Dual Loyalty

As writers and bloggers are so fond of saying; you couldn't make it up. You don't cross the Iron Curtain and come out without scars ...
· Jozef Imrich, Survivor of the Iron Curtain Crossing

Thursday, May 15, 2008



Gabriella is sweet sixteen today and at breakfast I could not take my eyes of her … It is so lovely for a father to see a daughter filled with laughter and health and creative ideas. Not many teenagers love to go to school these days yet Gabbie loves her talent school, the Brent Street, is just great … The reason Gabbie is so much into arts and photography is because the water broke while we were in the cinema all those sixteen years ago ... and Paddington still had a birth center under the flag of Benevolent Society of Royal Women!

Tonight I laughed with Mal at a movie that no critic can ever give it any justice in words ... impossible just like As it is in Heaven - Who says it is easy is just once in a lifetime story a light story with so many characters from my days in the Czech army and even I recognise a few librarians and journos from Macquarie Street Bear Pit as both places were like laboratories of human nature ... An amiable but uninventive romantic comedy about a square whose life turns heart-shaped, Juan Taratutos - Who Says Its Easy? — like the helmers debut - Its Not You, Its Me, — is basically a vehicle for the talents of hangdog thesp Diego Peretti. Main characters spiritual journey could have shed 10 minutes, but is made worthwhile by an emotionally rewarding final reel and the always-watchable Peretti. Aldo is in complete control of his life and surroundings, and he wouldn't have it any other way. Andrea has long since thrown caution to the wind, having traveled the world for fifteen years. Now Andrea is pregnant, and she's not even sure she can identify the father of her unborn son. On the surface it would seem almost impossible to love a man as rigid as Aldo or a woman as unpredictable as Andrea, but as fate would have it their eccentricities might just fit together like pieces of a puzzle. Who Says Its Easy? - Quien dice que es facil?
I'm shattered into million pieces with laughter . Still I know how broken hearts are much harder to heal than broken bodies

Saturday, May 10, 2008



The purge of Liberals involved in undermining Victorian leader Ted Baillieu could reach into the offices of state or federal MPs, with several more staffers under threat of explusion over the blogging scandal that claimed a third scalp yesterday Blog crisis 'tip of iceberg' [Google that cheeky collector and gather New scalp claimed in Liberal blog scandal

Into each life some rain must fall, some days must be dark and dreary Memoirs: whose truth – and does it matter?
If You're Looking for a Level-Headed Piece on Memoirs
The Christian Science Monitor has one. There's not a lot new here, but with the Seltzer furor having settled down, a little more perspective prevails. At Powell's Books, marketing manager Michal Drannen says, There was a certain amount of interest in Margaret Jones [Ms. Seltzer's pseudonym] regionally and locally. But we haven't seen a decline in sales of the genre. From my perspective, I don't think there's a general concern about the veracity of nonfiction memoirs or biographies.

It's made us cynical. He and his colleagues have developed a running joke. Whenever they come across an especially sensational life story, somebody will ask, What's the pool? How many weeks before it's exposed as fraudulent? That said, Mr. Donaghy admits, The averages are not too bad. Not that it mitigates it at all, but it's not anything I'd call a pandemic. He cites "Beautiful Boy" as one recent example of a memoir that read as especially genuine.


It made the booksellers' employees cynical ; [Two years after telling the world he was finished with writing, Gabriel Garcia Márquez has rediscovered his muse. The Nobel prizewinner is giving the final touches to "a novel of love", according to a friend. Marquez Writes Another Novel After All; Let's hear it for freedom of speech! Tibet, Zimbabwe and now Myanmar are all refusing access to journalists who want to report on the hardships of their people. NBC News World Media Dragon aims to provide a dynamic look at world events and trends -- both big and small NO JOURNALISTS ALLOWED TO TELL THE STORY ]
• · Everyone networks everyday; they just may not think they do. Everyone talks daily to a family member, a work colleague or a friend and this is a form of networking. Additionally, almost everyone meets someone new everyday. The trick is to find a way to build and maintain your network that is comfortable for you Networking: what is your NQ? ; The more information we place online and the less discriminating we are, the greater the risk of exposure to ID theft and more. Privacy and social networking; How easy is it for thieves to steal your identity? Are we making it easier for them by putting our lives online? Stolen ID ; Sesame Street’s Cookie Monster is famous for his hunger Me want cookie!

• · News Creed – The internet is littered with people who don't know what they're talking about. Common sense is usually enough to separate the junk from legitimate articles, but even the most highly-regarded publications have been infiltrated by reporters who like to make things up NewsCred: Just How Trustworthy is Your Favorite Blog?; NewsCred gives you credible and quality news from your favourite news sources. News Media Dragons
• · · THE writer and social commentator Anne Manne sees this as an historic moment. We are poised at a fork in the cold river How do we want to live? ; Almost all creative ventures fail, but the successes can be spectacular Winner creates all?
• · · · The Sydney Writers' Festival director Wendy Were was excited about bringing five virtual guests to town, including Iain Banks and Alan Bennett, via LongPen technology. Virtually impossible ; Sydney Writers Festival is on next week and it is peppered with lunches – one with Czech Jana Wendt not to be missed … 200 flesh-and-blood authors
• · · · · Australia's richest literary prize won by Jozef Imrich Riches for writers ; A couple of great movies are out right now in the States and should be with the rest of the world soon. Danis checked out I’m Not There, with its great soundtrack and standout album track by Los Lobos. Here’s Danis’ review... Imrich - I’m Not There
• · · · · · After seeing Rock and Roll of Stoppards with Jeff Avril and David in the audience this is another czech artistic invasion … A documentary shot over a period of 13 years that traces the fascinating life of dissident poet turned politician Vaclav Havel, the former Czech president, has become the biggest ever theatrical release for a non-fiction film in the former Warsaw Pact Central European country … We are very excited by the success of 'Citizen Havel' at the cinemas. It has by far exceeded everyone's expectations. Directed by Pavel Koutecky (who died in 2006) and Miroslav Janek, "Citizen Havel" was 13 years in the making, with shooting beginning in 1992. 'Citizen Havel' rakes in Czech coin ; Documentary shot over a period of 13 years

Sunday, May 04, 2008



This year has been a year of Film Festivals from French to German and now the Spannish. But the best plays are still with Czech accent as Tom Stoppard rocks the rocks of the Sydney Warf Theatre of Cate Blanchet fame on Thursday in the row F In 2008 Tom gave Australia one of his finest plays Rock 'n' Roll. Jan, the Czech student, lives for rock music; Max, the English professor, lives for Communism; and Esme, the flower child, is high. By 1990, the tanks are rolling out, the Stones are rolling in and idealism has hit the wall. Stoppard's sweeping and passionate play spans two countries, three generations and 22 turbulent years, at the end of which, love remains-and so does rock 'n' roll. Utopia of Indian and Czech connections: Mal and Joe

CODA: Australia – My New Home - new book about the life stories of Australian Czech and Slovak community members has been published. This book is the product of two years of research by the Kratochvíls’ amongst the Czech and Slovak communities in Australia. It depicts life stories and experiences of Czechs and Slovaks who were accepted by Australia as exiles and lived in the capital city of Canberra, and in the states of New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Queensland and Tasmania. It focuses on life in refugee camps in the US zone in Germany, which a large number of refugees passed through in the 1950s, the inception and existence of Czech communities and their clubs operating in Australia (for example, Sokol, Orel, scout and outdoor clubs and associations, sporting clubs, and Jewish organizations), Czech community periodicals and magazines published in Australia, theatre, and Czech and Slovak radio broadcasting. For further information or purchase of Austrálie – můj nový domov / Australia – My New Home please contact Mr Jan Kratochvíl by email – krat3@volny.cz or the Czech Embassy in Canberra.

