Brain Drain Forever (BDF)

2003-12-10T21:52:00.000+01:00

Da oggi, BDF non sarà più aggiornato.
Ho fuso insieme sito e weblog in un ibrido che mi sembra apprezzabile.
Andate a darci un'occhiata e grazie per avermi seguito fin qui.

2003-11-16T00:02:00.000+01:00

Della serie: riflettiamoci sopra

Animated characters, of course, have every advantage over humans. They move at the speed of light, have more sharply defined personalities, and are ageless and indestructible.

2003-11-10T17:58:00.000+01:00

Marco (ciao ciao) mi chiede da dove arrivi la citazione di qualche post fa, ovvero

So take another pill from your purse
Take a little ride in a hearse

... ma da Takin' a Ride dei mitici Replacements (the 'mats, altrimenti detti).

Il loro leader -parole grosse- Paul Westerberg ha anche inciso non pochi dischi da solista. Una sua canzone si trova sulla colonna sonora di Singles, Lookin' for Somebody. Ed è bellissima.
Su Replacements più varie ed eventuali, assolutamente Man Without Ties.

Somewhere there's a smile with my name on it

*

Good substitute for inspiration
Prostitutes and perspiration

2003-11-09T20:39:00.000+01:00

** Parco Esempio di Altissima Prosa **
(attenti alla vocale d'inizio frase)

dal sito ufficiale del Torino Film Festival questo gioiello:

"(...) su tutti giganteggia un William Friedkin in assoluto stato di grazia folgorato da purissimo furore prometeico."

Prometeico davéro. Altro che storie. Che non vada perso, che, il purissimo furore.
Prometeico.

(risate convulse in sottofondo)

2003-11-07T15:31:00.000+01:00

There is nothing, / There is anything, / But there isn't, / Perhaps there is, / Perhaps there isn't, / Surely there is, / Said there isn't, / It's not true, / There is truth, / The lie there is, / There is a lie, / The truth there is, / No one knows, / No one cares, / We know nothing, / We know everything, / Still don't know, / There is an answer, / There isn't an answer, / The truth there is, / The truth there isn't, / The lie there isn't, / The truth there is, / The truth is a lie, / The lie is the truth, / I'm not sure, / Anyone is me, / I am anyone, / Everybody is me / I am everybody, / Like the truth becomes a lie.

(Memento Mori, 1999)

2003-11-05T14:59:00.000+01:00

Voglio una tortina buonina e tiepidina. Cheesecake, ad esempio.

2003-11-02T20:00:00.000+01:00

So take another pill from your purse
Take a little ride in a hearse

2003-10-30T16:20:00.000+01:00

X-Rated
Il cinefilo (no, non io me) si scatena...

2003-10-29T17:54:00.000+01:00

La terribile onda d'urto della tempesta solare sta provocando effetti imprevisti e disastrosi.
Ad esempio, per un po' il mio sito sarà offline.
Non so se c'entri davvero la tempesta, ma il provider sicuramente sì.
Ahi.
Intanto mi scuso & mi rallegro con questi archivi e cerco di pensare a tutt'altro.
Ma altro altro, davvero.

2003-10-18T17:46:00.000+02:00

Jeff Klein.
Nel lettore cd, in loop.

2003-10-14T19:09:00.000+02:00

ALL THE PEOPLE I LIKE ARE THOSE THAT ARE DEAD
by Felt

Maybe I should entertain
The very fact that I'm insane
I wasn't fooling when I said
All the people I like are those that are dead
I've been around this town and I've seen what god has done
I've been around and it's no fun
I've been a two-timer/tearaway god has told me so
But I don't believe in him you know
Don't make me a martyr for our causes
'Cause I don't believe a word that you said
All the people I like are those are dead
Maybe I shoud take a gun
And put it to the head of everyone
All the people I like are in the ground
It's better to be lost than to be found
I should listen hard to the voices from within
They are telling me that I'll never win
I should save myself I shoud save myself from sin
But I wouldn't know where to begin
You are trying to tell me what you believe in
But I ain't got a clue what you are talking about
It's better to be a man than to be a mouse
All the people I like are those that are dead
All the people I like are those that are dead
All the people I like are those that are dead
All the people I like are those that are dead
I've been around this town and I've seen what God has done
I've been around and it's no fun
I've been a two-timer/tearaway god has told me so
But I don't believe in him you know
Don't make me a martyr for our causes
'Cause I don't believe a word that you said
All the people I like are those that are
All the people I like are those that are
All the people I like are those that are dead.

2003-10-14T10:51:00.000+02:00

Da una recente chat con Alessandro Baricco:

ops...
hai letto senza sugo?
shatzy

No. Me l'hanno mandato, con dedica e tutto, ma poi l'ho perso di vista. Setola non era male. Chissà perché non hanno fatto la parodia di City...

Beh, chapeau, e dico sul serio.
Uno a zero per lui. O al massimo uno pari.
Mannaggia.
*smirk*

2003-10-10T11:46:00.000+02:00

Questa è la FAQ di tutte le FAQ via e-mail (Frequently Asked Questions, ossia Domande Spesso Poste, però DSP è meno bello).

Quesito: ma tu che scrivi per lavoro (sì, lo faccio, assieme all'editing e ad altro, reo confesso) e scrivi di tutto, dalla favola buona buona al dark terribile (ed è vero anche questo), come fai a mantenere una coerenza pur solo interna? Non vai dietro alle mode da perfetto paraculo? Perché dovrei comperare un libro di Giovanni Arduino quando è firmato Jonathan Snow o Joe Arden o chissà che (miei pseudonimi, okay, anche chissà che)?

Replica, la più sincera possibile:

- coerenza. Scrivendo non frego nessuno. Butto sulla pagina emozioni (molto emocore, come la musica, che per inciso non mi fa impazzire). Poi, solo poi, arrivano tecnica, filtri e il resto. Prima il cuore, per quanto vieto e banale e ingenuo e semplicistico possa sembrare, poi il cervello. E io amo tutto e di tutto, come spesso ripeto, da Chet Baker ai Ramones, da Frank Capra a Takashi Miike, da Winsor McCay a James O'Barr, da Raffaello a Dave McKean, dai fratelli Grimm a Denis Johnson, dal chinotto alla birra triplo malto, da... Con tutto ciò che sta nel mezzo, magari anche mezza pagina di Paulo Coelho e cinque minuti di un film di Nando Cicero. E amo davvero, profondamente e intensamente, non come quelli che ti dicono "amo tutta la musica" e poi in casa hanno una compilation di Radio Montecarlo e due tristi dispense da edicola.
Coerenza: essere onesti con gli altri e con se stessi (anzi, viceversa e di conseguenza). E sto ancora imparando.

- mode. Posso venirne influenzato. Tutti lo siamo. Virus memetici che si aggirano per l'aria. Chiunque sostenga il contrario è un bugiardo. Non le cavalco, no, o almeno non penso.

- perché comperare. Struttura e trama a parte, i miei romanzi hanno temi e atmosfere comuni, in my ultra-humble opinion. La paura della solitudine, di essere inadeguati, di venire messi da parte. L'affetto per chiunque sia o si senta diverso, dal loser al freak. L'eterna speranza di un lieto fine, anche se impossibile. Malinconia e ombre scure di fondo. E altro, e se avete un paio di minuti da buttare date un'occhiata ai libri del mio sito e ponzateci sopra. Oppure no. Oppure aspettate il prossimo, dita incrociate. Sto imparando, anche qui.

Fine della risposta, da tempo dovuta.
Ciao.

2003-10-08T21:43:00.000+02:00

Da grande voglio essere Rob Zombie.
E buonanotte al secchio.

2003-09-21T14:00:00.000+02:00

Qui si beve bene la birra.
Vale il viaggio. Potete trovarmi spesso. Uomo avvisato, eccetera. E comunque, più qui che a presentazioni di libri et similia. Non ne faccio. Giusto per gli amici, toh. Non mi piace/piacciono e bona le'.

2003-09-02T16:36:00.000+02:00

Matteo ha fatto blog!
(Per i non iniziati, Matteo è Matteo Curtoni, uno dei pochi, pochissimi autori italiani viventi che stimi, e sul suo diario, che spero vorrà continuare anche solo una volta al mese o all'anno, ché le sue parole mi fan star bene, parla del mitico Ken Bruen, autore irlandese tra Bukowski e l'hard boiled, uno dei tanti ma non troppi scrittori stranieri viventi che mi piaccia davvero -Bruen verrà pubblicato da Frassinelli nel 2004 e io ho avuto l'onore di concludere il deal un annetto fa. Fine della lunga parentesi e probabile chissenefrega. Potete tirare il fiato).

2003-09-01T12:45:00.000+02:00

Sono tornato.
Evviva evviva.
Nuovo romanzo firmato Jonathan Snow (L'uomo che incontrò il mare) in tutte le librerie il due settembre dalla Sperling & Kupfer Editori.
Potete investirci dieci euro e cinquanta centesimi?
Essì.
Eddài.
O almeno buttateci un occhio.
Copertina + altro qui.
Fine spam.
Prossimamente roba più (o meno) interessante.
Stay sick...

2003-07-30T08:44:00.000+02:00

Kimya, la regina dell'anti-folk.
Ascoltare subito!

2003-07-23T14:15:00.000+02:00

Scary Girl!
Da tempo non colleziono più action figure, ma questa è davvero bella, molto Edward Gorey-style e sul sito c'è uno sfondo per il desktop niente male. Anzi. Insomma.

2003-07-19T09:28:00.000+02:00

I libri sono belli, quasi tutti, in particolar modo quelli usati.
(In quanto a chi li scrive, beh, è un altro paio di maniche).

