You Know Who I Mean

You know who I mean, that writer who wrote the book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. I was watching a video of him the other night and was totally entertained by it. I'm talking, of course, about Hunter S. Thompson. The Charlie Rose interview was brilliant. It includes some rare footage of the writer talking casually with a great interviewer. The Charlie Rose interview is followed by an interview with Isabelli Rossellini, who was the wife of Martin Scorsese and who later went out with David Lynch, who directed her in Blue Velvet, one of my favorite films. But back to the Thompson interview. It gives rare insight into a man who speaks in a voice like a machine, a brilliant founder of a school of journalism that has inspired even Tom Wolfe, that is, gonzo journalism.

Artists Need Secure Sites Too

Let's fact it, friends, you may be an artist, a poet, a writer, a filmmaker, but that doesn't make you immune from the vagaries of the business world; in fact, every successful artist needs to dabble in the business side of things, if only to get a good agent and make sure the contracts you sign are not ripping you off! And someday you may have a business Web site where you sell your wares. Most artists today are in that position. Which is why you'll also want to make sure your site is secure, and sarvasecure can help. If ecommerce and seo are your goal, website conversions can be your results and you can increase web sales. In fact, your ally in this adventure is going to assist you. Increase online sales with sarvasecure. This means your visitors will feel that their personal data is safe. They'll love doing business with you, and what could nicer than that! I feel better visiting sites that are secure.

Hunter S. Thompson and Gonzo Journalism

Hunter S. Thompson was the firstborn of three boys. One brother was two years younger. Firstborns, especially those with only brothers, are typically conservative, religious, and law-abiding. But something threw Thompson off that normal expected track into a life fighting authority. Maybe it was the fact that he lost his father when he was 14. But he was a rebel and used drugs and alcohol as if they were fruits and vegetables. Originator of Gonzo Journalism, which puts the reporter at the heart of the story, his book Hells Angels was a shocker. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas was an updated On the Road with clearer prose and snappier dialog.

Talk to Your Computer

Okay I have to admit that I love this whole concept; in fact, I've already been blogging about speech recognition software and I am convinced that it is the wave of the future. I love it, I love using it, and I love the concept of it. It makes me feel like I'm living in a Stanlet Kubrick universe and communicating with Hal, the onboard computer. I really get a kick out of talking to the computer and having it type whatever I say on the screen. Sure, it makes a mistake now and then, but it's getting better and better and recognizing my voice more effortlessly every time we work together. As Ray Kurzweil pointed out, the computers of today will become better very quickly and soon we will no longer be joking about speaking to them and having them speak to us. In The Age of Spiritual Machines he argues that computers will have emotions and will assert their right to be kept alive because they are conscious. Putting that sci-fi scenario aside for a moment (it may not be sci-fi within a few years), let's talk about, well, talking to your computer. The latest breakthroughs are happening with Dragon Naturally Speaking 10 Standard, which is the latest version of the brilliant software that writes what you say. One of my favorite writers, Edgar Rice Burroughs (the author of Tarzan and the Barsoom Martian novels), used to dictate his novels near the apex of his career, when he could afford to hire a secretary to transcribe his words. Well, now you can have your machine be that secretary. In my opinion the NY Times Review of DNS10 hits the nail on the head when its reviewer stated, "I really like this software." So do I! I'm sure it will make blog writing a snap. In fact I've already written blog posts using speech regognition software and it is the latest and greatest way to get words on paper, er . . . on screen. Dragon Naturally Speaking 10 Preferred is very useful most especially to bloggers. So get yours today!

Waiting for Godot

Samuel Beckett's great play features two hobos onstage in an extended verbal interchange, arguing, being friends, and expressing the existential angst of the post-World War II era. The only other major thing onstage is a scrawny tree. The two vagrants are waiting for someone named "Godot," who never arrives. Godot is a symbol of the Self, and so is the tree. According to Christopher Booker, the play is a failure because it does not illustrate the development of personality. At the same time, the play is a postmodern look at existential culture, and as such it never reveals any character development, only a vague idea of what the Self (in Jungian terms) could be. The Self is an integrated, developed personality, one which is able to love, relate to others and function in the world, something the vagrants cannot do.

