I just caught the first of what is to be a seven-part series on NPR's Morning Edition about the history of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The first installment focuses largely on Theodor Herzl, the secular journalist and playwrite who founded the Zionist movement in the 1890s that led to the modern Jewish state more than 50 years later. NPR refers to Herzl as Vienese, and while he did live in that city as an adult, the Hungarophile in me can't resist pointing out that he was actually born in Budapest

The piece ends with a powerful quote from Najib Azouri's 1905 book called "The Awakening of the Arab Nation," a response to Herzl's 1896 pamphlet "The Jewish State." Azouri predicted: "These movements are destined to fight each other continually until one of them wins." Well, he's been right for about 100 years. If the Palestinians do get their own state, as now seems inevitable, will this continue to be true?

Heard about president Bush's black-sheep brother Basil Mortimer Bush? Not sure if it's the same one who sells bongs online...

Well, whoever put together the tour for Boban Markovic's amazing NY musical tour last week should be pretty pleased with themselves. Pardon me for dropping off the blogosphere for the last week, but my ears have just stopped ringing after back-to-back nights at the Knitting Factory watching Gogol Bordello followed by Boban Markovic Okestar with Frank London's Klezmer Brass. Not only did Boban, on his first trip to America, pack three separate concert halls, greeted with flailing abandon by fans old and new, but he also did pretty well on the PR front.

The New York Times both previewed and reviewed the Mediterranean music festival at the Bohemian Hall in Astoria, Queens, where Boban played. In the preview, they used a close-up thumbnail photo of Boban playing his trumpet in the print edition (I noticed on the subway floor). In the review, writer Jon Pareles raved:

There was a worthy ringer on the bill: the Boban Markovic Orkestar from Serbia, which is landlocked (Yugoslavia bordered the Mediterranean). Its songs were pure propulsion: drumbeats as relentless as a machine and horn arrangements that could sound like a silver-toned chorale, a soul horn section or a choreographed brawl. Solos sprinted through the melee. It was dance music that was almost brutal in its gleeful efficiency.

In addition to this, I just heard on the NPR radio show The Next Big Thing (produced out of the local WNYC affiliate), a segment on Boban, including an interpretted interview and more importantly several minutes of his music. Here's the audio clip. Here's the write-up the radio show gives:

Backstage at the Bohemian Hall in Astoria, Queens, Next Big Thing host Dean Olsher meets up with Boban Markovic and the Boban Markovic Orkestar. Their wildly rhythmic brass band music has been compared to all kinds of American genres, but they come to us from Romani (Gypsy) Serbia. In the U.S. for the first time, they are best known for their music in Emir Kusturica's film "Underground."

If you missed the NYC tour, pity, as they kicked some serious ass. The show I caught at the Knitting Factory was quite amazing. A combined bill with the NYC-based Frank London's Klezmer Brass, the best parts of the night featured both bands playing together on stage, a solid wall of brass, must have been 20-25 people on stage just blasting it out. The Gypsies and the Jews, and Miki so aptly put it. Both bands also took the stage alone, twice each, I believe, plus three sets as a combo. The house literally rocked. Hundreds of bodies stomping on the floor, heavy Serbian presence, but still a classic NY scene.

The London group is quite good in its own right, a motly mix of men and women on horns and clarinets, skillfully reinterpretting the modern Klezmer sound. But truth be told, for creating an audience crazed dance frenzy they were no match for Boban, who promptly resurrected the moshpit mehem as soon as they took over after the London band's sets. It was also interesting to watch the difference between the two band leaders' styles. London, a NYer, appears to be somewhat of a control freak over his band's arrangements, constantly gesturing like a puppetmaster for the band's next progression every eight bars. Boban, by comparison, projects a kind of delighted serenity amidst the frantic rhythms and melodies that the musicians hypnotically crank out. Rarely does he make gestures during the pieces to the rest of the band, or at least that I could see, yet right when it sounds like every player is working his own agenda and insane musical umpa theme, they all stop on a dime and cut the tempo by two-thirds and start mournfully harmonizing in some totally unexpected direction, with Boban just grinning Puckishly from behind is ever-tooting weird sideways trumpet (that was not a normal trumpet, but I don't know my instruments well enough to tell you want it was).

Anyway, I'm sure they will be back. I see Amazon finally has an album of theirs available. Also keep an eye on BobanMarkovic.com.

As for Gogol Bordello, the less I say the better. They are simply amazing and pretty much defy description, or at least what I can muster at the moment. Go see them. They're in NY all the time. I'm not sure Middle America is ready for them yet, but they had better be, as Gogol is apparently now on tour somewhere in the Midwest. Elizabeth was getting calls at our party last night with real-time concert updates from a friend in Wisconson or wherever, who was apparently just in shock.

(BTW, what they hell is up with the other punk Ukrainian Gypsy band called Gogol Bordello...out of Arizona? Don't suppose there's any reader out there who could confirm this? I'll ask my pink-haired 26-year-old niece who lives there.)

UPDATE: Elizabeth writes with some clarifications. The friend was in Chicago, not Wisconsin (whatever). Also, in an email Elizabeth explains that the Arizona Gogol is the same NY Gogol, there was just some miscommunication about that w/ a friend. And as for the accordian player winking at me, I think he was just being friendly in some Balkan kind of way.

