BurningbirdI liked him for the fact that he had no problem with telling Hollywood to stick it.
I liked him for his acting, especially when he was younger.
He defined “Godfather”. But he blew me away with “On the Waterfront” and “The Wild One”.
And he’s finally met an offer he can’t refuse. Rest in peace, Marlon Brando.
At wood s lot a reference to an old online interview with W.G. Sebald. What an unexpected treat this was.
The entire interview was classic, wonderful Sebald, but I particularly liked what he had to say at the end of the interview:
Certainly, my own life experience is that when I thought I had things sorted and I was in control, something happened that completely undid everything I had wanted to do. And so it goes on. The illusion that I had some control over my life went up to about my thirty-fifth birthday. Then it stopped. Now I’m out of control.
Sebald died in a car accident not longer after that. I can’t help thinking he would laugh at the coincidence between what he said and his own death. Yes, he would laugh.
I deeply regret that Sebald died so young. I selfishly wish he had lived to 100, writing every single day. I cannot pick up one of his books without finding myself caught up, again, in the ribbon of words he pulls gently behind him. I guess this makes him one of the lucky ones: those who manage to create something of such unique and enduring beauty that it lasts five minutes beyond his death.
I haven’t said anything about the beheading of Nick Berg, and I won’t other than to point out a comment thread on a posting at David Weinberger’s and state that Dave Rogers is both eloquent and thoughtful for a man who says, ‘What do I know? I make all this shit up.’
Whatever I could wish to say, he’s said it.
Nuff said.
Recovered from the Wayback Machine.
For those of you who subscribe to my feeds, note that I’m dropping the RSS 2.0 feed starting next week.
Why? Because hosting an RSS 2.0 feed is providing indirect support for behavior that sucks the joy out of my day. Because Dave Winer is a hypocrite, and the so-called RSS 2.0 ‘advisory board’ is a mockery on true open standards efforts. More importantly, though, when I woke this morning, I said to myself:
Today is a good day to stop supporting assholes.
Recovered from the Wayback Machine.
I am trying not to focus too much on Iraq because frankly the situation over in that country makes me so angry that I want to break something. But it’s hard to ignore the reports about our abuse of Iraqi prisoners in the very prison we have used as a model for our justification of overthrowing Saddam Hussein. This abuse is not rumor but has been proven to be fact and pretending that it doesn’t exist does no one any good.
But that’s just what’s happening among our warblogging compatriots. They cannot see a way to spin this into being the fault of terrorists or the Iraqi people themselves, so they just pretend–like Sinclair in the previous post about the soldiers who have died in Iraq–that it doesn’t exist.
For instance, nary a word at Glenn Reynolds weblog that I can see. That wouldn’t have bothered me much, or surprised me really, except that he also chose this particular time to run with a posting about our forces being too soft in Iraq. And then he has the unmitigated gall to say that there is a ‘consensus’ among webloggers that we all somehow agree with this, that we are too soft in Iraq.
Over 10,000 Iraqi have died in this little ‘rightous’ war of yours, Reynolds. Over 600 in Fallujah, alone. When you say ‘consensus among webloggers’ you’re saying you speak for all of us, and that we want more people dead in Iraq.
Other pundits might like to take the more intellectual route on this issue in refuting you, and more power to them. My response is more simple and direct: fuck you, Reynolds.
Beg pardon. What I meant to say is: Instafuck you, Reynolds.