29.12.04

[TV] What Do You Want To Bet Fox Remakes This, With Carroll O'Connor?

This is from Query Letters I Love, for-real script ideas and one of my new most favorite blogs:

Iran's Sahar 1 TV station is currently airing a weekly series titled "For You, Palestine," or "Zahra's Blue Eyes." The series premiered on December 13, and is set in Israel and the West Bank. It broadcasts every Monday, and was filmed in Persian but subsequently dubbed into Arabic.

The story follows an Israeli candidate for Prime Minister, Yitzhak Cohen, who is also the military commander of the West Bank. The opening sequence of the show contains graphic scenes of surgery, and images of a Palestinian girl in a hospital whose eyes have been removed, with bandages covering the sockets.

In Episode 1, Yitzhak Cohen lectures at a medical conference on the advances being made by Israeli medicine regarding organ transplants. Later in the episode, Israelis disguised as UN workers visit a Palestinian school, ostensibly to examine the children's eyes for diseases, but in reality to select which children's eyes to steal to be used for transplants.

In Episode 2, the audience learns that the Israeli president is being kept alive by organs stolen from Palestinian children, and an Israeli military commander is seen kidnapping UN employees and Palestinians.


More details, including clips, are here.

[LOTR] Maybe...Too Gay?

I swear these websites find me. Elijah Wood Is Very, Very Gay.

[TMI] Things Not To Say In Bed

From Vivid Blurry: "I am one of those people who usually closes his eyes during sex ..... Well, today I allowed myself a quick glance into the mirror ..... I turned my head to the vanity, and I swear to god, it was like watching a porn ..... We finished up and in an effort to correct the awkward silence, I said something about the mirror and how we looked like we were porn stars ..... [H]e looked up and said it would not be a porn he'd ever watch. 'Why not?' I said, much to the groans of the live studio audience. 'I'm not really into twink porn.'"

[Terror] That's Secretary Steppin Fetchit To You!

Also from Low Culture: "Secretary of State Colin Powell will return to the city of his birth and drop the famous Waterford Crystal ball in Times Square on New Year's Eve, Mayor Bloomberg announced yesterday. 'Colin Powell is the American dream come true' Bloomberg said of the Bronx-raised outgoing secretary of state. ''He's done everything his country has ever asked.'..."

A mind is a terrible thing to waste.

[Photos] Sure Is An Ugly Baby

My new favorite site for all things photographic and humorous is Low Culture. If case you need proof:


This is an undated photo showing Lisa M. Montgomery, a resident of Melvern, Kan. Montgomery was arrested late Friday, Dec. 17, 2004, and charged with kidnapping resulting in death in a case of a woman being murdered and her 8-month-old fetus cut out of her womb. The baby of Bobbie Jo Stinnett was recovered and was reported in good condition on Saturday. (AP Photo/Maryville Daily Forum)


Rumsfelds' Christmas Card



Separated at Birth?

[Terror] Prarie Muffins

Stole this last month from MetaFilter, and just now getting around to reposting it:
Meet The Duggars! Michelle and Jim Bob have had 15 children in 16 years all with first names that start with the letter “J”. Recently they had their own 1 hour reality TV show called: 14 Children and Pregnant Again. They belong to the Full Quiver movement which states that you should receive as many children as God blesses you with. The women dress Little House on the Prairie fashion and refer to themselves as Prairie Muffins. The men get to dress normally. This is what the White Supremists think of them and this is what other Christians think of them.

[Human Waste] Apoca-Potty

This won't come as much of a surprise to Southerners, but Gawker reports that Dan Wilson, VP of Rent-A-John in Sparta, NJ sent out a Christmas message to his customers telling them how they can have ETERNAL LIFE and avoid THE LAKE OF FIRE. (Here's a copy. It's headed "Happy Holidays," which makes you wonder if Mr. Wilson really is a Christian, or just one of those fellow-travellers sure to be devoured by THE BEAST.) Anyway, expect similar language the next time you get a letter from the IRS telling you you're being audited.

[Mental] Sontag Dies

Susan Sontag died yesterday. I have two memories of her: one, from the late 80s, sitting across the aisle from her at a performance of Robert Wilson's interpretation of Heiner Müller's Hamletmachine; the second, from the early 90s, sitting across the aisle from her at a performance of Ron Vawter's Roy Cohn/Jack Smith My memory may have conflated the two events, or at least Sontag's being there, but you would have expected to see to Sontag at both.

Back when I hung out with people who cared about her, the general consensus seemed to have been that she was less a thinker than a popularizer of other people's ideas. (Barthes, for example.) I think I'm less judgmental now; few people ever rise to the top tier, and fewer still manage to stay there. I liked that she was an anachronism: that she managed to be an intellectual, and make a living at it, without benefit of academia. I think this freed much of her writing from needless blather. No one I know, then or now, read her fiction, that I recall. Personally, I thought her politics were far more interesting than her art — interestingly, the same appreciation I have for Vanessa Redgrave.

NPR just did an appreciation, and mentioned how attractive she was, a comment to which Catherine Stimpson took strong exception. I think this was misunderstood. In my memory, when Sontag entered a room, people turned and looked. She was striking, of course: her face, that shock of hair ..... but she seemed irradiated ..... I recall meeting James Baldwin once, and standing next to Leonard Bernstein in the back of the Imperial Theatre ..... few people, even celebrities, can command that much charisma. You didn't sexualize Sontag, you didn't intellectualize her — had she opened her mouth, I'm not sure I would have even heard the words — but what it was, it was like like getting completely lost in conversation with another person, or lost in their body, only in public, and only more so.

In most modern instances, interpretation amounts to the philistine refusal to leave the work of art alone. Real art has the capacity to make us nervous. By reducing the work of art to its content and then interpreting that, one tames the work of art.
Susan Sontag, Against Interpretation

27.12.04

[Terror] Three Disturbing Thoughts on Mosul

First. Heard some talking military bobbleheads on CNN the other day. They said that in Vietnam when troops messed they took their food and dispersed, in order to minimize the number of casualties if the enemy attacked. We don't do that in Iraq they said because it would be an inefficient means of distributing food. Chalk one up to our outsourcing food services. People think that privatization leads to greater efficiency, and it probably does; but what they forget is that efficiency is not the only criterion out there.

