(AFFC SPOILERS) Darkstar hate thread - A Song of Ice and Fire
Join the club
Wednesday, December 28, 2005
Tuesday, December 27, 2005
Saturday, December 24, 2005
Friday, December 23, 2005
Wednesday, December 21, 2005
Sunday, December 18, 2005
Friday, December 16, 2005
Thursday, December 15, 2005
Wednesday, December 14, 2005
Saturday, December 10, 2005
Sunday, December 04, 2005
Mao Slept Here
Western executives are fueling an unusual scramble for high-end housing in Beijing
By JAMES T. AREDDY
December 3, 2005; Page P1
BEIJING -- Westerners have pumped billions into China's economy over the past few years. Now they want a tony address.
The growing presence of executives from abroad in China is fueling an unusual real-estate scramble. In an Asian twist on the pied-à-terre, wealthy and influential foreigners are paying a premium for traditional-style houses here that many Chinese regard as too cramped and too old-fashioned. Known as courtyard houses, they have been razed by the thousands in recent years, and only 3,000 remain in Beijing. Mao Zedong lived in a courtyard and so do many of today's Chinese leaders.
A Piece of History: An American owner restored this traditional Beijing courtyard house.
News Corp.'s Rupert Murdoch and his wife, Wendi, who was born in China, were recently involved in negotiations for one of these houses on one of the most exclusive streets in China, a block east of the Forbidden City's moat, though Mr. Murdoch says he has not made a purchase. Brokers say Jerry Yang, founder of Yahoo Inc., and former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. President John Thornton are both scouting for courtyards. Mr. Yang and Mr. Thornton didn't respond to requests for comment.
The wealthiest buyers are managing to fit swimming pools, satellite dishes and underground parking into the rigid, centuries-old design of the courtyard house. According to blueprints reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, the unfinished home the Murdochs looked at is designed to have a pool in one of two double-level basements, plus a game room with golf and billiards. Unlike traditional courtyards, which are built out of wood so carefully fitted that nails aren't needed, the seven-building compound is concrete. But its layout above ground is traditional, with both an inner and an outer courtyard.
Foreigners are pouring into Chinese megacities like Beijing and Shanghai -- there may be as many as half a million in Shanghai alone. For most Westerners in China, housing now comes down to a choice between a high-rise apartment downtown and an American-style house in a suburban gated community.
For a fortunate few in Beijing, however, the boxy courtyard houses known as siheyuan, or four-sided gardens, have become the ultimate real-estate status symbols. Buying one of these houses, which are miniature versions of Beijing's 14th-century palatial Forbidden City, is an arduous process that can require negotiating with as many as 30 families. Dozens of families were crammed into many of the houses during the Cultural Revolution, and unrelated families may still reside in various rooms of the same house or in makeshift shelters erected in the open courtyard. They are all entitled to compensation for moving out. That can make striking a deal to buy out the residents even harder than finding a property.
But would-be owners see the courtyard house as the epitome of Chinese domestic life, a link to 5,000 years of history that's worth the $1 million or more that French architect Pascale Desvaux says is the minimum price.
Ms. Desvaux and her husband Georges Desvaux, the head of consultancy McKinsey & Co. in China, live with their children in a simple courtyard. It is tucked into temple grounds that were set aside for the family of a Chinese emperor a century ago and later for Tibet's spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.
That history makes Ms. Desvaux reluctant to tinker. Still, she changed the size of some doors and installed a passageway to link her daughters' bedroom to the main house. "This is a total fantasy, not a Chinese way of doing things," she says.
Historically, courtyard houses were located within Beijing's distinctive maze of narrow urban footpaths called hutongs. The courtyards' outer walls are built right along the street, so widening the hutongs means knocking down the houses. Fewer than 50 of these lanes are now protected from development.
14th-Century Style: A new courtyard house, left, with traditional woodwork and painting. An unfinished pied-a-terre, below.
But the Beijing Municipal Government has strict guidelines that make restoration of courtyard houses an expensive proposition. You can't uproot trees, for example, and the size of windows is dictated. So is the kind of paint for the outer walls. And because many of the houses sit in neighborhoods that aren't hooked up to city sewer systems, running pipes for heating and toilets adds to the costs. Nevertheless, most Western buyers have managed to do extensive renovations, adding up-to-date plumbing and triple-paned windows.
When Pulitzer Prize-winning American photographer H.S. Liu first set eyes on a traditional Beijing courtyard house that was up for sale, it took him a mere 30 seconds to decide to buy it. Then he gutted it. "A lot of those rooms were totally worthless," he says. "I had to push it down." He followed convention by painting the outside walls with the requisite pig's blood, but he also put in a sauna and skylights over a stainless-steel kitchen.