Use metaRL and Get Free Credits for Habbo

It has come to the attention of this tired and shabby old time traveler that the world of virtual worlds has expanded outside the pages of dusty volumes and tarnished tomes, and has, in fact, exploded onto the Internet in terms of games, universes, and adventures galore. What all this means to you, the intrepid virtual gamer and adventurer, is more opportunity to gallivant about and discover things and people; and, more to the point, to reap rich rewards. How, you may wonder (if you're but a novice at the game), how can that be possible, especially since no physical dollars could conceivably pop into existence through the cables connecting your computer to the great and general blogosphere and Ethernet. The answer is free habbo credits and metaRL, a Web hub for those who travel between the virtual universes of the Internet. Like a space station in electronic form, it allows to you relax, survey the rest of the virtual galaxy, have a bite to eat, and even earn virtual funds, known as metaPoints, which can be transferred to your private account.

Salinger's Concrete Bunker

It is a well known fact that many writers are eccentric. But as Lawrence Kubie points out in Neurotic Distortion of The Creative Process (1968), it is not necessary to be eccentric to be creative; in fact, he argues, eccentricity actually diminishes and distorts creativity. Great artists are great not because they are eccentric but in spite of their eccentricity. If they were less eccentric and less neurotic, Kubie argues, they would have been even more creative and more productive. This is an interesting theory, and one which runs counter to the popular view that artists are somewhat mad and that their eccentricities are a prerequisite to creative work.

Take the writer J.D. Salinger, for example, often called "the most private man in America." He stopped publishing in 1965 and retreated to Cornish, New Hampshire to get away from it all, especially to get away from New York City. He then built a little concrete bunker a quarter mile from his house where he would retire to write every day. Clearly an eccentric. His second wife, Claire Douglas, got so fed up with him staying away from home for up to two weeks at a time, that she divorced him, citing "mental cruelty" as the reason.

Salinger was photographed last week sitting on the porch of his home (see photo). He is now married to a nurse who is 50 years younger. (Photo by Parnell Ostler.)

Spend Your Vacation on the Gulf Coast of Alabama

My favorite philosopher, Nietzsche, was always talking about the importance of nutrition. Why? Because the state or condition of the body reflects directly on the state and condition of the mind. He also elevated where you live (and vacation) to a fine art. In other words, he said it's vitally important to live and play in a relaxing environment. Yes, the great Nietzsche believed where you live and play is crucial to how your life turns out and how your mind works. He was so ahead of his time! so right on the money! and so brilliantly correct! Which is one reason that I'm pleased to report that there are better options (much better options!) than booking a hotel room when you travel. The better approach and the one that Nietzsche himself would have preferred is simply to give yourself more space and a more luxurious environment by renting a suite of rooms, such as those at the orange beach condo rentals, where you'll be amazed to find that luxury comes at a price you can easily afford. Imagine being on the beach in the delightful Gulf Coast of Alabama on the Gulf of Mexico. You while away the time reading, writing and enjoying the scenery and the sun. This is the life Hemingway lived in his youth and the life he wrote about in all his great novels. It is also the life that awaits you when you visit the site that lists all the wonderful opportunities that are present for you and your friends and family. For example, Lake Wedowee, where you can get a beautiful log house with breathtaking views (three bed / two bath; sleeps 8-11) for only $150-$200/night ($925-$1100 a week). At prices like these (and there are literally thousands of such great deals to choose from nationwide!) you will be making a good decision.

Balzac and Coffee

The great French novelist Honore de Balzac was a big coffee drinker. In fact he loved coffee so much that he wrote a chapter in a book about coffee. The rest of the book was dedicated to other stimulants popular in his day, including tea, cigarettes, and alcohol. But of all of them coffee was Balzac's favorite. If you're a writer you may wish to take a bit of advice from Balzac. He said coffee worked to increase his creativity. (There are, however, better smart drugs, also known as nootropics, to do this today, including pregnenolone, rhodiola, and hupezine) and it helped him marshal his thoughts. The great writer used to arise at midnight and drink coffee while he worked until eight in the morning, stop for a little breakfast, and then write until four in the afternoon. They paid him well, and he pushed himself to the limits of human endurance. But Balzac liked his coffee black, and thick like mud. The man drank so much that after ten years it ate into his stomach and caused him to fall down in a dead faint. His physician, Dr. Nacquart, warned him to stop. But Balzac, according to the latest biography, was working himself to exhaustion and coffee helped him cope. As biographer Graham Robb points out, the man worked "with almost masochistic determination." Learn from the master French novelist. A little coffee perhaps, now and then. But don't let it get the better of you. Make a switch, and now and then have a cup of tea.

Reference
Balzac: A Biography, by Graham Robb, W. W. Norton & Company, 1996, p. 164.

