Google to the rescue again

Do you Google your prospective dates? Doesn't everybody? An Ohio woman did, and her date turned out to be a wanted federal fugitive. She informed the local FBI office where they'd be dining, and he's now under arrest. Nothing in the story about a reward, but I'd say she deserves one.

In other Google news, the company is upset with a copycat search engine that named itself "Booble" and concentrated on sex sites.

Michael Jackson: a possible explanation

Here is one possible explanation for Michael Jackson's bizzare behavior: he's an alcoholic. At least that's what's suggested by the news story that says he goes around drinking wine out of a Coke can. (I don't want to know what kind of wine.) Amy's Robot has a fascinating analysis, drawing comparisons to a character in "To Kill a Mockingbird."

No, I am not the Mark Pritchard who is out of his fucking mind

As I've mentioned before, there is an Australian charlatan with my name who is the center of an "Astral Projection" cult. Every once in a while, he pops up on my Google Alert. I got this hilarious link today, part of the group's online forums. In it, the guy's acolytes explain the reasoning that he decided to change his name to "Beelzebub."

New member: I have read a book called "Lord Of The Flies" in school by Golding. We got teached that it had a lot of symbolism in it and at the end we read some articles about it. One was called "Demon Beelzebub". It said about Beelzebub being called a Prince of the demons. Here, I see people saying "master beelzebub" and that somehow made me remember of that. Is this the same beelzebub? a reincarnated version of him, as he was reincarnated once and said he would be back? Also, is Astral Projection safe? What I am trying to say here is a question. Is this beelzebub here evil? has he really changed? or is he making himself look good to others so that they fall in a trap?

Another member: Whilst in the past Beelzebub was a demon , he repented and with a tremendous amount of work with the 3 keys (covered on j.t.e course) rose to become the great spiritual master that he is today. ...

Moderator: I knew Mark Pritchard for a while before he revealed his true identity. I recall sitting down and being told the details and was shocked and stunned. When I expressed my surprise, Mark's reply was "not half surprised as I was". With this you can see that our true identity is not what we choose, like a name for a new baby in the physical, but it is our real name, that of our immortal Monad / Being. The Divine immortal aspect of the Monad Beelzebub was never the demon. It is only a part of the Monad, the Essence that falls/descends from the higher dimensions into the lower and becomes demonic. The Divine aspects are then in waiting for the Essence to regain its risen Self Realized status and merge once again with it. ...

And blah blah blah. It would be wrong, of course, to mock them simply because they are Australians. I'm mocking them for being credulous, shallow and pathetic.

Timmy Bueler's day off

A 17-year-old Petaluma-area teenager decided to rabble-rouse and raise hell in an extremely non-p.c., subversive way. He asked fellow students to "report un-American comments expressed by your liberal teachers," then issued a newsletter based on what he says were responses. The school authorities, dismayed by his initiative as well as by the angry responses of teachers and other students, asked him to stay home for a few days for a "cooling-off period."

Much as I disdain Bueler's positions, I have to admire any kid who manages to shake up his school just by exercising his free speech rights. Of course, the school did the wrong thing and exacerbated the situation. Schools always do the wrong thing in these instances, and make a mountain out of a sow's ear. Now the kid's a celebrity. (That link has a picture of the rather scary-looking little skinhead.)

Ellen Ullman forum with Laura Miller

Ellen Ullman, author of The Bug, a novel about a pioneer female software programmer, is interviewed by Laura Miller in an online forum on The Well. Ullman was one of the first programmers hired at Sybase and based part of her nonfiction book Close to the Machine on her experiences there. (She left Sybase many years ago.)

Blankness -- for or against?

Here's an interesting dialogue in the Guardian (U.K.) betweeen writers Hari Kunzru and Toby Litt. I don't understand two-thirds of what they're talking about, but I found the idea of "duty-free writing" arresting.

Think about duty-free areas in airports; the brands by and large are similar, so that where you actually are is restricted to the tourist trinkets in the shop; the shape of the small wooden items and the imprint on the silver jewellery are the only clues to your location in the world. .... I think allowing the blankness to rise up and reveal its horror is what is useful for writers to do. There is something terrifying about the loss of place and the death of location, the death of particularity and the total dominance of global culture by a very small section of cultural producers. .... Some of the writing I'd been doing was very like that, this clean well-lit prose. I've become opposed to that as a tendency in myself because it starts to be duty-free prose. The difference between being well-lit and being duty-free is very hard to draw.

Today's book news

After all the fuss raised by the news that the NYT plans to dumb down the NYT Book Review, executive editor Bill Keller tries some damage control.

Mr. Keller said The Times had no intention of sacrificing fiction, and literary fiction in particular. "The goal is to somewhat increase the emphasis on nonfiction, but not move away from fiction." He said that fiction versus nonfiction did not amount to a "zero-sum game," because the paper would be adding more pages to The Book Review—although he said he didn’t yet know how many.

I'd like to see a study done a year or two from now, counting the number of pages devoted to literary fiction, commercial fiction and non-fiction, to see if his promise holds up.

Meanwhile, I got a rejection from one of the agents who's looking at my novel. That leaves one agent still looking over the excerpt I sent. I don't know, by the way, whether my movel falls into "literary fiction" or "commerical fiction." Those categories aren't written in stone, I suspect. Toni Morrison's books were probably thought of as literary fiction until she started selling in the hundreds of thousands; then they turned into commercial fiction.

