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By Ron Rollins
| Tuesday, August 19, 2008, 09:15 PM
Well, punctuation fans (and I KNOW you’re out there…) we have yet another article on the apparent demise and near death of that most venerable and yet unappreciated of punctuation marks, and my favorite … Ladies and Gentlemen! I present: The Semicolon! He’s just here for this week only, folks!
Seriously, why do people pick on this thing? It’s so useful! So full of grace! So able to grant a bit of breathing room between complete thoughts! So subtle! So sublime!
My sense is that most people just don’t know how to use it, and so they knock it. Typical.
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By Ron Rollins
| Wednesday, August 13, 2008, 11:14 AM
Pretty wise and interesting take on the Boss and his message, from NPR. Thanks to my friend Bruce Miller for sending along…
Cool stuff; never quite listened to Springsteen this way, but I like it.
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By Ron Rollins
| Wednesday, August 13, 2008, 09:32 AM
The pop disc du jour, kidlets…
Miley Cyrus
BREAKOUT
Miley, Miley, Miley! As everybody who even remotely pays attention to these things knows, it’s alllllllllllllll about Miley these days. After all the hype and humdrum that’s attached itself to her in the last year or two (or however long it’s been; it seems like at least a year or two…), we get our first chance with “Breakout” to hear what an album by the singer herself sounds like without the encumbrance and artifice of her hypermanufactured alterego.
And is the difference all that pronounced? Once you’ve sold yourself as something and someone else, does it matter who you really turn out to be, once you claim to actually be yourself? Does it matter? Will anyone care? Well, on her way to No. 1 chart-topping, little Miley has managed in her own weird way to offer us such existential pop-cultural musings far beyond anything ever offered by Patty Duke, Hayley Mills or any of her is-she/isn’t-she/who-is-she-anyway precursors.
That’s partly because of the overwhelming size of the business that’s sprung up about her, partly because of the awful supervelocity of today’s pop trends as they arc from buzz to flameout, and partly because even after all that, we still have managed to get the sneaking sense that this young singer might just have a smidgen of actual, by-gosh talent. And that’s always worth consideration. Especially nowadays, when it seems to be in such short radio supply.
The positive evidence on that score, based on the frankly so-so results to be heard on “Breakout,” tend to come on the slower songs when Cyrus does that thing so hard for somebody of her tender age to do: Take a deep breath, chill out, and really think about what they’re doing. On songs like “Bottom of the Ocean” and the equally thoughtful breakup tune “Goodbye,” there is a lot more to Cyrus than one gets on the hopped-up emo-pop of the predictable, and predictably popular “7 Things,” a silly litany of diary droppings aimed squarely at teenage girls who still write their boyfriends’ names on the covers of their school notebooks and dot their i’s with little heart.
Which is OK, because they need hit songs, too, but one wonders at reviews by older listeners that suggest the Miley Cyrus on “Breakout” is somehow more mature or wiser than the Miley Cyrus who was just recently Hannah Montana, on an album that is mostly about cell phones, text messages, first dates and driveway breakups. Cyrus does earn grown-up points, I guess, on a save-the-earth song, “Wake Up America,” that notes, “Everything you do matters.” It’s a from-the-mouths-of-babes message that ought to be taken to heart regardless of one’s age. Still, it doesn’t make up for the God-awfully point-missing cover of “Girls Just Want to Have Fun,” nor does it do much to keep us from thinking: Miley, dear — make as many albums as you can now, while they’re buying, and save all the money you can.
Grade: B-
iPod picks: “Breakout,” “These Four Walls,” “Bottom Of the Ocean.”
—Â Ron Rollins
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By Ron Rollins
| Tuesday, August 12, 2008, 10:16 PM
Good point or two raised in this New Yorker article on patents, and how they can also hold progress up, as much as move it forward… Our very own Orville Wright doesn’t look so good here. Food for thought…
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By Ron Rollins
| Monday, August 11, 2008, 07:04 PM
This just in from the Dayton Art Institute… looks like one worth stopping by for. Here’s the press release, just arrived:
Visitors to The Dayton Art Institute will enjoy a.muse, a special exhibition of art created by 67 of The Dayton Art Institute’s current instructors and students, ranging in age from 5 to 65. Works of art include jewelry, mosaics, sculptures, paintings and drawings. All of the student work was created in classes held at the museum in 2007 and 2008.
a.muse is sponsored in part by the Joan W. McCoy Memorial Art Fund. Joan W. McCoy was a practicing artist throughout her lifetime and worked full-time for seven years as The Dayton Art Institute’s first docent. She became a docent after receiving her Art History degree from Wooster College. As the museum’s first docent, McCoy was in charge of tour information and training and supervising volunteer guides. She also attended the University of Dayton, obtaining a teaching degree in art, and years later received a Master’s degree in Art Education at Wright State University.
