goddesscafe

* this made me smile for some reason...I came across this sentence in a column by George Will: "This summer's argument about embryonic stem cell research has been, inevitably, recondite regarding the science involved." Now, I've got a pretty darn good vocabulary from all that readin' I do, but hell if I recognize "recondite" or can guess from the context. Dictionary.com tells me it means Difficult to penetrate; incomprehensible to one of ordinary understanding or knowledge. teehee, that's exactly what that word was to my little peabrain.
* Sillycon Valley news: Hewlett-Packard announces it will fry 6000 workers, while JDS Uniphase will toast 7000, after already cutting 9000 this year. So far this year, Sanmina cut 7000, Cisco 8500, Solectron 20,700 and Intel 5000. 4 others cut between 900-1500. What the hell is happening to the economy? And the stock market is doing fine...I bet the fat cats love the layoffs. Can we start our foreign commune soon? I'm poised to jet.

::: posted by Alura Allumeuse at 9:31 AM

Thursday, July 26, 2001 :::

Did a google search on goddesscafe, after discovering that a search on my name doesn't bring it up like usual (got an e-mail from a Collins friend to my work account just now, was surprised he sent it there, so I investigated), and found an Aussie goddesscafe. Also see that Kevin's podgehodge page appears 8th.

::: posted by Alura Allumeuse at 1:25 PM

On Mark's Vagina Monologues post...

My brother is studying theater at a SUNY (State University of NY), where last year his department performed the Vagina Monologues. The production caused quite a ruckus among the school’s Board of Directors and everyone else who can’t say the word “vagina” out loud. Town residents wrote angry letters ranting about the use of their hard-earned tax dollars to produce such filth, many of which were based on only knowing the play’s title.

One SUNY trustee even attributed the high freshman drop-out rate to the large number of first year students who attended the play. She called the play and other such events and lectures an “assault on students' sense of modesty which the sexual liberationist agenda necessarily entails”.

The school’s president came under fire for allowing the show to be performed, and currently this is being used as one argument for his ousting.

In response to the VM’s, one of my bro’s friends wrote and produced a satire called “Cocktails”. I wish Eve and I could have seen that one!

(Funniest bit: My Dad took my youngest brother, Patrick, who was 14 at the time, to see the VM's. Patrick and I were chatting about how they were going to see the play and he whined to me, “Lis, I can’t go with Dad, he’s gonna wanna talk about vaginas and stuff after!”)

::: posted by elissarita at 12:29 PM

* oooh, do we get to promote our brothers' music now? Here's my bro's bio and pic (do NOT try looking at that in Netscape, it won't work, and pops up all kinds of error windows...it's only a site that works in Explorer) for his band Anthem Boy. I wonder if looking like a thug is better or worse than looking like a motivational speaker.
* argh, gov't get away from my little blue pills!!!
* currently chilling out to this, after sleeping in this morning and feeling kinda slow on this cloudy day. A sequel CD apparently just came out too. (hint, hint) I can't wait for Friday's world dance/chill thingie at Cellspace.

::: posted by Alura Allumeuse at 12:13 PM

don't look for a connecting thread here; various points-of-interest, alura-style:

• if you're going to squat on a site, do it in style. like jeff, the guy who owns the color purple.

• back to promoting our friends and loved ones: if anyone's in the vicinity of davies symphony hall in san francisco this weekend, my brother and his a cappella group will be singing in the lobby at 7:15pm on friday and saturday nights. i'm not sure where he took this picture, but it sort of makes him look like either a motivational speaker or a cult leader.

::: posted by kevin seal at 11:24 AM

Wednesday, July 25, 2001 :::

On NPR the other night, I heard an interview with Eve Ensler (creator of The Vagina Monologues). The interview was taped in front of a live audience, who had a chance to ask questions at the end. The last question - asked, of course, by a man - was, "Can we expect a 'Penis Monologues' anytime soon?" Ensler paused for a moment and then replied, "Aren't we living in one?"

::: posted by Mark Gabel at 11:19 PM

Holy self-righteousness, Batman! I love the web. Just now, I find an online diary of someone I know. Through that, I find an online diary of someone I used to know. On that, I discover that the guy I moved out here with (crazy jealous millionaire guy my age with a daughter and psychotic ex-wife, we were miserable because in addition to being a generally fucked-up person, he wanted monogamy, so he moved back to Indy and basically bought himself a stripper wife and stepkid) had an affair with his friend's stripper wife, but is trying to save his marriage to the now-pregnant wife. Mr. Monogamy Forever couldn't live up to his own standards. I don't know whether to be shocked or just laugh at human nature.

