Kingsway

I am at the Kingsway, the tony little neighbourhood in Etobicoke. Even
their Second Cup is a little fancier.

Three weeks worth of reading...

The last three weeks has been particularly uneventful for me. So I managed to get more reading done than usual.

• In Search of Excellence: Lessons from Americas Best-Run Companies
  
• The English Patient
  
• History of the Peloponnesian War
  

Apparently, it was "... named by NPR (in 1999) as one of the "Top Three Business Books of the Century," and ranked as the "greatest business book of all time" in a poll by Britain's Bloomsbury Publishing (2002)."

It's an old book for a different time in American business. It was rather lightweight and imprecise ... I don't know if how much I gathered from this book is any good. A lot of the theory seems logical. Treat employees better and they will find new ways to make the company money. (Well, the authors actually suggest something more cultish, but that maybe my own imagining.)

The most repeated criticism for this "timeless classic" is that most of the companies surveyed did rather poorly through out most of the 1980's. Many didn't survive.



I never did see the movie. The book was excellent. Most suprised were the short sentence in succession. They always tell you that it is more powerful. I never saw it in a novel till now.




I am still on book 1, so I should refrain from commenting. But fav quote so far comes from an Athenian:

We have done nothing extraordinary, nothing contrary to human nature in accepting an empire when it was offered to us and then in refusing to give it up. Three very powerful motives prevent us from doing so -- security, honour, and self-interest.

Virginia Tech and weirdo-loners: Seung Cho and what I know

This little piece was posted anonymously by an alleged classmate of the Seung-Hui Cho. Below is the complete article.

Please note: I DID NOT WRITE THIS! This is a repost.

http://thestoriesyoucannottell.blogspot.com/2007/04/seung-cho-and-what-i-know.html

Seung Cho and what I know

I was in his playwriting class last fall. I was always a quiet guy myself, not really making too many friends during my years at Virginia Tech. On a couple of occasions, we'd end up sitting close to each other. I had always thought that Cho was a little "off" but since I was strange in my own right, I didn't think too much of it. People like Cho and I never seem to make friends easily and the fact that we were both loners of sorts made me pay a little more attention to him that usual.

Just before Christmas I passed by Seung Cho while he was walking around the Drill Field, a little more sad-looking than usual. I offered him a cigarette which he refused with a wave of his hand. I then tried to talk to him about one of the plays we had recently reviewed in class and he finally started talking a little. We talked about the plot and the characters when suddenly Cho asked me what others had thought about his "Richard McBeef" story.

It was then that I told Seung Cho that some of the others in the class were a little concerned with his writing. Seung seemed to get a kick out of that because he suddenly had a smile where only a grin existed before. I told him that some people were talking about him before class, talking about he was a little strange acting and with this play of his, some other students joked about him being a charter member of the trenchcoat mafia. Cho wondered what that was, so I told him about the whole Littleton, Colorado school shooting. He seemed intrigued by my words. We talked a little more about "sticking it to the man" and how good it feels to break things sometimes. I used to steal cars and smash them into buildings, Seung mentioned he liked to hurt things. I didn't ask anymore questions.

After that day I thought differently about Seung-Hui Cho. I thought I might read about him in the paper one day, and not for any good reason.

And then it happened. All over the news. School shooting at Virginia Tech. My first thoughts when my mother called and asked me if I was okay was, " I wonder if it was Cho?!" After getting off the phone with my mom, I smiled a little knowing that Cho had gotten what he wanted. Revenge.

Cho Seung-Hui has gone and done what many of us "loners" only wish we had the courage do to. I too have often thought of taking my anger out on innocents, but unlike Seung Cho, I just don't have the courage to pull the trigger. He did.

I feel bad for the victims, but not too much. Perhaps people will start paying closer attention to us loners before we end up making ourselves popular, for all the wrong reasons!

New Poetry on the Way

Yay!
They're back. I am not crazy about this new one, "Old Song and Dance" by
Kezia Speirs. But whatever. It's still good. Still very, very good.

Old Song and Dance
By Kezia Speirs

We love as though we know not
better. A trick, biology, it claims
more worthy selves and gentler aims
and still this doom is ours. We sought
late wanderings and soft light, dim,
and then the first embrace, the touch
as if those hands were all the world -- for such
their beauty seemed; he carried gods with him.
And these loves, so celebrated, sung
so painted, danced, idolatrized, these scenes
are but the tantrum of our genes,
which we their slaves embellish -- strung
like puppets, till they break their strings
and all that's left are our own imaginings.

Thanks a lot Waun for typing it on his Blackberry. Dude, there is nothing unmanly about poetry.

Bait and Switch - Barbara Ehrenreich

Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream By Barbara
Ehrenreich

Bait and Switch is a sequel, of sorts, to Ehrenreich's highly acclaimed
book "Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America." Like her last
book, Ehrenreich disguises herself again -- this time as a member of the
middle class. (Annual Salary - $100,000+)

Through, job coaches, networking groups, and the danger of dark colours,
Ehrenreich combines the narrative and the socialogical. Describes the
slow death of the white collar worker and their fast downward mobility
to emotional rock-bottom.

Proud FM 103.9

OMG!
I am absolutely in love with this station!
I've been jamming to their music all day.

Oh yeah, club beats for the early 90's.

My Ibsen Experience

I am always a little reluctant talking about Ibsen.

Norwegian.
I never learned the language.

Over the last decade, I read, I think, almost every play of his that got translated. Some I read so long ago that I no longer remember. There is also a sameness to many of the plays, even if they are masterpieces (like Woody Allen movies that are all different, but the same.)

But everytime I think of narratives, dialogue, and character, I think back to Ibsen. And, he also gave me the norm for tragedies.

What Type of Writer Should I Be?

***You Should Be A Poet***


You craft words well, in creative and unexpected ways.
And you have a great talent for evoking beautiful imagery...
Or describing the most intense heartbreak ever.
You're already naturally a poet, even if you've never written a poem.


What Type of Writer Should You Be?
http://www.blogthings.com/whattypeofwritershouldyoubequiz/

Just a little note to remind myself: Mutabaruka

Heard him on CKLN several weeks back.
Heard of him before that.

I could never find the right spelling of his name properly.

Finally found it.

Mutabaruka