goddesscafe

Friday, August 10, 2001 :::

Mark Anderson will lend you his books. There's a list on his website (he has pretty decent taste, bit of a fixation on baseball). Evidently he'll send you the book with a return mailer. Nice of him.

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

Yep, Mark is one bitchy-ass mofo. (yes, follow that link, it's not what you imagine) As for East Bay (which is Pig Latin for Beast) vs. SF, I'm definitely on the side of the former these days. SF has too much traffic, NO parking, and it's filthier than other cities, a topic which keeps coming up in the paper. Plus I just keep meeting all these cool east bay people. And, yes, Zarbet, I LOVE my neighborhood and my house, despite hating my job and the commute. Last night I went to the other side of Montclair, which looks remarkably like my side, and walked around the hills into a redwood park area with Jonathan. The breeze, the smells, the darkness, it was all very sensual. He kept his arms out, to feel the energy of the trees. Anyway, it made me happy to be a bEast-dweller. (and actually, it temporarily being warm enough to rollerblade around the Presidio and Crissy Field yesterday made me briefly happy to work in a beautiful part of SF, despite it being hella far away from anything) But, Jonathan did say that L.A. was cool (he went to USC) and that he's got friends and family there. And I want to live near the beach, dammit! As for generic ants in the pants...I, like every other hip, progressive-minded young'un, fantasized about moving here and becoming an activist and writer. After almost 3 yrs of looking, I have yet to find a job that's anywhere near what I want, except for those glorious two months at Verde. Non-profits and print media don't pay, or only have the lamest entry-level or high-up senior positions available. I'm at a loss, throwing my hands up in defeat. I want to go places, do things while I'm young and healthy, I don't even care at this point. I'll waitress in New Zealand for a few months, does it matter since few of us are on a real career path anyway? Moira of IU theater dept fame lived on the QEII for a year, stopping off all over the world. That's the kinda shit we need.

Anyway, kisses to all of you for this informative and hilarious blogging...I dig this community, and my technophobic friends elsewhere, I just wish it was all in one place. Just found out that an IU friend of mine is freaking out and leaving Berkeley this weekend to go live with her mom in Evansville indefinitely. Why is everyone LOSING IT? We've got to get our shit together, people! Become a tribe. Intentional community. Gotta have something to hold on to.

::: posted by Alura Allumeuse at 11:49 AM

I'm not too nice for New York. I'm not too nice for anything. I'm not too nice, period. Just ask Laura - I'm a bitchy-ass motherfucker, actually.

Yes, I do have ants in my pants. I love it here, and can't think of anyplace I would rather settle permanently, but I haven't lived anywhere else all my adult life and I feel the need to try. Of course, I've been saying that for five years, and I'm still here. Inertia and the powerful charms of the Bay Area (not to mention my network of wonderful friends here) will do that to you.

I agree completely with Elissa's comments about LA. I actually think you would quite like LA, Kevin. No seasons, though.

Thanks for the link, boot. My top cities came out similarly to yours, except San Francisco was swapped out for LA, thusly: New York (yes), Chicago (yes), Boston (no), DC (no, no), San Francisco (duh), then Philly (maybe). The problem with an index like that is that it doesn't take the fuzzier measures of a place, its "personality," if you will, into consideration. Boston and DC are just not me.

As to the Oakland-Berkeley/San Francisco discussion, it's really very akin to the Outer Borough vs. Manhattan discussion. If you would rather live in Brooklyn than Manhattan, then you would probably rather live in the East Bay than San Francisco, and for much the same reasons. The reverse is largely true as well. As in New York, there used to be a sort of social stigma attached to not living in "The City," but since so many cool people have been priced out of SF and gone east, rendering my side of the bay much more interesting, those distinctions have largely dissappeared, and now it's mostly just a matter of personal preference.

::: posted by Mark Gabel at 10:37 AM

Thursday, August 09, 2001 :::

Well, Money Magazine has the answer with a whiz-bang web thing called "Find Your Best Place." Link. I put in my personal criteria, (reasonably affordable, good job market, cultural stuff, etc.) and was told that my best place is New York City. I'm not too surprised, I already live in New York City and I really love it. Chicago came in second - again, I'm not surprised. Boston came in third, but I've already put in my time there and I've scratched it off my list. DC was fourth, LA fifth, and Philadelphia sixth. In case you're wondering, San Francisco came in 9th. All things considered, I think Money Magazine did okay. According to the editors' criteria, Portland is the best place to live in the US, which seems to match anectdotal evidence.

To Mark: it's never too late to take New York City out for a spin. From the little I know of you I'd think you'd do fine here. Nice might be an issue, but there's a fine point to be made: in New York 'nice' doesn't work, but you can never, ever be too 'kind' in this city. Kindness is strength, niceness is weakness. So take one of those personality inventory tests and get back to me, if the timing's right you can sublet from me. Note: I'm NOT leaving New York because I find it deficient in any way. I'm just not ready to settle down yet and I want to try on a few more cities before I do. I may very well come back.

