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Thursday, June 30, 2005

june end

Now that there is a pleasing symmetry to the archives, it is tempting to leave this game...

(but then, July is another day)

In the meantime - a couple of heartening posts on the positives by two favourites:

Patteran Pages What's a Blog For
Fragments from Floyd The Primordial Ooze of the Blogosphere


Comments: june end

What's a blog for ?

For someone who has no real people to talk to !
Posted by at June 30, 2005 04:13 PM

I have plenty of confidantes, thanks.
(None of the anonymous ilk in real life.)
Posted by boynton at June 30, 2005 05:11 PM

Never trust a blogger!

lf you can't see their eyes and face then......
Posted by at June 30, 2005 06:09 PM

au contraire.

Meeting bloggers has been one of the unexpected rewards of this activity.
No shocking revelations at all.

(Although now in the Gravatar-Age, I might be disappointed when bloggers don't look like their picture.)
Posted by boynton at June 30, 2005 06:16 PM

If you leave now it will be linked irrevocably in a subliminal, unreachably inarguable way with my abominable procrastinatory malfeasance, and what a burden that would be in addition to the rest of it.
Not yet. You can't.
Posted by Ajax etc, at June 30, 2005 06:47 PM

Ok

I've just got to get over my regard archive...

Look forward to subliminal obliquenessance

Sorry to vacillate in public...(most undignified) though I'm sure such ambivalence is an ongoing thing with many bloggers.

There is a time for read-only blogging though?
Posted by boynton at June 30, 2005 07:16 PM

Sorry - anon, re-reading your first comment I may have misunderstood.
Thought you were having a go at us bloggers.
(Those I have met in RL all seem to have their fair share of RL companions)
Posted by boynton at June 30, 2005 07:58 PM

thankyou
Posted by at June 30, 2005 08:18 PM

what is RL?
Posted by at June 30, 2005 08:19 PM

Real life.

Whatever that is ;)
Posted by boynton at June 30, 2005 08:37 PM

You are here for our entertainment. WE will tell you when you can leave. Until then, blog.
Posted by Gerry at July 1, 2005 12:22 AM

And I was starting to think that meeting bloggers in RL was the best part of it all. But Dick Jones has a persuasive and lyrical and very familiar case to make - thanks for linking. Floyd is just terrifying. 30K new a day?!
Posted by Kent at July 1, 2005 04:27 AM

(Although now in the Gravatar-Age, I might be disappointed when bloggers don't look like their picture.)

Especially the ones who you thought were dragons, goblins, mikhail gorbachev (gorby to his mates), and the Freedom Tower. Though meeting them in a smoky boozer may be problematic if you don't like people staring at you.
Posted by Russell Allen at July 1, 2005 05:25 PM

Blogging is like the mafia. Just when you think you're out, they pull you right back in again.

Anyway, it's not over till we have the spring 2005 Blogger Round-Robin Tennis Championships. Only wood or metal rackets (no carbon-fibre), no upmarket brand name sportswear, and a drinking game driven by aces and doublefaults. "Lets" count as a Chapmans.
Posted by Nabakov at July 1, 2005 05:26 PM

Cheers, Gerry.

Yes, Kent, I think Dick Jones' post will be a good one to read in times of general ennui.
The fear factor of Fred's stats is modified by the attrition rate, fortunately. Makes sense.
Hope to see an eventual return of DOTB - or its successor?

They sound scary Russell, but haven't seen them around myself. The standard fare seems pretty horticultural and zoological.
It would be a bestiary of bloggers at the next pub crawl - (what a racket)

- or Tennis Match, Nabakov.
Damn - just when I threw away my Ken Rosewall wooden Racquet. Which was warped to boot.
I'll endorse the No-Brand Rules, and the drinking game - especially the Double and Foot Fault clauses.
(In the meantime a mini-bloggers fest could always be convened around a Table-tennis table.)


Posted by boynton at July 1, 2005 07:50 PM

Looks like your staying boyn? Good. I'm off to P.Pages. Timely. You are (BTW)a model of dignity.
Posted by Link at July 2, 2005 08:37 AM

cheers.

June loomed as a destination for a while - mainly for reaons of neatness.
As good a reason as any, probably.

(finally updated your url, Link)
Posted by boynton at July 2, 2005 06:50 PM

Boynton, please don't go!
Posted by Nick Piombino at July 3, 2005 07:00 AM

Thanks, Nick.
All seems rather self-indulgent now - to think out loud and express the fairly constant sense of ambivalence about blogging that has been with me since early days.
Main concern is the need for Reading time (not just the backlog of other blogs, but --- those things, what are they called again...)
Link bloggers (who never disclose anything directly) are a tonic to read.
A hiatus would precede an official departure I think.
Posted by boynton at July 3, 2005 01:58 PM

Recently, as you might remember,
I took quite a bit of time out from
steady blogging to read. But Boynton
ending officially- that's a blow to Blogland!
Perhaps you've gotten what you needed
to get out of it artistically or creatively,
and feel you have
to move on: I can only guess.

If you decide to keep the archives
available- you
may see a similar fate with Boynton
as with t.v. shows
like The Young Ones.
People more than ever need
to find a way to laugh and smile-
intelligently. Whenever Boynton's
run does end, if it is kept extant,
I predict the "reruns"
would continue to earn it a
continuous, appreciative following.
Posted by Nick Piombino at July 3, 2005 03:05 PM

Classy blogging rarely has a name you know,
but Boynton it is.
Congratulations on TWO YEARS.
Posted by Brownie at July 4, 2005 12:07 AM

Nick - that's much appreciated.
"artistically or creatively" - possibly.
Hardest thing about blogging may well be (as Dick refers to in his post) striking the balance between voices. The generic template invites an expectation of forum, of the temporal and ephemeral, of public and private bookmark. Let alone running narrative or original jot. I see why people have multiple blogs, but a niche blog getting more niched might not be a good idea for my stats and my fragile stats-ego.
However/bottom line: there are still plenty of blogs that inspire me, daily.

Thanks, Brownie.
Though there is always that thing, like the mysterious tea-cup, is it something to be proud of? ;)
Blogging is always nervous about its status when it gets serious...
Posted by boynton at July 4, 2005 12:34 PM

Please keep on blogging. I noticed we started our blogs around the same time. Two years is quite a cycle, and it does make you think about blogging and its pertinence.

Thank you for a lovely and always interesting blog.
Posted by ernesto Priego at July 4, 2005 03:33 PM

thank you, ernesto.

Anniversaries should lose their bite.
2 years could lose its itch.
It's only in the mind of the blogger, after all ;)

Posted by boynton at July 4, 2005 10:14 PM

Monday, June 27, 2005

by gummo

The following is a special guest meta post by Gummo Trotsky
(which does make one pine for the 'potemkin.)





The Top Ten Things I’m Not Missing

I’m in the outer Eastern suburbs of Melbourne, at the fringe where suburbia dissolves into the sticks, dog-sitting. It’s very quiet, Carruthers, too damn quiet. Will this accursed silence never cease? The natives are restful tonight; I’m not. Damn this silence; I want traffic noise! Will they never start driving so I can get some sleep?

That state of mind is what got me back onto the web in the wee smalls of this morning, lurking a few of the blogs that I used to be so scrupulous about visiting daily and finally dipping my toe in the water by posting comments at a couple of sites. Then it occurred to me that this was a little like dipping your toe in the waters of the mythical Amazon where the legendary piranha fish hang out, or half-consciously relaxing your urethra in the real Amazon.

A few weeks ago, Your site host Ms Boynton suggested I might like to do a guest post on the things I don’t miss about blogging; I gave her a sincere non-promise to do so. Today, I’ve decided to get my bum into the typing chair and deliver, if only to remind myself of a few of the reasons why I’m not (really) doing this blogging thing any more.

1. Waking up to AM every morning, so I can pick up something topical to write about.

2. Resisting the temptation to slip in the “I shoved John Hewson under the tram and he still wouldn’t bloody shut up and then I woke up and he was on the radio” anecdote.

