Friday, December 12, 2003
Mysterious ice balls falling from heavens: "'I'm not worried that a block of ice may fall on your head,' said Jesus Martinez-Frias of the Center for Astrobiology in Madrid.
'I'm worried that great blocks of ice are forming where they shouldn't exist.'"
'I'm worried that great blocks of ice are forming where they shouldn't exist.'"
Thursday, December 11, 2003
Being in a pen with a wounded bull.: "For instance, an American from San Diego is quoted saying: 'What bugs me about Canadians, if I may, is that they wear that damn patch on their bags, the Canadian flag patch. That way, they differentiate themselves from us.'"
Ferries on strike here, much typical hysteria in the media but here is the Marine Worker's Union site.
Wednesday, December 10, 2003
Pulpfiction Books has a mess of new books in for holiday browsing, and a new branch I didn't even know about!
Happy Birthday Olivier Messiaen--
“In my hours of gloom, when I am suddenly aware of my own futility, when every musical idiom – classical, Oriental, ancient, modern, and ultra-modern – appears to me as no more than admirable, painstaking experimentation, without any ultimate justification, what is left for me but to seek out the true, lost face of music somewhere off in the forest, in the fields, in the mountains, or on the seashore, among the birds.”
and Emily Dickinson--
The Birds reported from the South—
A News express to Me—
A spicy Charge, My little Posts—
But I am deaf—Today—
The Flowers—appealed—a timid Throng—
I reinforced the Door—
Go blossom for the Bees—I said—
And trouble Me—no More—
The Summer Grace, for Notice strove—
Remote—Her best Array—
The Heart—to stimulate the Eye
Refused too utterly—
At length, a Mourner, like Myself,
She drew away austere—
Her frosts to ponder—then it was
I recollected Her—
She suffered Me, for I had mourned—
I offered Her no word—
My Witness—was the Crape I bore—
Her—Witness—was Her Dead—
Thenceforward—We—together dwelt—
I never questioned Her—
Our Contract
A Wiser Sympathy
“In my hours of gloom, when I am suddenly aware of my own futility, when every musical idiom – classical, Oriental, ancient, modern, and ultra-modern – appears to me as no more than admirable, painstaking experimentation, without any ultimate justification, what is left for me but to seek out the true, lost face of music somewhere off in the forest, in the fields, in the mountains, or on the seashore, among the birds.”
and Emily Dickinson--
The Birds reported from the South—
A News express to Me—
A spicy Charge, My little Posts—
But I am deaf—Today—
The Flowers—appealed—a timid Throng—
I reinforced the Door—
Go blossom for the Bees—I said—
And trouble Me—no More—
The Summer Grace, for Notice strove—
Remote—Her best Array—
The Heart—to stimulate the Eye
Refused too utterly—
At length, a Mourner, like Myself,
She drew away austere—
Her frosts to ponder—then it was
I recollected Her—
She suffered Me, for I had mourned—
I offered Her no word—
My Witness—was the Crape I bore—
Her—Witness—was Her Dead—
Thenceforward—We—together dwelt—
I never questioned Her—
Our Contract
A Wiser Sympathy
Tuesday, December 09, 2003
Monday, December 08, 2003
Horace, Ode 1.9 (adapted by Alan Ramsey):
"An Ode to Ph----
Look up to Pentland's tow'ring tap,
Buried beneath great wreaths of snaw,
O'er ilka cleugh, ilk scar, and slap,
As high as ony Roman wa'.
Driving their ba's frae whins or tee,
There's no nae gowfer to be seen,
Nor dousser fouk wysing a-jee
The byast bouls on Tamson's green.
Then fling on coals, and ripe the ribs,
And beek the house baith but and ben,
That mutchkin stoup it hauds but dribs,
Then let's get in the tappit hen.
Good claret best keeps out the cauld,
And drives away the winter soon;
It makes a man baith gash and bauld,
And heaves his saul beyond the moon.
Leave to the gods your ilka care,
If that they think us worth their while
They can a rowth of blessings spare,
Which will our fasheous fears beguile.
