Sunday, December 30, 2012
Thursday, December 27, 2012
Rotoreleifs
Figure 1
Marcel Duchamp,
Rotoreleifs (1 of 12), 1935
Figure 2
Marcel Duchamp,
Rotoreleifs (1 of 12), 1935
Tuesday, December 25, 2012
Sunday, December 23, 2012
Friday, December 21, 2012
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
The Ramones (Or Methanes)
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Hat-Tip: The Dust Congress
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Hat-Tip: The Dust Congress
Monday, December 17, 2012
Pumpkin Bean Chili
(*) 1 Medium Fresh Pumpkin (or 16 oz of canned pumpkin)
(*) Fresh Chili Pepper
(*) Beans (16 oz, canned or soaked dry beans) I used black turtle beans because that is what I had, but you can use more traditional kidney beans or black beans.
(*) Beef, or Substitute Meat Product (8-16 oz)
(*) 1 Onion
(*) Mushrooms (8 oz)
(*) 2 Garlic Cloves
(*) Whole Peeled Tomatoes (16 oz)
(*) 1-2 cups of Water (depends on how chunky you want it)
(*) 2 Tablespoons Tomato Paste
(*) Olive Oil
(*) Nutmeg
(*) Oregano
(*) Basil
(*) Salt and Pepper to Taste
1. Seed, slice in half and roast the fresh pumpkin face down with olive oil for about an hour at 425 degrees or until the skin is easily pierced with a fork.
2. While the pumpkin is roasting, cut the onion, garlic, mushrooms and beef (if cubed). Combine all of them in a large pot with a tablespoon of olive oil cook for about 5 minutes or until mushrooms are fragrant and onions are clear. Stir throughout the cooking process.
3. Add liquid of drained tomatoes to the pot. Add diced tomatoes and fresh chili. Let it simmer for 10-15 minutes.
4. Add about 2 teaspoons of each seasoning and beans. Simmer for another 15 minutes.
5. When the pumpkin is fully roasted, take out of oven and scoop out the flesh. At the point you can either use a food processor and get it smooth or add scoops to the chili now and mash up a little once it simmers. It depends on how chunky you want it.
6. Once the pumpkin has simmered for 5 minutes, mash up the pumpkin if you haven’t yet and taste. Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve Hot!
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Via: The Pine Cone Gentleman (& accidentalcook1)
Friday, December 14, 2012
Wednesday, December 12, 2012
Monday, December 10, 2012
Friday, December 7, 2012
The Filth & The Fury
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This video contains content from BMG_Rights_Management, UMPG Publishing, Warner Chappell and EMI, one or more of whom have blocked it in your country on copyright grounds.
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This video contains content from BMG_Rights_Management, UMPG Publishing, Warner Chappell and EMI, one or more of whom have blocked it in your country on copyright grounds.
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Wednesday, December 5, 2012
Occupy Movement: Manifesto Article
Terms of release from the artist or collective to the custodian into whose care the work is received.Believing it is a violation of the human spirit to treat either a person or a work of art as a commodity -- rather than offer our work as objects for sale, we will accept what we mutually agree to be fair compensation for our labor and time, and in return -- in appreciation for your material support, you are free to accept this work as a custodial trust in perpetuity. At such time as you may choose to pass this work on to others, you will accept no more in compensation that the value of your initial contribution to the artist or collective from which you received it. You understand that in receiving this work, you pledge agreement with the principles and terms of this statement, and to never treat it as an item for sale or use as an investment.
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Note: Above text was printed on a handout/flyer given out at a recent show (O.U.R Gallery/Studios) in Port Richmond, Philadelphia highlighting art made by Occupiers during their months-long Dilworth Plaza protest adjacent to City Hall.
Monday, December 3, 2012
December 2012: Thought For The New Month
"Action springs not from thought, but from a readiness for responsibility."
-- Dietrich Bonhoeffer
-- Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Saturday, November 24, 2012
Thursday, November 22, 2012
Tuesday, November 20, 2012
Clean Plate: Peanut Butter Banana Bread
From Cookies and Cups
- 3 very ripe bananas, mashed
- ½ cup peanut butter
- ¼ cup Canola or Vegetable oil
- 1 egg
- ½ cup granulated sugar
- ¼ cup brown sugar
- 1 ½ cups of all-purpose flour
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- 1 ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 8 oz bag of Reese’s Mini cups
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Grease a loaf pan with butter or shortening.
In medium bowl whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Set aside.
In a large bowl, stir together bananas, peanut butter, oil, egg and sugars. Pour your dry ingredients into your wet ingredients and stir until just combined. Batter will be lumpy – do not over stir.
Fold in Reese’s Mini cups and spread batter into prepared pan. Bake for approx 1 hour or until toothpick inserted into center comes out clean.
Let cool in pan for 10 minutes, then loosen the edges of the pan with a knife and remove from loaf pan, transferring bread to a cooling rack.
-- Casey Ann Francis for The Spirit Community Newpapers
Let cool in pan for 10 minutes, then loosen the edges of the pan with a knife and remove from loaf pan, transferring bread to a cooling rack.
-- Casey Ann Francis for The Spirit Community Newpapers
Sunday, November 18, 2012
Friday, November 16, 2012
The World As A Bit Of Light Verse
Why Does The World Exist? An Existential Detective Story by Jim Holt
Tour D'Horizon
The Big Bang hypothesis opened up a new and purely scientific inquiry into the ultimate origin of the universe. And the explanatory possibilities seemed to multiply. There were, after all, two revolutionary developments in twentieth-century physics. One of them, Albert Einstein's relativity theory, led to the conclusion that the universe had a beginning in time. The other, quantum mechanics, had even more radical implications. It threw into doubt the very idea of cause and effect.
According to quantum theory, events at the micro-level happen in aleatory fashion; they violate the classical principle of causation. This opened up the conceptual possibility that the seed of the universe might itself have come into being without a cause, supernatural or otherwise. Perhaps the world arose spontaneously from sheer nothingness. All existence might be chalked up to a random fluctuation in the void, a "quantum tunneling" from nothingness into being.
The Arithmetic of Nothingness
Mathematics has a name for nothing, and that is "zero." It is notable that the root of zero is a Hindu word: sunya, meaning "void" or "emptiness." For it was among Hindu mathematics that our notion of zero arose. To the Greeks and Romans, the very idea of zero was inconceivable -- how could a nothing be something?
The idea of emptiness was familiar to Indian mathematics from Buddhist philosophy. They had no difficulty with an abstract symbol that signified nothing. Their notation was transmitted westward to Europe during the Middle Ages by Arab scholars -- hence our "arabic numerals." The Hindu sunya became the Arabic sifr, which shows up in English in both the words "zero" and "cipher." Whether discovered or invented, zero was clearly a number to be reckoned with. As for the origin of the numerical "0," that has eluded historians of antiquity.
Now, suppose we let 0 stand for Nothing and 1 stand for Something. Then we get a sort of toy version of the mystery of existence: How can you get from 0 to 1?
Consider a simple equation:
0=1-1
What might it represent? That 1 and -1 add up to zero, of course.
