7/8/2023 0 Comments Dead Cities by Mike Davis![]() ![]() “Lower Manhattan was soon a furnace of crimson flames,” writes Wells it is a conceit that brings equal pleasure to Wells, who despised New York and, apparently, to Davis, who characterizes the Wells’ story: “In a single day, haughty Manhattanites are demoted to slaughtered natives.” Wells in his 1908 book, “War in the Air,” in which the city is destroyed in a surprise attack from Kaiser Wilhelm’s zeppelins. What’s new in this collection is the opening essay on 9/11 titled “The Flames of New York.” The essay’s title is borrowed from an image conjured by science fiction writer H.G. ![]() “Dead Cities” is a collection of previously published articles from the last decade. ![]() ![]() For Davis, who first won attention with two books on Los Angeles, “City of Quartz” and “Ecology of Fear,” America’s cities are a toxic expression of imperial hubris and greed, and 9/11 was punishment for New York’s sins against socialism, squeegee men and dark-skinned Muslims, just as fires and earthquakes are L.A.’s punishment for its sins against nature. 11, and that’s a very good thing if you believe Mike Davis. New York and urban America may never recover from Sept. ![]()
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7/8/2023 0 Comments Wonder julian chapter![]() ![]() Tushman's decision not to expel Jack because they have known Jack since forever and they know he's a good kid and that his actions won't be repeated. Tushman, and cc'ing Jack's parents, we read that Julian's parents support Mr. In a letter from Julian's mother to Mr.Tushman responds that even though Jack's violence was unjustifiable, there are almost always more than two sides to every story, and that good friends are worth defending. ![]() Tushman, Jack pleads the Fifth because offering details doesn't make what he did right and he doesn't want to get Julian in trouble. Jack writes his letters of apology to Mr.All the aforementioned forms of communication are flying over the winter break. ![]() 7/8/2023 0 Comments Ann druyan![]() The odds that any space alien will ever find the records are extremely low neither probe is projected to come within a trillion kilometers of another star system within the next few million years. Sagan came up with the idea of including audio disks that would be attached to both probes, carrying messages from Earth off to the stars. They had much greater success on their next collaboration: the Golden Records aboard NASA's space probes Voyager 1 and Voyager 2.īoth Voyagers are currently headed out of the solar system, flying into interstellar space. The two formed an instant bond, and soon collaborated on a science TV show for kids - a project that never reached fruition, unfortunately. Druyan and Sagan met at a dinner party way back in 1974, just a year after Sagan had become a true public figure with his first book, The Cosmic Connection. Often identified (sometimes with a touch of dismissiveness) as "Carl Sagan's widow," Druyan is much more than that. At a moment when we are all consumed with news of a global pandemic, Cosmos ' grand perspective on life and understanding seems more relevant than ever. ![]() But to get deeper inside the show, I also spoke with Ann Druyan, who co-wrote the original series from 1980 and who was the main creative force behind the two newer iterations. ![]() In my previous post, I shared my interview with Neil deGrasse Tyson about the new season of the legendary Cosmos television series. ![]() ![]() ![]() Neither breakfast, lunch, nor dinner will ever be the same again. ,p>Working out is a version of what Max Weber called the Protestant work ethic - a kind of spiritual exercise, it also leads to worldly vanity.With dry wit and marvelous invention, Smith draws on philosophy, literature, art, politics, and psychology to wake us up to a stunning range of ideas about how to live. ![]() Or take going to the gym: As you toil on the treadmill, is your panting a sign of virtue or of vice, of healthy exertion or of unhealthy narcissism? From waking up in the morning through traveling to work, shopping, eating, going to a party, falling asleep, and dreaming, Smith connects our most mundane habits to the wider world of ideas.Start with waking up: What does it really mean to be awake? How do we know we're not still dreaming? Descartes argues that if you're able to doubt whether you're awake, you are at least thinking, and so you probably exist - no small achievement for first thing in the morning. Smith is a faculty member at The School of Life, where he runs a breakfast Club, teaches courses on Love and Family and practices constellations. ![]() His books include Derrida and Autobiography, Breakfast with Socrates: The Philosophy of Everyday. Have breakfast with Socrates, go to work with Nietzsche, head to the gym with Foucault, then have sex with Ovid (or Simone de Beauvoir).įormer Oxford Philosophy Fellow Robert Rowland Smith whisks you through an ordinary day with history's most extraordinary thinkers, explaining what they might have to say about your routine. Robert Rowland Smith is a British author and philosopher. ![]() 7/8/2023 0 Comments Huey long williams![]() schools, roads, bridges, hospitals, health care. Ithink it is relatively unknown to many how severe poverty was in the early 1920s in Louisiana and the lack of basic services that were available to all of its citizens, e.g. Castro's full story - Glenda April Castro, Metairie, LA In 1982, after cancer stole Poppa from our family, he was presented at the Joseph Laughlin Funeral Home on Magazine Street in New Orleans - fastened to his jacket was his 'Every Man a King' lapel pin.” The one artifact that I regret we no longer have in our possession is buried with my grandfather. My grandfather saved all of Huey Long's published speeches, which I found in my grandmother's hope chest. Two of those attending were my grandmother and my great-grandmother. The story I remember the most was hearing of Governor Long's death and the thousands of people who attended the services from all over Louisiana. Governor Long was going to see that families of all socio-economical backgrounds were going to have the equal opportunities. Mostly, I remember the stories of Huey Long. ![]() There were politicians he absolutely could not stand locally and federally. My grandfather's voice still resonates in my mind as I hear him and see him lecturing me on what this world is coming to. ![]() 7/7/2023 0 Comments Why