Second. At her press conference the head of the Landstuhl Medical Center, when asked if there was anything noteworthy about the casualties coming out of Mosul, said that they were seeing more injuries to the torso; usually, the most common injuries coming out of Iraq are to the extremities. Why? Troops were not wearing personal armor while eating lunch. Brian Gifford wrote an interesting op-ed piece in the Washington Post back in November, putting Iraqi casualties in context. "To better understand the difficulty of the fighting in Iraq, consider not just the current body count but the combat intensity of previous wars. During World War II, the United States lost an average of 300 military personnel per day ... On the other hand, improved body armor, field medical procedures and medevac capabilities are allowing wounded soldiers to survive injuries that would have killed them in earlier wars. In World War II there were 1.7 wounded for every fatality, and 2.6 in Vietnam; in Iraq the ratio of wounded to killed is 7.6. This means that if our wounded today had the same chances of survival as their fathers did in Vietnam, we would probably now have more than 3,500 deaths in the Iraq war." He also points out that in terms of the number of troops we have in the field, casualties in Vietnam are only one-foruth more than Iraq. Further, says Gifford, the daily casualties have almost tripled since before the first attack on Fallujah in April (and this written back at the end of November).

Third. The language currently being used is that an insurgent infiltrated the base in Mosul wearing an Iraqi Guard uniform. Do they know this for a fact, or is it possible the suicide bomber was an Iraqi guardsman? Is the current language simply political correctness? Is it possible that some Iraqi guardsmen are not prepared to run away, but stay and blow themselves up? We know insurgents have infiltrated the Iraqi army, but this seems to ratchet up a few notches the overall messiness.

Two bits of information I would be interested in seeing. One would be a geotemporal distribution of IED incidents. We know they're increasing, but I suspect that they are not random, but strategically deployed. I'd like to see a graphic. Second, I'd like to know the number of foreign correspondents reporting out of Iraq, broken down by month and nationality. Go back 12-18 months. A while back I heard mentioned on CNN that foreign news services were pulling reporters out of Iraq, and that even some American media, like the Washington Post and CNN, were considering the same. I haven't seen any follow-up, but I have noticed fewer and fewer stories originating from Iraq. I'd like to see if there was a correlation.

[Science Faith Terror] Modern Science Gift of Jesus Christ

Heard that over the weekend. D. James Kennedy, one of our more activist preachers. Runs a telechurch called Coral Ridge Ministries and a political thinktank, The Center for Reclaiming America. Christianity created modern science. All rational thought comes from God.

Xmas Eve Larry King had a lively little gabfest with religious media whores Rev. John MacArthur; Father Michael Manning; Dennis Prager; Deepak Chopra; and Jon Meacham, author of a recent Newsweek cover story on the birth of Jesus. (Affiliations: Protestant Evangelical; Roman Catholic; Jewish; Flake; and Episcopalian. With the execption of Chopra and Meacham, none had shaken the dust of the 15th century off their sandals yet.) When Meacham tried to make the point that faith and reason find themselves more and more in conflict, MacArthur insisted that Christianity is purely rational. No distinction between faith and reason. One and the same. One truth. End of discussion. Prager, while generally siding with the Religious Right, suggested that the Holy Bible might be open to more than one interpretation and asked where Christianity stood on the issue of the death penalty. Fr. Manning, to his credit, confirmed Catholic teaching that capital punishment is wrong. MacArthur rose to the bait and proved Prager's point, in spades. Cue total meltdown and reemergence of a new Dark Ages.

Luckily, now that we have the Apolcalyptic President in the White House, the Dark Ages shouldn't last long.

[Xmas] We Can't Have Anything Nice

So I'm prone to building improbable stacks, but moreso during the holidays. When my sister came over Xmas morning, she noticed a 20lb ham balanced on a stack of coffee cups — my feng shui she calls it. Last year the cat jumped onto a similar stack the day after Xmas, and sent one of my grandmother's platters flying across the room and into a thousand pieces. Not the only one, and not the best one, but still.....

A million years ago I bought a seven-piece set of Le Creuset at Macy's — lids mainly — for $199. There are issues with Le Creuset. Yes, it cooks like nothing else, and no, you can't live without it. Yes, it does last a lifetime, but unless you're a museum curator — my original pieces are now 25 years old — it looks like it's had a dioxin facial. (I once saw a friend's set which had been in heavy use for 50 years, and I'm really not sure I want the Saucepan of Dorian Gray in my kitchen cabinet.) It stains easily, and the shine wears off quickly, even using their high-price cleaning glop. The early pieces had exposed bottoms and rims, which are prone to rust, and if the enamel gets pockmarks, which it will, no matter how well you care for it, you'll be cleaning it with naval jelly. And it's surprisingly brittle. I remember picking up the skillet from Macy's a few weeks after I bought it, and it broke in two. They replaced it and all, but, wow. (That skillet had a wooden handle, which I pretty much charred in the oven, and then the screw that attached it to the metal got bent, and that gave me the excuse to upgrade a few years ago to the newer model, with one-piece construction and an enamel bottom, and an enamel interior replacing the funky French version of teflon. Actually, stopping by an outlet near Savannah, I was able to buy a slightly smaller skillet — 8 inches? — as well as a 12 incher, for what I would have probably paid for one, retail.) Oh, and as you get older, you'll need a hospice nurse who regularly works out to lift the bigger pieces for you.

Okay, so you see where this is going. This year, perched on top of 8 or 9 other things — eaach with a successively smaller footprint — was my original dutch oven — I think it's the 3.5 quart one — and when I jostled the table passing by, everything took a flying leap. Glasses, coffee cups, dishes, all intact, but the dutch oven shattered. I read the "limited" lifetime warranty, and frankly, I don't think it covers "feng shui." So I've started pricing a replacement. If I'm lucky, it will come in slightly under what I paid for the entire original set.

