Bloglines - Amerika

Backwards City The semi-official blog of upstart literary journal Backwards City Review.

Amerika By Gerry Canavan Salon presents the taxonomy of torture. Enjoy your stay in the greatest democracy in the world. Via Metafilter, David Corn has some more photos of waterboarding, a favorite tool of the Khmer Rouge, one of the war crimes the Japanese were tried for at the end of World War II, and, yes, now an approved interrogation confession-extracting tactic in the U.S.A. What a country.

Bloglines - Drew Friedman's Old Jewish Comedians

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Drew Friedman's Old Jewish Comedians By noemail@noemail.org (David Pescovitz) David Pescovitz: Drew Friedman is my absolute favorite caricaturist and probably my favorite living portrait artist. His insane attention to detail and mastery of stippling gives his portraits a surreal-yet-oddly lifelike quality. Mark F. and I can't stop talking about his latest book, Old Jewish Comedians, published by Fantagraphics as part of their excellent BLAB! Storybook series. (Link to Mark's review at Mad Professor.) Friedman takes on all the greats, from Jack Benny, Don Rickles, and the Marx Brothers to Henny Youngman, Bud Abbott, and Sid Caesar. The portraits not only exude the charisma of these funny men but somehow manage to feel "of the time" too. And as Mark said, Friedman is a master at drawing liver spots. Highly recommended. Link

Bloglines - Book Review: In Defense of Vikram Seth's A Suitable Boy

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Blogcritics Section: Books A sinister cabal of superior bloggers on music, books, film, popular culture, politics, and technology - updated continuously.

