Happy Birthday Nikki

My dear Nikki's birthday is today, the 21st of February. Some of you have asked me what would please her on her birthday. Here is an idea: go to InstaBook Publishers and buy a copy of her novel called "Sweet Memories". Those who have read and enjoyed it may want to contribute some of their more interesting memories to be integrated into a sequel. The "memory chips" implanted into the brain of four residents of a retirement home created the base of this exciting plot set in the year 2020. I personally contributed some of my own memories and this was great fun. Now we want to give everyone a chance to do the same in a first exciting sequels to be written this year. You can contact Nikki at beaudrynicole@yahoo.com to offer her some of your own memories...or just to wish her Happy Birthday.
This is also the year when a pilot for a TV series might just be produced. Who knows, part of your memories might just end up on TV...or Cable!!

The Early Morning Jog of a Needy Brain.

I need to write this morning with only the vaguest idea of where I am heading. I know it will involve dogs, our mortality, superstition, addiction and a few other topics. I want to tie stuff together, in a way, connect some dots, make little packages of wisdom or knowledge that are readily available on the shelves of my blog, something I do for myself every day while thinking pretentiously that it serves mankind.
My blog is read by a few friends and family members, my own window on ‘mankind’, but so what? We are a collaborative species, aren’t we? If you ever took a dog walking you know that they are seeking with their wet noses scents and other artifacts that could reveal a prey, something edible for the entire family of which they are. Even bees do their little song and dance to tell each other where the flowers are.
So here I am this morning with my nose wet for something revealing, fingers dancing on the keyboard.
But what exactly? Let’s ramble on until it materializes.
The topic of addiction would be a good start, said he while lighting a second cigarette after a third gulp of that great cappuccino. Whoops, I forgot the cinnamon, the only food substance that, according to recent science, is a true aphrodisiac. As opposed to false aphrodisiacs, the ‘true’ variety actually raises the level of testosterone in men. So I am going to wait a few minutes until I feel a surge of manhood in myself before I tackle anything of substance. Aha, tobacco is already getting in my brain thanks to that direct link to that immense porous lung membrane that if flattened, they say, would cover an large dining table. The neo-cortex of the brain is another one of those things that if it was stretched from its convoluted state would represent the area of a large handkerchief. Nicotine is pinging right now, boosting serotonin production in several synapses, making me excitable and certainly more talkative. Caffeine helping on with shaking the large handkerchief until of it fires on all cylinders. Pretty soon, blawgers and friends, we will have a synthesis, connections will occur and a concept will emerge, a morsel for us to savor all day.
....
I don’t know about you but I’m waiting for it. Like waiting for Godot. It doesn’t seem to be happening....! All the cigarette did was to make me want to smoke another one. All the coffee does is make me want to cook up another cup. Shucks. Remember two weeks ago I said I had quit smoking for five days then? It was true. Fell off the bandwagon on the sixth day. My brother-in-law that I am going to visit today in California was on a similar plan with a progressive decrease. I was competing with him using the ‘cold turkey’ approach. OK, I dont want to lose face so I am quitting RIGHT NOW so that when the family car reaches Carlsbad CA at around 11AM, I can safely tell him that I quit smoking.
...
Done. I just quit. I feel wonderful. All that oxygen is already seeping through the tablecloth of my lungs, rushing through the carotids to the handkerchief of my brain. I feel terribly smart and ‘promising’. Trouble is I have been ‘promising’ since my youth and have not delivered much. And still no delivery of anything substantial on the horizon, in spite of the ‘clean living’ I have subjected myself for the last five minutes. Nothing connects. It’s 4AM and the dogs are still sleeping around Nikki. Conditions are perfect for discovery, yet I discover nothing, zilch, nada, just wasting your precious time.
...
Let’s face it, I am not a Montesquieu nor even a Georges Carlin. I just don’t cut the mustard as a morning philosopher. And my own mortality makes it that fairly soon I will fizzle out into the dark soup, leaving no traces of my passage on earth. What a depressing thought.
But I did play the accordion at a wedding last week. And they are making a leather bound photo album. That document could last 100 years and end up on PBS's 'Antique Road Show'. Possibly someone would then identify me and say: there's my great great great grand uncle Jacques.
Unlikely. So let’s have another cigarette