Xmas dinner was a resounding success. My sister had cleaned the house as my Xmas present — the cat does a poor job picking up, and I'm hopeless — and except for the almond crescents, there were almost no noticeable disasters. The 20lb regular ham from Kroger's is so loaded with water you can pretty much nuke it in an hour and have it still come out moist. The country ham, cooked according to Gail Meglitsch's specs — 1-2 days soaking, 8-14 hours simmered very slowly, 0.5 days allowed to cool in its cooking liquid, followed by an hour of baking — was the best yet. (I suspect the secret was that the country ham had not been heavily salted nor cured for very long.) A Bûche de Noël came together without incident Xmas morning, the chocolate genoise perfect and the orange buttercream as yummy as 4 sticks of butter and 8 egg yolks and a quarter pound of sugar can be. Macarooons that kept their shape, mostly. My grandmother's prune cake recipe, which is the hands-down favorite every year. Candied orange rinds. Gingerbread men. Homemade baklava. Oh, sorry, vegetables: creamed spinach, hasbrown casserole, and blackeyed peas. And very good buttermilk biscuits.

Of course, all the work, and the heartbreak of the dutch oven, melted away the next morning when I woke up and found the cat in the meat platter, curled around the hambone. "Look!" she seemed to cry out, "A new place to sleep! And It's warm and greasy and whenever you want to wake up, it's food too!" Priceless.

26.12.04

[Nation-Building] We Can't Assemble Bikes on Xmas Eve, What Made Us Think We'd Do Better With Iraq?

The New York Times is reporting that the US is looking to guarantee a role for Sunnis in the new(-er, -ish) Iraqi government, regardless of the election outcome. (Sounds like last-minute Xmas-shopping to me...) Also, this morning on CNN, Henry Kissinger floated the idea of partition. Not sure what took that idea so long to surface, given that Iraq itself is a colonial construct.

I seem to recall hearing/reading somewhere that someone (National Guard families?) were marking the days to the elections (with lighted candles? ribbons?). If the elections do not mark a turning point — and no one, not even the Donald, seems to think that elections will change anything — I wonder if American public opinion will begin to shift from denial and/or numbing depression to healthy rage. In any case, should be an interesting State of the Union speech.

Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski were doing a back-and-forth on US foreign policy with Wolf Blitzer, and at one point Brzezinski began to engage Kissinger directly until Wolf stepped in to prevent anything resembling actual debate. Blitzer asked Brzezinski if Iraq was another Vietnam — "Hey, Wolf! Ask Henry that question!" Goddamn free-range war criminal.

Finally, I also caught one of CNN's "Profiles-in-Courage" storylets this morning, about a soldier who was back in Iraq, after losing one eye and much of the sight in the other, the loss of hearing in one ear and partial hearing in the other. "But I'm completely healthy from the neck down!" Good metaphor for US Iraqi policy. Blind, deaf and mentally disengaged.

22.12.04

[Xmas] Tree Decorating 101

AJ sent me this. My cat can't stay awake long enough to take on something like that. You reckon it's the Quaaludes? Bad kitty!

[Food] La Vaca Loca

Another leftover from boing boing. I'm still waiting for George Clinton to come to my house and tell me to eat my brussels sprouts: HUNGH!

[Film] XXX-Men

Bryan Singer's Gaydar profile. I say fake — Bryan Singer has power bottom written all over him — but great holiday fun.

[Food] No Tiny Tim! You've Had Enough Already!

In one of the first signs of the effects of the ever tightening federal budget, in the past two months the Bush administration has reduced its contributions to global food aid programs aimed at helping millions of people climb out of poverty. With the budget deficit growing and President Bush promising to reduce spending, the administration has told representatives of several charities that it was unable to honor some earlier promises and would have money to pay for food only in emergency crises like that in Darfur, in western Sudan. The cutbacks, estimated by some charities at up to $100 million, come at a time when the number of hungry in the world is rising for the first time in years and all food programs are being stretched.

[Crime] Penny Wise, Pound Foolish

When I went in to renew my car insurance the other day, I discovered that I had been confused about when the grace period expired, and that for almost a week I had been driving without insurance. "Wow! If I had known that, I wouldn't have gotten drunk last night!" (A bit of an exaggeration; incredibly relaxed is probably closer to the truth.) Anyway, the insurance person glared at me as if I had murdered a family of four in cold blood, right there in the office. Then, last night, I was buying citrus on Sutherland, and the clerk there was checking five dollar bills for counterfeits. "Hardly seems worth it, counterfeiting five dollar bills." Again, I got a glare, and she told me there had been a spate of forgeries recently. That reminded me of an anecdote I had heard in New York, some guy on West 96 Street I think, near where I lived, I think this was the early part of the last century, had forged one dollar bills. He only printed a few at a time, to buy only what he needed, and always spent them within a radius of a few blocks. When he was finally discovered, as I recall, he was already in his 90s, and hardly worth incarcerating. He had a single great talent which he could have exploited, and didn't, and he certainly cost society far less than many businessmen, legitimate or not. It was a story, and a life, that makes the world brighter on a cold winter's day. When I told the clerk about the guy, she scrunched her face even more. Bad man. Very bad man.

Yesterday I read yet another detailed account of how Americans are torturing prisoners taken in the so-called war on terrorism, which is fast becoming a war of terrorism. I ran into Philippe's office and started screaming, how was it Americans are not marching in the streets when confronted with these stories, knowing that they are responsible for these actions, that their family members participate in the abuse, and that their tax dollars make it all possible? Why no scrunchy faces?

20.12.04

[Gifts] A Little Kwanzaa Something for David Cronenberg

Saw this on boing boing a few weeks ago, and well, it's a knitted uterus. "It's not completely anatomically accurate. I've taken a few liberties with the general shape and scale, as well as leaving out the ligaments connected to the ovaries. And, of course, the human uterus is not normally bubblegum pink."