Book Review: In Defense of Vikram Seth's A Suitable Boy By Mayank Austen Soofi on Books Ashok Banker, the acclaimed Indian writer of the internationally best-selling six-volume Ramayana series, recently penned a glowing review of author Vikram Chandra's Sacred Games, a recently-released realistic novel on Bombay gangsters. Sacred Games, the much-hyped first edition hardbound is 900 pages long and Mr Banker has inevitably compared it with another thick Indian epic belonging to another Vikram - A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth - a book which he describes as 'a one-volume novel' that 'taxed readers' wrists and sprained brains with its staggering 1359-page bulk'. The somewhat harsh opinions that Mr Banker expressed for A Suitable Boy in his review have left me agitated and outraged. It is amazing that the same book could leave such different impressions on different readers. My Suitable Boy Mr Banker mentioned tackling the novel in short bursts of about 300-400 pages at a time. To him, Vikram Seth's magnum opus 'smelled like the work of an eloquent young Adonis madly in love with his own powdered-and-perfumed self and obsessed with a British hangover'. But my experience was entirely of a different kind. When I read A Suitable Boy for the first time, which was around five years ago, I found myself captivated by its characters, its setting, its various and richly described themes - mostly Jane Austen-ish but at times Dickensian. I believed that the novel did not leave a scope for any improvement. It seemed perfect. Yes, the book did tax my wrists, but no, it did not sprain my brain at any passage. I read the book for the fourth time early this year and did not find any alteration in my opinions. I am still extremely fond of it. Unlike Mr Banker, I am not capable of savoring it in 'short bursts' though. Perfume and Powder While I acknowledge that the author of A Suitable Boy had his upbringing in a sophisticated household (his mother was India's first woman Chief Justice), and was educated at exclusive schools, and that the chief families in his novel belonged to the upper class society of post-independent India whose members lived a British-influenced life, I never imagined the book to be too 'perfumed and powdered'. Literally speaking, perhaps the major characters did regularly perfume and powder themselves after their morning showers, but then they were the privileged English-speaking citizens of a newly-independent country led by an erudite, almost-British statesman called Jawaharlal Nehru, a literature-loving gentleman who had been in love with the obliging wife of Lord Mountbatten, the last British Viceroy of India. To be sure, the suave and urbane families of Mehras and Chatterjees of A Suitabe Boy do not share any values with the unshaven, unsophisticated, undeodorized goons of Vikram Chandra's modern-day Mumbai, a rackety city presently controlled by corrupt politicians and grim gangsters. True, there is nothing common between the worlds of Vikram Seth and Vikram Chandra. But could the refined world of Mr Seth be simply dismissed as 'perfumed and powdered'? Isn't that world also real? Doesn't that high-brow class of people count in the narrative of a society? Did not both Jane Austen and Charles Dickens belong to the same country? Is Dickens superior while Austen merely perfumed and powdered? Was Vikram Seth a Suitable Boy? At one point in his review, Mr Banker suspected the titular character (the suitable boy of A Suitable Boy) to be a thinly veiled alter-ego of Mr Seth himself. Could he be technically wrong in this assumption? If we understand A Suitable Boy as the character that gets the girl, as the fortunate groom who marries the heroine - Lata Mehra - then it had to be Haresh Khanna, a shoe company executive who eventually ends up as the chosen one. But still, Mr Banker is partially right. Mr Seth did sketch a character on himself - a suitor named Amit Chatterjee, an England educated poet of Calcutta in love with Lata, who was was politely rejected by her. Hardly a suitable boy (the titular character) then! Incidentally, the real 'Suitable Boy' - Haresh Khanna - was inspired by Prem Seth, the author's father, while Lata Mehra's character was based on Justice Leila Seth, the author's mother. The Unkindest Cut Regrettably, Mr Banker went on to dismiss A Suitable Boy as a romance 'grotesquely transplanted to post-Independent India'. It was painful to come across such a fiercely disapproving description of a beloved novel. I fear that reading in 'short bursts' did not assist Mr Banker in recognizing the essence of the story - that ordinary people might find flickers of discreet, passionate love during the early part of their young and secret life but finally have to settle with circumstances, due to various reasons often unique to Indian culture, that are quite lustreless. Romance! This is India - The World of Arranged Marriages Mr Banker described A Suitable Boy as a romance, even if it was, according to him, presented grotesquely. But there was no romance in the novel. It did not even have a romantic ending, though there were subtle strands of comedy, tragedy, and despair running throughout the thick novel. Okay, it was true that Lata had a short-lived romantic entanglement with a Muslim boy - Kabir Durrani - but she had to swiftly dissociate herself following her mother's objections. After that, romance fizzled out from Lata's life. Later, the theme centered on the proceedings of formalities and rituals that are countdowns leading to the conclusion of a traditional Indian arranged marriage. As a matter of fact, Lata never even falls in love with Haresh, the winning suitor. He just came across as the most stable and sensible guy to spend the rest of her life with -- hardly the stuff romances are made of! A Landmark Novel Mr Banker also accused Mr Seth of being too sugary and ambitious while writing this epic. These happen to be personal perceptions coming out of a particular reader's instinct and other than expressing disappointment, one cannot argue against it. Really, my heart insists that A Suitable Boy deservedly belongs to that coveted shelf of books which stocks the kind of selected novels that are said to define the literary milestones of modern Indian literature in English. I shall re-read it. Mayank Austen Soofi owns a private library and two blogs: Ruined By Reading and The Delhi Walla.

Bloglines - A book-loving bloggers blogs about book blogs

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Cuppa Joad - the Alibris book blog Book reviews and discussions of notable books. Share your passion for literature at Cuppa Joad and drink up a good book.

