Cure for the winter blues

I've enjoyed the recent Spiritualized record, Let It Come Down. Masterminded by Jason Pierce, formerly of the 80's British psychedelic-minimalist band Spacemen Three, Spiritualized has a wider range, but is still founded in hypnotic layers of sound. I can't even really point to specific great songs, and a lot of their stuff tends to blend in my head, but the cumulative effect can be overwhelming. More trance than dance, their model is the wave rather than the beat. Their "spirituality" is that of the sinner who knows better, but isn't necessarily planning on reforming. They constantly work a metaphor of addictive longing, which makes little distinction between god, love, and drugs. I've seen them play several times, with mixed results. The live band took a while to jell, and one show was ruined by muddy sound, but the last time around they were stellar. Their upcoming show at the Beacon might be worth catching.

uk housing shortage encourages shorter housing

i always thought it was "aint got no bird surfer ticket on me now."

one great dish at Bond St. (the risotto) but over all underwelming, The Basil people opened #3 called The Basil we went to taste last night and it looks good, and taste's great for a soft opening night, fab wine list!!!...

"So says a report on the three cable news outlets by news analyst Andrew Tyndall for Terrence Smith's media unit at PBS' NewsHour With Jim Lehrer."

How to cook a lot of broccoli.

The Jersey City public library gives free internet access in 30 min. alotments. (17 min's remaining.) This looks like it's going to work for me.

She Never Read the Books and Dozed Through the Movie

"Now Mr. Cheney is Lord of the Rings, ruling over his very own Moria, an underground kingdom of bureaucratic hobbits and orcs." --Maureen Dowd, March 3 NYT editorial

frontline: the monster that ate hollywood

Out on his axis.

simple is usually better, lunch today at Marichu another place i never heard of was clean, flavorful, comfortable and well priced,
wine list ok....looking forward to going back....

Another round in the Trojan War.
Troy reconstructed

Wine auction.

we watched Lidia of Felidia cooking on TV sunday so when monday rolled around we went right in for lunch. great wine list with lots of super estates but its an expensive place to drink, we settled in on a bargin 1994 Knoll Gruner Smaragd for $66 bucks, awesome!!

I just finished reading Kitchen Confidential. It was a fun read, but I'm wondering how it was received in the biz.

That’s all, folks.
Animator Chuck Jones is dead.

I'm amazed and pleased to learn that Laura Miller, a muckracking journalist of many years (not the Salon book critic), has just been elected Mayor of Dallas in a runoff vote. Dallas is the heart of Bush Country, a city run behind the scenes by righteous conservative businessmen. Miller's in for the fight of her life, but that this can happen in Dallas, now, gives me hope that there may be enough populist anger about Enron, etc., to evict Bush and the other thieves come 2004. The odds against her winning were simply unbelievable!

Oh, those tabloids!

When I saw the giant Daily News headline SARAH! I thought they were congratulating our friend Sarah Macfadden on her big jewelry sale to toney retailer ABC Carpet & Home, but our Sarah's not that big (not yet): it was surprise gold medal figure skater Sarah Hughes of Long Island. She's also on the front of the Post, under a big headline screaming MURDERED, which made me start, until I saw that it was an unfortunate congruence with the sad story of captive Wall St Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. You know these editors are agonizing over what is the real news. But the best line was on the back of the Post, where a picture of fallen favorite Michelle Kwan was tagged NO KWAN DO!

I like the fractal tree. Very bauhuaroque!

im listening to a radioshow which asked, "whats the worst tv spinoff of all time?"

1) The Ropers
2) Enos
3) Fish
4) Flo
5) afterMASH



they disqualified joanie loves chachi because they thought it too obvious. others mentioned were a jeffersons spinoff for the housekeeper, carmine apparently had one from laverne and shirley, three sanford and sons spinoffs, two whats happening spinoffs and gloria and archie bunkers place from all in the family. any favorites?

whats the deal with ultra wideband, not to be confused with the average white band?

Hey Alex, have you seen this: Patuxent Bird Identification InfoCenter?

Still haven’t come up with that LOTR movie review. Probably should see it again; first time around I was preoccupied with comparing it to my own imaginings. It measured up pretty well, but what about Tolkien’s vision? Well, here’s a good presentation of Pictures by J. R. R. Tolkien, which includes most of his illustrations for LOTR, The Hobbit, and the Silmarillion. He wasn’t a great artist, but an effective illustrator, and his renderings must be considered definitive. In line with his prose, he excels at landscape, which he lovingly describes in the books (these pictures were clearly studied by the filmmakers), but he could barely draw figures. Just so, his written descriptions of persons are often vague and general, which leaves room for your own imagination, but is rather frustrating for the geek who wants to know what an Elf really looks like. I can only find one picture with Elves, and while it’s one of my favorites, it’s not much help. It’s like a Claude Lorraine: the figures are just a foil for the landscape. Still, you can see (try this oversized version) that these Elves wear culottes and pointy shoes! In fact, Tolkien’s conceptions are much closer to Victorian fairy art than today’s sword and sorcery fans would probably like.