October 09, 2004
I'm a Marxist and I read.
Today I learned the word "rivalrous", which means "emulous", or "eager to surpass others". Resources that cannot be shared are rivalrous.
I also picked up three long-time favourite classics of economics: The Marx-Engels Reader; de Tocqueville's Democracy in America; and Mr Adam Smith's "truck, barter, and trade" (the po-mo title of "On The Wealth of Nations").
Outside of a dog, a man's best friend is a book. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read.
October 08, 2004
Two scoops!
The San Francisco Chronicle lamely picked up a story featured in yesterday's Examiner. It's a good 'un, though. The original story, from the Examiner:
Reached at her Miami studio Wednesday by The Associated Press, Maria Alquilar said she was willing to fix the brightly colored 16-foot-wide circular work, but offered no apologizes for the 11 misspellings among the 175 names."The importance of this work is that it is supposed to unite people," Alquilar said. "They are denigrating my work and the purpose of this work."
but then, the follow-up in the Chronicle:
The artist who misspelled the names of famous people in world history on a large ceramic mosaic outside Livermore's new library can spell one word with ease: N-O.That's Maria Alquilar's new position on fixing the typos.
She had planned to fly to California and put the missing "n" back in Einstein and remove the extra "a" in Michelangelo, among other fixes. But after receiving a barrage of what she called "vile hate mail," Alquilar said Livermore is off her travel itinerary and there'll be no changes by her artistic hand.
Silver lining: perhaps she was giving a shout out to San Francisco's postmaster, Charles H. Gough.
October 07, 2004
Carta blanca
Online maps keep getting more and more interesting. Multimap have a not-so-humble motto: "Online maps to everywhere". And the overlays they produce are very pretty. The MIT service has nice lowsrc quips about the application. Ha! Geeky fun.
October 06, 2004
The call of the wrecking ball
In a half-hearted attempt to save San Francisco's disappearing single-screen theatres, the Board of Supervisors approved a temporary, 45-day reprieve for the demolition of independent movie houses.
I started something
Picked up a copy of "The Sound of Settling", b/w a listless cover of The Smiths' "This Charming Man". Which only made me dig out a copy of Hatful of Hollow to hear the original.
October 05, 2004
The fight in the dog
Today, the Nobel Prize in Physics went to three American scientists, one of whom commented on education: "Dr. Wilczek used the Nobel occasion to put in a plug for reviving the commitment to excellence in American schools. "I want to thank the U.S.," he said, "for supplying the system of public education that did so well by me."
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
I'm not mad at Dwight D Eisenhower any longer. I found that quotation -- his, apparently -- at the Cost of War site, which features dismal accounting for the current US military involvement: "we could have hired 275,837 additional public school teachers in California for one year."
See me got photo photo
After about 30,000 shutter clicks, my trusty camerastarted to register errors. So I got a new one. And here, of course, is the inaugural photograph:
I was a little upset about the old camera bugging because I saw a beautiful chopper outside the Toronado: a bicycle in the shape of the Golden Gate Bridge!
Nico finds the words. And a picture is worth a thousand words.
The sincerest form of flattery
Janet Leigh died this past Sunday, which also saw the "Itchy and Scratchy and Marge" episode of The Simpsons reappear in syndication. Janet Leigh appears in three of my favourite films: Touch of Evil; Psycho; and The Manchurian Candidate. Of her chilling rôle in Psycho, she remembered Hitchock saying, "Whatever I put you in, the audience would immediately think of 'Psycho.' It wouldn't be fair to the picture or the character." That scene has been parodied almost as often as Grant Wood's American Gothic. And the Simpsons episode has a go at the famous shower scene from Psycho.
October 04, 2004
(all the barbers were anarchists)
Began reading George Orwell's stirring Homage to Catalonia, while listening to Modest Mouse.
I first heard this band while sitting at the Albion (now the Delirium) with Mark Athitakis on a mid-day bender some years ago. I can't remember why Mark was excited to find them on the juke-box, but I do remember (and have repeatedly proven) that they make great drinking music.
October 03, 2004
Yeah, I'm the real one
Through its online store, Apple are offering free downloads of the recent Presidential debate. Now I can mutter about it while looking cool and disaffected.