Salman Rushdie’s latest book, The Enchantress of Florence: A Novel, has hit the streets. And it comes just three years after his last one, Shalimar the Clown, which makes him a good deal more prolific than many of his contemporaries.

A quick find … I wanted to flag a good interview with George Carlin where he talks candidly about his evolution as a comic and the strange trajectory of his career. The conversation was held at the 92nd Street Y in New York. You can download it here: iTunes – Feed – MP3 – Blog Post.

In case you haven’t been watching … Apple’s iTunesU has started striking out in new directions. When it launched a little more than a year ago, iTunesU served up free educational content exclusively from universities. Now, it has gone “beyond the campus.

As mentioned this weekend, YouTube has rolled out its new Screening Room, which will make available a steady stream of short independent films for free. The initial lineup includes the 2006 academy award-winning animated film, The Danish Poet, directed by Torill Kove and narrated by Liv Ullmann.

Here’s the obit. And here’s Carlin with Johnny Carson over 40 years ago, sporting a very different look. Rather remarkable to look at.
Also worth a look is his famous piece: Seven Dirty Words You Can’t Hear on TV because it formed the basis for a first amendment case that went to the US Supreme Court in the 1970s.

The Roller Coaster…

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YouTube just launched its new “Screening Room,” and there’s a good chance that the Sundance Film Festival will never quite be the same again.
The Screening Room presents high quality, independent films to YouTube users and promises to roll out four new films every two weeks.

In 2004, Danger Mouse released The Grey Album which layered the rapper Jay-Z’s The Black Album on top of The Beatles’ White Album. Black and white makes grey.
Now, on YouTube, you can find The Grey Video, which experimentally brings Danger Mouse’s concept to video.

The controversy surrounding the Bush administration’s adventures with warrantless wiretapping first began in December 2005, when the New York Times broke the story. During the months that followed, the whole debate remained fairly abstract. We talked about individual rights and the power of the executive.

David Harvey, an important social theorist and geographer, has got the right idea. Take what you know. Teach it in the classroom. Capture it on video. Then distribute it to the world. Keep it simple, but just do it.