Monday, April 30, 2012

Boston Review — Marjorie Perloff: Poetry on the Brink

Boston Review — Marjorie Perloff: Poetry on the Brink:

"What happens to poetry when everybody is a poet? "

I know, I know! A lot of crap.

Productive morning

Just past ten and I finished my class prep ... made scrapple ... had breakfast ... ready for a mellow day.

Portland State Currently | News

Portland State Currently | News:

"Charles Deemer, English adjunct faculty, publishes Varmints, an opera libretto in search of music, as a Kindle book. Round Bend Press will publish a paperback in the fall. This tragi-comedy of the Old West, set in the gold fields of eastern Oregon, is based on his stage play of the same name, which was written with an Oregon Arts Commission grant to conclude the 1988-89 play series "Charles Deemer's Oregon.""

Kickstarter Basics » Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) — Kickstarter

Kickstarter Basics » Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) — Kickstarter:

3 years old, a revolutionary new way to fund indie artistic projects. I wish this existed 20 years ago, maybe I could have funded the Seagull Hyperdrama.

Gatz: The greater Gatsby | Stage | The Guardian

Gatz: The greater Gatsby | Stage | The Guardian:

"A performance of every word of F Scott Fitzgerald's jazz era classic, Gatz lasts a marathon eight hours (with a break for dinner). How do the actors manage it?"

Monday Monday

Most prep work finished yesterday. Loose ends today. Rain back but I did mow a bit of lawn before it arrived. No energy for my outside in work but good energy for harmonica practice. Should make scrabble today. Term at halfway point. Amazing.

Sunday, April 29, 2012

Renegade: Henry Miller and the Making of Tropic of Cancer by Frederick Turner – review | Books | The Observer

Renegade: Henry Miller and the Making of Tropic of Cancer by Frederick Turner – review | Books | The Observer:

Michael Frayn: 'I'm never going to write anything again…' | Stage | The Observer

Michael Frayn: 'I'm never going to write anything again…' | Stage | The Observer

Typical writers mantra.

Has the internet run out of ideas already? | Technology | The Observer

Has the internet run out of ideas already? | Technology | The Observer:

 " from somebody's hobby to somebody's industry; from jury-rigged contraption to slick production marvel; from a freely accessible channel to one strictly controlled by a single corporation or cartel"

Alas, I see nothing to change the pattern toward corporate control.

The covers the New Yorker rejected | Media | The Observer

The covers the New Yorker rejected | Media | The Observer:

The 10 best first lines in fiction | Culture | The Observer

The 10 best first lines in fiction | Culture | The Observer:

Terrible list! No James Cain. No J. D. Salinger.

Mia Hansen-Løve: the broken heart that made me a film-maker | From the Observer | The Observer

Mia Hansen-Løve: the broken heart that made me a film-maker | From the Observer | The Observer:

Not all roads lead to London when it comes to culture | Catherine Bennett | The Observer

Not all roads lead to London when it comes to culture | Catherine Bennett | Comment is free | The Observer:

Ah, these Brits! More smug than Portlanders ha ha.

Aldeburgh's YouTube orchestra will celebrate Olympic theme | Music | The Observer

Aldeburgh's YouTube orchestra will celebrate Olympic theme | Music | The Observer:

A new art form.

Robert Redford praises Prince Charles's film at Sundance festival | Film | The Observer

Robert Redford praises Prince Charles's film at Sundance festival | Film | The Observer:

"The film, Harmony: A New Way of Looking At Our World, was being given its premiere at the opening night of Sundance London, the first non-US outing for Redford's successful film and music festival."

Saturday, April 28, 2012

The Freshman

I started classes at the Harmonica Academy today. Early lessons should go quickly since I'm familiar with the harp but looking over the syllabus, the last half of the Freshman work looks challenging. This will be fun. It's actually quite different from playing on the rack.
Young Paul deLay, harp master

Round Bend Press: Rough Cut #1/Dreams of Journalism

Round Bend Press: Rough Cut #1/Dreams of Journalism:

First teaser from Terry Simons about his film project.

Road trip

After being on the wrong end of a perfect game, the Mariners have come to life, now on a road trip's 4-game winning streak. Remarkable and cool. This young team has a future.

The real CSI: what happens at a crime scene? | Science | The Guardian

The real CSI: what happens at a crime scene? | Science | The Guardian:

"From the diver who finds the body parts, to the forensic specialist who identifies flecks of paint on the victim and the handwriting expert who examines the killer's notes... What happens behind the yellow tape of one crime scene"

Sixty years in poems | Books | The Guardian

Sixty years in poems | Books | The Guardian:

"Carol Ann Duffy invites leading poets to recall a year in verse"

An interesting concept.

George Takei: We Japanese Americans must not forget our wartime internment | | The Guardian

George Takei: We Japanese Americans must not forget our wartime internment | Comment is free | The Guardian:

"The degrading treatment of Japanese American families like mine is the theme of my new musical, Allegiance"

How long will it take this to come to Portland?

Valuing only work that generates profit is not just wrong, it's inhuman | Deborah Orr || The Guardian

Valuing only work that generates profit is not just wrong, it's inhuman | Deborah Orr | Comment is free | The Guardian:

Thursday, April 26, 2012

Current and recent reading

The Age of American Unreason by Susan Jacoby


A second reading, I liked it so much last year.


During the past four decades, America’s endemic anti-intellectual tendencies have been grievously exacerbated by a new species of semiconscious anti-rationalism, feeding on and fed by an ignorant popular culture of video images and unremitting noise that leaves no room for contemplation or logic. This new form of anti-rationalism, at odds not only with the nation’s heritage of eighteenth-century Enlightenment reason but with modern scientific knowledge, has propelled a surge of anti-intellectualism capable of inflicting vastly greater damage than its historical predecessors inflicted on American culture and politics.

 Beyond Outrage: What has gone wrong with our economy and our democracy, and how to fix them (Kindle Single) by Robert B. Reich


The “greatest generation” was bound together by mutual needs and common threats. It invested in strong public institutions as bulwarks against, in turn, mass poverty, fascism, and communism. Yet increasingly over the past three decades, “we’re all in it together” has been replaced by “you’re on your own.”

 Miami and the Siege of Chicago (New York Review Books Classics) by Norman Mailer
Depression came over the reporter. Try as he would, he could not make himself happy with McCarthy supporters. Their common denominator seemed to be found in some blank area of the soul, a species of disinfected idealism which gave one the impression when among them of living in a lobotomized ward of Upper Utopia.

