Albert Hofmann, the Swiss chemist who discovered LSD and thereby gave the psychedelic generation the pharmaceutical vehicle to turn on, tune in and drop out, has died this morning at his home in Basel of a heart attack. He was 102.
Hofmann also identified and synthesized the active ingredients of peyote mushrooms and a Mexican psychoactive plant called ololiuqui and developed at least three related, non-psychoactive compounds that became widely used in medicine.
Those other feats would have been little remembered, however, had he not accidentally gotten a trace amount of an experimental compound called lysergic acid diethylamide on his fingertips and taken the world’s first acid trip.
Hofmann was a talented synthetic chemist working in the Basel research center of Sandoz Laboratories — now Novartis — in the 1930s when he began studying the chemistry of ergot, the common name for a fungus that grows on rye, barley and certain other plants. Although ergot is poisonous, midwives had used a crude extract for centuries to induce labor in pregnant women.
In the early 1930s, American researchers had identified the primary active ingredient of ergot, a chemical called lysergic acid. Hofmann devised a technique to make a series of derivatives of lysergic acid called amides and began systematically looking for medically useful compounds.
The twenty-fifth compound he synthesized, in 1938, was lysergic acid diethylamide (in German, lyserg-saure-diathylamid), or LSD-25. Because this compound had a chemical structure similar to an existing drug called Coramine, Hofmann had hoped that it would be a stimulant for the respiratory and circulatory systems.
Prompted by what Hofmann later described as a “peculiar presentiment” that LSD-25 might have properties other than those established in the first investigations, he decided to look at it again.
On Friday afternoon, April 16, 1943, Hofmann had just completed synthesizing a new batch when, he subsequently wrote his supervisor, “I was forced to interrupt my work in the laboratory in the middle of the afternoon and proceed home, being affected by a remarkable restlessness, combined with slight dizziness.
“At home, I lay down and sank into a not-unpleasant intoxicated-like condition, characterized by an extremely stimulated imagination. In a dreamlike state I perceived an uninterrupted stream of fantastic pictures, extraordinary shapes with intense, kaleidoscopic play of colors. After some two hours, this condition faded away.”
The following Monday, he took what he considered to be an extremely small dose of LSD, so small that a similar dose of even the most powerful toxin known at the time would have had little or no effect. He had planned to gradually increase the dosage, but instead was surprised to encounter the first bad acid trip.
Feeling bad, he asked his laboratory assistant to accompany him home on his bicycle, no cars being available because of wartime restrictions. During the trip, “I had the feeling that I could not move from the spot. I was cycling, cycling, but the time seemed to stand still.”
By the time they reached his home, its furnishings had transformed themselves into terrifying objects.
“Everything in the room spun around, and the familiar objects and pieces of furniture assumed grotesque, threatening forms,” he wrote in his autobiography, “LSD — My Problem Child.” “They were in constant motion, animated, as if driven by an inner restlessness. The lady next door [became] a malevolent, insidious witch with a colored mask.”
After about six hours, the experience began to change into a pleasant one. “After some time, with my eyes closed, I began to enjoy this wonderful play of colors and forms, which it really was a pleasure to observe. Then I went to sleep and the next day I was fine. I felt quite fresh, like a newborn.”
That day, April 19, has subsequently been celebrated by LSD proponents as “Bicycle Day.”
Jasper is still sleeping when I wake up. He sleeps a lot these days. He’s sprawled out, taking up half the bed like he always does. I nudge him gently with my foot, but he keeps dozing. That’s okay. He can sleep in. Today is his day.
Today we are celebrating Jasper’s Day. It was my idea. Mom and Dad are staying home from work. I’m staying home from school. Everything we do will be in honour of Jasper - sort of like a birthday. But it isn’t Jasper’s birthday, and I tell myself not to think about what day it really is.
Riley’s family celebrates Jasper’s last day. In the morning, their beloved Golden Retriever gets his very own serving of his favourite breakfast - scrambled eggs with cheese, and bacon. Riley remembers to bring the camera as he and his family take Jasper out for a ride in the van.