Was at a goodbye party for Sam tonight. Goodbye Sam, I hope it's safe to mention your name here at this point. We'll miss you. Sorry again for YKW. Please give those Europeans a good talking to, if necessary, while you're over there. We'll keep NY warm for you if you decide to come back.

But the humbing moment was the beautiful woman at the party saying, "You don't remember me? I can't believe you don't remember me?!"

Ugh. How to communicate how awful that feels?

Truth be told, I have a horrible memory. If any of you who know me and read this blog and don't really realize that about me, there it is. If I ever forget your name, you have my apologies in advance. My paternal grandmother went completely senile before she died. I had the pleasure of seeing her one last time in the nursing home when she had no idea who I was, couldn't make the connection of her son's son. My dad is barely any better, and although his years are advancing at this point, he's always been that way. My mom too. I'm not kidding. She was a corporate executive before she retired, and she had her deputy manager trained whenever they met someone in the hallway to promptly introduce herself so my mom wouldn't have to try to come up with the name for the introdution herself.

So I attribute my own pathetic state only half to drugs and the balance to genetics. I'm bad with a lot of things -- plans for the evening, lunch dates that never make it to my calendar, things I said 10 minutes ago, etc. But names and faces are especially tricky. This went over really well when I worked in PR.

You would think beautiful women might somehow have a better chance of standing out, but history demonstrates otherwise. Bad as tonight was, it was far from the worst. That would have to go to the time I met the girl I lost my virginity to some six years later, out of the context of suburban NJ and instead on 9th Ave & 43rd St in NY. Plus she was wearing huge sunglasses. My recollection of the scene now (see, some things are burned in the memory regardless) was seeing a good looking woman walk towards me and my thinking, "Hello, she's hot. Hey, she's checking me out! Whoa, she's turning her head after me." Then her saying "Ricky? Ricky Bruner?!" And me thinking, "Uh oh, who the hell is this?"

After a very, very awkward exchange, I managed to turn around and walk 10 blocks north with her, totally charmed with how smart, beautiful and sarcastic she was, thinking I might still be able to rekindle something (in the midst of a long romantic lull at the time). So I asked for her number and she said she was back living with her parents, and they were in the book. "That is," she added, staring me piercingly in the eyes, "if you remember my last name."

So totally busted.

Tonight, as I say, wasn't quite that bad. I confirmed that she and I never had a torrid affair when we supposedly knew each other in the mid-90s. (Come to think of it, she was a bit evasive, along the lines of "I'm the last one who would know." What the hell does that mean? Anyway, I'm pretty sure not.) Incredibly, she's the ex-wife of a friend of mine, but I got to know him only after they had separated. (He's even got a permalink on this very blog!)

But you were most gracious, A., and in case you're reading, I'm sorry again, and I most look forward to getting to know you (again) here in NY.

The freakiest part? Both of these forgotten beauties have virtually the same name! Off by one letter. What does it mean? Oh, puny, puny brain...

Very sad. I've been looking forward to this new train to the airport.

I let Adi take a look at the posting below before I put it up, as I was purporting to speak on her behalf. She's at work, so she replied thusly:

Hey,baby,
go ahead and post it, except add this:
my other main point is that simply the US should be more considerate of the current explosive situation the world is in. as the world's only superpower and, as such, having a better chance to at least try to improve it, the US should be more receptive to the comments of its allies. I know that diplomacy goes nowhere with Iraq and i'm sure the world would be a safer place without our Saddam, so I think I'd support a war to depose him, but only if it came as a result of the approval of other countries, and at least a vague plan of a new Iraqi government (including what would happen with Iraq's immense oil reserves, and then, unavoidably, with OPEC, etc.). I haven't seen any of it yet, certainly not in the NYT or The Economist.

I think right now the US is not in a position to act alone because it should see and acknowledge that many countries have problems with its bullyish approach. Instead of trying to better communicate what the US wants, the cowboy just bluntly expresses what's going to happen, period. "It has to be written in plain English so if the boys in Lubbock read it they should understand it" or something like it he said about the new UN resolution Condi Rice put together for him (he probably didn't get it first, either).

It's the attitude that's a huge problem here. I'm sure average America agrees with him. i read somewhere that most Americans actually believe that they're better than the rest of the world. Excuse me. i've always had problems with the US's proudly admitted "superiority" but like other sensitive people i was very sad about Sept 11. However, if Bush will continue to ignore his "friends" and will unilaterally go to war (which he will), and if this war will bring about terrorist acts via fanatics, I will blame Mr. President for them big time.

As Magyar Narancs's excellent Sept 11. anniversary summary by Arató András said it in the end: "If Bush attacks Iraq unilaterally, all that we, New Yorkers, can do, is run. Because one terrorist attack was enough for a lifetime, thank you."

Now you can post it.

[If you haven't done so already, read this post first.]

"If you want to buy me a t-shirt, get me that 'I Still Hate George Bush' one," Adi told me last night, while I was buying a late birthday gift for my sister (Happy Birthday, Sue! I love you!).