A book-loving bloggers blogs about book blogs By Lynn on Book News During the last several years (and still gaining momentum), the blogosphere has exploded with incredible richness and variation. Included as a subculture of the World Wide Web are explorations into the bookish experience, from reviews on modern literature to opinions regarding book fairs; from glimpses of exquisite incunabula to discoveries of fine and unusual bindings. These book blogs are a marvelous mix—entertaining, well-written, and encompassing all facets of book-oriented lives. I’ve listed below (in no particular order) five such sites, which I enjoy. As a matter of disclosure, I have corresponded with all save one of the originators of these blogs. They are a mix, but it is obvious to me that the authors of these blogs enjoy their association with books and others in the book world—such joie de vivre, such enthusiasm, such interest. Bibliophile Bullpen: J. Godsey covers a broad spectrum of books and includes personal notes too. The result is an engaging peek into the life of a bookseller and book reader. Book fairs, interviews, discovered books, and book events are all covered. Every day is a sumptuous smorgasbord. StarDotStar Books Blog Space: The originator of this new blog, Bruce Tober, writes principally about books and the Internet book world, and his impressions of them. While never at a loss for an opinion, his writing is engaging and forceful—definitely compelling. I don’t necessarily agree with all his views, but I do find them thought-provoking, and he is willing to back them with examples and documentation. He is across the ocean, but next door in the wonderful wide world of the Web. Grumpy Old Bookman: This blog and the originator, Michael Allen, also hail from across the ocean. He posts nearly every day, on mostly all-things-British, including books, theatre, film, music, authors, events, and other blogs. The Bookman provides a completely different and enchanting perspective of the book world. He is a scholar with a scholar’s command of the English language and a broad understanding of the world around him. Fine Books Blog: Scott Brown, the very fine editor of the magazine Fine Books & Collections, maintains an almost daily blog of interesting book and book-related topics. The writing in this blog is crisp and sharp, much like the magazine. He finds such interesting book topics; it’s almost like reading the magazine on a daily basis, and I like reading the magazine. Cuppa Joad: Although this blog is a relative newcomer, it covers many interesting books and events, and works toward a universal approach toward books. It maintains a light touch while covering such heavyweight topics as the British Library’s marvelous Web inventions. It’s fun and interesting reading, and I usually check daily for items of interest. If you are reading this commentary, you have obviously found this site. Editor’s note: We at Cuppa Joad enjoy Lynn’s frequent posts, which not only give us writing breaks but also make our blog a better place. If you’d also like to blog about books, please join us! If you have discovered other interesting book blogs, I encourage you to drop a line in the comments section of this post (which you’ll find if you click its heading above). Try reading these blogs; they are a blast—a breath of fresh air, so to speak. The book world is quite exciting, and it’s changing all the time. There is nothing quite like watching history being formulated. Comments

Book Review: An Alchemy Of Mind - The Marvel And Mystery Of The Brain by Diane Ackerman

Blogcritics Section: Books A sinister cabal of superior bloggers on music, books, film, popular culture, politics, and technology - updated continuously.