The family drives to Jasper’s favourite stream where he used to swim and fetch sticks when he was more agile. Jasper’s sight and hearing are also failing, and his arthritis makes it difficult for him to move about. After the stream, Riley and his parents stop at The Big Scoop for a treat. Riley’s father orders the “usual” for Jasper and himself - butterscotch ripple. Riley’s father tells the ice-cream shop owner about Jasper, and the man comes out to the van to say good-bye to one of his loyal customers. After the ice cream, the family stops at Riley’s Grandma’s house, and she and her dog, Nikki, bid farewell to Jasper. Along the journey, Riley has taken several photographs of Jasper.
The family returns home, but only Riley and his mother get out of the van. It is time to say goodbye. Riley whispers in Jasper’s ear, “You’re the best dog in the whole world.” Jasper licks Riley’s cheek, and then he and Riley’s father depart. Even though Riley knows that the veterinarian will give Jasper a shot and death will be quick and gentle for Jasper, it is terribly difficult to say goodbye to his beloved dog.
Riley’s father returns home with Jasper’s body wrapped in an arrowhead blanket, and the family buries him in the backyard. They gently place Jasper’s old chew toy, a stick, his water dish and a picture of the family in his grave. The family laughs and cries as they remember Jasper and say their final goodbyes.
That night, the house is empty without Jasper. Riley’s chest aches as he tries to fall asleep. Mom and Dad got Jasper before he was even born; Jasper had always been in his life. Tomorrow will be Riley’s first day without Jasper.
Riley looks at the photograph of himself and Jasper on his nightstand and thinks of all the photographs he took today, he gets the idea to make a memory book of Jasper’s life. He will never forget his friend.
Marjorie Blain Parker’s tender and unsentimental treatment of a child’s dealing with the death of a pet resonates with readers of all ages. The gentle and honest story speaks of lessons about love, acceptance, and remembrance. Janet Wilson’s soft and expressive illustrations are rendered in chalk pastels on coloured paper.
Since last summer, our online community has been closely following the story of Harry, a two-year-old Golden Retriever who had been fighting an aggressive sarcoma since Thanksgiving, 2006. It was during this same period that Harry’s two feline friends were battling acute renal failure from adulterated pet food.
Harry and his sister Lucy had been adopted at the same time, and Lucy was his constant companion throughout his too-short life, and his support through his radiation and chemotherapy treatments.
Sweet Harry was not only a lover but also a fighter, but in the end, this little boy crossed the Rainbow Bridge this past week - far too soon. We all love his mom’s stories and pictures of Harry and Lucy and the Golden Bone, and our hearts go out to a little dog who is now looking for her buddy.
This YouTube video celebrating Harry’s life was thoughtfully created by one of the members of our community who lost her own best buddy to cancer. Her tribute has a universality that touches all of us who have been fortunate to have had our lives enriched by these precious souls.
Godspeed, Harry. Saint Francis is watching over you.
Lay down
Your sweet and weary head
Night is falling
You’ve come to journey’s end
Sleep now
And dream of the ones who came before
They are calling
From across the distant shore
Why do you weep?
What are these tears upon your face?
Soon you will see
All of your fears will pass away
Safe in my arms
You’re only sleeping
What can you see
On the horizon?
Why do the white gulls call?
Across the sea
A pale moon rises
The ships have come to carry you home
And all will turn
To silver glass
A light on the water
All souls pass
Hope fades
Into the world of night
Through shadows falling
Out of memory and time
Don’t say: «We have come now to the end»
White shores are calling
You and I will meet again
And you’ll be here in my arms
Just sleeping
And all will turn
To silver glass
A light on the water
Grey ships pass
Into the West
Into The West was performed by Annie Lennox over the ending credits to the third film in Peter Jackson’s adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings Trilogy: The Return Of The King. This song was in part inspired by New Zealand filmmaker Cameron Duncan’s tragic early death from cancer. The song’s first public performance was for Duncan’s funeral. This won the Oscar for Best Original Song at the 2003 Academy Awards.
Fioretti di San Francesco (The Little Flowers of Saint Francis) is a florilegium - a collection of excerpts - divided into 53 short chapters, on the life of the fabled saint, which was composed at the end of the 14th century.
