#Noam. Noam Fall Garden

[noam-easter-bunny]

Halloween Ghost with Mr. Rufus  Halloween starts with this Book

[birthday-journey-posts]

Ghost Story Finding a Pascha Pumpkin   Halloween starts with this book/Challenge

[bookrabbit]

Halloween begins with this story book, 5 Star children book series./Challenge

[notebookmusical]

books read in 2024!

books read so far: 99/100

— gr: http://goodreads.com/cossettereads — sg: https://app.thestorygraph.com/profile/cossettereads

as always, askbox + dms are open if have any questions or would like to chat about books! 🤍

⊹ indicates any (new) favorites of the month! previous months are under the cut!

november ⋆ ˚���⋆��ৎ

1) shoot your shot by lexi lafleur brown (arc)

january ⋆ ˚｡⋆౨ৎ˚

1) beach read by emily henry (reread) 2) on palestine by noam chomsky & ilan pappé 3) valley verified by kyla zhao (gifted) 4) the wind at my back: resilience, grace, and other gifts from my mentor, raven wilkinson by misty copeland & susan fales-hill (gifted) 5) check please: year one by ngozi ukazu (reread) 6) check please: year two by ngozi ukazu (reread) 7) check please: year three by ngozi ukazu (reread) 8) check please: year four by ngozi ukazu (reread) 9) raiders of the lost heart by jo segura (gifted) 10) the frame-up by gwenda bond (arc) 11) everything i never told you by celeste ng ⊹ 12) forgive me not by jennifer baker (gifted) 13) ever after always by chloe liese (gifted) 14) the summer of bitter and sweet by jen ferguson (gifted) 15) the lily of ludgate hill by mimi matthews (gifted) 16) last call at the local by sarah grunder ruiz (gifted) ⊹ 17) the sun and the void by gabriela romero-lacruz (gifted) 18) a line in the dark by malinda lo (gifted) 19) biting the hand: growing up asian in black and white america by julia lee (gifted) 20) play it as it lays by joan didion

february ⋆ ˚｡⋆౨ৎ˚

1) mister hockey by lia riley * 2) collide by bal khabra (arc) * 3) a curious beginning by deanna raybourn (gifted) 4) breaking the ice by k.r. collins * 5) if only you by chloe liese (gifted) * 6) anxious people by frederik backman ⊹ 7) the catch by amy lea (gifted) 8) weekends with you by alexandra paige (arc) 9) happily never after by lynn painter (arc) 10) klara and the sun by kazuo ishiguro 11) good material by dolly alderton 12) in the event this doesn't fall apart by shannon lee barry 13) the night ends with fire (arc) by k.x. song 14) the good, the bad, and the aunties (arc) by jesse q. sutanto 15) where sleeping girls lie (arc) by faridah àbíké-íyímídé 16) sophomore surge by k.r. collins * 17) lighting the lamp by k.r. collins * 18) glove save and a beauty by k.r. collins * 19) home ice advantage by k.r. collins * 20) power play by k.r. collins * 21) grounded by k.r. collins * 22) line chemistry by k.r. collins *

march ⋆ ˚｡⋆౨ৎ˚

1) happy medium by sarah adler (arc) 2) a darker shade of magic by v.e. schwab (audiobook) 3) expiration dates by rebecca serle (arc) 4) divine rivals by rebecca ross (book club) 5) the siren by katherine st. john (gifted) 6) light in gaza edited by jehad abusalim 7) how to end a love story by yulin kuang (arc) // reviewed here 8) rising from the deep: the seattle kraken, a tenacious push for expansion, and the emerald city's sports revival by geoff baker 9) les misérables by victor hugo (reread)

april ⋆ ˚｡⋆౨ৎ˚

1) the goodbye cat by hiro arikawa (reread) 2) the traveling cat chronicles by hiro arikawa (reread) 3) this is me trying by racquel marie (arc) 4) kill her twice by stacey lee (arc) 5) the pairing by casey mcquiston (arc) 6) swiped by l.m. chilton (arc) 7) lies and weddings by kevin kwan (arc) 8) the odyssey by homer (audiobook)

may ⋆ ˚｡⋆౨ৎ˚

1) this summer will be different by carley fortune (arc) 2) the viscount who loved me by julia quinn (reread) 3) romancing mister bridgerton by julia quinn (reread) 4) the iliad by homer (narrated by audra mcdonald) (audiobook) 5) a novel love story by ashley poston (arc) 6) when he was wicked by julia quinn (reread) 7) a banh mi for two by trinity nguyen (arc) 8) the secret garden by frances hodgson burnett (audiobook)

june ⋆ ˚｡⋆౨ৎ

1) lessons in chemistry by bonnie garmus 2) the phantom of the opera by gaston leroux (audiobook) 3) you, with a view by jessica joyce 4) s. by j.j. abrams & doug dorst 5) the hunchback of the notre dame (audiobook) A

july ⋆ ˚｡⋆౨ৎ

1) firekeeper's daughter by angeline boulley (audiobook) ⊹ 2) born to run by bruce springsteen (audiobook) 3) it had to be you by eliza jane brazier 4) the great gatsby by f. scott fitzgerald (reread; annotated) 5) death on the nile by agatha christie (audiobook) 6) blue sisters by coco mellors (arc) ⊹ 7) juniper and thorn by ava reid (audiobook) 8) the villain edit by laurie devore ⊹

august ⋆ ˚｡⋆౨ৎ

1) a study in drowning by ava reid (audiobook) 2) just for the summer by abby jimenez 3) the match by sarah adams (audiobook)

september ⋆ ˚｡⋆౨ৎ

1) the glitch by leeanne slade (audiobook) 2) howl’s moving castle by diana wynne jones (traveling book club; annotated) 3) how to kill your family by bella mackie (audiobook) 4) everyone i kissed since you got famous by mae marvel (audiobook) 5) blue sisters by coco mellors (reread, annotation) 6) mott street: a chinese american family's story of exclusion and homecoming by ava chin ⊹ 7) confronting the racist legacy of the american child welfare system: the case for abolition by alan j. dettlaff 8) jane eyre by charlotte brontë

october ⋆ ˚｡⋆౨ৎ

1) anne of green gables by l.m. montgomery 2) intermezzo by sally rooney 3) razzle dazzle: the battle for broadway by michael riedel 4) designing broadway: how derek mclane and other acclaimed set designers create the visual world of theatre by derek mclane and eila mell 5) summer in the city by alex aster (arc) 6) rebecca by daphne du maurier (audiobook) ⊹

[jesuisgourde]

Please please please give me more Richey book recs! Especially with suicide as a theme, but if you know of any others, I would love to hear about them too! Thank you for being a fountain of a Manic knowledge and sharing it with us <3

Here's two lists! List one is stuff Richey definitely read, as in it's something he mentioned or referenced in lyrics/interviews/album booklet or setlist quotes/etc. List two is stuff that I can extrapolate he likely read, due to the things I know he did read. Note that a fair amount of these come with various trigger warnings. Again, I've read most but not all of these, so I can answer questions about a good number of them.

Oh, also, this totally slipped my mind from the last list somehow. The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides was definitely a book Richey read; the Manics use a quote from the film version (which came out after Richey's death but they said in an interview they thought he'd have liked it) at the end of Doors Closing Slowly.

