Wednesday, February 27, 2013
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
Sunday, February 24, 2013
30: Pieces of A Novel by Dixon, Stephen (Book - 1999)
30
Pieces of A Novel
In 30 Dixon presents us with life according to Gould, his brilliant fictional narrator who shares with us his thoroughly examined life from start to several finishes, encompassing his real past, imagined future, mundane present, and a full range of regrets, lapses, misjudgments, feelings, and the whole set of human emotions. All of Gould's foibles -- his lusts and obsessions, fears and anxieties -- are conveyed with such candor and lack of pretension that we can't help but be seduced into recognizing a little bit of Could in us or perhaps a lot of us in Gould. For Gould is indeed an Everyman for the end of the millennium, a good man trying to live an honest life without compromise and without losing his mind.
Phone Rings A Novel by Stephen Dixon (Book - 2005)
A shocking phone call in the first sentence sparks a soaring tour-de-force saga by two-time National Book Award nominee Stephen Dixon. It is the tale of two brothers, years apart in age, who have become close late in life. But the freakish death of one at the book's outset sends the other reeling into a shattered yet strangely exhilarating re-visitation of their lives together. Phone Rings is the work of a master at the peak of his form: a beautiful overlapping of scenes both remembered and ongoing, told with tenderness and an antic, laugh-out-loud sense of humor. In Dixon's inimitable mix of absorbing narrative, deceptively simple prose and waggishly innovative style, it becomes the sprawling chronicle of a large Jewish family in mid-century New York City, surviving three wars, the '60s cultural revolution, marriages, divorces, births and deaths . . . is it all lost with the piercing sound of a ringing phone? Or is that the chance to realize the possibility of transcendence? Stephen Dixon has long been considered the "secret master" of American fiction by great writers such as Jonathan Lethem. In this book, he may well have written his masterpiece.
Saturday, February 23, 2013
Elvis and the Birth of Rock and Roll - in pictures | Music | The Observer
Elvis at the piano in a mid-Manhattan loft studio. Elvis and his cousin Junior Smith are waiting for the Steve Allen Show script rehearsal to start on 29 June 1956 Photograph: Alfred Wertheimer
Final touch: the famous quiff is already a feature Photograph: Alfred Wertheimer
Elvis relaxes on the back patio with his family before the concert at Russwood Park. His cousin Bobby and father are in the background Photograph: Alfred Wertheimer
Rare portrait studies in colour of Elvis performing the 8pm show live at the Mosque Theater, as they appear in Elvis and the Birth of Rock and Roll Photograph: Alfred Wertheimer
'Don't be Cruel': RCA Victor Studio 1, 2 July 1956 Photograph: Alfred Wertheimer
The King's speech: Elvis on tthe Armed Forces Radio Service in 1958 Photograph: Alfred Wertheimer
Elvis takes a break between the rehearsal and the live taping of Stage Show at CBS’s TV Studio 50 in Manhattan. He’s reading some of that day’s fan letters Photograph: Alfred Wertheimer
Source:
Elvis and the Birth of Rock and Roll - in pictures | Music | The Observer
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/gallery/2013/feb/01/elvispresley-photography?CMP=twt_gu#/?picture=403355383&index=4
Friday, February 22, 2013
Images for Inspiring Thought
On Orwell day - Steven Poole: My problem with George Orwell
'Orwell's assault on political euphemism is righteous but limited. His more general attacks on what he perceives to be bad style are often outright ridiculous'
http://gu.com/p/3d5g5/tw
Photograph: Rex Features
My hero: George Orwell by Margaret Atwood
'To say I was horrified by this book would be an understatement. The thing that upset me most was that the pigs were so unjust'
http://gu.com/p/3d4n7/tw
Andy Warhol's unseen early drawings unveiled next week
The 300 drawings from the 1950s show a skilled and sensitive side to the artist – more Egon Schiele than pop art
http://gu.com/p/3d7kk/tw
Photograph: The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc
Mali's magical music
Music is central to Mali's identity – and yet the conflict there has led to it being widely banned. Here, African and western artists pick their favourite tracks from this most musical of nations - http://gu.com/p/3d6tb/tw
David Hare: 'Working in theatre, you're less at the whim of stupid people'
