Zadie Smith discusses the possibility's of the future of the novel in a review of two books (like a multiverse of literature, I guess).
I'm looking forward to seeing Let the Right One In:
Ebert's on a roll:
"We can't be too careful. Employers are eager to replace us with Celeb Info-Nuggets that will pimp to the mouth-breathers, who underline the words with their index fingers whilst they watch television." His blog has become a favorite, and I'm happy to see him showing off.
OpenBSD 4.4 is out. Hooray. (For those of you who only care about the song.)
I had no idea that the fine people at onering.net posted a "Today in Middle Earth" blog entry each day.
Jack Gilbert has a poem in this week's New Yorker.
I've written two posts (I write posts in Emacs and paste them here, in Movable Type), meaning to post them, but I've never felt like posting them. So, sorry for the silence.
Some things of interest (perhaps to no one but me):
The Cure, "To the Sky" one perfect morning i was all alone listening to the blaze of summer drifting i was falling i was floating in a golden haze breathing in the sky blue sounds of memories of other days
and in my dreams i was a child flowers in my mouth and in my eyes and i was floating through the colours of a sky up to the stars and angels
up up up to heaven up up up forever up up up to heaven up up up forever
turning in my climb i looked down on a lake and traced upon the water there i saw your face and sang in recollection of the times we shared... then pushed on ever upward to the sky
up up up to heaven up up up forever up up up to heaven up up up forever
and in my dreams i was a child flowers in my mouth and in my eyes and i was floating through the colours of a sky up to the stars and angels
up up up to heaven up up up forever up up up to heaven up up up forever
October 22, 2008
It's dark and cold and on the way in there were people welding on a new building, and all I could see was the sparks.
Wikimedia Ubuntu migration FAQ. Q: "Why Ubuntu in particular?" A: "It's got the things we like about Fedora [...] with a longer security update schedule, plus the things we like about Debian [...]."
From Mark Cuban and the people who brought you sharesleuth.com: bailoutsleuth.com. The goal: "Its job is simple, keep an eye on our taxpayer dollars and call Bullshit when necessary."
"You know that foreign correspondent's ruse; in the days when you had your profession on the passport, you put writer; and then when you were in some trouble spot, in order to conceal your identity you simply changed the r in writer to an a and became a waiter. I always thought there was a great truth there. Writing is waiting, for me certainly. It wouldn't bother me a bit if I didn't write one word in the morning. I'd just think, you know, not yet. The job seems to be one of making yourself receptive to whatever's on the rise that day. I was quite surprised to read how much dread Father felt as he approached the typewriter in the morning."
Martin Amis on writing. (via The Elegant Variation)
Separating poetry and lyrics in Saul Williams, which reminds me of an interview, read a while ago, in which Lucinda Williams (no relation), whose father is an English teacher, asked the question: "Dylan, great poet or great lyricist?" I'm not sure whether to reject the distinction, the binary, or to simply argue lyricist. It depends on when you catch me.
"The world of Gilbert & George, now on gaudy, overwhelming display at the Brooklyn Museum, revolves around the artists themselves, a pair of Brits dressed in conservative suits--or in nothing at all. On the evidence of some hundred photographs and drawings made between 1970 and 2006, the couple's work, which has expanded from postcard to billboard scale, has remained almost defiantly autobiographical and queer in every important sense of the word. Installed on two floors with no regard for chronology, their signature photographic grids feel especially dark and dense here; the best of them are as monumental, mannered, and arresting as history paintings. Gilbert & George use their own working-class East End London neighborhood as a microcosm in which to explore urban vitality, anxiety, bigotry, and decay, along with the bigger issues of sex, death, faith, and the redemptive power of beauty. Their companions on these explorations are handsome young men--women are utterly absent--who loom like demigods in landscapes that veer between Heaven and Hell. For the reliably provocative, even maddening Gilbert & George, there is little middle ground."
Andrei Codrescu:
"make yourselves at home
you won't be bailed in or out again
you're safe in Second Life" More here.
A quick note to mention about this whole 25th anniversary of GNU, etc. For better and worse I am not able to approach software without GNU, and the GNU philosophy of open things makes me happy and is, to me, a central part of my thought and relationship with computers. So, um, thanks Richard. If you ever need a place to crash or someone to do folk dances with (or someone to play recorder with - we can mesmerize the butterflies together), I'm your man.