"The scariest part was when they built the basement," says Mr. Liu. He worried that the digging might hit one of the tunnels that Chinese leaders are rumored to use to whisk around town. Now he has a movie-screening room. Mr. Liu left untouched the courtyard's 100-year-old pomegranate trees; at garden parties each fall, he mixes their rosy fruit into martinis.
American lawyer Laurence Brahm has lived in China since the 1980s and owns three courtyards, one of them a hotel. He boasts that "aside from the piping, the electricity and the heating, everything else is original." Except, of course, for the bar he put into an underground bomb shelter that was probably once a septic tank.
He says guests at the Red Capital Residence hotel in one of his courtyards -- the "East Concubine Suite" goes for $190 a night -- often ask him for help in wading through bureaucracy so they can buy their own siheyuan. "I just say, 'No. Good luck,' " Mr. Brahm says.
A classic courtyard embodies principles of feng shui. You enter through a red gate that opens onto a solid wall meant to block bad spirits. A zigzag brings a visitor to buildings arranged in a U-shape around the outer courtyard. Blood-red pillars and gray bricks support squat tiled roofs edged with a latticework in bright green, blue and gold, with figures of flowers and birds.
To go from one room to another, you must step out onto the uncovered courtyard, a chilly proposition during the brutal north China winter. But it's also part of the appeal. Says Hong Kong architect Kamwah Chan: "Your feet are on the ground and you look up to the heavens."
--Kersten Zhang contributed to this article.
Write to James T. Areddy at james.areddy@wsj.com
Western executives are fueling an unusual scramble for high-end housing in Beijing
By JAMES T. AREDDY
December 3, 2005; Page P1
BEIJING -- Westerners have pumped billions into China's economy over the past few years. Now they want a tony address.
The growing presence of executives from abroad in China is fueling an unusual real-estate scramble. In an Asian twist on the pied-à-terre, wealthy and influential foreigners are paying a premium for traditional-style houses here that many Chinese regard as too cramped and too old-fashioned. Known as courtyard houses, they have been razed by the thousands in recent years, and only 3,000 remain in Beijing. Mao Zedong lived in a courtyard and so do many of today's Chinese leaders.
A Piece of History: An American owner restored this traditional Beijing courtyard house.
News Corp.'s Rupert Murdoch and his wife, Wendi, who was born in China, were recently involved in negotiations for one of these houses on one of the most exclusive streets in China, a block east of the Forbidden City's moat, though Mr. Murdoch says he has not made a purchase. Brokers say Jerry Yang, founder of Yahoo Inc., and former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. President John Thornton are both scouting for courtyards. Mr. Yang and Mr. Thornton didn't respond to requests for comment.
The wealthiest buyers are managing to fit swimming pools, satellite dishes and underground parking into the rigid, centuries-old design of the courtyard house. According to blueprints reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, the unfinished home the Murdochs looked at is designed to have a pool in one of two double-level basements, plus a game room with golf and billiards. Unlike traditional courtyards, which are built out of wood so carefully fitted that nails aren't needed, the seven-building compound is concrete. But its layout above ground is traditional, with both an inner and an outer courtyard.
Foreigners are pouring into Chinese megacities like Beijing and Shanghai -- there may be as many as half a million in Shanghai alone. For most Westerners in China, housing now comes down to a choice between a high-rise apartment downtown and an American-style house in a suburban gated community.
For a fortunate few in Beijing, however, the boxy courtyard houses known as siheyuan, or four-sided gardens, have become the ultimate real-estate status symbols. Buying one of these houses, which are miniature versions of Beijing's 14th-century palatial Forbidden City, is an arduous process that can require negotiating with as many as 30 families. Dozens of families were crammed into many of the houses during the Cultural Revolution, and unrelated families may still reside in various rooms of the same house or in makeshift shelters erected in the open courtyard. They are all entitled to compensation for moving out. That can make striking a deal to buy out the residents even harder than finding a property.
But would-be owners see the courtyard house as the epitome of Chinese domestic life, a link to 5,000 years of history that's worth the $1 million or more that French architect Pascale Desvaux says is the minimum price.
Ms. Desvaux and her husband Georges Desvaux, the head of consultancy McKinsey & Co. in China, live with their children in a simple courtyard. It is tucked into temple grounds that were set aside for the family of a Chinese emperor a century ago and later for Tibet's spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.
That history makes Ms. Desvaux reluctant to tinker. Still, she changed the size of some doors and installed a passageway to link her daughters' bedroom to the main house. "This is a total fantasy, not a Chinese way of doing things," she says.
