YAT is upon us. Now that the weather has turned, my favorite bar - Barramundi, 147 Ludlow - has opened their garden, as well as opening their doors a little earlier. Officially they don't open until 6:00, but I've secured the O.K., for us to arrive at 5:30 tomorrow evening (thursday.) That gives us an opening half hour in the garden undisturbed, and even after that it doesn't get crowded for quite some time.

Of course I'm open to other suggestions as well.

The LA Times and NY Times recently published articles on synthespians (all-digital actors); although both would be described as "think pieces," their main purpose seems to be hyping two upcoming movies: Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within and Simone. (By posting and mentioning those titles, I'm playing my part in the spin-cycle. Where do I pick up my check?) The LA Times piece is better, because it's more of a straight trade-mag account of the new processes and film industry responses to them. (I love that the article mentions Tron, even though I disagree that it "set back computer animation by a decade": its retro-futurist approach looks better than a lot of what's being produced now!) The NY Times piece, "Perfect Model: Gorgeous, No Complaints, Made of Pixels" by Ruth La Ferla, is more annoying, because it's hype disguised as criticism: lots of mock-profound gushing from people in the synthetic human biz, with the obligatory quote from a culture-studies prof. One concept mentioned in the LAT article is "the uncanny valley," a principle of robotics that says the more an android resembles a human, the more we focus on the minute differences between us and it. This makes sense, and would seem neatly to demolish the NYT's pitch about virtual models and actresses.

Mr. Quintron from New Orleans

Peaches and Gonzales from Canada

ESG fromThe Bronx

the boredoms from japan

julia "butterfly" hill rocks

grass stains

butte ugly

from the redwood forests...

Vatan--yummy yummy yummy and a few new dishes--and my friend convinced them o let us BYOB!!

It's All In The Swagger

May 7, 2001 (NYT) News Analysis: To European Eyes, It's America the Ugly
By ROGER COHEN

BERLIN, May 6 — Before becoming president, George W. Bush seemed acutely aware of the need for a country as powerful as the United States to show restraint. "If we are an arrogant nation, they will resent us," he said. "If we're a humble nation, but strong, they'll welcome us."

The words appear to have been forgotten. A torrent of hostile articles in Europe has greeted Mr. Bush's first three months in office. Their chief theme has been the arrogance of what the German weekly Der Spiegel recently called "the snarling, ugly Americans."

On its Web site, the respected Munich daily Süddeutsche Zeitung lists seven articles summing up the themes of Mr. Bush's first 100 days. They are not unrepresentative of widespread European views.


The titles include: "Selling Weapons to Taiwan: Bush Throws His Weight Around in the Pacific"; "North Korea: Bush Irritates the Asians"; "World Court: No Support From United States"; "Iraq: Bombing Instead of Diplomacy"; and "Climate Agreement: The United States Abandons the Kyoto Protocol."
cont.

NASA and the wine industry (third section down.)

"Conservation may be a sign of personal virtue, but it is not a sufficient basis for a sound, comprehensive energy policy," Dick Cheney says. In other words, "Ride your bikes around the commune all you want, hippies, but the rest of us have to get to work." According to today's front page New York Times article, Cheney's nominal boss uses energy efficient heat-pumps to cool the ranch in Crawford; meanwhile the rest of us are burning high-cost, polluting fossil fuel (which, of course, we are expected to buy at a premium from his business cronies). I'm reminded of Philip K. Dick's novel The Penultimate Truth, where the masses live in crowded bunkers deep underground, hoodwinked that there's an atomic war going on topside, while an elite is in fact basking in green estates on the underpopulated surface, living off the masses' labor while simulating news reports of an ongoing "crisis." Science fiction? Not if you believe Cheney's BS.

linda said to say hello from Costa Rica--she left a meeage on my voicemail that she cant log on to DMTree or Inch for CR--wierd

Dear Friends: American photographs of Men Together, 1840-1918


at the international center for photography; through 6/10

mother gong