Sunday Morning Book Thread 01-26-2020

Washington University Law Library St. Louis, Missouri

Good morning to all you 'rons, 'ettes, lurkers, and lurkettes, wine moms, frat bros, crétins sans pantalon (who are technically breaking the rules), the low-class, the outcasts, the lower castes, and other deplorables. Welcome once again to the stately, prestigious, internationally acclaimed and high-class Sunday Morning Book Thread, a weekly compendium of reviews, observations, snark, witty repartee, hilarious bon mots, and a continuing conversation on books, reading, spending way too much money on books, writing books, and publishing books by escaped oafs and oafettes who follow words with their fingers and whose lips move as they read. Unlike other AoSHQ comment threads, the Sunday Morning Book Thread is so hoity-toity, pants are required. Even if it's these pants, and if I had to wear a crotch flower like that, I'd look surly, too. By the way, I've got ugly pants pics queued up until mid-May. So if you think I'm going to eventually run out, don't get your hopes up.

Pic Note:

The library houses one of the largest collections of books on East Asian law, with more than 4,700 titles and 12,500 volumes dedicated to Chinese, Japanese, and Korean law.

And it may look old, but it's not:

Perhaps the most impressive thing about this library is that while it looks like it could have easily been constructed when the university opened in 1853, it was actually completed in 1997. Architects from Hartman-Cox -- who also designed Georgetown's law library -- set out to design a library to fit seamlessly with the older buildings on campus, taking inspiration from other academic areas. The result is the Tudor-style reading room, with wooden arches and 19th-century-style lamps, all set in a brick castle.

It Pays To Increase Your Word Power®

Timely...

Named after Shakespeare’s character, the OTHELLO ERROR is a cognitive bias in which a suspicious person discounts a truthful person’s claims of innocence, or wrongly interprets aspects of their behaviour as signs of guilt. pic.twitter.com/UVKMCmSXrz
— Haggard Hawks ???? (@HaggardHawks) January 22, 2020

The Books of Neil Peart

Many of you know that Neil Neart, the drummer for the rock band Rush passed away a couple of weeks ago. I was not much into the band, so i didn't know much about them, but I found out from moron commenter 'Catch Thirty-Thr33' that Peart had written a number of books.

CTT's first recommendation is for Ghost Rider: Travels on the Healing Road, which he describes as

...much more than an adventure story: it is a story of one man's struggle to find meaning after he lost, well, everything. Rush finished its Test For Echo Tour in July 1997, and all was good with the world, until Mr. Peart lost his daughter in a car accident on August 10, 1997; and then his wife succumbed to cancer in July 1998. So, in August 1998, he did what any man in his situation would do: he got on his BMW motorcycle and rode. And rode. And rode. He rode until he finished something like 55,000 miles, mostly in the western United States and Canada, but also going as far south as Mexico and Belize. All along the way he is grasping for his meaning, his compass, an anchor. It is a depressing read, especially in the beginning. But to me it leaves you with a sense of hope and overall it is positive, with a happy ending, even. I have recommended this book to many people, even to people who had never heard of Rush, or to people who hate Rush. Put all that aside and read it. You'll be glad you did.

The Amazon blurb adds:

Peart’s journey of self-exile and exploration chronicle his personal odyssey and include stories of reuniting with friends and family, grieving, and reminiscing. He recorded with dazzling artistry, the enormous range of his travel adventures, from the mountains to the seas, from the deserts to the Arctic ice, and the memorable people who contributed to his healing.

The price of the Kindle edition of Ghost Rider is not too high, $6.99.

CTT also likes The Masked Rider: Cycling in West Africa, which details Peart's travels in west Africa on a bicycle, and mostly focuses on Cameroon:

Dysentery, drunken soldiers, and corrupt officials provide the background for Neil Peart's physical and spiritual cycling journey through West Africa. The prolific drummer for the rock band Rush travels through African villages, both large and small, and relates his story through photographs, journal entries, and tales of adventure, while simultaneously addressing issues such as differences in culture, psychology, and labels. Literary and artistic sidekicks such as Aristotle, Dante, and Van Gogh join Peart and his cycling companions, reminding the reader that this is not just another travel book—it is a story of both external and introspective discovery and adventure.

Available on Kindle for $9.99, The Masked Rider: Cycling in West Africa was first published in 1996, before the events that triggered the writing of Ghost Rider.

There's also a sort of trilogy Far and Away: A Prize Every Time, Far and Near, and Far and Wide, which are stories from his time on Rush tours and the side trips he takes on his BMW motorcycle.

All of Peart's books are travel books, but he uses his road trips to talk about weightier matters.

When I think of rock drummers, the image that usually comes to mind is the Who's Keith Moon, who made a name for himself trashing hotel rooms. Peart, on the other hand, sounds like a thoughtful and erudite man, and the world is lessened with his passing. RIP.

Who Dis:

Last week's 'who dis' was silent movie actress Mary Pickford.

Robert E. Howard, King of the Pulps

Jan 22 marks REH’s 114th bday. While his legacy is substantial, sadly, REH chose to see only 30 of his bdays. He gave his characters such LIFE. Never devalue what your life may yet offer the world. Talk to someone. 18002738255 (Suicide Prevention) @afspnational

Art: Sanjulian pic.twitter.com/MgTdv1KsHB
— Conan Comics, by Crom! (@ConanComicBooks) January 22, 2020

I did not know that REH ended his own life, nor at so young an age. 30? That's far too young.

I think pretty much everything he wrote is in the public domain. The Collected Fiction of Robert E. Howard is available on Kindle for $2.99.

RIP Christopher Tolkien

43 With the news this week that Christopher Tolkien had passed away at 95, I started going through some of the huge amount of material he had prepared. So much of what his father accomplished, or at least explored, is ours because of his efforts.

Posted by: JTB at January 19, 2020 09:22 AM (7EjX1)

The (commie) Guardian's obituary of Tolkien is actually worth reading.

Amazon has acquired some licensing rights from the Tolkien Estate to develop a Middle Earth TV series. This other (commie) Guardian article is also worth reading as it details what Amazon was told what they can and cannot do as licensees, namely, that the series has to be set in the Second Age of Middle Earth and must follow the broad outline of S.A. history as laid out by Tolkien. By which I take to mean they can't, say, have a war where the Elves completely wipe out the Dwarves (akin to what J J Abrams did in one of the Star Trek movies where he blew up the entire planet of Vulcan). But since Tolkien did not spell out every last detail, there's lots of leeway to create new characters and situations.

I'm actually looking forward to it. My only fear is Amazon bringing in writers and directors who want to fill it up with woke crap.

This Federalist obit is also pretty good, for those of you who want to avoid giving clicks to the rat bastard commies at the Guardian. I especially liked this observation:

Something else about Christopher Tolkien’s life and work must be said. It’s a remarkable thing for a son to realize the unique genius of his father and, instead of trading on that genius to advance his own career and fortune, choose to dedicate his life to the stewardship and advancement of his father’s work. It is hard to imagine the son of a famous man doing that today, which makes the humility and filial devotion of Christopher Tolkien all the more remarkable.

Moron Recommendations

We'll start out this week with a couple of thrillers:

15 I read The Enemy Within by Larry Bond. This is a non-stop action thriller as Iranian-backed terrorists conduct multiple attacks in the U. S. as a cover for an Iranian build up to invade Saudi Arabia. The FBI HRT and Delta Force to the rescue.

Posted by: Zoltan at January 19, 2020 09:07 AM (PevXk)

The Amazon blurb for The Enemy Within is suprisingly sparse:

America's largest cities are in flames. Its majestic landmarks are in ruins. Oceans and boundaries offer no protection. It is the first sophisticated, intelligently planned, and utterly ruthless terrorist campaign waged on U.S. soil. As national leaders, armies, and artificial intelligence strive to win the unconventional war, two men--once friends, now adversaries to the death--race to a decisive confrontation.

The Enemy Within was first published in 1996. It's always interesting to read pre-9/11 views on what they thought a terrorist attack would look like.

23 Hi, y'all. This week I read the latest from Thomas Perry, A Small Town. It's about 12 hardcore federal prisoners who engineer a prison break that floods a small Colorado town with a thousand escapees who aren't content to just leave town, but rob, rape, murder and burn down everything in their path, essentially killing the town.

After the initial surge of apprehensions, the 12 ringleaders are never heard of again and the FBI stops the search. But the woman promoted to police chief when hers is gunned down in the prison break vows to track and kill the 12.

Another winner from Perry.

Posted by: SandyCheeks at January 19, 2020 09:12 AM (u1+n/)

A Small Town: A Novel of Crime is about police chief Leah Hawkins search for vengeance:

Leah’s mission takes her from Florida to New York and from the beaches of California to an anti-government settlement deep in the Ozarks. But when the surviving fugitives realize what she’s up to, a race to kill or be killed ensues in this nonstop tale of vengeance from the Edgar Award–winning author of The Butcher’s Boy.

I've mentioned Thomas Perry's books in a couple of previous book threads. He's written a number of nail-biting crime thriller.

___________

Lots of discussion about this book in last week's book thread:

34 I read "Empire of the Summer Moon" by S.C. Gwynne. The subtitle is "Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History."

Their empire was Comancheria and it encompassed most of the southern plains. In the late 1600s they encountered the horse which they called "god dog." They quickly mastered its use and after displacing the Apaches, Utes, and other tribes they then went after the Spanish, French, Mexicans, Texans, and Anglo-Americans. They were the lords of the southern plains and did not tolerate trespassers.

In 1875 the days of the free range indian was ending when the last of the Comanche bands, the Quahadi (the most feared of the Comanches) surrendered near Ft. Sill, Oklahoma. Their Chief was Quanah Parker. The son of a Comanche Chief and Cynthia Ann Parker who was a white captive taken in 1836 when she was 9. "Rescued" in 1860 she lived a miserable life until she died in 1871.

Gwynne also tells of the early days of the Texas Rangers, numerous battles, the fate of many captives (indian or white it wasn't pretty), Col. Ranald Mackenzie (the anti-Custer) who was instrumental in defeating the Comanches. Although Gwynne gets a few things wrong it's a fascinating history.

Posted by: Jake Holenhead at January 19, 2020 09:15 AM (P1GvV)

Not much I can add to this review, other than I had no idea that any Indian tribe was so formidable.

Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History
is available on Kindle, hardcover, and paperback.

___________

49 This week, I read My Grandfather's Son, by Clarence Thomas.

He endured great poverty and hardship in his early childhood, and he and his brother went to live with his grandparents in elementary school. There, he learned his values of self-sufficiency and personal honor.

Reading his account of the SC confirmation hearings made me angry all over again, and reinforced my understanding that every sneaky, crappy, underhanded, evil things the Democrats do is just business as usual for them.

I hadn't remembered that Biden was so prominent in that hearing. What a total POS he was, and still is today.

Posted by: April at January 19, 2020 09:24 AM (OX9vb)

I also recommend My Grandfather's Son: A Memoir, having read it myself when it first came out. Thomas had a hard life growing up. His father abandoned him and he was raised by his grandfather, a hard man who gave him no breaks and cut him absolutely no slack. And he was hungry. I mean, physically hungry. He barely had enough food to eat, and sometimes less. He describes the gnawing pit of hunger in his stomach he felt practically every day, and I can't even imagine it. I'm thinking he was probably one of the last people in the United States to know poverty, real poverty that was not behavior-based.

Clarence Thomas and the Lost Constitution by Myron Magnet is a more recent book (2019) that focuses on Clarence Thomas as a legal scholar:

When Clarence Thomas joined the Supreme Court in 1991, he found with dismay that it was interpreting a very different Constitution from the one the framers had written―the one that had established a federal government manned by the people’s own elected representatives, charged with protecting citizens’ inborn rights while leaving them free to work out their individual happiness themselves, in their families, communities, and states. He found that his predecessors on the Court were complicit in the first step of this transformation, when in the 1870s they defanged the Civil War amendments intended to give full citizenship to his fellow black Americans. In the next generation, Woodrow Wilson, dismissing the framers and their work as obsolete, set out to replace laws made by the people’s representatives with rules made by highly educated, modern, supposedly nonpartisan “experts,” an idea Franklin Roosevelt supersized in the New Deal agencies that he acknowledged had no constitutional warrant. Then, under Chief Justice Earl Warren in the 1950s and 1960s, the Nine set about realizing Wilson’s dream of a Supreme Court sitting as a permanent constitutional convention, conjuring up laws out of smoke and mirrors and justifying them as expressions of the spirit of the age.

And I'm not sure that, no matter how many conservative justices we succeed in placing on our courts, we'll ever really be able to get away from that. The constitution was written for a free, self-governing nation peopled with independent-minded, self-reliant citizens. And it is no longer a priority in our country to insure that we continue to produce such citizens,

___________

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

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

Posted by: OregonMuse at 09:00 AM

Comments

(Jump to bottom of comments)

1 Still on the re-reading of John Ringo Kildare series. On the 4th book now.

Posted by: Vic at January 26, 2020 09:00 AM (mpXpK)

2 mornin'

Posted by: CN at January 26, 2020 09:00 AM (ONvIw)

3 Booken morgen horden!

Posted by: Vmom 2020 at January 26, 2020 09:01 AM (G546f)

4 Read faster, there is so little time left!

Posted by: Pravda Commissar Hrothgar at January 26, 2020 09:02 AM (BiNEL)

5 That Ghost Rider book looks interesting.

Posted by: Vic at January 26, 2020 09:02 AM (mpXpK)

6 Live the illustration of two fashionable flappers reading

Posted by: Vmom 2020 at January 26, 2020 09:03 AM (G546f)

7 Who Dis

Pearl Buck

Posted by: Vic at January 26, 2020 09:04 AM (mpXpK)

8 Nice photo of the Prof. and Mrs. Tolkien.

But everyone knew that.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 26, 2020 09:04 AM (cfSRQ)

9 Nice Lieberry!

The who dis is John Kerry and Hillary waiting in the green room before getting their make up applied.

Posted by: Hairyback Guy at January 26, 2020 09:04 AM (Z+IKu)

10 Christopher Tolkien announced two years ago that he had finished. He'd prepared all of his father's remaining writings for publication and there was no more. He had done it.

And then he died. That was a good life.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at January 26, 2020 09:04 AM (gd9RK)

11 Who Dis? Dr. and Mrs. Tolkien?

Posted by: I am the Shadout Mapes - the Housekeeper at January 26, 2020 09:04 AM (IttZ7)

12 I can relate to that last cartoon.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at January 26, 2020 09:05 AM (Dc2NZ)

13 Good morning fellow Book Threadists. I hope everyone had a great week of reading.

Posted by: JTB at January 26, 2020 09:05 AM (7EjX1)

14 Rats, too slow....

Posted by: I am the Shadout Mapes - the Housekeeper at January 26, 2020 09:05 AM (IttZ7)

15 Even if it's these pants, and if I had to wear a crotch flower like that, I'd look surly, too.

That looks like a Provincetown production of Godspell.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at January 26, 2020 09:06 AM (Ki5SV)

16 The book thread is like a 70s TV show. It's the only thread that has "previously on the book thread, the commenters said..."

Posted by: Bandersnatch at January 26, 2020 09:07 AM (gd9RK)

17 By which I take to mean they can't, say, have a war where the Elves
completely wipe out the Dwarves (akin to what J J Abrams did in one of
the Star Trek movies where he blew up the entire planet of Vulcan).

I truly hated that POS plot device.

Posted by: Vic at January 26, 2020 09:07 AM (mpXpK)

18 Christopher Tolkien's guardianship of his father's work is truly commendable. I'm sure he profited from the legacy, but I like that he fought for maintaining the literature as it was written and objected to what he called "gutting" the books to make the "action films". IMO LOTR, etc would have been better suited to a long BBC series, than a feature film.

Posted by: CN at January 26, 2020 09:08 AM (ONvIw)

19 Top o' the morning.

Posted by: Traveling Man&&&& at January 26, 2020 09:08 AM (7RyCc)

20 11: Yup, JRR and Edith.

Posted by: CN at January 26, 2020 09:10 AM (ONvIw)

21 I was looking thru new additions to Gutenberg and found this:

"THE COMPLETE ENGLISH WING SHOT"

A review of hunting, shooting, guns, dogs, etc from 1907.
Sections like "Grouse that Lie and Grouse that Fly" and
"Form in Game Shooting". If you are in to such things it's great.

I'll post more on the gun thread later.

Also, it's free!

https://tinyurl.com/wrgykom

Posted by: freaked at January 26, 2020 09:10 AM (Tnijr)

22 Finished the WWII Pacific Theater series from Ian Toll and James Hornfischer. Really good, except I guess the Hornfischer tome is NOT really a part of the series.

Now news comes that the third Toll book is to be published on July. I've pre-ordered it for my Kindle.

Posted by: Moon Moon Blutarski at January 26, 2020 09:10 AM (VNfwt)

23 15 I read The Enemy Within by Larry Bond. This is a non-stop action
thriller as Iranian-backed terrorists conduct multiple attacks in the U.
S. as a cover for an Iranian build up to invade Saudi Arabia. The FBI
HRT and Delta Force to the rescue.

Posted by: Zoltan at January 19, 2020 09:07 AM (PevXk)

Looks interesting but Amazon wants $13 for the kindle version. Too much

https://tinyurl.com/yx56rhwm

Posted by: Vic at January 26, 2020 09:11 AM (mpXpK)

24 I want to spend all morning making up silly captions for that Othello engraving.

Posted by: hogmartin at January 26, 2020 09:12 AM (t+qrx)

25 I truly hated that POS plot device.

Posted by: Vic at January 26, 2020 09:07 AM (mpXpK)

---
A common failing in modern genre writing is to create some BIG EVENT that artificially adds heft to the story. They do this because they are incapable of writing characters anyone actually cares about.

Thus the fate of the word/galaxy/universe must be at stake, otherwise everything seems small ball.

Of course, once you go that big, there's nothing bigger, so then you start wrecking iconic elements of the genre. Thus: blowing up the Enterprise. (Which of course was instantly replaced with an exact replica.)

That's the other part. Having made a wrenching, seemingly irreversible change in the lore, subsequent authors are hamstrung, and so undo it.

This is why I don't get into the superhero genre because no one every really dies, and therefore nothing actually matters. It's like trying to make a hamster running on a wheel a dramatic event when it isn't.

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

26 I don't know what sick shit came up with the 'these pants' look but they are destructive force in any sane universe.

I have no patience or sense of humor left for these psycho bastards. Sorry for the bad humor so early on a Sunday.

Posted by: JTB at January 26, 2020 09:12 AM (7EjX1)

27 “The Grand Tour” by Adam O’Fallon Price is about a highly-regarded but not particularly successful author, Richard Lazar, who suddenly makes it big in late middle age with a gritty memoir about his service in Vietnam. He is sent on a book tour by his publisher, and in one dumpy little college town encounters his biggest fan, Vince, who offers to chauffeur Richard for the rest of his tour. Bookish, awkward Vince wants to escape his stifling home and explore the world, and boozy wreck Richard just wants to retreat from it.

Richard is a very self-aware lush: “Of course, it was he who was the pile of shit. He felt, in fact, like he was made of shit. Bullshit, dogshit, horseshit, ratshit, chickenshit. His mental and physical state constituted a sort of Pousse-Café of shit – an elaborate stratification of shit that commingled to create a shitty whole that was much shittier than the sum of its shitty parts.”

“The number sixty loomed in his imagination like a titanium wall he was speeding toward, in his smoking Yugo of a body.”

This sounds depressing but it is actually very funny, in a dark way, and moving. I am about halfway through the novel. Richard is at least attempting to get his assorted shit together, and Vince is starting to live his life as a participant instead of through books.

Oh, and there are excerpts of Richard’s Vietnam book throughout, as he reads selections on his tour.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at January 26, 2020 09:13 AM (Dc2NZ)

28 Love that permanent shooting blind HRH is in !

Provides good cover for the help, too.

Posted by: sock_rat_eez, we are being gaslighted 24/365 at January 26, 2020 09:13 AM (zlgJP)

29 16 The book thread is like a 70s TV show. It's the only thread that has "previously on the book thread, the commenters said..."
Posted by: Bandersnatch at January 26, 2020 09:07 AM (gd9RK)
----

A Quinn Martin production!

*OregonMuse jumps over hood of car*

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at January 26, 2020 09:14 AM (Dc2NZ)

30 Trying to finish last two J A Konrath Jack Daniels books.

Posted by: rhennigantx at January 26, 2020 09:15 AM (JFO2v)

31 Those pants are fine. I would wear them to a barbeque in Paul Muni's back yard.

Posted by: I was a prisoner on a chain gang, and I liked it. at January 26, 2020 09:15 AM (Tnijr)

32 I read The Core by Peter V. Brett. This is the fifth and final book in The Demon Cycle series. As humans fight the Corelings, demons who come up from the ground at night, they take the fight to the Core and to their egg-laying queen; while on the surface humans hand on by a thread to their cities. Lots of tension-filled fight scenes and a satisfactory ending to the saga.

Posted by: Zoltan at January 26, 2020 09:16 AM (PevXk)

33 The Who dis? couple are some Golden Age of Radio pair, like Fibber McGee and Molly or Ma and Pa Kettle.

Posted by: kallisto at January 26, 2020 09:16 AM (qYKU9)

34 18
Christopher Tolkien's guardianship of his father's work is truly
commendable. I'm sure he profited from the legacy, but I like that he
fought for maintaining the literature as it was written and objected to
what he called "gutting" the books to make the "action films". IMO LOTR,
etc would have been better suited to a long BBC series, than a feature
film.

Posted by: CN at January 26, 2020 09:08 AM (ONvIw)

---
I've seen press accounts that LotR was included in the deal because the rights Saul Zaentz bought in the 70s only included movies. The estate retained TV rights.

Other accounts indicate that Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey is serving as a script advisor to police the work and enforced the contract, which stipulates that there can be no contradiction with the written canon. This is actually very restrictive if you think about it because it would block (for example) the elf-dwarf romance in Jackson's Hobbit abomination.

In truth, Tolkien left so many amazing vignettes as well as finished stories that there is no need to embellish or change them. I despise Peter Jackson, who basically took a dump on a classic work of literature and then flushed the prequel into a sewage lagoon for good measure.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 26, 2020 09:17 AM (cfSRQ)

35 Good morning, all! Finally finished a book I started before Christmas - Elisabeth Wolfe's "Locksley & Fitzwalter: The Case of the Missing Mayor" - which is really Robin Hood and Marian, set in the 1920s as a detective agency, searching for a kidnapped crime-fighting mayor. Cute idea, and some thoughtful research.
And I'm about a quarter of the way through Joanna Barnes "Pastora" ... also a book very thoroughly researched, about a beautiful young widow in the California gold rush. Many real or slightly disguised historical characters included, including Charley Parkhurst, the famed female stage coach driver.

Posted by: Sgt. Mom at January 26, 2020 09:17 AM (xnmPy)

36 Still on the re-reading of John Ringo Kildare series. On the 4th book now.

Posted by: Vic at January 26, 2020 09:00 AM (mpXpK)

When you mentioned Jon Ringo I had another thing in mind. I have read pretty much all serious histories of DocHolliday, Wyatt Earp, and The O.K.Corrral.
The funny thing is that the serious histories are sparse. They have grown over the recent years no doubt. There was time a thin book with a lot of innacuracies was the standard for the old West.

Someone once said we had better firs hand resources for Ancent
Rome than we do of the Old West. That is true by the way. They kept better records in Ancient Rome.

Not sure if this is ironic or not. But as someone who focuses almost exclusively on non fiction history. I am now reading Flowers for Algernon.. I have heard so much about the book from tv shows an this site that I had to check it out.

Posted by: Quint at January 26, 2020 09:17 AM (n13/j)

37 26. That catwalk display is the Devil mocking humanity.

Posted by: kallisto at January 26, 2020 09:19 AM (qYKU9)

38 So this week I re-read Rosemary Taylor's 1943 memoir Chicken Every Sunday: My Life With Mother's Boarders. It's her reminiscences of growing up in Tucson during the early years of the 20th century. Father was a gadabout, investing in all sorts of properties, looking to live on "Easy Street," while Mother (a Virginia Claiborne, and thus, FFV) trying to hold on to the money Father threw around, opened the house up to boarders, using nearly every spare room as a place to throw down a bed.

It's a sweet, funny book, and more a series of vignettes than a complete through-story. It's wholesome reading, though not knowing any children, I don't know if they would like it. But you couldn't do worse than hand a copy off to a 10-year old and see what happens.

The book was turned into a Broadway play and then adapted into a 1949 movie starring underrated hoofer Dan Dailey as Father, with the young Natalie Wood as one of the family's children.

Taylor wrote several other books, mostly set in the West, and penned a sort of "prequel" to Chicken, Ridin' the Rainbow: Father's Life in Tucson.

https://tinyurl.com/vhdfgqo

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at January 26, 2020 09:19 AM (Ki5SV)

39 I read "The French Revolution - A Historical Sketch" by Walter Geer. Published in 1922 it's a very good history from shortly before the French Revolution to when Napoleon takes power.

