Sunday Morning Book Thread 04-12-2020

Good morning to all you 'rons, 'ettes, lurkers, and lurkettes, wine moms, frat bros, crétins sans pantalon (who are technically breaking the rules), the isolated, the distanced, the hunkered-down, and other avoidance artists. Welcome once again to the stately, prestigious, internationally acclaimed and high-class Sunday Morning Book Thread, a weekly compendium of reviews, observations, snark, witty repartee, hilarious bon mots, and a continuing conversation on books, reading, spending way too much money on books, writing books, and publishing books by escaped oafs and oafettes who follow words with their fingers and whose lips move as they read. Unlike other AoSHQ comment threads, the Sunday Morning Book Thread is so hoity-toity, pants are required. Even if it's these pants, which I think are Kurt Eichenwald's fantasy pants.

It Pays To Increase Your Word Power®

The tendency of people to read a newspaper article they know to be full of errors, only to believe unquestioningly everything else they read in the same newspaper, is called the GELL-MANN AMNESIA EFFECT. The term was coined by the author Michael Crichton in 2002.
— Haggard Hawks 📚🦅 (@HaggardHawks) April 8, 2020

From the horse's mouth:

Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect [named after physicist Murray Gell-Mann] is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray’s case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the “wet streets cause rain” stories. Paper’s full of them.

In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.

That is the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect. I’d point out it does not operate in other arenas of life. In ordinary life, if somebody consistently exaggerates or lies to you, you soon discount everything they say...But when it comes to the media, we believe against evidence that it is probably worth our time to read other parts of the paper. When, in fact, it almost certainly isn’t. The only possible explanation for our behavior is amnesia.

The entire piece is worth a read.

A Poem For Easter

Seven Stanzas at Easter
Make no mistake: if he rose at all
It was as His body;
If the cell's dissolution did not reverse, the molecule reknit,
The amino acids rekindle,
The Church will fall.
It was not as the flowers,
Each soft spring recurrent;
It was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled eyes of the
Eleven apostles;
It was as His flesh; ours.
The same hinged thumbs and toes
The same valved heart
That-pierced-died, withered, paused, and then regathered
Out of enduring Might
New strength to enclose.
Let us not mock God with metaphor,
Analogy, sidestepping, transcendence,
Making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the faded
Credulity of earlier ages:
Let us walk through the door.
The stone is rolled back, not papier-mache,
Not a stone in a story,
But the vast rock of materiality that in the slow grinding of
Time will eclipse for each of us
The wide light of day.
And if we have an angel at the tomb,
Make it a real angel,
Weighty with Max Planck's quanta, vivid with hair, opaque in
The dawn light, robed in real linen
Spun on a definite loom.
Let us not seek to make it less monstrous,
For our own convenience, our own sense of beauty,
Lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are embarrassed
By the miracle,
And crushed by remonstrance.
- John Updike

"Self-Quarantine, Day #18"

On My Stack

I've been on a John Grisham kick lately. Reread The Testament, which I wish they'd make into a movie or mini-series, followed it up with The King of Torts, and have just started The Brethren. What can I say? Grisham's books are like popcorn.

I have acquired a book I mentioned a few months ago Mr Finchley Discovers His England by Victor Canning, a popular best-seller in England when if was first published in the 1930s. I liked the $1.99 price.

While I was buying that book, Amazon showed me Sink the Bismarck! By C.S. Forester for 99 cents, so I bought that, too, what the heck. Also saw a spy novel, Agent Zero, on sale for free, and I like free, so now that's on the stack, too.

I'm reading The Emigrants by Swedish author Vilhelm Moberg, mentioned a couple of weeks back, that tells the story of a group of rural Swedes who decide to emigrate to North America. They all have different reasons for doing so, and when they left their village for the last time, I can't imagine what it must have been like for them to give up pretty much everything they have ever known, and then have to tell all of their friends and family that they weren't coming back and they would most likely never see them again.

Who Dis:

Last week's 'who dis' was commie stooge Harry Belafonte.

Books by Morons

Living in a weird, nebulous dystopia right now? Well, trade that dystopia for another. Right now, most of my catalog of books are on #sale for 99 cents for #AmazonKindle. A lot of reading for a buck a piece. (Check the thread for links) pic.twitter.com/PjxLB13Awf
— AJ Powers (@aj_powers) April 6, 2020

This sale has been going on all week. Today is the last day to pick up this dystopian/post-apocalyptic fiction at the reduced price. Heck, you can get all 4 for $3.96.

___________

Moron author Oldsailors Poet has just come out with a new Amy Lynn novel, Amy Lynn Rock Star:

An out of control teenage rock star…
Cantrell, the guitar shredding, hedonistic superstar goes to the kingdom of Saudi Arabia for a high paying private gig. During a night of partying, she unknowingly defiles the Prophet, making an enemy of radical Islam. An enemy that now wants her dead.

A former CIA covert operative turned housewife…
Amy Lynn, AKA covert operative Fenian, in an effort to leave her past behind, tries to be the best wife, mother, daughter and friend she can be. But the pull of her former life progresses from fleeting thoughts, to longings, to a visceral need. Events in her small bucolic town, events and calls from her past take her to the precipice of a return to what she’s best at: killing people and breaking things.

The Kindle edition of Amy Lynn Rock Star is $4.99.

___________

Moron Recommendations

652 Good morning, horde!
This week I finished The Dearly Beloved by Cara Wall. It is a story of how two couples met, the husbands feel a call to ministry, and eventually they end up pastoring a church together in New York City. It is a story of faith, believers and unbelievers, heartache, and relationships. Ultimately, I enjoyed the story, but I did struggle with some of the choices made by some of the characters because they did not have the same beliefs and values I hold. It wasn't a fast read, but it was a touching story.

Posted by: Violet at March 29, 2020 12:47 PM (9ppMC)

I was thinking this is a book that Mrs. Muse might enjoy reading, but she would have the same struggles with the choices made by characters who do not share her values. Movies, too. I try to encourage her to let the author (or the director) tell the story the way they want to tell it, rather than trying to impose our own values on it

Charles and Lily, James and Nan. They meet in Greenwich Village in 1963 when Charles and James are jointly hired to steward the historic Third Presbyterian Church through turbulent times. Their personal differences however, threaten to tear them apart...

In The Dearly Beloved, we follow these two couples through decades of love and friendship, jealousy and understanding, forgiveness and commitment. Against the backdrop of turbulent changes facing the city and the church’s congregation, these four forge improbable paths through their evolving relationships, each struggling with uncertainty, heartbreak, and joy.

The Dearly Beloved is on Kindle for $12.99.

This novel reminds me of another one I read and discussed on the book thread some months ago, The Book of Strange New Things. This is a book about Christians, but it isn't really a Christian book. And even though most of the events in the book take place on another planet, it isn't really a science fiction book, either. Peter, a missionary, is invited aboard one of the first interstellar ships to minister to a civilization of people they've found living on a habitable planet who are eager to hear the gospel. This journey takes him away from his wife who is strugggling with her faith, and he can't help her because he's light years away and trying to minister to a growing flock of believers. It is a very well-written novel and the planet they had to go and the people who lived there to was truly alien - not just humans with blue hair and different ridges on their forehead, like on Star Trek.

___________

64 I'm reading "Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton" by Edward Rice. A gripping story about the 19th century British explorer, linguist, author, and a bunch of other occupations including general badassery.

In the 1840s as an officer for the British East India Company in the Sindh province of Western India (todays Pakistan) he became so proficient in the Shia branch of islam and as a Sufi (islam's mysticism called Sufism) that he successfully spied for the company. He even had himself circumcised. His knowledge and appearance enabled him to make the pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina in 1853 when he would have been killed if he'd been outed as an Englishman. A few years later he began his Africa exploration. While in Somaliland near the Horn of Africa his party was attacked and he received a spear to the face. Later he and John Speke set out to search for the source of the Nile. People were ate up about that back then.

Burton was a bit of an outcast and due to his immersion with the natives he was called a "white n****r" by the more properly behaved Englishmen.

Posted by: Jake Holenhead at April 05, 2020 09:19 AM (P1GvV)

The Amazon blurb is quite insufficient compared to what Jake has written here, so I'll just leave it at that. Burton was quite a man. Bit of a perv, too, if his wiki entry is at all accurate.

Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton: The Secret Agent Who Made the Pilgrimage to Mecca, Discovered the Kama Sutra, and Brought the Arabian Nights to the West appears to be OOP. But you can, for example, pick up a used hardcover edition at Thriftbooks for less than $5. No e-book editions are available.

And while we're on the subject, 'freakdd' mentioned Alan Moorehead's books The White Nile,

Relive all the thrills and adventure of Alan Moorehead's classic bestseller The White Nile -- the daring exploration of the Nile River in the second half of the nineteenth century, which was at that time the most mysterious and impenetrable region on earth. Capturing in breathtaking prose the larger-than-life personalities of such notable figures as Stanley, Livingstone, Burton and many others, The White Nile remains a seminal work in tales of discovery and escapade, filled with incredible historical detail and compelling stories of heroism and drama.

and its sequel, The Blue Nile

In the first half of the nineteenth century, only a small handful of Westerners had ventured into the regions watered by the Nile River on its long journey from Lake Tana in Abyssinia to the Mediterranean-lands that had been forgotten since Roman times, or had never been known at all. In The Blue Nile, Alan Moorehead continues the classic, thrilling narration of adventure he began in The White Nile, depicting this exotic place through the lives of four explorers so daring they can be considered among the world's original adventurers -- each acting and reacting in separate expeditions against a bewildering background of slavery and massacre, political upheaval and all-out war.

Also OOP, so used. You can even get a hardcover boxed set edition.

___________

To console myself, I'm spending time with one of my favorite authors, Giovanni Guareschi, and his literary creation, Don Camillo. ( Hint: a lot of the Don Camillo stories are FREE here https://tinyurl.com/r4mu6qb )

Don Camillo was a country priest and a staunch anti-communist. His best-friend and worst enemy was Pepone, the town mayor and local communist leader. Don Camillo took no prisoners and could only be kept in line by God, Himself, who would occasionally speak him from the crucifix hanging over the altar in Don Camillo's humble church. They represent a time when faith was lived and really meant something. Many of the titles were made into sweet films starring Fenandel. Here is one https://tinyurl.com/twkmvf9

Posted by: RondinellaMamma at April 05, 2020 09:29 AM (8/7u2)

I downloaded The Little World Of Don Camillo for free. It's a small book, about 100 pages and Guareschi is an amusing writer. The general time of the book appears to be just after WW II and it sounds as if the priest (Camillo) and the commie mayor (Peppone) fought in the war together.

Up next will be Comrade Don Camillo, also for free.

___________

And speaking of books on religious topics, here are a couple of recommendations by MP⁴:

You might like a couple of old books concerning religious life: Everybody Calls Me Father, by "Father X," which is a memoir of a young priest's first assignment to a parish. No date is given, but it seems to have been sometime in the mid 1930s.

Actually, Everybody Calls Me Father was published in 1951. The Amazon blurb tells you nothing, but I googled around and found this interesting review by a someone who was actually acquainted with the author.

Of course the book has been OOP for years.

And "A Right To Be Merry," by Mother Mary Francis, who helped found the first Poor Clare convent in Roswell, NM in the 1940s - it's her recollections of becoming a nun and what it's like living the contemplative life.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at April 05, 2020 09:45 AM (2JVJo)

A Right To Be Merry is also out of print, but fortunately, a Kindle version is available.

There was a British TV series, Bless Me, Father that ran 21 episodes from 1978 to 1981, which followed the misadventures of an Irish priest, Father Duddleswell, and his inexperienced curate, Fr. Boyd as they served in an English parish just after WWII. The series is hilarious. It is based on a series of books written by Neil Boyd. I'm not sure how many of them there are, but you can purchase a set of five on Kindle for only $3.99. Nearly 1200 pages. That's a lot of bang for your buck.

___________

So that's all for this week. As always, book thread tips, suggestions, bribes, insults, threats, ugly pants pics and moron library submissions may be sent to OregonMuse, Proprietor, AoSHQ Book Thread, at the book thread e-mail address: aoshqbookthread, followed by the 'at' sign, and then 'G' mail, and then dot cee oh emm.

What have you all been reading this week? Hopefully something good, because, as you all know, life is too short to be reading lousy books.

Posted by: OregonMuse at 09:00 AM

Comments

(Jump to bottom of comments)

1 Happy Easter, book nerds!

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at April 12, 2020 09:00 AM (Dc2NZ)

2 hiya

Posted by: JT at April 12, 2020 09:01 AM (arJlL)

3 Beg pardon for reviewing this on this our Lord's Day but, imagine there's no Narnia . . .

Roger Zelazny's Nine Princes in Amber is in the Michael Moorcock line of Revisionist Fantasy. Gods, of a sort, exist; but they are self-serving and tyrannical. I expect such authors aim to make them more like the old gods of Greece, Sumer, and Canaan.

Amber is the Platonic ideal of the city. Every other world is a Shadow of that, including Earth. There's also a Chaos realm, which (so far) is presented as Cthulhu World. We're brought in when the prince Corwyn wakes up over here. He must then return to Amber and wrest the throne back from prince Eric. We learn that a king is on the loose too but we won't meet him much.

Amber princes have various powers, like Wolverine in Marvel; they also get special Tarot cards which can communicate with or even allow teleport to other princes. Corwyn cannot, yet, Tarot into Amber to fight Eric directly so he's got to prepare an army - from Shadow. For that, he's in luck: some Shadow worlds worship Amber princes as gods. The princes are NOT above manipulating these worlds for cannon-fodder. So... there's the plot of the book, Childe Corwyn's journey to the amber tower.

I couldn't help but see Corwyn more as a Miltonic Lucifer than as a Roland. Especially when Corwyn loses and throws a curse against Eric. This curse makes a hell of the surrounding area. This reminded me of Jadis using the Deplorable Word against her own world Charn. [Or, later, what happens at the Dark Tower when Stephen King started writing about it.] It doesn't feel like ANYONE has claim over Amber, since the KING isn't dead. Who's the reader to support here?

Nine Princes is at least tolerable as a cautionary tale, if it weren't for the nihilism. Unfortunately there's a sequel... The Guns of Avalon. This book flat doesn't work. Corwyn gets out of the dungeon, runs off to some Shadow world, and sees the effect of the (his!) curse. He then struggles back to Amber through a different path. He's then betrayed. Turns out that Chaos is about to destroy Amber entirely. Me, I'm rooting for the demons.

Overall, George Martin is altogether superior to 1970s-era cocaine-fueled stupidity. At least Martin doesn't blaspheme.

Posted by: boulder t'hobo at April 12, 2020 09:01 AM (ykYG2)

4 Agatha Christie

Happy Easter!

Posted by: CN at April 12, 2020 09:01 AM (ONvIw)

5 Eris beat me by a second. Happy Easter!

Posted by: That Deplorable SOB Van Owen at April 12, 2020 09:01 AM (K+EJy)

6 Happy Easter!

Posted by: NALNAMSAM - not as lean, not as mean, still a Marine at April 12, 2020 09:02 AM (+ldAm)

7 Currently reading Harley Merlin and the Secret Coven Kindle Edition by Bella Forrest

Posted by: Vic at April 12, 2020 09:02 AM (mpXpK)

8 Agatha Christie?

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at April 12, 2020 09:02 AM (Dc2NZ)

9 Good morning and happy Easter my fellow Book Threadists.

Posted by: JTB at April 12, 2020 09:03 AM (7EjX1)

10 I've enjoyed the Amy Lynn stories so I will definitely get the next installment.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at April 12, 2020 09:04 AM (Dc2NZ)

11 The James Madison has a nice library, bet lots of movie titles and cinematography books in that picture.
I'd write pick up and read but haven't during this house arrest myself.

Posted by: Skip at April 12, 2020 09:04 AM (ZCEU2)

12 Good morning Horde!
For a change getting in at the top of a thread..... annnnd I got nothing.

Posted by: Vlad the impaler,whittling away like mad at April 12, 2020 09:05 AM (d6mdH)

13 Good morning, Horde! And Happy Easter!

I'm still rereading Robinson Crusoe. He was kind of a dick, wasn't he?

Posted by: Jordan61 at April 12, 2020 09:06 AM (6LTea)

14 Still wending my way through William S. Burroughs’ pirates/sex/drugs/occult plague story “Cities of the Red Night”. It has three narrative strands in different time periods. In the modern era, private dick and clairvoyant Clem Snide is trying to hunt down the leader of a sex cult who abducted and killed a young man for a ritual. It’s very noir:

“We took a taxi to the Alameda, then started off in a northwesterly direction. Once we got off the man streets I saw that the place hadn’t changed all that much: the same narrow unpaved streets and squares with booths selling tacos, fried grasshoppers, and peppermint candy covered with flies; the smell of pulque, urine, benzoin, chile, cooking oil, and sewage; and the faces – bestial, evil, beautiful.”

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at April 12, 2020 09:06 AM (Dc2NZ)

15 Happy Easter morning!

Posted by: A lotta nerve at April 12, 2020 09:06 AM (JdcHc)

16 3 Posted by: boulder t'hobo at April 12, 2020 09:01 AM (ykYG2)

I read that entire series long ago. Good read.

Posted by: Vic at April 12, 2020 09:06 AM (mpXpK)

17 Have a Glorious Easter! He is Risen.

Posted by: Rosasharn at April 12, 2020 09:06 AM (PzBTm)

18 In 1860, Captain Richard Burton also ventured into Great Salt Lake City to interview Prophet Brigham Young. You may read City of the Saints here:
books.google.com/books?id=BeUTAAAAYAAJ

One of the fullest and earliest accounts of the Mormon State, not long after its founding (and three scant years after Mountain Meadows).

Posted by: boulder t'hobo at April 12, 2020 09:07 AM (ykYG2)

19 There is nothing like first-hand experience with the Gell-Mann effect, i.e., when it plays out with something or someone you know intimately. When my father was slandered (defamed, libeled, I'm not sure of the precise legal term) by the writer Gabriel Sherman, it brought it all home in ways nothing else could.

Posted by: Dan Smoot's Apprentice at April 12, 2020 09:07 AM (H8QX8)

20 Nice Lieberry!

Those pants........no.

The who dis is Pat Paulsen catching up on current events during his run for President.

Posted by: Hairyback Guy at April 12, 2020 09:08 AM (Z+IKu)

21 Do you like your science fiction on the weird end of the spectrum? Here's a list of 17 oddballs:

https://best-sci-fi-books.com/best-weird-science-fiction-books/

My favorite title is Time Snake and Superclown.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at April 12, 2020 09:08 AM (Dc2NZ)

22 Agatha pic is also the cover of a free audible short autobiography recording.

Happy Easter all.

Posted by: InspiredHistoryMike at April 12, 2020 09:09 AM (x8Q/V)

23 Would've been here before the books, but I had to apply the 5# rubber mallet just to wake up my net connection.

Easter greetings. He is Risen.

Posted by: mindful webworker
Jerusalem Report
at April 12, 2020 09:09 AM (/DNWp)

24 Those pants are fine. We would wear them to a barbeque on the Nautilus.

Posted by: The crew of the Nautilus at April 12, 2020 09:10 AM (Tnijr)

25 My favorite Agatha mystery is probably...well too many. 4:50 from Paddington is wonderful and almost all the Poirots. There have been so many great adaptations with Suchet. Five Little Pigs is visually stunning as well as well done. I didn't even mind the plot changes in that one

Posted by: CN at April 12, 2020 09:10 AM (ONvIw)

26 The Ames mansion is literally right around the corner from my old condo in Boston. I used to walk past it every single day for many years.

Posted by: JackStraw at April 12, 2020 09:11 AM (ZLI7S)

27 Happy Easter everyone!

I've started reading Josephus as a free e-book. It's an older translation so a bit challenging at times.

In book news, I completed the edits to Battle Officer Wolf and have reformatted it for re-publication. The "revised edition" will look just like me more current books, have better internal divisions and I fixed a bunch of minor errors - chiefly places where the wrong (but correctly spelled) word was substituted.

I also cleaned up dialogue, some revised some descriptions and generally spruced it up in preparation for writing the sequel. I'm just beginning to figure out the plot, how I want to represent the dragon, etc.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 12, 2020 09:11 AM (cfSRQ)

28 Agatha Christie's autobiography is a wonderful read.

Posted by: Ladyl at April 12, 2020 09:11 AM (TdMsT)

29 Do you like your science fiction on the weird end of the spectrum? Here's a list of 17 oddballs:

-

Not looking, but "The Stars My Destination" should be read by every sci-fi fan.

I don't know how it's not a movie.

Posted by: Moron Robbie - hilarious April 4 photo of NYC hospital staff using their gloves and masks at April 12, 2020 09:12 AM (IwDj9)

30 Happy Easter, book nerds!
Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes

Same to you, Eris !

Posted by: JT at April 12, 2020 09:12 AM (arJlL)

31

Who Dis?: A non-PAPERBACK WRITER?

Alex ,I'll take the babe on the cushion couch for $100 same as in the country.

Posted by: saf at April 12, 2020 09:13 AM (5IHGB)

32 Okay, looked.

"A mature alien judge, who is a member of a race of haiku-writing telepathic sauropods, sees an amphibious human woman, obviously a slave, displayed in a tank in front of a sex palace."

O_o

Posted by: Moron Robbie - hilarious April 4 photo of NYC hospital staff using their gloves and masks at April 12, 2020 09:13 AM (IwDj9)

33 Happy Easter Book Horde !

And to our most gracious host !

Posted by: JT at April 12, 2020 09:13 AM (arJlL)

34 I saw Kurt Eichenwald's Fantasy Pants open for MC Hammer.

Please contribute to my GoFundMe to help pay the therapy bills.

Posted by: fluffy at April 12, 2020 09:13 AM (NGm/n)

35 In 1860, Captain Richard Burton also ventured into Great Salt Lake City to interview Prophet Brigham Young. You may read City of the Saints here:

books.google.com/books?id=BeUTAAAAYAAJ

One of the fullest and earliest accounts of the Mormon State, not
long after its founding (and three scant years after Mountain Meadows).

Posted by: boulder t'hobo at April 12, 2020 09:07 AM (ykYG2)

---
Mark Twain wrote about Salt Lake City some time afterwards, when Young was still alive.

He was not a fan. Appreciated the lack of drunks on the sidewalk, though.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 12, 2020 09:14 AM (cfSRQ)

36 Posted by: CN at April 12, 2020 09:10 AM (ONvIw)

I like Agatha Christie, but a lot of the Poirot stories feel like a straight ripoff of Sherlock Holmes.

Posted by: Jordan61 at April 12, 2020 09:14 AM (6LTea)

37 As the library has been closed and closure extended,
we are not amused. No tv, data poor semi smarht old phone, been refreshing aoshq like a crack monkey.
Been rationing "Churchill's Bomb or how the U.S. overtook the u.k. in the 1st nuclear arms race". After that will re read The Rooseveldt Myth about a real SOB, FDR.

MAYOR GARCETTI DELENDA EST

Posted by: getting the banned sharpening sticks at April 12, 2020 09:14 AM (Qg+6K)

38 Then he has bad sex with a woman who changes his face into a clown mask, permanently, steals his pants, and tells him he’s the chosen one to fight the Time Snake, which is going to eat the world.

--

And an official sci-fi book for the Horde.

Posted by: Moron Robbie - hilarious April 4 photo of NYC hospital staff using their gloves and masks at April 12, 2020 09:15 AM (IwDj9)

39 I finished "The Jewish War." Wow. So much destruction and death because the terrorists took over the city and the regular decent folks were robbed and killed and there was no escape.

Buy more ammo.

Posted by: JAS at April 12, 2020 09:16 AM (2BZBZ)

40 19
There is nothing like first-hand experience with the Gell-Mann effect,
i.e., when it plays out with something or someone you know intimately.
When my father was slandered (defamed, libeled, I'm not sure of the
precise legal term) by the writer Gabriel Sherman, it brought it all
home in ways nothing else could.

Posted by: Dan Smoot's Apprentice at April 12, 2020 09:07 AM (H8QX

---
My father is a retired copy editor. We have very different politics, partly because he regards the NYT as gospel truth. I've had to repeatedly point out to him that none of the people working there have any expertise at all, and are consistently wrong, but he derives comfort from their lies, so he keeps subscribing.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 12, 2020 09:16 AM (cfSRQ)

41 33 Happy Easter Book Horde !

Posted by: JT at April 12, 2020 09:13 AM (arJlL)

Happy Easter JT!

Posted by: Jordan61 at April 12, 2020 09:16 AM (6LTea)

42 He is risen.

And this year if He sees His shadow we get 6 more weeks of HouseArrest™.

Posted by: Vlad the impaler,whittling away like mad at April 12, 2020 09:16 AM (d6mdH)

43 ah, William Whiston's Josephus. I keep hoping someone will re-translate it with the hindsight of 150 years of better Greek and better understanding.

Philo is in a similar boat: Charles Duke Yonge's translation is the one everyone's still got. And there's talk it was a hastily-done affair, that Yonge himself hoped someone else would do it justice.

Posted by: boulder t'hobo at April 12, 2020 09:17 AM (ykYG2)

44 He is risen.

I just this week ran into something OM mentioned regarding the Chess Thread. He referred to searching for Chess Babes, and found his own posts prominently featured. I was trying to find the online CSL OHEL copy, and found a comment of mine - in this thread - high on the list.

Was looking for it, partly because of a link in a recent ONT, but also to supplement CSL's discussion in The Discarded Image, of how tentative and ad hoc models are. Something not known by the current "Believe the Science!" brigade. (Another useful book on this is Feser's Aristotle's Revenge. And Bill James makes a similar point, often.) The point is that the entire point of models - necessary to their utility - is that they are abstractions which succeed by leaving things out. This is fine to the extent that what is omitted is truly irrelevant to the question. But we rarely know that, a priori.

As James points out, "bad sabermetricians" assume that their data includes everything necessary to answer their questions.

The relevance of this to current events should be quite obvious.

Posted by: Eeyore at April 12, 2020 09:17 AM (ZbwAu)

45 Sooooooo......Agatha Christie was Eleanor Roosevelt ?

Posted by: JT at April 12, 2020 09:17 AM (arJlL)

46 I suppose it's already been mentioned: the Ames Mansion is part of Borderland State Park in Easton, MA (about 27 miles south of Boston). The park is open year-round and tours of the mansion are sporadic.

The mansion is often used for filming; the latest movie shot there was Knives Out.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at April 12, 2020 09:18 AM (2JVJo)

47 There is a footnote to the Gell-Mann Effect, which I have related here before.

Just last year, a blog writer was doing a little credential checking on an activist institute at the University of New Mexico. They had brochured themselves up and among other things claimed to have a Nobel laureate on staff. On closer investigation, this proved to be the actual Murray Gell-Mann, who had not taught in ten years and had died the previous spring.

Posted by: Way, Way Downriver at April 12, 2020 09:18 AM (8IOEj)

48 RIP Mort Drucker

Two tribute vids.
https://youtu.be/8zNk6-2c75Q
https://youtu.be/EifB2HJQ6GQ

Posted by: Jake Holenhead at April 12, 2020 09:18 AM (P1GvV)

49 I read the G.A. Williamson translation.

Tons of footnotes.

Posted by: JAS at April 12, 2020 09:19 AM (2BZBZ)

50 Happy Easter to you and yourn, Jordan !

Posted by: JT at April 12, 2020 09:19 AM (arJlL)

51
I'd challenge the Hot Babe to a gunfight,but I am afraid I would get Gun Shot residue on my Glock.

Forensic Forebearing

Posted by: saf at April 12, 2020 09:20 AM (5IHGB)

52 **sigh**

I wish I had that girl in the pink dress and silver shoes.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at April 12, 2020 09:20 AM (2JVJo)

53 45 Sooooooo......Agatha Christie was Eleanor Roosevelt ?
Posted by: JT at April 12, 2020 09:17 AM (arJlL)

Yeah I thought it was Eleanor Roosevelt too.

Posted by: Jordan61 at April 12, 2020 09:20 AM (6LTea)

54 39
I finished "The Jewish War." Wow. So much destruction and death
because the terrorists took over the city and the regular decent folks
were robbed and killed and there was no escape.

Buy more ammo.

Posted by: JAS at April 12, 2020 09:16 AM (2BZBZ)

---
I'm just getting into it and the viciousness of the ruling class is off the charts. Game of Thrones has nothing on these people. The one usurper who *bites the ears off* of a guy so he can't serve as high priest was pretty amazingly savage. I mean Mike Tyson didn't come back for seconds, but this dude did.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 12, 2020 09:20 AM (cfSRQ)

55 >>The mansion is often used for filming; the latest movie shot there was Knives Out.

Yea, that was their other home. Even more magnificent. I guess the library is in the Easton home not the Boston home.

Posted by: JackStraw at April 12, 2020 09:20 AM (ZLI7S)

56 Time to go to Mom's. See you cats and kittens later in the day.

Have a blessed Easter, and happy reading!

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at April 12, 2020 09:21 AM (Dc2NZ)

57 I finished "Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton" by Edward Rice. A gripping story about the 19th century British explorer, linguist, author, spy, soldier, and diplomat.

He spent 7 years in India as a soldier and a spy. He made the pilgrimage to Mecca and would have been killed if he'd been outed as an Englishman. In 1857 he and John H. Speke traveled to Central Africa in search of the source of the Nile. Then in 1861 he became the British consul on the disease ridden island of Fernando Po (called the "white man's grave") off the coast of West Africa and also served as consul on Santos, Brazil, and Damascus, Syria, and finally Trieste (todays Italy) where he died in 1890.

Burton was a wanderer and searched for knowledge, especially spiritual knowledge. Fluent in 29 languages, he searched libraries, collected oral stories, and wrote dozens of books. He caused quite a stir with Victorian England with tales of native sexual practices, man and woman scaping, female circumcision and other mutilations. He formed the Kama Shastra Society to circumvent Britain's Obscene Publications Act in order to publish his version of the Kama Sutra, The Arabian Nights and other books that dealt with erotic themes.

When Burton died his wife Isabel burned a lot of his unpublished writings. Some may have been too erotic for her Catholic faith, but some were very critical of the government and of those still alive, and some may have been about his spying during The Great Game.

Posted by: Jake Holenhead at April 12, 2020 09:22 AM (P1GvV)

58 Assuming it's open next month, Zod and Mrs. will be making a (very) long-overdue pilgrimage to Faulkner's Rowan Oak estate.

Posted by: Zod at April 12, 2020 09:23 AM (XzT/D)

59
Pants by:

The James Bond Octopussy Collection from Target.

Posted by: naturalfake at April 12, 2020 09:23 AM (z0XD8)

60 RIP Mort Drucker

Two tribute vids.
https://youtu.be/8zNk6-2c75Q
https://youtu.be/EifB2HJQ6GQ
Posted by: Jake Holenhead at April 12, 2020

*
*

Mornin', all,

I think Mort Drucker was the Mad artist who drew the 1964 parody of The Man From U.N.C.L.E., with "Nasoleon Polo" and "Kwitcher Bellyakin." Probably it was called "The Man from AUNTIE," but I'm not sure.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at April 12, 2020 09:24 AM (rpbg1)

61 I mean, it's NOT Eleanor Roosevelt, but that's who I thought it was a first.

Posted by: Jordan61 at April 12, 2020 09:24 AM (6LTea)

62
g'mornin', 'rons

Posted by: AltonJackson at April 12, 2020 09:24 AM (BnZSG)

63 That stack of books looks rather precarious and Dame Christie seems to be thinking "whose stupid idea was this for a publicity shot?"

Posted by: Bob the Bilderberg at April 12, 2020 09:24 AM (qc+VF)

64 Apparently MI Gov Whitmer saw Delores Umbridge as a sympathetic character. Is there a wall in Lansing where she nails up her decrees?

Posted by: Brave Sir Robin at April 12, 2020 09:25 AM (7Fj9P)

65 The point is that the entire point of models -
necessary to their utility - is that they are abstractions which succeed
by leaving things out. This is fine to the extent that what is omitted
is truly irrelevant to the question. But we rarely know that, a priori.

As James points out, "bad sabermetricians" assume that their data includes everything necessary to answer their questions.

The relevance of this to current events should be quite obvious.

Posted by: Eeyore at April 12, 2020 09:17 AM (ZbwAu)

---
Indeed, and one thing I've noticed is that people keep confusing "complexity" for "realism." You see this kind of thing all the time in wargames design. If you put fifty different charts and tables together, you're aren't being realistic, just creating clutter.

