May 18, 2008
Susan Dessel's "OUR BACKYARD" censored by gallery
this too is our backyard In the twenty-first century the entire world really has become our "backyard" and along with its beauty and energy, there is also much unnecessary misery and death everywhere in that yard. Provincial fears and...
Posted by james at 10:00 PM | Full Post
April 27, 2008
six years of the jimlog
(I have no idea why the 99˘ store across the street has a second sign reading 69˘) Today marks the anniversary of this blog, begun six years ago. I had conceived it as a modest but public means of...
Posted by james at 12:02 PM | Full Post
April 21, 2008
back in the world
As Barry reported here on Sunday during a quick foray out of the affected area with his laptop, our larger neighborhood was without any internet connection all weekend. Our contact with the outside world was restored late on Monday, but...
Posted by james at 8:19 PM | Full Post
April 20, 2008
Hiatus due to Road Runner Internet
No blogging from James until at least Monday. Road Runner knocked us off the internet Friday night, and they hope to give us a connection again by end of day Monday....
Posted by barry at 2:14 PM | Full Post
April 6, 2008
will resume play
Yeah, this site's been mighty quiet for over a week, and to me the pause button seems like it's been pressed for twice that long. Right after the art fairs I was first feeling pretty burned out, but I...
Posted by james at 9:23 PM | Full Post
March 16, 2008
capitalists asking for trouble, or "the visible hand"
passing GO We're telling them, "we're not going to regulate you, and we're going to bail you out when you fuck up." I didn't say it. It was Barry. It was just a few minutes ago. He was replying...
Posted by james at 7:23 PM | Full Post
hooker just a cover; Bush and bankers crushed Spitzer
farm foreclosure sale during the Great Depression My obsession* with this story welcomes further ratiocination: Greg Palast makes some connections which Wall Street, the White House and their joint instrument, a discretionary Justice Department, would prefer to to keep...
Posted by james at 11:52 AM | Full Post
March 14, 2008
a beautiful woman
Stanley Ann Dunham’s 1960 high school graduation picture Don't miss this beautiful article about a very beautiful woman. I cried from beginning to end.She had high expectations for her children. In Indonesia, she would wake her son at 4...
Posted by james at 12:16 PM | Full Post
March 10, 2008
play in your own yards, and leave Spitzer alone
William Hogarth Enthusiasm Delineated 1761 This is stupid, if not just evil. No, I'm not talking about Eliot Spitzer. Let him deal with his family; it's not our concern. People are screaming at the Governor about his marital infidelity...
Posted by james at 8:46 PM | Full Post
March 3, 2008
do we owe it all to Bush?
"Certainly the prestige of the office of president must be seriously compromised if a woman has a serious shot at it." I would add "or a black man" to that conditional clause, but the subject of the article from...
Posted by james at 11:35 AM | Full Post
February 13, 2008
"They hate our freedoms"
the enemy is us "They hate our freedoms" [from Bush's 2002 State of the Union address] But just yesterday:WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate overwhelmingly passed a bill on Tuesday granting retroactive immunity from lawsuits to telecommunications companies that...
Posted by james at 10:55 AM | Full Post
February 7, 2008
Guantanamo: is there no limit to the obscenities?
a view of the camp we've known about for six years, not the secret one Really?!!! We learn tonight that the regime in Washington has been maintaining a separate concentrated concentration camp totally hidden inside the Guantanamo camp we...
Posted by james at 1:44 AM | Full Post
January 4, 2008
"American Primary System Fails to Impress Europeans"
Duh. Deutsche Welle, the English language on-line news site, reports that intelligent Europeans who study our political system essentially think the way we select candidates for office is, well, nuts.National elections in Europe often last only six weeks and campaigns...
Posted by james at 6:34 PM | Full Post
December 31, 2007
the last of the old year's (glorious, expiring) lillies
Flowers, like other objects of our affection - or lust - are usually sought out for their freshness and youth, and not for their spots and wrinkles. Anyone familiar with this site knows I love flowers, but I confess...
Posted by james at 1:43 PM | Full Post
December 27, 2007
GUANTANAMO DELENDA EST!
Out of sight and out of mind. Our concentration camp in Guantanamo is still off the chart (literally); missing from the Democratic Congressional agenda; "not present" in presidential campaign rhetoric; and, most frighteningly and damningly of all, it still...
Posted by james at 11:47 PM | Full Post
December 16, 2007
Smart on 23rd Street
The first Smart of winter. The Mercedes Smart (yes, Mercedes) will finally be available in the U.S. by the end of January. We spotted this little beauty (a cabriolet with manufacturer's plates) parked across from our building as we...
Posted by james at 8:46 PM | Full Post
November 21, 2007
comments glitch discovered, repaired
(this one's an aesthetic glitch) I learned yesterday that my "comments" function had not been operating since we switched servers, but the glitch has now been repaired. If you've tried to comment on something recently and felt shut out,...
Posted by james at 10:50 AM | Full Post
November 17, 2007
Reverend Billy free this time, but the assaults never stop
cover of a 1909 pamphlet created to protect the right of free speech at a time Emma Goldman was being prevented from speaking How often does the NYPD have to be reminded about the First Amendment? Two days ago...
Posted by james at 8:57 PM | Full Post
November 11, 2007
GUANTANAMO DELENDA EST!
This post is part of a series begun on May 21, 2007, which will continue until the U.S. concentration camps at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere around the world have been razed. Two things this time around: First, we haven't...
Posted by james at 12:44 PM | Full Post
November 2, 2007
perhaps we need more mirrors
FINISHING TOUCH The giant charm bracelet by Nicola Malkin, a designer and ceramicist, is typically displayed on chairs, large tables or bedposts, as at the J. Roaman furnishings store in East Hampton, N.Y. I don't think anything could better...
Posted by james at 12:48 PM | Full Post
October 16, 2007
we Americans are 'good Germans'
war is never what we expect it to be: Dresden, stacked bodies after 1945 Allied firebombing We despair. Four and a half years ago Barry and I each decided that we were retiring from both direct and indirect political...
Posted by james at 3:00 AM | Full Post
October 15, 2007
Pro Publica arrives in town: expected to speak to power
In the middle of the Times city room in The Power of the Press (Columbia Pictures, 1928), the city editor (Robert Edison) congratulates cub reporter Clem Rogers (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.) for getting his first page-one story as the more...
Posted by james at 12:57 PM | Full Post
October 13, 2007
my favorite Iraq war photo
a long way from Williamsburg I found this image searching Google while preparing my post about Ashley Gilbertson's book. It's from a photo-sharing site in an album maintained by a Marine photo journalist, Staff Sergeant Chad McMeen. This is...
Posted by james at 3:13 PM | Full Post
Clayton Patterson at Kinz, Tillou + Feigen
[four stills from the video installation of the film, "Captured"] How do you write about a chronicler with a soul? How do you write about a bard with a camera? We can't begin to understand the importance of people...
Posted by james at 12:48 AM | Full Post
October 12, 2007
so President Gore it is
the once and future president I'm not arguing he should be nominated and elected this time because he won the Nobel Peace Prize, but because winning the Nobel Peace Prize can make it happen. Why Al Gore, and not...
Posted by james at 11:28 AM | Full Post
October 5, 2007
the "war on terror" has reduced us to slaves
Roy Batty's epiphany Last night I spent far too much time worrying about how to express the depth of my broader frustration and despair before posting the latest version of my regular fulminations over Guantanamo. I should have waited...
Posted by james at 1:44 PM | Full Post
October 4, 2007
GUANTANAMO DELENDA EST!
This post is part of a series begun on May 21, 2007, which will continue until the U.S. concentration camps at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere around the world have been razed. Many of us learned years ago that we...
Posted by james at 8:25 PM | Full Post
September 30, 2007
PWOP 2: last night's second "Parade Without A Permit"
drum corps section the vanguard past the Stonewall site the campaign theme not as bad as it looks the curious gather on the sidewalks We're saying the First Amendment isn't just for the homos. It was a fabulous party....
Posted by james at 9:46 PM | Full Post
September 23, 2007
RHA, allies "Parade Without a Permit" for right of assembly
The Radical Homosexual Agenda [RHA] logo incorporates the group's Regulation Pink Gasmask®, which has been donned by members since 2006 while they pursue their perilous mission fighting the American mainstream - an environment which they argue, and few would...
Posted by james at 7:29 PM | Full Post
September 22, 2007
a "7th haven" on international Park(ing) Day
hanging out in a park and free bike repair station on 7th Avenue at Charles yesterday Park(ing) Day, it's about serious greenstreets See Jim Dwyer's column for a word picture of the larger footprint of New York's part in...
