Common-place: Round Table Discussion of "The Crucible of War" I'm halfway through the book.

The Electric Company Digital Archive

Rogue cattle are causing big problems for Mayne Island : "'They're like hippies -- they sleep all day and roam all night,' said Robson on Friday. 'I got to keep an eye on them. They go quite a ways at nighttime. I spend quite a bit of time looking for them.'"

Where did all the (Edinburgh) Italians go?

some West Coast jazz from Drew

"The cliff line looks like a turkey on a slicer. The Red-winged Blackbirds doing legato notes with a curious timbre. Bright orange shoulders. The sound a combination of machine and cat. Excellent group riffing.

Sparkling early evening sunlight on ocean waves."

more pet sounds @ Million Poems:

"MONO/STEREO

Wouldn't it be nice
Be nice if we were
Were older then we
We wouldn't have
To wait to wait so long

And wouldn't it be
It be nice to live together
In the kind of world
Of world where we belong

You know it's gonna
It's gonna make it
Make it that much better
Much better when we
When we can say good
Night and stay
And stay together

Maybe if we think and wish and hope and pray
Maybe be then there wouldn't be a single thing

And then we'd be happy
You know it seems the more
The more we talk about it
It only makes it worse
It worse to live without it
But let's talk about it
But wouldn't it be
Good night baby sleep

Nice
Stay
Morning
New
Spend
Close
Through
Times
Kiss
Maybe
Run
Then
Single
Do
Could
We'd
Be
Seems
Talk
Worse
Without
But
About
It
It
It
It
It
It

Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba"

If a Dissertation Proposal was like Bush's Articulation of Foreign Policy...

"This is an important dissertation I will write. It will be long. It will use words. My wife knows books, and knows words. She is an asset. This will be an important dissertation. It has far-reaching consequentialisms. It will be difficult, but the department must continue to give me fellowship support. I cannot predict how long it will take me to write this. I will use a computer. First I will write notes. I may read a few books. I will take breaks to bale hay (at least when the press is around), and to go jogging, since a Mens sans corporatam fiduciam ... I can't remember how the whole Latin American version of that healthy body healthy mind thing goes. Its unimportant. What is important is my dissertation. I am determined to write it. I will remain determined to write it. Those who doubt my resolve only give aid to my doubters. This is too important a dissertation for there to be doubts. Let there be no doubt. I will write this dissertation. This will be an important dissertation. God bless my undertaking."

Get Out the Led : "Here Bonham captures the true sound of the drums he hears in his head, and not the 'biscuit tin' sound of drumming in a studio, by moving the microphones away from his kit so that 'what you hear on 'When the Levee Breaks' is not just the sound of Bonham's drumming, but the way in which the drums react to the acoustics of the room they were in.' "

big review roundup from The News includes nice words about "Hammertown"

Moribundia: "This is where England most truly excels: in all the characterful shabbiness of its drizzled parks, soiled launderettes, frayed tailors, abject chemists, sparse barbers, bare foyers, dun pubs, weary Legion halls... and cowed solitary cafes."

Coach House Books has reprinted Gerry Gilbert's 80's classic Moby Jane, for which I wrote a blurb (my only one so far) that was printed on a bookmark!

Hepster's Dictionary--comes on like gangbusters, creeps out like the shadow...

Great character actor Victor Argo ( After Hours/Bad Lieutenant/Crimes And Misdemeanors/Ghost Dog: The Way Of The Samurai/King Of New York/Last Temptation Of Christ/Mean Streets/Smoke/Taxi Driver/True Romance) 1934-2004

(thanks drew's blog-o-rama)

Ancoats, Manchester's Little Italy

(thanks Plep)

Mexperimental "Culture is to the beginner a karoake. The beginner just came in. What's old is new to him or her. Even him or herself. He or she is innocent. He or she can afford going into stage fright. The karoake makes this possible. A culture that has ended but that we barely know. This is our first time experiencing it or how we show we came to be one with it. The beginner sings, close enough to the real lyrics, close enough--giggling--to the original voice, its harmony. To the beginner culture is pure joy. Karoake helps when we know the culture we live in is no longer ours. We transform this alienation into a fun pain, an adventure into being seen by others, a funny shame or a singer's security; how we perform how we would behave or look life if this culture we live in was ours."

Bush's necktie produces TV wardrobe malfunction: "His selection, navy with small white dots, produced a moire (pronounced mwa-RAY) effect. Simply put, that's when a pattern being photographed interferes with the grid pattern on television screens, creating an eerie, shimmering visual. "

thanks languagehat for these Corporate Etymologies

Talking Points Memo: "I saw a man on autopilot, and a pretty crude autopilot at that. "

from the archives of the Coach House Press---The Pre-Linguistic Heights/ Golders Green/ The LSD Leacock/ Borders/ Manual for Draft-Age Immigrants to Canada

(thanks ::: wood s lot :::)

Wonkette: "Short Bush News Conference: If my answers cannot distract you from the miserable failure that is the Bush foreign policy, perhaps my tie will.

Apparently, Bush and Gorelick have the same wardrobe consultant. How can we trust people to run the country if they can't dress for television?"