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March 30, 2008

Good reads around the Web

Links for a lazy day.

Unattributed illusion, without context on a site in Italian.

The White House losers : The Guardian (U.K.) talks to Presidential election losers: George McGovern, Walter Mondale, Geraldine Ferraro, Bob Dole, Michael Dukakis. It's a tiny, scarred club but the bond of that shared experience is so strong that it made McGovern and Barry Goldwater fast friends. Good idea, nicely done.

Mark Freunfelder at Boing-Boing: The New York Times has a loving profile of Mad magazine idiot gang member, Al Jaffee, who at age 87, recently completed his 400th Mad Fold-in!" Jaffee makes the fold-ins on a flat board that won't fold, so he has to plan carefully, he says.

NYT: A Veteran MAD Man Remains in the Fold | Interactive Fold-In gallery

50+ Smart Video Collections on YouTube. From Open Culture, "The videos come from media outlets, cultural institutions, universities and non-profits." via the lovely and talented wood s lot.

The Clean Energy Scam. At Time,

...But several new studies show the biofuel boom is doing exactly the opposite of what its proponents intended: it's dramatically accelerating global warming, imperiling the planet in the name of saving it. Corn ethanol, always environmentally suspect, turns out to be environmentally disastrous. Even cellulosic ethanol made from switchgrass, which has been promoted by eco-activists and eco-investors as well as by President Bush as the fuel of the future, looks less green than oil-derived gasoline.

Meanwhile, by diverting grain and oilseed crops from dinner plates to fuel tanks, biofuels are jacking up world food prices and endangering the hungry. The grain it takes to fill an SUV tank with ethanol could feed a person for a year. Harvests are being plucked to fuel our cars instead of ourselves. ..

Students of Virginity in today's NYT. At Harvard, a club for those who shun the hookup culture.

 

Photo by Anne Chrysotème

I'm using this photo from Claude Monet's garden at Giverny as my spring desktop.

 

The Next Slum? in The Atlantic.

For 60 years, Americans have pushed steadily into the suburbs, transforming the landscape and (until recently) leaving cities behind. But today the pendulum is swinging back toward urban living, and there are many reasons to believe this swing will continue. As it does, many low-density suburbs and McMansion subdivisions, including some that are lovely and affluent today, may become what inner cities became in the 1960s and ’70s—slums characterized by poverty, crime, and decay.

Autistic poet gives rare glimpse into mystery illness. CNN.

Isaac Newton's alchemical notebooks. At PBS's Nova, with a decoder.

The News Business: Out of Print: Eric Alterman in The New Yorker.

VirtuSphere - Ultimate gaming experience. Virtual reality becomes real in the gaming world.

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 2:23 PM | Permalink

March 29, 2008

Scuttlebutt: Why John Edwards hasn't endorsed

AP
Democratic presidential candidates former Sen. John Edwards, Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama before the presidential debate at St. Anselm's College in Manchester, N.H., June 3, 2007.

I've been curious about why John Edwards hasn't endorsed anyone yet, as was expected. Shortly after he suspended his campaign on Jan. 30, rumors that he would endorse Obama were rife; more recently, rumors have him endorsing Hillary. None of the rumors had any background or source attached. This is the first inkling of what might have gone on to cause the flip that hasn't actually happened.

From John Heilemann in New York Magazine Who’ll Stop the Pain?:

According to a Democratic strategist unaligned with any campaign but with knowledge of the situation gleaned from all three camps, the answer is simple: Obama blew it. Speaking to Edwards on the day he exited the race, Obama came across as glib and aloof. His response to Edwards’s imprecations that he make poverty a central part of his agenda was shallow, perfunctory, pat. Clinton, by contrast, engaged Edwards in a lengthy policy discussion. Her affect was solicitous and respectful. When Clinton met Edwards face-to-face in North Carolina ten days later, her approach continued to impress; she even made headway with Elizabeth. Whereas in his Edwards sit-down, Obama dug himself in deeper, getting into a fight with Elizabeth about health care, insisting that his plan is universal (a position she considers a crock), high-handedly criticizing Clinton’s plan (and by extension Edwards’s) for its insurance mandate.

The thrust of the piece, however, is the currently fashionable drumbeat to get Hillary to drop out. (Wackier still is the hypothetical notion that she is merely staying in to position herself for 2012. Does anyone seriously believe that at age 65 she would want to go through all this again?)

In the interest of balance, here's Matt Cooper -- the same Matt Cooper, then of Time magazine, who was called to testify about the Valerie Plame leak, husband of Clinton media consultant Mandy Grunwald who nevertheless believes Obama will be the nominee -- writing at Portfolio.com: Hillary Should Stay In. So Should Nader.

And just to round out the balance, Ralph Nader to Hillary yesterday: Don’t listen to Senator Leahy:

Senator Clinton:

Just read where Senator Patrick Leahy is calling on you to drop out of the Presidential race.

Believe me.

I know something about this.

Here’s my advice:

Don’t listen to people when they tell you not to run anymore.

That’s just political bigotry.

Listen to your own inner citizen First Amendment voice.

This is America.

Just like every other citizen, you have a right to run.

Whenever you like.

For as long as you like.

It’s up to you, Hillary.

Just tell them –

It’s democracy.

Get used to it.

Yours truly,

Ralph Nader

Nader -- darn him -- often makes sense.

The coronation of the relatively unknown Sen. Barack Obama makes me a bit uncomfortable. So do the pundits urging Hillary to quit, mouthing Obama campaign talking points despite the journalistic discipline that requires that one not become a partisan. We are trained to be objective, not to be swept away; our permitted passions are reality and truth.

It's equally disturbing when "analysts" get mushy about the possibility of the first black president, seeming to ignore the parallel and equally historic possibility of the first woman president. 1972 Democratic candidate George McGovern told AP this week,, "I have a feeling that in this country where we’re at today in our thinking, it’s going to be harder to elect a woman than to elect a black man." It's hard to know whether MSM is leading or following that notion, and to what degree the old-boy networks and glass ceilings inside journalism lead or follow it as well.

But this is not a beauty contest, American Idol or The Gong Show. It's an opportunity to collaboratively plan the future, with all ideas still on the table.

It's in the interest of the voters that the Democratic nominee earn the nod over the long haul, refining and sharing plans to meet the changing challenges of the economy, Iraq, health care, the environment, terrorism -- and along the way engaging America in their solution.

The candidate who faces the world as the face of America would best do so having learned the lessons a long campaign can deliver: Patience, endurance and an understanding that there are no short cuts to one's place in history.

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 9:43 AM | Permalink | Comments 4

March 28, 2008

Saturday is SWAN Day: Worldwide celebration of women artists includes Cranston festival

At the Artists' Exchange in Cranston, a day-long festival tomorrow celebrates Rhode Island women artists, artisans, musicians and filmmakers. Part of a first annual worldwide observation called SWAN Day -- an acronym for Support Women Artists Now -- performances run from 11 a.m. till 9:30 p.m..

Artisans will have booths to showcase their work, while performing artists will be heard and seen throughout the day. Scheduled performances include folk, jazz and classical musicians, spoken word, and screenings from fearless femmes in film.

Local bands include Kim Lamothe, Anne’s Cordial, Annikki Dawn, Meghan Yates, and Allysen Caller.

The event is organized by Eva Kendrick of Anne's Cordial.

Here's the press release, and there are more details -- and songs from some of the musicians who'll participate -- at the local event's MySpace page, which also shows samples of participating artists' work.

The Artists' Exchange is at 50 Rolfe Square, off Park Avenue in Cranston. (map) Admission is $10, $5 for children under 12. More information: (401) 490-9475, (401) 785-4ART.

