To Err Is Creative in Net Art 

Unedited and unabridged version at
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,58736,00.html

To Err Is Creative in Net Art
By Gabe Friedman
02:00 AM May. 12, 2003 PT

To Dirk Paesmans and Joan Heemskerk, two artists whose medium is the Internet, HTML mistakes are a thing of beauty.

While other Web programmers seek to iron out the glitches in their code, Paesmans and Heemskerk intentionally replicate them. It's how they make their art.

The husband-and-wife team -- known collectively as "Jodi" -- is at the vanguard of a group of creative types called online artists, who use and sometimes misuse the technology of the Internet to create their works.

What some might see as a confused jumble of overlapping text and graphics, the result of faulty coding entered by a programming novice, the duo sees as art.

"We are not good coders, or good programmers -- we are not geeks," said Paesmans. "Many people may think that, but it is curiosity, the discovery of how the thing was made," that drives the artwork.

Online art has not gained widespread acceptance among mainstream critics or institutions in the art world, although that may be changing. San Francisco's Museum of Modern Art, for example, recently hosted an exhibit of work by online artists.

Designs by Paesmans and Heemskerk are currently exhibited at Eyebeam, a chic art gallery in New York City.

Ken Goldberg, an online artist and professor of robotics at the University of California at Berkeley, describes their work as sophisticated, provoking Internet surfers "to consider how the browser is biasing your experience."

He added, "People have a good reason to think Net art is suspicious. A lot of it is technical doodlings, but it's also reaching a new level of maturity."

At the dawn of the millennium, as fears of a Y2K disaster reached their peak, artists used the Internet to explore how technology can go awry.

Several of the most prominent pieces emerging recently from online artists continue to probe these questions.

A work called e-poltergeist, by Jon Thomson and Alison Craighead, generates an endless cycle of search engine results and banner ads when the user launches it from his Web browser. The only way to stop the flow of data is to shut down the computer.

Similarly, Paesmans and Heemskerk made a screen that sends browser windows flying across the screen, a work that gives the viewer a sensation of a computer desktop spinning out control.

"It (online art) is often about taking technology and using it in a way that was never intended," said Mark Tribe, online artist, founder and executive director of Rhizome.org, an Internet magazine about online art.

What separates online art, also called new media art, from other artistic forms is that it uses the Internet as its medium rather than merely as a tool to display works.

To illustrate the importance of online art as a field of its own, Tribe created a piece called Revelation 2.0. When the user clicks on a link, a stripped down version of CNN's website appears on the screen, showing photographic images and solid bars of colors but no text.

Now Tribe is in the process of painting large images of the stripped-down CNN site on canvas. His point, he said, is to show that it is "different to experience these paintings as an object" and not an image in cyberspace.

In perhaps their most famous piece, Paesmans and Heemskerk altered the code of a website so the image of an atom bomb appears as a jumble of green letters, numbers and symbols set against a black background.

"When we were first making that screen, we didn't know what HTML was, so we made many mistakes, and it looked good. It looked much more interesting than the simple representation of the drawing," said Paesmans.

Jon Ippolito, curator of new media art at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City, writes in his essay, "Ten Myths of Internet Art," that what sets online art apart from other technological endeavors is "not the innovative use of technology, but a creative misuse of it."

Under this premise, artists like Paesmans and Heemskerk, after intentionally entering faulty code into their works, have been likened to the painter Robert Rauschenberg, who applied paint to the back tire of his truck and then ran over paper rather than using a brush.

"It's been a very compressed and fast revolution," said Ippolito, who said he believes the current challenge facing online artists is finding a way to preserve their work.

As technology marches onward, and new programming codes and operating systems emerge, Ippolito said, online artists must find ways to ensure their works are viewable by future generations.

From
http://www.insignifica.org/quotes.html

"I prayed to God for two weeks for a new bicycle, then I realized that God doesn't work that way. So I stole one and asked Him to forgive me."

With an Ear to the Ground, Singer Gets Arab World's Beat - In Lambasting U.S. and Israel, 'Attack' Hits a Nerve in Mideast

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A...10?language=printer

With an Ear to the Ground, Singer Gets Arab World's Beat
By Anthony Shadid
Washington Post Foreign Service
March 11, 2003; Page A12

AMMAN, Jordan - It took just a few chords screeching from a battered stereo before Mahmoud Barghouti popped around the corner and shouted to the music vendor in downtown Amman: "Turn up the volume. Turn it up! Turn it up!"

Up it went and out poured the lyrics of the Arab world's newest and most popular hit, "The Attack on Iraq."

"Enough!" demands the singer, an Egyptian named Shaaban Abdel-Rahim. "Chechnya! Afghanistan! Palestine! Southern Lebanon! The Golan Heights! And now Iraq, too? And now Iraq, too? It's too much for people. Shame on you! Enough, enough, enough!"

At that, Barghouti broke into a satisfied smile. "It's really wonderful," he said, as he stood outside his clothing store along Amir Mohammed Street.

With a blend of anger, fear and humor, wrapped up in the staccato vernacular of Cairo's streets, Abdel-Rahim has once again demonstrated his knack for touching a popular nerve in the Middle East, this time ahead of a possible U.S. attack on Iraq. By doing so, he has created an overnight sensation in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and elsewhere, another sign of the emergence of Arabic pop music in recent years as an arena for dissent and protest over Israeli and U.S. policy.

"I can't talk, he can't talk," Barghouti said, pointing to his colleague, Bassem Maali, as they listened to the song. "The people are afraid to talk, but Shaaban sings. It's 100 percent there. He sings through the music what people are saying in the street. He's not scared."

Next door, at a perfume shop, Ali Shehadeh delivered his assessment: "It's rocking Jordan."

A former laundryman and part-time wedding singer with a wet-perm look, Abdel-Rahim was catapulted to fame in 2001 with his song, "I hate Israel." The manifesto -- invective at Israel mixed with wry praise for Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak -- played on surging resentment unleashed by the Palestinian uprising and what many Arabs saw as Israel's disproportionate response.

Its opening line: "I hate Israel. I say it when asked."

Given the bitterness that conflict has engendered, the inflammatory lyrics drew less attention than Abdel-Rahim himself, who is reviled by the Arab world's cultural elite as boorish and bad-mannered.

With "The Attack on Iraq," he goes after the same target. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon "stays in a swimming pool," he sings, "while the blood falls like rain." "Look at Israel and its army," he says. "It attacks and it kills, and why isn't that too much?"

But fans of Abdel-Rahim say that, with an uncanny ear for today's mood in much of the Arab world, he has captured more than the people's anger. He chastises Iraqi President Saddam Hussein for not listening to other Arab leaders. He worries about "dirt-poor and pitiful" Iraqis who are always the victims. He suggests the United States is "spreading corruption and oppression" and trying "to achieve Israel's dreams" in the region. And he laments the powerlessness of Arab governments.

"I wish just once a summit would succeed for us," he sings.

"What's great about this song is the simplicity of the words, a simplicity that doesn't bear any diplomacy or any lying," said Zeina Soufan, 31, a television producer in Beirut. "They are not words of wisdom, just simple words that we want to hear and that no one is saying out loud."

In just a few weeks, the song has spread through the Arab world despite little promotion or publicity. State-owned radio and television stations, which still dominate Arab media, have not played the song, deeming Abdel-Rahim and the phenomenon around him as too low-brow. But a small number of privately owned channels have been far more enthusiastic. In Egypt, Dream TV broadcast the music video of "The Attack on Iraq" four times in a little more than an hour over the weekend. Lebanese watched the video once every two hours on Melody Hits, another private channel that programs its music videos by popular request.

Bootleg copies have flooded the market in Amman. The song blares from downtown stalls and from taxis careering through its jammed streets. One vendor in Amman said he sold 100 hastily made copies of CDs and cassettes each day last week; another said customers snapped up 300 CDs and 80 cassettes just on Friday.

"As soon as it arrived, it sold out," said Suleiman Zoabi, a 21-year-old cassette vendor. "Shaaban goes fast."

In such cities as Beirut, Cairo and Amman, some fans can quote their favorite lines.

"Do you want to partition Iraq or what do you want exactly? Honestly, do you have your eyes on Iraq's oil?" goes one line. Another runs: "Iraq, too, after Afghanistan? Nobody knows tomorrow, whose turn will come next."

Protest and patriotism have a long tradition in Arab music. Legends like Um Kalthoum and Abdel-Halim Hafez were enlisted in the nationalism of President Gamal Abdel Nasser, who died in 1970, with songs that celebrated their Egyptian homeland. Sheik Imam, a blind singer who put colloquial poetry to music, was the toast of Egypt's students in their militant heyday in the 1970s.

But Abdel-Rahim has emerged in a different genre, known as shaabi, or populist, music. One of its pioneers was Ahmed Adawiya, who outsold even greats like Abdel-Halim Hafez in the 1970s. Abdel-Rahim is now the genre's most popular artist, with a style redolent of American hip-hop that distinguishes itself from traditional Arab music by reliance on synthesizers, drum machines and horns. His hits have inspired a series of knockoffs whose tapes sell for less than a dollar in Cairo and elsewhere.

His admirers say he has tapped into a current of anger at Israel and the United States that has increasingly left a mark on Arabic pop. Amr Diab, a more upscale artist who is among the Arab world's most famous music figures, recorded "Jerusalem," a lament over Israeli control of the city. Mohammed Munir, another popular Egyptian singer, promised to donate 10 percent of sales from his song, "Earth . . . Peace" to Palestinian charities.

"Artists are frustrated. We are very angry. A bit of anger is beginning to creep inside me, basically because of the double standard of America," said Nabil Sawalha, a prominent Jordanian satirist whose plays poke fun at everything from U.S. policy to Arab leaders. "The artist is a reflection of the mood. I don't want to sing about love, love and love. The mood is very angry."

Abdel-Rahim has what his fans describe as the added advantage of street credibility. He celebrates his working-class origins in a slum on Cairo's outskirts. He boasts that he makes his clothes from the fabric Egyptians use to cover their furniture. His popularity has rattled Egypt's elite, who dismiss him as without talent and illiterate, not to mention poorly dressed. But those very objections seem to endear him to fans, who point out -- in the words of an Egyptian cafe owner -- that "he says it like it is."

"He's like them," said Ahmed Abu Daoud, pointing toward the bus and taxi drivers gathered in Rafidain Square in Amman. "The singers that make money, they sing for themselves, they don't know what's happening with the people."

Standing in Abu Daoud's tape store, with the heavy beat of Abdel-Rahim thundering, Alaa Said agreed. As he spent about 70 cents for a tape of "The Attack on Iraq" that arrived in the store that morning, he declared with a grin, "Shaaban, he's our beloved!"

Special correspondent Alia Ibrahim in Beirut contributed to this report.

A telephone interview with Post Middle East correspondent Anthony Shadid, including an audio clip from Shaaban Abdel-Rahim's song "The Attack on Iraq," can be heard at www.washingtonpost.com/iraq.

Chelsea's flower Show - goes psychedelic - Escher Like Fountain - The Wrong Garden

Story Location
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/core/Content/di...Fnchel19.xml&site=5

Chelsea's flower-power goes psychedelic
By Charles Clover
(Filed: 19/05/2003)

Psychedelia comes to Chelsea Flower Show this year with gardens that need to be seen to the soundtrack of the Beatles' Yellow Submarine or White Rabbit by Jefferson Airplane.

See Photo of James Dyson's Escher-like fountain on the newswebsite - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/graphics/2003/05/19/nchel19.jpeg

Cool minimalism, naturalistic planting and gardens for wildlife and the good life are themes reworked from previous years in the 25 main show gardens and many smaller gardens that the Queen visits today.

But it is the surreal that stands out from the usual Chelsea battle of styles between traditional and modern. The Daily Telegraph pulls off an unsettling theatrical coup with The Wrong Garden which makes you wonder what kind of mushroom was in your sandwich.

The unworldly shades of deep red and bluish-grey chosen by Jim Honey, garden-maker to Peter Gabriel, Mick Jagger and Jerry Hall, look like a garden shot on infrared film. The effect is rendered stranger by an Escher-like fountain, designed by James Dyson, in which water appears to travel uphill.

The Wrong Garden finds a surrealistic soulmate in the Hasmead Octopus Garden, a wacky underwater landscape with fish and sea urchins, based by the designer Marney Hall on a dive-site in the Red Sea.

A garden which might form a backdrop to the Magic Roundabout is the Chattel House Garden, based on a unique local dwelling for the Barbados Tourist Authority. Birds of paradise plants and funky giant insects reinforce the pop-art theme.

Among the gardens on more familiar themes tipped by the cognoscenti for a gold medal this year is a poem of naturalistic planting by Tom Stuart-Smith in cool, intellectual colours - whites, blues and lime greens - around a minimalist slate pool, for Laurent Perrier and Harpers and Queen. Its power lies in the skill with which it reworks a theme, rather than its originality.

More in line with this year's experimental theme is Garden from the Desert, a design by Christopher Bradley-Hole, a previous winner of best in show, for the president of the United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan, a regular patron at Chelsea.

"Let's give it a try," the words of Sheikh Zayed, the ruler of Abu Dhabi, when his panel of international advisers frowned on his plans for making the desert bloom, are cut in Arabic into the stone wall.

Bradley-Hole has used irrigation channels, sluicing water from a desalination plant, to enclose lush plantings, heavy on blue iris, in a modern design while outside the garden wall is a real desert with date palms.

Still going strong at this year's Chelsea is the theme of wildlife and wild flower gardening - the subject of an exhibition by the Royal Horticultural Society and the Wildlife Trusts.

An early favourite with the public is another garden by Leyhill open prison, No Time to Stand and Stare, which has as its centrepiece a decaying boathouse on a stream lined with wild flowers and weeds.

There is a record number of gardens this year as a result of the small gardens category expanding again. One of the most imaginative of these cost only £1,200, is tied together with string and gives the big show gardens a run for their money.

The Proverbial Garden, by two north London women calling themselves Paradise Regained, features bicycle wheels as wall decorations and old chairs half- buried in the ground to illustrate the sayings "Waste not want not" and "Necessity is the mother of invention".

It captures this year's mood on a budget.

How does Dyson make water go uphill - at the Chelsea Flower Show - Escher like Fountain

You got to see this with the photos at the BBC website - Use link below

Unabridged and Unedited article at
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/3046791.stm

How does Dyson make water go uphill
21 May, 2003

James Dyson's uphill water feature has been the striking image of this year's Chelsea Flower Show. But how did he do it?

Mr Dyson says his inspiration was a drawing by the Dutch artist MC Escher (he of Gothic palaces where soldiers are eternally walking upstairs, and of patterns where birds turn into fish).

"One of these is an optical illusion that shows water going uphill and round and round the four sides of a square perpetually," he says [see Internet Links]. "I wanted to create a series of cascades that are all on the same level - an everlasting waterfall

Lies about Destruction to the Iraqi National Museum.

The looting and plunder of Iraqi Museums, art, and archaeological sites still continues - June 02 2003

Unabridged and unedited article at
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/01/arts/01R...nted=print&position=

George W. Bush and the Poet
June 1, 2003

Almost two months after the world first heard of America's failure to protect Baghdad's museum from looters and thieves, Iraq's treasures are still being pillaged ? this time at the source, the archaeological sites themselves. According to The Economist, the Italian diplomat the United States put in charge of Iraq's cultural holdings is obscuring the dimensions of this new fiasco by refusing to allow reporters to accompany him on helicopter visits to the scenes of these crimes. Meanwhile, the plundering continues, and each day that it does, we lose more of our collective memory of our religious, literary and artistic roots in the centuries before Christ. Visit "Art of the First Cities" at the Metropolitan Museum ? an exhibition of delicate Mesopotamian artifacts safely held by non-Iraqi museums ? and weep for the many comparable pieces that are being destroyed or stolen as our occupation forces fail to secure the peace.

What is Journalism - by Lord NorthCliffe

Journalism: A profession whose business is to explain to others what it personally does not understand.

by Lord Northcliffe
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/l/a134945.html


Biography of Baron Alfred Harmsworth Northcliffe

Article at
http://www.sacklunch.net/biography/N/Baron...rthNorthcliffe.html

Northcliffe, Alfred Harmsworth, Baron. British publisher and statesman. Born in Chapelizod, Ireland, 1865. He founded in 1888 a weekly periodical "Answers," which met with great success. In 1894 he purchased the London "News," and subsequently founded or bought several influential British newspapers, and established "Harmsworth's Magazine." He was made baron in 1905. Upon the outbreak of the First World War, he conducted vigorous editorial campaigns in behalf of preparedness. In 1917, Lord Northcliffe came to the United States as a special representative of the British government in aid of various war commissions. Died 1922.

ROCK REVIEW | RADIOHEAD

Unabridged and Unedited article at
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/07/arts/music/07HEAD.html

Proceed With Caution. Slippery When Heard.
By KELEFA SANNEH
June 07, 2003

Lots of bands write songs that grow on you, but Radiohead seems more interested in songs that shrink. Its new album, "Hail to the Thief" (Capitol), is full of restless compositions that turn over and over, becoming more elusive with each change. The longer you listen, the less familiar they seem.

On Thursday night the band played a two-hour concert at the Beacon Theater for fans who were either well-connected enough to get free tickets or rabid enough to spend hours or days in line, waiting for one of the fluorescent wristbands that guaranteed admission. (The concert was sponsored by MTV2, which plans to broadcast it on June 17.)

Years ago Radiohead decided that it would rather be interesting than exciting, and so the night unfolded slowly and engrossingly, like a long, weird chemical reaction. A forest of wristbands sprang up after every song, although it sometimes seemed there was more energy in these applause breaks than in the music itself. "Hail to the Thief" won't be released until Tuesday, but the fans seemed to know all the new songs as well as the old ones, perhaps because an unfinished bootleg version has been circulating online for months. There was a cheer when Thom Yorke announced "Scatterbrain (As Dead as Leaves)," and Mr. Yorke responded with a bit of pantomime: he pointed to his head as he moaned "Scatterbrain," and then walked to the edge of the stage and squinted down at the audience, looking very much like a frightened zoo animal.

Mr. Yorke's voice is the band's most important instrument, and his lyrics have given the group its reputation for queasy paranoia. And since a Radiohead concert doesn't offer much to look at besides gangly Britons bent over their instruments, Mr. Yorke's twitchy, Hobbitty dance moves were invaluable. (Elijah Wood, star of the "Lord of the Rings" films, was watching from the balcony and seemed to approve.)

But Mr. Yorke has another role: he's the rhythm section, too. The drummer, Phil Selway, gave nearly every song a mild, shuffling beat that rarely quickened and never stiffened, so it was up to Mr. Yorke to set the pace, shaking his head or tapping his heel or strumming a guitar or fidgeting in rhythm. For songs that required more heft, Mr. Selway was joined or replaced by a drum machine. It was hard to tell what he thought of this humiliating arrangement.

The rest of the group mainly embellished the songs by adding tangled melodic lines and unexpected textures. Jonny Greenwood's broken chords helped the dreamy ballad "Sail to the Moon (Brush the Cobwebs Out of the Sky)" float spaceward, although Ed O'Brien's out-of-tune backing vocals brought the next song, "Sit Down. Stand Up. (Snakes & Ladders)," crashing down to earth. During this second song, Colin Greenwood bounced on his toes like a boxer, preparing to play a hurtling bass line that arrived just when the song seemed ready to wind down.

Later in the night, the band dusted off older songs. It was a pleasant shock to hear "Paranoid Android," an old-fashioned rock epic full of the kind of hard-charging guitar lines and sing-along choruses that Radiohead has mainly abandoned. And on "Kid A," Mr. Yorke spread his arms and enunciated lyrics that are electronically disfigured on the recording: "We've got heads on sticks/And you've got ventriloquists," he sang.

There were three encores, and for the last one, the band's singer, lyricist, guitarist, dancer and rhythm section emerged ? it was time for a solo performance from Mr. Yorke. Singing with his band all night long, Mr. Yorke had been impressive; now, without them, he was astonishing. He strummed an angular groove on his acoustic guitar and sang a love song, "True Love Waits."

After two hours of indirection, it was a riveting dose of passion and courage and sentiment. The song began with a breathtaking pickup line: "I'd drown my beliefs to have your babies." In the chorus Mr. Yorke's voice climbed as he sang, "And true love waits in haunted attics/And true love lives on lollipops and crisps," and for perhaps the first time all night, he didn't sound scared.

Nursing Wounds - more Nurses Needed

Story location
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/10/opinion/...nted=print&position=

Nursing Wounds - more Nurses Needed
By CLAIRE FAGIN and CORINNE RIEDER
Claire Fagin is dean emerita at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing. Corinne Rieder is executive director of the John A. Hartford Foundation.
June 10, 2003

Thanks to news coverage, advertising campaigns and word of mouth, an increasing number of people are aware of the nation's nursing crisis. Hospitals around the country are reporting full-time shortages of registered nurses as high as 19 percent. Nurses are being recruited from as far away as India and the Philippines. Industry experts say that by 2020, this country could have 800,000 fewer nurses than it needs.

We've even begun to understand, as studies from the University of Pennsylvania and other places suggest, that there is a direct connection between the ratio of nurses to patients and mortality rates. The fewer nurses, the higher the rate.

The good news is that more students are interested in nursing. A 2002 Harris poll found that 62 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds have discussed a nursing career for themselves or a friend. Nursing school applications in many places have soared. Baccalaureate nursing school enrollments, according to the American Association of Colleges of Nursing, rose 8 percent last year. In February, Congress approved $20 million for nurse education programs that include scholarships and continuing-education grants for practicing nurses.

These hopeful developments, however, have brought to light an even more troubling problem in the academic pipeline. On a recent visit we made to California, we were startled to hear that there is a three-year waiting list of students seeking entry into the state's public nursing schools. The situation in New York City is no less disturbing. Hunter College, for example, is admitting 80 students to its undergraduate nursing program this year. As recently as 2000, the nation's nursing schools turned away nearly 5,900 qualified applicants, mostly because of a lack of faculty and classroom space, as well as budget cutbacks.

Unless these shortcomings are corrected, the nursing field will be unable to capitalize on an increased interest in the profession. Luckily, there are things we can do to solve the problems.

First, Congress needs to reauthorize the Nurse Education Act, which focuses on faculty development, geriatric training and other work force improvement programs. Financing for the program needs to be raised to $175 million in 2004 to address the crisis. In addition, federal and state governments need to reinstitute a highly successful program, the capitation grant program, used in the early 1970's to increase the number of students admitted to schools of nursing.

Geriatric training for nurses also needs to be expanded. More than half of all hospital patients are over 65, and their numbers are expected to rise during the next 20 years. Finally, the American Hospital Association needs to promote the designation of magnet hospitals. The designation, which is certified by the American Nurses Credentialing Center, raises nursing care standards, as well as improves the recruitment and retention of nurses.

Nurses are an essential element of our health care system. Research consistently shows that nurses increase the cost effectiveness and quality of care and improve the efficacy of a wide range of interventions, from heart surgeries to depression treatments. Qualified people are answering our nation's call for more nurses. Let's do what we can not to lose them.

Did You Hear the One About the Suicide Bomber?

Story location
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/15/magazine...nted=print&position=

Did You Hear the One About the Suicide Bomber?
By MARSHALL SELLA
June 15, 2003

It's a painfully slow Wednesday night at a London club called the Asylum. The owners seem to have lost their wits in designing the place: for purposes of comedy, it's terrifyingly well lighted, with a vivid tropical backdrop and a ''stage'' that is more accurately described as a corner of the room. As with struggling comedy clubs the world over, most of the performers are milling around outside, roping customers. But suddenly, the temperature of the place spikes. Shazia Mirza is coming, and Mirza is a Big Act in Britain these days. She enters and steps up, or rather over, to the stage and prepares to do her set. A few in the tiny crowd do a double take, for this comedian is wearing a traditional Muslim headdress. ''I'm really pleased to be here, because my dad has let me out for the night,'' Mirza says, utterly deadpan. ''So I'm not going to stay long. My dad is picking me up in 10 minutes. He thinks this is a library.''

In the global menagerie of comedy, Mirza is that rarest of rare creatures -- a female standup who is, in fact, a devout Muslim. In the past three years, working the clubs of England and other European venues, she has become notorious: a regular guest on the evening talk shows, a rage magnet for fundamentalist Muslims and, in every club from the vaunted Comedy Store in London to Brighton's Tea Time Titters, a proven draw.

At 27, in accordance with her faith, Mirza is a virgin, a nondrinker and a nonsmoker. She has never had a boyfriend, as it would be unacceptable to spend significant time with a man outside the bonds of marriage. ''I never make jokes about sex,'' she says. ''Because I've never had it.''

Though Mirza was already a minor feature of the London comedy circuit in 2000, she hadn't given up her day job as a schoolteacher, shepherding 16-year-olds through the mysteries of physics in one of the East End's rougher schools.

But the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks changed everything. Initially, she ceased performing on the logic that this might not be the time for gags about Ramadan or, for that matter, anything funny a Muslim had to offer. Three weeks later, though, she took the stage in a Soho club called Amused Moose and, with a single joke, found the very, very thin line between acceptable comedy and abominable taste: ''My name is Shazia Mirza,'' she said. ''At least that's what it says on my pilot's license.''

She'll never forget the reaction. ''Everyone in the audience, all 200 of them, looked at each other, seeing if it was all right to laugh,'' she says. ''And after the pause, they really laughed.'' The line got a standing ovation. Mirza became famous overnight. European clubs wanted to book her with all speed; she was everywhere in the British media. While on tour, doing a layout for the German publication Stern, she was actually photographed posing with tiny model 747's, which she regards as howlingly funny. ''The Germans loved me -- and their sense of humor is still in development,'' she says. ''No other country would think to buy me airplanes!''


Mirza's transformation into a comedian was achieved covertly. She was born in Birmingham to Pakistani parents and took a degree in biochemistry from Manchester University, much to her parents' pride. In 2000, however, she veered hard off the tracks in pursuit of amusing lager-boy crowds in smoky clubs. She hid this new career from her parents. In their world, having a comedian daughter was unthinkable, almost shameful. Even now, they are glared at in the mosque. Mirza tells me that fellow Muslims sometimes say to them: ''We don't think you've brought your daughter up correctly. She should be something respectable. And she should be married, like a proper Muslim.''

For a few years, the double life was hard to maintain. Shazia's father, Muhammad Ayaz Mirza, recalls his daughter covering her tracks with the claim that she was doing ''research, lots of research.'' But when she came to Birmingham for a comedy competition, one of her brothers let it slip that he was going to see her. Flummoxed, the parents went along, too, but Shazia asked them to leave before the performance. Everyone was rattled. The gig was up.

Mirza, while she remains close to her parents, is caustic about her upbringing. ''I had a terrible childhood,'' she says. ''My mum would admit that she's had a dreadful life. She was orphaned by war and of course had an arranged marriage. She's been depressed, oppressed, repressed -- all you'd expect about a Muslim woman. Women are meant to be grateful for having a husband. My father was a chauvinist. That was normal.

''I'd go to the homes of my aunties and uncles,'' she adds, ''and all the women were in the kitchen. These were wealthy families. But the wife was being the wife. I thought, Bloody hell, I'm not gonna end up like that.''

Life for a proud Pakistani family in England, of course, carries special burdens. Mirza's father always insisted that his children should work twice as hard. ''We wanted Shaz to be a doctor or a lawyer,'' he says, ''some recognized profession.''

The girl Shazia was unenthusiastic about the shimmering future her parents held out. Her favorite TV show was ''Dallas''; it was all so glam. Her first acting experience was in a school production -- playing Mary Magdalene. ''I took over the show,'' she says wistfully. ''Everyone was laughing, and this wasn't a comedy. When my lines were done, people were saying: 'Mary Magdalene! Exit right!' But I just stood there. I wanted to be there. After that, I had the main part in every school play.

''One parents' evening, a teacher told my mum, 'Your daughter has such a talent -- you must send her to drama school!' And my mum said: 'Drama school? What's that?' I went a few times, but my dad put a stop to it.''

For all her success, Mirza's parents may not yet have reconciled themselves to her career, but they have inched closer. Her mother attended a ceremony at which Mirza was awarded Best New Act of 2001, held at the London Palladium. Her father, whom she characterizes as ''secretly proud,'' has seen her perform live exactly once. ''He stood at the curtain in case it didn't go well,'' she says, shaking her head. ''That way, no one would know I was his daughter. You can't change a generation.''

hile never abandoning her Islamic beliefs, Mirza has reacted sharply against its cultural trappings. One sunny afternoon, we meet for coffee in a balcony bistro in Liverpool Street Station, once a scrap-iron-strewn wreck of a place but now a locus of international wealth. A skating rink sits in the middle of a circle of shops and some of the wealthiest firms in the City. It's a double abyss, Dante in reverse. Look downward and you see the innocence of physical exertion; look up, and there is the promise of filthy lucre.

Mirza arrives at the bistro not in her headdress and drabs but in a very colorful ensemble, complete with pricey shoes and a Burberry clutch. This is part love of fashion, part survival. The headdress attracts a crowd. Without it, she can walk down the street unrecognized. When she does don the hijab, though, she is stopped at least once a block by fans. It has become both symbol and prop, whether Mirza realizes it or not.

It soon becomes clear that, against all expectations, Shazia Mirza is deeply ambitious. What she wants is to be a star, a big, rich Hollywood celebrity. ''I keep telling my manager that I'm going to conquer America,'' she says brightly. ''I want to be the face of Revlon! Anything lucrative! Wouldn't that be great?''

Mirza is a single organism in which cultures, even generations, are locked in combat. Raised within strict Muslim dictates, she has thrust herself into a comedic subculture where decorum is the sin -- but ''paradox'' is not a word she acknowledges. She'll speak at length about something her imam told her yesterday, then roll without segue into her scheme to become a household name in the States. Brandishing faith as a shield against frivolity, she is deeply immersed in pop culture. And she wants to go deeper.

As the conversation lopes along, Mirza breezily offers her sometimes callow worldview, which is cobbled together from spirituality and loose gossip. She often mentions George Clooney, the man of her dreams, if only he'd convert. And how cross-dressing is one of the signs, or so it is written in the Koran, she maintains, that the end of the world is near. One of her great heroes is Madonna. ''Not so much for her work,'' Mirza says, ''but because she says whatever she wants to say and does whatever she wants to do. She made it all right to shag!'' This is an odd remark, since Mirza is not simply like a virgin; she is one. But she's talking more in the broad realities of culture -- about theoretical sex, which seems to hold connotations of freedom for her.

Still, the fact that Mirza lives between two worlds (or, more bafflingly, completely in both) may not be as contradictory as it seems. Her staccato, thumb-in-the-eye persona is a backlash against everything she watched her mother live through, to say nothing of those countless aunties huddled in the kitchen. To understand the ferocity with which Mirza has run toward popular culture, you need to understand the bleakness of the culture from which she ran. Between oppression and empowerment, comedy is the bridge. If she appears to be impossibly antithetical -- caught between faith and ambition, fame and secrecy, hostility and humor -- that may simply be what it looks like when Islam is mutated by the battering light of stardom and all its promises.

Whatever the case, Mirza's liberal reading of the Koran has revealed nothing to her that prohibits the life she has chosen. No contradictions, no regrets. ''The prophet Muhammad, peace be unto him, had a sense of humor!'' she insists. ''And Islam actually empowers women. It's perversions of faith that have oppressed women. Just as suicide and murder could not be further from the teachings of Muhammad. Islam is not about bombs and mustaches and having 10 wives.''

Edging onto thin ice, I ask, ''Do you ever want to be married?''

Mirza cannot resist. ''Yes -- to George Clooney,'' she says, laughing. ''Though Pierce Brosnan is hot. Do you think I could be a Bond girl? I could show them . . . my face! There's a way to bridge the gap between the cultures!''


Shazia Mirza has paid her dues beyond the way most comedians would apply that phrase. She always insists that she is not political, but the sheer heat of her subject matter has cost her dearly. ''I went to Mecca,'' goes one joke. ''In front of the holy black stone, where you repent your sins, someone pinched my bum. I like to think it was the hand of God.''

Mirza isn't shy about using profanity -- but she is certain she never blasphemes. This view is not shared by certain fundamentalists. At one London performance, she was 30 seconds into her act when three men rushed the stage and decried her as ''a disgrace to Islam and the culture.'' One of them seized her by the throat and shoved her into a wall. By the time the police arrived, she'd run off. The men claimed she had somehow provoked them, and Mirza wasn't going to wait around to see how the story played out.

She has had several death threats. Recently, on tour in Odense, Denmark, Mirza was told that fundamentalists had let it be known that if she set foot onstage, they would kill her. ''I was given two armed guards,'' she recalls. ''It was the first time I ever saw a gun that big. I thought, Bloody hell, I'm telling jokes, and that is a gun. But I thought the most important time to do the comedy was there and then. If these people think it's a sin to tell jokes, what will they think when Americans take their oil? And is that sort of thinking why there's mass destruction of the World Trade Center? Is this how mass murderers justify their thinking?''

Evidently, the threats have not had their intended effect. She still does the Mecca joke every chance she gets.

Mirza lives in the Forest Gate neighborhood of London's East End, sharing a house with two other women (not close friends, by any measure). Despite her countless appearances on TV and in the press, rather incredibly, neither of her housemates, Mirza says, has the vaguest idea that she's a comic -- nor even that she is a Muslim. Doubt this, and it will take only one glimpse of her anxiety at being unmasked to persuade you. Mirza laughingly says the two women seem to believe, since she's often heading for work at 8 p.m. and returning at 2 a.m., that she's ''on the game'' or, if not an actual prostitute, perhaps just a lap dancer. She has never let them glimpse her in the headdress, never explained the weeks-long trips she takes to Holland or Finland or Germany while on tour: ''If someone said: 'That girl Shazia you live with? She's a comedian,' they'd never believe it.''

That's Mirza's divided psyche all over. Adoring the spotlight, she lusts for anonymity. When I visit her at home, it is on the understanding that if catastrophe strikes and I run into one of the housemates, I'll be playing the role of a visiting American schoolteacher, here to engage in a lively exchange of views on methodology.

On my arrival, the house is dimly lighted. We sneak up the narrow stairway like teenagers after a prom, until we reach her bedroom, the room that contains all the traces of her work and faith. It's a small, spare chamber, with no paintings on the walls. (Those are forbidden under strict interpretation of Islamic law.) There is a modest, scuffed desk, surrounded by stacks of papers on the floor -- endless variations of her ''sets,'' lists of jokes that have yet to be performed and reliable old standbys. Her bookshelf, mirroring the dichotomy of her devotions, contains not only her well-thumbed Koran but also biographies of Madonna and Elton John. Her ambition, too, is well represented; there are teetering four-foot stacks of newspapers and magazines, an inexhaustible cache of press cuttings she may hand out to advance her career.

Mirza offers to show a few clips of her TV appearances, and she has plenty from which to choose. The tapes run the gamut from British talk shows to news programs from the continent. On Denmark's ''Deadline'' (the equivalent of, say, ''Nightline''), she quips that Saddam Hussein has hidden his weapons of mass destruction up his wife's purdah, since no one looks up there. The host, pleased if a bit mystified, ends the segment by saying, ''I think we have never had so many jokes on 'Deadline'!''