Wargaming is basically competitive modeling. The simpler your design, the better your result will be.

I've noticed that a lot of gamers who think they are brilliant strategists are actually just really good at going through complex checklists. Put them in a more basic strategic environment free of clutter and the freeze up.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 12, 2020 09:26 AM (cfSRQ)

66 For some reason these times have caused me to re-read more classic literature that's been in the personal library since the 1970's when I subscribed to a number of book-of-the-month type of "clubs". I have not read these books in decades. First up was "Ivanhoe", then "The Call of the Wild" and now into "The Sea Wolf". For some reason in these days a re-read of some techno-thriller or space opera just ain't cutting it. It's a bit like the way 9/11 completely destroyed any interest I had in novels with a terrorist based plot.

Anyone else seeing their reading taste has changed?

Posted by: George V at April 12, 2020 09:27 AM (U2Tva)

67 It's been a week to get books I ordered online. I started "Red Sky at Morning" by Bradford that was mentioned here a couple of weeks ago. Just three chapters into it but it is funny so far in a late teens, sarcastic manner. It's good enough to make me want to continue and see how the protagonist and odd characters get on.

Posted by: JTB at April 12, 2020 09:27 AM (7EjX1)

68 oh man, Mort Drucker's MAD parodies were a fixture of my childhood. If we were too young to watch movies like "Altered State" and "Dressed to Kill", Drucker was how we got the gist of the plot.

R.I.P. I hope you're watching the movies made in Hell, so you can pillory them for the angels in Heaven.

Posted by: boulder t'hobo at April 12, 2020 09:27 AM (ykYG2)

69 I mentioned last week that I've been reading Devoted by Dean Koontz and I'm quite enjoying it EXCEPT:

As he often does, he has created "public servants" who are corrupt, power mad, criminals who use their positions to make the public their servants through lies, theft and force. When I read about them these days I get so angry I can hardly contain myself. At least it is seasonally appropriate to have visions of crucifixions dancing in my head. (In fairness, Koontz also includes heroic public servants in this and many if not all of his stories.)

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at April 12, 2020 09:28 AM (+y/Ru)

70 I'd challenge the Hot Babe to a gunfight,but I am afraid I would get Gun Shot residue on my Glock.

Forensic Forebearing

Posted by: saf at April 12, 2020 09:20 AM (5IHGB)

---
I think wrestling would be more enjoyable.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 12, 2020 09:28 AM (cfSRQ)

71 If you like Sir Richard Francis Burton's story, here are two companion books. Stanley, by Tim Jeal tells the fascinating story of Henry Morton Stanley, the Welsh orphan who became an American, fought for both sides in the Civil War, became a reporter, found Dr Livingstone and was the first to travel the length of the Congo River. For a comprehensive look at all of the larger than life personalities who penetrated the dark continent, I highly recommend Thomas Packenham's The Scramble For Africa.

Posted by: Vashta Nerada at April 12, 2020 09:28 AM (ImpBV)

72 I finished "The Jewish War." Wow. So much destruction and death
because the terrorists took over the city and the regular decent folks
were robbed and killed and there was no escape.

Buy more ammo.

Posted by: JAS at April 12, 2020 09:16 AM (2BZBZ)

---
I'm just getting into it and the viciousness of the ruling class is off the charts. Game of Thrones has nothing on these people. The one usurper who *bites the ears off* of a guy so he can't serve as high priest was pretty amazingly savage. I mean Mike Tyson didn't come back for seconds, but this dude did.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 12, 2020 09:20 AM (cfSRQ)

One's body, IIRC, had to be intact and perfect in order to mount the Byzantine throne, which was why, when emperors were overthrown or heirs to the throne needed to be put out of the way, they would be blinded, or have their noses given the Chinatown treatment or so on.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at April 12, 2020 09:28 AM (2JVJo)

73 Is it pronounced "Ghell" or "Jell"?

Posted by: Eeyore at April 12, 2020 09:28 AM (ZbwAu)

74 Happy Easter, one and all!!!

May your ham
be hammy
May your lamb
Be lamby
May your leftovers
Make sammies!

Posted by: naturalfake at April 12, 2020 09:28 AM (z0XD8)

75 I still remember Drucker's parody of The Shining. "What are we going to eat? [looks over at Jack] oh yeah... I think we have some frozen HAM."

Posted by: boulder t'hobo at April 12, 2020 09:29 AM (ykYG2)

76 Christ is Risen!
Hallelujah!

Happy Spring to all the Horde Peeps!

Posted by: vmom 2020 at April 12, 2020 09:29 AM (G546f)

77 : Mary Poppins, you're going to need that umbrella.

Posted by: boulder t'hobo at April 12, 2020 09:29 AM (ykYG2)

78 Last week Harry Belefonte. This week, John Grisham. What's with the leftist db promotion?

Posted by: WTP at April 12, 2020 09:30 AM (WQfDg)

79 Oh, FFS.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at April 12, 2020 09:30 AM (2JVJo)

80 I like Agatha Christie, but a lot of the Poirot stories feel like a straight ripoff of Sherlock Holmes.
Posted by: Jordan61 at April 12, 2020

*
*

I've done my time with her works, but I was never a FAN as I was with Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe/Archie Goodwin stories, or Ellery Queen's dazzling puzzles, or John Dickson Carr's even wilder locked rooms. Her prose is utilitarian at best, and her Poirot (some have said) speaks in schoolboy French.

On the other hand: She was first, I think, with the notion that a murderer might try to get himself arrested, tried, and acquitted so that he could not be tried again; and with the idea of the narrator, the Watson, turning out to be the killer; and other twist endings. And I know I was really liking a sort of Dr. McCoy character in a later Jane Marple mystery, and was astonished when he is revealed as the killer. That takes some writing skill.

I just think it's a shame that her stuff has been turned into movies and is still in print, while Stout, Queen, and Carr have been almost forgotten.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at April 12, 2020 09:30 AM (rpbg1)

81 I've started Bloodlands,a history of the genocides perpetrated by Stalin and Hitler in Central Europe, based on recommendations here.

I needed a light diversion from my day to day, you see

Posted by: Ignoramus at April 12, 2020 09:30 AM (9TdxA)

82 I think Mort Drucker was the Mad artist who drew the 1964 parody of The Man From U.N.C.L.E., with "Nasoleon Polo" and "Kwitcher Bellyakin." Probably it was called "The Man from AUNTIE," but I'm not sure.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at April 12, 2020 09:24 AM

The Man From A.U.N.T.I.E.
https://tinyurl.com/ttck63r

Posted by: Jake Holenhead at April 12, 2020 09:31 AM (P1GvV)

83 And I have no book news. I have done nothing this week but stare at a blank notebook page.

I knew this depression was coming - anyone who's got it knows you can feel it coming on - but I didn't think it was going to be quite this bad.

I really wish I had a cigar to smoke right now.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at April 12, 2020 09:31 AM (2JVJo)

84 My dad's diary entry for April 12, 1944 at Anzio, Italy, a young captain in the U.S. Army's VI Corps counter-battery artillery section:

Apr 12
Spring is here for sure. The swallows came to town and now hundreds of them are wheeling and winging around. I wonder if they will stay with all this shelling. For the first time we had our own bombers over the enemy arty area. Results are not known.

The swallows remain.

May God grant us the wisdom, the strength and the courage that he granted my father and his generation. Blessed Easter to all!

Posted by: Muldoon at April 12, 2020 09:32 AM (m45I2)

85
MPPP,

Easter is the Barrel is the Best Easter.

Just don't participate in the "Egg Hunt".

Posted by: naturalfake at April 12, 2020 09:32 AM (z0XD8)

86 Happy Easter everyone.

Posted by: Josh Brolin at April 12, 2020 09:32 AM (A5zUN)

87 >>Anyone else seeing their reading taste has changed? Posted by: George V at April 12, 2020 09:27 AM (U2Tva)

Interesting, and yes. Typically a voracious nonfiction reader, but finding a lot of pleasure in re-reading fiction from my college years Also to see that biases in taste are largely unchanged; still like Graham Greene and the Modernists, still uninterested in Golding or Canadian writers (esp. Davies).

Posted by: Zod at April 12, 2020 09:33 AM (XzT/D)

88 Anyone else seeing their reading taste has changed?

Posted by: George V at April 12, 2020 09:27 AM (U2Tva)

---
Yes, but in a different way.

A friend and I were working our way through the North and South TV shows, and this was fueling my renewed interest in the Civil War. I dusted off Battles and Leaders (wrote about it here).

But with the quarantine, we've had to stop our weekly viewing session. People here mentioned Josephus, which I always meant to read, and so that's what I'm doing. Plus, it's Easter, and that seems a good backgrounder.

Not book-related, but our family is doing all the sword and toga movies right now. Watched Ben Hur, The Ten Commandments, we've got Risen and then Quo Vadis coming up.

We watched Gibson's Passion of the Christ but I'm developing a powerful dislike of the film. It never sat well with me and I'm not sure I want to watch it again.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 12, 2020 09:33 AM (cfSRQ)

89 Indeed, and one thing I've noticed is that people keep confusing "complexity" for "realism." You see this kind of thing all the time in wargames design. If you put fifty different charts and tables together, you're aren't being realistic, just creating clutter.

Wargaming is basically competitive modeling. The simpler your design, the better your result will be.

I've noticed that a lot of gamers who think they are brilliant strategists are actually just really good at going through complex checklists. Put them in a more basic strategic environment free of clutter and the freeze up.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 12, 2020 09:26 AM (cfSRQ)
_______

A friend (who actually believes this) had a clever riposte. "The French had misread the rules, and thought Panzer Divisions couldn't attack through the Ardennes.

But here, as so often, I can't be wholehearted. Chadwick's monster, Operation Crusader is a thing of beauty and a joy forever. Granted, the big scenario is effectively unplayable. Where can you find that many grognards with that much time?

But I have played Battleaxe, and it's glorious. You don't know what's coming, and sometimes when you figure it out, the best counter is impossible. E.g., seeing an opening exactly when your tanks are too low on fuel to reply.

It's a shame it wasn't programmed for the computer.

Posted by: Eeyore at April 12, 2020 09:33 AM (ZbwAu)

90 OM, what is the name of the artist who painted that picture of the girl in pink? I cant quite make it out and want to see what else he has done.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at April 12, 2020 09:34 AM (2JVJo)

91 Roll out the barrel.

Posted by: Eeyore at April 12, 2020 09:34 AM (ZbwAu)

92 Have any of you ever heard of The House of Ice in Saint Petersburg, Russia? Evidently Peter the Great had a nutty (and very fat) niece who commissioned the construction of this huge house of ice during a really cold winter where two of her jesters were to spend their wedding night. Yes, spend your wedding night on a bed made out of ice in a room of ice. That's one of the chapters in "The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them" by Elif Batuman, and the reason it gets included is that a book was written about it by a not very good writer (everyone in St Petersburg she asks about it says "he's a terrible writer that nobody bothers with") and a few years ago they did a scaled down recreation that she was dispatched by the New Yorker to write about (she really trashes the New Yorker in spot).

Anyway she has other chapters devoted to major authors like she was trying to get additional funding for research on Tolstoy from the angle that he died from being murdered. Her advisor said "he was 82 and suffered from strokes" to which she said "that would be a perfect alibi". I'm not sure if she really believed that but she makes it funnier than my summary probably did. Plus she remarks on the true stuff like how nutty Lev became near the end and turned over the copyrights to his later works over to this mysterious "friend", leavin his wife who'd put up with all his whoring around to worry about her and the kids being destitute. Plus she has some interesting vignettes about his life.

Interspersed throughout are chapters about spending a summer in Samarkind learning Uzbek so she can read the poetry, which frankly sounds boring as fuck and is interesting mainly as travel stories to a muslim lite outpost of the post Soviet Union. But the book has made me laugh a lot and that's definitely worth something. Plus she has a real passion for Russian literature.

Posted by: Captain Hate at April 12, 2020 09:35 AM (y7DUB)

93
May God grant us the wisdom, the strength and the courage that he granted my father and his generation. Blessed Easter to all!

Posted by: Muldoon at April 12, 2020 09:32 AM (m45I2)

---
Thanks for sharing this.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 12, 2020 09:35 AM (cfSRQ)

94 I read Last Boat Out Of Shanghai: The Epic Story of the Chinese Who Fled Mao's Revolution by Helen Zia. Ms Zia interviewed hundreds of exiles. She details the stories of four of them, one of which is her mother. An interesting history of the times, place, and its people.
I also read My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell. In this debut novel, Vanessa is fifteen when she is seduced and abused by her manipulative English teacher at her boarding school in Maine. Fifteen years later another former student of the school makes accusations against the teacher and reaches out to Vanessa to come forward with her story. The book alternates between past and present and shows the effects on Vanessa's life the abuse caused. A complex, dark, disturbing read.

Posted by: Zoltan at April 12, 2020 09:35 AM (3ugDL)

95 Gack. Off Brolin sock!

Posted by: Aetius451AD at April 12, 2020 09:36 AM (A5zUN)

96 For a limited time, Moe Lane's kickstarter is live!

It's a post-apocalyptic fantasy detective novel. He drafted it last WriMoNaNo, polished it a bit, and decided he might just be able to sell it.

I was a beta reader, and it was pretty darn good then. This kickstarter will help pay for professional editing, artwork (Shaenon Garrity of Skin Horse), ISBN, maps, and even an audiobook if it reaches the $3k stretch goal.

The $5 level even includes 6 (not 3 - stretch goal achieved!) short stories set in the overarching post-apocalyptic setting.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/moelane/frozen-dreams-a-novel

Posted by: Jeff Weimer at April 12, 2020 09:36 AM (ijEPD)

97 I wish I had that girl in the pink dress and silver shoes.

The minute I saw that picture I thought this is perfect Poppins bait.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Guy Who Actually Writes for This Blog at April 12, 2020 09:36 AM (gd9RK)

98 Another thing in the OHEL volume is CSL's treatment of Sidney's Arcadia. Unfortunately I cannot find a version I can copy and paste from. His description of Arcadia as, not a true ideal world, but one in which the ideals stand out more starkly in the characters, really fits Narnia. (And LOTR, too.)

Posted by: Eeyore at April 12, 2020 09:36 AM (ZbwAu)

99 The Man From A.U.N.T.I.E.
https://tinyurl.com/ttck63r
Posted by: Jake Holenhead at April 12, 2020

*
*

Drucker really captured the look of the actors, even the casual hands-in-pockets look of Vaughn's Napoleon Solo, didn't he?

There was also an early Avengers with Mrs. Peel called "The Girl from AUNTIE," but I doubt that the Mad parody inspired that. The play on "uncle" is pretty easy to make.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at April 12, 2020 09:36 AM (rpbg1)

100 Good morning all - and Happy Easter!
Yet another week in lock-down for me - my daughter and I occupied alternately with home reno, and sewing masks for at-risk friends and family.
Reading - split for me between one of Sarah Hoyt's furniture-refinishing mysteries, and a new novel gotten in pre-release through Amazon Vine; Liberation, by Imogen Kealey. It's a fiction (although quite well researched) about Nancy Wake, all around bad-ass WWII female agent and Underground leader. Haven't finished it quite yet, but aside from some adjusting of events - pretty good reading. I may go back and compare it to Nancy Wake's memoir about her work in fighting the Nazi occupation.

Posted by: Sgt. Mom at April 12, 2020 09:36 AM (xnmPy)

101 The USA is a diverse place. One size fits all doesn't work for handling the Virus

When you speak of modeling, NYC and environs has a different key variable than other places, the extent of our reliance on public transit. Subways are an obvious key vector. You can map transmissions into Westchester and Long Island with a map of the commuter rail lines.

The fire here burned fast and furiously. Ironically, because of this, we could go back to work earlier than many other places, but I expect that our politicians won't let us

Posted by: Ignoramus at April 12, 2020 09:38 AM (9TdxA)

102 Happy Easter, bookfagz!

Posted by: Insomniac - Ex Cineribus Resurgo at April 12, 2020 09:39 AM (NWiLs)

103 Not book-related, but our family is doing all the sword and toga movies right now. Watched Ben Hur, The Ten Commandments, we've got Risen and then Quo Vadis coming up. . . .

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 12, 2020

*
*

Risen is that recent movie with one of the Fiennes brothers, isn't it? The sort-of-detective story with a Roman centurion detailed to find out the truth of this tale about a crucified Jewish rabble-rouser rising from the dead?

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at April 12, 2020 09:39 AM (rpbg1)

104 A decent Easter movie is "Risen" with Joseph Fiennes. He plays a Roman Tribune tasked by Pilate to find out what happened to Christ's body, and for once the actor who plays Christ doesn't look like a blond, blue eyed scandi.

Posted by: Jake Holenhead at April 12, 2020 09:40 AM (P1GvV)

105 Anyone else seeing their reading taste has changed?
===========
Yes. Definitely. I've developed a very low tolerance for any fiction produced starting about WWI or so. As the century went on, the fiction seemed to become more and more unhinged from a sense of reality. My theory is that with tremendous wealth, fewer and fewer writers had to hold real jobs to support themselves. Writing became more of a profession itself. Consequently, I read very little fiction outside of the classics. And even non-fiction has begun to suffer from a similar, though differently manifested problem.

Posted by: WTP at April 12, 2020 09:40 AM (WQfDg)

106 Have any of you ever heard of The House of Ice in Saint Petersburg, Russia? Evidently Peter the Great had a nutty (and very fat) niece who commissioned the construction of this huge house of ice during a really cold winter where two of her jesters were to spend their wedding night.

The Empress Anna Ivanova.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at April 12, 2020 09:40 AM (2JVJo)

107 I reread Sanderson's Wax and Wayne series. They are light and fun reads.

The kindle makes things easy to read (and is nice for transport) but I think I am going to start going through my hard copies.

Posted by: Aetius451AD at April 12, 2020 09:41 AM (A5zUN)

108 In one of the books I'm reading, one of the secondary heroes is a reporter. But it came out in 1953 (and Brit, but I don't think that's a difference on this point.) The guy is described as getting into journalism by a very circuitous route, and in a purely fortuitous manner.

Now, I don't think that journalism was ever what it pretended to be. It was always basically lying for a living. But I do think it is now at an all-time low, and I strongly suspect that "professionalism" and Journalism Schools are a big part of the problem.

Really, other than a few obvious fields - medicine was in the university curriculum in the 12th C - is there really any benefit to most of the majors? I seriously doubt it.

Posted by: Eeyore at April 12, 2020 09:42 AM (ZbwAu)

109 I've started Bloodlands,a history of the genocides perpetrated by Stalin and Hitler in Central Europe, based on recommendations here.

I needed a light diversion from my day to day, you see
Posted by: Ignoramus at April 12, 2020 09:30 AM (9TdxA)

Something about Snyder's writing style made me obsessively read it from cover to cover. He subsequently has become as delusional as Patterico about everything so I guess the Muse only graced him with a brief respite of sanity.

Posted by: Captain Hate at April 12, 2020 09:43 AM (y7DUB)

110 There's a fairly new book out - Grub Street: The Origins of the British Press. I'd like to get it, but having had my hours slashes, pennies are not as plentiful as they were.

https://tinyurl.com/rlsmd3c

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at April 12, 2020 09:45 AM (2JVJo)

111 On the series Bree Taggart by Melinda Lee. She also write the Morgan Dane series.

Also have the Last Marine. Pretty good about 50% thru.

Posted by: rhennigantx at April 12, 2020 09:45 AM (JFO2v)

112 I've always had trouble with Grisham books mostly because his protagonists are lawyers.

Posted by: Downcast at April 12, 2020 09:46 AM (xgpfE)

113 I just think it's a shame that her stuff has been turned into movies and is still in print, while Stout, Queen, and Carr have been almost forgotten.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at April 12, 2020 09:30 AM (rpbg1)
______

No argument from me. One reason I think is that Poirot really isn't much in the way of characterization. There are many who have never seen a Holmes done just right. (I'm one of them.) But Poirot is empty enough that a good actor can make him work; it's the performance, not the character, which gives the fun. That's why actors as different as Ustinov and Finney could pull it off.

Personally, I've always thought Marple was much better drawn than Poirot.

Posted by: Eeyore at April 12, 2020 09:46 AM (ZbwAu)

114 The Empress Anna Ivanova.
Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at April 12, 2020 09:40 A

Bingo. How did you know that?

Posted by: Captain Hate at April 12, 2020 09:46 AM (y7DUB)

115 I haven't been able to sit and finish my Fulton Sheen review, but I found him amazingly prescient and while not as classically erudite as Lewis. Sheen relies more heavily on other Catholic writers (many of whom I'm unfamiliar). I reflect often on his view that politics would become a religion and that it demand that we render unto Caesar the things that are God's. I initially saw that as the ability to decide who will live and die (abortion, euthanasia and denial of life support), but now I see a state limiting freedom of religion, assembly and speech and now know how very great that political religion has grown.

The current liberals have a political liturgy without a world to come, just as he said. I think the attempts at restricting worship have just begun with the libs.

I tried to post the quote but pixy said no and blotted away a much better post.

Posted by: CN at April 12, 2020 09:46 AM (ONvIw)

116 "Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified. He is not here: for he is risen, as he said..."

Happy Easter. Let The Resurrection be a lesson for us this day.

Read your Bible.

Posted by: Hesco Gypsy, staring from 457 meters at April 12, 2020 09:46 AM (OvKdi)

117 Primary reading for the last week has been from the open library at internet archive.
Christopher Columbus Mariner by Samuel Elliott Morrison, an abridged version of "Admiral of the Ocean Sea". I'd not realized it wasn't full version, but a nice overview with pretty complete details on his 4 exploring voyages.

Currently reading a Tesla biography and a good book on "Building the Trireme" reconstruction done in the late 80s.

I've got several China related titles tagged that I'll try to get to.
Also in doing browsing they have multiple titles from and about Edgar Cayce. Cayce was well documented Christian "trance diagnostician" / healer. I've read enough about him to be convinced he wasn't fake, but not anything directly from him.

Posted by: InspiredHistoryMike at April 12, 2020 09:46 AM (x8Q/V)

118 >>110 There's a fairly new book out - Grub Street: The Origins of the British Press. I'd like to get it
Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at April 12, 2020 09:45 AM (2JVJo)

When your pennies are more plentiful (or your library reopens) consider "Scoop" by Evelyn Waugh. Entertain ing satire of British sensationalism in the press...

Posted by: Zod at April 12, 2020 09:47 AM (XzT/D)

119 Anyone else seeing their reading taste has changed? Posted by: George V at April 12, 2020 09:27 AM (U2Tva)
_______

No. But then, I gave up reading naval history for Lent, so I'm primed to go back to my first love.

Posted by: Eeyore at April 12, 2020 09:48 AM (ZbwAu)

120 There are many who have never seen a Holmes done just right. (I'm one of them.)

I've always considered Jeremy Brett (at least in the early, lean days) to have been definitive.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at April 12, 2020 09:48 AM (2JVJo)

121 Georges Paris painting is lovely BTW

Posted by: CN at April 12, 2020 09:48 AM (ONvIw)

122 The Empress Anna Ivanova.
Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at April 12, 2020 09:40 A

Bingo. How did you know that?
Posted by: Captain Hate at April 12, 2020 09:46 AM (y7DUB)

I remembered reading about that somewhere, so I pawed through my books and remembered a reference to it in The Mammoth Book of Eccentrics.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at April 12, 2020 09:49 AM (2JVJo)

123 Good Easter morning, horde! May the Lord bless us and have mercy on us during the Great Hunkering, and forever after.

I'm nearly finished with The Killer Department by Robert Cullen. It details a Soviet detective's search for Russia's most prolific serial killer (well, it's not about Stalin, but you know...).

They could have caught this guy much earlier, but the Soviets didn't have good computer systems, good communication with other cities, good systems of any kind, really. And they extracted numerous false confessions from innocent people.

It seems crazy how quickly people would confess to these gruesome mutilations, but given the Soviet propensity toward torture, it's not really surprising.

Posted by: April at April 12, 2020 09:49 AM (OX9vb)

124 We watched Gibson's Passion of the Christ but I'm developing a powerful dislike of the film. It never sat well with me and I'm not sure I want to watch it again.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 12, 2020 09:33 AM (cfSRQ)

It's painful to watch the scourging but otherwise I thought it was well done.

Posted by: Captain Hate at April 12, 2020 09:50 AM (y7DUB)

125 I've started Bloodlands,a history of the genocides perpetrated by Stalin and Hitler in Central Europe, based on recommendations here.

-
That is a harrowing book.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at April 12, 2020 09:50 AM (+y/Ru)

126 Agatha Christie wrote 66 detective novels. There are some who say she wrote the same novel 66 times.

Posted by: Muldoon at April 12, 2020 09:51 AM (m45I2)

127 I reread a few chunks from Gargantua and Pantagruel last week. So weird and bizarre. Six hundred pages of dick and fart jokes and puns in Latin.

Posted by: Vanya at April 12, 2020 09:51 AM (BAsqb)

128 Who Dis?: A non-PAPERBACK WRITER?

Dear Sir or Madam, will you read my book?

It took me years to write, will you take a look?

It's based on a novel by a man named Lear

And I need a job, so I want to be a paperback writer

Paperback writer

Posted by: TheQuietMan at April 12, 2020 09:52 AM (FRiC1)

129
81 I've started Bloodlands,a history of the genocides perpetrated by Stalin and Hitler in Central Europe, based on recommendations here.

I needed a light diversion from my day to day, you see
Posted by: Ignoramus

I wish you well in your reading. It is a hard slog through some of the worst human behavior with no redeeming actions or reveals.

It had been recommended to my wife to assist her with researching her family in Lithuania, but therecwas no connection there at all (I'm guessing that my friend failed to comprehend what she was searching for).

After I finished it I turned it over to the free lending library at my gym and shortly thereafter someone appeared to have taken it to read.

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars (TM) at April 12, 2020 09:52 AM (pNxlR)

130 Sir Richard Burton (the soldier & explorer):

"For 30 years, I served my country faithfully, through war and peace, hardship and privation. After 30 years, I was nearly destitute, and I could barely support myself. Then I wrote a doubtful book and made 40000 pounds. Now that I know the tastes of the British public, I shall never be poor again!"

(appx; from memory)

Posted by: mnw at April 12, 2020 09:52 AM (Cssks)

131 or Georges Croegaert..Paris. He was Belgian

Posted by: CN at April 12, 2020 09:52 AM (ONvIw)

132 114 The Empress Anna Ivanova.
Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at April 12, 2020 09:40 A

Bingo. How did you know that?
Posted by: Captain Hate at April 12, 2020 09:46 AM (y7DUB)

MP4 is Genius! I transfer...

Posted by: Peggy at April 12, 2020 09:53 AM (PiwSw)

133 Not book-related, but our family is doing all the sword and toga movies right now. Watched Ben Hur, The Ten Commandments, we've got Risen and then Quo Vadis coming up.

We watched Gibson's Passion of the Christ but I'm developing a powerful dislike of the film. It never sat well with me and I'm not sure I want to watch it again.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 12, 2020 09:33 AM (cfSRQ)

I saw Ben Hur yesterday. Evoked those days of the "epic" movie with Overtures and Intermissions, which was neat. I think it was at its weakest when trying to integrate Ben-Hur's personal story of revenge with the Christ drama. As a revenge story, much stronger. Heston did a marvelous job embodying a reluctant warrior.

I agree about Gibson's "Passion." It says too much about Gibson. I think he has sado-masochistic issues. "The Gospel of John" from 2003 with Henry Ian Cusick as Christ is much better in my opinion.

Posted by: Dan Smoot's Apprentice at April 12, 2020 09:53 AM (H8QX8)

134 116 "Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified. He is not here: for he is risen, as he said..."

Happy Easter. Let The Resurrection be a lesson for us this day.

Read your Bible.
Posted by: Hesco Gypsy

----

Amen I say to you! Amen!

Posted by: Tonypete at April 12, 2020 09:53 AM (Y4EXg)

135 90 OM, what is the name of the artist who painted that picture of the girl in pink? I cant quite make it out and want to see what else he has done.
Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at April 12, 2020 09:34 AM (2JVJo)

According to Google image search, the artist's name was Georges Croegaert. I don't know anything about him.

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Social Distancing Professional at April 12, 2020 09:53 AM (R2AXd)

136 I'm nearly finished with The Killer Department by Robert Cullen. It details a Soviet detective's search for Russia's most prolific serial killer (well, it's not about Stalin, but you know...).

Is that about Andrei Chikatilo?

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at April 12, 2020 09:53 AM (2JVJo)

137 I am currently reading Journey by James Michener. Its about a group of young English men in the late 1800s who take an on land journey to the Klondike gold fields, insisting on taking no path that goes across American soil.

I haven't actually read any Michener book, but I did listen to several as read by Dick Estell on NPR in the 70s and 80s (heard Jaws on there before the film came out as well) on a show called The Radio Reader*

Having studied and read quite a bit about that trip and the land they are going to pass through its shocking how ignorant they are about it and awful to think about what lays before them as they prepare for their trip.

*Estell read books on the radio from 1964-2005, covering an amazingly wide range of stories. I have no idea how he picked the books.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at April 12, 2020 09:53 AM (KZzsI)

138 Those interested in books about British explorers like Sir Richard Francis Burton and "The White Nile" should also check out Peter Hopkirk's books. His best is "The Great Game: The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia". Hopkirk's non-fiction books read like gripping adventure novels.

Posted by: cool breeze at April 12, 2020 09:54 AM (UGKMd)

139 Alas, the Bless Me, Father compendium is now $22 on kindle. The tv series was hilarious. Watch it if you can find it.

Posted by: Biancaneve at April 12, 2020 09:54 AM (hkMx0)

140 Risen is that recent movie with one of the
Fiennes brothers, isn't it? The sort-of-detective story with a Roman
centurion detailed to find out the truth of this tale about a crucified
Jewish rabble-rouser rising from the dead?

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at April 12, 2020 09:39 AM (rpbg1)

---
Yes. It's very well done.

I like it because it addresses the Resurrection, which is where most of the Passion Play narratives stop.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 12, 2020 09:55 AM (cfSRQ)

141 We watched Gibson's Passion of the Christ but I'm developing a powerful dislike of the film. It never sat well with me and I'm not sure I want to watch it again.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 12, 2020 09:33 AM (cfSRQ)

I thought the Roman soldiers were portrayed completely wrong. Guys like that lived with death every week and executions happened all the time. I thought the characters in Dorothy Sayers' The Man Born To Be King were much better-- cynical, but at the end of the day it's just a job.

Posted by: Vanya at April 12, 2020 09:55 AM (BAsqb)

142 I've always had trouble with Grisham books mostly because his protagonists are lawyers.
======
That too. But the last thing by him that I tried to read was Pelican Brief. One of the very few books I got fed up with. The conspiracy BS and the leftist politicking was too irritating.

Posted by: WTP at April 12, 2020 09:55 AM (WQfDg)

143

Gun girl is a real cutie

Posted by: TheQuietMan at April 12, 2020 09:55 AM (FRiC1)

144 104 A decent Easter movie is "Risen" with Joseph Fiennes. He plays a Roman Tribune tasked by Pilate to find out what happened to Christ's body, and for once the actor who plays Christ doesn't look like a blond, blue eyed scandi.
Posted by: Jake Holenhead at April 12, 2020 09:40 AM (P1GvV)

----------

Jeffrey Hunter hardest hit.

*beeeeep*

Posted by: Cicero (@cicero) at April 12, 2020 09:55 AM (XVuno)

145 >>I agree about Gibson's "Passion." It says too much about Gibson. I think he has sado-masochistic issues.
Posted by: Dan Smoot's Apprentice at April 12, 2020 09:53 AM (H8QX

Yes. The same sort of self-indulgent movie-ending sado-porn is present in "Braveheart."

Posted by: Zod at April 12, 2020 09:55 AM (XzT/D)

146 Really, other than a few obvious fields - medicine was in the university curriculum in the 12th C - is there really any benefit to most of the majors? I seriously doubt it.

====
Fine Arts, Music Composition, Architecture, Creative Writing, just to name a few have not benefited from University 'professionalizing'.

Posted by: Vlad the impaler,whittling away like mad at April 12, 2020 09:55 AM (d6mdH)

147 I just think it's a shame that her stuff has been turned into movies and is still in print, while Stout, Queen, and Carr have been almost forgotten.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at April 12, 2020 09:30 AM (rpbg1)
______

No argument from me. One reason I think is that Poirot really isn't much in the way of characterization. There are many who have never seen a Holmes done just right. (I'm one of them.) But Poirot is empty enough that a good actor can make him work; it's the performance, not the character, which gives the fun. That's why actors as different as Ustinov and Finney could pull it off.

