June 24, 1998
In this issue:
  Virtual Inanity
  Second Coming
  Fluffy Buildings
  Glyphs
  Scoot
  Navigation   Well, now you've done it. You've made The Passenger so popular that I don't even have time to write the column any more, as busy as I am travelling the Web. Fortunately, the future looms. The Technical Ministry of Department Lemur is designing a HAL-style Passenger program that should be able to pen the column, answer hate mail and take the blame for my numerous boo-boos. Currently, the prototype is a six-foot abomination with a bunny head, but I'm sure the boys will make everything OK as long as I make good on my promise to deliver the remaining members of Bananarama for experimentation. Hey, better them than me, right? I'll just scribble out this quickie pop culture report while they measure my brain.
 
 
   
 
Leopold Bloom
  THE NEXT BIG THING

Well, why not? Why not embrace Jesus Jones as your pop savior all over again? Never mind that you likely haven't heard a peep out of Mike Edwards and crew since 1991's "Right Here Right Now". It's time to come back, and the band is making it easy for you to do just that. Edward's scratchy tenor and gift for penning catchy pop hooks has not dimmed one bit in the intervening years, the band - an outfit that can claim a member of the fabulous Waco Brothers, bassist Alan Doughty, among its ranks - continues to translate Edwards' sometimes-convoluted vision into great songs and the new record, "Already", is rich with potential hits. You need to have at least two copies: one for home use, one for automotive. Try the wistful "Top Of The World," the half-man/half-machine "Motion" and the idealistic "For A Moment" on for size. The website has all the materials you'll need to restart. You'll smile, you'll nod, you'll succumb.
 

 
   
Bette Davis
  WILDER BARCELONA

Antoni Gaudí was in touch with parts of his mind most of us don't even have the resources to contemplate. The famed 19th-century Spanish architect - in the Passenger's humble estimation, one of few talents one can unequivocally call a visionary genius - is honored at Gaudí Central, a well-done tribute site. Read about his life, his analyses of the times he lived in, and above all, marvel at his breathtaking body of work. From the playful Casa Batlló to his unrealized designs for a New York City hotel, Gaudí's vision is as unique as a thumbprint, and swirls twice as much.
 

 
   
 
The Museum of Jurassic Technology
  GREAT WALL

The art's all around you, my friend, and you didn't even know it. Art Crimes: The Writing On The Wall is more than a repository for street art (the page authors seem loath to call it "graffiti") and a gallery of artists (called "writers" for want of a better term). It is a story-in-progress, an uncompromising look into a genre most dismiss as self-serving or immoral. Art Crimes is full of startling and beautiful images from all over (links to notable sites are also provided), all of which serve several overlapping ends: they delight the eye, provoke the heart and stir the mind. Punk icon Jello Biafra once said that a nation faced with "tabloid journalism" had little choice but to turn to the artists to find out what was really going in. The only criminal aspect of this venerable craft is its adoption by street gangs; aside from that, it remains the raw, honest form of documentation that informed us well before television was even conceived.
 

 
   
 
Money Mark
  WASP'S NEST

Boy, what the Passenger wouldn't do to be on the narrow, winding streets of a small Caribbean town on a brand-new Vespa PX motor scooter. And Vespa's official site does little to sate my desire: between reading the touching "I-want" essay by Umberto Eco and thrilling to the real-life saga of Giorgio Bettinelli, who's riding the '98 model around the world, I'm more than ready to pitch this Web thing, buy a mess of madras shirts and move to Europe. To sate my desires, the site thoughtfully provides swell digital postcards and other goodies, but I don't know how long I can hold out. I will have a Vespa, mark my words. I'll grow my beard out, live in bars and go to bullfights. Sigh.

CRIPES! Did you hear that explosion? Sounds like the guys have punched a hole in the world. I'd better get on the Bananarama trail, or there will be no hope for humanity. Talk to you next week ... maybe.



The Passenger first appeared on Vegas.com and ran from March 1998 until February 2000.

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