The Secret Museum

Italo Calvino

Myth is nourished by silence as well as by words.
-Italo Calvino

I'll be showing photographic collages...

...in the Bronx, Wednesday February 4 and Saturday February 7, at Mitsu-Sue-Amy's latest Loftevent. Click here for full info, including address. The salon will be a stop on the February 4 Bronx Arts Trolley, sponsored by the Bronx Council on the Arts. They're calling it "Conversions, Changes, Transformations."

Like a lot of people who've been online for a while, I have several different email addresses. The emily who gets her email at mindspring: is she the same as the one at the WELL? And what about that Secret Museum lady?

And, there are even more than those, super-seekrit logins to servers, or an emily at majorwebportal_limpingalongpostbust.com that I used when I went to New Zealand. The account my friend gave me on the best domain name ever, neurotic.com, which she had the smarts to register early.

A half-dozen sorcerer's apprentice-emilys, all sort of different and sort of the same. I think about consolidating them all, but it is sort of fun to watch them running around, buckets slopping over with SPAM.

All of which is to say that I have put my resume and arts & publications vita online at last, but over at my mindspring account, since I've been using it on biz cards for about five years.

Gale Norton bakes Alaska

The Bush Administration's answer to our dependence on gas and oil, the dependence that has left over 500 U.S. troops dead and nearly 10,000 injured in Iraq (and of course, a lot of Iraqis, but no one knows how many, and a few reporters and some nice people from the United Nations): drill it out of fragile, irreplacable Arctic wilderness. Or, as the Department of the Interior calls it, "National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPR-A)."

Some birds and whales may wonder what destroyed their their migratory rest stops, but that is a small thing when compared to the American SUVs, exempt from fuel efficiency standards, needing to get to highway rest stops. Dad, I gotta go!

The petro-spoils from the NPR-A should supply American needs for six months at current usage rates, folks! Who knows what it will cover by the time the Friends of Bush & Cheney, Inc. are actually pulling it out of the ground!

Alaska Wilderness League's backgrounder on the NPR-A

Environmental News Network (by AP): Interior finishes plan to open nearly 9 million acres in Alaska to drilling

A helpful map, courtesy of The Olympian (WA)

Well, not everyone's smoking a cigar: Rocky Mountain News, out of Colorado, reports that Area gas producers feel left out by Norton.

Well, whatever. I guess it will all be melted before the century's over, anyway.

Adobe's censorship upgrade

Tiffany writes that Adobe has installed a funny little "anti-counterfeiting" feature into Adobe CS, at the behest of the U.S. Government: Scan that snazzy redesigned $20 bill, and CS will present the following public service message: "this image has been censored."

What's more, Adobe sorta kinda left news of this enhancement of their promotions and release notes. Users broke it in Adobe's own online forums.

Spalding Gray

Spalding Gray has been missing for over a week. Press reports all note that he "has a history of depression" and at least one past suicide attempt.

He was sighted on the Staten Island Ferry the last evening his family saw him. Apparently he had tried to jump off the ferry before. It's been record-making cold here in NYC for two weeks now, the harbor is icing over. I have only a small sense (glad for that) of what kind of feeling would drive someone (someone with family, a children, friends, an artist's success and an artist's life) over the railing and into the unbelievable dark cold of that water.

I can't express how wretched I feel at the prospect of the world without more of his brilliant, intelligent, acutely-observed, angry story-performances.

John Perry Barlow writes about his friend Spalding Gray.

" Doubt is my bottom line. The only thing I don't doubt is my own doubt. "
-Spalding Gray

Day of the Ents

The Director Looms: Question and answer session with cast members and director of "Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King." Left to right, the backs of: Richard Pena (Film Society of Lincoln Center), Bernard Hill, Elijah Wood, Andy Serkis, Sean Astin. On screen: Peter Jackson. January 10, 2004. Photo by Emily Gertz.

Last Saturday I went to a screening of the Lord of the Rings film trilogy, held in Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center. Highlights of the day were appearances by various cast members to introduce each film, and a Q&A with the actors and director Peter Jackson (via video link from New Zealand) after the final movie.

I enjoyed myself immensely, and it was an interesting cultural experience. The audience was very enthusiastic; a different energy from going to the "regular" movies. Maybe attending a marathon like this is the sf/fantasy fan's equivalent of coming out of the closet.

I spied several instances of commemorative jewelry being worn (Arwen's pendant; the elvish leaf pins; The Ring on The Chain); a woman in a t-shirt saying "Frodo Lives" that looked like an actual 1970s artifact; and, a small group of girls dressed in cloaks and other Ringish garments. I think they were pre- or early teens, and terribly cute.

The audience broke into applause at particularly moving or effects-a-licious moments. Legolas grabbing the bridle and swinging up onto that galloping horse, or free-climbing up the side of an oliphaunt--all right, elf!.