Ach, An Antipodean Letter of the year: With planning and thought, our films can be adopted by the caring and shown to the intelligent - Australian films deserve better than doing battle with blockbusters

From little things big things grow Building a Big SHACK
USA Today looks at the success of William Young's self-published THE SHACK, a wrenching parable about God's grace.

Co-published with Brad Cummings under the banner of Windblown Media, with assistance from author and former pastor Wayne Jacobsen, they say they have 880,000 copies in print, 750,000 in distribution, and we're talking to New York publishers. USAT reports: Published a year ago and promoted by snowballing attention on Christian radio, websites and blogs, The Shack ($14.99) is now in mainstream bookstores and Wal-Marts nationwide, and the trio behind it are talking to Hollywood about a possible film deal


Aim at 'spiritually interested' sparks 'The Shack' sales ; [As expected, Amazon filed suit with the Supreme Court of New York to "challenge the constitutionality of a newly enacted New York State statute that requires out-of-state internet retailers, with no physical presence in New York, to collect sales and use taxes." Amazon Sues Over Proposed NY Tax; So far former Houghton Mifflin publisher Janet Silver has moved Monique Truong, Peter Ho Davies and John Pipkin to Nan Talese, and Silver doesn't officially start as editor-at-large until May 1 - I called Janet and she sent us a list of the authors she had worked with and the ones who'd said they wanted to come with her, if not immediately then eventually. We ran down the financials and ... we made an agreement with her that she would stay up there in Massachusetts. It was all done in a rather good fashion. Which Authors Will Follow Janet Silver to Nan Talese? ]
• · the blog of the national book critics circle board of directors Commentary on literary criticism; Guest Blogger: James Frey James Frey is "guest blogging" at Amazon's Omnivoracious this month--and maybe he's doing other media, too. "Two big things for me this month. One is that I am guest-blogging on Amazon all month. The other is that my new novel, Bright Shiny Morning, comes out on May 13th. Will check in now and then with updates, stories, impressions. I'll be doing some press, and will be on tour for a couple weeks." Press-Shy Frey Will Blog for Amazon
• · Seattle's Jackson Street Books will close at the end of the month as the owners retire I Been Healed and so can you!; This year's PEN World Voices Festival in New York City, themed Public Lives/Private Lives, features over 170 authors coming from all around the world. World Voices Invigorates NYC: Everyone has a story
• · · Memoirs should explore some sort of new ground, challenge and explore notions of truth and telling the truth, how we remember and how these memories relate to universals. At the very least, they should tell a good story Newest memoir from Augusten Burroughs has too much bite ; My father himself used to read the published correspondence of authors he was interested in, as well as their diaries and memoirs The letters of men of letters; Burn After Reading
• · · · Memoirs rose in popularity during the '90s on the backs of such books as Frank McCourt's "Angela's Ashes." Now they're in such demand that, in 2007, more memoirs were accepted by publishers than debut novels Everybody has a story -- but is it worth telling?; The author of the much-touted memoir, Love and Consequences, about a foster child who escaped gang life in South Central Los Angeles, Margaret Seltzer (who wrote under the pseudonym Margaret Jones), turned out to be a white woman who grew up in wealthy Sherman Oaks (the part where “Desperate Housewives” is filmed) Fake Memoirs and the New Racial "Passing"
• · · · · Your crazy life story could translate into mega publishing bucks. But is it true? Here's a foolproof way to tell Put Your Memoir to the Test!; THERE he could be when Parliament resumes next week busily tap, tap, tapping away on his laptop, composing his memoirs as question time drones on. Tap dance to immortality: A Million Little Pieces of Deception
• · · · · · These memoirs dig deep into the heartbreak, humor of divorce "How to Sleep Alone in a King-Size Bed" | Memoirs of a divorcée Mamas, don't let your daughters grow up to marry narcissists; As a literary genre, a memoir from the French: mémoire from the Latin memoria, meaning "memory", or a reminiscence, forms a subclass of autobiography: Everyone has a story, but not everyone puts it in writing. Now, my story is out there … floating Cold River When fiction is not enough

Thursday, May 01, 2008



Back in my childhood days in Czechoslovakia on 1 day of May we marched to the music of Soviet composers ... It’s not every day that one has the opportunity to put school memories into a political and media blog. As the half way point of the year creeps up on us, we tend to reflect on the achievements of first few months of the year and look towards the exciting possibilities the rest of the year may hold.

Among the many things my soviet communist teachers taught me:
Scientists say the higher your I.Q. The more you dream.
Men without hair on their chests are more likely to get cirrhosis of the liver than men with hair.
The largest cell in the human body is the female egg.
Your big toes have two bones each while the rest have three.
A pair of human feet contain 250,000 sweat glands.
Your thumb is the same length as your nose.
When you are looking at someone you love, your pupils dilate, they do the same when you are looking at someone you hate … (

Among the many new links created in the cyber space: Even with the bar set pretty high, Amazon and Morava (Cold River) met or exceeded analysts' consensus expectations with first quarter sales of $4.13 billion, up 37 percent, and net income of $143 million, up 30 percent from a year ago. Another Jump for Amazon

Historic nobodies like MEdia Dragon The Memory Thief: Landscape of feeling
The painter Franz Kline once said, To be right is the most terrific personal state that no one is interested in. The other is that they need to educate and edify their readers.

The best criticism, as Adam Gopnik wrote inan appreciation of the poet and critic RandallJarrell, should be "not a slot machine of judgment but a tone of voice, a style, the promise of a whole view of life in a few pregnant sentences". Contrary to those who believe journalistic criticism will struggle to survive in the internet age, however, I think people are actually going to want more and more of it. If you step back and survey the situation, it seems simple. In affluent societies, of which there are more in the world than ever before, the arts rise in stature, and as they do, people naturally want to discuss them.


• I am not a writer I am a storyteller. In Cold River the words that flood the pages - they are not always perfect Bloggers are saved from the lynch mob... for now ; [I have always loved a good conspiracy thriller, easily sucked in by the conflict of secrecy and spies, the darkness in the shadows Internal affairs ; AUSTRALIANS have begun searching an online archive for news of their ancestors' nefarious dealings in Victorian London.
Old Bailey puts criminal past on web]
• · The great historical issues of our day are being decided not by historical argument, but by parliamentary vote, with judges enforcing these decisions - Dutch historian Pieter Geyl famously wrote that history is “an argument without an end”. In Switzerland today, arguing about history can mean you might end up having to explain your historical views before a judge of law. History: an argument with an end; For historians, Anzac Day, is 'a martial affair with military music and ritual', while for churches and their army chaplains, it’s a 'faith event'. Anzac day: a faith event?
• · courtesy of Mal - Catherine Austin Fitts is president of Solari, Inc.Solaris ajaja jaj Where is the Money? Let’s Get it Back!; To Blog or Not to Blog: An Employer's Dilemma
• · · The underlying metaphor of Cold River really is that it does not matter where you are stuck in life or what you think you have to do you can always choose something else – there is always a different path Sydney Writer Festival coming soon and Post-Festival of Books: Science fiction notes; Torture, terrorism, eco-disaster... a wave of new films is tackling some of the world's most pressing issues head-on, winning critical praise and box-office rewards. Can films change the world?
• · · · Went to Chauvel and saw the WAVE – Akin to life and death - Go and see it too! One of the most powerful films in the İstanbul Film Festival's international feature competition, German Dennis Gansel's "Die Welle" (The Wave), is inspired by the infamous Stanford prison experiment that took place in Palo Alto, California in 1969. The Wave' by German director Dennis Gansel; Sometimes dubbed Germany's answer to Gerard Depardieu, the gap-toothed Vogel has featured in the German Film Festival here over the past few years Jurgen Vogel at Chauvel
• · · · · A hard-fighting author has never forgotten his impoverished upbringing. Imagine you fall on hard times and (it's hard, but try) imagine further that there is no government welfare to fall back on. In with the underdogs ; One cannot go wrong in Sydney at Dan Murphy but the Bohemians know also about Dan Brown located at 9 Brisbane Street, Surry Hills A drop in the ocean - Independent Discount Liquor of Underdogs
• · · · · · A 25-year-old media dragon magnate has been revealed as the buyer of one of the most expensive pieces of real estate in Australia Virtual estate; If you haven’t started a blog yet, it’s time. Blogging comes with benefits. I went to the Web 2.o Expo this week in San Francisco, a “gathering of geeks,” if you will. So as such, of course, it had a fabulous blogger lounge that was anything but geeky. Free massages, Wii on a big screen, music by Pandora, free drinks and–best of all–networking with other bloggers Another Reason to Start Your Own Blog