Historically, courtyard houses were located within Beijing's distinctive maze of narrow urban footpaths called hutongs. The courtyards' outer walls are built right along the street, so widening the hutongs means knocking down the houses. Fewer than 50 of these lanes are now protected from development.
14th-Century Style: A new courtyard house, left, with traditional woodwork and painting. An unfinished pied-a-terre, below.
But the Beijing Municipal Government has strict guidelines that make restoration of courtyard houses an expensive proposition. You can't uproot trees, for example, and the size of windows is dictated. So is the kind of paint for the outer walls. And because many of the houses sit in neighborhoods that aren't hooked up to city sewer systems, running pipes for heating and toilets adds to the costs. Nevertheless, most Western buyers have managed to do extensive renovations, adding up-to-date plumbing and triple-paned windows.
When Pulitzer Prize-winning American photographer H.S. Liu first set eyes on a traditional Beijing courtyard house that was up for sale, it took him a mere 30 seconds to decide to buy it. Then he gutted it. "A lot of those rooms were totally worthless," he says. "I had to push it down." He followed convention by painting the outside walls with the requisite pig's blood, but he also put in a sauna and skylights over a stainless-steel kitchen.
"The scariest part was when they built the basement," says Mr. Liu. He worried that the digging might hit one of the tunnels that Chinese leaders are rumored to use to whisk around town. Now he has a movie-screening room. Mr. Liu left untouched the courtyard's 100-year-old pomegranate trees; at garden parties each fall, he mixes their rosy fruit into martinis.
American lawyer Laurence Brahm has lived in China since the 1980s and owns three courtyards, one of them a hotel. He boasts that "aside from the piping, the electricity and the heating, everything else is original." Except, of course, for the bar he put into an underground bomb shelter that was probably once a septic tank.
He says guests at the Red Capital Residence hotel in one of his courtyards -- the "East Concubine Suite" goes for $190 a night -- often ask him for help in wading through bureaucracy so they can buy their own siheyuan. "I just say, 'No. Good luck,' " Mr. Brahm says.
A classic courtyard embodies principles of feng shui. You enter through a red gate that opens onto a solid wall meant to block bad spirits. A zigzag brings a visitor to buildings arranged in a U-shape around the outer courtyard. Blood-red pillars and gray bricks support squat tiled roofs edged with a latticework in bright green, blue and gold, with figures of flowers and birds.
To go from one room to another, you must step out onto the uncovered courtyard, a chilly proposition during the brutal north China winter. But it's also part of the appeal. Says Hong Kong architect Kamwah Chan: "Your feet are on the ground and you look up to the heavens."
--Kersten Zhang contributed to this article.
Write to James T. Areddy at james.areddy@wsj.com
Friday, December 02, 2005
French Soldier: I don't want to talk to you no more, you empty headed animal food trough wiper. I fart in your general direction. Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries.
Sir Galahad: Is there someone else up there we could talk to?
French Soldier: No, now go away before I taunt you a second time.
Thursday, December 01, 2005
Friday, November 25, 2005
Sunday, November 20, 2005
Ugly Images of Asian Rivals Become Best Sellers in Japan - New York Times
Cyber horse:
"The Chinese government hardening attitudes towards Japan are correct and the Chinese population dislike of Japan is correct too.
This is not a question of chickhen or egg what came first regarding the recent spats between China & Japan of who started it, who provoked who, on the recent disputes over the sea.
Japan always felt this way about her neighbours for like over 100 years."
LT805:
" I'd second that...
It's quite good that mouthing off is all they can do...
Fundamentally, these extremists don't know what they are messin with this time around. At the core of their heart, they actually believe China is a perpetual fail state. And even with economic progress, will always be less than sub-humans when compare to their "glorious" traditions. You can't reason with insanity...but when push comes to shove, it is my consolation that you can kick their sorry arses."
Cyber horse:
"The Chinese government hardening attitudes towards Japan are correct and the Chinese population dislike of Japan is correct too.
This is not a question of chickhen or egg what came first regarding the recent spats between China & Japan of who started it, who provoked who, on the recent disputes over the sea.
Japan always felt this way about her neighbours for like over 100 years."
LT805:
" I'd second that...
It's quite good that mouthing off is all they can do...
Fundamentally, these extremists don't know what they are messin with this time around. At the core of their heart, they actually believe China is a perpetual fail state. And even with economic progress, will always be less than sub-humans when compare to their "glorious" traditions. You can't reason with insanity...but when push comes to shove, it is my consolation that you can kick their sorry arses."
The Observer | International | China's young escape into the web
'The internet is just a tool, not a cause of the problem. Change needs to happen across society. The pressures from school and from home are just too much.'
