moon phases

Started this before change to "New Blogger", as backup in case of trouble with digiphoto blog "In a Small Dark Room", or rants & links blog "Hello Cruel World" . Useful - at one stage Dark Room was there, but like the astrophysical Dark Matter, we could't see it ... better now, but kept Just In Case.

---

---

There is nothing. There is no God and no universe, there is only empty space, and in it a lost and homeless and wandering and companionless and indestructible Thought. And I am that thought. And God, and the Universe, and Time, and Life, and Death, and Joy and Sorrow and Pain only a grotesque and brutal dream, evolved from the frantic imagination of that same Thought.
Mark Twain (letter to Joseph Twichell after his wife's death)
[me, on a bad day]

---

WRITER'S LINKS
Absolute Write Paypal donation button:

Absolute Write is one of the leading sites for information on writing and publishing, especially the scam versions thereof. It has a broad, deep online community with an enormous message base going back years. Now it needs help. See the details and discussion here
Preditors and Editors
Everything you wanted to know about literary agents
On the getting of agents
Writer Beware
Miss Snark
Writer's Net

---

(and my Wish List)

---

 
Very Useful story - soon for sidebar  
Counterpunch 27 August, 2007
Manuel Garcia, Jr
"You Are Now Entering a Black Hole. 911 Emergency!"

More ... [permalink] posted by Mez at 11:35 am

 
Old Rush  
I've been remembering the classic old Aussie ABC TV Series Rush (imdb) set in the Victorian Goldfields during our gold rush, with the very catchy George Dreyfus theme music (MP3 excerpt) quoting folk tunes, and the incredibly swoonable-at brooding, mysterious Sgt McKellar (next step after Captain Scarlet, see below). You can actually now get DVDs not of the original series – curses — but of a more recent revoiced parody called The Olden Days, by the comedy group D-Generation, part of their The Late Show.

A friend entertained me while I was sick last year by (among other things) showing me episodes from his DVD box set of the UFO series. Not too bad at all. We only saw some of the Gerry Anderson series in Oz. My fave was Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons (poster) with its unseen villains — how can you have a schoolgirl crush on a puppet? People are strange.

The gullwing door cars, like the series, distinctly pre-date the 1980s Delorean, e.g. the Mercedes Benz 300L (some here) is from the 1950s.

Labels: cars, memories, music, tv

More ... [permalink] posted by Mez at 6:29 pm

 
Not Donne with Inquisitors yet  

From slacktivist: Inquisitors: Aug 16, 2007
slacktivist.typepad.com/ slacktivist/ 2007 /08/ inquisitors.html

.. let me direct your attention to a post from Harper's Scott Horton: 'John Donne and the Outlawing of Torture.' (harpers.org/ archive/ 2007/ 08/ hbc-90000907)

Donne's sermon "Against the Abomination of Torture" for Easter Sunday, 17 April 1625 at St Pauls, online: (www.lib.byu.edu/ dlib/ donne [PDF] or see Harpers copy)

Only three years after this sermon, following the assassination of the Duke of Buckingham, the lawyers and judges of England assembled in the Inns of Court in London to consider a special question put to them by the king. Was the practice of torture to be permitted by the common law?

And the judges met, deliberated and declared “upon their sacred honour, and the honour of England” that the answer was “no.” That marked the end of legalized torture in the English-speaking world &hellip

Related Links
www.csmonitor.com/ 2007/ 0814/ p11s01-usju.html (Warren Richey) August 14, 2007 "US Gov't broke Padilla through intense isolation, say experts"
www.atlanticfreepress.com/ content/ view/ 2188/ 1/ (Chris Floyd) 15 August 2007 "Monsters Among Us: Living in a Torture State"
www.newyorker.com/ reporting/ 2007/ 08/ 13/ 070813fa_fact_mayer (Jane Mayer) August 13, 2007 "The Black Sites"

Labels: history, politics

More ... [permalink] posted by Mez at 1:44 pm

 
Relationships  
Reminds me of a song by Judy Small I still remember quite well.
[Links to lyrics: unionsong.com/ u295.html and
deafpagan.com/ 2007/ 05/ 27/ a-womans-song-for-memorial-day]

The chorus is

The first time it was fathers the last time it was sons
And in between your husbands marched away with drums and guns
And you never thought to question you just went on with your lives
'Cause all they'd taught you who to be was mothers, daughters, wives

[ sample (RealMedia) or Amazon and full-tune midi ]
I think it's originally from 'Ladies & Gems', aka 'Mothers, Daughters, Wives'.

Links:

www.folktrax.com/ sound/ cmr005_4.ram
www.amazon.com/ Best-Judy-Small-Word-Mouth/ dp/ B0000023YC
www.singout.org/ midis/ 444/ mothe.mid

My mother would have been about the age of the generation she's singing about.

But speaking of pain, I saw the Sydney production of the opera Dead Man Walking this week. It was pretty good. At the moment I prefer it to A Streetcar Named Desire, seen a month ago. They used the same bloke (Teddy Tahu Rhodes) to play the main male protagonist, he can successfully pull off the scene where Joe is doing & counting push-ups bare-chested, then sings quite a bit. (There's also an odd little cameo by Alan Jones (check his cast listing to see why it's odd).) Anyway, the show might 'make one to think' as well as feel.

Labels: music

More ... [permalink] posted by Mez at 11:01 pm