Events begin at 11 a.m. with RI Raging Grannies. There are children's hours in the downstairs space at 11:30 a.m. and 4 p.m. The full schedule:

SWAN DAY RI PERFORMERS SCHEDULE:

11-11:15 Welcome & RI Raging Grannies (in lobby)

11:15-11:40 Deborah Wyndham, piano (in lobby)

11:45-12:30 Film Segment 1, “Fun Films” (Rating G/PG): Featuring shorts by Ellen Lake (CA) and Lyn Elliot (PA)

12:30-2:00 Local singer-songwriters: Allysen Callery, Annikki Dawn, Meghan Yates, Kim Lamothe

2:00-2:20 Laurie Robertson-Lorant, poet

2:20-2:30 Anthology, premiere of Eva Kendrick composition Eve Songs

2:30-2:50 Anthology, a cappella quartet

2:50-3:15 Bonnie Milner and Deirdre Murtha of the Johnson Girls, sea chanteys

3:15-4:00 DJ Madameb spins records from an all female collection

4:00-4:15 Linda Stetson, Lakota courting flute

4:15-4:30 Break

4:30-4:50 Elizabeth J.K. Erickson, composer-cellist

4:50-5:15 Ellen Santaniello, a cappella folk vocalist

5:30-6:45 Singer-songwriter slot 2: Porter Singer, pianist Sharon Crumrine with electric violinist Betty Widerski, Jennifer Greer

6:45-7 Break

7-7:45 Film Segment Two, “Freaky Films” (Rating: PG-13/R): Fran Apprich (Ireland), Aideen McCarthy (Ireland), Kari Jo Skogquist (MN), Signe Baumane (NYC/Latvia)

7:45-8 Break

8-8:30 Anne’s Cordial, trio with vocals, keyboard, harp, and guitar

8:30-9 Raffle and announcements

9-9:30 Thea Hopkins, short story folk singer

Children’s Hours with Princess Miss Michelle: Puppets, Games, and Music

Downstairs interactive space

Children four and under must be accompanied by an adult

11:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.

4 p.m. – 5 p.m.

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 9:46 AM | Permalink

March 27, 2008

Free, online Photoshop launches: basic image editing, 2 GB storage

Adobe Photoshop Express launched at midnight.

About it: First Look: Adobe Launches Photoshop Express, Competition Beware has screenshots of the tools and interface. But you'll probably have to join and play with it to see whether it's useful to you.

Adobe is sensitive to criticism that its flagship image editor's learning curve is way too steep for average users:

Adobe realizes not everyone can figure out the tools of photo editing but many people can pick one image over another based on how it looks. In Photoshop Express, Adobe has included “generation variations” of images so you can see suggested thumbnails of how the image could be corrected. If you don’t want to take the time to fix an image, just click on the thumbnail of the suggested variation and the software does it all for you. You don’t need to know what saturation, contrast or colour correction means.

It also integrates with Facebook, Photobucket and Picasa.

A bit later, 1:20 a.m.: I've just tried it, and the interface is an amateur's playground.

I uploaded a tough photo -- shady, contrasty, and I really want you to see the black cat:

After a few minutes of playing with Photoshop Express, I had this:

Image the photo in the hole below the thumbnails -- they're larger than this, but to show them all I had to reduce them. Below that, at full size, the tool choices. Click on any of the choices (each is explained in a tooltip when you mouse over it) and you see a selection of thumbnails that apply different values. Pick the one you like, and tweak that with a different tool. Along the way, you'll get a better sense of what the same tools do in the real Photoshop, without having to pick values at random.

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 12:22 AM | Permalink

March 26, 2008

D.B. Cooper's open parachute found?; Spot Runner offers TV ads to local candidates for $499

The chute found near Amboy, Wash. (map)

FBI: Found parachute may be D.B. Cooper's* , from KOMO TV, Seattle, with video and a surprisingly long text story (for TV site). Here's how it happened:

the parachute, which was recently dug up by the children of a Clark County farmer in the area where the mysterious skyjacker likely landed, has raised new questions.

"It's fragile to the touch, and it's obviously been in the ground for some time," agent Larry Carr said of the canvas.

Children playing outside their home near Amboy found the chute sticking up from the ground this month in an area where their father had been grading a road.

Carr says they pulled on the fabric as much as they could, then cut the parachute's ropes with scissors. They had seen recent media coverage on the D.B. Cooper case and urged their dad to call the FBI.

The FBI in Seattle is taking it seriously:

The FBI is now reevaluating the case and looking for people who had experience parachuting in the 1970s to help identify the chute.

Those who wish to contact investigators can do so on the FBI's Web site.

(*D.B. who?

"The man calling himself Dan Cooper, also known as D.B. Cooper, boarded a Northwest flight in Portland for a flight to Seattle on the night of Nov, 24, 1971, and commandeered the plane, claiming he had dynamite.

"In Seattle, he demanded and got $200,000 and four parachutes and demanded to be flown to Mexico. Somewhere over southwestern Washington, he jumped out of the plane's tail exit with two of the chutes and the money strapped to his body. He was never seen again, alive or dead.")

Head start: Internet ad agency Spot Runner is offering video templates to help local candidates make TV ads for as little as $499 --and TV crews if they need to shoot new footage of the candidate.

It's a laudable attempt at lowering the barriers to participation for at least some candidates who can't afford the exposure that will attract interest and donations.

Their Political division has all the details.

TechCrunch reports (Just In Time For Campaign Season, Spot Runner Gets Into Politics),

To start with, Spot Runner has created 22 generic ad templates that can be further modified, which cover issues ranging from taxes and education to immigration and leadership. Campaigns add video images of the candidate and tweak the script any way they like. Spot Runner will record the voiceovers. And if new footage needs to be shot of the candidate on the campaign trail or working hard in Congress, Spot Runner can supply the camera crew (in January it purchased GlobeShooters, a network of about 1,500 video professionals).

And then when it comes time to pick where to show the ads, Spot Runner has developed a sophisticated media map of the U.S. that lets campaigns target ads by age, gender, income levels, voter affiliations, and even history of campaign contributions. A campaign manager can choose to run the seniors ad in older neighborhoods and the education reform ads in neighborhoods with a lot of young families. Spot Runner also lets campaigns create fund raising ads that can be e-mailed to supporters.

Here are the 22 ads they'll customize for that price.

To ease the move from business to political spots, Spot Runner assembled a political advisory board: "Former U.S. Senator Bill Bradley (D-NJ) and political strategists Mike Murphy, Dan Schnur, and Robert Shrum."

After a while, we'll probably be comparing how well candidates customize easily recognizable Spot Runner ads -- especially if competing candidates run spots using the same template. Cable TV especially could be rife with these.

   

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 2:26 AM | Permalink

March 24, 2008

Event blog: A Red Sox fan (and her husband) in Japan

Greg and Denise Bass, Rui Ishido and Journal photographer Bob Breidenbach, whom they ran into at the Tokyo Dome. Greg and Denise met Rui at a Yankees game at Fenway last summer, and he got them tickets for this series.

Avid Sox fan (and colleague) Denise Bass is in Japan, and blogging via a Blogger blog she set up on the fly.

She's telling her friends what it's like there, both at the ball park -- where fans in right field play a different tune for each player -- and during the day, as a tourist -- Kabuki theater, a food market, rock bands and big-hair greasers in leather in a park, $25 chopsticks.

Worth a look: A Red Sox fan (and her husband) in Japan

Rui answers a fan's questions about baseball in Japan.

The Projo SoxBlog has a lot more about what's going on at the Tokyo Dome SoxBlog.

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 10:46 PM | Permalink

March 23, 2008

Rainbow iceberg; dreaming in code; Arthur C. Clarke, Eliot Spitzer

Right time, right place: "Oyvind Tangen, 62, was on board the research ship G O Sars when he photographed the unusual ice formation, floating a few miles off the coast of the frozen continent."

