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Thursday, March 31, 2005

Thanks to RSS Cache.

Thanks to the RSS Cache RSS & Atom Feed directory for including Obiter Dicta's Atom XML feed in its listings. RSS Cache has been added to the O.D. sidebar

Thanks to Feed Directory

Thanks to the Feed Directory RSS & Atom Feed directory for including Obiter Dicta's Atom XML feed in its listings. Feed Directory has been added to the O.D. sidebar

Wednesday, March 30, 2005

American Gothic.

The following review has just appeared in the Valparaiso Poetry Review:
*
*

TED KOOSER: DELIGHTS & SHADOWS


Ted Kooser has been compared to Robert Frost for just this reason: he writes about a regional landscape and a way of life that is passing away. He writes about it after a fashion that seems particularly suited to his subject. The short poems of this volume, and the lack of dialogue, suggest a laconic people. The details are common but also somehow characteristic of the small, midwestern farming town.


In the title essay of Guy Davenport's book The Geography of the Imagination the author considers Grant Wood's painting American Gothic. The location was Eldon, Iowa. The artist's sister and dentist were the models for the husband (with his famous pitchfork) and wife.... [cont'd]
*
*
*

Sunday, March 27, 2005

Thanks to Tanya Allen and Choriamb.

>
Several weeks ago now, I wrote Tanya Allen1, editor of the litblog Choriamb, and informed her that I had added the blog to my sidebar links at the Gilbert Wesley Purdy Online Bibliography. (By far the majority of my links appear there.) I was wondering: Would she be willing to include a reciprocal link in the sidebar of Choriamb?

She asked that I send her a description of the Bibliography, instead, offering to do a piece on it in the blog. The following appeared several days ago:

A writer named Gilbert Purdy recently wrote us about the practice of book reviewing, saying that next to blogging, book reviewing "is the single most effective literary use for the Internet." When he started reviewing, he says,...
[
cont'd]

Choriamb is a fine piece of work and one of my regular stops. My thanks to Tanya for her kind interest in the Bibliography and Obiter Dicta, both of which are linked-to from the piece.

Tanya Allen's own work appears in Expansive Poetry and Music Online (Gadflies of the State:The changing role of America’s state poet laureates) and Chicklit (Librarian Dolls Defend the Nation!).



1 Tanya Angell Allen, is currently a graduate student in library science in the University of Illinois Online Education Program. She studied poetry at Washington College and Miami University, and has taught creative writing at Miami U. and Albertus Magnus College. She has published opinion editorials and reviews at such places as The New York Times, The Edge City Review, and Pivot.

Friday, March 25, 2005

...how different the world has become!

Reviewed by Gilbert W. Purdy



Secrets of Weather and Hope
by Sue Sinclair
Brick Books, 2001

Mortal Arguments
by Sue Sinclair
Brick Books, 2003


In November of 1920, the poet Rainer Maria Rilke wrote to the Princess Maria von Thurn und Taxis-Hohenlohe, from Schloss Berg, Switzerland, of his unexpected good fortune:

I live alone in the solid, centuries-old stone house, alone with a housekeeper who cares for me as silently as I silently let myself be cared for; a deserted park opening on the quiet landscape, no railway station in the neighborhood and for the present, furthermore, a lot of roads closed on account of foot-and-mouth
disease – donc, retraite absolue [thus, a perfect retreat]. [1]

A dread outbreak of hoof-and-mouth disease had struck the Berg. He was stranded, quarantined. The rare combination of solitude and surroundings he so constantly sought were forced upon him.... [con't].


Source>The Danforth Review.

Thanks to Cordata.

Thanks to the Chordata RSS & Atom Feed Directory for including Obiter Dicta's Atom XML feed in its listings. They provide an unusually attractive feed page over there. Chordata has been added to the O.D. sidebar

Wednesday, March 23, 2005

W32.Netsky.Z@mm - The Bounce-Back Ploy.