buddhism is real![]() ![]() Tibetan Buddhism has a “resonance and a sense of mystery,” says Gere, through which you can find “beingness” (whatever that means). Listening to Richard Gere, the first incarnation of the Hollywood Lama, you could be forgiven for thinking that Tibetan Buddhism involves sitting in the lotus position for 20 hours a day and thinking Bambi-style thoughts. The most striking thing is how different real Tibetan Buddhism is from the re-branded, part-time version imported over here by the Dalai Lama’s army of celebrities. I know I’m not supposed to say this, but Tibetan Buddhism really freaked me out. I couldn’t wait to leave the temples and monasteries I visited during my recent sojourn to Shangri-La, with their garish statues of dancing demons, fat golden Buddhas surrounded by wads of cash, walls and ceilings painted in super-lavish colours, and such a stench of incense that it’s like being in a hippy student’s dorm room. ![]() Many Westerners before me have visited Tibet, popped into some monastery on a mountainside, and decided to stay there forever, won over by the brutally frugal existence eked out by Tibetan Buddhists. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Harris wrote several books in the series before the mid-1990s, when she began branching out into other works. Her most recent mysteries have been in the urban fantasy genre.Īfter publishing two stand-alone mysteries, Harris began the lighthearted Aurora Teagarden books with Real Murders, nominated as a Best Novel 1990 for the Agatha Awards. She began writing plays while attending Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee. ![]() In her early work she wrote poems about ghosts and teenage angst. Harris was born and grew up in Tunica, Mississippi, in the Mississippi Delta. She began writing from an early age, and changed from playwriting in college to writing and publishing mysteries, including several long series featuring recurring characters. She now lives in Texas with her husband they have three grown children and grandchildren. Harris was born and raised in a small town in the Mississippi River Delta area of the United States. A number of her books have been bestsellers and this series was translated into multiple languages and published across the globe. The television show was a critical and financial success for HBO, running seven seasons, from 2008 through 2014. She is best known for her book series The Southern Vampire Mysteries, which was adapted as the TV series True Blood. Charlaine Harris Schulz (born November 25, 1951) is an American author who specializes in mysteries. ![]() ![]() ![]() The paper cover has the minor edge wear, and light chipping, scuffing, and small dents and creases typical of vintage pulp paperbacks, as well as some page tanning and foxing on the inside surfaces. There is a “35” in ball-point pen over the “a” logo in the upper left corner of the front cover. This paperback is sometimes erroneously dated to 1941.Ĭondition: Very good. ACE Star Book (K-156) first paperback edition 1962 by arrangement with Mrs. © 1919 by Boni & Liveright, © 1941 by Holt, Rinehart, & Winston, Inc. Publishing info: Ace Books, Inc., New York. Size: 4-1/8 by 7 inches by 3/4 inch thick. Iconoclast Fort was the namesake of the words fortean and forteana his books are essential basic reading for would-be forteans. For sale here is a vintage 1962 paperback version of The BOOK of the DAMNED, first published in 1919, by early American researcher of odd and puzzling earthly phenomena, Charles Hoy Fort (1874-1932). ![]() 7/7/2023 0 Comments Berendt john![]() It is a spellbinding story peopled by a gallery of remarkable characters: the well-bred society ladies of the Married Woman's Card Club the turbulent young redneck gigolo the hapless recluse who owns a bottle of poison so powerful it could kill every man, woman, and child in Savannah the aging and profane Southern belle who is the "soul of pampered self-absorption" the uproariously funny black drag queen the acerbic and arrogant antiques dealer the sweet-talking, piano-playing con artist young blacks dancing the minuet at the black debutante ball and Minerva, the voodoo priestess who works her magic in the graveyard at midnight. Berendt skillfully interweaves a hugely entertaining first-person account of life in this isolated remnant of the Old South with the unpredictable twists and turns of a landmark murder case. John Berendt's sharply observed, suspenseful, and witty narrative reads like a thoroughly engrossing novel, and yet it is a work of nonfiction. Was it murder or self-defense? For nearly a decade, the shooting and its aftermath reverberated throughout this hauntingly beautiful city of moss-hung oaks and shaded squares. ![]() ![]() Shots rang out in Savannah's grandest mansion in the misty,early morning hours of May 2, 1981. ![]() 7/7/2023 0 Comments The winnipeg and me![]() “It’s a possibility, just like it was a possibility in the first game. We’re just going to take day by day and see how it feels,” he said after some light shooting on Wednesday morning. “Obviously, it’s earlier than what we thought, considering what I had. Embiid said “it’s a possibility” he would play on Wednesday night. Injuries continue to keep Embiid off the court to this day: He missed Game 1 of Philadelphia’s second-round series against Boston and is officially listed as doubtful with a sprained knee for Game 2. Philadelphia 76ers center Joel Embiid, left, walks on the court during the beginning of the second half of Game 1 against the Boston Celtics in the NBA basketball Eastern Conference semifinals playoff series, Monday, May 1, 2023, in Boston. But he missed two full seasons with foot injuries, leaving Philadelphia fans to wait while general manager Sam Hinkie insisted that they “Trust the Process.” And to be sitting here is just amazing.”Ī native of Cameroon who didn’t pick up the sport until he was 15, Embiid was the 76ers’ reward for tanking their way to the No. ![]() “I do care in the way that it validates everything, all the work that you’ve put in. “I know I’ve always said I don’t care, but it was just for you guys to leave me alone,” the 76ers center said Wednesday, a day after he was voted to his first MVP after two runner-up finishes. ![]() ![]() Free Press 101: How we practice journalismīOSTON (AP) - Joel Embiid finally said it: Winning the NBA’s Most Valuable Player award has been a dream ever since he belatedly started playing basketball. ![]() |