[Technology] Laptops Go On Sperm Killing Rampage

Men who use laptops could be risking their fertility, a US study warns. Heat from the processor can cause the temperature of the testes to rise almost three degrees, more than enough to damage sperm, the research reveals. In a related note, The Register has also reported that, according to Hungarian scientists, mobile phones rot your balls. Of course this presupposes that anyone with multiple electronic devices attached to their crotch is even interested in having sex to begin with. Unless, of course, this is their idea of sex ..... okay, now I get it. Let's move on.

Also, a team of US scientists has created viable monkey sperm in mice, using transplanted testicular tissue. "Amusing as the image of a mouse with monkey balls on its back is, the research is being done for a purpose, not just the entertainment of the faculty staff." Not just? You mean, this isn't anything like an episode of South Park?

[Lexicography] Cool Site

Hanzi Smatter. Dedicated to the misuse of Chinese characters (Hanzi or Kanji) in Western culture.

[Sex] Wait Till The Plumbers Union Hears About This

NASCAR has filed a trademark and service mark suit over a pornographic video. The video entitled "Racetrack Girls Go Nutz" shows barebreasted women at racing events. The video has been sold over the internet for months. NASCAR filed suit after finding out that the video distrubutor was producing flyers and advertisement with the NASCAR logo on them

[Terror] Let 'Em Alone: Besides, They're Cannon Fodder Anyway

This is old news, the strafing of a school in Little Egg, New Jersey by a National Guard F-16 fighter jet, but this quote stuck in my head:
Let 'em alone; they're over there putting their lives on the line for us," Hickman said as he prepared to hunt deer in Bass River, near the edge of the range. "That guy (the pilot) probably feels so bad about this. He's probably going to get sent overseas and he might not even come back. As long as no one got hurt, this whole thing should just be forgotten."

[Terror] Book Burying, Not Burning: Totally Different!

From Alabama: A bill by Rep. Gerald Allen, R-Cottondale, would prohibit the use of public funds for "the purchase of textbooks or library materials that recognize or promote homosexuality as an acceptable lifestyle." Allen said he filed the bill to protect children from the "homosexual agenda."

19.12.04

[Terror] Stop US Torture Now!

[Terror] That's Him! Standing Next to Ringo!

Osama bin Laden. 1971. Sweden. Imagine.

[Faith] Did You Ever Stop To Think, Maybe the Christians Wanted To Be Eaten?

"A man leaped into a lion’s den at the Taipei Zoo on Wednesday to try to convert the king of beasts to Christianity, but was bitten in the leg for his efforts. 'Jesus will save you!' shouted the 46-year-old man at two African lions lounging under a tree a few meters away ..... One of the lions, a large male with a shaggy mane, bit the man in his right leg before zoo workers drove it off with water hoses and tranquilizer guns."

[Terror] But Seriously.....Shut Up

"In an apparent reversal of decades of U.S. practice, recent federal Office of Foreign Assets Control OFAC) regulations bar American companies from publishing works by dissident writers in countries under sanction unless they first obtain U.S. government approval. The restriction, condemned by critics as a violation of the First Amendment, means that books and other works banned by some totalitarian regimes cannot be published freely in the United States ..... Violations carry severe reprisals — publishing houses can be fined $1 million and individual violators face up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine ..... Officials from the U.S. Treasury Department, which oversees OFAC, declined comment on the lawsuit, but spokeswoman Molly Millerwise described the sanctions as 'a very important part of our overall national security ..... These are countries that pose serious threats to the United States, to our economy and security and our well-being around the globe," Millerwise said, adding that publishers can still bring dissident writers to American readers as long as they first apply for a license ..... 'It strikes me as very odd,' said Douglas Kmiec, a constitutional law professor at Pepperdine University [and frequent Bush tool]. 'I think the government has an uphill struggle to justify this constitutionally.'"

[Terror] Bush's Brain

Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words.

[Education] ...Or You Could Simply Give Up

According to a CBS Poll dated November 22, 55% of all Americans believe that God created humans in their present form, 27% believe they evolved under God's guidance, and only 13% believe that humans evolved without divine intervention. Now the bad news. Among Kerry supporters, those percentages are 47%-28%-21%. We are now a nation that can no longer cure a hangnail.

Another poll, conducted by Cornell University, showed nearly half of all Americans favor limiting the rights of Muslim Americans — 44% favor some restriction, 48% oppose any restriction. Twenty-seven percent thought Muslims should register with the federal government; 22% favored racial profiling; and 29% favored infiltrating Muslim civic and volunteer organizations to keep an eye on their activities.

On the bright side, mindless stupidity is bound to breed new businesses, such as Afterlife Telegrams: "For a donation of $5.00 per word (5 word minimum), we can have telegrams delivered to people who have passed away. This is done with the help of terminally Ill volunteers who memorize the telegrams before passing away, and then deliver the telegrams after they have passed away."

[Sex] Supremes Rule Masturbation Privilege, Not Right

The Supreme Court ruled Monday that San Diego officials were right to fire a policeman who sold sexually explicit videotapes of himself in uniform.

[Xmas] The Twelve STIs of Christmas

Wow. I think it's the stick figures that make it so special.

[Gifts] For That Special Altar Boy In Your Life

Calendario Romano. Loaded with information about the Vatican; and did we mention 12 of the tastiest priests and seminarians? "I know the priests are handsome, but what’s wrong with that? If I was doing a cat calendar I couldn’t show old moggies with no teeth," says Piero Pazzi, the Calendar's photographer. Check out Fr. July! Hubba hubba.

Also, in case you missed it, this quote from William Donohue, President of the Catholic League and former Calendar pin-up boy himself: ""Hollywood is controlled by secular Jews who hate Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular. It's not a secret, okay? And I'm not afraid to say it." Donohue added that while he likes "families" and "nativity scenes," "Hollywood likes anal sex." Donohue was being interviewed on MSNBC by Pat Buchanan. Buchanan, we understand, has no pets.