McCoy was a high school art teacher and taught for 30 years at Wayne High School in Huber Heights. She was also an active member of the Dayton Society of Painters and Sculptors, the Fairborn Art Association, the Western Ohio Watercolor Society, the Ohio Watercolor Society, and the Dayton Traveling Brushes. McCoy’s works appeared in many shows throughout the area and she won numerous awards for her painting and ceramics.
a.muse is on view at The Dayton Art Institute from August 9 to November 16, 2008. Admission is free.
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By Ron Rollins
| Sunday, August 10, 2008, 10:00 AM
Hey, wouldn’t it be cool if you could stroll the Oregon District’s main thoroughfare without a care in the world, sampling the food, fun and arts delights to be had there without having to duck and dodge from the cars that barrel through?
Hmmmm… Sounds like a great way to perk up customer traffic along Fifth Street in a place that is seeing an influx of new galleries and other businesses, and which might be able to really flourish given the right boost in creative thinking.
I ran across this post from Bill Pote on his thoughtful Mostmetro.com blog, a site devoted to Dayton city-planning issues. He suggests turning Oregon’s stretch of Fifth Street into a “car-free zone” as some other cities are doing, at least on weekends. See what he says.
I like this idea, at least to give it a try … why not this fall, to see if it gets any traction and improves business in the district? The business owners and restaurateurs in that area are a smart lot who work together on lots of issues affecting their neighborhood, and it’s easy to imagine them banding together quickly on something like this, just to see how it goes.
What’ve we got to lose?
(Pote, by the way, is one of the “creative catalysts” who is working the new DaytonCreate group to find ways to make Dayton a more lively, livable, vibrant place. He is working with a subgroup that is looking for ways to fill empty downtown spaces with arts-type groups, incubator-style. By way of full disclosure, I’m part of the DaytonCreate group, too; I’m helping head up a new arts group called Film Dayton, which is trying to promote filmmaking and film audience here. You can find out more about what we’re doing at DaytonCreate.org.)
What do you think of Bill’s car-free Fifth Street idea?
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By Ron Rollins
| Friday, August 8, 2008, 03:16 PM
The old saying goes that it’s all about “location, location, location.” True, but it’s also very much about image, image, image.
The image of our fair city was front-page news in the DDN this week when Forbes magazine cooked up a list of the 10 “fastest-dying” U.S. cities. Quicker than you can say “rust-belt rehash,” sure enough greater Dayton made the list along with Scranton, Flint, Youngstown and six other old, post-manufacturing towns. Yawn.
Coincidentally, this week Dayton City Hall unveiled its new branding campaign, designed to lure or keep smart, young, creative professional types. That’s a demographic that lots of cities crave these days, so much that one wonders if there are indeed enough them anywhere in the world to fulfill all the needs of all the urban strategists who want them. Maybe they should rent themselves out.
The city did some things right with the new brand — mercifully avoiding any mention of airplanes (yawn again), and instead designing a rough-edged, rubber-stamp logo that boldly states, “Dayton Patented: Originals Wanted.” With luck, we’ll see it soon on everything from T-shirts to billboards and slick magazine ads.
Maybe an ad in Forbes would be smart?
What bothers me the most about Forbes’ list is not that it was mean-spirited or that it made me feel defensive on behalf of the place where I choose, happily, to live. It’s that it was so remarkably short-sighted for such a well-regarded publication.
To wit: Cities rarely actually die.
Think about it. In modern times, large cities do not simply dwindle to disappearance. It doesn’t happen.
In ancient times, sure. Famine, warfare and various acts of God did kill cities, and in more recent times smaller towns which sprang up solely for the purpose of exploiting, say, a gold rush, might indeed dry up and blow away. But I’m at a loss to think of any large American city in the last 200 years that has actually vanished.
Of course cities change, but change is not death. They grow and contract, as fortunes evolve. Some places do seem to take smarter advantage of the hands they’re dealt — Portland and Seattle come to mind. But Dallas, Phoenix and Miami aren’t thriving while Cleveland shrivels because their leaders are necessarily better; it’s because they are benefiting from economic megatrends that favor cities where they happen to be located. Once abundant drinking water becomes as important as sunshine and cheap labor are today, those trends will change.
And then their cities can pay for clever image campaigns that they hope will paper over some of their faults — necessity being the mother of invention, as another old saying goes.
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