July 2009
52 posts
Liking the look of Rimini
Have tickets booked to head to Rimini on Italy’s adriatic coast. The truth is that the cheap flights are the thing that tempted me, but I’m pleasantly surprised to find out that the place is about more than just the beach!
For more information see Visit-Rimini.com
Thumbs up for Lisa Hannigan
Not that I give two figs about the Mercury Music Prize - an over-rated NME clap fest if ever there was one - but a big thumbs up to the wonderful Lisa Hannigan who has been nominated. If there’s any justice she’d win everything available (including a Nobel).
“‘Are there not moments,’ he asked William, ‘when you would also do shameful...”
– Umberto Eco - The Name of the Rose (via booktumbling)
One of my favorite books of all time!
(via twowaymonologue)
Oh boy. I think I was twelve when I read this book, and though only 7 years ago, I remember next to nothing about it. I should probably read it again. (via booksbooksbooks)
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The Night James Brown Saved Boston
Heartily recommended - a great documentary about the aftermath of the assasination of Martin Luther King, where city authorities in Boston first attempted to ban a James Brown concert, and then ended up co-opting the concert into their plan to keep people off the street.
I’d always regarded Brown for his music, but felt a certain distaste for his kitsch and pomp - perhaps all centred in...
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Finally finished MJ Hyland's This is How
Finally got my hands on MJ Hyland’s This is How, and read it in two sittings. Some really great writing there, in a book which seems to have recieved overwhelmingly positive reviews - apart from a particularly brutal hatchet job by The Irish Times Eileen Battersby:
Most of the dialogue is wooden and flat, at times, downright ridiculous, almost as if attempting some level of parody. But the...
“Arundhati Roy on winning the booker
“The prize,” she says now,...”
– http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/jul/12/arundhati-roy-booker-prize-politics
Berlusconi's G8 viewed by the Sun →
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“Peter Murphy on the boy in the bubble, and the man in the mirror
So if MJ was...”
– http://wordpress.hotpress.com/petermurphy/2009/07/09/the-boy-in-the-bubble-the-man-in-the-mirror/
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Loretta Napoleoni on the G8
Trying to track down the original of this article written by Loretta Napoleoni - the Italian economist and analyst, prior to the G8 meeting in Italy. Here’s a quote (translated from Italian):
“The G8 is the weapon of choice of the most powerful in the world against the great crises of capitalism. Yet thirty years after its birth it’s reasonable to ask if it has ever one a single...
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Peter Murphy's 'John the Revelator'
I might have mentioned it before but it’s worth repeating, i’m not a great fan of modern Irish novels - with the exception of a couple of authors (like Pat McCabe - who’s guilty of repeating himself on a grand scale, however good the original spirit of his work may be), there have been precious few novelists since Flann O’Brien that do anything for me.
So I was wary of...
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WatchThis is, without doubt, my favourite piazza in Bologna (and possibly the whole of Italy
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“The Lisbon Treaty is the latest step in a process which, though its conception...”
– Indymedia Ireland interview with Steve McGiffen, Assistant Professor of International Relations, American Graduate School of International Relations and Diplomacy in Paris
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/93119
“Obama sta a Berlusconi come Elvis Presley mi sta a Little Tony.
[Translation:...”
– Diary » Obama sta a Berlusconi… (via imod) (via yesss) (via 3n0m15)
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Luke Kelly and the Dubliners singing the Auld... →
Phenomenal. Growing up in Dublin in the 80s the Dubliners were overshadowed by rock acts like Lizzy, The Boomtown Rats, and U2. It was only in my twenties that I really got to listen to them - this, for me, is their most profound song (a traditional song, the lyrics written by the Irish writer Brendan Behan). When those voices chime in together it strikes a lonely note in the soul, so appropriate...
Praying to the Wrong God →
givemesomethingtoread:
The history of technology is littered with good intentions, false starts and great successes that take those false starts and simply wrap them in good design.
Content owners are praying to the wrong God. In this new world, their content is valuable only in the right contextual experiences. While they worship, someone else will build that experience and invite them...
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Steve Clark Tribute - Switch 625 →
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Remembering Steve Clark
Some Def Leppard tracks have snuck their way onto my playlist, and listening in particular to songs from the classic ‘High n’ Dry’ album (possibly the worst cover in history - but that’s another story) reminds me of what a great band Def Leppard have been at different stages in their career.
While most associate them with the string-by-string multi-million dollar...
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Bono on Italy's G8 debt
When Bono and Bob Geldof pushed for Live 8, I thought they made a big mistake by cosying up to leaders like Tony Blair, trying to persuade them to do the right thing. Instead, in my humble opinion, they should have used their huge influence to threaten political leaders. The modest undertakings that they did manage to get from the G8 meeting at Gleneagles back in 2005 have not been respected, in...
