Things That Go Blog in the Night: Arts & Entertainment

“My favorite thing about the Internet is that you get to go into the private world of real creeps without having to smell them.” — Penn Jillette

That's how the British ex-anarchist-punk-turned-acoustic-folk group Chumbawamba introduces themselves on their MySpace page, where they've featured "Add Me", a hilarious send-up of MySpace and the creepy types that you sometimes meet there.

The song is infectious as heck: a hilarious send-up of scary Social-Networking encounters with a bouncy folk-pop sound that completely belies its creepy lyrics:

I'm a loner alone with neuroses and hate.
Anger is a permanent character trait.
My letter bombs are primed and they're ready to send.
Would you like to add me as a friend?

I'm a wound-up whiner with a fetish for guns.
I'm almost fifty and I live with my mum.
I hope my nude picture doesn't offend.
Would you like to add me as a friend?

Chorus:
Add me, add me,
Me mother says she wish she never had me.
Add me, add me,
Would you like to add me as a friend?
Would you like to add me as a friend?

I'm a recovering alcoholic; I rarely leave my room,
Peeping through the curtains in my dark costume.
The voices in my head, god they'll get me in the end.
Would you like to add me as a friend?

I'd really like to mail you the picture that I drew,
It's Kylie's body, but the head is you.
I've asked you fifty times before, I'm asking you again,
Would you like to add me as a friend?

Chorus

Here's a picture of me in my Nazi uniform
Doing a trick with an egg that I like to perform
At a monster truck rally that my mom and me attend.
Would you like to add me as a friend?

I've added Britney, and Paris, and you and Tom,
I'm gonna find your address so I can visit you at home.
I don't like people, but I like to pretend.
Would you like to add me as a friend?

Chorus

It's part of the etiquette of live jazz and blues music to applaud at the end of solos, even as the next one begins or the whole combo kicks in to restate the melody and wrap up the song. At the end of the song, of course, there's the usual round of applause (and depending on how rowdy the joint or the crowd is, whistles or hoots of praise).

But this is different: it is lighter, more like a golf clap; it happens immediately as the player concludes his few moments at the song's center and it fades out politely to give attention to whatever comes next.

I want that for my coworkers, too.

Why is it more appropriate to applaud three minutes of inspired performance on the keyboard of a Hammond organ than three days of inspired performance at the keyboard of a Mac Book Pro?

Maybe that needs to change.

When a coworker solves a gnarly programming issue, crafts an elegant business solution to a client's problem, signs a difficult deal, or gets a recalcitrant client to pay their bill, how about a tasteful show of appreciation for an especially deft solo effort. It takes no less work to develop the skill to deliver for an elegant software or business solution than it does to learn how to craft a tight solo.

At a Jazz performance, it only takes one person to get a gentle drizzle of applause started, two or three more to make it spread through the room and reach the player. When it does, the audience gets a little nod of thanks from the performer. And that feels good, too: you've connected with the star. You get to bask a little in the reflected glow of the crowd's adulation: which you may have even started.

Next time someone does a star turn at work, why not show him or her some appreciation right then? Don't stop everything: the song needs to keep on playing. Don't wait for an "official recognition" event at the project's conclusion, either, but offer up a little adulation as the next player begins his solo or as the whole team spools up to bring back the melody and take us home.

And when the whole song — or project — is finished, be sure to express your appreciation for the whole thing: the combo deserves thanks as a group, just as each player deserves a little praise at the end of her solo.

What strange irony that this past week featured both an attack on photosensitive visitors to the Epilepsy Foundation web site and the release of Speed Racer.

First off, the movie is a blast: completely different from the original Japanimation that I grew up with, yet true to its cheesy boy-saves-world-by-driving-a-race-car core. It doesn't try to be serious, it tries—and succeeds in a big, big way—at being way too much fun in an utterly original, extremely manic, totally overstimulating way.

With influences as far from 60s proto-anime as motion photography pioneer Eadweard Muybridge and photographic artist David LaChapelle (I hadn't heard of him, either), colors as bright and saturated as it is possible to put on film, a plot simple enough for the youngest audience member to grasp and the most intense flashing psychodelic imagery I've ever seen on screen, Speed Racer is like nothing you've ever seen before. The Wachowski brothers—as they did with "bullet time" in The Matrix—have created a new visual style that I'm sure we'll be seeing in ads for years to come.

As much as I liked the movie (and I'm old enough to have been a fan of the original as a 9-year-old in 1967), I have to wonder if some of the effects won't send some photosensitive epileptics out of the theater with headaches or in an ictal state. My 11-year-old son, who plays plenty of video games and has never shown the slightest sign of sensitivity to flashing or flickering images, said that he felt slightly queasy and had a headache after the movie. I'm happy to report that it was not due to an overdose of movie snacks, either: we had a proper meal of Lasagne before we went to the theater.