3. The sneaking suspicion that I must have slipped it in to a post, but I’m not sure which one.

4. Searching the damn blog archive for “John Hewson” just to make sure I haven’t ever used it.

5. Getting a hot topic from AM which you know you can turn into a real linkage puller with a brilliant punch-line and then forgetting the punch-line.

6. Writing a brilliant linkage puller, posting it, then checking round the blogs later that day to discover that everybody’s decided to write about Britney Spears instead.

7. Cat blogging. Except for the stuff I’ve done myself which is witty, insightful and in no ways sentimentally self-indulgent.

8. Setting out to do a top ten post and getting stuck at nine.

9. Finding Evil Pundit’s name all over every comment thread of every damn blog you go to like a graffiti tag and the inevitable arguments over whether it’s art or vandalism or good art but very shoddy vandalism.

10. Having to choose between the very obvious stop at nine gag, the equally obvious going up to 11 gag, changing it to a top 40 and putting aside all the other good material for a later post with the working title The Top Ten More Things I’m Not Missing.

- posted by Gummo Trotsky


Comments: by gummo

gummo - good to see you're back (not "your back"). I did notice you snuck in a late comment on the music questions on my pages. I thought of you the other day for the music thingo while I was cooking up a Corned Beef. On special at Bi-Lo, only $7.50 a kilo. Bloody bargain.

Welcome to Melbourne's Leafies. I can't help but agree on the cat blogging. I have found that in my few attempts at cat blogging I too find myself thinking that .."Except for the stuff I’ve done myself which is witty, insightful and in no ways sentimentally self-indulgent"

Thank you too for a new word "linkage puller". You never know, it could enter the lexicon as a name for a few bloggers I know. Merchant Banker. Linkage Puller.
Posted by Francis Xavier Holden at June 27, 2005 11:28 AM

Aaaah, cherchez le Gummo! Seek and ye shall find. (Comes over all gratefully nostalgic-like, thank you Boynton thAnk you ball boys, thank you linesm ... well, it is the season of the Wombles of the late night Channel IX common.)

John Hewson, the Lib's Alician (perchance Elysian) cheshire cat. I did but see it passing by ... I think ... in a fading sort of way ... and yet I love it till I die.

(Mind you I've always lacked the requisite vote-winning 'incentivation' so what would I know? F'tang, f'tang, oompa-loompa short and stout ... Guinness ... 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration.)

Posted by Flange Desire at June 27, 2005 07:21 PM

Came here to state for Comrade Trotsky, how sorry I was for him needing traffic noise in order to sleep . .and needing AM (whatever that is) to inspire a blogpost . .then got totally distracted by FX's 'linkage puller' as in 'get your hand off it' and further distracted by Ms Flange Desire whose Comment was really impressing me as in 'who is this, obviously too clever to be reading blogs, should be running the damn country sorta thing' but Flange honey, you rooned it by explaining (the brilliant) Alician -never 'explain'- let 'em go without, and Comrade T, suburbia 'dissolves into the sticks' like lava flow thanks, and....what was my punch line? *tunes radio*
Posted by Crystal at June 28, 2005 09:14 PM

I'd be lost without a canine number seven myself, but even as a sentimental soul, I'm starting to think my own dog blogging has lost its bite.
Posted by boynton at June 29, 2005 12:24 PM

Here! Here!
Posted by at June 29, 2005 04:06 PM

1. Great to see you out and about in the blogosphere again Gummo, you old so-and-so Ent you.
2. Which reminds of something I completely forgot.
3. Which is that the last stuff you sent me I should do some stuff with.
4. And that I should also my extract my digit and send you some of my stuff so you can do stuff with it too.
5. Your email adress remains unchanged? If not, let me know at my unchanged email address.
6. Great to see you out and about again - as per point one.
7. See 6.
8."Steamboy" is OK, but not as good as "Spirited Away" or "Princess Monoke".
9. See 7.
10. There is no point ten.
Posted by at June 30, 2005 02:50 AM

11. Remember to put name to comment.
Posted by Nabakov at June 30, 2005 02:51 AM

Cheers Gummo. Hope you get some sleep.
Posted by cs at June 30, 2005 11:38 AM

Good night ... But, where is evil when you need him ;-?
Posted by Jozef Imrich at July 2, 2005 07:50 PM

This just in:
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=carruthers%20too%20quiet&btnG=Search&meta=
Posted by boynton at July 5, 2005 11:10 AM

Saturday, June 25, 2005

tennis

Tennis game via the presurfer

Tennis match



Comments: tennis

Hah! Call that a tennis game? Where's the chip and charge option?

Hah! Call that a tennis court? Where's the ashtray and eskie?
Posted by Nabakov at June 30, 2005 03:00 AM

and not a PERDRIAU in sight.

http://dspace.anu.edu.au/handle/1885/85
Posted by boynton at June 30, 2005 10:54 AM

btw:

was going to post this Tennis party:
http://143.216.21.253/mpcimg/21750/B21746.htm

which reminded me of something...
This image (from a year ago):
http://www.alternity.co.uk/a-g20.html

Spooky - hah!
Posted by boynton at June 30, 2005 11:06 AM

Friday, June 24, 2005

listening

PopArchives has a blog
Music and sidetracks of the 50s, 60s and 70s, more or less related, or not, to my Australian song history site PopArchives.com.au.

Through a post on The Bearded Beatle I followed the link to Bluehaze Solutions' Multimedia Vault - a treasure trove of audio and nostalgia.

I've listened to Commercials and other bits....
a brief selection of 1970's Australian sound (radio) commercials from the tape archives here

which includes the classic Amoco ad on Part 1 (6:27)


More Beatles at Flobberlob
(with some Peter Sellers and ( previoulsy) a Gloucester Cheese sample)

see also Beatles accordionists


Comments: listening...

Can't get enough of those Beatles. Love, love me do...
Posted by Patry at June 24, 2005 12:41 PM

8 days a week
Posted by boynton at June 24, 2005 03:01 PM

Not to mention pub trivia nights!
Posted by Scott Wickstein at June 24, 2005 06:51 PM

What album's that one off, Wicky?
Posted by Tony.T at June 25, 2005 05:10 PM

It's been a hard day's night.
But I'm still working on that ...uhm
Posted by Ajax etc. at June 25, 2005 05:10 PM

Beats me, Tone... I'm still trying to figure out who are the Beetles?
Posted by Scott Wickstein at June 29, 2005 05:01 AM

Thursday, June 23, 2005

music meme

I was tagged by mallrat - who wrote an inspiring post on music and memory, showing there's life in the old meme yet.

Total volume of music on your computer:
Now there's an idea...

The last album you purchased was:
Yesterday for fifty cents. I bought it for the cover.


Andre Kostelanetz Strauss Waltzes

I grew up with it, and oft gazed at those purple flowers now understood to be irises.
Having just written about Hair in the dreaded childhood relativism genre (merit is proportional to the level of associated meaning, so there) I didn't hesitate to acquire a copy of old beloved picture, hard copy of abtsract memory.

I remember reading an article by Alex Ross (via Hot Buttered Death*) which suggested the evocative power of record covers in childhood:The look and feel of the records were inseparable from the sound they made.
( and The Rest is Noise blog was another music find yesterday)

Meanwhile, googling Kosty:
Kostelanetz albums are standard thrift store fare these days, so if you're longing for a taste of what life in modern offices and retail stores was like before the onslaught of "Easy Oldies" or "adult contemporary music" or "smooth jazz," pop down to your local Goodwill and pick up a two-sider of Kosty--anyone will do. You may lose consciousness before the first side is over, but for just a moment, things will seem more placid and hopeful. So you're not making a million on E*Trade. So you're not endowed with a wireless integrated messaging appliance yet. These, too, shall pass.... Space age pop



Song playing right now:
One of the greatest sounds of them all-and to me it is a sound-is utter, complete silence.
Andre Kostelanetz


Five songs you’ve been listening to a lot recently, from several genres:
Everybody should have his personal sounds to listen for-sounds that will make him exhilarated and alive or quiet and calm.