 On The Trail Of The JFK Assassins by Dick Russell
“Thus, the press’ curiosity was not aroused when a 7.65-caliber German Mauser mutated into a 6.5-caliber Italian Mannlicher-Carcano; or when the grassy knoll receded into oblivion; or when an entrance wound in the President’s throat became an exit wound (first for a fragment from the head wound and then for a bullet from the back wound); or when a wound six inches below the President’s shoulder became a wound at the back of the neck. The press was thereby weaving a web that would inevitably commit it to the official findings.”

 Mary's Mosaic by Peter Janney
A little more than a week after Dallas, Timothy Leary received a disturbing phone call from Mary Meyer. “Ever since the Kennedy assassination I had been expecting a call from Mary,” wrote Leary in Flashbacks. “It came around December 1. I could hardly understand her. She was either drunk or drugged or overwhelmed with grief. Or all three.” “They couldn’t control him any more,” said Mary between her sobbing and crying. “He was changing too fast. They’ve covered everything up. I gotta come see you. I’m afraid. Be careful.”Leary later recalled this exchange in 1990. He told Leo Damore, “She was very upset, distraught. Her call spooked me. And I never imagined she’d be killed less than a year later.”

 Empire As A Way of Life: An Essay on the Causes and Character of America's Present Predicament Along with a Few Thoughts about an Alternative by William Appleman Williams
We Americans, let alone our English forefathers, have produced very, very few anti-imperialists. Our idiom has been empire, and so the primary division was and remains between the soft and the hard. 

Bumper sticker


Climate change is a human rights issue – and that's how we can solve it | Olivier De Schutter | Environment | guardian.co.uk

Climate change is a human rights issue – and that's how we can solve it | Olivier De Schutter | Environment | guardian.co.uk:

"We can overcome the problems of delivering collective action on climate change by treating mining, deforestation, ocean degradation and more as violations of human rights"

Walden Woods video game will recreate the world of Thoreau | Books | guardian.co.uk

Walden Woods video game will recreate the world of Thoreau | Books | guardian.co.uk:

Waiting for the bus

Here's my view from the bus stop, waiting for the once-an-hour bus to appear for my 30-min scenic neighborhood ride to campus. While waiting, I decided on the writing exercise to do in class today.

Rec'd a nasty comment on an old post here today. Man, there sure are a lot of mean-spirited folks in the world. All of them named Anonymous.

Need a dry day over the weekend to keep up with the lawn work. Also need to get back to my outside-in projects before I forget them entirely ha ha. Well, I wanted pressure-free writing. Exactly what I seem to have -- so pressure free I can hardly get myself to do it.

Discovered an unfortunate consequence of harmonica playing yesterday. I haven't started my studies in earnest but I did blow on the harmonica. And Sketch immediately started howling! He does this regularly when sirens pass by, some kind of return to the wild, but if harmonica sets him off as well, this will make practicing very interesting indeed. Maybe he'll get used to it. Maybe it was a fluke. Maybe he won't hear it if I practice in the basement. I want to practice AT the netbook, where I bring up the Harmonica Academy with its cool interactive lessons. Be curious how this all shakes out.

End of week four, which means I collect midterms next week. The term just flies by!


Arts to sprout in London this Olympic summer - Yahoo! News

Arts to sprout in London this Olympic summer - Yahoo! News:

The sound and fury of book-prize brouhaha leaves literature nowhere | Books | guardian.co.uk

The sound and fury of book-prize brouhaha leaves literature nowhere | Books | guardian.co.uk:

"As the fuss surrounding the Pulitzer and Orwell prizes shows, book awards are increasingly more about hype than substance"

Hear, hear!

How the Vollard Suite draws us into the dark mind of Picasso | Art and design | guardian.co.uk

How the Vollard Suite draws us into the dark mind of Picasso | Art and design | guardian.co.uk:

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Harvard University says it can't afford journal publishers' prices | Science | The Guardian

Harvard University says it can't afford journal publishers' prices | Science | The Guardian:

"University wants scientists to make their research open access and resign from publications that keep articles behind paywalls"

Makes good sense of me.

English National Opera's new season includes controversial Disney story | Music | guardian.co.uk

English National Opera's new season includes controversial Disney story | Music | guardian.co.uk:

"A new work by Philip Glass about Walt Disney will have its UK premiere at English National Opera (ENO) in June 2013. Glass's opera – his 24th – is based on Peter Stephan Jungk's 2004 novel The Perfect American, a fictionalised account of the final years of Walt Disney's life, described by Glass as "unimaginable, alarming and truly frightening". "

The old man and the harmonica

The harmonica seems the perfect instrument for this stage in my life. It's portable. Its sound can be reflective, contemplative, brooding. It's versatile.

Although I've played harp for years, it's always been on the rack with guitar. So this will be a new adventure and I may even have some bad habits to unlearn, which was the hardest part of learning claw hammer banjo. Here I am playing harmonica on a rack.

I enrolled in the Harmonica Academy in Australia and this will be the center of my self-education. I also have some supplemental material, both on Kindle and on CD. I have no performance goals -- my performing days are long gone, though I could see changing my mind if I got really good, which in fact I don't expect. I think I'll be capable and I'll have fun. That's enough. The most adventurous thing I'm doing is this: I ordered a minor key harp so I can learn Russian gypsy songs. I love Russian gypsy songs, always meant to learn and perform them on guitar but never took the time.

Waiting for my material to arrive, most end of the week. Then the new adventure begins. (Always a new adventure.)



My teaching schedule is set for next year. There was a minor issue when, on the first advanced list, I appeared in fall schedule but not on winter or spring. The department protested and it's been fixed. I get great support. PSU was been very good to me indeed. I'm most grateful.

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Thinking in a Foreign Language Makes Decisions More Rational | Wired Science | Wired.com

Thinking in a Foreign Language Makes Decisions More Rational | Wired Science | Wired.com:

"The researchers believe a second language provides a useful cognitive distance from automatic processes, promoting analytical thought and reducing unthinking, emotional reaction."

How Wall Street Occupied America | The Nation

How Wall Street Occupied America | The Nation:

By Bill Moyers. (Thanks, TS)

Eating headcheese

One of the best ways to eat headcheese is on buttered toast as an open-faced sandwich. Use several slices. Damn good.

