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Watch: How Blake Lively Went From TV Actress To Hollywood Royalty
Blake Lively, 25 joins the rankings of Hollywood power players under 30 at No. 18.
The end of a hit show, a major ad campaign and a wedding. For Blake Lively, 2012 was all about major beginnings and endings.
In June, the Gossip Girl actress -- who ranks 18th on Celebuzz's Hollywood Power Index -- was named as the face of Gucci's new fragrance, Gucci Premiere. The luxury retailer approach the star due to her "extraordinary beauty" and love of fashion.
"Although she's young, she's also very determined," Gucci creative director Frida Giannini said last year, "and I liked this spirit … She knows how to be a diva in the right sense, with an aspirational glamour."
Days after celebrating the launch of the fragrance at the 2012 Venice Film Festival, the actress wed her Green Lantern co-star Ryan Reynolds, 35 on September 9, 2012 in Mt. Pleasant, S.C. The pair -- who met on the set of the 2011 superhero flick -- made a major leap in their relationship three months prior to the nuptials. The couple invested in a country home in Bedford, N.Y., estimated to be worth up to $2 million -- the same price Lively's hubby spent on her oval cut diamond, roughly 12 'carat total weight' wedding ring.
As the saying goes, when one door closes another opens. As the actress proved in Oliver Stone's Savages, she can do much more than just play the privileged Serena van der Woodsen. Take it from her co-star, Salma Hayek:
"It was really fun to work with someone so professional, and so smart and with a director [Oliver Stone] who gave us so much space to really create and be apart of it," the actress told Celebuzz. "But also, when you are with a lot of boys it's great to have a sister, you know, to be there with you."
Launch the video above to watch as Celebuzz's experts dish on Lively's star power and future success.


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Reduced Planning Target Volume (PTV) Margins for the Treatment of Prostate Cancer Using the Calypso 4D Localization System
The recruitment status of this study is unknown because the information has not been verified recently.
Verified May 2012 by U.S. Army Medical Research Acquisition Activity.
Recruitment status was Recruiting
Recruitment status was Recruiting
Dusten Macdonald, MD
The Geneva Foundation
Information provided by (Responsible Party):
Dusten Macdonald, MD, U.S. Army Medical Research Acquisition Activity
ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier:
First received: April 26, 2012
Last updated: May 1, 2012
Last verified: May 2012
- Full Text View
- Tabular View
- No Study Results Posted
- Disclaimer
- How to Read a Study Record
No Study Results Posted on ClinicalTrials.gov for this Study
|Study Status:
|This study is currently recruiting participants.
|Estimated Study Completion Date:
|September 2014
|Estimated Primary Completion Date:
|August 2012 (Final data collection date for primary outcome measure)

subset: commoncrawl


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From sea to sea, see the best cake in your state!
Updated: Friday Jun 15, 2007 | 06:00 AM EDT
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From wannabe Michael Jacksons to honky-tonk duos, check out YouTube's best dancers
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Couple: Heather Glaser and Brian Lanese Flavor: Yellow, strawberry and chocolate cake with buttercream and cream cheese Price: $364 Baker: Angel's Food Contact: 937-434-2614
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Foothills Art Center presents a show with a potters spin.
Capsule reviews of exhibits
Eek! Here's what you missed on First Friday, slackers.
A must-see show features rare appearances by Colorado sculptors.
Who's in -- and out -- in my fantasy Decades.
A guide to Denver ceramics, and Maynard Tischler at DU's Myhren Gallery.
A salute to the late, great James McKinnell, a master of Colorado ceramics.
Foothills throws the state's best-known ceramics fest.
Lyrical paintings, bold sculptures and bad behavior are all on display.
Fascinating shows feature riffs on the golden age of modernism.
Art-world luminary Jun Kaneko shows off at Carson-Masuoka.
Martha Daniels turns a lost art form into a postmodern folly at the DAM.
Colorado Kilns
Denver's kilns are hotter than ever.
Two shows focus on the kith and kiln of Colorado ceramics.
Betty Woodman does it all for the Mizel Arts Center.
Some friendly suggestions for the Denver Art Museum.
March 26-April 1, 1998


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Briefings & More
Click here to access full coverage of Withers in The Lawyer UK 200 2014. Featuring the UK's leading law firms ranked by turnover, as well as extensive benchmarking data, the report is a comprehensive market intelligence resource for the UK legal sector.
News from Withers
Withers' family team features prominently in Spear's Family Lawyers Index
Withers is shortlisted as tax team of the year at Lexis Nexis Taxation Awards
Withers BVI acts for companies in connection with litigation between former married couple
Chambers Global 2014 ranks Withers as a leading law firm
Withers partner and associate author guide for charities targeting the US fundraising market
News from The Lawyer
Diversity League Table reveals that just one in 200 partners is black
Orrick and Withers lose at High Court as Excalibur funders forced to pay £23m costs
Withers launches in San Francisco with lateral hire duo
Withers advises on launch of new tech industry body Innovate Finance
Charles Russell and Speechly partners vote today on £126m merger
Briefings from Withers
Family law revolution
22 April 2014 marked 'the largest reform of the family justice system any of us have seen or will see in our professional lifetimes', according to the president of the Family Division.
A day out with the Charity Tax Group
Withers' Graham Elliott discusses the points he found most interesting from this year's Charity Tax Group annual meeting.
Analysis from The Lawyer
Withers/Speechly merger: Why the tie-up talks unravelled
A merged Withers and Speechly Bircham would have scaled The Lawyer's UK 200 with a turnover of about £170m, and created one of the world's largest specialist private client teams. So what went wrong?


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February 26, 2013
Deerfield-Windsor baseball star Davis Hines, center, smiles in his UGA hat after signing a preferred walk-ok status letter-of-intent with the University of Georgia on Tuesday the school. Hines was joined at the signing ceremony by his grandparents George and Liz Lavendar. (Laurie Allen/Special to The Herald)
Stories this photo appears in:
DWS centerfielder Hines commits to UGA
Davis Hines commits Tuesday to UGA, which gives the Deerfield star outfielder preferred walk-on status.
Use the comment form below to begin a discussion about this content.


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MICHAEL Michael Kors
Cowl Twist Dress With Knot Front
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94% polyester, 6% spandex. Cool machine wash.
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Hip Hop Karaoke in the Daily Mail!
Read the full article HERE
Hip Hop Karaoke + Rockaoke + Soulbrew Karaoke = ULTIMATE KARAOKE @ The Scala – Friday November 29th!!!
Hip Hop Karaoke have teamed up with the mighty mighty Rockaoke and Soulbrew Karaoke to bring you all 3 events at the world-famous Scala!
Matt Edmonson from Radio 1 does Hip Hop Karaoke!
http://youtu.be/HlH-uuAzt9E In a recent quest to try his hand at becoming a rapper under the tutelage of Charlie Sloth and others, Radio 1's Matt Edmonson recently graced the Hip Hop Karaoke stage and this was the result! I think we can all safely say he perhaps has a future in the business of rap!
Hip Hop Karaoke + Players Ball Featured in Metro!
'Players Ball', Southern Hospitality's now classic monthly party and easily London's wildest, crunkest event, was featured in Metro today, with of course a mention of Hip Hop Karaoke – respect to the Metro staff for the support and recognising where the fun is to be had!
Marie Claire magazine was at Hip Hop Karaoke @ The Social just before Christmas as one of their readers was taken there for part of their dating article. Well done to Cagdas and Martha for getting on the mic and even making me do 'the '92 dance' prior to their performance of Cypress Hill 'Insane...
Hip Hop Karaoke was recently featured in ES Magazine and I believe they really captured the essence of the event perfectly – the last paragraph or so really sums up what we try and do! FULL ARTICLE: Tall tales: That's a rap | ES Magazine.
Hip Hop Karaoke in Metro – Best Things To Do!
Respect to Metro for featuring Hip Hop Karaoke once again in their best things to do, but hey we're actually WEEKLY now and STILL rammed to the rafters. Big shout out to the homie Tayo in the pic above too – ha!


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Rockport House Rental Photos and Description
4 Bedrooms, 2 Bathrooms, sleeps 10
Live the life in this newly remodeled home with easy access to Estes Flats, Intracoastal Waterway and Redfish Bay known for some of the best fishing and bird watching in Texas. Cove Harbor Marina is near by to launch your boat and park it right in the back! You can also take advantage of the boat lift available for our guests.
This amazing home has a large open living, dining, and kitchen area perfect for entertaining. The partially shaded patio area is great for outside dining, soaking up the sun or just stopping to breathe the salt air and enjoy the view down the canal. Fish over the underwater lights from the dock or the 2 furnished kayaks. So, bring your fishing poles, set your clocks to Island Time, relax and have fun at the Tropical Dream House in Bahia Bay!!
We look forward to your visit!
Other Activities: Bird Watching, Fishing, Hunting, Attending Festivals, Taking tours, Viewing wildlife, Shopping for antiques and art, Viewing historical sites, unforgettable dining experiences and Kayaking are all activities that are immediately available to you from Tropical Dream House in Bahia Bay.
Rockport's charming downtown is 5 miles away. You can enjoy Rockport's shopping, renown art galleries and museums. If you like, you can plan your vacation around Rockport's many festivals, Oyster Fest, Hummingbird Festival, Sea Fair, Taste of Rockport, WineFest, etc.
Pick the activity that you like and call us today to set it up.
- Suitability:
- Long-term Renters Welcome
- children welcome
- non smoking only
- pets considered
- suitable for elderly or infirm
- wheelchair accessible