Seeking nirvana in a dusty bookshelf
They may look sleepy, but many used-book stores are thriving.

By James Verini

Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

"How many cities have revealed themselves to me in the marches I have undertaken in the pursuit of books!"
— Walter Benjamin, "Unpacking My Library"

It should be said from the start that going to used-book stores is, at best, a useless pursuit. It is reversionary, unhealthy even. Used-book stores are filled with books, dusty, old, sinus-polluting books and, as if that weren't enough, with the kind of people you make a conscious effort to avoid during the day — ne'er do-wells, layabouts, semi-employed dissertation candidates and self-proclaimed bibliophiles who consider writers such as Walter Benjamin, dead since 1940, their real friends.

Used-book stores are not where you absorb relevant knowledge; they are not where you go to bone up on Steven Pinker's latest thoughts on cognitive theory, to peruse the newest campaign biographies or to sneak a cheaper copy of "The Da Vinci Code" so you can affordably keep up with cocktail conversation.

If you like to make the most of your life, used-book stores can seem an absolute waste of time. That is precisely what makes spending time in them so worthwhile.

For devotees of the used-book store, Los Angeles has quietly become one of the last bastions, for L.A. has become one of the last great American book towns. New York may be home to the publishing industry and Lewis Lapham's thesaurus, Chicago still has Saul Bellow, but in both those cities high rents and the Internet have driven many of the venerable used- and rare-book stores out of business.

But here, the book business is thriving. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the greater Los Angeles area is the largest book market in the country now with 21.5% of the books sold by independent bookstores, the highest percentage in the country.

In social as well as economic terms, L.A. is a wordy town as never before. Witness last year's "Writing Los Angeles: A Literary Anthology," from stuffy Library of America, and last month's "The Misread City: New Literary Los Angeles." The Los Angeles Times Festival of Books now is the largest event of its kind in the country. Look at the lineup of authors the West Hollywood store Book Soup attracts, and at the recent national syndication of the impossibly literate radio show "Bookworm," a KCRW-FM creation.

For truly devoted book nuts, however, for those who know what they're doing is hopelessly archaic and love it, the used-books store still is the center of the universe. Because — before you get too hopeful about the state of civilization — books are, let's face it, on their deathbed. As an art and a business, they're obsolete. They have been for the better part of a century. They may continue to be for a century more. That is their charm.

Borders and Barnes & Noble would want to deny this. But it is at the used-books store, the least sensible of all businesses, a place perpetually teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, where you can drink in the utter futility of books without a $4 latte chaser.

Take, for instance, what probably is the best establishment in the greater Los Angeles area — certainly the most voluminous — Acres of Books, on Long Beach Boulevard in Long Beach.

The name is not an exaggeration. Acres has, by a conservative estimate, 750,000 books on its bowed, rotting shelves (the number probably is closer to 1 million). "More books than anybody in their right mind needs," acknowledges Jackie Smith, who has worked in the store since 1976 and now owns it (her husband's grandfather opened it in the 1930s).

You'll find everything from Kakfa to books on games to play with your cat, studies of Mesopotamian sexual practices to the early novels of Henry Fielding, and in every condition from mint first edition to dog-eared and ragged.

You'll discover, as one reporter did, the first volume of Evelyn Waugh's very hard-to-find one-volume autobiography (he planned three, but then died), "A Little Learning." And for $5, hard-bound, no less.

Disregard your claustrophobia and the justifiable fear of getting smothered beneath the Pisa-like spires of books, and have one of the helpful Sonic Youth clerks help you to the section on "Hackysack, Yo-Yo's and Juggling." Nearby, look over the three full shelves devoted to the history and study of prostitution. And don't forget the Frank Cotton Memorial Oddball shelves, named for the late head clerk of Acres, who until his death in 1988 functioned as the store's only computer. There, you find a volume titled "14,000 Things to Be Happy About," and another called "The Dot and the Line: A Romance in Lower Mathematics."

Along with these testaments to the misguided history of human curiosity, there are any number of misguided, curious humans to be wondered at, shuffling along with that awkward sidelong gait particular to creatures used to over-tight bookstore aisles. Pale and near-sighted from years of 50-watt bulbs, they gaze up at titles mostly long forgotten, at authors mostly dead and buried, E.M. Forster's words from "Howards End" perhaps ringing in their ears: "Only connect....only connect."The proximity of the present to the past — of life to death — in used-book stores is electrifying. In a pre-digital electrical way.

Take the Eclectic Collector, a dark, breezy hole in the wall just off the pier in Hermosa Beach. Presided over by Tom Allard, a Barnaby Rudge-type who can usually be found outside the shop in a Hawaiian shirt, smoking, the Collector is usually empty. A wholly different experience from Acres, it is the kind of place where you can sit down with a copy of, for example, "Legendary Yachts: The Great American Yachts from Crowningshield's Cleopatra's Barge to Today's Intrepid Bill Robinson" (1971, $8.50), and lose yourself for hours in nautical luxuries.

Lose yourself in a book, off the pier in Hermosa? What exactly was being smoked on the pier beforehand, you ask?

But Los Angeles has lately come to the forefront in keeping the tradition of bibliomaniacal uselessness alive. As the university libraries of Southern California strive to keep pace with mushrooming student populations, and as the rising cost of books drives students and parents to look for better values, the secondhand reading business is thriving along with the likes of Barnes & Noble and Amazon.

A recent tally by The Times uncovered roughly 40 used- and rare-book stores in the greater L.A. area. Although they tend to occupy low-rent districts, they exist in virtually every corner — Hollywood, Van Nuys, Thousand Oaks, Silver Lake, Westwood, Glendale — and in dizzying variety.

They cater to chefs (Cook's Library on 3rd Street in L.A.), photographers (Dawson's on Larchmont in L.A.), astrologers and soul-searchers (Bodhi Tree used book annex, on Melrose in West Hollywood).

Looking for an obscure work of 18th century German philosophy? Try Angel City Bookstore in Santa Monica. Want to know how to decorate a set entirely in bed linen? Book City in Hollywood. Looking for an obscure erotic science-fiction novel signed by the author? Bookfellows in Glendale. Need an early word of Samuel Johnson's? Why, Sam: Johnson's Bookshop on Pico, of course, where the owner, Bob Klein, a literature professor and novelist, will even deign to discuss the Doctor with you.

This being Los Angeles, of course, most stores abound in movie star biographies, self-help guides and Buddhism. Automobiles and art books often show up in force too.Still, some proprietors are not sanguine about the future. They say that, with as many used-book stores as there are, many have closed in the last 20 years. They say that the Internet, while it has helped them move inventory to far-flung customers, has also driven off-the-street business, and even regulars.

"Why should anyone go to a bookstore when they can order a book from the comfort of their desk and get it in a day?" asked Michael Thompson, who has owned Michael R. Thompson Bookseller, on 3rd Street in West Hollywood, for 30 years.

Thompson said that the huge market for libraries in Southern California may help business in the short run, but it has taken a lot of books that would have been bought and sold repeatedly out of circulation permanently. But he added that the mega-bookstore trend has not affected his business adversely.

But many experienced proprietors seem hopeful. Leonard Berstein's father opened Caravan Bookstore on Grand Avenue in 1954. Now Leonard owns it. "It's only been fifty years — I'll tell you in 75," says Bernstein, when asked about the state of business. He says he sees room for everyone in the book business — the Amazons, the Borders, the independent first-run stores and himself. "I'm not going out to buy a new Lexus every year," he says. "I'd rather spend it on books."

An encouraging sign is the recent influx of youth into the business. Traditionally the province of antiquaries and literates of the pre-computer age — that is to say, older people — used-book stores are now increasingly owned by people in their 30s and 40s.

Samantha Scully, 36, purchased Gene de Chene Booksellers on Santa Monica Boulevard in West L.A. from its aging owner last year. Faced with the store's closing and the loss of her job, Scully didn't want to see this neighborhood mainstay with a political bent (an antiwar poster adorns the door and a nice section of books on nuclear war sits inside) disappear. She believes she can keep the store afloat by attracting younger customers. "I wanted the store to stay here," she said, adding that, as she spoke, three patrons in their early 20s were browsing in her shop.

Brian Paepper, 39, a Dutch-born Angeleno, owns Alias Books, formerly West L.A. Book Center, on Sawtelle Boulevard. He sees a future in the used-book business, as long as it is treated as a business. The previous owner, Paepper said, would place high prices on books he felt especially attached to, and they wouldn't sell. He refused to utilize the Internet. To keep the store in business and relevant, Paepper has taken to selling textbooks and brought the store's inventory online.

"Used-book stores should cater to people who can't afford new books as they become more expensive," he says. Still, he adds, "it's a fool's profession."

But it is the foolishness, like the uselessness, like the smell of life and death on those shelves, that makes the used-book store what it is. Michael Silverblatt, host of KCRW-FM's literary talk show "Bookworm," says: "At a first-run bookstore, people don't necessarily like books. They like trends, or CDs, or coffee. But used-book stores are meeting places for people who like books, and not just books, but people who want to find bookishness, a substance in rare supply these days."

Silverblatt is fond of Cambridge Bookshop on Beverly Boulevard in West Hollywood — he likes to buy a book there and then go sit in Lulu's and drink coffee; but then who wouldn't? — and Arnold M. Herr Bookseller on Fairfax Avenue in West Hollywood.

The question, then, is not whether to get addicted to used-book stores — your mental well-being and family and professional lives, happily, stand only to suffer — but which used-book stores to get addicted to.

2003-07-13T12:16:00.000+02:00

Test, test, test.
"Perché sul tuo blog non ci sono test?"
Invece di sfanculare, eccoli tutti assieme, almeno quelli essenziali.
E poi basta, nei secoli dei secoli, neh.

*** DISCLAIMER!!! ***

These tests ARE NOT SCIENTIFIC MEASUREMENTS of what kind of person you are. Love or hate labels and stereotypes, they exist. So why not make fun of them! If you don't get the joke, then that says something about your sense of humor, or the lack of one.

I am 53% Punk Rock

The intelligent punk. Tuff and Smart. I may be able to maintain a train of thought long enough... What the fuck was I talking about?

Take the Punk Rock Test at fuali.com

I am 55% Emo

Well.. I've made the cut! Now I'll go buy some promise rings and knit myself a sweater.

Take the Emo Test at fuali.com

I am 11% Geek

I wanna be a geek. But I'm not. Why would I even want to be one. Do I think it's fun? I should try writting an online test application at 1 am in my underwear

Take the Geek Test at fuali.com

I am 62% Goth

Oh My Goth! You Goth, Girl. There is a good chance I am bi. Freakiness pumps through my viens, but I can still laugh at myself.

Take the Goth Test at fuali.com

I am 80% Metal Head

I was born with the mark of the beast on my forehead and an axe in my arms. I am the god of all things metal! Now if only I could get my parents to give me back my car keys.....

Take the Metal Head Test at fuali.com

2003-07-07T18:05:00.000+02:00

Credete che l'editoria (anche italiana) sia fatta di libri?
Well, think again.

Q & A
Tom Engelhardt
Getting the business end of publishing
Adair Lara, Chronicle Staff Writer

©2003 San Francisco Chronicle

Tom Engelhardt talks so fast and nervously it's as if he can hardly get the words out. An editor in publishing for 30 years, he left Pantheon in a hugely publicized flap in 1990 when his boss was forcibly retired. Since then he's switched hats and written a novel. "The Last Days of Publishing" (University of Massachusetts; 215 pages; $24.95) reads as if he's a man helplessly watching his house burn down. The Chronicle reached Engelhardt, who is a teaching fellow at the Graduate School of Journalism at UC Berkeley, by phone at his office in New York.

Q: You were hired as an editor at Pantheon in 1976, before the advent of publishing conglomerates, bidding wars and huge bookstore chains. Was it a Golden Age, looking back?

A: When I arrived, publishing had already gone through its first wave of conglomeration. Pantheon, after all, was owned by Random House, which had just been gobbled up by RCA, but it still had some of the feeling of a cottage industry. I remember a fierce argument we had the first time we considered putting a quote on the front of a book. Was it too tacky? There was that old publishing idea that you didn't want to call attention to publishing, that the point of it was the book.

Q: What's changed? Are editors dinosaurs? Are writers being buried alive by today's publishing volcanoes?

A: A lot has changed. One of the big differences for editors is that most of the time you're not looking at the book; you're looking at three pages of something-or-other that's a promise of a future whatever. Having spent 30 years watching all outlines and descriptions of books turn into things that are almost completely different, I know that most of publishing now is betting on a fantasy. Or you have to bet on the name behind the fantasy or the look of the face behind the fantasy as you imagine it might appear on a TV set. And you know you've got 10 other places out there madly doing the same thing with the same proposal. So the odds are you're not even going to get the damned thing.

Q: And for writers?

A: If you're an author, and you're lucky, what happens is you get the $150, 000 for the first book. Great, but it better work at that level, or the second book -- forget it! That old feeling of starting modest and we'll be with you for another 15 years -- forget that, too. The editor's going to move on, the house is going to be bought up.

The book is such a modest object. It fits uncomfortably into the present, ever-widening entertainment package. The wallpaper's screaming, and it's hard to make books scream loud enough along with it. We're also at a moment in publishing where the book is finding itself dead in the stores. These last few months have been dreadful from a business point of view. You might as well do something else, anything else, unless you really want to write a book. And if you do, you're probably going to figure out some way to get it to someone.

Q: Your novel's protagonist, Rick Koppes, works for a New York publishing house called Byzantium, which is taken over by a German entertainment conglomerate owned by a magnate you call Bruno Hindemann. You worked for Pantheon, which is owned by a German firm called Bertelsmann. Is this a roman a clef?

A: My book is about a world I know all too well, but it's not a roman a clef. I called my house Byzantium because I was amused by that older style of using Greek and Roman names to add a certain ersatz dignity to a house, that's all.

Q: Did you have one or two runaway best-sellers, as Koppes did?

A: [laughing] No! I never published a psycho-pop book, which is what keeps Koppes from getting axed. Once upon a time, if I bragged at all, it was by claiming that I was publishing's editor of last resort. Eduardo Galeano -- I published his beautiful "Memory of Fire" trilogy -- he'd been rejected all over. "Maus" stumbled through my door after every publishing house in New York rejected it. (Art Spiegelman won a special Pulitzer Prize in 1992 for "Maus" and "Maus II," graphic novels about the Holocaust in which mice are Jews and cats are Nazis.) "Maus" was a complete happenstance. My mother was a cartoonist, so I loved comics.

Q: Publishing is a business, but editing is a profession, one might also say an art. What does an editor do?

A: All fine writers lay down a path for you, the editor. All you have to do is find it in the verbal undergrowth, set foot upon it, and then it's all remarkably simple. You're doing your best to slip inside another mind and help unknot the words and thoughts that stood between a writer and the book he or she imagined. When I say this, people think I'm crazy, but helping an author and then disappearing into the text, becoming invisible, is, to my mind, a beautiful act. The word "used" has a negative connotation, but I like to say that I've been well used.

Q: So you were doing what you loved. What made you quit Pantheon?

A: In 1990, Si Newhouse shoved my boss, Andre Schiffrin, into forced retirement. Five senior editors and a hunk of the staff quit in protest -- I was one of those. I just walked out. There was a political element to it, and it had an impact at the time. Writers protested. Pantheon was a very specific place, publishing a very specific kind of book, and we felt that was being wiped out. As it turned out, what happened at Pantheon was the beginning of the gargantuan feasting on the independent publishing house and not-so- independent houses as well.

Q: You must have a million contacts in New York. Why did you sell your book to a university press?

A: I couldn't get it published in the mainstream. There was one young editor who wanted to do it, but at that moment his house got eaten up, and the book made those above him nervous. And so here I am with my own modest object at a modest house. It's not a bad way to go.

Q: What happened after you left Pantheon?

A: There were all those authors I had been with for years who still wanted to be edited. Increasingly, publishing is shaking off many of what once would have been considered its duties, like a dog shaking fleas off its back. If you want a publicist, you better put your own money into getting one. If you want to be edited, you better pay for it. Authors pay me to edit their books for them. I've become enamored with the one-man-band side of life. I even have my own Web log. I've watched the giants feast. It's so big up there, I think it's in a way an oppositional act just to be small sometimes.

2003-06-25T16:44:00.000+02:00

Vorrei provare questo cinema.

2003-06-18T18:09:00.000+02:00

Su libri e altro.
Hmmmm, niente male.

2003-06-18T12:11:00.000+02:00

boing boing (boing boing boing! great fun!)

2003-06-17T14:08:00.000+02:00

Il romanzo più bello che abbia letto negli ultimi mesi. In Italia lo pubblicherà Fazi.

2003-06-17T11:34:00.000+02:00

Dan Fante (figlio di John).
Intervista.

2003-06-13T10:51:00.000+02:00

Serial killer. Storie di ossessione omicida
Il giallista Carlo Lucarelli e il criminologo della Polizia italiana Massimo Picozzi tracciano l'anatomia del serial killer, questa minacciosa e angosciante incarnazione di omicida criminale. Partendo dalla narrazione di dodici casi, i due autori riconoscono alcune tipologie di assassini seriali e offrono un catalogo agghiacciante di casi che hanno messo in difficoltà le polizie di tutto il mondo.

Massimo Picozzi è uomo di amplissime vedute e per niente nazional-popolar-apocalittico. Da criminologo (lo ricordate dopo CSI con il suo fare concitato e querulo stile sono-appena-andato-a-cena-con-Hannibal-Lecter?), diventa in un lampo strenuo difensore della morale comune, opinionista modello Cronaca Vera e (parecchio) altro.
Basti considerare questo suo articolo pubblicato da Panorama del quale copioincollo l'incipit, degno di una canzone di Elio e le Storie Tese. Per altre imperdibili chicche, cliccare qui.
Fino a quando tipi così continueranno a scrivere e a recitare in tivù, viva sempre viva l'ottima Franca Leosini...

Ragazzini intossicati dalla marijuana, ettari di campi riconvertiti a canapa, condomini trasformati in serre, criminalità in aumento vertiginoso. È quanto sta vivendo la Svizzera dopo la legalizzazione del «fumo».
Alessandro ha 14 anni, una vita segnata, il futuro appeso al filo dell'incertezza di un recupero forse impossibile.
Alessandro è uno dei pazienti della più conosciuta clinica psichiatrica della Svizzera italiana; ce l'ha portato una guardia del carcere minorile per un ricovero coatto ordinato dal magistrato dei minorenni: bisogna valutare quanto è grave la sua situazione, di quale terapia ha bisogno, se sia opportuno indirizzarlo a una comunità di recupero.
Alessandro ha iniziato a fumare spinelli quando non aveva ancora compiuto 11 anni; a 13 è passato all'ecstasy, poi alla cocaina. Impossibile frequentare la scuola, con la testa sempre confusa, la capacità di concentrarsi che un giorno c'è, l'altro no; viene bocciato, abbandona gli studi. Inevitabile passare allo spaccio per procurarsi soldi e droga.

2003-06-11T19:30:00.000+02:00

questo lo incollo qui se no me lo dimentico ed è un bel link, sul serio, usatelo ma poi restituitemelo, si chiama pietro e torna indietro

2003-06-11T12:55:00.000+02:00

"Real books should be the offspring not of daylight and casual talk but of darkness and silence".