My wife, in case any of you are new this site, is a furiner. She grew up in one of those old commie countries -- Hungary, to be precise. So she brings a different perspective to our domestic politics. Don't get me wrong, she cried her eyes out on September 11, but she's never bought into the whole rah-rah America thing, before or since. And I can hardly blame her. I grew up with old-school lefty parents, and five years of living in Hungary gave me some perspective on how the rest of the world sees our country (I accidentally first typed "company").

To her credit, she never once suggested we "had it coming" and reviled those who did. But she has always been disgusted by America's arrogance in the world, which Bush embodies (for her, anyway) to a T. My own feelings on this pending war and the general screwed up state of the world are so muddled, I try to avoid blogging much about politics so I don't sound like just another helpless whiner. I keep working over in my mind some statement of my stance on all of it, but I can't make up my mind what I believe, so I keep it to myself. Blogging about her opinion, however, is a different matter.

In particular, she wanted me to point out here that she is outraged over this story in the Times about Bush's new doctrine on the balance of world power, specifically the point that says "The strategy document will also state, for the first time, that the United States will never allow its military supremacy to be challenged the way it was during the cold war."

It's a strange discussion that entails. So, the better alternative would be to allow another military power to create the kind of polar tensions we lived through during the Cold War? The world would be better served by another country or set of allies having the military might to challenge the U.S.? Which ones?

No, that's not what she's saying, but where does the U.S. get off telling China or other sovereign countries that they do not have the right to build up their military to credibly defend themselves?

Even on the subject of Iraq, her biggest opposition to the planned invasion is that the sanctity of Iraq's sovereignty makes it wrong in principal for the U.S. to insist on regime change. For me, that argument doesn't hold a lot of weight, considering Saddam's record invading and massacring his neighbors and own citizens.

I'm reminded of a neighbor when I was a kid, I'll call him Mr. T. He was a stock broker and a drunk who regularly beat up his wife and at least one of his three sons, all my little pals. He also liked guns. More than once, he held the entire neighborhood hostage. On one occasion, the mother fled with the sons, and Mr. T. went on a binge for several days, walking around on the front lawn waving a pistol and shooting squirrels off the electric wires. Incredibly, the police wouldn't come out for several days. This was in the early '70s. They said that unless he actually shot at someone, they didn't want to get involved. I remember driving with my dad and having to duck down in the car as we sped passed the T. house. Eventually, the cops came out in full SWAT gear and talked him out. The family moved back in and life went on as normal until a few years later she finally divorced him and, incredibly, the kids went and lived with him. I wish the police had intervened sooner, frankly, before the nut shot at me, for example, or another neighbor. The guy was a menace and not entitled to the same good-neighbor policies as the rest of us.

Adrienne, however, may have a different point of view on sovereignty owing perhaps in part to Hungary's history, 1,000 years spent mostly under the knuckles of one or another unwanted oppressor.

The U.S. hawks see taking Saddam out as necessary prudence facing a mad ruler in a perilous technological age. Others around the world see it as humiliating paternalism, hypocrisy and a betrayal of the rule of law. Why, after all, is it okay for the U.S. to have been making chemical and biological weapons all these years, as we now know to be the case, but it's not okay for other countries like Iraq to do so? That's a tricky one. Because...we're good and their evil? That's about how Bush would sum it up, I suppose.

I still can't make up my mind whether I think the war with Iraq is a good idea or not, all things considered. It's a Sophie's Choice. Regardless of whether it's the right thing to do, I believe it's inevitable. Bush has gone too far with it at this point to back down and, idiot-asshole that he is, he's our idiot-asshole, and I'd still have to go with him in a fight against Saddam. I just wish the Europeans and the other allies would hurry up and get on board at this point, because it's going down with or without them, and we're all going to be much worse off if they don't come along. That's just the pragmatist in me.

What I will, say, though, is that I believe Bush is squandering whatever moral authority America still had with the world a year ago. America is supposed to represent a country based on the rule of law, not of men. But from Enron to Carlyle to Big Oil to Poindexter to Skull & Bones and the Bush family history and on and on, there are way too many special exceptions to the rules and legitimate, let's say "conflicts of interest" going on in this administration for it to be an example to the world of anything but empire building in the name of...of what, exactly?

Did you listen to Andrei Codrescu's poem "9/11"? It's brutal.

So yes, Honey, I'm with you on this much: I Still Hate George Bush, too.

:*

Speaking of the Bulgarian Disco (below), which Hutz describes as "an alcoholic hedonistic jam...a really great hang for immigrant punks of all kinds," there is one more chance to see the awesome Yugoslav brass band Boban Markovic Orkestra in town this week, that is on Tuesday night at Mehanata (aka the Bulgarian Disco, on Canal and Broadway).

Despite my earlier plug for today's world music festival, I'm not going to make it, because I'm behind on a client project (because obviously I spend too much time blogging). My own plan is to catch Gogol on Sunday and Boban on Tuesday at the disco.

(For those regular readers who do not live in NY or don't give a hoot about the Eastern Euro hipster scene, my apologies for all the concert stuff, but you know, once I got started with it, in for a penny, in for a pound.)

You heard it here first, folks. The Village Voice's Tricia Romano now reports on the story I blogged about two weeks ago of Gogol Bordello lead singer ripping up the Bulgarian Disco on the last occasion of his three-year DJing stint there. Her interview with him is hilarious. Choice quotes:

"Maybe the bar is too close to the DJ'ing booth."