The Telegraph (U.K.) has the short story (Rainbow iceberg in the Antarctic) and the science.

Dreaming in code: I woke with an upset stomach at 3:46 this morning. In that twilight moment as I woke, pages of Movable Type blog code were scrolling before my eyes, with a simultaneous display of how it behaved. (This was nonsensical, because I was watching a woman on a stage -- the code was changing how she displayed.)

But the code seemed perfectly valid, and I felt like it was downloading to me.

I wondered if it went on all the time and only my stomach waking me up made the stream available to me consciously.

I've been deep in coding the projo blogs upgrade, but I've given it a rest for a couple of days as I dealt with other aspects of work and family. The rhythm of this process is a classic one. Pulling back from implementing the details, I see the forest again but with more information, and new possibilities emerge that will be implemented by yet another plunge into detailed instructions to the software.

The in and out is like breathing.

The idea of accessing a Library in which all knowledge already rests seems ancient. Why knowledge would be parceled out in dribs and drabs in sleep is less easy to wrap the mind around.

AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena
Arthur C. Clarke's funeral in Colombo, Sri Lanka, yesterday.

Cosmic trigger: Arthur C. Clarke's work whispered, "There is more." The nuts and bolts of his visions were scientifically plausible, but the part that stuck was ...Life may be more than you think it is.

That seed, once planted, grows like an extra layer.

If Clarke was able to extend the hard science into nonlinear ideas and possible realities, we could, too. Lightbulbs went on as he showed us more.

WaPo obit: Arthur C. Clarke; Sci-Fi Writer Foresaw Mankind's Possibilities

The Slashdot programmer core, on hearing the news (Arthur C. Clarke Is Dead At 90), builds an ad hoc memorial page of reactions, links, tributes, experiences with Clarke, his work, his ideas.

Flavor:

compro01:

...Clarke's three laws.

1. When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
2. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Fishybell:

The biggest addition to society that Clarke, and all other science fiction writers, have added is not in the works of fiction themselves, but the spark of imagination infused in those reading it. Some will take that spark and build their lives around it turning fiction to fact.

The world will miss him.

Luen, on 2001: A Space Odyssey,

You seem to have dismissed the entire art of literature in one fell swoop. I find it somewhat condescending to only appreciate a great writer such as Clarke (or anyone else) insofar as they act as cheerleaders for other professions or ideals.

That said, I do share your opinion in part, and I don't want to sound like I'm flaming...

...To this day, from watching his film, almost no one can grasp his biggest concept on their own (that when we encounter a greater intelligence we will have no greater understanding of it than an ant would walking about on a tank). And to this day almost no one can spot the aliens right there in plain sight (and no, they aren't the monoliths).

You will be missed, Arthur and Stanley.

The limit of science lies in its inability to confirm aspects of reality for which it has not yet built measuring tools. These remain "mysteries."

The possible is also an art.

The object, which is back of every true work of art, is the attainment of a state of being, a state of high functioning, a more than ordinary moment of existence. In such moments activity is inevitable, and whether this activity is with brush, pen, chisel, or tongue, its result is but a by-product of the state, a trace, the footprint of the state. (Robert Henri, The Art Spirit)

When you know who's calling when the phone rings, do you call it "invisible technology"?

Powerhosed: Sifting the Wreckage for the Real Eliot Spitzer

Really good (accurate) headline on this NYT collection of glimpses of the N.Y. governor in four vignettes from July, September, December and March. Sober, solemn, sad.

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 8:39 AM | Permalink

March 21, 2008

Golden chocolate Easter eggs - beautiful but hard

How To Make Golden Chocolate Easter Eggs

Way too much work for a fumble-fingers like me -- you actually have to prick both ends, break the yolks with a needle and blow out the liquids, then refill them with melted chocolate chips through the tiny holes. I can see myself surrounded by a dozen broken eggshells. Or, if I got that far, chocolate covered with a skin of left-behind egg white.

But they certainly are beautiful.

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 11:11 PM | Permalink | Comments 2

Garden-catalog search launches at Mother Earth News

Mother Earth News magazine has launched a handy tool, a Seed and Plant Finder

It's a Google-based specialized search of more than 150 garden catalogs, with an emphasis on vegetables, to start, although flowers and herbs turn up, too.

It's not just for varieties. It searches text in all sorts of catalogs, from plant descriptions to tips.

A fun toy to get you in the mood.

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 5:23 PM | Permalink

Easter recipes from newspaper food sections

We're not hungry this year. Other years, we made butterflied lamb and feasted, but this year, we're looking at deviled eggs, salad, fruit... But spring brings lots of new choices. Here are some that showed up this week on the Web.

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Cute Easter cupcake recipes

Lexington (Ky.) Courier Journal
Speak of the deviled

Vaguely Greek roast leg of lamb
Mashed potatoes and parsnips
Roasted asparagus with horseradish cream
Orange custard tart

Chicago Tribune
Deviled eggs

Detroit Free Press
Studded Roasted Citrus Pork Loin with Pecan Sugar Glaze
Vegetable Cheese Strata

Philadelphia Inquirer
Fall-Apart Lamb Shanks With Almond-Chocolate Picada
Smashed Greek Potatoes

Providence Journal
Artichoke Manicotti In Pesto Cream

Orlando Sentinel:
Ham with Honey Apricot Glaze
5 great ways to flavor the Easter ham
Pan-Seared Scallops With Ginger Sauce

Cleveland Plain Dealer
Sour Cream, Lemon and Herb Deviled Eggs
Creamy Herbed Horseradish Sauce for Ham

Seattle Times
Asparagus with Lemon & Caper Dipping Sauce

Moesto (Calif.) Bee
Braised Lamb With Spinach
Roast Leg Of Lamb
Butterflied Leg Of Lamb With Rosemary
Grilled Rack Of Lamb With Rosemary

New Orleans Times-Picayune
Asparagus timbale (custard)

L.A. Times
Pan-roasted asparagus with dill hollandaise sauce

Baltimore Sun
Homemade marshmallows in stylish flavors

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Yanni's Herb-Crusted Rack of Lamb with Champagne Mint Sauce and Potatoes au Gratin
Rosemary-and-Lemon Australian Lamb Rack with Mushrooms and Spinach
Dijon French Leg of Lamb


Potatoes Savoyarde (with Gruyere)

Denver Post
Roast Leg of Lamb With Garlic and Herbs

The Oregonian
Spinach and Lamb Strata With Olive Bread
Goat Cheese, Green Onion and Potato Strata With Lox
Onion- and Mustard-Coated Leg of Lamb With Ginger-Rosemary Gravy
Egg Curry

Orange County Register:
Holiday ham fundamentals
Roasted Fresh Ham With Simmered Sauerkraut
Ginger Ale-Glazed Ham

Grilled Leg of Lamb with Greek Chimichurri Sauce
Broccoli Corn Bread
Lemon Icebox Cheesecake With Gingersnap Crust

London (Ontario) Free Press
Hazelnut And Lemon Crusted Turkey Breast

London (England) Times
Rabbit (or chicken) and red wine stew

Knoxville News
Jerk-spiced seitan

Beaufort (S.C.) Gazette
Alligator Creole

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 12:52 PM | Permalink | Comments 1

March 20, 2008

Art after work today: Mark Taber on keyboards with transmuted trash and more

Photo / Sheila Lennon
Keyboards and strings often find their way into pianist Mark Taber's humorous creations.

Happy spring. If you're up for a celebration, here's the press release.

