The Rat
Thursday, January 29, 2004
      ( 10:22 PM ) The Rat  
ITS PREMIERE RUN in New Haven is nearly over, but for the record, this production is really good. You can also read the short story on which it was based, here.

# Posted by The Rat @ 10:22 PM



Sunday, January 25, 2004
      ( 11:23 PM ) The Rat  
"DEATH GETS A CALL FROM HIS MOTHER," and other scenes. Via Eve.

# Posted by The Rat @ 11:23 PM


      ( 9:29 PM ) The Rat  
GIANT TRUFFLE OMELETTE.

# Posted by The Rat @ 9:29 PM


      ( 4:53 AM ) The Rat  
BATHOS.

# Posted by The Rat @ 4:53 AM


      ( 2:31 AM ) The Rat  
PANTS IN THE NEWS.

# Posted by The Rat @ 2:31 AM


      ( 2:15 AM ) The Rat  
YOU KNOW HOW Humphrey Bogart said, "The whole world is about three drinks behind"? The Rat is like that, but with papers instead of drinks.

# Posted by The Rat @ 2:15 AM


      ( 1:24 AM ) The Rat  
THE NEW HAVEN ADVOCATE has a cover story this week on "I'm Not Sorry"—a new campaign, complete with "I had an abortion" T-shirts, encouraging women to "come out" about the abortions they've had. Here's a typical gem:

About a year later, Sally felt the need to talk to someone about her experience. Sally and her mother shared an interest in art and would often meet at a museum to take in an exhibit. One day at the Guggenheim, Sally told her the truth. "I said to her, 'Mother, I've had an abortion.' And she said, 'Well dear, I've had two. Let's go look at the paintings.'"

Jennifer Baumgardner, who has renamed the Roe anniversary "I'm Not Sorry Day," is working on a documentary of women telling their abortion stories. The Advocate notes that "Baumgardner's writing partner, activist Amy Richards who co-founded Third Wave, the only national organization for young feminists, is pictured on the cover wearing the campaign's T-shirt." One of the creepy things about this article is that after a point it sounds like having an abortion is a prerequisite to being a self-respecting woman. Another creepy thing is those T-shirts; the Rat can't wait till they start rolling out corresponding "My girlfriend/wife/one-night stand had an abortion!" T-shirts (and hey, how about baseball caps?) so men can celebrate everything they've gained from Roe too.

# Posted by The Rat @ 1:24 AM



Friday, January 23, 2004
      ( 11:09 PM ) The Rat  
LOTS OF PEOPLE who are fun to read about would be dull or annoying in person, but here's a random sampling of characters from literature (not counting Shakespeare) whom the Rat would like to meet.

Men
—Tied for first: The White Knight in Through the Looking-Glass and Thomas Mann's Felix Krull
—Cellini in the Autobiography
—Pechorin in Lermontov's A Hero of Our Time (or Ian Fleming's James Bond, whom he inspired)
—Goncharov's Oblomov
—Ulysses in Dante's Inferno
—Svidrigailov in Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment
—Shrike, from Nathanael West's Miss Lonelyhearts
—Mr. Toad in Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows
—the Professor in Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent

Women
—Daniel Defoe's Moll Flanders
—Proust's Albertine
—Clytemnestra from Aeschylus's Agamemnon
—Natasya Filipovna in Dostoevsky's The Idiot
—Agatha Christie's Mrs. Dane Calthrop and/or Ariadne Oliver

To have as a pet
—Dab-Dab from Hugo Lofting's Doctor Dolittle stories
—Lily in Tanizaki's A Cat, a Man, and Two Women

Authors
—Thomas Mann
—Junichiro Tanizaki

Favorite criminal modus operandi
"Story of the Physician Douban" in The Arabian Nights
—Agatha Christie's The Pale Horse

The fictional characters I most loathe
—Sue Whitehead, Thomas Hardy's Jude the Obscure (No contest. GRR!)
—Isabel Archer, Henry James's Portrait of a Lady
—Olga Sergeyevna, Goncharov's Oblomov (actually she's not that bad, but I've had to think about her lately)

# Posted by The Rat @ 11:09 PM


      ( 11:08 PM ) The Rat  
SPEAKING OF WHICH, the Rat forgot to post this a few months back—a very good Arabian Nights site.

# Posted by The Rat @ 11:08 PM


      ( 11:07 PM ) The Rat  
THE POWERPOINT ANTHOLOGY OF LITERATURE, via Eve.

