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Barry Miles' name seems to pop up everywhere when you look back on Beat history. He's written books on Kerouac, Burroughs, and Ginsberg, as well as a wonderful book on the Beat Hotel in Paris. But his work isn't just confined to Beat history – it extends further into the wider counterculture of that era. He's written books about the hippies, the seventies, figures like Frank Zappa and Paul McCartney, the British Invasion, and an entire history of the counterculture in London since WWII. It is simply extraordinary how often, when researching Beat or Beat-related history, Miles' name comes up. Continue Reading…
Archives For the beatles
The Beats and the Beatles: two sides of the same coin
"If two things are two sides of the same coin, they are very closely related although they seem different"
– The Cambridge Dictionary
As one might guess, the name of the world's most successful (Hotten) band in history – the Beatles – does not completely incidentally sound so similar to that of the influential group of writers that called themselves the Beat Generation. What one might not guess, however, is how manifold and deeply rooted their connections are.
It must be said from the outset that there are multiple stories surrounding the origin of the Beatles' name. Stuart Sutcliffe, the so-called 'fifth Beatle', who was a study friend of John Lennon and only a part of the first beginnings of what would later become the Beatles, suggested they call themselves 'the Beatals' in January 1960, as a tribute to the then famous rock 'n' roll band Buddy Holly and the Crickets. In the months that followed this name changed to 'the Silver Beetles' (May), 'the Silver Beatles' (July), and eventually 'the Beatles' (August) (Lewisohn 18-22). John Lennon himself in 1961, before their enormous success came about, already rejected every notion of a 'meaning' behind the name:
Many people ask what are Beatles? Why Beatles? Ugh, Beatles, how did the name arrive? So we will tell you. It came in a vision – a man appeared on a flaming pie and said unto them, 'From this day on you are Beatles with an 'A''. Thank you, Mister Man, they said, thanking him.
(qtd. in Coupe 131) Continue Reading…
"It was electric": A conversation with Michael Sharp
By Noel Dávila
On Ginsberg's anger & kindness, Kerouac's "homo viator", Burroughs' excremental prose and a fateful evening in the American Midwest.
"What is it you want to talk about, in case I have nothing to say?" I received the above message on my phone from Michael Sharp, who I'd been trying to sit down with for nearly three months. As our anticipated encounter approached I wondered at the possibility of yet another setback. Two days before our repeatedly rescheduled talk, I was not pleased with his message. "The Beats", I replied, "and your experience, interpretation and knowledge of them." No surprises; simple as that.
However, I was pleasantly surprised at the unexpected outcome of my conversation with Sharp, a respected professor and published poet. His insight provides a clear path leading from the Romantics of the 19th century to the Beats, and then from the Beats to rock & roll. Having attended a reading from Ginsberg, Burroughs and Corso in the 80s, Sharp draws a parallel between these so-called readings and rock shows, hinting at the exhilaration of a performance few can claim to have witnessed.
Trained as a Romanticist and in the literature and ideas of the Nineteenth Century, Michael Sharp's expertise also encompasses poetry and Victorian literature. I sat down with him at his office in the University of Puerto Rico to discuss why he thinks the Beats were American literature's first rockers, Burroughs' genius or lack thereof, and the momentous performance he witnessed at the University of Wisconsin in the 1980s.
How did you first come in contact with the Beats? Was it through their writing or through the live shows?
I think it must have been through reading them, but seeing some of them perform was great also. I saw Burroughs, Ginsberg and Corso on stage at the University of Wisconsin about 25 years ago.
What year was this?
It would've been 1980 something… I forget when Ginsberg died – 1997, I think – but certainly all three of them were alive. Corso died in 2000; he's buried in Rome, you know, next to the poet Shelley in the Protestant Cemetery. Quite close to Keats' grave. It must have been about '82 or '83.
What can you tell me about the show, or the readings?
Well, it was electric. In one corner, Burroughs sat ominously behind a desk, and his fingers, which were very long, hung over the desk, very noticeably. In fact, his fingers were more noticeable than he was. He wore a gray suit, but then he always wore a suit, and he never moved. I think he read from copies of Junky and Naked Lunch in front of him; that's all he did, he never moved, and his hands remained like this (places hands on desk). Ginsberg had brought his squeeze box and there was a guitarist with him. Corso, who was "the fourth Beat," after Burroughs, Ginsberg, and Kerouac, was hovering in the background with a bottle of whiskey – loaded, it seemed. It made for good theater and the nice thing about the reading was that while Ginsberg was doing mantras, he was making eyes at and seemed attracted to the guitarist. This intimate sideshow was part of the show which was periodically interrupted by this strange man here who never moved and Corso who flitted around upstage like a ruined dancer.
So they were all three together?
All three. They were on tour. The University of Wisconsin invited artists, mostly classical musicians and orchestras and Ginsberg & Co were part of the season's offering. The Beat Show was very memorable and the place was packed.
You'd mentioned it was akin to a rock band playing live.
Oh yes, it certainly was. They were American literature's first rockers. Well, you know they're related in a way. Kerouac's Dean Moriarty (On the Road) is a rapper of sorts. Burroughs later associated with Lou Reed, Patti Smith, The Velvet Underground, and The Clash, among others.
There is a line that leads from the Beats to many rock bands.
Bob Dylan was a great fan of Ginsberg, so was Kurt Cobain.
Kurt Cobain actually met William Burroughs and they spent some time together.
Yes. In Graham Caveney's Gentleman Junkie: The Life and Legacy of William S. Burroughs, there's a photograph of the cover of The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper.. As for Cobain and Nirvana, well, you know, there's something 'grungy' about William Burroughs.
He ventured into other things besides literature: film, acting, multimedia…
He was in a film with Matt Dillon (Drugstore Cowboy). He did a film with Warhol if I remember correctly. He sang as a guest vocalist on Laurie Anderson's Mister Heartbreak. He painted, of course. When he moved to Kansas he started to paint, apparently giving up writing, if writing is the right word for what Burroughs did.
The cut up procedure.
Norman Mailer said that Burroughs "Is the only American novelist living today that may conceivably be possessed by genius." Do you think that's a fair assessment?
Yes, in a way. I read somewhere that Burroughs, in pushing the limit, found himself in the wilderness of what 'limit' sometimes might imply. I don't know about genius. Burroughs is a dirty writer. I don't mean that pejoratively. He's visceral, he's excremental, and he pushes the boundaries, I suppose. Like many French writers of the 19th century: Baudelaire, de Lautréamont, Rimbaud, and Verlaine. He reminds me of Michel Foucault, actually. Foucault pushed the boundaries to the point that he thought that if he went to every bath house in San Francisco, say, he might just cheat AIDS, circumvent it somehow. I don't know if that makes sense, but there is an adventurism, a great daring in the way that Foucault crossed over in his writing, and I think, perhaps, Burroughs does the same too. Burroughs doesn't strike me as being the great writer that Mailer claims for him. I think Burroughs did things that people didn't dare do, or simply couldn't/wouldn't do. If that makes him a great writer, fine. Rimbaud, who must have influenced Burroughs, was equally strange, equally courageous, a poetic genius who gave things up to become an arms dealer, of all things. In a way, Burroughs was like Rimbaud; but he simply 'gave up' writing later than Rimbaud who quit writing poetry at nineteen.
What's your take on Burroughs' drug addiction? What effect do you think it had on his work?
It seems to me to be part and parcel of what it was to be a Beat. You know if it wasn't LSD, it was peyote. If it wasn't peyote, it was marijuana. If it wasn't marijuana, it was Benzedrine. I'm not tremendously sure what they took. Whatever Timothy Leary suggested, I guess!
But he was a life-long opiate addict. Physically he resembled that; pale, skinny…
I suspect there are reasons why people do what they do. Once again, I think Junky pushes the boundaries. It's a book that hadn't been written before. It makes de Quincey's Confessions of an Opium Eater seem quite tame. The closest one is perhaps a book by the Scottish novelist Alexander Trocchi whose Cain's Book describes the life of an addict living on a barge in New York. I don't have any take on Burroughs' drug addiction at all. Rimbaud had deliberately dirty teeth. He and Verlaine misbehaved in public, at dinner parties. One of the things Baudelaire liked to do – though I think this may be apocryphal – was throwing flowers into the Paris pissoirs and watching them disintegrate in the urine. Burroughs watched himself in the mirror, presumably, disintegrating. But then he never seemed to. He lived until he was 80 something. He had criminal friends who presumably kept him supplied. He had money for drugs. Not as much money as everyone said he had, despite his family's adding machine business. Coleridge was an opium addict. It eventually killed him, but in his last years he was cared for by a concerned doctor in London. I think over the years, Burroughs was in the care of lots of people, one of the people who cared for him was Ginsberg. Not physically, but cared for the phenomenon of William Burroughs. Ginsberg, who was a kindly man, arranged for Junky to be published, edited Naked Lunch, etc.
Ginsberg and Burroughs were both homosexuals. Do you think being vocal and open about their sexuality opened doors to the current struggle for gay rights?
Yes, but it's not as if homosexuality, being gay, hasn't been around for a while. I mean they were open about homosexuality. Extending sexual boundaries was part of being a Beat as much as it was exploring the possibilities of drugs and spiritual belief. I think the Beats may have opened the doors for gay rights, but Zen Buddhism in some respects and the spiritual power of search were things that kept them going. As for the homosexuality, I don't know how important it was. They spent a lot of time in Tangier; it's still an open city. It's a lovely city too. In Europe, the Beats, for example, are preceded by the 1890s French symbolists, by Oscar Wilde. Burroughs was apparently as much into paid sex as Wilde was. I don't know if that's liberating or even how open Burroughs was a homosexual. There's a photograph here in Caveney's book of his having his toes sucked by Brion Gysin, a British painter. Is it his toe? I can't tell. I think he liked to be photographed. Whether or not his being gay enhances his art, I don't know. I think there was a real bond between all the men from Cassady to Kerouac, from Ginsberg to Orlovsky, from McClure to Corso. Burroughs liked men – despite having been married – men's company, simple as that.
What do think of Ginsberg's "Howl"?
It's Ginsberg's masterpiece. It reworks the Biblical rhythms, the insistencies of William Blake's great poetry against a devouring world. Ginsberg looks for a common humanity in a dehumanizing, consumer-driven post 1945 America. It's very democratic like Whitman's poetry. You can't have a democracy unless you include all people in it. If you exclude gays, for example, then you don't have a democracy. When Ralph Waldo Emerson was appalled by some of Whitman's notions, he told him to clean up his act, and Whitman – I imagine – must have said something like "I can't, because if we want a union, then that union includes people like me who fall in love with men on trams".
Do you agree with the notion that Ginsberg was the Beat Generation's leader?
Yes. Howl is the seminal poem. To go back to Burroughs, if it wasn't for Ginsberg we wouldn't have Junky as it is, perhaps. It would have never been published. And Naked Lunch, which is the better book, if you can call it that, was edited by Ginsberg. Yes, he's important. The thing about Ginsberg too was that he was nice to people, a nurse, a wound-dresser like the great Walt. He helped writers whom he believed had talent, rather like Lawrence Ferlinghetti or Kenneth Rexroth. This is one of the things I have always liked about him as a man. Ginsberg was nice despite the rage. Howl is a very angry poem. Ginsberg looked at America in 1950 understanding that he was a different kind of American. Compare them to the "greatest generation" which came back from Normandy and the Pacific and was venerated as the saviors of the new world. The Beats felt left out. The intelligentsia especially felt left out. This is why I think writers like Ginsberg congregated in places like Columbia University in New York City and the University of California- Berkeley in San Francisco.
They broke those old 50s patterns of thought and behavior. Instead they had hedonism, spontaneity, inconformity…
The Ur-Text for all them, it seems to me, whether it's Corso or Ginsberg, Kerouac or Burroughs is British Romantic poetry. The Romantic poets were rebels, mostly young men (with Mary Wollstonecraft) who felt that a millennial moment was at hand in 1789 with the revolution of France and its enormous social possibilities. Then there was the disappointment of the Terror in 1793 and the split between the younger and older Romantics. Wordsworth and Coleridge were on one side; Byron, Shelley and Keats on the other. Blake was much older, but a revolutionary all the same. All of them, at various stages of their poetic careers wanted to – as Ezra Pound said much latter – "make in new." There was a common rebelliousness, a common belief in the possibilities of a new world order based on freedom and justice and equality and fraternity and sorority, at least in the western world. There was an enjoyment in the role of the outsider. Look at… Burroughs. There's an outsider for you. William Burroughs, the man in the gray flannel suit who never moved, the man with long fingers, the man who wrote Naked Lunch, the man who's a junky, the man who liked rent boys – I'm guessing – the man who knew and liked Jean Genet, Paris, its grime. He was fascinated by criminals, Times Square lowlifes whose circumstances I believe he empathized with. There's a Shelleyan quality to almost all the men we've been talking about. Shelley was the arch-rebel. Shelley gave away his shoes to a beggar in Ireland. He didn't ask for them back. Metaphorically, his poetry dares you to do the same. He was 'sent down' from Oxford for his atheistic views. When his body was cremated on an Italian beach, his heart refused to burn. That's as good as you get!