To Alura: Boston is a city with very little humor to it. It has its bright points, but they don't have a measurable impact on the vibe of the town, which is: bio-engineering, banking, engineering, and Raytheon. Boston is the least friendly city I've ever been to, except maybe for Detroit, which didn't seem too friendly when we visited back in '97, and Genoa, Italy. Genoa is my least favorite city on Earth. The only things I miss from living there: Pho Pasteur, a Vietnamese place I used to take women to; the Hay Market, the best fruits and vegetables market I've seen in the US, UNBELIEVABLY cheap ("What? 2 portabella mushrooms for 50 cents? Why not take 2 dozen?" "I don't need 2 dozen." "Just take the goddamn 2 dozen." "Okay."), my neighborhood, and several streets. It's not much.

To Whom It May Concern: please do move to LA so that I have some friends to visit there. I love visiting LA.

To Elissa: yes, and I'm taking you down with me.

::: posted by the boot at 9:44 PM

to mark - if you are grumpy and jaded like you say, new york would be *perfect* for you. but i think maybe you're too nice for it. boston?
to alura - boston's too cold for you, but is pretty fun otherwise.
to alex/boot - new orleans scares me because it's in louisiana, plus, i think vibrators are illegal there. but i'd check it out. i'm all for breaking idiotic laws. so is alura. (right?) and as for melting in the tropics, it's a hundred degrees in NY right now! will i find you a puddle in your apartment tomorrow?
to tad/rabbit - right on with your SF pride!
to alura - yes, yes, yes about a temporary thing somewhere foreign or exotic where we can pretend the bush administration doesn't exist for a while.
to kevin - there are lots of cool neighborhoods in LA that you could pretend are cities, thus eliminating the need for excessive driving. my most recent stay was in hollywood, where you can get a funky place pretty cheap, complete with lots of old town burnouts to sit on your stoop. it's got more character than the santa monica or westwood type areas. everyone thinks LA is all plastic/no substance, but it's got way more to offer than bling and string. one friend recently even tried to convince me that LA's got more of an activist scene than SF. we argued about that a bit, but he had some strong points.
to kevin/mark/alura/tad/stuart - what about berkeley/oakland vs. SF?

::: posted by elissarita at 7:05 PM

Um, oops!

::: posted by Zarbet Rabbit at 6:36 PM

Stupit $%^*& blog had a Microslop server error, and lost my valuable comments!

Y'all already know what I said, anyway: what the hell's wrong with SF? It's fantastic, and has all sorts of cool shit you're searching for. Live here.

Um, er, pardon for intruding on the meanderings within, but any of you ever consider that SF actually kicks ass? I mean, I know countless people here who pay under $700 to live, are writers or musicians, and like the weather, art, people, hills, fog, sunshine, and coffee.

Yes, it's a weird job market lately, but I can give you all untold stories of dreaming to come here, and it's been pretty damned cool even though I keep changing jobs. Those of you I know are doing really well job and apartment wise already, too.
I think y'all just got ants in th' pants (not that there's anything wrong with that).

We now return to your regularly scheduled world-exploration channel...

::: posted by Zarbet Rabbit at 6:32 PM

Shootin' 'em down, one by one:

Phoenix: Too hot! Hot hot hot! Not good hot, but sunburn, fry your brain hot. No. Deserts suck. I'd sooner move to Alaska. Plus it's a cultural wasteland.

Nashville: Sounds cool on paper, and is a nice place to visit, but but is not in fact a good place to live. I grew up there. It is the reason I don't like the South. There is a music scene, but it's extremely country-centric. Country is all right and all, but not if that's all there is.

New Orleans: Would undoubtedly be very cool, but is also, as others have mentioned, the most humid place on the planet, with bugs the size of Ford Excursions. Plus it's still the South.

So I guess the only places that still sound good to me are LA, Portland, or Seattle. In other words, I think I'm chained to this coast unless I decide to cough up the cash for a New York pad some day, which seems less likely all the time. I think I might be too old to move to New York now. Too grumpy. Too jaded and set in my ways. Have I missed my window of opportunity?

::: posted by Mark Gabel at 5:16 PM

Seal/Sly: didn't realize your dot-com was still around. In their buzzword-laden site ("clicks-and-mortar"? gak), they erase the real history of the concept, and somehow neglect entirely to mention firing the editorial staff. :) I think the relevant phrase now is "Rather than create our own content..." As for their Berkeley successful testing...hell, I NEVER got one of those things to work, not once. Nor did I ever see anyone use one.

