Yo Gabba Gabba, s'il vous plait

Don't let this one pass you by! there was a sweet little story in my SF Chronicle this morning. I read it in bed. It's Shavuot, so I don't have work and I still get the newspaper delivered to the house.

Look, Charles Rivkin one of the people who made Yo Gabba Gabba is going to be the American ambassador to France, if he gets approved.

"Charles Rivkin, president and CEO of San Francisco-based Wild Brain Inc. and co-producer of the children's program 'Yo Gabba Gabba,' was nominated as ambassador to France," writes Matthew B. Stannard, Chronicle Staff Writer. (The San Francisco Chronicle still has a staff?! @FrannyDink what's going on here?)

I think this is funninteresting because:

he's newculture and he made a lot of money and friends, I guess:

While those efforts have been hailed in the diplomatic community, they have fueled a long-running debate over the tradition of presidents using diplomatic appointments to reward fundraisers and political supporters...

...In addition to tens of thousands of dollars in personal contributions to various candidates and committees, both men were "bundlers" who raised at least $500,000 for the Obama campaign in 2008, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The two were co-chairs of Obama's California finance committee.

he thereby immediately qualifies as "low culture"/high culture [Kirk Varnedoe R.I.P.*]

and it's his youth. he grew up in the civil service, so the whole thing's like a tribute to his dad.

Rivkin is not completely detached from the foreign policy world: He is the son of William Rivkin, who served as ambassador in Luxembourg, Senegal and Gambia in the 1960s, and who is remembered by the annual American Foreign Service Association Rivkin Award for "Constructive Dissent" given to midcareer Foreign Service officers.

aww.

(* - if the reference is too oblique, I'm talking about the watershed and maybe reviled 1990 exhibition at MoMA High and Low: Modern Art and Popular Culture curated by Kirk Varnedoe and Adam Gopnik)

Why Go to A Conference Anyways?

@lidja @lyndakelly61 @futureofmuseums @creativemerc @museum_flavor pLz look http://tinyurl.com/qxlja4 &here http://bit.ly/q1mhV assoc./conf. grpthink @RichardMcCoy @DanielCull very import.

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