(haiku for alex)

A wandering path...
only my grinding footsteps
and the birds' silence

though somewhat resembling bad poetry generated in my youth, the haiku generator can become addictive, at least for 10 minutes, hoping for a good one, before you never want to go back...

we toasted terrence with some champagne (egly rose grand cru) last night - decided it just might be time to break out the jungle wine...?


tonight
nothing to write

but this

> Last night (Monday, April 3) at 2:30 AM Terence McKenna took his last > breath and crossed over. He was surrounded by those he loved, although he > didn't leave this plane until everyone had fallen asleep. Christie was by > his side. > > In Dec. 1999 at Esalen Terence said: > > "Everything is a blessing and everything comes as a gift. And I don't > regret anything about the situation I find myself in. If psychedelics > don't ready you for the great beyond, then I don't know what really does. > And we're all under sentence of 'moving up' at some point in our lives. > > I have an absolute faith that the universe prefers joy and distills us with > joy. That is what religion is trying to download to us, and this is what > every moment of life is trying to do-if we can open to it. And we > psychedelic people, if we could secure that death has no sting, we would > have done the greatest service to suffering intelligence that can be done. > > And I feel that death is close, and I feel strong because of this > (psychedelic) community and these people and plants that it rests on, and > the ancient practices that it rests on, and I am full of hope, not only for > my own small problems, but for humanity in general." >

Yes, we were down for a few hours this morning. Nothing serious (thank goddess.) I guess I really need to cache a static version of the site every so often so that I can at least serve up something when the database goes down. I'll get right on it:) Cheers to the amazing folk at Hurricane Electric for responding promptly to the very rare instances of problems on their machines.

I noticed it was down at about 9:20 am; anyone have an earlier time?

OK, I've created a few new sections here on the inside. I wrote a little note in SystemNews about this. Basically I'm just experimenting. I copied Bill's piece from yesterday into its own section (creatively named "bill") and I'm hoping that he keeps posting random interesting bits there. We are still working on a more focused external page for him, but you'll see that when we get something up.

I've had the pleasure recently (thanks to Bill) of communicating with another Jim - Jim Louis. He is a sort of pioneer in this medium that we are all experimenting with here. Since May of '97 he has been publishing via email a series of short pieces describing his life in Louisianna, under the title: e.mail from NOLA. The publishing has been to a very circumscribed audience, and we're looking in to how we can expand that. There are some issues with the extreme verite (names, events, ect.) of these pieces, so for the time being we are picking up this really great series, but only on the "inside" of the site here. For now, guests won't see it. Jim will make further decisions down the road. In any case, I have the good fortune to have received a (huge) hard copy of the entire 3 year run, and this stuff is very good. You can all judge for yourself, of course, as they come in, but this is the sort of personal journalism that I think the web is all about. Very thoughtful stuff. Enjoy.

News about how absinthe works. via honeyguide

Finita La Comedia, Occidentalis Technicus Neo Barbarus

This post now resides in the Bill section.

The april edition of spark is out. If you've never heard of spark then join the club, because I hadn't either. Mr. Barbelith says spark is an "example of what I want the new barbelith to achieve." That's some pretty good praise. Maybe this is the cool professional level on line magazine that everyone's been waiting for?

hmmm. is this a paradox or is it "apples and oranges" (mutually exclusivity)? i understand the disconnect but i thought it interesting nonetheless. advocates of open source coding are likely strong supporters of privacy rights. why is transparency called for in one arena and not the other? discuss.

drudge report ran with same pix as dmtree.

Heading to the park today for a sure sign of spring, but this time it's the ballpark, for the Mets' home opener. I'm dubious about the weather and the seats, not to mention the team. I'm really an American League fan (comes from growing up in Detroit), but I've learned to support both the locals. At the peak of my involvement, I went to more than 50 games in 1986, Mets and Yankees, including the 7th game of the World Series. My interest has been up and down since then. Saw a couple of thrilling playoff games in '95, with Mike & Linda, and I did enjoy the Yankees' triumph the following year. Now that they're back in the winning habit, I'm a bit jaded; is this what it was like in the 50s? (not to mention the 30s, the 20s, the early 60s…) OK, it's not like the early Steinbrenner years. Joe Torre (whose baseball card used to frighten me when I was 10) has done an amazing job of keeping things together in the midst of every kind of distraction imaginable, while the Boss has finally allowed his "baseball people" to keep some young talent, so that instead of the endless parade of has-beens like Rick Rhoden and Ken Phelps, we have Mariano Rivera and Derek Jeter. The Mets are another story. They've certainly been interesting the last couple of years, but despite some heroics, they've ended up losing ugly both times. And I cannot warm up to Bobby Valentine. Truth is, I'd rather watch the NCAA final tonight, but I fear I'll lose consciousness before it's over. I'll root for Michigan State, but even that's a compromise. My dad's a University of Michigan alumnus, so I was raised to root against State, at least until UM is eliminated. My favorite expression of the rivalry comes when the football teams play each other in Ann Arbor, and the UM band ridicules the agricultural heritage of the State school by serenading them with "The Farmer in the Dell". Oh well, I guess I'll go and see if I can tell the difference between the beer and the rain.

