The hummingbird visits the iochroma outside the window at left every day midmorning to early afternoon.
Category: whatever Page 1 of 4
Sir Oliver Skardy & Fahrenheit 451 – Fame un spritz.
I found the lyrics to this tune, which I posted here in 2010 and recently reposted over at Tom’s Garden.
I make out the first line to be “Make me a spritz, make me a spritz, make it good with a slice of lemon.” But the Italian is unconventional, I guess a Veneto dialect, and if anyone more accomplished than me can provide a full translation I would love to hear it.
This would be a good tune for a ukulele.
Fame un spritz – Sir Oliver Skardy & Fahrenheit 451
Fame un spritz, fame un spritz, famelo bon co ‘na fetta de limon
Che caldana par Venessia in camminada umido, suori, maieta petada
le alghe fa spussa da fogna
se bevo so come ‘na spugna
A mexogiorno so come ‘na fritata go la gola che par carta vetrata l’oasi del campo se ciama ostaria xe meio ‘na sosta, dopo vado via
Sta ostaria che xe sempre be?a piena
chi xoga le carte chi va via a pansa piena ti magni, ti bevi e ala fine ti paghi
vecioti o studenti va tutti imbriaghi
Costava poco un spritz ai nostri tempi desso xe un lusso par fighetti dementi
‘Ndemo fora a ciapa?r un fia? de aria caigo fisso dal Lido ala Baia
bicieri de carta, bicieri de vero
ma queo de sora xe incassa? nero
Largo ai giovani, va remengo el vecio, gerimo in cale el ne ga lava? col secio
el dise che el xe stufo, che ciama la Polissia e dopo i se domanda perche? i fioi scampa via
Fame un spritz, fame un spritz, famelo bon co ‘na fetta de limon
tanto ‘ndemo fora a tirar su un trombon
“Every separation is a link” — Simone Weil
- Rats review NYC pizzas : Will Grimaldi’s sue the rats?
- How Capicola became Gabagool : Origins of the New Jersey Italian accent
- The Seven Types of Poetry : According to Robert Peale
- Small is beautiful : In book publishing
- The mixed up brothers of Bogotá : Farce or tragedy?
- Empire of letters : The Los Angeles Review of Books
- Fake publicist catfishes bloggers : Maximizing effort for minimal return
- The racist origins of Oregon : My birthplace
Since Jane Austen is so much in the news again these days, it might be worth revisiting this post, which I originally published in 2007:
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Is the attractiveness of authors directly related to their promotability in the minds of publishers today? Certainly to judge by the photos on their dust jackets, authors have gotten collectively younger and cuter every year for the past several years. Some publishers deny, however, that they place any importance on author photos. I guess Wordworth Editions is not among them. For a reissue of Austen they have tarted Jane up a bit. The image on the left is the portrait of Jane Austen by her sister Cassandra (said to be the only fully authenticated portrait of the author). The image on the right shows the effects of Wordworth’s Photoshop magic: Jane’s bonnet has been removed and replaced with flowing locks, her cheeks have been rouged, and if I’m not mistaken she has had some subtle nips and tucks about the eyes and mouth. Wordworth’s managing editor Helen Traylor explains:
She was not much of a looker. Very, very plain. Jane Austen wasn’t very good looking. She’s the most inspiring, readable author, but to put her on the cover wouldn’t be very inspiring at all. It’s just a bit off-putting.
I know you are not supposed to judge a book by its cover. Sadly people do. If you look more attractive, you just stand out more. Sadly, we do live in a very shallow world and people do judge by appearance.
I guess that about sums it up: “Sadly, we do live in a very shallow world.”
I have a month to polish up the book I’m currently working on, and I’m experimenting with a randomized editing process.
Most writers spend a lot of time on the beginnings of their books, and rightly so since they set the tone and either welcome or drive away potential readers. Endings get some attention as well, but authors and readers alike bog down in the problematic middle, especially around three-fifths of the way through.
In revising, you can start from the beginning and just go as far as you can, or all the way to the end, repeatedly, but this will likely result in a mid-book slump. You can also just identify the most important parts, or the parts that need the most work, and concentrate on them, sanding down the rough patches one after another.
If you’re working in short bursts — in breaks in your day job, for example — you might want to test the water by just dipping in here and there. But, if you’re like me, your dipping is not likely to be very random, so you’re not really doing a good test.
There’s a site called random.org, where you can generate a random sequence of numbers within a certain interval. According to the site, “The randomness comes from atmospheric noise, which for many purposes is better than the pseudo-random number algorithms typically used in computer programs.”
