Bukowski's poetry

"... and opening the door to my room

a fat damsel scrambles my vision

bottles fall

and a voice says

why are all your poems

personal?"

"...the trumpets bring on gallows

as small men rant at things

they cannot do."

"...if death is so fearful

then life must be

good?"

The World Without us

I have just finished reading this amazing book. What happens to the earth when human beings disappear? Alan Weisman answer this question with this Time 2007 Nonfiction Book of the Year.

“...with pumps not working, the New York City subways would fill with water within days, while weeds and then trees would retake the buckled streets and wild predators would ravage the domesticated dogs. Texas’s unattended petrochemical complexes might ignite, scattering hydrogen cyanide to the winds—a "mini chemical nuclear winter." - The New Yorker.

It's not a fiction book with stories on the apocalypse but more like a detailed scientific publication. Sometimes the author got lost in details that didn't really interested me but still, you can expect to learn a lot from this very vivid reportage. Fascinating.

More Details

Some random personal notes from the book:

“The problem is, by tapping the Carboniferous Formation and spewing it up into the sky, we've become a volcano that hasn't stopped erupting since the 1700s.
Eventually, the geologic cycle will take CO2 back to the prehuman levels. That will take about 100,000 years or longer.”

“...African fauna have learned that massing in large flocks makes it harder for predators to isolate and catch a single animal, and assures that some are available to scout for danger while others feed. A zebra stripes help it befuddle lions by getting lost in a crowded optical illusion.”

“Nearly 12 percent of the planet's landmass is cultivated, compared to about 3 percent occupied by towns and cities. When grazing land is included, the amount of Earthly terrain dedicated to human food is production is more than one-third of the world's land surface.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derinkuyu_Underground_City

Symphonia Discors

Je vais tenter de ne pas faire d'auto-promotion sur ce blog car c'est plutôt fatiguant pour tout le monde mais voici une exception: Je vais enfin mettre mes albums en ligne.

Donc voici pour commencer mon album instrumental qui a été enregistré en 2004 mais qui n'a jamais été publié.

Construit uniquement avec des échantillonnages de vinyles poussiéreux, j'ai voulu crée des chansons qui racontent des histoire sans mots. Je voulais m'éloigner des chansons avec des constructions typiques (du type: intro, verse, refrain, bridge, verse, chorus, fade out) et des sons qui loop sans cesse.

C'est des mini trames sonores de films d'horreurs, des breaks passées au déchiqueteur, des chansons d'ambiance qui se noient dans une symphonie discordante.

Bring the noise.

http://luwee.bandcamp.com/

Plus de details

Track Listing:


1.The Practice of the drums 02:55

2.Docteur! (Il y a un cheval dans l'hopital)03:27

3.Tue ce drum Luwee (En trois parties)04:53

4.Oh my God 03:19

5.Uh! (It's a Big Daddy Thing) 02:12

6.Shackle me not 02:56

7.La dérive des artistes morts 04:37

8.La cantique de soûlons 02:38

Origin of the universe and the arrow of time

Very interesting and very easy to understand update on the latest theory on Time and the Universe.

Some things I will remember from it:

- The big crunch is not going to happen.

- Black holes could be the place where universe like ours got created.

- We perceive Time because of entropy. Precisely, because we live in a low entropy environment.

http://www.themonthly.com.au/origin-universe-and-arrow-time-sean-carroll-2196

Source:University of Sydney
Duration: 28m 58s

St-Valentin

Seul a San Francisco, J'ai décidé d'aller fêter la St-Valentin en groupe. Une bataille d'oreiller était organisé a Embarcadero (Endroit légendaire du skate de San Francisco) et j'étais parti en mission.

Traverser la ville en vélo avec un oreiller et aller frapper des inconnus a grand coup de sac de plumes. Yeah!

Je m'attendais a quelque chose du genre:

Malheureusement, a mi-chemin un flat sur mon vélo m'empêcha d'arriver a temps pour la bataille. J'ai du me contenter d'un bon café et d'appels interurbains a ceux que j'aime. La morale de l'histoire? Essayer de trainer un tube et un kit pour réparer les flats quand je pars en bike. Damn it.

Igloo Fest 2010

In the summer time, your beer become warm and flat after an hour.
We went to Igloofest Dubstep Night just before I left for San Francisco and it was minus 38 degrees with the wind. Music was good, people dancing outside in the freezing cold. Such a fun event. You could see smoke coming from the crowd and it was coming from the body heat and breathing. And oh yeah, your beer turned into slush after 10 minutes and after 15 minutes it was full of ice and disgusting. Bottom's up!

Freakonomics

Je viens de terminer ce livre et c'est excellent. Je suis un grand fan des livres de Malcom Gladwell (Blink, Outliers, Tipping Point) et j'ai enfin trouvé un livre qui est du même genre et du même niveau. L'auteur utilise des outils d'économie pour examiner notre société et découvre des connections surprenantes. Saviez-vous que le niveau de crime n'a jamais été aussi bas au États-Unis et d'après Steven D. Levitt, ce serait dû a la légalisation de l'avortement? A lire.

Plus de details

...
This is different quotes or notes from the book that I find interesting.


"A long line of studies, including research into twins who were separated at birth, concluded that genes alone are responsible for perhaps 50% of a child's personality and abilities. "

Parenting:
(...)She argued that parents are wrong to think they contribute so mightily to their child's personality. This is a cultural myth. Actually, top-down influence of parents is overwhelmed by the grassroot effect of peer pressure, the blunt force applied each day by friends and schoolmates.

Education:
A child whose parents are highly educated typically does well in school. A family with a lot of schooling tends to value schooling. Parents with higher IQs tend to get more education, and IQ is strongly hereditary.

On School performance:
Moving to a better neighborhood doesn't improve a child's chance in school.

"...Students from rural areas tend to do worse than average (...) while urban children tend to score higher than average."

SF Coffee

I am a coffee snob. I am and I accept myself. I can drink bad coffee on a road trip and I will not complain but I have a lot of pleasure in drinking quality drinks. I am lucky enough to know some peoples in San Francisco and they made me discover the two best coffee places: The Ritual and Four Barrel. Sure, its full of hipsters with mustaches and peoples with laptops but god damn the macchiato's are good.

Twin Peaks

Le déjeuner chez Boogaloos. Chorizo-n-eggs, Salsa, fèves noires, café...

La montée.

La vue.

La descente

Une petite pente en extra sur le side

En bref, c'est un excellent parcours de vélo. Pas trop difficile mais assez pour bien dormir le soir. Je dirais qu'après trois fois le Tour De Twin peaks, il faut changer de pneus car les skids sont fréquents. Je n'ai pas trouvé la Log Lady mais je pense que ça va être sur un autre Twin Peaks.

Meilleure musique des dix dernières années?

Un de mes site favoris de musique est hypem.

Ce site fait le tour de tout les blogs de musique et poste en ligne les chansons que ces blogs ont aimées.

Ce site me permet de découvrir de la nouvelle musique sans arrêt et il me permet aussi de découvrir des bons blog de musique.

Un de mes préféré est Motel de Moka.

C'est de la musique en générale assez tranquille mais c'est ce que j'aime écouter quand je travaille ou quand je fais de la lecture.

Le dernier post de Motel De Moka est leur "best off" des dix dernières années et on peut downloader toute les chansons. Quoi de mieux pour découvrir de la musique?

Blogging is dead

J'ai lu à quelque part que blogger était mort. Excellent!

C'est donc un bon moment pour moi de commencer ça.

Musique, livres, skate, vélo, voyages, anecdotes, découvertes... En anglais, en français...

Hell yeah!