“Nothing exists, save empty space and you; and you are but a thought.”
Be Afraid of Quantum Mechanics… Be very, very afraid.
Legendary Cuban mambo king dies
from THE ASSOCIATED PRESS via NY Daily News
MIAMI – Grammy-winning mambo pioneer Israel (Cachao) Lopez died Saturday at 89.
Known simply as Cachao, the Cuban-born bassist and composer fell ill in the past week and died surrounded by family members at Coral Gables Hospital.
Cachao left his Communist homeland and came to the U.S. in the early 1960s. He continued to perform into his late 80s, including a performance after the death of trombonist Generoso Jimenez in September.
Cuban-American actor Andy Garcia, who made a 1993 documentary about Cachao’s career, credited him with being a major influence in Cuban musical history and said his passing marked the end of an era.
“Cachao is our musical father. He is revered by all who have come in contact with him and his music,” Garcia said in a statement on Saturday. “Maestro … you have been my teacher, and you took me in like a son. So I will continue to rejoice with your music and carry our traditions wherever I go, in your honor.”
Cachao was born in Havana in 1918 to a family of musicians. A classically trained bassist, he began performing with the Havana symphony orchestra as a teenager, working under the baton of visiting guest conductors, such as Herbert von Karajan, Igor Stravinsky and Heitor Villa-Lobos, during his nearly 30-year career with the orchestra.
He and his late brother, multi-instrumentalist Orestes Lopez, created the mambo in the late 1930s. The mambo emerged from their improvisational work with the danzon, an elegant musical style that lends itself to slow dancing.
Easter: A movable feast
editorial from the Washington Post
THIS HOLIDAY is what is known in religious tradition as a “movable feast” because it is not, like Christmas and some other annual observances, celebrated on the same day every year but rather moves from one Sunday to another within a narrow range of weeks in early springtime. It has also been movable in another, more important sense, as it has made a long and sometimes difficult journey through the popular consciousness of much of the world over nearly 2,000 years. Easter has been a time of renewal and hope for millions, but for others — victims of age-old religious persecution — it has at times been a dark and frightening occasion. It is a day that can arouse intense emotions, and one that has been misused and misunderstood by many, even as it has provided comfort and solace to many more.
The root event of Easter, the Passion story, is strong stuff. Roman punishment, like Roman warfare, was extraordinarily cruel — deterrence on a macabre scale. The feelings aroused by that story of betrayal, brutality and death have led, almost from the first days of the church — when some Jews differed bitterly with other Jews over the divinity of Jesus of Nazareth — to frightening outbursts of religious violence, as if the Easter message of resurrection and hope was all but forgotten, nothing was forgiven and the theme of the day was revenge.
But that’s not what Easter is about. The Easter story speaks to everyone about the universal fear of death. It is about resurrection and new life, the consciousness that we, or something of us, will endure. To believing Christians, the resurrection is literal. For others, it may be the hope that they will live on in their families, their friends and their society, and in the things they have done. Easter today, in America and elsewhere, has become a day of life and affirmation. It can be as deeply significant as a sunrise service and as lighthearted as an egg roll or an Easter parade. It has moved well along on the path to toleration and understanding, although, as always with such things, there are many miles to go.
Writing ‘eases stress of cancer’
from the BBC
Encouraging cancer patients to write down their deepest fears about the disease may improve their quality of life, according to a US study.
Nancy Morgan, a “writing clinician”, approached patients waiting in a clinic at a cancer centre in Washington DC.
Half those who took part said the exercise changed the way they thought about the illness, according to the journal The Oncologist.
Younger people, and those recently diagnosed, were most likely to benefit.
“Thoughts and feelings, or the cognitive processing and emotions related to cancer, are key writing elements associated with health benefits”, said Nancy Morgan, of the Lombardi Center.
Ms Morgan developed her role as part of the Arts and Humanities Program at the Lombardi Center.
Her “expressive writing” exercise, lasting just 20 minutes, posed questions to leukaemia or lymphoma patients about how the cancer had changed them and how they felt about those changes.
