its ok jim, youll find true news again.
Had lunch at Jean Georges and it was delish, really delish (the Cod w/ 5 Flavors, Pencil Leeks and Raspberry Vinegar worked with the old Sancerre so well it was one of the greatest food wine combos anyone at the table has had and the table had some heavy's!!)
I'm posting this here in case anybody with an account doesn't read /systemnews.

We've had a few problems over the last day or two with some comments going haywire and continuing to show up on the front page as [x new comments] even when there appears to be no comment at the specified location.

This problem was due to a bug introduced while making an upgrade. It has been fixed, but you still might have a [new comment] notification on your front page that won't go away no matter how many times you click on it. Here's what to do:

Go here: /settings. You might have to scroll down quite a ways before you see anything, but the top option is to 'zero all [new post] and [new comment] counters.' Check the box and then click on 'clear'. This should solve the problem and then take you back to the main page.

Let me know if you are still experiencing any problems.
Buckminster Fuller Illusive Mutant Artist



Les Levine on video
Dear folks,

Finally, the strange year of 2001 has been passed. Now we are able to dust ourselves off and move on. But do not look away from reflection of the last year tragedy. Many unanswered questions are still floating in the air.

This year, The Lonely Samoans will try hard to bring you love and peace at least for a moment, also ask questions to deep inside of ourselves.Some said we can't stop fighting because humans are animals, we are run by animal instinct. Do you believe that? I don't!!!

Please bring your love, it will be good to see you there.

Thursday, January 17th. 10pm.
@ CB's Gallery 313 Bowery.
Tel:(212)677-0455
$5 cover.

Samoa

From the Willamette Week website:

PENNY ALLEN

"Portland filmmaker made her directing debut in 1977 with Property, a docudrama about a neighborhood's battle against gentrification, followed in 1982 by Paydirt, an action film about three Oregon winemakers who resort to growing pot to pay the bills. Allen is now a free-lance writer living in Paris, where she recently discovered the long-forgotten grave site of early Portland feminist and John Reed protegée Louise Bryant."

I saw Property years ago at a New York film festival and have thought about it (off and on) ever since. As I recall, it's not really about a "neighborhood's battle against gentrification" but rather the efforts of a group of Portland bohemians to buy a block of Victorian houses where they've been living in semi-communal squalor. It's kind of an elegy for the '60s, depicting a moment when "hippie chicks" were turning to hooking rather "selling out," men were connecting with the drug underworld (and prison) for the same reason, and no one had any idea the Reagan era was right around the corner. It's not really a documentary, but it feels so real it might as well be. I found it incredibly wistful and romantic.

In retrospect, the movie was notable for launching the career of cinematographer Eric Alan Edwards, who has contributed his unmistakable handheld-verite style to a magnificent run of films, including My Own Private Idaho, To Die for, Kids, and Flirting with Disaster. It was also the first film of "little person" Cork Hubbert, who gave a standout performance and has since had a long and varied resumé (Where the Buffalo Roam, Legend, and countless TV roles). I don't think Property ever made it to videotape; there's probably a slim chance it'll be seen again. That's a shame: the film's time, place, and outsider point of view were unique, and in their own modest way, indispensable.

Hey Bill, look out your window.
fidget
Apparently Jerry Garcia's perspiration could eat through chrome nickel plating in three weeks. "I'm not kidding you, this is like what bumpers of cars are made out of you know, it's resistant. But gold, he didn't react to, and it lasted a long time." Make of this what you will.
Wow. This doesn't look good for the boys in charge. Looks like a new book is about to come out. Richard Butler will have an op-ed piece in the NY Times this weekend on the issue. He (Butler) said this on CNN by way of explanation:
The most explosive charge, Paula, is that the Bush administration -- the present one, just shortly after assuming office slowed down FBI investigations of al Qaeda and terrorism in Afghanistan in order to do a deal with the Taliban on oil -- an oil pipeline across Afghanistan.

Now let's see. The White House has appointed National Security Council Advisor Zalmay Khalilzad to serve as Special Presidential Envoy for Afghanistan. Apparetnly he worked for Unocal. As did Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan's interim Prez. (Although this thread has some arguments as to why this might not be as ridiculous as it sounds.)

Kind of makes this whole conspiracty theory thing I linked to on 9/24 (alas, on a private page, because I was actually chicken) seem not that crazy.

