BBC searches for Dylan's lost acting debut

Producers on Arena, the corporation's flagship arts programme, hope that one of the star's huge army of fans will have a copy of The Madhouse on Castle Street, which was aired just once, in 1963.

The programme, which features Dylan's first televised performance of Blowin' in the Wind is now classified as missing by the BBC.

Link to full story

UPA Finals

Wisconsin has a long pedigree, including the 2003 UPA Title, and it has perfected a style that relies on short passing and handler weaves until a huck opens up downfield...

.... The game starts as a clash of two styles: Queens’ loose flow offense against Wisconsin’s sewn-up weave-and-huck. It quickly degenerates into a hackfest, with both teams calling ticky-tack fouls...

...Wisconsin calls timeout, and Tom Burkly rallie [sic] his teammates. “We’ve done it before. Who’s gonna step up?” Gigo Valdivia answers the call, going long for a floater that everyone else misreads in the wind. 15’s. Cap is on, universe point. Stanford’s Josh Wiseman takes Bloodthirsty on his shoulders, flying for a 50 yard huck, then finding a spot in the crowd to catch a 20-yard hammer from Herbert...

Link to full article and final standings

Ah, yes. I think the Hodags were eliminated in the quarters by Colorado, which would go on to fight Brown (and lose) in the finals, but you're reading someone who has never figured out box scores in the sports page, and doesn't know a huck from a hackfest. In any case, the Wisconsin boys put up a valiant fight, and it's bittersweet comfort that they whupped Brown earlier this year.

Pictured (kinda) above, Matt in backwards cap listens intently to a Hodag coach listing the number of virgins he's slept with.

Cities of the Dead

One of Peggy and my favorite moments on one of our favorite trips - to New Orleans - was a walking tour of St. Louis 1 cemetery; site of among other things, Marie Laveau's tomb (reputedly), and the Italian Mutual Benovolent Society tomb as seen in "Easy Rider."

You can get a taste of what we visited at immortelle.net, a comprehensive pictoral tour of New Orlean's cities of the dead.

You are here.

The Universe Reference Map from the National Geographic. A nice gift for anyone interested in this island universe, but what especially drew my attention was the "More Views" button, which links to a Flash window where you can zoom in and scroll through map detail.

via Cool Tools

American Life in Poetry: Column 009

BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE

In eighteen lines--one long sentence--James Doyle evokes two settings: an actual parade and a remembered one. By dissolving time and contrasting the scenes, the poet helps us recognize the power of memory and the subtle ways it can move us.

The City's Oldest Known Survivor of the Great War

marches in uniform down the traffic stripe
at the center of the street, counts time
to the unseen web that has rearranged
the air around him, his left hand
stiff as a leather strap along his side,
the other saluting right through the decades
as if they weren't there, as if everyone under ninety
were pervasive fog the morning would dispel
in its own good time, as if the high school band
all flapping thighs and cuffs behind him
were as ghostly as the tumbleweed on every road
dead-ended in the present, all the ancient infantry
shoulder right, through a skein of bone, presenting arms
across the drift, nothing but empty graves now
to round off another century,
the sweet honey of the old cadence, the streets
going by at attention, the banners glistening with dew,
the wives and children blowing kisses.


James Doyle is the author of "The Silk at Her Throat," Cedar Hill, 1999. Poem copyright James Doyle and reprinted by permission of the author. This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library of Congress, and the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln.

For information on permissions and usage, or to download a PDF version of the column, visit www.americanlifeinpoetry.org.

Track those Hodags

Roberta writes...

Nationals begin tomorrow.
You can track the path of the Hodags at:

http://ultimate.scoreomatic.com/upa

... It can be kind of fun to follow even if you don't know a
huck from a hole in the wall.

Hodag love!

Your Moment of Web Zen: Girl Geeks with Guns

To your left, the amazing, and strangely sexy, Chloe from 24 trading her usual weapons of choice - a keyboard and serious personality disorder - for an assault rifle.

To your right, blonde bombshell Xeni Jardin from BoingBoing, learning to "shoot with gravitas."

And directly across, the results of a Googlefight between the two.

Unsurprisingly, the lady whose name means "protector of sprouts" beats the pseudonymous Guatamalean -derived Xeniflores hands down.


It's a pity that Xeni isn't short for Xenophobia. Then I could have titled this "Greek Girl Geeks with Guns".

(Note Bene: using these keywords instead makes a closer decision)

Now you too can know what it's like to live with a writer

Concerned that your spouse doesn't have minute-by-minute mood swings?

Always wondered what it would be like to live with someone who spends most of their time talking about stuff you can't follow?

Want to learn how to keep a fixed grin on your face while a fan gushes, "It must be wonderful to live with someone so, so... creative!"