When those taking part were contacted again a few weeks later, 49% said that the writing had changed their thoughts about their illness, while 38% said their feelings towards their situation had changed.
While there was no evidence of direct impact of the session on their illness, where the patients had reported greater changes in their mindset during the writing, this could be linked to more positive reports of quality of life given to their doctors during follow-up appointments.
Ms Morgan said: “Thoughts and feelings, or the cognitive processing and emotions related to cancer, are key writing elements associated with health benefits, according to previous studies.
“Writing only about the facts has shown no benefit.”
Dr Bruce Cheson, the head of haematology at Lombardi, said: “I’m pleased to see that so many of our patients were interested in this kind of therapy.
“Our study supports the benefit of an expressive writing program and the ability to integrate such a program into a busy clinic.”
Ku Klux Klan in Concert
Steel Pulse performing “Ku Klux Klan” in one of the hippest concert films ever, Urgh! A Music War
New York Times Fiction Bestsellers March 30, 2008
from the New York Times
Hardcover Fiction
| This Week |
Last Week |
Weeks On List |
|
| 1 | CHANGE OF HEART, by Jodi Picoult. (Atria, $26.95.) A prisoner on death row begins performing miracles. | 1 | 2 |
| 2 | THE APPEAL, by John Grisham. (Doubleday, $27.95.) Political and legal intrigue ensue when a Mississippi court decides against a chemical company accused of dumping toxic waste. | 2 | 7 |
| 3 | REMEMBER ME?, by Sophie Kinsella. (Dial, $25.) A woman wakes up in a London hospital after an auto accident with no memory of the previous life-changing three years. | 3 | 3 |
| 4 | 7TH HEAVEN, by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro. (Little, Brown, $27.99.) In San Francisco, Detective Lindsay Boxer and the Women’s Murder Club hunt for an arsonist. | 4 | 6 |
| 5 | KILLER HEAT, by Linda Fairstein. (Doubleday, $26.) One August, Alexandra Cooper, a Manhattan assistant district attorney, tracks a serial killer. | 1 | |
| 6 | A PRISONER OF BIRTH, by Jeffrey Archer. (St. Martin’s, $27.95.) A poor Londoner, framed for murder by four Cambridge friends, escapes from prison and exacts revenge. | 7 | 2 |
| 7 | LUSH LIFE, by Richard Price. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $26.) An aspiring writer becomes a suspect in a friend’s murder on the Lower East Side. | 6 | 2 |
| 8 | CHRIST THE LORD: THE ROAD TO CANA, by Anne Rice. (Knopf, $25.95.) In the second book of Rice’s life of Christ, Jesus embraces his prophetic destiny. | 9 | 2 |
| 9 | STRANGERS IN DEATH, by J. D. Robb. (Putnam, $25.95.) Lt. Eve Dallas investigates a businessman’s scandalous death; by Nora Roberts, writing pseudonymously. | 8 | 4 |
| 10 | * A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS, by Khaled Hosseini. (Riverhead, $25.95.) A friendship between two women in Afghanistan against the backdrop of 30 years of war. | 11 | 43 |
| 11 | HONOR THYSELF, by Danielle Steel. (Delacorte, $27.) A 50-year-old actress injured in a terrorist attack in Paris must rebuild her life. | 5 | 3 |
| 12 | WORLD WITHOUT END, by Ken Follett. (Dutton, $35.) Love and intrigue in Kingsbridge, the medieval English cathedral town at the center of Follett’s “Pillars of the Earth.” | 15 | 23 |
| 13 | THE OUTLAW DEMON WAILS, by Kim Harrison. (Eos, $24.95.) A witch who is also a bounty hunter must enter the demonic realm; the sixth book in the Hollows series. | 10 | 3 |
| 14 | DUMA KEY, by Stephen King. (Scribner, $28.) A Florida contractor begins to create paintings with mysterious power. | 13 | 8 |