The lefty French mob loved to talk about liberty, especially when they were sending people to the guillotine. Todays left isn't much different except they haven't yet started lopping of heads.

Posted by: Jake Holenhead at January 26, 2020 09:20 AM (P1GvV)

40 Good Sunday morning, horde!

That comic at the end there is totally me.

Posted by: April at January 26, 2020 09:20 AM (OX9vb)

41 This sounds depressing but it is actually very funny, in a dark way, and moving. I am about halfway through the novel. Richard is at least attempting to get his assorted shit together, and Vince is starting to live his life as a participant instead of through books.
Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at January 26, 2020 09:13 AM (Dc2NZ)

This sounds good. Thanks for tip.

Posted by: Dan Smoot's Apprentice at January 26, 2020 09:22 AM (H8QX8)

42 I think I have a copy of "Chicken Every Sunday" - bought as a reference book for when I was writing "Sunset and Steel Rails", and never read. Now I ought to dig it out and read it for realsies.

Posted by: Sgt. Mom at January 26, 2020 09:22 AM (xnmPy)

43 I despise Peter Jackson, who basically took a dump on a classic work of literature and then flushed the prequel into a sewage lagoon for good measure.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 26, 2020 09:17 AM (cfSRQ)

Yes, a villain, out for a fortune. Sadly this is too common, movie makers altering and chopping up work to change a brilliant writer's vision into their little interpretation.

Posted by: CN at January 26, 2020 09:22 AM (ONvIw)

44 "Flowers For Algernon"

I was forced to read that in HS.

Spoiler alert.

You couldn't get me to read it again even if you told me the rat didn't die.

Posted by: I was a prisoner on a chain gang, and I liked it. at January 26, 2020 09:24 AM (Tnijr)

45 37 26. That catwalk display is the Devil mocking humanity.
Posted by: kallisto at January 26, 2020 09:19 AM (qYKU9)

And humanity's adoration of the Devil?

Posted by: CN at January 26, 2020 09:25 AM (ONvIw)

46 I am now reading Flowers for Algernon.. I have heard so much about the book from tv shows an this site that I had to check it out.
Posted by: Quint at January 26, 2020 09:17 AM (n13/j)

Cartoonist Ruben Bolling is a left-wing hack, but he once did a takeoff of "Alergernon" called "Flowers for Trinitron:"

https://tinyurl.com/wsqqy6n

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at January 26, 2020 09:25 AM (Ki5SV)

47 I'm still re-reading Tolkien and last night my eye caught something I'd never really thought about before in my many re-readings.

After Gandalf heals Theoden, the host of Rohan musters and rides out to do battle. I've always let that image be the one that lingers as I turn the page to Helm's Deep.

But last night I paused over the last sentence:

"Far over the plain Eowyn saw the glitter of their spears, as she stood still, alone before the doors of the silent house."

For the first time, I reflect on THAT moment, not the thundering hooves, and imagined the feeling of watching the host leave, the sudden silence, and the wearing knowledge that the tedious work of packing up the people and moving them to Dunharrow was waiting - and without the glory and banners of battle.

I haven't re-read it in a while and I think I'm noticing it more because I'm in that role more often, watching my kids go out as I stay at home, prepping things for their return. In many ways the character I identify now is Bilbo, writing books and waiting for the knock at the door.

Truly a work that has so many ways to read it.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 26, 2020 09:25 AM (cfSRQ)

48 Last week I was in LaCrosse and went past the B&N there, and went inside, thinking about how long it's been since I was in a physical bookstore ... and kissing the contents of my wallet goodbye.

Bought The Children of Hurin as a sort of memorial to Christopher Tolkien, and a the latest Joe Abercrombie, A Little Hatred.

Good reads, both ... and there's Mrs Eez summoning me to the honeydew list.

Be well, book horde !

Posted by: sock_rat_eez, we are being gaslighted 24/365 at January 26, 2020 09:25 AM (zlgJP)

49 Finishing Empire of the Summer Moon now. Must read especially for anyone still dumb enough to believe that men in their natural state are good and noble. Never get taken captive. Revolvers and semiautomatics are vital tools in hostile territory. Civilians were treated even worse than combatants.

Posted by: Josh Brolin's Blistered Taint at January 26, 2020 09:25 AM (k62r9)

50 This week I started reading Brad Metzler's "The First Conspiracy" about a Loyalist plot to assassinate George Washington in 1776. Intriguing story, I love Revolutionary War history, and it got very good reviews on Amazon.

Well, somewhat less than halfway through, I round myself resisting going back to it. I thought maybe I was in the wrong mood and that time would change my outlook. But before I went back, I looked at the Amazon reviews again. The negative reviews all echoed the things about the book that annoyed me: very repetitive, facts were dispensed sparingly, and moments were overdramatized.

To be fair, it seemed like fans of Metzler's other historical-fiction books liked it better than I did. My taste is generally for more substantive, somewhat scholarly work. YMMV. (Returned it to the library unfinished).

Posted by: Art Rondelet of Malmsey at January 26, 2020 09:25 AM (fTtFy)

51 Almost didn't recognize the Prof without his pipe.

Posted by: davidt at January 26, 2020 09:26 AM (l3+k2)

52 "Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend.

Inside of a dog it's too dark to read."

- Groucho Marx who occasionally took his cigar out of his mouth

Posted by: BackwardsBoy. #DemocratsSuck at January 26, 2020 09:27 AM (HaL55)

53 Good morning, all! Finally finished a book I started before Christmas - Elisabeth Wolfe's "Locksley & Fitzwalter: The Case of the Missing Mayor" - which is really Robin Hood and Marian, set in the 1920s as a detective agency, searching for a kidnapped crime-fighting mayor. Cute idea, and some thoughtful research.

I started that, since she's a Horde author and I wanted to throw business her way. I find it hard going, though, since I'm having a hard time keeping the characters straight. I think I'm going to put it aside until we get a little warm weather and I can read it outside with a nice cigar.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at January 26, 2020 09:27 AM (Ki5SV)

54 looks like I let my tablet drain overnight
it's at 3% now that I've plugged it in

Posted by: vmom 2020 at January 26, 2020 09:28 AM (G546f)

55 44
"Flowers For Algernon"

I was forced to read that in HS.

Spoiler alert.

You couldn't get me to read it again even if you told me the rat didn't die.

Posted by: I was a prisoner on a chain gang, and I liked it. at January 26, 2020 09:24 AM (Tnijr)

---
We had a writing assignment to come up with a different ending, so mine was to have Charly finish his last diary entry and then be abducted by Carl Sagan and a gang of mutant dwarf panda bears.

I felt it was appropriate for the work.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 26, 2020 09:28 AM (cfSRQ)

56 I don't know what sick shit came up with the 'these pants' look but they are destructive force in any sane universe.

I have no patience or sense of humor left for these psycho bastards. Sorry for the bad humor so early on a Sunday.
Posted by: JTB

Well, at least it hasn't driven you to Kallisto's jug.

Yet.

Posted by: JT at January 26, 2020 09:28 AM (arJlL)

57 Changing fiction books, no matter how classic and brilliant, is bad enough. Altering biography to make a better story is also pretty twisted. A Beautiful Mind immediately comes to mind as that sort of mess, as does the recent Christopher Robin film that many accepted as fact.

Posted by: CN at January 26, 2020 09:28 AM (ONvIw)

58 hiya

Posted by: JT at January 26, 2020 09:28 AM (arJlL)

59 Beautiful library reading room above.

Posted by: Tuna at January 26, 2020 09:28 AM (RueoN)

60 I am declaring this my Year of Clearing Back Inventory. Everything I put down, barely, started, that's been sitting somewhere unfinished for God knows how long will be finished before I buy anything else.

Posted by: Vanya at January 26, 2020 09:29 AM (U7voe)

61 There were no surprises on my grocery list this morning.

Posted by: JT at January 26, 2020 09:29 AM (arJlL)

62 45. CN - yes, there's a school of thought that materialism = the Devil. The current trash-garbage 'culture' we're experiencing is due to civilized people disengaging from any concept of the Transcendent.

Posted by: kallisto at January 26, 2020 09:29 AM (qYKU9)

63 I had to read The Pearl by Steinbeck in school. I read the first chapter and the last two pages and guessed my way past the test.

Posted by: Vanya at January 26, 2020 09:30 AM (U7voe)

64 Up before dawn and straight to the Book Thread. As one does. "Chicken Every Sunday" sounds like a fun read and I will look for it.

I still like to go downtown to the main L.A. Library as a special treat, sadly though there are a ton of homeless in there now.

Posted by: Dr Alice at January 26, 2020 09:30 AM (oW/8k)

65 Finished "At Swim Two Boys" and despite the homo theme permeating a lot of it, it was a good portrayal of WW1 Ireland with mixed feelings of loyalty or resentment toward the Brits. And of a small shopkeeper striving to be better than a common laborer. It was extremely well written and as the title indicates it contains some Flann O'Brien level humor at what disorganized fuckups the Irish are whenever the urge for self rule flares up. The text is full of elaborate wordsmithery with Irish slang and colloquialisms; Jamie O'Neill has a website with an extensive glossary for the first couple chapters after which it ends but by then you're pretty much up to speed and can understand things well enough. This was one of the book group selections that I'd never have read on my own but am really glad I experienced.

Posted by: Captain Hate at January 26, 2020 09:30 AM (y7DUB)

66 There were no surprises on my grocery list this morning.
Posted by: JT at January 26, 2020 09:29 AM (arJlL)

The leeks were coming from INSIDE THE HOUSE

Posted by: Vanya at January 26, 2020 09:30 AM (U7voe)

67 I'm reading the back of my Frosted Mini Wheats box. It says "One bowl and you're good till lunch".

Do you have any idea how hard it is to light a soggy Frosted Mini Wheat?

Posted by: freaked at January 26, 2020 09:32 AM (Tnijr)

68 62: This has gone far beyond materialism, unless classifying the human body and humanity as mere "material" is what you're suggesting. I'd like to read something from that "school of thought".

Posted by: CN at January 26, 2020 09:32 AM (ONvIw)

69 I thought the who dis was Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner

Posted by: JT at January 26, 2020 09:33 AM (arJlL)

70 OK, OK, I know this is stupid. I was watching Diagnosis Murder (that's only the beginning of the stupid part) and manly man Steve Sloan was laid up in the hospital. Jesse brought him a Robert Crais book. I wondered, what kind of a book would manly man Steve read and who is this Crais who the script writers thought that I would know? Apparently, he was well known in the 80s or 90s or whenever Diagnosis Murder was produced. So I bought The Monkey's Raincoat, the first of Crais' Elvis Cole/Joe Pike Novels. I'm only a few chapters in but so far it's about a rather eccentric private eye on a missing persons case. From the Amazon reviews and ratings, readers really like these books although I've seen nothing spectacular so far.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at January 26, 2020 09:35 AM (+y/Ru)

71 60
I am declaring this my Year of Clearing Back Inventory. Everything I
put down, barely, started, that's been sitting somewhere unfinished for
God knows how long will be finished before I buy anything else.

Posted by: Vanya at January 26, 2020 09:29 AM (U7voe)

---
After the experience of cleaning out my in-laws' place, I've been very hard on clutter. Stuff has to earn its way into my home and that includes books. If a book doesn't get read, isn't useful or important, it's gone to make room for something better.

I'm using the local library a lot more to screen potential additions. Not only does this save my money (by avoiding a bad buy), I'm already paying $150/year in library tax so I want my money's worth.

Two books on my list after I finish LotR

The Good Soldier by Ford Maddox Ford. I've read his "Parade's End" series and mostly liked it, but the last volume was tedious. I've since learned that even Ford disliked that book and his literary friends often omitted it out of what they considered courtesy.

The Summer Moon book talked about above. I'm not much into the Old West but it sounds like a good read.

I read Ford some years ago and am thinking I'd like a second go with the benefit of hindsight and more knowledge. Often it takes two readings to really appreciate a book (or more, as LotR shows).

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 26, 2020 09:35 AM (cfSRQ)

72 This sounds depressing but it is actually very funny, in a dark way, and moving. I am about halfway through the novel.

==

Eris, it sounds like a Horde-ish buddy comedy

Posted by: vmom 2020 at January 26, 2020 09:36 AM (G546f)

73 ''I had to read The Pearl by Steinbeck in school. I read the first chapter and the last two pages and guessed my way past the test.''

LOL. Good to know I was not the only kid to do that. My ''had to read" challenge was "Moby Dick" which I hated with a hate of a thousand flaming suns.

Posted by: Tuna at January 26, 2020 09:37 AM (RueoN)

74 Morning readers!!

Posted by: Weasel at January 26, 2020 09:37 AM (MVjcR)

75 Yeah, the 'who dis' photo is JRR Tolkien and his wife Edith. Take a look at a photo of the young Edith about the time they got married. The lady was a fox.

Posted by: JTB at January 26, 2020 09:37 AM (7EjX1)

76 68 - you know, a mash-up of New Age and Eastern mysticism although there is a strong current of rising above the material in Christianity.

Posted by: kallisto at January 26, 2020 09:38 AM (qYKU9)

77 Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 26, 2020 09:35 AM (cfSRQ)

It's cool that FMF taught at Olivet. I always like a Michigan connection.

Posted by: CN at January 26, 2020 09:38 AM (ONvIw)

78 Truly a work that has so many ways to read it.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 26, 2020 09:25 AM (cfSRQ)

Well said. An extraordinary work in that is available to so many in so many different ways -- and at different times in life.

Posted by: Dan Smoot's Apprentice at January 26, 2020 09:39 AM (H8QX8)

79 37 26. That catwalk display is the Devil mocking humanity.

It is the darkness, isn't it? Makes me sad.

Posted by: April at January 26, 2020 09:39 AM (OX9vb)

80 75 Yeah, the 'who dis' photo is JRR Tolkien and his wife Edith. Take a look at a photo of the young Edith about the time they got married. The lady was a fox.
Posted by: JTB at January 26, 2020 09:37 AM (7EjX1)

The inspiration for Luthien.

Posted by: CN at January 26, 2020 09:40 AM (ONvIw)

81
LOL. Good to know I was not the only kid to do that. My ''had to read" challenge was "Moby Dick" which I hated with a hate of a thousand flaming suns.
Posted by: Tuna at January 26, 2020 09:37 AM (RueoN)

Never tackled that one. I did make it almost 600 pages into Anna Karenina before I gave up. It was like wading through molasses with snowshoes on.

Posted by: Vanya at January 26, 2020 09:41 AM (U7voe)

82 Nobody seems to have noticed that the other pants in the pic are quite sensible.

Posted by: freaked at January 26, 2020 09:41 AM (Tnijr)

83 I just read my first paper book for fun (as opposed to a technical book, or one in a language) in what seems like twenty years. Don't know how I fell out of the habit, although I suspect the internet has had something to do with it.

I've made a new rule to buy some books at a library each time I go down to visit my mother and read it before I go down again.

Posted by: t-bird at January 26, 2020 09:42 AM (OiC69)

84 The inspiration for Luthien.

Didja mean Lucien ?

Posted by: Mike Tython at January 26, 2020 09:42 AM (arJlL)

85 I read, "The Pearl" all the way through in high school.

I was one of very few people in school who looked forward to reading assignments Giving me a book that had to be read within the next 6 weeks meant I had the better part of 6 weeks to kick back and do nothing because I'd have the book read within a day or two.

Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing
at January 26, 2020 09:42 AM (WEBkv)

86 I'm sitting here reading thread and listening to Pandora on my TV. (Really like new sound bar with subwoofer BTW) and some music was on that sounded to me like Copland and the album cover had a close up of what I took to be a rodeo bull rider with his hand above his head to achieve balance. The fine eye for detail, however, revealed that it wasn't a bull rider in mid buck but rather the true composer, Leonard Bernstein, in frantic conductor mode.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at January 26, 2020 09:43 AM (+y/Ru)

87 Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing
at January 26, 2020 09:42 AM (WEBkv)

Don't get me wrong. I loved reading, just hated Steinbeck.

Posted by: Vanya at January 26, 2020 09:44 AM (U7voe)

88 The Good Soldier by Ford Maddox Ford. I've read his "Parade's End" series and mostly liked it, but the last volume was tedious. I've since learned that even Ford disliked that book and his literary friends often omitted it out of what they considered courtesy.

The Good Soldier was very enjoyable. I don't think I've encountered a description of Parade's End not containing the word "tedious".

Has anyone read Volume 1 of Stephen Kotkin's biography of Stalin? A member of the book group gave me this and wanted to know if any Horde historians had an opinion.

Posted by: Captain Hate at January 26, 2020 09:45 AM (y7DUB)

89 47 ... A H Lloyd,

I won't repeat your whole post but your observations are excellent. Those moments of new perspective are one of many things that make LOTR such an enchanting read even after more than 50 years.

Posted by: JTB at January 26, 2020 09:45 AM (7EjX1)

90 John Ronald Ruel Tolkien

Posted by: The Otter at January 26, 2020 09:45 AM (CLteG)

91 That looks like a Provincetown production of Godspell.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at January 26, 2020 09:06 AM (Ki5SV)

I thought it was the entertainment at Davos.

Posted by: BignJames at January 26, 2020 09:46 AM (X/Pw5)

92 woot 10%! double digits, bidges!

Posted by: vmom 2020 at January 26, 2020 09:46 AM (G546f)

93 Don't get me wrong. I loved reading, just hated Steinbeck.
Posted by: Vanya at January 26, 2020 09:44 AM (U7voe)

*Fistbump*

Posted by: Captain Hate at January 26, 2020 09:47 AM (y7DUB)

94 I had to read The Pearl by Steinbeck in school. I read the first chapter and the last two pages and guessed my way past the test.

-
I, too, had to read The Pearl but I liked it much better than my other required reading, the math book. No plot, no characters, no humor, no drama, it just kind of laid there.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at January 26, 2020 09:48 AM (+y/Ru)

95 Hogmartin just showed me this gem from The Onion, "Prague's Kafka International Named Most Alienating Airport":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEyFH-a-XoQ

It's literary!

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at January 26, 2020 09:48 AM (Dc2NZ)

96 29 16 The book thread is like a 70s TV show. It's the only thread that has "previously on the book thread, the commenters said..."
Posted by: Bandersnatch at January 26, 2020 09:07 AM (gd9RK)
----

A Quinn Martin production!
*OregonMuse jumps over hood of car*

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at January 26, 2020 09:14 AM (Dc2NZ)

Now I need to figure out how to end each boot thread in a freeze frame.

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Austere Religious Scholar at January 26, 2020 09:48 AM (weya0)

97 vmom did you decide on your trip?

Posted by: kallisto at January 26, 2020 09:48 AM (qYKU9)

98 Reading book 2 of the Galatic Ruins series by J.N. Chaney & Christopher Hopper. Nonstop action, space marines. Good mental chewing gum to unwind after breast feeding a bunch aerospace engineer nerds all day at work. You'd think a bunch of middle child syndrome generation X adults wouldn't need so much leadership to be effective in a team.

Anyway, Galactic Ruins is a good series.

Posted by: BifBewalski at January 26, 2020 09:49 AM (VcFUs)

99 clicked the pants
I think that's just graffiti
also, I feel sorry for the model

Posted by: vmom 2020 at January 26, 2020 09:49 AM (G546f)

100 BOOK WRITING UPDATE: Yes, so I've gotten the edits back and am doing a final sweep of my own for Vampires of Michigan. Edit came back mostly clean, a few details needed fixing but overall, he liked it.

I have a cluttered schedule next week, so won't be here and progress will be slow. It's looking like actual publication will be in a couple-three weeks and of course I'll let you all know when it happens.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 26, 2020 09:49 AM (cfSRQ)

101 Don't get me wrong. I loved reading, just hated Steinbeck.
Posted by: Vanya at January 26, 2020 09:44 AM (U7voe)
---------------

Steinbeck was depressing, which is why I didn't care for him.

The man could write, though.

Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing
at January 26, 2020 09:51 AM (WEBkv)

102 OM,you should put a link to your previous book thread at the end of each one - make it easier to look back

Posted by: vmom 2020 at January 26, 2020 09:51 AM (G546f)

103 100: I look forward to reading it.

Posted by: Mr Aspirin Factory at January 26, 2020 09:52 AM (wIvHX)

104 Finished the "Arisen" series by Michael Stephen Fuchs. 14 books and a couple of prequels. I found myself at odd times during the day wondering what was going to happen next - to me, the mark of a great series - it held my attention not only while reading it, but also while not reading it.

And a satisfying ending, to boot.

Posted by: That Deplorable SOB Van Owen at January 26, 2020 09:52 AM (zggXQ)

105 94: I guess The Pearl was considered too short for my HS teachers, they chose Of Mice and Men, The Winter of our Discontent, and East of Eden instead. The only one I ultimately liked was East of Eden.

Posted by: CN at January 26, 2020 09:53 AM (ONvIw)

106 Boot thread? I must had missed that. Did the discussion tread lightly on the subject of U*gs, or was it just laced with silly puns?

Posted by: freaked at January 26, 2020 09:53 AM (Tnijr)

107 I've always been a reader. Read books under the blankets with a flashlight after bedtime as a kid. My favorite time of year was summer so I could stay up as late as I wanted to read. Took an English minor in college just to have a chance to talk about books. The one required book I just could not get through was Conrad's Heart of Darkness. The only time I had to buy the Cliff notes.

Posted by: Sharon at January 26, 2020 09:54 AM (j9P1T)

108 Cartoonist Ruben Bolling is a left-wing hack, but he once did a takeoff of "Alergernon" called "Flowers for Trinitron:"

https://tinyurl.com/wsqqy6n

-
Ha!

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at January 26, 2020 09:54 AM (+y/Ru)

109 I am working on a cinematic version of The Silmarillion because I live their in my heart. I've just finished The Music of the Ainur and it's only 87 hours long, you'll love it

Posted by: Balrog of Morgoth at January 26, 2020 09:54 AM (CLteG)

110 Next week's boot thread will feature Krysten Sinema and Condi Rice.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at January 26, 2020 09:55 AM (gd9RK)

111 My wife started reading "Where the Crawdads Sing" to me. (She reads aloud to me/my girls on long car trips.) The first part of the book was really interesting, beautiful descriptive writing about a region of the country we fell in love w/on our honeymoon. Then it turns into an awkward "coming of age/sexuality" piece, and drops into completely unrealistic character actions and reaction to the point of unbelievable exasperation. I'm sure the last few chapters will morph into SJW/Eco warrior crap, with a totally justifiable murder thrown in. It's particularly disappointing because it was such a promising start. I think I've had it with "it" books for a while. Literature, like every other institution is contaminated too. Have to reach back to find anything of substance. Or entertaining, for that matter.

Posted by: Brave Sir Robin at January 26, 2020 09:55 AM (7Fj9P)

112 Even if it's these pants, and if I had to wear a crotch flower like that, I'd look surly, too.

Holy cow! how self loathing and desperate does someone need to be to wear those, let alone be seen in public wearing them?!

Just ordered Empire of the Summer Moon. Thanks for the review!

Posted by: CrotchetyOldJarhead at January 26, 2020 09:55 AM (aIRv9)

113 I read Cannery Row and can't recall a thing about it other than set in Cali.

Posted by: kallisto at January 26, 2020 09:55 AM (qYKU9)

114 I am blurring over the Algernon posts I get it ends badly and may read it in high school. For some reason we didnt 'but we read our share.

Did you guys read a Wrinkle in Time? Did you read Where the Fern Grows? There were many others but for high school I forgot it mainly.

I never planned on telling this story but what the hell. I will do it as an historical archiive. I lived it what you would call an upper middle class suburb The region was nominally republican but we are talking the Tom Davis Republicans, the guys who loved Gerald Ford.

Anyway. We had a writing ssinsnmet where where we had to write in the most desccriptive ways piossible. The asssignment was dseccriptive writing. The point was to use as many adjectives as possible.

I wrote about a CIA sniper (I used another word that is worse) who took out Danial Ortega. The only reason I mention this is that it should shock a lot of young people. I didn't live in the sticks. I lived in a a major metropolitan area that was barley Republican. But I wrote about killing Daniel Ortega, and with an absurdity of detail. I went on and on about the details and how we offed him.

The point is I got an A.. And again, this is not blue land. Some times I wonder how we got away with this stuff, and sometimes I wonder how kids today live in this world. I could say more, a lot more.

Posted by: Quint at January 26, 2020 09:55 AM (n13/j)

115 I've always been a reader. Read books under the blankets with a flashlight after bedtime as a kid. My favorite time of year was summer so I could stay up as late as I wanted to read. Took an English minor in college just to have a chance to talk about books. The one required book I just could not get through was Conrad's Heart of Darkness. The only time I had to buy the Cliff notes.
Posted by: Sharon at January 26, 2020 09:54 AM (j9P1T)
--------------

I didn't think of reading books under a blanket with a flashlight until I read it in a book.

