Geography, Topography, and Everythingography

Google vs. Hitler, underwear peninsulas, Hansel and Gretel, global black holes, 18th century German lovescapes, how Holland’s streets are finally becoming rivers, why Philly is reinventing the wheel, and what Joan Miró has to do with NASA. We’re exorcising our maps obsession.

MOUNTAIN VIEW TIMES

Alright, folks. It’s happening: Google has officially begun its world conquest. Starting with New York City.  Or so venture capitalist John Ellis of Real Clear Markets thinks as he speculates that it’s only a matter of time until Google buys The New York Times. And it makes a lot of sense — it’s no secret that NYT has been on a steady decline of value (down 70% over the past 5 years, actually) and, if the New England properties got sold off, it would only be worth under $3 billion. Which is lunch money for the big G. It’s also no secret that Google is going hard after the mobile market, readying to launch Google Mobile. The only trouble: Washington. And owning a major media outlet is bound to score them major points in the lobbying game.

We’ll leave it to the pros to elaborate on the details, but we’ll just say that if the Nazis were able to re-imagine New York in their own world domination schemes…

…why shouldn’t Google? At least this time there’s a do-no-evil take on it.

WORLDWIDE RUNWAY

Fashion: it’s a global thing. Dutch artist Coriette Schoenaerts seems to be feeling our little maps theme here with her fashion cartography: high-end clothing laid out to represent the geographic and political maps of various regions. Check out South America, The Netherlands, and Europe.

The work was commissioned by Rails Magazine and aims to boycott the human body ideal traditionally used to sell fashion.

Meanwhile, global fashion is taking it to the streets: literally. Street Clash is an innovative contest that recruits bloggers and photographers to stage a virtual face-off between the street styles of cities from Paris to Perth.

Last year, 118 fashion “fights” ensued brackets- elimination-style, finally yielding the best-dressed city of 2007: Tel Aviv.

A retrospective of the catwalk catfight is taking place as we speak at Berlin Fashion Week.

NEW YORK CITY FAIRY TALE

It started without a name. Kind of: some poking around the East Village and the blogasphere would reveal it had a codename: “Birdbath.” Which sounds more creepy than crepe — not a surprising approach given the operation is the doing of legendary New York chef and prankster Maury Rubin. What is it?

Today, the revolutionary neighborhood “green” bakery has fully embraced its codename and, after Rubin’s City Bakery success, Birdbath is taking the love of sugar and dough to new levels. It features Rubin’s famed gigantic cookies. But this one is as green as it gets, using top-notch organic ingredients in both the food itself and the shop’s marvelous architecture, making for a bakery Hansel and Gretel would love. We’re pretty sure you can even eat the whole place, including — and we mean this in the least cannibalistic way possible — the staff: Birdbath‘s walls are made of wheat and sunflower seeds, covered with milk-based beets-pigmented paint, the floor comes from a cork by-product, the counter from bamboo, and the baristas’ vests from linen and hemp. Yum.

Rubin’s idea is to inspire people to make the connection between organic foods (which, by the way, more than half of Americans buy regularly these days, spending over $14 billion annually) and a broader appreciation of organic, sustainable materials.

No green bakery in your ‘hood? No problem. Now you can get delish, do-good foods wherever you are. (Plus, we’re big proponents of locally grown over organic.) And the fine folks at LocalHarvest, the online community for farmers and foodies alike, are making it super easy with their nifty map-based search feature.

Go ahead, trade a Whole Foods trip or two for a farmers market one — it’s an experience of its very own.

UNDERDOG AND FRIENDS

You may remember the heads-up from a while ago to keep an eye out for Nokia because the progressive underdog is creeping up on everyone from Apple to Google to MySpace. Well, turns out we were on to something.

The guys at Paid Content report Nokia is now foraging big-time into the world of social networking via a hush-hush pact with Facebook. Seems like the idea is to make Facebook the default social net of Nokia headsets (much like YouTube is for iPhone video) in exchange for a Nokia stake in the Zuckerberg empire. Not a bad idea for a mobile company in the business of “Connecting People.”