Let's Play Golf

As every artiste realizes, there is a time for art and there is a time for,—golf. Simply put, golf is the leisure sport of the leisure class, and any self-respecting artist (artiste as we call them on this blog) is bound to be interested in golf or a similar leisure sport (like tennis or sailing or pool). Las Vegas Golf offers entre into the wonderful world of gold. This writer prefers to play at the best courses and one of the best has to be Royal Links Golf Club, which is my favorite because of the picturesque view and the challenging course layout. The Walter's golf courses include other fine courses, such as Bali Hai Golf Club and Desert Pines Golf Club. Visit the site and organize your next golf vacation.

Emerson and Thoreau | Friendship

The friendship ebbed between Thoreau and Emerson in a way that was due to their peculiar psychology. Emerson, a middle son, with older and younger brothers, had a great deal of psychological infirmity in his immediate family, as well as tuberculosis. Thoreau, a lastborn with an older brother, lost his brother when he was twenty-five. Thoreau was intent on a close fusion or melding of the minds in friendship and required it of his friends, especially Emerson. But he felt that Emerson didn't give him enough of what he wanted in a friendship and he was disappointed, at times, in the quality of the friendship he received back from his friend. Emerson wrote a tribute to his friend, a short book entitled Thoreau, in which he said, "There was somewhat military in his nature, not to be subdued, always manly and able, but rarely tender, as if he did not feel himself except in opposition. He wanted a fallacy to expose, a blunder to pillory." Sounds to me like a typical lastborn brother with an older brother, who he opposed psychologically all his life.

Amazing Credit Card Processing

I think most of us today are using credit cards for any purchases we make, and that includes poets, writers, and painters, all artists are credit card savvy today. In fact, I myself am similar and also use a credit card in the same way. I use my credit cards for buying things, sending money, paying bills and more. I just carry a few dollars and change in my pocket whenever I go out. Why? Because I'll never forget to take my credit cards wherever I go. It's always in my wallet or pocketbook. Anyway, I just found a Web site that has a great offer about credit card processing. The site, OnlineChecks.com, is unbeatable because they offer free credit card processing. They are the best merchant services, with no fees and no contracts, and a free credit card machine. How do you like that? For additional information, just click here.

Barbara Ann - Beach Boys - Live

With only a few words and a beautiful harmony, the Beach Boys made a classic out of Barbara Ann. The song, composed by Fred Fassert, was originally recorded by his group, The Regents. But the Beach Boys made it their own. This live version is full of memorable highlights, including Brian Wilson's falsetto voice, Dennis Wilson's open mouth drumming, and Mike Love's singing. There's another version that's also a classic, and I'll talk about that in my next blog post.

Best Gold Buyers

Gold has existed in the minds of man for centuries as a desideratum, as something to be desired and accumulated. Carl Jung said gold was an archetype. Gold is certainly on the mind of anyone and everyone who is money conscious, and that includes the mass of men and the world at large, for gold is the standard by which all other wealth is measured. Now Empire Gold Buyers can help you amass the amount of gold that you wish to possess. They have a Web site that will allow you to make your secret dreams a reality. They can help you achieve weath by buying from you (because they are a metal refinery) all your bits and pieces of gold. Like Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, a story from the Thousand and One Nights, you can achieve the wealth that Ali Baba achieved by selling your gold and having it bought at near one hundred percent of the actual value. They will buy and sell gold, they will even allow you to sell jewellery. Yes, www.empiregoldbuyers.com, the site of Empire Gold Buyers, will offer cash for gold, will let you sell watches and even sell diamonds. They can help you get the best deal for your gold and then they will smelt it down and refashion it and sell it to other dealers worldwide. The gold standard has never been more important and it should be important to any investor who takes the time to look to the world market and the financial market today.

Political Satire

Friends, the following is not a literary text or analysis, but it is relevant to literature. It is a satire. A political satire. It illustrates the form for a political satire because it imitates the style of a famous person and gently pokes fun at him in the process. Enjoy!

Good evening, my fellow Americans. I am President Clinton. I am a friendly person. That’s why I got elected. People like me. And I like people. I like all the people I meet in my job. I even like all the people on my staff, including the interns who just come here to work during the summer. I really like some of those gals very much. In fact, I’m crazy about one or two of them. And they’re crazy about me. Most people who meet me, really like me. Take Hillary, for example. Yes, I know she threw a lamp at me in the White House bedroom one night. But she was just fooling around. And let me clear up one thing. I did try marijuana. But I did not inhale. Can you believe that? If so, then maybe you’ll vote me back into office in two thousand and twelve. I would like to be President again. And I will not smoke marijuana while I’m in the White House. Or if I do smoke, I won’t inhale. And that’s a promise. Thank you, good night, and God Bless America. Are the cameras off? Is Duckie Pie still here, or did she go home?