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You are here: Home :: Forum Home :: Forums :: Community Discussion :: Thread
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Latest News from CHS
CHS Holiday Open House
Come celebrate the holidays at CHS on Saturday, December 13, 2014 from 1-4pm. Enjoy: Music by the Jackson Public School Band Adoption Specials ($25 off every adoption) Giving Tree Cookies and Punch Special Visit by Santa and much more… If you can't make this event, please consider CHS during the holidays with a donation.Read More »
"Santa Paws" is coming to town!
November 22-23 10:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. This festive event is part of the Cascades Humane Society's annual holiday fundraiser. Make an appointment for your pooch or kitty to have their photo taken with Santa at CHS along with a $15 donation that will get you a 5×7 photo and that warm, fuzzy feeling of […]Read More »
10 Halloween Safety Tips for Pets
Halloween can be a festive and fun time for children and families. But for pets? Let's face it, it can be a downright nightmare. Forgo the stress and dangers this year by following these 10 easy tips. 1. Trick-or-treat candies are not for pets. All forms of chocolate — especially baking or dark chocolate — […]Read More »
I'm a Shelter Pet – Why Should You Adopt Me?
You'll save two lives – The life of the animal that you adopted and the life of the animal that's going to take its place at the shelter. You'll save money – Most pets end up homeless through no fault of their own—"moving" and "finances" are the top reasons people give for surrendering their pets, […]Read More »
CHS Receives Outstanding Performance Award
Sue Chambers, Director of Operations, and Carmela Lazarus, Marketing and Volunteer Coordinator of Cascades Humane Society were present at the Michigan Pet Fund Alliance "No Kill" Conference, on Thursday, September 5 to receive an award for outstanding performance. "This award, for Outstanding Limited Admission Shelter with the greatest number of adoptions, is a huge honor," […]Read More »
Peanut Celebrates Her 7th Birthday!
Thank you to those of you who came out to celebrate Peanut's 7th birthday with her. She had a wonderful day full of hugs and kisses. She loves to be the center of attention.Read More »
Never Without a Dog to Love
On Saturday, August 2nd we had to let our beautiful lab/chow mix, Kady, leave this earth in peace to go join her sisters, Keeba and Kelsey. Vern and I were just heartbroken. She was extra special to us because she was our first dog together and was my 1st experience raising a puppy. She came […]Read More »


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November 27, 2014
UPDATED Monday, October 21, 2013 --- 7:41 a.m.
MILWAUKEE (AP) -- Four more Wisconsinites have been indicted in what federal prosecutors say is a timeshare scam that swindled more than 1,400 people out of more than $2 million.
The U.S. Attorney's Office says the four Fox Valley residents operated companies under numerous names in Green Bay from 2007 to 2011, including Midwest Timeshares and National Timeshare Resales.
Previously four others were indicted in the alleged scam. Prosecutors say the defendants told their victims that buyers were ready to purchase the timeshares and all they had to do was pay upfront "administrative fees" that ranged from hundreds to thousands of dollars. The Journal Sentinel says the victims were denied refunds they were supposed to receive if their timeshares didn't sell.
The four people originally charged in July are scheduled in court Nov. 26.
Copyright 2013: Associated Press
Posted: Saturday, July 13, 2013 --- 8:05 p.m.
MILWAUKEE (AP) -- Four Wisconsin residents have been charged with scamming thousands of consumers out of $2 million in fees to sell their timeshares.
A Milwaukee Journal Sentinel report says the four allegedly cold-called owners of timeshare properties offering to help them sell their properties for a refundable fee. Prosecutors say the group then did nothing to sell the properties and refused to refund their money.
The criminal complaint says the defendants charged timeshare owners anywhere from $200 to $2,500 apiece in fees.
Investigators reviewed hundreds of cases and didn't find a single instance where the defendants' companies sold a timeshare. They say the most the suspects did was post the properties on an internal website.
Authorities say the scam prompted more than 100 complaints from more than 30 states.
Copyright 2013: Associated Press
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Discussion in 'Star Wars TV' started by G-FETT, Jul 1, 2007.
I blame Zod.
Thanks, but I've got a feeling the stage crew would fall apart without its glorious leader.
@PrincessKenobi - I blame Dinkleberg
March onward glorious leader.
What the..? Please tell me that was faked...
Blocked at work. =/
There's more. Here's my favourite of the awkward family photos:
The caption for the first one cracked me up.
'No one was too small, furry, or wooden to be part of this accepting family'
Come on guys...awkward family pictures?
Dat puppet.
Damn, that's a funny site...
This thread has taken an interesting turn. o.o; -backs away slowly.-
I loved the one with all of them in the windbreakers. Such 80s/early 90s thing to do. My old church directory was filled with family photos like that. Big matching hair was a common occurrence.
In the late 80s I used to tease my bangs up and spray the hell out of them; I'd spray the sides of my hair too. I think I'm personally responsible for global warming.
Aww, that's so cute! It reminds me of when Rumble was my nemesis!
I never put stuff in my hair at all. It makes my hair feel odd, which I don't like.
@anakinfansince1983 - Ill remember that when the ice caps melt and we all start living out Waterworld...
I don't anymore but I've been through quite a few phases.
It's going greyer by the day but I'm waiting until the grey becomes blatantly obvious before I start putting stuff in it again.
That makes sense. No sense using it for a small gain.
I've got a small amount of grey hair which I've had all my life. Never dyed it, despite being told to.
I've found a few gray hairs. x.x;
I always wear my hair down. No color or anything in it at the moment. The most I'll do is straighten it if I feel like it.
Ug...be glad you still have hair. Good thing I've always worn a baseball cap anyway.
My hair is gray around the edges now, but I was too lazy to treat it with peroxide for the last few months. So it's part silver, part golden now. Not overly elegant, but ... so what ...
On Sunday, my kid told me:
"Mom, everybody should have his own, personal Emperor."
Crow: "?"
Kid: "Yeah, like you. You're my Emperor."
Crow: "I'm your-"
Kid: "Yeah, you are, and I'm really glad that you don't know how to do the blue lightning."
Only minutes later, I managed to get charged by gradma's rug, and when I touched my kid, he jumped back:
"Blast! You can do the lightning!"
Reminds me of how my friend to day at work tried to explain to me what happens and that movie that's come out, Jack the Giant Slayer or whatever and kept calling Ewan McGregor's character Obi-wan while explaining it to me.
That's exactly what I did today when telling my dad about it, lol. But the annoying thing is that he said "Which one's Obi-Wan? Is that the little short guy?" *face palm all the way to the moon and back*


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I rented another movie with a bunch of soap stars "Excuse Me for Living" starring Tom Pelphrey, which is a romantic comedy centered in a rehab facility. Tom has some nice skin scenes in the film, so definitely check it out if you are a fan of his.
iN the 16,17th and 18th picture you kinda can he his balls or cock sock, what a shame that his nude scene where his butt shows is so fast and brief he falls to fast on the floor, he has a nice chest and his hair is so sexy, the shower cap is such a tease cause you can barely make out his ass but the cap does not do it justice cause I rented the movie also like you SPHF and you see his ass better , overall cute guy but his nude scenes were teases , can you please post and cap and make a new gallery of Jeff Hephner from Boss please.


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Dumfries & Galloway Standard
South of Scotland's best-selling newspaper
Facts and stats
The Dumfries & Galloway Standard is a tabloid newspaper primarily serves Dumfries and the surrounding towns and villages such as Thornhill, Sanquhar, Lockerbie and Annan.Wikipedia
Publication frequency:
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Official website
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Elizabeth Martin Editor
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Winston-Salem, N.C. — Florida State linebacker A.J. Nicholson staged a happy homecoming of his own Saturday.
Nicholson, whose hometown is Winston-Salem, somehow scrounged up 20 tickets to the game for family and friends.
One of those guests was Nicholson's younger brother, Derek, a linebacker who is regarded as one of North Carolina's top high school senior prospects.


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Cajuns' Baseball and Basketball Fans Parking Issues Addressed for This Weekend
With Alabama coming to town and the Mardi Gras Fair in progress, changes have had to be made for weekend parking.
With Alabama coming to town and the Mardi Gras Fair in progress, changes have had to be made for weekend parking.
UL-Lafayette head football coach, Mark Hudspeth, has responded to Katie de la Rosa, editor in chief of The Vermilion, for her criticism about Ragin' Cajuns Quarterback Terrence Broadway's performance against Tulane in the 2013 R+L Carrier's Bowl in New Orleans.
Ragin' Cajuns Head Football Coach Mark Hudspeth has confirmed that Defensive Coordinator James Willis has resigned his coaching position with the university.
It's signing day, and Louisiana's Ragin' Cajuns have a new batch of players. Here is a latest of all the official signees up to this point.
Collegefootballtalk.com has given an endorsement, of sorts, to Louisiana Ragin' Cajun head football coach Mark Hudspeth, in relation to the job opening with the Vanderbilt Commodores.
A national report has LSU fans at the top of a rather disturbing list. As a fan of LSU do you think this is justified? As someone who supports another university do you think this is an accurate assessment?
You may not actually see it now, but work is well underway for Phase I of the Athletics Department Master Plan for UL's Cajun Field and the new year will bring big changes to Cajun Field.
The first phase will add a performan
The passion of Cajun fans was best put into perspective by Karl Benson, the commissioner of the Sun Belt Conference during halftime of the game on Saturday. He said there is no other school in America that travels its average attendance to a bowl game. Think about that.
The Cajuns deliver a New Orleans Bowl three-pete in dramatic fashion in front of another record breaking crowd.
What a fantastic weekend in New Orleans for Ragin' Cajuns fans!


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Flats to let in Coronation Road, Holt NR25
£675 pcm (£156 pw)
Mill Street, Holt NR25Maisonette to rent - 3 bedrooms
**winter sale, reduced price!**William H Brown Lettings are pleased to offer a three bed, renovated home in the sought after market town of holt! The property has been renovated throughout to include new kitchen, bathroom and shower room. The property ... More details
Note: Distances are straight line measurements
- Sheringham (5.7 miles)
- West Runton (6.9 miles)
Marketed by William H Brown, NR19. Call 01362 882546


