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Czech Milan Hlansa founder of Plastic People of the Universe, dead from cancer @ 49
"Rock 'n' roll is the medium to express the situation of man in this world and the world to come,"
"We don't do the music just for the sake of the music. You must be the author of your own life."
-M.H.
The hair of one of Hungary's most popular pop stars has been stolen from the
hospital where he died earlier this week, it has been reported.
Jimmy Zambo, 42, known by his fans as the "King", died on Tuesday after
accidentally shooting himself in the head at home with a pistol.
Zambo's long hair was shaved off before surgeons could operate on his brain,
although they failed to save him.
The hair has now disappeared, the Hungarian daily newspaper Blikk said,
quoting hospital officials.
Singer of the year
Zambo's fans have said they would pay large amounts of money for the star's
hair.
According to police reports, Zambo fatally wounded himself in the head at
his home in Budapest in the early hours of the morning.
He had fired his 9mm Beretta out of a window but failed to realise a bullet
was still in the chamber when pulling the trigger a second time.
Zambo was voted Hungary's singer of the year in 1993 and had won awards for
the best record of the year on several occasions.
His 2000 album Christmas With Jimmy has been Hungary's top-selling record
for many weeks.
Platinum
Since March 2000, Zambo had also hosted his own popular show on commercial
TV station RTL-Klub.
"He was one of the most professional showmen with whom it was always a
pleasure to work," commented Imre Szabo Stein, RTL-Klub's director of
communications.
The singer, whose real first name was Imre, had won the hearts of many
Hungarians since coming to prominence.
He started his singing career in the State Radio Children's Choir.
>From 1982-86 he moved to the US to try his luck on the club circuit before
returning to Hungary. All his albums since have gone platinum.
Zambo is survived by his wife and three sons.
Here lies Dick Shawn .
flic vids
flic factoids
Skull and Bones
more bones...
what more bones.....
dem bones......
Further, toward the Black Mountain College.
BMC
60's poets
project
"Garbolagist AJ Weberman has done it again ! This time looting super star Chan Marshell's (aka: CATPOWER) garbage can. Seems he found two noteworthy documents, a set list from a recent show and a page from her agenda. We share the wealth as follows. "
-b
Set List :
Quit Looking At Me
I'm Sorry
Maybe I should Wear a Veil
I'm Sorry
Shouting About Repression
I'm Sorry
Whoops
Life As An Oral Report
I'm Sorry
How To Get A Lot Of Attention While
Acting As Though It's The Black Plague
I'm Sorry
There's Nothing To Me. Yet The World Hangs
On My Every Complex Moove - I Love It
I'm Sorry
How To Assemble A Credible Band
I'm Sorry
Famous Drummers
I'm Sorry
Matador Pays for My Shrink
I'm Sorry
Matador Paid For My Drum Machine
I'm Sorry
Tomorrows Interview Schedule :
10:00 am - MAGNET (make sure to mention southern upbringing)
11:30 am - RAYGUN
12:30 pm - Close eyes, run finger down a list of hip Free-Jazz Musicians, stop, open eyes, form new band
3:00 pm - PUNCTURE MAGAZINE (act uninterested, devalue self, daydream, end w/ a profound statement).
4:00 pm - Examine Inner Self on the air at WFMU
6:00 pm - Dinner w/ SPIN (dont forget to pick at food)
7:00 pm - SPIN Photo Shoot )dont forget to apply fake cold sore)
9:00 pm - Attend Rave at the MATADOR Offices
complete text stolen from : THE CIMARRON WEEKED #0006 (music zine) w/o permision (po box 820206, memphis tn 38182)
I'd like to send a shoutout to our local NYC goddesses over at Temple of the Goddess
NYC artist JZ8 gave up art to run his Middel-Finger corperate empire.
Nested somewhere inbetween mark pauline and the mit gizzmoe olympics (worse than both but on tv twice a week) is battlebots
. Any one catch the "junkyard wars" marathon over thanksgiving ?
Future location of the next Dick Shawn tribute site. !
"Hello everyone,
My movie "Until the Day I Die" has won the popular vote at Pioneer Theater
short film festival and they will be showing it 5 times a day for 6 days!!
It is starting this Friday through next Thursday. I hope you can check it
out.
Pioneer Theater
155 E. 3rd St. (at Avenue A)
Tel:212-254-3300
Call for schedule.
Friday the 15th - 21st."
rock god Samoa
ltd edition chicken mcnugette in the shape of.....
They've been calling it Groundhogs Day since the election but last night Greenfield on cnn mentioned another one going around, "The Sienfeld election", you know the election about nothing. But he was actually able to trace it down to a single episode. The one where Georges family celebrates Festifus (sp?). Festifus, celebrated in the holiday season culminates with the anual, "Airing of the Grievences"....he went on to run down the two very familiar D an R lists.
Last night Jeff Greenfield on cnn sited a republican report which described Gores "Blue" won states as "The Porn Belt". Equating liberal pro "freedom of speach" areas with porn concentrations.
From todays NYT "In Stress of Recount, Complaints get Bizarre" by Lynette Holloway - Plantation Fla.
......Matthew C. Rhoades, 25 a research analyst for The Republican National Comitee, said that on Friday he saw a Democratic counter in the room eating a chad, the piece of the punch-card ballot that is supposed to fall out when a voter punches in his choice.
"We couldn't find a camera," Mr. Rhoades said,"and we were about to sweep them off the table. But right before that, a Democratic counter put one on his finger, joking around, held it up and then threw it in his mouth."
Her Name is Kathy and she works for Jeb
Katherine Harris no stranger to controversy
By Dara Kim
Nov. 13, 2000
| TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) -- A Harvard-educated blueblood from one of
Florida's wealthiest families, Secretary of State Katherine Harris is no stranger to
controversy.
She's been investigated for campaign finance violations and criticized for spending
state money jetting around the world, spending up to $500 a night for hotel rooms in
Washington. She's also been one of George W. Bush's most prominent political
supporters, campaigning for him in Florida and elsewhere.
Harris placed herself in the middle of the increasingly partisan
struggle over Florida's 25 electoral votes Monday with her
public announcement that all 67 counties are required by law
to wrap up their recounts by 5 p.m. Tuesday.