Definitely read: -Catcher In The Rye by JD Salinger -American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis -The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides -The Dice Man by Luke Rhinehart -1984 by George Orwell -Confessions Of A Mask by Yukio Mishima -The Plague, The Stranger, and The Fall, all by Albert Camus -A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams -Lipstick Traces by Greil Marcus -The Birth of Tragedy by Friedrich Nietzsche -The Torture Garden by Octave Mirbeau -Borstal Boy by Brendan Behan -The Divided Self by RD Laing -Notes From Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky -Novel With Cocaine by M Ageyev -Bernice Bobs Her Hair by F. Scott Fitzgerald -Black Rain by Masuji Ibuse -Under The Volcano by Malcolm Lowry -Frisk by Dennis Cooper -Bartleby The Scrivener by Herman Melville -Homage To Catalonia by George Orwell -Heart Of Darkness by Joseph Conrad (which is what Apocalypse Now was based on, and the film was one of Richey’s major obsessions at the end of his life) -Brave New World by Aldous Huxley -Rumblefish by SE Hinton -Being And Nothingness by Jean Paul Sartre -Exquisite Corpse by Poppy Z Brite -The Atrocity Exhibition by JG Ballard -High Rise by JG Ballard -Birdy by William Wharton -The Trial by Franz Kafka -Suddenly Last Summer by Tennessee Williams -Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov -The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin -The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon -Lord of the Flies by William Golding -Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis -One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey -Birdy by William Wharton -Thirst For Love by Yukio Mishima -Miracle Of The Rose by Jean Genet -The Drowned And The Saved/So This Is A Man/Escape From Auschwitz, all by Primo Levi -The Diary Of A Young Girl by Anne Frank -Last Exit To Brooklyn by Hubert Selby Jr -The Loneliness of a Long-Distance Runner by Alan Sillitoe -Four Quartets by Hart Crane -The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri -The Pursuit Of Loneliness by Philip Slater -Society Of The Spectacle by Guy Debord -The Naked And The Dead by Norman Mailer -Man’s Search For Meaning by Viktor Frankl -Illuminations by Arthur Rimbaud -Dialectic Of Enlightenment and Minima Moralia by Theodore Adorno -The Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan -One Day In The Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn -The Hero With A Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell -Naomi by Junchiro Tanizaki -SCUM Manifesto by Valerie Solanas -The Lives Of Michel Foucault by David Macey -Rethinking Camelot by Noam Chomsky -The Anxiety Of Influence by Harold Bloom -The Unrest Cure And Other Stories by Saki (HH Munro) -King Lear by William Shakespeare -Confessions by Saint Augustine -The Day Of The Locust by Nathaniel West -Tom Jones by Henry Fielding -Bird Man: The Many Faces Of Robert Stroud by Jolene Babyak -The Demon by Hubert Selby Jr -The Waste Land by TS Eliot -Songs Of Innocence And Experience by William Blake

Likely read: -The Outsiders by SE Hinton -Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury -Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf (features a suicidal main-ish character) -Post Office by Charles Bukowski -The Prophet by Khalil Gibran -Knots by RD Laing -On The Road by Jack Keroauc -No Exit by Jean Paul Sartre -The Sickness Unto Death by Soren Kierkegaard -Junky & Naked Lunch, both by William S Burroughs -Valley Of The Dolls by Jacqueline Susanne -The Runaway Soul by Harold Brodkey -Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller -The Tin Drum by Gunter Grass -Austerlitz by WG Sebald -Betrayal by Harold Pinter -Invitation To A Beheading by Vladimir Nabokov -The Story Of O by Anne Desclos -Lucie’s Long Voyage by Alina Reyes -120 Days of Sodom by Marquis de Sade -The Traitor by Andre Gorz -The Man Of Feeling by Henry Mackenzie -This Way To The Gas, Ladies And Gentlemen by Tadeusz Borowski -The White Rose by Inge Scholl -It Can’t Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis -On Revolution by Hannah Arendt -Being There by Jerzy Kozinski -Heliogabalus: or, the Crowned Anarchist by Antonin Artaud -Resuscitation of a Hanged Man by Denis Johnson -Mysteries by Knut Hamsun -We by Yevgeny Zamyatin -Almost Transparent Blue by Ryu Murakami -Venus In Furs by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch -How I Became One Of The Invisible by David Rattray -The Story Of The Eye by Georges Bataille -The Blue Of Noon by Georges Bataille

Also, there's a lot more of my ramblings and writings about the Manics on my other blog @meta-squash under the "manic street preachers" tag, if you're interested. (And I do love talking about them, and Richey especially.)

ETA: I went through all the (text) interviews of the Manics and wrote down every book they mentioned in interviews or lyrics and posted it up here.

[nicklloydnow]

“In the case of Afghanistan, America’s refusal to countenance the return of Zahir Shah may well have proved to be their greatest failure of imagination yet.

(…)

We were ushered into the garden room, there, on cane furniture, sat two old men. One, slightly-sunken of face but alert and with a smile waltzing over his lips, the other of a more military bearing. Dust eddied in the shafts of light as we passed, then settled as we did. We were visiting the 86 year old Zahir Shah, King of Afghanistan for 40 years between 1933 and 1973. With him was Lieutenant-General Sardar Abdul Wali Khan, who acted as an interpreter, it was entirely unnecessary as the King would answer in accurate though halting English.

We were there to discover if the old man was interested, or even able, to take up the reins again. His time as monarch (ended in a palace coup by his cousin, Mohamed Daud) had been one of unprecedented peace and prosperity for the mountain kingdom. In the late 1960s he introduced a new democratic constitution. Amongst other things, it guaranteed women’s rights and elections. He was also someone who was able to garner loyalty not just from his native Pashtun people, but from the Hazara, Tajik and Uzbeck minorities and the confidence of many of the regional powers.

The exiled king spoke of his visceral love for the country. That and his deep sadness. How, from his Roman exile he had seen his land first became a dictatorship after a palace coup, then a Soviet satellite state, ending in a Soviet inspired coup, the Soviet invasion of 1979 and the civil war that saw the death of 400,000 of its citizens between 1979 and the fall of the Taliban. Estimates suggest upwards of 10 per cent of the entire population were killed during that period, a salutary realisation that even 20 years ago Afghanistan had been a killing field for the previous 20 years.

(…)

These events had not dimmed the king’s desire to do what he could for the nation. He had told us he would do anything to secure peace. As he went on to do. Within a week of our meeting, he had made an informal agreement with the anti-Taliban Mujahedeen of the Northern Alliance.

(…)

At this point things were looking promising for a return of the king. But Pakistani Intelligence, the ISI, was uncomfortable with the prospect of a moderate in power in Afghanistan, and was even less happy by the combination of a Pashtun king, with the support of the Tajik, Uzbek and Hazara dominated Northern Alliance having political power.

Zahir at no time demanded the throne — indeed the Tajik, former President and leader of the Jamiat-e Islami rejected the idea out of hand — his offer was to convene a Loya Jorga, a gathering of all the tribal notables to create a new constitution. In November of that year the Bonn conference, which included all Afghan factions barring the Taliban, supported him as the interim leader.

And yet, by the time Zahir returned to Kabul with Hamed Karzi, the US had gone completely cold on the idea. Now their chosen man was Karzai, soon after American-led forces had driven the Taliban out of Kabul in 2002. It is clear that the US’s retreat from supporting the monarchical option was in part driven by their ties with the Pakistani ISI, for years they had starved the moderate Afghan nationalist Haq of support whilst feeding the Islamist factions of the Northern alliance.

(…)

The US, though it was aware of the possibilities of an Afghan solution to an Afghan problem, and a solution that could have utilised the residual loyalty of the Afghan peoples, decided against. The rest is dour, bloody history.”

