Shows List Updated

Go here for a list of what shows look interesting in the area. Of course, I end up going to maybe one out of twenty shows that look interesting. And of course, I don't know much about the local scene yet, so let me know what I'm missing.

My Media

A quick rundown of where I get news, entertainment, etc.:

• Newspaper (actual paper variety): Daily Hampshire Gazette. I didn't realize afternoon papers still existed. I desperately miss having a paper in my hands in the mornings. It sometimes appears to be edited...well, frankly, it sometimes appears not to be edited at all. Plus, it's almost entirely wire stories for anything besides local news. And yet I have a strange affection for it. It's independently owned. It's been a great way to get to know the area, even if a six-day subscription (no Sunday paper!) runs what we used to pay for the Washington Post seven days. I occasionally pick up The Republican, but there's something about it that's, um, what's the word? Oh, terrible. Neither a good local paper nor a good regional paper, it's just...there. And its layout makes me think of 1970s Oklahoma newspapers. (That is not a good thing.)


• Newspaper (web): I'm still largely addicted to the Washington Post. It was a real treat to have the local paper also be a paper of record, and I miss it. Interestingly, the Times is my home page. I also still read the Strib and Presspatch from the Twin Cities from time to time, even though it's been five years since we lived there. Good way to keep up on the music scene, though.


• Alt-weekly: Valley Advocate. Disclaimer: the Advocate chain used to buy TV columns from HoleCity when we had an active syndication program, and their current publisher was the editor I dealt with then. But I'd like the paper anyway. It's odd to have a weekly chain that's owned by a daily paper (the Hartford Courant) be probably more genuinely independent than a lot of the "really" independent weeklies out there, but it is. They have more of the syndicated stuff than I might prefer (I really don't need more News of the Weird), but the local stuff, while uneven, can be pretty solid. (All that stuff about "too much syndication" will be readily abandoned, of course, if they want to pick up TVHole again, in which case I am all in favor of mindless syndication destroying local voices.)


• Radio (terrestrial): WHMP for Air America, WFCR for NPR (except on Sundays when I get Weekend Edition from WAMC), WMUA for Democracy Now and polka, WRSI (The River) for inoffensive and sometimes mildly interesting AAA. (Confidential to The River: we're big kids, we could handle occasionally distorted guitar.) I'm pretty excited about Valley Free Radio, where I'm hoping to do a kids' music show. More on that another time.


• Radio (web): WOXY. This formerly-terrestrial Cincinnati station was bought out in 2004 and went off the air and the web. A few months later, thanks to angel investors, they came back, and they're better than anything else I've heard. But this new public station in Minnesota is going to be awfully good; they've got a bunch of the old Rev-105 folks back.

All right, it's time to go to bed. Other media will have to wait.

Bake Sale

Well, if I'm going to be locally-oriented, what better way than to advertise a bake sale?

My daughter's kindergarten class (at the outstanding Smith College Campus School) is holding a bake sale at Serio's Market on State Street in downtown Northampton on Thursday. Proceeds will go to tsunami relief efforts.

Ella and I made the beloved molasses spice cookies (from the indispensable The Best Recipe cookbook) tonight and they will be available at the sale.

If we don't eat them all.

Well, hi there.

Because dealing with two new classes, trying to write publishable stuff, and spending time with my family just isn't taking enough time, here's ValleyBlog.

It'll be an occasional look at happenings in the Pioneer Valley, focusing (not surprisingly) on the places I spend time: Florence, Northampton, Springfield, and occasionally Amherst, Easthampton, and so on. Again not surprisingly, it'll focus substantively on things I'm interested in: media, music, politics (some), food, kids' stuff, and so on.

More soon. Probably.