randomWalks

John Dean thinks Bush makes Nixon look good. Is lying about the reason for a war an impeachable offense?

originally posted by xowie

We're under contract with MTV, so we can't talk about anything.

I got an invitation to go to Apple's office for a presentation/meeting today (June 5, 2003) about how to get independent artists into the iTunes Music Store. There were about 150 people there, representatives from the best independent record labels and music services, in this invitation-only conference room. Steve Jobs came out and started a two and a half hour presentation/seminar/Q&A about iTunes and the benefits of independent labels making their music available there. I type fast and had my laptop, so I wrote down all the major points of their presentation as they went.

June 4.

originally posted by xowie

The Day Of The Jackals, a speech by Arundhati Roy.

originally posted by xowie

I think it was then that I realized that it wasn't Mount Rushmore or any other big tourist attraction that was going to turn me on. What was going to fascinate me were purple flowers on the side of the road in Wisconsin that screamed out, "There are colors that you thought were only made up by painters."

The recipe is unvarying. The Palestinians are required to pledge that they will instantly abandon all vestiges of resistance to Israel's onslaughts on their persons, children, houses, land, crops, water, trees, livestock, roads, schools, universities, graveyards and public buildings. In return Israel agrees that a few years down the road the government of Israel will begin to ponder the outlines of a dim possibility of formal ratification as a Palestinian statelet of whatever tiny sliver of territory they haven't already appropriated.

originally posted by xowie

"O, damnation, damnation! thy other name is school-teaching and thy residence Woodbury."

"I believe when the Lord created the world, he used up all the good stuff, and was forced to form Woodbury and its denisens, out of the fag ends, the scraps and refuse."

originally posted by xowie

"O my God, this War on Terrorism is gonna rule!" one character tells another in David Rees's cult cartoon Get Your War On. "I can't wait until the war is over and there's no more terrorism!" Few campaigners in poetry's war on war will have hopes as inflated as Rees's clipart man, but the swiftness and volume of responses to the recent Gulf war have already resulted in several online anthologies, public interventions by Andrew Motion, Harold Pinter and Seamus Heaney, and now Paul Keegan and Matthew Hollis's 101 Poems Against War.

originally posted by xowie

"The US is like a baby with a bomb," he barks, his eyes blazing with the famous stare. "The reaction to France that the administration allowed to happen is so immature. These people have their own opinion - they're French! They're not fuckin' Americans, they're French! Vive la difference, hello? And this big deal about Bush landing on an aircraft carrier? Talk about a six-year-old kid with a Tonka toy - we got it here."

I hear the word cheap a lot; I've heard cheesy. A lot of people are fussing about paint jobs that are not finished and about inferior carpentry.

The PowerMate (input device) and Synergy (iTunes software controller) are a sublime pair, mating this luminescent dial to my own heavenly radio.

I grabbed the latest issue of Adbusters without even looking at it because, well, Adbusters. Finding the live without dead time CD (features Allen Ginsberg, Negativland, Ani DiFranco, Saul Williams… and if you’re not listening yet I’ve got nothing left) mixed by DJ Spooky that subliminal kid,

did I mention Fugazi?

On a totally trivial subject in which I’m extremely interested: “I had a dream of setting up a little projector to display the visuals on a wall or ceiling whenever iTunes was playing." Beyond that, I hope to rent a projector to screen movies at the mad backyard parties I hope to throw once we move into an actual house with an actual yard this summer. (Print out this post for discounted admission! ;)

Felton's deception worked. Not only was he accepted as white; other white prisoners also began to turn to him for racial instruction. He was transferred to Attica, in upstate New York, where in the late 90's there was already a well-organized racist faction. There were 60 or 70 white prisoners in C Block, where Felton was held. Of those, 20 were allowed to come to the two tables in the mess hall that Felton and others had reserved for the ''politicized.''

originally posted by xowie

Despite there being more than a mile of sand, two scavengers worked Section 7 at the same time. As they passed each other, one rolled his eyes at the other with a critique of his sweeping style. Part of me hoped for a territorial brawl. Maybe they’d start beating the hell out of each other, using their metal detectors as clubs, their scoopers as shields. But they passed each other, over and over, back and forth, without incident.

originally posted by xowie

I always enjoy 28mm.org, but Coastal Beauty by Sean Slavin is exceptional.

At dollarshort.org there is a good discussion of Digital Video cameras. We recently bought the Canon ZR60, and (I don’t know from videography so I won’t say anything by way of review about it yet except that) it’s a lot of fun. I will say that my requisites matched Mena’s, and I’ve been thoroughly satisfied. I’ve been a little disappointed by the lack of web resources for amateur, no-budget, dogme documentarians, though – I’ve been looking for sites with reviews of DV media, iMovie 3 tutorials, and tips/techniques for shooting, and found nothing worth mentioning. What am I missing?

The Spector Watch by Alison M. Rosen.

originally posted by xowie

Fabulous l.a. travel pullout, Judith Lewis, ed.

originally posted by xowie

StrangeBanana is a website design generator which creates a new mostly-random set of CSS rules every time you reload the page. The designs are frequently horrendous, but it’s a nice surprise that at least one in ten are pretty effective.

In the past 25 years the number of C.C.D. pixels in all the world's telescopes has increased by a factor of 3,000, with each pixel acting as a miniature astronomical instrument. The result, Dr. Szalay says, is that the total amount of astronomical data collected every year is doubling even while the amount spent on astronomy remains constant.

originally posted by xowie

Full text of Arundhati Roy’s recent speech, Instant-Mix Imperial Democracy (Buy One, Get One Free).

originally posted by xowie

He turned. He saw me. He recognized me. The noise was deafening but he spoke to me. I couldn't hear a thing, but I read his lips, and I'm pretty sure what he said was, "How are you coming along?" But I wasn't positive. So I replied as best I could. "What?" I said.

originally posted by xowie

Are most of the people who elect our next President going to grasp, or care, that an insidious pro-authoritarian philosophy is the altar at which the Bush zealots worship?