“All empires die. The end is usually unpleasant. The American empire, humiliated in Afghanistan, as it was in Syria, Iraq, and Libya, as it was at the Bay of Pigs and in Vietnam, is blind to its own declining strength, ineptitude, and savagery. Its entire economy, a “military Keynesianism,” revolves around the war industry. Military spending and war are the engine behind the nation’s economic survival and identity. It does not matter that with each new debacle the United States turns larger and larger parts of the globe against it and all it claims to represent. It has no mechanism to stop itself, despite its numerous defeats, fiascos, blunders and diminishing power, from striking out irrationally like a wounded animal. The mandarins who oversee our collective suicide, despite repeated failure, doggedly insist we can reshape the world in our own image. This myopia creates the very conditions that accelerate the empire’s demise.

The Soviet Union collapsed, like all empires, because of its ossified, out-of-touch rulers, its imperial overreach, and its inability to critique and reform itself. We are not immune from these fatal diseases. We silence our most prescient critics of empire, such as Noam Chomsky, Angela Davis, Andrew Bacevich, Alfred McCoy, and Ralph Nader, and persecute those who expose the truths about empire, including Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, Daniel Hale, and John Kiriakou. At the same time a bankrupt media, whether on MSNBC, CNN or FOX, lionizes and amplifies the voices of the inept and corrupt political, military and intelligence class including John Bolton, Leon Panetta, Karl Rove, H.R. McMaster and David Petraeus, which blindly drives the nation into the morass.

Chalmers Johnson in his trilogy on the fall of the American empire – “Blowback,” “The Sorrows of Empire” and “Nemesis” – reminds readers that the Greek goddess Nemesis is “the spirit of retribution, a corrective to the greed and stupidity that sometimes governs relations among people.” She stands for “righteous anger,” a deity who “punishes human transgression of the natural, right order of things and the arrogance that causes it.” He warns that if we continue to cling to our empire, as the Roman Republic did, “we will certainly lose our democracy and grimly await the eventual blowback that imperialism generates.”

“I believe that to maintain our empire abroad requires resources and commitments that will inevitably undercut our domestic democracy and, in the end, produce a military dictatorship or its civilian equivalent,” Johnson writes. “The founders of our nation understood this well and tried to create a form of government – a republic – that would prevent this from occurring. But the combination of huge standing armies, almost continuous wars, military Keynesianism, and ruinous military expenses have destroyed our republican structure in favor of an imperial presidency. We are on the cusp of losing our democracy for the sake of keeping our empire. Once a nation is started down that path, the dynamics that apply to all empires come into play – isolation, overstretch, the uniting of forces opposed to imperialism, and bankruptcy. Nemesis stalks our life as a free nation.”

If the empire was capable of introspection and forgiveness, it could free itself from its death spiral. If the empire disbanded, much as the British empire did, and retreated to focus on the ills that beset the United States it could free itself from its death spiral. But those who manipulate the levers of empire are unaccountable. They are hidden from public view and beyond public scrutiny. They are determined to keep playing the great game, rolling the dice with lives and national treasure. They will, I expect, preside gleefully over the deaths of even more Afghans, assuring themselves it is worth it, without realizing that the gallows they erect are for themselves.”

“We waged war in Afghanistan - twenty years of war, thousands of American lives lost, tens of thousands of Afghan lives lost, over 2 trillion dollars spent - but we did not wage peace. We went, we fought, we supported a corrupt Afghan government almost as abusive to the people there as the Taliban had been, we droned, we bombed, we tried to build an army of some of the historically best fighters in the world in the image of the American armed forces (so arrogant are we), we tried to build an Afghanistan in the image of our own country (so delusional are we) - and yeah, we did some good things too. In the end, we aren’t just the last in a long line of empires defeated in Afghanistan. Even worse, we’re the last in a long line of empires that raped and plundered it before we left.

God help us, if we don’t learn from this.”

[willowgast]

hello studyblr! i’m a newbie here, so i thought i’d give a little introduction:

my name is molly! nice to meet you all!

i’m 18, queer, she/her pronouns, and fresh outta my a-levels in the u.k.

vegetarian, hopefully-maybe-soon going vegan

currently preparing frantically for october, when i will be studying ba anglo-saxon, norse, and celtic studies @ the university of cambridge (dead languages! monks! pretty manuscripts! what more could you want from a degree other than the tiniest semblance of postgrad job opportunities!)

i study a fair few languages (french, german, swedish, danish, norwegian, and since it got added to duolingo, finnish)

big fan of tulips (bet you never could have guessed that!), skaldic poetry, vikings, chocolate, corgis, woodlands in the rain, thunderstorms, and giant snails

some interests

i’ve been involved in activism w/ my local fridaysforfuture branch for about a year and a half now, running talks and workshops as well as monthly student strikes in the city centre; beyond that, most of my time is spent reading (i keep a political book, a history book, and a fun fiction book on the go at all times - currently it’s ‘on palestine’ by noam chomsky, ‘in the land of giants’ by max adams, and ‘ninth house’ by leigh bardugo) and writing (poetry, creative nonfiction, and a small novel which lies permanently unfinished in the depths of my folders). i bake a lot, with some hits among friends including chocolate brownies and vegan jaffa cakes, and i help out w/ gardening at home and at my grandad’s allotment.

some studyblr goals, because why not! seems like a smart idea

motivate myself to not fall behind on any of my languages (at this stage i’d be content with maintaining their current level, let alone improving in any capacity)

keep myself on top of pre-term reading and prep work for university

once i start university: record my journey on my degree and hopefully meet and befriend some other tumblr medievalists!

looking forwards to joining this community🌷☕️

[skatoonyfan1234]

Shrinking Daddy

Based on the Daddy Balloon app by Eran B.Y., and his daughter Noam.

Naomi had a useful dad, Normal-sized, and not at all bad. He bought her presents, which were pretty cool, and twice a week, he took her to school.

One sunny day, Naomi and her dad went, Into the garden to put up a tent. It was made of her dad's giant clothes, that's for sure; Cause they didn't actually fit him anymore.

They had expanded as big as the moon When her daddy got fat and turned into a balloon Inside, the tent was pretty cool, And her dad suggested tomorrow, they went to the swimming pool.

But then that day, quicker than a wink, Naomi's daddy began to shrink!

His shirt became baggy, an when he looked at the ground, he saw his pants were falling down!

Soon it was over, and to Naomi's surprise, Her father had shrunk to a much smaller size!

His clothes were now massive, almost as big as the sea, and the only clothes that fit him now were his underpanties!

The lawn looked like a jungle, with blades of grass big and tall; Naomi's daddy stared; he thought it seemed scary being so small.

He walked in the giant sized garden all around, and he was amazed at what he found; the flowers and the plants were lovely to see, except now they looked about the size of a tree!

He then came across some giant-sized toys, thinking they'd belong to some giant girls and boys.

Naomi's daddy then stared into the sky; the clouds and the sun seemed extremely high. He wasn't mad, but rather proud, as he stared up at the sun, birds and clouds.

He lay down on the ground and fell fast asleep, he dozed off counting sheep. he dreamt about when he turned into a balloon; and became big, round, and fat, almost as big as the moon!

He remembered that floating in the air, he had lots of fun Till one day he got so big, he clouded out the sun!

They sky turned dark, as greay as a pan; If he couldn't explain it, nobody can! The whole sky darkened, and it started to rain; Naomi's daddy wished he was back to normal size again.

And suddenly, just like that, he counted to 3, and then, he was back to his normal size again.

