Kurt Brindley's Blog, page 147
May 11, 2014
Karōshi Blues
Always industrious, Atsushi, a young man, never for a moment felt relaxed unless he was busy working on something, whether it be busy working at his occupation — a quintessential salaryman, if there ever was one — or, when in the rare time he wasn’t at work, when he wasn’t working his countless overtime hours without pay, when after his boss tells him he must stop working so hard and to take some time off and go home, to relax a bit, when he was off-duty (so to speak), he was busy cleaning his small but tidy apartment — an apartment that rarely ever really needed cleaning since he was always cleaning it, just as he was always fixing things when they weren’t really in need of repair (it may be safe to say that he was more a tinkerer, a maintainerer, than he was a repairerer) — and when he could not find even one more speck of dirt in his apartment to clean or one more misaligned clock gear or new computer application to tinker with (he considered himself somewhat of a lay software developer), then he would busy himself making lists of things he needed to do — it may be a bit of a stretch to say that he needed to do these things he listed since he was always on top of things, always up on his shopping or bill paying or dental or medical needs — but still he listed them as things that needed being done at some point in the future, trying the best as he may to project out when exactly they would be needing done, along with steps, procedural requirements, applicable phone numbers, website addresses, etc., footnoted in detail, or, perhaps, outlined even, as required, all while constantly thinking, wishing he wouldn’t have to waste his time with such menial things when he could be back at work, working.
Filed under: Flash Fiction Tagged: busy working, culture, fiction, isolation, Japan, karoshi, salaryman, satire, work, workaholic, working oneself to death, writing
May 10, 2014
Pass here and go on, you’re on the road to heaven
Jack Kerouac
the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars
Filed under: Writing Tagged: art, drawing, fiction, Jack Kerouac, novels, On the Road, photo design, poems, poetry, readings, The Beat Generation, Visions of Cody, writing
May 9, 2014
As the Flowers Burn Below
Time to dance
to songs symbolic of the age
of this world
tuneless
degenerate
Beating pulsing writhing
we cast our blurred yet fixed gaze
at the burning flowers far below
Dancing high upon the roof of hell
as the flowers burn below
too, dancing and bending
with the blazing wind
down down
far below
*
In this world
we walk on the roof of hell
gazing at flowers
小林一茶
Kobayashi Issa
Filed under: Poetry Tagged: burning, burning flowers, dancing, flowers, haiku, hell, Japan, Kobayashi Issa, Poem, poetry, symbolic of the age, Time to dance, writing, 小林一茶
May 8, 2014
Our Poet Laureate
This is new and interesting information for me. Now I guess I need to look up how and/or why laurel became associated with proficiency…
Originally posted on Cabin Fever Books Ltd.:
Recently, Derek Beaulieu, took over the reins of Poet Laureate, for the City of Calgary, from Kris Demeanour, who was Calgary’s first Poet Laureate. The term of office is 2014 to 2016.
But what IS a Poet Laureate?
The tradition of associating laurel with proficiency in the arts dates back to the classical age of civilization. In Greek mythology, Apollo is represented wearing a laurel wreath on his head. In ancient Greece wreaths were awarded to victors, both in athletic competitions, including the ancient Olympics, and in poetic meets.
The Italians revived the office of Poet Laureate in the early 1300’s and versificator Regis was a term used in England early in the 12th century when minstrels and versifiers formed part of the king’s retinue. Ben Jonson was fashioned as the first British Poet Laureate, but it was not official. The first Poet Laureate, as an official royal title in…
View original 61 more words
Filed under: Poetry Tagged: Cabin Fever Books, Calgary, Canada, poet, Poet Laureate, poetry
May 7, 2014
Meet me in the courtyard where the blood no longer flows
You and I sipping tea
wrought iron stylish in ancient design
umbrella faded to blue just so
violet clematis
climbing
reaching
divine
but hiding sins etched in the wall
which leaves us sacred in our time
bodies marched out lined up
backs against the brick
against the wall
so to speak
as well to die
ready…
aim…
the anxious burn before the fire…
wall too high for them to climb
still they try
leaving nails of desperation behind
Filed under: Poetry Tagged: desperation, history, Poem, poetry, renewal, sin, writing
May 6, 2014
The Ultimate Lifehack – The End of Food
From the New Yorker ~ Lizzie Widdicombe: Could Soylent Replace Food?.