Now, you too can live the exciting life of a writer's S.O. with the amazing WRITERBO!

via Neil Gaiman

Somewhere it is sunny. But it ain't here.

Sam and Nat Showdown

Kim Driscoll is running for mayor of Salem and she too is opposed to the statue. "Having a statue of Samantha Stevens [sic], although she is a good witch, and we all love the show, harkens back to a dark time," Driscoll declared.

"If people from Kansas come to our town and leave with a picture of a statue of Samantha Stevens [sic] instead of Nathaniel Hawthorne, it would be a tragedy if that's how they remembered Salem." Link to full article

Top 10 Reasons why I'd leave with a picture of Samantha Stephens rather than Nathaniel Hawthorne

10. Him: gloomy, guilt-ridden moralist. Her: perky, nose-twitchin’ witch.

9. Contrast and compare these writing styles...

“Iffin, iffin” as written (and sung) by Serena

Iffin', iffin', iffin', iffin'.
Iffin' you wanna feel my embrace
Don't ya ever wash your face

Iffin' you really care for me
Don't ya comb your hair for me

Iffin' you wanna leave me weak and weepy
Ya gotta look wild and weird and creepy

Iffin', iffin', iffin', iffin'. Ya ya ya!

From “The Scarlet Letter.” Note that this is one effing sentence!

In accordance with this rule, it may safely be assumed that the forefathers of Boston had built the first prison-house, somewhere in the vicinity of Cornhill, almost as seasonably as they marked out the first burial-ground, on Isaac Johnson's lot, and round about his grave, which subsequently became the nucleus of all the congregated sepulchres in the old church-yard of King's Chapel.

Hah!

8. Does anybody outside of a couple of pigeons know that he’s already got a statue in Salem.

7. Named daughter “Una” instead of "Tabitha."

6. Look above and tell the truth: which face would you want to wake up to every morning?

5. No evidence he ever wiggled nose.

4. Unlikely he was nicknamed “Nat” Hawthorne.

3. “House of Seven Gables” bombed in syndication.

2. Sam never called Salem “that abominable city.”

1. Hawthorne’s cousin, Eleanor Barstow Condit, never looked as good in a mini-skirt as Serena.

Google personalized page.

Google gets more Yahoo-like with the Google personalized homepage; currently in Beta from Google Labs.

I installed it over the weekend, and am still test-driving, but my initial reaction is positive. Like knowing whether I have gMail, and one-click access. Movie info is useful. Weather info is semi-useful (I can look out the window, too).

News has the potential to be useful if they work more on customization features. I'd like it tied into Google alerts, for instance, and custom feeds from the various blogs I monitor. But not a bad first step.

Bear sez, "Sounds like an overpriced rip-off to me"

The cats* - which can cost from $4,000 to $10,000 - are visually striking with their long necks and oversized ears, and they can be intimidating. They look like little leopards and grow to more than twice the size of normal cats. They love to leap and splash in water, and they don't mind taking long walks on a leash. Some people describe them as dogs in cats' bodies.

*Requires NY Times registration or dead mouse.

Who is Vendyl Jones?

He divides his time between Texas and Israel. He's a Noahide guru. He's extremely knowledgeable in Torah, Talmud and Kabbalah sources dealing with Holy Temple issues. He published a book in 1959 predicting the precise outbreak of the Six Day War, and claims to be the only non-Jewish American to take part in the combat.

And he's spent most spent most of his life searching for the Ark of the Covenant. Vendyl Jones also claims his explorations were the inspiration for "Raiders of the Lost Ark".

The man who wrote the first draft of the film, Randolph Fillmore, was one of the volunteers who worked with Jones in 1977.

“I agreed to help him write the movie,” Jones said, “as long as – number one – he wouldn’t set it here (in Israel). Some people believe the ark is in Ethiopia or Egypt, some believe its in Constantinople or Rome. I just didn’t want it to be portrayed as being here. The second thing was, 'Don’t use my name.' So he didn’t. My name is Vendyl – V-E-N-D-Y-L. So he just dropped the first and last letters and it ended up Endy Jones.”

Jone believes he will uncover the ark by Tisha B'Av (Aug. 14).

Link to story (via BoingBoing)

More info on the fascinating Professor Jones.

Blood Type B? Consider becoming a Living Organ Donor

We are asking for your help in identifying people with Blood Type B that may consider being an organ donor, as well as raising funds for overcoming the challenges that face our family.

Kevin O'Neill is a 40-year-old man with cystic fibrosis who is on the double lung transplant list at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Due to his failing health, the wait may be too long for him to survive, but he has the option of a Living Donor Transplant. This procedure would require that two donors donate one of their five lobes to Kevin. If you can help, or know someone who might be able to help, you can find out more or contact Kevin at his site.

