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Saturday, April 30, 2005

April

I've been too busy to blog since Monday. The end of semester crunch at the university always takes its toll on me. It's not too bad, just very hectic.

This morning I fired up Blogger because I felt obliged to say that I'm quite touched by two mentions in other people's blogs about the one year anniversary of my blog. Robert Micallef marked the occasion as one of two entries on Monday. And yesterday Mark Vella made some flattering comments on his blog (reminding me how even more eclectic my taste in music has become over the years). All this paves the way quite nicely for tomorrow's article by Ġużè Stagno in Manic, the newspaper magazine issued with The Malta Independent on Sunday; or so I'm told. More on that tomorrow then.

Incidentally, I was quite pleased that Stagno reactivated his blog after a full month's break. His writing in English retains much of the style of his writing in Maltese, and I think it's wonderful that people who can't read Maltese can get a glimpse, even if a slight one, at what makes this author so endearing.

Looking back at my own postings for this past month, I see that it was quite dominated by the death of John Paul II and the election of Benedict XVI. Still, other things managed to creep in, such as my participation in this year's PSi conference in Rhode Island, the case of a Canadian publication ban breach by an American blogger (which provoked a surprising amount of reader comments on my blog), Charlie and Millie's wedding, and the hacking of Google.com.mt by a still-unnamed prankster, of course.

Anyway, today's entry is little more than an excuse to keep my blog active. There are days like that, but thankfully they are few and far between. Now I must attend to my slightly overwhelming 'to do' list for this long weekend. April is a cruel time indeed.

Monday, April 25, 2005

Birthday

No. It's not my birthday today. It's my blog's birthday today. I'm not big on birthdays, but Pierre Mejlak made a big deal about this, so I decided to play along. Why be a party-pooper?

Towards the end of April last year I felt a strong need to create an outlet for my ideas about Malta's new membership in the EU. A blog seemed like the perfect vehicle. I had been observing blogs, especially in American politics, for over a year before that. Howard Dean's meteoric rise (and fall) in the 2003/04 presidential primaries was often on my course syllabi for the classes I taught on New Information Technologies and Media Criticism at New York University and Adelphi University.

My dear friend Immanuel Mifsud had also urged me to give some attention to blogs at about the same time. So waiting to set up my own blog was just a matter of delaying the inevitable. The first thing I needed to decide was whether I'd go with Blogger or Moveable Type. For some reason I can't really remember I went with Blogger. The first few entries were quite lame. Malta's accession to the EU was nothing to write home about after the pomp and circumstance of the 1st of May 2004. The Eurovision Song Contest was the next thing on most people's mind in Malta, and that's as mentally challenging as eating an ice cream on a hot day. Unfortunately, the MaltaMedia Online Network server system was crippled by a DoS attack in June and that threw me off my original plans for the blog. A fantastic concert by Souad Massi in Central Park gave me a much needed second wind, and by the end of the month I was blogging about my WPW Syndrome.

Life after August changed radically. The heart issue was only part of the change. A job offer in England was the other part of it. Loosing Mario and Maggie didn't help with the sense of loss and impermanence that I became engulfed in as I started my new life in Scarborough. My other life in New York goes on: within me, without me. Before I knew it I found myself blogging about personal things more often than I'd planned to.

When 2005 started it seemed like this was going to be a rough year; with the Asian tsunami, the Safi barracks scandal, and my run-in with the Archbishop's Curia it seemed as if sunny days were only a distant memory. My visit to Malta in March helped change the mood considerably, especially my first (and only, so far) face-to-face meeting with Ġużè Stagno, the author. Incidentally, he has now written an article for Manic magazine about our meeting; I believe it's due at newsagents on Sunday 1st of May. What a great way to mark the first year for the blog and Malta's first full year as a full EU member. (Before you hit the comment button, please note that my tongue is firmly in my cheek.)

This blog has reconnected me with a handful of old friends and acquaintances I hadn't heard from in years. That's something I never expected to happen when I started writing on these pages at least once a week. It seems that having ToniSant.com as a gateway to the blog, aside from the mighty audience at MaltaMedia.com, helps to keep this blog worthwhile.

Please keep your comments and messages coming. Contact me here if you don't want to comment directly on the blog. Yes, we can be heroes...just for one day!

Sunday, April 24, 2005

Nowhere Fast

Bells ringing at noon in Malta today marked the inauguration of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger to the pontificate of Pope Benedict XVI. This is the official begining of the 256th papacy. I don't plan to blog about His Holiness again soon after today, unless something quite extraordinary and/or unexpected comes from the Vatican.

