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Sunday Morning Book Thread - 01-22-2023 ["Perfessor" Squirrel]

012223-Library.png
Click image for larger view
(ht - Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing)

Welcome to the prestigious, internationally acclaimed, stately, and illustrious Sunday Morning Book Thread! The place where all readers are welcome, regardless of whatever guilty pleasure we feel like reading (government has been "EV curious" since at least 197. Here is where we can discuss, argue, bicker, quibble, consider, debate, confabulate, converse, and jaw about our latest fancy in reading material, even if it's nothing more than a course syllabus (now with extra student learning outcomes!). As always, pants are required, especially if you are wearing these pants...

So relax, find yourself a warm kitty (or warm puppy--I won't judge) to curl up in your lap, open a bag of Cheetos, and dive into a new book (watch out for Cheeto-stains!). What are YOU reading this fine morning?

PIC NOTE

Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing (or MP4 for short) send me a picture he took of the poem above. The picture he sent me had a bit of glare due to the poem being inserted into a document protector. However, it's a fairly well-known poem, so I decided to create an image from the poem for today's library pic. You can find a lot of similar images out there for this poem. It's a bit different than the usual Sunday Morning Book Thread pic. Enjoy!

I OPENED A BOOK

The reasons why we read are as varied as the books we pick up and the individuals who choose to read them. Right now, I'm mostly reading Star Wars: Legacy of the Force as a bit of a self-imposed completion challenge. I know it's not great, though there are some cool moments here and there. I also know *what* happens, as I've read the sequel series, Fate of the Jedi, but I don't know *how* it happens. I've also heard about Karen Traviss' legendary attachment to Boba Fett and Mandalorian culture. I was a bit curious to see if it was as bad as rumored. SPOILER: It's worse.

Anyway, opening a book and striding inside, as the poem says, is just a great way for me to escape the crazy world we live in. I like to consider myself a bit of a "hyper-realist." I don't have any illusions that dragons or wizards exist in the real world, or that aliens exist throughout the universe (the jury is still out on this). But it can be fun to pretend sometimes. It's nice to forget about my humdrum life for a while. I am not an "extreme sports enthusiast." About the only major excitement I get up to in the real world is traveling to the TXMOME. I lead a very, very boring life. Just not interested in an overly complicated lifestyle.

Through books, I can share in the laughter and tears of characters, and follow their bumps and bends along their roads. I can return to them when I feel a particular emotional need that I am unable to find in the real world. And I can learn so, so much about the human condition, no matter *what* I'm reading, even if it's a scientific book about wormholes. That right there demonstrates the curiosity inherent in all of us to find out what is *really* going on in our universe, even if we lack the tools, materials, and knowledge to fully understand it. Our reality as we experience it is only the tiniest sliver of all creation.

So open a book today. Explore. Find something new to read. Let your imagination soar! And find that book inside YOU!

++++++++++

012223-Joke.jpg

++++++++++

IT PAYS TO INCREASE YOUR TROPE AWARENESS

Evil is Petty - This is when the villain or antagonist not only engages in very small, petty acts of evil, but actively thrives on it. They enjoy taking candy from a baby. They delight in kicking a man when he's down, especially when they know they are no match for their victim on otherwise even terms. Joffrey, from George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire is a good example of a tyrant who loves engaging in petty evil for the lulz.

Well-Intentioned Extremist - This trope refers to a villain/antagonist that may have noble goals in mind, but their methods are questionable at best or downright evil at worst. For example, the idiots attempting to send up balloons full of sulphur dioxide as a method of stopping global warming might fall into this category. Assuming their premise is true (i.e., that the Earth is undergoing cataclysmic climate change), then they may have good intentions in slowing down or reversing global warming, but their method could result in far more devastation than they realize.

MORON RECOMMENDATIONS

There was a distinct historical theme in last week's recommendations, so I thought I'd include some here, along with my comments. Enjoy!


I finished John Keay's India: A History. Keay is the same author who wrote an excellent history of China, and like that book, this one is a general work, covering the entirety of the subcontinent's history. It starts with the Harappan culture along the Indus - modern day Pakistan; one of the earliest civilizations along with the Mesopotamians and Egyptians, and ends in 2000, so it doesn't cover the last 20 years.

I find Keay's writing style very easy to read, yet he conveys enormous amounts of information, so if this is a topic of interest, I highly recommend the book.

One minor quibble: he seems to be inordinately impressed by the Islamic contribution to India, and doesn't give their slaughter of Hindus as much attention as it deserves, but for a modern day author, it's fairly understated. Either that, or I've just become hypersensitive to such bias.

Posted by: Archimedes at January 15, 2023 09:10 AM (eOEVl)

Comment: Hmmmm. Does he talk about the contributions of India to Islamic civilization? Islam was brutal to India, just like it was everywhere else it dominated. Even to this day. Does anyone think that if Pakistan took over India that the native Hindus would be left in peace? Or would they face the standard three options: convert, submit (as dhimmis), or die?

+++++


Special Duty: A History of the Japanese Intelligence Community by Richard J Samuels.

https://tinyurl.com/Special-Duty

Samuels chronicles the ups and downs of post-Meiji restoration Japanese intelligence work. It is dry as non-fiction works on espionage tend to be, but not overly so. The Japanese efficacy on data gathering has waxed and waned with highs, such as their having the mine layout at the Port Arthur attack, to lows more recently, such as an inability to penetrate North Korean actions in the wake of the kidnapping scandals.

Perversely, a bigger fear and reverence shown by the Japanese Intelligence apparatus towards their own constitution than our domestic ones have for ours. I'd say that the at-gunpoint-enforced civic education the occupying authorities delivered to the Japanese and German populace is far more effective than our own apathetic and negligent one.

Happy reading.

Posted by: sven at January 15, 2023 09:29 AM (Lzpvj)

Comment: Not all intelligence communities (IC) are created equal. We have seen recently the constant failure of the American IC and their use as a weapon against the citizens they are supposed to protect. It seems to me that the Japanese are highly patriotic towards their country, much more so than a lot of Americans. I wonder if there is *any* intelligence network that can put together an accurate picture of what goes on in North Korea. It's called the "Hermit Kingdom" for a reason.

+++++


I hope this isn't too political for here. If so, I apologize.

I have just finished Rene Guenon's Theosophy: History of a Pseudo-Religion.

Guenon is a little coy about his conclusions regarding who/what was behind Theosophy. But as he says, it should be obvious to anyone with half a brain: Intelligence (UK(City of London)).

The most fascinating part was the use of front groups. Their technique is what we see now everywhere. NGOs and subversion etc.

The Fabians were intimately involved w/ Theosophy. Besant was a founder.

My conclusion: everything "occult" or "esoteric" is an Intelligence Op.

Blavatsky, Crowley, Hubbard. All of them.

The book is very detailed and is parts tediously so, but glad I read it.

Posted by: Thesokorus at January 15, 2023 10:18 AM (1ais2)

Comment: It honestly wouldn't surprise me too much if occultism was some sort of intelligence op, though for what purpose seems unclear. Gathering info? On whom? Now we have social media to take care of that. What benefit does the government have for persuading people to turn to occultism or theosophy? Or perhaps the government itself is acting upon the direction of *actual* occult forces...There does seem to be strong evidence for that if you believe (as I do) that there is an "unseen realm" filled with Powers and Principalities, not all of which are favorable towards humans. Last week's Book Thread had some interesting debate on the subject.

+++++


About halfway through Dunkirchen 1940 by Robert Kershaw. It covers the Dunkirk battles through the eyes of the Germans. Very well written. Some of the older German soldiers talk about fighting in the same areas in WW1 and they have a feeling that they had best be careful. The younger soldiers, for the most part, have that Nazi mentality that they cannot be defeated as this is how they were trained. I myself kept thinking that the older soldiers knew what was coming. All in all, a good read so far.

Posted by: RetSgtRn at January 15, 2023 10:16 AM (RqUF/)

Comment: The older soldiers, who fought in WWI, have the benefit of experience. They know firsthand what the rest of the world can do when they are riled up. Thus, they were probably more concerned with surviving WWII than actually winning it. The younger generation, never having tasted the bitter ashes of defeat, thought they were invincible. Sounds a lot like today's modern youth who seem to think civilization will roll on forever and will never slide backwards.

More Moron-recommended reading material can be found HERE! (595 Moron-recommended books so far!)

+-----+-----+-----+-----+

WHAT I'VE ACQUIRED THIS WEEK:

I decided I didn't have enough Star Wars novels, especially those involving the main characters from the Original Trilogy, so I ordered some more to fill in a few key gaps...


  • Star Wars: Children of the Jedi by Barbara Hambley -- Luke Skywalker falls in love with the spirit of a Jedi Knight haunting a Star Destroyer

  • Star Wars: Darksaber by Kevin J. Anderson -- The Hutts build themselves a Death Star for the lulz

  • Star Wars: Planet of Twilight by Barbara Hambley -- Princess Leia gets captured (again)

  • Mad for Decades by "The Usual Gang of Idiots" -- Weak Geek recommended this a couple of weeks ago and I thought I'd get a copy for myself.

WHAT I'VE BEEN READING THIS PAST WEEK:

Still working my way through Star Wars: Legacy of the Force. Although not "great" literature, there's still a lot of interesting points that seem strangely relevant, such as one group of star systems attempting to break away from the Galactic Alliance. And lots of interference from third parties trying to stir up a hornet's nest, causing chaos throughout a galaxy far, far away...


  • Star Wars: Legacy of the Force 6 - Inferno by Troy Denning

  • Star Wars: Legacy of the Force 7 - Fury by Aaron Allston

  • Star Wars: Legacy of the Force 8 - Revelation by Karen "I ♥ Boba Fett" Traviss

That's about all I have for this week. Thank you for all of your kind words regarding the Sunday Morning Book Thread. This is a very special place. You are very special people (in all the best ways!). The kindness, generosity, and wisdom of the Moron Horde knows no bounds. Let's keep reading

If you have any suggestions for improvement, reading recommendations, or writing projects that you'd like to see on the Sunday Morning Book Thread, you can send them to perfessor dot squirrel at-sign gmail dot com. Your feedback is always appreciated! You can also take a virtual tour of OUR library at libib.com/u/perfessorsquirrel. Since I added sections for AoSHQ, I now consider it OUR library, rather than my own personal fiefdom...

PREVIOUS SUNDAY MORNING BOOK THREAD - 01-15-23 (NOTE: Do NOT comment on old threads!)

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Posted by: Open Blogger at 09:00 AM




Comments

(Jump to bottom of comments)

1 booken horden morgen!

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at January 22, 2023 09:00 AM (BtmcP)

2 "The German tongue. Fleshy, warped, spit-spraying, purplish, and cruel." -- from White Noise by Don DeLillo

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Sans-Culottes (except for the Book Thread) at January 22, 2023 09:00 AM (Dc2NZ)

3 Just finished a Zane Grey western Think I will go to another one.

Posted by: vic/ at January 22, 2023 09:00 AM (sbuTN)

4 Tolle Lege

Posted by: Skip at January 22, 2023 09:01 AM (xhxe8)

5 Ooh, a rare book thread first!
I'll go call the otters

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at January 22, 2023 09:01 AM (BtmcP)

6 Good morning fellow Book Threadists. I hope everyone had a great week of reading. Mine was wondrous.

Posted by: JTB at January 22, 2023 09:01 AM (7EjX1)

7 In the middle of Hopalong Cassidy and the Eagle's Brood. Going over my sorta scifi novel.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 22, 2023 09:03 AM (Angsy)

8 Started reading Pacific Crucible. It still depresses me to read this history.

Posted by: Biden's Dog sniffs a whole lotta malarkey, at January 22, 2023 09:03 AM (Lxl7g)

9 Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing (or MP4 for short) send me a picture he took of the poem above. The picture he sent me.....
-

Victor?

Posted by: Biden's Dog sniffs a whole lotta malarkey, at January 22, 2023 09:05 AM (Lxl7g)

10 hiya

Posted by: JT at January 22, 2023 09:05 AM (T4tVD)

11 Love the image and the poem at the top of the post. So pleasant and so true. Thanks to MP4 for sending it and Perfessor for using it.

Posted by: JTB at January 22, 2023 09:06 AM (7EjX1)

12 Good Sunday morning, horde.

I am almost finished with An Instance of the Fingerpost, by Iaian Pears. It's mostly interesting, but often wanders into long weeds. I think Pears could easily have cut 100 pages with no detriment to the story.

It's probably going to be a long time before my children let me choose the book of the month for the club again.

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at January 22, 2023 09:06 AM (OX9vb)

13 Assuming their premise is true (i.e., that the Earth is undergoing cataclysmic climate change), then they may have good intentions in slowing down or reversing global warming, but their method could result in far more devastation than they realize.

Oh, I'm sure they realize, Perfessor. It just won't benefit humanity at large.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 22, 2023 09:06 AM (Angsy)

14 I don't think the pants guy owns a weedwhacker (if you catch my drift....)

Posted by: JT at January 22, 2023 09:06 AM (T4tVD)

15 Not First! Yay Me...

Posted by: Dandor the Realanator at January 22, 2023 09:07 AM (7uTx6)

16 Just finished The Romanov Rescue by Tom Kratman, Kacey Ezell, Tom Watson.
It's thick, half of which is gun & military training fan service which I tend to skip over. I read for the alternate history which is well researched.
Was saddened by some of the character deaths, but thoroughly enjoyed the anti-Bolshevik sentiment. If the only good commie is a dead commie, then the book.had a lot of good commies.

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at January 22, 2023 09:07 AM (BtmcP)

17 "Mad for Decades" -- Penny won't be able to push that one over!

Posted by: Weak Geek at January 22, 2023 09:07 AM (Om/di)

18 The movie was so crazypants that I wondered if Noah Baumbach went rogue, but no, turns out it's a pretty faithful adaptation of the crazypants novel.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Sans-Culottes (except for the Book Thread) at January 22, 2023 09:07 AM (Dc2NZ)

19 Nice poem up top !

Posted by: JT at January 22, 2023 09:07 AM (T4tVD)

20 Today is a good day for a book, a blanket and the couch. 40 degrees and raining. Hit 4 used bookstores yesterday, 16 books for $10. Mostly missing books from science fiction series. Which one to start with is the issue

Posted by: Stacy0311 at January 22, 2023 09:07 AM (VfLe7)

21 You talk about a completion challenge!

Oyyy -- just as "Poker & Pop Culture" gets to the good stuff -- poker's portrayal in movies -- the library disgorges a comics omnibus that I ordered several weeks ago: the complete run of the initial series of The Doom Patrol. This book totals more than 1,000 pages. On top of that, I'm still progressing through a Doctor Strange TC, also from the library. P&PC will have to be shelved temporarily so I can finish these other books in order to stay off the librarians' blacklist. Maybe they don't have one, but why take the chance?

Posted by: Weak Geek at January 22, 2023 09:08 AM (Om/di)

22 "Poker & Pop Culture" describes the game's appearance in magazines as roughly "my husband's gambling nearly destroyed our marriage" in women's publications. For titles aimed at men, it's a subject for fiction or real-life reporting in which it's treated as a sport. The Marvel Universe's floating card game also gets a mention, but it's usually just an opening scene before the story gets rolling.

Posted by: Weak Geek at January 22, 2023 09:09 AM (Om/di)

23 Perfesser, you really love Star Wars books, huh?

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at January 22, 2023 09:09 AM (BtmcP)

24 Morning, Book Creatures!

I've been reading some Ruth Rendell, writing under her pen name of Barbara Vine. Both names, I know, sound like she writes romances. Not true. She is a novelist of human drama, though the drama usually includes a crime of some kind. It may be one incident that has ramifications for the other characters, or it might involve several crimes (one of which is a murder or a violent death). But the overall storytelling is amazing. She has a series about an Inspector Wexford in a smallish city in Britain, and those are good, but for some reason (unlike when I was young) I gravitate more to her stand-alone novels.

The Child's Child involves a young woman, the narrator, and her gay brother and his male lover. A big chunk of it is taken up with an unpublished novel the heroine reads from 1929, which echoes her own situation very closely. The crime element is hinted at in the beginning of the outer novel, and comes to fruition late in the story. Fascinating stuff.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 22, 2023 09:10 AM (omVj0)

25 "Mad for Decades" -- Penny won't be able to push that one over!
Posted by: Weak Geek at January 22, 2023 09:07 AM (Om/di)
---
I just started it. The early material is pretty rough...Not nearly as funny or entertaining as the stuff I grew up reading in the 80s/90s...but it's an interesting look at how the magazine started, nonetheless.

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at January 22, 2023 09:10 AM (BpYfr)

26 "The German tongue. Fleshy, warped, spit-spraying, purplish, and cruel." -- from White Noise by Don DeLillo
Posted by: All Hail Eris, Sans-Culottes (except for the Book Thread)

Speaking of weird tongues, ya know who has one ? The actor Yaphet Kotto. Its like its too big for his mouth.

Posted by: JT at January 22, 2023 09:10 AM (T4tVD)

27 Well-Intentioned Extremist

I posted this earlier:

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive...

Posted by: rhennigantx at January 22, 2023 09:10 AM (BRHaw)

28 I usually don't participate in the book thread and it's not because I don't read although I had slacked off for several months. I also don't read anything too heavy. Chemo brain.. yeah it's a thing. So... I keep it light and easy. Just finished Lucky Dog by Dr. Sarah Boston. It's about a veterinarian who specializes in treating dogs with cancer then has to deal with her own battle with thyroid cancer. She uses a lot of humor as she tells her story.

Posted by: jewells45 fuck cancer at January 22, 2023 09:10 AM (nxdel)

29 Reading a ebook from Lt.Col Arthur James Lyon Freemantle, Three Months in the Southern States.
Almost done, it's been quite good. Started on a thread on TMP on what foreign officers thought about the American Civil War. I pointed out a recent reading that the British officer in the movie Gettysburg was real though not in uniform as he was a tourist not on a official trip.
Someone posted the book so if someone wants to also read will post it

Posted by: Skip at January 22, 2023 09:11 AM (xhxe8)

30 "The German tongue. Fleshy, warped, spit-spraying, purplish, and cruel." -- from White Noise by Don DeLillo
Posted by: All Hail Eris, Sans-Culottes (except for the Book Thread) at January 22, 2023


***
I've never heard that description before. Usually just something on the order of "German sounds like someone being strangled."

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 22, 2023 09:11 AM (omVj0)

31 Oh and she also battles the Canadian health care system while battling cancer. Boy.. what an eye opener.

Posted by: jewells45 fuck cancer at January 22, 2023 09:11 AM (nxdel)

32 Perfesser, you really love Star Wars books, huh?
Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at January 22, 2023 09:09 AM (BtmcP)
----
"Love" is perhaps a strong word, but they are decent "popcorn" books for the most part. Generally decent, fun reads.

Lucasfilm did an amazing job crafting the Expanded Universe before Disney crapped all over it.

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at January 22, 2023 09:11 AM (BpYfr)

33 Sounds a lot like today's modern youth who seem to think civilization will roll on forever and will never slide backwards.

How true! I've mentioned it before that I'm currently viewing "Tiny House Hunters" while I do my workout. I've seen so many people choose prison cell sized tiny houses with composting toilets. Think about that. These younger people are willing to live in a place without modern plumbing, and they think it's good! For centuries since the fall of Rome people have had to crap in a bucket. We now have indoor flush toilets, and these dummies willingly go back to doing their business in a bucket then have to dispose of it. I keep hoping that one day they spill it all over the place and learn something....

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 22, 2023 09:12 AM (Angsy)

34 "Assuming their premise is true (i.e., that the Earth is undergoing cataclysmic climate change),"

Where's the evidence that something unprecedented is happening, let alone that it's man-made.

I'll believe so when Gore and Kerry self-immolate in front of a Chinese embassy.

Posted by: Ignoramus at January 22, 2023 09:12 AM (SJsWC)

35 "That Awkward Moment When You Realize You've Created Your Own Library And You're The Librarian"

Awkward? I revel in it!

No shushing, no pants, no borrow limit!

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Sans-Culottes (except for the Book Thread) at January 22, 2023 09:12 AM (Dc2NZ)

36 Last week, on the library free shelf, I found a book of jokes from 1939 (reprinted1940)
Interesting from a historical and linguistic perspective.

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at January 22, 2023 09:12 AM (BtmcP)

37 Yay book thread!

Last week I finished Reach for the Sky, Paul Brickhill's famous biography of legless ace Douglas Bader. I inherited a bunch of these books in the early 80s from a deceased friend of the family, and loved them. I added to the collection over time and through many moves and downsizings, I've kept them. Re-reading them as a military retiree (from the USAF no less) has given me an entirely different perspective, including a more critical eye.