The anonymous Italian text, almost certainly by a Tuscan author, is a version of the Latin Actus beati Francisci et sociorum eius, of which the earliest extant manuscript is one of 1390 A.D. The text has been ascribed to Fra. Ugolino da Santa Maria, whose name occurs three times in the Actus.
The text has been the most popular account of his life and relates many colorful anecdotes, miracles and pious examples from the lives of Francis and his followers.
It is said that one day while Francis was traveling with some companions they happened upon a place in the road where birds filled the trees on either side. Francis told his companions to “wait for me while I go to preach to my sisters the birds”. The birds surrounded him, drawn by the power of his voice, and not one of them flew away. Francis spoke to them:
My sister birds, you owe much to God, and you must always and in everyplace give praise to Him; for He has given you freedom to wing through the sky and He has clothed you…you neither sow nor reap, and God feeds you and gives you rivers and fountains for your thirst, and mountains and valleys for shelter, and tall trees for your nests. And although you neither know how to spin or weave, God dresses you and your children, for the Creator loves you greatly and He blesses you abundantly. Therefore… always seek to praise God.
Fioretti tells that in the city of Gubbio, where Francis lived for some time, was a wolf “terrifying and ferocious, who devoured men as well as animals”. Francis had compassion upon the townsfolk, and went up into the hills to find the wolf. Soon, fear of the animal had caused all his companions to flee, though the saint pressed on. When he found the wolf, he made the sign of the cross and commanded the wolf to come to him and hurt no one. Miraculously the wolf closed his jaws and lay down at the feet of St. Francis.
“Brother Wolf, thou doest much harm in these parts and thou hast done great evil…” said Francis. “All these people accuse you and curse you…But brother wolf, I would make peace between you and the people.”
“As thou art willing to make this peace, I promise thee that thou shalt be fed every day by the inhabitants of this land so long as thou shalt live among them; thou shalt no longer suffer hunger, as it is hunger which has made thee do so much evil; but if I obtain all this for thee, thou must promise, on thy side, never again to attack any animal or any human being; dost thou make this promise?”
In agreement the wolf placed one of its forepaws in Francis’ outstretched hand, and the oath was made. Francis then commanded the wolf to return with him to Gubbio.
Meanwhile the townsfolk, having heard of the miracle, gathered in the city marketplace to await Francis and his companion, and were shocked to see the ferocious wolf behaving as though his pet. When Francis reached the marketplace he offered the assembled crowd an impromptu sermon with the tame wolf at his feet. He is quoted as saying: “How much we ought to dread the jaws of hell, if the jaws of so small an animal as a wolf can make a whole city tremble through fear?”
Gubbio was freed from the menace of the predator. Francis, ever the lover of animals, even made a pact on behalf of the town dogs, that they would not bother the wolf again.
These legends exemplify the Franciscan mode of charity and poverty as well as the saint’s love of the natural world. Part of his appreciation of the environment is expressed in his Canticle of the Sun, a poem written by the saint in Umbrian Italian shortly before his death in 1226, which expresses a love and appreciation of Brother Sun, Sister Moon, Mother Earth, Brother Fire, and all of God’s creations personified in their fundamental forms. In Canticle of the Creatures, he wrote: “All praise to you, Oh Lord, for all these brother and sister creatures.” His Canticle is believed to be among the first works of literature, if not the first, written in the Italian language.
It is an affirmation of Francis’ personal theology as he often referred to animals as brothers and sisters to Mankind, and rejected material accumulation and sensual comforts in favour of “Lady Poverty”.
Image: Saint Francis instructs the Wolf, Carl Weidemeyer-Worpswede, 1911
Glossa: Fixed Latin form of lyric verse, generally used for poems of philosophic character, wherein each line of the first stanza is commented in subsequent stanzas ending with that line. The last stanza repeats the first in reverse order.
Here is a little glossa on the subject of our sudden transit strike that left thousands of paying customers stranded this weekend. Transit service was summarily halted at midnight on Friday, before the end of the shift, with an hour’s notice to no one in particular, as if that made a difference.
