Kade out.
Ulysses In Erotica
First edition of Ulysses sells for record £275,000
Well-preserved copy of James Joyce’s 1922 classic had been unread, except for the racy bits
A first edition copy of the book Ulysees by James Joyce, on sale at Antiquarian Book Fair, Olympia, London. Photograph: Martin Argles/Guardian
If you’re going to read any of Ulysses then it might as well be the racy bits at the end. And so it was with a fabulously rare first edition of theJames Joyce novel which today sold for £275,000, the highest price recorded for a 20th-century first edition.
The astonishingly well-preserved and previously lost edition of the book, bought surreptitiously in a Manhattan bookshop despite it being banned in the US, was sold to a private buyer in London on the opening day of one of the world’s biggest antiquarian book fairs.
Ulysses, hailed by some as a modernist masterpiece, follows the events of one day and is one of those novels that people often never quite get round to finishing, or in many cases starting.
Joyce’s vast novel was met with bafflement and anger when it was first published in 1922 with one reviewer complaining that it “appears to have been written by a perverted lunatic who has made a speciality of the literature of the latrine”.
The more salacious bits are in the last episode, where Molly Bloom’s long stream-of-consciousness soliloquy ends in her orgasmic “yes I said yes I will Yes”.
This first edition is unopened – apart from that last episode. The copy is number 45 of the first 100 and is printed on fine Dutch handmade paper.
Grilled Flat-Iron Steaks With Melted Onions, Fingerling Potatoes and Arugula
Jill Richards/The Arizona Republic
Grilled Flat-Iron Steaks With Melted Onions, Fingerling Potatoes and Arugula.
[ click for recipe ]
Koko Taylor Wang Dang Gone
Read “Queen of the Blues dies.” Write in her guest book.
Koko Taylor in the ’70s
(Tribune archive photo / February 22, 2008)
In the early 1970s, robust blues belter Koko Taylor brought new life to the local scene.
California’s Using The Chicken To Measure It
Lawsuit targets ‘rip-off’ of ‘Catcher in the Rye’
By Doug Gross, CNN
(CNN) — Reclusive author J.D. Salinger has emerged, at least in the pages of court documents, to try to stop a novel that presents Holden Caulfield, the disaffected teen hero of his classic “The Catcher in the Rye,” as an old man.
J.D. Salinger has stayed out of the public eye for most of the past half century.
Lawyers for Salinger filed suit in federal court this week to stop the publication, sale and advertisement of “60 Years Later: Coming Through the Rye,” a novel written by an author calling himself J.D. California and published by a Swedish company that advertises joke books and a “sexual dictionary” on its Web site.
“The Sequel infringes Salinger’s copyright rights in both his novel and the character Holden Caulfield, who is the narrator and essence of that novel,” said the suit, filed Monday in U.S. District Court in New York.
Published in 1951, “The Catcher in the Rye” is an iconic take on teen alienation that is consistently listed among the greatest English-language novels ever written.
Salinger, 90, who has famously lived the life of a recluse in New Hampshire for most of the past half-century, last published in 1965. With the exception of a 1949 movie based on one of his early short stories, he has never authorized adaptations of any of his work, even turning down an overture from director Steven Spielberg to make “Catcher” into a movie.
“There’s no more to Holden Caulfield. Read the book again. It’s all there,” the court filing quotes Salinger as saying in 1980. “Holden Caulfield is only a frozen moment in time.”
The filing refers to the new book’s author as “John Doe,” saying that the name John David California probably is made up.
It’s Just The Way Women Are Born
James Frey Reads Tonight 6pm @ Barnes & Noble Philadelphia
James Frey
Thursday, June 4th, 6pm
JAMES FREY will be speaking about and signing his new novel, Bright, Shiny Morning.
PHILADELPHIA
Thursday, June 4, 6:00 PM
BARNES & NOBLE
1805 Walnut ST
Philadelphia, PA 19103
Literal Eclipse Of The Heart
James Frey Reads Tonight 7pm @ Book Revue on Long Island (and in Philadelphia Tomorrow)
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James Frey Wednesday, June 3rd, 7pm Bestselling author JAMES FREY will be speaking about and signing his new novel, Bright, Shiny Morning.
