"The time to hesitate is through, There's no time to wallow in the mire." -- Jim Morrison, THE DOORS Photo from Wikimedia Commons

André in Cap Ferrat, France

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"To be matter of fact about the world
is to blunder into fantasy
-- and dull fantasy at that,
as the real world is strange and wonderful."
-- Robert HEINLEIN (1907-1988)

"The best way to make your dreams come true
is to wake up."
-- Paul VALERY (1871-1945)

Hunger for Power

Computer Privacy Handbook

André BACARD wrote Computer Privacy Handbook , Hunger for Power and The Affirmist Manifesto. Currently, he is researching "heroism" — starting with the courage everyone needs to embrace exuberance and to survive suffering.

Your nervous system, as you read the electronic dots on this screen, is fusing with the global Internet. Heroic persons reach out from this page and touch your life. For example, volunteers at Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders), The Nature Conservancy and Jimmy WALES & Larry SANGER's brainchild, Wikipedia Encyclopedia (L’encyclopédie libre), are helping your neighbors. Wikipedia, for instance, has more than 75,000 active contributors working on some 9,000,000 articles in more than 250 languages. Wikipedia's content is free-of-charge to each of us — a generous gift to humanity!

André owes personal thanks to two cyberspace heroes. Jim WARREN is the Founder of the Computers, Freedom & Privacy Conferences and the winner of the Hugh M. Hefner First Amendment Award. Mitchell KAPOR is the Designer of Lotus 1-2-3, the "killer application" which made the personal computer ubiquitous in the business world in the 1980's, and the Co-Founder of the San Francisco based Electronic Frontier Foundation.

You can list men and women who inspire you at the Hero Survey.

Lake Tahoe Photograph Taken By: Composer Patrick DUMONT

When back at Lake Tahoe, BACARD shares a ponderosa pine forest with black bears, mountain lions and wily coyotes. He loves hiking in the wilderness — free from the data smog and noise pollution of modern life. The pagan Burning Man Festival celebrates life in the Nevada desert to the north.

From Tahoe, he drives "down the hill" from 7,000 feet (2,134 meters) to the oxygen-rich, eucalyptus-scented San Francisco Bay Area. If you see him at the University of California or Henry's Pub Restaurant (Berkeley); at Silicon Valley's eclectic Buck's Restaurant: Flapjacks and Tomfoolery (Woodside); or at the Henry MILLER Library or the Nepenthe Restaurant (Big Sur), please say hello. He, also, enjoys cultural islands East of the Sierras -- notably the University of Texas and the Sixth Street Music Scene (Austin), plus the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.) (Cambridge). Wherever he travels, André welcomes curious persons who can laugh at themselves.

Click to Hear Irene JALENTI "Curly Hair for a Blues and Jazz Soul" Italie

Click to Hear AURÈLE Artiste Soul Française Paris, France

Paris is a special place. In the City of Lights, the spirit of creative persons has inspired visitors for centuries. Museums & statues pay homage to men and women who, against all odds, overcame the Crime of Incuriosity. The person sipping coffee five feet away might be the next Madame CURIE, Auguste RODIN, Édith PIAF or Pablo PICASSO. When the extraordinary is possible, the ordinary is more delightful. For a kaleidoscopic view of Paris, read Laurie PIKE's "The Paris Blog".

Jim HAYNES, Host Sunday Dinners Paris, France

The French writer Alexis de TOCQUEVILLE mused: "An American cannot converse, but he can discuss, and his talk falls into a dissertation." If you visit Paris, you can rediscover the Art of Conversation, the gift of a free-spirited Citizen of the World. Jim HAYNES' Sunday dinner parties (14th arrondissement) are a national treasure. Jim, born in the States (Louisiana), is perhaps the most well-known expatriate American in Paris. In 30 years plus, Jim has hosted more than 100,000 persons from around the globe! Where else can you converse with a Nepalese restaurateur, a Jamaican bobsled member and an Argentine gaucho over wine, dinner and humor? Jim is gracious in the spirit of Don GEORGE's wonderful book, Kindness of Strangers. Why not adopt Jim's model to your community?