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Search pictures and profiles of Senior Singles near you right now. Discover how online dating sites make finding singles in the United States, Canada, and all over the world simple, safe and fun! Once you browse profiles and pictures start flirting, messaging and connecting with other members of the SeniorPeopleMeet.com community. Search today and find other sexy, intelligent singles for casual dating or a serious relationship in your area.Search Single Senior Men | Search Single Senior Women
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I am a retired nurse who has worked with seniors for many years. I am a home body, but would love to travel and see more of the U.S. I love the outdoors, but haven't spent too much time outside lately. I love live concerts, ball games, and watching wildlife. I love to play cards, if not taken too seriously. I would like to find someone to be a companion and start from there.
About the one I'm looking for...
WANT TO MEET SOMEONE WHO IS FUN TO BE WITH, DOESNT CARRY TO MUCH SERIOUSNESS WITH HIM. lIKES TO LAUGH, DO THINGS GO ON WALKS, OR JUST SIT AND HOLD HANDS. HE MUST BE TRUSTING, A LOYAL PERSON AND NOT A CHEATER.
I'd just like to add...
I have 4 grown married children and 8 grandchildren. I had lived on a farm my entire life till 2008 wehn I sold the farm and moved to town. I have a pet dog and love animals. I am very family oriented, and love children and love watching them grow. I would love to find someone to share life with and share life's experiences with.
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Each AutoTrader Classics vehicle listing is assigned a Classic Car ID to let you quickly return to cars you like.
You can compare up to 3 cars
Dublin, OH
Burgundy; 20252 miles
The extravagant 2008 Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano provides a package so complete; it pushes the boundaries of ...More Info
Toy Barn
Dublin, OH
Black; 8 Cylinder; 12527 miles
The extravagant 2007 Ferrari F430 Berlinetta provides a package so complete; it pushes the boundaries of ...More Info
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Dublin, OH
10 Cylinder; 7870 miles
The attention grabbing Hollywood styling 2010 Audi R8 5.2L is an immensely capable supercar that's docile...More Info
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Dublin, OH
10 Cylinder; 10933 miles
Here is a super-sports car with performance and looks that puts many exotics costing twice as much to sha...More Info
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Extremely Rare 1 of 4 Ardent Red 2009 Lotus Exige S260, 257hp Supercharged 1.8L I4, 6-speed manual, high-...More Info
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Dublin, OH
Black; 8 Cylinder; 15503 miles
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Lithia Springs, GA
Yellow; V-8; 3419 miles
For those of you familiar with Don and Danny Panoz and the cars that bear their names, this is a very spe...More Info
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Charlotte, NC
Blue; Other; 117913 miles
Few cars are more closely identified with the good life than this 1979 Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow. Classic...More Info
Streetside Classics - Charlotte
Staunton, IL
Gray; V-6
1985 Maserati biturbo, turbo v6, 4 whl disc, 38,000 miles, at, 2.5 v6, ps, pw, a/c, leather seats, good b...More Info
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Dublin, OH
Silver; 15138 miles
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Emeryville, CA
Black; V-8
1970 McLaren M8C s/n 70-09 Black with Black Interior The Canadian American Challenge Cup series was a uni...More Info
Fantasy Junction
Emeryville, CA
Red; V-12
1967 Ferrari 330 P4 Replica by Norwood Red with Black Interior This is an authentically-dimensioned alumi...More Info
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Vista, CA
Silver; No Engine
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Irvine, CA
Red; 6 Cylinder; 240000 miles
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Las Vegas, NV
White; 8 Cylinder
1965 Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud III LWB Saloon VIN: LCGL9 This is one of very few Long Wheel Base cars buil...More Info
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West Palm Beach, FL
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West Palm Beach, FL
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Monterey, CA
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This 1990 Ferrari 348 TB is fi...More Info
Mohr Imported Cars Inc
West Palm Beach, FL
Gray; 8 Cylinder; 13972 miles
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Chariots of Palm Beach


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Sony Q2 Financials 09
Q2 PS3 and PSP software up, PS2 in inverted 15-G powerdive
Both PS3 and PSP software sales showed growth for the second quarter, Sony said today. PS3 moved 23.9 million games in the period ending September 30 compared to 21.2 million a year previous. PSP software was up to 12.9 million from 11.8 million a year ago. PS2 game sales, however, properly cratered, down from 23.2 […]7
Sony Q2 Financials 09 headlines
Q2 PS3 hardware sales well up, PSP static, PS2 in flat-spin out to sea
Sony's shown PS3 hardware sales of 3.2 million for the second quarter – ending September 30 – compared to 2.4 million in the same period last year. PSP sales, however, were down to 3 million from 3.2 million in Q2 2008. PS2 really took one for the team: sales were down to 1.9 million compared […]0
PlayStation division sales down, losses deepen [Updates]
The Sony division responsible for PlayStation and Vaio products – the Networked Products & Services Division – has shown a 24.2 percent drop in sales compared to Q2 2008, down from 465.2 billion yen to 352.6 billion yen. Losses widened from 40.6 billion yen to 58.8 billion yen for the preiod. First half sales for […]12
YoY PS3 sales nearly double in Q2, software rockets
Sony's announced second quarter financials, showing PS3 sales up to 2.43 million consoles for the period, up from 1.31 million in Q2 2007. PSP sales have also risen, up to 3.18 million from 2.58 million. PS2′s fortunes are continuing to slide, however, down from 3.28 million in last year's second quarter to 2.50 million this […]5


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10tacle Studios Slovakia has licensed the Unreal Engine 3 for use in development of its next-generation game, Elveon. The action role-playing game is currently in development for the PC, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3 and is scheduled for release in 2007.
"Unreal Engine 3 has already proven to us that it is going produce fantastic results, while saving us time and money on this project," said Jûrgen Reusswig, managing director at 10tacle. "It not only has fantastic graphics but also is on an advanced development stage, which we need for a real next-generation project such as Elveon."
The game is set in the fantasy world Naon at a period of time when elves ruled. Players must attempt to fulfill a prophecy left by the gods: the liberation of a city called Nimathar. More information can be found at the official Elveon Web site.


text:
Save to My Recipes
Spiced French Fries
Soaking the cut raw potatoes in water removes surface starch, which yields crispier fries and prevents them from clumping together as they cook. Make sure to dry them thoroughly so that they don't cause the hot oil to spatter when you add them to the pot.
Servings: 4
- 1 1/2 pounds russet potatoes, unpeeled, cut into 1/4-inch-thick sticks
- Vegetable oil (for frying; about 6 cups)
- Kosher salt
- Old Bay seasoning
Nutritional Information
- Calories (kcal) 380
- Fat (g) 28
- Saturated Fat (g) 4
- Cholesterol (mg) 0
- Carbohydrates (g) 31
- Dietary Fiber (g) 2
- Total Sugars (g) 1
- Protein (g) 4
- Sodium (mg) 20
PREPARATIONView Step-by-Step Directions
special equipment:
A deep-fry thermometer
Place potatoes in a medium bowl; add cold water to cover and chill overnight. Drain; cover with cold water and let soak 1 hour longer.
Fit a large pot with thermometer; pour in oil to measure 3". Heat over medium-high heat until thermometer registers 375°.
Drain potatoes and gently pat dry. Working in batches and returning oil to 375° between batches, fry until golden and crisp, about 5 minutes. Using a spider or slotted spoon, transfer fries to a paper towel–lined baking sheet; season with salt and Old Bay.
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Slow-Fried French Fries
Zucchini with Potatoes and Thyme
Day-After Turkey StockYou can use this rich stock, made from the turkey carcass, for risotto or soup over the long weekend, or freeze it for the new year.
Your Very Own Vinegar
Green Bean Tempura
Classic Mignonette
Patatas Bravas with Pimentón SauceDouble-frying is the trick to these creamy-on-the-inside, crisp-on-the-outside potatoes. The first low-temperature fry gently cooks the potatoes through. The second dip in hotter oil browns them and crisps the outside.
Roasted Fingerling Potatoes with Chive Pesto