Kind of makes you wonder who was in attendance at the secret Cheney energy summit? They've gone to some crazy lengths to surpress that information.
uuuuuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
HOT TRENDS TO WATCH IN 2002:

Some could sizzle, others could fizzle. We'll revisit these calls a year from now to see how they panned out.

Blogging: From Jim Romenesko's MediaNews to Hylton Jolliffe's Corante, blogging is all the rage these days. (Ed's note: A blog is a Web log providing commentary and linked pointers to other sites) . Blogging has grown in popularity because they are simple to maintain and cheap to produce. Some cover niche topics with quick blurbs of news with links to other sites while others are wide-ranging, covering every conceivable topic. In 2002, we believe corporate America will fully introduce itself to blogging, creating a profitable side industry. The New York Times sold out ad inventory for its DealBook e-mail blog launch and there are indications other publishing giants will follow suit. The concept of blogging as a viable business is still an experiment. But, in 2002, the sheer popularity will make it a hot trend.
i have been searching Singapore restaurant sites....The Imperial Herbal Restaurant had been recommended as one of Singapore’s finest examples of Chinese cuisine and a good place to go to overcome jet-lag. It’s a place frequented by health-conscious Epicureans who have out-yanged their yin [or vice versa] and by the clients of the proprietor, herbalist Li Lian Xing, who prefer to take their medicine in a sweet and sour sauce rather than the usual tonic of bitter tea.

At the back of the restaurant is a grand old-fashioned teak pharmaceutical counter with banks of drawers and shelves full of bottles. Mr Li presides over it like a lean-shaven Confucius, grinding up powders and weighing remedies on a delicate pair of scales before dispatching them to the kitchen.

His specimen bottles are not for the faint-hearted. Macbeth’s witches would have had a field day with the contents: dried geckos and caterpillars, antler velvet, pickled snakes and seahorses, ox tendons and duck’s webs, and an array of deer penises or ‘pizzles’ that would makes Santa Claus’s eyes water.

Then there are roots, fungi, bulbs and herbs that look as weird and unappetizing as their animal counterparts but are also prescribed for a catalogue of complaints: American ginseng, for example, for ‘spontaneous perspiration and shortness of breath’; polygorum multiflorum for premature aging; fritillary bulbs for smoker’s cough; and birds’ nest for the complexion.

None of these look the stuff f the local take-away and under Sybil Fawlty’s direction there was no chance of avoiding them for a simple spring roll.

“First you will have famous appetizer - quick fried egg white with scallops and ladybell root in fried noodle basket. Good for ‘qi’ - more energy. Also,” she added, with a pointed look at my companion, “good for over-weight.”

She tugged at my hair. “Now need something for this,” she said. “Going grey already. I give you bowl of crispy black ants. Special imported from Northern China. Also good for Hepatitis B and arthritis.”

I tried to look grateful.

She continued prodding her finger at my menu. “Next you like black chicken for PMT or special Whip Soup for aphrodisiac?” By the time we had fought our humiliating way to the end of the list she had prescribed an additional course of deep-fried scorpions on prawn toast, “for the brain,” two portions of a bizarre potluck panacea called Buddha Jumps Over The Wall, and a dish of menthol jelly for desert. We managed to steer clear of her final recommendation for double boiled snow frog’s glands with rock sugar to, “improve functions of liver and kidney.”

As soon as her back was turned we ordered a couple of Tiger beers to settle our stomachs.

It is not only the medicinal aspect of food that is dished out with headmistressy insistence at the Imperial Herbal. The Chinese believe that whatever you eat has a direct effect on the body. To be in perfect health the internal ‘yin’ - the cool, contemplative forces - should be kept in equilibrium with the ‘yang’ - the more active, hot energies.

Every food has its own energy, so eating ‘cold’ foods like mussels, cucumber, snake and bean sprouts, has a calming effect on your macho hothead, while ‘hot’ foods like chocolate, beef, butter, onion and chillies can invigorate the wimp.

And some foods have a direct effect on different organs in the body. Egg yolk, for example, affects the heart, peppermint the lungs, wine the liver, salt the kidneys, and sugar the spleen. The small intestines are affected by spinach, the large intestines by pepper, the gall bladder by chicory, the bladder by watermelon, and the stomach by rice.

Every dish at the restaurant is a balanced combination of ingredients and each one should be chosen to complement the next. It’s a hypochondriac’s heaven and might have proved pleasantly diverting were any of it edible. For sheer disgustingness I rate only Fernet Branca and school cabbage higher.