Anyway, doing a monster job search on "New Orleans" and "Arts, Entertainment & Media" (which is where editorial work is listed) right now nets you one job. Uno. Zero are listed under "Internet/E-commerce." I still say the Carolinas or Hell Ay. After working abroad for a few months, of course. But there's always Antarctica.

::: posted by Alura Allumeuse at 4:37 PM

(post-blog edit...took me so long to finish this one while trying to do other work that I noticed afterwards that Kevin beat me to it, so excuse the cross-talking)

You know, phrases like "floss, bling-bling and silicone" are what make me adore Sir Guy. Ah, the power of wordsmiths to influence opinion.

Portland was mentioned yesterday, Mark, you just missed it because you only go in directly through blogger and see only a few recent postings. :p (and I forgot to add, yesterday I looked at a Toronto travel guide and it said it had 200 "wet" days a year. Noooooo!) But I can maybe understand the sushi thing...I mean, if someone told me I had to move somewhere where there was no, say, chocolate, I'd have to fight. Right, Elissa?

OK, so tropics are either too far away or too humid for the boys. Rain and pipe-freezing in other cities doesn't appeal to us girls. The big cities are either too expensive or too, er, flossy for everyone. (Alex, what's wrong with Boston? I know nothing about it, is it expensive and/or tense like NYC? No one's mentioned it. And Kevin, what if we could restrict ourselves to, say, Santa Monica or some cute little neighborhood in L.A.?) My dad is eventually planning on moving to the southwest. My fantasy is that he builds a hay bale house in the desert, maybe near Santa Fe. But what about that area of the country, such as Phoenix? Not coastal, which is a bummer. As for Vegas/Reno, supposedly they have the best school system around, and plenty of people retire there. I personally love the landscape, but Nevada seems like it may be socially desolate. D.C. I would maybe consider again, despite thinking it was a nasty, self-absorbed city when I lived there. I don't know if I could take the constant heavy bombardment of Washington politics. I'm open to N. and S. Carolina so far. As for New Orleans, other than that I heard they have mosquitos the size of raccoons during the summer, I don't know anything about it other than tales from drunken friends from Mardi Gras.

::: posted by Alura Allumeuse at 4:21 PM

i love portland. i almost moved there in '97.

it was mark's comment that "that's where all the hip, laid-off young dotcommers are going" that made me stop bringing it up in this discussion, honestly. i don't want to go where the dotcom dead pool is floating -- they'll drive up rent prices, doublepark their vehicles, and taunt me with their oxford-cloth collars.

i know, i know, i hear it now: "but didn't you work for one of those companies at one point?" yes, but editorial types don't count. we were merely opportunistic fast-talkers who enjoyed the free dinners and tchotchkes. right, sly? right, alura?

so, the goddess contingent insists upon a tropical climate; mark insists on parasite-free fish. aside from l.a., only one suggestion accommodates both of those concerns, so i believe we've whittled it down to boot's last suggestion: new orleans. muggy, but fantastic music and friendly people. plus, it's nocturnal, and rife with bizarre quirks and absurd true-life history. i'd live there, but it would probably drive me to drink.

(las vegas: depressing and arid. old ladies pouring dollar tokens into slot machines around the clock. too desperate.)

Just wanted to let you know about: rooftop sessions, a Beatles fan fiction site. I read one story, "The Coffee House," in which John is transmogrified into some kind of Angel of Death. What would people do without the internet?

Mark: if sushi is that important to you then it's that important to you. Personally I don't care to make life decisions based on the availability of good, raw fish, but I understand how important these things can be.

Kevin: I'm thinking I'll be in Chicago by January. I'm already on the look out for jobs and housing. I wonder if there's any kind of midwestern, fresh-water sushi cuisine brewing over there. I want whitefish maki and perch blue gill sashimi. Has this been tried? (To answer my own question I just did a google search and learned that except for salmon, fresh water fish isn't used because of the possibility of parasites.)

Elissarita: Any more than four days on a tropical island would drive me nuts, I owe my unflappable serenity to temperate climes. I'm with Kevin on this one. Put me on a tropical beach and I will melt.

Mark: I can't really explain why Portland and Seattle don't enchant me. They just don't. It's probably some knee jerk reaction to grunge. Duluth IS cold, no question of that.

What about New Orleans? What's the line on New Orleans? I don't hear much about it. Seems nice. Baton Rouge? Nashville? Las Vegas? Anyone care to comment?

Duluth is too cold. The tropics are too hot and humid (I hate wearing sandals). North Carolina is too Southern. (Nothing against the South in general, but it's not for me.)

I have doubts about Philly, but it certainly sounds good the way Alex talks about it, and everyone I've ever met from there was super-cool...we could all get jobs at Magnet Magazine. I would also go back to LA without much of a thought. I still like it in a lot of ways.