Book Review: An Alchemy Of Mind - The Marvel And Mystery Of The Brain by Diane Ackerman By Gordon Hauptfleisch on Books Einstein, disguised as Robin Hood With his memories in a trunk Passed this way an hour ago… ---Bob Dylan, "Desolation Row" When Albert Einstein died in 1955 of a ruptured aneurysm of the abdominal aorta, his brain was secreted away by Princeton pathologist Thomas Harvey, who cut it into 240 blocks for study. Nothing in the noggin’ immediately jumped out and sang “I am genius, hear me roar” and so Einstein’s brain -- after being plunked into two mason jars of formaldehyde -- was placed in a Costa Cider cardboard box collecting cobwebs and virtually forgotten about as it sat under a beer cooler in Harvey's office. (The adage about preferring a bottle in front of me over a frontal lobotomy seems somehow apropos here, but I don’t know how.) Eventually, renewed interest among various scientists and neurologists meant Einstein’s gray matter mattered once more and so Harvey took it out of mothballs and passed it around rather casually at times to in-the-know know-it-alls all over. At one point it was tossed into the trunk of a Buick Skylark for a cross-country road trip - which might make for a good buddy movie ("Dude, Where's My Cortex?"). In fits and starts of theory and inquiry, notes Diane Ackerman in the scintillating and enticingly all-embracing An Alchemy Of Mind, the 240 poked-and-prodded blocks went on to endure some flawed studies and unexpected conclusions. Public interest was stirred for a while, notes Ackerman, "with many of us picturing his glia as a sort of golden mucilage, the pith of brilliance.” But the path to Einstein's brilliance, it was ultimately determined, may have stemmed from a missing Sylvian fissure, a fold running through the parietal lobes. Without that division, the consequent ease of connection and communication between neurons corresponded to Einstein’s contention that his mental functions didn’t involve words; he thought in images and took a mathematical approach to problem-solving. With such a unique brain formation, Ackerman suggests, no wonder Einstein “symbolizes genius” -- though his affability gives it "a farouche human face surrounded by electric hair.” From such a summing-up most stopping points are made. But Ackerman not only goes the extra meditative mile to concisely yet incisively ponder such potential imponderables as the consequences of anatomical mistakes, evolutionary flukes and even “the zeitgeist of the era” - she gives free rein to her non-academic imagination. She muses about the incidentals that usually fall through the scholarly cracks. Between beers, for example, did the self-styled keeper and curator of the great scientist’s brain “sometimes peer into the jars and turn them gently like snow globes, talk to the brain, commune with it?” Did Harvey “entertain dreams of glory, of solving its mysteries?” As may be indicated here, Ackerman has the gift of stylistic gab and poetic resonance with which to better precision-toss the substance of her insights. With such a word-perfect emphasis and almost playful sense of language, it is no wonder that Alchemy’s epigraph consists of an e.e. cummings poem that evokes the book's mingling of cold hard fact with the gradation and shade of allusion-rich expression. my mind is a big hunk of irrevocable nothing which touch and taste and smell and hearing and sight keep hitting and chipping with sharp fatal tools in an agony of sensual chisels I perform squirms of chrome and execute strides of cobalt… Alchemy's seven sections hit such topics as the evolution of the brain, its physical structure, memory, the self, emotions, language, and consciousness. Meanwhile, some of the more intriguing discussions in the book's 34 chapters chip away at absentmindedness and multitasking, Alzheimer’s and the aging brain, the role of dreams in memory, artistic and mathematical minds, the spiritual brain, animal minds, and “How Shakespeare’s mind was different.” So, like slings and arrows or, to quote cummings again, “sharp fatal tools” and “sensual chisels,” Ackerman -- in the same way others use charts and graphs and tables -- benefits from the gentle nudging of determined and determining words to unravel the marvel and mystery of the brain. Gordon Hauptfleisch is a free-lance writer who has managed record stores and bookstores while barely managing to retain a thread of decorum and dignity. When not lollygagging his way to an early grave, he edits for Blogcritics, writes book reviews for the San Diego Union-Tribune and is currently writing a San Diego local history book of the decidedly off-kilter variety. He will have you know that beneath his flabby exterior lies an enormous lack of character.

Bloglines - TEV GIVEAWAY - THE BEST OF I.F. STONE

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The Elegant Variation A Literary Weblog. A Guardian Top 10 Literary Blog * A Forbes "Best of the Web" Pick * A Los Angeles Magazine Top Los Angeles Blog "Really brave ... or really stupid" - NPR

