self-improvement whim fully believing it would be in a drawer by the end of the month. It’s not. Except for a few days where I forgot it at home (but thankfully, it’s had no trips through the washer), this thing has always been on my person since I bought it back in November 2011.

There’s so much to like about it, but the two biggest things are that it’s always tracking, and it uploads automatically. Like the Happiness Survey, it tracks all the time, not just when I feel like keeping track. And the automatic Wifi sync works amazing well and consistently. I haven’t changed the amount of walking or stairs-climbing or sleeping I do, really. But somehow, the act of tracking has improved those numbers anyway. Here’s how it works:the Fitbit is your standard pedometer that also tracks stairs you’ve climbed, estimated calories you’ve burned and your total distance traveled. It also has a little flower graphic that grows and shrinks depending on how much you’ve moved in the past hour.

 

The two applications below are self-quantifying tools, but they’re also commitment devices.

Beeminder

Beeminder is both a self-tracker and a commitment device. It can track and graph anything you can measure, from runtimes to blog posts to pounds to lose. You can set goals or limits, and Beeminder will warn you, then charge you money if you stray too far off your goal. The biggest benefits here are the fact that it’s incremental — your final goal is broken down week by week, so it’s more important to stay on track than to think of your goal as some big, huge (or low, tiny) number that is 12 months away.

I just began using Beeminder at the beginning of the year, when Stickk and other commitment devices seemed too narrow for my purposes. So far it’s worked great. I resolved to start learning Spanish and to read more fiction this year. I’m still doing both. And since the goal is to stay on one side of the line, I am working at a slow but steady reading/studying pace. But it’s a pace I’ve stuck with, and it’s April — beyond prime resolution quitting time (which I think is February? Or even mid-January?

That graph at the top of this post is my ‘words posted to blog’ graph. I did this post to avoid losing today. Try to wrap your head around that.

Gympact

Gympact is another commitment device with financial consequences. You set a goal for the number of times you want to go to the gym each week, then you check in via iPhone app every time you go to the gym (and stay for at least 30 minutes). Fail to reach your determined number of visits each week, and the app will charge you an amount you’ve set (like $5-$50. $50 if you’re some sort of masochist rich person). But if you’ve made your commitment, then Gympact will pay you a small amount out of the pot of losers’ cash.

In the six months before I started using Gympact I went to the gym maybe five times. I haven’t missed a gym trip (2-3 workouts a week since beginning of January) since I signed up, except for the weekend after a birthday dinner and bar trip where I spent the next day laying on my couch under a blanket and eating Tums/watching Locked Up: Raw. My biceps are the sickest they ever have been, and I’ve only torn my rotator cuff once (really).

If you’re curious about self-tracking check out the Quantified Self website. It has links to over 400 self-quantifying tools.

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Make Your Own NPR Station

I mentioned using an iTunes script to insert NPR news updates into my daily listening. The Doug’s AppleScripts version hasn’t worked for me in a while — probably because it hasn’t been updated since 2007. I did a little tweaking, and now it works just fine. It doesn’

I mentioned using an iTunes script to insert NPR news updates into my daily listening. The Doug’s AppleScripts version hasn’t worked for me in a while — probably because it hasn’t been updated since 2007. I did a little tweaking, and now it works just fine. It doesn’t have a nice icon though, just an ugly generic script icon. But! -it works great, and I highly recommend it if you use a Mac and like to keep iTunes playing all day. [Edit: Link was broken and weird earlier, should be good now.]

Download: Play NPR Hourly News Script

What it does: When you click on “Play NPR Hourly News Summary” in your iTunes Scripts folder it will check and see if there’s a new five-minute NPR news summary available. It’ll then ask you if you want to listen to it now or not. If you have music playing at the time, it’ll wait until after your current track to play. From then on it’ll look for a new copy of the podcast every hour and play it after your currently playing track. Each podcast is about five minutes long, and this script is designed to chop off the unnecessary beginnings and endings so you just get the news.

How to install it: Unzip this file and drop it into [user name] > Library > iTunes > Scripts. If there isn’t a Scripts folder in iTunes, make one then drop the app in there. The next time you open iTunes you can run this script via the Script menu. It’ll be this icon.

