The plot of "Morning Spy, Evening Spy" is incredibly complex, and the book's large cast is, at times, a bit unwieldy. However, the strength of the story lies in the MacKinnon's insightful exploration of several key themes: Why did America's intelligence community fail to thwart the 9/11 hijackers? Does the CIA's penchant for secrecy go so far that its policies actually harm the people whom they are sworn to protect? How does a CIA officer, who is forced to lie frequently and keep secrets from his colleagues and family, survive emotionally?

There is a telling passage in which Paul chats with his friend, a Pakistani journalist named Amjad Afridi. Afridi tells Paul what is wrong with the CIA: "I sometimes think that you cannot see the living, breathing reality in front of your faces or the dangers that lurk just off to the side..." Afridi believes that the American intelligence community is in a state of denial. Furthermore, Afridi insists, the failure of America's leaders to come to terms with the truth about Islam, terrorism, and their own mistakes and shortcomings will hurt them badly someday. These words prove to be eerily prescient. Colin Mackinnon's "Morning Spy, Evening Spy" is a powerful and stunning indictment of a bureaucracy that has outlived its usefulness and has not kept pace with a geopolitical climate that is irrevocably different from the one that prevailed during the cold war years.

I picked this up expecting a crap spy novel. It is so much more. A powerful book that will piss you off.

Amazon.com: Morning Spy, Evening Spy: Colin MacKinnon: Books

Entourage is back, Sept. 7. This is my favorite show since the early Sopranos. If you missed seasons 1-3, watch them. This show makes you feel like you are there living the hollywood life. Its lots of fun. And Jeremy Piven is amazing as Ari.

HBO: Entourage

Inexpert though I am in all other fields, I am a connoisseur of sleep. Actually, my speciality is not sleep itself, but the hinterland of sleep, the point of entry to unconsciousness.

The great delight was in deferring sleep, hovering on the edge, pulling myself back to the same point in the story and trying to move it along, but always dropping off, hanging by the story-thread, the fingertips losing their grip but managing to haul back to the tale on the waking side of the world. The trick was to sustain my stay in the no man’s land for as long as possible, knowing all the while that I would inevitably, sooner or later, lose my grip on consciousness.

Later, you can remember or feel, but the only actual experience of sleep is not-knowing. And not knowing thrills me – retrospectively or in anticipation, of course. That one has the capacity to be not here while being nowhere else. To be in the grip of unconsciousness, and consciously to lose consciousness to that grip.

Far away, so close:

"Being in the water alone, surfing, sharpens a particular kind of concentration, an ability to agree with the ocean, to react with a force that is larger than you are."

If Schnabel is a surfer in the sense of knowing how to skim existence for its wonders, he is also a surfer in the more challenging sense of wanting to see where something bigger than himself, or the unknown, will take him, even with the knowledge that he might not come back from the trip.

To be truly challenging, a voyage, like a life, must rest on a firm foundation of financial unrest. Otherwise you are doomed to a routine traverse, the kind known to yachtsmen, who play with their boats at sea--"cruising", it is called. Voyaging belongs to seamen, and to the wanderers of the world who cannot, or will not, fit in. If you are contemplating a voyage and you have the means, abandon the venture until your fortunes change. Only then will you know what the sea is all about.

... What does a man need---really need? A few pounds of food each day, heat and shelter, six feet to lie down in---and some form of working activity that will yield a sense of accomplishment. That's all---in the material sense.

... Where, then, lies the answer? In choice. Which shall it be: bankruptcy of purse or bankruptcy of life?

From earlier today:

I honestly believe that for my startup(s), the personal edge I gain from swimming or surfing in the ocean every day in a small town in Florida is larger than any advantage I got by living in Atlanta.

