The most recent legal challenge to the current state of the information commons is that of Brewster Kahle of Archive.org and Rick Prelinger of Prelinger Film Archives. They, with the help of the Stanford Law Center for Internet and Society, contend that the copyright law as it now exists locks up works that have been abandoned or otherwise should have and could have been returned to the public domain. This locking up of such works is, they allege, unconstitutional. They point out that they are not up for taking works that the authors actually want and that are in publication, but rather works that are now out of print and whose authors (or owners) are impossible to find.
They lost in District Court without a hearing, but have appealed to the 9th Circuit.
Wired News has a good brief article. Stanford Law refers to the decision as a setback [longer paper in pdf available there]. Lessig was somewhat involved and his commenters have more to say on his blog. Slashdot covered the story earlier and of course the chorus of commenters was loud there ;->
Author: Paul (Page 141 of 147)
Today’s New York Times Magazine cover story, “The Hidden (in Plain Sight) Persuaders,” by Rob Walker is mostly about the Boston-based BzzAgent, a company that organizes the word-of-mouth marketing equal to astroturf. Although Everett Rogers’ diffusion of innovation is mentioned and described, this article and the company seem to owe more to Douglass Ruskoff’s “Media Virus: Hidden Agendas in Popular Culture” and the concept of meme than to Rogers. If nothing else, the success of BzzAgent, if this article is more than just bzz itself, is to show that early adaptors need not be ‘cool people’ or ‘trend setters’ or even successful models. They just need to get the bzz or, as Doug would say, meme out and get it out to a lot of people. This is more Mark Granovetter than Rogers, if you asked me (and since I’m writing this I asked myself).
Both Rushkoff’s media virus/meme and Granovetter’s strength of weak ties [Granovetter, M. (1973), “The Strength of Weak Ties,” American Journal of Sociology, 78 (6): 1360-1380.] speak more directly to the way memes make their way through a culture or, dare I say it, a market.
I am also trying to see how the various parts of Ronald Burt‘s work on Structural Holes and creativity and information dissimination fit in here. It looks like Burt’s new book [downloadable at least in part in pdf] “Brokerage and Closure: An Introduction of Social Capital” might contain the answer and/or his paper, “Bandwidth and Echo: Trust, Information, and Gossip in Social Networks [pdf],” [Pre-print of a chapter in Networks and Markets, edited by Alessandra Casella and James E. Rauch. Russell Sage Foundation, 2001].
Christian Stalberg, who founded the local Computer Professional for Social Responsibility chapter, sends this announcement:
Is Your Vote Counted?
Panel Presentation and Community Speak-Out on the Question of Voter
Integrity
Wednesday, December 8, 2004 7-9pm
Chapel Hill Town Hall, 306 North Columbia St.Introduction by Joyce McCloy, Founder, NC Coalition for Verified Voting
David Price, US Congressman: 4th District
David Allen, Systems Engineer, publisher and tech consultant “Black Box Voting:
Ballot Tampering in the 21st Century”Justin Moore, Computer Scientist, member National Committee for Voting Integrity
Lewis Pitts, Legal Aid Attorney, Advocates for Children’s Services
Moderator, Christian Stalberg, founder, RTP Chapter of Computer
Professionals for Social Responsibility(downloadable flier for printing available at
http://mysite.verizon.net/resnxfv2/ )
I have my own obsession with the number seven as seen in the past few poems that I’ve published (mostly in the New and Observer — thanks Marcy Rice for choosing them), but this post is about the now vanished public and yet stealth art project that appeared on the doors and windows of the old Chapel Hill Bus Station called “Seven Windows, Seven Doors.”
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Sally took Tucker and me out on Thanksgiving Day to shoot pictures of the silhouettes on plywood. Since Sally had first seen the art, the demolition of the building had begun and so chainlink fences kept us from getting as close and clear images as we would have liked. Still, the little Pentax Optio did a good job considering. Now you can see the art even though the demolition has begun in earnest. And read Sally’s blog entry.