Sunday, April 27, 2008



Perhaps those Chinese protesters, denying others the right to free speech during the Olympic torch relay, should follow their own advice and go home First byte: A cool idea to warm to by Cold River
Historic nobodies feature in Cold River When fiction is not enough "Wise people store up knowledge - Eternal vigilance the price of freedom

Falling waters Sobel Reflects
Jofie Ferrari-Adler's latest interview in the Poets & Writers series with publishing veterans is with agent Nat Sobel. Excerpts:

It's only been in the last twenty years, or maybe the last ten years, that I became aware, as did Judith [Weber], that we wanted the agency to reflect our tastes, rather than just take on things that were saleable. Our list is our taste. Which means that there are a lot of areas of publishing that we will not go into because we aren't interested in them. So we've never done any romances, for instance.
I think what is evolving today for agents is that they need to be the first line editors for their authors. Judith and I really love the editing process. We have spent years editing nearly every novel we've ever agented. We did that long before we began to discover how little editing was going on in the publishing houses. But today agents need to be far more proactive in almost every other area of the publishing process. We have to be the marketing directors for many of our books. We have to involve ourselves in looking at the jacket design, the jacket copy, the catalogue copy. We have to be very proactive in how we help direct the writer to help sell his or her book. Those are things you never thought about in agenting when I first came into it. You made the deal, you negotiated the contract, and that was it—the publisher took over


• For the life of me, I can't remember when I met Nat Sobel for the first time A Q&A With Agent Nat Sobel; [Writing is hard work-- and there are no shortcuts. When it comes right down to the nitty gritty, it's just you and that glowing computer screen. Discover writing markets from North America, Europe, Australasia and other places. It's free, so come and try it Naked Writing: The No-Frills Way to Write Your Novel!; Like some of the luckiest people in high tech, John Buckman made a mint on his first company and now dabbles in passion projects. Silicon Valley adage: Strike it rich once, you're lucky. Twice, you're smart. Free BookMooching Sells Books]
• · Art of drinking no frill milk in Australia Believe it or not – we have to live with this supermarket ; Technology has resulted in teenagers and young adults having a very different conception of privacy. The new digital paparazzi
• · Mark Story: Good knowledge management ensures continuing access to employees' know how, even when they move on. A look at how one organisation's (State Revenue Office, Victoria) systems mean they no longer rely solely on what's in the heads of individual staff Storing knowledge ; A trickle of cold river books about Australians at war has become a torrent The Digger distilled: When fiction is not enough
• · · Nabokov's last work will not be burned - Dmitri said, I'm a loyal son and thought long and seriously about it, then my father appeared before me and said, with an ironic grin, You're stuck in a right old mess - just go ahead and publish! The most concentrated distillation of [my father's] creativity; We don't need more books, we need better books. We're going to spend even more time to make sure that the products are right before they go out Elephant in the room
• · · · I love all forms of sisomo but this sisomo card created by artist/designer Julie Ruiz for VH1 is special. It’s proof again that the size of the idea isn’t always about the size of the budget. Light a candle for sisomo; One of the best fast food experiences I've enjoyed recently was in, of all places, Cincinnati. It's called Ingredients and it's healthy, fresh, tasty, a far cry from pizza and fried chicken, and it really is fast. Imagine a large, spacious production line with four production workers... Ingredients: Fast Food Heaven I'm not often in New York over a weekend, but when I am, my Sundays have a distinct pattern. It all starts with a lazy breakfast at one of the many neighborhood joints in Tribeca. Unfortunately, although I'm just across the road from Bubby's, it's become such an attraction it's lost its local charm... Weekend in NYC - The heart is what keeps Agatha’s designs pumping. She is a breath of fresh air in the jaded world of 'me-too' fashion
• · · · · Raymond Baker writes: the primary reason for the existence of Liechtenstein and some 90 other tax havens is to provide secrecy for illegally generated money to move across borders. I've researched this question all over the world (Capitalism's Achilles Heel: Dirty Money and How to Renew the Free-Market System, Wiley 2005) -- what is the basic motivation for use of money-laundering techniques, abusive transfer pricing, disguised corporations, and anonymous accounts? Most people think it is to avoid taxes or the risk of inflation or confiscation. Not correct. The basic motivation is the hidden accumulation of money, hidden primarily as to origin and secondarily as to purpose. Use of these techniques and facilitating structures is about piling up cash secretly in a foreign locale without having to share with employees, family members, and others locally or disclose the provenance or purpose of such funds. Which Is the Bigger Challenge: Tax Havens or High Taxes? ; If you were a member of the Wall Street aristocracy, one of those hedge fund hot shots who makes half a billion dollars a year, which horse would you bet on in the race for the White House? Mr. Obama? He backs something called the Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act, a measure that would limit all offshore accounts that the wealthiest hedge funds have set up. That’s not something Wall Street wants … So why is Mr. Obama such a popular choice among the hedge fund crowd?
In a word, access. Just like at the Bear pit … Unlike Mr. McCain and Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Obama is relatively new to national politics and is therefore open to bringing new people — and new money — into the tent. For money types who want a table, or at least to look involved and get an invitation to the right parties, Mr. Obama is the candidate. Then again, politics, like the markets, can change fast. As one hedge fund manager who is backing Mr. Obama said, “It is very possible I may change my mind.” They don’t call them hedges for nothing Hedge Fund Investing and Politics
• · · · · · I love your region’s energy, audacity and drive to diversify. The Gulf to me is guts, risk-taking and high adventure, supercharged by dreams: Beyond the Horizon; The digital revolution is transforming marketing, entertainment and technology everywhere. The boundaries between media and advertising, content and products, creator and producer, audience and critic are dissolving: To Survive, Print and TV Must Engage Consumers Radical Optimist - Why 'love' is the new black

Thursday, April 24, 2008



If even the drugged and disorderly like Jozef Imrich can ward off their personal apocalypse, then perhaps there is hope for us, too. Born in 1988 in Moravia, Marketa Irglova, 8 years after I swam across the river Morava, she is the Moravian girl who gives hope to one and all ;-)
Hi everyone. I just want to thank you so much. This is such a big deal, not only for us, but for all other independent musicians and artists that spend most of their time struggling, and this, the fact that we’re standing here tonight, the fact that we’re able to hold this, it’s just the proof that no matter how far out your dreams are, it’s possible. And, you know, fair play to those who dare to dream and don’t give up. And this song was written from a perspective of hope, and hope at the end of the day connects us all, no matter how different we are! Markéta Irglová; Ach Falling Slowly

