Jozef Imrich, name worthy of Kafka, has his finger on the pulse of any irony of interest and shares his findings to keep you in-the-know with the savviest trend setters and infomaniacs.
''I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can't see from the center.''
-Kurt Vonnegut
Hell is Other People: Über - Documenting personal hells
"It makes absolutely no difference whether gods and devils exist or not. The secret ambition of every true poem is to ask about them even as it acknowledges their absence." —Charles Simic ("Charles the Obscure") Take a deep breath first: Here's every piece of data about you that's owned by Facebook and Google.
No matter Washington's desire to grill Facebook publicly—Trump's obsessed with taking down Amazon and Jeff Bezos. Without Jeff stories like 'Cold River' would be forgoten history... The Week
Most of the political commentariat were convinced that Bill Shorten had got things badly wrong by announcing his policy on dividend imputation immediately before the Batman by-election. It was even more striking that, despite the pressure, Shorten didn’t cave into demands for changes to the policy. Michelle Grattan, for example, described the policy as an “own goal“. After Labor’s easy win, she backed off a little bit, but still claimed that Labor “has a selling job“. M
Maybe so, but I’d say the government is the one that has scored goals for the other side.
(Update 27/3) As predicted, Labor has tweaked the policy to exclude pensioners. That blunts the remaining lines of attack, but doesn’t cost much money, since the benefits go primarily to high-wealth self-funded (but massively tax-subsidised) retirees. By waiting until after the Batman by-election and the latest Newspoll, Labor looks gutsy (even Dennis Shanahan in the Oz conceded this) and Turnbull looks even weaker than before
Sometimes at the top end of town one house is simply not enough. That's certainly the case for Sydney's corporate elite who have become known for swallowing up their neighbours to create mega-compounds. The practice is becoming increasingly common as Sydney's multimillionaire population continues to grow
A NEW federal agency is poised to launch a sweeping assault on Australians' privacy, with regulators granted wide-ranging powers to track the physical movements of every citizen.
A WESTERN suburbs man who created nine false identities to import steroids and other drugs into Australia after he fell in with the wrong crowd at his gym has been jailed for at least 16 months.
WITH PARENTS SHOPPING FOR DAUGHTERS-IN-LAW ANY GAL OVER 30 IS DAMAGED GOODS EVEN WITH SIX GUYS FOR EVERY FIVE GIRLS: Dating in China is seriously brutal
Pan Macmillan will publish a book from former FBI director James Comey on "ethical leadership" a year after he was dismissed by US president Donald Trump.
In the ancient city of Hierapolis there was a cave said to kill any sacrifice led towards it. So deadly was this cave, that the Romans thought it to be the entrance to the underworld.
WHEN MONICA MET KEN:
Writing for Vanity Fair in a
story published Sunday, Monica Lewinsky describes meeting special
prosecutor Ken Starr for the first time — 20 years after he made her life
"a living hell" as he pursued charges against then President Bill
Clinton. It's worth a read.
A train conductor relates what it’s like to be the involuntary killer of people who are determined to be run over.
But we are living in a skeptical and, if I may use the phrase, a thought-tormented age; and sometimes I fear that this new generation, educated or hypereducated as it is, will lack those qualities of humanity, of hospitality, of kindly humor which belonged to an older day. — James Joyce, born on this date in 1882
New research by The Nature Conservancy, World Resources Institute and other partners shows that restoration and other land management improvements could provide more than a third of the emissions reductions
necessary to keep global warming under 2°C. Yet hurdles remain, and one
of the biggest is funding. Many investors still know little about
restoration opportunities. This report is intended to bridge that
information gap; it includes case studies of 14 innovative enterprises
across eight countries. They cover a fascinating range of activities,
from drones that shoot seeds into hardened soils to genetic research on
tree species threatened with extinction…”
Some take to liquor, some turn to prayer, Many prefer to dance, others to gamble, and a few resort to gas or the gun. (Some are lucky, and some are not.)
Name your choice, any selection from one to twenty-five: Music from Harlem? A Viennese waltz on the slot- machine phonograph at Jack’s Bard and Grill? Or a Brahm’s Concerto over WXV? (Many like it wild, others sweet.)
Champagne for supper, murder for breakfast, romance for lunch and terror for tea, This is not the first time, nor will it be the last time the world has gone to hell. (Some can take it, and some cannot.)
Facebook: “We believe that a key part of combating extremism is preventing recruitment by disrupting the underlying ideologies that drive people to commit acts of violence. That’s why we support a variety of counterspeech efforts.”
