Monday, December 31, 2001 ::: I am posting from chicago, where I am spending new year's. So probably no updates for the next couple of days until I'm back in dc.
Thursday, December 27, 2001 ::: So you might be wondering where to find out about your congressman's campaign donations and where they come from. opensecrets.org has the information.
Monday, December 17, 2001 ::: The Gallery of Regrettable Food has some new recipe books since the last time I checked. The gallery has always been a perennial favorite of mine.
Tuesday, December 11, 2001 ::: There is going to be a Broadway musical of Hairspray! There was a casting call in Baltimore, and I especially like the picture accompanying this article. I forget where I saw this.
There was a very interesting article about the children's book author lemony snicket, here unmasked as one daniel handler, who has apparently also written several books for adults as well, which sound suitably odd. I was glad to see that he was very much influenced by roald dahl, as I always appreciated him a writer who treated children as intelligent people. Oh, and here's another article, this time in the guardian, with a mother's point of view. That article via linkwatcher.
I must also point out the author bio from the books - "Lemony Snicket was born in a small town where the inhabitants were suspicious and prone to riot. He now lives in the city. During his spare time he gathers evidence and is considered something of an expert by leading authorities." Which I find succint and to the point.
Very interesting series from the associated press about land theft in the south. Theft of black farms, stores, etc. through harassment, intimidation, questionable legal cases and by any means possible. this from the the scoop.
Thursday, October 18, 2001 ::: I got my new yorker in the mail yesterday and it was an excellent issue. I noticed one of the articles creeping up the list on blogdex, but I was particularly interested in the review of the book that came out about some like it hot. It's from taschen, that publisher of saucy books. I had, in fact just rented the movie last weekend, so I thought it all a rather happy coincidence what with the movie being fresh in my mind.
Tuesday, October 16, 2001 ::: Oh, it seems that some scientists have decided to make flourescent pigs. this via blather. Reminds me of that glow-in-the-dark rabbit brouhaha from a while back. The oddest thing about these genetically engineered animals is their complete unawareness that they are very very odd. Kind of like a three-legged dog. Not only does the dog not realize that everyone who sees is stares unabashedly, it also does not care.
That feisty Renata Adler still has more to say. She certainly seems to have a knack for making enemies, but I have to say her reply to the whole Sirica thing in Harper's from a while ago was an excellent refutation of the accusations that she had made libellous statements - On the contrary, what she wrote was a very interesting take on the whole matter and I really do hope someone writes a book about him with all this taken into account. People are human. Sometimes bad people do good things, and Sirica may very well have been one of those. Or perhaps a good person who has done bad things. Or whatever.
Which is not to say that I agree with everything Ms. Adler has to say in regard to the New Yorker and New York literati in general. Of course the literary culture of the city has changed over the past fifty years, and some of those changes have been for the better and some for the worse. But I should probably not pontificate too much seeing as how I have not read her book. It's been on my list for a while though.
Monday, October 15, 2001 ::: There was an interesting article in the paper today about Baltimore's mayor O'Malley. Showing off Baltimore's new admininstrative tool, CitiStat. They have a Citistat map of the week up on the city web site, it is always interesting, if a bit difficult to figure out what exactly is being described. They could use some better explanations.
Tuesday, October 09, 2001 ::: Today I came across this site concerning the history of the typewriter. There were some exceedingly bizarre early typewriters, like the first one pictured which does indeed resemble a pincusion as the authors claim. Or perhaps a portuguese man-o-war. something threatening, no doubt.
Saturday, September 22, 2001 ::: And now I have returned, and things are so very different. My weekend getaway to new york last month seems oddly innocent. I was in Kyrgyzstan when all this happened, and it was a while before I actually really got to see what had happened. Nonetheless, despite all the extra security and canceled flights and all that, I managed to make it back to washington on the flight I had booked, and got in last sunday. Washington looked normal, almost. I wasn't expecting flags everywhere, but there they were, on the back windows of cars, in front of houses, big huge flags hung on the side of buildings, and little small ones in the coffee shop where I often get breakfast.
The trip, despite the unfortunate events that occurred elsewhere, was simply amazing. Central Asia is so beautiful, such stunning mountain ranges and vast herds of cattle, sheep, and horses. It could be the old west were it not for the occasional yurt on the horizon. I have taken pictures and intend to scan them in. I have a few more rolls that I left with my father to get developed and send me. There are pictures of yaks on those rolls, so I hope I get them soon, as I would like to scan them in also
Monday, August 20, 2001 ::: This weekend I went to New York! Lots of fun. bought some neat pants. and I got a superb cd, the man who. very very fond of travis, which sounds very sundays and smiths and that sort of thing.