She sits as one of six elected members on the Florida
Cabinet, which with Gov. Jeb Bush, decides on issues
ranging from the mundane to the momentous affecting
schools, the environment and other statewide concerns.
As secretary of state, Harris oversees elections, the state's
historical and cultural resources and also keeps the state's
public records. She makes $106,000 a year.
"For what is probably the easiest of the Cabinet positions,
she's made it awful difficult," said state Democratic Party
spokesman Tony Welch.
In her first two years on the job, Harris spent $100,000 in Florida tax dollars on foreign
trade missions to places like Barbados and Brazil as well as the Sydney Olympics. Her
travel expenses were significantly higher than the other five Cabinet members and
three times more than Gov. Jeb Bush.
Harris defended her travel, saying she has brought millions of dollars of international
trade to the state and established cultural ties such as a cooperative ballet between
the state and Mexico.
Sandra Mortham, the incumbent who lost to Harris in a nasty Republican primary in
1998, said every secretary of state emphasizes their own key areas of concern.
"For me, it was elections, and it was to get the elections online and on the Internet,"
Mortham said. "Katherine has decided that she wanted to move the office more into
the area of international relations."
Ben McKay, Harris' chief of staff, said Harris was too busy with Monday's court hearing
to return calls.
In 1994, Harris became implicated in a campaign finance scheme surrounding her first
run for public office. She was forced to reimburse $20,000 after state investigators
discovered that employees of Riscorp, Inc., an insurer, were improperly reimbursed
for their contributions to her 1994 Senate campaign.
She said she had no knowledge that anything was amiss with the contributions.
This year, Harris approved a taxpayer-financed public service announcement featuring
retired Gen. Norman Schwartzkopf, a Bush ally, urging Floridians to vote. She
received criticism for spending the public's $30,000 to finance the ads, which aired
during the final month of the presidential campaign.
McKay said Harris' office asked Schwartzkopf, as a prominent Floridian, to make the
ads months ago, after Gloria Estefan and Tiger Woods turned down the request.
Harris, 43, earned a degree in history from the all-female Agnes Scott College in
Georgia, received a master's degree in public administration from Harvard and she
studied art and Spanish in Madrid, and philosophy and religion in Geneva.
Her grandfather, citrus magnate Ben Hill Griffin, served as a longtime legislator. He was
also a friend of former state Republican Party chairman, Tom Slade, who hand-picked
Harris for her Senate run. Her cousin, J.D. Alexander, is a state representative.
The Cabinet job, one that has been largely ceremonial, is being abolished after Harris'
current term, which expires in January 2003.
Harris, who is married to businessman Anders Ebbeson, listed her net worth as more
than $6.5 million as of December 1999, according to her latest financial disclosure.
Associated Press
Palm Beach County suspends hand count By Jackie Hallifax
Nov. 14, 2000 | TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) --
With a deadline fast approaching, judges in three Florida cities are deciding the fate of
recounted votes while Republican George W. Bush's legal team weighs whether to
appeal to a higher federal court.
Amid the swirl of legal maneuvers, officials in Palm Beach
County voted 2-1 on Tuesday to delay their manual recount
until they can clarify whether they have the legal authority to
proceed.
The county, a Democratic stronghold, had planned to count,
by hand about 425,000 ballots -- exactly one week after
voters first complained they were confused by their ballots.
Their outcry unleashed a political tide that froze Florida's 25
electoral votes and left Americans waiting to see who their
43rd president will be.
"The opinion we have received is that this manual recount is
not authorized by Florida statutes. It is my understanding that
an advisory opinion is in fact binding on this board," said
Judge Charles Burton.
Burton had opposed the canvassing commission's earlier decision to order a hand
count.
A federal judge who turned away Bush's initial effort to stop the recounting agreed
Monday the stakes couldn't be higher.
"I believe these are serious arguments. The question becomes who should consider
them," said U.S. District Judge Donald Middlebrooks, who declined Bush's request
for emergency federal intervention and ruled the issue was best left to local courts.
Among the critical issues to be resolved in local courts -- whether counties can
continue recounting votes beyond a 5 p.m. Tuesday deadline set by Florida's
Republican secretary of state, Katherine Harris.
In Tallahassee, a judge expressed doubts about the deadline as he weighed a
request from Vice President Al Gore and two counties to give more time for
recounting that could stretch into the weekend in Palm Beach County.
Leon County Circuit Judge Terry P. Lewis repeatedly questioned Monday why the
state had set the Tuesday deadline when absentee votes can continue to be counted
through the end of the week. "What's the good of doing a certification ahead of time?"
Lewis asked. He also questioned how a large county could ever get a hand recount
done within seven days since voters have three days before they even have to
request one. Lewis was expected to rule Tuesday.
Republicans argue the manual recounting should be ended because the process is
prone to abuse and political bias. Democrats hope the recounts will help Gore pick up
enough votes to overcome Bush's narrow lead in the state, which an informal
Associated Press tally put at 388 votes.
On other legal fronts:
--In West Palm Beach, a judge is considering the lawsuits of voters seeking a new vote
in their county. The voters argue the punch-card ballots they were given on Election
Day may have confused them enough to mistakenly vote for Reform Party candidate
Pat Buchanan when they intended to vote for Gore.
--The Florida Democratic Party sued the Palm Beach County Canvassing Board on
Monday evening, challenging the board's method of reading the ballots. The party
wants "pregnant chads" -- dimpled fragments not detached from the card -- counted
as votes.
--Democrats prepared to go to court in Broward County to overturn a decision by
officials there not to order a countywide manual recount. The county's canvassing
board decided Monday against the recount, after counting a sample of votes by hand
in three precincts and finding no major discrepancies.
"We intend to file litigation seeking judicial relief from this decision, which we think was
based on an erroneous legal decision sent down by the secretary of state,"
Democratic National Committee spokeswoman Jenny Backus said.
While Volusia County sought to wrap up its second recount, officials in Miami-Dade
County -- the state's most populous -- were to vote Tuesday on whether to conduct a
recount requested by Gore's campaign.
Bush's legal team is weighing whether to escalate a fight it began in federal court. The
options include appealing Middlebrooks' decision to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals
in Atlanta, or possibly going to the U.S. Supreme Court on an emergency basis,
according to Republican officials familiar with Bush's strategy.
The sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the possibility that
Republicans would seek to expand voter recounts to other Florida counties where
Bush fared well was "perceived as unlikely" at this time because deadlines for
requesting such recounts had expired in many counties.
Bush's lead lawyer sounded his main argument against further recounting on Monday.
"The process, to sum it up, is selective, standardless, subjective, unreliable and
inherently biased," Theodore Olson argued.
Senior Gore adviser Warren Christopher, a former U.S. Secretary of State,
acknowledged that the legal back-and-forth "seems to be getting a little bit
argumentative," but said his side believed the recounts were the only way "to defend
the rights of the voters of Florida to have a fair outcome."
Associated Press
A tree Grows in.....
....this is a send out to Porf. Wilson
By MICHAEL CREWDSON and MARGARET MITTELBACH - 11/11/00 for NYT
When we heard that the New York
City Department of Parks had
published "Great Trees of New
York City," a guide to the city's most
impressive trees, we were intrigued.
Although New York has no hulking
redwoods, we had heard for years about a
monster tree in Queens that was said to be
the biggest in all five boroughs. According
to the tree grapevine, this behemoth is a
tulip tree (Liriodendron tulipifera) growing
in an obscure corner of Alley Pond Park, a
635-acre swath of green in northeast Queens
that stretches from Union Turnpike to Little
Neck Bay.
Yet as we flipped through the pages of the
guide, we saw that the biggest-tree title was
awarded to another tulip tree, one in Staten
Island's Clove Lakes Park. The Queens tree
was not even mentioned. This left us
wondering. Was the Queens giant a myth,
the plant version of Bigfoot? Was it a
largish tree that had been exaggerated out of
all proportion? Or was it a sleeping giant
that had been forgotten?
A series of calls to the Parks Department's
press office revealed there was no recorded
data for any "great tree" in Alley Pond Park.
So we decided to go on a fact-finding
mission. We would track down both the
Queens and Staten Island trees and measure
them, branch to branch, leaf to leaf.,br>
Tree measuring used to be a simple affair,
an exercise for teaching schoolchildren a
little geometry. You simply paced off 100
feet from the base of the tree, determined the
angle at which you stood to the treetop and
performed a little trigonometric calculation.
We immediately noticed two problems with this method. First, it assumed the tree was
growing on flat ground. Second, it assumed you were listening during high school math
class.
We concluded that bringing in experts would be absolutely necessary.
Bob Leverett, a co-founder of the Eastern Native Tree Society, is sometimes called the "guru
of Eastern ancient forests." He's the co-author of "Stalking the Forest Monarchs: A Guide to
Measuring Champion Trees," and describes himself as a "big-tree hunter." If anyone was
going to determine the exact height of these trees, he would be the one.
There was only one problem: Mr. Leverett lives in western Massachusetts, and he is reluctant
to take his car into perilous city traffic. Besides, his tree-measuring abilities are in high
demand. On the weekend we were planning our tree safari, he was already scheduled to
measure big trees in the Adirondacks with Bruce Kershner, a Buffalo-based forest ecologist.
The two men are writing a book together, "The Sierra Club Guide to the Ancient Forests of
the Northeast," due from Random House next spring. But when Mr. Kershner got wind of
what we were up to, he agreed to postpone their Adirondack plans.
Born and reared in New York City, Mr. Kershner had not only heard of the Queens giant but
had also seen it. He had also roughly measured the Staten Island tree five years ago, and he
wanted Mr. Leverett to get a crack at it.
We rendezvoused with them on a Saturday morning in Bayside, a residential neighborhood
in Queens, and caravaned together to 58th Road and East Hampton Boulevard, a quiet street
opposite fenced-in woods. This sylvan site is the reputed home of the Queens giant, a narrow
parcel of parkland amputated from the rest of Alley Pond Park by the crisscrossing of the
Long Island Expressway and the Cross Island Parkway.
When we stepped out onto the street, Mr. Leverett began to brief us on the details of tree
measuring, tossing out terms we hadn't used for a while, like hypotenuse. Oh, yes — the
long arm of a right triangle. Suddenly, Mr. Kershner stopped the math talk and said, "I just
want to point out how bizarre this is, looking for a giant tree on the edge of a busy highway
in Queens."
Both men were prepared for a hard-core trek, with hiking boots, heavy pants and packs.
Normally they do their research in the wilderness of state and national parks, searching for
pockets of ancient forest. We asked Mr. Leverett, who grew up in a small town in the
mountains of Tennessee, what he thought of it all. He considered carefully before answering.
"This is an old city with a lot of history," he said in a soft Southern accent. "There's a lot of
places for a big tree to hide out."
We wended our way down to a sidewalk alongside the Long Island Expressway and,
ignoring a sign that read "Trail Closed," went a few yards farther and found a rough trail
leading into the woodland's interior. The blare of traffic dulled slightly as we were enveloped
by green. Before walking even 10 feet down the trail, Mr. Leverett and Mr. Kershner were
identifying trees and estimating their ages. One big tulip tree, they agreed, was about 200
years old, a red oak was about 150 and a beech had to be at least 80. They knew this,
because the beech had "1920" carved into its smooth bark.
"These are big trees," Mr. Kershner said, with an edge of excitement in his voice. "This
looks like an old-growth forest."
Mr. Leverett has logged tens of thousands of miles measuring trees in the Great Smoky
Mountains, the Adirondacks and New England, and he's seen some monster flora. Yet, as
we walked deeper into this tiny patch of woods, perhaps another 100 feet along the trail, he
abruptly let out a shout. "Whooohooooo!" he yelled. "That is a large vegetable. Ohhh, this is
an old tree." Apparently, the Queens giant was for real.
Our eyes popped when we saw it. If tulips are skyscrapers among trees — the tallest species
that grows in this region — then this was the Empire State Building. It dwarfed the other
trees in the woods, and its massive arrow-straight trunk shot high into the canopy. The girth
of the trunk was so wide you would need a whole team of tree-huggers to embrace it
properly.
