August 2010
80 posts
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Quick As Rainbows
Kitchens of Distinction
Kitchens of Distinction: Quick as Rainbows - “Tomorrow isn’t clear enough to give her strength or make her want to wake and walk in the morning …”
Sniff. Sigh. Etc.
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Submission Guidelines →
swinkmag.com
I would definitely submit to this literary magazine.
“I love Last of the Summer Wine. And Waiting For Godot.”
—
That’s what Her Majesty the Queen apparently said to Last of the Summer Wine star Peter Sallis when presenting him with his OBE recently.
While I’m very glad - and perhaps a little surprised - that Her Maj is a fan of Samuel Beckett, I’m also rather disturbed to hear that she thinks of his most famous play in the same breath as Last of the Summer Wine, a BBC sitcom that, for some completely inexplicable reason, audiences have continued to tune into in their goggle-eyed millions and find hilarious since 1973 (though not for much longer, thankfully).
Unless, of course, the Queen is thinking more laterally. Maybe I’m not giving her enough credit for her artistic insight. After all, one interpretation of Waiting for Godot is that it’s about two old men waiting for death. And Last of the Summer Wine is certainly about three old blokes waiting for death - just with the dubious added ‘pleasure’ of watching them roll down a hillside in a tin bath over and over again until you also lose the will to live. Oh, my sides are splitting. Stop, please, this comedic mirth is too much. I’m collapsing in fits of hysterical laughter while inwardly screaming “WHEN ARE THEY GOING TO DIE? OH FOR GOD’S SAKE, WHEN ARE THEY GOING TO DIE?”
Next week: the Queen reveals that she’s a huge fan of Eugene Ionesco. And Dancing on Ice.
“If I ever identify with a writer I hope it’s because both of us are dead.”
—Blake Butler: interview in Dark Sky Magazine
Russia in colour, a century ago →
boston.com
“… photographer Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii (1863-1944) undertook a photographic survey of the Russian Empire with the support of Tsar Nicholas II. He used a specialized camera to capture three black and white images in fairly quick succession, using red, green and blue filters, allowing them to later be recombined and projected with filtered lanterns to show near true color images. The high quality of the images, combined with the bright colors, make it difficult for viewers to believe that they are looking 100 years back in time …”
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The David Miliband party planner →
bbc.co.uk
It’s Saturday! Time to celebrate! And I think I might have a David Miliband party tonight, just to really get the weekend going with a swing. You know: nibbles, chilled drinks, and all done and dusted by 9.00pm. Who’s up for it? Oh come on, you can’t all be mysteriously “washing your hair”. (Note to self: order in absinthe, methylated spirit and a packet of rusty razorblades for when the festivities really gets going.)
And they say politics is being dumbed down. What a truly scandalous suggestion.