Being a public presence on the Web can be highly instructive. Having posted my gwpurdy@yahoo.com address in my publishing bios, I receive vast amounts of junk mail, fraudulent business offers and virus/worm-laden attachments. Several months ago, a correspondent to one of my "private" e-mail boxes seems to have been struck by a worm and his or her address book copied. Since that time I have begun receiving regular virus/worm-laden attachments to it. Today I noted an interesting development. I received an e-mail that seemed clearly to be infected but it appeared in my regular mail file rather than the "Bulk Mail" file that Yahoo so graciously provides. Actually this is the second or third time, among my various e-mail boxes, that I have seen the ploy I am about to describe. The e-mail was a legitimate reply from "Yahoo! Groups" notify@yahoogroups.com:
We are unable to deliver the message from [my e-mail address] to namimnlist@yahoogroups.com. Your message was not delivered because it was sent to an announcement-only group, where only the moderator may post. A copy of your original message is attached.
The original worm was sent to a Yahoo Groups address that automatically bounces messages back to sender. My e-mail address had been pasted into the "From" box when it was sent to the "announcement-only group" . From the perspective of the Yahoo mailbox, it was a legitimate return-mail correspondence. The attachment - entitled "important.zip" - went through the entire process unscathed and arrived intact together with a W32.Netsky.Z@mm worm. This on W32.Netsky.Z@mm from Symantec:

Uses its own SMTP engine to send itself to jamainlbbbsdef@yahoo.com, as well as all the email addresses that it finds. The email has the following characteristics Subject: (one of the following) Hello Hi Important Important bill! Important data! Important details! Important document! Important informations! Important notice! Important textfile! Important! Information From: (spoofed)

Attachment: (zip file with one of the following file names) Bill.zip Data.zip Details.zip Important.zip Informations.zip Notice.zip Part-2.zip Textfile.zip

To read the full Symantec security report click here.

Call for Submissions

Re: Canadian Literature...

------------------------------------------

The "Cat Calls for Submissions Page" is an new adjunct page to Gilbert Wesley Purdy's Hyperlinked Online Bibliography. Selected calls will first be posted on The Catalyzer Journal's Full RSS feed and the Obiter Dicta Atom feed after which time they will be listed on the "Cat Call for Submisions" page accessible by link from the Online Bibliography. There are presently seven active calls listed on the "Cat Calls for Submission" page.

If you wish to have your own call for submissions posted, contact Gilbert Wesley Purdy at gwpurdy@yahoo.com. A confirming link may be required in order to post the notice.

------------------------------------------

Publisher: University of British Columbia.
Publication: Canadian Literature.
Genre(s): Poetry and non-fiction prose.
Source of Call: Canadian Literature web-site.
Deadline: May 1, 2005.
Publication Date: Unclear (perhaps Summer 2005).

Comments: 'This special issue of Canadian Literature will focus on the literature which not only “recreates the opulence that is the contemporary vocabulary and syntax of Atlantic Canada” ( to quote Lesley Choyce), but also explodes regional specificity. Atlantic Canada is a place of paradox: the stark beauty of rocks and sea, but also the oldest intellectual pursuits and a long literary tradition.' Canadian Literature is an academic journal and expects academic standards.

Full notice available at: http://www.canlit.ca/submit/callsub.html.

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Friday, March 18, 2005

EliteBar By Any Other Name

The following listing, which appears in the page of the Spyware Guide, seems like a good way to make people aware of the variety of names under which one or another variation of tool bar is offered by Enternet Media, Inc. or its affiliates. A number of these tool bars are offered as freeware with a EULA which is intended to leave the company at liberty to perform a number of vaguely described functions via the User's computer with legal liability wholly transferred to / residing with the User.





Full Name: EliteBar Websearch
Type: Adware
Also Known as: EliteToolBar[,] Elite Bar Search Miracle[,] SearchMiracle EliteBar[,] EM Toolbar[,] Enternet Media Toolbar[,] EliteBar Internet Explorer Toolbar.
Danger Level: 6 [Explain]
Official Description: Adware: Program that creates advertisments on your Pc. [Read complete listing.]


My personal experience and the results of a wide range of searches indicate that the EliteBar/SearchMiracle version should be rated "Danger Level: 8" by the Spyware Guide's own rating criteria.



Also See:



[re: SearchMiracle.EliteBar Search Miracle Elite Bar EliteToolBar Elite Toolbar Elite Tool Bar Elitum ETBrun YupSearch Yup Search.]

AudioSeek Alert!

The YupSearch front page now appears at a new url: http://www.audioseek.net/. That is to say, now SearchMiracle, YupSearch and AudioSeek are all the names of front-pages for the advertising search engine that is presently the scourge of the Internet.



Also See:

Yup Search Addendum

The search entries that generally bring people to O.D. would seem to make it clear that many fail to understand that YupSearch connects to the same adverstising search engine as SearchMiracle. It is merely SearchMiracle by another name. Both are front-pages for the base search engine which, those afflicted will note, does not display a unique url. Only the colors of the front-pages are different. Click any link on the "search engine directory page" of YupSearch or SearchMiracle and you go directly to exactly the same page. There is no actual directory. The "directory listings" are merely a canned search engine entries.