The only sign that anyone was aware that this tree was special was that it was enclosed by a
low, broken- down chain-link fence that offered, if nothing else, symbolic protection. We
scrambled over it, and Mr. Leverett began taking measurements. He whipped out a tape
measure, hooked it onto a furrow of the gnarled, reddish bark and slowly circled the tree,
disappearing briefly: "18.6 feet in circumference," he said, noting this down in a black
binder.
Getting the tree's height was slightly trickier. We followed him up the steep slope on which
the tree was growing and noticed that these woods were a bit of a mess. We passed a
discarded shopping cart, rusting truck springs, a smashed air- conditioner and the remains of
a long-abandoned car. And yet, the soil on the forest floor was soft and dark, the color of
coffee grounds. "It's wonderful soil," Mr. Leverett said as he climbed past a little patch of
ferns.
To measure the tree's height using trigonometry — or as Mr. Leverett likes to call it,
"twigonometry" — he had to be able to see the tiptop of the tree. When he found a vantage
point, where he could glimpse the top through the woodland's thick foliage, he stopped and
broke out the latest in high-tech tree-measuring gear.
Taking a $300 Bushnell laser range finder (most commonly used by golfers to gauge the
distance to the green), he aimed it at the highest leaf on the tree, which he called the leader,
and pressed a button. Zap. A digital readout on the range finder told him that the treetop was
126 feet away. He then looked into the eyepiece of another device, a $90 Suunto clinometer,
which established the vertical angle at which he stood to the leader. Using his equipment and
a little basic trigonometry, Mr. Leverett executed the motions of measurement in a brisk ritual
that left us awed and — voilà! — announced that the Queens giant was 133.8 feet high, the
equivalent of a 13-story building. Let's see if Staten Island could top that.
While Mr. Leverett was working on the tree's size, Mr. Kershner was working on its age.
He pointed out a hollow in the tree trunk that was big enough to sit in. Inside were an old
baseball cap and an empty Coke bottle. "Look," he said, "a leprechaun convention center."
He examined bald spots on the bark and said that those were sure signs of an aged tree.
On the ground he found a limb that had fallen from 50 feet up, and he got down in the dirt to
count its rings. "This bough alone is 200 years old," he said when he finally finished
counting. "I would say this tree is 350 to 400 years old." That meant the tree was a sapling
when New Amsterdam was being settled by the Dutch in the 1600's. "We're not just talking
about whether this is the largest tree here," he said. "We're talking about the oldest living
thing in New York City."
Now that we had taken the measure of the king of Queens, we returned to our vehicles and
headed to Staten Island for the showdown. Mr. Kershner, who happened to have grown up
there and had even written a book about it — "Secret Places of Staten Island" (Kendall/Hunt,
1998) — led the way. He let us know he was rooting for the Staten Island tree.
It was not surprising that both contenders were tulip trees. Except for white pines, which do
not grow in the city, tulip trees are the tallest and most voluminous trees in the East. They're
also fairly tough, able to survive in city parks despite air pollution and vandalism.
Historically, Native Americans and pioneers used tulip trees' long, straight trunks to make
canoes, and their fine-textured wood is still commonly used to make furniture, musical
instruments and paper products. They're called tulip trees because the shape of their leaves
and flowers resemble tulip blossoms.
Mr. Leverett is fond of tulip trees. He grew up in the mountains of Tennessee in a town
called Copper Hill. "It was my favorite tree in the Smokies," he said. "Most of those huge
Smoky Mountain tulip trees are 145 to 165 feet tall. The species is capable of living to 600
years."
The scene at Clove Lakes Park was quite different from the neglected, highway-beleaguered
woods in Queens. In northern Staten Island, just off Forest Avenue and Clove Road, this
200-acre park was well- groomed, its paved paths filled with strollers and baby carriages. At
the park's northernmost end, a green tree-studded lawn stretched away from the aptly named
Forest Avenue, and in the middle of it, about 200 feet from the street, we saw a mighty big
tree dwarfing everything around it.
When Mr. Leverett saw it, he let out a whistle. "This is going to be a horse race," he said.
None of the picnickers and other parkgoers seemed to notice that they were in the presence of
greatness. Aside from its humongous size, nothing distinguished this tree as special except
for a severed lightning-rod cable that hung ineffectually down its trunk.
According to the "Great Trees" guide, the Staten Island tree is 146 feet high. If true, it would
easily be the victor over the Queens Giant. But Mr. Leverett is an expert at busting
overblown claims.
"We're trying to bring truth into the big-tree numbers," he said. The big-tree-hunting world,
it turned out, is rife with inaccurate measurements. But no arboreal claimant can hide from
Mr. Leverett's laser range finder. For example, he and his colleagues at the Eastern Native
Tree Society discovered that a red oak in Michigan, which was listed as the state champion,
was overestimated by 90 feet. "Ninety feet, that's a whole tree," he said.
The Staten Island tree, which we dubbed the Clove Lakes colossus, was clearly younger than
its Queens rival, and it had had the benefit of little competition. Whereas the Queens giant
was losing its crown, struggling to get enough sun, the colossus was lord of the lawn,
spreading out in every direction with abandon. The only hassle it appeared to face was
children, running about on its massive buttressed trunk.
Mr. Leverett measured the circumference of the trunk. He hooked the tape to the bark and
vanished for what seemed to be a long time as he made his way around. At 20 feet, the tape
was not long enough this time, and we had to put a finger on the spot so he could measure
the remainder. It was a whopping 21.4 feet around, bigger in circumference than the Queens
tree.
Walking backward across the lawn, trying to get a bead on the tree's leader, Mr. Leverett
commented on how easy it was to measure a tree in an open field. "It's almost like shooting
fish in a barrel," he said.
He lasered the tree with his range finder and worked his mathematical magic with the
clinometer and calculator. "The height," he announced, as we waited anxiously, "is 119
feet." That's 27 feet shorter than the height advertised in the "Great Trees" guide, but, more
importantly, 12.2 feet shorter than the Queens' giant.
However, Mr. Kershner pointed out that the colossus had more limbs and a more massive
trunk. And we had to admit that the trunk was overwhelming. Mr. Leverett, who's no wood
sprite, looked like a finger puppet standing next to it.
