Geek In A Bottle, Uncorked
by Sean Carolan

Right now, I'm listening to a five hour long bout of acid trance music. (It seems to me that when you decide to listen to five hours of anything, it should be described as a "bout".) Since I'm not currently using any of the stuff featured in hysterical headlines about the club scene, I'm forced to use my time constructively and generate an observation about why the steady meltdown of the Internet may wind up making our times a litle more interesting.

The first thing you notice about the music is that it's relentless. The obvious parallel is the all-night programmer, hammering away at their computer code and making it do what it's supposed to, even as the definition of what it's supposed to do mutates relative to the features it's already managed to collect. Here, the music pounds in a single direction, until it finds a new direction and pounds off that way. The Internet itself works that way; it grew relentlessly to encompass all kinds of groundbreaking work in text communication (newsgroups, chat, instant messaging) then got bored of that and headed off to nail down loose ends in audio transmission (MP3, RealMedia and Ogg Vorbis) and, when the frontiers got crowded, set its sights on video transmission (DeCSS, DivX;) and MPEG video).

The Internet gave (and, don't be fooled by doomsayers, still gives) an opportunity to a cadre of incredibly focused, talented, and pleasantly odd people. They had a chance to spend time building software that didn't just get the bills paid; they were personally convinced that once it was unleashed on an impatient world, it'd be the ultimate answer to whatever question it was that the programmer was curious about when they started the project in the first place.

Unfortunately, a whole load of utopian visions have been dessicated by a sudden drought in financial interest. But, like the problem encountered back when Patriot missiles intercepted SCUDs (when they actually did, anyway) and disabled their explosive payload but still left a piece of scrap metal the size of a station wagon hurtling to a point somewhere near the intended target at supersonic speed...

...I'll pause for that to make sense...

...there's still a pile of fantastically creative, driven people in search of a goal.

Which brings us to this magnificent pile of acid-trance I'm listening to. It's being brought to me courtesy of Jamie Zawinski, who was a principal architect of the Netscape browser, as well as a pile of programming tools that'll make any self-respecting geek drool. Having safely ejected from the smoking ruin of the Netscape meteorite, he's a free agent, and for his first trick, he's taking his geek skills and applying them to his nightclub, the DNA Lounge. The DNA Lounge is physically in San Francisco, but it's wired in lots of nice ways, giving folks elsewhere in the world a chance to (for instance) see and hear the club as it heats up for the night, or a chance to listen to the entire set of music played at the previous night's soiree.

Keep an eye on the geeks, then, especially the ones who know how to have a good time. Chances are, it's because of them you'll wind up having a good time, too.

©2001 Sean Carolan

All material ©2001-2006 Sean Carolan, except as noted.

Today's NY/NJ Shows That Matter

Thursday, April 10, 2008
 
Tristan Prettyman and Whitley at Gramercy Theatre
 
Kathleen Edwards and Dan Wilson at Irving Plaza
 
Ginger (of Wildhearts) & Scott Metzger (of American Babies) at Pianos
 
Juggling Suns at Stanhope House
 
Tower Of Power at BB King's
 
Gnarls Barkley at Highline Ballroom
 
Kaki King at World Cafe Live, Philly
 
Mike Doughty's Band at Music Hall Of Williamsburg, Bklyn
 
Kathy Mattea at Highline Ballroom (CANCELLED)
 
Shawn Mullins at Joe's Pub
 
Jason Collett at Mercury Lounge
 
Katt Williams at Radio City Music Hall
 
Green Tag Sale at The Saint
 
 
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