Thursday, June 10, 2010

Tempest in a Gimlet Glass: Brooklyn Blogfest 5 - Aftermath

The sh*tstorm over Brooklyn Blogfest 5's inclusion of a brand name alcoholic beverage maker and a famous film director who is shilling for it rages on.

The issue now appears to focus on Atlantic Yards Report and the Brownstoner's "revelations" on some additional behind-the-blogs marketing hustling that the liquor company was engaging in, offering what are ostensibly trinkets ($129 flip cameras) and invites-to-yet-other-"VIP"-marketing events, for some cross-promotional posts on "Stoop" life.  As Jerry Seinfeld might sardonically say, "Really?"  When I heard the brand name booze producer was involved, I imagined that Louise Crawford, after years of  hard work building the Blogfest from the ground up largely out of her own pocket, had finally hit a pay day with a major sponsor. Good for her. But in a couple of wrenching posts at Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn, Louise makes it clear that, if in fact Brooklyn Blogfest had "Sold out," it clearly "sold out" for very little: Mostly some (not all) ot the refreshments, the booze, and some (not all) of the operating expenses. There was no golden ticket here, more like a co-sponsorship, which, due to the high profile of Mr. Lee, did seem to muddy the focus of this year's event. Face it, Spike Lee is a big draw. Even the "chachkas" offered to some of the bloggers involved in the event, or for cross promotional posts on the Absolut website, sounded like little more than higher-end gift bag items. Kidstuff.

I think Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn has said enough, made enough mea culpas, for not really doing anything wrong as far as I can see. And stop knocking your sponsor -- you don't have to make these declarations about not liking the product or not being partial to that form of beverage. You really don't have to prove anything. Blogfest 5, in all of its occasionally interesting moments and imperfektions is proof enough. You gave a party and we came. And we didnt even have to pay admission this year. That was a pretty cool arrangement. (En passant, I feel like mentioning, although I don't have to, that I had a "value meal" at The Gate before I arrived, so, regrettably I wasn't in tune with vodka but I might try it at some point.) So, not that there wasn't a story in this, but it sounded more like something from the NY Times business page or the WSJ, not an actual succes de scandale. If you are largely a Mom and Pop not-for-profit event, and you decide to make a corporate arrangement, you have stepped across a threshhold. No doubt there were additional deals. But the Blogfest is just an informal get together, a gathering of the tribes and wannabes. Who cares if there was a little (apparently very little) sponsorship behind it. But you have to wonder-- was Atlantic Yards' action in breaking the story the way it did more of a McCarthy-esque litmus test --"Have you now or have you ever accepted a proclamation from a Borough President who has supported a controversial and unpopular-with-the-local-community development project in downtown Brooklyn?"  Who planted that story with Atlantic Yards? It was unfairly portrayed as malfesance, when, in fact, Brownstoner and Atlantic Yards appeared to be stirring the pot for their own reasons. A reaction to OTBKB and the Brooklyn Blogfest daring to stick its toe in the corporate waters?  To quote from the Army-McCarthy hearings -- "Have you no shame, sir?" And Brownstoner --not that I really care, but does that blog wish to share its fiscal spreadsheets with the public? Will this peculiar contretemps result in a new focus on full disclosure of the financials of all "monetized" blogs? We pretty much have an idea from Ms Crawford's posts that OTBKB and Brooklyn Blogfest are amateurs and relatively inexperienced when it comes to "selling out." But malfeasant? C'mon. Let the monetized blog that is without sin, etc...

I am sure Brooklyn Blogfest has been suitably chastened by this brouhaha and next year it will be back to donated sixpacks and local Asian fusion food only with a $50 admission charge. Too bad, but I wouldn't blame Louise at all...
--Brooklyn Beat