This past week we saw the two main angles Benedict XVI's papacy may be giving us for the foreseeable future. The Pope's promise of openness toward the media and difference are the softest side this pontiff will show towards relative realities. It was quite enlightening to read in the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera that one of the last documents Cardinal Ratzinger was working on before he was called away to take over the Vatican was about the recognition that many 21st century Catholics have remarried outside the church after the failure of their sacramental marriage. This points to the distinct possibility that Pope Benedict XVI is not the archconservative we could expect from the church's former chief inquisitor.

Anyone who expected anything but admonishment from the Vatican towards Spain's joyous announcement towards the legalization of homosexual marriage and adoption rights must be living on another planet. I seriously doubt that the pope's position would be different today if any one of the other cardinals was elected instead of Ratzinger. And that's an absolute truth, if there ever was one.

Most amusing this week was the news about the ownership of BenedictXVI.com by Rogers Cadenhead. Thankfully, this great hacker is neither a pornographer nor an online gamling entrepreneur, even if he is something of a chance-taker (read: good gambler). He's already doing some good with the domain, towards Modest Needs (a fanstasic philanthropic society!) and he is more than willing to turn over the domain ownership to the Vatican if they'll consider his 5 requests (not demands, he insists):

  • I. 3 days, 2 nights at the Vatican hotel they built for the conclave.
  • II. One of those [bishops'] hats.
  • III. Complete absolution, no questions asked, for the third week of March 1987.
  • IV. A back-cover blurb from the Pope for the next edition of Cadenhead's Movable Type 3 Bible Desktop Edition. But only if he uses the book to create his own weblog.
  • V. World peace.

  • The fact that BenedictXVI@vatican.va received over 56,000 emails within the first day the address was activated should tell everyone that the pope cannot and will not be reading any emails sent to this address, except maybe the ones that some senior Vatican monsignior deems should be brought to His Holiness' attention.

    To mark the end of the beginning, I'm including an image designed by my friend Joe Vassallo, which he sent me by email last night. The picture, he tells me, is for the new pope.

    FOR THE NEW POPE (2005) by Maltese visual artist Joe Vassallo


    This posting is the last entry in the first year of Toni Sant's Blog.


    Friday, April 22, 2005

    Who Are You?

    I always knew that I couldn't be the only one this happened to. Someone has finally blogged about it.

    It's not as common in Europe as it is in America. However, read what Maria has to say about being recognized as Maltese outside Malta, or rather not being recognized as Maltese. I read her blog this morning and I knew I had to write about this in my own blog.

    Perhaps it's not such an interesting topic unless you've experienced it yourself. Yet, I'm sure it's interest to you if you study identity politics or aspect of identity as performance, as I do.

    Anyway, here's a list of what I've been called or asked if I am in the last ten years or so:

    - Mexican
    - Italian
    - Spanish
    - Greek
    - Turkish
    - Catalan
    - Cuban
    - Arab
    - Jew
    - Latino
    - an alien (seriously!)
    - mixed blood

    My own interest in this subject will play an important part in an academic paper I'm currently writing for a conference entitled Digital Communities, which takes place in Italy next June. This builds on an earlier paper/project from 1996 and my work with/on aboutmalta.com. I'll tell you more about that as we get closer to the date.

    Wednesday, April 20, 2005

    Bless you

    Yesterday evening Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was elected Benedict XVI. As I watched the live announcement on the Internet via the BBC's Vaticam I was struck by two things: (a) the cardinals have chosen an old inquisitor to be pope, and (b) what an interesting choice of name. Benedict XV was an anti-war pope who reached out to Muslims and children, following a pope known for his anti-modernist witch-hunt. Is this why Ratzinger chose to be called Benedict XVI?

    It is unfair and somewhat silly to discuss what the papacy of Benedict XVI may bring. When John XXIII (the good pope) was elected back in 1958, many believed that he would be a continuation of his predecessor, but as we all know he shook the world with the changes he proposed during his short tenure as pontiff.

    Before the conclave that elected Benedict XVI, I was somewhat taken aback by comments from Cardinal Ratzinger about relativism. Well, as it happens, I'm a relativist. According to Ratzinger, relativism is against the teachings of Christ; or does he mean against the teachings of the church? You see, respectfully, to me that's relative.

