==pla|\|ing lakes==
Saturday, March 29, 2003
Matthew Barney's multimedia exhibit at the Guggenheim til June 11 looks worth a visitWalk into the Guggenheim Museum and you'll enter a world transformed into a funhouse, complete with blue Astroturf, morphing images, odd sculptures, and ramps swaddled in athletic padding. The exhibit was designed by Matthew Barney and inspired by the bizarre "Cremaster" series of five films written, directed by, and featuring Barney. For an idea of the films' tenor, imagine a kind of "Fantasia" with set designs by Salvador Dali and scripts far kookier than David Lynch's.
12:00 AM - [Link] - Comments ()
Friday, March 28, 2003
"...run down by the drunken taxicabs of Absolute Reality..."
Sam Smith reminds that 46 years ago this week, Allen Ginsberg's Howl was seized as obscene material
Oddly, I was just watching the episode of The Fifties (the series based on David Halberstam's book) which discusses the Beats, and thinking as I listened to Ginsberg's reading how completely relevant this landmark in American lit still is.Moloch the vast stone of war! Moloch the stunned governments!...
Moloch whose love is endless oil and stone! Moloch whose soul is electricity and banks! Moloch whose poverty is the specter of genius! Moloch whose fate is a cloud of sexless hydrogen! Moloch whose name is the Mind!
9:41 PM - [Link] - Comments ()
metascene's biannual check-in has some good stuff
12:30 AM - [Link] - Comments ()
Thursday, March 27, 2003
Author offers web-authoring handbook free on his site; bandwidth gets $15k hit
LESSON: Use P2P nets or Creative Commons -- or charge for it.
8:34 PM - [Link] - Comments ()
Somehow this old XTC tune showed up in my playlist too. Not sure why.POOR SKELETON STEPS OUT
Poor skeleton steps out,
Dressed up in bad blood,
Bad brains, bad thoughts, and others deeds.
Poor skeleton no doubt,
One of these days,
You can cast aside your human, be free.
When the cities run with blood,
And you drink our health in mud,
"All flesh be gone."
Save your dry and joyous shout,
For the day poor skeleton steps out.
Poor skeleton steps out,
Sprung from his life sentence,
Deep inside some muscle mask.
Poor skeleton devout,
Propping up truck drivers,
Filmstars, thieves or queens, your brave task.
When technology is rust,
And you write your book in dust,
"All flesh be gone."
Can't buy tickets from a tout,
For the day poor skeleton steps out.
Poor skeleton steps out,
Liberated from sex organs,
And brown, black, white skin.
Poor skeleton you lout,
Don't you think that we might,
like to have been asked to join in?
For good skeletons are we,
And we're dying to be free,
"All flesh be gone."
I will scream or sulk and pout,
Until my poor skeleton steps out.
(Better watch out, here comes bony boy.)
1:55 AM - [Link] - Comments ()
I posted the link to a rough mix and lyrics of R.E.M.'s new song about shrub at charging the canvas
Here are the lyrics:THE FINAL STRAWWorth a listen.
As I raise my head to broadcast my objection
As your latest triumph draws the final straw
Who died and lifted you up to perfection?
And what silenced me is written into law.
I can't believe where circumstance has thrown me
And I turn my head away
If I look I'm not sure that I could face you.
Not again. Not today. Not today.
If hatred makes a play on me tomorrow
And forgiveness takes a back seat to revenge
There's a hurt down deep that has not been corrected
There's a voice in me that says you will not win.
And if I ignore the voice inside,
Raise a half glass to my home.
But it's there that I am most afraid,
And forgetting doesn't hold.
It doesn't hold. Now I don't believe and I never did
That two wrongs make a right.
If the world were filled with the likes of you
Then I'm putting up a fight. Putting up a fight.
Putting up a fight. Make it right. Make it right.
Now love cannot be called into question.
Forgiveness is the only hope I hold.
And love-- love will be my strongest weapon.
I do believe that I am not alone.
For this fear will not destroy me.
And the tears that have been shed
It's knowing now where I am weakest
And the voice in my head. In my head.
Then I raise my voice up higher
And I look you in the eye
And I offer love with one condition.
With conviction, tell me why.
Tell me why.
Tell me why.
Look me in the eye.
Tell me why.
1:46 AM - [Link] - Comments ()
Tuesday, March 25, 2003
Huh. Sonicblue giving up the ghost
I have an old Rio with a parallel port connection stashed away somewhere, and liked the balls of their Replay digital recorder idea.
I guess this will all continue under another company, but it won't be the same.
Definitely pioneers.
1:47 AM - [Link] - Comments ()
Computer Associates' new stream-lined EZ Anti-Virus looks pretty damn good
One of the user comments notes that you don't have to disable it for downloads, one of the reasons I just couldn't abide McAfee etc.
For home users, this would probably do the trick, if the set-up isn't daunting. It doesn't scan email or have a firewall, but you can get that in a $50 version if you want it -- though the cheap version will disable anything that gloms onto your drive anyway.
Price: $19.95.
No I'm not getting a kickback on this -- and let me know what you think.
1:42 AM - [Link] - Comments ()
Reluctant yet gushing puff by Michael Wolff on the new Steven Brill tome After: How America Confronted the September 12 Era [Romanesko]There are many reasons -- not least of all the bullying -- that have made media people, and especially other journalists, not love Steve Brill. But the main reason there is no love lost, I think, is that finally, he is just too exhausting. Always in your face. Always the presumptive boss. The preternatural big man. The consummate know-it-all. The total prick. And he just keeps coming. Now, in a startling break from his fevered, ever-onward-and-upward machinations, or -- with a little critical interpretation -- as part and parcel of his vast competitiveness, Brill has emerged from a year and a half of modesty and quiet since the termination of his business ventures with a book.Might be worth a look.
After begins on September 12, 2001, and chronicles, for nearly 700 pages, and on an almost day-by-day basis, the nation's systemic response to 9/11. Insurance, philanthropy, security, infrastructure, transportation, lobbying, law enforcement. Never before has bureaucracy been the subject of such a sweeping, dramatic, and, in a way, loving portrait. The granular becomes epic.
At the very least, it certainly seems unfair, if not infuriating, that overblown Steve Brill could have the stick-to-itiveness and antlike attention to detail to produce such a massively researched, deeply compelling (in blurbers' terms) "towering achievement" book -- and to have done it in fifteen months (it's really a five-to-ten-year-size work).
Might also be the kind of book everyone buys for the historical value and then never reads.
Look for many copies at a cheap price down the road a piece.
BTW, I've been weak and out-of-commission from the weird gut-locking coda to this bug that's gone around. Hopefully it's pretty much over.
12:53 AM - [Link] - Comments ()
and s-integrator
© me