| 15 | LADY KILLER, by Lisa Scottoline. (Harper, $25.95.) When her high-school rival disappears, possibly as a result of foul play, a Philadelphia lawyer must confront her past. | 12 | 4 |
| 16 | ANOTHER THING TO FALL, by Laura Lippman. (Morrow, $24.95.) A Baltimore private investigator becomes the bodyguard of a difficult star on the set of a TV series. | 1 | |
| Also Selling | |||
| 17 | BETRAYAL, by John Lescroart (Dutton) | ||
| 18 | PEOPLE OF THE BOOK, by Geraldine Brooks (Viking) | ||
| 19 | THE FIRST PATIENT, by Michael Palmer (St. Martin’s) | ||
| 20 | DEEP DISH, by Mary Kay Andrews (Harper) | ||
| 21 | THE KILLING GROUND, by Jack Higgins (Putnam) | ||
| 22 | DEAD TIME, by Stephen White (Dutton) | ||
| 23 | THE SENATOR’S WIFE, by Sue Miller (Knopf) | ||
| 24 | THE ANCIENT, by R. A. Salvatore (Tor) | ||
| 25 | STRANGER IN PARADISE, by Robert B. Parker (Putnam) | ||
| 26 | CARROT CAKE MURDER, by Joanne Fluke (Kensington) | ||
| 27 | FIREFLY LANE, by Kristin Hannah (St. Martin’s) | ||
| 28 | BLIND FALL, by Christopher Rice (Scribner) | ||
| 29 | CHARM!, by Kendall Hart (Hyperion) | ||
| 30 | FRIEND OF THE DEVIL, by Peter Robinson (Morrow) | ||
| 31 | PLUM LUCKY, by Janet Evanovich (St. Martin’s) | ||
| 32 | A STRANGER’S GAME, by Joan Johnston (Pocket) | ||
| 33 | THE GHOST WAR, by Alex Berenson (Putnam) | ||
| 34 | THE SILVER SWAN, by Benjamin Black (Henry Holt) | ||
| 35 | SUCCULENT: CHOCOLATE FLAVA II, edited by Zane (Atria) | ||
“The Origin of the World” – Good manners barely let us describe it.
from the Washington Post and Wikipedia
Moving Beyond Beauty
Gustave Courbet’s Work Retains the Power to Shock
By Blake Gopnik
Washington Post Staff Writer
Of all the jaw-dropping paintings in “Gustave Courbet,” the landmark survey of the great French artist now at the Metropolitan Museum, the jaw drops farthest for one that was painted in 1866, for a Turkish diplomat in Paris. It is called “The Origin of the World.” Even now, 142 years later, it’s too shocking to be reproduced in these pages or on our Web site.
Good manners barely let us describe it.
The painting shows the open crotch of a naked woman, painted in such extreme close-up that her legs, arms and head, as well as most of her torso, are cut off by the edges of the canvas.
As you round a corner at the Met and come up to it for the first time, Courbet’s “Origin” still feels extreme. So just imagine what it meant in 1866.
“L’Origine du monde”, par Gustave Courbet (1819-1877) en 1866.
“There is a word for the people capable of this kind of filth,” wrote one contemporary Frenchman, ” . . . but I shall not pronounce it for the reader.” Another described the painting as “a little monstrosity.”
Except for their contempt, these writers got this picture right: It was meant to shock, by rewriting every notion of what fine art could be. It took old-fashioned ideas of beauty and aesthetics right out of the equation.
Courbet is often described as the genius at the source of all of modern art. That makes perfect sense, especially if you jump right from him to the most radical work of the past 40 years. He’s the ancestor of Richard Serra throwing molten lead into the corner of a room, of Bruce Nauman screaming nonsense phrases into a video camera or of the feminist Cosey Fanni Tutti presenting porn shots of herself as art.
Party Smart (And With A Heart)
Before Green Day Stole The San Jose Scene, There Was Skankin’ Pickle
A Million Penguins, v2.0
snipped from news.com
We Tell Stories is a new alternate-reality game that tasks players with finding their way through six story lines based on classic Penguin novels and a seventh story that ties them all together.