BACARD, educated as a physicist, has been interviewed by conservative talk show hostess Barbara SIMPSON ("Babe in the Bunker"), right-wing host G.Gordon LIDDY, technology talk show guru Kim KOMANDO ("America's Digital Goddess"), liberal mainstream National Public Radio, left-wing activists at Berkeley's Pacifica Radio, hedonistic Playboy Magazine and others about diverse topics.

"Futurism" Speech International Platform Association Mayflower Hotel Washington, D.C.

Venice Beach, California Architect Frank Gehry Photo from Wikimedia Commons

These interviews often touch a burning issue: to wit, "How can awake citizens prosper in our glib, television addicted Consumer Society?" One solution is to join or to create a Conversational Salon (See links below).

A student of magic, BACARD values the interface between Appearance and Reality. At M.I.T., he watched Good Will Hunting, a film about Will HUNTING (played by Matt DAMON) — a brilliant, self-taught mathematician employed as an M.I.T. janitor. The audience, aged 18 to 81, was mesmerized by Will HUNTING and Professor Gerald LAMBEAU -- the man who "discovered" Will. After the movie ended, BACARD spoke with a humble undergraduate. The student confessed to André that he felt inadequate, that he'd never measure up to Janitor HUNTING. In the student's words, "Each Summer I buy my textbooks for the upcoming Fall. I read them before the first day of class, and I can't solve all the problems by myself. I may not have what it takes." You can guess this Fable's moral(s).

M.I.T. Stata Center "A Party of Drunken Robots" Photo from Wikimedia Commons

Angela BELCHER Green Nanotechnology M.I.T. & Univ. of Texas

Here is a microscopic thought for your day. Science fiction author Arthur C. CLARKE was the first person to predict that satellites could become communications hubs. CLARKE wrote: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Now imagine a tiny, tiny distance, say, the length a woman's hair grows as she lifts a comb to her head. Modern magicians (a.k.a. scientists) are building new materials and machines at this mind-boggling scale. The field is called nanotechnology.

One of nanotech's heroines is Angela BELCHER. BELCHER has engineered a biological virus (called M13 bacteriophage) that latches onto bits of inorganic materials such as gold and cobalt oxide. Each long, tibular virus becomes a miniscule piece of wire. Coax these nanowires to line up and you have a microscopic, viral battery that essentially grows itself in a tiny pool of water.

BACARD savors Good Muse & Mentor Hunting. People from all walks of life compensate for his Foibles. In quest, he strolls the corridors of palaces, the Ivory Towers of universities, and the back alleys of slums. To paraphrase poet-laureate Bob DYLAN, he finds white people with black servants and black people with white dogs. He toasts more Muses than his share, including friends & lovers too private for this website. In the public domain, physicist Richard FEYNMAN, who wrote Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!: Adventures of a Curious Character, and philosopher Jean-Paul SARTRE, the Parisian who authored Being and Nothingness, altered the course of his life.

"Global Investing" Speech Atlantis Resort Nassau, Bahamas

Bill BERKOWITZ Makes Readers Proud To Be Human!

Richard FEYNMAN Genius, Iconoclast & Raconteur

André is serious about his work, though he laughs at himself. Two of his friends are goats. Blackie & Floppy, rascals to the core, love to untie his boots and pick his pockets. For them, Mr. Human is a funny Scapegoat with carrots. Mischievous at heart, he loves the Art of the Impossible. If he owned a magic wand, illusionist David COPPERFIELD (See link below) would perform at Lake Tahoe often.

Speaking of magic... Here is an exercise.

Try to fuse your senses in the spirit of Leonardo DA VINCI. If you could sculpt your favorite music, would you use wood, metal or marble? If you could bite into this music, would it taste like ginger, vanilla or red pepper? Would it smell like lilac, jasmine or cinnamon? If you could touch your music, would it feel like cashmere, denim or silk? Would your music look like a MIRO, MATISSE or DALI painting? Synesthesia, the merging of the senses, is one road to magic.