About being flexible on the sushi - I don't *want* to be flexible. I like sushi, dammit. I eat it three times a week and I'm not giving that up. If that means I have to stay on the West Coast, then so be it.

Speaking of which, apparently none of you Easterners/Midwesterners consider Seattle or Portland worthy of note, but both are great cities. Portland is surprisingly cosmopolitain for a city of a million people. Both have great music scenes, decently-priced housing, good food, huge old-growth forests nearby, and down-to-earth, open-minded people. The climate is very mild, with the only extreme being the rain. And it only rains for a couple of hours a day - no worse than in the tropics. Besides, just think how much you'd appreciate the sun on nice days! (I never spend that much time outside anyway.)

::: posted by Mark Gabel at 2:41 PM

no dissing of Tonga on my part. but a city boy like me might feel a bit stranded on a tropical isle, no matter how idyllic the first few weeks might be. and, yes, i'd much rather serve a lumpy, grumpy island king than Sir Clive, the man who would be mogul.

talk of LA makes me itchy. i'd rather not be stuck in traffic for the next five years. sure, there's an underground scene, but you're surrounded by so much floss and bling-bling and silicone the rest of the time.

Alex, do i take this to read that you are definitely moving to Chicago?

::: posted by kevin seal at 2:25 PM

Kev, are you dissing Tonga! you and i are slaving for a brit named clive - talk about the Man! i'd rather a fat king :)
and Boot, who says there's no merit in doing nothing in the tropics for a while? sounds delightful, for the short term anyway. it'll give us plenty of time to develop ideas and make some thoroughly procrastinated ART.
i like someone's idea of living far away for a while and then returning to an ideal US city all refreshed, or at least relaxed, fattened, and happy.
Alura, LA is high on my list, too. it currently falls between SF and DC.
about NYC - it's just too full of mean people. not that the Boot and i are mean or anything. there are just too many pushy, new yorky people here.
in the meantime, i'm all about at least *visiting* Tonga. it's high up on my list of unique places that i need to see. i'll be talking to Ruby.

::: posted by elissarita at 1:37 PM

1. Philadelphia: a great city in its own right, plenty of work, inexpensive, all the resources of a city that we've come to expect; proximity to NYC, DC, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, and Lancaster County - the place my people called home back in the 18th century. It's on rivers, it's filled with Quakers, good architecture, excellent city planning, and it's got some okay rock clubs.
2. Chicago: after L.A. and NYC, Chicago is the largest, most complex and fascinating city in the US. It's advantages are self-evident and I don't need to go into them here.
3. Any random small town on the border of Vermont and Western Massachusetts: perfectly serene, absolutely beautiful, cool people. Access to 6 or 7 college towns including North Hampton, East Hampton, Amherst, Burlington, Brattleboro - all decent for short range cultural fixes (including plenty of decent music) and community. 2-4 hours by car, train or bus to New York City or Boston, a little more to Montreal. Major disadvantage is work, but on the other hand you can rent a large house for about $300 a month.

As for NYC, I love it, I may eventually return, but I'm ready to see and learn more about urban America. It's getting time to move along on the circuit. Chicago will be my fourth city in four years.

::: posted by the boot at 1:32 PM

hawaii. maui, in particular. hmm. well, kimo's mom is there, true, and kimo and rosie are planning on moving there later this year.

however, hawaii is pricier than san francisco. very few jobs there, especially for howlies. and no sushi -- oh, wait, sorry, LOTS of sushi. but if we're all looking to work 15 hours a week and make art the rest of the time, then hawaii may be difficult.

i'm in favor of philly, and i became enamored with the NC triangle when we were on tour.

the marshall islands are intriguing, but there are only 3,000 phone lines there. on the whole set of islands, 3,000. tonga has 7,000 lines. tonga is also the only monarchy in the pacific, oooh.

::: posted by kevin seal at 1:05 PM

Just went to the next building to the library used bookstore and got the World Stompers travel guide. I guess they're all about young people and cheap long-term travel. They have a couple pages listing places to write for guides on overseas work. Maybe we could all teach English somewhere for a few months, then work on a cruise ship for a bit, then all pick our ideal U.S. city to settle down in? ;)

As I was speaking about holding grudges earlier, I just got a random e-mail from a guy (who I made out with at a sex party but regretted, as we weren't close friends...he was later photographed for Time mag, in a beanbag chair, in a story about dot-coms and programmers having their pick of work, can you believe it?) who stopped speaking to me a long while back because I'd told his hack writer girlfriend something that someone she hated had said about her, in a conversation where she was dogging said hated person. This inexplicably made me a bad person who hurt people he loved, said the boyfriend, and they both stopped speaking to me. Now he wants to clear the air and re-establish contact with me. Gee, almost exactly a year ago a boy who had stopped speaking to me (partly because his girlfriend and I had issues) also randomly re-appeared. :p But somehow I sense this situation isn't going to end up the same. ;)