    "We are moving toward a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one's own ego and one's own desires," he said Monday in a pre-conclave Mass just a few hours before the cardinals entered the Sistine Chapel to start voting. The church, he insisted, must defend itself against threats such as "radical individualism" and "vague religious mysticism." During the same homily he also said that, "Having a clear faith, based on the creed of the church, is often labeled today as a fundamentalism. [...] Whereas relativism, which is letting oneself be tossed and swept along by every wind of teaching, looks like the only attitude acceptable to today's standards."

    I seriously doubt that Pope Benedict XVI will change his view on absolute truth. If he does I will become a most devout catholic. So, just as an introductory benchmark, here are some truths uttered by Cardinal Ratzinger in relatively recent times.

    In 1986, he denounced rock music as the "vehicle of anti-religion." What can I say about that? Archbishop Mercieca knows too well that rock music and rockers can be as religious as any old pius person. He told me so personally when we met at his office in 1999. Then again, Mgr. Mercieca is younger than the new pope.

    On a more serious note, in 1986 Cardinal Ratzinger wrote a document entitled Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons. Among other things, in this letter he say: "Although the particular inclination of the homosexual person is not a sin, it is a more or less strong tendency ordered to an intrinsic moral evil, and thus the inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder." I have not seen the document, but this quote is taken from the National Catholic Reporter. He's conservative, for sure, but no one (not even gays and lesbians) can argue that his heart is not in the right place. In that same letter he adds, "It is deplorable that homosexual persons have been and are the object of violent malice in speech or in action." Good condemnation, wouldn't you say?

    In 1987, he was behind the order stripping American theologian the Rev. Charles Curran of the right to teach because he encouraged dissent; crippling Latin Americans supporting the popular "liberation theology" movement for alleged Marxist leanings; coming down hard on efforts to rewrite Holy Scriptures in gender inclusive language.

    In 1988, he dismissed anyone who tried to find "feminist" meanings in the Bible. Last year, he told American bishops that it was allowable to deny Communion to those who support such "manifest grave sin" as abortion and euthanasia. This even became a (minor) issue for John Kerry in last year's presidential election.

    News reports from the last 24 hours say that he once called Buddhism a religion for the self-indulgent. In an interview with the French newspaper/magazine Le Figaro last year, he suggested Turkey's bid to join the Europe Union conflicted with Europe's Christian roots — a view that could unsettle Vatican attempts to improve relations with Muslims. "Turkey has always represented a different continent, in permanent contrast to Europe," he was quoted as saying.
    Pope Benedict XVI
    In 2000, Ratzinger branded other Christian churches as deficient - shocking Anglicans, Lutherans and other Protestants in ecumenical dialogue with Rome for years. However, on the 6th of March 2002, Zenit.org had him denying that Christianity is superior to Islam. "It is true that the Muslim world is not totally mistaken when it reproaches the West of Christian tradition of moral decadence and the manipulation of human life. [...] Islam has also had moments of great splendor and decadence in the course of its history." Zenit is an International News Agency covering events, documents and issues emanating from or concerning the Catholic Church. It's a great source for keep up with what goes on in and around the Vatican.

    It's good to have another non-Italian pope, I guess. Like many other, I was not expecting a new pope from an almost post-Christian European country. Values in a Time of Upheavals, a book released last week, has Ratzinger calling demands for European "multiculturalism" as a "fleeing from what is one's own." I'm sure Norman Lowell agrees.

    In case you're wondering what the new pope thinks of the new EU constitution, here's an interesting quote from last week on women's ordination: "The fact that the church is convinced of not having the right to confer priestly ordination on women is now considered by some as irreconcilable with the European Constitution." These words appeared at Zenit.org on 11 April, last week.

    To His Holiness Benedict XVI, who will be inaugurated as the 265th pope on Sunday, I say the same thing he can (and probably would) tell me: bless you.

    Saturday, April 16, 2005

    Ashes to Ashes

    When I die I want to be cremated. There are no crematoriums in Malta so I pray that I don't die there. I'd like to make things easier for whoever takes care of my funeral. I bring this up because of the confusion I've encountered throughout my life with Catholic views on cremation.

    Until 1963 cremation was indeed prohibited by the Catholic Church. Since then the Vatican has lifted its ban on cremation. Canon 1176 of the Code of Canon Law states, "The Church earnestly recommends the pious custom of burying the bodies of the dead be observed, it does not however, forbid cremation unless it has been chosen for reasons which are contrary to Christian teaching."