Diary, by Jenny Diski | LRB

On August 7th 1974, a young Frenchman named Philippe Petit stepped out on a wire illegally rigged between New York's twin towers, then the world’s tallest buildings. After nearly an hour dancing on the wire, he was arrested, taken for psychological evaluation, and brought to jail before he was finally released. James Marsh’s documentary brings Petit’s extraordinary adventure to life through the testimony of Philippe himself, and some of the co-conspirators who helped him create the unique and magnificent spectacle that became known as “the artistic crime of the century.”

Man On Wire

I wrote: "I can't think of a nicer place to sit this spring over a glass of rosé and watch the boys and girls in the street outside smiling gaily to each other, and wondering where to go for a nosh." It appeared as: "I can't think of a nicer place to sit this spring over a glass of rosé and watch the boys and girls in the street outside smiling gaily to each other, and wondering where to go for nosh."

There is no length issue. This is someone thinking, "I'll just remove this indefinite article because Coren is an illiterate cunt and i know best."

Well, you fucking don't. This was shit, shit subediting for three reasons.

...

3) And worst of all. Dumbest, deafest, shittest of all, you have removed the unstressed "a" so that the stress that should have fallen on "nosh" is lost, and my piece ends on an unstressed syllable. When you're winding up a piece of prose, metre is crucial. Can't you hear? Can't you hear that it is wrong? It's not fucking rocket science. It's fucking pre-GCSE scansion. I have written 350 restaurant reviews for The Times and i have never ended on an unstressed syllable. Fuck. fuck, fuck, fuck.

Very funny letter by Giles Coren to his sub-editor about the removal of 'a' from one of his sentences in an article.

'I have never ended on an unstressed syllable!' | Media | The Guardian

The James Gang's MySpace Page

MySpace.com - THE JAMES GANG *TRY TO COMPUTE THE DATA* - NEW YORK, New York - Pop / Soul / Showtunes - www.myspace.com/thejamesgangmusic

Very original hip-hop shenanigans - the James Gang.

YouTube - The James Gang - America's Got Talent 2008

Art of the How-To Video

Art of the How-To Video

Do you encounter useless Flash intros to company websites? Of course you do. Do you have a product or service that you'd like to explain on your website? Of course you do. Then you should take a look at how Start Cooking explains its recipes with stop-action photography that's more impressive than an Flash intro I've seen. Say, for example, you wanted to learn how to make teriyaki beef from a Japanese recipe passed down through the ages. Then watch this video debut of my culinary career.

Sun Small and Medium Business - Guy Kawasaki on Innovations

By Theory
Transformus is the fruition of the ideas of many people, and continues to evolve each year as more become involved... and it will continue to evolve well past that, we hope. Transformus is defined by what the community makes it. That said, it did come from somewhere. Here's that story, in brief. In the fall of 2003 a few good souls started meeting and planning a festival based on ideas brought home from an arts festival they went to in the desert, the music festival scene, and the progressive conference/workshop circuit. In the spring of 2004, an open call was put out on some email lists, and a diverse group of talent converged on the Deerfields land to walk, talk, and dream about what a place called Mysteria could be. From that meeting, seven people stepped up to the plate and committed to making this thing happen, putting up their personal time, energy, and money to the concept. Those 7 were: Wordplay, ChwDog, Debra, Rhythm, Uncle Jonah, Vic Diesel, & Theory. Since then numerous people have given time, sweat & tears to make Transformus happen.

A fun southeastern Burn.

Transformus: The Southeast Regional Burn

Whatever the case, it was only days into the exposition before Alpha — maddened with sexual desire — broke out of the Palace of Science in search of the Nudist Queen. He found her in Balboa Park. There, he spent the day pleasing her and her constabulary of bronzed, buxom subjects. The photograph above was taken at the end of that day, and even though Alpha’s creator had never programmed him to feel joy, you can clearly see the curl of a smile somehow suffuse the sparkle-spitting slit of his oblong mechanical mouth. Alpha is the luckiest robot who ever lived.

There's some boobs here, but it ain't porn. Amazing explanation of the robot/neked pic from the 30s.

ECTOPLASMOSIS! » Alpha the Robot Meets Zorine, Queen of the Nudists