text:
Entitlement: a novel
ECW Press / a misFit book (2008)
- Runner Up Danuta
Gleed Literary Award
- "Best of 2003" January Magazine
From the back jacket…
In these powerful stories the "verandah people" are Jonathan Bennett's own compatriots: Australians for whom the ever-present verandah is both stage and shelter, a retreat from a hostile bushland or city street and a seductive barrier to participation in the wider world. Bennett makes us feel the relentless heat of a cloudless day, smell overripe bush, witness the spectacle of a sudden coastal storm. We feel compassion for Bennett's complex community of Australians, even as they watch the world slip by, longing, from the "safety" of their verandahs.
After Battersea Park: a novel
Raincoast Books (2001)
From the back jacket…
In an astonishing twist on the twins-separated-at-birth story, After Battersea Park narrates the lives of 27-year-old brothers Curt and William, the former a jazz musician living in Sydney, the latter a visual artist in Toronto. The brothers, unknown to each other yet leading parallel lives haunted by absence and the need for escape, are drawn inexorably toward a reunion when a suicide begins to unravel the identity of their true parents and the wrenching events of London's Battersea Park twenty-three years earlier. Part mystery, part love story, Jonathan Bennett's debut novel deftly examines fractured identities, families and cultures in a tale that spans one year, three continents and two generations. As William and Curt conflate and dissolve they wrestle with the twin masters of memory and truth, reason and passion. Here is a contemporary portrait of two men bound by blood and lies, but liberated by a chance to be both whole and wholly understood.
Civil and Civic
(ECW Press, 2011)
from the jacket...
"As accomplished as Jonathan Bennett is at using language, he's never fussy or precious about it. With his exacting, contemporary voice, part colourful reporter, part reluctant witness, his lines gain their effect by serving experience in the most necessary way possible, via clear-eyed attention and vivid diction. The result is an immediacy often lacking in other poetry. Civil and Civic's nimble narratives will crackle in your ear." - David O'Meara
The poems of Jonathan Bennett's second collection, Civil and Civic, probe for present meanings of civility and civic mindedness, search for boundaries between private and public realms, and question the sprawling and often unintended effects of transparency and obligation. Medicine, the military, science, public relations, social justice, media, business, and the environmental movement are just some of the worlds these poems inhabit.
Not without a spirit of play, in Civil and Civic Bennett emerges as a disquieting curator, giving the reader poetry that is relevant, humane, political, investigative, and outward looking. Yet, within which, he supplies voice to private moments, isolated or suppressed incidents, and to the happy accidents that can occur within language when irreconcilable spheres of influence meet and open up new meanings, ideas, hope even.
Read an Excerpt:
Title poem "Civil and Civil" first appeared in the Walrus Magazine.
"Civil and Civic" was included in the ebook anthology: The Best of Walrus Poetry.
From the
back jacket…
Winding their way through places and lives, each undergoing a change of purpose, the poems of Jonathan Bennett's Here is my street, this tree I planted move with seductive language and irresistible drive. As awestruck by the possibilities of change as it is keenly aware of loss, this debut collection rejects the too-easy judgments of navigation guided solely by a single moral compass. With influences as diverse as the poetry of Les Murray and the paintings of Edward Hopper, these poems—linguistically, culturally, emotionally—hitch one end of the globe to the other. Moving, seeking, at times playful, but always revelling in an articulation of transition: Bennett is writing the kind of poetry this country needs—one that is as universal as it is Canadian.
Here's a new poem, "Manual", done for the cool "The Litter I See" project.
Jonathan's poem Palliative Care Reflective Portfolio will appear in Best Canadian Poetry in English 2015, in Fall 2015.
Jonathan's working on poems. And a story or two.
Upcoming Events
Praise for The Colonial Hotel (ECW Press, 2014)
"Unsparing in his depiction of cruelty, brutality and despair, Bennett steers the reader through an exploration of love and grief, the power of storytelling, the pains of parenthood and uncomfortable truths... Jonathan Bennett has cleverly and sensitively described the many types of love tested by war. The result is a rewarding and intensely moving read: deceptively gruelling, given its slim dimensions, but also — like its heroine — devastatingly beautiful."
- National Post
"...a compelling, lyrical novel of love, suffering and reconciliation."
- Winnipeg Free Press
"We are in Graham Greene territory... a solid novel on morality in our not-quite-postcolonial world."
- Globe and Mail
"...this short novel is at once lyrical and brutal, alluring in its spare, elegant prose and shocking in its honest portrayal of the realities of political corruption and duplicitous leadership. Bennett is able to demonstrate the timelessness of the themes of the original classic story in this contemporary setting, offering both emotional depth and universal truths about the human condition."
- Guelph Mercury
"A novel of heroic lives and deaths as a poor tropical nation descends into civil war, The Colonial Hotel blends the personal and political in a haunting indictment of human misery. It is also a very moving story of love and hope amid the ruins, with echoes of Graham Greene and J.M. Coetzee."
- Ronald Wright, CBC Massey Lecturer and author of A Short History of Progress and Henderson's Spear
On Civil and Civic: poems (ECW Press, 2011)
"Bennett's artistry lies in his ability to create poems that shatter
complacency with bricks of loaded language."
- Quill and Quire
"Throughout Civil and Civic, Bennett's words are beautiful and his writing evokes a full range of emotion from a reader. His style creates a feeling of urgency, as if the words needed to be written, to be read and to be understood."
- Scene Magazine
"Bennett's eye for detail renders his poetry truly contemporary and lasting. A master of poetic sound...Bennett's ear is flawless."
- Prairie Fire Review of Books
On Entitlement: a novel (ECW Press, 2008)
"Bennett's storytelling is effortless in its pace and time shifts, and his
dialogue glints like a sharpened knife."
- Walrus Magazine
"[Bennett] can weave a tale and
has the chops to keep it all in a literary vein . . . this is a good book with a
crackerjack ending."
- Globe and Mail
"Entitlement is an
attractive read, and nicely covers a world that goes often uncovered in our own
- National Post
"Fast-paced and packed with poignant plot, it is the type of read that
keeps you on the edge of your seat, as if you were watching a thriller
- Sacramento Book Review
"A brisk Canadian page-turner...Entitlement
embraces the Brideshead themes, but with suspense and drive; I read it in mere
- Philadelphia Weekly
"Told with conscientious pacing and an eerie
final twist."
- Quill & Quire
"A devastatingly earnest examination of power,
secrets, and loyalty between friends. . . . Deftly written suspense ultimately
gives way to an intense, unforgettable conclusion that will have readers
ruminating long after the tale is all told."
- Scene Magazine
"Entitlement weaves together brilliant imagery
of Ontario's cottage country with a gutsy take on the complexity of male
friendship....crafted skilfully and stitched together in some truly riveting
final scenes. Entitlement is an ambitious novel with some brilliant
- Kitchener Waterloo Record
"Was there ever a question that Jonathan Bennett was fast on his way to cementing
his place in Canadian literature? There isn't anymore."
- January Magazine
On Here is my street, this tree I planted: poems (ECW Press, 2004)
ideas are vividly demonstrated in tightly-written poems so compressed, so
chock-full of vibrant imagery and sense impressions that they evoke the
powerful, timeless works of Dylan Thomas."
- January Magazine
Bennett's poetry debut, Here Is My Street, This Tree I Planted, invokes a
striking poetic language in constructing the urban and natural landscapes of
Canadian and Australian culture. Bennett roots his reader firmly in location in
order to explore familiar themes of displacement, identity, and "home." The
transition of locale offers further considerations of these constructs as
shifting esoteric spaces we occupy. Beyond the lyrical language, regard for
form, and cultural insight of this collection is the humour, tragedy, and
aesthetic triumph that furnish both everyday life and good poetry."
- TaddleCreek
"A good debut."
- Matrix
On Verandah People: stories (Raincoast, 2004)
"unsettling, raw and vivid...with ravishing language, Bennett's
ability to animate lives within a landscape that dwarfs the human, makes for a
memorable read."
- Kirkus Review
"Bennett has a way with a sentence . . . A minimalist with a deft,
sure touch, he does a lot with a little, flinging a swaying bridge between the
realm of ordinary prose and incandescent poetry."
- Edmonton Journal
builds his narratives from the nerves up... he has a naturalist style,
punctuated with flashes of lyricism and compelling imagery, and a demonstrated
gift for characterization, for revealing personality through an accumulation of
detail and action."
- Toronto Star
replicates his hometown, capturing the language, the character, the climate,
and the culture with an insider's intimacy. Australia is indivisible from these
stories, much like the south of the United States in Flannery O'Connor's
stories, or the city and suburbs of Prague from Milan Kundera's work. To read
the talented Bennett's work is to breathe in the eucalypts, hear the magpies
warble, and occasionally flinch at a kind of rough justice."
- Powells.com
Bennett's characters, who make their brief, but intense appearances
across the various verandahs, are detailed with a compassionate eye, then are
compelled to move, inexorably, each to her or his own personal precipice.
Bennett denies his characters shelter, indeed, turns them inside out in savage
imagery. He pursues his theme ruthlessly... Ordinary, everyday situations
gather with the abruptness of storm clouds in the Australian coastal sky, to climax
in terror, separation, loss."
- The Globe and Mail
"Bennett's tremendous talent shines in passages brimming with
sensuality. [These stories] evoke the continent's harsh and exhilarating
environment with striking images that transcend mere physical description."
- Quill and Quire
On After Battersea Park: a novel (Raincoast, 2001)
" …
written in dreamlike prose … offbeat, low-key, [a] surprisingly resonant
- Booklist
characterizations of the twins as extensions of each other through genetic code
builds toward Coltrane's ideal of a yearning searching climax. If resolution
evades the search, or, indeed, redefines itself through the search, in After
Battersea Park Jonathan Bennett has left both character and reader with—as he
beautifully puts it—"loss, such gorgeous loss.""
- Literary Review of Canada
"There is a
tenderness here, and a respect for the characters. This is not to say that
After Battersea Park is without artifice or technique. Bennett is a skilled
enough writer to vary cadence and rhythm, slipping from an almost documentary
style into a convincing lyricism when the situation demands."
- Quill & Quire
"Bennett is a skilful and
modest storyteller, gently leading the reader into the epicentre of the twins
quiet grief … After Battersea Park is remarkably sophisticated first
- Hamilton Spectator
Wrote a new poem for Paul Vermeersch's cool project.
Margaritas on a secluded Mexican beach. I blow through Ishiguro's The Buried Giant in a sitting or two. I'd grabbed it, albeit tentatively, at the airport, knowing that I admire Ishiguro but don't like fantasy. Ultimately, what was going on beneath the surface of Arthurian dragons and ogres, was too easily recognizable. If you are going to write a book about the subjective nature of memory in this day and age, you'd better remember to bring along something new. By the book's end, I'd decided he wasted his time and deadly talent by swimming in fantasy's shallow pool. Too constrained, picked-over, and, well, fantastical for me to emotionally connect.
In a guest's common room (faded prints of Rivera, damp packs of Uno cards) I rummaged through the castoff beach reads of those who'd been here before me. Grim pickings. Finally, I spot Jim Harrison's Dalva.
Do scholars read this now through a post-colonial lens? Is this a feminist book? Why have I never been to Nebraska? Again, a book about memory, loss and inner and outer journies. But it's everything the Ishiguro wasn't. Dalva is one of those characters you just feel like you've known forever. Her pain (felt and known) is deeper, her sexuality (inner and expressed) is more forceful, and her connection to country (physical and memorized) is so utterly believable that I just fell for her, and this book.
No doubt this all says more about the reader than the books read, but I admire when you can feel an author take huge emotional risks, and in Dalva Harrison did just that. It's been years since I've read any Harrison. Why? No excuse. Thank you to my fellow traveler who left it for me to find. I needed it.
A poem I wrote for a great project and cause.
Lakefield College School Saturday July 11, 2015 2:30 pm
Join me as I interview these two writers – 4:00pm, Sunday Apr 26 at Christ Church Cathedral in Ottawa - "In this incredibly moving memoir, Kristine Barnett shares her family's journey with Jacob's autism. A story about one mother's unrelenting faith and determination, it's required reading for anyone who's ever been told they can't." - Chatelaine
great time reading at Laurentian in Barrie this week. Thanks @adamyael.
Some kind words from @imruthwalker on The Colonial Hotel @ecwpress. "I really like ancient mythology and how echoes appear so often in contemporary work. But it is not always successful and can be downright clumsy. Happily, Jonathan Bennett…"
Pics from George and Elisabeth's wedding in St. John's.
new poem, audio and text, in The Puritan Magazine.
Kind words from @adamyael on The Colonial Hotel. @ecwpress https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1019743834?book_show_action=false&page=1
Sunday September 21, 2014
Queen's Park Circle
11am - 6pm
Globe and Mail Review: The Colonial Hotel "A solid novel on morality in our not-quite-postcolonial world"
The wonderful @cfischerguy reviews Colonial Hotel: "Bennett is a poet and a novelist, and there is a spare and disciplined beauty to the prose. Here is Helen: "I am stolen land, erased language, an echo of rapes long ago…I become an idea of myself, of Helen, and I haunt them, poison their dreams." Bennett is keenly aware of the tradition into which he casts his novel, and pays it homage."
Colonial Hotel reviewed at Ardor Magazine.
Join us at the Luminato literary picnic.
"…this short novel is at once lyrical and brutal, alluring in its spare, elegant prose and shocking in its honest portrayal of the realities of political corruption and duplicitous leadership. Bennett is able to demonstrate the timelessness of the themes of the original classic story in this contemporary setting, offering both emotional depth and universal truths about the human condition."
Julie reads, and enjoys, The Colonial Hotel. @ecwpress
Paul Vermeersch and I in TO this week.
Jonathan Bennett's latest is a rewarding and intensely moving read
It's the @ecwpress spring lit launch on Monday night, May 12. in Toronto. I'll be reading with a bunch of great writers. Come. All welcome.
Helen of Troy tale retold in modern times - via @winnipegnews http://shar.es/SttF1 @ecwpress
A couple of moments from my Monday reading at the @Writersfest in Ottawa, with @Miriamtoews and @Arjunbasu.
Peterborough Launch event for The Colonial Hotel: a novel. May 8. 7-9pm. at Fulfords @ Fleming College. Everyone Welcome.
The Colonial Hotel meet the world…
Something about this fine novel, the voice, the rurality, the subtle sadness of it, reminded me of Coetzee's Waiting for the Barbarians. The intimacy of it, brought to mind Malouf's Conversations at Curlow Creek. In any case, it's much deserving of its praise and Booker short list.
Reading Crace is effortless. Even the older English peppered in this novel is so contextualized, you feel as if these are commonly known words, found in your mouth often, as opposed to linguistic artifacts. As a point of view, the older, vulnerable outsider (Walter Thirsk) is a comfortable pocket in which to perch and witness the destruction of a way of life. Crace shows us how humans, then as now, fear outsiders, resist change, inflate the unknown, form alliances, protect their own, only to fight or flight–depending on their lot–when it comes right down to it.
Crace is retiring. How a writer with this much to say can do this seems unlawful. Yet, if this is his last, what a fine parting gift he's left us with.
Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer's All the Broken Things is a breakthrough book if ever there was one. I couldn't put it down, and the story, one that is deeply human and profound, is alive around me now as I write. I suppose it's a coming of age novel. A teenager confronts his past, goes feral, emerges changed but wiser, of age and steadier. The adult characters in the book were wonderful. Odd, tender, mean, untrustworthy, trustworthy, fully alive. But the best aspect of it for me was how smelly it all was. Fecund and ripe and overwhelmed with the scents available and particular to bear and boy, it was the way Kuitenbrouwer wrote the physical that moved me so. The texture of the bears, the fighting, the boy's face buried in the fur, the pull of nature and of its opposite (sweet processed foods) were all so rich and convincingly done. It was so earthy, so grounded in the feel and taste and smell, that I was reminded how much fiction writing today is only visual, only surface shimmer, angles, language. If readers struggle to frame this book, calling it "weird" or "dreamlike" I think it's because we experience it, as much as read it, and that's not as familiar as it ought to be. Finally, the play within the play, as it were, was almost showing off—I was dazzled.
I will be foisting this one at many people in the months ahead. And, I shall give Kathryn a huge bear hug when I next see her.
I'm not sure if the forthcoming 2014 North American release of Evie Wyld's second novel, All the birds, Singing will smoke out the right reviewers. It may have to wait years for the academics to really serve it up properly. In any case, its UK and Australian release garnered much praise from reviewers this past year. But, I'm not really sure the best things about this book were properly unpacked by the newspapers. So, while my thoughts here are only that, thoughts—this is not a review—I can't get this book out of my head so, please, allow me to set down a few nagging things for the sake of it.
On the strength of her excerpt in the recent Granta Top 40 issue, I ordered myself a copy of All the birds, Singing from the UK. As I often do, I read the book, then read a dozen reviews from around the world (largely from England and Australia.) Reassuringly, they confirmed what I'd read and thought. With a few quibbles here and there—mostly ones I didn't share (literary admiration is soft and general; its opposite pointy and narrow)—for me the reviews all rang the same (too easy) opening bell, further alerting us to this young author as "the real thing".
To which I would say: yep, okay, we get it; it's there, we all see it. I would suggest she's asking us to think now, read deeply, and to stop simply pointing.
As a novelist who, like Wyld, is also from Australia but doesn't live there, I was easily drawn to this novel. I listened to a beautiful ABC interview she gave with Miyuki Jokiranta (gush, every author dreams of interviewers like her) and was further convinced Wyld's was a literary mind I'd like to get to know.
This book divides its time between Australia and England. I'd describe the prose as taut and polished, rather than poetic or lyrical per se. It is, to my ear, an Australian novel (as opposed to a British one). Why say this? Well, there have been flattering comparisons to Ian McEwan and Iain Banks, but for me this is early groping, especially by English reviewers, who don't perhaps recognize or know exactly what they are reading. The key and rhythms are not British—even the UK sections of the book are written with an Australian, i.e., an outsider's, sensibility. So, there are more accurate, Australian, comparisons. Closer in kinship, then, is Tim Winton's stories from The Turning or his novel The Riders (and a number of reviewers in Australia made that connection.)
But even then, it must be said, just because Wyld is exploring a male-centred, often violent, and Gothic tradition, doesn't mean this book must be understood within the context of male writers. Where it once was man versus nature, Wyld's it's stepped up to: woman versus nature all-the-while escaping man.
So for me, Wyld is more a direct descendant of that other, transnational Australian writer, Janette Turner Hospital—a similar, darkened story frame, with control (at a sentence-level) to burn. What was not addressed by any of the reviews I read (even by one of my favourite poets, Kathleen Jamie), but will be (eventually) by the academics no doubt, is that surely this is a novel to read within a feminist lens. The perfectly contextualized sexual violence, itself, is a topic for thought—but more even, was the writing about sex—graphically yet without, appropriately, a trace of eroticism, romance, or pleasure. Others have the right qualifications to take a go at all this, but Wyld somehow got profoundly into the sad, brittle, but at times gorgeous pain, of her main character. Especially when the two prostitutes huddled together in their Darwin room—in one of the novel's few tender, calm counterpoints, that showed Jake feeling something like warmth, a proto-love almost, for another person.
I was, perhaps weirdly, reminded of the surfie cult classic from the 70's Puberty Blues (you can take the boy out of Cronulla…) Like that one, this too is a kind of emancipation novel—a word that has a resonant history in Australia. And Wyld bravely pushes it all the way, by giving mysterious physical scars to her main character Jake. When we learn how the scars came about, well, an Australian can only read these as the metaphorical scarring of history, at least of the "damned whores and god's police" reading of it, and we feel the cat-o-nine tails, the convict lashings, being doled out to the innocent, and who must then carry this burden, all the way back to the motherland, no less. Wonderful stuff.
And, I will just say quickly, that embedded in this section of the novel is a very game play, where an aboriginal boy is—as it were—repeatedly cast against literary type. If briefly, Wyld walks right up to a very sensitive cultural and racial line here, but plays it straight and true, in part with flashes of cheeky humour (was he just taking "a" piss, or was the author taking "the" piss?), and by ensuring her boy has little real agency in the novel.
While this book could have been double the length it was likely stronger for its precision. Personally, I'm not sure she nailed the ending (she went with the tidier screenplay version, as opposed to the darker, ambiguous one for which I was rooting as the end drew closer). But, there is so much in this book that wants serious readers. As it finds its place, I hope it nestles alongside Hospital's work as important Australian writing, by women, that addresses violence and fear and manipulation and history, but also how writerly distance and remove, make for useful ballast.
How about a seasonal poem …
Douglas Fir
This hill, twists and ice-slick, is no place for a Corolla.
Somehow we make it to the Douglas Fir, in rows,
as if advancing into the blades of the irritable hoards
wielding chainsaws, housedogs, bundled children.
Later, I'm at the recipe for my family's pudding,
circa 1890s Scotland and having survived a century
of fiddling in Australia — calls for dry fruit by the pound
that I mince and cut until I take the top off my thumb.
After, faint, I sip rum, see baby Jesus float past on a flatbed.
There is no snow, the sky is late light, cloud-pressed gold
and green with nothing left but an agreeable covet for tinsel,
someone's baby girl in a velvet dress to be the angel.
All mouth the archaic words, tunes flowering like paper whites
from hidden speakers in chain stores, ra pa pa pum!
My family's boozy pudding. What happened to crackers,
those paper crowns inside? The blood throbs about my cut.
I crave the torrent of explanations at gift giving. It's peace,
of a kind. Absent. Minded. Negotiated with each present.
© Jonathan Bennett, from Here is my street, this tree I planted (ECW Press, 2004)
I can do it myself.
Birds on the wire.
Advance review copies of The Colonial Hotel have arrived. Nice. @ecwpress
Old Bookninja himself (left) and myself last week at the Wildwriters Festival in Waterloo, ON. George had proposed marriage to Elizabeth only hours earlier and so was in an animated, if relieved, mood.
About two thirds the way through Paul Harding's new, second novel, Enon, I suddenly wondered if I was reading a refashioned, reshaped secondary story that he'd written as a part of Tinkers but had decided to cut due to its tonal difference, and therefore distraction, from that first novel's core promise. I have no idea if this is anywhere close to true, and likely isn't, but Enon, is a bit strange, a novel of stasis and inaction. But, still gorgeous and sad. If anyone else had written it, or had Harding done so as his his first book, then we'd be reading very breathy reviews, and words like "promising". Instead, as a follow up to one of the very best books I've read, well, ever, it was weak. Hard when one is one's own high water mark, I assume.
Still, I choose to ignore what is wrong with it. Why? Because, it's irrelevant. Harding is the long game. It's so obvious what is wrong with Enon, (read any review, they all get it more or less right – fish in that barrel really) that Harding will more than recover, internalize, process and improve upon what he's done here. How could he not? Tinkers was an extended prose-poem-of-a-novel that was so beautiful I think I read the whole thing aloud, more or less, to anyone who would listen. I know I will read everything he writes. His prose line, even within a lesser novel that is more open and much less taut, is still so good it kind of doesn't matter to me that Enon isn't perfect. (Yes, the name…eventually you leave his character's explanation of the town's name, get a touch Dickensian, hear Anon, and Non, and eventually see it as "None" spelled backwards, of course. I confess this took me way too long.)
Anyway, despite its shortcomings, it still must be read–fathers everywhere will find much in it. The prose is beautiful often enough to warrant it. Plus, the story of Paul Harding as a writer, and where and how he goes next, is the larger, more important thing for this reader.
As Michael Lista suggests in his preface, there really is something special about seeing one's poem in the Walrus Magazine. It's the reach of the thing. It's the mainstream readership. But, mostly, it's that your poem is the only one in the issue. So, should someone feel like a poem, well, it's going to be yours. I was delighted the title poem of my last collection Civil and Civic was chosen for inclusion in the Walrus in 2011. Now, Lista has just released a 10 year anniversary e-book anthology (free download for your favourite e-reader) and my poem snuck into it. Check it out. I'm among some very fine company: The Best of The Walrus Poetry.
Michael Winter knows how to build fiction. He takes it outdoors. He drinks alongside it. He makes his main men vulnerable but plucky—his main women much the same way, but smarter, with higher paying jobs. He's very good at hurt, hurtfulness, accidents, and harm. He employs metaphor, consistently, that has immediate utility. Yet, each also echoes, tying moments back and across the narrative that give his prose—simple, clean, with just the right amount of Newfoundland vernacular—an earned density, a majesty perhaps. He's also witty, in small unexpected ways.
Minister Without Portfolio, his newest outing, is my first time back to Michael Winter in a few books (sorry Michael). I was curious to see where he's at. This is a novel by a fully formed writer, now working at the top of his game. One can make such a pronouncement because this compelling story is not really a story per se. There isn't a plot in the conventional sense. Rather, Winter has compiled characters undergoing change, with the action of the everyday, doused it in history, clearly pulled from real life as and when needed, and called it novel. And, in his hands, it's a great one. In lesser hands, it'd be awful.
How does he do it, then? Keep our attention, give the book shape, without relying on common plot devises? (While there are devastatingly good set pieces that have narrative drive for sure, he has no need for cheap cliffhangers or drawn-out, suspense trickery. This is no blueprint for a screen play is what I'm trying to say.)
He does it three ways, I think. First, he notices the details and makes sure that every one of them does double duty—at least. In Minister shoes, to pick one of many examples, become important—they are dug up, lost, melted on. Shoes take on meaning then, they become more than themselves. He also controls nature. The sea, winter, gardens, storms, fog, fire, rain, horses, dogs, they all repeat and repeat in call and response to one another. This book is a literary enclosure, it is it's own reason.
Second, men labour. In a world of white collar, urban, fiction, it's energizing to read about men re-shingling a house, knocking down a chimney, gutting a fish, or digging a well, or suffering industrial accidents, or going to Alberta for work way underground in a mine, or to Afghanistan to be plumbers and contractors. One is reacquainted with the dignity of work, honest money earned with the body proper. Winter doesn't make a fetish of it, nor is he some kind of modernist throwback. No, he just acquires the place and act of it, with the right nouns (the language and tools and supplies of the trades) and those ancient anglo-saxon verbs, so often pointed to as essential but so rarely engaged these days in other books, due to hipster characters stuck in cubical jobs.
Do I have any quibbles, well, yes, but I'll keep them private. This isn't a review; I'm writing because I feel the need. Besides, no point distracting from the task at hand. I'm shouting out that this is a winning novel with a gorgeously unfamiliar shape—but it's built the old fashioned way, on the complex constructions of self, by asking questions about the relative purposes of manhood; on the idea of, or need for, community; on the interplay between trust and commitment; and, dare I say it, on country.
Bravo Michael Winter. I look forward to the next one.
Here is the cover for my forthcoming novel, The Colonial Hotel. It'll be released in Spring 2014, by ECW Press.
Novelist Peter Darbyshire (aka Peter Roman, these days) and I go a long way back. So far back, that I was reminiscing about our old days not long ago during an interview with John Degen on his BookRoom podcast.
Today I received the following email from Darbyshire, er, Roman:
"I was driving along the wilds of Highway 3 between Osoyoos and Langley listening to your Book Room interview. It had just reached the part about your days at Western when I came around a corner doing 80 or so and saw a deer running down the other side of the road. Knowing this was a CanLit moment if I'd ever seen one, I slammed on the brakes just as the deer decided to run directly in front of me. I face planted against the inside of the windshield, everything in the back seat moved to the front seat, and you continued on about Atwood or some such thing. The mountains looked on, unmoved as always."
Now, if this was really Canlit, and not real life, he would have died. Slowly. The last words he would have heard…uttered by Degen, that sage of all ages. The mountains would have been unmoved, indeed. But the deer, the deer's role, this is less certain. I believe the deer is the open, creative element in this that can be played with. The flexibility Canlit offers, it's enough to make one want to write something new, yet something that's been done many times before….
Coetzee publishes a new novel and most reviewers flail. They eagerly (why?) self-identify in one of two camps, as either fools, or else as too smart to be tricked. (Many have a foot firmly planted in both, see the Irish Times.) If one really searches, there are, thank god in the case of this book (pun intended), a few very smart ones (such as in the Sydney Morning Herald). Luckily, I am long cured of reviewing. Still there is a little something I wanted to mention for anyone interested…
Despite what you may be told by your favourite, trustworthy Coetzee reviewer (as I say, each seemingly more eager than the last to publicly expose themselves as feeble minded or confused or prematurely definitive) The Childhood of Jesus will need time to properly settle. If it's a major work by a major writer, and I believe it to be, then it is still in deep conversation with literature itself. That is to say, it's interacting with other important books and that conversation has only just begun. (It's new to the party you see, and those earlier books are still sorting it out, poking it, interrogating it, making sure it's the right sort, slotting it somewhere appropriate to reside.)
This process is distinct, although not of course wholly disconnected, from what occurs on the pages of book sections around the globe. But think of reviewing as early gossip. It is all most books receive of course—a bit of natter. But then, most books are not important.
Why do I think this is an important book? Because it resists simple reading. It is about me as its reader, and all that I've read and know and understand, as much as it is about itself, and its own story. It's structure is also mysterious to me, episodic and yet not at all. The type of narrative it is, is unsettling: an immigrant story, a dystopian tale, a meta fictional play, or perhaps some mystical, or allegorical sub-structure that is resistant to full knowing? Not sure yet. Time and many, many more readers will help, though.
In any case, there are only ever a few great writers living. We are, therefore, relatively unpracticed at this—receiving an important book into the world. It is hard to read new books with the kind of reserved reverence or respect with which we approach, what we know in advance to be, a major work of literature. Still, my advice would be in this case to try. Come at it with humility and see what it will provide for you. Don't judge it, let it be and be with it. You too will be one of its early readers. From there, over time, we can collectively understand and accept or debate, its strengths and weaknesses. Thinking takes time and perseverance. This is literature. It moves at a slower speed.
While I'm at it with Coetzee, before I immersed myself in The Childhood of Jesus I read the recently published book of correspondence between Paul Auster and JM Coetzee. It's a warm, delightful book. Two smart, interesting men who are passing the final post—the one that signals they may stop caring much what anyone thinks about them—and so freed, their fine friendship warms the page and their probing minds worry over what faces us all. Clearly, I must read Auster next.
"You understand that a book always reveals things about an author that the author himself is not aware of. Attitudes. Assumptions. Cultural blind spots. Down here in the Antipathies, as a consequence, we have an advantage or two. We know how Here looks from Over There, because they keep telling us what they see and we've always had to listen. But we also know how Over There looks from Here, and they don't, which gives us a tactical edge."
- Oyster, Janet Turner Hospital
It used to be that waiting, rejection, indifference and silence were honoured and, indeed, essential aspects of professional, literary writing. And, that if a writer was serious enough, and good enough, over the years bits and pieces of success might accumulate. No guarantees, though. It was understood that this business was never supposed to be fair or democratic. But the world has changed, some argue. There should be no barrier to entry. All writing is worthy writing. All efforts are valid. It's about the act and interest, not the outcome or ability. And, some of my writer colleagues at TWUC appear to agree.
While I am sympathetic to the pain caused by the effort writing takes, for me, I'm not so sure we are in some new era. By removing so many barriers to entry, self-publishing also deletes an essential component in the writing of important literary work: time. If no one shelves a rejected novel anymore (indeed, if there no longer is such a thing as a rejected novel), if small presses all die because the do-it-yourself-craze makes them redundant, the world will have fewer great, even half-decent, works of literature. And we already have so few.
For me, TWUC is jumping the gun. I'll be voting against it and I hope that this proposal does not get the needed 2/3rds vote by TWUC's members. Because, while it will, over time, allow many, many self-published writers in the front door (they have shown a willingness to pay for things after all), you can count some number of current members to exit quietly via the back. Can you blame them? It'll be a far looser union with obvious factions and frictions to be played out in the next few years. Not time well spent, to my mind…
Here's a new poem, just published in the online Australian journal Cordite Poetry Review. Thanks to my friend, fellow ex-pat Nat O'Reilly for inviting me down to Texas a while back, where this poem found its origins. And, thanks to the Australian poet Gig Ryan for choosing it–(check out her interesting editorial for this issue).
There is something about standing at a microphone and reading new poems. Words arranged just so only days ago can suddenly feel not quiet so.
Two weeks back I read at the Pivot in Toronto. Nice crowd; cool host. People kindly listened to a clutch of my new poems. Some passed the test. Others, well, let's just say that as I was reading outwardly, I began editing inwardly.
This is why I read publicly between books. I like to "strength-test" (to borrow from auditors) my poems before people. The people don't have to do or say anything. Their presence creates enough gentle pressure that unfinished poems self-disclose.
A kind review of my last book of poems, Civil and Civic, in Prairie Fire Review of Books. Here's an excerpt:
"Bennett's eye for detail renders his poetry truly contemporary and lasting. A master of poetic sound…Bennett's ear is flawless….Why this collection was not nominated for the Governor General's Award can be only because of the exceptionally strong competition last year. I have no doubt, provided Bennett keeps writing like this, that he will one day not only be nominated for but win some prestigious awards." - Prairie Fire Review of Books
Some very kinds words there Mr. Cunningham. Thank you.


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An Impressive Loft in Gazi - Athens
Size150 m²
Floor No.4(with elevator)
- Family/child friendly
- Internet/WiFi
- Kitchen
- Air conditioning
- Washer/dryer
- Indoor fireplace
- Elevator in building
|Megalou Alexandrou, 11854 Athens, Greece
|Property type
|Property ID
|Acceptance rate
|Response time
|A few hours
|Calendar updated
The idea of the designer to create this Hi-End Loft is based on the necessity for ameliorating the luxurious tourist services with an affordable price. It is very modern decorated and fully furnished from very well known designers. This is a very interesting house with large single highceilinged rooms in two levels where at the first level are developed the reception area, cozy Living room, ergonomic kitchen, a bedroom and at the second level the master bedroom with bathroom. The house has autonomous heating air conditioning security door double glazing storage and panoramic views.
There is one bedroom with king size bed, one bedroom with a double sofa bed and 2 luxury bathrooms. The kitchen is also fully equipped. Big closets will make your stay more comfortable. Bed linen and towels, cutlery, dishes, pans, wifi internet and all electric devices are provided. There is boiler which provides 24 hours hot water. The apartment is very close to the Historical center of Athens , to greek traditional tavernas, pharmacies, banks and public transport. The nearest metro station is only 200 m. away from the apartment.
Only 200 m away from the apartment , there are bus stations from where you can take a bus to the city center, to the south or northern suburbs.
There are a plethora of available options for nightlife, including bars, ouzeries, and tavernas. Outdoor seating on pedestrian walks is typical, creating a lively atmosphere at night. The main Syntagma Square, Thisseion, Monastiraki and Plaka are surrounded by cafes and restaurants.
Your host George is a genuine , openhearted Athenian who will treat you with the traditional Greek hospitality and can arrange for you tailor made day trips in and around Athens.Number of services on request available, including personal trainer and spa treatments.
Airport transport or any other transport is available upon demand at an additional but very reasonable cost.
The Gazi area, one of the latest in full redevelopment, is located around a historic gas factory, now converted into the Technopolis cultural multiplex, and also includes artists' areas, small clubs, bars and restaurants. The metro's expansion to the western suburbs of the city has brought easier access to the area since spring 2007, as the blue line now stops at Gazi (Kerameikos station).
|Price for > 4 guests
|25 NZ$ per guest/night extra
|Check-in after
|Check-in before
|On arrangement
|Check-out before
|Cancellation Policy
Das Appartement ist sehr gut gelegen, sofern man auf U- Bahn angewiesen ist und feiern gehen möchte, etwa 5 Minuten zu Fuß bis zur U-Bahn Station Kerameikos, welche an der Platia, umgeben von zig Bars und Restaurants.
Es gibt einen Lift und einen feinen Balkon auch das Doppelbett im oberen Bereich ist ordentlich, es war sauber wenn auch abgewohnt und die Dusche leider auch nicht sehr gepflegt aber sauber.
Das notwenidigste ist auch da Microwelle, Nespressomaschine, Bügeleisen
Was uns nicht gepaßt hat war das der obere Bereich keine Tür hatte, das zweite Zimmer unten ist wirklich klitzeklein und hat nur eine alte Ausklappbare Schlafcouch, auf der sich 2 Erwachsene in die Quere kommen.
Es ist extrem laut! im EG ist eine Bar und gegenüber ist ein Freiluftkino wie auch Clubs in der Nachbarschaft sorgen für wummernde Bässe mitten in der Nacht.
Für jeden nur 1 Hand- und 1 Duschtuch bei uns für 5 Nächte fand ich auch echt zu wenig.
Wen das nicht stört, kann dort eine feine Zeit verbringen, wir würden jedoch empfehlen nicht mit mehr als 3 Erwachsenen oder 2 Erwachsenen und 2 Kindern zu mieten, da das zweite Zimmer echt eng ist für 2 Erwachsene.
Die Wohnung entspricht voll und ganz der Beschreibung! Sie ist großzügig, hell und liegt in einem sehr schönen Athener Viertel mit netten Restaurants und Cafés in unmittelbarer Nachbarschaft. Die Akropolis, die Agora und das Touristenviertel Plaka sind zu Fuß zu erreichen, wenn man Lust auf einen ca. 20 minütigen Spaziergang durch Athen hat. Da aber auch die U-Bahn in unmittelbarer Nähe ist, kann man natürlich auch damit bequem durch Athen fahren.
Wir haben uns rundum wohl gefühlt, wozu auch der äußerst freundliche Service von George und seinen Mitarbeitern beigetragen hat.
I would definately recommed the Apartment to everyone. It is fully renovated and modern decorated. George was a perfect Host and always very helpful.
The location is unbeatable for sure. Great Areas like Plaka, Acropolis, Monastiraki, Kolonaki are all within walking distance, from 1 minute away to a maximum of 15 minutes.
Athens in general is allways worth it to go there.
Thanks George. See you next time in Athens.
The apartment Georges offers is excellent. The interior is very nice and the 3 bethrooms are specious. The balcony gives you a great view over Athens and the harbour and so is a nice spot to relaxe after a long day of sight seeing.
The metro station Ag. Dimitrios is only a 15 minutes walk, and from there it is an easy ride to Athens centre. Supermarkets are just a 5 minutes walk away to do some shopping.
George gave a very good support on questions / demands from our side.
Best regards Paul de Jonge
The location is unbeatable - a quiet side street, but seconds from the Acropolis site, museum and the adjoining metro, Easy walks to all the major sites. The flat is nice - a decent size, good bathroom, clean, well appointed. Its a raised ground floor flat, so the views either way aren't much, but you only have to turn the corner for views of Hadrian's Temple or the Acropolis.
Although this property is not the most convenient to the center of Athens, if you have business in the northern suburbs, as we did, it is the perfect spot. The neighborhood is clean, with many restaurants and shops within walking distance, including a big A/B. There is a big park with a well maintained fenced playground nearby as well, which my daughter enjoyed. The apartment itself is very large and thoughtfully stocked, with a comfortable, well-equipped kitchen. While we had trouble with one of the toilets, everything else was fine. Beds were extremely comfortable, and it was quiet at night. The building felt secure and the neighborhood felt safe. We asked for cleaning and a friendly woman called Ellie came and did a thorough job for not much money. Management was responsive to requests. The metro is a 15 minute walk away, though it is down some steep streets and they are harder to walk on the way back! Once there it is very quick into the center.
The apartments are really excellent. We stayed (3 adults and 1 infant) for 5 days. Good location-3 stops by underground to the historical centre in a good and calm district, very quite in the night, air condition works perfect, good equipment, washing machine, balcony, grill. Very helpful owner of the apartments, enough space for 2 families. Near is supermarket and farmacy. Excellent for people with small children. Internet works a little bit slowly (low speed): it's enough for searching but impossible to watch movie. We definitely would stay there next time there.
The host cancelled the booking, this review is automated.
Very well equiped, with everything you need to cook and spend a few days. Very nice place!
In July 2015 we - 6 happy Danes - spent a wonderful week in this luxury Apartment beautiful placed on top of a steep Road providing us with the most fantastic view over all of Athens - including Acropolis! The Apartment contents everything you need for a nice stay abroad - well equipped kitchen with refrigerator, freezer, dishwasher, microwaven and washingmachine - all new and in a good condition. The Apartment was light and spacy and very clean and - most important - very well airconditioned! We were treated most kindly by the elderly woman living in the ground flat and the very sweet woman living on first floor. The area is very cosy with a lot of small - but all very steep roads. During the day there's some traffic in the area, but things settle down during the evening and night - and nobody was kept awake due to noisy traffic. The nearest metro stations is Dimitrios and Dafni both 1.2km from the flat - about 20 minutes walk. It is convinient and easy to go by metro - even all the way to the AirPort. From Dafni station its easy to get a taxi to the flat for the most fair Price of around 3 Euros. We will highly recommend the Apartment .... And wonderful Athens!
- Quality assured accommodation
- Every host is verified by telephone
- Secure payment via SSL encryption


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Live updates
- ITV Report
Hoffman's death latest Hollywood loss connected to drugs
Glee offers tributes to actor Cory Monteith
TV musical comedy series Glee bade farewell to its much-loved character Finn Hudson, played by the late Cory Monteith, with tearful tributes of songs and remembrance.
Monteith, 31, died in July after an accidental drug overdose, although the Glee tribute on Fox television avoided questions over his death.
In an episode called The Quarterback, the writers, who often look into serious topics, gave no cause of death for his character and chose not to send a message to viewers on the dangers of drug abuse.
Glee actress Jane Lynch said: "Our friend Cory didn't look or act like an addict. He was happy, successful and seemingly had it all."
Empty bottles and used needle found in hotel room
A used needle, a spoon with drug residue and two empty champagne bottles were found in the hotel room Glee actor Cory Monteith died in, a coroner's report said.
Glee actor died from champagne and heroin mix
Glee actor Cory Monteith died from mixing champagne and heroin, a coroner has ruled.
A "spoon with drug residue", a used needle and two empty champagne bottles were found in the 31-year-old's hotel room in Vancouver.
The Canadian star, who played Finn Hudson in the hit show, was found dead on July 13 and had a history of drug use.
Glee new season opener remembers Cory Monteith
High school hit series Glee returned for its fifth season, with a subtle, sad reminder of late cast member Cory Monteith in the opening episode.
Lea Michele's character, Rachel, glances at a photo on her mobile phone - a group shot of her old school glee club pals, including Monteith's Finn. Rachel is heard singing the melancholy Beatles tune Yesterday.
Monteith, 31, died in July of a drug and alcohol overdose. His off-screen relationship with Michele mirrored their characters' on-screen romance.
The new season of Glee began on Wednesday with the first episode of a two-part salute to the Beatles. A tribute to Monteith is planned for episode three, to be shown on October 10.
- ITV Report
Lea Michele in emotional tribute to Cory Monteith
Glee actress Lea Michele: 'Cory will forever be in my heart'
Glee actress Lea Michele has broken her silence after the death of her co-star and boyfriend Cory Monteith to thank fans for their support on Twitter.
The actress tweeted a picture of the couple together with the message: "Thank you all for helping me through this time with your enormous love & support.
"Cory will forever be in my heart, she added.
The actor, 31, was found dead in his room at hotel in Vancouver on July 13. A post mortem later revealed he died of a heroin and alcohol overdose.
Glee plans tribute episode to honour Cory Monteith
Glee's executive producer is planning a tribute episode to honour star Cory Monteith, who died last weekend.
Ryan Murphy told E! News it would address the death of Finn Hudson, Monteith's character on the hit show.
The tribute will be the third episode of the new series of Glee, which will begin on 26 September in the US.
Murphy said the series would go on a hiatus to reassess its direction.
Glee delays production due to Cory Monteith's death
Production will be delayed on the next series of Glee due to the death of star Cory Monteith, Fox has announced.
Fox said in a statement that the show will go into production in early August and will be aired in the US on 26 September.
Monteith's body was found last weekend in a hotel in Vancouver, British Columbia. He died of an overdose of heroin and alcohol.
It is not yet known how the fifth season of Glee will deal with Monteith's death. His character, Finn Hudson, had graduated from the high school where Glee is set, but remained part of the show.
Cory Monteith death a 'sad and tragic accident'
Glee star Cory Monteith, 31, died as a result of a "sad and tragic" drug and alcohol overdose, authorities confirmed.
British Columbia coroner Barbara McLintock said there was no evidence to suggest the overdose was deliberate.


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Iraq is an almost landlocked country lying between Turkey on the north, Iran on the east, Saudi Arabia on the south, the Gulf and Kuwait on the southeast, and Jordan and Syria on the west.
It has a very short coastline on the Gulf. Most of the country is flat and low-lying, and consists of the low plateau of the Syrian Desert to the west and, in central Iraq, the broad valleys of the rivers Tigris and Euphrates (ancient Mesopotamia). These rivers enter the Gulf in a combined stream, the Shatt-al-Arab, near Basra. The northeast of Iraq (Kurdistan) is mountainous and the climate is similar to that found in the mountains of western Iran.
The western desert region and Mesopotamia have a very harsh climate with a marked contrast between the extremely hot, sunny, and dry summers and a cooler winter during which some rain falls. Iraq experiences some of the highest temperatures anywhere in the world.
These scorching conditions are often accompanied by a persistent dusty, northwesterly wind, the shamal, which adds to the unpleasantness. Heat exhaustion and even heatstroke are hazards. There is no great difference in summer temperatures from north to south, but temperatures are distinctly lower and more pleasant at this time in the Kurdistan mountains.
Winters are very mild in the south, but become cooler towards the north. Frost and snow occasionally occur at low levels in the north and snowfall may be heavy in Kurdistan.
Most of the country has a desert or steppe climate with annual rainfall below 200 mm/8 in. Only in the northern plains around Mosul and Kirkuk and in the Kurdistan mountains is precipitation heavier.
The summer months from May to September are virtually rainless and the heaviest precipitation comes between December and March. Melting snow in spring in the mountains of Turkey, Iran, and Kurdistan causes the rivers Tigris and Euphrates to flood in a spectacular manner between March and May at a time when the long, hot, dry summer in Iraq is beginning.
The climatic table for Baghdad is representative of conditions around the year in most of lowland Iraq. That for Basra shows the higher summer humidity in the south where the summer heat is even more oppressive. Conditions in the northern plains are similar to those illustrated by the climatic table for Dayr az Zawr in Syria.
© Copyright RM, 2007. All rights reserved. Helicon Publishing is a division of RM.


text:
Need Help? Call 877.812.6235
SodaStream Source Sparkling Water Maker
- Summary
Save money and reduce household waste by making your own sparkling water and sodas at home. The next-generation SodaStream Source makes a strong design statement in the kitchen and streamlines operation down to its simplest essence. Just snap the bottle in with a single push—no need to screw it in—then push down on the top of the machine to carbonate. LED lights indicate the level of carbonation, so you can easily create your perfect drink every time.
- Makes great-tasting fizzy water and flavored sodas from tap water in 30 seconds.
- Designed exclusively for SodaStreem by noted industrial designer Yves Béhar, who created a sleek, streamline profile that looks elegant on the countertop.
- Carbonating bottle locks into place with a single-handed push so you don't have to screw it in.
- Customize your carbonation level with the backlit LED indicator, which provides instant visual feedback.
- Less expensive than store-bought sparkling water, with no bottles to recycle.
- Hazmat regulations prohibit shipment to HI and AK.
- One 33-oz. BPA-free plastic carafe with stainless-steel trim.
- Fizz-preserving stopper to seal in carbonation.
- One refillable CO2 cylinder (carbonates up to 60 carafes).
- Dimensions & More Info
- Plastic and anodized-aluminum casing.
- 4 3/4" x 9 1/2" x 16 1/2" high. 8 oz.
- Made in Israel.
- Plastic and anodized-aluminum casing.
- Use & Care
- Depleted CO2 cylinders can be exchanged at your nearest Williams-Sonoma store or by visiting www.sodastreamusa.com.
- Use only with SodaStream plastic carbonating bottles.
- Carbonate only drinking water without additives.
- Wipe clean as needed with a damp cloth.
- Bottles are hand wash only.
- Shipping
Shipping Information
This item will be shipped directly from the manufacturer and is not eligible for rush shipping. Please allow two to three weeks for delivery.
Shipping Rates
The shipping rate varies depending on your order total and shipping destination. View Shipping Options and Charges.
Return Policy
At Williams-Sonoma, we take great pride in the quality and craftsmanship of our products. Attention to design, materials, safety and construction are our priority. Upon receipt, please inspect your purchase and notify us of any damage; we will arrange for a prompt replacement.
If within 30 days, you are dissatisfied for any reason, you may return your purchase for a refund of the merchandise value. An original receipt or gift receipt is required for all returns and exchanges. Returns with a gift receipt will be refunded in the form of a Merchandise Credit for the amount indicated on the gift receipt. Returns with original receipt will be refunded in the original form of payment, cash and check refunds over $100 will be issued as a company check (may take 14 business days from time of request).
For all cutlery returns (knife sets, single knives, cutting boards, knife sharpeners, and knife storage) please contact us at 888.922.4108 to initiate the return.
We cannot accept returns on monogrammed, personalized, special-order items, custom upholstery, food, items shipped direct from the vendor, or on items damaged through normal wear and tear. Final sale items ending in .97 or .99 cannot be returned.
For returns of items purchased from your Williams-Sonoma Gift Registry, we will gladly provide a refund or exchange for the merchandise within 90 days of your event or within 90 days of purchase, whichever date is later. View Full Return Policy.