'The internet is just a tool, not a cause of the problem. Change needs to happen across society. The pressures from school and from home are just too much.'
Friday, November 18, 2005
Wednesday, November 16, 2005
Tuesday, November 15, 2005
Tuesday, November 08, 2005
It's boring, it's sad, and there is no one to give your hand to
In a moment of soul's adversity...
Desires! ... what is the use of vainly and eternally desiring?
And the years are going by - all our best years!
To love ...but who then? ...
For a time - is not worth the effort,
And to love eternally is impossible.
If you look into yourself, there is no trace of the past there;
Both joy and torment, everything is come to nothing.
What of passions? - well, sooner or later their sweet sickness
Will vanish in the light of reason.
And life, if you look with cold attention around you --
Is such an empty and stupid joke.
In a moment of soul's adversity...
Desires! ... what is the use of vainly and eternally desiring?
And the years are going by - all our best years!
To love ...but who then? ...
For a time - is not worth the effort,
And to love eternally is impossible.
If you look into yourself, there is no trace of the past there;
Both joy and torment, everything is come to nothing.
What of passions? - well, sooner or later their sweet sickness
Will vanish in the light of reason.
And life, if you look with cold attention around you --
Is such an empty and stupid joke.
Sunday, November 06, 2005
Monday, October 31, 2005
The Civ 4 Modern soundtrack
The Civ 4 Modern soundtrack
Composer - John Adams
AnfortasWound
ChairmanDances
Chconne
ChristianZeal
CommonTones
GrandPianola1
GrandPianola2
Harmonielehre
HymingSlews
LoopsAndVerses
MeisterEckhardt
ShakingAndTrembling
ThePeopleAreHeroes
TrombaLontana
Composer - John Adams
AnfortasWound
ChairmanDances
Chconne
ChristianZeal
CommonTones
GrandPianola1
GrandPianola2
Harmonielehre
HymingSlews
LoopsAndVerses
MeisterEckhardt
ShakingAndTrembling
ThePeopleAreHeroes
TrombaLontana
Sunday, October 30, 2005
Thursday, October 27, 2005
If you can read this article while making the toast, you could be saving valuable seconds
"But it doesn't pay to be too obsessed with how much time we spend on the minutiae, because even the greatest achievements break down into minutes of mundanity."
"But it doesn't pay to be too obsessed with how much time we spend on the minutiae, because even the greatest achievements break down into minutes of mundanity."
Wednesday, October 19, 2005
With dozens of novels, essays, short stories and translations, Mr. Ba established himself decades ago as one of China's greatest modern writers. Along with Lu Xun, Mao Dun and Lao She, he helped describe and define modern China's awakening and upheaval early in the 20th century.
I remember vaguely as a child (or maybe the memory is constructed) that I saw the television redition of "Family". It was the scene where the youngest child leaves home behind and sails up river. However the significance eluded me then and it was not until last year, when I actually read the novel that all the parts connected.
Let this be a homeage to this literary giant.
I remember vaguely as a child (or maybe the memory is constructed) that I saw the television redition of "Family". It was the scene where the youngest child leaves home behind and sails up river. However the significance eluded me then and it was not until last year, when I actually read the novel that all the parts connected.
Let this be a homeage to this literary giant.
Tuesday, October 18, 2005
Monday, October 17, 2005
Something that transpired during the weekend:
Happened downstairs
At first I thought the uproar was just over the game, but minutes later I open the window the parking lot was filled with police cars and ambulances.
Happened downstairs
At first I thought the uproar was just over the game, but minutes later I open the window the parking lot was filled with police cars and ambulances.
Sunday, October 16, 2005
Renaissance for the nationality that dared not speak its name
"while it has the defence of being a Plasticine fantasy, is also guilty of sentimentalising and simplifying England; but unexpectedly this vision no longer feels like the concoction of a 'heritage' country for export but as a heroic refusal to bend to American expectation. In a culture enraged by US arrogance and expansionism, parochialism becomes a form of radicalism and resistance."
"while it has the defence of being a Plasticine fantasy, is also guilty of sentimentalising and simplifying England; but unexpectedly this vision no longer feels like the concoction of a 'heritage' country for export but as a heroic refusal to bend to American expectation. In a culture enraged by US arrogance and expansionism, parochialism becomes a form of radicalism and resistance."
"Then Amnon... said to her, 'Get up and get out!'"