DA VINCI's "Vitruvian Man" The Art of Science & The Science of Art

Giuseppe ARCIMBOLDO's "Portrait with Vegetables" Photo from Wikimedia Commons

William SHAKESPEARE challenged us to walk in Maestro DA VINCI's footsteps. Bottom, a character in A Midsummer Night's Dream, awakes from his affair with the Fairy Queen and says:

Oscar WILDE quipped:

"There is only one thing in the world
worse than being talked about,
and that is NOT being talked about."

You can talk about yourself (or whatever you wish) to André. See the email link adjacent to the Lake Tahoe photo.

May the Muse be with You !!

Lake Tahoe Reading Michael J. GELB's How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci

We personally thank the generosity of Business Week, Newsweek, Playboy, Wired, MicroTimes, USA Today, Kiplinger's Personal Finance Magazine, CNet Online, the New York Times, the G. Gordon Liddy Show and WEB links around the globe for bringing you here.

Click Here to Contact André Bacard.

*** Fields For Your Curious Mouse to Roam ***

** Links for Your Private Self **

• Playboy Magazine Interview with André about our lack of privacy in this Surveillance Age.
• Bacard's Privacy Page links you to people, groups and software to help you safeguard your privacy.
• Bacard's PGP Public Key. Please use this key for all financial & confidential email.
• Personal Update from André for friends with PGP keys.

** Links for Your Social Self & Your Muse **

• APPEAL of the Salon provides an overview of the Conversational Salon. In the words of this site, "Salons are incubators where ideas are conceived, gestated, and hatched... Salons are the frontiers of social and cultural change. They've been flourishing since ancient Greece."
• Isaac ASIMOV (1920-1992) is proof that witty, encyclopedic minds do exist. One publisher told Asimov to use pen names, because nobody would believe one author could have so much knowledge and curiosity. Asimov refused. Using his real name, he published more than 500 books on a wide spectrum of topics. Think of Asimov when someone tries to push you into a pigeonhole.

Author Michael GELB

• André BACARD'S "Conversational Salon FAQ", based on his "Tahoe Renaissance Roundtable", answers Frequently Asked Questions about why YOU might join a Conversational Salon (as opposed to a tanning salon) and how YOU can start a Conversational Salon.
• André BACARD'S Favorite Books lists treasures worthy of their authors' blood, sweat & tears. These books provide juicy topics for a Conversational Salon.
• Conversation CAFÉ.ORG was founded by Vicki Robin, Susan Partnow & Habib Rose in Seattle, Washington to create a culture based on meaningful conversations, rather than small talk. Conversation Cafés exist throughout Canada and the United States.
• Emilie du CHATELET (1706-1749) was a Rebel par excellence, who translated Isaac Newton's Principia into French and broke the French coffeehouse barrier against women. Her love affair with Voltaire is one of history's most memorable.
• Benet DAVETIAN's Charlottetown Conversation Salon (Prince Edward Island, Canada) is an invaluable model, if you desire to start or improve a Conversational Salon. The Sociology Professor's essay, "The History and Meaning of Salons", is a gem.
• Leonardo DA VINCI (1452-1519) is the most insatiably curious human in recorded history. Discover why Michael GELB writes in his book, How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci: "I see Leonardo's own life as a gem tossed into the pool of time that became known as the Renaissance, with his genius rippling on and on into eternity."

