|
Rough Days for a Gentil Knight
 |
Monday 30 September 2002 |
The native Philadelphians around me recall that he claimed that he was afraid of CIA mind reading techniques. Now that the CIA has repeatedly been shown to be incompetent, will this argument fly? I mean, it may have been well and good in the early eighties when America seemed at the top of its game, but now?Einhorn Fled U.S. in Fear, Lawyer Says. PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- Former hippie guru Ira Einhorn did not kill his girlfriend more than 20 years ago, and he fled the country only because he was ``plain scared,'' his lawyer said Monday. But the prosecutor said evidence against him was strong. By The Associated Press. [New York Times: National] More history
The Philly Daily News confronts him in France
6:59:24 PM 
|
|
On the Saturday night reading of the 2002 Dodge Poetry Festival, Stanley Kunitz remembers being rocked on his feet by Gerard Manley Hopkins’s “God’s Grandeur,” found as he was rummaging through the Harvard stacks. His poem “Touch Me” had a similar effect on me when I first opened to it in the pages of... The New Yorker, I think. It struck me with that chord of longing and rabid jealousy that the great poems evoke in me. It was around that time that I made the pilgrimage to the 92nd Street Y to attend his 90th birthday celebration. I remember the jokes he made about... Ben Jonson, was it?... and how Ben Jonson laughed at being the oldest poet, still publishing at around 90?
Other poems have wrought that effect on me, the wish that I had the skill to write in such a way, that I could touch someone like that. Stephen Dobyns’s “Missed Chances.” Edward Estlin Cummings’s poems. Weldon Kees, alas. William Butler Yeats.
5:48:02 PM
|
|
Bletcherous URLs.
One of the things I love about the original WikiWiki was that you could look up the thoughts of the community by simply typing a probable title in the CGI query string in the accepted Smalltalk-like convention (i.e., http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?YouAintGonnaNeedIt).
The Comanche Swiki uses numbers as a primary lookup, but you can use probable URLs that will resolve to a close match, which is nice, but may have problems if trying to refer someone to a specific source without the URL on hand.
4:08:05 PM
|
|
|
Sunday 29 September 2002 |
At Menlo Park Mall (Edison, NJ), I came in and made my usual beeline for the B Dalton’s bookstore. I was stopped short by a sign on the way: Comin Soon... Apple Computers, Inc. Oh, yeah, baby. An Apple Store five minutes from home. This is the stuff of which a Macintosh devotée dreams.
The Tice’s Corner store is about forty-five minutes away and the Short Hills Mall has nineteenth-century hours. I don’t see confirmation of the new site in the Apple Retail site, though.
Now if only a decent comic-book store would come back. Though I don’t remember visiting a comic book store regularly since I first started working regular hours some four or five years ago.
But a genuine Apple Store! I feel like burbling.
3:35:41 PM
|
|
|
Saturday 28 September 2002 |
Going to NYC for the going-away party, I sat down next to a woman. I tried reading my book, but after driving so long, I was just tired and tried to rest my eyes. Fidgeting beside me, over and over. I asked if she wanted to take the aisle seat. She explained that she just fidgeted. So that rolled into a conversation. Studying for a Doctorate in Physical Therapy in Philadelphia, composer boyfriend who waits in Times Square (also worked for Foreigner postproduction, gold records on the wall), and on 11 Sep 2001, she helped out at the medical bivouacs that sprung up. All I wanted to do was sleep, but I have trouble ending interesting conversations.
Well, I made up for that this afternoon. Frigging five hours and didn’t get to do what I wanted to do.
11:02:54 PM
|
|
The performance team (except for Susan, in NH) took Jon Harris out to dinner in New York at one of the China Chalets, the walk up down the street, near AIG. It was a melancholy affair. Sure he’s only going to AZ, and once a month he’s coming back, and he’s going to have all that free time to get on our backs online and on the phone, but still.
On the way back, we reminisced about Lou and Rob and other sites. Like I said, a melancholy affair.
12:23:33 AM
|
|
|
Friday 27 September 2002 |
Nirvana fans, rejoice. Or wallow in misery for what could-have-been.
2:53:28 PM
|
|
Slow day in the office, because Things keep Happening. License serving from remote servers: All the load tools I know of (that the companies I deal with trust) have complex licensing programs (usually FlexLM/Globetrotter) that regulate their use. It’s always the configuration or fixing of these licensing utilities or servers that seem to constitute the most frustrating part of doing performance tests.
1:38:22 PM
|
|
A lot of people (or one very persistent person) have been searching (using various engines) for Billy Collins’s poem, “The Lanyard.” Sorry, it’s not here, nor have I seen it in any of the collections of his poetry I am familiar with. Perhaps it’s fairly recent, in which case you’d best look in APR or Poetry or some literary journals. All that’s here is a set list of some of the poems he read on the last Sunday of the “Dodge Poetry Festival.”
[Update: a lot of people have also been Googling for Amiri Baraka-related material. If you want the set list and notes from the speech on Sunday, it’s there too.—Allan, 1 Oct 2002]
Thanks for stopping by; I would appreciate your comments, even derogatory ones. If I were thin-skinned, I would not be publishing a weblog.
12:21:09 PM
|
|
|
Thursday 26 September 2002 |
Jeremy Zawodny who works at Yahoo Finance offers an RSS 0.91 feed for every stock. It's a beta feature. Here's the feed for Microsoft and one for Marimba. Thanks to Jon Udell for the pointer. Nice. Jon also notes that Microsoft doesn't show up too strong in the weblog world and describes a conversation with John Montgomery about this. What a small world. John and I got to know each other when we did the work on SOAP in the late 90s, and weblog software is one of the major reasons we were interested in SOAP. So close, but so far. But it's never too late! [Scripting News]
7:06:38 PM
|
|
If one works for a consulting company, is it unethical, when writing a secret resumé, to list those companies in your company’s client list for whom you have worked? Or should you resort to vague hand-waving: “a major bank,” “a major pharmaceutical,” “the foremost supplier of airplane parts and owner of a television station,” that sort of thing? Seems kind of wishy washy. Not that I’m seriously looking, mind you. Just wondering.
6:29:45 PM
|
|
The DayPop Top Forty is back up. Yet another source of opportunities to "blog authoritatively on subjects I know nothing about." (a Paul Frankenstein toast)
2:11:58 PM
|
|
|
Wednesday 25 September 2002 |
Sorry if I have not put everyone’s pages up yet for the Blogger Bash...between work and the Dodge Poetry Festival, I have been kind of busy. I have been collecting names and trying to figure out where everyone goes. I am also planning a different site design, something along the lines of my template before RUL coughed up this template over the summer. I realize I don’t generate much flow but you generous folks certainly deserve all I can deliver.