Posted by james at 11:32 AM | Full Post
September 17, 2007
Capla Kesting throws blogger out of gallery
Travis Lindquist [image protected here from viewers] In Williamsburg last Friday evening Barry and I had just come from a reception and we had a little time to kill before the 7 o'clock hour when the galleries we had...
Posted by james at 2:20 PM | Full Post
September 13, 2007
Kissinger to be Grand Marshall of Steuben Day Parade
the Realpolitiker's very favorite Tracht UPDATE: For concerned citizens of the world who might find the information useful, I've learned that Kissinger is expected to speak at the Parade Gala Benefit Banquet scheduled for 7 o'clock tonight, Friday, at...
Posted by james at 9:06 PM | Full Post
September 12, 2007
Alex the parrot
"Thinking about animals" He was probably already my favorite member of the paper's staff, but a short piece by Verlyn Klinkenborg in today's NYTimes was worth far more than the price of admission. He is writing about Alex, the...
Posted by james at 11:54 AM | Full Post
September 5, 2007
fuck Mother Teresa!
a very rewarding friendship (Blessed Teresa greeting friend Charles Keating) On this tenth anniversary of the demise of Mother Teresa, the acclaimed world-champion of suffering and death [whose lifer inmates were refused even aspirin, but who died only after...
Posted by james at 12:28 PM | Full Post
September 1, 2007
why was Craig taken down and Vitter not?
(but right, even laudable, if I paid women for quickies) The Republicans have trashed and now unceremoniously sacked one of their very own worthy gentlemen for soliciting consensual, uncompensated sex with another person. Senator Craig was forced to resign...
Posted by james at 9:56 PM | Full Post
the real meaning of Labor Day [redux]
National Guardsmen firing into demonstrators during the 1894 Chicago Pullman strike* [contemporary Harpers Weekly drawing] [Exactly five years ago today (I see now that it was almost to the minute) I did a post, "the real meaning of Labor...
Posted by james at 6:00 PM | Full Post
August 30, 2007
I love science!
A piece of amber 15 to 20 million years old, found in the Dominican Republic, contains a perfectly-preserved bee within it. The news seems to be all about the fossilized orchid pollen on the insect's back, and how it...
Posted by james at 8:52 PM | Full Post
August 28, 2007
cop sitting in toilet stall enticed Senator Craig for sex
ruins of public toilet in ancient port of Ostia Okay, even if no one has asked, does anyone want to know my take on the Senator Craig homosex arrest story? Well, it was actually my second thought, the less-than-honorable...
Posted by james at 12:33 AM | Full Post
August 26, 2007
GUANTANAMO DELENDA EST!
our shame and ignominy abstracted as a color which has become familiar to the entire world This post is part of a series begun on May 21, 2007, which will continue until the U.S. concentration camps at Guantanamo Bay...
Posted by james at 3:23 PM | Full Post
August 23, 2007
UPDATE on Deutsche Bank fire
It seems that the tangled story at which I could only hint in my Tuesday post, "Ayn Rand linked to Deutsche Bank skyscraper tragedy?", has caused some serious bustle around the city desk at the NYTimes. The lead story...
Posted by james at 12:01 PM | Full Post
August 21, 2007
Ayn Rand linked to Deutsche Bank skyscraper tragedy?
skyscrapers have very complex lives I've just read that the name of the sub-contracting company in charge of the demolition at the Deutsche Bank building is the John Galt Corporation. Who is John Galt? I immediately recognized the intriguing...
Posted by james at 2:02 PM | Full Post
August 17, 2007
TEAR IT DOWN
Guantanamo. Again. But this time I'm encouraged by the appearance of a new site devoted specifically to the subject. Amnesty International has just gone public with a new site, tearitdown.org, dedicated to solely shutting down permanently the most notorious...
Posted by james at 4:52 PM | Full Post
of one-party governments, war crimes and collective guilt
Bloggy explains why he and so many of us have abandoned American electoral politics. My own take on it: A people which liked to describe its system as "democratic" has finally been occupied by what our last real "republican"...
Posted by james at 4:11 PM | Full Post
August 7, 2007
Kenneth Walker at the SVA Open Studios
Kenneth Walker did these beautiful drawings on mylar, seen at the SVA Open Studios last Thursday. They had a three-dimensional, sculptural quality but suggested weightlessness at the same time....
Posted by james at 6:51 PM | Full Post
May 26, 2007
Pimientos de Padrón at the May Flower in Getaria
It's a very simple thing, but I think our most exciting gustatory discovery while in Spain was a traditional (Galician) pepper dish, Pimientos de Padrón, and I'm willing to go to great lengths to find the right pepper in...
Posted by james at 12:16 AM | Full Post
May 18, 2007
we're back, but it still looks pretty dreadful around here
like a bad penny I cannot hide it any longer: We arrived back from Spain Wednesday afternoon. Our luggage, having decided to extend the holiday for another day, arrived at our door 24 hours later, sadder but a little...
Posted by james at 10:06 AM | Full Post
May 6, 2007
Atocha Train Station Memorial
Barry and I went to Atocha early this afternoon, to see what the station looked like, but also to see the memorial to the March 11, 2004 Madrid train bombings which killed 191 people and injured some 1800. Especially...
Posted by james at 12:41 PM | Full Post
May 1, 2007
leaving for Spain
Francisco de Zurbarán Still Life with Lemons, Oranges and a Rose 1633 We're flying to Spain tomorrow for two weeks: Madrid, a motor trip north, ending in Barcelona, from which we fly back on the 16th. I was in...
Posted by james at 6:27 PM | Full Post
April 27, 2007
5 years of the jimlog
a survivor of the original IRT numbering system from 1904 I started this blog five years ago today. It was the successor to an eight-month series of emails with which I had been plaguing my friends since September 11....
Posted by james at 12:01 PM | Full Post
March 3, 2007
jimlog subscriptions
stay connected This blog will be five years old next month, having evolved from a series of emails I had started sending to friends six months earlier, almost immediately after September 11. Some of those folks asked me early...
Posted by james at 4:07 PM | Full Post
January 7, 2007
June in January
I don't mean to unduly upset anyone not already concerned about climate change, and I know that as scientific evidence it's merely anecdotal, but tonight while I was sitting in front of an open window checking my email I...
Posted by james at 1:34 AM | Full Post
September 25, 2006
Taylor McKimens at Clementine
Taylor McKimens has a single large piece installed inside Clementine Gallery.An exhibition featuring Taylor McKimens's first comic book, published by PictureBox. All of the artwork used to make the comic book has been re-mixed to make a single freestanding...
Posted by james at 6:36 PM | Full Post
August 27, 2006
brick wannabes on 9th Avenue
(nice try, but I wasn't fooled for a moment)...
Posted by james at 3:03 PM | Full Post
August 2, 2006
feds throw blogger Josh Wolf into prison
Wolf at work "I feel a little bit responsible for this mess he's in right now, because he told me, 'Mom, you taught me to do what's right.'" Liz Wolf-Spada A Federal grand jury investigating the alleged vandalism of...
Posted by james at 11:38 AM | Full Post
May 31, 2006
my respite
I think it's about time to come back from my vacation. The first half of the interval was the good part, the rare visit of two members of Barry's family, here on separate but overlapping schedules. The second half, not...
Posted by james at 8:45 PM | Full Post
May 25, 2006
more on comments
Barry writes:I don't enjoy coming home to the level of discourse I get when my post on Jean Rohe's speech has such a high Google rank. From now on, all comments must be approved. I don't need to hear people...
Posted by james at 12:48 AM | Full Post
May 19, 2006
real and fake comments
we get letters I love comments, and I get really excited about comments about comments. I rush to open each of them when they are announced in my mailbox. Unfortunately I often have to wade through a flood of...
Posted by james at 10:53 AM | Full Post
May 10, 2006
I'll try to do better
I've been much too neglectful lately in posting items about the art stuff we've seen. If I have an excuse it's that I've been distracted by construction and other projects inside the apartment. Hey, it's a large apartment, and sometimes...
Posted by james at 7:25 PM | Full Post
March 24, 2006
February 22, 2006
nobody in charge
I think I can speak for a lot of people on the Left if I say that for a long time we've been in a state of despair because of our belief that the radical Right was pretty much...
Posted by james at 5:38 PM | Full Post
February 2, 2006
we are all Danes today
This whole Mohammed image thing is almost perfectly ridiculous, but there is one perfect solution to the problem. Denmark simply must not be left hanging in the wind. There is a popular, although apparently apocryphal story concerning the Danish...