If you’re getting the so-what shrugs, consider the deal in light of Nokia’s aforementioned recent acquisitions — especially the Universal-catalog- backed music store, the Ticket Rush concert ticketing partnership with Live Nation and the Enpocket mobile advertising platform. (Plus the steady 58% stock increase over the past year.) And while social networking as a way to relate to friends is great and all, these powerful tools have the potential to make it much bigger — it can be a way, a monetizable way, for people not just to list their interests and connect with friends, but to act on those interests and relate to products they’re passionate about.

This underdog is barking loud and clear.

Meanwhile, and because this is the maps issue, we feel compelled to point out where the Nokia/Facebook partnership just won’t happen: in the international “black holes” of the Internet.

That’s right, these 15 countries are all Big-Brother-on-steroids about their citizens’ access to and use of the Internet. Doesn’t it just make you rejoice in democracy and the ability to Facebook away any time of day?

DATING JUNGLE

It’s a crazy world out there on the singles scene. You’ve got blind dates, pity dates, online dating, speed dating…it all makes us wanna say “Oy!” (But we won’t. Because we’re not 60 or Canadian.) Well, you can now multitask your way around that jungle with a new hybrid: online speed dating.

WooMe, the online speed introduction platform cooked up by the folks behind PayPal, has finally launched in alpha.

It takes 30 seconds to register, then you’re on your way to all the 5-minute video chat sessions your heart desires. After each, you’re asked (thankfully, not by the datee) whether or not the person wooed you.

If the answer is yes, you chip in $1 to get each other’s real contact info. Which seems to us like a much better deal than the traditional dinner-movie-drinks scenarios that often have thanks-but-no-thanks endings. (Plus, it makes it so much easier to “go to the restroom” if things start going awry.)

And if things do go right, perhaps you’ll get to move your personal pin on this 1777 German map of the Empire of Love.

If you don’t sprechen Sie Deutch, here’s the gist:

• GEBIET DER JUGEND = Land of Youth (Forest of Love, Kiss Field, Flirting Game, Charm Castle, Stream of Wishes, Worry-Free, Joy’s Home, Beautiful House, Source of Joy, Sweet Look, Wisecrack Place, Rich River, Warning Castle)

• GEBIET DER RUHE = Land of Rest (Nightcap, Grandfather City, Equanimity, Manly Place)

• GEBIET DER TRAURENDEN LIEBE = Land of Mourning Love (Anger’s Home, Flood of Tears, Whim Mountain,  Complaint Place, Hopeless Mountains, Loathing, Strict Place, Swamp of Profanity,  Desert of Melancholy)

• GEBIET DER LUSTE = Land of Lust (Illness Valley, Weak Home, Intoxication Field, Lechery, Hospital)

• GEBIET DER GLUCKLICHEN LIEBE = Land of Happy Love (Lust Wood, Answered Prayers, Pleasant View, Enjoyment, Tenderness, Good Times, Affection Farm, Satisfaction, Compliance Mountain, Fountain of Joy, Marriage Harbor, Reward City, Peace of Mind, Bliss Town)

• GEBIET DER HAGESTOLZE = Bachelor Country (Stupidity Town, Rejection Place, Irritation, Indifference, Place of Contempt, Reprehensibility, Old Age Mountains, Separation, Hat, Obstinacy, Wrangler Hall, Exasperation Heath, Hamlet of Death, Sea of Doubt)

• GEBIET DER FIXEN IDEEN = Land of Obsessions (Place of Sighs, Desire Town, Unrest, City of Dreams, Bridge of Hope, Disloyalty, Sweet River of Tears, Little Town of Instincts)

STREET BLUES

And while we’re dealing with all sorts of cartographic representations of stuff, let us pay tribute to a brave effort to change the stuff in order to change the reprsentation. Dutch artist Henk Hoftstra‘s latest outdoor art project takes Google Earth head-on with 4000 liters of blue paint poured onto the streets of Drachten, Holland. The goal: an “urban river” visible from Google Earth, with the words “WATER IS LIFE” stretched across it.

