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June 20, 2004
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The picture shows late arrivals outside Keppler's.
Inside, writer David Sedaris is reading from his work,
his voice booming from speakers placed outside, for our
listening pleasure. He said the lyrics to "Amazing
Grace" could be sung to the tune of "Gilligan's
Isle" -- and proved it.
Charles Mingus (!) documented
his
method for toilet-training cats.
One guy's
Philosophy.
Not that I'm endorsing it -- check that URL. He's
obviously a flamer, but many of his bullets are valid
(and many are obnoxious, as well). He's spent time
teaching English in Russia, which is how I found his
site -- after a chance encounter with a Russian
vampire-nurse in the hospital lab (she drew my
blood) I'm considering my alternate teaching
destination -- not Asia, but Eastern Europe.
Why not Russia? (Besides the climate, of
course.) I'm looking
into
the language 'cause I certainly want to travel
there eventually.
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June 18, 2004
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Great article in Salon -- well worth
enduring the commercial, in order to read
America's
Blankness, by Stephen Holmes (from
a speech he made in Tysons Corner on May 27):
From 9/11 Americans should have learned the importance, for US
national security, of accurate, deep and up-to-date knowledge
of political instability around the world. Political violence,
in any possible country, is never farther than a plane ride away
from major US urban centers. But instead of creating a national
appetite for knowledge about the world, 9/11 had the opposite
effect. It seems to have traumatized Americans, making them even
less interested than before in non-American goings-on and points
of view.
My Life Inside the Kingdom documents a
British ex-pats experiences in Saudi Arabia. Her report
mentions the mutawa'a, or Religious Police. Here's
a weblog named The
Religious Policeman but the author is not, he's just a
Kingdom resident with the resources necessary to hide his
internet activity from the authorities. Another weblog, wholly
unrelated: Cheap
Stingy Bastard posts information useful for those
living the thrifty life, online.
Jon Carroll is one of my favorite columnists (except when
he natters on about his cats). I heard him on the radio today,
for the first time -- always that shock, when the voice
imagined from the photo confronts the reality. This week, he
published a report of his recent cross-country road trip, in
three parts:
1
2
3
Flying back, he found himself in a situation with the
TSA because of something in his luggage. This just happened
to me, also -- f*ckers confiscated a rather novel wrench
of mine, because 'tools are not allowed beyond the
[BWI] security checkpoint' (even if they're not sharp).
An interview composed of
Ten
Questions for David Sedaris. He was
on
"Fresh Air" Monday night, and it was fascinating
hearing him describe the obsessive behavior patterns which
have ruled his life. In his 20s, these all involved time -- for
example, he'd go to the same IHOP every night, at the same hour,
and sit at the same table, where he'd read library books while
partaking of their bottomless pot of coffee. He's giving a
reading this Sunday afternoon,
at
Kepler's -- it'll be a mob scene, but I may particpate.
Thirteen
Clutter Control Rules -- if anything, just read the
first one.
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June 16, 2004 (updated)
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I'd heard that Rasputin had a strategically located
wart on his Piston of Pleasure, but Good Lord! Now it's
on display in
St. Petersburg, preserved in a bottle,
so this claim can be verified.
Remembering
Reagan uses a rhetorical pattern which is familiar
from NPR, when their balanced reporting becomes what
I call 'but' news. I hate it. Nevertheless, follow the
link.
Details of Site R, the Dickster's Undisclosed Location,
revealed!
Another
example of Creeping Fascisim.
David Neiwert continues documenting the trend -- check the
Proto-fascist
thuggery post to his Orcinus weblog.
A roster of
Doomed
Engineers.
And the hand? It's
Alison's,
with a plant she identified as a Hare Figwart, or
Scrophularia lanceolata.
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June 14, 2004
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Just returned from a week back East -- was all
over town Wednesday, riding hither and yon on Metro,
a big day for DC because The Body arrived just in time
to snarl the evening rush, as it was motorcaded
and paraded between Andrews and the Capitol dome, for
to lie in state. And of course, most horribly hot
& humid that day. While on the Mall, I took refuge
in the subterranean coolness of the Smithsonian's
Sackler Asian Art museum. According to one of my
brothers, a terrorist rumor evacuated said Capitol,
at about the same time -- the high-heeled Cokie Roberts
allegedly announced, "Take off your shoes, and run for your
lives!" I think he must've been paraphrasing (because
I can't find this string on Google) but I want the
expression to get into cyberspace, so I'm logging it
here. Anyway, the family all got together, up in the
Shenendoah; here's an incomplete portrait, in our
Skyland livng room: click the thumbnail to see my
parents, various in-laws, my youngest brother and
sister, and my older nephew. The man in white (your
nimble narrator) entered the frame after configuring
the Digicam to auto-shoot.