Posted by james at 11:20 PM | Full Post
January 13, 2006
finally it's right here: a secret police with matching state*
Jane and Louise Wilson Stasi City 1997 video [still from installation] All this blithering about to execute or not to execute, for the death penalty or against - all rot, comrades. Execute! And, when necessary, without a court judgment."...
Posted by james at 5:57 PM | Full Post
of superstition and death
Voltaire: not quite an atheist, but an enemy of superstition everywhere Even, or perhaps especially, in the midst of so much grief being felt in Mecca and all over the world today, I don't think it's unfair to ask:...
Posted by james at 3:35 PM | Full Post
January 11, 2006
the American idea of learning; or, what to do with extra cash?
Once again America steps up to the plate, or goalpost, to show the world that we understand what edjukation is all about. Oklahoma State University has announced that Texas oil magnate T. Boone Pickens will donate $165 million to...
Posted by james at 2:57 PM | Full Post
January 6, 2006
Jesus, just visiting
the eyes have it As I write this it's already the early hours of January 6, the Feast of the Epiphany and traditionally the absolute finish to the long holiday which celebrates the birth of the founder of the...
Posted by james at 12:08 AM | Full Post
December 16, 2005
Sweet Pea cam
This morning Barry remembered we had once made a very short video of Sweetpea, and he's arranged a link to it here. Be warned, the file is pretty big. Early in his stay with us, several years ago now,...
Posted by james at 12:27 PM | Full Post
December 15, 2005
Sweet Pea
warming up on the cold afternoon he flew through our opened window three years ago Barry and I said goodbye to Sweet Pea* this afternoon. I know it's silly, but I have to say it: He was part of...
Posted by james at 5:36 PM | Full Post
December 8, 2005
Pinter reminds us that political truth still requires a poet
Sir Harold Nobel laureate Harold Pinter addressed the Swedish Academy yesterday. He began with a beautiful description of his own creative process, but very soon stepped up to the broader political pulpit which the prize so generously provides its...
Posted by james at 12:45 PM | Full Post
December 7, 2005
posting to resume tomorrow
Between pre-Miami, during-Miami and after-Miami distractions and commitments, I've been unable to post anything for a week or so. My vacation ends tomorrow however. I'll try to make up for my neglect. [image from mikkibeymer]...
Posted by james at 11:30 PM | Full Post
October 26, 2005
not so happy about the Bundeswehr
just say no In the U.S. we can't get very excited about protesting our outrageous invasion and destruction of virtually powerless nations and peoples who present no threat to us whatsoever, but in Germany a good many citizens have...
Posted by james at 2:06 PM | Full Post
Berlin's tip
It's a very complicated site for me. It's how we can find our way back to our apartment from anywhere in the city, it's where we joined our friend Dan for his sorta-rehearsal lunch soon after we arrived, it's...
Posted by james at 1:57 PM | Full Post
October 25, 2005
golden bombers in Berlin
I found a number of these small gilt paper bombers wheat-pasted on the lower walls of the former Berlin Postfuhramt. The 1881 building on Oranienburger Strasse is used today for occasional art installations....
Posted by james at 6:15 PM | Full Post
at the castle near the Forest Schorfheide
ducks in the moat Yesterday I wrote that I hoped to put up some pictures of townscapes we've seen outside Berlin. I'm sorry but they will have to wait until I return to New York. We're both too busy...
Posted by james at 5:39 PM | Full Post
October 24, 2005
the Mark Brandenburg, near Berlin
We drove into the country this morning through the unexceptional, but totally charming landscape of the Mark Brandenburg, the historic core of the country, Prussia, which became the modern German state. It rained most of the day, but in...
Posted by james at 8:01 PM | Full Post
nice subway station
Barry, sitting uneasily The beautiful red marble which covers the pillars, every wall and even the benches inside the Mohrenstrasse stop on the number 2 U-Bahn has an interesting heritage. It once decorated the walls of Adolf Hitler's lordly...
Posted by james at 7:08 PM | Full Post
October 23, 2005
all Berlin seems to love the circus
and I love the idea of a circus, not least for the posters...
Posted by james at 2:56 PM | Full Post
from the Friedrichstrasse Bahnhof bridge
the waves of the Spree below the station at Schiffbauerdamm, just as it started to rain...
Posted by james at 2:46 PM | Full Post
October 22, 2005
Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg, market day
We visited the twice-weekly organic market in Prenzlauer Berg this afternoon. It rained lightly for much of the day today, so the light in these pictures is just a little exotic. The vegetables at the top on the left...
Posted by james at 7:23 PM | Full Post
Berlin Goggomobile
When was the last time you saw a Goggomobil? For me it must have been 1961, or maybe a couple of years later. This one was spotted this afternoon on Knaackstrasse, in Prenslauerberg. The sunroof isn't stock, and it's...
Posted by james at 7:09 PM | Full Post
October 21, 2005
Berlin's old air bridge
ceiling fixture in entrance porch of office wing detail of ceiling in great hall We had about an hour to kill before the Lachenman/Nono/Stockhausen concert in the gorgeous Konzerthaus this evening, so Barry and I took the U-Bahn to...
Posted by james at 8:22 PM | Full Post
the new Anhalter Bahnhof in Berlin
construction scaffolding below the rails the trains roll through while the station rises around them They're building a great railway station in Berlin today, while in the U.S. they're working to dismantle what little remains of what was once...
Posted by james at 8:13 PM | Full Post
in Berlin, the most colorful Andre, most colorless LeWitt
Barry and anonymous entertaining Carl Andre and Sol LeWitt in the Hamburger Bahnhof this afternoon...
Posted by james at 7:01 PM | Full Post
Berlin sidewalk border
seen on the edge of the pavement across from our Wohnung this morning...
Posted by james at 6:52 PM | Full Post
October 20, 2005
Berlin stays on its toes
We're staying on Rosa Luxemburg-Platz, only steps from the national headquarters of the PDS, or rather of its successor, Die Linke. I've worn my very red button every time I've gone out, and it seems it escapes the attention...
Posted by james at 6:28 PM | Full Post
October 19, 2005
Haacke's "DER BEVÖLKERUNG" grows on the Reichstag
pushing up green "DER BEVÖLKERUNG", Hans Haacke's conceptual and somewhat controversial contribution to the Reichstag, installed in the interior court to the north, is very visible from the roof of this amazing building, at least to those with a...
Posted by james at 2:30 PM | Full Post
October 18, 2005
Berlin's Jewish Museum
above the inclined plane We spent hours this afternoon at Berlin's Jewish Museum. I don't think the impact of architecture has ever brought me almost to tears so easily. Yes, the city and the nature of the collection has...
Posted by james at 6:07 PM | Full Post
October 17, 2005
Berlin wedding
groom and groom seated inside the Neuer Salon of the Berlin Mitte Standesamt this afternoon. Dan and Adrian confront the Beamte Laurence was invited by the presiding official to go with his camera anywhere he wished. He did. It...
Posted by james at 7:59 PM | Full Post
Hans Poelzig interior
walls of our borrowed apartment, in a 1929 Hans Poelzig building, disappear near the ceiling...
Posted by james at 7:49 PM | Full Post
October 16, 2005
Berlin, the people's palace holds onto life
inside Der ehemaliges Palast der Republik, a small carnival on the Platz outside...
Posted by james at 6:58 PM | Full Post
October 15, 2005
October 14, 2005
Berlin then and now
This noble old building lies directly west across the Spree from Museum Island, in the midst of the most heavily touristed part of Berlin. It still shows the scars of the battle for the city after sixty years. Just...
Posted by james at 5:31 PM | Full Post
Berlin-Prenslauerberg street art
seen from the Strassenbahn haltestelle across from our apartment...
Posted by james at 5:13 PM | Full Post
October 13, 2005
Berlin fireworks
celebrating [whatever] near the Fernsehturm tonight...
Posted by james at 8:18 PM | Full Post
Berlin Alexanderplatz-cum-Williamsburg
the new East Berlin...
Posted by james at 8:05 PM | Full Post
Berlin snack
youth dallying at the schnell Imbiss, age rushing on...
Posted by james at 7:54 PM | Full Post
October 9, 2005
coming here soon: better hardware, and software
just testing My old camera, a tiny digital, the DimageX, recently had to be sent in for repairs again. I really was planning to get a grown-up camera anyway, but the combination of immediate need and an impending trip...