Brian Russell did a podcast interview with one of the creators, Matt Robinson, at audioactivism.org and Ruby Sinreich posted an entry on OrangePolitics.org to which Matt has commented in an essay that explains a bit about each image.
David Byrne is blogging and is a pleasure to read. I met him briefly at the Wired Magzine Creative Commons benefit concert he did with Gilberto Gil. He spoke to me. He said, “Can I get by, please.” It was a deep moment of personal interaction.
He did do a good report on the Wired Rose Planetarium party that I had to pass on. Too old to pop up to NYC for one night every month. Me not Byrne. He don’t used permalinks so you have to scroll down looking for a meteor.
I’m delighted how our seminar in Virtual Communities turned out. We had good presentations and good papers that showed an understanding of the readings, discussions and of the talks by visitors (Searls, Dauber, Muller and Hood). Thanks folks for visiting and to the class for being energetic and smart and resourceful.
We ended the week with a presentation to Center for Research and Development of Digital Libraries (CRADLE), on three ibiblio projects: Osprey, Lyceum, and folkstreams.net. Fred, John, and Max did fine presentations on the projects.
I’ve turned in my judgements on the Framed contest put on by Duke Law’s Center for the Study of the Public Domain. No I can’t tell you which movies I picked as winners. You’ll have to wait and watch their web site for the results. I’m one of three judges so there may be discussion yet to come.
Got a lovely alert from the Yes Men disguised as Dow Ethics clarifying the Dow/Union Carbide reaction/retraction of the BBC report in which a spokesman for Dow (actually a Yes Man posing as Jude Finisterra) admitted that Union Carbide was completely responsible for the Bhopal disaster (20 years on) and announced a plan for atonement. All fake of course.
Date: Fri, 3 Dec 2004 20:37:48 +0100
From: Dow Chemical Corporation retractions @dowethics.com
To: pjones
Subject: DOW “HELP” FOR BHOPAL A HOAXDecember 3, 2004
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE“DOW” STATEMENT A HOAX
“Historic aid package for Bhopal victims” a lieContact: Marina Ashanin, Corp. Media Relations, +41-1-728-2347
Related information: http://dowethics.com/bhopal/Today on BBC World Television, a fake Dow spokesperson announced fake
plans to take full responsibility for the very real Bhopal tragedy of
December 3, 1984. (1) Dow Chemical emphatically denies this
announcement. Although seemingly humanistic in nature, the fake plans
were invented by irresponsible hucksters with no regard for the
truth.As Dow has repeatedly noted, Dow cannot and will not take
responsibility for the accident. (“What we cannot and will not do…
is accept responsibility for the Bhopal accident.” – CEO Michael
Parker, 2002.) The Dow position has not changed, despite public
pressure.Dow also notes the great injustice that these pranksters have caused
by giving Bhopalis false hope for a better future assisted by Dow.