Tag 5...
Any bloggers who want to muse on the meme and/or vary the theme.

(Update: I suspect an open invitation is rarely taken up y'know - so how about :
TT,   db,  ramage,  t and t in addition to anyone...)


Comments: music meme

As soon as I get to that literary one from a while ago- maybe I'll even do both on the same day!
Maybe today!
Or tonight which it rapidly becomes, here.
http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/w/o/workfort.htm
Posted by Ajax etc. at June 24, 2005 11:21 AM

Yes and I was worrying about TAG or NACHT.
I mean, to tag or nicht.

Such tagging is of course an open invitation, but very chuffed you'll be taking it up.

(That hymnal is a jukebox/resource I could have used...)
Posted by boynton at June 24, 2005 11:44 AM

btw - I misunderstood the flowers again.
They do not seem to be irises at all today.
Posted by boynton at June 24, 2005 12:23 PM

yes, the flowers look somewhat orchid-ish from the small pic...
Posted by terry at June 30, 2005 12:10 PM

Hmm - could be
http://troyb.com/photo/gallery/028-36-PurpleFlower.htm

or somewhere b/w an orchid and a trumpet lily, perhaps.
http://lilies.blomsbulbs.com/newvariety.cfm
Posted by boynton at June 30, 2005 12:28 PM

Wednesday, June 22, 2005

hunches

One of the minor incidents in a memorable week involved Bronte, the Jack Russell terrier, being attacked by a Rottweiler in the park.
Or - according to her official history as typed by the vet:
Biten by rooti over hunches

But there were no hunches at the time. No inklings or portents around the park at all.

Tuesday, June 21, 2005

weeding

University library dumps rare books
A spokesperson for the university said: "We had only a very short window to remove a large quantity of books."
via wood s lot

An old problem? Anger grows after British Library junks rare books August 2000


Weeding isn’t just for Gardens
Weeding the collection is a somewhat furtive activity that librarians engage in. There are even a number of euphemisms that we in the profession employ in order to disguise our actual activity. “De-selecting” is a very proactive word we sometimes use, trying to convey the active engagement of the weeder with the weeded, so to speak. “De-accessing” is a more passive description, suggesting the weeded books just sort of evaporate into the ozone. But, truth to tell, there’s a strong feeling of defensiveness among librarians about the whole activity of weeding...


Actually if you google library books + dumpster you see a fair bit of weeding activity, furtive and otherwise.
A few specialist stories: A Chiropractic Library in the Dumpster
A few Dumpsters and anonymous tipsters



All About Deselection for Librarians - a lighter view.


Comments: weeding

Incredible really. You can understand if the books are just worn out novels, or mouldy or something, but the BL? Throwing away deposit copies? Bloody hell. I read somewhere about a USA university burying books they could no longer "afford" to store.
Posted by laura at June 21, 2005 08:30 PM

Important note: Ron Sexsmith on The Basement tonight ABC TV I think
Posted by Francis Xavier Holden at June 21, 2005 08:50 PM

Burial. Very Grave.
In the last link they suggest a bonfire.
Tongue in cheek. I think. Who knows.


FX - Thank you!! Would have missed it! I'm a big fan.
I think I caught it last time - but liked it enough to watch again! Another Corner gig I missed, damnit.
btw - general music note. I wonder if you have seen this blog?
http://musicyouwont.blogspot.com/


Posted by boynton at June 21, 2005 09:03 PM

Whatever happened to the good old fashioned table with books labelled 'FOR SALE'? Or did a surplus of thousands of books just appear in a stealthy fashion?
Questions only answerable by Miss Marple.

"That's Christie. Was 3rd row down on the left but those were moved. If you go out the back and take 32 steps east and dig you'll find it there".
Posted by Russell Allen at June 22, 2005 08:53 PM

Over the years I've done pretty well at the tables, at the local reading/weeding establishment.

I've never tried digging for books, though.
Posted by boynton at June 22, 2005 11:50 PM

The deselecting/weeding process was my least favourite part of my library training. At my local library one day I was given a list of items that had been deselected from the children's section and told to go pull them from the shelves. I hated that. Not because it was hard, but because I didn't like the idea of having to do it. I know libraries have only limited space and resources, especially public ones, but I think people have a view of libraries as repositories of books and other things.

That said, I'd understand it better if the library at least tried to sell or donate the things rather than just throw them out. And whichever clown at the BL came up with the policy of discarding last copies should be shot.
Posted by James Russell at June 23, 2005 12:17 AM

Would it be infra dig to comment that the safest place for a Chiropractic Library would be in a dumpster?
Posted by Francis Xavier Holden at June 23, 2005 01:36 PM

Nice to have an insider's perspective, James, and I think the idea of de-selection might weed me out as a potential Librarian. I can see the obvious necessity, but have let my own collection run wild.
It's scary to think that occasionally you might have a rogue minimalist in charge of the aesthetics though.

The remark, like the fate of the books, might be considered spineless, FX.
Posted by boynton at June 23, 2005 07:37 PM

Monday, June 20, 2005

crooning

Best. Hey Jude. Ever?

The Marvelous Crooning Child via Cynical-C Blog

super copy

It’s Supercar 1968 Mazda 110S brochure - Now at last, WHAMMO! it’s here
The Mazda 110 S had to be as good as we thought it was. We couldn’t afford to make any mistakes. So we tested our car. And tested it . And tested it. Which is where the moon comes in…
We tested it so much - that we drove it the equivalent of three times to the moon
...   Moon and Miscellany


via grow a brain

Saturday, June 18, 2005

fine

I was looking for the English version of Tout va très bien... or Madame-Ah! La Marquise-Ah! which I rarely have on vinyl y'know, I think on a Sidney Lipton and his Grosvenor House band record. If there was a link on the web you'd hear a better translation than this.

But I did find the original version mp3 within this collection of French songs.
(see Rétro en vrac 43 - Tout va très bien madame la Marquise )

meanwhile

today on ninemsn yesterday:
 



Comments: meanwhile

Done! I'm so much happier now I've signed the papers. Soy latte and a lamington is it dear?
Posted by Russell Allen at June 20, 2005 08:00 PM

Ah it all falls into place...
Buying a café (latte) is a fairly realistic dream that I could aspire to.
Some day.
Posted by boynton at June 20, 2005 09:07 PM

I was a mere tea drinker for so long but now I have fulfilled my dream. I went the whole hog and went a latte. I thought about a cheap short black to start if you're going to make the investment why settle for less than the best.
Posted by Russell Allen at June 20, 2005 11:35 PM

Friday, June 17, 2005

feedback

On that last link I like the simplicity of the
Feedback + or -
Could simplify comments policy elsewhere in those contentious blog threads and the vexed question of civility etc. In your corner...

I must say I received one of those stray - comments out of the blue about my confusing content yesterday, eg:
WTF It has nothing 2 do with windceaters y is this even under this name

It would be much more user-friendly for someone to just hit the - feedback button in these cases.



Comments: feedback

+++++++!
Posted by Ajax etc. at June 17, 2005 07:33 PM

I would have to diasgree. I quite like it when people tell me I'm a moron because (a) it takes me down a couple of pegs, and (b) i realise that they are actually wrong and I bask in the heavenly glow of my own inflated self-worth.
Posted by Russell Allen at June 17, 2005 11:23 PM

merci etc, that'll skew my stats.

Though ideally one might have to publish a daily report on the + /- index.
Posted by boynton at June 17, 2005 11:30 PM

Ok so that's a "-" Russell?

I agree. But only so long as the negative prose is sufficently diverting. Lots of expletives about windceaters is good, and you can't beat a simple y.
Posted by boynton at June 17, 2005 11:41 PM

The good thing about blogging is the random dialogue that presents itself after a post. A +/- system then turns a blog into a "How Did You Rate This Article" kind of arrangement which is truly shithouse.