Posted by james at 2:21 PM | Full Post
September 27, 2005
“Rumors of deaths greatly exaggerated"
what do you think? The Times-Picayune headline and story appears only after almost a full month of reports that the New Orleans victims of hurricane Katrina had acted like murderers and animals.As the fog of warlike conditions in Hurricane...
Posted by james at 1:29 PM | Full Post
September 24, 2005
John Weir goes to Houston and finds 'home'
Chiquita Garner, left, of New Orleans, waits with her family outside the closed Greyhound terminal in Houston on Thursday, Sept. 22, 2005. Garner and her family had been evacuated from New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina hit and have been...
Posted by james at 12:02 AM | Full Post
September 22, 2005
Community Labor United - now in site [sic]
A man in the crowd in front of Reliant Arena, lies passed out from the morning heat. He was taken away in an ambulance. Residents of the shelter were told they were being evacuated to Arkansas, due to Hurricane...
Posted by james at 2:41 PM | Full Post
September 21, 2005
after the flood, waiting for the new owners?
where Dumaine crosses North Roman, central Treme after the flood, sometime late last week The title of Jordan Flaherty's latest letter is "Shelter and Safety", but the context is racism, a racism exacerbated by the horrors of Hurricane Katrina,...
Posted by james at 2:17 PM | Full Post
September 19, 2005
getting into New Orleans, with some paper and some attitude
back at Duke, Sonny Byrd, David Hankla and Hans Buder "It made no sense whatsoever that reporters were getting in and out of New Orleans, but the National Guard couldn't remove those people from the convention center," said Mr....
Posted by james at 11:35 AM | Full Post
September 17, 2005
orgiastic greed, opportunism, and militarism in New Orleans
NOPD officers Danny Scanlan and Juan Lopez keep a watchful eye during patrol Thursday, Sept. 8, 2005 in New Orleans. [caption of the Times Picayune] Jordan Flaherty continues to write from Louisiana, and on Friday he argued that the...
Posted by james at 10:42 PM | Full Post
September 15, 2005
anyone care what the owners of those houses think?
not everything's in the French Quarter I obviously haven't seen everything being written about the reconstruction (or, gasp, "urban renewal") of New Orleans, but I know I haven't read a single word about who actually owns all those unique,...
Posted by james at 4:04 PM | Full Post
September 14, 2005
for two weeks, "anyone could see his body from the street"
free at last In a post I did one week ago I included a Times Picayune photograph of the blanket-wrapped body of Alcede Jackson lying on a bench on his front porch in New Orleans, and I included some...
Posted by james at 12:36 AM | Full Post
September 11, 2005
a broken trumpet in a red velvet-lined box
Barry and I were a part of this afternoon's New Orleans Jazz Funeral March in Washington Square Park, where I managed to weave through an extraordinarily-diverse crowd to get a few decent images, even while encumbered by half of...
Posted by james at 5:57 PM | Full Post
where to send help directly to the people who need it most
"Let the People Rebuild New Orleans"* UPDATE: Community Labor United now has a website. I've been looking at a lot of materials over for almost two weeks, and although many people have offered suggestions for directing money or other help...
Posted by james at 12:29 AM | Full Post
September 10, 2005
the nightmare began when the police and military showed up
An unidentified man sits in the flood water underneath the Interstate-10 in New Orleans, La., Monday, Sept. 5, 2005. [caption from Times Picayune] I had forgotten to include a link to Rogers Cadenhead's blog, which had inspired it, when...
Posted by james at 8:28 PM | Full Post
"another country"
A line of women in custody line up at a makeshift jail facility at the Union Passenger Terminal in New Orleans, Friday, Sept. 9. The temporary holding facility holds those accused of a crime before they are sent to...
Posted by james at 2:33 PM | Full Post
"Five Days with Katrina"
the day before UPDATE: "Five Days with Katrina" had moved and, thanks to Silvia Morales who told me where it went, the link below now works once again I haven't seen anything like this site before now. This album,...
Posted by james at 1:57 PM | Full Post
September 9, 2005
suburban police blocked those trying to escape while black
None of this surprises me any more, although there was a time, less than two weeks ago, when I could still go about the day without these images of the horrors of our racism haunting me all day long and...
Posted by james at 2:04 PM | Full Post
September 8, 2005
a discussion of addiction helps us all to understand the chaos
no dystopia here* In an OPINION piece in Newsday this morning Patrick Moore writes about a subject which is extremely important to our understanding of both the reports of violence in a devastated New Orleans and the actual facts...
Posted by james at 12:31 PM | Full Post
September 7, 2005
but what about their right of return . . . .
Joseph Williams attempts to leave New Orleans on Interstate 10. He has two flat tires on his trailer that is carrying half of everything he owns. [caption from Newsday dated September 5] If tons of money end up going...
Posted by james at 3:44 PM | Full Post
"DEAD WHITE RICH GUY . . . LAID TO REST IN DC!"
The entire headline, taken from another blogger's post, reads: STOP THE FUCKING PRESSES! A DEAD WHITE RICH GUY WHO WORE A BLACK ROBE FOR A LIVING IS LAID TO REST IN DC! Some people are very mad. Very, very mad....
Posted by james at 12:43 PM | Full Post
September 6, 2005
the "can't-do" folks, and lessons lost - or never learned
Winslow Homer Hurricane, Bahamas 1898-99 watercolor 14.5" x 21" I have two more stories which should be read more widely than they are likely to be. Like the tip on the previous post, both were sent to me by...
Posted by james at 4:04 PM | Full Post
the criminal politics of disaster, seen from inside New Orleans
Algiers, Louisiana, 1993 This is a letter from a dry Algiers. No, not the sandy one. It's the New Orleans neighborhood just across the river from the watery parts. This piece is copied in its entirety from ZNet. [Note:...
Posted by james at 3:33 PM | Full Post
water, water everywhere . . . .
Two woman sitting in front of their home in New Orleans. They are not looking for another place to live even, though they have nothing to eat or drink. [caption from Newsday dated September 5] As if the news...
Posted by james at 12:02 PM | Full Post
September 5, 2005
keeping New Orleans alive, and honoring the dead their way
A 'Gay Parade' gets under way in the French Quarter of New Orleans. as a determined handful of hurricane survivors vowed to keep the spirit of New Orleans alive. The official parade was postponed because of the arrival of...
Posted by james at 7:15 PM | Full Post
September 4, 2005
preserving the people of New Orleans as a community
Lee Friedlander Sweet Emma Barrett, New Orleans 1958 A BROKEN NEW ORLEANS ROUSES ITSELF I have no way of knowing how central this particular appeal may become, but it came to me through a friend and I share its...
Posted by james at 1:59 PM | Full Post
more from inside New Orleans, from Jordan Flaherty
Troy Tallent brings some blues back to the French Quarter, by playing for the few residents and police still in the neighborhood. Originally from Georgia, Troy came to New Orleans in 1987 and he hasn't left yet. [Los Angeles...
Posted by james at 11:14 AM | Full Post
September 3, 2005
these people are being treated like vermin
A body floats outside the Superdome in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. [Los Angeles Times caption dated Friday] How rich and white do you have to be to get the attention of your government? These people...
Posted by james at 11:23 PM | Full Post
September 2, 2005
a letter from one who escaped a New Orleans refugee camp
Hundreds of people wait for evacuation buses on the side of Interstate 10 in New Orleans. Many of them were suffering from dehydration after hours of waiting in the heat. [Los Angeles Times caption, image dated August 31] Gretna...
Posted by james at 11:28 PM | Full Post
the picture of the U.S. hidden in the attic until now
outside the New Orleans convention center today While still lying abed this morning I listened to the BBC World Service coverage of the New Orleans disaster. Unfortunately I did not get the name of the (American?) woman being interviewed...
Posted by james at 2:03 PM | Full Post
saving a living archive of American social and cultural history
the author's home, before the flood I have a stack of neglected newspapers on my right as I sit here at my laptop looking at the staggering reports of human tragedy flowing in from Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. I...
Posted by james at 12:30 PM | Full Post
September 1, 2005
we're totally fucked
A blanket covers the body of a woman who died in a wheelchair, and another body is wrapped in a sheet Thursday at the convention center in New Orleans. [CNN caption] If we actually were to be the victim...
Posted by james at 11:08 PM | Full Post
August 31, 2005
bring the National Guard and the money home now
I cry for New Orleans. And I don't want to see another photo with a caption screaming about folks "looting," when they are in the midst of an unprecedented disaster where there is no food, no water and no...
