Facing Facts: absurdity of existence

"There was nothing like facing facts. They blew into the face hard, like a stiff, exhilarating, decidedly gritty breeze, which brought sanity with it, even though sanity might be unwelcome."
~ Anthony Powell, The Kindly Ones

Exile can be inspirational, says James Wood. So many exiles are novelists, chess players, and intellectuals. But there is no place like home James know how it feels to swim in the oceans of homelessness

Why are writers such exceptional procrastinators? They fear being confronted with a simple truth: They’re not as good as they think they are I will never finish the story of the Bear Pit let alone Bottom of The Harbour



Bacon, Nietzsche thinks, created Shakespeare as a mask, and Shakespeare made Hamlet as his mask — “every profound spirit needs a mask,” we hear in Beyond Good and Evil. Nietzsche enables himself to write by imagining that he is Hamlet fencing, wearing a Hamlet-Shakespeare-Bacon mask all at once. “Nietzsche” is itself a literary mask for the “mute rock” of the historical Friedrich Nietzsche, who later went insane. We act, according to this view, by acting theatrically, under a veil of illusion, the same way Critchley and Webster “rashly” read Hamlet by ventriloquizing the play’s other readers, the same way they want to “be Ophelia.” Antiart must both force us to see suffering and give us the theatrical courage to resist it out of love, though we know that we will fail. As Hamlet says, “The play’s the thing.” Absurdity of existence



"In real life, things are much worse than as represented in books. In books, you love someobdy and want them, win them or lose them. In real life, so often, you love them and don't want them, or want them and don't love them."
~Anthony Powell, The Kindly Ones

Biographers & Brandy: Directorate S

Of course the biggest mafia in Russia has always been the government; in Soviet times, the Communist Party, and now a circle of former KGB and FSB.

~ Martin Cruz Smith

Beckett was a misanthrope, Joyce a philanderer, Dickens a tyrant. So why do biographers depict their subjects as especially admirable people? Calling spade a shovel

Bourbon and books, Fitzgerald and Faulkner, Cheever and Carver: In America, literary distinction and alcoholism have long been linked... Brandy Coniac Duality Etc Friendship

“Fiction is the second life of a city and has a profound effect on the way it is experienced by visitors and its inhabitants.”

Sydneyrellas

Monkeys do it, minnows do it, even fiddler crabs do it. Play, that is. And that’s become an intellectual scandal. After all, what's the purpose of play? Thespians at Heart

At the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, famous writers taught, gave readings, drank, philandered, and enriched themselves – with help from the CIA. The good old days

Like for Jozef Imrich, for W.G. Sebald, history was a sequence of terrible events. Everywhere they looked they saw an abyss. Coldest Realities of Life and Death

A FORMER KGB agent in the Soviet era has escaped a drink-drive charge in New Zealand so he can continue his work as a consultant to foreign intelligence agencies. New Zealand-based Mr Kouzminov was described in court as a member of a secret nuclear biological and chemical warfare society with a high-level security clearance.
Before arriving in New Zealand from Russia with his wife and two children in 1994, Mr Kouzminov reportedly worked for a top secret cell within the KGB known as “Directorate S”.Vodka stands for little Water





Judge David Burns said Kouzminov’s breath alcohol reading was “very high” but said “the spectacular fall from grace” of losing his work would be too high a price to pay, the Sunday Herald reported.

Full Moon & Ode to Malchkeon

Feb. 14 is St. Valentine’s Day. It is also the first full moon day in the lunar calendar. For the first time in 19 years, the two events fall on the same day...

Thank Chaucer for reminding us of the winter holiday that warms Czechoslovak coldest month. Church chronicles suggest it was a Roman emperor who subjected an early bishop named Valentine to imprisonment and death for allegedly writing letters to his girlfriend. However, acceptable substantiation being lacking, there is stronger evidence suggesting that Chaucer in his book, “Parliament of foules,” published around 1300, declared establishing the day of Saint Valentine’s martyrdom as: “For this was on seynt Volantynys day Whan euery bryd and foules comyth there to chese his make.” (“For this was on Saint Valentine’s Day, when every bird cometh there to choose his mate.”)

It is the thought that counts ...

• 

Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/02/08/3602871/st-valentine-and-cupid-warm-a.html#storylink=cp

Laptop The new Bottom Harbour

When Philip Egglishaw last visited Sydney and Melbourne, he left behind a who's who and how-to guide to tax avoidance. John Garnaut reports.

Philip Egglishaw, chartered accountant and international tax planning man of mystery, visited his well-to-do Sydney clients at the Sheraton on the Park in November 2003.

He must have been jet-lagged by the punishing global travel program, for he left behind what have become key documents for Operation Wickenby, Australia's largest and most ambitious tax evasion crackdown.

Investigator Ian Andrew of the Australian Crime Commission entered Egglishaw's room on November 4, after Egglishaw had checked out. He found three crucial documents and asked hotel staff to hand them over, which they did.

