tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-61582772012-01-11T15:41:51.098-05:00Thoughts on various topics, photos from places I've been, and what I'm reading.Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.comBlogger7331100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-87728165388257225952011-12-31T16:35:00.001-05:002011-12-31T16:36:04.144-05:00

It's the "Eskimo" term for white man, in the 1941 book by Gontran de Poncins of the same title.  de Poncins heads north of Canada and wants to spend some time with the Eskimo, getting to know their life and their mentality.  It's part ethnography but it's on the National Geographic top 100 adventure books of all time.  You'll probably want to skip it.  It's not just that the term "Eskimo" has

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-14213660825103717842011-11-27T09:58:00.000-05:002011-11-27T09:58:38.156-05:00

A few days ago I made it to the theater to see Hugo.  The Martin Scorsese picture has been picking up solid reviews all along the line and is supposed to be a charming celebration of cinema.  The film is beautiful, the shots are all good, the colors are right, and the characters all have personality.  The minor characters get some development and even the "bad guy" is a fully complex human being.

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-34129707460851799742011-11-23T11:00:00.001-05:002011-11-23T11:02:09.195-05:00

Manic Pixie Dream Girl has been running through movies since the 1990s.  Manic Pixie Dream Boy has often been more theoretical than real.  But maybe, just maybe, Heineken is making him real.  They see your "Most interesting man in the world" Dos Equis, and they bring you a charming, younger, scruffier guy who hangs out in the most interesting restaurants in the world.  He's cute, he has some

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-17065510894419596422011-11-18T10:46:00.001-05:002011-11-18T11:04:50.141-05:00

Midnight in Paris is still playing down the road from me in a time when movies play for 3 weeks.  This weekend PBS is bringing out its two part documentary of Woody Allen.  Diane Keaton's new book, Then Again, is a bestseller.  Are we collectively longing for the days of Annie Hall? Nostalgia is the theme of Midnight in Paris and, according to the NY Times review, the reason for watching the PBS

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-59267043033684653962011-10-30T06:58:00.000-04:002011-10-30T06:58:00.641-04:00

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-38285533306042044102011-10-27T06:56:00.000-04:002011-10-27T06:56:00.144-04:00

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-87677734491403732852011-10-24T06:54:00.000-04:002011-10-24T06:54:00.801-04:00

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-69793195912422447872011-10-23T06:06:00.000-04:002011-10-23T06:06:00.352-04:00

No, Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change. Thy pyramids built up with newer might To me are nothing novel, nothing strange; They are but dressings of a former sight. Our dates are brief, and therefore we admire What thou dost foist upon us that is old, And rather make them born to our desire Than think that we before have heard them told. Thy registers and thee I both defy, Not wondering at

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-31067830261612314582011-10-21T07:53:00.000-04:002011-10-21T07:53:00.177-04:00

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-15065940062584409052011-10-20T07:34:00.002-04:002011-10-20T07:34:00.967-04:00

From 1917 by Dos Passos. The evening was pearl-grey when they left the village; in their nostrils was the smell of the leisurely death of the year, of leaves drying and falling, of ripened fruit and bursting seed-pods. "The fall's a maddening sort o' time for me," said Tom Randolph.  "It makes me itch to get up on ma hind legs an' do things, go places." "I suppose it's the earth has such a

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-41591332676885156332011-10-18T15:51:00.000-04:002011-10-18T15:52:26.703-04:00

Devouring Time, blunt though the lion's paws, And make the earth devour her own sweet brood; Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger's jaws, And burn the long-lived phoenix in her blood;

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-3471530171861076652011-10-04T17:27:00.001-04:002011-10-04T17:28:38.922-04:00

He liked her well enough but he was careful to make her understand that he wasn't the marrying kind.  She said she was a radical and believed in free love, but that didn't suit him much either.  He took her to shows and took her out walking in Cherokee Park and bought her an amethyst brooch when she said amethyst was her birthstone.