I can't believe people bother voting in that kind of thing. Like watching Today Tonight and they say 80% (read: 4 people) of viewers reckon that you shouldn't give kids red cordial. Polling blows!
Posted by Russell Allen at June 18, 2005 05:39 PM

Y, I agree. I was not 80% serious.
(Though sometimes when you see the sameold patterns in long threads it seems everything could theroetically be reduced to the basics. Gravatars, figures, worms, polls, code)

I've never trusted red cordial myself, having mistaken my sparkling wine for that cordial beverage on the odd occasion.
Posted by boynton at June 18, 2005 05:53 PM

I wonder if anyone has given their pet AI program a blogger account for a birthday present. It'd do a great job of linkblogging. Just imagine the performance it could lay on in one of those 'civil' political discussions. Feed it a policy statement and watch it rampage.

Actually, fed virtual Jaffas and technorati, it'd probably rise to the top of the sphere.

Hmmm. Now I'm starting to wonder about you "people".
Posted by kent at June 19, 2005 02:10 AM

Ħ!
Posted by Ajax etc. at June 19, 2005 11:45 AM

I remain

Cordially Yours
Posted by Francis Xavier Holden at June 19, 2005 05:56 PM

K: Rolling Java-script down the aisles?

A: +

FX: Too much of said drink, cordially anyone's ;)
Posted by boynton at June 20, 2005 12:29 PM

more audio

audio books for free (via daily jive)

Thursday, June 16, 2005

isn't it

Is it November (via the ultimate insult)

is it what?

talking books

"TALKING BOOKS" ARE A NEW LITERARY MEDIUM FOR ALL.
The story of Thor Heyerdahl and his crew's history making 1947 raft voyage from South America to Polynesia, read by Welsh born actor Alan Haines. A Listening Library 16 rpm "Talking Book

Kon-Tiki and other sea stories via PCL Linkdump

Listen to the voices of many of the best writers of the English language. These uncut, behind-the-scenes interviews were the foundation of Don Swaim's long-running CBS Radio show, Book Beat
Wired for Books via Idle Type


The Spoken Word: Joyce on Tape

blog qotd

Microsoft blogger Robert Scoble advises fellow bloggers to never write when "your life is in turmoil and/or you're unhappy." ...


A blogging QOTD (from '03) cited in Writing the codes on blogs via a media dragon

in the meantime




Comments: blog qotd

Disclaimer: not that my life is in turmoil and/or of course.

I just thought this particular prescription might kill about half the blogospherical content in one hit, or the impulse thereof anyway ;)
Posted by boynton at June 16, 2005 04:23 PM

Hell, if I followed that advice, I'd never have written a line until, probably last month.

That's why I started with political blogging- it helps to get the angst out of your system. Now that my life has a bit of serenity and order in it, I have no interest in politics whatsoever. Sport all the way for me!
Posted by Scott Wickstein at June 17, 2005 05:55 PM

What? You taken up heroin, Wicky?
Posted by Tony.T at June 17, 2005 05:57 PM

Hope the serenity continues well into the Ashes tour.

Posted by boynton at June 17, 2005 11:21 PM

Sorry to hear that Ashes are turning into public relations dust ...
Posted by Jozef Imrich at June 21, 2005 12:21 AM

testing times
Posted by boynton at June 21, 2005 12:32 PM

Just gives sports bloggers more to write about.
Posted by Scott Wickstein at June 22, 2005 07:05 PM

Wednesday, June 15, 2005

blog rss poetry

Surrealist Poetry make a poem from your blog

yah yah laptoplessness

singing dogs lab bites broken

yeah yeah artifacts

my favourite 78 rpm strangers


(via Topher Tune's Times)



Comments: blog rss poetry

Blair Bollocks a meaningless
to bat Industrial War close
Superannufragilistic expialidocious now for
Doncha missim? Kicks Off! Sophie

Wonderful!
Posted by flute at June 15, 2005 01:25 PM

Sort of like it but am disappointed that all the words come from only the headings. I refreshed several times but the same words came up every time. Oh well, buggers can't be cheezers.
Posted by Russell Allen at June 15, 2005 05:19 PM

I am having a new experience. Mr Blaxland Merlot is assisting me. I did the poem tttttthing. when it mentioned Linux, I lost my bottle.
Posted by Brownie at June 15, 2005 07:06 PM

I kinda like the 'limited parameters' of headings.
As with Flute's example, it kicks rss...

(as does Mr B Merlot's input)

But if you want more, there is another at Topher Tune's that uses lotsa text.
Posted by boynton at June 16, 2005 10:36 AM

artifacts

I'm starting to get the surrealist spam in my junkmail, which is quite diverting.
One even had the title Or leave Or Surrealist

Things like:
ancient artifacts on the computer. He kept a permanent
me back with the reins. Away, therefore, with your insolence
To update drunk your e-mail, please husband let us know.


Sign inanimate up to receive offers ring.
quandary Unsubscribe pockmark, please quinine let us know.
craps This mature email was furlough sent THE ANTS were spending a fine winter's day drying grain collected
A FROG once upon a time came forth from his home in the marsh and


Meanwhile another from a no-nonsense botherer genre said:
You still have a chance
It is about your life, is more serious than a heart attack, and you only spite yourself to not carefully read every word here





Comments: artifacts

O spite! That FROG in winter's mud still
waiting the ants busy at their feast
and update drunk the insolence of unreply
quandary and quandary and washed in the complex bother
the machines have gained the higher ground
but the water's still rising
greetings to you
estivate while the world market holds
a place for you resilient smelt
lemming forget anticipatory
you'll be amazed Alberta
Posted by Juke Moran at June 15, 2005 03:49 PM

amazed
Posted by alberta at June 16, 2005 10:38 AM

Of course, Juke, I was inspired by recent examples @ another place. Perhaps I should have linked.
Have never seen the greetings smelt so well...

Oh and there's more today:

discovered to his grief that it contained so little water that he
really must have been out of your senses to fasten yourself on
In both cases, however, the price would have been silence... And at the end of the day, it's bad news
shoulder`s sore & the sun is reflecting in my eyes. I think from the Alps originally perhaps. Today they`ve got the centre
place in the world at a cost comparable to a postage stamp.
please visit mechanize My Profile mistrustful.
actually Subscribe stoop Received this e-mail? heuristics Sign decide up to receive offers scaremonger.
grandeur Unsubscribe film, please narrator let us know.
This kindred email was enhance sent seventeenth century. The arguments of Dr. Bentley were yet
placed the hide of the Ass, after he had skinned him. The Mule...

('Tis Bloomsday afterall)
Posted by boynton at June 16, 2005 10:45 AM

Although I enjoy traditional oil painting and sculpting
the experiences and feeling from conversing with
drawbacks;
the human factor tends to be left out of the
the more secrets you've got, the less secure you are, the idea that radio will catch on
I see them now as a link, a possible tool for fusion


We respect your privacy chorister. If you would rather not receive E-mail mislaid
colleague alerting you of special offers, product announcements,
bleep and other news, just let us know by ruble
Posted by boynton at June 18, 2005 12:53 PM

why bother anyway - it s not as if romanticizing the idyllic
people experience it. Coming home to an unexpected card or letter
with this alien situation. To update therapist your e-mail address panache to clandestine, please visit scribble My Profile outdoor.
psychosis Unsubscribe blare, please let us know amplifier.
speck This email was sent least having enough control so as to be safe from slavery by any other species.
the Hawk to defend them. He at once consented.
the Owl to be beside herself and said that she was mad.
We respect your privacy guffaw. If you would rather not receive E-mail chiffon
thermostat alerting you just let us know by backlash
Posted by boynton at June 21, 2005 01:19 PM

Monday, June 13, 2005

Sunday, June 12, 2005

good times




Celebrities Playing Table Tennis via the Presurfer


Comments: good times

Ach, that Hillary Clinton rocks whatever she plays ;-?
Posted by Jozef Imrich at June 13, 2005 12:25 AM

You Really Got Me.
Posted by Francis Xavier Holden at June 13, 2005 11:55 AM

End of the season...