The Beat Hotel in Paris.
What I think attracted the Beats to Paris was Rimbaud and Baudelaire. Perhaps it was the studied eccentricity of the poet Nerval and his pet lobster. I think the peeling splendor of Rue Git-Le-Coeur in the 6th arrondissement and its grungy 'Class 13' hotel also appealed to them. I'm guessing that they found Tangier much more liberating. They could smoke hashish in the streets, they couldn't get picked up for particular things, soliciting, say, and they could live relatively open as gays – those of them that were, that is. As for hard drugs, I don't know. Tangier always strikes me as being the city of the Beats, with the exception of San Francisco and New York, not Paris.
I thought initially that Paris is where you'd seen them perform.
No, I saw them in the American Midwest. I mean, how perfectly junky. Remember Madison is halfway between Columbia and Berkeley!
Any thoughts on On the Road and its lasting influence?
It's not a book that I've found easy to read. Why should it be? But, I do recognize its importance. Dean Moriarty appeals to me. You could say that he's one of the sources of rap music. Recently a first edition sold for $12,500. Kerouac's road novels aside, I think where the Beats excelled was the poetry. Corso – remember his "I Am 25"? – "with a love a madness for Shelley"- and Ginsberg were excellent poets. On the Road has lasted, though. It's a post-Romantic book. Homo viator, man on the road. It's about two men traveling in Mexico, two men talking, getting into scrapes, falling out with each other. It's a cool book.
Going back to the performance you saw. When you think back, what sticks out?
I think the thing that made William Burroughs different was the fact that he sat still, oh, and his fingers. That might seem odd. I was totally struck by how somber, how sinister he looked. I thought that Burroughs might not be a man you'd want to find yourself in a room with alone. He struck me as threatening, but then I think that his writings are threatening. To go back to the question about whether he's a genius or not, perhaps he is because the greatest literature should threaten you in some way: make you think, make you change, make you act. The best of Shelley's poetry dares you to give away your shoes; if you don't then you've failed the task. I don't think Burroughs dares you to the needle or dares you into the underworld off Times Square, but there was something singularly odd and different about him, whether you understand it or not. Remember that photograph of him asleep fully clothed on a Tangier beach while Kerouac and Orlovsky beef-cake for the photographer? I'm not sure anything means in Burroughs – nothing has to mean, by the way – but he was a phenomenon and a presence. I think probably I thought he seemed rather evil. I'd just gotten back from Africa when I saw the tickets on sale so I went with my friends Ann, Mike, Marsha, Bob, Ina, and Berger. They're all Beats still. Someone we knew was writing a doctoral dissertation on the Beats. It was a spectacle and good theater. Burroughs was good theater, it seems to me still. If you look at his face, there's something quite frightening there. He looked so respectable too. Look at the socks, look at the shoes, the cuffs, the trousers, the hat, and the jacket – but underneath the jacket, of course, he's wearing a Moroccan jilaba. I love that. Burroughs clearly influenced everybody from Bob Dylan to Kurt Cobain. Somebody once said that Burroughs is as American as the electric chair.
I think that's a great quote.
Yes, I think it is too. I'm not quite sure what it means. In a way, I think that's what strikes me about him.
Oh yes, and dangerous. I mean his writings seem to steal fire. They don't have the quiet Zen, the environmental concerns of Gary Snyder's poetry, say. But, like Foucault, his notions in their own shockingly Promethean way are dangerous, challenging. Ginsberg, despite the epic rage in Howl, doesn't strike me as dangerous as Burroughs. Ginsberg viewed his generation as misunderstood and misused just as Shelley understood the tyrannical England of 1819. Burroughs was a gentleman junky. Taken as a metaphor, 'junkies' are dangerous people. The best writers strike me as dangerous. Burroughs seems to convey an underworld most of us don't want anything to do with. Some of the depths that Burroughs touched, or was involved with ultimately seem to have bogged him down in the unknown territory of "limit." Foucault crossed over, and it killed him. Rimbaud crossed over and became ostensibly someone else, even, according to his sister, accepting Christ on his deathbed. When Kurt Cobain died, I wondered if Burroughs had had something to do with it.
Kurt Cobain was a heroin addict as well, but he didn't even live to be thirty.
Burroughs died when he was 80 something. Perhaps moving to Kansas cured him. It might have. More so than Rimbaud, I guess, Jean Genet was a perfect model for Burroughs. The petty thief who wrote great books about incarceration, sex, a terrible upbringing – none of which Burroughs had. Genet who was raped in prison or reform school – I forget which – is venerated in France. One of the reasons that Burroughs is so famous in France is because the French like boundary jumpers. Foucault, to the Left, is a God, or was. Philosophers are venerated like rock stars in France. So is Jean Genet. Thieves, murderers, Genet, Burroughs, even the anti-Semitic Céline have a special place in French culture. In Alexander Trocchi's Cain's Book – if my memory serves – there's one sequence in which the hero Joe Necci makes love to woman on some rolling logs. One of the things that he enjoys most about it is that she's an amputee. I don't know if that's supposed to shock you, it's like punk hairdos or Sid Vicious on stage. Without reading the book, there's something shocking about the cover of Junky especially when you remember that the man who wrote it looked so much like an accountant. (Points at book) This is a lost look, don't you think?
Even the way he spoke was kind of strange.
Yes, sepulchral. Like a funeral director. On the other hand, Noel, in some respects I've often thought that it was all just a joke – a joke played by Burroughs on all of us. That we can venerate the excremental, the anal, dirt under the fingernails, people who we spend a lot of time avoiding in life because they'll steal from you, or stab you in the back, transport you to Auschwitz, have you killed. I think Burroughs meant to leave a bad taste in your mouth. Like Bosch or Breugel. Perhaps, however, there is also a monumental empathy at work that 'cares for the lost souls, for the shoeless of the earth.' That's Naked Lunch; chew on that one.
William Burroughs' brother read "Naked Lunch" and said that it repelled him.
Samuel Beckett, by the way, had a brother who also disapproved of his writings. If Burroughs' brother disapproved of him, then Beckett and he are in the same camp. Beckett often didn't quite know how to say what he wanted to say so we are left with what he said – remember Lucky's speech in Waiting for Godot ? – so if that's the case with Burroughs, we are similarly left with what he had to say, what he felt. Is he great? Well, he's different. In a way I think he is great, but I don't know how, I'm not sure in what way. There was something so much more innocent if you were a Beat and you dressed in a beret and glasses and had a goatee and looked like Dizzy Gillespie, you know? I think Burroughs must have struck everyone in that auditorium as sinister, a touched old man with deep secrets, dark visions.
Come Join Uncle Sam's Band
by James D. Irwin
It's about ten past four on a Sunday afternoon. I feel like I've been beaten up; there is pain… bruises… cuts… none of them I can explain with any certainty. I think I have whiplash. I feel dead and decaying on the inside and all I've eaten is an apples, washed down with a few cups of coffee— the diet Christian Bale undertook for his role in The Machinist.
I could be doing this in better, more appropriate conditions. At least the sun is shining through the narrow window of my bare, white-walled room that's covered in dirty laundry— all my clothes— and patches of mould slowly fading back from where it rained a few nights ago. And so I'm in a hovel of a room feeling like death could come at any moment, and would be quite welcome. But today is the deadline. So I better turn my thoughts to the subject I promised I'd write something on…
More build up first: a few months ago I got into a discussion with a few American friends about the notion of the 'Great American Rock Band.' We kind of concluded that there was no such thing. No band could compare to the cultural importance and impact of The Beatles or The Rolling Stones or Led Zeppelin. America has produced a great many rock bands, but none have the same cache… the same monolithic significance as the British bands that became big in the Sixties and peaked in the mid-Seventies. We talked about how Creedence Clearwater Revival were called 'The American Beatles,' but their success doesn't translate. KISS has the success, but theirs is a success comparable to McDonald's— the vast sales of products aren't a signifier of quality.
But then perhaps comparing American groups to British groups doesn't stand up. Maybe our cultures are just too different. It's certainly true when it comes to literature. We have different standards… expectations. For example the 'Great American Novel' exists, and doesn't need to compare itself to the British literary canon; it is instead focused more on the truest expression of America. This would draw The Ramones into the mix, but then they'd have to be thrown out. For as much as they embody a lot of the 'American Spirit' their music, whilst great, is tied forever to the narrow confines of punk culture, whether it should be or not.
I think perhaps the best we could do is compare the 'Great American Novel' to the 'Great American Band.' I have a friend who refuses to read American literature, something which I find incredibly narrow minded and downright stupid. There is a perception among some, like my friend, that because ours is the older country, with longer literary tradition ours is just better. And that's what I was doing with bands earlier on. Maybe CCR are on par with The Beatles.
American literature is slightly different to British literature. Even now ours tends to be in the stuffy, uptight mould of Dickens and the Victorians. It's modernised, of course, but our literary tradition remains very traditional. That goes for our journalism too. We never had 'New Journalism' or 'Gonzo Journalism'… some of the best writing in the Twentieth Century… Meanwhile I'm getting marked down on my Non-Fictions assignments for not writing 'properly.' My tutor writes for The London Times.
I referenced Hunter S. Thompson in an accompanying essay, which didn't go down well. British writers stuck in the notion of prestigious papers don't like writers like Thompson. Only poetry professors have any time for Kerouac and the Beats; meanwhile guys like Norman Mailer and George Plimpton don't get a mention. Neither does Tom Wolfe. So you transformed journalism in the 1960s? Well, not in Britain you didn't. We like our journalism dry and fact based, keep your opinions to yourself…
Thompson's Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 introduced me to the band that would eventually become my All Time Favourite Band: the Grateful Dead. They are also the band I think come closest to being 'The Great American Band', at least by my measure of comparing them to the 'Great American Novel.' Of course for this to stand up I should lay my cards on the table and state what I consider to be the 'Great American Novel.' We can safely assume it's not Spider-Man #1, otherwise I'd still be talking about KISS.
There are strong arguments for a couple of books. It's not The Catcher in the Rye though— miserable, whiny and a contributing factor to the murder of John Lennon. Huckleberry Finn is basically the sequel to a children's book— a very good book, but not the greatest. Not the Muhammad Ali of American literature. The Great Gatsby lacks scope and scale… For me it's not just a case of the Great American Novel, but the greatest novel I have ever read: The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck.
Why? Because it has everything; it is epic in the scale of location, of human emotion… it has humour, sadness, is a timeless slice of history and, perhaps most importantly, has the Joad family chasing the same mythical American Dream Thompson failed to find in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
It's not my favourite Steinbeck novel either. That would be Cannery Row, in which Steinbeck revisited the Depression with a more romantic, nostalgic eye. One band wrote a song inspired by a rundown building that features in Cannery Row. Unless you're mentally retarded, or just plain stupid, you can probably guess it was the Grateful Dead— the song being 'Brokedown Palace' from 1970's American Beauty.
Both Steinbeck and the Dead are uniquely American. Britain doesn't have any writers or bands than can really compare in terms of cultural relevance and significance. And wasn't that what we were looking for earlier? Both the writer and the band have always been more popular in their own country than they have been in Britain. However, both have also been outsiders in their own time and place too.
The Grapes of Wrath was banned for a long time in a lot of schools and libraries on publication. Similarly the Dead were always an underground, counter-culture band that only the liberals dug and enjoyed. And it's not like the Dead have always been cool. Through the mid-70s and most of the '80s they weren't counter-culture, but simply obscure and faded. They had a resurgence though, and in 1987 finally scored a number one with 'Touch of Grey.'
It took a long time, but both Grapes and the Dead finally got the recognition they deserved. Steinbeck's novel is now widely regarded as one of the best ever, whilst the band from San Francisco finally got a bit of mainstream attention and recognition.
Maybe it's a bit of a flimsy comparison… It's not, I don't think, meant as direct as a comparison as perhaps I've been attempting. I don't know, but as far as I'm concerned the Grateful Dead are as close to a 'Great American Band' as there is.
They played at the President's inaugural ball: Great American Band or not, they are Uncles Sam's Band…
The Beat Generation and Travel
More so than any other literary movement, the Beats have influenced the world of travel and have helped shape our perceptions of the world around us. From obvious influences on hitch-hiking to more serious questions relating to the environment, Beat Generation literature and history has played a major role influencing people over the past fifty years.
We often look to Jack Kerouac as the great backpacker, whose On the Road is credited with sending thousands of readers literally on the road… but he certainly wasn't the perpetual traveller many think, and the other members of the Beat Generation – whom are less well known for their journeys – travelled far more.
It is strange that when one thinks about the Beat Generation one invariably thinks of New York or San Francisco, because between there lay thousands of miles that they all travelled, and beyond them lay a near infinite abyss that many sought to explore. But these were mere catchments for the meeting of minds; where the young writers and artists of their day met and exchanged knowledge – knowledge that lead them on the road, and was informed by their own personal adventures.
Jack Kerouac
Hitch hiked a thousand miles and brought you wine.
JK, Book of Haikus
Kerouac is the logical starting point for an essay about the Beat Generation and travel. On the Road is undoubtedly the most famous Beat text, and concerned – as the title suggests – travelling. The book detailed Kerouac's journeys across North America, and inspired subsequent generations of readers, writers and artists to take to the road for spiritual (or non-spiritual) journeys of their own.
Interestingly, Kerouac was not always fond of hitchhiking, although he has had a huge impact upon hitchhikers. He didn't really do as much travelling as people seem to think, either. Kerouac grew up in Lowell, Massachusetts and stayed there until he went to Horace Mann Prep School in New York at seventeen years old. A year later he went to Columbia University on a football scholarship, but broke his leg and eventually signed up for the merchant marines during World War II. He sailed on the S.S. Dorchester to Greenland.
At twenty-five, Kerouac took his first cross-country road trip, and a year later he took his first trip with Neal Cassady. These journeys took Kerouac from one end of America to another, and eventually found their way into the American road classic, On the Road.
On the Road is one book that has changed America. Whether you've read it or not, it has had some impact upon your life. Kerouac's masterpiece has inspired people ever since, and is still as relevant as ever.
"The road is life," is one oft-quoted phrase from On the Road. It is one that resonates in American society – a country of immigrants, whose classics include Mark Twain, Jack London, Jack Kerouac and Bob Dylan. The road has always meant something to America; their histories are irrevocably linked.
The idea of the wilderness and self-reliance has been entangled in American literary history since the beginning, and was most notably explored in the works of Emerson and Thoreau. Kerouac also believed that it was important, saying in Lonesome Traveler:
No man should go through life without once experiencing healthy, even bored solitude in the wilderness, finding himself depending solely on himself and thereby learning his true and hidden strength.
But mostly it was the idea of non-conformity that appealed to people fifty years ago, and which has inspired readers ever since. Kerouac's call to "mad" people came at a time when people needed to rebel, and his wild kicks on the roads of America were a wake-up call for millions. The idea of rebelling then became tied to that of travelling – of gaining freedom and independence through running away and exploring the world, and to hell with society's expectations.
Kerouac explained in The Dharma Bums:
Colleges [are] nothing but grooming schools for the middleclass non-identity which usually finds its perfect expression on the outskirts of the campus in rows of well-to-do houses with lawns and television sets in each living room with everybody looking at the same thing and thinking the same thing at the same time while the Japhies of the world go prowling in the wilderness.
In both Japhy Ryder and Dean Moriarty Kerouac portrayed an attractive outsider that stood against everything society demanded. He presented romantic depictions of these footloose individuals that etched in the consciousness of his readers a desire to be that free soul.
Japhy Ryder was based on Zen poet Gary Snyder, whom Kerouac met in San Francisco, after travelling across America with a backpack full of manuscripts. His Buddhist wisdom inspired Kerouac to attempt communing with nature, as depicted in The Dharma Bums.
Perhaps his Book of Sketches is a better example of Kerouac's travel-writing. He details a nearly three thousand mile hitch-hiking journey from 1952, as he travelled from North Carolina to California, by way of Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, Utah and Nevada. In the book he describes every town he visits and every ride he took in travelling across America.
In 1957 Kerouac travelled to Tangier, Morocco, with Allen Ginsberg and Peter Orlovsky. He didn't enjoy his time there, but helped Burroughs with the concept and title of what would later become Naked Lunch. This journey was recorded in Desolation Angels – which also details his musings on life as he wanders across North America and Europe. The chapter titles in this book include: "Passing Through Mexico," "Passing Through New York," "Passing Through Tangiers, France and London" and "Passing Through America Again."
Later, suffering from his inability to deal with fame and his disappointment at not being taken seriously by critics (as they viewed the Beats as a mere fad), Kerouac attempted to heal himself by escaping to Big Sur, as described in the novel of the same name.
After Big Sur, Kerouac returned to his mother in Long Island and didn't stray far from her for the rest of his life. They moved together first to Lowell, Massachusetts, and then to St. Petersburg, Florida.
William S. Burroughs
Burroughs doesn't exactly strike the same image in the minds of travellers as Kerouac, but certainly travelled more than the author of On the Road. His books are hardly odes to nature or travel, but in his life Burroughs moved frequently, and saw much of the world.
Born in St. Louis, Missouri, Burroughs went to school in New Mexico, and then studied at Harvard. With a healthy allowance from his parents, Burroughs travelled frequently from New York to Boston, and travelled around Europe after studying in Vienna. He returned and enlisted in the army, but was soon discharged and moved to Chicago, where he met Lucian Carr.
Carr took Burroughs to New York, where he met Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac. Whilst in New York he and Joan Vollmer Adams had a child. The family soon moved to Texas, and then New Orleans. Some of this was described in On the Road.
After being arrested on account of incriminating letters between him and Ginsberg, Burroughs was forced to flee to Mexico, where he famously shot and killed his wife in a game of William Tell.
In January 1953 Burroughs travelled to South America, maintaining a constant stream of correspondence with Allen Ginsberg that would later become The Yage Letters. "Yage" was the name of a drug with supposed telekinetic properties for which Burroughs was searching.
In Lima, Peru, he typed up his travel notes and then returned to Mexico, where he sent the final instalment of his journey to Ginsberg. This later became the ending of Queer.
In 2007, Ohio State University Press published Everything Lost: The Latin American Notebook of William S. Burroughs. The book details Burroughs' journey through Ecuador, Columbia and Peru, and gives insight into his personal troubles.
When Burroughs' legal problems made it impossible for him to live in the cities of his choice he moved to Palm Springs with his parents, and then New York to stay with Ginsberg. After Ginsberg reject his advances, Burroughs travelled to Rome to see Alan Ansen, and then to Tangier, Morocco, to meet Paul Bowles.
Over the next few years Burroughs stayed in Tangiers, working on something that would eventually become Naked Lunch. He was visited by Ginsberg and Kerouac in 1957, and they helped him with his writing.
In 1959, when looking for a publisher for Naked Lunch, Burroughs went to Paris to meet Ginsberg and talk to Olympia Press. Amid surrounding legal problems, the novel was published. In the months before and after the book's publication, Burroughs stayed with Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, and Peter Orlovsky in the "Beat Hotel." Ginsberg composed some of "Kaddish" there, while Corso composed "Bomb."
After Paris, Burroughs spent six years in London, where he originally travelled for treatment for his heroin addiction. He returned to the US several times – including to cover the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago – before moving to New York in 1974. He took a teaching position and moved into the "Bunker," a rent-controlled former YMCA gym.
Burroughs travelled around America from time to time, before moving to Lawrence, Kansas, where he spent his final years.
Clearly Burroughs possessed more of an instinct to travel the world than Kerouac. However, his writing rarely glorifies the act of travelling, unlike his friend, who celebrated the road.
In an unpublished essay that can be found in the New York Public Library's Berg Collection, Burroughs writes,
As a young child I wanted to be a writer because writers were rich and famous. They lounged around Singapore and Rangoon smoking opium in a yellow ponge silk suit. They sniffed cocaine in Mayfair and they penetrated forbidden swamps with a faithful native boy and lived in the native quarter of Tangier smoking hashish and languidly caressing a pet gazelle. …
This isn't exactly the sort of image that invokes pleasant thoughts for most readers, but it shows that Burroughs considered exotic locations and global travel as extremely important. He set these things as a goal for himself, even from a young age.
In his work one could argue Burroughs was more interested in the notion of time-travel than of terrestrial journeying. From actual references to time-travel to the cut-up techniques that carried readers across space and time, Burroughs seemed very interested in having everything in a constant state of flux.
In his essay, "Civilian Defence," from the collection, The Adding Machine, Burroughs argues for space travel as the future of mankind. He seems to be suggesting that to change is to survive, that we need to move to develop.
Man is an artifact designed for space travel. He is not designed to remain in his present biologic state any more than a tadpole is designed to remain a tadpole.
Allen Ginsberg
From the Allen Ginsberg Trust:
Ginsberg might have been an American by birth, but through his extensive travel he developed a global consciousness that greatly affected his writings and viewpoint. He spent extended periods of time in Mexico, South America, Europe and India. He visited every continent in the world and every state in the United States and some of his finest work came about as a result of these travels.
Ginsberg spent his tumultuous youth in Paterson, New Jersey, before moving to Columbia University and meeting Kerouac and Burroughs. He met Neal Cassady there and took trips across America – to Denver and San Francisco. In 1947 he sailed to Dakar, Senegal, and wrote "Dakar Doldrums."
Ginsberg returned to New York and attempted to "go straight," but moved to San Francisco and became heavily involved in its poetry scene. In 1951 he took a trip to Mexico to meet Burroughs, but Burroughs had already left for Ecuador. In 1953 Ginsberg returned to explore ancient ruins and experiment with drugs, and in 1956 he visited Kerouac in Mexico City.
In 1955 he read "Howl" at the Six Gallery and became a Beat Generation icon. When Howl and Other Poems was published, City Lights Bookstore was charged with publishing indecent literature, and the trial helped made Ginsberg a celebrity.
During the trial Ginsberg moved to Paris with his partner, Peter Orlovsky. From there they travelled to Tangier to help Burroughs compose Naked Lunch. They returned through Spain to stay in the "Beat Hotel" and help Burroughs sell the book to Olympia Press. In a Parisian café, Ginsberg began writing "Kaddish."
In 1960 Ginsberg travelled to Chile with Lawrence Ferlinghetti for a communist literary conference. He travelled through Bolivia to Lima, Peru, where he tried yage for the first time.
In 1961 Ginsberg and Orlovsky sailed on the SS America for Europe. They looked for Burroughs in Paris. From Paris he travelled through Greece to Israel, meeting Orlovsky, who'd taken a different route.
Together, Ginsberg and Orlovsky travelled down to East Africa, attending a rally in Nairobi. From Africa they travelled to India, first to Bombay and then Delhi, where they met Gary Snyder and Joanne Kryger. Ginsberg and Snyder travelled throughout India for fifteen months, consulting as many wise men as they could find.
After India, Ginsberg travelled on his own through Bangkok, Saigon and Cambodia, and then spent five weeks in Japan with Snyder and Kryger. He wrote "The Change" on a train from Kyoto to Tokyo.
In 1965 Ginsberg travelled to Cuba through Mexico, but was kicked out of the country for allegedly calling Raul Castro "gay" and Che Guevara "cute." The authorities put him on a flight to Czechoslovakia. In Prague Ginsberg discovered his work had become very popular and used his royalties there to travel to Moscow. He travelled back through Warsaw and Auschwitz.
Back in Prague Ginsberg was elected "King of May" by the students of the city, and spent the following few days "running around with groups of students, acting in a spontaneous, improvised manner – making love."
Eventually he was put on a flight to London after the authorities found his notebook – containing graphically sexual poems and politically charged statements. In London he partied with Bob Dylan and the Beatles, and organised a big poetry reading.
On his return to the US Ginsberg learned that his previously deactivated FBI file has been updated with the warning, "these persons are reported to be engaged in smuggling narcotics." This was not helpful to someone as passionate about travel as Allen Ginsberg, and for two years he travelled around the US.
In 1967 he flew to Italy and was arrested for "use of certain words" in his poetry. He then travelled back to London and on to Wales, before returning to Italy to meet Ezra Pound.
In1971 a plane ticket to India and West Bengal was anonymously donated, and Ginsberg travelled to the flood and famine ravaged area.
Back in America, Ginsberg was always travelling – seeking wisdom and change. He moved around the country, participating in demonstrations and rallies. He trained with Buddhists, founded the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa, in Boulder, Colorado, and toured with Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder Review.
Ginsberg toured Europe again in 1979 – visiting Cambridge, Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Paris, Genoa, Rome and Tubingen, among other places. He was accompanied by Gregory Corso and Peter Orlovsky.
In the early eighties Ginsberg settled in Boulder, to play a more active role at Naropa, following a series of problems that had troubled the school. During this time he travelled to Nicaragua to work with other poets on stopping American interference in the politics of other nations. (He returned to Nicaragua for a poetry festival in 1986.)
He spent eight weeks in China following a 1984 poetry conference with Gary Snyder, and in 1985 travelled in the USSR for another poetry conference. In August and September of 1986 he travelled throughout Eastern Europe – performing in Budapest, Warsaw, Belgrade and Skopje. In January of 1988 he travelled to Israel to help bring peace to the Middle East. Later that year he returned to Japan to help protest nuclear weapons and airport developments.
After twenty five years, Ginsberg was re-crowned King of May upon his return to Prague in 1990. A few months later he travelled to Seoul, South Korea, to represent America in the 12th World Congress of Poets.
Continuing to travel right up until 1994, Ginsberg went to France in '91 and '92, and then toured Europe in '93. His four month tour took him around most of Europe, including a ten day teaching job with Anne Waldman.
After selling his personal letters to Stanford University, Ginsberg bought a loft in New York, where he largely remained until his death in 1997.
Neal Cassady
Neal is, of course, the very soul of the voyage into pure, abstract meaningless motion. He is The Mover, compulsive, dedicated, ready to sacrifice family, friends, even his very car itself to the necessity of moving from one place to another.
William Burroughs, on Neal Cassady
His name may not be as famous as that of Kerouac, but Cassady is well known to any Beat enthusiast. He was portrayed as Dean Moriarty in On the Road: the man Sal Paradise followed on his cross-country trips.
Whilst he may remain most well known for inspiring Kerouac, Cassady influenced many people to enjoy their lives, and to break free of convention. John Clellon Holmes talked about him in Go, Ginsberg referenced him in "Howl" and Hunter S. Thompson mentioned him (unnamed) in Hell's Angels. He was not only a hero of the Beats, but of many during the following psychedelic era.
It could be said that Cassady lived and died on the road. He was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, and raised by his alcoholic father in Denver, Colorado. He was a criminal from an early age, always in trouble with the law. He was frequently arrested for car theft, and known as an exhilarating driver.
After meeting Kerouac and Ginsberg in New York City, Kerouac and Cassady travelled across America and into Mexico. Kerouac was inspired by Cassady's life and his letter-writing style, whilst the latter sought advice about novel-writing from Kerouac, who'd already published The Town and the City, a novel featuring a far more conventional style of writing than that for which Kerouac later became known.
Both the subject and style of On the Road owe their existence to Neal Cassady. His impact upon Kerouac cannot be understated.
Cassady settled with his wife, Carolyn, in San Jose, and worked for the Southern Pacific Railroad. He kept in touch with the rest of the Beats, although they all drifted apart philosophically.
In the sixties Kerouac withdrew into alcoholism and what seems like an early onset of middle-age, whilst Cassady took to the road again with Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters. In a bus called "Furthur" Cassady took the wheel and drove the Pranksters across America. It was a trip well documented in Tom Wolf's Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.
Cassady travelled to Mexico many times, and in 1968 he died on a railroad track, attempting to walk fifteen miles to the next town. Shortly before his death he told a friend, "Twenty years of fast living – there's just not much left, and my kids are all screwed up. Don't do what I have done."
In his short life, Neal Cassady travelled back and forth across North America. His wild antics, footloose life and driving skills inspired many who met him to follow him where he went. He was immortalised in art and literature, and continues to be an inspiration today in sending people on the road.
Gary Snyder
Lawrence Ferlinghetti commented that if Allen Ginsberg was the Walt Whitman of the Beat Generation, then Gary Snyder was its Henry David Thoreau. Through his rugged individualism and Zen peacefulness the young poet made quite an impact upon his contemporaries, introducing the culture of Asia to the West Coast poetry scene.
Snyder was both interested in the teachings of Asian culture and the tough landscape of North America, and his relationship with both is most famously recounted in Kerouac's Dharma Bums.
Growing up in the Pacific Northwest, Snyder quickly learned the importance of place. He spoke of a Salishan man who "knew better than anyone else I had ever met where I was." The mountains and forests of his part of the world were dangerous and beautiful places, and respect and awareness of them were key to his development. Knowing himself inside and out was essential for Snyder's growth and survival.
From a young age Snyder was fascinated with Asia. He grew up on the West Coast of the United States, revelling in the diversity of the cities.
The geographical significance of East Asia to the West coast was palpable, as I was growing up. Seattle had a Chinatown, the Seattle Art Museum had a big East Asian collection, one of my playmates was a Japanese boy whose father was a farmer, we all knew that the Indians were racially related to the East Asians and that they had got there via Alaska… There [was]… a constant sense of exchange.
After years of studying Asian culture and teaching himself to meditate, Snyder was offered a scholarship to study in Japan. His application for a passport was initially turned down after the State Department announced there had been allegations he was a communist. (This was shortly after the 1955 Six Gallery Reading, at which Snyder read "A Berry Feast.")
Snyder studied and travelled in Japan, and eventually became a disciple of Miura Isshu. He mastered Japanese, worked on translations, learned about forestry and formally became a Buddhist.
His return to North America in 1958 took him through the Persian Gulf, Turkey and various Pacific Islands, whilst he worked as a crewman on an oil freighter.
Snyder returned to Japan in 1959 with Joanne Kyger, whom he married in February 1960. Over the next thirteen years he travelled back and forth between Japan and America, occasionally living as a monk, although without formally becoming a priest.
As mentioned in the "Allen Ginsberg" section of this essay, Snyder and Ginsberg travelled together throughout India, seeking advice from holy men.
Between 1967 and 1968 Snyder spent time living with "the Tribe" on a small island in the East China Sea, practicing back-to-the-land living. Shortly after, Snyder moved back to America and settled with his second wife – Masa Uehara – in the Sierra Nevada mountains, in Northern California. He maintained a strong interest in back-to-the-land living after returning.
Gary Snyder's poetry often reflects his relationship with the natural world. Throughout his life he worked close to the land, and in his poems we see intimate portraits of the world around him. Issues of forestry and geomorphology are frequently addressed in his poems, as well as in his essays and interviews.
In 1974 Snyder's Turtle Island won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry. "Turtle Island" is a Native American name for the North American continent, and Snyder believed that by referring to it as such, it was possible to change contemporary perceptions of the land to a more holistic, balanced viewpoint.
Mountains and Rivers Without End was published in 1996, and celebrates the inhabitation of certain places on our planet.
Today there is an incredible volume of work concerning the poetry of Gary Snyder, and it largely divides its focus between his interest in Asian culture and the environment. It is pretty much agreed, however, that the natural world and a strong sense of community have pervaded his works throughout his entire career.
Gregory Corso
The only member of the Beat Generation to have actually been born in Greenwich Village was Gregory Corso. He was the youngest of the Beats, and had an extremely tough childhood, growing up on the streets of New York without a mother and did time in both the Tombs and Clinton Correctional Facility.
He met Ginsberg in a lesbian bar in New York and was soon introduced to the rest of the Beats. In 1954 he moved to Boston and educated himself. His first book of poetry was released with the help of Harvard students.
Corso worked various jobs across America, and stayed for a while in San Francisco, performing with Kerouac and becoming a well known member of the Beats.
Between 1957 and 1958 Corso lived in Paris, where he wrote many of the poems that would make up Gasoline, which was published by City Lights. In October of 1958 he went to Rome to visit Percy Byssthe Shelley's tomb. He travelled briefly to Tangier to meet Ginsberg and Orlovsky, and brought them back to Paris to live in the Beat Hotel. In 1961 he briefly visited Greece. In February 1963 he travelled to London.
It seems that Corso came to consider Europe his home, in spite of having been born in New York. His travels there inspired him, and he spent many years living in Paris. During a return to New York he said: "It dawns upon me that my maturing years were had in Europe – and lo, Europe seems my home and [New York], a strange land."
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Ferlinghetti claimed to have been a bohemian from another era, rather than a Beat. Indeed, he isn't often viewed in the same light. He was the publisher of the Beats, more than a Beat Generation writer, and he lived a more stable life. While Ginsberg, Kerouac and co. were on the road, gaining inspiration and living their footloose lives, Ferlinghetti was mostly settled in San Francisco.
He travelled a little – going to Japan during World War II and studying in Paris after attending Columbia University. He lived in France between 1947 and 1951.
Politics and social justice were always important to Ferlinghetti, and he was active with Ginsberg in protesting and demonstrating for change. He read poetry across America, Europe and Latin America, and much of the inspiration for his work came from his travels through France, Italy, the Czech Republic, the Soviet Union, Cuba, Mexico, Chile and Nicaragua.
His poems are often political and social, but also celebrate the natural world.
Michael McClure
McClure has never been renowned for his travelling or travel writing, but rather for his depictions of nature and animal consciousness. His poems are organised organically in line with his appreciation of the purity of nature. They carry the listener (as McClure's delivery of his poems is fantastic, and often accompanied by music) to totally different place.
He first read his poetry aloud at the Six Gallery in San Francisco, and has since read at the Fillmore Ballroom, San Francisco's Human Be-in, Airlift Africa, Yale University, the Smithsonian, and the Library of Congress. He even read to an audience of lions at San Francisco Zoo. He has read all around the world, including Rome, Paris, Tokyo, London and in a Mexico City bull ring.
His travels have carried him around North America, South America, Africa and much of Asia.
Bob Kaufman
Kaufman was one of thirteen children, and at age thirteen he ran away from the chaos of his New Orleans home. He joined the Merchant Marine and spent twenty years travelling the world. It is said that in this time he circled the globe nine times.
He met Jack Kerouac and travelled to San Francisco to become a part of the poetry renaissance. He rarely wrote his poems down, preferring to read them aloud in coffee shops.
Kaufman was always more popular in France than in America, and consequently the bulk of his papers can be found in the Sorbonne, Paris. Today his written work is hard to find.
Harold Norse
Norse was born in Brooklyn and attended New York University. After graduating in 1951 Norse spent the next fifteen years travelling around Europe and North Africa.
Between 1954 and 1959 he lived and wrote in Italy. He worked on translations and used street hustlers to decode the local dialects.
In 1960 Norse moved into the Beat Hotel in Paris, with William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg and Gregory Corso. Whilst in Paris he wrote the experimental cut-up novel Beat Hotel.
Like many of the Beats, Norse travelled to Tangier after reading the work of Paul Bowles. He returned to America in 1968 to live in Los Angeles, befriending Charles Bukowski, before spending the rest of his life in San Francisco.


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Archive for August 2011
Alli Under the Gun: Tyler Hendley
Under the Gun – Allisports.com caugh up with Tyler Hendley to have him explain his tattoo of Chinese characters, money and a clock on his left forearm.
Bucky Lasek wins the Bowl Finals at the Dew Tour Portland Invitational – Portland, OR
Watch as Bucky Lasek, Pedro Barros and more compete in the Sk8board Bowl Finals.
More @allisports.com

subset: commoncrawl


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Alright, alright, alright. I have to update you very very quickly on turkey. (I only say quickly because I'm finally moving all of my euro photos to a hard drive and have to get this shit posted before then.) David and I arrived in Turkey on a night train from Sofia, Bulgaria. On that night … Continue reading Istanbul – A Supermassive Game of Frogger
Tag: Wander
Okay. Massive Update, yet again.
I'm going to try and make this really short and bullet listed so you're all caught up and I can move on to current events. Ready? Ready. Forwarning, the format will be "In (insert city/country/place), I (insert reckless behaviors/activities I participated in). In Warsaw, I was fined 30 euro by polish metro police for not … Continue reading Okay. Massive Update, yet again.
Travel Update?? – February 15th
I AM SO SORRY. LIFE GOT AWAY FROM ME FOR THE PAST COUPLE MONTHS. Okay friends. Let's do a little Ireland update. Then I'll give you the gist on everything else. I suppose it's about time to update you on what has happened the past few months. I believe the last time we talked, I … Continue reading Travel Update?? – February 15th
THE MOST EXPANSIVE TRAVEL UPDATE YET – December 21st
alrighty, here we go. I'm going to update you on 5 cities in the span of an hour bus ride. In this edition of How Is Ellen Still Alive??? we visit Prague, Budapest, Bratislava, Vienna and Munich and Dublin, meet up with a couple friendly faces, make some new friends, fall in love, find comfort in discomfort, … Continue reading THE MOST EXPANSIVE TRAVEL UPDATE YET – December 21st
Travel Update – December 5th!
Prague. I am trying, so very hard, to update you on all these cities before I leave them, but sometimes it just doesn't happen. Sorry about that. But anyway.. Prague. I was in Berlin, as you probably know. I was biding my time, wandering across the city. The usual. On Thursday night though, Tabea texted … Continue reading Travel Update – December 5th!
Travel Update – December 4th
Jesus, it's been quite a while hasn't it. Last time we talked, I was in Barcelona, curiously introspective, oddly nostalgic, fairly off balance. Today, I'm updating you from a tiny town on the border of the Czech Republic (But that's a long story, and I'm skipping ahead.). I will tell you about Berlin. Do you … Continue reading Travel Update – December 4th
How I Grew Milestones in Minutes (or Maybe Just a Few Days)
I'm writing this in Barcelona. One of my favorite cities in the world. I'm really getting better at this blogging thing, and I hope you're proud of me for it. I know I am. Today, I am a little unsure why I am writing. Maybe to kill time before I force myself to get some … Continue reading How I Grew Milestones in Minutes (or Maybe Just a Few Days)
Travel Update! – November 18th
Well. I left Seville. And went to Madrid (yet again). But you already know that from the last one. So let's talk about Madrid. The last time we talked about Madrid, I gave you a very rough impression of it. Sure it's gorgeous, but there's not a ton to do. That was about the gist, … Continue reading Travel Update! – November 18th
Travel Update! – November 16th
Hey hey hey. I am doing really well with this blogging thing. You should be proud. Last I talked to you, I was in Lisbon, headed on a bus to Sevilla, unsure of the my next move from there. I got to Sevilla early Saturday morning. Wandering the cold streets of southern spain, I was … Continue reading Travel Update! – November 16th
A Word on Fierce Independence
I was recently walking through the streets of Lisbon with Tabea when I was posed with the question "Why the hell are you so fiercely independent?" Taken back a bit, I asked what she meant by it. "It seems," she explained, "that you're so convinced that independence is the best way to live your life. … Continue reading A Word on Fierce Independence


text: We are taking Vapoosh! into the field to the home educators festival Hesfes. We will be playing in the Groovy Movie Solar Powered Cinema for a couple hours a day to find out if other people like Vapoosh! as much as we do and to have some fun making films for this website.


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|The dark cyberpunk-ish graphics give zSILENCER a nice atmosphere.
This blog is all about Free Games. Not only are they free to download, they are also Free to share, study, modify and improve! I hope to bring you the best the FOSS World has to offer gamers!
Cloud Labels
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Friday, 2 December 2016
There's just so many Free games out there to find! A quick look around for something new to write about got me zSILENCER. It's a re-created Free version of a game called Silencer, where teams of agents utilize all sorts of technology in order to find and bring home top secret information before the other team. It's sort of like a game of capture the flag, set in a 2D cybercrime setting. The premise sounds both fun and unique, and several agencies with different specializations should give multiplayer-fans something to chew on. Game stats and a list of top agents can be found on the official page, which is fun for those who feel competitive.
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Concern Worldwide, a company limited by guarantee, Registered Company Number: 39647, Registered Revenue Number: CHY 5745,
Registered Charity Number: 20009090, Registered in Ireland,
Registered address is 52 – 55 Lower Camden Street, Dublin 2.
Phone: +353 1 417 7700
Who can claim tax relief and how does it work?
Who can claim tax relief and how does it work?
If you are a self-assessed or PAYE tax payer who has donated €250 or more to Concern in the course of a tax year, Concern can claim back the tax on your donations.
This only applies to personal donations you have made and not to money raised through sponsorship. Personal donations can be in the form of one-off donations or instalments such as monthly direct debit donations.
If you donate through a corporation you can claim back tax on your donations through your corporate tax returns. If you need a copy of your donation history for a particular year please contact us on 01 4177777.


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48 Port low-latency switch and FPGA platform
MetaMux 48E is a hybrid multi-layer switch designed for the most latency critical networks such as trading environments.
It is multiple switches in one – performing layer 1 switching in only 5 ns and multiplexing/aggregation in 55 ns, making it extremely useful for connecting trading machines directly to exchanges.
MetaMux is built on the same foundation as MetaConnect, so its layer 1 features include dynamic patching, tapping, one-to-many replication, media conversion, packet stats and precise timestamping. That means that the delay on downstream packets is barely detectable.
When using aggregation, packets can be multiplexed from many to one in 55 ns assuming no congestion, otherwise the packets are queued. That is a fraction of the latency and much more deterministic, compared with the best conventional switches.
For the measured latency performance of MetaMux on the M48E, click here.
Why use MetaMux?
- Super fast multiplexing (many to one) with half the latency of the best conventional switches:
- Order entry switch with 55 ns latency (assuming no congestion);
- Layer 1 performance of MetaConnect:
- Suitable for latency critical paths with 5 ns latency port to port;
- Reconfigurable without rewiring - use as a patch panel or kill switch/circuit breaker;
- Broadcasts one to many in 5 ns;
- Ad-hoc tapping without rewiring;
- Precise timestamping of packets;
- Cost savings through the use of less expensive SFP+ and network media - e.g. convert fibre to copper;
Features and Benefits
|Fast multiplexing
|Aggregate streams from multiple sources into a single stream for hand-off to exchanges, microwave links, or WAN links. Also configurable as multiple many-to-one multiplexers.
|Integrated layer 1 switching
|Patching, media conversion, tapping replication and packet statistics. Wire-once to reduce visits to the data center. Use Layer 1 broadcast to implement a return path with a latency of just 5 ns and virtually no jitter.
|Replaces taps to monitor or share feeds such as market-data with full regeneration and no additional overhead.
|Flexible SFP/SFP+ support
|Allows the use of less expensive modules, including direct attached copper cables, that are boosted by MetaMux's high performance signal recovery and regeneration.
|Protocol flexibility
|Protocol agnostic at layer 1 while layer 2 packet features support 1GbE and 10GbE with 100M. 100M Ethernet and rate conversion are planned for a future software release.
Packet statistics
Advanced monitoring. Captures high-level packet statistics across all ports. Supports detailed switch statistics via SNMP or CLI. Provides tcpdump and LLDP on every port.
FPGA Development
Flexible platform with all 48 ports connected to the onboard Xilinx® Ultrascale™ or Ultrascale+ FPGA(s) for custom applications.
x86-64 Linux management
|Uses open standards platform and MOS operating software to provide user extensible solutions.
Layer 1
- 5 ns latency with virtually no jitter
- Non-blocking matrix switching fabric
- SFP/SFP+ ports from 100M-11.3Gbps
- Bit-for-bit forwarding for any protocol
- Unlimited port-to-port mirroring with regeneration
- Multiple independent links through the device are supported at different
- High performance signal recovery, regeneration and conditioning (EDC on input,
CDR on input and output)
- Integrated, 160-port, layer 1 switch connects front panel ports, multiplexing module and management platform
- Configurable as multiple many-to-one multiplexers
- Packet statistics without affecting the 5 ns layer 1 performance
- Precise packet timestamping
- Packet capture
- Filtering (future software release)
Cable Compatibility
- Compatible with SR, LR, ZR and LRM SFP/SFP+ modules and
direct attach cables
- Drive any MSA compliant SFP/SFP+ module
- Works with long list of third-party SFP/SFP+ modules (see FAQ)
- 100M,1GbE, 10GbE and many others
Redundancy & Data Center
- 1 rack unit (1RU)
- Dual redundant, hot-swappable power supplies (DS460S)
- Dual redundant, hot-swappable fans
- Fan and power supply replacement kits are available
- Front-to-back or back-to-front air flow
- Packet statistics captured on every port (valid packets, invalid packets, link state)
- Eye diagram for monitoring and troubleshooting signal quality
- Front panel LEDs for port activity and status
- Ports can be "sniffed" via the management system
- Precise timestamping without additional latency (via port tapping - see use cases
for more details) or on egress port at approximately 300ns for non-latency critical paths
- Fully managed SFP+ interface diagnostics including light levels, temperature and voltages
Management Platform
- Quad-core, hyperthreaded x86-64 CPU
- 4GB RAM, on-board SSD
- Industry standard command line interface (serial/SSH/telnet)
- Web-based GUI
- Linux based (shells, scripting, Python, RPMs etc.)
- Binary compatibility with other x86-64 based Linux systems
- Firmware restore and update via USB, serial and network
- A future software release will provide a switch subsystem API and allow user applications to run in a VM
management Protocols
- HTTP/S, SSH, telnet
- Serial console
- SNMP v1, v2, v3
- Network boot via TFTP*
- Local and remote syslog
- RADIUS and TACAS+ authentication
*Available in a future software release
operating environment
- Temperature: 0°C to 40°C
- Humidity: 10% to 85%, non-condensing
- Maximum altitude: 3000m (9800ft)
physical and electrical
- Dimensions (h x w x d): 4.3 x 44.8 x 37.9cm (1.7 x 17.6 x 14.9in)
- Weight: ~8kg (17.6lbs), depending on configuration
- Maximum power: 290W
- AC voltage range: 100-240V, AC frequency: 50/60Hz
- DC voltage range: 40-72V
Front View
Rear View
ultra low-latency switch and FPGA platform


text:
Francisco Chronicle
Web-apalooza: There's been a whole lot of socializing in the Web community of late.
Last Thursday evening, for instance, the inaugural meeting of San Francisco Women on the Web (http://www.sfwow.org) drew a crowd of several dozen to the Macromedia Building in San Francisco. Organizers Valerie Hoecke, of the San Francisco Web design firm Fire Engine Red, and Cyd Harrell, of Charles Schwab & Co., said some 300 women have already joined SFWow's mailing list, which targets women whose jobs revolve around the Web.
And both (or should we say all genders) are invited to the Transmission Theatre in San Francisco tomorrow night for the Geekapalooza, a party put on by the Bay Area chapters of the Association of Internet Professionals.
You still may be able to get $7 advance tickets, but if you're too late, what the heck: Dye your hair purple and spend $10 to get a ticket at the door.
The 'Palooza will air an eight-minute trailer of "GirlGeeks?," a documentary-in-the-making that its producers - Kristine Hanna and Peter Crosby of Sausalito - hope to get on the air next April in conjunction with "Take our Daughters to Work Day."
Thus far, "GirlGeeks?" has focused on better-known women like industry analyst Esther Dyson, Marimba chief executive Kim Polese, network industry executive Judy Estrin (now of Cisco) and Katrina (tres decolletage) Garnett of CrossWorlds.
But the producers plan to set up a camera at the 'Palooza to ask women in the tech field their feelings about working in a male-dominated arena.
"The whole purpose of the documentary is to find out how women view this (geek) label," Hanna said.
Among the women already filmed, the attitudes range from Polese's pride in wearing the label, to Estrin's comment that after being named "geek of the week" in a Silicon Valley publication, her mother sent her a dictionary entry that identified a geek as "a carnival performer who rips the heads off chickens."
©1998 San Francisco Chronicle


text:
Provide care for Jack, who is brought to the emergency department by his dad.
The National Prescribing Curriculum (NPC) is a series of interactive case-based modules that encourage confident and rational prescribing. The modules follow a stepwise approach as outlined in the WHO's Guide to Good Prescribing.
In this module you will provide care for Jack, who is brought to the emergency department by his dad.
Learning objectives
- Determine patient signs and symptoms which suggest the need for antibiotic treatment of acute otitis media, while also being mindful of when antibiotics are not indicated.
- Where antibiotic treatment is required, choose an appropriate antibiotic to cover the most likely causative organisms.
- Write a safe and complete prescription using the safety features of the paediatric National Inpatient Medication Chart.
- Adequately communicate the proposed treatment plan and potential medicine-related adverse effects to the child's parent(s) or carer(s) and the healthcare team.
- Develop an appropriate plan for monitoring a child's response to therapy, including indications for escalating care.


text:
The Fuller Brush Salesman
The Fuller Brush salesman came by today, late. Engaged his spiel
with the charm of the smile of a snake. Bared teeth, weaseling words.
I'm not in the mood to listen. And I've no need for his brushes. Got
enough already, I have. But, I stand here and listen anyway in my
pink fluffy house slippers, bought by m'husband last year. Them with the Mickey
Mouse eyes popping out in disbelief. My arms are akimbo. The stockings
I have on are old. But he'll not notice while he's all carried away.
Water's on the stove. It's not boiling yet. I have to wait awhile anyway.
May as well. Jake's supper is in the oven as usual. I think this pinnie's
clean. Neighbours notice things like that. Fussy, nosey too. You see
the squint in their eyes, the bitches.
Jake's sure to be at the pub as he usually is, roll home around ten after
ten when they close. He won't be drunk. That's all right.
He's probably talking to that fancy girl of his, instead of his mates.
What he sees in her … buggered if I know.
"Just a minute," I tell him.
I've just had a thought. That floosie of his, we'll fix that.
"Be back in a mo'." Stove off, I scuttle back, quick as a flash.
"Why don't you shut up and come inside.
"I'll show you the brushes I've got and you tell me which one's I need to
throw away."
He's shut up but he hasn't shut his mouth He kinda stares, the fool. I'll
be quick. Plenty of time though. Still, wouldn't want to be with this
fella all night.
"Shut the door behind you. Close it firm, mind."
Jake's got charm right enough he has. This man's a nut. Still, twenty, no, make
it thirty, that'll be enough. Then 'll send him packing. Make sure he takes his
brushes. No telling …
He's in the lobby. Waiting f'me to tell 'im what to do next.
For once I didn't look up and down the street to see any of them nosey parkers are
peeking out. Fucking bitches, fuck them … Probably jealous. Serves them right. They
ain't got my looks.
"Follow me up," Pads behind me like a dog as I climb the stairs.
Malcolm D B Munro
Saturday 7 May, 2016


text:
We're raising £60,000 to Stage 2- Declaration of Faith #Walk2York Walking the cross, moving the coss & being moved by the cross Lent 2019 Please consider joining us
- Malmesbury, UK
What is crowdfunding?
Crowdfunding is a new type of fundraising where you can raise funds for your own personal cause, even if you're not a registered charity.
The page owner is responsible for the distribution of funds raised.
Walk with us
We successfully undertook our missional voyage circumnavigating the UK under sail during 2018. We sought to emulate the visits of the Celtic Saints which created the basis of the nation which subsequently became the United Kingdom. We set out to voyage, hearing the stories of men and women in small boats whilst listening to modern society.
We sought answers to todays problems and found questions.
The next stage of the our three stage project is Declaration.
One thing that came from our voyage was how empowering it was to others to see mission underway and Christ being openly discussed.
Each port we visited was challenged to pick up their cross and relay it to the next church until it eventually finishes in York for Holy Thursday, 18th April 2019.
We are hoping people will pick up their cross and join us.
To lead this Andy will be departing Malmesbury with a full size cross with the intention of walking it all the way to York, around 200 miles.
Why Do We Need Financial Help?
There are three reasons why we need money for this project
Missio Dei
Missio Dei
Missio Dei
We seek to declare our faith and did so during 2018.
The boat used was left damaged after a crew member flooded it on two occasions and there has been physical damage to the interior. Much of this we hope to resolve by using our own labour but it is likely that the lack of repairs undertaken, due to the under funding of the project, will see the charity under a moral obligation to put things back into good order. This isn't likely to be a huge sum of money but it will be a few thousand pounds.
We are massively underfunded for what we have achieved and what we hope to achieve. We stepped out into faith and God stepped in with tangible support, including those kind donations we received plus the love and payers of thousands.
For Walk to York we would like to make is as fully inclusive as possible. That includes making it accessible for those less able who would like to engage. If someone reading this can't give funds, then offers to help with organising, web support, fund raising, letter writing etc will all be a blessing.
We hope to set up an interactive system whereby folk can track different crosses as they converge on York and also where by folk can use their mobile device or fitness tracker to walk with us from home.
Folk not wishing to walk due to time constraints can consider taking a pocket sized St Brigid's cross to York, the design of which will appear shortly on our web site. This makes it accessible for people travelling by car, motorbike, cycle, running, walking and skipping.
Below is the information sent out in early 2018 regarding the formation of Navigators of Faith.
Your support and interest is a real blessing, thank you.The Birth of Navigators of Faith
'Navigators of Faith' is a term that includes everyone.….even those of us who have consciously decided to have no faith in God will have navigated their course to arrive at this personal position.
We co-exist within a modern society that is being stretched like a party balloon attached to an oversize pump. All around us we can see a society that can at times be amazingly empathetic or alternatively cold and heartless. The core consistencies that were seen as the moral core of the United Kingdom appear today to be nebulous and hazy.
At the same time our society is facing huge changes. The European referendum has emboldened half of our population whilst at the same time it has alienated the other half. Homelessness is an increasingly apparent problem on our streets and only recently the pressured NHS has been discussing drunk tanks for young woman to sleep off their drunken weekends in comparative safety. The country that pioneered the abolition of the slave trade is suffering an epidemic of modern slavery, our environment is killing thousands through air pollution in our cities whilst the gig economy appears to be reducing the protections afforded to our general working population.
Outside of our borders the world population is suffering a bigger displacement of human beings than that which occurred during World War Two. Our media is making money scaremongering on the threats of terrorism and immigration whilst trust in politicians has diminished to the lowest it has ever been since the Reform Act of 1832. We are assailed with information that is seen as potentially fake news whilst the idea of truth has been removed with the definition of 'post truth'.
What does it mean to be British today? What response can be made to our current context?
In 2015 a senior religious educator from the Church of England and a businessman, sat in the upper room of a college in Bristol, England. On the wall was a picture of the "James Caird', the small lifeboat Ernest Shackleton used to reach help by sailing from Elephant Island to South Georgia after the loss of the exploration vessel 'Endurance'. This was to start a conversation about the sea, what it is to be male and to have faith in the United Kingdom today. The educator challenged, the businessman fenced and slowly, over many months, the conversation swung around to the Franciscan friars and Celtic saints. They agreed to sail together from Cardiff to Bristol and during that voyage evolved a mutual disquiet, both about modern society but also about faith. In discussing the Celtic saints they came to realise that there were potential similarities between the loss of national identity, the story of who people were, after Rome finally withdrew circa 410AD, and todays modern Britain. In sensing this possibility they decided to voyage out and ask the question, following it to wherever the answers guided them. Neither knew how they would do it or if it was achievable but they set out to achieve it anyway. In doing this the small charity, Navigators of Faith, came into being, initially focused on a single voyage around the UK in 2018.
The simple aim was to sail around the United Kingdom and in so doing to start a conversation about the origins of Christian faith arriving on the British shores, hoping to bring communities together in a national discussion about who we, the British, are.
In 410AD the British isles was embraced by the arrival of the Gospels and the bravery of the Celtic saints who declared them. Thousands of these 'Peregrini', (literally wandering pilgrims), flew across the British Isles using the sea routes to gain access. They went out to create ripples that inspired a wave of change and that wave laid down the bedrock of the nation that we were to become.
What answers for modern Britain lie in the history and experience of the Celtic saints?
During the period from 410AD through to 590AD this faith based culture was Celtic. Celtic Christianity was based on a mix of the Gospel message and the experience of one of the most stable cultures the World has seen. The Celtic sphere of influence is now being rewritten to encompass a period from before 3000BC and it may well extend back to the Indo-European migration of around 6000BC. This was a culture based on international trade and equality. Strongly matriarchal and accepting of the spiritual side of human nature, Celtic Christianity offered a distinct difference to that promoted by Rome, which became dominant after the Council of Whitby in 664AD.
Modern Britain is a vibrant mix of cultures and accepting of other faiths and beliefs within the supposedly secular society model. However it would appear that secularism has no real purpose beyond separating discourse apart from religion. It sets out to diminish and lose the colour of different religious beliefs with the expectation that neutral equality will result. In Navigators of Faith, we believe that all beliefs have a right to be listened to and we note that that when this occurs, there is a huge similarity between the different train of thoughts involved across all parties, including atheism. This is not something that becomes immediately apparent from the media or general preconceptions in society where Christians are seen as potential war mongers or against gay rights and Muslims are viewed as terrorists. Similarly Hindus are portrayed as being in conflict with other faiths and even more alarmingly there have been attacks on the Jewish communities. Navigators of Faith believe that by engaging with all faiths, and those who are agnostic or atheist, we can record the stories of individual journeys in a way that promotes social cohesion.
What can we learn from listening to people?
We want to celebrate an aspect of our rich past, specifically our Celtic culture. The Celts believed in enjoying life. They were an oral culture, using memory to maintain their social record. They loved art and poetry and the telling of stories that enthralled their communities. Music was as much a part of this as it is today. So we want our visits to be fun. As we come in from the sea, we will be asking communities to organise Celtic themed events for the visit, put on art festivals, poetry and all that jazz. We will also offer to hold debates about subjects that are potentially of interest. We already have such an event sponsored for Morecambe Bay on modern slavery and we will seek to discuss faith, politics, sexual orientation, truth and other interesting topics at different ports.
So why does the project need money?
We are hoping to engage with around six million people around the UK. Many of these will be direct contacts as we visit, others through the media and online through social media. We started out as two people with an open invite for anybody to apply to come and join the crew for stages, regardless of their faith, race, sexuality or gender. We have access to a sailing vessel and we will attempt the voyage. We are very aware that the success of the voyage will depend upon the vessel being in a condition to complete it, allowing for breakages, the unforeseen etc. We also need to add equipment to ensure it is as safe as we can make it. There is risk involved but we would like to minimise that where possible.
So far we have managed to get to this point using our own funds and the goodwill of a few good people who can see the validity and potential behind the project.
We need to raise at least £15,000 to complete this current voyage around the UK including the basics of undertaking minimal maintenance. To make the voyage more secure requires an investment that is nearer £30,000. This will allow for some major changes, such as having updated navigation systems etc. As we look ahead, we are seeking £60,000 to allow for future voyages so the project can be ongoing. This is why we are setting ourselves up as a charity. We also have interest in the potential educational value of the venture and the huge amount of information that it has the potential to collate. Today nobody is being paid to be involved and all money raised will go into the actual voyages and the equipment used to allow them to occur, be recorded etc.
Future Voyages
In our research we identified St Brendan and his voyage from Ireland to Newfoundland circa 500AD. This was ably demonstrated to be feasible by the author and adventurer Tim Severin in 1976 who recreated this right down to rebuilding a 36ft leather boat. On this initial voyage we will sail around the United Kingdom but we have outline discussions in process for future voyages where we are considering taking the Gospel back to America via an Atlantic crossing or to follow St Paul's journeys heading towards Syria.
For 2019 we are asking the 60 churches we visit to pick up their cross and join us to walk to York for Good Friday 2019. That is not an easy challenge, but being a Christian in our modern society is not an easy calling. Will you have people in your congregation who are up to the challenge? What ever the response, three churches have already signed up, laying the basis for people travelling by foot, carrying the symbol of our faith and engaging in conversations on route. Could we all become Navigators of Faith?
Your contribution, now matter how small, will help facilitate this.
If you cannot contribute financially then there are many other ways you can help support us. We need local people to get involved with art events, interfaith requests, if you are a believer prayer, a long list of areas folk can get involved, including going the crew for legs or taking part in organised debates on a wide range of subjects. Please email email@example.com to receive a list
Our web site can be viewed by clicking this link below
All photographs used have been acquired under a stated common license. There is no intention to breach anybodies copyright. Should this occur in error please highlight this to us and we will immediately remove any image posted by mistake.
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- 1 year ago
Andy Carnegie1 year ago
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- 1 year ago
Andy Carnegie1 year ago
Several of the issues with the boat are now in hand. We are on track to have her ready for mid April. Letters have gone to various celebs asking for letters of support We have survivors of the cockling tragedy coming to Morecambe Bay to talk about Modern Slavery & their faith Two Falkland war veterans have agreed to talk about their war experience & faith on the battlefield. Also talks on environment & politics Come to the sending out service Holy Trinity Hotwells, 10th May 2018 12:00 Thank you for your support, it is really appreciated
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Leave a message of support
David Smith
Sep 4, 2018
Blessed are those whose strength is in you, who have set their hearts on pilgrimage. Psalm 84 v5 [niv]
Aug 16, 2018
Supporting you in your commitment to this project and desire to see it completed
Jennifer Impey
Aug 14, 2018
Jul 23, 2018
Jul 22, 2018
Jul 22, 2018
Robin Trew
Jul 20, 2018
Burn camino. Hope to meet soon.
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About the fundraiser
Andy Carnegie
Malmesbury, UK
Andrew Entrepreneur, innovator, adventurer & poet, shaken out of corporate comfort into exploring faith Planning to walk from Malmesbury to York with a full size cross Lent 2019 Howard Vicar & senior educator of priests, exploring current interface between faith & society


text:
Michigan defensive tackle Maurice Hurst talks about the possibility of adding transfers from Ole Miss. Angelique S. Chengelis, Detroit News
Ann Arbor — With three potential Ole Miss football transfers reportedly visiting Michigan this weekend, outgoing UM defensive lineman Maurice Hurst said the Wolverines should embrace the competition.
Shea Patterson, the No. 1 quarterback in the 2016 recruiting class, will be visiting Michigan, along with Ole Miss teammates Deontay Anderson, a safety, and receiver Van Jefferson. Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh was in Oxford, Miss., earlier in the week and reportedly met with the players who are exploring transfer options in light of Ole Miss' latest NCAA sanctions that include missing another bowl next season.
Hurst said Thursday he has no issues adding transfers.
"I think it's always a good thing to have sort of competition," Hurst said. "I've always been one to believe that competition brings out the best in everyone. I think that's kind of where Coach Harbaugh is probably going with this. He's probably thinking that I can bring in some great players from Ole Miss, kinda guys that have already sort of proven themselves.
"They'll be a great addition to the team. It's just adding another great dimension to a team that's already pretty good."
More: UM, Notre Dame to open in prime-time in 2018
More: UM's Maurice Hurst may skip Outback Bowl
While the transfers don't affect Hurst, he was asked what it would mean for, say, the quarterbacks with Patterson potentially joining the team. Redshirt freshman Brandon Peters, who is the No. 1 quarterback in bowl preparations, made three starts late in the season but suffered a concussion in the Wisconsin game and missed the Ohio State game. Freshman Dylan McCaffrey is redshirting this year.
Wilton Speight, who won the starting job the last two seasons, has decided transfer, as has backup quarterback Alex Malzone.
"I feel like for football, you shouldn't let your feelings get hurt," Hurst said. "If you have someone coming in and they're better than you and they play over you, then they're better than you. That's just what it is. I think it's always competition. If you're the best quarterback you're going to play, if you're the best running back you're going to play. You're the best D-lineman, you're going to play. That's sort of how things go."
Senior linebacker Mike McCray said that like any recruit coming in, transfers have to compete for jobs and no one should feel threatened.
"You can't worry about the next guy coming in or coming from a different school," McCray said. "You can only control what you can control."
McCray said he has only seen a bit of the coverage of the potential Ole Miss transfers and understands why they would want to land in Ann Arbor.
"They want to come to one of the best schools in the nation," he said. "I can't knock them for it. It's going to be good competition for our team and help the team improve as well."


text:
Archives 2017-09-02
home / archives 2017-09-02
Two bedroom houses gorgeous modular container up. Bedroom design ideas for girls furniture year old
Awsome bedrooms biggest bedroom in the world tour
Kids in bag seventeen curtains bedding like urban outfitters small.
Ladies bed interior womens bedroom ideas for small rooms
Bedroom inspired small design ideas on budget of remodeled full.
Furnisher bed farnichar design
Hanging bedroom furniture sets bunk beds argos interior design cool year ideas kushirotowncom.
Ikea bedroom furniture set white
Bedroom inspired homestar extra planetarium laser twilight projector djme wedding dj music rental.
Bedrooms for teenage guys bedroom furniture with desks
Crate and barrel design service west elm pottery lamps.


text:
The 2013 MMDC mission trip is scheduled for December 4-6. This is a great opportunity for adults to experience a mission work trip. Watch here for more details.
MMDC collects, prepares, and ships disaster relief materials and medical and educational supplies to people throughout the world who are recovering from floods, fires, earthquakes, tornadoes, and hurricanes. Work activities performed at the center include sewing school bags or children's hospital gowns; sorting and packing health kits, cleaning buckets, or Layette kits; constructing school desks; preparing and loading items for shipment; and doing office paperwork.
MMDC is in urgent need of CLEANING BUCKET SUPPLIES. Any supplies you can donate will be greatly appreciated.
* 5 gallon bucket with re-sealable lid
* 50 clothes pins
* 7 sponges
* 1 scrub brush
* 5 scouring pads (not steel wool)
* 18 cleaning towels (reusable wipes)
* Dish soap, 16 to 28 oz. bottle
* Clothes line (two 50 ft. or one 100 ft.)
* 5 dust masks (disposable) (sealed in a bag)
* 1 can air freshener (aerosol or pump)
* 1 pair work gloves (leather palm necessary)
* Liquid laundry detergent (two 25 oz. or one 50 oz bottle)
* 1 household cleaner, 12 to 16 oz. bottle — that can be mixed in water (no spray bottles)
* 2 pair disposable waterproof gloves (rubber or latex acceptable)
* 1 insect repellent spray (not killer), 6 to 14 oz. can (aerosol spray or pump with protective cover)
* 24-bag roll of heavy duty trash bags, 33-45 gallon
Please make sure all items are new and the correct size. If they are not the correct size, they are unusable. Items can be placed in boxes in the Church Narthex.
If you have questions about the trip, please email firstname.lastname@example.com. For more information about MMDC, please visit their website at www.midwestmissiondc.org.


text:
A man trying to throw an intoxicated reveler out of a New Year's party in Odenton was stabbed in the leg early Sunday, according to Anne Arundel County police.
Michael A. Daniels, 26, of Washington, was arrested and charged with first- and second-degree assault and reckless endangerment. The victim, who was not identified, was taken to Maryland Shock Trauma Center, but police said his injuries did not appear to be life-threatening.
Police said the incident occurred about 3:30 a.m in a house in the 300 block of Cowman Court. Officers found a 26-year-old man who said he was stabbed "while trying to remove an intoxicated person" from the house.
A police spokesman identified the suspect as the intoxicated man.


text:
Chaos Sepher
Gallery Volunteer
- Mar 2, 2008
- 4,124
- 495
- 33
.... IS SHE SERIOUS?! *chalks down negative mark to Dragon society* >:(
I... I just can't even begin to express the number of ways this kind of backwards societal racism cheeses me off. And light dragons are the ones with healing powers right?! Why in their goddesses name wouldn't they show the kind of same care and power to anyone else? Just... I CAN'T EVEN... >_<


text:
I am a girl born in Pakistan where cultural values are too much. I had an accidental encounter with a nice man and went in relation with him. Then my parents wanted me to marry someone else. I was worried that if my husband came to know, that I am not virgin then what will happen. I searched on the internet and found Amin clinic run by a qualified plastic surgeon Dr. Mughese Amin. I contacted him by message and got a quick response. He reassured me about the results and my privacy. I went to his clinic in Bahawalpur. His clinic is a beautifully set hospital only doing cosmetic procedures. I was given a room. A girl attendant attended me all the time except in operation theater where along with female staff there was an anesthetist who was supposed to take care of my local anesthesia and sedation and Dr. Amin to perform the surgery. It was a 30-minute procedure and then I was shifted to my room and then discharged after 2 hours. It was very safe and my privacy was fully assured. I was very tense on my 1st night of marriage. I had bleeding on my 1st night. It was such a relief that I cannot tell. It was an excellent experience totally pain-free and safe. I was treated like a VIP. My privacy and secrecy were made sure. I am 100 percent satisfied.
I was type 7 bald and looking for a good clinic in Pakistan. I came across a few patients of Dr. Mughese Amin. I contacted them. I had a hair transplant from Dr Mughese Amin and I think he is the best surgeon in Pakistan. I was type 7 bald but with a good donor area. He said 3000 grafts is possible, but at the end they got 3453 grafts which is very encouraging and they filled my whole head. It is now one year post transplant with some excellent results
Very good