10/31/09
Home on the alpen range ...
On a brief stay in Zurich, I went looking for the relics of the Reformation. I think I saw echoes of the movement in the architecture. Solid, plain, rock of ages stuff. How big a leap is it, do you think, to the stolid, drab, breaking big rocks into little rocks architecture of the communist countries?
10/18/09
10/14/09
Justifiable clownicide ...
Zombieland is to zombie films ... as Gene Wilder is to Boris Karloff.
Update: Today I heard the film referred to as zom rom com. Excellent.
Update: Today I heard the film referred to as zom rom com. Excellent.
10/13/09
Easy Riders, Raging Bulls ...
The further along in Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex-Drugs-and-Rock 'N' Roll Generation Saved Hollywood the more the title begs the question whether saving Hollywood was a good idea. Here’s the pith from a review: “As the great '70s directors who dreamed they'd make the next ”Citizen Kane'' found themselves living it instead, Biskind reveals the human cost of such God-sized ambition.”
10/10/09
Yum ... Necco wafers and a Corby Kummer piece ...
One of my favorites ... wafers and writers.
“Necco wafers, a roll of which I try always to have in my jacket pocket, are just now changing from artificial flavors and neon colors to toned-down natural flavors and lovely, muted colors.”
“Necco wafers, a roll of which I try always to have in my jacket pocket, are just now changing from artificial flavors and neon colors to toned-down natural flavors and lovely, muted colors.”
10/9/09
10/8/09
Just listen ...
Mark Goulston in a recent interview, on communication as “listening without memory or desire” and how to be compelling and not just convincing. Nice. I would rephrase it as "without resentment or desire."
10/5/09
To the hesitating purchaser ...
If sailor tales to sailor tunes,
Storm and adventure, heat and cold,
If schooners, islands, and maroons,
And buccaneers, and buried gold,
And all the old romance, retold
Exactly in the ancient way,
Can please, as me they pleased of old,
The wiser youngsters of today:
—So be it, and fall on! If not,
If studious youth no longer crave,
His ancient appetites forgot,
Kingston, or Ballantyne the brave,
Or Cooper of the wood and wave:
So be it, also! And may I
And all my pirates share the grave
Where these and their creations lie!
Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island
Storm and adventure, heat and cold,
If schooners, islands, and maroons,
And buccaneers, and buried gold,
And all the old romance, retold
Exactly in the ancient way,
Can please, as me they pleased of old,
The wiser youngsters of today:
—So be it, and fall on! If not,
If studious youth no longer crave,
His ancient appetites forgot,
Kingston, or Ballantyne the brave,
Or Cooper of the wood and wave:
So be it, also! And may I
And all my pirates share the grave
Where these and their creations lie!
Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island
Robert Newton's audio bit for the TV show. Awesome!
Robert Newton homage.
A "talk like a pirate" translator.
10/4/09
Dinner conversation ...
Wikipedia: Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (Persian: رباعیات عمر خیام) is the title that Edward FitzGerald gave to his translation of a selection of poems, originally written in the Persian language and of which there are about a thousand, attributed to Omar Khayyám (1048–1123), a Persian poet, mathematician and astronomer.
A larger, wiser perspective from Drucker
"It is from this larger - and, yes, ultimately wiser - perspective that President Obama will make his decision.
"My intuition tells me that President Obama knows more about the big picture thinking side of modern management theory than General McChrystal knows. (Were General McChrystal to be a student of modern management theory, he might actually be able to see beyond the needs of the "department" he runs.) For this reason, I trust Barack Obama to be the Commander in Chief. And I do not harbor any "military resolving the Obama problem" fantasies like the people at Newsmax do."
Steven G. Brant: Why Obama Must Follow Drucker's (Not McChrystal's) Advice http://instapaper.com/zOpc537o
"My intuition tells me that President Obama knows more about the big picture thinking side of modern management theory than General McChrystal knows. (Were General McChrystal to be a student of modern management theory, he might actually be able to see beyond the needs of the "department" he runs.) For this reason, I trust Barack Obama to be the Commander in Chief. And I do not harbor any "military resolving the Obama problem" fantasies like the people at Newsmax do."
Steven G. Brant: Why Obama Must Follow Drucker's (Not McChrystal's) Advice http://instapaper.com/zOpc537o
10/3/09
Menkaura and his mummy? ...
Years ago I bumped into this work at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, of Menkaura and his queen. I was struck by the humanness of her gesture of support and affection in what is royal portraiture.
10/1/09
Big trees ... messing around with pano software ...
The Mariposa Grove near Yosemite. Combined seven shots using DoubleTake and then ran it through a Photoshop filter, Topaz Detail, to hide some of the blemishes.
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