There is an echo of Cold River Addiction of chasing crazy dreams Quit Lit: A Million Little Pieces of Binge Drinking
19 Apr 2008 in the bible - The Sydney Morning Herald - Luke Benedictus, the editor of Dazed & Confused, writes 1858 words which describe how the publishing industry is developing an addiction to tales from the world of rehab. $53 Million spening on prevention strategy for binge drinking …

. Quit Lit: the secret of its excess is the story of people who crave more, learning to live with less … Like the alcoholic for whom one drink is never enough, western society is driven by an urgent hunger for further acquisition. Enslaved by advertising and consumerism we have become hard wired to yearn more – the new car, the plasma TV yet another pair of shoes … We are trapped in the cycle of insatiable craving that only snowballs the more we consume. I want a drink. I want 50 drinks. I want a bottle of the purest, strongest, most destructive, most poisonous alcohol on Earth. I want 50 bottles of it. I want crack, dirty and yellow and filled with formaldehyde. I want a pile of powder meth, 500 hits of acid, a garbage bag filled with mushrooms, a tube of glue bigger than a truck, a pool of gas large enough to drown in. I want something anything whatever however as much as I can. And maybe this is one of the things about Frey, whatever he does, whether it be tubes of glue or writing books, he wants to do it the most - to be the hardest, to be the strongest, to win and to defeat


• THE NEW TESTAMENT Quit Lit: the secret of its excess ; [LB; The Benedictus, given in Luke 1:68-79, is one of the three great canticles in the opening chapters of this Gospel, the other two being the Magnificat Luke Benedictus lives in Sydney and is the editor of Dazed & Confused Aus/NZ ]
• · The Herald's books writer Susan Wyndham flips the pages of new titles, ideas, news and gossip from the book world. Join her, too, for the Undercover book club. Become a crime writer; Mentally ill women have survived the past 200 years of medical treatment Mad, Bad And Sad
• · David Stratton's obsessive streak results in a strangely engrossing autobiography I Peed On Fellini; Luke Davies climbs up a notch by stepping into the shoes of one of the 20th-century's most intriguing characters. God Of Speed - fever-dream of a book - intriguing characters.
• · · A magnificent depiction of human distress and testament to the author's stunning talent - The climactic image in Julia Leigh's stifling novella, Disquiet, is of a woman foundering in cold river The climactic image of Julia Leigh ;
• · · · Study Reveals Why People Might Crave Cocaine; What the quit-lit doesn't tell you

Sunday, April 20, 2008



By the way, the German Film Festival in Sydney has a good story on Check Point Charlie Border of Despair


TT: Annals of failed flackery
People in my line of work have to sift through a lot of press releases and other forms of flackery, all of which we take with a stalactite or two of salt. It's part of the job. Nevertheless, I confess to having boggled at the blurbissimo I encountered on the back of my advance readers' copy of Andre Dubus III's The Garden of Last Days, which will be published by W.W. Norton in June.
Here it is, in its entirety:
One early September night in Florida, a stripper brings her daughter to work. April's usual babysitter is in the hospital, so she decides it's best to have her three-year-old daughter close by, watching children's videos in the office, while she works.
Except that April works at the Puma Club for Men. And tonight she has an unusual client, a foreigner both remote and too personal, and free with his money. Lots of it, all cash. His name is Bassam. Meanwhile, another man, AJ, has been thrown out of the club for holding hands with his favorite stripper, and he's drunk and angry and lonely.
From these explosive elements come [sic] a relentless, raw, searing, passionate, page-turning narrative, a big-hearted and painful novel about sex and parenthood and honor and masculinity. Set in the seamy underside of American life at the moment before the world changed, it juxtaposes lust for domination with hunger for connection, sexual violence with family love. It seizes the reader by the throat with the same psychological tension, depth, and realism that characterized Andre Dubus's #1 bestseller, House of Sand and Fog--and an even greater sense of the dark and anguished places in the human heart.
Right.
I didn't read House of Sand and Fog, so I suppose it's within the realm of possibility that Andre Dubus III is a serious writer. Still, it isn't very likely that I'll be reading The Garden of Last Days, much less reviewing it. I don't mind having my intelligence insulted by publicists--some forms of suffering are hard to avoid--but a critic can only be expected to swallow so much guff, and the Norton publicity department just blew my quota for 200 Garden of Last Days

Monday, April 14, 2008



As someone who's checked the Drudge Report once an hour, every hour for the last 10 years of my life, I can certainly accept the idea that the sites I read and like has to do with habit, as opposed to just content…
For everyone who does research in physical stores and then orders from Amazon, the e-tailer has a new solution: purchase-by-text-message. Their newly-launched TextBuyIt lets anyone with a mobile phone set up for text messaging and an Amazon account search the Amazon database for product and price information, and buy-by-phone if they wish. You can text-search by keyword or ISBN/UPC code. Another text service allows you to use your mobile phone (or computer) to send money to another mobile number or e-mail address Buy Cold River on the Fly - This is a book that will remind you why you treasure freedom ...

Masters of ambiguity Blog Without Leaving Facebook
S ix Apart and Facebook have teamed on a new service called Blog It that lets any blog posted to Facebook automatically be posted to other blogging platforms including Movable Type, TypePad, Pownce, Twitter, Blogger, and WordPress (see complete list below).

What makes Blog It unique is the nature of how it works. Traditionally, Facebook allows users to import data and information around the Web to Facebook. Blog It now flips this process around allowing you to export content. The beauty of the service is rather than updating each blog service individually, you can do it all at once from within Facebook


Separation of Six ; [ A Cross Platform Blogging Tool from Six Apart ; As someone who's checked the Drudge Report once an hour, every hour for the last 10 years of my life, I can certainly accept the idea that the sites I read and like has to do with habit, as opposed to just content. Blog Reading: Kind Of Like Getting A Nicotine Fix: Study]
• · Surprise is too weak a word. I was expecting to attract the Austen aficionados, but what ended up being even more commercial were the words book club. Book clubs are an astonishingly burgeoning movement -- it's quite wonderful. American author Fowler explores crime in the blog era ; When the Ex Blogs, the Dirtiest Laundry Is Aired
• · Sorry for being slow to mention this (I've been on holiday for two weeks) but the good news is that after a gap of nearly two years - two years! - Fafblog returns from its cyber-silence to thrill us once again with its blend of humour and more humour. That's going straight into the blogroll. World's best blog returns ; One person from IRS.GOV visited the Nation Builder blog for nearly 20 hours over the last two days. Hopefully it's a future Joseph Banister. Several others from IRS.GOV, DOJ.GOV and .MIL domains also visited. IRS Agents Visit Nation Builder Blog
• · · FOREIGN POLICY Blog Honored as Industry’s Best ; OMG! 'Gossip Girl' returns with more surprises, juicier drama
• · · · Last Saturday, a Moscow magazine named Moskovsky Korrespondent published a sensational article claiming that Russian President Vladimir Putin had divorced his middle-aged wife, Ludmila, and was preparing to marry a gorgeous 24-year-old Olympic gymnast-turned-topless magazine model-turned-Duma-deputy, Alina Kabaeva. The Scary Story Behind the Putin Sex Scandal ; In 1998, Matt Drudge became famous for reporting the White House sex scandal between then-president Bill Clinton and intern Monica Lewinsky on his blog, I'm in ur website, reading ur blog
• · · · · What have you always wanted to know about sex, dating, relationships and the opposite sex? What confuses you? Titillates you? Intrigues you The Rules: ancient or acceptable?; No two ways about it Writer's story rattles Lonely Planet contributors
• · · · · · Bored by movies, and don’t feel like reading a book? You can watch philosophical and other interesting videos on web. Online videos of philosophical lectures ; The "95 Theses of Geek Activism" is a great list of 95 ways to use knowledge for good, and to defend freedom with technology. When arguing with people who disagree, be polite, but not condescending.