This article in New City Chicago goes on to say more about the real word protests and I must say that the whole affair sounds a little bizarre. If I were still living in chicago I would want to be there not so much to participate but rather to observe the spectacle. I really do wonder how much wicker park has changed since I left. I really liked to go there especially since at the time it seemed so secret from hyde park - hardly anyone had heard of it, or at least it seemed that way.
Tuesday, August 07, 2001 ::: So it seems that the real world has continued to remain a controversial issue in wicker park. But I didn't know people were that upset about it until now.
Had a blast this weekend at madonnarama, and I must say was surprised to discover that it was a newsworthy event. But then again, fun in dc is a rare event.
Tuesday, July 31, 2001 ::: Found this very interesting diary from inside the closet. Things like this make me feel wrong for being so voyeuristic but it's always just so damn interesting.
Very interesting article in the sun about this book I read a while ago, Ali and Nino. The original author remained a mystery for quite some time until a recent new yorker article. It generally concerns baku at the time of the first world war and the russian revolution and also star-crossed lovers, east-west culture clashes and is generally an absolutely fascinating read.
Friday, July 27, 2001 ::: So I am trying the new template with the WPA angel-workers thing. Not too sure I like the color scheme entirely, as I don't like lavender and lime green links all the time. But I am quite enthralled with the WPA-looking stuff. and the little thing at the top. I was also considering the geodesic dome thing, but decided that it was a little visually distracting. I need to also update the sidebar, but all the tables make it a little difficult to indicate where to put that. More improvements to come, assuredly.
So I haven't really put up what I've been listening to recently. I go the Rufus Wainwright cd right when it came out and have been listening to it ever since. So amazing. Well-crafted. worth a listen. I also started listening to the only opera cd I have, Bizet's Carmen with Maria Callas. The opera I love and I am quite fascinated with the whole Callas life story, but I have heard better carmens, sorry to say. Oh, I also just got a supreme beings of leisure cd, which I happen rather to like, especially the first track.
It would seem that despite all their editorials on the matter, the new york times is not printing gay and lesbian wedding announcements. The logic, apparently is that they are not legally recognized as marriages in the U.S. So if someone gets married in Holland, do they get one then? I should certainly hope so.
Tuesday, July 24, 2001 ::: The Baltimore Sun has a truly amazing photo series which is impossible to link to, but concerns the recent fire. click on the photoessay thing on the sidebar.
A very long and interesting article about scholarly infighting and the legacy of CS Lewis. I forget where I saw this, but points to who found it, cause I love love love that chronicle of higher education.
Tuesday, July 17, 2001 ::: There was an article a while ago in the Atlantic Monthly about students at Princeton and a sort of general panicky what has become of our children kind of thing. Nonetheless, despite the somewhat overwrought alarm, I found it to be a fairly accurate depiction of elite university education in this day and age.
So the Chicago real world is not surprisingly in wicker park. figures. The poster store down the street from where this picture was taken is the best I have ever been to.
So now google has a statistics page. Lots of fun and generally full of colorful charts and the like. This was a link from somewhere else but unfortunately I forget where.
This particular site was a recent blog of note. The fact that someone TOOK NOTES while watching jerry springer is something I find truly odd. This does however, remind me of the days when I had cable and would watch talk soup. I haven't seen Aisha Tyler host yet, but I hear she's good. Simply loved Hal Sparks and am alled thrilled for him doing queer as folk now, which I haven't seen either, it being premium cable and thus doubly out of my viewing possibilities.
The most recent cover story for the city paper is all about rats. rats rats rats. It seemed like a good excuse for the photographer to take a lot of gross pictures loosely associated with the subject matter. The article itself, however, is interesting, vivid, informative and generally very good. The post has not dealt with the issue nearly as well, in my opinion, and apparently, the city paper's as well, as they engage in a few digs of their own against that other paper.
Wednesday, June 13, 2001 ::: So I came across this superfabulous election atlas which has every US election since 1789. Many maps have a "what if?" button which will show you another possible outcome. This is one neat little toy.