Yet, my parents encouraged me to read....

Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing
at January 26, 2020 09:56 AM (WEBkv)

116 What's the widget that cleans text. I can't seem to purge the draft blurb for Vampires of Michigan.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 26, 2020 09:56 AM (cfSRQ)

117 Still on the re-reading of John Ringo Kildare series. On the 4th book now.

Posted by: Vic at January 26, 2020 09:00 AM (mpXpK)

I am reading the series for the first time and am on book 5 now. I like that he includes a "Recommended Accompanying Music" list (by chapter) in the later books. I am playing it via YouTube as I go along. The sound track has more speed metal in the numerous battle scenes than is usually my taste, but it is still fun.

Posted by: cool breeze at January 26, 2020 09:56 AM (UGKMd)

118 107 I've always been a reader. Read books under the blankets with a flashlight after bedtime as a kid. My favorite time of year was summer so I could stay up as late as I wanted to read. Took an English minor in college just to have a chance to talk about books. The one required book I just could not get through was Conrad's Heart of Darkness. The only time I had to buy the Cliff notes.

Lord Jim would have been such a wonderful book if it was written by someone else. I survived it, and avoided Heart of Darkness like the plague because of it.

Posted by: Catherine at January 26, 2020 09:57 AM (d7lrl)

119
I truly hated that POS plot device.

Posted by: Vic at January 26, 2020 09:07 AM (mpXpK)

---
A common failing in modern genre writing is to create some BIG EVENT that artificially adds heft to the story. They do this because they are incapable of writing characters anyone actually cares about.

Thus the fate of the word/galaxy/universe must be at stake, otherwise everything seems small ball.

Of course, once you go that big, there's nothing bigger, so then you start wrecking iconic elements of the genre. Thus: blowing up the Enterprise. (Which of course was instantly replaced with an exact replica.)

That's the other part. Having made a wrenching, seemingly irreversible change in the lore, subsequent authors are hamstrung, and so undo it.

This is why I don't get into the superhero genre because no one every really dies, and therefore nothing actually matters. It's like trying to make a hamster running on a wheel a dramatic event when it isn't.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 26, 2020 09:12 AM (cfSRQ)

I didn't hate the plot device as a jumping off point for a new universe.

But, ackshually, nothing was done with it it in the greater context of what followed. Vulcan went kablooey!, then....nothing.

Were the Wandering Vulcans good, bad, somewhere in between? Did they splinter into new factions? Were their psyches damaged enough by the loss that they became a wild card or the new villains in this universe? Could Spock, both old and new, be trusted?

But, nothing, just a blip to get the story rolling. Adios, Vulcan! You served your roll as a plot point well. Las-di-da, la-di-da.

Moviegique said it well, in another context in last night movie thread.

So it all turns out different than you'd probably expect going in. Subverting expectations, even. (Everyone seems to forget the second half of successfully subverting expectations: not sucking.)

Posted by: naturalfake at January 26, 2020 09:57 AM (T+nBE)

120 110
Next week's boot thread will feature Krysten Sinema and Condi Rice.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at January 26, 2020 09:55 AM (gd9RK)

What am I, chopped liver?

Posted by: Nancy Sinatra at January 26, 2020 09:57 AM (IttZ7)

121 I am re-reading the book of Exodus. I just got to the Red Sea crossing. I also went back to Genesis and read the chapter where God tells Abraham that the Hebrews will be in captivity in Egypt for 400 years until the sins of the Amorites was full. Interesting.

Posted by: jmel at January 26, 2020 09:58 AM (OeWgo)

122 The one required book I just could not get through was Conrad's Heart of Darkness. The only time I had to buy the Cliff notes.

Posted by: Sharon at January 26, 2020 09:54 AM (j9P1T)

---
I like Conrad a lot.

Heart of Darkness is intense. Something you may enjoy more by him is The Duel.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 26, 2020 09:58 AM (cfSRQ)

123 And Peter Jackson is a retarded orc.

Posted by: Balrog of Morgoth at January 26, 2020 09:58 AM (CLteG)

124 I look at that picture of Edith Tolkien and think to myself, that's how an 80 year old woman looks. They don't look like Nancy Pelosi with her dyed hair, lipstick, plastic surgery and those ridiculous outfits they wedge her in to.

Posted by: lowandslow at January 26, 2020 09:59 AM (4thlk)

125 Morning Literary-types. TY OM, always. TY to whoever flagged the REH Kindle deal. all over that - can't calculate how many hours i spent in second-hand book stores looking for Conan series when i was a kid, back in '08. ok, maybe '68.

My own book writing going...well? up to a point with some critical days to cover, so elapsed time slows way down (i am going almost literally hour by hour, Battle of the Bulge, now) while i chug along at 2-4 pages a day. Peiper is now less than ten kilometers from my grandfather. Soon... they will be within line of sight.

You all have a grand day.

Posted by: goatexchange at January 26, 2020 09:59 AM (2060O)

126 Nancy Pelosi is an abomination.

Posted by: Balrog of Morgoth at January 26, 2020 10:01 AM (CLteG)

127 My Who dis? guess was quite the misfire.

Posted by: kallisto at January 26, 2020 10:01 AM (qYKU9)

128 Be back later book nerds. Keep it clean-ish!

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at January 26, 2020 10:01 AM (Dc2NZ)

129

Yep when I think of St LOUIS I think Eastern Law !!!!

Damn that there is some fine wood in the library,should make @ least 10,000 SLUGGERS.....

a schwing and a miss...............

Posted by: saf at January 26, 2020 10:01 AM (5IHGB)

130 The extended addition of the LOTR are even worse. Add 30 minutes of fart jokes to each film. I gave my DVD set away after watching it once.

Posted by: Big V Caffeinated at January 26, 2020 10:01 AM (y/fJ4)

131 The fine eye for detail, however, revealed that it wasn't a bull rider in mid buck but rather the true composer, Leonard Bernstein, in frantic conductor mode.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at January 26, 2020 09:43 AM (+y/Ru)

Brown Meggs, who was COO of Capitol Records in the 1960s, wrote a potboiler novel called Aria, which was a sort of Harold Robbins version of the classical music industry. When he was describing the restrained style of his fictional conductor, he said (paraphrasing), "And while Seiji or Lennie or another one of the glamour boys would be up there on the podium masturbating in public, Jean-Luc only had to twitch his stick and the goddamn roof would fall in."

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at January 26, 2020 10:01 AM (Ki5SV)

132 A common failing in modern genre writing is to create some BIG EVENT that artificially adds heft to the story. They do this because they are incapable of writing characters anyone actually cares about.

-
A similar device that I dislike is making the protagonist a billionaire in an attempt to get us to give a damn.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at January 26, 2020 10:02 AM (+y/Ru)

133 Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 26, 2020 09:49 AM (cfSRQ)

**thumbs up**

Good for you!

I didn't do any writing last week, so right now I'm typing up what I did write the week before.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at January 26, 2020 10:03 AM (Ki5SV)

134 )

121 I am re-reading the book of Exodus.

When I saw this, my first thought was Exodus by Leon Uris which I loved. Being Jewish, it just hit home in a special way.

Posted by: Sharon at January 26, 2020 10:04 AM (j9P1T)

135 The library pic description is interesting. Washington University is in my fair city. My mom graduated from there in the 1950s. It's considered a top flight school, you see kids wearing T-shirts that say "Harvard: the Washington University of the East." I've done some scanning work over there for some architects, and the campus is truly amazing. Think Hogwarts spread out over a few hundred acres. They (supposedly) have an endowment second only to Yale in the billions. Here's the thing: my random sample is that 7 out of 10 students there are oriental. Another 2 out of 10 are Arab. Virtually no white kids go there, and no white males. Brain. Drain writ large.

Posted by: Brave Sir Robin at January 26, 2020 10:04 AM (7Fj9P)

136 109
I am working on a cinematic version of The Silmarillion because I live
their in my heart. I've just finished The Music of the Ainur and it's
only 87 hours long, you'll love it

Posted by: Balrog of Morgoth at January 26, 2020 09:54 AM (CLteG)

Who are you casting as Melkor?

Posted by: davidt at January 26, 2020 10:04 AM (l3+k2)

137 I am re-reading the book of Exodus. I just got to the Red Sea crossing. I also went back to Genesis and read the chapter where God tells Abraham that the Hebrews will be in captivity in Egypt for 400 years until the sins of the Amorites was full. Interesting.
Posted by: jmel at January 26, 2020 09:58 AM (OeWgo)
--------------

One part of Genesis always struck me as hilarious: Adam, hiding from God, in the Garden of Eden, after eating the apple.

Adam has a face to face relationship with God, knows Him well, and thinks he can hide from God?

Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing
at January 26, 2020 10:04 AM (WEBkv)

138 I read Cannery Row and can't recall a thing about it other than set in Cali.
Posted by: kallisto

There was a Canary Row, set in a Pet Shop.

Posted by: Mike Tython at January 26, 2020 10:04 AM (arJlL)

139 Anyway, I'm heading off to do replenish food supplies.

Thanks for all the suggestions. I decided to look into the Ford Madox Ford- Joseph Conrad collaborations as this week's "literary effort". I probably have a few already, as one of the kids went through a big Conrad phase in college. I might start with The Inheritors.

Posted by: CN at January 26, 2020 10:04 AM (ONvIw)

140 I'm trying to get back on track by doing a thousand words a day. It's slow but I can maintain it.

Posted by: Vanya at January 26, 2020 10:04 AM (U7voe)

141 And while Seiji or Lennie or another one of the glamour boys would be up there on the podium masturbating in public

-
What was hyberbole will likely soon be reality.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at January 26, 2020 10:05 AM (+y/Ru)

142 I like Conrad a lot.

Heart of Darkness is intense. Something you may enjoy more by him is The Duel.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 26, 2020 09:58 AM (cfSRQ)

I'm a big Conrad fan. For whatever reason, maybe a class thing, Nabokov was dismissive of his "pirate stories" but doted on Robert Louis Stevenson. Go figure...

Posted by: Captain Hate at January 26, 2020 10:05 AM (y7DUB)

143 ''I guess The Pearl was considered too short for my HS teachers, they chose Of Mice and Men, The Winter of our Discontent, and East of Eden instead. The only one I ultimately liked was East of Eden.''

No Steinbeck for this former H.S. junior. We got "The Scarlet Letter'', "Red Badge of Courage" and my nemesis ''Moby Dick".

Posted by: Tuna at January 26, 2020 10:05 AM (RueoN)

144 But, nothing, just a blip to get the story rolling.
Adios, Vulcan! You served your roll as a plot point well. Las-di-da,
la-di-da.

Moviegique said it well, in another context in last night movie thread.

So it all turns out different than you'd probably expect going in. Subverting expectations, even. (Everyone seems to forget the second half of successfully subverting expectations: not sucking.)

Posted by: naturalfake at January 26, 2020 09:57 AM (T+nBE)

---
That's the other element: zero emotional impact.

When people die, they don't just disappear. They leave a hole and normal people have difficulty coping.

Boromir dies early on in LotR, yet his death lies like a shadow over the story. On my first reading, I thought it strange that the companions stopped and held an impromptu funeral because most adventure stories don't bother with that. But real people do.

Everywhere they go, news of Boromir's death causes dismay. Denethor is driven mad with grief, and Faramir becomes reckless in his desire to compensate for it. Pippin is haunted by guilt and impulsively swears fealty because of it.

So yes, Vulcans should have been a haunted people, and in many ways the thrust of the movie should have been them struggling to make sense of this disaster. Was it logical? Why them?

But nope, boom! Now on to the next action sequence.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 26, 2020 10:05 AM (cfSRQ)

145 A similar device that I dislike is making the protagonist a billionaire in an attempt to get us to give a damn.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at January 26, 2020 10:02 AM (+y/Ru)
---------------

Wait, is this the book thread or the Steyer/Bloomberg thread?

Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing
at January 26, 2020 10:06 AM (WEBkv)

146
WHO DIS? :

Margaret Sanger at her Dr's for her 19th Abortion.?

Posted by: saf at January 26, 2020 10:06 AM (5IHGB)

147 Adam has a face to face relationship with God, knows Him well, and thinks he can hide from God?
Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing
at January 26, 2020 10:04 AM (WEBkv)

Sin does funny things to your brain. It interferes with reason and logic. Reminds me of some current events.

Posted by: Emmie at January 26, 2020 10:07 AM (87gB3)

148
Who are you casting as Melkor?
Posted by: davidt at January 26, 2020 10:04 AM (l3+k2)

Jeff Bezos

Posted by: Balrog of Morgoth at January 26, 2020 10:07 AM (CLteG)

149 since we're on JRRT, I'll throw out Towards the Gleam (T.M.Doran) which is a thinly disguised JRRT and Edith and lots of other folks where JRRT discovers the source of Middle Earth. Other hijinks follow. Fun read, if only to figure out who everybody is supposed to be.

Posted by: yara at January 26, 2020 10:07 AM (rde8g)

150 A similar device that I dislike is making the protagonist a billionaire in an attempt to get us to give a damn.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at January 26, 2020 10:02 AM (+y/R

I always thought that was just a cop out means of leaving yourself a deus ex machina license. Where'd they get a helicopter? Well, he's a billionaire, he bought it. How does he know that? Well, he's a billionaire, he could hire a guy to find out or tell him or something.

It also lets you do whatever you want because if you're that rich you can probably set your own work schedule-- meaning you don't have to interrupt the narrative because he has to go to work.

Posted by: Vanya at January 26, 2020 10:08 AM (U7voe)

151 When I saw this, my first thought was Exodus by Leon Uris which I loved.

-
And good movie theme music.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at January 26, 2020 10:08 AM (+y/Ru)

152 112 Holy cow! how self loathing and desperate does someone need to be to wear those, let alone be seen in public wearing them?!

Since this is a runway show, it's doubtful that anyone is actually going to wear those in public. The runway is as much a venue to display "art" as it is an offering of actual clothing. Still. The look in that model's eyes does imply self-loathing and a deep need for spiritual healing.

Posted by: April at January 26, 2020 10:08 AM (OX9vb)

153 sorry for the typos. But It amazes me how far we have come. A kid can't write about taking out an American Enemy. Hell, mention a gun at all and you will likely go tot the principal. I lived in a suburban home with lefties all around and they gave me a freaking A.

That is my point. It is a fact but also makes a point. We have fallen so far. We allow so much that would never have played before. And way more important. We do NOT allow so much that was normal. In fact, in the 80s, i doubt anyone would even dream to ask "what is normal".

What has happened to us that we are so scared. Hell, I could tell a lot more stories in a moderate town when people were normal.

Posted by: Quint at January 26, 2020 10:09 AM (n13/j)

154 Not getting the hate for "Flowers for Algernon".

It's a wonderful story and beautifully written.

It also subtly introduces some nice life lessons and situations that are probably good for kiddos at that age to consider.

I mean, come on, what kind of a story would it be if Charly went on to invent pantyhose, became a zillionaire, and President of the United States!

Posted by: naturalfake at January 26, 2020 10:09 AM (T+nBE)

155 138 I read Cannery Row and can't recall a thing about it other than set in Cali.
Posted by: kallisto

I recall that the main character (based on Steinbeck's real-life buddy) was a marine biologist who got laid a lot.

That's it. I thought of it when I visited Monterey briefly years after I read the book.

Posted by: Donna&&&&V. at January 26, 2020 10:10 AM (d6Ksn)

156 Who are you casting as Melkor?

Posted by: davidt at January 26, 2020 10:04 AM (l3+k2)

---
George Soros.

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

157 21 ... freaked,
Thanks for the heads up about "The Complete English Wing Shot". I love books like that. Just ordered a paperback edition from Amazon for $2.16. Don't know how long that price will last.

Posted by: JTB at January 26, 2020 10:11 AM (7EjX1)

158 Love, love power.
I'm talking 'bout love power
The power of a little flower.
You don't think 'bout no little flowers,
Oh no, all you think about is guns.
If everybody in the world today had a flower instead of a gun,
there would be no wars. There would be one big smell-in.

Posted by: zombie Dick Shawn at January 26, 2020 10:11 AM (Tnijr)

159 So it all turns out different than you'd probably expect going in. Subverting expectations, even. (Everyone seems to forget the second half of successfully subverting expectations: not sucking.)

Posted by: naturalfake at January 26, 2020 09:57 AM (T+n

The devil you say.

Posted by: Rian Johnson at January 26, 2020 10:11 AM (weya0)

160 And while Seiji or Lennie or another one of the glamour boys would be up there on the podium masturbating in public

-
Mental image of so conducting Beethoven's 5th Symphony. Ta ta ta taaaaa!

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at January 26, 2020 10:11 AM (+y/Ru)

161 "WEAR A MASK IF GO OUTSIDE "

RAAAWWK!

Posted by: Propaganda Parrot at January 26, 2020 10:14 AM (Tnijr)

162 I've always been a reader. Read books under the blankets with a flashlight after bedtime as a kid. My favorite time of year was summer so I could stay up as late as I wanted to read. Took an English minor in college just to have a chance to talk about books. The one required book I just could not get through was Conrad's Heart of Darkness. The only time I had to buy the Cliff notes.
Posted by: Sharon at January 26, 2020 09:54 AM (j9P1T)
========================
I had the exact same experience; until I went through the class discussions that detailed the symbolism. Once I started to understand what Conrad was doing, the book opened up to me. I love the film "Apocalypse Now" because of it. (I know a lot of y'all will disagree, and yeah The Doors bit at the end goes on forever, but I like it.)

Posted by: Brave Sir Robin at January 26, 2020 10:14 AM (7Fj9P)

163 You don't have to keep posting that, jacob joseph. Yesterday there was 1 case in Chicago. Today there are 2. We get it.

Thanks for letting us know.

Posted by: Donna&&&&V. at January 26, 2020 10:15 AM (d6Ksn)

164 what was I thinking? Of course it is Soros.

He probably calls his political initiative "The Ungoliant Project"

Posted by: Balrog of Morgoth at January 26, 2020 10:15 AM (CLteG)

165 I'm currently reading a screenplay that consists of pilfered bits from "Seven Days in May", "Liar, Liar", "Groundhog Day" and the entire Pauly Shore body of work. It's a fictional account of a fictitious impeachment by LA screenwriter Adam Schiff entitled "Cruel and Unusual Punishment".

Or as Adam calls it, a party at Buck's house.

Posted by: The Gipper Lives at January 26, 2020 10:15 AM (Ndje9)

166 Time for some waffles with peanut butter and maple syrup chased down with an aloe vera drink.

Posted by: Traveling Man&&&& at January 26, 2020 10:15 AM (7RyCc)

167 A note about Neil Peart's books. Ghost Rider is definitely well-worth the read, though his book about biking through Africa was pretty down-right boring and repetitive.

As for Ghost Rider - any Rush fan needs to read this book, if for nothing else than to truly understand the awesome power of the album Vapor Trails. IMHO, one of Rush's top 2 albums. The incredible power, emotion, and raw lyricism of that album can be directly seen in the book Ghost Rider. It is obvious that Peart did a LOT of thinking and soul-searching during that journey.

Posted by: Greywolf at January 26, 2020 10:15 AM (qjyM+)

168 If the coronavirus can settle in the eyes then we need to wear safety glasses in addition to masks.

Posted by: kallisto at January 26, 2020 10:15 AM (qYKU9)

169 I'm trying to get back on track by doing a thousand words a day. It's slow but I can maintain it.
Posted by: Vanya

just start singing "A thousand words a day on the wall, a thousand words a day, write one down, pass it around, nine hundred ninety nine words on the wall......"

No need to thank me.

Posted by: Mike Tython at January 26, 2020 10:16 AM (arJlL)

170 I'm trying to get back on track by doing a thousand words a day. It's slow but I can maintain it.
Posted by: Vanya at January 26, 2020 10:04 AM (U7voe)

I write in longhand, because I find it almost impossible to write originally on a computer. My goal is a page a day.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at January 26, 2020 10:16 AM (Ki5SV)

171 140
I'm trying to get back on track by doing a thousand words a day. It's slow but I can maintain it.

Posted by: Vanya at January 26, 2020 10:04 AM (U7voe)

---
Not a bad pace if you are consistent.

A decent book is 50,000 words or so. My latest ones are a little under that, but every book of Man of Destiny was over 60,000 because I had a lot to say.

So, with some bad or busy days, two months of write a book.

I decided that I'm going to aim for one book a year so I don't get burned out. Maybe I'll pick up the pace if I'm doing a series or get really into something, but I find that having written a few, I'm also wanting to do other stuff.

Weird how after eight novels I feel like I've become a writer and don't have to prove that I can do it anymore.

Selling them? That's another story.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 26, 2020 10:16 AM (cfSRQ)

172 Bezos would make a good Melkor, Soros too old and feeble for Morgoth.

Posted by: davidt at January 26, 2020 10:17 AM (l3+k2)

173 Posted by: Brave Sir Robin at January 26, 2020 10:14 AM (7Fj9P)

the horror

teh horrorz

Posted by: Vanya at January 26, 2020 10:17 AM (U7voe)

174 Well, time to get ready for church.

Later, all!

Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing
at January 26, 2020 10:18 AM (WEBkv)

175 If you came up with a plot involving a loud-mouthed, egotistical and randy billionaire real estate developer and TV star who decides to run for president and ends saving the country, it would be rejected as too far-fetched.

Posted by: Donna&&&&V. at January 26, 2020 10:18 AM (d6Ksn)

176 Posted by: zombie Dick Shawn

I'm picturing him as Ethel Merman's son in It's a Mad Mad World...

And laughing !

Posted by: Mike Tython at January 26, 2020 10:18 AM (arJlL)

177 Oh, look who didn't change his sock !

Posted by: JT at January 26, 2020 10:20 AM (arJlL)

178 I had the exact same experience; until I went
through the class discussions that detailed the symbolism. Once I
started to understand what Conrad was doing, the book opened up to me. I
love the film "Apocalypse Now" because of it. (I know a lot of y'all
will disagree, and yeah The Doors bit at the end goes on forever, but I
like it.)

Posted by: Brave Sir Robin at January 26, 2020 10:14 AM (7Fj9P)

---
It's hard to believe this sort of thing went on, but when I was in high school, we read Heart of Darkness and then watched "Apocalypse Now" in class for additional discussion.

Today? Impossible.

We did a lot of that stuff, though. Books were supposed to challenge us and if you got upset, it was working.

Anyhow, while Col. Kilgore was blasting the crap out of the village, I was dryly commenting that it was a metaphor for the diligent clerk with the flawless suit.

Great battle sequence with cameo by R. Lee Ermey!

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 26, 2020 10:20 AM (cfSRQ)

179 Adam has a face to face relationship with God, knows Him well, and thinks he can hide from God?
===========================
"Adam, where are you?"
Our preacher did an entire sermon on that sentence. It's in his top 10 greatest hits.

Posted by: Brave Sir Robin at January 26, 2020 10:20 AM (7Fj9P)

180 Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 26, 2020 10:16 AM (cfSRQ)

Yeah, I will probably never make a dime off my stuff but my family thinks it's interesting so I will carry on.

My first one was almost 110 and the next two around 80. I wanted them to be 100 but I realized I didn't have anything else to say and it'd be filler.

Posted by: Vanya at January 26, 2020 10:20 AM (U7voe)

181 Trump says Schiff will pay a price. Yay

Schiff on with Chuck Todd this morning. Will Todd ask the obvious hard questions?

Posted by: Ignoramus at January 26, 2020 10:21 AM (BySmd)

182 If you came up with a plot involving a loud-mouthed, egotistical and randy billionaire real estate developer and TV star who decides to run for president and ends saving the country, it would be rejected as too far-fetched.
Posted by: Donna&&&&V. at January 26, 2020 10:18 AM (d6Ksn)

The new President of Ukraine got famous by starring in a TV show where he plays a guy who accidentally gets elected President of Ukraine. It's like if Kevin Kline got elected because of the movie Dave.

Posted by: Vanya at January 26, 2020 10:22 AM (U7voe)

183 since we're on JRRT......

Posted by: yara at January 26, 2020 10:07 AM (rde8g)

That's funny.

Posted by: BignJames at January 26, 2020 10:22 AM (X/Pw5)

184 154 Not getting the hate for "Flowers for Algernon".

It's a wonderful story and beautifully written.

It also subtly introduces some nice life lessons and situations that are probably good for kiddos at that age to consider.

Posted by: naturalfake at January 26, 2020 10:09 AM (T+nBE)

I agree. The story, not the novel, which was unnecessary.

I read the story aloud to Mrs. Muse many years ago. It was a challenge to adopt a feeble-minded cadence at the very beginning, slowly come up to normal and then higher above that, and then go back down at the end.

