I mastered burning (backing up) DVDs. For a long time I have made audio CD’s for paul, taking songs from this or that cd so he’d have a CD with his favorites.

He listens all night long, sometimes its kind of too much and wakes him up. I found some old radio broadcasts of the NYC blackout of 1971 and burned them to cd.

HERE IT IS: HG WELLS’ TIME MACHINE, turn the lights out and you are there as they travel Manhattan describing the blackout, what was on First and 40th, up town, downtown, east side, west side…. But not one Eloi to be seen…

http://donswaim.com/wcbssoundpage.html scroll down its all fun, even the recent blackout is there (we were there, but did not have a radio to listen to it)

NYC POWER OUTAGE, FEB. 6, 1971. Long time Newsradio 88 fans will recognize the voices of George Reading, John Lynker, Palmer Payne, Jack Welby, Allegra
Branson, and meterologist Gordon Barnes. On part 3, Bob Scheiffer anchors a
network hourly along with Robert Shackney. Then an excerpt of the WCBS
public affairs broadcast Let's Find Out with Dick Reeves and Steve Flanders.
Audio courtesy of Charles Sanzone.

Backout Part I 2/6/71 (33:43)
Backout Part 2 2/6/71 (53:23)
Backout Part 3 2/6/71 (34:49)

In a New York kind of mood I finished Paul Auster’s NEW YORK TRILOGY, a fine book. Fun stories, kind of surreal in the beginning, demanding, the last one is the best one.

Hear an interview with Auster, from 1987 (more time travel)

http://wiredforbooks.org/paulauster/index.htm

I am reading THE BRAM STOKER BEDSIDE COMPANION (10 stories by the author of Dracula) at the moment. I was reading about Stoker while reading Dracula and saw it mentioned. It has a story, DRACULA’S GUEST, that was extracted from the published novel – so I felt a bit cheated…AND ITS IS A GOOD LITTLE STORY. I got it used from abebooks.com -- old.

http://librivox.org/dracula-by-bram-stoker/ if you want to listen . . .


http://librivox.org/newcatalog/ is a page that I JUST LOVE, find anything from Poe to the Owl and the Pussycat…..


on Bram, did you know he wrote this fascinating book, I am still looking.

New York Times
SOME FAMOUS IMPOSTORS; Mr. Bram Stoker Includes Among Them the "Man" Known as Queen Elizabeth

February 26, 1911, Sunday
Section: Review of Books, Page BR107, 549
words

FIRST PARAGRAPH - IN his book entitled "Famous Impostors,"*
Mr. Bram Stoker, after sketching for us the careers of a well-selected group of
acknowledged pretenders, swindlers, charlatans, and masqueraders, such as Perkin
Warbeek, Stephen Mali, Princess Olin, John Law, Arthur Orton, La Maupin,
Chevalier d'Eon and Hannah Snell, invites our attention to an alleged tradition
to the effect that Queen Elizabeth was a man.

--john

Now that my birthday has past and I enter the 2nd half of my first century I keep noticing ‘age’ remarks in what I read. First it was the Somerset Maugham I quoted in my birthday post. Sane and rational were his words. See somewhere below.

Of course it didn’t help when I was called to work on Saturday: stand outside a skyscraper on the river and watch for billionaires. Ok, a building with half a dozen entrances, some underground. 15 degrees. What billionaire in his right mind is going to waltz out the front door and hail a cab (in a part of the city with very very very little Saturday traffic?). I watched from a plexi glass bus shelter/ ice cube maker until my water bottle started to freeze, about 3 hours. Then I returned home, joints chilled, knees stiff.

And now my reading attacks me with more age remarks:
BUT NOW:

I just finished EVERYDAY LIFE by Lydie Salvayre (a modern day french novelist), so its cross cultural, a hilarious book kind of like the Wall Street Journal's column CUBICLE CULTURE run amuck, an older, rather paranoid secretary, Suzanne encounters time’s menace:

My Dear Suzanne, begins Monsieur Meyer in an unctuous tone . . . you may be unaware, my dear Suzanne, that for the ailing or burned-out who are closing in on sixty . . time passes so quickly doesn’t it . . we have a provision for the ailing and the burnouts, and you do fit in that category, my dear Suzanne . . . . there’s the option for an early retirement that offers nearly all the benefits of a normal retirement. (page 117)

On Lydie:
http://www.pen.org/page.php/prmID/1163

http://www.frenchbooknews.com/detail.php?livre_id=133&categorie_livre=Livre_Francais


http://www.frenchculture.org/a_lydie-salvayre-everyday-life_531.cfm



_)_)_)_)()()()()

and I have been trying to read this for the first time, but rarely get past this section ….:

Dostoevsky, Fyodor . Notes from the Underground
Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library

That is my conviction of forty years. I am forty years old now, and you know forty years is a whole lifetime; you know it is extreme old age. To live longer than forty years is bad manners, is vulgar, immoral. Who does live beyond forty? Answer that, sincerely and honestly I will tell you who do: fools and worthless fellows. I tell all old men that to their face, all these venerable old men, all these silver-haired and reverend seniors! I tell the whole world that to its face! I have a right to say so, for I shall go on living to sixty myself. To seventy! To eighty! ... Stay, let me take breath ...

god, they're killing me softly . . . Killing me softly with his song, Telling my whole life with his words, Killing me softly with his song ... With his song ... where is Roberta?