[Sex] Banned in Boston

Ira Glass did a great segment on This American Life yesterday, You Are So Beautiful to Me, about a woman who falls in love with a macaw while in her teens, and over the course of five years, working odd jobs, is able to save up enough money to buy the bird. Now, flash forward, the woman is married, the mother of two boys, and the macaw is becoming more jealous, and more aggressive. And besides, it's fucking loud, okay? I mean, it won't shut up! The kids don't understand why mommy won't get rid of the bird, or why she would have paid $1500 for it in the first place. The bird keeps attacking them, for fuck's sake! Mom, for her part, is afraid that if she does get rid of the bird, it will die without her ..... it's actually produced an egg, which only happens when it's mated for life, and ummmm ..... well, here is where I guess it starts to get a bit queasy.

Of course, many of those opposed to gay marriage — Sorry! Favorite new quote from John Waters here: "I became gay so I wouldn't have to get married!" — anyway, opponents are always saying that same-sex marriage will inevitably lead to pedophilia, incest and bestiality, with the implication being that those things are bad for you too. Well, maybe.

There's this great scene in the documentary Heavy Petting. People like Spaulding Gray, David Byrne, Abbie Hoffman, Laurie Anderson, Sandra Bernhard, Judith Malina and Julian Beck are asked to recount their first sexual experiences. Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs are framed in a shot, posed like some alter-American Gothic. Ginsberg is recounting his sexual conquests, which began early and were quite extensive — from age 13 -15, he seems to have proceeded house by house and block by block through his entire neighborhood; thorough — and Burroughs just stands there, saying nothing. Finally, when Ginsberg stops to take a breath, Burroughs leans slightly into the camera and says in that wonderfully gravelly nasally monotone, "I ... like .... cats." Turns out Ginsberg is the conservative one.

Of course, some cultures are more broad-minded when affairs of the heart take a detour down the inter-species highway. Friends of the British writer J.R. Ackerley proved very accepting of his committed relationship to Queenie, his Alsatian bitch — see Ackerley's semi-autobiographical novel My Dog Tulip — even when she spotted their carpets. Ackerley did not have sex with Queenie/Tulip — he was very open about being a serial human-on-human homosexual — but at the end of the day, it was Queenie/Tulip he came home to. And isn't that what true love is? Where you wind up at the end of the day?

So whether you've only "experimented" — I used to practice tongue-kissing on our dachshound, and I can't say I'm the worse for it — or whether you've found True Love rutting in the backyard....Well, in the immortal words of Kander and Ebb:

Meine Damen und Herren, Mesdames et Messieurs,
Ladies and Gentlemen-
Is it a crime to fall in love?
Can we ever tell where the heart truly leads us?
All we are asking is eine bisschen Verstandnis-
A little understanding-
Why can't 'leben und leben lassen'?
'Live and let live'...


[Music] Mississippi Masala

Driving home last Friday I got to hear an interview with Robert Darden on the history of gospel music. Worth going back and listening to again. One of Darden's favorite singers, and mine, is Marion Williams. Of all her recordings, my favorite is probably her gosptel rendition of Hare Krishna, which is practically impossible to find these days. They play it occasionally over on WFMU though. (This link will take you to the playlist for Douglas' Rubarb Cake show from 11.16.00, and from there you can listen to the entire show with RealPlayer. The entire show is well worth listening to! Williams' rendition of Hare Krishna is right near the end of the stream, 2 hours 47 minutes and 35 seconds into the show. Don't be alarmed by anything you might hear before or after Williams' number!)

[Music] Album of the Year

Hands down, William Shatner's Has Been. With help from Ben Folds, Joe Jackson, Aimee Mann, Adrian Belew, Brad Paisley and others. If you didn't know it was William Shatner, you'd love it too. Imagine if Leonard Cohen had spent most of his life as Gene Roddenberry's bitch. It's just that good.

Also — and this is the Age of Shatner, whether we like it or not — I cannot praise too highly Shatner's new TV show — his show and James Spader's — Boston Legal. David Kelley has spent most of his career trying to make us care about lawyers as human beings — Ally McBeal, The Practice, L.A. Law — and now finally he's just said "Fuck it! Let's treat them like the soulless monsters they really are!" Good for him! Good for us! And Spader ..... Shatner ..... it doesn't get any more soulless than that.

[Starfucking] Gone With the Wind

Pauline Gore answering her own phone reminded me. Back when I was doing fundraising in NYC, I got a tip that Irene Mayer Selznick, the daughter of Louis B. Mayer, the wife of David O. Selznick, was setting up a foundation we might be interested in approaching. I called the number, and instead of getting a secretary or an assistant or hell a nurse, I heard this low primordial growl, "Hulllooooo....?" It rose and fell for several syllables; it was as if a coelacanth had washed up on the back porch. (Her best-known quote: "I'd like to grow very old as slowly as possible.") I managed to stutter out a couple of questions, and she took down my name and address and promised to send a brochure. But in terms of Six Degrees of Separation, I had already snagged a pot of gold!

I remember being at Bella Abzug's apartment one afternoon — this was probably mid-80s — when the phone rang. Bella lived alone and answered her own phone and had a very distinctive voice. To screen her calls, she could do a dead-on impersonation of a receptionist — bland, a touch of a lilt — "Who's calling?" Apparently, it was someone cold-calling from NOW. For $25. "Excuse me, but do you have any idea who Ms. Abzug is?" The receptionist was disappearing, and Bella's own voice — that of God and the Last Judgment and the Burning Pit of Everlasting Hell — was beginning to emerge at this point. The young woman at the other end of the phone had apparently never heard of Bella Abzug. "Well, she's only THE GODDAMN FOUNDER OF THE GODDAMN WOMEN'S MOVEMENT!" And with that, she slammed the phone down, turns to me, and says, completely calm now, "Well, it's not her fault; why should she know who I am?" But all I could imagine was the woman at the other end of the phone, wondering what had just happened. (Here's a bio of Bella, and here's a quote: "They used to give us a day — it was called International Women's Day. In 1975 they gave us a year, the Year of the Woman. Then from 1975 to 1985 they gave us a decade, the Decade of the Woman. I said at the time, who knows, if we behave they may let us into the whole thing. Well, we didn't behave and here we are." I miss her every time I pick up a newspaper or watch the TV. You could drop every politician now in office into the sea, and it would not make one bit of difference.)