    Until just a few years ago, prayers or rituals were still prohibited by the Vatican over cremated remains. This meant all funeral services were to occur in the presence of the body, with cremation taking place afterwards. It's quite interesting that this church ruling was altered on the 21st of March 1997. Under Pope John Paul II, the Vatican granted permission for the cremated remains of a body to be brought into church for the liturgical rites of burial.

    For some reason I've been thinking about all this because of the recent demise of Pope John Paul II. I can't imagine there will ever be a papal cremation, but I believe that cremation will become a reality in Malta during the next decade or two.

    Now that a full week has passed since the Pope's burial and all seems to be set of the conclave to start on Monday, I believe that this is an appropriate time to blog my views on John Paul II. I don't have much to say, and none of it hasn't already been said by someone else.

    Karol Wojtyla was a decent man. Regardless of his papal status, I admired his political stance against totalitarian political oppression, even if I sometimes feel that the heavy-handed manner he detested in communism is tangentially similar to the Catholic edicts on the celibacy of priests, the role of women in society, homosexuality, liberation theology, and other controversial church issues. I also respect his design for dying. While different from Timothy Leary's, which I hold as a potential blueprint for my own passing, it was certainly true to his faith in Christian beliefs.

    Unfortunately, my faith in Jesus Christ was severely rocked by the ways of the Catholic Church during my teenage years in Malta. I did not embraced another church in protest. Nor did I become an atheist or agnostic. If truth is one, paths are many. Then again, I have come to believe that truth is relative. If there is a universal truth, that truth is the power of light. Perhaps this is why I have an affinity for the fire of cremation.

    "The truth shall set you free." - John 8:32

    Thursday, April 14, 2005

    Satisfaction

    Martin Debattista, MaltaMedia's Editorial Director, has also been a leading technology columnist for various Maltese newspapers and magazines for more than 10 years. Today his report/comments about the Google.com.mt incident from last week appeared in The Times of Malta. I am one of the people he quotes in his article.

    Martin's article in The Times is too short to fully contextualize my comments about hackers. So, I'm using my blog to elaborate on the matter in hope that people who disagree with my comments can see where I'm coming from.

    According to Google, the obscene words that appeared on Google.com.mt last week were not placed there by a hacker but by a prankster who had lawful access to what appears on the Google.com.mt website.

    Any prankster on the internet is a hacker in my book. Hackers are not to be confused with crackers, i.e. people who have malice or crime as their ultimate goal. All crackers are also hackers but fortunately not all hackers are crackers. By this estimation the Google prankster is a hacker even though there was no unlawfully crack on any system or server owned by Google. The prankster is a hacker because the message "search" was hacked into something other than what it was meant to be by Google.

    Incidentally, this broader understanding of hacking is supported by several decades of hacker culture, which is documented in books and online resources. The following are my favourite books on the subject:

  • Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution by Steven Levy

  • Hacker Culture by Douglas Thomas

  • The Hacker Ethic by Pekka Himanen

  • Tuesday, April 12, 2005

    Vulture Culture

    This week is quite hectic, but I wanted to take a moment to blog about another blog I just discovered. The blog is called Culture Vulture.

    To my delight someone else has taken on culture and the arts in Malta as a subject of regular comment online. Culture Vulture is designed as an open blog where various contributors can air their views on topics related to the arts and culture in Malta. However, the main engine behind it is one Toni Attard who's a graduate of the University of Malta in Communications and Theatre Studies. I don't know Toni Attard and I don't believe I've ever met him face-to-face. I believe he is now a post-graduate student in cultural management. I don't know much else but I must say that Malta needs people who are properly trained in the management of culture and the arts. This is an area of expertise that has been sorely lacking for decades from the Maltese culture scene.

    I have only one more thing to add about this blog at this stage: keep it up!

    Saturday, April 09, 2005

    Don't let the bells end

    Weddings are a joke. I don't mean marriage, I mean the ceremonies that go around a couple looking into each other's eyes and promising to do whatever for each other for the rest of their lives; in the presence of a person licensed to represent the society they live in. The moment of union is divine, but the rest of this rite of passage is a mere performance, and most often it's just excessively ornate theatre.

    [Christine disagrees with me, and I love her for that. She keeps me real.]

    Anyway, I bring this up because of today's wedding of the century, not. Camilla is an amazingly sexy woman (unfortunately, not many people see her that way) and the future British monarch certainly deserves to live the rest of his life in happiness with the woman he loves, in spite of what anyone thinks. Love conquers all...especially in post-colonial times. Legalize it, for all!

