This, That And The Other

[poliphilo]

1. When I was a kid- back in the late 1950s- I collected the little model dinosaurs that were given away in packets of Shreddies. They were pretty  things, moulded in low relief from ivory-white plastic. I wish I'd kept them. A full set now sells on eBay for $455. Ouch!

2.  I watched an interview with Conrad Black, the Canadian tycoon who's just been sentenced to 6 years for fraud.  Even on a crap video link the charisma comes across.  He's charming and arrogant- and innocent (of course). No wonder he flourished for so long. When you're as self assured as he is ordinary people just buckle in front of you. He's recently published a book about Richard Nixon and apparently it's really good. 

3. I finished Murakami's short story collection, Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman.  I don't think he's a great short story writer. Entertaining, amusing- but not great. Great short story writers pack a whole world into their miniatures.  Murikami achieves that once or twice but what you mainly get is anecdote. The novel and the short story are very different disciplines and few writers are equally good at both. 

4. Doris Lessing gave an interview in which she slagged off blogging. Silly woman. She's a great writer and I admire her enormously but when she wanders off onto the subject of "these young people today" she's just somebody's grumpy, old granny.

5. I had a dream about a new born baby who could talk. She looked round, took in her new surroundings and said, "Big mistake."

Comments

[semiperilous.livejournal.com]

i don't know much about conrad black but he does seem pretty awesome. but are you being sarcastic about his innocence? if he runs/ran in the same circles as kissinger and brzezinski then i'm sure he's guilty of things worse than fraud. also is their such a thing as an innocent media tycoon? pushing agendas through propaganda assaults? shaping peoples minds for the good of the state and the elite?

my only guess as to why he's in jail is maybe he's being punished by higher ups. perhaps he began to disagree and began to deviate. i really don't believe that the elite mess up and "get in trouble" unless they've been abandoned for some reason.

either way he seems admirable.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I was being facetious. Black believes he's innocent, but I don't think anyone else does. Even his defence team seemed to be wishing he'd express a little contrition.

[semiperilous.livejournal.com]

haha, ok i am dense.