2003-06-11T12:21:00.000+02:00

purpleglitter, a great site created by
+ lake rain vajra +
fave writers
anais nin, angela carter, danielle willis, donna tartt, jamaica kincaid, kathe koja, marguerite duras, may sarton, michelle tea, poppy z. brite, tanith lee, clint catalyst...

2003-06-11T09:16:00.000+02:00

The PornOrchestra is an attempt to radically reinterpret the soundtrack to pornographic film.

2003-06-08T10:31:00.000+02:00

Sunday mo(u)rnin's sing-along!
All together now!

Eels
Love of the Loveless

Don’t got a lot of time
Don’t give a damn
Don’t tell me what to do
I am the man
If there’s a god up there
Something above
God, shine your light down here
Shine on the love
Love of the loveless

Don’t have too many friends
Never felt at home
Always been my own man
Pretty much alone
I know how to get through
And when push comes to shove
I got something that you need
I got the love
Love of the loveless

All around you people walking
Empty hearts and voices talking
Looking for and finding
Nothing

Don’t got a lot of time
Don’t really care
Not selling anything
Buyer beware
If there’s a god up there
Something above
God, shine your light down here
Shine on the love
Love of the loveless

Don’t got a lot of time
Don’t give a damn
Don’t tell me what to do
I am the man
Love of the loveless

2003-06-07T09:57:00.000+02:00

"Their tongues intertwined like snakes slithering in a dance of forbidden love."

2003-06-07T09:52:00.000+02:00

Creative NonQuiction
Definizione divertente.
Grazie a lei per il link.

2003-06-07T08:56:00.000+02:00

Puro genio.
Evviva la non-creatività, almeno quando chi è creativo (aperte e chiuse virgolette) resta fermo al palo.
Prosit.

-----------------------------------------------------------

DAY
by Goldsmith, Kenneth
$20.00 / Paper / 836pp.
The Figures, 2003
ISBN: 1-930589-20-4
Poetry. Art. Obsession. "I am spending my 39th year practicing
uncreativity. On Friday, September 1, 2000, I began retyping the day's NEW
YORK TIMES word for word, letter for letter, from the upper left hand
corner to the lower right hand corner, page by page." With these words,
Kenneth Goldsmith embarked upon a project which he termed "uncreative
writing", that is: uncreativity as a constraint-based process; uncreativity
as a creative practice. By typing page upon page, making no distinction
between article, editorial and advertisement, disregarding all
typographic and graphical treatments, Goldsmith levels the daily newspaper. DAY
is a monument to the ephemeral, comprised of yesterday's news, a
fleeting moment concretized, captured, then reframed into the discourse of
literature. Special prize to anyone who reads every word and symbol on
all 836 pages.

2003-06-06T20:19:00.000+02:00

Link-a-poetry

I cani sono in auto
La vibrazione del telefonino serve finalmente a qualcosa
I giocattoli degli anni Ottanta vengono hackerati
Mentre faccio compile per la mia ragazza,
gli stupidi prosperano.

2003-06-04T12:39:00.000+02:00

beh, così è più leggibile.
Ooh.
Ci pasticcerÃ² @@@@@@@ un po'.
Poi se vede.

2003-06-04T12:35:00.000+02:00

weblog incasinato fino a nuovo ordine!

2003-06-04T11:27:00.000+02:00

2003-05-27T21:30:00.000+02:00

Doom Blog
Il Blog della Mailing List Doom Generation
Adesso, grazie a Carlo, c'è.

2003-05-17T23:31:00.000+02:00

Why remain in the City of God when God has forgotten you?

2003-05-07T10:19:00.000+02:00

666

venite, bambini! fa bene e diverte!!!!

2003-05-07T10:18:00.000+02:00

2003-05-05T13:24:00.000+02:00

Oooooh, vacanza, vacanza e vacanza e lavoro lavoro lavoro.
Nothing to write home about, soprattutto per il secondo.
Ascolto i BeachBuggy (garage punk!) e no, non sarò presentissimo al Salone del LiBBro di Torino.
Un po' sì, per altro e altri.
Ma tanto tanto no.
Nah.
E chi se ne stropiccia, risponderete voi.
Giusto.

2003-04-20T15:34:00.000+02:00

a voi la mala pasqua

2003-04-20T15:32:00.000+02:00

FUCKIN' ASK ME

2003-04-13T18:14:00.000+02:00

Merda di balena.
Merda grande, quindi.
Per essere sinceramente democratico, un vero blog di questo deve parlare.
Altrimenti è nazi (vedi link sotto).
Copiate e incollate l'interessante disquisizione sulla cacca di cetaceo (vedi oltre).
Solo così il vostro spazio nella blogosfera sarà hip e libertario!
Ecco.
Ci vuole talmente poco...

For the want of dung, many whales have been lost. Cetacean feces can show what the animals eat—crucial information for protecting their habitat—but it disperses quickly in the ocean. The only reliable way to study whale diet has been to slaughter some of the animals and examine their stomachs. But Nick Gales, a biologist with the Australian government's Antarctic Division, has found a way to extract dietary data from what minute samples of whale scat remain floating on the waves. Using DNA fingerprinting, he can deduce exactly what prey a whale has consumed, which individual excreted the waste, and even whether the animal has intestinal parasites. Gales sees this as a powerful tool for protection: "In order to know the impact of commercial fishing on a species, you need to know exactly what the animals are eating, and whether they are turning to alternate food sources." He has already used his DNA test to track such dietary changes. The new emphasis on excrement also puts additional pressure on governments that support whaling. "It does away with what had been considered an accepted reason to kill already threatened animals," Gales says.

2003-04-13T17:59:00.000+02:00

Tutti fanno weblog (o blog, che è meglio)!
E' la vera democrazia, la vera libertà, tanto quanto QUESTA.
Ma fatemi il piacere, ma fatemi.

2003-04-05T13:30:00.000+02:00

THE CRAMPS
nuovo album, nuovo tutto, fuggite dal sole e rintanatevi in cantina con una vecchia fonovaligia!

2003-03-27T19:21:00.000+01:00

LE SUORE
(the nuns)
pregano
contro
la
guerra

2003-03-21T02:18:00.000+01:00

I LIBRI NON VENDONO?
PECCATO.
LEI SI', PERO'!
(... ed è comunque carta stampata!)

2003-03-21T02:15:00.000+01:00

I LIBRI NON VENDONO?
PECCATO.

2003-03-20T10:18:00.000+01:00

LET'S START A WAR
(Said Maggie One Day)

Let's start a war said Maggie one day
With the unemployement masses we'll just do away
They won't mind, like sheep they'll go
They won't suss us, they'll never know

Chorus:
Let's start a war said Maggie one day
Let's start a war said Maggie one day
Let's start a war said Maggie one day
You fight for your country
You die for thei gain

Death and destruction all around
Shops nad houses are razed to the ground
Burnt out houses empty shells
Here on earth it's just a mortal hell

Chorus

How they died no-one will ever know
They said they would have us as deterrents they would be used
Except they brought destruction to an earth that grows no food
Now we are gone for ever no tombs can hold your names

(The Exploited)

2003-03-14T16:19:00.000+01:00

Chi è venuto mercoledì, probabilmente si è divertito.
Oggi, un link per ammazzare il tempo...

2003-03-09T16:38:00.000+01:00

Mercoledì 12 marzo, ore 18.30

FNAC Multistore
Via Roma 56
10123 Torino
info: 011 5516711
Orario negozio
9.30/20.00

FNAC: LIBRI PER UN POMERIGGIO DI MEZZO INFERNO
ovvero, l'orrore, questo parassita

Perchè un percorso sull'horror e dintorni, in soldoni? Le domande retoriche
o pressapoco non ci piacciono. Però, sotto sotto la voglia di dar vita a una
presentazione che tale non fosse e più sembrasse una kermesse, di tentare di
parlare di letteratura senza musi lunghi o sbadigli (i nostri, in primis),
di abborracciare qualcosa un po' fuori dal coro, dall'usuale giro di
compagnucci di merende, di care personcine che presentano l'uno il romanzo
dell'altro, poi si stringono la mano e si fanno tanti, ma tanti complimenti.
Qualcosa di assolutamente sopra e pure sotto le righe, di urlato e di
sussurrato, di nero e di rosso, perchè l'orrore, comunque lo si voglia
presentare, non ha colore, non ha suono, non ha forma. Un'ameba, un
parassita, attecchisce dove può e prende e pretende l'aspetto che più gli
garba.
Per esempio. Dracula di Bram Stoker è horror, nudo e crudo, almeno
all'apparenza. E i racconti di Edgar Allan Poe: non scherziamo.
Rientrano -questi e quello- nei canoni gotici, classici o presunti tali:
vampiri, ratti, navi fantasma, gatti neri, cuori rivelatori e case
maledette. E American Psycho? Uhm. Scarto di lato con critica sociale e
satira. E l'iperviolenza omo di Dennis Cooper? Paura della metropoli, dei
rapporti umani, dell'adolescenza, del sesso. E il dark estremo, quasi un
Raymond Chandler nelle Malebolge, del Kent Harrington di Dia de los muertos;
e la love story necrofila di Poppy Brite con Cadavere squisito; e i manga
all'apparenza dolcissimi ma assolutamente destabilizzanti di Suehiro Maruo;
e le illustrazioni per bambini (sì, per bambini, come no) di Davide Toffolo,
il creatore dei Cinque Allegri Ragazzi Morti; e il realismo diabolicamente
magico con detective story per contorno di Jack O' Connell de Il tempio
della pelle; e la violenza ribalda & settantasettina, da Non aprite quella
porta ambientato a Centocelle, di Ranxerox di Stefano Tamburini; e i sogni
quasi oppiacei e lisergici del trascuratissimo Mar delle blatte di Tommaso
Landolfi; e... Al bando le domande retoriche, via i punti interrogativi.
L'orrore è dappertutto. Non può essere isolato nella mente di un serial
killer da profiler o neuropsichiatri o sociologi di mezza tacca, buoni per
puntare un magro dito accusatore contro chicchessia o per i siparietti da
pochade di Bruno Vespa. Non va sezionato in sottogeneri inutili
(splatterpunk per il più violento, old school per quello moscetto,
mainstream alla Stephen King o Dean Koontz, cyber se pasticciato con la
fantascienza, e via delirando), perchè come genere, come corpo, non esiste.
Ma sul corpo agisce, da parassita. Cvd. Come volevasi dimostrare.
Mercoledì 12 marzo, ore 18.30, al multistore FNAC di Via Roma 56 con vetrina
in tema (come no) e tanto di camice bianco (si fa per dire, forse) parleremo
dell'orrore. O lo evocheremo. Ne parlerete anche e soprattutto voi, con
ospiti a sorpresa, mascherati o meno. La maschera potrà essere un volto
qualsiasi, da tutti i giorni, lavoro/pizza/cinema. Oppure da Morte Rossa. A
fare la differenza, quello che si nasconde sotto.
Giovanni Arduino
Alessandra C
http://www.giovanniarduino.com
http://www.kinakuta.it