From one of the most celebrated and controversial authors in America comes this sweeping chronicle of contemporary Los Angeles. Dozens of characters pass through the reader’s sight lines-some never to be seen again-but James Frey lingers on a handful of LA’s lost souls and captures the dramatic narrative of their lives, illuminating the joy, horrors and unexpected fortunes of life and death in Los Angeles. James Frey is the author of the New York Times bestselling books A Million Little Pieces and My Friend Leonard. James will be in Philly the next day, reading at Barnes & Noble – PHILADELPHIA |
Cargo Bikes
May 27 2009
Whether your cargo is kids, laundry, groceries or beach gear, the coolest way to haul it is the Madsen Cargo bike. These handy urban transporters from Salt Lake City, Utah, can carry 271 kg (nearly 600 pounds) either in a bucket or on a rack. The bikes and the buckets come in three colors: dramatic black, yummy cream and sweet baby blue. Accessories for the bucket include seat belts and a seat for your progeny, pet or bride. The creative heads at Madsen are constantly tinkering with the bike and accessories, and according to their blog, a lid for the bucket is in the works. With their long tails, these bikes command attention. – Tuija Seipell
Please Vote Now For Beatnik, Jr. in Hard Rock Cafe’s Battle of the Bands
MY COUSIN’S BAND IS ONE STEP AWAY FROM WINNING A NATIONAL BATTLE OF THE BANDS COMPETITION !
My cousin Andy has been a struggling musician in L.A. for the past 3 1/2 years. Last month his band won the L. A. Hard Rock Cafe Ambassador’s of Rock battle of the bands competition. They have now played at the Sunset Blvd House of Blues and The Viper Room. Next they competed against 20 other Hard Rock Cafe winners from around the country and they are now in the finals with 4 other bands. The winner of this competition will be sent to London later this month to play in a music festival that features Bruce Springsteen, Dave Matthews, Eric Clapton and others.
The final winner will be decided based upon internet voting. As of right now Beatnik Jr. is in 2nd place.
Please, please, please, click on the link above and vote for Beatnik Jr. and if you really want to help. It only takes a few seconds. If they become famous you can say that you helped them get there!
FYI – if you view the video, Andy is the drummer.
Rock on!
Suzi
This Ain’t No Landscape In A Bottle!
Pass The Hookah ‘pon The Left-hand Side
Living and breathing the hookah culture
Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times
Alfonso “Abou Salim” Ramirez prepares a hookah for customers at Phoenicia restaurant in Glendale. His fiercely loyal clients say he’s “the best” at preparing the traditional Middle Eastern pipe filled with fruit-flavored tobacco.
Alfonso ‘Abou Salim’ Ramirez has mastered the art of preparing Middle Eastern tobacco pipes, even carving trendy bowls out of fruit. The Mexican immigrant dreams of visiting Lebanon someday.
Standing outside his hookah station at a Middle Eastern restaurant in Glendale, Alfonso “Abou Salim” Ramirez grabbed a red apple and, using a sharp knife, sliced off the top. He flipped the apple over and made four quick incisions, creating a small square.
“This is my secret,” Ramirez said, jabbing a finger into the square to pop out the core. He then stuffed red, apple-flavored tobacco into the hole and covered it with a piece of tin foil.
“I love when I’m doing this,” he said as he carefully poked holes in the foil with a toothpick. “I forget my problems. I forget everything.”
Graffiti et Le Tag
Where Louis XIV Meets Crash and Blade
The French call it le graf or le tag: the style of urban artwork that was born nearly four decades ago on New York City subways and brick walls, influencing a generation of artists, self-taught and otherwise, across the world.
