~ tonight in new york city, there is a town hall meeting concerning what should be done with the site where the world trade center once stood. the meeting is from 6pm-9pm at stuyvesant high school [w] at the corner of west and chambers. you can go there to tell them that you find it offensive to consider the placement of office or commercial tenancy space upon the land where so many lives were ended and where bodies still rest, just so a few businessmen get their investments returned. else, if you can accept the idea of working on a spreadsheet and shopping for shoes on a site where thousands of people were killed, then at least you can let them know that the form the structure takes should not be decided by a corporation of businesses who will profit from them, but instead by the people of the city who will pay for them, share them, and use them.

~ the number of visits that can be made to westside supermarket before the angry red planet rips off some heads and defecates down some necks has reached the threshold of 10.

~ rasterweb [w] tangentially shares our dilemma about the new ‘digital hub’ being offered by apple. we don’t see any breakthroughs being made for those of use without and ipod or a digital video camera. regardless of all the digital satellites that you need to buy before the imac begins its function as your digital hub, when you do get them all, being able to rip and burn cds and dvds does not seem like the most productive thing for a computer to be doing. the new imac is a step down from the old one; now it is just an entertainment center; consumer electronics packaged sleekly seems like nothing progressive to us. if this imac – or any ‘computer’ – was hidden inside the wall with the fusebox and simultaneously delivered to our kitchen a cake recipe from vegweb [w], duplicate our friend’s franco nero dvd while it was being watched in the rumpus room, and printed and collated 1000 copies of our latest publication in the office…that would be a digital hub for us.

~ by the way, ‘american history x’ and ‘bad lieutenant’ turned out to be rife with beatings and murders.

~ after having to watch the ball drop from 57th street, we returned to columbus circle for the metro. while waiting for the c, an announcement was made: ‘due to an incident, the c will not be arriving. please take the express a for all local stops’. we offer a special thanks to that announcer for letting us spend the next 20 minutes in terror over what the ‘incident’ might be. we would still like to know, but it doesn’t seem too be important enough to be in the news.

~ happy new year!

~ at the westside supermarket on broadway, the radio is playing over the loudspeaker for the sake of the customers’ entertainment. between commercials. the ‘dj’ – are they still called ‘dj’? – announces the news. “twelve people have been killed in an explosion in a mall” – the entire store stops what they are doing and looks up at the ceiling, from which the message is emanating – “in Jerusalem.” at the naming of the city, one far from westside manhattan or los angeles, the customers quickly drop their heads in indifference and refocus on the more crucial task of grabbing ‘portuguese’ rolls and hummus and tofutti.

~ didn’t the media just discover that it’s ramadan and tell us that it is suddenly the most important time of the year for muslims? apparently, it was so important – for a few days – that if the u.s. attacked this month, all the ‘support’ from muslim nations would erode. the bombers must have been some of those christian palestinians about whom we see some folks reminding israel, as though the zionists would actually have any more sympathy or humanity for them.

~ happy veteran’s day. the parade in manhattan apparently heads north from 24th street, so there was no reason to be hanging out in washington square park for an hour this morning, unless you wanted to repeatedly insist to the guy with the blue parka and spicy sunflower seeds that you ‘didn’t need anything’.

~ happy birthday to kurt vonnegut, the 4th most popular writer at diaryland [w]!

~ quote from reuters [w]: ‘hundreds of firefighters broke through police barricades….’

bass.

~ annoying phrases: ‘bleeding edge’, ‘teach-in’, and hearing terrorist attacks referred to as ‘911’ and/or ‘nine-eleven’.

~ one tie to the west coast has been cut by the angry red planet upon the discovery of a trader joe’s accessible from manhattan via the lirr. stockpiles of ‘vitality’ and ‘rice-um’ were acquired.

~ today was a surreal day in the city.

~ any new yorkers – and non-new yorkers – who were present at bryant park for the movie last night can all go to hell.

~ speaking of movies, the ‘akira’ limited edition is released today! if it is already sold out in your town, as it is in mine, try amazon.com [w]. tetsuooooo!!

~ from broadway:
   girl1: ‘..next week they are showing ‘rear window’..’
   girl2: ‘..oh! i love that movie! i did an architectural project based on it!..’