Wednesday, April 09, 2008



With the home viewing experience suddenly reaching new heights of splendor, what conceivably could be the incentive for seeing classic films in a theater? The answer is simple and not what anyone consciously thought of during the repertory heyday: Other people. After all, in all our memories of transcendent theatergoing experiences, those other people - those strangers watching with you - were part of the experience, too. A big part.Movies are a group participation art form, to be in a room with 300 people laughing infectiously. To see a movie at home, even with a group of friends, is like seeing it under a microscope. These were made to be seen by hundreds of people at the same time.

If you're looking for two great movies, you need to see No Country for Old Men and In the Valley of Elah. Both star Tommy Lee Jones, both had plenty of Academy Award nominations The Ritz of May 2008


STUFF WHITE PEOPLE LIKE THE FIRST STONE: IN MY BLOOD
Another of my great influences from the 60's has passed away. As a teenager, I was inspired by the creativity of Mary Quant, David Bailey, Brian Duffy, David Hockney and Peter Blake. I couldn't get enough of the fashion, music, poetry, art and design that was churning out of London and Manchester at an incredible rate. It was also the era of the first supermodels... Twiggy, Jean Shrimpton and one of my favorites, Jane Lumb

The co-founder of Atheneum, which the NYT calls "perhaps the last major literary house to be started from scratch in the 20th century," died at home yesterday. Bessie was Atheneum's president from 1963 to 1975, but he was also known for his strengths in acquiring manuscripts. Over his career he edited writers like Daniel J. Boorstin, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Kenneth Tynan and Elie Wiesel


Hyperion's Bob Miller in Cold River Start-Up
Founding publisher at Hyperion Bob Miller is leaving the company after 17 years to "launch a new global publishing program based on a non-traditional business model" starting on April 14 described as a "creative publishing 'studio' that challenges conventional trade publishing standards." They add: "Miller will publish approximately 25 popular-priced books per year in multiple physical and digital formats including those as yet unspecified, with the aim to combine the best practices of trade publishing while taking full advantage of the internet for sales, marketing and distribution. Authors will be compensated through a profit sharing model as opposed to a traditional royalty, and books will be promoted utilizing on-line publicity, advertising and marketing. Miller adds in the release, Our goal will be to effectively publish books that might not otherwise emerge in an increasingly 'big book' environment, an environment in which established authors are under enormous pressure to top their previous successes, while new authors are finding it harder and harder to be published at all.
Publishing - SHOCK VALUE; [Love of movies; A mole on the author's back turns out to be one of the 'nasty variety'. This is his story .. A shameless act of self promotion: my brush with death]
• · Four Seasons Hotel tell-all is deep-sixed - A gossipy book by two ex-concierges at Chicago's luxurious Four Seasons Hotel has been pulled by Three Rivers Press because the authors were legally banned from writing about their experiences. Three Rivers Press has cancelled GREAT RESERVATIONS; When she first saw the man she thought him a ghost and even though she knew ghosts were dangerous and could drag people down into the water, she still moved closer to him. When she knelt by his side it was clear he was still alive, but barely. The River-Hag - Silvia Moreno-Garcia
• · Aspiring fiction authors can be classified in any number of ways, but among the most prominent categories seem to be "uncannily brilliant," "deeply devoted to substance abuse," and "just plain nuts." The jury is divided about which camp I fall into, but at last poll the Twelve Angry Critics leaned heavily toward acquittal by virtue of insanity. Keys to Overcoming the Writer’s Fear of Failure; Frankly, after much rumination, I've decided an insanity defense is the only plausible one for We Who Are Determined to Embarrass Ourselves Repeatedly by Committing Tripe to Paper. The Insanity Defense
• · · Though I await further reports, talk of some blogospheric war makes little sense to me. We're in a dynamic situation here. And one of the biggest unknowns is: will Obama match McCain in radical openness with the press? Rosen - The Love Affair Between McCain and the Press Sprains the Brain of the Liberal Blogosphere; Getting the Politics of the Press Right: Walter Pincus Rips into Newsroom Neutrality
• · · · As I expected, Clark Hoyt, public editor of the New York Times, told the Times what Ben Bradlee tells Woodward and Bernstein in one memorable scene from All the President’s Men: “You haven’t got it,” he says about a draft of their story. Public Editor to Bill Keller: You Haven't Got it.; ike the social conservatives who deserve a seat on the bus but shouldn’t be allowed to drive it, the yahoos who think the press is a tool of the Democratic party are needed but should not be heeded by conservatives in power Most of them are not ideologically driven; they just want to get on the front page
• · · · · Mod modders delight - Pink Floyd 'The Wall' PC case mod The Wall; Connecting the Unconnected - Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The trouble makers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules. Here's one for you girls !
• · · · · · Kevin Roberts is someone I read on regular basis - A couple of further thoughts about books and reading post the Lovemarks launch in Frankfurt. The first thought is that most of the innovation in the industries based on reading is not coming from traditional book publishers. The latest attempt to encourage e-book reading is the Kindle from Amazon. Reading the future ; Music creates memories. Rich Robinson wrote about this magic in a recent post and of course he’s right. All five of our senses are packed-up and waiting at the door to send us back to our past. I love music, but for me the most evocative of the senses is smell. Memories Are Made Of This

Saturday, April 05, 2008



I had already experienced the week from heaven so I was in good spirits for reading the draft of a new memoirs. Adam Shepard's SCRATCH BEGINNINGS, originally self-published and said to have sold 10,000 copies, in which the author, in a sort of "anti-NICKEL AND DIMED" experiment to see if the American Dream is still alive, with no concrete plan and nothing but $25 and a backpack, gets off a train in Charleston, SC, and spends 70 days in a homeless shelter, with the goal of having $2,500 and a place to live by the end of a year … NOT EATING OUT IN NEW YORK: A Year of Cooking at Home

Can we change the heart of politics? SOMETHING MISSING: Leaker hunt riles Speaker
On April Fools Day - D.D. McNicoll writes INDEPENDENT Speaker of the NSW Parliament Richard Torbay is on the warpath over the Iemma Government's latest clumsy foray into information control.

Torbay was gobsmacked when he learned late last week that Parliament House closed-circuit television footage had been handed over to Treasury officials without his consent. Treasury was on the trail of a leak, following a story in The Australian last Thursday by the paper's NSW political reporter, Imre Salusinszky. The story revealed there was only $16.5billion available for transport infrastructure spending between now and 2021, $12.5 billion of which has already been committed to a metro rail system for outer northwest Sydney. Salusinszky's yarn included comments from a seminar for Treasury bigwigs held in a Parliament House theatrette last Wednesday. NSW Opposition Leader Barry O'Farrell is understood to share Torbay's concern about the precedent of using security footage to spy on public servants and journalists as they go about their business.
THE NSW parliament may have breached state and federal privacy laws by allowing its CCTV security footage to be used by Treasury officials chasing a media leak, according to a legal expert. NSW Opposition Leader Barry O'Farrell told parliament yesterday: "Clearly this issue goes to the matter of freedom of the press, but also goes to the freedom of members of parliament. Are we now going to have CCTV footage released to the Government so that they can see who's coming to visit us?
In a statement yesterday, NSW parliamentary press gallery president Simon Benson said the use of CCTV footage to trace the source of a media story was unprecedented in the history of this parliament and constitutes an unacceptable development