I must return to Victor Pelevin, something comical/satirical/ -- almost conspiratorially hilarious . . . is that chicken talking to me or the possum I’m having a drink with?

-all grins

I never thought I’d enjoy this, and mispronounced it as Canary Road for nearly 50 years, the most ignorant of dislike -based solely on the fact that the movie version of the GRAPES OF WRATH is so upsetting for me . . .


But I read it, MONTHS AGO, and it has everything. Sadness so profound is hilarious, or hilariousness so profound its suicidally depressing . . .


…. I wonder if the St. Regis is aking to the Palace Flophouse and Grill?

"I thought of giving a little party tonight," said Mary.
"On what? You're not going to cut out the baked ham picture from a magazine again and serve it on a platter, are you? I'm sick of that kind of kidding. It isn't funny any more. It's sad."
"I could give a little party," she insisted. "Just a small affair. Nobody will dress. It's the anniversary of the founding of the Bloomer League--you didn't even remember that."

From:


CANNERY ROW
by John Steinbeck


Copyright 1945 by John Steinbeck.


CHAPTER XXIV


Mary Talbot, Mrs. Tom Talbot, that is, was lovely. She had red hair with green lights in it Her skin was golden with a green undercast and her eyes were green with little golden spots. Her face was triangular, with wide cheekbones, wide-set eyes, and her chin was pointed. She had long dancer's legs and dancer's feet and she seemed never to touch the ground when she walked. When she was excited, and she was excited a good deal of the time, her face flushed with gold. Her greatgreat-great-great-great grandmother had been burned as a witch.
More than anything in the world Mary Talbot loved parties. She loved to give parties and she loved to go to parties. Since Tom Talbot didn't make much money Mazy couldn't give parties all the time so she tricked people into giving them. Sometimes she telephoned a friend and said bluntly, "Isn't it about time you gave a party?"
Regularly Mary had six birthdays a year, and she organized costume parties, surprise parties, holiday parties. Christmas Eve at her house was a very exciting thing. For Mary glowed with parties. She carried her husband Tom along on the wave of her excitement.
In the afternoon when Tom was at work Mary sometimes gave tea parties for the neighborhood cats. She set a footstool with doll cups and saucers. She gathered the cats and there were plenty of them, and then she held long and detailed conversations with them. It was a kind of play she enjoyed very much-- a kind of satiric game and it covered and concealed from Mary the fact that she didn't have very nice dothes and the Talbots didn't have any money. They were pretty near absolute bottom most of the time, and when they really scraped, Mary managed to give some kind of party.
She could do that. She could infect a whole house with gaiety and she used her gift as a weapon against the despondency that lurked always around outside the house waiting to get in at Tom. That was Mary's job as she saw it--to keep the despondency away from Tom because everyone knew he was going to be a great success some time. Mostly she was successful in keeping the dark things out of the house but sometimes they got in at Tom and laid him out. Then he would sit and brood for hours while Mary frantically built up a backfire of gaiety.
One time when it was the first of the month and there were curt notes from the water company and the rent wasn't paid and a manuscript had come back from _Collier's_ and the car. toons had come back from _The New Yorker_ and pleurisy was hurting Tom pretty badly, he went into the bedroom and lay down on the bed.
Mary came softly in, for the blue-gray color of his gloom had seeped out under the door and through the keyhole. She had a little bouquet of candy tuft in a collar of paper lace.
"Smell," she said and held the bouquet to his nose. He smelled the flowers and said nothing. "Do you know what day this is?" she asked and thought wildly for something to make it a bright day.
Tom said, "Why don't we face it for once? We're down. We're going under. What's the good kidding ourselves?"
"No we're not," said Mary. "We're magic people. We always have been. Remember that ten dollars you found in a book--remember when your cousin sent you five dollars? Nothing can happen to us."
"Well, it has happened," said Tom. "I'm sorry," he said. "I just can't talk myself out of it this time. I'm sick of pre.. tending everything. For once I'd like to have it real--just for once."
"I thought of giving a little party tonight," said Mary.
"On what? You're not going to cut out the baked ham picture from a magazine again and serve it on a platter, are you? I'm sick of that kind of kidding. It isn't funny any more. It's sad."
"I could give a little party," she insisted. "Just a small affair. Nobody will dress. It's the anniversary of the founding of the Bloomer League--you didn't even remember that."
"It's no use," said Tom. "I know it's mean but I just can't rise to it. Why don't you just go out and shut the door and leave me alone? I'll get you down if you don't."
She looked at him closely and saw that he meant it. Mary walked quietly out and shut the door, and Tom turned over on the bed and put his face down between his arms. He could hear her rustling about in the other room.
She decorated the door with old Christmas things, glass balls, and tinsel, and she made a placard that said "Welcome Tom, our Hero." She listened at the door and couldn't hear anything. A little disconsolately she got out the footstool and spread a napkin over it. She put her bouquet in a glass in the middle of the footstool and set out four little cups and saucers, She went into the kitchen, put the tea in the teapot and set the kettle to boil. Then she went out into the yard.
Kitty Randolph was sunning herself by the front fence. Mary said, "Miss Randolph--I'm having a few friends in to tea if you would care to come." Kitty Randolph rolled over languorously on her back and stretched in the warm sun. "Don't be later than four o'clock," said Mary. "My husband and I are going to the Boomer League Centennial Reception at the Hotel."
She strolled around the house to the backyard where the blackberry vines dambered over the fence. Kitty Casini was squatting on the ground growling to herself and flickering her tail fiercely. "Mrs. Casini," Mary began and then she stopped for she saw what the cat was doing. Kitty Casini had a mouse. She patted it gently with her unarmed paw and the mouse squirmed horribly away dragging its paralyzed hind legs behind it. The cat let it get nearly to the cover of the blackberry vines and then she reached delicately out and white thorns had sprouted on her jaw. Daintly she stabbed the mouse through the back and drew it wriggling to her and her tail flicked with tense delight.
Tom must have been at least half asleep when he heard his name called over and over. He jumped up shouting, "What is it? Where are you?" He could hear Mary crying. He ran out into the yard and saw what was happeing. "Turn your head," he shouted and he killed the mouse. Kitty Casini had leaped to the top of the fence where she watched him angrily. Tom picked up a rock and hit her in the stomach and knocked her off the fence.
In the house Mary was still crying a little. She poured the water into the teapot and brought it to the table. "Sit there," she told Tom and he squatted down on the floor in front of the footstool.
"Can't I have a big cup ?" he asked.
"I can't blame Kitty Casini," said Mary. "I know how cats are. It isn't her fault. But--Oh, Tom! I'm going to have trouble inviting her again. I'm just not going to like her for a while no matter how much I want to." She looked closely at Tom and saw that the lines were gone from his forehead and that he was not blinking badly. "But then I'm so busy with the Bloomer League these days," she said, "I just don't know how I'm going to get everything done."
Mary Talbot gave a pregnancy party that year. And everyone said, "God! A kid of hers is going to have fun."




