Strawberries
2010-02-06
There were never strawberries
like the ones we had
that sultry afternoon
sitting on the step
of the open french window
facing each other
your knees held in mine
the blue plates in our laps
the strawberries glistening
in the hot sunlight
we dipped them in sugar
looking at each other
not hurrying the feast
for one to come
the empty plates
laid on the stone together
with the two forks crossed
and I bent towards you
sweet in that air
in my arms
abandoned like a child
from your eager mouth
the taste of strawberries
in my memory
lean back again
let me love you
let the sun beat
on our forgetfulness
one hour of all
the heat intense
and summer lightning
on the Kilpatrick hills
let the storm wash the plates
Edwin Morgan
Norman Borlaug
2009-10-03
The Associated Press: Borlaug, who saved millions from hunger, dies
“Norman E. Borlaug saved more lives than any man in human history,” said Josette Sheeran, executive director of the U.N. World Food Program. “His heart was as big as his brilliant mind, but it was his passion and compassion that moved the world.”
Romancing the Looky-Loos
2009-09-23
That’s why I still endorse Peter Schjeldahl’s advice on how to become an artist: “You move to a city. You hang out in bars. You form a gang, turn it into a scene, and turn that into a movement.” Then, I would suggest when your movement hits the museum, abandon it.
Newspapers
2009-09-19
[…] How different is the situation with newspaper strips today? Did the changes in the size of panels play a role in your recent decision to abandon newspaper strips? Will newspaper comics (and newspapers) survive? Have you ever thought about doing an online comic strip?
This is a sad topic but I’m going to be blunt. Newspapers have about five years left. Young readers of the newspaper comics simply don’t exist anymore in numbers that count. Those eyeballs are elsewhere and will not come back. Online comics are terrific. But they will never have 1% of the readership any major comic had 20 years ago, by the nature of the technology. They’re different beasts now. No, after having 70 million daily readers in 1985, getting 3000 a day online isn’t terribly energizing at this stage. I’m happy to go to the storytelling potential of film and books now. My heart was always there anyway, to be honest.
Love him or hate him… well i mostly hated him. i listened to metal in the 80s, i take no responsibility.
Now that the flood of horseshit seems to be abating, here’s some less horseshitty links.
When we started Thriller, we were all there and Quincy [Jones, producer] walked in. Quincy turned to us and said, “OK guys, we’re here to save the recording industry.” Now that’s a pretty big responsibility – but he meant it.
[guess it worked for a couple decades….]
Account of one of the few successful interviews of MJ
He wore the most enormous mirrored dark glasses and once seated — and this really threw me — picked up a phone and held it to his ear. “Should I wait until he’s through?” I said to Janet. “Oh no, he’s not talking to anybody,” she replied with a smile, “it’s just something he feels comfortable with.” And she giggled a little giggle. And Michael giggled a little giggle. And the brothers slumped back in their chairs, scowling. “Also,” she went on, “any questions for Michael? Could you ask them to me and I’ll get your answer for you.” This was too much. “What, he can’t just answer me himself?” I shot back at her. “Oh he will eventually, he just has to feel comfortable with everything first,” she replied calmly. “But he’s only sitting four feet away,” I pointed out and, regrettably we lapsed into bickering. Meantime, Tito, Randy, Grumpy and Sneezy were all saying, “Hell. What’s wrong with us? We’re here too, you can ask us anything you like!” At this point I suddenly realised we were all talking over and around Michael Jackson as though, well, as though he wasn’t really there at all.
Nice things said by recording engineers
MJ liked hot water while he was singing. I mean really hot !!!!! It got to the point that I would melt plastic spoons to test it.
Bruce and I were talking about walking to the studio everyday in NYC, and what routes we took. Michael looked at us and said we were so lucky to be able to do that. He couldn’t walk down the street without being harassed. It was a sad moment for all of us.
The studio crew got free tickets to the Janet show so we all went right from work one night. About halfway through the show we see this dude with a long beard, dressed in robes dancing in the aisle behind. I mean really dancing . . . it was Mj in disguise. Kind of like the costume Chevy Chase wears in Fletch while roller skating.
Michael Jackson: Erotic Identity Disorder?
Am I seriously suggesting that Michael Jackson was a homosexual autohebephile whose erotic goals included resembling Peter Pan and having sex with pubescent boys? I sure am. If I am right, then somewhere there are images of Peter Pan that Michael Jackson brought to a plastic surgeon.
Footage of the hair burning incident:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfOZQOpv4m0[/youtube]
Poetry by Jim Walsh
2009-06-07
By the book
And I would have won the argument
or I would have lost it
and the rule would have been
whatever the rule was.
But I believe that,
that’s what the rule was,
‘cause that’s what it said in the book
and ah, and I’m, I don’t
have a copy anymore
of the Ministerial Handbook but,
but I’m sure you do.
20 Brilliant Bookcases
2009-06-07
(via mightygodking, who i used to know way back)
Iceland, not so much like Newfoundland
2009-06-03
Wall Street on the Tundra | Vanity Fair
Since its fishing policy transformed Iceland, the place has become, in effect, a machine for turning cod into Ph.D.’s.
But this, of course, creates a new problem: people with Ph.D.’s don’t want to fish for a living. They need something else to do.
[…]
Enter investment banking.
Blackstrap Hawco
2009-05-24
Only occasionally do i feel moved to review something here. Well, “moved” would be the wrong word, because sometimes i do it out of whimsy more than admiration, and ‘here’ might not refer to the current incarnation of this blog. Anyways, after finishing Blackstrap Hawco i find myself wanting to say something.
i always imagined Annie Proulx writing The Shipping News barred up in a hotel room in St. John’s somewhere, experiencing and learning nothing, and still trying to pass off its portrayal of rural Newfoundland within the novel as authentic. People don’t sit around in restaurants all day in rural Newfoundland, you know, even post-moratorium. It’s all well and good that she needed an isolated environment to play her characters off of, i just wish she’d used one real to her, instead of claiming ours.
Ken Harvey, on the other hand, gets it. Newfoundland – i am at a loss for a synonym here, “this province” or “this nation” or “this place” are not wide enough to fit the context – is not a literary tool in his book, it is a frame. Blackstrap Hawco captures the real Newfoundland, its history of isolation and deprivation and exploitation, its legends of perseverance and survival. The title character is essentially set up as a Newfoundland messiah. The history of Newfoundland, as expressed in the narrative by the experiences of his family and ancestors, is what makes him what he is and what motivates him to do what he does. But he is also doomed by that history to fail, becoming another tragic ghost in a book full of ghosts. In the end, though, Blackstrap Hawco joins the legends as well as the ghosts.
i wish everyone who read The Shipping News and thought it showed a quaint and interesting place would read Blackstrap Hawco.
Welcome, Wired. We call this land “Internet” | Boing Boing Gadgets
Since then, Wired.com’s grown to 11 million monthly visitors: its blogs are among the best in their fields and its tech news reportage is among the finest, online or off […]. The sheer size of that readership speaks volumes: the Times says the magazine has only 700k or so subscribers. (It’s a damn shame that online advertising is devalued compared to print advertising, but that’s the media world for you.)
Notable for the comments from several Wired people, anonymous and otherwise, discussing.
And on a website that started out as a failed print magazine, how ironic.
