Here's a neat article from the Village Voice on Alex Ross whose painted comic book art can be seen in the stunning graphic novel Kingdom Come and other comic book projects. He contributed an original painting of Uncle Sam for the article.

I checked out Kurt Vonnegut's Bagombo Snuff Box from the local library yesterday and ran across this interesting piece about fiction writing. As some of you might know, Vonnegut taught creative writing for a time before he achieved the financial security his later novels would bring him. This is his list of 8 rules for creative writing:

Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.

Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.

Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.

Every sentence must do one of two things--reveal character or advance the action.

Start as close to the end as possible.

Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them--in order that the reader may see what they are made of.

Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.

Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

© image and content by Kurt Vonnegut

Last night on Charlie Rose, Gore Vidal spoke about his new book and the general topic of American Government and American Society. His conclusion, which shocked Rose, is that there is nothing happening in American society or government which he sees as good or hopeful. He regards the present administration as absolutely corrupt and charting a course completely opposed to the interests of the people of the United States.

It is hard to argue against this when the Bush administration has slashed funding for environmental programs, ignored the economy, education, and the elderly, and pushed a war that he has so far been unable to justify in the eyes of many thinking Americans. Meanwhile the Halliburton Corportation, a company with close ties to the Bush administration, is making millions "rebuilding" Iraq.

So here is a quote from Benjamin Franklin whom Vidal spoke of at length last night:

"Sir, I agree to this Constitution, with all its Faults, if they are such; because I think a General Government necessary for us, and there is no Form of Government but what may be a Blessing to the People if well administered; and I believe farther that this is likely to be well administered for a Course of Years, and can only end in Despotism as other Forms have done before it, when the People shall become so corrupted as to need Despotic Government, being incapable of any other."

(from Benjamin Franklin's Final Speech In the Constitutional Convention )

Two articles which speak to this topic can be found here and here.

Holoscan has been added to the blog. Just click on the comment link underneath any entry to share your thoughts...

This is a classic photograph by Diane Arbus. It was taken in 1962 in Central Park and I thought it might be appropriate for the times. You can see more photographs by Diane Arbus here.

An interesting experimental XML/VML page can be found here. The code for the page came from Javascript.Com

I found this on one of the blogs I visit. You can see a whole series of similar paintings by the artist, Timothy Cummings, here.

Testing for the new high energy blog. The blog will explore links and news about politics, the internet and web pages, images, coding, pop culture, etc. The link boxes at the top are an assortment of blogs, some political, some technical, some artistic. Contact at: headsfromspace at yahoo dot com

leonid meteor shower and a lunar eclipse (as seen on apod).