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NEXT UPDATE SCHEDULED MONDAY, 28 JANUARY, 2002
In the first Conan film, there's a scene where a warrior leader asks his men: "What is best in life?" What of the assembled answers: "The open steppe, a great horse, a falcon at your breast and the wind in your hair!"
"Wrong!" the leader roars. He turns to Conan and asks him what is best in life.
The answer was probably the first great articulation of American foreign policy. You'll have to find our "Easter Egg" this week to catch that one.
Meanwhile back at the ranch: It's Mardi Gras season down here in the Big Easy where G21 has relocated our palatial World Headquarters! AND you're here to help us celebrate our 300th issue on the World Wide Web. Woo-hoo! Have a tasty beverage, take off your shoes and get ready for some butt-rattlin', mind-bending fun. We're prepared a great gumbo of double-barreled writing for you delectation.
TODAY'S RDR: A special treat for our 300th issue celebration: "A Mattie Lennon Sampler". Find out why our contributor from Dublin, Ireland keeps them coming back! -- PLUS our Web Site Pick of the Week and the New Readership Poll: ("This year my boss is going to ....?") RESULTS THUS FAR: "Get canned and I'll laugh." - 40% "I'm gonnah be my own boss!" - 40% -- Now go rock the vote.ABOUT US** TABLE OF CONTENTS **
Much thanks for your wise counsel over the past few weeks. My housemates and I, here at Michigan State, hope that you can help us out, too. You see, we¼ve been getting a bit tired of the old drinking games like thumper, quarters, and all that. We were hoping that you might supply us with something imaginative that we can entertain ourselves with on these wintry Michigan nights--something that might appeal to the ladies, too.
Rodney
East Lansing, Michigan
Dear Rodney,
Of course the doctor can be of service to you. One of the favorite games he played with fellow housemates during his college days involved the film "Barfly," Mickey Rourke¼s best film before leaving Tinsel town for the boxing ring--and arguably Faye Dunaway¼s, as well.... More
MARIETTA, OH, USA - Art Pepper, dead some two decades, remains a vital part of the jazz world because of the activity that has brought several outstanding reissues from various labels in the Fantasy records stable. Recently I wrote about the boxed set of five wonderful CDs, issued on the Galaxy label.
Now there's another Pepper treat, "Art Pepper Meets the Rhythm Section" (Contemporary Records). And what a sensational rhythm section it was, assembled in the Contemporary studies in Los Angeles on January 19, 1957. Backing Pepper, the only alto saxophone player in jazz who ranked in the general vicinity of Charlie Parker, were pianist Red Garland, bassist Paul Chambers and drummer Philly Joe Jones. At the time, these four men were considered in the highest echelons of the jazz world.... More
EDITOR'S NOTE: It had been a number of months since I'd heard from Binyavanga Wainaina, who was a frequent contributor to G21 Africa only a year ago. I was concerned as I knew he had health worries as well as the usual money worries that seem pandemic in the writing community. Then I received the piece that follows. It runs long for G21 article, almost four times as long as what we deem Web-appropriate. But it was so impressive that I decided to serialize it for our 300th edition. AND I felt it would be a suitable nomination for the Cien Prize in African Writing this year. I hope you 'll agree. -- RA
Christmas in Bufumbira
Dec 20,1995 - The drive through the Mau Hills, past the Rift Valley and onwards to Kisumu is a drag. I haven't been this way for ten years, but my aim is to be in Uganda. We arrive in Kampala at ten in the evening. We have been on the road for over eight hours.
This is my first visit to Uganda, a land of incredible mystery for me. I grew up with her myths and legends and her horrors -- narrated with the intensity that only exiles can muster. It is my first visit to my mother's ancestral home, the occasion is her parents' 60th wedding anniversary... More
SUSSEX, UK - There is only one respect in which Anthony Trollope is not the best writer there has ever been on the politics of the limited franchise and that is his depiction of the eponymous Phineas Finn who could not possibly combine his high principles with his high office for so long. In every other respect, however, the territory he covers is as recognisable now, in spite of the expansion of the franchise, as it was then to such an extent that he has defined for us in Britain what we think of as our 'Golden age' of democratic politics.