The poem is based on four lines of “Stunt” by Adam Sol, published in his slim volume: Crowd of Sounds.
“Stunt” is addressed to a stuntman and describes a typical day of sham expirations – “If you are lucky, you will have/the opportunity to die four/times in the coming week.” But the end of the poem strands us back in reality: “Meanwhile, behind the wide/pan camera is a hack who’s just/learned that his liver is tumorous./Go to him now and show him how it’s done.”
Today the industry is feeling
generous. It’s exciting to imagine.
With everything so crooked, the unions
and such, it must be reassuring.
An honest Friday’s wages gone
To cab fare. Midnight, the bus hack
Flips us the collective finger.
Today the industry is feeling
Its oats. You are the donkey fool,
the Pavlov’s dog that foots the bill.
Hand off your firstborn. Be
generous. It’s exciting to imagine.
Workers of the world unite!
But not Ahmed at the 7-11.
The brethren and sistern are what count.
With everything so crooked, the unions
Call the tune; you pay the piper.
Queen’s Park guards this henhouse.
With essential-service premiums
and such, it must be reassuring
And such. It must be reassuring
With everything so crooked, the unions
generous. It’s exciting to imagine.
Today the industry is feeling
In related news, TTC toll collector Bill Defoe was waving the last customers through at Chester Station, no charge, minutes before the transit system was shut down Friday night. He was doing the same thing on Sunday, shortly after service resumed at 5:10 p.m. Although no one was hassling him (maybe it was the free rides), he knew what the score was for TTC workers who have to face a million or more angry riders.
“They got a right to be pissed, and we’re the ones they see”, he said.
You can tell a lot about about a man from his choice of ballcap, and Bill’s says Jazz FM 91. In the movie, he’d be played by Art Carney, circa 1974. On Friday night, he’d been angry at the manner in which he was forced to put a sign on his booth — ‘TTC will close at 12:01 a.m.’ — and tell customers they were out of luck. “I don’t like it much. We’re stranding a lot of people. They should have not have announced the results until the end of service tonight.”
The vote was “democracy,” he told me Friday. But the manner of the strike was reckless. “I don’t know how many we’re stranding, it might be 60,000 people.”
On Sunday night, as he waved riders through, he was still angry, saying the union is ‘”fragmented,” and leader Bob Kinnear toast. “Everybody’s saying this is a big surprise. The contract should never have gone in for a vote. The executive was split down the middle and he tried to ram it through.”
At this point, a co-worker chimed in: “His ass is grass.”
But Bill only smiled. ‘”When he does get voted out, he’s gotta came back and work with us.”
Bill waved another rider through — they were coming more quickly at this point, as news spread — and noted that the maintenance workers were the same crew behind the wildcat strike of two years ago. Then he said that the TTC should not be able to strike at all, ever.
The back-to-work law forces arbitration on the workers and TTC, no different, noted Bill, than if the transit system was an essential service anyway. ‘”That’s what we got now AND a whole lot of pissed off people.”
Bill laughed. And waved a man and his two sons through the turnstile.
Beauty, in a sentence, is as difficult to describe as beauty in a painting or a human face. If you are even thinking in these terms - that is, if you are even considering what might constitute strong vigorous, energetic, and clear sentences - you are already far in advance of wherever you were before you were conscious of the sentence as something deserving our deep respect and enraptured attention.
Consider the sentence that begins Samuel Johnson’s brief biography, The Life of Savage.
It has been observed in all ages that the advantages of nature or of fortune have contributed very little to the promotion of happiness; and that those whom the splendour of their rank, or the extent of their capacity, have placed upon the summits of human life, have not often given any just occasion to envy in those who look up to them from a lower station; whether it be that apparent superiority incites great designs, and great designs are naturally liable to fatal miscarriages; or that the general lot of mankind is misery, and the misfortunes of those whose eminence drew upon them an universal attention, have been more carefully recorded, because they were more generally observed, and have in reality only been more conspicuous than others, not more frequent, or more severe.