And though he had got used to being so small, He said to Naomi, 'I've had quite a ball.' 'Being tiny was fun, but I am so glad,' 'That I'm still your useful, normal-sized dad.'

Naomi felt glad on this day as they all sat in the garden, watching the rain fall today.

[bookmonsterzero]

March 2018 in Letters

053. The Public Burning by Robert Coover 

054. The Hemingses of Monticello by Annette Gordon-Reed 

055. The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro 

056. Ancient Light by John Banville 

057. Campaigning With Grant by Horace Porter 

058. The Hearing Trumpet by Leonora Carrington

059. Manufacturing Consent by Noam Chomsky

060. Digging Up Mother: A Love Story by Doug Stanhope

061. ® The Fall by Albert Camus

062. The Romanovs: 1613-1918 by Simon Sebag Montefiore

063. The Good Apprentice by Iris Murdoch 

064. A Man of the People by Chinua Achebe

065. The Magician of Lublin by Isaac Bashevis Singer 

066. The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump by Bandy X. Lee, et al

067. ® Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche 

068. Forgotten Ally: China's World War II by Rana Mitter

069. The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin

070. Silent House by Orhan Pamuk

071. The Tower of the Swallow by Andrzej Sapkowski

072. Lady of the Lake by Andrzej Sapkowski

073. ® The Waves by Virginia Woolf

074. Enlightenment Now by Steven Pinker

075. A High Wind in Jamaica by Richard Hughes

076. The Chorus Girl and Other Stories by Anton Chekhov

077. Aegypt by John Crowley

078. 4 3 2 1 by Paul Auster

079. The Flower-Patch Among the Hills by Flora Klickmann

080. Russian Roulette by Michael Isikoff and David Corn 

081. The Refugees by Viet Thanh Nguyen 03/20/18

082. The Little Red Chairs by Edna O'Brien

083. The Stories of Heinrich Böll by Heinrich Böll 

084. Adam in Eden by Carlos Fuentes 

085. Eclipse of the Crescent Moon by Géza Gárdonyi 

086. The Imago Sequence and Other Stories by Laird Barron 

087. Autumn by Karl Ove Knausgård 

088. The Post-Birthday World by Lionel Shriver

089. L'Amour Médecin by Molière 

090. Barney's Version by Mordecai Richler 

091. A Kestrel for a Knave by Barry Hines 

092. The Charwoman's Daughter by James Stephens 

093. The Nine Tailors by Dorothy L. Sayers

094. ® Being There by Jerzy Kosiński

095. The 13 Clocks by James Thurber

096. The Garden of the Finzi-Continis by Giorgio Bassani

097. The Hive by Camilo José Cela

098. Ice by Anna Kavan

099. The Judge and His Hangman by Friedrich Dürrenmatt

100. Her Lover by Albert Cohen

Best reading experiences in bold, other recommended ones are linked. ® revisited.

[hub-pub-bub]

FROM A BAR CALLED BUKOWSKI'S TO THE OLDEST POETRY BOOKSTORE IN AMERICA

Each fall, hundreds of visitors flock to Boston to watch the leaves along Beacon Hill’s iconic cobblestone streets erupt into various hues of orange, red, and gold. Around the same time, bibliophiles (and erstwhile tourists) visit the Boston Book Festival in Copley Square to peruse tents filled with poetry, memoir, YA, fiction, and nonfiction, as well as literary magazines and local publications. The Boston Public Library provides a perfect backdrop for this celebration of Boston’s vibrant literary scene, and the diversity in featured voices (some Pulitzer Prize winners, some budding poets) makes the festival appealing and accessible to readers across the board (past speakers have included Colson Whitehead, Susan Minot, Lemony Snicket, and Joyce Carol Oates). In a valiant attempt to unite Bostonians over something other than a shared hatred for the MBTA’s Green Line, BBF chooses a short story by a local author that is printed and distributed at various bookstores and libraries each year, free of charge. The project’s name, One City One Book, underscores the city’s commitment to preserving and promoting its literary identity.

The Hayden Library

· FRIDAY ·

4 PM: MIT Archives and Special Collections (160 Memorial Drive, Cambridge) With over 50 colleges and universities in the Boston area, it’s easy to wander onto a college campus (whether your nose is buried in a book or not), many of which have libraries holding fascinating collections. MIT’s archives and special collections has over 260 boxes of Noam Chomsky’s drafts, notes, and otherwise unpublished materials, in addition to a rare first edition of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass. MIT’s founder, William Barton Rogers (you’ll find his name inscribed across the school’s marble dome building on Massachusetts Avenue) also has a personal library on campus, which contains his copy of Newton’s Principia.

7 PM: The Cantab Lounge (738 Mass Ave, Cambridge) If you make your way straight down Mass Ave, you’ll eventually reach the Cantab Lounge. This hole-in-the-wall dive bar is easy to miss, nestled between an unassuming pizza joint and a 7-Eleven. It hosts the Boston Poetry Slam in its basement every Wednesday night. On Friday evenings, you’ll catch Slammers and fans alike listening to live music at Club Bohemia downstairs. It’s cash only and there’s almost always a cover to pay, but the pours of house wine and beer are generous (and affordable), and you may get to rub shoulders with some of Cambridge’s literary mainstays like Jackie Perry, Simone Beaubien, and Evan Cutts.

The Boston Athenaeum

· SATURDAY ·

11 AM: Trident Booksellers and Cafe (338 Newbury Street, Boston) Trident is known to many as a safe haven for the city’s college students who have had a bit too much to drink and need to bury their sorrows in a potato chuckwagon (a basket of potatoes doused with cheddar, meat, veggies and fried eggs). The two-story café and bookshop has ample table room, and Trident carries some of those coveted magazines that you won’t find on any old newsstand (think frankie, n+1, and the gentlewoman). The booksellers rank the current top ten best-selling books at the front of the shop with descriptions and witty commentary, intended to benefit the indecisive shopper and the bored Back Bay resident just ducking in after a long day shopping on Newbury Street.

2 PM: Boston Athenaeum (10½ Beacon Street, Boston) Now a National Historical Landmark, the Boston Athenaeum was founded in 1807, thanks to the efforts of a group of Bostonians who wanted to provide “the advantages of a public library. . . containing the great works of learning and science in all languages.” Over the past two centuries, the Athenaeum’s collections have grown exponentially as it acquired rare books with a special focus in New England state and local history, as well as English and American literature.

If you’re a lucky local with a membership (these will run you anywhere between $210 and $305 per year), you can visit any time the library is open. If you’re a non-member just in town for the weekend, you can only access the space from 10am to 4pm on Saturdays. If you come early enough (11am), you can join a tour that explains the architectural history of the building and its special collections.

Boston’s Public Garden Make Way for the Ducklings statues

4 PM: Boston Public Garden’s Make Way for Ducklings Chances are, you’ve read the children’s classic Make Way for Ducklings (or you’ve babysat for someone who has). Scattered across Boston’s Public Garden, you’ll find author Robert McClosky’s bronze ducklings: Jack, Kack, Lack, Mack, Nack, Ouack, Pack and Quack. McClosky attended art school at the Vesper George School of Art, which has since closed; he wrote Make Way as an homage to Boston, despite moving to New York City after school. Find a bench to read, relax, and people-watch for a few hours.