Wired or tired?

Perhaps it's time to retire the cutesy word zaftig and instead use Zellweger. "I'm a busty, zellweger 5'5" and I love pie!"

In other consumer news, a Japanese pitcher says the gay porn video he appeared in was a one-time incident and that he "wants to make one thing clear -- I'm not gay."

A rare eleoquence!

The year was 1971. Garry Trudeau was still transitioning his comic strip away from the Yale campus where it was born, when a former classmate came to town. Perhaps the earliest sighting ever of a Presidential candidate in the comic strips, unless Ronald Reagan ever happened to appear in The Phantom or something. (Thanks, Jym!)

And speaking of comix, check out these trade secrets! Update: Check out this parody of that (link courtesy linkmachinego)

Close cover when striking

A very nice collection of links to labor movement history and issues on RandomWalks.

And in other news, I have no idea how authoritative this is, but this article says Dick Cheney is fighting for his political life after recent revelations that his former employer Halliburton is benefitting from Iraq graft. The Washington Post has a calmer perspective, featuring this Cheney quote:

Cheney seems unperturbed about the criticism he receives. In the interview with USA Today and the Los Angeles Times, he was asked whether he felt compelled to deal with "the caricature of you that has evolved over the last three years, the whole undisclosed location thing, the sinister force behind the president's policies."

"Why do I want to deal with it?" Cheney replied. "What's wrong with my image? Am I the evil genius in the corner that nobody ever sees come out of his hole?" he added. "It's a nice way to operate, actually."

Liddachur, neat

I still work from time to time at the l.n.c.b., which happens to be across the bridge from my San Francisco abode. There is also a branch near my work, and I go there at lunch from time to time. Strangely enough, I even buy something there once in a while -- usually just a cup of coffee. Today I was lost, as usual, in the literature/fiction section. Something about all the chick lit books got my dander up.

I went over to the infodesk and shot at the guy standing there: "Who wrote To the Finland Station?"

He had to look it up. "Edmund Wilson," he said cheerfully, enunciating those syllables for the first time in his life. "We might have it in stock," he added, cocking an eye back to his computer screen.

I knew exactly what he was looking at and what that conditional tone meant. The inventory system at the l.n.c.b. is not, unfortunately, updated on the fly when someone buys a book; sometimes the information is two or three days old. So anytime the computer shows that a book is in stock, unless we actually tripped over it less than a few hours ago, employees are supposed to say "It might be in stock."

Still, what were the odds that someone would have bought their one copy of "To the Finland Station" in the last couple of days? I went back to the W section. No dice, though they did have several paperback copies of a Wilson biography. Sighing, I spotted something else nearby, and grabbed that: a new paperback edition of The Collected Short Stories of William Carlos Williams.

Less is more, guys

Penthouse magazine, which has been slipping for years, will stop trying to out-raunch the entire porn industry and will relaunch this year, de-emphasizing sex per se, modeling itself after Maxim and other "lad magazines" that have replaced tit magazines among the frat crowd.

Good news for once

A Federal judge has ruled part of the USA Patriot Act unconstitutional, saying the section forbidding "expert advice or assistance" to groups designated as foreign terrorist organizations was unconstitutionally vague.

In other news, the New York Post busted a man who recently appeared in a NYT article about the ubiquity of surveillance cameras in New York. Seems the man himself had just been busted for making obscene phone calls at a temp job and had been caught by -- guess what -- a surveillance camera.

Brown, who -- according to the [NYT] newspaper article -- has mapped out surveillance cameras in parts of several cities, knew the location of most cameras inside the office. He deliberately covered his face or averted his glance as he walked by, investigators said. But one camera in the lobby he didn't notice.

Weekly book news items

Let's start a new weekly feature here at Too Beautiful. I'll find interesting articles about books, writers and publishing and post them once a week.

More crap   Poynter.org columnists Margo Hammond and Ellen Heltzel got a huge scoop last week, revealing the New York Times plans to de-emphasize literature in the NYT Book Review and emphasize non-fiction and "commercial novels."    Update: See my entry for Jan. 29.

Green with envy   Cecelia Ahern, 22-year-old daughter of the Irish prime minister, has garnered plenty of publicity and more than $1 million in advances for her first book, PS I Love You. Now the Irish populace is growing resentful of her lightning success, resorting to strong language to express their displeasure -- like "tosh."

Arthur Miller's visit to Fidel Castro   In 2000, Arthur Miller and other artists visited Cuba and were feted all night long by the leader. This article in The Nation is Miller's epilogue to Terry McCoy's book Cuba on the Verge.

Poetry bookstore to close   Grolier Poetry Book Shop in Cambridge (Mass.) is preparing to close after 77 years in business. This story brings the stunning news that a resident of Cambridge is called a Cantibrigian. Another Globe column talks about New England poets.

Homes for homeless

Columbus, Ohio discovered in a five-year program that putting homeless people in "supportive housing" costs only $1000 more per person per year than the ineffective quilt of services offered in cities like San Francisco, which has the worst homeless problem in the country.

Gray still missing

Actor Spalding Gray has been missing for two weeks now, and his gigs are being cancelled by tour promoters.

The chronic depression that afflicted Spalding Gray -- who disappeared several hours after taking his son to see a film on Sat., Jan. 10 and is still officially considered a missing person -- could be a wake-up call for an industry given to depression, stress, and other mental-health concerns.

