"Beer Wars." April 16. Be There or Be Square

Make your plans now: "Beer Wars," a new documentary about the American brewing scene (and the American dream....) debuts in theaters nationwide on April 16. This is a one-night, two-part event: First the film and then immediately after the film, Ben Stein will moderate a live discussion from Los Angeles with some of the people who appear in the film. It's all yours courtesy of the wonders of satellite. The website is up. You can buy tickets online (there's a link at the site).

"Read" It Unfolding. Do It Now. It's "Live."

Okay, if I weren't already convinced about Twitter, now I am. The staff at the Rocky Mountain News, a major Denver newspaper, just learned that tomorrow's edition is its last. A staff member in the room began "tweeting" the proceedings. You can read them here. (As always with Twitter, go back to "older" tweets to find the start of the Twitter-thread.) Extraordinary.

Really. Fucking. Stupid.

Increasing the beer tax is one of the most logical steps that can be taken in the goal to stabilize addiction recovery services,” said Stephanie Soares Pump, who serves on the Governor’s Council on Alcohol and Drug Abuse Programs.

Yeah, right. Because, you know, beer drinking = drunkenness. The headline is almost as bad: Beer lovers line up against hefty tax at Salem hearing I dunno. Maybe it's not just "beer lovers" at the hearing? Maybe it's people who favor rational drinking and cultural adulthood..........

More On A Viable E-Book System

David Nygren has another great slate of suggestions/possibilities for the future of the e-book.

This, by the way, and my earlier link to the San Francisco Post Chronicle wiki, are precisely what I mean when I wonder if we're in a "new age": The "book" is something we all take for granted, right? Hasn't changed in form or function for millennia. Books are like air: We just don't notice them or think about it. They're just . . . there.

Until now. Now the idea of "the book" is up for grabs. All of it: form, shape, access to, content. All of it. We, all of us, are stepping back, eyeing the "book" and pondering its future. That's amazing.

That's why I so often blog about what may seem like a trivial matter. It's not. It's profound social and cultural upheaval unfolding before our eyes.

Notes From the Realm of the Pathetic

Hey, you! Take THAT!

Twittering stems from a lack of identity. It’s a constant update of who you are, what you are, where you are. Nobody would Twitter if they had a strong sense of identity.

And:

[Twitter] is a giant baby monitor.

Want more? Take THIS!

We Twitter to reassure ourselves that we are alive.

Auuggghhhhhh......... Please! Stop! Please, I beg you . . . Allow me to save what's left of my feeble, insecure, infantile identity.

Tip o' the mug to Moby Lives.

A Couple of Good Rants

I'm always up for a good rant, especially when it's a reasoned, thoughtful rant. Just read two such critters at Tony Comstock's blog. Here and here. (In case you're wondering: The blogs I read cover a spectrum of topics: food, beer, economics, politics, publishing, and so forth. As far as I'm concerned, it's all fodder for my creative mind, such as it is.)