The survivors of Bhopal have already suffered 20 years of false hope,
neglect, and abdication of responsibility by all parties. Is that not
enough?To be perfectly clear:
* The Union Carbide Corporation (UCC) will NOT be liquidated. (The
fake “Dow plan” called for the dissolution and sale of Dow’s fully
owned subsidiary, estimated at US$12 billion, to fund compensation
and remediation in Bhopal.)* Dow will NOT commit ANY funds to compensate and treat 120,000
Bhopal residents who require lifelong care. The Bhopal victims have
ALREADY been compensated; many received about US$500 several years
ago, which in India can cover a full year of medical care. (2)* Dow will NOT remediate (clean up) the Bhopal plant site. We do
understand that UCC abandoned thousands of tons of toxic chemicals on
the site, and that these still contaminate the groundwater which area
residents drink. Dow estimates that the Indian government’s recent
proposal to commission a study to consider the possibility of proper
remediation at some point in the future is fully sufficient.* Dow does NOT urge the US to extradite former Union Carbide CEO
Warren Anderson to India, where he has been wanted for 20 years on
multiple homicide charges. (3)* Dow will NOT release proprietary information on the leaked gases,
nor the results of studies commissioned by UCC and never released.* Dow will NOT fund research on the safety of Dow endocrine
disruptors (ECDs) considered to have long-term negative effects.* Dow DOES agree that “One can’t assign a dollar value to doing
what’s morally right,” as hoaxter Finisterra said. That is why Dow
acknowledged and resolved many of Union Carbide’s liabilities in the
US immediately after acquiring the company in 2001. (4)Again, most importantly of all:
* Dow shareholders will see NO losses, because Dow’s policy towards
Bhopal HAS NOT CHANGED. Much as we at Dow may care, as human beings,
about the victims of the Bhopal catastrophe, we must reiterate that
Dow’s sole and unique responsibility is to its shareholders, and Dow
CANNOT do anything that goes against its bottom line unless forced to
by law.For more information please contact Marina Ashanin, Corporate Media
Relations, +41-1-728-2347, or reply to this email.NOTES TO EDITORS:
(1) On December 3, 1984, Union Carbide – now part of Dow –
accidentally killed thousands of residents of Bhopal, India, when its
pesticide plant leaked a vast cloud of lethal gas over the city.
Since that date, at least 12,000 more people have died from
complications, and 120,000 remain chronically ill. The Dow Chemical
Corporation hereby expresses its condolences to the victims.(2) Union Carbide was originally forced to pay US$470 million in
compensation to survivors, which amounts to about US$500 per victim.
(Note: Dow hereby wishes to retract the 2002 statement of Dow PR Head
compensation to survivors, which amounts to about US$500 per victim.
(Note: Dow hereby wishes to retract the 2002 statement of Dow PR Head
Kathy Hunt as to US$500 being “plenty good for an Indian.” The poor
phrasing of this statement has often come back to haunt us.)(3) Arrested in India following the accident, Andersen posted
US$2000 bail and successfully escaped India.(4) Dow settled Union Carbide’s asbestos liabilities in the US, and
paid US$10 million to one family poisoned by a Dow pesticide. This
is a mark of Dow’s corporate responsibility.# 30 #
UPDATE: The Yes Men’s own blow by blow of the Dow hijinks including the BBC news spotis now posted on their site. A great read indeed!
Not Dick Cheney, but Lynne has talents the evidence of which might have vanished had not certain fans of her novel, “Sisters,” transcribed the entire rare and difficult to find book into a blog on Live Journal. You can now read this great erotic and historic work. And you can comment on it chapter by chapter.
UPDATEThe Live Journal has been killed (as a commenter here has noticed). Copies of the book are selling for $500 and up on Amazon. But the fine people at Whitehouse.org have copies of the covers and excerpts up for you to enjoy if you don’t want to spent your entire year’s movie allowance including several giant popcorns per flick on the book itself.
We, Kevin Jeffay, Diane Pozefsky and myself, drove over to the manly restaurant, the Angus Barn. The Barn was decorated for the Holidays with innumerable Nutcrackers including a Nutcrackers
festooned tree in the same room as cowhide covered chairs and a wall of guns and rifles. One room nearby was dedicated to cigar smoking. Another room full of preset tables and a well stocked liquor bar — no wine — awaited state-power-brokers (as near as I could tell).
The Barn has long had the smokefilled rooms of choice for the Democratic Party. The place was founded by the son of the “oldest rat in the Democratic barn” himself, Thad Eure (Sr and Jr). Eure, Sr was elected to office on the slogan “Give a young man a chance” and served for 52 years more as Secretary of State retiring at age 88. There is more color to this family than you could squeeze into a major multi-generational saga. And that’s only that part that they will tell you themselves.
The IBM Academy gathering was lively and not in the same vein as the political meetings to which the place is accustomed. For one thing there was wine, pretty good wine too. But no liquor which as driver was fine by me. While the meeting was mostly a meeting of guys, there were women there and women who do strong research and who like like the others from the IBM Academy were Distinguished Scientists and Engineers.
