Betsy Devine: Funny ha-ha and/or funny peculiar

I am an addicted amateur advice-giver. Just ask me–or don’t even ask me–about anything I know, however slightly. The best restaurant in Cambridge, MA (Temple Bar). The most amazing sight on a cross-country car trip (Arizona Meteor Crater). The coolest museum in Los Angeles (Museum of Jurassic Technology).

And now for some meta-advice: Do not trust advisors. We may just be preening, we may not value the trade-offs in any decision the same way you do, we may even be mistaken.

So does that mean each generation must reinvent the wheel? No. Find people who have the outcome you hope for and ask them how they got there. For example, if you want to raise kids, find somebody whose kids you really like and ask how the family worked. Repeat until satisfied.

I think that covers it, don’t you? Meta-advice not to take advice, even mine–followed by my advice. Hmmmm.

Why should credit card victims do all the cyberbegging? I too have something I really, really want:

• If you intelligently oppose war with Iraq: Would you please send a civil e-mail to some pro-war blogger.
• If you intelligently support war with Iraq: Would you please send a civil e-mail to some anti-war blogger.

In either case, I am cyberbegging you to point out in a civil way that you would like that blog to work toward convincing you its POV is right–but not by accusing you of moronic villainy. Promise that you, in your turn, will give them credit for being decent, intelligent people–although they disagree with what you believe so strongly.

On both sides of the Bush-and-Iraq divide, intelligent and kind people are being pushed further apart by angry folks full of abuse, devoid of ideas. We all have to live together on this little planet, and hating each other helps nobody.

Disclosure: War on Iraq does not meet my private criterion for war, which is, “Are the government’s goals so vital, and is warfare so clearly the only path to these goals, that I would willingly give my own life to this effort?”

But my POV is irrelevant to my cyberbegging goal. Won’t you help? Please tell me if you did.

The teenage dream world of 50s sci-fi art now seems as far away and idyllic as Rivendell. Visit Terry Gibbons’s project Visco to see

“…a visual catalogue of the cover art of the science fiction, fantasy, weird and horror fiction magazines from the early twentieth century to the present day.

This is the landscape of Spielberg’s boyhood dreams–jagged lunar peaks under purple skies, heroes whose space helmets look like inverted fishbowls, space villainnesses in see-through veils or pasties, bubblicious space ships in every crayola color. I especially liked this grumpy but somehow likeable monster from the first issue of Amazing Stories.

Thanks to Gary Farber for this link, as well as for his inspiring list of quotes. My favorite, from Sidney Hooke:

“Before impugning an opponent’s motives, even when they legitimately may be impugned, answer his arguments.”

Did you get the memo? Irony is over.

And besides, this is Valentine’s Day.

So, let me un-ironically direct you to the world’s most beautiful website, showing the work of Vienna photographer Linda Kim Davies. Her specialty is sepia-photographs of the beautiful Viennese “caryatids–architectural columns that look like classically draped or undraped women.

Okay, I hear you saying, “Who wants to look at beautiful women’s breasts?” But the musical background is hypnotically lovely, a loop of Phillip Glass piano music, (and IMO Phillip Glass was born to write looped Flash music) probably played by Linda’s husband, conductor Dennis Russell Davies.

So get over there–click on “Images” or “Invocation”. Click on “Essays,” and you can download Diane Shooman’s scholarly essay on caryatids, “Sex with the City.” And have a great day.

• Scientists have discovered why the folks we love smell so darn good.(Thanks to Google News)
• Oooooo! Steve, the super-villain from Linux.
  (Thanks to Dan Berlinger)
• The new, international dog translation device.
  (Hey, don’t you always check out Mike Magee’s Inquirer?)