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	Los Angeles
	Julien Prunet

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BLOG ARCHIVES

Septembre 26, 2002

Er... While a French paper discovers blogs, its cousin paper in the U.K. has already organized a big blog competition.

Congrats to Scary Duck, winner of the Guardian Unlimited's Best British blog competition.

Scary Duck has an intriguing offer on its front page: "Free beer, money and sex for every tenth reader. Honest!"

We should be grateful the offer already expired.

My favourite British blog is Blogjam, of course.

Meanwhile, our beloved rabbit Heather Havrilesky is interviewed about life, lust and blogs in the Los Angeles Weekly. Excerpt:

"Q:You're famous among bloggers, but the average reader of the local newspaper has no idea who you are. What does online fame feel like?

A: I think Warhol's 15 minutes of fame would translate to about two years of online fame. In other words, online fame comes pretty cheap.".

posted by on 01:16 du soir | link

Septembre 25, 2002

Les blogues, pardon, les jouebs dans Libé: On me demande si j'ai signé sous un pseudo cet article du jour sur les blogues et leur débarquement en France dans Libération, mais pas du tout. Il est signé par une journaliste très sympa, Emmanuèle Peyret (et non pas Emmanuelle: depuis le temps qu'elle travaille au journal, les gens de l'édition ne sont toujours pas foutus d'épeler son nom correctement.) L'article cite Stéphane Gigandet, le créateur des jouebs, Stephanie de Lausanne mais répète une petite bourde du Journal du Net sur InstaPundit qui ne compte pas des dizaines de chroniqueurs, mais un seul homme à la barre, Glenn Reynolds alias Instant Man.

Concernant les corrections dans Libé, j'ai passé deux jours à demander très cordialement au responsable du site de corriger un nom propre que j'avais mal orthographié dans mon article sur Beck. J'aurais vraiment dû faire gaffe en amont. E-mails, appels longue distance de Los Angeles: sans résultat, sans même une réponse. La bourde est toujours là et mes complices du journal me disent que je suis bien naïve d'espérer une retouche sur l'article en ligne.

Aux Etats-Unis ou en Grande-Bretagne, les journaux et les magazines prennent ce genre de choses très au sérieux (il y a même un site qui rassemble les corrections des grands journaux, Slipup), et je trouve que cela devrait être le cas partout.

J'ai eu le même problème avec Libé par le passé, avec des erreurs inserées à l'édition, cette fois. A croire que la beauté du Web en la matière -les corrections faciles, rapides- échappe à ce journal. Quand on vend ses articles en ligne aux lecteurs (cf. les archives) la moindre des choses serait de nettoyer les erreurs, non?

posted by on 09:57 du matin | link

Septembre 24, 2002

A message from the rat master: we just received a disturbing e-mail from the "ratmaster" at Ratkill, a.k.a The Horrendous Ratcam, a site that claims to be "the pulsing heart of a community of like-minded men, women and children who want to keep rats in check!" The message says:
"With all of the rat-attention Los Angeles is getting (New York Times, Tech Central Station, CNN etc.), just thought you'd like to know ratkill.com is fighting the good fight.

bagged one of those fuckers tonight. more to come.

check out the live action on the RATCAM...

or, if the trap has been cleared, the Last Dead Rat page..."
I personally recommend Rat Tales, from "correspondents far and wide."

I couldn't contribute to this Rat Killers Anonymous support group. We had a filthy rat last year, but despite the drought and the current rodent invasion of L.A., no rat in sight in the apartment. More thirsty coyotes in the streets feasting on cats and dogs, though.

posted by on 10:52 du soir | link

Septembre 23, 2002

I love this Fimoculous site. They found a useful site for Bob Greene.

posted by on 09:03 du soir | link

Beck's sea change

"Listen to the record some more. I'll guarantee you that it's worth it. This album matters."

When Kenan Hebert at BlogCritics tried to talk me into Sea Change, Beck's new album which I initially violently disliked, he was quite right. Instead of 3, there are now 5 songs that have crawled under my skin. Still, I don't understand the glowing reviews everywhere, or Rolling Stone's 5 stars. Just can't wait for the next album: Beck said he has already recorded a bunch of rock songs he hopes to release in 2003.

For my story about Beck in Libération, I talked to Nic Harcourt, host of the Morning Becomes Eclectic show on KCRW here in L.A., about the album and he said: "It’s a very deep record. You have to listen to it. It’s not a record you can have on passively, as background music. It’s music that really invites you to slow down and listen to it in that way." In fact, the CD should almost come with a sticker: "Warning: to be listened to lying on the floor, in the dark, like teenagers do."

Harcourt went on: "I heard people say they don’t like it. It’s not what they expect. But that’s the very reason why this record is so important. Because it isn’t what you expect. He’s an important artist because he continues to challenge himself and explore different aspects of his musicianship."

Beck will be playing live on KCRW Tuesday (tomorrow) at around 11:15 a.m. PST (20h15 Frog time.) It should be great: him alone with his acoustic guitar. (Click LISTEN ONLINE)

I posted a few quotes of Beck from the interview in the comments section of the BlogCritics page devoted to Sea Change. But since the Scientology connection seems to have worried lots of visitors to this site, who sent me anxious e-mails, judge for yourself. Maybe I was to hasty to affirm that he had embraced Scientology. He does not reject the sect, but he doesn't answer directly either when I ask him if he's a member:

E.R: Are you Jewish? AND scientologist?

Well, my grandfather was a Presbytherian minister. My mother was Jewish and she raised us Jewish as well, but during the summer, I used to go stay with my grandparents and I’d go to Church. My parents were scientologists probably from the 60s... so I grew up around that too. I had a lot of influences.

So you would go as kids to the… Scientology meetings?

It’s not really meetings or ceremonies... I grew up with going to Synagogue. My best friend’s family is Jewish and on weekends, we would go to the synagogue.

So why, only in the past two years, has your name being popping up everywhere, associated with Scientology?

A journalist or somebody started writing about it…

So, are you a member?

As I said, I’ve been around it my whole life.

So, has there been a change in your relationship between you and this... religion?

I don’t think so. It’s my family. (long silence) I know in France they have a lot of problems with it. They’re very anti… I think, in America, we’re not… it’s pretty open. People came here to do things they wanted (NOTE: can't transcribe, but it's about how the first colonies came to be free religiously). I’m pretty open. I feel like people should do things like… as long as they’re not hurting anyone or themselves. They can pursue whatever they want. I’m not a bigot."

Another question, of course, is: "What does Beck like about Scientology?" I wished I could have asked him.

PS: French journalist and blogger Chryde has a mean and hilarious take about Beck on his blog in French (permalinks don't seem to work, need to scroll down to: "Beck m'emmerde"). Chryde is bored to tears by the new album and thinks that Beck sings like a flan.