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editor
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 Posted: Fri Apr 29, 2005 9:48 am Post subject: Losing Streak |
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WELCOME!
Losing Streak:
Loss
An Anthology
Edited by Elspeth Barker
Hardcover
| Quote: | One Art
The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.
Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.
Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.
I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.
I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.
- Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.
(Elizabeth Bishop, of course, at p. 2) |
A small but perfect consolation prize for any kind of loss.
Link to this entry
http://pokerpulse.com/news/viewtopic.php?p=2188#2188
Last edited by editor on Wed Aug 05, 2009 9:45 am; edited 10 times in total |
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editor
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Posts: 2940
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| Posted: Fri May 20, 2005 12:51 pm Post subject: |
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Smithsonian
Magazine Subscription
"A Long Time Coming"
Prominent American Indians reflect
on their peoples, their past, their humor -
and their new museum
September, 2004
| Quote: | | You need to start from one very, very important truism. And that is if you look at Indian culture, and all other minority cultures in America, there's a misconception on the part of the majority, dominant people, the Anglos, that all those minorities are alike, that is, "They want what we have." Other minority communities, though, came to this country, so they could only go one place and that was up. They had everything to gain. Indians are totally different. They had everything to lose. The primary driving force of American Indians is not to gain what the majority culture has. The primary driving force is not to lose any more than they've already lost. And so they've always felt that they're under assault because they continually have lost and lost over the centuries. A lot of people don't understand that. They say, "What's the matter with those Indians? How come the Indians aren't happy with what they're getting?" (Ben Nighthorse Campbell, U.S. Senator (Republican), Colorado, Northern Cheyenne at p. 59) |
Link to this entry
http://pokerpulse.com/news/viewtopic.php?p=2206#2206
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editor
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Posts: 2940
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| Posted: Mon May 30, 2005 12:35 pm Post subject: |
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The Good Thief
Based on the French classic,
Bob le Flambeur.
DVD
| Quote: | Bob: (at the elegant Casino Riviera, playing roulette): Do you know what prime is, Anne?
Anne: A number divisble by itself and one.
Bob: You remembered. I'm touched.
Anne: Don't play them tonight.
Bob: Why not?
Anne: It's my birthday. I'm not a prime anymore. (She's now 18).
Bob: Ah.
Croupier: Dix-huit, rouge. (Eighteen, red).
Anne: Yes! You broke it, Bob, your losing streak! |
Link to this entry
http://pokerpulse.com/news/viewtopic.php?p=2213#2213
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editor
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Posts: 2940
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| Posted: Fri Jun 10, 2005 4:15 pm Post subject: |
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The Cooler
DVD
| Quote: | | This may very well be our all-time favorite Vegas movie simply for laying to waste - so to speak - once and for all the prehistoric lie that men age better than women. Witness the once proud 'Paulie' goodfella Sorvino as a puffed toad of a junkie croaking to another empty house at the unfashionable, outdated Shangri-La, a casino run by another of yesterday's men, the once beautiful Alec Baldwin, waggling his jowls and pudgy, little fists in vulgar displays of rage. Then there's Bernie Lootz, a guy so unlucky, Shelley has hired him to skulk around the winners circle in an effort to 'cool' their luck. Lootz is played by William H. Macy, another gem in this embarrassment of ersatz riches. A classic right to the bittersweet end. |
Link to this entry
http://pokerpulse.com/news/viewtopic.php?p=2230#2230
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editor
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Posts: 2940
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| Posted: Fri Jul 29, 2005 10:42 am Post subject: |
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Poems to Read
A New Favorite Poem Project Anthology
Edited by Robert Pinsky and Maggie Dietz
| Quote: | Years of Solitude
To the one who sets a second place at the table anyway.
To the one at the back of the empty bus.
The the ones who name each piece of stained glass projected on
a white wall.
To anyone convinced that a monologue is a conversation with
the past.
To the one who loses with the deck he marked.
To those who are destined to inherit the meek.
To Us.