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-11521296221649594342011-09-30T10:28:00.001-04:002011-09-30T10:28:45.731-04:00

"Better yet, without your stuff who are you?"  Give me a break.  Norton Symantec wants you to think that if your hard drive encounters trouble you might as well be erased, too.  Though we may be attached by the thumbs to anything with a touch screen these days, we can still think past that.  But it's not all Norton's fault.  After all, the Leo Burnett advertising agency in Chicago came up

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-68594338113152955152011-09-28T23:15:00.001-04:002011-09-28T23:15:29.815-04:00

But it was the discipline of his life to break ties; to say farewell and move on into the unknown.

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-36887814346375655702011-09-19T07:29:00.000-04:002011-09-19T07:29:00.105-04:00

I just got my hands on a copy of Train Dreams by Denis Johnson, originally a novella in the Paris Review and out independently just this year.  It's good.  It's also short.  You can read it in an afternoon or after you come home late at night and you're not quite ready to go to bed yet.  It's about a man, Robert Grainier, and a time that no longer exists.  I recommend it.  Here are a couple

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-69602484931478336492011-09-16T22:21:00.001-04:002011-09-16T22:21:59.557-04:00

Sure, the commercials threaten to ruin the experience, but when it's on and I mean on, there is nothing like radio.  What does it offer? A playlist picked by a person, not Pandora.  A DJ, with a good voice, a decent perspective and interruptions worth hearing.  The radio is there for you when it's late at night and you're listening to the baseball game in bed.  When you are having a romantic

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-77955772131166812552011-09-16T10:24:00.000-04:002011-09-16T22:25:19.758-04:00

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-29291123845555937382011-09-12T10:46:00.002-04:002011-09-12T10:46:53.148-04:00

I knew a man once did a girl in Any man might do a girl in Any man has to, needs to, wants to Once in a lifetime, do a girl in

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-51825639150897777292011-09-07T06:54:00.000-04:002011-09-07T06:54:00.274-04:00

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-37402200523720590962011-09-05T07:03:00.000-04:002011-09-05T07:03:00.287-04:00

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-56203776329899192552011-08-30T07:22:00.027-04:002011-08-30T07:22:00.615-04:00

One of the things I think Dos Passos excels at is giving you a character, almost in full, in a matter of paragraphs.  He really captures the whole thing at once.  Here is a long paragraph that helps establish the situation of young Moorehouse, working because he can't afford college and sorting out who he is. This was a bad year for Johnny Moorehouse.  He was twenty and didn't drink or smoke and

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-14512903187198981612011-08-29T07:36:00.000-04:002011-08-29T07:36:00.207-04:00

It's a good museum.

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-56419599603813294912011-08-25T07:33:00.000-04:002011-08-25T07:33:00.217-04:00

They have pretty much every kind of soda there.  I went for the birch beer and it was really good. I decided to sample the bison burger--and yes, that is a fried egg on top.  It was delicious.

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-44439744451385946402011-08-24T07:25:00.001-04:002011-08-24T07:25:00.963-04:00

This is from Dos Passos' USA trilogy.  Here he's writing about the fellows who went to WWI. They went over with the A.E.F. to save the Morgan loans, to save Wilsonian Democracy, they stood at Napoleon's tomb and dreamed empire, they had champagne cocktails at the Ritz bar and slept with Russian countesses in Montmarte and dreamed empire, all over the country at American legion posts and business

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-90708068922318505252011-08-23T11:15:00.000-04:002011-08-23T11:15:16.905-04:00

See the world in the palm of your hand in a grain of sand in a map in the Navy

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-29530884079183395982011-08-22T06:53:00.000-04:002011-08-22T06:53:00.184-04:00

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-52133058509346142192011-08-21T07:27:00.000-04:002011-08-21T07:27:00.531-04:00

In Storm of Steel, Junger suggests what many historians have said since, that WWI was the birth of "modernity" in Europe.  It was the beginning of the future, or of the end, however you choose to see it. For I cannot too often repeat, a battle was no longer an episode that spent itself in blood and fire; it was a condition of things that dug itself in remorselessly week after week and even month

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-580734754201251382011-08-20T07:25:00.003-04:002011-08-20T07:25:00.491-04:00

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-61165057069960236242011-08-18T07:19:00.008-04:002011-08-18T07:19:00.168-04:00

Junger describes his entry into the war (with his generation): We had left lecture room, class room, and bench behind us. We had been welded by a few weeks’ training into one corporate mass inspired by the enthusiasm of one thought… to carry forward the German ideals of ’70. We had grown up in a material age, and in each one of us there was the yearning for great experience such as we had

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-61244713549179161762011-08-16T23:24:00.000-04:002011-08-16T23:24:51.289-04:00

Just a couple of delicious "concretes."