TEV GIVEAWAY - THE BEST OF I.F. STONE By TEV on Giveaways We've admired Izzy Stone ever since we discovered The Trial of Socrates.  We're awfully pleased to be able to offer The Best of I.F. Stone, a new collection of this groundbreaking journalist's work. For the first time in a generation: The essential writing of I.F. (Izzy) Stone—the brilliant investigative journalist whose work is as fresh and as urgent as the day it was written. Izzy Stone was a reporter, a radical, an idealist, a scholar and, it is clear, a writer whose insights have more than stood the test of time. More than fifteen years after his death, this collection of his work from I.F. Stone's Weekly and elsewhere is astonishing in its relevance to our age, addressing the clash between national security and individual liberty, the protection of minorities, economic fairness, social justice, and the American military abroad. The core of Stone's genius was his newsletter, I.F. Stone's Weekly, published from the mid-1950s to the early 1970s. His meticulous dissection of the news was unsurpassed, a direct descendent of the great pamphleteers like Thomas Paine, and a forerunner to the best of today's political blogs.  Stone's brilliant, investigative reporting; his wonderful, impassioned style; and his commitment to his values all make this collection an inspiration, and a revelation. I.F. (Izzy) Stone (1907–1989) had a remarkable journalistic career, as an editorialist at the New York Post during the Great Depression, a longtime staffer at The Nation, the author of many books, and the founder and editor of his own I.F. Stone's Weekly, he "spoke truth to power" with an effectiveness that few have done before or since. First user to email with the subject "I WANNA GET STONED" (we love these silly subject lines, shoot us) will win.  Please include mailing address.  Previous winners ineligible. UPDATED:  Congratulations to Kristie Nelson-Neuhaus of Minneapolis.  And thanks to all today's stoner entrants!

Bloglines - Boing Boing Emporium: The Cult of Capsaicin

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Boing Boing Emporium: The Cult of Capsaicin By noemail@noemail.org (Mark Frauenfelder) Mark Frauenfelder: A few years ago I wrote "The Cult of Capsaicin," an article about the subculture of people who are hooked on incredibly hot peppers. The article never ran in the magazine I wrote it for, but I've shared it with a few friends, and they enjoyed reading about these chileheads who get hooked on the endorphins the body releases to suppress the pain caused by eating hot pepper. Here's an excerpt: Try this: put a couple of drops of Tabasco Sauce on your tongue. Hot, right? Tabasco Sauce rates between 2,500 and 5,000 on the Scoville scale, the standard measurement system for chile pepper heat. Now try a drop of Mad Dog Inferno, a ridiculously hot sauce that clocks in at 90,000 Scoville units. As I chewed ice cubes and blinked away tears after touching a miniscule droplet of Mad Dog Inferno to my tongue from the tip of a toothpick, I knew I’d never make it as a chilehead. That’s because I’m not a nontaster, explains Dave DeWitt, author of 30 books about chile peppers and spicy foods, including The Whole Chile Pepper Book and The Hot Sauce Bible. DeWitt is referring to a Yale surgeon’s study in the 1970s that identified three types of people: nontasters, medium tasters, and supertasters. Nontasters are born with as few as 11 taste buds per square centimeter of tongue, while supertasters can have as many as 1,100 taste buds crammed into the same area. Capsaicin has no taste, but taste buds not only sense flavor, they also transmit pain and temperature signals to the brain. That’s why nontasters can tolerate high doses of spice, says DeWitt, who considers chileheads to be on the far right side of the pepper bell curve. “In any movement you have your fringe element,” he says. For a chilehead, 90,000 Scovilles is pabulum. Andy Barnhart, a recently retired chief scientist for a telecommunications company in Maryland, likes to dump habanero powder (400,000 Scovilles) on his ice cream “until it turns almost black.” But even that doesn’t turn Barnhart’s crank like it used to. “I’ve now gotten into Pure Cap; that is really hot stuff,” says Barnhart, 61. “I blend it with a little alcohol to preserve it and I put it in a bottle with an eyedropper and I carry it around with me.” (Pure Cap, a 570,000 Scoville unit extract, isn’t the same as pure capsaicin, which, at 16 million Scovilles, is as hot as it gets.) If Barnhart comes across a bowl of soup or a drink that doesn’t provide a sufficient jolt, he pulls out the eyedropper and gives it a squirt. Barnhart’s 38-year-old son, Douglas, shares his father’s taste (or lack of taste buds) for hot stuff. The burly barbeque grill salesman has been known to polish off eight “Biker Billy” jalapeños (an extra large, extra hot variety) in thirty seconds. Peppers are a part of Barnhart’s daily routine. “I’m definitely addicted,” he says. “I get a little grouchy if I don’t have anything hot. I can’t explain it other than that. I just become unsettled. If I don’t have hot peppers around, I start looking for the next best thing, and that’s black pepper. But you can’t get enough heat off black pepper.” Buy for 50 cents | Other items in the Boing Boing Digital Emporium

