Johanna Blakley

Successful music marketers have always found a way to harness the enthusiasm of music fans for promotional purposes. Whoever decided to make the first concert t-shirt was clearly a genius. Enter the age of Internet video and -- voila! -- music companies can tap fans instead of professional TV commercial directors to turn the sound into eye candy.

The LA Times acknowledged this trend, mentioning the recent "Make Your Own Ozomatli Video Contest," which was organized by the Lear Center's Popular Music Project and Concord Records. The idea was to get Ozomatli's rabid fan-base involved in their new album, in the same way that the band gets the crowd involved in each of their join-the-samba-line live performances.

Johanna Blakley

Postmodern philosopher Jean Baudrillard, who passed away last month, must be chuckling in his grave. In a flattering LA Times profile this weekend, LA's promising new chief planner Gail Goldberg waxes poetic about her experience in San Diego, where she helped spearhead the movement to reinvigorate San Diego's downtown. After she left the comforts of suburban Del Mar for a condo in downtown SD, Goldberg says, "I loved it from day one. I remember sitting on the terrace and the streets were all lit up and carriages were going by and I said, 'I think I'm in Disneyland.'"