For what they have a mind to do,
That will they do, should we gang wud;
If they command the storms to blaw,
Then upo' sight the hailstanes thud.
But soon as e'er they cry -- 'Be quiet,'
The blatt'ring winds dare nae mair move,
But cour into their caves, and wait
The high command of supreme Jove.
Let neist day come as it thinks fit,
The present minute's only ours;
On pleasure let's employ our wit,
And laugh at fortune's feckless powers.
Be sure ye dinna quat the grip
Of ilka joy when ye are young,
Before auld age your vitals nip,
And lay ye twafald o'er a rung.
Sweet youth's a blyth and heartsome time;
Then, lads and lasses, while it's May,
Gae pou the gowan in its prime
Before it wither and decay.
Watch the saft minutes of delyte
When Jenny speaks beneath her breath,
And kisses, laying a' the wyte
On you, if she keap ony skaith.
"Haith, ye're ill-bred," she'll smiling say,
"Ye'll worry me, ye greedy rook;"
Syne frae your arms she'll rin away,
And hide hersell in some dark nook.
Her laugh will lead you to the place
Where lies the happiness you want,
And plainly tells you to your face
Nineteen nay says are ha'f a grant.
Now to her heaving bosom cling,
And sweetly toolie for a kiss,
Frae her fair finger whop a ring,
As taiken of a future bliss.
These bennisons, I'm very sure,
Are of the gods' indulgent grant;
Then, surly carles, whisht, -- forbear
To plague us with your whining cant. "
"An Ode to Ph----
Look up to Pentland's tow'ring tap,
Buried beneath great wreaths of snaw,
O'er ilka cleugh, ilk scar, and slap,
As high as ony Roman wa'.
Driving their ba's frae whins or tee,
There's no nae gowfer to be seen,
Nor dousser fouk wysing a-jee
The byast bouls on Tamson's green.
Then fling on coals, and ripe the ribs,
And beek the house baith but and ben,
That mutchkin stoup it hauds but dribs,
Then let's get in the tappit hen.
Good claret best keeps out the cauld,
And drives away the winter soon;
It makes a man baith gash and bauld,
And heaves his saul beyond the moon.
Leave to the gods your ilka care,
If that they think us worth their while
They can a rowth of blessings spare,
Which will our fasheous fears beguile.
For what they have a mind to do,
That will they do, should we gang wud;
If they command the storms to blaw,
Then upo' sight the hailstanes thud.
But soon as e'er they cry -- 'Be quiet,'
The blatt'ring winds dare nae mair move,
But cour into their caves, and wait
The high command of supreme Jove.
Let neist day come as it thinks fit,
The present minute's only ours;
On pleasure let's employ our wit,
And laugh at fortune's feckless powers.
Be sure ye dinna quat the grip
Of ilka joy when ye are young,
Before auld age your vitals nip,
And lay ye twafald o'er a rung.
Sweet youth's a blyth and heartsome time;
Then, lads and lasses, while it's May,
Gae pou the gowan in its prime
Before it wither and decay.
Watch the saft minutes of delyte
When Jenny speaks beneath her breath,
And kisses, laying a' the wyte
On you, if she keap ony skaith.
"Haith, ye're ill-bred," she'll smiling say,
"Ye'll worry me, ye greedy rook;"
Syne frae your arms she'll rin away,
And hide hersell in some dark nook.
Her laugh will lead you to the place
Where lies the happiness you want,
And plainly tells you to your face
Nineteen nay says are ha'f a grant.
Now to her heaving bosom cling,
And sweetly toolie for a kiss,
Frae her fair finger whop a ring,
As taiken of a future bliss.
These bennisons, I'm very sure,
Are of the gods' indulgent grant;
Then, surly carles, whisht, -- forbear
To plague us with your whining cant. "
Sunday, December 07, 2003
North Bay News : "'The program is kind of like the pantheon of pop culture and it's nice to see Project Grizzly, which has already achieved cult status, enter the larger popular cultural arena,' Lynch said.