CHAPTER XXV


Certainly all of Cannery Row and probably all of Monterery felt that a change had come. It's all right not to believe in luck and omens. Nobody believes in them. But it doesn't do any good to take chances with them and no one takes chances. Cannery Row, like every place else, is not superstitious but will not walk under a ladder or open an umbrella in the house. Doc was a pure scientist and incapable of superstition and yet when he came in late one night and found a line of white flowers across the doorsill he had a bad time of it. But most people in Cannery Row simply do not believe in such things and then live by them.
There was no doubt in Mack's mind that a dark cloud had hung on the Palace Flophouse. He had analyzed the abortive party and found that a misfortune had crept into every crevice, that bad luck had come up like hives on the evening. And once you got into a routine like that the best thing to do was just to go to bed until it was over. You couldn't buck it. Not that Mack was superstitious.
Now a kind of gladness began to penetrate into the Row and to spread out from there. Doc was almost supernaturally successful with a series of lady visitors. He didn't half try. The puppy at the Palace was growing like a pole bean, and having a thousand generations of training behind her, she began to train herself. She got disgusted with wetting on the floor and took to going outside. It was obvious that Darling was going to grow up a good and charming dog. And she had developed no chorea from her distemper.
The benignant influence crept like gas through the Row. It got as far as Herman's hamburger stand, it spread to the San Carlos Hotel. Jimmy Brucia felt it and Johnny his singing bartender. Sparky Evea felt it and joyously joined battle with three new out of town cops. It even got as far as the County Jail in Salinas where Gay, who had lived a good life by letting the sheriff beat him at checkers, suddenly grew cocky and never lost another game. He lost his privileges that way but he felt a whole man again.
The sea lions felt it and their barking took on a tone and a cadence that would have gladdened the heart of St. Francis. Little girls studying their catechism suddenly looked up and giggled for no reason at all Perhaps some electrical finder could have been developed so delicate that it could have located the source of all this spreading joy and fortune And triangulation might possibly have located it in the Palace Flophouse and Grill. Certainly the Palace was lousy with it Mack and the boys were charged. Jones was seen to leap from his chair only to do a quick tap dance and sit down again. Hazel smiled vaguely at nothing at all. The joy was so general and so sdfused that Mack had a hard time keeping it centered and aimed at its objective. Eddie who had worked at La Ida pretty regularly was accumulating a cellar of some promise. He no longer added beer to the wining jug. It gave a flat taste to the mixture, he said.
Sam Malloy had planted morning glories to grow over the boiler. He had put out a little awning and under it he and his wife often sat in the evening. She was crocheting a bedspread.
The joy even got into the Bear Flag. Business was good. Phyllis Mae's leg was knitting nicely and she was nearly ready to go to work again. Eva Flanegan got back from East St. Louis very glad to be back. It had been hot in East St. Louis and it hadn't been as fine as she remembered it. But then she had been younger when she had had so much fun there.
The knowledge or conviction about the party for Doc was no sudden thing. It did not burst out full blown. People knew about it but let it grow gradually like a pupa in the cocoons of their imaginations.
Mack was realistic about it. "Last time we forced her," he told the boys. "You can't never give a good party that way. You got to let her creep up on you."
"Well when's it going to be?" Jones asked impatiently.
"I don't know," said Mack.
"Is it gonna be a surprise party ?" Hazel asked.
"It ought to, that's the best kind," said Mack.
Darling brought him a tennis ball she had found and he threw it out the door into the weeds. She bounced away after it.
Hazel said, "If we knew when was Doc's birthday, we could give him a birthday party."
Mack's mouth was open. Hazel constantly surprised him. "By God, Hazel, you got something," he cried. "Yes, sir, if it was his birthday there'd be presents. That's just the thing. All we got to find out is when it is."