LIBRI DA VETRINA
(personalissimo superfluo indispensabile)

Neil Gaiman, AMERICAN GODS (Mondadori)
W.P. Blatty, L'ESORCISTA (Mondadori)
Dino Buzzati, POEMA A FUMETTI (Mondadori)
Edgar A. Poe, IL MEGLIO DEI RACCONTI (Mondadori)
Bram Stoker, DRACULA (Mondadori e/o Rizzoli)
Stephen King, LE NOTTI DI SALEM (Rizzoli)
Stephen King, ON WRITING (Sperling & Kupfer)
Stephen King, DANSE MACABRE (Frassinelli)
Poppy Z. Brite, CADAVERE SQUISITO (Frassinelli)
Giovanni Del Ponte, GLI INVISIBILI E IL SEGRETO DI MISTY BAY (Sperling & Kupfer)
Marilyn Manson, LA MIA LUNGA STRADA DALL'INFERNO (Sperling & Kupfer)
Rex Miller, SLOB (Einaudi)
Bret E. Ellis, AMERICAN PSYCHO (Einaudi)
Suehiro Maruo, IL VAMPIRO CHE RIDE (Coconino Press)
Shinichi Hiromoto, VIOLENT RUNNER VIBRATOR (Kappa Edizioni)
Dennis Cooper, I MIEI PENSIERI PERDUTI (Tropea)
Jack O' Connell, IL TEMPIO DELLA PELLE (Garzanti)
Davide Toffolo, A SCUOLA DAL FANTASMA (Piccoli)
Tommaso Landolfi, IL MAR DELLE BLATTE E ALTRE STORIE (Adelphi)
S. Basile (a cura di), NECRONOMICON, STORIA DI UN LIBRO CHE NON C'E' (Fanucci)
Rod Serling, AI CONFINI DELLA REALTA' (Fanucci)
Stefano Tamburini, RANXEROX IL COATTO (Stampa Alternativa/Nuovi Equilibri)
Kent Harrington, DIA DE LOS MUERTOS (Meridiano Zero)
Charles Baudelaire, EDGAR ALLAN POE (Passigli)
Robert Simon, I BUONI LO SOGNANO, I CATTIVI LO FANNO (Cortina)
ENCYCLOPAEDIA ANATOMICA (Taschen)

(Se venite, si beve qualcosa. Altro non so.)

2003-03-09T14:09:00.000+01:00

sometimes there’s just nothing
rain outside the window
too much coffee in your gut
time ticking away but somehow too slow
you have thoughts but they’re not profound
you have worries and they’re average worries
but terrifying too
—how are you going to make it?
you need a car
a place to sleep
food to eat
and none of these is cheap
you need
all the things that everyone else needs
but you don’t know how
to do anything
and you feel
ashamed to be selling your books
as if you’ve joined the ranks
of all the other merchants
the greedy hustlers

just another salesman

(c) Raegan Butcher/CrimethInc. 2003

2003-03-08T18:31:00.000+01:00

ARE YOU HORN-Y?

2003-03-02T18:50:00.000+01:00

Oi, mi scrive uno, e-mail che tanfa di posticcio, e mi dice sissì, sissì, tu che dici tanto, che critichi questo e quello, che cosa hai letto di decente?
Ultimamente? mi domando io, perchè leggo e rileggo pure per lavoro, e quindi hai voja a stilare elenchi.
Comunque. Diamola per buona.
Ultimamente, per piacere o diletto, mi sono goduto Erlend Loe.
Titolo Naif. Super, editore Iperborea.
Il perchè mi sia piaciuto lo dirò poi e non è spocchia.
Nel frattempo leggetelo.
E non dite (o non dire, tu coll'e-mail farlocca) che sono solo un criticone.
Oh.
PS: Anche quest'altro, D.B.Weiss, è bravissimo e scrive da iddio in terra.
Tra poco in Italia, alé.

2003-03-01T13:15:00.000+01:00

Consiglio del primo marzo con il mal di gola
(io, non il primo marzo)

ogni tanto
provate
a leggere
qualcosa di decente
(anche on line)
ché per la merdetta c'è sempre tempo

2003-02-27T20:59:00.000+01:00

RISATE A BOCCA LARGA

2003-02-25T11:06:00.000+01:00

FRESH!
niente male, non tutto da urlo, ma niente male...

2003-02-24T12:25:00.000+01:00

LEI E' GRANDE
(e voi siete solo delle cacchette)
Vi potreste salvare giusto ascoltando
Manges (grazie, Andrea!)
Peawees
ZeroKelvin
Just do it!

2003-02-22T18:31:00.000+01:00

La migliore di oggi
(non-rubrica sporadica e forse già defunta)

(La Repubblica)
Inghilterra, ricetta choc
sesso orale anti baby-gravidanze
Nei corsi di educazione sessuale per under 16
verrà consigliato in alternativa ai rapporti completi
di MARIA STELLA CONTE

2003-02-21T10:51:00.000+01:00

I vostri incubi sono peggio?
Hm.
Allora scrivetemi.
Oppure no.
Al vostro buon (?!) cuore.

2003-02-20T18:29:00.000+01:00

JAP LIT!
(trendy!)
FUCK U LIT!

2003-02-20T15:08:00.000+01:00

WE'RE A HAPPY FAMILY
A TRIBUTE TO RAMONES
Columbia

postato dal yours truly su Amazon.com... sigh

The Ramones ain't supposed to be particularly cool, hip or whatever. They are meant to be fun and fast and occasionally disturbing. That's it. Three chords and a big 'tude. So, why the heck Rob Zombie churned out this half-assed, uber-stylish tribute? What with the Red Hot Chili Peppers doing their usual, by the numbers, b-o-o-o-ring as hell shtick, the Zombie himself (badly) apeing Motorhead, Marilyn Manson trying to out-goth anyone else (while covering a RAMONES song, for Pete's sake!), Tom Waits throwing in his two cents' worth with some last-minute mumbling and Joe Frusciante gospel-ing the night away? Kiss are okay (at least they understood the profound pop sensibility hidden deep underneath the bruddas' macho posturing); so are Garbage, U2, The Pretenders (mellow doesn't mean bad, ya know) and, most unsurprisingly, Green Day and The Offspring. The less said about Eddie Vedder's chirping crooner's voice and Rancid's oi tragedy, the better. Final kudos to Stephen King, who penned the liner notes, for sounding like the most brain-damaged, illiterate, obnoxious fanboy on the web (and for totally endorsing this crummy stuff: awww, come on, Stevie, don't tell me you *really* liked it! You've got some *taste* after all!). All in all, skip this overproduced, overpackaged cash-in and try White Jazz's superb "The Song Ramones The Same" or Amp's "Life's A Gas" instead. And stay tuned for more *real* rock 'n'roll...

2003-02-19T14:31:00.000+01:00

Navigo qui qui qui (grazie a Matteo).
E leggo Stephen Elliott, che consiglio.
Sole e freddo per il resto.
Se non vi piace, non so che farci.

2003-02-19T10:19:00.000+01:00

Shakespeare's so cool, dudes!
HAMLET II: OPHELIA'S REVENGE

2003-02-18T13:55:00.000+01:00

No, ma guardate qua!
*risata grassa e godereccia*
Che breve reghezzo!
E screve enche!
Il reghezzo!
Che breve!

2003-02-17T12:40:00.000+01:00

GOTTFRIED HELNWEIN
ovvero, screw stoopid hacker writers, let's support true art, part II!

2003-02-13T16:32:00.000+01:00

SINISTER VISIONS
ovvero, screw stoopid hacker writers, let's support true art!

2003-02-12T17:34:00.000+01:00

hmmmmmmmmmmm

2003-02-12T16:36:00.000+01:00

CLARENCE.IT ha scoperto adesso i weblog!!!
Grande fiuto...
(sniff sniff snort sniffie sniff)

2003-02-12T10:50:00.000+01:00

VOGLIO UNA BIRRA!!!

Ascoltando i Whirlwind Heat (per chi adora i Devo, e non solo).

2003-02-09T15:59:00.000+01:00

Leggendo Laura Dehham.
Ascoltando i Raveonettes.
Bevendo spuma, senza link.
Avete comperato (e buttato) L'Espresso con dentro Il sorpasso (quello tenetelo) di Dino Risi?

