arianna's kvetching post v. tpmcafe

Major League Baseball signs deal with Six Apart to produce MLBlogs.

Wooden cell phones (via Cory A)

Retrospective: John Cassavetes by Tim Applegate

[....]
Maybe in a hundred years, assuming there's anybody left around, people will be amused at their great-grandparents' failure to grasp the self-evident idea that what was called literature was a niche-marketed intellectual property, and that the war between the outlaws and the canonicals was another dispute between Big-Endians and Small-Endians. (Half a dozen people with a taste for the recherché will even get the allusion.) You can already see the borders getting porous. Final quiz: where do you put A) Mary Gaitskill, B) Nicholson Baker, C) Neal Stephenson, D) Jonathan Lethem? Canonicals or alt.canonicals? Or should we call them, along with Foer, Wallace and so on, postcanonicals? (Just plain ''writers'' would put the taxonomists out of business.) ''Don't join too many gangs,'' Robert Frost advised us back in 1936, but for the past 50 years or so, writers haven't had much choice: who you hang out with, and who watches your back, defines what you are. ''The Outlaw Bible'' still posits a literary East L.A., with palefaces and redskins tagging and throwing up signs. With a little luck, we won't have to live here much longer.

For more than a century, it has caused excitement and frustration in equal measure - a collection of Greek and Roman writings so vast it could redraw the map of classical civilisation. If only it was legible.

Now, in a breakthrough described as the classical equivalent of finding the holy grail, Oxford University scientists have employed infra-red technology to open up the hoard, known as the Oxyrhynchus Papyri, and with it the prospect that hundreds of lost Greek comedies, tragedies and epic poems will soon be revealed.

alex mentioned thats hes got like 200 or so unread comments on the tree. sounds like he got some pretty screwed up priorities. too much working and hanging out in the park. so if youd like to say something to alex that hell never read, comment here.

laine Scarry

For the past year, we have spoken unceasingly about the events of September 11, 2001 . But one aspect of that day has not yet been the topic of open discussion: the difficulty we had as a country defending ourselves; as it happened, the only successful defense was carried out not by our professional defense apparatus but by the passengers on Flight 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania . The purpose of this essay is to examine that difficulty, and the one success, and ask if they suggest that something in our defense arrangements needs to be changed. Whatever the ultimate answer to that question, we at least need to ask it since defending the country is an obligation we all share.

continue...

Last Monday kicked off a new weekly movie series at aKa featuring Jean Moreau in Bay of Angels (La Baie des Anges). This upcoming Monday will be number two:

Hello friends, join us for our second AKA MONDAY NIGHT MOVIE- APRIL 18, 8:30 - still with the $3 margaritas and $5 dollar tacos - and some large screen technicolor wackiness...



"A song I want to express in my films with a boisterous, even lunatic cry."
GIANTS AND TOYS 95 minutes 1958 dir. Yasuzo Masumura

When three rival candy companies go to war for market supremacy, World Caramels enlists a lower-class girl with appallingly bad teeth to be their new spokesmodel. In a world of industrial spies, hostile takeovers and boardroom hysterics, the animal instincts of this overnight star prove to be the most cutthroat of all.

This razor-sharp, fast-paced attack on post-war corporate society and TV culture plays like a Japanese combination of Dr. Strangelove and Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? More valid today than the day it was made, New Wave master Yasuzo Masumura's DaieiScope explosion of color, sound, and acid wit ranks with the best satires of Billy Wildre and Frank Tashlin.

"saint phil"
Benjamen Walker talks with authors Jonathan Lethem and Josh Glenn about the Science Fiction genius Philip K Dick. He also gets the cover of the book UBIK tattooed on his arm. LISTEN

from a book thread

The Triumph of Painting, according to Saatchi

the modern age

Fred Tomaselli

What's the east coast consensus on the Nantucket Sound wind farm?

The private, commercial use of Federal property raises some interesting questions. Why no lease requirements as with off shore oil?

"Now America has an Apollo Project for the 21st century. Our challenge is to achieve energy independence in one generation. This new Apollo Project, a ten-point plan for energy independence, will bring our country together to rethink and reshape our energy future, to create a stronger economy, a safer world and cleaner environment. The plan calls for diversifying our energy sources, making America less dependent on imported oil and making energy less polluting. It will invest in new technology and expand markets for American durable goods. And, it will increase construction of high performance energy efficient buildings and drive new spending on transportation and public infrastructure."

mello kitty

(content notwhithstanding)

toys in the attic

bushflash

little boy

this scruffy guy has been coming around for food lately. he (i suppose he could very well be a she, but i've taken to calling him claude) climbs up the tree in the back of the house and comes onto the deck. mike started feeding him, so he's only got himself to blame if we soon have two cats again. i haven't been able to get near him yet, he's very skittish, but i'd like to somehow get him to a vet. anyone need a mouser?

Spent last weekend in Seattle, the Public Library was one of the hightlights. Amazing, worth the trip from Portland. Roaming the deep red undulations of the Meeting Floor reminded me of hours spend as a kid walking through the giant heart exhibitat the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry.

Darwin, The expression of the emotions in man and animals, London, John Murray, 1872

if google maps (now with satellite photos) is accurate, then its possible that if i left my apartment and went perfectly northward for 20 miles, i might nearly pass directly through the house i grew up in. definitely within a half-mile.

The "architectural eyesore of the month" guy has a blog .