Got to see the NYT in hard copy today and found this



40'X8'X8' Shipping containers were also in the news again. The City of Newark just noticed how high the stacks were getting and are complaining cause they're blocking their view of the NYC skyline. We have been importing them two to one over exporting them for years. Buy your retirement homes now while they're cheep!

On July 26, I wondered when the Bush "Who cares what you think?" story would appear in the NY Times, marking its complete transition from obscure e-mail to world news. Evidently it appeared sometime between late July and today, because James Wolcott mentions it on Slate: "There was an incident reported recently in the New York Times where a man in Philadelphia politely expressed his disappointment with some of Bush's decisions, and Bush snapped, 'Who cares what you think?' That, I believe, is the true Bush."

which actor's or actress's movies have the highest total gross?

this is sort of what was discussed a while back.

"CINEMA PRESENTS Launches National In-Cinema Network Offering Live Concert and Other Specialty Programming Events"

polly, want a cracker?

hello everybody--i didnt go on my 3 day boat trip downriver--due to luck and love i recieved otherization for a trip up into the restricted areas, a place i dought many americans have ever been, i would like to tell you all about it and one day will, but exploration comes at a price and i am fairly sick, i am at the bar palmistes and am going to see if rum will help--off the fete of st laurant manana for a few days with a side trip to see the leatherback turtles being born on the atlantic..........love wheel

anybody want to speculate on the possibility of carbonated icecubes?

king leer

Just as I was beginning to wonder how much more post-feminist tolerance of advertising sleaze there could possibly be, I saw the following, markered onto subway posters:

On a Budweiser ad of a jock hoisting a bikini-clad babe onto his shoulders, the words STOP RAPE CULTURE. (Underneath, in smaller letters, someone wrote "Stop Bud Culture.")

On a King Cobra ad of a nude Hispanic girl hiding demurely behind a giant beer can, the caption WOMEN ARE WORTH MORE THAN THIS.

heres a bit of mindless clinton bashing or shrub fluffing, depending on your point of view, from us news.

"There must be some kind of high to working for the first family, because it sure ain't the money. White House salary figures obtained by Washington Whispers show that for most posts–except the very top–annual pay is equal to or less than former President Clinton's rate of three years ago. In fact, President Bush's $23 million payroll is $84,000 less annually than Clinton's in June 1998, although he's employing about the same number of staffers. And that's despite hiking the top rate from $125,000 to $140,000 for close aides including Chief of Staff Andrew Card, spokesman Ari Fleisher, aides Karen Hughes and Karl Rove, legal chief Alberto Gonzales, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, lobbyist Nick Calio, economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey, and faith-based guru John DiIulio. Office heads paid more by Clinton than Bush: personal secretary, communications, political affairs, and even some on the first lady's staff, including Laura Bush's press secretary and chief of staff. Lowest paid: $25,000 for mail openers. New to Bush: six ethics advisers making an average of $84,900 each."

so essentially, if bush hired one more ethics adviser, and god knows he can use them, then the white house payroll would be exactly the same. i would hardly call that a notable difference. heres a complete list of salaries for the white house staff. or you could look at it this way, bush pays his executives more and his peons less, just like every other CEO.

i actually read a news report that referred to Rush Hour 2s box office numbers as "boffo." and i always like how they find a way to call it the best something, in this case, the best non holiday weekend opening. that was the headline at inside.com which is all inside was giving away for free. gee. i guess ill go to yahoo where they give that press release information away for free (for now).

Monday, August 6th @ 10:30 pm or thereabouts.
BACKROOM film night at The Parkside Lounge (Houston at Ridge, south side of Houston)
Film and music lounge. Admission is free, guests are encouraged to drink and converse.
I'll be showing a bunch of stuff including the re-edited Betwixed, footage of the Brooklyn Tank implosion and home movies shot by both my grandfathers. Hope to see you there.