Art Show: Featuring Mark Taber! @ Above Providence Optical

Thursday, March 20th
From 5-9 p.m.
75 Weybosset St.
Providence, RI 02903
401-351-4994

You are cordially invited to celebrate the opening of our newly renovated second floor gathering space for art and music! We are excited and privileged to announce the musical performance of Mark Taber during the opening event on Thursday, March 20th from 5-9 p.m. The opening exhibit will include an eclectic mix of works by several talented artists:

Mark Taber: It's not often that the combination of dumpsters, recycling and imagination creates works of shear beauty; but in the case of work by Mark Taber--it goes far beyond that... Mark Taber's "Dream Vehicles" series encompasses a universe of both complexity and nostalgic, childhood humor. Mr. Taber's pieces produce as many questions about both his and our universe as they do answer them: What is trash, and how does it become reinvented into beauty? Who is the Night Watchman? Where did he live? And who the heck is Odell Washington? Here at Above Providence Optical, we are both honored and delighted to display one of Mr. Taber's great works entitled "Night Watchman's Buggy", one in a series of many "Dream Vehicles" in the upcoming months.

Rachel Cyrene Blackman: Featuring a series of digital images that reference American Sign Language. Her work is a syncretism on a variety of levels; combining language, color and image. Blackman delivers a philosophical conundrum to those interested in language and communication with her digital photography entitled '...her name...'. The images become notation, and give us a glimpse into a world where the composition is the creator and the creator becomes part of the composition. The greater portion of Blackman's formal 'artistic training' is as a musician--and her pieces maintain this compositional integrity throughout her work.

Maryjean Viano Crowe: Featuring "Pie in the Sky", an assembled gelatin silver print from constructed negatives (Black & White series). Maryjean Viano Crowe uses materials in unique ways to create large-scale photographic tableaux, artist books, mixed media constructions, and light box shrines. Her work has been exhibited nationally, and was the subject of a feature article in Popular Photography in 1992. Included in numerous museum collections, including the Polaroid International Collection and the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris, Crowe received a 1995 National Endowment for the Arts, and a 1987 Massachusetts Artists Foundation Fellowship, a grant for which she was a three time Finalist.

Bob Zuck: Featuring "Smokestack Cadillac" Oil on board. Mr. Zuck's work has an industrial hyperrealistic feel; concise color and appropriate dimensional qualities fulfill the gap between imagination and reality.

Teresa A. Mowery: Featuring "Pheonix" and "Warrior", two found-object wall installations. Teresa Mowery started her artistic endeavors as a painter but early on became intrigued with jewelry and metalworking. It is at Above Providence Optical that one may observe Mowery's earlier work using found objects. Mowery is known for her unique capabilities of using patina on copper to create home decor pieces and furniture.

Onega Astaltsova: Featuring "Mackerel on Table", acrylic on canvas. "Cezannesque touches... and faceted painting style that gives everything a vaguely crystalline look"... (Bill Van Siclen, Providence Journal 2007).

Please come and enjoy the evening with us!

Photo / Sheila Lennon
This Taber piece was shown in a garage last September.

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 4:39 AM | Permalink

March 18, 2008

You can fight City Hall and win; I just did

Updated throughout, with a new ending.

Saturday -- when I couldn't do a thing about it -- the mailman brought a dreaded letter from City Hall, the one marked on the back in huge type,

Important!
Tax bill enclosed
Open Immediately

This is never good news. Sure enough, inside,

City of Providence
Delinquent Real Estate Tax Notice

TAX BILL IS NOW PAST DUE
Payment in full is now required. Included with this 2007 bill is an interest penalty of 9%. The interest will continue to accrue at an additional 1% per month until the balance is paid in full. If you fail to make payment by March 28, 2008 your property may be subject to an upcoming Tax Sale scheduled for August, 2008. An additional Tax Sale cost charge (Minimum of $300.00) will be added to the total amount due.

No explanation, just a bill for a coupla thousand bucks and change, now due March 28.

I do all my banking online. I schedule my quarterly real-estate tax payments to be sent by the bank directly to the city.

Fuming, unable to get any information till Monday, I went online and verified that three of the year's four payments had been sent, and cashed. The fourth is due next month.

I would blind them with documentation. But I had to know exactly what the problem was before I appeared in person. I didn't want to have to negotiate the bureaucracy twice.

Yesterday morning, I called the phone number on the bill.

First time, I sat on hold for 15 minutes till I got the ringing signal that usually ends in a human voice. Instead it turned into that fast busy signal that won't stop.

I started over. After 15 more minutes the phone rang and was actually picked up. I could hear voices in the background, and pages riffling. Feeling pretty silly, I was shouting "Hallo-o-o-o," hoping someone would hear and speak to me. Nope. After 5 minutes of ambient office sounds, "click." Dead air.

Once more, and eventual success. I hadn't paid my third-quarter property-tax bill, the older woman's voice said.

"What about check number 5507 of Nov. 26?" I asked.

"We don't have a record of that one," she said.

"I'm looking at it online," I said. "You cashed it."

"Bring it down," she said.

I dug up my hard-copy monthly bank statement spanning late November and early December, which showed a small version of the canceled check. Online, at the bank site, I printed out a blowup of both sides of the check image, of my online bill-payment history filtered to show only City Collector, and took a screenshot of my ongoing balance statement showing that check 5507 had been sent Nov. 26 to arrive on the due date of Nov. 30, and was cashed and debited from my account on Dec. 11.

Armed with my bulletproof documentation, I marched on City Hall, smiling. (They must brace for angry taxpayers. I would be friendly, harmless, not expecting a fight, just straightening out a misunderstanding. I am here to dazzle them with bank records.)

After two lines, I got to a clerk who could see there was a problem. "Hold onto all this," she said, giving me back my sheaf of papers. "I'll have a supervisor look at it. Have a seat."

When the supervisor eventually came out, he said, "You pay bills online, so there's no hard copy, right?"

"No," I said, "The bank sent you a physical check."

"Oh. Was it cashed?" he asked.

"Yes," I said, "here it is reproduced on my monthly statement."

"It was cashed, then," he nodded.

"Yes, but the image is really tiny so I blew it up and printed both sides of the check out for you."

"Thank you for that," he said. "Let me look into it." And he left with my papers.

There in the row of chairs, my neighbors all clutched TAX BILL IS NOW PAST DUE notices. The man to my left had his canceled check, dated Sept. 7. The city didn't cash it till Dec. 12, and just now was dunning him for the late payment.

The newcomers to my right all had late payment notices, too. They had mailed them on time, they said, but they couldn't prove they had arrived on time. They were hoping to appeal for clemency and the benefit of the doubt. They didn't think it would work, though.

Finally, the supervisor returned.

"I found it. It was just a mistake," he said. "We credited your payment to someone else's motor-vehicle tax. They were probably together in a pile of mail, and the clerk mistakenly applied it to his account. Just a mistake."

Somewhere, there's somebody whose car tax bonanza is about to undergo a sudden deflation.

"I've credited you, and canceled the penalties. Here's your new tax bill. You can wait till April 24 to pay it."

I looked at the new bill. It's for $200 less than the quarterly payment already scheduled for April. Will I pay that amount? Not a chance. I've already spent two hours proving I paid my taxes.

Paying this amount will land me in that line again, waving that "Duplicate Tax Bill." I know it will.

And somebody will tell me I should have known the amount was wrong, no matter what the supervisor said.

Things didn't turn out so well for my neighbor on the chair line who showed his Sept. 7 check. The supervisor told him flatly they don't hold checks at City Hall for three months. (Just as they don't credit your payment to someone else's account?) This sad man must have asked someone else to mail it and they forgot. For three months. His entire tax bill for the year is now due, with interest. No recourse. (Fortunately, there's only one payment left, but he'll have to pay it a month early, and with that whopping interest, to boot.)

The lesson here: Pay your tax bills online, or in person, or mail your check very early.

