Tuesday, April 22, 2008

A new blurb for me, a haiku for April, and Andy B. looks for trouble on Earth Day

Posted by Mickey Z on 04/22 at 04:14 AM
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  1. Morning all,
    Surely ‘the most self-righteous liberals’ are the most easily riled? Will certainly grab a copy.

    Andy, mass-media, hmph, they need to die, not change. Kill the weeds and the flowers will grow? Sorry, feeling a bit maoist today wink

    My last week working for Murdoch! Earned just about enough blood-money to pay Her Majesty’s Government for another year. Huzzah!

    Posted by Mew from MiddleSEX (hehehe)  on  04/22  at  08:02 AM

  2. “A day without haiku is like a day without sunshine filtering through leaves and clouds.” - Zen Prole

    Andy, the propaganda model’s conventional wisdom says that if the system’s guardians turn about, they will be replaced. The rise and stagnation of alternative media has shown that an ideological battle can’t be fought from the fringes. Your parenthetical comment about other responses and ‘trouble’ is the point where the lefty rubber disconnected with the road: OK, we’ve proven them wrong and criminal in a variety of ways. Now what? 

    Let me tempt Rep. Jane Harman’s psychosis by saying that right now the problem isn’t with the establishment or the fascists - there are no mysteries there. With the left’s (de facto) leaders turning in such awful results without any accountability, cleaning house on that front is a promising place to start anew. Watching another generation become infected with outmoded tactics and a detached, academic style only convinces me more.

    And Mew, it’s not Maoist as such, but what Malcolm called ‘by any means neccessary.’ Mao didn’t invent that. (Captcha is again prescient with ‘response.’)

    MZ, please tell us again when the book drops.

    Posted by Zen Prole from Urth  on  04/22  at  09:34 AM

  3. Hello Expendables. Good point, Mew, re: liberals.

    Zen: I’m hoping the novel drops by early summer.

    P.S. I just added two “greenish” links of mine to the main post.

    Posted by Mickey Z. from Astoria  on  04/22  at  09:54 AM

  4. crickets

    (captcha sez: alone)

    Posted by Mickey Z. from Astoria  on  04/22  at  07:29 PM

  5. That ‘medialens.org’ sounds very interesting - they would have as much to work on in Australia as they do in the UK, that much can be said with certainty.  And count me in as a buyer of ‘CPR for Dummies’, Mickey - reminds me of a quote I found somewhere:  when a writer was asked what was his favourite book, he replied:  ‘Why, that book by me which came out very recently’ or words to that effect. 

    Another beautiful autumn day, if a bit smoky - our local council has decided to hold some controlled burn-offs’ in the forests surrounding Daylesford to minimise the dangers of bushfires next summer, or so they say.

    And hi, Mew and Zen Prole.  Like you, I look forward to the ‘dropping’ of Mickey’s latest book ..

    Posted by Helga Fremlin from Daylesford, Australia  on  04/22  at  08:13 PM

  6. Speaking of dropping books:
    http://www.rawdogscreaming.com/cpr.html

    Posted by Mickey Z. from Astoria  on  04/23  at  05:26 AM

  7. Mew, do you work for a Murdoch rag? In what capacity? How is it?

    Posted by Andy from Shanghai  on  04/23  at  06:21 AM

  8. There’s a seppuku-inducing thought. No, I’m self-employed, got a 2-month gig working for Sky.com, Murdoch’s web portal. Very tedious stuff, basically data-entry, copy-writing and proof-reading, with a smidge of html.
    As a corporation, they’re a bit stuffy*, professional, not nearly as overtly ‘ideological’ as their news branch (my sister worked at The Times and even briefly The Sun, apparently they were as rabid as you might imagine). Their big thing is corporate responsibility, they’re into all that carbon-trading/carbon neutrality stuff.

    Unfortunately I have no qualifications to speak of, so this is what I can do as far as ‘gainful employment by another’ is concerned. Its a field where you don’t need much experience to be considered experienced.

    Something completely different: helping my sister with ideas for the theatre company she and a friend are setting up - they’re all excited about this Immersive Theatre thing. Still don’t know much about it, but it’s keeping my brain ticking over at least.

    * Compared to the bandit, 3-hour liquid lunch outfits I’ve worked for previously.

    Posted by Mew from MiddleSEX (hehehe)  on  04/23  at  07:45 AM

  9. Hello Expendables...from sunny Astoria. Love this from Zen: <style only convinces me more.</i>

    Mew: What is “Immersive Theatre”?

    Andy: I think most Americans are so caught up in the liberal media thing that it would take more than a confession of guilt to light a fire under their asses.

    Posted by Mickey Z. from Astoria  on  04/23  at  01:11 PM

  10. Far as I can gather Mickey, it’s theatre where the audience and performers share the same space and interact, with the audience moving around freely. I’m not a theatrey person, so I’ve no idea if this is an incredibly new exciting development or old hat. But they have some cool ideas in either case.

    Just finished “Parable of the Sower”. Pretty astonishing book about a young woman who literally feels others pain, in a collapsing/collapsed US. Although Butler is a sci-fi writer, the heroine’s ‘condition’ is really the only sci-fi thing in it, otherwise it seems horribly convincing.

    Posted by Mew from LONDON BOROUGH OF LAMBETH  on  04/23  at  03:46 PM

  11. Sounds cool, Mew. I’ll have to get busy with the Google function on my Internet machine and learn more.

    I’m reading this now:
    http://books.guardian.co.uk/extracts/story/0,,2275535,00.html

    Posted by Mickey Z. from Astoria  on  04/23  at  03:48 PM

  12. And I learnt something new again:  ‘immersive theatre’ - thanks, Mew (and Mickey for asking the question).

    I have decided to tackle Marcel Proust’s masterpiece ‘Remembrance of Things Past’ - and against all expectations I really enjoy reading it.  That should keep me out of mischief for the next few months - Vol. 1 of the novel runs to almost 1,330 pages.

    This sounds like an interesting book, too:
    http://books.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,333611622-99942,00.html

    And here’s what is going to happen in Castlemaine, 35 kms from Daylesford over the weekend:
    http://www.theage.com.au/news/arts/wild-colonial-poetry-to-be-born-in-castlemaine/2008/04/17/1208025384528.html?page=fullpage

    Sam Hamill sounds like a very interesting poet ..

    Posted by Helga Fremlin from Daylesford, Australia  on  04/23  at  08:00 PM

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