text:
|Results: 126Comments by: Peyana
|File: LightHeaded11-01-14
Errors Still :(
Received this error on my toons as I entered the game on each one of them: Date: 2014-11-01 10:50:22 ID: 1 Error occured in: Global Count: 1 Message: ..\AddOns\LightHeaded\LightHeaded.lua line 1329: table index is nil Debug: : ? LightHeaded\LightHeaded.lua:1329: in main chunk Locals: AddOns: Swatter, v5.21b...
|File: Fishing Buddy10-27-14
and this one just popped up without any causation: Date: 2014-10-27 09:42:40 ID: 3 Error occured in: Global Count: 1 Message: ...ar_FishingBuddyFu\Libs\AceEvent-2.0\AceEvent-2.0.lua line 987: attempt to call global 'GetRealNumRaidMembers' (a nil value) Debug: ...ar_FishingBuddyFu\Libs\AceEvent-2.0\AceEvent-2.0.lua:303...
|File: Fishing Buddy10-27-14
Error on Opening mail
I received this error on Eldre'Thalas server when I opened the mailbox: Date: 2014-10-27 09:40:38 ID: 1 Error occured in: Global Count: 1 Message: ...ns\FuBar_FishingBuddyFu\Libs\AceOO-2.0\AceOO-2.0.lua line 627: FuBarPlugin-2.0: FuBarPlugin-2.0 requires Dewdrop-2.0. Debug: : ? : error() ...\FuBar_FishingBuddy...
|File: LightHeaded10-27-14
Error on Opening WoW
I keep getting this error when I first log into a toon: Date: 2014-10-27 09:10:11 ID: 1 Error occured in: Global Count: 1 Message: ..\AddOns\LightHeaded\LightHeaded.lua line 1329: table index is nil Debug: : ? LightHeaded\LightHeaded.lua:1329: in main chunk Locals: AddOns: Swatter, v5.21b.5509 (Sanctimoniou...
|File: XBar10-20-14
Re: Re: Will this be updated for 6.0.2?
Was wondering if you will be updating this for the new 6.0.2 update? No bars show up in the game for xbar, and I rely on it HEAVILY for my pet, buff, and professions. Any idea on how to fix? On the curse site there is someone working on it but he is having a problem with the visibility resetting. Go over to curse and look at the c...
|File: XBar10-16-14
Will this be updated for 6.0.2?
Was wondering if you will be updating this for the new 6.0.2 update? No bars show up in the game for xbar, and I rely on it HEAVILY for my pet, buff, and professions. Any idea on how to fix?
|File: Spellcraft10-16-14
It's not difficult to update it, do...
It's not difficult to update it, do people need it? Write on email@example.com If I get a lot of mails I'll see if I can take it and update. Just sent an email, but in case you don't get it, would love to have this working again. I don't know if it's TOC just needs to be updated, or if there is something else that needs to be...
|File: QuestGuru10-16-14
Re: Re: Welcome the New QuestGuru Author - Lazare69
Thank you Gregity for allowing me to take over this great addon. I, too, have used this for years and want to see it continue working for players. For those who are chomping at the bit for an update, please bear in mind that I am just starting to update it and will have it working soon Cheers, Lazzy aka Lazare aka Lazare69 :)...
|File: Spellcraft09-11-14
Re: To make this work for Monks
A quick edit to Spellcraft.Merchant.lua at line 155 where is says: PALADIN = { Just add a line before that and enter the following: MONK = {}, Thank you! I used nOtepad ++, and the line # wasn't the same, but I found where you were talking about and it worked like a charm! Thanks again!
|File: BankStack01-10-14
Lovin' the addon (real talk, it's p...
Lovin' the addon (real talk, it's pretty awesome) but I'm having issues with guild tab sorting. It always starts but stops after one move. Compressing & all else are working fine. I agree with Vaaldis---LOVE this addon! But I am also having the problem with the guild bank sorting. AND....for some reason, it automatically picks up...
|File: Spellcraft03-18-13
Monk Class
Just an FYI - if you have rolled a monk, Spellcraft does not work with it. This is one of my most used add-ons, so I'm hoping that Batrick does an update or allows someone to update it for him. Love, love, love this add-on and miss it's working properly! I've done the updates submitted by Pennet---thank you, thank you, thank you! But...
|File: Spellcraft10-13-12
Error in Spellcraft
I received this error today: Date: 2012-10-13 21:13:18 ID: 3 Error occured in: Global Count: 1 Message: ..\AddOns\Spellcraft\Spellcraft.Collect.lua line 50: script ran too long Debug: : collectgarbage() Spellcraft\Spellcraft.Collect.lua:50: Spellcraft\Spellcraft.Collect.lua:45 Spellcraft\Spellcraft.Col...
|File: XBar09-27-12
Re: Re: Re: Fix available
I am unable to download this. My virus software won't let me. Says it is a dangerous download. :( Can you put it here for us to download? Sorry, I don't know where I could put this file on WoWInterface. If you tell me a file upload service your virus scanner agrees with, I'll put the file there. It's ok. I have Curse client an...
|File: XBar09-24-12
Re: Fix available
You can now grab a replacement for XBar\XBar.lua at http://www.upitus.net/xj9rkhgpu3ex. This fixes the XTradeBar and the XWarlockBar daemons. It has some other, minor fixes, too. BTW, the development of a fixed version is on curse.com. There is a version 5.00. Actually my fixed XBar.lua is based on that version. I am unable...
|File: XBar08-30-12
It worked for me, with only a sligh...
It worked for me, with only a slight hitch. My professions aren't showing except to find herbs and find fish. Any ideas on how I fix it?
|File: XBar08-29-12
Updates for MoP?
I have come to deeply depend on my XBars for every one of my characters:), and find that they do not work with the latest update (5.0.xx):eek:. Any idea on when or if this will be updated to work with the current version of WoW?:confused:
|File: Fishing Buddy02-22-12
Received this error when I opened my character pane: Date: 2012-02-22 10:33:18 ID: 1 Error occured in: Global Count: 1 Message: ...terface\AddOns\FishingBuddy\FishingOutfitManager.lua line 61: attempt to concatenate local 'enchant' (a nil value) Debug: (tail call): ? : ? ...terface\AddOns\FishingBuddy\FishingO...
|File: EasyMail from Cosmos02-22-12
Error Today
Received this error on logging into my bank toon. Hope it helps to find the issue: Date: 2012-02-22 09:56:25 ID: 1 Error occured in: Global Count: 1 Message: attempt to compare string with nil Debug: (tail call): ? : ? : sort() EasyMail\EasyMail.lua:793: EasyMail_GetFriends() EasyMail\EasyMail.lua:354: Eas...
|File: Skillet02-18-12
Error on opening Skillet
Received this error when opening Skillet: Date: 2012-02-18 22:55:36 ID: 1 Error occured in: Global Count: 1 Message: Usage: CastSpellByName(name) Debug: (tail call): ? : ? : ? : ? : CastSpellByName() Skillet\SkilletQueue.lua:283: ProcessQueue() Skillet\SkilletQueue.lua:367: CreateItems() :2:...
|File: Spellcraft12-16-11
Re: Updated...
I did everything manually and haven't been able to test it. There may be a stray bug. Let me know... The minimap button does not appear. Otherwise, it is awesome! :) Thank you so much for this invaluable add-on! I would be lost without it!:banana: Here is the error I got: Date: 2011-12-16 17:08:45 ID: 1 Error occured in: Glo...
|File: LightHeaded12-02-11
Great Add-on!
I have to jump in here too, and tell you that I would be lost without my Lightheaded add-on! It's invaluable when questing and/or helping a fellow player with a quest.
|File: Altoholic11-30-11
Re: Deleting Guild Names
I have read the postings on here on how to go through some doc somewhere and reset the database or something like that.. I am not a technical person. So, I apologize but can anyone out there give me some help with how to get rid of old guilds I belonged to in the past from this addon? Example issue I'm having is when I search for an...
|File: Altoholic11-30-11
Hi everyone, small update, I hope to be able to find a bit more time to work on the addon in the coming weeks, but nothing is certain. Big projects at work and planning is subject to heavy modifications in the coming 3 months, so I don't know how I'll be able to make progress. Anyway .. I hope you'll be happy to hear that I've...
|File: EasyMail from Cosmos07-10-11
Best Mail Add-on Ever!
Just want to tell you that this is the best mail add-on I have ever used, hands down. It's easy to use, LOVE the Disenchant/Gems/Etc. buttons--makes it SO easy to send my stuff! Thank you, thank you, thank you! AND----it still works with 4.2! :):banana:
|File: Spellcraft06-22-11
Re: 4.1
Originally posted by Dahlaine0 Is an update for 4.1 coming or is this addon not being maintained anymore? Thanks. Everything is working. The only thing missing is a portal to Tol Barad to my knowledge. Thanks Batrick for a great, great add-on!:banana:


text:
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Three Arrested in Delhi for Alleged Extortion
Cities | Indo-Asian News Service | Thursday November 27, 2014
A businessman and his two employees were arrested for making extortion calls to another businessman after claiming to be members of wanted terrorist Dawood Ibrahim's gang, police said on Thursday.
Delhi College Student Allegedly Killed by Parents for Marrying Man From Another Caste
Cities | Press Trust of India | Thursday November 20, 2014
A 21-year-old woman who eloped with a friend from a different caste was allegedly killed by her parents in Delhi.
Government Won't Tolerate Hate Crimes: Union Minister Kiren Rijiju on Attacks on North East Students
India | Sonal Mehrotra | Saturday October 18, 2014
Union minister Kiren Rijiju today said that the recent attack on two men from the North East in Gurgaon was unacceptable and the government will "never tolerate hate crime or anything that damages national integrity or unity".
Man Allegedly Beats Wife to Death with Baseball Bat
Cities | Press Trust of India | Thursday October 9, 2014
A 25-year-old woman was allegedly beaten to death by her husband with a baseball bat after an argument ensued between them over the latter's drinking habit.
Telangana to Take Tough Steps to Ensure Safety of Women: K Chandrasekhar Rao
South | Press Trust of India | Monday October 6, 2014
Voicing concern over incidents of crime against women, Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR) on Sunday said there "is a danger of Hyderabad becoming like Delhi" and vowed to take tough measures to ensure safety of women including bringing in a "sp...
Dhaula Kuan Gangrape: Court to Pronounce Verdict on October 10
Cities | Press Trust of India | Wednesday September 24, 2014
A Delhi court today decided to pronounce on October 10 its verdict in the sensational abduction and gangrape case of a 30-year-old BPO executive from northeast, after the prosecution rebutted the claim of one of the five accused that police had fudge...
Delhi: Two Arrested for Alleged Robbery, Murder
Cities | Press Trust of India | Saturday September 20, 2014
Two persons allegedly involved in last month's robbery and murder case in Mangolpuri have been arrested, police said today.
Delhi: Court Sentences Man to 10 Years For Murder
Cities | Press Trust of India | Tuesday September 16, 2014
A Delhi court has sentenced a 23-year-old youth to 10 years in jail for beating a man, who was in relationship with his mother, to death.
In Muzzafarnagar, Rape Survivor Shot at
Cities | Press Trust of India | Sunday September 14, 2014
A 26-year-old woman, who was allegedly raped a year back, was shot at by three unidentified youths in Janakpuri locality here, police said today.
Crime Branch Starts Probe into AAP's Bribe Allegations
India | Press Trust of India | Saturday September 13, 2014
The Crime Branch of Delhi Police has taken up investigation into the alleged sting operation done by Aam Aadmi Party which purportedly showed BJP state unit vice-president Sher Singh Dagar offering bribe to AAP MLA for switching side.
Delhi: Minor Murdered for Stealing a Mango
Cities | Indo-Asian News Service | Friday September 5, 2014
A mango vendor battered a boy to death for stealing a fruit from his pushcart murder triggering tension in a New Delhi locality, police said on Friday.
Delhi Police Wants to Cancel 16,000 Driving Licenses
India | Written by Bhairavi Singh, Edited by Tasim Zahid | Sunday August 24, 2014
Delhi Police wants the transport department revoke about 16,000 driving licenses.
Ghaziabad: 6-Year-Old Allegedly Beaten by Teacher For Not Doing Homework
Ghaziabad | Edited by Tasim Zahid | Sunday August 17, 2014
A kindergarten teacher has been arrested in Ghaziabad on the outskirts of the national capital after beating up a 6-year-old student with an iron ruler for not finishing his homework, police said.
Delhi: High Court Orders Compensation to Crime Victims Within a Day
Cities | Press Trust of India | Thursday August 14, 2014
The Delhi High Court Wednesday ordered the city government to come out with a scheme that will enable victims of various crimes including rape to get compensation awarded by the legal services authority within a day.
Delhi Police to Have More 'Eyes' to Track Street Crime
Cities | Indo-Asian News Service | Tuesday August 12, 2014
Delhi Police might soon get 10,000 more closed-circuit TV (CCTV) cameras to keep a close watch on street crime across the sprawling capital.
Trying Juveniles as Adults: The Debate Rages On
India | Ketki Angre | Sunday August 10, 2014
A day after the cabinet cleared amendments to the Juvenile Justice Act, the parents of the woman who died after being gangraped in a bus in Delhi in 2012, demanded fresh trial for the juvenile involved in the crime.
Delhi: Two Men Arrested for Duping People With Fake Job Promise
Cities | Press Trust of India | Thursday July 31, 2014
Two persons have been arrested for allegedly cheating people by demanding money for offering jobs in a reputed company, police said today.
Delhi Police Recovers 1 kg Stolen Gold From Gaya
India | Press Trust of India | Tuesday July 29, 2014
Delhi Police today raided a village in Gaya district of Bihar and arrested a man who had stolen 1 kg gold from a jewellery shop in New Delhi.
Delhi: Mother, Son Found Dead at Home
Cities | Indo-Asian News Service | Monday July 28, 2014
The decomposed bodies of a 30-year-old woman and her seven-year-old son were found from their house in Delhi on Sunday, police said.
Woman Allegedly Gang-Raped At Gunpoint By Four Men in Delhi
Cities | Indo-Asian News Service | Thursday July 24, 2014
A 22-year-old woman was allegedly raped at gunpoint by a gang of four men in Delhi on Tuesday, the police have said.