Author Ron GROSS As Socrates

• Richard FEYNMAN (1918-1988) was a scientist, teacher, raconteur and musician who solved the 1986 Challenger spaceship explosion with an o-ring and a glass of ice water. Feynman's genius to cut to the heart of problems has inspired countless scientists and students.
• Erich FROMM (1900-1980), author of the classic Art of Loving, was a psychiatrist who argued cogently that it is healthier to embrace, rather than to dodge, freedom & responsibility.
• Robert GREENE's book, Art of Seduction, explores the "magic" of our covert social world. Greene's politically incorrect pages are stuffed with ironies of the Night and denials of the Day. His book is filled with Italian spices.
• Ron GROSS, author of Socrates' Way and The Independent Scholar's Handbook, inspires Socratic dialogues (Conversational Salons) around the States from his base in Great Neck, New York.
• Jim HAYNES, the "most well-known American in Paris", has hosted more than 100,000 persons at his Sunday dinner parties. Best of all, you can invite yourself.
• Carl HONORÉ, author of In Praise of Slowness: How a Worldwide Movement is Challenging the Cult of Speed, explains how our hyper, soundbite society undermines genuine communication. Canadian Honoré links to two groups, both of which are based in Bra, Italy (we kid you not): Carlo PETRINI's Slow Food movement & Alberto VITALE's Slow Sex movement.

Carl HONORÉ Author of In Praise of Slowness

• Victor HUGO (1802-1885), author of Les Misérables, received this note on his 83rd birthday from Alfred Nobel, founder of the Nobel Prize: "Great Master, long may you live to charm the world and propagate your ideas about universal charity."
• Arianna HUFFINGTON, a Conversational Salon hostess based in Los Angeles and author of Fanatics & Fools , is an independent thinker and provocative columnist. Her online Salon is at HUFFINGTON POST.
• Aldous HUXLEY, author of Brave New World (a fresh treatment of human "happiness") and Doors of Perception, was a visionary worthy of much study.
• Betsy PRIOLEAU's book, Seductress: Women Who Ravished the World and Their Lost Art of Love, provides gutsy, lusty evidence that the top aphrodisiac is personal excellence. Prioleau offers inspiring case studies of women who carry the eternal flame of Aphrodite.
• Robert PUTNAM, a Professor at Harvard, wrote Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. His work helped inspire Joan Blades & Wes Boyd, two Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, who started the multi-million member activist group MoveOn.Org.

Betsy PRIOLEAU Author of Seductress

• Lou Andreas- SALOMÉ (1861-1937) was a Muse for & friend of numerous great men of her era, including psychoanalyst Sigmund FREUD (1856-1939), philosopher Friedrich NIETZSCHE (1844-1900), and poet Rainer Maria RILKE (1875-1926).
• Jean-Paul SARTRE (1905-1980) was a prolific existential novelist, playwright, activist and philosopher. His life-long romance with Simone de BEAUVOIR (1908-1986) personifies extraordinary freedom, loyalty and courage. They are buried together in Paris.
• Leonard SHLAIN, an original thinker based in the San Francisco Bay Area, has written Art and Physics, The Alphabet vs. The Goddess and Sex, Time & Power.
• The SKEPTIC SOCIETY focuses upon Extraordinary Claims, Revolutionary Ideas and the Promotion of Science. It's motto is "Sum Ergo Cogito" ("I Am Therefore I Think"). The society demonstrates the great gulf between "cynicism" and "skepticism". It publishes Skeptics Magazine and offers regular meetings at the California Institute of Technology.
• Mme. Germaine de STÄEL (1766-1817) hosted the "salon of Europe" at Coppet, her renowned chateau residence at Lake Geneva. Her guests included the premier intellectuals, writers and nobility of her era. Her novel, Corinne, was the talk of the Continent and popularized the word "Salon" as used in this website.
• TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is an annual conference in Monterey, California where the world's leading thinkers and doers find inspiration. You can view videos of their speeches at this website.
• Francois Marie Arouet VOLTAIRE (1694-1778), the ultimate man-of-letters and activist, fought endlessly against the "divine right" of King & Church to give us freedoms which most of consider birth-rights. His novel, Candide, is a satirical masterpiece.
• Oscar WILDE (1854-1900), the British author, fought the hypocrisy of his age with a sharp wit.

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