Groonkly Bits

Once upon a time, there was an Idea…

This idea was small in stature. It flitted around nega-space until it found the right person. Then it whispered into his ear and the Idea was born.

Once alive, the Idea grew to proportions previously unimagined and became Delicate Creatures, a fairy tale for adults. Within it’s pages you find a Princess, simple but powerful tiny beings, and evil Green Men. Wisdom is found here. As well as rage, knowledge, and compassion. All of these things born from a once small, seemingly insignificant but clever Idea.

-Groonk

No Comments | In: Books | | #

Something unusual is waiting for you in the intersection of a conversation between god and a man asked to build a *second* ark…what it will carry, and where it all goes, is not what you may be expecting.

“I told Brian that I wanted to divide CITY into three parts: 1-4 being fairly straightforward stories, and 5-8 being more experimental stories that play with the form of radio drama. Get everybody lulled into a false sense of security, and then start pulling the rug out. This is the first of the experimental episodes. Be sure to listen carefully, because not everything here is what it seems.”
-JMS

No Comments | In: Radio Theatre | | #

Here’s what he does:

Business – News and insights about corporate travel. Elliott has covered the business of business travel since 1992 and, more important, he is a business traveler.

Commentary – Editorials about the state of the travel industry. Other travel writers try to sugarcoat the truth about travel in order to please advertisers. Not Elliott. These articles are hard-hitting, consumer-focused – and fun.

Destinations – Timely features on places to visit. Elliott specializes in South Florida and the Florida Keys, but he also gets out of town every now and then to write about interesting and offbeat places.

Help – Answers to your travel questions from the longest-running ombudsman feature on the Web. Elliott’s columns go beyond answering your travel queries; they also solve problems and prevent them from happening again.

Leisure – Strategies for vacations. Most leisure-travel features focus on one thing: How to save money. Elliott’s columns go beyond that, offering ideas for making your “away” time more productive and pleasurable.

Technology – Tips on using gadgets on the road. Elliott’s observations on travel and technology are jargon-free and user-friendly. He’s written about the intersection between travel and technology for almost as long as there’s been a World Wide Web.

Vault – Discontinued features. Travel columns come and go, but when they’re put out to pasture, Elliott’s stories make it into the vault. Visit this place to read all of your old favorites, from the Access Magazine cover stories to Mile Markers.

Elliott.org also publishes a free newsletter every week designed to help you save money and travel smarter.

Here’s who told me about him: sevendaggers

No Comments | In: Linked | | #

Gotta keep up with the kids.

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Surrealism. Existentialism. Minimalism. Stream of Consciousness. Spaceships. What, you expected something ordinary in the City of Dreams?

“When you experiment in audio, you can do only so many things with tricks. At some point you have to dive into the form of the narrative itself. So I wanted to try something that played with stream of consciousness, surrealism, minimalism and existentialism, but without losing some SF touchstones. Hence, this week’s episode. One long and very weird conversation. And no tricks.”
-JMS

No Comments | In: Radio Theatre | | #

”He was a loner who liked company; a poet of isolation who sought a mass audience; a rebel who sought to fit in. Although a family man to the core, he frequently felt alienated from his wife and children and withdrew into reveries. While preferring to stay at home, he traveled more than any poet of his generation to give lectures and readings, even though he remained terrified of public speaking to the end…”

Via MedicMike

No Comments | In: Books, Groonk's Poetry Pit, Linked | | #

Have some poetry:

T.S. Eliot (1888-1965) was born in St. Louis, Missouri. He settled in London in 1915 and became a British citizen in 1927. Encouraged by Ezra Pound, he began publishing his work in 1915 and soon established himself as an important voice of the modern world. In 1948 Eliot was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature. His works include “Murder in the Cathedral,” “The Waste Land,” and “Four Quartets.”

Listen to this eloquent rendition of “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” in which Eliot conveys the frustration and irony of this notable poem. Taken from the HarperAudio release “T.S. Eliot Reads.”

Woud it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: “ I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”–

Via MedicMike. A hard charging and ballsy MoFo.

No Comments | In: Books, Groonk's Poetry Pit, Linked | | #

Bouldering is climbing up to a height where it is safe to jump to the ground. No technical equipment is required, just a mat to keep your climbing shoes clean and soften the landing a little. Bouldering is the most sociable, and relaxed form of climbing, and many of the world’s top bouldering locations, like Fontainebleau, near Paris, are frequented by young families where everyone can join in.

In bouldering, the objective to be climbed is known as a problem. Problems can be two moves long, or twenty move traverses (going sideways, the same distance from the ground). Bouldering has its own grading systems, and truly came to prominence around the beginning of the 21st century.

I’m liking the sound of that.

Then maybe I’ll get into Free Climbing or even Solo Climbing.

But for now, I’ll stick to learning Bouldering.

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Today one of my best friend’s since college had a son.

Quin(n) graced the world at 2:16 PM. He’s healthy and happy and sleeps a lot. And he has Charles and Jennifer. Two extremely proud and exhausted parents.

So this week’s Groonkly Bit comes from Planetary:

“World, this is my daughter. I want you two to be good to each other. Because it’s a strange world out there, and you both need all the help you can get.”
-Ambrose Chase “Planetary”

Happy Birthday Quin(n)! Maybe your parents will know how many n’s are going to be in your name by the end of the week.

-Groonk

No Comments | In: Quotes | | #

They have a blog and it is good.

EFF is a non-profit group of passionate people ? lawyers, volunteers, and visionaries ? working to protect your digital rights.

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