Newish McSweeneys lists: a very good one of canceled morning tv shows, such as "Hot Coffee Thrown in Houston's Face" in the line of the earlier ways to cook and eat celine dion.
The Resource Shelf, previously linked, has some neat stuff! like this kind of silly rich towns list. I'm not too sure I would use median home prices if I were making this list, but I didn't make it so I guess I can't complain. The worth site seems overly concerned with money, but I guess that's kind of to be expected.
The Chicago Transit Authority has the most helpful public transportation maps I know of. Buses! El! Subway! Train! All on one map! If only dc could do the same.
Thursday, May 10, 2001 ::: The washington city paper has had two very interesting cover stories, one about shoplifting, and the other about having the olympics here. The print edition is out, but the newest article hasn't shown up online at post time. So this is either about shoplifting or the olympics. It's a little weblog russian roulette.
Have a question about something that happened in texas? The Handbook of Texas Online has all the answers. ALL the answers.
Oh, look: someone has kindly grouped together a bunch of publishing trade magazines for the people who need that sort of thing.
Sunday, May 06, 2001 ::: I finally finally got more of my web page up. The index page takes a long time to upload, which probably bad but whatever. Those feeling impatient can skip here to the main page.
Saturday, May 05, 2001 ::: This is supersupercool. Someone has created this thing where you can look at aerial photos and zoom in and out and it all looks quite amazing. Unfortunately, it doesn't work on my computer at home cause I've been lazy about updates of netscape/explorer, but the scrolling and zooming abilities are amazing! I found my apartment building! and my office! and my old dorm! give it a shot, cause it is SO worth your while. The point that I chose is chicago, I believe.
So I've been really really into my record player recently. And I've been listening to Yaz, which is supergood, and similarly also to this Erasure album, and less similarly this Madness album, especially "embarrassment" which is just a sublime song.
Sunday, April 29, 2001 ::: I read an interesting article about margaret cho in the blade. She, of course, has a web site, which has some excerpts from her book. And she is coming to washington! on may 11! I am so there.
Wednesday, April 25, 2001 ::: On Monday, I went to go see Dave Eggers, Author of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. I was going to go home and write a diary entry but my computer was grumpy and I was tired and hungry but I wanted to get it all down before I forgot too much. Blogger has been grumpy recently, so my preamble appears today instead of yesterday, but I guess that sets things off rather nicely and stuff. so the description of events begins below.
Tuesday, April 24, 2001 ::: The reading was at a church on connecticut avenue north of dupont circle and kind of near my gym. So I left work and got off on the north side of the station and walked up connecticut avenue and discovered that it was this episcopal church that had completely escaped my notice previously even though I am always walking there since it’s the way to the gym from my apartment. There was a small crowd gathered early and I was initially a little nervous that there wouldn’t be any tickets but there was a woman there at the door with a fistful of nice green tickets and I took one and walked into the church.
The first thing I noticed was that it smelled like a church, a smell that I had completely forgotten about until recently. This church also had a wood roof, which I think is uncommon in catholic churches, with which I am very familiar and being constantly bored during mass as a child, I became intimitely familiar with the decor.
It was already somewhat crowded when I got there and it continued to fill up as I waited. I hadn’t brought anything to read and so was rather bored and eavesdropped on the conversations around me and generally attempted to get a feel for who made up the audience, which seemed to by slightly geeky students and lest I fail to include myself, slightly geeky recent college graduates. The people sitting in front of me, however, didn’t seem to fit the pattern and were also rather religious about saving a large number of seats. The woman sitting next to me mentioned that she actually attended the church on a regular basis as she moved the books covering the pew to the floor to make room.
So after sitting around for a while, during which time I read all the articles in the paper that I had skipped in the morning, including a toadying puff-piece on christie todd whitman, and also writing out my shopping list, things finally got started.
First, someone from the bookstore talked a bit to introduce dave eggers and do some general promotion and the like, and then yielded the floor to him. And so I finally got to see him in person. Eggers is handsome, with tanned, bronze skin and curly brown hair and has a definite stage presence. The feel is very much like the same feel that comes out of the book, that he is a smart entertaining guy who is generally fun to be around and is also very very good at telling stories.