Enjoyed no sooner but despised straight;
Past reason hunted; and no sooner had,
Past reason hated, as a swallow'd bait ...
a heaven that leads ... to ... hell
(sonnet 129)
Enjoyed no sooner but despised straight;
Past reason hunted; and no sooner had,
Past reason hated, as a swallow'd bait ...
a heaven that leads ... to ... hell
(sonnet 129)
Sunday, October 09, 2005
Sunday, September 18, 2005
Death to the Crusade - New York Times:
"Things get stranger in Phase 2 of the war, named Operation S�vres after the Treaty of S�vres, which was signed after World War I and intended to carve up Turkey as the Ottoman Empire crumbled. In this phase, the United States attempts to partition Turkey between two historic rivals, Greece and Armenia, and allows a Kurdish state to come into being. Turkey responds with a creative solution straight out of a West Point seminar on worst-case scenarios. First, the Turks form a new alliance with China, Russia and Germany. Then, a brave Turkish secret agent named Gokan goes ballistic. In a shocking scene, he steals a poorly guarded nuclear weapon and takes out Washington. At the moment of impact, everything turns to vapor, including one Washington mother welcoming her children home from school. She leaves a trace outside her house 'as if her photograph had been taken and the negative was there on the concrete.' Presto, the crisis is over, catharsis achieved, and Turks can go to bed knowing the invader has been soundly and justly defeated."
"Things get stranger in Phase 2 of the war, named Operation S�vres after the Treaty of S�vres, which was signed after World War I and intended to carve up Turkey as the Ottoman Empire crumbled. In this phase, the United States attempts to partition Turkey between two historic rivals, Greece and Armenia, and allows a Kurdish state to come into being. Turkey responds with a creative solution straight out of a West Point seminar on worst-case scenarios. First, the Turks form a new alliance with China, Russia and Germany. Then, a brave Turkish secret agent named Gokan goes ballistic. In a shocking scene, he steals a poorly guarded nuclear weapon and takes out Washington. At the moment of impact, everything turns to vapor, including one Washington mother welcoming her children home from school. She leaves a trace outside her house 'as if her photograph had been taken and the negative was there on the concrete.' Presto, the crisis is over, catharsis achieved, and Turks can go to bed knowing the invader has been soundly and justly defeated."
'Female Chauvinist Pigs': Girls Gone Wild - New York Times
"Berger wrote: "Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at. . . . The surveyor of woman in herself is male: the surveyed female. Thus she turns herself into an object." "Ways of Seeing" was published in 1972, and Berger's theory of female objectification hinged on women's historical lack of real-world power or independence: "Men survey women before treating them. Consequently how a woman appears to a man can determine how she will be treated." But things have changed a lot since 1972. Many women can buy their own plane tickets and pay their own rent. They can treat themselves. Why, then, do they persist in watching themselves through male eyes?"
"Berger wrote: "Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at. . . . The surveyor of woman in herself is male: the surveyed female. Thus she turns herself into an object." "Ways of Seeing" was published in 1972, and Berger's theory of female objectification hinged on women's historical lack of real-world power or independence: "Men survey women before treating them. Consequently how a woman appears to a man can determine how she will be treated." But things have changed a lot since 1972. Many women can buy their own plane tickets and pay their own rent. They can treat themselves. Why, then, do they persist in watching themselves through male eyes?"
Wednesday, September 14, 2005
Thursday, September 08, 2005
The evidence is that the 1995 Islamist attacks on the French metro were in fact carried out by the Algerian secret service
"This left the generals in an untenable position. In their desperation, and with the help of the DRS, they hatched a plot to prevent French politicians from ever again withdrawing support for the military junta. As Aggoun and Rivoire recount, French-based Algerian spies initially given the task of infiltrating Islamist networks were transformed into agent provocateurs. In spring 1995, Ali Touchent, an Algerian agent, began to gather and incite a network of disaffected young men from north African backgrounds to commit terrorist attacks in France. The DRS's infiltrators, led by Zitouni, also pushed the GIA to eliminate some of the FIS's leaders living in Europe."
"This left the generals in an untenable position. In their desperation, and with the help of the DRS, they hatched a plot to prevent French politicians from ever again withdrawing support for the military junta. As Aggoun and Rivoire recount, French-based Algerian spies initially given the task of infiltrating Islamist networks were transformed into agent provocateurs. In spring 1995, Ali Touchent, an Algerian agent, began to gather and incite a network of disaffected young men from north African backgrounds to commit terrorist attacks in France. The DRS's infiltrators, led by Zitouni, also pushed the GIA to eliminate some of the FIS's leaders living in Europe."