Mirza switches off the TV, as time grows short. She needs to drive to a gig miles away in Soho. As we tiptoe out of her bedroom, I pretend that I'm going to say hello to her Canadian housemate and raise my hand as if to knock on the adjacent door. Mirza hisses a profanity (one of the big ones) and nearly moves to restrain me. I take a rough measure of the neighbor's sheer proximity, wondering if the Canadian is deaf and blind. By the time I turn back to Mirza, she is carefully locking her bedroom door and testing the knob.


Another night, another comedy club. But this one is in Manhattan, in Mirza's promised land, which holds visions of fame and wealth that shall not conflict with true Islam. She has come to America to cast her lot, or at least to have a look at the terrain.

Just as it has for 28 years, the Comic Strip guarantees ''the stars of tomorrow -- tonight!'' Mirza arrives in her usual black outfit but has braced herself against the May chill with a bright sweatshirt that makes her look absurdly like Little Red Riding Hood. Sitting among the requisite photos of Seinfeld, Ray Romano and dozens of industry casualties, she looks unnerved. She speaks of the previous evening, a gig in the trendy Luna Lounge, as ''a complete disaster.''

''They were afraid of me!'' she says, nervously following her custom of scribbling a joke list on her palm. ''I think people here might not like Muslims. All New Yorkers know is that my people blew up their country -- and I'm paying for it. When the white males did suicide-bomber jokes last night, people laughed. When I did them, they were terrified!''

I try to assure Mirza that this city, far from being a one-horse dorp, is pretty diverse; it's not as if New Yorkers have never seen a Muslim before. But she will have none of it. When six Muslims enter the club and sit a few tables away, she mutters, ''Every Muslim in New York City is here.''

On the heels of the Luna calamity, Mirza's manager has instructed her to wade carefully into her political material. But Mirza has resolved to ignore the advice, and opens with a relatively dicey joke: one that, back in the U.K., is an Old Reliable. She chooses a man in the front row (in this case, an Oklahoma Sooners football coach), leans toward him and says: ''Don't worry, sir. I won't blow you up.''

The man emits a little puff of air, in unison with everyone at his table -- then guffaws. Through her mercilessly deadpan demeanor, Mirza is visibly relieved.

The crowd is especially fond of another of Mirza's standbys. '''America's Most Wanted' is now being shown in Saudi Arabia,'' she says flatly. ''Last week, a Muslim woman was caught shoplifting. She was caught on CCTV. Police are looking for a woman . . . with brown eyes.''

But there's still that pilot's-license joke looming out there, the barometer of the room. Eventually, drawing courage from the laughter, she hurls out that trademark line. This crowd does what hundreds of crowds have done before. There is a pause; three people make quiet unkhh noises, as if they've been elbowed in the gut. Then comes a gale of laughter.

But this time, there's a talker in the bunch. ''That was out of order,'' a man says from the center of the room.

''Do you think it was out of order?'' Mirza shoots back icily, handling him like any other heckler, trying to top him for control.

''Yes.''

''Tough.''

The man walks out. Within moments, word has spread through the room that he lost a sister in the World Trade Center, and the joke did not illuminate or charm him. Mirza barrels ahead without skipping a beat. ''If the comedy doesn't work out,'' she continues, ''I'm going to become a suicide bomber. I went to see my job counselor, and he said, 'Previous experience not required.''' And on this night, in this club, the moans are drowned out by laughter.


Marshall Sella is a contributing writer for the magazine. He last wrote about the inventor Woody Norris.

Painting the Joy of Life in Death's Shadow

Story location
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/12/arts/design/12BROC.html

Painting the Joy of Life in Death's Shadow

By JOSHUA BROCKMAN
Joshua Brockman's most recent article for Arts & Leisure was about the exhibition ``Jewish Pioneers of New Mexico.''
Around Aug 12, 2001


SCOTTSDALE, ARIZ. -- INSIDE an adobe-walled oasis of palm trees and oleander, Fritz Scholder lives amid skulls and skeletons. In the garden, several of Mr. Scholder's sculptures feature skull-like heads. In the library, an 18th-century skull engraved with witchcraft symbols shares shelf space with books printed before 1500. Even the porch has been converted into a skull room, complete with a macabre place setting surrounded by Mexican Day of the Dead paraphernalia that spill from cabinets and rest on shelves and antique chairs.

Like much of the art created by Mr. Scholder, these skulls and skeletons exude an air of mystery. Their presence inside his home and studio is one of the many paradoxes the artist celebrates in his work across several mediums.

 In the studio, where a springtime visitor found the artist preparing for the show of new work that will be at the Chiaroscuro gallery in Santa Fe, N.M., until the end of this month, Mr. Scholder was working on "Not Alone No. 5," a 7-by-16-foot stretched canvas from which more than 160 skulls stare at the viewer from a black horizon. "When it is finished," Mr. Scholder said, "each skull will be individual. You will be able to see the personality of each skull."

 "Alone No. 5," its complement, features a single cranium floating at eye level on a large black canvas of the same dimensions. The two skull paintings, designed to face each other, form the most monumental work in the latest of Mr. Scholder's series, "Alone/Not Alone." A colorful and vibrant meditation on mortality, isolation and relationship, "Alone/Not Alone" combines two longstanding themes in Mr. Scholder's career: his rendering of iconic and dyadic figures and his depiction of skulls and skeletons.

 "I consider myself a natural optimist," he said, "which might be surprising, because I like the dark side of things. That's simply because of intellectual curiosity. I celebrate each day. I truly wake up happy every morning."

 There was indeed nothing dark in the demeanor of this portly 63-year-old artist with shoulder-length hair and a radiant smile, which suffuses his face and masks his shyness. When he leaves his solitary compound, he does so with a combination of panache and privacy, driving a gold 1979 Rolls-Royce fitted with tinted windows.

 Born in Breckenridge, Minn., the fifth Fritz in a family primarily of German ancestry, he grew up with a passion for collecting, which has informed his largely autobiographical art. Although his career has included etchings, aquatints, lithographs, monotypes, photographs, collages, sculpture and mixed media, he is best known for his paintings.

 A finished work is only one stage of Mr. Scholder's artistic journey. Before he begins a series, he delves into the subject matter, researching, reading, preparing. "It is the concept and the approach that is of value," he said. "With every painting, you learn. You have to keep open, and it's not easy walking the tightrope between discipline and accident."

 With a beachcomber's eye for the esoteric, he has amassed a living museum of artifacts that he uses as props or springboards for his series, which can be as memorable for their titles as for their subjects: "Mystery Woman," "Monster Love," "Shaman," "Conjuror," "Martyr."

 His dining room, a cabinet of curiosities, is packed with collections that include a two-headed calf, a shrunken human head >from Borneo and a vial filled with powdered mummy, a medieval remedy. Mr. Scholder's library evokes his paintings: the Egyptian sarcophagus, the mounted buffalo head and the wall of masks (surrounding a pair of portraits of the artist by Warhol) have all turned up in his canvases.

 The sarcophagus, as well as mummies of a child, a falcon, a puppy and a cat, are part of an extensive accumulation of Egyptian treasures. "Egypt is for me the most fascinating and important culture," Mr. Scholder said. "I like the fact that they made animals gods, whereas in our culture, we tend to be mean to animals." His affinity for animals is reflected in the zoo of taxidermic creatures scattered throughout his home, with a special emphasis on the buffalo: "I believe that every human should have a twin animal spirit, and the buffalo is mine," Mr. Scholder said, pointing out a complete specimen standing behind his bed. In 1975 he even fashioned a self-portrait called "Buffalo Artist."

 Animal and human forms are also commingled in the "Alone/Not Alone" series. Its painted figures, like many of Mr. Scholder's sculptures, are asymmetrical, with one or no arms, one eye, or a combination of human and animal limbs. In "Alone No. 2," a creature set against an explosive red and violet horizon has one arm, one human foot, one cloven foot and rudimentary horns protruding from a partially masked head.

 "It's not necessarily the Devil," Mr. Scholder explained. "It could be a clone. It's of course another portrait of me. Most of the figures are. I paint myself in many guises. It's all unconscious. I don't think about it until years later."

 The "Not Alone" paintings focus on the interplay between a male figure and a female. "Almost every painting worthwhile has secrets, as far as I'm concerned," Mr. Scholder said while showing a visitor "Not Alone No. 2," an encounter between a woman and a dark shadow figure covered with burnt-orange spots.

 "Alone/Not Alone," which opened on Aug. 1, comes at an introspective time for Mr. Scholder. Nazraeli Press has just published a retrospective book, "Fritz Scholder: Paintings," which includes an example of nearly every series he has produced since 1960. "Last Portraits," an exhibition focusing on his substantial array of skull and skeleton art, will open in October at the Tweed Museum of Art at the University of Minnesota in Duluth.

 This Wednesday in Santa Fe, the Institute of American Indian Arts will dedicate a museum gallery in Mr. Scholder's honor. It was while teaching painting at the institute, in 1967, that he began the controversial "Indian" series that propelled his career. Although one of his grandmothers was a Native American from the Luiseño tribe in California, Mr. Scholder said, he grew up "a non-Indian." Still, his innovative approach, based on observation and historical research, repudiated traditional, sentimentalized renderings of mythic Indians. "I have painted the Indian real, not red," he wrote in 1972 of his work from this era. Mr. Scholder said he was the first artist to paint an Indian wrapped in an American flag, a motif that has found its way into Native American imagery. He said he had based the image on 19th-century prison photographs of Indians dressed in surplus flags in lieu of their confiscated tribal regalia. "I was very aware of the irony that had never been depicted," he recalled.

 His numerous series on Native American themes, created between 1967 and the 1990's, still resonate. In an essay for "Fritz Scholder: Paintings," Frank H. Goodyear Jr., the director of the Heard Museum in Phoenix, wrote of these works: "Scholder has achieved this sense of turning the pages of Indian history and, at the same time, has made some of his most strikingly contemporary images." Indeed, the covers of Louise Erdrich's latest novel, "The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse," and new editions of her previous books feature paintings from Mr. Scholder's "Indian" series.

 Mr. Scholder's favorite subject, however, is women. In "Thoughts at Night," a self- published book coupling his art and prose, Mr. Scholder wrote: "Love and passion make up the creative energy for the artist." And women are a constant presence throughout his many series. Paul Karlstrom, the West Coast regional director for the Smithsonian's Archives of American Art, wrote in the retrospective book: "For him, they embody and encompass all of human experience, >from birth through love to death."

 For his "Mystery Woman" series, Mr. Scholder found inspiration in his own backyard, placing female models in his pool and painting them in images that recalled David Hockney's. The dreamlike floating figures of Chagall found analogues in the levitating bodies prominent in Mr. Scholder's "Millennium" series. Mr. Scholder's paintings "Floating Red Shoe" and "Floating Brushes" celebrated mundane objects with a sensibility akin to that of Wayne Thiebaud, a mentor with whom Mr. Scholder studied at Sacramento City College in 1957. Mr. Scholder's style also reveals the influence of Francis Bacon, Goya, Gauguin and Edvard Munch.

 In his essay, Mr. Goodyear compared Mr. Scholder's work to that of many American painters of his generation. "Scholder's art lies between two counter-aesthetics — the dynamic bravado of Abstract Expressionism and the hard realism of Pop Art," Mr. Goodyear wrote. Others have called his style symbolist or colorist. But Mr. Scholder describes his art as "American expressionist."

 "An expressionist is one who celebrates paint," he said. "Paint drips, it smears. It's not because I'm trying to fool anyone into thinking this is a three-dimensional object on a two-dimensional surface," Mr. Scholder said, gesturing toward the skulls on the black canvas in his studio.

 For him, painting is both a magical and sensual encounter that brings together the tensile, responsive canvas; the soft, flexible brushes and the wet, buttery paint. "It's a turn-on," he said. "But it's also terribly serious, because it is in a way one of the universal rituals of making a mark on something that will last longer than you."

 Mr. Scholder's dedication to his artistic afterlife has led him to design his own posters, postcards, catalogs and books. "Documentation is very important because it lasts longer than any show," he said. What's more, he maintains a sizable collection of his own work, typically holding on to favorites from his series. But, he said, "my most favorite painting is the one I'm going to do next."

Napoleon's Will

I have always marvelled at Napoleon's attention to detail. And I also marvel at how big his Contact List was, and how many people he did remember even at the end of his days.
 
Story location
http://www.napoleonguide.com/napwill.htm

Napoleon's Will

NAPOLEON.
This 15th April, 1821, at Longwood, Island of St. Helena.

This is my Testament, or act of my last will.

1. I DIE in the Apostolical Roman religion, in the bosom of which I was born more than fifty years since.

2. It is my wish that my ashes may repose on the banks of the Seine, in the midst of the French people, whom I have loved so well.

3. I have always had reason to be pleased with my dearest wife, Maria Louisa. I retain for her, to my last moment, the most tender sentiments-I beseech her to watch, in order to preserve, my son from the snares which yet environ his infancy.

4. I recommend to my son never to forget that he was born a French prince, and never to allow himself to become an instrument in the hands of the triumvirs who oppress the nations of Europe: he ought never to fight against France, or to injure her in any manner; he ought to adopt my motto: "Everything for the French people."

5. I die prematurely, assassinated by the English oligarchy and its tool. The English nation will not be slow in avenging me.

6. The two unfortunate results of the invasions of France, when she had still so many resources, are to be attributed to the treason of Marmont, Augereau, Talleyrand, and La Fayette. I forgive them--May the posterity of France forgive them as I do.

7. I thank my good and most excellent mother, the Cardinal, my brothers, Joseph, Lucien, Jerome, Pauline, Caroline, Julie, Hortense, Catarine, Eugene, for the interest they have continued to feel for me. I pardon Louis for the libel he published in 1820: it is replete with false assertions and falsified documents.

8. I disavow the "Manuscript of St. Helena," and other works, under the title of Maxims, Sayings, &c., which persons have been pleased to publish for the last six years. Such are not the rules which have guided my life. I caused the Duc d'Enghien to be arrested and tried, because that step was essential to the safety, interest, and honour of the French people, when the Count d'Artois was maintaining, by his own confession, sixty assassins at Paris. Under similar circumstances, I should act in the same way.

II.

1. I bequeath to my son the boxes, orders, and other articles; such as my plate, field-bed, saddles, spurs, chapel-plate, books, linen which I have been accustomed to wear and use, according to the list annexed

(A). It is my wish that this slight bequest may he dear to him, as coming from a father of whom the whole world will remind him.

2. I bequeath to Lady Holland the antique Cameo which Pope Pius VI. gave me at Tolentino.

3. I bequeath to Count Montholon, two millions of francs, as a proof of my satisfaction for the filial attentions be has paid me during six years, and as an indemnity for the loses his residence at St. Helena has occasioned him.

4. I bequeath to Count Bertrand, five hundred thousand francs.

5. I bequeath to Marchand, my first valet-de-chambre; four hundred thousand francs. The services he has rendered me are those of a friend; it is my wish that he should marry the widow sister, or daughter, of an officer of my old Guard.

6. Item. To St. Denis, one hundred thousand francs.

7. Item. To Novarre (Noverraz,) one hundred thousand francs.

8. Item. To Pielon, one hundred thousand francs.

9. Item. To Archambaud, fifty thousand francs.

10. Item. To Cursot, twenty-five thousand francs.

11. Item. To Chandellier, twenty-five thousand francs.

12. To the Abbé Vignali, one hundred thousand francs. It is my wish that he should build his house near the Ponte Novo di Rostino.

13. Item. To Count Las Cases, one hundred thousand francs.

14. Item. To Count Lavalette, one hundred thousand francs.

15. Item. To Larrey, surgeon-in-chief, one hundred thousand francs.--He is the most virtuous man I have known.

16. Item. To General Brayher, one hundred thousand francs.

17. Item. To General Le Fevre Desnouettes one hundred thousand francs.

18. Item. To General Drouot, one hundred thousand francs.

19. Item. To General Cambrone, one hundred thousand francs.

20. Item. To the children of General Mouton Duvernet, one hundred thousand francs.

21. Item. To the children of the brave Labedoyère, one hundred thousand francs.

22. Item. To the children of General Girard, killed at Ligny, one hundred thousand francs.

23. Item. To the children of General Chartrand one hundred thousand francs.

24. Item. To the children of the virtuous General Travot, one hundred thousand francs.

25. Item. To General Lallemand the elder, one hundred thousand francs.

26. Item. To Count Real, one hundred thousand francs.

27. Item. To Costa de Bastelica, in Corsica, one hundred thousand francs.

28. Item. To General Clausel, one hundred thousand francs.

29. Item. To Baron de Mennevalle, one hundred thousand francs.

30. Item. To Arnault, the author of Marius, one hundred thousand francs.

31. Item. To Colonel Marbot, one hundred thousand francs.--I recommend him to continue to write in defence of the glory of the French armies, and to confound their calumniators and apostates.

32. Item. To Baron Bignon, one hundred thousand francs.--I recommend him to write the history of French diplomacy from 1792 to 1815.

33. Item. To Poggi di Talavo, one hundred thousand francs.

34. Item. To surgeon Emmery, one hundred thousand francs.

35. These sums will be raised from the six millions which I deposited on leaving Paris in 1815; and from the interest at the rate of 5 per cent. since July 1815. The account thereof will be settled with the banker by Counts Montholon and Bertrand, and Marchand.

36. Whatever that deposit may produce beyond the sum of five million six hundred thousand francs, which have been above disposed of, shall he distributed as a gratuity amongst the wounded at the battle of Waterloo, and amongst the officers and soldiers of the battalion of the Isle of Elba, according to a scale to be determined upon by Montholon, Bertrand, Drouot, Cambrone, and the surgeon Larrey.

37. These legacies, in case of death, shall be paid to the widows and children, and in default of such, shall revert to the bulk of my property.

III.

1. My private domain being my property, of which I am not aware that any French law has deprived me, an account of it will be required from the Baron de la Rouillerie, the treasurer thereof: it ought to amount to more than two hundred millions of francs; namely,

1. The portfolio containing the savings which I made during fourteen years out of my civil list, which savings amounted to more than twelve millions per annum, if my memory be good.

2. The produce of this portfolio.

3. The furniture of my palaces, such as it was in 1814, including the palaces of Rome, Florence, and Turin. All this furniture was purchased with moneys accruing from the civil list.

4. The proceeds of my houses in the kingdom of Italy, such as money, plate, jewels, furniture, equipages; the accounts of which will be rendered by Prince Eugene and the steward of the Crown, Campagnoni.

NAPOLEON. (Second Sheet.)

2. I bequeath my private domain, one half to the surviving officers and soldiers of the French army who have fought since 1792 to 1815, for the glory and the independence of the nation, the distribution to be made in proportion to their appointments upon active service; and one half to the towns and districts of Alsace, Lorraine, Franche-Comté, Burgundy, the Isle of France, Champagne Forest, Dauphiné, which may have suffered by either of the invasions. There shall be previously set apart from this sum, one million for the town of Brienne, and one million for that of Méri. I appoint Counts Montholon and Bertrand, and Marchand, the executors of my will. This present will, wholly written with my own hand, is signed and sealed with my own arms.

NAPOLEON. (L. S.) List (A).

Annexed to my Will. Longwood, Island of St. Helena, this, 15th April, 1821.

I.

1. The consecrated vessels which have been in use at my Chapel at Longwood.

2. I direct Abbé Vignali to preserve them, and to deliver them to my son when he shall reach the age of sixteen years.

II.

1. My arms; that is to say, my sword, that which I wore at Austerlitz, the sabre of Sobiesky, my dagger, my broad sword, my hanger, my two pair of Versailles pistols.

2. My gold dressing-case, that which I made use of on the morning of Ulm and of Austerlitz, of Jena, of Eylau, of Friedland, of the Island of Lobau, of the Moskwa, of Montmirail. In this point of view it is my wish that it may be precious in the eyes of my son. (It has been deposited with Count Bertrand since 1814.)

3. I charge Count Bertrand with the care of preserving these objects, and of conveying them to my son when he shall attain the age of sixteen years.

III .

1. Three small mahogany boxes, containing, the first, thirty-three sluff-boxes or comfit-boxes; the second, twelve boxes with the Imperial arms, two small eye-glasses, and four boxes found on the table of Louis XVIII. in the Tuileries, on the 20th of March, 1815; the third, three snuff-boxes ornamented with silver medals habitually used by the Emperor, and sundry articles for the use of the toilet, according to the lists numbered I. II. III.

2. My field-beds, which I used in all my campaigns.

3. My field-telescope.

4. My dressing-case, one of each of my uniforms, a dozen of shirts, and a complete set of each of my dresses, and generally of every thing used in my toilet.

5. My wash-hand stand.

6. A small clock which is in my bed-chamber at Longwood.

7. My two watches, and the chain of the Empress's hair.

8. I entrust the care of these articles to Marchand, my principal valet-de-chambre, and direct him to convey them to my son when he shall attain the age of sixteen years.

IV.

1. My cabinet of medals.

2. My plate, and my Sevres china, which I used at St. Helena. (List B. and C.)

3. I request Count Montholon to take care of these articles and to convey them to my son when he shall attain the age of sixteen years.

V.

1. My three saddles and bridles, my spurs which I used at St. Helena.

2. My fowling-pieces, to the number of five.

3. I charge my chasseur, Noverraz, with the care of these articles, and direct him to convey them to my son when he shall attain the age of sixteen years.

VI.

1. Four hundred volumes, selected from those in my library of which I have been accustomed to use the most.

2. I direct St. Denis to take care of them, and to convey them to my son when he shall attain the age of sixteen years.

NAPOLEON.

List (A).

1. None of the articles which have been used by me shall be sold; the residue shall be divided amongst the executors of my will and my brothers.

2. Marchand shall preserve my hair, and cause a bracelet to be made of it, with a little gold clasp, to be sent to the Empress Maria Louisa, to my mother, and to each of my brothers, sisters, nephews, nieces, the Cardinal; and one of larger size for my son.

3. Marchand will send one pair of my gold shoe-buckles to Prince Joseph.

4. A small pair of gold knee-buckles to Prince Lucien.

5. A gold collar-clasp to Prince Jerome.

List (A)

Inventory of my effects, which Marchand will take care of, convey to my son.

1. My silver dressing-case, that which is on my table, furnished with all its utensils, razors, &c.

2. My alarum-clock: it is the alarum-clock of Frederic II. which I took at Potsdam (in box No. III.).

3. My two watches, with the chain of the Empress's hair and a chain of my own hair for the other watch: Marchand will get it made at Paris.

4. My two seals (one the seal of France, contained in box No. III.).

5. The small gold clock which is now in my bed-chamber.

6. My wash-hand-stand and its water-jug.

7. My night-tables, those used in France, and my silver-gilt bidet.

8. My two iron bedsteads, my mattresses, and my coverlets, if they can be preserved.

9. My three silver decanters, which held my eau-de-vie., and which my chasseurs carried in the field.

10. My French telescope.

11. My spurs, two pair.

12. Three mahogany boxes, Nos. I. II. III., containing my snuff-boxes and other articles.

13. A silver-gilt perfuming pan. Here follow lists of Body Linen and Clothes, too minute to claim insertion in this place.

List (B).

Inventory of the Effects which I left in the possession of Monsieur the Count de Turenne.

One Sabre of Sobiesky. (It is, by mistake, inserted in List (A.) that being the sabre which the Emperor wore at Aboukir, and which is in the hands of Count Bertrand.)

One Grand Collar of the Legion of Honour. One sword of silver-gilt. One Consular sword. One sword of steel. One velvet belt. One Collar of the Golden Fleece. One small dressing-case of steel. One night-lamp of silver. One handle of an antique sabre. One hat à la Henry IV. and a toque. (A velvet hat, with a flat crown, and brims turned up.)

The lace of the Emperor. One small cabinet of medals. Two Turkey carpets. Two mantles of crimson velvet, embroidered, with vests, and small-clothes.

I give to my Son the sabre of Sobiesky. I give to my Son the collar of the Legion of Honour. I give to my Son the sword silver gilt. I give to my Son the Consular Sword. I give to my Son the steel sword. I give to my Son the collar of the Golden Fleece. I give to my Son the hat à la Henry IV. and the toque. I give to my Son the golden dressing-case for the teeth, which is in the hands of the dentist.

To the Empress Maria Louisa, my lace.

To Madame, the silver night-lamp.

To the Cardinal, the small steel dressing-case.

To Prince Eugene, the wax-candle-stick, silver gilt.

To the Princess Pauline, the small cabinet of medals.

To the Queen of Naples, a small Turkey carpet. To the Queen Hortense, a small Turkey carpet.

To Prince Jerome, the handle of the antique sabre.

To Prince Joseph, an embroidered mantle, vest, and small-clothes.

To Prince Lucien, an embroidered mantle, vest, and small-clothes.

NAPOLEON.

 

Napoleon's Tomb This 24th April, 1821, Longwood.

This is my Codicil or act of my last Will.

Upon the funds remitted in gold to the Empress Maria Louisa, my very dear and well- beloved spouse, at Orleans, in 1814, she remains in my debt two millions, of which I dispose by the present Codicil, for the purpose of recompensing my most faithful servants, whom moreover I recommend to the protection of my dear Maria Louisa.

1. I recommend to the Empress to cause the income of thirty thousand francs, which Count Bertrand possessed in the Duchy of Parma, and upon the Mont Napoleon at Milan, to be restored to him, as well as the arrears due.

2. I make the same recommendation to her with regard to the Duke of Istria, Duroc's daughter, and others of my servants who have continued faithful to me, and who have never ceased to be dear to me: she knows them.

3. Out of the above-mentioned two millions I bequeath three hundred thousand francs to Count Bertrand, of which he will lodge one hundred thousand in the treasurer's chest to be employed in legacies of conscience, according to my dispositions.

4. I bequeath two hundred thousand francs to Count Montholon, of which he will lodge one hundred thousand in the treasurer's chest, for the same purpose as above-mentioned.

5. Item, two hundred thousand francs to Count Las Cases, of which he will lodge one hundred thousand in the treasurer's chest, for the same purpose as above-mentioned.

6. Item, to Marchand one hundred thousand francs, of which he will place fifty thousand in the treasurer's chest, for the same purpose as above-mentioned.

7. To Jean Jerome Levi, the Mayor of Ajaccio at the commencement of the Revolution, or to his widow, children, or grand-children, one hundred thousand francs.

8. To Duroc's daughter, one hundred thousand francs.

9. To the son of Bessières, Duke of Istria, one hundred thousand francs.

10. To General Drouot, one hundred thousand francs.

11. To Count Lavalette, one hundred thousand francs.

12. Item, one hundred thousand francs; that is to say:-- Twenty-five thousand to Piéron, my maître d'hôtel. Twenty-five thousand to Novarre, my chasseur. Twenty-five thousand to St. Denis, the keeper of my books. Twenty-five thousand to Santini, my former door-keeper.

13. Item, one hundred thousand francs; that is to say:-- Forty thousand to Planat, my orderly officer. Twenty thousand to Hébert, lately house-keeper of Rambouillet, and who belonged to my chamber in Egypt. Twenty thousand to Lavigné, who was lately keeper of one of my stables, and who was my piqueur in Egypt. Twenty thousand to Jeanet Dervieux, who was overseer of the stables, and served me in Egypt.

14. Two hundred thousand francs shall be distributed in alms to the inhabitants of Brienne-le-Château, who have suffered most.

15. The three hundred thousand francs remaining shall be distributed to the officers and soldiers of the battalion of my guard at the Island of Elba who may be now alive, or to their widows and children, in proportion to their appointments, and according to an estimate which shall be fixed by my testamentary executors: those who have suffered amputation, or have been severely wounded, shall receive double; the estimate to be fixed by Larrey and Emmery.

This codicil is written entirely with my own hand, signed, and sealed with my arms.

NAPOLEON.

This 24th of April. 1821, Longwood. This is my Codicil, or note of my last Will.

Out of the settlement of my civil list of Italy, such as money, jewels, plate, linen, equipages, of which the Viceroy is the depositary, and which belonged to me, I dispose of two millions, which I bequeath to my most faithful servants.

I hope that, without availing himself of any reason to the contrary, my son Eugene Napoleon will pay them faithfully. He cannot forget the forty millions which I gave him in Italy, and in the distribution of the inheritance of his mother.

1. Out of these two millions, I bequeath to Count Bertrand three hundred thousand francs, of which he will deposit one hundred thousand in the treasurer's chest, to be disposed of according to my dispositions in payment of legacies of conscience.

2. To Count Montholon, two hundred thousand francs, of which he will deposit one hundred thousand in the chest, for the same purpose as above-mentioned.

3. To Count Las Cases, two hundred thousand francs, of which he will deposit one hundred thousand in the chest, for the same purpose as above-mentioned.

4. To Marchand, one hundred thousand francs, of which he will deposit fifty thousand in the chest, for the same purpose as above-mentioned.

5. To Count La Valette, one hundred thousand francs.

6. To General Hogendorf, of Holland, my aide-de-camp, who has retired to the Brazils, one hundred thousand francs.

7. To my aide-de-camp, Corbineau, fifty thousand francs.

8. To my aide-de-camp, General Caffarelli, fifty thousand francs.

9. To my aide-de-camp, Dejean, fifty thousand francs.

10. To Percy, surgeon-in-chief at Waterloo, fifty thousand francs.

11. Fifty thousand francs; that is to say:-- Ten thousand to Piéron, my maître d'hôtel. Ten thousand to St. Denis, my head chasseur. Ten thousand to Noverraz. Ten thousand to Cursot, my clerk of the kitchen. Ten thousand to Archamband, my piqueur.

12. To Baron De Mennevalle, fifty thousand francs.

13. To the Duke d'Istria, son of Bessières, fifty thousand francs.

14. To the daughter of Duroc, fifty thousand francs.

15. To the children of Labedoyère, fifty thousand francs.

16. To the children of Mouton Duvernet, fifty thousand francs.

17. To the children of the brave and virtuous General Travot, fifty thousand francs.

18. To the children of Chartrand, fifty thousand francs.

19. To General Cambrone, fifty thousand francs.

20. To General Lefevre Desnouettes, fifty thousand francs.

21. To be distributed amongst such proscribed persons as wander in foreign countries, whether they be French, Italian, Belgians, Dutch, Spanish, or inhabitants of the departments of the Rhine, under the directions of my executors, and upon their orders, one hundred thousand francs. 22. To be distributed amongst those who suffered amputation or were severely wounded at Lingy or Waterloo, who may be still living, according to lists drawn up by my executors, to whom shall be added Cambrone, Larrey, Percy, and Emmery. The guards shall be paid double; those of the Island of Elba, quadruple; two hundred thousand francs.

This codicil is written entirely with my own hand, signed, and sealed with my arms.

NAPOLEON.

This 24th of April, 1821, at Longwood.

This is my third Codicil to my Will of the 15th of April.

1. Amongst the diamonds of the Crown which were delivered up in 1814, there were some to the value of five or six hundred thousand francs, not belonging to it but which formed part of my private property; repossession shall be obtained of them in order to discharge my legacies.

2. I had in the hands of the banker Torlonia, at Rome, bills of exchange to the amount of two or three hundred thousand francs the product of my revenues of the Island of Elba since 1815. The Sieur De la Perruse, although no longer my treasurer, and not invested with any character, possessed himself of this sum. He shall be compelled to refund it.

3. I bequeath the Duke of Istria three hundred thousand francs of which only one hundred thousand francs shall be reversible to his widow, should the Duke be dead before payment of the legacy. It is my wish, should there be no inconvenience in it, that the Duke may marry Duroc's daughter.

4. I bequeath to the Duchess of Frioul, the daughter of Duroc, two hundred thousand francs: should she be dead before the payment of this legacy, none of it shall be given to the mother.

5. I bequeath to General Rigaud, (to him who was proscribed one hundred thousand francs.

6. I bequeath to Boisnod, the intendant commissary, one hundred thousand francs.

7. I bequeath to the children of General Letort, who was killed in the campaign of 1815, one hundred thousand francs.

8. These eight hundred thousand francs of legacies shall be considered as inserted at the end of Article thirty-six of my testament, which will make the legacies I have disposed of by will amount to the sum of six million four hundred thousand francs, without including the donations I have made by my second codicil.

This is written with my own hand, signed, and sealed with my arms. (L. S.)

NAPOLEON.

[On the outside is written:]

This is my third codicil to my will, entirely written with my own hand, signed, and sealed with my arms. To be opened the same day, and immediately after the opening of my will.

NAPOLEON.

This 24th of April, 1821. Longwood. This is a fourth Codicil to my Testament.

By the dispositions we have heretofore made, we have not fulfilled all our obligations, which has decided us to make this fourth codicil. l. We bequeath to the son or grandson of Baron Duthiel, lieutenant-general of artillery, and formerly lord of St. André, who commanded the school of Auxonne before the Revolution, the sum of one hundred thousand francs, as a memento of gratitude for the care which that brave general took of us when we were lieutenant and captain under his orders.

2. Item. To the son or grandson of General Dugomier, who commanded in chief the army of Toulon, the sum of one hundred thousand francs. We, under his orders, directed that siege, and commanded the artillery: it is a testimonial of remembrance for the marks of esteem, affection, and friendship, which that brave and intrepid general gave us.

3. Item. We bequeath one hundred thousand francs to the son or grandson of the deputy of the Convention, Gasparin, representative of the people at the army of Toulon, for having protected and sanctioned with his authority the plan we had given, which procured the capture of that city, and which was contrary to that sent by the Committee of Public Safety. Gasparin, by his protection, sheltered us from the persecution and ignorance of the general officers who commanded the army before the arrival of my friend Dugomier.

4. Item. We bequeath one hundred thousand francs to the widow, son, or grandson, of our aide-de-camp Muiron, killed at our side at Arcola, covering us with his body.

5. Item. Ten thousand francs to the subaltern officer Cantillon, who has undergone a trial upon the charge of having endeavoured to assassinate Lord Wellington, of which he was pronounced innocent. Cantillon has as much right to assassinate that oligarchist as the latter had to send me to perish upon the rock of St. Helena. Wellington, who proposed this outrage, attempted to justify it by pleading the interest of Great Britain. Cantillon, if he had really assassinated that lord, would have pleaded the same excuse, and been justified by the same motive--the interest of France--to get rid of this General, who, moreover, by violating the capitulation of Paris, had rendered himself responsible for the blood of the martyrs Ney, Labeoyere, &c.: and for the crime of having pillaged the museums, contrary to the text of the treaties.

6. These four hundred thousand francs shall be added to the six million for hundred thousand of which we have disposed, and will make our legacies amount to six million eight hundred and ten thousand francs; these four hundred and ten thousand are to be considered as forming part of our testament, Article 36, and to follow in every respect the same course as the other legacies.

7. The nine thousand pounds sterling which we gave to Count and Countess Montholon, should, if they have been paid, be deducted and carried to the account of the legacies which we have given him by our testament. If they have not been paid, our notes of hand shall be annulled.

8. In consideration of the legacy given by our will to Count Montholon, the pension of twenty thousand francs granted to his wife is annulled. Count Montholon is charged with the payment of it to her.

