I added a new feed with links to free music. It's on the right.

And the video widget is back because some folks asked for it...

-Cada uno lleva su cruz-

skinning the rabbit, ted inverts the inverted glove until the long hand of muscle falls from its grip of loose blood, clutching the grin of this morning’s funniest execution. slain by the sling ted’d made of malena’s old hose, the bunny tumbled with its fate-stone thrown clear through dark bush to headlighted street, ted waving traffic to a halt to retrieve it
by deafwarm ears to malena and dante’s cheering as for a goal. the dawn dome of planetarium rose to a glow by sun’s flush hole as they bore the corpse like some world-leader with eyes struck open home.

ted knifes the belly, scoops its coils and jellies in a system to the sink, the other two toasting long life/short death as ted decouples the head’s last permanent link. dante jumps

(he will always claim) (the thing) (blinked)

the candled air of the whole long flat rubs the windows with its sweat: ginger, clove and cardamon escaping the pot towards the black rhyme of ted and malena’s hair ted’s elbows on the table and dante’s perplexing stare in the ruby swirl of wine malena’s got she tells of the trouble with men and dante says we know a willing lesbian she shakes her head: i need something i can sink these teeth into (with a wink) hefting her breasts in the low-cut dress she jokes what about these? don’t you ever miss them on a winter’s night? dante frowns i swear i even eschewed huge dugs as a whelp i would not suck at mother’s milk and father’s mams were black with glossy felt, he giggles at ted who growls: not while i’m eating malena says Cocho kept peacocks when i was thirteen they would not breed, which made them twice precious, bleating in the courtyard even earlier than those ugly cocks, casting spectacular shadows like beardsley engravings on the opaline gravel around the villa, occasional prey to a fox our indian shot presenting it to mother who wore it to the opera like a (draining her wineglass) (with seductive indolence) queen

driven by the spirit of the rabbit or by the devil possessed, ted proposes a contest: whoever kisses best will follow ted to bed whilst the other does dishes. dante hisses you bitches and kisses malena on the mouth, vomitting chilean flags and passing out

.

The Harvard Center for European Studies Berlin did a long interview which should answer a lot of questions about the bookshop.

Friday 04 January 9pm Dinner followed by Film around 11pm The Three Musketeers (1974) and The Four Musketeers (1975) Richard Lester

Friday 04 January 9pm Dinner followed by Film around 11pm The Three Musketeers (1974) and The Four Musketeers (1975) Richard Lester

Charlton Heston signed on to portray the wily Cardinal Richelieu. Faye Dunaway was cast as the scheming Milady and Geraldine Chaplin as the philandering Anne of Austria. In the role of Constance, dressmaker to the Queen, was Raquel Welch. As the celebrated rollicking trio of swordsmen were Oliver Reed, Frank Finlay and Richard Chamberlain. Finally, as D'Artagnan, hero of the film, there was Michael York. With a fine company in hand, the director Richard Lester camped in Spain for a scorching summer of filming the richly entertaining ''Three Musketeers,'' based on the novel by Alexandre Dumas, released in 1974. And while they were at it, they also made ''The Four Musketeers,'' issued the next year. On Tuesday, Fox Lorber will release new video editions of both films. In Spain back in the 70's, however, cast members weren't aware they were making two movies. They were being paid for only one. Accounts are clouded, but apparently one very long film was originally planned. ''It was conceived as a road-show picture with a break in the middle,'' Mr. York said in an interview. Costs later dictated that the project be broken in two, but the cast didn't learn that until later. ''In a hail of litigious indignation lawyers rushed back to their contracts only to find that the producers had scrupulously described the undertaking not as film or films but as 'our project,' '' Mr. York wrote in his autobiography, ''Accidentally on Purpose.''Legalities were eventually settled amicably, Mr. York said. ''Intrinsic in the settlement was that one didn't go around raising the issue again,'' he added. Forever after, though, actors have been scrupulously careful about the number of ''projects'' committed to.

By PETER M. NICHOLS Published: April 24, 1998 The New York Times Saturday 05 January Bookshop Open 12pm - 6pm

Sunday 06 January Bookshop Open 12pm - 6pm 2pm The War Part 2 and 3

Monday 07 January Bookshop Closed

Tuesday 08 January 8:30 The War Part 2 and 3 (see Saturday)