Thursday, September 01, 2005
Thomas Jones: Shortcuts
"Once upon a time, there were two cavemen called Bill and Ben, who were rivals for the affections of a beautiful cavewoman called Beryl. (If you think this story is going to take a reactionary turn, you’re not wrong. But that’s because it belongs in the tradition of evolutionary psychology just-so stories, which have a tendency to provide a pseudoscientific – because unfalsifiable – justification for the status quo. As how could they not? Since the circular logic behind them goes something like this: things are how they are; they are this way because that’s how they evolved; here’s a plausible reason for them to have evolved this way; they couldn’t be any other way.) One day, Bill returned to the cave after a morning’s hunting and told an elaborate and plausible story about how he had killed the sabretooth tiger that had been terrorising the neighbourhood. Ben, delighted at the news, rushed out of the cave to enjoy the tiger-free sunshine and tell the neighbours. He was promptly eaten by the sabretooth, which Bill hadn’t killed after all. With Ben out of the picture, and Beryl suitably impressed by his tall tales of heroism, Bill was comfortably able to pass on his genes, which all lived happily ever after."
"Once upon a time, there were two cavemen called Bill and Ben, who were rivals for the affections of a beautiful cavewoman called Beryl. (If you think this story is going to take a reactionary turn, you’re not wrong. But that’s because it belongs in the tradition of evolutionary psychology just-so stories, which have a tendency to provide a pseudoscientific – because unfalsifiable – justification for the status quo. As how could they not? Since the circular logic behind them goes something like this: things are how they are; they are this way because that’s how they evolved; here’s a plausible reason for them to have evolved this way; they couldn’t be any other way.) One day, Bill returned to the cave after a morning’s hunting and told an elaborate and plausible story about how he had killed the sabretooth tiger that had been terrorising the neighbourhood. Ben, delighted at the news, rushed out of the cave to enjoy the tiger-free sunshine and tell the neighbours. He was promptly eaten by the sabretooth, which Bill hadn’t killed after all. With Ben out of the picture, and Beryl suitably impressed by his tall tales of heroism, Bill was comfortably able to pass on his genes, which all lived happily ever after."
Tuesday, August 23, 2005
LRB | Alex de Waal : Chasing Ghosts
"Alex de Waal on the rise and fall of militant Islam in the Horn of Africa"
"Alex de Waal on the rise and fall of militant Islam in the Horn of Africa"
Monday, August 22, 2005
A Girl's Guide to Killing
"Even if you ignore the generally deplorable level of the writing (which is surely an unintentional aspect of the formula), these novels scrupulously observe all the basic chick-lit conventions: the giddy girls in their glamorous jobs, the shopping sprees and fashion makeovers, the gossipy friends, the disastrous dates and the wry comic voice of a heroine so adorable she could be . . . you.
Adding a mystery component does more than give a bubble-headed form a sturdier narrative structure. By challenging the flighty heroine to solve a crime, it offers her the chance both to prove her character and fire up her sex life.
... However stressful her detective chores, the chick-lit heroine can always depend on the loyalty of supportive friends (the customary allotment includes one gay guy and one brassy girlfriend who dresses like a hooker and may even be one). But no matter how successful she is at crime busting, she'll never satisfy her clueless family..."
"Even if you ignore the generally deplorable level of the writing (which is surely an unintentional aspect of the formula), these novels scrupulously observe all the basic chick-lit conventions: the giddy girls in their glamorous jobs, the shopping sprees and fashion makeovers, the gossipy friends, the disastrous dates and the wry comic voice of a heroine so adorable she could be . . . you.
Adding a mystery component does more than give a bubble-headed form a sturdier narrative structure. By challenging the flighty heroine to solve a crime, it offers her the chance both to prove her character and fire up her sex life.
... However stressful her detective chores, the chick-lit heroine can always depend on the loyalty of supportive friends (the customary allotment includes one gay guy and one brassy girlfriend who dresses like a hooker and may even be one). But no matter how successful she is at crime busting, she'll never satisfy her clueless family..."
Tuesday, August 16, 2005
The Baidu Story
"Baidu" was inspired by a poem written more than 800 years ago during the Song Dynasty. The poem compares the search for a retreating beauty amid chaotic glamour with the search for one's dream while confronted by life's many obstacles. ".hundreds and thousands of times, for her I searched in chaos, suddenly, I turned by chance, to where the lights were waning, and there she stood."
What if we don’t act now?
"The first thing to note is that ‘what if?’ history is part of a more general trend, one which takes issue with linear narrative and sees life as a multiform flow. The ‘hard’ sciences seem to be haunted by the randomness of life and possible alternative versions of reality: as Stephen Jay Gould put it, ‘wind back the film of life and play it again. The history of evolution will be totally different.’ This perception of our reality as only one of the possible outcomes of an ‘open’ situation, the notion that other possible outcomes continue to haunt our ‘true’ reality, conferring on it an extreme fragility and contingency..."