Duke, NCSU and UNC each sent three faculty members. NCSU sent Mladen Vouk, the amiable Michael Rappa and Ioannis Viniotis. Among the folks from Duke was Richard A. Lucic who I met at the John Hope Franklin Center a few weeks back.
I had some fun exchanging Treo tricks with John Cohn who is an IBM Academy Fellow from Burlington VT then great conversations over dinner with the IBMers from Australia and the UK. The good news is that most all the IBMers not only knew of ibiblio, but were also readers of groklaw.net as well as TLDP and other sites.
I spent some time explaining some of the challenges that we face at ibiblio as we scale up more and more. And all of this presented interesting challenges to the IBMers as well. I guess that’s good. Getting an answer would have been okay too ;->
About the food — this is for Miles — I had out of an season softshell crab which is better than it sounds. I think either the Barners are fooling the crabs into thinking it’s spring and summer by using heat lamps or that freezing seafood has gotten pretty good. My crab was accompanied by a filet mignon wrapped in bacon. I eat it rare. Very rare. I may not be drinking liquor and smoking cigars and talking politics, but I can be manly about meat. I also had a good Caesar salad and galic mashed taters. The desserts were also good if slightly basic. I had strawberries seemingly grown in the same seasonal deceptions as the crabs. They were fresh and good. With cheese cake. Even the coffee was good. Basic and manly and robust. No hazelnuts in this java.
I would have been happy with just soup as long as we could have had the came great conversations. The talk was geeky and good covering not only a variety of technologies but also society and tech issues that are dear to my heart. It’s great to sit with smart folks who are eager to trade tales and ideas.
Burning man 3
The man who set himself on fire in front of the White House and nearly in front of me continues to make news. The NY Times did over a page of reporting beginning on the front page describing the complex character and complex and clandestine involvements of Mohamed Alanssi also known as “C11” in an article by William Gaberson entitled “Terror Case Hinges on a Wobbly Key Player.” Too much there to retell here, but let’s just say that there is at least a novella waiting to be written about this.
Jordanian journalists
Ted Vaden’s initial column as public editor of the News and Observer tells us this about the impressions of the Jordanian journalists to whom I spoke to a little over a week ago:
The other reader group couldn’t have had a more different perspective. They were Jordanian journalists visiting North Carolina newspapers under a University of North Carolina exchange program. They found newspapers biased in favor of President Bush, ignorant about Middle East culture and, surprisingly to me, not as free as we think we are. Case in point: the recent arrest of an N&O reporter for trying to phone a person he was writing a story about. (That charge was dismissed last week.)
Dinner with IBM Academy folks
I’ve been invited to sit in with the some members of the IBM Academy of Technology tomorrow night. We will be eating manly food at the Angus Barn and talking technology research.
I’m not sure what I’m in for here, but the other folks who are going are smart hardworking people — so I’m the only ringer so far. If you are a reader of this blog and you know anything beyond the Academy web pages, please let me know.
Enter any URL into the field on this page from Excite Japan and that page will appear translated into Japanese. Just like this. Then in true Babblefish fashion, we translate it back to Engish of a sort.
But Google is not to be left behind. Korean, Japanese and Chinese are all in beta at http://translate.google.com/
Here’s the Google/Babblefish version of the same thing going to Japanese.
And back to English of a sort. [still trying to get this automated]
Starting from Excite to Japanese then back to English via Google, we get this.
You be the judge.
実際ã®ãƒãƒ¼ãƒ«ãƒ»ã‚¸ãƒ§ãƒ¼ãƒ³ã‚º from Excite
実質ã®ãƒãƒ¼ãƒ«ã‚¸ãƒ§ãƒ¼ãƒ³ã‚º from Google/Babblefish
実質ã®ãƒãƒ¼ãƒ«ã‚¸ãƒ§ãƒ¼ãƒ³ã‚º from WorldLingo Translator (thanks id)
Thanks to Nassib for making me aware of the Excite translator.