7 PM: Bukowski’s Tavern (1281 Cambridge St, Cambridge) Bukowski’s may give you the impression that they don’t really want you there, but here you are, so have a pint. Photographs of Charles Bukowski haunt the walls, and his attitude permeates the menu (if you’re looking for a soup, you’ll have to “Check the fucking specials list to see what the Soup Bitch came up with this time”). This is also a hotspot for self-professed beer snobs, and the community has rallied around the diverse offerings enough for the staff to open a Mug Club. Customers have six months to try every beer in the house, and if they are successful, they are awarded a mug. A note from the menu: ”Bukowski Tavern is not responsible for any excessive weight gain, marriage annulments, black eyes, one night stands, or spur of the moment tribal tattoo arm bands that one may incur throughout the process of completing your mug.”

Groiler Poetry Book Shop

· SUNDAY ·

12 PM: Grolier Poetry Bookstore (6 Plympton St, Cambridge) Grolier has been a cornerstone of Harvard Square since it first opened its doors to aspiring poets and masters of the craft alike in 1927. As the bearer of the prestigious title of “oldest poetry bookshop in the United States,” you might be surprised to find how intimate the space is (in fact, Grolier’s shares a building with the Harvard Bookstore, a used and new bookshop worth visiting for numerous reasons, not the least of which is to chat with its knowledgeable staff about what you should be reading next). The current owner of Grolier’s, Ifeanyi Menkiti, a professor of philosophy at nearby Wellesley College, and his wife, Carol, are committed to preserving its mission as a place to discover and enjoy the art of poetry. The store has previously welcomed icons like e.e cummings and T.S Eliot, and still hosts readings regularly.

3 PM: The Plough and Stars (912 Mass Ave, Cambridge) The Plough and Stars has been around since 1969, and its cozy interior, slightly imperfect upholstery, and unpretentious bar suggests that its lived a pretty good life since then. The pub’s proximity to Harvard (and MIT, loosely) makes it a desirable meeting spot for faculty, and the $10 beer-and-burger deal is why it is coveted by students. There’s a vibrant live music calendar that tends to pack the place on weekend nights (though there are shows almost every single night). Don’t like the band? You can always find someone to talk to about what they’re reading (or writing) over the music, if you so choose. Or strike up a conversation with the bartender: they’ve seen Harvard develop through the ages, and have a story or three to share.

[noam-easter-bunny]

The Pascha Pumpkin’s Gift

Once upon a moonlit night in Moriah Hallow, where enchanted forests whispered secrets and mystical creatures danced under silver leaves, Noam the Easter Bunny discovered a hidden path. It led to a cozy adobe house adorned with marigolds and flickering candles—a place where the veil between worlds was thin.

The Ximena family lived there, their hearts heavy with memories of loved ones who had crossed over. Día de los Muertos was approaching, and they prepared their ofrenda with care. But this year, something extraordinary awaited them.

Noam hopped up the stone steps, his fluffy tail twitching in anticipation. He carried a pumpkin—a pumpkin unlike any other. Its skin shimmered like moonstone, and when Noam touched it, he felt warmth and ancient magic.

“Dear Ximena family,” Noam whispered, “I bring you the Pascha Pumpkin. It holds the essence of love, faith, remembrance, and connection.”  A connection between the living and the departed.

The family gathered around, eyes wide with wonder. They placed the Pascha Pumpkin on the ofrenda (alter) to honor their grandparents, its glow illuminating cherished photographs. It became the focal point for their Día de los Muertos celebrations. The ofrenda serves as a bridge between the living and the spirits. The Pascha Pumpkin radiant stories of departed grandparents, whispered secrets from the Otherworld, and sang songs that made the candles dance.

As midnight approached, the veil lifted. Spirits emerged—their laughter like wind chimes, their presence a balm for grieving hearts. Noam watched as the Ximena parents held hands, tears glistening. They felt their ancestors’ love, as tangible as the pumpkin’s warmth.

The Pascha Pumpkin pulsed, weaving memories into the night. It whispered forgotten lullabies, and the Ximena children giggled, feeling their grandparents’ kisses on their foreheads. And then, a miracle: the pumpkin split open, revealing tiny golden seeds. Each seed held a memory—a shared laugh, a stolen kiss, a favorite recipe. 

Día de los Muertos dawned, and the ofrenda glowed with the Pascha Pumpkin miracle. The spirits danced, twirling with joy. Noam watched; his heart full. He knew that love transcended worlds, that even in grief, there is beauty.

And so, every year, the Ximena family planted the Pascha Pumpkin seeds in their garden, and soon, marigolds bloomed, their petals echoing laughter, sharing stories. Seeds from a Pascha Pumpkin can only grow marigolds and not another pumpkin. Noam visited, leaving gifts—a feather, a moonbeam, a whispered promise.

The Pascha Pumpkin’s legacy lived on, reminding all who passed by: Love was the bridge between realms, and remembrance was a gift to be cherished.

And that, my dear reader, is how Noam the Easter Bunny and the Pascha Pumpkin wove miracles into the tapestry of Moriah Hallow.

May your heart be as warm as a pumpkin’s glow, and may you find joy in the whispers of memories.

Learn more about The Pascha Pumpkin; in Noam Fall Garden adventure story book.

Hope you find One--- Hope you get One

[birthday-journey-posts]

Day of the Dead Pascha Pumpkin  Halloween begins when you find a Pascha Pumpkin

[bookrabbit]

The Story of the Pumpkin Witch

Halloween Magic   https://www.booksie.com/721393-the-pumpkin-witch

[aion-rsa]

Wynonna Earp Season 4 Episode 3 Review: Look at Them Beans

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

This Wynonna Earp review contains spoilers.

Wynonna Earp Season 4, Episode 3

In last week’s review, I commented that the episode could have been a (great) season finale. It follows, then, that this week’s episode, “Look at Them Beans,” would have the vibes of a season premiere, which it totally does. New setting! New characters! And new problems for Team Earp to deal with. (That last one is not getting an exclamation point.)

Setting doesn’t just refer to a story’s location, but also a story’s time. Therefore, time jumps are effectively ways of switching up a TV show’s setting in some major, abrupt ways. While the episodic plot in “Look at Them Beans” is a bit cursory, it does serve as a fun, quick vehicle to introduce us to this new setting and the new characters and problems that come with it. When Wynonna is arrested for the murder of Nedley (yeah, I immediately refused to accept Nedley’s death as a reality), the Earp sisters and Doc are thrust into Purgatory’s new and not-improved power structure. Luckily, Wynonna has a half-demon cellmate named Casey to explain to us what has been going on the past 18 months. Apparently, after the Ghost River Triangle evacuation for the “forest fires,” the people moved out and the demons moved in. The townspeople were allowed to come back home, should they choose, to a new normal that involves a demon-driven sham of a town government (some bro replaced Nicole as sheriff) and a local forest crawling with monsters.

When TV shows employ a time jump, it also generally means separating the characters into two groups: “audience surrogates” and “mysteries to be solved.” The “audience surrogate” characters are the ones who have had the rug pulled out from under them too. In Wynonna Earp, we get three “audience surrogate” characters: Doc, Waverly, and Wynonna. (Interestingly, for different reasons, Nedley kind of falls into this category too.) The “mysteries to be solved” are the characters we know and love whose experience of the missing time is not only dissimilar to us, but that we don’t have any direct narrative insight into—in other words, they might tell us what they have been up to, but we haven’t experienced it alongside them. In Wynonna Earp, these characters are Nicole and Jeremy, along with supporting characters like Mercedes and Rachel.