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June 7, 2004
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Just a fence around a traditional house
in the expensive part of Mountain View, up
near Los Altos. I pass it all the time, and
the pine cone finials please me.
Great stuff at
Fantasy
Planes.
It's a tough one:
a
True Test of Your Southern-ness -- my
score was 39 out of 71, so I'm judged
"almost
a Southerner, but not yet."
The shrub's
Erratic
Behavior Worries White House Aides --
"We’re at war, there’s no doubt about it. What I don’t
know anymore is just who the enemy might be," says one
troubled White House aide. "We seem to spend more time
trying to destroy John Kerry than al Qaeda and our
enemies list just keeps growing and growing."
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June 5, 2004
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This is the same view as yesterday, kinda: opposite that
building is the back door of Peet's, and their rest room
has a glass block window in the wall. The glass blocks' style
is ribbed faces 90° out of phase, which form a grid. This
is one of them; the micro-scene inside each of of the plaid's
little facets would be more recognizeable if that tree wasn't
in the way -- it's blocking the ornamentation.
Expedition
finds Titanic damaged by tourists and scavengers.
Unidintified mammal
spotted
in North Carolina -- back-yard photograph
captured with a motion-sensing camera.
Albuquerque
police overeact when two Muslim men are found
praying outside a mall, at sunset.
Ray Bradbury
objects
to both Michael Moore and his new film. Also (not new,
but topically interesting) Frank Herbert
discusses
how he wrote Dune.
Thy
Will be Done, On Earth as It is in Texas by Joe
Bageant.
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June 3, 2004
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Saboteurs:
The Nazi Raid on America is a descriptive
review of the new book by Michael Dobbs. When "This
American Life" did a segment about these raids in
March, it was characterized as
Hogan's Heroes crossing the Atlantic in a
U-boat, landing in the Hamptons, and taking
the morning rush hour train into Manhattan.
And with a hundred grand in their pockets, those
guys were really going to town. Even if they did
meet up with the Coast Guard, back there on the
beach. Not to worry, though -- JEdger's boys
brought 'em in.
More Beatles Flash:
Tomorrow
Never Knows and I
Feel Fine. These links courtesy the ever-excellent
Grow
A Brain, which also points at these
stats
tracking the specifics of "Come Together"s linkage,
out there in 'blogdom'.
I imagine we'll be hearing a lot more of these two words
in
the news soon: Darfur and Janjaweed. The latter
is an Arab militia doing ethnic cleansing in the
Darfur region of western Sudan -- a million people
displaced.
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June 2, 2004
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Peter Thorpe's
Rocket
Paintings -- what space travel used to look like.
Colors!
Previously I've written about the ganguro
fashion in Japan: kids (mostly girls) who want to be
darker, so they spend lots of time in the tanning booth.
Seems the fad's spread to the UK, where it's known as
tanorexia
or Posh and Becks syndrome.
This is great -- a Flash video of
Come
Together. Go. Do. (Unless you're on a
dialup -- it's 8Mbytes.)
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June 1, 2004
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Up in the City yesterday, to inspect Geoff's new
loft-space (here he is, with Twin Peaks visible
through his window). We walked over to have great raw
fish at the nearby Blowfish Sushi, with its techno, and
anime on the monitors.
NY
Times slideshow of Kodachrome photos from
the Depression, from a new book:
Bound for Glory: America in Color 1939-43.
Brian Eno's second record album was
Taking
Tiger Mountain (By Strategy). The title is borrowed
from a Red Chinese opera, which Brian allegedly discovered
in a
series of
postcards depicting the production.
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May 30, 2004
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I live real close to Moffett Field. This weekend,
they're having an Air Show, featuring the Air Force
Thunderbirds, among others. Often there's nothing to
see, in the block of clear sky visible from my patio;
but I just caught some tight formation work, four F-16s
doing big loops. (Although I face the runway, the view
is blocked here and there by some redwoods.) Unfortunately,
the digicam's out in the car (and anyway, it often refuses
to focus on the sky); but I had it with on the base
yesterday, where this special red Learjet was doing the
same sort of acrobatics -- here, it's ascending, to the left of
Hangar One. The actual aerial part of the Air Show
experience (looking up at the sky with your mouth open,
ears full of That Sound) reminds me of the Bob Cummings
Twilight Zone, about
King
Nine -- "Jets!" Speaking of the Zone, somewhere in
the extensive Art
of James Bond I read that for the cover of Casino
Royale,
...the first pictorial representation of the character
of Bond and his face was based on a photograph of
American actor Richard Conte.
... star of another Zone favorite, which we call
Jump,
Edward, Jump!
In honor of Memorial Day, view this
D-Day
sand sculpture, remember, and be appreciative.
Dvorak predicts
the
Death of Email.
Italy
sets strict pizza guidelines -- if yours
doesn't measure up, you're not allowed to call it
Neopolitan.