(Dionisio Martinez, p. 274) |
Link to this entry
http://pokerpulse.com/news/viewtopic.php?p=2270#2270
Last edited by editor on Sat Sep 05, 2009 2:39 pm; edited 5 times in total |
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editor
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Joined: 09 Nov 2003
Posts: 2940
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| Posted: Wed Sep 21, 2005 8:10 pm Post subject: |
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Ella and Louis
CD Audio
| Quote: | Cheek to Cheek
By Irving Berlin
Heaven, I'm in heaven
And my heart beats so that I can hardly speak
And I seem to find the happiness I seek
When we're out together dancing cheek to cheek
Heaven, I'm in heaven
And the cares that hung around me through the week
Seem to vanish like a gambler's lucky streak
When we're out together dancing (swinging) cheek to cheek
Oh I love to climb a mountain
And reach the highest peak
But it doesn't thrill (boot) me half as much
As dancing cheek to cheek
Oh I love to go out fishing
In a river or a creek
But I don't enjoy it half as much
As dancing cheek to cheek
(Come on and) Dance with me
I want my arm(s) about you
That (Those) charm(s) about you
Will carry me through...
(Right up) To heaven, I'm in heaven
And my heart beats so that I can hardly speak
And I seem to find the happiness I seek
When we're out together dancing, out together dancing (swinging)
Out together dancing cheek to cheek |
Link to this entry
http://pokerpulse.com/news/viewtopic.php?p=2302#2302
Last edited by editor on Wed Aug 05, 2009 9:57 am; edited 4 times in total |
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editor
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Posts: 2940
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| Posted: Wed Sep 28, 2005 6:56 pm Post subject: |
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The Book of Mercy
Paperback
By Leonard Cohen
| Quote: | | We cry out for what we have lost, and we remember you again. We look for each other, we cannot find us, and we remember you. From the ground of no purpose our children accuse us, and we remember, we recall a purpose. Could it be? we wonder. And here is death. Could it possibly be? And here is old age. And we never knew; we never stood up, and the good land was taken from us, and the sweet family was crushed. Maybe, we said, it could be, and we gave it a place among the possibilities. I'll do it myself, we said, as shame thickened the faculties of the heart. And the first reports were of failure, and the second of mutilations, and the third of every abomination. We remember, we cry out to you to return our soul. Is it really upon us? Yes, it is upon us. Do we merit this? Yes, we merit this. We cry out for what we have lost, and we remember you. We remember the containing word, the holy channels of commandment, and goodness waiting forever on the Path. And here and there, among the seventy tongues and the hundred darknesses - something, something shining, men of courage strengthening themselves to kindle the lights of repentence. (From 32) |
| Quote: | | Are there servants still making men who think this way, and will they find us in our twisted sheet in the Infirmary? (Meditation of PokerPulse, entering into the spirit of the thing). |
Indeed, it was Leonard Cohen whose most celebrated poems are those contained in
Beautiful Losers
Paperback
By Leonard Cohen
Link to this entry
http://pokerpulse.com/news/viewtopic.php?p=2305#2305
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editor
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Joined: 09 Nov 2003
Posts: 2940
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| Posted: Wed Nov 09, 2005 1:46 pm Post subject: |
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Where Shall Wisdom Be Found?
Hardcover
By Harold Bloom
| Quote: | To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silience, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.
Few can come into their seventies without a chill at these repetitive rhythms... (From The Hebrews: Job and Ecclesiastes at pgs. 25-26) |
An eloquent reminder that as with all things temporal, this too shall pass.
Bloom's latest tome is a magnificent distillation of his now more than 60 years immersed in the world's greatest literature. It is a book filled with wonder, a must read for anyone who listens for the sound of one hand clapping.
Link to this entry
http://pokerpulse.com/news/viewtopic.php?p=2330#2330
Last edited by editor on Mon Nov 12, 2007 12:58 pm; edited 3 times in total |
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editor
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Posts: 2940
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| Posted: Tue Dec 27, 2005 10:58 am Post subject: |
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Teacher Man
Hardcover
By Frank McCourt
| Quote: | Yonk was an artist and restorer in his sixties. He came from the Bronx, where his father was a politically radical doctor. Any revolutionary or anarchist passing through New York was welcome to a dinner and a bed at Dr. Kling's. Yonk went through World War II working Graves Registration. After a battle he searched the area for bodies or parts of bodies. He told me he never wanted to fight but this was worse, and he often felt like asking for a transfer to the infantry where you just shot your man and moved on. You didn't have to finger the dog tags of the dead or look in their wallets at pictures of wives and kids...
He had two other subjects: racehorses and dancing Hasidim. He showed horses coming round the bend. That's where the horse's body is most fluid, he said. Anyone can paint a horse out of the gate or heading for the finish line. That's just straight horse from nostril to tail, but coming round the bend, man, they're tilting and straining and sideswiping, adjusting to the bend, finding a slot for the stretch.