I've been poly and mono, honest and cheating, in love and in despair. I prefer honest and in love above all the other combos. I'm going to bed now, incredibly relieved at the fact I currently lead a generally undramatic, non-fucked-up existence, exceedingly happy with my friends and my lover-consort*.

::: posted by Alura Allumeuse at 10:52 PM

MMmmm... I think Christians are always trying to confuse us. They keep baiting me, saying that I'm going to hell because I wasn't almost drowned as an infant.

::: posted by sly squiggle at 9:20 PM

wow-- there's a whole subculture going on with this whole "is-it-Christianity-or-is-it-tongue-in-cheek" style.

there's true christians unite, and it's so dry that i kept wondering if some of them were being serious. is their goal to draw in "actual Christians" into theological debate, and then confuse them? very strange. then there's glenda yenta, a woman (maybe) whose personal profile sounds basically legit until you get to the "considerable domestic staff" part.

forgive me if no one else finds this interesting, but i love this f**k-with-your-head, false documents stylee.

take, for instance, this whole debate on whether or not Christianity and nudism can peacefully co-exist.

::: posted by kevin seal at 7:53 PM

Boot, I read you loud and clear. Loren's letter reminds me of some posts I've seen about Cincinnati's current post-riot black-on-black crime spree. This summer, the number of shootings in the city jumped by 600 percent over last summer, and almost every reported instance involved a black victim and black assailant. Plenty of online conservatives are, of course, trumpeting this as vindication/proof of their opinions. It only seems to be getting worse there.

On a lighter note: Alura's flame-talk inspired me to drop in on a few random discussion boards and sniff around.

Some of these conversations are downright fascinating, especially out of context. Here's one from a bizarre Catholic women's forum called Full of Grace. You can't tell who is joking and who isn't. The most deadpan satire I've seen in ages.

MRS. PEGGY McNAMARA: Stay away from this praise-filled place! It is not a forum for your liberal brayings about rape. The last time you mad, sad old cows intruded upon one of my functions, Pat Ireland and Susan Brownmiller left with black eyes courtesy not of men, but of Taffy Davenport Gaines Crockett and yours truly! Now, begone, hoary, man-hating revisionist historians! Shoo!

POLLY HIGHTOWER: You're such a gentle, but passionate person, Peggy, as this post shows.

GLENDA YENTA: Peggy, count me in. I'll help repurify this sanctuary of Christendom. I may be wearing sling back pumps, but I can do Kung Fu in them!

SISTER BARBARA: Don't hold back, Pegs. Tell'em how you feel!

::: posted by kevin seal at 4:32 PM

and, just for some humor today, try George's trouble tickets. A tech support guy did frame captures of trouble tickets from a (100% native English-speaking!!!) coworker, they're hilarious.

::: posted by Alura Allumeuse at 1:28 PM

Flame wars! I recently re-subscribed to a feminist news/discussion list that I'd been on all through college. After lurking a few weeks and noticing the general mean-spiritedness of some of the postings, I was finally compelled to respond to a few things. One on transgenders (which was seemingly dismissed as the thoughts of a young woman who knew nothing about women's rights, which are apparently primarily mother's rights and not much else) and one on anti-depressants. One woman said that men/society wanted to turn women into "zoloft zombies" (which would make them "perfect sex toys") so I pointed out that that was rather reactionary (in addition to being untrue, anti-depressants don't always turn people into zombies, and certainly don't turn them into sex toys) and that while anti-depressants may be overprescribed, that doesn't discount those for whom it works and who aren't on it for social/gender reasons (as she was implying -- that women are mass-drugged to make them into stepford wives, I suppose). Got thoroughly flamed for that one. Then she said something about "no reasonable person" ever believing that post-menopausal or post-pregnancy women would "want to fuck regularly," which I found intuitively absurd, having gone through SFSI training, read a million sexuality books, and seen older people (50s-70s) at sex parties and clubs. That last bit led the 72-year-old list owner to send me a private e-mail calling me a "fucking liar." (uh, I have, otherwise why bring it up? Not like your average tourist couldn't see older people engaged in sexual acts at any gay pride fest or leather fair around here. I even sent the list a link from a recent news story about a senior citizens center getting complaints about their public sex) The netiquette of that aside (if no flaming or abuse is allowed on list, who does one complain to if the list owner is acting like, to put it harshly, a cunt?), what the hell is going on in the feminist movement? The ex-prez of SFSI e-mailed me that "There is an old historical legacy of feminism that is asexual, politically correct, sterile, and without charm. Looks like you found a pocket. Bail, honey!" You know, I've always hated the stereotype of feminists as shrill, man-hating harpies, and have never actually MET one, but between this and allllll the comments about older women having no sexuality, that it's a myth forced upon them by men, makes me want to scream "You FRIGID fucking CARICATURES!"

