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John Baker's Blog

Reflections of a working writer and reader

A writer is someone who spends years patiently trying to discover the second being inside him, and the world that makes him who he is. When I speak of writing, the image that comes first to my mind is not a novel, a poem, or a literary tradition; it is the person who shuts himself up in a room, sits down at a table, and, alone, turns inward. Amid his shadows, he builds a new world with words. This man-or this woman-may use a typewriter, or profit from the ease of a computer, or write with a pen on paper, as I do. As he writes, he may drink tea or coffee, or smoke cigarettes. From time to time, he may rise from his table to look out the window at the children playing in the street, or, if he is lucky, at trees and a view, or even at a black wall. He may write poems, or plays, or novels, as I do. But all these differences arise only after the crucial task is complete-after he has sat down at the table and patiently turned inward. To write is to transform that inward gaze into words, to study the worlds into which we pass when we retire into ourselves, and to do so with patience, obstinacy, and joy. Orhan Pamuk

Presque vu LVII

The thieves were voracious, filching flat-screen televisions and computer games, purloining iPods and DVDs, even making off with a box of liquor and a set of car rims in a burglary two weeks ago at an apartment three young people shared here (White Plains). Luckily, they also took two laptop computers.
One of the laptops was a Macintosh belonging to Kait Duplaga, who works at the Apple store in the Westchester mall and thus knows how to use all its bells and whistles. While the police were coming up dry, Ms. Duplaga exploited the latest software applications installed on her laptop to track down the culprits and even get their photographs.

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In recent weeks I’ve been getting several comments that go like this:

I found your site on technorati and read a few of your other posts. Keep up the good work. I just added your RSS feed to my Google News Reader. Looking forward to reading more from you….

and I’ve set up a huge cyber dustbin which collects them as they arrive, shreds them, and turns them into virtual compost.

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In the Guardian, Lucy McDonald spends an evening in London’s Dana Cafe.

Most science cafes are loosely affiliated through an international umbrella organisation called Café Scientifique, which was founded in Leeds in 1998 and inspired by the French Café Philosophique movement. There are now more than 30 across the country.
In a rare reversal of cultural exchange, it is one trend that Britain has exported to America, which is now home to 60 cafes. There are a further 120 worldwide.

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