6:58:03 PM
|
|
|
Tuesday 24 September 2002 |
Okay, I've avoided talking about it, but, the free beer that almost every other blogger who went to the Bash is asking about or winking over? Do you want to know how I won it? You really really do? Okay. Ask Paul how I won it. Now, reading my blog might lead you to believe that I am a very repressed, introverted individual, and you'd be correct in that belief. But it can hardly be said of me that I can let a free beer go undrunk, especially if the idea of it had been languishing, hanging in the air, unrealized, for an hour and change. Thanks Paul.
5:21:43 PM
|
|
Homo ludens or Homo fabens? I’ve always wondered. Man the player, man the creator?
Homo sapiens? Don’t make me laugh.
2:38:04 PM
|
|
|
Monday 23 September 2002 |
If you’re more visually oriented and want to see the Dodge locale, the bucolic Waterloo Village, Mobius (One?) has pictures of the area. None of the program poets, though, just himself and his friends, that is, poets all, but none of the headliners were photographed. Let me try that again. The poet Mobius1 (?) posted pictures of himself and his compatriots, but none of the “Featured Poets” or “Poets Among Us.”
It seems we were the only bloggers there, at least the only ones to have posted anything that Google picked up.
8:40:04 PM
|
|
This is my third or fourth time here, so I managed to keep myself from going on a buying spree and skipped the signings so I didn't miss readings, though both Stern and Kunitz had important recent collections that I ought to have picked up.
[Update: no, no copies of “The Lanyard” here. But since you’re here, I tossed in some links to some of the poems that I could find. I hope you find something of interest. —Allan, 30 Sep 2002]
Gerald Stern. "Three Hearts," on New Jersey. "The Dancing," about a Filco Radio. "The Dog." The great ideal of poets is either a great large poem running several thousands of lines, or a great short poem. This is "St. Marks." A poem on Orpheus? Stern thanks Haba. "Drowning in the River." "In Time" in American Sonnets, all the poems are about (singing [to abuse the audience, more on that later]) 2 4 6 8 12 16 20 lines long (end singing) but who's counting, as Shakespeare once said. In an interview. You did know that I have the only extant copy of the Shakespeare interview, didn't you? "Cigars," though the question of whether the audience would know what a stoop is. I won't (patronize) you--that would be stu-pid. (Hah)
Amiri Baraka. Poet Low-rate. [great speech] Writers, write! Give away poems. In the market, in the square, outside the banks. Paste them up. Copy them in copy centers. No matter what you believe in. Five hundred years ago, Shakespeare wrote, and it's his words we hear, and who remembers who the Lord Mayor of London was? Show them that the artistic mind is stronger than the economic mind! As poets, write, even if it puts you in the middle. Because it puts you in the middle, fight for truth, fight for truth and beauty. "In Town," then "Understanding Readiness" for Stokey Carmichael, "Between Infrared and Ultraviolet," which started with a vocal piece after Dizzy Gillespie.
[Okay, I disagree with many of Baraka's views, but unlike Bly, he can let the poetry speak for him.]
Eugene Friesen on cello: Bach, using voice as an element. An elegy for Pablo Kassavides, the late patriarch of the cellists, in a (Kassavides) death mask and black cape.
Rita Dove (1993-1995). Thanks to Jim Haba and Scott... "Parsley," parts one ("The Cane Fields") and two ("The Palace"). Haitian workers killed by Dominican general based on how they pronounced the Spanish word for parsley. "The Island Women of Paris." "Ghost Walk: Chateau d'Elysee 1966" (I think): "...searching for his laughter and a last glass of wine." "Goethe Demimonde" (I think): "...to hell with wisdom, they're all wrong,/I'll never be through with my life." From the Rosa Parks sequence: "When the fire hits," "Claudette Colvin goes to work," and "Rosa." Newer poems, always a scary thing: "I have been a stranger in a strange land." Recently started taking ballroom dancing lessons, as an easy activity. Never worked harder in my life: "Foxtrot Fridays." "Now," my take on the glass half empty, half full. "The Sisters Swan Song," from a series of cameos: "...we all died of insignificance." "Last Words," [a really excellent piece, must find it:] "What nonsense! That's not even worth writing down."
Robert Hass. (Haba: Kunitz selected him for Yale Younger, then Hass preceded him as Poet Laureate. Started the watershed conference). Mostly new work. "Ending of other people's poems:" "...the song they did not hear." [Odysseus and silent musics] "Describing color is impossible and the one wing of the arc of desire," which I believe I heard him read at Poetry and the Public Sphere. "Supple wreath of myrtle," a meditation on Nietzsche. "Tender little Buddha..." on Whitman and his love, and Whitman and his true love, poetry. Two poems named "Etymology," I think, one about bodily fluids and the speaker being caught picking his nose, the other about finding that word he wanted in the earlier poem. "Terror of the Innings," from a series. "Habits of Paradise" "The world as will and representation," about Antibuse (anti-alcoholic drug) his fifties father and off-kilter mother, alcohol, and where one gets moral ideas as his mother gags down alcohol she cannot handle. A piece using a long line found in Horace, the Asclepedeian line, one that Hopkins used for his line about the Farrier, Felix the farrier is dead, my duty all ended. Don't think he mentioned the title. "My first wife's daughter's..." etc. That's as long a line of poetry as a line should get. Meg lost him again. "The Seventh Night," about a poetic contest at a writing colony or something. Very good; find it.
Paul Winter on clarinet, doing "Canyon Suite" or "Canyon Lullabye" or somethign like that, based on experiences at the Grand Canyon, someplace he dubbed "Bach's Canyon" and a found harmony at St. John the Divine's (the big Episcopalian church in NYC, if you're not from the area). "Canyon Shockwave"? I think he gave three different names for it.