Both the supervisor and I knew that if push came to shove, Citizens Bank held all the cards: They knew when they sent the check, when they debited it from my account; and they knew exactly when the city cashed it. At the top of the check is the lovely line, "Please post this payment for our mutual customer." My fallible human hands had never touched it.

Even City Hall didn't want to fight that. The supervisor caved at the sight of my indisputable paperwork. After seeing it, he just wanted to know what account they had misdirected my payment to.

Later: This is a "writethrough" -- a later version, slightly edited and augmented with additional material. To wit:

I live in writerly clutter, books and bills and bits of paper on most surfaces. There's a table at the end of the couch with a woven placemat and a reading lamp. On the mat is a little bit of mail serving as a coaster, protecting the table from the moisture of icy drinks as I read.

Turns out, the mail was the November bank statement with the photo of the tax check.

Not for the first time, the clutter served me well: Out of all the statements in all the envelopes over all the years, the single page I needed was under my nose.

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 8:00 AM | Permalink | Comments 2

Truly Irish 'cooking': Toast and tea

Mary Cassatt, Lady at the Tea Table, 1883–85

My corned beef and cabbage recipe attracted attention all weekend, but the classic meal was never served in my mother's lace-curtain Irish household.

"Cabbage smells up the house," Mom would say, turning up her nose as she echoed her mother and her memories of immigrants' tenement hallways. Dad was told to have his corned beef and cabbage for lunch, elsewhere.

My first attempt at making it in my first apartment turned out tough and inedible. It hadn't occurred to me that this was not the best cut of meat and needed long, slow braising. I think I tried to bake it.

Yesterday -- like Dad -- I had corned beef for lunch, but it was hardly traditional: a reuben -- hot corned beef, sauerkraut, Swiss cheese and mustard on toasted unseeded rye -- from the Greek place across the street from the Journal. (That's a good way to use leftovers today.)

Tired and not very hungry last night, I toasted store-bought soda bread and brewed good coffee and called it dinner.

When it came right down to it, the Irish meal I most remember from childhood, the quintessential comfort food of the elders, was toast and tea: White bread lightly toasted with butter and sweet milky tea.

Maybe that's the tradition I was really honoring on St. Patrick's Day.

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 6:52 AM | Permalink

March 15, 2008

Back to the country, like in the '60s

N.Y. Times
The way we were: But it's not us. It's former Brooklynite Benjamin Shute and Miriam Latzer, who run Hearty Roots farm in Tivoli, N.Y., and sell food grown on the 25-acre organic farm.

Leaving Behind the Trucker Hat is a nice Sunday story in the Times about young New Yorkers turning to organic farming.

Back to the land again.

The Whole Earth Catalog and The Good Life by Helen and Scott Nearing were my inspiration for plunging headlong into the rural life my ancestors gladly abandoned.

There's a long excerpt on the Web, Living The Good Life With Helen And Scott Nearing from Mother Earth News, the March/April 1977 issue.

The Good Life Center, "located at the last hand-built home of Helen and Scott Nearing, located in Harborside (Brooksville), Maine on five acres of forested land overlooking Spirit Cove," is looking for help, if you want to try out the life: WANTED: Summer 2008 Apprentice!.

In 1976 I moved to Western Coventry, the country, to grow things. It unfortunately turned into Man and Woman vs. Nature, one of the Great Books themes. The house didn't have central heat, and the cooking oil in the cabinet froze that winter. So the did the forced hot-water heating pipes we had installed after that in the crawl space. Bursting copper pipe sounds just like corn popping.

As a city kid, I also didn't adapt well to 35-minute nighttime drives for cigarettes or Pampers, nearby stores and restaurants all closed by 9 p.m. The falling-down barn was infested with hornets, and the hard well water ran red with rust that tinged all our washed clothes and tasted gritty and metallic.

But the heartbreaker and dealbreaker was my large sunny garden, overrun with invasive Japanese knotweed, sometimes called "walking cane," or even Japanese bamboo, but it isn't bamboo. It's fallonica japonica,the young shoots at right. I'd pull it out, and by evening it was back, and in the morning it was 4 inches tall.

I confess I even used Agent Orange on it. It recovered.

We fled back to the city, where gardens are small but the soil is rich, the bugs are few and the knotweed owns only the aprons of underpasses and vacant land along Rt. 95.

I love gardening still, but our yard is shady from old trees, and harvests are small. We're grateful for the veggies we get. Flowers are easier. Life is easier.

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 3:16 PM | Permalink

March 13, 2008

Timely recipe: Corned beef and cabbage

Consider this a public service announcement. We know there are folks tackling their first "Irish Day" in the kitchen, wondering how to do it.

Last Sunday, I made this recipe for the family. It was terrific. And easy. Can't go wrong. Try it, and let them tell you what a great cook you are.

Corned beef and cabbage

5 pounds corned brisket of beef (two supermarket packages)
1 bottle (12-oz) Guiness Stout
6 peppercorns, or packaged pickling spices
6 cloves garlic, peeled
3 carrots, peeled and quartered
3 onions, peeled and quartered
1 medium-sized green cabbage, quartered or cut in wedges
Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Place the corned beef in Guinness and water to cover with the garlic and peppercorns or mixed pickling spices (in supermarkets, these often come packaged with the corned beef).

Cover the pot or kettle, bring to a boil; put a dinner plate on top of the meat to keep it submerged.

After it boils, put the covered pot in the oven and bake at 325 degrees for 6 hours or until tender, skimming occasionally if necessary. (We didn't have anything to skim.)

During the last hour, add the carrots and onions and cover again.

During the last 30 minutes, add the cabbage.

Transfer meat and vegetables to a platter, cover with foil and let rest for 15 minutes. (It will be easier to slice.)

It's traditional to serve corned beef with boiled parsley potatoes, cooked separately. (Small potatoes will take 20-30 minutes, larger chunks more like 45 minutes.)

But I don't really care for boiled potatoes. If you have two racks in the oven and room for both dishes, roll small potatoes, washed but not peeled, in a bit of oil and/or melted butter and bake them on a cookie sheet or in a shallow pan, uncovered, for an hour.

You can also boil small potatoes for fifteen minutes, then drain and dry them in a towel, then roll them in oil or butter and pop them into the oven for 15 minutes -- while the corned beef is resting -- for quick oven-roasted flavor. Turn the oven up to 375 degrees for this.
The stock can be saved to add to a pot roast or stew.

Notes: We made this with the cheapest corned beef in the supermarket, and it was terrific.

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 3:44 PM | Permalink | Comments 2

March 12, 2008

A geeky thought for women

Beauty and the Blogs, a too-short item at the Utne Reader Science and Technology blog, begins,

Tech-savvy men often bathe in the media limelight, from Rolling Stone and New Yorker profiles to the reality TV show Beauty and the Geek, where male nerds fraternize with plastic-looking women. Girl geeks, on the other hand, tend to receive little more media attention than the glow from their monitors. Last month, the New York Times briefly disrupted the media stagnation by reporting (Geek Chic: Not Just For Guys) on the predominance of female bloggers and Web page designers. That abundance of female representation may be a positive sign, but the article also points out that women hold only 27 percent of computer- and math-related jobs . Even if girls are creating more online content, experts stress “the profound distinction between using existing software and a desire to invent new technology.”

All of the blog posts and online profiles made by women don’t amount to much, according to Nicole Cohen in Shameless magazine (Boys’ Club 2.0), so long as the creators of Web 2.0 continue to be young men like the founders of YouTube, Google, and Facebook. “Access to information and tech knowledge carries with it great political, economic and social weight,” Cohen writes. “If women are left out of the discourse about information technology and new media, you can bet we’re left out of the production and sharing of social and economic power, too.”

After several marathon days of coding, I'm not feeling eloquent. (Right-brain deprivation.) But I learned how to do what relatively little tech I know because the frustration of ignorance was worse than negotiating the learning curve.