The alternate-reality game genre has a new friend, and a new format, thanks to Penguin Books, the famous British publishing house.
On Tuesday, Penguin and startup Six to Start launched their new ARG, We Tell Stories, a new-style game that its creators say is a hybrid of traditional story-telling, Web 2.0-style mashups, interactive games and classic novels.
We Tell Stories is actually a seven-part adventure, said Jeremy Ettinghausen, the digital publisher for Penguin. It will begin with six weekly installments, each of which is based on a classic novel–and written by a different Penguin author–and which tasks participants with finding their way through the story using tools developed for the game.
After the six installments, We Tell Stories will continue with a seventh weekly piece that will be a game tying the six stories together.
[ click to view full article at news.com ]
20 Ways To Maintain An Edge
1. At Lunch Time, Sit In Your Parked Car With Sunglasses on and point a Hair Dryer At Passing Cars. See If They Slow Down.
2. Page Yourself Over The Intercom. Don’t Disguise Your Voice.
3. Every Time Someone Asks You To Do Something, ask If They Want Fries with that.
4. Put Your Garbage Can On Your Desk And Label it ‘In’.
5. Put Decaf In The Coffee Maker For 3 Weeks Once Everyone has Gotten Over Their Caffeine Addictions, Switch to Espresso.
6. In The Memo Field Of All Your Checks, Write ‘ For Smuggling Diamonds’.
7. Finish All Your sentences with ‘In Accordance With The Prophecy’.
8. Don’t use any punctuation.
9. As Often As Possible, Skip Rather Than Walk.
10. Order a Diet Water whenever you go out to eat, with a serious face.
11. Specify That Your Drive-through Order Is ‘To Go’.
12. Sing Along At The Opera.
13. Go To A Poetry Recital. And Ask Why The Poems Don’t Rhyme?
14. Put Mosquito Netting Around Your Work Area and Play tropical Sounds All Day.
15. Five Days In Advance, Tell Your Friends You Can’t Attend Their Party Because You’re Not In the Mood.
16. Have Your Co-workers Address You By Your Wrestling Name, Rock Bottom.
17. When The Money Comes Out The ATM, Scream ‘I Won! I Won!’
18. When Leaving The Zoo, Start Running Towards The Parking lot, Yelling ‘Run For Your Lives! They’re Loose!’
19. Tell Your Children Over Dinner, ‘Due To The Economy, We Are Going To Have To Let One Of You Go.’
Baryshnikov Behind the Camera
snipped from MediaBistro.com
Surely one of the best parts of Sex and the City was dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov‘s graceful turn as one Aleksandr Petrovsky, a brooding global art star whose living space had us convinced that he was an architect in disguise. Meanwhile, Baryshnikov hasn’t stopped multi-tasking. Tuesday saw the opening of an exhibition of his photographs of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company at 401 Projects, the cozy New York gallery owned by photographer Mark Seliger.
Baryshnikov has been taking pictures–landscapes, portraits, travel shots–for 20 years, but this is the first time that he’s turned his camera on the world of dance, something he knows a little something about. “I made a point of rejecting obvious opportunities to photograph dance, thinking the results were boring and unnecessary,” he says. An epiphany came as he paged through old books of dance photography, particularly Alexey Brodovitch‘s 1945 Ballet and Paul Himmel‘s 1954 Ballet in Action. “I discovered that abandoning the crystalline image in favor of blurred edges approximates the excitement of dance in performance.”
Newly inspired, he swapped his 35mm for a digital camera and set out to photograph social dancing in the Dominican Republic and then moved on to shoot the work of Cunningham, “as an homage to one of the greatest choreographers of our time.”
International Thriller Writers 2008 Award Finalists
click to visit the International Thriller Writers website
Finalists for the 2008 Thriller Awards!
Drum roll please!
