Obama Shakes Hands with and Bows to Foreign Dog
was everything to your satisfaction this evening?
Police say a man posing as a waiter collected $186 in cash from diners at two restaurants in New Jersey and walked out with the money in his pocket.
The Soft Machine
My iPod has been rather assiduous lately in playing me Soft Machine’s “Moon in June.” If you don’t know this Robert Wyatt (drummer and vocalist) tour de force, do take a look. The studio version from Thirds is about 20 minutes long, and worth hearing.
Aw, go
play footsie with your own hand.
Cheryl’s rock
While I was drawing this one of the fisherman’s girlfriends was shouting "Darren, your mum’s on the phone, she wants to know if you’ve got your phone switched on!"
So, even if you’re fishing to get away from it all, you’re never too far away from your mum.
(I wonder what Cheryl thinks of having her name on this rock?)
Wunderkammer Magazine
Wunderkammer Magazine, a new online rag based in NYC, just launched today:
Wunderkammer takes its name from the eclectic, encyclopedic collections of the old nobles which served as microcosms of a baffling world, demanding examination and inspiring curiosity from its viewers. Just as those collections varied in scope, the magazine engages art and culture, technology and education, politics and society, religion and travel. Through thoughtful essays, reviews, and interviews on these topics, Wunderkammer hopes to be a witness of the age. Its goal, as the great English poet W.H. Auden wrote in his poem, “The Horatians,” is to “look at this world with a happy eye, but from a sober perspective.”
The Summons, Olenka Denysenko
Friend of clusterflock, M Sarki, writes:
A short film by Olenka Denysenko based on a speech given by Gordon Lish in Florence, Italy several years ago titled DEATH IN LANGUAGE. Very nicely done, in my opinion.
The Fifth Ramone
I don’t want to be buried in a pet sematary
I don’t want to live my life again
the torture memos, party, 2
Disease or childbirth may follow
From the American Society for Social Hygiene, 1926. (Via Studio on Fire)
sales of romance novels are up
Like the Depression-era readers who fueled blockbuster sales of Margaret Mitchell’s “Gone With the Wind,” today’s readers are looking for an escape from the grim realities of layoffs, foreclosures and shrinking 401(k) balances.
“Given the general dismay and gloominess,” said Jennifer Lampe, a lawyer in Des Moines and avid romance reader who runs a book blog under the pseudonym Jane Litte at dearauthor.com, “reading something like a romance with a happy ending is really kind of a relief.”
Many readers are still buying. “I would give up something else if money was tight,” said Annmarie Anderson, a district manager in Atlanta for a national retail chain, who said she still spent about $100 on romance novels each month. “I would give up my manicure and pedicure. I have my priority list, and books are pretty high on my priority list.”
Were you smiling in your yearbook picture?
Then you should get married:
In one test, the researchers looked at people’s college yearbook photos, and rated their smile intensity from 1 to 10. None of the people who fell within the top 10 percent of smile strength had divorced, while within the bottom 10 percent of smilers, almost one in four had had a marriage that ended, the researchers say. (Scoring was based on the stretch in two muscles: one that pulls up on the mouth, and one that creates wrinkles around the eyes.)
In a second trial, the research team asked people over age 65 to provide photos from their childhood (the average age in the pictures was 10 years old). The researchers scored each person’s smile, and found that only 11 percent of the biggest smilers had been divorced, while 31 percent of the frowners had experienced a broken marriage.
Overall, the results indicate that people who frown in photos are five times more likely to get a divorce than people who smile.
Where in the World Solar System Is Theia?
The solar system might once have had another planet named Theia, which may have helped create our own planet’s moon.
“It’s a hypothetical world. We’ve never actually seen it, but some researchers believe it existed 4.5 billion years ago — and that it collided with Earth to form the moon,” said Mike Kaiser, a NASA scientist at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland.
Theia is thought to have been about Mars-sized. If the planet crashed into Earth long ago, debris from the collision could have clumped together to form the moon. This scenario was first conceived by Princeton scientists Edward Belbruno and Richard Gott.
we all live in a
[A second try is about to get under way at sending a little] yellow submarine gliding across the Atlantic Ocean to collect scientific data from beneath the waves.
“The launching is tremendously exciting because there is just so much that we don’t really know about what happens in the oceans,” said Jane Lubchenco, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
“The capacity to fly through the ocean, across the Atlantic, taking data about temperature, salinity and other properties of the water gives us keen insight into what’s happening down there,” she said in a telephone interview.
Say what you like about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude, at least it’s an ethos.
The Nazis came to Saint Louis, so I did a little googling to find out what the deal was and and found the above photo. I think the contrast between the fellow on the far left with the fellow on the far right is just fantastic.
Comic Sans
“If you love it, you don’t know much about typography,” Mr. Connare says. But, he adds, “if you hate it, you really don’t know much about typography, either, and you should get another hobby.”
It’s so true.
Dear clusterflock, in a manner of speaking
I think the study of language is fascinating, but without sufficient training many posts on Language Log become pretty difficult for me to penetrate. However, these ones are pretty interesting.
What speech patterns identify you, your home, and your background?
Aw, go
Sin City
Quotes from an article on vice in Baghdad now that security is improving.
“Everything is going back to its natural way,” said Ahmed Assadee, a screenwriter who works on a soap opera.
“This is great,” Walid Brahim said. “We used to buy alcohol and just drink secretly in our house.”
“If I had my way, I’d destroy all the mosques and spread the whores around a little more,” the detective said. “At least they’re not sectarian.”
Not surprisingly, the Baghdadis’ drug of choice is Valium, the colonel said.
Most people have had enough excitement these past six years.
A postcard from Christopher Walken.
As a non-religious person I enter into two Easters each year. So, I am away on number two, the Orthodox Easter. More of an observer than a participant!
On Friday, I observed Christ’s tomb (or whatever it’s called) times three carried through the village. I made a stab as to which was the right one, but did get some odd looks, so I assume I may have got it wrong.
Saturday, I watched along with hundreds of others as Judas was burned on a small island in the middle of a lake. I’m guessing he had it coming to him!
It is now Sunday and the chanting of the priests over the tanoy has finally ended and the island is in silence once more. Well, until later when they commence tossing dynamite from the mountains around here in a game of cat and mouse with the police!
These are a few panoramic shots taken with the iphone – it does a pretty good job really.
Back with you all soon
Christopher
dear clusterflock
Do you like to teach?
Vision for High-Speed Rail in America
The Force Is Stong in Strathclyde
Eight officers and two staff in Scotland’s largest police force listed their religion as Jedi.
Strathclyde was the only force in the UK to admit it had Jedi officers.
But:
About 390,000 people listed their religion as Jedi in the 2001 Census for England and Wales. In Scotland the figure was a reported 14,000.
And:
Last year, brothers Barney and Daniel Jones founded the UK Church of the Jedi – which offered sermons on the Force, light sabre training, and meditation techniques.
the torture memos, party, 1
