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| Thursday, June 12th, 2008 | 10:30 pm
[addedentry]
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Ill winds  The Underwriter's Bedside Book edited by Jonathan S. Ignarski (Lloyd's of London Press, 1987) Every trade has its occupational magazine, and every occupational magazine has a back page devoted to the lighter side of the trade. No doubt Mortuary Monthly has a regular 'And finally...' called something like 'Hearse-Say'. I'm a librarian (I confess to having sent in titbits to CILIP Update's 'Mediawatching') and so I find it important to keep a list of professions to look down on. Accountancy, for instance, and chartered surveying; and insurance. The Underwriter's Bedside Book intends, according to its editor, simply to provide a selection of reading which might cater for the variable moods of such readers who return each day after long hours spent at least in the contemplation of risk, if not insurance. But what gives this book its particular flavour is not just that it belongs to the specialist literature of an overlooked tribe. No, it's that the nature of their work turns it into a compilation of tales about accident, injury, financial loss and death.
The theme is explored in poetry, short stories, extracts from Simpson's Cannibalism and the Common Law and L.T.C. Rolt's classic history of railway accidents Red for Danger, descriptions of bird strikes on aeroplanes and insurance fraud through infanticide, and 13 pages from a manual of arson investigation. A bedside book, indeed. | | Saturday, May 17th, 2008 | 8:00 pm
[addedentry]
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1966 Report on the Measurement of Roundness by R.E. Reason, A.R.C.S.Reason on Roundness: this is a wholly sensible book for the engineer who needs to measure roundness, or rather deviations from perfect circularity. Outside the world of industrial metrology, though, it sounds either paradoxical or trivial. (The chapter entitled "Measurement of Eccentricity, Alignment and Squareness of Shoulders", meanwhile, sounds like advice for military recruiters.) To my surprise, it was published by the Rank Organisation - at that time apparently an industrial conglomerate for which cinema was just one concern - and the title-page even bears an icon of the famous gong and the striking man. Apart from the Rank gong, the book has an appropriately plain cover; but if you want to see what it looks like, I recommend the magnificent website How round is your circle? where you can watch the book being rolled smoothly over round but non-spherical objects. | | Saturday, September 23rd, 2006 | 4:04 pm
[matthardwick]
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| | Monday, June 19th, 2006 | 10:59 am
[alfaguru]
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Goodbye, idiot
In case anyone was wondering why the images in my previous posts to this forum were of the single word "IDIOT" in white text on a black background, this was due to an anti-hotlinking measure I'd taken on my website, forgetting that I'd committed the same crime myself. It's fixed now. | | Wednesday, February 8th, 2006 | 7:00 pm
[addedentry]
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1100 Obscure Points  This is in fact a detailed descriptive bibliography of selected, mainly 19th-century authors, 'dedicated to the bibliographer who insured himself against going mad'. But its current function is to present the least inviting title on my bookshelves. (Thanks to ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) j4 for the gift.) | | Tuesday, September 27th, 2005 | 4:36 pm
[matthardwick]
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| | Saturday, September 10th, 2005 | 12:53 am
[matthardwick]
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| | Wednesday, August 17th, 2005 | 12:14 am
[gwferguson]
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| | Wednesday, July 27th, 2005 | 9:33 am
[matthardwick]
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| | Tuesday, August 17th, 2004 | 10:44 am
[hankchinasky]
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Stone Reader
i saw the documentary "The Stone Reader" last night and here are my two cents:
it was refreshing and at times riviting to see a man completely obsessed with a single book from him childhood to travel across the USA to find the allusive author. myself being a huge bibliophile was happy to see a movie by and for fellow book lovers. and i loved watching a movie with other bibliophiles doing nothing more then talking about books.
but i had many problems with the film. firstly, it had the one thing i hate the most about all documentary films, staged events. there were too many instances where the camera was set up with a tripod and just out of "chance" someone would show up or a letter would arrive in the mail. documentaries are supposed to be the unraveling of life in front of a camera, not set up pre planned staged events or meetings. secondly, the director and editor did not understand pacing and placement of interviews and events. and the biggest problem was that in the end of the film, when the director finally finds the mysterious and allusive author, the author is a total bore. there is a scene at the end when the director is talking to the author and the author is rambling and rambling on about god knows what that the director is so bored that he is just sitting on the edge of the bed with his hand on his face and you can tell that the director wants nothing more then to get the hell out of there. this is a good example of a great idea for a documentary, but didnt really go anywhere and didnt deliver. but if you are a lover of books, you should definately check this one out. | | Thursday, July 15th, 2004 | 4:50 pm
[moodtobestewed]
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Here's an article I think community members might be interested in: The Mystery of the Voynich Manuscript - "New analysis of a famously cryptic medieval document suggests that it contains nothing but gibberish" Current Mood:  moody | | Monday, July 5th, 2004 | 6:28 pm
[matthardwick]
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Not a bad challenge, actually... BOOKS
The life and death of Josef Stalin.
