Credits Castrate: The Voice of Walter Tetley (via Messr. Brownlee)

Mainichi Daily News: “Once the basic basin service has finished, the genitals are swathed in a chunk of mud supposed to cleanse the skin. Once they are completely covered, the woman (or women) providing the service, then show their handiwork, so to speak, until the client reaches climax, or what Spa! calls the ‘ascent to Heaven.'”

Guardian: “It is said that we are all three different people: the person we think we are (the one we have invented), the person other people think we are (the impression we make) and the person we think other people think we are (the one we fret about). You could say it would be a lifetime’s quest to reconcile this battling trinity into a seamless whole. Maybe, but for the time being I am convinced that, in Kurt Vonnegut’s words (there I go, quoting again): you are what you pretend to be.”

Lydia Millet has relaunched her website. If you haven’t read Oh Pure and Radiant Heart or Everyone’s Pretty, there are now excerpts of these books for your enjoyment — as well as an assortment of other writings. And coming in September 2007 from Soft Skull Press: How the Dead Dream. You can also listen to a conversation with her, when I was still pretty green at this interviewing thing, at The Bat Segundo Show #12.

New York Times: ” It is a difficult idea for research and development departments to accept, but one of his studies found that 82 percent of new capabilities for scientific instruments like electron microscopes were developed by users. Citizen product design is still unsung, but it has already become a force in software, especially gaming software. ‘Counter-Strike,’ a player-created ‘mod’ (for modification to the original game) of ‘Half-Life,’ became as popular as the original game. Apache, the popular open-source Web server software, or the Firefox Internet browser, with its thousands of add-ons and plug-ins, also depend on users to develop innovations. Large companies like I.B.M. are increasingly turning to open-source techniques in their own software development”