::: posted by Alura Allumeuse at 12:36 PM

bwah ha ha ha...I'm making an appearance on an online diary, as a "completely evil bitch." (XII and XIII) Those of you who met this twerp (and all unanimously disliked him) may find this amusing. I'm not sure what I did to deserve that appellation, other than move to CA with his friend, an emotionally abusive and violently depressed and alcoholic rich guy (and his part-time daughter, both of whom I poured all my energy into, hardly making me evil, I would say. You can only nurture a fucked-up person for so long before their issues finally consume them). What I'm fascinated with is the ability of people to hold a grudge for a looooong-ass time. This same guy sent out a mass e-mail saying that I had raped a girl (yeah, I know, what the fuck) and when I talked to a lawyer who said it definitely was libel (and told rich guy that I had done this and would pursue it), mysteriously an apology appeared. I just can't figure out what I ever did to deserve all his nastiness, other than that we didn't particularly get along. Honestly, I can't work up enough emotions to actively hate people, even when they screw me over. They mostly just get my pity for acting like assholes, I figure they've got problems.

Anyway, back to the topic at hand...Neal, why suggest NC when you said you were forced to leave because of a bad job market? Or is there more to the story? As for Philly, 2nd Lieut. Dr. Patrick did a semester off-campus there his jr yr and LOVED it, wanted to go back there for med school. Zarbet is from there, I think. But he's been writing code and his dissertation for weeks, I've barely heard from him and he likely won't comment. As for the tropics and not getting anything done, how's this for a fantasy...living somewhere cheap enough that you could work less and therefore have FREE TIME to do nothing. Or something creative. Or anything other than be an exhausted wage slave. That's why L.A. is somewhat interesting to me...get into the film/entertainment industry, work on "projects" (as Elissa commented one night as we were hanging with a bunch of hip L.A. guys in SF, "People in L.A. don't have jobs, they have projects."), work strange hours and have random free time to rollerblade along the beach. My Verde boss used to live in L.A., at an xmas party in Long Beach last Dec, his former coworkers kept trying to convince me to move there. When I was dating L.A. boy, I seriously considered it, at least summer interning or something, since I would have so much fun when I went down there. (and frankly, it just amuses the fuck out of me to have ~L.A. Moments~...like snorting coke off a key at a corner table in a crowded restaurant. Not that I would know anything about that...) But maybe it's just a nice place to visit. Am also currently romanticizing NYC in the same way -- lots of shit to do and good public transportation to do it on! Are there really no affordable decent neighborhoods? Heard the job market sucks for writers/editors too. Is there any hope for us? Alex, why the hurry to retreat to the midwest? OK, this has to be my longest post ever. Please keep discussing possible places to move and why. Over and out.

::: posted by Alura Allumeuse at 10:13 AM

Duluth and Pittsburgh are both cities built partially on cliffs. Duluth is reasonably close to Minneapolis (excellent food in Minneapolis - Thai is considered banal, they eat a lot of Sri Lankan). In both you can take cable cars up from the lower city to the upper city on top of the cliff! Duluth is a small university city (as in closer to Madison than to Bloomington) with very liberal politics, it's surrounded by nature: hills, lakes, Lake Superior (an inland Ocean), and lots of trees. Pittsburgh is close to just about everything and going through a relatively successful urban renaissance. The out of work steel people are probably all sys admins by now. And, it's not like Cincinatti, it's like Cleveland and Cleveland's great too. But speaking of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia should also be on the list of cool cities where you can get a two bedroom for under $800 - lots of good music too, plus it's very beautiful. Philadelphia is like a cross between Chicago, Boston, and a dash of New York's Lower East Side.

I veto anything in the tropics, how can anyone realistically get anything done there?

Mark, I think you're going to have to drop the half-dozen decent sushi restaurant thing... you're living on the pacific rim for chrissakes. New York City doesn't even have a half-dozen decent sushi restaurants. There's good food to be had just about everywhere but England, you just have to be flexible. Also, the music thing.... 4 cities in the South and Midwest??? Come on, you know that's not right.

Sydney would rock, but I don't think I could stand to be so far from friends and family. My friend Jason and his girlfriend Claire (who are English) are currently working on getting to Sydney. He said that the process will take them 10 months.

::: posted by the boot at 8:30 AM

Ehh... I think there's still some merit in staying within the boundaries of the USA. Moving overseas really requires large chunks of capital from a sponsor or a change in citizenship, and that's tough to find right now. how about Durham, NC? Bears, bats, emus and Keystone Kops, oh my! The town's got an excellent rebellious streak. Snow is rare. And you've got serious University culture, plenty of activism all over the Triangle region. Still much lower cost of living than SF or LA or New York. Pretty close to the ocean *and* the mountains, only four hours from DC by car... and they're thinking of putting in a high-speed rail system soon. I'm also in favor of heading to Hawaii. Or you could head out to the Marshall islands... I think they're still US Territories.