The quality that this sentence shares with all good sentences is clarity. Between its initial capital letter and its final period are 134 words, ten commas, and three semicolons, and yet the average reader, or at least the reader who has the patience to read and consider every word, will have no trouble understanding what Doctor Johnson is saying.
Despite its length, the sentence is economical. To remove even one word would make it less lucid and less complete, as Johnson takes an observation so common as to have become a cliché (money and fame don’t by themselves make us happy) and turns it, then turns it again, considering the possible explanations, the reasons why this perception may be true or merely appear to be true. The sentence combines a sort of magisterial authority with an almost offhand wit, in part because of the casual ease with which it tosses off sweeping philosophical generalizations (”great designs are naturally liable to fatal miscarriages”, “the general lot of mankind is misery”) compressed into subordinate clauses, as if the truth of these statements is so obvious to both the writer and the reader that there is no need to pause over these pronouncements, let alone give them sentences of their own.
Possibly the principal reason why the sentence so delights us is that to read it is to take part in the process - the successive qualifications and considerations - of thought itself, of a lively mind at work. Finally, the cadence and rhythm of the sentence are as measured and pleasing as those of poetry or music.
Excerpted from Francine Prose, Reading Like a Writer, HarperCollins, 2006
It is a debate you could only really have in a country that accords its intellectuals the kind of status other nations - to name no names - tend to reserve for footballers, footballers’ wives or (if they’re lucky) rock stars; a place where structuralists and relativists and postmodernists, rather than skulk shamefacedly in the shadows, get invited on to primetime TV; a culture in which even today it is considered entirely acceptable, indeed laudable, to state one’s profession as “thinker”.
That country is France, which is currently preoccupied with the fate of its ailing semicolon.
In the red corner, desiring nothing less than the consignment of the semicolon to the dustbin of grammatical history, are a pair of treacherous French writers and (of course) those perfidious Anglo-Saxons, for whose short, punchy, uncomplicated sentences, it is widely rumoured, the rare subtlety and infinite elegance of a good semicolon are surplus to requirements. The point-virgule, says legendary writer, cartoonist and satirist François Cavanna, is merely “a parasite, a timid, fainthearted, insipid thing, denoting merely uncertainty, a lack of audacity, a fuzziness of thought”.
Philippe Djian, best known outside France as the author of 37°2 le matin, which was brought to the cinema in 1986 by Jean-Jacques Beneix as Betty Blue and successfully launched Beatrice Dalle on an unsuspecting world, goes one step further: he would like nothing better than to go down in posterity, he claims, as “the exterminating angel of the point-virgule”. Objectionable English-language typesetting practices, as used by most of the world’s computers, are also to blame for the semicolon’s decline, its defenders argue.
In the blue corner are an array of linguistic patriots who cite Hugo, Flaubert, De Maupassant, Proust and Voltaire as examples of illustrious French writers whose respective oeuvres would be but pale shadows of themselves without the essential point-virgule, and who argue that - in the words of one contributor to a splendidly passionate blog on the topic hosted recently by the leftwing weekly Le Nouvel Observateur - “the beauty of the semicolon, and its glory, lies in the support lent by this particular punctuation mark to the expression of a complex thought”.
The semicolon, continues this sadly anonymous defender of the Gallic grammatical faith, “finds its rightful home in the subtlety of a fine and rich analysis, one which is not afraid to pronounce - and sometimes to withhold - judgment where mere affirmation might be found wanting. It allows the writer to link ideas without breaking a train of thought; by contrast, over-simplified communication and bald, efficient discourse whose simplistic style is the best guarantee of being widely understood is naturally wary of this punctuation mark.”
“You practically do not use semicolons at all. This is a symptom of mental defectiveness, probably induced by camp life.”
~ George Bernard Shaw to T.E. Lawrence
How, though, are you supposed to use the thing? According to the eminently readable rules of French grammar, the semicolon has several specific applications. First, it allows a writer to introduce a logical balance into a long phrase. Second, it can serve to divide two phrases that are in themselves independent, but whose significance is in some way linked (viz: “The semicolon is necessary; I have just proved it,” or, as Michel Houellebecq, one of the very few contemporary French writers to use the point-virgule, would have it: “He was unable to remember his last erection; he was waiting for the storm.”) It can also, more prosaically, be used to separate the various elements of an enumeration or list (or indeed to separate groups of similar elements linked by commas within a longer list). Finally, a semicolon can replace a comma when “the use of the latter might prove confusing”.