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Austere Religious Scholar at January 26, 2020 10:22 AM (weya0)

185 YOU ARE MORE LIKELY TO BE SHOT IN CHICAGO THAN GET AN EXOTIC DISEASE.

SURGICAL MASKS DON'T STOP BULLETS.

DO YOU LIKE MY CAPS LOCK?

Posted by: PANIC PERSON at January 26, 2020 10:23 AM (cfSRQ)

186
Schiff on with Chuck Todd this morning. Will Todd ask the obvious hard questions?
Posted by: Ignoramus at January 26, 2020 10:21 AM (BySmd)

The next time my phone rings, will it be a Victoria's Secret model asking if she can come over and give me a back rub?

Posted by: Vanya at January 26, 2020 10:23 AM (U7voe)

187 Schiff on with Chuck Todd this morning. Will Todd ask the obvious hard questions?

mmmpfff, gag, guh, mmmpff

Posted by: Chuck "Beaver Mouth" Todd at January 26, 2020 10:23 AM (Tnijr)

188 Great battle sequence with cameo by R. Lee Ermey!
=====================
Air-Cav riding into battle w/Wagner blasting. "Terrifies Charlie" Duvall at his best.

Posted by: Brave Sir Robin at January 26, 2020 10:23 AM (7Fj9P)

189 The Stephen King joke may have been funny if he left out Carrie much less not start off with it. Carrie wasn't evil IMHO.

Posted by: Sebastian Melmoth at January 26, 2020 10:24 AM (2DOZq)

190 Adam has a face to face relationship with God, knows Him well, and thinks he can hide from God?

Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing
at January 26, 2020 10:04 AM (WEBkv)

Because sin makes you blind and stupid. You know, like progressivism.

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Austere Religious Scholar at January 26, 2020 10:24 AM (weya0)

191 sin = to miss the mark

we are all sinners.

Posted by: Balrog of Morgoth at January 26, 2020 10:26 AM (CLteG)

192 On the subject of every movie being a big set piece action extravaganza, wht irks me the most in movies like LOTR and the like is the absolute desire nay mandate that every movie must have in it a long running seen that can easily get converted to a theme of a roller coaster ride. Ugh... or simple basic physics s violations. Hey the bad guy is at the top of that 4000 foot mountain....lets.just run up there and kill him. Two minutes later and not.a drop of sweat. There they are fresh and ready for battle. Some of these battle scenes are longer and more intense than an iron man triathlon. Rant off.

Posted by: Cuthbert the Witless at January 26, 2020 10:26 AM (9dzlp)

193 Yeah, I will probably never make a dime off my stuff but my family thinks it's interesting so I will carry on.

My first one was almost 110 and the next two around 80. I wanted
them to be 100 but I realized I didn't have anything else to say and
it'd be filler.

Posted by: Vanya at January 26, 2020 10:20 AM (U7voe)

---
Yeah, my attention span isn't that long.

I think modern books are too bloated. I blame word processors.

I try to cut to the chase and keep things moving. The Man of Destiny books are long because a lot is happening. Other ones? More straightforward.

It's interesting to me how much longer books have gotten. I look at Fitzgerald or Hemingway (or Conrad) and they are basically novellas compared to modern work.

Waugh also cuts to the point pretty quickly. I have an anthology with four of his books in it and it's pretty compact. Lord of the Rings is what, one book by George RRRR Martin?

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

194 Carrie wasn't evil IMHO.
===============
Burning up the gym at the end certainly did produce some collateral damage.

Posted by: Brave Sir Robin at January 26, 2020 10:26 AM (7Fj9P)

195 Alyssa Milano@Alyssa_Milano
The Republican Party' s patriotism is dead.

Thoughts and prayers.

-
Well, Cookie, we can't all be Islamic terrorist apologists.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at January 26, 2020 10:26 AM (+y/Ru)

196 By the way, I've got ugly pants pics queued up until mid-May. So if you think I'm going to eventually run out, don't get your hopes up.

In most of these pants, hope shouldn't spring forth, so to speak.

As to Robert E Howard, Conan is my favorite literary creation of them all.

Between the time when the oceans drank Atlantis, and the rise of the sons of Aryas, there was an age undreamed of. And unto this, Conan, destined to bear the jeweled crown of Aquilonia upon a troubled brow. It is I, his chronicler, who alone can tell thee of his saga. Let me tell you of the days of high adventure!

That quote is from the movie, and derivative of Howard's words.

I possess a good chunk of his writings. His flights of fantasy helped me with mine. Sadly, he was a mama's boy and when she died he just couldn't bear it.

Posted by: GnuBreed at January 26, 2020 10:26 AM (Z4rgH)

197 Good morning, book addicts.

One of the more interesting people I've met since moving to Oklahoma is a channeling psychic. She has written four books and in the interest of friendship I'm reading them. While I retain some skepticism about paranormal phenomena, this struck me when I read it:
"2003 into the future--Each country will have its own terrorist branch. Our branch in our country will be like the FBI and CIA."

With the exception of one extraneous word she nailed it.

Posted by: creeper at January 26, 2020 10:26 AM (XxJt1)

198 My book recommendation this week is The Profession by Stephen Pressfield. It's his take on how the Middle East conflict will look like in 2032.

Posted by: Sebastian Melmoth at January 26, 2020 10:28 AM (2DOZq)

199 I also hated the Heart Of Darkness. It was an assigned project in HS. Had to write a report, got an 'F". Only F I ever got.

Posted by: Vic at January 26, 2020 10:28 AM (mpXpK)

200 Tolle Lege
Now if only I had something new to read, ah well maybe a stop at the used book store tomorrow will fix that.

Posted by: Skip at January 26, 2020 10:28 AM (ZCEU2)

201 I write in longhand, because I find it almost impossible to write originally on a computer. My goal is a page a day.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at January 26, 2020 10:16 AM (Ki5SV)

In one of his 'how to write' books or articles, Stephen King said that if you can produce one double-spaced typed page of finished product each day, you were doing OK.

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Austere Religious Scholar at January 26, 2020 10:29 AM (weya0)

202 Reading: "American Gripen: The Solution to the F-35 nightmare." Already knew that the F-35 was too heavy, too slow, too expensive, and too maintenance-intensive to be a viable warplane. It's actually worse than I thought. The plane's electronics are cooled by its fuel. If it's fuel gets too warm, the plane won't even start. It also won't start if it's too cold for its batteries.

Posted by: Victor Tango Kilo at January 26, 2020 10:29 AM (N30JC)

203 Well, Cookie, we can't all be Islamic terrorist apologists.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at January 26, 2020 10:26 AM (+y/Ru)

---
Real patriots see people chanting "Death to America!" and shout "I submit! I submit! Kill them, but not meeeee!"

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 26, 2020 10:29 AM (cfSRQ)

204 War and Peace. 2/3 through and losing interest.

Should I finish it or can I bail? Does that make me a quitter? Do i owe any loyalty to a book that doesn't compel me to finish it? Do I?

Posted by: Xannibal Bob at January 26, 2020 10:31 AM (hmgiv)

205 Burning up the gym at the end certainly did produce some collateral damage.
Posted by: Brave Sir Robin at January 26, 2020 10:26 AM (7Fj9P)

You don't want none, don't start none.

Posted by: Sebastian Melmoth at January 26, 2020 10:31 AM (2DOZq)

206 In one of his 'how to write' books or articles,
Stephen King said that if you can produce one double-spaced typed page
of finished product each day, you were doing OK.

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor Austere Religious Scholar at January 26, 2020 10:29 AM (weya0)

---
Also, drink like a fish.

I mean that's what he did, right?

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 26, 2020 10:31 AM (cfSRQ)

207
Can we not sneak in some dress pron and chess-nuts.

Ssshhhh The Librarian is stacked....... we all are pretend reading when she's up the ladder and SHE IS NOT WEARING PANT 'Ehs.

Gotta try Ghost Rider.
When my mom passed I drove my MGB down the West coast as far as L.A then across Caly,Vegas and up along the MidWest US to Toronto,5 thousand miles of putting my soul back to normal,cathartic indeed.

Posted by: saf at January 26, 2020 10:32 AM (5IHGB)

208 170 ... "I write in longhand, because I find it almost impossible to write originally on a computer. My goal is a page a day."

MP4,
For writing longhand, I prefer a decent fountain pen. Pelikan is my favorite brand, filled with Noodler's ink.

Remember, Shelby Foote wrote all his manuscripts, including the Civil War books, with a dip pen. So you are in good company.

Posted by: JTB at January 26, 2020 10:32 AM (7EjX1)

209 Posted by: Xannibal Bob at January 26, 2020 10:31 AM (hmgiv)

IDK what's inside your head, obviously, but I've put books down for years and then come back and re-read them all the way through. It's a mindset thing for me, I think.

Posted by: Vanya at January 26, 2020 10:33 AM (U7voe)

210
Skip if you need something to read how about :

"Scamping Tricks and Odd Knowledge Occasionally Practised upon Public Works"

Tricks of the construction trade, circa 1890. Written in a narrative style, with stories of the old way of doing things.

https://tinyurl.com/ubmm3xu

Posted by: Chuck at January 26, 2020 10:34 AM (Tnijr)

211 Also, drink like a fish.

Where did that expression come from ?

Fish don't drink !

Posted by: JT at January 26, 2020 10:34 AM (arJlL)

212 The story, not the novel, which was unnecessary.

-
Another such is Joe Haldeman's The Forever War which began life as an excellent short story and became a mediocre novel.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at January 26, 2020 10:34 AM (+y/Ru)

213 In one of his 'how to write' books or articles, Stephen King said that if you can produce one double-spaced typed page of finished product each day, you were doing OK.

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Austere Religious Scholar at January 26, 2020 10:29 AM (weya0)

Mario Puzo said the same. At the end of the year you have a book. He also said get rid of anything in your life that interferes with your writing. Even your wife. So theres that.

Posted by: Xannibal Bob at January 26, 2020 10:35 AM (hmgiv)

214 Anyone here read Conn Iggulden books ? Someone recommended him to me for historical fiction.

Posted by: Sebastian Melmoth at January 26, 2020 10:35 AM (2DOZq)

215 saf - I'm assuming that, had you gotten yourself lost, you could've retraced your route by following the trail of leaking oil? :-)

Posted by: PabloD at January 26, 2020 10:35 AM (vlwIa)

216 oops off beaver mouthed sock

Posted by: freaked at January 26, 2020 10:35 AM (Tnijr)

217 I do some bidness writing at work but it's usually dull stuff like the pension notes in the financial statements. Writing the Gun Thread on a deadline each week has been an interesting change.

Posted by: Weasel at January 26, 2020 10:37 AM (MVjcR)

218 VTK, when even the Poles have figured it out and shitcanned all their orders it's time to send that airplane to the scrap heap...right after the 737MAX.

Posted by: creeper at January 26, 2020 10:37 AM (XxJt1)

219 Fish don't drink !

Posted by: JT at January 26, 2020 10:34 AM (arJlL)

If you knew what was in that water, you wouldn't either.

Posted by: BignJames at January 26, 2020 10:38 AM (X/Pw5)

220 Stephen Pressfield has a how to write book called Nobody Wants to Read Your Shit.

I've not read it but I love the title.

Posted by: Sebastian Melmoth at January 26, 2020 10:38 AM (2DOZq)

221 IDK what's inside your head, obviously, but I've put books down for years and then come back and re-read them all the way through. It's a mindset thing for me, I think.

Posted by: Vanya at January 26, 2020 10:33 AM (U7voe)

Thanks Vanya. I'll finish, although intermittently at this point. I've just gone back after finishing another book. I'll take it in stages now.

Posted by: Xannibal Bob at January 26, 2020 10:38 AM (hmgiv)

222 Steinbeck may not be everybody's favorite, but Cannery Row is one of his more readable books. It's been years since I read it but, as I remember it, some of the vignettes were beautifully done.

Here's a speculation: Maybe Steinbeck was really a pretty good short story writer trying to stretch beyond his strength. In my opinion D.H. Lawrence had this problem, in that his novels sometimes would wander around and could get tiresome, almost trite in their modern themes, but his short stories still seem very powerful (like "The Rocking Horse Winner"). Not everyone can be Waugh, who could write equally well regardless of form, and whose short stories are as excellent as his novels.

Posted by: Huck Follywood at January 26, 2020 10:38 AM (NVYyb)

223 Hey Weasel you might want to check out my comment #21.

Posted by: freaked at January 26, 2020 10:38 AM (Tnijr)

224 I loved Conrad's Heart of Darkness. I loved the non fiction film "Heart of Darkness,: A film makers apocalypse. I loved the movie Apocalypse Now.

But the the thing the left and many Americans never seem to to have got it is that was just one story. I took it as a story set in Vietnam. Not the story of Vietnam. Hell he ripped it from Conrad For sure it was not set in Vietnam.

They asked Coppala, whe was a great director, if his movie was based on Vietnam. He responded that his movie WAS VIETNAM !.

But he was a Holltyweird director. What did he really know? If you want to take the Hollyweird version, that is fine. No doubt it is the received version from Cronkite and others. it is the Received Wisdom.

But i know men who joined because they wanted fight the fight. They never smoked pot and they wanted to fight that war. Why don't they get their moment int the sun hell I know a guy who told them don't send me to combat and i will resign.

There are a lot of stories and Hollyweird will never even try to tell them.

Posted by: Quint at January 26, 2020 10:39 AM (n13/j)

225 Posted by: freaked at January 26, 2020 10:38 AM (Tnijr)
----
I'll check that out! Thanks freaked!

Posted by: Weasel at January 26, 2020 10:39 AM (MVjcR)

226 Posted by: Quint at January 26, 2020 10:39 AM (n13/j)

The Green Berets

Posted by: Sebastian Melmoth at January 26, 2020 10:40 AM (2DOZq)

227 F-35: Gazillion dollar compromise disguised as an airplane.

Posted by: klaftern at January 26, 2020 10:40 AM (RuIsu)

228
No one's attempted "who dis"? I wildly guess Helen Keller and someone else.

Posted by: Blonde Morticia at January 26, 2020 10:41 AM (13CQC)

229 In honor of Robert E. Howard's birthday, I'll get out my complete Conan hardcover and an e-book Howard Omnibus that has a lot of his his non-Conan stories. Some of them are actually funny as hell. Great, distracting reading.

Posted by: JTB at January 26, 2020 10:41 AM (7EjX1)

230 Greetings:

RE: Comanches

My recommendation for those folks is T.R. Fehrenbach's Comanches: The History of a People". Originally published in 1974 it has been republished as "Comanches: "The Destruction of a People" for all the obvious reasons.

Fehrenbach has also written a good deal about Texas and Mexico. His "This Kind of War" about the Korean War..

Posted by: 11B40 at January 26, 2020 10:41 AM (evgyj)

231 OM, this is a wonderful book thread. But I have to tell you, seeing the words "Earl Warren" in print is ruining an otherwise lovely day.

Posted by: creeper at January 26, 2020 10:41 AM (XxJt1)

232 MP4,
For writing longhand, I prefer a decent fountain pen. Pelikan is my favorite brand, filled with Noodler's ink.

Remember, Shelby Foote wrote all his manuscripts, including the Civil War books, with a dip pen. So you are in good company.
Posted by: JTB at January 26, 2020 10:32 AM (7EjX1)

**laughs**

OK, confession time. I like to write with a dip pen, as most fountain pens' nibs are a little too wide for my taste. I have a handful of English nibs from the 1880s which were a gift from a fairly well-known "Jack the Ripper" author, and they're my go-to.

I am also very particular about my paper, since ordinary notebooks tend to soak up ink. I bought a shit load of "journals" from a dollar store in my town before they went out of business and generally use those. As far as ink, it has to be blue and (here's where you'll really roll your eyes) have a certain smell. Sheaffers is one of my faves.

Longhand is my first draft. Typing it up is the second, where I cut, add or do "set decoration," adding descriptors and such. Only when the story is finished do I set out to do a third draft.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at January 26, 2020 10:42 AM (Ki5SV)

233 219 Fish don't drink !

Posted by: JT at January 26, 2020 10:34 AM (arJlL)

If I would guess its because their whole life is swimming in water, and well I've had those stages with alcohol....kinda.

Posted by: Xannibal Bob at January 26, 2020 10:42 AM (hmgiv)

234 The library pic description is interesting. Washington University is in my fair city. My mom graduated from there in the 1950s. It's considered a top flight school, you see kids wearing T-shirts that say "Harvard: the Washington University of the East." I've done some scanning work over there for some architects, and the campus is truly amazing. Think Hogwarts spread out over a few hundred acres. They (supposedly) have an endowment second only to Yale in the billions. Here's the thing: my random sample is that 7 out of 10 students there are oriental. Another 2 out of 10 are Arab. Virtually no white kids go there, and no white males. Brain. Drain writ large.
Posted by: Brave Sir Robin at January 26, 2020 10:04 AM (7Fj9P)

Interesting! I was going to say almost the exact same thing.

They laid out the campus in a way so you can't easily tell the new buildings from the old buildings. Everything has the same reddish stone look to it.

The big problem is, nothing is labeled properly, so if you are not on campus except once or twice a year, you have no idea where anything is.

And yes, Asians everywhere. Mostly Chinese, I think.

Posted by: BurtTC at January 26, 2020 10:42 AM (hku12)

235 Thanks Vanya. I'll finish, although intermittently at this point. I've just gone back after finishing another book. I'll take it in stages now.
Posted by: Xannibal Bob

Start with the stage to Yuma.

Posted by: JT at January 26, 2020 10:43 AM (arJlL)

236
The Green Berets

Posted by: Sebastian Melmoth at January 26, 2020 10:40 AM

interesting thought experiment: for the next five minutes, DO NOT think about Elmer Fudd singing the Ballad of the Green Beret

Ready, GO!

Posted by: AltonJackson at January 26, 2020 10:43 AM (8hUqJ)

237 OM, this is a wonderful book thread. But I have to tell you, seeing the words "Earl Warren" in print is ruining an otherwise lovely day.

Posted by: creeper at January 26, 2020 10:41 AM (XxJt1)

Maybe I can help..."Warren Burger".

Posted by: BignJames at January 26, 2020 10:43 AM (X/Pw5)

238 Posted by: Xannibal Bob at January 26, 2020 10:31 AM

Thats a shame, would think that far into would have caught your interest.

Posted by: Skip at January 26, 2020 10:43 AM (ZCEU2)

239 Anyone here read Conn Iggulden books ? Someone recommended him to me for historical fiction.

-
The only book of his that I've read is The Dangerous Book For Boys which is not a novel but rather sort of a Boy Scouts Handbook on how to do boy things.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at January 26, 2020 10:43 AM (+y/Ru)

240 I have the new cut of Apocalypse Now from Netflix waiting for me at home( I am currently in DC visiting grandkids). Interesting about the discussion of Heart of Darkness and the film. Sigh....hope I don't feel compelled to go back and try the book again.

Posted by: Sharon at January 26, 2020 10:44 AM (j9P1T)

241 228

No one's attempted "who dis"? I wildly guess Helen Keller and someone else.
Posted by: Blonde Morticia at January 26, 2020 10:41 AM (13CQC)

Sorry, no. See comment #8 for the correct answer.

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Austere Religious Scholar at January 26, 2020 10:45 AM (weya0)

242 199
I also hated the Heart Of Darkness. It was an assigned project in HS. Had to write a report, got an 'F". Only F I ever got.

===========

Oh I got many F's. Some of my teachers were not fans. My favorite moment though was when I wrote a book report in seventh grade on "In Cold Blood" and my shocked teacher called my mother in for a meeting to ask if she was aware what I was reading while she was at work.

Posted by: Huck Follywood at January 26, 2020 10:45 AM (NVYyb)

243 211 Also, drink like a fish.

Where did that expression come from ?

Terri Garr is a drinker !!

Posted by: REDACTED at January 26, 2020 10:46 AM (rpxSz)

244 237 OM, this is a wonderful book thread. But I have to tell you, seeing the words "Earl Warren" in print is ruining an otherwise lovely day.
Posted by: creeper at January 26, 2020 10:41 AM (XxJt1)

Better Earl Warren than Elizabeth Warren.

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Austere Religious Scholar at January 26, 2020 10:46 AM (weya0)

245 VTK, when even the Poles have figured it out and shitcanned all their orders it's time to send that airplane to the scrap heap...right after the 737MAX.

The problem with the 737Max is mostly shitty third world maintenance and shitty third world pilots. But the F-35 has turned into an enormous boondoggle, like the launch system on the Ford-Class aircraft carrier and the railgun on the Zumwalt class destroyer whose rounds cost $800,000 each.

Speaking of the former, on MLK day, the Navy announced the next Ford-Class carrier will be named the USS Doris Miller after an African-American seaman who saved lives at Pearl Harbor.

I don't like naming ships after people generally, so I'm biased. But typically, war heroes get destroyers named after them, not carriers. This seems like a bit of pandering. I would much rather see our carriers named things like "USS Annihilation" and "USS Rampage"

Posted by: Victor Tango Kilo at January 26, 2020 10:46 AM (N30JC)

246 If you came up with a plot involving a loud-mouthed, egotistical and
randy billionaire real estate developer and TV star who decides to run
for president and ends saving the country, it would be rejected as too
far-fetched.

Posted by: DonnaV.

This is true, and it probably would be, too.
But similar stories made the cut for a couple of books of the Old Testament.

He has that going for him.

Posted by: Way, Way Downriver at January 26, 2020 10:46 AM (oRpiG)

247 And might be the first time I read about someone else who had a fountain pen fascination besides hearing about them from a person who has for over a dozen years, that would be Dennis Prager.

Posted by: Skip at January 26, 2020 10:46 AM (ZCEU2)

248 I'm a lefty. I bowl left handed, as do I golf, throw, bat...

I kick left footed. I shoot left eyed. Yet I write right handed, due to an intolerant 1st grade teacher and her liberal application of a ruler on my knuckles.

The result? Atrocious handwriting skillz. I wouldn't have the heart to subject some poor transcriber/editor to my chicken scratchings.

Posted by: GnuBreed at January 26, 2020 10:46 AM (Z4rgH)

249 The only book of his that I've read is The Dangerous Book For Boys which is not a novel but rather sort of a Boy Scouts Handbook on how to do boy things.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at January 26, 2020 10:43 AM (+y/Ru

I wish I was 9 again instead of 29 so I could read it.

Posted by: Sebastian Melmoth at January 26, 2020 10:47 AM (2DOZq)

250 Listened recently to Howard's Conan stories, rousing stuff, and then depression over his mother's stroke caused him to end his life. Just terrible.

Posted by: waelse1 at January 26, 2020 10:47 AM (jKz6G)

251 The book thread is like a 70s TV show. It's the only thread that has "previously on the book thread, the commenters said..."
Posted by: Bandersnatch at January 26, 2020 09:07 AM (gd9RK)
----

A Quinn Martin production!
*OregonMuse jumps over hood of car*

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at January 26, 2020 09:14 AM (Dc2NZ)

Now I need to figure out how to end each boot thread in a freeze frame.
Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Austere Religious Scholar at January 26, 2020 09:48 AM (weya0)

Wouldn't work, because each week, before the episode is actually over the network cuts away to a breaking news item that announced how terrible this modern world is, and shows some dastardly example of same.

Meanwhile, in an alternate universe, the book thread keeps going on, with a few characters whispering to each other quietly.

Posted by: BurtTC at January 26, 2020 10:48 AM (hku12)

252 I would much rather see our carriers named things like "USS Annihilation" and "USS Rampage"
Posted by: Victor Tango Kilo at January 26, 2020 10:46 AM (N30JC)

USS Enola Gay
USS Edward Teller
USS Bock's Car
USS Curtis LeMay
USS Larry Thorne
USS Pershing

Posted by: Vanya at January 26, 2020 10:49 AM (U7voe)

253 I've put aside (given up?) on my book "For the Children" 400+ somewhat edited book about my experiences teaching in public title 1 schools.

Supposed to be snarky and funny but I just got aggravated writing it and didn't want it to be just a bitch session. Also, I kept thinking of other scenes to write and it would just get longer. And I switched form 3rd to 1st person so theres that. Ugh.

Rather draw, do cartoons and write songs.

Posted by: Xannibal Bob at January 26, 2020 10:49 AM (hmgiv)

254 Well, the Othello Error was out in full force in the Senate last week.

Posted by: Vendette at January 26, 2020 10:50 AM (SL4lK)

255 My late Father graduated from Washington U. in St. Louis in three years with an aeronautical engineering degree. Smart dude.

Just starting Profiles in Corruption by Peter Schweizer.

Struggling to find a good new science fiction series to read. Recommendations?

