Do you have any advice for secular Americans who are faced with living in a country that's increasingly governed by religious fundamentalists?
If I have any advice, it's that every day that you wake up, don't say, "This is normal." Every day, wake up with this idea that you have to defend your freedom. Nobody has the right to take from women the right to abortion, nobody has the right to take from homosexuals the right to be homosexual, nobody has the right to stop people laughing, to stop people thinking, to stop people talking.
If I have one message to give to the secular American people, it's that the world is not divided into countries. The world is not divided between East and West. You are American, I am Iranian, we don't know each other, but we talk together and we understand each other perfectly. The difference between you and your government is much bigger than the difference between you and me. And the difference between me and my government is much bigger than the difference between me and you. And our governments are very much the same.
- Marjane Satrapi, interviewed by Salon.com
A proliferation of websites endorses the turn against workaholism Australian Idle Somewhere to hold an idle party or function? Czech out Restaurant of the Month: Prague Czech Beer Restaurant I will miss this year’s BBW held between 4th of August through to the 7th of August Byron Bay Writers' Festival
Art of Living & Literature Across Frontiers: Festivals far from the marketing crowd
Cynics who say literary events are all about selling books are wrong
...My God, this novel makes me break out in a cold sweat! Do you know how much I’ve written in five months, since the end of August? Sixty-five pages! Each paragraph is good in itself and there are some pages that are perfect. I feel certain. But just because of this, it isn’t getting on. It’s a series of well-turned, ordered paragraphs which do not flow on from each other. I shall have to unscrew them, loosen the joints, as one does with the masts of a ship when one wants the sail to take more wind…Letter to Louise Colet (29-30 January 1853)
• Festivals? Just a drop in the ocean [Six Reasons for a Book Blog ; Books Alive Australia Council's books promo under fire ; A conference celebrating independent publishing on the Internet Webzine 2005 ]
• · Statue Come to Life? ; The Great Gray Whale: Or, This Story Has No Moral
• · · via Dehumanizer ; Is it right to “tolerate” an abusive person? An authoritarian?; Shel et al says Dell Sucks
• · · · Psychedelic '60s: Home Page ; Past 60s Family Crest Rings
• · · · · Recipe how to be much cleverer than all your friends (so they really hate you) Logic ; Many flavors of creativity
• · · · · · Summer reading is an annual orgy of pretension and log rolling No, come on, what do you really read on holiday? ; Doctor’s Official Orders : Moderate alcohol drinkers better thinkers