Sitzmedia: Introduction

"A while back... we agreed that what really matters is what you like, not what you are like. Books, records, films -- these things matter! Call me shallow; it's the fucking truth."
-Rob Gordon, High Fidelity

If you are with my family for Christmas, you'll notice one thing about the presents that we give each other: about 85% of them are books, CDs, or movies. And that may even be a low estimate. I was thinking about this phenomenon recently, and it also struck me that many of my friendships and conversations in the past used discussions about books, movies, and music as a centerpiece, or as a kind of springboard to a deeper conversation. When I talk to my friend Chris, for example, we can talk about almost anything, but a lot of the time we talk about the last movie we saw. Or the new music we're listening to. Or what book we definitely have to read when we get a chance. And this is fine, in my opinion, because it's just a part of a friendship, and not the whole friendship summed up in something material and shallow.

Still, being in Costa Rica isn't too conducive to such conversations. Movies and music are popular here, but they don't seem to carry nearly as much importance as they do in the U.S. (which probably goes a long way towards explaining Reggaeton music). And books? Well, people just don't seem to read here.

Also, my wife Angela is slowly getting into these types of things, but growing up on a coffee farm around here seems to equate to infrequent visits to the movie theaters, to say the least. When I first asked her what music she liked, her list was two groups long: Bon Jovi and Savage Garden. In the meantime, we've gotten to the point where we can discuss movies we've seen together recently, but she still doesn't have an entire quarter-century of pop culture references under her belt.

So, in an attempt to have at least a one-way "conversation," I came up with the idea of "Sitzmedia." I'm still developing it, but I'm thinking it can be a place where I can talk with you--or even with myself, if need be--about what I've been reading, listening to, and watching. I was originally just going to put up some quotes from books and samples from songs, but I'm thinking this could be a lot more interesting, depending on how I/we do it.

If you read something under a Sitzmedia heading, I would certainly encourage you to leave a comment, and maybe this can develop into something cool. If it does, I may be able to make a different blog out of this. Or, if it sucks and it bombs, I'll just scrap it.

Those are my thoughts for now...

By the way, I think I'll include some sort of links to the movies, books, and music, either like in the quotation above, or the link below. That's the idea, so hopefully something interesting comes of it!

365: Picture a Day Project    365 Leftovers    All My Pictures    Sitzbook