I chatted with a woman who had seen the films nearly 25 times (that's three films seen in varying amounts, not 25 times per film). She explained that the books and movies were so engrossing, she loved the story of the quest, the friendships...I really wanted to understand her pov but couldn't quite draw her out. A college kid told me that he wanted to be part of the biggest cultural experience since Star Wars, which came out before he was born. Ulp! I was 13 when Star Wars opened!

I'm not deeply into Tolkien, but love the intelligence, talent, and skill brought to these movies. Jackson respects the material--not a feeling I get from most current science fiction or fantasy films, which seem more about ripping the ten-dollar bill out of my pocket.

And, it's a relief to have a metaphorical vehicle for thinking about war, peace, loss, ultimate evil and misguided leaders, for a short while, in the cozy darkness.

Science Fiction Movies

Made it to "Avalon," last night, at the Film Society of Lincoln Center's sf film fest.

It is interesting to get a look at a recent sf film made outside the U.S. (Japanese-produced, shot in Poland).

However, it was not a very successful movie--the philosophical implications of the story were not well explored (woman living dingy life only thrives when she's playing a Warrior in an immersive VR game...but has she even left the game...and is there an ultimate top level for the best players...etc.), and apparently the director, Mamoru "Ghost In the Shell" Oshii, told the lead actress to play her part free of pesky little acting cliches like conveying emotional depth.

Still, the look was beautiful--Warsaw, in creamy sepia tones--and made the whole thing worth seeing.

Two days ago, the festival screened the full 4 hour, 40 minute cut of Wim Wenders' "Until the End of the World." UtEotW made a huge impression on me when I first saw it around 1993, with its' subtle futurism, environmentalist content, great score, and multi-continental cinematography. This director's cut rarely screens in the U.S.

Did it add a lot to see it? Yes, and no. The relationships between the characters become much clearer, there's more music, and the plot hangs together more coherently. The extra time also gives Wenders the opportunity to drive ideas home with a sledgehammer where they had once been more gently implied or inferred.

Probably the best part of this extended version comes in part three, where something that happened very abruptly in the original U.S. version is developed much more:

The film's characters, some of them pursuing opposing goals during the entire film, are now stuck together in an isolated Australian Aboriginal cultural center, waiting to find out if the world beyond has survived the atmospheric destruction of a nuclear satellite. No electronics have survived the electro-magnetic pulse of the explosion; there are no radios, tvs, video screens, phones.

A set of drums turns up. Then an old piano. One guy (the private detective, of course!) has a harmonica. One man starts teaching another to make and play a digeridoo.

A couple men begin to play instruments together to entertain themselves; then another joins, and another, practicing amongst the rocks in front of giggling children. It culminates on New Year's Eve 1999 in a glorious jam session, led by the singing of Claire, the woman around whom they've all been vying for love, money, information or recognition. Everyone has shaken off their animosities, the haze of passively consuming entertainment in isolated spaces, to make music together in the middle of one of the amazing landscape.

Why the Iraq war was wrong, and where it may get us

Mitsu recently posted (reposted, he said), his reasons against the Iraq war. He is so cogent on these points that all I can say is, what he said.

I can hardly articulate my own political thoughts these days. Painful position for this once-upon-a-time activist. Used to think I had all the answers.

With friends who agree, it's little comfort to just nod our heads at each other and look tense. And with folks who agree with the war, or Bush or American's current direction overall, there is no talking.

Since being laid off from my last steady job in March 2003, I encounter such folks a lot less in my daily life . Mainstream office culture was a messy melting pot of opinion.

little blue planet

Do you, like me, want to keep up with George Bush & Co., as they turn the nation's natural resources, air, water etc., and open/public lands over to their energy industry cronies and other fellow travelers? Undermine international environmental treaties? When they're not simply ignoring them?

There's a lot to read! A few links that can help:

BushGreenwatch — Tracking the Bush Administration's Environmental Misdeeds sends out daily updates. If by luck there's no new outrage in that day's news, BushGreenwatch fills in the background on Bush's environmental record. Back issues are archived; notable quotes noted.

Environment 2004, composed of former Clinton administration officials and other prominent enviros, looks to put the environment on the 2004 election agenda. It's got potential.

Tidepool is practically an elder of environmental news online. Daily updates of stories relevant to Salmon Nation, the central and northern Pacific coast of North America, with a very inclusive and intelligent editorial eye. Do you like to eat fish? Use wood? Well then, what happens in the Pacific NW will interest you.

The Viridian Design Movement archives Bruce Sterling's Viridian mailing list, which is mostly concerned with the progress of global warming. There's a lot of other shiny bright green material here too, and it's not strictly about Bush, the U.S., or climate change for that matter. Bruce uncovers stuff you might never otherwise hear about.