While Bader is a remarkable person, it's also clear he's a first-class jerk. He was only permitted to rejoin the RAF because they were in need of anyone who could fly and he proved good at it. As losses mounted, Bader's ability to survive naturally caused him to rise through the ranks. He was a useful propaganda item and one of the Group Commanders (Leigh-Mallory) found him to be a useful took to take down his rival (Parks of 11 Group). While he had his own fanboys, he was also abrasive and fanatical, and I think the pilots in his wing were glad to have him in captivity rather than volunteering them for endless sorties. (con't)

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 22, 2023 09:13 AM (llXky)

38 Hey, jewells, good to see you!

Posted by: Weak Geek at January 22, 2023 09:13 AM (Om/di)

39 jewells! That sounds like a good read, will look it up

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at January 22, 2023 09:15 AM (BtmcP)

40 Snowy day here.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Sans-Culottes (except for the Book Thread) at January 22, 2023 09:15 AM (Dc2NZ)

41 He showed courage in the prison camps, but when he got out everyone knew he would just be problematic in peacetime and he was swiftly demobilized - making him one of the few of The Few who didn't rise to a higher command. Brickhill reluctantly admits that it was his bullying attitude, not his disability that ended his career.

Still, a remarkable story of a generation that is all but gone. I've started in on Larry Forrester's biography of Robert Standford Tuck, who is the polar opposite of Bader. Fly for Your Life has an entirely different tone and I'm enjoying the contrast.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 22, 2023 09:16 AM (llXky)

42 That poem in the opening is so true. It made me think of reading "Treasure Island" with the Wyeth illustrations when I was maybe seven years old. I lost myself in that world completely, the first time I was so absorbed. I had been reading for a few years at that point; the usual 'see Spot run' junk, bits from newspapers, Disney picture books with captions, kids' books on dinosaurs and insects. It was an accomplishment and an aspect of becoming a grown up. But Treasure Island drew me in and taught me that other worlds can exist and are waiting for me to explore. That feel and delight continues.

Posted by: JTB at January 22, 2023 09:16 AM (7EjX1)

43 Eris keep it your way please

Posted by: Skip at January 22, 2023 09:16 AM (xhxe8)

44 We now have indoor flush toilets, and these dummies willingly go back to doing their business in a bucket then have to dispose of it.
Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 22, 2023 09:12 AM (Angsy)

On the other hand, they will be the few among the pampered generations who might survive the coming times.

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at January 22, 2023 09:17 AM (OX9vb)

45 My venture through Contact by Carl Sagan continues, now through the second third of it.

First the character played by Matthew McConnaghey (sp?) is a much smaller part, but when he speaks in the book I can't help but hear MMs voice. The main character who was fully inhabited by Jodie Foater? Not so much.

Also I like the book but not Sagan. As I read his antipathy of religion in the face of capital S Science I kept think Science is his religion. Well he actually has the characters state that.

Posted by: blaster at January 22, 2023 09:17 AM (pwExq)

46 Hey, jewells, good to see you!

Thank you

vmom I think you'll enjoy it. My kids got the book for me for Christmas. I think from Amazon.

Posted by: jewells45 fuck cancer at January 22, 2023 09:18 AM (nxdel)

47 In my rereading of LOTR this time, I'm concentrating on how Tolkien varies his cadence and wording to match a scene. As an example, how he describes Goldberry's voice as she calls to the Hobbits when they approach Bombadil's house. The words are softer with fewer percussive sounds and a steady flow as of water running gently. Another is Theoden's cry to his men as they are about to charge into the Orcs besieging Minas Tirith. Short phrasing with percussive sounds that match the cadence of the war horns. It's a subtle thing but very effective. Paying attention to such aspects of his writing adds so much to the enjoyment. (It helps that I don't have to wonder what happens next in the narrative.)

Posted by: JTB at January 22, 2023 09:18 AM (7EjX1)

48 The book "The Road to Dune" contains the novella "Spice Planet", reconstructed by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson from Frank Herbert's notes and original outline for Dune. It's a weird proto-Dune with characters that are clearly precursors to Duke Leto Atreides of Caladan (Jesse Linkham of Catalan) and his nemesis Nobleman Hoskanner (Baron Harkonnen). Linkham's beloved concubine is named Dorothy Mapes (!), but she is not Bene Gesserit. Hoskanner is tall and bony. Spice, as an element of the plot, is a highly addictive drug favored by the rich and used to dampen hunger and boredom during space travel, but it wasn't yet the space-folding mind-expander it became in the "real" Dune. It's all slightly off, simpler and not as elegant as the "real" Dune novel, but interesting to read nonetheless as a "what if". Lots of interesting stuff on the ecology of barren Arrakis.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Sans-Culottes (except for the Book Thread) at January 22, 2023 09:19 AM (Dc2NZ)

49 Oh
HAPPY LUNAR NEW YEAR!

It's the year of the Rabbit, unless you are Vietnamese, in which case it's the year of the Cat.

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at January 22, 2023 09:19 AM (BtmcP)

50 Well-Intentioned Extremist

I posted this earlier:

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive...

Posted by: rhennigantx at January 22, 2023 09:10 AM (BRHaw)
---
If they really believed it, they wouldn't have private jets. Compare and contrast the elites' actions regarding climate change with life extension strategies like diet, exercise, spa treatments, etc.

They will spare no expense or difficulty to have oxygen chambers or bizarre substances brought to them to preserve their beauty or extend their life, but given up the private jet for Gaia? That's asking too much.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 22, 2023 09:19 AM (llXky)

51 That poem in the opening is so true. It made me think of reading "Treasure Island" with the Wyeth illustrations when I was maybe seven years old. I lost myself in that world completely, the first time I was so absorbed. I had been reading for a few years at that point; the usual 'see Spot run' junk, bits from newspapers, Disney picture books with captions, kids' books on dinosaurs and insects. It was an accomplishment and an aspect of becoming a grown up. But Treasure Island drew me in and taught me that other worlds can exist and are waiting for me to explore. That feel and delight continues.
Posted by: JTB

Nice !

Posted by: JT at January 22, 2023 09:19 AM (T4tVD)

52 Last week, on the library free shelf, I found a book of jokes from 1939 (reprinted1940)
Interesting from a historical and linguistic perspective.

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at January 22, 2023 09:12 AM (BtmcP)

What's the title, vmom?

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 22, 2023 09:20 AM (Angsy)

53 Prof --

Regarding the early days of Mad, I think the best stuff was the art of Will Elder. He put so many humorous background details into his pages. I read that he called those "chicken fat" because that's what adds flavor.

It's also fun to see how Don Martin developed as an artist.

I'm a decade ahead of you; the first Mad that I read was from the early '70s. I was never a steady reader of Mad or Cracked, but in the late '70s I thought Cracked was funnier.

Posted by: Weak Geek at January 22, 2023 09:22 AM (Om/di)

54 Just started reading "In Sunlight and in Shadow" by my favorite author, the eccentric and eternally interesting Mark Helprin. So far it is excellent and just what i needed after several months of reading theology.

Helprin's first novel, as we know from our studies, was "Winter's Tale", as well as "A Soldier of the Great War" (a novel second in my heart only to Dumas' "The Count of Monte Cristo"), "Refiner's Fire", "Memoir from Antproof Case", "Freddy and Fredericka", and "Paris in the Present Tense". All wonderful tales full of hope, conflict, morality, rich description, love and loss.

Helprin also has several story collections: "A Dove of the East", "Ellis Island" and "The Pacific".

I will read anything he writes at any time. To say that I thirst to read his prose perhaps sounds teh ghey, but really he is one of the finest American writers of the last 100 years. YMMV, but I think it shan't. It shannot! You will love reading him if only you have the courage to start!

Oh, and here is a very fun interview of Helprin by Eric Metaxas:

https://youtu.be/-IDXyd5RA1A

Good morning, Horde!

Posted by: Sharkman at January 22, 2023 09:22 AM (WcT8C)

55 52 Last week, on the library free shelf, I found a book of jokes from 1939 (reprinted1940)
Interesting from a historical and linguistic perspective.

Posted by: vmom

Let us have a couple of examples?

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at January 22, 2023 09:23 AM (OX9vb)

56 Sagan spends a lot of the book grinding axes and living out a wish fulfillment of Science establishing World Peace and bringing Real Socialism ending racism and sexism.

Posted by: blaster at January 22, 2023 09:23 AM (pwExq)

57 On the other hand, they will be the few among the pampered generations who might survive the coming times.

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at January 22, 2023 09:17 AM (OX9vb)

I dunno, they seem to be self described arty, and tech types who probably lost their jobs when the manufactured in Chinese labs funded by Dr Fauci was released on the world. I'd think they'd be the first to go, unless they went into prostitution....

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 22, 2023 09:24 AM (Angsy)

58 I'm also finishing up No Colours or Crest, which is become quite the slog. The second of three books recalling Peter Kemp's wartime experiences, it documents his work with SOE in the Balkans. This should be really interesting, but Kemp buries the reader in details, and a story of intrigue and betrayal fades behind a clutter of meals, interpreters, local strongmen and word portraits of the mountains and dawn. He could have really used an editor, because knowing exactly how and where he slept each and every time he closed his eyes has put me to sleep on multiple occasions.

His first book, Mine Were of Trouble, was much better, perhaps because he didn't have a diary for reference and could focus on impressions of his time fighting for Franco in the Spanish Civil War. When I finish this, I'll wait until I go through the Bantam books before picking up the next one.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 22, 2023 09:25 AM (llXky)

59 LOL, "[Bader] considered it his duty to cause as much trouble to the enemy as possible, much of which included escape attempts. He made so many escape attempts that the Germans threatened to take away his legs."

Was he (or a simulacrum) in the show "Colditz"? I can't remember.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Sans-Culottes (except for the Book Thread) at January 22, 2023 09:25 AM (Dc2NZ)

60 Audible recommended "We Were Rich and We Didn't Know It" by Tom Phelan. It's about his childhood growing up in Ireland in the 1940s. I'll start that today. Still plenty of snow out and I don't feel like going anywhere. And it will be easier to knit and listen.

Posted by: Notsothoreau at January 22, 2023 09:25 AM (4IUUf)

61 It made me think of reading "Treasure Island" with the Wyeth illustrations when I was maybe seven years old. I lost myself in that world completely, the first time I was so absorbed. I had been reading for a few years at that point; the usual 'see Spot run' junk, bits from newspapers, Disney picture books with captions, kids' books on dinosaurs and insects. It was an accomplishment and an aspect of becoming a grown up. But Treasure Island drew me in and taught me that other worlds can exist and are waiting for me to explore. That feel and delight continues.
Posted by: JTB


***
Probably the earliest "draw-me-in" story for me was a Roy Rogers original novel, The Ghost of Mystery Rancho. Texas Ranger Roy battles a shadowy and murderous smuggler bandit called the Ghost who wears a skeleton mask and costume. Not even his own men know his real identity -- which is not revealed until the penultimate chapter. It was my first encounter with the "closed" mystery and led me on to Sherlock Holmes and Ellery Queen.

I have a copy of the book now, and have re-read it as an adult. There are plot holes, true, but the narrative drive is amazing.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 22, 2023 09:26 AM (omVj0)

62
I'm a decade ahead of you; the first Mad that I read was from the early '70s. I was never a steady reader of Mad or Cracked, but in the late '70s I thought Cracked was funnier.

Posted by: Weak Geek at January 22, 2023 09:22 AM (Om/di)
---
My father has several of the paperback compilations of Mad magazine in his vast collection of books.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 22, 2023 09:27 AM (llXky)

63 "claos"?

Posted by: creeper at January 22, 2023 09:27 AM (cTCuP)

64 After last week's (I think) book thread, I picked up a copy of "The House of Silk", a Sherlock Holmes story by Horowitz. So far, Horowitz has caught the feel of Doyle's writing and I'm enjoying it. The one thing I have to adjust to is that this is a full length novel, not a short story. This slows the pace of narration compared to the original magazine pieces. It's not bad, just different and takes getting used to.

Posted by: JTB at January 22, 2023 09:27 AM (7EjX1)

65 Hi Perfessor, I have a recommendation for an old sci-fi novel that has particular relevance these days. In "The Languages of Pao" by Jack Vance, the planet Pao is a wealthy but placid agricultural world. However, they keep being pushed around by their neighbors and the leader wants to change that. He hires Lord Palafox of Breakness to fix the problem and the solution is to replace the passive language of Pao with three different languages, Cogitant, Technicant and Valiant, each tuned to enhance skills in different areas. Valiant is made to create a warrior class. There are lots of twists and turns and Palafox is one of the more deliciously evil characters around. Given recent efforts to impose language and ideology in modern day "education", maybe this book needs a second look.

Posted by: MichiCanuck at January 22, 2023 09:28 AM (KOrdp)

66 It's also fun to see how Don Martin developed as an artist.

Posted by: Weak Geek at January 22, 2023 09:22 AM (Om/di)

I used to have all the DM books. Recently found one and I'll read through it. Don't know if I have any more. Never cared as much about the other artists.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 22, 2023 09:29 AM (Angsy)

67 I read Night by Elie Wiesel. I read the 2006 edition translated from the French by his wife, Marion Wiesel including a new preface by Elie as well as his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech delivered on December 10, 1986.


I also read Captains Courageous by Rudyard Kipling.

Posted by: Zoltan at January 22, 2023 09:29 AM (gqHpH)

68 Mornin’, All. Happy Sopapilla Sunday.

I’m at the point where I think that everything is a deep-state op.

Posted by: Bulgaroctonus at January 22, 2023 09:29 AM (atmen)

69 From what I've seen, more great scientists than not were religious. Even the great atheist hero Darwin was an agnostic who regularly quoted the Bible.

And in my opinion, Maimonides settled the question of faith vs. reason well before the Christian West was even doing science, or devising its various stupid, G-dless, materialistic ideologies.

Embrace the power of and, bishez.

Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at January 22, 2023 09:30 AM (oINRc)

70 My grandmother had a book called The Thesaurus of Humor. I don't know exactly the publication date but I think sometime in the 1920s.

It had jokes organized by topic. I remember reading the jokes way back when (the 70s). As you might imagine a lot of them would get you canceled now.

Posted by: blaster at January 22, 2023 09:31 AM (pwExq)

71 One of the MADs of my childhood had a reprint of the original MAD inserted in it. It had the Harvey Kurtzman "Tales Calculated to Drive You MAD" cover.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Sans-Culottes (except for the Book Thread) at January 22, 2023 09:31 AM (Dc2NZ)

72 I, too, love old jokes. I had a couple of Bennett Cerf collections that I practically memorized during grade and middle school.

It's so strange to realize -- and hard to accept -- that there was a world before I was born.

Posted by: Weak Geek at January 22, 2023 09:31 AM (Om/di)

73 Writing news: ALMOST THERE! I ordered the proof copy of Walls of Men yesterday, which means that it could be published in a few days, depending on how things check out. I am so sick of dealing with this thing.

And yet, I'm liking the idea of writing something else. It's an addiction.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 22, 2023 09:31 AM (llXky)

74 Jack Vance is a great world-creator

Posted by: San Franpsycho at January 22, 2023 09:31 AM (EZebt)

75 I’m at the point where I think that everything is a deep-state op.
Posted by: Bulgaroctonus at January 22, 2023 09:29 AM (atmen)
---

Even Ace?!

Maybe he's an experiment that snapped its tether and turned on its creator.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Sans-Culottes (except for the Book Thread) at January 22, 2023 09:32 AM (Dc2NZ)

76 "Or perhaps the government itself is acting upon the direction of *actual* occult forces..."

There was a time when I would have thought this preposterous. After reading a couple of books by Malachi Martin, and some others, I've had a complete reversal of opinion, and now think it likely.

WASTF

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at January 22, 2023 09:32 AM (OX9vb)

77 "The German tongue. Fleshy, warped, spit-spraying, purplish, and cruel." -- from White Noise by Don DeLillo
Posted by: All Hail Eris, Sans-Culottes (except for the Book Thread) at January 22, 2023


One of the things I love, love, lurv! about the English Language is the multiplicity of pronunciation.

I find it one of the most interesting and musical language in the world.

All of the various invasions of England as well as its role as a world-wide commercial power and empirial power. Plus, the willingness to absorb words and phrases from other languages if English doesn't have quite the mot juste(!) -

acted as a Linguistic Miracle Grow to produce the best and most useful language in the world.

Posted by: naturalfake at January 22, 2023 09:32 AM (KLPy8)

78 Mornin’, All. Happy Sopapilla Sunday.

I’m at the point where I think that everything is a deep-state op.
Posted by: Bulgaroctonus

Soap in the soapapillas ?

Posted by: JT at January 22, 2023 09:33 AM (T4tVD)

79 Embrace the power of and, bishez.

Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at January 22, 2023 09:30 AM (oINRc)
---
Genes were discovered by a monk and the Big Bang was first postulated by a priest.

Yep, can't trust those religious folks, trust SCIENCE!

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 22, 2023 09:33 AM (llXky)

80 Morning, 'rons and 'ronettes.

Thanks for posting the poem, Perfesser. Sorry I couldn't get my photo just right.

Not really reading much these days except the novel my friend is writing. She's nearly done, and I'm looking forward to reading it all as one thing, rather than in the various parts she's forwarding to me now.

A problem I have is that I seem to have 'lost' my notebook with all of my work for my new Theda Bara novel. I know it's somewhere here in Stately Poppins Manor, but I'll be damned if I can find it. Very irritating, though not as much as it might be, since I haven't been able to write for about a month now.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at January 22, 2023 09:35 AM (AW0uW)

81 When I was in college and my near term mid term report was late, I knew that was not the place for me.

Posted by: fd at January 22, 2023 09:35 AM (iayUP)

82 The House of Silk is quite good, and written in the style of Conan Doyle, though the subject is not one he would have published a story on. If you like it, I recommend The Italian Secretary by Caleb Carr. Carr also wrote The Alienist, which is a phenomenally successful novel from the same Victorian era, but set in America and with his own protagonist.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at January 22, 2023 09:35 AM (dg3Az)

83 "the Big Bang was first postulated by a priest."

And he stole it from the Book of Genesis

Posted by: Ignoramus at January 22, 2023 09:35 AM (SJsWC)

84 Ahh, Iain Pears is another author I'll read anything from. I like all the extra pages!

Posted by: Sharkman at January 22, 2023 09:37 AM (WcT8C)

85 Good morning. Another grey day here with rain on the way but it's a range day so who cares?
I finished Tress of the Emerald Sea, the new Brandon Sanderson he wrote during the pandemic.
It was just okay. Although he creates an interesting world it just didn't fire my imagination the way the Mistborn series did and doesn't come close to the Stormlight Archive.

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at January 22, 2023 09:37 AM (Y+l9t)

86 Even Ace?!

Maybe he's an experiment that snapped its tether and turned on its creator.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Sans-Culottes (except for the Book Thread) at January 22, 2023 09:32 AM (Dc2NZ)
---
Not that I agree, but it is curious that Ace's identity is still a mystery when just about every other secret has been blown open. Pre-decisional Supreme Court opinions are less secure.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 22, 2023 09:38 AM (llXky)

87 Funny that today's thread opens with a poem. I rarely read poetry, the other day I happened on a popular old Chinese folk poem.
It's about a beautiful girl who picks mulberry leaves by the road. A govt official propositions her, but she rejects him, saying he's married and so is she, moreover her husband is more impressive than him.
Lots of nice imagery.
It's known as Luofuxing (“The Song of Luofu”; also called Moshangsang, “Roadside Mulberry Tree”

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at January 22, 2023 09:38 AM (BtmcP)

88 The Erf may indeed be undergoing serious climate change, but it always has. It's cyclical. Who knows, we may have a magnetic pole shift, according to YT.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Sans-Culottes (except for the Book Thread) at January 22, 2023 09:38 AM (Dc2NZ)

89 You should check out Ariel's Tiny House, Fy Nyth, on You Tube. She bought it because she lost her rental in WY and couldn't find another. Lived on rented property off grid for seven years. Married recently and moved it to property she bought with her husband. In her case, it's worked perfectly.

Posted by: Notsothoreau at January 22, 2023 09:38 AM (4IUUf)

90 I read the Commemorative Edition of Better Homes & Gardens New Cook Book, which was produced after Meredith Publishing sold 100,000 copies of it. My parents bought it for me at a used book sale when a classmate and I moved into an apartment.

I was photocopying the page on making "perfect" fudge every time for one of my brothers. Then I got sucked into reading through it.

Posted by: NaughtyPine at January 22, 2023 09:38 AM (/+bwe)

91 Soviet front groups and front group lists. Eugene Lyons names and shames them in the late 1930's book 'The Red Decade.' It's a perfect Kindle resource book when searching journalist and celebrity names and the fronts to which they belonged. It's free to download (.epub and .mobi) at archive.org.

Many of these people traveled seamlessly between comintern China and Soviet Russia.

Posted by: 13times at January 22, 2023 09:39 AM (CnnZ4)

92 My grandmother had a book called The Thesaurus of Humor. I don't know exactly the publication date but I think sometime in the 1920s.

It had jokes organized by topic. I remember reading the jokes way back when (the 70s). As you might imagine a lot of them would get you canceled now.
Posted by: blaster at January 22, 2023 09:31 AM (pwExq)


I collect old joke books. I have most of Bennett Cerf's as well as 'after-dinner' stories, Treasuries of Irish Wit and Humor and so on.