text:
Would you allow an acupuncturist to stick needles in your arm to demonstrate to attendees the technique's effectiveness? That's what one provider did to convince skeptical physicians to pay attention to alternative medicine. You don't have to go that far, but to design successful CME in the 21st century, providers need to take risks with unorthodox topic areas and pay close attention to patients' concerns. Here's more advice from the medical education experts we spoke with about trends in ...
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EURASIP Journal on Audio, Speech, and Music Processing
EURASIP Journal on Audio, Speech, and Music Processing is a peer-reviewed open access journal published under the brand SpringerOpen. The aim of EURASIP Journal on Audio, Speech, and Music Processing is to bring together researchers, scientists and engineers working on the theory and applications of the processing of various audio signals, with a specific focus on speech and music. EURASIP Journal on Audio, Speech, and Music Processing is an interdisciplinary journal for the dissemination of all basic and applied aspects of speech communication and audio processes. It publishes papers on the advancement of both human speech communication science and automatic speech and audio systems. The journal will be dedicated to having original research work, but will also allow tutorial and review articles. Articles will deal with both theoretical and practical aspects of audio, speech, and music processing.
- 4 Volumes
- 4 Issues
- 95 Articles
- 95 Open Access
- 2011 - 2014 Available between
Latest Articles
A sub-band-based feature reconstruction approach for robust speaker recognition
Furong Yan, Yanbin Zhang, Jiachang Yan (October 2014)
Sparse coding of the modulation spectrum for noise-robust automatic speech recognition
Sara Ahmadi, Seyed Mohammad Ahadi… (October 2014)
A cross-lingual adaptation approach for rapid development of speech recognizers for learning disabled users
Marek Bohac, Michaela Kucharova… (October 2014)
- Journal Title
- EURASIP Journal on Audio, Speech, and Music Processing
- Open Access
- Available under Open Access This content is freely available online to anyone, anywhere at any time.
- Coverage
- Volume 2011 / 2011 - Volume 2014 / 2014
- Online ISSN
- 1687-4722
- Publisher
- Springer International Publishing
- Additional Links
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Watch The Lives of Brian, A Documentary About Flann O'Brien
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About these ads
I was looking for something else when I found Everyman's edition of The Complete Novels of Flann O'Brien. I gave away The Third Policeman to a friend who has yet to read it; I can also now give away At Swim-Two Birds. (I won't give away my copy of The Poor Mouth though, which is illustrated by Ralph Steadman).
I read Simone de Beauvoir's The Blood of Others years ago in an undergraduate class called existential literature or something like that.
Had to have this Penguin edition. Here's the back:
Flann O'Brien's The Best of Myles collects material from his column Cruiskeen Lawn:
Title of Book referred to: The Athenian Oracle, being an Entire COLLECTION of all the Valuable QUESTIONS and ANSWERS in the old Athenian Mercuries intermixed with many CASES in Divinity, Hiftory, Philofophy, Mathematicks, Love, Poetry, never before publifhed.
Extract from Book referred to:
1. Whether it be poffible for a woman fo carnally to know a Man in her fleep as to conceive, for I am fure that this and no way other was I got with Child.
2. Whether it be lawful to ufe Means to put a ftop to this growing mifchief, and kill it in the Embryo; this being the only way to avert the Thunderclap of my Father's Indignation.
To the firft Question, Madam, we are very pofitive, that you are luckily miftaken, for the thing is abfolutely impoffible if you know nothing of it; indeed, we had an account of a Widow that made fuch a pretence, and fhe might have better credit than a maid, who can have no plea but dead drunk, or in fome fwooning fit, and our Phyficians will hardly allow a poffibility of the thing then. So that you may fet your heart at reft, and think no more of the matter, unlefs for your diverfion.
As for the fecond Queftion, fuch practices are murder, and thofe that are fo unhappy as to come under fuch Circumftances if they ufe the forementioned means, will certainly one day find the remedy worfe than the Difeafe. There are wifer methods to be taken in fuch Cafes, as a fmall journey and a Confident. And afterwards, fuch a pious and good life as may redreff fuch an heavy miffortune.
Questions, a Selection of Further: Almond, why fo bitter being taken in the mouth, and yet the Oyl fo very fweet? Apprentice, reduced to want, how may he relieve himself? Blood, is the eating of it lawful? Baptifm, adminiftered by a Mid-wife or Lay Hand, is it lawful? Devil, why called Lucifer; and elfewhere the Prince of Darknefs? Eftate, gotten by felling lewd Books, can it profper? Eyes, what Method muft I take with 'em when weak? Horfe, with a round fundament, why does he emit a fquare Excrement? Happinefs, what is it? Lady, difturbed in her Bed, your thoughts of it? Light, is it a Body? Myftae or Cabalifts, what d'ye think of them? Marriage, is not the End of it, in a great Meafure, loft nowadays? Poem, by Mr. Tate? Virginity, is it a Vertue? Wind, what is it? Wife, is it lawful for a Man to beat her? Wife, if an ill one, may I pray that God wou'd take her to himfelf?
Conclusion of the foregoing.
From Flann O'Brien's novel At Swim-Two-Birds.
The vibrant force of storytelling in Flann O'Brien's excellent first novel At Swim-Two-Birds threatens to overwhelm reader and narrator alike—and what a strange joy it is to be overwhelmed. This novel overflows with stories; its plot threads twist into each other, break out of each other, erupt into new ideas, characters, riffs, sketches. First published in 1939—the same year as James Joyce's Finnegans Wake—At Swim-Two-Birds seems light years ahead of its time—indeed, this is a book that is still ahead of its time.
Summarizing At Swim-Two-Birds is difficult but worth attempting. We have an unnamed narrator, a student living with his uncle who doesn't think much of how his nephew spends his time. Our narrator likes to imbibe large quantities of porter and wax philosophical with his friends about his literary projects. These projects, our narrator's riffs and scribblings, begin to take on lives of their own: they intersect, overlap, intermarry, degenerate and regenerate.
The book's opening paragraph announces the novel's intention to disregard the classical unities of action, place, and time:
Having placed in my mouth sufficient bread for three minutes' chewing, I withdrew my powers of sensual perception and retired into the privacy of my mind, my eyes and face assuming a vacant and preoccupied expression. I reflected on the subject of my spare-time literary activities. One beginning and one ending for a book was a thing I did not agree with. A good book may have three openings entirely dissimilar and inter-related only in the prescience of the author, or for that matter one hundred times as many endings.
First, we meet "Pooka MacPhellimey, a member of the devil class," a hobgoblin of Irish folklore (he turns out to be a thoughtful and polite fellow). Then, there's John Furriskey, who "was born at the age of twenty-five and entered the world with a memory but without a personal experience to account for it." Furriskey is the literary creation of another of the narrator's literary creations, one Dermot Trellis, a grumpy old man who writes Westerns; Trellis (an author, it's worth reiterating) is the eventual antagonist of the novel, the target for all of the other characters' vengeance. The third opening offers up Finn Mac Cool, "a legendary hero of old Ireland."
Much of the early part of At Swim-Two-Birds features Finn Mac Cool holding forth on all matters Irish in wonderfully baroque and hyperbolic passages. Here's a snippet (a long one!), featuring Finn on the ideal man:
When pursued by a host, he must stick a spear in the world and hide behind it and vanish in its narrow shelter or he is not taken for want of sorcery. Likewise he must hide beneath a twig, or behind a dried leaf, or under a red stone, or vanish at full speed into the seat of his hempen drawers without changing his course or abating his pace or angering the men of Erin. Two young fosterlings he must carry under the armpits to his jacket through the whole of Erin, and six arm-bearing warriors in his seat together. If he be delivered of a warrior or a blue spear, he is not taken. One hundred head of cattle he must accommodate with wisdom about his person when walking all Erin, the half about his armpits and the half about his trews, his mouth never halting from the discoursing of sweet poetry. One thousand rams he must sequester about his trunks with no offence to the men of Erin, or he is unknown to Finn. He must swiftly milk a fat cow and carry milk-pail and cow for twenty years in the seat of his drawers. When pursued in a chariot by the men of Erin he must dismount, place horse and chariot in the slack of his seat and hide behind his spear, the same being stuck upright in Erin. Unless he accomplishes these feats, he is not wanted of Finn. But if he do them all and be skillful, he is of Finn's people.
It's hard not to feel something of Joyce in the passage (I'm particularly reminded of the Cyclops episode of Ulysses), and O'Brien's narrator name-checks Joyce (along with Aldous Huxley) in the first few pages of the book. The narrator's comically mechanical and precise descriptions also recall Joyce. Joyce and O'Brien drew from the same well of mythology, but O'Brien more keenly attunes his focus on Irish legend and folklore in At Swim-Two-Birds, while Joyce's project skews to archetypes. Similarities and divergences aside, there's something strangely fitting about O'Brien's Finn Mac Cool dreaming his way into other characters' lives in At Swim-Two-Birds, as if this Finn is the psychic twin of Joyce's Finn.
Indeed, such a reading would fit neatly into our young narrator's ideas about the function of character in literature:
Characters should be interchangeable as between one book and another. The entire corpus of existing literature should be regarded as a limbo from which discerning authors could draw their characters as required, creating only when they failed to find a suitable existing puppet. The modern novel should be largely a work of reference. Most authors spend their time saying what has been said before – usually said much better. A wealth of references to existing works would acquaint the reader instantaneously with the nature of each character, would obviate tiresome explanations and would effectively preclude mountebanks, upstarts, thimble-riggers and persons of inferior education from an understanding of contemporary literature.
This decree strikes me as wonderfully post-postmodernist. That the "modern novel should be largely a work of reference" finds its suitable echo over half a century later in the note-card novels of David Markson (and other reality smugglers). The citation above serves as a metatextual description of At Swim-Two-Birds itself: O'Brien's narrator framing the various tales that erupt in the novel, but also undoing the frames, allowing his characters to converge, to tell their own stories (and within those stories characters tell other stories…).
In its finest moments (of which there are many), At Swim-Two-Birds operates on an ad hoc logic that it creates and describes in motion, a kind of improvised dream response pattern. Most books, particularly postmodern books, teach the reader how to read them—that is, most novels provide keys, hints, and reading rules early enough in the text to allow perceptive readers to interpret (subjectively, of course) what the novel is doing. O'Brien's novel in toto, with its discontinuities, gaps, eruptions, and juxtapositions, paradoxically is its own discrete, unified key.
But I seem to be getting bogged down in a bit of literary theory, which is not my intent at all.
Instead, let me draw attention to a wonderful extended jaunt in the middle of At Swim-Two-Birds where the Pooka MacPhellimey enters into an ersatz quest with the Good Fairy, two cowboyish thugs (or thuggish cowboys) named Slug and Shorty, the poet Jem Casey, and the mad King Sweeny. This ragtag band sets out to bequeath gifts to the forthcoming child of Miss Lamont (the creation of a creation of a creation). These episodes unfold in comic bravado, their slapstick rhythms recalling the manic but precise energy of Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin and the linguistic brio of the Marx brothers. This miniature picaresque is tempered in sweet pathos for poor crazy Sweeny who must be plied forward with the promise of a feast. The poor man, broken, starving, and living solely on watercress, falls into despair. What eventually moves him? The force of language:
And getting around the invalid in a jabbering ring, they rubbed him and cajoled and coaxed, and plied him with honey-talk and long sweet-lilted sentences full of fine words, and promised him metheglin and mugs of viscous tarblack mead thickened with white yeast and the spoils from hives of mountain-bees, and corn-coarse nourishing farls of wheaten bread dipped in musk-scented liquors and sodden with Belgian sherry, an orchard and a swarm of furry honey-glutted bees and a bin of sun-bronzed grain from the granaries of the Orient in every drop as it dripped at the lifting of the hand to the mouth, and inky quids of strong-smoked tabacca with cherrywood pipes, hubble-bubbles, duidins, meerschaums, clays, hickory hookahs and steel-stemmed pipes with enamel bowls, the lot of them laid side by side in a cradle of lustrous blue plush, a huge pipe-case and pipe-rack ingeniously combined and circumscribed with a durable quality of black imitation leather over a framework of stout cedarwood dovetailed and intricately worked and made to last, the whole being handsomely finished and untouched by hand and packed in good-quality transparent cellophane, a present calculated to warm the cockles of the heart of any smoker. They also did not hesitate to promise him sides of hairy bacon, the mainstay and the staff of life of the country classes, and lamb-chops still succulent with young blood, autumn-heavy yarns from venerable stooping trees, bracelets and garlands of browned sausages and two baskets of peerless eggs fresh-collected, a waiting hand under the hen's bottom. They beguiled him with the mention of salads and crome custards and the grainy disorder of pulpy boiled rhubarb, matchless as a physic for the bowels, olives and acorns and rabbit-pie, and venison roasted on a smoky spit, and mulatto thick-tipped delphy cups of black-strong tea. They foreshadowed the felicity of billowy beds of swansdown carefully laid crosswise on springy rushes and sequestered with a canopy of bearskins and generous goatspelts, a couch for a king with fleshly delectations and fifteen hundred olive-mellow concubines in constant attendance against the hour of desire. Chariots they talked about and duncrusted pies exuberant with a sweat of crimson juice, and tall crocks full of eddying foam-washed stout, and wailing prisoners in chains on their knees for mercy, humbled enemies crouching in sackcloth with their upturned eye-whites suppliant. They mentioned the leap of a fire on a cold night, long sleeps in the shadows and leaden-eyed forgetfulness hour on hour – princely oblivion. And as they talked, they threaded through the twilight and the sudden sun-pools of the wild country.
I've perhaps overshared here, let our characters babble on too long—but the verbal dexterity of the passage above illustrates O'Brien's rhetorical force, the force he lends his characters in order that they should move their insane and desperate friend forward. There's a sublime alchemy at work here, where imagination turns into words and words turn into food and drink.
I also fear these big chunks of text I've pulled from At Swim-Two-Birds don't highlight O'Brien's extraordinary talent at rendering speech. The dialogue in this novel is hilarious but nuanced, its ironies rarely if ever remarked upon by intrusive attributions. That O'Brien's narrator's characters (and their characters…) speak through the layers of texts adds to the book's juxtapositions.
These juxtapositions will perhaps confuse or even alienate many readers. At Swim-Two-Birds can be read as an attack on the classical unities of action, place, and time. O'Brien's novel is a send-up of stability, order, and tradition. Some of the novel's best moments are its strangest indulgences, as when O'Brien (or his narrator) gives the novel over to citations from imaginary antique texts, or allows his characters to indulge in a seemingly endless recitation of obscure facts, or satirizes the moral dangers of tea-tasting. These moments seem to erupt from nowhere, bizarre, wonderful, joyous.
At Swim-Two-Birds lacks the cohesion of theme and voice that characterizes O'Brien's other masterpiece, The Third Policeman, but this is hardly a deficiency. At Swim-Two-Birds is one of those rare books that actually deserves to be called dazzling, a critic's crutch-word that mars too many blurbs. Its dazzle derives from its rhetorical force, its humor, and its openness to experiment with not just the novelistic form, but the form of storytelling itself. And it's here that O'Brien's novel is most real—he captures the strangeness of storytelling, its mutability, its crazy rhythms. Ultimately, this is a novel unconcerned with providing pat answers and clear solutions. I loved this book, loved reading it—and then immediately rereading it. I'll let O'Brien get the last word:
Answers do not matter so much as questions, said the Good Fairy. A good question is very hard to answer. The better the question the harder the answer. There is no answer at all to a very good question.
Selection from Flann O'Brien's novel At Swim-Two-Birds:
The following, imperfect resume or summary as it is, may be taken as a general indication of the scholarly trend of the conversation sustained without apparent effort by the three of them.
It is not generally known, observed Mr. Furriskey, that the coefficient of expansion of all gases is the same. A gas expands to the extent of a hundred and seventy-third part of its own volume in respect of each degree of increased temperature centrigrade. The specific gravity of ice is 0.92, marble 2.70, iron (cast) 7.20 and iron (wrought) 7.79. One mile is equal to 1.6093 kilometres reckoned to the nearest ten-thousandth part of a whole number.
True, Mr. Furriskey, remarked Mr. Paul Shanahan with a quiet smile that revealed a whiteness of the teeth, but a man who confines knowledge to formulae necessary for the resolution of an algebraic or other similar perplexity, the same deserves to be shot with a fusil, or old-fashioned light musket. True knowledge is unpractised or abstract usefulness. Consider this, that salt in solution is an excellent emetic and may be administered with safety to persons who are accustomed to eat poisonous berries or consume cacodyl, an evil-smelling compound of arsenic and methyl. A cold watch-key applied to the neck will relieve nose-bleeding. Banana-skins are invaluable for imparting a gloss to brown shoes.
To say that salt in solution, Lamont objected finely, is a pleasing emetic is a triviality related to inconsequent ephemera – the ever-perishing plasms of the human body. The body is too transient a vessel to warrant other than perfunctory investigation. Only in this regard is it important, that it affords the mind a basis for speculation and conjecture. Let me recommend to you, Mr. Shanahan, the truer spiritual prophylaxis contained in the mathematics of Mr. Furriskey. Ratiocination on the ordered basis of arithmetic is man's passport to the infinite. God is the root of minus one. He is too great a profundity to be compassed by human cerebration. But Evil is finite and comprehensible and admits of calculation. Minus One, Zero and Plus One are the three insoluble riddles of the Creation.
Mr. Shanahan laughed in a cultured manner.
The riddle of the universe I might solve if I had a mind to, he said, but I prefer the question to the answer. It serves men like us as a bottomless pretext for scholarly dialectic.
Other points not unworthy of mention, mentioned Mr. Furriskey in an absent-minded though refined manner, are the following: the great pyramid at Gizeh is 450 feet high and ranks as one of the seven wonders of the world, the others being the hanging gardens of Babylon, the tomb of Mausolus in Asia Minor, the colossus of Rhodes, the temple of Diana, the statue of Jupiter at Olympia and the Pharos Lighthouse built by Ptolemy the First about three hundred and fifty years B.C. Hydrogen freezes at minus 253 degrees centigrade, equivalent to minus 423 on the Fahrenheit computation.