Slashdot points us to this story in The New Scientist about The blog revolution in sweeping across China.
This is a good follow up to the talk that I put together on International Internet Censorship about a week ago.
One person involved with a highly censored country wrote (and asked to remain anonymous) that:
so far seen no mention of the repercussions (prison – and we’re not talking about namby-pamby US prisons here! – torture, loss of job, harrassment) on people who might be using these methods (proxies, getting info in email, etc.) Westerners seem all gleeful about the technology, and seem totally innocent about the realities on the ground
This to me is the biggest problem. The “last mile” problem of Internet censorship. And I agree that we need to be very aware of the cost to those requesting and receiving banned information. Still, like Internet 2, we need to be finding as many ways as possible to workaround, confront and change the problem.
I bought the current issue/book from McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern [Issue 13 not online as yet] which is a wonderful complex object edited by Chris Ware wrapped in a Ware cover with two small comic booklets stuck in the folds. As I started enjoying it, Sally pointed me to Jason Kottke’s blog/discussion about the same book.
Here’s my response to the thread at Kottke.org:
Not to retread this thread, but I waited to reply til I had read all of the McSweeney’s in question. The book is about a certain kind of comic. Not superheroes or comic that owe much to superheroes except as a way to tell stories about disappointments, enlightenments, betrayals, and frankly neo-existential situations. In short, it’s a book about Chris Ware, his influences, his forebearers, his cosmos of co-travelers and to some extent (and I can’t tell who exactly fits in this category) his followers in art.
If you are interested in that world, visually, historically, naratively and emotionally, then this book is for you. It is not Jimmy Corrigan but the DNA from which JC sprung and about the branches of his family trees, his cousins in art.
Don’t expect X-Man, Watchman, Incredibles etc. Don’t expect Archie except in negative ironic twists. The same for Casper and Donald Duck.
This is not so much a manifesto for a kind of comic/graphic story-telling — yes a genre emerging and showing itself as something serious — as a map of explanations of why this genre has already taken off. Not explications, but examples and tales that build the larger story.
Like it or not — here it is!
What I didn’t mention above is that the current New Yorker is the Cartoon Issue. In that issue is a particularly good essay on Charles Shultz by Jonathan Franzen. But the greatest treasure in the issue is hidden inside the double fold of a Johnny Walker advert and paid for by the Honorable Mr. Walker. No link since the adverts are not online, but pick up the issue and peek inside. The pages of the advert unfold to four continuous pages worth of comic by Seth, the author of “Clyde Fans” and “Palookaville.”
I’ve turned into a NPR reporter reporter today.
NPR just aired a piece on bittorrent including interviews with Bram Cohen (who we met at FOO Camp) and Larry Lessig (Bram wrote it; Larry defends it) and a more or less nameless Motion picture operative (it promotes evil) followed by a more or less nameless BBC guy (who loves it). Examples of legal use of bittorrent abound in the story — most all of them ibiblio does. Books (check), CDs by bands that agree to share (check), radio shows (check), show from the Dead etc (check), Linux distros (check). ibiblio didn’t get mentioned tho. bittorrent is one of the largest consumers of internet bandwidth (supposedly).
You can find the story near the end of this page.
The NPR site gives us a completely misleading and completely inane headline:
File-Sharing Program Could Boost Illegal Movie Trading
BitTorrent, the current hot program for sharing files on the Internet, combines the computing power of several file sharers to ease the transfer of large files — such as movies. Is it the next phase in the arms race between the entertainment industry and file sharers, or the future of legal distribution? Hear Joel Rose of member station WHYY.
