Forwarded by the multitalented Jen Wainz and her partner Deb:

Jed Bell

Hey, Head Wound episode 8 is now up on iTunes! Check out our first episode with awesome new co-host Anastasia Kayiatos. Click here to subscribe.

Jed Bell

Has anyone said in the last five minutes what a heroic genius we have in Stephen Colbert? Undoubtedly. It's not just the great writing; it is, most of all, the crazed prophetic certainty in his eye. I adore this.

Jed Bell

I saw this in person last night in Union Square, SF. The best thing was watching the reactions of everyone who came by. Foreign tourists, local shoppers, the urban underclass, you name it. Everybody who came by didn't notice at first, then did, then stopped and stared and commented in awe. I had immediate conversations with otherwise-aloof strangers about our takes on the comparative enthusiasm of each creature. One couple felt the cat was getting the rawest deal. Best comment, and typical: "Now that's something you don't see every day." This is the kind of thing that really makes your week.

Jed Bell

I seem to post on a completely different area of life every time...so be it. Walt Whitman and so on. Here's the deal. I have found the perfect new iPhone game. It's called DoodleJump and it looks like this:



It's about jumping. It's super fun to play. It's 99¢. Kinda like Q-bert, from back in the day, but upside down, I think. Let's take a close-up look at that little feller, shall we?



If you are a person who plays games on an iPhone or an iPod Touch you can get it here and you should!

Jed Bell

There's a lot of awesome going around, despite the grim clouds rolling around. Here's one: Jacqueline Novogratz was talking about her Acumen Fund on the equally awesome Diane Rehm Show podcast the other day. I ain't an expert, but setting up systems in Africa, India, and Pakistan to employ thousands of local people in doing stuff like providing cheap clean water to their neighbors for the first time—sounds pretty excellent to me. Her set-up is a bit like Kiva in that it allows us first-worlders to invest in the enterprises of people in desperately poor areas. Novogratz has a new book out called The Blue Sweater, referring to a piece of clothing from her own adolescence that she had put in her family's GoodWill pile one day and that turned up, decades later, worn by a random boy she ran into in the streets of Rwanda (I think). She said she grabbed him and checked the inside collar of the sweater—her name was still sewn in there.

Jed Bell

Because if not, I don't understand why these earplugs won't fit in my right ear anymore. They come out all squiggly, having jammed part-way in. Three in a row. "Compare to Flent's" it says on the Walgreens container—as if I wasn't having a Kafaesque enough day as it was.

Jed Bell

Ah! After being vomited out of Blackstring Hell a few weeks ago, I've spent the following time in some foggy recess of my mind. Grisly business this thing within which we exist.
During this time which spread into months (it could have been longer as Blackstring is a non-linear place), I've had many obsessions that the Blackstringers either cursed with or, like a rock climber beginning to fall, I perhaps grabbed onto whatever would hold me. As I stare back, volition remains elusive. TV, crime shows in particular, kept my mind silent. I'd even wake up into the night and immediately turn on the TV. Although a true rarity, I think I have finally gorged myself so badly on the Law and Order shows that like when I ate Lima beans with salt, pepper and butter for three years (of course while in front of the TV watching old Sherlock Holmes movies) I would almost retch if I even saw a box of frozen Limas. This retch-response lasted for about 10 years. I am afraid. Will I have to "Be Here Now" as old Baba Ram Dass insisted in his book "Be Here Now"?

Not yet as two newer shows (as well as new episodes of CSI and The Closer have saved me from myself—Fringe and Eleventh Hour. I am now obsessed with scientist on Fringe. Plus Fringe has cool illness and maladies often accompanied by even cooler special effects. I also find the mad scientist's relationship with his son of some interest. But Eleventh Hour has better plots. I say this as Fringe has that conspiracy theory thing going on. I hated it in X Files; my resentment of it as a backstory/frontstory has not tempered.

Musically, Matthew Schultz's new album Division as well as his website, have also keep me sane (or as close to it as I ever float.)

There have been other things—cool clothes from friends who moved as well as a skeleton closet that looks like it is straight out of a legit funky New Orleans Voodoo shop. And of course, my cadre of friends as well as my brilliant partner in crime...

Wickie Stamps

It's about time, but it is now up–Head Wound podcast #6. In this podcast we discuss the TV pilot episode of Flashpoint, a SWAT-team style show. Flashpoint is set and shot in Canada and stars Enrico Colantoni as the head of the Strategic Response Unit (SRU). Despite being filled with a few too many buff boys, we both agree that Flashpoint has some real surprises that make it a show to keep an eye on. We further discussed the chatter that Flashpoint, written by Canadian authors, may have emerged in response to last falls US Writers Guild strike. Given the success of this first episode (8.23 million viewers in the U.S. and 1.11 million in Canada), CBS is lurking around looking for more imported shows. Yet more outsourcing and potential union-busting tactics? For more information on Flashpoint:
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sniper_(TV_series); IMDb: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1059475/; IMBd News: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1059475/news#ni0264599.

Wickie Stamps

These guys crack me the hell up! (Hat tip to Chris Ereneta.)

Jed Bell