One that I have is Irvin Cobb's A Laugh A Day Keeps The Doctor Away. Nearly half of the book is made up of what they called 'coon' stories, with the lazy, shiftless or cowardly black as the subject. I expect the only reason Cobb hasn't been cancelled is that he's so completely forgotten.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at January 22, 2023 09:39 AM (AW0uW)

93 76 "Or perhaps the government itself is acting upon the direction of *actual* occult forces..."

**
There's a book or three dying to be written with this premisr

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at January 22, 2023 09:39 AM (BtmcP)

94 Speaking of weird tongues, ya know who has one ? The actor Yaphet Kotto. Its like its too big for his mouth.

Posted by: JT



"Hey! Your tongue would protrude, too, were you skull-punched by a zenomorph the way I was!!"

-- Recent Zombie Yaphet Kotto

Posted by: Sharkman at January 22, 2023 09:40 AM (WcT8C)

95 I, too, love old jokes. I had a couple of Bennett Cerf collections that I practically memorized during grade and middle school.

It's so strange to realize -- and hard to accept -- that there was a world before I was born.

Posted by: Weak Geek at January 22, 2023 09:31 AM (Om/di)

He might be cancelled today too. Probably couldn't even get Random House to publish anything he wrote.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 22, 2023 09:40 AM (Angsy)

96 A few weeks ago the Perfessor featured my neighbor's first book, Beyond This Valley. It's selling well, especially in Oklahoma.

Ray came down day before yesterday with the first thirty pages of his next book...handwritten in a spiral notebook. It's going to be even better than the first. I have the privilege of editing this one but will need to type it first. What better way to spend a winter?

Posted by: creeper at January 22, 2023 09:41 AM (cTCuP)

97 "Or perhaps the government itself is acting upon the direction of *actual* occult forces..."

There was a time when I would have thought this preposterous. After reading a couple of books by Malachi Martin, and some others, I've had a complete reversal of opinion, and now think it likely.
Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at January 22, 2023 09:32 AM (OX9vb)
---
Given that it's been openly published that they do "spirit cooking," this is no longer in dispute.

One of the great awakenings I've had over the past few years is that the ancient oracles were real. The pagan gods were real. No, they weren't actual gods, but they were spirits and they knew things that were helpful to mortals. The old "monotheist" conceit that God alone was real and everything else was a fever dream or "superstition" has been proven false.

The dark spirits are real, and they're gaining strength. Reponsd accordingly.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 22, 2023 09:41 AM (llXky)

98 If you like it, I recommend The Italian Secretary by Caleb Carr. Carr also wrote The Alienist, which is a phenomenally successful novel from the same Victorian era, but set in America and with his own protagonist.

I wanted to like The Italian Secretary, but I didn't. Carr just didn't catch the proper Doyle voice, IMO. And while I did like The Alienist, it could have used an editor to cut it down.

I tried reading the sequel, Angel of Darkness, but couldn't get through it.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at January 22, 2023 09:42 AM (AW0uW)

99 I took introductory German classes a few years ago. The panic put an end to that.

My biggest problem was that my college French kept interfering with the new language. I didn't think that I remembered that much French.

To tie this into books -- during the German class years, one of my sons gave me a book of stories in German for Christmas. That book will probably stay in this house for life, unread, because it was a Christmas present.

Posted by: Weak Geek at January 22, 2023 09:42 AM (Om/di)

100
A problem I have is that I seem to have 'lost' my notebook with all of my work for my new Theda Bara novel. I know it's somewhere here in Stately Poppins Manor, but I'll be damned if I can find it. Very irritating, though not as much as it might be, since I haven't been able to write for about a month now.
Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing

***

Check all your usual blind spots.
My blind spot is one particular corner of the kitchen counter

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at January 22, 2023 09:42 AM (BtmcP)

101 Good morning.

I finished "That Hideous Strength" and, I swear, our betters see such books as instruction manuals.

I've also made a good dent in Robert Galbraith's (JK Rowling) "The Cuckoo's Calling" and must admit JK does a good job with this book.

I was pondering why JK chose a pseudonym to publish under and have come to the conclusion there were two reasons: Getting something other than a Harry Potter derivative published and read under her own name is difficult, and, two: The publishing industry is rife with wokeness and definitely puts politics ahead of profits.

I'm glad JK was able to get the CB Strike series out there for us to enjoy.

Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing(5pTK/) at January 22, 2023 09:42 AM (1EFfL)

102 Speaking of weird tongues, ya know who has one ? The actor Yaphet Kotto. Its like its too big for his mouth.

Posted by: JT



Eh, he probably has an uncorrected tongue thrust that goes back to his baby days.

That usually gives someone an ever present, big, fat, looking tongue.

Posted by: naturalfake at January 22, 2023 09:42 AM (KLPy8)

103 Check all your usual blind spots.
My blind spot is one particular corner of the kitchen counter
Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at January 22, 2023 09:42 AM (BtmcP)
-----------

Hah!

Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing(5pTK/) at January 22, 2023 09:42 AM (1EFfL)

104 83 "the Big Bang was first postulated by a priest."

And he stole it from the Book of Genesis
Posted by: Ignoramus at January 22, 2023 09:35 AM (SJsWC)

Wasn't most of most of Hawking's thesis thrown out other than his explanation of the red shift expanding theory?

Georges Lemaître, (1894-1966), Belgian cosmologist, Catholic priest, and father of the Big Bang theory.

Posted by: rhennigantx at January 22, 2023 09:43 AM (BRHaw)

105 "I’m at the point where I think that everything is a deep-state op.
Posted by: Bulgaroctonus"

Not the Book Thread!

Posted by: fd at January 22, 2023 09:43 AM (iayUP)

106 Helprin's first novel, as we know from our studies, was "Winter's Tale", as well as "A Soldier of the Great War" (a novel second in my heart only to Dumas' "The Count of Monte Cristo"), "Refiner's Fire", "Memoir from Antproof Case", "Freddy and Fredericka", and "Paris in the Present Tense". All wonderful tales full of hope, conflict, morality, rich description, love and loss.

I completely agree about Helprin, especially ASOTGW. I first read that book decades ago and thought it was magnificent. There is one exquisite passage early in the book when the old narrator is talking about growing old. It brought me to literal tears. Ghey indeed!

Posted by: Archimedes at January 22, 2023 09:43 AM (eOEVl)

107 I recently learned of "The Lost Tales of Sir Galahad", a series of stories 'based' on finding some old manuscripts hidden in a bust in an obscure British museum. Mallory in "Le Morte D'Arthur" makes a brief reference that Galahad had a series of adventures in a 'wild forest' (unspecified) but they are never described. That was the starting point for the book.

I am really enjoying it. The book is beautifully bound with woodcut illustrations for each story. The tales are done in a 'sort of' middle English style. Some are just humorous and some could have come right out of Mallory. Malcolm Guite contributed a narrative poem. (Guite's writing is always a delight.) The humor is sometimes subtle, sometimes obvious, but I still got caught up in the scenes.

The idea behind the book is to have fun and the contributors clearly did. There is a feel of the gentler silliness of "Bored of the Rings". Not the raunchier stuff, just the parts that make you smile.

Posted by: JTB at January 22, 2023 09:43 AM (7EjX1)

108 In the same vein another free to download book at archive.org is Assignment in Utopia by Eugene Lyons.

Posted by: 13times at January 22, 2023 09:43 AM (CnnZ4)

109 The dark spirits are real, and they're gaining strength. Reponsd accordingly.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 22, 2023 09:41 AM (llXky)
-

Nah. Humans are real. The "dark spirits" are the personal choices and decisions made by some of them.

Posted by: Biden's Dog sniffs a whole lotta malarkey, at January 22, 2023 09:44 AM (Lxl7g)

110 And in my opinion, Maimonides settled the question of faith vs. reason well before the Christian West was even doing science, or devising its various stupid, G-dless, materialistic ideologies.

Embrace the power of and, bishez.
Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at January 22, 2023 09:30 AM (oINRc)
===
I'm standing right here.

Posted by: Nietzsche, Hegel, Marx, Gramsci, Rawls, and countless other materialists and money-worshippers at January 22, 2023 09:44 AM (EZebt)

111 I see my new modem has given me a new hash.

Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing(1EFfL) at January 22, 2023 09:44 AM (1EFfL)

112 In Milton’s Paradise Lost, the pagan gods were the fallen angels who joined Satan’s rebellion and were cast out of Heaven.

Posted by: Bulgaroctonus at January 22, 2023 09:44 AM (atmen)

113 Good morning.

I finished "That Hideous Strength" and, I swear, our betters see such books as instruction manuals.

Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing(5pTK/) at January 22, 2023 09:42 AM (1EFfL)
---
I think it's that once you understand their motives, their actions become much more predictable. See also G.K. Chesterton.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 22, 2023 09:44 AM (llXky)

114 We are the carbon they want to eliminate.

Posted by: Chatterbox Mouse at January 22, 2023 09:45 AM (TXFi7)

115 What's the title, vmom?
Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 22, 2023 09:20 AM (Angsy)

10,000 Jokes, Toasts & Stories by Lewis and Faye Copeland

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at January 22, 2023 09:46 AM (BtmcP)

116 Indeed, behind every pagan god is a demon.

Posted by: Chatterbox Mouse at January 22, 2023 09:46 AM (TXFi7)

117 My son gave me the Fingerpost book during his Make Mom Literary period. It taught me something about myself as a reader: that I need to feel the author is on my side. That he respects me as a reader and we're trying to have fun together. By the time I was halfway through the Fingerpost book I felt Pears sneering at the reader on every page. I quit.

When my son asked me about it I said, Sorry, I couldn't get into it. I hated it, he said. So a bonding experience after all!

Posted by: Wenda at January 22, 2023 09:46 AM (uFqRH)

118 Writing news: ALMOST THERE! I ordered the proof copy of Walls of Men yesterday, which means that it could be published in a few days, depending on how things check out. I am so sick of dealing with this thing.

And yet, I'm liking the idea of writing something else. It's an addiction.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 22, 2023 09:31 AM (llXky)

Nice. I don't remember if you said how it was being published.

As to your second point, I always wanted to do non-fiction, because I never thought I could come up with a story. I worked on a CC newspaper, I've done history writing for a competition, so I've actually "written," I guess. But, the only stuff I've done so far is fiction. It's amazing how sometimes story ideas just pop into your head. I've written some complete stuff and have one or two line ideas written down for later. Will I ever publish or end up with a large body of writings? Who knows, the hard part seems to be getting it in print. I've submitted one story and it was rejected. Sorta takes the wind out of your sails....

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 22, 2023 09:47 AM (Angsy)

119 Good morning. This week I read some Fitzgerald stories, started Sometimes Madness is Wisdom, which is about Scott and Zelda, and I read Lassie, Come Home to the younger grandson.

I received a gift of a couple of Steinbeck books, they were part of the collection of a deceased neighbor from Michigan. Also received a Marguerite Henry book for the grandsons.

Posted by: CN at January 22, 2023 09:48 AM (Zzbjj)

120 98 The Italian Secretary

Alotta Fagina?

Posted by: Bulgaroctonus at January 22, 2023 09:48 AM (atmen)

121 In Milton’s Paradise Lost, the pagan gods were the fallen angels who joined Satan’s rebellion and were cast out of Heaven.

Posted by: Bulgaroctonus at January 22, 2023 09:44 AM (atmen)
---
Well, it's not like he came up with the idea.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 22, 2023 09:48 AM (llXky)

122 Three recommendations, of books I've read in the last two weeks:

1. "Winters in the World: A Journey Through the Anglo-Saxon Year", by Eleanor Parker. Like the title says, this book walks the reader through the year, using the seasons as an introduction to the literature and culture of Anglo-Saxon England. Anyone interested in the Middle Ages, or in the work of J. R. R. Tolkien, will enjoy this book.

2. "Lark Rising to Candleford", by Flora Thompson. This is an thinly fictionalized memoir of the author's growing up in rural Oxfordshire in the 1880s. Originally published in the early 1940s as three volumes that are now collected into one. Ms. Thompson writes beautifully, with wit and sympathy for the communities and its people, as she describes this period of transition of rural England from the older, pre-enclosure communities to urbanization.

3. "The Light Ages: The Surprising Story of Medieval Science", by Seb Falk. A book that stands on its head the notion of the Middle Ages as the "dark ages". A terrific read for anyone interested in the history of science, and who is not afraid of a little math.

All three are highly recommended.

Posted by: Nemo at January 22, 2023 09:48 AM (S6ArX)

123 76 "Or perhaps the government itself is acting upon the direction of *actual* occult forces..."

**
There's a book or three dying to be written with this premisr
Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion

WELL?????

We're WAITING !

Posted by: JT at January 22, 2023 09:49 AM (T4tVD)

124 One that I have is Irvin Cobb's A Laugh A Day Keeps The Doctor Away. Nearly half of the book is made up of what they called 'coon' stories, with the lazy, shiftless or cowardly black as the subject. I expect the only reason Cobb hasn't been cancelled is that he's so completely forgotten.
Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at January 22, 2023


***
If I'm not mistaken, Cobb was known as a gentle humorist and one who frequently wrote in dialect. His wife challenged him to write a serious story. So he did -- a crime story, rather grim, which appeared in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine in the 1950s. I can't recall the title, though.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 22, 2023 09:49 AM (omVj0)

125 The Italian Secretary

Alotta Fagina?
Posted by: Bulgaroctonus at January 22, 2023 09:48 AM (atmen
-

Il dictatore.

Posted by: Biden's Dog sniffs a whole lotta malarkey, at January 22, 2023 09:50 AM (Lxl7g)

126 I can remember as a kid riding my bike to the store and buying the latest edition of Mad magazine. I had to hide it under my shirt when I got home because my old man would rant and rave about how it will rot my mind. And only later in life I realized he was right. LOL.
Also, does anyone remember those trading cards that featured wacky drawings of people using things like skunk flavored toothpaste or cherry bomb candy with a real bomb in it?

Posted by: RetSgtRN at January 22, 2023 09:51 AM (RqUF/)

127 Speaking of weird tongues, ya know who has one ? The actor Yaphet Kotto. Its like its too big for his mouth.
Posted by: JT

He was good in "Blue Collar" as Smokey James.

Posted by: Hairyback Guy at January 22, 2023 09:51 AM (R/m4+)

128 Speaking of being drawn into the world of a book, I re-read "Hour of the Dragon" Robert Howard's only novel length Conan story. His short Conan pieces are always excellent but this one and his longer stories like "People of the Black Circle" are absolutely absorbing. I so wish Howard had lived to write more novels.

Posted by: JTB at January 22, 2023 09:51 AM (7EjX1)

129 Nice. I don't remember if you said how it was being published.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 22, 2023 09:47 AM (Angsy)
---
The evil elves of Amazon will grind it out of their hate mills. I know some people dislike the Book Borg, but it's the best game out there for indy authors and each time a conservative book tops the bestseller list on his site, Jeff Bezos dies a little inside.

Non-fiction is both easier and harder than fiction. It's easier because you don't have to make anything up, just collect information. Piece of cake! It's hard because you never know when to stop. There's always another source out there, something else to research. I stop when I get bored, because I figure if I'm tired of writing it, people like me will get tired of reading it.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 22, 2023 09:52 AM (llXky)

130 Blake, I think she wrote under a pseudonym so she wouldn't be classed a Romance novelist. You know some men don't read women authors who write Romance novels. Kind of like not going to chick flicks.
I found she wrote both main characters equally interesting. I think the Strike character especially is so well done I feel like I know him. I also like how it is a detective story where the crime actually gets solved by actual detective work. This gets even more apparent in later books as the agency gets bigger.

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at January 22, 2023 09:52 AM (Y+l9t)

131 "Winters in the World: A Journey Through the Anglo-Saxon Year"

Looked it up and ordered. Thanks!

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at January 22, 2023 09:52 AM (AW0uW)

132 Hot Coffee!!!...Shards of Earth...romping Space Opera....badass Solace...on deck... LuLu swinging a bat giving me crazy side eye from Hellbender 2....

Posted by: Qmark at January 22, 2023 09:52 AM (ttO/Q)

133 It's known as Luofuxing

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at January 22, 2023 09:38 AM (BtmcP)

I thought you said she rejected him???

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 22, 2023 09:52 AM (Angsy)

134 I received a gift of a couple of Steinbeck books, they were part of the collection of a deceased neighbor from Michigan. Also received a Marguerite Henry book for the grandsons.
Posted by: CN at January 22, 2023 09:48 AM (Zzbjj)
-----------

I read a humorous anecdote about Steinbeck, years ago. A friend of his was visiting and managed to see Steinbeck in his office where he Steinbeck wrote. He noticed a trash bin full of paper and asked about all the paper. (I don't remember if the friend asked, or, was there when Mr. Steinbeck settled in to write) Anyway, Steinbeck explained those scraps of paper were his "warmups" in that Mr. Steinbeck wrote bits of things, then tossed them. The concluding remark by the friend was, "I should have grabbed them and later published them as "Steinbecks Warmups!"

Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing(1EFfL) at January 22, 2023 09:52 AM (1EFfL)

135 "A Burnt-Out Case" by Graham Greene (again).

Posted by: ZOD at January 22, 2023 09:53 AM (Q/6pY)

136 I had complained previously about the dearth of good content in the gaslamp Book Bundle I was perusing. This week I found a gem! Wyrde and Wayward by Charlotte English is a very funny Regency-esque comedy of manners featuring a family with VERY odd members. One reviewer called it a mashup between Georgette Heyer and the Addams Family. If you have ever wondered how a genteel lady deals with a gentleman in the throes of his first dragon transformation, read on...

And more writing continues. Must get Book 2 of Red Wolf done in time to send to the editor!

Posted by: Sabrina Chase at January 22, 2023 09:53 AM (BbSpR)

137 Perfessor, I read those SW books back in the day, along with the kids' books about Han and Leia's children at the Jedi Academy and their disturbed classmate, the emperor's son.

I wish Disney had taken a gander at those for a clue about how to approach the relationships. Han and Leia could have been a beautiful depiction of how a couple grows old together. Hell, the writers could have take the approach that their son had been abducted by Soth cultists and brainwashed by them.

Posted by: NaughtyPine at January 22, 2023 09:54 AM (/+bwe)

138 In cntrast to DeLillo, this from Mark Twain's The Awful German Language: "There are some German words which are singularly and powerfully effective. For instance, those which describe lowly, peaceful, and affectionate home life; those which deal with love, in any and all forms, from mere kindly feeling and honest good will toward the passing stranger, clear up to courtship; those which deal with outdoor Nature, in its softest and loveliest aspects--with meadows and forests, and birds and flowers, the fragrance and sunshine of summer, and the moonlight of peaceful winter nights; in a word, those which deal with any and all forms of rest, respose, and peace; those also which deal with the creatures and marvels of fairyland; and lastly and chiefly, in those words which express pathos, is the language surpassingly rich and affective. There are German songs which can make a stranger to the language cry. That shows that the SOUND of the words is correct--it interprets the meanings with truth and with exactness; and so the ear is informed, and through the ear, the heart."

Posted by: who knew at January 22, 2023 09:55 AM (4I7VG)

139 This country was founded by god believing people when we went away from that, here he are

Posted by: No 6 at January 22, 2023 09:55 AM (PXvVL)

140 I'm at the part in Pliny's Natural History where he speaks of the medicinal uses of wine:

"There is no subject that presents greater difficulties than this, or, indeed, a more varied field for discussion, it being extremely difficult to pronounce whether wine is more generally injurious in its effects, or beneficial. And then, in addition to this, how very uncertain is it, whether, the moment we have drunk it, it will be productive of salutary results, or turn out no better than so much poison!"

Sounds kind of unpredictable. Like a certain vax we have all heard of.

Posted by: fd at January 22, 2023 09:55 AM (iayUP)

141 @126 --

I think Cracked was the only one to include stickers.

I remember busting a gut at one that read: "Fite Ilitarasy."

Posted by: Weak Geek at January 22, 2023 09:55 AM (Om/di)

142 The dark spirits are real, and they're gaining strength. Reponsd accordingly.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 22, 2023 09:41 AM (llXky)

I'm one of the people who thought dark spirits were nonsense, but like Dash my lace wigs, I'm changing my mind. The deliberate removal of God from so much of society allowed and encouraged the growth of occult, paganism, and all this self-god, but mostly self-goddess, crap.

Posted by: CN at January 22, 2023 09:56 AM (Zzbjj)

143 I found she wrote both main characters equally interesting. I think the Strike character especially is so well done I feel like I know him. I also like how it is a detective story where the crime actually gets solved by actual detective work. This gets even more apparent in later books as the agency gets bigger.
Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at January 22, 2023 09:52 AM (Y+l9t)
------------

Yes, I've found the main characters to be quite well drawn. I also like how she makes sure Strike mentions his impressions of people he interviews.

Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing(1EFfL) at January 22, 2023 09:56 AM (1EFfL)

144 The only other member besides me of my long-time writing group is working on a 12th-century fantasy set in Sicily. He had a good start, but has now swung over to the well-worn trail of King Arthur/Sir Galahad, Camelot, and dragons. That might be okay -- but he has a horrible habit of not orienting the reader in a scene and showing us what his heroes see when they enter a new space. I tell him it doesn't have to be long; a line or two is enough for a standard location like a house or a shop. If he's going to send his people into otherworldly realms that are out of human experience, though, he needs to show us what they see, and recount something of their reaction to it. The classic example of doing that right is Larry Niven's Ringworld.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 22, 2023 09:56 AM (omVj0)

145 Speaking of being drawn into the world of a book, I re-read "Hour of the Dragon" Robert Howard's only novel length Conan story. His short Conan pieces are always excellent but this one and his longer stories like "People of the Black Circle" are absolutely absorbing. I so wish Howard had lived to write more novels.

Posted by: JTB at January 22, 2023 09:51 AM (7EjX1)
---
At his best, Howard moves the plot forward with breathless speed. Non-stop action, very efficient use of language (including those wonderful stock phrases like "mighty thews").

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 22, 2023 09:56 AM (llXky)

146 I continue to enjoy that leather bound edition of The Pickwick Papers. I just read a chapter at a time and the book is set up that way. I can understand how the serialization created such a stir in the reading public. It would have been an episodic delight.

Posted by: JTB at January 22, 2023 09:57 AM (7EjX1)

147 Finished reading 'The Myth of Artificial Intelligence'. I simply cannot summarize it in a pithy sentence or paragraph. If you are not a tech junky then it's highly recommended.

All successful AI is narrow (Chess, Go and Chat.) Narrow AI does not scale to Artificial General Intelligence (AGI.)

Modern Winograd Schemas by Hector Levesque defeat Chat AI. Chat AI score 60% correct answers to Winograd schema while ordinary non-expert humans score 95% versus Winograd.

Posted by: 13times at January 22, 2023 09:58 AM (CnnZ4)

148 Mad magazine definitely had stickers.

Posted by: fd at January 22, 2023 09:58 AM (iayUP)

149 Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing(1EFfL) at January 22, 2023 09:52 AM (1EFfL)

He should have! Or at least Steinbeck shouldn't have tossed them. I enjoy reading the notebooks of justifiably famous writers, and their correspondence when published.

Posted by: CN at January 22, 2023 09:59 AM (Zzbjj)

150 10,000 Jokes, Toasts & Stories by Lewis and Faye Copeland

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at January 22, 2023 09:46 AM (BtmcP)

Thanks, vmom. I'll check it out.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 22, 2023 09:59 AM (Angsy)

151 One of my earliest paperback purchases was called The Best of Sick Jokes -- I was 12, and inflicted the jokes on anyone unfortunate enough to get in range, mostly family members. Years passed. Scrounging through flea market book boxes looking for Cornell Woolrich titles, and what did I find? A copy of The Best of Sick Jokes. I bought it immediately and passed it to my younger brother, then age 12, who inflicted those same jokes on everyone all over again. It's a miracle the family let me live.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at January 22, 2023 09:59 AM (a/4+U)

152 I got in trouble for sticking them all over my furniture.

Posted by: fd at January 22, 2023 09:59 AM (iayUP)

153 Perfessor, I read those SW books back in the day, along with the kids' books about Han and Leia's children at the Jedi Academy and their disturbed classmate, the emperor's son.

I wish Disney had taken a gander at those for a clue about how to approach the relationships. Han and Leia could have been a beautiful depiction of how a couple grows old together. Hell, the writers could have take the approach that their son had been abducted by Soth cultists and brainwashed by them.
Posted by: NaughtyPine at January 22, 2023


***
There were also a bunch of Indiana Jones original novels in the '80s. I never read any of them, but surely there could have been nuggets of true-to-the-character IJ stories that newer movies could have used. Would it have cost Disney so much to buy the rights to those old paperbacks?

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 22, 2023 09:59 AM (omVj0)

154 >>139 This country was founded by god believing people when we went away from that, here he are
Posted by: No 6 at January 22, 2023 09:55 AM (PXvVL)

Incorrect.

This country was founded by god. Believing people, etc.

Posted by: ZOD at January 22, 2023 09:59 AM (Q/6pY)

155 I finished Door Way by Norbert Blei , loved it but it's a truly regional book. You probably have to be familiar with Door County Wisconsin to appreciate it. Also finished Hamlin Garland's Main Traveled Roads, an excellent collection of short stories about the 1890s midwest. Started Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall and Stendhal. I can tell already that I'm going to be thankful for the list of characters at the fromnt of Wolf Hall.

Posted by: who knew at January 22, 2023 10:00 AM (4I7VG)

156 AHL, what is "Walls of Men" to be about?

Posted by: Sharkman at January 22, 2023 10:00 AM (WcT8C)

157 R.E. Howard's novella Red Nails is good.

Posted by: 13times at January 22, 2023 10:00 AM (CnnZ4)

158 It's a miracle the family let me live.
Posted by: Just Some Guy at January 22, 2023 09:59 AM (a/4+U)

Hah!

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at January 22, 2023 10:01 AM (BtmcP)

159 In Milton’s Paradise Lost, the pagan gods were the fallen angels who joined Satan’s rebellion and were cast out of Heaven.

Posted by: Bulgaroctonus at January 22, 2023 09:44 AM (atmen)

That sounds more likely than made up myths to explain things. Obviously the oracles were really working, but you notice most fell silent after the church spread throughout Europe and the Middle East.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 22, 2023 10:01 AM (Angsy)

160 Good morning, ZOD. Pardon if I do not kneel. The knees are not what they once were.

Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing(1EFfL) at January 22, 2023 10:01 AM (1EFfL)

161 I hated it, he said. So a bonding experience after all!
Posted by: Wenda at January 22, 2023 09:46 AM (uFqRH)

LOL, I didn't hate it, but I'm pretty sure my son will. He hasn't made any comments yet about it. Both of my children have busy lives, and I doubt they are going to finish this.

I learned some things from it, though--some new vocabulary, a little bit of looking up certain characters from the time period, and reflection on the conflict between scientific discovery and superstition.

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at January 22, 2023 10:01 AM (OX9vb)

162 Nemo.
"Winters in the World" sounds like something I would love.
Are you familiar with Dorothy Hartley? I have recommended her "Lost Country Life" here before.
A big book that also examines the medieval year.

Posted by: sal: tolle adversarium et afflige inimicum at January 22, 2023 10:01 AM (wE246)

163 Han and Leia could have been a beautiful depiction of how a couple grows old together. . . .
Posted by: NaughtyPine at January 22, 2023


***
The only worthwhile episode I saw of the Picard series featured just that sort of thing -- Will Riker and Deanna Troi as an older married couple. That episode felt true to the spirit and relationships of TNG.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 22, 2023 10:01 AM (omVj0)

164 I'm one of the people who thought dark spirits were nonsense, but like Dash my lace wigs, I'm changing my mind. The deliberate removal of God from so much of society allowed and encouraged the growth of occult, paganism, and all this self-god, but mostly self-goddess, crap.

Posted by: CN at January 22, 2023 09:56 AM (Zzbjj)
---
Same. We've been programmed to look for the "logical explanation" for everything, but what that really means is "materialist." But we know that material goods aren't enough to bring lasting joy or contentment, so what is? We also know that pre-modern writers regularly addressed spiritual matters and these were people who were clearly capable of understanding cause and effect.

This modern conceit that people who built aquaducts or developed geometry were incapable of discerning cause and effect with ritual sacrifice is the epitome of arrogance.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 22, 2023 10:02 AM (llXky)

165 141 @126 --

I think Cracked was the only one to include stickers.

I remember busting a gut at one that read: "Fite Ilitarasy."
Posted by: Weak Geek at January 22, 2023 09:55 AM (Om/di)
---

They had stickers, of the "you lick 'em" variety. I definitely remember Don Martin Sound Effects Stickers (Skwee-bee-dee-bee-dap! Fursh-glerk!)

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Sans-Culottes (except for the Book Thread) at January 22, 2023 10:03 AM (Dc2NZ)

166 >Breathless speed. Non-stop action.

Heart-pounding. Seat-of-your-pants. Eye-catching. Devil-may-care.

Posted by: ZOD at January 22, 2023 10:03 AM (Q/6pY)

167 I thought you said she rejected him???
Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 22, 2023 09:52 AM (Angsy)

LOL

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at January 22, 2023 10:03 AM (BtmcP)

168 Netflix has a series October Faction. It's an adaptation of a comic book. It is along the same concept of Monster Hunters International but they made it woke because of course they did.

Seems like if you are making a show about hunting monsters you would spend some time on that, but mostly it's about gay teens. Because of course it is. They could have made a good monster hunting gun porn show (teasing bits of cool guns are there!) but no.

Netflix has canceled the series. Because of course they did.

Posted by: blaster at January 22, 2023 10:04 AM (pwExq)

169 >>160 Good morning, ZOD. Pardon if I do not kneel. The knees are not what they once were.
Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing(1EFfL) at January 22, 2023 10:01 AM (1EFfL)

Can't hardly kneel myself.

Posted by: ZOD at January 22, 2023 10:04 AM (Q/6pY)

170 Marvel launched an Indiana Jones series, but it was wildly uneven. Couldn't keep a steady writer or artist. It died quickly.

I would have thought an IJ series would have staying power.

Posted by: Weak Geek at January 22, 2023 10:04 AM (Om/di)

171 The Alienist is the only book I have ever burned, I hated it so much. Finished it, took it out into the street, poured whiskey over it and lit it up. Shameful, yes. But satisfying.

My first divorce being recently pending at the time may have had something to do with the mini-bonfire.

Posted by: Sharkman at January 22, 2023 10:05 AM (WcT8C)

172 AHL, what is "Walls of Men" to be about?

Posted by: Sharkman at January 22, 2023 10:00 AM (WcT8C)
---
It's a military history of China, 2500 BC to AD 2020. I suppose I haven't been talking about it much for a while because I finished writing it in September and it's mostly been locked in editing Purgatory since then. It needed a LOT of editing, what with all the Chinese, and the sources and such.

It's 360 pages, so not too much of a lift, just a nice concise overview of China's approach to war over the ages.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 22, 2023 10:05 AM (llXky)

173 Men would rather watch a cat-fight, literally, than eat...

https://twitter.com/weirdterrifying/status/
1616834837339598850

Posted by: andycanuck (Vwz3I) at January 22, 2023 10:05 AM (Vwz3I)

174 Thanks for the thread, Perfessor. Gotta go.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 22, 2023 10:06 AM (Angsy)

175 Hundred proof whisky?

I would have used charcoal starter.

Posted by: Chatterbox Mouse at January 22, 2023 10:06 AM (TXFi7)

176 @101
I was pondering why JK chose a pseudonym to publish under and have come to the conclusion there were two reasons: Getting something other than a Harry Potter derivative published and read under her own name is difficult, and, two: The publishing industry is rife with wokeness and definitely puts politics ahead of profits.

****
I think it might have had more to do with the artistic (but not market) failure of her first grown-up novel, The Casual Vacancy. It was a Serious Novel about Serious Political Issues, safely on the Left ... and while it sold big on the strength of her name, very few readers actually, well, enjoyed it. Put one way, it was proof that JKR is NOT a novelist; what she is, is a storyteller. Along the way she struck up a friendship with the Scots mystery author Ian Rankin, and rumor has it that they made an unofficial bet as to whether she could play his game, and the pseudonym was part of that (also to see whether she could attract readers without the Potter legend). And we are all the richer for it.

Posted by: werewife, princess of Delray Beach at January 22, 2023 10:06 AM (SPNTN)

177 New series: Monsters hunting gay teens.

"Queer Quarry."

Beautiful. Mutated.

Posted by: ZOD at January 22, 2023 10:06 AM (Q/6pY)

178 Thanks for the thread, Perfessor. Gotta go.
Posted by: OrangeEnt

Poop ?

Posted by: JT at January 22, 2023 10:07 AM (T4tVD)

179 Courtesy of the local library, I've been reading "Ordeal of the Union," Allan Nevins' history of the run-up to the Civil War (published late 1940s).

It's mostly good. Too biased in favor of the North, if you ask me (and too hard on my beloved Missouri when it comes to the Kansas conflict), but it's very well-researched, and does a great job of describing life in the 1850s, even apart from the looming threat of war.

What I've found most interesting so far is that he actually has some sympathy for the Know-Nothings: yeah, he says, there was a lot of mere bigotry, but the Irish and Germans sometimes brought it on themselves. Couldn't say something like that today.

Posted by: Dr. T at January 22, 2023 10:07 AM (tp+tP)

180 I wish Disney had taken a gander at those for a clue about how to approach the relationships. Han and Leia could have been a beautiful depiction of how a couple grows old together. Hell, the writers could have take the approach that their son had been abducted by Soth cultists and brainwashed by them.
Posted by: NaughtyPine at January 22, 2023 09:54 AM (/+bwe)
---
From Disney's perspective, the idea that Leia and Han had a very loving, healthy relationship for 40 years is anathema to them. Same with Luke and fan-favorite Mara Jade (who's no longer canon). They HAD to break them down into narcissistic, disfunctional people because that's all that Disney knows.

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at January 22, 2023 10:08 AM (BpYfr)

181 I wish Disney had taken a gander at those for a clue about how to approach the relationships. Han and Leia could have been a beautiful depiction of how a couple grows old together. Hell, the writers could have take the approach that their son had been abducted by Soth cultists and brainwashed by them.

Posted by: NaughtyPine at January 22, 2023 09:54 AM (/+bwe)
---
Disney killed Carrie Fisher. They knew she was emotionally fragile and instead of just having her do a cameo or some short scenes, they decided to make her the centerpiece of their Grrrl Power The Force is Female franchise and killed her.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 22, 2023 10:09 AM (llXky)

182 I came across an archaic spelling of "oronge". It seems more logical, but you still can't rhyme anything with it.

Posted by: fd at January 22, 2023 10:10 AM (iayUP)

183 I also like how it is a detective story where the crime actually gets solved by actual detective work. This gets even more apparent in later books as the agency gets bigger.
Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at January 22, 2023 09:52 AM (Y+l9t)

I enjoy how, interspersed in the main crime investigation, there are stupid little investigations into cheating spouses and the like--dumb stuff they have to do to pay the bills.

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at January 22, 2023 10:10 AM (OX9vb)

184 From Disney's perspective, the idea that Leia and Han had a very loving, healthy relationship for 40 years is anathema to them. Same with Luke and fan-favorite Mara Jade (who's no longer canon). They HAD to break them down into narcissistic, disfunctional people because that's all that Disney knows.

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at January 22, 2023 10:08 AM (BpYfr)
---
This is a recurring theme at my blog and in my columns at bleedingfool.com: people write what they know.

No one in Hollywood knows a functional, loving relationship, so they can't even imagine how it would work. Everything is about power, about ideology. There is no true friendship, just sex and desire for love.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 22, 2023 10:10 AM (llXky)

185 It's a military history of China, 2500 BC to AD 2020. I suppose I haven't been talking about it much for a while because I finished writing it in September and it's mostly been locked in editing Purgatory since then. It needed a LOT of editing, what with all the Chinese, and the sources and such.

It's 360 pages, so not too much of a lift, just a nice concise overview of China's approach to war over the ages.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 22, 2023 10:05 AM (llXky)
---
Hmm...4500 years of Chinese history told over 360 pages? That works out to about 12 years per page...I'm guessing you are only hitting the *important* points....

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at January 22, 2023 10:10 AM (BpYfr)

186 Nemo.
"Winters in the World" sounds like something I would love.
Are you familiar with Dorothy Hartley? I have recommended her "Lost Country Life" here before.
A big book that also examines the medieval year.
Posted by: sal: tolle adversarium et afflige inimicum at January 22, 2023 10:01 AM (wE246)


Something similar, in a fiction vein, is Ann Baer's 1998 novel Down the Common, which takes place on a middling mediaeval manor sometime in the 11th century. I recommend it.

https://tinyurl.com/y8jhhjf6

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at January 22, 2023 10:10 AM (AW0uW)

187 This modern conceit that people who built aquaducts or developed geometry were incapable of discerning cause and effect with ritual sacrifice is the epitome of arrogance.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 22, 2023 10:02 AM (llXky)

Yes. But, back to the occult and it's prevalence today, do you see it as a predominately female thing? When I see books written for kids, like My First Litte Workbook of Wicca, it's usually written by female "practitioners". I think the Harry Potter stuff is probably fairly benign, but others have jumped on to incorporate it into people's lives as a substitute religion, full of goddesses.

Posted by: CN at January 22, 2023 10:11 AM (Zzbjj)

188 Re the Big Bang, there is now an alleged physicist named Lawrence Krause, who is an haughty, arrogant prick of a man, who says that maths require that the universe created itself spontaneously out of nothing.

He's so arrogant that he'll call a Christian a mentally-ill fabulist without seeming to realize he's done nothing but create a wholly unsupported creation myth himself.

He also has a very punchable face. A backpfeifengesicht, if you will.

Posted by: Sharkman at January 22, 2023 10:11 AM (WcT8C)

189 No shushing, no pants, no borrow limit!
Posted by: All Hail Eris, Sans-Culottes (except for the Book Thread) at January 22, 2023 09:12 AM (Dc2NZ)

I need a better Librarian. Mine just lets the visitors leave everything in piles all over the place. To the point where even the Gym/Home Ecc. teacher complains. Though some students marvel at the feats of gravity defiance accomplished by that lazy bastard some actually fear for their life when traversing the isles between the piles.

Posted by: Reforger at January 22, 2023 10:12 AM (Ra95j)

190 Hundred proof whisky?

I would have used charcoal starter.

Posted by: Chatterbox Mouse at January 22, 2023 10:06 AM (TXFi7)
---
Maybe he ran it through his bladder first.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 22, 2023 10:12 AM (llXky)

191 171 The Alienist is the only book I have ever burned, I hated it so much. Finished it, took it out into the street, poured whiskey over it and lit it up. Shameful, yes. But satisfying.
Posted by: Sharkman

****
There's a book that should have been much better than it was, ruined by the presence of 3 principal characters straight out of the 1990s than any respect for the culture of the historical setting. But if you want to enjoy a Freudian freakout in Old New York that is a great deal less self-important and somewhat truer to the period, try The Interpretation of Murder by Jed Rubenfeld. It was widely derided by the bien-pensants, but I found it to be lots of pulpy fun, obviously written mostly for the lulz of imagining Sigmund Freud helping to solve a murder on his one visit to these United States.

Posted by: werewife, princess of Delray Beach at January 22, 2023 10:12 AM (SPNTN)

192 Re the Big Bang, there is now an alleged physicist named Lawrence Krause, who is an haughty, arrogant prick of a man, who says that maths require that the universe created itself spontaneously out of nothing.

He's so arrogant that he'll call a Christian a mentally-ill fabulist without seeming to realize he's done nothing but create a wholly unsupported creation myth himself.

He also has a very punchable face. A backpfeifengesicht, if you will.
Posted by: Sharkman

Gesundheidt !

Posted by: JT at January 22, 2023 10:13 AM (T4tVD)

193 171 The Alienist is the only book I have ever burned, I hated it so much. Finished it, took it out into the street, poured whiskey over it and lit it up. Shameful, yes. But satisfying.
Posted by: Sharkman


Dang. I knew the TNT adaptation was bad, but I assumed the book must be at least a little better. Guess not.

Posted by: Dr. T at January 22, 2023 10:14 AM (tp+tP)

194 Are you using the pseudonym Wan Hung Lo??

Posted by: andycanuck (Vwz3I) at January 22, 2023 10:14 AM (Vwz3I)

195 Rendell - Read some of the Wexfords, but they never did it for me the way her stand-alones and short stories did. Her novel A JUDGMENT IN STONE has one of the best opening hooks ever -- "Eunice Parchman killed the Coverdale family because she could neither read nor write."

Revisiting some Jonathan Carroll; his new one, MR BREAKFAST, finally came out in English last week (it's been out in Polish and Italian for a couple of years).

Posted by: Just Some Guy at January 22, 2023 10:15 AM (a/4+U)

196 Mad magazine definitely had stickers.
Posted by: fd at January 22, 2023 09:58 AM (iayUP)

There was one issue where Mad had "Serial Killer Trading Cards" and Ed Gein as the featured killer. Ed being famous for having a barn full of body parts, etc. One of the cards was a "shoe box of ears" and another was a "cup of noses" with a smiling Ed raising up the cup.

Hilarious...

Posted by: Hairyback Guy at January 22, 2023 10:15 AM (R/m4+)

197 Three refreshes and no new posts. That's a sign that it's time to get ready for church.

Posted by: Weak Geek at January 22, 2023 10:15 AM (Om/di)

198 MP4,
Thank you- will track it down!

Posted by: sal: tolle adversarium et afflige inimicum at January 22, 2023 10:16 AM (wE246)

199 Yes. But, back to the occult and it's prevalence today, do you see it as a predominately female thing? When I see books written for kids, like My First Litte Workbook of Wicca, it's usually written by female "practitioners". I think the Harry Potter stuff is probably fairly benign, but others have jumped on to incorporate it into people's lives as a substitute religion, full of goddesses.