The War Part 2 and 3

In the spring of 1945, as the war in Europe drew to a close, the CBS radio correspondent Eric Sevareid was troubled. He had been reporting on the fighting for four years, and had done his best to convey to his listeners back home all that he had seen and heard in Burma, France, Italy and Germany. But he was haunted by the sense that he had failed. He told his audience: "Only the soldier really lives the war. The journalist does not -- war happens inside a man -- and that is why, in a certain sense, you and your sons from the war will be forever strangers. If, by the miracles of art and genius, in later years two or three among them can open their hearts and the right words come, then perhaps we shall all know a little of what it was like -- and we shall know then that all the present speakers and writers hardly touched the story." For the past six years we have striven to create a documentary film series about the Second World War in that spirit. Ours has been, in part, a humbling attempt to understand "the things men do in war, and the things war does to them" (as Phil Caputo so aptly noted). We chose to explore the impact of the war on the lives of people living in four American towns -- Mobile, Alabama; Sacramento, California; Waterbury, Connecticut; and Luverne, Minnesota. Over the course of the film's nearly fifteen hours more than forty men and women opened their hearts to us about the war they knew -- and which we, their inheritors, could only imagine. Above all, we wanted to honor the experiences of those who lived through the greatest cataclysm in human history by providing the opportunity for them to bear witness to their own history. Our film is therefore an attempt to describe, through their eyewitness testimony, what the war was actually like for those who served on the front lines, in the places where the killing and the dying took place, and equally what it was like for their loved ones back home. We have done our best not to sentimentalize, glorify or aestheticize the war, but instead have tried simply to tell the stories of those who did the fighting -- and of their families. In so doing, we have tried to illuminate the intimate, human dimensions of a global catastrophe that took the lives of between 50 and 60 million people -- of whom more than 400,000 were Americans. Through the eyes of our witnesses, it is possible to see the universal in the particular, to understand how the whole country got caught up in the war; how the four towns and their people were permanently transformed; how those who remained at home worked and worried and grieved in the face of the struggle; and in the end, how innocent young men who had been turned into professional killers eventually learned to live in a world without war. Over the course of seven episodes, we spend a great deal of time in battle -- on the ground, in the air and at sea, in Europe and the Pacific -- examining in countless ways and from many perspectives what one of our witnesses, Paul Fussell, described as "the real war." "The rest of it," he told us, "is just the show-biz war. The real war involves getting down there and killing people. And being killed yourself or just barely escaping it. And it gives you attitudes about life and death that are unobtainable anywhere else." Throughout the series, one theme has stayed constant, one idea has continually emerged as we have gotten to know the brave men and women whose stories it has been our privilege to tell: in extraordinary times, there are no ordinary lives. The Second World War was fought in thousands of places, too many for any one accounting. This is the story of four American towns and how their citizens experienced that war.

From the PBS web site

There was a long story about the shop in that thing. It's flying around where the butter is. Could someone please pick it up and scan that article?

Quite a lot of traffic today. Mister Augustine mentioned this blog over at "The Guardian Blog"

Look at how talented Alex and Ken are!

Bonus-Track: They boys are having a White Christmas

Bell 'did not invent telephone' Claims that a German scientist invented the telephone 15 years before Alexander Graham Bell are supported by evidence from newly surfaced archive papers.

Successful tests on a German device manufactured in 1863 were covered up to maintain the Scot's reputation, the previously unseen files have revealed.

They show the "Telephon", developed by German research scientist Philipp Reis, could transmit and receive speech.

It is alleged UK businessman Sir Frank Gill was behind the cover-up.

The evidence is contained in files from the archives of the Science Museum in London.

The documents were rediscovered in October by the museum's curator of communications, John Liffen.

Contract bid

Gill was chairman of Standard Telephones and Cables (STC), the company that conducted the tests on Reis's' device.

The company was at the time bidding for a contract from the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, which evolved from the Bell Company.

Gill thought that if word got out of the test results, it would scupper STC's chances of winning the contract.

Some researchers have argued for many years that Reis beat Bell to the invention of the telephone. The archived documents seem to support their claims.

A memo, dated 18 March 1947, from Gerald Garratt, a predecessor of Mr Liffen's, show STC's reports on Reis's device were given to him under the strict condition that they would never be publicly referred to or published without permission.

STC then became anxious to retrieve the documents. In a subsequent letter, Garratt wrote: "I am left with the thought that there is something so secret about [the documents] as to be a matter of first class historic interest.

"You must know as well as I the old controversy: 'Did Bell invent the telephone?' and I have here an unpublished manuscript of over 400 pages which proves pretty conclusively that he didn't.

"Does your anxiety to retrieve these reports rather suggest that you agree?"

In 1955, LC Pocock, a research scientist in STC's acoustics laboratory, wrote a letter to Garratt explaining: "[Frank Gill's] decision was that he didn't want the STC name mentioned in any further controversy that may arise as a result of the Reis device."

The "Telephon" could transmit speech very faintly. It could receive good quality speech but only at a low efficiency.

"If by telephone, you mean a device that could communicate over any sort of distance, then [Reis] did invent the telephone," said Mr Liffen.

Scottish-born scientist Alexander Graham Bell is often credited with making the first transmission of speech from one point to another by electrical means in 1876.

But, as with so many of these "world firsts", there are competing claims. Researchers Antonio Meucci and Elisha Gray were also known to be working on speech transmission devices at the same time as Bell and Reis.