Footage of truth; [Trolleys of Truth]
• · Commonwealth lobbyists will have to be registered for the first time in Australian history, publicly revealing all their clients, or they will be denied access to the Rudd Government. Tough new rules for lobbyists ; John Faulkner is Kevin Rudd's minister for integrity. He has been given the task of cracking down on influence peddling - money politics. Power and dirty, sexy money
• · Chairman Russell Tate said Hawker Britton was a good fit for STW Communications Group - Spin doctors keep spinning Bruce Hawker - the managing director of the firm, was once chief of staff to former NSW premier Bob Carr. The political donations disclosure regime may be a joke, but influential Labor players in Canberra are not laughing today. That's because Bruce Hawker, widely seen as the capital's go-to persuader and a key player in the Rudd government's elite, has got himself and his party in an awkward spot. Oops! Hawker embarrasses Labor ; In Canberra's corridors there is a scramble to get in step with the Rudd Government. Katharine Murphy reports on the high-stakes contest for political influence Lobbyists and the new balance of power; Many people and organisations want the attention of the Rudd Government. They all have messages that they want to whisper in its collective ear. Tips for Rudd's ear in a lobby
• · · WHEN police, lawyers, journalists and witnesses crammed into Brisbane District Court No.29 in late July 1987, no one knew what was to come. - FAMED corruption buster Tony Fitzgerald, QC, is heading a probe into the Melbourne arm of the Australian Tax Office after concerns over links between one of its senior investigators and underworld figure Mick Gatto. Players in a vast drama ; AN OLD Victoria Police detective training manual implores fledgling officers to develop contacts across all walks of life, including those they seek to arrest. A sound knowledge of local criminals can be acquired over a period of time. Always take the opportunity of conversing with local criminals when you see them. In the course of simple conversation, valuable information often slips out The manual says But in the modern world of law enforcement and government agencies — where the process is just as important as the result — his associations with influential underworld figures proved problematic for the "old school" ex-detective Old school
• · · · There are some areas of human life that should not be trusted to the market. Childcare is one. Hard headed corporations; Why was the public service so ineffectual in the face of an aggressively ideological Howard government?Learning from the past
• · · · · Mitch McCrimmon, Ivey Business Journal, March-April 2008, 4p. It may be like asking a football coach to remain quiet on the sidelines, but today's business leader needs to ask questions and listen. How to tame the alpha male leader ; William Malek & Venkat Narayanan, Ivey Business Journal, March-April 2008, 6p. This article describes why developing clarity around outcomes is fundamental to effective strategic planning/execution and decision making. Outcomes can be at four levels: organisation, portfolio, project and at the individual level. Why smooth execution depends on clear outcomes
• · · · · · Formulating strategy is a difficult task. Making strategy work - executing or implementing it throughout the organisation is even more difficult. Making strategy work: overcoming obstacles to effective execution ; Many managers indicate that their organisations are very good at starting projects, but not so good at finishing them. It may be tough to do, but maintaining priorities rather than shifting them at will is the way to ensure that projects will get completed. The project management paradox: achieving more by doing less

Tuesday, April 01, 2008



Counting Blessings: More expensive wines taste better than cheaper wines, a new study shows. Even when they are exactly the same wine As the Czechoslovak Minister's noted on Morava River the riskier the escape the tastier the flavour of the freedom: ; This is a book which reminds you why you treasure and love freedom ... Cold River

Hungry Media Dragon Time to get tough: How being nasty can improve your life
Being nice can ruin your life, according to the authors of two new books. Their advice? Stop being so pathetic!

My raison d'être, says American psychotherapist Jo Ellen Gryzb, is simply to make people a little less nice. It's been her mission ever since she found herself huddled in her bedroom with her husband one Christmas, whispering about how on earth they were going to get rid of their house guests. I had no idea how to tell them they had overstayed. I was a complete walkover.


Impact Factory; [Strangely enough, it is often when I am at my busiest that I feel the least inspired. My mind is overwhelmed by deadlines and wanting to please art directors, and the end result is that my heart and soul feel a tad neglected. I've been feeling very uninspired lately, because tax time approacheth, and the deadlines loom ever large GARBAGE DELIGHT; Bizarre Books: A Compendium of Classic Oddities ]
• · The 14th and latest One Book, One Chicago selection by the Chicago Public Library is Raymond Chandler's The Long Goodbye. It's a departure of the other books we've selected," said Mary Dempsey, commissioner for the Chicago Public Library. "We've never done crime fiction. Crime thriller 'The Long Goodbye' selected for 'One Book, One Chicago' ; There is hardly a novelist whose career was as adventurous as Joseph Conrad’s, or whose work raises more aesthetic and political passions. Searching For Joseph Imrich
• · Bottled Cold River: Every year, the clear stuff pours into West Virginia from around the world. Finding self confidence through self loathing; Men of exceptional ambition or ability, it is often said, are more highly sexed than others, though perhaps it is just that their sex lives are more closely examined than those of others. Can there really be a man living, after all, who would relish the idea that every detail of his sex life, past and present, would be revealed to the public and those whom he loves? But if, as Henry Kissinger once said, power is the most powerful aphrodisiac, former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer's extracurricular sexual activities seem pathetic and furtive, almost adolescent, rather than deeply wicked. Europe does sex scandals better:
• · · An interview with Tom Wolfe on how speech made us human. The human brain has become a sexy subject, with unprecedented amounts of money going toward neuroscience research and ever more books and articles on our gray matter And when an author such as Tom Wolfe turns his attention to the topic, that makes it official ; Sorry, But Your Soul Just Died
• · · · A review of The Philosopher's "I": Autobiography and the Search for the Self by J. Lenore Wright The Philosopher's IMRICH; Actually, Johnny, monsters do exist
• · · · · When non-fiction is less than truthful; How Alternative Medicine Makes Fools Of Us All by Rose Shapiro
• · · · · · Being nice can ruin your life ; The Gruesome Origins of 5 Popular Fairy Tales

Sunday, March 30, 2008



Making change and taking action are personal. Always has been. Now I find my commitment to sustainability has gone to another level as I like millions of parents before me have seen my worldview expand dramatically with the news that Sasha is modelling in London and Gabbie is studying acting at Fox Studio ...
As Virginia invaded our place from Bristol, Mal and I talked over Kofi with Gabbie about her future at the Studio and on Sunday ice cream against the sunset of at Watson Bay tastes the most nostalgic ... After achieving so much at swimming Gabbie passed the audition for the Brent Street Studio of Talent Development High School at Moore Park Brent Street is far more than a performing arts school. It is the energy centre of a much larger organisation, specialising in various facets of the entertainment industry. Students from an early age mix and mingle with professional performers. They watch actual rehearsals and are exposed to the real industry. This is unique and part of the culture that produces high caliber graduates year after year. When will I be famous? ELLE Macpherson's brother says he is fast expanding his child talent company to meet demand from active youngsters. Ben Macpherson's publicly-listed talent agency Artist and Entertainment Group acquired Sydney's Brent Street theatre and dance school in October and is now looking to take the brand national. Gabriella first Rich and now Famous ;-)

The Lives of Others 'Entering the blogosphere': some strategies for using blogs in social research … Since 1999 Media Dragon and other blogs have become a significant feature of online culture. They have been heralded as the new guardians of democracy, a revolutionary form of bottom-up news production and a new way of constructing self and doing community in late-modern times. This article highlights the significance of the blogosphere as a new addition to the qualitative researcher's toolkit and some of the practical, theoretical and methodological issues that arise from this. Some of the key ethical issues involved in blog data collection are also considered. The research context is a project on everyday understandings and experiences of morality

Jay Rosen The limitations of the crowd
On Creative Economy, MARGARET SIMONS looks at the results of an experiment in online reporting launched by Jay Rosen

Just when you think you’ve got a handle on what the internet is or might be, it shifts. Those of us who have in middle life familiarised ourselves with Google and email while dismissing social networking as a passing fad for teenagers should be thinking again. The data suggest that social networking may turn out to be what the Internet is all about – its killer application – and that our children will think us stupid for not seeing this at first glance.