Personally, I've always thought Marple was much better drawn than Poirot.
Posted by: Eeyore at April 12, 2020

*
*

Yes; Jane seems like a real person, whereas Poirot, especially early on, comes off as a stage character.

It's long past time for one of the streaming services to do a limited, period-piece Ellery Queen series. Alexis Denisov ("Wesley" on Buffy and Angel) would make a dynamite Ellery. And Chinese Orange Mystery is a very visual mystery, at least at its denouement. Explaining things to the audience could be done by the "showing what really happened" flashback method used in the Poirot movies and in many other "classic"-style mysteries since then.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at April 12, 2020 09:56 AM (rpbg1)

148 I've been enjoying journals by travelers through colonial and early America. Started a new one, a three volume diary by Peter Kalm called "Travels Into North America". This one is a little different. Kalm was a Swedish botanist sent to colonial America by Carl Linneas (sp?) to search for plants that might benefit the Scandinavia area. His notes cover that search, of course, but also include a lot of the social and cultural matters he encounters. That includes travel conditons, housing, food preparation, clothing, arms, and more during the French and Indian War period. Such matters were not part of his duties but he included them and they are very revealing.

Posted by: JTB at April 12, 2020 09:56 AM (7EjX1)

149 I've always considered Jeremy Brett (at least in the early, lean days) to have been definitive.

Also the definitive Watson in that series.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at April 12, 2020 09:57 AM (KZzsI)

150 We watched Gibson's Passion of the Christ but I'm developing a powerful dislike of the film. It never sat well with me and I'm not sure I want to watch it again.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 12, 2020 09:33 AM (cfSRQ)
=====================
I heard one critic describe it as "pornographic". I'm not sure about that, but it kind of goes out of its way to show the brutality of Crucifixion. Someone here recommended "Risen" which looks really good. I think we're going to stream that tonight.
https://tinyurl.com/wcd33s3

Posted by: Brave Sir Robin at April 12, 2020 09:57 AM (7Fj9P)

151 I'm currently reading China Rx: Exposing the Risks of America's Dependence on China for Medicine. It's relevant for obvious reasons; it was published in 2018.

Posted by: Darrell Harris at April 12, 2020 09:57 AM (pKLt4)

152 I've always had trouble with Grisham books mostly because his protagonists are lawyers.
======
That too. But the last thing by him that I tried to read was Pelican Brief. One of the very few books I got fed up with. The conspiracy BS and the leftist politicking was too irritating.
Posted by: WTP at April 12, 2020

*
*

His Skipping Christmas, on the other hand, is a short, lovely pure comedy. I'm not sure, but I think it was the source for the Tim Allen comedy Christmas with the Kranks.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at April 12, 2020 09:57 AM (rpbg1)

153 The Gell-Mann Amnesia effect never had an effect on me. When I was old enough a thing or two, I started questioning everything in the media.

Posted by: Mark in Sandy UT at April 12, 2020 09:57 AM (xTVik)

154

Well off to watch Mass

Posted by: TheQuietMan at April 12, 2020 09:57 AM (FRiC1)

155 115 I haven't been able to sit and finish my Fulton Sheen review, but I found him amazingly prescient and while not as classically erudite as Lewis. Sheen relies more heavily on other Catholic writers (many of whom I'm unfamiliar). I reflect often on his view that politics would become a religion and that it demand that we render unto Caesar the things that are God's. I initially saw that as the ability to decide who will live and die (abortion, euthanasia and denial of life support), but now I see a state limiting freedom of religion, assembly and speech and now know how very great that political religion has grown.

The current liberals have a political liturgy without a world to come, just as he said. I think the attempts at restricting worship have just begun with the libs.

I tried to post the quote but pixy said no and blotted away a much better post.
Posted by: CN at April 12, 2020 09:46 AM (ONvIw)
__________

Evelyn Waugh also said, at about the same time, that it is politics which is the intellectual poison of our age, and a kind of false religion. Since he was a Brit, he was able to come out with this magnificent deadpan ending:

'I do not aspire to advise my Sovereign on her choice of servants.'

Actually, the Guardian praised that saying that there was no one else in Britain who could have written it.

Posted by: Eeyore at April 12, 2020 09:58 AM (ZbwAu)

156 or Georges Croegaert..Paris. He was Belgian
Posted by: CN at April 12, 2020 09:52 AM (ONvIw)

Thank you! Wiki says, "he is known for his genre paintings of scenes from elegant society and portraits of women. He also had a reputation for his humorous depictions of red-robed Catholic cardinals executed in a highly realist style."

An image search turns up mostly prelates. Why paint those other than pretty girls, I do not know.

But he also seems to have repeated the subject of "girl on couch reading" fairly often.

I think I will stick with Tissot.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at April 12, 2020 09:58 AM (2JVJo)

157 Speaking of Christie, I've been watching the Miss Marple series on Hulu and am quite enjoying it.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at April 12, 2020 09:58 AM (+y/Ru)

158 I agree about Gibson's "Passion." It says too much about Gibson. I think he has sado-masochistic issues. "The Gospel of John" from 2003 with Henry Ian Cusick as Christ is much better in my opinion.
Posted by: Dan Smoot's Apprentice at April 12, 2020 09:53 AM (H8QX

Given what happened to him in the couple of years after it came out, I'd say it makes total sense. Nobody knew it yet but his marriage was collapsing and he was drinking and boning that Ukrainian chick. I think it was, knowingly or not, a giant act of penance or spiritual cry for help.

Posted by: Vanya at April 12, 2020 09:59 AM (BAsqb)

159 watched Gibson's Passion of the Christ
=====
I mostly liked it. Not great but a noble attempt IMNSHO. The one thing I greatly liked abou it that in my mind sets it apart from every film that I have every seen regarding Jesus is, he avoided the Mystic Zombie Jesus stereotype. The scene where he built his mother a table, showing off how sturdy it was, I think is probably the best depiction of Christ in any movie, ever.

Posted by: WTP at April 12, 2020 09:59 AM (WQfDg)

160 Anyone else seeing their reading taste has changed? Posted by: George V at April 12, 2020 09:27 AM (U2Tva)

I frequently pare down things that I'm unwilling to endure. For example writers who lecture me on climate change get rejected no matter how talented they might be otherwise; Richard Powers and Charles Stross are the Frick and Frack of that list.

Posted by: Captain Hate at April 12, 2020 09:59 AM (y7DUB)

161 One thing I know for sure about Gibson's "Passion of the Christ": it's far and away the most violent movie I've ever seen.

I liked the scene where Pilate is momentarily intimidated by a suddenly surging mob-- separated from it by a VERY thin line of legionaries indeed.

Posted by: mnw at April 12, 2020 09:59 AM (Cssks)

162 Similarly, the pinnacle of Poirot performances for me will always be David Suchet.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at April 12, 2020 09:59 AM (KZzsI)

163 But here, as so often, I can't be wholehearted.
Chadwick's monster, Operation Crusader is a thing of beauty and a joy
forever. Granted, the big scenario is effectively unplayable. Where can
you find that many grognards with that much time?

But I have played Battleaxe, and it's glorious. You don't know
what's coming, and sometimes when you figure it out, the best counter is
impossible. E.g., seeing an opening exactly when your tanks are too low
on fuel to reply.

It's a shame it wasn't programmed for the computer.

Posted by: Eeyore at April 12, 2020 09:33 AM (ZbwAu)

---
A simulation that can't be used is by definition a failure. When I was a teenager, I loved monster games, would set them up and play them solitaire, but if you can't finish it against a live opponent, it's failing of its primary purpose.

I've not given up on multiple-session games, but I find I prefer something that gets to the point and uses a simpler system. The more you add mechanics, they more you obscure the heart of the simulation, which shoul be to look at key aspects of the thing, not all of it.

Basically, admit what you don't know, and focus on what you think you know.

Oh, and include logistics, because without it, you're just wasting time.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 12, 2020 10:00 AM (cfSRQ)

164 149 I've always considered Jeremy Brett (at least in the early, lean days) to have been definitive.

Also the definitive Watson in that series.
Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at April 12, 2020 09:57 AM (KZzsI)

Burke or Hardwicke?

I like Hardwicke better personally.

'I was a solider in India. I've killed far nobler things than you.'

Posted by: Aetius451AD at April 12, 2020 10:00 AM (A5zUN)

165 A decent Easter movie is "Risen" with Joseph Fiennes. He plays a Roman Tribune tasked by Pilate to find out what happened to Christ's body, and for once the actor who plays Christ doesn't look like a blond, blue eyed scandi.
Posted by: Jake Holenhead at April 12, 2020 09:40 AM (P1GvV)

----------

Jeffrey Hunter hardest hit.

*beeeeep*
Posted by: Cicero (@cicero) at April 12, 2020 09:55 AM (XVuno)

A-hem.

Posted by: Max von Sydow at April 12, 2020 10:00 AM (2JVJo)

166 Speaking of Christie, I've been watching the Miss Marple series on Hulu and am quite enjoying it.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at April 12, 2020

*
*

Who plays the lead?

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at April 12, 2020 10:00 AM (rpbg1)

167 re: Gell-Mann, The entire piece is worth a read.

Thanks, I'd never read that before. He only briefly touches on the push-polling aspect of speculation, but to come up with the idea of the amnesia is pretty profound.

Posted by: t-bird at April 12, 2020 10:00 AM (CDGwz)

168 >>I heard one critic describe it as "pornographic". I'm not sure about that, but it kind of goes out of its way
Posted by: Brave Sir Robin at April 12, 2020 09:57 AM (7Fj9P)

And so it was. Gibson seems invested in the idea that his audience is either too inured to violence or too unimaginative to 'fill in the blanks,' and feels the need to routinely over-egg the pudding.

Posted by: Zod at April 12, 2020 10:00 AM (XzT/D)

169 Happy Easter morning! Thank you for sharing the poem by Updike. I've never cared for his fiction, but I find this poem deeply satisfying.

I'm reading Roger Scruton's "Fools, Frauds, and Firebrands: Thinkers of the New Left" - highly recommended for insights into the progressive mind delivered with style, humor, and biting wit.

Posted by: Stan Absher at April 12, 2020 10:00 AM (OgX79)

170 >>I liked the scene where Pilate is momentarily intimidated by a suddenly surging mob
Posted by: mnw at April 12, 2020 09:59 AM (Cssks)

You might enjoy 'Pilate' by Ann Wroe.

Posted by: Zod at April 12, 2020 10:02 AM (XzT/D)

171 Also the definitive Watson in that series.
Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at April 12, 2020 09:57 AM (KZzsI)

If I were forced to choose, I would plump for David Burke over Edward Hardwicke, but they're both wonderful.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at April 12, 2020 10:02 AM (2JVJo)

172 For those Sherlock Holmes fans looking for a new story, Caleb Carr of "The Alienist" fame wrote a Holmes novel. The Italian Secretary is the tale of an unusual muder and is very close in style to the original Arthur Conan Doyle stories.

Posted by: Vashta Nerada at April 12, 2020 10:02 AM (ImpBV)

173 I like Hardwicke better personally.

Me too, he fit the role perfectly. The last few shows (the last season, really) was sadly flawed, mostly because Jeremy Brett was so ill he couldn't film much and finally the last episode he is just seen once without any lines and Mycroft has to finish the mystery off.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at April 12, 2020 10:02 AM (KZzsI)

174 China Rx

-
Apparently, China is rounding up blacks and blaming them for Kung Flu but that's not racist at all.

https://bit.ly/2VpbLma

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at April 12, 2020 10:02 AM (+y/Ru)

175 117 Primary reading for the last week has been from the open library at internet archive.
Christopher Columbus Mariner by Samuel Elliott Morrison, an abridged version of "Admiral of the Ocean Sea". I'd not realized it wasn't full version, but a nice overview with pretty complete details on his 4 exploring voyages.

Posted by: InspiredHistoryMike at April 12, 2020 09:46 AM (x8Q/V)
_________

That book was on our bookshelf when I was a kid, for as long as I remember. It had a lot to do with my early adoption of my skepticism about standard-issue history, in its explosion of the Flat Earth Lie.

Also, in the 92, I picked it up again. One thing I was surprised by. There is a passage giving the call of all hands to dinner, with the translation in a footnote. But I could actually follow the original Spanish. And I never took Spanish. I took French and Latin, and was lousy at both. Of course being a naval buff helped. But it was still surprising to me.

Posted by: Eeyore at April 12, 2020 10:02 AM (ZbwAu)

176 A Poem For Easter

I'll see your Updike and raise you a Hopkins

The last nine (of 24) lines of "That Nature Is A Heraclitian Fire And Of The Comfort Of The Resurrection"

But vastness blurs and time | beats level. Enough! the Resurrection,
A heart's-clarion! Away grief's gasping, | joyless days, dejection.
Across my foundering deck shone
A beacon, an eternal beam. | Flesh fade, and mortal trash
Fall to the residuary worm; | world's wildfire, leave but ash:
In a flash, at a trumpet crash,
I am all at once what Christ is, | since he was what I am, and
This Jack, joke, poor potsherd, | patch, matchwood, immortal diamond,
Is immortal diamond.

Gerard Manley Hopkins
https://tinyurl.com/yyyj54oj

Happy Easter! He is risen indeed!

Posted by: crisis du jour at April 12, 2020 10:03 AM (L8DUW)

177 The best analogy I can think of for handling the Virus is how we fight forest fires.

Sometimes you can only contain a runaway burn. Later you come in and quickly tamp down flareups. When you get past the first, we can start going back to work.

The Left wants to drag this out. They're going all in on the need for vote-by-mail. For the abuelas

Posted by: Ignoramus at April 12, 2020 10:04 AM (9TdxA)

178 What is amazing to me about Agatha Christie is not so much the characters but the plotting and the way she was able to create a mystery that seemed utterly insoluble, then a detective figures it out in a believable and reasonable manner. She was brilliant at writing mystery plots, so many and so varied an array of them.

I enjoy Rex Stout books (and like to read them) but I am in awe of Christie's ability to create a plot even if they aren't as pleasing to read as Stout's work.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at April 12, 2020 10:04 AM (KZzsI)

179 Let us walk through the door.
The stone is rolled back, not papier-mache,
Not a stone in a story,
But the vast rock of materiality that in the slow grinding of
Time will eclipse for each of us
The wide light of day.
And if we have an angel at the tomb,
Make it a real angel,

The angel didn't roll away the stone to let our Lord Jesus out--but to let us in, that we might believe.

Happy Easter to all!

Posted by: The Gipper Lives at April 12, 2020 10:05 AM (Ndje9)

180 120 There are many who have never seen a Holmes done just right. (I'm one of them.)

I've always considered Jeremy Brett (at least in the early, lean days) to have been definitive.
Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at April 12, 2020 09:48 AM (2JVJo)
________

Many agree with you. I don't see the quirky sense of humor done right.

One thing about Brett is a career fact in common with Hugh Laurie. Laurie, as is well known, played Dr House, who was openly Holmesian, and also played Bertie Wooster. Brett, some have forgotten, played Freddie Eynsfod-Hill in My Fair Lady.

Posted by: Eeyore at April 12, 2020 10:05 AM (ZbwAu)

181 "Who Dis"

Kurt Vonnegut, if he shaved his mustache. I can't not see it.

Posted by: hogmartin at April 12, 2020 10:06 AM (t+qrx)

182 Tenuously book related.

I've not watched a second of American TV for several months. Screw Whorreywood.
Instead I've gotten into anime. There's a show called Ascendence of a Bookworm wherin a book-loving woman starting out as a librarian dies in an earthquake and is reincarnated as a 5 year old girl in a medieval world without paper. The show primarily follows her struggle to create her beloved books.
It has more than a whiff of Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court about it and is quite charming.

Posted by: Vlad the impaler,whittling away like mad at April 12, 2020 10:07 AM (d6mdH)

183 127 I reread a few chunks from Gargantua and Pantagruel last week. So weird and bizarre. Six hundred pages of dick and fart jokes and puns in Latin.
Posted by: Vanya at April 12, 2020 09:51 AM (BAsqb)
________

I found it funny in small doses. After a while, it wears off. But that may be just me. I do note that Albert Jay Nock loved Rabelias, while Orwell thought he was worthless and diseased.

Posted by: Eeyore at April 12, 2020 10:07 AM (ZbwAu)

184 Who plays the lead?

-
Geraldine McEwan. It's the old BBC series. How old? So old that in one episode lesbians are the bad guys.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at April 12, 2020 10:07 AM (+y/Ru)

185 >I liked the scene where Pilate is momentarily intimidated by a suddenly surging mob
Posted by: mnw at April 12, 2020 09:59 AM (Cssks)

You might enjoy 'Pilate' by Ann Wroe.
Posted by: Zod at April 12, 2020 10:02 AM (XzT/D)

Pilate was interestingly portrayed in a vignette of The Master and Margarita, a samizdat work during Stalin by Mikhail Bulgakov.

Posted by: Captain Hate at April 12, 2020 10:08 AM (y7DUB)

186 I heard one critic describe it as "pornographic".
I'm not sure about that, but it kind of goes out of its way to show the
brutality of Crucifixion. Someone here recommended "Risen" which looks
really good. I think we're going to stream that tonight.

Posted by: Brave Sir Robin at April 12, 2020 09:57 AM (7Fj9P)

---
I'm a huge fan of Risen. There's a review on my blog, in fact.

We re-watched the Passion on Friday, and my dislike reached new levels. Partly it's because our family's been doing lots of readings this week because we can't go to mass, and partly because Gibson's known flaws.

My youngest is at the age where she's no longer willing to go to church out of obligation, but not yet willing to embrace the faith fully. In other words: teenage rebellion.

She was pointing out how wrong it was, since we'd just done the reading. "It says he stumbles three times. I've counted five so far."

I also noted that the Roman soldiers getting drunk and dragging out the procession makes zero sense. No, the Judean garrison was not the pride of the Roman Army, but they wanted to get the thing over with.

Also, scripture says that Christ had no broken bones, yet he's been thrown off a bridge, had his face smashed in, etc. there's basically no way he hasn't got cracked ribs and a broken nose.

And the blood spray was just stupid. Hollywood slasher gore. It trivializes the suffering of Our Lord.

My last point is that the notion of having them speak foreign languages is awful. Subtitles are great because they allow native speakers to deliver their lines with pure intent, rather that fumbling around awkwardly. The only decent lines were the ones in Latin. Otherwise no one even knows what they are saying.

So basically, I'm not a fan.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 12, 2020 10:08 AM (cfSRQ)

187

The Lefts and Media's theme song:

"We Not gotta get out of this Place if it's the LAST thing we ever do" Milk it till it drops. they are ANIMALS I tells ya..................................

Posted by: saf at April 12, 2020 10:08 AM (5IHGB)

188 Not book-related, but our family is doing all the sword and toga movies right now. Watched Ben Hur, The Ten Commandments, we've got Risen and then Quo Vadis coming up.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 12, 2020 09:33 AM (cfSRQ)

Quo Vadis is my all-time favorite! The wonderful Leo Genn as Petronius just steals the whole show, even from Peter Ustinov's Nero.

Our library sent an email around that they'll continue closed until the end of JUNE. I guess they feel they need to make a half-hearted gesture on behalf of parents who use the library to keep their kids entertained during the summer, but by that time, who will even care anymore?

I've been thinking, with the escalating demands to eliminate this and that as "non-essential" in order to "keep us safe", how easy would it be to declare that science has shown that viruses stay alive on paper for a dangerously long time, so the government is going to confiscate all physical books? It would start off with a buy-back, and with so many people unemployed and impoverished, this would be popular. Then there would be an encouragement to snitch on people holding on to books, and recent events have shown that that would be pretty popular too. I don't think it would be necessary to do door-to-door searches, like 20th century totalitarian states, on more than about 5% of the population.

Posted by: Dr. Mabuse at April 12, 2020 10:10 AM (45WxF)

189 I'm waiting for "Risen" to arrive. I don't buy digital only movies even though I get the digital copy with the blu-rays and use them. I don't like the idea that my movies could disappear so I have a physical copy.
I loved the Amy Lynn books so will read the newest. Also grabbed the 4 Power's books.

Ok, now my pet peeve...I hate when the term "liberal" is used to describe people on the left. There is NOTHING liberal about them. They are totalitarian fascist who want to control every aspect of every ones lives. I just use the term leftist but fascist works, as does communist. Words do matter. Calling them liberals underscores their true intent and makes them sound relatively harmless which we have found out they are not. They are dangerous and antithesis to everything we hold dear. They are evil and relentless in their goals. Please stop calling them liberal, they are anything but.

Posted by: lin-duh at April 12, 2020 10:10 AM (UUBmN)

190 I cannot believe I haven't read anything other than a tech manual for over a month.

I need to get off my 3rd point of contact and read a good book.

Posted by: BifBewalski at April 12, 2020 10:12 AM (VcFUs)

191 What is amazing to me about Agatha Christie is not so much the characters but the plotting and the way she was able to create a mystery that seemed utterly insoluble, then a detective figures it out in a believable and reasonable manner. She was brilliant at writing mystery plots, so many and so varied an array of them.

I enjoy Rex Stout books (and like to read them) but I am in awe of Christie's ability to create a plot even if they aren't as pleasing to read as Stout's work.
Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at April 12, 2020

*
*

Then try Ellery Queen and John Dickson Carr. Stout, yes, the charm of his stories is more about Wolfe, Archie, the atmosphere of their household, and watching them do their work as narrated by the irrepressible Archie.

Queen will give you the insoluble mystery, explained by logic that will out-do Mr. Spock, and Carr's stuff is even wilder -- the locked room or impossible crime -- with a breath of the supernatural for atmosphere. They too are all explained very reasonably, though.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at April 12, 2020 10:13 AM (rpbg1)

192 I've been reading a lot of articles and comments online about various firearms, reloading methods and components, and maintenance routines. The subjects aren't unusual but the amount of reading is.

In a similar vein, I've come upon a lot of articles that emphasize rediscovering skills and knowledge that was common just two generations ago. Some of this started well before the shut down began but that has increased the number. When services aren't easily available, or certain items are in short supply at the grocery stores, people are learning how little they know to keep things working around the house. Simple cooking, sewing on a button, changing a tire, etc., are just a few of the items that keep comong up.

Posted by: JTB at April 12, 2020 10:13 AM (7EjX1)

193 Watched "Paper Moon" last night...hard to believe that film is almost 50yo.

Posted by: BignJames at April 12, 2020 10:13 AM (X/Pw5)

194 Is that a dragon sculpture on that table by the window?

Posted by: Chi-Town Jerry at April 12, 2020 10:14 AM (CjFDo)

195 81 I've started Bloodlands,a history of the
genocides perpetrated by Stalin and Hitler in Central Europe, based on
recommendations here.

I needed a light diversion from my day to day, you see

Posted by: Ignoramus

I wish you well in your reading. It is a hard slog through some of
the worst human behavior with no redeeming actions or reveals.

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars (TM) at April 12, 2020 09:52 AM (pNxlR)

---
That is one of the few books I had to quit partway through. Not because it was badly written, but because the subject matter was sooo depressing.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 12, 2020 10:14 AM (cfSRQ)

196
I have started Hugh Deane's "The Korean War, 1945 - 1953", which has just shy of 200 pages in the main work plus another 40 pages of appended material. I am 67 pages in and have not yet arrived at the start of the conflict.

Here's two salient and inescapable facts about the author: he's committed to the "valiant left" and the United States actively, and with malice aforethought, backed rightist elements who systematically repressed the South Korean people, many of whom started out sympathetic to a leftist form of government.

In many ways it reminds me of histories of the HUAC hearings that dealt with communist influence in Hollywood from around the same time. Plucky and idealistic communist sympathizers were systematically sought out and banned from the business, thereby depriving the dullard masses of their enlightening and liberating visions. That story still has legs now, as Karina Longworth's retelling of the blacklist years hauls out the equine corpse of this point of view and gives it another exhausted and ritualistic beating in her "You Must Remember This" podcast series. What is it about those events that draws out so many Boxer the horse (from "Animal Farm") types still, who "must work harder" to try to change folks' minds about the misdeeds of those caught in the HUAC net?

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars (TM) at April 12, 2020 10:14 AM (pNxlR)

197 178 What is amazing to me about Agatha Christie is not so much the characters but the plotting and the way she was able to create a mystery that seemed utterly insoluble, then a detective figures it out in a believable and reasonable manner. She was brilliant at writing mystery plots, so many and so varied an array of them.

I enjoy Rex Stout books (and like to read them) but I am in awe of Christie's ability to create a plot even if they aren't as pleasing to read as Stout's work.
Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at April 12, 2020 10:04 AM (KZzsI)
________

IMO, (and in Christie's, or so she said) John Dickson Carr had her beat at that. For pure puzzle, I regard him as the best.

But of course there are other things to look for. Even Merrival isn't as fun as Wolfe. (Fell, though, is even fatter. You can tell his paperbacks because the picture on the cover is, effectively, G K Chesteron, as Carr intended.)

Posted by: Eeyore at April 12, 2020 10:15 AM (ZbwAu)

198 Brett, some have forgotten, played Freddie Eynsfod-Hill in My Fair Lady.
Posted by: Eeyore at April 12, 2020 10:05 AM (ZbwAu)

Brett said that most of his memories of My Fair Lady were of waiting around to be called to the set. And that Audrey Hepburn was a lovely woman, but outside of their scenes together, he hardly exchanged a word with her.

And his singing was dubbed by Bill Shirley, who sang the character of the Prince in Disney's Sleeping Beauty.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at April 12, 2020 10:15 AM (2JVJo)

199 I suppose it's already been mentioned: the Ames Mansion is part of Borderland State Park in Easton, MA (about 27 miles south of Boston). The park is open year-round and tours of the mansion are sporadic.

The mansion is often used for filming; the latest movie shot there was Knives Out.
Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing
....

Knives Out was a pretty good whodunnit movie! Now out on streaming and DVD.

Posted by: Chi-Town Jerry at April 12, 2020 10:16 AM (CjFDo)

200 I've always considered Jeremy Brett (at least in the early, lean days) to have been definitive.
Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at April 12, 2020 09:48 AM (2JVJo)
________

Many agree with you. I don't see the quirky sense of humor done right.

One thing about Brett is a career fact in common with Hugh Laurie. Laurie, as is well known, played Dr House, who was openly Holmesian, and also played Bertie Wooster. Brett, some have forgotten, played Freddie Eynsfod-Hill in My Fair Lady.
Posted by: Eeyore at April 12, 2020

*
*

I was just about to mention that, though I have forgotten the full name of Brett's character in MFL.

There is a marvelous little bit in one of the Brett episodes. A client is exclaiming, "How wonderful, Mr. Holmes!" over one of Holmes's bits of reasoning. Brett's Holmes has his back to the client and his face to the camera, and just for a second we see a flash of a pleased smile at the compliment. Then his face straightens into severity again as he turns back to the client. Nice.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at April 12, 2020 10:17 AM (rpbg1)

201 @108 Eeyore, you appear to have questions about the history of university majors. For your future reference, the medieval subject matter was grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic, and arithmetic, music, geometry, and astronomy.

What was your major? Were you able to move your bowel on the second try?

It's Easter, and you get my coveted first Jesus Fucking Christ Almighty.

Posted by: Way, Way Downriver at April 12, 2020 10:18 AM (8IOEj)

202 Read the Gell-Mann effect:
When there's an item in the media on a subject I know well I've found it almost invariably to be entirely wrong.
But I don't subsequently develop amnesia about reporter stupidity.

Posted by: Northernlurker, still lurking after all these years at April 12, 2020 10:18 AM (Uu+Jp)

203 If we're talking about portrayals of Sherlock Holmes, I must put in a word for Vassily Livanov, in the Russian version of Holmes filmed back in the 80s. He really does have the character down, and Watson is not a blundering dodo, but a very capable assistant. He's just not as brilliant as Holmes, but then, nobody is. Here's the trailer for the series, and someone has actually subtitled it! https://tinyurl.com/vlfq45o

Also, the Moriarty in this series is by far the scariest I've ever seen. I can believe that Holmes would run from this guy. Isn't it funny how certain images tell you immediately what story they're telling? A young man dressed in black, holding a skull = Hamlet. A girl on a balcony, a boy on the ground talking at night = Romeo and Juliet. And 2 men wrestling on the brink of a waterfall = Sherlock Holmes and Professor Moriarty!

Posted by: Dr. Mabuse at April 12, 2020 10:19 AM (45WxF)

204 198 Brett, some have forgotten, played Freddie Eynsfod-Hill in My Fair Lady.
Posted by: Eeyore at April 12, 2020 10:05 AM (ZbwAu)

Brett said that most of his memories of My Fair Lady were of waiting around to be called to the set. And that Audrey Hepburn was a lovely woman, but outside of their scenes together, he hardly exchanged a word with her.

And his singing was dubbed by Bill Shirley, who sang the character of the Prince in Disney's Sleeping Beauty.
Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at April 12, 2020 10:15 AM (2JVJo)
_______

Too much dubbing for me. I've never forgiven them for dropping Julie.

And note that Rex Harrison doesn't actually sing. But the songs were written with that in mind. Much as Sullivan wrote for Grossmith.

Posted by: Eeyore at April 12, 2020 10:19 AM (ZbwAu)

205 178 What is amazing to me about Agatha Christie is not so much the characters but the plotting and the way she was able to create a mystery that seemed utterly insoluble, then a detective figures it out in a believable and reasonable manner. She was brilliant at writing mystery plots, so many and so varied an array of them.

I enjoy Rex Stout books (and like to read them) but I am in awe of Christie's ability to create a plot even if they aren't as pleasing to read as Stout's work.
Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at April 12, 2020 10:04 AM (KZzsI)

I've always thought that, of all the writers in the great age of detective fiction, Ngaio Marsh's works were the best. They are very dated, of course, but immensely entertaining, and well-written. She had the "gift of words."

Posted by: Ladyl at April 12, 2020 10:20 AM (TdMsT)

206 I haven't read or watch an Agatha Christie book or movie in many years but I do remember enjoying them. I've been in a slump for several years where nothing holds my interests for long. I have so many unfinished books and TV series I have started...
I use to read 2-3 books a week.

Posted by: lin-duh at April 12, 2020 10:20 AM (UUBmN)

207 My last point is that the notion of having them
speak foreign languages is awful. Subtitles are great because they allow
native speakers to deliver their lines with pure intent, rather that
fumbling around awkwardly. The only decent lines were the ones in Latin.
Otherwise no one even knows what they are saying.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 12, 2020 10:08 AM (cfSRQ)

On the other hand, they got it right that not everyone in Jerusalem, especially that time of year, who didn't know Latin used the same language.

Posted by: Vendette at April 12, 2020 10:20 AM (nRNOc)

208 Isn't it funny how certain images tell you immediately what story they're telling? A young man dressed in black, holding a skull = Hamlet. A girl on a balcony, a boy on the ground talking at night = Romeo and Juliet. And 2 men wrestling on the brink of a waterfall = Sherlock Holmes and Professor Moriarty!
Posted by: Dr. Mabuse at April 12, 2020 10:19 AM (45WxF)

I was thinking that last night: Gene Kelly on a lamppost - a movie musical. Which I did not like nearly as much as I thought I would.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at April 12, 2020 10:21 AM (2JVJo)

209 Is that about Andrei Chikatilo?
Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at April 12, 2020 09:53 AM (2JVJo)

Yes, and they had him years before he was caught a second time and convicted, but ruled him out because of blood type. Apparently, semen can show up as a different blood type than a man's actual blood, and they were thrown off his trail because of this.

Posted by: April at April 12, 2020 10:21 AM (OX9vb)

210 Happy Easter Sunday to all

No Parade down 5th Ave this year...Sigh

Posted by: Nevergiveup at April 12, 2020 10:21 AM (85Gof)

211
Brett said that most of his memories of My Fair Lady were of waiting around to be called to the set. And that Audrey Hepburn was a lovely woman, but outside of their scenes together, he hardly exchanged a word with her.

And his singing was dubbed by Bill Shirley, who sang the character of the Prince in Disney's Sleeping Beauty.
Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing
.....