2003-02-09T15:47:00.000+01:00

Storiella minima di una domenica mattina color grigio topo.

Da circa un anno, o forse più, ricevo una newsletter. Senza essermi mai
iscritto. E' un elenco degli incontri e iniziative che xy (da me visto per
tre minuti eoni fa) organizza in biblioteche, librerie e centri sociali, dei
suoi alati pensieri su questo o quello, degli elogi sperticati che amici
presumo carissimi fanno della sua opera tutta. Non ci vuole molto, non mi ci
è mai voluto molto, a premere elimina. Per pigrizia, che io considero
colpevole, ma vabbe'.

Arriva gennaio, con il nuovo pc, il nuovo software, eccetera eccetera.
Decido di fare pulizia. Sotto i colpi di ramazza cade anche la famosa
newsletter. Tra le righe di testo non compare un *unsubscribe* e così
scrivo direttamente a xy, scusandomi tanto, comunicandogli che il suo
bollettino, no, non mi interessa, e grazie se vorrà cancellarmi, e di nuovo
eccetera eccetera. Spedisco. Nel giro di qualche secondo arriva la risposta:
Giovanni, mi dispiace, ma allora non capisci niente davvero, questo è un
mezzo per rimanere uniti, per diffondere informazioni di interesse comune,
per... E vai col tango, avvertendo addirittura che, eh, se voglio rimanere
isolato sono cazzi miei, e insinuando che, certo, dato che lavoro per una
casa editrice "famosa" (sue le virgolette, a quanto ricordo) magari mi
illudo di potere fare a meno di lui e di altri come lui.

Gennaio, eggià. Sto ripulendo, come ho detto. Il nuovo anno procura fottoni
mica da poco e non ho troppo tempo da perdere. Sbuffo e blocco l'indirizzo
di xy, scelta sempre sgradevole e a me sgradita, ma d'altronde.

E' da allora che ci penso su. Ho partorito una considerazione, minima tanto
quanto la storiella: le persone non sono più abituate a sentirsi dire di no.
*No*, in generale. Negativo e negazione = errore. Errore di chicchessia, non
mio di me xy che redigo la newsletter e mi impegno in pari, fondamentali
iniziative (o eventi, perché tutto ormai deve essere grande, gigantesco,
memorabile).

Non sta bene, in soldoni. Se si parla male di una convention su questo o
quel giornale, immancabile la minaccia di una querela e il
che-cosa-ti-sarebbe-costato-scriverne-bene. Se si stronca un gruppo musicale
su fanzine o rivista, subito il comunicato dell'ufficio stampa a spiegarti
dove hai *sbagliato*. Se si avanzano riserve sull'ultimo romanzo dello
scrittore vattelapesca, pure sul web (patria della libertà, e qui
permettete una risata), ecco confezionata nel giro di due secondi
l'etichetta di invidioso, frustrato e rancoroso.

E' preferibile lasciar correre. Tutti compagni della stessa parrocchietta.
Il nero è un brutto colore. Meglio il grigio topo, appunto. Però, con un
altro xy che considera un normalissimo processo alla pari di un gravissimo
insulto alla sua augustissima persona, mi chiedo dove sia l'errore.
O se davvero ne esista uno.

Buona giornata.

2003-02-07T12:32:00.000+01:00

DRAWING BLOG

pure genius!

2003-02-06T23:19:00.000+01:00

ADAM CONNELLY
E'
DIO!

ADAM CONNELLY
IS
GOD!

ADAM CONNELLY
...

whatever, man...

2003-02-06T18:52:00.000+01:00

"I GIORNALISTI NON HANNO UNA COSCIENZA"
(Taxi Driver, Martin Scorsese)

da La Stampa

Marina Berlusconi al vertice Mondadori
«Continuità per far crescere Segrate»

6/2/2003

Marina Berlusconi - trentasei anni e le redini dell´impero Fininvest - è da ieri il nuovo presidente della Mondadori. Il Consiglio di amministrazione del gruppo editoriale di Segrate l´ha chiamata a raccogliere il testimone che Leonardo Mondadori, uscito di scena prematuramente, aveva lasciato. Per Marina non è l´incarico più importante, ma certamente potrebbe trattarsi di quello più coinvolgente sul piano affettivo, e non solo perché la figlia del premier infatti di libri è onnivora. Pur essendo cresciuta a pane e televisione, è dentro le geometrie essenziali del Nimeyer che la prima figlia di Silvio Berlusconi ha cominciato il suo cursus honorum: come amministratrice, sotto l´ala un po´ ruvida ma in fondo protettiva di Franco Tatò. Anzi, proprio in Mondadori Marina ha avuto il suo primo incarico formale: con la nomina in Consiglio nel 1994, mentre solo due anni dopo avrebbe soddisfatto la sua passione per geometrie ed alchimie dei bilanci aziendali con la nomina alla vicepresidenza della Fininvest. Sarà stato anche per via di quell´affetto che la donna manager di ferro di casa Berlusconi - tendenzialmente essenziale e riservata - ha voluto testimoniare pubblicamente «l´emozione e l´orgoglio» con cui ha accettato la presidenza della casa editrice, e confessare la consapevolezza delle «tante responsabilità» insite nell´assunzione «del posto di una figura insostituibile quale quella di Leonardo Mondadori», al vertice di un gruppo che «rappresenta un prezioso patrimonio culturale dell´intero Paese». Perché la scomparsa di Leonardo non significasse anche il taglio dell´ultimo legame con la dinastia che aveva fondato la casa editrice, gli amministratori del gruppo di Segrate ne hanno chiamato in Consiglio la prima figlia: Marina. Alla grande famiglia mondadoriana che, crescendo, ha fatto incetta di sigle e marchi prestigiosi (come l´Einaudi, per esempio), Marina Berlusconi ha voluto inviare messaggi rassicuranti di continuità. Così ha sottolineato come l´assunzione dell´incarico vada intesa quale «ulteriore segno di considerazione del principale azionista verso un´impresa affettivamente particolare». Ma anche, e «soprattutto», quale «gesto di omaggio verso Leonardo Mondadori e i valori fondanti della casa editrice: il profondo rispetto per i lettori e per il mercato, senza alcuna pretesa di volere indottrinare o orientare; l´importanza della pluralità di idee e di scelte; l´estrema attenzione agli autori e alla loro possibilità di esprimersi liberamente». Un messaggio che va oltre le parole: Maurizio Costa, l´amministratore delegato della Mondadori, viene infatti nominato vicepresidente con una scelta che il neopresidente definisce «doveroso riconoscimento per il modo in cui la società e tutte le persone che vi lavorano hanno saputo utilizzare l´autonomia». Marina certamente non traslocherà a Segrate: la sua - si sono affrettati a spiegare dalla Fininvest - non sarà presidenza che non pretende di interferire nella gestione. Non lo sarà sia per la mole degli impegni che l´attendono al vertice della Fininvest, sia per la stima e il feeling che legano Marina Berlusconi a Costa. Ma il suo incarico non sarà virtuale. Non glielo consente il carattere serio e determinato, a dispetto degli occhi che sorridono nel volto minuto. Non sono, infatti, parole di circostanza quelle con cui il neopresidente promette di «continuare a seguire e favorire, se possibile e con maggiore entusiasmo, lo sviluppo della Mondadori». Non lo sono perché Marina le accompagna con due elementi. Con un monito di continuità: «come azionisti abbiamo dimostrato di condividere i valori fondanti della casa editrice, nel più assoluto rispetto per la tradizione di autonomia e indipendenza che è e resterà elemento essenziale del successo non solo economico della Mondadori». E con un auspicio: chi lavora in Mondadori «saprà certamente utilizzare questa autonomia come ha fatto in passato». Monito ed auspicio sono già, infatti, un primo ed importante indirizzo di marcia.

(Flavia Podestà)

I corsivi sono miei di me.
Complimenti, Flavia, chiunque tu cerchi di essere...

2003-02-04T13:49:00.000+01:00

HARRY POTTER'S NOVELS ARE CRAP
BUT VATICAN GUYS SAY THEY'RE OKAY FOR KIDDOS

(AP) - The Vatican is giving two thumbs up to the Harry Potter series. The good vs. evil plot lines of the best-selling books are imbued with Christian morals, the Rev. Don Peter Fleetwood told a Vatican news conference Monday. "I don't see any, any problems in the Harry Potter series," Fleetwood said. He was responding to questions following the release of a new Vatican document on the New Age phenomenon, which he helped draft as a member of the Pontifical Council for Culture.

Naturalmente, non poteva mancare questo...

2003-01-18T14:55:00.000+01:00

Mad World / Tears for Fears

All around me are familiar faces
Worn out places, worn out faces
Bright and early for their daily races
Going nowhere, going nowhere
And their tears are filling up their glasses
No expression, no expression
Hide my head I want to drown my sorrow
No tomorrow, no tomorrow

And I find it kind of funny
I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which I'm dying
Are the best I've ever had
I find it hard to tell you
'Cos I find it hard to take
When people run in circles
It's a very, very
Mad World

Children waiting for the day they feel good
Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday
Made to feel the way that every child should
Sit and listen, sit and listen
Went to school and I was very nervous
No one knew me, no one knew me
Hello teacher tell me what's my lesson
Look right through me, look right through me

2003-01-18T14:40:00.000+01:00

Which Donnie Darko character are you? by Shay

2003-01-12T19:32:00.000+01:00

E' QUI!
E' GRANDE!
SPAKKA TUTTO!
E'...

PSYCHOTRONICO!