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May 27, 2004
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An abstract image -- the trunk-surface of one of the
huge palms out front of my apartment bldg.
Some new products:
Digital Sundial, from
Germany; the
Conference
Bike; the
EasyGlider
(avilable soon, but I think it's bogus: a
small wheel-unit tows the rider); and
PoMo
Furniture for Pets -- love the Scratching Swirl.
Speaking of swirling, this
bit
of infinite-mirror breaks the frame and gets recursive.
Another animated oddity is the woman's 'facemash' at
bt3a.com, by Felix
(scroll down).
In the News:
Deer
crosses Golden Gate Bridge (doesn't pay toll);
Forest
Family concerns a father and his (now) 12-year-old
daughter who lived for four years in the woods near
Portland, until some Australian tourists snitched
to the authorities; and out in the Empty Quarter
they're excavating a
giant
human skeleton, the remains of a Titan.
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May 26, 2004
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The jacarandas are blooming, their
delicate lavender blooms frosting
all LA and even up here, to a lesser
degree; my attempts to get an illustrative,
true-color photo for today were unsatisfactory, try
this
page or the
picture
I took last year. While seeking out the above
informational link, I also discovered a site for a
Japanese Beatle tribute band named
Jacaranda.
The shrub gave a speech Monday... that dreadful voice
kept forcing my car radio away from NPR, while I was
driving 'round post-work. Today, his opponent, the guy
who actually won the election, also gave a speech, and it
was excellent -- read the
transcript.
Some uplifting news: the
Axis
of Eve.
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May 25, 2004
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Today's photo shows the façade of a new casino (Larry
Flynt's "Hustler") in Gardena, which is one of the many little
towns filling up the LA basin. Those neon rings are all
winking on & off. Speaking of the daily
image, hope you've noticed how I always add some explanatory
text to its 'alt' attribute; and sometimes, that's all
you get. A mouseover reveals the <img>'s alt text, at
least with most modern browsers/platforms. Otherwise, you'll
have to check the source code.
William Swislow's "Interesting Ideas" site gets my
approval, since he uses "walkmen" rather
than that other w-word, when discussing personal
stereos. Here are three of his essays:
Hal Crowther
says
2004 is the worst year to be an American.
All
about the Amber Room of the Summer Palace, in
St. Petersburg -- did you know it had been restored,
a year ago? -- with over half the expenses provided by
Ruhrgas, a German energy company.
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May 24, 2004
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Up on Sunset, at the Stafford Hotel, there
was some kind of arty happening, according
to the television in my motel room; but I didn't
catch the details, only saw a shot of the outside,
compelling my checking it out. Didn't discover
anything all that unusual (except their sign, mounted
upside down) but the building fulfilled a fantasy of
mine: replacing a standard mid-rise dwelling's balcony
lamps with the blue lights from the aerodrome -- in
fact, I want to control them, switching them on&off
in some meaningful sequence. These lights weren't quite
airport blue (and around back, they were orange -- part
of the deal, or their default appearance?) but it was
good enough for me.
Regarding
the Torture of Others by Susan Sonntag.
(Way earlier, she wrote
Fascinating
Fascism, which sounds better than it is. The newer essay's much shorter.)
A new record:
81
naked Britsh students all rode the 'Nemesis
Inferno' roller coaster in Surrey.
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May 23, 2004
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Spotted this stylish travel
boutique
(with its great logo) while driving around last night;
it's their new LA branch, had to take a picture. I was
down there on a fast weekend: pauses in the journey included
Pismo Beach, Santa Barbara, Long Beach, and San Fernando.
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May 19, 2004
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Every Wednesday just before 6PM, groups of bicyclists
meet at the Peets in Los Altos, as part of their
peddlings along Foothill Blvd. I took this picture from
where I park sometimes, across the street. This is
early, they're still gathering; eventually there's
over a hundred of 'em, and they all ride away at once.
Aperger's
Syndrome -- sometimes the characteristics are
familiar, but was I that nerdy?
Twilight
of the Info Middlemen -- James Fallows on
file-sharing, blogs, scientific journals, and the
weather.
Great stuff at
Unpop
Art -- but to get in, you must
accept the conditions.
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May 17, 2004
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This is the tail of a B-24 Liberator, an
aircraft from World War II. I've worn a black
sweatshirt adorned with one for years, and this is
the second time I've seen this plane (which travels
around the country along with a similarly-restored
B-17) at the base, where half-hour rides are available
for only $400.
(More
about this B-24.)
Lesser
Known Facts of WWII (they go on & on). Sample:
During the war American and British bombers made
emergency landings in Switzerland. The crews were
interned by the Swiss authorities in camps at
Adelboden, Grippen, Les Diablerets and the notorious
punishment camp at Wauwilermoos (for escapees). They
were supposed to be treated like POWs under the rules
of war but in many cases living conditions were little
better than German concentration camps. In all, around
1,500 American servicemen were interned in neutral
Switzerland.