Although the installation hasn’t shown up on Google Earth yet, the current Drachten view seems to have been snapped earlier in 2007, so it’s a matter of waiting for the satellites to come ’round — because we know Google stuff always does.

REINVENTING THE WHEEL

And while checking out other people’s streets is cool, why don’t we selfishly turn focus inwards and talk about the streets of Philadelphia for a second. Namely, about the amazingly bikeable streets of Philadelphia. Which is why an ambitious new collective, the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia, is trying to break Philly’s car habit and take urban sustainability to new heights.

Enter Philly Bike Share — a public use bicycle program that aims to do for Philly what similar efforts have already done for many European cities: provide low-cost alternative transportation, reduce traffic congestion and increase the overall livability of the city. Which jives rather nicely with a few of our big urban gripes: people who live 15 minutes from work but choose to drive, foot-wide cobblestone Old City alleys clogged with SUV’s, and $20 cab rides. Hey, it may even help with our standing on the 25 Fattest Cities in America ranking.

But, in all seriousness, it’s a great idea — not only do we have the largest connected park trail system in the country, but we also have a highly sophisticated urban biking system (download the map here) with over 150 miles of bike lanes, a ton more off-road routes, 1,800 street-side parking racks and even buses equipped with bike racks.

Turns out, if we only replaced 5% of Philly’s short-distance car trips (under 5 miles) with bikes, we’d be reducing our carbon footprint by 98 tons of emissions per year. Clearly, we could say that’s a ton — but it would be an obvious understatement. So even if you’re not quite ready to commit for some reason (or if you already have a two-wheeler of your very own), you can help simply by dropping Mayor Nutter this quick email asking him to authorize and fund the program.

Besides, there’s the Dasani Blue Bike program in Pittsburgh — and if Pittsburgh can do something, what exactly are we waiting for?

BRIGHT SIDE OF THE MOON

We’ll sign off with one of our absolute favorite maps — which looks more like Joan Miró on psychedelic drugs than a real map. (Nice find, Wired.) Except it is an honest-to-NASA map of the dark side of the moon, with the different colors corresponding to geological materials and phenomena.

It’s part of a series done under the Astrological Research Program, a 1971-1998 partnership between NASA and the United States Geological Survey. And we think it’s geeky-artsy-cool — our kinda stuff.

Way to go downhill, NASA.

(Finally, special thanks to our new favorite blog, Strange Maps, for further inspiring and fueling our pre-existing map obsession.)

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The Last and the Curious

Democracy, rashes, the big ambush, Eastern Europeans for free, why the ‘burbs are cool again, how 40 tons can make you really, really uncomfortable, what gingerbread has to do with sustainability, and just dance, dammit.

THE INDEPENDENT MASSES

Let’s face it, neither big labels nor online music sales are exactly a conducive trampoline for indie artists looking to make the big jump, however talented they may be. The few who rose from the indie ranks and made it big may have the traction to give the labels the finger (hello, Radiohead and LiveNation folk), but what about the little guys, the next Beatles and Kinks and Blondies humbly making great music in their basements?

Luckily for them, there’s OurStage: one big, brilliant community talent contests. It allows emerging talent to gain exposure by uploading work, then — here’s the smart part — it lets the community decide in a completely democratic vote. Every month, the overall winner gets $5,000 (and the top 5 rankers in each genre channel get some pocket change — $100, to be exact — to fuel those practice sessions with beer and pizza so they can do better next month.)

We sampled some of the top-ranked talent — and talent it is, we were pleasantly surprised to find. Current rank topper Julie Odell oozes promises of Joni-Mitchellish vocals and Rufus-Wainwrightean piano work. And runner-up Wandering Bards blends Lynard Skynardesque Southern rock with early Dave Matthews Band rasp, plus a kick all their own. And, is Sydney Wayser for real? Please come to and give the woman a record deal already.