'Being part of The Simpsons will give Project Grizzly more of a mythic status while also giving it currency.'
Lynch said Canadians are “passive consumers” of American culture and of myths that “glorify” American heroes and values.
'Troy and his men aren't simply watching Robocop or the Terminator trilogy; they're attempting to live it. The Simpsons has its finger on the pulse of zeitgeist pop culture. And it takes a classic like Project Grizzly and transforms it even further through mainstream mythic consciousness,' Lynch said".
'Being part of The Simpsons will give Project Grizzly more of a mythic status while also giving it currency.'
Lynch said Canadians are “passive consumers” of American culture and of myths that “glorify” American heroes and values.
'Troy and his men aren't simply watching Robocop or the Terminator trilogy; they're attempting to live it. The Simpsons has its finger on the pulse of zeitgeist pop culture. And it takes a classic like Project Grizzly and transforms it even further through mainstream mythic consciousness,' Lynch said".
Saturday, December 06, 2003
ASHER BROWN DURAND research uncovers Halleck link--:
"In 1867, evidently in anticipation of making a grand gesture on his wedding anniversary, Field prevailed upon his friend Fitz-Greene Halleck to invent a second verse:
And that I am all the world to her,
It joys my breath to say, For her beating heart has told me so
For many a happy day. For many a happy day-
And her bonny lip and eye, Oh! my darling Floy Van Cortlandt,
'Tis for thee Id live and die.
Then, Field asked Durand to complete the three-way collaborative gift. It was not unusual for Durand to accept a landscape commission in which setting and various details were stipulated by the patron. He enhanced Field's memory image of thirty years by setting the courting couple, moon, clouds, and the shores of a winding I Hudson River into the type of landscape in vogue when both he and his patron were young men by reverting to the classical landscape formula of tile seventeenth-century French painter Claude Lorrain, on which he hid frequently relied thirty ' years earlier. During the 1860s, Durand occasionally created landscapes in which such older formulas reappear."
"In 1867, evidently in anticipation of making a grand gesture on his wedding anniversary, Field prevailed upon his friend Fitz-Greene Halleck to invent a second verse:
And that I am all the world to her,
It joys my breath to say, For her beating heart has told me so
For many a happy day. For many a happy day-
And her bonny lip and eye, Oh! my darling Floy Van Cortlandt,
'Tis for thee Id live and die.
Then, Field asked Durand to complete the three-way collaborative gift. It was not unusual for Durand to accept a landscape commission in which setting and various details were stipulated by the patron. He enhanced Field's memory image of thirty years by setting the courting couple, moon, clouds, and the shores of a winding I Hudson River into the type of landscape in vogue when both he and his patron were young men by reverting to the classical landscape formula of tile seventeenth-century French painter Claude Lorrain, on which he hid frequently relied thirty ' years earlier. During the 1860s, Durand occasionally created landscapes in which such older formulas reappear."
Friday, December 05, 2003
Dams: the beavers' dams: "I don't like calling beavers engineers. What humans engineer either works or doesn't work any more. Beavers have a more encompassing view of the environment than humans. Their 'work' fits more organically into the natural scheme of things. One 300 foot dam I patrol has good sized bushes growing out of it."