They had been living mostly on ramen, corn dogs, and Costco frozen quesadillas—supplemented by Vitamin C tablets, to stave off scurvy—but the grocery bills were still adding up. Rob Rhinehart, one of the entrepreneurs, began to resent the fact that he had to eat at all. “Food was such a large burden,” he told me recently. “It was also the time and the hassle. We had a very small kitchen, and no dishwasher.” He tried out his own version of “Super Size Me,” living on McDonald’s dollar meals and five-dollar pizzas from Little Caesars. But after a week, he said, “I felt like I was going to die.” Kale was all the rage—and cheap—so next he tried an all-kale diet. But that didn’t work, either. “I was starving,” he said.
Rhinehart, who is twenty-five, studied electrical engineering at Georgia Tech, and he began to consider food as an engineering problem. “You need amino acids and lipids, not milk itself,” he said. “You need carbohydrates, not bread.” Fruits and vegetables provide essential vitamins and minerals, but they’re “mostly water.” He began to think that food was an inefficient way of getting what he needed to survive. “It just seemed like a system that’s too complex and too expensive and too fragile,” he told me.
What if he went straight to the raw chemical components? He took a break from experimenting with software and studied textbooks on nutritional biochemistry and the Web sites of the F.D.A., the U.S.D.A., and the Institute of Medicine. Eventually, Rhinehart compiled a list of thirty-five nutrients required for survival. Then, instead of heading to the grocery store, he ordered them off the Internet—mostly in powder or pill form—and poured everything into a blender, with some water. The result, a slurry of chemicals, looked like gooey lemonade. Then, he told me, “I started living on it.” Rhinehart called his potion Soylent….
Food is way too costly, in both time and money. I’m all in:
Soylent – Free Your Body @ soylent.me.
Filed under: Food Tagged: diet nutrition, food, lifehacks, Rob Rhinehart, Silicon Valley, Soylent, start-ups, The New Yorker
Power To The Putin
Is it just me, or does anyone else feel
a bit like Neville Chamberlain lately?
Filed under: War Tagged: appeasement, art, drawing, Neville Chamberlain, photo design, Ukraine, Vladimir Putin, war
Putin Signs Law Banning Curse Words in Arts and Media
What the fuck is going on in Russia?
Note: not much of a curser, but after reading this felt the strong desire to express my freedom of…expression, however cursed it may be; and also to express my solidarity with our overly suppressed and oppressed and newly vulgarless Russian brothers and sisters. Curse on…
Originally posted on TIME:
Russian President Vladimir Putin
signed a law
on Monday that will ban swearing in films, music and public performances.
Explicit books and CDs will have to be sold in sealed packages with a warning that reads “contains obscene language,” CNN reports.
The law will levy fines as high as $1,400 against organizations and $70 against individual offenders. Repeat offenders could face steeper fines and a 3-month suspension of business.
A panel of obscenity experts will define the finer points of the law, deciding which words could damage the Kremlin’s stated goal of “protecting and developing language culture.”
[CNN]
Filed under: Freedom Tagged: curse, freedom, oppression, Putin, Russia, suppression, vulgarities
A Lazy Man’s Plea…
To Those Whom I Follow:
Please adjust your Settings so your entire post can be read in a feed. I really want to see and read and completely enjoy and “like” the wonders and beauty of your creations. However, I am a lazy man and if I’m happily scrolling through my feed and come upon one of your creations only to find:
Sorry, this blog only allows us to show the first section of a post. Read Full Post →
Well, chances are pretty good I’m going to be too lazy to click out of my feed to witness firsthand the entirety of the wonders and beauty of your creation.
Please help me enjoy all you have to offer.
(Dashboard -> Settings -> Reading -> “For each article in a feed, show” click “Full text”)
And To Those Who Follow Me:
From the bottom of my lazy heart, Thank You. Thank You for showing even the slightest interest in what I have going on here. It feels so great to be validated, no matter how slight.
Nothing would please me more, hardly, than to follow you back so I can see and read and completely enjoy and “like” the wonders and beauty of your creations. However, if you do not have your website linked to your Gravatar Profile, then how am I to find you, to follow you? Occasionally, when not overwhelmed by my laziness, I will take a stab at a link address based upon your profile name. Sometimes it works; most often it doesn’t.
Please help me find you.
*
If you feels this lazy man’s frustration from missing out on all the wonders and beauty that are being created out there in our ever-expanding community, then please reblog and help spread the word.
Filed under: Writing Tagged: blogging, blogging community, blogging ettiquette, sharing, writing