Help Camille Decide On A Book Cover For Her Latest Novel

This is the opening chapter to help in judging cover suitability. More covers to come soon. Leave comment below please.
......
The Yellow Cab drew up in front of the Foxworth Apartment complex in Annandale, Virginia. The driver shut down the meter and turned to the man in the back seat for payment. Dr. Mahmoud Jassim pulled the fare out of his wallet and placed it in the outstretched hand. Now the driver pressed the automatic trunk opener and motioned his passenger out. The doctor stepped down to the sidewalk and removed his three pieces of luggage from the trunk. The cab drove away.
The British-born Pakistani was bedraggled, exhausted by airport hopping from country to country, beginning in Karachi, to Riyahd’s King Khalid International Airport, to London’s Heathrow where he’d spent several days in meetings, ending at Dulles International. Those moments, as he presented his visa to immigration officials, had been tense and emotionally draining. His passport was in order; still, suspicion was imprinted on the faces of the men at the immigration booth and behind the baggage search counter, leaving his tongue thick and unresponsive.

Now, baggage at his feet, he looked up at the six-story apartment complex, all brick with jutting balconies, surrounded by green lawns. On the third level, Apartment 3-606, his adopted brothers awaited.
At Mahmoud’s knock, the door opened.
"As sala'amu alaikum. Peace be upon you,” Richard Yost greeted him. Just behind him, Dr. Khalid Amin echoed the greeting. “Walaikum as sala'am. And unto you also, peace.
Richard Yost, a recent British immigrant to the United States, ushered him into the two-bedroom apartment. The three men embraced.
“Allah’s blessing and salutations be upon you,” Richard said. “I have prepared for you.”
It was sparse, with just the minimal rented furniture – a wrap-around couch long past its factory issue, single folding chair; long, badly scratched coffee table; two desks, each outfitted with computer and telephone. The doctors’ assigned bedroom held a bunk-bed and single.
“This is temporary,” Richard explained.
In the small kitchen, his Pakistani wife, Shamshad, was preparing their meal – a meatless curry dish combined with eggplant, okra and potatoes. Slim and willowy, she wore a long tunic and baggy pants with a colorful scarf draped around her neck. She nodded a timid greeting to her husband’s new guest. Khalid Amin had arrived ten days earlier.
“Brothers,” Richard said to the two men. “Finally, we are gathered as one. Rest, recompose yourselves. Tonight we will eat and pray. Tomorrow we will talk.
.....

Aviation Radio Traffic

(This is great!, sent by Pierre C. this morning)

Note: For those that don't know, "The Sled" is the SR-71 Blackbird spy plane from the 1960's and still the fastest airplane. In his book, "Sled Driver", SR-71 Blackbird pilot Brian Shul writes: "I'll always remember a certain radio exchange that occurred one day as Walt (my back-seater) and I were screaming across Southern California 13 miles high. We were monitoring various radio transmissions from other aircraft as we entered Los Angeles airspace. Though they didn't really control us, they did monitor our movement across their scope. I heard a Cessna ask for a readout of its ground speed."90 knots" Center replied. Moments later, a Twin Beech required the same. "120 knots," Center answered. We weren't the only ones proud of our ground speed that day as almost instantly an F-18 smugly transmitted, "Ah, Center, Dusty 52 requests ground speed readout." There was a slight pause, then the response, "525 knots on the ground, Dusty." Another silent pause. As I was thinking to myself how ripe a situation this was, I heard a familiar click of a radio transmission coming from my back-seater. It was at that precise moment I realized Walt and I had become a real crew, for we were both thinking in unison. "Center, Aspen 20, you got a ground speed readout for us?" There was a longer than normal pause.... "Aspen, I show 1,742 knots" (That's about 2004.658 mph for those who don't know) No further inquiries were heard
on that frequency.

Pierre is an old friend, a retired Air Canada Captain who just spent almost two years sailing around the globe. Check out his awesome cruise log here but use Internet Explorer. Pierre est un viel ami. Faut voir son voyage voyage autour du monde en voilier.

The Mortgage Crisis...a solution in 4 easy steps.

1
You buy something in Mexico for $75K, cash, move in, water the plants and make it nice inside.
2
Then You build an addition yourself for something like $3,534. and invite your friends and family. You now have what people around here think is a $125K value.
You DONT borrow on the equity to buy a Porsche.
3
You give a wax job to your 1976 Windstar and drive it with glee to the Mercado where you buy 5-6 piernas de pollo and 3 fresh onions..

