There’s no money in poetry, but then there’s no poetry in money, either.
-Robert Graves, poet and novelist
Category Archives: stories
will the writers strike?
Los Angeles Times: “All over Hollywood, people are bracing for a strike. Writers could walk out as early as Thursday if their union can’t hammer out a new three-year employment contract with the studios to replace one that expires at midnight on Wednesday.”
Obviously, I support the writers in this. I’m biased. Talent has never been respected in LA. It’s been appreciated, I suppose, the way a lumberjack appreciates a tree. Not the same thing.
I hope there’s no strike. The timing sucks, with the economy generally ravaged by the inept indifference of the Bush years, and deeply singed by the fires. Also, I fear that every time the writers in Hollywood get their hackles up, the industry grows less interested. I mean they can live without writers, can’t they? They can go on making TV and movies without ideas, let alone scripts. They started doing it several years ago. You think there’s a writer on Survivor? Or Fear Factor? Naw. And if you gathered all the producers and directors and especially the contestants from those shows, you couldn’t find enough aggregate gray matter to make the brain of a newt.
I’m not a WGA member, and as far as I know there’s nothing we consumers can do to help put pressure on the AMPTP. So I guess we just hide and watch.
rejectables
“In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts: they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty.”
– Emerson
I did a double take when reading this. It is our rejected thoughts that we recognize? So how does the artist, who might have some impulse toward genius, document the thoughts that we otherwise reject? And having done so, how does he express that those thoughts, which he has meticulously recorded, were rejected in the first place?
It’s a pretty good catch, that catch 22.
Sorry Ralph, but whatever you’re growing at the pond, you need to quit smoking it.
wheel keeps turning
Crows make tools: “WASHINGTON – Mounting tiny video cameras to the tail feathers of crows, researchers discovered that the birds use a variety of tools to seek food, and even make their own tools, plucking, smoothing and bending twigs and grass stems.”
I think the world is moving on. Life is about progress, on all levels.
There is, however, absolutely no evidence to support the proposition that life is a cabaret.
paradise
funny for friday…
Something amusing spotted over at a blog called squelch: “If you stand on Main Street America and yell “The Emperor Has No Clothes!” you can expect a Republican condemnation of the shine on your shoes.”
That’s pretty funny. Check out the post.
be
Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder. Help someone’s soul heal. Walk out of your house like a shepherd.
-Jalaluddin Rumi
the lesson from florida
What is the lesson for us from this and from other closing
societies, some of them democracies? You can have a working Congress or
Parliament; newspapers; human rights groups; even elections; but when
ordinary people start to be hurt by the state for speaking out, dissent
closes quickly and the shock chills opposition very, very fast. Once
that happens, democracy has been so weakened that major tactical and
strategic incursions — greater violations of democratic process — are
far more likely. If there is dissent about the vote in Florida in this
next presidential election — and the police are tasering voters’ rights
groups — we will still have an election.What we will not have is liberty.
We have to understand what time it is. When the state starts to hurt
people for asking questions, we can no longer operate on the leisurely
time of a strong democracy — the ‘Oh gosh how awful!’ kind of time. It
is time to take to the streets. It is time to confront those committing
crimes against the Constitution. The window has now dropped several
precipitous inches and once it is closed there is no opening it without
great and sorrowful upheaval.[A Shocking Moment for Society by Naomi Wolf, Huffington Post, published today.]
I have watched several different videos, looked at a number of still photos, listened to the audio, and listened to the press conference of the university president. I have come to the confident conclusion that this was a gang attack on a citizen, under color of authority. There is no legal justification for what was done to this person. And when the State attacks one of us it attacks all of us.
The actions that have been taken so far – suspension of two cops, investigations launched, committees formed – are merely the kind of actions that placate the herd; they do nothing to address the problem. I am not satisfied. I am angry.
There is only one acceptable solution: criminal charges must be filed – now – against all of the officers involved in this attack. This is an assault on the liberties of all Americans, and we must act. The question is how.
cool tools
Hi. I’m just checking out a blogging tool called ScribeFire, a blog-editing add-on to Mozilla Firefox.
It’s kinda cool, but weird. You can launch it from the browser’s toolbar at any time, and blog without accessing blogger, supposedly. But one thing I don’t like about it so far is the fact that there’s no autosave. That’s one of my favorite recent improvements to the blogger interface; it saves every minute, so if something goes kerflooie, your stuff doesn’t necessarily get lost.
OK, ready to post. Here goes nothin.
… Update:
It also wants to put a “powered by scribefire” footer on my posts. Not cool. But overall, the gadget is pretty handy. … It has a strikethrough function, which blogger doesn’t have. And maybe you can change text color. But I was hoping for a split post (continue reading) function button.
a good time
In my last post, I mentioned that last night would be the annual halftime reunion of my high school band. I’ve posted about it over at the band’s blog.
tonight
the president said nothing
he appeared before us as nothing
his skin shone reflecting nothing
he rattled dry bones meaning nothing
he made us believe in nothing
he will go on giving us nothing
but pools of tears and the echo of nothing
iUniverse and Author Solutions merge
Under Author Solutions, Inc., the world’s two largest providers of publishing services will expand offerings to give authors more choice and more control
BLOOMINGTON, Ind., Sept. 6 /PRNewswire/ — AuthorHouse and iUniverse have agreed to terms that will add iUniverse to the Author Solutions, Inc. family of brands. The transaction was announced jointly today by Bryan Smith, president and CEO of Author Solutions and AuthorHouse, and Susan Driscoll, president and CEO of iUniverse. Author Solutions, Inc., a Bertram Capital- owned holding company, was acquired by Bertram in January 2007. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Metaphor 