Picture the reverse of the process: not 1 and -1 coming together to make 0, but 0 peeling apart, as it were, into 1 and -1. Where once you had Nothing, now you have two Somethings! Opposites of some kind, evidently. Positive and negative energy. Matter and antimatter. Yin and yang.
Even more suggestively, -1 might be thought of as the same entity as 1, only moving backward in time. This is the interpretation seized on by the Oxford chemist Peter Atkins. "Opposites," he writes, "are distinguished by their direction of travel in time." In the absence of time, -1 and 1 cancel; they coalesce into zero. Time allows the two opposites to peel apart -- and it is this peeling apart that, in turn, marks the emergence of time. It was thus, Atkins proposes, that the spontaneous creation of the universe got under way.
All that from 0=1-1
(*Note: John Updike was so struck by this scenario that he used it in the conclusion of his novel Roger's Version as an alternate to theism as an explanation for existence.)
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Excerpts from Why Does The World Exist? by Jim Holt
(Pgs 27, 36-37, 39)
Liveright Publishing Corporation - 2012
A Division of W.W. Norton & Company
New York - London
Tour D'Horizon
The Big Bang hypothesis opened up a new and purely scientific inquiry into the ultimate origin of the universe. And the explanatory possibilities seemed to multiply. There were, after all, two revolutionary developments in twentieth-century physics. One of them, Albert Einstein's relativity theory, led to the conclusion that the universe had a beginning in time. The other, quantum mechanics, had even more radical implications. It threw into doubt the very idea of cause and effect.
According to quantum theory, events at the micro-level happen in aleatory fashion; they violate the classical principle of causation. This opened up the conceptual possibility that the seed of the universe might itself have come into being without a cause, supernatural or otherwise. Perhaps the world arose spontaneously from sheer nothingness. All existence might be chalked up to a random fluctuation in the void, a "quantum tunneling" from nothingness into being.
The Arithmetic of Nothingness
Mathematics has a name for nothing, and that is "zero." It is notable that the root of zero is a Hindu word: sunya, meaning "void" or "emptiness." For it was among Hindu mathematics that our notion of zero arose. To the Greeks and Romans, the very idea of zero was inconceivable -- how could a nothing be something?
The idea of emptiness was familiar to Indian mathematics from Buddhist philosophy. They had no difficulty with an abstract symbol that signified nothing. Their notation was transmitted westward to Europe during the Middle Ages by Arab scholars -- hence our "arabic numerals." The Hindu sunya became the Arabic sifr, which shows up in English in both the words "zero" and "cipher." Whether discovered or invented, zero was clearly a number to be reckoned with. As for the origin of the numerical "0," that has eluded historians of antiquity.
Now, suppose we let 0 stand for Nothing and 1 stand for Something. Then we get a sort of toy version of the mystery of existence: How can you get from 0 to 1?
Consider a simple equation:
0=1-1
What might it represent? That 1 and -1 add up to zero, of course.
Picture the reverse of the process: not 1 and -1 coming together to make 0, but 0 peeling apart, as it were, into 1 and -1. Where once you had Nothing, now you have two Somethings! Opposites of some kind, evidently. Positive and negative energy. Matter and antimatter. Yin and yang.
Even more suggestively, -1 might be thought of as the same entity as 1, only moving backward in time. This is the interpretation seized on by the Oxford chemist Peter Atkins. "Opposites," he writes, "are distinguished by their direction of travel in time." In the absence of time, -1 and 1 cancel; they coalesce into zero. Time allows the two opposites to peel apart -- and it is this peeling apart that, in turn, marks the emergence of time. It was thus, Atkins proposes, that the spontaneous creation of the universe got under way.
All that from 0=1-1
(*Note: John Updike was so struck by this scenario that he used it in the conclusion of his novel Roger's Version as an alternate to theism as an explanation for existence.)
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Excerpts from Why Does The World Exist? by Jim Holt
(Pgs 27, 36-37, 39)
Liveright Publishing Corporation - 2012
A Division of W.W. Norton & Company
New York - London
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
The Laughing Sutra by Mark Salzman
V (Excerpt)
The bus station was really just a muddy parking lot. Wei-ching bought their tickets from an old woman sitting on a bamboo stool. She told them that the Kun-ming bus didn't leave for another hour, so they wandered through town in search of breakfast. At the outdoor market, they found a stall that served soybean milk and yut'iao, which is something like a doughnut.
"Watch me," Wei-ching said, holding his yut'iao with a piece of newspaper so the hot oil would not burn his fingers. He dipped the end of it into the cold soy milk, then took a large bite out of it. "This way," he said once he had swallowed it, "you get hot and cold, solid and liquid, at the same time. It is a balance of opposites, which helps the digestion."
Hsun-ching had never had such a fancy breakfast before. He followed Wei-ching's instructions and dipped the yut'iao in the milk, but once he put one end in his mouth, he just kept stuffing and chewing until the whole thing disappeared in one huge bite. Wei-ching had to laugh; with his cheeks full of dough and his eyes wide open with excitement, Hsun-ching looked more like a squirrel than a young monk.
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The Laughing Sutra by Mark Salzman
pgs 25-26
Published by Vintage Contemporaries (1991)
Vintage Books
A Division of Random House, Inc.
New York
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The bus station was really just a muddy parking lot. Wei-ching bought their tickets from an old woman sitting on a bamboo stool. She told them that the Kun-ming bus didn't leave for another hour, so they wandered through town in search of breakfast. At the outdoor market, they found a stall that served soybean milk and yut'iao, which is something like a doughnut.
"Watch me," Wei-ching said, holding his yut'iao with a piece of newspaper so the hot oil would not burn his fingers. He dipped the end of it into the cold soy milk, then took a large bite out of it. "This way," he said once he had swallowed it, "you get hot and cold, solid and liquid, at the same time. It is a balance of opposites, which helps the digestion."
Hsun-ching had never had such a fancy breakfast before. He followed Wei-ching's instructions and dipped the yut'iao in the milk, but once he put one end in his mouth, he just kept stuffing and chewing until the whole thing disappeared in one huge bite. Wei-ching had to laugh; with his cheeks full of dough and his eyes wide open with excitement, Hsun-ching looked more like a squirrel than a young monk.
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The Laughing Sutra by Mark Salzman
pgs 25-26
Published by Vintage Contemporaries (1991)
Vintage Books
A Division of Random House, Inc.
New York
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Monday, November 12, 2012
Ancient Maya
The bread of the Maya has always been and still is made of ground maize (corn) formed into thin pancakes called tortillas, the Spanish name for pancakes. Cooking, and especially making tortillas, was and is the peasant wife's main activity.
First she soaked the hard, dry kernel of maize over night in limewater to soften the hulls. The next morning she washed off the hulls and ground the grains into thick dough called zacan on a smooth stone metate. When it was close to time for the main meal, she took a lump of zacan and patted it into a round, thin, flat cake and baked it on a round stone griddle placed on the stone hearth.
Today the Maya housewife takes her corn to the village mill for grinding and carries the dough in a bucket. If she is really a modern woman, she may have a press to make the family's tortillas, unless her husband insists that she pat by hand, the way it was always done.