9. The administration of such an inheritance, until its final liquidation, requiring expenses of offices, journeys, missions, consultations, and lawsuits, we expect that our testamentary executors shall retain 3 per cent. upon all the legacies, as well upon the six million eight hundred thousand francs, as upon the sums contained in the codicils, and upon the two hundred millions of francs of the private domain.

10. The amount of the sums thus retained shall be deposited in the hands of a treasurer, and disbursed by drafts from our testamentary executors.

11. Should the sums arising from the aforesaid deductions not be sufficient to defray the expenses, provisions shall be made to that effect at the expense of the three testamentary executors and the treasurer, each in proportion to the legacy which we have bequeathed to them in our will and codicils.

12. Should the sums arising from the before-mentioned subtractions be more than necessary, the surplus shall be divided amongst our three testamentary executors and the treasurer, in the proportion of their respective legacies.

13. We nominate Count Las Cases, and in default of him his son, and in default of the latter, General Drouot, to be treasurer.

This present codicil is entirely written with our hand, signed, and sealed with our arms.

NAPOLEON.

The Key to My Father - Father's Day Burial

Story location
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/15/opinion/...nted=print&position=

The Key to My Father
By HARLAN COBEN
Harlan Coben is author, most recently, of "No Second Chance."
June 15, 2003

Let's get something straight right away: my father was hopelessly unhip. He was the corporeal embodiment of an Air Supply eight-track. He'd come home from work, shed the powder-blue suit with reversible vest, the tie so polyester it would melt during heat waves, the V-neck Hanes undershirt of startling white, the gray socks bought by the dozen at Burlington Coat Factory. He'd don a logo T-shirt that was compulsorily a size too snug, if you know what I mean, and shorts that were, uh, short, like something John McEnroe wore at Wimbledon in 1979.

His sunglasses were big, too big. They might have worked on Sophia Loren but on Dad they looked like manhole covers.

He had thin legs. My mom teased him about this, this 6-foot-2 man with the barrel chest and olive skin, teetering on spindly legs. His hair, as described by my mother, was "tired," wispy and flyaway. He had big arms. To his children, they looked like oak branches. The biceps would grow spongy with the years. But they never had time to fully atrophy.

He would play ball with us, but he was a terrible athlete.

I remember going to that Little League coaches' softball game, the one they have at the end of every season, and watching my father -- this man who had taught me to keep my elbow up and back foot planted -- take to the plate and ground out weakly to third. Three times in a row. To his credit, he never made excuses. "You," he'd tell me. "You're an athlete. Me, I'm a spaz."

His after-shave was Old Spice. There had been a radical period when he tried an eau called Royal Copenhagen -- someone had given him a gift set and damned if he was going to let it go to waste -- but he veered back onto his Old Spice route. That is still my strongest bar mitzvah recollection -- that smell.

No, I can't tell you what part of the haphtara I recited from the pulpit of B'nai Jeshurun. Something from Ezekiel, I think. But there's that part in the ceremony where the father blesses the son. My father bent down and whispered in my ear. He said something about loving me and being proud -- much as I want to, I can't remember the exact words -- and then he kissed me on the cheek. I remember the feel of his cheek on mine, the catcher's-glove hand cupping my head, and the smell of Old Spice.

On Saturday mornings, we went to Seymour's luncheonette on Livingston Avenue for a milkshake and maybe a pack of baseball cards. I'd sit on a stool at the counter and twirl. He'd stand next to me, always, as if that was what a man did.

He'd lean against the counter and eat -- too quickly, I think. He was never fat but he was always on the wrong side of the weight curve. He was uneven about physical activity. He'd discover a workout program, do it for three months, go idle for about six, find something new. Rinse, repeat. Like with shampoo.

He hated his job.

He never told me this. He dutifully went to work every day. But I knew. He didn't have a lot of friends either, but that was by choice. He could have been a popular man. People liked him. He could feign charm and warmth, but there was a coldness there. He cared only about his family and he cared with a ferocity that both frightened and exhilarated. You know those stories about someone lifting a car to save a trapped loved one? It took little to imagine him performing such a feat. The world was his family -- the rest of the planet's inhabitants no more than the periphery, deep background, scenery.

The night was his domain. He slept lightly, too lightly. I wonder if that is to blame, the way he'd startle awake. I would try my hardest to tiptoe past his door, but no matter how great my stealth, he would jerk upright in his bed as if I'd dropped a Popsicle on his stomach. Every night the same thing:

"Marc?" he'd shout.

"Yes, Dad."

"Something wrong?"

"Just going to the bathroom," I'd say. "I've been going by myself since I was 14."

During my freshman year at college, after a particularly debauched frat party, I was struck by a strange realization: this was the first time I'd woken up sick without my father present. His hand was not on my forehead. He was not speaking softly or rubbing my back.

I was alone.

I blame myself for what happened.

Three days before my college graduation, I dropped my father off at the airport.

We were late. He ran to catch his flight. That is the image I can't shake all these years later. My father, hopelessly unhip and out of shape, running for that stupid flight so he could be at a meeting that meant nothing to anybody.

Six hours later, he called from the Comfort Suite in Tampa.

"Let me speak to your mother."

I handed her the phone.

I watched her listen. I saw her face turn white.

"What?" I asked.

"He's having chest pains, but he says he's fine."

And I knew.

And she knew. I called the front desk. I told them to send an ambulance. I called my father back. "I told the front desk to send someone up," and then my father said the most frightening thing of all: "O.K."

No argument, no brave front, no I'm fine.

"But I have to find the room key first," he added.

"What?"

"They'll be here soon. I have to go. I have to find the key."

"Forget the key."

"You might need it."

"For what?"

But he hung up. And again I knew. He had never been ill, but I knew. With my father's strength, you somehow still sensed the fragile.

My mother and I rushed to the airport. I called the hotel from a pay phone. They just wheeled him out the lobby, I was told.

Wheeled him out. I pictured the oxygen mask on his face. I imagined him as I had never seen him: afraid.

He liked building things, my father, but he was bad with his hands. He gardened on weekends, but our shrubs never looked right, not like the shrubs that belonged to the Bauers, who lived next door. Their lawn looked as if it'd been trimmed for a P.G.A. event.

Ours had dandelions tall enough to go on the adult rides at Six Flags.

My father fought in the Korean War but never talked about it.

I didn't even know he'd been in the military until I explored his junk drawer when I was 8 and found a bunch of medals in the bottom. They were loose in the drawer, mingling with spare change.

Our plane had a stopover at the Atlanta airport, the epicenter of the stopover. I called the hospital. The nurse assured me that my father was fine.

But I didn't believe her. She transferred me to the doctor. I told the doctor I was calling about my father, that I was his son. The doctor did that calm voice thing and asked me my name. He told me, Marc -- using my name so often it became like an annoying tick -- that my father was in serious condition, Marc, that they are going to operate in a few minutes. I felt my legs go. He's awake and comfortable, the doctor told me. He understands what is happening. I asked to speak to him. "The phone cord won't reach, Marc," the doctor said.

"Tell him we're on our way," I insisted.

"I will." But I didn't believe him.

My father always longed for a Cadillac. He got one when he turned 52.

He listened only to AM radio. Every once in a while a certain song would come on and he'd turn it up. His face would change. The lines would soften. He'd lean back and steer with his wrists and whistle.

By the time we arrived at the hospital, night had fallen. I sat in the waiting room. He was still in surgery. My mother did not speak, something that is usually accompanied by a parting sea or burning bush.

I began to make deals with whatever higher power would listen, you know the kind, about what I'd do, what I'd risk, what I'd trade, if only it could be morning again and we could leave for that damn plane a few minutes earlier and if he hadn't run to catch that flight, if he'd just walked instead, if he didn't devour his food, if he kept up with an exercise program, if I'd been an easier son.

At 4 a.m., that awful hospital beeping sound echoed down the still corridor, then a rush that stole our breath. The air was suddenly gone. And so, too, was my father.

We bury him on Father's Day.

The weather is, of course, spectacular, mocking my gloom. The men his age come up to me and tell me all about their own heart problems, about their close calls, about how lucky they've been. I look through them, wondering why they are the ones who get to stand before me, happily breathing. I wish them ill. I call his former boss, the one who sold the company and made my father stuff envelopes with his resume at the age of 56. I tell him that if he shows up at the funeral, I'll punch him in the face. He, too, is to blame.

I wonder if my father was scared near the end or if he went into surgery thinking it would be all be O.K. Don't know, of course.

There is a lot I don't know. I don't know what my father wanted out of life. I don't know what he wanted to be when he was a young man, before I came around and changed everything. He never expressed any of that to me. And I never asked.

A week after the funeral, I call his doctor down in Tampa.

"He died alone," I say.

"He knew you were there."

"You didn't tell him."

"I did."

"What did he say?"

The doctor takes a second.

"He said for you to check his pocket."

"What?"

"You'd need a place to stay overnight. He said to check his pocket."

Cradling the phone, I go to the closet where his belongings, still in the plastic hospital bag the nurse handed me, are hanging. I break the seal. The Old Spice scent is faint but there. I dig past the Hanes V-Neck and find his pants.

"What else?" I ask.

"Pardon?"

"What else did he say?"

"That's it."

"Those were his final words? Check his pocket?"

His voice is suddenly soft.

"Yes."

My fingers slip into the pocket of his pants and hit something metallic. I pull it out.

The hotel key. He'd found it after all. He put it in his pocket. His last words, his last act, for us.

I still have the key.

I keep it in a drawer with his medals.

Postcards From the Edge - The Urban Nomads

Story location
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/15/nyregion...wanted=all&position=

Postcards From the Edge - The Urban Nomads
By ALISON STATEMAN
June 15, 2003

IT'S one of those bone-numbing rainy days, the kind that gets under your fleece and rain gear, rendering all attempts at warmth futile. Julie, 26, is in a mood as foul as the weekend weather.

"This is ridiculous,'' she said, her words punctuated with four-letter invectives. "You would think that people would be more willing to help out, but it's not like that.

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"Actually," she added, gesturing toward her plastic cup, clearly disappointed with its thin layer of coins, "on nicer days I make more money.''

Strangers are both intrigued and repelled by this slight, black-clad figure, a pilled skullcap low on her forehead, who is slumped against a wall adorned with graffiti. Black dirt is caked under her fingernails and nestled in the crevices of her open palms.

A patch of sidewalk near the corner of 14th Street and University Place is Julie's regular spot to beg for spare change, to "spange,'' as she and her friends put it. This is where Julie spends most of her days, along with Whiskey, her tawny shepherd-pit bull mix, and Samantha, a pretty, 20-year-old brunette. Samantha, who goes by Sam and is from upstate New York, is dressed in baggy combat pants ripped at the crotch, and, like her companion, refuses to give her last name.

Along with "Dumpster diving" - scrounging for garbage outside restaurants - Julie and Sam meet their needs for food and shelter by using signs that advertise their plight. Sometimes Sam carries a sign that reads, "Trying to Get Home to My Mother's House.'' Julie's current sign, which is illustrated with paw prints, reads: "Homeless, Hungry and Broke. We are trying to get off the street tonight. Need @ $30 for a place to sleep. Please help. Thank you!!'' The amount requested is her share of the approximately $65 that she and Sam will need to rent a cheap room for the night.

If they come up short, they will sleep on a side street, under scaffolding or an awning. Julie used to stay in squats on the Lower East Side, but more often than not, it's a cold, concrete bed for her.

For the last decade Julie has been part of a little-known segment of homeless youth often called urban nomads. Year in and year out they travel to a few select North American cities, living on little or no money on the fringes of a society they have grown disillusioned with or, like Julie, actively despise.

Like birds, they migrate according to the weather, spending the winter in the warmer parts of the South and West - San Francisco, New Orleans and Austin are favorites - before returning north as the weather grows milder. Manhattan is a prime destination, even though the life, never easy, is likely to get harder, given impending budget cuts that would affect the city's social services.

According to statistics provided by the Partnership for the Homeless, an advocacy group, an estimated 19,000 homeless and runaway youths live in New York's shelters or on its streets.

"New York is a place where people come for all reasons,'' said City Councilman Alan J. Gerson, who sponsored a conference at Pace University two weeks ago to explore the growing problem of homeless youth in the city. "That's the history of New York. So if a person is homeless on our streets, they are our problem and our imperative."

Basic Black, and Tattoos

Urban nomads like Julie are a population that social scientists have only recently begun to study. Chief among those who focus on this group is Don C. Des Jarlais, research director at the Baron Edmond de Rothschild Chemical Dependency Institute at Beth Israel Medical Center. The center has just issued preliminary findings from its Urban Nomad Study, now in its third year.

For the purposes of the study, urban nomads are defined as youths who have traveled to at least five different cities or towns in the past three years and at least three within the past year. After interviewing several hundred people who fit these criteria, the researchers are getting a feel for who they are, though hard statistics are elusive.

"We haven't really attempted to get a good estimate of the numbers, but I'd say it's probably in the thousands," said Dr. Des Jarlais. He estimates that nationally there may be 5,000 to 10,000 urban nomads, 1,000 of whom pass through New York each year.

Dr. Des Jarlais discovered urban nomads during an earlier study of drug users on the Lower East Side. "I was curious how they managed, how they survive,'' he said. "And the subtext was, 'Could I do that?' ''

"This is a challenging lifestyle,'' he added. "But it's not as if they have totally given up on their lives.''

Dr. Des Jarlais says that while urban nomads sometimes exaggerate or dramatize their pasts, they tend not to make up stories. Their parents are often ambivalent about their children leaving. "Some parents were probably very upset that they left, and some were probably very happy to see them go.'' Seventy to 80 percent of urban nomads said they stayed in touch with their parents, usually their mothers, but, he said, "when we asked, 'Could you go back home?,' only 50 percent said they could.''

While urban nomads and the city's traditional homeless youth often share a history of physical or sexual abuse, the two groups differ in many respects. Typically, New York's population of runaways and homeless youths is heavily minority and includes both girls and boys. By contrast, urban nomads tend to be white and largely male, with backgrounds that are typically working class and occasionally middle-class. Many are children from homes where a parent's remarriage has produced family conflicts. Others are simply bored.

"In general, their home situations are not good, but it is not like they are in dire danger or anything like that,'' Dr. Des Jarlais said. "They are sort of not getting along well at home and they want to do something different, so they leave."

Unlike most of New York's runaways, who often pursue the dual street-survival occupations of drug-dealing and prostitution and hang out in places like Times Square, urban nomads tend to shun prostitution and heavy drug use and are drawn to the East Village and the Lower East Side.

The East Village holds a particular attraction because of its history of social and political unrest, its squatter tradition and its punk roots, typified by landmarks like CBGB's on the Bowery. The usual attire of combat or work clothes or basic black, set off by multiple piercings and tattoos, also mirrors the punk and working-man sympathies of the typical urban nomad.

But looking different can backfire. "From the moment they get into town, they're targeted by police because of the way they look,'' said John Welch, program director of Safe Horizon's Streetwork Project on the Lower East Side, a group that serves several hundred urban nomads each year. "They're more visible.'' As a result, they are often ticketed for minor offenses, like panhandling.

Drug-Free, Burned Out

Passers-by will tell Julie she doesn't need money if she has enough cash to pay for her tattoos and all that silver. In fact, she often wears long-sleeve shirts to hide her extensive network of tattoos, and she readily explains that she got them for free from friends who were budding tattoo artists and practiced on her.

It may, however, be the choice of artwork that makes people pause. A pentagram and a black skull with twisted horns are imprinted on her neck, and her hands and left upper arm are decorated with the phrases "Godless" and "What Life?"

"It's a scare tactic,'' she said. "I'm not in any way a holy person, but I'm also not satanic. It kind of reflects how I feel inside about people and life and the world and stuff. I'm not a happy, colorful, optimistic person, so a lot of my tattoos interpret the way I feel about everything."

Julie's physical condition also startles. Her front teeth, which arch out slightly, are yellowed, and she is rail-thin even for her petite frame. Julie hasn't been to a doctor or dentist in more than 10 years. However, she can recite the dates on which Whiskey was vaccinated and spayed and carries the paperwork to prove it in her army-green pack.

In fact, Whiskey seems to be the only being she doesn't seem to dislike, herself included. At one point, she grasped Whiskey's face and wept. "I love this dog, man," she said as Whiskey licked her tears before she could wipe them away.

Dogs play a big part in the urban nomad culture, providing their street-bound owners with companionship and protection. "A lot of people say, 'Oh, why don't you stay in a shelter?' '' Julie said, mimicking their concerned tone. "Well, obviously it's because I have a dog. 'Well, why don't you give the dog away?' I love my dog. I'm not going to give my dog away so I can stay in a shelter. I'd rather sleep in the street.''

Almost everyone who passes her stares. Some people grimace in disgust; a few cross the street. When a woman starts to take a picture of Julie, the action pushes her over the edge. "Can you not do that, please?" Julie asks.

"People think of us as some kind of New York landmark,'' she said later, her pale blue eyes glowering. "It's amusing to them. I am amusing to them. 'Oh, look at that, honey,' '' she said in the mocking tone she adopts when impersonating strangers. 'That little creep with the dog begging for money.' ''

Indeed, many passers-by are drawn less by her than by her pet, who this day rests a weary head upon Julie's thigh and shivers despite the red sweater wrapped tightly around her. Several people who drop change in Julie's cup announce, "This is for the dog."

This angers Julie. "They think I'm going to use it for drugs," she explained. She admits that she used heroin for four years, but said she has been drug-free since 2001.

Although Julie says she has been coming to the city every year since she was 17, making cross-country excursions to San Francisco and Portland when she can prevail on Sam to watch Whiskey, she is hard pressed to explain exactly why she is here.

"First of all, I'm kind of preoccupied with my financial situation,'' she said, "and No. 2, five or six years ago I might be able to speak really clearly about how I feel about things, but now I'm just so exhausted with having to explain myself all the time. Maybe it's just because I've had so much time to think, because I'm just sitting around thinking, that it's just like my brain is just burned out.

"I've become this kind of totally miserable, hateful person because I have to look at all these people every single day,'' she added. "But I put myself here, so I can't really blame anybody else. I guess I could have done things a little differently when I was younger, but I don't know."

Julie says she ran away from her home in New Hampshire at the age of 15. Asked why she left, she responds with an obscenity about her parents. According to her account of her early years, she spent time in a children's home and a year at Keene State College in New Hampshire before flunking out and hitting the road with like-minded friends.

She says she misses her father, who just turned 60 and used to work in computers. But the few times she has reached out to her parents, she said, by phone or through visits, she has been rejected. According to Julie, they are still angry at her for running away.

After so many years on the street, Julie doesn't seem to know what to make of generosity or choice. When a sailor in town for Fleet Week approached and peeled off a $5 bill, she asked awkwardly if he were really a sailor. Later on, when asked what she'd like for dinner, she had to think for several minutes, not wanting to blow a rare opportunity to choose her food. She opted for Taco Bell.

Despite evidence to the contrary, Julie doesn't think of herself as homeless.

"Homeless people to me are people who push around shopping carts and push strollers and they just sit around,'' she said. "Lazy and crazy is what I say."

The next day she's not so sure. "Once you do this for awhile,'' she said, "it gets kind of exhausting and it's hard not to give in to those things that will make your life a little bit easier, such as getting a job and settling down and having security blankets and a nice place to live."

Could she ever lead that kind of life? "I hope so,'' she replied morosely, "because I don't want to be pushing a shopping cart around when I'm 50. If I make it to 50."

Dr. Des Jarlais has found that urban nomads seldom reach that age. "We've found almost nobody over 30,'' he said. "Some of them tend to move into conventional society and some of them, of course, develop health problems and die.'' Few find their way into organized programs, in part because programs that meet their needs are scarce.

The "Grapes of Wrath' Route

Urban nomad culture is built upon a patchwork of traditions that reflect its anti-establishment bent. Hopping freight trains, a practice that harkens back to the hobo of the Depression, is a favored mode of transportation. Many urban nomads find work sporadically as house painters or migrant laborers in the tradition chronicled in John Steinbeck's "Grapes of Wrath."

Shane, 26, a soft-spoken friend of Julie's who travels to Maine each August to harvest the state's famed blueberries, matches the template perfectly.

Unlike Julie, who is all explosive energy, Shane is mellowness personified. Though coated in grime from the top of his once-beige Dewar's baseball cap to the tips of his work boots, though his backpacks emit the musky odor of too many nights spent sleeping in the rain and soot, he manages to maintain an air of dignity.

Even his choice of tattoos belies a gentler nature, from the character from his favorite comic book, The Realm of Chaos, etched on his forearm to the heart and scroll adorned with the names of his two former dogs, Sasha and Blue, on his bicep. Perhaps because of the shave he just finagled in a restroom at Kmart on Astor Place, his angular face, punctuated by a strawberry-blond goatee, looks surprisingly youthful.

Shane, who is stationed across the street from Julie, is biding his time in the city before moving on to his next odd job.

"I follow the harvest,'' he said. "I do blueberries in Maine, then I do beets. I go down to Virginia and do apples. I go up to Alaska and work in the canneries. I don't like to stay in one place for too long. I love traveling. I don't like the whole 9-to-5 thing. I like to go to work for a couple of weeks, a couple of months at a time, and save up for whatever gear I need and go on to the next place."

Shane said he has a regular winter gig painting houses in Townsend, Wash., a job that provides a steady income and a trailer for shelter. Like the majority of older urban nomads, he eventually tired of the city circuit and began opting for odd jobs that took him to smaller towns; by contrast, younger nomads are usually drawn to the glitz that bigger urban environments offer.

Shane says he likes his life. But even if he wanted to get a conventional job, doing so without a permanent address would be nearly impossible.

"Some people tell you to get a job,'' he said. "They don't understand that I'd love to have a job, but it's kind of hard when you're homeless to walk into a place when you don't have an address or anything. To get a place to live, you have to have a job, but then again to get a job, you have to have a place to live where you can wake up every day to go to work. That's why I do the harvests. You can camp right there and go to work."

Shane, who said he was born and raised in Washington State, was not always the self-described laid-back person he presents himself as today. A decade ago, he was a rebellious, hard-partying teenager, with a tough Navy man as a stepfather. At one point, his mother gave him an ultimatum: Follow the house rules or get out.

"I was doing a lot of drinking, so I wasn't listening to my mother, so I ended up getting kicked out when I was 16, so I've been on my own since then,'' he said. "She told me if I couldn't follow her rules and my stepfather's rules, then I wasn't welcome to live there. And being the know-it-all that I was as a teenager, I just left.''

He first came to New York at 17, drawn by a sense that this was his true place. His real father, who had left his mother around the time Shane was born, was originally from the city, and though Shane has never met his father, the city has not disappointed.

"When I was young, I used to picture New York a lot and see movies about it,'' he said from his curbside vantage point, surrounded by skeletons of umbrellas, abandoned cigarettes and clouds of bus exhaust. "I guess I just always wanted to see it."

"It was just like I thought it would be,'' he added. "It's just beautiful. The old brownstones and old buildings. It's such an old city and has such history. I like it here."

Shane recently earned his high school equivalency diploma and spends time in the main reading room of the New York Public Library, writing in his journal and reading books like "Last Exit to Brooklyn.''

His mother, a former teacher, is retired and lives with his stepfather in Spain. He calls and writes her regularly, and he gets her mail sent care of Streetwork's Lower East Side center. "Me and mom are really close,'' he said. "I talk to her a lot."

Reaching into a torn Duane Reade bag, he pulled out photographs of his mother's Chihuahua, dressed in a sweater, and a postcard she had sent him from Portugal. Does his mother worry about him? "I think she used to because I used to be into a lot of drugs,'' he said. "But she knows I've grown out of that.''

Child becomes father to the old man

May 01, 2003
The Child becomes father to the old man - and so must I.

From "The Horse Notebook,"

Horses have not hurt anyone yet, except when they bet on them.
     Stuart Cloete

An instinct sympathy which makes horse and master one heart, one pulse, one understanding love - is made never born.
     G. A. Chamberlain

First Viennese Vegetable Orchestra -
For Cooking Up Music, Mixed Vegetables Do Fine

Article location
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/06/internat...=print&position=top

Reminds me of Stomp.

For Cooking Up Music, Mixed Vegetables Do Fine
By SARAH LYALL
March 01, 2003

HAMBURG, Germany, March 1 ? Performing music with fresh vegetables brings certain occupational challenges, like the tendency of the instruments to fall apart suddenly.

"We have to be flexible," said Matthias Meinharter, a member of the First Viennese Vegetable Orchestra, who awkwardly lost the mouthpiece for his hollowed-out carrot during a recent concert here, and had to improvise by nibbling at the carrot even as he blew into it.

Carrots, which make fine whistly wind instruments as well as having impressive percussional uses, are the least of it. The orchestra, made up of nine black-clad avant-garde artists from Vienna, uses everything from tiny kidney beans to hefty pumpkins in its work ? beating, shaking, blowing, peeling, spitting, snapping, grating, poking, rubbing and mushing them in startlingly ingenious ways.

The sensitive microphones onstage pick up even the softest hint of vegetable noise, and somehow the result suggests that the musicians are more than just people publicly playing with their food.

"They're very enthusiastic, talented and artistically minded," said Franz Hautzinger, a trumpet player and abstract composer in Vienna, whose compositions for the vegetable orchestra include "Five Improvisations for Mixed Vegetables." Speaking of one of his favorite vegetable instruments, he added, "You can really write for the cucumber-o-phone ? it's an instrument with many, many possibilities."

In Hamburg, the orchestra played in a bohemian-minded arts center and then served post-performance bowls of vegetable soup. The audience seemed to take the whole thing in stride, even when Mr. Meinharter grated carrots so zealously in one piece that the shavings sprayed across the front row (the orchestra also uses kitchen utensils, including knives and blenders).

"I expected it to be just fun and games, but it's really interesting experimental music," said Hartwig Spitzer, a 64-year-old physicist who nonetheless said he would be loath to try it at home. "I play with my compost," he said. "That's enough vegetable life for me."

As he spoke, members of the orchestra were dismantling their instruments ? which generally take about 90 minutes to construct ? and offering those still in good condition, as well as unused backups, for people to take home for dinner.

"We are showing that you can make music not only with common instruments, and also that it's important to work in a multisensual way ? this is not just for your ears but for your nose and your taste as well," said Barbara Kaiser, 30. "Do you need some leeks?"

The orchestra's pieces include traditional Austrian tunes; versions of work by bands like Kraftwerk; and original compositions that evoke house music, techno-pop, electronic music, and genres that defy characterization. "It's become more about the music than the vegetables," Mr. Meinharter said.

His colleague Nikolaus Gansterer said: "It's about the whole procedure of buying and playing and destroying and eating and vanquishing your fears. Nothing lasts forever."

The orchestra was formed about five years ago, and has since played around Europe at the rate of about a concert a month. None of the musicians can quite remember how the idea evolved; Ms. Kaiser, an animator, recalls cooking dinner one evening when she suddenly "thought about the fantasy of people sitting in a concert hall, playing on tomatoes."

In fact, the finale of the Hamburg show was meant to be a piece performed entirely on tomatoes, but the theater asked that it be left out. "It was too dangerous for their beautiful new curtains," Ms. Kaiser said.

It goes without saying that the quality of the music depends on the quality of the vegetables, which must be "really, really fresh," said Mr. Meinharter, who in his other life is an industrial designer and conceptual artist. To find the proper leeks ? fat, fresh and firm ? for the leek-o-lin, a string instrument whose squeaky whistling noise comes from rubbing two wet leeks together, he must lick his potential purchases until satisfied of their musical potential.

Merchants at Vienna's big open-air vegetable market, the Naschmarkt, initially looked askance at the musicians testing out their potential instruments in odd ways, "but now we have some people who know us," Mr. Gansterer said. "They might say, `Wow, I have a very big pumpkin for you.' "

Needed: a magazine about death. - The Grim Reader

This is an idea that PJ and I worked on in 1998, and was triggered by some comments of Joe Calantoni, our housemate. The aim was to create a website called "Gotta Go" to explore all death related issues in a consumption-friendly way. We couldn't bring the project to fructify, but someday I might return to that project. It is the one project closest to my heart.

Unabridged an unedited version at
http://www.opinionjournal.com/la/?id=110003642

Needed: a magazine about death. - The Grim Reader
BY RUSS SMITH
June 18, 2003

There is a magazine waiting to be born if only publishers like Condé Nast, AOL Time Warner and Hearst would stop obsessing about shopping, belly-baring celebrities and stock-market tips. Its name is Obituary.

It's long been a truism that the most popular features of a daily newspaper are the sports pages, comics and death notices. In many cases, people over 40 turn to the day's obituaries first, not only for morbid fascination, but because they recognize the names of famous men and women or, on a local level, neighbors and friends.

Obviously, there wouldn't be a shortage of material for such an enterprise. In the last two weeks, for example, Gregory Peck, Hume Cronyn, David Brinkley and Donald Regan, representing the disparate fields of entertainment, television and politics, all passed away. Only Peck would merit the cover of Obituary--celebrities are the draws for mass-circulation magazines--but a smart editor might've commissioned well-known journalists or historians to examine the lives of the others.

An immediate concern of publishers would be that such a magazine would skew too old, missing the 18-44 demographic that advertisers desire. But as People has demonstrated with its combination of Hollywood, human-interest stories, personal essays and coverage of baking contests and spelling bees, Obituary could appeal to anyone who can read.

In 2003 alone, Obituary's editors would have had so many stories that space alone would dictate the contents of a given week's issue. The scope is fairly amazing: Laci Peterson, military casualties in Iraq, murdered rap stars, bus crashes, teenage drunken-driving accidents, suicides, World War II vets and the inevitable old-age deaths of cultural icons.

But the genius of this magazine would be a combination of sensationalism; thoughtful pieces on diseases like breast cancer, SARS and Alzheimer's; 25th or 50th anniversaries of the deaths of famous people; and longer outtakes on famine in Third World countries.

Another tactic would be to elevate the quality of written obituaries. It's no secret that England's dailies far surpass their American counterparts in this category, giving the author an opportunity to use a death for smart, warts-and-all prose.

For example, compare the following lead paragraphs in the Guardian and the New York Times about the deaths of Peck and Regan:

About Peck, the British newspaper began: "Gregory Peck, who has died aged 87, was an actor whose film career emphasized the importance of being earnest. Serious, restrained and intelligent, though never very exciting, he was one of Hollywood's most enduring stars.

Said the Times: "Gregory Peck, whose chiseled, slightly melancholy good looks, resonant baritone and quiet strength made him an unforgettable presence in films like 'To Kill a Mockingbird,' 'Gentleman's Agreement' and 'Twelve O'Clock High,' died early yesterday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 87."

The contrast in the Regan obituaries is even more striking.

The Guardian: "Donald Regan, who has died of cancer aged 84, was a jovial but combative and driven man who rose from working-class, Irish, south Boston to be the boss of the world's biggest firm of stockbrokers, Merrill Lynch (known to Wall Street as the Thundering Herd). He served as President Reagan's treasury secretary and then, in a bizarre move, swapped jobs with James Baker and took over as chief of staff at the White House."

The Times: "Donald T. Regan, the steel-willed financier who was Treasury secretary and, later, an uncommonly powerful chief of staff to President Reagan until his bitter departure in 1987, died yesterday in Virginia. He was 84 and lived in Williamsburg, Va. The cause was cancer, said a statement from Merrill Lynch, which he once ran."

Should a company launch Obituary, there would be little "buzz" in publishing circles. However, as Maer Roshan, editor of the new, much-hyped and mediocre Radar, has learned, "buzz" is dead.

So to speak.

Claim that water has memory - Remembers substances dissolved in it earlier

Unabridged and unedited article at
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99993817

Claim that water has memory - Remembers substances dissolved in it earlier
New Scientist
June 11, 2003
 
Claims do not come much more controversial than the idea that water might retain a memory of substances once dissolved in it. The notion is central to homeopathy, which treats patients with samples so dilute they are unlikely to contain a single molecule of the active compound, but it is generally ridiculed by scientists.

Yet a paper is about to be published in the reputable journal Physica A claiming to show that even though they should be identical, the structure of hydrogen bonds in pure water is very different from that in homeopathic dilutions of salt solutions. Could it be time to take the "memory" of water seriously?

1. Aware of homeopaths' claims that patterns of hydrogen bonds can survive successive dilutions, Rey decided to test samples that had been diluted down to a notional 10-30 grams per cubic centimetre - way beyond the point when any ions of the original substance could remain. "We thought it would be of interest to challenge the theory," he says.
2. Each dilution was made according to a strict protocol, and vigorously stirred at each stage, as homeopaths do. When Rey compared the ultra-dilute lithium and sodium chloride solutions with pure water that had been through the same process, the difference in their thermoluminescence peaks compared with pure water was still there (see graph).
3. "Much to our surprise, the thermoluminescence glows of the three systems were substantially different," he says. He believes the result proves that the networks of hydrogen bonds in the samples were different.
   

Landscape Artists - Out in the Garden, a Reputation Blooms

I am sure my friends from NCSU's School of Design would love this one on Landscape Artists ..

Story location
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/11/realesta...nted=print&position=

Landscape Artists - Out in the Garden, a Reputation Blooms
By DAVID COLMAN
July 11, 2003

I KNEW when he cited Dr. Seuss as one of his inspirations that he was the man," Melissa Meyer said. Perhaps not many people planning a glamorous second home on two acres near the ocean in Sagaponack, N.Y. ? smack in the middle of the socially anxious Hamptons ? would be overjoyed to hear the creator of "Green Eggs and Ham" mentioned as a muse by their prospective landscaper.

Frederick Law Olmsted, one could see. Gertrude Jekyll, Russell Page ? sure. Isamu Noguchi, maybe. But Ken Smith won Ms. Meyer's heart not just with his affinity for Dr. Seuss but with charisma, vision and a résumé of projects that ranged from urban plaza designs to lavish private gardens.

"Ken's a character, and I met him with the hopes that he would give me something I had never seen before ? which he did," Ms. Meyer said recently. "He fulfilled my expectations. I could just tell ? he's the creative genius kind of guy."

You do not often hear words like "genius," "guru" and "artist" mentioned in the same sentence as "landscape architect." As a profession, landscape architects and designers have had to deal with a career profile that casts them as the earthy and earnest kid brother of the mighty architect.

But lately, star landscape architects like Mr. Smith have been scaling the walls of high-end design as stealthily as Boston ivy, as people across the country have become more and more appreciative of the way that gardens add to the pleasure, and perhaps value, of their second homes.

Now, landscape designers ? once the creepers of the design world ? are becoming name-brand entities and are joining the ranks of, and in some cases eclipsing, their bricks-and-mortar peers. As décoritects ? high-end residential architects ? downsize to meet the needs of a less constructive economy, business for landscape architects (whose rule-of-thumb budget is 10 to 15 percent of the house's cost) is thriving. The May issue of Money magazine reported that Americans spent $14.3 billion last year on landscape design, triple the 1998 figure.

The profession's latest cream of the crop ? among them Mr. Smith, Edwina von Gal, Topher Delaney, Pamela Burton, Deborah Nevins, Perry Guillot and Madison Cox ? are newly fashionable characters themselves.

They have clear visions, interesting attitudes, designer wardrobes and that frisson of lifestyle-gurudom from which fashion, interior and industrial designers have already profited ? plus a helping of that spiritual je ne sais quoi you only get from working hand in hand with Mother Nature.

