Friday, June 24, 2005

Nothing to lose but your chains

Karl Marx was a Taurus. That's all anyone needs to know.

"Today 50 of the largest 100 economies in the world are run by multinationals, not by countries. Mitsubishi is bigger than Saudi Arabia; General Motors is larger than either Greece, Norway or South Africa. The combined annual revenues of the biggest 200 corporations are greater than those of 182 nation-states that contain 80 per cent of the world's population." — Wayne Ellwood in The No-Nonsense Guide to Globalization

According to the latest preliminary estimates released by R.R. Bowker, the total title output in American publishing increased 14 percent in 2004/5 to a new high of 195,000 — up from 135,000 titles only three years ago, although the 2004/5 increase is less than 2003/4's 19-percent jump. Source: Publishers Lunch, May 2005

Yes, it's 1:37 AM and I'm wide awake. Sigh. Still reading lots and lots. I believe I will reach my 50-book goal before the end of June, thereby setting me up to read 100 books this year — some of them even big books! Meanwhile, I'm contemplating dyeing my hair dark, dark brown. Hmm. Did I mention that I'm currently the acting chair in my dept? Once again, the key to the executive washroom dangles mere centimetres from my curious fingers...

Eliminate the metaphor of violence. Incense and lollipops. Find a man who is not. Violets and rosemary. Morning glories opening in August. Am I already a ghost? The taste of the wind, the blackberries of memory.

Somnambulantly,
L

1 comment:

Earl J. Woods said...

Ah, but it gets worse - I just read a report that says that, by some measures, one particular nation in one of the Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Games has a real-world GDP that puts it in 79th place compared to actual nations on planet Earth. In other words, First-Worlders have invested enough surplus wealth to make an imaginary nation richer than most of the real world...

As for the hair, go purple.