So you’ve decided that shiny CDs and releasing files direct to the Internet are too good for you. You want your album on that good old stuff: vinyl. What do you do? Freddie Feldman has a guide for you based on his experience releasing an a cappella version of Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon. You get to have a lacquer master created to make your metal stampers, pick the weight of your vinyl, test your proofs (you do have a turntable, right?), make sure your artwork is ready to be blown up to 12″ album cover, and print labels for your records. Don’t delay, this technology may not be available for much longer.

As I read about what types of purchases people are cutting back on in the current economic climate, I keep thinking that Target is nicely poised to attract the consumer who could afford to shop a bit higher class, but who chooses not to when it takes $50+ to fill up on gas and the grocery bill is suddenly something to consider more closely. Today I walked past the cosmetics aisle in Target and noticed a black aproned Boots cosmetics salesperson chatting with women about this British drugstore brand and decided that I may be more right than I’d anticipated.

When we visited Fort Bragg, California along the Mendocino coast a few years ago, the highlight of the trip for me was a visit to Glass Beach. There, glowing in the sun, lie smoothed shards of glass from years of household garbage, beaten by the waves. The nearby presence of dioxin went understandably unpublicized in the tourist trade. The town housed a redwood mill, now closed, which left behind a toxic waste legacy. A unique clean-up proposal has been proposed by town residents: mushrooms. Mushrooms have been successfully used in experiments to clean up oil spills and research has also shown success with plastics and other chemicals. The Fort Bragg fungi proponents would like to be a pilot study for mushrooms cleaning up dioxins, and called in expert Paul Stamets to assess their situation. Despite some skeptics, Georgia-Pacific is financing a pilot project to see if mushrooms can bioremediate 10 cubic yards of the toxic soil.

It may be a myth that hemlines go up when the economy tanks, but I’ll maintain that the current trend for three-quarter length sleeves (which I have grudgingly become used to) was supported by manufacturers wanting to save money on fabric. And what use is a coat that doesn’t come down to your wrists? Well, they’ve brought arm warmers into style.

RedEnvelope, one of the few online retailers that also built a successful mail-order catalog business, filed Chapter 11 this past weekend and has agreed to a takeover by Creative Catalogs Corporation. On the surface it’s business as usual, with the website still up and taking orders. RedEnvelope has been in business for nine years. Mall and catalog mainstay Sharper Image has also been going downhill and is looking for a buyer.

For an actor looking to obtain a degree in his chosen profession, the college application process is likely to include an audition. Auditions are probably old hat, school plays and musicals, local theater, but “Those were auditioning for parts,” says Adam Pelta-Pauls whose college auditions were followed by the N.Y. Times. “This is auditioning for your life.” The prospective students present two monologues and have a third prepared just in case. Auditors look for emotional transparency, receptiveness to direction, “Someone who brings humanity to their work. And a student who really wants to work hard.”

It’s a bit far afield for us, but the Yakima Fruit Market in Bothell, WA is the best match we’ve found for the fruit and veggie markets we miss from California. The wife of a Yakima employee is keeping a nice blog about new arrivals at Yakima (local asparagus!), recipes, and other local tidbits: Fresh Picked News.

Three giant pianos washed up on a beach in the Netherlands. From the artist, Florentijn Hofman’s website: “For the fifth anniversary of the Schiermonnikoog International Chamber Music Festival, I came up with a concept of grand pianos washed upon the shore. They refer to stranded cargo and ditto whales. To be salvaged or saved; in any case to be wondered and surprised about.”

Nathan Myhrvold commissioned his own personal full-scale model of a Charles Babbage-designed difference engine. Before it goes into his personal collection, the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA is putting it on display. Built by the same engineers that constructed the one in the London Science Museum, the difference engine cost a million dollars and ran into the same kind of setbacks that a typical hardware project runs into, frustrations and a vendor who went out of business. (via numerous techie blogs)

I’ve uploaded almost all of my Beijing trip photos to flickr, so here are a few favorite shots from my final two days: peddler on the Great Wall, steep and crumbly Great Wall steps, Summer Palace bridge, Seventeen Arch bridge.