50
fishy circumstances about the Nick Berg killing
(I haven't watched it) and
50
years of Pop.
Show
and Tell Music is a great repository of thrift store
records: cover art galleries and some MP3 samples, like
Radar
Blues.
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Sunday May 16, 2004
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Takin' it easy -- just some random quotes, for today.
We are all in the gutter, but some us are looking at the stars.
Sometimes I think the Web's primary function is aggregating
stupidity.
They sort of Europeanized us all. Before them,
our society hadn't been the Great Society as much
as it had been the Revlon Society.
-- Dustin Hoffman on the Beatles (1989)
Just because everything is different doesn't mean
anything has changed.
Is Man one of God's blunders, or is God one of Man's
blunders?
I
Married the Janitor's Girlfriend
-- a paperback book cover
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May 14, 2004
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Cold
Turkey is a new column by Kurt Vonnegut -- among
other things, he talks about the adage we used to hear,
when discussion turned to dictators -- I'd read
John W. Campbell hold forth on it, in my dad's castoff
Analog magazines:
Power Corrupts, and
absolute power corrupts absolutely.
The
Coca-Cola Nazi Advert Challenge.
1950's-vintage photo offerings of the
Glasgow
Underground and
Disneyland.
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May 12, 2004
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Worthwhile: a new
rant
from the Zompist. (If you're wondering, the blue
chair -- what's the connection? There is none -- it's
just the thumbnail-photo du jour.)
In
The
Wafer Watch Continues, Amy Sullivan discusses church
attendence by Kerry (and how the 'news' of that event
is given a negative spin by the 'liberal' media) and by
the present and former occupants of the White
House -- she's a member of Foundry Methodist, and
describes sitting in front of the Clintons
at a Sunday service.
Brighton
by the Sea has many photos of the West Pier, including
the fires.
One more
Mandala,
a 9-11 gift from the monks of Tibet. "View
archived daily images of the construction."
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May 8, 2004
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I've updated what I dangle from
my rear-view mirror. The blue crystal of
chandelier glass has been replaced by this
string of teeny round green characters, which
I bought in Tokyo.
Dream
Buses from Japan -- 'for the kids.'
Dave
the Brave.
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May 5, 2004
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Slipped away for a long lunch, at the
Bechtel
I-Center on the Stanford campus, where I taught my 13th
classroom session -- this was my view, from up front. The
classes offered there ostensibly cover topics like American Life
and Culture (since the students are all very recent arrivals)
but it's just a cover for ESL training, what I've been studying
and just finished a particularly lengthy class in. This recent
teaching (I also did it twice, last week) was to meet some of
that class' requirements.
Benny Shrub! An
image
gallery of the smirking chimp rubbing or slapping the
heads of bald men. Related: the
The
Divine Calm of...
Review
of a recent Kraftwerk performance. in England. As is the
depressing usual with such things (Concerts I'd Like To
See), I missed their local appearance, just ten days
past. I did attend a free lecture at Stanford Art Linkletter
gavea month or so ago, but that's hardly a consolation.
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May 4, 2004
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This detail is the port wingtip-gizmo of an
SP2E Neptune sub-chaser on static display out
by the big runway where I work -- I drive past it all
the time. The starboard wingtip's leading dome is
transparent plexiglas with a big reflector behind
it, I guess for a bright light -- you can see it clearly on
this
page of SP2E photographs.
During the December holidays, my rental car turned out
to be an Alero, which I dubbed "The Last Oldsmobile"
in honor of
this
one, which rolled off the assembly line last week.
Everybody signed it, and then the vehicle went to the
R.E. Olds
Transportation Museum in Lansing.
Muslim
Wake Up! interview with Noam Chomsky, by Ahmed Nassef.
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May 2, 2004
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A San Jose native, he's 80 years old. Third-generation
Japanese-American who spent 1942 interned in one of the
Poston
relocation camps. To get out, he joined the US Army
and saw action in France, at the Gothic Line. His unit
was at the liberation of Dachau, but he was in hospital at
the time. I met him inside the
JAM in San Jose's
Japantown, on the occasion of their Nekkei Matsuri spring
festival.
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May 1, 2004
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I gathered all my shoes together for a group photo, just
before moving; and here they are, from sandals to hiking boots.
Protruding into the frame from below are my feet, shod in
my everyday sneakers (what the British call "trainers" but
I call running shoes. To me, 'sneakers' are shoes like Chucks;
you can see two pair in this photo; but I hardly ever wear
'em anymore, only when a stylish look is required, and I know
I'll only be walking short distances -- their flat-bottom design
lacks the support I've become accustomed to.) I usually have
two sets of running shoes: the newer pair, only for the gym -- once
they get squishy they're demoted to everyday slob wear, and replaced.