Posted by: CN at January 22, 2023 10:11 AM (Zzbjj)
---
I think so. Men have the ability to lose themselves in things and gadgets. Speaking for myself, chasing women and reading about war was pretty satisfying to me for many years and God/faith was a background matter. It wasn't until I had children that I got serious about it.

Women are different, and especially now where they are being told that it's great to be a slut and sleep with everyone they meet (male or female) and also that killing their unborn children is empowering.

Also: women demand social approval much more so then men, and much of what they do on social media in particular is about getting validation - or lashing out at people who refuse to validate them.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 22, 2023 10:16 AM (llXky)

200 AHL, you should print a single copy of "Walls of Men" to send to the NY Review of Books, with every spelling of "China" re-spelled as "Chy-Nah".

They'd lose it.

Posted by: Sharkman at January 22, 2023 10:17 AM (WcT8C)

201 I'm currently reading No Plan B , a Reacher novel by Lee Child and Andrew Child.

Something's off...Reacher still beats the crap out of all the bad guys...

Posted by: JT at January 22, 2023 10:18 AM (T4tVD)

202 He's so arrogant that he'll call a Christian a mentally-ill fabulist without seeming to realize he's done nothing but create a wholly unsupported creation myth himself.

He also has a very punchable face. A backpfeifengesicht, if you will.
Posted by: Sharkman at January 22, 2023 10:11 AM (WcT8C)

Just looked him up, wikipedia called his family "Jewish, but not religious". Odd that some of us are so out of touch with our religious forebears that we are unaware of the "fabulist" parts of Judaism, the mystical experiences and prophetic visions. Talk about arrogance of ignorance

Posted by: CN at January 22, 2023 10:18 AM (Zzbjj)

203 80 ... "A problem I have is that I seem to have 'lost' my notebook with all of my work for my new Theda Bara novel. I know it's somewhere here in Stately Poppins Manor, but I'll be damned if I can find it."

MP4,

Hope you find those notes. I've completely enjoyed your Theda Bara stories and look forward to the next one.

Posted by: JTB at January 22, 2023 10:20 AM (7EjX1)

204 Hiya Heidi (I know you're in here) give my regards to the Artist formerly known as da Cannibal !

Posted by: JT at January 22, 2023 10:20 AM (T4tVD)

205 I will note that women are also very active on the other side. In a recent speed-dating session at my college-town parish, there was an acute shortage of men.

They're still getting drunk, watching football, and being immature louts, but religious woman want to settle down and raise a family. I've said this before, but at Mass, I'm seeing lots of young families (more than I used to, which is great!) and the guys are nothing to look at, but their wives are in every case a cut above them.

My advice to young men today: dump the dating apps and go to church.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 22, 2023 10:21 AM (llXky)

206 We had the small CA grandkids here last week, but they were too wired from traveling to sit and hear a book, so I had to forego my favorite parental pastime.
(sad emoji)

I was an indefatigable reader-aloud back in the day.
But they own many, many books, so it's all good.

Posted by: sal: tolle adversarium et afflige inimicum at January 22, 2023 10:21 AM (wE246)

207 Also, does anyone remember those trading cards that featured wacky drawings of people using things like skunk flavored toothpaste or cherry bomb candy with a real bomb in it?

Posted by: RetSgtRN




Pretty sure I had all of those cards. Heh. To be young again.

Posted by: Sharkman at January 22, 2023 10:21 AM (WcT8C)

208 80 ... "A problem I have is that I seem to have 'lost' my notebook with all of my work for my new Theda Bara novel. I know it's somewhere here in Stately Poppins Manor, but I'll be damned if I can find it."
----
Cordwainer Smith (real name Paul Linebarger) lost his notebook of ideas for stories in a boating accident. As a result, I don't think he wrote any more stories, which is unfortunate for the rest of us who enjoy those stories.

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at January 22, 2023 10:24 AM (BpYfr)

209 Finished reading the 1921 true story about the Siberian hunter and tracker Dersu Uzala by V.K. Arseniev. The book goes by various names. Arseniev was a Tsarist officer engaged in 1909 to survey the very wild region just north of Vladivostok. He stumbled across a Goldi aborigine named Dersu. They struck up an immediate and enduring friendship. Dersu was an animist pagan and very connected to nature. V.K. was a nominal Christian and a mechanistic-scientific thinker.

Free to download epub, mobi and PDF at archive.org.

Posted by: 13times at January 22, 2023 10:24 AM (CnnZ4)

210 A couple weeks back I looked up mysticism in Judaism and was surprised to see that an author of that subject was none other than the odious Yuval Harari! He seems a man who could use some religious tenets in his life, instead of chattering about useless people.

Posted by: CN at January 22, 2023 10:24 AM (Zzbjj)

211 In the poem up top, I can't read the fifth line.

I'm wearing the ???

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter 2023 at January 22, 2023 10:24 AM (FVME7)

212 Posted by: Notsothoreau at January 22, 2023 09:38 AM (4IUUf)

I like the idea on a certain level, but all my yarn, wheels, etc. would need their *own* tiny house, so it's unlikely to work well for us.

Posted by: Polliwog the 'Ette at January 22, 2023 10:25 AM (nC+QA)

213 enjoy how, interspersed in the main crime investigation, there are stupid little investigations into cheating spouses and the like--dumb stuff they have to do to pay the bills.
Posted by: Dash my lace wigs!

Yes. Unlike most detective novels where the main character figures out what happens and the entire story revolves around him or her, this is actually a detective agency that solves crimes by actual detective work. This involves stakeouts and under cover work and managing an office and multiple personalities. It feels very real.

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at January 22, 2023 10:25 AM (Y+l9t)

214 Sounds a lot like today's modern youth who seem to think civilization will roll on forever and will never slide backwards.

That's some fresh new thinking right there. So you're saying that enthusiastic young Nazis were just too millennial? Hoo - kay.

Posted by: Way, Way Downriver at January 22, 2023 10:26 AM (jYCXf)

215 82 ... "I recommend The Italian Secretary by Caleb Carr. Carr also wrote The Alienist, which is a phenomenally successful novel from the same Victorian era, but set in America and with his own protagonist."

Thomas Paine,
Thanks for the recommendations. I'll check them out. It gives me another excuse to go to the used book store. (Does the Mephistopheles laugh.)

Posted by: JTB at January 22, 2023 10:26 AM (7EjX1)

216 A very good mystery writer is Tim Cockey, who wrote "The Hearse You Came In On", 'Hearse Case Scenario", "Hearse of a Different Color", and "Backstabber". All set in Baltimore. The main character is a mortician named Hitchcock Sewell. All four books are very clever, witty and funny as well as decent mysteries. Highly recommended.

Posted by: Sharkman at January 22, 2023 10:26 AM (WcT8C)

217 " the 1921 true story about the Siberian hunter and tracker Dersu Uzala by V.K. Arseniev."

Made into an excellent flick by Kurosowa called Dersu Uzala

Posted by: Ignoramus at January 22, 2023 10:29 AM (SJsWC)

218 209 The Dersu Uzala story was made into a movie in 1975, directed by Kurosawa, who also co-wrote the screenplay. Russian with Enough subtitles. It’s very good.

Posted by: Bulgaroctonus at January 22, 2023 10:29 AM (atmen)

219 In the poem up top, I can't read the fifth line.

I'm wearing the ???
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter 2023 at January 22, 2023 10:24 AM (FVME7)
---
*sigh* It's a typo (my fault).--"I'm wearing the cloak" (as in invisibility cloak

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at January 22, 2023 10:29 AM (BpYfr)

220 In the poem up top, I can't read the fifth line.

I'm wearing the ???
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter 2023 at January 22, 2023 10:24 AM (FVME7)
---
*sigh* It's a typo (my fault).--"I'm wearing the cloak" (as in invisibility cloak
Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel

(at least its not his wife's underwear....)

Posted by: JT at January 22, 2023 10:30 AM (T4tVD)

221 “with English subtitles”

Posted by: Bulgaroctonus at January 22, 2023 10:31 AM (atmen)

222 Or perhaps the government itself is acting upon the direction of *actual* occult forces.

-
Well, John Kerry's from Mars, Biden's from Uranus.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter 2023 at January 22, 2023 10:31 AM (FVME7)

223 Now Bulgar has to buy Ignoramus a Coke!

Posted by: sal: tolle adversarium et afflige inimicum at January 22, 2023 10:31 AM (wE246)

224 JT, if you have liked previous Reacher novels by Lee Child, I think you will be disappointed in No Plan B. Once he started writing with Andrew Child, they became different books.
Sad.

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at January 22, 2023 10:31 AM (Y+l9t)

225 I started Michael Malice's new book, The White Pill.

I know some people are aware of Malice, he's an internet personality, a self-professed troll on twatter, and an avowed anarchist, but he writes with skill and precision.

Unlike most writers today, who are covering the dissolution of our country, and the accompanying chaos, Malice's writing is generally free of emotional urgency and bias. He writes what he sees. So far, this book is covering the past, and my understanding is he doesn't get to applying what he's covering until near the end. The term "white pill" is basically a term indicating hopefulness (as opposed to so many who are black pilled).

Highly recommended.

Posted by: BurtTC at January 22, 2023 10:32 AM (QBaJw)

226 Posted by: RetSgtRN at January 22, 2023 09:51 AM

Might be thinking same thing, Quacker Oats, Chock full of nuts and bolts coffee

Posted by: Skip at January 22, 2023 10:32 AM (xhxe8)

227 They jettisoned the expanded universe which would have led to a less emo skywalker or solo turning to the darkside then they made a stupider version with thd sequels

Posted by: No 6 at January 22, 2023 10:33 AM (PXvVL)

228 Relevant to the notion of occultism and intelligence agencies: this past week I've been re-reading Tim Powers's masterpiece _Declare_, about the secret occult war between the British and Russian secret services. He mines all the real connections between spying and occult foolishness for all they're worth, and of course in this book it's all true.

Great stuff: the Commies are the bad guys, even the Spanish Loyalists are evil shits, and Kim Philby is the main villain of the story. No revisionist claptrap here.

It's also one of the very few fantasy novels published in recent memory which takes an explicitly Christian view of the world. I'm not a believer myself but I appreciate that. It's often tiresome reading fantasies which have to dance around the topic out of cowardice.

Posted by: Trimegistus at January 22, 2023 10:33 AM (QZxDR)

229 Or perhaps the government itself is acting upon the direction of *actual* occult forces.

-
Well, John Kerry's from Mars, Biden's from Uranus.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter 2023

He ain't from MY anus ! My turds can THINK !

Posted by: JT at January 22, 2023 10:33 AM (T4tVD)

230 JT, if you have liked previous Reacher novels by Lee Child, I think you will be disappointed in No Plan B. Once he started writing with Andrew Child, they became different books.
Sad.
Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice)

I think you are correct !

Posted by: JT at January 22, 2023 10:34 AM (T4tVD)

231 l started Michael Malice's new book, The White Pill.

Posted by: BurtTC


I saw an interview with Malice the other day regarding this. I need to get it.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at January 22, 2023 10:35 AM (ag4To)

232 "It honestly wouldn't surprise me too much if occultism was some sort of intelligence op, though for what purpose seems unclear. Gathering info? On whom?"


Tim Powers wrote a novel called Declare, where the whole purpose of the British secret service, and in turn all the others, was dealing with the supernatural, to combat it, use it as a weapon, and to deny it to the other nations.

(I would love Powers better if he had the Chandler-esque attitude that some things don't make sense because people don't make sense, instead of the red-yarn-on-a-corkboard where everything has to mesh approach)

Posted by: Kindltot at January 22, 2023 10:35 AM (xhaym)

233 Rendell - Read some of the Wexfords, but they never did it for me the way her stand-alones and short stories did. Her novel A JUDGMENT IN STONE has one of the best opening hooks ever -- "Eunice Parchman killed the Coverdale family because she could neither read nor write."

Revisiting some Jonathan Carroll; his new one, MR BREAKFAST, finally came out in English last week (it's been out in Polish and Italian for a couple of years).
Posted by: Just Some Guy at January 22, 2023


***
Right; I read Stone not long ago. Great stuff. I've sampled some Jonathan Carroll, but his stuff didn't stick with me. Maybe I need to try him again.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 22, 2023 10:35 AM (omVj0)

234 Thanks guys. The full length Dersu Uzala film is free on youtube.

The actor looks kinda like the real Dersu. The film tracks well with the book. The book is much richer and more emotionally fulfilling.

Posted by: 13times at January 22, 2023 10:36 AM (CnnZ4)

235 I used to live in travel trailers. That's why I have done mostly spindles for a long time. You would be surprised how much stuff you can cram in small places. And my Pipy wheel doesn't take up much space.

Posted by: Notsothoreau at January 22, 2023 10:37 AM (4IUUf)

236 Some of the older German soldiers talk about fighting in the same areas in WW1

-
On the ONT last night, there was talk of the corruption or least evolution of words often times arising from military usage and examples from WWI were given. Another example was the pronunciation of that town not far from Dunkirk spelled Ypres but pronounced in the local dialect something like Eee-pra. The British Tommies called Wipers.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter 2023 at January 22, 2023 10:38 AM (FVME7)

237 OK, folks, think I'm going to make another cup of tea and relax. I just bought a recording of an Arthur Sullivan oratorio, The Light of the World, which I've never heard before, so that will be a nice way to spend a cold, dreary afternoon.

I'm working tomorrow, so will see some of you then.

Hope you all have a lovely day.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at January 22, 2023 10:38 AM (AW0uW)

238 JT, if you have liked previous Reacher novels by Lee Child, I think you will be disappointed in No Plan B. Once he started writing with Andrew Child, they became different books.
Sad.
Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at January 22, 2023 10:31 AM (Y+l9t)
---------

heh, I think the newer books are okay. I also think Mr. Child ran out ideas and needed a fresh perspective.

Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing(1EFfL) at January 22, 2023 10:39 AM (1EFfL)

239 Current cosmology is pretty much indistinguishable from Let ther be light.

Krause is fairly mainstream in the cosmology community. I don't know if Hawking first came up with the "suddenly coming into existence from nothing is just a property of the Universe" theory but it's out there. It's quantum tunneling writ large.

Other physics posits that we have lots more than the 4 dimensions but most of them are really tiny, undetectable, and all wrapped around each other. So no evidence of this, no possible way to prove it, but we are just supposed to believe it.

Tell me again how your Science is super rational and my belief is superstition....

Posted by: blaster at January 22, 2023 10:39 AM (pwExq)

240 A very good mystery writer is Tim Cockey, who wrote "The Hearse You Came In On", 'Hearse Case Scenario", "Hearse of a Different Color", and "Backstabber". All set in Baltimore. The main character is a mortician named Hitchcock Sewell. All four books are very clever, witty and funny as well as decent mysteries. Highly recommended.

Posted by: Sharkman at January 22, 2023 10:26 AM (WcT8C)

Definitely catchy titles. I wonder if anybody ever told pelosi screw you and the hearse you rode in on.

Posted by: Berserker-Dragonheads Division at January 22, 2023 10:39 AM (VwHCD)

241 A couple weeks back I looked up mysticism in Judaism and was surprised to see that an author of that subject was none other than the odious Yuval Harari! He seems a man who could use some religious tenets in his life, instead of chattering about useless people.
Posted by: CN at January 22, 2023 10:24 AM (Zzbjj)

I know this comes up here a lot, people talk about this writer or that, being some type of rogue, but then indicating their books are swell.

I just can't see myself doing that, having a strong opinion about the person, and then letting their words seep into my brain. Why would I do that to myself.

Sure, there are going to be writers whose lifestyles and beliefs are going to be anathema to me, but if I don't know... well, maybe that's not as bad. I'm not sure.

Posted by: BurtTC at January 22, 2023 10:39 AM (QBaJw)

242 I've been reading the Harry Potter canon in preparation for the release in a few weeks of Higwarts Legacy.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter 2023 at January 22, 2023 10:40 AM (FVME7)

243 MP4.

You know what you did.

Posted by: blaster at January 22, 2023 10:40 AM (pwExq)

244 199 Yes. But, back to the occult and it's prevalence today, do you see it as a predominately female thing? When I see books written for kids, like My First Litte Workbook of Wicca, it's usually written by female "practitioners". I think the Harry Potter stuff is probably fairly benign, but others have jumped on to incorporate it into people's lives as a substitute religion, full of goddesses.

Posted by: CN at January 22, 2023 10:11 AM (Zzbjj)

Yes and no. The dynamic in occultism is the same as in college. The male occult leaders are like the feminist males on campus. They are just creeps and predators. The women are silly and idealistic and for the life of them can't figure out why all the " good guys" keep raping them etc etc.

There are also a lot of pedos involved. Almost all male but not all.

Hard to believe but occultism is a front for Intelligence Services. Every guru (male or female) I have looked at has turned out to work for Intelligence: Crowley, Blavatsky etc etc

Posted by: Thesokorus at January 22, 2023 10:40 AM (1ais2)

245 Kindltot: Actually, I think it's Powers's exhaustive research plus conspiracy theorizing that makes his books so good. When you read Declare, nothing in it is contradicted by the known life of Kim Philby. It all could have happened . . .

Posted by: Trimegistus at January 22, 2023 10:41 AM (QZxDR)

246 Tim Powers wrote a novel called Declare, where the whole purpose of the British secret service, and in turn all the others, was dealing with the supernatural, to combat it, use it as a weapon, and to deny it to the other nations.

(I would love Powers better if he had the Chandler-esque attitude that some things don't make sense because people don't make sense, instead of the red-yarn-on-a-corkboard where everything has to mesh approach)
Posted by: Kindltot at January 22, 2023 10:35 AM (xhaym)
---
That book is in my TBR pile. Perhaps I should move it up nearer the top...

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at January 22, 2023 10:41 AM (BpYfr)

247 Tell me again how your Science is super rational and my belief is superstition....
Posted by: blaster at January 22, 2023 10:39 AM (pwExq)
----------

It's all phlogiston to me.

Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing(1EFfL) at January 22, 2023 10:41 AM (1EFfL)

248 A very good mystery writer is Tim Cockey, who wrote "The Hearse You Came In On", 'Hearse Case Scenario", "Hearse of a Different Color", and "Backstabber". All set in Baltimore. The main character is a mortician named Hitchcock Sewell. All four books are very clever, witty and funny as well as decent mysteries. Highly recommended.

Posted by: Sharkman at January 22, 2023
*
Definitely catchy titles. I wonder if anybody ever told pelosi screw you and the hearse you rode in on.
Posted by: Berserker-Dragonheads Division at January 22, 2023


***
Been through the desert on a Hearse With No Name --

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 22, 2023 10:41 AM (omVj0)

249 Sure, there are going to be writers whose lifestyles and beliefs are going to be anathema to me, but if I don't know... well, maybe that's not as bad. I'm not sure.
Posted by: BurtTC at January 22, 2023 10:39 AM (QBaJw)

Sorry, I mean they're going to be unknown to me, as to how their beliefs/lifestyles are something I would strongly oppose.

Posted by: BurtTC at January 22, 2023 10:41 AM (QBaJw)

250 My advice to young men today: dump the dating apps and go to church.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 22, 2023 10:21 AM (llXky)

My cousin and I loaded up the Suburban with all the local kids who wanted to go to see Monster Trucks one time. We had like 11 to keep track of.
The site of two guys able to to wrangle kids like that had every single mom there eyeballing us and we are both Fugly dudes.
Chicks dig guys who can dad. Lean to dad is my advice for landing a women. Take a neice or nephew to the grocery market with you and practice. Of all things avoid bar flys.

Posted by: Reforger at January 22, 2023 10:42 AM (Jc1qA)

251 MP4, that's exactly what a book is and does. Thanks, Perfesser Squirrel!

Posted by: Eromero at January 22, 2023 10:42 AM (0OP+5)

252 Just starting a re-read of "Man eaters of Kumaon"- Jim Corbett
I had found a 1st edition published in India circa 1944, around 30 years ago , it was cheap and looked interesting., bought it. It WAS interesting. This guy hunted maneating tigers and leopards for the Govt., on foot, alone but for a small, scrawny (but fearless) dog. The 1st was the worst...1907, a maneater that the Nepal army had intentionally chased across the mountains, relocating it into India, it killed over 485 people. Several other killed at least 200 each. All told the tigers and leopards he tracked down had killed over 1200 people.
Much later, having retired to kenya he was the "Guard" at a remote resort Treehouse there...a young girl named Lilly came for a short stay, had the time of her life. Unfortunately her father died while there...she had climbed up into the treehouse a mere teen Princess, climbed down a Queen...of England.