Current Reading

  • Midnight Rising: John Brown and the Raid that Sparked the Civil War- Tony Horwitz
  • A Sultan in Palermo - Tariq Ali
  • Hitch-22: A Memoir - Christopher Hitchens
  • Negropedia- Patrice Evans
  • Dead Funny: Humor in Nazi Germany - Rudolph Herzog
  • Exile on Main Street - Robert Greenfield
  • Among the Truthers - A Journey Among America's Growing Conspiracist Underworld - Jonathan Kay
  • Paradise Lost - John Milton
  • What Is Your Dangerous Idea? Thinking the Unthinkable - John Brockman
  • Notes from the Edge Times - Daniel Pinchbeck
  • Fringe-ology: How I Can't Explain Away the Unexplainable- Steve Volk
  • Un Juif pour l'exemple (translated as A Jew Must Die )- Jacques Cheesex
  • The God Delusion - Richard Dawkins
  • Pale King - David Foster Wallce
  • David Bowie: Starman bio - Paul Trynka
  • Tobacco Stained Mountain Goat - Andrez Bergen
  • The Future of Nostalgia -Svetlana Boym
  • Living in the End Times - Slavoj ZIzek
  • FIrst as Tragedy Next as Farce - Slavoj Zizek
  • How to Survive a Robot Uprising - Daniel Wilson
  • Where is My Jet Pack? -Daniel Wilson
  • Day of the Oprichniks - Vladimir Sorokin
  • Ice Trilogy - Vladimir Sorokin
  • First Civilizations
  • Oscar Wilde -Andre Maurois
  • The Beats - Harvey Pekar, et al
  • SDS - Harvey Pekar, et al
  • The Unfinished Animal - Theodore Roszak
  • Friends of Eddy Coyle
  • Brooklands -Emily Barton
  • Abraham Lincoln - Vampire Hunter - Seth Grahme-Smith - Entertaining and historical
  • Dictionary of the Khazars - Pavic
  • Sloth-Gilbert Hernandez
  • War and Peace- Leo Tolstoy
  • Charles Addams: An Evilution
  • Life in Ancient Greece
  • Time - Eva Hoffmann
  • Violence - S. Zizek
  • Luba - a graphic novel by Gilbert Hernandez
  • Life in Ancient Egypt
  • Great Apes - Will Self - riveting and disturbing
  • Lost Honor of Katherina Blum - Heinrich Boll - could not put it down
  • Yellow Back Radio Brokedown - Ishmael Reed (author deserving of new wide readership)
  • Living in Ancient Mesopotomia
  • Landscape in Concrete - Jakov Lind - surreal
  • 'There Once Lived A Woman Who Tried To Kill Her Neighbor's Baby'-Ludmilla Petrushevskaya - creepy stories - translation feels literarily "thin"
  • Mythologies - William Butler Yeats (re-read again & again)
  • How German Is It ? - Walter Abish
  • The Book of Genesis - illustrated by R. Crumb - visionary
  • "Flags" - an illustrated encyclopedia - wish I could remember all of these. Flag culture
  • Sirens of Titan - Kurt Vonnegut
  • Ubik - Philip K. Dick
  • Nobody's Fool - Richard Russo
  • Hitler's Empire - Mark Mazower
  • Nazi Culture - various authors
  • Master Plan: Himmler 's Scholars and the Holocaust - Heather Pringle
  • Eichmann in Jerusalem - Hannah Arendt
  • Living in Ancient Rome
  • Traveling with Herodotus -R. Kapuszynsky
  • Oblivion - David Foster Wallace - Some of his greatest work
  • Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace - still wrestling with this great book
  • Netherland - Joseph O'Neill - staggeringly great read
  • Renegade - The Obama Campaign - Richard Wolffe
  • Mount Analogue - Rene Daumal
  • John Brown
  • Anathem - Neal Stephenson - love Stephenson but tough slogging first few chapters
  • 7 Deadly Sins
  • ALEX COX - Alex Cox
  • FIASCO by Thomas Ricks
  • I, Fellini - Charlotte Chandler & Federico Fellini
  • Best of 20th century alternative history fiction
  • Judah P. Benjamin - Eli Evans - Confederacy's Secretary of State & source of the W.C. Field's exclamation
  • Moscow 2042 - Vladimir Voinovich - Pre-1989 curiosity & entertaining sci fi read; love his portrayal of Solzhenitsyn-like character
  • Gomorrah - Roberto Saviano - Mafia without the It-Am sugar coating. Brutal & disturbing
  • The Sack of Rome - Celebrity+Media+Money=Silvio Berlusconi - Alexander Stille
  • Reporting - David Remnick - terrific journalism
  • Fassbinder
  • Indignation - Philip Roth
  • Rome
  • Let's Go Italy! 2008
  • Italian Phrases for Dummies
  • How to Pack
  • Violence - Slavoj Zizek
  • Dali: Painting & Film
  • The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight - Jimmy Breslin
  • The Good Rat - Jimmy Breslin
  • Spook Country - William Gibson
  • A Blue Hand - The Beats in India - Deborah Baker
  • The Metaphysical Club - Louis Menard
  • Coast of Utopia - Tom Stoppard
  • Physics of the Impossible - Dr. Michio Kaku
  • Managing the Unexpected - Weick & Sutcliffe
  • Wait Til The Midnight Hour - Writings on Black Power
  • Yellow Back Radio Brokedown - Ishmael Reed
  • Burning Down the Masters' House - Jayson Blair
  • Howl - Allen Ginsberg
  • Cat's Cradle - Kurt Vonnegut
  • The Palace Thief - Ethan Canin
  • John Adams - David McCullough
  • The Wooden Sea - Jonathan Carroll
  • American Gangster - Mark Jacobson
  • Return of the King - J.R.R. Tolkien
  • Gawker Guide to Becoming King of All Media
  • Jews and Power - Ruth Wisse
  • Youth Without Youth - Mircea Eliade
  • A Team of Rivals - Doris Goodwin
  • Ghost Hunters -William James and the Search for Scientific Proof of Life After Death - Deborah Blum
  • Dream -Re-Imagining Progressive Politics in an Age of Fantasy - Stephen Duncombe
  • Love & Theft - Eric Lott
  • Exit Ghost - Philip Roth
  • Studio A - The Bob Dylan Reader

Current Listening

  • Alexi Murdoch Wait
  • Wilco Summer Teeth
  • Wilco The Album
  • Carmina Burana - Ray Manzarek (& Michael Riesmann)
  • Polyrock - Polyrock
  • 96 Tears - Garland Jeffries
  • Ghost of a Chance Garland Jeffries
  • Yellow Magic Orchestra
  • Mustang Sally Buddy Guy
  • John Lee Hooker
  • Black and White Years
  • Together Through Life - B. Dylan
  • 100 Days 100 Nites - Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings
  • DYLAN: 3 disc Greatest...
  • Glassworks - Philip Glass
  • Wild Palms - Soundtrack -Ryuichi Sakamoto
  • Dinah Washington - Best of..
  • Commander Cody& His Lost Planet Airmen Live at Armadillo