Posted by: Sharkman at January 26, 2020 10:50 AM (5v15w)

256 USS WeaselShip

Posted by: Weasel at January 26, 2020 10:50 AM (MVjcR)

257 USS Detroit

Posted by: cool breeze at January 26, 2020 10:51 AM (UGKMd)

258 Neil Peart was a Renaissance Man who also happened to play drums.

RIP

Posted by: Sharkman at January 26, 2020 10:52 AM (5v15w)

259 Vanya:

USS Bottled Sunshine
USS Glass Factory
USS Lamentations of Their Women
USS Yeah, You Better Run

Posted by: Victor Tango Kilo at January 26, 2020 10:52 AM (N30JC)

260 Chinese health minister admits it can be spread by people showing no symptoms, and they have to re-evaluate how to deal with this. (It's almost as if the rumors and outside scientists opinions are become true).

https://www.cnn.com/asia/live-news/ coronavirus-outbreak-hnk-intl-01-26-20/index.html

Posted by: squirrelly dan at January 26, 2020 10:52 AM (lfIv5)

261 USS John Moses Browning

Posted by: goatexchange at January 26, 2020 10:52 AM (iUjXP)

262 Struggling to find a good new science fiction series to read. Recommendations?
Posted by: Sharkman at January 26, 2020 10:50 AM (5v15w)

Not a series but my favorite sci-fi book is Armor by John Steakley.

Posted by: Sebastian Melmoth at January 26, 2020 10:53 AM (2DOZq)

263 I ordered the Diane West book, "The Red Thread" yesterday, based on an interview I saw with her. The thing is though, I saw the first 10 or so minutes, and thought "yes, this is what I need."

Then the interview continued, and she was going on about James Comey and his love for Reinhold Niebuhr. A couple things she states is that Niebuhr was bigly involved with commie groups, and he also was advocating for religious folk to ditch their faith in order to fight... I think the nazis?

Anyhoo, I sorta assume everyone dabbled in communism back then, but apparently she's claiming Niebuhr was deep into it, and it continued well after the war.

I think that's a direct contradiction of what I had previously known of him.

Any thoughts here?

Posted by: BurtTC at January 26, 2020 10:54 AM (hku12)

264 232 ... "OK, confession time. I like to write with a dip pen, as most fountain pens' nibs are a little too wide for my taste. I have a handful of English nibs from the 1880s which were a gift from a fairly well-known "Jack the Ripper" author, and they're my go-to.

I am also very particular about my paper, since ordinary notebooks tend to soak up ink. I bought a shit load of "journals" from a dollar store in my town before they went out of business and generally use those. As far as ink, it has to be blue and (here's where you'll really roll your eyes) have a certain smell. Sheaffers is one of my faves."

A man after my own heart. I have a variety of dip pens and nibs. I usually prefer a fine or extra fine nib. Thank goodness they are still available. And I'm fussy about paper. A good fountain or dip pen writing smoothly on the appropriate paper is a physically enjoyable experience.

I believe I have some Shaeffer blue ink in my stash. I'll have to take a look.

Posted by: JTB at January 26, 2020 10:54 AM (7EjX1)

265 Thats a shame, would think that far into would have caught your interest.

Posted by: Skip at January 26, 2020 10:43 AM (ZCEU2)

It did right away grab me for at least half, , but now seems to be the same same and Ive grown bored with the elitist characters.

Posted by: Xannibal Bob at January 26, 2020 10:54 AM (hmgiv)

266 I would much rather see our carriers named things like "USS Annihilation" and "USS Rampage"

Posted by: Victor Tango Kilo at January 26, 2020 10:46 AM (N30JC)

May I subscribe to your newsletter?

Posted by: GnuBreed at January 26, 2020 10:54 AM (Z4rgH)

267 On LotR, it was always a point in anyone tellijng about JRR Tolkien the stories were drawn from his WWI experience. Being a Napoleonic era fan I know officers often came back and reminisced on lost comrades.

Posted by: Skip at January 26, 2020 10:55 AM (ZCEU2)

268 Not a series but my favorite sci-fi book is Armor by John Steakley.

YES !

He wrote another book; what was the name ?

That one was great too !

Posted by: JT at January 26, 2020 10:55 AM (arJlL)

269 LOL @ GnuBreed's 248

My sister is a natural lefty and her teachers also forced her to write with her right hand. Unlike you, she actually got very good at it. But left to her own devices she would write with the left. When she'd finally mastered both she announced proudly, "I can write with both hands. I'm alberghetti!"

Posted by: creeper at January 26, 2020 10:55 AM (XxJt1)

270 I don't like naming ships after people generally, so
I'm biased. But typically, war heroes get destroyers named after them,
not carriers. This seems like a bit of pandering. I would much rather
see our carriers named things like "USS Annihilation" and "USS Rampage"

Posted by: Victor Tango Kilo at January 26, 2020 10:46 AM (N30JC)

---
American naming conventions are generally dull. There are a few good ones preserved in legacy (Hornet, Wasp) and then battles or cities and states.

The Brits always have cooler ship names. Some admirals, but also concepts like Revenge, Havoc, Hostile, etc.

I drew heavily on Brits for inspiration in Man of Destiny.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 26, 2020 10:56 AM (cfSRQ)

271 https://www.cnn.com/asia/live-news/ coronavirus-outbreak-hnk-intl-01-26-20/index.html
Posted by: squirrelly dan at January 26, 2020 10:52 AM (lfIv5)

I hope when we "evacuate our citizens", that they are quarantined for at least two weeks.

Posted by: CN at January 26, 2020 10:56 AM (ONvIw)

272 Posted by: Victor Tango Kilo at January 26, 2020 10:52 AM (N30JC)

"The Pentagon is reporting that F-18 Super Hornets launched from the USS Barbed Cock of Satan-- I can't believe I just said that-- struck antiaircraft emplacements in..."

Posted by: Vanya at January 26, 2020 10:56 AM (U7voe)

273 Story on Fox

As President Trump's impeachment trial
moves into the defense phases, attorney Alan Dershowitz on Sunday said
that he has changed his mind on whether a crime is needed to remove a
president from office, a reversal of his stance during the impeachment
of President Bill Clinton in 1999.

I hate to tell that smarty pants lawyer that Clinton committed a crime. He
committed perjury in his "court" testimony. That is a
felony.

Posted by: Vic at January 26, 2020 10:56 AM (mpXpK)

274 In the course of my scifi writing, I like to think I've come up with some pretty good names for warships.

Terse Reply
Challenge Accepted
No Quarter Asked and None Given
Hooded Basilisk
Ungentlemanly Behavior
Barbed Cock of Satan (Thanks, Horde)
The Skullcrusher (A character notes, "That wasn't the original name, it wasn't Skull CRUSHer if you know what I mean."

Posted by: Victor Tango Kilo at January 26, 2020 10:56 AM (N30JC)

275 Chuck Todd brought his best Gucci knee pads for his chat with Schiff. Scripted

Dollar to a donut, Schiff traded leaks for Media air time

Posted by: Ignoramus at January 26, 2020 10:56 AM (BySmd)

276 155 138 I read Cannery Row and can't recall a thing about it other than set in Cali.
Posted by: kallisto

I recall that the main character (based on Steinbeck's real-life buddy) was a marine biologist who got laid a lot.

That's it. I thought of it when I visited Monterey briefly years after I read the book.
Posted by: Donna&&&&V. at January 26, 2020 10:10 AM (d6Ksn)

Liked some Steinbeck.
But his Journey to the Sea of Cortez w his Marine biologist buddy, was ....
Well, more a tribute to my innate stubbornness that I finished it. My interest in all things Jacque Cousteau at the time lead me down that path after Mice & Cannery. I chose poorly.

Posted by: Heirloominati at January 26, 2020 10:56 AM (GC07d)

277 This is why I don't get into the superhero genre because no one every really dies, and therefore nothing actually matters. It's like trying to make a hamster running on a wheel a dramatic event when it isn't.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 26, 2020 09:12 AM (cfSRQ)

That is about the most succinct dissection of the superhero genre, especially the movies, that I have ever seen. Bravo!

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at January 26, 2020 10:56 AM (LxWV7)

278 256 USS WeaselShip

Posted by: Weasel at January 26, 2020 10:50 AM (MVjcR)

What class vessel do you foresee?

Posted by: Xannibal Bob at January 26, 2020 10:57 AM (hmgiv)

279 REH's Solomon Kane stories are fantastic.
I enjoy the Conan but Kane is the best

Posted by: Horus Hearsay at January 26, 2020 10:57 AM (DB16e)

280 I drew heavily on Brits for inspiration in Man of Destiny.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 26, 2020 10:56 AM (cfSRQ)

I'm not overly superstitious, but assigning a ship the name "Invincible" is kinda asking for it.

Posted by: Vanya at January 26, 2020 10:57 AM (U7voe)

281 I would like t be ambidextrous. And not a spaz with my left hand.

Posted by: Xannibal Bob at January 26, 2020 10:58 AM (hmgiv)

282 Xannibal Bob - Wondering are you reading it quite piecemeal in time or getting through a large portion in a sitting?

Posted by: Skip at January 26, 2020 10:58 AM (ZCEU2)

283 @273. Dershowitz makes that exact point in distinguishing what he said many years ago

Posted by: Ignoramus at January 26, 2020 10:58 AM (BySmd)

284 Posted by: Quint at January 26, 2020 10:39 AM (n13/j)

The Green Berets

Posted by: Sebastian Melmoth at January 26, 2020 10:40 AM (2DOZq)

good point. They were not all Green Berets. Some were Air Mobile, some were aviators, and some were regular troops.But it is absurd Hollyweird. seems to control the narrative/ These nutters don't know crap. Platoon was way worse than Apacalibpe Now. At leas A.N. could claim an allegory or story. But Platooon was noting but hot garrbage it seems cool until you realize Stone is shiting on all Americans. That is what Stone does, he craps on his own.

This guy crapped on Vietnam vets and then at the end pretnended to to care about them. He did the same thing with Wall Street.. HE shit on stock brockers but claimed at the end of the film to decdicate it to them. Same thing he did with vets, shit on them and dedicate the film to them.

Fine if you think the film speaks the truth. if it does, i feel sorry for you/ i know a lot of guys who wanted to go there, they had to go there. Not taking anything from another's experience. But we have heard that one. How about the ohter guys?

Posted by: Quint at January 26, 2020 10:58 AM (n13/j)

285 The "John Moses Browning" would be home-ported at Antwerp, Belgium.
American investors would not back him. He spent his career in Liege.

Posted by: Way, Way Downriver at January 26, 2020 10:59 AM (oRpiG)

286 Posted by: Victor Tango Kilo at January 26, 2020 10:56 AM (N30JC)

I'm currently doing a side project: Recycling the Battle of Jutland in space. Naming the 'German' side ships was fun.
Iron Hand of Neckarzimmern
Heinz Guderian
Teutoburger Wald
Marshal Ludendorff
Grand Master of Prussia
Admiral Lutjens

and a couple others

Posted by: Vanya at January 26, 2020 11:00 AM (U7voe)

287
USS Surprise Anal

"In a surprise attack early this morning, tomahawk missles from the USS Surprise Anal took the enemy from behind, unexpectedly. Film at 11:00"

Posted by: AltonJackson at January 26, 2020 11:01 AM (8hUqJ)

288 Vic - have heard this past week Clinton actually committed around 11. The argument from Clintonistas was its all about sex but really that isn't any part of the crimes.

Posted by: Skip at January 26, 2020 11:01 AM (ZCEU2)

289 Can't decide between USS Rock, Paper, or Scissors.

Posted by: klaftern at January 26, 2020 11:01 AM (RuIsu)

290 Not a bad pace if you are consistent.
A decent book is 50,000 words or so. My latest ones are a little under that, but every book of Man of Destiny was over 60,000 because I had a lot to say.
So, with some bad or busy days, two months of write a book.
I decided that I'm going to aim for one book a year so I don't get burned out.
Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd

that's how Smash writes her books as well. about 1k words a day and a book a year keeps her from burning out. do you have an editor you trust or do you do that yourself? Smash uses an editor she found while helping out struggling indie authors with the process when we were up in NOVA. she has gone through several different artists for cover art, can't really settle on a single good one.

Posted by: BifBewalski at January 26, 2020 11:01 AM (VcFUs)

291 Did anyone like The Grapes of Wrath?

Posted by: Mel Gibson at January 26, 2020 11:01 AM (QZCjk)

292 FIRST!!!!!

Posted by: Sponge at January 26, 2020 11:03 AM (Zz0t1)

293 had to take doggeh for a walk coz hubby put Press the Meat on
come back and Chuck Todd is still on, trying to get Frau Klaubuchenwald to endorse a future front runner

Posted by: vmom 2020 at January 26, 2020 11:03 AM (G546f)

294 Posted by: JT at January 26, 2020 10:55 AM (arJlL)

Steakley only wrote two books. Vampires was the other. The book was great, the movie not so much but it was still enjoyable. James Woods in the movie.

Posted by: Sebastian Melmoth at January 26, 2020 11:03 AM (2DOZq)

295 Speaking of cognitive biases, anyone else here heard of the Mandela Effect? I heard about it for the first time last week. It refers to people insisting that they remember things that didn't happen or never existed in real life -- for example, many people to this day insist that Nelson Mandela died in prison in the 1980s although he actually died in 2013. Another frequently cited example is the "cornucopia" in the Fruit of the Loom logo -- I could swear it exists but apparently it has NEVER been part of the official brand logo. There are lots of other examples...

Posted by: Secret Square at January 26, 2020 11:03 AM (41uZu)

296 242 199
I also hated the Heart Of Darkness. It was an assigned project in HS. Had to write a report, got an 'F". Only F I ever got.

I despised Catcher in the Rye when forced to read it in high school.

Posted by: Northernlurker at January 26, 2020 11:04 AM (Uu+Jp)

297 Vanya - Would go with old Napoleonic era for British ships for names.

Posted by: Skip at January 26, 2020 11:04 AM (ZCEU2)

298 Finished "Endurance" by astronaut Scott Kelly. It was OK. He's a bit of a grumpy bear, and I don't think his daughters would care for the way he portrays their mother. I was glad I checked this out from the library instead of buying it. I liked Scott Parazynski's "The Sky Below" better.

Favorite part was when Kelly and Obama were having a fangirl moment on Twitter and Buzz Aldrin interrupted. Kelly wisely says there's no point in a social media battle with an American hero and let it go.

Next up is "So, Anyway" by John Cleese. I checked this out before Terry Jones passed away, and I've already been notified that there's someone waiting to read it next.

Posted by: roamingfirehydrant at January 26, 2020 11:04 AM (THS4q)

299 I'm feeling a bit vindicated this morning as I was just over at ZeroHedge and they have an article on the Corona virus and how it's speculated that China stole it from Canada to weaponize it.

I've been saying China is testing it for biological warfare.

They are evil. To the core.

Posted by: Sponge at January 26, 2020 11:04 AM (Zz0t1)

300 The USS Weaselship should specialize in long range bombardment.

Posted by: JTB at January 26, 2020 11:04 AM (7EjX1)

301 And might be the first time I read about someone
else who had a fountain pen fascination besides hearing about them from a
person who has for over a dozen years, that would be Dennis Prager.
Posted by: Skip at January 26, 2020 10:46 AM (ZCEU2)

the Chinese make a decent fountain pen, they are not, perhaps, as satin smooth as a Mont Blank or a current Parker, but they are supposed to be used for writing, and they work well. They also cost about $29 for a fair decent pen.

I bought a jar of Esterbrook pen points on a whim and decided (like the mother in You Can't Take it With You who, on getting a typewriter delivered to her by accident, decided to become a novelist) to work on my handwriting.
Since then it has been a struggle to find pen holders.

Posted by: Kindltot at January 26, 2020 11:04 AM (6rS3m)

302 A couple of the accidentally-greatest US ship names:
Shangri-LaLook it up. That was really rubbing it in.

KearsargeOld tradition was that there would always be a Kearsarge, and an Alabama.
When all other battleships were named after states, there was still Kearsarge.

Posted by: Way, Way Downriver at January 26, 2020 11:05 AM (oRpiG)

303 That last cartoon is too close to my reality to be funny. It does qualify for appropriate and poignant.

Posted by: JTB at January 26, 2020 11:05 AM (7EjX1)

304 The 1982 movie "Cannery Row" is very entertaining. Based on two Steinbeck novels, Cannery Row and Sweet Thursday. Yes, I know Nick Nolte and Deborah Winger, but it's worth a look. Directed by David S. Ward, who wrote the screenplay for "The Sting." Narrated by John Huston. Lots of great character actors.

Nolte plays the marine biologist, who was based on Edward Flanders Robb Ricketts, a fascinating guy.

Posted by: Art Rondelet of Malmsey at January 26, 2020 11:06 AM (fTtFy)

305 Vanya, the sage of the F-35 did inspire a subplot in a current project. What if the crew of a warship was saddled with a starfighter that was ill-suited for its mission and their circumstances and they had to work around its deficiencies?

Posted by: Victor Tango Kilo at January 26, 2020 11:06 AM (N30JC)

306 97 vmom did you decide on your trip?
Posted by: kallisto

Yes!

booked flights into Florence and out of Rome

AFTER I booked, KTY sez "we HAVE to go to Turino to see da Vinci 's chalk drawing"

that's not that convenient kid!

anyway now I have to make itinerary, reserve hotels, buy rail tix

where should I look for lodgings - booking.com?

Posted by: vmom 2020 at January 26, 2020 11:06 AM (G546f)

307 USS Grapes of Wrath? Sure, why not.

At least it's not a musical.

Posted by: klaftern at January 26, 2020 11:06 AM (RuIsu)

308 "Did anyone like The Grapes of Wrath?"

It was no "Of Mice and Men".

Posted by: zombie Algernon at January 26, 2020 11:06 AM (Tnijr)

309 78 256 USS WeaselShip

Posted by: Weasel at January 26, 2020 10:50 AM (MVjcR)

What class vessel do you foresee?
Posted by: Xannibal Bob at January 26, 2020 10:57 AM (hmgiv)
------
Super Jumbo Badass Mo-Fo Carrier.

Posted by: Weasel at January 26, 2020 11:06 AM (MVjcR)

310 books and guns. do not need more. but, but, but....

Posted by: politics uber alles at January 26, 2020 11:06 AM (0hOKG)

311 Something else about Christopher Tolkien’s life and work must be said. It’s a remarkable thing for a son to realize the unique genius of his father and, instead of trading on that genius to advance his own career and fortune, choose to dedicate his life to the stewardship and advancement of his father’s work.
.......

Christopher Tolkien's entire adult life was spent trading on his father's genius.

He was a fabulously wealthy man, due to the vast sums of royalties his father's works generated every year.

I cannot speak to his motivations.

Posted by: Chi-Town Jerry at January 26, 2020 11:07 AM (CjFDo)

312 that's how Smash writes her books as well. about 1k
words a day and a book a year keeps her from burning out. do you have
an editor you trust or do you do that yourself? Smash uses an editor
she found while helping out struggling indie authors with the process
when we were up in NOVA. she has gone through several different artists
for cover art, can't really settle on a single good one.

Posted by: BifBewalski at January 26, 2020 11:01 AM (VcFUs)

---
I have a friend who is very detail-oriented. He compulsively finds mistakes in books and pencils in corrections.

So he test-reads my stuff for content, and notes everything else that's wrong. He's not fool proof, but no one is.

I then do a hard copy edit myself. The results are reasonably clean. I would consider hiring an editor but my sales volume is so low there's no point.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 26, 2020 11:07 AM (cfSRQ)

313 Warren will likely come fourth in both IA and NH.
Game over for the Menshevik?

Bernie has the die hard support of the 20% Bolshevicks and a war chest. Biden is fading, so Bernie could win both IA and NH. Heh

Posted by: Ignoramus at January 26, 2020 11:08 AM (BySmd)

314 BifBewalski, what is Smash's author name if I want to chevk out her books?

Posted by: vmom 2020 at January 26, 2020 11:08 AM (G546f)

315 Stephen King is a literary hack.

I'm just sayin.

Posted by: Sponge at January 26, 2020 11:08 AM (Zz0t1)

316 Did anyone like The Grapes of Wrath?

==

They never take a bath!

Posted by: vmom 2020 at January 26, 2020 11:09 AM (G546f)

317 An othello error stole my childhood.

Posted by: Greta Thunberg, meatball-scented Druid philosopher at January 26, 2020 11:09 AM (EgshT)

318 I would consider hiring an editor but my sales volume is so low there's no point.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 26, 2020 11:07 AM (cfSRQ)

If that's the case, like I tell my kid, try harder.

Posted by: Sponge at January 26, 2020 11:09 AM (Zz0t1)

319 Steinbeck was for years my favorite author. That changed when I recently reread "Travels With Charley" which had been my second favorite of his works, after "East of Eden".

I had read an article exposing the fact that the supposed cross-country journey he was making was, in fact, just a series of shorter road trips, interspersed with lengthy stays in comfortable hotels and returns home. I thought the author of the article was just grinding some axe but was reminded of how much I loved it and decided to go there again.

When I reread it I found it vapid and self-centered. It was a huge disappointment and I have vowed to not reread any more Steinbeck.

Posted by: creeper at January 26, 2020 11:09 AM (XxJt1)

320 Looks like I have also named (space) warships Behold A Pale Horse, Malevolent Bloodhammer, and That Was Uncalled For.

Posted by: Victor Tango Kilo at January 26, 2020 11:10 AM (N30JC)

321 Chi-Town Jerry

Christopher Tolkien started out adult life as a Spitfire pilot in WWII. He got better.

Posted by: NaCly Dog at January 26, 2020 11:10 AM (u82oZ)

322 Vic - have heard this past week Clinton actually committed around 11. The argument from Clintonistas was its all about sex but really that isn't any part of the crimes.
Posted by: Skip at January 26, 2020 11:01 AM (ZCEU2)

My personal view is that none of the "gotcha" crimes that are getting enforced these days are good for the Republic.

If you can be persecuted and prosecuted for obstructing "justice," then the government can go after you like a stalker, until they find you saying something that contradicts something else you said.

You ought to be able to lie to anybody and everybody, including Eff Bee Eye agents. And the worst thing anyone ought to be able to do to you for lying, is take you to court and demonstrate how you wronged them. Civil penalties only.

Enough with this Soviet style crap. All it does is give lawyers more power.

Posted by: BurtTC at January 26, 2020 11:10 AM (hku12)

323 peaking of cognitive biases, anyone else here heard
of the Mandela Effect? I heard about it for the first time last week. It
refers to people insisting that they remember things that didn't happen
or never existed in real life -- for example, many people to this day
insist that Nelson Mandela died in prison in the 1980s although he
actually died in 2013. Another frequently cited example is the
"cornucopia" in the Fruit of the Loom logo -- I could swear it exists
but apparently it has NEVER been part of the official brand logo. There
are lots of other examples...

Posted by: Secret Square at January 26, 2020 11:03 AM (41uZu)

it is interesting that you bring this up.i hate the Mandela effect with light of a thousand stars. The thing about this is that people believe something and they are not willing to accept they are simply stupid or they didn't care about their world.

No, the Mandela Effect is much more insidiuous.. "You have a ot of people who claim there are other universes. They can't comprehend that they might be stupid so it makes more sense that their are multiple universes and they simply jump around int them.
That makes a hell of a lot more sense than someone being a dumb kid who did not pay attention to history.

Posted by: Quint at January 26, 2020 11:10 AM (n13/j)

324 @313 Unfair to Mencheviks!
They were a lot more moderate than Warren!

Posted by: Way, Way Downriver at January 26, 2020 11:11 AM (oRpiG)

325 Posted by: Greta Thunberg, meatball-scented Druid philosopher at January 26, 2020 11:09 AM (EgshT)

Since you're demanding the world cease use of oil (I refuse to call it fossil fuels because dinosaurs have nothing to do with it), you first.

Don't use, benefit from, or take advantage of ANYTHING made from, with or by oil or the oil industry.

Let us know how it works out.

Only then will I even contemplate listening to your bratty little ass.

Posted by: Sponge at January 26, 2020 11:11 AM (Zz0t1)

326 I'm currently doing a side project: Recycling the Battle of Jutland in space. Naming the 'German' side ships was fun.

Posted by: Vanya at January 26, 2020 11:00 AM (U7voe)

---
Actual ships from Man of Destiny for the Commonwealth:

Sabre
Centurion
Warrior
Relentless
Venom

The breakaway Alliance has more abstract concepts, like:

Freeholder
Independence

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 26, 2020 11:11 AM (cfSRQ)

327 283
@273. Dershowitz makes that exact point in distinguishing what he said many years ago

Posted by: Ignoramus at January 26, 2020 10:58 AM (BySmd)

????? I'll try again

As President Trump's
moves into the defense phases, attorney Alan Dershowitz on Sunday said
that he has changed his mind on whether a crime is needed to remove a
president from office, a reversal of his stance during the impeachment
of President Bill Clinton in 1999.
Dershowitz, who recently joined Trump's impeachment defense team, argued
that a crime needs to be committed to impeach a president, a
180-degree shift from his previous thinking, and added that even after
lengthy arguments by the House managers last week, he still sees
Democrats' arguments falling far short of swaying the Senate to remove Trump from office.