You’ll also need to subscribe to the NPR Hourly News Podcast. You can do that via iTunes.

If you need more detailed instructions, you can use the original Read Me PDF on the Doug’s AppleScripts page.

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How To Get Through A Big Pile Of New Music

Right now I’m working through a playlist of several hundred tracks from different sources: Email attachments, CD rips, RSS feeds, Etc. A lot of this listening is a job. And like any job, I’ve thought about how to organize and streamline it. It would take a lot of

How To Get Through A Big Pile Of New Music

Right now I’m working through a playlist of several hundred tracks from different sources: Email attachments, CD rips, RSS feeds, Etc. A lot of this listening is a job. And like any job, I’ve thought about how to organize and streamline it. It would take a lot of time and screen shots to go through the applescripts and filters I’ve written for iTunes, but I thought I would share a few basic ideas/tips that I use for getting through the pile. This works best for getting through lots of unknown/new artists, tracks you’re curious about but not committed to reviewing or writing about or even keeping yet.

1. Create a folder or playlist and treat it like an inbox.
Just like it’s inconvenient to check multiple applications and sites for your various email accounts, it’s inconvenient to stream music on Hype Machine, find MP3s scattered around your laptop/iPod, hit play inside every RSS feed in your feedreader, etc. At least for me it is. So I have one playlist on iTunes that anything new must go to. I download anything I want to listen to, rip CDs and put them in that playlist, add podcast MP3 streams, etc., and it all goes into that folder, which automatically adds tracks to the playlist.

This doesn’t work for stream-only tracks, which is probably why I don’t usually listen to stream-only promos.

2. Decide what happens to music once you listen to it. Make rules.
Is one listen enough to decide whether to keep something or research the band a little more? Is five listens? How about keeping, deleting, or re-listening to tracks once you’ve rated or tagged them as worthwhile? This is especially important for the blind listens, when you’re just trying to discover new stuff.

3. Make a smart playlist with those rules and filters. This is the playlist you will listen to.
My playlist says that tracks must come from my inbox playlist, and that they must be unrated (plus six other, less important rules). This is my “new music” playlist. This works best in iTunes, but I know other players have filters.

4. Make yourself a ‘trash’ playlist to go with your inbox playlist.
This is how you know what to delete. Make rules for this as well — if you skip a song more than three times, if you rate it below two stars, etc. Once in a while, go to this playlist, select all the tracks, hit option + delete, and get rid of the tracks permanently. I’m not precious about keeping whole albums, so this doesn’t bother me, of course.

(Bonus Tip) If you’re using iTunes, listen to your playlist through the iTunes DJ function.
If you make “unrated tracks” part of your filter criteria, then the song you are listening to will stop playing if you rate it during playback. If you are listening to the iTunes DJ, it won’t stop playback. Just set the “Source:” (bottom left corner) to the playlist you need to get through to work this way.

(Bonus Tip) Download the NPR script from Doug’s Applescripts
Here’s the link, but it’s down right now. This script will make it so that, once an hour, iTunes will go to NPR.org, download the latest five-minute hourly news update, and queue it after the currently playing track. It’s like creating your own NPR station. I call mine WBRR (Worst Blog Rock Radio).

There’s so much more I could mention about tags, filters, applescripts, hot keys (I made it so I don’t have to switch to iTunes to rate tracks, just hit option + apple + number to rate tracks) that I think makes all this even easier, but I got it all from Googling. You can too. Plus, that stuff is so specific to the way I listen to music, I doubt it would be useful to that many people. Anyway, I hope the rather general (though, admittedly, iTunes specific) things above help you. EDIT: I’ll try and do another post soon with download links to scripts and actions that couple help. Just have to organize and upload them.

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How to record and transcribe interviews quickly and cheaply

I like finding computer-based ways to do my job cheaper and faster. Most of these methods are to cover up for my natural procrastination: using hotkeys, text inserters, autoresponders, and capture tools helps make up for the time I spent Googling “child riding boa constrictor.” I really, really love finding

How to record and transcribe interviews quickly and cheaply

I like finding computer-based ways to do my job cheaper and faster. Most of these methods are to cover up for my natural procrastination: using hotkeys, text inserters, autoresponders, and capture tools helps make up for the time I spent Googling “child riding boa constrictor.” I really, really love finding this stuff, but I never get to talk about it. Today I’d like to talk about recording and transcribing interviews.