Women often feel they have no hands, Margaret Atwood said. Without hands, tools are tough. Affecting the world is difficult enough, and the levers of power are almost impossible to control with your nose.

I hope that by wrestling with blog code I'll be able to create new tools, new ways to collect and share what matters to our lives -- meaning..

When the machines wake up, I'd rather they didn't think the human world was populated only by young men who speak their language and women who don't wear much clothing.

If there's one thing machine intelligence needs to be quickly taught, it's what intuition, empathy and human values are. Otherwise they might think we're best used as slaves.

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 2:48 AM | Permalink | Comments 4

March 9, 2008

Bush sings at Gridiron dinner; Great screen cleaner; Hookup with a hitwoman

Gridiron dinner: The tribune's Swamp blog gets the good stuff the annual press shindig: Bush's Texan farewell: Brown, brown grass of home.

by Mark Silva

This is the first of all press reports, and a full Swamp there's-got-to-be-a-morning-after account from the supposedly "off-the-record," rollicking annual dinner of the Gridiron Club - President George W. Bush's last hurrah - in which the president, donning a tan cowboy hat with white-tie tuxedo, serenaded the full establishment press and governmental hierarchy of Washington on Saturday night with an off-tune but spot-on Texas-waltz rendition of "The Brown, Brown Grass of Home."

"Yes, you're all going to miss me, the way you used to quiz me," Bush sang, "but soon I'll touch the brown, brown grass of home."

Not only the president, but also most of his Cabinet and the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff turned out for a dinner that ran well over four hours and featured Bush's fellow Texan, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, predicting this is going to be a great year for the Republicans, and why wouldn't it be - they "started outreach many, many months ago, in the airport men's room."...

Kudos to the Swamp for writing down many more jokes for us. Good read.

F11 makes it full screen: The best screen cleaner ever! Well worth a click.

Hemming way too much: 'I fell in love with a female assassin'

Young danger junkie hooks up with cute wetwork chick in war-torn Colombia.

Soon to be a major motion picture, but this summary flattens the tale with intermittent breast-beating.

The photo is of author Jason P. Howe and Marylin in 2003.

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 11:37 AM | Permalink

March 8, 2008

Samantha Power sidebar: U.S. journalists protect the powerful to preserve access? Yuck

The exchange between MSNBC's Tucker Carlson and The Scotsman's Gerri Peev, preserved on YouTube. It's also on MSNBC after you watch a 30-second commercial.

At Salon, Glenn Greenwald hits hard on MSNBC's Tucker Carlson, and extends it to NBC's Tim Russert, for playing PR flak for the powerful rather than reporter to the people (Tucker Carlson unintentionally reveals the role of the American press).

Tucker Carlson upbraided The Scotsman journalist Gerri Peev on his MSNBC TV show for publishing Obama foreign policy advisor Samantha Power's quote about Hillary -- "She is a monster, too –- that is off the record –- she is stooping to anything."

(The AP photo at right is of Samantha Power receiving an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from Brown University, May 27, 2007.)

I kept coming back to his transcript of the primary source: The fascination with the trainwreck.

CARLSON: What -- she wanted it off the record. Typically, the arrangement is if someone you're interviewing wants a quote off the record, you give it to them off the record. Why didn't you do that?

PEEV: Are you really that acquiescent in the United States? In the United Kingdom, journalists believe that on or off the record is a principle that's decided ahead of the interview. If a figure in public life.

CARLSON: Right.

PEEV: Someone who's ostensibly going to be an advisor to the man who could be the most powerful politician in the world, if she makes a comment and decides it's a bit too controversial and wants to withdraw it immediately after, unfortunately if the interview is on the record, it has to go ahead.

CARLSON: Right. Well, it's a little.

PEEV: I didn't set out in any way, shape.

CARLSON: Right. But I mean, since journalistic standards in Great Britain are so much dramatically lower than they are here, it's a little much being lectured on journalistic ethics by a reporter from the "Scotsman," but I wonder if you could just explain what you think the effect is on the relationship between the press and the powerful. People don't talk to you when you go out of your way to hurt them as you did in this piece.

Don't you think that hurts the rest of us in our effort to get to the truth from the principals in these campaigns?

PEEV: If this is the first time that candid remarks have been published about what one campaign team thinks of the other candidate, then I would argue that your journalists aren't doing a very good job of getting to the truth. Now I did not go out of my way in any way, shape or form to hurt Miss Power. I believe she's an intelligent and perfectly affable woman. In fact, she's -- she is incredibly intelligent so she -- who knows she may have known what she was doing.

She regretted it. She probably acted with integrity. It's not for me to decide one way or the other whether she did the right thing. But I did not go out and try to end her career.

We don't do interviews off the record. The reporter would end up with nothing substantial to quote, the story would not be complete and we wouldn't be telling readers what we know. You're on the record or no story. (People can talk on background, and suggest leads, but they won't be in the story.)

And we would have had to print Samatha Power's quote, out of respect for the integrity of journalism "without fear or favor."

As did Peev's editors: Scotsman editor: We are certain it was right to publish, an editorial today in The Scotsman, whch ends,

Our job was to put that interview before the public as a matter of public interest. It was for others to judge whether the remarks were ill-judged or spoke of the inexperience in the Obama camp.

Here's how The Scotsman covered the aftermath: Obama aide quits over Scotsman interview

At the end of the story, "Commenting has been suspended due to repeated abuse of our terms and conditions."

Note: Power describes herself as "a working journalist" in her official faculty bio at Harvard: "From 1993 to 1996 she covered the wars in the former Yugoslavia as a reporter for the U.S. News and World Report, the Boston Globe, and The New Republic." She must have known immediately what would follow.

Related: The U.K. Spectator is covering the U.S. election in its Americano blog, where James Forstyth notes,

Personally, I suspect her resignation has as much to do with Power’s honest confession in a BBC interview that when it comes to Iraq Obama "will, of course, not rely on some plan that he’s crafted as a presidential candidate or a U.S. Senator" as the monster comment. Power used to work in Obama’s Senate office and is at the heart of his campaign—the last time I saw her she was at the heart of celebrations at a bar in Des Moines after Obama’s crucial win in the Iowa caucuses—and I doubt she would have been thrown over board just for the monster comment. But the Iraq one is actually far more serious, as it reveals that all Obama’s talk of bringing all the troops home within 16 months is just meaningless politician talk.

But we all know (don't we?) that the message shaped to get elected may not be the actual response to future circumstances and events. Obstacles and unforeseen variables will shape what's possible. One could say that, as I just did, without lurching toward, "It's all mush."

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 4:19 PM | Permalink | Comments 1

30 emerging photographers: the works

PDN's 30 2008 is Photo District News magazine's choice of 30 new and emerging photographers to watch.

There are some fashion shots, which seem stylized, but the more interesting ones are of ordinary people.

From two 26-year-old photographers, vastly different subjects and worldviews. Unfortunately, there are no captions to explain who their subjects are, just quotes, which are published as images, from the photographers. Fortunately, I was able to find more info at each photographer's personal Web site.

Just below, from Canadian Donald Weber shooting in Moscow,

The Underclass and Its Bosses: Ukraine

And, from Philadelphia native Taj Forer, now a North Carolina resident:

Jeff and Mary by Long Hungry Creek, Red Boiling Springs, Tennessee

Nice stuff.

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 12:42 PM | Permalink

March 7, 2008

Friday mp3s: Miles Davis, Peter Tosh

I'm still in the code bubble. New posthumous listens:

Miles Davis Quintet: New Brunswick 1969

Peter Tosh: Equal Rights Demos

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 11:03 AM | Permalink

March 6, 2008

Notebook links: Money, politics, books, games and toys

Along the way this week, I saved these links for today. I'm off in an undisclosed location now, coding the new blogs. Hello from the bubble.