"The first thing to note is that ‘what if?’ history is part of a more general trend, one which takes issue with linear narrative and sees life as a multiform flow. The ‘hard’ sciences seem to be haunted by the randomness of life and possible alternative versions of reality: as Stephen Jay Gould put it, ‘wind back the film of life and play it again. The history of evolution will be totally different.’ This perception of our reality as only one of the possible outcomes of an ‘open’ situation, the notion that other possible outcomes continue to haunt our ‘true’ reality, conferring on it an extreme fragility and contingency..."
Comment: A life with no purpose
"It seems to me that we are the happy ones. We, alone among organisms, who perceive eternity, and know that the world will carry on without us."
"It seems to me that we are the happy ones. We, alone among organisms, who perceive eternity, and know that the world will carry on without us."
Comment: It's good to talk, but we've lost the art of conversation
Creativity and freedom have given way to egotism and adversarialism
Creativity and freedom have given way to egotism and adversarialism
Thursday, August 11, 2005
Get knitting
"Alzheimer’s was revived in about 1970, not by the medical profession, but because the children of senile Americans began clamouring for more attention, more funds for research, more support for care. Alzheimer’s as a diagnosis is a product of advocacy groups. It is an absolutely objective neurological condition, but it might not have been remembered had it not been for the vigorous lobbying of associations of families whose elderly members had dementia. The history of late 20th-century medicine will be not only a history of truly breathtaking triumphs, especially in the field of engineering that we call surgery, and a history of the pharmacological industry, but also a history of advocacy groups. Think of autism."
"Alzheimer’s was revived in about 1970, not by the medical profession, but because the children of senile Americans began clamouring for more attention, more funds for research, more support for care. Alzheimer’s as a diagnosis is a product of advocacy groups. It is an absolutely objective neurological condition, but it might not have been remembered had it not been for the vigorous lobbying of associations of families whose elderly members had dementia. The history of late 20th-century medicine will be not only a history of truly breathtaking triumphs, especially in the field of engineering that we call surgery, and a history of the pharmacological industry, but also a history of advocacy groups. Think of autism."
The time of our lives
"I was reading the other day the memoirs of an obscure late 19th-century politician called Farquharson, who at one point turned aside from his story to wonder what right he had to assume that readers would find any interest in what he had written. "Well wondered, old boy", I was tempted to write in the margin."
"I was reading the other day the memoirs of an obscure late 19th-century politician called Farquharson, who at one point turned aside from his story to wonder what right he had to assume that readers would find any interest in what he had written. "Well wondered, old boy", I was tempted to write in the margin."
Comment: Unholy strictures
"Human beings, in nearly all cultures, have long engaged in a rather strange activity. They have taken a literary text, given it special status and attempted to live according to its precepts. These texts are usually of considerable antiquity yet they are expected to throw light on situations that their authors could not have imagined. In times of crisis, people turn to their scriptures with renewed zest and, with much creative ingenuity, compel them to speak to their current predicament. We are seeing a great deal of scriptural activity at the moment."
"Human beings, in nearly all cultures, have long engaged in a rather strange activity. They have taken a literary text, given it special status and attempted to live according to its precepts. These texts are usually of considerable antiquity yet they are expected to throw light on situations that their authors could not have imagined. In times of crisis, people turn to their scriptures with renewed zest and, with much creative ingenuity, compel them to speak to their current predicament. We are seeing a great deal of scriptural activity at the moment."
Friday, August 05, 2005
Wednesday, August 03, 2005
Tuesday, August 02, 2005
Monday, August 01, 2005
He dreamt an old dream, of three knights in white cloaks, and a tower long fallen, and Lyanna in her bed of blood.
In the dream his friends rode with him, as they had in life. Proud Martyn Cassel, Jory's father; faithful Theo Wull. Ethan Glover, who had been Brandon's squire; Ser Mark Ryswell, soft of speech and gentle of heart; the crannogman, Rowland Reed; Lord Dustin on his great red stallion. Ned had know their faces as well as he knew his own once, but the years leech at a man's memories, even those he has vowed never to forget. In the dream they were only shadows, grey wraiths on horses made of mist.
They were seven, facing three. In the dream as it had been in life. Yet these were no ordinary three. They waited before the round tower, the red mountains of Dorne at their backs, their white cloaks blowing in the wind. And these were no shadows; their faces burned clear, even now. Ser Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning, had a sad smile on his lips. The hilt of the greatsword Dawn poked up over his right shoulder. Ser Oswell Whent was on one knee, sharpening his blade with a whetstone. Across his white-enameled helm, the black bat of his House spread its wings. Between them stood fierce old Ser Gerold Hightower, the White Bull, Lord Commander of the Kingsguard.