But it was all going to come down to calculations he would make later. Height is not the
be-all and end-all when it comes to determining a tree's bigness. With more measurements
(height to the first bough, crown spread), Mr. Leverett planned to use a mathematical model
to estimate the tree's overall volume. "I have to sit down with a pencil and calculator for an
hour or so," he said. "But I can tell you it's going to be a close one."
We headed our separate ways and waited nervously for the results. The next evening we
received word via e- mail. Both trees had an estimated volume of 1,750 cubic feet and
weighed in the neighborhood of 50,000 pounds. The Queens tree was probably a bit more
voluminous, but the Staten Island tree was slightly heavier.
So what Mr. Leverett was saying was that it was a dead heat. Until further review, we had
two trees worthy of being called the New York Giant.
"At this point," wrote Mr. Leverett, "I would call them co-champions. Should you want to
take the contest further, we would need to have both trees climbed with periodic girth
measurements taken for at least the first 75 feet. Until that is done, I'm willing to call it a
draw."
And so, until some hardy spirit clambers to the top of both these behemoths, bragging rights
in this heavyweight-tree contest can be shared by both boroughs. As for the other counties,
Manhattan and the Bronx seem to be out of the running and, while trees may grow in
Brooklyn, they grow taller in Queens and Staten Island.
Finding the Trees
To reach the Queens giant, a tulip tree measuring 133.8 feet tall and 18.6 feet in
circumference, head for a section of Alley Pond Park where the Long Island Expressway and
the Cross Island Parkway intersect. At East Hampton Boulevard and the Horace Harding
Expressway (a service road of the Long Island Expressway) look for a nearby trail into the
woodlands. The tree, which is surrounded by a small fence, is a five-minute walk from the
trailhead.
The Clove Lakes colossus, a tulip tree measuring 119 feet tall and 21.4 feet in circumference,
is situated in the northernmost part of Staten Island's Clove Lakes Park near the intersection
of Forest Avenue and Clove Road.
From Forest Avenue, walk south across the park's lawn for about 200 feet to reach the giant
tree.
"Great Trees of New York City" is a 48-page guide that describes more than 100 city trees of
impressive size, age, species, form and historic association. For detailed instructions on
measuring big trees, visit the Eastern Native Tree Society's Web site
right here.
Now that Phish is on sabbatical.........
From today's New York Post:
Elephant Band a Jumbo Hit
By Bill Hoffman
Meet the biggest thing in music - a pop group featuring five full-grown
elephants. The musical beasts, who live in a conservation center in
Thailand, have been trained to play percussion instruments, including the
xylophones and a harmonica. And they also play pretty mean trumpets.
The group, which has yet to be named, is the brainchild of Sanit Homnan, who
runs the center where the elephants live. Their fist album will be released
in the United States next year and will include their debut single, "Chang,
Chang, Chang," a popular Thai children's song. In English, it means
elephant, elephant, elephant.
Homnan says the elephants work very much as a team and aren't into hogging
the spotlight with solos. Two of the elephants play bamboo percussion
instruments by shaking them with their trunks, while two others bang on
giant xylophones, and another blows a specially designed giant harmonica.
Among their tunes are "Happy Birthday," and they may soon be able to do
numbers by the Beatles and the Spice Girls.
Proceeds from the record will help fund a milk bank for orphaned elephants
and other elephant-conservation programs around the world. The pachyderm
players will do a worldwide concert tour to promote their songs. The same
conservation group has already trained elephants to paint on giant canvases.
Several of those artworks have been sold to raise money for the center.
STYX DEGREES OF SEPARATION
Dennis De Young, co-founder of the "rock" band Styx is suing his
former bandmates over misuse of the band's name and trademark.
DeYoung calls his decision to sue former partners Tommy Shaw, James
Young and Chuck Panozzo "the most painful decision" of his career
aside from that time he was forced to cut 12 minutes from a guitar
solo.
DeYoung was one of the band's founders 35 years ago and wrote and sang
most of the group's hits, including "Lady," "Babe," "Lady-Babe," and
"Bady-Labe."
He says a partnership deal that was renewed in 1990 by him, Shaw,
Young, Panozzo and Panozzo's brother, John, required the agreement of
all five on all matters concerning the band and its trademark.
Tragically, John Panozzo died in 1996 while attempting a falsetto
seven octaves above high C.
DeYoung joined the 1997 Styx reunion tour but asked the others to
delay their 1999 tour because he was suffering side effects resulting
from 29 years of art-rock.
My Daddy was was an ultralight.............
Plentiful Sandhill Cranes Blaze Trail for Rare
Relatives
By ELIZABETH STANTON FOR NYT 10/24/00
Twelve young sandhill cranes and an
equal number of biologists and
wildlife specialists are on their way
to completing the longest human-led bird
migration yet, over 1,250 miles from
Wisconsin to Florida.
The humans are teaching the cranes, born in
captivity, to migrate in hope that they can
use the same route and training process on
their endangered cousins, the whooping
crane, next year.
At least nine other human-led migrations
have been tried with other species,
including trumpeter swans and Canada
geese. Large water birds, like geese and
cranes, need to be led on their first flight
south by their parents so they can memorize
the landmarks. But these birds do not have
parents that have migrated.
So, in the parents' stead is Joe Duff, one of
the project designers and the pilot of a
yellow ultralight plane propelled by an
engine and a propeller, which is covered
with a bird guard.
The birds regard this single-seater as their
leader. Kept aloft by its large wings that
resemble those of a hang glider, the
ultralight craft can fly up to 35 miles an
hour. Flying about two hours a day, the
birds can cover 50 to 75 miles, but travel
time and distance depends on the cranes'
energy and the weather.
To signal flight time, Mr. Duff, dressed in a
baggy gray drawstring flight suit to
disguise his human features, starts the
engine and plays a tape of adult crane calls
off the tail of the plane.
When all goes well, and it generally has,
the cranes follow his lead and soar behind
him in a V-formation off the large white
wings until they reach the next stop.
"We just have to get up every morning and
see," Mr. Duff said. "Some days are
beautiful and others we have the fog and
winds to battle. But once we are up there,
the sights are incredible and it is just a
matter of a slow climb to get there."
