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comment posted at 1:00 PM on May-6-02

Maestro Virtuoso Sir Andre Previn, George Solti, Arturo Toscanini, Giuseppe Verdi. "Conductors have the liveliest, longest and most rewarding sex lives of any human organism....Toscanini loved to give as much pleasure as he took, and he lasted long and well into a lascivious old age. For the supreme maestro, sex was not so much a reward as a repayment." Even Verdi was reputed to give "a certain kind of kiss that, somehow, bestowed the benediction of genius on his indulgence." Maybe its that constant exposure to heavenly music, heavy doses of Mendelhsson instead of Sildenafil Nitrate Tablets.
comment posted at 2:48 PM on May-3-02

Find your library. When I was a kid, my public library was my sanctuary, providing me many hours of enjoyment. Of course I yearned for better, larger library. When I was in college, I loved to wander the stacks. Do you have any fond library memories?
comment posted at 1:37 PM on May-3-02

"Women Empowering Women". This pyramid scheme is spreading like wildfire in the UK, with huge amounts of money involved. Basically you get a lot of people to put up say £100. The more people you attract to add money to the pyramid, the better chance you have of moving up and becoming entitled to many times your initial outlay. However, no investment occurs; this is simple cashflow juggling. Someone I work with gained £12000 on it in under a month - now everyone wants in the act. But (and I've pleaded with these people) the participants don't seem to appreciate the sheer idiocy of such schemes. Their attitude is "my husband goes to the betting shop, it's just my bit of fun". In the end, if you gain money, you're taking it directly from another participant. This is exploitation of people (normally hard-up, heavily mortgaged parents, it seems), is morally wrong and should be illegal - but it isn't in the UK. Here's a link to a BBC feature on pyramid schemes (aka trading schemes). This really boils my piss, but it carries on because individual participants can benefit from the fraud themselves. I understand women are targeted in this case as men are more likely to get in fights when they realise they've lost large amounts of cash.
comment posted at 10:25 AM on May-3-02

Smoking - A quitters diary. Recommended reading for those wanting to quit, those who have quit and those lucky people who never started and could do with understanding the 'ordeal' of giving up.
comment posted at 6:25 AM on May-3-02
comment posted at 8:34 AM on May-3-02
comment posted at 10:10 AM on May-3-02
comment posted at 10:34 AM on May-3-02

1,200 Brazilians bare it all in the name of art This is part of a series of public photo sessions photographer Spencer Tunick has been doing around the world on the same theme - masses of naked bodies on open, public spaces representing, in the author's view, "a celebration of life", though some say it is more fitting of the concentration camp shoots of WWII. What's more amazing is the sheer amount of volunteers willing to be photographed, and the fact that almost all of these are men. There must be some interesting sociological observations in here...
comment posted at 11:33 AM on May-2-02

Freeze sperm, leave the men behind. In this article, a NASA researcher explains how a flight to the nearest star would take place within our lifetimes, but require at least a couple generations. The generation that leaves (which could be entirely female to save on weight and maximize potential for offspring) would die, and giving birth to the next crew. Taking a trip like this would increase our knowledge of space many-fold, but would you be willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for mankind? Is a trip like this a bad idea?
comment posted at 9:34 AM on May-2-02
comment posted at 9:56 AM on May-2-02
comment posted at 10:37 AM on May-2-02

File this under "Karaoke Gone Horribly Wrong" (ASF File) Maybe we all look like this after a couple drinks and a microphone in front of us. Wait, no. I'm pretty sure we don't. (Nothing sexual or anything, so work appropriate, but you'll get some stares, especially if your volume is up high.) I think the girl on the right should start touring with Andrew W. K.
comment posted at 9:10 AM on May-1-02

Up in Smoke: Drugs and the End of Music. "It's extremely doubtful whether house would have achieved the dominance it has without E fuelling the nation's clubbers. With ecstasy dictating the musical content of many club nights, the demand for seamless, relentless grooves with little change in tempo has grown and grown ... Dance music is no longer a music that touches the head and heart as well as the feet, as it did with Northern Soul. Instead, it has become a soul-less metronome for the E generation to mark time to."
comment posted at 10:43 AM on Apr-30-02

