Sunday 9 November 2008

The End Of The World As We Know It

The End Of The World As We Know It: "You may have heard people talk about 2012. Some people say it is the year when the world will end.

By Steve Andrews & CJ Stone"

Saturday 1 November 2008

Angels of New York Part I

Angels of New York Part I: "this hub of humanity, this vortex of ceaseless activity, of time and life and psychosis, this city of hallucination and exhilarating insanity, mad like the gods, a modern Atlantis rising out of the waves, miraculous, expansive, fuelled by vanity and electricity, by sex and by greed, breathless, startled, crazy, alive"

Friday 24 October 2008

Samhain and Cider

Samhain and Cider: "And while you're doing it, while you're picking up those apples, breathing in the strong, sweet scent, sweating and panting slightly, there's a sense of deep satisfaction, that this process has been going on since the beginning of Time. You know you are doing something ancient and true. Thousands of generations of human beings just like me, picking up the Summer's harvest, so that it can be preserved and enjoyed in the depths of Winter. Sharp, strong cider, like the Summer Sun glowing in your glass."

Atlantis

Atlantis: "...for these histories tell of a mighty power which unprovoked made an expedition against the whole of Europe and Asia, and to which your city put an end. This power came forth out of the Atlantic Ocean, for in those days the Atlantic was navigable… Now in this island of Atlantis there was a great and wonderful empire which had rule over the whole island and several others…”

With these words, from the dialogue of Timaeus, written in about 360 BC, the philosopher Plato would unwittingly launch a deluge of speculation, investigation, argument and counter-argument, that has lasted the better part of 2,500 years."

Wednesday 22 October 2008

Baghdad Girl

Baghdad Girl: "Her name is Raghda Zaid and she lives in the United Arab Emirates. She used to live in Baghdad.

If you want to know what life in Baghdad is really like, then you should take a look at Raghda’s blog. In between pictures of cats she adds these totally unselfconscious comments on the state of her city, on the killing and the violence all around, on the fear that stalks their every move. It would take a hard man indeed not to be moved by the simple humanity of this one, small girl."

Tuesday 21 October 2008

Welcome To The Future

Welcome To The Future: "I mean: what’s a ‘Scart‘ when it‘s at home? Is it related to the Snark or is it more like a Jabberwock? Wasn‘t sure whether to hunt it, talk to it or kiss it on the lips and call it baby.

So the warning should have read something like this:

“Warning: scart lead not included. Please note, use of the term ‘scart’ is strictly controlled. Anyone over the age of forty using the word ‘scart’ in public will be made to feel woefully inadequate.”"

Computer Troubles

Computer Troubles: "Actually, George Orwell seems to have got a number of things right.

Britain is indeed Airport One for the American Empire, as he predicted: we are permanently at war, the government is adept at double-speak and we have a Ministry of Truth telling us lies and a Ministry of Peace selling us war. And if it’s not exactly Big Brother watching over us, it’s Google, and meanwhile we are all watching Big Brother.

Is this a case of life imitating art or the other way round?"

Sunday 19 October 2008

Whitstable Times Columns II

Whitstable Times Columns II: "It was the playwright, Arthur Miller, who said: 'Few of us can easily surrender our belief that society must somehow make sense. The thought that the State has lost its mind and is punishing so many innocent people is intolerable, and so the evidence has to be internally denied.'"

Sunday 14 September 2008

Hair Pie

Hair Pie: "Crosby Stills Nash and Young sang a song about it. In those days hair was a revolutionary statement. But what's its purpose? That's the question on CJ Stone's mind."

Sunday 7 September 2008

Sweet Nothings: The Small Schoolgirls of the Borderlands in Eastern Anatolia by Vanessa Winship. A Review.

Sweet Nothings: The Small Schoolgirls of the Borderlands in Eastern Anatolia by Vanessa Winship. A Review.: "They are just here, that’s all, in this place of borders, on the threshold of becoming. What do their faces tell us? Are they sisters? Are they friends? It’s not clear, even, when these photographs were taken. There is an archaic quality about them, as if the camera is a time machine and we’re looking through the lens to another time, another era, maybe a century ago."