The entourage left Necedah National
Wildlife Refuge in central Wisconsin on
Oct. 3 and the caravan of biologists,
wildlife experts and veterinarians expect to
arrive in early November at
Chassohowitzka National Wildlife Refuge,
along the Gulf of Mexico, in Florida.
The human support group, traveling by
land and by air, will make about 24 stops.
Joan Guilfoyle, a spokeswoman for the
Fish and Wildlife Service, said the sandhill
cranes were selected for the experimental
migration because of their large numbers,
with an estimated population in the United
States of 650,000. That was not always the
case: in the 1930's there were as few as 25
breeding pairs, but the population
rebounded in the 1970's and has
flourished.
The whooping crane has not done as well.
In 1865, its numbers were estimated at 700
to 1,400, but in the 1930's the birds began
to disappear, and hit a low of 16 migrating
birds in 1941. Since then, the population
has gradually increased, to about 400
today, but only about 188 of these are wild,
migrating from Canada to Texas for the
winter.
The goal of the experimental migration is to
train birds born in captivity to survive in the
wild and to make the annual migration,
adding another flock of migrating birds.
"The depletion of our nation's wetlands and
the early hunting of these birds has resulted
in their endangered status," Ms. Guilfoyle
said, "and now we have a chance to bring
experts together to determine how to create
a second migratory group."
Raised to test the route for their crane cousins, the sandhills began training in late May. Dr.
Daniel Sprague, a biologist, played ultralight motor sounds and the parental brood call to the
chicks 24 hours before they were hatched. For the next few weeks, Dr. Sprague continued to
acclimate the cranes to engine noises and the ultralight by playing recordings of adult cranes
and feeding them from an outstretched crane puppet as he circled their pen, eventually getting
them to follow the plane.
The project, expected to cost about $850,000 this year, is financed by the Whooping Crane
Eastern Partnership, a consortium of public and private agencies.
Operation Migration is one of the private groups working with the partnership. Bill Lishman
and Mr. Duff founded the nonprofit group in 1994 after pioneering the human-led migration
technique with Canada geese. Plans are on track for next year's effort with the whooping
cranes.
"If this happens, it will be amazing because these birds don't have a negative side," Mr.
Lishman said. "They have never been a hugely populated species so they won't inundate an
area or overpopulate it and we will be on the road to reintroducing an element of nature that
we forced out."
On Smoking Stuff
"At Baylor summer camp in Waco Tx, we used to smoke dryed out mustang grape vine stems. We called it smokin' grapevine. ...and we turned out ok. Ha!"
-bill
Naked Came the Really Strange Interiors
By JOHN LELAND for NYT 10/19/00
JUSTIN JORGENSEN was visiting the
office of a friend who works in the
online pornography business last year,
and he was appalled by what he saw. Mr.
Jorgensen, 25, is not easily shocked, but
there was something profoundly unsettling
in the amateur photographs.
Those drapes! That wall clock! The laundry
on the bed!
The naked guy in the foreground was one
thing, but the stuffed marlin on the wall was
scandalous.
Because the transgressions were so
shocking, and because he had a lot of time
on his hands, Mr. Jorgensen, an interior
designer, decided to do something about it.
He created Obscene Interiors, a Web page
that set its sights on what to him was the
truly offensive side of the pornography
world. Which is to say, the décor.
Culling pictures from gay pornography
sites, he electronically blotted over the
naked bodies to remove all taint of sexuality
and called viewers' attention to the nasty
bits: the clashing light switch plate, the
stereo speaker used as a shelf, the pile of
magazines splayed on the floor.
The doctored photos may be in wildly bad
taste, but they are not smutty, nor does the
site provide links to any real pornography.
In the one instance in which the silhouette
was suggestive, Mr. Jorgensen altered the
image digitally to remove the suggestion.
Mr. Jorgensen and another interior
designer, who uses the name Kyle B. to
avoid trouble at work, added snippy
comments in the margins. Last December,
Mr. Jorgensen put the results on his
design-themed site on the Internet,
Justinspace.com. The pictures get about
1,400 hits a day, he said.
By its authors' lights, the site provides a critique whose time has come. To paraphrase
Justice Potter Stewart's famous remark about obscenity, Mr. Jorgensen may not be able to
define it, but he knows an obscene interior when he sees it.
"If someone's going to go out to a nightclub or a party, they get all dolled up," said Mr.
Jorgensen, who works as a designer for theme parks. "Yet, here people are taking pictures of
themselves in the nude and they don't bother even cleaning up a little or vacuuming."
Kyle B, who saw only the altered images, likened the results to photos from a "crime scene,
with a chalk outline" where the body should be.
The crimes are manifold. Mr. Jorgensen began compiling a list of recurring offenses. "My
biggest pet peeve is people putting lamps on top of speakers," he said. "I don't know why
this is happening all the time. It really concerns me."
The worst crimes, predictably, are those of ego. Just as amateur pornography subjects flaunt
their bodies, flaws and all, they appear equally unself-conscious about their homes. "It's like
some sort of weird self- delusion that people are only going to look at them, and not pay
attention to the trash on the floor behind them," Mr. Jorgensen said.
Mr. Jorgensen himself lives and works in a boxy, kitsch-filled apartment in Burbank, Calif.,
amid Ikea furnishings and housewares from Target's Michael Graves collection. In his work
area, he has a stack of magazines on the floor and a pile of CD's on the speaker of his stereo.
He is, in other words, but one digital alteration away from making it onto his own Web site.
"I know, I know," he said with a laugh. "I think there's elements of all these interiors in
almost everyone's home."
In her book "Sex and Real Estate: Why We Love Houses" Prof. Marjorie Garber of Harvard
contends that housing has become "a form of yuppie pornography," the new object of erotic
desire. Obscene Interiors is a reminder that those basic desires, once exposed, can be nothing
short of indecent.
The anual Jersey City Artists "Open Studio" Tour is this weekend. I have a small storefront space half way down the block from my home. I split the space with artist Tom Moody. It runs all day Saturday and Sunday October 21st and 22nd. I have installed two "construction" photo series pieces consisting of about 50 photo images and Tom has installed a 25 image series of a "hot babe" (rated pg) he down loaded from the net.
Directions : Take the Path train to Grove Street. Walk 4 blocks south on Grove St to the corner of York st and its right there, 234 York.