When the EliteBar adware is downloaded into a computer, SearchMiracle loads up key-word links to the base search engine in texts loaded up in the Internet Explorer browser. YupSearch, on the other hand, detects when "404" pages ("page not found") load up into the browser and redirects the browser to the base search engine in their place.

Now the matter will be even a bit more confusing. The YupSearch front page now appears at a new url: http://www.audioseek.net/. That is to say, now SearchMiracle, YupSearch and AudioSeek are all the names of front-pages for the advertising search engine that is presently the scourge of the Internet.



Also See:



[re: SearchMiracle.EliteBar Search Miracle Elite Bar EliteToolBar Elite Toolbar Elite Tool Bar Elitum ETBrun YupSearch Yup Search.]

Monday, March 14, 2005

The Physiology of Vision.

Example

Image Courtesy of National Library of Medicine


from Das Leben des Menschen...

Fritz Kahn(1888-1968)[author]

The physiology of vision, with the rods and cones of the pupils as receptors of light, is compared to the technology of photographic reproduction in which an image is screened and broken down into dot patterns.


Sunday, March 13, 2005

Call for Submissions

Re: Rhapsoidia.

------------------------------------------

The "Cat Calls for Submissions Page" is an new adjunct page to Gilbert Wesley Purdy's Hyperlinked Online Bibliography. Selected calls will first be posted on The Catalyzer Journal's Full RSS feed and the Obiter Dicta Atom feed after which time they will be listed on the "Cat Call for Submisions" page accessible by link from the Online Bibliography. There are presently seven active calls listed on the "Cat Calls for Submission" page.

If you wish to have your own call for submissions posted, contact Gilbert Wesley Purdy at gwpurdy@yahoo.com. A confirming link may be required in order to post the notice.

------------------------------------------

Publisher: Private individuals.
Publication: Rhapsoidia (paper magazine)
Genre(s): Poetry and fiction.
Source of Call: Craig's List.
Deadline: May 1, 2005.
Publication Date: Summer 2005.

Comments: "Our fiction tastes lean toward metafiction, magical realism, and experimental or avant garde works, but we are also open to stories that are told or presented in a fresh and innovative manner, regardless of genre.... Our poetry tastes lean in much the same direction as our fiction tastes, metapoetry, experimental, fresh, innovative. Generally we want poetry that emphasizes language over narrative."

Full notice available at: http://rhapsoidia.com./writingsubsguidelines.html.



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Friday, March 11, 2005

A Word Association Test

by Gilbert Wesley Purdy


Words Brushed by Music ed. by John T. Irwin.
Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004.
200 pp. $12.95 paper. ISBN 0-8018-8029-7. $27.50
hardcover. ISBN 0-8018-8028-9.



In 1979, while the poetry world as a whole was marching with ever greater determination towards quote-unquote free verse and one or another variation of anti-poetry, Johns Hopkins University Press staked out its own territory. Its new Poetry Series would provide a haven for poets who had chosen to write the only truly alternative poetry that remained: a poetry which stayed connected to the tradition of the craft. In the words of John T. Irwin, then chair of the Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars:

This project began with two simple guiding principles: to publish works of poetry […] exhibiting formal excellence and strong emotional appeal and to publish writers at all stages of their careers […]

The series kicked-off with John Hollander’s Blue Wine. (The Fiction Series began every bit as well, in the same year, with Da Vinci’s Bicycle, by Guy Davenport.) A more auspicious beginning can hardly be imagined. Although the names have not always been as recognizable, the level of the poetry has remained high throughout.... [Read complete review.]

Source: Catalyzer Journal.

O. D. Turns 4000.

The Obiter Dicta blog turned 4000 (hits) early this morning, after some 26 days of existence. The following blogs have recently posted links to it: Foggy Friends and Game Board. The recent return link to Todo lo solido has been corrected to reflect the fact that the blog is published from Argentina rather than from Spain.

Wednesday, March 09, 2005

Poetry 2000

by Gilbert Wesley Purdy.



In particular, it is a language designed expressly for streamlining the writing
of novels (or poetry).

Metamagical Themas
Douglas R. Hofstadter




Hello and welcome to Poetry 2000TM,
the finest in poetry programs today. Please read
the End User's License Agreement, sign and send
the pre-addressed reply card, then proceed.

The System 2000 is simple to use. Just point
the tiny quill and click. The pull-down menus
will lead the way to self expression choice
by choice. Then click the icon of the Muse.