The Maya farmer, meanwhile, who has been laboring in his milpa (corn field) since daybreak, pauses occasionally for a snack. He mixes a lump of zacan with water to a make a drink called pozole. ( A thicker mixture of zacan and water, served hot and sometimes sweetened with honey, is known as atole.) When he comes back from the fields, he expects his meal to be ready and his tortillas hot. The average Maya man eats nearly twenty tortillas at one meal.
One difference between ancient and modern Maya eating habits seems to be the time of the main meal. Formerly it was "an hour before sunset"; now it is usually noon or early afternoon. Whenever it is, the women today serve stews, tamales (corn mush with a spicy filling wrapped in dried corn husks and steamed), chili, beans, vegetables, fruit, and maybe some chocolate, if they can afford it-- and of course, stacks and stacks of tortillas kept hot in the gourd.
The men and women eat separately, as they always have. The men first, seated on mats or low stools. After the men have been fed, the women and girls eat their meal, saving the leftover tortillas to be toasted for breakfast the next day.
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The Mystery of the Ancient Maya
by Carolyn Meyer & Charles Gallenkamp
A Margaret K. McElderly Book
Published by Atheneum (1985)
Friday, November 9, 2012
Cosmicomics by Italo Calvino
Ch 12. The Spiral (Excerpt)
For the majority of mollusks, the visible organic form has little importance in the life of the members of a species, since they cannot see one another and have, at most, only a vague perception of other individuals and of their surroundings. This does not prevent brightly colored stripings and forms which seem very beautiful to our eyes (as in many gastropod shells) from existing independently of any relationship to visibility.
I
Like me, when I was clinging to that rock, you mean? -- Qfwfq asked, -- With the waves rising and falling, and me there, still, flat, sucking what there was to suck and thinking about it all the time? If that's the time you want to know about, there isn't much I can tell you. Form? I didn't have any; that is, I didn't know I had one, or rather I didn't know you could have one. I grew more or less on all sides, at random; if this is what you call radial symmetry, I suppose I had radial symmetry, but to tell you the truth I never paid any attention to it. Why should I have grown more on one side than on the other? I had no eyes, no head, no part of the body that was different from any other part; now I try to persuade myself that the two holes I had were a mouth and an anus, and that I therefore already had my bilateral symmetry, just like the trilobites and the rest of you, but in my memory I really can't tell those holes apart, I passed stuff from whatever side I felt like, inside or outside was the same, differences and repugnances came along much later. Every now and then I was seized by fantasies, that's true; for example, the notion of scratching my armpit, or crossing my legs, or once even of growing a mustache. I use these words here with you, to make myself clear; then there were many details I couldn't foresee: I had some cells, one more or less the same as another, and they all did more or less the same job. But since I had no form I could feel all possible forms in myself, and all actions and expressions and possibilities of making noises, even rude ones. In short, there were no limitations to my thoughts, which weren't thoughts, after all, because I had no brain to think them; every cell on its own thought every thinkable thing all at once, not through images, since we had no images of any kind at our disposal, but simply in that indeterminate way of feeling oneself there, which did not prevent us from feeling ourselves equally there in some other way.
It was a rich and free and contented condition, my condition at that time, quite the contrary of what you might think.
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Cosmicomics by Italo Calvino
Translated by William Weaver
A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book
Published 1982
Originally Published 1965 (Italy)
For the majority of mollusks, the visible organic form has little importance in the life of the members of a species, since they cannot see one another and have, at most, only a vague perception of other individuals and of their surroundings. This does not prevent brightly colored stripings and forms which seem very beautiful to our eyes (as in many gastropod shells) from existing independently of any relationship to visibility.
I
Like me, when I was clinging to that rock, you mean? -- Qfwfq asked, -- With the waves rising and falling, and me there, still, flat, sucking what there was to suck and thinking about it all the time? If that's the time you want to know about, there isn't much I can tell you. Form? I didn't have any; that is, I didn't know I had one, or rather I didn't know you could have one. I grew more or less on all sides, at random; if this is what you call radial symmetry, I suppose I had radial symmetry, but to tell you the truth I never paid any attention to it. Why should I have grown more on one side than on the other? I had no eyes, no head, no part of the body that was different from any other part; now I try to persuade myself that the two holes I had were a mouth and an anus, and that I therefore already had my bilateral symmetry, just like the trilobites and the rest of you, but in my memory I really can't tell those holes apart, I passed stuff from whatever side I felt like, inside or outside was the same, differences and repugnances came along much later. Every now and then I was seized by fantasies, that's true; for example, the notion of scratching my armpit, or crossing my legs, or once even of growing a mustache. I use these words here with you, to make myself clear; then there were many details I couldn't foresee: I had some cells, one more or less the same as another, and they all did more or less the same job. But since I had no form I could feel all possible forms in myself, and all actions and expressions and possibilities of making noises, even rude ones. In short, there were no limitations to my thoughts, which weren't thoughts, after all, because I had no brain to think them; every cell on its own thought every thinkable thing all at once, not through images, since we had no images of any kind at our disposal, but simply in that indeterminate way of feeling oneself there, which did not prevent us from feeling ourselves equally there in some other way.
It was a rich and free and contented condition, my condition at that time, quite the contrary of what you might think.
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Cosmicomics by Italo Calvino
Translated by William Weaver
A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book
Published 1982
Originally Published 1965 (Italy)
Wednesday, November 7, 2012
The Zohar
What are the very first words of the Bible? Everyone knows that: In the beginning God created... But for the Zohar, which insists on interpreting the original Hebrew words in their precise order, the verse means something radically different: With beginning, It [Ein Sof] created God [one of higher sefirot].
There is divine reality far beyond our normative conception of "God." Immediate reality of God is not foreign to us; it was once our original nature. (1)
"See how many hidden causes there are ... hidden
from the comprehension of human beings ...
There are lights upon lights, one more clear than
another, each one dark by comparison with the one
above it from which it receives its light. As for the
Supreme Cause, all lights are dark in its presence."
-- The Zohar (2)
(1) -- Zohar : Annotated & Explained
Translation and Annotation by Daniel Chanan Matt
Published by Paulist Press (1983)
Mahwah, N.J.
(2) The Book Of Lights
by Chaim Potok
Frontispiece
Published by Alfred A. Knopf
New York - 1981
There is divine reality far beyond our normative conception of "God." Immediate reality of God is not foreign to us; it was once our original nature. (1)
"See how many hidden causes there are ... hidden
from the comprehension of human beings ...
There are lights upon lights, one more clear than
another, each one dark by comparison with the one
above it from which it receives its light. As for the
Supreme Cause, all lights are dark in its presence."
-- The Zohar (2)
(1) -- Zohar : Annotated & Explained
Translation and Annotation by Daniel Chanan Matt
Published by Paulist Press (1983)
Mahwah, N.J.
(2) The Book Of Lights
by Chaim Potok
Frontispiece
Published by Alfred A. Knopf
New York - 1981
Monday, November 5, 2012
November 2012: Thought For The New Month
"Be humble for you are made of earth. Be noble for you are made of stars."
— Serbian Proverb
— Serbian Proverb
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Monday, October 29, 2012
Saturday, October 27, 2012
The Waffleman: Idiot Sightings
Yo! Here we go again with these items sent to me. They are called “idiot sightings.” I think that’s about right – how about you?