"They are gaining a certain celebrity," said Dominique Browning, the editor of House & Garden. "I am even noticing it in garden tours, which used to be a retirement-age activity. Now it's a much younger crowd. There's definitely a more name-droppy aspect to it."

Several factors are lending their profiles a Miracle-Gro boost of chic. Among them: a post-boom penchant for retreat and refuge and a new wealth of information about plants and gardening on the Internet. And now that the McMansion is fast becoming the white stretch limo of the architecture world, some high-end customers don't want houses that practice Manifest Destiny on their lot lines. "Here in our modest vacation home," the new thinking goes, "we're just plain folks."

But that humility stops at the front door. "The house itself can be humble ? that rustic-hut idea," said Mr. Smith, who prides himself on his dexterity at grafting historical landscape concepts with fanciful, modern (and even artificial) materials. "When people are doing the second home, they're vacating their ordinary lives, and the landscape is part of that escape ? the idea of getting back to nature. So they want a landscape that's not what they ordinarily live with."

That was certainly the case with the Meyer house. Mr. Smith took the two basic elements of the Hamptons landscape ? open fields and hedges ? and turned them "slightly askew," as Ms. Meyer put it. One of the hedges is a line of hydrangeas, another is holly. A stripe in the lawn is given extra fertilizer, so the grass there is always greener. For a civilized touch of the wilderness, there's a field of wildflowers one could get lost in ? or at least imagine doing so.

MS. MEYER was delighted. "I spend all my time outside," she said. "Sitting by the pool, looking at the perennials. I've surprised myself by how much I get into it. Now I find myself padding around, pulling out weeds, seeing what flowers are coming up."

But even an un-grand garden can take a truckload of green to get it to look that way. Madison Cox, whose Moroccan garden at the Shore Club in Miami has become one of the hot drinks spots in town and created a ripple effect for his residential business, agreed. "Some of the budgets on these second homes can equal what is spent on a primary residence," he said.

No single look epitomizes the trend. While Mr. Smith is known for sculptural, avant-garde plantings that might, for example, meld hardscape (i.e., stones, gravel and decking) and otherwise humdrum ingredients like grasses. Perry Guillot's style is a sort of 1930's Hollywood meets 1900's Hamptons, an understated yet luxurious sense of high-hedged garden glamour.

Edwina von Gal has carved a high-profile niche as a creator of gardens that match a classic sense of formality with a Zen-like minimalism, set off by offhand, quirky touches, like a swing centered in a "room" made of hedges.

There is more going on here than aesthetics, of course. According to the American Society of Landscape Architects, the proper landscaping can add 20 percent or more to a home's resale value.

But even though it's possible for the layman to appreciate how gardening can enhance the look of a house, the technical aspects of working with deciduous décor can be intimidating. "It's much more overwhelming ? a decorator is dealing with set rooms," said Ms. Browning, the House & Garden editor. "It's much harder to look at a field and imagine three rooms."

Barbara Gladstone, the Manhattan art dealer, hired Deborah Nevins to do the small garden at her house in Sag Harbor, N.Y., and did not bother hiring a decorator for the interior. "I'm smart enough to know what I don't know," Ms. Gladstone said. "I always thought if I bought a house, she would be the first call I made."

Ms. Nevins is a master of historically correct plantings, and the garden she created for Ms. Gladstone's 1860 brick house reflects what, ideally, might have been there originally.

"With interiors, you can more or less impose what you want," Ms. Gladstone said. "Nature is profound ? these people, they have to work hand in hand with what is. It's like the difference between sailing and motoring. In a sailboat you have to respect the wind, whereas with a motorboat, you just go right through."

Pamela Burton is a Los Angeles landscape architect whose clients range from Hollywood heavyweights like Diane Keaton and Michael Crichton to Southern California institutions. Ms. Burton, who published "Private Landscapes: Modernist Gardens of Southern California" last year, said that the growing respect for landscaping stemmed from people's desire to siphon the utmost pleasure from the outdoor space they have. Ms. Burton's strength is creating lush but not lavish spaces, never too minimal nor too grand, with lots of little gardens or "rooms" with different themes and uses ? a moon-viewing garden, for one. (Talk about inconspicuous consumption.)

"I think the idea of solace is something missing in our everyday world," she said. "As the planet fills up with more people, having some corner of the world to go to, even a little plot of grass, can be a tremendous relief."

John Baldessari, the conceptual artist, hired Ms. Burton to redo the garden of a bungalow he had bought in Santa Monica, Calif., and has since been quite pleased with the result. "I sit outside at night and feel totally tranquil," he said. "All my cares of the day just wilt away. I was wondering if the plants actually absorb sounds ? it's so quiet. It's a marvelous experience."

When Sam Shahid, the creative director and president of Shahid & Company, an advertising and design firm in Manhattan, bought an 1876 farmhouse in Bridgehampton, N.Y., he didn't think his acre of wooded land needed much. Then he met Perry Guillot. After he struggled to articulate what he wanted, Mr. Guillot told him: "I know what you want. You want a London park."

Mr. Shahid hired him on the spot. "I never thought landscaping was important, that it could make you so happy," Mr. Shahid said. "I always thought it was the house, the way it was painted, the way it was decorated. You hear `landscape,' you think rosebushes, a little garden, you know, like nothing."

But Mr. Guillot transformed the property, cutting down all but a few choice trees, letting the sun flood over the place and planting a large oval hedge in back. In the center he put a simple, elegant rectangle of a pool. Mr. Shahid was overwhelmed. "You don't know why you feel the way you do," he said. "It's a real pleasure thing."

So many people have the same ameliorative reaction to landscaping that scientists are now studying it. John Stilgoe, professor of environmental studies at Harvard, said that the concepts outlined in "The Biophilia Hypothesis," Edward O. Wilson and Stephen R. Kellert's 1993 book, which posits that people are innately drawn to natural surroundings for mental and physical well-being, were driving the landscaping boom and would continue to do so.

"There is emerging medical evidence that the aesthetic end of landscaping turns out to be founded on medical reasons, that you will feel better emotionally in a garden," Professor Stilgoe said.

Mr. Shahid would agree. His admiration for his landscaper seems to know no bounds. "I do have this trust with him that I don't have with architects," he said. "It's almost like a doctor. You sort of fall in love."

Cuban Musician Compay Segundo Dead at 95 - Buena Vista Social Club

I can still remember the day Jason, Bobby, and I went to see the Buena Vista Social Club. What a blast it was, and also on the way we stopped by that water-crossing of various levels.

Unedited and unabridged version at
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...n_nm/cuba_compay_dc

Cuban Musician Compay Segundo Dead at 95
July 14, 2003

 Compay Segundo, one of Cuba's most renowned "troubadours" and the charming frontman for the Buena Vista Social Club group, has died at the age of 95. Compay won international fame with the 1997 Grammy Award-winning recording Buena Vista Social Club produced by American guitarist Ry Cooder. The group's fame was spread by the film Buena Vista Social Club by German director Wim Wenders. The record brought back into the limelight a group of talented musicians who had all but been forgotten in Cuba, including Compay, pianist Ruben Gonzalez, and singers Ibrahim Ferrer and Omara Portuondo. "The flowers of life come to everyone. One has to be ready not to miss them. Mine arrived after I was 90," the cigar-smoking musician said in a recent interview.

Compay, who was born in 1907 in Siboney, outside Santiago, enjoyed a second youth traveling around the world and recording two albums of his own. Wearing his trademark Panama hat, Compay gave concerts until May this year, when his health deteriorated. Compay, whose real name was Francisco Repilado, died of kidney failure at his home in Miramar, Havana, shortly before midnight on Sunday, his son Salvador said. The guitarist and singer, who made traditional Cuban music known worldwide, will be buried in his native Santiago in eastern Cuba later on Monday.

Solar-Powered Car Race Opens in Chicago

Reminds me of the good old days when Jason tried to build a solar car for himself ...

Unabridged and unedited article at
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...&u=/ap/solar_racers

Solar-Powered Car Race Opens in Chicago
By DON BABWIN
July 14, 2003

The American Solar Challenge started when a team from Kansas State University became the first from 20 U.S. and Canadian colleges to hit the road in a 2,300-mile race that will end in about 10 days in Claremont, Calif. The vehicles are powered by the 3,000 or so small solar cells that cover them. They can easily travel over 50 mph and can climb past 70 mph under the right conditions, students said.

Drivers will spend most of their time on the way to California on historic Route 66. The race sponsored in part by the U.S. Department of Energy features cars that were years and, in some cases, well over $100,000 in the making. Made of the lightest and strongest materials the students can find, including the Kevlar used to make bulletproof vests, the cars can weigh as little as 400 pounds, students said.

Much of Europe Blisters Under Heat Wave - Need Need Water

Hey Watergirl, thought this might be of interest to you.

Unabridged and unedited article at
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...europe_weather_woes

Much of Europe Blisters Under Heat Wave - Need Need Water
By JAMEY KEATEN,
July 15, 2003

Levels in some of Europe's leading rivers were dropping. German officials said the Rhine was at five-year lows, and ships along the Danube faced the risk of running aground in Romania. Authorities in Romania were digging deeper channels in the Danube to prevent ships from getting stuck, and ordered shipping companies to reduce their loads on one of eastern Europe's top commercial arteries.

Scorching temperatures in Italy prompted authorities Tuesday to discuss whether to declare a state of emergency in the country's north because of a weeks-long drought. Rome officials spoke about rationing water in dozens of the capital's districts, and Italian newspapers warned that fruit and vegetable prices could rise by 30 percent because output from parched fields was shrinking. Italy suffered power blackouts late last month when citizens overloaded the system during a heat wave. Big power plants on the River Po ? at its lowest level in decades ? lack the water needed to cool their turbines. Meteorologists in Italy predicted the searing temperatures and lack of rain in the country's battered north would continue into August. Some experts blamed global warming .

Bob Dylan Plays Bob Dylan, Whoever That Is - Review of Masked and Anonymous

I remember that Sean and I used to talk about Bob Dylan, and one thing that we surprisingly agreed upon was that Dylan probaby had one more good effort coming out, which we thought turned out to be Time Out of Mind. Yes, it was that long long ago. But, obviously, Dylan has much more than what we thought he did.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/27/movies/2...nted=print&position=

Bob Dylan Plays Bob Dylan, Whoever That Is
By JON PARELES
July 27 2003

JACK FATE isn't exactly Bob Dylan, although he's the central character in Mr. Dylan's new movie, "Masked and Anonymous." Then again, he's not exactly not Mr. Dylan, either.

He has Mr. Dylan's poker face, his song catalog, his wardrobe of cowboy suits, his reputation for making songs unrecognizable and his illustrious past. "Nobody could be like you, and a great many have tried," a sleazy promoter named Uncle Sweetheart tells him. Jack Fate has Mr. Dylan's band, which appears on screen as a cover band named, well, Simple Twist of Fate. And he has Mr. Dylan's gift for dry, knowing one-liners: when Uncle Sweetheart tells him, "You're all skin and bones," he calmly replies, "Aren't we all?"

Then again, everybody's a philosopher in "Masked and Anonymous," which opened on Thursday. Thug, promoter, journalist, girlfriend, revolutionary, television executive, dictator, prison guard ? they all speak in parables and aphorisms and wisecracks that might just be wisdom, borrowing the diction of the King James Bible and of the blues. Their conversations ponder freedom, love, politics, time, conscience and death. And the tone ? prophecy switching to zinger and back ? is familiar to anyone who's ever heard a Dylan song. The screenplay is credited to Sergei Petrov and Rene Fontaine, pseudonyms for Mr. Dylan and the movie's director, Larry Charles.

Identity has long been a shell game for Mr. Dylan. "You may call me Terry, you may call me Timmy, you may call me Bobby, you may call me Zimmy," he sang in "Gotta Serve Somebody." But always, he has confounded and intrigued the many listeners who have tried to figure him out.

His voice and his songwriting are immediately identifiable, yet he's utterly mercurial, racking up as many inconsistencies as there are gigs on his perpetual touring schedule. Ever since he realized, very early on, that being the voice of a generation was a thankless, impossible role, he has strewn his songs and public appearances with hints and contradictions. He dodges even the slightest chance of being pinned down: He has been a believer and a skeptic, a traditionalist and a rebel, a heartbreaker and a man left lonely, an activist and a cynic.

"Masked and Anonymous" ? title duly noted ? steps back enough to let viewers see how much Mr. Dylan enjoys his elusiveness. He has registered what people have said about him through the years, and he doesn't necessarily mind a little hyperbolic praise, including being compared to Jesus walking on water. Characters in the movie discuss his songs in the manner of rock critics or discussion-board fans.

He's also well aware of how far his songs have traveled. The first one heard as the movie begins is "My Back Pages," sung in Japanese by the Magokoro Brothers. Searing performances of songs like "Drifter's Escape" (which is mysteriously absent from the soundtrack album) and "Cold Irons Bound" by Mr. Dylan and his band share the soundtrack with various unlikely versions of Dylan songs, including a turntable-scratching Italian remake of "Like a Rolling Stone." They provide yet another batch of alternative Dylans to toy with.

Mr. Dylan has had a sporadic film presence since the 1960's, appearing in jumpy documentaries like "Don't Look Back" and "Eat the Document" and making an incongruous appearance as a retired rocker and mentor in the 1987 "Hearts of Fire." In Sam Peckinpah's "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid," he wrote the soundtrack music (including "Knockin' on Heaven's Door") and played a knife-wielding character with an apt Dylan name: Alias. But Mr. Dylan took charge of a film only with the rambling 1978 "Renaldo and Clara," which he wrote (with Sam Shepard) and directed during the ever-mutating mid-1970's Rolling Thunder Revue tour.

He called himself Renaldo while Ronnie Hawkins (who brought together the Band) was billed as "Bob Dylan." Other people are also mistaken in the movie for Mr. Dylan, including the musician Bob Neuwirth, who explains, "I'm not Bob Dylan, I'm the Masked Tortilla."

In a way, "Masked and Anonymous" is a latter-day sequel to "Renaldo and Clara," with a star who's had an additional quarter-century of hard-traveling mileage. Like "Renaldo and Clara," the new movie has rockers, preachers, prisoners and backstage machinations, and it teases at questions about the songwriter as public figure, hired hand and lover. But there's a major difference: "Masked and Anonymous" plays like a feature film, complete with an intelligible plot, vivid professional camerawork and well-known actors, rather than like a stoned, hand-held home movie.

It also plays like a Dylan song: a shaggy-dog story about power, love, show business, prodigal sons, faith and destiny. And it flips easily between the attitudes of Mr. Dylan's two most recent albums: the death-haunted estrangement of "Time Out of Mind" and the gallows-humor cackles and shrugs of " `Love and Theft.' " Jack Fate seems familiar because he has inhabited Dylan songs for many years.

"Masked and Anonymous" takes place "somewhere in America," where Spanish and English words blare from radios. (It was shot on digital video in some vividly seedy locations in Los Angeles.) A bloody revolution and counter-revolution are raging; the dictatorial president, whose portrait seems to be on every flat surface, is dying. Jack Fate, the faded rock legend, is released from prison to play at a dubious humanitarian benefit organized by Uncle Sweetheart (John Goodman). A trusted roadie (Luke Wilson) returns with an old bluesman's guitar, and a bitter, 1960's-obsessed journalist (Jeff Bridges) shows up to write a story. Whose son Jack Fate is, and why he was jailed, are among the twists.

The narrative sounds bleak in summary; there's no happy ending, and there are some grim, sudden bursts of violence. "Every period in history has been more or less tragic," the journalist observes. Mr. Dylan's prognosis for America is a ruthless clampdown on everything from behavior to collective memory. But just as often, the movie is droll, filled with pithy, hardboiled comebacks. "You ever coming back?" a friend asks as Fate ambles away. "I did come back," he says.

Mr. Dylan and Mr. Charles (best known as a writer and producer of "Seinfeld" and as a director for "Curb Your Enthusiasm") have packed "Masked and Anonymous" with enough enigmatic visual cues and in-jokes to make Dylan fans long for the freeze-frames of a DVD. The fictional TV network's schedule board lists Dylan-titled shows like "Jokerman," "Empire Burlesque" and "Hurricane." An office building directory includes a character out of William Burroughs, Dr. Benway. More mysteriously, the journalist's girlfriend (Penélope Cruz) prays while wearing a Metallica T-shirt, and her hand is tattooed "333." And are those stigmata on one character's hand?

The movie ends with Fate, and America, worse off than they were when it started. But his craggy face looks somehow satisfied, as if he never expected anything else. "Sometimes it's not enough to know the meaning of things, sometimes we have to know what things don't mean as well," he says in voice-over. Fans will prise meanings from "Masked and Anonymous"; its author has put them there. And as they do, he makes one more drifter's escape.

N.C. Garden Contains Hidden Treasures - John Gurkin loves Ann "Red"

Oh Sweet North Carolina.

Unabridged and unedited version at
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-PRI-Reds-Garden.html

N.C. Garden Contains Hidden Treasures - John Gurkin loves Ann "Red"
August 06, 2003

WILLIAMSTON, N.C. (AP) -- For six years, John Gurkin did little besides take care of his ailing wife and maintain the eight-acre garden they built together.

When Ann ``Red'' Gurkin became too weak to walk, her husband carried her in his arms through the garden, with its two wooden foot bridges, statues and a pond. When the eastern North Carolina summers became too muggy, he put her in their Lincoln Town Car and drove her through the grass.

Red was 66 when she died May 4, 1996, of emphysema and heart problems that kept her on oxygen for the last two years of her life. She almost took John with her to the grave.

``I was suicidal,'' John Gurkin recalled, wiping tears from his eyes as he stood in their garden. ``I didn't even want to live. I still have a hard time.''

He comforted himself by tending to the garden, adding signs throughout expressing his love. A marble sign beneath her photograph at the entrance to the garden reads: ``This garden is dedicated in loving memory to Ann 'Red' Gurkin. The beauty she created here will live on for all who pass by.''

The garden, not advertised and on private property, attracts travelers who take Big Mill Road as a short cut to the Outer Banks that bypasses the stop-and-go traffic of Williamston proper. Gurkin welcomes visitors, though he has banned weddings and other events because the insurance he must maintain for such celebrations is too expensive.

At its peak, the garden was a tribute to a great love, much like the Taj Mahal, said Gurkin's sister, Chloe Tuttle, who has turned the family homeplace across the street into the Big Mill Bed and Breakfast.

``After 40 years, he couldn't stand to be out of her sight,'' she said. ``He was just adoring of her.''

River birches thrived with nandina, cedars, dogwoods and the 75 to 100 rose bushes that were Red's favorites. John and his sons mulched and mowed, fertilized and sprayed as John ignored Red's deathbed advice: Don't let the garden get too big, you won't be able to handle it.

More importantly, she said, don't pine for me. Live your life.

He ignored both admonitions, tending the garden and missing Red. He added the photograph and the marble sign. Other signs posted throughout the garden: ``Today, Tomorrow and Forever. John Loves 'Red''' and ``Welcome to Red's Garden.''

They met in April 1951, when he had an appendectomy at Brown Community Hospital in Williamston the day before he was supposed to ship out to Korea. ``When I went under, she was the last thing I saw,'' he said. ``When I woke up, she was the first thing I saw.''

It took maybe a week for him to fall head over heels in love, and the two were married in August 1951. John was taken aback that a woman like Red would fall for him. She was a popular girl who had been engaged a time or two, but never married. John was a self-described country bumpkin lacking in social graces.

Red ``could have been at ease in the White House as well as a country hoe-down -- it didn't make any difference,'' he said.

There's one perfect person for everyone in a lifetime, and the few lucky ones find each other. ``There's no one else even comes close to her,'' he said.

Her finest quality was her unselfishness, he said. ``Even when she was real bad off, she never worried about herself. She worried about me.''

Red died a few months shy of their 45th wedding anniversary.

In the seven years since, John has regained his balance, replacing his love of gardening with his love of dancing, a pastime that he and Red enjoyed. The shag, fox-trot, two-step and cha-cha take him to dances across eastern North Carolina as a member of a singles club.

His ``main girlfriend'' is 46 years old, and he speaks of visiting other ``friends'' in Lagrange and Goldsboro and other small towns.

``One of my hobbies now is dancing, and I don't have time (for the garden),'' said Gurkin, a 73-year-old retired farmer who owns 500 acres of land along Big Mill Road. ``We used to have flowers by the hundreds. But I quit messing with them because it got to be such a job.''

Still, visitors will find the remnants of a tribute to love. Four life-sized Greek-style marble statues grace an arbor. Another statue of a woman stands alone, near statues of a buck and doe. Ivy has overtaken wooden benches that once provided a place to sit and wonder at the beauty. The wooden signs are cracking, nails falling out, and Red's photograph has faded -- John talks now about removing it altogether.

Just one of Red's beloved rose bushes remains.

None of this means John's love for Red has lessened, merely that he is following her advice at last and moving on. ``You never forget, but you learn to accept it,'' he said.

His home beside the garden provides further evidence of his loyalty to Red's memory. It includes 335 blown-up snapshots of Red with signs over them that read, ``There are angels. John married one'' and ``My Last Breath Will Be I Luv Red.''

``A friend told me this wasn't normal,'' John said, waving his arm at the photos. ``But I never have been normal.''

So even though he dances now instead of gardening and has more than one girlfriend, Red still rules his heart: ``Most of what I ended up being came from her.''

Creativity as an Ingredient of Madness - Art of the Insane show in Paris

Unabridged and unedited version at
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/06/arts/des...nted=print&position=

Creativity as an Ingredient of Madness - Art of the Insane show in Paris
By ALAN RIDING
August 06, 2003

PARIS ? Always mysterious, the creative process becomes still more inscrutable when the artist in question is of unbalanced mind. Yet, as with van Gogh, perhaps the most telling example, visual art is a form of expression that often appeals to those suffering from mental illness. Indeed, for more than a century, psychiatric hospitals have tried both to understand and treat their patients using art as therapy.

By the 1930's in France, l'art des fous, or art of the insane, began to interest art critics as well as medical researchers. The Surrealists in particular concluded that, like their own painting and poetry, l'art des fous seemed to tap usually unexplored areas of the brain. The French painter Jean Dubuffet developed this idea in the 1940's when he incorporated l'art des fous into what he called art brut, or raw art, which also included naïve and primitive painting.

Then in 1950, the Ste.-Anne Hospital here organized an exhibition of "psychopathological art" from 17 countries. Subsequently donated to the hospital, these paintings, watercolors and drawings helped found a collection that numbers 70,000 objects. A selection of 117 of these are now in a fascinating show called "La Clé des Champs" at the Jeu de Paume here through Sept. 28.

Twinned with "La Clé des Champs," a French expression for freedom, there is a more astonishing retrospective of 79 works by Arthur Bispo do Rosário, a self-taught Brazilian artist who died in 1989 after spending five decades in a Rio de Janeiro mental institution. His art was largely unknown abroad until it was displayed in the Brazilian pavilion at the Venice Biennale of 1995.

"La Clé des Champs," which takes its title from a book by the Surrealist leader André Breton, supports Dubuffet's thesis that l'art des fous is not a separate category. "Our point of view is that the role of art is always the same," Dubuffet wrote in 1949, "and there is no more `art des fous' than there is art of dyspeptics or of those with bad knees."

Many of the psychiatric patients in the show were already artists, and aware of prevailing art trends. Claude Brun, for instance, signed one work "Brun-Picasso." Work done by patients practicing art for the first time frequently evokes, say, Chagall, Kandinsky, Klee, Miró and Ernst.

"La Clé des Champs," which displays the art as it might be presented in any group show, offers no details on the circumstances of each artist. Only a handful ? Maurice Blin, Auguste Millet, Marija Novakovic and Charles Schley ? are known in art circles, but even their work is new to most visitors. Thus the art alone speaks here. The challenge is to decipher the minds and meanings behind the art.

Blin, who died in 1980 after spending 40 years in the Ste.-Anne Hospital, is among the show's more eclectic artists. He filled notebooks with sketches and calculations and added words to his art. "Follow a woman and she will flee," he wrote on one. "Flee a woman and she will follow you like a shadow." Some works show Chagall-like floating figures; others are erotic, like a rendering of Saturn making love to Earth.

A number of artists appear to have found solace in botanical drawings, but others seem to be telling stories. One untitled anonymous painting from Japan shows a long-haired woman struggling to stay afloat in rough waves, while Aloïse Corbaz's "Coupole Fédérale" is a naïve portrait of a women with a red heart on her chest. Solange Germain uses words to explain her Matisse-like gouache: "A flower that bleeds."

The variety in "La Clé des Champs" dispenses with the notion that l'art des fous has any single source of inspiration. In the Bispo do Rosário retrospective, however, it is hard not to be drawn into the world of a man who apparently saw his life as a mission to save the world. His objects may at times recall Duchamp and others, but there is no evidence that he considered his work to be art. As a patient, he refused to join art therapy classes.

Born in northeastern Brazil in 1909 or 1911, he spent eight years in the Brazilian Navy as a young man, based in Rio de Janeiro. On Dec. 22, 1938, he had a vision of Christ and seven angels, and two days later, he presented himself at a monastery. From there, he was sent to a hospital where his diagnosis was paranoid schizophrenia. Eventually, he was permanently interned in a psychiatric hospital outside Rio.

Since his work was recognized as art only after his death, it is undated and therefore impossible to arrange in chronological order. The only clue is to be found in the name "Rosângela Maria" that appears in some tapestries: she was a young psychiatry student who worked in the hospital in 1981 and befriended Bispo do Rosário. But today she can offer no insight into what motivated his art.

"He refused to deal with the doctors and gradually became more and more isolated, working compulsively," said Agustín Arteaga, a Mexican art curator who helped organize this show. "He was mystically driven, preoccupied with the final judgment, recording everything and everyone in order to save them."

Bispo do Rosário created objects and installations with whatever he could find in the hospital. His complex tapestries, embroidered with blue threads taken from patients' uniforms, combine lists of names or descriptions of hospital activities with designs of ships, geometric shapes, maps, flags, streets and buildings. His magnificent "Ceremonial Gown," with its description of the world, was supposedly to be worn when he entered heaven.

One work comprises rudimentary scepters and sashes for five beauty contest "misses" representing Amazonia, Mexico, France, Japan and Peru; each sash carries a flag as well as the names of towns. A still larger work, "Romeo and Juliet's Bed," shows a bed covered with a mosquito net and draped with colored lengths of wool.

His works most evoke Duchamp when he finds ways of organizing and presenting discarded material and objects, from carton, wood, tin and metal, to plastic toys, kitchenware, clothes and shoes. He had an affection for building little carts on wheels: in multiple forms, sometimes on three levels, they carry square stones, plastic cars and small ships.

His installations variously display boots, straw hats, cutlery, plastic bottles filled with confetti, slippers, and combs and brushes. There are specific objects he has reimagined, like "Toilet," which has a bedpan inside a wooden box, and "Macumba," which displays objects used in Afro-Brazilian spiritist rituals.

Bispo do Rosário may have been simply recording the world as he saw it; yet he brought order to disorder, beauty to detritus. In a pre-Duchampian world, this might not have been considered as art. Today, it would be called conceptual art. And while Bispo do Rosário's own concept remains a mystery, his work stands as art because it transforms the ordinary into the extraordinary.

A Great Good Place: The Third Place, a coffeehouse - Article on June 21, 2000

Story location
http://www.indyweek.com/durham/2000-06-21/ae3.html

A Great Good Place: The Third Place, a coffeehouse
Steve Goldsmith
June 21, 2000

A slide projector flashed images on the unfinished walls of a narrow storefront in Five Points, some weeks before the formal opening of The Third Place, a coffeehouse. Dean Sauls, painter and pizza slinger from Lilly's, next door, had approached Rich Futrell and Ty Beddingfield during the build-out of the store. He asked if they were interested in showing artwork, and arranged a viewing of his paintings.

When the coffeehouse opened on Nov. 11, 1994, Sauls' work became its first public display. Since then, the walls, ceiling, floor, bathrooms and patio of The Third Place have been adorned with the expressive works of local artists and artisans. Much of the art has been offered for sale, with the coffeehouse acting as the location for closing the transaction between artist and collector, but there has never been a commission collected for providing this service.

The arts world can appear somewhat remote to everyman; many of us do not have the jargon or perspective to feel comfortable visiting a "high-end" gallery, nor are we assured of a warm reception. Yet countless Third Place clients have been introduced to the arts as an accessible thing, via informal artists' lectures, casual reviews from the ever-present artist-comment book and by simply eavesdropping on spirited discussions of the current work. Each first-time buyer represents a special victory for The Third Place in its role as icebreaker for a sometimes chilly arena.

Futrell credits Ray Oldenburg, author of The Great Good Place, with planting the seeds that sprouted to become this charming venue. Oldenburg, a sociologist with a longing for lost community, explores the various psycho-social reasons for the attraction people have for the "third place," most often represented in the bars, coffeehouses, and other places where people go to find camaraderie. But the concept, as described by Oldenburg, can only be made manifest by the right mix of personalities and location. Futrell and Beddingfield were dedicated to the notion that a locally owned, locally focused "third place" could be fielded at Five Points. They thrive on the mix of blue-collar, white-collar, priest-collar and dog-collar (check out the Enloe students who debate outside on weeknights) personalities who make up their clientele. Bringing all of these diverse entities together, The Third Place becomes a nightly tapestry, in which each element complements the others.

It did not take long for Futrell and Beddingfield to recognize the rich body of talent that stood across the counter from them day-to-day. That pool of personalities and ideas engaged with the highly creative bunch behind the counter, and arts projects were launched, in a low-key fashion, but at a dizzying pace. The space is used to display artwork, of course. It also provides a community bulletin board, wall space for posters announcing community service and arts-oriented events and a business card exchange table.

More than 100 local artists have had their work featured at 1811 Glenwood Ave. over the last six years. This Hayes-Barton neighborhood establishment is a one-stop shop for visual stimulation, intelligent company and conversation, news of the local arts scene and happenings at the Rialto up the street. Some of the work acts as a fixture in the conduct of the business: The Bean Bar is a one-of-a-kind creation from artist Jason Seale, and metal artists David Benson and Ben Galata have blended their works into the counters and back-bar. The Third Place logo, a stylized arrangement of comfortable chair and table, was the product of ceramic artist Meredith Brickell, who traded it for four years of weekly lunches.

The confluence of talents and interests, on both sides of the bar, has also launched a unique musical project in late 1997. The Third Place produced a CD, Local Honey, a collection of works from two dozen local artists. The music of Semicolon, Hobex, Milagro Saints, The Boy Wonder Jinx, VROOM, Dear Enemy, The Slackmates, and many others were laid down, with recorded coffeehouse chatter between tracks. Original artwork from Jason Seale, Chad Burnette and Corkey Goldsmith graced the covers, front and back. There were 1,000 pressed, and the same number sold throughout the area.

Other collaborations that have germinated in The Third Place's social petri dish are too numerous to recount in detail. They are as varied as pulling together a drumming circle to celebrate an international festival at Wiley International Magnet School, and partnering with the Rialto to screen the work of an area filmmaker, with artist discussion at the coffeehouse after the showing. Local musicians set up most weekends, providing background music to enhance the conversations. Not a day goes by without some number of meetings held, by clientele and staff, to plan a fundraiser or plot an approach to the city council. It is a comfortable, engaging place where good energy can be harnessed and expressed.

The Third Place Alumni Association does not yet exist as a formal entity, but the informal connections between and among former employees represents another aspect of community. You can find alumni at Antfarm, Penland, the N.C. Museum of Art, at universities around the world and spreading the spirit in many large American cities. The energy and sense of community that marked their time at the coffeehouse is radiating out in all directions. Beddingfield and Futrell admit to being somewhat overwhelmed at the success of their joint venture, but their alternative to the chains has struck a chord with people and points to the living truth of the "third place" concept.

Oldenburg is crafting a follow-up work, Third Place Victories, intended to give anecdotal evidence of the importance of the "third place" in communities. Futrell has been asked to provide a chapter, describing The Third Place experience in Raleigh. His reaction to this honor is characteristically humble--with a shake of his head and a shrug of his shoulders, he marvels at the full circle of his own "great good place" experience.

Concertgoers Experience Phish Far Beyond the Stage

Story location
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/07/technolo...nted=print&position=

Concertgoers Experience Phish Far Beyond the Stage
By SETH SCHIESEL
August 07, 2003

LIMESTONE, Me., Aug. 4 - At 1:30 a.m. on Friday, the Bunny looked a bit ill.

Outside the gates of what was once Loring Air Force Base, thousands of fans were lined up in their vehicles, ready to enter It, a weekend-long music festival featuring Phish, the popular improvisational rock band. A big part of the festival plan was the Bunny, Phish's name for the 100,000-watt FM radio station that the band had leased for the weekend. At 6 a.m., the Bunny was to go on the air with a mix of music and public safety information for the tens of thousands of fans who were expected to arrive by Saturday.

But the Bunny wasn't hopping.

The troupe of seven D.J.'s were ready, graffiti-covered trucker hats and all. The pink shag carpeting and red party lights were in place in the trailer behind the stage that served as the Bunny's temporary studio. The problem was that the high-speed T-1 data line that was meant to convey the audio signal from the trailer to a radio transmission tower about 15 miles away still wasn't working. The line had been struck by lightning earlier in the week, and although local technicians had given assurances that the line was functioning, the signal to the tower was still garbled.

That was why Jeffrey Rosenberg, the station's 36-year-old chief engineer, was madly plugging, unplugging and ripping open cables in the middle of the night in search of a backup plan. Maybe, just maybe, he could stream the station's signal through his laptop computer's Wi-Fi wireless card over a microwave link to Houlton, Me., about 55 miles away, then over the Internet, through a Web page and over the cable modem at the transmission tower to get the Bunny on the air. Not quite textbook radio engineering, that.

At 2:45 a.m., Mr. Rosenberg was still making frantic adjustments, and air time had been moved up from 6 a.m. to 3 a.m. "We have thousands of kids out on the road, and we have to advise them that we have filled the entire holding area,'' said David J. Werlin, president of Great Northeast Productions, Phish's partner in the festival. "We cannot open the gates until 8 a.m., and we have to tell them that they should pull over wherever they can - a Wal-Mart, a Home Depot - and they won't be hassled.''

Fifteen minutes later, with fingers crossed, the Bunny finally stood up, shook itself off, and went on the air to the beat of T-Rex.

"Jeff truly MacGyvered what was meant to be a fairly straightforward system, and he did it at a critical moment, when we really needed the Bunny to go on the air,'' Jason Colton, a longtime member of Phish's management team, said the next day. "In some ways, that was the touch-and-go moment for the whole festival, and he made it happen.''

In some ways, advanced digital technologies made the entire festival happen. While the record industry frets about the financial impact of music trading over the Internet, innovative bands like Phish are embracing the latest technologies to create spectacular live concerts and phantasmagoric festival experiences that are more like computer-controlled theme parks than like the rock festivals of yesteryear.

