Beginning in the 1940s, Tony Schwartz made tens of thousands of recordings of the sounds and people of New York City. Schwartz’s “endangered sounds” were included in numerous WNYC radio broadbcasts and record albums over the years

Sam Roberts on City Room has a really outstanding post that helps to detail more of the accomplishments and cultural impact that Tony Schwartz had on media and telling stories with sound.

Mr. Schwartz recorded tour guides, singing children, fire engines, fog horns, merry-go-round calliopes, cabbies and other urban folkloric sounds that produced the city’s collective voice now archived at the Library of Congress and collected in his albums. He defined the sound of speech as “the body language of the written word.”

You can see and hear more of Tony’s work in a retrospective this Wednesday:

Mr. Schwartz’s advertisements, 30,000 folk songs, poems, conversations, stories and dialogues that he recorded, along with his 27 years of radio programs on WNYC and WBAI will be the subject of a retrospective Wednesday at the Gotham Center for New York City History at the City University of New York Graduate Center. Matthew Barton, curator of recorded sound at the Library of Congress will conduct an illustrated exploration of “Tony Schwartz and the Sounds of His City.”

There just isn’t such a thing as ‘‘copyright policy’’ anymore. Every modern copyright policy becomes Internet policy – policy that touches on every aspect of how we use the net.

And as we make the transition from a world where everything we do includes an online component to a world where everything we do requires an online component, it’s becoming the case that there’s no such thing as ‘‘Internet policy’’ – there’s just policy.

Worth reading.

Starbucks is going to create a mechanism that will allow us citizens to do what the government and the banks won’t: lend money to small businesses. This mechanism is scheduled to be rolled out on Nov. 1.

And here’s how it will work –

Here’s the idea they came up with: Americans themselves would start lending to small businesses, with Starbucks serving as the middleman. Starbucks would find financial institutions willing to loan to small businesses. Starbucks customers would be able to donate money to the effort when they bought their coffee. Those who gave $5 or more would get a red-white-and-blue wristband, which Schultz labeled “Indivisible.” “We are hoping it will bring back pride in the American dream,” he says. The tag line will read: “Americans Helping Americans.”

I’ll admit, that the first thought that came to mind was how much this seemed like Kickstarter, and that it is nice to see both Kickstarter and Starbucks embracing a more distributed model. Both companies seem to understand that good things will come from putting money into the hands of idea generators, entrepreneurs and small businesses.

It makes me wonder, if more businesses models like Kickstarter emerge on the scene, does Kickstarter get pigeonholed into being the place where artists and film makers go to get funded – or – is it possible for Kickstarter to broaden their image in a way that doesn’t hurt the existing community.

Interesting times.

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