Each bore the double "S" emblem of Egglishaw's firm, Strachans, and a print by a 19th-century Jersey oil painter against the firm's distinctive pin-striped backdrop.

The first document is headed Trusts: A Simple Concept. It tells how to establish an effective "blind" and "mobile" trust - one which is instantly transferable between tax havens and where the trustees act on instructions from beneficiaries without recording or disclosing any link.

Three months later he arrived in Melbourne from Los Angeles. On that day - February 14, 2004 - Crime Commission agents were again waiting but this time made their presence known. They searched his hotel room and seized a number of documents. Crucial Laptop

Egglishaw: A Decade of Operation Wickenby

Story of Ants called Humans

Three moments of modern disbelief are discernible: just before the French Revolution; before the Russian Revolution; and our own. 

In Czech born Tom Stoppard’s 1970 play “Jumpers,” the philosopher hero broods unhappily on the inexorable rise of the atheist: “The tide is running his way, and it is a tide which has turned only once in human history. . . . There is presumably a calendar date—a moment—when the onus of proof passed from the atheist to the believer, when, quite suddenly, the noes had it.” Well, when was that date—when didthe noes have it? In 1890? In 1918, after the Great War? In 1966, when Time shocked its readers with a cover that asked whether God was dead? For that matter, do the noes have it? In most of the world, the ayes seem to be doing just fine. Even in secularized Manhattan, the Christmas Eve midnight Mass is packed tight with parishioners, and the few who came for the music are given dirty looks as they sheepishly back out after the Vivaldi.

Spiritual Deaths

The First Intercept of Media Dragons

How do you write about topical stories and news? Some people manage to write reams and reams – particularly on a subject like the Journalism and Price of Privacy. People pour over every aspect and detail of abuses of power, sifting through every tiny piece of paraphernalia like holy relics as though this will somehow bring them closer to the well of knowledge. No one is better storyteller than Jay Rosen

"First Look Media, where I’m an advisor, launched its first “digital magazine” yesterday. It’s called The Intercept. (A name I like.) The Intercept is led by Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras and Jeremy Scahill. It has a masthead, a mission, its own look and feel and the following URL:http://firstlook.org/theintercept. "

Orwell & Expressions of Interest

"I neither suffer myself, nor other fools, gladly."

Alec Guinness, A Commonplace Book

Orwell’s account of his grotesque days in prep school – gym socks, boiled cabbage, pederasty – is so memorable, and so far from the truth... Expressions of Exaggerations

What set humans apart? Not bipedalism or opposable thumbs or big brains. But these two things: cooperation and cooking... Maria Imrichova agreed with this statement ;-

Tips for would-be literary gossips: Join the inner circle of great writers; tell, don’t show; avoid discretion at all costs...Secrets

Sixty-six million years ago, an asteroid caused one of earth’s five great extinctions. The sixth one is happening right now... Only on Mother Earth ....

Analogies

Chris Jordan wants the Australian Taxation Office to go through the same service transformation as...dentistry. And he expects small business to be a big winner. drilling down

CODA: The most famous celebration of the power of winter movement in all the world’s literature is in the last paragraphs of Gogol’s “Dead Souls,” where the novelist celebrates Russia itself as a troika racing through the snow:

The forest flies on both sides of the road with its dark rows of firs and pines, echoing with the ring of axes and the cawing of crows. The whole road is flying, no one knows where into the unseen distance…. Where art thou soaring away to, Russia? Give me the answer! But Russia gives none.

Auburn City Council

But the ad does not detail his family's recent legal troubles. The councillor's father, local developer Mohamad Mehajer, was sentenced in December to 3½ years' jail for his part in a conspiracy to cheat and defraud the National Australia Bank of more than $3 million. The court found Mr Mehajer's loan application included false documents intended to present his financial position as ''much rosier than it really was''.

The district court did not accept Cr Mehajer's father's testimony relating to a $2000 payment he gave a bank employee processing the loan he applied for with false documents. Mr Mehajer told the employee ''this is not a bribe'' while handing over the money. The court found it was. He is expected to appeal. Councillor's law degree will not be his first brush with courts Only in Auburn ...

Making World a better place to leave: the price of genuine community

Making World a better place to leave.  2013 Expatriations Increase by 221% (Andrew Mitchel):

We do not believe that the primary reason for the increase in expatriations is for political purposes or for individuals to reduce taxes.  Instead, we believe that there are likely three principal reasons for the recent increases in the number of expatriations:

1. Increased awareness of the obligation to file U.S. tax returns by U.S. citizens and U.S. tax residents living outside the U.S.;
2. The ever-increasing burden of complying with U.S. tax laws; and
3. The fear generated by the potentially bankrupting penalties for failure to file U.S. tax returns when an individual holds substantial non-U.S. assets.

The increase in expatriations may also be partly due to a 2008 change in the expatriation rules.

When a foot-fault can break you, you might not want to play the game anymore.  When they start shooting you for jaywalking, you might not want to be on that street at all.