Posted by james at 11:18 AM | Full Post
August 26, 2005
where did good industrial design leave the road?
Pinin Farina Cisitalia 202 GT Car 1946 aluminum body 49" x 57 5/8" x 13' 2" [detail of installation] I didn't expect to look for the Cisitalia again when I casually wandered into MoMA's Architecture and Design galleries earlier...
Posted by james at 2:08 PM | Full Post
August 20, 2005
papal Carnival in Cologne
demonstrators dressed as a priest and a nun kiss in front of a large model dinosaur during an anti-religion demonstration in Cologne August 19, 2005 [as der Ratzinger arrived in Cologne] Sometimes it's best to let the thing speak...
Posted by james at 12:06 AM | Full Post
August 14, 2005
Heathrow mess: what's the real story, the clients or the serfs?
are they invisible? Is the story about lost or missed flights and the attendant inconvenience for thousands of travellers, or is it about humiliating and discarding hundreds of low-paid Asian workers struggling in a racist society? There have been...
Posted by james at 1:43 PM | Full Post
July 10, 2005
IDEC: can the Greeks' moira steer a ship if it's French?
IDEC in New York, two weeks ago I absolutely do not follow yachting news. Well, at least not since I lived in the old, "undeveloped" Newport and enjoyed the regular visits to that sleepy town of hunky crewmen from...
Posted by james at 9:33 PM | Full Post
June 16, 2005
disgusted, but not quite shutting up
" . . . the inside of the stadium in Liberty City" Yes! Just when I think I've been doing pretty well with my own campaign of "inner emigration"* [because, basically, we are clearly not a democracy; I don't...
Posted by james at 7:12 PM | Full Post
May 12, 2005
just resting a bit
Have I missed anything? I've been neglecting the blog this week because I've been down with a wicked flu accompanied by an impressive body temperature. For a couple of days I could barely think, I ached everywhere, so that even...
Posted by james at 12:25 PM | Full Post
May 6, 2005
the World Trade Center site as a grand public plaza
Pietro Gualdi Grand Plaza of Mexico City, Following the American Occupation of September 14, 1847 1847 oil on canvas [one of my all-time favorite public squares, for the richness of its life - once we left] Over seventy years...
Posted by james at 12:11 PM | Full Post
April 27, 2005
three going on four
untitled (50 away from 53) Three years ago today I started this, . . . thing. The stats show that I eventually made a go of it, but the first image didn't show up on the site until almost...
Posted by james at 4:48 PM | Full Post
March 29, 2005
best in show - but it was no contest
untitled (1936 Lincoln Zephyr door handle) 2005 I saw no vehicle which pleased me more at the New York auto show than this seventy-year-old prop for the introduction of one manufacturer's 2006 model. I spent the entire afternoon at...
Posted by james at 12:45 AM | Full Post
January 1, 2005
must be the rural part of the South Bronx
including at least one farmer and feed dealer There's a fairly happy story in Newsday this morning, reporting the relatively unaggressive approach of NYC police to last night's local Critical Mass. The monthly event promoting pollution-free transportation went off...
Posted by james at 2:52 PM | Full Post
December 29, 2004
the tsunami, how can we help?
a boy drinks a bag of clean water in Chennai, capital of the tsunami-stricken state of Tamil Nadu, south India Tuesday, Dec. 28, 2004 [excerpt of caption from AP] Of course we want to do something, but how? Along...
Posted by james at 4:36 PM | Full Post
December 26, 2004
art bloggers in hard print
Wow. I haven't seen the January Art in America, but I've heard, through subscribers who have already received their copies, about the "FRONT PAGE" article, "Art in the Blogosphere." The issue still hasn't reached the stores, and there's nothing on...
Posted by james at 7:17 PM | Full Post
December 21, 2004
today's "Europeans," civilization's imposters?
"To the whites, the lives of their black office boys or chauffeurs seem unimaginably separate and isolated from their own. . . . But to the urban Africans, the 'Europeans' are the ones who seem isolated, in their remote and...
Posted by james at 11:54 AM | Full Post
December 2, 2004
they're dying, but they still want sex
The last Impatiens of December? These little plants never got the environment they deserved. The little rooftop outside our apartment couldn't even provide the minimal amount of light they need to flourish, and I'm pretty sure that, since they...
Posted by james at 2:19 PM | Full Post
November 30, 2004
bad donut!
I just learned that the donuts I love to hate are more distasteful than I had thought. Krispy Kreme* contributed $90,260 to the Republican Party and only $1,842 to the Democratic Party during the 2003-2004 election cycle, according to data...
Posted by james at 1:40 PM | Full Post
November 29, 2004
Krispy Kreme
donut detritus What is it they say about sausage making? Along lines of the same argument, I think Chelsea's Krispy Kreme fans should stay clear of their favorite donut haunt on the nights the raw materials are dumped on...
Posted by james at 1:25 PM | Full Post
November 12, 2004
flu shots, Minnesota nice
"In Minnesota," this morning's NYTimes headline reads, "Flu Vaccines Go Waiting." Setting aside the question of how we got into a situation where throughout the country this year there are only a fraction of the flu shots which should...
Posted by james at 12:14 PM | Full Post
November 7, 2004
slain on the altar of our national suicide
I don't know what to say about this story, but it has moved me more than I thought possible. November 6, 2004, 4:39 PM EST A 25-year-old university worker from Georgia shot and killed himself at ground zero Saturday morning,...
Posted by james at 1:52 PM | Full Post
November 6, 2004
actually, the Republicans stole the election again
Why were the exit polls so completely "wrong" in Ohio, Florida and certain other states this year? Was it because of massive election fraud? The administration didn't need an October surprise; they knew it was already wrapped up - by...
Posted by james at 11:23 AM | Full Post
November 3, 2004
we've destroyed it, and we have no excuses
Can you sucker yourself? Maybe, if you're an incurable optimist. For a few days I actually had convinced myself that this country would redeem itself, and yesterday evening I was bursting with such confidence that I posted this almost giddy...
Posted by james at 11:55 AM | Full Post
November 2, 2004
Bush is history
The skys are blue again, all over the world. But the real work is only beginning. It's not going to be easy rebuilding a nation and removing the curse which has rested so heavily on the planet [the cultists...
Posted by james at 8:09 PM | Full Post
November 1, 2004
"undecided" about the "anyone"
Thomas Nast cartoon, featuring Boss Tweed ( referencing the 1876 disputed election) The caption: Boss. "You have the liberty of Voting for any one you please; but we have the Liberty of Counting in any one we please." "Do...
Posted by james at 11:46 AM | Full Post
October 30, 2004
fascism, but it's all-American
file photograph Fascism, it's so US. Are there still any doubters out there? The Bush campaign is now asking followers to swear allegiance to Bush, right hands extended. The pledge:"I care about freedom and liberty. I care about my...
Posted by james at 12:08 PM | Full Post
October 28, 2004
something a little less personal this time
Alex Barry I Wish I Was Sean Landers (2003-2004) ink on paper 4.25" x 5.5" No, really, I'm fine. In fact, the radiation side effects have nearly disappeared. I just decided I could now share this wonderful little Alex...
Posted by james at 8:50 PM | Full Post
October 27, 2004
how to get a flu shot in New York
outside Chelsea Health Center, Tuesday, 7:45 am [if you're only interested in the logistics, go straight to the bold area within the text below] I'm not going to go into the political, social, even moral issues surrounding the disastrous...
Posted by james at 12:36 PM | Full Post
October 16, 2004
New York stopped in its tracks
from the front of the bus, 9th Avenue in the forties, on a Saturday afternoon (these vehicles aren't moving) We live in Manhattan. We're supposed to be able to get around the city without each of us piloting two...
Posted by james at 8:32 PM | Full Post
October 12, 2004
something personal
Riiiiing! Riiiiing! It was our phone sounding at 7:30 in the morning last June 10th. [those of you who are familiar with Barry's and my sleeping schedule will understand just how much that call violated all reasonable decorum in...
Posted by james at 5:11 PM | Full Post
October 8, 2004
Connected again
We're back! Yesterday afternoon Time Warner finally managed to figure out what they had done to our cable modem on Monday, but I think I've almost forgotten how to run this thing in the interim. Now, what's this button down...
Posted by james at 7:11 PM | Full Post
Posts only RSS feed
UPDATE: I have made the main RSS 2.0 a full post-only feed. I will update the one with comments to 2.0 later....
Posted by barry at 10:18 AM | Full Post
October 5, 2004
ACT UP Saturday night
ACT UP's on a roll lately! Members have been working very hard - and very cleverly. The media has had to salute their brilliant zaps, even describing the issues for a change, but this time the attention came without a...