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-90343844643303511942011-08-12T23:45:00.000-04:002011-08-12T23:45:57.704-04:00

You cower in a heap alone in  a hole and feel yourself the victim of a pitiless thirst for your destruction.  With horror you feel that all your intelligence, your capacities, your bodily and spiritual characteristics, have become utterly meaningless and absurd.  While you think it, the lump of metal that will crush you to a shapeless nothing may have started on its course.  Your discomfort is

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-35766376981218116102011-08-10T07:05:00.001-04:002011-08-10T07:05:02.523-04:00

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-72396228908369074682011-08-07T11:17:00.001-04:002011-08-07T11:17:56.635-04:00

1996 is when Susan Sontag's Against Interpretation and Other Essays was reissued with a new afterword.  She talked about how the "Sixties" weren't the "Sixties" when she was living them, they were just the times, and significantly different from the 90s.  Of course now the "90s" are a thing, too, with nostalgia popping up all over.  In some ways Sontag's discussion of nihilism and lack of

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-20881764685514423002011-08-07T11:16:00.001-04:002011-08-07T11:16:48.800-04:00

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-90092150314015862182011-08-04T22:48:00.000-04:002011-08-04T22:48:15.537-04:00

I just saw the movie.  But who cares?  What kind of thought does this movie provoke?  I think, like other cowboy movies, it raises a perennial question.  Is the man with no past and no connections stronger or weaker for it? The main character is a man alone.  Perhaps a man with no name.  Yes, like Clint Eastwood, the main character in Cowboys and Aliens begins with no connections, no name, and

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-82880847377951098742011-08-04T06:51:00.000-04:002011-08-04T06:51:00.463-04:00

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-88485638856785956012011-08-02T06:50:00.002-04:002011-08-02T06:50:00.319-04:00

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-55006720267453801222011-07-29T07:48:00.002-04:002011-07-29T07:48:00.114-04:00

This picture came with the frame at St. Philip's Cathedral of Thrift.  The child is 5 months old and riding a pony.

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-46546182770301098232011-07-27T10:22:00.026-04:002011-07-27T10:22:00.465-04:00

This week over at www.outthereatlanta.com (or on itunes) we have an interview with Micah Dalton.  He's a singer-songwriter and we talk about making music, songwriting, Americana, the art of the cover song, and living in Atlanta and loving it.  He's a thoughtful guy and the podcast really covers a range of topics regarding music and meaning. One thing stuck out to me when we were doing this

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-31098409356245467812011-07-27T07:47:00.000-04:002011-07-27T07:47:00.463-04:00

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-63666438941537647722011-07-26T07:30:00.009-04:002011-07-26T07:30:01.089-04:00

Now in 2011, we are a nation that goes to war.  But in WWI, it was still a big deal and we had to be coaxed.  Not everyone was thrilled about it. "It's sort of going back on our only excuse for existing," put in Randolph. "In exchange for all the quiet and the civilization and the beauty of ordered lives that Europeans gave up in going to the new world we gave them the opportunity to earn luxury

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-49151018740045172072011-07-25T07:46:00.000-04:002011-07-25T07:46:00.294-04:00

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-2009489305762423792011-07-23T07:14:00.009-04:002011-07-23T07:14:00.801-04:00

The woods all about him we a vast rubbish-heap; the jagged, splintered boles of leafless trees rose in every direction from heaps of brass shell-cases, of tin cans, of bits of uniform and equipment.  The wind came in puffs laden with an odor as of dead rats in an attic.  And this was what all the centuries of civilization had struggled for.  Fr this had generations worn away their lives in mines

