via "I Like" the Electric Brae, Ayrshire

"There is, literally, nothing to see at Electric Brae (known locally as Croy Brae). Unsuspecting travellers following the A719 coastal road near Dunure in Ayrshire will see the sign: "Electric Brae: Slow vehicles ahead". Mysteriously there is nothing until you get round the bend and a queue of stationary cars sits in the middle of the road. If it's anything like it used to be when I went there as a kid the cars will be full of beaming children slackjawed with wonderment for Electric Brae is a magical place, a "gravity" or "magnetic hill" where the laws of physics seemingly don't apply and cars roll upwards..."

Saw this place on several occasions, driving around with Dad in the Austin A-40, and it really is impressively disorienting...

 

(collage by Susan Bee)


Walter Benjamin's Disco Moment--

"In the protocols Benjamin's experiences tend to veer between anxiety, ecstasy, and illumination. He wasn't exactly out to abandon himself to pleasure in the first place; stopping at another cafe he finds himself a little too ready to enjoy the music: "I have forgotten on what grounds I permitted myself to mark the beat with my foot," he notes. "This is against my education, and it did not happen without inner disputation..."


 

new 900-pager from Thomas Pynchon due December...

"Contrary-to-the-fact occurrences occur," Pynchon writes. "If it is not the world, it is what the world might be with a minor adjustment or two. According to some, this is one of the main purposes of fiction. Let the reader decide, let the reader beware. Good luck."


 

Chuck Norris Jokes

"Chuck Norris does not use spell check. If he happens to misspell a word, Oxford will simply change the actual spelling of it."
 

it of course makes perfect sense that Walter Benjamin translated Charles Dickens'The Old Curiosity Shop into German, but I was obscurely pleased to find it out...


 

the Kootenay School of Writing website is in the midst of a big expansion, complete with audio, photos, etc etc...very well done.

 

a fine set of Los Angeles Taco Trucks

(via I like)
 

beat the heat & enjoy some of these 50 animated films (In Quicktime) from the oscar-tastic National Film Board of Canada...