How we made: Philip Glass and Robert Wilson on Einstein on the Beach | Culture | The Guardian

How we made: Philip Glass and Robert Wilson on Einstein on the Beach | Culture | The Guardian:

Troilus and Cressida – review | Stage | The Guardian

Troilus and Cressida – review | Stage | The Guardian:

" the Auckland-based Ngakau Toa company, performing in classical Maori, offer a potent, swaggering production that looks entirely at home on this stage. The Globe has always been a space that rewards large performances, and few have been as outsize as this, which begins with a bulging-eyed, tongue-waggling, foot-stamping haka-style war dance and rarely loses its energy thereafter."

I am a fan of this often ill-regarded play.

Why trailblazing Amazon should take on the publishing establishment | Books | guardian.co.uk

Why trailblazing Amazon should take on the publishing establishment | Books | guardian.co.uk:

"Scaremongers who warn of of a potential Amazon monopoly conveniently forget that one already exists in shape of legacy publishers"

Hear, hear!

Monday, April 23, 2012

A moment in time

I am here to say that our entire large yard is mowed and trimmed, more or less, as best as I can do with the tools and body at hand, a considerable accomplishment in my view. This will last for a few days before it's time to start all over again. Yard care embraces Sisyphus(see animation at blog title above).

Track and Field: Final results from the Oregon Relays | OregonLive.com

Track and Field: Final results from the Oregon Relays | OregonLive.com:

In the men's mile (1500 m), THE FIRST 25 RUNNERS broke four minutes! Man, how times have changed! I can remember what a big deal Roger Bannister was.

Karl May: the best German writer you've never heard of | Books | The Guardian

Karl May: the best German writer you've never heard of | Books | The Guardian:

Huffington Post's Pulitzer prize win marks a turning point for journalism | Media | The Guardian

Huffington Post's Pulitzer prize win marks a turning point for journalism | Media | The Guardian:

"Only six years ago it would have been unthinkable that a website would be celebrated in this way"

Want to see first self-published ebook win.

UN to investigate plight of US Native Americans for first time | World news | guardian.co.uk

UN to investigate plight of US Native Americans for first time | World news | guardian.co.uk:

"The UN human rights inquiry will focus on the living conditions of the 2.7 million Native Americans living in the US"

This could be big.

Sunday, April 22, 2012

Temperature in Portland reaches record-breaking high of 82 | OregonLive.com

Temperature in Portland reaches record-breaking high of 82 | OregonLive.com:

Oregon track & field rundown: UO women's team is shaping up as a "prohibitive favorite" for the Pac-12 title | OregonLive.com

Oregon track & field rundown: UO women's team is shaping up as a "prohibitive favorite" for the Pac-12 title | OregonLive.com:

 "Now, the Ducks enter the second phase of the season as they gear up for the Pac-12 Championships, May 12-13 in Eugene, and the NCAA Championships, June 6-9 at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa."

Vatican Rebukes American Nuns for “Radical” Views | News | The Advocate

Vatican Rebukes American Nuns for “Radical” Views | News | The Advocate:

Radical nuns may be the best thing left in American politics, those who act in accordance with "What would Jesus do?" and have the same radical view of Christ that Woody Guthrie and others have had. Individuals who walk the walk, and I don't mean in a march. We need more radical nuns.

Sun! Warmth!

Art by Lynn Trimble
Push mower! Jazz! Iced coffee!



This morning I even got this week's student work online, most of my prep now done!

The digital bookstore

Those bemoaning the rise of ebooks have created any number of conspiracy theories, usually with Amazon as the demon, but folks like Passive Guy at his The Passive Voice blog are quick to add rationality and sanity to an otherwise loud and angry discourse based largely on disinformation.

One of the worries is the loss of physical bookstores. I, too, would hate to see them go. But guess what? The best, the small indie bookstores, were already disappearing at the assaults of corporate chains. How interesting that one of these, Barnes and Noble, now becomes a good guy to those who see Amazon as a monster. At any rate, what is needed is imagination and faith in books, which after all are noted by CONTENT, not packaging.

Ebook section at bookstore:
would adults embrace as readily as kids?
Imagine a future bookstore. There is a large ebook section. This is made up of a computer terminals where a customer can sit down and browse for ebooks. These ebooks are stored at and sold by a site managed by the store itself -- the store sells the ebook. There needs to be some perks to make this competitive, of course. One perk is to offer a hard copy print service -- you get your ebook and a print out as well. Or maybe a perk is a credit with each purchase to apply to a future print book purchase. Use your imagination, book entrepreneurs! This can be done and moreover, an ebook section, perhaps modeled after coffee houses where everyone is using a laptop, coffee available and so on, nice music, an ebook section in a traditional bookstore has possibilities to explore.

Luddites have no imagination, of course. But someone is going to embrace the future and make it attractive, rather than whining in the dust of the inevitable.

The Harmonica Academy

Harmonica Academy:

An extraordinary site for harmonica players and students, hosted by Tony Eyers, an Australian player and academic, a site that distinguishes itself in two ways:
  • harmonica lessons are organized like a college degree course, with freshman, sophomore, junior and senior terms, each with 10 "tune lessons" and 10 "blues lessons"
  • tuition is $19.95 for six months, during which you have access to everything (lessons and considerable resources) at the site. You progress at your own rate
All lessons have audio and sometimes video components. An amazingly well organized and thorough approach to online music education. A harp player with a PhD!

Ebooks: should their form determine their value? | Books | The Observer

Ebooks: should their form determine their value? | Books | The Observer:

"Despite what retailers think, the true value of a book lies not in its physical form but in the time spent writing it"

AN Wilson: 'Everyone writes in Tolstoy's shadow' | Books | The Observer

AN Wilson: 'Everyone writes in Tolstoy's shadow' | Books | The Observer:

Don't read the last rites for hardbacks just yet | Books | The Observer

Don't read the last rites for hardbacks just yet | Books | The Observer:

In the ebook revolution, hardbacks hanging in much better than paperbacks.

The talking penguin's guide to climate change | Books | The Observer

The talking penguin's guide to climate change | Books | The Observer:

"Darryl Cunningham is using the graphic novel format to address the most serious issues in science and to fight disinformation"

Hear, hear!