Then, Disraeli and Gladstone were respectful but robust, there was honour amongst Ministers and independence of mind on the part of legislators. It was the universal franchise, according to this way of looking at things (I eschew the word "thinking") which led to the steady decline of our democracies into demagoguery. Nonetheless, a close reading of Trollope will demonstrate the power of the fixers, the Rattlers (whips) and Robys (patronage), the importance of wealth and flattery in the person of Lady Glencora Palliser and the utter humbug of much that passes for policy-making in the curious episode where Mr. Daubeney remains Conservative Prime Minister by simply adopting the major policy of his Liberal opponents, the disestablishment of the Church of England. ... More
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"Lo, a shadow of horror is risen
In Eternity! Unknown, unprolific,
Self-clos'd, all-repelling: what demon
Hath form'd this abominable void,
This soul-shudd'ring vacuum? Some said
'It is Urizen.¼ But unknown, abstracted,
Brooding, secret, the dark power hid."
----William Blake, from, "The Book of Urizen"
William Blake died again, not in cyberspace, but where he had been reborn, at least in some small way, in me. It was in the mid-air, or I should say, I was in the middle of a springy leap and he just floated off into space to become a ghost again, a new vision of Prometheus, this time unbound. He reached the alchemical peak in me in the middle of that scissor kick in a small theater in Haverhill, Massachusetts.
I was performing my one-man act, "William Blake in Cyberspace." But actually, my sense of the act was more along the lines of: Be your own personal Bono. The moment came during the blasting of a song by the Waterboys called "Crown." The tune, from the band's 2000 release, is pretty much the theme song for the second half of my ever-evolving performance art efforts. The a tune goes like this:...More
NEW ORLEANS, 20 January, 2002 - Okay, the eviction bullet was dodged last week. I still have a roof over my head, but not much else until I get paid for some of the work I did last week and the week before. So I bum cigarettes and beers from my roommates and neighbors and bide my time until the eagle flies. I'm supposed to be on top of the world today: I'm putting out the 300th appearance of a new GENERATOR 21 ("G21," to you) on the Web. We've been around longer than any continuous published Web publication other than the New York Times. (We both originally launched in March, '96, though we didn't buy this domain name until '97.) I should be dancing in the streets, right?
The first Mardi Gras parade of the season -- by the Krewe du Vieux - complete with risque costumes and eight brass bands, passed a block from my apartment here last night. I got festooned with my first beads. But I was not personally dancing in the streets... More
DUBLIN, IRELAND - ASK - "You're not here to be asking questions. There are too many people wandering the world asking questions and that's what has us in the state we're in and if I find any boy in this class asking questions I won't be responsible for what happens." The words of Frank McCourt's schoolmaster, Mr. Benson. Isn't it just as well Frank didn't pay attention to him? For while few enough people have answers, we all have questions. And why shouldn't we ask them? For isn't all great knowledge and most material possessions acquired by asking, in some shape or form?... More
RDR 01.14.02: RADIO RAHEEM takes stock of "Seven Years at the Same Place"
RDR 01.07.02: BILL STEVENS rants this week, proclaiming "Damn the Shallow!"
RDR 01.02.02: LOUISE WISECHILD, PH.D weighs in at The World's Magazine with "In Praise of FUN." A good place to start your New Year.
Just read you article on the future as post human. Find it very interesting. Especially oddly enough the paragraph on smart cards. Have been working on an article on that topic over the last few weeks. I put in "dreaming the future" and your article came up of the same name came up. I have been writing a series of pieces with the same theme. One such that you might find interesting was publishing in The Star .
In the first Conan film, there's a scene where a warrior leader asks his men: "What is best in life?" What of the assembled answers: "The open steppe, a great horse, a falcon at your breast and the wind in your hair!"
From Austin R. (No City Provided,) CANADA:
