Posted 1:20:00 p.m. by Masi

Laurie Anderson

Îmi place mult Laurie Anderson. Profund. Adânc. E... grozavă, ca să folosesc cuvântul preferat al unei amice. Muzica ei are acel mister aparte, care sperie, intrigă şi care induce o stare aparte. De exemplu, O Superman, unora le aduce aminte de World Trade Center; prietenei mele i s-a părut ciudată melodia şi a spus că nu ar mai asculta-o din nou.

Acum ascult Strange Angels, melodia de pe acelaşi album, şi încerc să-mi dau seama ce are aparte muzica ei... Pare a fi concepută într-o altă lume, nu ştiu unde, cum, undeva într-o iarnă perpetuă, într-o hrubă unde nu poţi face altceva decât să compui melodii ce penetrează precum ţurţurii de gheaţă. Nu aş putea să ascult melodiile acestea vara, pe o plajă. S-ar topi, s-ar evapora. Sunt melodii pentru Parcul Tineretului, iarna, când singurele fiinţe vivante din împrejurimi sunt câinii vagabonzi şi ţiganii gata să sară dintr-un boschet şi să-ţi fure banii.

Da, îmi place Laurie.

Strange Angels

They say that heaven is like TV
A perfect little world
that doesn't really need you
And everything there
is made of light
And the days keep going by
Here they come Here they come
Here they come.

Well it was one of those days larger than life
When your friends came to dinner
and they stayed the night
And then they cleaned out the refrigerator -
They ate everything in sight
And then they stayed up in the living room
And they cried all night

Strange angels - singing just for me
Old stories - they're haunting me
This is nothing
like I thought it would be.

Well I was out in my four door
with the top down.
And I looked up and there they were:
Millions of tiny teardrops
just sort of hanging there
And I didn't know whether to laugh or cry
And I said to myself:
What next big sky?

Strange angels - singing just for me
Their spare change falls on top of me
Rain falling Falling all over me
All over me
Strange angels - singing just for me
Old Stories - they're haunting me
Big changes are coming
Here they come
Here they come.

Posted 4:07:00 p.m. by Masi

Harper's Index - October 2002

I really enjoy the Index, so I thought about sharing it with those who do not yet know about it.

Total amount the Bush campaign paid Enron and Halliburton for use of corporate jets during the 2000 recount : $15,400

Maximum amount each of Enron's 4,500 laid-off employees would receive as part of a proposed settlement : $13,500

Average amount the company paid each of its 140 top executives last year : $5,300,000

Months that Vice President Dick Cheney has refused to release documents related to current U.S. energy policy : 16

Months since his release from prison that nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee has been looking for work : 24

Years that the National Security Agency's new head of research held the same position at Disney : 2

Number of Hollywood films released in the last two years for which Senator Orrin Hatch has co-written songs : 2

Number of teenagers enrolled last summer in Secure Corps, a "homeland security training" camp in Pennsylvania : 92

Grant given a Maryland professor last October to create an online archive of dot-com-era business plans : $300,500

Number of Japanese McDonald's that began offering broadband Internet access in May : 9

Size in acres of a billboard that a Chinese town is constructing next to its ancient giant Buddha : 10

Hours that the Empire State Building was lit "Snapple Yellow" in August : 8

Percentage of Americans who say vacationing leaves them tired : 54

Number of traffic tickets issued in July by British Columbia police officers posing as squeegee men : 90

Number of bookies arrested in India in March on charges they took bets on Hindu-Muslim riots : 101

Percentage of seats in Pakistan's parliamentary elections this month that will be reserved for women : 19

Number of Afghan refugees whose 2002 return the U.N. budgeted for in January : 800,000

Number who have returned home since then : 1,500,000

Percentage of Israeli settlers who say they would respect a government decision for them to leave the settlements : 68

Percentage who say they remain in the settlements for the quality of life : 75

Percentage of Americans who said in August that they had a clear idea of why the U.S. would consider attacking Iraq : 56

Amount of Iraq's oil revenue since 1996 spent on anything but humanitarian programs, Kuwaiti reparations, or U.N. costs : 0

Minimum annual U.S. spending on searching for missing soldiers : $100,000,000

Number of U.S. soldiers missing in action since 1945 : 88,135

Chance that one of the 264 barrios of Medellín, Colombia, is controlled by right-wing paramilitaries : 1 in 4

Estimated chance last year : 1 in 10

Number of Argentines who have applied to be on a new job-search game show since April : 6,500 (see page 20)

Percentage change in U.S. spending on border enforcement since 1995 : +200

Percentage change since then in the estimated number of illegal immigrants living in the United States : +57

Number of corrections professionals who attended a mock riot at a former West Virginia prison in May : 1,235

Minimum number of U.S. universities where Halloween celebrations last year included at least one student in blackface : 4

Rank of Richard Nixon masks among the top U.S. costumer's best-selling political masks over the last five years : 1

Number of the last six U.S. presidents who bested their opponents in the company's election-year Halloween mask sales : 6

Percentage of Americans who blame Bill Clinton's "moral failings" for the current business scandals : 51

Percentage who blame President Bush's "close ties to big corporations" : 46

Percentage of CEOs who blame CEOs for the scandals : 69

Value of the Dow Jones industrial average in 1996 when Alan Greenspan warned of investors' "irrational exuberance" : 6,437

Average number of U.S. print-media references to "our new reality" each week since September 11, 2001 : 1.4

Average number of words of MTV's The Osbournes censored per minute : 2.8

Posted 11:23:00 a.m. by Masi

Etymology of ale

I have found an interesting explanation in Linda & Roger Flavell's :

A Germanic root, alut-, gave rise to the Old English ealu, 'ale', and related words in Scandinavian languages. The Old English word beor, 'beer', also existed and sprang from an unidentified Germanic root from which German and Dutch also derived their words for beer. In medieval England the two words were synonymous, although ale was much more commonly used, beer beign reserved for more formal poetic contexts. In the Middle Ages wood sage, alecost and ground-ivy (alehoof) were used to preserve and flavour ale but in the sixteenth century Flemish immigrants introduced the practice of adding hops to malted grain and this drink was called beer to distinguish it from ale. In his Dyetary (1542) Andrew Boorde describes the brew and laments the harmful effects of its popularity : Bere is made of malte, of hoppes, and water: it is a naturall drynke for a Dutche man. And nowe of late dayes it is moche used in Englande to the detryment of many Englysshe men.

But just under a century later in John Gerard's revised Herbal (1633) beer is found to be a nourishing beverage : The manifold virtues of Hops so manifestly argue the wholesomeness of beer above ale: for the hops rather make it a physical drink to keep the body in health, than an ordinary drink for the quenching of our thirst.

In the Middle Ages and through the seventeenth century, ale was not only a drink but a term given to a festivity where ale was drunk. Sometimes this was a family occasion such as a wedding (bride ale) or funeral (dirge ale). Often an ale would be held on a saint's day or Christian festival (Whitsun ale) to benefit church funds. The congregation would donate malt, from which the church wardens brewed ale to sell back to them at the celebration. Or an ale might mark out the agricultural or working year (lamb ale, scythale). There were sometimes at the expense of the lord of the manor but often peasants were ordered to contribute malt and then forced to but the brew (L F Saltzman, English Life in the Middle Ages, 1926). Whatever the excuse for the ale, it was generally marked by revelry and drunkenness.

Quite interesting, innit ?