David Byrne really does ♥ PowerPoint, Berkeley presentation shows
In one of the most unusual PowerPoint presentations ever given in Dwinelle Hall, ex-Talking Head David Byrne poked fun at the popular Microsoft software's bullet-point tyranny and Autocontent Wizard inanity. But he also defended its appeal not only as a business tool, but also as a medium for art and theater. More >
(UC Berkeley NewsCenter, March 8, 2005)

Graduate students bring long-neglected Classical casts back to life
Deep in the bowels of a UC Berkeley warehouse, six graduate students meet for a Classics 270 seminar. Instead of looking at slides of sculptures, they pick up cotton swabs and tiny chisels — and begin attacking busts of Socrates and slabs of the Parthenon frieze. More >
(UC Berkeley NewsCenter, 18 March 2003)

Southern Discomfort
Say "New Orleans" to almost any American and you'll hear about college road trips to beer-soaked Mardis Gras or only slightly more sedate pilgrimages to the Jazz Fest music marathon. You probably hoisted a samovar-size Hurricane cocktail outside on Bourbon Street after seeing some authentic — and geriatric — jazz at Preservation Hall. If you had fun, more power to you. The city has bet its economic livelihood on making sure that conventioneers have a blast. But outside of the carnivalesque "Walt Dixieland" atmosphere that is tourist New Orleans, there is much to see and hear and eat. More >
(Red Herring , August 2000)

Choose thy neighbors
Why collective and cohousing projects are gaining ground in the Bay Area. More >
(San Francisco Examiner, November 27. 2000)

Review of "Esther Stories" by Peter Orner
Many have noted, à la Forrest Gump, that a short-story collection is like a box of chocolates: best enjoyed a few at a time. But the simile's other truth is that, especially with unknown new writers, we taste them tentatively, skipping the cream-filled ones. Peter Orner's first collection, Esther Stories (Houghton Mifflin, 227 pp.), crowds 34 stories into its 227 pages, and almost each one is worth savoring. More >
(CentralBooking.com, July 2002)

SLAM dunk
What would a true Renaissance be without poetry and painting? First came semiconductors, now comes SLAM, Silicon Valley's new literary and art magazine. (Fourth in a series of annual April Fool's articles perpetrated by Red Herring.) More >
(Red Herring , April 2000)

Bait & Switch column for Red Herring
Conceived in 1995, Bait & Switch was an informal interview with a tech celebrity, conducted over dinner (the bait). With enough wine, the conversation usually ventured away from the interviewee's chosen field (the switch). I wrote the tongue-in-cheek monthly column from mid-1999 to late 2000. Here's a few favorites:

The mind-expanding universe of Rudy Rucker
(Red Herring, December 4, 2000)

Red Hat's Matthew Szulik stands up for Linux
(Red Herring, October 15, 2000)

Band of Angels' Hans Severiens wants to know, Are you experienced?
(Red Herring, January 2, 2001)

S&M with Orientation.com: the coolest company you've never heard of
(Red Herring, June 2000)