Still.. his "On the Street Where You Live" scene is a classic! Great song.. wide screen hi-def version is on Youtube.

https://youtu.be/KeybnI6OJMQ

Posted by: Chi-Town Jerry at April 12, 2020 10:22 AM (CjFDo)

212
I don't like the idea that my movies could disappear so I have a physical copy.

Ditto to this. As DVD and Blue Ray versions are falling out of favor to streaming services, you can acquire many worth keeping works now at quite low cost. The missus asks me why I do so and I reply that, at some point, streaming services are going to put the screws to their customers and some content either will disappear for good or will be censored or altered beyond recognition.

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars (TM) at April 12, 2020 10:22 AM (pNxlR)

213 Old and busted: With great power comes great responsibility.

New hotness: With great power comes freedom from responsibility.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at April 12, 2020 10:22 AM (+y/Ru)

214 So basically, I'm not a fan.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 12, 2020 10:08 AM (cfSRQ)

It is definitely not a movie for repeat viewing.

I think what Gibson was trying to go for was to personify Sin as a gigantic weight. Thus to highlight the need for a Savior.

So the movie sets up Jesus vs Sin (Lucifer even says 'No one can take it all.) Every sin in the calendar is on display.

Cruelty. Dear Lord, is there cruelty.

Pride.

Cowardice (this is Pilate and Peter.)

I think what he was trying to go for is to show that Humanity is not worthy of the sacrifice and determination Christ shows. We are supposed to look at all of the display and go 'Humans. They suck.' Man damns himself by his own hand without any help from the Almighty. We NEED him, and yet we raise our hand against Him.

However, in spite of how Man is fallen and steeped in Sin, Christ endures all of this- because He loves us.

Posted by: Aetius451AD at April 12, 2020 10:22 AM (A5zUN)

215 I'm waiting to live stream church...

Posted by: Ladyl at April 12, 2020 10:22 AM (TdMsT)

216 Sink the Bismarck; Dana Wynter. Yummy.

Posted by: Roscoe at April 12, 2020 10:22 AM (A8isT)

217 I've got dozens of Agatha Christie mysteries, mostly Poirots. I've read them all, and the funny thing is, they do not stay in my mind at all. I can pick them up to reread them after a few years, and find that I've forgotten almost everything, and can just read them as mysteries all over again.

Posted by: Dr. Mabuse at April 12, 2020 10:23 AM (45WxF)

218 201 @108 Eeyore, you appear to have questions about the history of university majors. For your future reference, the medieval subject matter was grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic, and arithmetic, music, geometry, and astronomy.

What was your major? Were you able to move your bowel on the second try?

It's Easter, and you get my coveted first Jesus Fucking Christ Almighty.

Posted by: Way, Way Downriver at April 12, 2020 10:18 AM (8IOEj)
________

Those were the Seven Liberal Arts, the basics. BA material. But they also taught Law, Medicine, Philosophy, and Theology.

My majors were history and philosophy. Especially pre- or early modern.j

Try again.

Posted by: Eeyore at April 12, 2020 10:23 AM (ZbwAu)

219 Reading in Landscape and Memory by Simon Schama about Der Holzweg: The Path Through the Woods about the German obsession with being different historically from the Romans as first mentioned by Tacitus. He mentions how every society has had a wilderness purity obsession that is anti society in some measure, whether on the left or right. Like I said previously, this was written before Schama went full retard and was still writing insightfully.

Posted by: Captain Hate at April 12, 2020 10:23 AM (y7DUB)

220 A joyous Easter to all! He has risen!

I'm in the middle of what seems to be an appropriate book for these times -- "The Satan Bug" by Alastair MacLean. The plot: Supertoxin is stolen from British biowarfare lab. Fired security chief investigates.

I've had this book on the shelf for a long time. Put it this way: I got it in a college town during a campus visit by my oldest, then a high school senior, now a year past his master's degree. Yes, I do procrastinate.

This delay has resulted in a problem I didn't expect: The book is falling apart! I've been applying Scotch tape, but I fear this may be another book I will have to toss when I finish it.

I'm only a year older than the book; I hope this doesn't prove prophetic.

Posted by: Weak Geek at April 12, 2020 10:23 AM (u/nim)

221 Now, I don't think that journalism was ever what it
pretended to be. It was always basically lying for a living. But I do
think it is now at an all-time low, and I strongly suspect that
"professionalism" and Journalism Schools are a big part of the problem.

Posted by: Eeyore at April 12, 2020 09:42 AM (ZbwAu)

---
Journalism was traditionally a skilled trade, one pursued with a high school education. One had to work up through the ranks, starting with school board meetings, little league games, etc., before advancing to the top ranks.

As it became more credentialed, the quality collapsed.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 12, 2020 10:23 AM (cfSRQ)

222 Eris, one of the books mentioned in 17 best weird science fiction books list was a book by Chester Anderson, who I first knew from his book Ten Years to Doomsday written with Michael Kurland.

Ten Years to Doomsday is a story about two galactic agents sent to a backwater colony planet that is in line to be conquered by an alien fleet, predicted to arrive in 10 years.
In that time they have to organize the colonists, who are adherents to a religion set out in a series of books that the agents liken to the complaining of a fairly dramatic mother at her kids, teach them technology, and get some sort of defense going to slow down the advance of the alien armada enough to give the central planets a chance to raise their own defenses.

In the course of teaching technology, their local students start asking about the theological implications of the new sciences in reflection of their books, and are told that they could look into that themselves, but the science is the most important part, and the agents are relieved when their students redouble their studies.

In the end, the colonists deploy technologies based on the science provided and then improved by the implications of their religious books, which turn out to not just be theology but also have implications on advanced science buried under all the language, and defeat the alien armada in a single orbital battle.

The agents are then faced with the problem that the central worlds now have a vastly superior force on their border with the mindset that everyone should obey so they can get along together better.

The book is entertaining, Kurland had made a career out of writing vignettes and stringing them together in a sort of psychadelic-adjacent-Wodehouse mode, and for an early new-wave Sci-Fi writer, his work does survive well. I will add that Kurland could finish up a complicated story with fewer words than I could ever imagine, and tie it into a tidy conclusion, and he did this in book after book. A valuable skill for a writer.

Chester Anderson was mostly a Poet and underground press writer/publisher in New York and LA. A quick skim of the Wickedpedia shows a link to a couple other writers that have caught my eye, like Lawrence Jannifer, who I know of because he wrote with Randall Garret, who was also a NY/LA writer who bridged the gap to the SF New Wave.

Posted by: Kindltot at April 12, 2020 10:23 AM (WyVLE)

223 Happy Easter everyone!

Posted by: Laughing in Texas at April 12, 2020 10:24 AM (ExV1e)

224 Reflections on "the Good Book"

Ran a bit long. Sorry. Should call it "ramblings," not "reflections." Considerably chopped down from original draft, too.

+

A half-century ago, when I was a tad in the Episcopal Church (BC - before corruption), I was taught that the word 'Bible' meant 'library,' which made sense to me since libraries and the Bible both contain a bunch of books.

Also helpful later in High School "ALM Spanish Level I" class. ¿Donde está la biblioteca?

I have not been a great Bible scholar. Some books I've studied in depth, some I re-read regularly, some OldT I must admit I've never ventured into. Just read Esther for the first time in a Gideon's in a hotel room several years back. I hang out in the Gospels a lot.

I've really been grateful for the Internet in scripture study. BibleGateway means my old KJV hardcopy can get a bit of dust on it. Web search is glorious for finding historic or linguistic background, interpretations, and comparative translations. And I've enjoyed hanging out with, studying with, arguing with, other believers (and questioners) online, since the pre-web Religion Forum on CompuServe days.

Was not raised as nor likely ever will be a Fundamentalist. I am a believer despite the humanness of scripture, or to some degree because of it. Here is the history of Western Man seeking and finding God, how the wisest and most moral of religions developed, how prophets advanced our understanding (oh, look how much more reasonable God became after humans learned to reason!). How Jesus showed us and brought us to Our Father. I do believe and do declare, "He is risen!'

*pauses for contemplation, ponders snappy wrap-up...*

That's a pretty impressive ~~book~~ library.
__

Re-reads for the nth time, ponders deleting, hits post anyway.

Posted by: mindful webworker
Jerusalem Report
at April 12, 2020 10:24 AM (/DNWp)

225 Posted by: Way, Way Downriver at April 12, 2020 10:18 AM (8IOEj)

---

Was that really necessary?

Posted by: SMH at April 12, 2020 10:24 AM (RU4sa)

226 I've always thought that, of all the writers in the great age of detective fiction, Ngaio Marsh's works were the best. They are very dated, of course, but immensely entertaining, and well-written. She had the "gift of words."
Posted by: Ladyl at April 12, 2020

*
*

She very often dealt with the theatre, either professional or amateur, as a background for her mysteries. The theatre often produces very striking effects in a detective story, and she used them well.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at April 12, 2020 10:24 AM (rpbg1)

227
I was thinking that last night: Gene Kelly on a lamppost - a movie musical. Which I did not like nearly as much as I thought I would.
Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at April 12, 2020 10:21 AM (2JVJo)

Donald O'Connor stole the show in that movie, IMHO.

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars (TM) at April 12, 2020 10:25 AM (pNxlR)

228 Have a blessed Easter everyone (who don't feel the need to blaspheme the Lord).

Posted by: SMH at April 12, 2020 10:25 AM (RU4sa)

229 He really does have the character down, and Watson is not a blundering dodo, but a very capable assistant. He's just not as brilliant as Holmes, but then, nobody is.

My standard for judging non-canon Holmes stories or his stories in film and TV is how Watson is portrayed. If he's shown as an idiotic bumbler (The unforgivable Basil Rathbone films, for example, or every Sherlock episode after the first two) then I despise it. Watson was not an imbecile, he was an average British fellow who was terribly brave and competent in ways that Holmes was not.

Watson was a soldier. Yes, he was a medic, but that made him no less a soldier and a killer than anyone else in the British Army, the finest infantry on earth at the time. He served in Afghanistan, which was a ghastly meat grinder, at one of the worst battles of the war. He's a bit excessive in his praise of Holmes, but I take that not as stupidity but an attempt by the narrator to promote his friend and downplay himself in typical British manner.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at April 12, 2020 10:26 AM (KZzsI)

230
She very often dealt with the theatre, either professional or amateur, as a background for her mysteries. The theatre often produces very striking effects in a detective story, and she used them well.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at April 12, 2020 10:24 AM (rpbg1)

Yes she did.

And I always loved her irony. She had a great sense of humor.

Posted by: Ladyl at April 12, 2020 10:26 AM (TdMsT)

231 Ditto to this. As DVD and Blue Ray versions are
falling out of favor to streaming services, you can acquire many worth
keeping works now at quite low cost. The missus asks me why I do so and I
reply that, at some point, streaming services are going to put the
screws to their customers and some content either will disappear for
good or will be censored or altered beyond recognition.

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars (TM) at April 12, 2020 10:22 AM (pNxlR)

---
My wife and I want to prevent our house from becoming too cluttered, but one area we agree that needs to expand is DVDs for the reasons given above.

Not only that, but with everyone at home, the streaming quality sucks. Pop in the DVD, no worries.

And yes, prices are quite good these days.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 12, 2020 10:26 AM (cfSRQ)

232 >>219 Reading in Landscape and Memory by Simon Schama about Der Holzweg: The Path Through the Woods about the German obsession with being different historically from the Romans as first mentioned by Tacitus. He mentions how every society has had a wilderness purity obsession that is anti society in some measure, whether on the left or right. Like I said previously, this was written before Schama went full retard and was still writing insightfully.
Posted by: Captain Hate at April 12, 2020 10:23 AM (y7DUB)

Concur completely. It's a really good book. Schama's work on Dutch art (and art history in general) is thorough and worthwhile; his childish Twitter bleats, not so much.

Posted by: Zod at April 12, 2020 10:26 AM (XzT/D)

233 Gene Kelly on a lamppost - a movie musical. Which I did not like nearly as much as I thought I would.

I've read that people tend to fall into 2 camps: lovers of Singing in the Rain, or lovers of The Bandwagon, and I'm in the latter group. I'd always pick Fred Astaire over Gene Kelly. Just something more human and down-to-earth about him.

Posted by: Dr. Mabuse at April 12, 2020 10:27 AM (45WxF)

234 If we're talking about portrayals of Sherlock Holmes, I must put in a word for Vassily Livanov, in the Russian version of Holmes filmed back in the 80s. He really does have the character down, and Watson is not a blundering dodo, but a very capable assistant. He's just not as brilliant as Holmes, but then, nobody is. Here's the trailer for the series, and someone has actually subtitled it! https://tinyurl.com/vlfq45o

That was interesting, even if the subtitling was a little off. I wonder which stories they did? From dialogue and pictures, I counted Hound of the Baskervilles, A Study in Scarlet, The Speckled Band, possibly Charles Augustus Milverton and possibly The Sign of Four.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at April 12, 2020 10:28 AM (2JVJo)

235 216 Sink the Bismarck; Dana Wynter. Yummy.
Posted by: Roscoe at April 12, 2020 10:22 AM (A8isT)
_______

Yes. Notice that she did look a bit like Joan Collins.

Going to have to leave; headaches coming early today. But I do want to repeat something I said in the EMT. Our side needs to push on the press that, in their enthusiasm for the shutdown, they are overlooking one thing. Their own freedom is guaranteed by the first amendment. But if two of the freedoms specified can be suspended now, why not the fifth?

And note, that unlike the others, the broadcast media in particular IS a federal question. How do you like those onions, Tater?

Posted by: Eeyore at April 12, 2020 10:28 AM (ZbwAu)

236 I've got dozens of Agatha Christie mysteries, mostly Poirots. I've read them all, and the funny thing is, they do not stay in my mind at all. I can pick them up to reread them after a few years, and find that I've forgotten almost everything, and can just read them as mysteries all over again.
Posted by: Dr. Mabuse at April 12, 2020

*
*

I don't think that would happen with a Queen or Carr mystery. With Rex Stout I might forget some details, but even when I remember who the murderer is, I reread the book anyway. Now that's writing.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at April 12, 2020 10:28 AM (rpbg1)

237

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at April 12, 2020 10:28 AM (rpbg1)

238 >>Yes, and they had him years before he was caught a second time and convicted, but ruled him out because of blood type. Apparently, semen can show up as a different blood type than a man's actual blood, and they were thrown off his trail because of this.

One of the few movies that was as good as the book, Citizen X. And it was a made for TV movie which is even more rare.

Posted by: JackStraw at April 12, 2020 10:28 AM (ZLI7S)

239 120 There are many who have never seen a Holmes done just right. (I'm one of them.)

I've always considered Jeremy Brett (at least in the early, lean days) to have been definitive.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at April 12, 2020 09:48 AM (2JVJo)

My complaint about most modern portrayals of Holmes is that, based on my reading of Doyle (the Complete Sherlock Holmes), he's not nearly that much of an asshole in the original Doyle stories.

Posted by: Jeff Weimer at April 12, 2020 10:28 AM (ijEPD)

240 I also have enjoyed Ngnaio Marsh's books. Like many of that era, its less about the actual mystery than the events and relationships of the setting but they are good.

I can pick them up to reread them after a few years, and find that I've forgotten almost everything, and can just read them as mysteries all over again.

I agree, and I think its because the actual mystery is so complex and difficult to follow that its still a surprise the second time

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at April 12, 2020 10:29 AM (KZzsI)

241 Mark Twain wrote about Salt Lake City some time afterwards, when Young was still alive.
He was not a fan. Appreciated the lack of drunks on the sidewalk, though.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 12, 2020 09:14 AM (cfSRQ)

I was looking for a copy of Burton's book to read along with Twain's and a couple others to look at the different takes on the early West.
I see I can find them easier now that I could 15 years ago

Posted by: Kindltot at April 12, 2020 10:29 AM (WyVLE)

242 Speaking of Holmes up earlier in thread, reread one of my favorite Holmes pastiche this week: Nicholas Meyer's Seven Percent Solution.

Posted by: Charlotte at April 12, 2020 10:29 AM (Aj6Tl)

243 And with your indulgence, let me also post my dad's diary entry from tomorrow in 1944. Easter that year was on April 9, which would have been a big day for him and my grandparents. My mom's birthday was coming up in a few days. They got married less than a year before he shipped overseas, so with good reason he was feeling homesick in the midst of the stalemate that had prevailed at Anzio since January:

Apr 13.
Cooler today. Paul and I took the afternoon off and sat on a ledge by the sea. About the only conclusion we came to was we'd like to be home. That's only natural in this place. We also decided that we must be slightly off the beam. No normal person could ever stand it here.

Posted by: Muldoon at April 12, 2020 10:29 AM (m45I2)

244 Donald O'Connor stole the show in that movie, IMHO.
Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars (TM) at April 12, 2020 10:25 AM (pNxlR)

O'Connor was exhausting in "Make 'Em Laugh." Debbie Reynolds was a pixie. Kelly irritated me all the way through - I could not believe that he had any depth or personal reflection at all, and the whole "Gotta Dance" sequence was ridiculously overlong and self-indulgent.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at April 12, 2020 10:30 AM (2JVJo)

245 One of my favorite mystery writers deserves mention here, Margery Allingham and her Campion mysteries. Her stories are as compelling as Dorothy Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey's, while incorporating some wry humor into them. I particularly like The Gyrth Chalice Mystery. The BBC did several of her stories with ex Dr Who Peter Davidson as Campion, and they are gems of storytelling, with idiosyncratic characters well played across the board.

Posted by: Vashta Nerada at April 12, 2020 10:30 AM (ImpBV)

246 One of the few movies that was as good as the book, Citizen X. And it was a made for TV movie which is even more rare.

Posted by: JackStraw at April 12, 2020 10:28 AM (ZLI7S)

Good movie. Donald Sutherland. The late Max Von Sydow.

Posted by: Aetius451AD at April 12, 2020 10:30 AM (A5zUN)

247 He was not yet 25 years old when he wrote that.

Posted by: Muldoon at April 12, 2020 10:30 AM (m45I2)

248 the German obsession with being different historically from the Romans as first mentioned by Tacitus.

-
The book A Most Dangerous Book: Tacitus's Germania from the Roman Empire to the Third Reich by Christopher B. Krebs explores that phenomena.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at April 12, 2020 10:31 AM (+y/Ru)

249 I've read that people tend to fall into 2 camps:
lovers of Singing in the Rain, or lovers of The Bandwagon, and I'm in
the latter group. I'd always pick Fred Astaire over Gene Kelly. Just
something more human and down-to-earth about him.

Posted by: Dr. Mabuse at April 12, 2020 10:27 AM (45WxF)

---
You have to like musicals to like Singing in the Rain. It's good at what it's trying to be and Kelly's dancing is outstanding.

I prefer Astaire, partly because he's of an older time with top hats and tails. I love the fantasy-art deco sets and when I really want to forget the world for a while, an Astaire/Rogers film is a great way to do it.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 12, 2020 10:31 AM (cfSRQ)

250 Donald O'Connor stole the show in that movie, IMHO.

Make Em Laugh is one of the greatest movie sequences, let alone dance sequences in any film ever made. I really enjoy Singing In The Rain, but Gene Kelly always feels like he's playing Gene Kelly.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at April 12, 2020 10:32 AM (KZzsI)

251 That was interesting, even if the subtitling was a little off. I wonder which stories they did? From dialogue and pictures, I counted Hound of the Baskervilles, A Study in Scarlet, The Speckled Band, possibly Charles Augustus Milverton and possibly The Sign of Four.

You're right! There was also A Scandal in Bohemia (that was Irene Adler coming down the stairs in the blue/purple outfit) and The Final Problem and Holmes's return in The Empty House. They tended to combine 2 stories into one episode, weaving the tales together or using one as a lead-in to the other. The exception is The Hound of the Baskervilles, which is big enough to stand on its own.

Posted by: Dr. Mabuse at April 12, 2020 10:32 AM (45WxF)

252 My standard for judging non-canon Holmes stories or his stories in film and TV is how Watson is portrayed. If he's shown as an idiotic bumbler (The unforgivable Basil Rathbone films, for example, or every Sherlock episode after the first two) then I despise it. Watson was not an imbecile, he was an average British fellow who was terribly brave and competent in ways that Holmes was not.

Watson was a soldier. Yes, he was a medic, but that made him no less a soldier and a killer than anyone else in the British Army, the finest infantry on earth at the time. He served in Afghanistan, which was a ghastly meat grinder, at one of the worst battles of the war. He's a bit excessive in his praise of Holmes, but I take that not as stupidity but an attempt by the narrator to promote his friend and downplay himself in typical British manner.
Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at April 12, 2020

*
*

Yes; Watson was a man of perhaps slightly above-average intelligence (you have to have something on the ball to finish medical school and survive a war). Holmes was just out of the stratosphere by comparison with him, or the average reader. (Doyle also cheated now and then and didn't show us the clue that Holmes sees, so we can't beat him to the solution.)

The same thing is true in Stout's Wolfe stories. Archie is brighter than average, and we're shown he could make a good living as a private eye on his own. But Wolfe is a genius.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at April 12, 2020 10:32 AM (rpbg1)

253 >>Good movie. Donald Sutherland. The late Max Von Sydow.

And Stephen Rea. He was outstanding in that role.

Posted by: JackStraw at April 12, 2020 10:32 AM (ZLI7S)

254 Posted by: Way, Way Downriver at April 12, 2020 10:18 AM (8IOEj)

Dude. Decaf.

Posted by: Insomniac - Ex Cineribus Resurgo at April 12, 2020 10:33 AM (NWiLs)

255 Is that a dragon sculpture on that table by the window?

Yes, and if you embiggen and scan around you'll find lots of "artful clutter" that clearly wasn't put there by anyone intending the library to be used as an actual library. The whole thing is very (self-) consciously curated to create an atmosphere of hoity-toity elitist intellectualism.

Posted by: Bob the Bilderberg at April 12, 2020 10:33 AM (qc+VF)

256 I was commenting earlier in the week that the ability of the media to whip up this mass hysteria at a time when pimp is a more respected profession than journalist is a powerful demonstration of the Gell-Mann effect.

Large majorities of Americans distrust and despise these lying freaks, and would laugh in your face if you asserted the honesty of media.

Yet, when told they must burn their own futures down to save their own very lives from the 'Rona, with no evidence this is the case at all, these selfsame skeptics believed it uncritically.

I don't think the Gell-Mann effect can be overcome. It appears to be an ingrained element of our national character.

Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at April 12, 2020 10:33 AM (hDNne)

257 He was not a fan. Appreciated the lack of drunks on the sidewalk, though.

I get that part of his schtick was being a curmudgeon but Twain wears on me in a hurry. He's so cynical and sneering toward everything it become tiring. He wasn't a fan of ANYTHING, based on his writing.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at April 12, 2020 10:34 AM (KZzsI)

258 One of my favorite mystery writers deserves mention here, Margery Allingham and her Campion mysteries. Her stories are as compelling as Dorothy Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey's, while incorporating some wry humor into them. I particularly like The Gyrth Chalice Mystery. The BBC did several of her stories with ex Dr Who Peter Davidson as Campion, and they are gems of storytelling, with idiosyncratic characters well played across the board.
Posted by: Vashta Nerada at April 12, 2020

*
*

Campion is much more an intuition detective than a reasoning machine like Holmes or the early Ellery Queen. But there's nothing wrong with that -- and Allingham's characters and flavor are exemplary.

There's also Josephine Tey. You're always left with a neat flavor in your mind after one of her stories.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at April 12, 2020 10:34 AM (rpbg1)

259 229 He really does have the character down, and Watson is not a blundering dodo, but a very capable assistant. He's just not as brilliant as Holmes, but then, nobody is.

My standard for judging non-canon Holmes stories or his stories in film and TV is how Watson is portrayed. If he's shown as an idiotic bumbler (The unforgivable Basil Rathbone films, for example, or every Sherlock episode after the first two) then I despise it. Watson was not an imbecile, he was an average British fellow who was terribly brave and competent in ways that Holmes was not.

Watson was a soldier. Yes, he was a medic, but that made him no less a soldier and a killer than anyone else in the British Army, the finest infantry on earth at the time. He served in Afghanistan, which was a ghastly meat grinder, at one of the worst battles of the war. He's a bit excessive in his praise of Holmes, but I take that not as stupidity but an attempt by the narrator to promote his friend and downplay himself in typical British manner.
Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at April 12, 2020 10:26 AM (KZzsI)

Agreed. I despise the bumbling fool approach to Dr Watson.

Posted by: Northernlurker, still lurking after all these years at April 12, 2020 10:34 AM (Uu+Jp)

260 I've read that people tend to fall into 2 camps: lovers of Singing in the Rain, or lovers of The Bandwagon, and I'm in the latter group. I'd always pick Fred Astaire over Gene Kelly. Just something more human and down-to-earth about him.
Posted by: Dr. Mabuse at April 12, 2020 10:27 AM (45WxF)

I can't say I love The Band Wagon, but I do like it more than Singin'. And yes, Astaire - even duded up in tails - is a much more relatable, guy-next-door fellow. I simply can't watch him too much. With someone like O'Connor or Kaye, I think "I wish I could dance like that". With Astaire, it's "I'll never look like that" and I can't afford to get caught up in that downward spiral.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at April 12, 2020 10:35 AM (2JVJo)

261 Singin' is on my top ten favorite flick list, and I'm not big on musicals. I find it life affirming.

Posted by: Ignoramus at April 12, 2020 10:36 AM (9TdxA)

262 My complaint about most modern portrayals of Holmes is that, based on my reading of Doyle (the Complete Sherlock Holmes), he's not nearly that much of an asshole in the original Doyle stories.
Posted by: Jeff Weimer at April 12, 2020 10:28 AM (ijEPD)

Agreed. Holmes comes across as mentally ill in a lot of these modern versions, and he was NEVER like that in the stories. That's why I like the Russian version. Holmes is brilliant and eccentric, but he's still a *gentleman*, and he functions fine in society. He also doesn't have a neurotic terror of women; Holmes was very chivalrous and protective of women, he didn't start twitching in alarm when they were around.

Posted by: Dr. Mabuse at April 12, 2020 10:36 AM (45WxF)

263 The perpetrator in Agatha Christie's murder mysteries almost always has a multigenerational bone to pick with the person who gets murdered a grudge going back decades, and is a bastard child of somebody's uncle who stands to inherit the family fortune unless the will is changed or sometimes if it IS changed. Eight times out of ten the murderer is posing as a maid, secretary, personal assistant or butler and nobody recognizes them as Julia from America.

And if it's Poirot, he accuses everybody else in the cast first, before finally circling around to the killer.

THE END.

Posted by: Muldoon at April 12, 2020 10:36 AM (m45I2)

264 Apr 13.
Cooler today. Paul and I took the afternoon off and sat on a ledge by the sea. About the only conclusion we came to was we'd like to be home. That's only natural in this place. We also decided that we must be slightly off the beam. No normal person could ever stand it here.
Posted by: Muldoon

......

Thanks for sharing.. It is sometimes a good thing to get some historical perspective when we think we've got it bad..

I love the "off the beam" remark!

My father was somewhere over there at the same time, I believe.. he was a tank gunner.. His records, and millions of other's burned in a warehouse in the early 70's and I have not been able to find out many details.. but I have pictures of him with an Italian family..

Posted by: Chi-Town Jerry at April 12, 2020 10:37 AM (CjFDo)

265 Reading On The Road by Kerouac. Does it ever have a point to make?

Posted by: Puddi Head at April 12, 2020 10:37 AM (QZCjk)

266
Mark Twain wrote about Salt Lake City some time afterwards, when Young was still alive.
He was not a fan.

Twain's story of how Young had visitors watched closely so they would not give a gift to one of his "one hundred ten" children is hilarious. One such guest gave a child a tin whistle and so Brigham had to give all his children a tin whistle. The resulting cacaphony broke him and he loosed his minions to find that person and drag him back to SLC for "justice" (the perp was not found).

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars (TM) at April 12, 2020 10:37 AM (pNxlR)

267 Make Em Laugh is one of the greatest movie sequences, let alone dance sequences in any film ever made. I really enjoy Singing In The Rain, but Gene Kelly always feels like he's playing Gene Kelly.
Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at April 12, 2020 10:32 AM (KZzsI)

I can't agree. That whole sequence is technically brilliant, but comes off (to me) as somebody desperately trying to make an audience laugh when he knows he's bombing. It's like being hit over the head with a slapstick over and over and over again.

"Good Morning" is much better, IMO, if I must pick one piece from the movie.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at April 12, 2020 10:37 AM (2JVJo)

268 The same thing is true in Stout's Wolfe stories. Archie is brighter than average, and we're shown he could make a good living as a private eye on his own. But Wolfe is a genius.

Archie is a very capable detective who would probably have solved any of the cases in time, but he's so easily distracted and honestly doesn't want to work that hard. He's the equal of Marlowe or Spade. Its just that Wolfe is so vastly beyond him and everyone else that he doesn't seem as clever as he might.

There are some very slight hints in the series that Wolfe is related to Sherlock Holmes, which makes sense.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at April 12, 2020 10:37 AM (KZzsI)

269 My favorite writer now a days is PDT, when he signs Executive Orders

Posted by: Nevergiveup at April 12, 2020 10:37 AM (85Gof)

270 I can't say I love The Band Wagon, but I do like it more than Singin'. And yes, Astaire - even duded up in tails - is a much more relatable, guy-next-door fellow. I simply can't watch him too much. With someone like O'Connor or Kaye, I think "I wish I could dance like that". With Astaire, it's "I'll never look like that" and I can't afford to get caught up in that downward spiral.
Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at April 12, 2020 10:35 AM (2JVJo)

Speaking of Kaye, The Court Jester is on Prime streaming. I watched it a couple of nights ago. It's still fun and Danny Kaye was one talented dude.

Posted by: Insomniac - Ex Cineribus Resurgo at April 12, 2020 10:38 AM (NWiLs)

271 The book A Most Dangerous Book: Tacitus's Germania from the Roman Empire to the Third Reich by Christopher B. Krebs explores that phenomena.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at April 12, 2020 10:31 AM (+y/Ru)

I'm sure he mentions that Himmler, even more than Hitler, was obsessed with finding the original manuscript hidden away in a monastery in Italy.

Posted by: Captain Hate at April 12, 2020 10:38 AM (y7DUB)

272 My complaint about most modern portrayals of Holmes is that, based on my reading of Doyle (the Complete Sherlock Holmes), he's not nearly that much of an asshole in the original Doyle stories.
Posted by: Jeff Weimer at April 12, 2020

*
*

He wasn't. Holmes was a highly placed fellow in his own society; his family on the French side has noble connections, I think. He was quite successful at what he chose to do. And while the depressions and occasional cocaine use are features, he was certainly no sociopath as Cumberbatch's Holmes claims to be, or an autistic or Asperger's savant like the TV series with Lucy Liu as Dr. Watson.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at April 12, 2020 10:38 AM (rpbg1)

273 The Band's The Weight is a great song.

Posted by: Cosmic Charlie at April 12, 2020 10:38 AM (PUmDY)

274 247
He was not yet 25 years old when he wrote that.

Posted by: Muldoon at April 12, 2020 10:30 AM (m45I2)

---
Had your parents had any kids yet?

My father was born during the war because my grandfather started as a training officer and then guarded POWs at Fort Knox.

During WW I, my great-grandfather was drafted right after getting married and my great-grandmother gave birth while he was overseas with the AEF.

His rage at being kept in the Army of Occupation really comes through in his letters, which we have. He was part of Black Jack Pershing's bugle corps for all the ceremonial functions and according to him, the outfit was utterly demoralized. They wanted the Regulars to take over and let the draftees go home already.

He finally got to meet his son in September 1919.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 12, 2020 10:38 AM (cfSRQ)

275 "Good Morning" is much better, IMO, if I must pick one piece from the movie.

You just have a crush on young Debbie Reynolds (and so does every other man)

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at April 12, 2020 10:39 AM (KZzsI)

276 Agreed. Holmes comes across as mentally ill in a lot of these modern versions, and he was NEVER like that in the stories. That's why I like the Russian version. Holmes is brilliant and eccentric, but he's still a *gentleman*, and he functions fine in society. He also doesn't have a neurotic terror of women; Holmes was very chivalrous and protective of women, he didn't start twitching in alarm when they were around.
Posted by: Dr. Mabuse at April 12, 2020

*
*

That's what I was trying to say!

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at April 12, 2020 10:39 AM (rpbg1)

277 Reading On The Road by Kerouac. Does it ever have a point to make?
Posted by: Puddi Head at April 12, 2020 10:37 AM (QZCjk)

Yes.

"Sucker."