# Posted by The Rat @ 11:07 PM


      ( 11:06 PM ) The Rat  
'I can see nothing,' said I, handing it back to my friend.

'On the contrary, Watson, you can see everything. You fail, however, to reason from what you see. You are too timid in drawing your inferences.'

'Then, pray tell me what it is that you can infer from this hat?'

He picked it up, and gazed at it in the peculiar introspective fashion which was characteristic of him. 'It is perhaps less suggestive than it might have been,' he remarked, 'and yet there are a few inferences which are very distinct, and a few others which represent at least a strong balance of probability. That the man was highly intellectual is of course obvious upon the face of it, and also that he was fairly well-to-do within the last three years, although he has now fallen upon evil days. He had foresight, but has less now than formerly, pointing to a moral retrogression, which, when taken with the decline of his fortunes, seems to indicate some evil influence, probably drink, at work upon him. This may account also for the obvious fact that his wife has ceased to love him.'

"The Blue Carbuncle"

# Posted by The Rat @ 11:06 PM



Monday, January 19, 2004
      ( 11:19 AM ) The Rat  
He spoke in a hurried aside to Mr. Tomlinson. "The man in spectacles is Mr. Vyse—the producer, you know."

The retired Indian judge was looking at Mr. Vyse with a good deal of dislike.

"What does he produce?" he asked. "Children?"

The Mysterious Mr. Quin

# Posted by The Rat @ 11:19 AM



Friday, January 09, 2004
      ( 4:31 PM ) The Rat  
IS THE RAT the only person wondering if the pranksters in this story also encased the aluminum foil in aluminum foil?

# Posted by The Rat @ 4:31 PM


      ( 10:58 AM ) The Rat  
HEH.

# Posted by The Rat @ 10:58 AM



Thursday, January 08, 2004
      ( 12:57 PM ) The Rat  
THE RAT wishes this could be said about her. From Janko Lavrin's Goncharov:

The tense relations and rows between Tolstoy and Turgenev are well known. So are the misunderstandings between Turgenev and Dostoevsky. We are less acquainted, though, with the quarrels between Goncharov and Turgenev...

# Posted by The Rat @ 12:57 PM



Tuesday, January 06, 2004
      ( 9:31 PM ) The Rat  
HEH.

# Posted by The Rat @ 9:31 PM



Sunday, January 04, 2004
      ( 8:21 AM ) The Rat  
HOW SATISFIED ARE WE WITH LIFE? A poll of USA Today readers, no doubt.

# Posted by The Rat @ 8:21 AM




A page I'm starting to get the overlords at EveTushnet.com to stop $#@! bugging me


