We saw Dennis Cleveland last night. This is the excellent opera — but not a Puccini-type opera — by Mikel Rouse that many of my friends have heard me rave about after it was done at The Kitchen a few years ago. Here’s more info including a link to a video clip. I don’t think the sound is that great on the video clip.

I think I liked it more at The Kitchen — cooler crowd than at something sponsored by Lincoln center, but I still highly recommend going. You’re not going to see a work like this very often.

Here are a couple of MP3s from the CD:

Soul Train
Beautiful Murders

Check it out! Put an address in MapQuest and you can now get aerial photos of the area, such as… Chelsea Gardens

Lovely — the site of last weeks’s explosion 3 blocks from here has been declared a toxic waste site.

Read the page for my friend Misa’s Fragile Art project. Maybe you’ve seen the posters like this on the streets?

Here are some locations from her most recent e-mail update:

• 14 St (btw Broadway & 7 St, south & north sides of sidewalk’s light poles)
  
• University Place (close to 14 St)
  
• University Place & 8 St
  
• Williamsburg (Bedford Ave, btw N7 St & Grand St)
  
• Brooklyn Museum, construction board
  
• Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn (Fulton St, btw Washington Ave & New York Ave)
  
• Soho/ Wooster St (btw Houston St & Canal St)
  
• Greene St (btw Houston St & Broome St)
  
• Broadway W btw 116 st & 71 St (east sidewalk</p>

Here’s a nice essay on homos at the Friends of Palestine march across the Brooklyn Bridge about a week ago, including a discussion of non-violence and the role of internationals, including the gay community, in bringing down apartheid in South Africa.

A Clinton talk show may be in the works…

I just got back from lunch at The Odeon with James, Scott, and Andy — too much wine so this won’t be eloquent. Andy asked me why I started doing a blog apart from my current, more “public” web presence, and I think it’s because of what David Drake referred to as “free floating rage”. I started with shoulderchip rather than this page, because I had some things to say about the way the world is being run today.

A little bit of shoulderchip is about the Middle East, but a lot of it is about the theocracy that America has become. The current administration didn’t even win a majority, and they’re acting as if they got 90% of the vote. They don’t care what people think. All they have to say is that this is a war to protect our civilization, and the sheep that pass for the media and the public say, “OK”.

As Choire says — what should we be doing? I don’t post to shoulderchip that often these days, because I’m feeling pretty apathetic about changing anything. I was never a great activist, but I feel really impotent these days.

So what’s the answer?

Men’s Cookie exchanges — a trend?

Wow – at the rate the world is moving, the USA will have more in common with autocracies/theocracies in the Middle East than the rest of the West:

Police back softer line on drug users

Police chiefs say they would have a better chance of winning the war on drugs if addicts were given treatment instead of punishment.

The Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) also believes it would be better to adopt a more relaxed stance towards people caught with small amounts of cannabis.

ACPO unveiled its proposals in a report, carried out by its influential drugs committee, saying in some circumstances, treatment should be considered instead of prosecution.

The new issue of Free Willamsburg is now out, including Gay Williamsburg, Part Two. Luxx has a $4 coat check?!