December 8, 2009 Excerpt
This is a passage from Norman Mailer’s third novel, The Deer Park. It takes place after Sergius’s first liaison with the beautiful actress Lulu in Desert D’Or, Hollywood’s secluded party resort:
“With the dawn spreading out from me until it seemed to touch the Yacht Club with its light, I began to think of those mornings when I was out on a flight which started in the darkness of the hangars, the syrup of coffee on my tongue, the blast of my plane flaring two long fires into the night. We would take off an hour before dawn, and when morning came to meet us five miles high in the air with the night clouds warmed by a gold and silver light, I used to believe I could control the changes of the sky by a sway of my body as it was swelled by the power of the plane, and I had played with magic. For it was magic to fly an airplane; it was a gimmick and a drug. We knew that no matter what happened on ground, no matter how little or confusing we ourselves could be, there would always come those hours when we were alone in formation and on top of life, and so the magic was in the flight and the flight made us very cool, you know? and there was nothing which could happen once we were down which could not be fixed when the night went into the west and we ganged after it on our wings.
I had been careful to forget all of this, I had liked it too much, and it had not been easy to think that I would probably never have any magic again; but on this dawn with the taste of Lulu still teasing me, I knew that I could have something else, and I could be sad for those airplanes I deserted because there was something to take their place.”
December 3, 2009 Excerpt
The more I learn, the more disgusted I become. I transcribed the following quote from this YouTube video of a speech given by Ron Paul:
‘Bernanke decries any effort to gain transparency of the Fed’s actions to find out just who gets bailed out and who is left to fail. Instead, he proposes giving even more power to the fed to regulate the entire financial system. What he does not recognize nor does want to admit is that he is talking about symptoms while ignoring the source of the crisis: the Federal Reserve itself. [...] Regulation distracts from the real cause while further interfering with the market forces, thus guaranteeing that the recession will become much deeper and prolonged. Chairman Bernanke’s argument for Fed secrecy is a red herring: it serves to distract so the special interests that benefit from the Fed policy never become known to the public. Who can possibly buy this argument that this secrecy is required to protect the people from political influence. [...] Bernanke’s argument for protecting the independence of the Fed is his argument for protecting the secrecy of the fed. Chairman Bernanke concludes that “America needs a strong”–think cartel–”non-political”–think Goldman Sachs– “independent”– think secret– “central bank with the tools to promote financial stability in the midst of a horrendous financial crisis and to help steer our economy to recovery without inflation”. This belief is a dream that will one day become a nightmare for all Americans unless we come to our senses, stop our wild spending, runaway deficits, printing press money, massive beaurocratic regulations, and our unnecessary world empire. A crucial step to fixing these problems will be transparency of the Federal Reserve.”‘
Here’s to hoping his speeches make the difference.
December 3, 2009 Excerpt
Ontario seems to have forgotten that it’s December and time for winter and snow. This short story by Jack London, set on a merciless span of Yukon ice, will remind you what real Canadian cold is:
“He knew there must be no failure. When it is seventy- five below zero, a man must not fail in his first attempt to build a fire–that is, if his feet are wet. If his feet are dry, and he fails, he can run along the trail for half a mile and restore his circulation. But the circulation of wet and freezing feet cannot be restored by running when it is seventy-five below. No matter how fast he runs, the wet feet will freeze the harder.”
December 1, 2009 Excerpt
This powerful short story by Ernest Hemingway is about African Safari and what it means to be a man:
“Beggar had probably been afraid all his life. Don’t know what started it. But over now. Hadn’t had time to be afraid with the buff. That and being angry too. Motor car too. Motor cars made it familiar. Be a damn fire eater now. He’d seen it in the war work the same way. More of a change than any loss of virginity. Fear gone like an operation. Something else grew in its place. Main thing a man had. Made him into a man. Women knew it too. No bloody fear.”
The full short story can be read online (or as a PDF), courtesy of duke.edu
August 23, 2009 Excerpt
excerpt from a manifesto for slow communication by John Freeman:
“Our society does not often tell us this. Progress, since the dawn of the Industrial Age, is supposed to be a linear upward progression; graphs with upward slopes are a good sign. Processing speeds are always getting faster; broadband now makes dial-up seem like traveling by horse and buggy. Growth is eternal. But only two things grow indefinitely or have indefinite growth firmly ensconced at the heart of their being: cancer and the corporation. For everything else, especially in nature, the consuming fires eventually come and force a starting over.”
July 12, 2009 Excerpt
short story at Granta. A taste:
“The harbour at Mana was a converted mudflat, tightly elbowed and unlovely at any tide but high. I had never been there when the tide was high. The birds were shags mostly. The fish were small. Low water showed the scabbed height of the yellow mooring posts, and the thick curded foam that shivered under the wharves, and the dirty bathtub ring on the rocks on the far side of the bay. The waves left a crust of sea lice and refuse and weed.”
June 6, 2009 Excerpt
short story at Granta. First paragraph:
“An hour’s sleep. Nightmares already. James is at the square and Mark somewhere near it, without a phone. J calls in a conflict outside the Great Hall. A couple of thousand soldiers apparently emerged out the back, got hemmed in by swarms of citizens, and were stuck in a face-off. Now he’s at Zhongnanhai, and the tear-gassing has begun.”
February 26, 2009 Excerpt
“President Obama’s new budget is, well, audacious — not just because it includes several big, audacious initiatives (universally affordable health care, and a cap-and-trade system for coping with global warming, for starters) but also because it represents the biggest redistribution of income from the wealthy to the middle class and poor this nation has seen in more than forty years.”
read the full article by Robert Reich