For Sylvie Prioul, a subeditor at the Nouvel Obs and author of La Ponctuation ou l’art d’accommoder les textes, the gradual disappearance of the ; is, above all, a natural consequence of France’s regrettable recent tendency, under the nefarious influence of ever-encroaching English, to reduce the length of its sentences.
“People just don’t know how to use it any more. It’s a strange mix between a comma and a full stop. Sometimes it’s closer to the comma; that’s what we used to call the ’strong comma’ in the 18th century. Sometimes it’s closer to a full stop; we use it when we change idea.”
Michel Volkovitch, author, poet and translator, is another ardent defender. “The point-virgule is precious when the subject matter is complex,” he says. “For constructing a piece properly, distinguishing themes, sections and sub-sections - in short, for dissipating any haziness or imprecision of thought. It puts things in order, it clarifies. But it’s precious, too, for adding a little softness, a little lightness; it can stop a sentence from touching the ground, from grinding to a halt; keeps it suspended, awake. It is a most upmarket punctuation mark.”
Manga Shakespeare is a series of graphic novel adaptations of William Shakespeare’s plays. A fusion of classic Shakespeare with manga visuals, these are cutting-edge adaptations that will intrigue and grip readers. Drawing inspiration from trend-setting Japan and using Shakespeare’s original texts, this series brings to life the bard’s words for students, Shakespeare enthusiasts and manga fans.
Manga is a dynamic, emotional and cinematic medium easily absorbed by the eye. Its attractive art and simple storytelling methods enthuse readers to approach Shakespeare’s work in the way he intended – as entertainment.
The first Manga Shakespeare books – Hamlet and Romeo & Juliet – were published in March, to great critical acclaim in the UK. With Romeo and Juliet set in modern-day Tokyo, and Hamlet in a cyberworld, these backdrops make Shakespeare more accessible to today’s reader. Richard III and The Tempest were then released in September 2007 and A Midsummer Night’s Dream was published in February 2008. There are more titles in the series to follow including Macbeth and Julius Caesar in June and As You Like It and Othello due in November.
Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare’s most famous love story, unfurls in a dramatic manga setting, in which Verona becomes a street in the highly fashionable Shibuya district of Tokyo. The star-crossed lovers, touching in their youth and innocence, are caught up in a bitter feud between two Yakuza families (Japan’s ‘mafia’) whose rivalry erupts into violence and killing on the streets. Romeo, a rock star, is a Montague who falls in love with Juliet, a Capulet. They defy their parents and consummate their passion in secret. This is a story of love, revenge, violence and tragedy.
Hamlet is set in a dramatic futuristic world. The year is 2017. Global climate change has devastated the Earth. This is now a cyberworld in constant dread of war. The state of Denmark has grown prosperous and defended itself successfully against neighbouring states. But could it be that its greatest threat comes not from without, but from within the state itself?
It is in this cyberworld that we find the young Hamlet. His grief over his father’s recent death turns to something far darker when the ghost of his father appears to him. Hamlet is very soon to discover that something is rotten in the state of Denmark…
SelfMadeHero, winner of the UK Young Publisher of the Year award for 2008, is an imprint of Metro Media Ltd, a UK-based book publisher specializing in manga and graphic novels.
In related news, the publisher introduced the Eye Classics series in October 2007, transforming classic literature into another art form. The books feature acknowledged leaders in the world of graphic novels and bandes dessinées. Titles include The Trial, Nevermore, The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Master and Margarita, and Crime and Punishment.
Only a few years ago, bookstores helped define neighborhoods. They were physical and cultural markers on the landscape - showcases of what mattered, there and then.
“It’s an antiquarian business model in a changing world,” admits Melissa Mytinger, manager of Cody’s Books in Berkeley. That Mytinger still has her job is cause for celebration of a sort: Cody’s is a storied institution in more ways than one, but the saga of late has turned bleak.
