You are currently browsing the daily archive for June 25, 2008.
Visited the library at the Barbados Museum today. Met a volunteer librarian, who was really nice. I had a quick look around, but couldn’t get much of an idea of the holdings. They are trying to recruit a new librarian at the moment and I am looking into the possibility.
I glanced through Wild Majesty, an anthology of reports of encounters with the Carib Indians from Columbus to the present by Peter Hulme (who taught me at Essex University) and Neil Whitehead. I read the extracts by Jean Rhys and Patrick Leigh Fermor and looked at the section on Douglas Taylor who sounds very interesting. I wonder if any of his works are available as full view on Google Books?
I just checked and the answer seems to be no, mostly it’s articles by him in ‘snippet view’. But I did find a ‘full view’ copy of one of Walter Roth‘s book on Guiana Indians here. I am rapidly becoming addicted to Google Books and Gutenberg. I only wish I could afford an ebook reader like the Iliad. As it is though I am reading in depth rather than in breadth, as the books I have are few. There are strong advantages to this, so perhaps for now I am better off.
I got this news off Jeff Vandermeer‘s superlative site. Now, according to the publisher, it seems that Vance himself will be writing a preface. Can’t wait.
I’m going to start including what I’m reading, love reading and plan to read on this site as it seems pertinent to the subject matter.
The illustration is by the ridiculously talented Tom Kidd. It really captures the ambience of baroque ruin, a rare quality.
This is a quick, roughly edited video I put together for a track I produced in Garageband.
In fact, the title is somewhat misleading as it only really shows North Point, in very low-fi footage, the ruined jetty at Pebbles Beach and the road to Cherry Tree Hill, near St Nicholas Abbey. The tunnel of mahogany trees there and the view as you crest the hill is stupendous, particularly the gnarled cherry tree forest (acerolas) that crawls towards the south and looks like something out of Jack Vance.
There seems to be an error in the middle where the credits repeat themselves, but no matter. I intend to improve my editing skills, in fact I could hardly fail to, but I do like the music. I’m working on a remix of it, cutting some of the beats and improving the atmosphere and space within it. It evolved from one of the presets that came with Native Instruments free Kore Player, which is marvellous. I’d love to be able to splash out on some of the (not free) sound packs.
iTunes now has a university site where you can get podcasts of lectures in video and audio formats.
I will be reporting on any of the courses I do and enjoy.
I’ve been reading up on how to improve the blog, generate ‘traffic’ etc. This is a good site with lots of clear and practical advice. In particular, I read up on how to use AdSense and there is an excellent set of instructions, in eight parts, starting here. Even though it was posted back in 2004 it still seems eminently relevant. Inspiring stuff, as I really want to keep this blog going and make it more useful for other people.
In fact, I’ve just set up an account with Feedburner and it reveals the supremely motivating information that I have 0 subscribers and – readers…
Well at least I read this blog, so that’s one already! Their stats are way off.
Visited the library at the Barbados Museum today. Met a volunteer librarian, who was really nice. I had a quick look around, but couldn’t get much of an idea of the holdings. They are trying to recruit a new librarian at the moment and I am looking into the possibility.
I glanced through Wild Majesty, an anthology of reports of encounters with the Carib Indians from Columbus to the present by Peter Hulme (who taught me at Essex University) and Neil Whitehead. I read the extracts by Jean Rhys and Patrick Leigh Fermor and looked at the section on Douglas Taylor who sounds very interesting. I wonder if any of his works are available as full view on Google Books?
I just checked and the answer seems to be no, mostly it’s articles by him in ‘snippet view’. But I did find a ‘full view’ copy of one of Walter Roth‘s book on Guiana Indians here. I am rapidly becoming addicted to Google Books and Gutenberg. I only wish I could afford an ebook reader like the Iliad. As it is though I am reading in depth rather than in breadth, as the books I have are few. There are strong advantages to this, so perhaps for now I am better off.
I got this news off Jeff Vandermeer‘s superlative site. Now, according to the publisher, it seems that Vance himself will be writing a preface. Can’t wait.
I’m going to start including what I’m reading, love reading and plan to read on this site as it seems pertinent to the subject matter.
The illustration is by the ridiculously talented Tom Kidd. It really captures the ambience of baroque ruin, a rare quality.
iTunes now has a university site where you can get podcasts of lectures in video and audio formats.
I will be reporting on any of the courses I do and enjoy.
I’ve been reading up on how to improve the blog, generate ‘traffic’ etc. This is a good site with lots of clear and practical advice. In particular, I read up on how to use AdSense and there is an excellent set of instructions, in eight parts, starting here. Even though it was posted back in 2004 it still seems eminently relevant. Inspiring stuff, as I really want to keep this blog going and make it more useful for other people.
In fact, I’ve just set up an account with Feedburner and it reveals the supremely motivating information that I have 0 subscribers and – readers…
Well at least I read this blog, so that’s one already! Their stats are way off.
Nautiloid Burblings 