::: posted by N T at 7:56 AM

what about Tonga? i know the *nicest* people from Tonga. my friend Ruby has a house there and said she'd totally set us up. they're very big, the Tongans. Ruby promises she'd have me fattened up in no time. their king is even in the guiness book of world records for being the heaviest king in the world (462 lbs). nice people who like to eat, and warm south pacific weather. mmm.

::: posted by elissarita at 5:22 AM

Wednesday, August 08, 2001 :::

Isla Mujeres. Learned about it from Steve, an Aussie I used to work with who did dolphin research in his spare time. He said it was a beautiful, sparsely-populated island. Anyway, there's also Hawaii, which has been bandied about among the members of Griddle, since Kimo's mom is a real estate agent there. (huge honkin' beachfront mansion for us, well below market price?) I know a guy who moved from Indy to Berkeley to MN to Hawaii, I could ask him what's up down there. Mmmmmm. Warm ocean water. (her eyes rolled back, Alura falls off her chair in a reverie) *thunk*

::: posted by Alura Allumeuse at 10:20 PM

seasonal affective disorder - three words as to why we need warmth. it would for the good of everyone, really. i mean, laura and i are moody enough as it is! we'd be beyond delightful in, say, the caribbean? we could move to the "island of the women". (laura - what's that island's real name?) just think...mark and emily would be hit on on all the time, kevin and friends can have a music scene, i'll even learn how to make sushi for whoever wanted that...

::: posted by elissarita at 7:20 PM

well, while we're squabbling over territorial rights, let's all at least write up some "artist's statement" entries, so that we can apply for grant money.

::: posted by kevin seal at 4:34 PM

Duluth, Buffalo, and Louisville are right out for me - I'm not going anywhere that doesn't have at least half a dozen decent sushi restaurants or where Thai food is considered exotic. Sophisticated tastes in food are high on my list of what makes a city livable. Along with indie film, a really great video store, and some bands you like touring to somewhere near the city on a regular basis. (Which, as far as the US goes, pretty much just leaves the coasts, college towns, and 3 or 4 large cities in the South and Midwest.)

To answer Laura's question ("What are some realistic suggestions for affordable yet hip cities where we could reasonably all find work?"), look at where all of the young, hip, laid-off dotcommers leaving SF are going - LA, Seattle, and Portland. I would go to any of those places. Don't mind Northwest rain - the only weather that bothers me is extremes of temperature on either end. I would also consider Chicago - and in fact, I would probably be there already if the weather weren't so lousy. I could get a two-bedroom apartment there for what I'm paying now for a studio.

Canada is a good idea, but as Laura says, it's really hard to just up and move to another indistrialized country - they all restrict immigration very heavily. You pretty much need a relative there, someone who's willing to marry you, or a job lined up to sponsor a work visa for you. And anyway, if I were leaving the country, I would want to go to Sydney or Melbourne, not Canada. Most of the same advantages, and much much better weather.

As for "no place else is this cool" - well, that's why it's so expensive, isn't it? At some point you just start to wonder if it's worth it. Or I do. But I'm severely conflicted. At times I think I want to spend the rest of my life here, and at times I think I'm going to go nuts and leave next week.

::: posted by Mark Gabel at 2:40 PM

I will WEEP if I ever have to be in snow again.

Hmph. Fine, how do we get a work visa if we're not high mucky-muck professionals? (on their visa app, on a scale of 1-10, 10 being most desirable, editors and journalists rate a 3) Hrm, shall we all visit anyway?

Oh, and no, I assure you that year-long rain is worse than fog. Having recently seen video of a very wet, grey, cold Portland in June, I would have to rate Toronto higher...at least it has summers.

::: posted by Alura Allumeuse at 2:15 PM

How about Portland, OR... I know the rain sucks, but its got to be better than the fog and cold (all you SF peeps).

Of course, my dear sweet Chicago, I love. And it is cheaper than NY or SF - though lacking some of their respective cool. At least we finally have good dining.

I refuse to deal with Canada. If they would be so kind as to turn off the light when the go, NY needs the parking.

::: posted by Rogue Designer at 2:09 PM

i re-state my position from last month:
CANADA.

canada is smarter than us, funnier than us, and they have great health coverage. a border town, maybe -- victoria, right on the pacific, is beautiful, and very close to vancouver. toronto is great. can't vouch for ottawa or montreal, but i'm sure they have advantages too.

i want to be a canuck! if we can only get over the cold weather issue... laura, think of it this way: the summers in those border towns are far hotter than in the bay area. winters, are, well, good for the spirit.

and, hey, if we want to consider buffalo, then we may as well consider niagara falls, only 30 minutes away. niagara falls, CANADA, that is.