The playwright on the revival of The Judas Kiss, the loneliness of writing and this year's Oscar nominations
http://gu.com/p/3d6eq/tw
Photograph: David Levene
Basket with Six Oranges (1888). Photograph: Private Collection
1. Basket with Six Oranges: Van Gogh (1888)
These oranges are incandescent, so bright you take a dazed step backwards in the gallery. The white cloth scintillates, racing up towards the brilliant blue aura of a ship-shaped basket formed of twining, dancing willows. The fruits form a troupe of glowing spheres, apparently lit from within by their own vitamin C. Even the walls seem to be watching the show, admiring the celluloid crackle of sunshine on peel, the singular beauty of each fruit, and the sensational all-together-now performance. Van Gogh turns his winter fruits into a modest miracle.The 10 best paintings for winter cheer
The Observer's art critic chooses some works to chase away the darkness. Nominate your favourites below
http://gu.com/p/3cqmk/tw
Photograph: Basket with Six Oranges (1888). Private Collection
he 10 best movie manhunts
As the Osama bin Laden pursuit movie Zero Dark Thirty joins the chase for Oscars, we recall other runaway successes, from the 1935 version of Les Misérables to North by Northwest
http://gu.com/p/3d6zc/tw
Photograph: Sportsphoto Ltd/Allstar
Ian Beesley's best photograph: a sewage foreman captured in tears
'I thought my old boss at the sewage works was having a nap. But he was crying – he'd just been sacked'
http://gu.com/p/3d59f/tw
Monday, February 18, 2013
E-cigs Fast Growing Industry
This
electronic-cigarette space is on fire - According to a Wells Fargo
analysis of the e-cigarette market, it has found that it is a $300
million industry. The CEO of Logic, one of the largest companies in
the space, Eli Alelov is available for interview on e-cigs and the
tremendous growth of the industry.
Logic
e-cigarette has grown over 600 percent between 2011 and 2012, to 8
figures in annual revenue– and is a much safer alternative than classic,
deadly tobacco.
There is a 2009 FDA study on e-cigs which is very outdated – and according to Alelov, the government hasn’t spent enough time researching the effects of electronic cigarettes.
There is a 2009 FDA study on e-cigs which is very outdated – and according to Alelov, the government hasn’t spent enough time researching the effects of electronic cigarettes.
Alelov says the government should encourage Americans to try this new alternative rather than regular tobacco. They can also save on taxes – and any store can tell you e-cigs are flying off the shelves.
When
a person takes a drag of an e-cigarette, a battery-powered metal coil
inside heats a cartridge, vaporizing liquid nicotine within. The
smoker exhales odorless water vapor.
The
experience is intended to simulate the smoking of a regular cigarette,
and e-cigarettes also do not produce the kind of noxious smell that
tobacco does.
Smoking kills 400,000 Americans a year.
Smoking kills 400,000 Americans a year.
source:
E-cig Fast Growing Industry says Wells Fargo - Company CEO Available For Interview... -
Alcohol said to have big role in cancer deaths
Total deaths: Alcohol use accounts for 3.5 percent of all U.S. cancer deaths, or between 18,000 and 21,000 deaths a year.
Lost years: About 18 years of potential life are lost per cancer death. That means a person who died at age 60 from alcohol-related cancer would have otherwise probably lived to 78.
Number of drinks: The majority of alcohol-related cancer deaths occurred among those who drank more than three alcoholic beverages a day, but about 30 percent occurred in those who drank less than 1.5 drinks a day.
Even moderate alcohol use may substantially raise the risk of dying from cancer, according to a study released Thursday offering the first comprehensive update of alcohol-related cancer deaths in decades.
"Alcohol has been known to be related to causing cancer for a long period of time.
We talk about cancer prevention, screenings and tests. This is one of those things that seems to be missing in plain sight."
In 2009, 18,000 to 21,000 people in the United States died of alcohol-related cancers, from cancer of the liver to breast cancer and other types, the researchers said.
That's more than the number of people in the United States who die every year of melanoma (9,000 in 2009) or ovarian cancer (14,000 in 2009).
How alcohol contributes to cancer is not fully understood, the study notes.