    All the hitches in the 35-year relationship between the prince and his soon-to-be queen are a clear sign that the wall on which the prophets wrote is cracking at the seams. I am blown away by the fact that the civil/legal wedding ceremony for Charles III's second marriage has been performed away from public eyes. I see this as a stiff finger-giving gesture by Prince Charles. Charles and Camilla on their wedding day...with William in the background.Queen Elizabeth's absence from the legalization ceremony marks this occasion in a very significant way. Although completely secular, that performative moment of "I do"s at the Guildhall is the most sublime moment in the marriage of Charles and Camilla. The rest of the wedding is just laughable...especially the pathetic 3rd-rate jazz band playing Congratulations (yes, the Cliff Richard Eurovision hit!) just outside Windsor's Guildhall.

    To add a touch of absurdity to the performance, the future-King and H.R.H. the Duchess of Cornwall head off to meet the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, in the gothic surroundings of the 15th century St George's Chapel at Windsor (where the Queen Mother was buried a couple of years ago) to have their marriage blessed. Read an Ode to Immortality by William Wordsworth and all will be revealed.

    As terrible as I am about weddings (including my own) I sincerely believe that both my weddings were more spectacular than Charles and Camilla's, albeit less formal, with not as extravagant a reception, and far less interesting to the general public. Then again, I'm a performance specialist and they're post-punk royals.

    I sincerely wish the royal couple all the best in their marriage. May their union be as happy as the one I've enjoyed for the past several years with Christine, the queen of my heart.

    Friday, April 08, 2005

    Death Singing

    Like millions of people around the world, I've just finished watching the funeral of Pope John Paul II. I've refrained from adding much my own thoughts to the tower of babel's worth that has been written/said over the past week. So, for now, more respect for the dead. I was truly touched by the simplicity of his coffin. May he rest in peace.

    Over the past 24 hours, still hungover with jetlag after my journey from New York to Scarborough, I've been working with my colleagues at MaltaMedia.com News (mostly Martin Debattista and Roseanne Sammut) to produce a special feature: The Papal Legacy from a Maltese Perspective.

    Here's the "official" blurb for this feature: In marking the end of Pope John Paul's era and the beginning of the first new papacy for the third millennium, the The Papal Legacy from a Maltese PerspectiveMaltaMedia Online Network presents a few thoughts about the contributions of the late pope while shedding some light on the long-term relationship between Catholic Malta and the Holy Father, the head of a church that holds around one billion faithful worldwide.

    Some parts of the feature will develop over the coming days and weeks as we witness the election of a new pope. Feel free to comment (below) or contact me privately if you'd like to make any suggestions about the feature.

    Tuesday, April 05, 2005

    Is this the world we created?

    Adding fire to the brimstone within my recent thoughts/comments on blogging and the internet: from yesterday's Toronto Sun...


    AdScam leak on web
    U.S. BLOGGER BREACHES PUBLICATION BAN
    By STEPHANIE RUBEC, SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER


    AN AMERICAN website has breached the publication ban protecting a Montreal ad exec's explosive and damning testimony at the AdScam inquiry. The U.S. blogger raised the ire of the Gomery commission this weekend by publishing extracts from testimony given in secret by Jean Brault last Thursday.

    [snip]


    This newspaper report refers to an investigation on charges of high-level wrongdoing in Canada's Liberal Party by a commission that ordered news organizations not to reveal details from the proceedings, which are open to the public. But Ed Morrissey, a blogger from Minneapolis, has been violating the ban by posting detailed reports of the "Adscam" testimony. CNET has an excellent report about all this with links to pertinent sites and resources.

    Here is the "rumour and speculation" about the alleged testimony in Captain Ed's Blog. The case itself is not so interesting, but the issues raised by this ban and the breach are spectacular.

    Jane Taber reports on Captain Ed's blog (again) in this morning's edition of The Globe and Mail, showing why publication bans are a farce.

    Monday, April 04, 2005

    New World Man (reprise)

    With the pope lying in state and the worldwide mourning and media coverage that comes with that, I've been sifting through the news reports from the past few days.

    I can't help but wonder what the Archbishop's Curia in Malta makes of this report from Reuters...and the truths expressed in it:


    Vatican Used SMS, Email to Announce Pope's Death

    Sun Apr 3,11:40 AM ET

    By Phil Stewart


    VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - It took just minutes for the Vatican to alert the world's media of Pope John Paul's death -- using text messages and email so the 2,000-year-old Church could meet the new demands of real-time news.

