Saturday, March 1, 2003

This article is based on Lord Morgan's speech in the debate on Iraq in the House of Lords on Wednesday. He is a fellow of Queen's College, Oxford, and his many books include biographies of Keir Hardie, Lloyd George and James Callaghan, and a history of the Attlee government. Very interesting article by Kenneth O' Morgan in the Guardian. Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Him and us As a historian, I worry about the crude use of history, particularly our old friend the 1930s. Time and again we hear that this crisis is the 1930s come again - what nonsense. Saddam is not another Hitler. Where is his Mein Kampf? Where is his dream of universal conquest? George Bush is certainly no Churchill; it would be a calumny on the reputation of that great man to suggest it. It is a facile argument, and it disturbs me that Downing Street produces it, all the more because I taught one or two of them. My efforts were clearly in vain. [The Cartoonist] 6:57:25 PM

Notes by Author William Gibson: Saturday, March 01, 2003 12:19 PM. CONTENTS OF MONSOON CARTRIDGE, 3.1.03 THE BEST OF ROKY ERICKSON Chances are, I was actually listening to some of this stuff while I was writing NEUROMANCER. I'd bought various Roky output as 45's and EP's in '77, when they were being released, enigmatically, by French micro-labels that had their own idea of what constituted punk. Later, visiting Sterling in the heyday of cyperpunk Austin, such as it was, he played me more, and regaled me with tales of seeing the man himself in the local 7-11. SAINT ETIENNE -- Finisterre My friends Rodney and Shannon like this band. My friend Johan gave me this CD when I was in New York, and I listened to it in my hotel room, watching the blizzard. JOHNNY CASH -- American IV: The Man Comes Around Hard to grow up where I did, when I did, and not think of Johnny Cash as the voice of God. So far, with this one, I just keep listening to the cover of Trent Reznor's "Hurt", as stunning a recording as I've heard in quite a while. KINO -- Noch (home-burned by my son) Back in the USSR, when it still was. The late Victor Tsoi was something like a cross between Bob Marley and Bruce Lee, but that scarcely covers it. Astounding, if you can get it into it. WALTER BECKER -- 11 Tracks of Whack Hard to find '94 solo album. Brilliant. NICK CAVE AND THE BAD SEEDS -- Nocturama I love this guy, though I paid no attention whatever until MURDER BALLADS, and have never subsequently found much in the backlist to get as excited about. THE BOATMAN'S CALL is a masterpiece. Just getting into this one. WHY CAYCE ISN'T ALLERGIC TO STARBUCK'S I cheated. I cheated when she has the Tommy attack, because I gave her my own reasons for disliking Tommy product, when, on the basis of the rest of the book, her specific logo-phobias seem random. Brian Eno defines culture as everything we do that we don't absolutely need to do. We don't really need to wear pants, say, when a kilt will do as well, or drink coffee, or have global chains in which to drink coffee... But Starbuck's first "product", even before coffee, is the "Third Place" (not home, not work) it offers, in environments where a safe, reasonably conversation-friendly, multi-gender Third Place could previously not so easily be found. Then there's the coffee. Younger readers don't remember when most coffee in the US (not to mention the UK) was tragic swill. Pre-Starbuck's, really good coffee in the US was limited to New York, San Francisco, and ethnic or bohemian enclaves in other places, but generally was very thin on the ground. And Starbuck's coffee is *strong*, relatively speaking. I had the experience, in December, of running on about a dozen Catalan latte-equivalents a day, for three days, and not really *getting there*, then breaking down and going into the only Starbuck's in Barcelona for a tall Coffee Of The Day. An hour later, I was kicking myself for not having bought a thermos. There's at least one chain in London that has better coffee than Starbuck's, but I'm still deeply grateful, in London, for Starbuck's. You literally cannot imagine how poor most coffee was, in London, twenty years ago. Cayce's reaction to Starbuck's is pretty much my own: a slightly ambivalent comfort, but comfort nonetheless. Favorite London Starbuck's: Kensington High Street, morning rush hour; pay a little extra and you can go down a few stairs to a small back room, where you can sit and watch local civilians headed for work. (The ones who order the quintuple lattes are generally Glaswegian.) [William Gibson] 5:19:38 PM

Audio file from Antipixel: 35degN 139degE 20030302 0156hr UTC+9. The sky just now [Antipixel] 1:21:16 PM

Fly me to the moon. Nice website about Georges Méliès and his movie Le Voyage dans la Lune. [The Cartoonist] 1:06:57 PM