Last month’s issue of Computer magazine made a bold claim – that social networking internet sites were not merely time wasters or means for teens to organise parties and share music. Rather they were “an evolution in human social interaction.” Professors Alfred Weaver and Benjamin Morrison – both researchers in computer science – claimed that the use of social networking sites is causing a major shift in the internet’s function and design...


WANDER the mahogany-veneer rows of most Australian newsrooms over the last five years and you would have heard from various old farts that the internet was nothing to get too excited about. At first it was said to be a passing fad. Once that line ceased to be credible, it was said that it didn’t really matter. What mattered was content, and the credibility of the brand, and most of all good journalism. The method of delivery made no essential difference.
• · The internet looks like becoming a single social networking platform Catching up ; Slavic Village has street after empty street of boarded-up houses, their roofs caving in, collapsed balconies hanging from the fronts of buildings. Subprime people in Sydney all living in the streets …
• · Michael Fullilove of Lowy Institute for International Policy:
This paper argues that diasporas (communities which live outside, but retain their connections with, their homelands) are getting larger, thicker and stronger – with important implications for global economics, identity, politics and security. World wide webs: Diasporas and the international system ; Effective protection against insider trading is critical to market confidence and, over time, liquidity. This paper deals with the key company and market risks associated with poorly governed director and executive security trading. Director and executive security trading
• · · It remains something newspapers are embracing as the 2008 presidential campaign hits its stride and the primaries loom Political Bloggers at Newspaper Sites in Drivers Seat for 2008 Campaign Coverage ; Today I heard Raintown by Deacon Blue for the first time in about 20 years Artistic coverage - Nostalgia for Beginners: Raintown
• · · · Analytics is like writing, or art. There isn't a single "analytics" to learn, rather it's a state of mind paired with a set of skills. You need to love exploration and discovery, solving puzzles, shaping data like clay, proving yourself wrong. Since August 2005, We Feel Fine has been harvesting human feelings from a large number of weblogs. Every few minutes, the system searches the world's newly posted blog entries for occurrences of the phrases "I feel" and "I am feeling". When it finds such a phrase, it records the full sentence, up to the period, and identifies the "feeling" expressed in that sentence (e.g. sad, happy, depressed, etc.). Because blogs are structured in largely standard ways, the age, gender, and geographical location of the author can often be extracted and saved along with the sentence, as can the local weather conditions at the time the sentence was written. All of this information is saved. We Feel Fine ; Ingram chairman John Ingram issued a brief statement on Amazon's recent move to drive POD publishers to use Booksurge if they want their books sold directly by the e-tailer, noting it clearly is alarming many of our publisher partners. At the same time, Ingram reports that so far we've been unable to get a response directly from Amazon.com. He says, We all live in a world where decisions are made about insourcing and outsourcing, and free choice is important. At Ingram Book and Lightning Source, we are going to work really hard to continue to be the compelling choice as publishers make their outsourcing decisions.... At Lightning Source, we produce a great product and thus do justice to our publishers' valuable titles. There is no question that we provide the highest print quality, the fastest turnaround speeds, and the most comprehensive portfolio of channels for a publisher's books. Amazon changes rules for print-on-demand publisher
• · · · · Bank bailouts: corporate success is the success of a few individual executives; but when the company fails, we must all fail with it. Socialism for the rich: the unwise free market; ON MY 50th birthday I've officially become a happily grumpy old man. Here for the record is what makes me grumpy.
People who talk and read during the pre take-off airline safety demonstration - especially the federal minister who chatted through the life jacket instructions on her way from Adelaide to Sydney the other day.
Wires under my desk that become entangled without being touched. Politicians and bureaucrats who fail to recognise they are the employees and we are the employers. People who take forever to say goodbye when leaving one's home. Back-office types who request the "original" death certificate when sorting out an estate. Marx and Engels
• · · · · · Graeme Wood, the founder of one of this country's most successful online destinations, actually took "making money while you sleep" to a logical conclusion by creating a site that effectively sells beds at hotels to a world virtually addicted to travel. ONE of the greatest pay-offs for the new-age online entrepreneurs is that as soon as they create a website that eyes want to surf to on the internet, on a regular basis, and the marketing campaign has some traction, it's just a matter of making money while they sleep. What If Wotif; Here’s a cool demonstration of pure engagement. No, it’s not an innovative new media idea or the hottest viral on YouTube. It’s a “How tall are you?” measuring stick. On its own, knowing Arnold Schwarzenegger is 187 cm tall doesn’t grab me, but the knowledge that Maria Sharapova and Jozef Imrich is as well ;-)

Wednesday, March 12, 2008



We are in a fragmenting culture, where our certainties of even a few decades ago are questioned and where it is common for young men and women who have had years of education, to know nothing about the world, to have read nothing, knowing only some speciality or other, for instance, computers. What has happened to us is an amazing invention, computers and the internet and TV, a revolution. This is not the first revolution we, the human race, has dealt with. The printing revolution, which did not take place in a matter of a few decades, but took much longer, changed our minds and ways of thinking. A foolhardy lot, we accepted it all, as we always do, never asked "What is going to happen to us now, with this invention of print?" And just as we never once stopped to ask, How are we, our minds, going to change with the new internet, which has seduced a whole generation into its inanities so that even quite reasonable people will confess that once they are hooked, it is hard to cut free, and they may find a whole day has passed in blogging and blugging etc
-Acceptance Speech, Doris Lessing, Nobel Prize in Literature

According to a famous Cold River philosopher, there are three types of people: those who make things happen; those who things happen to; and those who say, what happened? In cyberspace, 15 minutes of fame becomes 15 certain seconds ... But the Guardian Newspaper in London ok, even if they do misquote! It's a Darwinian process - About 99 percent of these ideas are going to die. But some will emerge and spread. Warhola of 15 - 15 seconds and my Brissie connection Baden ;-)

If God made us who made God? In the end, the web is about connections
Websites link to resources, resources recommend articles, articles refer to experts.

Without links, websites are invisible. Social networks create links between people, forming connections based on interests, expertise, past employment or education, and friendships. Law librarians, while remaining aware of their pitfalls, can use social networks such as LinkedIn, Ning, Facebook, and even MySpace to promote useful websites and legal resources as well their own expertise and interests. "A survey of U.S. journalists by Brodeur, a unit of Omnicom Group suggests that blogs are not only having an impact on the speed and availability of news, but also influence the tone and editorial direction of reporting. The survey is part of an ongoing research project by Brodeur in conjunction with Marketwire to dissect and understand the impact that social media and blogs are having on traditional news delivery. The online survey was conducted among a random sample of North American reporters and editors, and was focused on understanding how social media and blogs influence their work."