Some of it was virtually impossible to put into your mouth without stomach-churning panic. The scorpion, for instance, flipped its tail up as I bit it and hit me on the nose.

Our waitress returned with gusto to see how we were doing. She was clearly disappointed to see our unfinished plates.

“Eat your soup,” she commanded, fishing about in my bowl with a spoon. “See, here is nice lotus seed - make ginseng taste better. And sliced sea cucumber, and abalone - good for sex life.”

“Will it do anything for jet lag?” I asked queasily. “For jet-lag,” she said helpfully, “you need plenty sleep,” and bustled off to persecute the next table."
what kind of geek ?
dsl connection established! (so far only on my computer - movin' on to wheel's next.) speedy quick. i like it. have not yet figured out the router setup that jim says is the way to go - which will allow us to wirelessly connect from the garden and around the house. baby steps. going to go find some big files to download.
coming down the mountain
the Chuck Zito experience
Doc Searls points to this Terry Jones (Monty Python) article in the Telegraph which gets right to the heart of the problem with our present "war on terrorism" which, as far as I can tell, is not actually a "war" nor particularly on "terrorism."
WHAT really alarms me about President Bush's "war on terrorism" is the grammar. How do you wage war on an abstract noun? It's rather like bombing murder.
It's about time for the comedians to take some whacks at this thing (although Jones' article is quite serious.)
its a happy new year, no bombs were set off, we can try to live life w/o fear, but it just dawned on me that two of my super hero's died last year, kesey and lilly....
I'd heard of Momus, the Scottish musician, but I never looked into his work until I ran into his spoof Folktronic while researching Jimmie Crack Corn. I laughed out loud at the flash videos for Mountain Music and Appalachia.
(The original Momus is the classical god of laughter and mockery, and figures in that song on which our national anthem was imposed.)
Residents of Lindhurst and Jersey City have been advised to boil their tap water for 3 mins. due to a sewer break.
On Christmas, Jim and I were discussing the difficulties of programming a computer to play Go in comparison to Chess. I said Go might ultimately be beyond the power of a computer because it relied on pattern recognition rather than number-crunching. Jim said he doubted that, because eventually computers would be able to handle complex pattern recognition. Well, it looks like I was wrong, about the nature of the task--it's number-crunching AND pattern recognition--and the outcome. At least one expert concurs that it's not a matter of whether but when. Here's a no-sign-in-required link to the NYTimes article I remembered from several years ago. In relevant part it states: "'It may be a hundred years before a computer beats humans at Go -- maybe even longer,' said Dr. Piet Hut, an astrophysicist at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J., and a fan of the game. 'If a reasonably intelligent person learned to play Go, in a few months he could beat all existing computer programs. You don't have to be a Kasparov.' When or if a computer defeats a human Go champion, it will be a sign that artificial intelligence is truly beginning to become as good as the real thing."
Happy New Year to All

In 2001 some of the best meals I have eaten were in Brooklyn at Al Di La and Locanda Vini e Olii, one of my favorite 2001 meals was a tasting menu at 71 Clinton FF with a table of 3 tasting 17 different dishes in all, Grand Sichuan International, Lupa & Felidia, also eating in Italy at the homes of winemakers, small village trattoria's and the wild meal at the two star Da Vittorio in Bergamo were all highlights....

I feel lucky that my work includes tons of meals all over the world but in general I feel let down by the dining experience, having had so many just ok meals this year. Yes one great dish here and one there but the expence invovled is ridicuolous if its not a bizz write-off.

My tastes are for more simple dishes and Italian food. Luckly I can finally cook ok for myself but this makes paying alot for just ok food a bummer . I tried this year to eat more raw foods (one of my phobia's), and eat more meats to add variety in 2001.

The search goes on and Q1 2002 will bring me to Loire, Paris, Italy, maybe Barcelona, lots of NYC restaurants in search of a great meal. Maybe a summer trip to SouthEast Asia as Asian food to me rocks. All the best to you and lets eat together soon!! The big question is where??
The history of Dead Moon another great band from Portland.
I first saw this band in it's incarnation as the Rats. I knew that some members had been in a 60's psychedelic band called The Lollipop Shop but this history states that they hark all the way back to 1964!
The influence of AC/DC and the first two Love albums is present in much of their work.
I recommend!