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Sunday, October 5th, 2008
The centerpiece of last night's dream was a new book by Saramago -- wait no, seems like it was an early book of his, but one I had not known about previously. It was pretty fully-formed, wish I could remember how it went! The title was something like "The Sour Grill" and it was explicitly about Portuguese cuisine, something about the national character being rooted in the cooking. A long book! I believe I had checked it out from the library and it was now overdue.
posted morning of October 5th, 2008: Respond
➳ More posts about José Saramago
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Saturday, October 4th, 2008
This is pretty cool -- something that has always annoyed me about Google Maps is the automobile-centric nature of the directions you get there. So now by way of Blog About Town's blogroll, I discover HopStop: directions via public transit and walking. Nice! So far they only cover the NYC area (including NJ, Long Island, and MetroNorth's sphere), Boston, Chicago, San Francisco (this must be shorthand for "the San Francisco Bay Area") and Washington, DC -- that is plenty for me at this point in time.
posted morning of October 4th, 2008: 2 responses
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Friday, October third, 2008
Dave Marc Fischer says Pynchon will be publishing a new book soon, a "noir detective story." This would be terrific! Seems like all my favorite living authors are coming out with new stuff! (via Conversational Reading.)
 Update: Penguin Press has confirmed it will be publishing the book; they are not talking about its contents.
posted afternoon of October third, 2008: Respond
➳ More posts about Thomas Pynchon
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 First, just got to say this image (of houses in Uummannaq, shot by Nathan Gallagher) is one of the prettiest things I've seen all week. Uummannaq is the last human settlement they will see on their voyage north, as Robyn says it is "the last place we will visit on this trip that has an ATM."
Francesca Galeazzi did a performance piece yesterday, walking out onto the snow field of the Jakobshavns fjord with a cylinder of 6kg carbon dioxide and releasing it into the unspoiled beauty of the wilderness. My first reaction to this is visceral disgust -- sort of, "You find a spot that's untouched and you 'pollute it' just to show that you can? What's the point, just to show yourself as a human and an asshole?" But her follow-up post from this morning makes what seems to me like a really good point: Some of my fellow voyagers were upset about my piece because they could visualise that black â??nastyâ?? cylinder full of CO2 in a way that they couldnâ??t, if I told them that every time they drive their car for 30 miles they emit the same amount of carbon dioxide. So I wonder if the societal shift that I was advocating with my performance could be achieved if we would find a more direct way to visualise the Carbon impact of the resources we use! This contextualizes the performance piece in a really useful way -- I think my original reaction is kind of the response she is looking for, and that she's trying to extend that visceral disgust to everyday polluting activities.
posted morning of October third, 2008: Respond
➳ More posts about Pretty Pictures
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Tuesday, September 30th, 2008
 A boatload of artists is visiting the cold waters of the north, to see what they can of Greenland and its environment before that environment vanishes. You can read their ongoing account of their expedition, with pictures and video, at capefarewell.com; and more images at their Flicker page.
posted morning of September 30th, 2008: Respond
➳ More posts about Disko Bay Expedition
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Enjoy the holiday! Enjoy the coming year!
posted morning of September 30th, 2008: 3 responses
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Monday, September 29th, 2008
 Johan Huibers, a creationist who lives in Schagen, Netherlands, has built a working replica of Noah's ark ("working" should be taken with a grain of salt here: two key benchmarks that I don't believe have been passed are (a) loading it with pairs of every animal species and (b) launching it in a 40-day inundation) "as a testament to his faith in the literal truth of the Bible." It is 1/2 scale (so I guess would only hold half the world's species, or a singleton of each species), which is still quite incredibly large. He has populated it with stuffed animals, which seems a bit like cheating...
posted afternoon of September 29th, 2008: Respond
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Ellen has written an update for Lola's Diary, about Lola's old age.
posted morning of September 29th, 2008: Respond
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Friday, September 26th, 2008
(Warning: not-completely-coherent post by upset and angry blogger:) The Republicans have scuttled an agreement to address the crisis in our banking system. Paul Krugman (whose blog The Conscience of a Liberal is absolutely vital reading right now) notes an interesting exchange between Henry Paulson and Nancy Pelosi: In the Roosevelt Room after the session, the Treasury secretary, Henry M. Paulson Jr., literally bent down on one knee as he pleaded with Nancy Pelosi, the House Speaker, not to "blow it up" by withdrawing her party's support for the package over what Ms. Pelosi derided as a Republican betrayal.
"I didn't know you were Catholic," Ms. Pelosi said, a wry reference to Mr. Paulson's kneeling, according to someone who observed the exchange. She went on: "It's not me blowing this up, it's the Republicans."
Mr. Paulson sighed. "I know. I know." So the point is, if he knows, why isn't he -- why aren't responsible Republicans -- doing something about it? They have been spending the last 30 years building up and enabling and empowering the most vile, reprehensible elements of their party. Change at this point is their responsibility and their burden.
Note: and as far as, "What can we-who-are-not-'Responsible Republicans' do?", it seems to me like all we can do is concentrate the power of the Republican party in the hands of the irresponsible crazies -- the Republicans who can be forced from office by Democrats are more likely to be of the "RR" type, is how it seems to me anyways. Kind of paradoxical but giving power to RR's is giving power to those they enable.
posted morning of September 26th, 2008: Respond
➳ More posts about Politics
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 The Apostropher links to photos of an abandoned train station in Abkhazia (originally posted by LiveJournal user zyalt). Just beautiful. Reminds me a bit of the beautiful (if not nearly as ornate) abandoned train station in Liberty State Park, in Jersey City.*
 The ru_sovarch community at LiveJournal has lots more photos of old architecture in and around Russia. *Note: Hm, it just occured to me I should specify that said station is not really that beautiful anymore; for about the last 10 years it has been converted into a park building, with a new floor put in and is basically unrecognizable now.
posted morning of September 26th, 2008: Respond
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