I handed the teller at my bank a withdrawal slip for $400.00. I said, “May I have large bills, please?” She looked at me and said, “I’m sorry sir, all the bills are the same size.” When I got up off the floor I explained it to her.
When my wife and I arrived at an automobile dealership to pick up our car, we were told the keys had been locked in it. We went to the service department and found a mechanic working feverishly to unlock the driver-side door. As I watched from the passenger side, I instinctively tried the door handle and discovered that it was unlocked. “Hey,” I announced to the technician, “it’s open!” His reply: “I know. I already got that side.”
I live in a semi-rural area. We recently had a new neighbor call the local township administrative office to request the removal of the DEER CROSSING sign on our road. The reason: “Too many deer are being hit by cars out here! I don’t think this is a good place for them to be crossing anymore.”
My daughter went to a local Taco Bell and ordered a taco. She asked the person behind the counter for “minimal lettuce.” He said he was sorry, but they only had iceberg lettuce.
I was at the airport, checking in at the gate, when an airport employee asked, “Has anyone put anything in your baggage without your knowledge?” To which I replied, “If it was without my knowledge, how would I know?” He smiled knowingly and nodded, “That’s why we ask.”
The stoplight on the corner buzzes when it’s safe to cross the street. I was crossing with an intellectually challenged coworker of mine. She asked if I knew what the buzzer was for. I explained that it signals blind people when the light is red. Appalled, she responded, “What on earth are blind people doing driving?!”
I work with an individual who plugged her power strip back into itself … and for the sake of her life couldn’t understand why her system would not turn on.
STAY ALERT! They walk among us … and they VOTE [REPUBLICAN].
Thursday, October 25, 2012
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
Book Notes
In the Large Hearted Boy (Blog) Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book.
Antoine Wilson "Panorama City"
In his own words, here is Antoine Wilson's Book Notes music playlist for his novel, Panorama City:
I love music too much to listen to it while I'm writing. I'd rather listen to something wholeheartedly than try to tune it out so I can put words on paper. That said, I'm definitely inspired by music, in a right-brainy way, as a mood-setter, as an emotion-accessing tool. The music that hits me most deeply tends to play in my head on repeat when I'm no longer listening to it. If I'm surfing alone, for instance, I've usually got the acoustic leftovers of some song echoing in my head.
Panorama City doesn't contain much by way of specific musical references, but in the years it took to write the book, the following songs each played a role in nudging Oppen Porter along his journey from village idiot to man of the world.
...........................................................
Silver Jews - 'We Are Real'
Here's where I admit that I was tempted to put together a playlist of all Silver Jews songs. I listen to Silver Jews more than any other band these days, especially if I'm going to have to get up in front of people for, say, a reading. Something about David Berman's abstract poetic lyrics and slacker melodies put me in a properly calm and creative state of mind. Unlike late Pavement, there's very little irritable reaching after fact and reason. I realize that not everyone wants to listen to this band, so I limited myself to one song, choosing 'We Are Real' because of its title-declaration, as well as for the following line: 'my ski vest has buttons like convenience store mirrors and they help me see / that everything in this room right now is a part of me / oh, yeah.' Something Oppen Porter might have noticed, I like to think.
...........................................................
The Fall - 'Paint Work'
At the center of Panorama City is a man with no plan, surrounded by people all too willing to make plans for him. When Oppen says, 'most problems can be solved by waiting,' he is essentially saying that we must leave room in our lives for the fortuitous. Some artists exist to remind us of this continually, such as The Fall's Mark E. Smith. It's not a message everyone wants to hear in our control-obsessed culture. Thus: 'Hey, Mark, you're spoiling all the paintwork.'
...........................................................
Book Notes - Dan Josefson "That's Not a Feeling"
Booklist wrote of the book:
"The prose is matter-of-fact, even placid, and studded with perfectly phrased gems, a cool surface to a work that is rich in feeling. A wonderful and noteworthy debut."
David Foster Wallace called That's Not a Feeling "bold, funny, mordant, and deeply intelligent debut" in the last blurb he wrote before his death. Dan Josefson's novel is all of those things and more.
In his own words, here is Dan Josefson's Book Notes music playlist for his novel, That's Not a Feeling:
My novel is set on the grounds of an odd boarding school called Roaring Orchards, where the headmaster has developed his own therapy regimen to help students in "dealing with whatever it might be that [they're] dealing with." Most of the students are troubled, have been kicked out of school or placed on probation, or their parents just don't know what to do with them. Among the other penalties and restrictions that comprise the headmaster's system, the students aren't allowed to listen to music. That might be why there's no real music in my book—whatever songs and bands do appear, I invented.
"Let's Not and Say We Did" by The Silver Jews
There's so much about this one that reminds me of growing up, but in a good way. The pitch-perfect obnoxiousness of the phrase used in the title, the barely containable energy, the list of mean-spirited and surreal pranks. "Our minds can dream / like soda machines." David Berman hallucinates ideal juvenile delinquents, "finding the fiercest way to live" while no harm can come to them. That's part of what writing this book was for me.
"The Underdog" by Spoon
When people ask whether my novel is autobiographical, I can't honestly say no, but it's about me in very weird ways. For example, this song underscores one way I came to identify with the characters after the whole thing was written. I had an awful time trying to sell the book, about four years of rejections from agents and editors. And it's ridiculously embarrassing to admit this, but the lines, "You got no fear of the underdog / That's why you will not survive," were as bracing for me as they would have been for the students at Roaring Orchards.
Antoine Wilson "Panorama City"
In his own words, here is Antoine Wilson's Book Notes music playlist for his novel, Panorama City:
I love music too much to listen to it while I'm writing. I'd rather listen to something wholeheartedly than try to tune it out so I can put words on paper. That said, I'm definitely inspired by music, in a right-brainy way, as a mood-setter, as an emotion-accessing tool. The music that hits me most deeply tends to play in my head on repeat when I'm no longer listening to it. If I'm surfing alone, for instance, I've usually got the acoustic leftovers of some song echoing in my head.
Panorama City doesn't contain much by way of specific musical references, but in the years it took to write the book, the following songs each played a role in nudging Oppen Porter along his journey from village idiot to man of the world.
...........................................................
Silver Jews - 'We Are Real'
Here's where I admit that I was tempted to put together a playlist of all Silver Jews songs. I listen to Silver Jews more than any other band these days, especially if I'm going to have to get up in front of people for, say, a reading. Something about David Berman's abstract poetic lyrics and slacker melodies put me in a properly calm and creative state of mind. Unlike late Pavement, there's very little irritable reaching after fact and reason. I realize that not everyone wants to listen to this band, so I limited myself to one song, choosing 'We Are Real' because of its title-declaration, as well as for the following line: 'my ski vest has buttons like convenience store mirrors and they help me see / that everything in this room right now is a part of me / oh, yeah.' Something Oppen Porter might have noticed, I like to think.
...........................................................