Actors, whose careers are in large part built on the dysfunctional notion that criticism, rejection, and disapproval are simply everyday parts of the game, are often in greater need of mental-health support than the general population, says one expert who has woven a strong safety net designed to catch artists when they fall.

Either he's at the bottom of New York harbor or he'll have a hell of a monologue to tell when he gets back.

'A very attractive man'

A Florida appeals court tossed out drug charges against a man who successfully argued that he was simply attracted to an undercover police officer, not that he wanted to sell him drugs. (link courtesy Hit and Run.)

Judge Susan Lebow ruled the defendant, Julio Blanco, was lured by the police officer into committing a crime in hopes he would be rewarded with sex. ...

Dismissing the case, Judge Lebow certified Nahum as cute.

"I make that a finding. He's a very attractive man," she said, according to a transcript.

Blanco's attorney, Kevin Kulik, spoke up to ensure the transcript would accurately reflect Nahum's macho, muscular appearance. "For the record, I would submit he was about 6-2. He was in good shape, you know, a fit individual, young detective, looked to be maybe 30."

The judge was not the only one to notice Nahum's charms.

"Let's just say that all of the women in court that day were paying a lot of attention to him," Kulik said on Wednesday. "After he left the courtroom, they were all like, `Wow.'"

Apparently there is no photo available of the hunk, since he is, afterall, an undercover cop. But CBS filled the need with a graphic combining a pair of handcuffs, a rainbow flag, and the word DRUGS. Reminds me of a party I went to a few years ago.

Happiness is

Here's something absolutely, totally great: Hey Ya, Charlie Brown! (requires QuickTime plugin). See it NOW before it dies due to too much bandwidth.

The President's lunch

Just a reminder that life in the White House is sometimes like the world's biggest, most expensive, longest-running reality show.

And if you're curious about the dance-track remixes featuring Howard Dean's scream, they're collected here.

Aaauuuuggghhhhh!

You've probably had a chance to see Howard Dean's battle cry replaying endlessly on cable TV, but if you haven't, the Washington Post has a .ram file linked from this page. The New York Times described Dean's near-hysterical utterance as a "throaty howl" and quoted a voter as saying "I thought the mirrors in my apartment would shatter." CBC's "As It Happens" announced: "Howard Dean frightens children everywhere."

Cris looked at the video. "Oh, he's just saying 'Yeah!'" she said, walking off. "I don't know why they make such a big deal about things."

What I did

Man, I've been doing a lot of news blogging and haven't provided many personal updates. So here's what I did on this three day weekend. A good deal of research on agents; I joined an online site with a great database of agents and the deals they've made. Cris and I went to a film, The Cooler. (Good performances and terrific casting, but some plot holes, and the whole premise of shady/mob backing of casinos in the present day takes some major suspension of disbelief. And like most movies, is mainly about macho posturing, screaming, shooting, fistfights, etc. No explosions, though, except some joke footage under the end credits.)

We had a big event at church because it was the annual visit of our missionary. (He's not exactly what you might think of when you think of a missionary. He's the one out queer Christian minister in the entire continent of Africa, ministering to Cape Town's LGBT people.) Saturday and Sunday were lovely days, but I didn't get out much. I spent the whole of Saturday afternoon working on a freelance QA job.

Busy week at work coming up.

Another dead troublemaker honored

Paul Robeson, the actor and activist whose career was destroyed by the blacklist in the 50s, has been officially rehabilitated: He'll appear on a postage stamp.

"Every society honors its live conformists and its dead troublemakers." -- Mignon McLaughlin. (Who the hell was Mignon McLaughlin? A female journalist and playwright.)

Real estate, the best investment

Conservative Episcopalians started a two-day meeting today to work out their demands. They're pissed off about the installation of an openly gay bishop last year. But there's a hitch:

Conservative parishes do not want to officially leave the church because under secular law they would probably have to surrender their properties to the denomination.

"We've got a $12 million facility and we can't just walk away from it," said the Rev. Donald Armstrong of Colorado Springs, Colo., a delegate representing Midwestern and Mountain states.

Yes, in the Episcopal Church, the land and the buildings of church facilities belong to the diocese, and the diocese is legally bound to the national church. Unlike Lutheran churches, where individual congregations own their own land and buildings. So when my church, St. Francis, got kicked out of the national body in 1995, we kept the church -- and the adjacent apartment building, rents from which provides valuable funds for our programs.

Employee of the month

A man in his 60s who worked in a Finnish tax office died at his desk last week, but no one noticed for two days. His dozens of co-workers assumed he was simply "quietly poring over tax returns."

Tuesday: "Hey, Joe! Working late, huh? Well, don't stay too late!"

Wednesday: "Hey Joe, we're going to get some lunch. Want to come? No? Man, you're really into your work."

Thursday: "Hey, man, I found some great internet porn. Come on, take a break and come see this. Hey motherfucker, are you dead or something? Hey, don't be an asshole... Oh, holy shit!"
 

In other news:

NPR says it still needs donations, even after Joan Kroc last year gave NPR $200 million. "The truth is that the Kroc gift will have no effect on the financial needs or the fundraising efforts of NPR's 750 member stations. Instead of receiving financial support from NPR, these stations have to pay for NPR programming," says a Christian Science Monitor article.