But for a while I had three pairs, and noticed that alternate sides
of the older pairs made squeaky noises (which I hate) so the
noisemakers were discarded, and I now wear mismatched shoes.
Although they're the same brand, the sharp eye can spot
differences, but nobody's called me on it yet.
I'm so tired of hearing about Iraq -- I usually
change the station now, when they start yakking
about it. But if you're not (tired of it), here we go:
Four
pages of photos "identified only as some pictures a
friend brought back from Iraq." The Whiskey Bar weblog
compares
the occupation with Manchuko (where the Japanese
installed the Last Emperor). At the end, he mentions
the flag situation; the proposed Iraq flag is depicted in this
BBC
article. Finally, photos of
buried
Iraqi Air Force jets being excavated. Why were
they buried, in the first place? No explanations are
offered.
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April 30, 2004
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It's poppy season here in Northern California, and
there's big wild patches of 'em alongside the roads.
I've been trying to get a good shot, and I think this
is a fairly good representation; but it's hard to
capture the intensity of their orange color. As usual,
click the thumbnail for a wider view of this little
bloom. Bonus -- I put two more photos of whole
bunches on a new,
separate page. I
remember my Dad bringing back some souvenir
seeds of this plant while on a business trip
Out West, and growing them in a little flower
bed out front of the Glassmanor house, when I
was a very small boy. He showed us how they
closed up, in the evenng.
Mandalas!
Photo
sequence of Tibetan monks creating a big one
with brilliantly tinted sand, and then sweeping it
up and casting the components into a river; Solas Art
documents
mandalas made from colored stones; and finally, with a
clever
Flash application (evocative of the Spirograph),
you can do it yourself.
If you checked in here yesterday, this page looked
awful; I've had unnoticed format troubles since I
started this daily-image business, which I made a lot
worse just before I figured out what was wrong -- a
misunderstanding about the nature of
comments
in HTML -- they can't be nested! (I've found a
way to do that, but my big trouble was caused by
placing '--'s inside <!--comment tags-->,
which can screw things up royally -- most visibly
in Mozilla, which hardly any of the WWWebbing public
is using, but still.)
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April 28, 2004
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Those who check the bottom of this page know I'm
currently reading the first volume of The Complete
Peanuts, the source of today's image. This is the
very first time Charlie Brown ever landed on his back,
due to a girl with a football, and it happened before
Lucy's initial appearance -- instead, the girl is Violet
(yes, that's how she looked back in '51) and the
situation's a little different.
Jesus
endorses NoVa restaurants. The turf of this Jesus
is mostly out in Fairfax, hence the only one I've been to
is Tachibana, in McLean. He also approves of TJs and
In-n-Out, plus salmon, and Abortion(!) -- but not
B, B & B. Interesting, erudite guy,
with a nice site, built with the purpose Carl
Steadman described in Justin Hall's "Home Page"
movie -- to attract his "bo-bo," or ideal mate. If
you don't care for His reviews, try one of the sermons, like
A
Short Guide to Life.
Boeing is developing a new airliner, the 7E7. Sadly,
this won't be their high-speed Sonic Cruiser I mentioned
three years ago (that
whole program's been scrapped), but instead, the
"Dreamliner." All the artist conceptions of this plane
I'd seen depicted circular passenger windows; until
today I hadn't read any description of this detail (and
all those previous pictures had been exteriors). Here's
a couple links into a new image gallery -- one shows
round
windows from inside, but they're
lozenge-shaped
in another (whose caption says they'll be much
bigger than today's norm) -- maybe they'll only get the
portholes up in First Class. Yeah, looks neat; but it's
just cosmetic, incremental -- not the revolutionary jet
we should be flying in the 21st Century.
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April 27, 2004
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Driving home from Peet's, I passed this penny-farthing
rider, peddling down San Antonio. Poke the thumbnail to
see the complete family procession -- Dad, riding tall;
Junior, his escort; and Mom bringing up the rear, on a
recumbent. I drove up ahead and pulled over, to snap
this photo.
Brotronic
Weapons. (Don't miss the Death
Ray commercial -- "Yesterday's Future, Today!")
John
Kerry Is a DoucheBag but I'm Voting for Him Anyway dot
com -- until now, I had not considered the attribute
of "douchitude." I look foreward to Alan's completion
of all five of his essays.
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April 26, 2004
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This is an exterior neon detail of the Mountain View
In-n-Out on el
Camino. In a recent posting to his
Whatever
web-log, Scalzi responded to the "What do you miss
about California" question with
The thing I miss most is In-N-Out Burger. God knew
what he was doing when he created the Double-Double
with Grilled Onions, Animal Style.
Although the insertion of the Almighty into the
discussion is surprising, there's no denying
that In-n-Out does up a fine burger. What's
remarkable is the perception that so many places
screw up the cooking of such a simple foodstuff.
