Yes, I know I’ve been among the absent. Two reasons:

1. I’ve been busy. Truly.


2. I’m so disheartened by this Fall’s elections that I scarcely know where to begin, and (relatedly)


3. I’m talking to some interesting people about some interesting jobs, and the last thing I want to do is blog myself out of employment. I wrote in 1995 about a friend who broke off a budding relationship because she didn’t like what she saw about the guy in question on Altavista; this is a lesson I take to heart.

Nonetheless, there’s some stuff worth writing about and pointing out. It follows.

 

 debacle ð \dee-BAH-kul or dee-BACK-ul\ ð (noun)
1 : a tumultuous breakup of ice in a river
2 : a violent disruption (as of an army) : rout
3 a : a great disaster *b : a complete failure : fiasco

I’m sure the timing was a coincidence, and had nothing at all to do with Tuesday’s events.

 

Something very odd and disturbing is going on near my old stomping grounds….

 

They were filming a movie over on the next block last night: Mona Lisa Smile, it’s called. Looks like a chick flick. It’s apparently scheduled for release this time next year.

A flyer from the production company said they were doing one scene: a woman walking down a rainy 1950s street and going into a building. It was about 40 degrees and windy last night. I wouldn’t have wanted to be out in the rain, fake or otherwise. Trailers took over parking places for about two or three blocks surrounding the set, and the entire block where they were shooting was blocked off.

The last major film to be made around here was Two Weeks Notice, coming to a multiplex near you next month. That one took over the Fulton Ferry landing for most of a week; apparently there’s a big party scene with Manhattan and the Brooklyn Bridge in the background. Most production companies are good about telling location residents what they’re up to and how long they’ll be up to it. This one didn’t, and there were lots of steamed neighbors and tourists. Also a lot of disappointed Asian newlyweds, a steady stream of whom get wedding pictures taken at Fulton Ferry.

 

Sometimes, the speed of global commerce takes my breath away.

IBM just replaced a hard drive for me under warranty. (IBM’s warranty service, by the way, is a thing of beauty.) I shipped them the busted drive around the 10th of this month; the replacement arrived today. It’s a remanufactured unit, not unusual for a warranty replacement. It was re-built earlier this month in Hungary, and found its way to Brooklyn by way of Malaysia and Union City, California.

Best I can tell, the drive left Asia on the 16th — two days after IBM got the defective unit. And remember, cargo still isn’t moving off the West Coast very easily these days.

When I was Deputy Editor of Time Digital about four years ago, I tried to order up an infographic map illustrating the delicate global supply web that results in the delivery of a home PC, pinpointing the most vulnerable links. Reporters there rejected the idea, saying it was just too much work. Slackers. It’d make a hell of a piece.

 

Microsoft chose New York City to launch the new version of its online service, MSN 8.0. Lucky us.

As part of its campaign, Microsoft has plastered its MSN butterfly logo all over town, in places where it most assuredly doesn’t belong. (They’ve also taken an immense online media buy, featuring a figure who looks remarkably — and probably accidentally — like Arthur, the Tick‘s accountant sidekick. OK, so Arthur’s technically a moth. So what?)

The timing was not good. Two days previously, the city had scraped off Nike decals that appeared around town. Last year, IBM’s “Peace Love Linux” campaign mysteriously appeared on sidewalks all over the place. That one, at least, was chalk and lasted only until the next rain.

A flak for Waggner Edstrom insisted to a NYTimes reporter that the company had a permit to deface the city, but could/would not produce it or name the agency that issued it. New York being New York, I’d bet that WagEd paid some money to someone who said they could help but was just making it up. Just another rube in the Big City.

From the Times (whose web site is carrying a ton of MSN ads, by the way):

“This is nothing more than corporate graffiti,” said Vanessa Gruen, director of special projects for the Municipal Art Society, a civic organization that has long battled commercialization of public space. “It’s no better than all those kids out there tagging subway cars.”

And no more legal, city officials said.

Microsoft was fined … (wait for it) … $50. So it’s symbolic. Given that Microsoft has $40 billion in the bank, it’s hard to imagine an amount that wouldn’t be symbolic. And the last thing the city would want to do would be to fine Microsoft enough to engage it in a lawsuit.

 

Dan Gillmor of the Merc has an excellent interview with Mitch Kapor about his new software venture. Apparently Andy Hertzfeld, one of the original Mac programmers and one of the brains behind the innovative General Magic user interface, is on board.

This promises to be extremely interesting.

 

Three in the afternoon is an unpredictable time in the New York City subway. Your train may come quickly, and it may be empty. Or you might wait forever and get caught in a maelstrom of high-spirited high-energy newly liberated school kids. (Subway crime spikes in the later afternoon, by the way.)

Or you may ride with a clown.

He got on the southbound N train at Union Square. Middle height, well-worn black leather clown shoes, big red nose, heavyset (though it was hard to tell from his loose purple pink and green suit), carrying a black nylon gym bag and slightly shabby miniature violin case, patched with bright blue duct tape. His bald cap had a fringe of orange hair a couple of shades dingier than Lucille Ball’s, and contrasted with the two teenaged girls seated nearby — one with vibrant blue hair, the other with green.

A bunch of kids on the platform at Union Square tapped on the train’s window before it pulled out, hoping to get a reaction. The clown turned briefly toward them, then faced forward, his face blank, like any other subway rider. Just another guy in worn makeup coming home from a gig. He didn’t look at his watch, if he wore one. He didn’t nap or close his eyes. He didn’t read a newspaper. He didn’t panhandle. He didn’t clown, and no one (except for the kids on that one platform) tried to engage him. He just … rode.

I got off four stops later at City Hall, regretting that I didn’t have time to track him any further. Just another mystery of New York.

 

Techophiles of a certain age will well remember Mitch Kapor. Founder of Lotus Development Corporation, and chief visionary and/or author of such groundbreaking software as Lotus 1-2-3, Improv, Manuscript and Agenda.

Mitch — an interesting guy beyond the software business — was out of Lotus well before IBM bought it. He spent some time on the beach, and some more as a venture capitalist.

Now Kapor is apparently getting back into the game, building an open-source personal information manager for small-to mid-sized businesses. Oh yes — it’ll run under the Windows, Mac and Linux operating systems.

There’s a ton that’s wrong with the software business today (a subject for a different and longer post some other time), but it’s mighty encouraging to see people like Mitch Kapor and Dave Winer finding the fertile ground between Microsoft’s redwoods.

 

Mallomars are back.

This may not be much of a deal to you. But Nabisco keeps Mallomars off the market during the summer because it’s impossible to keep the dark chocolate cladding from melting. Rather than changing the formulation to the detrement of the cookie’s perfectly balanced taste and texture, Nabisco just takes the summer off.

But when the weather cools, the familiar screaming yellow sealed box shows up on shelves, sure as the robins show up in the spring, sure as the swallows return to Capistrano, sure as the buzzards come back to Hinkley.

Other bakeries make biscuits with graham crackers, marshmallows and chocolate; the BBC, of all places, has produced a neat taxonomy of them. (And I didn’t realize that New York City eats 70 percent of all Mallomars.) I’ve tried some of the pretenders, and I really ought to search out Moon Pies for a re-taste. But all others just pale.