Okay, according to yesterday’s late day NPR report, there is this HUGE Ellen Feiss fan club out there and it concerns me (well, only slightly). Ms. Feiss is a high school student who appears in one of Apple’s “Switch” ads — apparently, the ad’s not been on TV and you can only see her on the Apple site. She looks and acts stoned in the ad. And it’s funny.
She’s totally beautiful, no doubt. But hey, she’s like 14 and there are 10,000 guys who have started Ellen Feiss fan sites out there, including the nicely managed EllenFeiss.net. Her mug is appearing on mugs. Her glazed red eyes are being found on shirts. Apparently, Ms. Feiss is big not in Japan but in Germany and the Netherlands. What’s next for Ms. Feiss? Mum’s the word.

The idea of retreating to the “country” (e.g. not the city nor the suburbs) is extremely sound in our popular imagination.
I was recently caught purchasing a copy of the nicely designed Country Living magazine, which showcases home decoration, gardening, and cooking for the country set lifestyle. The magazine is replete with antiqued (not antique) furniture, old fashioned looking kitchenware, wallpaper that looks like it came out of a landfill, and comfort food filled with meat. It’s all beautiful, but why?
While the U.S. used to be an agrarian economy, I believe only a few percent of people live and work on a farm. “Tools” are now computers, “land” is now property, and “work” is now typing and hauling. Our desire to capture the agrarian lifestyle of our Protestant ancestors is telling us something: We desparately want to slow down. We are dying of thirst for quiet and solitude. We want to make things ourselves. We wish we had a community to hold our hands. We long for the days when everything was neat and tidy, even though pre-industrial folks lived until 42.
Gee, I’d be almost dead.
There are many other examples of this countryfied living, if you’re interested. Pottery Barn is brilliant and showing beautiful country objects d’art. They call it “modern country.” Real Simple is just that: simple things for simple people. And Martha does a grand job of shepherding us through the travails of country living. More about her later.

Okay, this is a stolen link from Matt’s Wholelottanothing, but it’s an important one.
For some sane reason, Sun Microsystems has decided to pare back its entire Web site to four little colorful sections that allow you to get anywhere, ostensibly, in a hurry. Sun — this is the company that sells incredibly complex software and hardware systems, that produces Java-based code, and complicated applications that only trained engineers can run. The site, beyond the home page, is quite ugly. But I’m interested in what their logic was for paring down so dramatically.

Having finished a number of good books this summer, I’m starting in on reading the well-received, if depressing, The Culture of Make Believe by Derrick Jensen. Jensen, a writer of strong passions and incredible stamina, paints a very large picture of atrocity and death in the 20th century — mostly driven by racial hatred and prejudice.
In 700 pages, Jensen argues that Western culture and globalization has made us immune to the ravages we have ourselves hefted on others. I disagree with some of his assumptions (particularly around capitalism and its discontents), but the book is a powerful read about how our social structures have blinded us to our extravagances. The book seems to me a kind of historical continuation of Guy Debord’s important little book The Society of the Spectacle, albeit less theoretical and aesthetically oriented.

Okay, I don’t usually do this, but I’m in need of one, yes one, incredible artist to feature for the month of September 2002 on The Site at MANOVERBOARD, the Deckchairs sister site. Completely self-serving, I agree. But the month has been busy and I’m in a state of lack.
Artist or writer, friend or foe, male or female, thick or thin – I look forward to your submissions and nominations.

This is what Mr. River said in an email to me about these “lamps”:
hi!
We are glad to introduce our new products POLY CARFTS LIGHT series.
They have following advantages:
1,THEY CAN USED GIFTS,
2,THEY ALSO ARE CRAFTS ,CAN DECORATE IN BOOK ROOM,,BEDROOM,OFFICE …..
If you book some order,we are sure you can earn big money!”
They’re kind of beautiful, no?

This is very random, but if you ever want to look at the style sheets (which essentially tell the Web browser what fonts to use on which page) that Apple uses on most, if not all of its, Web pages, here it is.
Hey, I just got home. The only thing really interesting about this, besides the fact it’s out there, is that Apple uses Geneva and Lucida Grande — both unusual fonts that Apple is pushing now with OS X.

Hello. I’m back from Toronto and here to stay. After much trouble taking 287 South from Wurztown, it was a long trek back into the city.
I haven’t had much time to scour for good news, except that we are alive and well. However, if you don’t care (and you speak Portugese), here is a link to the brand new BLOGGER BRASIL. Perguntas!

Because a pal of mine cannot gather the steam to write about his dog, who recently passed away, I will do so.
Zipper was his name and I remember him fairly well from days during and after college. He died yesterday at home after living on this planet 18 years.
My friend writes,” He leaves behind … his adopted German Shepherd brother, Dennis, who is certainly still looking for him.
“He had a good run, but suffered from numerous ailments and declining health over the last year. The general expected run for terriers and Golden Retrievers averages 10 years. Certainly, Dennis’ presence extended his life some 6 years.”
Although I haven’t seen Zipper in many an era, I will always remember his frisky run around my legs, his high-pitched bark, and his near-smile.

In an article in today’s New York Times The Secret Behind a Burger Cult, In-N-Out, a newish fast-food restaurant much ballyhooed in Los Angeles, is made to look cool because of its “cult” following.
Since when was eating fast food “cultish”? More disturbing to me, however, is this:
‘Eric Schlosser, author of the muckraking book “Fast Food Nation,” is a fan.
‘”I think they’re great,” said Mr. Schlosser, whose less appetizing findings included that some ground beef destined for fast-food restaurants had been contaminated with bits of cattle spinal cord. “It isn’t health food, but it’s food with integrity. It’s the real deal,” he said.’
I think he sucks.
Schlosser’s book, subtitled “The Dark Side of the All-American Meal” is a must-read for those interested in the meat industry. But apparently, Schlosser himself has about as much “integrity” as In-N-Out’s food.