Now twin sisters, gallery owners in France, have organized an exhibition to celebrate the international stamp and cultural heft of what they prefer to call le street art, a genre that may have more establishment appeal abroad than it does in the United States. The show, “Whole in the Wall,” is billed as the largest exhibition of American and European street art from 1970 to today, and includes paintings, sculpture and photography.
“It’s youth, it’s movement, it’s lively,” said Chantal Helenbeck, who with her twin, Brigitte, runs the Helenbeck Gallery in Paris, which held a similar show in November.
Trailing parfum on a high-heeled tour of the installation before it opened on Thursday in a multistory studio space on Manhattan’s far West Side, the sisters explained what drew them to street artists. “They’ve changed my vision of my work,” Chantal Helenbeck said, speaking in French, “because they haven’t gone to school. They are taught by life, and you can see that in their work.”
Brigitte added, “They bring a joie de vivre to the gallery.” With works by pioneering Bronx graffiti writers like Crash and Blade and their descendants, including Blek le Rat, a Parisian known for his stencil work, and the anonymous British artist Banksy, the show offers a diaspora that many Americans may not know existed. It’s evolved far beyond early tagging (abstractly writing a name or word in spray paint or marker, usually illegally) to more painterly and figurative forms.
Roadie Says Jimi Hendrix Was Murdered By His Manager
Jimmy Hendrix ‘was murdered’ by his manager, claims roadie
By JAMES TAPPER
Last updated at 5:32 PM on 31st May 2009
Rock legend Jimi Hendrix was murdered by his manager as part of an insurance scam, a new book by one of his former aides claims.
Hendrix choked to death on his own vomit when he was 27 – but the exact circumstances of his death have always been a mystery.
Now James ‘Tappy’ Wright, one of the rock star’s roadies, claims that Hendrix’s manager, Michael Jeffery, confessed to killing him. Jeffery is said to have made a drunken confession a year after the star’s death in September 1970.
Rock and roll: Jimi Hendrix’s death was murder, claims former roadie
An ambulance crew found Hendrix’s body in the Samarkand Hotel in West London, in the room of Monika Dannemann, a girl he had known for just a few days.
Wright claims Jeffery was worried that Hendrix was preparing to find a new manager when their deal was due to end in December 1970. According to Wright, Jeffery said he went to the hotel room and stuffed Hendrix full of pills and wine.
Apropos Props To The Americans
American art gets a higher profile in U.S. museums
TIM STREET-PORTER, THE HUNTINGTON LIBRARY
The Huntington Library’s early 20th century gallery features works of the Arts and Crafts movement.
The Huntington, the Met and museums in Boston, Kansas City and Detroit are showcasing stateside talent with revamped exhibit spaces.
Long the stepchild of a Eurocentric art world, American art is finding new favor at home as a growing number of institutions showcase work from Colonial times to World War II.
Today, the Huntington in San Marino will join the Metropolitan Museum of Art and museums around the country when it unveils a renovated and expanded gallery devoted to American art.
Apologies in Advance – it is in the by-laws of this blog that any headline with the word “foreskin” present must be posted.
from The Crunchy Domestic Goddess
Babies’ foreskins used to make cosmetics. Is this ethical?
May 28, 2009
The question of whether or not to circumcise their newborn baby boy is often the first of many life-altering decisions parents makes on behalf of their baby. Whether you find yourself for or against circumcision is not the subject of this article (though it could be a subset of it). The issue in question is whether or not it’s ethical to use babies’ foreskins in the making of cosmetics.
There is, in fact, big money to be made in the foreskin business, not just the money gained from the removal, but from what becomes of the foreskin after the fact. Laura Hopper, a midwife who blogs at Alternative Birth Services recently wrote that wrinkle treatments are being made using American babies’ foreskins. Hopper quotes two articles, both detailing the use of baby foreskin in the cosmetic industry. From Acroposthion:
Painting War
Harlem: 1970-2009 Photographs by Carmilo José Vergara
In portraits, as in architectural pictures, time marches on. We learn that this man is Eddie from Selma, Ala., and that he farmed an empty lot on Frederick Douglass Boulevard between 118th and 119th St. in 1990.