Digital systems may have been the farthest thing from the minds of most of the roughly 60,000 fans at the weekend festival, who paid $137.50 each to attend. But they were all served by advanced technology, whether they were listening to the crystalline sound system, gazing at the intense light shows, exploring the participatory art installations tucked into a forest grove, listening to the Bunny or burning custom CD's. Many bands use technology in their stage shows; Phish may be the leader in employing technology beyond the stage.

"Before the Phish events, festivals in the U.S. didn't really have much else in terms of ancillary events, and Phish really stepped it up in terms of the décor and the decoration and the other activities,'' said Richard Goodstone, a partner at Superfly Productions, a music festival production company based in New Orleans that was not involved with the festival. "The real difference between your normal rock festival like Lollapalooza and Ozzfest is that there's a lot of music, but now we're trying to make it a complete experience in terms of the activities that really interact with the patrons out there, so it's not just a one-element kind of event.''

In this remote corner of the country a 400-mile drive north from Boston, a place where ornery moose are a leading road hazard, technology allowed Phish to create a wonderland in the wilderness.

Walkie-Talkies and Wi-Fi

"This never could have happened without all of these experienced people,'' Trey Anastasio, Phish's guitarist, said on Saturday morning. "It's all unbelievable what they pull together for all of us, even down to the plumbing, which, when you think about it, is pretty amazing.''

Like plumbing, much of the technology used to produce the festival was not visible to most people. Much of it was not flashy or glamorous, either. But when a staff of 1,000 people is working with a budget of millions of dollars to create a temporary environment that is going to be as populous as the largest city in Maine, flashy doesn't get the job done. Reliable does.

"From the point of view of logistics, safety and coordination, all of this technology has been essential,'' Mr. Colton said. "We have to bring in everything for 1,000 people who need to be communicating all the time to make this work.''

There seemed to be two essential logistical ingredients: walkie-talkies and Wi-Fi Internet access.

Walkie-talkies, generally from Motorola, have become so ubiquitous at concert sites around the world that they would be conspicuous now only if they disappeared. The festival staff here used at least 400 of them.

"The technology only helps me in that it allows me to have four conversations at once,'' said Kristina A. Birkmayer, the logistical guru of the festival's visual design team and one of its leaders. "I normally have the walkie-talkie button pushed on, a normal phone in each ear, and I'm doing something on the computer and also dealing with however many people are hovering around.''

Wireless Internet access, though of more recent vintage, is becoming no less essential. By allowing production companies to dispense with cumbersome wiring, Wi-Fi allows more computers to be connected. The production staff here took over the base's old control tower and its offices to serve as a nerve center. In almost every room was a computer.

"In my industry, it first happened with fax machines, then cellphones and maybe laptops, and now the epiphany is, 'How did we live without Wi-Fi?' '' said Mr. Werlin of Great Northeast Productions. "From an operational standpoint, it enables us to communicate more effectively with each other, with sourcing gear, with researching information.'' The concert producers hired a local Internet company, Pioneer Wireless, to bring in two separate connections providing high-speed Internet access (5 megabits per second) over advanced microwave links.

Those circuits were then distributed to various locations by long-distance wireless connections to individual Wi-Fi base stations. A reporter's Wi-Fi-enabled hand-held device confirmed that most of the heavily trafficked backstage areas had wireless Internet access.

Dean Budnick, editor in chief of the online magazine Jambands.com and editor of the festival newspaper, All About It, which published 7,500 copies on Saturday and Sunday, used those wireless connections to communicate with the paper's designer in Boulder, Colo.

"It's pretty extraordinary that I never met him and we were just sending big files back and forth all night, and at 8 a.m. our time I went to the local printer here to look at the proofs,'' he said Saturday afternoon.

For Marji A. Blea, the festival's administrative coordinator, Internet access can even let her reassure a nervous parent.

"I had a mother calling this morning and she was so concerned about her son and that he wouldn't be able to get home from the show,'' she said. "While we were on the line I was able to get on the Internet, get the bus schedule, and let her know her son would be O.K.''

Bright Lights, Old Gadgets

At midnight Friday, Cavan Meese was in some deep stuff.

Heavy rain plus heavy construction had combined to create mud that crept up around Mr. Meese's ankles as he unpacked long spools of blue computer cable onto a makeshift sawhorse in the middle of a place called Sunk City. That was the name concert organizers came up with for the collaborative art and performance space that took over a pine grove in a corner of the concert grounds.

The name was apt. All around Mr. Meese, a 25-year-old lighting designer from West Glover, Vt., trenches snaked through the quagmire that glistened under the harsh industrial lights. Mr. Meese's job was to lay the cables in the trenches so they could be used to control the advanced light-emitting diodes, or L.E.D.'s, inside the streetlamps that lined Sunk City's byways. Newer L.E.D.'s can emit an eerie glow and can be controlled and manipulated by centralized computer systems.

"I've got to see this thing working before dawn,'' Mr. Meese said, his cowboy hat sheltering him from the last remaining raindrops.

One of the centerpieces of Sunk City was Oddzilla, an installation that married old televisions displaying Godzilla movies to a three-piece band anchored by the Noise Monster.

An imposing rack of antiquated electronics, the Noise Monster is "an amalgamated instrument that I built 10 years ago and have constantly evolved,'' explained its creator, Steve Tremblay, 34, an artist from Burlington, Vt.

At the festival, the Noise Monster included an old Fisher VCR, a Soundesign receiver, an Atari 2600 game console, a Yamaha noise generator from the mid-1970's, an ancient cassette player, a synthesizer from the mid-1980's, an eight-track player and a turntable with a built-in disco light. Mr. Tremblay's band, which also included a live drummer and bass player, produced a hypnotic sound that seemed like a cross between Captain Nemo's Orchestra and the Captain Kirk All-Stars.

Not far from Oddzilla, John B. Bisbee ran a very different sort of installation. A lecturer in art at Bowdoin College, Mr. Bisbee had requisitioned 10,000 rolls of masking tape that he handed out to concertgoers in the deepest part of Sunk City's forest. Spontaneously and collectively, the fans created an evolving maze of corridors and cul-de-sacs.

"I think what's so cool is that this whole thing is a beautiful cocktail of high and low technology,'' Mr. Bisbee said of the event. "It's a permeable membrane that they've created to allow these various forms of experience to co-exist. Hey, I've got 10,000 rolls of masking tape. What could be lower-tech than that?''

Making Music to Go

The House of Live Phish, by contrast, was certainly not low-tech.

Early this year, Phish and nugs.net, an Internet music company based in Los Angeles, collaborated to open www.livephish .com, a Web site that allows users to download audio files of Phish concerts within 48 hours after they occur. The site typically charges $9.95 to download an entire show in MP3 format, and a higher price - usually $12.95 - for a higher-quality format.

The concert organizers collaborated with Apple to open the House of Live Phish, a sort of next-generation Internet cafe. Using one of 20 iMacs, concertgoers could not only surf the Web and send e-mail, they could also burn free custom CD's from the 154 live Phish tracks that were loaded on each computer.

Although they waited to use the iMacs in lines that began at 30 minutes on Friday and stretched to two and a half hours by late Saturday afternoon, fans seemed unperturbed. Referring to the remote location and the horrendous traffic jams outside the site, Andrew Grabel, 28, said, "I spent 27 hours in the line to get here, so two hours here is nothing.''

Jason Pinsky, a 30-year-old technology consultant from Brooklyn who was running the House of Live Phish, said visitors burned almost 2,000 CD's over the weekend.

The fans are not the only ones who seem to be enjoying new forms of digital music. Brad Sands, 33, Phish's road manager, said that portable MP3 players were allowing the band to mine its own musical heritage more deeply.

"All the members of the band have these little Sony speakers and iPods,'' Mr. Sands said. "They have like 300 original songs, and traditionally, there was no way for them to just pull something up. Now Trey will sit in his hotel and scan songs and say, 'Hey, that's a cool song and we haven't played it in 10 years or 5 years. Let's play that.' ''

Masters of the Airwaves

"Let's play that'' was heard fairly often at the Bunny, and although the D.J.'s had carted hundreds of LP's with them, that refrain usually meant turning to one of two iMacs with iTunes software.

While Mr. Rosenberg's Windows laptop and Microsoft's Windows Media software were crucial in getting the station on the air, the Apple hardware and software let the D.J.'s serve up an eclectic mix of funk, rock, jazz, folk and electronic music.

The station also simultaneously broadcast Phish's live sets. But its primary mission was public safety.

"First of all it's informational,'' said Neil L. Cleary, a 31-year-old musician from Burlington who, as Tad Cautious, was the station's head D.J. "When you're creating a huge city, it's vital to have a mass communication system, because you can't talk to fans on the P.A. system saying things like, 'Please do not ride on top of your vehicle.' "

But while Tad Cautious and the other D.J.'s - Rubes, D.J. Cooley, D.J. Rickshaw, Pistol Stamen, Gary Turismo and D.J. Sleepyturtle - spent most of their time in the studio, Rosey the Roving Reporter spent much of the show out in the field. At previous Phish festivals he used a tape recorder. Here, however, he was equipped with a cigarette-lighter-size MP3 recorder from which he would later transfer his interviews to a PC for editing.

"I want to talk to people who have worked, are working, or people who bring something unique to the show," said Rosey, otherwise known as David Rosenstein, a 30-year-old renovator and musician from Brooklyn. "The key is to put them completely at ease and still elicit some kind of spontaneity. The MP3 unit just makes it easier for me.''

The Main Event

Of all of the technical systems at the festival, by far the most obvious to the fans were the expansive lighting and sound systems. In some ways, however, Chris Kuroda, the band's lighting guru, and Paul Languedoc, Phish's main sound engineer, take radically different approaches to the technical tools of their trades.

While digital mixing boards are becoming more widely available, Mr. Languedoc, like many music lovers, is sticking with analog technologies.

"People are coming out with digital consoles now, but I'm not convinced that's the way to go for me, at least right now,'' said Mr. Languedoc, a reserved, almost professorial 43-year-old. "Digital is better for some things. It's more flexible. But I think analog still sounds better. Analog is generally more equipment, and you have to be more careful with your signal integrity, but if you get it right it just sounds better.''

Mr. Languedoc took 50 separate audio feeds from the stage and mixed them down to two channels, which were fed into the band's massive speaker system. Separately, that two-channel mix was leavened with some additional crowd noise and provided to the team at LivePhish.com. Kevin Shapiro, the band's archivist, said the band also retains a 40-channel digital tape recording of each concert.

But while Mr. Languedoc is proceeding cautiously with new technologies, Mr. Kuroda, 37, is enthusiastically embracing the cutting edge while trying to avoid getting sliced.

"These are new light consoles for us, and we can set them up whatever way you want," he said before Saturday's concert, stroking two $30,000 digital consoles from MA Lighting, a German company. "This button can run a cue or run a chase or turn something red or do whatever else you want. It gives us complete flexibility.''

Mr. Kuroda said that until recently he had been wary of new digital systems because they can crash, potentially ruining a show. His new consoles, however, can be networked to each other so that if one crashes, the other can take over.

He said that the technical flexibility of the new systems allowed him to focus even more on improvising with light.

"The technology allows you to not focus on the technology,'' Mr. Kuroda said. "At 99.9 percent of the shows out there, all the lights are pre-scripted. You just hit the button and say 'Go.' But for us, we have to find the right thing for that particular moment.'' The fact that a high-definition film crew was recording the performances added complexity to the lighting requirements. (A separate documentary crew from Wiggle Puppy Productions in Chicago roved through the crowd using lightweight hand-held digital cameras.)

In the end, It was all about the music, but technology allowed the artistic experience to bloom far beyond the stage and, more important, allowed the logistics behind the festival to come together. Hadden Hippsley, Phish's production manager, may have best captured the festival's overall approach to technology.

"You always have three backup plans instead of one,'' he said. "You always focus on what will fail rather than what will work. If you look at every situation from the light of what could possibly fail, what you're left with is solutions.''

The hills may be alive with music - WCPE in Kinston .

Story location
http://www.kinston.com/Details.cfm?StoryID=13239

The hills may be alive with music - WCPE in Kinston
By Joe A. Figueroa
Joe Figueroa can be reached at (252) 527-3191, Ext. 232, or at Joe_Figueroa@link.freedom.com
August 18, 2003

Sounds of Mozart, Beethoven and Bach could soon fill Kinston airwaves, if a suitable site can be found.

Classical radio station WCPE (89.1 FM) is looking for a location to place a broadcast repeater here by Aug. 29. The Federal Communications Commission recently agreed to allow the station to expand.

"The FCC open and close their windows on a whim," station manager Deborah Proctor said. "Right now, we are looking for someone to say that we are contemplating allowing the station to build the antenna."

The 100,000-watt radio station is based in Wake Forest and wants to have a stronger signal in Lenoir County for radio listeners. The equipment would provide a clear signal over a broadcast radius of 5 miles. To be effective, it would be ideal to place the repeater at the center of the population.

At a minimum, a 10-foot by 20-foot area for a receiver and transceiver antenna is needed. The best places for the equipment are existing radio or television towers, a water tower or a tall building.

"An office building or hospital would be ideal," Proctor said. "We're a kind and friendly tenant."

Another requirement would be a room for a 50-pound, two-file-drawer sized power supply. The unit would take up to 3 square feet of floor space and use 250 watts in electricity, which is the equivalent of about two light strong bulbs. Station officials estimate the monthly electric bill would be about $18.

"If anyone lets us use the space we need, we would be thrilled in paying the electricity bill," Proctor said.

Station officials have also stated that if the person wants compensation for use of their property, a discussion would be a possibility in order to reach an agreement.

"Usually, most people let us set up for free," engineer John Proctor said.

The listener-supported non-profit station plays classical music 24 hours a day. It is the only station in central North Carolina to broadcast the Metropolitan Opera.

The FCC application must include the location of where the equipment will be placed and a statement from the property owner agreeing to the placement. Proctor estimates the whole process from approval to construction could take from 18 months to two years.

David Byrne's Alternate PowerPoint Universe - Musician Using powerpoint for Art

Unabridged and unedited version at
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/17/arts/design/17VIEN.html

David Byrne's Alternate PowerPoint Universe - Musician Using powerpoint for Art
By VERONIQUE VIENNE
Vernique Vienne is the author of several books about design.
August 17, 2003

POWERPOINT, the ubiquitous Microsoft business application, is not meant to be looked at too closely. People aren't supposed to notice its simplified graphics, ready-made templates, pie charts, arrows and icons; they're only supposed to notice the ideas that these features help organize. What's not hard to notice, however, is that in addition to organizing ideas, the software has a tendency to homogenize them, translating a Babel of voices into a single, droning voice of corporate culture. The experience of watching a PowerPoint presentation is meant to be the same in a San Francisco conference room as it is in a Chang Mai Internet cafe. And in either setting, PowerPoint's graphic identity might not literally be invisible, but like the buzzing fluorescent light that office workers eventually tune out, after a while you just don't see it.

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With his newest project, David Byrne has tried not only to see it anew, but also to use it in the least likely of all applications: a medium for creative expression. "Envisioning Emotional Epistemological Information" (Steidl and PaceMcGill Gallery, 2003) is a boxed set containing a 96-page book and a DVD featuring 20 minutes of animation. In both mediums, Mr. Byrne, who is best known as a musician but who was trained as an artist, subjects PowerPoint's characterless graphic templates to a radical metamorphosis. Arrows that curve out of their trajectory and into psychedelic rainbow-colored curlicues, surreal charts that satirize postmodern posturing, typographical compositions that present absurd abstractions with straight-faced conviction and deadpan photographs of the most humdrum of everyday objects all morph into one another with the steady pacing of a corporate sales conference.

You can feel the medium resisting the invisible hand of the artist. Designed for easy digestion when projected on a screen, PowerPoint reveals its true identity when forced to perform without its well-rehearsed scripts. On the pages of the book, what you see is brute force, elemental verve, joyful savagery. Viewed on DVD, however, with the addition of music and movement, the same layouts become less threatening, less ruthless, even soothing at times.

The juxtaposition of book and disc, then, produces a kind of cognitive dissonance: is the slip-cased volume just a deluxe package for a short art film, or is it the other way around? Is the book an antiquated cultural artifact? Or is the digitalized version just a trailer you can watch on your television?

Also disconcerting is the project's unwieldy title. For insiders, it's a tongue-in-cheek reference to "Envisioning Information," Edward Tufte's celebrated book about the various ways that people through the ages have visually displayed quantitative data. But it's also a preview of the strange, decontextualized language that pervades the book and DVD, something between impenetrable academic discourse and self-important trade jargon, with a bit of official government study thrown in for good measure. Mr. Byrne uses it as a joke, perhaps, but also as a kind of meta-commentary on how language can alienate us from our emotions. One poignant photograph bears the legend "The Beginning of Identity," dry words that seem like the title of a graduate dissertation. Below that, two take-out soup containers are labeled, by hand, ME and YOU. The two containers sit side by side, separated by a few, seemingly unbridgeable inches.

One of Mr. Tufte's more recent publications is a critical pamphlet titled "The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint." He is among the most eloquent critics of the technology, but over the 16 years in use, even some technicians have joined the chorus. "It's very reductionist," says Nancy Halpern, a PowerPoint specialist at the Strickland Group, an executive development firm in New York. "There is a crude linearity to the way the program works. Unlike a book or a Web site, you can't flip around the pages. It's more like a teleprompter."

So what inspired Mr. Byrne to reroute a corporate tool into an avant-garde project? To take something designed to simplify meaning, and turn it into an elusive, playful cipher? To transform a project synonymous with bland corporatespeak into a challenging, entertaining surprise? It started as a parody. "I was doing mock sell presentations, using mock PowerPoint slides as visual aids," he says. "That's how I learned the program originally. But then it evolved into something else. It was no longer enough to make fun of the corporate stuff. I realized that PowerPoint was a limited but a valid medium."

To view the medium creatively, he says, "You have to try to think like the guy in Redmond or Silicon Valley. You feel that your mind is suddenly molded by the thinking of some unknown programmer. It's a collaboration, but it's not reciprocal."

Starting with parody, he adds, even incompetent imitations, is a legitimate first step. Eventually, if you persevere, the obsessive nature of the process yields unexpectedly beautiful results. For him, then, the challenge became "taking a form that's purportedly logic and rational and making it poetic."

Yet one suspects that there is another agenda behind his attempt to subvert the global uniformity of PowerPoint. "Corporate culture," he says wistfully. "What if I could set it free?"

"The End of Reason," a four-minute, continuous PowerPoint presentation with original music by David Byrne, will be on display at 4 Times Square from Sept. 10 through Sept. 17.

Fiddling With the Reception - Creation of a new Show at CNN - Paula Zahn

Unabridged and unedited version at
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/17/magazine...nted=print&position=

Fiddling With the Reception -- Creation of a new Show at CNN - Paula Zahn
By JASON ZENGERLE
Jason Zengerle is an associate editor for The New Republic. He last wrote for The Times Magazine about the business of Nascar.
August 17, 2003

In developing a new program for 8 p.m., Walton was working on the biggest assignment he'd ever handled. The program Walton developed for 8 p.m. would set the tone for the entire network. In recent years, CNN has endured a series of identity crises -- flirting with the tabloid and the glitzy and the opinionated -- as it has tried to respond to the challenge posed by Fox. But sitting in his office that April morning, Walton essentially declared CNN's period of confusion over. CNN, he said, ''We're doing a certain type of journalism, and there's a value in that,'' he said. ''The value is that it's a nice environment for advertisers to put their products in. For that they pay a premium.''

With two other 24-hour news networks (MSNBC as well as Fox) competing with CNN for eyeballs, Walton said, his network needed to pay attention to its presentation of the news -- particularly to the matter of who was presenting it. ''I think people watch people,'' Walton told me. ''I do believe it matters who a viewer allows into their homes. It's not just the news.'' That meant that CNN, for the first time, needed to hire stars, most of whom were based in New York.

on April 21, with the war fading from the headlines and CNN returning to its normal lineup, the network rushed Zahn's program onto the air in the newly created 7-to-9 slot. It didn't have a permanent title -- it was, for the moment, called ''Live From the Headlines'' -- or an executive producer (the network was searching for one), but Walton, Ryan and Zahn were eager to capitalize on the increased ratings CNN was experiencing because of the war. ''The strategy is classic,'' Ryan explained. ''In times when you have higher viewership, you make your programming bets.'' Without an executive producer, Zahn's show lacked any semblance of structure or rhythm, lurching from one story to the next. Worse, without much big news, the stories were often things like Laci Peterson or the Illinois high-school-girls hazing incident -- precisely the junk Walton wanted CNN to get away from. Worst of all, viewers were hitting their remotes. Whereas Chung, in her last weeks on air, had averaged close to one million viewers, Zahn was drawing only an average of 785,000 in the 8 p.m. hour. Now some of the very same CNN staff members who had celebrated Walton's canning of Chung were griping that he bungled her replacement.

They dubbed Zahn's program the ''Paula-thon'' or, less cleverly, ''a confused mess,'' and questioned Walton's programming judgment. ''Giving someone two hours on cable news in prime time is insane,'' one CNN on-air personality complained to me. ''Nobody can carry that, not even Peter Jennings. It's just dumb.'' In late May he hired Jim Miller, a television veteran who most recently was a consultant on ABC's ''Good Morning America,'' to give some direction to Zahn's prime-time effort. But that didn't solve the nettlesome problem of finding a way for Zahn to fill two hours, which is an eternity in television programming. The CNN brain trust considered having Zahn moderate extended debates; they contemplated adding a newscaster to deliver news updates at the top and bottom of both hours. Miller even flirted with the notion of booking live musical performances and hiring Neil Young as a roving reporter. ''What became clear to all of us was that we were trying to put a square peg in a round hole,'' Walton told me. In prime time, he said, ''there just aren't any two-hour programs, five days a week.''

Fox has solved the same problem by essentially transporting the talk-radio format to television, building its prime-time programs around opinionated, idiosyncratic hosts like O'Reilly and Sean Hannity and then giving them license to voice their opinions and flaunt their idiosyncrasies. Jim Walton, in contrast, has decreed that CNN's programs -- and their star hosts -- stick to the news. But there are only so many ways to make a one-hour news program distinct. And as Miller, the executive producer now responsible for developing Zahn's program, got down to the nuts and bolts, he settled on familiar tropes. Zahn, sitting behind a desk and in front of a nighttime skyline backdrop, would generally spend the first 20 minutes of her program focusing on the day's big stories, mostly through live interviews with newsmakers. At 20 minutes past the hour, the program would run a segment featuring a well-produced taped piece. At 8:30, there would be a debate segment. And then the last 20 minutes of the hour would be devoted to softer news -- movies, music, medicine or sports -- and would often include a celebrity interview; if the celeb was in-studio, Zahn would conduct the interview on a couch. On Fridays Zahn would close the program with her own personal essay. Miller proposed that for Zahn's hour CNN scrap the bottom-of-the-screen ''crawl,'' a cable-news staple since 9/11. ''The cluttered screen makes me carsick,'' he said. But Walton and Ryan said no: research showed 70 percent of viewers liked the feature.

One day in mid-July I visited the Time-Life building to check on the Zahn program's progress. On June 23, after six weeks away, Zahn returned in her new, one-hour time slot. And on the morning I dropped by, Miller and his staff were gathered in a bunkerlike conference room plotting how to fill the 8 p.m. hour that night. Miller green-lighted a story on North Korean nukes and another on presidential campaign spending. But he shot down a number of story ideas -- a child molester in a Wal-Mart; a lawsuit over naked pictures of Cameron Diaz -- that he deemed too tabloid. ''We could fill up a half-hour with stuff like this,'' he told his staff at one point. ''We need to be careful.''

Chess Gear for Opponents of All Sizes

I am sure Greg would love this about Chess ....

Story location
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/21/technolo...nted=print&position=

Chess Gear for Opponents of All Sizes
By JAMES GORMAN
August 21, 2003


MY son and I started playing chess in earnest this spring, around the time he turned 12. He knew the rules and some elementary bits of strategy: control the center, get your knights and bishops working, castle to protect the king. That was about all I could teach him. I'm a dabbler by nature, and chess is just one of many pursuits I've flirted with.

I have, however, taught all three of my children the basics. My daughters, the two oldest, passed through the game quickly, although the elder one, now starting her junior year in college, has started playing again occasionally. My son had more interest, but the game didn't really grab hold of him until this year.

We began playing regularly. I helped him out like a good father, letting him know when he made a disastrous move, pointing out how he might gain an advantage. He started to improve more quickly than he had before, and soon I had to stop alerting him to bad moves in order to save myself.

To brush up, I started practicing on my Palm while I was commuting. Inevitably, he started beating me fair and square - not every time, but often enough. He insisted that I give him no quarter, and sometimes he really took me by surprise.

This was not a remake of "Searching for Bobby Fischer"; you don't have to be a prodigy to beat me. It was more in the vein of "Taras Bulba," a 1962 movie about the Don Cossacks starring Yul Brynner, in which the sons wrestle the father (Brynner) to demonstrate when their strength has surpassed his.

I don't want to overemphasize the competitive father-son dynamic, but he did show an almost Cossack-like glee when I would topple the king to capitulate. In fact he insisted that the monarch physically fall when he won. One day, however, I was rolling over him like a bulldozer. His pieces were falling like wheat before the giant, merciless combine of agribusiness. I was up several pieces. He was going down. (I myself am not the least bit competitive.) Somehow, the tide turned. He beat me.

I was stunned. I said: "Dan, I had the numbers. I can't believe you beat me." He smiled indulgently and tapped his index finger on his temple. "It's not about the numbers, Dad," he said. "It's about the brain."

That's when I started shopping, not only to improve my chess, but because, since I control his allowance, he can't beat me at shopping. First I started looking for some new chess software for my Palm. I added Chess 2.2 ($9.95) and Pocket-

Chess Deluxe 2.5 ($19.99), both at palmgear.com, to ChessGenius, which was already on my old Palm V.

Then I had to buy a new, inexpensive Clié ($99 after rebate at the Best Buy store at a nearby mall), because I needed a backlighted screen to play chess on the commuter bus. For my desktop PC I bought Chess School for beginners ($29, including shipping) and Chess Rally (a $19.95 download), both at chesscentral.com.

I tried out several online gaming sites, including Yahoo games (http://games.yahoo.com), the Microsoft Network gaming site (http://zone.msn.com), the Chess Rally site (http://www.chessrally.com; you must own the software) and the Internet Chess club (http://www.chessclub.com), my favorite. It costs about $49 a year to join, although you can play as a guest or get a free trial membership. Two particularly useful sites were http://www.chesscentral.com and http://www.uschess.org (the Web home of the United States Chess Federation), both of which have quite a few links.

As if all this wasn't enough, I turned to nonvirtual chess - the boards and pieces.

As a dabbler with a shopping habit, I have acquired more stuff over the course of my life than I am willing to admit. Some of it I love; some sits in the closet. I think, however, that my Drueke (http://www.drueke.com) wooden chess board ($113.85 at http://www.chesstopia.com) will last. Mind you, I didn't rush into this purchase. First I bought a washable, floppy board - something like a giant mouse pad - for traveling ($13.74 with shipping). When I made this purchase, Pete (pete@chesstopia.com) sent me a confirmation e-mail that suggested I get some pieces to go with the board. Well, why not? The pieces I had seemed a bit small for the floppy board, so I picked a heavy plastic Staunton set, tournament size, made by Drueke, the king 3.75 inches high ($43.64 with shipping).

Pete's e-mail was quite friendly (Pete is Peter C. Surace, a professor of English at Cuyahoga Community College in Cleveland who has been an adviser to the chess club there for 30 years) and his site was easy to navigate. And nothing sucks me in like encountering a real person during Web shopping. So I asked him about boards.

He recommended a a Drueke 82800 with 2.25-inch squares. "That would be the perfect match," he wrote. "It is a beautiful board." And so it is, with deliciously rich wood, both as simple and elegant as a chess board could be. I expect it to last me forever, and I'm determined to keep it out of the closet. It now sits in the living room with an old chess clock I bought on eBay (about $25) and the Drueke chessmen.

Chesstopia is, of course, just one online chess store. I like it because its prices are good and it has a lot of boards and pieces from Drueke, a Michigan company that makes the classic Staunton pieces in a variety of forms as well as boards of walnut and other hardwoods. Their sets are not the most expensive, but they are solid, classic, and - to judge from my surfing - clearly valued by chess shoppers, if not chess players.

Some other sites I ran across, a necessarily incomplete sampling, include http://www.thechessstore.com, http://www.chess-shops.com, http://www.chessforum.com, http://www.chessexpress.com, http://www.chesscafe.com and http://www.houseofstaunton.com. Any Internet search will turn up more, as will following the links from one of the many chess playing sites.

Although I have spent a fair amount of money so far on chess, I think I have actually been quite frugal. You can spend real money on chess sets if you are inclined. For instance, I could have bought the Millennium Edition Jacques Chess set made in England ($1,595 at houseofstaunton.com) or turned to antique and collectible pieces and boards.

Furthermore, my chess playing has improved. Along my shopping path I actually learned some things about chess. In fact, I now have a string of several quite impressive victories against my son. I admit that he is spending most of his game energy now on Magic, the card game. Still, my progress (I can also beat the low levels of some of the Palm programs) has emboldened me to play a few games against other adults.

I haven't won any of those games yet, and some of the losses have been dismal. But just the other day I had a moral victory. I lost a five-minute game because my time on the clock ran out, not because I was immediately checkmated. I had just lost track of what was going on.

And so far, not one other opponent has tapped his temple and said, "It's about the brain."

Edited by author 08-23-2003 08:32 AM
At Long Last, the Salarymen Are Given Their Due

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/21/international/asia/21TOKY.html

At Long Last, the Salarymen Are Given Their Due
By NORIMITSU ONISHI
August 21, 2003

TOKYO ? Every Tuesday evening, millions of Japanese are moved, often to tears, by the series "Project X: Challengers," which documents successful projects undertaken by Every Salaryman.

An improbable television hit and cultural phenomenon, the show explains in sometimes numbing detail such things as how Japanese engineers after World War II succeeded in pumping crude out of a particularly difficult oil field, building a bridge in western Japan, inventing the electric rice- cooker or coming up with the VHS standard. The heroes tend to be salarymen, aging and unsung, who make for stiff studio guests.

The program has spun off books, comics and DVD's, allowing viewers to savor especially memorable episodes, say, on plasma television or the rotary engine.

Each technological innovation ? invariably the fruit of forbearance and selflessness, single-minded devotion to work and company ? recalls an age when values went unquestioned. In a country groping its way out of a long economic malaise, the program illuminates a recent past when all seemed possible, inspiring feelings of validation and nostalgia among older Japanese, envy and desire among some younger ones.

the program pushes all the right emotional buttons. A typical 45- minute episode might start with a look back at the suffering endured during World War II. Against big odds ? say, American occupying forces who sneered at Japanese efforts to look for oil in the Middle East, or American supermarkets that waved away a soya sauce company's product as "bug juice" ? the salarymen gain a toehold.

After the inevitable disaster or setback, the project succeeds, after which a mixture of historical film and dramatic re-creation gives way to brief studio interviews with the protagonists, or, if they are dead, with their colleagues or relatives. The camera shows the aging salarymen walking slowly into the studio and bowing. As the camera zooms in on a wrinkly face, capturing the slightest hint of a watery eye at a critical moment, many viewers like Ms. Sakamoto just lose it.

After a slow start, "Project X" has continued to grow in popularity, once scoring a 20 percent share of the audience. It also has turned many middle- aged men, who rarely watch television, into fanatics..

Lost in the Music - Jon Brion - The Process of Producing Music ...

There is a little about Fiona Apple here ....

There is a little about Rufus Wainwright here ...

Story location
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/17/magazine...nted=print&position=

Lost in the Music - Jon Brion
By STEPHEN RODRICK
Stephen Rodrick is a frequent contributor to the magazine. He last wrote about Dennis Rodman.
August 17, 2003

few moments before his regular Friday-night show at Largo, a club in Los Angeles, Jon Brion tries to conjure a catchy name for the music he loves. As a producer, Brion has collaborated with Fiona Apple, Aimee Mann and Rufus Wainwright, constructing eccentric albums that evoke the Beatles, Aaron Copland and a pawnshop band. ''If it had a label, it could help,'' Brion says. He is almost 40, mop-toppish and currently without a permanent address. ''Look what 'alt-country' did for Lucinda Williams and Wilco.'' Sipping a Guinness, Brion comes up with one. ''How about 'unpopular pop'?'' he asks. He takes another sip of his beer and turns glum. ''God, that's too depressing.''

Unpopular pop is a new name but not a new genre. Even when Motown and the Beatles ruled the charts, perfect pop songs -- defined by liner-note-reading geeks as intricate rhymed verse accompanied by a melody that emotionally underscores the words -- often didn't match the sales of, say, ''Yummy, Yummy, Yummy.'' The Beach Boys' ''Pet Sounds'' took 34 years to go platinum. Big Star, the most influential unpopular pop band in America, couldn't get its records distributed. Except for the novelty hits ''Short People'' and ''I Love L.A.,'' Randy Newman, lauded as one of the country's treasured songwriters, released a half-dozen ''pop'' albums in the 60's and 70's that barely earned back their advances.

Like Newman, Brion comes from a family of musicians who share a reverential appreciation for Americana music. His songs evoke images of a bygone era: a carnival organ on one track, a melancholy woodwind section on another. And like Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys, Brion has a savantlike ability to process melodies and turn them inside out. Sam Jones, who directed the Wilco documentary ''I Am Trying to Break Your Heart,'' and is raising money for a Brion film, plays a musical game with Brion. He leaves a stretch of music by Glenn Gould on Brion's answering machine. Brion calls right back playing the piece note for note. It is talent like this that has helped make Brion a Phil Spector of unpopular pop.

Occasionally, like Newman, Wilson or Big Star's Alex Chilton, Brion has managed to make popular pop. Using a screwdriver instead of a slide, Brion created the distorted guitar lead on the Wallflowers' ''One Headlight,'' a single that propelled the band to multiplatinum success in 1997. The session lasted less than an hour, and Brion nailed it on the first take. Normally, he declines lengthier commercial commitments. His manager fields calls from industry heavyweights like Clive Davis requesting Brion to produce his latest ingenue. Brion always says no.

''If the songs aren't great, I can't do it,'' Brion explains. ''I live with these songs. They're moving through my head constantly, even when I don't want them to. If they're bad, I'm throwing myself out a window after 48 hours.''

ecording studios are dreary places: bunkers filled with wires, smudged glass partitions and ashtrays. The Paramour, where Brion is at work, is not like that. Nestled in the Los Angeles hills, the grounds resemble Norma Desmond's spread. There is an ominous iron gate, an ancient lap pool illuminated by torches at night and a garishly decorated ballroom.

Down one dark hallway, music can be heard. There are red walls, a fireplace, a Scrabble board and left-over Cuban pastries gnawed by Charlie, the Paramour's half-wolf, half-German shepherd. A Hawaiian guitar rests against some Chinese gongs. In front of a Beatles-era E.M.I. console, an Apple computer displays a screen saver of David Bowie, Brian Eno and Robert Fripp at Bowie's ''Low'' sessions.