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-16061128219892724402011-07-22T07:36:00.000-04:002011-07-22T07:36:00.278-04:00

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-70204221183876315142011-07-21T07:36:00.007-04:002011-07-21T07:36:00.827-04:00

Giants in the Earth is a novel by O.E. Rolvaag about Norwegian settlers in the prairies of the west.  Their lives are difficult, their commitment impressive, and the novel about them quite moving.  Here is a quote: And it was as if nothing affected people in those days.  They threw themselves blindly into the Impossible, and accomplished the Unbelievable.  If anyone succumbed in the struggle--

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-84643305037844725262011-07-19T10:34:00.000-04:002011-07-19T10:34:00.706-04:00

I don't know where it lands, but it takes off behind the Highland Inn.

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-47138427225544635372011-07-18T07:05:00.000-04:002011-07-18T07:05:00.695-04:00

A little more scene from the ship Martin was on: The iron covers are clamped on the smoking-room windows, for no lights must show.  So the air is dense with tobacco smoke and the reek of beer and champagne.  In one corner they are playing poker with their coats off.  All the chairs are full of sprawling young men who stamp their feet to the time, and bang their fists down so that the bottles

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-69611139561567721862011-07-16T07:50:00.000-04:002011-07-16T07:50:00.150-04:00

Last summer I read 1919 and this summer I am reading One Man's Initiation- 1917.  It's his WWI trilogy about Americans and the war.  To repeat a little of what I said last summer, if you were in the 1920s his name would be as familiar as Fitzgerald and Hemingway, but he has fallen out of fashion and they haven't.  He's like Sherwood Anderson but a bit more obscure.  Yet his writing is creative in

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-24618186557066590442011-07-15T07:32:00.004-04:002011-07-15T07:32:00.302-04:00

Looking for something?  Go to the rear of the building...

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-13806264677114637562011-07-13T07:47:00.000-04:002011-07-13T07:47:00.492-04:00

Who built the seven gates of Thebes? The books are filled with names of kings. Was it the kings who hauled the craggy blocks of stone? And Babylon, so many times destroyed. Who built the city up each time? In which of Lima's houses, That city glittering with gold, lived those who built it? In the evening when the Chinese wall was finished Where did the masons go? Imperial Rome Is full of

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-42607203010422573182011-07-12T08:48:00.000-04:002011-07-12T08:48:00.373-04:00

Pandora station: Sidney Bechet Seriously people.

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-92060311089290608772011-07-11T07:47:00.002-04:002011-07-11T07:47:00.544-04:00

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-8136973636060194362011-07-09T11:17:00.000-04:002011-07-09T11:17:00.192-04:00

In the Journal of Mental Science in 1947, T.F. Main suggested the “the difficulties are often about intangible and incommunicable deep human values, and the inability of others, wives and friends, to share a subtle but important viewpoint makes for distress and growing anger and a belief that they have forgotten what life is about.  Men in such a state are restless, bitter and irritable at home,

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-2730430259475823542011-07-08T07:15:00.002-04:002011-07-08T07:15:00.915-04:00

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-1641107220161707212011-07-06T07:16:00.000-04:002011-07-06T07:16:00.492-04:00

This living hand, now warm and capable Of earnest grasping, would, if it were cold And in the icy silence of the tomb, So haunt thy days and chill thy dreaming nights That thou wouldst wish thine own heart dry of blood So in my veins red life might stream again, And thou be conscience-calm'd--see here it is-- I hold it toward you. -Keats

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-40044938630269303372011-07-05T06:07:00.000-04:002011-07-05T06:07:00.490-04:00

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-46478457299964042382011-07-03T06:05:00.000-04:002011-07-03T06:05:00.752-04:00

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-88029172282104143312011-07-01T06:03:00.000-04:002011-07-01T06:03:00.349-04:00

Briarcliff Rd, ATL Let's just hope it's not underground advertising for Planet of the Apes.  j/k  Graffiti might be the one thing James Franco doesn't do.