Posted by: birddog at January 22, 2023 10:42 AM (uAI4S)

253 Speaking of 1910, here is the hootchie cootchie dance in the movies that was too hot to handle. The first part talks about the circumstances and the plot of the movie but if you want to get straight to the dance, go to 3:14.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qQ-UXNdhyiE

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter 2023 at January 22, 2023 10:42 AM (FVME7)

254 Son gave me a nice hardbound copy of the Silmarillion, and I am currently reading it. It had been years since i last read it, and I am enjoying it immensely.

It's a very well-made book, with plenty of Tolkien's original illustrations and really pleasing text font.

On deck is Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun series. It's been a very long since I read those, and as a youth I kind of struggled with his prose, but his story was so compelling that I made it through after a few fits and starts. After thumbing through it the other night I saw that I will likely enjoy Wolf's style more now that I am an old man.

Posted by: Pug Mahon, Gen X Ne'er-Do-Well at January 22, 2023 10:42 AM (UQUAY)

255 Non-fiction is both easier and harder than fiction. It's easier because you don't have to make anything up, just collect information. Piece of cake! It's hard because you never know when to stop. There's always another source out there, something else to research. I stop when I get bored, because I figure if I'm tired of writing it, people like me will get tired of reading it.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 22, 2023 09:52 AM (llXky)

Ok, back. Thanks for the info. I've found a couple of sites for publishing writing. One or two say you get paid by readers, so maybe that's a possibility for newbys.
Do you find it easier to start a non fiction work at the beginning and work through to the end, or do you bounce around as inspiration hits you?

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 22, 2023 10:42 AM (Angsy)

256 Hubbard wrote Dianetics to start his own religion; he bragged about doing it before doing it. His motive was greed. The FBI certainly investigated him a lot.

As to black theology, I thought that was something the Russians cooked up to divide our nation. Barack dumped Jeremiah Wright's ass faster than a bad haircut, after claiming he was at Trinity "every week for 20 years."

Wright is/was a big fan of Farrakhan. Gave him an award even.

So if this one was an IC 'op', it was a foreign one.

I just think the motives vary.

Posted by: GnuBreed at January 22, 2023 10:42 AM (JOtiF)

257 Modern physics is nothing but fantasy at this point. Utterly untestable flights of fancy in the face.of being able to explain nothing of the WHY or HOW of the universe. Only the WHAT is explained. It's just a religion now.

Posted by: Sharkman at January 22, 2023 10:43 AM (WcT8C)

258 By the way, did anyone catch JK Rowling's response to some idiot who accused her of being transphobic and asked how she felt about being a hater or some such?

JK's response was along the lines of, "I quickly get over it, after looking at my royalty cheques."

Something along those lines, anyway. JK maybe a lefty, but, I admire the way she doesn't cower before the online mob.

Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing(1EFfL) at January 22, 2023 10:43 AM (1EFfL)

259 Put on yer pants! Put on yer pants!

Posted by: That Guy walking next to the cart rolling slowly down the lane at January 22, 2023 10:44 AM (a3Q+t)

260 A couple weeks back I looked up mysticism in Judaism and was surprised to see that an author of that subject was none other than the odious Yuval Harari! He seems a man who could use some religious tenets in his life, instead of chattering about useless people.
Posted by: CN at January 22, 2023 10:24 AM (Zzbjj)
===

I'm standing right here.

Posted by: The Golem at January 22, 2023 10:44 AM (EZebt)

261 Modern physics is nothing but fantasy at this point. Utterly untestable flights of fancy in the face.of being able to explain nothing of the WHY or HOW of the universe. Only the WHAT is explained. It's just a religion now.
Posted by: Sharkman at January 22, 2023 10:43 AM (WcT8C)
---
That is a HUGE problem in physics right now...Physicists just throw any old crap out there to see what captures the public, regardless of whether or not it's testable. They are also quick to jump on "THE SCIENCE" bandwagon because they won't be published if they don't.

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at January 22, 2023 10:44 AM (BpYfr)

262 >>> 86 Even Ace?!

Maybe he's an experiment that snapped its tether and turned on its creator.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Sans-Culottes (except for the Book Thread) at January 22, 2023 09:32 AM (Dc2NZ)
---
Not that I agree, but it is curious that Ace's identity is still a mystery when just about every other secret has been blown open. Pre-decisional Supreme Court opinions are less secure.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 22, 2023 09:38 AM (llXky)

I suspect teh Ewok isn't big enough to draw the attention of Stan and his idiots. Or at least not at that level of excitement. (And there is an old video of him appearing on some teewee talk show or some such from about 15 years ago, so probably even a Moron could figure it out eventually.)

Posted by: Helena Handbasket at January 22, 2023 10:45 AM (llON8)

263 Cordwainer Smith (real name Paul Linebarger) lost his notebook of ideas for stories in a boating accident. As a result, I don't think he wrote any more stories, which is unfortunate for the rest of us who enjoy those stories.
Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at January 22, 2023 10:24 AM (BpYfr)

Do not look at Linebarger's bio. It is very depressing. Sci-fi was as much an op as modern art. And Linebarger was prob the mastermind.

Posted by: Thesokorus at January 22, 2023 10:45 AM (1ais2)

264 l started Michael Malice's new book, The White Pill.

Posted by: BurtTC


I saw an interview with Malice the other day regarding this. I need to get it.
Posted by: Thomas Paine at January 22, 2023 10:35 AM (ag4To)

Also strongly recommended is his book from a few years ago, The New Right. I suppose it might be somewhat dated now, as things change so quickly, but the people he talks about are still around.

Then there's Dear Reader, his sort of autobiography of Kim Jong Il, the current Nork leader's daddy. It's darkly funny in some ways, lots of very good insight into how things work in that strange place.

Posted by: BurtTC at January 22, 2023 10:45 AM (QBaJw)

265 Do not look at Linebarger's bio. It is very depressing. Sci-fi was as much an op as modern art. And Linebarger was prob the mastermind.
Posted by: Thesokorus at January 22, 2023 10:45 AM (1ais2)
---
Well, he DID quite literally write the book on psychological warfare used by the US armed forces for decades...

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at January 22, 2023 10:46 AM (BpYfr)

266 OT: I said earlier that all my chores were done, but I was wrong. Every week I build a salad in a tub I keep in the refrigerator, and dole out a part of it for my lunch at work. Got to go build it now: lettuce (iceberg, though I have used romaine), green onions, and radishes. I sprinkle dill pickle juice on the small daily portion and mix it with pickle slices. Salty, cold, and quite good.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 22, 2023 10:47 AM (omVj0)

267 Maybe he ran it through his bladder first.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd




That was step 3" "The Dowsing"

Posted by: Sharkman at January 22, 2023 10:48 AM (WcT8C)

268 On deck is Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun series. It's been a very long since I read those, and as a youth I kind of struggled with his prose, but his story was so compelling that I made it through after a few fits and starts. After thumbing through it the other night I saw that I will likely enjoy Wolf's style more now that I am an old man.
Posted by: Pug Mahon, Gen X Ne'er-Do-Well at January 22, 2023 10:42 AM (UQUAY)

I admire Wolfe and have resd his stuff. But there is a stylistic disconnect with me. I prefer R A Lafferty much more. Lafferty will say in a short story what Wolfe will write in a novel. They cover very similar ground subject matter wise. But Wolfe has Kabbala-istic ideas that I can't stand.

Posted by: Thesokorus at January 22, 2023 10:49 AM (1ais2)

269 Sure, there are going to be writers whose lifestyles and beliefs are going to be anathema to me, but if I don't know... well, maybe that's not as bad. I'm not sure.
Posted by: BurtTC at January 22, 2023 10:39 AM (QBaJw)

I'm not advocating buying Harari's book and did not read it as I assume he'd corrupt the history of Judaism in order to score points with the WEF crowd and Gaia crowd. I was merely surprised that Schwab's philosopher wrote on that at all.

Posted by: CN at January 22, 2023 10:50 AM (Zzbjj)

270 >>> 93 76 "Or perhaps the government itself is acting upon the direction of *actual* occult forces..."

**
There's a book or three dying to be written with this premisr
Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at January 22, 2023 09:39 AM (BtmcP)

Hans G. Schantz says 'hi'. Well it's not the explicit driver of his series but it seems strongly suggested as you get further in. The US government in Larry Correia's MHI series isn't as malignant as in our current world, but he does have a subplot about stupid goings-on during WW II.

Posted by: Helena Handbasket at January 22, 2023 10:50 AM (llON8)

271 I suspect teh Ewok isn't big enough to draw the attention of Stan and his idiots. Or at least not at that level of excitement. (And there is an old video of him appearing on some teewee talk show or some such from about 15 years ago, so probably even a Moron could figure it out eventually.)
Posted by: Helena Handbasket at January 22, 2023 10:45 AM (llON

There was of course the circumstance not that long ago, by the person who shall remain nameless, who attempted to out Ace. There were lawsuits, and most of what occurred stays out of these comment sections, because this is real life risk stuff, but I think/hope Ace emerged from all that with his identity safely hidden.

Posted by: BurtTC at January 22, 2023 10:50 AM (QBaJw)

272 Well, time for Mass!

Thanks again, Perfesser!

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 22, 2023 10:50 AM (llXky)

273 Been through the desert on a Hearse With No Name --
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 22, 2023 10:41 AM (omVj0)

A marriage mystery: For Better or For Hearse

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at January 22, 2023 10:50 AM (OX9vb)

274 Re-read Barry Hughart's Number Ten Ox stuff. Can not recommend enough. It is beautiful and funny. Zen Buddhism but not dumb and hippy. The characters are great. Once again can not recommend enough.

Posted by: Thesokorus at January 22, 2023 10:51 AM (1ais2)

275 Posted by: Thesokorus at January 22, 2023 10:49 AM (1ais2)

*adds R A Lafferty to list of authors to look up*

thanks.

Posted by: Pug Mahon, Gen X Ne'er-Do-Well at January 22, 2023 10:52 AM (UQUAY)

276 They had stickers, of the "you lick 'em" variety. I definitely remember Don Martin Sound Effects Stickers (Skwee-bee-dee-bee-dap! Fursh-glerk!)

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Sans-Culottes (except for the Book Thread) at January 22, 2023 10:03 AM (Dc2NZ)

Skwee-bee-dee-bee-dap! The sound you hear when stepping on a board with cockroaches under it.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 22, 2023 10:52 AM (Angsy)

277 Posted by: BurtTC at January 22, 2023 10:39 AM (QBaJw)

I'm not advocating buying Harari's book and did not read it as I assume he'd corrupt the history of Judaism in order to score points with the WEF crowd and Gaia crowd. I was merely surprised that Schwab's philosopher wrote on that at all.
Posted by: CN at January 22, 2023 10:50 AM (Zzbjj)

Right, I wasn't thinking about his connection to Schwab, just that I find it interesting that there ARE people who say "I hate what this writer stands for, but love his books."

I couldn't do that.

Posted by: BurtTC at January 22, 2023 10:53 AM (QBaJw)

278 275 Posted by: Thesokorus at January 22, 2023 10:49 AM (1ais2)

*adds R A Lafferty to list of authors to look up*

thanks.
Posted by: Pug Mahon, Gen X Ne'er-Do-Well at January 22, 2023 10:52 AM (UQUAY)

He's cool. 900 Grandmothers and Past Master prob good places to start. He is a "dig or do not dig" author. He leaves many cold.

Posted by: Thesokorus at January 22, 2023 10:53 AM (1ais2)

279 I just noticed that the poem at the top was written by the author of The Gruffalo. Nice kids' author

Posted by: CN at January 22, 2023 10:55 AM (Zzbjj)

280 They had stickers, of the "you lick 'em" variety. I definitely remember Don Martin Sound Effects Stickers (Skwee-bee-dee-bee-dap! Fursh-glerk!)

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Sans-Culottes (except for the Book Thread) at January 22, 2023 10:03 AM (Dc2NZ)

Skwee-bee-dee-bee-dap! The sound you hear when stepping on a board with cockroaches under it.
Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 22, 2023 10:52 AM (Angsy)

SNAP! Ploobadoof!

Wonder Woman unhooking her Amazon Bra.

Posted by: Pug Mahon, Gen X Ne'er-Do-Well at January 22, 2023 10:55 AM (UQUAY)

281 That is a HUGE problem in physics right now...Physicists just throw any old crap out there to see what captures the public, regardless of whether or not it's testable. They are also quick to jump on "THE SCIENCE" bandwagon because they won't be published if they don't.

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel



There is a German author named Alexander Unzicker who has written 4 books on the subject of how broken physics is. I have been meaning to email you on his works so they could be featured here but have been too busy. Perhaps I'll finally do that this week.

Posted by: Sharkman at January 22, 2023 10:55 AM (WcT8C)

282 I finished Monster Hunter: Guardian by Sarah Hoyt. It is part of Larry Correia's Monster Hunter universes, and follows Susan Shackleton.
Susan was left behind in Alabama with a skeleton crew with her family business Monster Hunter International while the majority of the Monster Hunters in the world are assaulting the stronghold of the Demon Asag in the Russian arctic, partially because someone capable needed to stay home to keep it together, and also because she was very pregnant.
Susan's baby, Ray (Bubba), is kidnapped by The Condition, a wizard led cult, and Susan pursues them to recover Ray, while being opposed by old enemies, supernatural child trafficking rings, occult auctions, various EU agencies focused on the status quo, the dangers of an assault via a Portuguese submarine and a nest of vampires.

Sarah has a much different tone than Larry in writing, and I hope she stays the voice of Julie Shackleton, it is a very nice variation in the series.

Posted by: Kindltot at January 22, 2023 10:55 AM (xhaym)

283 Regarding nonfiction and "just reading primary sources" -- archaeology is worth a look, too. Apparently for years historians thought there wasn't much of a pottery industry in the American colonies, and what was made was inferior ware -- because that's what the royal governors always reported back to London. Then they found the remains of an ENORMOUS pottery works in Yorktown, with spoil piles of what was obviously high-quality stuff. And then they realized that a lot of it had found its way to Caribbean colonies, but had always been flagged as British-made.

Turns out primary sources can be lies.

Posted by: Trimegistus at January 22, 2023 10:56 AM (QZxDR)

284 Will Riker and Deanna Troi as an older married couple.

-
Yeah, right. Like Riker was a forsaking all others kind of guy.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter 2023 at January 22, 2023 10:56 AM (FVME7)

285 Pixy mentioned this in his tech thread a couple of days ago --

Roger Zelazny's popular fantasy series, The Chronicles of Amber, will finally be coming to television. Stephen Colbert's production company Spartina has joined Robert Kirkman's Skybound Entertainment and Vincent Newman Entertainment's existing partnership to develop Roger Zelazny's beloved The Chronicles of Amber into a dramatic series...

I wait with baited breath. Earthworms or crickets? Tough choice.

Posted by: GnuBreed at January 22, 2023 10:56 AM (JOtiF)

286
I think it might have had more to do with the artistic (but not market) failure of her first grown-up novel, The Casual Vacancy. It was a Serious Novel about Serious Political Issues, safely on the Left ... and while it sold big on the strength of her name, very few readers actually, well, enjoyed it. Put one way, it was proof that JKR is NOT a novelist; what she is, is a storyteller. Along the way she struck up a friendship with the Scots mystery author Ian Rankin, and rumor has it that they made an unofficial bet as to whether she could play his game, and the pseudonym was part of that (also to see whether she could attract readers without the Potter legend). And we are all the richer for it.
Posted by: werewife, princess of Delray Beach at January 22, 2023 10:06 AM (SPNTN)


She did want to see if she could write detective novels that could stand on their own and whose reception would not be influenced, for better or worse, by Casual Vacancy or Harry Potter.

When Cuckoo's Calling was doing well, and people wondered who Galbraith was, she was outed by a young lawyer at her law firm leaked to his sister-in-law who Robert Galbraith was, and SIL posted on internet.

Posted by: Wethal at January 22, 2023 10:56 AM (NufIr)

287 Thanks for the thread, Perfessor. Gotta go.
Posted by: OrangeEnt

Poop ?

Posted by: JT at January 22, 2023 10:07 AM (T4tVD)

In a bucket, then I have to take it outside. Hope I don't spill it.

Wife to work.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 22, 2023 10:57 AM (Angsy)

288 There is a German author named Alexander Unzicker who has written 4 books on the subject of how broken physics is. I have been meaning to email you on his works so they could be featured here but have been too busy. Perhaps I'll finally do that this week.
Posted by: Sharkman at January 22, 2023 10:55 AM (WcT8C)
---
That would be great for a Book Thread topic! Please send me that list!

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at January 22, 2023 10:58 AM (BpYfr)

289 >>> 179
==
What I've found most interesting so far is that he actually has some sympathy for the Know-Nothings: yeah, he says, there was a lot of mere bigotry, but the Irish and Germans sometimes brought it on themselves. Couldn't say something like that today.
Posted by: Dr. T at January 22, 2023 10:07 AM (tp+tP)

While it was ugly in some ways and there were individuals who got screwed disproportionately, I think we have lost far more by not aggressively demanding the assimilation of various immigrant groups. (this is a one sentence summary of my fuzzy thinking on the topic...)

Posted by: Helena Handbasket at January 22, 2023 11:00 AM (llON8)

290 As for non-fiction, I have a copy of David McCollough's Harry Truman biography. I really like McCollough, but it's a hefty book, 900 pages. So I have not yet pulled the trigger.

Posted by: Pug Mahon, Gen X Ne'er-Do-Well at January 22, 2023 11:01 AM (UQUAY)

291 I couldn't do that.
Posted by: BurtTC at January 22, 2023 10:53 AM (QBaJw)

Me neither when they stand for something dreadful. But some of the authors I like, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and Stenbeck, even, had messy personal lives and I still read them. I'd say, out of those three, Fitzgerald wrote fictional accounts of the ill effects of his party days, which is a good thing. Babylon Revisited shows what a disaster you can make of your life and the difficulty in regaining what you lost while having what you thought was a good time.

Posted by: CN at January 22, 2023 11:01 AM (Zzbjj)

292 >>> 185
==
It's 360 pages, so not too much of a lift, just a nice concise overview of China's approach to war over the ages.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 22, 2023 10:05 AM (llXky)
---
Hmm...4500 years of Chinese history told over 360 pages? That works out to about 12 years per page...I'm guessing you are only hitting the *important* points....
Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at January 22, 2023 10:10 AM (BpYfr)

No Math!!!

Posted by: Helena Handbasket at January 22, 2023 11:02 AM (llON8)

293 This country was founded by god. Believing people, etc.
Posted by: ZOD

But apparently Satan has sub leased the property.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter 2023 at January 22, 2023 11:03 AM (FVME7)

294 Just finished a Margaret Fuller biography (feminist, socialist, transcendentalist) by Megan Marshall. Ten years ago, you couldn't have paid me to read a book about her or those in her circle, but I'm glad I read it. Fascinating woman who did a lot to move women forward, in my opinion.

Now, I've started a biography about Alexander von Humboldt (who I will admit I had never heard of before reading books about Thomas Jefferson). The author, Andrea Wulf, also wrote Founding Gardeners and Brother Gardeners, both fabulous. She has a wonderful writing style that makes it almost seem you are reading novels instead of textbook bios. She really immerses herself in their lives while researching for her books, and I would love to read HER bio some day.

Anyway, I am not too far in, but like so many of these early explorer/scientist/leaders this is going to be another great read. It's really enjoyable to read bios on various greats who were personally connected in some way back in their time. Full circle sort of thing.

Posted by: Bonnie Blue - says Grow your own food at January 22, 2023 11:03 AM (Ol0xY)

295 might be thinking same thing, Quacker Oats, Chock full of nuts and bolts coffee
Posted by: Skip at January 22, 2023 10:32 AM (xhxe

That’s it. We would put them on our notebooks and the teachers would make us remove them.

Posted by: RetSgtRN at January 22, 2023 11:03 AM (RqUF/)

296 Me neither when they stand for something dreadful. But some of the authors I like, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and Stenbeck, even, had messy personal lives and I still read them. I'd say, out of those three, Fitzgerald wrote fictional accounts of the ill effects of his party days, which is a good thing. Babylon Revisited shows what a disaster you can make of your life and the difficulty in regaining what you lost while having what you thought was a good time.
Posted by: CN at January 22, 2023 11:01 AM (Zzbjj)

Exactly, I don't expect you to be perfectly aligned with me, just don't be a monster.

Posted by: BurtTC at January 22, 2023 11:04 AM (QBaJw)

297 228 Relevant to the notion of occultism and intelligence agencies: this past week I've been re-reading Tim Powers's masterpiece _Declare_, about the secret occult war between the British and Russian secret services. He mines all the real connections between spying and occult foolishness for all they're worth, and of course in this book it's all true.

***

Trimegistus & kindletot both like this?
*puts on hold list*

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at January 22, 2023 11:05 AM (BtmcP)

298 We had the small CA grandkids here last week, but they were too wired from traveling to sit and hear a book, so I had to forego my favorite parental pastime.
(sad emoji)

Posted by: sal: tolle adversarium et afflige inimicum at January 22, 2023 10:21 AM (wE246)

You couldn't find some yard work for them to do? I find if you do that, suddenly tiredness appears.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 22, 2023 11:05 AM (Angsy)

299 A beautiful morning here. Clear blue sky, bright sun, blinding white snow, 20 degrees.

And I am in a good mood.