Some of the best parts of “Look at Them Beans” come in starting to dig into the mystery of what happened to Nicole during the 18 months we missed. She may have the love of her life back, but that doesn’t mean she’s OK—far from it, in fact. She obviously went through some shit since we last saw her and has many signs of PTSD. Even though she may have her family back and the safety and support that comes with it, part of her is still stuck in those difficult months when it was up to her to take care of the Homestead and Rachel, all without knowing if she would ever see Waverly, Doc, or Wynonna again.

It also can’t be understated how the perceived death of Nedley, who has been a father to Nicole, would have also impacted Nicole’s mental health during this time. While we viewers know that Nedley is probably OK (and somewhere in that Sasquatch) from the get-go, Nicole has no such assurances. She has been asked to grieve her father figure without her main support system, all while fighting monsters on the daily (and I haven’t even mentioned the skunk juice).

In the (brilliantly-directed) best scene of the episode, we get to see Waverly, Doc, and Nicole save Nedley from the clutches of the furry monster he has been turned into all through Wynonna’s perspective. Wynonna watches as her family does what they do best: show up for one another, using whatever tools they have lying around. (This time, it’s a super soaker, a t-shirt gun, and some rope.) It’s fucking hilarious, delightful in its silliness, but it is also incredibly moving at the same time. This is the moment when Wynonna realizes that she is home and she and her family is safe. When she tells Nedley that he survived, she’s telling herself that too. It’s the moment she can let go of the breath she has been holding since Waverly was pulled into The Garden, or maybe even before that. Nicole, on the other hand, is still holding her breath. She’s still in survival mode. She’s still carrying the weight of her world on her shoulders, not yet ready to trust that she can truly let go and let others’ carry it for a while. Because, when she lets go, she’s going to have to feel a lot of stuff that she hasn’t been able to let herself feel. It’s going to messy and it’s going to be painful and, hopefully, there will be some healing on the other side. (You know there will be. This is Wynonna Earp.)

The other main “mystery to be solved” character I have yet to mention is Jeremy, who we get the briefest of glimpses of when Chrissy Nedley is leaving the Ghost River Triangle. Jeremy is stationed at the checkpoint, in uniform, presumable back working for Black Badge in some capacity. Nicole seems to have written him off as any kind of reliable ally, but it’s hard to believe Jeremy doesn’t have some kind of larger plan for helping Team Earp in action here. Given that Wynonna is snatched by military-types in the final moments of the episode, Jeremy might understand a threat to Team Earp that we have yet to. Or maybe, given that Chrissy gave him the scoop on his friends’ return to Purgatory, he was the one who gave the order to bring Wynonna in? Either way, I miss Jeremy. I hope we dive into his mystery sooner rather than later.

Additional thoughts.

Seriously. What the fig, Chrissy Nedley?

Martina Ortiz-Luis is killing it as Rachel. I’m glad to have her as part of the ongoing cast. The scene that sees Wynonna thanking Rachel for taking care of Nicole while they were gone and Rachel thanking Wynonna for noticing was an episode highlight.

I hope Casey sticks around too.

While the introduction of the new Purgatory is only somewhat successful (partially because I never had a great grasp on how the old Purgatory actually operated past the Homestead, the bar, and the police department), the introduction of demon club Glory Hole rocks. Doc has serious chemistry with the proprietor of the club (played by Lost Girl‘s Noam Jenkins), stirring up that always-lingering question regarding the nature of Doc’s relationship with Wyatt Earp. (They were in love, right?)

Mercedes is working at the Glory Hole, pretending to be a demon. Never change, Mercedes.

Wynonna is trying to keep the fact that she no longer has Peacemaker on the dl, presumably because she assumes that it keeps the demons somewhat afraid of her. Personally, I think Wynonna has the potential to be terrifying whether she has Peacemaker or not, though it makes sense that she would presume so much of her power lies not in herself, but in the gun/Curse.

It’s interesting that Wynonna, Doc, and Waverly were all gone for the same period of time, even though Wynonna was in The Garden for a far shorter period of time. This suggests that it’s not that The Garden has a different temporal pace, but rather that the wormhole or portal or whatever that brings people back from The Garden to The Ghost River Triangle has something to do with the temporal distortion. I don’t know. Time dilution and/or travel makes my brain hurt!

It is interesting, however, that both The 100 and Wynonna Earp have some time dilution going on this season. (Although, I am assuming that it will be way less important in Wynonna Earp, but who knows?) The Magicians also had this as part of their setting, as Fillory had a different temporal pace than Earth. It’s particularly interesting to see this kind of time travel/time dilution storylines during this period of pandemic and general societal upheaval where time has seemed to slow down with the changing of our status quos. It’s honestly highly relatable and a little cathartic to see our TV characters go through something similar. It’s like, “Oh, you looked away for a second and your whole world changed? Same.”

This also makes me wonder not only where, but when Eve ended up. As in, how much time has passed for her in whatever intersection of time-place she ended up in? We better hope she didn’t end up in our past. That is the time travel equivalent of a head start.

This episode was directed by Melanie Scrofano, and she did an amazing job. That is two full-time jobs she pulled off exquisitely in the production of this episode.

Wynonna’s hair always looks so good.

I, um, had to Google “bush party,” even though I grew up in a rural area where this was the main kind of high school party. But we just called them “parties.” Now I am learning about Ontario slang.

Kate hasn’t come back.

What happened to Robin?! Finish the sentence, Nicole! Is his mysterious absence related to why Jeremy is working for Black Badge again?

“Vacation is over, assholes. It is time… for a Holliday.”

I want some of Waverly’s vegan chili.

The post Wynonna Earp Season 4 Episode 3 Review: Look at Them Beans appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/2DBvtqa

[bigyack-com]

Trump’s Bizarre Apple Factory Visit

Charles Schwab is reportedly in talks to buy TD Ameritrade in a $26 billion deal that could be announced as early as today. (Want this by email? Sign up here.)

Why did Tim Cook let Trump’s inaccuracies slide?

President Trump toured a Texas plant that makes high-end Apple computers yesterday, and inaccurately played up the six-year-old factory as evidence of success for his three-year-old presidency, Jack Nicas of the NYT reports. Apple’s C.E.O., Tim Cook, didn’t correct the president, raising questions about whether he may be compromised over his company’s desires to skirt tariffs. “For me, this is a very special day,” Mr. Trump said during the visit. “I said, ‘Someday we’re going to see Apple building plants in our country, not in China. And that’s what’s happening.’ ” Later he posted on Twitter “Today I opened a major Apple Manufacturing plant in Texas that will bring high paying jobs back to America.” But the plant opened in 2013. It’s owned and run by a company called Flextronics, and builds devices on Apple’s behalf. Mr. Cook spoke immediately after Mr. Trump but did not correct him. Instead, he thanked the president and his staff. “I’m grateful for their support in pulling today off and getting us to this far. It would not be possible without them,” he said. Perhaps tariffs were in Mr. Cook’s mind. Apple pays the trade levies on Apple Watches, iPhone components and other consumer products as a result of Mr. Trump’s trade war, and has sought waivers. When Mr. Trump was asked yesterday if he would exempt Apple from tariffs, he said, “We’ll look into that.” “It illustrated the complicated position that Mr. Cook and other corporate executives find themselves in with this president, forced to stand silently by while he sometimes misleads about their businesses,” Mr. Nicas writes. But if Apple succeeds in wriggling its way out of tariffs, Mr. Cook’s spot could become even tighter — especially if the president speaks out on topics such as immigration, on which Mr. Cook has disagreed with him in the past.