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-69201410921432519622011-06-30T07:14:00.000-04:002011-06-30T07:14:00.136-04:00

If you like adventure/survival stories, like me, you'll enjoy this book.  Steven Callahan was a sailor, out alone on a boat, when it sank.  He ended up in an inflatable life raft, with quite a few supplies he managed to salvage but hardly anything when it would come down to his epic quest for survival.  Basically, it was one of the longest stretches ever alone in a life raft.  He took notes on

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-37689586262514034342011-06-28T10:13:00.000-04:002011-06-28T10:13:00.183-04:00

It's been a while since I did a sign post.

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-21074648526905546262011-06-26T07:26:00.002-04:002011-06-26T07:26:00.421-04:00

Steinbeck is not above quoting his friends only to throw cold water on their opinions.  Here's one you could hear today: There used to be a thing or a commodity we put great store by.  It was called the People.  Find out where the People have gone.  I don;t mean the square-eyed toothpaste-and-hair-dye people or the new-car-or-bust people, or the success-and-coronary people.  Maybe they never

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-39404284963981877792011-06-25T17:55:00.000-04:002011-06-25T17:55:19.998-04:00

From the fruit of his lips a man is filled with good things as surely as the work of his hands rewards him.

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-41187325230477626942011-06-24T21:56:00.000-04:002011-06-24T21:56:50.594-04:00

Yep, check out www.outthereatlanta.com  to get info & download or listen to our weekly podcast.  We drop knowledge (not bombs) every Wednesday.  It's called "Out There Atlanta" and it's chiefly about Atlanta food, culture, and events.  But sometimes we go on the road and interview people elsewhere.  I also think if you give it a listen you'll find it has a lot of general human interest.  This

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-54417570944013398022011-06-24T07:31:00.003-04:002011-06-24T07:31:00.866-04:00

Learn more here

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-66430213921948254532011-06-23T07:19:00.014-04:002011-06-23T07:19:00.330-04:00

While he's on the road, Steinbeck experiences some freedom.  Now, we've all heard of the freedom of the open road.  Part of it comes from being out of reach.  If you went on a trip without your phone, you'd get it. There was a time not too long ago when a man put out to sea and ceased to exist for two or three years or forever.  And when the covered wagons set out to cross the continent, friends

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-13907888689878340502011-06-21T18:06:00.001-04:002011-06-21T18:06:59.712-04:00

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-79239612484066908402011-06-21T07:30:00.000-04:002011-06-21T07:30:02.483-04:00

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-26675417361234212832011-06-20T09:37:00.000-04:002011-06-20T09:37:00.546-04:00

Steinbeck is trying to observe America as he travels.  He wants to see scenery, sure, but he wants to experience the people and the ways of life even more. I've seen many migrant crop-picking people about the country: Hindus, Filipinos, Mexicans, Okies away from their states.  Here in Maine a great many were French Canadians who came over the border for the harvest season.  It occurs to me that

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-8715284410663310022011-06-18T06:25:00.001-04:002011-06-19T09:48:46.434-04:00

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-68491777719167065392011-06-17T09:31:00.000-04:002011-06-17T09:31:00.213-04:00

Steinbeck is well on the road with Charley at this point.  Occasionally he stops and stays in a hotel rather than in his custom-made truck. I went back to my clean little room.  I don't ever drink alone.  It's not much fun.  And I don't think I will until I am an alcoholic.  But this night I got a bottle of vodka from my stores and took it to my cell.  In the bathroom two water tumblers were

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Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-32225655099528509132011-06-14T07:30:00.000-04:002011-06-14T07:30:00.698-04:00

Taken from Fractured Loyalties by TG Ashplant: But fathers, in addition to their individual personal qualities, were representatives of authority in the external world.  They were the crucial mediating figures between the patterns of loyalty and identification formed within the family, and the institutions of the wider social world to which the growing boy had gradually to transfer his

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-64943256334152369782011-06-13T18:23:00.001-04:002011-06-13T18:23:56.423-04:00