I will also have on hand those three Farm initiation Photos.
Hope every one can come by !
This Just in ?
NO THIS IS NOT INDEX MAGAZINE!
Harmony Korine on David Letterman
October 17, 1997
LETTERMAN: Our next guest garnered both shock and praise as the screenwriter
of the controversial motion picture "Kids." Now he is making his directorial
debut with the film "Gummo" which opened today. Here's Harmony Korine.
Harmony, come on out.
(Harmony Korine enters, is greeted by Dave and sits down.)
LETTERMAN: Welcome back to the show. We haven't seen you in a couple of
years. I guess you were here when "Kids" came out, weren't ya?
KORINE: Yeah.
LETTERMAN: Yeah. Did you have a nice time that night?
KORINE: Yeah, it was real -- it was good. Yeah, I had fun.
LETTERMAN: But it's been a long time since you came back
.
KORINE: Yeah. It was like two years.
LETTERMAN: Yeah, but did you want to come back in the meantime? Did you ever
find yourself saying, "Gee, I'd like to go back and see Dave?"
KORINE: Oh, yeah, yeah.
LETTERMAN: Well, what happened?
KORINE: Well, this one night I really was thinking about that.
LETTERMAN: Really? Well, that's good.
KORINE: It was neat.
LETTERMAN: You know, I saw your film "Gummo."
KORINE: Oh, yeah.
LETTERMAN: My, that's an interesting piece of work that "Gummo."
KORINE: thanks.
LETTERMAN: What does "Gummo" mean as the title?
KORINE: Well, "Gummo" was the fifth Marks Brother.
LETTERMAN: Can you name all the Marks Brothers?
KORINE: Yeah, but well...
LETTERMAN: Well, let's go.
KORINE: All right. Well, you have Zeppo, Harpo.
LETTERMAN: Zeppo, Harpo, Chico.
KORINE: Obviously Groucho. It's really pronounced "Chico," because he liked
to chase chicks. He also liked to gamble, and when he would play golf he
would gamble.
LETTERMAN: So are you a big fan of the Marks Brothers?
KORINE: Yeah, but "Gummo" quit because he liked to wear women's clothes.
LETTERMAN: Is that right? He quit the group, "Gummo" did?
KORINE: Yeah, because he wanted to sell cardboard boxes, but the movie is
not about him or nothing.
LETTERMAN: The movie has nothing to do with "Gummo." It's just somebody that
you liked, you admired, and you named the film "Gummo"?
KORINE: Yeah.
LETTERMAN: All right. Why don't you tell people what the movie is about. Is
it autobiographical in any sense?
KORINE: Not really. It's just more like about specific scenes.
LETTERMAN: Specific scenes from your childhood, from your upbringing?
KORINE: Well, some of them, but not really. It's just more like...
LETTERMAN: All right. Well, now, let me interrupt you right there, because
I've seen the film. If you can, give us an example of a scene that represents
your upbringing and an example of a scene that has nothing to do with your
upbringing. I'd just like to know what kind of a guy I'm dealing with here.
KORINE: Okay.
LETTERMAN: Fair enough?
KORINE: Yeah, that's fair. I guess I used to eat spaghetti in my bath while
I would take baths.
LETTERMAN: All right, yeah, that's a scene now. You're in the bath tub and
you've got one of those things across the tub.
KORINE: Yeah.
LETTERMAN: And you're eating spaghetti; you're eating dinner.
KORINE: Also, if you notice in that scene there's a piece of bacon taped on
the wall (laughter).
LETTERMAN: No, I didn't. I'll have to load that back up.
KORINE: That's my favorite part.
LETTERMAN: I'll have to freeze it and look for the bacon.
LETTERMAN: Now, when you were a kid did you tape bacon on the wall while you
had your spaghetti dinner in the bath?
KORINE: I personally like it. Well, bacon is my aesthetic, essentially.
LETTERMAN: I'm sorry. Bacon is your what?
KORINE: Well, as far as it being humorous, taped bacon, It's just something
I really get excited about it.
LETTERMAN: I'll tell ya something. This is exactly why we don't need Arnold
Schwarznegger. We don't need him. We don't want him.
KORINE: Yeah. Once I met Arnold Schwarznegger.
LETTERMAN: Yeah. Nice man.
(Korine shrugs his shoulders.)
KORINE: I'm gonna, I'm gonna...
LETTERMAN: Now wait a minute. Wait a minute. We're not done. I want to
follow up on this. Now, that's an example of something that did happen in
your life. Now, give us an example of something in your film that is in no
way connected to reality as you know it (laughter).
KORINE: Okay. For instance, the movie starts with a dog that's impaled on a
satellite on someone's house.
LETTERMAN: A satellite dish antenna?
KORINE: Yeah.
LETTERMAN: But that's after like a tornado?
KORINE: Yeah.
LETTERMAN: Well, that could have happened. That happens all the time, you
know, like cows flying through the air and stuff.
KORINE: Yeah, but...
LETTERMAN: It might have happened.
KORINE: Well, see what happened was, I ride unicycles.
LETTERMAN: No, you don't.
KORINE: I swear. Well...
LETTERMAN: No, you don't.
KORINE: Okay, so the first time in my life I was riding one down a dirt
road, and I saw the dog when we put in the satellite dish, I saw it.
LETTERMAN: All right. We'll come back to that later. You know, when you go
to the Gap, they'll put cuffs right on those pants. They won't charge you
like a nickel extra.
(Camera focuses on ten-inch pant cuffs and shoes with no socks and audience
cracks up.)
KORINE: I'm not -- I don't like that company.
LETTERMAN: No, you're fine, you're fine. Just take it easy.
KORINE: Yeah.
LETTERMAN: Tell me about the cast in the film. It's an interesting
collection of thespians you have selected.
KORINE: Yes. Well, my big influence is once I saw -- when I was in high
school I saw this play. I don't really know if I should talk about that kind
of thing.
LETTERMAN: What about it do you find objectionable?
KORINE: Well, okay. Well, you know James Joyce, Ulysses? I was just kind of
inspired, because I used to know Snoop Dog a long time ago, and it was a play
that he was starring in. He was starring in the theatrical version of that
story. So that's where I basically got the idea from.