The new mayor of San Francisco appointed a Chinese-American woman as police chief Saturday. Heather Fong, 47, went through SF's police academy back in the 80s and rose through the ranks to become the first female deputy chief a few years ago. I think San Francisco is the second-largest city to have a female police chief, after Detroit's Ella Bully-Cummings.

American Jews under 40 are "rebranding their image," writes Naomi Wolf in the Sydney Morning Herald. "The hip new brigade of "Hebesters" listens to Jewish rap music, watches edgy Jewish theatre and wears tight-fitting T-shirts with the word "Jewcy" proudly emblazoned across the chest." Yes, eventually everyone will apply the Queer Nation template to their religious, ethnic, geographic or quasi-national group.

Freak accident of the month

When they talk about deaths from snow storms, I don't think this is what they had in mind. A woman and her dogs were electrocuted in New York when they walked across an electrically charged utility cover.

Liberals thwarted by the liberal media!

Clearly the CBS-Viacom cell of the Liberal Media Conspiracy hadn't gotten its communique from Liberal Media Conspiracy Headquarters, for it rejected the television ad chosen by the liberal pressure group MoveOn.org in a contest. Come on, guys! Don't you realize the football-watching audience is rife for subversion?

Must-see (hear?) poetry reading

On Jan. 28 at 7:00 p.m., San Francisco poet Kim Addonizio reads at A Clean Well Lighted Place for Books. Kim is a recipient of multiple NEA and other fellowships and was a frequent contributor to Frighten the Horses. And she's damn sexy.

Just wondering

Here's a little quiz for Friday.

1. What do you call the acolytes of novelist Dave Eggers?

A. Eggos

B. Eggersites

C. Eggistentialists

D. Eggersines

2. What sort of books did British publishers say, in a recent poll, they were likely to eliminate for the sake of cost cutting?

A. "'Big name' authors"

B. "'Good-looking' first-time novelists"

C. "Established authors"

D. "Mid-list" authors

3. What business functions are large chain bookstores not planning to move into?

A. Publishing books

B. Distributing books

C. Printing books

D. Pulping books

Answers: 1. A.    2. D    3. D

Then, of course, there is this heavy irony: Olivia Goldsmith, whose book "The First Wives Club" was a revenge fantasy for middle-aged women, died at age 54 from complications of... plastic surgery. "To remove loose skin from her chin."

Methodist pastor comes out, could face dismissal

One by one, mainstream Protestant denominations are dealing with the gay clergy issue. The Episcopalians have been in the forefront for the last eight or nine months; now it's the Methodists' turn. A Seattle area lesbian minister has been ordered to face a church trial.

This just in

Salon, the online magazine that has just gotten $800K in life-support from Jann Wenner and John Warnock (magazine publisher and software magnate, respectively), is essential for information like this:

Annie, 23, said that in her comparatively brief stroll around the sexual block, she has encountered two men who shave the bulk of their genital area. "I'm amazed that I have seen more than one bare set of balls," she said. At least one of those sets had been stripped of its protective fur with an electric razor. Yee-ouch. The first time she encountered these smooth sacks, Annie said, "I knew something was different, but it took me a minute to figure out what it was. But did it turn me on? Not particularly." I asked Annie about Newsweek's claim that the major draw of a hairless scrotum is that it makes the machinery look bigger. "No. It reminded me of a newborn puppy dog," she said. "Puffy and exposed."

You can't get that kind of news and analysis anywhere else.

Teens revere Columbine killers

A "Cult of Eric and Dylan" is spreading among disaffected American teens, says an article in the U.K.'s Independent. Charles Baxter captured exactly this dynamic in his novel Saul and Patsy, in which a cult grows up around a nihilistic retarded boy after he kills himself.

"Unless the way high schools work in America is totally changed... unless there is a revolution in our hallways and libraries and dining halls, there are going to be more and more of us," he writes. "Eric said he was only the beginning, the first revolutionary. He was right."

Thus writes a kid posting on one of the Eric-and-Dylan fansites, as quoted in the article. You know what? He's right. Public education in this country does have to change. The cliquishness, the bullying, the terror of being different, the obsession with fashion, the worship of team sports, the brutal mockery, the queer bashing.

I totally sympathise with the losers, because I was a loser in school (though I did well enough in my classes) and hated the environment of both the school itself and the deadly suburb it was in. When I saw Brian DePalma's Carrie, I loved it when she locked the whole school inside and blew it up. Didn't you?

Right-wing Episcopal rebels' secret plot

In a confidential document [large pdf file] obtained by the Washington Post, anti-gay Episcopalians discuss a secret plot to undermine the national church organization.

Fresh sounds

Wow, it's radioblog. Updates later as I figure out how it works, but for the time being, click on the "listen to astro's radio blog" link for some invigorating music. Thanks to The S-Train Canvass for the tip.

Depressives

Actor/monologist Spalding Gray is missing, the NYT reported. The 62-year-old performer, reported to have a history of depression, was reported missing since Sunday by his wife.

At my shift at the l.n.c.b. Saturday, I ran across a book full of police photos of stiffs, many of them suicides. I've never seen anything sadder -- these lifeless bodies slumped against walls of tawdry hotel rooms or sprawled in ditches. Sure took the whole glamor out of suicide, not that I've ever been attracted to the idea.

A prayer, then, for Spalding: May he find his way to help and home.

Birth of a notion

Today in Salon, cartoonist Carol Lay illustrates Karl Rove's political origins in the 1968 student government election at his Utah high school. "True story!" says a legend in the comic. Here's the whole story as recounted in the Deseret News.

But the big challenge would be in the school elections assembly. Rove said his opponent, John Sorensen, "had always won by having himself delivered to the podium to give his speech in an outhouse. John Sorensen — get it? John (a synonym for outhouse)?"

Rove expected a repeat and says he knew it would be tough to outdo that.

So his campaign sneaked a Volkswagen into school hallways by removing some doors. "I made my entrance into the auditorium in a Volkswagen Bug filled with incredibly attractive girls. Two girls on each arm delivered me to the podium," he said.

Harrassment of queer students still high in California, study shows

A report issued yesterday by the California Safe Schools Coalition shows that harrassment of students who are queer -- or perceived to be so -- is still rife in California schools. More than 200,000 students are harrassed annually, the report said.

The report analyzed data from the California Healthy Kids Survey, or CHKS, a broad-based state survey, and an independent companion survey conducted by the Safe Schools Coalition that measured the effectiveness of school anti-harassment practices. ... "Data from the CHKS show that these 200,000 students harassed on the basis of actual or perceived sexual orientation are three times more likely to miss school because they feel unsafe, more than twice as likely to be depressed, to consider suicide or to make a plan for suicide," explained Stephen Russell, Ph.D., director of the Davis center.

The state's larger media outlets missed the story, by the way.

Former cabinet sec'ty: Bush 'plotted Iraq war from start'

Many people suspected as much, but this was still a bombshell. Conservative spin has already started.

BBC News, 12 Jan 04

Bush 'plotted Iraq war from start'

A top official sacked from the US Government has accused President Bush of planning for an invasion of Iraq within days of coming to office.

Former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill said Mr Bush was looking for an excuse to oust Saddam Hussein.

As a member of the president's National Security team he said he never saw any evidence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.

Mr O'Neill also portrayed the president as unwilling to engage in debate -- a charge rejected by Bush officials.

"From the very beginning, there was a conviction Saddam Hussein was a bad person and he needed to go," the former treasury secretary said in an interview broadcast by CBS News on Sunday.

... In a separate interview for Time magazine, Mr O'Neill said he had never come across any evidence of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) during his period in office. "In the 23 months I was there, I never saw anything that I would characterise as evidence of weapons of mass destruction," the former member of the president's national security team said. "To me there is a difference between real evidence and everything else."

Other links:
CNN, 9 Jan 04: Bush 'like a blind man in a roof full of deaf people'
BBC, 12 Jan 04: Treasury Dept. begins investigating O'Neill. Payback?

Monks hit it big in e-commerce

Order some toner or ink cartridges from some Cistercian monks. It's environmental, and you're supporting, well, monks.

I've visited several monasteries over the last ten or twelve years. I love sung prayer offices, and monasteries are inexpensive and make a great retreat. (No internet access, of course -- and why would you want it, on retreat?) Like many visitors, I've entertained a daydream about taking up such a life of prayer.

At the same time, I never stop being aware that the friendly monks would love to see abortion outlawed. They would certainly be taken aback, to put it mildly, if they knew I was a pornographer.

But in the fellowship of prayer, politics and even lifestyle don't matter. As David Chadwick wrote in "Thank You and OK!", meditation is the great leveller, putting aside social rank, interior motives, and even what religion you are. Thus the Dalai Lama, for example, can bring together people from different, even warring, religions.

Product of the winter rains

See the photos? I joined buzznet, a photoblog website. I posted several pix of the march 11 months ago as practice, and a nice calla lily from today.

Still, I'll bet she drove a hard bargain

2003 may be looked upon as The Year of the Fake, according to Naomi Klein, writing in The Nation. In addition to the farcical FBI warning to regard almanac bearers as suspicious, Klein relates this humorous episode:

"Her main aim is to meet as many Nigerians as she can," the Queen's press secretary, Penny Russell, said of the monarch's December trip to Nigeria. But just as Bush never made it out of the airport bunker in Baghdad, the Queen's people decided it was too dangerous for her to mingle with actual Nigerians. So instead of the planned visit to an African village, the Queen toured the set of a BBC soap opera in New Karu, constructed to look like an authentic African market. During the "fake walkabout," as the Sunday Telegraph called it, the Queen chatted with paid actors playing regular villagers, while actual villagers watched the event on a large-screen TV outside the security perimeter.

The left -- where would we be without our sense of humor?

No more anxiety for us, thanks

Tina Brown writes in the Washington Post that reality TV shows are a vestige of the narcissitic, consumerist 80s:

We thought the post-9/11 world would be earnest and thoughtful and all about bedrock values. (You can see the mood reflected in the current gloomy crop of Oscar holiday movies, greenlighted after the terror attacks.) But our nerves have rebelled. America is not good at anxiety. Give us "Elf"! Give us "The Bachelor"! Let's go shopping! ...

The cuff-shooting vulgarity that might have been uncool in the dot-com '90s has doubled back and lifted Trump up again. In a media culture where Paris Hilton and "Joe Millionaire" reign, Trump can even be cherished as an elder statesman.

You know, a lot of people howled when Brown became a Washington Post columnist. But I find her stuff compulsively readable and quite often very funny.

