coming down the mountain

the Chuck Zito experience

Doc Searls points to this Terry Jones (Monty Python) article in the Telegraph which gets right to the heart of the problem with our present "war on terrorism" which, as far as I can tell, is not actually a "war" nor particularly on "terrorism."

WHAT really alarms me about President Bush's "war on terrorism" is the grammar. How do you wage war on an abstract noun? It's rather like bombing murder.

It's about time for the comedians to take some whacks at this thing (although Jones' article is quite serious.)

its a happy new year, no bombs were set off, we can try to live life w/o fear, but it just dawned on me that two of my super hero's died last year, kesey and lilly....

I'd heard of Momus, the Scottish musician, but I never looked into his work until I ran into his spoof Folktronic while researching Jimmie Crack Corn. I laughed out loud at the flash videos for Mountain Music and Appalachia.
(The original Momus is the classical god of laughter and mockery, and figures in that song on which our national anthem was imposed.)

Residents of Lindhurst and Jersey City have been advised to boil their tap water for 3 mins. due to a sewer break.

On Christmas, Jim and I were discussing the difficulties of programming a computer to play Go in comparison to Chess. I said Go might ultimately be beyond the power of a computer because it relied on pattern recognition rather than number-crunching. Jim said he doubted that, because eventually computers would be able to handle complex pattern recognition. Well, it looks like I was wrong, about the nature of the task--it's number-crunching AND pattern recognition--and the outcome. At least one expert concurs that it's not a matter of whether but when. Here's a no-sign-in-required link to the NYTimes article I remembered from several years ago. In relevant part it states: "'It may be a hundred years before a computer beats humans at Go -- maybe even longer,' said Dr. Piet Hut, an astrophysicist at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J., and a fan of the game. 'If a reasonably intelligent person learned to play Go, in a few months he could beat all existing computer programs. You don't have to be a Kasparov.' When or if a computer defeats a human Go champion, it will be a sign that artificial intelligence is truly beginning to become as good as the real thing."

Happy New Year to All

In 2001 some of the best meals I have eaten were in Brooklyn at Al Di La and Locanda Vini e Olii, one of my favorite 2001 meals was a tasting menu at 71 Clinton FF with a table of 3 tasting 17 different dishes in all, Grand Sichuan International, Lupa & Felidia, also eating in Italy at the homes of winemakers, small village trattoria's and the wild meal at the two star Da Vittorio in Bergamo were all highlights....

I feel lucky that my work includes tons of meals all over the world but in general I feel let down by the dining experience, having had so many just ok meals this year. Yes one great dish here and one there but the expence invovled is ridicuolous if its not a bizz write-off.

My tastes are for more simple dishes and Italian food. Luckly I can finally cook ok for myself but this makes paying alot for just ok food a bummer . I tried this year to eat more raw foods (one of my phobia's), and eat more meats to add variety in 2001.

The search goes on and Q1 2002 will bring me to Loire, Paris, Italy, maybe Barcelona, lots of NYC restaurants in search of a great meal. Maybe a summer trip to SouthEast Asia as Asian food to me rocks. All the best to you and lets eat together soon!! The big question is where??

The history of Dead Moon another great band from Portland.
I first saw this band in it's incarnation as the Rats. I knew that some members had been in a 60's psychedelic band called The Lollipop Shop but this history states that they hark all the way back to 1964!
The influence of AC/DC and the first two Love albums is present in much of their work.
I recommend!

From a Kodak technical support page:

Among precautions that travelers can expect will be the increased use of new, high-intensity x-ray scanners for checked baggage and hand-carried baggage. Passengers should be aware that these high-intensity x-ray machines will fog and ruin all unprocessed film of any speed, whether exposed or not. Kodak recommends that air travelers do not carry unexposed or unprocessed motion picture film.

I wonder if computer hard drives will be affected as well.

Wipers box set released. Original 1981 cover art restored with credit given to which dig med tre'er ?

collateral (bird) damage

I thought we covered this at some point, but I can't find it now, and the Wheel just sent the story to me again, so, for all you debunking fans, here's the current wisdom on the "secret meaning" behind the Twelve Days of Christmas.