All in all, OurStage seems to reflect a bigger trend of late — the concept of individualism by the numbers. It helps indie artists remain, well, indie, while building a community fueled by individual opinions but moving forward by means of critical mass. Who knew democracy wasn’t the repugnant villain big labels and the Billboard charts make it out to be?

UNTRIVIA

Alright, alright, maybe the Billboard charts aren’t all crap — if you know how to read them, that is. The big B published the annual recap on what was hot in the year past, spanning every imaginable genre, category and music publishing method. But we were most intrigued by a little something that goes by Tastemakers Chart.

It’s intended to balance out the big music retailers’ influence on the rest of the charts, which are largely shaped by sales figures from the major chain stores. But the Tastemakers Chart reflects music sales in thousands of small, independent stores where, coincidentally, cultural “tastemakers” often first discover new music. It’s the long tail, if you will. And while its entrants are strikingly similar to those popping up in the mainstream charts, it still tells a different story — and we like different stories.

And while we’re on the subject, might as well resist the urge to snub TIME Magazine‘s 50 Top 10 Lists of 2007, including the music one: we’re sensing the onset of a distinct overexposure rash with all that Amy Winehouse dominance. (Oh come on now, the “OD-ing on Amy” joke would’ve been too cheap a shot.)

BIG THINGS START SMALL

Sure, it was a matter of time. But we kind of expected fanfare, grandeur, or at least another campfire event in Mountain View to announce it. Nope, Google has decided to take down the social networking giants quietly and stealthily.

This week, Google Reader (you know, the nifty RSS aggregator that lets you keep track of content updates on sites you’ve elected to actually care about *cough cough*) tapped into users’ address books for a social function that lets you see what your friends are reading.

And that’s just two months after Google Maps quietly added the same function, leveraging the existing custom-mapping and local user reviews. Thanks to the (not yet but soon) almighty address book, people can share routes and trails with friends, click through reviews and see what else that person reviewed, and add links and photos.

Not to mention personal Google profile pages have been around for a while, letting people show the world a no-bells-and-whistles snapshot of who they are, where they’re at, and what they’re into.

Sure, the Goog folks still need to streamline things and intersect Reader profiles with Map profiles with Docs sharing and whatever other personal/social components they’re brewing up for the Google army of apps. But the point here is, the address book is a tremendously powerful tool.

Really, if we’re talking about real social networking, your social foundation — your circle of close friends and all the acquaintances you actually care to keep in touch with — is bound to be in your address book. Heck, even the expression “keeping in touch” wouldn’t live outside the context of some sort of address book. So we can’t wait to see how the Google touch transforms a field that has traditionally been done backwards, adding social contacts (who may or may not be actual friends) once the network is formed. Slap OpenSocial to this whole shebang, and something big, something long overdue is starting to emerge.

And while we’re on the subject of putting the individual up front and center, perhaps the most noteworthy of Google’s latest is a new tool they’re beta-testing that goes by knol (which stands for “unit of knowledge”) — based on the screenshots, it sounds like Wikipedia on steroids: it organizes all the world’s information by having thousands of experts in specific, niche areas write “knols” on what they know inside and out.

Google folks make a good point about how all other public media (books, articles, music, etc.) have a known author, but the Internet, for the most part, somehow evolved without that key component. So they say the idea is to claim authorship back and build a momentous pool of knowledge by highlighting the author in a way that fosters top-notch info and credibility.

WILL REWARD FOR INFO

One word: huh?

This oddball, reminiscent of the infamous Counterfeit MINI campaign, has been gathering viral momentum and generating massive web-wide head-scratching for months. Across the several duplicates posted to YouTube, it’s got some half million cumulative views. And all it points to is this Romanian website, where there seems to be some Romanian auto-parts retailer tie-in.

It’s also a featured example on Unruly Media, a service that seeds brand-backed viral videos to publishers who cash in on views. Their clients include big-wig names like Pepsi, Glaxo Smith Klein, Budweiser, Motorola, BBC and more, plus a ton of conglomerate- owned agencies — and a Romanian auto-parts shop?

