Engineer's Daughter

taciturn

Splash

At Oxenrose - Mathew Scott and Dustin Aksland.  These few evenings when it's so warm, especially when the moon is still near-full, it seems a shame to stay in.  So last night I rode BART to the Civic Center and walked up Grove to Oxenrose for their S.O.S. opening reception.  The mussily-coiffed hipsters in attendance seemed more interested in clustering around the bar upstairs than in looking at the art, but it just gave me more space to roam about the salon.  The photography from Scott and Aksland was well-matched, as both have a gift for capturing person and place.  I loved Aksland's picture of a station wagon parked underneath fall foliage that almost obscures the vehicle, a clever take on man-meets-nature.  But of course the image I kept coming back to was the one by Scott where a black cat sits with its tail wrapped elegantly around its paws, posed perfectly in front of a trio of well-groomed shrubberies.  Someone generous buy me that one.

I'm DJing tonight:
Matokie
Friday night / Saturday morning
1-3:30am PST, Saturday September 1
KALX Berkeley 90.7fm
I can't compete with the awesome Labor Day weekend kick-off show Jesse Luscious spun this morning, 3 hours of tunes about working, the boss, and all of us workers.  But call me with your requests tonight if you happen to be awake: 510-642-KALX.

prepossessing

Bronx Bodega

A rare hot San Francisco day yesterday briefly yielded some chilly wind off the Bay at sunset, but then settled sweetly into a balmy Bay Area night.  The perfect kind of night to sit on a pier just off the Embarcadero and watch a series of citizen-produced news pieces at the last NewTeeVee pier screening of the summer.  After a brief discussion of the pros and cons of citizen journalism by panelists Josh Wolf, Andrew Fitzgerald, and Sue Kwon, each of six short segments was projected onto the side of a warehouse and critiqued by a trio of local judges.  Aimee and I both voted for the above video which hilariously breaks down the phenomenon of the Bronx bodega, but the Alive in Baghdad video that ended up winning was also inspiring, in a more heart-rending sort of way, depicting the aftermath of a sectarian mortar attack in Iraq.  Like one of last-night's panelists I'm looking forward to the day when video on the internet is as comprehensively searchable as text documents are now, so that citizen news done right is easier to find and doesn't get buried by this week's viral video.  Though there will always be a place in my heart for cute cats on YouTube.

Science Thursday:
iPhone hacked by teenager — duh | Newsweek | BusinessWeek |
Strap on goggles, step out of body | ABC News | Scientific American |

umbrage

Ovenman: A Novel

Jeff Parker

from the Booksmith:
"Jeff Parker’s uproariously funny debut novel, Ovenman, follows the adventures of When Thinfinger - skateboarder, pizza slinger extraordinaire, and general ne’er-do well with a slightly tarnished heart of gold. His philosophy is that anything worth saying should fit on a Postit note - and, following too many beer-soaked nights, he comes to rely on these daily notes to himself to serve as memory. 'This is a delight of a debut.' – Aimee Bender"

put it in park

Ba_parks24049_la

from Grist:
The 100th anniversary of the National Park Service is a mere nine years away, and donations are rolling in to spruce up parks for the occasion. In a spending bill yet to be approved by Congress, Bush made funds available to match private giving; some $300 million has already been pledged by corporations, nonprofits, and visitors' groups. Last week, the National Park Service unveiled a list of 201 priority projects for the centennial bash, covering 116 parks in 40 states. Says NPS Deputy Superintendent Frank Mares, "The last big heady time for the park service like this was in the 1950s, when they built up the infrastructure to serve the growing population and the car culture." And look where that got us!

sources:
The Mercury News
San Francisco Chronicle
The News Tribune
Bush 2008 budget proposal contains big bucks for national parks

proscribe

P362407

At Space Gallery - Graphic Content ­T-Shirt Exhibit.  The show ends today, so rush on over to Space to pick up unique designs fashioned by artists and designers.  Especially the ones on Alternative tees.  Art you can wear, one of my favorite things.

I confess I pooped out on all of my plans this weekend due to the fact I was left feeling absolutely ragged after my week last week.  So I didn't make it to Mission Cultural Center's 30th anniversary art sale (no money for it either), nor to the SF Video Edit at Citizen Space (no footage for it anyway).  I also confess that when my alarm went off this morning I lay in bed for 15 minutes trying to think of one thing I was excited about getting up for, and instead all I felt was dread.  Gloomy, grey, worry-filled days, all stretching out endlessly in a line.

V0024705

Broad brush cosmos: Sir William Herschel's Diagram of the Heavens, UK, 1813

show 62

playlist

bulimia

Superman - The Movie (Four-Disc Special Edition)

"It's too good to be true! He's 6-4, has black hair, blue eyes, doesn't drink, doesn't smoke, and tells the truth!"

I'm DJing tonight:
Matokie
Friday night / Saturday morning
1-3:30am PST, Saturday August 25
KALX Berkeley 90.7fm
Advance warning: Thursday, September 6th, KALX co-announces Stereo Total plus The Octopus Project at the Bimbo's 365 Club (1025 Columbus Avenue at Chestnut Street) in San Francisco. Doors open at 7 pm. Show starts at 8 pm.  Well worth the trip out on a school night.

my my, is it 2007 already?

from Grist:
The Bushies are big stinkin' lawbreakers, a federal judge ruled this week. A 1990 federal law requires the U.S. government to provide a scientific report every four years on climate change and its effects on the environment, the economy, and public health, but the Bush administration chose to ignore its 2004 deadline for such a report. Green groups sued, and U.S. District Judge Saundra Armstrong ruled in favor of timeliness, demanding the required impact assessment by May 31, 2008. The laggardly administration also owes a plan to guide federal climate research, which is due every three years and hasn't been submitted since 2003; Armstrong asked that it be submitted by March 1, 2008. To the Bushies' argument that they determined "only recently that the initiation of a process to revise the research plan has become necessary and advisable," Armstrong responded, "News flash: you're not above the law." In legalese, of course.

sources:
San Francisco Chronicle
USA Today
Bloomberg News
ABC News

dragoon

Don_cheadle4

Talk to Me: You know I'm going to adore a movie about real-life Washington, D.C., DJ Petey Greene, especially if Petey is played by Don Cheadle and the movie is stocked end-to-end with amazing music.  Even when the script sometimes droops under the weight of the biopic formula, the trio of outstanding lead actors (Cheadle, Chiwetel Eijofor, Taraji Henson) keep things from getting too syrupy.  Inspiring and highly recommended.

Science Thursday:
Routine reboot hobbles Skype | PC World | BBC |
Forget dry ice, here comes frozen smoke | Times, UK | Scientific American |

coxcomb

The Shape of Things to Come: Prophecy and the American Voice

Greil Marcus

from the Booksmith:
"In The Shape of Things to Come: Prophecy and the American Voice, critic and author Greil Marcus traces the nation’s fable of self-invention from its earliest Puritan beginnings to its successive retellings in the work of diverse contemporary artists. The book – just out in paperback - is an exhilarating and kaleidoscopic investigation of American identity where past and the present merge in the most extraordinary and surprising ways."