(well - the Table in the carport has been idle of late, alas)
Posted by boynton at June 13, 2005 01:35 PM

A lonely life?
Posted by at June 13, 2005 03:24 PM

Is that by the Kinks?
Posted by boynton at June 13, 2005 04:01 PM

No its by the desperates !
Posted by at June 13, 2005 05:08 PM

My personal favourites have to be the Governator (pic3) playing with stupidly oversized paddle ["der ball - it iz tuu small for my laser-guided tracking system"], and Donnie Osmond playing with authentic chinese grip. That guy is a pro.
Posted by Russell Allen at June 13, 2005 07:05 PM

Yes, Donnie sets the standard. That's the level of skill one expects around the Carport table here.

I wanted to include: Mr Ed.
Ginger Rogers (pic 1)

and personal favourite: Cesar Romero.
(not just for the Table Tennis, but
for the Wall Feature - which reminds me of the ornamental plant in "Mon Oncle". A feature that is very competitive in the composition, anyway)
Posted by boynton at June 13, 2005 07:44 PM

Its Ray and Dave Davies!
Posted by Brownie at June 14, 2005 10:41 AM

I like Cesar's pic too because of the vigour in his smash. I love seeing celebs be ultra-competitive in seemingly meaningless events. It's a continuation of the 'who's-got-the-biggest trailer' comp that separates the men from the boys.
Posted by Russell Allen at June 14, 2005 12:02 PM

Yep. I chose the Kinks over the Beatles. It's a great shot.

Indeed Russell - but 'seemingly' is right - there's nothing meaningless about... Ping-pong ;)
Posted by boynton at June 14, 2005 02:03 PM

The Village Green Table Preservation Society?
Posted by Nabakov at June 14, 2005 08:01 PM

what more can we do
Posted by boynton at June 14, 2005 08:26 PM

l .

. l

l .

. l

*smash* l .

Your shot.
Posted by Nabakov at June 14, 2005 09:06 PM

. l

l .

*smash*
Posted by boynton at June 14, 2005 09:16 PM

. . . . . . . . .
. . . .....
.. .
. .

"It's rolled under there. Bugger! I can't reach. Can you?"
Posted by Nabakov at June 14, 2005 09:36 PM

(____________)

I think it's rolled under the canoe. Can you?
_____________
( .


(like all of the content on this blog - a true story, natch - as is my next serve)


*Smash*......


Posted by boynton at June 14, 2005 09:47 PM

Well then, if we've run out of ping pong balls, let's try a ....golf ball.

(Also a true story. But with an unhappy ending - "patio, younger brother, minor scalp wound, noisy recriminations, etc, etc".)

Fuck it. Cocktail time! Pass the Pimms for a sundowner. And put on "Waterloo Sunset" while yer up.

Quite out of breath there for a while. Chin chin!
Posted by Nabakov at June 14, 2005 09:56 PM

I keep my golfballs in a box by the Table tennis table. True. (10 years of collecting Studley Park found objects while walking hounds.) One night there was a terrible rumbling in the carport...golf balls all took off one by one, rolling out to the garden.

I never thought of playing Ex-treme Table tennis with them at all. Until now.

Kinks 'Greatest Hits'. cheers.
Posted by boynton at June 14, 2005 10:06 PM

"...while walking hounds"

Golfhounds? Bred to mush along wheeled golfbags, hand you your nine iron at a fingerclick, point yer ball in the ruff!, ruff!, sneakily piss on the others' balls - and trained not to do what comes naturally in sandtraps?

Amazed no one had seriously thought of this before. Cheap, hand-trained, tireless and much more versatile four-legged caddies, proudly sporting doggie tartan warms from the St Andrews' gift shop.

And fed the biltong tees at the end of each round.
Posted by Nabakov at June 14, 2005 11:38 PM

Yes...

http://wesleyprints.com/wholesalegallery/golf/teetime.html

A ruff aproximation of my canine team had we ever strayed on to the course to play.

Though it seems that llamas are the four-legged caddy of choice - of course this might be one of those google myths, the same bit of text doing the rounds of the google bunker?

(A fair proportion of the golf balls i my collection were indeed collected very discreetly by the Jack Russell terrier on our rounds.)
Posted by boynton at June 15, 2005 12:20 AM

Thank you for the Daze.
Posted by Tony.T at June 16, 2005 12:17 PM

One's serve is quite dazzling.

(run out of kinks)


Posted by boynton at June 16, 2005 12:44 PM

my favourite truth

Lucy:"You're all confused, aren't you?"

Jerry: "Aren't you?"

Lucy: "No."

Jerry: "Well you should be, because you're wrong about things being different because they're not the same. Things are different except in a different way. You're still the same, only I've been a fool... but I'm not now."

Lucy: "Oh."

Jerry: "So long as I'm different don't you think that... well maybe things could be the same again... only a little different, huh?"
Screwball Lines


20 minutes into The Awful Truth it began to dawn on me. This wasn't the film I endorsed recently... I had confused my screwballs, and thought I was hiring My Favourite Wife. Same cast, different story. And despite the presence of Asta, The Awful Truth wasn't quite as memorable as MFW....well you know what I mean...huh?


Comments: my favourite truth

Never mind all that, the really Awful Truth is that Ted Turner owns all The Thin Man and Topper movies. I suppose they are on PayTV, but when I was very young they were always on TV and I loved them all. The Thin Man scripts were very risque and Nora Charles was a Very Liberated Woman.
thanks for the link to the fabulous Asta The Wonder Dog.
Posted by Brownie at June 14, 2005 10:46 AM

You know, I couldn't decide between The Awful Truth and The Thin Man the other night. Seen it once years ago - and will get it next time.
One of the things I hate about Pay TV - and the Pay Tv culture - is losing the shared experience of watching classic movies. I was lucky to watch a few midday's with my mother when 7 and 10 both ran them, not to mention Bill's Golden Years. All the lore of people's favourite movie and stars etc.

Asta is wonderful and almost the best thing about The Awful Truth *is* the hide and seek sequence. Well I've watched it several times ;)
The (long haired) Jack Russell does bear a slight resemblance...
Posted by boynton at June 14, 2005 01:58 PM

Best screwball comedies? No contest sister.

"His Girl Friday"

"There's been a lamp burning in the window for ya, honey."
"No thanks - I jumped out that window a long time ago."

"I still wish you hadn't done that, Hildy.
Done what?
Divorced me. It makes a man feel he's not wanted.
Oh, now look, junior... that's what divorces are FOR!"

""No. No. Keep the rooster story. That's human interest."

" Listen the last man that said that to me was Archie Leach a week before he cut his throat."

Apparently Jim McBride screened it for his cast before shooting "The Big Easy" and then had an on-set competition to see who could deliver their lines the fastest. But they still couldn't outpace Cary, Rosalind and the gang.

Having said that, "The Big Easy" is worth revisiting for its cheerful screwball attitude. Good script and director and a great cast (including John Goodman at his scene stealing best) that's clearly having a lot of fun with eachother.
Posted by Nabakov at June 14, 2005 08:24 PM

Yes - I must catch up with HGF.

as good as "Holiday" or "The Palm Beach Story" though?
or even My Fav. Wife - which has this great beginning that I thought was quite striking, almost absurd when I watched it a coupla years ago.
(er...that is, maybe not quite so striking as I thought seeing that I couldn't distimguish it for about 10 minutes. Maybe they all merge)

I need to have a proper browse next time I'm in the Video shop. I've been grabbing a quick handful of anyold 'old' titles to go with the 'blockbuster' (usually the lamest of the lot)
Posted by boynton at June 14, 2005 08:40 PM

Then check out "You Never Can Tell"
http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0044223/

Made in 1951, post classic screwball era but a great screwball film none the less. The main character is a murdered dog, reincarnated as a human private eye still determined to protect his mistress. And with a ponytailed sidekick who was a horse in her former life.
Posted by Nabakov at June 14, 2005 08:58 PM

Dick Powell...shall do.