I do 1-4 interviews a week. That’s a lot of audio to deal with, and, for just a little feature, that’s a lot of hearing some guy or girl you used to think was pretty interesting talking about how “melodic” their new record is (a lot of interviewers are terrible, but people forget that lots of bands don’t know how to talk to people either).

I use several things to make doing and transcribing interviews easier: Skype, Audacity, Express Scribe, and a program from Ecamm called Call Recorder. Skype and Audacity are free, and Call Recorder costs $14.95.

Here’s why this trio is an interviewer’s dream:

Skype / Skype Out: I purchased a Skype Out number for $2.95 a month. This allows people to call me from a land or cell line, and lets me call regular land/cell lines. I also get free calls in the US and Canada. I don’t usually have to call overseas, and Skype Out lets you pay as you go for international calls, at reasonable rates. Lately I’ve been using Google Voice for this, because their rates can be even cheaper. Sure it doesn’t have the portability of a cell phone, and you might have to look like this, but the call quality is usually great and it allows you to use the next tool.

Ecamm Call Recorder (for Macs).

This program’s amazing for two reasons:

1) You can set it to automatically record any call if it lasts more than 30 seconds (or any time length you want), so you don’t end up with a bunch of automatic recordings of your boyfriend asking if he should buy cat food or rings where no one answered, nor do you ever forget to turn it on when Cat Power calls you.

2) If you loathe the sound of your own voice and your pathetic questions next to the sound of Chan Marshall purring lazy answers at you, then Call Recorder will allow you to split the sides of the conversation. Cat Power purr on one file, your voice on the other. Now you can transcribe without cringing or crying. This is especially great if you’re grabbing quotes for a feature where you don’t need your questions at all.

3) You can add markers during the call, so, if you’re sprightly and sly, you can add markers like “Question about Scientology affiliation” and “Where he called me a genius,” and they’ll show up as chapter markers in Quicktime. If you convert the file, you can still export your markers (with the timecode) to a text file for easy reference.

4) I said two reasons. There are actually four. You have a visual meter, so you can make sure it’s recording and that it’s recording at a volume loud enough to hear later on.

Audacity (free, open-source sound editor):

Or even better, convert that .mov audio file to mp3 (you can do this with Call Recorder’s built-in scripts), then fire up Audacity and cut out the parts where you were asking questions (it’ll appear as silence on the interviewee’s file). Then you can use Change Tempo to slow it down. I find that -42% keeps the interviewee’s voice clear, but is slow enough to transcribe without having to pause. Hand that edited crap over to your transcriptionist (or intern, or boyfriend). If you’re paying someone and you’re a cheap-o, you could probably get away with editing out your voice, and speeding it up slightly, thus saving on those transcription-per-minute fees. Then you can spend your transcriptionist savings on artificial tears or a conscience.

Express Scribe (free)

If you’re transcribing files yourself and you have a Mac, I recommend using Express Scribe along with your own foot pedal. I just got mine, and it’s excellent, especially when I use it with Express Scribe. The program lets you set universal hot keys, slow down or speed up audio tempo on the fly, and add in time stamps automatically. I usually listen to audio at around 150% speed until I get to quotes I like, then I slow it down and just transcribe what I need.

What about typing during the call?
Some people can do this. I can’t. I usually stare at my own questions, or Google artists or locations they’ve mentioned while they’re talking, so I can come up with smart follow ups. I’ve just never been able to do more than write down the time or scratch a note whenever I’m interviewing someone. I lose my train of thought, or lose the flow of the conversation, if I try to transcribe while talking on the phone.