The Curious Cultural Journey Of Leonard Cohen’s... →
ragdoll:
Today, in contrast, one particular Leonard Cohen song is featured prominently in no less than three separate episodes of teen uberdrama The OC, and can be heard in at least twenty-four separate movies and TV episodes, almost always as the soundtrack to a montage of people being sad.
What I hope to show today is how, exactly, that happened to a song called “Hallelujah.”
I liked this...
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Google work on Chrome Operating System
From the official Google blog:
It’s been an exciting nine months since we launched the Google Chrome browser. Already, over 30 million people use it regularly. We designed Google Chrome for people who live on the web — searching for information, checking email, catching up on the news, shopping or just staying in touch with friends. However, the operating systems that browsers run on were...
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“A.L. Kennedy - Beware the Writing Masterclass
In That Masterclass, I and my...”
– http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2009/jul/07/beware-writing-masterclass-workshops
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“There are not many even in his own family who can manage to be a loudmouth, a...”
– Stephen Pollard writing about Charlie Windsor in his book Ten Days That Changed The Nation - The Making of Modern Britain
“Snapshot from the protests against Shell in Ireland
Extract: One of the...”
– http://www.indymedia.ie/article/92935
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“Italy to be replaced by Spain in G8?
“The G8 is a club, and clubs have...”
– http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jul/06/g8-considers-expelling-italy
“Cosa potrebbe fare Berlusconi per migliorare la sua immagine, a questo punto?
...”
– Ernesto Montale, via La Palestra 7 luglio 2009 | Daniele Luttazzi News (via lelestuff) (via 3n0m15)
“I can’t believe Steve Jobs’s liver is replaceable but the battery in my iPhone...”
– anonimo, da Gizmodo, via Macchianera (via lelestuff) (via signorponza) (via 3n0m15)
Don't get me wrong, but the thing about Michael...
Huck Finn, the first great American hero, knew a King when he saw one - and after his escapades with the King and the Duke in Twain’s novel said “I didn’t want no trouble with their kind. I’d seen all I wanted to of them, and wanted to get entirely shut of them.”
Today will see a huge spectacular event, as Michael Jackson is laid out in state for mourners to pay...
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Italy's Dignity must be maintained →
Berlusconi’s G8 summit - viewed by Gerald Scarfe at the Times
Croydon Council looks to take action over BNP...
awaywiththefaeries:
Croydon Council is looking to see whether it can take a BNP member to court after she boasted about mounting a hate campaign against a family of immigrants living in the flat above her.
Charlotte Lewis, who earlier this year stood as a candidate in the Waddon by-election, told a meeting of British National Party members she played loud music late into the night - which may...
“We are here because one odd group of fishes had a peculiar fin anatomy that...”
– Stephen Jay Gould (via thinkfree)
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David Korten's Agenda for a New Economy
Currently reading David C. Korten’s Agenda for a New Economy, just one of several books I’ve on my shelves that suggests/demands that we radically alter how we measure economic growth and prosperity.
Here’s a little extract where Korten takes Jeffrey Sachs to task (from the chapter ‘More than tinkering at the margins’)
Jeffery Sachs, an economist by training and...
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Berlusconi clashes with the Times
The Sunday Times has published a report suggesting that Italian photographer Antonello Zappadu is auctioning off shocking photos from a party held by Berlusconi in his private villa, with publication likely in the international press just before the start of this Wednesday’s G8 meeting.
The news has been greeted, unsurprisingly, with indignation by the government press office which has...
Open Democracy →
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Geoff Andrews on Berlusconi -
There’s a great article in open democracy by Geoff Andrews, the author of Not a normal country - Italy after Berlusconi and The Slow Food Story: Politics and Pleasure , which sums up much of recent Italian political history and explains what’s happening around Berlusconi and all these scandals.
Here’s a short extract
The crisis goes deeper than his relations with young women....
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“Who hasn’t ben through the ghastly experience of sitting in front of a...”
– Amos Oz The Story Begins - Essays on Literature
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Helen Walsh's Once Upon a Time in England
Just finished the rollercoaster ride that is Helen Walsh’s second novel Once upon a Time in England. What a read!
It tells the story of a mixed-race family through the seventies, eighties and nineties, while managing to throw into the mix arguments about youth culture, homosexuality, drugs and urban planning - all viewed strangely through the prism of Don McLean’s Starry Starry...
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“Nothing ever happens
Nothing happens at all
They’ll burn down the...”
– Del Amitri - Nothing Ever Happens
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Irish Literary Revival →
Site for Irish writers to post their out-of-print works for free download. A great idea, and it already has some great material up there (under creative commons licence)
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That Bad Ass Gatsby
This may be pure genius. The storyboard for Michael Bay’s The Great Gatsby
http://www.cracked.com/blog/storyboards-from-michael-bays-the-great-gatsby/
Including the lines:
Megatron: Are you armed mortal?
Gatsby: Are you kidding? I put the Gat in Gatsby M^$th”£F&£ker!
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I'm not really sure
about Asemic writing
But you can check it out here
http://thenewpostliterate.blogspot.com/