'Half-Life' Reading at Sparks Cafe

December 05, 2010 by Patrick LaForge in New York, Paper & Ink

Are you a poetry fan? Jane Rosenberg LaForge (my wife) and three other New York area writers -- Lisa Marie Basile, Britt Gambino and Jim Meirose -- will present a free evening of poetry and fiction this Saturday in Chelsea. Jane is promoting her second chapbook, "Half-Life," from Big Table Publishing. It is drawn on experiences with cancer in her family (her mother died in November 2009 and her sister in July 2010, while many of these poems were being written and revised).

First Week With the Apple iPad

April 11, 2010 by Patrick LaForge in iPhone Apps, Social Media

The world probably doesn't really need another iPad review, does it?

There's a glut out of them out there.

And I'm not a tech reviewer. I'm a gadget nut, so feel free to discount my enthusiasm by the appropriate percentage. After all, I did pre-order this thing sight unseen so it could be delivered on Day One.

So this post will be impressionistic, just some notes on my first week with the device.

First Minutes With the Apple iPad

April 03, 2010 by Patrick LaForge in iPhone Apps, New York, Paper & Ink

It's still syncing. While I prepare myself for the inevitable post-purchase depression and "why can't I do that, Mr. Jobs" revelations, here are some unboxing pictures and a video from my Posterous page.

Considering the iPad as a Kindle Replacement

January 31, 2010 by Patrick LaForge in iPhone Apps, Paper & Ink, Moving Images, Social Media

You've seen the new toy. You've seen the experts debate: Will the Apple iPad "save" newspapers, journalism, book publishing? Will it kill the Amazon Kindle? Is this the death of the laptop, and the PC as we know it? Has Apple just signaled the death of the ultraportable MacBook Air? Will it replace smartphones like the iPhone or Nexus One? Has Apple just pwned another media marketplace -- sorry Amazon, Google, Microsoft? Goodbye, netbooks? Farewell, computers? Blah, blah, blah. Nobody knows the future, so such pronouncements are justifiably viewed as so much hype. I'm not a tech or media critic, though I work for a newspaper (and yes, full disclosure, that paper does seem to have a working relationship with the iPad developers, but I had no role in that or the news coverage of the tablet).

Poetry and Silence: 'After Voices'

October 25, 2009 by Patrick LaForge in New York, Paper & Ink

Time for a plug. I'm pleased to announce that "After Voices," a poetry chapbook by my wife, Jane Rosenberg LaForge, was released last week by Burning River of Cleveland. Jane has been laboring over these poems for a couple of years. Some people have asked, what is a chapbook? One definition: a short booklet containing poems, ballads or stories. Jane's chapbook includes 12 poems and an essay arranged around the theme of her father's deafness. (He is already disputing some of the facts. Fun times!) Jane plans to read some of the poems at a New York University faculty-student reading in the East Village in December.

Third-Party iPhone Apps I Actually Still Use

September 09, 2009 by Patrick LaForge in New York, iPhone Apps, Blogging, Moving Images, Social Media

More often than I care to recall, I have impulsively downloaded a fancy new iPhone application, only to have it languish on my phone. That was the inspiration for the first "list of iPhone apps I actually use" last year, after the iTunes store started selling third-party applications. Since then, the number of new applications has grown rapidly. Now there's a cottage industry of lists, blogs and podcasts devoted to reviewing applications.

Exit the Kindle, in a Splash of E-Ink

August 09, 2009 by Patrick LaForge in Blogging, iPhone Apps, Paper & Ink, Social Media

Well, this is one cost of early technology adoption. I bought an original Kindle in April 2008, and it has served me well, so I can't complain too much. Recently, I noticed a sort of smudge developing in the upper left corner of the screen, even when the machine was turned off. There were also slight streaks of white lines going vertically down the screen, with a washed-out appearance at the top. I could still read books, but it was sort of annoying. I decided to see if Amazon tech support could offer any advice.

This Is Chapadao de Ferro (Microlot 494)

April 11, 2009 by Patrick LaForge in Coffee!

This has not been a good month for my coffee-blogging. We had some distracting news at the office, then a couple of weeks ago, I was laid low by a burning lump of fire in my throat that turned out to be strep. My daughter and eight other kids in her class, plus the teacher and some parents, probably came down with it too. It took a while to shake that, and the cure was in some ways worse than the illness, but I finally seem to be on the mend.

The Next 100 Years Could Be Better Than This

April 05, 2009 by Patrick LaForge in Paper & Ink

I just finished reading "The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century," by George Friedman, and I hope he is wrong about nearly everything. His thesis is that we humans don't have much choice in our international politics, that we are guided by geopolitical considerations, and that armed conflict is inevitable. The book is an odd mix of plausible scenarios and wacky Star Wars fantasies.