[I write a lot about bittorrent in the context of etree.org in the upcoming Library Trends journal — The Commercialized Web: Challenges for Libraries and Democracy, Edited by Bettina Fabos, 53(4), Spring 2005]
Whilst looking through the State of Things Archives, I found the Tim Tyson show that Susan Davis wrote me about. You can find it too here. I’m not sure whether it ran twice, there are two air dates as you will see below:
Blood Done Sign My Name
Air Date: 8/1/2004Original Air Date: May 24, 2004
Blood Done Sign My Name: Host Melinda Penkava talks with Timothy Tyson, the author of “Blood Done Sign My Name†(Crown/2004). Tyson, a professor of Afro-American Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, grew up in the small North Carolina town of Oxford. In 1970, when Tyson was ten years old, an African-American man named Henry Marrow was killed outside a store in broad daylight by a white man. The incident enflamed racial tensions and touched off rioting in the town. Tyson remembers the event in his book, which is part historical account and part memoir. (54:00)
I’ve mentioned Tim and his important book in earlier posts on this blog. Particularly when the local pledge drive took the national story off our local air. WUNC did scoop the national on this one and put out a nice long show.
Just back from the WUNC State of Things show on Webcasting and Internet Music (more or less). The show will replay tonight on air then be available from the State of Things Archives (on ibiblio).
David (on the phone from Asheville), Michael, and I were joined by Paradise Radio‘s Bill Goldsmith (on phone from the Left Coast), Little Brother’s MC Phonte (in studio) and his collaborator Nicolay (on the phone from Amsterdam).
Since you can hear the show, I’ll only say a few things. First, my earphones kept dropping one channel but the engineer was right on it after I made some funny faces and pointed to my head a lot. I got a different headset. Frank Stasio kept us going fine and every one behaved our Sunday Best.
I was a little concerned that Bill Goldsmith was saying that everything was hunky dory with him and the DMCA/CARP rulings so I questioned him about the playlist restrictions. He said, “Oh I don’t like to play a lot by the same performer in the same hour any way.” Then I asked about the detailed reporting that is required. “Oh I’m under a separate agreement so I don’t have to do that.” I am assuming that he also has negotiated a different rate but I’m not sure. His concern about having a lot of listeners was more about bandwidth than about having to pay for each listener. The upshot is that he’s not under the same compulsary license as others so his situation is not a general one. Glad he’s had up to 7000 listeners at once tho. The thing is that law and interpretation of the law is still restricting Internet Radio and creativity.
I didn’t get to mention Koleman’s paper or etree.org or bittorrent or community radio. I did get to say that this might not be radio at all, but something else expecially since if it were radio the FCC might use that analogy to apply laws and restrictions to it (whatever it is).
I did get to say a little about podcasting, Mercaro, Negativland, McGuinn, Creative Commons licenses, and a couple of other things.
The time passed quickly and soon MC Phonte and Nicolay were talking about their collaboration that created their partnership called “Foreign Exchange” on their “Connected” CD. To be followed by an NPRster talking about her Thanksgiving experiences. And we were out of there.
Keith and Corrie, if you are reading this: I left my WXYC Bandwidth CD and my Creative Commons/Wired CD there. One with Frank. One with I think Keith. May I have them back? You can rip and burn them if you like — it’s legal to do so.
David McConville send this bootleg recording of our WUNC show.
UPDATE The show is posted at the WUNC archive now, but the text summary doesn’t mention everyone who was on the show — like Bill Goldsmith and me.
Three of the participants from the WXYC Webcasting Panel will be on WUNC’s State of Things tomorrow (Wednesday) at noon-ish. We’ll plenty to say about the old days when we invented Internet radio and more to say about new developments such as podcasting, Internet2 streaming, and p2p radio as well as about legal hurtles created by the monopolists. I’m sure we’ll also mention bands that allow their live concerts to be taped and shared, McGuinn and others who use the Internet for distribution, and Koleman Strumpf’s study that showed no effect on sales caused by file trading.
Tune in and call in. We will be bigger than Janet Jackson and there are three of us! The three being Michael Shoffner, David McConville and me.
I’ve changed from the slightly hacked word-press default look to the cool metalic look I found at Alex King’s site. The style sheet isn’t by Alex but by “AKA” of Plastic Dreams and it’s called Metal Dreams. Of course, I tweaked it a bit to add the Paul Joneses at the top and a few other things and will continue to tweak it as time passes.