Posted by: Vic at January 26, 2020 11:12 AM (mpXpK)

328 Victor Tango Kilo

Ian Banks and his Culture SF books have a lot to answer for.

But I agree, no more politician names for USN ships.

Posted by: NaCly Dog at January 26, 2020 11:12 AM (u82oZ)

329 That Was Uncalled For.
Posted by: Victor Tango Kilo at January 26, 2020 11:10 AM (N30JC)

That's good

Posted by: Vanya at January 26, 2020 11:12 AM (U7voe)

330 Did anyone like The Grapes of Wrath?

Posted by: Mel Gibson at January 26, 2020 11:01 AM (QZCjk)

I found it very interesting, perhaps because my parents came through the latter stages of the Great Depression. I read it even though it wasn't an assigned work.

Posted by: GnuBreed at January 26, 2020 11:13 AM (Z4rgH)

331 OK, folks, got typing to do. Hope you all have a lovely day.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at January 26, 2020 11:13 AM (Ki5SV)

332 USS Trump Smash

Posted by: zombie Algernon at January 26, 2020 11:13 AM (Tnijr)

333 I am a southpaw too. Believe me, you are better off writing with your right hand. I spent my college years with a semi-permanent ink stain on my left hand from dragging my hand the wrong across across the page. I also had to balance my notebooks on my knee since desks were made for right-handers.

It's only an advantage if you write Hebrew or Arabic - or are an mlb pitcher.

Posted by: Donna&&&&V. at January 26, 2020 11:13 AM (d6Ksn)

334 BifBewalski, what is Smash's author name if I want to chevk out her books?
Posted by: vmom]/i]
Link in the nic. She writes humorous mystery, steam punk, and black comedy.

Posted by: BifBewalski at January 26, 2020 11:13 AM (VcFUs)

335 Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd

You did good with your ship names in your Man of Destiny series. They did not take away from the story.

Are you doing a prequel on the earlier conflict with aliens?

Posted by: NaCly Dog at January 26, 2020 11:14 AM (u82oZ)

336 The barrel gave me an air kiss!

Posted by: BifBewalski at January 26, 2020 11:14 AM (VcFUs)

337 Posted by: BifBewalski at January 26, 2020 11:13 AM (VcFUs)

thats a lotta books!
nice!

Posted by: vmom 2020 at January 26, 2020 11:15 AM (G546f)

338 330 Did anyone like The Grapes of Wrath?

Posted by: Mel Gibson at January 26, 2020 11:01 AM (QZCjk)
---

Yeah, I liked it.

Posted by: WisRich at January 26, 2020 11:15 AM (OAlmw)

339 291 Did anyone like The Grapes of Wrath?
Posted by: Mel Gibson at January 26, 2020 11:01 AM (QZCjk)

Yes.

It was a welcome frolick after Upton Sinclair and James Joyce.

Posted by: Heirloominati at January 26, 2020 11:15 AM (GC07d)

340 I am reading A Drop Too Many by Johnny Frost. Quite revealing about leadership in the British Army in WWII. He has some good and sad stories to tell.

Posted by: NaCly Dog at January 26, 2020 11:16 AM (u82oZ)

341 336 The barrel gave me an air kiss!
Posted by: BifBewalski

actually more of a queef

Posted by: vmom 2020 at January 26, 2020 11:16 AM (G546f)

342 301 ... "I bought a jar of Esterbrook pen points on a whim and decided (like the mother in You Can't Take it With You who, on getting a typewriter delivered to her by accident, decided to become a novelist) to work on my handwriting.
Since then it has been a struggle to find pen holders."

kindltot,

Any of the major art supply businesses will have holders for dip pen nibs. Dick Blick art supplies, Michaels, many others.

My handwriting can be read but isn't pretty. If I slow down witha dip or fountain pen it improves quickly.

Posted by: JTB at January 26, 2020 11:17 AM (7EjX1)

343 The only Steinbeck book that I still have any affection for is "East of Eden." And that might be because I've never reread it.

Posted by: Donna&&&&V. at January 26, 2020 11:18 AM (d6Ksn)

344 I liked Steinbeck but found Grapes a miserable bit of shite. I have East of Eden in the rack so will give him one last chance to redeem himself.

Posted by: Mel Gibson at January 26, 2020 11:18 AM (QZCjk)

345 Sinclair's The Jungle was one of the most depressing novels I ever read.

Posted by: Donna&&&&V. at January 26, 2020 11:19 AM (d6Ksn)

346 Eh, not real hopeful on the Amazon Second Age series. It will be wokeness beyond belief, I fear. Amazon nuked their The Man in the High Castle with that stupidity and are edging closer to it in The Expanse.

Posted by: WOPR at January 26, 2020 11:19 AM (ySE2D)

347 Struggling to find a good new science fiction series to read. Recommendations?
Posted by: Sharkman at January 26, 2020 10:50 AM (5v15w)

None of these are new, just under-read:

Bill Adams and Cecil Brooks wrote two books, The Unwound Way and The End of Fame.
Robert Frezza wrote A Fire in a Far Off Place, and A Small Colonial War
Edward Llewellyn wrote a series starting with The Douglas Convolutions

Posted by: Kindltot at January 26, 2020 11:19 AM (6rS3m)

348 Nic cleanser, no linkies

Posted by: BifBewalski at January 26, 2020 11:19 AM (VcFUs)

349 343 The only Steinbeck book that I still have any affection for is "East of Eden." And that might be because I've never reread it.
Posted by: Donna&&&&V. at January 26, 2020 11:18 AM (d6Ksn)

I have reread a few parts, but that was work-related. Life imitates art at times, or tries to.

Posted by: CN at January 26, 2020 11:20 AM (ONvIw)

350 Kindletot, try the Galactic Ruin series by J.N. Chaney & Christopher Hopper

Posted by: BifBewalski at January 26, 2020 11:20 AM (VcFUs)

351 AHLoyd, I can edit. I'm a grammatical nitpicker. It's congenital. My spelling's pretty good, too. And I don't charge conservatives. The only fly in the ointment is that I don't use editing software.

If I can help, send me a note. My nic at the centurylink place with a dot net on the end.

Best of luck with your books.

Posted by: creeper at January 26, 2020 11:20 AM (XxJt1)

352 Vanya, we were thinking along similar lines. The New Commonwealth of the Galaxy (the "Commies") in my universe is loosely modeled after Star Trek's Federation, with a bit of an authoritarian streak. Their rivals are the Affiliation of Free Worlds; which is a loose alliance that coordinates on trade and mutual defense, but doesn't have a central governing body.

Posted by: Victor Tango Kilo at January 26, 2020 11:21 AM (N30JC)

353 I would like t be ambidextrous. And not a spaz with my left hand.

Posted by: Xannibal Bob at January 26, 2020 10:58 AM (hmgiv)

Yeah, my left hand is mostly....ornamental.

Posted by: BignJames at January 26, 2020 11:21 AM (X/Pw5)

354 Really need to start slinging words to screen.

Posted by: Anna Puma at January 26, 2020 11:22 AM (QTefr)

355 The "Mandela Effect" is just a bunch of stupid lefty airheads who can't remember Steven Biko because apparently all Africans look alike to them.

Posted by: Trimegistus at January 26, 2020 11:22 AM (A1psc)

356 vmom- if you do go to torino, must view The Shroud. is it still there? Re: bookings. I was on VRBO, looked like a decent selection of Roman lodging. or Air B'n B.

Posted by: kallisto at January 26, 2020 11:24 AM (7v00c)

357 Yeah, my left hand is mostly....ornamental.
Posted by: BignJames at January 26, 2020 11:21 AM (X/Pw5)

I thought that way about my right hand until I broke my right wrist. Then you realize you really, really do need that hand!

Posted by: Donna&&&&V. at January 26, 2020 11:24 AM (d6Ksn)

358 So is Anna Catamount still imagining Space Gerbils instead of the New Commonwealth?

Posted by: Anna Puma at January 26, 2020 11:24 AM (QTefr)

359 Sharkman

SF by Cordwainer Smith. Under-read, but still cutting edge conceptions and language.

Posted by: NaCly Dog at January 26, 2020 11:24 AM (u82oZ)

360 Am a natural left-handed person. Elementary school forced me to write right handed, probably because they didn't know how to teach me to write lefthanded.

Consequently, I will starve to death if I have eat right handed, and can't use a mouse or write with my left hand. Can bat, golf swing a club or hammer ambidextrous though. Also can shoot rifle or pistol equally well either hand or shoulder.

Posted by: BifBewalski at January 26, 2020 11:25 AM (VcFUs)

361 The "Mandela Effect" is just a bunch of stupid lefty airheads who can't remember Steven Biko because apparently all Africans look alike to them.
Posted by: Trimegistus at January 26, 2020 11:22 AM (A1psc)

And now Abe Vigoda is the anti-Mandela effect. For the longest time, the gag was that he was still alive, and now that he's dead, people forget that.

Posted by: BurtTC at January 26, 2020 11:25 AM (hku12)

362 Did anyone like The Grapes of Wrath?

Posted by: Mel Gibson at January 26, 2020 11:01 AM (QZCjk)

Yes. Very much, but it was diminished by Steinbeck's insistence on beating his readers over the head with his politics.

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at January 26, 2020 11:26 AM (dLLD6)

363 I confess I'm astounded by all the "left-handers forced to write right-handed" stories. My left-handed grandmother finished school a hundred years ago (literally!) and her parents made sure she was permitted to write with her dominant hand.

Posted by: Trimegistus at January 26, 2020 11:27 AM (A1psc)

364 57 Changing fiction books, no matter how classic and brilliant, is bad enough. Altering biography to make a better story is also pretty twisted. Posted by: CN

This is about me and Obama's composite girlfriend, isn't it?

BTW, at Socialist Day Camp, we had to read "Flowers For Alger Hiss".

Posted by: Bill Errs, "Dreams From My Daddy Issues" at January 26, 2020 11:27 AM (Ndje9)

365 Yeah, my left hand is mostly....ornamental.
Posted by: BignJames at January 26, 2020 11:21 AM (X/Pw5)

Ahem.

Posted by: Magazine Changes at January 26, 2020 11:28 AM (U7voe)

366 Did anyone like The Grapes of Wrath?

-
I did although I was very young when I read it.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at January 26, 2020 11:28 AM (+y/Ru)

367 I can't use fountain pens because I have to fight the urge to do Calligraphy. Uniball fine point FTW!

Posted by: kallisto at January 26, 2020 11:28 AM (7v00c)

368 Abe Vigoda is still dead?

Posted by: klaftern at January 26, 2020 11:28 AM (RuIsu)

369 Am a natural left-handed person. Elementary school forced me to write right handed, probably because they didn't know how to teach me to write lefthanded.

Consequently, I will starve to death if I have eat right handed, and can't use a mouse or write with my left hand. Can bat, golf swing a club or hammer ambidextrous though. Also can shoot rifle or pistol equally well either hand or shoulder.
Posted by: BifBewalski at January 26, 2020 11:25 AM (VcFUs)

I'm not sure what nazi schools some of y'all went to, and I am probably at least as old as most of you. When I was in elementary, we had some kids who wrote left-handed, and every now and then the teachers had the rest of us trying to do stuff left-handed, just to show how much harder it was to navigate in the other handed world.

Posted by: BurtTC at January 26, 2020 11:28 AM (hku12)

370 My dad was a natural left hander who was forced to write right handed. Nobody ever tried to make me into a right-hander and I went to a Catholic grade school. The nuns were over that stuff I guess.

Posted by: Donna&&&&V. at January 26, 2020 11:29 AM (d6Ksn)

371 To this day, my mother will write right handed with her left hand clenched in a fist in her lap. She eats the same way too. My brother is ambidextrous like I am for the same reason(s). My daughter seemed like she was gonna go left handed, but is strongly right handed.

Posted by: BifBewalski at January 26, 2020 11:29 AM (VcFUs)

372 I have a feeling Grandma would have committed violence if my mom had been forced to write with her right hand; polio nearly killed her when she was a toddler (her 5-year old sister died). She was left paralyzed on her right side and Grandma spent 18 months using the Sister Kenny method to get that side to function again.

Posted by: Vendette at January 26, 2020 11:30 AM (SL4lK)

373 Yeah, my left hand is mostly....ornamental.
Posted by: BignJames at January 26, 2020 11:21 AM

Long ago read the preponderance of left handed leaders world over.
So always beware of them, they mostly want to rule your life.

Posted by: Skip at January 26, 2020 11:31 AM (ZCEU2)

374 I was a bit harsh there but i guess 'i am outed as not a fan of The Manedela Effect. For one it reduces and defames Mandela.. Let the man's life stand for what it was.

Secondly, I simply can not abide people so unwilling to face reaity that they would accept a dream land of multiple universes. how crazy are some people?
Don't get me wrong. Collective memories can be wrong. From Star Wars to Cassablanca, people remember quotes wrong. But that is a leap from Mandela dying in prison. That is defaming the man and history. I really dont' care about the Berenstain Bears, and if you studied the Mandela Effect, you would know what i am talking about.

Posted by: Quint at January 26, 2020 11:31 AM (n13/j)

375 Left-handed. Taught to throw and shoot right handed.

Switching to shooting left-handed. I really suck at it, and need more range time.

Posted by: NaCly Dog at January 26, 2020 11:31 AM (u82oZ)

376 @BurtTC,

Natchitoches Parish public school system for me and my brother. My mother was in Parker County MS. Rural redneck bottom feeding education system. I'm lucky I have all my teeth.

Posted by: BifBewalski at January 26, 2020 11:32 AM (VcFUs)

377 Long ago read the preponderance of left handed leaders world over.
So always beware of them, they mostly want to rule your life.
Posted by: Skip at January 26, 2020 11:31 AM (ZCEU2)[i/]

That is sinister.

Posted by: DR.WTF at January 26, 2020 11:32 AM (aS1PU)

378 Future tense Mandela effect:

Rep. Eric Swalwell@RepSwalwell
If you have an audio recording or other evidence of @realDonaldTrump's corruption, today would be a good day to share it. There's no need to protect him any longer. This is the last year he will be president.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at January 26, 2020 11:32 AM (+y/Ru)

379 .

Posted by: DR.WTF at January 26, 2020 11:32 AM (aS1PU)

380 Yeah, my left hand is mostly....ornamental.
Posted by: BignJames at January 26, 2020 11:21 AM (X/Pw5)

Ahem.

Posted by: Magazine Changes at January 26, 2020 11:28 AM (U7voe)

Huh?

Posted by: Revolver at January 26, 2020 11:32 AM (X/Pw5)

381 Sorry, Amite & Wilkinson counties, ms. Got the family maternal name mixed up.

Posted by: BifBewalski at January 26, 2020 11:33 AM (VcFUs)

382 BTW, at Socialist Day Camp, we had to read "Flowers For Alger Hiss".
Posted by: Bill Errs, "Dreams From My Daddy Issues" at January 26, 2020 11:27 AM (Ndje9)

We laugh about socialist summer camps, but in the past 10 years I had the opportunity to visit one that was designed around families. I couldn't wait to leave.

Posted by: CN at January 26, 2020 11:33 AM (ONvIw)

383 Abe Vigoda is still dead?
Posted by: klaftern at January 26, 2020 11:28 AM (RuIsu)

Maybe. The real question is, is the website still live?

Posted by: BurtTC at January 26, 2020 11:33 AM (hku12)

384 And now Abe Vigoda is the anti-Mandela effect. For the longest time, the gag was that he was still alive, and now that he's dead, people forget that.
Posted by: BurtTC at January 26, 2020 11:25 AM (hku12)

Wait. He's dead?

Posted by: Sponge at January 26, 2020 11:34 AM (Zz0t1)

385 Ringo Starr is a left hander they tried to force to be right handed in his childhood, even giving him a right handed drum set, which made his drumming distinctive.

Posted by: davidt at January 26, 2020 11:34 AM (l3+k2)

386 Bif Bewalski, thanks for the link to C.L. Bevill. I think I might've passed on Bubba and the Dead Woman" as a freebie recently. Now I regret that. Bookmarked the page and will correct the error.

Posted by: creeper at January 26, 2020 11:36 AM (XxJt1)

387 Highly recommend A Confederacy Of Dunces. A real classic.

Posted by: Mel Gibson at January 26, 2020 11:36 AM (QZCjk)

388 Good morning Hordemates!

Oh those pants!!!
I think I'll stick to blue jeans.

Posted by: Diogenes at January 26, 2020 11:36 AM (axyOa)

389 right handed drum set

Posted by: davidt at January 26, 2020 11:34 AM (l3+k2)

didn't know there was such a thing

Posted by: BignJames at January 26, 2020 11:36 AM (X/Pw5)

390 Rep. Eric Swalwell@RepSwalwell
If you have an audio recording or other evidence of @realDonaldTrump's corruption, today would be a good day to share it. There's no need to protect him any longer. This is the last year he will be president.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at January 26, 2020 11:32 AM (+y/Ru)

Having spent a good chunk of yesterday listening to people talking about their anger over this impeachment bullshit, I think Swalwell &Co should rethink their strategy. These are not normally aggressive people, but they are considering changing this. They see the donks as Bolsheviks and Trump as the last hope of stopping a national collapse. I was surprised to listen to their conversations

Posted by: CN at January 26, 2020 11:37 AM (ONvIw)

391
didn't know there was such a thing
Posted by: BignJames at January 26, 2020 11:36 AM (X/Pw5)

one would think you would just reverse the order of the drums in a standard set according to comfort and playing style......

Posted by: Sponge at January 26, 2020 11:38 AM (Zz0t1)

392 I was a bit harsh there but i guess 'i am outed as not a fan of The Manedela Effect. For one it reduces and defames Mandela.. Let the man's life stand for what it was.

Secondly, I simply can not abide people so unwilling to face reaity that they would accept a dream land of multiple universes. how crazy are some people?
Don't get me wrong. Collective memories can be wrong. From Star Wars to Cassablanca, people remember quotes wrong. But that is a leap from Mandela dying in prison. That is defaming the man and history. I really dont' care about the Berenstain Bears, and if you studied the Mandela Effect, you would know what i am talking about.
Posted by: Quint at January 26, 2020 11:31 AM (n13/j)

Oh my!

Seems a rather pointed response to a fairly trivial thing.

No matter what you call it, the thing is real. It's a basic human truism that people mis-remember stuff.

It's like deja vu. It happens to us all, and if people want to be silly about it, and think it means there's something more going on, fine by me.

Some people believe in horoscopes and professional wrassling too.

Posted by: BurtTC at January 26, 2020 11:38 AM (hku12)

393 creeper,

Her fans call her a crack dealer for making the first Bubba book free. Just warning ya.

Posted by: BifBewalski at January 26, 2020 11:38 AM (VcFUs)

394 Also, Brownie was cast after my a-hole brother.

Posted by: BifBewalski at January 26, 2020 11:39 AM (VcFUs)

395 TV News HQ@TVNewsHQ
Impeachment coverage was a ratings disaster for CBS, ABC and NBC this week, who lost millions of viewers by pre-empting their usual daytime soap operas.

-
Yeah? Well, just wait until Adam Schiff's long lost twin appears and reveals that he is NOT a homo.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at January 26, 2020 11:39 AM (+y/Ru)

396 375 Left-handed. Taught to throw and shoot right handed.

Switching to shooting left-handed. I really suck at it, and need more range time.
Posted by: NaCly Dog at January 26, 2020 11:31 AM (u82oZ)

I am very right-handed, but when I was 9 or 10 years old, I discovered that the wrong eye was dominant, so I had to learn how to shoot a long gun left-handed. Felt weird at first, but I was surprised how short a time it took for it it feel natural, then instinctual.

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Austere Religious Scholar at January 26, 2020 11:39 AM (weya0)

397 340 I am reading A Drop Too Many by Johnny Frost. Quite revealing about leadership in the British Army in WWII. He has some good and sad stories to tell.
Posted by: NaCly Dog at January 26, 2020 11:16 AM (u82oZ)

This sounds worth looking into, thanks.

Posted by: CN at January 26, 2020 11:39 AM (ONvIw)

398 So I usually just skip the first paragraph being I thought it was the same forever. For some reason I saw the link and clicked on it. I hate you.

Posted by: Guy Mohawk at January 26, 2020 11:40 AM (r+sAi)

399 I am very right-handed, but when I was 9 or 10 years old, I discovered that the wrong eye was dominant, so I had to learn how to shoot a long gun left-handed. Felt weird at first, but I was surprised how short a time it took for it it feel natural, then instinctual.
Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Austere Religious Scholar at January 26, 2020 11:39 AM (weya0)

I have this issue. I'm, instead, trying to force my right eye to be more aggressive.

My left side is retarded.....

Posted by: Sponge at January 26, 2020 11:41 AM (Zz0t1)

400 395 TV News HQ@TVNewsHQ
Impeachment coverage was a ratings disaster for CBS, ABC and NBC this week, who lost millions of viewers by pre-empting their usual daytime soap operas.
-
Yeah? Well, just wait until Adam Schiff's long lost twin appears and reveals that he is NOT a homo.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at January 26, 2020 11:39 AM (+y/Ru)

And then Schiff gets hit in the head and gets amnesia, and forgets EVERYTHING.

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Austere Religious Scholar at January 26, 2020 11:41 AM (weya0)

401 Found a pic of a BMW bike with a drum kit sidecar.

Posted by: klaftern at January 26, 2020 11:41 AM (RuIsu)

402 367
I can't use fountain pens because I have to fight the urge to do Calligraphy. Uniball fine point FTW!

Posted by: kallisto at January 26, 2020 11:28 AM (7v00c)

Yes! MP4, are you seeing this? The Uniball micropoint (with blue ink) is the closest thing you'll ever find to a fountain pen. And you can carry it in your pocket.

Posted by: creeper at January 26, 2020 11:42 AM (XxJt1)

403 Struggling to find a good new science fiction series to read. Recommendations?
Posted by: Sharkman at January 26, 2020 10:50 AM (5v15w)

The first 3 or 4 books in the 1632 series by Eric Flint
Any series by Mercedes Lackey
Any series by Anne McCafrey
And there are many many more

Posted by: Vic at January 26, 2020 11:42 AM (mpXpK)

404 one would think you would just reverse the order of the drums in a standard set according to comfort and playing style......

Posted by: Sponge at January 26, 2020 11:38 AM (Zz0t1)

I think that's what's normally done.

Posted by: BignJames at January 26, 2020 11:42 AM (X/Pw5)

405 Yeah, my left hand is mostly....ornamental.
Posted by: BignJame

I have an arm like that

Posted by: Michelle Fields at January 26, 2020 11:42 AM (786Ro)

406 I have an arm like that
Posted by: Michelle Fields at January 26, 2020 11:42 AM (786Ro)

So's my ass.

Posted by: Brie Larsen at January 26, 2020 11:43 AM (Zz0t1)

407 398 So I usually just skip the first paragraph being I thought it was the same forever. For some reason I saw the link and clicked on it. I hate you.
Posted by: Guy Mohawk at January 26, 2020 11:40 AM (r+sAi)

I rate this: mostly true.

There are small changes I put in week-to-week so it's not *exactly* the same, and of course, the pants pics are always fresh, new, and lovely beyond compare. In fact, many morons, like JTB, think the pants pics are the best part of the book thread each week.

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Austere Religious Scholar at January 26, 2020 11:44 AM (weya0)

408 335
Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd

You did good with your ship names in your Man of Destiny series. They did not take away from the story.

Are you doing a prequel on the earlier conflict with aliens?

Posted by: NaCly Dog at January 26, 2020 11:14 AM (u82oZ)

---
I've started mapping out the Deimos War, but it needs more time to germinate.

I tend to be reactionary in my writing - I'm motivated to fix something that's wrong.

Thus Battle Officer Wolf was a reaction against terrible adaptations. Man of Destiny was a rebuke to Star Wars Prequels.

The exceptions are Scorpion's Pass, which was a love-letter that got out of hand and Three Weeks with the Coasties, which was a trial run for my fictional military memoir.

Vampires of Michigan is just sort of fun, finishing off an old project to keep busy.

Deimos War is a big undertaking, and so I need to stockpile inspiration and motivation for it. Also, I need to have something to say.

Vampires of Michigan was actually inspired by people I know who have failed at life and refuse to fix it. They could, but they don't.

Also, back in the day I had a detailed setting for a vampire campaign so I decided to finally use it. That, too was a reaction against other visions of vampires.

Probably a longer answer than you wanted, but that's me.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 26, 2020 11:44 AM (cfSRQ)

409 one would think you would just reverse the order of the drums in a standard set according to comfort and playing style......

Posted by: Sponge at January 26, 2020 11:38 AM (Zz0t1)

I think that's what's normally done.

You are correct. I played in a band with a left-handed drummer for years and that's all he did. He could play right-handed, but not for very long, and nothing complicated.

Posted by: BackwardsBoy. #DemocratsSuck at January 26, 2020 11:45 AM (HaL55)

410 It pays to increase your word power:

From the Urban Dictionary:

TOP DEFINITION

schiffilis

"Schiffilis" is the irritation one experiences after listening to Congressman Adam Schiff prattle on for hours.

I could not eat or sleep after watching Congressman Adam Schiff's endless rambling during the impeachment trial. My doctor told me I am suffering from "Schiffilis." The only prevention is complete avoidance of this irritant. The doctor suggested I wear eye and ear protection to help me avoid a relapse.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at January 26, 2020 11:45 AM (+y/Ru)

411 Washington University is my master's level work alma mater. Spoiled kids from the east coast referred to it derisively as wash u in the city of saint loser and the state of misery. I have fond memories of my time in St. Louis and would have accepted a job offer in there. It wasn't to be since my boyfriend wanted to settle in Florida.

Posted by: Floridachick at January 26, 2020 11:46 AM (fL9qt)

412 In fact, many morons, like JTB, think the pants pics are the best part of the book thread each week.

You really, um, outdid yourself on today's pants pic, OM. Bleccch.

Posted by: BackwardsBoy. #DemocratsSuck at January 26, 2020 11:46 AM (HaL55)

413 Vampires of Michigan was actually inspired by people I know who have failed at life and refuse to fix it. They could, but they don't.

Also, back in the day I had a detailed setting for a vampire campaign so I decided to finally use it. That, too was a reaction against other visions of vampires.

Probably a longer answer than you wanted, but that's me.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 26, 2020 11:44 AM (cfSRQ)

I am looking forward to this.

Posted by: CN at January 26, 2020 11:47 AM (ONvIw)

414 OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Austere Religious Scholar

I owe you a debt of gratitude for the shout out two weeks ago on Byron Farwell and my favorite books of his.

I also owe you some material in an e-mail. When I get a chance.

Posted by: NaCly Dog at January 26, 2020 11:48 AM (u82oZ)

415 Yeah, my left hand is mostly....ornamental.
Posted by: BignJame

406 I have an arm like that
Posted by: Michelle Fields at January 26, 2020 11:42 AM (786Ro)

So's my ass.
Posted by: Brie Larsen at January 26, 2020 11:43 AM (Zz0t1)

No, Brie. It's not.

Posted by: BurtTC at January 26, 2020 11:48 AM (hku12)

416 This is not strictly book-related, but: about half my Facebook feed yesterday was people -- supposedly intelligent people -- posting "hurr durr the Space Force logo looks like Star Trek! Trump's so dumb!"

The other half was my pedantic nerd friends posting pictures of the pre-existing Air Force Space Command logo.

I think that's the thing I hate most about the Current Year. Ignorant people who mistake their ignorance for intelligence. "I didn't know this thing so it must be wrong!"

Posted by: Trimegistus at January 26, 2020 11:48 AM (A1psc)

417 I think that's the thing I hate most about the Current Year. Ignorant
people who mistake their ignorance for intelligence. "I didn't know this
thing so it must be wrong!"

I noticed the absence of that when everybody wanted the Shuttle test frame named the Enterprise.

BTW, they're taught that in skool, apparently. Their egos get pumped up to fill the space where thinking normally occurs.

Posted by: BackwardsBoy. #DemocratsSuck at January 26, 2020 11:51 AM (HaL55)

418 Updated proverb. It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to post and remove all doubt.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at January 26, 2020 11:52 AM (+y/Ru)

419 About 10 years ago I busted up my right arm pretty good in a motorcycle wreck. Learned to do a lot of things with my left. Still drive a computer mouse with it, to this day. Heh.

Posted by: Notorious BFD at January 26, 2020 11:52 AM (EgshT)

420 This is not strictly book-related, but: about half my Facebook feed yesterday was people -- supposedly intelligent people -- posting "hurr durr the Space Force logo looks like Star Trek! Trump's so dumb!"

The other half was my pedantic nerd friends posting pictures of the pre-existing Air Force Space Command logo.

I think that's the thing I hate most about the Current Year. Ignorant people who mistake their ignorance for intelligence. "I didn't know this thing so it must be wrong!"
Posted by: Trimegistus at January 26, 2020 11:48 AM (A1psc)

Maybe the Federation logo looks like the U.S. Space Force logo because Starfleet is an institutional descendant of the U,S, Space Force?

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at January 26, 2020 11:53 AM (LxWV7)

421 Updated proverb. It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to post and remove all doubt.

See now that's the type of propaganda that keeps people from de-lurking.

Posted by: Guy Mohawk at January 26, 2020 11:54 AM (r+sAi)

422 I think that's the thing I hate most about the Current Year. Ignorant people who mistake their ignorance for intelligence. "I didn't know this thing so it must be wrong!"
Posted by: Trimegistus at January 26, 2020 11:48 AM (A1psc)

Seems we need another clever name for this, similar to the Mandela effect. People so sure of themselves, and in their ignorance reveal their stupidity by not knowing some basic fact that would be apparent to anyone who is seeking actual knowledge.

Possible name: The Obama Effect.

Posted by: BurtTC at January 26, 2020 11:54 AM (hku12)

423 >>I think that's the thing I hate most about the Current Year. Ignorant
people who mistake their ignorance for intelligence. "I didn't know this
thing so it must be wrong!"

It's particularly irritating now when information has never been easier to access.

Posted by: JackStraw at January 26, 2020 11:55 AM (ZLI7S)

424 i read ghost rider by peart. probably will read it again.

Posted by: chavez the hugo at January 26, 2020 11:55 AM (KP5rU)

425 Oh my!

Seems a rather pointed response to a fairly trivial thing.

No matter what you call it, the thing is real. It's a basic human truism that people mis-remember stuff.

It's like deja vu. It happens to us all, and if people want to be
silly about it, and think it means there's something more going on, fine
by me.

Some people believe in horoscopes and professional wrassling too.

Posted by: BurtTC at January 26, 2020 11:38 AM (hku12)

i have always respected your commentary and still will. But i don't get the "pointed" critque in this circumstance. One side is arguing ahistorical facts because they never paid attention and think it is more likely there are multiple universes that we bounce around in.
My argument is a lot of kids don't really give a shit and will a long with anything. It is sad that people believe there was a world where Nelson Mandela died in prison. But somehow I am harsh here/

Why don't I say there is a world where John Lennon lived and became president?

Posted by: Quint at January 26, 2020 11:55 AM (n13/j)

426 "And then Schiff gets hit in the head and gets amnesia"

Or turns out to have been brainwashed by Stefano DiMera, the resident never quite dead villain of Days of Our Lives...

Posted by: Secret Square at January 26, 2020 11:56 AM (w4+o4)

427 Weird. I found "Bubba and the Dead Woman" in my Kindle library. It shows as "read" but scanning it I have no memory of it.

Isn't dementia wonderful? All books are new and you can hide your own Easter eggs.

Posted by: creeper at January 26, 2020 11:57 AM (XxJt1)

428 The USS "Well I Never' commanded by Capn William Kristol. Ahoy!

Posted by: I am the Shadout Mapes - the Housekeeper at January 26, 2020 11:57 AM (IttZ7)

429
I think that's the thing I hate most about the
Current Year. Ignorant people who mistake their ignorance for
intelligence. "I didn't know this thing so it must be wrong!"

Posted by: Trimegistus at January 26, 2020 11:48 AM (A1psc)

---
They mistake credentials for competence.

"I have a doctorate at an Ivy League school, listen to me!"

"Dude, you don't know a muzzle from a breach. Shut up."

"SEE!? Experts are disrespected! Restrict free speech!"

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 26, 2020 11:57 AM (cfSRQ)

430 Maybe the Federation logo looks like the U.S. Space Force logo because Starfleet is an institutional descendant of the U,S, Space Force?
Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at January 26, 2020 11:53 AM (LxWV7)

If the Space Force logo was based on the Starfleet logo and, in the future, Starfleet descended from the Space Force, where did the logo actually come from?

Posted by: DR.WTF at January 26, 2020 11:57 AM (aS1PU)

431 So is Anna Catamount still imagining Space Gerbils instead of the New Commonwealth?

When last I left her, she was busy dealing with the mysterious disappearance of dozens of colonists and arranging for some horny alien ambassadors to visit a Bordello.

Posted by: Victor Tango Kilo at January 26, 2020 11:57 AM (N30JC)

432 430: admiral byrd brought it back from the inner earth. duh.

Posted by: chavez the hugo at January 26, 2020 11:58 AM (KP5rU)

433 Guy Mohawk, if you hadn't posted I wouldn have looked at those pants.

I hate you.

Posted by: creeper at January 26, 2020 11:59 AM (XxJt1)

434
Seems we need another clever name for this, similar to the Mandela effect. People so sure of themselves, and in their ignorance reveal their stupidity by not knowing some basic fact that would be apparent to anyone who is seeking actual knowledge.

Possible name: The Obama Effect.
Posted by: BurtTC

A friend of mine suffers from the Palin effect. He refuses to NOT believe that Sarah Palin said she could see Russia from her house.

Posted by: Bertram Cabot, Jr. at January 26, 2020 11:59 AM (aKsyK)

435 Posted by: BurtTC at January 26, 2020 11:38 AM (hku12)

i have always respected your commentary and still will. But i don't get the "pointed" critque in this circumstance. One side is arguing ahistorical facts because they never paid attention and think it is more likely there are multiple universes that we bounce around in.
My argument is a lot of kids don't really give a shit and will a long with anything. It is sad that people believe there was a world where Nelson Mandela died in prison. But somehow I am harsh here/

Why don't I say there is a world where John Lennon lived and became president?
Posted by: Quint at January 26, 2020 11:55 AM (n13/j)

I don't think anyone seriously believes in alternate universes. Or if they do, they're of the flat Earth variety, and don't really warrant the attention.

Otherwise, the "Mandela Effect" is real, in that people DO believe things that are not true, because the mind works that way.

It really has nothing to do with Mandela, except it seems there are lots and lots of people who were convinced Mandela was dead, long before he was.

I'm really not sure why it bothers you as much as it does.

Posted by: BurtTC at January 26, 2020 11:59 AM (hku12)

436 Maybe the Federation logo looks like the U.S. Space
Force logo because Starfleet is an institutional descendant of the U,S,
Space Force?

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at January 26, 2020 11:53 AM (LxWV7)

---
The flying wedge is a long-standing heraldic device used by the Air Force.

Roddenberry was a military pilot. Weird that he would repurpose it.

The funny thing is that if they DIDN'T go with something similar, George Sulu would be demanding that they do!

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 26, 2020 12:00 PM (cfSRQ)

437 I still say gene roddenberry is a reverse terminator sent from the future to create the universe of Star Trek

Posted by: blaster at January 26, 2020 12:00 PM (ZfRYq)

438 296 242 199
I also hated the Heart Of Darkness. It was an assigned project in HS. Had to write a report, got an 'F". Only F I ever got.

I despised Catcher in the Rye when forced to read it in high school.
Posted by: Northernlurker at January 26, 2020 11:04 AM (Uu+Jp)

==
Amen.
Holden Caufield was a whiny brat who would have benefited greatly from regularly scheduled beatings

Posted by: Vlad the impaler,whittling away like mad at January 26, 2020 12:00 PM (d6mdH)

439 For one it reduces and defames Mandela.. Let the man's life stand for what it was.

**********

Right index finger in left palm, tap, tap, tap. Hook 'em Horns. "OK" sign, index finger of other hand through the hole, open palm vertical squiggle, twice. Dolphin leaps right to left then left to right. Two fingers up bunny hop, hands in armpits flap elbows, flap, flap. Thumb and finger "L" to forehead, tap, tap, tap, squiggle, mark of Zorro in the air, hesitate, catch breath.

Thumbs in ears waggle fingers, thumb and pinkie "Hang Loose" waggle,

Posted by: Mandela funeral fake sign language guy at January 26, 2020 12:01 PM (m45I2)

440 Seems we need another clever name for this, similar to the Mandela effect. People so sure of themselves, and in their ignorance reveal their stupidity by not knowing some basic fact that would be apparent to anyone who is seeking actual knowledge.

Possible name: The Obama Effect.
Posted by: BurtTC

A friend of mine suffers from the Palin effect. He refuses to NOT believe that Sarah Palin said she could see Russia from her house.
Posted by: Bertram Cabot, Jr. at January 26, 2020 11:59 AM (aKsyK)

Eh.... well, yeah, that's a Mandela Effect thing.

Other famous examples are movie lines, like "Judy Judy Judy," and "Play it again, Sam."

Posted by: BurtTC at January 26, 2020 12:02 PM (hku12)

441 Amen.

Holden Caufield was a whiny brat who would have benefited greatly from regularly scheduled beatings

Posted by: Vlad the impaler
=====
And the occasional random beating would have been helpful.

Posted by: 2009Refugee at January 26, 2020 12:03 PM (8AONa)

442 Last week I mentioned that I'd just read a bio, "Sir Francis Drake," by historian John Sugden.

No sooner had I posted that tan someone here, without of course citing sources, pointed out that "Drake raped nuns!"

No, he did not. From the time he became famous as a young man, everything about Drake was known, rather like Charles Lindbergh-- hard to be a national hero & live anonymously. It appears Drake was only intimate with 2 women after he came to public renown-- his first wife and then his second wife.

Here is what a high-ranking Spanish emissary, sent to negotiate with Drake, reported about Drake to the Viceroy he served:

"Drake knows no language but English... he is a man of medium stature, rather heavy than slender, merry, careful.... well-spoken, inclined to liberality and to ambition, vainglorious, boastful, not very cruel...."

On one occasion the Spanish murdered a 14-yr-old boy whom Drake had sent as a messenger under a flag of truce. Drake hanged 2 Franciscan monks immediately on learning the news, & announced that he would hang 2 more each day until the boy's killer was turned over to Drake. The Spanish responded by hanging the murderer themselves.

Posted by: mnw at January 26, 2020 12:03 PM (Cssks)

443 >>Other famous examples are movie lines, like "Judy Judy Judy," and "Play it again, Sam."

Fly my pretties, fly!

Posted by: JackStraw at January 26, 2020 12:04 PM (ZLI7S)

444 Mandala Effect: I have a distinctive memory of one of my middle school chums telling me an AIDS joke on the schoolbus. It couldn't have happened later than 1981, but AIDS wasn't a named disease until 1983.

Posted by: Victor Tango Kilo at January 26, 2020 12:04 PM (N30JC)

445 439 For one it reduces and defames Mandela.. Let the man's life stand for what it was.

A commie fuck with a brutal murderer wife.

Posted by: Insomniac - Ex Cineribus Resurgo at January 26, 2020 12:05 PM (NWiLs)

446 Sulu called, sed the logo needs some glitter.

Posted by: klaftern at January 26, 2020 12:05 PM (RuIsu)

447 has nothing to do with Mandela, except it seems
there are lots and lots of people who were convinced Mandela was dead,
long before he was.

I'm really not sure why it bothers you as much as it does.

Posted by: BurtTC at January 26, 2020 11:59 AM (hku12)

And i respect you. I have said that about you twice now and you have not reciprocated. That is fine, you don't owe me a thing.

But you ask me to admit a lot of people believe Nelson Mandela died long before he did. That is the thing you want to end on? Not stuff about movies titles and such? No, I dont' respect that people think Nelson Mandela died in prison. "you ever wonder why they chose that by the way?

Posted by: Quint at January 26, 2020 12:06 PM (n13/j)

448 Sulu called, sed the logo needs some glitter.
Posted by: klaftern at January 26, 2020 12:05 PM (RuIsu)

He also lamented the lack of a sporty cape for the uniform.

Posted by: Pug Mahon, of the Butte Mahons at January 26, 2020 12:07 PM (x8Wzq)

449 A commie fuck with a brutal murderer wife.
Posted by: Insomniac - Ex Cineribus Resurgo at January 26, 2020 12:05 PM (NWiLs)

Indeed. And largely responsible for the shitholification of South Africa.

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at January 26, 2020 12:07 PM (LxWV7)

450 445: mandela was a pile of shit piled on a pile of shit. much like our esteemed chocolate messiah. fuck them. set racial relations back hundreds of years.

Posted by: chavez the hugo at January 26, 2020 12:07 PM (KP5rU)

451 Mandala Effect: I have a distinctive memory of one of my middle school chums telling me an AIDS joke on the schoolbus. It couldn't have happened later than 1981, but AIDS wasn't a named disease until 1983.
Posted by: Victor Tango Kilo at January 26, 2020 12:04 PM (N30JC)

That's a good example. I have a sibling who, when we are gathered, will tell stories of incidents that happened when we were younger, and everyone else around the room is sitting there, going "yeah, that didn't happen."

So I think there are occasional Mandela effects, and there are people who are serial Mandela effecters.

Effectors? Affectors??

Posted by: BurtTC at January 26, 2020 12:07 PM (hku12)

452 thanks Kallisto!

Posted by: vmom 2020 at January 26, 2020 12:08 PM (G546f)

453 One of the worst is the Billy Jeff Effect.

Making the Rape but not remembering any of the Rape.

Or what the meaning of "Is" is.....

Posted by: Hairyback Guy at January 26, 2020 12:08 PM (Z+IKu)

454 I also hated the Heart Of Darkness. It was an assigned project in HS. Had to write a report, got an 'F". Only F I ever got.

I despised Catcher in the Rye when forced to read it in high school.

Posted by: Northernlurker at January 26, 2020 11:04 AM (Uu+Jp)

---
The key to reading Conrad is to take it slow. He writes in a rich, detailed style and you can't rush through it to find out how it ends. You have to take it as it comes.

Heart of Darkness is a sailor's story, and you have to see yourself as listening, half-asleep on the deck of a boat in the darkness listening to it.

Once you get that, you really appreciate it, as well as the darkly comic aspects - such as the 'pilgrims' blasting the hell out of the jungle with their Winchesters while afraid that the cannibals in the engineering section will eat them.

That's first-rate satire of colonialism right there.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 26, 2020 12:08 PM (cfSRQ)

455 : mandela was a pile of shit piled on a pile of
shit. much like our esteemed chocolate messiah. fuck them. set racial
relations back hundreds of years.

Posted by: chavez the hugo at January 26, 2020 12:07 PM (KP5rU)
doesn't matter. he died in prison or not. It is binary choice.

Posted by: Quint at January 26, 2020 12:08 PM (n13/j)

456 He also lamented the lack of a sporty cape for the uniform.

Posted by: Pug Mahon, of the Butte Mahons at January 26, 2020 12:07 PM (x8Wzq)

...and maybe those pants OM posted today.

Posted by: BignJames at January 26, 2020 12:09 PM (X/Pw5)

457 Mandala Effect: what you see, lying on the floor, staring at the ceiling fan, after having taken the brown acid.

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at January 26, 2020 12:09 PM (LxWV7)

458 418 Updated proverb. It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to post and remove all doubt.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at January 26, 2020 11:52 AM (+y/Ru)

"'Tis better to have posted and lost then to never have posted at all."

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Austere Religious Scholar at January 26, 2020 12:10 PM (weya0)

459 418 Updated proverb. It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to post and remove all doubt.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at January 26, 2020 11:52 AM (+y/Ru)

Heh. That never stopped me, even before I was a cob.

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Austere Religious Scholar at January 26, 2020 12:11 PM (weya0)

460 Quint, you're taking Burt's words as a personal attack. They weren't. The term "harsh" was directed at your post, not you.

Posted by: creeper at January 26, 2020 12:12 PM (XxJt1)

461 everything about Drake was known, rather like Charles Lindbergh-

Damn, son, that line is like a joke in itself.There were volumes of stuff we did not know about Lindbergh.

Posted by: Way, Way Downriver at January 26, 2020 12:12 PM (oRpiG)

462 I have a distinct memory of being born on the dying planet Krypton shortly before it was blown into millions of fragments.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at January 26, 2020 12:12 PM (+y/Ru)

463
"Fine Corinthian leather", while it was really "soft" or "rich".

Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at January 26, 2020 12:12 PM (7rVsF)

464 453 One of the worst is the Billy Jeff Effect.
Making the Rape but not remembering any of the Rape.

Posted by: Hairyback Guy at January 26, 2020 12:08 PM (Z+IKu)

Maybe BJ wasn't clear on the concecpt and took the roofies himself.

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Austere Religious Scholar at January 26, 2020 12:13 PM (weya0)

465 Mr. Sulu: All ahead "prance".

Posted by: klaftern at January 26, 2020 12:13 PM (RuIsu)

466 I never want to get banned. but if I do let it be over the Mandela effect.

what is going on here?

Posted by: Quint at January 26, 2020 12:13 PM (n13/j)

467 Neil Neart is the cut-rate, bargain basement version of Neil Part. He can only play XXY. Almost the real deal, but not quite.

Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice... EJEXIT: If Not Now, When? at January 26, 2020 12:14 PM (uKj5K)

468 465 Mr. Sulu: All ahead "prance".
Posted by: klaftern at January 26, 2020 12:13 PM (RuIsu)

Mr. Sulu: "Set phasers on 'swish'."

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Austere Religious Scholar at January 26, 2020 12:14 PM (weya0)

469 Neil Peart

Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice... EJEXIT: If Not Now, When? at January 26, 2020 12:14 PM (uKj5K)

470 you ever wonder why they chose that by the way?
Posted by: Quint at January 26, 2020 12:06 PM (n13/j)

Why? No, I don't wonder why.

How though, it's because the brain operates that way. Inaccurately at times.

You seem to see it as an affront against the memory of Nelson Mandela, when indeed, it happens to be the most famous example of a common effect that happens to damn near everybody.

Posted by: BurtTC at January 26, 2020 12:14 PM (hku12)

471 Another thing about Conrad: He's a pessimist.

Gosh, Polish emigre on the move a lot. Go figure.

So his stories don't typically end well because that's what he saw. Men fighting against the sea and doing their best. And yet sometimes the ship sinks, the illusion is exposed, etc.

Apocalypse Now famously botched the ending. What should have happened is that Kurtz dies of natural causes, before Willard can do him in.

Willard then returns and when asked about Kurtz, gives them a blank gaze and says "I didn't find any of that. Orderly camp, well run. Died of disease. It's in my report."

Because people don't want to know the truth and can't handle it.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 26, 2020 12:15 PM (cfSRQ)

472 449 A commie fuck with a brutal murderer wife.
Posted by: Insomniac - Ex Cineribus Resurgo at January 26, 2020 12:05 PM (NWiLs)

Indeed. And largely responsible for the shitholification of South Africa.
Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at January 26, 2020 12:07 PM (LxWV7)

Yep. For this reason, I now default to skepticism about any and all leftist icons, not just Mandela, but Gandhi, and yes, MLK. Just the unbridled adulation from leftists makes me wonder who/what these people really were.

Posted by: Deplorable Jay Guevara at January 26, 2020 12:15 PM (YqDXo)

473 Because people don't want to know the truth and can't handle it.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 26, 2020 12:15 PM (cfSRQ)

YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!!!!

Posted by: Insomniac - Ex Cineribus Resurgo at January 26, 2020 12:15 PM (NWiLs)

474 Quint, you're taking Burt's words as a personal attack. They weren't. The term "harsh" was directed at your post, not you.

Posted by: creeper at January 26, 2020 12:12 PM (XxJt1)

I will have to look back at it as i am a burtc fan. But we disagree here. I have history on my side. I guess he has a lot of guys on the net.

Posted by: Quint at January 26, 2020 12:16 PM (n13/j)

475 Damn, son, that line is like a joke in itself.There were volumes of stuff we did not know about Lindbergh.

Posted by: Way, Way Downriver at January 26, 2020 12:12 PM (oRpiG)

Like how many kids he had.

Posted by: BignJames at January 26, 2020 12:16 PM (X/Pw5)

476 I can't believe there's a blogspat over Neslon fucking Mandela. Let's get twisted up over Che next!

Posted by: Insomniac - Ex Cineribus Resurgo at January 26, 2020 12:16 PM (NWiLs)

477 One of the worst is the Billy Jeff Effect.

Making the Rape but not remembering any of the Rape.

Or what the meaning of "Is" is.....
Posted by: Hairyback Guy at January 26, 2020 12:08 PM (Z+IKu)

Or, the Bill Clinton Effect is calling yourself a feminist, and then spending the rest of your life PRETENDING the guy wasn't a serial sex assaulter.

Posted by: BurtTC at January 26, 2020 12:17 PM (hku12)

478 476: his t shirt line is top shelf stuff.

Posted by: chavez the hugo at January 26, 2020 12:18 PM (KP5rU)

479 475 Damn, son, that line is like a joke in itself.There were volumes of stuff we did not know about Lindbergh.

Posted by: Way, Way Downriver at January 26, 2020 12:12 PM (oRpiG)

Like how many kids he had.
Posted by: BignJames

---

And with whom.