Posted by james at 12:54 PM | Full Post
August 31, 2004
the media, whom do you trust?
"Surfin' U.S.A." For those of you who are newly-energized politically, and, impatient, frustrated and disgusted with the starvation rations of the commercial U.S. media, looking around for some really healthy fare, here are a very few online, radio and...
Posted by james at 1:06 PM | Full Post
August 7, 2004
"Sam Shepard ghost town"
We're home! Since we only had a dial-up connection in the hotel room, I didn't try to post everything I wanted to while we were in Los Angeles. This item, and perhaps a few others to follow, will make up...
Posted by james at 3:36 PM | Full Post
August 1, 2004
keeping it from the boyfriend
Overheard outside the stall in the avant/cool men's room on the ground floor of the downtown L.A. Standard Hotel this evening: "Oh, he just left it there so his wife wouldn't find it," which was immediately followed by the addendum...
Posted by james at 3:35 AM | Full Post
July 26, 2004
busting Oregon, sorta
on the Oregon coast yesterday afternoon, just north of Otter Rock We made it to the Pacific, but when we got there everbody was gone. Actually, Barry and I are staying in Portland this week, where he's attending a...
Posted by james at 2:08 PM | Full Post
June 6, 2004
way cool photo-in captures New York MTA
Grand Central Station waiting for the Lex express on board, somewhere above Union Square, er . . . actually, below transferring to the L I saw the message captioned, "Photographer's Rights Protest," and I told myself, "I'm in!" The...
Posted by james at 8:50 PM | Full Post
New York Times erases AIDS
The NYTimes begins its obituary of Ronald Reagan today with a three-column headline on the front page and it continues inside for a total of four more full-page sheets uninterrrupted by advertising. The size of this death notice may be...
Posted by james at 11:23 AM | Full Post
June 5, 2004
Reagan, more dead[ly] as president than now
Donald Moffett He Kills Me (installation detail), 1987 He's dead, but as the encomiums pile up he's not going to look dead enough. Reagan virtually spat on people with AIDS throughout his presidency. The epidemic began under his watch,...
Posted by james at 8:50 PM | Full Post
April 27, 2004
2 more
Coming in from 23rd Street, I went back into our lobby and past another set of doors to the garden, where I found these [another score for the number 2] dogwood trees. Incredibly, this too is Manhattan....
Posted by james at 4:02 PM | Full Post
2nd anniversary
Remembering that as of today I've been at this blog for two full years, I went outside to look for something visual in twos. I found these three on the awning marquee of the Chelsea Hotel accross the street....
Posted by james at 3:50 PM | Full Post
February 25, 2004
New full RSS feed
Barry here, as master of all things webbish. For those who read James's weblog via an RSS reader, I've added a new full feed with comments. Go here for more info....
Posted by barry at 5:01 PM | Full Post
January 23, 2004
more on what we would lose
Dean Street [see yesterday's "replacing people with a basketball court"] New facts are emerging about the political and money deals behind the project, and about the vibrant community which woud be destroyed if an "eminent" real estate mogul gets...
Posted by james at 4:52 PM | Full Post
January 22, 2004
"replacing people for a basketball court"
Big money interests, not least the NYTimes, want to displace families, artisans and artists, and in fact physically destroy an entire Brooklyn community, in order to build a commercial sports arena. Our friend Charles Goldman once lived in a...
Posted by james at 7:10 PM | Full Post
January 15, 2004
"saints"
Tom Hurndall He's gone. I had actually thought that he had died last April, but Thomas Hurndall had survived in a vegetative state until this week, when he succumbed to pneumonia in a London hospital. He had turned 22...
Posted by james at 7:02 PM | Full Post
January 6, 2004
fallen angels
New York City firefighter Robert Walsh has been on a respirator in a medically-induced coma in a Staten Island hospital since Thursday. Today he still lies heavily sedated, suffering the consequences of severe facial fractures and a partly severed...
Posted by james at 8:09 PM | Full Post
November 28, 2003
Switched
If you can see this, it means the site has moved to its new location. Please use the comments for this post to report any problems....
Posted by barry at 3:41 PM | Full Post
November 1, 2003
next in line, please, window 7
This was Ricky's on West 23rd Street at 1 o'clock in the afternoon, Halloween. There were about 80 people in line, waiting to get into the store. It got worse as the day continued. What ever happened to the...
Posted by james at 1:20 AM | Full Post
October 13, 2003
he started it
Christofo Colombo Mysterious Biography Christofo Colombo was a hungry man, hunted himself halfway round the world; he began poor, panhandled, ended in jail, Christofo so hungry, Christofo so poor, Christofo in the chilly, steel bracelets, honorable, distinguished Christofo Colombo....
Posted by james at 11:24 AM | Full Post
September 21, 2003
the site's been upgraded
As you have probably noticed by now, something new is going on with this site. Barry has upgraded me, moving it from b2 to Movable Type. Yea! For you readers or picture gazers it means quicker response with internal links...
Posted by james at 8:31 PM | Full Post
August 27, 2003
"but then I remember John"
Jogged by current arguments over New York's Harvey Milk High School, and a recent postcard from his own school, bj has written an honest, beautiful piece about an ugly memory, one whose counterpart I share shamefully, as I'm sure do...
Posted by james at 5:19 PM | Full Post
August 22, 2003
"but as for its people . . . ."
Silipups explains. He's describing the intent of his own weblog, but on the subject of Palestine he could be speaking for many of us.Hi, my name is Anees. As per many questions I was recently asked: I THINK SUICIDE BOMBINGS...
Posted by james at 8:48 PM | Full Post
August 20, 2003
the blackout blast blog
When the power went off we were upstairs at the Metropolitan Museum. We had just finished walking through the extraordinary “Art of the First Cities” exhibit on one of its very last days, and I had picked up, but not...
Posted by james at 1:07 AM | Full Post
August 19, 2003
the blackout beef blog
Updated August 20, with pictures We’re back. Time Warner somehow managed finally to push the right remote control button exactly two days after electrical power (but, for our building, not their cable) was restored to Chelsea. We now have our...
Posted by james at 3:51 PM | Full Post
August 16, 2003
No posts
Posting will resume once Time Warner Cable/Road Runner deigns to get our cable modem running again. 24 hours after Chelsea (the last neighborhood in the city, yes) had its power restored, we have no cable....
Posted by james at 8:54 PM | Full Post
August 10, 2003
love in time of war
WWII pilots All day long, after posting the item below, "their flesh . . . revives," I’ve been thinking about WW2. I have to admit that it's not dead to me. I actually remember it. No, not exactly as...
Posted by james at 8:18 PM | Full Post
August 9, 2003
but "charming" he's not
"More Zealous than the Pope." He's head of the Vatican's "Holy Inquisition" [modern, formal name: "Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith], and he's described as personally charming.The man who wrote last week's Vatican document ruling out same-sex marriage is...
Posted by james at 1:34 PM | Full Post
August 6, 2003
"The Mother Was A Mother"
[YOU DON'T WANT A PICTURE HERE] Maybe she's finally beginning to rot. Some of the world's media this week is carrying the story about a festival in Calcutta celebrating Mother Teresa's imminent beatification. Calcutta, or Kolkata, as it is now...
Posted by james at 2:44 PM | Full Post
August 3, 2003
a bucolic world returned to Manhattan
The 16 acres formerly occupied by the World Trade Center is not the only large lower Manhattan site whose future is being contested these days; it’s merely the most visible. On Friday we toured some of the 172 acres which...
Posted by james at 6:34 PM | Full Post
July 10, 2003
"their kind"
Ellen Hemings Roberts, granddaughter of Thomas Jefferson. Sally Hemings still has to stay out of the drawing rooms - at least while the "white" folks are around. Incredible as it may seem, even today, after all the fuss endured...
Posted by james at 2:03 PM | Full Post
July 3, 2003
lazy, or very smart indeed?
Germans get 8 weeks of vacation each year, including single-day holidays. Although the figure is not much different for the rest of Europe, Germans, being Germans, are asking themselves whether lots of a good thing is not really such a...
Posted by james at 1:07 AM | Full Post
June 30, 2003
India today
Bloggy has found real pride in Calcutta. I was in this incredible city in the early nineties. There is no community like it anywhere, even in all of India, not least for its traditional culture of the arts, intellectualism and...
