Monday, February 4. 2008
New York City's swirling, tide- and current-tossed East River, which runs from New York Harbor to Long Island Sound (and is therefore not a river in the usual sense and more of a salt-water connection left over from the last Ice Age) separates Manhattan from Brooklyn and Queens, and further east separates the Bronx from Queens. It is spanned by eight bridges and has 13 tunnels, all but one of the tunnels (the Queens-Midtown Tunnel) for rail. A friend took this photo on Saturday, with the majestic Brooklyn Bridge in the foreground, the Manhattan Bridge behind, and the great city of Brooklyn itself on the right. With 2.5 million people, Brooklyn would be one of the largest cities in the US had it not merged with NYC in 1898. 
Sunday, February 3. 2008
OK, I will grant you that Frank Loesser caused 9/11. But did the demonic imperialist Loesser also cause the Moslem hate and murderousness in Bali, Thailand, Burma, Turkey, England, India, Pakistan, and Africa? "Baby, It's Cold Outside" is a great song, but who knew that it was that well-known in places like Bali? To play it safe, let's just go ahead and ban that terrible tune which has understandably caused the world so much misery, hate, and bloodshed. But first, before the EU and the UN ban it, one more time with Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Jordan with the insensitive Moslem-offending song that began it all: A friend of Maggie's took this shot at the WTC site yesterday: 
Saturday, February 2. 2008
Fun to think of somebody figuring this out. Wall St. Fighter needs spellcheck, tho.
 A friend visited this place last summer, and just told me about it. Humber Valley Resort.
Salmon fishing, golf, sailing, ocean fishing, spa, fine dining, hiking, skiing, kayaking, sailing, snowmobiling, wildlife-watching, etc. In Newfoundland, a place I have always been curious about even before I read any Annie Proulx. (I thought Proulx was from Newfoundland, but she is from Norwich, CT, same as my Grandpa.) Take a look at their website: good slideshow. They have 150 chalets.
Friday, February 1. 2008
An excerpt from Twyla Tharp's The Little Ballet with Misha, and Deirdre Carberry. Watch, especially if you think you do not like ballet: this ain't ballet - it's dancing.
 From Gagdad's Erotic Tales of Metaphysical Ignorance - one of his best posts. It begins thus:
Obviously Man is intelligent. That's the problem. In fact, almost all his troubles are caused by his intelligence, through which he believes so many amazing things that can't be so. More often than not, the greater the intelligence, the more catastrophic the error, which is why it has been remarked that philosophy is "error on a grandiose scale."
after a bit, he gets to the heart of the art vs. porn issue, which he uses as an example of how things can be "despiritualized": In Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Joyce's alter ego, Stephen Dedalus, discusses the criteria for great art. He says it is the task of the true artist to record "epiphanies," that is, the sudden ingression of spirit into matter, when something leaps through its outer appearance and reveals its true nature in a way that illuminates the soul.
Didactic art is the opposite of this -- in fact, it is not art at all. That is, it lowjacks the medium of an art form and tries to cram some merely worldly message into it. In other words, instead of transmitting radiance from another dimension -- from the higher -- it forces in a message or "lesson" from the lower, from this side of manifestation. This is why nazi or communist or leftist art is so tedious. It is also why so much contemporary art is so awful. It's not really art, but what Joyce called pornography.
Pornography has nothing to do with sex per se; from the Greek, it means "writing of whores," which pretty much summarizes my point. It occurs whenever we completely despiritualize anything and divest it of its otherworldly radiance and spiritual telos. Therefore, there is much that is pornographic that is not sexual at all. By this definition, most contemporary music is indeed pornographic, as is most TV, certainly MSM news. Most literature is pornographic. Even religion can easily be pornographic. And certainly most politics.)
Image: Raphael's Adam and Eve in the Vatican
Thursday, January 31. 2008
Wednesday, January 30. 2008
We do like the NY Sun, but for the news a fellow really needs at 4:30 am before milking the cows and feeding the chickens, The Daily Mash is it. For example, they explain why the French rogue trader really did what he did, and where he hid his losses. And they have another helpful sociological piece on The 40-somethings are a bunch of whining sh-ts. Welcome, Daily Mash, to our blogroll. (h/t, Conspiracy)
Tuesday, January 29. 2008
Boris Berezovsky with 12 Transcendental Studies by Franz Liszt, Here are 1-3. The rest of them at Classical Virtuoso.
Saturday, January 26. 2008
The Jim Kweskin Jug Band with Maria (Midnight at the Oasis) Muldaur, from sometime in the 60s during the Folk Revival in some "basket house" in Greenwich Village. Sorry - the recording is incomplete but still gives a good feel for what it was like.
 All guys know that good good marriage requires a lady who is interested in being a good wife. As they say, "Happy wife, happy life."
Here's the (probably apocryphal - thanks, readers) old version of the Good Wife's Guide, plus "Good Wife's Guide, Revised."
 Photo is a rendition of SpaceShip 2, the tourist spaceship (underslung in center) now under construction, with the mothership which carries it to 50,000 feet.
From the Chinglish section of the Engrish website: 
Friday, January 25. 2008
A European pal just brough me a box of the Pleiades 44 ring size smokes today, on his way here from Paris. We looked 'em up, and see that JR has them, far cheaper than they can be bought in Euroland. A darn pleasant smoke. I am on my second one - just to make sure they're good - with a glass or three of ancient port.
Like Tangled Web, who found this one, we also would like to dedicate this 1980 Blondies tune, with Deborah Harry, to Lord Algore to celebrate the Great Warmening Crisis. Y'all are old enuf to remember this song, aren't ya? No? Hey, Debbie - get in line. Or should I say get in the queue? Everybody I know wants a good, well-trained, cigar-chompin' and house-broken bird dog to spend the night with to warm their feet at the end of the bed and to dutifully fetch stuff, when wanted. It's every gal's dream, ain't it? Or am I outdated? ...If I am, do not tell me: I will have you killed by the Maggie's posse.
Thursday, January 24. 2008
From Overcoming Bias: Suppose that a disease, or a monster, or a war, or something, is killing people. And suppose you only have enough resources to implement one of the following two options: - Save 400 lives, with certainty.
- Save 500 lives, with 90% probability; save no lives, 10% probability.
Make your decision first, then read about it.
Wednesday, January 23. 2008
Misha and the perfect, ethereal Gelsey Kirkland in the pas de deux in Balanchine's (New York City Ballet's) magical Nutcracker, with music by the amazingly soulful and romantic Tchaikovsky (A 1977 performance):
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