A Nerd Planet, Gobsmacked by the Reticulum

January 07, 2009 by Patrick LaForge in Moving Images, Paper & Ink

I'm happy to report that I finally finished the 900+ page "Anathem" by Neal Stephenson, just four months (!) after starting it. I have to admit that I took breaks to read a few other things. I previously posted about the difficult, otherworldly vocabulary that Stephenson made up for this book. (For example, the "Reticulum" is similar to what we call the Web or the Internet, though you have to figure that out based on the description of a narrator who is basically a cloistered monk who never uses technology. "Jeejahs" are smart phones or mobile devices of some sort. Videos are "speelies" recorded with "speelycaptors." Those are some of the neologisms that feel apt. Not all of them do.)

Podcast Zeitgeist, Dec. 26

December 26, 2008 by Patrick LaForge in Podcast Zeitgeist

The mix this week is more culture than tech. Most of the podcasts I sample were off for the holidays, or they had recorded episodes in advance, so I went a little farther afield. [See all lists.]

The Great Nerd Book Remains Unwritten

December 14, 2008 by Patrick LaForge in Paper & Ink

Supposedly, nerds are now cool. People compete to show their nerd cred. They are joining Facebook, taking nerd tests on the Web, and discussing the definitions of geek and nerd on their blogs. They watch TV shows like "Battlestar Galactica," "Heroes" and "The Big Bang Theory." They read adult comics and mammoth science fiction novels. Even Barack Obama is said to be a nerd. It was not always this way, a topic that Benjamin Nugent explores in "American Nerd: The Story of My People," published earlier this year. I ordered the book after listening to Nugent give an interview on The Sound of Young America podcast about what he called his childhood experiences as a self-loathing nerd. It was poignant (and familiar) to hear him describe dumping his nerdy Dungeons & Dragons friends in high school so he could pass for normal. Unfortunately, the book did not quite live up to that interview, either intellectually or emotionally.

Wandering at the Indie Book Fair

December 06, 2008 by Patrick LaForge in New York, Paper & Ink

One notable aspect of the 21st Annual Indie & Small Press Book Fair this weekend is the location, the members-only library of the General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen, at 20 West 44th Street in Manhattan, which is also home to the New York Center for Independent Publishing.

Jeff Jarvis Asks, What Would Google Do?

November 20, 2008 by Patrick LaForge in Paper & Ink, Social Media

I recently skimmed a galley proof of "What Would Google Do?" by Jeff Jarvis. The book, available from HarperCollins in January, is structured as a series of rules or aphorisms about how Google does business, with some anecdotes from Jarvis about things he has observed in his groundbreaking work as a blogger and media consultant.

The Strange Words of Neal Stephenson

October 31, 2008 by Patrick LaForge in Paper & Ink

Once upon a time, a bunch of writers and editors who found themselves working quite by accident for newspapers in a small town in Pennsylvania decided to have a party. A 20-something native of the town found himself among them, and as he listened to the conversation, about the news of the day, and books, and movies, and politics, and culture, his face grew more and more pinched, until finally he confided in the woman who had invited him, "Your friends sure do know a lot of words." Wherever he is now, I am sure he knows a few more words, but sometimes I recognize the sentiment. Most recently I experienced a similar befuddlement after slogging through 114 pages of the book I am supposedly reading, "Anathem," by the uber-nerd Neal Stephenson.

Thoughtprints at the Crime College

October 25, 2008 by Patrick LaForge in New York, Paper & Ink

"Supposin' I did kill the Black Dahlia. They couldn't prove it now. They can't talk to my secretary anymore because she's dead..."-- Dr. George Hodel

Some friends and I are going to see "Dahlia: A Very Nearly True Theatrical Fantasia" by P. Seth Bauer, performed at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, of all places. The gist:

It's a Hodgman Infestation

October 21, 2008 by Patrick LaForge in Paper & Ink

It's a great week for John Hodgman fans. Hodgman -- you know, "The Daily Show" expert, the guy who plays the PC in Mac ads. He is suddenly everywhere: back on Jon Stewart's show last night, talking to "Rachel Maddow" on Monday night, guest blogging on BoingBoing, Twittering about the presidential race, showing up in some new Mac/PC ads out, making appearances in New York, various blogs and podcasts. It's all about promoting his new book, "More Information Than You Require," officially released Tuesday. By the way, if we are heading for another Great Depression, we're going to need more than 700 hobo names.

What I'm Supposedly Reading

October 12, 2008 by Patrick LaForge in Paper & Ink

The big one right now is "Anathem" by Neal Stephenson, a work of speculative fiction set on another planet (apparently), weighing in at more than a pound and 937 pages. For some reason I am a sucker for big books. I am also working my way through a stack of comix, graphic novels and illustrated memoirs, including:

"Too Cool to be Forgotten" by Alex Robinson
"American Elf: Book 2" by James Kochalka
"The Surrogates" by Robert Venditti and Brett Weldele

I tend to whip through the graphic books and plod through the text. Don't expect a review soon.