Previous research has shown alcohol appears to work in different ways to increase cancer risk, such as affecting estrogen levels in women and acting as a solvent to help tobacco chemicals get into the digestive tract.
The study, published in the American Journal of Public Health, is the first major analysis of alcohol-attributable cancer deaths in more than 30 years.
Researchers said the lack of recent research on the subject may contribute to a lack of public awareness of cancer risks.
"People are well aware of other risks, like the impact of tobacco on cancer, and are not as aware alcohol plays quite a bit of a role," said Thomas Greenfield, one of the study's authors and scientific director of Public Health Institute's Alcohol Research Group in Emeryville.
Researchers examined seven types of cancers known to be linked to alcohol use: cancers of the mouth and pharynx, larynx, esophagus, liver, colon, rectum and female breast.
To link the cancer to alcohol use, they relied on surveys of more than 220,000 adults, 2009 U.S. mortality data, and sales data on alcohol consumption.
Breast cancer accounted for the most common alcohol-related cancer deaths among women, with alcohol contributing to 15 percent of all breast cancer deaths.
Among men, cancers of the mouth, pharynx, larynx and esophagus accounted for the most alcohol-linked cancer deaths.
The study drew some criticism. Dr. Curtis Ellison, professor of medicine and public health at Boston University School of Medicine, said the study failed to take into account several important factors, such as the pattern of drinking rather than just the amount of alcohol consumed. He said consuming small, consistent amounts of alcohol is much healthier than occasional binge drinking.
"They're mixing alcohol abuse, which leads to all of these cancers as they've clearly shown, with the casual drinker, where the risk is very small," said Ellison, also co-director of the International Scientific Forum on Alcohol Research.
"Advice needs to be individualized," Klatsky said. "The advice one would give to 60-year-old man who has no problem with alcohol but is at high risk of heart disease due to family history is quite different than the advice we give to a 25-year-old woman whose mother died of breast cancer."
The study's authors acknowledged alcohol can have health benefits but said alcohol causes 10 times as many deaths as it prevents.
There's no known safe level of drinking, they said.
"The safest level for cancer prevention is that people don't expose themselves to any potential risk," said Nelson of the National Cancer Institute. "The bottom line means for people who choose to drink, their cancer risk will be lower if they drink lower amounts."
"Alcohol has been known to be related to causing cancer for a long period of time.
We talk about cancer prevention, screenings and tests. This is one of those things that seems to be missing in plain sight."
In 2009, 18,000 to 21,000 people in the United States died of alcohol-related cancers, from cancer of the liver to breast cancer and other types, the researchers said.
That's more than the number of people in the United States who die every year of melanoma (9,000 in 2009) or ovarian cancer (14,000 in 2009).
How alcohol contributes to cancer is not fully understood, the study notes.
Previous research has shown alcohol appears to work in different ways to increase cancer risk, such as affecting estrogen levels in women and acting as a solvent to help tobacco chemicals get into the digestive tract.
The study, published in the American Journal of Public Health, is the first major analysis of alcohol-attributable cancer deaths in more than 30 years.
Researchers said the lack of recent research on the subject may contribute to a lack of public awareness of cancer risks.
"People are well aware of other risks, like the impact of tobacco on cancer, and are not as aware alcohol plays quite a bit of a role," said Thomas Greenfield, one of the study's authors and scientific director of Public Health Institute's Alcohol Research Group in Emeryville.
Researchers examined seven types of cancers known to be linked to alcohol use: cancers of the mouth and pharynx, larynx, esophagus, liver, colon, rectum and female breast.
To link the cancer to alcohol use, they relied on surveys of more than 220,000 adults, 2009 U.S. mortality data, and sales data on alcohol consumption.
Breast cancer accounted for the most common alcohol-related cancer deaths among women, with alcohol contributing to 15 percent of all breast cancer deaths.
Among men, cancers of the mouth, pharynx, larynx and esophagus accounted for the most alcohol-linked cancer deaths.
The study drew some criticism. Dr. Curtis Ellison, professor of medicine and public health at Boston University School of Medicine, said the study failed to take into account several important factors, such as the pattern of drinking rather than just the amount of alcohol consumed. He said consuming small, consistent amounts of alcohol is much healthier than occasional binge drinking.