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at April 12, 2020 10:39 AM (2JVJo)

278 Haven't been reading during lockdown, and wasn't reading much before either.

It's not like me

Posted by: vmom 2020 at April 12, 2020 10:40 AM (G546f)

279 I've read that people tend to fall into 2 camps: lovers of Singing in the Rain, or lovers of The Bandwagon, and I'm in the latter group. I'd always pick Fred Astaire over Gene Kelly. Just something more human and down-to-earth about him.
Posted by: Dr. Mabuse

---

I'm an Astaire guy. To my, very unenlightened, eye, one always knows how hard Kelly is working to make the steps happen. Additionally, his movements are sharp and, for me, a bit jerky. Astaire's steps on the other hand always appear effortless, even though the viewer is quite aware that his movements take an extreme level of skill.

I realize the two have very different styles but still.

Posted by: Tonypete at April 12, 2020 10:40 AM (Y4EXg)

280 My father was somewhere over there at the same time, I believe.. he was a tank gunner.. His records, and millions of other's burned in a warehouse in the early 70's and I have not been able to find out many details.. but I have pictures of him with an Italian family..
Posted by: Chi-Town Jerry at April 12, 2020 10:37 AM (CjFDo)

Father Hate was in Italy teaching how to operate tanks.

Posted by: Captain Hate at April 12, 2020 10:41 AM (y7DUB)

281 Yes, and the best version of The Weight is from Last Waltz with The Staple Singers

Posted by: Ignoramus at April 12, 2020 10:41 AM (9TdxA)

282 Happy Easter Everyone from an daily lurker and occasional commentator. Let us hope we will find our way out of the CV-19 wilderness, take back our freedoms and prosperity, and in November kick every one of these despots out of office for good!

Lastly - make China pay!

Posted by: Anonymous Guy In Ca at April 12, 2020 10:41 AM (FnwlK)

283 4 Agatha Christie

Happy Easter!
Posted by: CN at April 12, 2020 09:01 AM (ONvIw)

I buy Agatha Christie books from the used book section of our book store. They're good to take on trips. Quick read. Easy to put down and pick back up if interrupted.

Posted by: windbag at April 12, 2020 10:41 AM (/xZpn)

284 Two of the kids are defying the Gov are coming over today, yea!!

Gotta put the ham in!

(Stop it you pervs, it's Easter.)

Posted by: Tonypete at April 12, 2020 10:41 AM (Y4EXg)

285 I'm sure he mentions that Himmler, even more than Hitler, was obsessed with finding the original manuscript hidden away in a monastery in Italy.

-
Heinrich was a true believer.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at April 12, 2020 10:41 AM (+y/Ru)

286 I think 'That's Entertainment' is better than 'Make Em Laugh', and much funnier lyrics:

It might be a fight like you see on the screen;
A swain getting slain for the love of a queen.
Some great Shakespearean scene,
Where a ghost and a prince meet,
And everyone ends in mincemeat.

Comden and Green - who could top them?

Posted by: Dr. Mabuse at April 12, 2020 10:42 AM (45WxF)

287 150 We watched Gibson's Passion of the Christ but I'm developing a powerful dislike of the film. It never sat well with me and I'm not sure I want to watch it again.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 12, 2020 09:33 AM (cfSRQ)
=====================
I heard one critic describe it as "pornographic". I'm not sure about that, but it kind of goes out of its way to show the brutality of Crucifixion. Someone here recommended "Risen" which looks really good. I think we're going to stream that tonight.
https://tinyurl.com/wcd33s3
Posted by: Brave Sir Robin at April 12, 2020 09:57 AM (7Fj9P)

I liked the movie, but at the time I saw it something bugged me about it. I think it is the focus on the execution.

What I mean about this, is that there were many people, like Spartacus, were crucified. Many people were scourged as well, and their suffering didn't make them divine. Innocent people were probably crucified as well, and the killing of an innocent person doesn't venerate them either. Gibson's movie made it seem that Jesus' execution itself elevated it above everyone else's.

I think that the movie should have focused more on the fact that he actually escaped death several times, using his divine powers to do that. His sacrifice meant something because he could have saved himself anytime he wanted to. He could have come down from the cross and showed everyone his power. That, however, would have elevated himself, and not given true glory to God. He had to conquer the power of death - that is where his power and his purpose lay. I think that Gibson missed that essential part of Jesus' mission.

I'm not sure how that could be portrayed on screen - that's probably why I'm not an artist or a filmmaker. I do feel, however, that Gibson confused suffering with salvation; that's where the film left me short.

Posted by: Darrell Harris at April 12, 2020 10:43 AM (pKLt4)

288 Holmes is brilliant and eccentric, but he's still a *gentleman*, and he functions fine in society. He also doesn't have a neurotic terror of women; Holmes was very chivalrous and protective of women, he didn't start twitching in alarm when they were around.

If you read the rest of Doyle's historical novels you get a better feel for who Holmes and Watson were. They were modern day knights, full of honor and chivalry. In the place of the chaste nature of the romantic dream of a knight, Holmes just has no time or interest in women, considering them silly distractions.

But the pair are always honorable, chivalrous, and ready to aid the downtrodden and needy, no matter what it costs them. They run to the joust with the evil foe, eager for the adventure. Holmes works with the least of London society: the street kids. He's a gentleman in the proper meaning of the term, an ideal figure of politeness and manners.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at April 12, 2020 10:43 AM (KZzsI)

289 Had your parents had any kids yet?

**********

Not yet. My oldest brother was born in '47. Then it was "bingo, bango, bongo" with a total of seven in 9 years.

Posted by: Muldoon at April 12, 2020 10:43 AM (m45I2)

290 I get that part of his schtick was being a
curmudgeon but Twain wears on me in a hurry. He's so cynical and
sneering toward everything it become tiring. He wasn't a fan of
ANYTHING, based on his writing.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at April 12, 2020 10:34 AM (KZzsI)

---
What he was doing was unique for the time, though. Poking at convention. Sometimes he gets tedious, but there's no denying his ability to turn a phrase.

I love his description of visiting Hawaii where the locals still swim in the nude. Being a Good Samaritan, he thoughtfully gathers up all the ladies' clothing and sits on it, ensuring it won't be stolen.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 12, 2020 10:43 AM (cfSRQ)

291 Haven't been reading during lockdown, and wasn't reading much before either.

It's not like me
Posted by: vmom 2020 at April 12, 2020 10:40 AM (G546f)

Reading, listening to music and walking the dog have kept me sane.

Posted by: Captain Hate at April 12, 2020 10:43 AM (y7DUB)

292 Peter Cushing portrayed Holmes for the BBC in the late 1960s. He is good, but the production values are poor. And Nigel Stock as Watson is a poor man's Nigel Bruce. I can't stand him.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at April 12, 2020 10:44 AM (2JVJo)

293 I've read that people tend to fall into 2 camps: lovers of Singing in the Rain, or lovers of The Bandwagon, and I'm in the latter group. I'd always pick Fred Astaire over Gene Kelly. Just something more human and down-to-earth about him.
Posted by: Dr. Mabuse at April 12, 2020 10:27 AM (45WxF)

I prefer Astaire over Kelly, always have. Astaire could actually act a bit, Kelly always seemed exaggerated and his habit of direct eye contact with the camera was irritating. Astaire could be a little self deprecating, Kelly could not. I even liked Astaire in campy old "Ghost Story". He held his own with Douglas, Fairbanks, and Houseman, despite the weird ass material they were given.

Posted by: CN at April 12, 2020 10:44 AM (ONvIw)

294 I'm an Astaire guy. To my, very unenlightened, eye, one always knows how hard Kelly is working to make the steps happen. Additionally, his movements are sharp and, for me, a bit jerky. Astaire's steps on the other hand always appear effortless, even though the viewer is quite aware that his movements take an extreme level of skill.

I realize the two have very different styles but still.

Posted by: Tonypete

........

Agreed.. Astaire looks like he has an anti-gravity device in his pocket.. It's uncanny how lightly he can do the stuff he does.. and so effortlessly.

Posted by: Chi-Town Jerry at April 12, 2020 10:44 AM (CjFDo)

295 Campion is much more an intuition detective than a reasoning machine like Holmes or the early Ellery Queen.

It's been a while since I read most of the Holmes stories but I kind of think he doesn't really deserve his reputation as a genius of logical deduction. In a lot of places Holmes says something like "...and therefore the answer must be 'X'" when X isn't the only possible answer. In many cases Holmes is basically just a lucky guesser.

Posted by: Bob the Bilderberg at April 12, 2020 10:44 AM (qc+VF)

296 Fred Astair always seemed like he was floating, like he's on wires, barely touching the ground. he was a little guy and not all that handsome, very skinny, but he made a huge career by being unbelievably light on his feet and graceful in dance. He would have been amazing at Kung Fu

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at April 12, 2020 10:45 AM (KZzsI)

297 Speaking of Kaye, The Court Jester is on Prime
streaming. I watched it a couple of nights ago. It's still fun and Danny
Kaye was one talented dude.

Posted by: Insomniac - Ex Cineribus Resurgo at April 12, 2020 10:38 AM (NWiLs)

---
The vessel with the pestle has the pellet with the poison but the chalice from the palace has the brew that is true.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 12, 2020 10:45 AM (cfSRQ)

298 CBS pushing the racial angle on covid

Posted by: Nevergiveup at April 12, 2020 10:45 AM (85Gof)

299
Here Come Peter Covid-tail

Here comes Peter Covid-tail
Hoppin' down the virus trail
Coughity coughin', Wu Flu's on its way

Bringin' every girl and boy
Symptoms that they won't enjoy
Things to make your lockdown sad and grey

He's got pneumonia for Tommy
Soaring temps for sister Sue
There's are lilies for your mommy
And a free cremation too

Oh! here comes Peter Covid-tail
Makin' our economy fail
Sniffity coughity, hope you're all Okay!

Posted by: db at April 12, 2020 10:46 AM (Gh3mF)

300 Chuck Todd is especially obnoxious this morning. Yes, you can find fault with hindsight because of uncertainty and unavoidable trade offs.

But note how the focus of criticism shifts from masks to hospital beds to ventilators and now testing as problems get solved.

Never forget that the first US Corona case was reported on the day Nancy was hand walking her Articles of Impeachment

Posted by: Ignoramus at April 12, 2020 10:46 AM (9TdxA)

301 Father Hate was in Italy teaching how to operate tanks.
Posted by: Captain Hate
.......

Dad was in Italy straight from North Africa.. he wouldn't talk about it much, but after a few beers he would sometimes talk about it.

Posted by: Chi-Town Jerry at April 12, 2020 10:46 AM (CjFDo)

302 >>I've read that people tend to fall into 2 camps: lovers of Singing in the Rain, or lovers of The Bandwagon, and I'm in the latter group.

There is a third camp - those who enjoyed "Paint Your Wagon" - that's the mentally ill group.

Posted by: Boswell at April 12, 2020 10:46 AM (32YRo)

303 Brilliant, db! Did you write it? I think I'll post it over on Mark Steyn's site, because he'd enjoy it. I just want to make sure he didn't write it himself!

Posted by: Dr. Mabuse at April 12, 2020 10:47 AM (45WxF)

304 272: I hate Cumberpatch's Holmes. We watched one, my husband called him Bumblepatch and said it was a "total mess" and made Holmes a ludicrous figure.

Posted by: CN at April 12, 2020 10:47 AM (ONvIw)

305 It's been a while since I read most of the Holmes stories but I kind of think he doesn't really deserve his reputation as a genius of logical deduction. In a lot of places Holmes says something like "...and therefore the answer must be 'X'" when X isn't the only possible answer. In many cases Holmes is basically just a lucky guesser.
Posted by: Bob the Bilderberg at April 12, 2020 10:44 AM (qc+VF)

If you ever read either of the two "Annotated" versions of the stories - the 2-volume William Baring-Gould or the 3-volume Leslie Kilnger - there are lots of footnotes which discuss how the "supremely logical" Holmes was, in most cases, theorizing out his ass and, in the real world, would have been wrong nine times out of ten.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at April 12, 2020 10:48 AM (2JVJo)

306 Posted by: Dr. Mabuse at April 12, 2020 10:47 AM (45WxF)

Thanks! It is original. Penned it this morning. Feel free to distribute.

Posted by: db at April 12, 2020 10:48 AM (Gh3mF)

307 It's been a while since I read most of the Holmes stories but I kind of think he doesn't really deserve his reputation as a genius of logical deduction. In a lot of places Holmes says something like "...and therefore the answer must be 'X'" when X isn't the only possible answer. In many cases Holmes is basically just a lucky guesser.
Posted by: Bob the Bilderberg at April 12, 2020

*
*

Sometimes. But the solutions often turn on pieces of information that are not available to the reader. Holmes has made a study of cigar and pipe ash, for instance, and so he knows that the murderer smoked a Trichinopoly cigar at the murder scene. We can't be expected to know that. So it seems to a degree as if he has pulled the solution out of his vest pocket.

Ellery Queen would have an expert tell Ellery and his father -- and us -- about the ash, and Ellery would reason from it; and the reasoning is given to us, either then or at the climax. We could, if we were brilliant enough, reason the same way.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at April 12, 2020 10:49 AM (rpbg1)

308 I'm here.

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at April 12, 2020 10:49 AM (QzF6i)

309 There is a third camp - those who enjoyed "Paint Your Wagon" - that's the mentally ill group.
Posted by: Boswell at April 12, 2020 10:46 AM (32YRo)

Paint Your Wagon, it can be argued, is as bad as it is because lyricist Alan Jay Lerner insisted on taking over the production from director Josh Logan.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at April 12, 2020 10:49 AM (2JVJo)

310 Love Paint your Wagon - filmed up in Holcomb Valley - adjacent to Big Bear Lake here in So. Cal as I recall. Loved going up to the mountains when we were free to get in our cars and go for a drive without having to carry Letters of Transit and have an approved essential reason for being out of our homes........

Posted by: Anonymous Guy In Ca at April 12, 2020 10:49 AM (FnwlK)

311
Regarding recent reimagining of the Holmes & Watson works, I found the two Robert Downey / Jude Law films the most enjoyable. "Elementary" was okay. "Sherlock" I dropped after viewing only three episodes (I personally find Cumberbatch a golem without sufficient personality or depth for me ever to be able to appreciate him as an actor).

More than anything else, since all those works chose to depart from the canon, what I found myself doing when watching them was examining their entrails: "Which story / stories did they rip asunder in this episode?"

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars (TM) at April 12, 2020 10:49 AM (pNxlR)

312 Good Easter Sunday everyone.

I guess today would be a good day to go through the boxes in my out building and find a couple of good books to read. The Count Of Monte Cristo by Dumas might be a good one, if I can find it.

Posted by: Traveling Man Who's Stuck At Home&&&& at April 12, 2020 10:50 AM (x/k9Q)

313 I think what he was trying to go for is to show that Humanity is not worthy of the sacrifice and determination Christ shows. We are supposed to look at all of the display and go 'Humans. They suck.' Man damns himself by his own hand without any help from the Almighty. We NEED him, and yet we raise our hand against Him.

Posted by: Aetius451AD at April 12, 2020 10:22 AM (A5zUN)

And the scene where Jesus is nailed to the cross and you never see the face of the soldier who is pounding in the nails? I have heard that those are actually Mel Gibson's hands, driving home the point that he included himself in the cast of sinners Jesus came to save.

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Social Distancing Professional at April 12, 2020 10:50 AM (R2AXd)

314 There is a third camp - those who enjoyed "Paint Your Wagon"

I did really like Lee Marvin's rumbling version of I was Born Under A Wandering Star over the credits. He's no singer but it works so well imagining him muttering it on the back of a mule riding through the mountains

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at April 12, 2020 10:50 AM (KZzsI)

315 OT I don't like lamb and neither does my husband. We recently tried some lamb shanks, nope still no dice. I'm sous viding some short ribs at 167 degrees in a red wine reduction, total cook time will be 24 hours. I hope they turn out well since this was a huge investing time and money since good cuts of short ribs have gotten quite pricey and it's taking a whole bottle of red wine and a whole bottle of ruby port to make.
To keep it book relevant I have Kenji Alt's, Food Lab which has great technical advice for cooking. But it is a tomb. I think it's the biggest and certainly heaviest cookbook I own. I usually follow his advice on the sous vide stuff but I combined his traditional recipe with my Joules technique for this one...well we'll find out this evening.

Posted by: lin-duh at April 12, 2020 10:50 AM (UUBmN)

316 Happy Easter, everyone!

I'm reading Daniel Boorstin's "The Creators." I figure now is the time to read those weighty tomes I bought a long time ago and never got around to reading. "The Creators" is basically a cultural history of the West.

Boorstin was a conservative and the book is a celebration of the West - it was a best seller in the early 80's and won prizes and praise but would undoubtedly be slammed as racist and sexist today.

According to Boorstin, while the instinct to create is universal among humans, only Judeo-Christian tradition posited a Creator God who made man in His Image and so asserted that human beings follow God when they create. In Islam, humans are not like God in any way, they exist only to submit to Allah's will, which is why Islam has always been suspicious of innovation. The Eastern religions thought in terms of endless cycles, which also hampered progress.

I'm enjoying Boorstin's take on Dante, Chaucer, Rabelais, Cervantes and other great figures. He explains very well just why they are great.

Posted by: Donna&&&&&&V at April 12, 2020 10:50 AM (d6Ksn)

317 Not yet. My oldest brother was born in '47. Then it was "bingo, bango, bongo" with a total of seven in 9 years.

Posted by: Muldoon at April 12, 2020 10:43 AM (m45I2)

---
Yikes!Talk about making up for lost time.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 12, 2020 10:50 AM (cfSRQ)

318 get that part of his schtick was being a
curmudgeon but Twain wears on me in a hurry. He's so cynical and
sneering toward everything it become tiring. He wasn't a fan of
ANYTHING, based on his writing.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at April 12, 2020 10:34 AM (KZzsI)

I read his million page autobiography...it read like one long cat fight with everyone. Man, when Twain detested someone or something, they/it stayed detested. But he could write, that's for sure.

Posted by: Boswell at April 12, 2020 10:50 AM (32YRo)

319 Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect [named after physicist Murray Gell-Mann] is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray’s case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the “wet streets cause rain” stories. Paper’s full of them.
-------

As an aside, See: The Sokal Affair

When this occurred it caused a huge uproar in the literary community. Who do supposed was condemned? Sokal, or, the pea brains who published the patently absurd paper?

Here's link and excerpt: https://tinyurl.com/h9zvdlx

"In 1996 Alan Sokal published a now famous article, 'Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity' in the postmodern journal Social Text. Immediately afterwards he revealed the paper to be an elaborate hoax engineered to expose the bankruptcy of postmodernist discourse about science. In Sokal's own words, it was designed to demonstrate that "a leading North American journal of cultural studies . . . would publish an article liberally salted with nonsense if
(a) it contained the right buzzwords and
(b) flattered the editors' ideological preconceptions."

Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc. at April 12, 2020 10:51 AM (eYD0A)

320 Here Come Peter Covid-tail

Here comes Peter Covid-tail
Hoppin' down the virus trail
Coughity coughin', Wu Flu's on its way

Bringin' every girl and boy
Symptoms that they won't enjoy
Things to make your lockdown sad and grey

He's got pneumonia for Tommy
Soaring temps for sister Sue
There's are lilies for your mommy
And a free cremation too

Oh! here comes Peter Covid-tail
Makin' our economy fail
Sniffity coughity, hope you're all Okay!
Posted by: db at April 12, 2020

*
*

Brilliant!

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at April 12, 2020 10:51 AM (rpbg1)

321 I love the "off the beam" remark!

I get the colloquial meaning, but the phrase sounds nautical to me. Can someone explain the origin?

Posted by: Bob the Bilderberg at April 12, 2020 10:51 AM (qc+VF)

322 I'm here.
Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at April 12, 2020 10:49 AM (QzF6i)

How are you?

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at April 12, 2020 10:51 AM (2JVJo)

323 297 Speaking of Kaye, The Court Jester is on Prime
streaming. I watched it a couple of nights ago. It's still fun and Danny
Kaye was one talented dude.

Posted by: Insomniac - Ex Cineribus Resurgo at April 12, 2020 10:38 AM (NWiLs)

I find him pretty underrated. His performance in White Christmas was fun too, but The COurt Jester was probably his best. Sylvia was nice lady too

Posted by: CN at April 12, 2020 10:52 AM (ONvIw)

324 >>I did really like Lee Marvin's rumbling version of I was Born Under A Wandering Star over the credits

Marvin always is fun to watch...the movie was a turgid mess though...

Posted by: Boswell at April 12, 2020 10:52 AM (32YRo)

325 Happy Easter, Horde! I'm part-way into "Earth Abides," which was published in 1949. I don't think the author had a good grasp of how people would react to a global pandemic. The main character, Ish, is able to drive on highways and through cities that are still orderly and uncluttered with abandoned cars, as if everybody just magically disappeared one day.

A REAL pandemic, one that was over 99% fatal, would induce unimaginable chaos. And we're not talking about fights over the last pack of TP at Wal-Mart.

Posted by: PabloD at April 12, 2020 10:52 AM (DS6+t)

326 Sometimes. But the solutions often turn on pieces of information that are not available to the reader. Holmes has made a study of cigar and pipe ash, for instance, and so he knows that the murderer smoked a Trichinopoly cigar at the murder scene. We can't be expected to know that. So it seems to a degree as if he has pulled the solution out of his vest pocket.

Yeah, and usually that kind of thing annoys me (read Raymond Chandlers excellent "The Simple Art of Murder" essay on writing detective novels for why), but it works with Sherlock because usually the story isn't so much about how he solves it, but how Sherlock Holmes does his thing and what happens around him.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at April 12, 2020 10:53 AM (KZzsI)

327 The vessel with the pestle has the pellet with the poison but the chalice from the palace has the brew that is true.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 12, 2020 10:45 AM (cfSRQ)

There's been a change of plan. They broke the chalice from the palace, and replaced it with a flagon.

Posted by: Insomniac - Ex Cineribus Resurgo at April 12, 2020 10:53 AM (NWiLs)

328
Never forget that the first US Corona case was reported on the day Nancy was hand walking her Articles of Impeachment
Posted by: Ignoramus at April 12, 2020 10:46 AM (9TdxA)

Forget not her signing pen-a-poloosa!

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars (TM) at April 12, 2020 10:53 AM (pNxlR)

329 Chrissy wallace is full blown dick

Posted by: Nevergiveup at April 12, 2020 10:53 AM (85Gof)

330 Weirdly, I have not finished a book this week. I blame over-participation with you lot.

Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc. at April 12, 2020 10:54 AM (eYD0A)

331 The word "turgid" is

[ ] Tinny
[x] Woody

Posted by: PeggyShadout Mapes, now with MAXIMUM sanitizing power! at April 12, 2020 10:54 AM (PiwSw)

332 I have started Hugh Deane's "The Korean War, 1945 - 1953", which has just shy of 200 pages in the main work plus another 40 pages of appended material. I am 67 pages in and have not yet arrived at the start of the conflict.
Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars (TM) at April 12, 2020 10:14 AM (pNxlR)

What always amazed me about the Korean War and later in Vietnam was that is was accepted by everyone that the North in both areas were communist and that was that. After things went hot, due to communist aggression, both North Korea and North Vietnam should have been liberated and their criminal regimes eliminated.

The UN failed on both accounts.

Posted by: Hairyback Guy at April 12, 2020 10:54 AM (Z+IKu)

333 Regarding recent reimagining of the Holmes & Watson works, I found the two Robert Downey / Jude Law films the most enjoyable. "Elementary" was okay. "Sherlock" I dropped after viewing only three episodes (I personally find Cumberbatch a golem without sufficient personality or depth for me ever to be able to appreciate him as an actor). . . .

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars (TM) at April 12, 2020

*
*

The Guy Ritchie films have the wonderful grace to give us a young, vigorous Holmes and Watson -- Jude Law plays Watson as a youngish man not long back from Afghanistan. Elementary suffers from the notion of Holmes as needing therapy, but it's so cool to watch Lucy Liu in anything I can forgive that for an hour.

Cumberbatch, well, these like Elementary are set in the modern day. You might as well watch House; there is no Victorian flavor to it at all.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at April 12, 2020 10:54 AM (rpbg1)

334 Going to start reading today a book I bought over a month ago, 36 Righteous Men by Steven Pressfield. I sit and read so much at work that it's been hard for me to come home and sit and read.

Posted by: Kilroy wasn't here at April 12, 2020 10:55 AM (2DOZq)

335 321 I love the "off the beam" remark!

I get the colloquial meaning, but the phrase sounds nautical to me. Can someone explain the origin?

---------------------

It's not a Star Trek reference? Like when you miss the Transporter Beam and have to take the bus home? ....

Posted by: Anonymous Guy In Ca at April 12, 2020 10:55 AM (FnwlK)

336 Agreed.. Astaire looks like he has an anti-gravity
device in his pocket.. It's uncanny how lightly he can do the stuff he
does.. and so effortlessly.

Posted by: Chi-Town Jerry at April 12, 2020 10:44 AM (CjFDo)

---
Kelly is very athletic and wants you to see it.

Astaire is trying to make it appear as though his dancing is effortless.

The films are also different. Kelly's in no-kidding song-and-dance stuff where they highlight the song and dance.

Astaire's films are ones were dancing just sort of happens and he's improvising in a casual way. I'm in the Astaire camp, but I appreciate Kelly and what he's trying to do.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 12, 2020 10:55 AM (cfSRQ)

337 Paint Your Wagon, it can be argued, is as bad as it is because lyricist Alan Jay Lerner insisted on taking over the production from director Josh Logan.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at April 12, 2020 10:49 AM (2JVJo)

I still can't get Eastwood's screeching of that wind called Mariah song out of my head...Clint was a super star, that song would have sank a lesser man's career

Posted by: Boswell at April 12, 2020 10:55 AM (32YRo)

338 308 I'm here.
Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at April 12, 2020 10:49 AM (QzF6i)

She said, without evidence.

Posted by: Insomniac - Ex Cineribus Resurgo at April 12, 2020 10:56 AM (NWiLs)

339 Yeah, and usually that kind of thing annoys me (read Raymond Chandlers excellent "The Simple Art of Murder" essay on writing detective novels for why), but it works with Sherlock because usually the story isn't so much about how he solves it, but how Sherlock Holmes does his thing and what happens around him.
Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at April 12, 2020

*
*

Doyle was a top-notch writer and storyteller, very modern in many ways (I mean in his use of words and making a story move, not modern attitudes).

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at April 12, 2020 10:56 AM (rpbg1)

340
There's been a change of plan. They broke the chalice from the palace, and replaced it with a flagon.
Posted by: Insomniac
------

I've longed for the opportunity to order a stoup of stout.

Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc. at April 12, 2020 10:56 AM (eYD0A)

341 Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 12, 2020 10:55 AM (cfSRQ)

Donald O'Connor was similar to Astaire that it seemed more natural though he tried more humor.

Posted by: Kilroy wasn't here at April 12, 2020 10:58 AM (2DOZq)

342 I've always thought that, of all the writers in the great age of detective fiction, Ngaio Marsh's works were the best. They are very dated, of course, but immensely entertaining, and well-written. She had the "gift of words."
Posted by: Ladyl

I never knew she was a dame.

Posted by: JT at April 12, 2020 10:58 AM (arJlL)

343 304 272: I hate Cumberpatch's Holmes. We watched one, my husband called him Bumblepatch and said it was a "total mess" and made Holmes a ludicrous figure.
Posted by: CN at April 12, 2020 10:47 AM (ONvIw)

Most of the episodes of Cumberbatch's Sherlock don't age well at all to me, but there is one episode that was transcendent: A Scandal in Belgravia. Irene Adler's appearance with Sherlock was almost worth suffering through the entire series.

Posted by: Darrell Harris at April 12, 2020 10:58 AM (pKLt4)

344 I love the "off the beam" remark!

I get the colloquial meaning, but the phrase sounds nautical to me. Can someone explain the origin?
Posted by: Bob the Bilderberg

********

I'm not sure. I read it as of a type along with "A bubble off", "two bricks shy of a load" and the like.

Posted by: Muldoon at April 12, 2020 10:58 AM (m45I2)

345 I should clarify that of course Astaire's films are about the dancing, but they create the *appearance* that oh, wow, dancing just sort of happens.

Obviously Astaire rehearsed, but that was partly to make everything seem accidental and off the cuff.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 12, 2020 10:59 AM (cfSRQ)

346 I'm glad we only have an over the air antenna along with some streaming. I don't know how to use the over air stuff. My husband has it set up some weird way. Nothing in my house is done simple when it come to electronics except the internet. You can't just turn the TV on and watch something you have to find the right app Devon what you want to watch. It also takes a minimum of 2 remotes.... my point is I never see these insane lying media figures so good for me.

Posted by: lin-duh at April 12, 2020 10:59 AM (UUBmN)

347 Miss Linda be makin' waffles, so I'll have to clear the computer off the dining table soon.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at April 12, 2020 10:59 AM (rpbg1)

348 FIRST!!!!!

Posted by: Sponge - China is asshoe! at April 12, 2020 10:59 AM (Zz0t1)

349 Easter Message:

https://youtu.be/L3tnH4FGbd0

Posted by: Sponge - China is asshoe! at April 12, 2020 10:59 AM (Zz0t1)

350 Paint Your Wagon was one of my dad's favorite movies so I'll never bad mouth it.

Posted by: Kilroy wasn't here at April 12, 2020 10:59 AM (2DOZq)

351 God Bless, everyone.

He is RISEN!!!

Posted by: Sponge - China is asshoe! at April 12, 2020 10:59 AM (Zz0t1)

352 I use to read 2-3 books a week.
Posted by: lin-duh

And then you started wearing clothes......

Posted by: JT at April 12, 2020 11:00 AM (arJlL)

353 >>I get the colloquial meaning, but the phrase sounds nautical to me. Can someone explain the origin?

I'm not sure of the etymology but I don't think it was nautical. In nautical terms off the beam is a directional aid in relation to the beam of the boat. It doesn't mean going off course as it does in colloquial usage.

Posted by: JackStraw at April 12, 2020 11:00 AM (ZLI7S)

354 I've always thought that, of all the writers in the great age of detective fiction, Ngaio Marsh's works were the best. They are very dated, of course, but immensely entertaining, and well-written. She had the "gift of words."
Posted by: Ladyl

I never knew she was a dame.

Posted by: JT at April 12, 2020

*
*

From New Zealand, too. Her first novel dates all the way back to the Thirties.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at April 12, 2020 11:00 AM (rpbg1)

355 I thought the first couple episodes of Sherlock were fascinating and enjoyable, then it started to go downhill at an accelerating rate.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at April 12, 2020 11:00 AM (KZzsI)

356
Marvin always is fun to watch...the movie was a turgid mess though...
Posted by: Boswell
---------

Torpid.

Because I never have a chance to use that word.

Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc. at April 12, 2020 11:00 AM (eYD0A)

357 You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues.

i.e. The New York Times, CNN, MSNBC or anyone in media writing about guns.

Posted by: Sponge - China is asshoe! at April 12, 2020 11:00 AM (Zz0t1)

358 Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc. at April 12, 2020 10:51 AM (eYD0A)

You forgot the second part of the Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect: that, after reading the article about one's own area of expertise and realizing the reporter knows jack shit about it, the reader nevertheless turns the page and accepts whatever the newspaper tells them about politics or world events.

"The media is laughably wrong about the things I know, but I can trust them to get the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or economic news right!"

Posted by: Donna&&&&&&V at April 12, 2020 11:00 AM (d6Ksn)

359 Regarding recent reimagining of the Holmes
Watson works, I found the two Robert Downey / Jude Law films the most
enjoyable. "Elementary" was okay. "Sherlock" I dropped after viewing
only three episodes (I personally find Cumberbatch a golem without
sufficient personality or depth for me ever to be able to appreciate him
as an actor).

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars (TM) at April 12, 2020 10:49 AM (pNxlR)

I didn't like Benedict Cumberbatch at all, but I do like Martin Freeman. And I liked the guy they got to play Moriarty. He was really good at portraying someone very clever with batshit insanity lurking just below the surface.

Posted by: Jordan61 at April 12, 2020 11:00 AM (OzQGF)

360 Welp.

I got an emergency.

Yay, me!

I get to work a bit.

Posted by: naturalfake at April 12, 2020 11:01 AM (9wmyx)

361 Well, thanks for the conversation. I still feel pretty lousy, so am going to take a walk outside and see if that makes me feel a little less black.