"I looked for you on the Trident," Ned said to them.
"We were not there," Ser Gerold answered.
"Woe to the Usurper if we had been," said Ser Oswell.
"When King's Landing fell, Ser Jaime slew your king with a golden sword, and I wondered where you were."
"Far away," Ser Gerold said, "or Aerys would yet sit on the Iron Throne, and our false brother would burn in the seven hells."
"I came down on Storm's End to lift the siege," Ned told them, "and the Lords Tyrell and Redwyne dipped their banners, and all their knights bent the knee to pledge us fealty. I was certain you would be among them."
"our knees do not bend easily," said Ser Arthur Dayne.
"Ser Willem Darry is fled to Dragonstone, with your queen and Prince Viserys. I thought you might have sailed with him."
"Ser Willem is a good man and true," said Ser Oswell.
"But not of the Kingsguard," Ser Gerold pointed out. "The Kingsguard does not flee."
"Then or now," said Ser Arthur. He donned his helm.
"We swore a vow," explained old Ser Gerold.
Ned's wraiths moved up beside him, with shadow swords in hand. They were seven against three.
"And now it begins," said Ser Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning. He unsheathed Dawn and held it with both hands. The blade was pale as milkglass, alive with light.
"No," Ned said with sadness in his voice. "Now it ends." As they came together in a rush of steel and shadow, he could hear Lyanna screaming. "Eddard!" she called. A storm of rose petals blew across a blood-streaked sky, as blue as the eyes of death.
"Lord Eddard," Lyanna called again.
"I promise," he whispered. "Lya, I promise..."
"Lord Eddard," a man echoed from the dark.
Groaning, Eddard Stark opened his eyes. Moonlight streamed through the tall windows of the Tower of the Hand...
In the dream his friends rode with him, as they had in life. Proud Martyn Cassel, Jory's father; faithful Theo Wull. Ethan Glover, who had been Brandon's squire; Ser Mark Ryswell, soft of speech and gentle of heart; the crannogman, Rowland Reed; Lord Dustin on his great red stallion. Ned had know their faces as well as he knew his own once, but the years leech at a man's memories, even those he has vowed never to forget. In the dream they were only shadows, grey wraiths on horses made of mist.
They were seven, facing three. In the dream as it had been in life. Yet these were no ordinary three. They waited before the round tower, the red mountains of Dorne at their backs, their white cloaks blowing in the wind. And these were no shadows; their faces burned clear, even now. Ser Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning, had a sad smile on his lips. The hilt of the greatsword Dawn poked up over his right shoulder. Ser Oswell Whent was on one knee, sharpening his blade with a whetstone. Across his white-enameled helm, the black bat of his House spread its wings. Between them stood fierce old Ser Gerold Hightower, the White Bull, Lord Commander of the Kingsguard.
"I looked for you on the Trident," Ned said to them.
"We were not there," Ser Gerold answered.
"Woe to the Usurper if we had been," said Ser Oswell.
"When King's Landing fell, Ser Jaime slew your king with a golden sword, and I wondered where you were."
"Far away," Ser Gerold said, "or Aerys would yet sit on the Iron Throne, and our false brother would burn in the seven hells."
"I came down on Storm's End to lift the siege," Ned told them, "and the Lords Tyrell and Redwyne dipped their banners, and all their knights bent the knee to pledge us fealty. I was certain you would be among them."
"our knees do not bend easily," said Ser Arthur Dayne.
"Ser Willem Darry is fled to Dragonstone, with your queen and Prince Viserys. I thought you might have sailed with him."
"Ser Willem is a good man and true," said Ser Oswell.
"But not of the Kingsguard," Ser Gerold pointed out. "The Kingsguard does not flee."
"Then or now," said Ser Arthur. He donned his helm.
"We swore a vow," explained old Ser Gerold.
Ned's wraiths moved up beside him, with shadow swords in hand. They were seven against three.
"And now it begins," said Ser Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning. He unsheathed Dawn and held it with both hands. The blade was pale as milkglass, alive with light.
"No," Ned said with sadness in his voice. "Now it ends." As they came together in a rush of steel and shadow, he could hear Lyanna screaming. "Eddard!" she called. A storm of rose petals blew across a blood-streaked sky, as blue as the eyes of death.
"Lord Eddard," Lyanna called again.
"I promise," he whispered. "Lya, I promise..."
"Lord Eddard," a man echoed from the dark.
Groaning, Eddard Stark opened his eyes. Moonlight streamed through the tall windows of the Tower of the Hand...
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