(e comunque lo sapete che adesso un weblog è roba cool?
Lo dice L'espresso e lo dicono pure quei porn peddlers di Clarence.
Che sia arrivato il momento di chiudere baracca e burattini?)

2002-12-21T18:18:00.000+01:00

Happey fuckin' Xmas...

I will never bother you
I will never promise to
I will never follow you
I will never bother you

Never speak a word again
I will crawl away for good

I will move away from here
You won't be afraid of fear

No thought was put into this
I always knew it would come to this

Things have never been so swell
I have never felt this well (alt: I have never felt so frail/I have never failed to feel)

Pain! (x3)
You know you're right (x3)

I'm so warm and calm inside
I no longer have to hide

Let's talk about someone else
Sterling silver begins to melt (alt: Steaming soup against her mouth)

Nothing really bothers her
She just wants to love herself

I will move away from here
You won't be afraid of fear

No thought was put into this
I always knew it would come to this

Things have never been so swell
I have never felt this well (alt: I have never felt so frail/I have never failed to feel)

Pain! (x5)
You know you're right (x17)

2002-12-12T19:15:00.000+01:00

... dio, ormai manco mi scuso più.
non è un diario, e va bene.
sono pezzi.
pezzi di me.
pezzi di voi.
pezzi, qui e là

2002-11-06T17:39:00.000+01:00

SENZA

SUGO

... e non dico altro, a parte scusarmi per l'assenza

2002-07-12T21:31:00.000+02:00
Un mese senza news e mi scuso ma il buon compaq è ko e aspetto un tecnico con le palle che adesso è in vacanza e un po' mi dispiace e mi arrangio (male) con un vecchio mac e pero' nel frattempo mi è capitato qualcosa di talmente bello da lasciare a bocca aperta e i curiosi dovranno aspettare per ulteriori info (séééééé, aspetta e spera :))) e cmq a chi può importare sono felicione e spero. Spero. Spero e basta. E il pezzo dgli SW qui sotto adesso sembra decisamente ironico...
Yayyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!

2002-06-12T22:36:00.000+02:00
Screeching Weasel (c) random lyrics

LOVE
i don't wanna call you and take you to the show i don't wanna go on dates with you and write you sappy notes cause i don't need the hassles i don't need the headaches too and i don't wanna be in love with you i don't wanna take you for walks on the beach i don't want you hanging on me like a leech cause i know what you're trying, i know what you're trying to do and i don't wanna be in love with you love is a waste of my time don't waste my time cause i've got better things to do to you love is just games and googly eyeed teen romance that's why i don't wanna be in love with you i don't wanna think about you everyday i don't wanna shower and put on aftershave cause love is for assholes yeah love is for assholes it's true and i don't wanna be in love with you!

MY BRAIN HURTS
time gets wasted every day i watch the minutes tick away my brain is melting like a chocolate ice cream bar like characters on tv these people look like maggots to me and i wonder what the hell is wrong with me milk fed little beauty queen she's straight out of a magazine she sits beside me breathing different air than me the perfect generation sees that i'm infected with disease and everything just crumbles and there's nothing left if i wanna do something right i gotta do it myself or someone else will fuck it up it isn't all black and white and now it's time to stop and figure out reality no one knows what they're talking about if what they're talking about don't making any sense to me i gotta figure it out cause i don't want something to believe in

2002-06-12T22:27:00.000+02:00
FIDATEVI

2002-06-06T20:25:00.000+02:00
E se ne va un altro pezzettino di cuore.
Sembra stupido, ma che ci posso fare.
15 aprile, Joey Ramone.
Ieri, Dee Dee.
Fuck it.
RIP.

-------------------------------------------
Punk icon DEE DEE RAMONE, founder member of the legendary RAMONES, is dead. The bassist was 50.

A spokesperson for the L.A. County Coroner's office has revealed he died in his Hollywood home last night (June 5). Ramone (real name Douglas Glenn Colvin) was found unresponsive by his wife at approximately 8:40 p.m. PT. She then called the Los Angeles Police Department, and L.A. City Fire Department paramedics pronounced him dead at the scene, MTV reports.

Cause of death is yet to be determined by the coroner's office, though they are working the assumption of a possible accidental drug overdose. An post mortem is scheduled for later today (June 6).

Dee Dee formed the Ramones in the Queens district of New York with Johnny, Tommy and Joey in 1974. Frontman Joey died in April last year after a long battle with cancer.

He last shared a stage with his fellow Ramones in March, when the group was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

2002-05-26T13:46:00.000+02:00
Questa volta ho la giustifica per l'assenza.
Ho fatto la varicella.
A trentacinque anni.
Non è stata una passeggiata.
Colonnina del mercurio a quaranta e il resto.
Però con la febbre si risparmia in birra & ansiolitici.
Un particolare che va considerato.
Poi ho avuto finalmente il tempo di leggere un sacco di robba che avevo lì da mesi.
In genere porcherie che hanno ingrassato il cassonetto della spazzatura.
Tranne in un caso: City Infernal di Edward Lee (Leisure USA).
Romanzo cazzone & divertente & sbiellato e cmq meglio di Tommaso Pincio o Jonathan Franzen o pacchi assortiti.
Ho trovato anche un paio di giorni per il festival del libro di Torino.
Per prendere a male parole un editore (grande hobby, da coltivare).
Per (ri)pensare al Signore delle Corna, ridendoci sopra (inside joke).
Al festival, gli hot dog dispensati dai baracchini battono i libri malamente esposti cinque a uno.
Come vendite e gradimento.
Mi pare giusto, e normale, così.
Ora è quasi giugno.
Tempo di farsi battere un nuovo tatuaggio, di ammazzare qualcuno di botte e di innamorarsi.
Per festeggiare il mio prossimo compleanno.
Abbracci,

2002-04-25T00:30:00.000+02:00
Giovedì 25, venerdì 26 e sabato 27 aprile bazzicherò dalle parti di

2002-04-23T23:01:00.000+02:00
TRAVIS
They're all animals anyway. All the
animals come out at night: Whores,
skunk pussies, buggers, queens,
fairies, dopers, junkies, sick,
venal.
(a beat)
Someday a real rain will come and
wash all this scum off the streets.

2002-03-21T19:25:00.000+01:00
The Ramones
Induction Essay,
Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, March 18, 2003

By Dr. Donna Gaines

In the dark ages that preceded the Ramones, fans were shut out, reduced
to the role of passive spectator. In the early 1970s, boredom inherited the
earth: The airwaves were ruled by crotchety old dinosaurs; rock & roll had
become an alienated labor - rock, detached from its roots. Gone were the
sounds of youthful angst, exuberance, sexuality and misrule. The spirit of
rock & roll was beaten back; the glorious legacy handed down to us in
doo-wop, Chuck Berry, the British Invasion and surf music lost. If you were
an average American kid hanging out in your room playing guitar, hoping to
start a band, how could you possibly compete with elaborate guitar solos,
expensive equipment and million-dollar stage shows? It all seemed out of
reach. And then, in 1974, a uniformed militia burst forth from Forest Hills,
Queens, firing a shot heard round the world.

The Ramones' raw style resurrected the unholy spirit of rock & roll,
renewing old-school aesthetics, paying tribute to the Fifties greasers, the
bikers, the garage Mods. With their Tiger Beat boy names, ripped jeans,
T-shirts, black leather motorcycle jackets and Keds (American-made sneakers
only), the Ramones incited a sneering cultural insurrection. In 1976 they
recorded their eponymous first album in seventeen days for $6,400. At a time
when superstars were demanding upwards of half a million, the Ramones
democratized rock & roll - you didn't need a fat contract, great looks,
expensive clothes or the skills of Clapton. You just had to follow Joey's
credo: "Do it from the heart and follow your instincts." More than
twenty-five years later - after the band officially broke up - from Old Hanoi
to East Berlin, kids in full Ramones regalia incorporate the commando spirit
of DIY, do it yourself.

According to Joey, the chorus in "Blitzkrieg Bop" - "Hey ho, let's go" -
was "the battle cry that sounded the revolution, a call to arms for punks to
do their own thing." That message spread outward from the bowels of New York
City to the U.K. and California, across Asia, into Latin America and Europe,
instigating 10,000 new bands along the way. Lean, mean, clean, the Ramones
had ushered in a glorious new age. The critics called it punk rock after the
garage bands of the early 1960s. History was rewritten; bands like T-Rex, the
Velvets and Dolls were reclassified as "prepunk." New sights, sounds, dress
codes, art, attitudes and gender relations followed - girls could do it, too!
Fans in the audience today became bands onstage tomorrow. Authenticity
replaced virtuoso mastery as the central tenet of punk musicianship. The
Ramones set the standard for a rising generation of alternative bands
learning to balance cult credibility with mass appeal. From CBGB to
Sleater-Kinney, Rancid and Green Day. Stripped down, with a streetwise
antilook, speed-pop raw aggression and darkly funny lyrics, the Ramones
influenced genres from new wave to hardcore, speed metal and thrash. Infused
the sensibilities of grunge, riot grrrl, foxcore and queercore.