In seconds your first-draft appears, correct
in style, grammar, spelling, length and theme:
A wistful moment that you recollect,
perhaps, or snap-shot of someplace you've seen.

Next simply click the Shakespeare icon. Note
that an eraser has replaced your pen.
You simply rub out each word or phrase that's not
just right. Just click the little visor, then.

Now watch 2000 really show its stuff.
It's searching through the Anthology Data Base,
and, while the Bard of Avon chews his nub,
the changes you selected are being made.

Revision is the key to writing well
and now those boring late-night hours are done.
Erase as many times as you wish and still
have time to mix at our virtual Cafe Dome.

So then, (1) click on File. (2) Click on New. Note
the little scroll unfurl. (3) Click on Edit.
(4) Click Special next. (Note: Never double-click Rose
without Expanded Tautology Gertrude-Stein-Set.)

The Special Editing Scroll has unfurled now
and all the choices are yours to make --
each a pretested adjective, each a pretested noun.
(For pretested neurosis click Emotional State.)

Perhaps you'll pick Poetic Nouns. Your menu
will display a list of over twenty choices
selected by the hundred most successful
contemporary American poetic voices.

Choose ice, perhaps, or mirror, salt or moon.
Wing, bed-slash-bedroom, breast, bone, heart or blood --
just click the ones you want. (Note: You must Undo
or the system will assume mouth, tongue and love.)

Or Botanicals, perhaps: just click the flower
and poetical gardens blossom before your eye.
Plant camomile or crocus in your bower.
Pick baby's-breath, viburnum, gorse, or thyme.

And Colors are a poet's special tools.
With a single choice a poem may be made.
Too many poems fail for simple blues
which indigo or cobalt might have saved.

Just click the little palette icon. There
before your very eyes appears a rainbow
of mauve, pop-sickle pink and lavender,
the spectrum of turquoise, silver, jade and rose.

Choose Adjectives or Place-Names next perhaps.
Djakarta, Titicaca, Kathmandu,
Kuala Lumpur dot our market-tested maps.
In all, twenty poetic places are there for you.

Before you close, consult the Style screen
to choose your poem's type-face, shape and size,
including Hen-Scratch, Random, and Prestige,
and, the present standard, Under Thirty Lines.

Now click the Muse (see figure 1, above),
And watch your favorite sitcom while you wait,
Or prepare a meal, perhaps, with Gourmet StoveTM.
(For a one week trial just click the little souffle.)

Warning: product is only meant to be used
in the manner prescribed. For injuries which may
result should the product be altered or abused
Poetry will be harmless in every way.

For damages which may result (either
direct or indirect) to leather, tweed,
berets, careers, relationships, or other,
it excludes all legal liability.

The Poetry 2000TM is designed
for exciting years of personal expression.
When used as directed no group may be maligned
or suffer insufferable fascist oppression.

It respects all rights of property, the laws
of all the 48 contiguous States.
The little Walt Whitman icon even applauds
when a poem mentions lower short-term rates.


WARNING!

This product is designed to be perfectly safe.
To modify the program in any fashion
is a violation of Federal Statute and may
be referred to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.



Gilbert Wesley Purdy has published poetry, prose and translation in many journals, paper and electronic, including: Jacket Magazine, Poetry International (San Diego State University), The Georgia Review (University of Georgia), Grand Street, SLANT (University of Central Arkansas), Consciousness Literature and the Arts (University of Wales, Aberystwyth), Orbis (UK), Eclectica, and Valparaiso Poetry Review. Links to his work online and to a selected bibliography of his work in paper venues appear at his Hyperlinked Online Bibliography. This poem first appeared in Vers Magnifique.

Tuesday, March 08, 2005

Voltaire at the New Yorker

Adam Gopnik has a very nice piece posted at the New Yorker magazine. It is a review in passing of several books on Voltaire. Anyway, whatever it is, the old philosopher and novelist is still fascinating after some 250 years:


There are at least three distinct Voltaires. First is the scandalous Voltaire, who by the seventeen-twenties had become the leading controversialist in France, with a series of topically loaded plays and poems, only to be thrown into the Bastille twice for being generally annoying, and in 1726 get exiled to England, where he absorbed and wrote about English learning and English parliamentary institutions. Next, there is the scientific Voltaire, who returned to France in 1728 and eventually became the lover and disciple of the brilliant Mme. Châtelet, and who, closeted with her at her Château de Cire, wrote on math and science and did more than almost anyone else to bring the news of Newtonian physics to Europe. Then, from the seventeen-fifties until his death, in 1778, there is the socially conscious Voltaire, the Voltaire who became one of the first human-rights campaigners in Europe, and whose determination to remake the world one soul at a time W. H. Auden could still idealize in 1939, in his poem “Voltaire at Ferney.” [Read full article.]


