Subject: Viridian Note 00385: Pope's Vacation Pics

Key concepts:

Washington DC, photojournalism, Hurricane Isobel, Viridian Pope-Emperor

Attention Conservation Notice:

is there anything in the world more boring than some guy showing you his vacation photos?

Link: Wow, look everybody! I've done a cool piece of electronic interactive multimedia web-accessible techno- literate digital net.art! After all these years of hanging out on nettime list, I'm finally right in the game! Look out Ars Electronica!

By the way, you need Flash 6 and broadband for this thing, or, if you're on 56K dialup, get yourself a magazine to leaf through, or something.

"Embrace the Decay" by Bruce Sterling. Thank you stalwart creatives!

Jared Tarbell: Web Design, Programming, Typewriter
Simulation
Duncan Stewart: Engineering, Digital Video
James Lawrence: Best Boy and Gaffer
Monty Zukowski: Decay Algorithms
David Arney: Systems Design Research
David Flanagan: Consulting Engineer
Eric Campdoras: Flash Programmer
Rex Ravenelle: Webmaster
Lisa Mark: Producer
and The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles

http://www.moca.org/museum/dg_detail.php?dgDetail=bsterling

1. A Viridian friend of a friend sent this portrait of Isobel while she was still at sea.
http://www.viridiandesign.org/isobel/Hurricane-Isobel.jpg

2. But I went to Washington DC anyway. Looks like Washington is still Washington, hurricane or no.

http://www.viridiandesign.org/isobel/novusordo.jpg

3. My event was cancelled because of the storm. So I went over to the "Competitive Enterprise Institute," the globally notorious Greenhouse-denial tools of Exxon- Mobil. Surprise, the hurricane had closed them too!
http://www.viridiandesign.org/isobel/CEIcloses.jpg
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1046363,00.html

4. CATO Institute also denies the Greenhouse. They were in tree-crashing distance from my hotel.
http://www.cato.org/people/michaels.html
http://www.cato.org/dailys/06-15-01.html
http://www.viridiandesign.org/isobel/cato%20tree.jpg

5. Kind of a tough commute to the CATO office there, what with that big dead tree right on their street.
http://www.viridiandesign.org/isobel/catotree2.jpg

6. As soon as I took this pic of that wind-flung windowframe right on CATO's doorstep, that CATO janitor rushed out and picked it up and carried it inside.
http://www.viridiandesign.org/isobel/catodebris.jpg

7. The local arts community had to put their statuary in bondage, lest the winds carry them off a la Dorothy in Oz. Whoops, that pic is sideways. Oh well, those ropes will hold her down.
http://www.viridiandesign.org/isobel/bondagestatue1.jpg

8. Kind of an ironic feminist statement here; maybe she was boldly applying for equal pay for equal work, or maybe this bulky gal is one o'them "Schwarzenegger Feminists."
http://www.viridiandesign.org/isobel/statuebonds.jpg

9. The bondage ropes may leave, but those big concrete truckbomb barriers are the signature architectural motif of War-On-Terror Washington.
http://www.viridiandesign.org/isobel/truckbombbonds.jpg

10. Live at the Washington Monument. One has to wonder why they didn't reverently take in all those flags.
http://www.viridiandesign.org/isobel/landscapeflags.jpg

11. After all, that's George Washington's monument.
http://www.viridiandesign.org/isobel/stormflags1.jpg

12. When Washington finally won the Revolutionary War, the British band played "The World Turned Upside Down."
http://www.viridiandesign.org/isobel/stormflags2.jpg

13. Who's minding the store?
http://www.viridiandesign.org/isobel/blowntoshreds.jpg

14. Before I got into design, I probably wouldn't have noticed this strange lantern on the side of the Commerce Department that features bats and opium poppies. Maybe it's a gift from the Afghani Commerce Department!
http://www.viridiandesign.org/isobel/batspoppies.jpg

14. Nice Commerce motto here... though, if you're working in fossil-fuel commerce, you're creating the winds and tempests as you "invade every zone."
http://www.viridiandesign.org/isobel/commercewind.jpg

15. The locals didn't look too pleased about the drenching sheets of rain.
http://www.viridiandesign.org/isobel/drenchedlocal.jpg

16. Washington lost about 300 trees to Isobel. Of course that's nothing much compared to the fate of Annapolis.
http://www.viridiandesign.org/isobel/monument.jpg

17. Here I am making the scene at the White House during a hurricane. I probably shouldn't be enjoying myself quite that much, but, well, it was only a measly Category 2. Wait'll next time.
http://www.viridiandesign.org/isobel/whitehousepope.jpg

18. Front yard of the White House the morning after Isobel. Hey, great job with the forest preservation policy there!
http://www.viridiandesign.org/isobel/whdebris.jpg

19. The White House handily comes equipped with its own chain saws!
http://www.viridiandesign.org/isobel/whchainsaw.jpg

20. Meanwhile, back in dizzy old San Francisco, where Democrats cling to power by tooth and nail....

http://www.viridiandesign.org/isobel/solarcisco.jpg