From the Too-Weird-To-Be-Believed-But-Not-For-The-Cold-War Dep't.:

In a project known as “Acoustic Kitty” the Directorate of Science and Technology sought to train a surgically altered cat, wired with transmitting and control devices, to become a mobile, eavesdropping platform. In its first test, the cat was run over by a taxi.

According to Victor Marchetti:

they slit the cat open, put batteries in him, wired him up. The tail was used as an antenna. They made a monstrosity. They tested him and tested him. They found he would walk off the job when he got hungry, so they put another wire in to override that. Finally, they’re ready. They took it out to a park bench and said “Listen to those two guys. Don’t listen to anything else – not the birds, no cat or dog – just those two guys!” ... They put him out of the van, and a taxi comes and runs him over. There they were, sitting in the van with all those dials, and the cat was dead!

This heavily redacted memo appears to express the view that cats can be altered and trained to perform certain tasks. At the same time, it notes that “the environment and security factors in using this technique in a real foreign situation force us to conclude that, for our [intelligence] purposes, it would not be practical.”

Here's a couple of entries I wrote back when the Gernlog was broken. First, this one from October 26, 2002:

I went to see Michael Chabon read his new "young adults" book, Summerland, a few weeks ago. I had never had time to actually read Chabon's work before, though I was somewhat surprised to learn (or relearn, as I'm sure I knew it in the past, I just didn't associate "that" Michael Chabon with the one I'd been hearing about so much recently) that he had written Wonder Boys, which later became an interesting movie starring Michael Douglas. More recenly, he won a Pulitzer for The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, loosely based on the lives of Siegel and Schuster, creators of Superman.

Anyway... He read from Summerland, and I became entranced. I've never read any of his work up to this point, but I am definitely going to now. His prose was effortless... Or it seemed that way while he was reading it. I'm sure it took considerable effort to arrive there. (At least, I hope it did, or I'm going to be very jealous.) He said after the reading that he'd had the idea to do the book, and had in fact started writing it, before the whole Harry Potter phenomenon took hold. He spoke of some chagrin that it was now in fashion for "grownup" writers to do their children's book, but he also said that it made it quite a bit easier for him to get the book accepted by his editors.

But the thing is, it really didn't sound like a children's book to me. It certainly could be enjoyed by younger readers, but the section he read sounds to me like it was a "grownup" book that just happened to be about a child. (He later revealed that he had consciously avoided bigger words to make it digestible by the kids. But he sure had long enough sentences!)

And speaking of readings, tonight, I had to head downtown to pick up an application and also to see about Porcupine Tree tickets, I headed down to Powell's (the massive bookstore where I saw Chabon read) to look around. I heard them announce a reading upstairs, but couldn't tell for who, but I went anyway. I was leased and surprised to find it was Jeffrey Eugenides, who is most famous for writing The Virgin Suicides.

He read two excepts from his new book, Middlesex. One was a humorous section, about the baptism of the main character, who happens to be a hermaphrodite. (Sorry! Intersexed!) And he read another section, detailing her grandfather's working for Ford, producing Model T's. The second section was more about rhythm and detail, and frankly, it bored me. I could appreciate the level of research that he must have had to do, but it really just seemed to go on and on, and I couldn't care less about cars, so talking about camshafts just makes my eyes glaze over.

Anyway, he spoke very thoughtfully about where the idea for book came from, what kind of research he did, and how it related to his childhood. (The main character is Greek, as is, obviously, Eugenides.) It was all very interesting to me, this peek inside the life of a novelist, but during the Q&A, it quickly became clear that there was a very vocal contingent of people who wanted to politicize the event. (I even sighted some people with "So you want to know more about Hermaphrodites" pamphlets that I must have avoided being handed by taking an indirect route to the reading.)

One woman (I think) asked him why he used the term hermaphrodite instead of the more (I guess) politically correct term, intersexed, and he explained that he had very specific, well thought-out reasons for doing so. It had to do with the term being of Greek origin, and also he wasn't trying to make a universal statement, just talk about this one character's experience. But this wasn't enough for these people. They obviously had a bone to pick, and refused to see past it. Eugenides quite clearly had had run-ins with hermaphrodite groups, some easily more pleasant than this encounter, and he looked rather tired of the whole fuss. I almost asked him if he had any regrets about the subject matter, but I probably would have been mauled.

He was very patient, and explained everything clearly, and I could sense the audience getting restless. Still, it wasn't an ugly encounter, just odd. People kept asking questions that were longer than chapters in the book that half the audience couldn't hear. It was just... weird.

I think they'd do more for their cause if they loosened up a little and showed their contingent as real human beings and not so wound-up. (I think that's good advice for any political group...)