After much arduous and painstaking labor by our three panels of esteemed judges–overseen and orchestrated by this year’s Award Chair, the talented Vicki Hinze–the nominees for this year’s “Thriller” awards have been selected. Out of a field of over five hundred books, the list has been winnowed down to five titles in each of the following categories: Best Novel, Best First Novel, and Best Paperback Original.
The winners will be announced this summer at Thrillerfest 2008 at the Grand Hyatt in New York City during a gala banquet on Saturday, July 12th.
But why keep you in the dark any longer? Without further ado, here is the list of nominees in each category:
BEST NOVEL 2008
No Time For Goodbye by Linwood Barclay (Bantam)
The Watchman by Robert Crais (Simon & Schuster)
The Ghost by Robert Harris (Simon & Schuster)
The Crime Writer by Gregg Hurwitz (Viking)
Trouble by Jesse Kellerman (Putnam)
BEST FIRST NOVEL 2008
Interred With Their Bones by Jennifer Lee Carrell (Dutton)
Big City, Bad Blood by Sean Chercover (William Morrow)
From the Depths by Gerry Doyle (McBook Press)
Volk’s Game by Brent Ghelfi (Henry Holt and Co.)
Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill (William Morrow)
BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL 2008
The Last Nightingale by Anthony Flacco (Ballantine)
A Thousand Bones by P.J. Parrish (Pocket)
The Midnight Road by Tom Piccirilli (Bantam)
The Queen of Bedlam by Robert McCammon (Pocket)
Shattered by Jay Bonansinga (Pinnacle)
White People Blog Under Fire
from the Houston Chronicle
Race-related blog causing controversy
Caucasian site is flooded with hits
By CORILYN SHROPSHIRE
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle
Asian women, fancy coffee, farmers markets, dinner parties and gay friends — these are just a sampling of life’s pleasures — if you’re white.
Excuse me?
That’s according to Christian Landers, the (white) wit behind the Web sensation Stuff White People Like blog, an irreverent daily missive on the passions of posh urbanites of the Caucasian persuasion.
It’s the latest in a string of racially charged blogs (first came theassimilatednegro.com, then angryasian.com) that act as a virtual shrink’s sofa for those tackling the tricky topics of race and class.
Readers, hundreds every day, flood the site’s comment section with alternating fury and delight.
To date, there have been 14 million hits, reflecting the nation’s current obsession with race and gender, too. For confirmation, check out the comments and speeches by presidential candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton just this past week.
Dean Rader, a pop culture critic who authors weeklyrader.blogspot.com, says readers flock to Stuff White People Like because it’s hip and hot and the place to be seen and heard online. “It’s just as much about class and coolness and yuppiness and consumption (as race).”
And yes, if the some of the posts push far beyond the boundaries of good taste, readers seem to find liberation in an environment unfettered by political correctness.
Take #11 on the list: “Asian Girls: 95% of white males have at one point in their lives experienced yellow fever. … White men love Asian women so much that they will go to extremes such as stating that Sandra Oh is sexy, teaching English in Asia, playing in a co-ed volleyball league … ”
Ouch.
That post has received more than 1,550 responses.
Other posts — try No. 36, “Breakfast Places” and No. 63, “Expensive Sandwiches” — may seem a bit more benign, but the post and ensuing conversations carry just as much bite.
“To a white person, there is no better way to spend a Saturday morning than to get up late, around 9:30 and pile into your Audi or Volvo and drive to one of these little places and eat breakfast with friends,” Landers writes. “Oftentimes these breakfasts last for an hour or more (hence the long lines and wait times). Some white people take it to the next level and bring their dogs, newspapers or even a laptop.”
The latest spinoff of Landers’ blog — Stuff Asian People Like.
She’d Be Cuter If She Had More Meat On Those Bones
clipped from KUTV Utah
Utah Blonde Named As PETA’s ‘Sexiest Vegetarian’ of 2008
SALT LAKE CITY – Her decision to cut meat out of her daily diet turned out to be a winning move.