Oh yeah, also.
Get a headset. No way you can type or Google things or, I don’t know, trim your nails? Eat dinner? During interviews without one. Don’t you want to look this cool:

What about recording on your cell phone?
I have an iPhone, I believe there’s a program that can record your phone calls now. I also used to have one of those attachments from RadioShack that lets you connect your cell phone to a recorder. Me, I use drop.io. For the cost of a single upgrade on a “drop,” I get a conference number where I can place conference calls. The same number will also automatically record the audio and upload it as an MP3 file to your account. The $10 also gets me storage space and outgoing faxes. Not a bad deal. When I need to record an interview on my cell phone I just call my drop.io conference number, then call my subject for an awesome three-way.

 

How about in-person interviews?
I’ve got an old iRiver IFP for this. It’s about five years old, but it still records to MP3, sync with my Mac, and has super clear audio. The best part? It’s really small. I haven’t recorded to tape since I had my old mini tape recorder in college, but I remembered how interview subjects’ eyes would also glance over at my recorder. I think seeing the thing makes people subconsciously self-conscious. My iRiver player is small enough to keep next to my hand, under the table, hidden behind a salt shaker at a diner, etc., so that the subject knows it’s there, but it’s small enough to forget. Loose lips make for the best interviews.

One last thing.
Don’t forget to check your state’s laws on taping conversations. My state, New York, allows for one-party consent. When I do phone interviews I don’t tell them I’m recording, I assume they know what they say to me is on the record. I usually make clear that I’m recording interviews when I do them in-person, just because they don’t always know everything’s on the record, and I’d rather avoid problems later.

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EDIT:

Here’s some tips from some friends:

From Yancey Strickler:

the trick i always use is just having the internet transcribe my interviews for me. costs about $18 an interview. well worth it: http://waxy.org/2008/09/audio_transcription_with_mechanical_turk/

From my awesome ex-editor Reid Davis:

Also, when I’m away from my computer, I used MacAlly’s iVoice pro hardware plug-in for my iPod along with Griffin’s iTalk Pro software. You can record through the built-in mic, or plug in another device, like a landline phone (Radio Shack telephone recorder, about $12.)

From writer / Tucson friend Curtis McCrary:

also, fyi, google voice will record incoming phone calls for you (but not transcribe them). but it’s an easy shortcut to getting an interview recorded and in easy-to-listen-to form on the computer.

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Input vs. Output

I'm [https://jessicasuarez.com/dropcap] a couple months into my column, talking to bands about recording for Stereogum. I enjoy hearing about their process, and what it takes them to physically start producing stuff. I want to know because it’s something that I struggle with a lot.

Input vs. Output

I'm [/dropcap] a couple months into my column, talking to bands about recording for Stereogum. I enjoy hearing about their process, and what it takes them to physically start producing stuff.

I want to know because it’s something that I struggle with a lot. I think I’m fairly productive–I set a goal of completing and submitting one piece a day, and I track the number of pitches and ideas I sent to editors every week, too. But for things without a deadline or a vague deadline, I’m lost sometimes. I have a book due, I have a list of essays and longer pieces I want to research even before I pitch them, and a list of blog post ideas, but I keep putting them off. They fall off in the face of daily goals deadlines.

So how do bands do it? Their problem is somewhat similar: touring is their daily deadline–they must be somewhere, doing something, by a certain time. Their next album? That’s their book / essay that needs to be out there at some point. Now there’s one big difference: I could probably go a long time just doing my assignments, but I won’t improve my own work unless I start tackling the bigger pieces. Bands can’t just tour on one album forever, unless they’re Peter Frampton.

What I hear from bands is that touring can’t be combined with writing; they take two different types of energies. Touring is like muscle memory at some point, you’re going through the motions (those motions might be awesome), but it’s not, as John Vanderslice said, “making new shit.”

Writing reviews/features is “making new shit,” but in a lot of ways it’s making the same shit. I know how I write reviews, and I approach each the same basic way: the background/foreground listens, the same note-taking, the same way I pull in what I want to say and then push around words and edits. It’s fun and challenging, but it’s not always as creative as I want it to be (I already hear the response there, and thanks). It’s closer to touring than making a new record.