4
You dont complain about da banks, da system, da economy, da goberment, da cost of living, but you eat your chicken cacciatore with a good wine.
Burp!

"Hoptimistic", as we say in Quebec

A happy hop from the bed this morning. A little bit more optimistic about things. Mostly thanks to this great American institution, Google. Just think, I was able to view most of my architectural projects in several countries last night, thanks to Google Earth. These satellite views proved that my buildings were still standing after 10-40 years, set in their scenery and parking lots.
plus hundreds of Archimede house with their peculiar rhombic-dodecahedral geometries, sticking out like flower bouquets in either island or ski resorts. Planet earth is small and very dainty, as shown on Google Earth. And I can write about it in this Google Blogger, then I can just perform a Google Search and deconstruct all the bad mouthing that is spread around the world by the our miscontent, our insurgents. Then I can go to YouTube (another Google flagship) and see a video that totally destroys the myth of Jesus, another clip by Carlin killing Religion , one that just busts your ribs with laughter. Then I can write to my friends to invite them to see'em, sharing the enlightment, using my Google GMail of course. And all that comes in 27 languages, so that I know that all over the planet others are doing the same thing, clearing the air of all the ignorance and suppression that has been plaguing us for centuries, with shamans, kings, mullahs, politicos and priests spreading their power with lies and superstitions. And banks too. I can go to Google Finance and read the fine print on all their activities, go to Google Spreadsheets to check out the totals of their investments in Halliburton and the like, check out their salary and ethics of their CEO's in Google News, check out their honest faces in Google Images, report findings in this Google Blog, go back to Google Earth to see that the globe is still spinning and check out Google Sky to see how tiny we are with 20 billion distant stars in JUST OUR OWN MILKY WAY GALAXY. ThenI can look at the furthest clusters going back to the beginning of time and think...Shit! we've only been around for 100,000 years, a microscopic fraction of the age of the universe. A blip. If we disappear, nothing in the universe will notice it or miss us. And of course you wont see that reported on Google News. Join our blog and spin the planet with us.

In the Belly of the Green Bird; The triumph of the Martyrs in Iraq.

Nir Rosen provides the most credible, fair and balanced (sorry Fox, you've seemed to have blown it again!) report on the evolution of thought across the critical spectrum of players in Iraq. His middle-eastern looks, his fluency in Arabic, his respect of the culture, his persistent curiosity, and his unwaivering nerve gave him confidential audience to the major figures in the post-invasion Iraq. He details the Iraqi perspective of the American forces from greeted liberator to hated occupier as countless US strategic blunders and cultural disrespect allowed the insurgency to take control of what is now a failed state in the early stages of civil war. Most importantly Rosen digs out the fact, reports accurately from the field, and leaves the spin to Fox and the American Enterprise Institute. the war crazies like Kristol, Krauthammer and Kagan, also their biggest drum-beater-consultants. They would NEVER invite this guy because of his opposite point of view, and they would never admit that Iraq is a business move. Check out this video if you haven't seen it already. A must-have book for anyone seeking the truth on this sad period in American history. M. Briggs, NH

A must read you can buy at Amazon at this page, where you can also read the 14 rave reviews

CENDRARS... SUR LA LECTURE

Extrait :