Robert Pinsky (1997-2000). (Long Branch, he went to Rutgers, then Stanford [studying under Yvor Winters]). I am worried by Bush, saying he's doing things in my name that I don't agree with. But I am glad that this has not taken away my right to patriotism, that he has allowed me to grieve. Do not mind if I talk past your applause, I appreciate it, but I have been concerned of late about the phenomenon of applause. "Samurai Song." On Long Branch, "The Questions," speaking of how the NJ speech mannerism of "What about...?" [This gave a familial sense of the characters of Long Branch.] "The Figured Wheel," and the circular sense of history: "It's hard to read when you can't inhale." Something about connectedness and touch, and the poem, "Shirt" about a factory worker in a blaze. "Book." "Newspaper." "...the skein of days." We feel a need, an obligation to take care of our young and our old. Evil intermingles with good, and it is a life's work to untangle it: "Civic Rites." A revision of yesterday's poem [the chutzpah one, remember?], about who I am and what I owe you, all these issues tied up to being a bad boy in high school, "Immature Song." He reads it and walks away.
Stanley Kunitz. The Dodge Fest is one of the glories of the arts and of citizenship as well. Giving voice to the [disenfranchised]. It has become a gathering of the clans. And I don't mean clans with a capital K. This first poem was written 55 years after the traumatic events it describes. "The Portrait." (the father's suicide and mother's slap-on-the-cheek one). Sometimes my mother could not take care of me and so fostered me with a French Canadian family in Worcester, Mass. "1914: This is not what I remember most about it." I wanted to write the obscure legend of my youth. And I had such a difficult time writing its conclusion... and then I turned on my television to see Martin Luther King, Jr. being assassinated. About two weeks earlier, he had been telling me about the horrors that the Civil Rights movement was experiencing, the opprobrium, and he urged the poets to join their voices to their own. I saw his assassination, went into the other room, and in a few minutes the poem was finished. It is in four parts. "On my way home from school...." This next one has a reference to Meister Eckhardt, the 13c German mystic: give away all your possessions, for God scorns to show Himself among images: "The Image Maker." The ancient Vikings' funerary rites, where the boat was set adrift aflame to journey into forever: "The Long Boat." This poem was written after the loss of many friends all at once, and all my immediate family: "The Layers." ("...live among the layers, not among the litter.") This next one is on Halley's comet, 1910, 1986, 2062. This one refers to the 1910 one" "Halley's Comet." (Child in school, at dinner, in bed, on the roof) This next one reveals my gardenter's soul: "The Round." "Touch Me." (This is one of my favorites. Well, more later.) My last poem... of this evening... (Hah) is called "King of the River," about a salmon. In some cases, you may not be able to distinguish which is the man and which the salmon. Don't worry about it.
Haba: The real challenge in helping Stanley Kunitz off the stage is to get out of his way.,"
Paul Winter on the clarinet.
Billy Collins. (Catholic schools throughout education... "full metal jacket." Being selected as poet laureate was like a soft wrecking ball from outer space. A genius for not being where you expect him to be.) Thanks, Jim Haba, applause. And now back to me. Of all poetry gatherings I've been to, these four days have been the most... humid. [Yes indeed]. "Genius" recalls the wild swans at Coole (Yeats), and the need as a poet when passing swans to count them. "The Lanyard," (on motherhood). "Love." I found the first two lines in a magazine, the work of Jacques Krechion, a poet I had never heard of, living in Belgium. Since that is a fairly safe distance... the first two lines are his, but I took his idea in another direction: "Litany." "Surprise," (on Vivaldi's 350th birthday). "No Time," and it's not often one gets a laugh from an audience for a poem about your dead parents. Songs stuck in your head, this is called, "More than a woman;" it used to be called "Build me up buttercup," but... it's the only poem I know with a title that can change from day to day. "Nine Horses." Hard to follow Stanley Kunitz, or precede him, or any of the other poets on the program. "Forgetfulness," (that river in the underworld that begins with L). "Nostalgia." (for the 1300s, 1500s, 1700s, etc) I wished to write a perfectly organized poem, according to the Aristotelian parts, called "Aristotle." I feel like I'm standing between you and the rest of your lives. "Japan." Since Stanley Kunitz is apparently bringing his A-list poems, I'll follow his lead. "On Turning Ten." This next one mentions the jazz of Johnny Hartman, "Night Club."
1:34:08 AM
|
|
|
Sunday 22 September 2002 |
An anecdote from the 2000 DPF:
At the last Dodge Poetry Fest, I asked Stanley Kunitz to sign my copy of Passing Through. I think he was somewhat sick that day.
I told him then, “Whenever I read your ‘Three Small Parables for my Poet Friends,’ it teaches me humility about craft. But whenever I read ‘Touch Me’ it reminds me that a perfect poem is possible.”
11:53:26 PM
|
|
It’s surprising to me how many of the poets are against the mere idea of war on Saddam’s regime. With so many voices being silenced in Iraq and Iraqi Kurdistan, how can we, poets and lovers of poetry, as lovers of words, think to lend our voices to this silencing?
How much have we lost to the Hitlers and Stalins and Pol Pots of our age? To the Pashas Talat and Enver? Could we but go back, how many more songs would now exist, would even now be sung? How many voices have been stilled?
Have we had not had enough of Aleppos and Auschwitzes, Rwandas and Sarajevos, Phnom Penhs and Dachaus? Enough.
11:24:29 PM
|
|
5 moderator points on Slashdot, ending 24 Sep.
9:47:14 PM
|
|
I was not able to ask Gerald Stern today, “‘Lovesick’ is a poem that transports me, so much so that I find it difficult to analyze. Could you go over some of the technical decisions you made while writing it?” because some bozo in the front row asked a question about justice and love that set him off.
However, I was able to sing a duet with him:
By the light of the silvery moon
I like to spoon
with my honey I’ll croon love’s tune
Honeymoon
keep a-shinin’ in June...
See? Glee club was good for more than just putting yourself on the fast track to geekdom in high school.
6:28:31 PM
|
|
|
Saturday 21 September 2002 |
Friesan on cello. Whales, chipmunks, Church Rhythms.
Haba: Not like previous programs; each poet to read one poem by themselves and another by another. "I constrained each poet to five minutes, insofar as you can constrain poets."
Peter Cole.
Andalusia. Primordial->nothing.
Coleman Barks.
"Poet and president," When Whitman and Lincoln met?
Grief and future, no news here.
Li-Young Lee.
Frost's "Directive," from memory, by God! Rachel Hadas introduced me to that poem. "Words for worry," about being a father. Went overtime, as this afternoon. What can you expect from someone with the sense of time he has? Two years ago, I believe he described the Chinese concept of time and the future, constantly moving backwards.
Brenda Hillman.
Her own: "Wind Treaties."
Alice Notley's "When I was alive."
Edward Hirsch.
His own "The widening sky," about walking off the boardwalk onto the beach and the widening sky.