Academic publishing doesn't add up | Technology | The Observer

Academic publishing doesn't add up | Technology | The Observer:

Should judges always pick a winner? | The Observer

Should judges always pick a winner? | Comment is free | The Observer:

Decades ago I was the judge in a prestigious regional playwriting competition. I refused to pick a winner, not admiring any of the scripts. The sponsors were very unhappy. They appointed a new judge and I was never asked to judge again. In retrospect, I should have thrown the scripts up a staircase, the highest one wins.

Digital age is making newspaper editors redundant in more ways than one | Media | The Observer

Digital age is making newspaper editors redundant in more ways than one | Media | The Observer:

Theatre turns to Facebook to bring a younger audience through the doors | Stage | The Observer

Theatre turns to Facebook to bring a younger audience through the doors | Stage | The Observer:

'They're killing us': world's most endangered tribe cries for help | World news | The Observer

'They're killing us': world's most endangered tribe cries for help | World news | The Observer:

"Logging companies keen to exploit Brazil's rainforest have been accused by human rights organisations of using gunmen to wipe out the Awá, a tribe of just 355. Survival International, with backing from Colin Firth, is campaigning to stop what a judge referred to as 'genocide'"

Amazon.com: Varmints eBook: Charles Deemer: Kindle Store

Amazon.com: Varmints eBook: Charles Deemer: Kindle Store:

I'm quite proud of this. Worn well. Probably because it's so dark ha ha.

Saturday, April 21, 2012

White Sox RHP Phil Humber throws perfect game - MLB - Yahoo! Sports

White Sox RHP Phil Humber throws perfect game - MLB - Yahoo! Sports:

Against the Mariners!

Berra grabs Larsen after perfect game
Only other perfect game I saw was in High School, Don Larsen's perfect game in 1956, it was gym class so they let us see the end of the game.

Music in my life

Lately, reconnecting with people I knew decades ago, from the Army or from graduate school, I'm struck by the fact that much of what they remember about me is that I played and sang folk music. And I'm struck by the fact that the single greatest common denominator through all the changes of my years is the fact that I listen to west coast jazz. Indeed it's likely that today on the car radio I'll hear a tune that I listened to half a century ago -- and the very same version! (This is because we have such a great jazz radio station in town, KMHD).

It felt quite out of character, therefore, when I recently found myself with no desire to play my banjo. I had played guitar through most of my life but in the Army the five-string was my primary instrument. I never did learn claw hammer style. So a few years ago, I picked up the banjo again and took some lessons and learned claw hammer. Decent, too, if a tad slow. I even did some soundtrack music for my film. And then I lost all interest.

Strange. Was music disappearing from my life?

I'm happy to report: No! Just as with the banjo, I have sudden energy to pick up an instrument I played a little and get much better at it: the harmonica! I always played it on a rack, backup to the guitar, folk harmonica, Woody Guthrie harmonica. Now I feel the urge to take it off the rack and learn how to do more with it.

So I shall! A musician once again. I guess I was in transition. Now we'll see what happens.

'Steinbeck In Vietnam': A Great Writer's Last Reports : NPR

'Steinbeck In Vietnam': A Great Writer's Last Reports : NPR:

"John Steinbeck's reports shocked readers and family so much that they've never been reprinted — until now."

A domino theory man to the end.

Quotations of the day

“The American People can have anything they want, trouble is, they don’t want much of anything.” --Eugene Debs
"What the people expect, they deserve. What they deserve, they get. Always." --from The Stiff (1975), a play by Charles Deemer 

Portland Actors Conservatory - Season of Plays - "Holy Ghosts" by Romulus Linney

Portland Actors Conservatory - Season of Plays - "Holy Ghosts" by Romulus Linney:

See article below, get tickets here.

Theater: Serpents, true believers and ‘Holy Ghosts’ | Oregon ArtsWatch

Theater: Serpents, true believers and ‘Holy Ghosts’ | Oregon ArtsWatch:

Bob Hicks doing what he does best.

A letter to ... a widower I fell in love with | Life and style | The Guardian

A letter to ... a widower I fell in love with | Life and style | The Guardian:

Powerful piece.

The best summer music festivals in Europe | Travel | The Guardian

The best summer music festivals in Europe | Travel | The Guardian:

Plan ahead.

My hero: George Eliot by Cynthia Ozick | Books | The Guardian

My hero: George Eliot by Cynthia Ozick | Books | The Guardian:

World Shakespeare festival: around the Globe in 37 plays | Stage | The Guardian

World Shakespeare festival: around the Globe in 37 plays | Stage | The Guardian:

Internet: a web for the world | Editorial | Comment is free | The Guardian

Internet: a web for the world | Editorial | Comment is free | The Guardian:

Wishful thinking. Corporations are too powerful to let the consumer web decline.

YouTube loses music clip copyright battle in court | Technology | The Guardian

YouTube loses music clip copyright battle in court | Technology | The Guardian:

With copyright violations all over YouTube, this can have major consequences in what it is and how it is used.

Venice Beach back to bohemian ideals after LAPD cracks down on hawkers | World news | guardian.co.uk

Venice Beach back to bohemian ideals after LAPD cracks down on hawkers | World news | guardian.co.uk:

Police defend bohemians!

DCWG | DNS Changer Working Group

DCWG | DNS Changer Working Group:

Infected computers will lose the net this summer ... this is a legit problem and here is a legit test to see if you are infected.

Friday, April 20, 2012

Old-timers fete oldest of ballparks on 100th b-day - Yahoo! News

Old-timers fete oldest of ballparks on 100th b-day - Yahoo! News:

"BOSTON (AP) — For one more afternoon, Yaz had the Fenway fans cheering, Pedro had them celebrating and Johnny Pesky brought tears to their eyes.

Scenes from Fenway Park's first 100 years played out on the major leagues' oldest ballfield again on Friday, when the Boston Red Sox celebrated its centennial by welcoming more than 200 former players and coaches back onto its landmark lawn."

Bill Moyers: The Relationship Between Christianity and Capitalism

Bill Moyers: The Relationship Between Christianity and Capitalism:

Travel + Leisure: America's Best Cities For Hipsters (PHOTOS)

Travel + Leisure: America's Best Cities For Hipsters (PHOTOS):

"No. 2 Portland, OR"

And #1? You guessed it. Seattle.

