Monday, January 03, 2005



Gay movie star Rupert Everett wants Sir Elton John to give up his newest pastime: slagging other celebs, especially Rupert’s pal Madonna. Everett says, “I think Elton has lost it completely. He loves to tell you how he overcame addictions - drugs, bulimia... He did not overcome addictions. He went from one to another. All these shopping sprees, and not controlling his mouth.”
[Sir Elton was married at St Marks Darling Point a place were Imrich angels are christened and many wild men of Sydney are buried ...]
Rupert Hits Out At Elton New Addiction

Literature & Art Across Frontiers: Good Idea, Bad Execution
In brilliant festivals and noisy entertainments, there is always, at bottom, a sense of emptiness prevalent. A false tone is there: such gatherings are in strange contrast with the misery and barrenness of our existence.
-Schopenhauer

That's life. You get old, then you die. In between hopefully you had a laugh, had a cry, heard a good story, told one, had a friend, was a friend, took a walk, read a book, invented something, thanked someone for something, remembered someone you loved and eventually -- was remembered by someone who loved you.
I tell my friends that I feel lucky, I've lived to see what life was like after my own death. Really. Every day is like that. It's really a blessing, because it's easy to shed the angst that accumulates by living. "I'm just a ghost," I think to myself. That adds a special quality to life.


Dave Winer of Scripting news flame [ Jump Start on Those New Year's Resolutions ]
• · This business of living is so hard -- and so fascinating On a New Year: Imagining, Creating a Life
• · · Writer Rich Cohen In the seventh month of pregnancy, Jessica and I attended one of those classes where they teach you how to have a baby, how to count and how to breathe. We had to go around the room and in the manner of Alcoholics Anonymous each give our name and say something about ourselves. I said, "Hello, my name is Richard, and my wife, Jessica, is having a baby." Birth Center Antinatal classes @ Royal Women Hospital Paddington 1990 ; [What our study has revealed is that there isn't just a gender divide in the world, there's also a divide between men who are dads and men who aren't Us & ‘Em ]
• · · · We're clocking in with almost 500 lists this year List of Lists
• · · · · At new year in ancient Babylon, towering statues of the gods were collected from the city's many temples, loaded on to boats and conveyed with great pomp up the canals to the ziggurat of Esagila. The ancient new year festivals celebrated the pain and struggle of creativity, but they also expressed a conviction that it was possible to make a fresh start, provided that we do not succumb to the temptations of denial. Our Leaders Could Do with a Dose of Ritual Humiliation
• · · · · · The events of the past week tend to bear out the proposition advanced by these great thinkers - we do have a deep streak of generosity within our natures. But that impulse is not, on its own, enough. It must become an on-going part of our lives, a commitment permanent enough to sustain those who will continue suffering long after the media has turned its attention elsewhere