Nazim Hikmet, "On Living."
Heather McHugh.
Dying words of Jude: “I fear my sentences are becoming grammatically incorrect.”
"Fast"
Emo Philips on dying: "I want to die peacefully in my sleep, like my grandfather, and not screaming, like his passengers."
Snippets from the Yarob people of Nigeria.
Taha Muhhammad Ali. (Peter Cole to translate.)
"Agha fights the superpower" A small portrait of just an ordinary Arab guy.
Then ibn Arras, 11th c? Four lines in Arabic, then Cole to do a larger section of the same poem in English.
R Bly
Yet another reason for me to avoid reading Robert Bly. This is not a poet of the first rank, but a cheerleader sloganeer. Iron John, indeed. Anti-war protest? Screw you. I came to hear poetics, not polemics.
His own, "The Russian."
14th c Sufi, I can't hear what he says...
Politics over poetry: some people here are just cheerleaders and politicians, rather than lovers of the word, the well turned phrase, and ideas. I wanted to walk over and slap each and everyone of those cheering against the war on the back of the head. If a poet deserves praise, it should be for the crafting of words, not the political position he or she holds.
It's amazing to me how many Americans hate America.
Lucille Clifton
Much as I respect her work with words, it was disgusting how she said that though the towers falling was upsetting to her, she could not understand why people thought that these things could not, should not happen. Of course it could happen, and not believing that was misguided and fatal. But. Is she implying that it should have happened? She's a poet, and should have more care for the implications of her words.
"I am changing one of the words in this poem, to make it more inclusive: 'God:'" Stafford, one of my favorites: ...and the darkness around us is deep.
Her own "Blessing the Boats"
It's good that they're going towards the Dylan Thomas model, allowing poets to read from other poets as well, or rather forcing them to.
Music by the Paul Winters Consort band.
Robert Hass
His own "Sunrise." always a lover of words.
Czeslaw Milosz, "Day at the end of the world." mispronounced name? isn't it chesh-waf mee-woss?.
Amiri Baraka.
Amina Baraka, "Hey there's pain" or "Hey there Spain" for Toni Morrison. One of the things that bothers me about the Barakas' poetry is they always end their lines with Latinate words "revolution" "imperialism" but I suppose that's an intended effect, these words are supposed to jar the ear.
"Mind of the president." childish, but funny.
Grace Paley. "Oh, my." How does one follow the irrepressible LeRoi Jones?
Yehuda Amicai, "An Arab shepherd is searching for his goat on Mt. Sinai."
Her own poem was "Walking in the woods" I think. Introducing it: "I was supposed to write something about the future, but I don't seem to write about it much. I wonder why?" (An age joke.)
Robert Pinsky.
Cavafy. "Waiting for the Barbarians" of course, Cavafy was a Greek exile in Alexandria, as a result of the barbarians eventually did come and transform Constantinopolis, so the poem could be ironic as well. Though Rachel Hadas was my teacher, I must confess my knowledge of Cavafy is poor.
He read his own "Immature song" written this very afternoon. "Forgive my chutzpah."
Gerald Stern
Another of my favorites.From the introduction: "Remember that while there is no justice without love, there is no love without justice." Not much applause from the confused anti-War folk, who clapped for the first clause, but petered off for the second. Is he for them, or against? The best thing about a good poet is, you can't tell. "Short Words"
"I stole my book back from Edward Hirsch." Nazim Hikmet. "The Cucumber." From the introduction: "I hope that one day everyone in the middle east [where the cucumber is most eaten] will be united under the flag of the cucumber."
Rita Dove.
Her own "The Situation is Intolerable" about the Rosa Parks boycotts, one of a sequence of Rosa Parks poems.
A pantoum by Rebecca Watson, "What is your name?" A fourth grader did this? Some days it just doesn't pay to get up in the morning. This was nine years ago; RW will be someone to watch for in the near future, I'm sure.
Billy Collins.
He read his own "Dancing toward Bethlehem."
John Clare! "Invitation to Eternity." (Should I mention the ongoing copyright dispute? How the hell do you copyright a seventeenth century writer? One more reason for the pile on revising current copyright law.)
Adam Zagajewski.
"Houston 6 PM" "...Europe is sleeping... ...soon America will sleep..."
Czeslaw Milosz, "Ars Poetica?" "under unbearable duress...." get last line.
Stanley Kunitz.
A standing ovation of course. How can you not? This may be the fourth or fifth reading I went to of his. I went to his 90th birthday celebration at the 92d St Y some years ago, and of course as a co-founder of the GRD Poetry Fest, he comes to every one of these.
His first was Gerard Manley Hopkins, "Grandeur of God." He first came across it underfoot at the Harvard library where he was researching his thesis. He picked it up, and it was open to this poem. He was standing, but it rocked him.
"I hate the polluters of this world."
His own, "The Flight of Apollo," written in 1969 in the aftermath of the flight.
Thank God the organizers put the least overtly political poets toward the end. I was about to become sick in the first half. Cheerleaders behind me, cheerleaders ahead. If they wish to protest the war, let them go to Washington. Words for such people are a distraction.
After that program, Mark Doty and Marie Howe reading others' poetry, alternating, finishing each other's lines, with Paul Winter Consort playing. Mark Doty is much diminished this year. I hardly recognized him.
10:57:49 PM
|
|
Whoops. Yet another duplicate post. See below. Too many windows open.
12:01:27 PM
|
|
I suspect the difference between Aaron and myself in terms of literature would be that I am willing to put up with mediocre to even poor writing to follow a plot or an idea I find interesting. Think Star Wars or Asimov’s Foundation. And sometimes I won’t put up with even beautiful writing if the plot is going nowhere.
11:46:49 AM
|
|
I believe it wasLiz’s friend Lauren who was the designer. How does one manipulate time using design? The placement of objects in a space? Navigation through objects in some ways could regulate a pace. The creation of an atmosphere? Fostering a dreamlike quality would regulate time even while at rest.
Time is the measure or experience of change. But I would think that a changing space would be too distracting for everyday living. For objects and their design, well, evoking nostalgia can also change one’s sense of time. A slowly pulsing light on my TiBook evokes the idea of a snooze, but also a restful serenity.
11:40:35 AM
|
|
This man knows how to throw a party.
11:16:18 AM
|
|
Will I blog from Dodge? Naw, I’ll leave that to Bill Moyers. Sometimes you just have to let go of the critical faculties and just experience. [Hah!]