By Matt Taibbi
Life of Steel
Wit and wisdom from the life, and death, of Josef Stalin.
The Unknown Stalin: His Life, Death and Legacy
By Roy Medvedev and Zhores Medvedev
Overlook, 336 pages, $29.95The book that captures the essence of Josef Stalin has not yet been written, mainly because the right writer has not yet thrown himself at the subject. Part of the reason for this is the subject himself. Stalin was, by any objective standard, one of the greatest monsters ever to walk the earth, and it is hard to find someone who has the literary talent to take him on while also admiring him– because genuinely admiring Stalin is essential to understanding the broad genius of his horribleness.
Stalin was the very embodiment of the worst instincts in man. He was also the living embodiment of the black joke that has come to represent the human condition. Though he lived after Kafka’s death, Stalin was still his inspiration. The society he created, with random terror and death behind every closed door, with every corner of every man’s mind probed and followed to awful dead ends, the whole world a labyrinthine chamber of paranoia and guesswork–this was the terrible comic world envisioned by Kafka, and it actually existed in living color for 30-plus years. And there has yet to be a writer who took the time out to behold this Martian world and describe it with appropriate awe, the way one marvels at the other terrible creations of God: the shark, the Nile crocodile, the earthquake, the plague. ( Read more... ) | | Thursday, June 24th, 2004 | 12:40 am
[matthardwick]
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| | Monday, June 21st, 2004 | 9:32 am
[hankchinasky]
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I NEED YOUR HELP!!!
for all of those in the OC and LA area, i need your help!!!
please help us out for our June Gala event on June 26th. We'll need 3 people and we can pay you $50 cash. I know
it's not a lot of money, but we're a nonprofit and the rest of us are volunteering. The group I mentor/volunteer/work for is called WriteGirl. It is a group of professional women writers who mentor underserved teen girls. You can check out our website (www.WriteGirl.org) for more info, if you're curious.
Anyway, I'll try to give you details for the event (although we haven't finalized everything yet). We'll need your help from about 10:30 am to about 6:00 pm on Sat 6/26. We will have general things for you to help with during the event, but there are some specifics I can let you know about beforehand. It is a gala/fundraiser/silent-auction event, so people will be dressed as if they are attending a graduation. You don't have to dress up, but please wear something not too casual (i.e. no jeans, short). Maybe some slacks and button-down shirt for boys or a dress for girls. Nothing you'll need to do will get you dirty, except maybe putting up the canopy, which is the first thing that you guys will do.
