Culture Bully undergoes mammoth 60-hour blogathon for charity

This week's "Tip of the Hat" definitely goes to Culture Bully, who are undergoing a 60-hour blogathon as a fundraising campaign to support Donors Choose, an organization that allows teachers to propose a classroom project which will then be brought to life by charitable donations. Check it out.

CultureBully.com is teaming with DonorsChoose.org for a three day fundraising campaign supporting music development and literacy within local Twin Cities schools. Beginning with this post Culture Bully will be posting exclusive content at least once an hour, every hour for the next 60 HOURS!

With the support of over 50 local and national musicians these posts will include exclusive commentaries by the likes of Josh Grier of Tapes ‘n Tapes, Justin Vernon of Bon Iver, YouTube legend Tay Zonday, Kid Dakota, Maria Isa, Kristoff Krane, M.anifest and many, many more!

So far, CB has come up with some doozies of exclusives, including a live Love in October performance:


Love in October "Like Nothing Ever Happened" (Live @ Dunn Bros) from Culture Bully on Vimeo.

An essay from new MFR favorite Jeremy Messersmith about the importance of music education in his life:

I find it hard to believe that I could make the music I write now without the music education I got as a child. Even though I don’t play trumpet as much as I used to, the foundations of melody and ear training still come in handy. Music education was a big source of confidence for me as a child. I wasn’t exactly athletic or even that interesting, so music was one of the only things I was really good at!

There's much, much more here. Read and donate.

(Jonathan Graef)
jon@minneapolisfuckingrocks.com

Bloggers: Killing Ourselves To Live? (Or: Death By Blogging!)

Over on the Elbo.ws forums, Craig of Songs:Illinois posted a very interesting New York Times article about the work world of bloggers and how the constant demand for information is taking a toll on their mental and physical health and, even in two cases, possibly responsible for death.

Here's the lede:

They work long hours, often to exhaustion. Many are paid by the piece — not garments, but blog posts. This is the digital-era sweatshop. You may know it by a different name: home.

A growing work force of home-office laborers and entrepreneurs, armed with computers and smartphones and wired to the hilt, are toiling under great physical and emotional stress created by the around-the-clock Internet economy that demands a constant stream of news and comment.

Of course, the bloggers can work elsewhere, and they profess a love of the nonstop action and perhaps the chance to create a global media outlet without a major up-front investment. At the same time, some are starting to wonder if something has gone very wrong. In the last few months, two among their ranks have died suddenly

The article itself mostly focuses on bloggers in the field of technology, as well as explains the economics of blogging itself--that is, how blogs can make money and how bloggers themselves are compensated. The article then shifts its focus to the technology blog Gizmodo and its writers, who keep a grinding, sleep-deprived schedule:

(Gizmodo manager Brian Lam) is known to pull all-nighters at his own home office in San Francisco — hours spent trying to keep his site organized and competitive. He said he was well equipped for the torture; he used to be a Thai-style boxer.

“I’ve got a background getting punched in the face,” he said. “That’s why I’m good at this job.”

I, for one, would have thought that blogging>punched-in-face in terms of which one would be easier to cope with, but color me surprised! The article then concludes with Lam explaining that he encourages his writers to take breaks, and with a tragically ironic passage about one of the tech bloggers who recently died.

Read the article here

Naturally, the focus of the article was about tech bloggers. But here's a question: are music bloggers under the same kind of stress? Or is the climate different because most people regard music as entertainment or hobby? Since MFR only posts a few times a day and doesn't make any money, it would seem foolish or ridiculous to weigh in on one side or the other. But what sayeth you, dear readers?

(Jonathan Graef)