The Fall - 'Paint Work'
At the center of Panorama City is a man with no plan, surrounded by people all too willing to make plans for him. When Oppen says, 'most problems can be solved by waiting,' he is essentially saying that we must leave room in our lives for the fortuitous. Some artists exist to remind us of this continually, such as The Fall's Mark E. Smith. It's not a message everyone wants to hear in our control-obsessed culture. Thus: 'Hey, Mark, you're spoiling all the paintwork.'
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Book Notes - Dan Josefson "That's Not a Feeling"
Booklist wrote of the book:
"The prose is matter-of-fact, even placid, and studded with perfectly phrased gems, a cool surface to a work that is rich in feeling. A wonderful and noteworthy debut."
David Foster Wallace called That's Not a Feeling "bold, funny, mordant, and deeply intelligent debut" in the last blurb he wrote before his death. Dan Josefson's novel is all of those things and more.
In his own words, here is Dan Josefson's Book Notes music playlist for his novel, That's Not a Feeling:
My novel is set on the grounds of an odd boarding school called Roaring Orchards, where the headmaster has developed his own therapy regimen to help students in "dealing with whatever it might be that [they're] dealing with." Most of the students are troubled, have been kicked out of school or placed on probation, or their parents just don't know what to do with them. Among the other penalties and restrictions that comprise the headmaster's system, the students aren't allowed to listen to music. That might be why there's no real music in my book—whatever songs and bands do appear, I invented.
"Let's Not and Say We Did" by The Silver Jews
There's so much about this one that reminds me of growing up, but in a good way. The pitch-perfect obnoxiousness of the phrase used in the title, the barely containable energy, the list of mean-spirited and surreal pranks. "Our minds can dream / like soda machines." David Berman hallucinates ideal juvenile delinquents, "finding the fiercest way to live" while no harm can come to them. That's part of what writing this book was for me.
"The Underdog" by Spoon
When people ask whether my novel is autobiographical, I can't honestly say no, but it's about me in very weird ways. For example, this song underscores one way I came to identify with the characters after the whole thing was written. I had an awful time trying to sell the book, about four years of rejections from agents and editors. And it's ridiculously embarrassing to admit this, but the lines, "You got no fear of the underdog / That's why you will not survive," were as bracing for me as they would have been for the students at Roaring Orchards.
Sunday, October 21, 2012
How Records Are Made
Two great sets of photos showing records being manufactured. The first set are from 1954 starting with an engineer splicing up a tape. The second set is called "How records are made" from a 1962 Warner Brothers album sleeve.
Friday, October 19, 2012
John Hodgman - The Areas of My Expertise
When Writing, Please Avoid These Failed Palindromes
(*) Slow speed: deep owls
(*) Drat That Tard
(*) Two Owls Hoot Who Owls Hoot Too (Owt)
(*) Sour Candy and Dan C. Roused
(*) Desire still lisps: Arise! D.
(*) A man, a plan, a kind of man-made river, planned
(*) Hobos! So!
(*) Eh, S'occurs to Me to Succor She
(*) Tow a What? Thaw!
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Were You Aware Of It?
This is the first of several examples from my newspaper column of the same name that ran every Sunday, right under Prince Valiant in the New York Times for twenty eight years. The original columns contained wonderful illustrations by Charles "Sparky" Schulz, who you may recall as the creator of Snoopy & Dilbert. But as I do not control the rights to Sparky's spot drawings (and most of the time they were just pictures of men with extremely long fingernails anyway and had nothing to do with the subject at hand, I do not include them here.
Tennyson wrote, "It is the height of luxury to sin in a hot bath and read about little birds."
I'm sure you are glad to know Tennyson's bathing habit, but were you aware that...
-- Robert Frost bathed by rolling around in the Vermont dust once a year?
-- Wallace Stevens showered in beer?
-- Homer allowed others to bathe him, but because he was blind, he could not tell that they were just pretending to bathe him?
-- Emily Dickinson collected small soaps?
-- Guillaume Apollinaire shaved himself with a photograph of a razor that had been fitted with a razor's edge?
Were You Aware Of It!?!
............................................................................
Excerpts from:
The Areas Of My Expertise by John Hodgman
Published by E.P. Dutton (2005)
Pages 48 & 49
............................................................................
Editor's Note: Alfred Lord Tennyson (& John Hodgman) actually wrote "sit" though "sin" seemed a humorous typo. -- Allan Smithee
(*) Slow speed: deep owls
(*) Drat That Tard
(*) Two Owls Hoot Who Owls Hoot Too (Owt)
(*) Sour Candy and Dan C. Roused
(*) Desire still lisps: Arise! D.
(*) A man, a plan, a kind of man-made river, planned
(*) Hobos! So!
(*) Eh, S'occurs to Me to Succor She
(*) Tow a What? Thaw!
.................................................................................................................................................
Were You Aware Of It?
This is the first of several examples from my newspaper column of the same name that ran every Sunday, right under Prince Valiant in the New York Times for twenty eight years. The original columns contained wonderful illustrations by Charles "Sparky" Schulz, who you may recall as the creator of Snoopy & Dilbert. But as I do not control the rights to Sparky's spot drawings (and most of the time they were just pictures of men with extremely long fingernails anyway and had nothing to do with the subject at hand, I do not include them here.
Tennyson wrote, "It is the height of luxury to sin in a hot bath and read about little birds."
I'm sure you are glad to know Tennyson's bathing habit, but were you aware that...
-- Robert Frost bathed by rolling around in the Vermont dust once a year?
-- Wallace Stevens showered in beer?
-- Homer allowed others to bathe him, but because he was blind, he could not tell that they were just pretending to bathe him?
-- Emily Dickinson collected small soaps?
-- Guillaume Apollinaire shaved himself with a photograph of a razor that had been fitted with a razor's edge?
Were You Aware Of It!?!
............................................................................
Excerpts from:
The Areas Of My Expertise by John Hodgman
Published by E.P. Dutton (2005)
Pages 48 & 49
............................................................................
Editor's Note: Alfred Lord Tennyson (& John Hodgman) actually wrote "sit" though "sin" seemed a humorous typo. -- Allan Smithee
Thursday, October 18, 2012
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Arts & Culture
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Update: Russian Punk Band Members Lose Appeal To Stay In Moscow Prison
Tuesday, October 16, 2012
Big Audio Dynamite
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Keep Off The Grass
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1999 (Prince Cover)
Monday, October 15, 2012
Journal Entry - 9:15 p.m.
Dirt under three fingernails; two of them on the right hand, one on the left. The ashtray, really a saucer plate, held nine cigarette butts, eight burnt matches, ash. Also on the round table were fourteen books, a thin solar-power calculator, a few paper napkins, eight pencils, six pens - some ballpoint, two lamps, sans shades, light bulbs exposed. And a half-pack of cigarettes plus three bus route pamphlets. The 5. The 54. The 15... though technically, the last is a surface trolley line.
Sunday, October 14, 2012
Videos: Working with The Fall man
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Quietes: Ever wondering what it's like to work in the studio with Mark E Smith?
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A brief tour of Edinburgh with MES
Quietes: Ever wondering what it's like to work in the studio with Mark E Smith?
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A brief tour of Edinburgh with MES
Saturday, October 13, 2012
Edge.Org: What Do You Believe Is True Even Though You Cannot Prove It?
Paul Steinhardt, Albert Einstein Professor of Physics, Princeton University.