Language Log has these Beaver terms from the Carrier language of BC's interior:
"tsa--beaver
tsatsul--beaver of mid-sized variety
tsayaz--beaver of small variety
tsati--beaver of large variety
tsachenisboo'--beaver kit
tsata'--adult male beaver
tsa'at--female beaver
tsadiya--mother beaver
tsacho--male beaver that is the boss of a whole area
tsaken--beaver lodge
'utsut--runway from lodge of beaver or muskrat to land
lht'azutnai--pair of beaver lodges built close together behind one dam
'udats'un--beaver harpoon
tsambilh--beaver snare
'ulhtusti--trail over beaver dam
tsata'ti--beaver channel under the ice"
"tsa--beaver
tsatsul--beaver of mid-sized variety
tsayaz--beaver of small variety
tsati--beaver of large variety
tsachenisboo'--beaver kit
tsata'--adult male beaver
tsa'at--female beaver
tsadiya--mother beaver
tsacho--male beaver that is the boss of a whole area
tsaken--beaver lodge
'utsut--runway from lodge of beaver or muskrat to land
lht'azutnai--pair of beaver lodges built close together behind one dam
'udats'un--beaver harpoon
tsambilh--beaver snare
'ulhtusti--trail over beaver dam
tsata'ti--beaver channel under the ice"
Wednesday, December 03, 2003
Is Miles Davis really dead?: "McLaughlin's power-guitar solo that opens the track should be used to sort out the wheat from the chaff in the air guitar Olympics. Around bar 50 he begins to get ready to pass the lead to Davis and begins a climatic buildup from bar 60, a masterpiece of impromptu construction that climaxes with Davis's entry at bar 75. Davis makes the most of what he's been given. Just as Scarpia's entrance in Act 1 of Puccini's Tosca is one of the great, dramatic moments in opera, so Davis's commanding entry here is one of the great moments in jazz. "
Tuesday, December 02, 2003
Monday, December 01, 2003
Sunday, November 30, 2003
Cinnamon: "'We were looking at the effects of common foods on blood sugar,' he told New Scientist. One was the American favourite, apple pie, which is usually spiced with cinnamon. 'We expected it to be bad. But it helped,' he says."
Giving cats a chance in life: "Behind him are several miniature dwellings that look like igloos. The cats sleep in the tiny huts, which the volunteers line with straw in the winter. 'They're like little subdivisions,' Shaw says. "
Referential Communication with an African Grey Parrot: "Alex has learned over 40 object labels: paper, key, nut, wood, wheat, truck, hide (rawhide chips), peg wood (clothes pins), grain, cork, corn, walnut, block, box, showah (shower), banana, pasta, gym, cracker, scraper (nail file), popcorn, chain, kiwi, shoulder, rock (a lava stone beak conditioner), carrot, gravel, cup, citrus, back, chair, chalk, water, nail, grape, grate, treat, cherry, wool, green bean, and banerry (apple). We have tentative evidence for labels such as bread and jacks. He has functional use of 'no', phrases such as 'come here', 'I want X', and 'Wanna go Y' where X and Y are appropriate labels for objects or locations."
Saturday, November 29, 2003
New Scientist on the three minute pop song: "Right back to Kylie in the 1980s, I have always looked at beats per minute as fundamental to a song. Anything too slow and you get a lethargic reaction. With Stock, Aitken and Waterman we were trying to make people feel uplifted and get their heartbeat moving. There is definitely a point somewhere around 120 bpm when it starts to get excited."
Thursday, November 27, 2003
Useful Noise: "And why not--finally we can close the book on the utopian vision of Thriller and once more successfully police the borders of adulthood and race and sexuality. Of course a black performer who won such a white audience harbors secret dreams of passing. Of course an effeminate adult with so pronounced a childlike side wants to fuck little boys. Glad that's over with. "
Brian Kim Stefans reviews the Sieburth Pound: "Impatience and a sense of wonder might be the two best qualities of a critic, though neither is very useful without a decent prose style. "
Wednesday, November 26, 2003
The First Vintage: "But in addition, McGovern thinks, ancient people were probably well aware of the fermentation process whereby yeast turns the sugar in grape juice into alcohol. Indeed, wild grapes frequently carry a dusting of yeast on their skins, probably transported by wasps and other flying insects, and will occasionally ferment right on the vine (birds sometimes become so inebriated eating wild grapes that they fall from their perches). "
Complete Poetical Works by William Cowper
from "The Winter Walk at Noon"
Where now the vital energy that moved,
While summer was, the pure and subtle lymph
Through the imperceptible meandering veins
Of leaf and flower? It sleeps; and the icy touch
Of unprolific winter has impress’d
A cold stagnation on the intestine tide.
But let the months go round, a few short months,
And all shall be restored. These naked shoots,
Barren as lances, among which the wind
Makes wintry music, sighing as it goes,
Shall put their graceful foliage on again,
And, more aspiring, and with ampler spread,
Shall boast new charms, and more than they have lost.