Show your goodness: Online photo giant Flickr giving away 10K pro memberships (to nonprofits). Story at news.com.

Grrl power: At McCormick Tribune New Media Women Entrepreneurs:

NMWE will fund three women-led start-ups that will generate new ideas in the world of news and information and model a spirit of journalistic entrepreneurship. Winners will be given $10,000 to launch their ideas and blog about the process over the next year.

NMWE seeks to map the creative assets of women and validate new ideas. It is an initiative of J-Lab: The Institute for Interactive Journalism at the University of Maryland.

Application deadline is May 1.

They're blaming US! Ten Reasons Obama Slipped at The Progressive:

8. An Improvident Trip to Rhode Island

For some ridiculous reason, Obama went to Rhode Island on Saturday to campaign. By all accounts, he was always going to lose Rhode Island. And he needed that day—just three days before the primaries—to round up more Texas voters.

For quite a few Rhode Islanders, that "mistake" was a peak experience. The premise is that more days in Texas would have mattered. Maybe not, okay?

Hillary gives Jack new fame: At MTV, Jack Nicholson Exclusive: Actor Talks About Hillary Clinton, Campaign Ad. The aging rake gets to step off the screen and talk about, among other things, strong women.

Imagine: Must Read: The Twenty Science Fiction Novels that Will Change Your Life at io9, chronologically, with an emphasis on recent.

Online art toy: Kaleidosketch

Pour your heart out. There's still time to write the Letter You Never Wrote and post it on Letter I Never Sent. This is cathartic -- say it so you can get beyond it.

Wallowing in others' letters? Lotsa misery and woe.

Test for birds: GuessTheSpot.com: How well do you know landmarks?

An aerial geography quiz. Not easy if you don't fly much.

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 2:52 PM | Permalink

March 5, 2008

Mark Cutler: The day we opened for Obama

Tales for the grandkids: Over at the blog on his MySpace site, longtime R.I. musician Mark Cutler (Schemers, Raindogs, Dino Club) writes about playing at RIC Sunday with Dino Club bandmates Mike Tanaka and Bob Giusti before Sen. Barack Obama's arrival there for a campaign rally.

State Sen. Josh Miller (Hot Club, Local 121) had called with the gig offer.

Here's a bit of Obama Rally at RIC:

...I couldn't hear my vocals and my guitar seemed like it was coming from the twilight zone but that was ok. I'm glad I remembered the words. After that, I told the crowd that it was really cool to be part of this witnessing of history. They yelled their approval. Next song was 'Fortunate Son'. Honest to God people, we never played it before but it just made too much sense to play it here, so we did. In the key of B and again I remembered most of the words.

Some people born with star spangled eyes
Ooh they wanna send you out to war…..

That line could make you cry couldn't it?

We then played Honky Tonk Blues by Hank Williams just cuz, I love that song. I wasn't sure what to play next so I asked the folks if they wanted to hear a Rolling Stones song and they mostly said yes. Jumpin Jack Flash at a presidential rally. Yes, the times they are a changing...

Thanks to reader Steve Knudde for the pointer.

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 10:48 AM | Permalink

Dungeons & Dragons creator dies at 69

Alan De Smet photo

Gary Gygax at at the gaming convention Gen Con Indy 2007 last Aug. 16.

Dungeons & Dragons co-creator dies at 69:

MILWAUKEE (AP) -- Gary Gygax, who co-created the fantasy game Dungeons & Dragons and is widely seen as the father of the role-playing games, died Tuesday morning at his home in Lake Geneva. He was 69. He had been suffering from health problems for several years, including an abdominal aneurysm, said his wife, Gail Gygax.

Gygax and Dave Arneson developed Dungeons & Dragons in 1974 using medieval characters and mythical creatures. The game known for its oddly shaped dice became a hit, particularly among teenage boys, and eventually was turned into video games, books and movies....

Gygax dropped out of high school but took anthropology classes at the University of Chicago for a while... He was working as an insurance underwriter in the 1960s, when he began playing war-themed board games.

But Gygax wanted to create a game that involved more fantasy. To free up time to work on that, he left the insurance business and became a shoe repairman....

Gygax also was a prolific writer and wrote dozens of fantasy books, including the Greyhawk series of adventure novels.

Rocco Pier Luigi photo

A Dungeons and Dragons game in progress.

The official D&D site has gone dark

Penny Arcade's comic section leads with a weeping dragon

Thanks to my colleague Paul Parker for the heads-up.

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 12:19 AM | Permalink

March 4, 2008

Solar 'leaves': RISD grad's invention harvests sun and wind -- and flutters

Grow2, "solar leaves" developed for residential use; click on the image to see what the leaves look like fluttering in the wind.

Brilliant: Solar leaves, inspired by ivy, flutter in the wind and harvest power from both wind and sun. Connected like Christmas lights, and layered on a stainless steel mesh system that permits real ivy to grow harmlessly under them, the project -- the first from sustainable design startup SMIT -- is called Grow. It's the invention of RISD grad Teresita Cochran of Brooklyn, pictured at right, and her brother Samuel.

From the Grow site,

Our leaves are made of 100% recyclable polyethylene, and are available in a variety of colors and opacities. The solar cells are thin film flexible photovoltaic modules encapsulated in Tefzel, and are manufactured by PowerFilm Solar. GROW.2 is a flexible system that can adapt to most building types, sizes, orientations and latitudes. We have the ability to provide varying degrees of opacity to modulate heat gain, light transmission and view. Because of our modular design, future iterations of GROW.2 will be able to include more efficient and less expensive PV modules once those products are both available and cost effective. This modularity also makes GROW.2 easy to support and update: if one leaf should fail, we can replace it very easily.

Grow1, the original ivy design above, is currently in an exhibit called Design and the Elastic Mind at the Museum of Modern Art in NYC that opened Sunday and runs through May 12.

The "leaves" aren't commercially available yet, but when they are, I want some.

More:
-- Interview with Teresita Cochran at Ecolect.
-- A blog tracking the development of the project: SMIT@ Pratt Design Incubator 2005-2008

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 4:00 AM | Permalink | Comments 1

March 2, 2008

Video: Hillary on SNL; Feminists: Must race and gender battle each other?

Saturday, Hillary Clinton left the press corps in Dallas boarding a flight to Ohio while she secretly flew to New York to appear on Saturday Night Live; Monday night, on the eve of Tuesday's primaries in Rhode Island, Ohio, Texas and Vermont, she will be a guest on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

Later: I wonder if this is what Net campaign guru Joe Trippi (for Howard Dean, John Hall, John Edwards) meant when he twitted today, "Clinton has changed to bottom up, top down is dead with Democrats!"

With the writers' strike finally over, alt-TV is back and, perhaps not surprisingly, Hillary is courting it. It was startling to see the big-media tilt mirrored the other way, even if it was just on satirical late-night comedy news.

After a skit skewering everybody in last Tuesday's Ohio debate -- but mostly NBC'S own old-boy debate moderators -- Hillary Clinton kicked off Saturday Night Live last night, joined by her SNL double, the identically dressed (down to the earrings) lookalike Amy Poehler. What followed was funny.

NBC has finally stopped playing Whack-A-Mole at YouTube, stomping out homemade clips, and newly offers its own "Share" code for these links. Above is Hillary's live Editorial Response to the fake debate below, which ends,

"...no politics. But I would like to take this opportunity to say to all Americans, be they from the great state of Ohio, or Texas or Rhode Island or Vermont, Pennsylvania... Live, from New York, it is Saturday Night!"

(The AP summary: 'Live, from New York,' it's... Hillary?)