I believe that our universe is not accidental, but I cannot prove it.
Historically, most physicists have shared this point-of-view. For centuries, most of us have believed that the universe is governed by a simple set of physical laws that are the same everywhere and that these laws derive from a simple unified theory.
However, in the last few years, an increasing number of my most respected colleagues have become enamored with the anthropic principle—the idea that there is an enormous multiplicity of universes with widely different physical properties and the properties of our particular observable universe arise from pure accident. The only special feature of our universe is that its properties are compatible with the evolution of intelligent life. The change in attitude is motivated, in part, by the failure to date to find a unified theory that predicts our universe as the unique possibility. According to some recent calculations, the current best hope for a unified theory—superstring theory—allows an exponentially large number of different universes, most of which look nothing like our own. String theorists have turned to the anthropic principle for salvation.
Frankly, I view this as an act of desperation. I don't have much patience for the anthropic principle. I think the concept is, at heart, non-scientific. A proper scientific theory is based on testable assumptions and is judged by its predictive power. The anthropic principle makes an enormous number of assumptions—regarding the existence of multiple universes, a random creation process, probability distributions that determine the likelihood of different features, etc.—none of which are testable because they entail hypothetical regions of spacetime that are forever beyond the reach of observation. As for predictions, there are very few, if any. In the case of string theory, the principle is invoked only to explain known observations, not to predict new ones. (In other versions of the anthropic principle where predictions are made, the predictions have proven to be wrong. Some physicists cite the recent evidence for a cosmological constant as having anticipated by anthropic argument; however, the observed value does not agree with the anthropically predicted value.)
I find the desperation especially unwarranted since I see no evidence that our universe arose by a random process. Quite the contrary, recent observations and experiments suggest that our universe is extremely simple. The distribution of matter and energy is remarkably uniform. The hierarchy of complex structures ranging from galaxy clusters to subnuclear particles can all be described in terms of a few dozen elementary constituents and less than a handful of forces, all related by simple symmetries. A simple universe demands a simple explanation. Why do we need to postulate an infinite number of universes with all sorts of different properties just to explain our one?
Of course, my colleagues and I are anxious for further reductionism. But I view the current failure of string theory to find a unique universe simply as a sign that our understanding of string theory is still immature (or perhaps that string theory is wrong). Decades from now, I hope that physicists will be pursuing once again their dreams of a truly scientific "final theory" and will look back at the current anthropic craze as millennial madness.
The Best Non-Required Reading
Edited by Dave Eggers
Excerpt from Responses
pgs 18-19
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company
2006
I believe that our universe is not accidental, but I cannot prove it.Historically, most physicists have shared this point-of-view. For centuries, most of us have believed that the universe is governed by a simple set of physical laws that are the same everywhere and that these laws derive from a simple unified theory.
However, in the last few years, an increasing number of my most respected colleagues have become enamored with the anthropic principle—the idea that there is an enormous multiplicity of universes with widely different physical properties and the properties of our particular observable universe arise from pure accident. The only special feature of our universe is that its properties are compatible with the evolution of intelligent life. The change in attitude is motivated, in part, by the failure to date to find a unified theory that predicts our universe as the unique possibility. According to some recent calculations, the current best hope for a unified theory—superstring theory—allows an exponentially large number of different universes, most of which look nothing like our own. String theorists have turned to the anthropic principle for salvation.
Frankly, I view this as an act of desperation. I don't have much patience for the anthropic principle. I think the concept is, at heart, non-scientific. A proper scientific theory is based on testable assumptions and is judged by its predictive power. The anthropic principle makes an enormous number of assumptions—regarding the existence of multiple universes, a random creation process, probability distributions that determine the likelihood of different features, etc.—none of which are testable because they entail hypothetical regions of spacetime that are forever beyond the reach of observation. As for predictions, there are very few, if any. In the case of string theory, the principle is invoked only to explain known observations, not to predict new ones. (In other versions of the anthropic principle where predictions are made, the predictions have proven to be wrong. Some physicists cite the recent evidence for a cosmological constant as having anticipated by anthropic argument; however, the observed value does not agree with the anthropically predicted value.)
I find the desperation especially unwarranted since I see no evidence that our universe arose by a random process. Quite the contrary, recent observations and experiments suggest that our universe is extremely simple. The distribution of matter and energy is remarkably uniform. The hierarchy of complex structures ranging from galaxy clusters to subnuclear particles can all be described in terms of a few dozen elementary constituents and less than a handful of forces, all related by simple symmetries. A simple universe demands a simple explanation. Why do we need to postulate an infinite number of universes with all sorts of different properties just to explain our one?
Of course, my colleagues and I are anxious for further reductionism. But I view the current failure of string theory to find a unique universe simply as a sign that our understanding of string theory is still immature (or perhaps that string theory is wrong). Decades from now, I hope that physicists will be pursuing once again their dreams of a truly scientific "final theory" and will look back at the current anthropic craze as millennial madness.
The Best Non-Required Reading
Edited by Dave Eggers
Excerpt from Responses
pgs 18-19
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company
2006
Friday, October 12, 2012
Art & Design
Artwork by Wade Guyton (2008)
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More: Dots, Stripes, Scans
Wade Guyton at Whitney Museum of American Art - NY Times Review by Roberta Smith
Thursday, October 11, 2012
The Winston Dictionary
ain't, Vulgar, contraction for am not or are not, sometimes for is not, has not, or have not.
1. like, adj. [comp. more like, Rare liker, superl. most like, Rare, likest], [ A.S. gelic, Similar, like (O.Teut. source)] 1. similar; equal or nearly equal; as in a like manner; 2. in a mood for; disposed to; with a verbal noun; as i feel like reading; 3. characteristic of; as, it was like him to be generous; 4. giving promise of; showing evidence of;
[snip]
Definitions Via:
The Winston Dictionary
College Edition
Pages 21 & 568
Published 1946
By the John C. Winston Company
(Copyright 1926-1946 by the J.C.W. Co.)
Printed in the U.S.A.
1. like, adj. [comp. more like, Rare liker, superl. most like, Rare, likest], [ A.S. gelic, Similar, like (O.Teut. source)] 1. similar; equal or nearly equal; as in a like manner; 2. in a mood for; disposed to; with a verbal noun; as i feel like reading; 3. characteristic of; as, it was like him to be generous; 4. giving promise of; showing evidence of;
[snip]
Definitions Via:
The Winston Dictionary
College Edition
Pages 21 & 568
Published 1946
By the John C. Winston Company
(Copyright 1926-1946 by the J.C.W. Co.)
Printed in the U.S.A.
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
David Berman: Royal Trux Listicle
Twentieth Century Trux (Videos)
via: Menthol Mountains
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More: Royal Trux & David Berman
Side one
5."Granny Grunt" (Hagerty/Herrema/David Berman) – 3:52
Side two
3. "(Have You Met) Horror James?" (Hagerty/Herrema/Berman) – 3:54
via: Menthol Mountains
..................................................................