A random sequence, as opposed to a random set where numbers can be repeated, is like pulling numbers from a hat, where once a number is used it can’t be used again. So I’ve generated a random sequence of numbers between 1 and 384, and I’m reviewing pages in the that order. I’ll do this a few times with a few different random sequences.
Is this a good idea? I’m not sure, but I think it might be a helpful corrective, or at least complement, to the kind of directed attention that you’re going to give your manuscript anyway.
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image from kevindooley’s photostream
This old post about overnighting at Heathrow airport is pertinent again today, as many travelers are currently stranded by snow.
Want to send an e-mail to your future self? Futureme.org is there for both of you.
(Why doesn’t gmail have delayed-send capability?)
Why does Pandora keep feeding me “Layla,” even though I’ve told it three or four times that I don’t want to hear that song? Apparently it has many different versions to offer and figures “You didn’t like those three? Then you’re sure to like this one.”
Along the same lines, it is convinced I’m a Jack Johnson fan no matter how many of his tunes I reject.
I think those genomes could use a little more tinkering.
I write like
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!
… William Shakespeare. Anyway, that’s what it says here. I was scrolling through my feeds and noticed a guy calling himself “Mighty Red Pen” ran a few of his posts through an algorithm that purports to analyze your writing — sometimes he wrote, it said, like Dan Brown, other times like Cory Doctorow, and once like Vladimir Nabokov.
I have no idea how the thing works, but I entered the second chapter of the book I’m working on and got the Will result (which seems appropriate since I’m writing on the early seventeenth century).
I think it’s best to stop now. How disheartening would it be to learn that my second chapter was written like William Shakespeare and my third in the style of Dan Brown?
Slow to blog, slow to answer e-mails, what is wrong with this guy??
Yep, there has been a slow-down here at Right Reading in the past few months — which I think is temporary, so please bear with me. I am been working pretty obsessively on a book project, about which more in due time. Today I left this comment on my blog post where people comment about my primer on getting a book published. It was the 102nd comment in that thread, which is quite a lot for this blog.
Thanks to everyone who has commented so far. I am glad that many people are finding the guide to getting a book published helpful. To those who have sent e-mails, I’m sorry I am currently being slow in responding, as I have been working on a big long-term book project, and this has been taking almost all my attention lately. I will get to the e-mails sooner or later though — please be patient, and thanks. — Tom
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Image detail from pamramsey’s photostream
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. . . but I like it.” That’s the title of a story in the Independent about Keith Richards’ forthcoming book Life, in which he confesses he would have liked to have been a librarian.
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Image via Book Patrol
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This house on the beach in Venice, California, has no doors (on its upper story), and the walls are made up of bookshelves and storage units.
Read about it at BLDG BLOG.
My nomadism is concluded for the moment, and I will resume more regular blogging tomorrow morning.
According to Graham at Linguism, some people think Belgium is an adjective. Well, whatever. What struck me about his post was his claim that “most people find it difficult to name ten famous Belgians without falling back on Tintin and Hercule Poirot.” Which I expect is true.
Right Reading is taking some time off. If circumstances allow I may make the occasional post, but posting will be, at best, light for the next couple of weeks. After that: recharged!
Back soon.
Right Reading is on a short summer vacation. (I might do some posting just the same, depending on how things go.)
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This is via Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s twitter account. He writes “These ladies are amazing athletes -even back in the day!” Be patient — the fun starts about one minute in.
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“Every separation is a link.” — Simone Weil
- From Kindle to brick : For less than $400
- Virtual bibliogeekery : Contribute to Project Gutenberg
- Putting on (Scottish) airs: Rare book belonging to Robert Burns discovered
- Some thoughts on book marketing : Truth is, you’ll probably have to do most of it yourself
- Writers’ desks : Not sure who most of these are, but still . . .
Some #amazonfail links
- Amazonfail: Post-Mortem | Booksquare
- ‘Gay writing’ falls foul of Amazon sales ranking system | Technology | guardian.co.uk
- Amazon.com under criticism for de-ranking gay-themed books | TV, movie and music news | Books | EW.com
- Why #amazonfail matters : I Should Be Writing
- Amazon Says Glitch to Blame for “New” Adult Policy – 4/12/2009 5:49:00 PM – Publishers Weekly
- Amazon policy on LGBT books spurs twitter uprising – The Afterword
- Amazon under fire for perceived anti-gay policy
- #Amazonfail and the politics of anti-corporate cyberactivism | Net Effect
- Amazon calls mistake ’embarrassing and ham-fisted’
Latest inbound links
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Having dunked my trusty Canon A620 in the waters of Pomonkey Creek, I was reduced to shooting this ghost type in Alexandria, Verginia, with my cell phone.
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