Happy Easter to you all.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at April 12, 2020 11:01 AM (2JVJo)

362 Loved going up to the mountains when we were free to get in our cars and go for a drive

Long time ago around here. Used to be free to visit Angeles National Forest till clinton cut budget and ditched it. Have to pony up five bucks per day or get ticket to pay for more green trucks to give tickets, or radio and tv ads to visit (and pay).

Posted by: getting the bsnned back at newcomb's ranch at April 12, 2020 11:01 AM (DKMRL)

363 I saw an act of civil disobedience today. Someone broke down the wooden barricades to the local park.
This sort of stuff is unnecessary. What's wrong with a quick dog walk around a park?

Anyway, thanks for the Red Sky at Morning recommendation. I'm halfway through
The boys are enjoying the Bookhouse series. It provides nice stories without the constant snark.

Posted by: CN at April 12, 2020 11:01 AM (ONvIw)

364 I'm reading Dead Mountain by Donnie Eichar.
It's about the Dyatlov incident. It's not that I have a significant interest in the incident but that I have enough interest to pay the two dollars it cost on Kindle.
It's good enough to hold my interest.

Posted by: Northernlurker, still lurking after all these years at April 12, 2020 11:01 AM (Uu+Jp)

365 Someone needs to seriously kneecap the pieces of shit who run the Drudge Report, and fuck Matt Drudge and his mother in particular. The alarmist, misleading ledes are utterly criminal.

Posted by: Big Fat Meanie at April 12, 2020 11:01 AM (DY3v8)

366 Most of the episodes of Cumberbatch's Sherlock don't age well at all to me, but there is one episode that was transcendent: A Scandal in Belgravia. Irene Adler's appearance with Sherlock was almost worth suffering through the entire series.
Posted by: Darrell Harris at April 12, 2020 10:58 AM (pKLt4)

The series was an oddity. You usually had maybe one or two good episodes a season (but they were very good.)

Posted by: Aetius451AD at April 12, 2020 11:02 AM (A5zUN)

367 Well, thanks for the conversation. I still feel pretty lousy, so am going to take a walk outside and see if that makes me feel a little less black.

Happy Easter to you all.
Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing
---
I never realized that MP4 was a person of color...

Posted by: lin-duh at April 12, 2020 11:02 AM (UUBmN)

368 Have a blessed Easter everyone (who don't feel the need to blaspheme the Lord).
Posted by: SMH

Thanks SMH !

Same to you and yourn !

Posted by: JT at April 12, 2020 11:02 AM (arJlL)

369 In nautical terms off the beam is a directional aid in relation to the beam of the boat. It doesn't mean going off course as it does in colloquial usage.

When I hear "off the beam" I think of someone acting crazy. Couldn't it have come from the idea of actually falling off the boat into the water?

Posted by: Dr. Mabuse at April 12, 2020 11:03 AM (45WxF)

370 @363 -- bravo to the Patriot. Hopefully we'll have an Easter Uprising, one that's actually successful.

Posted by: Big Fat Meanie at April 12, 2020 11:03 AM (DY3v8)

371 Happy Easter!

The latest L. Jagi Lamplighter Rachel Griffin novel is out. This YA magic school series follows the adventures of a young girl whose perfect memory helps her face danger and adventure. In Book #5, The Unbearable Heaviness of Remembering, Rachel encounters the lost sister that only she can remember at a Masquerade Ball where anything is possible.

I also read Alexander Botts and the Earthworm Tractor by William Hackett Upson. It's a collection of 30s vintage short stories about the adventures of a tractor salesman told as a series of letters and telegrams with his home office. Lots of humor... and tractors. The joy of the Botts stories is the unrelenting earnestness and determination of the protagonist that may appear (to cynical folk) as stupidity, but actually turns out to triumph in the end.

Posted by: Hans G. Schantz at April 12, 2020 11:03 AM (FXjhj)

372 Posted by: Insomniac - Ex Cineribus Resurgo at April 12, 2020 10:56 AM (NWiLs)

T - minus 19 hours and counting....

Posted by: Sponge - China is asshoe! at April 12, 2020 11:03 AM (Zz0t1)

373 265 Reading On The Road by Kerouac. Does it ever have a point to make?
Posted by: Puddi Head at April 12, 2020 10:37 AM (QZCjk)

Yass! Road trip!

Maybe, no. I enjoyed it, though.

Posted by: April at April 12, 2020 11:04 AM (OX9vb)

374 He was really good at portraying someone very clever with batshit insanity lurking just below the surface.

But he never gave the slightest sense of someone with either menace or the ability to run a vast criminal empire behind the scenes. He wasn't even like someone who could be Holmes' nemesis or intellectual equal, he was too raving bizarre and insane. He was more like a really effete, mincing Joker.

I like Cumberbach okay, but he seems to have zero range. Every role I've ever seen him in, he's the same arrogant brilliant wealthy jerk.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at April 12, 2020 11:04 AM (KZzsI)

375 Dictionary.com attributes "off the beam" in the sense of Off the right path" to have derived from the technique of guiding aircraft by tracking on a directional radio beam.

In 1944 that would have to have been relatively novel usage though.

Posted by: Muldoon at April 12, 2020 11:04 AM (m45I2)

376 I'm not sure of the etymology but I don't think it
was nautical. In nautical terms off the beam is a directional aid in
relation to the beam of the boat. It doesn't mean going off course as it
does in colloquial usage.

Posted by: JackStraw at April 12, 2020 11:00 AM (ZLI7S)

---
Could be radio beams, which were navigational aids. Aircraft followed them and during the war, "bending" beams was used to throw off navigation.

My other grandfather was a navigator in the trans-Atlantic air link. He said you couldn't trust the beams because U-boats would distort them or rebroadcast them. So they navigated by stars or weather. I've got his charts and his "computer" (two pieces of plastic tacked together).

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 12, 2020 11:04 AM (cfSRQ)

377 get that part of his schtick was being a
curmudgeon but Twain wears on me in a hurry. He's so cynical and sneering toward everything it become tiring. He wasn't a fan of ANYTHING, based on his writing.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at April 12, 2020 10:34 AM (KZzsI)

I read his million page autobiography...it read like one long cat fight with everyone. Man, when Twain detested someone or something, they/it stayed detested. But he could write, that's for sure.
Posted by: Boswell at April 12, 2020 10:50 AM (32YRo)

Man, tough crowd...

Imagine Twain if he were alive today. Where would he be turning his laser focus? Who would he repeatedly go after with his sharp, fierce writing?

Now put him back in his time. You think there weren't also scalawags worthy of his biting wit?

It would be like somebody reading this here site during the week, and asking "doesn't Ace have anything nice to say about anyone in the media?"

Posted by: BurtTC at April 12, 2020 11:04 AM (hku12)

378 Insomniac,
Are you nervous? Do you actually go into an office tomorrow or is it somehow all online?

Posted by: lin-duh at April 12, 2020 11:04 AM (UUBmN)

379 Happy Easter everyone!
Posted by: Laughing in Texas

Thanks !

Same to you !

Posted by: JT at April 12, 2020 11:04 AM (arJlL)

380 Someone needs to seriously kneecap the pieces of shit who run the Drudge Report, and fuck Matt Drudge and his mother in particular. The alarmist, misleading ledes are utterly criminal.
Posted by: Big Fat Meanie at April 12, 2020 11:01 AM (DY3v8

It's amazing that a dude that only links to other people's work thinks he sofaking important.

He brings NOTHING to the table.

Posted by: Sponge - China is asshoe! at April 12, 2020 11:04 AM (Zz0t1)

381 I'm not sure. I read it as of a type along with "A bubble off", "two bricks shy of a load" and the like.

Yeah, that's the part I get. IIANM, to a sailor "beam" means the point along the hull where it is the widest or maybe the measurement of that point. But "off the beam" doesn't have an obvious meaning.

Posted by: Bob the Bilderberg at April 12, 2020 11:04 AM (qc+VF)

382
I visited Jo Nova's blog last night to recover some knowledge regarding the bogus climate change models (http://joannenova.com.au/). I found that for what I was searching -- her "The Skeptic's Handbook" -- but I also found that she has gotten heavily invested in reporting how CCP Flu is doing in Australia. There is a lot of interesting stuff that she's posted there, including an idea that the disease may actually be a vascular disease in its worst effects rather than a pulmonary one. Worth a look and read for ideas presented without all the political baggage that has infested coverage of the pandemic here.

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars (TM) at April 12, 2020 11:05 AM (pNxlR)

383 In 1944 that would have to have been relatively novel usage though.
Posted by: Muldoon at April 12, 2020 11:04 AM (m45I2)

Well I had this all typed up, and it's not going to waste just because I refreshed before posting:

I had assumed that it's from sailing; an unexpected wave coming from off the beam. But the sources seem to agree that it refers to guiding aircraft by radio beams and doesn't appear before the 20th century. Radio was used to guide aircraft by 1944, but it's a little surprising that it would have been widespread enough by then to find its way into an artillery officer's journal.

Posted by: hogmartin at April 12, 2020 11:06 AM (t+qrx)

384 >>When I hear "off the beam" I think of someone acting crazy. Couldn't it have come from the idea of actually falling off the boat into the water?

Maybe, I've just never heard it used in that manner. I agree with Muldoon up above, I've always heard off the beam used interchangeably with phrases like a couple bubbles off center so I assumed off the beam meant you had stumbled off the path, maybe the path of light.

Posted by: JackStraw at April 12, 2020 11:06 AM (ZLI7S)

385 I get the colloquial meaning, but the phrase sounds nautical to me. Can someone explain the origin?
Posted by: Bob the Bilderberg
Comes from aviation in the late 30s into the 50s. Airway routes were defined by radio transmitters broadcasting a special tone, the "beam". If you were on course directly towards the transmitter, you heard a solid tone - Off the beam to the right, you heard the Morse letter A - turn left to get back on the beam. Off to the left? You heard N, turn right.

Posted by: Panhandler at April 12, 2020 11:06 AM (S/rwf)

386 In 1944 that would have to have been relatively novel usage though.

Posted by: Muldoon at April 12, 2020 11:04 AM (m45I2)

---
Cutting-edge slang!

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 12, 2020 11:06 AM (cfSRQ)

387 Well, I'm off to make a carrot cake for dessert tonight.

Posted by: Dr. Mabuse at April 12, 2020 11:07 AM (45WxF)

388 362 Loved going up to the mountains when we were free to get in our cars and go for a drive

Long time ago around here. Used to be free to visit Angeles National Forest till clinton cut budget and ditched it. Have to pony up five bucks per day or get ticket to pay for more green trucks to give tickets, or radio and tv ads to visit (and pay).

---------------------------------------------

My understanding is there was a court decision forcing them to only make you use the Adventure Pass if you park in improved areas. You can park on the side of the road sans pass.

I hike up there frequently with a hiking group so I splurge and get the $30 Annual Pass + 5$ for a second car pass.

Posted by: Anonymous Guy In Ca at April 12, 2020 11:07 AM (FnwlK)

389 A couple of academic books for Easter by William Lane Craig:

Assessing the New Testament Evidence for the Historicity of the Resurrection of Jesus (Toronto: Edwin Mellen, 1989).

The Historical Argument for the Resurrection of Jesus during the Deist Controversy (Toronto: Edwin Mellen, 1985).

Posted by: Jim S. at April 12, 2020 11:08 AM (ynUnH)

390 When I hear "off the beam" I think of someone acting crazy. Couldn't it have come from the idea of actually falling off the boat into the water?

It means your score just went in the crapper.

Posted by: Simone Biles at April 12, 2020 11:08 AM (Zz0t1)

391 Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at April 12, 2020 11:04 AM (KZzsI)

He definitely wasn't a good cast for Kahn IMHO.

Posted by: Kilroy wasn't here at April 12, 2020 11:08 AM (2DOZq)

392 297 Speaking of Kaye, The Court Jester is on Prime
streaming. I watched it a couple of nights ago. It's still fun and Danny
Kaye was one talented dude.
Posted by: Insomniac - Ex Cineribus Resurgo at April 12, 2020 10:38 AM (NWiLs)

So...

Did the chalice from the palace have the potion with the poison?

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Social Distancing Professional at April 12, 2020 11:08 AM (R2AXd)

393 Khan.

Posted by: Kilroy wasn't here at April 12, 2020 11:09 AM (2DOZq)

394 It would be like somebody reading this here site during the week, and asking "doesn't Ace have anything nice to say about anyone in the media?"

Posted by: BurtTC at April 12, 2020 11:04 AM (hku12)

Not sure Dickens deserved the amount of distain that Twain heaped upon him. But I do get his dislike of Cooper, the Last of the Mohicans was never going to pass muster with someone like Twain who actually, you know, spent time out in the wilds.

Posted by: Boswell at April 12, 2020 11:09 AM (32YRo)

395 Radio was used to guide aircraft by 1944, but it's a
little surprising that it would have been widespread enough by then to
find its way into an artillery officer's journal.

Posted by: hogmartin at April 12, 2020 11:06 AM (t+qrx)

---
The Air Corps guys probably used it all the time, and we know pilot jargon spreads pretty fast.

Muldoon, didn't you reference spotting aircraft in his diary? That's probably where he picked it up.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 12, 2020 11:09 AM (cfSRQ)

396 There is a lot of interesting stuff that she's posted there, including an idea that the disease may actually be a vascular disease in its worst effects rather than a pulmonary one. Worth a look and read for ideas presented without all the political baggage that has infested coverage of the pandemic here.
Posted by: Krebs v Carnot
----
Interesting. I've read about that too. I told my husband to make sure I get the HCQ, z-pack, zinc cocktail and no ventilators. Put me on pure oxygen instead. I've had a heart attack, have mild hypertension, and could lose a few pounds so I hit several high risk groups. I still doubt I'd die. Get really sick, yes but actually die, no.

Posted by: lin-duh at April 12, 2020 11:10 AM (UUBmN)

397 *disdain* ugh

Posted by: Boswell at April 12, 2020 11:10 AM (32YRo)

398 Comes from aviation in the late 30s into the 50s.

Sounds pretty definitive to me. Thank you.

Posted by: Bob the Bilderberg at April 12, 2020 11:10 AM (qc+VF)

399 I heard one critic describe it as "pornographic". I'm not sure about that, but it kind of goes out of its way
Posted by: Brave Sir Robin at April 12, 2020 09:57 AM (7Fj9P)

And so it was. Gibson seems invested in the idea that his audience is either too inured to violence or too unimaginative to 'fill in the blanks,' and feels the need to routinely over-egg the pudding.
Posted by: Zod at April 12, 2020 10:00 AM (XzT/D)

I disagree with this.

The movie is a very good attempt to show Christ was not only God, but also a Man,

that he not only lived (ex: the table scene mentioned above) and laughed as a man but that he also suffered and died as a man.

I suppose, in that way, "The Passion" is a very Catholic movie. The importance that Christ was not only God, but also a man, that emphasis on the dual nature of Jesus Christ is why Mary, His Mother, is given a place of prominence in the life of the Church.

You may want to turn away from the ugliness and pain of Christ's death, but thanks to Gibson's bravery, you also get a chance to contemplate it realistically as well.

Posted by: naturalfake at April 12, 2020 11:11 AM (9wmyx)

400 I'm here.
Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice)

Hiya.

Happy Easter, kid !

Posted by: JT at April 12, 2020 11:11 AM (arJlL)

401 If it's nautical terms you're looking for the meaning I'm sure Obama could tell you.

Posted by: Kilroy wasn't here at April 12, 2020 11:11 AM (2DOZq)

402 Reading On The Road by Kerouac. Does it ever have a point to make?
Posted by: Puddi Head
-------

Yes. That the 'Beat Generation' were self-indulgent and irresponsible. No redeeming qualities.

That was not Kerouac's point, but it is apparent.

Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc. at April 12, 2020 11:11 AM (eYD0A)

403 So...

Did the chalice from the palace have the potion with the poison?

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor Social Distancing Professional at April 12, 2020 11:08 AM (R2AXd)

---
The flagon with the dragon has the brew that is true.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 12, 2020 11:11 AM (cfSRQ)

404 Well, I'm off to make a carrot cake for dessert tonight.

Posted by: Dr. Mabuse at April 12, 2020 11:07 AM (45WxF)

My wife is making one now for afternoon cake & coffee @ my mom's.

Posted by: BignJames at April 12, 2020 11:12 AM (X/Pw5)

405 Updike is a pretty odd person but I do love that poem and he's dead on: this is all literally true or its worthless.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at April 12, 2020 11:13 AM (KZzsI)

406 Apparently the ny times has declared biden innocent of rape since he has NO history of sexual incidents?

LOL

Posted by: Nevergiveup at April 12, 2020 11:13 AM (85Gof)

407 Good morning, Sharon!

Posted by: April at April 12, 2020 11:13 AM (OX9vb)

408 Happy Easter! He is risen!!!

Thank you for a wonderful Book Thread!! I appreciate the recommendations, although my wallet does not!

Posted by: Moki at April 12, 2020 11:14 AM (mFoNl)

409 The vessel with the pestle has the pellet with the poison but the chalice from the palace has the brew that is true.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd

LOL !

Happy Easter !

Posted by: JT at April 12, 2020 11:14 AM (arJlL)

410 I am amused by some of the little anecdotes Boorstin tells in "The Creators." For instance, in ancient Egypt people believed the dead were very much with them - not just the Pharaohs, but their own deceased friends and relatives - and wrote letters to them asking for help or, conversely asking them to leave them the hell alone. There is a surviving letter written by some poor schlub to his dead wife. "I was a good husband, i bought you nice jewelry and clothes, I treated you nice, I remained celibate for 3 years after you died - so why do you continue to torment me? Please stop, dear!"

Of course, we only have his side of it. The wife might have had her reasons..

Then there is a Greek philosopher bitching about all the attention given to famous athletes. "These guys are dumb, arrogant boneheads, they eat and drink too much, they live like pigs and yet they make a lot of money and everyone idolizes them, while wise men like me are ignored." That not only tells you that ancient athletes were not much different from the guys in the NFL, but that the resentment of nerdy intellectuals toward jocks has existed for thousands of years.

Posted by: Donna&&&&&&V at April 12, 2020 11:14 AM (d6Ksn)

411 You may want to turn away from the ugliness and pain
of Christ's death, but thanks to Gibson's bravery, you also get a
chance to contemplate it realistically as well.

Posted by: naturalfake at April 12, 2020 11:11 AM (9wmyx)

Andrew Sullivan used the term "pornographic" to describe the movie, specifically the incredible violence done to Christ. He found that distasteful.

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at April 12, 2020 11:15 AM (dLLD6)

412 314 There is a third camp - those who enjoyed "Paint Your Wagon"

There is a fourth--those who really don't care for musicals at all. *raises hand

I did enjoy Paint Your Wagon, though, when I saw it on TV sometime in the 70's.

Posted by: April at April 12, 2020 11:15 AM (OX9vb)

413 Donna&&&&&&V

Happy Easter to you and yourn !

Posted by: JT at April 12, 2020 11:15 AM (arJlL)

414 Apparently the ny times has declared biden innocent of rape since he has NO history of sexual incidents?

LOL

First one's free, at least if you're a Democrat. Isn't that what they told us about Billy Jeff?

Posted by: Bob the Bilderberg at April 12, 2020 11:15 AM (qc+VF)

415 I'm off the Bream.

Posted by: garrett at April 12, 2020 11:16 AM (9ojbz)

416 The Air Corps guys probably used it all the time, and we know pilot jargon spreads pretty fast.

Muldoon, didn't you reference spotting aircraft in his diary? That's probably where he picked it up.

*********

That could be right. He often would go up with his unit's pilot in a little plywood Stinson observation plane over the battle lines, Could very well be where he picked up the phrase.

Posted by: Muldoon at April 12, 2020 11:16 AM (m45I2)

417 Andrew Sullivan used the term "pornographic" to describe the movie

Yes, well consider the source. Its like finding out that George Bernard Shaw despised a certain Christian writer. Quelle Suprise

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at April 12, 2020 11:16 AM (KZzsI)

418 Good morning Horde and Happy Easter!!!

Posted by: Diogenes at April 12, 2020 11:16 AM (axyOa)

419 I thought "The Passion of the Christ" was extremely powerful when I saw it. I was tremendously moved.

But I have absolutely no desire to see it again.

Posted by: Donna&&&&&&V at April 12, 2020 11:16 AM (d6Ksn)

420 Happy Easter to you and yourn !
Posted by: JT at April 12, 2020 11:15 AM (arJlL)

And to you!

Posted by: Donna&&&&&&V at April 12, 2020 11:17 AM (d6Ksn)

421 You may want to turn away from the ugliness and pain
of Christ's death, but thanks to Gibson's bravery, you also get a
chance to contemplate it realistically as well.

Posted by: naturalfake at April 12, 2020 11:11 AM (9wmyx)

Andrew Sullivan used the term "pornographic" to describe the movie, specifically the incredible violence done to Christ. He found that distasteful.
Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at April 12, 2020 11:15 AM (dLLD6)

Not quite getting your point, CBD.

The violence made his Power Glutes clinch? And he was uncomfortable?

Posted by: naturalfake at April 12, 2020 11:17 AM (9wmyx)

422 And another think... before the Easter book thread fades...

Many moons back, I wrote about The Urantia Book here on the book thread, because I thought its alleged origins and the copyright battles that ensued would be of interest to bibliophiles. I was discouraged from continuing, but nevermind that. (Kermit sips tea)

Here is an article -short not too deep- from the Tulsa World about the sometimes-thorny question of copyrighting 'found' works - including AI- and animal-generated works. It touches on the "revealed" Urantia Book lawsuit.
https://bit.ly/foundworks

For example, copyright might be saved if religious officials argue, as the Urantia Foundation did in 1990s litigation, that human scribes arranged and coordinated angelic messages so as to produce protectable compilations of eternal truths.

[The ultimate court ruling was basically against the Foundation, though, putting all the original 'revealed' text into public domain. Their litigious Kravitzes were tossed from the BoD, finally. They now maintain the best website for the book, at urantia.org, continuing their mission, without © , to preserve the text as given.]

And, since it's Easter: My "graphic" (comic) version of Holy Week -- with a touch of steam punk, Urantia-version influenced, and some of my own spin on how the #FakeNews media might've reported on Jesus -- linked in nic. Happy Easter.

Posted by: mindful webworker
Jerusalem Report
at April 12, 2020 11:18 AM (/DNWp)

423 See link in nick

Posted by: Baldy at April 12, 2020 11:18 AM (OLCH5)

424 Off the Beam means you've switched bourbons.

Posted by: BignJames at April 12, 2020 11:18 AM (X/Pw5)

425 Happy Easter !

Posted by: JT at April 12, 2020 11:14 AM (arJlL)

---
Happy Easter to you and yours!

And big thanks again to our talented host for one of the best places on the internet. An oasis of calmness amidst a sea of anger and despair.

Albeit one requiring pants.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 12, 2020 11:18 AM (cfSRQ)

426 Apparently the ny times has declared biden innocent of rape since he has NO history of sexual incidents?

LOL
Posted by: Nevergiveup at April 12, 2020 11:13 AM (85Gof)

*offer not valid if you are female and under the age of 18

Posted by: Vanya at April 12, 2020 11:19 AM (BAsqb)

427 First one's free, at least if you're a Democrat. Isn't that what they told us about Billy Jeff?
Posted by: Bob the Bilderberg at April 12, 2020 11:15 AM (qc+VF)

Well it's the first if they don't count the other women's accusations, swimming nekkid in front of his female SS agents and unwanted shoulder rubs and hair sniffing.

Posted by: Kilroy wasn't here at April 12, 2020 11:19 AM (2DOZq)

428 Good morning and Easter blessings to all! May we all have a re-birth in this nation.

Posted by: IC at April 12, 2020 11:20 AM (a0IVu)

429 400
I'm here.

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice)

Hiya.

Happy Easter, kid !

Posted by: JT at April 12, 2020 11:11 AM (arJlL)

I am desperately trying to get off the phone with someone who is the opposite end of the political spectrum who is driving me crazy.

Posted by: sharon(willow's apprentice) at April 12, 2020 11:21 AM (QzF6i)

430 Picked up Winston Churchill's A History of the English Speaking People at an estate sale a few months ago. Now seems the perfect time to get started. Very well written, but it needs more maps. Also got his history of WWII at the same sale. Haven't started that yet. I've been alternating between serious books and science fiction (currently going with William Dietz Legion of the Damned series). The wife can't comprehend how I can switch between different books. One is day time reading and the other is night time reading. Anybody else read multiple books at the same time?

Posted by: Stacy0311 at April 12, 2020 11:21 AM (SqpTW)

431 314 There is a third camp - those who enjoyed "Paint Your Wagon"

I do not generally like musicals.. But there are a few I do like..
This one had one of my favorite songs of all time. They Call The Wind Maria..
I used to sing this when I was doing pub gigs back in the 70's 80's..
Sung by Harve Presnell here..
https://youtu.be/ByqYEzugleE

Posted by: Chi-Town Jerry at April 12, 2020 11:21 AM (CjFDo)

432 All the News that Fits (The Narrative)

Posted by: Ignoramus at April 12, 2020 11:21 AM (9TdxA)

433 It would be like somebody reading this here site during the week, and asking "doesn't Ace have anything nice to say about anyone in the media?"

Posted by: BurtTC at April 12, 2020 11:04 AM (hku12)

Not sure Dickens deserved the amount of distain that Twain heaped upon him. But I do get his dislike of Cooper, the Last of the Mohicans was never going to pass muster with someone like Twain who actually, you know, spent time out in the wilds.
Posted by: Boswell at April 12, 2020 11:09 AM (32YRo)

I hadn't heard he was disdainful of Dickens, so I looked it up. Found a passage from a newspaper article Twain wrote, after hearing Dickens speak live.

He has nothing but florid praise for Dickens' prose, but he says his speaking style was quite a disappointment.

If there's something somewhere else he had to say about Dickens' writing, I'd be curious what it is.

Posted by: BurtTC at April 12, 2020 11:21 AM (hku12)

434 I love the "off the beam" remark!

The beam refers to the center beam of a ship, upon which the entire ship is built.

Posted by: JT at April 12, 2020 11:21 AM (arJlL)

435 Well consider the NYT's choices of alternate reasons to disregard the accusation:

1) election year accusations cannot be trusted -- can't use that one, its pulled every year on Republicans
2) its only the one woman and she took ages to bring it up -- can't use that one, we do it to Republicans every election as well.
3) its his word against hers without evidence -- no we do that all the time and assert that we must believe the woman

They were basically painted into a corner by previous antics and rhetoric.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at April 12, 2020 11:21 AM (KZzsI)

436 I am desperately trying to get off the phone with someone who is the opposite end of the political spectrum who is driving me crazy.
Posted by: sharon(willow's apprentice) at April 12, 2020 11:21 AM (QzF6i)

"Hey, I have to go. It was nice talking to you. Byyyyyeeeee."

Posted by: Vanya at April 12, 2020 11:22 AM (BAsqb)

437 The flagon with the dragon has the brew that is true.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 12, 2020 11:11 AM (cfSRQ)

Not the vessel with the pestle?

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Social Distancing Professional at April 12, 2020 11:22 AM (R2AXd)

438
There is a fourth--those who really don't care for musicals at all. *raises hand

I did enjoy Paint Your Wagon, though, when I saw it on TV sometime in the 70's.
Posted by: April
-----

'Seven Brides for Seven Brothers' appearing on TV will have me scrambling for the remote control.

Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc. at April 12, 2020 11:22 AM (eYD0A)

439 off the beam:

Off course, on the wrong track, as in He's way off the beam with that argument. This colloquial term and its antonym, on the beam, meaning "on the right track," allude to directing aircraft by means of radio beams. [Colloquial; mid-1900s]

Posted by: IrishEi at April 12, 2020 11:23 AM (sGotD)

440 Good morning and Easter blessings to all! May we all have a re-birth in this nation.
Posted by: IC

What a nice thought !

Happy Easter to you and yourn !

Posted by: JT at April 12, 2020 11:23 AM (arJlL)

441 In honor of Easter I decided to shower.

Posted by: vmom 2020 at April 12, 2020 11:24 AM (G546f)

442 I don't care for musicals but I do watch Bye Bye Birdie and Sound of Music whenever I come across them.

Posted by: Kilroy wasn't here at April 12, 2020 11:24 AM (2DOZq)

443 423 See link in nick
Posted by: Baldy at April 12, 2020 11:18 AM (OLCH5

Thanks Baldy. It's good to see that some prisoners can social distance in prison where they belong! This is becoming a total travesty

Posted by: CN at April 12, 2020 11:24 AM (ONvIw)

444 The beam refers to the center beam of a ship, upon which the entire ship is built.

Posted by: JT at April 12, 2020 11:21 AM (arJlL)

always thought that was the keel.

Posted by: BignJames at April 12, 2020 11:24 AM (X/Pw5)

445 Since someone mentioned it, watching Court Jester on Prime.

Got to love this movie.

Posted by: Aetius451AD at April 12, 2020 11:25 AM (A5zUN)

446 >>always thought that was the keel.

And you would be correct.

Posted by: JackStraw at April 12, 2020 11:26 AM (ZLI7S)

447 The problem with a lot of musicals is that they are a collection of song and dance sequences with a plot stitched between them to make a film. The good ones also have a great plot, but the rest... not so much.

And I cannot get past that sense of the ridiculous when everyone spontaneously bursts into song and dance while otherwise acting normally and reasonably.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at April 12, 2020 11:26 AM (KZzsI)

448 My daughter will be coming over soon.

I got her letters of transit, signed by General de Gaulle. Cannot be rescinded, not even questioned!

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 12, 2020 11:26 AM (cfSRQ)

449 Insomniac,
Are you nervous? Do you actually go into an office tomorrow or is it somehow all online?
Posted by: lin-duh

Insomniac ?

Nervous ?

Bah !

Now, remember, Insom, first impressions are EVERYTHING !

So, wear pants tomorrow !

Posted by: JT at April 12, 2020 11:26 AM (arJlL)

450 Oh I forgot. Are Elvis Presley movies considered musicals?

Posted by: Kilroy wasn't here at April 12, 2020 11:26 AM (2DOZq)

451 I wonder if the modern "Holmes is a sociopathic jerk" portrayal stems from a misunderstanding of Victorian values and attitudes? In other words, is it that the traits which Doyle used to show Holmes as an admirable man -- devotion to justice, dedication to reason, self-control, honor -- can only be understood by modern screenwriters as a form of mental illness?

Posted by: Trimegistus at April 12, 2020 11:26 AM (DKCFT)

452 . One is day time reading and the other is night time reading. Anybody else read multiple books at the same time?
Posted by: Stacy0311
-------

I always have three books going at one time. One that I read over breakfast, the second is in the 'library', and the third (always fiction) for bedtime reading.

Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc. at April 12, 2020 11:26 AM (eYD0A)

453 451 I wonder if the modern "Holmes is a sociopathic jerk" portrayal stems from a misunderstanding of Victorian values and attitudes? In other words, is it that the traits which Doyle used to show Holmes as an admirable man -- devotion to justice, dedication to reason, self-control, honor -- can only be understood by modern screenwriters as a form of mental illness?
Posted by: Trimegistus at April 12, 2020 11:26 AM (DKCFT)

No, I think it comes from a modern need to try to make characters 'interesting'.

Plus Basil Rathbone's Holmes was an unmitigated ass. Seemed to be a theme with him.

Posted by: Aetius451AD at April 12, 2020 11:28 AM (A5zUN)

454 451 I wonder if the modern "Holmes is a sociopathic jerk" portrayal stems from a misunderstanding of Victorian values and attitudes? In other words, is it that the traits which Doyle used to show Holmes as an admirable man -- devotion to justice, dedication to reason, self-control, honor -- can only be understood by modern screenwriters as a form of mental illness?
Posted by: Trimegistus at April 12, 2020 11:26 AM (DKCFT)

And he gets increasingly weird as honor and self-control become sins against the religion of self

Posted by: CN at April 12, 2020 11:28 AM (ONvIw)

455 In other words, is it that the traits which Doyle used to show Holmes as an admirable man -- devotion to justice, dedication to reason, self-control, honor -- can only be understood by modern screenwriters as a form of mental illness?

I suspsect that this is true, just as they feel compelled to turn Holmes into a drug addict or homosexual (or coward) because he has little time for women.

Reading reviews of older books on Goodreads is an exercise in frustration and shock, as young wokesters are confronted with cultures and attitudes which are RACIST SEXIST HOMOPHOBIC BIGOTED AAAWRRRR MY SAFE SPACE!!!