Everyday or colloquial names for chemical substances, observed Mr. Shanahan, cream of tartar – bitartate of potassium, plaster of Paris – sulphate of calcium, water – oxide of hydrogen. Bells and watches on board ship: first dog – 4 p.m. to 6 p.m., second dog – 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., afternoon-noon to 4 p.m. Paris, son of Priam, King of Troy, carried off the wife of Menelaus, King of Sparta and thus caused the Trojan War.
The name of the wife, said Lamont, was Helen. A camel is unable to swim owing to the curious anatomical distribution of its weight, which would cause its head to be immersed if the animal were placed in deep water. Capacity in electricity is measured by the farad; one microfarad is equal to one millionth of a farad. A carbuncle is a fleshy excrescence resembling the wattles of a turkey-cock. Sphragistics is the study of engraved seals.
Excellent, remarked Mr. Furriskey with that quiet smile which endeared him to everyone who happened to come his way, but do not overlook this, that the velocity of light in vacuo is 186,325 miles per second. The velocity of sound in air is 1,120 feet per second, in tin 8,150 feet per second, in walnut mahogany and heavy timbers 11,000 feet per second approximately; in firwood, 20,000 feet per second. Sine 15 degrees is equal to the root of six minus the root of two, the whole divided by four. Percentages of £1: 1-1/4 per cent, threepence; 5 per cent, one shilling; 12-1/2 percent, a half a crown. Some metric equivalents: one mile equals 1.6093 kilometres; one inch equals 2.54 centimetres; one ounce equals 28.352 grams. The chemical symbol of Calcium is Ca and of Cadmium, Cd. A Trapezoid may be defined as a four-sided figure capable of being transformed into two triangles by the means of a diagonal line.
Some curious facts about the Bible, Mr. Lamont mentioned politely, the longest chapter is Psalm 119 and the briefest, Psalm 117. The Apocrypha contains 14 Books. The first English translation was published in A.D. 1535.
Some notable dates in the history of the world, observed Mr. Shanahan, B.C. 753, foundation of Rome by Romulus, 490 B.C., Battle of Marathon, A.D. 1498, Vasco da Gama sailed around South Africa and reached India, 23 April 1564 Shakespeare was born.
It was then that Mr. Furriskey surprised and indeed, delighted his companions, not to mention our two friends, by a little act which at once demonstrated his resource and his generous urge to spread enlightenment. With the end of his costly malacca cane, he cleared away the dead leaves at his feet and drew the outline of three dials or clock-faces on the fertile soil in this fashion:
0 0 0 9 \ 1 1 9 9 1 8 \ 2 2 8 8 2 o o. o-,._ 7 3 3 \ 7 7 3 6 4 4 `6 6 4 5 5 5
How to read the gas-meter, he announced. Similar dials to these somewhat crudely depicted at my feet may be observed on any gas-meter. To ascertain the consumption of gas, one should procure pencil and paper and write down the figures nearest to the indicator on each dial – thus in the present hypothetical case 963. To this one should add two zeros or noughts, making the number 96,300. This is the answer and represents the consumption of gas in cubic feet. The reading of the electric-meter for the discovery of consumption in Kilowatt-hours is more intricate than the above and would require the help of six dials fox demonstration purposes – more indeed than I have room for in the space I have cleared of withered leaves, even assuming the existing dials could be adapted for the purpose.
Thereafter these three savant or wise men of the East began to talk together in a rapid manner and showered forth pearls of knowledge and erudition, gems without price, invaluable carbuncles of sophistry and scholastic science, thomistic maxims, intricate theorems in plane geometry and lengthy extracts from Kant's Kritik der reinischen Vernunst. Frequent use was made of words unheard of by illiterates and persons of inferior education exempli gratia saburra or foul granular deposit in the pit of the stomach, tachylyte, a vitreous form of basalt, tapir, a hoofed mammal with the appearance of a swine, capon, castrated cock, triacontahedral, having thirty sides or surfaces and botargo, relish of mullet or tunny roe. The following terms relating to the science of medicine were used with surprising frequency videlicet thyme, exophthalmus, scirrhus, and mycetoma meaning respectively food when acted upon by gastric juices and converted into acid pulp, protrusion of the eye-ball, hard malignant tumour and fungoid disease of hand or foot. Aestho-therapy was touched upon and reference made to the duodenum, that is, the primary part of the small intestine, and the caecum or blind gut. Flowers and plants rarely mentioned in ordinary conversation were accorded their technical or quasi-botanical titles without difficulty or hesitation for instance now fraxinella species of garden dittany, canna plant with decorative blossoms, bifoliate of two leaves (also bifurcate forked), cardamom spice from the germinal capsules of certain East India plants, granadilla passion flower, knapweed hard-stemmed worthless plant, campanulla plant with bell-shaped blossoms, and dittany see fraxinella above. Unusual animals mentioned were the pangolin, chipmuck, echidna, babiroussa and bandicoot, of which a brief descriptive account would be (respectively), scabrous-spined scaly ant-eater, American squirrel aliter wood-rat, Australian toothless animal resembling the hedgehog, Asiatic wild-hog, large Indian insectivorous marsupial resembling the rat.
Moral Effects of Tea-Tasting.
The long-continued use of tea has a distinct effect upon the character. This has been too often noticed and remarked to be questioned. There are tea-sots in every great charitable institution – particularly those for the maintenance of the aged. Their symptoms are generally mental irritability, muscular tremors, and sleeplessness. The following is an account of one of the cases observed. The immediate effects upon him are as follows: In about ten minutes the face becomes flushed, the whole body feels warm and heated and a sort of intellectual intoxication comes on, much the same in character, it would seem, as that which occurs in the rarefied air of a mountain. He feels elated, exhilarated, troubles and cares vanish, everything seems bright and cheerful, his body feels light and elastic, his mind clear, his ideas abundant, vivid, and flowing fluently into words. At the end of an hour's tasting a slight reaction begins to set in; some headache comes on, the face feels wrinkled and shrivelled, particularly about the eyes, which also get dark under the lids. At the end of two hours this reaction becomes firmly established, the flushed warm feeling has passed off, the hands and feet are cold, a nervous tremor comes on, accompanied with great mental depression. And he is now so excitable that every noise startles him; he is in a state of complete unrest; he can neither walk nor sit down, owing to his mental condition, and he settles into complete gloom. Copious and frequent urinations are always present, as also certain dyspeptic symptoms, such as eructations of wind, sour taste, and others. His mental condition is peculiar. He lives in a state of dread that some accident may happen to him; in the omnibus fears a collision; crossing the street, fears that he will be crushed by passing teams; walking on the sidewalks, fears that a sign may fall, or watches the eaves of houses, thinking that a brick may fall down and kill him; under the apprehension that every dog he meets is going to bite the calves of his legs, he carries an umbrella in all weathers as a defence against such an attack.
Conclusion of the foregoing.
From Flann O'Brien's novel At Swim-Two-Birds.
I didn't really read that many new books—by which I mean books published in 2012—this year.
The highlight of the new books I did read was Chris Ware's Building Stories, the moving story of the lives of several people (and a bee!) who live in the titular building (and other places. And other buildings. Look, it's difficult to describe). Building Stories is a strange loop, a collection of 14+ elements (the big box it comes in is part of the puzzle) that allows the reader to reconstruct the narratives in different layers.
I also really dug the second installment of Charles Burns's trilogy, The Hive; Burns and Ware are two of the most talented American writers working right now, suggesting that some of the most exciting stuff happening in American literature is happening in comic books.
Speaking of second installments in ongoing trilogies, I also listened to Hilary Mantel's Bring Up the Bodies, which I liked, and read Lars Iyer's Dogma and liked it as well—sort of like Beavis & Butthead Do America by way of Samuel Beckett.
I read Dogma at the beach the same week I read Michel Houellebecq's The Map & The Territory, an uneven but engaging novel about art; the novel eventuually shifts into a strange murder procedural before exploring a fascinating vision of what a post-consumer future might look like. I dig Houellebecq and look forward to whatever he'll spring on us next.
Another strange book I liked very much was Phi by Giulio Tononi, an exploration of consciousness written as a kind of Dante's Inferno of the brain. A beautiful and perhaps overlooked book of 2012.
Indie presses in general tend to get overlooked—not in the sense that their books don't have a community of readers, but in that their books don't always reach the wider audience they deserve. I liked new books this year by Matt Bell (Cataclysm Baby), Matt Mullins (Three Ways of the Saw), and Jared Yates Sexton (An End to All Things). These books are all very different in style and content, but all marked by precise, unpretentious writing. Good stuff.
Like I said though, I didn't read that many books published in 2012—even when I intended to. Like George Szirtes's English translation of László Krasznahorkai's novel Satantango, for instance. I was right in the middle of something when I got my review copy, and by the time I started it the hype surrounding it was almost unbearable—the sort of palate-clouding noise (to mix and misuse metaphors) that deafens a fair reading. (To be clear: I blame myself. I could easily refrain from Twitter and quit following lit news online). By the time Hari Kunzru documented the hype in a mean-spirited (but hilarious) article forThe Guardian, I knew I'd have to set Satantango aside for a bit. It's worth noting here that Hari Kunzru's own novel Gods without Men had been lingering in my to read stack for some time at that point, but his Satantango article managed to get it shelved. Still, I'm interested in reading it—maybe sometime late next year.
There were plenty of top listed writers who put out books this year that I probably would've been excited to read six or seven years ago or at least feel obligated to read and write about two or three years ago. But by 2012 I just don't care anymore. At the risk of sounding overly dismissive (not my intention), I just can't make time for another middling Michael Chabon novel, or another bloated tome from Zadie Smith, or another empty exercise in style from Junot Diaz, or another whatever from Dave Eggers.
Most of the great new stuff I read in 2012 was really just playing catch up to 2011—I loved Teju Cole's Open City, found Nicholson Baker's House of Holes to be an amusing diversion, and declared Denis Johnson's Train Dreams a perfect novella. I also read Adam Johnson's The Orphan Master's Son, and used it, along with Jeffrey Eugenides's The Marriage Plot as a kind of springboard to discuss lit criticism (which everyone in my particular echo chamber wanted to spar about this year) and what I want from books these days.
Two books I pretty much hated: Joshua Cody's clever but empty memoir [sic] and Alain de Botton's facile self-help book Religion for Atheists.
On the whole though, most of what I read in 2012 was fantastic and most of what I read in 2012 was published before 2012.
The major highlight of the year was finally reading William Gaddis's novels The Recognitions and J R. I also read Gaddis's posthumous novella AgapēAgape, an erudite rant that purposefully echoes the work of Thomas Bernhard, another cult writer I finally got to in 2012. His novels Correction and The Loser challenged me, made me laugh, and occasionally disturbed me.
And while I'm on Bernhard, perhaps I should squeeze in the collection I read by one of his predecessors, Robert Walser, and the poetry collection (After Nature) I read by one of his followers, W.G. Sebald. Both were excellent. And while I'm squeezing stuff in—or perhaps showing how writers lead me to read other writers—I'll admit that I hadn't read Thomas Browne's Urn Burial (referenced heavily in Sebald's The Rings of Saturn) until this year.
Another book that I finally got to this year that blew me away was John Williams's lucid and sad novel Stoner. Reading Stoner, produced one of those can't-believe-I-haven't-read-it-before moments, which I experienced again even more intensely with Flann O'Brien's The Third Policeman, a surreal comic masterpiece which may be the best book I read in 2012. I also finally read—and was blown away by—Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment (why had I not read it yet? Maybe I read it before. Not sure. In any case, if I did read it before it's clear to me that I didn't really read it). I took another shot at Marcel Proust but it didn't take. Again.
Clarice Lispector received some much-deserved attention from the English-speaking world this year when New Directions released four new translations of her work. I found her novella The Hour of the Star sad, funny, and captivating. Also on the novellas-by-South-Americans: I'm working my ways through Alvaro Mutis's Maqroll novellas and they are fantastic.
I also finally got to David Markson's so-called "note card novels," devouring them in a quick stretch. I reviewed the last one, The Last Novel.Markson's novels are often called "experimental," a term I kind of hate, but perhaps serves as easy tag for many of the novels I enjoyed best this year, including Ben Marcus's The Age of Wire and String and Barry Hannah's hilarious tragedy Hey Jack!
Hey, did you know David Foster Wallace wrote an essay on David Markson? The previous sentence is an extremely weak attempt to transition to Both Flesh and Not, a spotty collection from the late great writer; it showcases some brilliant moments along with undercooked material and a few throwaways probably better left uncollected. I fretted about the book on Election Night.
The posthumous book mill also kept pumping out stuff from Roberto Bolaño, including an unfinished novel called The Woes of the True Policeman that seems like a practice sketch for 2666 (I haven't read Woes and don't feel particularly compelled to). I did read and enjoy The Secret of Evil, a book that might not be exactly essential but nevertheless contains some pieces that further expand (and darken and complicate) the Bolañoverse. Going back to that Bolañoverse was a highlight of the year for me—rereading 2666proved to be tremendously rewarding, yielding all kinds of new grotesque insights. I also reread The Savage Detectives, and while it's hardly my favorite by RB, I got more out of it this time.
I also revisited The Hobbit this year and somehow decided it's a picaresque novel. Definitely a picaresque: Blood Meridian, which I reread as well. In fact, I've reread it at least once a year since the first time I read it, and it gets funnier and richer and more devastating with each turn. I also reread Herman Melville's "Bartleby" and tried to make sense out of it. I will reread Moby-Dick next year, although it's not "Bartleby" that sparked the desire—chalk it up to Charles Olson's amazing study Call Me Ishmael.
Olson's study reminds me to bring up some of the nonfiction I enjoyed this year: Stephen Bronner's Modernism at the Barricades, Robert Hughes's Goya biography, the parts of William T. Vollmann's Imperial that I read, Patti Smith's memoir Just Kids,and big chunks of William Gass's collection Finding a Form.
Perhaps the most significant change in my reading habits this year was embracing an e-reader. I got a Kindle Fire for Christmas last year and wound up reading from it—a lot. About half the books I read this year I read on the Kindle. I also read lots of comics on it with my daughter, including all of Jeff Smith's Bone, much of Tintin, and all of Carl Barks's Donald Duck stuff. (I also read several hard to find volumes from Moebius via the Kindle).
And while I love my Kindle and it's become my go-to for night reading (it's lightweight and self-illuminating), I can't see it replacing physical books. To return to where I started: Chris Ware's Building Stories, an innovative, sprawling delight simply would not be reproducible in electronic form. Ware's book (if it is a book (which it is)) reminds us that the aesthetics of reading—of the actual physical process of reading—can be tremendously rewarding as a tactile, messy, sprawling experience.
Perhaps because I've freed myself from the anxiety of trying to write on this blog about everything that I read, and perhaps because I've freed myself from trying to write traditional reviews on this blog, and perhaps because I've freed myself from trying to cover contemporary literary fiction on this blog—perhaps because of all of this, I've enjoyed reading more this year than I can remember ever having enjoyed it before.
In reply to an inquiry, it was explained that a satisfactory novel should be a self-evident sham to which the reader could regulate at will the degree of his credulity. It was undemocratic to compel characters to be uniformly good or bad or poor or rich. Each should be allowed a private life, self-determination and a decent standard of living. This would make for self-respect, contentment and better service. It would be incorrect to say that it would lead to chaos. Characters should be interchangeable as between one book and another. The entire corpus of existing literature should be regarded as a limbo from which discerning authors could draw their characters as required, creating only when they failed to find a suitable existing puppet. The modern novel should be largely a work of reference. Most authors spend their time saying what has been said before – usually said much better. A wealth of references to existing works would acquaint the reader instantaneously with the nature of each character, would obviate tiresome explanations and would effectively preclude mountebanks, upstarts, thimble-riggers and persons of inferior education from an understanding of contemporary literature. Conclusion of explanation.
—From Flann O'Brien's novel At Swim-Two-Birds (1939).
Extract, from my typescript descriptive of Finn Mac Cool and his people, being humorous or quasi-humorous incursion into ancient mythology: Of the musics you have ever got, asked Conan, which have you found the sweetest?
I will relate, said Finn. When the seven companies of my warriors are gathered together on the one plain and the truant clean-cold loud-voiced wind goes through them, too sweet to me is that. Echo-blow of a goblet-base against the tables of the palace, sweet to me is that. I like gull-cries and the twittering together of fine cranes. I like the surf-roar at Tralee, the songs of the three sons of Meadhra and the whistle of Mac Lughaidh. These also please me, man-shouts at a parting, cuckoo-call in May. I incline to like pig-grunting in Magh Eithne, the bellowing of the stag of Ceara, the whinging of fauns in Derrynish. The low warble of water-owls in Loch Barra also, sweeter than life that. I am fond of wing-beating in dark belfries, cow-cries in pregnancy, trout-spurt in a laketop. Also the whining of small otters in nettle-beds at evening, the croaking of small-jays behind a wall, these are heart-pleasing. I am friend to the pilibeen, the red-necked chough, the parsnip land-rail, the pilibeen mona, the bottle-tailed tit, the common marsh-coot, the speckle-toed guillemot, the pilibeen sleibhe, the Mohar gannet, the peregrine plough-gull, the long-eared bush-owl, the Wicklow small-fowl, the bevil-beaked chough, the hooded tit, the pilibeen uisce, the common Corby, the fish-tailed mud-piper, the cruiskeen lawn, the carrion sea-cock, the green-lidded parakeet, the brown bog-martin, the maritime wren, the dove-tailed wheatcrake, the beaded daw, the Galway hill-bantam and the pilibeen cathrach. A satisfying ululation is the contending of a river with the sea. Good to hear is the chirping of little red-breasted men in bare winter and distant hounds giving tongue in the secrecy of fog. The lamenting of a wounded otter in a black hole, sweeter than harpstrings that. There is no torture so narrow as to be bound and beset in a dark cavern without food or music, without the bestowing of gold on bards. To be chained by night in a dark pit without company of chessmen – evil destiny! Soothing to my ear is the shout of a hidden blackbird, the squeal of a troubled mare, the complaining of wild-hogs caught in snow.
Relate further for us, said Conan.
It is true that I will not, said Finn.
A lovely early passage from Flann O'Brien's first novel At Swim-Two-Birds.