Then each , in its peculiar honours clad,
Shall publish, even to the distant eye,
Its family and tribe. Laburnum, rich
In streaming gold; syringa, ivory pure;
The scentless and the scented rose; this red,
And of an humbler growth, the other tall,
And throwing up into the darkest gloom
Of neighbouring cypress, or more sable yew,
Her silver globes, light as the foamy surf
That the wind severs from the broken wave;
The lilac, various in array, now white,
Now sanguine, and her beauteous head now set
With purple spikes pyramidal, as if,
Studious of ornament, yet unresolved
Which hue she most approved, she chose them all:
Copious of flowers the woodbine, pale and wan,
But well compensating her sickly looks
With never-cloying odours, early and late;
Hypericum all bloom, so thick a swarm
Of flowers, like flies clothing her slender rods,
That scarce a leaf appears; mezereon too,
Though leafless, well attired, and thick beset
With blushing wreaths, investing every spray;
Althæa with the purple eye; the broom,
Yellow and bright as bullion unalloy’d,
Her blossoms; and luxuriant above all
The jasmine, throwing wide her elegant sweets,The deep dark green of whose unvarnish’d leaf
Makes more conspicuous, and illumines more
The bright profusion of her scatter’d stars.—
These have been, and these shall be in their day;
And all this uniform, uncolour’d scene
Shall be dismantled of its fleecy load,
And flush into variety again.
from "The Winter Walk at Noon"
Where now the vital energy that moved,
While summer was, the pure and subtle lymph
Through the imperceptible meandering veins
Of leaf and flower? It sleeps; and the icy touch
Of unprolific winter has impress’d
A cold stagnation on the intestine tide.
But let the months go round, a few short months,
And all shall be restored. These naked shoots,
Barren as lances, among which the wind
Makes wintry music, sighing as it goes,
Shall put their graceful foliage on again,
And, more aspiring, and with ampler spread,
Shall boast new charms, and more than they have lost.
Then each , in its peculiar honours clad,
Shall publish, even to the distant eye,
Its family and tribe. Laburnum, rich
In streaming gold; syringa, ivory pure;
The scentless and the scented rose; this red,
And of an humbler growth, the other tall,
And throwing up into the darkest gloom
Of neighbouring cypress, or more sable yew,
Her silver globes, light as the foamy surf
That the wind severs from the broken wave;
The lilac, various in array, now white,
Now sanguine, and her beauteous head now set
With purple spikes pyramidal, as if,
Studious of ornament, yet unresolved
Which hue she most approved, she chose them all:
Copious of flowers the woodbine, pale and wan,
But well compensating her sickly looks
With never-cloying odours, early and late;
Hypericum all bloom, so thick a swarm
Of flowers, like flies clothing her slender rods,
That scarce a leaf appears; mezereon too,
Though leafless, well attired, and thick beset
With blushing wreaths, investing every spray;
Althæa with the purple eye; the broom,
Yellow and bright as bullion unalloy’d,
Her blossoms; and luxuriant above all
The jasmine, throwing wide her elegant sweets,The deep dark green of whose unvarnish’d leaf
Makes more conspicuous, and illumines more
The bright profusion of her scatter’d stars.—
These have been, and these shall be in their day;
And all this uniform, uncolour’d scene
Shall be dismantled of its fleecy load,
And flush into variety again.
Invisible Library of non-existent books. Contains neither "The Boy's Book of Burls" or "Twenty Scottish Verbs Explained" unfortunately.
Umberto Eco--The future of books: "A person reading the Encyclopaedia Britannica every night before sleeping, from the first to the last page, would be a comic character. "
Tuesday, November 25, 2003
Red sea urchin 'almost immortal': "'Some of the largest and we believe oldest red sea urchins up to 19 centimetres in size have been found in waters off British Columbia, between Vancouver Island and the mainland.
'By our calculations, they are probably 200 or more years old.