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at April 12, 2020 11:28 AM (KZzsI)

456 I love loverly love My Fair Lady

Posted by: vmom 2020 at April 12, 2020 11:28 AM (G546f)

457 s it that the traits which Doyle used to show Holmes as an admirable man -- devotion to justice, dedication to reason, self-control, honor -- can only be understood by modern screenwriters as a form of mental illness?
Posted by: Trimegistus at April 12, 2020 11:26 AM (DKCFT)

Same reason that so many modern portrayals of Batman posit him as near sociopathic sadist.

Similar dealio.

Posted by: naturalfake at April 12, 2020 11:29 AM (9wmyx)

458 It's not a Star Trek reference? Like when you miss the Transporter Beam and have to take the bus home? ....
Posted by: Anonymous Guy In Ca at April 12, 2020 10:55 AM (FnwlK)

Might have come from aviation. They were using a radio navigation system back then, might have been Loran, not certain, that gave a steady tone in the earphones if the plane was on course, and dots if they strayed to one side of the beam, dashes if they strayed to the other.

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at April 12, 2020 11:29 AM (miJU3)

459 One is day time reading and the other is night time reading. Anybody else read multiple books at the same time?
Posted by: Stacy0311
-------

I always have three books going at one time. One that I read over breakfast, the second is in the 'library', and the third (always fiction) for bedtime reading.
Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc. at April 12, 2020 11:26 AM (eYD0A)

There's always a throne room book, then one I have for my exercise time. Also usually something for work.

I started a novel that was recommended a short while ago here. Using that one for my exercise book... he's got maybe another chapter before I decide to chuck it. I'm not yet getting why I should care about the character or want to read his story.

Posted by: BurtTC at April 12, 2020 11:29 AM (hku12)

460 You guys have to stop treating Daniel Boorstin as a reliable source. He is notorious among historians for pushing the false idea that people thought the earth was flat in the Middle Ages.

Posted by: Jim S. at April 12, 2020 11:30 AM (ynUnH)

461 @118 --

I'll back the recommendation for "Scoop."

The difference in telegraph wording between the newbie and the old pro is memorable.

Posted by: Weak Geek at April 12, 2020 11:30 AM (u/nim)

462 448 My daughter will be coming over soon.

I got her letters of transit, signed by General de Gaulle. Cannot be rescinded, not even questioned!
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 12, 2020 11:26 AM (cfSRQ)

I refused to stop seeing my kid and grandsons. I call myself the daycare service as they work from home. Murphy does not seem as meglomaniacal as Whitmer. I am surprised by his restraint.

Posted by: CN at April 12, 2020 11:30 AM (ONvIw)

463 always thought that was the keel.

And you would be correct.
Posted by: JackStraw

And I think you're both correct.

In was off the keam !

Posted by: JT at April 12, 2020 11:30 AM (arJlL)

464 I suspect the "Watson as bumbler" trope in the Rathbone and Bruce films comes from the unfortunate accident of history that the first movie they did was _The Hound of the Baskervilles_. If you remember the novel, that's one where Watson actually does do some bumbling, because he's on the scene while Holmes is off sneaking around on the moors. So Watson gets it all wrong and Holmes shows up to reveal the correct solution. In subsequent outings that got Flanderized into the core of Watson's character.

Posted by: Trimegistus at April 12, 2020 11:30 AM (DKCFT)

465 The problem with a lot of musicals is that they are a
collection of song and dance sequences with a plot stitched between
them to make a film. The good ones also have a great plot, but the
rest... not so much.

And I cannot get past that sense of the ridiculous when everyone
spontaneously bursts into song and dance while otherwise acting normally
and reasonably.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at April 12, 2020 11:26 AM (KZzsI)

---
Astaire's musicals used the same formula over and over again. You could set your watch by the plot points, which were incidental in the true purpose of the films:

1. Introduce new popular music
2. Watch peerless dancing

I don't recall a lot of crowd scenes in Astaire's films - usually if everyone is dancing it's because they are at a club or something where that's supposed to happen.

His songs are usually intimate - sung one on one or in a small group.

If there's a big number, it's because it's part of a show (i.e. Holiday Inn).

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 12, 2020 11:31 AM (cfSRQ)

466 always thought that was the keel.

And you would be correct.

Posted by: JackStraw at April 12, 2020 11:26 AM (ZLI7S)

That's what they called 'em when I worked @Newport News.

Posted by: BignJames at April 12, 2020 11:31 AM (X/Pw5)

467 Making Holmes autistic is like how every dead famous person is now gay.

It doesn't fit though, because while some high functioning autists do have that ability to be detail.hyper focused, Holmes can also read people, which autists cannot irl.

Posted by: vmom 2020 at April 12, 2020 11:32 AM (G546f)

468 378 Insomniac,
Are you nervous? Do you actually go into an office tomorrow or is it somehow all online?
Posted by: lin-duh at April 12, 2020 11:04 AM (UUBmN)

Hi lin-duh! A little, but not especially. It's set up for me to work by remote. Most of what I'll be doing tomorrow is training and orientation anyway.

Posted by: Insomniac - Ex Cineribus Resurgo at April 12, 2020 11:32 AM (NWiLs)

469 Happy Easter, all!
I am reading Elizabeth Warren's book, The Two-Income Trap, as Tucker C. recommended it. She wrote it in 2002, and has clearly gone woke/insane (BIRM) since then. I don't agree with her solutions but I sure agree with her premise.
//So true that people kind of absorb news instead of thinking critically about it. People on FB keep quoting Yahoo News, which is obviously just propaganda and lies. Every other word or phrase is in quotes, indicating that it's just twisted to make Trump look bad.

Posted by: PJ at April 12, 2020 11:33 AM (qlTN9)

470 In honor of Easter I decided to shower.
Posted by: vmom 2020

AMEN !

Happy Easter !

Posted by: JT at April 12, 2020 11:33 AM (arJlL)

471 Those pants.

** Shudder **

Posted by: NaCly Dog at April 12, 2020 11:33 AM (u82oZ)

472 Hi lin-duh! A little, but not especially. It's set up for me to work by remote. Most of what I'll be doing tomorrow is training and orientation anyway.
Posted by: Insomniac

iow ... no pants

Posted by: vmom 2020 at April 12, 2020 11:33 AM (G546f)

473 Good morning!

Let's smile and be happy & strike fear in the hearts of killjoy leftists everywhere.

Posted by: NaCly Dog at April 12, 2020 11:34 AM (u82oZ)

474 472 Hi lin-duh! A little, but not especially. It's set up for me to work by remote. Most of what I'll be doing tomorrow is training and orientation anyway.
Posted by: Insomniac

iow ... no pants
Posted by: vmom 2020 at April 12, 2020 11:33 AM (G546f)

Completely unnecessary.

Posted by: Insomniac - Ex Cineribus Resurgo at April 12, 2020 11:34 AM (NWiLs)

475
I got her letters of transit, signed by General de Gaulle. Cannot be rescinded, not even questioned!
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 12, 2020 11:26 AM (cfSRQ)

Bill Mauldin told a story in his book The Brass Ring about being called halfway across Western Europe by Gen. Patton. Patton was pissed off at him over two of his cartoons and made him drive across a war zone so he could scream at him in person.

So Sergeant Mauldin's driving a Jeep over there and he gets stopped at an MP checkpoint.
"Where are you going?"
>>Such-and-such a place.
"Why?"
>>I have a meeting with General Patton.
"Oh, really, do you now? Why don't you step into our office and we can talk about this. Who ordered you there?"
>>Captain So-and-so.
"General Patton has a captain as his aide?"
>>Well, he's a navy captain. That's a colonel equivalent.
"So, let me sum up here: You've been called by General Patton's aide, who's actually a navy captain, to drive all the way to his headquarters."
>>Yes.

Naturally the MPs are convinced he's completely full of shit so the guy in charge makes a phone call to confirm-- and is completely stunned to find out that it was actually true. "We'd better get this man on his way. We've made him late for his meeting with General Patton!"

Posted by: Vanya at April 12, 2020 11:35 AM (BAsqb)

476
456 I love loverly love My Fair Lady
Posted by: vmom 2020 at April 12, 2020 11:28 AM (G546f)

It is my "go to" soundtrack for having a prolonged run of enjoyable music. I play it probably two or three times each week.

Most of the time I listen to podcasts while doing chores.

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars (TM) at April 12, 2020 11:35 AM (pNxlR)

477 I just finished a newly published bio of actor Ian McKellen.

He's a wonderful actor. I loved the films "Gods and Monsters" & "Richard III," though neither was a big hit. I never saw (& don't intend to) the two films that made him hugely wealthy & world famous LOTR & X-Men.

I won't read or watch anything that has dragons, sorcerers or magic stuff of any sort. I also won't watch any film based on a cartoon.

Posted by: mnw at April 12, 2020 11:35 AM (Cssks)

478 >>That's what they called 'em when I worked @Newport News.

Laying the keel is the first step in building a traditional ship. All sorts of traditions and ceremony associated with the keel laying that was believed to bring the ship good fortune.

Posted by: JackStraw at April 12, 2020 11:35 AM (ZLI7S)

479 Making Holmes autistic is like how every dead famous person is now gay.

It doesn't fit though, because while some high functioning autists do have that ability to be detail.hyper focused, Holmes can also read people, which autists cannot irl.

Posted by: vmom 2020 at April 12, 2020 11:32 AM (G546f)

Yeah, but lots of those dead famous people WERE gay.

Especially the Hollowwood ones.

Posted by: BurtTC at April 12, 2020 11:35 AM (hku12)

480 John 11:25

Posted by: NaCly Dog at April 12, 2020 11:36 AM (u82oZ)

481 455 In other words, is it that the traits which Doyle used to show Holmes as an admirable man -- devotion to justice, dedication to reason, self-control, honor -- can only be understood by modern screenwriters as a form of mental illness?

I suspsect that this is true, just as they feel compelled to turn Holmes into a drug addict or homosexual (or coward) because he has little time for women.

Reading reviews of older books on Goodreads is an exercise in frustration and shock, as young wokesters are confronted with cultures and attitudes which are RACIST SEXIST HOMOPHOBIC BIGOTED AAAWRRRR MY SAFE SPACE!!!
Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at April 12, 2020 11:28 AM (KZzsI)

Is not the entire social justice relm taking an idea most everyone accepted last year or last decade and creating a pseudo-moralist view that now labels those ideas as bad?

Posted by: rhennigantx at April 12, 2020 11:36 AM (JFO2v)

482 Naturally the MPs are convinced he's completely full of shit so the guy in charge makes a phone call to confirm-- and is completely stunned to find out that it was actually true. "We'd better get this man on his way. We've made him late for his meeting with General Patton!"

Sounds pretty typical for military heh

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at April 12, 2020 11:37 AM (KZzsI)

483 And I cannot get past that sense of the ridiculous when everyone
spontaneously bursts into song and dance while otherwise acting normally
and reasonably.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at April 12, 2020 11:26 AM (KZzsI)

I had this conversation with a friend once, years ago. She gasped and said, "That's what I love about them!"

Posted by: April at April 12, 2020 11:38 AM (OX9vb)

484
All sorts of traditions and ceremony associated with the keel laying that was believed to bring the ship good fortune.

Not to be confused with keel hauling, a practice which cries out for a revival.

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars (TM) at April 12, 2020 11:38 AM (pNxlR)

485 Yes, younger reviewers seem to think that declaring what is "problematic" about a book is the goal and summary of criticism.

If any of you look at the Tor.com web site, they have several ongoing series of people doing "read-throughs" of things like HP Lovecraft stories or classic children's fantasies. With occasional exceptions, this mostly degenerates into checklists of ways the authors diverge from today's Official Progressive Dogma.

Posted by: Trimegistus at April 12, 2020 11:39 AM (DKCFT)

486 Finally off the phone. This person is driving me crazy. She is one of those who thinks it is okay to shut down the country til there is a vaccine. Also thinks that Trump is recommending Chloroquinine becaue he has an ownership interest in the company. That medical people still don;t have ppe and hospitals are overwhelmed.
(takes a deep breath)Okay. Life is good.
I watched the movie Parasite last night. Just curious if anyoone else has seen it ans what they thought. I did not get all the hype about it.

Posted by: sharon(willow's apprentice) at April 12, 2020 11:39 AM (QzF6i)

487 The vid of old Hollywood dance clips synchronized with Bruno Mar's Uptown Funk is pretty awesome.

Posted by: Kilroy wasn't here at April 12, 2020 11:39 AM (2DOZq)

488 Insom

Happy for you. bro'.

I retired from the profession 2 years ago this month, after 40 years at the grindstone.

Posted by: mnw at April 12, 2020 11:39 AM (Cssks)

489 You may want to turn away from the ugliness and pain of Christ's death, but thanks to Gibson's bravery, you also get a chance to contemplate it realistically as well.

Posted by: naturalfake at April 12, 2020 11:11 AM (9wmyx)

Yeah, that's my take on it too. It gives me a realistic look at what Christ went through. It draws me closer to him. I remember the part that got me in the theater was when he stumbles, Mary runs to him (remembering a time he fell as a little boy), and then Jesus says something from Revelation: "See mother? I make all things new."

Posted by: Jim S. at April 12, 2020 11:40 AM (ynUnH)

490
Is not the entire social justice relm taking an idea most everyone accepted last year or last decade and creating a pseudo-moralist view that now labels those ideas as bad?

There is no front porch on which they will not shit.

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars (TM) at April 12, 2020 11:40 AM (pNxlR)

491 Bill Mauldin told a story in his book The Brass Ring
about being called halfway across Western Europe by Gen. Patton.
Patton was pissed off at him over two of his cartoons and made him drive
across a war zone so he could scream at him in person.

Posted by: Vanya at April 12, 2020 11:35 AM (BAsqb)

---
I just realized my dad gave me his copy of that book a while back. I'll read that next.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 12, 2020 11:40 AM (cfSRQ)

492 Ok, coffees gone. Think I'll take Elvis to the beach and chase seagulls for a while.

Come and get me coper.

Posted by: JackStraw at April 12, 2020 11:40 AM (ZLI7S)

493 Not to be confused with keel hauling, a practice which cries out for a revival.
Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars (TM) at April 12, 2020 11:38 AM (pNxlR)

Most ships have anti-fouling paint; almost nothing grows on there. All the person would get would be breath-hold practice and a new knowledge of what the bottom of a boat looks like.

Also, you couldn't do it on commercial diving boats because everyone would be demanding they go next

Posted by: Vanya at April 12, 2020 11:40 AM (BAsqb)

494 In 1944 that would have to have been relatively novel usage though.
Posted by: Muldoon

What about building the high rise city center sky scrapers? Worker going off the beam would've been apropos around then.

Posted by: BifBewalski at April 12, 2020 11:40 AM (VcFUs)

495 488 Insom

Happy for you. bro'.

I retired from the profession 2 years ago this month, after 40 years at the grindstone.
Posted by: mnw at April 12, 2020 11:39 AM (Cssks)

Thanks! I hope retirement is treating you well.

Posted by: Insomniac - Ex Cineribus Resurgo at April 12, 2020 11:41 AM (NWiLs)

496 Bill Mauldin told a story in his book The Brass Ring
about being called halfway across Western Europe by Gen. Patton.
Patton was pissed off at him over two of his cartoons and made him drive
across a war zone so he could scream at him in person.

Posted by: Vanya

I read that.

LOL !

Posted by: JT at April 12, 2020 11:42 AM (arJlL)

497 also, Into the Woods was funny, I thought, even with the eye-rollingly PC ending

Posted by: vmom 2020 at April 12, 2020 11:43 AM (G546f)

498 Yeah, that's my take on it too. It gives me a
realistic look at what Christ went through. It draws me closer to him. I
remember the part that got me in the theater was when he stumbles, Mary
runs to him (remembering a time he fell as a little boy), and then
Jesus says something from Revelation: "See mother? I make all things
new."

Posted by: Jim S. at April 12, 2020 11:40 AM (ynUnH)

---
My contention is that Gibson overdid it.

The amount of gore is comically overdone and it has the inverse effect to me, of rendering it a schlock horror spectacle. The first time I watched it, it was jarring and overwhelming.

Now it's merely tedious.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 12, 2020 11:43 AM (cfSRQ)

499 It didn't mention the state, but just saw a notice that public tornado shelters will be closed due to the Chicom virus.

Posted by: Sooner at April 12, 2020 11:43 AM (Fs5vw)

500 Reading reviews of older books on Goodreads is an exercise in frustration and shock, as young wokesters are confronted with cultures and attitudes which are RACIST SEXIST HOMOPHOBIC BIGOTED AAAWRRRR MY SAFE SPACE!!!
Posted by: Christopher R Taylor
------

I've read reviews of 'The Camp of the Saints' that would lead you to believe that it was written by a Nazi/KKK coalition. The essence being, 'Only a Nazi racist would read this book..'.

Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc. at April 12, 2020 11:44 AM (eYD0A)

501 I just realized my dad gave me his copy of that book a while back. I'll read that next.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 12, 2020 11:40 AM (cfSRQ)

Do so. It's really good. He talks about his childhood and how he learned to draw and got into cartooning, plus his experiences through the war. He spent a good amount of time in Anzio and tells a lot of stories from there; including about one nutcase who used to go on patrol alone to find and kill Germans. He apparently used to hang hand grenades from his belt by the rings "...so he could pluck them and throw them like ripe tomatoes." (Mauldin's words)

The meeting with Patton is a really interesting scene; Patton himself comes across as kiiiiiiiiiiiind of a theatrical nutcase.

Posted by: Vanya at April 12, 2020 11:44 AM (BAsqb)

502
I watched the movie Parasite last night. Just curious if anyoone else has seen it ans what they thought. I did not get all the hype about it.
Posted by: sharon(willow's apprentice) at April 12, 2020 11:39 AM (QzF6i)

It won "Best Picture"! Judge ye not its deficiencies!

The missus is enthralled with "The Shape of Water", another Best Picture awardee. My two cents -- "It's the shape of cartoonish shit; enjoy your picture show!" -- and then I found more useful things to do.

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars (TM) at April 12, 2020 11:44 AM (pNxlR)

503 Insom

A mixed bag. I miss my office friends & the structure the job gave to my days.

I retired a little earlier than I intended, because after my divorce, I hated working in the same office with my ex.

Posted by: mnw at April 12, 2020 11:45 AM (Cssks)

504 Patton was pissed off at him over two of his cartoons and made him drive across a war zone so he could scream at him in person.

Patton was asshoe. So were Sherman, Stuart and a bunch of other successful generals. Enough that it may not be coincidence.

Posted by: Bob the Bilderberg at April 12, 2020 11:45 AM (qc+VF)

505 Not quite getting your point, CBD.

Posted by: naturalfake at April 12, 2020 11:17 AM (9wmyx)

Sullivan was the most prominent critic of Gibson, and he used that term all of the time.

I found it quite interesting, and even had an email discussion with him about it.

Ace had a very different opinion of the depiction, and I came around to his side because in spite of Sullivan's braying about how good a Catholic he is, Ace knew more about it.

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at April 12, 2020 11:45 AM (dLLD6)

506 I watched the movie Parasite last night. Just curious if anyoone else has seen it ans what they thought. I did not get all the hype about it.
Posted by: sharon(willow's apprentice) at April 12, 2020 11:39 AM (QzF6i)

There was a movie thread about it a few weeks ago

I thought it was a good movie but not exceptionally good

I have a feeling that the hype the director gets in Hollywood means he's their SJW infiltrator in South Korea.

Posted by: vmom 2020 at April 12, 2020 11:46 AM (G546f)

507 Every source I've checked has "on the beam" as a term from aviation. Note that radio beams for navigation pre-date WWII; if you recall Amelia Earhart's final flight involved attempting to home in on the radio beam from the USS Itasca. Ironically, Earhart may indeed have been "on the beam" but going in the wrong direction.

Posted by: Trimegistus at April 12, 2020 11:46 AM (DKCFT)

508 He has nothing but florid praise for Dickens' prose, but he says his speaking style was quite a disappointment.

If there's something somewhere else he had to say about Dickens' writing, I'd be curious what it is.
Posted by: BurtTC at April 12, 2020 11:21 AM (hku12)

Given that Dickens made a ton of money giving public readings both in England and the States, that criticism would have cut very deeply.

Posted by: Donna&&&&&&V at April 12, 2020 11:46 AM (d6Ksn)

509 It won "Best Picture"! Judge ye not its deficiencies!

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars (TM) at April 12, 2020 11:44 AM (pNxlR)

So did The Hurt Locker. The Oscars are the Hugo and Nebula awards now-- meaningless.

Posted by: Vanya at April 12, 2020 11:46 AM (BAsqb)

510 What about building the high rise city center sky scrapers? Worker going off the beam would've been apropos around then.

Posted by: BifBewalski at April 12, 2020 11:40 AM (VcFUs)

---
In the musical "South Pacific," one of the songs contains this lyric:

"If your man don't understand you, if you fly on separate beams"

Took me a while to recall that. It's from "I'm going to wash that man right out of my hair."

Stage show premiered in 1949.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 12, 2020 11:47 AM (cfSRQ)

511 also, Into the Woods was funny, I thought, even with the eye-rollingly PC ending
Posted by: vmom 2020

Yes, it was funny.

He wrote another after that in the same vein; I can't remember what it was, but that was funny too.

Posted by: JT at April 12, 2020 11:47 AM (arJlL)

512 Most ships have anti-fouling paint; almost nothing grows on there. All the person would get would be breath-hold practice and a new knowledge of what the bottom of a boat looks like.

------

Of you're being keelhauled on an aircraft carrier, you better be able to hold it for a long time.

Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at April 12, 2020 11:48 AM (hDNne)

513 There is no front porch on which they will not shit.

Have had two residences in socal where wetbacks have literally shit on my porch.

Posted by: getting the banned back with ceasar chavez' vocabulary at April 12, 2020 11:48 AM (8QnZu)

514 Mauldin? The Brass Ring.

Yeah a good read.

Posted by: Anna Puma at April 12, 2020 11:49 AM (zvwGJ)

515
Patton was asshoe. So were Sherman, Stuart and a bunch of other successful generals. Enough that it may not be coincidence.
Posted by: Bob the Bilderberg at April 12, 2020 11:45 AM (qc+VF)

Phil Sheridan. His dismissal of G. K. Warren after the Battle of Five Forks was something that bothered Warren for the rest of his life.

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars (TM) at April 12, 2020 11:49 AM (pNxlR)

516 If Mark Twain was dissing Dickens's public speaking style, it may have been a way of putting down the competition. Twain made a large sum doing lecture tours.

Posted by: Trimegistus at April 12, 2020 11:49 AM (DKCFT)

517 Patton was asshoe. So were Sherman, Stuart and a bunch of other successful generals. Enough that it may not be coincidence.
Posted by: Bob the Bilderberg
---------

McArthur

Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc. at April 12, 2020 11:49 AM (eYD0A)

518 Posted by: Jim S. at April 12, 2020 11:40 AM (ynUnH)

---
My contention is that Gibson overdid it.

The amount of gore is comically overdone and it has the inverse effect to me, of rendering it a schlock horror spectacle. The first time I watched it, it was jarring and overwhelming.

Now it's merely tedious.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 12, 2020 11:43 AM (cfSRQ)

Of course it was controversial at the time, so when I finally saw it at home, all of that had more or less died down.

I didn't quite get what the fuss was about, as far as the violence. Frankly, having grown up doing Stations of the Cross, I think I already had a pretty good idea of the violence already. Seemed to me Gibson's version just added some Hollywood makeup to it.

And of course with Gibson, there's the other matter. The one where he... eh, let's some of his animus toward Jews come out. Which was much more egregious in my view.

Posted by: BurtTC at April 12, 2020 11:50 AM (hku12)

519 67 It's been a week to get books I ordered online. I started "Red Sky at Morning" by Bradford that was mentioned here a couple of weeks ago. Just three chapters into it but it is funny so far in a late teens, sarcastic manner. It's good enough to make me want to continue and see how the protagonist and odd characters get on.
Posted by: JTB at April 12, 2020 09:27 AM (7EjX1)

Since ham is traditional fare for Easter, remember the classic Southern glaze: pop a can of Coke open and pour it over the ham before putting it into the oven.

Posted by: Fox2! at April 12, 2020 11:50 AM (qyH+l)

520 Of you're being keelhauled on an aircraft carrier, you better be able to hold it for a long time.

Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at April 12, 2020 11:48 AM (hDNne)

---
Not as long as for a submarine.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 12, 2020 11:50 AM (cfSRQ)

521 Trimegistus,

I've usually interpreted it as some sort of path finding anyway. I have however heard it it used as a reference for not right in the head.

Posted by: BifBewalski at April 12, 2020 11:50 AM (VcFUs)

522 There is no front porch on which they will not shit.

Have had two residences in socal where wetbacks have literally shit on my porch.
Posted by: getting the banned back with ceasar chavez' vocabulary

Doesn't that bring good luck ?

Either that, or they're tryin' to tell ya you're doing it wrong !

Posted by: JT at April 12, 2020 11:51 AM (arJlL)

523 Should properly use a bottle of Mexican Coke for the cane sugar. Not sure HFCS caramelizes the same way as cane sugar.

Posted by: Fox2! at April 12, 2020 11:51 AM (qyH+l)

524 I watched the movie Parasite last night. Just curious if anyoone else has seen it ans what they thought. I did not get all the hype about it.
Posted by: sharon(willow's apprentice) at April 12, 2020 11:39 AM (QzF6i)

It won "Best Picture"! Judge ye not its deficiencies!

The missus is enthralled with "The Shape of Water", another Best Picture awardee. My two cents -- "It's the shape of cartoonish shit; enjoy your picture show!" -- and then I found more useful things to do.
Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars (TM) at April 12, 2020 11:44 AM (pNxlR)

I liked "Parasite" quite a bit esp as it subtly changes genres along with it's twists.

Great acting, direction, and writing.

The greatest thing evah?

Nope.

Better than 95% of the crap Hollywood spewed out last year?

Yep.

Posted by: naturalfake at April 12, 2020 11:52 AM (9wmyx)

525 What do you do in the Air Corps when the fight begins to scream?
How can you talk with the bombadiers to steady on the beam?
How can you dig a foxhole, or jump behind a tree?
Wouldn't you love to march away, just like the infantry?

Glenn Miller- What Do You Do In The Infantry

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJQ6Ug2f7t8

Posted by: Vanya at April 12, 2020 11:52 AM (BAsqb)

526 I kept trying to find a deeper meaning in the movie because on a superficial level it seemed like a typical con movie which has been done much better. Then I thought, poor rise up against the rich capitalist but then in the end, the poor decides to work hard and become the capitalist. And the capitalist earned his money and was willing to pay good wages even if he thought they smelled and was murdered for trusting.

Posted by: sharon(willow's apprentice) at April 12, 2020 11:52 AM (QzF6i)

527 Since ham is traditional fare for Easter, remember the classic Southern glaze: pop a can of Coke open and pour it over the ham before putting it into the oven.
Posted by: Fox2!
--------

Sugar and caffeine. What's not to like?

Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc. at April 12, 2020 11:53 AM (eYD0A)

528
Being in a family that had two daughters who were gymnasts, "on the beam" has a different connotation, particularly since they tormented their much younger (and youngest) brother by putting him on a balance beam when he was quite young and was literally terrified of it.

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars (TM) at April 12, 2020 11:53 AM (pNxlR)

529 My contention is that Gibson overdid it.

The amount of gore is comically overdone and it has the inverse effect to me, of rendering it a schlock horror spectacle. The first time I watched it, it was jarring and overwhelming.

Now it's merely tedious.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 12, 2020 11:43 AM (cfSRQ)

I agree with your take. Gibson's take not only seemed to be that Jesus suffered and died for us, but He suffered and died more horrifically than anybody else had ever suffered. But that's not the point of Christ's suffering.

Posted by: Donna&&&&&&V at April 12, 2020 11:54 AM (d6Ksn)

530
I didn't quite get what the fuss was about, as
far as the violence. Frankly, having grown up doing Stations of the
Cross, I think I already had a pretty good idea of the violence already.
Seemed to me Gibson's version just added some Hollywood makeup to it.

And of course with Gibson, there's the other matter. The one where
he... eh, let's some of his animus toward Jews come out. Which was much
more egregious in my view.

Posted by: BurtTC at April 12, 2020 11:50 AM (hku12)

---
My criticisms are purely based on the film as a film. It does not do well in repeat viewings. Other films do, as you pick out things you missed before.

The subject matter makes these flaws loom larger over time, which in turn distracts from the point of the work.

There are other movies that are far more spiritual and meaningful.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 12, 2020 11:54 AM (cfSRQ)

531 He has nothing but florid praise for Dickens' prose, but he says his speaking style was quite a disappointment.

If there's something somewhere else he had to say about Dickens' writing, I'd be curious what it is.
Posted by: BurtTC at April 12, 2020 11:21 AM (hku12)

Given that Dickens made a ton of money giving public readings both in England and the States, that criticism would have cut very deeply.
Posted by: Donna&&&&&&V at April 12, 2020 11:46 AM (d6Ksn)

I sincerely doubt Dickens ever saw it, and Twain wasn't famous enough yet that it would have been something he sought.

It was 1867, Dickens would die 3 years later, and Twain had not yet published Inncents Abroad, and long before Huckleberry Finn.

Posted by: BurtTC at April 12, 2020 11:55 AM (hku12)

532 Currently reading The Fleet at Flood Tide: America at Total War in the Pacific, 1944-1945 by James D. Hornfischer

Good mix of tactical, operational, and strategic history. It's all well known to me, but it is well told.

Finished the fascinating The Bombers and the Bombed: Allied Air War Over Europe 1940-1945
The Bombers and the Bombed: Allied Air War Over Europe 1940-1945 by Richard Overy.

This is very well sourced. The US and UK bombing effort is a known story to me. But he still pops in some telling context. I enjoyed his insight.

But where the book really takes off is how Germany coped with the bombing. What keep the population productive to the end? What organizational decisions make it possible? How was it done? This was new, and most interesting.

How the germans coped is very relevant to today. Comparing COVID-19 USA to Germany under night and day bombing is a useful exercise. What the Germans went through was many many orders of magnitude worse. Contrary to the usual opinions, Overy show how important women were to the Nazi war effort. Especially near the end of the war. Lots of interesting details in this part.

Because of strategic errors in the Allied bombing campaign, German production increased up to the end of 1944, when correctly applied force from the Allied Bomber offensive started shutting it down.

Richard Overy wrote the masterful Why the Allies Won, a concise examination of the key factors in Allies victory. He has another winner here.

Posted by: NaCly Dog at April 12, 2020 11:55 AM (u82oZ)

533 Funny thing is most American historians point to Rommel as the better general, where the Germans point to Patton. Probably a function of "who terrorized my country."

I think it's fairly obvious Patton was superior. That said, he was a raving lunatic. A complete and utter madman. Monomania, megalomania, manic depression, the works. Wouldn't surprise me if he had bouts of delusional psychosis here and there.

Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at April 12, 2020 11:57 AM (hDNne)

534 McArthur
Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc. at April 12, 2020 11:49 AM

And Mark Clark

Posted by: Skip at April 12, 2020 11:57 AM (ZCEU2)

535 Lately I've been reading some of Robert E. Howard's "King Kull" stories. Kull is the king of the ancient empire of Valusia, so far in the past that he's a barbarian usurper from the uncivilized land of Atlantis. One can certainly see him as Conan version 0.1, especially since Howard rewrote at least one Kull story as a Conan tale.

But Kull's a bit more cerebral than Conan. Which may be why Howard was more fond of the big C: in any given situation Conan's default response is to start lopping heads. Makes it easier to write.

Interesting note: one of Kull's adversaries is the skull-faced sorcerer Thulsa Doom. I don't know why John Milus decided to use that name for the villain in his Conan film, except that it sounds really cool. This also lends credence to the fan theory that He-Man began as a line of Conan tie-in toys, since he also has a skull-faced adversary.

Anyway, Kull's worth checking out.

Posted by: Trimegistus at April 12, 2020 11:57 AM (DKCFT)

536
Well, taxes call! See ya!

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars (TM) at April 12, 2020 11:57 AM (pNxlR)

537 Since ham is traditional fare for Easter, remember the classic Southern glaze: pop a can of Coke open and pour it over the ham before putting it into the oven.
Posted by: Fox2!
--------

Sugar and caffeine. What's not to like?
Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc. at April 12, 2020 11:53 AM (eYD0A)

Ham with coke starred in the opening moments of Red Sky at Morning, a dish I never heard of.