It's not every day that I'm impressed -- I mean truly impressed -- by a collection of short stories. But that was most certainly the case with The Encyclopedia of the Dead, Danilo Kis's mesmerizing tales of European history, philosophy, and religion.
I'd read Kis's A Tomb for Boris Davidovich -- which was good; Encyclopedia, though, is in a league of its own. The collection really is a triumph. These are just my sort of stories: subtle, erudite, and focused on the past.
In the title story -- "The Encyclopedia of the Dead" -- Kis wrestles with the nature of history and historical writing: which events, he wonders, are worthy of narration, and which can be set aside? How many details are necessary before a history becomes overloaded with the mundane? I found these questions to be relevant to our own lives: which details, for instance, do we include when describing our days and which do we knowingly ignore? That decision is part of the historical process, but it is equally part of our own.
"To Die for One's Country is Glorious" makes a similar attempt to probe historical analysis: who writes history and after how long -- how many years -- does their narrative assume a sense of truth? Further, asks Kis, how do we know when we've properly identified motivation in history? How many revisions will it take for us to get this right? Profound questions lurk at every turn.
Finally, there's "The Book of Kings and Fools" which must be the most successful story of the collection. Here, Kis imagines the history of a book (one similar in content and consequence to the Elders of Zion). This story is as good as it gets: Kis focuses on the transformation of texts over time. Its a testament to Kis's success that the story he weaves sounds and feels plausible: the names Kis invents, the tales he develops are endowed with a sense not only of the plausible, but of the real. For those interested in the evolution of texts -- and the abuses committed in their name -- let me strongly suggest "The Book of Kings and Fools." This was something of a revelation.
Out of respect, the last word is reserved for Kis:
"The corrupt cannot imagine people different from themselves; they can only imagine people who have succeeded in hiding their true natures."
Luí fada gan faoilte air! Seacht n-aicíd déag agus fiche na hÁirce air! Calcadh fiodáin agus stopainn air! Camroillig agus goile treasna air! An ceas naon air! An Bhuí Chonaill air! Pláigh Lasaras air! Éagnach Job air! Calar na muc air! Snadhm ar bundún air! Galra trua, bios brún, péarsalaí, sioráin, maotháin agus magag air! Glogar Chaoláin ní Olltáirr ann! Galraí sean-aoise na Caillí Béara air! Dalladh gan aon léas air agus dalladh Oisín ina dhiaidh sin! Tochas Bhantracht an Fháidh air! An Galra glúiníneach air! Deargadh tiaraí air! Gath dreancaidí air!.. .
Dlouhý ležení bez obracení! Ať ho naráz schvátí sedmatřicet nákaz archy Noemovy! Ať se mu hnáty zkřiví a žaludek obrátí naruby! Porodní bolesti! Ulsterskou žloutenku na něj! Lazarův mor! Jóbovo kvílení! Prasečí chřipku! Zátku do zadku! Ať si užene slintavku, kulhavku, střečky, bachorní červy, zánět třetího víčka a motolici! Ať mu útrobách bouří jak Vosopasce, dceři Velebřichově! Stařecký choroby Irský pramáti! Ať mu vypadnou oči a bloudí jak Ossian! Ať ho stíhá nesnesitelný svědění žen Prorokových! Sloní nohu na něj! Zánět řiti! Ať ho blechy sežerou zaživa…
I hope he lies and never rises! I hope he gets the thirty-seven diseases of the Ark! I hope all his tubes get glutted and his bung hole stuffed! That he gets a club foot and a twisted gut! The Ulster flies! The yellow bellies! The plague of Lazarus! Job’s jitters! Swine snots! Lock arse! Drippy disease, flatulent farts, wobbly warbles, wriggly wireworm, slanty eyes, and the shitty scutters! May he get the death rattle of Slimwaist Big Bum! The decrepit diseases of the Hag of Beare! May he be blinded without a glimmer and be gouged like Oisín after that! The Itch of the Women of the Prophet! His knees explode! His rump redden with rubenescence! Be lanced by lice!.. .
Máirtín Ó Cadhain's Irish classicCré na Cillehas been translated twice into English in recent years -- both volumes out from Yale University Press, and one of them under review at thecomplete review(The Dirty Dust) -- but now it's also been translated into Czech (!), asHřbitovní hlína(see the Argopublicity page) and at Radio Praha David Vaughan has aQ & Awith Czech translator Radvan Markus.
Name your choice, any selection from one to twenty-five:
Name your choice, any selection from one to twenty-five: