Category Archives: Blogroll

Shebeen Club October Meeting: Creativity Tips for Writers

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the bar of the ShebeenCross-posted on the Shebeen Club website too. 

What: The Shebeen Club : Creativity Tips for Writers
When: 7-9pm, Tuesday, October 17 (3rd Tuesday of each month)
Where: The Shebeen, behind the Irish Heather, 217 Carrall Street in Gastown
Why: Up your creativity with one of the world’s best creativity catalysts
Who: Contact lorraine.murphyatgmaildotcom for more information
How(much)? $15 includes dinner and a drink

Background: Each month The Shebeen Club gathers to catch up, gossip, eat, drink and learn about literature in all its many versions. We’ve featured Ann Vicente, maker of fine art books, actor and speech coach Jesse Jhames reading James Joyce, and many talented local authors including Robert Chaplin, James Sherrett, Sylvia Lim, comicbook empresario Sandford Tuey, and poet Lucan Charchuk, among many illustrious others.

Heir to the popular Stammtisch, created by Christoph Kapp of McGraw Hill, the Shebeen Club revives the warm camaraderie and vicious rivalry that has characterized all great literary meetings from the days of the Algonquin Round Table to last week at Gawker. The pen is mightier than the sword, so every third Tuesday of the month ditch the remote, stuff a messenger bag with manuscripts, adjust your berets, and head down to the Shebeen.

The Procedure: Sink into a warm velvet banquette and enjoy our programme: your basic meet-and-mingle from 7-7:30, followed by a riveting, yet brief presentation, followed by Q&A and then breaking up into casual groups for wandering, boozy reminiscences of the time you snubbed Jay McInerney in the airport. A fine dinner of bangers and mash or vegetarian pasta from the kitchen of the Irish Heather, plus one glass of wine, beer or pop are included in the $15.

This Month: Our next Shebeen Club meeting is this Tuesday, October 17th from 7-9pm, and our featured speaker is Linda Naiman, internationally-known creativity instructor.

Linda Naiman will present strategies for cultivating creativity used by writers, artists, entrepreneurs and scientists, to help you keep your own creativity fresh and alive. Topics include: The distinction between creativity and problem-solving, the right-brain myth, the genius myth, and principles that encourage creativity.

This is an exercise-based workshop, so be ready to participate! Pencils and notebooks out, ladies and gentlemen!

Bio: Linda Naiman is founder of Creativity at Work.com , a Vancouver-based coaching, consulting and training group at the forefront of transformational change in organizations. She is co-author of Orchestrating Collaboration at Work, and is known internationally for pioneering arts-based learning and development in organizations. Her work has been documented in several books: Art-based Approaches: A Practical Handbook to Creativity at Work (Chemi 2006), Wake Me Up When the Data Is Over: How Organizations Use Stories to Drive Results (Silverman 2006), and Artful Creation: Learning Tales of Arts-in-Business (Darsø 2004). Her work has also been featured in The Vancouver Sun, The Globe and Mail, and Canadian Business Magazine. Linda is an associate business coach at the University of British Columbia, and an adjunct faculty member of the Banff Centre Leadership Lab. She holds a BFA from California College of the Arts, and a diploma in Graphic design from Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design.
For more information, contact: Lorraine Murphy, raincoaster media ltd www.shebeenclub.com or  lorraine.murphyatgmaildotcom 778-235-0592

celebrating Black Friday the 13th: festive foods

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seriously. 

crying kittyI remember when Kurt left.

I remember when Graydon left.

I remember when Tina left.

The Tatler, that is. After that I didn’t pay too much attention.

I will always remember Black Friday the 13th, the day Jessica left.

so it's not a keyboard. It's as close as I could get, okay? Lay the fuck off!

But for those of you who don’t want to remember, there are these.

seriously, that is one sad pussy, dude

Came across a link to this yesterday on BoingBoing (or, god, was it Gawker? Can’t remember. How mortifying; oh well, they’re both right handy in the blogroll over there, help yourself) and didn’t have a use for it then, but now it seems only too perfect. Print these out and take them grocery shopping this weekend, because you’re going to need them come Monday and your first Jessica-free edition of Gawker.

WTF? Seriously dude, WTF?

The Ambien Cookbook, from the New Yorker.

The sleeping pill Ambien seems to unlock a primitive desire to eat in some patients, according to emerging medical case studies that describe how the drug’s users sometimes sleepwalk into their kitchens, claw through their refrigerators like animals and consume calories ranging into the thousands.
—The Times.

kitten overdose. Obviously another fan

Sorpresa con Queso
Ingredients:
7 bags Cheetos-brand cheese snacks
17 to 19 glasses tap water
5 mg. Ambien
Place Cheetos bags in cupboard.

Take Ambien, fall asleep.

Wait 2-3 hours, then sleepwalk to kitchen, tear cupboard doors off hinges in search of Cheetos.

Find Cheetos, eat contents of all 7 bags.

Fall back asleep on kitchen floor.

When awakened by early-morning sunlight, get up and say, “What the—?”

Wipe orange Cheetos dust from fingers, face, and hair.

Drink 17 to 19 glasses of water from kitchen tap.

Return to bed

a very sad kitty

Icebox Mélange
Ingredients:
Entire contents of refrigerator
1 Diet Snapple
5 mg. Ambien
Take Ambien, fall asleep.

Wait 2-3 hours, then sleepwalk to kitchen.

Devour everything in refrigerator (including all fancy mustards and jellies, iffy takeout leftovers, and plastic dial from thermostat).

Belch loud enough to wake wife or girlfriend. When she enters kitchen, bellow, “Can’t you see I’m working here?”

Fall asleep on kitchen floor.

After 4-5 more hours, wake up on subway, fully dressed from the waist up, drinking a Diet Snapple.

beerkittyand so on…

That should adequately prevent your dying of malnutrition while in a pharmaceutical-induced blackout.

And always remember, beer has simply tons of calories!

Ladies and gentlemen, a moment of silence, please, while we stand and give Jessica Coen our traditional Canuckistan departure salute, with appropriate ruffles and flourishes:

Canuckistan seal pup salute

Amish-killer’s family speaks

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 Amish buggy

A little background, for those of you who may not have been following the story:

On October 2 of this year, Charles Carl Roberts IV stormed an Amish schoolhouse in West Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania, forced the boys out and took 10 girls hostage. Police believe he intended to molest them and possibly torture them as well (according to the Trenchcoat Chronicles), but was prevented by the prompt arrival of the police. Roberts is believed to have been motivated by a long-simmering resentment against healthy girl children, stemming from the death of his own daughter as a newborn. He also claimed in multiple suicide notes that he felt crushing guilt for having molested family members decades ago, although nothing has turned up to substantiate that particular claim.

At one point, an Amish man said he learned, Roberts ordered the girls to do something and the older girls told the younger ones in Pennsylvania Dutch: “Duh ’s net! Duh ’s net!” (“Don’t do it! Don’t do it!”)

There was fear in the schoolhouse, but also a protectiveness, with the older girls looking out for the little ones, said the Amish man, who asked not to be named.

But there was something else going on in the schoolhouse that day, too, he said.

“The same fate, the same higher power, was at that site that was at Flight 93,” the Amish man said, referring to the plane that went down in Shanksville on Sept. 11. “That same power was at Columbine, too.”

Roberts shot all 10 girls before killing himself. Five of the girls died almost immediately, five others were seriously wounded. 

Amish girlsOver a million dollars has been raised to help the families of the children involved, and the hospitals who treated the wounded and dying have waived their fees, although for many of the families there will be ongoing medical expenses that will continue to be a burden. Part of the money has already paid to have the schoolhouse razed to the ground (Thursday); it will be replaced by a new building, in a different location, and the site will be turned back into pasture.

As reported at the time, the Amish community requested that the public forgive the shooter and support his widow and children as victims of this same tragedy. While Roberts‘ grave has been vandalized, there have been no reports of reprisals against his family, and the Amish have set aside a portion of the donations to assist the Roberts family.

This is their statement, via Trenchcoat Chronicles:

From the Roberts family:

To our Amish friends, neighbors, and local community:Our family wants each of you to know that we are overwhelmed by the forgiveness, grace, and mercy that you’ve extended to us. Your love for our family has helped to provide the healing we so desperately need. The prayers, flowers, cards, and gifts you’ve given have touched our hearts in a way no words can describe. Your compassion has reached beyond our family, beyond our community, and is changing our world, and for this we sincerely thank you.

Please know that our hearts have been broken by all that has happened. We are filled with sorrow for all of our Amish neighbors whom we have loved and continue to love. We know that there are many hard days ahead for all the families who lost loved ones, and so we will continue to put our hope and trust in God of all comfort, as we all seek to rebuild our lives.

I’ll explain later: commemorative Black Friday the 13th banners

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Wanker, but really important wanker
UPDATE:

See, here I am explaining it, later.

The below image is too large for my 500-pixel space.
Click on it for a larger version in a new window. 
Hotlinking of all of these images is enabled and encouraged for those who know
what it’s all about.

For those who don’t, why aren’t you watching television?

really important, web 2.0 wanker!

I'm telling you. Important with a capital I! And blinkies! I've got blinkies!

wankin' in 'n out!

Your name in lights!

capitalism goes too far: book sale blasphemy!

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Orwell is going to rise from the grave and come for you

from I Believe in Advertising, via Gawker. I don’t care if it IS 30% off, it’s still got to piss off the gods of literature! And then there’s Dumas, Discounted:

Dumas discounted!

and GGM Marked Down to Move:

GGM, marked down to move!