It's 1 p.m., and Jon Brion is still in his pajamas and slippers. For the past three months, Brion, Tom Biller, an engineer, and the singer Fiona Apple have been living at the Paramour. Right now, Brion is noodling at a Casio keyboard, playing along to a mix of Apple's ''Oh Well.'' ''I cried the first time I heard her play this,'' Brion says. ''We were at Ocean Way, Sinatra's old studio, and I just put my head down on the table and cried.''

As ''Oh Well'' plays repeatedly, Brion tries to conceive an arrangement that won't disturb the power of Apple's vocals. He says he thinks her delivery on the current version might be too slow for the anger of the words. To help, Brion has written out the lyrics in color-coded fashion on two giant pieces of white paper. Blue represents sad passages, red anger and green the resignation of Apple's whispering ''Oh, well'' in the last line.

''There's a space between this line and that line, and it's this continual sort of push and pull,'' Brion says. ''If she's not singing, I offer something to carry the listener through to the next moment where she returns.''

Apple's first release, fueled by her ethereal vocals and a video with her in her underwear, sold three million copies. Brion played on it, and they became close friends. After a rambling acceptance speech at the MTV awards, Apple absorbed a media assault. In 1999, she recorded the follow-up, ''When the Pawn . . . '' -- the full title stretches to 90 words -- which Brion produced and played most of the instruments on. It featured a hybrid of hip-hop beats and Brion's skewed instrumentation. Like most Brion-produced projects, it was hailed by critics. And like most Brion-produced projects, it was a commercial disappointment, selling fewer than a million copies.

Apple contemplated never recording another album. Then, in the spring of 2002, Brion and Apple met for their weekly lunch. Brion had recently been ejected from a five-year relationship with the comedian Mary Lynn Rajskub. Making matters worse, the breakup occurred while he was scoring Paul Thomas Anderson's ''Punch-Drunk Love.'' Rajskub had a large role in the film, and Brion spent hours watching his ex on celluloid. Now finished with the score, he was at loose ends.

''Please, please make another album,'' Brion begged Apple. ''I need work that can save me.''

Apple agreed, and Brion went to Apple's label, Sony Music, with strict stipulations. There would be no deadline. If a Sony rep wanted to check on progress, he would have to fly to Los Angeles. Brion requested renting a wing of the Paramour rather than recording at a conventional studio. The label agreed.

In an era of industry bloodletting, Sony's acquiescence to Brion's demands demonstrates how highly respected Brion is in the industry. In addition to his production work, Brion scored Anderson's last two films, ''Magnolia'' (for which he also produced some of Aimee Mann's career-making tracks) and ''Punch-Drunk Love.'' For the latter, he helped the filmmaker in unusual ways. In an early scene, Anderson was having difficulty communicating the emotion he wanted Adam Sandler to bring to his role. He asked Brion to come down to the set. The next morning, Brion returned with a 10-minute percussion track that captured the manic anger of Barry Egan, Sandler's character. Anderson had his star listen to the track repeatedly through headphones. Sandler got it, and filming resumed.

At the Paramour, the days effortlessly merge like the unchanging Southern California weather. Nine months after Apple played the first five songs for Brion, the album is maybe half-done. In the morning, Brion draws or works on his own songs. In the afternoon, he fiddles with backing tracks. Maybe around midnight, Apple will appear in sweats and bunny-rabbit slippers and record vocals for an hour.

''Jon's put in hundreds of more hours,'' Apple said one sunny afternoon on the lawn. ''If I could, I'd release this as a Jon Brion-Fiona Apple record. I keep borrowing his socks. He thinks it's because I don't have my own socks. It's because I want to be Jon Brion.''

Brion is contemplating the abandonment of all his ancillary projects so he can concentrate on his own material. Which is either brave or quixotic. Brion's only solo record was rejected by an Atlantic Records subsidiary and sold just a few thousand copies. Still, songs he has written with Mann, Evan Dando and Eels are the equal to anything they've done on their own. Every Friday night, Brion plays a sold-out show at Largo, whose guests vary from Rickie Lee Jones to Pink. He mixes Kinks and Costello songs with his own compositions. Regular attendees argue that Brion's songs compare favorably.

''Jon has at least 10 albums' worth of material,'' says Mann, a longtime collaborator and a former girlfriend. ''He blends the mood of the melody and the mood of the words in a way that no one else can do.'' She sighs. ''And he writes them so quickly.''

And yet Brion has released only one new song in the past four years, a track called ''Here We Go,'' a wedding song for a second marriage, on the ''Punch-Drunk Love'' soundtrack. If the song hadn't been dropped from the film, it might have earned an Academy Award nomination. ''Why finish a song when you can start a new one?'' Brion says with a laugh. ''I picked the hardest art form with the least amount of respect. The economy of language you need to get emotion across is so hard. You have to find rhymed verse, then match it with a melody. And then it's dismissed just as 'a pop song.' It is so sad.''

Brion can't let go of his songs. Or the songs of his disciples. For more than a week, Brion toyed with Apple's ''Oh Well.'' He spent one night moving equipment to his study at the Paramour to record a guitar part. ''The acoustics will pick up the reverb differently,'' he explains. The next day, Brion discarded the guitar. Then he laid down another basic track with himself on drums. He wasn't happy with the result. ''It sounded like a metal ballad,'' Brion says. ''I fired myself.'' A call was placed to the legendary session drummer Jim Keltner.

''The song is missing 'it,''' Brion says. ''Right now, I don't know what 'it' is. When you find it, everyone's physiology in the room changes. 'It' is a real, ephemeral thing.''


It's not uncommon to hear ''it'' on a Jon Brion-produced song many years after buying the album. More than a decade has passed since I first listened to Aimee Mann's ''I've Had It,'' from her 1993 album, ''Whatever,'' Brion's first major production. The subject of the song, as is often the case with Mann, is the music industry. The troops gather for a pointless New York gig as Mann muses that her chance at the brass ring may have passed. On perhaps the 400th listen, I pick up a ticking clock that moves from left to right in your headphones and underscores the fatalism of the lyrics. When Mann sings ''And Dan came in from Jersey,'' Brion plays the opening bars to Springsteen's ''Born to Run'' on a glockenspiel.

When he was 5, Brion wrote ''I am Jon Brion. I am a musician'' on a piece of paper. A few years later, his mother, LaRue, a club singer while in college, bought him his first Fats Waller record. Brion's father, Keith, was director of Yale University's concert and marching bands, and his parents introduced their son at age 13 to the jazz musicians Willie Ruff and Dwike Mitchell, who were known equally for their playing and for their jazz evangelism tours to China and Russia.

As he grew older, Brion refused to do any schoolwork other than music. The school district placed him in special-education classes with mildly retarded and emotionally disturbed teenagers. ''I was in with a kid who had seen both her parents killed in front of her,'' Brion recalls. On Brion's 17th birthday, his father signed the release papers, and Brion dropped out of high school.

At a recent Largo show, Brion began by laying down a drum track and looping it. He did the same with a jaunty piano part. He then picked up an electric guitar. He closed his eyes and resembled the kid from ''Tommy'' as he played a crunchy guitar part. Finally, he performed ''I Was Happy With You,'' a new song, picking through a melody that captures the post-anger wistful stage of heartbreak.

The next day, Brion told me that he has written a dozen new songs about his breakup. ''I'm trying to approach them from a realistic point of view,'' he said. ''I want songs that suggest, O.K., maybe it was 60 percent your fault, but I was there, too. Those songs aren't being written.''

Another day, I heard ''Citgo Sign,'' which was recorded in 1991 and would not be out of place in a musical. ''That may be my best album's worth of material,'' Brion said. He also has notions of turning a batch of songs written since 1995 into ''an Internet-only EP.'' When I mentioned this to Mark Flanagan, his manager, he laughed: ''You realize, that's not going to happen.''

Brion's inability to release his own songs is a hushed subject of conversation among his friends and musicians. When I asked Mann, she began: ''I think he has a hard time saying anything is finished whether he's producing or doing his own songs. Jon's a perfectionist.'' She hesitated and stopped. ''I'm not going to say any more.''

Part of Brion's procrastination is an inability to say no. ''Whenever I get a message from another musician, I know it's because they want something,'' Brion says. ''They want me to play on a track or produce. It's never just to say hi.''

His point was made when Grant Lee Phillips stopped by the Paramour for advice on his next album. They talked for an hour, and Brion grew increasingly animated. ''You must have a great drummer -- he captures the mood of the song,'' Brion advised. ''You have a bad drummer, you're going to be spending days trying to find that mood.'' Then, Phillips sheepishly asked, ''Hey, do you want to captain this ship?'' Brion said yes (though Phillips later proceeded without him).

''There's a thing called a heat sink,'' Brion says. ''It's a piece of metal attached to a machine. It draws heat away and keeps it from blowing up. That's what I do as a producer. It's up to me to let the artist know things are O.K. I'm the one who has to go home with the stomachache.''

Brion plays the role well. Last year, while he was producing an album for an alt-country songwriter named Rhett Miller, a real-estate agent showed up at the studio. He needed a signature finalizing the sale of the house Brion and Rajskub jointly owned. Brion excused himself, went to the bathroom and cried. Five minutes later, he was singing backing vocals on one of Miller's love songs.

Sessions with Rufus Wainwright, a talented and flamboyant piano pop singer, were turbulent. It was only the pleading of DreamWorks Records' co-chairman Lenny Waronker that kept Brion from leaving. ''Rufus had all these beautiful songs, but every time the vocals would kick in, he'd write some complicated keyboard part so you couldn't hear them,'' Brion says. ''He wasn't interested in listening to ideas about simplifying the arrangement.''

In 2000, Brion collaborated with David Byrne. Those who heard the Brion-produced songs said they were the best Byrne had done since the Talking Heads. Byrne rejected them by fax.

I ask Brion if he has considered hiring a producer for his own work. He answers in a sad voice. ''I don't have a heat sink for myself,'' he says. ''I don't have anyone who can tell me, 'This is good, this is a great song, let it go.' With my songs, I go home with the stomachache.''


A month later, I met up with Brion at Abbey Road Studios in London, where he was recording orchestration for Apple. He was exhausted from testing every microphone in its storied collection, cataloguing each of their shortcomings. ''If I reach a point where I want a voice to sound a little fuzzy, I'll know which microphone to use,'' Brion said.

In Studio 2, Brion sat behind an old piano and doodled a section from ''Here We Go,'' which was recorded there. ''I just had the major chords, and I knew I wanted to write a song that said, Even though my heart had just been broken, I'm not going to be cynical about love,'' Brion said. I remarked that the piano sounded like the one from ''Fool on the Hill.'' His eyes lighted up. ''Because it is!'' he said.

The next day, a full orchestra arrived, with ''Oh Well'' first up. Brion had Apple do another vocal take on which she almost growled the lyrics. He asked the violinist, Eric Gorfain, to add an arrangement. After listening to a rough mix, he offered only a little criticism. ''Don't place too much activity around her voice,'' Brion said. ''There's nice tension in the second verse, but tension is activity that draws away from her voice, so we have to lose it.''

The next day, Brion led the orchestra through ''Oh Well'' for two hours. Midway through, Apple arrived. Painfully shy, she sat on the floor, covering her eyes and peeking through fingers as Brion conducted. Eyes closed, he entered a blissful state. When the music stopped, he flashed a beatific grin. ''I don't think I have ever seen a human being look happier,'' Apple said.

Later that night, Brion, trying to relax with a beer, was still frustrated with the song. ''I can't figure it out,'' he said. ''It just isn't all there. Every album has a problem child. Maybe I want it to be a lawyer, when it wants to be a painter.''

Eventually, Apple's release date was pushed back from September to February. If that date holds, it will be 20 months from the time Apple played the first songs for Brion, or roughly 60 days per song. A month after the Abbey Road session, Brion told me he was done producing for the foreseeable future and will concentrate on his own songs. He even bought a powder blue van for touring. Of course, this means that songs will have to be released. For three months, Brion promised to send me demos of his new songs. They never arrived. In a final effort, I made an impromptu trip to Los Angeles. At Largo, Brion handed me a CD of seven demos. He looked miserable. The next day, I told him how much I liked them. He still seemed morose. ''When the album comes out, these songs are going to be ruined for you,'' Brion said. ''You're not going to be able to really hear the final versions.'' He grinned. ''If there ever are final versions.''

25 Greatest Electronic Albums of the 20th Century

Those were the days ....

Story location
http://www.slantmagazine.com/music/feature...ectronicalbums.html

25 Greatest Electronic Albums of the 20th Century

Slant Magazine asked 300 music journalists, DJs and record label-folk to tell us what they thought were the most important electronic albums of the 20th Century. Any sub-genre was fair game (Disco, House, Drum n' Bass, Trance, Ambient, Trip-Hop, Techno, etc.). Close to 200 different albums were mentioned and, since no list could possibly be entirely inclusive, we've whittled the raw data down to 25 key releases from the last 25 years.

1. Kraftwerk - Trans-Europe Express
2. Massive Attack - Blue Lines
3. Aphex Twin - Selected Ambient Works 85-92
4. The Orb - Adventures beyond the Ultraworld.
5. Portishead - Dummy
6. Brian Eno - Ambient Music for Airports
7. DJ Shadow - Entroducing
8 & 9 The Chemical Brothers - Exit Planet Dust and dig Your Own Hole
10. Bjork - Homogenic
11. Orbital - Orbial 2
12. New Order - Substance
13. Underworld dubnobasswithmyheadman
14. Derrick May - Innovator
15 Global Communication 7614
16 The Art of Noise - Who's afraid Of?
17. 888_State - Utd_State_90
18. Daft Punk - Homework
19. Leftfield Leftism
20. Depche Mode - Music for the Masses
21 - Tricky - Maxinquaye
22. Boards of Canada - Music has the right to children
23. Black Dog Production - Bytes
24. Moby - Everything is Wrong
25. The KLF - The White Room.

Edited by author 09-02-2003 07:38 AM
Trouble in Counterculture Utopia - Burning Man - Using the Land

Story location
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/01/arts/mus...nted=print&position=
  
Trouble in Counterculture Utopia
By BILL WERDE
September 01, 2003

BLACK ROCK DESERT, Nev., Aug. 31 — From all across the desert they came, with luminescent wires in their hair or war paint on their faces. As drum circles pounded out tribal rhythms and roving sound systems blasted techno beats, they walked in their elaborate homemade costumes or drove in bizarre vehicles. They hooted and they cheered, and most of all they came to burn the Man.

The 77-foot-high, skeletal neon-colored Man towers above the center of the Burning Man festival. Every year this weeklong event creates Nevada's fifth largest city in population (about 30,000) before culminating on Labor Day. This year's Burning Man has largely been business as usual. Burners, as festivalgoers are known, can wander five square miles of theme camps, art installations, music, performance pieces and other Burners, expressing themselves in wildly free-spirited ways.

"Burn the Man!" hundreds cried, their faces aglow with the yellow-orange light of flame. "Burn him!" Others voiced compassion; a chain of 15 or 20 people snaked through the crowd with signs that read "Free the Man." At 9:40 p.m. a barrage of fireworks and explosives lighted the Saturday night sky and the Man disappeared beneath a pyre that swirled more than 150 feet into the dusty desert air.

The corporation that organizes the event, the Black Rock City L.L.C., has held the festival here, about 120 miles north of Reno, almost every year since moving it from San Francisco in 1990. But even as this year's desert dramas — imagined or certifiable — unfolded, most of the artists and revelers have been blissfully unaware of another set of Burning Man theatrics centering on about 200 acres a half-hour drive away.

Black Rock Desert may be synonymous with Burning Man to the thousands who come here each year, but it is another swath of desert in Washoe County, those acres owned by Black Rock City in the adjacent Hualapai Valley, that may determine the future of the event and the $10 million or so a year that it pumps into the hard-pressed local economy.

Festival officials call that land the ranch, and they say it is essential to the future of Burning Man. The acreage is a staging ground where the organizers prepare for the festival and store its considerable infrastructure. It is covered with piles of mechanical and structural debris from previous festivals; a Quonset hut housing woodworking and metalworking shops; fuel tanks; and remnants from dozens of past art installations. But to the site's neighbors and a powerful local businessman, the land is an eyesore and a fire hazard; to county officials it is a splitting headache because it is at the heart of a dispute that after a year of legal and political wrangling has arrived at a stalemate.

Black Rock City bought the land for $70,000 in 2001 because its use of the festival grounds was limited to a month or so a year, under a permit from the federal Bureau of Land Management. That purchase quickly roused opponents. One complaint — its source has not been revealed by the authorities — prompted a three-month investigation by Washoe County officials. The county's planning commission ultimately approved three special-use permits for things like storing vehicles, custom manufacturing and salvage operations. The commission also attached more than 90 conditions that had to be met to bring the property up to health, safety and fire codes.

The commission's approval drew an appeal by five residents, who cited insufficient water supplies, potential fire hazards and leftover debris. Among those residents are Michael B. Stewart, whose businesses in the area includes Orient Farms, where he grows garlic; and High Rock Holding L.L.C., a geothermal power company. On May 13 Washoe County commissioners sided with them, reversing the planning commission's approval by a 3-to-2 vote and denying Black Rock City the special-use permits. The company's director, Larry Harvey, likened the ruling to a vote to shut down the Burning Man operation.

Fewer than four weeks later Black Rock City filed a lawsuit seeking $40 million in damages from the county if it were forced to cancel its festival; this year's event was allowed to proceed while a compromise with the county was being negotiated.

Whether the parties can reach an agreement is far from certain. Sitting at their kitchen table, Lou and Sylvia Fascio, who were among the residents who signed the appeal, show photos to support their claim that the Burning Man operation is a hazard. One shows a 110-foot-long bus converted to look like a dragon, which they say was driving without a permit on a local highway. Others show what appear to be piles of junk and Burning Man workers idly watching a substantial blaze on the property.

"Let them move to Mustang," Mrs. Fascio said, referring to a nearby town. "None of us here in the valley want them here."

Festival organizers say they are bringing their fire preparedness up to code, installing fire breaks around the property and keeping 40,000 gallons of water on hand. They also say they have removed 30 truckloads of debris and 20 abandoned cars.

Mr. Harvey, the chain-smoking, Stetson-wearing impresario of the festival, acknowledges that some complaints about the property's appearance are legitimate, but he contends that Mr. Stewart wants the land for water.

"Three underground rivers intersect below the property," Mr. Harvey said. "And Fly Geyser is right next door. Mike Stewart owns a geothermal plant and has made an offer on the property. So what is this really about?"

Mr. Stewart declined to comment. But Donna Potter, the environmental coordinator for Mr. Stewart's companies, said the idea that Mr. Stewart wanted the land for geothermal development was ridiculous.

With a $40 million suit hanging over them, Washoe County officials are working on potential zoning solutions and establishing new deadlines for complying with county codes. A meeting has been set for Thursday involving county commissioners, Burning Man representatives and their local opponents.

"We're hoping to educate the commissioners about the issues," said Marion Goodell, Burning Man's communications director. "We're determined. Worst-case scenario: we'll spend a lot of money, and we'll be on that property. Best- case scenario: we'll work with our neighbors and the county and be on that property."

Mr. Fascio is equally resolute. "I don't know why they want a meeting," he said. "As far as I'm concerned, the county commissioners said no. What's left to discuss? Let them have their day in court."

No court date has been set, but Black Rock City officials said they had begun to entertain offers to relocate their event. One possibility is a Paiute reservation at Pyramid Lake in Nevada; another, in southern Nevada, is in Esmeralda County, whose officials have been courting the event, Burning Man organizers say.

Neither is a perfect fit. Esmeralda is closer to Los Angeles than to San Francisco, home to more Burners than any other city. And while moving the event to a reservation would keep some government regulators at bay, the Paiute are intolerant of nudity, drugs and alcohol, all of which are common at the festival.

"We need five miles of perfect playa just like this,' said Will Roger, Burning Man's public works director, referring to desert and waving his hand toward the bustling festival grounds. "That's not so easy to find."

Mr. Roger gazed at his art car, a 1986 Chevy Sprint converted to resemble a giant carp and customized with 30-foot flame throwers. "This is a matter of perspective," he said. "What our opposition calls rubbish, I call art materials. What they call a salvage yard, I call a recycling center."

Beekeepers Struggle to Keep Craft Alive

Hey Bobby, Here's something you might find interesting ....

Story location
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...13&u=/ap/farm_scene

Beekeepers Struggle to Keep Craft Alive
y JEFFREY COLLINS, Associated Press Writer
September 07, 2003

PIEDMONT, S.C. - J. Milton King has racks of beekeeping supplies on his screen porch ready to sell cheap or even give away if he can find the right young person to take up the craft. So far, King, who at 86 has been hobbled in recent months by a blood clot in his leg, has had no takers. "The old people like him are dying out," said 73-year-old Ernest Kastner, who learned beekeeping from King a few years ago after the mentor left a jar of fresh honey at his house. "And there just aren't enough young people to take over."

Beekeeping is a hard, sweaty and sometimes painful job that yields a small, sweet reward. Swarms of beekeepers have quit during the past few decades, frustrated by long hours and made broke by new pests invading hives. It's not easy to find young apprentices eager to don the stifling protective overalls, helmet and mesh and spend hours coaxing bees out of their honey. "It's a day's job, and it's hot," Kastner said. "You know how young people today are."

Beekeeping can be a lucrative hobby. Honey prices are up this year — King is selling a quart for $7 — but it's too much work to be big business. Of the 2,000 or so beekeepers in South Carolina, just a dozen make their living exclusively off bees, said Mike Hood, a bee specialist with Clemson University. "Most of them do it for pleasure," he said. "To make a little bit of honey for themselves and their friends and maybe sell a little on the side."

It's getting harder to turn a profit because pests such as mites and wax moths can wipe out whole hives, destroying years of work in just a few days, Hood said. "We've lost a lot of good beekeepers because it is expensive to fight them off," he said. But bees are more than just honey-producers. By transferring pollen from one plant to another, bees help increase the size and yields of fruits. The University of Georgia College of Agriculture and Science estimates pollination adds $9 billion to the farming industry in the United States each year. Everyone down to the home gardener benefits from bees," Hood said. Realizing the benefits of bees drew Charles Holden, 64, into beekeeping about a decade ago. The first year he worked the land, his fruit trees had a terrible yield. Then, inspiration stung him on the arm. "I noticed I hadn't seen any honey or other bees on my property, so I went and got a couple of hives and put them out," Holden said. "Next season, I had so much fruit the branches were breaking under all the weight."

And the same pests that have hurt beekeepers have destroyed wild bee populations. Holden said he almost never sees bees outside of colonized hives. Holden is passing his knowledge down to one of his co-workers, 24- year-old John Cranmer. Cranmer's choice of hobbies seems odd. He used to be allergic to bee stings and remembers a trip to the hospital when he was 9 after several bees stung him while he played in an abandoned house.

Right after he started beekeeping, one sting might cause him to swell up for days. Cranmer now says he has gained an immunity and is confident enough to work with the bees without the protective clothing. "Most people are scared of the stings," said Cranmer. "But it isn't much, once you get used to it."

Beekeeping requires patience. On a recent afternoon, King and Kastner took about 10 minutes in the 90-degree heat to slip into their protective suits. Then came the slow process of blowing smoke on the bees to calm them. Finally, the men peeled off the wooden top of a hive and took out a frame about the size of a shoe box lid. That's where the bees make their honey, protected by a thin wax coating to keep it from flowing away. When the bees started buzzing and swarming closer, the pair blew more smoke and worked more slowly. They checked just a couple of the frames, called supers, before calling it a day. A beekeeper might check several dozen frames when harvesting honey in the late spring or early fall, King said. His daughter and son have helped him before, and he's trying to get his grandson to pick up the hobby, too.

"I try to help everyone I can," King said. "Because we need more beekeepers."

Forensic Botanists Find the Lethal Weapon of a Killer Weed

Unabridged and unedited article at
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/09/science/...nted=print&position=

Forensic Botanists Find the Lethal Weapon of a Killer Weed
By CAROL KAESUK YOON
September 9, 2003

For over a century, spotted knapweed has been a growing scourge on the North American landscape, spreading across millions of acres of prairies, hillsides, roadsides and rangeland — pretty much anywhere it can get a root in the dirt. Everywhere it spreads, it replaces native grasses and other plant species to the consternation of conservationists as well as ranchers, whose cows refuse to eat it. The weed, which sprouts pink and purple flowers and can grow a spindly three feet tall, is a European import, thought to have been introduced in North America as a contaminant in crop seeds or in dirt used as ship's ballast and then dumped. But scientists have long been baffled by the plant's appalling effectiveness at driving out other plants. Scientists often assume that invasive exotic species are able to thrive in new environments because they have escaped from their predators and other enemies at home. But scientists say the new study suggests that such troublesome imports may also succeed by using potent but unrecognized methods, like chemical warfare.

Now in the current issue of the journal Science, researchers say they have found spotted knapweed's deadly secret: a potent and previously unknown poison that it releases through its roots into the soil to kill off neighboring plants. By eliminating its neighbors, the weed can appropriate all the water and nutrients that the other plants would have taken, and it has plenty of new space to spread out in. So far, the researchers have found no native plants that can withstand the poison. Dr. Jorge M. Vivanco, a plant biologist at Colorado State University and an author of the study, says the toxin acts so quickly that within 10 seconds of contact the neighboring plants' roots begin producing chemicals that set off a cascade of events that will ultimately kill their own cells. "In one hour the roots die," he said. "The whole plant dies in a matter of days." The substance is such an effective herbicide that, Dr. Vivanco said, his university had already taken out a patent on it. "One plant arrives in a field where there are a lot of native plants," Dr. Vivanco said. "The next year you see not one, but actually a patch of spotted knapweed where the natives were. And if there are still native plants near it, they don't look so healthy."Around Missoula, Mont., home of the University of Montana, for example, a diversity of native species once bloomed. Now after several decades of this subtle underground warfare, the hills have become a vast monoculture of spotted knapweed, Dr. Vivanco said, as have millions of acres in that particularly hard-hit state.


"This is a really nice demonstration that other factors come into play," said Dr. Sarah Reichard, an invasion biologist at the University of Washington. "This paper shows that the interactions can be very subtle, things happening below ground that we really haven't had any knowledge about." The notion that plants use poisons to suppress or kill their neighbors — a phenomenon known as allelopathy — has been around for decades. But until now, few scientists have had much use for it. "People have been rather dismissive of the whole subject," said Dr. Alastair Fitter, an ecologist at the University of York who was not involved in the study. Part of the problem was that much of the earliest work was poorly done, he said in a telephone interview. But as Dr. Fitter wrote in an accompanying commentary in Science, he believes the new study is so convincing that it will "now place allelopathy firmly back on center stage."

The researchers found that the roots of the spotted knapweed released two forms of a chemical known as catechin (pronounced KAT-uh-kin) identical in all respects except that their molecular structures were mirror images of each other.

1. One form, known as +catechin, is also found in green tea and was already known as an antioxidant, able to neutralize the harmful molecules called reactive oxygen species that are thought to speed the aging process.
2. The toxin turned out to be the second form, -catechin, which had essentially the opposite effect of its mirror image. It induced the production of harmful reactive oxygen species in neighboring plant roots, setting off the process that led to cell death.
3. The scientists found that the grasses that grow alongside spotted knapweed in Europe are much better able to resist its toxins than native North American grasses. Scientists say this suggests that the European grasses have evolved a resistance to this potent toxin, one that North American grasses lack.
   

The finding helps explain the failure of many efforts to fight the onslaught of spotted knapweed by burning it and then seeding the area with desired plants. "What they've seen is that 99 percent of the seeds died, and now we know why," said Dr. Vivanco. With -catechin soaked into the soil, he said, susceptible seeds have no chance of making it. But even though the poison is very powerful, it remained unknown to researchers because everything was happening below ground.

Since spotted knapweed landed in North America, a century or so ago, it has spread to nearly every state and has caused a variety of problems. Eric Lane, the state weed coordinator for Colorado, said the loss of native plant species curtailed the food supply not only for cattle but for wild species like elk, many birds and insects. In some states, he said, the spread of spotted knapweed is so severe that elk herds have altered migration pathways to avoid vast inedible swaths of it. The weed has also led to erosion because it does not hold soil as well as native grasses.

In the search for solutions to this green plague, researchers were excited to discover that the plant Arabidopsis thaliana, whose entire genome has already been sequenced, is susceptible to -catechin. As a result, they can see in detail how a plant's genome reacts when its roots are hit with the toxin. The scientists found 10 genes that appear to shift into high gear immediately. Scientists say they hope that by identifying what those genes are doing, presumably mounting the beginnings of a defense, they can genetically engineer plants that can more effectively resist the spotted knapweed's attacks. Researchers are also testing to see what native plants are resistant to the -catechin. They hope to develop a list of species that can be used to revegetate an area after spotted knapweed has been burned.

Blaine Begins Starvation Stunt in London in Search for his Truths

Unabridged and unedited version at
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...u=/ap/people_blaine

Blaine Begins Starvation Stunt in London in Search for his Truths
By JACK GARLAND, Associated Press Writer
September 05, 2003

Blaine has said that the latest stunt will give him the chance to search for his "truths." "This is worth it for my art, even if I drop dead," he said.

David Blaine, the American illusionist and street magician, began his latest feat of endurance in a blaze of publicity Friday night, entering a plastic box where he will attempt to live without food for more than six weeks. The New Yorker insists he won't eat, and said he has fattened himself up to over 205 pounds so he can survive on his own body fat. Blaine has said he expects to lose at least 45 pounds.

This is Blaine's first major stunt outside the United States. The street- magician-turned-endurance performer has already spent 35 hours standing on top of a 100-foot-high pole, and three days encased in ice — both stunts in New York.

The 30-year-old New Yorker entered the cramped see-through box at 9:30 p.m., watched by television cameras and thousands of cheering fans. In a live TV show, Blaine was checked over by medical personnel and searched by a security guard before waving goodbye, hugging his friends and climbing into the top of the box in a small park near Tower Bridge overlooking the River Thames. A crane lifted the box up 40 feet, where it was to remain suspended while Blaine pursues his goal of spending 44 days and 44 nights alone with only a supply of water, a quilt, a pillow, a journal, a change of clothes and a photo of his mother.

When Weird Works: Outkast and Erykah Badu

Hey Bobby, something about Outcast here ...
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/05/arts/mus...nted=print&position=

When Weird Works: Outkast and Erykah Badu
By KELEFA SANNEH
October 5, 2003

 FEW weeks ago, the Atlanta-based hip-hop duo Outkast did something that seemed suicidal. On Sept. 23, the duo released "Speakerboxxx/The Love Below" — two solo albums, side by side. "Speakerboxxx" is propelled by Big Boi's precise, sticky rhymes, and "The Love Below" floats along on André 3000's not-quite-angelic falsetto singing. Listeners have to make sense of almost two and a half hours of music, figuring out for themselves how it all fits together.

This could have been a recipe for disaster, but "Speakerboxxx/The Love Below" (Arista/BMG) has earned an enthusiastic reception so far. Entertainment Weekly graded the album an "A," and the double-album's twin videos — "Hey Ya!," by André 3000, and "The Way You Move," by Big Boi — have been playing on MTV and BET. Having released the riskiest album of their decade-long career, the members of Outkast are more visible than ever.

Weirdness sells. Or does it? A week before Outkast, a different Southern-bred, hip-hop-influenced star released an equally daring new album. The star is the soul singer Erykah Badu, who has collaborated with Outkast in the past: the fruits of their labor include a couple great songs and a baby. On "The Love Below," André 3000, long separated from Ms. Badu, explains what happened: "We young in love — in short, we had fun/ No regrets, no abortion, had a son/ By the name of Seven, and he's 5, by the time I do this mix/ He'll probably be 6.")

Ms. Badu's new album, "Worldwide Underground" (Motown/Universal), sneaked into stores on Sept. 16. The high-profile guest list includes Queen Latifah and Lenny Kravitz, and the disc is full of the sort of sleepy-eyed funk that made D'Angelo's "Voodoo" so popular.

And yet "Worldwide Underground" has hardly made an impact. Reviews have been lukewarm (Rolling Stone awarded it two stars out of five), and it seems likely that some of Ms. Badu's fans aren't even aware that she has a new album in stores. Like Outkast, Ms. Badu is taking an idiosyncratic path, but the results are different. She's out in space, too, but she seems less like a star than ever.

Big Boi (Antwan Patton, 28) and André 3000 (André Benjamin, 28) made their debut in 1994 with "Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik," which combined slow-rolling beats with smooth refrains and astonishingly eloquent rhymes. Over the next few years, the group got better and bolder.

By 1998, when the group released its third album, "Aquemini," there were more musical surprises (the single "Rosa Parks" included a harmonica solo) and more ambitious narratives. In one song, André 3000 tenderly evoked a childhood memory: "I remember her number like the summer/ When her and Suzie, yeah, they threw a slumber/ Party — but you cannot call it that 'cause it was slummer/ Well, it was more like spend-the- night/ Three in the morning, yawning, dancing under street lights." It was starting to seem clear that Outkast was the greatest hip-hop group of all time — more versatile than Run-DMC, more unpredictable than Public Enemy, more resilient than N.W.A., more consistent than the Wu-Tang Clan.

In 2000, Outkast released "Stankonia," the group's least consistent album so far, but also the wildest and funniest. It was a crossover hit, thanks to "Ms. Jackson," a conflicted ode to baby-mamas, and "So Fresh, So Clean," a silky celebration of Southern style. The same things that set the group apart from other hip-hop acts — moaning vocals, wailing guitars, synthesizers fit for a Prince — helped attract listeners who wouldn't otherwise have been interested in a couple of rappers from Atlanta.

The new double-album follows this trend to two different logical conclusions. Big Boi is often described as the regular guy of the group, but he is also the group's resident virtuoso, sometimes slowing down his delivery to emphasize an internal rhyme and sometimes speeding it up so that the syllables rush past. "Speakerboxxx" covers a lot of ground, from the murder of Daniel Pearl to the scandalous goings-on at a local strip club, and he seems particularly interested in the sometimes contradictory demands of lust and life. In his own pithy words, "from T&A to DNA, feelings turn to chilluns," and he doesn't pick sides: he realizes that far from being incompatible, the two impulses are inseparable.

"Speakerboxxx" doesn't stray far from the hip-hop mainstream: many of the songs stick to beats-and-rhymes basics, and there are typically entertaining appearances from Ludacris and Jay-Z. But Big Boi knows that a club-friendly hit can be just as innovative as an album-only obscurity, so he packs his disc full of unusual arrangements. "The Way You Move" struts along on a fast track and a slow trumpet line, "Flip Flop Rock" lays glimmering guitar notes over melancholy piano and "Ghetto Musick" (produced by André 3000) switches back and forth between frantic electro beats and hazy slow-jam atmospherics.

"The Love Below" goes in a different direction: André 3000 seems to have given up on the possibilities of hip-hop, at least for the time being; instead, he croons and makes beats and goofs off. Not surprisingly, there are more lowpoints here than on "Speakerboxxx," including a tedious drum-n-bass version of John Coltrane's version of "My Favorite Things," and "She Lives in My Lap," a tuneless duet with the actress Rosario Dawson.