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-16213704193800555502011-06-11T09:47:00.007-04:002011-06-11T09:47:00.551-04:00

The media may be a chat bot.  At the very least, we seem to be on a loop.  I've suspected for some time that many of our media sources are feeding us the same cultural/popular science content.  Right now, it's chat bots.  You can find them in the On the Media podcast from last week.  And in the podcast from down the hall, Radiolab.  Where else?  Well, Adam Gopnik did an audio bit on chat bots for

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-32770428141557435052011-06-08T07:56:00.000-04:002011-06-08T07:56:00.540-04:00

This is a book about Steinbeck's roadtrip with his dog.  I just got a dog.  He's not ready for roadtrips yet, but I am.  Anyway, here is some opinion for you: A kind of second childhood falls on so many men.  They trade their violence for the promise of a small increase of life span.  In effect, the head of the house becomes the youngest child.  And I have searched myself for this possibility

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-45370192960433084662011-06-07T11:38:00.000-04:002011-06-07T11:38:46.301-04:00

I saw this on a car today, only it read "veteran" instead of soldier.  Now look, I like vets/soldiers, but this is kind of overkill.  The last time our independence was seriously threatened it was by the British; we'd still be speaking English.

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-38923450064370427212011-06-06T08:51:00.000-04:002011-06-06T08:51:00.741-04:00

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-37095832731241008212011-06-04T07:58:00.000-04:002011-06-04T07:58:00.524-04:00

learn to live with it

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-35960922032960311292011-06-03T08:47:00.000-04:002011-06-03T08:47:00.407-04:00

Psalm 39:4-5 "Show me, O LORD, my life's end and the number of my days; let me know how fleeting is my life.  You have made my days a mere handbreadth; the span of my years is as nothing before you.  Each man's life is but a breath."

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-29969329037646429252011-06-01T19:20:00.000-04:002011-06-01T19:20:46.448-04:00

In Plain Sight has returned to tv.  I, for one, am excited.  I think it's a great show.  Sure, it repeats plenty of cliches about the "tough" woman, good at work but bad at emotions and relationships (of course, how else could she be so good at work?).  At the same time, we'd be lying if we pretended there weren't people like this.  In fact, just this week on This American Life Ira Glass

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This from The Conquest of America by Tzvetan Todorov: What is denied is the existence of a human substance truly other, something capable of being not merely an imperfect state of oneself.  These two elementary figures of the experience of alterity are both  grounded in egocentrism, in the identification of our own values with values in general, of our I with the universe--in the conviction

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-84785610951254524032011-05-31T08:46:00.000-04:002011-05-31T08:46:00.327-04:00

Good times, that is. Get out and enjoy it!

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-8052643416898751272011-05-28T09:45:00.000-04:002011-05-28T09:45:32.640-04:00

From landfill to oasis.

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-49100021679922980002011-05-23T00:11:00.001-04:002011-05-23T00:11:00.565-04:00

There's something about her that repels me.  And yet, at first glance she's an ordinary old lady: more thin than fat, very wrinkled, dressed all in white, wearing sunglasses and a little straw hat.  This afternoon, after Ingeborg left, I watched her from the balcony.  She always claims the same spot on the terrace, in a corner near the sidewalk.  There, half hidden under an enormous white

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-48304659890835770742011-05-21T11:45:00.000-04:002011-05-21T11:45:00.767-04:00

“Culture bearers of the European tradition were being extinguished every day; lamps that could never be lighted again.  Who could measure the loss to the civilised life of man by the destruction of so much refined mental energy, so many dedicated intelligences?  On every field of battle there were casualties that devitalised the republics of learning and letters, the creative arts and crafts,

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-63881733159771193922011-05-20T07:47:00.000-04:002011-05-20T07:47:00.200-04:00

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-12520849713124668732011-05-19T07:28:00.001-04:002011-05-19T07:28:00.152-04:00

This comes from the intro to The Diary of a Dead Officer (about Arthur Graeme West) from WWI: "Even his death was irrelevant.  He died, it seems, in no blaze of glory, he died leading no forlorn hope, but struck by a chance sniper’s bullet as he was leaving his trench."

