...more recent posts
The Disposition of the Dead
Maybe I’m growing morose in my unemployment, but I keep running into stories that make me think about our attitudes toward death and corpses... The Post seems to be looking for controversy in this story about a film series being held at Green-wood Cemetery, suggesting that showing horror films there is in bad taste, or disrespectful to the deceased and their families. I don’t know about that, but in researching Central Park I learned that Green-wood (50 years older than the Park) was always used as a recreational site, disregarding the dead, and presaging the need for more parks in the growing city. I wonder how far back that sort of thing goes; seems like Europeans, at least pre-Enlightenment, wouldn’t have been so eager to dally in a graveyard. The same cemetery comes up in the strange story of the murder of councilman James Davis. A plot was donated for Davis, but when the family learned that the ashes of his murderer had already been placed in the same cemetery, they insisted on having him moved. That seems like a primitive attitude for a culture willing to party in the boneyard, but maybe it’s part of a more widespread atavism that goes with our current war mentality. Davis was also the first dignitary to lie in state at City Hall since 1918. Lying in state is a little weird for my tastes; a fetishism of the body that seems old-fashioned to me. It must make sense, though, to the fans of Celia Cruz, who crowded the wake of the late Salsa star, overflowing St Patrick’s, and lining 5th Avenue for her highly public funeral procession. This is all considered an honor, but in the case of politicians, at least part of the “honor” has historically been to offer definitive public proof that the person is really dead. We don’t stick heads on poles around here any more, but something like that was done with the corpses of the Hussein brothers, when our government made public display of grisly photos of their dead bodies, just for verification’s sake of course...
atten DRW......lots of birds thay may be basic byt some beautiful yello and black small ones.....bring equipment:>)...sez skinny
nader's pick for next us pres. what are his chances of winning the democratic nomination?
i've been doing a lot of web surveys lately and i've got to say that frames and sound are about the two most annoying things a web designer can do. what is the point of doing a site with frames anyway?
i failed the bear identification test and won't be shooting any bears this season. what do you montanans do with all that dead bear, anyway?
political compass : east leftnut
Mark Crispin Miller
dead poets and other friends
Alien Inn Counter its not, a Womb based Birth Center of course, like so many others that exist the ancient world over.....
mel torme' / zaz turned blue
(this is so 1997) steve and edie black hole sun
nola in todays nyt : "New Orleans Struggles With a Homicide Rate That Belies Its Size"
"Designing the High Line", an open, international ideas competition seeking visionary design proposals for High Line's reuse as 1.5-mile-long elevated public promenade, culminates in a large-scale exhibition at Grand Central Terminal's Vanderbilt Hall, July 10-26, 2003.
eat an impeach
get the shirt ugly americans
heard on the radio ... Bill hit N.O., some flooding in the French Quarter, at least one tornado. Also, the Stone Pony on the Jersey Shore may go the way of the Armadillo in Austin. And while I'm at itf, from the "Keep Santa Cruz Wierd" front, overheard on Pacific Garden Mall this weekend: three men having a serious and intense political discussion, while one was in full clown regalia.
The public business of this office is now concluded.
There is a tropical storm named Bill forming in the Gulf of Mexico. Go Bill go. Be a hurricane.
Sadly I missed many Neil Young shows when I seasoned on the West Coast, I was too Dead......Last nite show was great, Crazy Horse rocks, the new album/play part took some getting used to but it kicked in bigtime....5th show, Lucinda yahoo!!
{{{OOPS thats 6}}}
#1 1989 Garden w/ Sonic Youth (12th row)
#2 1989 Meadowlands w/ Sonic Youth (Back floor)
#3 1997 PNC Bank Center NJ (Front row)
#4 1998 Bridge XII Shorline (24th row)
#5 1999 Theatre at Garden Solo (seat showed me I need glasses)
#6 2003 Garden w/ Lucinda Williams (8th row)
bioblitzkrieg
Flame Warriors
saw some weird icon in my system tray so i clicked on it. turns out it was the usual temperature reading from central park that had changed colors from its normal easy to read blue to a hazy red. but the reason it had flipped was the reading itself -- 100 degrees. if only it would rain a little....
Wright's cartoon on Op-Ed page of 6/22/03 Times Picayune--shows four panels with a simple picture of a rock drawn in each one. The four panels read:
1. This rock doesn't believe weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq.
2. Or that Iraq actually used such weapons.
3. Or that Iraqis were among the 9/11 hijackers.
4. Which, according to polls, makes it smarter than most Americans.
And conservative columnist George Will chimes in with this (from his recent column entitled The Search For Credibility)--
"Some say the war was justified even if WMDs are not found nor their destruction explained, because the world is 'better off' without Saddam. Of course it is better off. But unless one is prepared to postulate a U.S. right, perhaps even a duty, to militarily dismantle any tyranny--on to Burma?--it is unacceptable to argue that Saddam's mass graves and torture chambers suffice as retrospective justification for pre-emptive war." He ends with this--"Until WMDs are found, or their absence accounted for, there is urgent explaining to be done."
There is nothing new about this sentiment but that it comes from the mouth of George Will I think is an important turning point.
As I mentioned on my page, I found my old blogger username and password while going through some papers today. I signed in, and everything is still there. Here's the first post to this page (although I think this was the front page of the site at that point.)
[10/21/1999 5:32:09 PM | jim b]
Hello there. This is a beta version of the main page at digitalmediatree.com. I'm not at all sure what is going to happen here. My log, which is pretty much the same as what use to be here, is now inside (the link is on left.) This section can be updated by multiple users through the incredible blogger.com. But if you're seeing this you already know about that. Oh well. It's an interesting idea, although I don't know if it could work. memepool seems to run on a similar sturcture (although I don't think they use blogger.) Anyway, like I said, I have no idea what this should be, but it seems cool to be able to do it, so I'm trying to. Seen anything interesting lately?
Did everyone see the article in the times about Rivington street?