Melons and quinces
Month: September 2004
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From Pete the Feet.
NYC is dispossessing newsstand owners in order to make the streets more monotone and generate ad revenues: Mary Whalen, whose family has owned a newsstand at the corner of William and Wall streets downtown since 1922, said her stand is “an institution” — not just a structure. “We’re part of what makes New York New…
According to a book by ex-spook F Hoekstra, the Dutch Secret Service (BVD) set up a Maoist party, the Marxist-Leninist Party Netherlands (MLPN), to figure out the extent and nature of Chinese influence among students and scientists in the 70s. Operation Mongol was so successful that Holland’s genuine Maoist parties didn’t get any of the…
There’s a good post over at Confrontación about the current Telefónica hard sell, which involves pestering hapless consumers with something worse than they’ve already got. Someone I know down south just had to wait four months for a line to be put in, and no, I really don’t want to hear your own Telefónica story.…
One of the stupidest pieces of evidence cited in anonymous briefings by the regional police in their attempts–based as far as I am aware purely on inter-corps rivalries–to pin Islamic terrorism charges on the 10 Pakistanis detained here on the 15th is that the gentlemen in question used Western Union to send and receive money.…
Someone told me this morning that the Royal Ulster Constabulary used to be known as the Trevors. It’s unclear to me whether this is a reference to the low incidence of the name in Catholic families, to Tacitus’ pigheaded Treviri, or to something completely different–please tell me if you know. Here, anyway, to strike terror…
Reading (and trying to sing) bits of Jack Kerouac’s Mexico City Blues over lunch, I came across the following in the 118th chorus: It’s all the same to meThe radio I dont wanta hearAnd cant have to hearPlays one thing and anotherOf great Sarah Vag A musician once told me that, during one of Ms…
Price estimates had dropped so rapidly following recent news that the accountants figured it would be cheaper just to keep him locked up in the town hall until the next elections. 11,000 lots are up for sale–mostly office attributes–but I’m going to be bidding for the Flatiron Building, in which I plan to house my…
In tribute to this noble undertaking, here a select list of blogs written in English by would-be Spaniards currently resident in the Cambrillish Empire who were bitten this morning on the calf by a tiger mosquito and are wearing a pink fluorescent wig to soothe the pain: Kaleboel You can’t expect me to keep that…
The Times of India writes of the late Raja Ramanna that he had the capacity to design a nuclear bomb with one hand and play Bach, Beethoven and Lizst with the other. Given that most of us need at least two hands in order to pursue either hobby, the survival of this planet in the…
Great tunes, great doggerel, small simians