Once again, I forgot that it was my favorite time of year; which is the way I like it.

The winners of the Bulwer-Lytton and Lyttle-Lytton contests were announced again last month. This really is something I look forward to all year long.

Explanation from Wikipedia:

"The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest (BLFC) is a tongue-in-cheek contest that takes place annually and is sponsored by the English Department of San José State University in San Jose, California. Entrants are invited "to compose the opening sentence to the worst of all possible novels" — that is, deliberately bad. A prize of US$250 is awarded."


If you haven't seen these but like a good, obscure, and funny read, check them out.

http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/2009.htm or go here to read up first http://www.bulwer-lytton.com

This is the Lyttle: http://adamcadre.ac/lyttle.html

Call me crazy/disturbed but I like these so much that I'm not going to read them now. I'll actually print them off and wait until tonight when I can find a nice solitary spot to have a cup of coffee and a cigarette to read them.

It looks like it's going to be the perfect "dark and stormy night" here too.

If you don't respect Gore Vidal, one of the giants of commentary, you won't like this.
Gore Vidal is a hyper-educated anti-academic, and also controversial. He would be in America's brain trust, if we had one, and ....
I hope reading Gore Vidal bashing the USA resonates with you as well as it did with me.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/johann-hari/obama-is-incompetent-and_b_311796.html

I can't believe this has been going on my whole life and I'm only now waking up.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2009/09/19/ED7B19P06H.DTL

I really enjoy reading popular science and other non-fiction books and would love to get some suggestions from other sifters. Please add amazon invocations and a bit on why you like a particular book.

http://sivers.org/drama

Short version:

People have been hearing fantastic stories since time began. The problem is, they think life is supposed to be like the stories.

As some of you know, I do a fair bit of reading centered around U.S. History. The current book I'm reading at the moment is a fascinating looking into the psychology of Thomas Jefferson called "American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson" by Joseph J. Ellis. It's not a flattering or unflattering biography of the U.S.'s third president, but rather it's unflinchingly honest. It's objective is to "down to earth without either condemning or idolizing him", according to the Amazon.com write up.

The book chronicles his life, careful to show the psychological choices and demonstrate a possible reason why he made those choices. There are a lot of interesting contradictions in his life, and also some amazing facts you may have not known about. For instance, along with Madison, Jefferson created the Republican Party between 1790 and 1794, which was shaped rigidly by his opposition to the Federalists. What's interesting about that is he was considered a traitor by most because he was serving in the very presidential cabinet he opposed. Remember, he was Secretary of State for Washington's Administration.



He also hated politics greatly, as he thought it was raw and vicious. He was better suited for writing, not the oratory, as he often said. For this reason, reluctantly he ran for president under his own Democratic-Republican party ticket. In the book, Jefferson is seen as a man who wanted desperately to leave politics and resign himself to the quiet of Monticello.

In fact, when he was part of the Continental Congress, he asked his fellow Virginian Delegates (for which he was a junior member) if he could be replaced so he could return to Virginia. This was denied, and shortly thereafter he was asked to pen the Declaration of Independence.

No one in the Continental Congress thought the Declaration would be the document it is today. In fact, if they did, they certainly wouldn't have passed that notoriety off to such a junior member. But, Jefferson surprised them all because years prior he had written three other documents (including the recent Virginian Constitution) that were all warm ups to the Declaration, which can be looked at as the final edited draft of three or so years of work. Inadvertently, the Congress had chosen the best author for the document.

Jefferson was in Paris at the time the Congress was drafting the Constitution, and Jefferson relayed his insights about the shaping of that document via Madison and Monroe. Madison served to be his filter and voice of reason, as the years abroad had tended to make Jefferson radical and wildly idealistic. He was shaped by what the French national debt did to fuel a bloody class revolution, how the U.S. war debt left him, while minster to France, impotent to negotiate valuable treaties with European powers, and how the debts he had inherited by his father-in-law's estate were compounding at a rate he could never repay. One of his most radical stances, which he spoke about from the late 1780s until his death, was the notion that generations shouldn't be beholden to the debts and laws of previous generations.

Congress had been working on the Constitution for two years when Jefferson proposed to Madison of his idea of generational sovereignty, where each generation began anew, free of the debt, laws and "institutionalized obligations and regulations" (cited, pg. 136, American Sphinx). He idealized people and government, thinking in terms of primal forms of independence and idyllic harmony. "It was a wholly voluntary world, where coercion was unknown and government unnecessary." (cited, pg. 136, American Sphinx) Madison convinced Jefferson his ideas were impractical, and Jefferson never proposed them for the Constitution.