Transexuals are the new sex objects

"Maybe these days, the ideal woman doesn’t have to be a woman at all," writes Amy Sohn in a New York magazine column on how uber-engineered girlboys are the new sex objects du jour. She quotes one bombshell:

“I started thinking, When I get older, do I want to be a really effeminate old gay man, or do I want to be a girl and explore all these things that I always wanted to do?” ... The most annoying thing about being a transsexual is that guys always want to dish with her about that annoying topic called What It All Means. “Of course they all think they’re gay. I avoid that conversation. I can’t deal with people who have issues.”

I think by "guys" in that quote, she means "johns." Well, yeah, I would want to have that conversation. Who better to talk gender issues with than a transexual prostitute? Seriously.

And in the same issue of New York, Ariel Levy writes on boy-identified lesbians. Man, I love this country!

Hiiii - ya!!

A British nun has earned a black belt in karate. This is worth clicking on just for the picture.

A new hope

Well, I finally got my ass in gear, spending three or four hours today on research on agents, and sending out one package. See the scorecard.

Envoi

Go, dumb-born book,
Tell her that sang me once that song of Lawes:
Hadst thou but song
As thou hast subjects known,
Then were there cause in thee that should condone
Even my faults that heavy upon me lie
And build her glories their longevity.
Tell her that sheds
Such treasure in the air,
Recking naught else but that her graces give
Life to the moment,
I would bid them live
As roses might, in magic amber laid,
Red overwrought with orange and all made
One substance and one colour
Braving time.
Tell her that goes
With song upon her lips
But sings not out the song, nor knows
The maker of it, some other mouth,
May be as fair as hers,
Might, in new ages, gain her worshippers,
When our two dusts with Waller's shall be laid,
Siftings on siftings in oblivion,
Till change hath broken down
All things save Beauty alone.

-- Ezra Pound, 1920

Something to do

Windy writes:

Join musicians, artists, performers, poets and activists to celebrate
MATT GONZALEZ'S HISTORIC CAMPAIGN for Mayor of San Francisco

FRIDAY, JANUARY 16, 8PM
STUDIO Z, 314 11th Street near Folsom
FREE

Continue the extraordinary momentum!

DJ sets by MATMOS, DJ Sake One
Music by Marcus Shelby and Lavay Smith

Matt's Campaign reminded us all that we are the future and we can make a difference!

This event is an opportunity to hear from Matt in person about how to keep moving forward, experience some great music and performance, and take home art by some of the Bay Area's most well known artists for only $20 to close out Matt's Historic Campaign.

Participating artists include Jason Jagel, Joyce Hsu, Carolyn Ryder Cooley, Liz Cohen, Jonn Herschend, Lynn Hershman, Gelatin, Annabel Livermore, Oliver Halsman Rosenberg, Jack Hirschman, Agneta Falk and more!

COME EARLY!!!
AND TAKE HOME AMAZING THANK YOU GIFTS AND DOOR PRIZES

Please join Matt and friends at Studio Z, January 16, 8PM - for music, words from Matt, performance, an art auction and a raffle!

Studio Z is located at 314 11th Street near Folsom.
For information, please call 595-7830.

Two weblogs to watch

For those who follow religion news -- i.e. news about religious groups, spiritual movements, the interface of religion, politics and society -- I've recently added two weblogs to the list at the right:

‡ Christianity Today's religion news weblog, where each entry is actually a pointer to a much longer list of daily entries. CT is a mainstream-conservative publication, and this perspective sometimes colors their selection and description of news stories, but the sheer number of breadth of stories here is useful.

‡ The Revealer, a new weblog by Jeffrey Sharlett, editor of the interesting but sometimes twee spirituality website Killing the Buddah and author of Jesus Plus Nothing, the landmark article in Harper's on the crypto-fascist Christian organization "The Fellowship."

Finally, for what it's worth, there's this Washington Times piece on how radical conservative Episcopalians are using the web to further their aims.

Get aroused now

A friend who writes under the pen name Lisa Wolfe has a new erotic story, "Waiting for Beethoven," up on CleanSheets.

First Amendment didn't protect homophobe at work

Hewlett-Packard had the right to fire an employee who posted anti- gay passages from the Bible at his work cubicle in protest of the computer industry giant's diversity policy and in an effort to persuade gays to repent, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday.

The court said Richard Peterson, who worked in HP's customer support division in Boise, Idaho, for more than two decades, was not a victim of religious discrimination. Instead, said the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, an employer has the right to enforce an even-handed policy against harassment and discrimination, even if certain messages are suppressed.

Another sign of the coming apocalypse

I actually know a contestant on a reality show. More specifically, we worked for the same company, were in the same meetings together, but didn't really work very closely. It's Amy Henry, the curly blonde, 4th row, second from left, in this photo of the cast of 'The Apprentice'.

Update: Tina Brown writes in the Washington Post that reality shows are a vestige of the 80s.

Hillary pilloried

Sen. Clinton in trouble over a joke about Mahatma Gandhi. Oh, lighten up, people!

Those nutty Republicans

They just can't stop -- those wacky, crazy Republicans, I mean. An odd attack ad has surfaced in Iowa. (Link courtesy BoingBoing)

In the ad, a farmer says he thinks that "Howard Dean should take his tax-hiking, government-expanding, latte-drinking, sushi-eating, Volvo-driving, New York Times-reading ..." before the farmer's wife then finishes the sentence: "... Hollywood-loving, left-wing freak show back to Vermont, where it belongs."