Buried in debt, wallowing in multiple bankruptcies, with a trail of ill will across three states: this is the state of Anita Bryant twenty five years after her anti-gay campaign in Florida. Perhaps these right-wing Christian groups who have recently been attacking gay and S&M events should take a lesson from this.
comment posted at 10:58 AM on Apr-29-02
comment posted at 11:02 AM on Apr-29-02
comment posted at 11:31 AM on Apr-29-02

Cancer and Carbohydrates (per FT) may be closely linked according to recent international study - and not just any carbohydrates but those that are our favorites - deep fried potatoes, rice, and bread all may contain high levels of cancer causing acrylamides. What's your average carb eater to do?
comment posted at 12:09 PM on Apr-26-02

Pipedown: The campaign for freedom from piped music (aka elevator music or Muzak). A noble cause if ever there was one.
comment posted at 10:40 AM on Apr-26-02

Frank Moore [NYT], the originator of the red ribbon, died of AIDS last week. His gorgeous paintings depicted politics from Yosemite to Versace. As one of the few incredibly contemporary but still publicly accessible artists, he will be missed.
comment posted at 10:46 AM on Apr-26-02

Charlie Manson denied 10th parole bid. Ok, not a surprise. But having just re-read Vincent Bugliosi & Curt Gentry's 'Helter Skelter' book again, and looked at Family member Sandra Goode's (now archived) 'Access Manson' site, I have to say the guy still scares the living crap out of me. He knows what he did - you can tell that from the old Tom Snyder interview (available on Audiogalaxy). The guy's 67 now, having 'committed' the murders 32 years ago. I think it's nearly time....I think you could do a damn good movie about the whole shebang; who would you have playing Charlie? (I know there was a TV movie, but they don't count!)
comment posted at 7:11 AM on Apr-25-02
comment posted at 9:33 AM on Apr-25-02

Newspapers fall short of diversity goal : "The people who report for and edit the nation's newspapers look less like the people who make and read the news than a decade ago. If newspapers are a mirror that a community holds up to itself, the reflection is mostly white." Is it unfair to assume that a newspaper writer (or other media outlet) should share some sort of heritage in proportion to the population it covers to get the full feel of their stories? Or should it just be focused solely on merit without a cultural component?
comment posted at 7:40 AM on Apr-25-02

The Segway revolution has begun. "Three Atlanta, Georgia organizations are the first to buy a fleet of Segway transporters." "Fleet," what a visually scary word. Forget priests touching little boys in naughty places and the numerous wars going on in this world, the fact someone actually bought a Segway is CNN’s new top story.
comment posted at 9:09 AM on Apr-24-02
comment posted at 9:38 AM on Apr-24-02
comment posted at 11:34 AM on Apr-24-02

The Latest Salvo From Gore Vidal, The Last Of The Great Wits: He's a tremendous snob, infuriatingly opinionated and sets out to upset all and sundry, left, right and centre. But Gore Vidal is still the meanest, fastest wit in the West. Harry Kloman runs a magnificent fan site, bursting with goodies and verbal violence which is an education in itself. Or, for a contrarian view, check out rival wit John Simon's demolition job. But come on - can anyone compete with the Master? Christopher Hitchens? Fran Lebowitz? James Woolcott? Clive James? I think not.
comment posted at 9:26 AM on Apr-24-02
comment posted at 9:30 AM on Apr-24-02
comment posted at 9:51 AM on Apr-24-02
comment posted at 10:34 AM on Apr-24-02
comment posted at 10:47 AM on Apr-24-02
comment posted at 1:13 PM on Apr-24-02
comment posted at 1:44 PM on Apr-24-02

The Bard's sexuality comes into question, again, on his birthday. 'The portrait already has considerable intrinsic historical interest, and if you believe that the young man addressed in the sonnets was Henry Wriothesley there is the additional thrill that this could be the face that Shakespeare fell in love with, perhaps wishing its owner was a girl. The magnitude of the thrill depends on how much you think the identity of the young person matters to the poems. Many think it matters a lot.'
comment posted at 7:23 AM on Apr-24-02
comment posted at 7:57 AM on Apr-24-02

