A little coincidence to welcome back the Wheel: my mom is doing a report on Verona for her Italian class. She asked if I knew anything about a big wine fair there. I said I'd ask you. She must be thinking of VinItaly, and that must be where you just were? Any insider info I can pass along regarding Verona, wine or history wise?

This is pure newspeak: the administration is adopting the term "homicide bomber" instead of "suicide bomber". When we sacrifice ourselves we're "heroes"; when they sacrifice themselves they're just murderers. If we eliminate the word that indicates their degree of commitment, maybe they'll just go away. If not, we'll have to hit 'em with one of our atomic homicide devices.

friends called him Barney....

This is amusing: warbloggerwatch keeps track of the rantings of pro-war crazies and makes a running acerbic commentary.

Search alert:
"point+pelee+topless" and "difference+between+faith+and+knowledge"
Porno and philosophy on the same log; do I cover the bases or what? (or maybe I just use too damn many words). Unfortunately, nobody with blocking software will ever find my "pictures+of+pussy+willow+trees".

"The original "Star Wars" and its sequels are echo chambers of tropes and images from literary science fiction, used in ways that strike a careful balance between affectionate familiarity and outright plagiarism. The first glimpse of Luke Skywalker's desert homeworld, Tatooine, evokes the setting of Frank Herbert's 1965 novel "Dune"; Lucas even throws in a shot of a skeletal desert serpent reminiscent of Herbert's gigantic sandworms. The amazing visuals suggest an eye nourished by the magazine art of Frank R. Paul, John Schoenherr, Kelly Freas and Chesley Bonestell."

When I was posting the article on Gary Wilson on my Miscellaneous page, I noticed a tag in the New York Times's html for the piece. The article mentions someone picking up a burger at McDonald's, and that word is followed by this tag (invisible unless you're looking at the source code):

org idsrc="NYSE" value="MCD,MCJ,MCW"/

What's going on here? Is this a way for major advertisers to track how many mentions it gets in the Times? If so, that's fucked up, yo! I can't think of any innocent reason for doing this.

Some familiar suspects at Galapagos tonight:

DR. MOM is the new joint venture between actress/writer/performer Ann Magnuson, drummer Roger Murdock, guitarist Dave Rick and bassist Stuart Popejoy. Ann and Dave were in Bongwater together, Dave and Rog were in King Missile together. Word is that Stuart was discovered in Albuquerque, NM in a dumpster with his passport and a bass guitar....hmmph, anyway, DR. MOM plan on performing a bunch of recalibrated Bongwater tunes, amusing covers and perhaps a few embryonic pieces foretelling possible continued collaboration. Good luck!

Hey, Bill! "6.4=Make Out" is being reissued! (Brian's probably already heard this.) Neil Strauss's Times story on the great Gary Wilson is on my miscellaneous page. Here's a choice tidbit:

"On Saturday night, I arrived at Mr. Wilson's house to conduct his first interview for publication since the late 1970's. For the last 17 years, it seems, Mr. Wilson, 48, has played keyboards in a lounge act whose members and audience are not familiar with his original music. (Mr. Wilson's father was a jazz bassist who often played hotel lounges.) At midnight he reports to a pornography bookstore and peep show, where he works behind two layers of bullet-proof glass, handling cash and dispensing tokens."

Wilson's LP is amazing; I can't wait to pick it up on CD.

first thing i saw on the times homepage

where were we talking about donahue? anyway, hes back.

This week brought a yummy meal at Gramercy Tavern (home of a top notch wine guy and his fun list), correct and clear from the main menu but a course sent out from the tasting menu (which now includes a veggie taster for spring) makes me want to go back asap....spring rules (till summer:>).....Spring Menu at Al Di La--wow--salad of fava, asparagus and other things spring, asparagus soup, white asparagus with a poached egg and bortagga (sp?), morel rissotto, a spring baby chicken and a great wine list!!
CHOW--off to Italy for work:>):>)

tribeca film festival's best of new york films list

Page Six it ain't.
The Papua New Guinea Gossip Newsletter

"We're using dogs in their purest form"
I don't want to see what they do with cats.

Alias.

Earlier Bird
The Prothonotary Warbler is a favorite of mine; now it's back, with a message about global warming.

jim/mb email alert--please check:>)

Sounds kind of interesting:

"THE SOUNDS OF SCIENCE"
Yo La Tengo, the Hoboken indie-rock band with a flair for crisp, three-minute pop songs as well as broad feedback experiments, perform live scores to "How Some Jellyfishes Are Born," "Shrimp Stories," "The Love Life of the Octopus," and other short films by Jean Painlevé. (Alice Tully Hall. 875-5050. April 6)

Do you film buffs know Painleve?

Review by a Yo La Tengo fan.

Food writing rides the wave.

I've never really warmed up to Richter, though I agree that many of the abstractions are "beautiful". They have a hollowness; a lack of engagement and belief, which typifies the transition between Modern and Postmodern (or some such thing). Like Johns & Rauschenberg, they're about letting the air out of Abstract Expressionism, but in a much cooler, detached manner, without the humor of the Americans. With Ab Ex, a bad painting might be an interesting sort of failure, with Richter, it's more like, "here's a good one, here's a less good one, let's move along". The photo-based works strike me similarly, but the imagery allows for more associative readings. Taken together, his various works make up a larger project, which serves to further deflate the value of any given piece seen in isolation. Again, this "whole greater than the sum of its parts" strategy is characteristically PoMo.

IMHO Richter has made some of the
most beautiful paintings in the history of art

Here's a cogent passage from that Gopnik article on Popper that Dratfink had posted.

But what really underlay the contradiction between what he thought and what he was, I now think, after a quarter-century's reflection, is a perversity of human nature so deep that it is almost a law-the Law of the Mental Mirror Image. We write what we are not. It is not merely that we fail to live up to our best ideas but that our best ideas, and the tone that goes with them, tend to be the opposite of our natural temperament. Rousseau wrote of the feelings of the heart and the beauties of nature while stewing and seething in a little room. Dr. Johnson pleaded for Christian stoicism in desperate fear of damnation. The masters of the wry middle style, Lionel Trilling and Randall Jarrell, were mired in sadness and confusion. The angry and competitive man (James Thurber) writes tender and rueful humor because his own condition is what he seeks to escape. The apostles of calm reason are hypersensitive and neurotic…

I just want to say how true it is. And if any of you have been taken in by that namby-pamby, new age nonsense posted elsewhere, well, just let me assure you that it's strictly therapeutic. I require the bandwidth in order to dispense with these awful impulses of love and understanding that torment me. I am so thankful to have this means of eliminating my baggage, so that I can get back to my real business of being one nasty bastard!

I'm sure this has already been discussed but I missed it. What is up with the yellow underlined words in posts that then link to definitions of that word or in other cases, products.

bucky meets jesus --> future positive