::: posted by Alura Allumeuse at 1:00 PM

From the op-ed section of the Green Bay Press-Gazette and reprinted here for your mortification:

When I read things like this I feel like everyone who's left Green Bay and seen a bit of the world should go back to hold some kind of mass intervention. I'd love to bring this woman to Brooklyn and introduce her to my friend Ali (an immigrant from Jordan) who operates a corner store from 10 am to 12 midnight every day of the week except for Monday, or take her to the Oneida Indian reservation and show her how they use all that money from the casinos for education and public health, or to Berlin to show her that goddamn wall isn't there any more, or to Martinsville, Indiana where the clan still rules, or to Borough Park, Brooklyn to show her how the Hassidim live, or to the Church of God Victory two doors down from my apartment where the Haitian community gathers to worship and sing, or the Communist Left... does she mean those International Socialist Organization blow-hards that hold poorly attended seminars on college campuses while wearing camouflage pants? I'd love to see an organized Communist Left, if only to add to the range of political expression in this country. It's incredibly sad to read opinions like this that are founded so completely on ignorance; and it's sad to me that in the city of Green Bay and places like it you can remain as ignorant about the world and its people as you care to be. Here in Brooklyn, it's not an option - no one here thinks that immigrants are lazy and indolent because it's hard not to notice that many of them work ALL THE TIME. Green Bay is an excellent place to learn about the world - with its immigrants from South East Asia and South America, it is part of the story of the world's economic and political present. Ms. Olejniczak's editorial is the best argument for cultural diversity I've seen.

::: posted by the boot at 12:35 PM

oh, they changed the microsquish ad since last night! It was a photo of someone trying to take off a woman's bra, it was unclear what they were getting at, that's what squiggly musta been saying he didn't want to buy anything that made it more difficult.

::: posted by Alura Allumeuse at 12:03 AM

Tuesday, July 24, 2001 :::

my inbox is frequently flooded by confused PR people sending random announcements that have nothing to do with digital video. these flacks, of course, call back wondering why i'm not writing a story about their absurd and irrelevant pronouncements.

today's entry into that field made me giggle:
NEILDIAMOND.COM LAUNCHES TODAY
Visitors to the official Neil Diamond web site are welcomed with a personal greeting from the artist before the launch of his signature tune "Crunchy Granola Suite." Set against a stark, white background, a collage of silhouetted images of the performer merge with Pop-inspired design elements.

there's a decent chance that i'm the only person who finds it funny. worth a shot, tho.

also wondering -- did anyone try out GooglyMinotaur, that IM bot that Radiohead put out there?

::: posted by kevin seal at 6:10 PM

auf mache, BITTE! What's so weird about the Swiss MS ofc ad?

And it sure sounds to me like the guy who had the journal was being convicted of thought crimes...harsh, harsh, harsh.

that's all I can think of for the blog today. I think if I don't write some code I'm gonna get shot.