On Tribal Lands, Digital Divide Brings New Form Of Isolation

On Tribal Lands, Digital Divide Brings New Form Of Isolation:

"On a recent night, she endured a 30-mile drive along a dark desert highway to reach this town, her nearest access point to the Internet. She carried her laptop into a hotel that offers wireless access. In the dim light of the lobby, she hunched over the screen and finished an online exam."

i.e. reservation has no access.

Coming soon to Kindle


Thursday, April 19, 2012

Good parenting

From a video board I frequent, "water cooler" talk and memories of baseball:
The Cubbie Hole was a little restaurant/bar across from Wrigley, my Dad loved to take us there before the game.
When we went to see the Cubs play it was an all day event, some of the best times I ever spent with my Dad.

So many memories, but living here in Atlanta it's time to start creating those memories with my youngest, who just turned 11 :)
He is a Braves fan, so I will be too ...
I love this.

Morning milk run

I can catch either of three buses to get to the university. I normally choose a bus that comes by only once an hour but I love it because it's a leisurely 30-minute ride along a winding tree-lined road that moves into a great old neighborhood. Lots of stops, no traffic. Not the choice if you're in a hurry. But normally this perfectly fits the slow leisurely rhythm of my day in general. I return on the same bus. Lots of brooding time.

Loose ends

There are a few items in my archive that are available nowhere else and I want to make them more widely available with Kindle and print editions. First on the list is my libretto Varmints, based on my play of the same name, a tragi-comedy of the Old West, whose theme is Greed. I doubt if Round Bend Press would be interested in so esoteric a manuscript. I'll do it myself if that's the case.

Mariner fans

Last night the Mariners' Safeco field drew the smallest crowd, a bit over 11 thousand, in the history of the team. Doesn't bode well. Too bad, too, because the team had a solid victory, looking good from all angles.

Most of the times we've gone up to see a game, the stands were over 40 thousand. In years past.

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Countdown to the 2011 Triple Crown - USATODAY.com

Countdown to the 2011 Triple Crown - USATODAY.com:

I'm ready!

Pat Summitt Resigns: Tennessee Women's Basketball Coach Steps Down

Pat Summitt Resigns: Tennessee Women's Basketball Coach Steps Down:

My coffee ritual

Just put tomorrow's coffee into the refrig to brew. By the gods, this has become a more important ritual than making scrapple, no doubt because it's daily instead of biweekly. Finally nearing the end of my first batch of various beans, experimenting, and close to settling on what my bean staples will be. I use about a cup and a half of beans a day, so the stock moves quickly. Jeez, there I am sounding like a capitalist.

My audience


This is a pretty typical distribution of the location of visitors to this blog. What is telling is how few are in the Northwest, where I live, and that half the audience is out of the U.S. (I seem to have a significant audience in Scandanavia, where one student even did a graduate thesis on my work in hyperdrama).  This distribution pertains for my work in general, as near as I can tell. I have to remind myself of this in those moments, fortunately rare, when I feel completely isolated here at home. Attention, Deemer! Your audience is elsewhere.

Pot Legalization Could Save U.S. $13.7 Billion Per Year, 300 Economists Say

Pot Legalization Could Save U.S. $13.7 Billion Per Year, 300 Economists Say:

And they weren't even stoned.

Stories in the mind, on the page, in the marketplace

The usual itinerary is this: a story begins in the mind as an idea, gets developed on the page, and ends up in the marketplace to be shared. This was my own story-path through most of my career.

But things began to change as I got older. The psychology of writing began to change. In the beginning, validation was important to me. As one commentator said about screenwriters, "Screenwriters are ego-maniacs with low self-esteem." Perfect!

As one experiences success, at whatever level, validation becomes less important. Later, for the older writer, validation is irrelevant

As a result, the usual itinerary of a story begins to change, too. I find this fascinating. First, the step from page to market changed. I found I cared less and less about marketing my work. I wanted it available, yes, I had not become "a closet writer," not yet, but I didn't want the hassle of marketing, especially in the current atmosphere in which marketing had become far more essential, far more highly regarded, than when I began my career, when the serious writer was looked at more as a kind of monk, a creator and protector of literary culture, than as a huckster of literary commodities in the marketplace, so that Salinger and Pynchon could become downright sexy by being reclusive, unavailable to book clubs and book tours, invisible. In this new stage, I found it easy to end the story's journey on the page, make it public somewhere, such as in my online archive, and letting it go.

But I feel the stirrings of even more change, even more fascinating. I find myself flirting with the connection between mind and page, with ending the story in the mind where it begins. That is, I feel an attraction to writing the story in my head and letting it go at that. This is remarkable to me.

But it also brings to mind something I read years ago: in Zen, poetry is not the words on the page but the mode of thought in the mind of the poet.

POETRY IS NOT THE WORDS ON THE PAGE BUT THE MODE OF THOUGHT IN THE MIND OF THE POET.

That's so unAmerican, I thought I should emphasize it.

Thus, today, even with outside-in projects, I find myself struggling more than usual just to "get them down" after I create them in the mind. It's so easy just to stop there, self-satisfied, the story born and permanently housed in the mind alone.

An interesting state of affairs indeed. I have no idea what happens next. Stay tuned.

From the kitchen of Anonymous

Inspired by the hash brown casserole recipe below, an anonymous cook sent this:
1 can of corned beef hash
5 shucked eggs, i.e., out of their shells, in a bowl. Don’t break the yolks.
2 Tbsp olive oil

Cover your broiler pan with a sheet of Al foil. Scoop out the hash, spread it as thin as you can and stick it under the broiler for as long as you can without actually burning the hash; that’s about 9 minutes max in my broiler. Your results may differ.

After the hash has cooked a few minutes, start the eggs. (And if you need more carbohydrates, start some toast too.) When the oil is nice and hot, pour all the eggs into the pan over medium heat, cover them, and cook them sunnyside up just long enough until the whites are snot-free, so to speak, but the yolks still totally runny. Remove from heat.

Pick the crispy hash up by pinching the L corners of the foil in your L hand and the R corners in your R and slide it into the pan. (You may have to set it down on the counter to lightly scrape loose a little stuck hash, so be sure to leave space for it.) 

Mix it all up. Eat. This should be enough for two, but it’s barely enough for me, I like it so much.

Moyer fends off Father Time to notch win at 49 - Yahoo! News

Moyer fends off Father Time to notch win at 49 - Yahoo! News:

"DENVER (AP) — Jamie Moyer is headed to the Hall of Fame.
Well, maybe his uniform anyway. Or perhaps even his glove.
Cooperstown has asked for some sort of memorabilia from Moyer to commemorate his record-setting night as the 49-year-old left-hander became the oldest pitcher to ever win a major league contest."