He charmed the audience with his initial impression and behaved almost like a standup comedian it seemed (but a good one). He chatted up the audience and bantered and this is where my chronological sense of the evening begins to get a little fuzzy, but after talking with a woman in the audience about her sweater, he invited her up on stage for a reading of a section of the book about a PTA meeting. I generally thought book readings were clumsy attempts to speak things that sounded much much better when written, but this particular reading really brought the passage in the book to life. The informal tone of the book is a tone well suited to the spoken word. The woman who read the dialogue of an inquisitive parent was excellent.
Also, there Eggers read from McSweeney’s the facetious letters to heads of major corporations from someone writing from the point of view of a dog. In the magazine, they look stupid. But when read aloud, they are really really funny in a michael mooreish way, but without the cringing feeling of embarrassment of crashing the GM stockholders meeting.
Oh, and I almost forgot. the people in front of me for whose benefit all that seat-saving was being done included none other than dave eggers’s brother who is as I remember from the book a motivational speaker and a republican. He looks like dave eggers, if he had become and motivational speaker and a republican.
So then, arthur bradford (once again, exact chronology hazy) came up and read a story with guitar accompaniment which was hailed as being a new thing, but no one brought up alice’s restaurant but that would have been spoiling the moment I guess. The story was the sort of thing that I believe was better read out loud than quietly with a book. which is good, because that is how it happened, along with the smashing of the author’s guitar towards the end, at which point he produced a new guitar, this whole course of events eliciting shock and amusement from the audience, who were probably also slightly disgusted by hearing a story which prominently featured a slug. Springfield, Virginia, by the way, is heavily populated with slugs, or at least it was when I was little. but I digress.
So then Amy Fusselman read a bit from a book of hers which is coming out which is about her father and his death and his days on a liberty ship in WWII and about trying to get pregnant though she didn’t read those parts. maybe because she was pregnant at the reading and that would have been kind of weird. I don’t know. The passage in question was kind of ok I guess, but not perhaps a little too serious in tone for what was otherwise a rather light-hearted evening. dave eggers and amy fusselman both have very good hairdos.
So then there was a reading from the paperback version of heartbreaking....genius which is briefly alluded to in the hardback and involved a whale. Very very interesting but then I’m a sucker for charismatic megafauna.
So then there was a question and answer session which was really kind of a disappointment as most of the questions were not very interesting and also mostly about toph and there was naturally not going to be any sort of informative response on the “where is toph now?” question. I hadn’t really gone to ask questions. What sort of questions would I ask? people always ask about what authors or books influence writers, but they never ask what magazines they read. But I thought of that after I had left. So I didn’t ask any questions. In general, the question and answer session left a bad taste in my mouth but I don’t really feel like going into detail about it. Afterwards there was a book signing, which I didn’t stay for but as eggers was signing with glitter and magic markers I am sure that it was very fun. I was very hungry and the church pews were hard and uncomfortable and so I made my way out of the church and onto the street.
Tuesday, April 03, 2001 ::: Oh, Ted Rall has a new site up. With a nice little clickable calendar that you can use to see other recent cartoons. very nice.
Sunday, March 11, 2001 ::: some more from the post...
So it seems that after this spy double-agent whatnot it was revealed the the US dug a tunnel underneath russian embassy in the otherwise uneventful DC neighborhood of glover park. what's more, they were so into their tunnel that they offered tours of the tunnel to counterintelligence officials. And so now the locals have decided to do some snooping around the neighborhood. I love living in washington.
Thursday, March 01, 2001 ::: All sorts of things are turning up in electronic/web form, such as North American Women's Letters and Diaries. Which I am now working on....
I guess I should mention that I have a lot of links of late but haven't quite had the time to put them up. so some of them are a little outdated. But still worth your while, dammit. therefore, you will still enjoy this photograph, secure in the knowledge that Jean Chretien don't get no respect, nor accents grave and acute. That, by the way, was from Strange Brew, which is very purply and seemingly canadian. oh look, alice's latest entry ought to go over here in fabulousness, what with it having to do with linguistics and all.
Wednesday, February 14, 2001 ::: I just finished reading Ravelstein, which I liked as a book although the characters I found somewhat disturbing in their casual acceptance of conspicuous consumption. Which is not to say that it is not a fascinating read. tangentially, this article features a great part of the debate in which allan bloom was in, the idea of what should be included in the literary canon.
continuing on this thread, I was very pleased to discover learn the New Yorker site has finally been launched. It seems that they have gone the route of New York magazine, choosing to publish some but not all of the articles in the issue for that week. Which seems sensible to me - enough to get people interested and possibly buy subscriptions.
