Towse: views from the hill

February 2, 2008

Yaze! for Baze!

Filed under: news,people — Towse @ 3:51 am

Golden Gate Fields Sees Russell Baze's 10,000th Racing Win [KCBS]

Years and years and years ago, I read horse race results at the back of the sports section in the San Jose Mercury News. Didn’t take me long to discover that a bet on whatever horse Russell Baze was riding was a good bet to place.

Congrats to Baze, who won his first race in 1974 in Yakima, WA, on a horse trained by his father, Joe.

Noonan’s take on Ted Kennedy, the Clintons, and Barack Obama (oh, and those pesky Republicans too …)

Filed under: news,people,politics,writing — Towse @ 3:00 am

A Rebellion and an Awkward Embrace
By PEGGY NOONAN
February 1, 2008 / Wall Street Journal

In the most exciting and confounding election cycle of my lifetime, Rudy Giuliani, the Prince of the City, is out because he was about to lose New York, John Edwards is out, the Clintons are fighting for their historical reputations, and the stalwart conservative New York Post has come out strong and stinging for Barack Obama. If you had asked me in December if I would write that sentence in February, I would have said: Um, no.

Noonan’s column continues …

January 9, 2008

The World Question Center — 2008

Filed under: life,people,writing — Towse @ 10:54 pm

The World Question Center — 2008:
WHAT HAVE YOU CHANGED YOUR MIND ABOUT? WHY?

So far, 165 contributors, including Alan Alda, John Baez, Greg Benford, Aubrey de Grey, Ricahrd Dawkins, Ray Kurzweil, J Craig Venter …

Interesting …

e.g. Stewart Brand

[...]

The message finally got through. Good old stuff sucks. Sticking with the fine old whatevers is like wearing 100% cotton in the mountains; it’s just stupid.

Give me 100% not-cotton clothing, genetically modified food (from a farmers’ market, preferably), this-year’s laptop, cutting-edge dentistry and drugs.

The Precautionary Principle tells me I should worry about everything new because it might have hidden dangers. The handwringers should worry more about the old stuff. It’s mostly crap.

(New stuff is mostly crap too, of course. But the best new stuff is invariably better than the best old stuff.)

[via Mark Morford]

People in Order by Lenka Clayton and James Price

Filed under: life,people,video — Towse @ 7:27 pm

100. … (Is that it?)

Brilliant idea.

[via Laughing Squid]

Yes! You can live in San Francisco for not much money at all!

Filed under: life,people,San Francisco — Towse @ 4:25 pm

Monica (of Sexploration with Monica) sleeps around housesits.

January 6, 2008

Clare T. Newberry

Filed under: art,books,people — Towse @ 9:26 pm

Over at Grapes 2.0 the Sour One is taking a poll asking what we think is the “Most beautiful children’s book”.

I’ve answered, have you?

In my answer I mentioned both Chris Van Allsburg and Clare T (Turlay) Newberry as favorite author/illustrators (although beautiful illustration doesn’t seem to be the ultimate intent of the Flemish poll that triggered all this yakyak).

I first encountered Newberry’s books when I was a page at the San Jose Public Library back in the early 70s. Shelving books in the Children’s Room one day, I came across Newberry’s book Smudge and promptly fell in love with her cat/kitten sketches.

Check out what I’m talking about. I love the way she was able to convey the cat-ness of the cats and kittens and the texture of their fur.

December 19, 2007

The Rap Sheet’s ONE BOOK PROJECT

Filed under: blog,books,mystery,people — Towse @ 11:18 pm

Better late than never.

Last May, in honor of its one-year anniversary, The Rap Sheet organized The Rap Sheet's ONE BOOK PROJECT.

We invited more than 100 crime novelists, book critics, and bloggers from all over the English-speaking world to choose the one crime/mystery/thriller novel that they thought had been “most unjustly overlooked, criminally forgotten, or underappreciated over the years.”

Interesting list. Steve Hockensmith, author of Holmes on the Range and On the Wrong Track, nominates THE DOORBELL RANG (1965) by Rex Stout and explains why. J.D. Rhoades, lawyer, blogger, and author of Safe and Sound nominates Katy Munger’s MONEY TO BURN [1999]. Linda Fairstein, author of Bad Blood, chose Robert Traver’s ANATOMY OF A MURDER.

… and the list goes on.

If you’re a crime fiction fan, this list will keep you in reading material for a long, long time.

[via The Rap Sheet]

December 16, 2007

Greenspan sees early signs of U.S. stagflation

Filed under: people,politics — Towse @ 5:48 pm

Greenspan must really miss not having everyone hang on his every word now that he’s not Fed Chair and Bernanke’s doing what Bernanke thinks needs doing to offset the subprime meltdown that’s happening (and all the dominos falling after) because of decisions made on Greenspan’s watch.

Doesn’t seem to be a week go by when I don’t see “Greenspan says” “Greenspan sees” headlines.

Who really cares what Greenspan sees or says. He’s outta there.

What’s Bernanke going to do is the question.

Greenspan sees early signs of U.S. stagflation

Terry Pratchett news.

Filed under: damn,people — Towse @ 5:39 pm

Damn.

I would have liked to keep this one quiet for a little while, but because of upcoming conventions and of course the need to keep my publishers informed, it seems to me unfair to withhold the news. I have been diagnosed with a very rare form of early onset Alzheimer’s, which lay behind this year’s phantom “stroke”.

continues …

November 19, 2007

BLDGBLOG

Filed under: architecture,blog,books,people,San Francisco — Towse @ 10:01 pm

Check out Geoff Manaugh’s BLDGBLOG: Architectural Conjecture, Urban Speculation, Landscape Futures.

A plethora of goodies.

Geoff Manaugh has a book (BLDGBLOG) out from Chronicle Books in Spring 2009 and moved to this fair ville in September to become a senior editor at Dwell.

More about Manaugh here.

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