A 21-year-old Salt Lake City woman on Monday was named by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) as 2008’s “sexiest vegetarian” — beating out a field of hundreds.
Shona Barnthouse was named the winner after beating out 15 other finalists. As a reward, she and a friend will travel to Maui, Hawaii for a week-long vacation.
A dancer and model, Shona only recently became a vegetarian but has found it to be a life-changing decision. She has noticed a boost in daily energy and muscle tone, she says. An animal-lover for as long as she can remember, Shona says she always helps a creature in need and refuses to wear leather.
“Shona is a big winner in anybody’s book,” said PETA Vice President Bruce Friedrich. “Her smart move to go vegetarian has improved her health and helped stop animal suffering.
“Being sexy is just one more perk,” he added.
The Flatulated Fly
spot for the Mio Digiwalker
Juicy Evidence Required
nicked from the AP
College gossip site under scrutiny
By BRAD HAYNES, Associated Press WriterTue Mar 18, 8:36 PM ET
New Jersey prosecutors have subpoenaed records of JuicyCampus.com, a Web site that publishes anonymous, often malicious gossip about college students.
Language on the site ranges from catty to hateful and offensive. One thread, for example, on the “most overrated Princeton student” quickly dissolves into name-calling, homophobia and anti-Semitism.
JuicyCampus may be violating the state’s Consumer Fraud Act by suggesting that it doesn’t allow offensive material but providing no enforcement of that rule — and no way for users to report or dispute the material, New Jersey Attorney General Anne Milgram said Tuesday.
The investigation began last month when a student came forward who had been terrorized by posts on the Web site that included her address. Prosecutors have subpoenaed information from JuicyCampus on how it is run, citing concerns about “unconscionable commercial practices.”
“There’s an unbelievable amount of offensive material posted and absolutely no enforcement,” said Milgram, noting insults about students’ appearance, race and sexual history as “just the tip of the iceberg.”
The attorney general has also subpoenaed the Web site’s advertising agency, Adbrite, to determine how JuicyCampus represented its operation and what advertising keywords the site requested.
Milgram said Adbrite has offered full cooperation with the investigation and canceled its contract with JuicyCampus.
The site launched last fall on seven college campuses and recently expanded to 50 more, including Princeton University. Free to use and supported by advertising, JuicyCampus promises total anonymity to people who post on it. Many of the postings indicate they’ve been viewed thousands of times.
JuicyCampus founder Matt Ivester has expressed little concern in the past about backlash from colleges.
“Like anything that is even remotely controversial, there are always people who demand censorship,” he told The Associated Press last month. “However, we believe that JuicyCampus can have a really positive impact on college campuses, as a place for both entertainment and free expression.”
The site seems designed to shield its users from the threat of libel claims.
“It is not possible for anyone to use this Web site to find out who you are or where you are located,” assures a JuicyCampus privacy page. “We do not track any information that can be used by us to identify you. ”
Mainstream social networking sites, on the other hand, maintain detailed logs of users’ numeric Internet protocol addresses and their posting history.
[ click to view original article at AP ]
Awareness Test
Get Rich The Radiohead Way
Make Radiohead Video, Get Paid (A Little)
| March 17, 2008 7:00 AM
You didn’t really expect Radiohead to produce a traditional music video, did you? The band that released its last album as a pay-what-you-like download last fall has a new stunt: A contest where the winner gets $10,000 — and the chance to make the band’s next video.
The band, along with online animation studio Aniboom, are launching an online search to find an animator–likely an amateur–to create a full-length music video for the band. Contestants are being asked to submit storyboard treatments for the video, uploaded to Aniboom, which will be judged by Aniboom, Radiohead’s label TBD Records, Adult Swim, as well as voters at MySpace.com. Ten semi-finalists will be picked and awarded $1,000 each to produce a one-minute versions. From those clips, the band will choose the best and award another $10,000 to produce a full-length video.