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-5216876403457497622011-05-18T07:46:00.000-04:002011-05-18T07:46:00.111-04:00

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-48107436847279540412011-05-17T08:12:00.014-04:002011-05-17T08:12:00.198-04:00

Now, back to the Werner Herzog "manly man" article in GQ.  At one point, he took a bit of a swipe at Woody Allen.  Herzog only wants fully realized people making movies, he thinks only the adventurers can make the movies that ring true.  Now, I resist this a bit.  Crimes and Misdemeanors, Match Point, even just some of his funny movies that point out the absurdity of life--there's real takeaway

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-62698550093331541772011-05-15T08:30:00.002-04:002011-05-15T08:30:00.825-04:00

Now, Adam Gopnik was saying something pretty interesting on Radiolab the other day, about what we want for our children's education.  He was saying that we want them to know that they are fishermen and fisherwomen along the stream of time and dipping into it and that we want them to know that they are unique but they are not the first to stand in whatever spot they are in and they won't be

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-64419266438872388602011-05-13T08:24:00.000-04:002011-05-13T14:03:15.115-04:00

Some time ago, Penguin books put out a children's book called Gay-Neck; The Story of a Pigeon, by Dhan Gopal Mukerji.  In the book, Gay-Neck was a pigeon who went from Calcutta to WWI.  He did well, but he was troubled by his experience.  He asked himself: “Why should I spring from the hands of a man whose complexion was not brown and whose eyes were blue?” He returned from combat shell-shocked.

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-51119090643421445302011-05-11T08:27:00.000-04:002011-05-11T08:27:00.549-04:00

There's a lot more down there and I plan to get down and see it up close soon.  Train tracks signal Americana from all different eras.

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-77541093444202531512011-05-08T10:22:00.004-04:002011-05-08T10:22:00.686-04:00

From the letters home of SH Steven (now in the IWM): In the Trenches, February 12, 1915 “We got into the fire trench with the 58th Rifles after a struggle (the 58th are an Indian Regiment).  My platoon was to support on the left.  A few of the natives were sent out on sorties but they will not move unless an Officer goes first and they are very short of British officers but eventually some of

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-28240585473738965592011-05-07T08:26:00.003-04:002011-05-07T08:26:00.407-04:00

What is more summer than a small baseball field?  It makes me want to reread Stolen Season.

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-7096187457940147292011-05-05T08:43:00.005-04:002011-05-05T08:43:00.495-04:00

Then let not winter's ragged hand deface In thee thy summer ere thou be distilled. Make sweet some vial; treasure thou some place With beauty's treasure ere it be self-killed. That use is not forbidden usury Which happies those that pay the willing loan-- That's for thyself to breed another thee, Or ten times happier be it ten for one. Ten times thyself were happier than thou art, If ten of thine

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-56462567780239151172011-05-04T08:51:00.000-04:002011-05-04T08:51:00.439-04:00

Puma Faas 300 Pretty lightweight, fit similar to the Adidas Adizero.  Not as snug as Nike Frees, but more cushioned than the Adidas.  I've only done a 3 mile run in them so far, so I can't weigh in too much on performance, but they seem to be decent for the average training run. I have to say, the best for a very lightweight shoe with little cushioning that still hugs the foot seems to be

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-42536207256512799562011-05-01T11:07:00.000-04:002011-05-01T11:07:00.454-04:00

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-7510827715794369082011-04-30T19:23:00.000-04:002011-04-30T19:23:21.429-04:00

There's a lot of advocacy for introspection these days, but the opposition has spoken, too. In the newest GQ, there is an interview with Werner Herzog, who says: I've always been suspicious. I don't even look into my face. I shaved this morning, and I look at my cheeks so that I don't cut myself, but I don't even want to know the color of my eyes. I think psychology and self-reflection is one

Aporiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047609043987853661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6158277.post-47489047536422096622011-04-29T09:28:00.002-04:002011-04-29T09:28:00.678-04:00

in this town.

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