Voting has begun for South by Southwest 2011. I have proposed two talks and one panel. I am hereby requesting your support. Click on the links below and vote for these ones:
INTERACTIVE: Disconnecting the Dots: How Our Devices are Divisive:
We drive cars to the gym to run miles on a treadmill. Inclement weather notwithstanding, why don’t we just run down the street? The activities are disconnected. We sit in close physical proximity with each other and text others far away. The activities are disconnected. Technological mediation …

Suspected to have been dead for years, Preston the Cat finally received the call yesterday. He stayed at my parents’ house for seventeen years, through the tenure of two horses, and outlived Priscilla the Cat, Winnie the Dog, and Hershey the Goat. Like his archenemy, His Own Tail, he never liked me much, but we were almost friendly during his last days. At the time of his death, I only have one Preston-inflicted wound requiring a band-aid.
He is survived by Cindy (his initial owner), Moms (couldn’t care less about a …

The skate zine show There Is Xerox On The Insides Of Your Eyelids is headed to Southern California at the Torrance Art Museum. The show opens July 24th and runs until September 4th.

I need to get in on this…
With thanks to Andy Jenkins and The Skateboard Mag.

Here’s a clip of Laurie Anderson’s classic deconstruction of the National Anthem [runtime: 1:50], with thanks to Richard Metzger:

Steve Aylett sent me this PSP-animated short by Yuko Kondo It’s based on the Aylett story “The Man Whose Head Expanded.” Check it out [runtime: 3:18]:

Bob Osborn, owner of Wizard Publications, which published iconic magazines BMX Action (née Bicycle Motocross Action), FREESTYLIN’, and briefly Homeboy, as well as the book The Complete Book of BMX (1984), is a the kind of person the world could do to have a few more of. His free spirit and eye for talent indirectly influenced the course of my life. By hiring younger, kindred spirits on little more than a hunch (e.g., Andy Jenkins, Spike Jonze, and Mark Lewman), he changed the face and voice of BMX bicycles, as …

After my guest lecture at The University of Illinos at Chicago in Mike Schandorf’s “Writing for New Media” class, recent UIC graduate Jenna Reisch interviewed me for their Unconventional Jobs blog. Here’s an excerpt:
How did you get started in academic writing and what interested you the most? Is research a large part of this career?
RC: Well, academic writing, strictly speaking, is done for academic journals and is mostly written by scholars for other scholars. What I do and want to do is either called “para-academic” writing or “public …

Though he said that he shouldn’t go on camera after we’d been up all night (this was during SXSW after all), he makes a lot of sense (as usual): Dave Allen’s interview with Brian from CD Baby on musicians and the internet

Directed by Johannes Gamble and Federico Vitetta, this one-minute clip of Rick Howard, Mike Carroll, and Spike Jonze quickly captures the spirit of skateboarding with your friends. Its handful of brief vignettes illustrate how sessions out on the board are as much about clowning on each other and dorking around as they are trying to land genetically enhanced, “molecular” kickflips — even though the latter is what people will be talking about.

For my fellow University of Texas at Austin students who have yet to get a copy, Follow for Now is now available in the library. Check it out.