The Dublin Writers Festival 2007 kicks off tomorrow with a stronger-than-usual lineup. However, it’s unfortunate that Adrienne Rich, by far the most significant participant, had to pull out of her event due to ill health. Still, there’s enough to pique the interest, with Lionel Shriver, Alistair MacLeod, Tim Robinson, and Iain Sinclair involved. There’s also […]
“Police had to use force yesterday to disperse demonstrators” reads a photograph caption in Friday’s super libertarian Gazeta Wyborcza. How do they know? In the absence of two independent, named sources (or is that old hat in the old media?), should the caption not read: “Police used force to disperse demonstrators”? This was published hard […]
Friday’s Gazeta Wyborcza carried a story under the above headline (more or less) on its front page. In it Bartosz Węglarczyk calculated how much time Kaczyński would have to talk to Bush on the latter’s visit here. The answer: 40 minutes, and since an interpreter would be needed that should be halved. Consecutive interpreting Węglarczyk […]
In a recent piece about the experience of tagging after the British prime minister as he makes valedictory pit-stops at evocative locales (Belfast, Washington, and, alas, Basra), Martin Amis takes a pop at blogosphere critics of Tony Blair. In a tone redolent of a colonial police report on the pidgin rhetoric of native insurgents, Amis […]
In an interview in this weekend’s Dziennik Noam Chomsky says that Hitler, when he invaded Czechoslovakia, claimed he was doing so to bring peace. The Soviets also claimed to have Poland’s interests at heart in the 1940s. The US claimed to be bringing democracy to Iraq. What is the newspaperman’s response? Imperialna Ameryka niczym się […]
There is a scene in “Boogie Nights” where the luckless ex-porn stars go off to do some drug dealing. The dealer spends a good part of the scene bragging about his mix-tape. It’s not a blunder on the part of the film makers. They really did have mix tapes in the 80s. I am reminded […]
On the occasion of the launch of Google Maps Street View, the latest step in that firm’s endeavours to pixallate the known world, this blog offers a one-paragraph story by Jorge Luis Borges (with Adolfo Bioy Casares), “Of Exactitude in Science.” In a feint characteristic of Borges, this jewel of an idea is smuggled into […]
Headline in last week’s Polityka: “How to demand a pay-rise that will give you a good living and not bankrupt your employer.” In the olden days employers were expected to look out for their own interests. Now it seems this burden is also to fall on the employee.
I was sufficiently impressed by Joshua Ferris’s debut, Then We Came to the End, to check out the book that inspired that somewhat sales-unfriendly title, Don DeLillo’s first novel, Americana (opening line: “Then we came to the end of another dull and lurid year”. DeLillo, whatever his limitations, has an undeniable knack for the arresting […]
In the case against Dr. G, the doctor falsely and publicly accused by Poland’s minister for justice of murder, the prosecution intends calling on expert witnesses, from abroad if necessary. Marek Celej has this to say about it in last week’s Polityka Nie bardzo sobie wyobrażam, jak taki biegły miałby zeznawać w sądzie. Przecież język […]
