Friday, April 30, 2004
In north London did Tottenham Hotspur a stately soccer dome decree
Is your favorite sports team on a losing streak? Perhaps what it needs is a poet in residence. The Tottenham Hotspur soccer team of north London recently took on poet Sarah Wardle to write soccer-inspired verse. See here and scroll down for some examples of her work.
Thursday, April 29, 2004
I Cook for Myself Alone
This is the eerie title of a new anthology of low-budget recipes compiled by French prison inmates as part of a contest. "Inmates are always coming to me for advice about food and diets. So it seemed a good idea to encourage their interest," explains the French prison doctor who conceived of the book. There is something distinctly French about this project.
Found stuff
I just came across a fantastic web site that I'm sure all of, I mean both of the readers of this web site will appreciate. It's astonishingly good, and it's called Found Magazine. The site features random photos, notes, and recordings that were found and sent in by readers. Having briefly perused the web site, I can assure you that there are some *real* gems in there. Warning: the site is extremely addictive. Be sure not to miss the audio finds, and the picks of the week. Thanks to lies.com for the pointer.
Thursday, April 22, 2004
Must be the new-car smell
I can't think of a better compliment to Renault automobiles.
Saturday, April 10, 2004
Absurd engines?
Incidentally, does anyone know of a good way to find absurd gems like the one mentioned in the post below (apart from visiting this web site, of course)? Relying on natural language searches seems unlikely to work--how could anyone have predicted the juxtaposition of truly bad rap lyrics and Britain's royal family? I think I'm looking for a search-engine-like tool that may not exist. Ideally, it would scan the web searching for unlikely or ironic combinations of words. How would such a tool work? What parameters could you feed it to constrain searches? Any ideas?
The greatest argument for the abolition of the monarchy yet
The comment above is one Londoner's reaction to a "rap poem" written by UK Poet Laureate Andrew Motion last year in honor of Prince William's 21st birthday. Three questions immediately come to mind: (1) Why did no one write anything this weird for my 21st birthday? (2) How did I miss this in the news last June? (3) Why does the first photo caption fail to address the most compelling part of the picture: the image of Prince Charles jamming on a set of turntables with DJ Floyd D? I think my favorite line from the rap poem is "It's a day to celebrate/A destiny, a fate;/It's a taking to the wing,/A future thing."
Thursday, April 08, 2004
Not safe for work
Friday, April 02, 2004
How to tell when your anger-management session is failing
On a recent kayaking trip in Hawaii, our group's guide told us that kayaking could be dangerous for couples, who often got into arguments over which way the kayak should turn, or who was responsible for a capsizing. He recounted one particularly memorable episode in which a marriage-counseling group booked a kayak trip with his tour company as part of a couples' weekend retreat: "I've never seen so much fighting," he said. "They were practically throwing each other into the water." Apparently, this self-defeating phenomenon is not unique to watersports. Thanks to Ichiblog for the pointer.