Interestingly, the book is called Middlesex, which comes from Eugenides' childhood, actually. He had been searching for a title for the book, which is set in his hometown of Gross Point, Michigan, and midway through the book, he recalled that the street he grew up on was a perfect title. "It was staring me in the face the whole time."

And this one from November 22, 2002:

To paraphrase Twain, "Man! I feel like a woman!"

No, wait. Wrong Twain. Oh, right: Rumors of my vacation were greatly exaggerated.

See, so I was supposed to go to Cancun (Mexico) for my brother's wedding this weekend. I was already ticked off because he had originally said February or March for the date, but suddenly, in August, he and his fiancee decided to hold it in November.

Now if they'd gotten married in, say, Arizona (where they live at the moment), it would have been no big deal. But for some reason, they insisted upon this resort in Cancun, and they insisted we used this travel agent who turned out to be a real bitch. I suspect she's getting more than her usual cut for getting them to this resort. But that's neither here nor there.

To travel to Mexico, you need a passport or a birth certificate. Actually, that's not true, you need those to get back in (plus a picture ID, but who doesn't have one of those?). My parents only had my hospital-issued birth certificate, and they or state one, but it didn't arrive in time. And passports take a while to process.

To top it all off, I've had this low-level flu all week that I became convinced was going to get really sick either on the plane, or at the resort, making my return trip much more complicated. And I already have flight anxiety, so this wasn't helping. Last night, I got about two hours of sleep before I finally called my brother in a near panic about all these things refusing to quit running around in circles in my brain.

So I go to the airport after spending all day preparing and packing and trying not to freak out because my stomach is still bothering me. And I've finally come to terms with having to do this regardless of my condition, you know, for my brother, even though he's a dink for not giving us more time. (He's been with this woman for four years. They're living together, have a house together, her daughter calls him Daddy... they're married in all but the legal sense already.)

But the girl at the counter gives me this deflated look when she sees me pull out the hospital-issued birth certificate I have. And it quickly becomes clear that this isn't going to work. I'm not sure if there are new legal issues after Sept. 11, but I don't think she would even let me go there if I couldn't get back in. My only option is to wait until the notary public opens (it was 5 AM when I got to the counter), and get a letter of some sort, but by then all the other flights were booked.

Basically, I'm (as the Brits say) fooked.

But the plus side is, now I can go the Porcupine Tree concert this weekend. Unless, you know, they sold out. But what are the odds of that?

At least there will be plenty of pictures.

Oh, and I guess I can still get a partial refund for my ticket too. The ticket was 700 bucks, but I can get all but 100 of that back, I guess, towards another ticket.

Update: The Porcupine Tree concert was cancelled. The singer got the flu, the utility guitarist's father passed away, and the venue was tiny. Ah well.

My downstairs neighbor has the worst taste in music. Currently he's blasting Abracadabra by Steve Miller. And I mean blasting. He's using some sort of home theater system, I'm certain, to play music from Totally 80s at levels that ensure that everyone within a block knows what he's listening to.

Personally, I can't decide whether I'm more ashamed for him and his taste, or for me for knowing the song just from the bassline.

Every time I find myself wishing I knew more of my neighbors, I am reminded of the one downstairs' listening habits, and the time my next door neighbor decided that a proper response to the loud music was to scream threats and obscenities out her window. (I'm pretty sure she's moved out now though.)

...

Okay, now he's playing LOVERBOY. Kill me.

From the Time-to-Buy-a-Dictionary Dept., concerning a new ad for Metamucil:

The National Park Service is fuming over a commercial in which a park ranger pours a glass of Metamucil into Old Faithful in Yellowstone National Park to help the geyser stay regular.

Park Service officials scoff at the notion the famous geyser would ever need help, and point out the damage that can be caused by dumping things into the park's thermal features — not to mention that venturing near geysers and hot springs is often very dangerous.

"It suggests that it's OK to pour some substance into a thermal feature," Park Service spokesman Al Nash said. "We've spent decades trying to educate visitors about the fact that it's harmful to the feature and that it's dangerous for anyone to take an action like that."

Metamucil's manufacturer, Procter & Gamble Co., suggests Old Faithful's guardians lighten up a bit.

"It was pretty over the top," said Greg Allgood, associate director of the company's Health Sciences Institute. "Anybody would get it. It was a joke."

Allgood has proposed resolving the dispute by adding subtext to the commercial that says all Yellowstone visitors should obey the park rules.

So... they now hint that the man is gay? Why would that make the Park Service happy?

Now, to honor the death of the inventor of the jackalope, I'd like to request that everyone in the audience say the following: "Dude, check out this postcard!"

Now really... aren't these airline safety regulations going too far?

Huh. This thing works again.

Thanks, Dave!