Rushkoff on Colbert Report
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Here's last night's Colbert Report interview with Douglas Rushkoff. His answer to Colbert's first question is such a sledgehammer that it draws applause from the audience. Bang!
| The Colbert Report | Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| Douglas Rushkoff | ||||
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Labels: Rushkoff
Douglas Rushkoff Life Inc., Dispatch VIII
Monday, July 13, 2009
"The beauty and the horror of capitalism is that what it's here for is to make money by having money."
Life Inc. Dispatch 08: Capitalism, for Dummies from Douglas Rushkoff on Vimeo.
Douglas Rushkoff Life Inc., Dispatch VII
Tuesday, July 07, 2009
"We can engage with one another in ways that have been systematically removed from the equation. We will make less money in the process, but we will also spend less money in the process. And I promise you it's more fun."
Life Inc. Dispatch 07: Less is More from Douglas Rushkoff on Vimeo.
Labels: Rushkoff
Album of the Year & Song of the Year, parsed
Thursday, July 02, 2009
Everybody does this, right? Ranks, classifies, lists. Especially when it comes to music, everybody has their favorites and rates them in relation to everything else.
I do too, but my musical favorites have a pattern of all falling into place in the last week of December and the first weeks of January. If you're not familiar, that means that they come together as a result of reading everybody else's year-end best-of lists, acquiring those titles, and then forming opinions on them. It is the definition of reactive.
This year I decided to try an experiment. This year, instead of sitting around and waiting for the New Year's holiday to find the year's best music, I would find it myself. That is, I would spend all of 2009 discovering, purchasing (more on that in a moment), and sharing music.
**The insistence upon purchasing music came from the crash of my hard drive near the end of December, which resulted in the loss of lots and lots of music files. No bother, though: I hadn't paid a penny for any of those files. They were either "shared" with me through a File Transfer Protocol set up for like-minded musical friends or they were acquired through The Pirate Bay. What ended up bothering me about losing all that music, ironically, is that it didn't bother me. I hadn't invested anything in those songs and albums, and they could easily be replaced. But why spend the time and effort replacing them if they're not worth any actual investment to begin with? It was the realization that I was a lazy music fan that brought me to Jesus, as it were, in terms of quitting the file sharing. I don't want to waste time on music that could either come or go; if I lose it, I want to be upset about it.
That's the point of these "Album of the Year" posts. Something has happened halfway through the experiment that I didn't expect, though. I'm starting to become more discerning in terms of genres and the types of music I like, take it or leave it. I'm coming to the place where I can acknowledge that I have suburban top 40-bred musical receptors that make me susceptible to pop hooks. I used to be embarrassed about that, like if only I could learn to like Wilco I'd be a better person. But Wilco bores me, and I'm not afraid to admit that anymore.
But I am discovering affinities for things I didn't like before and waning patience for things I used to love. The solo soulful male vocal backed by acoustic guitars and sparing percussion, which used to inspire hours of shower singing, has come to seem thin (my apologies to Jamie Cullen and Dave Matthews).
Meanwhile, I'm participating in the emerging infrastructure of recorded music production, marketing, and sales, all of which, thanks to the internet, is driven largely by an ethic of sharing. As I identify records worthy of superlative consideration, I'm noting where I found them, because that's really what makes the effort worth it.
Thanks for reading. Watch for nominees soon.
I do too, but my musical favorites have a pattern of all falling into place in the last week of December and the first weeks of January. If you're not familiar, that means that they come together as a result of reading everybody else's year-end best-of lists, acquiring those titles, and then forming opinions on them. It is the definition of reactive.
This year I decided to try an experiment. This year, instead of sitting around and waiting for the New Year's holiday to find the year's best music, I would find it myself. That is, I would spend all of 2009 discovering, purchasing (more on that in a moment), and sharing music.
**The insistence upon purchasing music came from the crash of my hard drive near the end of December, which resulted in the loss of lots and lots of music files. No bother, though: I hadn't paid a penny for any of those files. They were either "shared" with me through a File Transfer Protocol set up for like-minded musical friends or they were acquired through The Pirate Bay. What ended up bothering me about losing all that music, ironically, is that it didn't bother me. I hadn't invested anything in those songs and albums, and they could easily be replaced. But why spend the time and effort replacing them if they're not worth any actual investment to begin with? It was the realization that I was a lazy music fan that brought me to Jesus, as it were, in terms of quitting the file sharing. I don't want to waste time on music that could either come or go; if I lose it, I want to be upset about it.
That's the point of these "Album of the Year" posts. Something has happened halfway through the experiment that I didn't expect, though. I'm starting to become more discerning in terms of genres and the types of music I like, take it or leave it. I'm coming to the place where I can acknowledge that I have suburban top 40-bred musical receptors that make me susceptible to pop hooks. I used to be embarrassed about that, like if only I could learn to like Wilco I'd be a better person. But Wilco bores me, and I'm not afraid to admit that anymore.
But I am discovering affinities for things I didn't like before and waning patience for things I used to love. The solo soulful male vocal backed by acoustic guitars and sparing percussion, which used to inspire hours of shower singing, has come to seem thin (my apologies to Jamie Cullen and Dave Matthews).
Meanwhile, I'm participating in the emerging infrastructure of recorded music production, marketing, and sales, all of which, thanks to the internet, is driven largely by an ethic of sharing. As I identify records worthy of superlative consideration, I'm noting where I found them, because that's really what makes the effort worth it.
Thanks for reading. Watch for nominees soon.
Labels: album of the year, Song of the year
Album of the Year Nominee: The Lonely Forest, "We Sing the Body Electric"
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
h/t to Indie Rock Cafe for this gem of a discovery, a complicated and exciting rock record. At this stage in my odyssey of musical exploration and investment, The Lonely Forest's "We Sing the Body Electric" is a shot in the arm.Hear the whole record here, and see if the harmonies don't pull you under.
Labels: album of the year
Douglas Rushkoff Life Inc., Dispatch VI
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
"If you want a really free market, then we should be able to have not just one government-mandated currency."
Life Inc. Dispatch 06: Why Corporations Hate the Free Market from Douglas Rushkoff on Vimeo.
Labels: Rushkoff
Douglas Rushkoff Life Inc., Dispatch V
"Even the spiritual people among us talk about 'self actualization' as if that's the highest thing a person can attain."
"If people are cooperating and collaborating, it's not good for the economy. People who are sharing stuff buy less stuff. If people buy less stuff, that's bad for the GNP."
"If people are cooperating and collaborating, it's not good for the economy. People who are sharing stuff buy less stuff. If people buy less stuff, that's bad for the GNP."
Life Inc. Dispatch 05: Markets Love Selfish People from Douglas Rushkoff on Vimeo.
Labels: Rushkoff
Album of the Year Nominee: The Low Anthem, "Oh My God, Charlie Darwin"
This is a new discovery for me, a Brown University-educated folk outfit that moves effortlessly between dulcet and demonstrative (take that, Ivy League!).
First, the dulcet:
And then the demonstrative:
First, the dulcet:
And then the demonstrative:
Labels: album of the year
Douglas Rushkoff on WNYC with Brian Lehrer
Monday, June 15, 2009
This is apropo, because one of the founding anecdotes of Life, Inc. is Rushkoff's mugging in 2007. When he started getting pushback for talking about it from his neighbors concerned about their property values, he went on Lehrer's show.
Here's that interview, from January of 2007.
Labels: Rushkoff