Posted by: CN at April 12, 2020 11:57 AM (ONvIw)

538 Never did like Dickens. Everything is over-the-top, clutch-and-stagger, trying so hard to move the reader to tears that I would just end up disgusted.

I much prefer Anthony Trollope - also Victorian, but he uses a stiletto where Dickens uses a bludgeon. His characters are a lot more interesting, too. C of E clergymen viciously competing for promotion. Jewish characters who are often the only honorable people in the book. The lively, if infuriating, Lady Glencora. In fact his women characters are as well-rounded and believable as his men. Not something you find much in 19th-century fiction.

Posted by: Annalucia at April 12, 2020 11:58 AM (S6ArX)

539 Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 12, 2020 11:43 AM (cfSRQ)

I agree with your take. Gibson's take not only seemed to be that Jesus suffered and died for us, but He suffered and died more horrifically than anybody else had ever suffered. But that's not the point of Christ's suffering.
Posted by: Donna&&&&&&V at April 12, 2020 11:54 AM (d6Ksn)

Yeah, the suffering He experienced was more spiritual than physical.

Posted by: BurtTC at April 12, 2020 11:58 AM (hku12)

540 Posted by: sharon(willow's apprentice) at April 12, 2020 11:52 AM (QzF6i)

It was bring trapped by your level in society - someone is trapped in the base due to debt, the poor family is trapped in an almost basement, the rich family is also trapped by their windows and tall walls and most of all by the lies fed to them by their social inferiors.
The ending was nihilistic - we can't escape, to dream.of escape is all we have.

Posted by: vmom 2020 at April 12, 2020 11:58 AM (G546f)

541 I started a novel that was recommended a short while ago here. Using that one for my exercise book... he's got maybe another chapter before I decide to chuck it. I'm not yet getting why I should care about the character or want to read his story.
Posted by: BurtTC at April 12, 2020 11:29 AM (hku12)

This has become my standard for books and movies.

Mrs. Muse and I both very much liked the Coen brothers' adaptation of True Grit. Both Matty and Rooster Cogburn were memorable characters you could root for.

So we rented the Coens' next movie 'Inside Llewyn Davis', the main character being a 60s folksinger and about 20 minutes into it, we looked at each other and said 'Do we care about this guy? At all'? We both said no, so we immediately switched it off and went on to something else.

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Social Distancing Professional at April 12, 2020 11:58 AM (R2AXd)

542 Kilroy, not all dancing from movies, but I've always been a big fan of this music video

https://tinyurl.com/yxkjeq2w

Posted by: Cosmic Charlie at April 12, 2020 11:59 AM (PUmDY)

543 Posted by: BurtTC at April 12, 2020 11:50 AM (hku12)

---
My criticisms are purely based on the film as a film. It does not do well in repeat viewings. Other films do, as you pick out things you missed before.

The subject matter makes these flaws loom larger over time, which in turn distracts from the point of the work.

There are other movies that are far more spiritual and meaningful.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 12, 2020 11:54 AM (cfSRQ)

I remember the film as something I had to get through.

I certainly can't see a need for another viewing.

Posted by: BurtTC at April 12, 2020 11:59 AM (hku12)

544 Should properly use a bottle of Mexican Coke for the cane sugar. Not sure HFCS caramelizes the same way as cane sugar.
Posted by: Fox2! at April 12, 2020 11:51 AM (qyH+l)

n.b. Coke with a yellow cap on bottle is kosher for Passover, and made from sucrose, not HFCS.

Posted by: hogmartin at April 12, 2020 11:59 AM (t+qrx)

545 I think it's fairly obvious Patton was superior. That said, he was a raving lunatic. A complete and utter madman. Monomania, megalomania, manic depression, the works. Wouldn't surprise me if he had bouts of delusional psychosis here and there.
Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at April 12, 2020 11:57 AM (hDNne)
-----
I've read Patton's memoir. It's highly literate and presents an entirely different picture of the man. The swagger and bluster were largely for public consumption.

Posted by: Captain Obvious, USS Lone Fire at April 12, 2020 12:01 PM (4o2K3)

546 Mrs. Muse and I both very much liked the Coen brothers' adaptation of True Grit. Both Matty and Rooster Cogburn were memorable characters you could root for.

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Social Distancing Professional at April 12, 2020 11:58 AM (R2AXd)

Loved it....Bridges' turn as Rooster was brilliant, imho.

Posted by: BignJames at April 12, 2020 12:02 PM (X/Pw5)

547 Posted by: BurtTC at April 12, 2020 11:29 AM (hku12)

This has become my standard for books and movies.

Mrs. Muse and I both very much liked the Coen brothers' adaptation of True Grit. Both Matty and Rooster Cogburn were memorable characters you could root for.

So we rented the Coens' next movie 'Inside Llewyn Davis', the main character being a 60s folksinger and about 20 minutes into it, we looked at each other and said 'Do we care about this guy? At all'? We both said no, so we immediately switched it off and went on to something else.
Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Social Distancing Professional at April 12, 2020 11:58 AM (R2AXd)

I liked the movie, but didn't love it. Probably the least interesting of their films. And if you want to see a movie about the edges of the folk scene, A Mighty Wind is substantially better.

Posted by: BurtTC at April 12, 2020 12:02 PM (hku12)

548 Concur completely. It's a really good book. Schama's work on Dutch art (and art history in general) is thorough and worthwhile; his childish Twitter bleats, not so much.
Posted by: Zod at April 12, 2020 10:26 AM (XzT/D)

I liked "Citizens" too.

If anybody expects authors to always be decent and intellectually coherent, they'll be left with nothing to read.

Schama belongs to that group of historians who are capable of great insight into past eras but are blind when it comes to contemporary events. See also: Anne Applebaum ("Gulag") and Timothy Snyder ("Bloodlines.")

An exception and favorite of mine is Niall Ferguson, He initially opposed Trump but now supports him, which makes him a lonely historian. He did an interview with Dave Rubin which I highly recommend.

Posted by: Donna&&&&&&V at April 12, 2020 12:03 PM (d6Ksn)

549 542 Kilroy, not all dancing from movies, but I've always been a big fan of this music video

https://tinyurl.com/yxkjeq2w

Posted by: Cosmic Charlie at April 12, 2020 11:59 AM (PUmDY)

Check out this one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1F0lBnsnkE

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Social Distancing Professional at April 12, 2020 12:03 PM (R2AXd)

550 I retired a little earlier than I intended, because after my divorce, I hated working in the same office with my ex.
Posted by: mnw at April 12, 2020 11:45 AM (Cssks)

Oy. Can't blame you there.

Posted by: Insomniac - Ex Cineribus Resurgo at April 12, 2020 12:05 PM (NWiLs)

551 The best screen Moriarty was Henry Daniell. The epitome of reptilian ruthlessness.

Posted by: the guy that moves pianos for a living at April 12, 2020 12:06 PM (3DZIZ)

552 Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Social Distancing Professional at April 12, 2020 11:58 AM (R2AXd)

I liked the movie, but didn't love it. Probably the least interesting of their films. And if you want to see a movie about the edges of the folk scene, A Mighty Wind is substantially better.
Posted by: BurtTC at April 12, 2020 12:02 PM (hku12)

And your point cannot be overstated. Give me a reason to care, creators. You made these characters do these things, why should I care? I don't have to love them, or even like them, but there's got to be some reason why it matters.

If your story is "this guy is a loser and nothing he does is meaningful or worthy of praise, even if just for his effort," then I'm not interested. Next.

Posted by: BurtTC at April 12, 2020 12:07 PM (hku12)

553 one of the things I liked about True Grit is the language

in both movies the girl shows her education by her diction, vocabulary, and the fact that she does not use any contractions at all

I believe it to be the reason the much older men take her seriously

Posted by: vmom 2020 at April 12, 2020 12:07 PM (G546f)

554 I retired a little earlier than I intended, because after my divorce, I hated working in the same office with my ex.
Posted by: mnw at April 12, 2020 11:45 AM (Cssks)

Whoa.

On yer last day, didja hit yer ex in the face with a pie ?

Posted by: JT at April 12, 2020 12:07 PM (arJlL)

555 I've read Patton's memoir. It's highly literate and presents an entirely different picture of the man. The swagger and bluster were largely for public consumption.
Posted by: Captain Obvious, USS Lone Fire at April 12, 2020 12:01 PM (4o2K3)

-------

When he was stable he was always erudite and seemingly reasonable. But read his poetry... that dude was HAUNTED.

And read the accounts of his time in MX. If Blackjack Pershing thinks you need to calm the fuck down, you're high-strung.

I'm not denigrating Patton, but he was driven by something very different than most people.

Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at April 12, 2020 12:07 PM (hDNne)

556 Yeah, the suffering He experienced was more spiritual than physical.

Posted by: BurtTC at April 12, 2020 11:58 AM (hku12)

---
This is a very good point.

At a certain point, you move beyond physical pain.

Yet that's where Gibson places his effort, and in doing so he discounts that the form of death was uniquely shameful.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 12, 2020 12:07 PM (cfSRQ)

557 Where to watch a Catholic Mass.

TV, online, or via YouTubeTV, etc.

https://www.heartofthenation.org/

Happy Easter all.

Signing out.

Posted by: artisanal 'ette at April 12, 2020 12:08 PM (8fB/R)

558 From time to time I entertain the idea of returning to more formal language.

Posted by: vmom 2020 at April 12, 2020 12:08 PM (G546f)

559 558 From time to time I entertain the idea of returning to more formal language.
Posted by: vmom 2020 at April 12, 2020 12:08 PM (G546f)

Esperanto?

Posted by: Insomniac - Ex Cineribus Resurgo at April 12, 2020 12:09 PM (NWiLs)

560 Esperanto?
Posted by: Insomniac - Ex Cineribus Resurgo at April 12, 2020 12:09 PM (NWiLs)
-----
La lingvo internacio.

Posted by: Captain Obvious, USS Lone Fire at April 12, 2020 12:10 PM (4o2K3)

561 The Updike poem reminds me that I've been meaning to buy his Collected Poems. One of these days.

I'm no fan of Updike's novels.
Okay, the only ones I've read are The Centaur and Couples. That was more than enough.

But somewhere I picked up used, paperback copies of his first two poetry collections, The Carpentered Hen and Telephone Poles. I fell in love with him as a poet.

The serious stuff is very good, sometimes wonderful.
But the light verse is out of this world.

Posted by: Margarita DeVille at April 12, 2020 12:10 PM (M/9m0)

562
I get that part of his schtick was being a
curmudgeon but Twain wears on me in a hurry. He's so cynical and
sneering toward everything it become tiring. He wasn't a fan of
ANYTHING, based on his writing.
Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at April 12, 2020 10:34 AM (KZzsI)

I respectfully disagree. To put as much interest, and commentary into a subject means you have to delve deep into it. If you are doing that for a subject you dislike you are just being a masochist or a propagandist, and I doubt it is is possible to do a good job or write a decent paragraph much less a decent book.
Twain is many things, he is one of the best American prose writers who (with Abraham Lincoln I believe) set the modern American literary voice, and he was very much interested in how people thought and spoke. His attitudes are cutting, but they seem more the exasperation of someone who sees potential wasted and delighted reflection on things he sees as absurd.
His Rouging It is very much a modern Picaresque novel, and his stories about being dropped into a totally new world surrounded by the miners and sharpers on the frontier takes a lot of delight in the absurdity found in the great riches, great hardships, pretentiousness and the attempts of fairly common people to reach for a level of sophistication without the proper tools to achieve it.

Twain's autobiography does show that this was a theme in his life, and he paints himself as a man trying to achieve greater things with insufficient tools, and still managed to be quite an innovator. At one point he acted as a press agency while in Washington DC, sending articles to small local papers who couldn't afford to have a reporter there, and his attempt to develop a self-aligning linotype machine is known.

I think he was very approving of what he saw as progress, and very much supported it, his satire lit up the shortfalls, pretensions, and stubborn wrongheaded insistence to interpret things based on personal experience, not reading of the actual situation.

I however and a deep fan of Twain, and that colors my interpretation

Posted by: Kindltot at April 12, 2020 12:10 PM (WyVLE)

563 I've read Patton's memoir. It's highly literate and presents an entirely different picture of the man. The swagger and bluster were largely for public consumption.
Posted by: Captain Obvious, USS Lone Fire at April 12, 2020 12:01 PM (4o2K3)

Kind of like Trump, I think.

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Social Distancing Professional at April 12, 2020 12:11 PM (R2AXd)

564 I much prefer Anthony Trollope - also Victorian,
-----

heh. I have certainly read a good bit of Trollope, and enjoyed it.

FWIW, my family have a personal history with Trollope, which is recorded (by name) in Parliament's records. My g-g-grandfather was involved in this: https://tinyurl.com/t887wfr

Anti-Trollope vote buying. Trollope lost the election.

As an aside, I expect that Thackery was okay with that.

Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc. at April 12, 2020 12:11 PM (eYD0A)

565 From time to time I entertain the idea of returning to more formal language.
Posted by: vmom 2020 at April 12, 2020 12:08 PM (G546f)

Tell me you don't mean to give up the phoneposting typos; they're a ray of Dadaist sunshine.

Posted by: hogmartin at April 12, 2020 12:11 PM (t+qrx)

566 It was bring trapped by your level in society -
someone is trapped in the base due to debt, the poor family is trapped
in an almost basement, the rich family is also trapped by their windows
and tall walls and most of all by the lies fed to them by their social
inferiors.

The ending was nihilistic - we can't escape, to dream.of escape is all we have.

Posted by: vmom 2020 at April 12, 2020 11:58 AM (G546f)

Wow. No wonder Hollywood liked it. I could never accept that world view which is probably why I didn;t get it. The only part I understood was the speech about having a plan versus not having a plan. Where we are right now in life I think makes that point. No one could have predicted the country would be in lockdown for months just when people were planning graduations, weddings , travel. The difference is, you don;t give up. You just make new plans.

Posted by: sharon(willow's apprentice) at April 12, 2020 12:12 PM (QzF6i)

567
I've usually interpreted it as some sort of path finding anyway. I have however heard it it used as a reference for not right in the head.

************

Which brings us right back around to the original usage upthread, which was two guys talking about how they must be off the beam ("we must be nuts") to be having a normal moment in a war zone.

So very similar to "a bubble off" in usage. Or 'deviating from the norm".

Interesting discussion!

Posted by: Muldoon at April 12, 2020 12:12 PM (m45I2)

568 From time to time I entertain the idea of returning to more formal language.
Posted by: vmom 2020 at April 12, 2020 12:08 PM (G546f)

I agree, Madam.

Posted by: Vanya at April 12, 2020 12:12 PM (BAsqb)

569 561 The Updike poem reminds me that I've been meaning to buy his Collected Poems. One of these days."

I confess, I didn't even know that Updike wrote poetry.

I can't stand his novels.

Posted by: Donna&&&&&&V at April 12, 2020 12:12 PM (d6Ksn)

570 I agree with your take. Gibson's take not only seemed to be that Jesus
suffered and died for us, but He suffered and died more horrifically
than anybody else had ever suffered. But that's not the point of
Christ's suffering.
=====

Have never seen the movie itself, but the gore and violence was and is a feature of life without Judeo-Christian enlightenment. Think how much the commonplace public physical torture of 'dissent' is not accepted now.

The slow movement to change perception (with believers at the forefront) has changed humanity.

Posted by: mustbequantum at April 12, 2020 12:12 PM (MIKMs)

571 'Morning, Horde.

I finished "The Burning". When I've fully processed what I read I'll write a review but that time is not here yet. Three hundred people died in Tulsa less than a hundred years ago in what was termed a "race riot" but was in fact a pogrom. I still can't wrap my head around this.

Posted by: creeper at April 12, 2020 12:13 PM (XxJt1)

572 I didn't get the Gibson was trying to make Jesus' death the most gruesome and painful anyone ever experienced. I took it as more this is what crucifixion is. The scourging was a separate thing from the crucifixion. It was Pilates way of trying to appease the church leaders by punishing Jesus but not actually killing him. The church leaders insisted on death even after the punishment.

Posted by: lin-duh at April 12, 2020 12:14 PM (UUBmN)

573 A office romance then wedding would turn to disaster if it didn't work. Old boss and Secretary then ex-wife was always a tense situation when had to go into office.

Posted by: Skip at April 12, 2020 12:14 PM (ZCEU2)

574 553 one of the things I liked about True Grit is the language
in both movies the girl shows her education by her diction, vocabulary, and the fact that she does not use any contractions at all

I believe it to be the reason the much older men take her seriously
Posted by: vmom 2020 at April 12, 2020 12:07 PM (G546f)

I didn't thin it was just Matty, I thought everyone in the movie spoke that way. By severely limiting the use of contractions, the dialog sounded like how I imagined people in the late 19th century would speak. I have no idea if this is authentic, but it sure sounded authentic to me.

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Social Distancing Professional at April 12, 2020 12:15 PM (R2AXd)

575 I think he was very approving of what he saw as progress, and very much supported it, his satire lit up the shortfalls, pretensions, and stubborn wrongheaded insistence to interpret things based on personal experience, not reading of the actual situation.

I however and a deep fan of Twain, and that colors my interpretation

Posted by: Kindltot at April 12, 2020 12:10 PM (WyVLE)

Keen observer of human nature, imo.

Posted by: BignJames at April 12, 2020 12:16 PM (X/Pw5)

576 Nood y'all

Posted by: lin-duh at April 12, 2020 12:16 PM (UUBmN)

577 I confess, I didn't even know that Updike wrote poetry.

Posted by: DonnaV at April 12, 2020 12:12 PM (d6Ksn)

I didn't either, until I read that one. Now I might read some of his other poems.

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Social Distancing Professional at April 12, 2020 12:16 PM (R2AXd)

578 A office romance then wedding would turn to disaster if it didn't work. Old boss and Secretary then ex-wife was always a tense situation when had to go into office.
Posted by: Skip
----

Old adage - Never dip your pen into the company ink

Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc. at April 12, 2020 12:17 PM (eYD0A)

579 Muse, a very great one

https://tinyurl.com/wm4dbvd

Posted by: Cosmic Charlie at April 12, 2020 12:18 PM (PUmDY)

580 Posted by: sharon(willow's apprentice) at April 12, 2020 12:12 PM (QzF6i)

That is just my interpretation of the movie, of course. Movigique and TJM probably have deeper and more erudite interpretations.

Posted by: vmom 2020 at April 12, 2020 12:18 PM (G546f)

581 I've never actually seen Passion, but I did go to high school with Jim Caviezel.

Posted by: Jeff Weimer at April 12, 2020 12:19 PM (ijEPD)

582 Chores.

Have a blessed day, everyone.

He is Risen.

Posted by: NaCly Dog at April 12, 2020 12:19 PM (u82oZ)

583 I didn't thin it was just Matty, I thought everyone in the movie spoke that way. By severely limiting the use of contractions, the dialog sounded like how I imagined people in the late 19th century would speak. I have no idea if this is authentic, but it sure sounded authentic to me.
Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Social Distancing Professional at April 12, 2020 12:15 PM (R2AXd)
-----
Portis created his own idiom in the novel, which transferred to the movies. People used contractions freely back then (and earlier) as can be seen in the writngs of contemporaries who were master of dialogue, like Twain. That said, I also like the oddly archaic feel Portis's idiom has.

Posted by: Captain Obvious, USS Lone Fire at April 12, 2020 12:19 PM (4o2K3)

584 I've not watched The Passion of Christ but I have to concede that it had a very spiritual effect on the majority of its audience by all reports so I have to assume it's content was purposeful .

Posted by: Kilroy wasn't here at April 12, 2020 12:20 PM (2DOZq)

585 Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Social Distancing Professional at April 12, 2020 12:15 PM (R2AXd)

No contractions was also a conceit of the Lou Diamond Phillips character in Longmire.

Posted by: Jeff Weimer at April 12, 2020 12:21 PM (ijEPD)

586 Mrs. Muse and I both very much liked the Coen brothers' adaptation of True Grit. Both Matty and Rooster Cogburn were memorable characters you could root for.

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Social Distancing Professional at April 12, 2020 11:58 AM (R2AXd)

Loved it....Bridges' turn as Rooster was brilliant, imho.
Posted by: BignJames at April 12, 2020

*
*

I miss the color and liveliness of the 1969 original with John Wayne and Kim Darby. The new film restores the book's ending; but the 1969 ending is great in its own way.

As for Red Sky at Morning, I can't say enough good things about that book. Funny, touching, hilarious . . . Well, just read it.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at April 12, 2020 12:22 PM (rpbg1)

587 . I have no idea if this is authentic, but it sure sounded authentic to me.
Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Social Distancing Professional at April 12, 2020 12:15 PM (R2AXd)

My elementary school teachers frowned on the use of contractions, so it does make it believable to me as well.

My mother referred to contractions as "slang."

If this trend continues, by the next century we will no longer use vowels.

Posted by: vmom 2020 at April 12, 2020 12:23 PM (G546f)

588 There is an expurgated version of The Passion that came out on videotape. I think they edited the violence down so it would be better for family viewing.
I would guess it's available in some format somewhere.

I've always wanted to see that version.

Posted by: Margarita DeVille at April 12, 2020 12:24 PM (M/9m0)

589 I miss the color and liveliness of the 1969 original with John Wayne and Kim Darby. The new film restores the book's ending; but the 1969 ending is great in its own way.
-----
There is a subtly humorous touch in the final scene of the Coen Bros. movie - the stonecutter has screwed up Rooster's birth and death dates of his tombstone.

Posted by: Captain Obvious, USS Lone Fire at April 12, 2020 12:25 PM (4o2K3)

590 That is just my interpretation of the movie, of course. Movigique and TJM probably have deeper and more erudite interpretations.

Posted by: vmom 2020 at April 12, 2020 12:18 PM (G546f)

I appreciate your response. It gave me something to think about and another way of lookiing at things. It is what I love about this site. The book thread is by far my favorite place. I actually scroll through all the comments when I get here because they are just as interesting as the content in the post. It is also nice to have a conversation especially in these crazy times.

Posted by: sharon(willow's apprentice) at April 12, 2020 12:26 PM (QzF6i)

591 Have had two residences in socal where wetbacks have literally shit on my porch.
Posted by: getting the banned back with ceasar chavez' vocabulary at April 12, 2020 11:48 AM (8QnZu)

That should be grounds for use of lethal force.

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at April 12, 2020 12:28 PM (miJU3)

592 I didn't get the Gibson was trying to make Jesus'
death the most gruesome and painful anyone ever experienced. I took it
as more this is what crucifixion is. The scourging was a separate thing
from the crucifixion. It was Pilates way of trying to appease the church
leaders by punishing Jesus but not actually killing him. The church
leaders insisted on death even after the punishment.

Posted by: lin-duh at April 12, 2020 12:14 PM (UUBmN)

---
If you look at the time and effort he devotes to it, it's literally the centerpiece of the film.

The scourging also is drawn out in what seems a very unrealistic way.

In that time, "judicial" beatings were common. The legionaries would have seen Jesus as just another local needing punishment, and they would have done the job like any other. It was basically a fatigue duty.

Same with the crucifixion. If anything, they would have been in a hurry to get it over with, which is how I've always interpreted Christ stumbling - he's been pushed along.

The city is in a ferment, the crowd is angry, and the sooner they get through the streets, the better. So having them stop, swig from jugs, do belly laughs and beat up the guy is just stupid. They want to get this over with so they can take off their armor in the safety of the barracks.

And the blood! They must have gone through gallons of the stuff. A more subtle and realistic approach would be more powerful, IMHO.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 12, 2020 12:34 PM (cfSRQ)

593 Also: finally unearthed my copy of Defoe's Journal of the Plague Year.

This is where I'm supposed to say it's eerily like the present, but it's not. For one thing, whole families were dying within hours of showing symptoms. For another, the authorities weren't messing around: rural towns would drive you out at spearpoint, and in London they'd board up your house with you in it and put a watchman outside to keep you from sneaking out.

And the Covid is a piker compared to the plague: in London a QUARTER OF THE POPULATION died in a year. Think about that. We're worried that the death rate might reach 1 percent. The greatest and richest city in Europe lost a quarter of its people . . . then BURNED DOWN . . . and pretty much shrugged off both disasters. I wish we were as tough-minded.

Posted by: Trimegistus at April 12, 2020 12:38 PM (DKCFT)

594 You know, if you look at Parasite from the POV of the rich young boy, it's a very scary horror movie.

Posted by: vmom 2020 at April 12, 2020 12:40 PM (G546f)

595 Alleluia! Christ is risen!

Happy Easter!

This week, I have been reading We'll Always Have Parrots by Donna Andrews and The Cold War by John Lewis Gaddis. I haven't finished either of them, but I am about 75% through each. The parrots book is the 5th mystery in the Meg Lanslow series. I am just getting through it so I can move on to the others. It was very slow to start but became more interesting once the murder and investigation happened. But, it takes place at a sci-fi convention with all of the weirdness that ensues in those places, so some of you morons may like it.

I'm reading the Cold War because I was a young-un in the 70's and 80's, and I don't know much about The Cold War other than the drills to duck under a desk (which seriously?!, that's a crazy solution for a nuclear bomb), and I remember the excitement when the Berlin Wall came down.

Heading to Zoom church, now. Will check back later.

Posted by: Violet at April 12, 2020 12:43 PM (9ppMC)

596 I've read Patton's memoir. It's highly literate and presents an entirely different picture of the man.

My husband and I were watching the Criterion Collection's blu-ray presentation of all the modern Olympic Games from the early 20th century to the present. A little surprise: in the 1912 Stockholm Olympics, there is footage of George S. Patton, competing in the fencing event.

Posted by: Dr. Mabuse at April 12, 2020 12:45 PM (45WxF)

597 594
You know, if you look at Parasite from the POV of the rich young boy, it's a very scary horror movie.

Posted by: vmom 2020 at April 12, 2020 12:40 PM (G546f)
Interesting take. Each of the 4 family members has a counterpoint that creates a balance meeting each person's needs until the guy in the basement disrupts the balance and chaos ensues.

Posted by: sharon(willow's apprentice) at April 12, 2020 12:50 PM (QzF6i)

598 596 Yup, Patton was an Olympian. I personally think this experience contributed to his creativity with Army uniforms.

Also, anyone interested in River investigations would be well served to check out The Incredible Voyage by Tristan Jones. Warning: This book will leave a mark!

Posted by: scottst at April 12, 2020 12:55 PM (/QQch)

599 Going to go work in my garden. Have a lovely day.

Posted by: sharon(willow's apprentice) at April 12, 2020 12:59 PM (QzF6i)

600 The Michael Crichton quote on the Gell-Mann amnesia effect has been the signature line (it is a long signature line) on my personal email for several years. I was thinking of changing it out for a Jordan Peterson quote where he talks about how despicable the French deconstructionists were/are. I did not pull the trigger, but it is a tough choice.

Posted by: Big Sam at April 12, 2020 12:59 PM (5zAjT)

601 He is notorious among historians for pushing the false idea that people thought the earth was flat in the Middle Ages.

That was my problem with "Miracle Workers: Dark Ages" and other 'comic' looks at Mediaeval Europe. These continue an ignorant slander against Europeans' origins and against the Church.

Posted by: boulder t'hobo at April 12, 2020 01:03 PM (ykYG2)

602 Violet: the duck 'n cover drills weren't as foolish as the defeatist liberals in media portrayed them. Sure, if a Russian warhead lands on your school, you're toast. But the Russians didn't have enough bombs to target every middle school in North America, so they instead aimed them at military and industrial targets.

Which means if your school was a few miles away, the big risk would be the flash blinding you and the blast wave shattering windows and lacerating you with debris. Getting under a desk is at least a start on protecting yourself from the much more likely effects of a bomb blast.

But lefties and media people (BIRM) wanted us to surrender to the Soviets, so they mocked the idea of civil defense. Just as they later mocked the idea of Reagan's SDI.

Useful rule to follow: when liberals make fun of something, it's because they're scared it will work.

Posted by: Trimegistus at April 12, 2020 01:07 PM (DKCFT)

603 Two series I can not recommend highly enough:

NECROSCOPE series by Brian Lumley (and his related VAMPIRE WORLD trilogy)
EVENT GROUP series by David L. Golemon

Two novels I also can not recommend highly enough:

THE DESCENT by Jeff Long
THE KEEP by F. Paul Wilson

Posted by: Augustus623 at April 12, 2020 01:18 PM (fRJmS)

604 I hate the fan theory that Nero Wolfe is a descendant of Sherlock Holmes. Although I can accept that some people are genetically predisposed toward certain talents, I much prefer that fictional geniuses just happen to have a lot of brainpower developed on their own. That's why they stand out.

Richard Queen was a smart man, but Ellery exceeded him. Otherwise, why would he let Ellery get so involved in police business? He wouldn't have needed him.

(Now I'm imagining Ellery as a kid tagging along with Sgt. Queen. Shades of "Encyclopedia" Brown.)

Posted by: Weak Geek at April 12, 2020 01:48 PM (u/nim)

605 Thanks, Trimegistus. I like your rule of thumb regarding liberals. But, if the bomb landed only a few miles away, I think it would condemn those in the vicinity to death by fallout. So, hiding under a desk wouldn't help with that, but at least you wouldn't be blind?

Posted by: Violet at April 12, 2020 02:16 PM (9ppMC)

606 I think "off the beam" has to do with ship construction.

Posted by: Weak Geek at April 12, 2020 02:20 PM (u/nim)

607 I read the Crichton piece about every other year when I recommend it to other people.

Posted by: goodluckduck at April 12, 2020 02:38 PM (V8zw+)

608 604 I hate the fan theory that Nero Wolfe is a descendant of Sherlock Holmes."

I've never had any problem with the idea of literary influences, like building blocks.

An author reads an earlier author and is inspired - and also driven to push the idea further, to go for "bigger and better." Shakespeare got most of his plots from Plutarch but went in a completely different direction.

Writers don't create in a vacuum.

Posted by: Donna&&&&&&V at April 12, 2020 02:47 PM (d6Ksn)

609 M. John Harrison sci-fi book Light.
Vernor Vinge sci-fi book A Fire Upon the Deep.
Jeff Vandermeer strange fiction Annihilation.
Algernon Blackwood strange fiction The Willows.
Oles Honchar Soviet fiction The Black Ravine. (archive.org)

Light is a genre mashup. Noir detective- body tailoring - fantasy sleep tanks- conceptual science- deep space colonies- serial killer - rocket jockeys, old species, space combat/countermeasures measured in nanoseconds and ancient planet forming tech.

All of it revolves around a strange black hole which lacks a event horizon. The hole spews surrealism. Unfathomable things.

Posted by: 13times at April 12, 2020 03:40 PM (K3B2k)

610 The John Updike poem is one of my favorite Easter works. He nails much of the modern nonsense that has obscured the Easter message. In past years, I've posted it in the social hall at our church.

Posted by: civil truth at April 12, 2020 03:55 PM (ymrPC)

611 "I hate the fan theory that Nero Wolfe is a descendant of Sherlock Holmes." "

IIRC, John Carr wrote an article for the Baker Street Journal (or something like that) with the idea that Wolfe was the son of Sherlock Holmes and Irene Adler. A lot of those articles were written for fun. There was one written by Rex Stout titled "Doctor Watson Was a Woman".

I've read most of the Nero Wolfe stories and don't remember even a hint about a Holmes relation in the books.

Posted by: JTB at April 12, 2020 04:20 PM (7EjX1)

612 I've read most of the Nero Wolfe stories and don't remember even a hint about a Holmes relation in the books.

Its very obscure, something about a shared relation in Europe

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at April 12, 2020 07:49 PM (KZzsI)

613 I hate the fan theory that Nero Wolfe is a descendant of Sherlock Holmes. Although I can accept that some people are genetically predisposed toward certain talents, I much prefer that fictional geniuses just happen to have a lot of brainpower developed on their own. That's why they stand out.
...
Posted by: Weak Geek at April 12, 2020 01:48 PM (u/nim)

My opinion is that the character Nero Wolfe is based on Mycroft Holmes, Sherlock Holmes' older brother. Rex Stout was an early member of the Baker Street Irregulars and wanted to have his character solve mysteries without leaving home.

Posted by: Retired Buckeye Cop is now an engineer at April 12, 2020 10:05 PM (pJWtt)

614 Thank you so much for posting the Updike poem. I had not been aware of it.

Posted by: Libby Sternberg at April 13, 2020 05:15 AM (Ipnbk)

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