Saturday 6 September 2008

The Power of the Light

The Power of the Light: "Why on earth would the power of the light want to banish the glamour of this world, when it's a perfectly good world, I was thinking? And what about the birds and the trees and the animals: would it want to banish them as well? I mean, where would they go once the world had been banished? The only thing I could see that might be worth banishing was what us human beings have done to it. So maybe I could have agreed with the power of the light had it wanted to banish the cock-ups of humanity."

Saturday 16 August 2008

Drug problem or drug solutions?

Drug problem or drug solutions?: "Most of the arguments for the continued prohibition of cannabis are, in my view, actually arguments for its legalisation"

Wednesday 23 July 2008

Reality Is What You Make It

Reality Is What You Make It: "sometimes we see only what we are told to see. It is this mechanism that magicians use for their slight of hand tricks. They divert our attention from the important action by focussing our brains on irrelevant details."

Wednesday 16 July 2008

Bear Nation: Looking For Bear in Harghita County, Transylvania - Part 1

Bear Nation: Looking For Bear in Harghita County, Transylvania - Part 1: "It was after this that I first heard a bear speak. It was Lydia. She was walking up and down by the fence making this noise. It is a unique and unmistakable sound, like a plaintive nasal cry, slightly wistful, slightly melancholic. The Latin name for bear is 'Urs' and that is exactly the sound they make. 'Ur?' It's a question. There's a questioning tone to it, like something you might ask of the mountains, of the wind. Something slightly sad. 'Why have you left me, Ur? Where have you gone, Ur? Why do all us creatures have to die?' You can hear the peaks of the mountains in its voice. You can hear the breathing nearness of the wind. You can hear the echoes of the forest. You can hear the lonely miles of travel. You can hear mortality and loss."

Bear Nation: Looking For Bear In Harghita County, Transylvania

Bear Nation: Looking For Bear In Harghita County, Transylvania: "It was Attila who saw them first. He pointed them out to us, these shapes emerging from the trees, muscular and huge with hulking shoulders and craggy heads like great black rocks, with curling tusks and wet noses, snorting and trotting up the hill with a sort of hungry wariness, cautiously looking around them for any possible danger. They were a family group of about ten individuals, snuffling about and rooting in the soil for the corn."

Saturday 5 July 2008

I Don't Write For Money, I Write For Love

I Don't Write For Money, I Write For Love:

"So, you have to ask, what is the difference between a professional writer and an amateur? The difference is that a professional writes for money, of course, and demands a proper rate of pay. This is reasonable enough you might say, and it's certainly true that I could do with being paid for some of the things I write. But the real truth is that most of these professional writers not writing for themselves. They write for an editor who works for a proprietor whose main purpose is to fill his paper with advertising. So in the end, most writers are writing for advertisers."

Tuesday 1 July 2008

Instant Karma's Gonna Get You

Instant Karma's Gonna Get You: "In Hindu philosophical terms karma is a process of blind inevitability, a force of the universe, like gravity. You don‘t get a choice over how gravity works, your only choice is whether to jump off any high buildings, and whether to carry a parachute if you do."

The Economics And Romance of Space Exploration

The Economics And Romance of Space Exploration: "In my imagination there's a part of me out there wandering in the infinite desolation of space with these machines. They are remote control vehicles for the strange miracle we call life from this oasis, the Earth."

Mothers Club In Erdington

Mothers Club In Erdington: "Mothers Club in Erdington, Birmingham, an early psychedelic music venue, opened on the 9th of August 1968 with a performance by Duke Sunny, and closed on the 3rd of January 1971, with a blockbusting three-band show by Quintessence, Stonehouse and Happy. The following is a personal record of that club, and that era."

What To Do at The End Of The World

What To Do at The End Of The World: "Yet another great, thought provoking hub, CJ! Personally, I've decided 'end of the world' only means end of the world AS WE KNOW IT. Planet Earth isn't going to explode, implode, or otherwise disapear, which is the implication in all of the end of the world predictions. Humans may turn it into one huge wasteland, or the North Pole may shift from the Arctic to the equator, but the planet itself will continue to circle the sun for another gazillion years."