But André 3000 also has a knack for turning self-indulgent digressions into hummable pop songs. His current single, "Hey Ya!," is a punky soul anthem that sounds like nothing you've ever heard; the video, starring a rock band made up of grinning André 3000's, is even better. There's also a deliriously smutty song called "Spread," which joins a skittering beat to a tinkling piano. (Suffice it to say that any description of the chorus would render the title unfit to print.) One skit, "Where Are My Panties?," chronicles morning-after befuddlement; here, as elsewhere, André 3000 is irresistible, every bit as lascivious as you expect him to be, but twice as generous. As the title suggests, "The Love Below" is both a high-minded romantic treatise and one long dirty joke.

Outkast's divided album has some fans scared that the two halves will never reunite, but these two discs offer plenty of proof that the partnership makes sense. André 3000's flightier compositions could use a bit of Big Boi's earthy patter, and some of Big Boi's dense raps would benefit from André 3000's gleeful singing. In any case, the discs succeed because of the duo's shared sensibility, at once playful and thoughtful; they deflate their own pretensions by insisting that they are just having fun.

You'd never use a word like fun to describe the eccentric approach of Ms. Badu, who was raised in Dallas. When she released "Baduizm," in 1997, she was celebrated as the first lady of neo-soul, although her voice, as sharp and light as a pocketknife, made even the most languorous grooves seem somehow menacing. From the start, her reputation for new-age tranquility didn't quite fit with her feisty hits: "Next Lifetime" was sung by a woman contemplating infidelity; "On & On" borrowed the language of the 5 Percent Nation of Islam; "Tyrone" told a good-for- nothing lover to get lost.

In 2000 she released "Mama's Gun," a quiet, jazzy album that spawned one hit (the sublime "Bag Lady," based on a clever Dr. Dre sample) but failed to match the success of "Baduizm." Then, nothing: Ms. Badu has acknowledged that, after "Mama's Gun," she was "frustrated" by a case of writer's block. So she went on tour, spent time with her production group Freakquency — consisting of Ms. Badu, James Poyser, Rashad (Ringo) Smith and RC Williams — and returned from hibernation with "Worldwide Underground," which her record company is marketing, rather apologetically, as a 50-minute EP.

Ms. Badu prints her new manifesto on the cover. "Freakquency is born and neo-soul is dead," it reads."Are you afraid of change? Well, change makes dollars. Follow the leader." That's precisely the kind of defensive attitude that Outkast has spent a decade avoiding, but it seems to fit Ms. Badu's current mood.

Her new album uses subtle funk grooves to conjure up a murky, paranoid feeling; if André 3000 and Big Boi have figured out that love can be fun, Ms. Badu seems just as convinced that love can be terrifying, and her album suggests that desire is a form of spirit possession.

The disc's centerpiece is "I Want You," nine minutes of tension followed by two minutes of glorious release. It starts off with a one-chord keyboard riff in the pattern of a heartbeat — it could almost be a minimal techno track — and Ms. Badu describes her attempts at exorcism: "Tried to turn the sauna up to hotter/ Drank a whole glass of holy water

/ But it won't let go." The band stretches out the groove, adding and improvising until the shuddering heartbeat returns, slows and stops, replaced by a synthesizer solo that sounds a bit like an electrified harp. It ends with Ms. Badu's voice, almost inaudible: "Just 'cause I tell you I love you, don't mean that I do."

She finds a different way to explore the same theme on the single "Danger," which mimics the trebly, synthetic sound of Southern hip-hop. The lyrics tells the story of a drug dealer's girlfriend, at once desperate and defiantly proud, as she waits for her man to come home. The chorus is a mesmerizing collision of similar-sounding syllables: "I got the block on lock, the trunk stay locked/ Glock on cock, the block stay hot." Ms. Badu turns a familiar hip-hop crime narrative into a lovesick fugue of fear and loyalty.

It's not hard to understand why some Erykah Badu fans are disappointed by "Worldwide Underground." The album is essentially one long groove, with plenty of ambience but not a lot of songwriting. And the spooky mood never dissipates. Even on the good-natured posse cut "Love of My Life Worldwide," Ms. Badu suggests that love is sorcery: when she intones, "I got the hazel eyes/ To make your nature rise," she seems to be casting a spell.

It's clear that Ms. Badu doesn't share Outkast's knack for popularization, for making the strange seem familiar. In fact, she seems to be blessed — or maybe cursed — with the opposite skill. She's a first-rate depopularizer, able to make even the familiar sounds of 1970's jazz and funk seem strange.

This is a perverse sort of talent — in fact, most singers would probably see it as a liability. But there's a lot to be said for Ms. Badu's mysterious approach. It may never inspire the kind of contagious excitement generated by "Speakerboxxx/The Love Below," but "Worldwide Underground" has its own charms — the album evokes an unsettling feeling that's hard to figure out and even harder to shake. While Outkast delights in unearthing new sounds, Ms. Badu does something just as valuable. She turns every song into a burial rite, gathering up her favorite grooves and putting them back underground.

Selling you a new past - Zaltman and Memory Morphing

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/media/story.jsp?story=455650

You've eaten a chocolate bar and you didn't really like it. Can a commercial afterwards persuade you that you did? 'Memory morphing' could be a powerful weapon for advertisers. But, asks David Benady, will they dare use it?

Selling you a new past - Zaltman and Memory Morphing
October 21, 2003

Is your memory playing tricks on you, or did you find shopping at your over-priced supermarket last week a wonderful experience? Did you have a great time on that lacklustre package holiday a couple of years ago? And are you quite sure whether you enjoyed that cold, tasteless meal the other day?

Advertisers have found a new way to mess with your mind.

A group of US marketing researchers claim that brand owners can make their customers believe they had a better experience of a product or service than they really did by bombarding them with positive messages after the event. Advocates of the technique, known as "memory morphing", claim it can be used to improve customers' perceptions of products and encourage them to repeat their purchases and recommend brands to friends.

Its chief cheerleader is Professor Jerry Zaltman, a psychologist attached to Harvard Business School. He claims that advertising - "if properly constructed" - can lead to the creation of false memories.

"When asked, many consumers insist that they rely primarily on their own first-hand experience with products - not advertising - in making purchasing decisions. Yet, clearly, advertising can strongly alter what consumers remember about their past, and thus influence their behaviours," he writes in his book, How Customers Think. He says that memories are malleable, changing every time they come to mind, and that brands can use this to their advantage. "What consumers recall about prior product or shopping experiences will differ from their actual experiences if marketers refer to those past experiences in positive ways," he continues.

Zaltman has worked in the past with many big brand owners, such as Coca-Cola, Nestlé, Procter & Gamble, Motorola, Reebok and General Motors, though it is not known whether his advice covered memory morphing.

But Coca-Cola's UK president, Tom Long, speaking at a marketing conference earlier this year, seemed to get close to giving his seal of approval to the technique. He said that memory morphing "is something Coca-Cola was pleased to learn [about]." And he went on to advise marketers: "Try to morph the memory of your consumers."

British advertising agencies say Zaltman has contacted them offering advice on how to use memory morphing techniques. But none of the agencies contacted by The Independent has admitted taking up the offer.

Zaltman's extraordinary claims are based on experiments carried out by memory researchers in the US, most notably the work carried out by Elizabeth Loftus, a former professor of psychology at the University of Washington. She singled out a campaign by Disney - "Remember the magic" - which, she claimed, was used to invoke real or imaginary childhood memories in consumers.

She reported an experiment in which people were shown an advert suggesting that children who visited Disneyland had the opportunity to shake hands with Bugs Bunny. Later, many of those who had seen the advert "remembered" meeting Bugs on childhood visits to the theme park, a feat that would have been impossible, given that the cartoon is a Warner Brothers character. Loftus said: "This brings forth ethical considerations. Is it OK for marketers to knowingly manipulate consumers' pasts?"

Earlier this year, other American psychologists announced research findings to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, showing the ease with which false memories can be implanted in people's minds. In a test by the cognitive psychologist Kathryn Braun- LaTour, a colleague of Zaltman's, participants were served an unpleasant-tasting orange drink spiked with salt and vinegar. They were then shown adverts suggesting the drink was refreshing. Sure enough, many of the participants later reported that they had found the drink refreshing.

While most experts deny that brands actively use memory morphing in their advertising, some believe it may be an inadvertent consequence. Erik du Plessis, chief executive of the South African arm of the world's leading advertising research firm, Millward Brown, has just written his own book on the psychological effects of advertising called The Advertised Mind.

He says: "There is evidence that memory morphing might happen, though I don't think anyone has actively tried to use it. Certainly some advertisements I have seen have a very good chance of doing it. There is advertising I can see that reminds me of good times I have had. I will probably remember the brand as having been there, although it might not have been." But he believes morphing can only take place in a "credible" way. If consumers have had a bad experience, it will be impossible to turn that into a positive memory.

Mark Earls, planning director of the advertising agency Ogilvy London, says Zaltman is promoting memory morphing as a research tool to help brand owners decide which adverts will be successful. If an ad can be shown to change people's memories of past experiences, this indicates it is very powerful. But he is sceptical about Zaltman's methods.

"The advance they are claiming to have made is in being able to monitor the brain as opposed to the mind, and measure the ways our brain changes when exposed to advertising. But this is old-fashioned.

"What is important these days is not what advertising does to consumers, so much as how consumers use advertising to make statements about themselves to other people," concludes Earls.

Zaltman may be portrayed as a maverick whose ideas are irrelevant to modern advertising. But he argues that significant advances have been made in neuroscience over the past 10 years, and he believes that the unconscious mind is a great unexplored area for marketers.

But will he persuade an industry that knows it would face a public outcry if consumers found out advertisers were using his technique? Perhaps not.

Richard Huntington, head of planning at the agency HHCL/Red Cell, says: "It is the last refuge of the scoundrel to say that there's bugger all we can tell you about this product, so we'll pretend that you all had great Christmases."

Jesus actor struck by lightning

Greg, thought you might find this interesting ... I still remember the time when you saw the Michelin men and also scenes of the cross ... And how come your image page is down ... http://www.clark.net/pub/webbge/jesus.htm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/3209223.stm

Jesus actor struck by lightning
October 23, 2003

Actor Jim Caviezel has been struck by lightning while playing Jesus in Mel Gibson's controversial film The Passion Of Christ.
The lightning bolt hit Caviezel and the film's assistant director Jan Michelini while they were filming in a remote location a few hours from Rome.

It was the second time Michelini had been hit by lightning during the shoot.

Neither of them was badly hurt, according to the film's producer Steve McEveety.

Michelini had previously been struck during filming in Matera, Italy, when he suffered light burns to his fingers after lightning hit his umbrella.

Describing the second lightning strike, McEveety told VLife, a supplement of the trade paper Variety: "I'm about a hundred feet away from them when I glance over and see smoke coming out of Caviezel's ears."

The Passion Of Christ, which was filmed in the ancient languages of Latin and Aramaic, is directed and co-written by actor Mel Gibson and focuses on the last 12 hours in the life of Jesus.

Although it is not due for release until early next year, it has already hit headlines after Jewish figures in the United States slated it for being "dangerous" and portraying Jews in a negative way.

Originally titled The Passion, the film changed its title last week after Miramax claimed the rights to the title for one of its own projects, a historical epic based on a Jeanette Winterson novel.

The film now looks set to be released in the States by independent distributors Newmarket Films, who released Memento and Whale Rider in the US.

The Muse Is in the Software - Kurzweil patents a Dada Poetry Generator

Hey Greg, this sounds very much like the Dada Poetry Generator that you had about 12 years ago - and this got patented ?

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/24/technology/24patent.html

The Muse Is in the Software - Kurzweil patents a Dada Poetry Generator
By TERESA RIORDAN
 November 24, 2003

INVENTING is about catching the wave," said Ray Kurzweil, who addressed a national convention of inventors in Philadelphia last Monday. "Most inventions fail not because the inventor can't get them to work but because the invention comes at the wrong time."

Mr. Kurzweil should know. An inventor in the field of artificial intelligence, he has started and sold several companies for millions of dollars.

On Nov. 11, Mr. Kurzweil and John Keklak, an engineer, received patent No. 6,647,395, covering what Mr. Kurzweil calls a cybernetic poet. Essentially, it is software that allows a computer to create poetry by imitating but not plagiarizing the styles and vocabularies of human poets.

It works something like a cyberblender. The poetically challenged (or those with temporary writer's block) can toss in rhymes and rhythms and alliterations from already written poems. These whir around a bit, then out pours a new poem.

Here is a poem the cybernetic poet wrote after "reading" poems by Wendy Dennis, a poet employed by Mr. Kurzweil:

Sashay down the page

through the lioness

nestled in my soul.

While other poetry-generating software exists, Mr. Kurzweil said, it is less sophisticated.

"Those are fixed, fill-in-the-blank approaches that resemble the Mad Libs game," he said. "They are not really trying to create new patterns based on a more flexible pattern structure."

Many of Mr. Kurzweil's inventions, including the cybernetic poet, are based on pattern recognition. "The real power of human thinking is based on recognizing patterns," he said. The better computers get at pattern recognition, the more humanlike they will become.

So does Mr. Kurzweil predict that his cybernetic poet will "catch the wave"?

"This is a useful aid to real-life poets looking for inspiration or for help with alliteration or rhyming," he said. "But I am not intending for it to be a huge money maker."

A version of the cybernetic poet can be downloaded free from www.kurzweilcyberart.com. The deluxe version is $29.95.

Mr. Phoenix Turns Tumbledown Into Taj - Rennovating Historic Homes

I know Bobby and Adam would love this ...

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/20/garden/2...nted=print&position=

Mr. Phoenix Turns Tumbledown Into Taj
By MITCHELL OWENS
November 20, 2003

THE PLAINS, Va. THE three-story house here owned by Christopher Ohrstrom appears pretty much as it might have in the 1830's, all pearl-white clapboard and window glass so wavy it always looks as if it's raining outside. Nearby stands a barn that dates from before the Civil War. And clustered around the two buildings are several modest white structures, including a privy where one of Robert E. Lee's sons is said to have hidden from Union soldiers.

From the looks of things, it's just another of the prosperous farms on the outskirts of this town of 266 people, within an hour's drive of Washington. The Plains is deep in manicured horse country out of a Constable painting, a place where old-money millionaires like Bunny Mellon cultivate anonymity.

But think again. Here at Lee Hall, where Mr. Ohrstrom, 47, an expert on early American decorative arts, lives with his wife, Lilla, 38, a sculptor, and their four children, everything old has been built again.

Since 1996, when they moved from upstate New York to this town, where both grew up, the Ohrstroms have been living a home-improvement project that puts "This Old House" to shame. Seven buildings on the 160-acre farm are Southern ruins dismantled like jigsaw puzzles and brought to the site by Mr. Ohrstrom and a team of craftsmen. Each building has been reconstructed and restored, one hand-forged nail at a time, to become part of the Ohrstrom family compound.

Up next is a condemned 1840's squab house, or pigeon coop, from a plantation in Hanover County, Va. (A curator at Colonial Williamsburg, part of what Mr. Ohrstrom jokingly called an information food chain "that knows which brand of heroin you like," alerted him to its scheduled destruction.) Destined to become a playhouse, it will be the last rehabilitation project at Lee Hall.

That is, if nobody tries to reclaim one of the buildings. "If somebody wants it back when I'm done, they can have it," Mr. Ohrstrom said, peering inside a circa-1830 one-room kitchen that will become his home office. It sounds crazy, but Mr. Ohrstrom insisted that it was true. He can absorb the loss: his mother was an oil heiress from Texas, and his father was an investor. But, he added, "I'd rather lose a building to someone who thinks it should return to its original site" than lose money on something like horse breeding.

Lilla Ohrstrom flashed a tolerant grin. "Chris has turned this place into the S.P.C.A. of abandoned buildings," she said. She has accepted his passion for restoring old buildings since meeting him 17 years ago at a ball in Newport, R.I. ("I was hunting for debs and got a keeper," he said.)

Take note: The buildings at the Ohrstrom spread are not name-brand architectural triumphs. Rather, they are vernacular survivors of a kind that can be encountered across the United States, from outhouses rendered useless by modern plumbing to farmhouses so rotted that no insurance company will touch them. But saving one can be prohibitively expensive. Mr. Ohrstrom's barn, which combines old-fashioned post-and-beam construction with more modern balloon-frame technology, cost a bargain price of $2,000. Restoring it, however, cost $100,000, a sum that included conservation materials like an Abatron epoxy that helps solidify deteriorated wood.

"The point is to use as little new material as possible," said Doug Vickers, a master carpenter and house dismantler in Ancaster, Ontario. He has helped Mr. Ohrstrom salvage numerous buildings over the years, including a Federal house that now stands at the Farmers' Museum in Cooperstown, N.Y. "You don't want to put all that struggle and effort into a building unless you're going to be authentic," Mr. Vickers said.

At the main residence in the compound, an L-shaped, 5,400-square-foot house moved from Mecklenburg County, Va., called Lee Hall, history doesn't just live, it crackles, thanks in part to Mr. Ohrstrom's spirited décor. The dining room's woodwork is painted eye-popping Prussian blue, a color that was all the rage in the early 19th century. Across the hall in the living room, two dozen exotic 1790's views of the Orient by Thomas and William Daniell are glued onto the walls in the manner of a Georgian print room. (Stay calm: they are digital reproductions.)

Floors are covered with boldly patterned ingrain carpeting, the wall-to-wall of the 1800's, and archaic push-button light switches give the impression that Lee Hall was last rewired around 1900. It's an artifice that conforms to Mr. Ohrstrom's belief that alterations to an old house should follow what he called "a plausible chronology."

He and Alexandra di Valmarana, a historic buildings conservator, also made the new stacked back porches look like 1910 Colonial Revival additions.

Initially, Mr. Ohrstrom wanted a Mount Vernon-style piazza, but Mr. Vickers balked, telling him, "If you build that, I don't want anything to do with this place. You'll ruin it." (Ms. di Valmarana saved the day with an alternative design.) Mr. Vickers even had some reservations about the décor. "The colors were outlandish and the carpets absolutely gaudy," he said last week by telephone from his home in Canada. "But I was really surprised how wonderful it looked when it all came together."

Respect for old-fashioned décor aside, Mr. Ohrstrom is no Luddite. (His children would not mind if he proved it by buying the family a television set.) The antique buildings serve modern purposes. The air-conditioning system is tucked inside the 1840's dairy, and a freezer resides in an 1835 smokehouse. Still, "The kids say it's like living in a museum," Mr. Ohrstrom said.

His son Elias, 14, responded with an exaggerated eye roll and said, "That's because it is a museum" before heading down an arsenic-green staircase to the sunny raised basement. There Elias, his sister Delilah, 12, and younger brother, Finley, 7, live in an environment more to their liking. (The baby of the family, Georgina, 15 months, has a bedroom upstairs.) Anchoring Elias's room, for example, is a mirrored platform bed he designed himself. "This is what happens when you don't have television," Mr. Ohrstrom said, just slightly defensively. "If the kids think of it, they can do it."

Later, he went outside to work on a project of his own: painting a 19th-century window with a historically correct reproduction sash brush and hand-mixed white paint. "I don't like modern life very much," he conceded. "Excellence is out of fashion, and convenience is king."

The children may not entirely appreciate what their father has wrought, but in historic decorative-arts circles, Mr. Ohrstrom is a star. He lectures across the country on early wallcoverings, a passion sparked the day he pried up a molding in upstate New York and found a fragment of an important 19th-century French scenic paper called Cupid and Psyche. (He and a business partner, Steve Larson, own Adelphi Paper Hangings, based in The Plains. It makes meticulous hand-blocked reproductions of more than 40 wallpapers and 17 borders good enough for Colonial Williamsburg and the Smithsonian to hang in some of their period rooms. Prices start at $325 for an 11-yard roll; information www.adelphipaperhangings.com or 540-253-5367.)

The curators of Monticello hired Mr. Ohrstrom and Mr. Larson to repaint its famous dome room, a coup they described as akin to winning the Super Bowl. And in recent years, Mr. Ohrstrom has begun restoring buildings in Falmouth, Jamaica, a depressed port with a collection of 18th- and 19th-century British Colonial architecture. "We've saved 18 buildings so far," he said. He envisions a renewed Falmouth as a place that could support restaurants, hotels and a slavery museum.

Not every business venture has been an unalloyed success. His line of 18th-century-style linseed oil paint bombed. "I was dead wrong about that one," he said cheerfully. "It was not a mass-market product."

Historic preservation is not necessarily the career path his parents would have chosen for him. After a hard-drinking period at the University of Virginia, which he laughingly called "very Dylan Thomas," he spent 18 dispiriting months in Strasbourg, France, working for an electronics business owned by his family. "I hated every minute of it," Mr. Ohrstrom said.

Perhaps because he had already spent his formative years in a sort of Brideshead of architecture and design. After his parents divorced, his mother married the Second Viscount Rothermere, a British newspaper magnate who owned The Daily Mail. For him, the downside of moving to England at the age of 10 was the class-consciousness. "It was bad enough that I was American, but it was considered far worse that my mother was Texan," he said.

The upside was Daylesford, his stepfather's 18th-century Anglo-Indian house in Gloucestershire, decorated in the late 1950's and early 60's by the London designer John Fowler, an inspired historicist.

Eight years ago, Mr. Ohrstrom's father died, spurring his decision to build a home in Virginia on land he inherited. Its centerpiece would be Lee Hall, an 1818 house that had been abandoned since the 1940's. Every window was smashed, the columned portico had collapsed into a heap, and thick woods hid it from view in Mecklenburg County in southwest Virginia, about 150 miles from The Plains.

"I lived an eighth of a mile away but never knew it was there," said Randy Snowten, 37. But Mr. Snowten was looking for extra money, and when he heard that Mr. Vickers and Mr. Ohrstrom were dismantling the house, he and his brothers came to help. Then Mr. Snowten came here and spent months chipping old mortar from thousands of chimney bricks. Today, he is Mr. Ohrstrom's farm manager and lives on the property with his wife, Portia, and their four boys.

"I wish restoration was chic, like Buddhism," Mr. Ohrstrom said. "It really should be a movement, with a Dalai Lama to get people interested."

Mr. Ohrstrom might just be that man. Seeing the home he has assembled on this once-barren hilltop, friends have urged him to find orphan buildings for them too. As for Mr. Snowten, he knows what he is going to do when he retires. "I will not build a new house," he said. "I'm going to go in the woods and find me an old one and fix it up."

Could I Get That Song in Elvis, Please?

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/23/arts/mus...nted=print&position=

Could I Get That Song in Elvis, Please? - The "Virtual" "Real" Singer in the Box
By BILL WERDE
Bill Werde writes about the arts and technology.
November 23, 2003

Imagine having a singer with a world-class voice at your disposal, any hour of any day. She's just standing at the ready, game to perform whatever silly song you might make up for her: a ballad about her love for you, a tribute to your best friend's golf game, a stirring rendition of the evening's dinner menu.

Close friends of Madonna or Mariah may already have had that pleasure, but for everyone else a new technology called Vocaloid may offer the next best thing. Developed at Pompeu Fabra University in Spain and financed by the Yamaha Corporation, the software, which is due to be released to consumers in January, allows users to cast their own (or anyone else's) songs in a disembodied but exceedingly life-like concert-quality voice. Just as a synthesizer might be programmed to play a series of notes like a violin one time and then like a tuba the next, a computer equipped with Vocaloid will be able to "sing" whatever combination of notes and words a user feeds it. The first generation of the software will be available for $200. But its arrival raises the prospect of a time when anyone with a laptop will be able to repurpose any singer's voice or even bring long-gone virtuosos back to life. In an era when our most popular singers are marketed in every conceivable way ? dolls, T-shirts, notebooks, make-up lines ? the voice may become one more extension of a pop-star brand.

The human voice has proven the most difficult of all sounds to synthesize. Digital technology can produce something clear enough to convey meaning, but only in a clipped monotone that sounds more like a robot than a real live person. A convincing human voice, spoken or sung, with all its complex, flowing articulations and quivering uncertainties has been unattainable. Yamaha has not yet made Vocaloid available for scrutiny, but judging by some early samples and demonstrations, the company seem to have made that quantum leap.

You can think of the software as a kind of audio font: musical notation and lyrics can be translated into the chosen voice, then saved for replay, just as a word processor might translate a text into Helvetica or Times New Roman and print it out as many times as you like.

These fonts are made up of a database of phonemes, the basic sounds that make up any language. To create the database, technicians record a singer performing as many as 60 pages of scripted articulations (like "epp, pep, lep"). Assorted pitches and techniques like glissandos and legatos are also thrown in the mix; with all the combinations, the process takes a week of five-hour singing days. The resultant font is "reminiscent" of the singer's voice, says Ed Stratton, the managing director of Zero-G Limited, a London-based company that has licensed the Vocaloid technology.

Zero-G is using Vocaloid to create the first of these fonts: Leon, described as a "Virtual Soul Vocalist," and Lola, his female counterpart. The digitized duo will make their debut in January at the International Music Products Association conference in Anaheim, Calif.

The technology first attracted attention in March at Musikmesse, an annual music technology conference in Germany. Paul White, the editor of the British audio gear magazine Sound on Sound, was there for the demonstration. "A few simple tools were used to adjust inflection, tone, vibrato and so on," wrote Mr. White. "Within minutes, the computer was singing like a professional!" A Vocaloid version of the song "Amazing Grace" ? recorded with prototype technology, yet still more human sounding than any previous vocal synthesis ? was released on Yamaha's Web site shortly after the conference. Quickly, that sample drew links from sites in the Netherlands, Germany, France, Japan, Russia and the United States, setting Internet message boards and chat rooms buzzing.

In the case of Leon and Lola, session singers were hired to record what Mr. Stratton calls "generic soul-singing voices." The decision to start with soul was purely a marketing calculation: Mr. Stratton figured that the most common use of Vocaloid, at least in its early stages, would be to serve as background singers. With a soulful sound, the company could target a commercial market that ranges from Justin Timberlake to Jay-Z.

But Mr. Stratton has many more plans. Soon, he said: "You'll buy new fonts and then any song you write, you can hear it sung a number of ways. You might hear what it sounds like sung by a soul singer, and then an operatic voice or a choir boy."

Hit music producers like Dan (The Automator) Takemura (a creator of the Gorillaz, a band that appeared only in an animated form, but sold several million albums anyway) and the Matrix (the trio of Scott Spock, Graham Edwards and his wife, Lauren Christy, that produced the three No. 1 hits from Avril Lavigne's last album) say they are likely at least to try recording with Vocaloid instead of backup singers. "As producers, you run into some artists and oh god, it's so hard to get the right vocal," Mr. Spock said. "It's intriguing, this idea of `O.K., just give me all your vowels and all your consonants and I'll see you later.' "

Mr. Takemura says he would want to use the software to create sounds that human voices could not. "The first producers to work with this are probably going to have a hit just based on the novelty factor," he said. But, he warns, "it's the imperfections in a voice, the happy accidents, the human-ness that are often what's best in a song."

The market for synthesized voices extends well beyond recorded music. For example, cell phone ring tones ? a rapidly expanding field ? already use synthesized voices to personalize incoming calls. The DA Group, a Scottish company, uses patented technologies to animate several popular virtual stars, including Ananova, the British newscaster who exists solely online as a lifelike, digital countenance, and Maddy, the bank teller avatar who is being tested on ATM's in several markets around the United States. After listening to some Vocaloid samples online, Mike Antliff, the company's chief executive, said, "I'm going to have my research team look into this as soon as I get off the phone."

Vocaloid's next application will be Miriam, a third font that Zero-G expects to release later in 2004. (A Japanese company, Crypton, expects to release its own font ? "Japanese Pops," a bubbly female voice ? in March.) Miriam is based on recordings of Miriam Stockley, a singer for the new age group Adiemus, which has worldwide album sales in excess of several million. "At first I was quiet horrified by the idea," Ms. Stockley said. "People tend to pay a lot of money to get my sound, and here I am putting it on a font."

She changed her mind, she said, because "you can't fight progress, no matter how strange it sounds." She also negotiated an undisclosed percentage for each copy of Miriam that sells. But once Miriam the vocal font is out there in the public, Ms. Stockley the actual singer has little control of how it will be used. Anyone who legally purchases the font is entitled to use it to write songs for commercial purposes, though they're not allowed to market them as Ms. Stockley's own recordings.

Mr. Stratton reiterated the point, "when vocal fonts are used, the performer is the user and Vocaloid is an instrument."

In the long term, Mr. Stratton is aware that the true killer application will be recognizable celebrity fonts ? the Elton, say, or the Aretha. But so far, none of the world's most famous voices have volunteered.

Michael Stipe of R.E.M. heard a Vocaloid version of "Amazing Grace" online, and he said he was impressed. (The Yamaha Corporation includes samples with a recent press release at www.global.yamaha.com/news/20030304b.html.) But he wasn't prepared to rush out and have a font created. "I would hate to think that 250 years from now Altria would use the Michael Stipe voice to sell organic soy to a Mars landing," he said. "It's intriguing in 2003. I'm not sure about 2303."

If Napster and other online file-trading programs have taught the world anything, it's that once a technological cat is out of the bag, it can be difficult to control. What's to stop dilettantes from creating their own fonts? Could it be long before falsified but entirely convincing clips of Britney Spears begging for Justin's forgiveness circulate on the Web ? to say nothing of George Bush conspiring with Tony Blair about weapons of mass destruction?

"It is a matter of time before Yamaha makes this technology available for consumers to make their own fonts," Mr. Stratton said. But at present, the process, which requires a deep knowledge of phonetics and audio engineering, is too complex for ordinary consumers. Even if an ingenious audiophile were to untangle the process, however, he would still need a database of thousands of articulations ? more than someone would be likely to cobble together from available recordings. As for famous voices now lost to time, if they left behind a substantial enough catalog, it might be possible to produce at least a portion of the required phoneme database. The rest of the required vocals could come from a sound-alike singer.

Elvis seems like an obvious candidate for vocal reanimation. Recently (and for the first time), his estate licensed a couple of his songs for dance-floor remixes; one of them became a No. 1 single in England. Licensing Elvis for Vocaloid would be a different matter, though, says Gary Hovey, vice-president of entertainment for Elvis Presley Enterprises. "If someone came to us and said, `We want Elvis to sing this new song,' we'd have a lot to contemplate," he said. "We tried to retain the integrity of his original song with the remixes. Now you're talking about a whole new vocal performance of a song he never sang or knew? How do we know he'd want to sing it?"

"Believe me, that would go all the way to Lisa," he added, referring to Elvis's daughter, Lisa Marie Presley, who owns Elvis's estate.

Still, there is the potential for enormous money to be made, even by Elvis standards. How much would an advertiser pay to have Elvis sing a new jingle? How easily would a new "Elvis" song climb the pop charts ? if only for the novelty value? Mr. Stratton is optimistic about the prospect. "No font comes out of the box with a singer's timing and expressions," he said. "It's just the tone of his voice and his pronunciations. The finer bits of expression ? timing, pitch bend, the sorts of things that add real character ? would have to be added by the user working with the font. It would take a great deal of effort to make it sound just like Elvis. But you could do it."

Once a full palette of vocal fonts is available (or once Yamaha allows users to create their own), the possibilities become mind-boggling: a chorus of Billie Holiday, Louis Armstrong and Frank Sinatra; Marilyn Manson singing show tunes and Barbra Streisand covering Iron Maiden. And how long before a band takes the stage with no human at the mike, but boasting an amazing voice, regardless?

In fact, in today's world of computer-produced music, who needs humans at all? Vocaloid could be used as part of an integrated music-generating machine. Start with any number of existing programs that randomly generate music. Run those files through Hit Song Science, the software that has analyzed 3.5 million songs to determine mathematic patterns in hit music. (Major labels are already taking suggestions from it ? "Slower tempo, please, and a little more melody at the bridge.") Throw in a lyric-generating program, several of which can be found free online, and then route the notes and lyrics through Vocaloid to give the song a voice. It might not be a hit, but the process could provide inspiration for a lot of lonely songwriters.

At this early stage of its development, the future life of this technology is as much fun to think about as the almost-human voices could be to play with. At the very least, Vocaloid promises to bring a whole new copyright-infringing definition to the phrase "losing one's voice." We may soon know if an unmanned computer could produce hit singles or the voice of tomorrow's virtual pop hero. Lisa Marie, any thing to say about that? And really, can we even be certain it's you?

Playing Mogul - Vide Games as Art - Bruno of Atari

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/21/magazine...nted=print&position=

Playing Mogul - Vide Games as Art - Bruno of Atari
By JONATHAN DEE
December 21, 2003

No appointment with Bruno Bonnell ever begins on time, and here's why. Our first meeting takes place just after Bonnell, the French C.E.O. of Atari , has returned from a 15-city, cross-country ''road show'' designed to rally skeptical investors behind a new issue of Atari stock. The company founded in 1972 (and bankrupt in 1998) was scooped up by Bonnell three years ago as part of an acquisition binge. There was a great deal at stake for him -- and for the company that once was to video games what Ford was to cars -- and so the first question posed to him is, simply, How did it go?

''Before I go into your question,'' he replies, ''can I just go back a little?'' And I think, Fine, he wants to contextualize his answer with a quick overview of Atari's checkered history -- or perhaps of the booming video-game industry as a whole -- but no. He means to go back to the age of the caveman.

''At that time,'' Bonnell says, ''they had two ways of entertainment. One was the chief of the tribe telling about the hunting of the day -- how big the tiger's teeth were, how brave this guy was when he went to hit the mammoth with the stick or whatever. And that was to impress the crowd. The fun, the thrills, were coming from this impression that you got from outside. Then they moved into painting on the cave walls, then writing stories, then the stories started moving, like cinema, and the cinema went to television. Still the same system. The media of impression.''

Born 45 years ago in Algeria, Bonnell now divides his time between New York and France. He speaks an excellent but heavily accented English. Transcription cannot do justice to his idiosyncratic pronunciation of a word like ''gratuitous,'' or ''ethical,'' or ''Xbox.''

''The second way of entertainment they had was to take two sticks, beat them together and dance around the fire,'' he continues. ''And here the thrill was not about being impressed but about expressing yourself. That moves into the invention of musical instruments, getting different emotions from different styles of music, growing the music experience into opera or whatever. And that really leads into the video game. Playing with a joystick is basically the same move as playing a piano; the thrill is not what you get from outside, but what you express from inside. Whether it's a piano or a chessboard or a joypad, that's your technology, and you express yourself through it.

''Very often, people talk about the video-game business from a pure financial point of view. Numbers, percentages, market share, all those subjects -- we don't care. And the mass market, they don't care either. What they want is to see if, at the end of the day, this form of entertainment is going to be a part of their life or not. The answer is yes. Big time.''

As he gets rolling, Bonnell twists around in his seat, as if barely able to contain his energy. Compact, round-shouldered, with a clean-shaven head and tiny wire-rim glasses, he resembles a human bullet.

''The golden age of movies is gone. That's it. It's a fact. What they do today to survive is they multiply the special effects to catch up with what the kids want, because they've seen it in the incredible universes of these video games. It used to be, 'Well, let's make a movie and then make a video game version as a licensed product.' The next step to this will be the collaboration between the stories, between the complexity of their stories and the personal expression of the video game. This product doesn't exist yet, but it will. Think about this kind of game, where you'll be in a kind of Star Wars environment, you'll have X thousand people playing together at the same time; you could just spend your day watching the screen and waiting for the stories to happen, or else you can decide to enter the game and take your own little path, all in real time. Or let's say you see a movie and your character is in the jungle, there's a snake there, you see the snake but he hasn't seen it, he's smoking a cigarette, talking to his girlfriend. You're like: 'The snake! The snake!' And the character on the screen says: 'A snake? Where?' But if you choose not to say anything, then he just goes on doing what he's doing. The movie people don't anticipate this revolution. They better watch their back. We're right there. Big time.