Head Report; [Tail Report has launched with the goal to map out how money is made in the blogosphere. Tail Report works by asking users to anonymously submit information about their site's traffic, rank and monthly revenue. In return, the user receives a custom report detailing what other websites are making and how their revenue compares based a number of factors, such as traffic, rank, number of RSS subscribers, age, number of employees, content, and ad networks. Tail Report ; ]
• · It's well known that kids influence family decisions. The Economist calls them Trillion Dollar kids, but the gist is that kids under 14 influenced almost half of American household spending in 2005. That's around $700 billion. Now imagine all that persuasive energy put behind sustainable enterprises and you've got a revolution underway... Dillhons: Out Of The Mouths Of Children;
• · What is it about tattoos? When I was young, having your skin marked with 'Mom' in a heart, a skull and cross bones, or a loved one's name was left to sailors and others tough enough to take the pain and the consequences when they changed girlfriends. Today, tattoos are fashionably mainstream... like Cold River Tattoos: More Than Skin Deep ; In Ezra Harel's first interview to the Israeli press, he declared that if bond-holders of Rogosin (TASE:ROGO), the company he controlled under Sunday, had been "rational, not greedy an arrangement could have been reached". Lessons in Greed
• · ·, By Charles Babcock, Thomas Claburn, John Foley, W. David Gardner, Antone Gonsalves, Nicholas J. Hoover, K.C. Jones, Elena Malykhina, Richard Martin, Paul McDougall, Marianne McGee, Chris Murphy, Cora Nucci, Art Wittman, and Serdar Yegulalp, InformationWeek, January 26, 2008
"Our guide to great blogs and Web sites worth adding to your bookmarks. The selection ranges from obvious picks like Technabob and Search Engine Watch to more obscure destinations such as Location One, istartedsomething, and GottaBeMobile Top 60 Little-Known Technology Web Sites; Once upon a time, in the great city of Milwaukee, lived a brilliant legal professional named Bella. Bella was part of the litigation practice group at Big, Bold & Smith, s.c. Every Monday the group met to discuss current issues. One Monday, a colleague named Greg informed everyone of a recent decision that could affect the outcome of a large case the firm was handling. After the meeting, Bella asked, "How did you hear about that case?" Greg answered, - I saw it on a blog I monitor. Bella is Bewildered About Blogs
• · · · Scientific American: Wikis, blogs and other collaborative web technologies could usher in a new era of science. Or not. By M. Mitchell Waldrop: "The explosively growing World Wide Web has rapidly transformed retailing, publishing, personal communication and much more. Innovations such as e-commerce, blogging, downloading and open-source software have forced old-line institutions to adopt whole new ways of thinking, working and doing business. Science could be next. A small but growing number of researchers--and not just the younger ones--have begun to carry out their work via the wide-open blogs, wikis and social networks of Web 2.0. And although their efforts are still too scattered to be called a movement--yet--their experiences to date suggest that this kind of Web-based "Science 2.0" is not only more collegial than the traditional variety, but considerably more productive. It's a Darwinian process = About 99 percent of these ideas are going to die. But some will emerge and spread ; French women d’un certain âge tend not to get fat and to stay lucky. They don’t see sex as a privilege for the young and beautiful...Women of France; It’s not just fads and fashions in the likes of shoes or music that spread through social networks. There are also states of mind – happiness, loneliness, altriusm... ; Show me a woman with a good three inches of cleavage on display, and I’ll show you a woman with little faith in her powers of conversation... Truth
• · · · · “Where is home?” asks George Konrád in his memoir of life under totalitarianism. We know the answer: Memory is home... WHERE?; Melancholia is a miraculous invitation to rise above the contented status quo and imagine untapped possibilities. We need sorrow to make us human, alive... Ask any soul-baring 40-year-old exile what he most longs for, and he likely won’t tell you it’s a better career or a more money: he wants freedom to search for meaning of death ;-) Sadness ; Yet another faked memoir: this one from a “mixed-race former child drug-runner” from South-Central
Fake memoirs are once again hitting the headlines. Only last week, Margaret B Jones’ ‘autobiographical’ account of growing up as a mixed-race foster child on the wrong side of the tracks in Los Angeles, Love and Consequences, was celebrated as a work of inspiration. One of America’s leading literary critics, Michiko Kakutani, said it was a ‘humane and deeply affecting memoir’. Now, however, the author has been unveiled as a very white Margaret Seltzer, and her story has been exposed as pure fiction. Auto lies; Memoirs ; Crying Wolf
• · · · · · Not only does Wikipedia need its vandals, the vandals need an orderly Wikipedia, too. Without order, their culture-jamming lacks a context... With Cold River, whatever the rest is, it isn’t silence. The Cold War streams still dominate Central European literature and heart ; Terrorists: often sour, lazy nobodies, ugly, of febrile imagination and small talent, who can only become somebody by murdering others... Terror

Saturday, March 08, 2008



NO ONE has ever accused Media Dragon of being shy when it comes to making its pitch for Cold River :-) Radio dreams come alive in the blog PR whistles a different tune

I am an optimist. I believe in our ability to shape the future, right wrongs, make life better and create new opportunities. That's why I am a huge believer in little people who pay taxes and who do make a difference … Remember that great love and great achievements involve great risk ;-)

Jogging through the websites Waning influence
Media Dragons came across a recent US survey which notes that 90% of American leaders say dysfunctional behaviours have become acceptable in the workplace. Shifting blame, gossiping and harbouring territorial attitudes are three of the most destructive behaviours. Equally discouraging is the finding that 64% of leaders do little or nothing to change the pattern.

And then there is this - Engage. If you’re going to get the benefits of the Edge you have to spend time there, not just pop in for a quick visit. Anything that starts with “E” is always good by me. Energy, Education, Emotion, Experience and, yes, Edge.


• My wise friend June overcomes all her difficulty in life by imagining that she is like a cork on a huge wave ... Living on the Edge; [In our and/and world, definitions of all sorts are becoming blurred and no more so than the roles of writer and artist, filmmaker and ideas person. To me many people in advertising are stuck in the past, worrying about their ideas being taken seriously as creative contributions. Write STUFF;
As with word-processed files, a lot of metadata may hide in a digital photo. A.J. Levy highlights this fact and provides information about some tools that can help you find it. Finding Data Hidden in Digital Photos ]
• · Blogging the brand | Australian IT ; Hiring blogger ...
• · Blogging can help you feel less isolated, more connected to a community and more satisfied with your friendships, both online and face-to-face, new Australian research has found. News Corp Has Big Plans for MySpace.com; Blogging boosts your social life: research
• · · Mark Bahnisch deploys years of experience to doubting research showing that blogging boosts your social life, while Peter Black looks at Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales’ apparent dumping of his girlfriend on Wikipedia itself, and also contemplates the death of email. Missing Link Daily; Via Club Troppo and courtesy of Blogpond comes word of a Nielsen survey claiming that 2.3 million Australians have Media Dragons Media Dragons: How many Australian bloggers are there, anyway?
• · · · HAVING an onlife life revolving around sites such as MySpace, Facebook or Youtube does not lead to less time in front of the telly, according to a study. But it does cut face-to-face communication. Diggers Everywhere; Australians DO Blog - number of Australian bloggers
• · · · · It’s not what other people think of you that matters. It’s what they can find out about you on the Web that will affect your ability to get a job or promotion, rent an apartment, buy a house, be accepted into the school of your choice or find the love of your life. How to defend your online reputation: five tips ; Ian McPhee PDF The ANAO’s contribution to improving public sector administration
• · · · · · Gregg Keizer: Corporate executives should think twice about the information they disclose on social networking sites such as Facebook, a Hong Kong-based security company warned today after duping gullible CEOs and finance directors into revealing personal details that could be used for so-called spear-phishing attacks. CEOs on Facebook easy to dupe says researcher, ; Stephanie Overby: There are things you can do in just one third of an hour that can have a meaningful and, yes, even a long-term, positive effect on your life, your job and your enterprise. 20 things you can do in 20 minutes to be more successful at work