More: Royal Trux & David Berman
Side one
5."Granny Grunt" (Hagerty/Herrema/David Berman) – 3:52
Side two
3. "(Have You Met) Horror James?" (Hagerty/Herrema/Berman) – 3:54
Tuesday, October 9, 2012
Monday, October 8, 2012
Sunday, October 7, 2012
Saturday, October 6, 2012
6 Band Names
(*) Fancy Cuffs & Collars (Said by Larry Anderson & Scott F. during Phillies Radio Broadcast - Fri., Aug. 8th, Phillies vs Cards)
(*) Can't Afford The Drugs (Via Postal Blowfish Mailing List)
(*) The Machiavellian Hypocrites (Via SJBB)
(*) Adam Eaton & The Bullpen (Coined by Chuck DeLeon, former columnist of Metro Newspaper)
(*) The Sea Hogs (Dictionary Entry for Porpoise aka "Poor Puss"... HaHa!)
(*) Corner Bar Tabs (Reality Based)
(*) Can't Afford The Drugs (Via Postal Blowfish Mailing List)
(*) The Machiavellian Hypocrites (Via SJBB)
(*) Adam Eaton & The Bullpen (Coined by Chuck DeLeon, former columnist of Metro Newspaper)
(*) The Sea Hogs (Dictionary Entry for Porpoise aka "Poor Puss"... HaHa!)
(*) Corner Bar Tabs (Reality Based)
Friday, October 5, 2012
2 Recipes
Mushroom & Crab Soup
1 Mushroom Mix
1/2 Cup Onion (chopped)
1 Qt. Water
1/2 Cup Butter
1 Tbsp. Garlic (minced)
1 Tbsp. Sherry
1 Tbsp. Old Bay Seasoning
1/2 Cup Red Pepper (diced)
1/2 Lb. Crab Meat
1 Tbsp. Worcestershire Sauce
2 Tbsp. Parsley Flakes
1 Can Evaporated Milk
Saute onion, peppers & garlic in butter, cook 5 mins.
Stir in mushrooms, Old Bay, 1 Tbsp. Parsley Flakes, Worcestershire Sauce, cook 5 Mins.
Mix can of milk into water, add to soup, cook on simmer uncovered 15 mins. Add crab meat & Sherry. Simmer till crab meat is warm. Slowly stir bread crumbs into soup to thicken. Serve with sprinkle of parsley
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Honey Roasted Maitake
1 Lb. Maitake Mushrooms
1 Tsp. Butter
1 Tbsp. Honey
1/8 Tsp. Salt
Preheat oven to 350'. Rinse mushrooms and remove ragged stems from the bottom to expose fresh ends.
Place maitake cluster into small oven proof bowl, or ramekin. Melt butter & honey together. Brush the tops of maitake with butter mixture.
Roast 15 mins. or until caps are browned & frizzled. Remove from oven, top with salt, & serve immediately with a fork & spoon. You will use the spoon for the broth at the bottom of the bowl.
........................................................................
Bonus Round: How To Flip Food In A Pan (Video)
1 Mushroom Mix
1/2 Cup Onion (chopped)
1 Qt. Water
1/2 Cup Butter
1 Tbsp. Garlic (minced)
1 Tbsp. Sherry
1 Tbsp. Old Bay Seasoning
1/2 Cup Red Pepper (diced)
1/2 Lb. Crab Meat
1 Tbsp. Worcestershire Sauce
2 Tbsp. Parsley Flakes
1 Can Evaporated Milk
Saute onion, peppers & garlic in butter, cook 5 mins.
Stir in mushrooms, Old Bay, 1 Tbsp. Parsley Flakes, Worcestershire Sauce, cook 5 Mins.
Mix can of milk into water, add to soup, cook on simmer uncovered 15 mins. Add crab meat & Sherry. Simmer till crab meat is warm. Slowly stir bread crumbs into soup to thicken. Serve with sprinkle of parsley
........................................................................
Honey Roasted Maitake
1 Lb. Maitake Mushrooms
1 Tsp. Butter
1 Tbsp. Honey
1/8 Tsp. Salt
Preheat oven to 350'. Rinse mushrooms and remove ragged stems from the bottom to expose fresh ends.
Place maitake cluster into small oven proof bowl, or ramekin. Melt butter & honey together. Brush the tops of maitake with butter mixture.
Roast 15 mins. or until caps are browned & frizzled. Remove from oven, top with salt, & serve immediately with a fork & spoon. You will use the spoon for the broth at the bottom of the bowl.
........................................................................
Bonus Round: How To Flip Food In A Pan (Video)
Thursday, October 4, 2012
Restaurant Shifts
During the late '80's, had a job bussing tables (lg picnic tables/benches) at a hamburger joint named Tycoon Flats in San Antonio.
There were two guys who cleaned/bussed the large outdoor seating area, a cashier who took the food order at the front counter, one grill guy, one deep fryer guy, and another who added the lettuce/tomato/mustard/mayo etc. to the burgers, finishing them up and completing the order (sodas/fries/beer etc). The counter guy then called your name over the intercom system and you picked up the order before heading to the open area in the back. There was also a "barkeep" who sold beer from some coolers in the back.
About 1/2 hour before an evening/night shift began, a person known to the work crew showed up selling paper (blotter) acid. All 6 of the crew purchased a hit and dropped it there on the spot. After a while, felt the acid begin to kick in and knew the same was happening to the others when the pick-up guy who called your name over the intercom just started laughing for a moment or two when trying to tell people to pick up their orders.Also, remember it being one of the longest shifts I worked, or so it seemed at the time.
Note: the customers that night probably didn't think highly of the quality of their burgers or the service... But I've always wondered whether they knew all the employees were tripping.
There were two guys who cleaned/bussed the large outdoor seating area, a cashier who took the food order at the front counter, one grill guy, one deep fryer guy, and another who added the lettuce/tomato/mustard/mayo etc. to the burgers, finishing them up and completing the order (sodas/fries/beer etc). The counter guy then called your name over the intercom system and you picked up the order before heading to the open area in the back. There was also a "barkeep" who sold beer from some coolers in the back.
About 1/2 hour before an evening/night shift began, a person known to the work crew showed up selling paper (blotter) acid. All 6 of the crew purchased a hit and dropped it there on the spot. After a while, felt the acid begin to kick in and knew the same was happening to the others when the pick-up guy who called your name over the intercom just started laughing for a moment or two when trying to tell people to pick up their orders.
Note: the customers that night probably didn't think highly of the quality of their burgers or the service... But I've always wondered whether they knew all the employees were tripping.
Wednesday, October 3, 2012
Tuesday, October 2, 2012
The Time Tables Of History
On This Date: October 2nd
On Oct. 2, 1967, Thurgood Marshall was sworn in as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, becoming the first black to serve on the high court.
On Oct. 2, 1869, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, the Indian nationalist leader whose philosophy of nonviolence influenced movements around the world, was born.
On This Date
1869 Political and spiritual leader Mohandas K. Gandhi was born in Porbandar, India.
1890 Comedian Groucho Marx was born in New York.
1919 President Woodrow Wilson suffered a stroke that left him partially paralyzed.
1944 Nazi troops crushed the two-month-old Warsaw Uprising, during which 250,000 people were killed.
1950 The comic strip "Peanuts" by Charles M. Schulz was first published.
1958 The former French colony of Guinea in West Africa proclaimed its independence.
1959 "The Twilight Zone" debuted on CBS.