06/01/2002 - 07/01/2002
07/01/2002 - 08/01/2002
08/01/2002 - 09/01/2002
09/01/2002 - 10/01/2002
10/01/2002 - 11/01/2002
11/01/2002 - 12/01/2002
12/01/2002 - 01/01/2003
01/01/2003 - 02/01/2003
02/01/2003 - 03/01/2003
03/01/2003 - 04/01/2003
04/01/2003 - 05/01/2003
05/01/2003 - 06/01/2003
06/01/2003 - 07/01/2003
07/01/2003 - 08/01/2003
08/01/2003 - 09/01/2003
10/01/2003 - 11/01/2003
11/01/2003 - 12/01/2003
12/01/2003 - 01/01/2004
01/01/2004 - 02/01/2004
02/01/2004 - 03/01/2004
03/01/2004 - 04/01/2004
04/01/2004 - 05/01/2004
05/01/2004 - 06/01/2004
06/01/2004 - 07/01/2004
07/01/2004 - 08/01/2004
08/01/2004 - 09/01/2004
09/01/2004 - 10/01/2004
10/01/2004 - 11/01/2004
11/01/2004 - 12/01/2004
12/01/2004 - 01/01/2005
01/01/2005 - 02/01/2005
02/01/2005 - 03/01/2005
03/01/2005 - 04/01/2005
04/01/2005 - 05/01/2005
05/01/2005 - 06/01/2005
06/01/2005 - 07/01/2005
07/01/2005 - 08/01/2005
08/01/2005 - 09/01/2005
09/01/2005 - 10/01/2005
10/01/2005 - 11/01/2005
11/01/2005 - 12/01/2005
12/01/2005 - 01/01/2006
01/01/2006 - 02/01/2006
02/01/2006 - 03/01/2006
03/01/2006 - 04/01/2006
04/01/2006 - 05/01/2006
05/01/2006 - 06/01/2006
06/01/2006 - 07/01/2006
07/01/2006 - 08/01/2006
08/01/2006 - 09/01/2006
09/01/2006 - 10/01/2006
10/01/2006 - 11/01/2006
11/01/2006 - 12/01/2006
12/01/2006 - 01/01/2007
01/01/2007 - 02/01/2007
02/01/2007 - 03/01/2007
03/01/2007 - 04/01/2007
04/01/2007 - 05/01/2007
05/01/2007 - 06/01/2007
06/01/2007 - 07/01/2007
07/01/2007 - 08/01/2007
08/01/2007 - 09/01/2007
09/01/2007 - 10/01/2007
10/01/2007 - 11/01/2007
11/01/2007 - 12/01/2007
12/01/2007 - 01/01/2008
01/01/2008 - 02/01/2008
02/01/2008 - 03/01/2008
03/01/2008 - 04/01/2008
04/01/2008 - 05/01/2008
05/01/2008 - 06/01/2008
06/01/2008 - 07/01/2008
07/01/2008 - 08/01/2008
08/01/2008 - 09/01/2008
09/01/2008 - 10/01/2008
10/01/2008 - 11/01/2008
11/01/2008 - 12/01/2008
12/01/2008 - 01/01/2009
01/01/2009 - 02/01/2009
02/01/2009 - 03/01/2009
03/01/2009 - 04/01/2009
04/01/2009 - 05/01/2009
05/01/2009 - 06/01/2009
06/01/2009 - 07/01/2009
07/01/2009 - 08/01/2009
11/01/2009 - 12/01/2009
12/01/2009 - 01/01/2010
01/01/2010 - 02/01/2010
02/01/2010 - 03/01/2010
03/01/2010 - 04/01/2010
04/01/2010 - 05/01/2010
05/01/2010 - 06/01/2010
06/01/2010 - 07/01/2010
07/01/2010 - 08/01/2010
08/01/2010 - 09/01/2010
09/01/2010 - 10/01/2010
10/01/2010 - 11/01/2010
11/01/2010 - 12/01/2010
12/01/2010 - 01/01/2011
01/01/2011 - 02/01/2011
02/01/2011 - 03/01/2011
03/01/2011 - 04/01/2011
04/01/2011 - 05/01/2011
05/01/2011 - 06/01/2011
06/01/2011 - 07/01/2011
07/01/2011 - 08/01/2011
08/01/2011 - 09/01/2011
09/01/2011 - 10/01/2011
10/01/2011 - 11/01/2011
11/01/2011 - 12/01/2011
12/01/2011 - 01/01/2012
01/01/2012 - 02/01/2012
02/01/2012 - 03/01/2012
03/01/2012 - 04/01/2012
04/01/2012 - 05/01/2012
05/01/2012 - 06/01/2012
06/01/2012 - 07/01/2012
07/01/2012 - 08/01/2012
08/01/2012 - 09/01/2012
09/01/2012 - 10/01/2012
10/01/2012 - 11/01/2012
11/01/2012 - 12/01/2012
12/01/2012 - 01/01/2013
01/01/2013 - 02/01/2013
02/01/2013 - 03/01/2013
03/01/2013 - 04/01/2013
04/01/2013 - 05/01/2013
05/01/2013 - 06/01/2013
06/01/2013 - 07/01/2013
07/01/2013 - 08/01/2013
08/01/2013 - 09/01/2013
09/01/2013 - 10/01/2013
10/01/2013 - 11/01/2013
12/01/2013 - 01/01/2014
01/01/2014 - 02/01/2014
02/01/2014 - 03/01/2014
05/01/2014 - 06/01/2014

Bookfinder.com
Pandora.com
Encyclopedia of Life
Shakespeare Search Engine
World Time Clock
XE.com
ReliefWeb
Airport Mileage Calculator
Mileage Mall
ResponsibleTravel.com

60 Second Idea
SYSKPodcast on Twitter
Two Gomers
Runkeeper
Map My Run
PostSecret
1,000 Awesome Things
Cracked
Theodore Dalrymple
Met Live Stream
Londonist
London Panoramas
Why Travel to France
Manolo's Shoe Blog
Daily Puppy
Miss Manners
Jess+TheMess
Ramit
Sandwich Mondays
Consumerist
Cradle to Cradle
A Daily Dose of Architecture
Astronomy Picture of the Day
Strange Maps
About Last Night
Paula Poundstone
The Daily Mirror
Classic Bloom County
Better Book Titles
Piled Higher and Deeper
Nietzsche Family Circus

Mail




Powered by Blogger