Within a fortnight, half the town was dead.

It was May the 16th, 1978, just before 3 days from the release of Dire Straits' epic single 'Sultans of Swing' which is in their self-titled album. The band took the stage live at The Old Grey Whistle Test and performed that legendary, invaluable, and amazing song, Sultans of Swing. This footage is one of the earliest footage of the band and it is beyond perfection since there was no release back in that time from Dire Straits. The band's sound, playing, and whole live performance is just obviously amazing and it also sounds as great as the album version. What an incredible live performance, enjoy.

With all the dragons in new fantasy stories today, I hope young readers haven’t been shielded from their traditional setting. The picture of a dragon hoarding treasure under a mountain is a classic depiction of greed.

Within a fortnight, half the town was dead.

Your TV set has become a digital billboard

Ars Technica – TV software is getting loaded with ads, changing what it means to own a TV set: “The TV business isn’t just about selling TVs anymore. Companies are increasingly seeing viewers, not TV sets, as their most lucrative asset. Over the past few years, TV makers have seen rising financial success from TV operating systems that can show viewers ads and analyze their responses. Rather than selling as many TVs as possible, brands like LG, Samsung, Roku, and Vizio are increasingly, if not primarily, seeking recurring revenue from already-sold TVs via ad sales and tracking. How did we get here? And what implications does an ad- and data-obsessed industry have for the future of TVs and the people watching them?..”

 You know that moment when something small takes your breath away for a quick second? Well, that’s how I felt when I saw the green ceramic candlestick holders on June Diane Raphael and Paul Scheer’s dining room table in Architectural Digest this past April. Immediately thought, “OH, I WANT THOSE” although truthfully in no world does my one-bedroom apartment need another candlestick holder or candelabra (I talk about my mild obsession here). 

Green Moroccan Tamegroute Pottery

Just as WW1 was the end of royalty in the old world, you sense the end of the gap between the rich and poor in the  first and third worlds …

Both China and the eurozone are in a slump and no one looks ready to take the baton from the stalling US …

Unbelievable when you think about it. They say that the US is stalling out but why are they surprised? They impoverish average citizens, let corporations get away with loading them up with killer debts for healthcare, education, etc, and then let other corporations jack up prices the past few years for things like food so that profits can be boosted leading to executive bonuses. And then when average Americans are tapped out and can’t spend into the economy, they moan that the economy is stalling out. What did they think would happen?

Sally Thomas, "Aubade with Grackle"

Jennifer Lagier, "Fluidity"

Jennifer Reeser, "Acoma Pueblo Song for a New Chief," "The Pool of the Pueblo Gods," and "Acoma Pueblo Welcomes Back the Gods of Rain"

Benjamin Myers, "The Pitcher's Arm" and "Bacchus Departs the Camp of Mark Antony"

Christopher Honey, "Cassius Speaks on Brutus"

Matthew Walther, "Horace 4.1"

Gail White, "The Not Impossible"

Victoria Moul, "Pindar in the Nursery"

Betsy Howard, "Capture the Flag" and "Purim in Susa"

Jonathan Chibuike Ukah, "Easter"

John Talbot, "Thirty Years Later" and "Something I Said"

Patricia Behrens, "Leaving Prudence Island"

Sunil Iyengar, "Residuals" and "The Interlocutor"

Zara Raab, "Caravan—A Tale of Love"

Tom D'Evelyn, Two Haiku

J. C. Scharl, "Crumbs on the Kitchen Table"

Rikki Santer, "Kosher"

Matthew King, "On Sometimes Smelling Smoke"

Devon Balwit, "At Home in the Castle"

James Matthew Wilson, "Corpus Christi Procession in a Rainstorm"

Katie Hartsock, "Tussive"

Jenna Le, "Apotheosis"

Robert Wyllie, "Kate's Wedding"

Sydney Lea, "At Cliffs' Edge"

Darlene Young, "Sisters"

Carter Davis Johnson, "A Suit for Grandfather"

J.S. Absher, "First Drink"

Thomas Alan Orr, "Crop Duster"

Mattie Quesenberry Smith, "Morningside" and "A Slice of the Apocalypse"

Matthew E. Henry (MEH), "…could abash the little Bird"

Daniel Cowper, "Feast Behind the Waste Transfer Depot"

Felicity Teague, "The Night-Watchman"

Dan Rattelle, "The Mares"

David W. Landrum, "Fennec Foxes"

Elijah Perseus Blumov, "Antarctica"

Henry Wise, "Firstborn Buck"

Len Krisak, "Five Burros Not of New York"

Stephen D'Evelyn, "O Greenness"

Erica Mapp, "Sunflowers"

Katherine Spadaro, "Learning the Names of Weeds"

Allison Huang McFadden, "Jubilee"

Maryann Corbett, "Alumni Magazine: Class Obituaries"

Mary Grace Mangano, "Going Home, Leaving Home"

Claudia Gary, "Turmoil" and "Morning, 1956"

Amit Majmudar, "Prologue to an Unwritten Rewrite of Shakespeare’sCoriolanus"

Jesse Keith Butler, "The Butlerian Prohibition against Thinking Machines"

M. I. Devine, "Stuck Inside a Mary Oliver Poem with the Milton Blues Again"

Susan Delaney Spear, "For a Decade"

Matthew Buckley Smith, "To Marilyn Manson"

Nicole Yurcaba, "A Black-and-White Scene"

J. M. Jordan, "Last Solo"

Jared Carter, "Transition" and "Ötzi"

Michael Angel Martín, "The Incorruptible"

Marly Youmans, "Saint Thief"