The site is registered to one Bogdan Popescu and his questionable kin, Morek Popescu, seems to have designed it. We have no idea how common of Romanian names these are, but Bogdan (if that’s even “his” real name) seems to be either a computer science researcher in Amsterdam or involved in an electronic software solutions company. Or, you know, Borat’s cousin. Oh, and they’ve bought keywords — Bogdan’s name, alongside “viral video,” pulls the mysterious website as the top search result. Yah, we know, “HUH?!”

We love the brilliant absurdity of the viral vid, but something ain’t right here — anyone who’s got info on what the deal is, do speak up. We’re willing to offer authentic Eastern Europeans as a reward.

SUBURBAN OUTFITTERS

Behold Urban Outfitters, that glorious haven for pseudo-rebels and budding stick-it-to-the- man folk. But all questionable stereotypes and blatant counterfeiting charges aside, the chain — which includes college-aimed Urban Outfitters, grown-up chic Anthropologie and the lesser- known but possibly most original Free People — does have distinct style and vibe, plus some plain cool stuff.

But here’s a question: what happens when the Urban Outfitters loyalists grow up, settle down and swap their hip urban lofts for picked-fenced suburban houses but still wanna keep their hip? President and Chairman Richard Hayne saw a market opportunity there, mixed in a smart jump on the recent gardening trend, got “inspired by the greenhouse” (who isn’t these days, with all the greenwashing going around?), decided to cash in on the growing male market, and — voila! — in May, he announced Urban Outfitters’ latest venture: a home and garden store by the name of Terrain targeting 30-to-45-year-old green-thumbed men and women alike.

The plan is to launch in 2008 and open 50 of them in the next 15 years — yeah, a time-frame too eye-rollingly distant for Urban’s core consumer, but let’s see where these kids flock for pots and pans in a decade.

THIS STORY IS NOT A FAIRY TALE

Very rarely are we so torn between the creative merit of a project and its bare-bones humane impact. But artist Johnathan Harris took us to that state of uncomfortable ambivalence in a matter of seconds with his latest project: The Whale Hunt.

In May, he spent 9 days living with an Inupiat Eskimo family and documenting the thousand-year-old tradition that is the big whale hunt. Starting at the very beginning with the Newark Airport cab ride, he took 3,214 photographs by the end of the hunt, which resulted in two dead whales weighing around 40 tons.

Harris calls the project “an experiment in human storytelling” and even the image narrative sequence is presented on a heartbeat-like timeline. The entire concept is unquestionably original, offering a gritty glimpse into a whole different world. But we can’t help being a bit shaken by this epic death chase of these epic animals.

Okay, so this insures the community’s annual food supply. And it’s strictly regulated by international law with a limit of 22 whales per year. But there’s something about the snow that makes it feel all the more chilling when blood-stained. Something about calling it a “harvest” — isn’t this something the Earth gives, rather than something violently ripped from her? — that’s hard to swallow.

Food for thought. But, then again, the Inuits living at -22 °F need more than thought to live off of. So we won’t sit here with our tuna salad waiting in the fridge and judge.

STREET PICKINGS

Count on Whole Foods to make off-the-grid living sound like tons of fun and remind us what the holidays, this month-long tribute to conspicuous consumption, are really about — because besides the food and the fun, there’s also that giving back thing. Literally: who more important to give to than Earth, and what more important to give back than what was originally hers?

So get those LED lights already, take it easy on the pointless waste mechanism that is gift wrapping and, um, go have some food and fun, eh?

DO THE DANCE

What better way to send the year off than with one of its gemmist viral gems? Especially if it’s one that gets you in just the right body/mindset for those night-long parties coming up.

The humbly killer video for D.A.N.C.E. by French electro-rock band Justice took the web by storm and earned a GRAMMY nomination along the way, among a slew of other awards. And it snagged the one that counts the most: a massive worldwide fan-base reflected in the 5 million YouTube views, 29,000 times the vid has been favorited, and close to 5,000 raving comments pinned on it.

We’re not ones to sheepishly follow the masses — but, c’mon, the masses are right on the money with this one. Go ahead, chug the Kool-aid.

