Slogan
- DANCE—like you’ve never been hurt.
- WORK—like no one’s watching.
- LOVE—like you don’t need the money.
Fog enshrouds palm trees. Easter, 2023. Redondo Beach, Southern California
It’s the Tuesday after Easter, and the fog has still not lifted. Will no one rid us of this noisome fog?!
Although there remain many Twitter accounts which I enjoy following, Twitter has become an unreliable place, after Elon Musk bought it.
His changes have ended Twitter as an epoch in popular online (“social”) media. The machines may have constituted a “platform,” but—as something in which a great many people participated—Twitter was an epoch; a moment; a murmuration among humans. Whatever it had been—now it is over.
In reaction, I have opened an account on Mastodon: @burbridge@mastodon.social. A “fresh start,” I guess!
Mastodon won’t be a resumption of what was happening on Twitter. Mastodon may not get to be a “moment” at all. We’ll see.
I haven’t yet posted anything to the account. Still thinking about it: To whom will the posts be addressed? Who is this other community? Is that what it is—a “community”? Or more like a town square—an agora; or a marketplace? A commons—yes, that’s more like it.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Library has around 3,800 watercolor paintings, lithographs, and drawings of different apple varieties.
Suite for Barbara Loden, by Nathalie Léger, translated by by Natasha Lehrer and Cécile Menon from Supplément à la vie de Barbara Loden. Shall I get the book?
American actress and filmmaker Barbara Loden in Wikipedia.
Here’s what David Collard says in his brief review on page 27 of the May, 2015, edition of the Times Literary Supplement:
“Barbara Loden (1932–80) is today remembered chiefly for her tumultuous marriage to Elia Kazan. She directed only one film, WANDA (1970), an understated masterpiece of American cinéma vérité. She appeared in the title role but had an otherwise low-key Hollywood career. Cinephiles keen to learn more about Loden should look elsewhere because this is not a biography but, rather, a hybrid monograph and memoir, a partial self-portrait and an often amusing account of the author’s travails when researching and writing the book. For film buffs familiar with the writings of Pauline Kael, Raymond Durgnat, and Gilbert Adair, this will seem thin stuff, but the author’s priorities and interest lie elsewhere. Leger has written books on Roland Barthes and Samuel Beckett, and in this volume she draws on a host of authors and auteurs, including Beckett, Marguerite Duras, Jean-Luc Godard, Herman Melville, Georges Perec, Sylvia Plath, and W. G. Sebald. The result is a peculiar little volume, both highly personal and impersonally erudite. . . . Nathalie Léger’s presence in the text is obtrusive and insistent but ill defined, and this can test the reader’s patience. The book’s real achievement—and a valuable one, it transpires—is to make you want to see the film again.”
An arresting image, one of several packed into six, simple, declarative sentences. What singular, poetic imagination devised this! A perfect description of sang froid.
“The psalms of David,” in the King James 1611 translation of the Bible are as remarkable—and splendid—a cycle of poems as the Sonnets of Shakespeare.
Although similar to lyric poetry, they more than that, and different from it, because addressed to a god; and because they are prayers.
The King James translation into English remains unequaled for simplicity and directness of expression—no other translation comes close. That’s my opinion, speaking of its literary value—not of its fidelity to the original text (about which I know nothing), nor of its service as a devotional text. Those constitute other subjects: The politics of Bible translations.
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: He leadeth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul: He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: For Thou art with me; Thy rod, and Thy staff, they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: Thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: And I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.
Having a two-year old is like living with a little gnome from a folk tale that you have to trick into doing things because if you ask it directly it will curse you.—@buttpraxis
Retraction Watch: Tracking retractions as a window into the scientific process.
Phony scientific papers are a worldwide scandal. Retraction Watch shows the tips of the icebergs that endanger science, medicine, and technology.
Elon Musk versus @thelinotypedaily:
“I have no idea what a Linotype machine is. However, when I finally destroy this platform and go back to being just another billionaire Nazi tech bro, you can still follow the latest in hot-metal typecasting journalism via Instagram @thelinotypedaily, or subscribe by mail.”
Redondo Beach, California
Found stickers in strip-mall parking lot in Torrance, California.
nextnotnow.news is my own “river of news”.
The feedland.org app is rough around the edges, but—unlike his previous version—it is easy to get up and running. It’s OK in a desktop browser, but not well adapted for smartphone screens. Most of the adults I know can barely use their smartphones to make phone calls; text-messaging is at the limit of their skill. I hesitate to share my “news product” with friends, who may find its desktop interface confusing on a phone.
Copyright ©MMXXII Clarence Burbridge. All rights reserved.