~ it looks like we were wrong about being allowed to settle into our new offices; the crooked landlords, after taking our deposit, are hesitating and fabricating reasons and excuses as to why we can’t move into the space. once again we are meeting to move in tomorrow, but this time there is no more time for us to wait in the space we are currently dwelling. either we get the space tomorrow, or the situation comes to an dramatically unfortunate development, such as the compromise of the angry red planet’s official doctrine of pacificism.

~ the news has not been updated in a while due to our state of transience, both across the nation – twice – and across the city – infinitely. tomorrow, after two weeks of delays and excuses, we should recieve the keys to our new upper west side offices. after this, the news will flow in the usual sluggish nature in which it occurs. in the meantime, check out the media with which we have been sedating ourselves.

~ from the angry red planet inbox, a new summer project:

ROLL YOUR OWN BLACK OUT THE FIRST DAY OF SUMMER JUNE 21, 2001 THURS EVE,
7-10 pm worldwide, all time zones

   As an alternative to George W. Bush’s energy policies and lack of emphasis on efficiency, conservation and alternative fuels, there will be a voluntary rolling blackout on the first day of summer, June 21 at 7pm – 10pm in any time zone (this will roll it across the planet).

   Its a simple protest and a symbolic act. Turn out your lights from 7pm-10pm on June 21. Unplug whatever you can unplug in your house. Light a candle to the Sungoddess, kiss and tell or not, take a stroll in the dark, invent ghost stories, anything that’s not electronic – have fun in the dark.

   Read the 1999 book “Natural Capitalism” by Hawken and Lovins to learn that conservation/high efficiency technologies already ARE on-the-shelf. If implemented these revolutionary ideas would pay themselves off within five years, after which we’d be pumping far less greenhouse gas into the atmosphere and saving bucks to boot.

   Forward this email as widely as possible, to your government representatives and environmental contacts.

   Let them know we want global education, participation and funding in conservation, efficiency and alternative fuel efforts — and an end to over-exploitation and misuse of the earth’s resources.

   Anyone knows that the Cheney-Bush team is blowing smoke when they tell us that “… conservation can’t help, it’ll just be too expensive to implement those technologies…” While on the other hand, technology to develop and deploy weapons to blow incoming ICBMs out of the sky are easy to come by.

~ ‘have you seen the news about timothy mcveigh’s execution?’
   ‘i’m familiar with it; could you be more specific?’
   ‘well, all the hotel rooms in town are booked and people are selling t-shirts and american flags for the execution.’

   ‘it reminds one of what they used to do in the south, after lynching a black man for some reason or other…selling body parts and lining up for photos with the corpse hanging…’
   ‘doesn’t it make you sad that regular people could so easily get excited about someone being executed?’
   ‘no…because they’re the sick fucks who need to be worrying…anyone who wants to watch someone executed or somehow derives pleasure from just being in the town where it happens has more problems in the than mr. mcveigh could be supposed to have. we can’t worry about the issues these people must carry; we can only scorn them from our positions of moral superiority.’

~ few events + constant worry = much demoralization

~ updates will be few and far between in the coming days and months.

~ even though it is hotter than a two dollar pistol in this town, sore throats have ravaged the offices of the angry red planet; fevers and allergies followed to tag team any survivors. the quickness with which the diseases infested the offices can only be attributed to the lack of fortification which has arisen from both ‘vitality’ and ‘combat’ having been removed from our daily regimen. we do not seek pity from our gentle readers; rather, we merely offer this information as a complement to our recent lack of news. with the knowledge of this set of varied conditions, the reader may perhaps be able to deduce our most immediate histories, and he or she may forgive our lack of prolificacy accordingly.
   before this epidemic, however, we enjoyed an exciting weekend forays into the city:

~ our primary issue of locating a somewhat decent comic book store finally has been addressed; though the back issue stock is found to be wanting, and though a large portion of the store is devoted to toys and movie memorabilia, the girl behind the register—after giving us the elevator eyes—informed us that we did not need to check our bags, as did the suits before and after us. hence, “forbidden planet” at union square is our place to go, especially as vegan pizza is offered in a mediocre selection and presentation at ambitious prices just around the – well, a few – corners…

~ secondary issues of employment and habitation are still in need of being addressed. rather than expend any energy on these endeavors, we instead accompanied [k] from 1440dpi.com [w] to the most beautiful twin towers in lower manhattan, where we were free to discuss brilliant and moving issues, such as the regrettable misfortune that no one with the power has seen fit to build three or four more—pairs, of course—world trade centers in the immediate vicinity, before moving on to less crucial, but nonetheless justifiable concerns, such as which directors of the graduate program at sci-arc are most out of their league and which coordinator of the history and theory department is beating the deadest horse.

~ all this talk of ghosts in los angeles reawakened our homesickness, so, after a few minutes of looking away from a public act of fellatio on the metro, we arrived at a movie theater with the intent to assuage our nostalgia for the left coast with an intimate viewing of ‘crocodile dundee in los angeles’. this expedition ended in the dual disappointment of seeing no footage of the west side and the loss of $10 per admission. we were able to note, however, that the loew’s theater on 13th and broadway is no longer worthy of our support, as a 15-foot screen is not exactly what we expect in the second or third greatest city in the year ‘2001’ for—let’s be clear about this—$10 per admission.

~ the amounts of time and effort which sprint is spending to messages on our phones is becoming a little interesting. perhaps they have noticed that we have not responded to their literature since january, and they would like to ask if we are no longer interested in seeing paperwork from them. perhaps that is why they leave two messages a day for us. perhaps we will return the calls?

~ the discrepancy between the promise of the subheading ‘fine beverage’ and actual degree of enjoyment derived from a 28-cent can of ‘richfood birch beer’ is actually staggering.