"That ought to be easy," said Hughie. "Why don't we ask him?"
"Hell," said Mack. "Then he'd catch on. You ask a guy when is his birthday and especially if you've already give him a party like we done, and he'll know what you want to know for. Maybe I'll just go over and smell around a little and not let on."
"I'll go with you," said Hazel.
"No--if two of us went, he might figure we were up to something."
"Well, hell, it was my idear," said Hazel.
"I know," said Mack. "And when it comes off why I'll tell Doc it was your idear. But I think I better go over alone."
"How is he--friendly ?" Eddie asked.
"Sure, he's all right."
Mack found Doc way back in the downstairs part of the laboratory. He was dressed in a long rubber apron and he wore rubber gloves to protect his hands from the formaldehyde. He was injectingthe veins and arteries of small dogfish with color mass. His little ball mill rolled over and over, mixing the blue mass. The red fluid was already in the pressure gun. Doc's fine hands worked precisely, slipping the needle into place and pressing the compressed air trigger that forced the color into the veins. He laid the finished fish in a neat pile. He would have to go over these again to put blue mass in the arteries. The dogfish made good dissection specimens.
"Hi, Doc," said Mack. "Keepin' pretty busy?"
"Busy as I want," said Doc. "How's the pup ?"
"Doin' just fine. She would of died if it hadn't been for you."
For a moment a wave of caution went over Doc and then slipped off. Ordinarily a compliment made him wary. He had been dealing with Mack for a long time. But the tone had nothing but gratefulness in it. He knew how Mack felt about the pup. "How are things going up at the Palace ?"
"Fine, Doc, just fine. We got two new chairs. I wish you'd come up and see us. It's pretty nice up there now."
"I will," said Doc. "Eddie still bring back the jug?"
"Sure," said Mack. "He ain't puttin' beer in it no more and I think the stuff is better. It's got more zip."
"It had plenty of zip before," said Doc.
Mack waited patiently. Sooner or later Doc was going to wade into it and he was waiting. If Doc seemed to open the subject himself it would be less suspicious. This was always Mack's method.
"Haven't seen Hazel for some time. He isn't sick, is he?"
"No," said Mack and he opened the campaign. "Hazel is all right. Him and Hughie are havin' one hell of a battle. Been goin' on for a week," he thudded. "An' the funny thing is it's about somethin' they don't neither of them know nothin' about. I stayed out of it because I don't know nothin' about it neither, but not them. They've even got a little mad at each other."
"What's it about?" Doc asked.
"Well, sir," said Mack, "Hazel's all the time buyin' these here charts and lookin' up lucky days and stars and stuff like that. And Hughie says it's all a bunch of malarky. Hazel he says if you know when a guy is born you can tell about him and Hughie says they're just sellin' Hazel them charts for two bits apiece. Me, I don't know nothin' about it. What do you think, Doc?"
"I'd kind of side with Hughie," said Doc. He stopped the ball mill, washed out the color gun and filled it with blue mass.
"They got goin' hot the other night," said Mack. "They ask me when I'm born so I tell 'em April 12 and Hazel he goes and buys one of them charts and read all about me. Well it did seem to hit in some places. But it was nearly all good stuff and a guy will believe good stuff about himself. It said I'm brave and smart and kind to my friends. But Hazel says it's all true. When's your birthday, Doc?" At the end of the long discussion it sounded perfectly casual. You couldn't put your finger on it. But it must be remembered that Doc had known Mack a very long time. If he had not he would have said December 18 which was his birthday instead of October 27 which was not. "October 27," said Doc. "Ask Hazel what that makes me."
"It's probably so much malarky," said Mack, "but Haze! he takes it serious. I'll ask him to look you up, Doc."
When Mack left, Doc wondered casually what the build-up was. For he had recognized it as a lead. He knew Mack's technique, his method. He recognized his style. And he wondered to what purpose Mack could put the information. It was only later when rumors began to creep in that Doc added the whole thing up. Now he felt slightly relieved, for he had expected Mack to put the bite on him.