We further learn that today, a luxury apartment occupies the lot and “a Starbucks has opened on the exact spot where Eddie stands.”
Photo: Camilo Jose Vergara/New York Historical Society
Barbecue Renaissance
from The Chicago Tribune via LA Times
Recession leads cooks outdoors to the grill
Cook outdoors to avoid putting your taste buds on a budget
Cooking outdoors is billed as lots of fun, and it surely is, but grilling, barbecuing and smoking have become serious, if delicious, ways to beat back the recession.
Americans spent $2.4 billion on grills and smokers in 2008, according to the Hearth, Patio & Barbecue Association, an Arlington, Va.-based trade group. Weber-Stephen Products Co. of Palatine, maker of the iconic Weber grill, reported in its annual consumer survey that 24 percent of respondents planned to spend more on grilling this year. Only 11 percent predicted they would spend less. Why the willingness to part with hard-earned cash in this economy?
The barbecue association estimates 85 million American households, 8 out of 10, own a grill or smoker. And more than half of all grill owners are now grilling at least a couple of times a week, according to the Weber survey.
“Americans love to cook outside,” said Leslie Wheeler, an association spokesman. “It isn’t just about cooking burgers and hot dogs. People are cooking a huge range of things.”
Untitleable
“An egotistical know-it-all little bastard who was one of the engineers at NASA when they burned Gus Grissom to death on the launch pad.”
thanks to E Whitney @ FB
From an interview Jim Rome did with Evel Knievel in the late 90s:
Jim Rome: So what did you think your chances [of jumping the Snake River Canyon on a rocket-powered bike] were?
Evel Knievel: Fifty-fifty.
Jim Rome: Fifty-fifty?
Evel Knievel: Fifty-fifty. The rocket had been designed by Bob Truax Jr., an egotistical know-it-all little bastard who was one of the engineers at NASA who was there when they burned Gus Grissom to death on the launch pad. He built the parachute so that it absolutely would fail under the G-load. But the way I see it: If I had made it, no one would’ve cared. If I’d died, they would’ve said, “Well that’s what’s supposed to happen to daredevils.” Here it is thirty years later and I don’t see no bunch of Daredevils lining up to take a shot at it.
Jim Rome: So if you had a fifty-fifty chance, a coin-flip’s chance to survive, why did you do it?
[five second pause]
Evel Knievel: Do you know who the hell I am?
The Greatest Collar Ever
James Frey Reading Tonight @ Book Court in Brooklyn 7pm
THURSDAY, MAY 28 – 7PM
JAMES FREY – BRIGHT SHINY MORNING
Dozens of characters pass across the reader’s sight lines—some never to be seen again—but James Frey lingers on a handful of LA’s lost souls and captures the dramatic narrative of their lives: a bright, ambitious young Mexican-American woman who allows her future to be undone by a moment of searing humiliation; a supremely narcissistic action-movie star whose passion for the unattainable object of his affection nearly destroys him; a couple, both nineteen years old, who flee their suffocating hometown and struggle to survive on the fringes of the great city; and an aging Venice Beach alcoholic whose life is turned upside down when a meth-addled teenage girl shows up half-dead outside the restroom he calls home.
Throughout this strikingly powerful novel there is the relentless drumbeat of the millions of other stories that, taken as a whole, describe a city, a culture, and an age. A dazzling tour de force, Bright Shiny Morning illuminates the joys, horrors, and unexpected fortunes of life and death in Los Angeles.
No way – The Pointer Sisters Sang Sesame Street’s Pinball 12
Versifying Hellcats In Oversexed Throwdown At Oxford
Could the behaviour of poets be any less poetic?
These pigtail-pulling dons may be fun to watch, but academics desperately need more of a sense of proportion
Zoe WilliamsTuesday 26 May 2009 16.30 BSTIn the incredibly unlikely event that you’ve missed the contretemps between Ruth Padel and Derek Walcott, here are its results so far: neither poet is going to be Oxford’s chair of poetry, a post which only the New York Times has so far been vulgar enough to point out is “a matter of prestige, not money … [drawing] a salary of barely $11,000 a year”.