3:19:37 AM
|
|
I’m not gonna get to the Saturday Dodge Poetry Fest until the afternoon!
Big Apple Blogger Bash 3....
Hung out with Paul, Ravenwolf, the NYC Bloggers, Sasha Castel whose persona I keep mispronouncing (tree-chuh, Allan, Italian, not French), and Ken Goldstein. I was getting too comfortable, so I tried to mingle. [Why do I always leave out Nick Marsala? Sorry.]
Discussed the use of time in the design of space with a friend of a blogger. Gaston Bachelard and dreams and poetic spaces and living in a house like a pond. Blasted beer on an empty stomach, I canna nae remember the lass’s kenning (Lauren?), nor her friend’s blog (Liv?).
Jim is still speaking to me after the whole Copts thing, a good sign.
I tried to speak to Elizabeth Spiers who seemed remoter than mountains. I felt as if I were boring, not the most pleasant of feelings. [You may now stop snickering. Now. Please?]
Megan McArdle, ever-courteous, taught me how to pass the foreign exam essay portion, and promises to send me pointers on nice places to eat in Philadelphia, though I am on the edges of it. I teased her about her groupie (DiamondSilent Ralph?) who, it seems, never even came up to speak to her. What can you say about that? A round of toasts.
Paul really ought to be sleeping now, because he must be at Columbia at eight. Go Paul! I’ll stand you a pizza slice next time we go out.
Orchid thinks I’m wrong about Jesus’s parables, and considers my attitude the product of two millenia of theologian-inspired twisting. I really wanted to like someone brave enough to have as many studs through a face as she, but I think she’s tasteless in her argumentation: taking a questionable assumption as fact and not even bothering to defend it. Someone does that, I shut up. It’s bad etiquette and it does not lead to truth. I don’t disagree that some of the appeal to early believers was sticking it to the patricians, but Jesus did hang out with tax collectors.
God in the Machine whose name escapes me talked about literature and criticism. A fellow Wallace Stevens buff, he pointed me to Thomas Hardy. I pointed him to Stephen Dobyns. He knew more about Yvor Winters than I could remember and also pointed to his poetry. I pointed him to EM Forster’s “Anonymity: an Enquiry’ for the kind of literature that engrosses me. He’s reading Schoek’s Envy.
My toast that no one seemed to hear:
Winter is coming
and wolves drawing near
so we gather together
to drink some beer.
To Ken, may he be in heaven half an hour before the devil knows he’s dead.
2:54:28 AM
|
|
|
Friday 20 September 2002 |
When explaining a computer command, a computer language feature, or a piece of computer hardware, first describe the problem it is designed to solve.—David Martin, Norristown, Pennsylvania, Communications of the ACM
3:43:28 PM
|
|
Near Dark, one of my favorites, and really up there in the vampire genre, is finally out on DVD. [by way of Entertainment Weekly, 20 Sep 2002, 79] This means I can get rid of the record-by-title word "NEAR DARK" + Movie, Horror category in TiVo.
“Caleb, those people back there, they wasn’t normal. Normal folks, they don’t spit out bullets when you shoot ’em, no sir.” —Loy Colton, Near Dark
10:18:48 AM
|
|
|
Thursday 19 September 2002 |
Burn This is my favorite play by Lanford Wilson; I first came across it in acting class looking for a piece to develop into a monologue. I really wish I had seen the original John Malkovich performance, and every time I re-read the play, I keep imagining the scenes with him in it. Joan Allen never came clear for me as Anna, the dancer turning to choreography in the prime of her career, and I don’t know the actor who first played Burton.
I saw an off-off-Broadway production three or four years ago, the last night of its run, but was not too impressed: the Pale actor was clearly overacting, realizing it, and overemphasizing the cursing and weeping. Most of the audience was aged, and were rather appalled. I shrunk in my seat to watch it.
Hot l Baltimore is another Lanford Wilson play I love to re-read. Never seen it in production though.
I caught a local production of Talley’s Folly on my birthday (alone, boohoo) that was fairly good. It’s a small play with two characters that lends itself to small theaters.
The last I heard, Lanford Wilson was trying to collaborate on a screenplay for Burn This, but I have not been checking for it.
Revival Works A Transformation. A sensational cast led by Edward Norton and Catherine Keener presents an eye-opening, soulful revival of Lanford Wilson's portrait of disconnectedness. By Ben Brantley. [by way of RUL’s presentation of New York Times: Arts]
[Whoops, spoke too soon. more information on what Mr. Wilson has been doing of late.]
11:33:47 PM
|
|
Someone seems to be googlin’ for Joe Marques of Winter Hours today. At least seven times. Sorry, he’s not here. Last time I saw him he was promising me he’d repay the money I loaned him (I don’t remember how much) and thinking about living in his farm in Spain his grandfather or somesuch bequeathed him, um, in 95 or so? You might want to try calling ASCAP which sends him a check every once in a while. If you were just looking for anecdotes, well, one I never finished and one I did. I hope that helped. —Allan the Ever-Helpful
5:29:14 PM
|
|
Currently reading: John M. Ford’s The Last Hot Time. The Chicago gangland scene if Elfland were drifting in on the cities of the world; a young heartland paramedic travels to the bright elflight of the big city.
Currently on the stack: Frank M. Robinson’s The Dark Beyond the Stars, which seems to be set in a similar or even the same universe as “The Oceans are Wide’, which introduced me to this author.
Currently eyeing: Summerland by Michael Chabon, the author of the Kavalier and Clay book, which I have also been eyeing.
4:52:07 PM
|
|
|
Wednesday 18 September 2002 |
I noticed Alexondra Lee in an article on Push, Nevada. If she’ on that show, what’s going to happen to Special Unit 2?
Whoops, she’s not even on the series that long.
10:43:07 PM
|
|
Okay, did the software update thing for both iTunes and 10.2.1. Time to restart. Crossing my fingers....
10:38:54 PM
|
|
Man, I have these types of dreams (17 Sep 2002) all the time. I also know two other people where I work now who have had this dream as well from when someone brought the subject up during our lunch, um, some four weeks ago? My immediate superior did not, and immediately felt left out. It’s not a pleasant experience.
As I was coding up a routine to help test a hypothesis about why QALoad was not working quite as well as I had hoped for a particular test case, I had a flash of memory or déjà vu of how the whole situation was going to turn out: it did not quite pan out as in my flash, but I think the solution will come along those lines.