Apparently as a small child I was wont to say:
"When I was a horse..." (looking at a pastoral scene on motoring excursions). My sisters who believe in these things may think there's something in that.
Posted by boynton at June 14, 2005 09:24 PM

My Favourite Wife was in the abc late night teh cool Cary Grant season a couple of years ago. Think I made it as far as Mr Blandings before going in for treatment. Did MFW start off with Irene Dunn just showing up again? I seem to remember some outrageous bedroom bantering.
Posted by laura at June 17, 2005 03:59 PM

I don't know from water buffaloes, but I reckon ditto Nabakov - His Girl Friday is the best.
Posted by Tony.T at June 17, 2005 04:41 PM

I remember that CG season, Laura.
It was after the 'early Hitchcock' re-run.
They need to replay it.
Yep - MFW has Irene Dunn wandering in from the cold.
I thought it was great.

Must watch HGF soon it seems.
Still think Palm Beach Story is better...
Posted by boynton at June 17, 2005 11:13 PM

Friday, June 10, 2005

visuals

I've put a few image-based blogs at the end of my links. I hope to add more.

Ephemera now These men are "making" an elm tree
This odd-looking contraption is part of a camouflage project for a war-industry plant.


The Boat Lullabies Square America, (Falling)


Comments: visual

The make elm trees the same way they make Christmas trees; isn't nature wonderful.
Posted by Tony.T at June 10, 2005 05:03 PM

A nightmare on 34th street?
Posted by boynton at June 10, 2005 05:59 PM

A T grows in Brooklyn.
Posted by Tony.T at June 10, 2005 06:02 PM

Too OT T
Posted by boynton at June 10, 2005 06:04 PM

May I humbly recommend Check Mark as an image-based blog of interest?

http://exclamationmark.typepad.com/checkmark/
Posted by Mark at June 11, 2005 01:51 AM

Check, Mark.
Posted by boynton at June 11, 2005 12:39 PM

The Boat Lullabies "Square" series in fact...
' rocks...
Posted by boynton at June 14, 2005 12:09 AM

Speaking of camouflage, there’s Britain’s WWII Camouflage Development and Training Centre, which recruited a very eccentric collection of people including magicians, zoologists and surrealist artists. Like Bletchley Park but with sexy magic and arty stuff.

http://www.tate.org.uk/tateetc/issue4/camouflage.htm
http://www.channel4.com/history/microsites/R/real_lives/jasper.html

“…on one occasion he experimented with a matt green camouflage cream, smeared on the naked body of his lover and future wife, the American model and photographer Lee Miller. She lay on the grass of a friend's garden, delicately covered in netting taken from the raspberry patch. Penrose was delighted with the results, and concluded "that if you could hide such eye-catching attractions as hers from the invading Hun, smaller and less seductive areas of skin would stand an even better chance of becoming invisible".”

Yes, war is hell.
Posted by Nabakov at June 14, 2005 08:41 PM

Fabulous - I've been reading round those links.
Has the channel 4 film been and gone here? Had a feeling it might have been in The Secret War series recently?

Meanwhile you chaps might like the Art of Camouflauge
http://www.skylighters.org/girlsinfocus/
"Reprinted below are the photos and text from an April 10, 1944 LIFE Magazine article on the "art of camouflage.""
Posted by boynton at June 15, 2005 12:57 AM

Thursday, June 09, 2005

singing dogs

Music you (possibly) won't hear anyplace else via PCL Linkdump

My broadband friends might sample the Singing dogs for me...


Silent dogs (and other animals)... via twists and turns

strangers

timeless Pop Preziosen


and if you like the Google-translated Genre, see also "Large City Trend. The Individual vacuum" for "Generation White Coffee" (featuring Pair of large cities)

Some days this bot-fuelled blend makes more sense to me than stories in monoglot.

Wednesday, June 08, 2005

bert k

Bert Kaempfert – the fisherman 1949, holding a pike at a lake in northern Germany

yeah yeah

There is nothing to recommend the songs from Hair... FXH



We had this version in our house, ousting Strauss from the turntable.
My sisters found it at a Flea Market in Dandenong wandering round trinkets in the rain.
They went to the show with their boyfriends bringing back Be In posters that hung over my bed.
And we belted out songs in the Lounge-room and the Valiant,
us two youngest running through the entire album in the back of a station wagon on long trips into town,
and me even singing "I met a boy called Frank Mills" aged 10 for my Brownie Singing badge, with feeling.
And one day the record was left in the sun and warped.
and they placed it under the glass of a coffee table in the sun again for days to no avail.
Aquarius jumped. Donna slurred. Hair was lost.

Twenty years later I happened to be walking near Coles in Bourke St and saw it on CD - and bought it for my sister, a nostalgia trip. She burned a copy in turn, which is lucky apparently seeing how rare it is.
And I've only now found out it's a music and songs of recording - but having grown up with the quirks, it's the definitive one for me.

"We predict that most of the present cast of "Hair" will be bald before we hear the last of this show, and this should be added to your collection of great show albums that will last forever"

ABC Time frame
Hair in Australia  recordings



Comments: yeah yeah

The reason I don't like HAIR is not because I don't like musicals and / or "rock" . The reason I don't like Hair is because I do like musicals.

I think around the same time I saw "Fiddler on The Roof" and was going to the T. F Much Ballroom just around the corner from where I lived. Hair didn't cut it either way.

I must admit I never saw the original Hair all the way through. We found out that it had an interval and because it was so popular they were selling standing room tickets. If one mingled at interval in the foyer there was no checking of tickets on the way back in after the first half. And also no seat squabbles because of all the punters standing around the aisles anyway. I think it was up where the Metro venue is now.

So I've seen the original Australian cast do the last half twice but never seen professionals do the first half. I had to wait years for the senior primary school kids doing it to see the first half live. I think the kids saw it as a period piece but they sure had fun being hippies.
Posted by Francis Xavier Holden at June 8, 2005 12:19 PM

Fair enough. I never saw it either.
If I had, I might feel differently about the songs, which were just in the context of a "found" record.
One sister claims she sang "Sodomy" around the house to shock my parents, must have gone over my head - which was lucky for the Brownie Guides, I guess.

Did see the Movie when it came out. Thought it was terrible. They were clearly playing Hippies too.
I've seen that there are various "Junior" versions of Broadway shows for Primary Schools - never thaought that HAIR would be there. Obviously I would have loved to have Been In it as an 11 year old.

I saw that "Fiddler" (Her Maj?)as a child - fabulous.
Posted by boynton at June 8, 2005 12:32 PM

- although "Tevje's Dream" gave me nightmares for a few days.
Posted by boynton at June 8, 2005 12:43 PM

I saw Fiddler on Broadway last year, with Alfred Molina playing Zero Mostel. Ugh, wrong.
Posted by laura at June 8, 2005 01:05 PM

I don't like Hair, and have a very compelling reason as to why not; I just don't. I can't say fairer than that.
Posted by Tony.T at June 8, 2005 01:12 PM

I saw the last one here at the Regent...
with Topol!

Regent was clearly the wrong space...
but once I thought of it more as a concert around TOPOL, I sat back (well forward really) and enjoyed it. Didn't see the VSO? production with Max Gillies, but heard it was good.
Posted by boynton at June 8, 2005 01:15 PM

A bald statement, Tony.

Guess you had to be there...
(boyntonville, early 70's)
Posted by boynton at June 8, 2005 01:19 PM

Balderdash, in fact.
Posted by Tony.T at June 8, 2005 05:05 PM

Oh well, I can leave discussion of musical merit to the taste police, while I'm happily singing along all day to melodic tunes with funny lyrics from the past. Joy.
My post is more about the memories that spin around a song than the island of infamy that HAIR might be consigned to.
(Still think the songs are pretty good though.)
Posted by boynton at June 8, 2005 05:31 PM

You shouldn't be too embarrassed. I often break into "Gunna Wash That Man Right Out Of My Hair". I have no logical explanation.
Posted by Francis Xavier Holden at June 8, 2005 06:23 PM

FX - you saw the Melbourne cast of HAIR, there was an original Sydney cast all of whom had 18 month contracts (at which time it was still playing to 'full house'), and then the later Sydney cast which is where the elderly but boyish Reg Livermore took over the role of Berger the main character.
In the original Broadway cast, Diane Keaton sang Frank Mills - a poignant, wistful ditty.
The main thing about HAIR is it's place in TIME ( war and drugs), which is why revivals never made it. Perhaps an Iraq Schap rewrite.
Posted by Brownie at June 8, 2005 09:05 PM

FX - How about "I feel pretty?"