A little about Aniboom: it’s an online animation producer/aggregator that syndicates animation to multiple online outlets such as Veoh and Joost. Aniboom finances production, and then takes a 30% equity stake. The company has a library of 4,000 animated clips from thousands of animators, including an ongoing parody of “American Idol,” “Aniboom Eyedoll.”
Before Barack, There Was Jesse
listen to Grandmaster Melle Mel pump it for
Jesse Jackson back in the brave new 1984 day.
Barack needs Sugar Hill…
50 Years of California Video Art
New Titles Out Next Week
snipped from Shelf-Awareness
Selected hardcover titles appearing next Tuesday, March 25:
Buckingham Palace Gardens: A Novel by Anne Perry (Ballantine, $26) is the 25th Thomas Pitt mystery.
Hollywood Crows: A Novel by Joseph Wambaugh (Little, Brown, $26.99) examines corruption in the LAPD through a new member of the Community Relations Office.
Compulsion: An Alex Delaware Novel by Jonathan Kellerman (Ballantine Books, $27) is the 22nd mystery starring the retired child psychologist.
In the Frame: My Life in Words and Pictures by Helen Mirren (Atria, $35) is the illustrated memoir of the film and TV star.
Yankee Stadium: The Official Retrospective by Al Santasiere and Mark Vancil (Pocket, $50) recalls the stadium’s 85-year history–just before its last season.
Mistaken Identity: Two Families, One Survivor, Unwavering Hope by Don and Susie Van Ryn, Newell, Colleen and Whitney Cerak (Howard Books, $21.99) explores the incident in which a girl was buried under the name of another girl who was in a coma.
The Cure for Modern Life: A Novel by Lisa Tucker (Atria, $24.95) follows a pharmaceutical company executive whose ex-girlfriend is a medical ethics watchdog working against him.
Olive Kitteridge: Fiction by Elizabeth Strout (Random House, $25) is a collection of 13 interconnected stories about coastal Maine residents.
Blue-Eyed Devil by Lisa Kleypas (St. Martin’s, $21.95) is a romance novel about the daughter of a rich Texan businessman.
Lost Souls by Lisa Jackson (Kensington, $22) follows a crime writer who enrolls in a Catholic school to investigate the disappearance of several students.
Because I Can (& b/c Ex-Laker Girls Still Rule!)
How many 5-year old children can you take in a fight?
submitted by The Duke
This short survey will tell you approximately how many five year old children you could fight at once. Results are based on physical prowess, training, swarm-combatting experience, and the flexibility of your moral compass. Here are the ground rules:
- You are in an enclosed area roughly the size of a basketball court
- There are no weapons or foreign objects
- Everyone is wearing a cup (so no kicks to the groin)
- The children are merciless and will show no fear
- If a child is knocked unconscious, he is “out.” The same goes for you.
CLICK HERE TO BEGIN
This was created by Matthew Inman. Thanks to this forum post for the inspiration.
ABBA Drummer Dead – Napolean Hat Found Nearby
Ex-ABBA drummer found dead at home
A former drummer for the Swedish pop band ABBA has been found dead in the garden of his house on the island of Majorca.
Ola Brunkert, 62, is believed to have been the only session musician to have appeared on all the group’s recordings.
A police spokeswoman said an autopsy was being carried out but investigations indicated the death was an accident and no foul play is suspected.
She said a neighbour found Mr Brunkert’s body on Sunday in the garden of his house in the town of Arta.
Police believe he fell and cut his neck indoors. He then apparently tried to leave the house to seek help but collapsed in the garden.
If He’d Just Cover His Breasts I Bet He’d Get That Scholarship
from Breitbart.tv
Mystery Bestsellers for February
snipped from IMBA, noted by Shelf-Awareness
The INDEPENDENT MYSTERY BOOKSELLERS ASSOCIATION (IMBA)
Connecting Criminally Inclined Readers with Arresting Mysteries
The following were the bestselling titles at member bookstores of the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association during February:
Multiple Dilys nominee Jacqueline Winspear’s historic mystery leads February’s hardcovers, while a timely espionage novel tops the paperback list.