At the Aqueduct track I watched him watching. He seemed to be the only one at the track interested in what he called the laggard nags, the ones who trailed in at the end of the field. He ignored horses being led into the winner's enclosure. Winning was winning but losing made you dig deep. Before I knew Yonk I saw nothing but groups of horses being pointed in one direction and running their hearts out till one of them won. I looked through his eyes at a different Aqueduct. I knew nothing about art or the mind of the artist but I knew he took horse and rider images home in his head. (Chapter 12, pgs. 196-197) |
Link to this entry
http://pokerpulse.com/news/viewtopic.php?p=3107#3107
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editor
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Posts: 2940
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| Posted: Sun Jan 22, 2006 10:46 am Post subject: |
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The Atlantic
Magazine Subscription
Why Iraq has no army
An orderly exit from Iraq depends on the development of a viable Iraqi security force, but the Iraqis aren't even close. The Bush administration doesn't take the
problem seriously - and it never has
By James Fallows
December, 2005
| Quote: | "On the current course we will have two options," I was told by a Marine lieutenant colonel who had recently served in Iraq and who prefers to remain anonymous. "We can lose in Iraq and destroy our army, or we can just lose."
The officer went on to say that of course neither option was acceptable, which is why he thought it so urgent to change course. By "destroy our army" he meant that it would take years for the U.S. military to recover from the strain on manpower, equipment, and -- most of all -- morale that staying in Iraq would put on it. (Retired Army General Barray McCaffrey had this danger in mind when he told Time magazine last winter that "the Army's wheels are going to come off in the next twenty-four months" if it remained in Iraq.) "Losing" in Iraq would mean failing to overcome the violent insurgency. A continuing insurgency would, in the view of the officer I spoke with, sooner or later mean the country's fracture in a bloody civil war. That, in turn, would mean the emergence of a central "Sunni-stan" more actively hostile to the United States than Saddam Hussein's Iraq ever was, which could in the next decade be what the Taliban of Afghanistan was in the 1990s: a haven for al-Qaeda and related terrorists. "In Vietnam we just lost," the officer said. "This would be losing with consequences." (-- p. 63) |
Link to this entry
http://pokerpulse.com/news/viewtopic.php?p=2376#2376
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editor
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Posts: 2940
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| Posted: Wed Jan 25, 2006 11:28 am Post subject: |
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The Tent
Hardcover
By Margaret Atwood
| Quote: | ...All observations of life are harsh, because life is. I lament that fact, but I cannot change it.
(And consider: It is loss to which everything flows, absence in which everything flowers. It is you, not we, who have always been the children of the gods. (From the chapter entitled, Orphan Stories, at p. 32) |
Link to this entry
http://pokerpulse.com/news/viewtopic.php?p=2381#2381
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editor
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Posts: 2940
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| Posted: Wed Jan 25, 2006 3:29 pm Post subject: |
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The New Yorker
Magazine Subscription
The Current Cinema
Battle Lines
"Go for Zucker" and "Why We Fight"
By David Denby
Jan 23 & 30/06
| Quote: | Go For Zucker
DVD
...Well into his fifties, Jaecki comes home after a night spent gambling and brawling, his face bruised, and promises his worn-out wife (Hannelore Elsner) that he will make amends. She doesn't believe him, but, with a hustler's self-approving logic, he expects her to appreciate his effort. Jaecki, who stages several fake heart attacks in the course of the movie, is always playing the long odds, and for him losing is just a form of winning. A loser, after all, is still in the game. Not playing is the only defeat Jaecki could imagine. (-- p. 96) |
Link to this entry
http://pokerpulse.com/news/viewtopic.php?p=2390#2390
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editor
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Posts: 2940
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| Posted: Tue Feb 14, 2006 11:02 am Post subject: |
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The Essential Tony Bennett
CD Audio
Just in Time
Song by Jule Styne, Adolph Green and Betty Comden
| Quote: | Just in Time
Just in time
I found you just in time
Before you came my time
Was running low
I was lost
The losing dice were tossed
My bridges all were crossed
Nowhere to go
Now you're here
And now I know just where I'm going
No more doubt or fear
I found my way
For love came just in time
You found me just in time
And changed my lonely life
That lovely day
(Musical interlude)
I was lost
The losing dice were tossed
My bridges all were crossed
Nowhere to go
Now you're here
And now I know just where I'm going
No more doubt or fear
I found my way
For love came just in time
You found me just in time
And changed my lonely life
That lovely day |
Link to this entry
http://pokerpulse.com/news/viewtopic.php?p=2413#2413