"I went Bruce Lee on the whole equipment."

"I get so trashed I ruin all my stuff."

"The most important part is that we're still friends, even though I do have a black eye."

Just a reminder, Gogol Bordello is at the Knitting Factory tonight and tomorrow. (I'm going Sunday.)

The Voice article mentions he has a new DJ gig every Friday at Dibrova Social Club, 136 Second Avenue.

You just can't make this stuff up. John Englers points out that Hooters is planning to launch an airline. "Fly Hooters: the airline with the best rack."

Peter Maass points out this piece in the Washington Post that explains how allies in America's impending war against Iraq will have first dips to help rebuild that country's oil industry. Seems pretty straight forward: first come, first served.

I just set up a Rich Site Summary (RSS) XML syndicating feed on my ExecutiveSummary.com site. Hurray for me. Took about five minutes (in case you happen to be my wife thinking I'm wasting more time when I should be working, as usual).

Excellent news! The weekend is lining up to be an extravaganza of zany music from Eastern Europe and elsewhere here in the Big Apple.

Here's the itinerary: Saturday night, Boban Markovic Orchestra at the New York World [Music] Festival at Bohemian Hall & Beer Garden in Astoria, Queens, and Sunday night, Gogol Bordello at the Knitting Factory, with a soothing interlude in between of a four-mile charity run at 9am Sunday. (Zero pledges from readers so far, btw. Way to go, team!)

Adi just discovered Saturday's music festival taking place at the historic Bohemian Hall & Beer Garden in Astoria, Queens (29-19 24th Avenue). $35 for entertainment starting at noon and going till 1am, including in the afternoon bands from Italy, Spain, North Africa, Lebanon and elsewhere, plus dance workshops and panel discussions, and then in the evening the amazing Boban Markovic Orchestra from Yugoslavia and environs, plus other bands from Turkey and Albania. There are also festival events Friday and Sunday at the Bohemian Hall, one of the last remaining outdoor beer gardens in New York City. Call for tickets: 212-545-7536.

Then Gogol Bordello, the infamous NYC punk Gypsy Ukranian cabarete band, at the Knitting Factory Sunday night. Should be FUN!

So silly why do I bother posting this?

This is amusing.

The sad update. So much for the "no harm in asking" philosophy. He's since corrected the redundancy, but not in my favor. I'll just have to blog harder, apparently. Meanwhile, I'll take solace in my unsolicited links from Matt Welch, Ken Layne and, most recently, Blogger.com's homepage (thanks to Steve Hall for pointing that out!).
;-p

Matt Welch points out TheHomesslessGuy.Blogspot.com. Seems legit, tho not sure. He's quite savvy to the ways of the blogosphere, and citing Charles Bukowski and Tom Waits as influences sounds like a joke, but then he also seems savvy to the ways of sleeping on the street. Provocative reading either way.

I actually had an idea for a while about starting a non-profit network helping put homeless street papers online, networked together across the country. Homeless could get Internet access and online training and pool their writing resources across the country for a kind of homeless news portal. Needless to say, it went the way of most of my great ideas -- back to sleep.

UPDATE: Said homeless guy, who's name is Kevin Barbieux, by the way, found my post and wrote me to assure me that he is, indeed, homeless and gave me a name at the national coalition for the homeless to check his references. I'll take his word for it. Reading his writings in more detail, it's clear he has an insight to life on the street that would be hard to invent. It's also clear he's an intelligent, compassionate person who writes better than many other bloggers. I wish him the same peace he offered me in signing his email.

Okay, I have one more favorite email snafu story (see below). A friend in the dot-com space has a twin brother who was a top project manager at Microsoft working on some aspect of the Internet Explorer team, back in the early days of the Justice Department's pursuit of Microsoft for monopoly stuff. At one point the brother has his email subpoenaed by the Justice Department. That is, all the emails he's ever written or received for the full three years he's worked at Microsoft.

Can you imagine? Having all your emails submitted as legal evidence to the government?

His biggest worry was all the really disgusting smutty jokes sent to him over the years on a daily basis by his mother. My friend (the brother) said her sense of humor was so vile he deleted them without opening them.

That and the messages his brother would send him (twin humor) to the effect of "Say, Bob, what was that you were saying on the phone last night about you and your guys at Microsoft planning to crush Netscape like a wiggly worm by any means necessary?" to which the brother would reply, "I have no idea what you're talking about, Sam. Here at Microsoft we expect our products to win or lose in the marketplace based solely on their merits to the consumer..."

Nick has a funny thing about a woman at PWC who mistakenly sent a reply when she meant to forward, and it's gotten her in a bit of hot water. Needless to say, email is one of the most dangerous inventions on the planet for how easy it is to get yourself in trouble with accidentally.

My favorite all-time email screw-up story, however, was told to my by my sister, who is a Unix wonk at...let's just say a big well-known company, where, among other things, she deals with managing internal email flows. So about four years ago she gets called in by security who's investigating a hum-dinger. She had to piece together what happened backwards, but the long and the short is some guy is recently married and composes a really hot and steamy message for his new wife -- really hot and steamy -- about exactly what he planned to do to her that night when they get home. So her email address is something retarded like mary.d.smith@xyzcompany.com, but he accidentally addresses it to mary,d,smith@xyzcompany.com (note the punctuation).