Best Quality Clothing is on Sale

If you went to Woodstock (the music festival) or if you went to a concert in the past twenty or thirty years, you know that there is nothing more relaxing than going in a pair of denim jeans or shorts because denim is light, breathable and comfortable. Now there's nothing better than a comfy pair of demin shorts,--unless it's a comfy pair of demin shorts on sale. And that's just what is available now because the Cheap Jeans offered by Heavenly Couture are cheap only in price and economy. When it comes to quality they are actually tops. They are also now having their biggest promotion ever and it involves savings of up to 85 percent. And this is a site that sells you demin (and everything else) at less than eighteen dollars. And now they are offering demin on sale for only thirteen dollars and eighty cents. Teen Clothes cannot be found at a better price. What they call Discount Clothes are also available. But you, avid music aficionado that you are, you already know the value of demin and of demin on sale, so I'm sure you'll agree that the selection offered by the site in question is simply superb. Let the artist and artiste in you find expression in the way you look. John Donne did. So did Poe. So join the fun, and relax.

Zeppelin

Led Zeppelin is one of my favorite bands. This video will show you why. It is a beautiful set;--Robert Plant, having fun with the audience, letting them sing some of the lyrics; Jimmy Page jumping around; Bonham banging the bon bons;--couldn't ask for more. John Bonham, the Zeppelin drummer, was a terror when away from home (England) and family; getting drunk on the road, insulting people, starting fights, going crazy. They all had an intensity rarely seen in today's bands. Gotta love 'em.

Reference: Hammer of the Gods.

Barbara Ann (Live) - The Beach Boys

There is one version of this song that was recorded in the studio in one take with a lot of the wives present and a party sound in the background which is the most amazing live recording I have ever heard. But this is another terrific live recording of the song, punctuated by the screaming of girls in the audience. The band is in top form. As usual Dennis Wilson on drums is breathing through his mouth most of the time. Carl Wilson on guitar does a creditable job with the lead. And Brian Wilson (the tall guy in the middle with the high voice) is apparently comfortable on stage, something he would not be later in his career as he suffered stage fright and mental problems later in life.

Speech Regognition

Today I learned to use speech recognition software with my computer. I am actually writing this post using the speech recognition software. This software is built right into my computer. I never knew we had it. And yet it works very well. It is very easy to say the words, and the computer will type them very quickly. I am really enjoying using this process. It is very futuristic and [This is where i stopped using the machine because it was getting slow.] fun to use the speech recognition software. More on this later. When it works it's great. But then it slowed down and started getting words wrong and I had to type the end of the post.

Organize Your Stuff with Dymo Label Maker

Like the poet Keats, I was a prodigy in my youth, and even on my first day of school, when I was but a child, I had the foresight and vision to control my excitement at being in a new and stimulating intellectual environment, and I kept my feelings to myself when I saw the shabby way the teachers treated us and their poverty of manners toward my classmates and myself. I was not aware, from that early age, that my mental capabilities were far beyond those of my contemporaries, including those who had been appointed to be my guardians and caretakers. I went through the process of education, however, like an intellectual giant and Übermensch, every day and every classmate and every lunch pail and every teacher's visage burned indellably upon my memory. I was also, even then, an artist, drawing and sketching all my fellow school chums and teachers. If at that time I had access to the Color labels the Dymo label maker produces I would have used them to label not only my lunch pail and the books I possessed, but also my photographs and drawings of my classmates themselves and the guardians who had been appointed to oversee my education, labeling some of them with names and some of them with descriptive appellations, some as silly, some forgetful, others mindless, and still others tyrants. My primary use for the labels would have been to label boxes and clothes and lunch pails and the like, but gifted as I was I would certainly have used the labels to label the artwork depicting people who filled my environment, tagging them with appellations like those I have heretofore described and describing them in the most honest and forthright terms imaginable.

Why Do Some People Like Art?

