The Gideon Computer
by
John Presco
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Maryanne Tharaldsen. her daughter, Britt, and myself, drove from New York to Oakland California in her father’s Thunderbird.
DAMN! I just lost an hour of composing! Let’s bring in the idea that Thomas Pynchon went on our road trip, because he loved the 1979 Thunderbird Heritage Edition, and was thinking of buying one. He wanted to see bow it handles on the road. He doesnt want to deal with a car dealer, or be seen in public,
The protagonist of the Gideon Computer, is Berkeley Bill Bolargard, who drives a 1956 Thunderbird with a special engine he designed. Monica’s father is a Doctor on Beacon Hill, who drives a 1956 DeSoto that Bill drove across country – twice. Are those the wings of the Rod of Asclepius on Doc’s pride and joy? Why wasn’t Melania at the new car shoot? Who gave Musk – a black eye! The NAACP is suing Elon and his Super Computer. Another novel – has come true!
Author, John Presco, just gave Harkins a tour of Oakland in his 72 Caddy.
Local regulators should immediately stop Elon Musk’s supercomputer project from operating in South Memphis because it’s out of compliance with environmental rules, the NAACP wrote in a letter sent Thursday to Shelby County officials.
The civil rights group addressed the request to Dr. Michelle Taylor, director of the Shelby County Health Department, and to the commissioners of Memphis Light Gas and Water. The health department is responsible for implementing federal air regulations in Shelby County, which encompasses Memphis.
2000 Lincoln Town Car Signature Series Touring Sedan
Did That Marlon Brando, Elizabeth Taylor, Michael Jackson Post-9/11 Road Trip Really Happen?
Craig Hlavaty September 11, 2012 1:30PM
We all remember how chaotic, sad, and disorienting the days after September 11, 2001 were for the United States and the world. Air travel in the United States was shut down for days so we could assess security and how to go forward in our scary new world. Most people just wanted to stay at home and hug a pillow and watch CNN for hours on end.
Three of the biggest celebrities of the 20th century, Marlon Brando, Elizabeth Taylor, and Michael Jackson were all stuck in New York City after the attacks. Jackson was there performing a few gigs at Madison Square Garden.
The story goes that Jackson and Brando and Taylor escaped to New Jersey by car since private jets were not an option. From there it is said that the trio embarked on a road trip to California, but after getting as far as Ohio, they abandoned the trip and went their separate ways. By then airports would have more than likely reopened.
Pop-culture lore has the trio making copious stops at fast food joints to sate Brando’s mondo appetites, to the aggravation of his fellow travelers. The notion of being stuck working a drive-thru window in the days after 9/11 and seeing three of the biggest icons in entertainment — those voices — talking back to you — is too hilarious and weird for words.
I would like to think they took a huge Lincoln Town Car on their trip. Remember when a gallon of gas was a buck and those things were almost vaguely economical?
It is an old American family, dating back to William Pynchon, one of the founders and principal citizens of Springfield, Massachusetts, who left England March 29, 1630, with John Winthrop’s fleet, accompanied by his wife and three daughters. His son, John, seems to have come over later on a different ship. The Pynchons are prominent in New England historical literature. William and John were magistrates and military officers. Their court record has survived and has been published in a carefully annotated edition by Harvard University Press, with a frontispiece portrait of William Pynchon. There are Tom’s eyes and a lot of his nose and shape of face.
William Pynchon is remembered for his role in the witch trials, in which he appears to have been a relatively moderate force, and for his highly controversial book The Meritorious Price of Our Redemption, a protest against the rigid Calvinistic theology of his time, evidently the first by an American author. It was officially censured by the General Court, which ordered a rebuttal written, summoned Pynchon to explain himself and directed the book burned by the executioner in the Boston market place. Soon afterward, William Pynchon returned to England, leaving John to supervise the family’s substantial holdings in the New World. He died October 29, 1662, and was buried in the churchyard at Wraysbury.
Chrissie and I went back to New York. My career went from modest turn to modest turn and, before long, PLAYBOY sent me to do a story on hippie communes in California. She went on ahead of me while I stayed and finished a story on Herman Kahn that was purchased but never published. It was more than a month before I was to see her again. I felt the drift of her voice as she wandered off the telephone one day. It was nearly her birthday. I went down to B. Altman and sent her an ounce of Le De Givenchy. The day before I left to join her, it came back in the mail.