While his novel Candide receives the usual notice, nothing is said of another of his delightful satires: Zadig. It is an equally short novel and equally worth the read.

Source>Conversational Reading>New Yorker.

Monday, March 07, 2005

Call for Submissions

Re: Say...

------------------------------------------

The "Cat Calls for Submissions Page" is an new adjunct page to Gilbert Wesley Purdy's Hyperlinked Online Bibliography. Selected calls will first be posted on The Catalyzer Journal's Full RSS feed and the Obiter Dicta Atom feed after which time they will be listed on the "Cat Call for Submisions" page accessible by link from the Online Bibliography. There are presently seven active calls listed on the "Cat Calls for Submission" page.

If you wish to have your own call for submissions posted, contact Gilbert Wesley Purdy at gwpurdy@yahoo.com. A confirming link may be required in order to post the notice.

------------------------------------------

Publisher: The Fortress of Words.
Publication: Say... (zine)
Genre(s): Poetry, fiction and comics.
Source of Call: Friends of Lulu.
Deadline: April 15, 2005.
Publication Date: Spring 2005.

Comments: "Our interior signatures are black and white and our means of reproduction (our printer uses a Xerox Docutech) doesn't allow for full bleeds. Likewise, since we use perfect binding, multi-page spreads are problematic. The trim size is 7" x 8.5" (half-legal) so the ratios might not be quite what most comics creators are used to.We can't afford to pay much, we offer a US $10 honorarium for the rights to print the work once in the zine, and of course we give a contributor's copy."

Full notice available at: http://www.friends-lulu.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=5;t=000025.


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Saturday, March 05, 2005

Yaddah Yaddah Yaddah Social Security Crisis Yaddah Yaddah

My most recent commentary piece, Yaddah Yaddah Yaddah Social Security Crisis Yaddah Yaddah, has just been posted in the Art/Journalism section of the Catalyzer Journal. There is also a link to it from my Online Bibliography.

The following new links to Obiter Dicta have recently been posted: Todo lo solido (Argentina/Spanish) and Politech.

Thursday, March 03, 2005

Bloogz Listing

Yesterday, as the MSNBC-link traffic to "Elite Bar Adventures" tailed off, it still managed #89 in the Bloogz rankings. According to the page intro, Bloogz "assesses how popular websites and the topics of Blogs are, according to the number of visitors and quotes that can be found. During the last 24 hours, the following results were found." I provide an excerpt for the curious:

88 .
Captain's quarters http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/a... » Citations 5 Links
89 .
Obiter dicta: elite bar adventures http://gilbertwesleypurdy.blogspot.com/2... » Citations 5 Links
90 .
The jawa report: terrorist son of saudi embassy worker attended saudi run school (updated http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/068655.p... » Citations 5 Links

Tuesday, March 01, 2005

A Conversation with Ruth Stone.

from A Conversation with Ruth Stone

J. F. Battaglia
Boulevard
Volume 12, Numbers 1 & 2



JB: What do you think poets will be doing in the 21st century?

RS: I suppose something on computers. Electronic devices have obviously entered the picture.

JB: Many poets compose on computers now because the revisions are so easy.

RS: Yeah. I do think that computers have caused a livelier approach. However, the core is still the brain. And the brain is the result of all the time that you have lived until this point. If those complexities and illuminations are not available in certain ways, and if the depth of illuminations and so-called understanding are not really there, it's going to interfere with the poem—a kind of lack. What I am trying to say is that the computer cannot make you a genius.

JB: Only a writing tool.

RS: It's a wonderful tool. You can take the language from other writers you admire and all kinds of things and throw them in there and mix them up and get possibilities—it certainly can help you manufacture a lot of new stuff. Which is as legitimate as anything else. However, I'm not sure that you don't also need the illumination of a distinctive mind in order to guide it.

Read the complete interview at Poetry Daily.


Source: Modern American Poetry > Online Interviews > Poetry Daily.

Newsweek U.K.

MSNBC hands-off its blog pieces to the U.K. online edition of Newsweek, as it turns out. The link to O.D. is far enough down on the page, though, that it hasn't resulted in many hits. Still, it is going to be difficult in some ways to return to reality. Arts & litblogs don't generally get 600+ hits a day.

The follwing blogs also linked to "Elite Bar Adventures": Pierce Law IP News Blog and Musings of a Fat Kid.