It’s never too cold for a tax scam.  From CBS2Iowa.com:

Coralville police say they’re receiving more reports of a telephone tax scam. CBS 2 News first told you about the scam last month. The IRS says the scam targets taxpayers, especially recent immigrants. A caller claims to be an IRS agent and says the victim owes money. The victim is told to repay the money using a preloaded debit card or a wire transfer. If the victim refuses, the caller threatens to arrest or deport them or suspend his or her drivers license. The scammer uses a fake name and fake IRS badge number. The caller has found a way to make caller IDs show the number as the IRS toll-free line. To appear more legitimate, the scammer may also send a fake email or recite part of the victim’s social security number. After threatening the victim, the caller may hang up. A second scammer may later call the victim, pretending to be from the local police department or DMV.

It sounds like the scam described in this IRS web page.  If they haven’t sent you a letter first, the IRS isn’t going to call you.  Nor will they contact you via e-mail.  The IRS gives this advice:

• If you know you owe taxes or you think you might owe taxes, call the IRS at 1.800.829.1040. The IRS employees at that line can help you with a payment issue – if there really is such an issue.
• If you know you don’t owe taxes or have no reason to think that you owe any taxes (for example, you’ve never received a bill or the caller made some bogus threats as described above), then call and report the incident to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration at 1.800.366.4484.
• If you’ve been targeted by this scam, you should also contact the Federal Trade Commission and use their “FTC Complaint Assistant” at FTC.gov.  Please add “IRS Telephone Scam” to the comments of your complaint.

Hero Librarians

“The only end of writing is to enable the readers better to enjoy life, or better to endure it..
Shakespeare may get all the love on the modern stage, but some librarians are obtaining a share of the limelight in cyberspace.

“The late Philip Larkin was the Librarian of the University of Hull in England. I learned of this only long after I had discovered the Philip Larkin that matters, not the one who located books but the one who located words, fastened them together in lines of verse, unfastened them and then refastened them, burnished them, made adjustments so fine that no eye but his could have seen the need, and finally published them between two covers as books that will still be here when no one on earth knows or cares that he was once the Librarian of Hull.” 

Yes, this is real – and Snicket (children’s author Daniel Handler) is funding it himself. Why? “Because librarians have suffered enough.”

Announcing the Lemony Snicket Prize for Noble Librarians Faced With Adversity

There is also an obituary by Peter Clayton and an “Appreciation” by Russell Cope of Dr Peter Biskup, once editor of AARL and scholar, librarian and gentleman

Antipodean Slavic links

Government publications in Australia;: Papers on their use and understanding

“Public libraries circulated 2.46 billion materials last year, the greatest volume in 10 years. Over this same period, the circulation of children’s book and materials increased by more than 28 percent. Attendance at library-hosted programs for kids hit 60.5 million in 2013.”

Libraries are very popular czech out Crown Street at Surry Hill

MDMXIV or MMXIV history repeating it's courses

The class war has been won by the rich Class warfare from Sydneyrella Washington

A superpower is challenged by a rival, a vital region is in turmoil. Europe is a mess, nationalist passions are inflamed. 1914? No, 2014... Lessons unlearned  I think we have to recognize that the instability and violence of the Balkan states in 1914 was the trigger for the war. It was not an excuse used by the Germans or anybody else. The region was pretty much out-of-control. I think the obvious parallel here is with the Middle East today, where again you have a number of smallish states, heavily armed, with religious differences, political differences, and instability. The situation is very difficult for the major powers to control. Rivalries

For Karl Marx, the proletarian revolutionwas to be global: “Workers of all lands, unite.” It never happened. Here’s why it still might... it is exactly because the rich and poor will look increasingly similar in Lagos and London that it's more likely that the workers of the world in 2030 will unite. As technology and trade level the playing field and bring humanity closer together, the world's projected 3.5 billion laborers may finally realize how much more they have in common with each other than with the über-wealthy elites in their own countries.  Marx is Back?

Novelty and the novel. Innovative writers – Cervantes, Swift – don’t merely create stylistic forms; they create new ways to tell the truth... Truth Dragons

Harold Rosenberg was perhaps first, and not last, to complain about artists getting degrees. But the M.F.A. is not what ails art. No, the problem is the hubris of artists... Degrees of Cold Rivers

Troublemakers

You Are What You Read? (Uh, Oh – We Are In Trouble)

“If we are what we read, then Americans are wimpy, religious, ambitious, self-improving, and patriotic. The specific possibility that the only book any adult read last year was one of the best-selling books on the Nielsen or Amazon list is perhaps more disheartening than the shapeless fact that three-quarters of the American population read only […]

More Good News On The Ebook Front (If You Want Good News About Digital Cold Rivers

“After years of hand-waving by enthusiasts and detractors, we’re finally getting to the point where we can actually measure what’s going on.”

More Good News On The Ebook Front

THE SIX THINGS THAT MAKE COLD RIVER STORIES GO VIRAL WILL AMAZE, AND MAYBE INFURIATE, YOU