Paul got me this object de art for my birthday.

++++++++++++++++++++


A pre note/quote:

Always keep Ithaca in your mind.
To arrive there is your ultimate goal.
But do not hurry the voyage at all.
It is better to let it last for many years;
and to anchor at the island when you are old,
rich with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting that Ithaca will offer you riches.
(CAVAFY, ITHACA, 1911)


heading to 50:
On January 12th I did State Mandated pre birthday paperwork. I took the day off, oh so wonderful? First a visit to the doctor, who added a pill to control my blood pressure (well, its still pumping, inhaling and exhaling). Then off to the see the State of Illinois apparatchik to renew my state IDs at the DMV... I don't drive, but that’s the line to wait in. An alert apparatchik told me I could renew my driver's license (there was a year grace period that is not mentioned on their web page). It was the last day I could do that, so I did. Now I have TWO VALID id's - sadly in the same name so no DID here.

ONWARD

Birthday resolutions: figure out secondlife (internet thing); meaningful blog entries; read (reading Paul Auster's NEW YORK TRILOGY; finished the Christopher Moore I won -YOU SUCK about vampires, Pynchon is resting for a bit, I will return to him soon; DEAD SOULS might delay that aspiration).

www.librarything.com/catalog/jbeckhamlat

http://jbeckhamlat.blogspot.com/

and deal with RSS feeds . . ..

ALMOST THERE:
Saturday night I went to bed more mindlessly hopeful than realistically confident that I'd awaken as a roach. Opposed to waking up 50. FIFTY.

To wake up as anything other then what I fell asleep as. No such luck, although I have déjà vu type dreams of dancing cans of Raid in a sunny gnat free cemetery. The Raid cans were doing a legless CanCan dance while ghost like roach played harmonicas. There was a short mosquito like guy name Henri something Trekie sketching posters. As all my dreams it was a black and white with a harmonica based score. Absinthe flowed.


ARRIVAL:
50. A simple fulcrum day. Watched a few movies, my favorite: VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED (1960) based on John Wyndham's great read of a novel THE MIDWICH CUCKOOS, a DVRed episode of BOSTON LEGAL, then VAN HELSING -2004 (the Bram Stroker rationalist character widly updated). Made a beef rib roast and twice baked potatoes. Asparagus. Black berries and cottage cheese - two items from my childhood . . . Paul took those as some sign of delayed crisis.

And I re-read a little Maugham --I had just read a bit of Maugham days before. (I had lent a Maugham reader to a neighbor, who returned it - ironically the print was too small.) A bit of consolation if not comfort:

EXTRACTS FROM ''A WRITER'S NOTEBOOK''
By Somerset Maugham
1944

BY way of postscript. Yesterday I was seventy years old. As one enters
upon each succeeding decade it is natural, though perhaps irrational, to look
upon it as a significant event. When I was thirty my brother said to me: "Now
you are a boy no longer, you are a man and you must be a man," When I was forty
I said to myself: "That is the end of youth." On my fiftieth birthday I said:
"It's no good fooling myself, this is middle age and I may just as well
accept it." At sixty I said: "Now its time to put my affairs
in order, for this is the threshold of old age and I must settle my accounts." I
decided to with-draw from the theatre and I wrote The Summing Up, in which I
tried to review for my own comfort what I had learnt of life and literature,
what I had done and what satisfaction it had brought me. But of all
anniversaries I think the seventieth is the most momentous. One has
reached the three score years and ten which one is accustomed to accept as the
allotted span of man, and one can but look upon such years as remain to one as
uncertain contingencies stolen while old Time with his scythe has his head
turned the other way, At seventy one is no longer on the threshold of old age.
One is just an old man.

Not really sad, but on the mark for 1944. Most people now see 60 as the new 40 (back in early december 2006 that was a news story); and 40 the new 30.

Of course Somerset pointed out at 50 most of life had been spent . . . who lives to be 100?

But then there are places where you can live forever . . . . Inferno type places . . .

Midway upon the journey of our life
I found myself within a forest dark,
For the straightforward pathway had been lost.
Ah me! how hard a thing
it is to say
What was this forest savage, rough, and stern,
Which in the
very thought renews the fear.

And you can find them in any library or google:

A NOTE ON LIBRARIES:
http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6396388.html

(if Umberto Eco were dead he'd be spinning in his grave; ever since the closing of smoking rooms the sophistication of learning has suffered; next the thought police -hide those library records; then ultimately THE DREAM POLICE, conceal those aspirations)...

onward to 60!

Finally final:

A note from actor George Sanders 26 apr 1972, Barcelona, the seaside hotel Rey Don Jaime at Castelldefels.