'They can die from attacks by predators, specific diseases or being harvested by fishermen. But even then they show very few signs of age. The evidence suggests that a 100-year-old red sea urchin is just as apt to live another year, or reproduce, as a 10-year-old sea urchin.'
In fact, the indications are that the more mature red sea urchins are the most prolific producers of sperm and eggs, and are perfectly capable of breeding even when incredibly old"
'By our calculations, they are probably 200 or more years old.
'They can die from attacks by predators, specific diseases or being harvested by fishermen. But even then they show very few signs of age. The evidence suggests that a 100-year-old red sea urchin is just as apt to live another year, or reproduce, as a 10-year-old sea urchin.'
In fact, the indications are that the more mature red sea urchins are the most prolific producers of sperm and eggs, and are perfectly capable of breeding even when incredibly old"
Scottish Cuisine in NYC: "'The other organs can't be included because they're illegal here,' exclaimed the waitress, only half correct. "
Sergio Leone: "Leone's explicit employment of reflexive genre clichés in Once Upon a Time in the West, and again in his final film, Once Upon a Time in America, would seem to cast him as a trail-blazing post-modernist, but there is an important difference between Leone's referential system and the 'blank irony' that Frederic Jameson identified as being cental to a post-modern aesthetic. Leone has a profound emotional and intellectual investment in the cinematic mythologies he explores, however compromised and clichéd these mythologies may have become. Thus, as his films become increasingly self-conscious about the 'lost' classical American filmic tradition they are drawing on, they start to exhibit a meditative, melancholic quality that is completely absent from the energetic exuberance of the dollars trilogy. Adrian Martin admirably summed up this aspect of Leone's later work in his book on Once Upon a Time in America:
It was as if, for Leone, such disembodied 'quotations' – if they could be made to retain their mythic intensity and potency – might provide a kind of catharsis or ecstasy for modern-day cinephiles pining over their precious 'lost object'. That is why, finally, form can never be 'pure' in Leone's work: at stake in it is a psychic investment, a whole elaborate machine of selfhood, culture and longing… "
It was as if, for Leone, such disembodied 'quotations' – if they could be made to retain their mythic intensity and potency – might provide a kind of catharsis or ecstasy for modern-day cinephiles pining over their precious 'lost object'. That is why, finally, form can never be 'pure' in Leone's work: at stake in it is a psychic investment, a whole elaborate machine of selfhood, culture and longing… "
Monday, November 24, 2003
Don't Look in the Rubble for Answers - Look Into Yourself: "BAD CAUSES NEED martyrs. The War on Terror, as conceived by the US President and the British Prime Minister, is a bad cause, and this week in Istanbul it has claimed new martyrs. Both sides in this war - the US-led coalition and the al-Qaeda terrorist network - will be quietly reinforced by what has happened: reinforced in their prejudices; reinforced in their own self-belief, and reinforced in the new support this will bring them. Both gain. The world loses.
When news reached me of Thursday's outrage, I had just reread this passage in The Mill on the Floss, by George Eliot: 'To minds strongly marked by the positive and negative qualities that create severity - strength of will, conscious rectitude of purpose, narrowness of imagination and intellect, great powers of self-control and a disposition to exert control over others - prejudices come as the natural food of tendencies which can get no sustenance out of that complex, fragmentary, doubt-provoking knowledge which we call truth.' "
When news reached me of Thursday's outrage, I had just reread this passage in The Mill on the Floss, by George Eliot: 'To minds strongly marked by the positive and negative qualities that create severity - strength of will, conscious rectitude of purpose, narrowness of imagination and intellect, great powers of self-control and a disposition to exert control over others - prejudices come as the natural food of tendencies which can get no sustenance out of that complex, fragmentary, doubt-provoking knowledge which we call truth.' "
Metalepsis: "Reference to something by means of another thing that is remotely related to it, either through a farfetched causal relationship, or through an implied intermediate substitution of terms. Often used for comic effect through its preposterous exaggeration. A metonymical substitution of one word for another which is itself figurative. "
Sunday, November 23, 2003
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