As most readers will know, commas in email headers indicate separate addresses. What he didn't know, however, was that Big Well-Known Company had a sloppy way of shorthanding internal email lists (before my sister got on the scene and cleaned it up after this mess) whereby they had huge lists of email for everyone in the company according to the letters of their last names. So he accidentally copies this filthy message to the D List -- everyone in the company whose last name begins with the letter "D." We're talking about a Fortune 500 company with thousands of employees.

Turns out one such D person was a female top executive, who thought the note was sent to her with maliciously intent and called security. The guy's first instinct was to pretend nothing happened, and it worked for a bit, as security and the exec first assumed someone spoofed his return address, because nobody could be so stupid as to send such a note from his own computer.

This is not apocryphal. My sister was actually suspected at first (by the dim-witted security detail who couldn't understand any of the technical mumbo-jumbo), as she was one of the few people with access to make such a spoof look convincing. Not sure what ever happened to the guy, but I've taken it as a great object lesson ever since on how careful you need to be with email. That said, I did just reply when I meant to forward, back to a client, no less. Thankfully, nothing as bad as any of these stories.

I suppose he's referring to me. I pointed out he had Werbach there twice and myself, well...I assumed it was an oversight. I mean, Werbach is good but...

I promise not to say thanks (were I given the chance).

A fag.

One of their weird, local effects of Sept 11 '01 was the dramatic changes it wrought on the NYC subway system. I believe to a certain the MTA used the event as an opportunity to introduce some changes they had been previously planning, like the new W and Q lines (how cool is it to have a Q line?). But other changes were certainly out of necessity, like the closure of the South Ferry Station, running directly below the WTC site.

Among those changes was one that affected me, the discontinuation of the 9 line, which runs along with the 1 right by my apartment (close enough that if our windows are open we have to turn up the TV when the trains come into the elevated 125th St. station). The 2, formerly an express along with the 3, ran for the last year as a local in Manhattan, though it continue to split off to the east at 96th St., so it never worked as a local for me.

Anyway, I'll spare you all the details in service changes. Point is, in another sign of the city's recovery a year later, the 9 is back! The expresses are once again expresses and the locals are locals. Repairs were ahead of schedule and under budget. Take that, terrorist scum!

I made some changes to the left-hand margins last night (added a few goodies for you folks to buy and make me rich thru affiliate links), and today the site is moving like molasses for me. I never know if it's my browser acting funky, my servers, Blogger, other inserted code or what. Hence, your opinion is desired:

I owe a word of thanks to some driver out there in Harlem for not opening his door in my face as I bicycled past him an hour ago.

I'll make a not-very-proud admission here: I'm the kind of NYC bicyclists I suppose pedestrians and drivers sometimes shake their fists at, or at least their heads. Outwardly, it might appear I'm a bit reckless. Three years of Manhattan biking and no accidents, so I just trust my instinct and go with it. Truth is, I feel much safer biking here than I did in San Francisco, where the cars get going much faster, constantly run red lights and generally don't share the same unspoken code with the pedestrians and bicyclists as in NY, where everybody agrees to get out of each other's way just in time, and nobody will get hurt. By comparison, South of Market on a bicycle will truly put the fear of God in you every day.

Here it's really easier to predict what everyone else is going to do, and they just expect the same of you. That's why I don't feel like such a jerk biking the way I do -- I'm really about average as recklessness goes. But that's what the drivers and pedestrians all expect from bicyclists, that's our role in the traffic flow. Everyone knows we're going to run the light if it just changed, so they simply wait for us to do it. If we stopped and let the cars that had the light go, they'd be completely confused, expecting we were going to dart in front of them just as they started to move. It's really easier for everyone's sake if we just never slow down.

Except, as I say, once in a while I push it perhaps a bit too far, jumping up on the sidewalk to avoid a delivery truck and threading thru pedestrians on their own turf. It's fine if they don't see me coming and I'm gone in a blur and thru another red light and back into traffic before they know the difference, but once in a while they'll turn and see you coming and drop their groceries or suddenly cling to their baby stroller or something. (Oh, and needless to say, I'm normally wearing headphones, too; listening exclusively to NPR, as if that made it any better.)

So I'm publicly admitting to being a cad on wheels here in hopes that coming clean somehow evens out my karma, as I just got a big favor handed to me about an hour ago. Normally, covering my own ass is my first priority, but even at that, I'm mostly just enjoying the ride. So I was zooming down 125th Street on my way back from the post office, hugging the parked cars on the right closer than I normally do because traffic is tight and narrow on that street. Suddenly, some guy in a van inches in front of me started to open his door. I was just tune out enough that I didn't notice it immediately and would certainly have had my first taste of glass and steel in that all-too-common bike accident scenario. But the guy apparently looked in his rearview mirror just in time and checked himself, sparing me dentures and plastic surgery. We made fleeting eye contact, and I think he was as alarmed as me, just better reflexes.

I turned over my shoulder and gave him a hasty thumbs up, but I'm afraid he might have thought I was flipping him off instead of thanking him. So, in the highly unlikely event that he's a Bruner Blog reader, thanks!