text:
Bluefin Tuna Remains Non-Endangered
After an extensive scientific review, NOAA announced that Atlantic bluefin tuna currently do not warrant species protection under the Endangered Species Act.
NOAA has committed to revisit this decision by early 2013, when more information will be available about the effects of the Deepwater Horizon BP oil spill, as well as a new stock assessment from the scientific arm of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas, the international body charged with the fishs management and conservation.
NOAA is formally designating both the western Atlantic and eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean stocks of bluefin tuna as species of concern under the Endangered Species Act. This places the species on a watchlist for concerns about its status and threats to the species.
NOAA is concerned about the status of bluefin tuna, including the potential effects of the Deepwater Horizon BP oil spill on the western stock of Atlantic bluefin, which spawns in the Gulf of Mexico, said Jane Lubchenco, Ph.D., under secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and NOAA administrator. We will revisit the status of the species in early 2013 when we will have a new stock assessment and information from the Natural Resource Damage Assessment of the oil spill. We will also take action in the interim if new information indicates the need for greater protection.
NOAAs status review, released with todays decision and peer-reviewed by The Center for Independent Experts, indicates that based on the best available information and assuming countries comply with the bluefin tuna fishing quotas established by ICCAT, both the western and eastern Atlantic stocks are not likely to become extinct.
The status review team also looked at the best available information on the potential effects of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon BP oil spill on the future abundance of the western stock of bluefin tuna and found that it did not substantially alter the results of the extinction risk analysis. While the NOAA team found that the presently available information did not favor listing, it also recognized the need to continue to monitor the potential long-term effects of the spill on bluefin tuna and the overall ecosystem. New scientific information is expected in a 2012 bluefin tuna stock assessment and as part of the Natural Resources Damage Assessment of the Deepwater Horizon BP oil spill.
Based on careful scientific review, we have decided the best way to ensure the long-term sustainability of bluefin tuna is through international cooperation and strong domestic fishery management, said Eric Schwaab, assistant NOAA administrator for NOAAs Fisheries Service. The United States will continue to be a leader in advocating science-based quotas at ICCAT, full compliance with these quotas and other management measures to ensure the long-term viability of this and other important fish stocks.
NOAA conducted the status review of Atlantic bluefin after determining on Sept. 21, 2010, that a petition for listing under the ESA from a national environmental organization warranted a scientific status review.
To read the status review report on Atlantic bluefin tuna, the federal register notice and other information on bluefin tuna, please go to: http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/stories/2011/05/bluefin_tuna.html
NOAAs mission is to understand and predict changes in the Earth's environment, from the depths of the ocean to the surface of the sun, and to conserve and manage our coastal and marine resources. Find us on Facebook.
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Back in January '10, Dallas-based MumboJumbo -- distributors of Jewel Quest and Bejeweled 2 and a whole bunch of other familiar time-wasters -- was awarded upwards of $4.6 million in actual damages by a Dallas County jury. Long story short: In 2006, MumboJumbo entered into an agreement with Seatt ... More >>
Jesper Juul of the University of Copenhagen recently published the comprehensive history of the "match-three" game -- a la Bejeweled, Luxor and Chuzzle. Which is apropos of nothing, except this morning Dr Pepper and Dallas-based Imaginuity New Media -- which is actually an online ad agency that hand ... More >>
The Xbox Live Arcade is a high-tech twist on the old-fashioned coin-op.