::: posted by Zarbet Rabbit at 4:13 PM

* Coca-Cola using paramilitary forces to exterminate trade unionists at plants in the land of coca. Who's surprised anymore? Just wait til more global trade agreements make this kind of thing commonplace. Meanwhile, the Harvard Crimson newspaper, which argues for a living wage, announced it will be paying Cambodians 40 cents/hr to build its online archives.
* News That Does Not Bode Well for Freedom: these were in the news this month -- 1) a deadbeat dad 19-yr old was ordered by a judge to not have sex or any more kids until he was married and could support them. The WI Supreme Court upheld it -- the 4 men supported it, the 3 women didn't. I find that divide fascinating -- the women know damn well this is gonna be used in the future to decide who's fit for reproducing, just as it was in the past, and beginning to again now, with women drug addicts. 2) a 22-yr-old in Ohio who kept a private journal of his fictional, pedophiliac fantasies got 10 yrs in jail for "posessing obscene material." So make sure you don't ever write down your dirty thoughts, folks! They haven't quite managed to make thinking freely illegal yet.
* a link for Kevin, in case you're ever having trouble coming up with song lyrics. ;)
* You can have the book back, Mark, I've just been reading it over and over again. I love all the ramifications of wireless emotional communication and energy bonds and chemical responses and all that. I want to be able to trust my intuition, and to be on the same emotional page as those I'm close with. Hence my latest e-mail alias, limbic resonance. (that particular phrase halfway through an interesting summary-essay)
* Zarbet is gonna go to Burning Man and pretend he's in Antarctica. Soon he will teach me how to make Great Art with electroluminescent wire, like the Playa Fish we saw swimming around at BM '99. (neon-wire fish perched on poles on the backs of bikes, so you'd see a school of fish going by from a distance at night)

::: posted by Alura Allumeuse at 3:02 PM

Monday, July 23, 2001 :::

Reprinted from my own blog because I knew some of you don't read my blog regularly (if at all) but would be interested:

"Tonight on 'To The Best of Our Knowledge,' psychatrist Thomas Lewis explained that scientists have actually found a part of the brain that allows people who have a close emotional bond to send limited 'wireless emotional messages' back and forth to each other - a form of limited telepathy, really. Ever felt that your sibling, friend or lover could read your mind? Now you know why - they actually can!

This finding bolsters my own pet theory that all supernatural and psychic phenomena (e.g., ESP, ghosts, spontaneous human combustion) that cannot currently be explained by science will eventually be identified as manifestations of normal (or abnormal, as the case may be) brain function. Only after checking the show's web site did I realize that Thomas Lewis is one of the co-authors of 'A General Theory of Love,' which I bought on sale at Cody's but have not yet read." (Say, are you done reading that book yet, Laura? I am now inspired to tackle it.)

Last week I was called on not having posted much; it is true I've been caught up in my own little world...OK, so really I've been caught up in an emailing list for bisexual indie rock fans. It's addictive, I tell you.

::: posted by Mark Gabel at 10:53 PM

After TOO fucking long, I get Internet access back. I mean Speakeasy wants my money or something. Jesus. Okay, check this out. New Swiss Windows XP ad. Weird.. All I know is I don't want to buy something that makes this more difficult than it already is.... Guten tag frau!

::: posted by sly squiggle at 9:14 PM

* No, they're not my templates, I just put paste crap in there. Boring boring boring. L is for Laura who died of ennui. (paraphrase of N)
* this guy was a sponsored link on google this morning. Freak! The sad thing is, it'll probably work.
* this story amused and disgusted me this morning...the theological stumblings of these mush-brained, selfish rightwingers get more medieval by the day -- the latest is that taking stem cells from embryos up to 2 wks old is OK, because up to that point it can still divide into twins...and if that's the case, then it obviously doesn't have a soul yet, and can be harvested for research! Applause all around for THAT particular justification. Mysterious why they don't apply this same effort and thoughtfulness towards abortion and women's lives.
* Guerilla Girls have gone broadband.
* oh, BOOOO...our "tax rebate" is just an advance on next year's refund! I didn't know that. Brilliant marketing, Shrub. But apparently Congress is gonna hold hearings shortly on the legality of the income tax...been reading bits about that for years, how lawyers are challenging the legitimacy of it, very interesting legally. Apparently there's really nothing in the law that says you HAVE to pay taxes. (conservative site link, interesting concept, though)
* I must go now, this article on the proliferation of pro-anorexia sites has compelled me to go eat a gigantic roast beef sandwich and some ice cream.

