Towse: views from the hill

November 6, 2008

Name the New White House Puppy!

Filed under: election2008,life,people,politics — Towse @ 5:57 pm

We were watching Obama’s acceptance speech and he was talking about Sasha and Malia and I said to his nibs, “And they get a PUPPY!”

… the next thing Obama said was, “and you have earned the new puppy that’s coming with us to the White House.”

Well, now there’s all the yammer about what =sort= of dog they should get and whether it should be a pound puppy or not.

What to name the puppy? is the next question.

Well, here are some ideas from the New Yorker, including “Checkers”:

I think they should name it “Chesapeake” and call it “Chess,” as a fitting counterpoint to “Checkers.”

‘Jurassic Park’ author, ‘ER’ creator Crichton dies – CNN.com

Filed under: books,environmentalism,people,writing — Towse @ 1:10 am

'Jurassic Park' author, 'ER' creator Crichton dies – CNN.com

RIP, Michael Crichton.

Crichton drove me nuts some times. His skepticism of global climate change and global warning encourage the nutcases.

STATE OF FEAR (2005) was lecturing and personal lobbying at its worse. The science wasn’t true and Crichton based his story on “information” that wasn’t.

Jeff Masters, chief meteorologist and co-founder of wunderground.com* reviewed the book and the science. Read it and see why my teeth grind when I think of that book.

That said, Crichton entertained me over the years. His tales were gripping. He was a smart guy who knew a lot and knew how to weave what he had into intriguing, page-turning books. He helped pay his way through college writing novels, medical thrillers. In 1969, Crichton won an Edgar for A CASE OF NEED, written under the pseudonym Jeffrey Hudson, probably because of its subject matter: abortion. (We’re talking 1968 here.)

ANDROMEDA STRAIN, JURASSIC PARK and ER are fitting legacies.

RIP.

*(Weather Underground, a weather service of which our uphill neighbor, not William Ayers, is president of the BoD.)

November 3, 2008

His nibs & Sal

Filed under: life,people,San Francisco — Towse @ 5:35 am

Nerds in costume. Prior to wandering around SF on Hallow E’en’

Oh, wait. There I am before the party started!

There we are. We were marvelous. A good time was had by all.

Wife of former 49er Young voting No on Prop. 8

Filed under: California,election2008,life,people — Towse @ 5:33 am

Wife of former 49er Young voting No on Prop. 8

You GO! Steve and Barbara.

November 1, 2008

Love Story–Gold Winner: Los Muertos

Filed under: life,people,writing — Towse @ 12:07 am

Best Travel Writing – Love Story–Gold Winner: Los Muertos

Lovely story and timely with its Día de los Muertos theme.

[via a link from James O’Reilly’s twitterfeed]

October 29, 2008

Chris Buckley on Rush Limbaugh at The Daily Beast

Filed under: people,politics,writing — Towse @ 12:50 am

Chris Buckley on Rush Limbaugh at the Daily Beast.

Hoo boy.

[...]

As these words were going out over the Excellence in Broadcasting network, my father’s corpse was still warm. It was a day of passions, I know, and things get said in the heat of passion. But reading these words, in the cooler air of October—not that this October has been devoid of passion—well, as me old mater might say, I found them a bit…de trop.

That’s French for “a bit much,” and I’m putting it that way by way of stipulating that I am a card-carrying member of the Eastern seaboard, proletarian-despising media elite. My idea of roughage is arugula. I have not to date tasted moose meat and hope never to, unless it is served to me at La Grenouille, by Charles Masson, personally and under glass. As for politics, we elites have always inclined toward the black candidate who grew up with a single mother on food stamps, as opposed to the third-generation Annapolis cadet.

I am having these pensées (more French, learned at an elite New England boarding school) about el Rushbo because a few days ago, following my J’accuse! (okay, okay, I’ll cut it out)—following my “I’m voting for Barack” teachable moment in this space, I received, amidst other howls of outrage and a pink slip from NR, formal notification that I had arrived, career-wise. It took the form of a headline:

LIMBAUGH MOCKS BUCKLEY OVER OBAMA.

[...]

Well, you can mock Christopher Buckley, but reap your whirlwind, sir.

October 27, 2008

RIP Tony Hillerman

Filed under: people,writers — Tags: , — Towse @ 5:58 pm

Tony Hillerman has died at age 83.

My favorite memory of him was his appearance as guest at the first fundraiser dinner for (what now is known as) the Foundation for Monterey County Free Libraries back in the early nineties. The Foundation had originally asked Robert Campbell to be guest speaker but Campbell answered (hashhish remembering here) something to the effect that Campbell really wasn’t so hot with the public speaking thing. If he had been good at it, Campbell said, he probably would’ve chosen a vocation other than writing. But he knew this guy. …

Hillerman signed one of my hardback first editions before the dinner and kept the audience laughing during dinner with his dry wit and self deprecating stories of bloopers he’d made and his life as a writer. Hillerman all-in-all proved to be a generous, charming, raconteur sort of a guy.

Hillerman did a lot for the mystery-writing community and writers in general, a lot for libraries and readers. He earned the Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America. Talking mysteries : a conversation with Tony Hillerman and Seldom Disappointed: A Memoir are excellent introductions to Hillerman the writer and his writing.

Hillerman’s writing evoked the Southwest. His mysteries were appreciated by the Navajo nation because of his depictions of and respect for the native culture. The Navajo Tribal Council honored him with its Special Friend of the Dineh award in 1987.

He was one of a kind.

RIP.

October 1, 2008

The Last Tour by Wm. Finnegan

Filed under: history,people,writing — Towse @ 1:55 am

The Last Tour by Wm. Finnegan. A New Yorker essay on brothers Travis and Willard Twiggs. Their lives. Their deaths.

Sad, sad, sad.

“I just don’t get that. I’m having a real hard time with it. I can’t believe he would leave me, can’t believe he would leave us, leave our girls.”

She took more deep breaths. “But he really left us a long time ago. He tried to come back. But he couldn’t. That was not my husband out there.”

September 23, 2008

Clean out your space. Read something beautiful.

Filed under: lifehacks,people,URL — Towse @ 5:42 pm

Make your life good. Invest in what’s real. Cook a meal for someone you love. Pause before reacting. Clean out your space. Read something beautiful. Treat yourself to something. Go to a city you’ve never been to. Learn something new. Don’t be lazy. Workout and stick with it. GOOP. Make it great.”

– Gwyneth Paltrow. Intro to her new lifestyle Web site: GOOP. Not much there yet, but I loved this intro.

September 18, 2008

Lovely photos of Iceland from Tim Gasperak

Filed under: people,photographs,travel — Towse @ 10:17 pm

Tim Gasperak Photography – Iceland

Web site

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