text:
Lowest Price Guarantee & Free Shipping. Call us at 1-800-710-9939.
A delightfully delicate and graceful decanter made for a single bottle of wine. Standing 13" in height, the Cornetto Single Decanter curves slightly and somewhat demurely. Hand-made and mouth blown, this piece is made of 24% lead crystal, giving it a clear and unblemished quality, perfect for fine wines. Its neck is smooth and perfectly balanced in your hand, ensuring confidence and drama when pouring wine for your guests.
Grace and elegance define the beauty of the Riedel Cornetto Wine Decanter. Its long slender neck curves and widens towards the base for proper decanting. The Cornetto Decanter is hand-made from mouth-blown lead crystal.
Cornetto Magnum Decanter
Capacity: 63-5/8 oz.
Height: 16-3/4"
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Does anyone have a solution for syncing large directories/filesystems using just a USB flash drive (and specifically without using a network connection)?
The objective is simply to sync a user directory between two computers. The contents of the user directory could amount to a large quantity of data—say, a quantity larger than could be stored on any single USB drive—but the aggregate size of changes that must be propagated by a single sync could easily fit on a USB drive.
As an example, suppose a user directory is already synchronized between a desktop and a laptop computer. Here's a use case:
- Some changes are made in the user directory on the desktop.
- We mount a USB drive onto the desktop and copy whatever changes need to be applied to the laptop user directory in order to synchronize the desktop and laptop user directories.
- We now mount the USB drive onto the laptop and apply the changes.
- The desktop and laptop user directories are now synchronized.
Any ideas?


text:
Amber Entertainment is teaming with best-selling author Jackie Collins for a film adaptation of her forthcoming novel "Confessions Of A Wild Child".
Collins will adapt the novel and produce, with Ileen Maisel also producing. The pair will soon begin a worldwide casting search for an actress to play a young version of Collins' most famous character - Lucky Santangelo.
'Confession' is a prequel to Collins' Lucky Santangelo novels such as "Lucky" and "Chances". In 'Wild Child,' Lucky is 15 and escapes from boarding school and enters a world of boys, drugs and family drama.
Source: Screen


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Mario Kart 64 (Nintendo 64) review
"Even straight stretches are an opportunity to pull ahead of the competition, not to mention the winding areas where the game leads you. For example, one level lets you race along a frozen lake and through an ice cavern while penguins come down from the hills. Its possible to slide into the curve, around columns of ice and birds, all the way through to the other side on a single power slide. Alternatively, you can milk the winding path for two or three turbo boosts."
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text:
TV Guide's Michael Logan reported exclusively on Mon., Mar. 17 that Sean Kanan, who has played veteran "General Hospital" character AJ Quartermaine on and off for the past 20 years, is leaving the sudser and returning to his role as Deacon Sharpe on CBS's "The Bold and the Beautiful."
"General Hospital" airs weekdays on Riverside affiliate KABC channel 7.
In the TV Guide interview, Kanan tells Logan that the decision to leave was a mutual one with executive producer Frank Valentini, but it was his unhappiness with the writing that spawned his decision to leave.
"I was utterly thrilled to be brought back to GH for the 50th anniversary and really enjoyed working with [executive producer] Frank Valentini, but I was not over the moon about the writing," said Kanan. "Doing stories about panic attacks and relish was not what I thought I'd signed up for. I feel I brought everything I could to the character yet it was obvious they weren't going to give me a great love story, which I found very disappointing."
Sean Kanan was nothing but honest in the interview, making no personal attacks, yet in what is becoming a habit of abusive and insulting comments on his Twitter feed, head writer Ron Carlivati decided to make it personal with an acerbic Tweet on Monday. Addressing interviewer Michael Logan and Sean Kanan directly, he Tweeted, "@TVGMLogan @seankanan @GeneralHospital His comments are like school in the summertime. No class."
Fans immediately came to Kanan's defense, calling out Carlivati on his own classlessness in making such a comment, telling the scribe he should concentrate on what many consider to be poor writing for the show of late.
If Carlivati believes Sean Kanan is the only one disappointed with the writing, the comment section of the TV Guide interview prove he's far from the only one. A barrage of upset comments show fans are greatly angered by the direction of the show of late with Kanan's exit being just one in a long line of problems.
Fans were thrilled at the prospect of an on-screen romance between AJ and Elizabeth Webber (Rebecca Herbst), but it was over almost before it started with a downward spiral for AJ and lack of screen time that seemed to completely fly in the face of the way his return began. The character of AJ, a long-time alcoholic and constant loser in life, business and love, returned last year strong, sober, ready to form a relationship with his son, whose growing up years he missed out on, and stoked to take the helm of his family's company, ELQ. In the course of a few months, however, he was saddled with panic attacks, ridiculous storylines about poison relish that resulted in AJ appearing on ABC's "The Chew" in one of the most painfully-awkward episodes in recent memory, and eventually losing ELQ and returning to drinking.
Long-time fans of "General Hospital" have expressed anger for years over the systematic demise of the Quartermaines, one of the core families of the show's 50-year history. With the return of screen time for AJ's mother Monica (Leslie Charleson), a good, solid fight over leadership of ELQ between AJ and his Aunt Tracy (Jane Elliott) and a real bond forming between AJ and his son, Michael (Chad Duell), it seemed the powers that be were finally making strides to bring the Quartermaines back to their former glory.
But as the months went on, the strong start began to take a definitive nosedive as AJ was seen on screen less and less with the show focusing on pointless new characters and storylines fans cared little about. The hopes for a solid storyline for AJ seemed all but lost.
AJ isn't the only legacy character being sorely misused. The show is also doing very little with legends Finola Hughes and Ian Buchanan, who play fan favorites Anna Devane and Duke Lavery. In the 80's, the two shared one of the greatest love stories in the show's history, yet they have done nothing to rekindle their romance and have saddled them with uninteresting stories and scant screen time.
With ire not only among viewers but now with the actors, along with Ron Carlivati's less-than-subtle and very public insults over the discontent, one has to wonder how many more stories of "mutually-agreed upon exits" will be reported in the coming months.
AJ is currently in critical condition after a gunshot wound to the chest, but it's currently not known if they will kill off the character, recast or have him leave town. The actor confirmed to TV Guide that his last day of work will be Mar. 28 with his first on-screen appearance as Deacon Sharpe on CBS's "The Bold and the Beautiful" on June 13.
How do you feel about Sean Kanan's "General Hospital' exit and Ron Carlivati's Tweet? What would you like to see happen on "General Hospital?" Which characters are you tired of and which ones do you want to see get front-burner stories? Share your comments below!
Follow Rene' on Twitter @soapreporter


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More New and Used
from Private Sellers
Note: Supplemental materials are not guaranteed with Rental or Used book purchases.
Henry Ayers The Man Who Became a Rock
ISBN13:by Shute, Jason
I. B. Tauris
Questions About This Book?
What version or edition is this?
This is the edition with a publication date of 1/15/2011.
What is included with this book?
- The eBook copy of this book is not guaranteed to include any supplemental materials. Typically only the book itself is included.
"The most wonderful natural feature I have ever seen". With these words the explorer William Gosse expressed the awe he and many others have felt at the natural phenomenon of Uluru. The first white person to reach the central Australian monolith, he gave it the name "Ayers Rock." But who was Henry Ayers, the man whose name is forever associated with Australia's most recognizable natural icon? And why should he still be remembered today?Although the rock now carries its ancient indigenous name, Uluru, the name of Ayers is still linked with the the Rock's "discovery" in 1873. Indeed, "Ayers Rock" is one of the most famous natural wonders on earth and, despite its remote location, attracts over 400,000 visitors each year. This book, the first biography of Henry Ayers, focuses attention on the complex character behind the name and examines all aspects of his life -- from his humble origins in the naval city of Portsmouth in southern England, his migration to Australia and his career as a miner, businessman and eventually as Premier of South Australia -- a post to which he was elected seven times. It provides a fascinating insight into Australian history through the life of a man who was consistently in the upper echelons of influence and authority in colonial society and whose legacy lives through his association with the most famous and recognisable natural feature of his adopted country.
Author Biography
Jason Shute is an acknowledged expert on immigrant communities in South Australia and on Henry Ayers. He is a graduate of London's Royal College of Music, where he won a number of prizes and carried out further studies in opera. He has lived with his family in South Australia for nearly two decades where he continues to work as a composer and conductor.
Table of Contents
|p. vii
|Map of the Province of South Australia
|p. ix
|Family Trees
|p. x
|p. xii
|p. xiv
|p. xviii
|'In search of a place to ascend'
|p. 1
|The Secretary
|p. 14
|Friends when and where you need them
|p. 27
|The Year of Evolutions: taking hold of the reins
|p. 41
|All that glisters...
|p. 55
|A cuckoo in the nest?
|p. 68
|'...into Parliament he shall go!'
|p. 77
|Arrivals and departures
|p. 87
|'Betsey' no longer as free with her favours
|p. 99
|The ins and outs of office: keeping on track
|p. 111
|The cuckoo exercises his wings
|p. 120
|Royal imprimatur
|p. 133
|Slings and arrows
|p. 143
|Home, sweet Home?
|p. 157
|Meanwhile, back in the colony...
|p. 174
|Telegraphs, Honours and the hard slog of government once more
|p. 185
|The Rock
|p. 196
|Career and reputation in tatters?
|p. 208
|A lonely apotheosis: raw young emigrant become Grand Old Man
|p. 218
|Death and resurrection
|p. 234
|Weights, measures and money
|p. 247
|The Westminster system
|p. 250
|The fate of the SAMA
|p. 252
|p. 254
|p. 260
|Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.