I also installed style switcher from Alex, so if you liked the old style you can just select wp-default from the Style part of the menu. I have not tweaked the other styles properly so they may (read will) look a little funky.
On Saturday after Boy’s Choir practice, Sally surprised Tucker and me with the gift of a scrap metal Saint Francis from the NC Botanical Gardens Sculpture Show. The catch was that the Saint whilst shorter than Tucker is still pretty damn heavy and I was to get him from the Gardens to the car and into his new home in our yard. Luckily I’ve been using my gym membership wisely. Unluckily I had had a good workout only about two hours before. The load of a Franciscan, even when he is a man of steel quite literally, is made light by the love and joy that is in his care so it was not a tough task.
The sculptor, Joel Haas of Raleigh, writes:
Even bird brains notice those mass produced cement St. Francis’ are waaay too earnest to attract wildlife.
This St. Francis is JOYFUL to see all sorts of creatures, and offers something more than earnest cement prayers.
Fill the various feeders with seed, water, or bread crumbs, and watch as heattracts something besides ants and ennui.
I didn’t see any feeders, but I did take a spoiled half a cantalope from the fridge and stick it on/in the Saint’s outreaching left hand.
On Sunday, we went to Jane Tyndall’s Gallery Christmas opening. This show has a piece or two from most of the artists that Jane represents so it makes for a different look for her gallery and a good one. Tucker was anxious to get his Dero poster (“We’ve been watching you while you sleep…”) from the nearby frame shop so we could only hear a little of Chris Reynolds’ trio and nothing from the Janes an acapella group with our friend Sylvia as a member.
Later Sally and I were among the honorary hosts for the ArtCenter’s 30th Anniversary party which was held at Spice Street. The place was crammed full which was great news to ArtCenter Director Jon Wilner and to founder Jacques Menache. It was not like the ArtSchool I found in 1978 when I moved to Chapel Hill. We were in one small walkup spaceheater warmed room in those days. Jacques grew and grew the organization for a number of years until it found it’s present home. It will be growing again soon under Jon’s direction.
I have to say that despite the wonderful wine, the great food, the nice people and old friends [many of whom were the same] and general good feelings. I almost shouted “NO” when Jon said that the ArtCenter would be a regional resource not a Mom-and-Pop operation. I loved the days that a 20something who lived poetry could sit on the porch of a wood heated hand made house out in the woods with Jacques and dream up ways to bring nationally and internationally famous poets to Carrboro of all places — not to the University or to Raleigh. I hope that spirit continues. I was delighted not to hear that the ArtCenter was out of funds and about to shutdown which we used to hear regularly in the old days when we even passed the hat, literally, to get money to cover the rent.
Here we not only got to hear Chris Reynolds play (when the crowd was toned down some) but to sit and eat and chat with Chris, Les (his wife), Jane (of the Gallery) and Sylvia (of the Janes).
Politicians were abundant including our good State Senator Ellie Kinnard and State Rep Verla Insko and school board member Michael Kelley, Chapel Hill Town Counciler Ed Harrison and our very favorite Council Member, Sally Greene.
Evidence that we are not yet living in the post-ironic era
From today’s Chapel Hill Herald [headlines and subheads from print edition]:
“SPA MEETS DOCTOR’S OFFICE”
New skin care salon focuses on wellness
Aria offers Botox, spray-on tanning, other services in cozy atmosphere
David Bollier writes to announce his blog/whitepaper repository called On The Commons. David is a very sharp guy with some deep yet quick takes on various commons including fashion where borrowing is the rule. I dropped him a note about Malcolm Gladwell’s New Yorker article on plagiarism (or was it) called “Something Borrowed” and David had a considered reading online within a few hours.
At the same time, Slashdot was announcing the publication of Red Hat Magazine which features an almost accurate article about ibiblio called “Rock the Free World.” The best news that I saw from the article was that they decided not to include the dorky picture of an aging hippy that was taken in my office.

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