Now being on the internet, that’s also primarily a triggered activity, a gathering activity, I think. I read twitters and respond; I find links and re-post; I tag photos and videos and songs I’m listening to. This shouldn’t be mistaken for blogging or creating. Most people know this (and have Tumblrs for it), but I think there’s a danger in doing nothing but collecting without then trying to do some output. There’s also a danger in combining them. Dhould this long post be on the same page as a bunch of Flickr and Youtube favorites and what I finished on Goodreads? Probably not. But I’ve been doing that long enough to pretend I am “making things” when I have been just “gathering things,” often without any time set aside for processing.

I want to split that stuff up, and not pretend one is the other (though I do find both to be valid and useful activities). That’s why I moved my blog to /blog, and will use my front page on www.jessicasuarez.com for all that aggregated/gathered stuff. Part of my inspiration is Emily Gould’s blog, www.emilymagazine.com. For all the making fun she gets–probably mostly unfair–her long posts are consistently entertaining and smart. Her posts are also completely bare and on a default WordPress template. I’m sure it’s all deliberate, I think she’s someone who thinks all the time about what things on the internet mean. When you have good writing you don’t need the clutter.

That said, I probably will spend too much time formatting / re-templating my blog and front page.

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Hallelujah The Hills, Deerhoof, time management

It seems like ever since I got my iPhone (installed the WordPress application), I haven’t had much to blog about. I am working, as usual (here’s a new Hallelujah The Hills EP review. I like this band but I’m still waiting for…something. I don’t know.

Hallelujah The Hills, Deerhoof, time management

It seems like ever since I got my iPhone (installed the WordPress application), I haven’t had much to blog about. I am working, as usual (here’s a new Hallelujah The Hills EP review. I like this band but I’m still waiting for…something. I don’t know. Their moment’s forthcoming).

On Paper Thin Walls, editors Chris, Kory and I recorded our own version of Deerhoof’s sheet music project. Writer Tom Mallon produced it! My Ableton Live was set wrong (still on DJ mode, which means it warped the beat a little bit), so it meant my keyboard track was almost 10 seconds too fast. Tom kindly recut it. I had never recorded anything to a track before on Ableton. I kind of loved it. I might have to do more of that soon.

That’s also gotten me thinking about projects and dividing up my time. I use GTD, I do a lot of checklists and time tracking. But I’m still wondering how I could better spend my time. I’m spending the rest of the month asking people I know how they read / write / curate shows and exhibits / get to shows so much and still exercize / make dinner / have time to answer questions from me.

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The Rip Off

Yes, but not this rocker. I am returning ten overdue library books today and realizing I haven’t read a new book in a month. I feel like I’ve been busy, writing (tba) little things for Paper, Paste, and Spin this month, still working on Paper Thin Walls, and

The Rip Off

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Yes, but not this rocker. I am returning ten overdue library books today and realizing I haven’t read a new book in a month. I feel like I’ve been busy, writing (tba) little things for Paper, Paste, and Spin this month, still working on Paper Thin Walls, and still slowing catching up with lingering and new Pitchfork reviews. I’ve been reading a lot, but blogs, magazines and online articles, which, like popcorn, make you feel full but not satisfied full.

The biggest thing I’ve been doing, and something that I’m okay with for now, is going to the gym almost daily. I go to the Greenpoint Y because it’s cheap, and I guess I see some of these guys, but I’m most intrigued by the 12-year-old kid who is there every day I am and probably more, and who always walks over to the magazine rack and picks out an issue of the New Yorker and keeps it closed while jogging on a treadmill. Sometimes I also see Craig Finn.

Just to keep things related, I found an iTunes script that lets you put intervals into songs. So, one minute of “Crystal Cat,” then beep, then two minutes of “Paper Planes,” etc. Intervals are for cardio interval training, because, I think, slow cardio is for jerks: if you can read while doing cardio, then you aren’t working hard enough. And I work hard enough, so I stopped reading. On the other hand, Man Man is for free weights, which I do as well, like bench exercises too, guys. I don’t see many women doing this, I mostly see them gripping two pound weights in front of the cardio room mirror, lazily raising them above their heads. Can you exercise ironically? That’s what they look like they’re doing. Maybe they just think they’ll get huge muscles if they lift anything heavier, but they can’t, they don’t have the testosterone. That’s what Man Man is for.