it’s a date
Starting March 12, you can pre-order the Wi-Fi model iPads. Available April 3rd.
A reading
For the first time in 19 or 20 years (as well as I can remember), I will be doing a reading: some poetry, some fiction, maybe even a look at the graphic novel, at South Texas College in McAllen, Texas, next Tuesday at 4 p.m. Y’all fly on down and join the crowd.
March elimae
Enjoy. (It’s free.)
Tampa StripperMobile Grounded
FYI
StripperMobile, the strip club on wheels, will not return to the streets of Tampa Friday night as originally planned.
My peculiar
fantasia on Philoctetes, Sophocles and translation (inspired by Fortunato Salazar’s kind invitation) is now published at Everyday Genius.
Y’all
Happy John Frum Day!
All Things Must Pass
It’s an I Ching thing.
Dear clusterflock
What will be your epitaph?
Changing cabin pressure
It’s all gold, especially starting at 1:55. That accent just gets me.
52 Editions | This Week’s Edition: Phil Bebbington
Storage, Winterset, Iowa (2009). Phil Bebbington.
8.5″x11″ archival pigment print. Limited edition of 275.
Every week, 52 Editions features a different photograph for $45, published in a limited edition of 275. This week’s edition may be familiar to Flockers and regulars.
Phil’s Winterset photograph will be available at this terrific price for seven days, after which it will appear permanently in the 52 Editions catalog at a price that is still damn good.
There are other fine photographs over there as well, so take a look. And do it soon.
Have One On Me
The gypsy queen Joanna Newsom releases her newest album (a triple disc!) on February 23, 2010. It’s available for pre-order here.
It has been four years since her last release Ys, three years since I last saw her, two years since things went south with Bill Callahan, and one year since I stopped spreading rumours about her dating relationship with Andy Samburg.
February elimae
is now posted.
Inside the hut, looking out
Disney has closed Miramax
Founded by producers Bob and Harvey Weinstein back in 1979, Miramax flourished as an independent distribution and production outfit, before becoming part of the Disney empire in 1993…. During its heyday, Miramax was regarded as arguably the industry’s most respected and influential production company. But in recent years its output has been downscaled by Disney, and its demise was predicted long before today’s closure of its offices in LA.The six Miramax pictures that are currently awaiting distribution – including John Madden’s The Debt and Last Night, starring Keira Knightley – now face an uncertain future.
Well that’s a pity.
Live from the Apple Event
CUPERTINO, CA—Claiming that he completely forgot about the much-hyped electronic device until the last minute, a frantic Steve Jobs reportedly stayed up all night Tuesday in a desperate effort to design Apple’s new tablet computer. “Come on, Steve, just think—think, dammit—you’re running out of time,” the exhausted CEO said as he glued nine separate iPhones to the back of a plastic cafeteria tray. “Okay, yeah, this will work. This will definitely work. Just need to write ‘tablet’ on this little strip of masking tape here and I’m golden. Oh, come on, you piece of shit! Just stick already!” Middle-of-the-night sources reported that Jobs then began work on double-spacing his Keynote presentation and increasing the font size to make it appear longer.
(via the comments on Engadget)
Y’all
I am trying hard to find non-Apple tablet related stuff, but it’s hard.
Cap. Trade.
Steve Jobs delivers the annual presidential address:
So today, we’re introducing a new plan. It’s called Stimulus 2GS, and it’s sleeker than any economic recovery package ever created. It’s got bridges, it’s got schools, it’s got broadband Internet. All that, and it’s super easy to use—you can control it from iTunes. Pretty cool, huh?
(APPLAUSE.)
Now let’s take a look at national security. When we got in here last year, torture was basically OK. We were water-boarding people and doing all sorts of terrible things. If you’re the president of the United States, how do you solve this? Hmm. Oh wait, we have solved this. We banned torture. Boom. Now that’s what I call an amazing breakthrough.
seriously
Protogez – vous
There’s a brilliant safe-sex ad running in France, which isn’t exactly safe for work.
But then again, it’s the weekend.
(via)
Update: [Deron] I moved it above the fold. I don’t want us to be too worried about NSFW.
Seriously? This Just Happened?
Did anyone catch this?
Yesterday’s Supreme Court decision in the Citizens United case removes all limits on large corporations to finance and influence federal elections. In its ruling the Court reverse a decades old ruling barring companies from using their general funds to fund political campaign, and guts pieces of the popular McCain-Feingold campaign finance legislation. In so doing the Court implicitly embraces a 125 year-old precedent in the case of Santa Clara v. Santa Fe, where the Court first developed the legal doctrine of corporate personhood, explicitly granting corporations the same political and civil rights granted to human beings.