I decided to brave the holiday crowds and check out Lord of the Rings today. There is a lot of information, verbal and visual, blowing past you fairly quickly, but fortunately I had a teenager and his older sister sitting directly behind me, keeping a loud running commentary. In a scene where Sam comforts Frodo after a battle with the forces of darkness, the woman said, "Look at the little elf, huggin' his friend." After a furious limb-amputating fight between Aragorn and an Uruk-hai (half-man/half-Orc), the kid said "That shit was dope!" And at the end of the film, which leaves us with Sam and Frodo descending to the marshes on their fateful trip to Mordor, the woman announced to everyone within earshot. "This is so ghetto! I paid ten dollars to watch two hobbits walk down a hill!"

I enjoyed the movie, even though half of the dialogue sounds like it's coming from the gods of Asgard in Lee & Kirby's Mighty Thor comics. The monsters are great--real Ray Harryhausen stuff. The film actually does a better job of explaining the story's main hook: why Frodo must go to Mordor, and destroy the Ring, even with all these powerful men and supermen around. In the book, it seemed too obviously flattering to the adolescent reader to have the little guy be the center of the quest. In the movie, you're much more palpably aware of how corrupting the Ring is to men and even Wizards. Frodo's seeming genetic ability to resist makes the choice not just logical but inevitable.

Also, apropos of nothing, Orlando Bloom, who plays Legolas the Elf, could be the next Leonardo di Caprio, on the basis of matinee-idol looks alone. He was my personal favorite Quester (I know, I'm an arrested adolescent). In one scene he pulls several arrows in rapid succession from his quiver, firing them off so rapidly you can't figure out how he gets them in the bow. It isn't a special effects shot (could be a stunt double though); in any case, this human Gatling-gun routine has to be seen to be believed. (Maybe you already have seen it; I don't know if it's in the TV trailer or not).

Lance Loud, of An American Family fame, is dead.

Typical year-end list from the Post, but I was struck by this item:

GOOFIEST ITEM IN A DISH: Popcorn - actual popcorn - in $14.50 corn-and-lobster soup at the Carlyle Hotel restaurant. It's even less successful than it sounds.

AKA used popcorn (successfully, I thought) in a corn soup earlier this year. I thought it was novel, but I guess it was a trend. Or was it a ripoff? Or is there any difference in the food world? Inquiring minds want gossip, not gastronomy.

Thomas Frank (the Baffler) has a funny op-ed on John Walker in the NYT today. In reply to all the conservative scolding about Walker being a product of "liberal values," Frank argues that "born in the 1980's, John Walker grew up in a time when American conformity was the lamentation not of pampered professors but of Madison Avenue and the cutting-edge management gurus."

Frank continues: "It is from TV commercials for sneakers and S.U.V.'s that we learn of the horror of American sameness, and the freedom and personal authenticity that await us when we fire up a Macintosh or zoom away in a Honda CR-V. Extremism in the pursuit of intensity, the ad men tell us, is no vice. John Walker's generation was encouraged to use 'extreme' cordless drills, buy its Dodges from an extreme used car dealer and catch its trout with an extreme fishing rod. Just for them did ecstatic TV hipsters steer their sedans up Himalayan peaks in search of the phattest possible brand experience. Maybe the boy Talib is simply an attentive consumer, his ill-fated affair with extreme Islam merely a twisted continuation of his search for the weapons-grade authenticity promised him so many times by manufacturers of bell-bottom jeans and lemon-lime soda."

a tree grows...

Recounted Out

It is with the saddest heart that we must pass on the
following news.

Please join us in remembering a great icon of the
entertainment community. The Pillsbury Doughboy died
yesterday of a yeast infection and complications from
repeated pokes in the belly. He was 71. Doughboy was
buried in a lightly greased coffin. Dozens of
celebrities turned out to pay their respects,
including Mrs. Butterworth, Hungry Jack, the
California Raisins, Betty Crocker, the Hostess
Twinkies, and Captain Crunch. The gravesite was piled
high with flours. Aunt Jemima delivered the eulogy
and lovingly described Doughboy as a man who never
knew how much he was kneaded. Doughboy rose quickly
in show business, but his later life was filled with
turnovers. He was not considered a very "smart"
cookie, wasting much of his dough on half-baked
schemes. Despite being a little flaky at times, he
still, as a crusty old man, was considered a roll
model for millions. Doughboy is survived by his wife,
Play Dough; two children, John Dough and Jane Dough;
plus they had one in the oven. He is also survived by
his elderly father, Pop Tart.

The funeral was held at 3:50 for about 20 Minutes.

pornado report : digitalmediatree make-over

Dangerous Dancing

"what would Baudrillard say ?" 9/27/01

ouch!

the first list of British IFAs, or Important Fungus Areas