Fictive whiff of fresh air. And grapes.

Somehow, even though it deals with many of the same issues, reading Coetzee's Diary of a Bad Year seems like a whiff of fresh air after reading the very well written The Value of Nothing, by Raj Patel, and A Foreigner Carrying in the Crook of His Arm a Tiny Bomb, by Amitava Kumar.  At heart, I'm still just a fiction boy after all these years.  (Also read the two non-fiction books on various e-readers, and am reading the Coetzee in glorious paper.  See the McSweeney's article Juju pointed us to yesterday: After a Thorough Battery of Tests We Can Now Recommend "The Newspaper" As the Best e-Reader On the Market.)  And, yes, I put Diary in the same red paper cover I had used for Island at The Center of the World.  Thanks for asking.

About the grapes: yesterday morning at 5 AM I was out back and smooshed some while I was walking around and realized that I was surrounded with the smell of ripe grapes.  Woof.

Watch thy neighbor watch

Nice NYTimes interactive graphics piece showing neighborhoods in large US cities, broken out by zip codes, and the Netflix rentals in each.  Full disclosure: no, we're not a Netflix family (but Netflix does rent movies that one of us makes.  Shouldn't you be renting more documentary films from Netflix?!).

Rudy G forgot why he wanted to postpone his leaving office and what made him America's Mayor in his own mind. I guess.

Macinwi point to this:  Rudy Giuliani: 'We Had No Domestic Attacks Under Bush; We've Had One Under Obama'.

ju ju has big crush on Rachel Maddow...

and have become big fan of her & her MSNBC show like J. Carroll.

and here, jessferdahalibut, a couple of chunks of chewy linky goodness. Yourstruly and piano-bangin' pal enjoyed lovely luncheon on Sunday of grilled sea bass, some asparagus, and delicious sliced heirloom tomatoes. Here a NYT link to remind you to go out and find some yummy ones while the getting is good. While we are mentioning yummyyummy stuff, another foodie related link, this from the local fishwrap, on the topic of sweet corn and a variety of recipes to attempt, again taking advantage of summertime bounty.

28 flights down, thank you

Me and thousands of my best friends evacuated our buildings this lovely Monday morning. Golly, it's good to be away from that boring old Portland, ME, and back here Gotahm!

on the cusp of spring's arrival...

meself am feeling a bit of melancholy these days, and there be any number of reasons for that, tho we won't be getting into much detail hereabouts, altho might liven things up elsewhere with those stories...

we all aware of the headlines regarding those same producers of headlines, the demise of daily newspapers across the country, the effect that the very technologies we utilizing to share these thoughts with ye and for ye to indulge in lengthy perambulations throughout the ether be, well, in some fundamental way, the things that contributed mightily to the scenario, & yourstruly sad to read about it, to realize it. Amigo-at-a-distance Gordon Coale relates a bit of his own history with Pacific Northwest newspapers & within that post a link to Clay Shirkey's piece on topic. Esteemed amigo Lee S. delivers something of an epitaph for the local fishwrap, where we once labored together on the killing floor of the classified ad sales department and where he labors yet, dealing with the stories of dead folk daily. Speaking about that local fishwrap, longtime columnist there Jon C. makes some mention of related events in yesterday's column.

so, is kind of unsettling, no?

Yes, 100 seconds is long enough for me

I don't watch a heck of a lot of TV, so the TPM TV the day in 100 seconds pieces are just dandy for me. For everything else news related I'll read or listen to radio or get the, very very detailed and somewhat editorialized blow by blow from Lori.

My friend Bill Ayers

Thomas Frank piece in the Wall Street Journal, My Friend Bill Ayers.  

Frank was a main character in Lori's film, This Land Is Your Land - clips here.

Creative Commons / Jesse Dylan

3 minute film about Creative Commons by Jesse (Yes We Can) Dylan:

we blame it on SBCDS...

sudden brain cell death syndrome...

forgot to mention this in previous post (and we already included one hot news flash therein) for fans of the Guardian, there is now the Guardian America awaiting thy perusal...

Hack the debate

3D.  Party at Galapagos.  Current dot com.  Twitter stuff.  I be old.  Watch the video,  etc., and it becomes clear.

yea, verily...

and has been true for some while now.
Smart vs Dumb.
Will We Choose Wisely?

me am grateful to P.B over at the clusterflockers hangout for providing that chunk o' linky goodness

some good stuff to share

stalwart old-school weblogger Kevin Murphy has been covering the DNC and (currently) RNC over at his Ghost in the Machine. We salute thee, K.M., and have long appreciated the good stuff you share with us there at GITM. Muchas Gracias and keep up the great stuff...

Shameless namedropping and promoting of friends 080825

Having dinner out tonight with friends, including Ted Haimes and Stephen Westphall. Wicked funny fellows. I remember Westphall as the single most - what, entertaining? charming? appreciative? - dinner guest we've ever had at home, maybe 7 or 8 or 9 years ago now. Salt baked shrimp, as I recall, was one of the dishes. 2006 Brooklyn Rail interview of SW by John Yau.

do you HBO?

me not able to, but iffen me could, likely be watching this tonite. Check out the NPR spot on this story here.

juju trusts jonny...

but juju's been kind of a fan of J.S. for some while (see the olde posts @ d'monkey circa december '03 -- specifically the 12.23 post -- and february '02). Anyways, the NYT posits the question Is Jon Stewart the Most Trusted Man in America (quite the coincidence: writing this post whilst watching Inside Washington and hearing Nina Totenberg make pointed J. Stewart reference...).