Yeah, Brownie, I think that's it. Some shows live and die by the 'zeitgeist'.
As for my own z, it was childhood. I suspect I'm more attached to the music than my older sibs. And the unwatched show, and the lyrics I never understood gave it the enduring charge of mystery.


Posted by boynton at June 9, 2005 11:28 AM

pretty and gay? only when you're a Jet and everything's free in america
Posted by Francis Xavier Holden at June 9, 2005 07:39 PM

I thought it was "pretty and witty and bright!", myself...
was going to ask you if you ever sing "I am Woman"
a la Barry Crocker.
(Guess it would help if you were a Jet there too for the character-motivation on "Hear me Roar" )
Posted by boynton at June 9, 2005 07:50 PM

MARIA I feel pretty Oh so pretty I feel pretty and witty and gay
And I pity Any girl who isn't me today

I feel charming Oh so charming It's alarming how charming I feel
And so pretty That I hardly can believe I'm real
Posted by Francis Xavier Holden at June 9, 2005 07:58 PM

ACT 11

Maria's Bedroom - 9.15 p.m.

MARIA (who is getting dressed up to meet Tony)

I feel pretty
Oh so pretty
I feel pretty and witty and bright
And I pity
Any girl who isn't me tonight...

(From the household copy of Bernstein's WSS with Kiri)

http://www.songwords.net/waiguo/soundtrack/westsidestory/011.htm

also on the official site:
http://www.westsidestory.com/site/level2/lyrics/pretty.html

However the "Oringinal soundtrack" CD here has gay/day... Curious...


Posted by boynton at June 9, 2005 08:40 PM

the above quote was from the notes from the original 1957 Broadway show.

They obviously changed it for the movie where it is 6:00 p.m. in the bridal shop...

http://www.filmsite.org/wests3.html

I'm only familiar with the stage version myself...
Posted by boynton at June 9, 2005 08:55 PM

mmh I just checked my 2 vinyl album copy of Bernstein, Carreras and Te Kanawa. You are right. No gay. mmh. Well Bernstein at least was known to be a teensey weensey bit gay at times. What about Jose? Maybe they changed the words?

btw I just love Jose singing it and that TV doco was so heart wrenching - he's a real sweetie.
Posted by Francis Xavier Holden at June 9, 2005 09:52 PM

Yes, I think it was the doco that done it for the original purchasers of this 2 (ahem) cassette album... (Shame about that - there is a bit of tape hiss happenin)
I enjoyed the doco too.

I should have checked more closely the original link which makes the stage/screen thing fairly obvious.
http://www.westsidestory.com/site/level2/lyrics/pretty.html

Wonder why they had to change it - as the original "night" implies she is looking forward to the evening...?
btw did you notice in the 1957 notes (ie to the bright/night vesrion) the synopsis reads:
"In her room, Maria is gaily preparing for her meeting with Tony (I feel Pretty)..."
Posted by boynton at June 9, 2005 10:02 PM

Loved West Side Story - saw it at a very young impressionable age. Gee Officer Krupke!
Also in the 'I Feel Pretty' category is Ann Margrets fabulous 'How Lovely To Be A Woman' in Bye Bye Birdie, where she is dressing in jeans and a sloppy jumper - at the time they were considered to be horrifying garments. The context is everything with this as well as HAIR.
I saw Sydney HAIR several times a week for 18 months. It crapped allover Melbourne HAIR, and it was crappy with the ageing Reg Livermore trying to play 'young'.
Marcia Hines was 16 and pregnant when she arrived. She conceived Deni/Donyale, at WOODSTOCK and never saw the guy again. She told me that herself. They both probably don't want you to know that.
Posted by Brownie at June 14, 2005 10:40 AM

Great stories.
(Mum's the word)

You saw HAIR "several times a week for 18 months" - more than some of the cast members, perhaps? ;)


Posted by boynton at June 14, 2005 01:48 PM

I should write a book.
re leonard Bernstein discussed above: his son was married to 'our' Heather Jellie the star of Lantana, the exopthalmic chick whose name I can't remember ( brain damage from massive Passive pot smoking in the sixties).
Posted by Brownie at June 14, 2005 08:50 PM

Kerry Armstrong, Brownie? I don't know what exopthalmic is, but gee that woman SHITS ME.
Posted by laura at June 17, 2005 03:52 PM

Monday, June 06, 2005

lab bites

Lab Sound Bites - vintage radio commercials at the Library of American Broadcasting.

Lab Desensitising
happening a mere stroll down the road but found via J walk



Comments: lab bites

Fooled me; I was expecting barkage of the woof kind.
Posted by Tony.T at June 7, 2005 08:08 PM

Is that a caption for the second?

Some woof in the first link, see "Sturdy Dog Food"

and I know there is a better pun to blend those two links. Just couldn't think of it yesterday.

Posted by boynton at June 7, 2005 08:46 PM

BOYNTON BEACH — Victoria Goodwin's spirits were high as she sped through Boynton Beach in her SUV that Friday morning.
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/localnews/content/local_news/epaper/2005/05/29/a16a_taser_vig1_0529.html
Posted by Francis Xavier Holden at June 7, 2005 11:42 PM

yes - read about that at Surfdom...

"Bartender tased on breast'

"Teen tased in chest"...

Brave new verb.


(I get a few google hits via B.Beach. You know, People looking for ephemera or labradors in Boynton FL)
Posted by boynton at June 7, 2005 11:59 PM

"Lab Sound Bites.

Labs Lose Bite."
Posted by boynton at June 8, 2005 11:29 AM

Labs make good seeing eye dogs or better sound dogs?
Posted by Francis Xavier Holden at June 8, 2005 12:22 PM

Most are sound. Some see red. All are excellent sea dogs.
Posted by boynton at June 8, 2005 01:02 PM

Seeing cat dogs...
Posted by boynton at June 9, 2005 11:34 AM

yah yah

Well the weekend was cold, and I hired a handful of old DVDs like Little Women 1933.
 

at 14:37:18 pm on Saturday the PROFESSOR said:




PROFESSOR
Oh, oh, good evening, my little friend. Good evening.

at 14:37:20 pm JO said:


JO
Please don't stop. It was beautiful. I've heard you play it often
and wanted to ask you what it was. I'd so like to send it to my
little sister.

PROFESSOR
"Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt." The words are by Goethe. Do you
speak German? Oh, well, then I better give it to you in English.
Let me see now. Ah, "Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt" Yah, yah, yah.
"Only who knows what longing is can know what I suffer."
""weiŸA_Awas ich leide"_@ "Alone and parted far from joy and
gladness. My senses fail. Burning fire devours me".


JO
My senses fail. A burning fire devours me. I know how he felt.




classic movie scripts  images  audio

 

at 14:45 ish pm BOYNTON   said

Hmmm... wonder if that is on the wwweb...

 
Found Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt ok, but what "weiŸA_Awas ich leide"_@" means is anyone's guess.



Comments: yah yah

You have company:
"The parallel texts show us how hard he has had to work; but they also offer us the beauty of the originals. I am not so sure that the heartbreaking concision of lines such as 'Meine Ruh ist hin / Mein Herz ist schwer' or 'Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt, / Weiss, was ich leide!' is completely inaudible to the monoglot Anglophone"
http://books.guardian.co.uk/reviews/classics/0,6121,1483449,00.html
On the other hand maybe you're being amused by the code itself. Here's a Schubert link, with the phrase and a wav. into the bargain:
http://home.swipnet.se/~w-18046/ssamp.html
Posted by Juke Moran at June 7, 2005 10:52 AM

well speaking as a monoglot anglophone...
must confess it was the code that amused me.
That was lifted from the txt file of Classic scripts and something was lost in the html? translation I would say.
But that's a great Guardian article and may try to find that book.
"...he was one of the last men, it was said, to know everything — ...