Back in June, I wrote about the introduction of a new comments service for webloggers called enetation, which I put on my own ExecutiveSummary.com site. Shortly afterwards, a reader wrote in with skepticism, wondering how in the post-1999 world a service like this expected to stay in business giving away all the great functionality for free. At that time, the guy who is behind the service, Rob Taylor (I had to use the Internic WhoIs to get his last name, as I couldn't find it at all on the site or in our email correspondence), responded to me, promising they were not evil spammers but just well-meaning coders (as I had expected), noting:

There will be a point where I will have to make enetation 'pay for itself', or at least not incur infinately expanding costs to run it, that is as your reader correctly points out its very 1999ish and hiding from reality if I just ignore the issue until its too late. Usually generating an income stream would be done via donations or some form of 'Pro' version for a subscription fee. However I hope to combat that by enabling users to 'donate' bandwidth and 'load balancing' the commenting system. I must state this is just an idea and an ideal at this moment, and it would be damn good if the community could 'run' its own commenting systems!

Meanwhile, I quit using the service on ExecutiveSummary.com after determining it was massively slowing down my site. I liked the feature, and a few readers have asked me to bring comments back, but I won't until I'm sure that it won't slow down the site like that again. (I'm planning to switch from Blogger to Moveable Type anyway, which I think has a comments tool.)

Anyway, the point of all this (yes, I have those, occasionally) is that reality has now caught up with enetations and it's too expensive to run for free anymore, so Rob sent out an appeal for donations to users this morning. I wish them luck. My advice: instead of "donations," just charge for the darned thing.

Elizabeth points out that Enron is having a going-out-of-business sale, auctioning off much office equipment and technology online.

From Mark. Wish I knew to whom to give credit as the creator.

I like the interactive features the NYT has been running lately on their site. Here is a nice multimedia photo series of areal shots of Ground Zero by sunset.

Who could actually get away with wearing these hilariously offensive t-shirts?

Okay, this one might not be exactly "hilarious," but check out the featured "insensitive T-shirt of the month" when you click through, and tell me that's not funny (even tho I'm too chicken to feature it here).

Still, you couldn't wear any of them out of the house, unless you were 16 years old with pierced temples. In fact, when I was about that age and John Lennon was killed, I thought it might be funny to wear a shirt that said "Happiness is a warm gun," but I thought better of it.

Don't blame me. This stuff actually happens, the press writes about it, and then Mark forwards me the stories. How can I resist? Scientists are now growing penises in laboratories. (Too bad Reuters doesn't carry pictures with these Oddly Enough pieces.)

Un-freakin-believable. I'm beyond speechless. Just plain scary. The winning number for the NY state lottery on September 11th was: 9-1-1.

I love the Romanian-born poet and essayist Andrei Codrescu, particularly for his commentaries on NPR. The sound of his voice alone is so seductive. He is also a brilliant writer and observer. Despite my aversion to the repetition of "9/11" (instead of Sept. 11th, as I've said before I would prefer we all called it), I found his poem, "9/11 (with Allen Ginsberg in mind)" very powerful when he read it on the air for the anniversary.

My favorite verse:

9/11, you were a boon to advertisers and publicists and flag manufacturers, and they sold you with cars and pizzas and they drained you of your raw primal power even as they pretended to grieve for you! Zero down payment until Doomsday!

Very compelling video clip. Quoting from AtomFilms copy:

A truly chilling example of foreshadowing, The Voice of the Prophet is an interview with Rick Rescorla, the head of security for the investment firm Morgan Stanley Dean Witter. Filmed on the 44th floor of the World Trade Center in 1998, Rescorla details the future of warfare long before Osama bin Laden became America's Most Wanted.

A retired Army colonel, veteran of combat in three wars and a survivor of the 1993 bombing of the twin towers (in which he saved the lives of hundreds of Morgan Stanley employees), Rescorla was killed in the WTC attacks of September 11, 2001. In this interview, Rescorla all but predicts the events that lead up to the September 11 attack and the war on terrorism that followed.

Thanks to John Robb for the tip.

Great, just what we need after yesterday's anniversary.

Furious wind blowing in NYC today. The Hudson is splashing up on its banks. In three years of living here, I don't remember the likes of it. Strange.

Nick was appalled when he saw me using an analog camera on the 4th of July. "How long is it going to take you to get those photos online?" Well, yes, I should have been able to get to it faster than this, but I think they're nice photos anyway, so better late than never.

FYI, that's the privacy-loving Peter on the left and Nick, in mid-blink (there wasn't even a flash), on the right.

We are all looking forward to the Gogol Bordello concert at the Knitting Factory on Sept. 22 (and 21, for that matter, I notice, which might be the better night to see them, Ildi et al, as that's the Saturday).

But here's a scoop: the very next night, Sept. 23, the Knitting Factory has another amazing line-up they're calling "Brotherhood of the Brass." It's a double bill with the Boban Markovic Orkestar, a Serbian Gypsy band hugely popular in Hungary (and familiar to anyone who's seen Emir Kusturica's films "Arizona Dream" or the outstanding "Underground" and "Black Cat, White Cat") and Frank London's Klezmer Brass (of Klezmatics/Hasidic New Wave fame). It will be a Monday night to remember.