In the past two years its 10,000 square-foot Telegraph Avenue flagship on boutique-lined Fourth Street has closed, and the business has moved to a 7,000-square-foot outpost one block from UC Berkeley.
But survival beats the alternative: locked doors that mean there’s no chance you’ll stumble across some unexpected volume of insight or delight. It’s a fate known to anyone who loves bookstores, who visits a familiar shopping street and remembers what was.
Mytinger and the 18-person staff are doing the right thing by tailoring the selection to Berkeley’s distinctive academic clientele. They’re even scheduling afternoon appearances by authors who might appeal to readers from nearby Berkeley High School. The shelves are filling up, and more books are on the way.
“We’ve had to give up on the idea that we can stock every book that we love,” says Mytinger, 60, who joined the staff of Cody’s in 1982. “That model doesn’t work anymore. It isn’t viable.”
The hope is that this year’s model - lean but not mean - will evolve into something that attracts people willing to buy books in person rather than simply adding to their online shopping carts.
Cody’s might also help downtown Berkeley emerge as a cultural and artistic destination. At the end of the block, construction crews are pouring concrete for the future home of the David Brower Center, conceived as a four-story clubhouse for environmental advocacy groups. Work also has started on a new home for the Freight & Salvage folk venue. On the drawing boards are more ambitious projects, including a home for the Pacific Film Archive and Berkeley Art Museum.
Why should we care? After all, who needs a building stuffed with paper in the age of clicks and mortar?
Because a good bookstore is like a good city block: varied and rich, with layers that bear evidence of imagination and pride. There’s a tactile connection to the ephemeral world of ideas. This is merchandise, but it’s not something to be worn for a season or hung up on a wall; it’s something to be discussed and shared, maybe even something that will shape your thoughts and actions. There’s more going on than the creation of a scene. It’s the slow formation of identities, of thoughts and passions and who knows what else.
In the grand scheme of things, bookstores’ long retreat isn’t a crisis on par with climate change or the war in Iraq. Some stores will survive at least for another generation, Cody’s among them, I hope.
But the landscape has changed irrevocably. Ultimately, we’re all the losers - in ways we don’t even yet know.
Do you have more money than God and no time in your busy day to do your bit for Global Warming?
Then check out the pricey designs that were spotted at a recent Tokyo fashion show. The latest in Japanese fur designer Chie Imai’s creations included a cape of lowly polyester sewn with chinchilla that’s being billed as “ecological fur.”
The cape, bolero and several other items use real chinchilla and mink from fur farms. But the fabric parts of the clothing use recycled polyester from Japanese plastic and pharmaceutical maker Teijin Ltd.
“We have not compromised quality. And tying ecology with fur is such a fascinating concept,” Imai cooed.
“Ecological fur” sometimes refers to fake fur, but Imai uses real fur. Her so-called ecological designs use polyester strips and fabric with genuine fur. A bolero, for instance, has real fur trim, but the fabric parts and the lining are all recycled polyester.
Imai is the latest fur designer to use synthetic materials with fur - despite complaints from animal rights activists that the term “ecological” is just “green-washing” – a ploy to distract people from the mistreatment and cruelty of animals in the fur industry.
But Imai argues that fur itself is ecological because it can be worn for generations and “returns to the earth” as organic material and causes no pollution. She trots out the tired old argument about meat-eating.
It takes more than 60 times as much energy to produce a fur coat from ranch-raised animals than it does to produce a fake fur. Plus, the waste produced on fur farms poisons our waterways. And don’t forget … unlike faux fur, the “real thing” causes millions of animals to suffer every year.
Imai’s ecological fur — ranging in price from 1.2 million yen (US$12,000) for the mink bolero to the 8.4 million yen (US$83,000) chinchilla cape — allows her clientele, which includes the Japanese royal family and clueless celebrities like Sarah Jessica Parker, to feel green, she said.
“They want to take part in being ecological, but it’s hard for them to find a way to do it.”
Watch for the Chinese dog-and-cat-fur knock-offs being flogged next to the organic food section at Wal-Mart.