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New Orleans Saints fans, who sense something special could happen this season, can breathe a collective sigh of relief.
The face of the franchise, quarterback Drew Brees, emerged in one piece from Thursday night's 10-7 exhibition loss to Miami at the Superdome.
So did running backs Reggie Bush, Pierre Thomas and Mike Bell, tight end Jeremy Shockey and wide receiver Marques Colston.
Coach Sean Payton took no chances of putting any of his playmakers in harm's way, sitting them from the outset when the first offensive unit trotted out onto the field for its first possession.
The loss prevented the Saints (3-1) from going undefeated in the preseason for the first time in franchise history.
Thus the Black and Gold will head into their regular-season opener against Detroit on Sept. 13 at the Superdome in relatively good health
"Defensively we did some real good things tonight," Payton said. "Offensively we struggled. We weren't able to sustain anything offensively. We were sloppy. Obviously we'll have to play better offensively."
Jeff Duncan: Anthony Hargrove has found a home as Saints defensive tackle
Jeff Duncan's postgame video log
John DeShazier: Lynell Hamilton makes closing argument for roster spot
Saints tight end Billy Miller exits with injured Achilles tendon
Video: Sean Payton's postgame press conference
In the grand scheme, the winner and loser mattered little, though the Dolphins finished 4-0, their first unbeaten preseason since 1998.
Payton and his staff entered the game with several objectives: first and foremost to exit with no serious injuries, and secondly to get one last look at players on the bubble.
The most serious injury involved veteran tight end Billy Miller, who left the game in the second quarter with an injury to his Achilles tendon. Before being carted to the locker room, teammates tried to console Miller on the sideline, but their words were little comfort as he covered his head with a towel.
"We'll know more tomorrow," Payton said. "Right now it's too early. We're already a little dinged up at that position with Darnell Dinkins out (ankle/foot). So that's a concern."
Backup fullback Olaniyi Sobomehin also suffered a shoulder injury. His status is unknown.
Payton and his staff will turn their attention to more pressing matters, like paring their roster from 75 to 53 by 3 p.m. Saturday.
Players will go through their normal routine today; run, lift and review tape before being dismissed. They resume practice Monday in preparation for the Lions, who have lost 23 of their past 24 games, including 17 in succession.
For starters, the tape of Thursday's game will show inconsistent play from reserve quarterbacks Mark Brunell and Joey Harrington, who combined for 16-of-24 for 181 yards and one interception.
They were just a part of the good, bad and ugly before a boisterous crowd of 68,681.
The good
• Free agent wide receiver/return specialist Rod Harper scored on a 55-yard yard punt return, cutting the deficit to 10-7 with 8:26 remaining. Harper also returned a punt 79 yards for a touchdown against Houston.
"Credit him," Payton said. "He's taken advantage of the opportunity. I was encouraged with the play he made tonight."
"It was a middle return, and I tried to hit it as quick as possible," Harper said.
• Reserve running back Lynell Hamilton accounted for 122 all-purpose yards, including 34 rushing yards on nine carries and 88 yards on six receptions.
His performance should help his cause as Payton debates whether to keep three or four running backs. The first three are clear cut -- Bush, Thomas and Bell. Hamilton might have earned a spot because of lingering injuries to Bush (calf) and Thomas (knee).
"Let the chips fall where they may," said Hamilton, who led the Saints in the preseason in rushing with 177 yards and 281 all-purpose yards.
• Weakside linebacker Jo-Lonn Dunbar made his presence felt with 13 solo tackles, one sack, a forced fumble and a fumble recovery.
• Wide receiver/kick returner Courtney Roby returned three kickoffs for 71 yards, with a long of 25.
• Rookie punter Thomas Morstead punted seven times, averaging 47.6 yards with no return yardage. Three punts were downed inside the Dolphins' 20.
The bad
• Veteran kicker John Carney missed a 34-yard field goal attempt with eight seconds remaining in the first half.
• A 42-yard kickoff return by Roby was negated by a holding penalty against guard Nate Bennett.
• Brunell completed three of five passes for 66 yards and one interception for a 64.6 passer rating in two series.
The ugly
• Tackle Michael Brown did not endear himself to Payton, twice being called for penalties. His holding penalty negated a 36-yard completion from Harrington to wide receiver Adrian Arrington. Then, facing a fourth-and-3 from the Saints 45, Brown was called for a false start.
Harrington, who is trying to give Payton reason to keep a third quarterback on the 53-man roster, looked harried at times operating behind second- and third-stringers. He completed 13 of 19 passes for 115 yards. He was sacked eight times.
Time will tell if he's done enough.
"That's part of football," Harrington said. "You've got to make the plays when they're presented to you. Sometimes they come within the offense and sometimes you have to create them on your own. It was just one of those games. I don't even worry about (making the team). That's what I've said all along. I'm not thinking at all about down the road."
Brian Allee-Walsh can be reached at firstname.lastname@example.com or 504.826.3805.


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Jan. 3, 2013
NEW ORLEANS - With 2012 in the books, the Tulane men's basketball team rings in 2013 by hosting Wofford in the final non-conference game of the regular season on Friday at 7 p.m. CT in Devlin Fieldhouse.
The Green Wave (11-3) closed out the 2012 year in a big way with a 53-50 victory at Alabama on Sunday. Josh Davis, the reigning Conference USA Player of the Week, led Tulane with 18 points and 12 rebounds, while Jordan Callahan hit two 3-pointers in the final minutes to complete the comeback.
Spartanburg, S.C.
Shooting Woes Plague Green Wave in Loss at Wofford
A poor shooting performance plagued the Tulane men's basketball team Tuesday night as the perfect start to the season came to an end with a 61-50 loss to Wofford at Benjamin Johnson Arena.
"This is an important game from a standpoint of us making progress," Tulane head coach Ed Conroy said. "We've seen a lot of different styles this non-conference schedule and I love that for our team. We are in that stage now where we have to find that consistency and our identity no matter what style the opponent plays."
Tulane, riding a four-game winning streak overall, has won 19 straight non-conference home games entering Friday's contest.
Davis leads the Green Wave with 18.4 points and 10.1 points per outing. The junior forward has scored in double figures in all 14 games and has seven double doubles. Sophomore guard Ricky Tarrant adds 14.5 points per contest, while Callahan is posting 12.6 points per game.
As a team, Tulane is averaging 67.5 points a game and is shooting 42.0 percent from the floor.
Wofford is led by sophomore guard Karl Cochran's 16.2 points per contest. Sophomore forward Lee Skinner adds 10.6 points and a team-high 6.6 rebounds per outing.
The Terriers are shooting just 38.8 percent from the floor, but have knocked down 34.7 percent from 3-point range.
"Wofford is so well coached," Conroy added. "We know we will have to be focused and ready to play for the full 40 minutes."
This is the second meeting between the two schools. Wofford won the other meeting, 61-50, on Dec. 6, 2011 in Spartanburg, S.C.
Tulane will open the Conference USA schedule on Wednesday when UTEP invades Devlin Fieldhouse for a 7 p.m. CT tip.
G 2 Ricky Tarrant 6-2 190 So. 14.5 ppg 3.6 rpg 3.0 apg
G 5 Jordan Callahan 6-0 190 Sr. 12.6 ppg 2.5 rpg 1.6 apg
F 22 Kendall Timmons 6-5 215 Sr. 6.6 ppg 4.8 rpg 2.1 apg
F 00 Josh Davis 6-8 215 Jr. 18.4 ppg 10.1 rpg 2.1 apg
C 34 Tre Drye 6-6 218 So. 4.8 ppg 6.4 rpg 0.6 spg
G 3 John Swinton 6-2 185 So. 3.5 ppg 2.2 apg Mt. Pleasant, S.C.
G 2 Karl Cochran 6-1 170 So. 16.2 ppg 3.9 rpg Marietta, Ga.
G 32 Spencer Collins 6-4 200 Fr. 11.3 ppg 2.9 rpg Easley, S.C.
F 34 Lee Skinner 6-6 212 So. 10.6 ppg 6.6 rpg Lombard, Ill.
F 14 Aerris Smith 6-8 250 Jr. 2.6 ppg 3.5 rpg Charlotte, N.C.


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Alaska Communications Systems Group, Inc. (ALSK)
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Alaska Communications Systems Group, Inc. (ALSK)
Q1 2008 Earnings Call Transcript
May 5, 2008 5:00 pm ET
Melissa Fouts – Director of IR
Liane Pelletier – Chairman, President and CEO
David Wilson – CFO, SVP and Treasurer
Leonard Steinberg – VP, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary
Jonathan Chaplin – JPMorgan Securities
Frank Louthan – Raymond James
David Coleman – RBC Capital Markets
Previous Statements by ALSK
» Alaska Communications Systems Group Inc. Q4 2008 Earnings Call Transcript
» Alaska Communications Systems Group, Inc. Q3 2008 Earnings Call Transcript
» Alaska Communications Systems Group, Inc. Q2 2008 Earnings Call Transcript
Melissa Fouts
Good afternoon, and welcome to the Alaska Communications Systems First Quarter 2008 conference call. With me today are Liane Pelletier, President, Chief Executive Officer and Chair of ACS, David Wilson, Chief Financial Officer, and Leonard Steinberg, General Counsel.
During this call, company participants will make forward-looking statements as defined under U.S. Securities laws. Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical facts and may include financial projections, estimates of shareholder returns or other descriptions of the company's plans, objectives, expectations or intentions. You are cautioned not to put undue reliance on forward-looking statements as actual results could differ materially from expectations as a result of a variety of factors, many of which are outside the company's control. We discuss these factors in our SEC filings.
Lastly, any non-GAAP measurements referred to during this call have been reconciled to their nearest GAAP measure. You may find these reconciliations in today's press release and our SEC filings on our investor website at www.alsk.com.
We will begin the call with Liane discussing the company's Enterprise strategy underpinning our recently announced acquisition. Then David will review our quarterly operational and financial performance, our recent financing transaction, and our progress in building our Enterprise book of business. Liane will then close and open the call for questions.
With that, I would like to turn the call over to Liane. Liane?
Liane Pelletier
Thank you, Melissa. Welcome and thank you all for participating on the call. At the outset, I will share a bit about our cable build and our cable buy strategy, which form part of how we will serve the Enterprise market. The demand and supply fundamentals of this market make it an ideal place to put capital to work. As for the demand side, the market served by the cable investment is the inter-state transport market, sized last year at over $200 million. Data usage in this market is growing over 40% a year and that's before we experienced new oil, gas, and other economic development opportunities in Alaska.
As one example of the opportunity ahead of us, British Petroleum and ConocoPhillips recently announced that they will jointly develop a pipeline to move natural gas from the North Slope of Alaska to markets in the Lower 48. Their plan involves spending $600 million over the next three years to reach the first project milestone with total spending for the project estimated at more than $30 billion over more than 10 years.
As for the supply side, with our AKORN build and our Crest buy we will own two of the four cables connecting Alaska to the rest of the world and we will be one of two suppliers. As we have mentioned before, the Alaska supply market differs radically from the long haul fiber market in the Lower 48 where a glut of competing suppliers pressured return. We believe the supply market and therefore expected returns are quite different in Alaska.
As we serve this market, our pricing will reflect a strategy of differentiation, and the value customers place on our solutions. For example, the cable we are building, AKORN, leaves Alaska along the only geographically diverse route and this is key for our customers' traffic security and business continuity. ACS will operate the AKORN and Crest cables together as a ring and connect this submarine transport system to ACS's in-state data network.
In state, we recently upgraded our Metro Ethernet network to 10 gig in order to best serve the needs of Enterprise customers. ACS's Metro Ethernet and MPLS networks offer key advantages over legacy network technologies commonly installed in Alaska. And the ACS in-state network reaches from the north, site of oil and gas fields, to Southeast Alaska, site of major tourism and fishing industries. ACS will manage customers' traffic on these two cables via two network operations control centers, one here in Alaska, and one in the Lower 48. Our approach to establishing a Lower 48 knock will minimize both our total cost of ownership and the time needed to deliver world-class capabilities to Enterprise customers.
In summary, we believe our differentiated Enterprise strategy is the key to igniting ACS's next growth engine. And in particular, the cable investments revitalize and maximize the value of our local network. Considering the AKORN cable itself has a 25-year life, and the cost of service sold on the cables are largely fixed, we expect an annual return on our investment to be north of 20%. With this Enterprise growth strategy in place, which builds on our wireless growth strategy, we have an ideal platform to reward shareholders.
Read the rest of this transcript for free on seekingalpha.com