From the NYT:

A police spokesman said five empty tubes of Nembutal were found in Mr. Sander's
room.

One note read: "Dear World: I am leaving because I am
bored. I feel I have lived long enough. I am leaving you with your
worries in this sweet cesspool -good luck." The other, written in
Spanish, asked that Mr. Sander's sister in London be notified of his death.

===

TOMORROW AND TOMORROW AND TOMORROW . . . now where is my copy of Thanatopsis by Bryant?


+++++++++++++++++
THIS WAS AN ICE MAN STANDING ON MICHIGAN AVENUE TALL AND PROUD MONDAY - when I did not have my camera. By Tuesday he had tumbled, even tho the temperaturs had not.

Today as I was walking to work I saw a piece of spectacular art in the window of the Atlas Gallery on Michigan avenue. I have a smaller version, this looks life sized, a Jules Verne dream come to life. You can find more of his work on my walls at home, or at http://www.atlasgalleries.com/ under Sergey Tyukanov. His daughter is great as well, Tanya Miller, under painters at http://www.perfectpeargallery.com/ .

++++++++++++

Then out the window of the office I spied an long ship heading north, probably laden with iron ore in this modern age. Imagine working on that ship, out in the lake, today was a wintry day (unusual I know) with temps in the teens. On land. This was telephoto both optical and digital, so its dark, I did catch the Lighthouse blinking red.

and now the word/phrase of the day defined in Wikipedia:

Folie à deux (literally, "a madness shared by two") is a rare psychiatric syndrome in which a symptom of psychosis (particularly a paranoid or delusional belief) is transmitted from one individual to another. The same syndrome shared by more than two people may be called folie à trois, folie à quatre, folie à famille or even folie à plusieurs (madness of many). Recent psychiatric classifications refer to the syndrome as shared psychotic disorder (DSM-IV) (297.3) and induced delusional disorder (folie à deux) (F.24) in the ICD-10, although the research literature largely uses the original name.

Teaching old dogs new tricks. This might have been a dream, felonies are not permitted.

Last night this guy tried to copy a dvd (rip, burn, pirate). He have tried now and then for a few months. Finally I saw a light and gave up on the software that came with my PC. Rome was burning and Nero arrived.

Then he managed to get the movie, but the menus did not come for the ride. Then again: total failure: this is not a dvd my dvd player said.

Then this morning, he got the menus, special features, all of it except the languages captions and directors commentary. THE achievement is great. He PUT in the dvd player, the first thing that came up was the studio's DON'T YOU DARE even think of COPYING THIS.

So you can teach an old snarling dog new tricks!

BUT CAN THEY DO THEM TWICE?

For most people, memory itself is a kind of revival house in which only the most vivid things survive.

IN the past few days I read stuff here and there. But the one thing that really held my attention was a great article in The New Yorker by David Denby on the movie industry and the public ‘taste’ versus what the public finds in the theaters (relics).

http://www.newyorker.com/printables/critics/070108crat_atlarge


Many fine lines, relevant to more than movies:

This very end of empire remark:

As these theatres age, the gold leaf doesn’t slowly peel off fluted columns. They rot, like disused industrial spaces. They have become the detritus of what seems, on a bad day, like a dying culture.

and this great sentence waiting for its novel:

For most people, memory itself is a kind of revival house in which only the most vivid things survive. But if there was never a golden age there were a few structures that encouraged superior work—or at least didn’t actively defeat it.

Or this remark on plutocrat cultural hegemony (cultural imperialism turned inward):

Today, the conglomerates are saying, ‘We have the resources to tell the public what it wants to see.’ ” But for how long? Teen-agers are making their own movies and showing them on YouTube and MySpace. They’re multitasking for fun, with computer games, instant messaging, and television. They may be unwilling to sit in a darkened theatre for two hours, submitting to someone else’s control

.

Finally not to bore you any more, this, The funerial epitaphs for movies, tv, newspapers?

Linklater said, “On the Internet, the people who have been shut out of the national conversation on those movies will now be able to take part in it, and for the independent filmmaker that’s an incredible gain.” For the beginning filmmaker, the game is afoot. Shooting with lightweight digital equipment, he could put together a feature-length movie for very little money and then distribute it through the Internet. All he needs is ability and a cast and crew open to adventures.

++++


Last week and observant friend commented on my hotmail signature line:

"People can lose their lives in libraries. They ought to be warned." - Saul Bellow

to which I replied:

The nearest public library is a very very long walk - something I don't care to make. Between it and me there are 3-5 book stores including Borders, Afterwords - the used book store with the savvy odd looking staff and hard to find old titles in hardback. You cannot loose your live in AMAZON.COM, there is no serendipity in online shopping aside from misspelling. You can engage randomness in a bookstore. BUT THE REFERENCE SHELVES OF A LIBRARY, I DO miss those, especially of a University. I must figure this out.