Story from BBC NEWS:

of all the christmasses dante has seen and survived, this, perhaps, will matter better than the rest, the year he watched It’s a Wonder Life without sneering or crying, ted’s face in his lap, both still laughing over the fact ted had backed into the bedroom to the tune of bing singing, his head in one red ribbon wrapped, tacky card affixed to his hard-waxed chest, best promise of a new year’s happiness, whether or not the promise can possibly last.

he sees castouts on the snowbald, whorecold street: red-eyed ingenues, feud-ruined uncle-drunks and thinner-made, festivityless leather-blacks for whom republicans pay taxes, those shell-boned refugees, dressed for sheep, each at his own indicative velocity, though dante’s just out for a little blue air while ted makes dinner autistically. the street’s aglimmer-black horn in the twilight’s velvet case, straight and weighted tight to the evening’s queer lydian ache, the antediluvian tune of cold comfort, warm harm. dante sees

the seal-haired waitress from their favorite café, singsongs the obvious greeting and she breaks like an egg on his arm.

he invites her to the feast and ted finds the poor girl charming

.

Visit the Home of the Cow-Fi

Sister Chain & Brother John host, present and support the world's first cow-fi band:

The Lonesomes

Somewhere in the german countryside, inside a small underequipped studio, four cows are constantly exploring their weird version of lo-fi electronic country music. They are known as The Lonesomes. Well, either that or they are actually the solo recording entity of musician Adi Gelbart, who claims he is just the cows' manager. Though the Lonesomes' music originates from country, they manage to cover a great range of styles and influences from loungy easy-listening through lo-fi minimalism to extreme noise, resulting in a sound that is both plain trashy and emotionally deep at the same time.

The Lonesomes released their debut album "a tribute to the great outdoors" at the end of 2003 to rave reviews. It was played extensively on the famous New-Jersey based radio station WFMU, where the album was also selected as one of the top 10 albums of 2003. Adi Gelbart has won the ACUM Electronic Artist of the year award, for his work on this album and his solo works.

In 2005 Adi Gelbart moved from Israel to Berlin, where he now continues to work on The Lonesomes music, as well has on his solo projects. Besides his work as the Lonesomes he also has several solo releases behind him including splits with Frederik Schikowski and The Branflakes.

The Lonesomes live show features the band with Adi Gelbart on guitars, synths, homemade and rewired electronic toys . The Lonesomes' second album "This is Cow-Fi" was released on LoAF (Lo Recordings) in September 2007.

Ein Kitten Für Hitler My Kitten for Hitler is all in the best bad taste

Ten years ago, while working on The South Bank Show, Melvyn Bragg and I had a heated discussion on the pros and cons of film censorship. Broadly speaking, Melvyn was against it, while I, much to his surprise, was absolutely for it. He then dared me to write a script that I thought should be banned. I accepted the challenge and a month or so later sent him a short subject entitled A Kitten for Hitler. "Ken," he said, "if ever you make this film and it is shown, you will be lynched."

the desert god comes in borrowed armour of sword-hard ice, the sky’s corpsetower of nine billion spirits burned crytal-water white, His flesh-cutting sirocco of sleet turns giant wheels to the highstreets of candle-lit Europe, grinding souls like miniscule diamonds for xmas stalls while the hawk-faced, kohl-eyed deity of djins sings madrigals

O superbest dissembler! O mask on a mask in a veil on a doll vast beyond any sane maths yet conceivable thine sunsmashing fist of rain-pregnant adamantine, thine pavement-cracking snowfoot, thine regenerative organ: seven miles of hard black wind on these bare lindens, mere hairs under thine godweight bent

.

The link up there seems to be broken for some bizarre reson, but you can find some of Agnethes's tunes over here: www.myspace.com

Never mind the 30 seconds teaser from last week. Go over here and watch the new one. It's pretty exciting!

Only six weeks left until the show returns for a at least eight episodes or something. You know, "The Writers Strike" and all that. We will probably show four episodes of "Lost" every last thursday of the month whenever it's on.

Ok, Halloween is over, I know!

Malena the foreign girl rents from the woman who rents from the man who owns the bathless flat at zionskirchplatz. notification by postcard came with the fact that a week before xmas, the man’s son, cramming informatik at tuebingen, will come to stay until the day after day one of next year. with 72 hours left to find a new bed she suffers giddy-but-desperate despair but makes herself up, does her highgloss hair, wears her very best amongst macintoshes at sankt oberholz in hopes of meeting a decent English-speaking student. but they’re just impudent

brats, not men, the effeminate offspring of America’s tourist classes, chatty-immature and porno-crass, unearned smirks illuminated by flashy nonsense from week-old screens, she thinks you’d never even survive a week of pinochet. Malena pays three milchkaffees and leaves to walk her bad dream along the Spree trailing smoke from the café. she makes her way

through the superfluous xmas markt behind the obligatory museum towards friedrichstrasse, from there to hallesches tor in kreuzberg where joke santas hang from windows like hung partisans and startled pigeons mount heaven like notes torn from throats of
muezzin

.

A cow? THey have a cow on the island? Come on, that's pretty unrealistic!

Ken says: Here's that publisher i mentioned specializing in the english "regions":

www.tindalstreet.co.uk