Fine, It’s The Holidays

A magic fish, wet geeky dreams, bubbles everywhere, Jack White loves dough, why owls are the new face of music, how Liberal got its Arts back, and why the Grinch is getting here by train this year. Welcome to the Fine, It’s The Holidays issue.

JUST IN TIME

For the holidays, that is. We’ve even made room for the usual 4-7 business days shipping time-frame. Because that’s how long you’ve got until the last work day before office folk scatters for a breather of feasts, family and other fun.

So why not send both your colleagues and the old year off with some comic relief straight from your gift list? We’re pleased to bring you the desk section of Wishingfish.com, an online boutique for beautifully designed objects that put style and humor into everyday life.

A few of our favorites span the harmlessly fun day at the beach miniature set, the functionally inspired working girl’s survival kit, and the straight-shooter ass kisser breath spray for the hint-challenged. And, in light of the week at hand, we wish we’d had the nifty office anger management kit before ugly and embarrassing things happened.

Wishingfish.com has delightfully designed stuff for many of life’s corners — entertainment, bath & body, games, accessories, baby, travel, living, gourmet and more. And we can’t decide which the stuff is more: affordable or cool. Do check it out and save yourself some retail curation.

WORLD-TESTED, GEEK-APPROVED

Call us geeks, but we have an itchy fascination with the world of knowledge and, um, data. Which is why we were taken with Swivel when it first launched two years ago, and we kept a curious eye on it because it seemed like something to, well, keep a curious eye on. Today, Swivel is still weaving its webs of user-generated data representations under the mantra “Tasty Data Goodies” — a haven for the insight-hungry to collaborate and explore data together.Simply put, Swivel uses powerful computers and algorithms to turn all sorts of boring spreadsheets with public data (from government reports to shark attack stats to odd correlations like wine and violent crime) into easily digestible visual representations. This lets people have a whole new relationship and experience with data, trading hours of sifting through spreadsheets and reports for quick snapshots of images, graphics and color. They also have a ton of new media tools that allow bloggers and general web hounds to easily share info and ideas with others.

Anyone can upload data for the world to see, and it’s all free. To fund the enterprise, Swivel also offers a paid private version where people can upload stuff either for storage or to share with select others. Think of it like voicemail and conference calling for the data-dependent.

The smarty-pants website lets you compare data from multiple sources, map geographical areas, use simple criteria to sort data, plot all the graphs your visually-inclined heart desires, and download data into spreadsheets to further analyze. You can even pimp your charts with various backgrounds. And if your own organization disseminates data in any way, you can get the Swivel official source badge to help spread the vision of spreading knowledge.

The nifty enterprise was started by CNET founder Halsey Minor and a bunch of other entrepreneurial knowledge hounds.

Now, call us crazy, but we’re starting our countdown clock. It’s no secret that Google’s self-proclaimed mission and founding vision is to help organize all the world’s information — an idea clearly reflected in Swivel’s philosophy that “better informed people make better decisions: in voting booths, in corporate boardrooms and at neighborhood meetings.” So it seems like a matter not of whether, but of when and for how much Google snags up this so-up-their-alley getup.

Don’t say you didn’t see it coming.

WORLD WIDE WEB WILDFIRE

Boy oh boy what a year it’s been. It’s tempting to call it the Golden Age of Tech, what with the iPhones and Beacons and Twitters and all. So big it was that it inspired Matt Hempey and The Richter Scales, a getup of Bay Area “gentlemen songsters,” to do a musical rendition of the web revolution that is upon us.

Perhaps not too oddly, the tune is based on Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire” — a classic ode to all the history made in Joel’s lifetime, saluting the cultural revolutionaries of the day. From Harry Truman, to Joe DiMagio, to Doris Day, to Einstein, to television and more, this cultural anthem is the ultimate tribute to the kinds of social forces that matter.