Walcott pulled out when allegations of past sexual harassment were made against him; Padel landed the job, then stepped down when it was revealed that she’d disseminated the allegations.Unavoidably, I suppose, sexual politics have tainted an already pretty seamy affair, with a feminist contingent arguing that Padel wouldn’t have been hounded out if she were a man. I don’t buy it, myself. The delight of the story is the incongruity. You have these two people held, as poets, to represent the highest in human sensibility, and as academics, the most advanced in maturity and sophistication, and they’re pulling each other’s pigtails. Padel could be male or female, Walcott’s original offence could be sex or shoplifting, and it would still be funny to watch.But you can’t watch a fight without choosing a side, and with so many accusations that the Chair itself has been brought into disrepute, which of them was it? Which one of these hellcats has made off with Oxford’s poetic repute?[ click to continue reading at The Guardian ]
James Frey Interview on Writer’s Roundtable
Writer’s Roundtable
Whether you are a casual listener looking for an entertaining hour of radio or a serious writer seeking a weekly workshop, this show is for you.
Each week, Writer’s Roundtable Radio Show offers exclusive insight to all aspects of the writing industry. Literary marketer and publicist Antoinette Kuritz talks with successful writers, agents, editors, book designers, ghost writers, reviewers, writing coaches, read & critique group leaders — anyone and everyone who can inspire writers in the art, craft, and business of writing.
From writing tips and story secrets from your favorite NY Times bestselling authors to publishing advice from top-flight agents and acquisitions editors from prestigious publishers around the country, Writer’s Roundtable offers its listeners a unique opportunity to listen, learn, and participate. Tune in every Thursday at 1:00 p.m. on SignOnRadio.com.
NY Times Bestselling Author James Frey – Download
NY Times best selling author James Frey on fiction vs. memoir, finding voice, writing style, building a career and more…
Holly Golightly’s Drag To Fetch Thousands
Rare Audrey Hepburn stamp goes on auction
BERLIN – A collector stands to make a tidy profit after discovering a rare stamp portraying movie star Audrey Hepburn smoking — one of a series that should have been incinerated by the German government.
In 2001, the government printed 14 million Audrey Hepburn stamps as part of a series featuring movie stars including Charlie Chaplin, Marilyn Monroe and Greta Garbo. The print run was destroyed after Hepburn’s son, Sean Ferrer, objected to the cigarette holder dangling from the actress’ mouth and refused to grant copyright.
But the Finance Ministry had already delivered advance copies of the Hepburn stamps to Deutsche Post for approval. Thirty of these proof copies escaped destruction when an unknown employee pocketed them and used them to send letters postmarked from Berlin.
A minimum bid of $41,959 () has been set for the stamp — of which only five copies are known to exist — at its auction Tuesday at Berlin’s Kempinski Hotel Bristol.
Ooops, forgot the lampblack.
Bad Mask Gives Former Employee Away As KFC Robber
Candace McCowan
(Memphis 5/25/09) It all started shortly after 8 a.m. on Saturday when KFC employee Laketa Hollowell heard a knock on the back door of the business. Hollowell told the person to go to the front door where she opened the door. That’s when a masked man armed with a knife confronted Hollowell and demanded she open the safe.
Hollowell took a long hard look at the suspect. And even though he was wearing a mask, it was large eyeholes in his mask that gave him away.
Police say Hollowell recognized the suspect as 18-year-old Ezederick Jones. Jones had just been fired from the same KFC the day before. The affidavit says Hollowell began to fight with the suspect and he cut her hand. And when she called him by his name, he took off.
She called police and they later located the suspect and brought him back the scene, where Hollowell identified Jones again, as the man who just held her up at knife point.
He’s now behind bars facing charges of aggravated armed robbery, being held on a $75,000 bond.
Buy Hyundai
Coolest Thing We Saw This Weekend At Disney World