"They're mixing alcohol abuse, which leads to all of these cancers as they've clearly shown, with the casual drinker, where the risk is very small," said Ellison, also co-director of the International Scientific Forum on Alcohol Research.
"Advice needs to be individualized," Klatsky said. "The advice one would give to 60-year-old man who has no problem with alcohol but is at high risk of heart disease due to family history is quite different than the advice we give to a 25-year-old woman whose mother died of breast cancer."
The study's authors acknowledged alcohol can have health benefits but said alcohol causes 10 times as many deaths as it prevents.
There's no known safe level of drinking, they said.
"The safest level for cancer prevention is that people don't expose themselves to any potential risk," said Nelson of the National Cancer Institute. "The bottom line means for people who choose to drink, their cancer risk will be lower if they drink lower amounts."
Sunday, February 17, 2013
Street Photographers
You Are What You Eatby ~Ahsatan2
Lend the box man a handby =Miguel-Santos
Photography / Street
Small talkby *sandas04
| Photography / Street |
Streets of Florenceby *Bagigi
Photography / Stree
Wired storiesby *Bagigi
GPS doggyby ~cosmin-m
Photography / Stree
Headlessby *Bagigi
Headlessby ~mm35street
Photography / Streethttp://mm35street.deviantart.com/art/Headless-339252098
http://bagigi.deviantart.com/art/Headless-341327966
http://www.deviantart.com/morelikethis/112559890
Mystery Train Actors
 |
Cinqué Lee and Screamin' Jay
Joe Strummer
John Graham Mellor, best remembered by his stage name Joe Strummer, was a British musician who was the co-founder, lyricist, rhythm guitarist and lead vocalist of the British punk rock band The Clash. Wikipedia
Coffee and Cigarettes (2003) - IMDb
A series of vignettes that all have coffee and cigarettes in common.
Director:
Jim JarmuschWriter:
Jim Jarmusch
Coffee and Cigarettes by ~MinaAmaya
Source: http://minaamaya.deviantart.com/art/Coffee-and-Cigarettes-333436642Source:
Coffee and Cigarettes (2003) - IMDb
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0379217/
Saturday, February 16, 2013
Mystery Train
*Note: This is a favourite late night movie of ours. We watched it today and having spent time Goolge searching characters, it is interesting to know a Member of the Clash and Pogues is one of the characters. He was good as an Elvis nicknamed character... Maybe Jim Jarmusch films of a certain period in his creative career were the thing because Stranger Than Paradise (1984) was another film that was strangely entertaining...and is fun to watch over again every year or so...
.....................................................................................
Main article: Jim Jarmusch filmography
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Mystery Train is a 1989 independent anthology film written and directed by Jim Jarmusch and set in Memphis, Tennessee. The film comprises a triptych of stories involving foreign protagonists unfolding over the course of the same night. "Far From Yokohama" features a Japanese couple (played by Youki Kudoh and Masatoshi Nagase) on a blues pilgrimage, "A Ghost" focuses on an Italian widow (Nicoletta Braschi) stranded in the city overnight, and "Lost in Space" follows the misadventure of a newly single and unemployed Englishman (Joe Strummer) and his companions (Rick Aviles and Steve Buscemi). They are linked by a run-down flophouse overseen by a night clerk (played by Screamin' Jay Hawkins) and his dishevelled bellboy (Cinqué Lee), a scene featuring Elvis Presley's "Blue Moon",[3] and a gunshot.
Plot
The film consists of three stories that take place on the same night in downtown Memphis. The three stories are linked together by the Arcade Hotel, a run-down flophouse presided over by the night clerk (Screamin' Jay Hawkins) and bellboy (Cinqué Lee), where the principal characters in each story spend a part of the night.
Every room in the hotel is adorned with a portrait of Elvis Presley.
The first story, "Far From Yokohama", features Mitsuko (Youki Kudoh) and Jun (Masatoshi Nagase), a teenage couple from Yokohama making a pilgrimage to Memphis during a trip across America.