When I finally did reach Chrissie in Berkeley, where I had an assignment from The New York Times Sunday Magazine to do a story on the Black Panther Convention of 1969, the drift was subtle but very real. She was on her way to somewhere else and there seemed to be nothing that I could do to moor her interest. It was the week of the first landing on the moon. How appropriate that it was July, month of Cancer, of her birthday. After the convention, we visited a commune out in the redwoods and lived there for something like a month. Then I went off to Taos with a photographer and had various experiences, prophetic dreams and insidious anxieties I will possibly detail in some other work. I saw very far and well and truly, made certain decisions and returned to my wife not afraid.
One day we went for a walk in the redwoods and I said, “Chrissie, I love you more than any woman I have ever known, as much as I love my own mother. Something is troubling you. I think that it will make you feel better if you tell me what it is.”
“I had an affair with Tom,” she answered.
There it was. I felt all the things you feel in those circumstances, but mostly a sense of karma. Karma is what you get for what you do. It is also a certain perspective of reality. The words are flimsy, but the fact is about as graceful as a faceful of shit. Once, a long time ago. I had an affair with another man’s wife. The correspondence between the two events is not quite as algebraic as you might think. The private affair of married persons is merely a fact of life. We are all one person, really, and what one of us experiences the other must necessarily experience. too. I should like to say that I was calm and noble when my turn in the barrel came. Unfortunately, that would be a lie. I do not like to lie. I define honesty, though, as the ability to admit that you lie. I will spare you my hysterics. They lasted long enough.
The ethics are rather clear. People are not property. The hysterics over, Chrissie and I went on to attempt to reconstruct our marriage. In the course of that work, there were many conversations about what went on between the two of them that I suppose ought to be considered privileged. For the sake of the historical record, however, I do want to share a few of them with you. He was a wonderful lover, sensitive and quick, with the ability to project a mood that turned the most ordinary surroundings into a scene out of a masterful film—the reeking industrial slum of Manhattan Beach would become as seen through the eye of Antonioni, for example. Still, she found him somewhat unworldly and bookish, easily astonished by her boldness. Once, out on the freeway, she told him that we had all gone naked at the commune. He professed to find that incredible and dared her to take off her blouse right there. She did. A passing truck hooted its horn in lewd applause. He loved her Shirley Temple impersonations—On the Good Ship Lollipop sung and danced like a kid at a birthday party. They talked about running away together. He promised to get a job. Well, at least to move out of the cave. On their way to do the right thing, to tell me the truth, he insisted on stopping to get a pizza to calm his stomach. Then they changed their minds, fearful of one of my outrageous tantrums.
There is more and maybe I will tell it another time. I have received no letters from Tom in a long time. What did I do wrong? And those other letters—whatever did become of them? Ask the Dahill Mayflower Moving and Storage Company of Brooklyn. They are the victims of my inability to hold on to anything, sold at auction during through the hospitals to replace my crippled hip with one of plastic said to be almost as good as the real thing. Most probably, the auctioneer never even knew the value of those sheets of faint-blue quadrillé. I miss having them, but I miss some other things more—the hipbone I was born with, an antique brass oil lamp with milk-glass shade in like-new condition purchased one sunburned summer afternoon in Elkhorn Junction, Nebraska, a gilded-wood schoolhouse pendulum dock that stopped working when my first marriage ended, a signed first edition of The Godfather with this inscription: “Dear Chrissie and Jules. You too can be rich and famous. See how easy it is. Mario.”
African Portrait of Melania ‘Indiana’ von Trump
Posted on October 14, 2018 by Royal Rosamond Press
A week after Donald was elected, I wrote him a letter asking him to let me be his White House Art Buddy’. Hence, I suspect Kanye West has made an offer to be Trump’s ‘Art Buddy’ – in person! How would I know? But, the person who really needs an ‘Art Buddy’ is Melania Trump, who should be America’s No.1 Fashion Icon. What she and Kanye need is an ‘Art Manager’. Indeed, anyone who wants to be famous should consult a Art Manager.