The debate skit below includes Darrell Hamond as Tim Russert and Will Forte as Brian Williams playing air violin when Hillary suggests she gets the first question most often -- no time to think about it -- and that their tone toward her is more hostile. Barack Obama, played by Fred Armisen, gets to answer second, after Russert has fed him the answers. There's also a cameo by Vincent D'Onofrio from Law & Order: Criminal Intent:

Link

Comments on the video at NBC are poignant -- as I grab this, those showing all come from below the glass ceilings. Here's a sample:

Thank you SNL. I sat in a business meeting on Thurs. so similar to your skit, it scares me. Hillary's "secret" is a lifetime battling discrimination. You nailed it: when women complain about sexism, the violins come out. Hillary is the only one of us who has made it this far. While it is politically impossible for her to tell the truth about that, it has to be told, and you told it. SNL forever!

The show also featured Robert Smigel's (Triumph, the Insult Comic Dog) "The Obama Files," an edgy cartoon surprisingly tough on Obama, skewering him for keeping Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson from being seen campaigning for him. (In reality, Sharpton hasn't endorsed Obama, and Jackson's main concern seems to be a rift in the party.)

Glazing our own ceilings: Robin Abcarian in the L.A. Times: Drift away from Clinton frustrates many women is all interesting, and as well as reporting the dismay in its headline, includes this bit of hard talk:

For some women, the rise of Obama rips open a persistent wound: an older, more experienced woman is pushed aside for a younger male colleague.

One of the most impassioned cris de coeur came from feminist poet and novelist Robin Morgan, 67 in an essay (Goodbye To All That (#2)) that became something of a cyberspace sensation after she posted it last month on the Women's Media Center website (and it was forwarded by many people, including Chelsea Clinton).

Morgan decried the casual acceptance of sexism on the campaign trail this season -- from the two young men who shouted "Iron my shirt!" at Clinton to the Hillary-themed nutcrackers available in airport gift shops.

But Morgan reserved her greatest ire for women who decline to support Clinton "while wringing their hands because Hillary isn't as likable as they've been warned they must be. . . . Grow the hell up. She is not running for Ms. Perfect-pure-queen-icon of the feminist movement. She's running to be president of the United States."

Good questions, no answers yet: Ultimately, war and domination is probably not the best model for campaigns that hope to bring about national peace and unity. The change we seek is still ahead of us.

In a sobering essay that has no answers, a group of major feminists met over coffee to confront the not so pleasant irony of the first female and first black fighting each other for the Democratic presidential nomination.

The participants included,
· Gloria Steinem, a co-founder of the National Women's Political Caucus;
· Beverly Guy-Sheftall, director of the Women's Research and Resource Center at Spelman College;
· Johnnetta Cole, chair of the board of the JBC Global Diversity and Inclusion Institute;
· British-born radio journalist Laura Flanders;
· Kimberlé Crenshaw, professor of law at Columbia and UCLA;
· Carol Jenkins, head of the Women's Media Center;
· Farah Griffin, professor of English and comparative literature at Columbia;
· Eleanor Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority;
· author Mab Segrest;
· Kenyan anthropologist Achola Pala Okeyo;
· management consultant and policy strategist Janet Dewart Bell;
· Patricia Williams, Columbia law professor and Nation columnist.

The result was Morning in America in The Nation:

...How, we wondered, did a historic breakthrough moment for which we have all longed and worked hard, suddenly risk becoming marred by having to choose between "race cards" and "gender cards"? By petty competitiveness about who endures more slings and arrows? By media depictions of white women as the sole inheritors of the feminist movement and black men as the sole beneficiaries of the civil rights movement? By renderings of black women as having to split themselves right down the center with Solomon's sword in order to vote for either candidate? What happened, we wondered, to the last four decades of discussion about tokenism and multiple identities and the complex intersections of race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity and class?...

On the one hand, we celebrate the unprecedented moment in which a black person and a female person have risen to the lead in the Democratic race for President of the United States. On the other hand, both of them are constantly pressed to deny their race or gender, to "transcend" it, to prove by their very existence that misogyny and racism no longer exist. This, even as both are popularly and reductively caricatured in perniciously stereotypical ways. Clinton as a woman with balls, Obama as "unqualified" and "grandiose," Chelsea Clinton being "pimped" by her mother while Bill O'Reilly declares that Michelle Obama should be "lynched."...

Cut to the chase:

..."Can't we all just get along?" could have been the mantra of this power breakfast--though certainly not forever, nor for all purposes. Just long enough to roust the Republican rascals: the oil barons and Enron fraudsters and pre-emptive warmongers and sadistic torture-masters and trigger-happy antiabortionists and Blackwater mercenaries and the tribal extremists of various religious stripes who seem to look forward to Armageddon finally segregating humanity into true believers and recalcitrant, disposable trash.

In the confusion of this triumphalist but precarious moment, therefore, it is important that the alliance between a now global feminism and a now global civil rights movement not be turned against itself and ultimately defeated. Obama and Clinton, each a complexly archetypal "role model," represent, at their best, a new kind of American possibility. If we could get over our fixation on a fantasy that many of us hoped to see realized in our lifetimes, maybe we could finally turn to the issues that each of them brings to the table. We cannot remain tangled by stereotypes that demean with their sweeping divisiveness and historical cliché.

As we gathered up the empty plates, we recommitted ourselves to further joint discussions about how to attain that collective better future, however many early mornings, late nights and urns of coffee into the future that may take. We hope women across America will choose to do the same.

We might have hoped these icons pooled their wisdom and agreed on solutions. They didn't. Is it too late? Should Obama and Clinton run together? Could they, after all the rancor? Does a white man have to be on either ticket? If not... Who's on top?

Later still: Hating Hillary, loving Barack by Larry Watson at Cape Cod Today.

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 2:54 PM | Permalink | Comments 5

March 1, 2008

Good read: 'Geldof and Bush: Diary From the Road,' by Geldof

White House photo by Eric Draper
George W. Bush and Bob Geldof aboard Air Force One en route to Ghana, Africa, Feb. 19, 2008

Geldof and Bush: Diary From the Road, by Bob Geldof in Time.

Former Boomtown Rat and Live Aid organizer Geldof is officially writing about President Bush as they travel on Air Force One to Ghana. The story begins,

I gave the President my book. He raised an eyebrow. "Who wrote this for ya, Geldof?" he said without looking up from the cover. Very dry. "Who will you get to read it for you, Mr. President?" I replied. No response.

But his point is very different:

The Bush regime has been divisive — but not in Africa. I read it has been incompetent — but not in Africa. It has created bitterness — but not here in Africa. Here, his administration has saved millions of lives.

Bob Geldof as Pink, in Pink Floyd The Wall.

The fact- and opinion-filled piece is a remarkable first-person account of what must have been a genuinely weird encounter, given the author's ambivalence about his subject. The Irish-born Geldof has found the "compassionate conservative" of Bush's 2000 campaign, and calls out how he has compartmentalized it:

At one point I suggest that he will never be given credit for good policies, like those here in Africa, because many people view him "as a walking crime against humanity." He looks very hurt by that. And I'm sorry I said it, because he's a very likable fellow

It's not all policy discussion. There is a bit about how the laundry gets done on Air Force One, and the only scene actually set in Ghana -- since this is a profile of the president, not an account of their trip -- includes this odd bit:

At a lunch for Peace Corps volunteers in Ghana... One woman tells how six months previously, she was bitten by a cobra and rushed to hospital. As she was passing out, she tells the President, "that little voice whispered to me, 'You'll be all right,' and I was." She pauses, and says meaningfully to him: "You know that little voice, I think?" "Not really," Bush says drily. "I've never been bitten by a cobra."

Geldof does not record whether the President was backing away slowly as he said this.

Ominous postscript: Soaring Food Prices Putting U.S. Emergency Aid in Peril. WaPo.

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 10:04 AM | Permalink | Comments 1