Jefferson passed away on Independence Day, July 4, 1826. John Adams, our 2nd president and lifelong friend to Jefferson, passed away that same day. With Jefferson's death, the Democratic-Republican party was dismantled and ceased to be. Two parties emerged from its ashes: the National Republican party (which eventually became the Republican Party of today) and the Democratic party (modern). On Jefferson's tombstone any mention of his presidency was left off because he didn't look fondly at his years in office. His years as president shown his contradictory nature, and his actions in office were dichotomous to his idea of strong Republicanism and smaller government.

Jefferson was radical, progressive and a champion of individual liberty. He was also deeply flawed and at times duplicitous. If you have a bit of time, I'd highly recommend this book. It's not verbose and flowery. In fact, the text is well arranged and intelligent, and above all a joy to read if you're interested in what made Thomas Jefferson one of the most memorable framers of the country.

How about a favorite quote thread?
Perhaps a quote-off among sifters?
Or even quoting other sifters?

(I'm not sure which is the highest ranking comment on the site. The question is whether it is too contextual for the video or the pertaining discussion to be quotable)

Anyway here's a quote I just found on google books. I really like it.



Technology is the knack of so arranging
the world that we do not experience it.

- Max Frisch

It's been over a year since Sarzy's initial "What are you reading?" post. As an excuse to go nuts on the *amazon invocation - and because I'm reading a great book at the moment, here's another post that asks, what are you reading now? Maybe we could do these every few months.

I'm about 3/4 through The Amazing Adeventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon. It's a story in equal turns about comic books, the holocaust and magic. Seems like a strange combination - but I haven't been able to put it down. I'm not a comic book guy, but this book makes me love them as it takes place in the golden era of the art form. Lots of real comic book people turn up in the book - if I were a comic book guy I could probably rattle off a few names but as it is, I only remember Stan Lee.

I probably don't need to recommend this book, as it won the Pulitzer prize - but I will anyway. I was led there from reading some of Chabon's other books. I especially liked the alternate universe noire detective novel The Yiddish Policeman's Union.

For the cultural elitist

(I'm looking at you blankfist. you really thought the act could fool anyone?)





CAT IN AN EMPTY APARTMENT


Die — you can't do that to a cat.
Since what can a cat do
in an empty apartment?
Climb the walls?
Rub up against the furniture?
Nothing seems different here,
but nothing is the same.
Nothing has been moved,
but there's more space.
And at nighttime no lamps are lit.

Footsteps on the staircase,
but they're new ones.
The hand that puts fish on the saucer
has changed, too.

Something doesn't start
at its usual time.
Something doesn't happen
as it should.
Someone was always, always here,
then suddenly disappeared
and stubbornly stays disappeared.

Every closet has been examined.
Every shelf has been explored.
Excavations under the carpet turned up nothing.
A commandment was even broken,
papers scattered everywhere.
What remains to be done.
Just sleep and wait.

Just wait till he turns up,
just let him show his face.
Will he ever get a lesson
on what not to do to a cat.
Sidle toward him
as if unwilling
and ever so slow
on visibly offended paws,
and no leaps or squeals at least to start.

-- Wislawa Szymborska

May I have your attention, please. It seems that we have another Goldie among us. In just few short months JiggaJohnson has earned himself a Gold Star. He is also a Charter Member of VideoSift – you may have noted his screen name in green. Welcome aboard JJ!

Should you wish to visit his pqueue here it is.

By Chris Hedges

We live in two Americas. One America, now the minority, functions in a print-based, literate world. It can cope with complexity and has the intellectual tools to separate illusion from truth. The other America, which constitutes the majority, exists in a non-reality-based belief system. This America, dependent on skillfully manipulated images for information, has severed itself from the literate, print-based culture. It cannot differentiate between lies and truth. It is informed by simplistic, childish narratives and clichés. It is thrown into confusion by ambiguity, nuance and self-reflection. This divide, more than race, class or gender, more than rural or urban, believer or nonbeliever, red state or blue state, has split the country into radically distinct, unbridgeable and antagonistic entities.
... more inside ...

"Michael Bay is well known for the child-like glee with which he infuses every over-the-top, ridiculous action scene he directs. He is truly an auteur, and the naive innocence which he brings to his directing can make most any stupid movie romp enjoyable. Unfortunately, hoping to cement his artistic credibility by landing that coveted writer/director credit a la Clint Eastwood, Bay also decided to try his hand at writing screenplays. And due to my elite Hollywood status as a quasi-respectable internet comedian, I of course had access to this attempt, and due to my shaky moral compass, I of course decided to post a few excerpts of it for you here:"

http://www.cracked.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/transformers2script_long11.gif

(Robert Brockway's blog on Cracked.com)

...Was a Portuguese fellow by the name of Fernando Pessoa. He had many heteronyms, which is a sort of literary multiple personality, each an amazing and particular author on its own.

