Week 59

12.16.02

This is a really funny comic if you've never met Brian Eno. You would think from his ambient music that he's a weird, otherworldly New Ager.

http://www.studio-nibble.com/desktoppers/
014-brian-eno.jpg

In person he's urbane, fully-briefed and tightly focussed. Check the pic on this page that says "2001, wearing glasses." That's Professor Eno. If I had my way, he'd be Minister of Culture for the United States of Europe.

http://music.hyperreal.org/artists/brian_eno/

One of the best artists' diaries ever.

http://www.thecityreview.com/eno.htm

12.17.02

Oh man, you know you're in for some heavy action when Salman Rushdie says it's been "quite a week in the wonderful world of Islam."

http://www.iranian.com/Opinion/2002/
November/Rushdie/index.html

12.18.02

In the spirit of free speech and free enterprise, a start-up Indian website named "Tehelka" videotaped a whole bunch of Indian politicians cheerfully taking bribes. Then they outed them on the Internet to the whole wide world. Sunlight is the best disinfectant, right?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/
1220044.stm

It took the Establishment a while, but they've crushed Tehelka.

http://www.transparency.org/cgi-bin/
dcn-read.pl?citID=50940

12.19.02

Tired of being spied on by concealed videocams? Why not wear one yourself?

http://wearcam.org/domewear/

12.20.02

I'm a big Albert Robida fan. For me he ranks with Jules Verne. Awesome steampunk Walkmans here.

http://www.hidden-knowledge.com/titles/
contesbib/lafin/lafindeslivres.html

Kinda cheery to realize that the imminent death of books at the hands of multimedia was extensively predicted in 1895.

Bruce Sterling writes books like Darwin watched animals. Find out more about him, and read tattered electronic copies of Cheap Truth, at the Bruce Sterling Online Index. He lives with his wife Nancy and their two daughters in Austin, Texas.