The anti-Dean ads puzzled some of Mr. Bush's strategists and supporters, who see Mr. Dean as the most beatable of the major Democratic hopefuls.

New online 'Action Theater' magazine

My friend Jenny has launched the new Words on Action, an online magazine about Action Theater, which is a form of physical and vocal improvisational theater taught in Berkeley and other places. Nice design! And nice article by Jenny.

Conservatives, gays assail Britney

Strange bedfellows protest pop star's 'cavalier' wedding

 
Commentators and activists on both sides of the political spectrum issued condemnations today of pop singer Britney Spears and her spur-of-the-moment marriage.

The 22-year-old pop singer, whose early squeaky-clean image has given way in recent years to a blatantly sexualized portrayal of youth, was granted an annulment Monday after 55 hours of marriage to Jason Allen Alexander, also 22, a childhood friend. The two were married early Saturday morning at a Las Vegas wedding chapel.

"In their struggle to tear down the institution of marriage and the family, the forces of liberalism and humanism have won another round," said Liberty University founder Jerry Falwell.

"Marriage is supposed to be for a lifetime," added the former Moral Majority head. "You're supposed to stick with it, for better or for worse. I've had hangovers that lasted longer than her marriage."

Falwell said the quickie marriage and even quicker annulment was "another blow to the God-given institution of marriage.

"This cavalier treatment of a 6000-year-old institution will further undermine America," Falwell said.

Conservatives weren't the only ones outraged at the behavior of Spears, whose latest album, "In the Zone," was climbing into the Top 10 amid the publicity.

"This tacky, trashy kind of behavior is exactly what we hope to change when we are granted full legal marriage," said Bruce Meltonson, director of Gays, Lesbians for Marriage and Other Useful Rights (GLAMOUR). "A wedding chapel in Las Vegas -- really! Honey, when I get married, I'm going for the church, the bridesmaids, the whole thing. None of this breeder dreck."

"Britney's so-called wedding is a disservice to all women, whether they are straight, lesbian, or bisexual," said Shiara Prax, coordinator of Women of All Stripes for Equal Laws (WASEL). "Our relationships should be honored and maintained, and things like this just make it harder for society to take us seriously."

The incident had spoiled the positive effects of the same-sex kiss exchanged by Britney and Madonna last year, Prax said. "That was visibility -- this is imbicility," she said.

 
Episcopalians call truce

One positive effect of Spears' matrimonial flip-flop was a cooling of tensions in the Episcopal Church-USA, which has been torn by controversy since the election of an openly gay priest to the post of bishop.

Episcopalians who opposed the consecration of V. Gene Robinson as bishop of the Diocese of New Hampshire, as well as those who favored the controversial decision, were united in their criticism of Spears.

"Compared to this (Spears' wedding and annulment), the election of Canon Robinson doesn't seem like such a big deal," said Rick Hasslett, rector of the 5000-member All Saints Parish in suburban Dallas. "Here we are trying to teach our children that sexuality and relationship are sacred matters, and Britney pulls a stunt like this.

"I don't know what this society is coming to," added Hasslett.

Joining in disapproval was Tammy Cox, leader of Procession, a gay-rights group within the Episcopal Church. "To do this with no ceremony, no preparation, just like it was a haircut," said Cox, "and then reverse it as if it never happened. And they say we're tearing down the institution of marriage!"

Bouyed by their agreement on the Britney issue, both sides in the gay clergy controversy said they should sit down and "discover more common ground," as Hasslett put it.

Secret agent man

The NYT today has two funny yet depressing takes on the struggle of unknown writers to get published. A Hip-Hop Author in Search of a Publisher Found One on the A-Train. This schmoe was going car to car hawking his book about the rap world when he happened upon a man who is the "publishing director of MTV Books."

That night he read the 350-page novel, a fable of the music industry involving two battling rappers named Hannibal and Flawless, a corrupt record label, sex, violence and ambition. At 3:30 a.m., Mr. Hoye left a message on the answering machine at his boss's office: MTV had to buy it.

Oh, so he's the "publishing director" but he still has to ask his boss to OK a project. A clear case of title inflation.

Then in the regular NYC column, Clyde Haberman suggests new reality shows:

The success of "Queer Eye" raises a question of how far television may go with blatant stereotyping that passes as entertainment. If it is O.K. to have fun with the hoary cliché of stylish gays and slovenly straights, why not expand the premise to other groups? A city as diverse as New York provides no shortage of potential programs based on stereotypes long recognized as crude.

You could have "Black Rhythm for the White Klutz," with five talented African-Americans teaching an uncoordinated Caucasian how to dance. In "Yiddishe Brains for the Goyishe Guy," five Jewish financial advisers provide a gentile man with investment tips... "The Novel" would be a series focused on a dozen talented young writers. Their challenge would be to squeeze advances greater than four digits from book publishers who have poured nearly all their money into the latest political screed denouncing liberals as traitors or conservatives as fatheads. (Emphasis mine.)

Why, we're just full of cheer today, aren't we? The story of a writer who has to hawk his book on the subway to get attention is supposed to be "inspiring," I believe. Haberman's column, on the other hand, is pure satire -- but the subway story sounds exactly like the kind of humiliations people suffer on reality shows. It just goes to show what a joke publishing in general has become -- and what I'm up against with my just-finished novel.