"When soft rock hit in the early 1970's, I think people just thought the [Boomer] generation was taking a nap," he said. "In reality, we were going to sleep. We never woke up again."

the odder couple

Just waiting on some kids to wake up--I don't know who it is I'm stepping over to get to my computer--so they can assist in the loading of a U-Haul which will be loaded with "stuff" to take to a storage shed so M's workers can finish the back two rooms of her house. It's funny how there doesn't seem to be as many kids sleeping over this weekend. Isn't that funny? I've popped a handful of Ibuprofen and although I don't see "handful" in the prescribed dosage I'm sure like so many things it is an area open to interpretation.

Surf Shack

the cia headquarters in langley va is now called The George Bush Center for Intelligence.

song of the common loon

song of a humpback whale

Acconci Studio: poet---->artist---->design guy ?

current wines containing stagecoach grapes (of which my father owns a small share) --

atalon merlot and cabernet, 1998

cain 5, cain concept, cain cuvee

conn creek merlot, 1998

fisher coach insignia, 1998

hobbs napa valley cabernet, 1999

honig cabernet, "stagecoach cuvee," 1999

miner family merlot, vineyard designate: stagecoach 1999

rabbit ridge reserve merlot, 1998

robert pepi sangiovese, 1999

round hill van asperen, merlot and cabernet

rutherford hill reserve merlot

stag leap wine cellars, napa valley cabernet

tom eddy cabernet, 1999

villla mt eden, grand reserve cabernet

villa mt eden, signature series, 1998

zd cabernet, 1998

Celestial Themes in Art
(lots of images on one page: slow loading)

APOCALYPSE NOW REDUX
NY Post
Expanded, cleaned-up version of hallucinatory 1979 masterpiece. Running time: 196 minutes. Rated R (violence, female nudity). At the Astor Plaza and the Lincoln Square. This version of the 1979 masterpiece has been re-edited by director and co-writer Francis Ford Coppola and co-editor Walter Murch to include nearly 50 minutes of footage left out of the original release.

Unseen Cinema: Early American Avant-Garde Film 1893–1941 at the whitney.

"Michael Moorcock, a living saint of English gutter fiction, once observed that Victorian middle-class morality had erected wrought-iron rails about the confines of what could be considered literature--essentially Jane Austen and the novel of manners. All other forms of writing, like genre fiction and the literature of the fantastic, were exiled to the wastelands out past the perimeters. Literature was a vanity mirror for the social strata that could afford to be literate, and only writing that reflected an absorption in the social intricacies of the book-buying classes would be allowed past the gate, past the critics, past the guard dogs. This still obtains. No admission for the too-flamboyantly attired, for the impassioned and overexcited, for the rowdy or intoxicated or possessed, who are relocated to where the surfaced roads peter out and the inbred web-toed monsters really start to kick in. With the gothic melodramas and pornographies and ranting pamphlets. This isn't a nice district. You're not likely to have a park named after you. On the other hand, there are advantages . . ."

--from an interview with Alan Moore, writer of the graphic novels Watchmen and From Hell.

Broadcast TV is all but hopeless. I figured Muslims in Appalachia had to be the most fascinating subject around, but it turned out to be utterly boring. It was on Ch25, the public service channel that shows lots of ethnic programming, along with PBS stuff that didn’t make the cut at Ch13. They do have one good show: Classic Arts Showcase. It’s a clip show, but without the frenzied presentation we’re used to. There’s no host, just a stately sequence of videos, with long dissolves between them, and titles superimposed at intro and exit. Like MTV, but very slow. Everything is public domain or donated. Mostly it’s classical music, but a wide range of performances from different times, including a lot of historically notable footage. It’s interesting to see how the conventions of performance and presentation have changed over the course of the last century. They also have dance, bits from theater and movies, and once in a while they come up with some weird gem, like an obscure quasi-futurist animation, a vaudeville routine, or an architecture documentary. Beats “reality” programming, and it’s easy to ignore while you’re trying to write a post.