And speaking of Louis B. Mayer ..... This was probably sometime in the late 80s. MoMA was doing an Homage to Ealing Studios — slight stuff, pleasant enough — and opening the series was Kind Hearts and Coronets. I hadn't managed to pick up a ticket in advance, and ended up at the front of the standby line. The standby line outside Titus II wound by a small alcove with water fountains and access to the stage. As ticketholders filed in, I turned around so I wouldn't feel like some beggar out of Dickens, and there in the alcove was Alec Guinness, a little nervous, more than a little shy, pacing in a circle. For a few seconds we avoided eye contact — Please don't let him speak to me! What should I ask him? — before I turned around and stared at the ticketholders.

I finally did get a seat, about two-thirds back on the aisle. Six o'clock came: no movie. Six-thirty. Nada. Finally, a quarter till 7, the back doors of the theatre fly open and down the aisle wafts Lillian Gish! By then she must have already been in her mid to late 90s, weighed maybe 75 pounds in her clothes, and she was so close I could have reached out and touched her gossamer gown. (Note: Lillian Gish made her first movie in 1912.) She went straight for the podium, and began to apologize profusely. It had started to rain, and it was the worst of rush hour, and she hadn't been able to get a cab at her hotel several blocks away, so she had had to hoof it. But (brightening) she was so so pleased and honored to be here tonight to introduce her great good friend........And then Lillian Gish had a very public very senior moment. "Alec Guinness!" someone in the front row whispered, loud enough for her and the rest of the theatre to hear. "Yes! My good friend Alec Guinness!" Guinness came up to the podium and turning to Gish, who had never been properly introduced: "Thank you, madam, whoever you are!" Kind Hearts is a nice enough movie, but that memory will be one of the last to go.

[film] Trifecta

Today's New York Times carries an obituary for Larry Buchanan. Buchanan began his career making inspirational documentaries for Oral Roberts, and moved on to make such feature films as Mistress of the Apes, Zontar, the Thing From Venus, Bonnie and Clyde: Myth or Madness? and Mars Needs Women.

[Liberalism] Pauline Gore Dies

I had just moved to Knoxville. I was helping put together a Human Rights Day program, and I was trawling for speakers. What about Al Gore Sr.? Like Howard Dean, I still remember a Senate populated by Gore and Fulbright and Church and McGovern — i.e., the Democratic Wing of the Democratic Party — hell, I can remember when there was actually something to the left of the Democratic Wing. So why not Gore Sr.? What else does he have to do?

I called the local Democratic Party headquarters, and was surprised when the receptionist gave me the Gores' home phone number without any hesitation. I was also surprised when I called and Pauline Gore answered the phone. She managed to say no in a polite and friendly manner — Gore's health made travel uncomfortable — and then I made some small talk about Al Jr., who had just gotten himself elected VP, and who most people thought would go on to succeed Clinton. Like I say, she seemed warm and relaxed and willing to offer her opinions freely. I recall she was either indifferent or ambivalent to a presidential run, perhaps even a bit hostile. I couldn't tell whether she was concerned for her son's safety — the Good Mother scenario — or whether she found his politics not to her liking — the Howard Dean/Joan Crawford scenario. I don't think I pressed her for an explanation because I thought I was moving into an area which was maybe none of my business — a momentary lapse which fortunately rarely occurs.

Our biggest political loss over the last 30-40 years has been a accelerating diminuation of vision for this country. I like to think Pauline Gore was a bulwark for What's Best About America. I fear we are only beginning to miss her.

[Art] Agnes Martin Dies

I don't mean to keep hyping my own syphilitically-induced prophetic powers, but earlier this week I started hankering to see an Agnes Martin canvas — I get similar cravings from time to time for Joan Mitchell — this recent attack brought on no doubt by my friend AJ's trip to Paris — Beaubourg has some pieces, but did AJ go to Beaubourg, as I had suggested? did AJ go anywhere I suggested? well, of course not — I even meant to do a blog entry on Martin last last week but got distracted — anyway, Thursday Martin up and dies in Taos. Coincidence, or has my ability to kill with a single thought gotten stronger? You decide.

"The value of art is in the observer," she said in an interview with The New York Times. "When you find out what you like, you're really finding out about yourself. Beethoven's music is joyous. If you like his music, you know that you like to be joyful. People who look at my painting say that it makes them happy, like the feeling when you wake up in the morning. And happiness is the goal, isn't it?"

17.12.04

[Film] Quote of the Day

And if other people offer different justifications or interpretations?
When that happens, I just go along with it. It becomes their version of the film. I'm not proprietorial about the films; once they're done they belong to anyone who wants to watch them, and each person who watches creates a different film in their watching of it. But I also like throwing in things that don't quite add up, that aren't completely sensible, to create questions for which people can supply their own answers. There's been a lot of discussion about the ways in which a medium like hypertext allows readers to create their own versions of a text, their own differing meanings for the same set of nodes ...
Terry Gilliam

[Food] Quote of the Day

It's really weird how your life changes. Tonight I'm drinking water. Four years ago? Opium. Night and day, you know?
Bill Hicks

[Ancient History] Helen Gurley Brown Spotted — Alive!

[Art] I Think van Gogh's Ear Is Lying Around Here Somewhere.....

[Americana] Quote of the Day

This just in from The New York Post, via jossip.com:
United Airlines' Hemisphere asked [Brian Williams, Tom Brokaw's replacement] his views on why so few non-whites and women held top jobs in media, to which he replied, "We have bigger problems. There are no black members of the U.S. Senate. We should keep some perspective on this."

[Xmas] Round-Up of Breaking News

Amber alert issued in Missouri for fetus cut from mother's womb ..... Scott Peterson remains cheerful due to constant flow of fan mail — for further explanation, see here ..... Music Director from Crystal Cathedral commits suicide just hours before Glory of Christmas pageant.