With Musk beside him, Trump declared the vehicles “beautiful” and in particular praised the company’s unusually designed Cybertruck.
“As soon as I saw it, I said, ‘That is the coolest design,’” Trump said.
Though Trump frequently attacked electric vehicles during last year’s campaign, he told reporters that he had heard good things about Teslas from his friends. He sat in the driver’s seat of a sedan, with Musk seated beside him, and said he planned to buy one.
“The one I like is that one, and I want the same color,” he said, pointing to a red Model S. The vehicle is listed on the Tesla website for $73,490, or $88,490 for the all-wheel-drive Model S Plaid.
He did not take a test drive but said he might “another time.”
Sponsored Stories
Quality Benefits9 Things Trump Plans To Do for Seniors On SS In 2025
Lookup Any Home ValueLookup Anyone’s Home Value Instantly By Address (Take A Look)
NAACP calls for emergency shutdown of Musk’s supercomputer in Memphis
The civil rights group alleges that the project’s pollution could be harmful to nearby residents.
0 of 3 minutes, 42 secondsVolume 0%
Musk’s xAI supercomputer concerns some Memphis residents
- Savewith a NBCUniversal ProfileCreate your free profile or log in to save this article
May 30, 2025, 2:45 PM PDT
By Bracey Harris and Jon Gerberg
Local regulators should immediately stop Elon Musk’s supercomputer project from operating in South Memphis because it’s out of compliance with environmental rules, the NAACP wrote in a letter sent Thursday to Shelby County officials.
The civil rights group addressed the request to Dr. Michelle Taylor, director of the Shelby County Health Department, and to the commissioners of Memphis Light Gas and Water. The health department is responsible for implementing federal air regulations in Shelby County, which encompasses Memphis.
“Being the world’s richest man doesn’t give you the right to pollute Black communities and jeopardize the health of its residents,” NAACP president and CEO Derrick Johnson said in a statement to NBC News. “We urge the health department to step in immediately.”
When contacted, a spokesperson for Memphis Light Gas and Water said it had not received the NAACP letter and could not comment on it. Neither the health department nor xAI immediately responded to questions about the letter, which was also signed by the presidents of the Tennessee and Memphis chapters of the NAACP.
In a previous statement to NBC News, xAI said its “operations comply with all applicable laws” and that it “works collaboratively with County and City officials, EPA personnel, and community leaders regarding all things that affect Memphis.”
xAI has come under scrutiny in recent months for operating methane gas turbines at its Memphis facility to meet the electricity needs of the supercomputer Colossus. The turbines emit pollutants, including nitrogen oxides and formaldehyde, according to their manufacturer.
Environmental groups and the NAACP believe the turbines required permits under the Clean Air Act; the city’s health department, the mayor and the Chamber of Commerce have said permits were not required for the turbines’ first year of use. xAI, which is now seeking a permit for 15 permanent turbines, said those would be equipped with pollution controls and only be used as backup once other energy options are available.
Earlier this month, NBC News reported on a South Memphis neighborhood called Boxtown, about two miles from xAI’s facility, where residents are concerned that Musk’s project will harm the area’s already poor air quality.
Recommended
newsICE arrest of high school student sends shockwaves through a Massachusetts town
newsBoulder fire attack live updates: Suspect charged with attempted murder in Colorado, federal hate crime
“They got money. And they can do what they want to do, you know, without consulting us,” said Easter Knox, who has lived in the area since 1977. Knox told NBC News she and her husband both struggle with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, which can be exacerbated by pollution.
Health department officials have been limited in their comments about the project. On Friday, news broke that Taylor, the department head, would be leaving Shelby County to oversee the Baltimore City Health Department.
Colossus, which xAI calls the world’s largest supercomputer, came online in September 2024 to train Grok, the company’s chatbot. But critics say the project’s potential economic benefit to the community is outweighed by environmental concerns.
“While we applaud research and innovation,” the NAACP letter states, “there must be limits that ensure that communities are healthy and alive to enjoy the benefits of any potential innovation.”
Shelby County health officials are expected to make a decision on xAI’s application in the coming weeks.
Memphis Mayor Paul Young previously told NBC’s “Nightly News” that the city plans to work with a researcher to implement air monitoring in the months ahead.
Rosamond Press 
Leave a comment