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

John Brockman’s in town to talk about his latest book, What We Believe But Cannot Prove, at a
Harvard Bookstore event.* Some of the many people whose unproved beliefs he included will also be there–the press release mentions Daniel C. Dennett, Daniel Gilbert, Marc D. Hauser, Elizabeth Spelke and Seth Lloyd.

I first heard about John in the early 1980s, as the go-to agent for popular science books. But being a literary agent and collecting smart people for his varied salons are just sidelines, in my opinion, to John’s real calling, being Tom Sawyer. Instead of recruiting help for whitewashing a fence, John wants to get smart people to talk and argue and make some kind of collegial sense of the universe. (Dave Winer casts a wider net, but with similar goals.)

John also seems to know everyone on the planet. A recent Guardian article has a photo of John with Bob Dylan and Andy Warhol, but that’s just a tiny, tiny, tiny fraction. Meeting him in 1982, I was showing up very late to a long and varied party.

John’s partner Katinka Matson is doing some amazing art photography–not with a camera, but with a flatbed scanner.

Wednesday’s discussion group should be pretty exciting; I recommend it!

* Wednesday, April 12, at 6:30 p.m. in Longfellow Hall.

I don’t see why Pittsburgh’s Sheraton Square “Rare” restaurant doesn’t quit calling itself a steakhouse and start calling itself a cotton candy house.

Pink cotton candy overflowing a great big glass vase.

I’m just sorry I ate so much dinner before I saw it.

Wait until The Smoking Gun findeth this:

ORDLIE AND ROYALE DOWNTIME REQUIREMENTZ FOR OURE TRESPUISSANT SOVEREYNE RICHARD BY THE GRACE OF GOD KYNGE OF ENGELONDE AND FRAUNCE AND LORDE OF IRELAUNDE

I. CHAMBRE

ITEM. the kynges chambre shal be adorned wyth tapestries depictinge the supremacye of kynge over subjectes by meanes of subtyl and lernede allegorie…

ITEM. the followinge victuals and beverages shal be available at alle houres:
-oystres yn gravy
-henne yn broth
-capone fryede in manere kentuckie, XIV pieces…

(Alle manere thankes to Rebecca Blood for hir linke!)

Thoughts of spring, from New Hampshire…

Elsewhere on my blogroll:

• Three beach chairs for Niek, Reality, and Myth
• Dave Winer on RSS: “What matters is adoption and forward motion.”
• Renee says she and Halley might start a tag-team to help (male) techies improve their dating skills. That would be fun to watch…
• A very happy blog-birthday to Susan Mernit–or should I take out an ad on Yahoo! Personals?

Today, my fingers longed to be typing up blogposts about the people and ideas and adventures of SXSW. Instead, I’ve spent the day packing for a trip trailing Frank to a totally different space–St. Thomas in the US Virgin Islands. (I hope I made that sound pretty tough…)

Web connectivity there is dubious, I’m afraid, so I’m leaving my computer at home this week.

And, to misquote Willie Nelson, my mistranslation of a favorite song

On the road still,
like a band of the gipsies, we descend the road.
We are best friends, insistent on the fact that the world is turnin ‘ our manner,
and our manner:

Is on the road still:
Just cannot wait to still obtain on the road.
The love of life I is music of makin ‘ with my friends,
and I then not to wait to still obtain on the road.

Back soon–if I get on the web I’ll send some photos to Flickr. Or check out some of the great blogs on my blogroll…

And read Renee Blodgett’s blog, Down the Avenue: excellent sample, her account of Dooce meets Kottke at SXSW.

via Ole Eichorn, here’s Hubble’s view of the spiral galaxy aka M101..

…and that’s not the only good news to come out of the NSF’s recent tasty-sounding Cocoa Conference.

Chocolate-loving inhabitants of Panama (Kuna island-dwellers drink 5 cups of cocoa a day) seem to be protected from cancer and heart disease by the very high levels of flavonols in their cocoa. Sadly, most of these flavonols are lost in the process of making commercial chocolate. But Mars Inc. is experimenting with a new pro-cocoa product that may fulfill the hot-fudge prediction in Woody Allen’s Sleeper.*

Five cups of cocoa a day? I’m not sure that even I want to be that healthy…

Two future doctors are puzzled by “ancient” health foods:

Dr. Melik: … wheat germ, organic honey and… tiger’s milk?

Dr. Aragon: Oh, yes. Those are the charmed substances that some years ago were thought to contain life-preserving properties.

Dr. Melik: You mean there was no deep fat? No steak or cream pies or… hot fudge?

Dr. Aragon: [chuckling] Those were thought to be unhealthy… precisely the opposite of what we now know to be true.

Tip for cabin fever: a tower of tippable teddy bears from the Netherlands…and thanks to MontaukRider for sending them to me!

And I’ve got even more linkadelic links:

• From Shutterclog Niek, Sun rising and setting over the globe
• Even more from the Netherlands–a contest for latte swirlies?
• Dive right into the work of this sidewalk chalk guy
• God spoke two words to a television preacher–unbelievably, those words were “Millionaire potential.”

Julie and Ted Leung’s laptops were stolen

Sad story, great blogpost. Among minor losses: her blogroll. Leave your URL in the comments if you were on it.

Chris Bliss can juggle and the Beatles can sing…

Ballplay as percussion, the naked passion of geekery, and other stuff you never knew could make “Golden Slumbers” better–thanks to Dervala for the link!

SXSW Interactive just put schedule info online

Shortlist recs: tagging, creating passionate users, more tagging, and bloggers in love!

David Weinberger has a tag line for Boston…

“And what did you get on your SAT’s?”