I now have over 700 books in my catalog of books, check it out:

http://www.librarything.com/catalog/jbeckhamlat

bookended on one end by a book on Absinthe (a fine beverage) to the other end with books on Wrinkles in Time (real and imagined). And a few things in between.

THIS IS a guide I use:
99 Novels
The Best in English Since 1939
by Anthony Burgess
a.b.e-books v3.0 / Notes at EOF

reading at the moment:




+++++++++++++++++++++

SUNDAY, a day of cooking and . . . I take liberties, no red peppers, then I don't need an extra pepcid, and the shape can very. LEFT OVERS IN THE FRIDGE.

Sunday’s lunch:


FROM THIRTY YEARS OF RECIPE REQUESts TO THE LOS ANGELES TIMES
BY Rose Dosti

MEAT page 125

MEAT LOAF 72 MARKET STREET

The best meat loaf (readers will testify) comes from 72 Market Street, a restaurant in Venice, California. According to Chef Leonard Schwartz who developed the recipe, it was a result of years of experience, not just an experiment.

1/4 cup minced onion
3/4 cup minced green onion
½ cup minced celery
½ cup minced carrot
1/4 cup minced green pepper
1/4 cup minced sweet red pepper
2 teaspoons minced garlic
3 tablespoons butter
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon black pepper
½ teaspoon white pepper
½ teaspoon ground cumin
½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
½ cup half and half
½ cup catsup
1 ½ pounds lean ground beef
½ pound lean ground pork
3 eggs, beaten
3/4 cup dry bread crumbs
Sauce (below)

Saute onion, green onion, celery, carrot, green pepper, red pepper and garlic in
butter until vegetables are soft and liquid is evaporated. Set aside to cool. Combine salt, cayenne, black pepper, white pepper, cumin and nutmeg and add to vegetable mixture. Stir in half and half, catsup, beef, pork, eggs and bread crumbs. Mix well.

Form into loaf and place on greased baking sheet or in 9 x 5 inch loaf pan. Bake at 350 degrees 45 to 50 minutes. Let stand 10 minutes before slicing. Pour off excess fat. Slice and serve with Sauce. Makes 6 to 8 servings.

SAUCE

4 shallots
2 tablespoons butter
1 sprig thyme
1 bay leaf
Dash crushed black pepper
1 cup dry white wine
1 cup veal or beef stock
1 cup chicken stock
Salt, pepper

Saute shallots in 1 tablespoon butter with thyme, bay leaf and black pepper. Add white wine and stocks. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Simmer until reduced by half and sauce thickens slightly.

LATER!

Today is almost over. I got a book in the mail, that I won – being one of the first 25 to respond to an email. Happy 2007! YOU SUCK by Christopher Moore (see below). That promises to be fun. BUT I am reading the PYNCHON, AGAINST THE DAY at home, and INSECT POETICS during free time during the day. Bugs is in discrete chapters, so I start YOU SUCK after I finish “VOICES OF THE LEAST LOVED: The Cockroach in the Contemporary American Novel." You have to admit that is some chapter title, right?

Now, that classmates.com thing I signed up for, I got an email saying someone looked at my profile (very little info). If I pay they will tell me who, is that not blackmail, or marketing genius? Someone (real or imaginary) looked at my profile with days of my putting it there. By mistake, looking for one of my siblings (none of who have signed up). WHO DID THIS profile patrol? Do I care enough to spend 5 bucks a month to find out? Would you? From the mids 1970s, who remembered my name enough to click on it?

KILLING PEOPLE IS RUDE
I snapped a picture in front of Saks Fifth Avenue, sprayed on the sidewalk – perhaps by some band of Pro Life Nuns or Anti-gun violence zealots? Or by the police in some kind of reverse-reverse psychology: graffiti as the medium?

And a picture of one of my Christmas presents from Paul . . . and the shoes I wore today – it was almost 50 and sunny . . .

And you?

What is this thing called myspace.com ??

For the past few weeks I have been 'wired' in a few main ways. I check youtube.com daily (I have lists of people I watch, and topics); veoh.com, similar to youtube, not as gigantic; this blog, motivating me to take a few pictures every day; and classmates.com. None of these are new, some are old (classmates.com was used for story research a few years ago).

And I find its better to search youtube.com and what ever in google compared to searching the youtube.com search box.

And I have been fiddling with
Classmates.com, find your old friends, No not really. Its just as I near 50 there is some interest in the past. While cleaning over the weekend I found an elementary school yearbook. I was in the 3rd grade. IT DID NOT LIST ANY NAMES! Along with it were a few random reports cards, one from elementary school, a few from high school. Such mediocrity in marks, I could be president! At any rate it more than a walk down memory lane. I was surprised by how many names were in classmates.com (a snobbish feeling: those people can use email? The web?). classmates.com wants money to see more than a name, and I am not sure about that. A few bucks a month (it would take a few hours to swipe the info into word files for my graduating class). I do have high school yearbooks with names in them. But to see that people actually went to classmates.com and signed up was amazing. – and it may list current location and personal stuff.