6:21:04 PM
|
|
Apple has released an update to iTunes today that weighs in at 5.8MB. You can grab the update through the Software Update panel in the System Preferences application. [Mac Net Journal]
If I update to this, will it erase my hard disk? Just asking.
5:16:35 PM
|
|
Still have not inquired into getting into that blasted pool. Sheer lethargy.
4:47:02 PM
|
|
|
Tuesday 17 September 2002 |
My room this week is smaller, no couch or love seats this time, not even a closet door, but there’s a noisy convention setting up shop hereabouts that I’m sure will make the nights ever so pleasant. *sigh* As a plus, the elevators seem to be working.
[Update: baby in the next room crying all night. Joy.]
7:24:55 PM
|
|
No, it’s back. It has something to do with going off network and sleeping at the same time.
7:11:02 PM
|
|
Hm. Must have downloaded an update that fixes the sleep/wake Radio connectivity problem. Seems to work now.
3:41:10 PM
|
|
|
Monday 16 September 2002 |
Did I mention last week that I my company finally agreed to put me up at the Adam’s Mark? Evidently not. Big place, with um, two restaurants and a bar. Two pools which I have not visited yet. More later I suppose.
6:59:01 PM
|
|
How interestingly worded this little summary is!P-to-P fans hope pen is mightier than download. Effort takes aim at bill that would allow copyright holders to stop piracy [InfoWorld: Top News] How about, “Effort takes aim at bill that would allow copyright holders to r*pe information systems”?
Durn. Used the R word... edit... there. Normally I would not be squeamish, but I’ve been hit by search engines for r..gh (title) b.ndage (the blogroll on the right, gotta rename that).
What was I talking about? Oh, right. This is the petition itself: http://darrylballantyne.com/ashcroft/
6:16:45 PM
|
|
I could have sworn I posted this before: Teddy, a three-dimensional modeling tool.
I don't remember its provenance: probably either the Squeak Smalltalk general mailing list or just surfing. Searching for those that link to it on Google, though, got me an interesting digital video site for teachers.
5:54:05 PM
|
|
12:29:35 AM
|
|
|
Sunday 15 September 2002 |
It looks like Tori Amos has a new album: Scarlet’s Walk, about a road trip in the midst of America’s recovery. I believe a few days after the incident she did “Time” at Letterman’s show. Coming 29 October. [by way of Entertainment Weekly, 42]
11:59:29 PM
|
|
Daypop ran out of disk space.
Gotta watch out for that [he says, wincing].
12:47:34 AM
|
|
|
Saturday 14 September 2002 |
Looks like Jenny’s back....Is blogging like riding a bicycle? [The Shifted Librarian]
One would hope.
7:59:16 AM
|
|
By way of Cory Doctorow: Footnotes to History: The nations you didn't learn about in high school geography. by James L. Erwin. Of particular interest to me were the Khazars, Lijien (so that’s what happened to Crassus’s legions at Carrhae), and Gothia-Mangup.
7:33:25 AM
|
|
|
Friday 13 September 2002 |
I first conceived the desire to learn Lisp by reading some chapters in Douglas Hofstatder’s Metamagical Themas. Hofstatder wrote the successor column to Dewdney and Gardner.
I took my first steps reading through Matthias Felleisen and Daniel Friedman’s Little LISPer, now Schemer.
I then picked up Paul Graham’s Common LISP for an AI class but also picked up On LISP after enjoying CL’s style, and wishing to work through Koza with a fuller understanding.
I never worked up to an understanding of CLOS.
I picked up an old edition of Abelson and Sussman’s Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs and have picked through it peckishly.
10:32:06 PM
|
|
|
Thursday 12 September 2002 |
A fellow Carl's Jr. aficionado. Something’s wrong with the permalinks though.
6:26:10 PM
|
|
Joined .mac (“dot-Mac”) from my old iTools account for some reason.
Oh, I remember.
Steve told me to.
5:36:54 PM
|
|
A comment on the game’s release:
When?? (Score:4, Funny)
by 3ryon on Wednesday August 28, @10:19PM (#4160868)
(User #415000 Info)
It's due first quarter 2004
This is the Video Game Industry's way of saying, "We haven't actually started yet."
3:28:06 PM
|
|
In “A Streak of Glamour but a Lack of Lifeblood,” Charles Herold plays and pans a number of the current (graphical) adventure games out there. But he does mention one tantalizing bit:And while LucasArts has not released any adventure games this year, it is developing sequels to two of its classics, Full Throttle and Sam and Max Hit the Road.
[by way of Adventure Gamers]Sam and Max are coming back! Purcell should receive more recognition for these two twisted detectives. I hope LucasArts sets the adventure in the off-model Manila (an inside joke by way of the trade paperback).
Whoa, how did I miss it if it actually came out on Slashdot?
Sam and Max home page
Unofficial
3:18:31 PM
|
|
Just installed the security update (2002-08-23) from Apple.
Current uptime:
[rizal:~] baruz% uptime
3:07PM up 11 days, 16:28, 6 users, load averages: 2.21, 1.61, 1.41
Restarting sometime today.
3:09:19 PM
|
|
|
Wednesday 11 September 2002 |
never forget
8:48:55 AM
|
|
|
Tuesday 10 September 2002 |
Should I give air to my Big Media conspiracy theories? That would look foolish. Well, more foolish than usual.
Daypop Fans Relax: It's On Break. One of the Web's most popular and influential weblogs hasn't been updated for a spell, and there's no evident reason why. But the owner says not to worry. By Paul Boutin. [Wired News]
Two weeks in Europe! Man, I need a life.
7:08:33 PM
|
|
Wow. Only one vote on the BABB3/Dodge Poetry thing (thanks Paul! You’ve decided me as much as one can decide someone as indecisive as myself.).
Ah, Saturday and Sunday is when the big readings happen anyway. I just hope I don’t puke on Billy Collins!
6:33:38 PM
|
|
LA Times: File-Sharing Networks Relying on VCR Ruling. Two file-sharing networks--Napster Inc. and Aimster (later renamed Madster)--sought refuge in the Betamax case with no great success. Now, three popular successors--Morpheus, Kazaa and Grokster--are relying on Betamax in a critical pretrial skirmish. [Tomalak's Realm]
Betamax did not hold in the Napster and Aimster case because of a difference between time-shifting and distribution, or so I read it. And it’s true, there is a palpable difference between handing a tape of last night’s Friends and airing it on your own network. However, does that make the makers of Apache liable for everyone who defames another using Apache web servers?