1985 Actor Rock Hudson died at age 59 after a battle with AIDS.
1990 The Senate voted 90-9 to confirm Supreme Court nominee David H. Souter.
2000 The International Space Station got its first residents as an American astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts arrived aboard a Russian Soyuz capsule for a four-month stay.
2002 A man was shot and killed in a grocery store parking lot in Wheaton, Md., the first victim in a series of sniper attacks in the Washington, D.C. area, that left 10 dead.
2006 A man took a group of girls hostage in an Amish schoolhouse in Nickel Mines, Pa., killing five and wounding five others before committing suicide.
2008 Republican Sarah Palin and Democrat Joe Biden faced off in a vice presidental debate.
2008 Searchers found the wreckage of millionaire adventurer Steve Fossett's plane more than a year after he disappeared on a solo flight over California's Sierra Nevada mountains.
On Oct. 2, 1967, Thurgood Marshall was sworn in as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, becoming the first black to serve on the high court.
On Oct. 2, 1869, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, the Indian nationalist leader whose philosophy of nonviolence influenced movements around the world, was born.
On This Date
1869 Political and spiritual leader Mohandas K. Gandhi was born in Porbandar, India.
1890 Comedian Groucho Marx was born in New York.
1919 President Woodrow Wilson suffered a stroke that left him partially paralyzed.
1944 Nazi troops crushed the two-month-old Warsaw Uprising, during which 250,000 people were killed.
1950 The comic strip "Peanuts" by Charles M. Schulz was first published.
1958 The former French colony of Guinea in West Africa proclaimed its independence.
1959 "The Twilight Zone" debuted on CBS.
1985 Actor Rock Hudson died at age 59 after a battle with AIDS.
1990 The Senate voted 90-9 to confirm Supreme Court nominee David H. Souter.
2000 The International Space Station got its first residents as an American astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts arrived aboard a Russian Soyuz capsule for a four-month stay.
2002 A man was shot and killed in a grocery store parking lot in Wheaton, Md., the first victim in a series of sniper attacks in the Washington, D.C. area, that left 10 dead.
2006 A man took a group of girls hostage in an Amish schoolhouse in Nickel Mines, Pa., killing five and wounding five others before committing suicide.
2008 Republican Sarah Palin and Democrat Joe Biden faced off in a vice presidental debate.
2008 Searchers found the wreckage of millionaire adventurer Steve Fossett's plane more than a year after he disappeared on a solo flight over California's Sierra Nevada mountains.
Monday, October 1, 2012
October 2012: Thought For The New Month
"Chaos is a name for any order that produces confusion in our minds."
-- George Santayana
-- George Santayana
Friday, September 28, 2012
Thursday, September 27, 2012
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Monday, September 24, 2012
(no subject)
(no subject)
Allen and Violet info@yahoo.com
Jul 27 (12 days ago)
to undisclosed recipients
Be careful with this message. Many people marked similar messages as phishing scams, so this might contain unsafe content. Learn more
Dear Sir/Madam,
Be careful with this message. Many people marked similar messages as phishing scams, so this might contain unsafe content. Learn more
Sunday, September 23, 2012
Property of FLP: Community Reading Journals
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Saturday, September 22, 2012
Philly Sports Cycle
Photos taken Monday, Aug. 6th, 9:30 amish under I-95 - Port Richmond, Philadelphia
Friday, September 21, 2012
Humor: Baseball 2012
Rookie gets makeover
After absorbing a lesson in how to dress for success, Mets rookie Jordany Valdespin wore a collared shirt to the clubhouse for the series finale against the Giants.
The day before, Valdespin arrived at AT&T Park wearing a white T-shirt. After the game ended, he found the T-shirt's sleeves shredded, and the front and back marked with: "El Hombre," and "N.Y. Loves Valdy."
"He thought it was OK to wear a white T-shirt to the ballpark," Mets manager Terry Collins said. "Guys sent the message that we dress better than that."
Hackers infiltrate teams on Facebook
Baseball got a lesson in how difficult it can be for a tradition-bound game to live with social media. Hackers invaded several teams' Facebook pages to post some embarrassing, albeit false, items on their pages, including these gems:
On the Yankees' FB page: "We regret to inform our fans that Derek Jeter will miss the rest of the season with sexual reassignment surgery. He promises to come back stronger than ever in 2013 as Minnie Mantlez."
On the Marlins' page: "Just a reminder tonight is FREE PITBULL NIGHT at Marlins Park. The first 10,000 fans 18 and under will receive a free rescued fighting pitbull . . .." Never mind that the Fish were playing in Atlanta.
And on the Nationals' page: "We're going back to Montreal. SEE YA SUCKERS!!!!!!"
DJ ticks off ump
The music stopped at Jackie Robinson Ballpark in Daytona Beach, Fla., after an umpire ejected the DJ for playing "Three Blind Mice" during a game between the Daytona Cubs and the Fort Myers Miracle, the Daytona Beach News-Journal reported.
Cubs manager Brian Harper was arguing a call at first base in the eighth inning when plate umpire Mario Seneca bellowed: "You're out."
Only Seneca's ire was directed at the DJ, who was tossed. What's more, the public-address system was shut down for the rest of the game.
The newspaper said fans took it upon themselves to announce the players as they approached the plate.
After absorbing a lesson in how to dress for success, Mets rookie Jordany Valdespin wore a collared shirt to the clubhouse for the series finale against the Giants.
The day before, Valdespin arrived at AT&T Park wearing a white T-shirt. After the game ended, he found the T-shirt's sleeves shredded, and the front and back marked with: "El Hombre," and "N.Y. Loves Valdy."
"He thought it was OK to wear a white T-shirt to the ballpark," Mets manager Terry Collins said. "Guys sent the message that we dress better than that."
Hackers infiltrate teams on Facebook
Baseball got a lesson in how difficult it can be for a tradition-bound game to live with social media. Hackers invaded several teams' Facebook pages to post some embarrassing, albeit false, items on their pages, including these gems:
On the Yankees' FB page: "We regret to inform our fans that Derek Jeter will miss the rest of the season with sexual reassignment surgery. He promises to come back stronger than ever in 2013 as Minnie Mantlez."
On the Marlins' page: "Just a reminder tonight is FREE PITBULL NIGHT at Marlins Park. The first 10,000 fans 18 and under will receive a free rescued fighting pitbull . . .." Never mind that the Fish were playing in Atlanta.
And on the Nationals' page: "We're going back to Montreal. SEE YA SUCKERS!!!!!!"
DJ ticks off ump
The music stopped at Jackie Robinson Ballpark in Daytona Beach, Fla., after an umpire ejected the DJ for playing "Three Blind Mice" during a game between the Daytona Cubs and the Fort Myers Miracle, the Daytona Beach News-Journal reported.
Cubs manager Brian Harper was arguing a call at first base in the eighth inning when plate umpire Mario Seneca bellowed: "You're out."
Only Seneca's ire was directed at the DJ, who was tossed. What's more, the public-address system was shut down for the rest of the game.
The newspaper said fans took it upon themselves to announce the players as they approached the plate.