Now all we need is to get Kultur Shock out to NY, Seattle's answer to Gogol Bordello (I've been meaning to rave about their newish album "FUCC THE I.N.S." here for a while now but haven't gotten around to it yet).

So, in the interest of full disclosure and follow up, snouts turned out to be not as appetizing as I hoped. Strange, last night I was looking so forward to eating my hot souse for breakfast that I had to fight myself not to get out of bed for a midnight snack, but somehow when I woke up, my mood had changed to foreboding. I actually ate cereal for breakfast, but screwed up my courage for snouts for lunch.

Cutting slices from the souse log revealed big white gristly hunks. As it fried up, it disintegrated into a red, pasty, snouty mess. Served it with an egg on toast. Couldn't do it. Got a couple of bites in and, while not as disgusting as, say, tripe or brains, let's just say I determined I'm not a snout man, after all.

This just in: British police nab a hamster driving at high speed on the highway. I wonder if was shouting "Arriba, arriba, andele, andele!"

(While this sounds like a Mark story, it was actually pointed out to me by Dana, who has no web site.)

Women and sports, a great combination. The fairer sex (I assume that phrase refers to complexion and not equanimity, in which case I might take issue) presently dominate U.S. spectator interest in soccer and tennis. I also love the WNBA and am sorry it doesn't get more major network airtime though glad that it appears to be surviving, at least. Even women's boxing is taking off, because, let's face it, girls fighting is cool. But women's tackle football? Who knew? Sounds awesome, except that under shoulder pads and helmets they don't look very sexy. (Crass, yes, but then I'm a marketing guy.)

I love HereinReality.com. Leigh Ann knows how to stirs the shit. She just put together a list of email addresses for 84 media commentators. Let them know what's on your mind.

One of the things I love about living in Harlem is soul food. I'm within a few blocks of one of the best and best-priced markets in NYC (things are cheaper in Harlem!), Fairway, but a couple of blocks closer and without the big hill in the way is Met, a much more neighborhoody affair, but still a reasonably good market.

One of the advantages of Met's besides being closer is products like Arnold's Hot Souse. What is it? Well, a search of the phrase Arnold's Hot Souse on Google finds only four links (none of them relevant), and I still don't have my digital camera, so I'll have to paint a picture with words. Basically, ground red stuff punctuated with gristle in a breakfast-sausage form. Chief ingredient "pork snouts." Besides snouts, it's basically just seasoning. Can't wait for breakfast!

Thanks to Cameron for this recipe. Actually sounds tasty, and it serves up to 100. Perhaps something new for Thanksgiving?

Nick answers my question: DayPop's creator, Dan Chan, is on vacation in Italy and the servers crashed and he can't debug it remotely. Ouch, indeed.

I've actually never participated in a charity race before, or any kind of organized running race for that matter, but now I just committed another $30 to run in the Let Freedom Run race in Manhattan this Saturday. No, this isn't a new mania for me, I promise, it's just that another friend, Alev, has been bugging me to sign up for this race for weeks. I was hoping it was the same one that Brent already talked me into, but no, they're separate, and this one is to benefit Sept. 11th charities. Whatever. All good causes, social opportunities and exercise, so why not. Ironically, Alev's interest in getting friends to join was to inspire her to get in shape for it, but sadly that failed to happen and she suspects she'll have trouble with one mile (it's also a four-mile race).

Meanwhile, my challenge to other NYC bloggers to help me raise pledges and run with me in the first race is off to a disappointing start. Jacob wrote back promptly and said he'd love to but then flashed the handy Jewish holiday excuse (Sukkot). Peter lamely said he'd do it only if Nick did, which he thought assured his non-participation. Nick, like Jeff, Anil and Cameron, has so far just ignored me altogether. Oh well, I tried. I guess I wouldn't have made DayPop with it in any event, what with it being broken an all.

An update: Elizabeth has, in fact, agreed to run! Yipee!

Many thanks to Nick Denton for pointing out this great feature in the New York Times on truly creative architectural approaches to Ground Zero. Check out the interactive feature, it's nicely done.I have been doing some thinking on the memorial and rebuilding and will share my own thoughts in a few days.

I've just heard it from my sources that my previous posting was alarmist and the Bulgarian disco was indeed open for business this weekend. Details.

I still haven't seen an explanation anywhere for what's up with DayPop Top 40, one of the most popular sites in the blogosphere, which has definitely been out of order for almost a week. The normally dynamically updated list has been static for days with all the links untitled.

And for some weird reason, most of the links on the frozen list point, seemingly arbitrarily, to various archived pages of one paritcular (lucky) blogger, Caterina. I dropped Caterina a note about it, and she wrote back saying she was surprised to hear it was still the case. Someone had pointed it out to her a few days ago but she assumed it would have been fixed by now. She said she's going to check her traffic logs. I'm sure she'll be pleased with what she sees.