Not everyone likes art. By art I mean any of the plastic and fine arts; sculpture, painting, drawing, poetry, literature, music, and the like. Not everyone likes these forms of amusement and expression, and not everyone enjoys going to a museum, a concert or reading a novel. The question arises, then, as to why some people like art more than others. It is clear that this is the case; for poets are enamored of words, sculptors love to carve rock and mold clay, and writers of novels get a certain maniacal pleasure out of their craft. Then there are those who are keenly interested in music, who go to concerts, who read books about musicians, who study the lives of musicians, and who strive to make music themselves. There are people who enjoy reading poetry. And yet then there are those who, for whatever reason, have never read a book in their life. There are people who dervice no pleasure from music. There are those who have no sense of aesthetics, who care not a fig for paintings and drawings, who would not be caught dead in a museum. Why is this? What accounts for the difference? Are there any childhood experiences or genetic factors, perhaps, that could account for such a difference? I would love to know.

Flannery O'Conner and Free Indirect Discourse

If you've been wondering why Flannery O'Connor is such a fun author to read perhaps part of the answer is that she makes frequent use of the literary device known as free indirect discourse. A popular technique with the literati, free indirect discourse (FID) involves narrating a scene in language that contains some elements from the lexicon of one of the characters. In order for this to work, the character's idiom must be slightly different from that of the author or narrator, different enough to make a reader aware, at least on a subconscious level, that another voice has come into play. O'Connor is a master of the technique. For example in The Violent Bear It Away, when Rayber is looking at the action in the religious meeting and he sees a girl who he believes has been snatched from reality to a religious fanaticism that he cannot embrace, we are told, "Another child exploited, Rayber thought furiously. It was the thought of a child's mind warped, of a child led away from reality, that always enraged him." (Emphasis added.) The italicized words are not the typical lexicon of O'Connor or the third-person narrator, and can clearly be said to be tinged with Rayber's thought processes and biases. This is only one of many examples of FID in O'Connor's novel.

World Class Boating and Marine Equipment

Ever since seeing Swept Away, the original directed by Lina Wertmuller, I have been interested in boating, marine equipment, and fiberglass repair. I myself have no technical skills whatsoever. I'm like another Wordsworth, wandering around the Lake District, not knowing an oar from a paddle. I could swear, though, that my life was changed by that film and by the classic depiction of boating and marine vacations, which, of course, require a boat and nautical supplies. Now, when I need nautical supplies and marine know-how, who do you think I turn to? None other than American Marine Supply. In fact Wertmuller could have found the nautical props and supplies for her film, and I mean all of them, at their Web site.

What Truman Capote Learned from Flannery O'Connor

I was never much enamored of violence in fiction, agreeing with Christopher Booker that the trend toward overemphasis on sex and violence in art in the latter part of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries was a result of a move toward increased egotism in art in general and the novel in particular. Without sounding like a prude, I would simply suggest that the violence in Capote is closer to Booker's egoism than that in O'Connor. It seems that the author of In Cold Blood and "Handcarved Coffins" learned quite a bit from O'Connor about how to employ violence in his work. And yet Flannery O’Connor used violence in a significantly different way; usually to support a theme of spiritual awakening, with violence often the result of a dimwitted approach to spiritual values. And while Capote admired O'Connor's work, she said his work "makes me plumb sick."¹

Reference

1. Gentry, Marshall Bruce. “He Would Have Been a Good Man: Compassion and Meanness in Truman Capote and Flannery O’Connor.” In Flannery O’Connor’s Radical Reality. Jan Nordby Gretlund, Karl-Heinz Westarp, eds. Columbia, South Carolina: University of South Carolina Press, 2006, pgs. 42-55.
   
   

One Stop Resource for Saving Money

John Maynard Keynes, the economist best known for Keynesian economic theory, has always been my favorite economist because of his views on debt reduction and the various methods that individuals, corporate entities and nation states can employ to consolidate debt. As Keynes so eloquently pointed out in his book The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (1936), debt consolidation is a vital factor in all economic growth, resurgence and production. The next logical step from the Keynesian economic theory might be the work of Milton Friedman but is probably also contained in the work of local and national debt reduction efforts of the twentieth and twenty-first century, most notably Bills.com's debt help materials and Web site that puts the clear spotlight on debt consolidation in a Keynesian approach that is targeted to work through economic adjustments on an individual or micro economic basis, which, after all, is the starting point for any individual change or debt reduction efforts. Numerous methods of consolidating debt include the options so commonly resorted to of mortgage refinancing and loan consolidation. These, however, are just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak, and with the economy in 2008 wobbly due to election squabbles, it is more than ever logical to seek alternative means of saving in order to avoid economic implosion on a micro level. Of course, for those with real estate holdings in excess of their debt, refinancing is probably the most realistic alternative available in the latter part of 2008.