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Rihanna is known for her standout beauty and nail looks. Many of them are bright, embellished and overall daring.
In her new MAC Viva Glam campaign, she wears a bold and confident makeup look and although her nude manicure is toned down, it is appealing and fashionable. As it should, her displayed makeup look embodies Viva Glam Rihanna, which features two bold shades of MAC lipglass and lipstick.
In the campaign, Rihanna's manicure features mid-length, almond shaped nails finished with a nude polish. Nude nail polish is classic and fashionable at the same time, it can easily complement a bold look or complete an easy going look.
No matter the shape or length of your nails, you can achieve a good looking nude manicure. If you like this look and you're interested in recreating it, Myth by MAC Cosmetics, Samoan Sand by OPI, Fashion Safari by NYC, Secret Boudoir by Sephora and Heaven by China Glaze are a range of nude nail polishes to choose from.


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The black helmets. The student rallies. The "College GameDay" set going up in Red Square. Yes, Saturday's Pac-12 North showdown between No. 16 UW (4-1, 1-1 Pac-12) and second-ranked Oregon (5-0, 2-0) is the biggest, most-hyped Huskies home game in a dozen years.
By Gregg Bell
UW Director of Writing
SEATTLE – Oh, it's on, all right.
Players were trying out the new, black matte helmets they will be wearing in a game for the first time.
Students were clamoring about the "blackout" game rally Thursday night at Alaska Airlines Arena (doors were to open at 7:15, with the rally to begin at 8; students get free food and a free blackout-game T-shirt). Washington head coaches, including Steve Sarkisian, were expected to appear.
ESPN was building its "College GameDay" program set on the campus' central "Red Square" in front of Suzzallo Library in advance of Saturday morning's national pregame show from there. The show's big, orange bus had a primo parking spot at Husky Stadium Wednesday night into Thursday, on this the program's first trip to Washington for a game.
Yes, Saturday's Pac-12 North division showdown between No. 16 UW (4-1, 1-1 Pac-12) and second-ranked Oregon (5-0, 2-0) is the biggest, most hyped Huskies home game in at least a dozen years.
"(This) is great. That's what college football is all about," Sarkisian said following Thursday's practice at Husky Stadium, attended by members of the Fox Sports 1 television crew that will air the game nationally. "It's about that pageantry. It's about the excitement for the student body and the university. We are getting a really good amount of exposure for our university, which I think is a great thing."
This is the first time the Huskies have been ranked this high while hosting a top-10 team since Nov. 17, 2001. That day 16th-ranked UW beat No. 9 Washington State in the Apple Cup.
Some are drawing a comparison between this game and the last time Washington hosted a top-five team: Sept. 19, 2009, when the Huskies beat No. 3 USC 16-13 on Erik Folk's field goal at the end of the coach's third game at UW.
They are two completely different situations. These Dawgs are obviously in a far better place than those.
Those Huskies were just three games removed from a winless season and feeling their way through a new coaching staff and Sarkisian's completely new system. They beat the Trojans that day by playing conservatively, taking shots at times but otherwise capitalizing on USC's turnovers and shaky backup quarterback Aaron Corp, who struggled mightily playing for injured Matt Barkley.
Yet Sarkisian said Thursday of that epic, '09 upset: "We went in with a good amount of belief — just like we are going in with this weekend."
Keith Price and Will Shamburger, the team's only fifth-year seniors and only remaining members of Sarkisian's first Husky recruiting class in '09, still call that win perhaps their most thrilling moment at UW.
Price completed a fourth straight practice with his sore thumb on his passing hand not limiting him from taking all the snaps and making all the throws he usually does on a Thursday.
"He looks really good," Sarkisian said, five days after Price completed 33 of 48 throws for 350 yards and two touchdowns at Stanford despite banging his thumb early in the second half, getting sacked five times and getting hit seven more times. "He's in a good place, physically. I think he's in very good place mentally, which is always important for a quarterback.
"I think he is going to go out and play hard and play physical and really give us an opportunity to win. Again (like last week at Stanford), he'll embody everything we want physically, mentally and emotionally from our entire team. I think we are going to see that in 17."
Beating Oregon to end a nine-game losing streak to the Ducks would keep the Huskies' resurgence rolling and UW in the running for the Pac-12 North title. That alone is why it would so trump Washington's 2009 win over USC.
"One of the key components of that game, if you remember, was the football and us creating turnovers, turnovers in the red zone. And then us taking care of the football," Sarkisian said of the '09 win over USC.
Washington's defense forced two USC fumbles and an interception — all inside UW's 35-yard line — while Jake Locker and the Huskies' offense did not turn the ball over that day.
"I think that will hold true Saturday; I think the team that can really win the turnover battle is going to have a good opportunity to win the game," Sarkisian said of Saturday's 106th meeting of Dawgs and Ducks.
There is another huge difference — one of many — between this weekend and that drizzly September afternoon in 2009: Those Huskies were trying to shorten games and hoped to hang with a ranked opponent into the fourth quarter for a chance to steal a win.
These Dawgs are taking games to foes with a high-speed, no-huddle offense that is averaging 85 plays per game – eight more per game than Oregon so far this season. The Huskies are No. 5 in the country in yards per game. They aren't trying to stay close to anyone. They are trying to run whoever it may be out of the stadium.
"For sure," Sarkisian said. "We played that way for quite a while, you know, where it was 'Be efficient, yet give ourselves in the fourth quarter the opportunity to win.'
"I think we are a much more aggressive football team now. … We play in attack mode on offense and on defense. I think it's evident in our caliber of play right now and the quality of players that we have, and then the schemes that we've implemented."
The running will max out Saturday. Oregon has set the standard on fast for the last few years, and Sarkisian half-joked this week that 200 plays combined might be a possibility on Saturday.
As for ESPN's grand "College GameDay," the show will air from 6-9 a.m. from the center of campus. Sarkisian won't be on the set live, because of the 1 p.m. kickoff.
Asked if he had offered the network any advice on which Seattle-ite to choose for the show's usual "celebrity guest picker" of games, Sarkisian joked: "I said they could pick me to come on there. I know who I'd pick."
INSIDE THE DAWGS: With freshman Cameron Van Winkle, UW's kickoff man for the first five games, still ailing with a sore back Sarkisian says punter and field-goal kicker Travis Coons is "likely" to kickoff against Oregon. … UW undergraduate and graduate students who attend Friday night's volleyball match between the sixth-ranked Huskies and Arizona at 8 p.m. inside Alaska Airlines Arena will receive wrist bands after the match. Those bands will entitle students to VIP early access to the UW students' breakfast line and then prime, front viewing of the College GameDay set before dawn on Saturday. The first 250 "Dawg Pack" students at the volleyball match will receive sunglasses and the first 50 will get Black Out "Dawg Pack" T-shirts. … The forecast for game time at Husky Stadium: a 30-percent chance of showers, highs in the mid-50s and not much wind.


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Stacy-Ann Elvy
Stacy-Ann Elvy is an Associate Professor of Law at New York Law School. She joined the faculty in 2013 and teaches Commercial Law, Civil Procedure, Sales & Negotiable Instruments, International Business Transactions, and Comparative Human Rights Systems. Professor Elvy is the associate director of the Center for Business and Financial Law at the Law School and she is also affiliated with the Center for International Law. She joined the legal academy after practicing law at Akerman Senterffit and Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom. Professor Elvy has expertise in Commercial Law, International Business Transactions, International Law and International Human Rights. Professor Elvy received her Bachelor of Science in Industrial Labor Relations from Cornell University in 2001 and was awarded her Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School in 2004. Professor Elvy's scholarship has been published in the Emory International Law Review and the University of Georgia Journal of International and Comparative Law and her most recent article will be published in the University of Michigan's Journal of Gender and Law


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Update 6/11/14: Adopted!!
On May 27, an "angelic" dog named "Merced Duran" found herself locked away at a busy animal control facility in Baldwin Park, Calif.
The eight-year-old dog was surrendered by her owner because someone in the family supposedly developed allergies. Though this pint-sized senior has been described as "angelic," as of yet, nobody has decided to take a chance on her.
United Hope for Animals shared the following information about little Merced:
Merced Duran is an angelic 8-year-old black-and-white female Short Haired Chihuahua mix who was left by her owners at the Baldwin Park Animal Care Center on May 27th because they claimed they were allergic to her.
Weighing only 4½ pounds, this tiny pooch will be a perfect purse or lap dog. When she sits in your arms and looks around, she looks like a member of the cast of "Meerkat Manor." We think Merced Duran would prefer to be the queen of the castle as the only pet in her new household.
Due to her small size, she also needs to be in a household with children old enough to be gentle with her. Merced Duran will be a wonderful indoor pocket pet for anyone in any living situation.
Please take a moment to network this lovely older girl's information - she did not ask to be here and she needs the help of strangers in order to leave.
Continue reading: Puppy dies after fan left on top of cages catches fire
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