I was looking for a running partner to enjoy the beautiful afternoon with today, and after calling a bunch of blogger and Budapester buddies, I came up dry and am about to head out alone momentarily (doing a brilliant job procrastinating a client deadline). But first, I let Brent talk me into registering for a charity run in a few weeks (Sept. 22), Race to Deliver. It's organized by the NY Road Runners club and benefits God's Love We Deliver. I'd never heard of the charity and am an irreligious person, but I see they deliver food to people ill with AIDS. That's certainly a cause I can get behind, and refreshingly it has nothing to do with Sept. 11 and is probably hurting financially because of that. So I pledged the standard $20 and am in for the race. I'm not really a competitive runner, but it's only four miles and a good cause, so what the heck.

The event also seeks pledges from other contributors for the runner of their choice, so I figure I'd put out the appeal on the blog. (Note: this is not a wagering event. I do not plan to win.) Sadly, I see their process is quite old-fashioned. You have to send me a check payable to "God's Love We Deliver" (my mailing address (a Mailboxes Etc., for all you wackos) is Rick Bruner, 2840 Broadway #148, NY, NY 10025). The race isn't till Sept. 22, so you have plenty of time to get those checks in, if you write it now! (Of course, if they had their act together, they'd have a PayPal account where folks can pledge for a friend, but sadly they're not switched on enough to target the blogger demographic.)

BTW, you're allowed to form teams. Nick, Peter, Anil, Elizabeth, Jeff, Jacob, Cameron, et al, shouldn't we form a bloggers team? We could all wear NYC Bloggers T-Shirts with our URLs on the back. Or, maybe not... We certainly won't win, place or show, but we could probably all finish, and with our combined Net savvy, we could probably set up our own PayPal account for pledges and drive quite a lot of charitable contributions. We could even bring digital cameras and wi-fi devices have up-to-the-minute coverage. :-)

I throw down the gauntlet. Are we more than just post-irony, neo-snarky geeks and weenies? Are we not men and women of even this much good character and ability? Are we not, in some post-Sept. 11th way, little tiny everyday heroes ourselves? We can do more than go to the theatre and buy new SUVs to do our part. Are we not Devo? D.E.V.O.?

I like California. I really do. (Sort of.) But I share Jeff Jarvis's anger with people (many from that state, in his round-up on the subject) who deny us the moral right to feel bad about September 11 because it doesn't measure up to AIDS or famine in Africa or whatever. It isn't a contest. What happened a year ago was bad, and reflecting thoughfully about it is necessary and good.

Steamroller wins.

Source: BoingBoing

I'm way behind in reporting on it, but you're probably not hip to it anyway (unless I've made a regular of you), but Round 3 took place earlier this summer in Michael Sippey and Leslie Harpold's "Click to Add Title" PowerPoint user competition. I have to say, I'd go with the tie they awarded themselves. Frankly, they were both good but they could have been even better.

I wish they had collaborated on this one and used more multimedia. Both motiffs are quite similar already, although Leslie takes a narrower view of beauty focusing mainly on works of art, while Michael finds beauty in the Constitution, Moby Dick and Elvis Presley, but unfortunately he limits himself to text. The beauty of Elvis was in his delivery, his singing and performance, but not in his lyrics that were quoted. PowerPoint has sound and video -- why hold back?

Worth the five-minute diversion in any event.

Incredible. Peter Maass points out a Washington Post story about the game show winner who was selected to sing the national anthem at the Lincoln Memorial September 11th celebration. This is the kind of stuff that leaves my non-America wife's jaw hanging slack about our culture.

Adrienne spends much of her free time these days giggling in front of the computer monitor at the antics of the Big Brother Reality TV household -- in Hungary. Adi and I actually sort of got into the series for the first year here in America but quickly lost interest with the subsequent Big Brother groups, along with most other "reality" shows. But she says the Hungarian approach to it is fun again in how different it is.

Since I don't really read Hungarian (not well, anyway), I don't bother trying to follow it myself, but the main difference seems to be they're a lot more upfront with sex on the Hungarian show. For anyone who knows Hungarians, this is hardly surprising. The show doesn't have an official site at the moment, as it was crushed by visitor demand at the September 1 launch of the show, and hasn't come back online since. But there is a popular blog following the show.

You don't have to speak Hungarian to enjoy the pictures (look down on the righthand margin for "KÉPGALÉRIÁK"). The show has only been on the air for a few days so far, and already the girls are letting the boys help them shave their privates (I'm not making this up). National TV. Different than America.

Mark points out this story of a restaurant in Berlin run by a society for the blind that has sighted diners eating in pitch blackness so that they must rely on their other senses to experience the unnamed meal they are served. Mark notes: "I guess this place doesn't have to worry much about presentation of the food."

I'm pleased to introduce the Liblog, product of Libby Communications. More on my friend David Libby, his PR firm and his new blog on ExecutiveSummary.com. (Perhaps he'll even register me as Dad at BlogTree, hint, hint.)

What's up with DayPop? It's popular Top 40 feature appears to be on the fritz for the last couple of days. All links are "untitled," with no verticle line charts and the links appear rather random. I suppose other people have already been pointing this out and I just haven't noticed.

I suggest that bloggers start a "Fuck Hostcentric" campaign after I read this story about the Hostcentric webhosting firm closing down the site of their infamous client FuckedCompany.com for two days under pressure from Ford Motor Company that didn't like FuckedCompany's style of satire.

Let's be clear: that's censorship. The point in question was clearly paradoy, not trademark infringement, as Ford's weenie l