And we find The Richter Scales’ selection slightly ironic: do we really live in an age where cultural visionaries filter ideas through screens and buttons, where algorithms override art in shaping culture, where MySpace exploration seems more compelling to people than space exploration? Perhaps. Is that such a bad thing? Perhaps, and perhaps not: when it comes to the advancement of human knowledge and communication, can anything really be wrong?

UNTRIVIA

Speaking of music, the 50th Annual GRAMMY Award nominations came out — and just for the sake of stepping outside your iTunes library bubble, you should check them out.

And despite some questionable choices (sorry, GRAMMY’s, but the White Stripes stopped being “alternative” when they sold out to Coke two years ago and, no, Jack White, you didn’t do it to “get a message of love out to the world”) and some odd entries (Ozzy? Really???), there are no huge surprises: everyone knew Amy Winehouse would storm several categories, just like everyone knows she’ll OD celebrating if she wins or OD making the pain go away if she loses. Yeah, yeah, you’re complicated. We don’t care. Just stay alive some more and make some more not-too- shabby music.

Take a look and be your own kind of grossly judgemental.

And speaking of untrivial stuff, on a completely unrelated note, check out this curious look at how social networking may be a good decade older than we think, originating long before MySpace and Facebook were even embryos in the digital womb. (And, of course, feel free to disagree.)

BOOM WENT THE BOX

So while we’re on the subjects of technology and reminiscing for a musical times past, why not something for that holiday wish-list?

Treat your trusty iPod to a super-luxury nest where hi-tech meets Hi-Fidelity. Thanks to Dutch iPod extender thodio, you can get your scroll-wheeled buddy the iBox: a fully handcrafted yet technologically advanced iPod amplifier that looks like Bose’s rich, sophisticated uncle.

The iBox is universal — all iPods are equally happy to lounge atop it. The cabinet-looking mega-dock is constructed from durable oak, mahogany and teak, finished with a high-gloss lacquer that reminds us our father’s momentous German speakers from the 80’s. You pick the color, or you go with solid wood to really nail the old-school look.

But beneath the blast-from-the-past shell hides a sonic beast with 25-watt Focal Polyglass 100CV1 speakers, 15-hour battery life, and bluetooth functionality that turns your iPod into a nifty remote control.

Plus, we just love that it looks like a startled baby owl.

Get it straight from the source for 359 Euros — that’s $529 for the fourth-continent-confined, and they ship internationally.

PUTTING THE ART BACK INTO LIBERAL ARTS

Liberal arts universities tout an education that’s at least in part related to, well, the arts. But some, especially the higher-end, more competitive ones, don’t necessarily foster the best environment for artistic talent. When the Ivy League pendulums start swinging, artsy ambitions start dwindling. We would know, we went there: it’s a tough life when Wall Street wannabees and premed prodigies surround you, and all you wanna do is art. (There should really be a cult indie rock anthem by that title — get on it, Green Day.)

So some universities are trying to give creative types the same professional resources that are traditionally available to the pinstripe set. One such budding resource, RealArts@Penn, is still in its inception but already offers creative networking and a number of killer (paid!) summer 2008 internships for undergrads, including MTV Networks and Rolling Stone Magazine.

The goal of the project is to intersect the art world with the intellectual world of the university, with none of that mass-orientation, group-selection, intern-working-as-gopher business. They plat to extend into the curriculum, building RealArts-affiliated courses and putting together various workshops, roundtables and seminars with creative industry big-shots.

Where oh where was this program when we went to Penn?

STREET PICKINGS

It’s that time of year
And Philly’s abuzz
With irksome good spirit
And pesky blithe Fuss.

They’re all so caught up
In that holiday cheer,
Even misers are quiet
And we Grinches don’t sneer.

But look at this Picture,
It may be quite nice.
This Picture could even
Melt our Grinchy heart’s ice!

That kid with his mommy
And the swell Trains right there
May just, gee, soften
our mean Grinchy glare!

But before we start getting
Too carried away,
There’s a Grinchy disclaimer,
A big “BUT” to say:

The thing that is warming
Our little Grinch heart?
Not the small kids, HA!,
But the swell Trains, silly fart!