Henry Paulson’s warning on U.S.-China relations

Even if the world’s two biggest economies reach a truce, their relationship is likely to worsen, Henry Paulson, the former Treasury secretary, tells Andrew for his latest DealBook column. Animosity between the two countries has merged “military prisms and ideas into economic policies,” Mr. Paulson said in a preview of a speech he planned to make today at a Bloomberg event on the economy in Beijing. • “It should concern every one of us who cares about the state of the global economy that the positive-sum metaphors of healthy economic competition are giving way to the zero-sum metaphors of military competition,” he planned to say. More worrisome: the U.S. could close off its financial markets to Chinese investment, Mr. Paulson said. “It would eventually threaten U.S. leadership in finance, as well as New York City’s role as the world’s financial center,” he said. He also raised a worst-case scenario. China, which owns more than $1 trillion in U.S. debt, could decide to sell Treasury bonds, potentially sending their value down and pushing interest rates much higher, a worry that Andrew raised in a previous column.

A U.S.-China trade deal could slip into 2020

Negotiators are said to be making progress on a first trade deal with China, but reports suggest that hopes of an agreement being reached before the end of the year are beginning to evaporate. “Trade negotiators from the U.S. and China are making progress in key areas even as concerns grow that efforts to nail down the first phase of a broader deal are stalling,” Bloomberg News reports. It adds that “some people close to the talks describe them as being in a sensitive, make-or-break stage and caution that what President Donald Trump proclaimed as a done deal a month ago, sending U.S. stocks soaring to records, could still easily fall apart.” • Separately, Bloomberg News reported that China’s chief trade negotiator, Vice Premier Liu He, has said that he is “cautiously optimistic” about reaching a “Phase 1” deal with the U.S. But the timeline for a deal remains unclear. Reuters, citing trade experts and people close to the White House, reports that the “completion of a ‘Phase 1’ U.S.-China trade deal could slide into next year,” as “Beijing presses for more extensive tariff rollbacks, and the Trump administration counters with heightened demands of its own.” • When Mr. Trump was asked yesterday if he would secure a deal by the end of the year, he said: “I haven’t wanted to do it yet. Because I don’t think they’re stepping up to the level that I want.” And some people doubt further progress will be made any time soon after a preliminary deal is signed. • “Our base case is that the Phase 1 trade deal gets done and that might be about as good as it gets, that Phase 2 and Phase 3 remain distant next year,” Andrew Sheets, chief cross-asset strategist at Morgan Stanley, told CNBC. More: China may be running out of economic ammunition to use against the U.S.

G.M. sues Fiat Chrysler over U.A.W. contracts

General Motors sued Fiat Chrysler yesterday, claiming that it bribed United Automobile Workers officials in contract negotiations to get a leg up on G.M. over the course of a decade, the NYT’s Neal Boudette reports. The corruption went far beyond garden-variety embezzlement and personal enrichment, G.M. claimed in its lawsuit. The company contends that: • The illegal activity was authorized by Fiat Chrysler’s chief executive at the time, Sergio Marchionne, and helped Fiat Chrysler win union acceptance of cost concessions that were denied to G.M. in labor contracts in 2011 and 2015. • Fiat Chrysler executives bribed union leaders to win support for Fiat Chrysler’s highly public effort to pressure G.M. into a merger in 2015. The union’s president, Gary Jones, resigned hours after G.M. filed the lawsuit. • “The day’s events embroiled two of the country’s three biggest automakers and the union that represents their workers, a controversy the likes of which the industry has rarely experienced,” Mr. Boudette writes.

Google’s staff clash deepens

Google has hired an anti-union consulting firm to advise its management as it deals with widespread worker unrest, Noam Scheiber and Daisuke Wakabayashi of the NYT write. The company has grappled with internal strife recently, including accusations that it has retaliated against organizers of a global walkout and cracked down on dissent inside the company. The newly hired firm, IRI Consultants, promotes its anti-union success on its website. The move “is the latest evidence of escalation in a feud between a group of activist workers at Google and management that has tested the limits of the company’s traditionally transparent, worker-friendly culture,” the reporters write. But hiring IRI was a surprising turn. “Union organization — even labor unrest — has traditionally been rare among big tech companies because their employees have usually been treated and paid well,” Mr. Scheiber and Mr. Wakabayashi write.

What would a wealth tax mean for entrepreneurs?

At this stage, no one needs reminding that many Democratic nominee hopefuls want to tax the wealthy, with Senator Elizabeth Warren in particular looking to disincentivize the accumulation of fortunes above $1 billion. But in his latest column, Greg Ip of the WSJ wonders what it might mean for entrepreneurs. • Ms. Warren’s wealth tax of up to 6 percent a year, along with other levies, are intended to shrink the fortunes of billionaires and multimillionaires. • But, Mr. Ip writes, research shows that “countries with a lot of billionaires per capita had higher incomes per capita,” and a country’s share of the world’s billionaires also “corresponded closely to its share of the world’s largest, most successful companies.” • “While this doesn’t mean billionaires make an economy successful, it does show the two go hand in hand,” he adds. • For most billionaires, Ms. Warren’s tax proposal could easily eat up most if not all of their returns. “Founders would have to steadily sell off their holdings to pay their taxes, shrinking their stake,” Mr. Ip writes. • That could disincentivize many entrepreneurs from growing huge and successful companies. • “This isn’t a reason not to tax billionaires; it’s a reason to be careful about how it’s done.”

“We followed the president’s orders”

Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the E.U., told the impeachment inquiry yesterday that he was following President Trump’s orders when he pressured Ukraine to conduct investigations into Mr. Trump’s political rivals, Nicholas Fandos and Michael S. Schmidt write in the NYT. He said he reluctantly followed Mr. Trump’s directive, in what Mr. Sondland claimed was a clear “quid pro quo.” He added, “We followed the president’s orders.” “Mr. Sondland linked the most senior members of the Trump administration to the effort — including the vice president, the secretary of state, the acting chief of staff and others,” Mr. Fandos and Mr. Schmidt write. “He said they were informed of it at key moments, an account that severely undercut Mr. Trump’s frequent claims that he never pressured Ukraine.” Ukrainian officials may have known as early as late July that a $391 million package of security assistance was being withheld by the Trump administration, a Defense Department official, Laura Cooper, testified later. Mr. Sondland’s testimony may be a career-endangering blow for Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who has long tried to portray himself as balancing loyalty to Mr. Trump with defending the traditional security interests of the U.S., write David E. Sanger and Edward Wong in the NYT. But the testimony undercut any notion that Mr. Pompeo was not a participant in Mr. Trump’s efforts to pressure Ukraine. More: Mr. Sondland had not even finished his testimony before it was called the “John Dean moment” of the impeachment drama. The F.B.I. tried to interview the anonymous whistle-blower who helped ignite the inquiry, several people familiar with the matter said, but the interview never took place.

Revolving door

HSBC is reportedly planning to replace Samir Assaf, the long-serving head of its investment bank. He is expected to be moved to a non-executive role.