A solution for the peer-to-peer software distributors may be to remove the server aspect of their software to mere discovery; distribution or publishing therefore becomes more of an active act of the person running the software, in the way that IRC file exchange is. But that loses a great deal of the power of these nodes, and I don’t mean computational power: there is a great stimulus to imagination when you can fire up your ’puter and think to yourself, almo.
As for useful purposes of the software, let me pose a couple: I downloaded a film clip of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and MP3s of a couple of his speeches. How can that not be a useful thing? Or imagine the poor disenfranchised and unfree Chinese and Iranians (Persians? or does that only apply to the Parsi and ancient Persians?): Radio Free Europe? Try KaZaa Free World!
Whew, that got me worked up.
5:26:23 PM
|
|
Is it my imagination, or is Radio Userland using up a lot more resources than it did previously? Anywhere from 40 to 80% CPU. My fan has been working non-stop.
4:58:37 PM
|
|
|
Monday 9 September 2002 |
Anonymous Fechtbuch I.33 yet again, this time with an animated rendering of one sequence, a PDF file, and images of each page. AEMMA also has several other manuscript plates of various period fight books and combat manuals.
4:59:58 PM
|
|
A warning to my blogging friends:
“The irony of the Information Age is that it has given new respectability to uninformed opinion.” —Veteran reporter John Lawton
speaking to the American Association of Broadcast Journalists, 1995
Which is not to say that the trust that was once given to authority (whether imperator, prince, or king) does not now go to corporate media sources with undisclosed if barely disguised interests.
4:34:42 PM
|
|
|
Sunday 8 September 2002 |
A&E is running Ursula K. Le Guin’s Lathe of Heaven. I believe BBC did this before, to mixed results. A good short novel that plays with reality.
Unfortunately, I did not set up the Lathe keyword to record automatically, but this is A&E which probably means it will be played many times and often, and... it is!
11:25:39 PM
|
|
Whoops. Spoke too soon about that Get Info window thing. To get a floating Inspector window for Info, hit option-command-I or option-File -> Show Inspector.
8:50:16 PM
|
|
|
Saturday 7 September 2002 |
Ninjai: the Little Ninja. By way of Edward. A story about a young ninja. It’s violent (big surprise, huh?) but it has a story.
10:23:54 PM
|
|
From the Slashdot interview with Larry Wall:
7) Role of Religion?
by Anonymous Cowdog
I remember reading at some point that you are a
Christian, and there have been suggestions that
some of your early missionary impulses (a desire
to do good, help others) are perhaps part of the
zeal you have put into Perl over the years.
Preferring a scientific view, I am not religious,
and have no desire to be. Perhaps there is a
God, but if there is, I think he/she has no
opposable thumbs; in other words, has no power to
change anything; reality is just playing out
according to the laws of physics (whatever those
are).
Please tell us how in the world a scientific or
at least technical mind can believe in God,
and what role religion has played in your
work on Perl.
A:
Well, hmm, that's a topic for an entire essay, or a book, or a life.
But I'll try to keep it short.
When you say "how in the world", I take it to mean that you find it
more or less inconceivable that someone with a scientific mind (or at
least technical mind, hah!) could chooose to believe in God. I'd like
to at least get you to the point where you find it conceivable.
I expect a good deal of the problem is that you are busy disbelieving
a different God than the one I am busy believing in. In theological
discussions more than any other kind, it's easy to talk at right
angles and never even realize it.
So let me try to clarify what I mean, and reduce it to as few
information bits as possible. A lot of people have a vested interest
in making this a lot tougher to swallow than it needs to be, but it's
supposed to be simple enough that a child can understand it.
It doesn't take great energetic gobs of faith on your part--after all,
Jesus said you only have to have faith the size of a mustard seed.
So just how big is that, in information theory terms? I think it's
just two bits big. Please allow me to qoute a couple "bits" from
Hebrews, slightly paraphrased:
You can't please God the way Enoch did without some faith, because those who come
to God must (minimally) believe that:
A) God exists, and
B) God is good to people who really look for him.
That's it. The "good news" is so simple that a child can understand
it, and so deep that a philosopher can't.
Now, it appears that you're willing to admit the possibility of bit A
being a 1, so you're almost halfway there. Or maybe you're a quarter
way there on average, if it's a qubit that's still flopping around
like Shoedinger's Cat. You're the observer there, not me--unless of
course you're dead. :-)
A lot of folks get hung up at point B for various reasons, some
logical and some moral, but mostly because of Shroedinger again.
People are almost afraid to observe the B qubit because they don't
want the wave function to collapse either to a 0 or a 1, since both
choices are deemed unpalatable. A lot of people who claim to be
agnostics don't take the position so much because they don't know,
but because they don't want to know, sometimes desperately so.
Because if it turns out to be a 0, then we really are the slaves of
our selfish genes, and there's no basis for morality other than
various forms of tribalism.
And because if it turns out to be a 1, then you have swallow a whole
bunch of flim-flam that goes with it. Or do you?
Let me admit to you that I came at this from the opposite direction.
I grew up in a religious culture, and I had to learn to "unswallow"
an awful lot of stuff in order to strip my faith down to these two bits.
I tried to strip it down further, but I couldn't, because God told
me: "That's far enough. I already flipped your faith bits to 1, because I'm
a better Observer than you are. You are Shroedinger's cat in reverse--you
were dead spiritually, but I've already examined the qubits for you, and
I think they're both 1. Who are you to disagree with me?"
So, who am I to disagree with God? :-) If he really is the
Author of the universe, he's allowed to observe the qubits, and he's
probably even allowed to cheat occasionally and force a few bit flips
to make it a better story. That's how Authors work. Whether or not
they have thumbs...
Once you see the universe from that point of view, many arguments fade
into unimportance, such as Hawking's argument that the universe fuzzed
into existence at the beginning, and therefore there was no creator.
But it's also true that the Lord of the Rings fuzzed into existence,
and that doesn't mean it doesn't have a creator. It just means that
the creator doesn't create on the same schedule as the creature's.
If God is creating the universe sideways like an Author, then the
proper place to look for the effects of that is not at the fuzzy edges,
but at the heart of the story. And I am personally convinced that
Jesus stands at the heart of the story. The evidence is there if
you care to look, and if you don't get distracted by the claims of
various people who have various agendas to lead you in every possible
direction, and if you don't fall into the trap of looking for a formula
rather than looking for God as a person. All human institutions are
fallible, and will create a formula for you to determine whether you
belong to the tribe or not. Very often these formulas are called
doctrines and traditions and such, and there is some value in them, as there
is some value in any human culture. But they all kind of miss the point.