''Wake up! Something is happening there! I was trying to convince my boy to learn Chinese. You know what his answer was? 'Why do I care about learning Chinese? By the time I master Chinese, we'll have computer phones where you'll be able to talk in French or English and it will be translated into Chinese in real time.' And he is right! I am wrong! I mean, who cares about speaking in Chinese, because we'll be able to communicate like in 'Star Trek.' We'll have automatic translation, and we'll be able to talk. And you know the wonder of this? This is all video games. This is why it's so interesting. And we haven't even touched the depth of all the education that you can derive from there. But just in terms of fun, that's where we're going. So all this is a big loop to get back to your question.''

Question? Oh, right: the road show. Turns out it was a big success; Atari recapitalized to the tune of $200 million, wiped out all its toxic long-term debt practically overnight and lives to fight for market share another day. It's difficult to imagine even those roomfuls of analysts and number-crunchers not bending at least a little bit beneath the charismatic intensity of Bonnell's vision. (''You can't send him out there with a script,'' says Nancy Bushkin, director of corporate communications for Atari, ''because that's just not Bruno.'') As with anyone who sees the future, you might start out listening with a little smile on your face, but in the end it's awfully hard not to pay attention.

as there ever been a cultural sea change as stealthy as the one represented by the rise of interactive entertainment? To anyone who came of age after, say, the introduction of the first Sony Playstation in 1995, video gaming is every bit as central to the pop-entertainment universe as movies or music, while to anyone older than that, it seems like one of those strange customs indigenous to the country of the young, in which the revenge fantasies of lonely teenage geeks are harmlessly siphoned off in some vaguely Dungeons-and-Dragons-like fantasy setting. No one would think of denying that video games are big, but few grown-ups outside the business have an understanding of just how big they've become.

Globally, the industry earned $28 billion in 2002, and in the United States, it's growing at around 20 percent a year. According to Fortune magazine, Americans will spend more time playing video games this year -- about 75 hours on average -- than watching rented videos and DVD's. A nationwide survey found that the percentage of last year's college students who had ever played video games was 100. Two games from the industry leader Electronic Arts, Madden NFL Football and FIFA Soccer, have each earned in excess of a billion dollars. (This year's Madden edition made more than $200 million alone.) For new and established musicians alike, games are the new radio; landing a spot on a video-game soundtrack is arguably more prestigious than landing a similar spot in a movie, a function not just of sales figures but also of the fact that the average Madden NFL 2004 buyer, for instance, will spend 100 hours in front of the game. Each statistic is more mind-boggling than the last, and together they certainly pose a challenge to conventional wisdom about which of these media is the tail and which is the dog.

For the completely uninitiated, a primer: There are games made to be installed and played on your personal computer, and then there are games that require a separate machine, or ''platform.'' The best known and most widely used platform is Sony's Playstation 2, and Sony has sold about 60 million units worldwide. In 2001, Microsoft, seeing which way the wind was blowing, introduced its own game platform, known as Xbox. Because it contains its own hard drive (thus cutting down on a game's ''loading'' time, and also making it more easily adaptable to online play), it's considered the superior machine -- at least until Playstation 3 debuts, probably in 2005 or 2006, to be followed thereafter by Xbox 2. Sony is also poised to introduce a portable version, the PSP (''the interactive Walkman,'' Bonnell calls it), to compete with Nintendo's ubiquitous GameBoy hand-held system and Nokia's new, hacker-bedeviled N-Gage.

Then there is the holy grail of gaming, the target at which the arrow of technology is squarely aimed: competition online, in real time, against friends or total strangers in remote locations. Known by the unwieldy abbreviation M.M.O.R.P.G. (''massively multiplayer online role-playing game''), this experience is available but has yet to catch fire; Xbox Live suffers from a dearth of game offerings, and even EA's phenomenal Sims franchise has sold poorly in its online version. Bonnell is more cautious than most about committing too many resources to this future too early; you can have the fanciest software in the world, he says, but until broadband access has really saturated the market, information will travel back and forth too slowly to make the customer's massively multiplayer experience satisfying enough to pay for. Still, the most popular current M.M.O.R.P.G., Lineage, has four million subscribers worldwide, primarily in South Korea, where the game is an outright phenomenon. In the long term, the revenue potential of online role-playing games is generally viewed as bottomless.

It's a gold rush, in which the very prosperity of the landscape is what makes it treacherous to inhabit; and so, over the past five years, Bonnell's unapologetic, Amazon.com-like survival strategy has been to get huge quickly and at virtually any cost. ''It's been a turbulent few years for Atari,'' says Edward Williams, an interactive-entertainment analyst with the investment firm Harris Nesbitt Gerard. ''But the critical piece for them was to reduce the debt burden'' -- which the new stock-issue accomplished -- ''and so I would say at this point they're in a pretty good position.''

Bonnell naturally agrees. ''If you look at the structure of our business today,'' he says, ''you have Electronic Arts running the pack, like 20 percent market share, and then you have a pack of five companies -- Activision, Atari, Take-Two, THQ, Konami -- which are all fighting in the range of 5 to 7 percent market share. At the end of the day, you'll end up with probably four to five players each controlling something between 15 and 20 percent market share, and probably a significant number of smaller players around. To be there, to be in this league, is critical. Because I believe that the big will be bigger and then the small will be smaller. And mechanically, if you're not in the right league -- it's like winning the Tour de France, right? You have to be in the first pack to have a chance. If you are too far behind, you can't really come back.''

It's a credo he reiterated earlier this fall at a yearly New York gathering known as the Playtime Conference, in which various new-media entities mount a series of sober pep rallies in front of an audience of institutional investors. As always, he spoke off the cuff, with a minimum of PowerPoint-ish bells and whistles, and in the end he charmed the room.

''We like the stock,'' whispered an analyst sitting next to me in the Grand Hyatt ballroom. ''It's a great story. We just started coverage yesterday.''

A half-hour earlier, in the standing-room-only ballroom next door, the chief financial officer of the mighty Electronic Arts offered his own vision of the future; globalization was its major theme. The atmosphere was like a war room; the numbers may not have been news to this audience, but they command respect just the same, and as the C.F.O. spoke in his quiet, even voice, the hush in the room was awesome. Bar graphs flashed across the video screen -- Return on Invested Capital, Profit Growth Rate -- and the surprising thing was not how EA dominated its competition in all these categories, but who, at this point, they consider their ''competition'' to be. Those little, squat bars next to EA's great big towers weren't representing Atari, Sega or Take-Two. Instead they symbolized Walt Disney, Time Warner and Viacom. That's the new playground that the self-styled ''Yankees of the industry'' are sizing up. ''We're not trying to win a championship,'' EA worldwide Studios president Don Mattrick tells me later. ''We're trying to build a dynasty.''


Anyone who thinks that just getting into the video-game business is a license to print money need only consider the history of Atari, and of how Bonnell came to own the name. An electrical engineer named Nolan Bushnell founded Atari (a Japanese word that approximates the chess term ''check'') in 1972, in Santa Clara, Calif., with two partners. Bushnell's initial investment was $250. The company's first full-time employee was a 17-year-old receptionist who used to baby-sit for Bushnell's kids, and its second was a young engineer named Al Alcorn, who, later that same year, invented what would become the primordial mother of video games, Pong. (One of Alcorn's own subsequent hires was a scruffy teenage dropout named Steve Jobs.) Four years later, Bushnell sold Atari to Warner Communications for $28 million. Two years after that, he was forced out of the company.

Despite its early leadership not just in the field of games but also in home computers themselves, Atari was, over the next two decades, mismanaged right into the ground. It was sold off in 1984, and again in 1996, until finally the Atari Corporation became the property of Hasbro Interactive after its parent company at the time, a disk-drive manufacturer called JTS, filed for bankruptcy.

Meanwhile, back in France around 1983, Bonnell and a high-school classmate wrote a primitive but seminal video game called Autoroute, in which a player guides a frog across a busy highway (similar to another popular game called Frogger). He parlayed that success into a gaming company called Infogrames, which over the next 15 years mushroomed into Europe's largest electronic-games publisher. As it grew, so, too, did Bonnell's ambitions for it as a global force; the biggest market, though, was still across the ocean in the U.S. So Infogrames began buying up American gaming concerns, including, in 2000, Hasbro Interactive -- primarily, it seems, because owning HI meant owning the rights to the Atari name. With that, Bonnell's company had an American pedigree. He went right on buying up game studios throughout the U.S. and bringing them under the new Atari umbrella. Has it worked? Infogrames still has some vultures circling it -- less than a year ago it laid off 280 of its 460 employees in France -- but Atari's market share has risen by 77 percent since 2001.

Unquestionably, Atari's boldest and most controversial venture under Bonnell was Enter the Matrix, the video-game version of the three-volume sci-fi juggernaut directed by the brothers Larry and Andy Wachowski. Released in 2003 on the same day as the second movie in the trilogy, the game worked off a 244-page script written by the Wachowskis themselves, and included scenes shot on the movie's sets and with the movie's actors, but exclusive to the game. It came closer than any game ever has to realizing Bonnell's own vision of the equivalent interplay of a story you passively watch and a story you choose to enter; it was also one of the best-selling games of the year. The controversy has to do with what Bonnell reportedly paid for it. Not only were other game publishers shocked by his agreement with the Wachowskis (considered so shamefully generous that it was posted on the Smoking Gun Web site), but in his single-minded pursuit of the game, Bonnell spent some $50 million to buy the entire studio, Shiny Entertainment, that already held the Matrix license.

To top it all off, Enter the Matrix received generally poor reviews from hard-core gamers. Still, Williams says that ''in general it probably helped them. It gave them a higher-profile property. It remains to be seen how beneficial it was economically. The acquisition of the studio was more than just the one game, so you have to see how that pans out over time.''

Mattrick offers a more interesting, if less sanguine, prediction for Atari's immediate future. ''Bruno is definitely provocative, incredibly passionate, an adventurer at heart,'' he says. ''The biggest challenge he's facing is that there's only one Bruno inside that company.''

hen Atari acquires a new company, it generally tries to keep the talent happy by not forcing anyone to relocate. So a significant part of Bonnell's schedule consists of traveling to these offices and development studios -- in Dallas, Seattle, Minneapolis, Los Angeles, Newcastle, in northern England -- to get updates and offer input. The largest studio, employing about 120 people, is in Beverly, a suburb of Boston; the office building itself, deep in the woods off Route 128, came as part of the Hasbro Interactive acquisition. Bonnell visits there every six weeks or so.

When I arrive at the Beverly office (Bonnell has been in Boston for a few days already, holed up with his son, who is preparing to take the SAT), the first thing I see is a kind of vindication of Bonnell's scrupulous hyping of the reborn Atari brand: the sign at the end of the driveway, with its distinctively retro logo, has been stolen. The office is as unprepossessing inside as out: on each of its three floors, offices run around the perimeter, enclosing a warren of small, low-walled cubicles festooned with personal photos and company advertising. The days when scruffy dropouts could show up and be hired are long gone.

At a conference table shaped like a giant staple, framed by windows looking out into a wall of past-peak foliage, Bonnell receives a daylong parade of game designers and marketing executives. The designers themselves conform only vestigially to the computer-age stereotype of the socially unskilled, Cheetos-eating genius, although they are all male, and at least one of them (who demonstrates, on a giant video screen, his in-progress game about global warfare) looks young enough to trigger a child-labor investigation. But theirs is no longer some marginalized culture of renegades. Some of the industry's best-known, name-above-the-title game designers (like Sid Meier, creator of the classic Civilization series) get a movie star's reception at trade shows and conventions. Perhaps their status as the technocultural advance guard is more widely acknowledged now, or perhaps it's just the fact that this is the one day every six weeks when they have to shine themselves up and impress the C.E.O.; but in a roomful of corporate honchos, the code writers don't stick out the way they used to. Still, when a bug appears in another in-progress game (a character walks past his airplane's control panel and his legs disappear), the glazed, deep-focus expression on the young designer's unlined face clearly says that he can't wait to get away from all of us and figure out where the error is.

Meanwhile, the mostly female marketing executives talk about how to further saturate the preschool market (a sample PowerPoint exhortation: ''Emphasize: PC Games Are Good for Your Kids'') and how to promote a new title called Kya: Dark Lineage, considered ground-breaking in that it CREATED=1072164417

For More People in 20's and 30's, Home Is Where the Parents Are

How quickly the years go by ...

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/22/nyregion...nted=print&position=

For More People in 20's and 30's, Home Is Where the Parents Are
By TAMAR LEWIN
December 22, 2003

On the job, James Navarro seems to be a model of mature adulthood. At 30, he is an appellate court lawyer in Brooklyn, working 50 hours a week on research to help judges decide cases.

But look at the rest of his life, and the picture becomes murkier.

Mr. Navarro lives with his parents in Queens. His mother packs lunch for him a few times a week. His bedroom still has his high school baseball trophies and a giant stuffed bunny that was a present from a former girlfriend. On weekends, he plays touch football and goes drinking and clubbing with his two best friends ? both about his age, fully employed and living with their parents, too.

"When I was in college, I thought I'd be married by 24 and have a house and kids by 30," Mr. Navarro said. "Now I think the idea of being an emotionally developed male by 24 is ridiculous. I want to get married and have kids someday. But I don't feel any pressure that it has to be soon."

Mr. Navarro is no loser: he is funny, good-looking, charming ? and typical of his generation's slowed-down approach to adulthood. To some extent, the data tells the story. Nearly all the traditional markers of adulthood, including marrying, getting a college degree and moving out of the family home, are occurring later than they did a generation ago.

The shape of life for those between 18 and 34 has changed so profoundly that many social scientists now think of those years as a new life stage, "transitional adulthood" ? just as, a century ago, they recognized adolescence as a life stage separating childhood from adulthood.

"There used to be a societal expectation that people in their early 20's would have finished their schooling, set up a household, gotten married and started their careers," said Frank F. Furstenberg Jr., a sociology professor at the University of Pennsylvania. "But now that's the exception rather than the norm. Ask most people in their 20's whether they're adults and you get a nervous laugh. They're not sure."

Sociologists say there are several indicators of this state of mind. Nationwide, the median age of first marriage, which hovered around 21 for women and 23 for men from the 1940's to the 1970's, has risen steadily since to 25 for women and 27 for men.

Education takes longer. Only about a third of those who go straight from high school to four-year residential colleges graduate four years later. With so many young people taking time out to make money or change direction, most education experts now use six-year graduation rates as their benchmarks.

Perhaps the most striking change, though, has been in the proportion of young adults nationwide who live with their parents. To be sure, the numbers remain small ? about 14 percent. Nonetheless, between 1970 and 2000, the most recent census, the percentage of 24- to 34-year-olds living with parents or grandparents increased by 50 percent. During the boom years of the 90's, the trend reversed slightly among those in their 20's but held steady among those in their 30's.

The Census Bureau's Current Population Survey shows that the numbers are on the rise again. The trend is most visible in New York ? 30 percent of the New York-Northeastern New Jersey area's 22- to 31-year-olds live with their parents ? followed by Los Angeles and other large, expensive cities. <b>

<b>The changes raise many policy concerns, chief among them that most American institutions are still built around the idea that people in their 20's are fully autonomous. Young adults coming out of the foster care system, or the juvenile justice system, get no continuing support. Health insurance cuts off, even for 20-somethings in affluent families.

Then, too, the longer transition to adulthood has striking implications for parenthood.

"Parenting used to be thought of as a life stage of about 18 years," said Robert Schoeni, a professor at the University of Michigan who works at its Institute for Social Research. "If it means continuing support for 30 or even 34 years, that's not always comfortable for parents who were raised under very different conditions and were expected to be on their own much earlier."

In part, Professor Furstenberg and others say, the longer transition to adulthood reflects an economy in which most jobs that pay enough to support middle-class life require years of advanced education. For most young people, that means years of semiautonomy, in which they piece together loans, part-time jobs and whatever money their families can provide. Many spend their 20's and early 30's shuttling between college and work, professional school and travel, community service and internships, never earning enough to settle down, marry and raise a child.

Nancy Dye, president of Oberlin College, said that whereas most graduates used to go straight on to graduate school, having chosen at least a preliminary career path, many now stick around, uncertain of their direction. A few years ago, she said, "students came up with a new term, F.T.L. ? failure to launch."

In interviews with dozens of 20-somethings, most say they share a sense that there is no right time to have completed their education, lived on their own or gotten married, that such fixed expectations have no place in their lives. And many see it as beneficial to step slowly and gradually into adult life.

"I think it's great, and really important, to take time to date and travel and hang out with your friends," said Elisabeth Levy, 28, a catering sales manager at a private club in Midtown Manhattan. "This way, when you do finally settle down, you're really ready, and you don't wake up at 33, married with two kids and a house, and trapped, like `How did this happen?' and `What did I do with my life?' "

Those living at home, even if employed in good jobs, often describe their arrangements as sensible and mature, in that instead of throwing away money on rent, they are saving money toward their future. And if, meanwhile, they are back in their childhood bedrooms, working at low-paying jobs to save enough to continue their educations or buy homes, they say, that is no tragedy.

For many, the 20's are a floating, flexible, exploratory time.

"For the last few years, my life has been so up in the air," said Jennie Schneier, 24, who works part time in public radio. "Several of my friends have started applying to grad schools. One is applying to three different types of grad school ? law, business and photography ? to see where she'll get in.

"I find grad school appealing, too, because I like the idea of settling into something. But I don't have any idea what to study."

Ms. Schneier, who has lived with her parents for three years, recently moved from an unpaid internship to a job where she is paid one day a week. "Sometimes I think it's ridiculous that I'm about to turn 25 and can't support myself," she said. "I've regressed a little since I've been back with my parents: If I'm home by 6:30, there's dinner on the table. And my dad does the laundry."

The Research Network on Adult Transitions, a team of social scientists directed by Professor Furstenberg and financed by the MacArthur Foundation, has for years been gathering data on 18- to 34-year-olds: when they reach the traditional markers (later, throughout the Western world), what they think constitutes adulthood (self-sufficiency, a full-time job and an independent household, but not necessarily marriage or children), when they feel most adult (at work), how much support they get from their parents (on average, $38,000, or $2,200 a year from 18 to 34).

The return to the nest of children in their 20's and 30's can be a jolt for parents. Several parents with newly returned children, who would not be quoted by name for fear of hurting their children's feelings, agreed that despite the pleasures of having their offspring close at hand, their return had been stressful and, in some cases, disruptive of their plans to sell a large home, retire or move.

Suddenly, they say, everything is up for grabs: Who will be home for dinner? Who will cook dinner? If a parent is wakened at 2 a.m. by the smell of cooking, and rises in the morning to find no milk for breakfast, dirty dishes in the sink and a house full of sleeping 20-somethings, what is the right response?

Many parents face not one departure and one return, but a revolving door, as one after another of their offspring leaves for college, returns, leaves for graduate school, returns, moves for a job and returns again.

At the Navarro household, in Maspeth, Queens, all four grown children are back home: James; his two brothers, 27 and 25; and their sister, 23.

"Michael, the 27-year-old, talks about moving out, but he never does it," James Navarro said. "It doesn't make me feel too much like a kid to live there. As I've gotten older, I appreciate my parents more."

Still, it is not the life Mr. Navarro envisioned. In high school, he was a star athlete, good enough, he thought, for a professional baseball career. To that end, he chose St. Thomas University in Miami. But his baseball dreams did not pan out, so after graduating he returned home and spent two years working as a security officer in Midtown Manhattan.

"I knew I wouldn't be doing that too long, but I didn't know what I would do," he said, describing a state of mind that seems to descend on many of his generation as they leave college. "I thought about teaching, social work, working for a nonprofit, but law school seemed the most challenging."

Most of Mr. Navarro's closest friends remain unmarried, he said, and not quite ready, at least financially, to set up households.

"I've only been to one wedding in the last three years, and that was because a girl I know wanted me to go as her date," he said.

But one of his best friends is in a relationship that has become increasingly serious. And hanging over their lunchtime banter is the first tinge of awareness that they may be getting a bit old for the lives they lead.

"On New Year's Eve, sometimes, we have these motivational talks," Mr. Navarro said. "We'll say, we're getting older, we can't go to these places with teeny-boppers anymore."

They laugh and begin talking about the weekend football team. They are asked about the age range of the other players.

Mr. Navarro gets a look of mock alarm: "Who's the oldest? Oh, no, is it me?"

Video game music gains recognition

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...sicgainsrecognition

Video game music gains recognition
By Eric Gwinn Tribune staff reporter
December 30, 2003

Once an afterthought in the production process, video game soundtracks increasingly use original music to reach new listeners who blur traditional entertainment boundaries.

"Record companies are realizing that this is the new radio," says Greg O'Connor-Read, founder of Music4Games.com and an agent for video game composers.

In addition to licensing existing tunes, record companies also are commissioning new works for games. Big names have written music for games now on the shelves for the holiday season. Hip-hop performer Snoop Dogg created three original songs for "True Crime: Streets of L.A." Rock icon Peter Gabriel contributed a track for "Uru: Ages Beyond Myst," released Nov. 11, and will write an original composition for the next, as-yet-untitled, "Myst" puzzle game.

"The acts themselves play video games, so they're a lot more willing to get their songs in the game," says Scott Lee, product manager for "Project Gotham Racing 2." That game's soundtrack uses prerecorded music and deejay banter from real radio stations, including Chicago's WPWX-FM 92.3 and WKQX-FM 101.1.

"It's no secret that the record industry is in deep trouble," said Randy Winograd of HSI, a Los Angeles production house for TV ads, music videos and game music. "Consumers would rather download than pay $15 for a CD, leaving the record industry scrambling for revenue. How do they monetize music? License to video games."

Typical music budgets for video game makers have tripled over the last three years to $150,000 from $50,000, according to Tommy Tallarico, president of Game Audio Network Guild, or G.A.N.G., an organization that focuses on improving music in interactive media.

G.A.N.G. also has persuaded U.S. musicians' unions to lower rates charged for working on video games, leading to more American musicians performing on such titles as the recently released "Medal of Honor: Rising Sun" and "Call of Duty."

Asia and Europe have recognized the power of video game soundtracks for years. Symphonic versions of video game music fill stores in Japan. The British Academy of Film and Television Arts recently added an awards category for video game music. In the United States, game soundtracks are slowly showing up on the shelves of large department stores and music stores.

As programmers push video chips to new limits -- with realistically moving humans and mood-creating, natural-looking shadows -- game companies are turning to soundtracks to further separate themselves from their competitors.

For instance, players who preordered the comic book-style spy game "XIII," from UbiSoft, received the jazzy soundtrack on a separate CD. Electronic Arts is hyping its "NBA Live" hip-hop soundtrack with a Web site devoted to playing music taken from the game. EA also is pushing its "SSX 3" snowboarding soundtrack with its own CD.

Sales aren't earth-shattering yet: Since its release in February 2002, "SSX Tricky" has sold 1,800 soundtrack units, according to Nielsen SoundScan. But in a sign that buyers may be catching on, the sequel "SSX 3" already has sold 1,800 units since its release Sept. 30.

The benchmark for soundtracks is the seven-CD effort from "Grand Theft Auto: Vice City," released a year ago. Tempting buyers with secret game codes and '80s tunes ranging from Ozzy Osbourne's "Bark at the Moon" to Grand Master Flash's "The Message," the "Vice City" soundtrack has found its audience.

CD sales for game tunes

Each "Vice City" CD offers real tunes from the fictional radio stations in the seminal drive-anywhere-do-anything game that has sold 10.5 million copies. The most popular CD, "V-Rock," sold 42,300 copies of music from Van Halen, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest and Osbourne. Together, the CDs totaled 142,200 units sold, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

Game audio has always been important, from the ominous boom-boop-boom-boop of "Asteroids" to the blippy fanfares of the "Legend of Zelda" franchise that have inspired a new wave of garage bands.

A few years back, the original next-generation consoles hit the market with improved audio chips that allowed game publishers to stick adrenaline-pumping CD-quality tunes into games. On the PlayStation, Namco quickly took advantage with "Ridge Racer" and its soundtrack of hard-core dance music that you could replace with your own CDs while you raced. But it was Psygnosis' "Wipeout" series of PlayStation games -- in which players raced sleek hovercraft to thumping dance beats of Fatboy Slim, Future Sound of London and more -- that signaled the future, said Greg O'Connor-Read, whose Web site aims to raise the profile of game-music composers, some of whom he represents as an agent.

"The `Wipeout' series wasn't about the music but the club culture crossover experience," he said. In the United Kingdom, club kids got hooked on the game after hearing that its soundtrack was studded with tracks they had heard on the dance floor.

"That was the game that made the PSOne the console of choice for casual games," said O'Connor-Read.

Led by figures such as Tallarico, who founded the Game Audio Network Guild, game music composers are working for more recognition, including an Oscars (news - web sites) category.

Third of experience

"In video games, audio is one-third of the experience -- visuals, audio and game play -- but is a third of the budget put into audio? Of course not, especially four or five years ago," Tallarico said.

Underscoring how far things seemed to have progressed, Tallarico said he is trying to produce a 2 1/2-hour symphonic concert featuring majestic game music, pyrotechnics and actors portraying video game characters rappelling from the sky.

All this descended from the humble bloops of "Pong."

Two decades ago, when composers had only scratchy audio chips to work with, some of the most memorable game music was created.

But as Tallarico put it, "If you had your choice to listen to Beethoven's 9th [Symphony] on the GameBoy or by the London Symphony Orchestra, which would you prefer? Have you ever heard the Mario Bros. theme done by a 90-piece orchestra? It's beautiful.

"As we grew up, we wanted rock, orchestras, alternative [versions of video game music]. That's what we listen to now. We don't listen to kiddie music anymore."

Cash-Strapped States Cut Arts Funding

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...&u=/ap/arts_funding

Cash-Strapped States Cut Arts Funding
By CARL HARTMAN, Associated Press Writer
December 30, 2003

Cash-strapped state governments have slashed funding for theaters, museums and performance groups by nearly one quarter, while federal spending on the arts has edged up slightly.

Congress increased funding for the National Endowment for the Arts to $122.5 million, up from $115.7 million, for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1.

At the same time, however, state arts spending plummeted from $354.5 million to $272.4 million, a drop of 23 percent.

In some states the decline was even more precipitous: California cut spending by 90 percent and Missouri eliminated appropriations for the arts.

The $122.5 million NEA appropriation is the largest for the agency since 1995, when it came under attack in Congress for supporting what critics said was obscene art. The appropriation was slashed from $162.3 million for 1995 to $99.5 million for 1996.

Contributions from state governments have fallen from a peak of $446.8 million in 2001, according to the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies.

"We know that when funding is cut, arts organizations lose jobs that directly reduce their capacity to create, which in turn affects their bottom line," Jonathan Katz, the assembly's chief executive, said in a statement.

Three states showed the biggest declines, the organization reported. California, normally one of the biggest contributors to the arts, dropped its spending from $20.3 million in 2003 to $1.9 million for 2004. Michigan's arts budget was cut nearly in half, from $22.5 million to $11.8 million. Florida, in 2003 the biggest spender on the arts after New York, went down from $30 million to $6.7 million.

New York's spending dropped from $51.5 million to $44.7 million, but it remains at the top of the list of states.

Missouri made no appropriation at all for 2004, but authorized spending $3.5 million from a state-funded cultural endowment.

It's Home, Home at the Saloon For Many Montana Residents - Bars Are Still the Hub of Vast State's Small-Town Life

Hey Bobby, Cheers !

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A...n3?language=printer

It's Home, Home at the Saloon For Many Montana Residents - Bars Are Still the Hub of Vast State's Small-Town Life
By Blaine Harden
Washington Post Staff Writer
January 4, 2004

DEWEY, Mont. -- After he shot his dog but before he murdered the jukebox, Gregory Michael Pepin explained to the bartender that he would dearly love to shoot himself. He just didn't have the nerve.

What he did have, as he sat at the bar, was a snootful of tequila and a semiautomatic rifle with 30 bullets in the clip. The bartender, his hands trembling, poured Pepin a drink and tried to talk of happy days.

It was going rather well, Roger Malmquist, the bartender, remembers thinking, when the jukebox suddenly started up. As the bartender tells the story, Pepin whirled on his barstool and fired four rounds into the jukebox. The music stopped. Moments later, the phone rang behind the bar. Pepin silenced it with five more bullets. Then the jukebox, wounded but not yet dead, erupted with another song. Pepin whirled again, fired two more rounds and finished it off. The bartender, trembling still, poured Pepin another drink.

When there's big trouble in small-town Montana, as occurred here on a cold morning in late November, it's usually at the bar. Trouble, in fact, has no place else to go. Neither does gossip, companionship or heartbreak. In Dewey, as in hundreds of dying towns and hamlets across this vast state, there is only one enterprise that is not yet boarded up, abandoned or broke.

The bar. It's an architectural and sociological artifact that in many ways defines rural Montana, with its dwarfing expanse of plains and mountains, shrinking rural population and tradition of seeking answers to life's persistent questions in a noisy, smoke-filled room with a view of grimy liquor bottles.

"People lead very isolated lives in this state, and the bar is the one place they can get together," said William Kittredge, the Montana author of "Hole in the Sky" and many other books about the modern West. "Bars take the place of churches for a lot of people."

There is a historical undertow in Montana that gives bars a quasi-religious, semi-sanctified status. It continues to pull on the state legislature, which bucks national trends and permits unaccompanied minors to hang out in bars (so long as they don't drink). State lawmakers also allow drivers to have open containers of alcohol in their cars.

Montana has a more secular, rambunctious past than most of the other Upper Plains states, which were settled mainly by churchgoing sodbusters. Lutheran and Catholic farmers, egged on by wives and burdened by children in need of moral uplift, built social lives around the local church, from Sunday services and choir practice, to hayrides with the pastor and potluck dinners.

But Montana, especially the mountainous western third, was settled by men without women -- miners, loggers, gamblers, adventurers, cowboys, opportunists.

"For all the obvious reasons, they needed to drink," writes Joan Melcher, in "Watering Hole," a history of Montana's bars. "But there were countless other reasons why they frequented the saloon."

In early Montana, she writes, weddings and wakes, baptisms and elections, town meetings and book readings were all held in the bar, usually because it was the biggest and most welcoming building in town. Newcomers to town often slept on the bar floor. Later on, reporters were given saloon expense accounts -- bars being the most reliable place to find news.

Drunkenness went hand in glove with family values in many Montana bars at the turn of the century. A sign in a bar in Helena counseled its patrons: "Don't Forget to Write dear Mother. She is thinking of you. We furnish paper and envelopes free and have the best whiskey in town."

Wholesomeness in a grimy den of liquor is an enduring quality of Montana life. James Crumley, a writer of hard-boiled detective novels who lives in Missoula, said he felt it the moment he arrived in this state.

"I grew up in south Texas, where all the white people were Baptists and going to a beer joint meant you were a bum," Crumley said. "When I moved here in the '60s, everybody was in the bars, including elementary school teachers. Nobody cared, as long as they were good with the kids at school."

The rhythms of small-town Montana bar life go something like this: Bars are often open at 8 a.m. with farmers and ranchers coming in to drink black coffee, complain about the weather and argue about things they have been arguing about for decades. Drinking usually doesn't commence until about 3 in the afternoon. Because Montanans, especially in small towns, tend to get up early, most people go home by 9.

Here in the Big Hole Valley of southwest Montana, children often come into bars after school, especially on cold winter afternoons.

"We give 'em candy and watch out for them, until their parents get off work," said Charlie Beck, owner of the H Bar J Saloon in Wise River, about five miles from Dewey.

"Bars are an extension of the front porch," said Pat Williams, a former congressman from Montana who now teaches at the University of Montana's Center for the Rocky Mountain West. "With the occasional lapse, they are also islands of civility."

Occasional lapses of incivility do occur, and they are why bartenders in Montana continue to keep baseball bats and pistols under the bar.

"We do have a lot of bar fights," said Jay Hansen, a deputy sheriff in Beaverhead County, which includes the Big Hole Valley. "Some turn into deaths."

Fight management is something that every Montana bartender is forced to learn.

"You got to jump into the middle of it and try to steer them outside," said Chester Pierce, owner of the Wise River Club, another bar in the Big Hole Valley. "You get a bad bar fight, and it ruins everybody's appetite for the night."

Shootings are far from unknown.

"Almost all of these bars had a shooting in them," said Louie Rivenes, bartender for 20 years at the H Bar J.

About the time Rivenes hired on there, two carpenters got in an argument over a woman and one shot the other in the back, leaving a bullet gouge on the bar that is still visible in the H Bar J.

At the Wise River Club, a man shot his cheating wife and then himself. They both died near the pool tables. That was about 15 years ago. More recently a man was beaten to death in the parking lot outside the Wise River Club.

And here in Dewey last month, there was Gregory Pepin, his semiautomatic rifle and the bullet-riddled jukebox.

Malmquist, the bartender and co-owner of the Dewey Bar, recognized Pepin when he came in that morning looking depressed, disheveled and smelling of alcohol.

In better times, the bartender said, he had allowed Pepin to run a tab, which he always paid back.

"To be fair to him, he had behaved himself," Malmquist said. "A gal walked into the bar a few weeks ago, and she had a flat. It was dark, about 15 below. Pepin, with no gloves and just a light jacket, went out and changed the tire for her. When he came in, I gave him a couple of hot buttered rums on the house."

So, when Pepin came into the bar at 8:30 a.m. on Nov. 19, a Wednesday, the bartender said he tried to reason with him. He nodded sympathetically, he said, when Pepin moaned about how he had just shot his dog and wanted to shoot himself but didn't have the guts.

"I talked him out of shooting the five televisions, the mirrored back-bar, the kegs, the windows and the doors," Malmquist said. "I reminded him of how he had changed that flat tire for the gal and how I tabbed him, and he started to calm down."

Then, that jukebox played, the phone rang and all hell broke loose. Malmquist said he watched in fear and disbelief as Pepin emptied his clip.

Pepin had several more clips of ammunition out in his car, and he was walking out to the parking lot to fetch them, Malmquist said, when he encountered Jackie Fisher, a special agent with the U.S. Forest Service. She'd heard a police-radio alert about the shooting.

She drew her gun and ordered Pepin to the ground, but he did not cooperate, according to Malmquist, who heard Pepin shout, "Shoot me. Shoot me."

Finally, a man who lived behind the Dewey bar tackled Pepin, and Fisher quickly cuffed him.

Pepin, 47, an unemployed handyman who recently had moved to the Big Hole Valley, is being held in the Beaverhead County jail in nearby Dillon in lieu of $50,000 bail. He has been charged with multiple felony counts of criminal endangerment and faces as many as 40 years in prison.

On the day of the shooting, the regulars at the Dewey Bar helped the owners sweep up the glass and mop the floors. By 6 p.m., the bar was back in business.

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