Incidentally, 'Animal Style' is an unlisted
option -- means they grill the patty in a big
dollup of mustard. Okay if you're into mustard,
I suppose; but I don't care for it with beef
(although it's mandatory with any non-breakfast
wurst sausage) -- I prefer my burgers
with just lettuce and tomato, which is why McDonald's
lost me when they discontinued the McD LT.
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April 25, 2004
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This circular 'Tower of Babel' shelf unit is on the
fifth floor of the wonderful new main library in
downtown San Jose. It's about seven feet tall, and
like a lot of the nearby shelving, holds theses. I'm
not sure how the top-most items are accessed (nothing
like a curvy ladder-unit is handy), maybe they're not
meant to be; but I like the design.
Just finished Gladiator by
Philip
Wylie -- he's one of those once-popular authors that
nobody reads anymore. Fascinating book, perhaps the first
American super-hero story -- his scientist-father injects
his pregnant mother with a substance that makes him incredibly
strong, and invulnerable; but ultimately miserable. The
book was an influence on the creators of the original
"Superman" comics (which appeared a couple years after
Gladiator was first published, in 1930), and
fans of The Watchmen can spot a copy on Hollis Mason's
bookshelf (in parts I and VIII). As for Wylie he's best
remembered these days for When Worlds Collide
but his most memorable to me are A Generation of
Vipers, Tomorrow, and his last book:
The
End of the Dream, from 1968, with its amazingly
prescient description of the plane crash into the Regency
Towers skyscraper in Manhattan -- this event occuring
not on a bright summer day but during a freezy cold
winter night, during a blizzard; and his double-deck
airliner didn't explode, but just stuck there, impaled.
The NY Times
reports
on the hostile reception received by those
Japanese hostages (taken in Iraq), now that they've
returned home. When their story was in the news
something I assumed was, they were members of the
Japanese Self Defense Force (ie Army) pledged
to the Coalition, but of course well-armed soldiers
were unlikely to have been taken hostage. Trouble was,
the media I'm tuned in to didn't say anything about
them, except that they were Japanese. Actually, they
were idealistic young people who felt compelled to
travel to Bagdhad to help out, where possible.
From
gentle Jesus to macho Messiah.
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April 24, 2004
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Here's something new: I've decided to jazz things
up around here with a Daily Photo -- ideally, one
I snapped earlier, on the day of its actual posting
(although that rule may become too ambitious). Naturally,
they'll be thumbnails -- click to zoom. Today, we're
inside Keppler's book store, in Menlo Park, where every
few days they feature literary speakers and book signings.
That's Stanford linguist Geoff Nunberg (who I enjoy
hearing on "Fresh Air") interviewing Lynne Truss,
author of Eats, Shoots & Leaves, a popular
new book about punctuation. I haven't read it yet
(although it's intriguing) -- the title refers to a
joke about an armed panda bear in a restaurant (and she
mentioned a bawdy version from Down Under, involving
a koala bear and an Australian man).
The
Washington Times reports on my kind of
Preacher-man: Bishop Pearson, who teaches a "Gospel of
Inclusion." His church's web-site has
more
info about it (which uptight fundamentalists are
calling heratic).
In the comics, a Language Log analysis of the recent
'Whom'
in the Fusco Bros; Joe Sacco's
Meanwhile,
in America (in the Washington Monthly); and the
latest
installments of Get Your War On:
"Complicated times call for simple language! How else
do you justify being allies with Pakistan without your
goddam head exploding from the cognitive
dissonance?"
Also,
James
Kochalka's ideas for a couple of cartoons he's pitching in
LA this week (personally, I favor "The Jolly Rogers").
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April 21, 2004
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Every so often, elements of my life Before pop up,
to remind of the way things were. In the last year of
David's life he persuaded me to attend the free,
weekly presentations Marianne Williamson was giving,
in the grand ballroom of the Santa Monica
Sheraton -- I went to four of them, and the final
one turned out to be the last of those sessions that
she ever held. I remember her saying the recent LA
riots were like society's cancer. At that time, she
was well-known for teaching the Course of
Miracles -- she didn't write those books (nor
did I ever get into), but later, I read her
Healing the Soul of America.
War
and Peace is a column she just wrote for the
Detroit Free Press.
Scalzi holds forth on
The
Meaning of Life (and he's an authority, since he
has a degree in Philosophy).
At Scamorama, Ignatius
responds
to a Nigerian spammer (pretending to be Winnie
Mandala).
Today's fun fact concerns the contrived Disney town
of Celebration (which reminds me of "The Truman
Show"s Seahaven Island) where they get winter-time
snow -- in Florida! Who knew? From this week's
dispatch
in Slate, reporting from the Great American
Pie Festival:
In Celebration, between Thanksgiving and early
January, the streetlights blanket the downtown with
fake snow every night. "No, it's really neat," says
Taylor's mother. "And in the fall, they bring in
colored crepe-paper leaves."