A former Mariner (they're everywhere! and doing well).

On the insecurity of being a Mariners' fan

The game last night, alas, was rather typical.. Seattle explodes in the bottom of the 4th, scores 6 runs and takes an 8-1 lead. A home game, and between innings fans are dancing in the aisles. Party time! Then in the top of the 5th Cleveland scores 7 runs to tie. They go on to win, 9-8.

So the Mariners blow a seven run lead that their starter and bullpen can't protect.

There was one game a few years ago, if I remember right, where they blew a 14 run lead!

A Mariners fan, if smart, never rests with a lead.

Opium farming in Afghanistan rising again, bleak UN report admits | World news | guardian.co.uk

Opium farming in Afghanistan rising again, bleak UN report admits | World news | guardian.co.uk:

Alfred Hitchcock's complete films to be shown in London retrospective | Film | The Guardian

Alfred Hitchcock's complete films to be shown in London retrospective | Film | The Guardian:

London 2012 mark 100 days to go with 'Inspire a generation' slogan | Sport | guardian.co.uk

London 2012 mark 100 days to go with 'Inspire a generation' slogan | Sport | guardian.co.uk:

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Round Bend Press: Tom Clark Recovering from Accident

Round Bend Press: Tom Clark Recovering from Accident:

Shuttle Discovery rides piggyback into posterity - Technology & science - Space - msnbc.com

Shuttle Discovery rides piggyback into posterity - Technology & science - Space - msnbc.com:

I came of age with the Space Age, a freshman at Cal Tech when the Russians launched Sputnik and the race was on. So I felt sadness today with the formal landing of our space program for the immediate future, which feels like abandoning a vision, which feels like giving up, quitting. I'd rather feel that sense of change with the abandoning of our self-appointed policing of the world. Let's abandon the bully in us, not the imaginative visionary going into space.

Afternoon rhythm

My bus home comes by once an hour. If I let class out five mins early and rush I can make it. But I don't like to let class out early and definitely don't like to rush anywhere ever. So I hobble up the street to a deli, have half a sandwich and coffee, read my Kindle and catch the next bus. This is the perfect lowkey mellow way to be after a strenuous class.

It reminds me how good my life can be even in this insane asylum called Western culture.

Denmark royalties!

I just learned I have earned royalties from sales in Denmark! Somebody (i.e. ONE) bought my collection Seven Plays for Kindle. My royalty is ... 54 cents! This could be the start of something big.

Auden & JFK

I can't think of Auden without bringing to mind his poem Musee des Beaux Arts, which in turn brings up the Kennedy assassination. This is the poem we were studying in English class at Pasadena City College at 8 a.m. on November 22, 1963. A few hours later, stunned by the tragedy, I ran into the class' professor in the hallway, and we both said, almost in unison, "About suffering they were never wrong, the old masters..." Maybe it helped a little.

Here's a chapter from my recent novel.

The Old Masters, 1963

COMING DOWN THE HALLWAY, CJ ran into Henry, a graduate student in English, whom CJ knew from folk music circles. Henry's face was damp and swollen.
“About suffering they were never wrong, the Old Masters,” said Henry, his voice shaking.
“Is something wrong?”
Henry said, “How well they understood its human position. How it takes place while someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along.”
“Henry, what is it?”
“Auden.”
Suddenly Henry embraced him. He said something that was muffled against CJ's shoulder. CJ pulled back.
“They shot JFK,” said Henry.
The President died before CJ was able to get home to Helen, where they cried together. As painful as it was, they couldn't stop watching television. Helen called her parents. CJ called his mother. They stayed up too late and went to bed too drained and upset to make love.
Apparently a lone nut had killed the President, who in a few days would be killed himself on live television. CJ watched the rerun in horror. First, all the horrific beatings of Negroes in the south, and now this – what was the world coming to? Over a decade would pass before CJ began formulating an answer to the question, one that was far more terrifying than anything that had occurred to him at the time.
The story gets a little mystical as well but I've told it here before and don't have the time or energy to retell it now. Time to get to the university.

September 1, 1939 by W. H. Auden

I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade: 
Waves of anger and fear 
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth, 
Obsessing our private lives;
The unmentionable odour of death 
Offends the September night.

Accurate scholarship can
Unearth the whole offence
From Luther until now
That has driven a culture mad,
Find what occurred at Linz,
What huge imago made
A psychopathic god:
I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.

Exiled Thucydides knew
All that a speech can say
About Democracy,
And what dictators do,
The elderly rubbish they talk
To an apathetic grave;
Analysed all in his book,
The enlightenment driven away,
The habit-forming pain,
Mismanagement and grief:
We must suffer them all again.

Into this neutral air
Where blind skyscrapers use 
Their full height to proclaim 
The strength of Collective Man, 
Each language pours its vain 
Competitive excuse:
But who can live for long
In an euphoric dream;
Out of the mirror they stare, 
Imperialism's face
And the international wrong.

Faces along the bar
Cling to their average day:
The lights must never go out,
The music must always play,
All the conventions conspire
To make this fort assume
The furniture of home;
Lest we should see where we are, 
Lost in a haunted wood,
Children afraid of the night
Who have never been happy or good.

The windiest militant trash 
Important Persons shout
Is not so crude as our wish: 
What mad Nijinsky wrote 
About Diaghilev
Is true of the normal heart; 
For the error bred in the bone 
Of each woman and each man 
Craves what it cannot have, 
Not universal love
But to be loved alone.

From the conservative dark
Into the ethical life
The dense commuters come,
Repeating their morning vow;
'I will be true to the wife,
I'll concentrate more on my work,'
And helpless governors wake
To resume their compulsory game: 
Who can release them now,
Who can reach the dead,
Who can speak for the dumb?

All I have is a voice
To undo the folded lie,
The romantic lie in the brain
Of the sensual man-in-the-street 
And the lie of Authority
Whose buildings grope the sky: 
There is no such thing as the State 
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die.

Defenseless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.

My Feynman story

In my recollection of pleasant memories at Cal Tech below, I forgot to tell my Richard Feynman story. It's fall, 1957. I'm a freshman. I'm well aware of Feynman and all the other Nobel-winning scientists on the faculty, all of them very accessible to freshmen (!).