    Just a quarter of an hour after the Pope was pronounced dead Saturday at 9:37 p.m., the Vatican sent journalists an SMS message alerting them to a pending statement.

    Television networks across the globe were already on standby a minute later when the email communique was beamed to a sea of state-of-the-art handheld computers, purchased by journalists at the suggestion of the Vatican.

    "The Holy father died this evening at 21:37 in his private apartment," it said, in a simple Word document.

    TV spectators across the globe learned of the Pope's death even before the thousands of faithful gathered in prayer below the Pope's window in St. Peter's Square.

    Archbishop Leonardo Sandri only informed them minutes later and their reaction -- a long round of applause, an Italian custom -- was captured on television in real time.

    During John Paul's life and after his death, the Vatican was at pains to accommodate the mass media, which closely followed the 84-year-old Pope's decline and spells in hospital.

    Medical bulletins this year gave brief snapshots of the Pontiff's condition, growing increasingly pessimistic as they prepared the world for the worst.

    It was a marked break from the secrecy surrounding previous pontificates, even as recently as the 1960s. The Vatican, for example, kept Pope John XXIII's inoperable stomach cancer secret until just a few days before he died in June 1963.

    The Pope himself wrote in a February letter that the Church should not be shy of using the media, including the Internet, to spread its message, saying the "mass media can and must promote justice and solidarity."

    I must re-read Timothy Leary's Design for Dying.


    Sunday, April 03, 2005

    Sunday Morning

    Besides Christine and Dina, I only really miss Sunday Morning on CBS whenever I'm not in New York. This morning I enjoyed all three. The circumstances were somewhat odd, however, because of the death of Pope John Paul II.

    Most of Sunday Morning was dedicated to the pope's passing, of course. Interestingly there were diversions towards Monaco and the ailing Prince Rainier, and England's upcoming wedding between Charles and Camilla. More than anything, this highlighted the fact that the papacy is a sort of royalty with the pope as supreme monarch and the cardinals as princes.
    Pope John Paul II lying in state.
    The pontiff is now lying in state at the Vatican until his funeral on Wednesday. I think that too much has already been said about his life and death over the past few days, so I'll hold off on adding my thoughts on him until Wednesday or Friday. Respect for the dead is a no brainer.

    My blog allows all readers to add their own comments. My saving my own comments until later should not stop anyone from posting their own words about John Paul II's passing and/or the Pope's visit/s to Malta.

    Friday, April 01, 2005

    Brown sugar

    I'm blogging from Sayles Hall at Brown University in Rhode Island. I'm here for the annual Performance Studies international conference. I'm here mainly for the Franklin Furnace panel I organized with Martha Wilson. This session brings two FF artists-in-residence: Yury Gitman and Joshua Kinberg.

    My work with/on FF reminds me that I should really focus more energy on getting a publisher for my book about the Furnace this summer. I believe that there's a book publisher in the UK waiting for me, even though I recently sang the praises of self-publishing and the internet as an alternative medium to traditional publishing.

    Yury and Joshua are very interesting artists. Their recent work with bikes (MagicBike and Bikes Against Bush) is one aspect of what they're interested in and what they're doing. Yesterday I had a very interesting conversation with Yury about his interest in vibrators. I was also introduced to ANT by Joshua, and I have a feeling you'll be hearing more about ANT very soon; ANT = ANT is not TV. We spoke about my writing an article about them for an upcoming issue of Leonardo. So I'm sure I'll be blogging some more about them and their work sometime this summer.

    The conference this year is quite large. There are far more panels, round tables, performances, installations and other such sessions than anyone can physically attend. What makes things worse is that some of the things I really want to attend are being held at the same time. I missed a great session on blogging and the performance of personal identity. Another session I missed was thankfully repeated today and I'm glad I could attend the Unheimlich session by the Chameleons Group. Unheimlich is the best use of the internet for a live full-screen broadcast quality video hook-up I've ever seen; it's as good as any ISDN, satellite, or even Internet 2 session I've attended before.

    I don't know that I'll blog about the conference again before I return to New York, but at least this little taste of what's going on here at Brown right now gives regular readers of my blog a little insight into the various lives of Toni Sant.

    Now I'm of to an interesting session that attracted me though the final sentence in the program description: "when the shit hits the fan, what would Buddha do?"

    I just read what I wrote blog today and I can see that I blog better when I'm naked.