"Systematic theology" is an oxymoron. God is not a system. Christians
are fond of asking: "What would Jesus do in this situation?"
Unfortunately, they very rarely come up with the correct answer,
which is: "Something unexpected!" If the Creator really did write
himself into his own story, that's what we ought to expect to see.
Creative solutions.
And this creativity is intended to be transitive. We are expected to
be creative. And we're expected to help others be creative.
And that leads us back (finally) to the last part of your question, how
all this relates to Perl.
Perl is obviously my attempt to help other people be creative. In my
little way, I'm sneakily helping people understand a bit more about
the sort of people God likes.
Going further, we have the notion that a narrative should be defined by its
heart and not by its borders. That ties in with my linguistic notions that
things ought to be defined by prototype rather than by formula. It ties in
to my refusal to define who is or is not a "good" Perl programmer, or who
exactly is or isn't a member of the "Perl community". These things are all
defined by their centers, not by their peripheries.
The philosophy of TMTOWTDI ("There's more than one way to do it.") is a
direct result of observing that the Author of the universe is humble,
and chooses to exercise control in subtle rather than in heavy-handed
ways. The universe doesn't come with enforced style guidelines.
Creative people will develop style on their own. Those are the sort of
people that will make heaven a nice place.
And finally, there is the underlying conviction that, if you define
both science and religion from their true centers, they cannot be in
confict. So despite all the "religiosity" of Perl culture, we also
believe in the benefits of computer science. I didn't put lexicals and closures
into Perl 5 just because I thought people would start jumping up and
down and shouting "Hallelujah!" (Which happens, but that's not why
I did it.)
And now let's all sing hymn #42...
Creativity. Reminds me of Wallace Stevens’s thoughts concerning God and imagination.
In high school, my religion teacher taught us that God made us in His image in two ways: the capacity to create and the capacity to love.
8:24:50 PM
|
|
John Keats. "Poetry should please by a fine excess and not by singularity. It should strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost as a remembrance." [Motivational Quotes of the Day]
7:02:44 PM
|
|
Last paragraph of the first page of this story:"Bullying is based on Britain's class system," said Carrie Herbert, an educator who set up a special charity, The Red Balloon Learner Centre, to help children traumatized by bullying. Her site posts first-person accounts by children who have been harassed by peers. Class system... peers....- The idea of bullying over SMS: when I was a kid, we didn’t have a cell phones; we waited at school in the rain looking for change for the pay phone, and we liked it, we loved it.
- Bullying is endemic; no class system is required.
- Class system. Peers. There’s a joke in there somewhere—my mind is just not working up to spec today.
1:06:52 PM
|
|
Googlecooking is the solution to sketchily-supplied kitchens. [by way of kottke.org]
1:00:04 PM
|
|
|
Friday 6 September 2002 |
I just wanted to put a word in for NewsSeer a web-based aggregator, apparently by the same people at NECI who do CiteSeer.
10:57:47 AM
|
|
|
Thursday 5 September 2002 |
Much as I hate to jump on Mr Winer for every little post, this is just a really muddy-headed post.
Whoops got away from me there. I thought I had just posted it for a later edit.
Anyway, I just thought that it was small-minded to criticize people in their grief.
7:00:04 PM
|
|
Current agonizing decision: Blogger Bash 3 or Dodge Poetry Festival? Hah. I’ll probably get swamped in work, stay over, and miss them both. Either that or I’ll decide to catch another five minutes of sleep through the whole thing then wake up all a-start and cry out at the unfairness of a world in which time exists. Stasis!
6:28:29 PM
|
|
Looking At The Linux Kernel [on Slashdot]
I would like to see this done in SVG for the Darwin and BSD kernels.
A pretty visualization, but it does not seem to give one the sense of comprehensibility.
6:18:29 PM
|
|
|
Wednesday 4 September 2002 |
Why were there so many people moving in last night? Oh, I know. All the bennies or whatever the hey we call ’em ’ve gone back to the ’burbs and no one wants to rent. Hah.
6:10:04 PM
|
|
Radio definitely has some trouble making the transition from a networked to non-networked environment and/or vice-versa. I still don’t know whether it’s the ten Radio updates I got on Saturday or Friday or the Jaguar installation and how it handles networks. Hm. I know though that it’s nothing to do with the DSL problems, because it happens with the work DHCP connection.
6:09:14 PM
|
|
Sometimes I think Atlantic City is the coolest place. Where else can you bump into a white tiger walking home from parking your car? A beautiful pair of tigers, right in front of the Tropicana, caged and awaiting their stage cue. Sometimes I think Atlantic City is the coolest place. But then I get into the elevator and smell the seawater someone neglected to wash off before coming into the condominium. Sigh.
1:38:14 AM
|
|
|
Tuesday 3 September 2002 |
Slashdot moderator, 5 points ending 6 September.
6:28:50 PM
|
|
Bugs!
And not the software defect kind either. Saw at least two new dead cockroaches here, legs up. Someone must have been spraying over the Labor Day holiday. I wish that certain someone would have swept them up. I felt a mass pass my tongue carried in my coffee and spit it out thinking about roach eggs. (I keep thinking of the past Labor Day as a vacation, as I always pick horrible days to spend vacation days. Too bad the weather was not too pleasant, but today was nice driving in, if long. Too bad you can’t trade weather days. Must wake up earlier.)
6:16:38 PM
|
|
Some strange interaction amongst my Verizon DSL problems (currently 3000 bytes/sec bulk out of the one working port), my X 10.2 installation, and the recent Radio Userland updates, has kept me from mirroring my desktop website to the radio.weblogs.com server over the weekend.
10:40:29 AM
|
|
|
Monday 2 September 2002 |
Looks like Neil Gaiman’s American Gods has won the Hugo. As he was saying to me when last we met (hah!) in the World Trade Center Borders... well, as I recall, after he signed it, he closed it, patted the front cover with a proprietary air as he handed it to me, and said, “I’m very proud of this one.”
10:25:15 PM
|
|
|
Sunday 1 September 2002 |
I picked up Eternal Youth by Future Bible Heroes, finally, but I still haven’t popped it in yet.
I would have listened to it but I watched the “Scott Tenorman Must Die” episode of South Park tonight. Sick, but you can’t turn your head away: “...tears of unfathomable sadness.... yummy... yummy....”
12:10:28 AM
|
|
|
