October 14, 2009
Ag fanacht ar an chroi
Mé a dúirt sé roimh anseo agus beidh mé a rá aris sé: chroi agus máinliacht ciallóidh leor rud beag dúinn.
Dá bhrí sin nuair a feicim an líne tosaigh RTÉ ar Leanaí Cromghlinn Ospidéal agus éisteacht leis na máithreacha cur síos á iompú ar ais ar na doirse cruach dhosmálta Tá mo chroí féin briste dóibh mar a fhios agam cad é a fháil tríd an doras agus a aghaidh leat. Chun dul ar ais, tá a fhios agam do leanbh croí i dtrioblóid é thar contemplation Is é an croí i bhfolach faoi bhun a imbhalla an craiceann, ní tá sé ina cos is féidir leat a fheiceáil, ní sé cnapshuim is féidir le páiste go pointe. Tá sé seo ag caidéalú amach nó nach bhfuil ag caidéalú agus is féidir leat féachaint go simplí ar do leanbh sweat agus streachailt nó a bhfuil aon symptom sofheicthe agus imní ort go simplí, imní, imní. Níl tú beo imní ort.
Ba chóir aon leanbh go fóill. Tá sé go simplí. Uimh leanbh ba chóir go fóill toisc nach féidir aon tuismitheoir go fóill.
October 13, 2009
En attendant la coeur
I’ve said it before here and I’ll say it encore: hearts and surgery mean quite a little something to us. I know what it is to be told your child urgently needs surgery and that he’ll be getting it on Tuesday morning bring him in @ 6am, don’t feed him and how hard it is not to feed a small baby whose relying on you for his food. I know what it is to take a baby into a stainless steel operating theatre and see the big careful hand try to put the huge looking needle thing into this vein to knock him out, I know what it is to watch them struggle and fail and clamp a mask on instead to knock him out while his fortunately and usually for a heart baby pudgy legs flail and I know what it is to leave him behind for those careful hands to repair his dodgy heart. Then you pace 5 and a half hours with no idea whether your child will be living or otherwise.
Thus when I watch this RTE Frontline on Crumlin Children’s Hospital and listen to those mothers describing being turned back at the stainless steel doors my own heart is smashed for them because I know what it is to get through that door and what you face. To turn back, knowing your child has a heart in trouble is beyond contemplation The heart is hidden beneath a curtain of skin, it’s not a leg you can see, it’s not a lump a child can point to. It’s pumping away or not pumping and you can simply watch your child sweat and struggle or have no visible symptom and you simply worry, worry, worry. You don’t live you worry.
No child should wait. It’s that simple. No child should wait because no parent can wait.
http://www.rte.ie/news/thefrontline/
Hearts, lungs and minds — excerpt from sound artist John Wynn’s affecting documentary.
Longer excerpt from Hearts, Lungs and minds plus other curious sound work here.
October 10, 2009
Recent articles
Way behind with uploading articles so have to fling a few up here til I update the decayed sideboard of higgledy piggledy display of my articles/reviews.
Globe and Mail: Buried Treasure essay on Helen Potrebenko’s unique and important 1975 novel Taxi!
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/books/reader-hail-that-cab/article1229986/
Please come and join the Taxi! resurrgence @ haveyoureadtaxi.blogspot.com Buy the book, read the book, send a copy of a pic of your feet to [email protected] Send your thoughts and exhalations on Taxi!
Globe and Mail review James Kelman Kieron Smith boy
Globe and Mail review Kathleen Norris Acedia & Me should be knocking about somewhere on line, but can’t find it this instant. Will upload if it fails to google itself up.
I have about 5 other hybrid style articles mostly on children and reading type topics that are easily found on google with a search.Will round them up when I have a second. They cover junior graphic novels, late summer reading suggestions for children and more.
October 8, 2009
Literary Weather Forecast David Foster Wallace
The forecast number 4 Oct 7th 2009 featuring Nerf 555 live music on violin — bella. DFW extract from his essay on Tennis and Public Enemy exit music.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LA8b81Gfjl4&hl=en&fs=1&]
October 7, 2009
Literary Weather Forecast 3 Mr Frater
Here’s the latest forecast
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1sPtTcpfDU&hl=en&fs=1&]
October 3, 2009
Weather forecast #2 from 36 hours ago: The Miss Julie forecast
Yes I can hardly keep abreast of the demands of literary weather forecasting, but here is the second forecast! Keep submitting paragraphs, we are powered by the current of suggestions. 36 hours behind the weather pattern, approx 45 years behind the rest of the world in every other area.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvWXhJ7MFvg&hl=en&fs=1&]
October 1, 2009
Introducing the literary weather forecast
My first forecast. Please submit your literary weather snippets and have your chosen paragraph featured…
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eZ3BxrZWuY&hl=en&fs=1&]
Send your weather paragraphs or suggestions (anything that refers to the weather in any form) to [email protected]
October 1, 2009
Post offices du monde
Few links on the Post Office(s) du monde
Touche pas a ma poste!
http://www.humanite.fr/Touche-pas-a-ma-poste-Fete-de-l-Humanite-2008
Plus a suivre….
September 30, 2009
Up the jammie
This is depressingamundo
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health/womens-genital-self-esteem-affects-sex-health/article1306039/
The next question has to be how many blokes enjoy getting the prostate examined? And whether this has any link to suffering penis envy?
Gals/fellas/world give over bemoaning the jammie. It’s dandy.
September 29, 2009
Treasure! Aaaaarg
How useful, how very very useful. A step towards solving the dilemma slightly of not having a library card to access university libraries and always having to lumber out and sit there to access material. The public library is excellent on many fronts, but there’s often obscure stuff they cannot house and the wait to access it on interlibrary loan can be inconvenient. Or if you live half way up a mountain and your donkey refuses to budge and bring you into town.
Now if only there could be a way around the cost prohibitive accessing the databases of articles…from the front room or corner cafe.
Then there is the additional bonus of discourse outside the institutional walls.
Aaaaaagh muy excellent. http://a.aaaarg.org/