LETTERMAN: Yeah, but now if we can go back to the question (audience
applauds.). Just a second. It's a very rich colorful group of cast members
you have, and I am curious as to how you found these people, where you found
them and why you selected them to put them in the film "Gummo."
KORINE: Okay. The main actor's name is Tumler, and I saw him on an episode
of Sally Jesse Rafael. It was called, "My Child Died From Sniffing Paint."
(Audience cracks up.)
LETTERMAN: You think this is easy, don't you? You're just sitting there in
your house eating Cheetos. You think this is easy, don't you? (Audience
cracks up.)
KORINE: But he reminded me of Buster Keaton, and he was a paint-sniffing
survivor. (Audience cracks up.) Well, I don't know if like the way I'm
telling you this if it makes it sound like you'd want to see my movie.
LETTERMAN: Oh, you are selling tickets tonight, buddy.
KORINE: Yeah, yeah. It's "Gump," "Gummo"
LETTERMAN: I'll say this for the film. It's nothing I have ever seen before.
KORINE: Yeah, yeah, because --
LETTERMAN: Where did you shoot the movie?
KORINE: I grew up in Nashville in Tennessee, and I wanted to make a
different film. I wanted to make a different kind of movie, because I don't
see cinema in the same -- on the same kind of terms or the same way that
narrative movies have been made for the past hundred years. I mean, we
started with Griffith and we ended up with -- I don't know what the hell is
going on now but -- (Audience applauds.)
LETTERMAN: This thing will set 'em straight.
KORINE: But basically nothing has changed, so I wanted to see moving images
coming from all directions.
LETTERMAN: Well, that's what you have. You have assembled a series of very
striking vivid disturbing impressions.
KORINE: Yeah, well, that's basically my style (laughter).
LETTERMAN: Yeah. May I ask how much the movie cost to make?
KORINE: 80 mil. (Letterman totally cracks up.)
LETTERMAN: 80 million dollars, and every penny is up there on the screen,
ladies and gentlemen.
KORINE: Yeah. I stole some of it. Every penny.
LETTERMAN: 1.5 million. Is that about right? That's about right, isn't it?
KORINE: I don't talk finances.
LETTERMAN: Yeah, but no, that's about right, and you know something? I
applaud that. I think that to me it's insane that movies, most of them do
cost 80 million bucks. You know what I mean? You can't even bust open the
popcorn for less than 80 million.
KORINE: No, I agree.
LETTERMAN: And all we are doing really is telling a story, so why would it
cost 80 million dollars to tell a story?
KORINE: I know. I don't understand that. That's why I made "Gummo" because
it's...
LETTERMAN: And what story are you telling with "Gummo"?
KORINE: Okay. Well, it's not really one story, because that's the whole
thing. I don't care about plots.
LETTERMAN: That's right, in the linear sense. It's more slices of life.
KORINE: Well, like I think every movie there needs to be a beginning, middle
and end, but just not in that order (laughter), and like when I watch movies,
the only thing I really remember are characters and specific scenes. So I
wanted to make a film-making system entirely of that, really random.
LETTERMAN: Right. You would like the phone book better if it were not
alphabetized, right?
KORINE: Yes, I like the phone book. It's good (laughter).
LETTERMAN: Oh, you do, do ya?
KORINE: Yeah. I like Eddie Cantor. I like Al Jolson. I want to do a minstrel
with Tom Cruise, and I want him to play it on his knees.
LETTERMAN: Really? Like Eddie Guddell.
KORINE: I want to make a movie about Eddie Guddell. He was a midget
baseball player, but they didn't have -- you know it's in the Guinness Book
of World Records, because the strike zone is really small.
LETTERMAN: He walked him on four straight pitches or something.
LETTERMAN: Are you working on a project right now? Do you have something
else in the works?
KORINE: I have a novel coming out called, "A Crackup at the Race Riots."
It's about a race war, and it happens in Florida, and the Jewish people sit
in trees, and the black people -- the blacks are run by M.C. Hammer and the
whites are run by Vanilla Ice. It takes place in Florida.
LETTERMAN: Go ahead. Try to adjust your sets. It won't make a damn bit of
difference. Go in there and screw with everything you got. Turn it up. Turn
it down. Get it going like that, get it going like that. We'll still be here
when you're done.
KORINE: I wanted to write the great American choose-your-own-adventure novel.
LETTERMAN: Now, you seem like a very prolific young man.
KORINE: Yeah. I had my first art show.
LETTERMAN: Oh, really? You can paint? Is that what it is? You can paint?
KORINE: Yeah.
LETTERMAN: Now, Harmony, will you come back now?
KORINE: Yeah.
LETTERMAN: Because when you were here the last time we all said, "Gee, it
would be nice if Harmony would come back and see us," and then you put an
Arnold Schwarznegger on us, and we haven't seen you in two years. So you're
using us.
KORINE: Yes.
LETTERMAN: You only come back when you have something to promote. Is that
safe as to say?
KORINE: Yeah. Well, I mean --
LETTERMAN: What about just coming because you kind of enjoyed the experience?
KORINE: Well, all right, okay.
LETTERMAN: Will you come back?
KORINE: I'll come back sometime and hang out with you.
LETTERMAN: No, I didn't say hang out.
LETTERMAN: Now wait a minute. Listen to me.
KORINE: Sorry. I have such a short attention span. I'm serious.
LETTERMAN: Come back sometime before the end of the year. Will you do that?
KORINE: Okay.
LETTERMAN: So that gives you a couple of months. That will be all right.
KORINE: Yeah, because by then I will have done something else.
LETTERMAN: Yeah. That will be good. We don't want you to promote anything.
You just come back.
KORINE: I know, I know. I will have learned to swim (Audience applauds.)
LETTERMAN: The movie is called "Gummo". It opened today, and this is the
genius behind the film.
KORINE: Yeah.
LETTERMAN: Harmony Korine.
KORINE: It's a new kind of movie. I just want people to know that things
need to change. We can make films differently.
LETTERMAN: You represent the avant-garde.
KORINE: I am a commercial film maker. I am a patriot. I hide in trees. All
right. All right.
(Dave and Harmony shake hands and audience applauds.)