I think it's all the "family values" pressure that's driving people crazy. More nog, and less Aunt Bertha! And The Olive Garden! Folks! Take a break from holiday shopping and take the family out to The Olive Garden! You need to ease into this whole morality thing slooowly ..... We can't simply dive headlong into candy cane color correctness without expecting a rise in stress-related murder/suicides. Be safe out there, pilgrims!

[Terror] Maybe We Need a Better Recruitment Campaign

Maybe we could boost the number of enlistees if we just had the right recruitment videos. Like this one. Let's draft Joel Schumaker!

[TV] ...And Corey Haim, Does He Play a Demonic Toy?

I have to admit I've been mesmerized by the previews for the SciFi Channel's made-for-TV movie, Puppet Master v. Demonic Toys ..... if anything can divert our attention from the escalating violence in Iraq, surely this will do the trick. But then I caught that Puppet Master will star Corey Feldman! What made me think he was somewhere in a drug-induced coma?

I seem to recall photographer/film auteur/perderast Larry Clark had a one-man show back in the early 80s in NYC, devoted entirely to pictures of the other Corey. (Clark's films include Kids and Bully, both of which mixed up male-on-male sex and violence. His books include Tulsa, Teenage Lust and Perfect Childhood.) Creepy, and on so many different levels!

Anyway, while you're contemplating the upcoming remake of The Lost Boys (by the same director as Lemony Snicket), you can listen to The Thrills' Whatever Happened to Corey Haim?

Drugs for Sex, Sex for Cash ..... I see some great themes taking shape for children's television, come the 2010s!

[Aesthetics] Photoblogging

jackola.net. E.g., "a floral foul-up has left a city street lined with swastika shapes in a week of major Jewish celebrations." Oz vey!

[Aesthetics] Fugrolling

A state of extreme ugliness. Ex: "The level of fug at the Video Music Awards is always hard to stomach."

[Music] Just in Time for Carolling

You can now play Harry Partch's instruments online. Life is good indeed. Also, www.harrypartch.com seems to be alive and up-to-date, for anyone hungry for more context.

[Children] Oooooh Geoffrey, we could all paint our twangers couldn't we?

How do people manage to keep up, in a world chock full of truth and beauty? I am so far behind I hardly know where to begin. Perhaps with an episode of the TV children's show Rainbow, which was broadcast back in the more innocent 70s and 80s. And here I grew up thinking HR Puffenstuff was racy!

PS The link for the Nigerian spam video is now working properly.

10.12.04

[Media] What Doesn't This Man Have a Sitcom Yet?

8.12.04

[Health] Let's Get Serious About Abstinence!

Now here's something we could throw tax dollars at! The Why Have You Foresaken the Baby Jesus Anti-Fornication Thong.

[Gifts] S'Mores Nativity Set

This adorable set includes 3 Nativity Characters and a 5.5" Creche. Posh Spice S'Mores Sold Separately.

[Faith] Paul Wolfowitz as the Baby Jesus? That Would be Sacrilegious!

Church leaders united on Wednesday to condemn a Christmas Nativity tableau depicting soccer star David Beckham as Joseph and his pop singer wife Victoria as the Virgin Mary. Tony Blair, George W. Bush and the Duke of Edinburgh star as The Three Wise Men.

[Health] If You Can Believe George Bush is President, Why Couldn't You Believe a 43-Day-Old Fetus is a Thinking Person?

Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) has released a report on taxpayer-funded abstinence programs.

Many American youngsters participating in federally funded abstinence-only programs have been taught over the past three years that abortion can lead to sterility and suicide, that half the gay male teenagers in the United States have tested positive for the AIDS virus, and that touching a person's genitals can result in pregnancy ..... The report concluded that two of the curricula were accurate but the 11 others, used by 69 organizations in 25 states, contain unproved claims, subjective conclusions or outright falsehoods regarding reproductive health, gender traits and when life begins. "I don't think we ought to lie to our children about science," said Waxman.

Hell, if we tell them the truth about sex, what else will be we have to tell them the truth about?

[Merde] The French Have a Word For That

My friend AJ just got back from Paris, and didn't take a single one of my suggestions to heart. For example, who in their right mind would pass up Crad'expo, the new exhibition at the Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie, running now until August 2005. "Flatuosités, fèces, miction, roupie, hydrorrhée et autres humeurs, ou plus simplement prouts, caca, pipi ou crottes de nez, tout ce qui est dégoûtant chez l'homme, s'exhibe dans une exposition impertinente destinée aux enfants." Crottes de nez — That's boogers to you.

[Media] What Do You Mean, We Can't Use the Liz Taylor Footage?

American Bandstand icon Dick Clark was hospitalized this week after suffering a mild stroke.

[Music] Hey! Go See If Paul Winter's Dead!

Eigenradio's Christmas album.
Eigenradio plays only the most important frequencies, only the beats with the highest entropy. If you took a bunch of music and asked it, 'Music, what are you, really?' you'd hear Eigenradio singing back at you. When you're tuned in to Eigenradio, you always know that you're hearing the latest, rawest, most statistically separable thing you can possibly put in your ear.

4.12.04

[Deathwatch] Nick, Jessica and Liz

A US Magazine headline screams, "We're Not Over!" which Gawker interprets to mean, "You're SO over!" Do we know when things went South for this perky toothsome? Perhaps it was when Nick said, ""Not too many nice things to say about her ..... How about she was the best stocking I ever stuffed?" Defamer claims that the only reason MTV signed them up for another season was to make sure they get the relationship-ending murder-suicide on tape. Not sure there's a part for Scott Peterson though.

Defamer is also reporting that media have been alerted to start dusting off the Liz Taylor archival footage. (I think having her coffin dragged out of the church by Michael Jackson and a herd of wild monkeys should add just the right amount of gravitas.)

When I think about Liz — when I'm not confusing her with Judy Garland that is — I like to remember A Date with Judy, in which a 16-year-old Liz played second fiddle to Jane Powell. The film also starred Xavier ("Mr. Charo") Cugat and Carmen Miranda, in what had to have been the apex of the Golden Age of Mescaline Cinema. You don't have to have ever done drugs to notice the pattern in the wallpaper crawling up and down across the screen.