*whistles Andy Griffith theme while going to get coffee*

Posted by: Pug Mahon, Gen X Ne'er-Do-Well at January 22, 2023 11:05 AM (UQUAY)

300 That would be great for a Book Thread topic! Please send me that list!

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel



Will do. I also have an Alastair Reynolds Revelation Space email to send you. Better get to work!

Posted by: Sharkman at January 22, 2023 11:05 AM (WcT8C)

301 Posted by: Notsothoreau at January 22, 2023 10:37 AM (4IUUf)

I have several spindles, but using them messes up my thumb quickly, so wheels are the only way for me to get enough yarn to use.

Posted by: Polliwog the 'Ette at January 22, 2023 11:06 AM (nC+QA)

302 65 Hi Perfessor, I have a recommendation for an old sci-fi novel that has particular relevance these days. In "The Languages of Pao" by Jack Vance,

Will have to find this. I like Vance

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at January 22, 2023 11:06 AM (BtmcP)

303 I've read Lafferty's "Seven Day Terror" to middle-school audiences a couple of times, and it always went over well -- really funny stuff, though a couple of references probably went right by 'em. His "Primary Education of the Camiroi" is a delight and I suspect it would appeal to most members of the Horde.

There's a "Best of R. A. Lafferty" collection available paper or Kindle, and like NINE HUNDRED GRANDMOTHERS of PAST MASTER, it's a nice starting place for his work.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at January 22, 2023 11:07 AM (a/4+U)

304 Will Riker and Deanna Troi as an older married couple.
-
Yeah, right. Like Riker was a forsaking all others kind of guy.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter 2023 at January 22, 2023


***
Well, y'know, when you get older and more settled. . . .

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 22, 2023 11:08 AM (omVj0)

305 Sarah has a much different tone than Larry in writing, and I hope she stays the voice of Julie Shackleton, it is a very nice variation in the series.
Posted by: Kindltot at January 22, 2023 10:55 AM (xhaym)
---------

I'm of the opinion Larry brought in Sarah because he wanted a female writer involved in fleshing out a main female character.

Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing(1EFfL) at January 22, 2023 11:08 AM (1EFfL)

306 I'm of the opinion Larry brought in Sarah because he wanted a female writer involved in fleshing out a main female character.
Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing(1EFfL) at January 22, 2023 11:08 AM (1EFfL)
---
That was my take as well. She did a good job of viewing MHI from Julie's perspective.

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at January 22, 2023 11:09 AM (BpYfr)

307 Avatar, The Dirt I'm Buried In
https://youtu.be/8JPtxtSK-Cs

Audioslave vibes

I've switched out one 40K novel for another, Ciaphas Cain for Eisenhorn. Eisenhorn was advertised as Bond-esque, though in a wildly different universe, but Cain seems to be that for different reasons. Eisenhorn is an investigator and spy, while Cain is more of a blunt-force tool who loves his vices of drink and women. Both are officers with almost limitless authority, but travel with small teams for the purpose of finding thing.

4th wall fun: Cain is a story told by an amateur historian who adores the hero, and is interrupted by an "editor" who attempts to pour cold water on his fandom. She succeeds in warning about the author but fails to diminish the main character, who is slyly self-effacing, in a mixture of total honesty and blithe dismissal.

Posted by: BourbonChicken at January 22, 2023 11:10 AM (ybIRR)

308 Yo Perfessor!! Happy to report success on my attempt to re-engage with book reading this week. I set out to read 1 chapter or approx 10-15 pages of a book each day over the past week. Reading Elmore Leonard "City Primeval - High Noon in Detroit". It is the inspiration for an upcoming Justified sequel mini-series. Book is 31 chapters / 336 pages. Thanks to your (and other Hordelings) suggestions, I have made it through 10 chapters / 115 pages. I look forward to the bite sized chunks of daily reading. Appreciate the encouragement!

Posted by: Doof at January 22, 2023 11:10 AM (yUjc0)

309 That was my take as well. She did a good job of viewing MHI from Julie's perspective.
Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at January 22, 2023 11:09 AM (BpYfr)
----------

It probably didn't hurt he and Sarah are like minded, politically.

Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing(1EFfL) at January 22, 2023 11:11 AM (1EFfL)

310 That was my take as well. She did a good job of viewing MHI from Julie's perspective.
Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at January 22, 2023 11:09 AM (BpYfr)
---------

Oh, and, agreed.

Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing(1EFfL) at January 22, 2023 11:11 AM (1EFfL)

311 These younger people are willing to live in a place without modern plumbing, and they think it's good! For centuries since the fall of Rome people have had to crap in a bucket. We now have indoor flush toilets, and these dummies willingly go back to doing their business in a bucket then have to dispose of it. I keep hoping that one day they spill it all over the place and learn something....
Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 22, 2023 09:12 AM (Angsy)

I'm old and would like to have a composting toilet! Actually a bucket that would be emptied to make humanure. There are many off-gridders that do just this and fertilize trees etc with the compost. Nothing wrong with it at all (provided you aren't on a cupboard full of drugs)

Posted by: Bonnie Blue - says Grow your own food at January 22, 2023 11:11 AM (Ol0xY)

312 Yeah, right. Like Riker was a forsaking all others kind of guy.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks,

Otoh it's not like he can cheat on Troi without her sensing it right away

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at January 22, 2023 11:12 AM (BtmcP)

313 I look forward to the bite sized chunks of daily reading. Appreciate the encouragement!
Posted by: Doof at January 22, 2023 11:10 AM (yUjc0)

Great news, Doof! I hope you continue to enjoy it.

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at January 22, 2023 11:13 AM (OX9vb)

314 I've never torched a book. But somewhere in a landfill is a copy of "Gatsby".

Posted by: creeper at January 22, 2023 11:13 AM (cTCuP)

315 312 Yeah, right. Like Riker was a forsaking all others kind of guy.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks,

Otoh it's not like he can cheat on Troi without her sensing it right away
Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at January 22, 2023


***
Plus I think they were the only people on a good-sized part of the planet.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 22, 2023 11:14 AM (omVj0)

316 Re the Big Bang, there is now an alleged physicist named Lawrence Krause, who is an haughty, arrogant prick of a man, who says that maths require that the universe created itself spontaneously out of nothing.

He's so arrogant that he'll call a Christian a mentally-ill fabulist without seeming to realize he's done nothing but create a wholly unsupported creation myth himself.

He also has a very punchable face. A backpfeifengesicht, if you will.
Posted by: Sharkman at January 22, 2023 10:11 AM (WcT8C)


Well...he appears smart enough to realize that "The First Cause" is the major weakness of all Big Bang and other current theory.

Bu-u-u-u-ut, like a toddler with the Terrible Twos he's simply denying that there is or even can be a "First Cause". He still has to explain why nothing suddenly became something and didn't remain nothing.

"I don't want it, so it isn't." sums up his view, which is like the polar opposite of science and scientific thought.

Posted by: naturalfake at January 22, 2023 11:14 AM (KLPy8)

317 I seem to have 'lost' my notebook

-
I've noticed that as I dive deeper into 29, I'm beginning to have word finding problems. Particularly noticeable regarding proper names but also when I'm trying to remember that perfect word for some situation.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter 2023 at January 22, 2023 11:14 AM (FVME7)

318 That was my take as well. She did a good job of viewing MHI from Julie's perspective.
Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at January 22, 2023 11:09 AM (BpYfr)

She managed to make Mr. Trash Bags adorable! Loved that

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at January 22, 2023 11:15 AM (BtmcP)

319 Haha, creeper. I've never torched one, either, but several have found their way to the trash. Some books should not even be donated/inflicted upon others.

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at January 22, 2023 11:15 AM (OX9vb)

320 296. I did get a used copy and read Schwab's Fourth Industrial Revolution, and I do see Schwab as a monster. "Know thy enemy" has not survived for no reason. A regular theme in that book, helped me to identify Wray as a true believer and not just as a curious presenter at the WEF. He borrowed Schwab's style, or used prepared talking points, I assume the former.

Posted by: CN at January 22, 2023 11:15 AM (Zzbjj)

321 >>> 306 I'm of the opinion Larry brought in Sarah because he wanted a female writer involved in fleshing out a main female character.
Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing(1EFfL) at January 22, 2023 11:08 AM (1EFfL)
---
That was my take as well. She did a good job of viewing MHI from Julie's perspective.
Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at January 22, 2023 11:09 AM (BpYfr)

I enjoyed that one, especially since the previous entry in the series seemed to drag towards the end. You can tell she had fun writing it (see the name of the Portuguese government um, spiritual investigation agency).

Posted by: Helena Handbasket at January 22, 2023 11:15 AM (llON8)

322 Time to cook the dog food. Have a lovely day, horde!

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at January 22, 2023 11:16 AM (OX9vb)

323 She managed to make Mr. Trash Bags adorable! Loved that
Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at January 22, 2023 11:15 AM (BtmcP)
----------

yeah, that was great. And, it was in keeping with the humor of the series.

Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing(1EFfL) at January 22, 2023 11:17 AM (1EFfL)

324 These younger people are willing to live in a place without modern plumbing, and they think it's good! For centuries since the fall of Rome people have had to crap in a bucket. We now have indoor flush toilets, and these dummies willingly go back to doing their business in a bucket then have to dispose of it. I keep hoping that one day they spill it all over the place and learn something....
Posted by: OrangeEnt

Considering the sewers of Rome and how after the fall everyone went back to pooping on the ground, I thought, "Boy! Am I glad that could never happen to us!" Then I thought of San Francisco, LA . . .

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter 2023 at January 22, 2023 11:21 AM (FVME7)

325 I need to reread MHI Bloodlines
Heck I need to reread the whole series

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at January 22, 2023 11:23 AM (BtmcP)

326 Life for 99% of us is going to be boring, banal, unexciting, devoid of the experiences we want, devoid of the achievements we want, devoid of the fulfillment we want, and without any means of changing it. So books, movies, any form of escapism are what many turn to in order to cope. And there is nothing wrong with that.

Posted by: Books are as good a thing as any with which to try to fill the bottomless void within at January 22, 2023 11:23 AM (s2na+)

327 254 On deck is Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun series. It's been a very long since I read those, and as a youth I kind of struggled with his prose, but his story was so compelling that I made it through after a few fits and starts. After thumbing through it the other night I saw that I will likely enjoy Wolf's style more now that I am an old man.
Posted by: Pug Mahon, Gen X Ne'er-Do-Well at January 22, 2023 10:42 AM (UQUAY)


I envy you the rediscovery. That series is one of my favorite things, an extraordinary creation. It rewards re-reading, and I re-read it about every two years, finding new things to delight in each time.

Posted by: Splunge at January 22, 2023 11:24 AM (2Nn0L)

328 Revisiting some Jonathan Carroll; his new one, MR BREAKFAST, finally came out in English last week (it's been out in Polish and Italian for a couple of years).
Posted by: Just Some Guy at January 22, 2023


I'm convinced that Jonathon Carrol is the Chinese Food of Writers.

I enjoy his books while I'm reading them, but an hour after I finish, I've forgotten all about it.*

About the only one that's stuck with me is "Kissing the Beehive".


* This may be a very slight exaggeration.

Posted by: naturalfake at January 22, 2023 11:25 AM (KLPy8)

329 I completed The Jungle Book, which somehow I never managed to read before, and am in the middle of Kim. I had tried to read Kim before, but somehow couldn't get into it. I think reading the easier book first paved the way for the more challenging one.

Posted by: Splunge at January 22, 2023 11:26 AM (2Nn0L)

330 Considering the sewers of Rome and how after the fall everyone went back to pooping on the ground, I thought, "Boy! Am I glad that could never happen to us!" Then I thought of San Francisco, LA . . .
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter 2023 at January 22, 2023 11:21 AM (FVME7)

I don't mind if the feral population want to poop here and there, but why do they insist on throwing their used plastic tooth flossers all over the place.

They have regained the number one spot over used masks in the parking lots in my AO.

Rinse them and reuse like civilized folks!

Posted by: Hairyback Guy at January 22, 2023 11:26 AM (R/m4+)

331 This country was founded by god believing people when we went away from that, here he are
Posted by: No 6 at January 22, 2023 09:55 AM (PXvVL)


Our country was founded by people who when faced with things like "My Obligation" prided themselves that it was an obligation to be resolved, and not on the "my" part, like a lot of South America.

To paraphrase Reagan, it is the difference between being the person who is responsible for a solution, and being the person who actually solves the problem

Posted by: Kindltot at January 22, 2023 11:27 AM (xhaym)

332
I've about convinced myself to tackle the "Book of the New Sun" again.

It's a great story and a great read.

I do wish I had a large, classy, hardbound set of the four novels like the Folio Society produces. Cuz this book deserves that kind of presentation.

However, the lovely and decisive Mrs naturalfake would instantly saw my head off with a rusty pork and beans can lid if I spent that kind of money on books available for the Kindle.

Posted by: naturalfake at January 22, 2023 11:29 AM (KLPy8)

333 Naturalfake --

I've found over the last few years that a LOT of books are Chinese food to me. Bits and pieces stay, but not the whole -- I'll remember, yeah, I enjoyed the hell out of that, but I won't have many details. Not the case with everything, but far more frequent than I like.

Was it Forster who said it's not so bad having the memory get twitchy because you could re-read old favorites with the same enjoyment?

Posted by: Just Some Guy at January 22, 2023 11:29 AM (a/4+U)

334 Well someone shot 20 people at a Chinese New Year party last night in Los Angeles. Suspect is still at large, but police refuse to give a description. But don't worry, Brandon has been briefed and he directed the FIB to "assist".

Posted by: Word to your mother at January 22, 2023 11:29 AM (3uf3+)

335 I had tried to read Kim before, but somehow couldn't get into it. I think reading the easier book first paved the way for the more challenging one.
Posted by: Splunge at January 22, 2023 11:26 AM (2Nn0L)

"Kim" was the first Kipling novel I read. A lot going on, but he painted a rich, robust, colorful, loud, often smelly picture. Loved reading it.

Posted by: Pug Mahon, Gen X Ne'er-Do-Well at January 22, 2023 11:30 AM (UQUAY)

336 4th wall fun: Cain is a story told by an amateur historian who adores the hero, and is interrupted by an "editor" who attempts to pour cold water on his fandom. She succeeds in warning about the author but fails to diminish the main character, who is slyly self-effacing, in a mixture of total honesty and blithe dismissal.

Posted by: BourbonChicken at January 22, 2023 11:10 AM (ybIRR)

I wonder how often things like that happen? I don't ever remember someone from "outside" the story appearing in it. Though, Clarence Mulford did it in the current Hopalong story I'm reading. Maybe I just never noticed before.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 22, 2023 11:30 AM (Angsy)

337 "In Sunlight and in Shadow"

-
Mrs. Wrecks was excited about attending a Robert Burns celebration at some local business we weren't familiar with but then we looked it up and it's a cigar store! So that's out the window.

P.S. Scottish, Irish, what's the difference?

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter 2023 at January 22, 2023 11:31 AM (FVME7)

338 317. Noticing that, too, on occasion. Tiredness, a lot of noise contribute.

Posted by: Lola at January 22, 2023 11:31 AM (p39Z2)

339 Jumping back in for a few minutes.
Andrew Child changed the character of Reacher in a negative way. Before, he was always the good guy so even if he beat someone up, they were the bad guys and they survived. Now he is borderline bad guy and doesn't mind killing people. The mayhem is more important than the mystery he is trying to solve. The honorable retired military hero is gone replaced by a thug.
Sorry, not the same Reacher.

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at January 22, 2023 11:32 AM (Y+l9t)

340 Posted by: Books are as good a thing as any with which to try to fill the bottomless void within at January 22, 2023 11:23 AM (s2na+)

I have very mixed opinions on this. Yeah, books and movies provide distraction from day to day life and from our "boring" existence, but if they cement dissatisfaction with your life to the point that you do not enjoy the positives of your "boring" life and see fulfillment as comprised only of grand achievements or adventures, they're harmful.

Posted by: CN at January 22, 2023 11:32 AM (Zzbjj)

341 Was it Forster who said it's not so bad having the memory get twitchy because you could re-read old favorites with the same enjoyment?
Posted by: Just Some Guy at January 22, 2023 11:29 AM (a/4+U)

I guess I'm lucky that I've always easily forgotten details

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at January 22, 2023 11:33 AM (BtmcP)

342 Good morning!

What's a "claos" (from the poem)?
I didn't find anything on line, and am too lazy to go get the old dictionary off the shelf.

Posted by: Flyover at January 22, 2023 11:33 AM (Rbu5d)

343 Been reading a book series of mysteries set in Roman England, during the reign of Trajan. The main character is a Greek engineer and he has the backing of a Roman Centurion. They are by John Drake and start with Death in Londinium, quite well written.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at January 22, 2023 11:34 AM (0hOvj)

344 Any reds for a book dealing with passive aggressive behaviors - that I dont need a PhD to grasp?

Posted by: Indignacio Vindacatorem at January 22, 2023 11:34 AM (oWBc3)

345 Recs

Posted by: Indignacio Vindacatorem at January 22, 2023 11:35 AM (oWBc3)

346 I'm old and would like to have a composting toilet! Actually a bucket that would be emptied to make humanure. There are many off-gridders that do just this and fertilize trees etc with the compost. Nothing wrong with it at all (provided you aren't on a cupboard full of drugs)

Posted by: Bonnie Blue - says Grow your own food at January 22, 2023 11:11 AM (Ol0xY)

Feel free, but I don't like the attitude from them that it's better than modern plumbing. I don't even mind the tiny house idea, though I wouldn't think putting a family of five in a 500 sq ft house is a good idea. I don't think human waste fertilizer is a very good idea. Ever buy Thailand grown rice? It has a waste odor. I buy US grown rice because it doesn't.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 22, 2023 11:36 AM (Angsy)

347 PSA: Don't assume that memory problems are age related. They are often caused by deficiencies in nutrition, specially iron, and thyroid issues or other medical issues (including infections like UTIs)

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at January 22, 2023 11:36 AM (BtmcP)

348 Genes were discovered by a monk and the Big Bang was first postulated by a priest.

Yep, can't trust those religious folks, trust SCIENCE!
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 22, 2023 09:33 AM (llXky

There is the story of a French student of science thinking he has converted an older man on a train from praying tge Rosary to worshipping science, and agreeing to receive some literature. The old man gives the student his card.

The name on the card is Louis Pasteur.

Posted by: Fox2! at January 22, 2023 11:36 AM (CUTlH)

349 332
I've about convinced myself to tackle the "Book of the New Sun" again.

It's a great story and a great read.

I do wish I had a large, classy, hardbound set of the four novels like the Folio Society produces. Cuz this book deserves that kind of presentation.
Posted by: naturalfake at January 22, 2023 11:29 AM (KLPy


FWIW there are 5 novels. Wolfe wrote a follow-on, and it is worthy.

Posted by: Splunge at January 22, 2023 11:36 AM (2Nn0L)

350 You couldn't find some yard work for them to do? I find if you do that, suddenly tiredness appears.
Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 22, 2023 11:05 AM (Angsy)

They're very small (4 and almost 2). Plus, thanks to distance and the lockdowns we have to realize that we are virtually strangers to them.

Posted by: sal: tolle adversarium et afflige inimicum at January 22, 2023 11:37 AM (wE246)

351 344 Any recs for a book dealing with passive aggressive behaviors - that I dont need a PhD to grasp?
Posted by: Indignacio Vindacatorem at January 22, 2023 11:34 AM (oWBc3)

Anything over 5lbs should do.

Posted by: Word to your mother at January 22, 2023 11:37 AM (3uf3+)

352 Good morning!

Let's smile & be happy & strike fear in the hearts of killjoy leftists everywhere.

Snow delayed me.

Posted by: NaCly Dog (u82oZ) at January 22, 2023 11:37 AM (u82oZ)

353 there is now an alleged physicist named Lawrence Krause, who is an haughty, arrogant prick of a man, who says that maths require that the universe created itself spontaneously out of nothing.

Hawking's entire body of work led to that, it was his magnum opus: everything came out of nothing... slowly. Which is a ludicrous violation of science, common sense, and logic but as NaturalFake notes, what choice do they have? There is absolutely no evidence for an eternal universe, and the more they study the universe the more impossible the "cyclic" big bang/collapse theory becomes.