One day I enter the men's room, enter a stall, and sit down to do my business. After a moment someone in the stall next to me starts banging on the partition between us! I mean, banging big time, as if it were a drum. Or, as it turns out, a set of bongos. I finished as fast as I could and got the hell out of the stall, as the banging continued.

An upper classman at the wash basin was laughing at me. I must have looked a fright. "I see you met Feynman," he said.

Physics and bongos
Playing bongos, it turned out, was one of Feynman's great passions and he put in a little practice whenever he could, even on the partition of a bathroom stall.

The King's Speech impediment: when films don't work on stage | Stage | guardian.co.uk

The King's Speech impediment: when films don't work on stage | Stage | guardian.co.uk:

"The King's Speech is struggling to make anywhere near the same impact on stage as it did on the big screen. Can cinematic and theatrical versions of the same piece happily co-exist?"

S is for Stanislavsky | Stage | guardian.co.uk

S is for Stanislavsky | Stage | guardian.co.uk:

No fiction Pulitzer given for 1st time in 35 years | abc11.com

No fiction Pulitzer given for 1st time in 35 years | abc11.com:

Well, let me suggest .... ha ha, you get the picture. Actually in the 80s a play of mine was nominated when the committee invited regional nominations.

Class, week 3

Now we start spending most of our time on student work, so the "real class" begins. I always look forward to it. A busy day and school week, therefore.

Got a brainstorm last night related to my outside-in experiment, which if fruitful would keep me busy for a longer time than I probably have left. I discovered I have 16 screenplays I still "own up to," stories I like -- and each very easily could be redone as a Kindle novel. A novelization of a screenplay, 16 times. I'm beginning with my one and only vampire story, and we'll see how it goes. I'll submit it under a pseudonym. Just the right combination of mostly grunt work, minor creative work, to keep the juices flowing without stress and soul-searching. I think it would be depressing if this experiment were too successful but really cool if it brought in some coffee money.

Looking forward to class today.

Monday, April 16, 2012

A love story (poem)

Bosko and Admira's story,
who in escaping Sarajevo tried to cross a bridge
hoping that on the other side
where the bloody past reappeared anew
there could be a future for them,
was the media-event of the Spring.
Death was waiting for them in the middle of the bridge.
The man who pulled the trigger wore a uniform
and was never accused of murder.
The whole world press wrote about them.
Italian articles wrote of Bosnia's Romeo and Juliet
French journalists praised love's inseparability
which tear up political boundaries.
The Americans recognized in them two nations' common symbol
there
on the bridge split in two.
The British saw their corpses as examples of wars' absurdity.
And the Russians just kept quiet.
The dead lovers' photographs spread out
in the blooming Spring.
Only my Bosnian friend Prsic
who secured the bridge
was forced to watch day after day
how the worms the misquotes and crows
finished off Bosko and Amira's bloated bodies.
I heard how he cursed
when the Spring wind blew from the other side of the bridge
the stentch of decay
forcing him to pull on a gas mask.
About that however not one paper made mention.


--Goran Simic


Also see Romeo and Juliet in Sarajevo.

Ready, Teddy!

Hear Little Richard in there? At any rate, I am prepped for class this week, finished up this morning all the grunt work of putting stuff online, grunt work I actually enjoy.

Still have an advanced student's pages to look at ... but otherwise the rest of the day is my own.

Recent reading

Feynman's Rainbow: A Search for Beauty in Physics and in Life
by Leonard Mlodinow

This short memoir was a delight to read and resonated with me personally in several ways. Mlodinow recounts his first years as a theoretical physicist at Cal Tech, a young scientist filled with personal doubts, and how his friendship with Feynman led him to new ways to view his career and life itself.

Cal Tech campus
I myself have fond memories of Cal Tech, where I was a student for four terms (freshman year and first term of sophomore year) before transferring voluntarily (I had a B average) to Cal-Berkeley in 1959 (with a scholarship). On the surface, I seemed to be doing more than fine since at the beginning of my sophomore year I published a number theory article in the University of Oklahoma's Mathematics Magazine, a jump start for an undergraduate. But there was a rub. Two of them.

Through high school I was tight with four other "science geeks," we five the brightest nerds at Pasadena High School. We all applied to the same five colleges and expected to be accepted by all of them: Cal Tech, MIT, Harvard, Stanford and Cal-Berkeley. To our shock, each was accepted by only two schools. All were accepted by Berkeley. None by Harvard. Two by Stanford, where they went, one by MIT, where he went, and myself and M. by Cal Tech, where we went. The rub for me was that I wasn't leaving town, wasn't leaving home. Living at home, I felt like Cal Tech was an extension of high school.

Except for one thing, the second rub. I was meeting lots of guys who clearly were much, much brighter than I was. This had never happened to me before. Sure, I was ahead of the curve by publishing as a sophomore but I could see the handwriting on the wall, that my future was limited because I wasn't a genius, after all. I could become a great engineer but I didn't want to become an engineer. I wanted to be a pure mathematician. No way.

I also wanted to move away from home. Though it seemed crazy to leave a prestigious school with a B average, I found support from an unexpected source, my chemistry professor Linus Pauling, who assured me that the world needed good philosophers and good historians as much as it needed good scientists. 

I also had something else to deal with. M., my neighbor and friend who had gone to Cal Tech with me, had committed suicide the summer after his freshman year. (I read later that Cal Tech has one of the highest suicide rates among students.) Maybe he couldn't deal with the slam into reality that we experienced. I dealt with it by becoming a jock: I lettered in football, basketball and track at Cal Tech! I also suspect that M. was dealing with the personal issue of being a closet gay man. At any rate, his suicide added grief to staying, it seemed. So in January, 1959 I finally left home.

But I've always cherished my short time at Cal Tech. Reading about it made me homesick.
The campus was beautiful, and serene. And it was large, considering that Caltech undergraduates numbered only in the hundreds. Most of it lay on a site several blocks on each side that was not intruded upon by city streets. Instead, broad sidewalks punctuated by well-kept lawns, shrubbery, and craggy gray olive trees wound their way amongst the low buildings, many of Mediterranean-style architecture. It was a place to feel peaceful and protected, free to forget the outside world and focus on pursuing your ideas.
Interestingly enough, I most recall the contemplative consequences of exhaustion during track workouts. The coach would have us run at half or two-thirds speed for 220 yards, then jog 220, crank it up 220, jog 220, and so on, round and around the track until we fell in exhaustion, which became a contest to see who could last the longest. I got a lot of thinking done during this!

