Bill Murray's Blog, page 83
July 6, 2017
Out in the Cold Audiobook Available Now
Get yourself a copy of this just-published audiobook, written and narrated by me. I am not the actor with the same name. Get it: On Audible. On Amazon.
Here are several written and spoken excerpts.
Get the written version of Out in the Cold on Amazon, here, and the audiobook versions of my other books here:
Common Sense and Whiskey on Audible.
Visiting Chernobyl on Audible.
“This is a much bigger deal than you think!”
The American total eclipse is coming up fast, just over six weeks away. We’ll be trying to go four-for-four, watching from our vantage point in Georgia. Here is a nice, long piece here that tries to explain why eclipses are such a big deal to those who seek them out.
This video covers the period just before, during and just after totality at Svalbard during the March 2015 eclipse. If you’re in a hurry, skip to just before the two-minute mark to see the onset of totality.
June 30, 2017
Weekend Reading
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It’s a long weekend for many here in the USA, so here’s a whole batch of articles to take with you to the pool.
The Lunar Sea by Ferris Jabr in Hakai Magazine
The Rise of the Thought Leader by David Sessions in the New Republic
The New Working Class by Gabriel Winant in Dissent
Amazon Robots Poised to Revamp How Whole Foods Runs Warehouses by Spencer Soper at Bloomberg.com
The deal that’s destroying Russia’s roads at meduza.io
Trump and the Trumpists by Wolfgang Streeck at inference-review.com
When Pedestrians Ruled the Streets by Clive Thompson at Smithsonian
Paying a Price for 8 Days of Flying in America by Sarah Lyall in the New York Times
Friday Photo Quiz #11
First, the answer to last week’s quiz: The photos were both from greater Muscat, Oman, a string of towns along the Gulf of Oman including Muscat, Mutrah and al-Bustan.
Now on to this week’s quiz. Here are the country’s modest, unassuming capital, and its most photographed feature. Can you name the city? The country?
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Leave your best guess as a comment. I’ll put all the correct answers into a hat, draw one, and the winner of the drawing gets a copy of the audiobook version of my book Common Sense and Whiskey. It may be that the winner must be in the USA for the Audible.com download code to work.
Win free stuff every Friday this summer. New photo every Friday, drawing the next Thursday, winner notified by email Friday. Good luck.
Now: What’s your guess in this week’s quiz? Go ahead, give it a try. Guesses accepted.
June 24, 2017
Quotes:
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“If it takes a brutally divisive election and concerns over American authoritarianism to get you to read, maybe you should have started earlier.”
Carlos Lozada in the CJR.
June 23, 2017
Friday Photo Quiz #10
The answer to last week’s quiz: That was the handsome little capital of Finland, Helsinki, and I’m happy to say that before next month is out I’ll have the chance to enjoy two weeks of lazy, high summer making like a duck on the lake in Finland.
Now on to this week’s quiz. Because the answer may not be readily apparent, here are two photos for this week’s country, both from the greater capital area. Can you name the city? The country?
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Leave your best guess as a comment. I’ll put all the correct answers into a hat, draw one, and the winner of the drawing gets a copy of the audiobook version of my book Common Sense and Whiskey. It may be that the winner must be in the USA for the Audible.com download code to work.
Win free stuff every Friday this summer. New photo every Friday, drawing the next Thursday, winner notified by email Friday. Good luck.
Now: What’s your guess in this week’s quiz? Go ahead, give it a try. Guesses accepted.
Weekend Reading
Here are a few thoughtful articles for your consideration this weekend, along with this lovely landscape from Watson’s Bay, in New South Wales. Click the photo to enlarge it.
Now, on to the smart stuff:
Making the Subarctic Bloom by Cody Punter at The Walrus.
Generation Putin by Natalia Zorkaya at Eurozine.com
The Search for Intelligent Life by Justin E. H. Smith at Berfrois
The Norwegian who knew his tortoises so well that he changed the course of history at nypesuppe.blogspot.com
The Time of Our Lives by Raymond Tallis at thenewatlantis.com
June 22, 2017
Out in the Cold: One Last Audiobook Excerpt
The Parks Canada recreation of the first North American Norse settlement at L’Anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland – complete with iceberg. Click to enlarge.
There’s just time to sneak in another excerpt from my latest book, Out in the Cold: Adventures in Svalbard, the Faroe Islands, Iceland, Greenland and Canada before the audiobook version goes live on Audible.com any day now. In this clip, sailors set out a thousand years ago from Greenland in search of what would become Vinland, a tiny settlement on the northern tip of Newfoundland, a place called L’Anse aux Meadows today.
It’s me speaking; I narrate the book. I hope you enjoy it.
https://commonsenseandwhiskey.files.wordpress.com/2017/06/lanseauxmeadowssample.mp3
You can get the written version of Out in the Cold on Amazon, here, and the audiobook versions of my other books here:
Common Sense and Whiskey on Audible.
Visiting Chernobyl on Audible.
And here are several more written and spoken excerpts from Out in the Cold.
June 17, 2017
June 16, 2017
Weekend Reading
Weekend reading that will make you sing:
The Hardest Border from BBC News
The Legacy and Lessons of Zbigniew Brzezinski by Robert E. Hunter at Lobelog.com
Natural history: Thoreau’s debt to Darwin by Randall Fuller at nature.com
Letter From Tohoku by Ramona Bajema at milkenreview.org
Taken by Pirates by Jeffrey Gettleman in the New York Times