I would be concerned, but I tend to only care about whether the gays can marry.
Felicitations, Phil,
on your natal anniversary. Now you are a big boy and can wear long trousers.
The Ides of March
Aside from my day job of hunting down a venue for our next big get-together, I’ve suddenly arranged to house three ‘flockers in my studio apartment this spring.
So let me take this moment to formally invite any and all other ‘flockers to show up in San Francisco the second weekend of March. Heck, stay through the third week if you want. Bring a sleeping bag and you can sleep on my floor. If enough of you join us, I have several friends living within a four-block radius I’m sure I can bribe or blackmail accordingly.
It won’t be the real thing we’re planning for this summer, but it’s sure to be a good time.
If you haven’t already
Texting ‘Haiti’ to 90999 will donate $10 through your phone bill to the Red Cross relief effort.
Going out in style
Donald Jack Wickman
WICKMAN Donald Jack Wickman – A truly pulchritudinous man, Donald Jack Wickman gallivanted off to a new adventure January 12, 2010. While he made the peregrination alone, he was surrounded by and given a rousing valediction by so many of the ones who loved him: his wife, daughters, sons, daughter-in-law, and a plethora of friends. Yet, he was greeted by those who had gone before him: his mom and dad, brothers and many more of the friends he made during his undaunted life. Some of these multitudinous friends were made amidst jumping out of perfectly good airplanes as a member of the 82nd Airborne, and others while shellacking criminals as a cop in Boulder and Thornton, Colorado, and writing himself tickets (and taking himself to court.) Don made many friends after arriving on Dauphin Island in a blue limousine, and as he travailed with his wife, Lynn, to spawn the world famous Treasure Trove. Copious friendships were also developed as he hunted down antiques and refurbished them into pristine status, while debating with the people of Mars Hill Church, and during the creation of flabbergasting paintings. All of these friends and family are invited to gather in his and his wife’s home on Friday, January 15, at 7 pm to celebrate Don’s superlative life. He may be gone from us in body, but he is surely not forgotten. So, tell your friends about him.
I hope that when I die, somebody has the awesomeness (and worthwhile material) to post such an exuberant notice for me. Rock on, Don & company.
(Thanks, sc!)
Freddy’s is fighting and they’re doing it on Fox News, baby
A couple of friends of mine were on Fox News yesterday morning, to talk about their fight to save Freddy’s, a hugely loved local bar in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn – as well as many homes and businesses - from being snatched in a landmark eminent domain ruling.
Basically, the New York supreme court has decided that billionaire developer Bruce Ratner can seize property in the 22 acres of the “Atlantic Yards” footprint in order to build an arena and some tower housing that is deeply unwanted by the people of the neighbourhood. It is now enshrined in law that it is fair game for the state to seize property from small businesses, homeowners and renters, if the billionaire or corporation who wants to seize their properties can pay higher real estate taxes to the state. This is an outrageous abuse of the idea of eminent domain which was originally designed to be used ‘for the public good’.
The community has fought against this for 6 years now, and the last appeal against this use of eminent domain was decided last month in favour of the billionaire. Two days before Christmas, Forest City Ratner initiated proceedings to seize the homes and businesses in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn.
The message is: if you are a homeowner in the United States of America, anyone who wants to seize your property is now enabled by law to do that, so long as he is richer than you. That is now enshrined in law, in a decision handed down by the highest court of the land.
Freddy’s is more than a bar. It’s a community, a true neighbourhood sanctuary, and a fantastic music venue. It is expected that the site that Freddy’s sits on will fit a few SUVs in the parking lot that is planned for it. Handcuffs have been installed in the bar, and there are more than enough people willing to chain themselves to the bar and go to jail to defy the bailiffs if and when they arrive at Freddy’s door.
The fifth amendment to the United States Bill of Rights
prohibits the federal government from depriving any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.
Well, they got their due process of law, but it is bad bad law indeed. More legal challenges are on the way.
UPDATE: I have now amended this post to reflect the fact that this decision was originally handed down by the United States supreme court, which means that it can happen legally anywhere in the US. It has been challenged in the state of New York in this case, but the ruling apparently (and I am not a lawyer or an American citizen) stands countrywide.
UPDATE again: George Will wrote this op-ed column in the Washington Post about the ruling and “the twisted meaning of ‘blight’”. Read it.