Hardcovers:
1) AN INCOMPLETE REVENGE by Jacqueline Winspear
2) L.A. OUTLAWS by T. Jefferson Parker
3) ATOMIC LOBSTER by Tim Dorsey
4) AUNT DIMITY, VAMPIRE HUNTER by Nancy Atherton
5) THE ANATOMY OF DECEPTION by Lawrence Goldstone
6) THE BLACK DOVE by Steve Hockensmith
7) A PALE HORSE by Charles Todd
8) HELL’S BAY by James Hall
9) PREPARED FOR RAGE by Dana Stabenow
10) THE CRAZY SCHOOL by Cornelia Read
Paperbacks:
1) THE FAITHFUL SPY by Alex Berenson
2) MONEY SHOT by Christa Faust
3) THISTLE & TWIGG by Mary Saums
4) MAGIC CITY by James Hall
5) PUSS ‘N CAHOOTS by Rita Mae Brown
6) A FATAL GRACE by Louise Penny
7) THE WATCHMAN by Robert Crais
8) CHRISTINE FALLS by Benjamin Black
9) WHAT ARE YOU WEARING TO DIE? by Patricia Sprinkle
10) STORM RUNNERS by T. Jefferson Parker
Send Your Poetry to The Guardian
from Guardian UK
Sean O’Brien’s workshop
Sean O’Brien
Monday March 10, 2008
guardian.co.uk
A central figure in the world of contemporary poetry, Sean O’Brien is famous for balancing the demands of tradition and poetic structure with a flair for contemporary themes and local colour. He has won most of the major poetry prizes for his five collections, including the Somerset Maugham Award, the EM Forster Award and the Cholmondeley Award. He is also active as a literary critic and is Professor of Creative Writing at Sheffield University.
Sean’s suggestions for adding drama to poetry
A fundamental skill is the ability to dramatize a poem, to give it the sense of three-dimensional life, rather than simply let it comment on its subject. Few of us are sufficiently remarkable to have interesting general opinions about life, but if we renew proverbial truths in fresh contexts we may be on to something.
Factors to consider in order to achieve this include:
1. The use of narrative rather than commentary.
2. The use of image rather than commentary.
3. The method described by the playwright David Mamet in his famous dictum “Arrive late and leave early.”
4. A sense of audience, which may for example require you to consider the function of the “lead” pronoun of the poem, e.g. “I”, “you”, “we”, “they”.
5. The presence of more than one speaking voice; or the sense that the speaker of the poem is addressing a particular person – which puts the reader in that intimate role. Alternatively, the reader may be an eavesdropper on the events of the poem.
6. The sense of the poem as an event that offers the reader an experience. In this context give careful thought to sentence construction. Formal? Conversational? Mixed?
Examples Robert Browning: My Last Duchess, TS Eliot: Portrait of a Lady, WH Auden: The Fall of Rome, Sylvia Plath: Sheep in Fog, Paul Muldoon: Cuba, Jo Shapcott: Motherland, David Harsent: Marriage xviii: A still life is how I see it – a cool approach.
Activity Write a short dramatic poem (30 lines maximum). Here are some possible openings which may be helpful.
1. When you come around here Waving flowers and a writ You’ll find me standing on the stairs.
3. “It will never be said in my country I have killed a naked man.” – “Matty Groves”, traditional
4. Give me a pear from the blue bowl, Jane. Give me five a day, for old time’s sake. Peel me a grape, disembowel a fig. Let fruit be waiting when I wake.
5. You were saying, dear uncle, When the doorbell rang?
Email your entries, with “Poetry workshop” in the title field, to books.editor@guardianunlimited.co.uk, by March 31.
The Case Against Breeding (In Bronze)
The Hollywood Numbers Game
Fascinating montage of Hollywood clips featuring the numbers 1 to 100. It took this guy 101 days to complete, and he got zero help from his girlfriend (now ex-girlfriend). Very cool tho.