Bloglines - Photos of drug smuggling attempts

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Boing Boing

Photos of drug smuggling attempts By noemail@noemail.org (Mark Frauenfelder) Mark Frauenfelder: My favorite government publication is the Drug Enforcement Administration's Microgram Bulletin. It deals chiefly with the novel ways drug dealers market, promote, and camouflage their products to avoid detection. The rewards for being a high-level drug dealer are great, precisely because the punishment for failure (imprisonment or getting rubbed out by a rival) is equally great. In this harsh environment, dealers go to great lengths to conceal their products during storage and shipment. The photos of confiscated drugs in Microgram Bulletin are good examples of dealer ingenuity, but remember: these are the guys who got caught. Tons of drugs move across borders around the clock, and the best smugglers are hiding them in ways that the DEA hasn't wised up to yet. HEROIN-LACED BATTING IN FURNITURE (FROM VENEZUELA) IN MIAMI, FLORIDA The DEA Southeast Laboratory (Miami, Florida) recently received 23 bags of grey colored batting that had been removed from two pieces of upholstered furniture, suspected to be laced with heroin (see Photo 11). The furniture (a chair and sofa) had been shipped from Venezuela, and was seized at the Miami Airport by Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel. Analysis of extracts from the batting (total net mass 62.16 kilograms) by GC/MS and FTIR confirmed 14 percent heroin hydrochloride, equivalent to approximately 8.7 kilograms total net mass. This was the first submission of this type to the Southeast Laboratory. Link

from Engadget

Cambridge SoundWorks has thrown its hat into the HD Radio ring with its 820HD, which debuted last week at CEDIA. HD Radio, the new digital radio format, for those of you keeping score at home, is now available from about 1,000 stations who are simulcasting in HD and in traditional formats -- which is still less than 10 percent of all American radio. Furthermore, the price of a new HD radio still remains significantly higher than a pocket or tabletop analog radio. How much higher? Well, this newest offering will set you back $300 when it becomes available in November -- and that little $20 "transistor" radio your Mom gave you in 1987 still works great, doesn't it? So yes, we're still listening to National Public Radio and baseball games in analog, thank you very much.

[Via PC World]

MetaFilter

Gigantically tiny scale models of cities By jonson scale model cities: moscow, new york, edinburgh, shanghai, shanghai (ii), nanjing, london, london (ii), old jerusalem, sydney, san francisco, 4th century rome, singapore, havana, beijing, cincinnati, pompeii, futurama (via)

Bloglines - If you've done nothing wrong...we still want to know what you do.

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Mr. Gonzales

Sir, you're telling me you have children who will use your computer whenever they feel like it? Do they also drive your car? Do they regulate the heat and hot water? They're in control of all of the gas connections?

Mr. Gonzales

What is it that you do?

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MetaFilter

If you've done nothing wrong...we still want to know what you do. By Kickstart70 Gonzales wants Internet records saved for two years. Because any of you could be child porn perverts. "Gonzales acknowledged the concerns of some company executives who say legislation might be overly intrusive and encroach on customers' privacy rights. But he said the growing threat of child pornography over the Internet was too great.

Bloglines - That would solve everything!

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Some folks just have a flair for the obvious

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That would solve everything! By davy Pope asked to convert to Islam. Gaddafi's eldest son calls for the obvious solution.

Bloglines - Worst violence in Hungary since the fall of communism...

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Worst violence in Hungary since the fall of communism... By handee "We lied in the morning, and we lied in the evening," ... "Evidently, we lied throughout the last year-and-a-half, two years. You can't show me any significant government measure that we can be proud of, other than, in the end, we managed to drag the government back from the brink." 150 injured in rioting. brought about by the leak of a taped speech by Ferenc Gyurcsány wikipedia