the people of new orleans welcome crimewave

These two images were snapped at the New Orleans Bookfair a few weeks ago. The first one shows the layout of the warehouse behind the Contemporary Art Center, where the fair took place, and the second shows Linette raking in the cash at the state-of-the-art Crimewave sales booth.

As I think I mentioned here before, we had a wonderful time and very much appreciated the efforts of the events planners… When Id heard that the event was being put together by anarchists, I didnt know what to expect. I actually think that when Linette told me, I rolled my eyes and chuckled to myself. It turns out, however, that they did a wonderful job with the whole thing. In fact, if we have the money, and if were invited back again next year, Linette and I would love to go again.

My hope is, over the next week or two, to share some more photos of, and stories about, New Orleans Sorry its taken me this long to get started Stay tuned.

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rotating in space

I just got some cool drawings from Collin Burton, the illustrator who drew the picture of Iggy Pop for the last issue of Crimewave. Right now, hes working on an animated video for the Monkey Power Trio song Someday Well Reach the Moon. If it turns out anywhere near as cool as weve talked about, itll be really great. Heres his conceptualization of the Cadillac space vehicle I mention in the song.

While Im on the subject of great MM.com readers, there are a few other things I wanted to share with you.

First, our friend Chelsea Lowe wrote to tell us about something called the Hunger Site. It looked to me like it must be some kind of scam, but she swears its legitimate. Apparently, if I understand it correctly, you just need to visit the site and click on the Give Free Food button. If you do that, the sponsors of the site, companies such as Toms of Maine, will donate one cup of food to a hungry person through established charitable organizations. If this is real, and Chelseas convinced me that it is, we should all probably be stopping there each day as we make our way between Michael Jackson stories.

And, while I cant confirm that shes a regular MM.com reader, Maureen Dowd had something interesting to say on the op-ed page of the New York Times the other day. Essentially, shes implying in this column that Karl Rove sent lil Bushie off to England so that theyd have images for the 2004 campaign, images that established him as real world leader, and not just a guy that takes month-long vacations. Not only did they sent him off to England for this purpose, but, according to Dowd, they sent along the props to ensure that American viewers got the point. Heres a clip:

How else to explain the same Bush advance geniuses who brought us the “Mission Accomplished” banner putting up a blue PowerPoint-ish backdrop for the president’s speech at Whitehall Palace that stuttered, “United Kingdom,” “United Kingdom,” “United Kingdom.”

The people in the United Kingdom already knew he was in the United Kingdom. And the kingdom isn’t very united at the moment.

Ken Livingstone, the mayor of London, captured the spirit of the moment when he told NPR that the Republican National Committee should foot the bill for Mr. Bush’s extraordinary security, the largest police operation ever in Great Britain. All this, he harrumphed, “just so George Bush can use a few clips of him and the queen in his campaign advertisements for re-election next year.”

And this next link really is from an MM.com reader, a man in Ann Arbor, Michigan named Steven Cherry. A few days ago, while doing research in the Prelinger Archives, Steven happened across an old newsreel on the subject of despotism. Hes presently in the process of trying to get the piece shown on our local Community Access Television channel. Basically, the piece, created in 1946, lays out the criteria one uses when assessing whether or not a society is despotic. As you might have guessed, those same criteria when used today yield chilling results.

One of the things discussed in the newsreel is the consolidation of the media in the hands of a few. With that in mind, I thought that I should link to this article about the FCCs bid to further relax rules against that happening in the U.S. In this case, however, it looks as though public pressure might be working. The House and Senate have made it known that they plan to defy the FCC and Bush on this one.

Let’s end this note there. It’s good to end with good news.

On the subject of good news, its just been brought to my attention that my band has somehow managed to land on someones Top Five list in Iceland. While I dont think weve been played for the past few weeks by John Peel in the UK, I have been told that were climbing the charts in Chapel Hill, North Carolina and Princeton, New Jersey.

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a casual observation

For all of you who are considering a career in blogging, heres a little tip, a little something I just figured out by going over the webstats for MM.com:

References to Jesus, no matter how humorous you think that they might be, are not good for business.

My new theory, which I’m sure will one day be taught as Maynards Law, is that readership drops by 10% every time the name Christ is invoked. Conversely, every time the name Paris Hilton is mentioned, there seems to be a little jump in traffic. Other words have similar effects.

Now, in order to bring things back to a point of equilibrium, I will be mentioning a few of these words and phrases. (If you’re a small child, you may want to hide your eyes.)

Paris Hilton
Paris Hilton
Paris Hilton
Olsen Twins + Worn Socks
Sperm Hat
Buttocks
Panties

OK, I think I might have overcompensated just a bit, so

Our Heavenly Father

There, everything should be back to normal now.

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correction

That last post should have ended with the holiday greeting, Joy to the World. My spell-check must not be working.

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the day has been ruined

This was to have been a very productive day for me. I had lots of stuff that I wanted to get accomplished. However, everything went to shit when I got up this morning and went out to get the New York Times off the front lawn. I knew something wasn’t right when I noticed that the front gate was left open… Someone must have been in my yard… Well, as I got down on my hands and knees and looked desperately under the bushes for that familiar blue Times bag, the realization that we’d been robbed began to sink in. Someone had come into our yard and taken the Times, and they didn’t even close the gate behind them on their way out.

I was pissed!

Linette, the eternal optimist, tried to put a good face on it. “I guess the neighborhood really is changing for the better. No one in the past would have ever stolen a newspaper.” I’m a bit less enthusiastic. My theory is that one of these yahoo jackasses just wanted to look at a sports page in order to see pictures from the Michigan – Ohio State football game yesterday, a game that they’d probably already seen anyway. (Im sure they werent taking the paper to read this weeks installment of The Ethicist, or to see whether or not there was a new op-ed from Paul Krugman.)

So, that’s it. My day has been ruined.

Fuck the world.

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