The speed read

Deals • Alibaba’s $13 billion I.P.O. in Hong Kong and Saudi Aramco’s anticipated $26 billion I.P.O. in Riyadh will reportedly deliver only modest fees for the banks that are advising the companies. And many global banks have been sidelined in Aramco’s offering. (Reuters, FT) • LVMH has reportedly increased its offer for Tiffany, to around $130 a share, valuing the company at around $15.8 billion. The offer prompted the jeweler to open its books to the luxury goods giant, raising expectations that a deal could happen. (FT) • PayPal announced the $4 billion acquisition of the private e-commerce company Honey, which tracks prices and automatically applies online discounts for consumers. (FT) • SoftBank is reportedly sounding out Japan’s top three banks to borrow around 300 billion yen, or about $2.8 billion, to help fund its WeWork bailout. (Reuters) Politics and policy • A federal judge halted the executions of four federal prisoners, essentially stymieing the Trump administration’s plan to resume the use of the death penalty. (NYT) • A bill compelling the U.S. to support pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong is headed to President Trump’s desk. The president is expected to sign it, setting up a confrontation with China that could imperil a long-awaited trade deal. (NYT, Bloomberg) • Senator Kamala Harris said at the Democratic debate yesterday that “Donald Trump got punked” into meeting with Kim Jong-un, North Korea’s leader. (Axios) • Mr. Trump’s nominee for Food and Drug Administration commissioner sidestepped questions about whether he would push for a ban on flavored vaping products. (NYT) Brexit • The opposition Labour Party unveiled its election manifesto, which includes scrapping university fees, reducing the workweek and nationalizing utilities. (Reuters) • Boris Johnson pledged to delay tax breaks for high earners if he is elected, in favor of a tax change that would help those with lower incomes. (FT) • The Conservative Party has come under fire for rebranding one of its Twitter feeds as an account that critics say tried to appear to be a neutral fact checker. (FT) Tech • Elon Musk’s announcement of a Tesla factory in Germany took the industry by surprise, but the deal had been in the works for months. (NYT) • The Trump administration has approved “several” individual licenses for U.S. companies to do business with Huawei. (FT) • The U.K.’s Labour Party said that it would provide government-sponsored broadband service if it wins the December election. But is that even possible? (NYT) • China set up a $21 billion fund to further develop its advanced manufacturing sector. Don’t expect the Trump administration to be happy about it. (WSJ) • Apple and Intel have filed an antitrust lawsuit against the SoftBank-owned Fortress Investment Group, alleging that it stockpiled patents to initiate lawsuits against tech companies that demanded as much as $5.1 billion. (Reuters) Best of the rest • Minutes of the Fed’s last policy meeting reinforced its message that it may be done cutting rates, barring economic weakness. But its officials are puzzled about how to best regain their handle on short-term interest rates. (NYT, Bloomberg) • Prince Andrew said yesterday that he would step back from public duties, seeking to contain a firestorm over his ties to the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein. (NYT) • Media workers have anonymously posted salary information on crowdsourced spreadsheets, many of them hoping their efforts will lead to higher pay. (NYT) • FedEx delivers billions to the taxman, the company’s C.E.O. says. (WSJ) • As businesses try to correct power imbalances, they find a growing need for experts who can help address issues like unconscious bias. (NYT) Thanks for reading! We’ll see you tomorrow. We’d love your feedback. Please email thoughts and suggestions to business@nytimes.com. Source link Read the full article

[merrileeper301-blog]

Sudhir Tiwari.

Is actually gel Still Appropriate?

In these unique job interviews we speak with Jüri Ratas (Prime Minister of Estonia), Man Verhofstadt (Former Head of state, Belgium & EU Main Brexit Negotiator), Vicente Fox Quesada (Former Head of state from Mexico), Noam Chomsky (Teacher Emeritus from Linguistics at the Massachusetts Principle of Technology (MIT), which - along with over 150 publications posted - is considered as 'one of the best significantly engaged public pundits alive today'), Alastair Campbell (Communicator, Article writer and Strategist), Glenn Greenwald (Multi Honor Succeeding Writer, Constitutional Attorney and also Writer), Lawrence Larry" Lessig (Roy L. Furman Instructor of Law and Leadership at Harvard Regulation School), Lecturer Yanis Varoufakis (Business analyst and also Former Administrator from Financing of Greece) as well as Instructor A. C. Grayling (thinker, teacher, author and also thinker; Expert of the New University of the Humanities). As a Large Thought and feelings summer trainee in 2014, 2015 and also 2016, Jesus was a critical power on the ground during the course of the various neighborhood events encompassing the Dallas Urban area from Discovering project. Al Davison: A.K.A. The Astral Gypsy, are going to be presenting you effective ways to create convincing faces as well as providing pointers on illustration and storytelling for comics.

Five Reasons that You Are actually A Rookie In gel.

The facility from our lifestyle has shifted off the finite, significant pages of our books to screens; which are actually unfixed, permanently changing and also coming to be another thing. The shortlist will certainly be actually offered for site visitors to review over the Thought and feelings Blister event weekend break. Collins has actually remembered that she cherished functioning in the interdisciplinary African American Studies division considering that doing this liberated her idea off disciplinal frames. Nobody else can make this take place as well as nobody else can grab for the owner and carry that sight forward, the fire as FAKEGRIMLOCK places this, no person else can always keep the company on course. This collection will certainly additionally imprint the victors of 2013's Thought Bubble Comic Craft Competition, plus all profits from the sales of this comic most likely to the charitable organization Barnardo's. Idea Blister Manual Introduces 2014// Reside Celebrations// THOUSAND - 1700. Teacher Bob Metcalfe The net has actually made the planet extra flourishing as well as totally free compared to it has ever before been. The Showroom at Munro Home & Notion Bubble Present: Joan Cornellà Release Party// Live Event// 1800. Not fearing to fall short is actually something I assume all successful entrepreneurs have in common.

Understanding The Background Of gel.

Thought and feelings Bubble created in 2007 as a non-profit-making organization dedicated to promoting comics, mangas, and computer animation as a necessary national and global cultural art-form. Discover just how he navigates the witties garden coming from ABSOLUTELY NO to SELF-DESTRUCTION TEAM, DRIFTER to GODSHIP, UNFOLLOW to MOTOR CRUSH, and far more! Like 2011's effectively obtained compilation, 2012's version makes up an impressive, 'Wednesday Comic books' paper design publishing, over quality newspaper stock, along with 32 webpages from initial information, and also is actually kept in comic stores worldwide. This was within this context that the Division of Psychology was actually created in 1967 and the Department of Psychiatry in 1972 (Agbodeka, 1998 ). A post-graduate programme was cultivated at the Department from Psychiatry for residents planning for the Other from West Black University from Physicians FWACP or even the Expert Level in Medical Psychological science" (Agbodeka, 1998, p. 207). This is said that the Külpe-Ebbinghaus-Titchener disagreement won at the time and well-known psychology as a speculative science (as pointed out in Danziger, 1979 ). However, current advancements in psychological science today show that Wundtian debate ultimately succeeded. Comics Online forum Scholar Meeting Day 1// Stay Celebrations// 0900. task to perform yourself well- as well as offer folks things off your lifestyle, that they could want to steal into their personal. Fans intend to be delighted, and the outcome is a bi-product from every little thing else they demand. If you liked this short article and you would like to get extra facts concerning just click the next web site kindly go to our own web site. Supporters are actually spending a whole lot more funds right now for tickets, programs, for kids's tickets, food items as well as additional. If you possess the odds to copulate as a qualified, you receive the enthusiasm of push, the exhilaration from attraction- and this offers you an extensive boost of adrenaline for life; which is good, but performs indicate you must have a clear directly your shoulders. Hope Solo My travel has actually always come from the need to become the best as well as my hate for shedding. As a culture, our experts appear to have actually dropped that Sunlight 16th Nov, Pep talk Blister Panel Location, Leeds Dock, 1300 - 1350, free of cost admittance along with Sunday/Weekend event elapsed, any ages, however please details: Thought and feelings Blister does certainly not console content. The All Fate Task may sustain our young people much more when they possess access to other quality systems throughout the metropolitan area, specifically opportunities that can assist them visualize new probabilities on their own and also their areas.