Mitsuko is obsessed with Elvis to the point where she believes that there is a mystical connection between Elvis, Madonna, Buddha, and the Statue of Liberty. The film follows the couple as they travel from the train station, through downtown Memphis and an exhausting tour of Sun Records, to the Arcade hotel.
The second story, "A Ghost", is about an Italian widow, Luisa (Nicoletta Braschi), who is stranded in Memphis while escorting her husband's coffin back to Italy. Luisa, who has been conned twice and stuck with armfuls of magazines, is forced to share a room at the hotel with Dee Dee (Elizabeth Bracco), a young woman who has just left her boyfriend (Johnny from the final story) and who plans to leave the city in the morning. Luisa is kept awake by Dee Dee's constant talking, and when the young woman finally does go to sleep, she is visited by an apparition of Memphis' most famous icon – Elvis Presley.
The final story, "Lost in Space", introduces Johnny (Joe Strummer). Upset after losing his job and his girlfriend (Dee Dee), Johnny – known, much to his chagrin, as Elvis – drunkenly brandishes a gun in a bar before leaving with his friend Will Robinson (Rick Aviles) and his ex-girlfriend's brother Charlie (Steve Buscemi), who believes Johnny to be his brother-in-law.
They stop at a liquor store, which Johnny robs using the gun and severely wounds the owner in the process. Fearing the consequences of the incident, Johnny, Will and Charlie retire to the hotel to hide out for the night; there, Johnny gets further drunk. Charlie realizes that Will shares the same name as the character Will Robinson from the television show Lost in Space, which Johnny has never heard of.
Charlie and Will proceed to tell him about the show, and Will comments that that is how he feels then with Charlie and Johnny: lost in space. The next morning, Charlie discovers that Johnny isn't really his brother-in-law, which angers him because of what they've been through.
Johnny attempts to shoot himself, and while struggling to prevent him, Charlie is shot in the leg. Leaving the hotel, the three rush to escape a police car that isn't even looking for them.
The closing credits show the train, the airport and the final views of the characters from the first two stories.
French theatrical poster for Mystery Train
Directed by Jim Jarmusch
Produced by Rudd Simmons
Jim Stark
Written by Jim Jarmusch
Starring Youki Kudoh
Masatoshi Nagase
Screamin' Jay Hawkins
Cinqué Lee
Nicoletta Braschi
Elizabeth Bracco
Rick Aviles
Joe Strummer
Steve Buscemi
Music by John Lurie
Cinematography Robby Müller
Editing by Melody London
Studio Mystery Train Inc
Victor Company of Japan
MTI Home Video[1]
Distributed by Orion Classics (USA)
Release date(s) May 13, 1989 (Cannes Film Festival)
November 17, 1989 (United States)[1]
Running time 113 minutes
Country Japan
United States
Actors
John Graham Mellor (21 August 1952 – 22 December 2002), best remembered by his stage name Joe Strummer, was a British musician who was the co-founder, lyricist, rhythm guitarist and lead vocalist of the British punk rock band The Clash. His musical experience included his membership of The 101ers, Latino Rockabilly War, The Mescaleros and The Pogues, in addition to his own solo music career. Strummer's work as a musician allowed him to explore other interests, which included acting, creating film scores for television and movies, songwriting, radio broadcasting, and a position as a radio host. Strummer is one of the iconic figures of the British punk movement.
Strummer and The Clash were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in January 2003. In his remembrance, Strummer's friends and family have established the Strummerville Foundation for the promotion of new music, and each year there are many festivals and both organised and spontaneous ceremonies worldwide to celebrate his memory.
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
Wake up to reality
You never know what is enough, until you know what is more than enough.
- William Blake, Proverbs of Hell
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
Hollywood Icons - Bette Davis, Bacall, Bergman, Swanson, Maclaine, Midler & Piggy
Published on Apr 13, 2012
Some wonderful old skool Divas here, showing what it really means to be a 'star'.
Not a big fan of 'Parky', I find him a little smug & passively self important, but he did get the 'big guns' on his show, and he was funny with Miss Piggy.
With - Bette Midler, Raquel Welch, Lauren Bacall, Ingrid Bergman, Gloria Swanson, Bette Davis, Shirley Maclaine & Miss Piggy.