The original band members grew up as disaffected boomers repulsed by the
legacy of peace and love. They were loners, outcasts in their outer-borough
middle-class apartment complex. Typical neighborhood guys, bassist Dee Dee
lived next door to Johnny, who played guitar, and Johnny was in a band with
Joey's brother, guitarist Mickey Leigh. Johnny knew Tommy since high school -
they had a band called Tangerine Puppets. After graduation, Tommy got a job
as a recording engineer, setting up Performance Studios, a rehearsal space
and showcase for early Ramones shows, two-dollar cover, mostly friends. In
addition to playing drums, Tommy began coproducing, and after the Ramones'
third album, Rocket to Russia, he left the band to produce full-time. Dee Dee
knew Joey as the singer in a glitter band named Sniper, who performed at a
Queens club called Coventry. A free spirit, tall, shy and gawky, Joey seemed
a most unlikely rock star. When he hooked up with his band mates, he was
selling acrylic-dipped flowers in the Village and painting with vegetables.
Like Dee Dee and Johnny, Joey was alienated at home, at school and in the
neighborhood. In their early days, Dee Dee and Johnny sat on rooftops killing
time, getting wasted, looking for cheap thrills. "Now I Wanna Sniff Some
Glue" was Dee Dee's deadpan dead-end kids' one minute, thirty-four second ode
to the pleasures of solvent abuse. Joey claimed the song was just a goof: "We
were really just writing about teenage frustration." As Johnny explained, "We
couldn't write about girls or cars, so we wrote songs about things we knew."

The Ramones were their fans - outcasts, frustrated suburban youth who
played stickball, worked at odd jobs and checked out shows at Flushing Meadow
Park. Johnny and Dee Dee were obsessed with war movies. Johnny had spent two
years in military school; Dee Dee grew up in Germany on a military base, an
army brat. Fiercely patriotic, the two collected war memorabilia and hated
hippies. They rode the subway to shows, carried their guitars to rehearsals
in shopping bags. Legend holds that in the early 1970s, when Johnny first saw
the New York Dolls perform, he took one look and declared, "Hey, I can do
that!" The rest is U.S. cultural history.

The Ramones took their name from Paul McCartney's alias - Paul Ramone -
when his band was called the Silver Beatles. Like most kids stranded on the
wrong side of the bridges and tunnels of New York City, the Ramones knew
heaven was just a train ride away. So they hopped the subway to Manhattan and
eventually found a home on the Bowery, at CBGB. At first, people wondered if
they could play at all, but that wasn't the point; their twenty-minute sets
of rapid-fire, under-two-and-a-half-minute songs earned them a recording
contract before any of their contemporaries, except Patti Smith.

You had to be sophisticated to realize they weren't d-u-m-b. But if you
took them too seriously, you'd miss the point. Joey's clipped words made
people wonder if he was serious or just spoofing. He deployed an eccentric
phrasing that was wholly unique, a mix of regional Queens dialect and Britboy
bastard inflection. Dee Dee and Johnny never smiled; they stood onstage with
their legs spread apart, stoic, staring psychotically at their instruments.
Sometimes Johnny's white guitar turned totally red; he played with such
ferocious fury his fingers bled. Joey sang with the same twisted intensity
that lacerated Johnny's hand. Sometimes Dee Dee's bass lines soared past at
the speed of light. Their minimalist aesthetic was rooted in Dee Dee's Queens
logic: "I think rock & roll should be three words and a chorus, and the three
words should be good enough to say it all."

The Ramones' songwriting reflected their obsession with popular culture
and all things American - pizza, Carbona, Coney Island, Burger King, chicken
vindaloo, surfing, horror movies and soda machines. They helped us laugh at
our dysfunctional families, psychotherapists, politicians and piss-poor
social skills.
Above all, they upheld a belief in the emancipatory promise of rock &
roll radio: the Top Forty seven-inch vinyl, three-minute hit single. Unlike
the snotty urban art crowd, they loved television, baseball, comic books and
cartoons. Joey wrote "Chain Saw" after seeing Chain Saw Massacre, rhyming
massacreeeeee with me. Johnny's "I Don't Wanna Go Down to the Basement" was
an ode to all the B-movie horror flicks he loved. Likewise, "Pinhead" was a
cooperative effort inspired by the 1932 horror film Freaks.

Over the course of eighteen studio and live albums, and more than 2,250
shows, the band remained accessible and local. As Joey explained, "Our fans
played a major part in the whole thing. I remember meeting certain artists I
admired and them being real obnoxious. That wasn't how I wanted to be."
Brooklynite Marc Bell, an acclaimed drummer for Richard Hell and the
Voidoids, Dust and Wayne County, replaced Tommy on drums in 1978 and became
Marky Ramone. The son of a longshoreman turned labor lawyer readily embraced
the band's ethic of inclusion. Marky said the most important thing he learned
from being a Ramone was "how to treat people right, you know, don't act like
a rock star, just be yourself. . . . I hate rock stars." Through it all, the
band upheld the primacy of the fans, the importance of the kids, the purity
of band-fan relations. Of the people, by the people, for the people.

Over the years, the Ramones worked with Phil Spector, starred in Roger
Corman's 1979 movie Rock 'n' Roll High School and wrote the title track to
Stephen King's Pet Sematary. American popular culture spawned the Ramones;
today their legacy permeates it. Today you'll hear them at football stadiums,
as crowds cheer "Hey ho, let's go," and on film soundtracks ranging from The
Royal Tenenbaums to Jimmy Neutron.

E Pluribus Unum. The Ramones always called themselves an American band,
patriotic, goofy, innocent and too tough to die. Individualistic yet
inclusive, eccentric yet populist, the Ramones stood firm, in perfect
paramilitary formation, a uniformed assault team, a well-disciplined fighting
army. They became one of the most prolific, hard-touring bands in the world.
Their all-for-one, one-for-all work ethic prevailed over self-interest or
ego. After Dee Dee left the band in 1989, C.J. played bass with edgy vitality
and great humility. The former U.S. Marine said, "I tried not to look like
I'm taking someone else's place, but go up there to do my job and entertain
people."

When the band broke up in 1996, the members pursued solo projects - cool
new bands, art shows, memoirs, novels, spoken-word tours, films and albums.
Tragically, at age 49, Joey Ramone passed away on April 15, 2001, following a
lengthy battle with lymphoma. Joey's worldview is evident in his posthumous
solo album, Don't Worry About Me, in the upbeat momentum of songs like "What
a Wonderful World" and "I Got Knocked Down (but I'll Get Up)." Today the
former high school reject is a personal hero. By just being himself, "the
King of Punk" gave teenage outcasts everywhere something to believe in, an
alternative to killing themselves or blowing up the high school.

The Ramones have given us many brilliant anthems to hang our dreams on.
Whether by land or by sea, the Ramones never forgot their primary purpose -
to be true to their fans. When they played, we knew they did it for us. They
never wavered, never betrayed our faith. Their impact on popular music, their
influence on youth subculture cannot be measured in the banal, quantitative
language of market shares, chart positions and radio airplay. Like the
proud-standing Militia of Lexington who fired the shot that sparked the
American Revolution, the Ramones of New York City changed history.

*Essay in loving memory of Joey Ramone.

copyright 2002 Donna Gaines

2002-03-19T20:54:00.000+01:00
bellissima
(thanx to XandreaX)

2002-03-09T19:17:00.000+01:00
Cosa non leggere se non sapete cosa fare.
Piuttosto un porno.
O una dormita.
Spesso si sottovaluta l'importanza del sonno. Ingiustamente.
Oppure Sanremo, non è giorno di finale oggi?, e allora, e allora, e allora, Sanremo, yay!, ma non questo.
Non questo romanzetto pseudotutto un po' cyber un po' pecoreccio (neanche fino in fondo, mannaggia)
un po' sgamato un po' (molto) ingenuo un po' (parecchio) sono sfigata (io autrice) e mai ho fatto il famoso
giro dell'angolo (sempre io, autrice).
Questo è
Le sorelle sciacallo
pubblicato da Derive/Approdi (peccato, editore che talora ci azzecca)
e la presentazione viene a seguire
Nicoletta Vallorani, autrice che ha sempre rifiutato una precisa
collocazione in un genere letterario, in questo romanzo propone un
noir on the road dalle connotazioni se non fortemente oniriche, quanto
meno ai confini dei generi.
Potete ridere, consigliare alla Vallorani di collocarsi in fretta e poscia dedicarvi a
Pippo Baudo, Sylvia Saint o al riposo grazie a babbo tavor o sorellina camomilla.

2002-03-09T18:56:00.000+01:00
Looove this news, muthas!

Relatives of Crematory Owner Charged

By BILL POOVEY, Associated Press Writer

LAFAYETTE, Ga. - Relatives of the man accused of dumping hundreds of corpses on the grounds of a crematory have been charged with lying on a death certificate.

Tommy Ray Marsh Sr. and Clara Marsh and their daughter, Rhames Marsh, all were arrested on Friday.

Tommy Ray and Clara Marsh are the parents of Ray Marsh, who is being held on 174 counts of theft by deception, accused of discarding bodies he was paid to cremate and in some cases passing off dirt or cement powder as human remains.

Ray Marsh, 28, took over the Tri-State Crematory in northern Georgia from his parents in 1996.

Prosecutors say the three relatives misrepresented themselves as funeral home officials by signing death certificates. They were taken to the Walker County jail after their arrests, but later released on bond.

During a brief court hearing, the 76-year-old Tommy Ray Marsh sat in a wheelchair, and his wife, 70, wiped his nose and face. Their lawyer, Ken Poston, said Marsh has Parkinson's disease (news - web sites), among other ailments.

Poston said the arrests were based on papers that had been known to authorities for weeks. He criticized the late afternoon arrests as ``Friday night specials.''

``What danger did that old man pose to the community?'' Poston said, referring to the elder Marsh, who was taken to jail in his wheelchair.

So far, 339 corpses have been found on the property of the crematory. Only 109 have been identified.

County emergency management director David Ashburn said a small lake on the Marsh property has been almost completely drained and there has been no sign of additional bodies.

2002-03-09T18:55:00.000+01:00
Oooohaaaaheeeeewooooow
GO * DARIAN * GO

2002-03-09T10:46:00.000+01:00
VIOLENT
CINEMA
MADNESS

Go for it!

E amate-vi-mi-ci...