Mlodinow gets into physics that will go over the heads of many readers (some of it went over mine) but the focus here is on his emotional journey, and I found his story gripping. I'm glad I stumbled upon this short memoir.
STAYING PLAYFUL, having fun, keeping a youthful outlook. It was clear to me that for Feynman, staying open to all the possibilities of nature, or life, was a key to both his creativity and his happiness.

Tearful Paula Radcliffe sees hopes of Olympic medal fade in Vienna | Sport | The Guardian

Tearful Paula Radcliffe sees hopes of Olympic medal fade in Vienna | Sport | The Guardian:

Long been a fan. Jocks have a hard time retiring. Like writers. Like humans. This is why it's important to me, as a serious writer, even as a human being, not to hang around beyond my sensible allotted time. Rocky Marciano knew how to retire. Joe Louis didn't. Let me follow Rocky's tradition.

Web freedom faces greatest threat ever, warns Google's Sergey Brin | Technology | The Guardian

Web freedom faces greatest threat ever, warns Google's Sergey Brin | Technology | The Guardian:

Saturday, April 14, 2012

Daily Kos: Todd Gitlin on the Port Huron Statement’s 50th Anniversary

Daily Kos: Todd Gitlin on the Port Huron Statement’s 50th Anniversary:

"The Port Huron Statement was the clearest, most vivid and energetic articulation of an awakening: one of those great uprisings that are the crucibles of America struggling (against much violence and cruelty) to become itself—a commonwealth of free association and mutual aid.

The New Left wanted to make, out of the lonely crowd, the beloved community—the kernel of a moral awakening that would put intelligence to work in behalf of transcendent values and overcome as much human ugliness as possible.

This beloved community would be bound together in what Carl Oglesby would later call “brute love”—an association of free and struggling individuals joining together what an earlier president, Abraham Lincoln, called “the better angels of our nature.”"

Kindle blogs

Kindle blogs vary greatly in quality but I've found some really good ones. Best, for me, is The Passive Voice, a blog with several entries a day on the publishing scene. I also subscribe to a free ebooks blog, even though I almost never find anything I want -- but at 99 cents a month, well, I often find SOMETHING in a month that I wouldn't know about otherwise. I subscribe to a Mariners blog now that baseball season has started. I'm doing the two-week free trial for a science blog, a southern cooking blog, and a climate  news blog.

Most Kindle blogs update at least once daily, automatically, and cost 99 cents a month. Pretty easy.

I thought briefly about doing a screenwriting blog but decided it would be far too much work.

Haiku Nurse | Haiku a Day Keeps the Doctor Away

Haiku Nurse | Haiku a Day Keeps the Doctor Away:

This site has been silent 3 years to the day. I used to look forward to it daily.

What the ebook revolution is not

In May, 1994, I attended the first national hypertext conference at Yale University. I went there primarily because of my work in hyperdrama and my interest in hypertext fiction being published by Eastgate Systems, a Cambridge company that Robert Coover called "the primary source for serious hypertext." At the conference I met Eastgate's Mark Bernstein and other scholar/writer/thinkers in the emerging field.

This was heady and exciting stuff. I was the only one there applying hypertext narrative to live drama but there was a general feeling that narrative theory was exploding into dynamic new possibilities for storytelling.

As it turned out, computer games took advantage of this narrative revolution more than any other form, creating dramatic interactive games. Hypertext fiction, the early mainstay of Eastgate (which now seems to be more focused on productivity tools), has not gained much in popularity as near as I can tell. Ebooks, of course, are the natural environment for hypertext narrative -- non-linear narrative that branches into two or more parallel paths -- but the current ebook explosion thus far has little to do with narrative theory.

Eastgate's Storyspace
The ebook revolution is a revolution in packaging, a consumer revolution. It's the scroll becoming the book. The ebook story is still linear, is still traditional. Although Apple and others have released creation software encouraging an expansion of narrative approach (and, of course, Eastgate's Storyspace was there from the beginning), there is a long way to go before an audience grows to welcome these efforts.

In this regard, the ebook revolution is disappointing to me. Hypertext fiction remains a very small specialized genre. No theater company has built (and easily built) the hyperdrama theater space I proposed several years ago. We still tell our stories essentially in the same form in which Homer told them.

Maybe there's a reason for this. But I still think there's a narrative revolution waiting to find its larger audience.

(Also see Changing Key, a video hyperdrama and lecture demonstration, presented at Hypertext 08.)

Hash Brown, Sausage and Egg Casserole Recipe

Hash Brown and Egg Casserole Recipe - Allrecipes.com:

This is easy and quite good! Lots of room for variation. The hash browns are the essential ingredient.

Werner Herzog on death, danger and the end of the world | Film | The Guardian

Werner Herzog on death, danger and the end of the world | Film | The Guardian:

My hero: John Keats by Andrew Motion | Books | The Guardian

My hero: John Keats by Andrew Motion | Books | The Guardian:

Anne Tyler: a life's work | Books | The Guardian

Anne Tyler: a life's work | Books | The Guardian:

The pro-life movement's disregard for life is grotesque | Deborah Orr | World news | The Guardian

The pro-life movement's disregard for life is grotesque | Deborah Orr | World news | The Guardian:

Trayvon Martin death raises issue of racism in America, says Toni Morrison | World news | guardian.co.uk

Trayvon Martin death raises issue of racism in America, says Toni Morrison | World news | guardian.co.uk:

"Nobel prize-winning novelist says Republican presidential hopefuls used hateful language against Barack Obama"

Duh.

Gay 'conversion' therapies give moral authority to bullies, says ex-missionary | World news | The Guardian

Gay 'conversion' therapies give moral authority to bullies, says ex-missionary | World news | The Guardian:

Olympics 2012: branding 'police' to protect sponsors' exclusive rights | Sport | The Guardian

Olympics 2012: branding 'police' to protect sponsors' exclusive rights | Sport | The Guardian:

Great. Bad enough we have Twinkies Bowl games now, we get to have Twinkies Olympics from now on. The corporate culture sucks.

Welcome to Springfield, Oregon: real life model for The Simpsons | Television & radio | The Guardian

Welcome to Springfield, Oregon: real life model for The Simpsons | Television & radio | The Guardian:

In the Guardian!