And the obvious answer staring them in the face they reject before even starting the discussion.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at January 22, 2023 11:38 AM (0hOvj)

354 I've noticed that as I dive deeper into 29, I'm beginning to have word finding problems. Particularly noticeable regarding proper names but also when I'm trying to remember that perfect word for some situation.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter 2023 at January 22, 2023 11:14 AM (FVME7)

That's happening with increasing frequency for me. Even if I've just used the word a minute ago.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 22, 2023 11:38 AM (Angsy)

355 After last week's (I think) book thread, I picked up a copy of "The House of Silk", a Sherlock Holmes story by Horowitz. So far, Horowitz has caught the feel of Doyle's writing and I'm enjoying it. The one thing I have to adjust to is that this is a full length novel, not a short story. This slows the pace of narration compared to the original magazine pieces. It's not bad, just different and takes getting used to.
Posted by: JTB

One of my favorite authors and my favorite non Conan Doyle Holmes book.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter 2023 at January 22, 2023 11:38 AM (FVME7)

356 Ever buy Thailand grown rice? It has a waste odor.
Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 22, 2023 11:36 AM (Angsy)

It's fine. The arsenic kills all the germs

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at January 22, 2023 11:39 AM (BtmcP)

357 my favorite non Conan Doyle Holmes book.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks

It's an amazing accomplishment of Doyle's - to create a character so iconic and well-loved that he is immortal and continues to be resurrected.

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at January 22, 2023 11:44 AM (BtmcP)

358 Thanks to the Perfessor and all of you for another fascinating Book Thread!

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 22, 2023 11:45 AM (omVj0)

359 re-read them Stabby!!!...

Posted by: Qmark at January 22, 2023 11:45 AM (ttO/Q)

360 P.S. Scottish, Irish, what's the difference?

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter 2023 at January 22, 2023 11:31 AM (FVME7)

They'll let you know.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 22, 2023 11:46 AM (Angsy)

361 Yeah, Doyle created several really memorable characters but Sherlock Holmes was a genuinely new character, a genuinely new concept. That doesn't happen very often in literature or any other entertainment and its always amazing when it does.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at January 22, 2023 11:46 AM (0hOvj)

362 Ever buy Thailand grown rice? It has a waste odor.
Posted by: OrangeEnt

So, it smells like poop ?

Is there a discount ?

Posted by: JT at January 22, 2023 11:47 AM (T4tVD)

363 359 re-read them Stabby!!!...
Posted by: Qmark

I'll take a stab at them

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at January 22, 2023 11:47 AM (BtmcP)

364 over 350 posts!!! def a stay inside laptop open type of morning

Posted by: Qmark at January 22, 2023 11:48 AM (ttO/Q)

365 Kindltot: Actually, I think it's Powers's exhaustive research plus conspiracy theorizing that makes his books so good. When you read Declare, nothing in it is contradicted by the known life of Kim Philby. It all could have happened . . .
Posted by: Trimegistus at January 22, 2023 10:41 AM (QZxDR)


I love his early stuff, but when he goes into the Fisher King phase, everything supports the main premise, there is nothing included that doesn't fit.
Real life isn't like that, dumb stuff happens because someone forgot a book, or they had to go back and get sunglasses, or they misunderstood what was going on.

Declare had extraneous things in it, partially due to infighting between cliques, but it still seemed hermetically sealed within its own world and facts, not participating in the larger world. Which could be the point, but I didn't enjoy it much.

Posted by: Kindltot at January 22, 2023 11:48 AM (xhaym)

366 Have a good one, gang.

Thanks for the thread, Perfessor.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at January 22, 2023 11:48 AM (a/4+U)

367 I've noticed that as I dive deeper into 29, I'm beginning to have word finding problems. Particularly noticeable regarding proper names but also when I'm trying to remember that perfect word for some situation.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks,

That's happening with increasing frequency for me. Even if I've just used the word a minute ago.

++++
I find I can picture a person I just saw in a movie but can't remember their name. Or the title of a book I just finished or the name of a character. Thanks to Google, the fact that I have no more space left in my personal computer is not a problem.

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at January 22, 2023 11:49 AM (Y+l9t)

368 348: Posterity will one day laugh at the foolishness of modern materialistic philosophers. The more I study nature, the more I stand amazed at the work of the Creator. I pray while I am engaged at my work in the laboratory.

Seems the student failed.

Posted by: CN at January 22, 2023 11:50 AM (Zzbjj)

369 fritzie urquhart@fritzie4art
Hi Folks, Ron DeSantis here: Florida high school students are now
prohibited from reading about Sydney Portier, Ray Charles, Jackie Robinson, Michael Irvin, Muhammad Ali, Esther Rolle, Bo Diddley, Martin Luther King, Frederick Douglas or Rosa Parks: Black people born in Florida.

-
Whoa! I had no idea it was illegal to read about black people in Florida.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter 2023 at January 22, 2023 11:51 AM (FVME7)

370 Thanks Perfessor.
Off to VA to exercise the 2A rights that MD prohibits.
Have a great day everyone!

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at January 22, 2023 11:51 AM (Y+l9t)

371 317 I seem to have 'lost' my notebook

-
I've noticed that as I dive deeper into 29, I'm beginning to have word finding problems. Particularly noticeable regarding proper names but also when I'm trying to remember that perfect word for some situation.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter 2023 at January 22, 2023 11:14 AM (FVME7)

I think having a large vocabulary in the first place is a hindrance in this regard.

Posted by: sal: tolle adversarium et afflige inimicum at January 22, 2023 11:51 AM (wE246)

372 So, it smells like poop ?

Is there a discount ?

Posted by: JT at January 22, 2023 11:47 AM (T4tVD)

Yep, JT. No discount, but they let you keep the bucket....

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 22, 2023 11:52 AM (Angsy)

373 369 Fritzie is FOS.

Posted by: CN at January 22, 2023 11:52 AM (Zzbjj)

374 The more I study nature, the more I stand amazed at the work of the Creator.

-
Proof of God is either everywhere you look or nowhere.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter 2023 at January 22, 2023 11:52 AM (FVME7)

375 Hi Folks, Ron DeSantis here: Florida high school students are now
prohibited from reading about Sydney Portier, Ray Charles, Jackie Robinson, Michael Irvin, Muhammad Ali, Esther Rolle, Bo Diddley, Martin Luther King, Frederick Douglas or Rosa Parks: Black people born in Florida.


Honest Injun ?

Posted by: JT at January 22, 2023 11:53 AM (T4tVD)

376 Maryland-based Alexander Historical Auctions told Secrets on Thursday that in its upcoming auction is Hitler’s 1926 tax return. It showed little return from the book that at the time had sold fewer than 10,000 copies.

.. I seem to recall a few recent books selling less than 10,000 copies

Posted by: SMOD at January 22, 2023 11:55 AM (txTza)

377 We buy rice from Costco and it has never smelled poopy. Although right now our rice is from India and Japan, but we've bought Thai rice before.
The Indian rice smells dryer and older imo. Dunno if that's because of their origin or because they are different varieties of rice.

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at January 22, 2023 11:56 AM (BtmcP)

378 What's a "claos" (from the poem)?

********

Claos is a misprint. There are text versions of the poem online and she is "wearing the cloak..."

Posted by: Muldoon at January 22, 2023 11:56 AM (ykeLU)

379 I've noticed that as I dive deeper into 29, I'm beginning to have word finding problems. Particularly noticeable regarding proper names but also when I'm trying to remember that perfect word for some situation.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter 2023 at January 22, 2023 11:14 AM (FVME7)

That's happening with increasing frequency for me. Even if I've just used the word a minute ago.
Posted by: OrangeEnt
------------
Welcome to the 30's. Happens to me all of the time. I grope for the word that I want to use, or to recall a name, and so on. Damned frustrating, it is.

My theory (OK, rationalization) is that we have so loaded our memory with gradually accumulated stuff that it takes longer and longer to access what we are seeking. My BIL says, 'There's nothing wrong with my memory, it's my recollection that is having problems.'

Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc. at January 22, 2023 11:56 AM (uUKp3)

380 We get some weird trolls on some threads.

The stupid part goes without saying...oh, wait..

Great thread, perfessor, glad I was in a position to participate.

Later!

Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing(1EFfL) at January 22, 2023 11:56 AM (1EFfL)

381 A couple of weeks ago we had an ONT discussion on the US Army vs. the Red Army in 1945.

I made assertions that US rifle companies were understrength, the soldiers wanted to go home, and our strengths in artillery, airpower, atomic weapons, and logistics were not enough for a quick, decisive victory.

So I pulled There's a War to Be Won: The United States Army in World War II off one of my military bookshelves, and dug in.

This is a sound and broad overview of the development and growth of the US Army during the 1930's and 40's, as well as its remarkable combat performance during the war. Consider that in the late 1930's the army consisted of 100,000 very poorly equipped soldiers led by junior officers who had little hope of promotion past the rank of captain. Craig & Marshall changed that. If only such men and women were in the Pentagon now.

This is a warts and all book on planning, operational execution, and the courage and tenacity of the American soldier.
General Marshal gets a lot of the credit, and knowing Marshal was vital to an officer's career. He made mistakes, but overcame them.

I recommend this. My assertions were mostly true.

Posted by: NaCly Dog (u82oZ) at January 22, 2023 11:56 AM (u82oZ)

382 I find I can picture a person I just saw in a movie but can't remember their name. Or the title of a book I just finished or the name of a character. Thanks to Google, the fact that I have no more space left in my personal computer is not a problem.

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at January 22, 2023 11:49 AM (Y+l9t)

I try to figure it out first before looking for info. Mostly though it happens when I'm talking to someone about something and there's no way to look it up. Thank goodness the word thingamabob or you know, the thing, exists....

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 22, 2023 11:56 AM (Angsy)

383 I am with Sal, million words stuffed into my brain it's getting crowded in there

Posted by: Skip at January 22, 2023 11:56 AM (xhxe8)

384 Real life isn't like that, dumb stuff happens because someone forgot a book, or they had to go back and get sunglasses, or they misunderstood what was going on.
Posted by: Kindltot at January 22, 2023 11:48 AM (xhaym)

At the end of "Dead Wake" about the sinking of the Lusitania, Larson examines a longish list of "What ifs?"
of exactly that sort. B/c real life.

Posted by: sal: tolle adversarium et afflige inimicum at January 22, 2023 11:57 AM (wE246)

385 Claos is a misprint.

******

Oops. I see I'm late to the party and this has been answered up thread. Disregard.

Posted by: Muldoon at January 22, 2023 11:58 AM (ykeLU)

386 There's a War to Be Won: The United States Army in World War II by Geoffrey Perret.

Lots of insights tucked into the text.

Posted by: NaCly Dog (u82oZ) at January 22, 2023 11:58 AM (u82oZ)

387 Libs of TikTok@libsoftiktok
CNN’s guest suggests we shouldn’t use the word “violent” to describe the Antifa riots in Atlanta tonight.
Antifa is currently destroying buildings and setting police cars on fire.

-
I may be having word finding problems but this guy is having word suppression problems.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter 2023 at January 22, 2023 11:58 AM (FVME7)

388 And find greasy food is the bain of a touch screen

Posted by: Skip at January 22, 2023 11:58 AM (xhxe8)

389 I am back to re-reading Vince Flynn's(not Kyle) Mitch Rapp series. You can learn a lot about how corrupt D.C. is through this fictional work.

Posted by: Danimal28 at January 22, 2023 11:59 AM (ryUqI)

390 >>> 346 I'm old and would like to have a composting toilet! Actually a bucket that would be emptied to make humanure. There are many off-gridders that do just this and fertilize trees etc with the compost. Nothing wrong with it at all (provided you aren't on a cupboard full of drugs)

Posted by: Bonnie Blue - says Grow your own food at January 22, 2023 11:11 AM (Ol0xY)

Feel free, but I don't like the attitude from them that it's better than modern plumbing. I don't even mind the tiny house idea, though I wouldn't think putting a family of five in a 500 sq ft house is a good idea. I don't think human waste fertilizer is a very good idea. Ever buy Thailand grown rice? It has a waste odor. I buy US grown rice because it doesn't.
Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 22, 2023 11:36 AM (Angsy)

I thought you were only supposed to feed *livestock* with whatever you grew with "night soil" (the Japanese term), similar to how we eat veggies grown with cow or chicken poop fertilizer.

Posted by: Helena Handbasket at January 22, 2023 11:59 AM (llON8)

391 I am with Sal, million words stuffed into my brain it's getting crowded in there
Posted by: Skip

Mebbe because HALF include breakfast !

Posted by: JT at January 22, 2023 11:59 AM (T4tVD)

392 I wonder how often things like that happen? I don't ever remember someone from "outside" the story appearing in it. Though, Clarence Mulford did it in the current Hopalong story I'm reading. Maybe I just never noticed before.
Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 22, 2023 11:30 AM (Angsy)

Cain continuously gives the most self-serving reasons for every heroic deed he does. I saw through it immediately, but maybe would not have if the "author" and "editor" were not at odds.

Glokta (another inquisitor) in Joe Abercrombie novels is amazing that he is both main characters in Les Miserable. I had him pegged at the start as a gruesome nemeses, but he seems to be building up to a Scrooge type redemption. The amount of regret and coping is incredible, but I am starting to enjoy a character that is such a pain to be around.

Posted by: BourbonChicken at January 22, 2023 12:00 PM (ybIRR)

393
I may be having word finding problems but this guy is having word suppression problems.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter 2023 at January 22, 2023 11:58 AM (FVME7)

Which word would he prefer? Violent seems to be very apt

Posted by: CN at January 22, 2023 12:00 PM (Zzbjj)

394 We buy rice from Costco and it has never smelled poopy. Although right now our rice is from India and Japan, but we've bought Thai rice before.
The Indian rice smells dryer and older imo. Dunno if that's because of their origin or because they are different varieties of rice.

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at January 22, 2023 11:56 AM (BtmcP)

I probably noticed the smell when the first wife bought it. It could just be because I never bought any rice except minute rice or rice a roni. Never did until marrying a Filipina.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 22, 2023 12:00 PM (Angsy)

395 Currently re-reading some good fantasy.

The Book of Silence is the fourth and final book in the The Lords of Dus series by Lawrence Watt-Evans. The series is well done.

Still holds up after lo these many years. Enjoyable mind candy.

Posted by: NaCly Dog (u82oZ) at January 22, 2023 12:01 PM (u82oZ)

396 We Haz a Nood

Posted by: Skip at January 22, 2023 12:02 PM (xhxe8)

397 COSTCO RICE
"It never smells poopy!"

Posted by: BourbonChicken at January 22, 2023 12:02 PM (ybIRR)

398 COSTCO RICE
"It never smells poopy!"
Posted by: BourbonChicken

I'm dying here

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at January 22, 2023 12:04 PM (BtmcP)

399 Thanks again for the thread, Perfessor. Gotta leave again.

(goes looking for a bucket)

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 22, 2023 12:04 PM (Angsy)

400 Atlanta is burning? I can assume only that it's the Ghost of General Sherman.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter 2023 at January 22, 2023 12:05 PM (FVME7)

401 397 COSTCO RICE
"It never smells poopy!"
Posted by: BourbonChicken
--------

We could probably compile a 'Faint Praise' list of memes.

'Go see this movie, it isn't terrible!'

'Try this drug, it isn't poison!'

Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc. at January 22, 2023 12:07 PM (gUQwJ)

402 We could probably compile a 'Faint Praise' list of memes.

'Go see this movie, it isn't terrible!'

'Try this drug, it isn't poison!'
Posted by: Mike Hammer

Read this book! It's got words!

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at January 22, 2023 12:14 PM (BtmcP)

403 "Or perhaps the government itself is acting upon the direction of *actual* occult forces..."

There was a time when I would have thought this preposterous. ...I've had a complete reversal of opinion, and now think it likely.
Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at January 22, 2023 09:32 AM (OX9vb)
---
Given that it's been openly published that they do "spirit cooking," this is no longer in dispute.

One of the great awakenings I've had over the past few years is that the ancient oracles were real. The pagan gods were real. No, they weren't actual gods, but they were spirits and they knew things that were helpful [or harmful] to mortals. The old "monotheist" conceit that God alone was real and everything else was a fever dream or "superstition" has been proven false.

The dark spirits are real, and they're gaining strength. Reponsd accordingly.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 22, 2023 09:41 AM (llXky)


St. Anthony of the Desert teaches us that the pagan gods are the fallen angels. That helps make sense of the occult. (I made a small addition to your comment)

Posted by: Retired Buckeye Cop is now an engineer at January 22, 2023 12:20 PM (pJWtt)

404 We are warned throughout the Bible to stay away from all things occult.

All things. All the time.

Specifically.

Posted by: weirdflunky at January 22, 2023 12:35 PM (cknjq)

405 Hawking's entire body of work led to that, it was his magnum opus: everything came out of nothing... slowly. Which is a ludicrous violation of science, common sense, and logic but as NaturalFake notes, what choice do they have? There is absolutely no evidence for an eternal universe, and the more they study the universe the more impossible the "cyclic" big bang/collapse theory becomes.

And the obvious answer staring them in the face they reject before even starting the discussion.
Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at January 22, 2023 11:38 AM (0hOvj)

The Webb telescope has already thrown water on the Big Bang. Instead of finding proto-galaxies 13 billion light years away, they're finding mature forms as often as they do much closer in time.

I think the Webb telescope is going to upset a lot of people.

Posted by: Pork Chops & Bacons at January 22, 2023 12:47 PM (BdMk6)

406 Thank you for acknowledging the gigantic elephant in the room called India .
Unbelievable that smug Tucker says British colonization was a ffffing blessing.

Posted by: Mitch in the kitchen at January 22, 2023 12:48 PM (zMYGS)

407 296. I did get a used copy and read Schwab's Fourth Industrial Revolution, and I do see Schwab as a monster. "Know thy enemy" has not survived for no reason. A regular theme in that book, helped me to identify Wray as a true believer and not just as a curious presenter at the WEF. He borrowed Schwab's style, or used prepared talking points, I assume the former.
Posted by: CN at January 22, 2023 11:15 AM (Zzbjj)


Having the current Director of the FBI, and former U.S. Senators giving talks at the WEF whore-a-thon is certainly a huge indicator of the magnitude of the problem: the U.S. government has been infiltrated by people with zero allegiance to the U.S. and, now, they feel confident in telling us so.

Posted by: Retired Buckeye Cop is now an engineer at January 22, 2023 12:54 PM (pJWtt)

408 Maryland-based Alexander Historical Auctions told Secrets on Thursday that in its upcoming auction is Hitler’s 1926 tax return. It showed little return from the book that at the time had sold fewer than 10,000 copies.

.. I seem to recall a few recent books selling less than 10,000 copies
Posted by: SMOD at January 22, 2023 11:55 AM (txTza)


Since Mein Kampf was published in 1925, selling 10,000 copies in about a year is not too shabby.

Posted by: Retired Buckeye Cop is now an engineer at January 22, 2023 01:01 PM (pJWtt)

409 Thank you for acknowledging the gigantic elephant in the room called India .
Unbelievable that smug Tucker says British colonization was a ffffing blessing.
Posted by: Mitch in the kitchen at January 22, 2023 12:48 PM (zMYGS)


While the British were a bunch of white supremacists with little doubt concerning their superiority compared to the dusky-hued, it can be argued that India would not have developed into a regional power had colonization not occurred. I happened to see that monologue and Tucker was making the point that the British were not concerned with solely exploiting India; the British did various construction projects that improved the life of the natives.

If no British colonization, then no English as an official language --> therefore, "India" would be a bunch of squabbling provinces without even a common language. (I'm not carrying water for the Raj: I had dinner with an Indian that made that point.)

Posted by: Retired Buckeye Cop is now an engineer at January 22, 2023 01:13 PM (pJWtt)

410 I thought you were only supposed to feed *livestock* with whatever you grew with "night soil" (the Japanese term), similar to how we eat veggies grown with cow or chicken poop fertilizer.
Posted by: Helena Handbasket at January 22, 2023 11:59 AM (llON

You don't have to use it on your vegetable garden if you don't want to. I said fertilize trees, but my understanding is you can use it on anything as long as you compost it for at least two years.

Posted by: Bonnie Blue - says Grow your own food at January 22, 2023 01:27 PM (bOdb7)

411 168 Netflix has a series October Faction. It's an adaptation of a comic book. It is along the same concept of Monster Hunters International but they made it woke because of course they did.

Seems like if you are making a show about hunting monsters you would spend some time on that, but mostly it's about gay teens. Because of course it is. They could have made a good monster hunting gun porn show (teasing bits of cool guns are there!) but no.

Netflix has canceled the series. Because of course they did.
Posted by: blaster at January 22, 2023 10:04 AM (pwExq)

Based on a comic book, you say? Knowing the modern comic book industry, the tv show being woke could very well be a faithful adaptation of a woke comic. Or it could just be Netflix ruining things. Either option is equally probable.

Posted by: Castle Guy at January 22, 2023 03:05 PM (Lhaco)

412 I’m reading Thomas Sowell’s “Controversial Essays.” I’d pay to require all high school students to read it. This country desperately needs lessons in basic economics.

Posted by: Eternity Matters at January 22, 2023 03:23 PM (MTm8X)

413 Speaking of Caleb Carr—anyone ever read Surrender, New York? Worst novel ever. I only finished it because I was waiting for the joke (or whatever it was). Terrible characterizations, clunky dialog, improbable action, unbelievable ‘solution’ to the mystery. It really is hard to understand, because The Alienist was at least competent.

Posted by: Best Thief in Lankhmar at January 22, 2023 05:10 PM (64rer)

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