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The Roanoke Citizen's Police Academy Alumni Association will host a charity dinner in support of the Roanoke Food Pantry 6:30 p.m., March 6 at the Trophy Club Country Club.Proceeds from the event will go toward buying a new walk-in cooler and freezer for the pantry.Roanoke Citizen's Police Academy Alumni Association President Oren Zehner said the event will feature more than 100 guests for an evening of fine dining, live and silent auctions. A variety of sponsorship opportunities will be available.The pantry is also accepting tax deductible donations for anyone who can't attend.Individual admission is $35 and tickets may be purchased through the city's website.For more information, contact Detective Sandy Petigrew at firstname.lastname@example.com.
Taylor Prater, 817-390-7964 Twitter: @taylornprater


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In this week's abbreviated "Nittany Nation" episode on Trib Live Radio, we talk with Jeff Rice of Lions247.com.
Jeff has covered Penn State football for 13 seasons, so safe to say he knows what he's talking about and can bring a unique perspective.
We discuss the Penn State defense's strong start to the season, new defensive coordinator Bob Shoop's role in that, the remarkable three games the PSU defensive line has turned in – and the seeming star turn that Lions junior Anthony Zettel has made in moving from defensive end to tackle. Jeff also gives some insight on the wringer the Penn State program has been through and emerged from over the past three years.
Listen here:
Download the podcast here:
Look for stories on Zettel, Penn State's run defense and the Whipple family's ties to Pittsburgh and Penn State in the coming days in the Trib.
Enjoy the rest of your week.