Only in America.
Pantone, the color company, has determined your
birth
date's color -- kind of astrological. Says mine
is Mellow Mauve, which actually does nothing for
me -- way too bland. (As if I'd have anything to
do with mauve -- it's almost as bad as
beige.)
There's some good trivia at Whatever Happened To, like
the
Dave Clark Five, and
Eddie
Haskel. (Lumpy is his real estate agent?) I think
President Haskel might be a good euphemism for the
shrub, but don't popularize that meme, if you
please -- it would taint the source.
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April 20, 2004
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"Lost in Translation" just opened in Japan, according to this
CS Monitor
article. Reaction isn't positive, for reasons detailed by
the
Tyee, with which I agree. More:
Lost
in Racism. Also, concerning modern things Japanese, a
Wired
interview with J-Lists' Peter Payne.
I Like is a stylish blog
from Britain. The most recent entry concerns the
Chocolate
Wrapper Museum -- scans of candy wrappers, from all
over the world. Bonus:
I
Like Visits Bulgaria -- my low opinion of that country is
confirmed. I posted all I know about Bulgarian tourism in an
entry of my
'99 journal. (Just so you know, 85% of that was archived
offline, in Decemeber.)
According
to Pravda, Saddam's wife says that's not him, but one
of his doubles.
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April 8, 2004
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The Poor Man has posted
the
face(s) of the war, one of those big composites -- this one's
made from our casualties in the conflict, and each 'pixel' is unique.
I'm reading through an extensive
travelog
compiled from on-the-road reports of a
musician/journalist
from Portland, who rambled around South
America during the recent winter months. In addition
to the usual photography, he also made some
field recordings, which are also available.
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April 7, 2004
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Afro Asiatic Allegories.
There's girls in Japan who
use make-up (or extended visits to the tanning salon)
to radically darken their skin, and they also mimic
various African-American mannerisms... they're known
as ganguro (blackface) and there's some
cross-over with the yamamba
girls (characterized by bleached hair, white make-up and
platform shoes; a style which I understand is now
rather passé). Iona Rozeal Browna is a black
artist (in Chillum!) doing ukiyo-e style
paintings of them -- more info:
For
Japanese Girls, Black is Beautiful, a
NY Times article about her, with
two of her pictures.
Speaking of black, two peculiar new novelty items:
Black
Thinking Putty and
Magnetoids.
Finally, this
is making the rounds: a bilingual tag discovered on
a garment; the French section is augmented with a
political comment.
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April 6, 2004
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Avocado
Memories is Wes Clark's documentation of his life
in the 60s and early 70s. He's a kid (two years younger
than me) who took lots of pictures, while growing up in
Burbank. His father had Polynesian aspirations involving
their swimming-pooled back yard.
Great
Jon
Carroll today, about why the shrub administration
doesn't ever admit error, or apologize -- they've
learned from Nixon's mistakes (or so they think).
If you went to read that Molly Ivins column in the
previous entry, but were stymied by the DFW
Star-Telegram's login window,
remember bugmenot.com, AKA
Bypass Web
Registration, which I've added to my
links page (under "Reference"). For that newspaper
site, it returns password "hasnone" for user
"bugmenot2004@yahoo.com." As is common these days,
a valid email address is used for the account
name -- and many of those listed on bugmenot
are from the quite useful
mailinator.com.
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April 4, 2004
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Molly Ivins'
latest
column describes how this most intense, expensive
Presidential campaign ever will play out -- if you're
in solid blue or red areas, you'll be oblivious, since the
propaganda activity will only be focused on the nineteen
'purple' states of AZ, AR, FL, IA, LA, ME, MI, MN, MO, NV,
NH, NM, OH, OR, PA TN, WA, WV and WI.
Art
of the Japanese Postcard is a current exhibition at the Museum
of Fine Arts in Boston --
A new graphic art
for a new century. My favorite is this Bayer sign,
in Osaka.
More big Metro photos, this time:
Paris!
How well I recall trudging up those stairs, at
the end of the Boulevard
St. Michel
station platform!
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April 1, 2004
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Two tech articles at the BBC:
The
Simputer
is the first computer to be designed and manufactured
in India -- the user can web-surf, e-mail or organize
finances, using a stylus like a PDA. Runs on Linux, is
branded the "Amida Simputer," and priced under $250. Also,
courts
award inventor of the Blue LED $1.5M -- his
employer initally gave him only a $200 bonus.
Eve Tushnet
holds
forth on "The Watchmen" and Shakespeare, etc.
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March 31, 2004
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Josh Parsons assigns
letter
grades to the world's flags.
My recent mentions of Giant Robot concerns
their new San Francisco shop, but they've been a
magazine for
some time. A duo called
Kozyndan
created the wonderful cover of issue #28, called
Uprising.