Paris, port-de-mer

[…] depuis ma plus tendre enfance, depuis que maman m’a appris à lire, j’avais besoin de ma drogue, de ma dose dans les vingt-quatre heures, n’importe quoi, pourvu que cela soit de l’imprimé ! C’est ce que j’appelle être un inguérissable lecteur de livres ; mais il y en a d’autres, d’un tout autre type, la variété en est infinie, car les ravages dus à la fièvre des livres dans la société contemporaine tient du prodige et de la calamité et ce que j’admire le plus chez les lecteurs assidus, ce n’est pas leur science ni leur constance, leur longue patience ni les privations qu’ils s’imposent, mais leur faculté d’illusion, et qu’ils ont tous en commun, et qui les marque comme d’un signe distinctif (dirai-je d’une flétrissure ?), qu’il s’agisse d’un savant érudit spécialisé dans une question hors série et qui coupe les cheveux en quatre, ou d’une midinette sentimentale dont le cœur ne s’arrête pas de battre à chaque nouveau fascicule des interminables romans d’amour à quatre sous qu’on ne cesse de lancer sur le marché, comme si la Terre qui tourne n’était qu’une rotative de presse à imprimer.
Un des grands charmes de voyager ce n’est pas tant de se déplacer dans l’espace que de se dépayser dans le temps, de se trouver, par exemple, au hasard d’un incident de route en panne chez les cannibales ou au détour d’une piste dans le désert en rade en plein Moyen Age. Je crois qu’il en va de même pour la lecture, sauf qu’elle est à la disposition de tous, sans dangers physiques immédiats, à la portée d’un valétudinaire et qu’à sa trajectoire encore plus étendue dans le passé et dans l’avenir que le voyage s’ajoute le don incroyable qu’elle a de vous faire pénétrer sans grand effort dans la peau d’un personnage. Mais c’est cette vertu justement qui fausse si facilement la démarche d’un esprit, induit le lecteur invétéré en erreur, le trompe sur lui-même, lui fait perdre pied et lui donne, quand il revient à soi parmi ses semblables, cet air égaré, à quoi se reconnaissent les esclaves d’une passion et les prisonniers évadés : ils n’arrivent plus à s’adapter et la vie libre leur paraît une chose étrangère.

[…]
Chadenta, par exemple, était un lecteur pur, qui lisait pour lire, sans jamais broncher, un athlète de lucidité, mais il avait le vice de la collection ou une déformation professionnelle de libraire et ne pouvait vivre hors de sa bibliothèque ; Rémy de Gourmont, qui ne pouvait également pas vivre hors de sa bibliothèque, lisait pour faire le vide, non pas autour de soi, mais en soi, comme s’il eût été la proie de je ne sais quel vertige moral qui le tourmentait secrètement et le retournait comme saint Laurent sur le gril ; Paul Prado, réaliste, cosmopolite, mondain et pas désintéressé pour un sou, lisait entre autre dans le but de doter sa petite patrie pauliste de ses titres de noblesse et son immense fortune lui permettait d’acheter des documents originaux, les exemplaires uniques, les livres rarissimes, tout un passé oublié, pour constituer une bibliothèque orgueilleuse et en faire don à sa ville natale : t’Serstevens lit, prend des notes marginales pour éclairer sa lanterne, comparer, comprendre, s’instruire, rire, n’être pas dupe et, bien équilibré comme il l’est, jouir, mieux jouir de la vie, des sens et de l’esprit, mais lui aussi possède une bibliothèque et ne peut vivre longtemps séparé d’elle ; quant à moi, j’ai déjà dit que je suis un intoxiqué de l’imprimé et qu’il me faut ma dose journalière. Si cette brute de Korzakow m’a amputé de bonne heure de ma bibliothèque, il ne m’a pas guéri de mon vice, et je dois lire, et c’est pourquoi, depuis qu’il a vendu mes caisses de livres, je rôde de part le monde, tombant d’improviste chez des amis qui se demandent ce que je viens faire chez eux, m’enfermant tout le jour dans ma chambre ou me retirant dans les bras à la campagne ou au fond du parc pour dévorer leur bibliothèque avec frénésie, surtout si elle contient la collection des Mémoires de l’histoire de France ou des Chroniques de navigation lusitaniens et des Œuvres complètes car j’ai le sadisme de vouloir épuiser un auteur en lisant non seulement tout ce qu’il a pu écrire, depuis A jusqu’à Z, mais encore tout ce qu’on a pu écrire sur lui !
C’est de la folie. Il n’y a pas de fin à la lecture. Certains lisent méthodiquement. D’autres oublient de vivre pour prendre des notes savantes dont ils ne savent que faire et accumulent et oublient par la suite. D’autres encore vivent dans la fiction. Tous, nous sommes dans l’imaginaire et quel drôle de cortège qui défile clopin-clopant et parade, des esprits très divers, mais tous avançant au pas du canard chinois et barbotant du bec à la recherche de Dieu sait quelle maigre pitance mentale, sous les huées, sous les risées, mais fier chacun de son infirmité particulière et chacun gardant son quant-à-soi, captifs libérés, prisonniers d’une noble cause, chacun a son idée, chacun a son image de la Vie. Un livre, un miroir déformant, une projection idéale. La seule réalité ou c’est tout comme.