His work is really really hard to translate without the colossal loss that accompanies translations of works that are strong and subtle and utilize the deeper intricacies of the language...

Still, he was raised in South Africa and wrote a bit in english as well.
I recently found his 35 sonnets in english on Project Guttemberg.

Here is the link
http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/world/readfile?fk_files=274171

and here is the first sonnet:

Whether we write or speak or do but look
We are ever unapparent. What we are
Cannot be transfused into word or book.
Our soul from us is infinitely far.
However much we give our thoughts the will
To be our soul and gesture it abroad,
Our hearts are incommunicable still.
In what we show ourselves we are ignored.
The abyss from soul to soul cannot be bridged
By any skill of thought or trick of seeming.
Unto our very selves we are abridged
When we would utter to our thought our being.
We are our dreams of ourselves, souls by gleams,
And each to each other dreams of others’ dreams.

Harrassment on Facebook = fun on the Sift. So I'm importing yet another running Facebook poll to Videosift, since I'd rather share here anyway. Would love to hear everyone else's...

__________________________________________

Ten Books that Stick with You

This can be a quick one. Don't take too long to think about it--Ten books you've read that will always stick with you. First ten you can recall in no more than 15 minutes.

IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER:
1. Ali Smith - Hotel World
2. David Sedaris - Me Talk Pretty One Day
3. Junot Diaz - The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
4. Toni Morrison - Song of Solomon
5. Katherine Dunn - Geek Love
6. Barbara Kingsolver - The Bean Trees
7. Stephen King - On Writing
8. Lewis Carroll - The Annotated Alice
9. Louise Erdrich - The Master Butchers Singing Club
10. Maxine Hong Kingston - The Woman Warrior

By Ludwig Von Mises

"I know only too well how hopeless it seems to convince impassioned supporters of the Socialist Idea by logical demonstration that their views are preposterous and absurd. I know too well that they do not want to hear, to see, or above all to think, and that they are open to no argument. But new generations grow up with clear eyes and open minds. And they will approach things from a disinterested, unprejudiced standpoint, they will weigh and examine, will think and act with forethought. It is for them that this book is written."

Publication Information: This online text corresponds to the 1951 Yale University Press edition (in pdf)

Preface to the Second English Edition  (p. 13)


Translator's Note  (p. 14)


Preface to the Second German Edition  (p. 15)


Introduction

1. The Success of Socialist Ideas (p. 25)
2. The Scientific Analysis of Socialism  (p. 27)
3. Alternative Modes of Approach to the Analysis of Socialism  (p. 31)

... more inside ...

1) Find an article that makes you laugh.
2) Paste the title, first 2-3 paragraphs and a link to the article in comments.
3) Upvote articles that make you laugh.
4) The sifter of the best rated comment becomes the MMLS host for the following Saturday and I'll give you some promotes.
5) In case of a tie, the most recent submission will be declared winner.
6) The host is ineligible from winning.

I just want everyone including the admins to know that I don't like this new idea of hobbiting people.

I saw the Lord of the Rings movies, and while they were mildly entertaining for the first ten hours, I just wouldn't want to see my fellow sifters become hairy-toed midgets.

I'm sorry if this offends anybody who may be related to Elijah Wood, but it bothers me that this new power could be so easily abused.

After all, at any moment you could be posting a video when BAM!...Ian McKellan upside yo head!

I'm just looking out for my friends of the Shire, I mean community. I don't want anybody losing eight inches of height and growing a metatarsal moustache.

I wanted to let everybody know, in case Peter Jackson ever makes an account here. Because if that happens, we're all screwed!

Thanks,

thinkerbaggins247

April Winchell has found some hilarious tapes of Barack Obama using foul language. How come, you ask? Well, Obama has not unleashed his inner bad guy; it all is connected to an audiobook recording he made a while back. Winchell explains:

If you’ve ever read President Obama’s Dreams From My Father, good for you. I couldn’t get past the foreword.

I wish I had. Because today I discovered that there’s a fairly juicy little subplot in the book, involving one of Obama’s high school friends.

Ray, a fellow classmate of Obama’s, was also bi-racial, and also trying to define himself. But what set him apart was his colorful manner of self-expression. Ray cursed like a motherfucker.

This would all be snickerworthy enough, but it turns out that Obama actually read the audiobook version of Dreams From My Father.

And that means he read Ray’s quotes.

And that means you’re about to hear the President of United States using language that would finish Cheney off once and for all.

Go to the blog post to hear these juicy soundbites. Now, how long until the remix?

Did you miss me?

With my favorite textbook torrent site closed, where do I go now?