I wondered about their
Yum-cha
Militia (which I've seen in the store) -- what's the
story? ('Poke' that link, to find out). They do lots of
detailed panaramas -- I like the idealized
view
inside the original GR store, on Sawtelle in LA.
Do you miss my rantings about things political? Oh, I'm
still compiling links of that nature, as I come across
them; but it's all become so tiresome, I just don't
feel like posting such things now. And we have seven
more months of campaigning to endure? Yeesh.
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March 30, 2004
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Arnold made the wrong
decision! Here's the favored design -- I was looking forward
to the tactile sensations, feelin' those waves, dude. Instead, we'll
have a collage of Half Dome, a Condor, and a Prospector.
Up in the City Sunday; at Giant Robot
(around the corner from Amoeba and
Escape From New York pizza), the guy
unexpectedly demonstrated the
Vinyl
Killer -- the shop's quiet suddenly
broken by tinny transistor music, an old pop
tune. I looked over by the cash register and an
LP was lying on the counter, with a little blue
Type II VW doing very precise 33 1/3
donuts upon it!
More neat stuff:
the
Blog
shoe; the '55 and '56
Dodge
La Femme (a Chrysler just for women); and the
Australian-designed
Scubadoo
underwater motorcycle.
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March 26, 2004
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At the multiplex this weekend: "Scooby Doo
Two"?! An incredible opportunity was
missed with that title. Not that I give a flyin'
about the franchise (vaguely repelled, although
I've never seen an episode; not part of the original's
targeted demographic) but really. Something
about monsters? C'mon! It should be "Shaggy in Paris," or
something with clones (set in Cannes, for instance),
and titled "Scooby Deux"! (More
about
the Doo -- who knew his voice was (and will
ever be) Casey Kasem's?) Also,
100
Movies That Deserve More Love (but none were
made before 1981).
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March 25, 2004
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A large repository of
animated GIF files lives at Whole Wheat Radio.
Using the same medium, in conjunction with
CAD software, Matt Keveney has created a beautiful
and educational collection of
Animated
Engines.
Dead
Corporate Mascots is a painting featured among the
excellent trivia of the Manbottle Library of Arcane
Knowledge.
Crop
Art is
dedicated to the beauty of seeds
pasted on a board to make a picture.
One example:
Curious
George Looks for WMD.
And in the news:
Red
Iceberg, by Danish artist Marco Evaristti.
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March 23, 2004
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Details
of Garry Trudeau's AWOL shrub contest -- nobody could
prove that he ever showed up, so the $10K prize went
to the USO. Related -- with the boy-king
on
the campaign trail -- he's just had a big-screen
TV installed on Air Force One, for basketball game
watching. (That's in the NY Times, so
registration's required -- or not: just visit
bugmenot.com
to get a user/password combo; they got me in to the
Washington Post site today -- haven't been
there in quite some time.) Finally,
Protests,
Even Buttons, Verboten in Crawford -- visibly
dissenting out-of-towners are in for a heap o'
trouble, down there.
New York pizza history, parts
1 and
2.
www.quiet.org -- the
Right to Quiet Society (it's Canadian).
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March 21, 2004
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Dashed out to catch
the new
one, and found it good. Glad to finally see Montauk
Point, a place known previously only from Joe's mention in
Strange
Cargo Hinterland -- doubtful that I'll ever go there in real
life, only been on the beach of Long Island once before. Weird to
see snowy sand -- brr, shivery! Speaking of film, I saw "Vanishing
Point" when it was (almost) new, and didn't really 'get' it; think
it's time to give the movie another chance. From a recent
comment
posted to the IMDb:
...a "fin de siecle" story, a unique requiem for a quickly dying
age -- a now all-but-disappeared one of truly open roads, endless
speed for the joy of speed's sake, of big, solid no-nonsense muscle
cars, of taking radical chances, of living on the edge in a colorful
world of endless possibility, seasoned with a large number and wide
variety of all sorts of unusual characters, all of which had long
made the USA a wonderful place -- and sadly is no longer, having been
supplanted by today's swarms of sadistic, military-weaponed cop-thugs,
obsessive and intrusive safety freaks, soulless toll plazas, smug
yuppie SUV drivers, tedious carbon-copy latte towns, and a childish
craving for perfect, high-fuel-efficiency safety and security.
More Road
Movies (but beware, it's an image-intensive slow-loader).
The
Mad, Mad World of Pixels Per Inch explains things -- or does it? I
feel like I know less now, than before... although it does explain why
72 and (and to a much lesser extent) 96 are so common on web page
images, something about Mac for the former and Windows, the
latter -- but I'd still like to know their metric equivalents,
which the article doesn't go into.
LitraCon --
Light
transmitting concrete is set to go on sale later this
year -- embedded fiber optics do the
trick.
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