Please be available this saturday from 10-6pm and have your own transportation. Email me back if you have any questions. Please forward this to anyone you think would be interested. | | Monday, May 24th, 2004 | 9:30 pm
[addedentry]
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Hilarious Estonia Many countries promote themselves with bland, colourful brochures introducing their culture and extolling their tourist attractions. The Estonian Institute takes a different approach: self-deprecation.  On the first of May I was in Prague for the enlargement of the European Union. All 25 countries had a stall on the main shopping street: the UK was represented by shortbread, potato crisps, gin and a woman in a 'Keep The Pound' shirt. Estonia was giving away this strangely sardonic booklet, 'Hilarious Estonia'. All Estonian towns look more or less the same. A town is usually divided into two: an old town and a new part of town. It is most unlikely that anything like that could be seen anywhere else in the world. The cartoons inside are all as lurid as those on the cover. The text is strangely sardonic and possibly requires prior familiarity with Estonian stereotypes: When Christmas time approaches, people put a dwarf into their child's slipper, or that of a beloved family member, or a friend. Then the owner of the slipper is in a position to negotiate directly with this dwarf and order whatever surprise he wants. Perhaps this immortal little book about Estonia and its people would do nicely for starters. The publication has numerous imperfections, all of which we shall list in the issue appearing in 2029, but it also possesses many merits. One of them is the fact that people involved in producing this book had never done anything like this before in their lives. (You can download it as a huge PDF from the bottom of this page.) | | Saturday, May 22nd, 2004 | 1:03 pm
[alfaguru]
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BISBA  "Nothing tells a woman so much about herself-or the rest of us so much about her-as do her breasts." So says Timothy Burr, the frank-speaking gynecomammologist who originated the Burr Identification System of Breast Analysis. "Every woman's character, even to its most secret and private details, can be readily evident to anyone who is at all observant," he states. And he offers you proof of it. Never before has any book opened women to themselves and to the rest of the world as BISBA does. It is unusual, exciting, and informative beyond comparison. Every woman who reads it will learn endless things about herself and her sex that she never has known. Every man who reads it will, for the first time, really be learning about women. .Why does any woman have the breasts she has? "Because her character is what it is." Do diet, exercise, heredity and such influence her breasts? "No." Can a woman change her breasts? "Yes." Can she have breasts of any size, shape or proportion her heart desires? "By simply remolding her personal character," Burr states, and he convincingly demonstrates it and supplies a guide as to the changes needed for any desired breast pattern. If you want to be your own gynecomammologist, and to analyze, rate and interpret breasts yourself, BISBA tells you how and guides you with charts and illustrations. Women are of far greater character varieties-good, bad, and otherwise -than are men. What is more, women think they can hide their character and go to endless pains in trying to. Can women hide their character? "They can't even hide their thoughts," says Burr. "When you learn how and what to observe of a woman, you can know more about her than she knows about herself." Is there anything else you want to know about women? If there is, and no matter what it is, you will probably find all the answers right here in BISBA! | | Monday, May 17th, 2004 | 12:21 pm
[addedentry]
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| | Thursday, April 22nd, 2004 | 1:45 am
[lara7]
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wacky book of the day: Postal Seance: A Scientific Investigation into the Possibility of a Postlife Postal Existence by Henrik Drescher Book Description (from amazon)
If you can write letters to Santa Claus c/o the North Pole, you ought to be able to write a letter to Jack Kerouac or Albert Einstein. As it turns out, you can. People have been trying to communicate with the dead for aeons, but it took renowned author and illustrator Henrik Drescher to break through the eternal barrier. Postal Seance is the result of his bizarre and ambitious experiment, in which the afterlife meets the epistolary impulse in the form of elaborately decorated letters to the dead. By sending out 52 ornately designed cards and letters to deceased luminaries throughout history -- including James Joyce, Dolly the Sheep (in two letters), Chairman Mao, Saul Steinberg, and others -- Drescher puts his faith in the efficacy of the international postal network. In some cases, the letter is returned, bearing evidence of its lengthy journey in the form of international postmarks as it bounced from Singapore to Manchester, Sydney to Kentucky, or Madrid to Moscow, at last surrendering to the ultimate defeat, the "Return to Sender" stamp. Of those not returned, it is deduced that the letter was successfully delivered. With a foldout map showing the post-life postal system and custom stamps for the reader's own far-reaching missives, Postal Seance is a uniquely imaginative presentation, and perhaps the closest we humans have ever come to contact with the dead. Note that this is not some wacky 60's book (I guess the reference to Dolly the cloned sheep gives that away) but a book published this May by Chronicle books. Chronicle books, for those not in the know, is known especially for coffee table/illustrated books on lightweight "lifestyle" topics such as airstream trailers or sangria recipes. About 5 years ago, the SF Weekly held a snarky contest for "guess which of the following titles is NOT an actual book published by Chronicle Books". I can't remember the actual winner, but I imagine it was less ludicrious than "Postal Seance" in its premise. | | Tuesday, April 20th, 2004 | 2:48 pm
[hankchinasky]
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its the best time of the year
HAPPY OFFICIAL LIBRARY WEEK EVERYONE | | Thursday, April 15th, 2004 | 12:11 pm
[hankchinasky]
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NEED SOME SUGGESTIONS
can you all do something for me please.
can you make a list of some contemporary edgy fiction writers. also a list of some feminst or female authors. also a list of some good artists or art books. also a list of some good zines or independant magazines. or any books in general that you all really love to read. i want to introduce some more edgier contemporary authors and books to our collection here. thanks |
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