I love that Alex updated his site at 5:53 this morning. Now that's dedication.

HOLY SMOKES





These amazing pictures (from the BBC of course) show "dramatic rings of steam and gas being blown out of volcanic vents on the side of mighty Mount Etna in Sicily."

Iffin you caint go, Gorky's will play an acoustic set live on 91.1 WFMU radio this afternoon, somewhere in the 3-6 area.

listening...
after a while,
i take up my axe again

-r willmot

(...i've just found the haiku anthology i swiped from library school student lounge last year...prepare yourselves for more)

I've heard about the Gorky's guys for years, but never listened to them. Seems like they might be up my alley. Any first ear experiences?
How did last weeks Maxwells show run, logistics-wise? i.e. how late?
Also of note: Flaming Lips have a headphone concert at Irving Plaza on 4/17. I saw a vivid show of theirs at the Pyramid around '87, '88. They've hung around, and in recent years gained critical acclaim, and a penchant for experiment. Another case of "I'd like to go, but…"?

Gorky's Zygotic Mynci @ Maxwell's in Hoboken this Friday evening w/ Mary Timony (Helium) and Butterflies of Love opening. I'm going. Should be pretty groovy, love to see anyone else there too. Beauty Goddess post Mr. W

mal|content

web atlas

Here's an old story which, like it subject, won't go away. The NY Post devotes an entire page to Latimeria chalumnae, the Ceolacanth. This was big news in the 30s, but apparently a new book is dredging up interest again. Now I understand why Volkswagen used this "living fossil" as the hook in a recent commercial. The fish appears closely related to the Crossopterygians, or lobe-finned fishes, whose fleshy fins are assumed to be ancestral to our limbs (check 'em out at this site). The image of lung fish conquering the land (bottom of page) has become an icon of our secular origin story, i.e. evolution. Latimeria lacks lungs, but is in many respects quite similar to our Devonian ancestors. The lady who lent her name to the fish is now 92, and grumpy about the whole thing. She should take a lesson from all those 60s TV stars who spent years complaining about being trapped by their roles, but are now happily taking them to the bank.

stolen from imake.8k.com.

This happened to me once too, except I think we were on our way back from a dead show. Got to love those pictures. (strangely, via camworld.)

how about rocky horror picture show as saturday afternoon tv fare? it seems a little off the wall and sexually explicit for that hour. which is not to say im not enjoying it. much funnier than a tiger woods temper tantrum. i guess at this point its really not much beyond the realm of zena. well except for the cross dressing and overt homosexuality or should i say that polyphonic perversity? ohh those crazy 70s. they were so......sumpin.

I've been reading this guy for a while, but haven't ever linked to him. I really like the format, although of course some issues (?) are better than others. I like this latest one. The web is great for this sort of slice of life non fiction. (His meta tags are funny too.)

Did anybody catch this (disappearing) story? Robotwisdom had the first mention that I saw, tagging the link "an uncanny school-shooting map coincidence." Always interested in uncanny coincidences I clicked through only to be met with a 404 page not found. Maybe the link was typed in wrong I thought, so I checked the progressive review (which Jorn had credited with the original story,) and they did indeed have the mention, calling it a "curious coincidence" and really stressing that scientifically, "correlation does not confirm causation." Man, I thought, this map must really be suggestive of something, but alas, their link 404'd as well. I guess it was just a little too suggestive for the University of Missouri-Rolla's lawyers. Anyway, does anyone know what the deal with this map is/was? I'm imagining all sorts of weird stuff.

Speaking of art reviews (you're keeping track of all these threads, aren't you?) I don't think we've mentioned the excellent Barry Schwabsky take, in Artforum, on Steve's recent film show at Marianne Boesky Gallery. Too bad they don't post it on their site. If work is good enough, it commands the appropriate response. Steve hasn't always been properly understood in the "art world", but this time someone got it right. Now what about that film party, dude?