RIP, the lot of you! And God Bless and Long Life to Sharon and Ozzie!

[Sex] The Coach's Boys

Coming in January from Falcon Studios.

[Syphilis] In Dreams

I woke up this morning and realized I had dreamt reading an interview with Maxim Shostakovich about his father, the composer Dmitri Shostakovich. I read a lot in my sleep these days — not sure whether it's a time-of-life or a place-of-residence issue. A few months ago I remember reading a beautifully bound book, in Dutch, written by someone whose name I didn't know and have now forgotten, but I googled him as soon as I woke up and he turned out to have been a well-known and well-regarded historian, so I may not know what I know (to paraphrase our current and future Preemptive Defense Secretary), but my taste is indisputable.

Reading in dreams is a relatively new experience for me, although a quick google indicates (from listservs, bulletin boards and blogs) that the phenomenon is apparently widespread, and extends well beyond the abductee community. (I did come up with a wonderful bogey in the search, though, In Dreams. I Walk with Metadata: "Last night I had one of those out-of-the-body dreams, waking up with the feeling that I'd been contacted by some alternative form of intelligence. Looking back in the cold light of day, I realised that this form of intelligence was in fact a parable for standardised metadata, a viral meme with a whiff of the occult about it .... I woke up and remembered that I'm under contract to help produce Parts 1 and 2 of the British Standard for Interoperability Between Metadata Systems Used for Learning, Education and Training.")

In the past, most of my dreamtime involved having conversations with people. most of whom were living. (Post-processing the day's business, I imagine.) Although my therapist in New York urged me to keep a dream diary, I almost never remembered dreaming while I lived in New York.

Before moving to New York, back here in Tennessee, I do recall dreaming more: vivid waking dreams. Nightmares really. People in my bedroom watching me.

And although I think I can often associate colors with objects within a dream, I recall only once dreaming in color, and that was also one of the few sexual dreams I ever recall having: in that particular case, two women making love. But no wet dreams, ever. Just creatures from Fantagor hovering above my bed, drooling green acidy spit.

Wonder what it means?

3.12.04

[Faith] Quote of the Day

For long stretches at a time I forget that I am God. But then, memory isn't my strong suit. It comes and goes with a will of its own. The last time it came back to me I was sunk in one of those late-winter depressions. Then one night I switched on the television set, and a firestorm of events burst before my eyes. I saw a volcano spewing lava, a skiing race in the Alps, a film on Paris as it was forty years ago, hunting in Ecuador, an office in Ottawa, open-heart surgery telecast live, a documentary about submarine landscapes of the North Sea. Life caught me again in a hypnotic net. As the camera circled around a flower on a seabed, I suddenly remembered that I had created all this. From that moment, I began feeling as I always do when I remember that I am God. I felt like a child again, eager for springtime, ready for open skies.

I admit, right from the start, that it was foolish to create winter. I couldn't help it, though. It banged at my door and demanded to be let into the world. It was stirring inside me, insisting on being recognized. I've always been a bit of an oddball, full of contradictions, and for all my love of the light I still have my dark side.

Winter wasn't my only half-baked idea. I can't really warm to the heavy, damp days of in-between seasons either. How pigheaded the rain seems, coming down as though everything were about to turn into water, or as though gray clouds and wet asphalt were all there is to the world. I am not talking about thunderstorms, which nobody likes except me and a few other dramatically inclined souls, poets and lovers especially. I am inside the thunder as well as the lightning. I am inside all blasts of passion, for it is there that I rejuvenate myself.

The thought of childhood warms the cockles of my soul. When you are young, the sensation of life knows no limits, and the mere fact of existing is enough to feel happy. Even now that I am an aged divinity, I feel the same way in early mornings, in the infancy of my day. I lie in bed, my body stirs slowly and eagerly beneath the sheets. I blend laziness and energy. My feet point toward the northern hemisphere, beyond Canada, beyond the Pole. The right arm spans California and the islands of the Pacific. The left reaches out toward Europe and meets with the other in the Far East. Shoulders and head are stretched
toward the bottom of Earth, toward the warmest of the warm seas. I am God just before breakfast, face buried in my pillow, as if resting on a cloud.


Franco Ferrucci, from Life of God (as Told by Himself)

[Terror] US Regards Quakers as Security Risks

Peace could break out any minute.

2.12.04

[Humor] Order, ye fractious whirls o' fucking shite!

Martian FM is my new drug-of-choice. I give you Bird Nest Thefts At Record UK Low, Palestinian Highway Signs and the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fountain. Also, my favorite excerpts from the TW@ archives:

As a television viewer I am fucking sick and tired of seeing so-called 'intelligent' people talking bollocks, wasting my valuable time and licence money. It is a sad reflection on today's values if David Hockney really is our greatest living artist - I saw him the other night on BBC Four and not only is he deaf, he lets dogs lick his mouth! Likewise, Melvyn Bragg comes across as a stuffed-up fucking Cumbrian ballvalve, and Jonathan Miller seems a bit of an arsey cunt. Why waste resources like this? Even David Dimbleby is 40% bigger than necessary.

My name is Jabaliya. I am an award-winning R&B singer, and this is a very special moment for me. I'd like to...oh, wait a minute. No, sorry, I'm a densely-populated refugee camp in the Gaza Strip.

As a child of four, I wholeheartedly support the initiative to teach media literacy to pre-school TV viewers. It is important to encourage people like myself to distinguish between different forms of moving image media such as documentary, news, propaganda, advertisements and corporate promotion, and to recognise that the sources and motivation of a text can make a difference to the truth or accuracy of what it says. My only reservation is that this initiative has the backing of Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell, who is a bum and looks like a bum and has a face like the crack where the poo comes out of the bum.

[Lit] I Plotzed!

[Art] Doris Day and Brad Pitt: Together Again for the First Time

I confess I'm probably not meant to understand this.

[Terror] Name: Tahmeena. Turn-offs: Death by Stoning.