Posted by james at 1:46 PM | Full Post
May 13, 2003
a nation of cowards
cow·ard (kou' erd) n. One who shows ignoble fear in the face of danger or pain. I've argued for a year and a half that the only explanation for what has become of America since September 11 is its fear....
Posted by james at 11:38 AM | Full Post
May 10, 2003
update on Zackie
Five months ago I wrote about Zackie Achmat. The good news is that he's still alive. The bad news is that about 100,000 other South Africans have died unnecessarily in the meantime. Zackie is slowly dying of AIDS, but he...
Posted by james at 4:17 PM | Full Post
May 2, 2003
"it doesn't have to be a battle"
The story is fascinating. The feature article by Jane Perlez visits an aristocratic Iraqi family which in this century alone has survived (no, somehow flourished under) an Ottoman Caliphate, a British Empire, an Arab monarchy and a Baath Party coup...
Posted by james at 12:17 PM | Full Post
April 26, 2003
there are CARS and there are also cars, aren't there?
My friend Glenn and I went to the New York Auto Show yesterday. I go every year, I suppose just to keep tabs on what the selection will look like should I ever decide to own a car again. Besides,...
Posted by james at 8:55 PM | Full Post
April 12, 2003
are we nuts, or just crass materialists?
In today's anniversary memorial to both the pragmatism and the idealism of the 1930's the NYTimes seems to say it's the latter.On April 6, 1933, the Senate overwhelmingly passed a bill that would have made the standard work week 30...
Posted by james at 4:13 PM | Full Post
March 30, 2003
I'm back
The household has been delightfully distracted for five days while the perfect mother-out-of-law visited us this past week. It was also a healthy diversion from a virtually full-time obsession with, well, that damn elephant in the parlor....
Posted by james at 6:34 PM | Full Post
March 22, 2003
through the glass, but very darkly
Peter Freundlich thinks "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking Glass" should not be the models for American foreign policy.Listen. Don't misunderstand. I think it is a good thing that the members of the Bush administration seem to have...
Posted by james at 9:41 AM | Full Post
February 16, 2003
a lesson from entertainment news
My nephew, who regrets the limited instrumental recital opportunities available in his home in Brownsville, writes about something like a voice debut, in southern Texas streets February 15.HEY, WHAT ABOUT MY OTHER TWO SECONDS?! Among the millions of peace demonstrators...
Posted by james at 2:11 PM | Full Post
vive La France!
I confess. [But is it ego or wanna-do-good works?] I've always felt that if I'm going to a protest or a demonstration and I don't intend to do something which would risk arrest, I've got to sport a good hand-lettered...
Posted by james at 1:17 AM | Full Post
February 7, 2003
the Olympic spirit
Is this part of the many blessings being promised to New York if certain interests succeed in bringing the Olympics to the City in 2012?Government troops massacred student protesters in Tlatelolco Plaza in Mexico City that night, on the eve...
Posted by james at 9:24 PM | Full Post
"because of the people who don't do anything about it."
The complete quote, Albert Einstein's words, goes, "The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it." Well some righteous and very brave...
Posted by james at 6:48 PM | Full Post
February 5, 2003
end the manned space program
I have as much of an imagination and as much hope for the possibilities of our species as the next person, and I believe in a space program. I just cannot understand how we can think that incurring the unnecessary...
Posted by james at 1:19 PM | Full Post
we are America, for now
We are America. We are a nation created by an idea, composed of people who did not start out as neighbors and who couldn't speak the same language, the fortunate child of change. If we do not remain a nation...
Posted by james at 10:33 AM | Full Post
February 4, 2003
without minds, they're just jocks
What planet am I from? I had a quick glimpse of this segment of the ESPN subway advertising campaign just the other day, but I didn't believe the text was serious! This item from today's "Metropolitan Diary" feature in the...
Posted by james at 1:01 AM | Full Post
January 29, 2003
incalculable harm cannot be undone
First thoughts about the fact that Bush spoke about AIDS in his performance tonight: I just cannot get too excited about the words, first, because right now they are only words, and second, because we are now twenty-three years into...
Posted by james at 12:10 AM | Full Post
January 26, 2003
not the colds of yesteryear
So. I guess if we think it was cold in January, the globe really is warming.As of late last week, January 2003 was only the 36th coldest January on record for New York City. Averaging 29 degrees, this January has...
Posted by james at 11:59 PM | Full Post
January 21, 2003
cool
Wishing us all good cheer, in a sign for our time, from the South Pole....
Posted by james at 12:14 AM | Full Post
January 18, 2003
Germans finally remember their own war suffering
They're finally speaking about the trauma of carpet-bombing, ruin and displacement after a silence of almost sixty years. As a historian manque, I've collected some book knowledge on the subject, but also a few very real memories of my own,...
Posted by james at 4:34 PM | Full Post
January 15, 2003
"the SUV itself is such the ideal ethical lightning rod"
Egads, he's so good he's scary! Mark Morford make's you glad you're not on his wrong side, especially when he writes as he does in his attack on the new Hummer, in fact on all SUVs, and the perverseness of...
Posted by james at 2:54 PM | Full Post
January 11, 2003
defending our sidewalk ghetto
We have to be reminded, and remind others, that the streets are for people first, and that everything else is there only with the sufferance of the people. The NYTimes decided to print two letters [ok, it was a saturday,...
Posted by james at 10:18 PM | Full Post
January 10, 2003
he's right
Willam Cohn's letter may have just pushed us over the edge.JETS IN OVERTIME I have been a football fan since I was 14 years old, but I don't think a sporting event is important enough to rate the entire first,...
Posted by james at 12:33 PM | Full Post
smoke out
Some people still just don't get it. A Daily News reader writes to the paper today complaining aout the Mayor's threat to her personal freedoms.OUTLAW FAST FOOD South Orange, N.J.: What state of prohibition has Mayor Bloomberg gotten us into...
Posted by james at 12:18 PM | Full Post
January 4, 2003
minister of defense, and healing
The world is fortunate there are models other than our own.SANTIAGO, Chile — It is a measure of how much this country has changed that Michelle Bachelet today works from an office that once belonged to Gen. Augusto Pinochet, the...
Posted by james at 12:57 PM | Full Post
December 18, 2002
Bethlehem skips Christmas; Bethlehem is hell
Bethlehem will go without Christmas this year.BETHLEHEM - There'll be no Christmas tree in Manger Square. No festive lights. And no singing. Palestinian Christians decided yesterday to strip the traditional symbols of joy from the celebration of the birth of...
Posted by james at 3:34 PM | Full Post
December 13, 2002
and Mandela calls him a national hero!
The Guardian's series on AIDS has produced an excellent report on a great man. The man is dying of AIDS, but he refuses to take the drugs that would keep him alive, until South Africa's government makes them freely available...
Posted by james at 8:10 PM | Full Post
December 7, 2002
Philip Berrigan
A great heart and a great mind is gone.BALTIMORE - December 6 - Phil Berrigan died December 6, 2002 at about 9:30 PM, at Jonah House, a community he co-founded in 1973, surrounded by family and friends. He died two...
Posted by james at 12:36 AM | Full Post
December 3, 2002
MONEY + FLAG + CHRIST
Unfortuantely I cannot find an image online, but there's an incredible photograph on page B4 of today's NYTimes which appears, I guess without any intended irony, and it says it all. The image is one of two which ostensibly only...
Posted by james at 2:45 PM | Full Post
November 27, 2002
I think, therefore I am
I think, and I expect others to do the same. I have some control over the first part of that statement, but I am helpless in advancing, and am continually disappointed in the second. Still, I talk and I write,...
Posted by james at 7:53 PM | Full Post
silence in the face of fanaticism
--in the islamic world as much as anywhere else. Salman Rushdie, at first disgusted with the usage of his name by islamic neanderthals as an epithet, now decides he should take pride in the label, but asks why there aren't...
Posted by james at 4:08 PM | Full Post
November 26, 2002
more on the yucky comments
To Jeff Reilly, who did not leave an email address, and to everyone else who has commented on this post: You should read what I actually wrote. Nowhere is there a reference to an evil person, but rather to evil...
Posted by james at 2:29 PM | Full Post
yucky comments
I have not yet discontinued the "comments" function of the log, although I have been sorely tempted and may still do so. So, those who have an interest in the descriptions ["sick," "pervert," "sick fuck,"] used of me and of...
Posted by james at 12:40 PM | Full Post
U.S. government censors health information
--supplied by its own scientific agencies. This is to save us all from the evils of information relating to human sexuality. The winners? The AIDS virus, teenage pregnancy, cancer and other diseases, ignorance, distrust, a reactionalry religious and social agenda.Over...