The great video wasteland:
Youtube.com and veoh.com are video sharing services. If you want to hear a song go to youtube and you most likely will find a clip from MTV, of you’re a member of the class of 75 a grainy snip stolen from Dick Clark's BANDSTAND. VEOH.COM will let you download stuff (small selection of movies, tv episodes, movie trailers). You can move it to a thumbdrive for at the office viewing! Comic remakes of Dark Shadows on youtube . . . snips from the Simpsons (some complete episodes). A lot of stuff has vanished (the DAILY SHOW with JON STEWART had a ton of election stuff that has been removed . . . probably by court order. Youtube.com is not downloadable, so veoh lets you keep KEEP stuff incase the poster decides to remove it.

There is one youtube poster from Spain who tries to post something for every minute of every hour of the day. A zillion posts. Its incredible. At times desperate.

In youtube.com I watch a ranting atheist, vulgar, crude, ego driven. But a lot of laughs. He did a bit on Mark Foley . . . and his stuff on Osama - he is trying to earn a fatwa on himself is . . . then there are some college dorm students who post things, bits of parties, drives to MacDonalds, all the time chattering. When I hear of something new I may google it (like the BRIGHTS - http://www.the-brights.net/ ).

The ink blots say: youtube, my god you are 50 not 25 (I THINK someone said that to Norma Desmond in SUNSET BOULEVARD yesterday). The classmates.com says, retrospective? Paul says my chance for a midlife crisis past 10 years ago and I can forget that.

On New Year’s Eve a local bar closed. Opened in 1961 (I was four and in ohio). Its on the way to work, if I walk down Ontario, as I have hundreds of times in the past 12 years. Business cyle live and death. OH THIS IS TOO morbid, I have been overtaken by chthonic forces and am seeing a darkening (soon a quickening?).

BUT ITS FUN to look at the bar, all closed up, to become a 'luxury' condo. I hate that word LUXURY, so pretentious in advance. How many drunks walked out the front door of O'Neils into traffic? I have had take out from it a few times, burgers and super greasy fries. Under the fries they put this miniature pack of M&Ms. Health Food all the way. Owner Joe O'Neil must have gotten a bundle of bundles, 4 floors will be replaced by 50 with 160 condos.

And they are building a new apartment building near the office, I have a bird’s eye view. CRANE OPERATORS OF THE WORLD UNITE, YOU HAVE NOTHING TO LOOSE BUT YOUR VIEWS!

A 3 day posting!

Saturday:

Taking down the tree . . . ornaments from 1985! Then on to 1987 . . . Snoopy from 1988-I think from Bullocks in Sherman Oaks, 1999, 2001 and all years between. An odd feeling feeling a decorated artificial tree. Some decorations seem a million years old, others elicit a ‘what is this?’ often followed by: it was part of a gift wrap. Certainly gives the season, and year a closure. Then tomorrow is New Years Eve, a sense of ‘openture’ perhaps? It has not been the best of years and I will be mixed about seeing it go. The holly wreath has just come off the door. And its oddly warm, forecasts 10 days out anticipated temps in the teens, now there are lows in the 30s. Its not bright and cold, but gray and chilly. 10:00 a.m. and the street lights are still on (if they ever went off). The endless night of the North Pole . . .

SUNDAY:

On New Years EVE morning, putting the branches in large plactic containers. Lots of artificial pins a poking…. Afternoon: 3 trips to the storage locker with branches and other accoutrement of Christmas. Then after dinner around 7 I did a last load of laundry!

At midnight we clanged sparkling cider – I had a fig to start the new year, then a few pieces of Godiva . . .

TODAY TODAY JANUARY FIRST :: MONDAY:

And now it’s the new year. Some fine tuning cleaning, dusting and . . . then a long nap. A dreary day, back to work Tuesday – and its to be sunny. Of course. Some how putting away the holiday cheer lead to cleaning the pantry and my closet.

NAPTIME will be february, the entire month.

GOOD THINGS HAPPENED in 2006. A friend opened an art gallery, a nice place to sneak into, http://www.perfectpeargallery.com/ . Tanya Miller, under PAINTINGS AND PRINTS is a friend of mine. Others friends have moved on (and up?) to the NYT. Many have started books, some have finished books . . . Some have regained their sanity. The luckiest are entering academe . . . an atmosphere that can be political and full of backbiting; BUT one that has students with a bit more curiosity and flexibility than slaves to the bottom line and 20 inches no more no less.

Soon to arrive, in 2007!:

And last week I WON, yes WON a book, by Christopher Moore called YOU SUCK, about a vampire. Be the one of the first 25 to email . . . his Lamb The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal http://www.chrismoore.com/bookpage.asp?PB_ISBN=0380813815 is one of my favorite reads (after TIBOR FISHER’S THE THOUGHT GANG
http://www.complete-review.com/reviews/fischert/thoughtg.htm

13 DAYS TILL . . .