Patsy revisited

I finished reading Saul and Patsy, Charles Baxter's 2003 novel about a young couple who move to a small Midwestern town and find themselves the target of all sorts of confusion and, eventually, hostility. There was something comfortingly imperfect about the book -- I kept running across passages that I'd mentally edit. But I found myself caring about the characters and I really wanted to see what happened to them -- and isn't that the only good reason for finishing reading a novel?

Youth is wasted on the young

A 16-year-old Minnesotan drove his snowmobile off a precipice in Canada down a 1500-ft., 50-to-60-degree decline. (Just to refresh your knowledge of geometry, 90 degrees is straight down.)

The accident happened Thursday when Bruce and Adam Bartie, along with family friend Brian Axdahl, were snowmobiling in the Keystone Mountain area. Adam said he was exploring the area when he went through some trees and started sliding very fast. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said Adam drove his snowmobile off a 1,500-foot bluff. Adam said it was more like a slope of perhaps 900 feet.

"I was in control for most of the way," he said.

I love that statement, uttered as the hapless yet still-in-one-piece youth was wheeled through the Minneapolis airport. My first thought was, "Yeah right, let's see what he says when Dad gets hold of him." Then I read it again and realized his father -- an orthopedic surgeon -- was with him (though not on the same snowmobile). His father dug him out, splinted his leg, started a fire, and kept the kid awake all night with requests to wiggle his toes. One of his partners in the orthopedic practice fixed the kid's leg, using a metal screw. All's well that ends well, huh?

Mars rover up-to-the-minute news

Watch spaceflightnow.com for breaking news related to the US Mars probe. As of this writing, it is supposed to land in less than an hour.

The latest mission reminds me of a party I went to about five years ago, at the famous home of a well-connected computer geek couple. There I met a guest who worked for NASA or one of its contractors; she had been involved in the effort to land the Deep Space 2 Mars probe, which had unfortunately been lost (as the recent Beagle probe was). I'm usually a little more tactful than this, but when she told me she was associated with the failed program, I laughed out loud and said something like "What a fiasco!" I don't think she found this very charming, as she didn't talk to me for the rest of the night.

Update

The damn thing landed safely, it seems. Watch live video of the first images from Martian surface, 11:30 pm tonight.

But what would we do without them?

An analysis piece from the Orlando Sentinel says: While right-wing Christians are gearing up for fights this year on gay marriage, liberal Christians are enervated. Good piece.

Right-wing Republicans are vicious and scary, sure. But they're also entertaining, in a fatuous, idiotic way. Pat Robertson fills this need by blathering the other day that Bush can't lose because "he's a man of prayer and God has blessed him. It doesn't make any difference what he does" between now and the election.

Political viewpoint aside, how do you like that for theology? God picks someone, apparently based on his or her prayer practice, and decides that no matter what they do, they're going to be president. Hey, I pray every day too. I don't see anyone annointing me.

Courtesy of BoingBoing, here's a fascinating study of brand memory. An "Austrian arts collective" (I'm not looking into that one, just reprinting it as written) asked 25 people to draw 12 famous corporate logos from memory. The results are an interesting mixture of artistic incompetence and faulty memory. Sometimes people drew the old logo of a company, for example with BP and Adidas. Sometimes they just guessed, as with Iglo.

And more of it

More rain, more time wasted watching television. I have been gettiing a little reading done, though. I bought Charles Baxter's new novel Saul and Patsy and have been making my way through it. Pretty well done, and I'm a sucker for books set in the middle of the country with young wives named Patsy (I'm thinking of Larry McMurtry's Moving On, a novel I read as a teenager in suburban Houston and again a few years ago, appreciating it even more).

Meanwhile, what is one supposed to make of celebrity gossip? Especially the stuff that isn't even about anything?

Kidman stays away from plush penthouse

Nicole Kidman is considering abandoning her pricey New York home because it'll attract too much attention.

The actress is currently living in the city's Chelsea district, where she moved after renting boyfriend Lenny Kravitz's SoHo apartment, while she waits for her $8 million pad in Perry Street to be completed. The two-towered condos also boast celebrity owners like Hugh Jackman, Calvin Klein and Martha Stewart.

But insiders say Kidman is now worried that the buildings are too noticeable, and would allow no privacy for Connor and Isabella, her kids with ex-husband Tom Cruise. One source says, "Nicole is saying she doesn't want to move in, because the building is too much in the public eye. She wants to live somewhere quieter, where she doesn't feel on display all the time."

Just what part of that story am I supposed to identify with, feel sorry for, or otherwise relate to? Could it be the fact that celebrities have, as sexual partners and spouses, other celebrities? The part about one of them spending millions on a home she doesn't even want? The part about naming children "Connor" and "Isabella"? I'm really having problems with this.

Heavy rain

Heavy rain on New Year's Day, for the first time in my 24-year experience. (OK, I was out of the country one year.) I got up and did the morning prayer at St. Gregory's, then went over to 24th and Mission for some coffee. The rain was coming down in sheets.

It's the year of the monkey, which is my year -- meaning I'm going to be hitting a milestone, an age divisible by 12, namely 48, in April. If you're a Taurus monkey, we probably have some things in common. (They say a Taurus monkey wants both a stable relationship and freedom. Well, yeah.)

We did nothing special last night, though we did manage to stay awake until midnight, unlike most years. And I have no resolutions yet -- just a prayer for my city.