Chie, what’s next? Recycling bisphenol A? Solving World Hunger?
Albert Hofmann, the Swiss chemist who discovered LSD and thereby gave the psychedelic generation the pharmaceutical vehicle to turn on, tune in and drop out, has died this morning at his home in Basel of a heart attack. He was 102.
On Friday afternoon, April 16, 1943, Hofmann had just completed synthesizing a new batch when, he subsequently wrote his supervisor, “I was forced to interrupt my work in the laboratory in the middle of the afternoon and proceed home, being affected by a remarkable restlessness, combined with slight dizziness.
Riley’s family celebrates Jasper’s last day. In the morning, their beloved Golden Retriever gets his very own serving of his favourite breakfast - scrambled eggs with cheese, and bacon. Riley remembers to bring the camera as he and his family take Jasper out for a ride in the van.
Since last summer, our online community has been closely following the story of Harry, a two-year-old Golden Retriever who had been fighting an aggressive sarcoma since Thanksgiving, 2006. It was during this same period that Harry’s two feline friends were battling acute renal failure from 
Fioretti di San Francesco (The Little Flowers of Saint Francis) is a florilegium - a collection of excerpts - divided into 53 short chapters, on the life of the fabled saint, which was composed at the end of the 14th century.
Fioretti tells that in the city of Gubbio, where Francis lived for some time, was a wolf “terrifying and ferocious, who devoured men as well as animals”. Francis had compassion upon the townsfolk, and went up into the hills to find the wolf. Soon, fear of the animal had caused all his companions to flee, though the saint pressed on. When he found the wolf, he made the sign of the cross and commanded the wolf to come to him and hurt no one. Miraculously the wolf closed his jaws and lay down at the feet of St. Francis.
Here is a little glossa on the subject of our sudden transit strike that left thousands of paying customers stranded this weekend. Transit service was summarily halted at midnight on Friday, before the end of the shift, with an hour’s notice to no one in particular, as if that made a difference.
In related news, TTC toll collector Bill Defoe was waving the last customers through at Chester Station, no charge, minutes before the transit system was shut down Friday night. He was doing the same thing on Sunday, shortly after service resumed at 5:10 p.m. Although no one was hassling him (maybe it was the free rides), he knew what the score was for TTC workers who have to face a million or more angry riders.
Despite its length, the sentence is economical. To remove even one word would make it less lucid and less complete, as Johnson takes an observation so common as to have become a cliché (money and fame don’t by themselves make us happy) and turns it, then turns it again, considering the possible explanations, the reasons why this perception may be true or merely appear to be true. The sentence combines a sort of magisterial authority with an almost offhand wit, in part because of the casual ease with which it tosses off sweeping philosophical generalizations (”great designs are naturally liable to fatal miscarriages”, “the general lot of mankind is misery”) compressed into subordinate clauses, as if the truth of these statements is so obvious to both the writer and the reader that there is no need to pause over these pronouncements, let alone give them sentences of their own.
Manga Shakespeare is a series of graphic novel adaptations of William Shakespeare’s plays. A fusion of classic Shakespeare with manga visuals, these are cutting-edge adaptations that will intrigue and grip readers. Drawing inspiration from trend-setting Japan and using Shakespeare’s original texts, this series brings to life the bard’s words for students, Shakespeare enthusiasts and manga fans.
Hamlet is set in a dramatic futuristic world. The year is 2017. Global climate change has devastated the Earth. This is now a cyberworld in constant dread of war. The state of Denmark has grown prosperous and defended itself successfully against neighbouring states. But could it be that its greatest threat comes not from without, but from within the state itself?
Only a few years ago, bookstores helped define neighborhoods. They were physical and cultural markers on the landscape - showcases of what mattered, there and then.
Do you have more money than God and no time in your busy day to do your bit for Global Warming?
Imai’s ecological fur — ranging in price from 1.2 million yen (US$12,000) for the mink bolero to the 8.4 million yen (US$83,000) chinchilla cape — allows her clientele, which includes the Japanese royal family and clueless celebrities like Sarah Jessica Parker, to feel green, she said.