::: posted by Alura Allumeuse at 7:43 PM

beautiful! i *love* the sharing.

and now i know who squiggle bop really is. being out of the friend loop, i'm all confused by the pseudonyms. i was excited just to figure out who alura was. (just kidding, cakes.) so, squiggle, i do know you, and i like the self portrait and i wanna see the HK pics, if you're still out there in blog land. ???

i don't know this other stu, but it's so cool to see collins/fine arts school names like morrison lyman floating around his page. i remember her banana photos at a show at the IMUG and in maybe in quarry? it's cool to know that she's still arting somewhere out there.

kevin, i'm glad you were amused by the alanis review. i'm bummed that when kmurph redid the site, he removed the original title of the article, which was, "It's not ironic, it just sucks.", referring of course to her creative use of the word which made us cringe when we heard it on every other radio wave a few summers back.

and i dig your use of the word "groovesmanship" in your business site! tomorrow my goal is to incorporate the word groovesmanship into all of my work emails. "sir, may i increase the groovesmanship of your reprint with a customized logo?" "boss lady, i think my creative groovesmanship would increase tenfold if you let me go to the beach today instead of doing these two-color layouts." they need some grooveman- and grooveswomynship, some of those those silly CMPers.

miss alura, i know you whine that your work web site is just templates, but that doens't matter cause they're *your* templates. so pleh to your whining, and go check out fortmason.org.

and even a photo on blog today.... the footwear man is breakin out! *e

::: posted by elissarita at 6:08 PM

Kevin, I'm not sure where you got that url, I don't think it's working though. Folks, try this one. Stu's photos, mostly made with the polaroid peel-apart film, are best viewed in person, the prints measure in feet instead of inches - they're enormous and almost grainless because of the large size of the polaroid negatives. Great stuff, be sure not to miss Justin Stephenson's eyeball. Stu's going to be here in New York this coming Sunday and I'm excited to have him. Here's a photobooth shot of us last time he was in town:

i'm no stranger to baldfaced self-promotion, so here goes: tunesmith worldwide is now live on the web. teetering along like a newborn foal auditioning its legs.

on much more solid footing, we find the photography of our very own squiggle bop, whose shots document his time in costa rica and nicaragua.

and, while on the subject of photographers named stu, we find alex's chicago pal stu mullenberg, another imagist of startling insight and compassion.

superfluous was much fun; some very witty music reviews in there. (by the by, elissarita, i enjoyed your alanis and tori review.)

other friends' music review sites to promote: jeff beck and friends weigh in on rave culture at dilated, which features a bjork roundup page, and kerry seed is one of the writers responsible for the portland design-and-hipsterism magazine rangermag.

self-promotion isn't sick! what's sick is that so much cool shit goes unseen by other people who are probably making their own cool, unseen shit!

and you know what they say, "if you don't promote yourself....promote your friends!" thus, they (they being me, in this version of the cliche) would like to promote two sites:

superfluous.com (automatically gets a cool point for snagging that domain name) is a zine maintained by my friend kevin, or kmurph, as he goes by on the lower haight DJ circuit (kmurph shows are mostly limited to audiences in his studio apartment, where, incidentally, i learned how to scratch. well, sorta. anyway, i digress.) he posts found photos (much like another site whose creators are on this very goddesscafe blog), music reviews (mostly hip-hop, jazz, and the like. the few by yours truly shouldn't be hard to find, they totally stick out.), an essay section called generation fleece, and other random stuff. i just checked it out and right now it's all flashback-y (and a bit under construction) cause it's having an anniversary or something. personally, i like this random letter kmurph got from a fan who is pissed off about not being in san fran anymore. someone else who misses SF may submit a similarly pissed off letter shortly.

site two: trish's friend made an indulgent site recently called 1000dreams.com. (trish was all about the friend-promo and sent us all an email about it- go trish!) it's now up to v2 (not sure why v1 went away), but the "projects" area has lots of cool flash stuff. turn your sound on high and hear and see pretty things (that way make up for somewhat of a lack of content which i'm sure is in the making as it grows).

but here's the big thing:
i KNOW that you all have stuff hidden on a server somewhere that you are at least a little proud of and
I! WANNA! SEE! IT!
gimmie stuff to spend time with. ..art, homepages, zine sites, stuff you did for work or fun or out of necessity to be creative or express yourself, photos, old stuff, whatever. post or i'm gonna have to name names. no, i'm kidding, i wouldn't do that. (*probably*) i just know you have good things and i'm a big fan of sharing. (^_^) love, *elissarita

p.s. kudos to alura for posting her self-portraits. i'm all about seeing my friends' pretty faces whenever i can. gives me nice dreams. now go, MORE! *e

::: posted by elissarita at 10:10 AM