My apologies to Ms. Polygon, who does, in fact, exist

Oh. Well looks like Ruby, Starlee Kine’s intern, is a real person. Sorry about that. I guess I denied it out of jealousy. If I could’ve been Jonathan Goldstein’s intern at 16, I think I could consider myself fulfilled. Although the intern position at Wiretap is perhaps more ill-fated than the Defense Against the Dark Arts position at Hogwarts. (Was that okay? To make a Harry Potter reference? Do Wiretap fans like Harry Potter?)

Anyway, this week’s episode drew heavily from National Post articles. The show kicked off with some diary entries about Tucker spitting in his own coffee, mohawks, souvlaki and Jonathan in a bathing suit.

These thoughts originally appeared in the articles “Get out of my dreams, get into my copy store” on June 11, 2008 and “The Truth about Spats and Dogs” from June 4, 2008.

The monologue rolled right into a conversation where Jonthan quizzes Tucker about his everyday surroundings.

In the next bit, Jonathan mentions MELBA TOAST, stating “After spending an hour eating breadsticks and melba toast over the sink while reading grocery circulars, I come to the conclusion that my life, too, lately has become more than a little stagnant.”

This rolls into a three-way conference call with Starlee and her intern, Ruby. Some material from the July 23, 2008 “How to buy cottage cheese” appears in this bit.

Jonathan re-introduces himself to Ruby as Starlee’s “older gentleman friend.” I’d like to someday introduce myself as that, rather than so-and-so’s “scrappy sidekick.”

Lastly, Gregor eggs Jonathan on to take dance lessons. In case you were wondering, Goldstein’s signature moves are the robot, “stir the pot” and “shuffle from foot to foot” and “throw in some kicks.”

The episode closes out with Jonathan learning the Soulja Boy dance from ZouZou.

As an aside, this is the first episode which I recorded myself. If anyone missed it, I’ll email it to you or something. Because I have nowhere to host it. And SuperNintendoChalmers will have tomorrow, hopefully.

(Psst. Just joking. Check out the summary to listen.)

Ruby Polgyon on Wiretap??

So, looks like that Ruby Polygon bizness was relevant after all. This Sunday on Wiretap: an all new episode entitled “Life is Lovely,” featuring Starlee Kine and her intern, Ruby Polygon.

Check out the 30 second promo.

If you don’t have real player, download it here.

So, I’m still maintaining that Ruby is not a real person. Even though there is cross talk between Starlee and Ruby. I’m attributing that to radio magic.

On another note, while SuperNintendoChalmers has been doing an excellent job at making Wiretap possible for non-Canadians, I’m going to begin recording episodes myself. Just in case.

Starlee Kine’s Breakup Song

So, this week’s This American Life podcast has a very Starlee Kine-centric episode (originally aired August 24, 2007) in which she enlists the help of Phil Collins and Joe McGinty (ex-Psychadelic Furs) and Julia Greenberg to write a breakup song.  I know this isn’t directly Wiretap related, but Starlee Kine has been mentioned in several Jonathan Goldstein National Post diaries as of late and she has appeared in quite a few Wiretap episodes (i.e. Negative Scanning).

Anyway, you can listen to the episode for free at ThisLife.org and you can listen to the resulting song here.  There’s also a plug for the Post-It Note Reading Series in the episode, which, as I mentioned earlier, our hero JG is participating in soon at Bumbershoot 2008.

Also, Starlee’s (hopefully) fictitious intern mentioned in a Jonathan Goldstein National Post article from July 23, 2008 has a new blog posting up.

Speaking of blogs, this is how they’ll do it in the future.

I’m Convinced that Ruby Polygon is a Fabrication

This week’s Jonathan Goldstein feature in the National Post briefly stars Starlee Kine’s 15 year old intern “Ruby.” Explanation:

“Why in God’s name do you have an intern?” I [Goldstein] ask Starlee when we’re alone in the other room.

“I have a lot to impart,” she says.

Starlee is working on a self-help book called It IS Your Fault and Ruby has been booking appointments with psychics, behaviourists and self-professed shamans for Starlee’s research all week. She carries around a dog-eared copy of The Bell Jar and a notebook she uses to write down the little bits of wisdom that Starlee imparts.

“Choose your college based on where the cutest boys are,” she says, and Ruby takes furious notes. I find myself trying to come up with a couple wise things to say, in the hope of making it into the notebook.

“When buying cottage cheese,” I say, my tone scholarly, “always reach to the very back of the shelf.” Ruby nods politely, the notebook closed on her lap.

OKAY, well immediately I was filled with jealousy at the notion of someone hamming it up with the public radio gliteratti at an age when I spent all my hours in the basement playing Quest for Glory 4. So I had to do some investigating with the hopes of discovering that this “Ruby” was actually the persona of some gravelly-voiced satirist whose exceedingly impressive glamor could be explained by her decades upon decades of experience and hard-learned lessons beyond mine. Google yielded post on the Post-It Note Reading Series blog

Yes i am the intern, Ruby. Its cold here, which is nice compared to the rest of the city this time of day, i mean i don’t know what time it is, they shut of the clock on my computer. And today they gave me two pieces of bread, its nice. I also walked the dog today, and took him to the park as the rest of the dog owner gawked at me for reading Sylvia Plath, maybe they just thought it was funny. I can’t find it now, Arthur took it away from me and burned it after he found it in my bag.

Have a lovely day or night (i can’t tell the difference in this basment)

Ruby

Ok, that’s reassuring. Either this Ruby is a Kine/Arther Jones colloborative inside joke or this precocious Sylvia Plath loving girl gets enough physical and emotional abuse such that I cannot be jealous of her.

Oh, also, the Post It Note Reading Series Web site notes the creation of the blog:

Holy Shit! Check out the blog our intern, Ruby, set up for us. We don’t know how to log onto it and we’re not sure what we’d post on it if we did but we have a blog and evidently that’s all that matters in these confusing times. Thanks Ruby!:

Anyway, the Post It Note Reading Series actually seems pretty rad. They are doing an event in Seattle at Bumbershoot 2008 with our main man, Jonathan Goldstien contributing. Here’s what they say:

Since 2001 Arthur Jones has been transforming the humble Post-It note into a heroic narrative canvas, drawing tiny works of art onto the sticky notes with a Sharpie. Jones and co-curator Starlee Kine (“This American Life”) have created one of Brooklyn’s most fascinating reading series, in which a live reading is accompanied by Jones’ illustrations displayed on a large screen. Bumbershoot is pleased to present the first Northwest edition of the event, featuring Arthur Bradford and Paul Collins from Portland, Lauren Weedman (sometime Seattlite), guest Jonathan Goldstein (of “This American Life”), and a live soundtrack by series regular Judd Greenstein.

I don’t know why people still attribute Jonathan Goldstein to This American Life only. I guess they mentioned Wiretap in the bio, but as an “also known from,” which is odd because its his main gig, right? Anyway, sounds pretty awesome – I encourage anyone from that area to check it out and capture the entire thing on video on their cellphone and then send me the youtube link.

NOTE: Because concerns of “stalking” have been raised by readers, I’ve gone ahead and removed the pictures and links to online (public) journals of this undoubtedly not real individual. While I do not have any qualms with plugging names from National Post articles into search engines, I am sensitive to the fact that some Internet users aren’t interested in seeing innocuous pictures of teenagers linked directly from a public blog. Though if this person were more closely related to Wiretap, this omission wouldn’t have been made, but as Starlee Kine only rarely contributes to the show, I’m going to say that this was edited for the sake of relevance.