| |
 |
Tuesday, August 13, 2002 |
The Sleep of Reason & A Pint of Plain
Published weekly in The Infinite Matrix, Michael Swanwick writes elegant short-short-short stories based on Los Caprichos, a series of etchings by Francisco Goya. Excellent stuff, and for me a nice view of Goya and it's always a real treat to read Swanwick (especially his short fiction). My favorite is from Plate 79 -- The Beer of Eternity:
What is so good as beer shared with friends? It’s old friends we’re talking here, dear friends, tried and true. They might not be the best of people or the wittiest. But they’ve proved themselves. They denied knowing you when the police came looking. They burned your papers when you were on the run and could not. Many a time they gave false evidence in court for you. As you, of course, did for them.
But they're all good; little stories, so much told in so few words. Very well matched to the etchings.
But one (or at least this one) can't talk about literature (or art) and beer without mentioning A Pint of Plain Is Your Only Man.
When things go wrong and will not come right,
Though you do the best you can,
When life looks black as the hour of night -
A PINT OF PLAIN IS YOUR ONLY MAN.
And while you're at The Infinite Matrix, dig into the archives, and have a look at Terry Bisson's lamented "This Week in History." Bisson is another terrific writer who is too unrecognized outside sf. Aw, heck, read the whole thing and subscribe to the newsletter, too.
10:34:18 PM Permalink
|
|
The View from Asheville
Gary sends me a link to this letter published in the Asheville, NC Citizen-Times:
Consider this: An inarticulate, politically inexperienced man with family links to a previous national regime comes to provincial leadership. Subsequently he gains the highest national office without winning the popular vote. The election in which he was declared the victor is considered compromised by his brother's province. He appoints a chief law enforcement officer who has repeatedly called for constitutional revisions. Regulatory agencies are filled with those previously regulated. Soldiers patrol transportation centers. International treaties are abrogated. International legal organizations are shunned. Roles of police and military are blurred. Law enforcement agencies are centralized. Individual civil rights are reduced. A "shadow" government is created.
Domestic surveillance is increased. People are encouraged to spy on each other. Military budgets are increased. The military establishes a disinformation program. Media access to government is limited. Consultations with the legislative branch decline. Connections to corrupt corporate sponsors are disavowed. Efforts to further plunder natural resources for profit are initiated. Access to past administrations' documents is limited. A war mentality is established with imprecise enemies. Nebulous fear- inducing alerts are periodically released. National level profiling is introduced. People are imprisoned without public charges and unknown others are "disappeared." Does the word "coup" come to mind?
Well put.
10:07:43 PM Permalink
|
|
Bush's Phony Forum
Nice opening paragraph to Slate's piece on the fake forum in Waco:
This afternoon at the President's Economic Forum in Waco, Texas, President Bush and Vice President Cheney sat side by side on the stage of a packed auditorium for more than an hour. That's the first time they've been that close together for that long in public since Sept. 11. Evidently they're no longer afraid of terrorists. What they're afraid of is Americans.
And the closing paragraph is good too:
Of course, if all these people agreed with Bush beforehand, then the event wasn't about listening. It was about selling Bush's policies. And if the public had already agreed with Bush, the sales job would have been unnecessary. It would have made no sense for Bush to appeal to "those who are watching on C-SPAN" or for O'Neill to apologize to participants "who didn't have an opportunity to say something for the television cameras." In short, the operational premise of the event was that its stated premise was false: The "real people" onstage held beliefs that the real people watching it didn't share. That ruse may have been economical. But it wasn't very presidential, and it certainly wasn't a forum.
So the "forum" by its very existence proves its phoniness. What a joke.
10:03:29 PM Permalink
|
|
Does the Universe exist if we're not looking?
Wheeler conjectures we are part of a universe that is a work in progress; we are tiny patches of the universe looking at itself— and building itself. It's not only the future that is still undetermined but the past as well. And by peering back into time, even all the way back to the Big Bang, our present observations select one out of many possible quantum histories for the universe.
[SciTech Daily]
9:44:35 PM Permalink
|
|
Commuting by Bicycle: Good or Bad?. This is an essay about the pros and cons of cycling as a form of commuting from the point of view of society in general, it also includes a short HOWTO on commuting by bicycle at the end. I originally started out by writing a diary rant on commuting by bike including vitriol on bus drivers and other cyclists and a final section on how things could be made better. [kuro5hin.org]
Good piece. I'm lucky that my bike commute (4 miles) is mostly along a wide, newly-paved street with a well-marked bike path, through Berkeley a very bike-friendly town. Commuting by bike is certainly worth it, good for your head as well as your body. Since I work at that job only 3 days a week, I only bike commute once or twice. It sure is an enjoyable way to get back and forth to work.
6:24:11 PM Permalink
|
|
© Copyright 2004 Steve Michel.
|
|
|
|
|