And Little Conchita's pussy is soooo happy...

A refrigerator magnet that everyone should have. And more "Childhood Memories" products here.

Which reminds me, I need to write about the time that Roberta and I almost closed down a Tortilla Flats restaurant as I told her the (true) story about my most infamous moment as a Google Answers Researcher: the "Have Small Cock, Need Small Rubber" incident.

via Maudie and April

Bewitched Statue Watch Week 2 1/2

...the Exclusive Bewitched Samantha Stephens Black & White Edition Maquette! This mini maquette stands approximately 5-inches tall and features Samantha as she appeared in the black & white opening credits of the original television show! Sam rides her broom over a cityscape base, suspended by a clear acrylic rod.

via the mysterious Ms. Ima Sample and Maudie

Hodag Love.

It is sometime shortly before noon, and the Wisconsin Hodags - Madison's Ultimate Frisbee team - is visibly drunk, but not without some reason.

For Madison, the sectionals are a chance to have a good time before the regional meets set in and ruin some of the fun. This explains - in part - the heavy drinking.

Imagine if you will the natural evolution of sport. Imagine the sports that have evolved to the highest conceivable level of refinement, sports that have been around for years, sports that are the end of a centuries-long process of evolution. These sports are soccer, basketball, baseball and polo.

Walter Frederick Morrison patented the Frisbee in 1955. The rules of Ultimate Frisbee were invented in New Jersey in the 1960s, but the game in its popular form wasn't around until the early 1970s. Rutgers and Princeton held the first intercollegiate game in 1972. The Ultimate Players Association was founded in 1979. This puts Ultimate Frisbee somewhere on the leading edge of the primordial ooze of sport.

Just as European noblemen once derided soccer as the sport of the drunken masses, so too does Ultimate invoke an unrefined label from some sports purists. The players in the Lake Superior sectional don't seem to care, even the ones wearing funny costumes. The one that sticks out the most on the men's side - costuming is more of a tradition on the women's teams, one player tells me - is the fellow from Madison decked out in a skin-tight hodag costume, complete with horns, face paint and tail.

Link to full article

Ah, college life. The intellectual pursuits. The walks down the Shaded Groves of Acadame.

Our nephew Matt's Ultimate Frisbee team, the Hodags from the University of Wisconsin - Madison are in the 2005 WPA College Championships! If I'm reading the seedings correctly, looks like the Hodags - currently ranked #3 in the standings - will play Hahvahhd first next Friday, the 27th in Corvallis, Oregon.

Tension, as my sister-in-law notes in an email, is beginning to mount.

Roberta forwarded an email from Matt which included a very funny pep talk from an "old Hodag and coach", which I'm tempted to reprint here... but won't, to save us all embarrassment, as it opens with:

In my twenty five years I've slept with several virgins.

...and goes downhill from there.

American Life in Poetry: Column 008

BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE

Thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of poems have been written to express the grief of losing a parent. Many of the most telling of these attach the sense of loss to some object, some personal thing left behind, as in this elegy to her mother by a Nebraskan, Karma Larsen:

Moonflowers
Milly Sorensen, January 16, 1922 - February 19, 2004

It was the moonflowers that surprised us.
Early summer we noticed the soft gray foliage.
She asked for seedpods every year but I never saw them in her garden.
Never knew what she did with them.
Exotic and tropical, not like her other flowers.
I expected her to throw them in the pasture maybe,
a gift to the coyotes. Huge, platterlike white flowers
shining in the night to soften their plaintive howling.
A sound I love; a reminder, even on the darkest night,
that manicured lawns don't surround me.

Midsummer they shot up, filled the small place by the back door,
sprawled over sidewalks, refused to be ignored.
Gaudy and awkward by day,
by night they were huge, soft, luminous.
Only this year, this year of her death
did they break free of their huge, prickly husks
and brighten the darkness she left.

Poem copyright by Karma Larsen, and reprinted by permission of the author. This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library of Congress, and the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. For information on permissions and usage, or to download a PDF version of the column, visit www.americanlifeinpoetry.org.

BE SURE TO PUT CAT VOMIT IN THE SUBJECT LINE!

That's what the lady says, and she's serious.

Be sure to check out the "complements any decor--these photos prove it!!" link, too for action photos.







via the mega-workplace-productivity-busting Web Zen: Feline Zen 2005 BoingBoing posting.

Well, they both have five lett-... No, that's not right either.

There are foreign movies, and there are porno movies, and there are foreign porno movies, but you've got to keep them straight.

The NY Times apologizes for somehow transcribing "foreign" as "porno."

(via Neil Gaiman)