Parrots are apparently living happily in Brooklyn, New York. There was a recent New Yorker article about all this, and some looking around reminded me that there are also wild parrots where I used to live in Chicago. There are also parrots living in Austin and San Francisco, but it seems a little less exotic over there.
Saturday, February 10, 2001 ::: Yurts! Apparently, a new LA trend, dovetailing nicely with the Los Angeles guesthouse, a time-honored tradition among the city's elite, even though it seems most of them are in fact illegal.
recently, I have really really been getting into this stereolab cd. So so catchy. I found myself humming all the songs while walking down the street and being a little embarrassed. but still, really really good. especially tracks 2, 4 and 5.
Wednesday, February 07, 2001 ::: If you feel the need for a poll, gallup has them in spades. all divided up by subject. and they even have international polls, for israeli elections and british attitudes about how the labour party is handling domestics issues. a rich, full-bodied brew of polls.
Thursday, February 01, 2001 ::: so I read this article in today's post about the unusual perfume store that sells perfume that smells like dirt, among other things, and I must say that this is a fabulous idea, because although I do not particularly want to smell like dirt, I think that generally most perfumes smell pretty much the same and that it might be better to smell a little different. and if you want perfume that doesn't smell like perfume, the whole product line is available here, thanks to those ohsohip people over at fashion planet.
It seems that, in the way of everything internet-related these days, pyra is not doing well. I think that perhaps blogger (or pyra or whatever) should go cooperative. If everyone using blogger simply paid some sort of club dues or some such, the costs should be pretty minimal for those involved (tens of thousands of weblogs, right? how much can it be per person?) Anyway, if nonprofit works for national geographic, it could for us.
large numbers of tacky postcards are available here. well, some. Of course, finding tacky postcards is like shooting fish in a barrel. but that would be cruelty to animals while looking at postcards doesn't really hurt anyone.
Monday, January 29, 2001 ::: If you're into reading about antiquated social mores and quaint 50s attitudes about things, check out mystery date, which is very very fun. especially in printed form, if you can find it.
there was a recent article in the post concerning quilombos, and if you happen to know portuguese, you may also want to check this out. (second link courtesy of patrick hall)
Here is an intriguing photo series of Chloe Sevigny posing as warhol hanger-on Edie Sedgwick. From blairmag, which apparently isn't coming out with new issues anymore, which is really very disappointing.
Thursday, January 25, 2001 ::: Would you like to say something to a collection of world leaders? In giant letters on the side of a Swiss mountain? I knew you would. That's what this site is all about. from the New York Times, again.
Wednesday, January 24, 2001 ::: yesterday, there was this very interesting article in the New York Times about isolated communities in Brazil which have retained aspects of african culture. very interesting. must look more into this.
Tuesday, January 23, 2001 ::: So, after mucking around with geocities a bit, about half of my web page is up. well, two pages, so I'll probably be putting up more over the next few days. but the point is is that it looks nicer than the old one, although I plan on using some the old pages from over there. I really really wish I had photoshop right now. and a scanner.
Otherwise, I have recently acquired a few good cds. I got this bis cd, and still have my eyes on this other one. I also got st etienne's tiger bay, which, by the way has some fabulous fabulous cover art. And not just that classy picture of them on the front. There's also a sort of mid-nineteenth-century painting (if you could call it that) featuring them in a rustic setting, all dressed in period outfits, which sounds tacky but somehow doesn't really look as tacky when you actually see it.
Tuesday, January 16, 2001 ::: recently, things have been rather crazy here. really. like you wouldn't believe. For some reason, the frustration came to a boil when I tried to move my redesigned university of chicago page to some free web hosting (geocities in particular). Geocities sucks, a lot. the first page I ftped up, the title page, a very very simple page with one picture and really a rather nice minimalist page, was horribly mangled by some random string of code that sprawled across the page. and then geocities decided that other pages that I wanted to upload just didn't exist. It was very very frustrating, and I think that I'm just going to try someone else, like tripod. I guess I should go to epinions and epinionate or something, though I haven't really done anything like that before. but then again, I am really really dissatisfied as a customer and just did not not not have a good experience with geocities.
I should have posted this yesterday, I guess. But this is the sort of thing that people always remember a few lines from, but never read the whole thing. Martin Luther King Jr Day is always such an odd holiday.