(louisville has a great underground scene, but it's still kentucky after all. pittsburgh is... an odd suggestion, to be honest. pittsburgh is much like cincinnati, just with legions of out-of-a-job steel workers. i know little to nothing about duluth.)

::: posted by kevin seal at 1:22 PM

I can vouch for both Duluth and Buffalo, they're definitely seats of thriving freaky culture. Also: Louisville, Kansas City, and Pittsburgh. The interesting music is definitely NOT coming from New York City, I can tell you that much. When I go out to the places that I go out to I hear mainly Midwestern music. This has been going on for awhile, but I think that Mark's dead on: NYC and San Francisco are slowly pricing themselves out of having small, grass-roots arts scenes. A lot of people I've spoken to recently are thinking about moving some place a bit saner. Unfortunately, no one's quite sure where they should go. New York seems to hold people hostage - there's no substitute for it. Nowhere on Earth is this cool.

::: posted by the boot at 11:36 AM

You people think I'm KIDDING when I say we all need to gather our resources and move somewhere together? One day soon, you will all come around to my way of thinking. :p Elissa would probably go anywhere that's not Long Island at this point. Jonathan says he wants to move wherever Kevin does. Stuart sounds up for a change, being that he's currently overeducated and underpaid. Emily will soon see the futility of grad school and join us too. Alex may romanticize the midwest, but we could smack him around a bit. :) Neal's in his parents' suburban basement, I bet he could be swayed too. ;)

I'm all about community and emotional/social support being the key to any city, but I'm also up for a change to somewhere more livable. I say, everyone pay off as much debt as they can in the next year, and next summer we will all descend like howling monkeys on another city. Kristin and Emily have mentioned Toronto as being utterly cool. I'd maybe tolerate certain neighborhoods in L.A., just for the frickin' warmth and sunshine. And of course I fantasize about work overseas. What are some realistic suggestions for affordable yet hip cities where we could reasonably all find work?

::: posted by Alura Allumeuse at 11:29 AM

Laura, you jest, but I have always been attracted to femme gay women. I thought you knew this; it's like a thing with me.

Just read that Michelle Tea article (although I should be working), and I must admit that the woman has a point. As a budding musician and someone thinking of relocating his work life to a less-profitable profession, lower housing costs sound mighty good to me. I mean, I would like to move to San Francisco from Berkeley, but my rent would go up 40%. Hell, my landlord is renting apartments exactly like mine, in my building, for 25% more than what I pay - and I've only been there two years. Thank god for rent control.

Tea's points about the arts scene in LA are valid, too - and, I think, important for people in the Bay Area (and New York, for that matter) to hear. LA has always got an unjustafiably bad rap for the arts - sure, in a lot of ways it's careerist and mainstream, just because the corporate entertainment industry is so heavily represented there, but there is also a huge underground scene for almost anything you can think of, and there always has been. Real artists can and do thrive there.

Besides, I'm actually beginning to think that it's somewhat of a fiction in this day and age that you even need a big art or music "scene" at all to inspire your work. This is especially true for music: when it comes down to it, with a high-speed Internet connection you can hook into mailing lists, download music, read reviews, order music for delivery, and so forth, and get 90% of the benefit of being in a big city (live show access, of course, is limited; the one downside). As evidence of this, some of my favorite musicians live in Duluth, Buffalo, or Santa Rosa, places not known for thriving freaky culture. I don't think I would want to live in a small city for myriad other reasons, but I sure wouldn't mind a less expensive city. I really really wouldn't.

::: posted by Mark Gabel at 10:35 AM

I did think twice about it, and I LOOOOOOVE everyone's reports! Let's see, Mark hasn't had a date in a while and our resident lesbo is being hit on by men. Maybe these are correlated? Mark, are you hitting on womyn-loving-womyn? ;) My problem is that I never get hit on by hets OR gays. Actually, it's not a problem. Leave me alone, barflies and freaks! cries the misanthrope.

Michelle Tea, famous druggie punk Mission-dwelling dyke author, has moved to L.A., saying it's easier to be an artist down there. Coincidentally, the SF Chron reports that West Hollywood and Palm Springs have surpassed the Castro in percentage of same-sex couples. Romi and I tried to help, telling the census we were a same-sex couple sharing a household. Alas.

In unrelated news, pols have declared ecstasy "the new crack." The discussion on plastic has some interesting tales, like that Australia is doing a TV campaign against e, showing a girl raving all night and crying the next morning -- "what goes up must come down." It's a war against emotion, says the person who posted it. We need more crying, and something to get people in touch with themselves in our emotionally-repressed society. Others of course point out the obvious -- that cigarettes and alcohol are responsible for far more horrors than all illegal drugs combined. Or that this "crack" is so scary because it's suburban white kids who do it.

