Heard about the Place + Memory Project this morning on NPR. Here’s a description from the Web site:
Using people’s memories and stories, we are recreating places that no longer exist. Places that were important to us. we are creating a series of stories for radio and an online map where you’ll be able to add your own memories through text, photos, sound, whatever.
here’s a poem entitled the lost generation by charles bukowski. i discovered it yesterday:
have been reading a book about a rich literary lady
of the twenties and her husband who
drank, ate and partied their way through
Europe
meeting Pound, Picasso, A. Huxley, Lawrence, Joyce,
F. Scott, Hemingway, many others;
the famous were like precious toys to
them,
and the way it reads
the famous allowed themselves to become
precious toys.
all through the book
I waited for just one of the famous
to tell this rich literary lady and her
rich literary husband to
get off and out
but, apparently, none of them ever
did.
Instead they were photographed with the lady
and her husband
at various seasides
looking intelligent
as if all of this was part of the act
of Art.
perhaps because the wife and husband
fronted a lush press that
had something to do
with it.
and they were all photographed together
at parties
or outside of Sylvia Beach’s bookshop.
it’s true that many of them were
great and/or original artists,
but it all seems such a snobby precioius
affair,
and the husband finally committed his
threatened suicide
and the lady published one of my first
short stories in the
40’s and is now
dead, yet
I can’t forgive either of them
for their rich dumb lives
and I can’t forgive their precious toys
either
for being
that.
I’ve been reading about Samaritans this morning. Fascinating history. Once a people group that was up to a million people in late Roman times, now the Samaritan population is around 700. I found the following paragraph about the dilemma of Samaritan continuity very interesting:
One of the biggest problems facing the community today is the issue of continuity. With such a small population, divided into only four families (Cohen, Tsedakah, Danfi and Marhib; a fifth family died out in the last century) and a general refusal to accept converts, there has been a history of genetic disease within the group due to the small gene pool. To counter this, the Samaritan community has recently agreed that men from the community may marry non-Samaritan (primarily, Israeli Jewish) women, provided that the women agree to follow Samaritan religious practices. There is a six month trial period prior to officially joining the Samaritan community to see whether this is a commitment that the woman would like to take. This often poses a problem for the women, who are typically less than eager to adopt the strict interpretation of Biblical (Levitical) laws regarding menstruation, by which they must live in a separate dwelling during their periods and after childbirth. Nevertheless, there have been a few instances of intermarriage. In addition, all marriages within the Samaritan community are first approved by a geneticist at Tel HaShomer Hospital, in order to prevent the spread of genetic disease.
You’ve probably already seen this by now, but I’ve enjoyed it so much that I would be remiss not to post it.
Did my post yesterday make anyone think that maybe perhaps possibly I was actually joining the men in yellow?
My favorite Twitter page of the moment is @tweetlibrary. Read all the classics in 140 characters or less.
One of the great triumphs of the Internet is that it theoretically gives an equal platform to anyone with the ten bucks necessary to register a domain name. Of course, things don’t work out to be quite so democratic in practice since advertising dollars enable your brand to be seen by millions more people than if you’re a site relying on nothing other than sheer pith or originality of thought. I have a feeling, though, that there are some genuine success stories out there–tales of people or organizations languishing in obscurity until the Web spun itself into existence.
Take the Spooners Forum. No, this isn’t a Web page devoted to cuddling or other things that two adults who love one another do. This is actually a page devoted to collecting spoons. According to the Web site, American Spoon Collectors is an organization of individuals (and friends) who:
Bill Boyd founded the group in 1974, and before the Internet was around he circulated a newsletter to like-minded spooners. These are some serious collectors, mind you; the word “passions” is used multiple times on the site.
And before you ask: yes, there is a site just for thimble collectors.
It’s been a while since a new song has excited me–I take that back, I fell in love with Audrey Hepburn’s version of La Vie en Rose while watching Sabrina for the first time last weekend–but anyway, tonight while listening to Garth Trinidad on KCRW, I had the pleasure of discovering Nitin Sawhney’s song “Bring it Home.” It features the vocals of Imogen Heap and reminds me a lot of Stereolab with its hypnotic beat performed on actual drums on top of non-programmed instruments.
Listen for yourself and tell me what you think.
The future is often portrayed in fiction and film as highly technical and science-obsessed. Why aren’t there more low-tech imaginings of the future? Why doesn’t anyone address the possibility that in the year 2053 a great shortage of maple syrup will occcur around the globe? And perhaps this scarcity of maple syrup sparks a worldwide clamor for the liquidamber (what people will call it then), which in turn causes the leaders of the world to unite as one Supergovernment multinational corporation. This Supergovernment’s multinational corporation’s sole purpose will be to secure humanity’s access to maple syrup. All other technology will be abandoned in the pursuit of this goal. Existing infrastructure used for the Internet will be converted into a system for distributing maple syrup to every household. Where once a family’s computer sat, there will now be a spigot. All people will praise the efficiency of the Syrupnet.