What the in duck? With Episode II coming soon, I'd decided to peruse all sorts of different places in search of as much information as I could and found this online, has anyone else seen it as well? Anyway, it's good to see that folks that work for Lucas have a sense of humor.
comment posted at 7:37 AM on Apr-22-02

Angry young men prone to premature heart disease. The things we get angry about aren't worth dying for, are they?
comment posted at 7:34 AM on Apr-22-02

Merchants of Morality Which global injustices gain your sympathy, attention, and money? Rarely the most deserving. For every Tibetan monk or Central American indigenous activist you see on the evening news, countless other worthy causes languish in obscurity. The groups that reach the global limelight often do so at dear cost—by distorting their principles and alienating their constituencies for the sake of appealing to self-interested donors in rich nations.
comment posted at 6:56 AM on Apr-22-02

ACLU files a lawsuit on behalf of black gay prisoner Roderick Johnson against several Texas prisons who ignored his pleas for protection against gangs who "bought and sold Mr. Johnson as a chattel, raped and degraded him on a virtual daily basis, and threatened him with death if he resisted." During one hearing, Johnson was allegedly forced by a prison gang member to appear before the committee in makeup. This invited the alleged derision of the classification committee members: "If you want to be a ho, you'll be treated like a ho." Another member allegedly said, "You ain't nothing but a dirty tramp. Learn to fight or accept the f--king."
comment posted at 1:22 PM on Apr-19-02

The mind's eye becomes literal as a potential cure for Parkinsons.
comment posted at 1:30 PM on Apr-19-02

Was Richard Rodgers The Greatest American Popular Composer So Far? 2002 is his Centennial. He may be less cool and more bourgeois than the other greats like Harold Arlen, Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Jerome Kern, Frank Loesser, Cole Porter and Stephen Sondheim. But even the most cursory look at the long list of the wonderful songs he wrote(try the excellent song search feature), with Hart, then Hammerstein(and some other lyricists, including himself)makes it very difficult to deny there never was - and probably never will be - a more talented and versatile tunesmith. Miles Davis was right. He was a genius. And yet...[Flash required for the (interesting) intro]
comment posted at 12:37 PM on Apr-18-02
comment posted at 1:57 PM on Apr-18-02
comment posted at 7:34 AM on Apr-19-02

National Fred Davis Registry - Do you know Fred Davis? How about Fred Davis? They're both on the registry, along with a whole bunch of other Freds.
comment posted at 7:57 AM on Apr-18-02

Authors Guild seeks to stop Amazon from selling used books. It's the analog version of RIAA vs. Napster!

"Amazon's practice does damage to the publishing industry, decreasing royalty payments to authors and profits to publishers. In time, as we pointed out to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos when it first began this practice over a year ago, the financial loss to the industry could affect the quality and diversity of literature made available through booksellers. If profits suffer, publishers will cut their investments in new works, and authors facing reduced advances and royalties will have to find other ways to earn income. "

Read Jeff Bezos' email to Amazon Associate Members.
comment posted at 8:17 AM on Apr-18-02

Will the Swedes save Rock 'n' Roll? This New Yorker article takes a look at the recent popularity of rock acts like the Strokes (boo!) and the White Stripes (yay!), and ponders whether the return of true rock is at hand. The author seems ultimately to decide that rock's redeemers will be the Hives, a fun bunch from Sweden. (Link remorselessly lifted from Overstated.net)
comment posted at 7:39 AM on Apr-18-02
comment posted at 8:38 AM on Apr-18-02

an opened lettuce to sodd runtlestuntle from dr. winston o'boogie
"John Lennon ain't no revolutionary. He's a fucking idiot, man. Shouting about revolution and acting like an ass. It just makes people feel uncomfortable."
comment posted at 8:30 AM on Apr-17-02
comment posted at 9:50 AM on Apr-17-02
comment posted at 11:01 AM on Apr-17-02