"Goethe could use the simplest of his language's building-blocks to open up vistas of eternity; but it's not easy to find rhymes for our small words for the big things (life, love, death)"

And my post was very obscure and I left out the crucial lines that follow:

JO
My senses fail. A burning fire devours me. I know how he felt.

PROFESSOR
Tchaikovsky did also. That's why he wrote this beautiful heart-
breaking music.

JO
Oh, if only I could write something like that. Something splendid
that would set other hearts on fire.

PROFESSOR
That is genius. Ah, you wish to write, my little friend?

JO
Yes, that's my longing. I've sold two stories already since I've
been here.

PROFESSOR
Oh, that's very good. I like to read them. May I?

JO
Oh, would you? I'd so like to know your opinion.

PROFESSOR
Oh, I would be very happy. You have that ardent spirit, right? I
like that.

JO
Oh, what shall I ask for at the music shop?

PROFESSOR
"Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt".

JO
"Nur wer die_c"

PROFESSOR
"Sehnsucht"

JO
"Sehnsucht"

....

So it is the Tchaik that is featured in the film.
I had found an mp3 - but misplaced it.
http://www.classiccat.net/tchaikovsky_p/6.htm
and will put it in the post...

However - this is becoming quite fascinating.
I'm yet to play the Schubert as the PC is seizing up somewhere, but will reboot and listen anon.
Many thanks.
Posted by boynton at June 7, 2005 12:23 PM

I've always been glad that Jo married Bhaer and not Laurie.
Posted by laura at June 7, 2005 01:31 PM

Yes, I think I came around to that view myself...
& Gabriel Byrne makes a very dashing Bhaer.

btw - do you look at LW at all? Like P&P, the range of adaptations must provide rich fodder...


Posted by boynton at June 7, 2005 01:56 PM

Well, no I don't. I'm not really sure why. It just didn't obviously fit into any of the topics my argument is arranged around. One to be privately enjoyed, not nagged to death, heh heh
Posted by laura at June 7, 2005 09:36 PM

Sunday, June 05, 2005

broken

& after a show.
who called & who didn’t     we spoke by
all that?
one of the paintings he showed
inside rooms that don't belong to   here’s your cracker
what i’d   carried by blood   send overflowing emails off


a poem made by the broken poem generator set to chaos mode
(via the presurfer)


Comments: broken

"forgot to spin the needle of life
just never started
& moses parted the clouds"

was the next cheery little gem spun by the generator...

Seemed to tied in with all my jukebox listening.
Wonder who sang it?
Posted by boynton at June 6, 2005 04:00 PM

Brilliant! Jago Flood rises from the grave..!
Posted by Dick at June 7, 2005 06:44 AM

though JF would take some beating.

(seriously: I really loved his last, and meant to link to it)
http://blogs.salon.com/0002065/2005/05/27.html
Posted by boynton at June 7, 2005 12:11 PM

78rpm

I've been having a jolly old lonesome winter sunday listening to some 78's at

Jan's 78 rpm Record Playing warehouse (via PCL linkdump)

Nice People
"Nice People with nice manners have got no money at all..."


Turtle's 78 rpm jukebox (via bifurcated rivets)

Pucker Up and Whistle

... So in case you're one of the ones who think the world all wrong,
You'll find a real good tonic in the chorus of this song:




(Update: I've only just realised that I have the sheet music for that pucker song in storage somewhere - which may be one reason why it jumped out at me)


Comments: 78 rpm

While not quite at the same antiquary level as the 78rpm jukebox, this site, if you have good computer speakers, is just great for drunken "do you remember that song? Y'know the one that went "omm-dop-do, dop-spooky girl velvet dum dum". Oh, you know the song I'm talking about," nights.

http://www.mikesoldiesartist.com/

A great bestiary of US-centric 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s radio pop, from the good, the bad to the ugly to the deservedly obscure, presented in nice downhome and easy to find fashion.
Posted by Nabakov at June 5, 2005 09:37 PM

Damn. Forget to add I was listening to "Swinging Safari" from the site I just mentioned while commenting here.

Coming up next, Gary Puckett and the Union Gap.
Posted by Nabakov at June 5, 2005 09:42 PM

Gosh - where has that site been all my bloglife?
Almost makes me go out and get some good speakers for this PC.

In the meantime I may have to dig out some Bert Kaempfert. I think I have Swinging Safari on vinyl as well as on some of those loungey compilation CDs - "music for the atomic cocktail-party always planned and never had"
Posted by boynton at June 5, 2005 10:27 PM

Nice people with nice manners.. so if we turn nasty on the internet, do we magically get money?

Said in a piningly hopeful way.
Posted by David Tiley at June 5, 2005 10:35 PM

Yes - I definitely think Nasty is on the money.

OTOH - would be tempted to steal that image of 'Nice people' as a blog banner- except it might also go with "The Daily sensible"?
http://thesurrealist.co.uk/sensible.html
Posted by boynton at June 5, 2005 11:18 PM

Oh - "A" swinging' safari - filed under A - and not a Bert K to be seen. Sounds very good.
That is a great site - and has gone straight into the favourites, along with the 78's.
Posted by boynton at June 6, 2005 12:05 AM

Thursday, June 02, 2005

Boys' Life magazine covers 1911- 1959 via Exclamation Mark

Special Articles

Earning an Education (No. III)
You Can Be Too Game!
A Pantry for Canned Knowledge
More Speed




 

and for gender balance: Girl Scout memorabilia


Comments: boys' life

It's good to see you added "gender balance".
Thank-you.
Posted by at June 2, 2005 08:23 PM

Can you post something once in a while that isn't going to keep me occupied all night. How about award winning toothpaste adverts? They're always naff so it shouldn't take too long.
Posted by Flute at June 2, 2005 08:26 PM

Here you go, Mr Flute:
http://www.adclassix.com/ads2/31colgatedental.htm

oh and more gender balancing:
http://www.adclassix.com/ads2/33drwest.htm
Posted by boynton at June 2, 2005 10:39 PM

thats better, i can go to bed now.
Posted by Flute at June 2, 2005 11:30 PM

Love the ever-so-tenuous segueway between circus performing and caring for your teeth. You don't see ads like them anymore.
Posted by Russell Allen at June 3, 2005 11:29 AM

Yes, not much artifice in the dentrifice ads these days.
Posted by boynton at June 3, 2005 05:20 PM

laptoplessness

...Bring your friend, or just a laptop...

- said the brochure at an outdoor cafe.

It was bitter. Surrounded by geese and not a laptop in sight.


Comments: laptoplessness

Soon there will be special laptopless bars for the sad and lonely unlaptopped among us; in the seedier ones you will pay extra for a few delirious minutes of laptop dancing
Posted by laura at June 2, 2005 10:18 PM

and a gander.
Posted by boynton at June 2, 2005 10:45 PM

A saucy retort.
Posted by Ajax at June 3, 2005 08:04 AM

Laptop Dancers for the lonely?
Posted by Francis Xavier Holden at June 3, 2005 12:40 PM

ha!
Posted by laura at June 3, 2005 02:55 PM

Googling, not ogling...

(or vice versa?)
Posted by boynton at June 3, 2005 05:22 PM

Dance To The Laptop of Time
Posted by Brownie at June 5, 2005 06:56 PM

on a mac or in one?
Posted by boynton at June 5, 2005 07:37 PM

One of those places where you'll just click with the rest of the clientale.

"Hi, could I borrow your mouse? My ball is really grunged up."
Posted by Nabakov at June 5, 2005 09:47 PM

and you gotta keep an eye on your mouse
http://www.victorianweb.org/art/illustration/tenniel/alice/7.3.html
Posted by boynton at June 5, 2005 11:26 PM