Speaking of things that are like e, Bjork's Vespertine is out soon (peep those crushingly romantic lyrics!), and she might be coming to Oakland! Whoo-hoo!

p.s. my hobbit name is Ruby Burrows. Sounds like a euphemism for my crotch. And my glam name is Sex Transmission.

::: posted by Alura Allumeuse at 9:29 AM

so, i know it's been a while, but i've had orders of a godly-ess decree...
hope everyone's been thriving while i've been on leave... (: a few things:
thank god for those friends in high school who were "light as a feather"...without whom we all (females) would've lost hope when we started chanting the cosmo chant. i still dream that those gals weren't "stiff as a board" though they might've been light as a feather...
no exciting links to provide, as i'm waiting til thursday for my cable hook-up, but i must announce my first (or second, depending on whether you count "drew" at the volkswagon dealership, which has, of late, become my own personal "country club") being-hit-on-by-a-guy in, like, 4 years. (i must be looking especially straight of late...?) anyway, i was at a (i was sure) gay bar tonight after hanging out with some go-to-bed-early-friends and this *drug dealer* (not that i have a problem with that, yo. he could've been my longed-for-sugah-daddy) totally started macking on me. it was all i could do to dodge kisses, and i suddenly felt really *small* for once.
this news is probably not relevent to more than, like, 3 people on this blog, BUT as i explained before, i was ordered to report and this mess is what you get.
think twice before you ask for something you think you want, next time...
luvs // butch

::: posted by emma c at 1:08 AM

Tuesday, August 07, 2001 :::

At Laura's request, here are two pieces of inane trivia:

1. Last week I was at a show at The Great American Music Hall. Let's not talk about the show, because it wasn't that great. Anyway, I was there with a newly-engaged friend, and it suddenly occurred to me that The Great American would be a great place for a wedding - it's a turn of the century building with ornate painted plaster detailing all over the walls and ceilings, a balcony, and two rows of columns. Purty. Of course, I didn't think that you could actually get married there. Welp, it turns out that you can. Sign me up!

Baltimore has its own activist IRC now, much like the Canadian discussion lists at Tao. Cool.

Speaking of Naomi, just read this archived chat with her; apparently, the Canadian media is trying to finger her as the leader of this antiglobalization/anticorporate movement, and are starting to call it the "no logo movement," which she's uncomfortable with for obvious reasons.

Also, how about that terrifying NYTimes Mag story on Bush's approach to militarizing space. He's disregarding Nixon's Antiballistic Missile treaty, as well as Johnson's Outer Space Treaty (which forbids putting weapons of mass destruction in space). Could he be any more destructive to this country?

::: posted by kevin seal at 6:08 PM

Been rereading fellow Sagittarian (born on Dec.7 as well!) Noam Chomsky lately (not to be confused with Gnome Chomsky, our Kevin-named light-up garden gnome), increasing my agitation at global corporate power. Feeling pissy and helpless, still desiring expatriate status. My horoscope says I'm going to make a big decision to do something about my travel desires this week. Hrm.

But, in somewhat cheery news, the Financial Times is reporting that global brands are in decline. (and note the headline, Naomi Klein's boyfriend) Shall we discuss these topics at our local cafe philo? Actually, let's just meet at one in Paris.

::: posted by Alura Allumeuse at 9:43 AM

Monday, August 06, 2001 :::

I seem to recall trying the "light as a feather" thing during our high school senior retreat. We all went to the end of pier, and chanted, lifted, closed our eyes, held our breath - etc. for what seemed like forever. I do not, however, recall it ever working - except perhaps on the few of us that were actually light as a feather.

::: posted by Rogue Designer at 2:12 PM

psychic kindergarten? a lot of pressure to put on a five-year-old, man.

sly squiggle and daniela and dwight were talking about the old game "light as a feather, stiff as a board" at the albatross on friday night. can anyone directly testify that he/she has seen this trick happen firsthand? i was wondering if it's like cowtipping -- everyone talks about it, no one has actually seen it done.

btw, congratulations to daniela and dwight, who are moving to mexico city next month.

::: posted by kevin seal at 11:38 AM

* Jonathan: "We all look insanely happy!"
Laura: "That's what eating chocolate chip pancakes will do to a person." Jonathan is now my Montclair neighbor, yay!
* Elissa's glitter bbq pics. (she wants me to note that the pancake pic was by her, and that she was insanely happy as well) :)
* Watched some of the Col.K tour video this weekend. Alex running around trying to catch lightning bugs was very cute. All the Col.K boys stripping to their underwear and diving into an ice-cold Oregon creek was even cuter.
* Kevin and I spent so much time doing nothing this weekend that apparently our blobby minds melted into each other and made us psychic, thinking about Fritos at the exact same moment. Far out, man... ;)

::: posted by Alura Allumeuse at 9:16 AM