Last edited by editor on Wed Aug 05, 2009 10:00 am; edited 7 times in total |
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editor
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Posts: 2940
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| Posted: Wed Feb 22, 2006 12:52 pm Post subject: |
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Harper's
Magazine Subscription
Notebook
The Simple Life
By Lewis H. Lapham
December, 2005
beginning at p. 9
| Quote: | | On further acquaintance with the modus operendi of the Bush Administration, I've come to think that the attributions of a competent criminal intelligence miss the point. They give credit where no credit is due, and they fail to account for both the increasingly evident childishness of American culture and the corollary attitudes of entitlement that over the last thirty years have infected ever larger sectors of the country's equestrian class. President Bush and his friends bear comparison not to Jesse James or Commodore Vanderbilt but to a clique of spoiled trust-fund kids...It is with acts of vandalism that juvenile delinquints proclaim their manhood, and what else is the Bush Administration's record over the last five years if not a testimony to its talent for breaking things -- the deconstruction of Afghanistan and Iraq, the loss of respect for America nearly everwhere in the world, a $236 billion budget surplus in 2000 scrapped for a $412 billion deficit in 2004, the country's economic future consigned to foreign creditors, the ever accelerating dissolution of the American political union into separatist factions of race, religion, gender and social caste. (-- p. 10) |
An exemplary publication with a stickler's attention to accuracy, in our view.
Harper's
Magazine Subscription
Undoing Bush
How to repair eight years of sabotage,
bungling, and neglect
June, 2007
| Quote: | ...For a short parlor game, challenge your friends to name a constitutional right that Bush has not sought to undermine. After the right to bear arms and the guarantee against the quartering of soldiers, the game will be over. Those who prefer a longer game can reverse the exercise, but be prepared for an extended and dispiriting evening.
...The Fifth Amendment right to due process, meanwhile, has fallen victim to assertions that "enemy combatants" can be held indefinitely without trial, that suspicious organizations can have their assets frozen without notice or hearings, and that military tribunals can sentence defendants to death on the basis of hearsay and coerced testimony. For the administration, secrecy trumps all legal process; it has claimed that lawsuits challenging unconstitutional renditions to torture and warrantless wiretapping cannot even be adjudicated because the government's allegedly unconstitutional conduct is itself a secret, even when the facts in question have already been emblazoned across the pages of the country's newspapers.
...The first and most important step toward restoration of constitutional principle, then, will be the next election. If the public does not demand fidelity to our founding principles, our representatives will not do so on their own.
The remaining steps are straightforward. The next administration could start by proclaiming - loudly - that in wartime, as in peacetime, the American system of government includes tree branches, and the president's first job is to take care that the law is faithfully executed. Second, Guantanamo must be shut down and the prisoners there brought within our borders. When Defense Secretary Robert Graves suggested just that, the administration's lawyers objected that they would lose their argument that because the detainees are held offshore, they are unprotected by the Constitution. But the argument that Guantanamo is a "law-free zone" is precisely why that island has become a world symbol for U.S. arrogance and lawlessness - a "reverse Statue of Liberty," as some have called it. ((From 1. The Constitution by David Cole, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center, at pgs. 44-45) |
| Quote: | We're no safer!
Yes, and consider worldwide crazy-making, 'anti-terror' travel woes also a legacy of this administration, under Impossible Odds. |
Link to this entry
http://pokerpulse.com/news/viewtopic.php?p=2420#242
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editor
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Posts: 2940
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| Posted: Wed Feb 22, 2006 4:20 pm Post subject: |
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The Irish Times
The last readable English-language Daily Newspaper
Travel
Roosevelt in the rainforest
The River of Doubt
Into the Unknown Amazon
Hardcover
By Candice Millard
Reviewed by Mary Russell
Feb. 18/06
| Quote: | | Theodore Roosevelt was not good at playing second fiddle. He ran for the American presidency twice and won. Then, after four years of not being president, he couldn't stand it any longer and stood again. This time, failing to win the Republican nomination, he stood for a third party - the Progressives. It was a fatal error. He lost, the Republicans lost, the socialist candidate polled twice as many votes as previously and Woodrow Wilson was elected - the first time a Democrat had got in in 16 years. (From the Weekend Review, p. 10) |
Link to this entry
http://pokerpulse.com/news/viewtopic.php?p=2423#2423
Last edited by editor on Sat Nov 24, 2007 3:34 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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