Special nod to Ms Swanson (even if you haven't a clue who she is), she's amazing, listen out for "... I was a star...."
Enjoy!
Not a big fan of 'Parky', I find him a little smug & passively self important, but he did get the 'big guns' on his show, and he was funny with Miss Piggy.
With - Bette Midler, Raquel Welch, Lauren Bacall, Ingrid Bergman, Gloria Swanson, Bette Davis, Shirley Maclaine & Miss Piggy.
Special nod to Ms Swanson (even if you haven't a clue who she is), she's amazing, listen out for "... I was a star...."
Enjoy!
-
Category
-
License
Standard YouTube License
Hollywood Icons - Bette Davis, Bacall, Bergman, Swanson, Maclaine, Midler & Piggy - YouTube
Sunday, February 3, 2013
Rolling Stones - Start Me Up.avi - YouTube
If you start me up
If you start me up I'll never stop
If you start me up
If you start me up I'll never stop
I've been running hot
You got me ticking gonna blow my top
If you start me up
If you start me up I'll never stop
You make a grown man cry
Spread out the oil, the gasoline
I walk smooth, ride in a mean, mean machine
Start it up
If you start it up
Kick on the starter give it all you got, you got, you got
I can't compete with the riders in the other heats
If you rough it up
If you like it you can slide it up, slide it up
Don't make a grown man cry
My eyes dilate, my lips go green
My hands are greasy
She's a mean, mean machine
Start it up
If start me up
Give it all you got
You got to never, never, never stop
Never, never
Slide it up
You make a grown man cry
Ride like the wind at double speed
I'll take you places that you've never, never seen
Start it up
Love the day when we will never stop, never stop
Never stop, never stop
Tough me up
Never stop, never stop, never stop
You, you, you make a grown man cry
You, you make a dead man come
You, you make a dead man come
-
Category
-
License - Standard YouTube License
Source:
Rolling Stones - Start Me Up.avi - YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BG2b3VhSCC4
Saturday, February 2, 2013
DRINKING ALONE BY MOONLIGHT by Arthur Waley.
DRINKING ALONE BY MOONLIGHT
[Three Poems]
I
A cup of wine, under the flowering trees;
I drink alone, for no friend is near.
Raising my cup I beckon the bright moon,
For he, with my shadow, will make three men.
The moon, alas, is no drinker of wine;
Listless, my shadow creeps about at my side.
Yet with the moon as friend and the shadow as slave
I must make merry before the Spring is spent.
To the songs I sing the moon flickers her beams;
In the dance I weave my shadow tangles and breaks.
While we were sober, three shared the fun;
Now we are drunk, each goes his way.
May we long share our odd, inanimate feast,
II
In the third month the town of Hsien-yang
Is thick-spread with a carpet of fallen flowers.
Who in Spring can bear to grieve alone?
Who, sober, look on sights like these?
Riches and Poverty, long or short life,
By the Maker of Things are portioned and disposed;
But a cup of wine levels life and death
And a thousand things obstinately hard to prove.
When I am drunk, I lose Heaven and Earth.
At last I forget that I exist at all,
And at that moment my joy is great indeed.
III
If High Heaven had no love for wine,
There would not be a Wine Star in the sky.
If Earth herself had no love for wine,
There would not be a city called Wine Springs.[2]
Since Heaven and Earth both love wine,
I can love wine, without shame before God.
Clear wine was once called a Saint;[3]
Thick wine was once called “a Sage.”[3]
Of Saint and Sage I have long quaffed deep,
What need for me to study spirits and hsien?[4]
At the third cup I penetrate the Great Way;
A full gallon—Nature and I are one ...
But the things I feel when wine possesses my soul
I will never tell to those who are not drunk.
[1] The Milky Way.
[2] Ch‘iu-ch‘üan, in Kansuh.
[3] “History of Wei Dynasty” (Life of Hsü Mo): “A drunken visitor said, ‘Clear wine I account a Saint: thick wine only a Sage.’”
Source:
The Project Gutenberg eBook of More Translations from the Chinese, by Arthur Waley.
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/16500/16500-h/16500-h.htm#DRINKING_ALONE_BY_MOONLIGHT
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