Posted by james at 12:14 PM | Full Post
November 13, 2002
Osama's still out there?
Oh but that Bin Laden is so 2001. Sadam Hussein is this year's color....
Posted by james at 1:04 AM | Full Post
November 3, 2002
dulling up New York
I don't know what to say about this story. I know what I feel about golf, and I certainly have mixed feelings about the Russian Tea Room's history, but is this what is to become of New York?...
Posted by james at 8:27 PM | Full Post
scouts' dishonor
So it's not good enough to be straight if you want to remain in scouting; you also have to be religious.[Eagle Scout] Lambert, who is 19 and has been an atheist since studying evolution in the ninth grade, was told...
Posted by james at 8:16 PM | Full Post
October 29, 2002
Israeli zealots sabotaging Israel
Barry has just blogged a great piece on the disaster in Israel and Palestine.One of today's Ha'aretz essays, titled "Before Jewish fascism takes over", discusses interesting similarities between this era and that of the fall of Jerusalem to the Romans....
Posted by james at 1:49 PM | Full Post
October 28, 2002
follow-up on G.M.'s fundamentalism
Now for a completely different read [NYTimes letter] on the item I posted recently. CHEVY GETS THE FAITH To the Editor: Re "G.M. Gets Criticism for Backing Tour of Christian Music Performers" (Business Day, Oct. 24): Chevrolet's sponsorship of a...
Posted by james at 1:03 PM | Full Post
October 27, 2002
vote green this time
Don't let them keep getting away with it. [The Democrat-Republican party oligarchy, that is.] And we won't even be helping Pataki when we do it! Barry says it all on Bloggy:I see no reason to vote for Carl McCall in...
Posted by james at 6:00 PM | Full Post
Paul Wellstone
A poet salutes his friend.Paul Wellstone was an unlikely politician in a place like Minnesota — land of walleyes, cornfields and phlegmatic Scandinavians. He was an urban Jew, son of immigrants, a college professor at the fanciest of Minnesota's private...
Posted by james at 10:54 AM | Full Post
October 25, 2002
we've lost Senator Wellstone
Senator Paul Wellstone, his wife Sheila, daughter Marcia, and five others were killed today in a small plane crash near Eveleth, Minnesota. The Senator was one of our most courageous and progressive legislators, and we have very very few. His...
Posted by james at 4:11 PM | Full Post
October 24, 2002
G.M. pushes christian fundamentalism
Gosh, and I thought it was just their cars and SUVs that were offensive.Chevrolet, a division of General Motors, is title sponsor of the monthlong 16-city Come Together and Worship Tour, which begins on Nov. 1 in Atlanta. The tour...
Posted by james at 12:28 PM | Full Post
October 22, 2002
still making a fuss!
These are our children! Activists demonstrated inside and outside of the UN General Assembly yesterday, where they shouted, "No war in Iraq!" These good folks, knowingly or not, were following in the footsteps and the soundbites of generations of worthy...
Posted by james at 12:09 PM | Full Post
sigh
It's a fucked-up country. Sexphobia and religion encourages AIDS Ever bigger, tanklike SUVs protect us from each other Bombing is regularly employed to maintain peace Health care is made a commodity Incumbents are honored when terror strikes on their watch...
Posted by james at 12:53 AM | Full Post
"Welcome to New York," Mr. Trump said.
Asshole Trump essentially embodies the worst aspects of the New York of the last few decades. Stupidity, greed, the appetite for power, horrendous taste, insensitivity, waste, and just plain vulgarity, with absolutely no redeeming social value. He is an embarassment...
Posted by james at 12:14 AM | Full Post
October 21, 2002
don't mess wid da car!
The Daily News did its tabloid thing yesterday with an hysterical front page headline ("IT'S TOLLS FOR THEE") and story screaming the news that our Mayor wants to charge tolls on the East River crossings. Duh. Gosh, why should someone...
Posted by james at 12:53 AM | Full Post
the Times marches on, but doesn't forget
Wow! Holding a grudge for eighty-nine years! The NYTimes let us know this week that it has by no means forgotten its ignominious defeat over an environmental issue fought in the early years of the last century. In an editorial...
Posted by james at 12:16 AM | Full Post
October 20, 2002
insurance, not socialism
Heck, although I was an insurance underwriter for thirty years (albeit in tort liability, not health insurance), I happy to find that I'm not the only American who understands the basic principle of insurance, the spread of risk among a...
Posted by james at 11:58 PM | Full Post
October 11, 2002
Bloggy
I feel apologetic for the limited number of my postings lately, so I'm referring you all to Barry for great stuff, both political and everything that ain't....
Posted by james at 12:29 PM | Full Post
October 8, 2002
America has its head up its ass!
In spite of the direction in which the caption seems to point, it's not about politics this time. Sub-headline: "Bikes told to take a hike" San Diego in my experience is one of the most fitness-conscious, physical cities we have....
Posted by james at 11:15 PM | Full Post
October 5, 2002
"jews hate Bush"
[This goy would wear it as a badge of honor, if he could imagine it involved any merit on his part.] Tonight I was surprised to find myself the target in a classic and somewhat extended anti-semitic confrontation. While Barry...
Posted by james at 11:25 PM | Full Post
October 4, 2002
I'm back
Well, we returned from the Old Country monday night, but I've been delaying my return to this log, because, why? I wanted to reopen with something special? I was feeling shy? I wanted to enjoy the time off? Maybe extend...
Posted by james at 8:29 PM | Full Post
September 9, 2002
USA, New York
Yeah, the address in the caption above is intentional. Paul Auster has a piece about the American heartland in today's NYTimes. It's a good read. This is an excerpt.Crazy New York, inspiring New York, fractious New York, ugly New York,...
Posted by james at 10:47 AM | Full Post
September 8, 2002
"I'm an American"
On almost-the-eve of the big anniversary, I wanted to post the text of a letter written to the BBC by an activist friend of ours, an appreciative response to the broadcast company's inclusion of an American ex-marine's criticism of our...
Posted by james at 5:59 PM | Full Post
on hiatus
Barry and I will be in Europe for three weeks, and I will almost certainly not be continuing these posts, even if he manages to do his part for the public. Check him out. I'm sure I will feel the...
Posted by james at 5:13 PM | Full Post
the dream continues
Last September, for the first time in at least 326 years, but certainly much longer, the dreamers stopped coming to New York. The City was physically isolated for about 24 hours, beginning the morning of the eleventh.No one arrived bearing...
Posted by james at 5:05 PM | Full Post
August 31, 2002
I'm scared, but it's not what you think
A pretty real piece, "Victims of Realtime...on the bizarre memorialization of 911," currently appears on the first page of the refreshingly-irreverent site, HOLY FUCKING SHIT DAY. I posted my own comment there, but I'm including it below as well, to...
Posted by james at 9:18 PM | Full Post
worshiping hungry gods--by ourselves
More on the American car vs. public transit thing. The rest of the world is becoming more and more aware of our special cult and addiction, and they clearly aren't going to be indifferent to its planetary impact going forward....
Posted by james at 4:48 PM | Full Post
Blair, Berlusconi, Bush
Disgusting, but really no surprise. We got the toady and the fascist to forgive future American war crimes....
Posted by james at 12:39 PM | Full Post
August 30, 2002
one god, under the nation
This nation has become a theocracy, as proven by the absolute astonishment of the overwhelming majority, and their extraordinary virulence, when they hear that anyone might object to the state imposition of their particular cult. I hugely admire those who...
Posted by james at 8:08 PM | Full Post
rejecting freedom of speech (cont'd)
Alright, I'm back. I've recovered just a little from the impact of the item I posted below. Still I can make only a very few observations for now. Just how much free speech is "too much" free speech? Even more...
Posted by james at 6:39 PM | Full Post
rejecting the only thing distinguishing our system
I just don't know how to tackle this one. It's simply beyond my comprehension, but it tells me that we really are doomed. Roughly half of Americans think the constitutional freedom of speech guarantees of the First Amendment go too...
Posted by james at 3:20 PM | Full Post
August 28, 2002
bigger is not better
But if we have any intelligence we already knew this. Researchers at the University of Michigan and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory announced on Wednesday that lightweight, fuel efficient autos are safer for the driving public than the average sport...
Posted by james at 8:42 PM | Full Post
buddy capitalists
The myth is that our Republican White House hijackers represent and worship free market capitalism. The reality is that they embody and practice crony capitalism,in which whom you know is more important than what you do and how you do...
Posted by james at 3:54 PM | Full Post