As Long As She Swims, I'll Cook

COWBOY X

2008-08-03T22:45:00.000-07:00

Here is one of the finest animated shorts I ever saw as a boy.

Quote

2008-01-12T20:59:00.000-08:00

Here is what Zappa said in response to a question about what advice he would give to up and coming musicians. I think it might be the key to everything in life.

Here's the secret. There are two things that you have to do. One of them is to not stop and the other one is to keep going.

Christmas 2007!

2007-12-30T17:55:00.000-08:00

A shout out to Melanie and Michel for the great gift: the "Spagetti Western" trilogy featuring a young Clint Eastwood. What is the appeal of the anti-hero in American literature, film and lore? Eastwood's "man with no name" is only out to take care of himself. He's just looking for ways to make easy money. But he only kills the killers, he leaves the innocent alone, or even helps them when he sees the opportunity. He's as bad as the bad guys but he's not. He has his own sense of justice and code of ethics. Maybe it's the toughness to take on the real villains along with his sense of stoic independence that is so appealing.

Updated Photo

2007-12-18T10:39:00.000-08:00

If you're observant, you will have noticed that I've updated the photo of myself. Okay, that's not really me, that is the great Samuel Beckett, modernist to post-modernist author, playwright and poet. He wrote such things as

It is a lot to expect of one creature, it's a lot to ask, that he should first behave as if he were not, then as if he were, before being admitted to that peace where he neither is, nor is not, and where the language dies that permits of such expressions.

Haven't we all thought that? Anyway, Beckett had a great face. It was a good, hard, lean, tough, defiant-old-man face.

Quote

2007-12-15T11:52:00.000-08:00

Man is not the same at all times. It is only at certain moments that he becomes aware of the heart-breaking inconceivability of the world in which he lives and which he ignores. At such moments, he wonders: what is my place in the midst of the terrifying immensity of time and space? What is my task? What is my situation? - Abraham J. Heschel

Story link should work now

2007-12-08T09:22:00.000-08:00

The link to the short story has been redirected and it should be working now. Hope you like it.

Quote of the Week

2007-12-04T12:21:00.000-08:00

Okay, here is my quote of the week because I just can't think of anything substantial to write.
(But do check out my just published short tale about giving, just in time for the holidays.)

A culture which leaves unsatisfied and drives to rebelliousness so large a number of its members neither has a prospect of continued existence, nor deserves it. -Freud

Quote of the Week

2007-11-25T11:28:00.000-08:00

One must, it is true, forgive one's enemies - but not before they have been hanged. -Heine

Zappa

2007-11-18T23:04:00.000-08:00

Frank Zappa was a great American composer. Blurring the distinction between methodical classicism and free-form jazz with just about every genre of rock music imaginable, Zappa created fascinating compositions with vigor, intensity and humor. Check out Hot Rats, Waka/Jawaka, The Grand Wazoo, Orchestral Favorites, Studio Tan, and The Yellow Shark (for starters).

About the Title

2007-11-18T16:32:00.000-08:00

The title, "as longs as she swims, I'll cook," comes from a Joseph Conrad novel written in the 1890s. The subtitle of the novel is "A Tale of the Sea." The story of a ship and her crew, the action hinges on a storm that almost completely overturns the ship. With the mast almost parallel to the ocean surface, the sailors strap themselves as best they can to the side of the ship that is still above water. After a full day of physical and psychological torture, the men complain of cold, hunger and thirst. The cook vows to make his way down to his kitchen (sideways and half submerged) in order to gather some sustenance for his crew mates. Somehow he pulls it off and is then regarded heroically by the slightly relieved sailors. Ever afterward, the narrator tells us, many of the sailors would use his same line when faced with a seemingly impossible task. "As long as she swims, I'll cook." In other words, if I'm not completely sunk yet, I'll keep trying.