Posted by: Tonypete at January 26, 2020 12:18 PM (Y4EXg)

480 YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!!!!

Posted by: Insomniac - Ex Cineribus Resurgo at January 26, 2020 12:15 PM (NWiLs)

---
Kinda. The thing is, the book ends that way - with a colossal lie. Marlowe is beside himself about it, and then realizes it doesn't matter. The world didn't end, but Kurtz's Intended is at peace.

That was more important.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 26, 2020 12:18 PM (cfSRQ)

481 Holden Caufield was a fag and his shit was all retarded.

Posted by: Ignoramus at January 26, 2020 12:19 PM (BySmd)

482 Nood

Posted by: Tonypete at January 26, 2020 12:19 PM (Y4EXg)

483 Because people don't want to know the truth and can't handle it.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 26, 2020 12:15 PM (cfSRQ)

I wonder if this explains the end of The Green Inferno.

Posted by: Insomniac - Ex Cineribus Resurgo at January 26, 2020 12:19 PM (NWiLs)

484 Otters on stun, Mr. Sulu.

Posted by: Captain James Tiberius Kirk at January 26, 2020 12:20 PM (EgshT)

485 Lindbergh

By the time he had his second family in Germany, he was no longer quite as much in the public eye.

Drake had a shorter life. He died on board his own ship of amoebic dysentary, aka "the bloody flux."

While Drake was at the height of his fame, everybody who ever passed the salt to him rushed home to record the moment for posterity. If he'd kept women on the side, that would've been the subject of furious gossip-- and it WASN'T.

Posted by: mnw at January 26, 2020 12:20 PM (Cssks)

486 >>Yep. For this reason, I now default to skepticism about any and all leftist icons, not just Mandela, but Gandhi, and yes, MLK. Just the unbridled adulation from leftists makes me wonder who/what these people really were.

What people believe is often a result of where they sit. I have a good friend in South Africa and his view of Mandela is a lot different than what is accepted as common wisdom in the US and he is far from being a leftist.

Posted by: JackStraw at January 26, 2020 12:21 PM (ZLI7S)

487 Mr. Sulu: All ahead "prance".
Posted by: klaftern at January 26, 2020 12:13 PM (RuIsu)

Mr Sulu, set it for Mince 2

Posted by: TheQuietMan at January 26, 2020 12:21 PM (PZ7zc)

488 "Mandala" is a mystical circle, Eastern map of the cosmos.
"Mandela" was a South African politician.
Peter Paul and Mary did not help the distinction with that on song.
A "mandola" on the other hand is a big ol' mandolin.
Not as good as a bouzouki at stopping a tank, but at least not a Russian wolfhound.

Posted by: Way, Way Downriver at January 26, 2020 12:21 PM (oRpiG)

489 Nooooood!!!

Don't mind the guy in the FIRST FIVE COMMENTS.

Posted by: Jukin the Deplorable and Totally Unserios at January 26, 2020 12:22 PM (pw+jk)

490 I think I'll go (re)read " Bubba and the Dead Woman.

Later, 'rons. Keep yer hand on it.

Posted by: creeper at January 26, 2020 12:23 PM (XxJt1)

491
you ever wonder why they chose that by the way?

Posted by: Quint at January 26, 2020 12:06 PM (n13/j)

Why? No, I don't wonder why.

How though, it's because the brain operates that way. Inaccurately at times.

You seem to see it as an affront against the memory of Nelson
Mandela, when indeed, it happens to be the most famous example of a
common effect that happens to damn near everybody.

If you think this famous man died years before he did and he never was the president of South Africa, I have to wonder about that. Is is an affront to realize the truth? Have we gone this far down the rabbit holes that we can't acknowleddge reaalit? I didn't make him president.

I agree that people have collective memories that are not fact based. I said that earlier in the thread and everyone saw it. I mentioned quotes from Star Wars and Cassablanca. I realize we all remember things like "play it again Sam"
i don't get why you keep pushing on me. i am the guy arguing for reality. What is the end game here? I don't want this fight.

Posted by: Quint at January 26, 2020 12:23 PM (n13/j)

492 Review if the Hulu Hillary documentary.

https://bit.ly/38EJe1a

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at January 26, 2020 12:23 PM (+y/Ru)

493 By the time he had his second family in Germany, he was no longer quite as much in the public eye.

You realize that he got Yamamoto, right?

Can you admit it was a poor analogy, or do we have to bring Bruno Hauptman and Norman Schwarzkopf into it?

Posted by: Way, Way Downriver at January 26, 2020 12:25 PM (oRpiG)

494 What people believe is often a result of where they
sit. I have a good friend in South Africa and his view of Mandela is a
lot different than what is accepted as common wisdom in the US and he is
far from being a leftist.

Posted by: JackStraw at January 26, 2020 12:21 PM (ZLI7S)

That's true. Once I got into an argument with some Democrats who thought the Canadian health care system was just awesome. My experiences being from Canada and having lived with it were irrelevant to them.

Posted by: Vendette at January 26, 2020 12:30 PM (SL4lK)

495 Not a series but my favorite sci-fi book is Armor by John Steakley.

Posted by: Sebastian Melmoth

Great book; already consumed.

Posted by: Sharkman at January 26, 2020 12:34 PM (5v15w)

496 That's true. Once I got into an argument with some
Democrats who thought the Canadian health care system was just awesome.
My experiences being from Canada and having lived with it were
irrelevant to them.

Posted by: Vendette at January 26, 2020 12:30 PM (SL4lK)

---
Canada, Denmark, Sweden, etc. are just placeholders for the attainable Utopia that's out there somewhere if we just embrace whatever policy they want at the moment.

I saw a poll last week that said Trump is 13 points behind a "generic Democrat" in Michigan.

Gosh, what a useless polling question! What does this "generic Democrat" believe in? Tell me about specific issues and his/her race and life story.

Lots of wishcasting going on these days. It comes with decadence.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 26, 2020 12:36 PM (cfSRQ)

497 Sharkman do you like time travel books?
there was one I read about a bunch of people from.different time periods, including some 21st c soldiers in the ME, fall___ through a time storm of some sort and interacting with each other

I'd rec it but I can't remember either author or title

Posted by: vmom 2020 at January 26, 2020 12:40 PM (G546f)

498 Creeper,

The next two are the best in the series after "& the dead woman."

Posted by: BifBewalski at January 26, 2020 12:40 PM (VcFUs)

499 Wow, must have been some hot topics this week! The thread is up to 460 entries, and it's not been three hours!

I've started the book "No Time for Sergeants." I just rewatched the movie, and I also have the stage script on hand. I look forward to seeing the differences in the adaptations.

I'm early in the book; it's the draftee's first day on the base. Already differences have appeared.

Next up is the first "Stumptown" graphic novel. I read the first pages online before it was released, but I didn't buy it because of tight finances. I was in a B&N in December and saw that the series is up to four books, and now it's a TV series.

The opening pages grabbed my interest; here's hoping the book stays at that level. If it does, the library has them all.

Does anybody else here rely on your local library's extended network? It's brought me things that I thought I'd never find. Only drawback is that those books come with a huge green band attached to the front cover. It obscures the art.

Posted by: Weak Geek at January 26, 2020 12:41 PM (PWPy3)

500 There they are fresh and ready for battle. Some of these battle scenes are longer and more intense than an iron man triathlon. Rant off.
Posted by: Cuthbert the Witless at January 26, 2020 10:26 AM (9dzlp)
-----
One of the things I like about the Musketeers movies of the early 70s is the depiction of how exhausting physical combat is.

Posted by: Captain Obvious at January 26, 2020 12:43 PM (jW9oF)

501 That's true. Once I got into an argument with some
Democrats who thought the Canadian health care system was just awesome.
My experiences being from Canada and having lived with it were
irrelevant to them.

Posted by: Vendette at January 26, 2020 12:30 PM (SL4lK)
but this was about when he died. it is a trick to change it to his political legacy. Look up the The Mandela Effect on youtube. It has nothing to do with his leagcay. And everyone know that.

i am done with this and reulurking . I have had enough. best wishes to you all and i mean it.

Posted by: Quint at January 26, 2020 12:44 PM (n13/j)

502 Weak Geek

I am an avid user of ILL at my library. The oldest was Whispers from the Fleet, by Christopher Cradock (190

. It is advice to midshipman about the cutter and work ethics of the Royal Navy. The chapters on coaling are chilling to me, a veteran of many replenishments at sea. Oil is so much better than coal. And the nicknames for food from the galley were still used in the 1980s when I was at sea.

I got The Collapse of Complex Societies by Joseph Tainter (198

from ILL as well as other great books.

Posted by: NaCly Dog at January 26, 2020 12:48 PM (u82oZ)

503 Mandala Effect: I have a distinctive memory of one of my middle school chums telling me an AIDS joke on the schoolbus. It couldn't have happened later than 1981, but AIDS wasn't a named disease until 1983.

Sorry, should have said "A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-AIDS"

Posted by: Victor Tango Kilo at January 26, 2020 12:50 PM (N30JC)

504 I'm not sure what nazi schools some of y'all went to, and I am probably at least as old as most of you. When I was in elementary, we had some kids who wrote left-handed, and every now and then the teachers had the rest of us trying to do stuff left-handed, just to show how much harder it was to navigate in the other handed world.
Posted by: BurtTC

Did they make the girls pee standing up ?

Posted by: JT at January 26, 2020 12:52 PM (arJlL)

505 Bill Adams and Cecil Brooks wrote two books, The Unwound Way and The End of Fame.

Robert Frezza wrote A Fire in a Far Off Place, and A Small Colonial War

Edward Llewellyn wrote a series starting with The Douglas Convolutions

Posted by: Kindltot

Thank you. I shall check into these.

Posted by: Sharkman at January 26, 2020 12:53 PM (5v15w)

506
A commie fuck with a brutal murderer wife

Yes.

Posted by: Floridachick at January 26, 2020 12:55 PM (fL9qt)

507 I regret all i posted, even today. And to get thrown out over the Mandela effect of al things. I deserved to end it on the 52 states idea.

Posted by: Quint at January 26, 2020 12:59 PM (n13/j)

508 watching something on Prime to get used to hearing Italian -
The Vanishing of Pato
English subtitles

hilarious period whodunit based on a book

Posted by: vmom 2020 at January 26, 2020 01:00 PM (G546f)

509 For one it reduces and defames Mandela.. Let the man's life stand for what it was.

A commie fuck with a brutal murderer wife.
Posted by: Insomniac -

Womandela.

Posted by: JT at January 26, 2020 01:00 PM (arJlL)

510 Dick Blick ?

Posted by: JT at January 26, 2020 01:00 PM (arJlL)

511 I didn't care for Catcher in the Rye either but Salinger's short stories are splendid.

Posted by: Dan Smoot's Apprentice at January 26, 2020 01:01 PM (H8QX8)

512 Holden Caufield was a fag and his shit was all retarded. Posted by: Ignoramus

And they say literary criticism is dead.

Posted by: Bill Errs, "Dreams From Yo' Mama" at January 26, 2020 01:04 PM (Ndje9)

513 i wasn't thrown out but it is time for me to move one. I wish the last discussion was not about when Nelson Mandela died.

maybe i just need to cool off but i am thinking or relurking. It has nothing to do with the site, it is about me. Sorry guys for the histrionics. I love this site . I just need a break.

Posted by: Quint at January 26, 2020 01:05 PM (n13/j)

514 MANDOLO.EFFECT

https://youtu.be/bI9GBzMXxLU

Posted by: vmom 2020 at January 26, 2020 01:06 PM (G546f)

515 Must view, the Animal House trial scene redone to reflect the Trump impeachment:

https://tinyurl.com/Instant-Hilarity

Schiff as Greg Marmalard, Schumer as Dean Wormer. Lots of other faces replaced with contemporaries.

Instant classic.

Posted by: Sharkman at January 26, 2020 01:07 PM (5v15w)

516 or one it reduces and defames Mandela.. Let the man's life stand for what it was.

A commie fuck with a brutal murderer wife.

Posted by: Insomniac -

Womandela.

Posted by: JT at January 26, 2020 01:00 PM (arJlL)

the difference between a historian and commenter. Show where I said a positive thing about Mandela. Show one time "i said anything about him other than he died in 2013 and was the president of South Africa.

Damn sure it defames him to say he died in prison years earlier. If that offends, then i am really right to leave. i am seriously not getting this. is this for real?

Posted by: Quint at January 26, 2020 01:08 PM (n13/j)

517 SF by Cordwainer Smith. Under-read, but still cutting edge conceptions and language.

Posted by: NaCly Dog

I will read anything by Smith. He was fantastic.

Posted by: Sharkman at January 26, 2020 01:13 PM (5v15w)

518 I thought the Mandela Effect was when a famous person dies and a useless piece of dogshit with no accompishments of his one comes along and takes a selfie in the dead person's most famous place to commemorate the death of the famous person.

Like Obama did when he took a selfie in Mandela's cell on Robben Island to commemorate Mandela's passing.

Could also be called The Armstrong Effect. Like when Cock-Curious tweeted out a selfie with the moon in the background when Armstrong died.

Posted by: Sharkman at January 26, 2020 01:18 PM (5v15w)

519 If the Space Force logo was based on the Starfleet
logo and, in the future, Starfleet descended from the Space Force, where
did the logo actually come from?
Posted by: DR.WTF at January 26, 2020 11:57 AM (aS1PU)

I think the initial design was proposed by a committee chaired by Lazarus Long.

Posted by: Kindltot at January 26, 2020 01:21 PM (6rS3m)

520 I regret all i posted, even today. And to get thrown
out over the Mandela effect of al things. I deserved to end it on the
52 states idea.

Posted by: Quint at January 26, 2020 12:59 PM (n13/j)

I've had the same experience more than once in the "Why did I start posting at all?" department, so don't beat yourself up.

I've also seen disagreements become really ugly and filled with personal insults. Kudos to both you and Burt for keeping things respectful.

Posted by: Vendette at January 26, 2020 01:21 PM (SL4lK)

521 LOLDo you have any idea how hard it is to light a soggy Frosted Mini Wheat?

Posted by: just the punchline at January 26, 2020 01:24 PM (ARGoY)

522 I've had the same experience more than once in the "Why did I start posting at all?" department, so don't beat yourself up.

I've
also seen disagreements become really ugly and filled with personal
insults. Kudos to both you and Burt for keeping things respectful.

Posted by: Vendette at January 26, 2020 01:21 PM (SL4lK)

i appreciate that Vendette. I won't say more on the subject as nothing can be gained. i think I just need a break.

Posted by: Quint at January 26, 2020 01:25 PM (n13/j)

523 Strangely acrimonious Book Thread. And I didn't even throw in any gratuitous insults at people who don't like Heart of Darkness...

Posted by: Captain Hate at January 26, 2020 01:28 PM (y7DUB)

524 Who are you calling acrimonious?! I'll kick anyone's ass who calls me acrimonious!

Posted by: Trimegistus at January 26, 2020 01:29 PM (A1psc)

525 Why don't I say there is a world where John Lennon lived and became president?
Posted by: Quint at January 26, 2020 11:55 AM (n13/j)

Because that doesn't push any ideological positions that would benefit from contrafactual history.

Now, if we were to say that John Lennon died before he could do X, that would fit.

Mandela was a major character in a revolution, which has turned out poorly with massive poverty violence and racial violence.

Believing that he died in jail a victim of Botha's apartheid explains the failure of the dreams of a revolution that would bring about the utopia of the Kumbaya singing Hard Rock Candy Mountain.

memory and how it is processed is very interesting. Memory is not a VCR to record the world as we see it, it is more like a master file of database records that are modified, re-ranked and re-catalogued every time we access them.

It is made worse when we have spurious information and we use that bad info to sticky it to the top of the list, and link incorrectly based on the status and false information.

Or as we call it, "I remember it clearly"

Posted by: Kindltot at January 26, 2020 01:35 PM (6rS3m)

526 Neil Peart's book Ghost Rider seems pretty good. I just finished reading through the sample chapters on Amazon and it seems pretty well written. I'm going to get the book version.

Posted by: Berserker-Dragonheads Division at January 26, 2020 01:36 PM (9Om/r)

527 I am late here, but I liked the LOTR movies. I have never read the books and was dragged to the movies by my husband and son who have read the books many times. They enjoyed the movies as entertainment but had many revisions they would have done. I did fall asleep during the second movie, it's just not my thing. I wonder why everyone here has such hatred for the movies. Obviously, Christopher Tolkein accepted them and allowed them to be made. Peter Jackson was a huge fan. They were beautiful to watch.

Posted by: Abby at January 26, 2020 01:45 PM (J+sfJ)

528 From the Amazon reviews and ratings, readers really like these books although I've seen nothing spectacular so far.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at January 26, 2020 09:35 AM (+y/Ru)

Re Robert Crais: try "The Sentry" or "The Watchman" (Joe Pike) also "Suspect".

Posted by: Pravda Commissar Hrothgar at January 26, 2020 01:49 PM (BiNEL)

529 I wonder why everyone here has such hatred for the movies.

Posted by: Abby at January 26, 2020 01:45 PM (J+sfJ)
---

It's all we have, Abby! *runs away crying*

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at January 26, 2020 01:50 PM (Dc2NZ)

530 527
I am late here, but I liked the LOTR movies. I have never read the books
and was dragged to the movies by my husband and son who have read the
books many times. They enjoyed the movies as entertainment but had many
revisions they would have done. I did fall asleep during the second
movie, it's just not my thing. I wonder why everyone here has such
hatred for the movies. Obviously, Christopher Tolkein accepted them and
allowed them to be made. Peter Jackson was a huge fan. They were
beautiful to watch.

Posted by: Abby at January 26, 2020 01:45 PM (J+sfJ)

I have read the book(s) and watched movies both. The movie left out parts of the book but I think they had to. There was too much time in the movies such that they had to divide it up into 3 movies. The main thing they left out was the Tom Bombadil chapters but that didn't advance the book much anyway.

Posted by: Vic at January 26, 2020 01:52 PM (mpXpK)

531 i think I just need a break.

Posted by: Quint at January 26, 2020 01:25 PM (n13/j)

I've taken breaks before too, and know others who have done it as well. Not uncommon to step back for a bit.

Posted by: Vendette at January 26, 2020 01:52 PM (SL4lK)

532 It comes with decadence.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 26, 2020 12:36 PM (cfSRQ)

The apparent tranquility of the very temporary "first world"!

Posted by: Pravda Commissar Hrothgar at January 26, 2020 01:55 PM (BiNEL)

533 Speaking of cognitive biases, anyone else here heard
of the Mandela Effect? I heard about it for the first time last week.
It refers to people insisting that they remember things that didn't
happen or never existed in real life -- for example, many people to this
day insist that Nelson Mandela died in prison in the 1980s although he
actually died in 2013. Another frequently cited example is the
"cornucopia" in the Fruit of the Loom logo -- I could swear it exists
but apparently it has NEVER been part of the official brand logo. There
are lots of other examples...

Posted by: Secret Square at January 26, 2020 11:03 AM (41uZu)

sorry if my response was too strong. you brought up an interesting and relevant point. in no way did I mean to belittle your post.
I do not apologize for anything I said downthread as it was all reality. But your post deserved better than my strong condemnation. I guess we was ascertain I am familiar with the Mandela Effect lol.

Posted by: Quint at January 26, 2020 02:11 PM (n13/j)

534
Mandela was a major character in a revolution, which has turned out poorly with massive poverty violence and racial violence.

Believing
that he died in jail a victim of Botha's apartheid explains the failure
of the dreams of a revolution that would bring about the utopia of the
Kumbaya singing Hard Rock Candy Mountain.

memory and how it
is processed is very interesting. Memory is not a VCR to record the
world as we see it, it is more like a master file of database records
that are modified, re-ranked and re-catalogued every time we access
them.

It is made worse when we have spurious information and we
use that bad info to sticky it to the top of the list, and link
incorrectly based on the status and false information.

Or as we call it, "I remember it clearly"

Posted by: Kindltot at January 26, 2020 01:35 PM (6rS3m)

For sure a part of it was to make the situation in South Africa seem, worse. You know the drill and it all makes sense.

Posted by: Quint at January 26, 2020 02:16 PM (n13/j)

535 CoroNOOD.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at January 26, 2020 02:18 PM (Dc2NZ)

536 Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd #171:
...A decent book is 50,000 words or so....

At last! On-Topic for the book thread has been firmly defined, needing only fine-tuning for the "or so" leeway.

Leaves one wondering where indecent books can be discussed.

/heh

Posted by: mindful webworker - safe at January 26, 2020 02:28 PM (0mP7b)

537 "The Expanse" is nothing BUT a continual series of Othello Errors. Earth accuses Mars, which accuses Belters of siding with Earth. Then Belters accuse Earth of conspiring with Mars.

etcetcetcetcetcetcetc

Posted by: Noam Sayen at January 26, 2020 02:47 PM (WJcbb)

538 Small Town by Thomas Perry goes on my to do reading list- when I can pick it up cheaper than it is now as a new release. Thanks for the blurb on it!

Posted by: Charlotte at January 26, 2020 02:56 PM (Aj6Tl)

539 504 I'm not sure what nazi schools some of y'all went to, and I am probably at least as old as most of you. When I was in elementary, we had some kids who wrote left-handed, and every now and then the teachers had the rest of us trying to do stuff left-handed, just to show how much harder it was to navigate in the other handed world.
Posted by: BurtTC

Late to the party (as usual, which is why I e-mailed my words on Neil Peart's books), but this is ENTIRELY believable. I'm right handed, but I did not hold my pen/pencil the "correct way", and in fact refused to. This earned me the wrath of my elementary school teachers from kindergarten onwards. In kindergarten, one of my earliest memories of a teacher was one screaming at me to hold my pencil right like the other kids and forcing my fingers to the "correct" position, which I promptly changed to the way I held the pencil. (Imagine using all of your fingers on the pencil and you have an idea of how I held a writing utensil. After awhile for reasons of comfort I stopped using the pinky, though sometimes I use it for stability.)

In first grade my penmanship was my teacher's obsessive devotion because "I didn't hold the pen right." In second grade (first half) my teacher even went as far as demanding my parents take me to an eye doctor - because, after all, it was my vision that was the problem. (That and I wrote letters from the bottom, and this apparently enraged her, from the eye doctor's notes, which I still have.) Then I moved, being an Army brat, and I ran into a second grade teacher who couldn't be bothered to teach me the cursive her class already learned, but she could damn well put blocks on my pencils to force me to hold the pencil "correctly"...these were promptly removed when she wasn't looking. In third grade, my teacher was convinced my hand muscles were weak, and if I just made them stronger by waving my pencil across the paper with my hand holding the pencil the "correct" way, my hand muscles would get strong and I would hold my pencil just like the other kids. In fifth grade my teacher likewise went to war against my pencil holding, and when I moved halfway through, to another school, that teacher made forcing me to hold my pencil "correctly" a crusade, by issuing Fs every time she caught me not holding the pencil right. "You'll never make it past sixth grade", she assured me.

(Glances at master's and bachelor's on the wall)

The ONE teacher who refused to utter a peep about how I held my pencil/pen? I mentioned her on different threads before: my fourth grade teacher. Had she stopped there and did absolutely nothing else, she would have been my favorite teacher on that basis alone. But she did NOT stop there. (I discussed her with my older sister a few weeks ago and she said "I think we found the person responsible for you getting history degrees.")

RIP Kobe Bryant. As a Spurs fan, I bloody well despised him on the court, but sheesh, I wanted to see him reach old age and doing interviews about his prime NBA years. He didn't even live to get to Springfield.

Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at January 26, 2020 04:07 PM (dhy/7)

540 one last thing. I just realized that some might think this argument had something to do with Nelson Mandela. It didn't. The "Mandela Effect" has nothing to do with the history of Nelson Mandela. It is about people who refuse to admit they never paid attention in school or believe in fantasies that would make Flat Earthers and Fake Moon Landing people cry. This argument had nothing to do with the former president of South Africa, that is just the name of the Effect. Youtube it if you haven't heard about it.

Posted by: Quint at January 26, 2020 04:08 PM (n13/j)

541 Lakota and Anishinaabeg were as powerful if not more so than the Comanche. Both of the books mentioned are phenomenal reads.

The Lakota enslaved whole other tribes manipulating them to do what they wanted. Lakota America : a new history of indigenous power

The Anishinaabeg Controlled the commerce of the great lake area in complex and Machiavellian ways to rival any state in history.

Masters of Empire : Great Lakes Indians and the making of America

Posted by: jeremiah at January 26, 2020 04:29 PM (AGFts)

542 I spent a lot of time in the previous law library at WashU, and it was a horrid pile of concrete and painted sheet metal. I lived next door in the Beta Theta Pi house, and we loathed that building with every fiber of our being. This is a much more suitable place to study.

Posted by: Jeffersonian at January 26, 2020 04:48 PM (xiOrX)

543 Last?

Posted by: TxMarko at January 26, 2020 07:29 PM (TA6PM)

544 Yep.

Posted by: Weak Geek at January 26, 2020 10:02 PM (u/nim)

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