Sunday Morning Book Thread 02-02-2020

Good morning to all you 'rons, 'ettes, lurkers, and lurkettes, wine moms, frat bros, crétins sans pantalon (who are technically breaking the rules), thugs, delinquents, riff-raff, and other ne'er-do-wells. Welcome once again to the stately, prestigious, internationally acclaimed and high-class Sunday Morning Book Thread, a weekly compendium of reviews, observations, snark, witty repartee, hilarious bon mots, and a continuing conversation on books, reading, spending way too much money on books, writing books, and publishing books by escaped oafs and oafettes who follow words with their fingers and whose lips move as they read. Unlike other AoSHQ comment threads, the Sunday Morning Book Thread is so hoity-toity, pants are required. Even if it's these pants, which apparently can be used as a flotation device in case of a water landing. Or if you wet the bed a lot. Hey, I'm just sayin'.

Pic Note:

Book cafés are apparently A Thing in Singapore:

Book cafés in Singapore have become somewhat of a unique area for meetings. Charity workers, clubs and societies meet in book cafes in Singapore and people are invited to listen, observe or get involved.

[The Reading Room] café combines sleek furnishings with antiques and art for a tactile comfort that is unique and original. The shelves are stacked out with books and with luxurious seating, you can enjoy your coffee in this renaissance styled café. By night, this café turns into a bar for a more sophisticated round of drinks.

It Pays To Increase Your Word Power®

Cocker spaniels are so named because they were originally bred to flush woodcocks out of the undergrowth on hunting trips. pic.twitter.com/vEALWTz8Lq
— Haggard Hawks 📚🦅 (@HaggardHawks) January 29, 2020

Reading Room Café View #2

We'll Get Him This Time!

I must confess I used to like John Bolton. Because Obama seemed determined to alienate our allies and suck up to our enemies, I thought Bolton's tough talk on the cable news shows he frequently guested on was refreshing. But I do see now he's infected with the Boot-Kristol Virus where you believe that all foreign policy problems can be solved by putting American soldiers in yet another country. Trump made it clear early on that that wasn't a solution he was keen to use, so I can well see why Bolton wasn't a good fit for his administration, and so was quickly given the left foot of fellowship.

So now Bolton is coming out with a book, The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir, and by some fantastic coincidence, just when Amazon made the book available for pre-order, we get an 11th hour anonymous leak to the Fake News Media that something in this book may have relevance to the current impeachment trial. Of course, the leaker did not provid an *actual quote* from the book, he (or she) just claimed that the book shows the quid pro quo.

Bombshell! Hair on fire! White House in chaos! Wheels are coming off! Etc.

So this is the book that is supposedly going to Bring Drumpf Down.

But that's not the first time this has happened. According to this article, there have been at least 5 books published that were supposed to Bring Drumpf Down.

The first one mentioned was Unhinged by Omarosa, who is described in the blurb as "Assistant to the President and Director of Communications for the Office of Public Liaison", a title which, to me, sounds like something puffed up to look more impressive than it actually is. Anyway, pretty much all of the negative reviews complain of being ripped off; while the book is ostensibly about Trump, it is pretty much the author promoting herself, i.e. grift. One reviewer titled her review 'Bait and Switch.'

It sounds like a very silly book and you shouldn't waste your time with it.

The other book worthy of note is Bob Woodward's Fear: Inside the Trump White House, which apparently is packed full of unsourced quotes, unverifed incidents, and incidents that the participants strongly denied. Again, no new information. It's boob bait for Trump-haters. Also, Woodward was asked point-blank by Hugh Hewitt if, in doing research for the book, if he ever found any evidence of Russian collusion.

His answer:

BW: I have not.

Funny, I don't recall the media reporting this admission when Woodward's book came out.

Each of the books mentioned in the article suffer from the same defects, namely, poor sourcing, no sourcing, and no new information about Trump revealed. Which I suppose shouldn't be surprising. Donald Trump has been a public figure for, what, nearly 40 years now, everyone knows who he is, and so it's simply not likely that someone is going to come up with anything new. So, all these books do is confirm your biases: if you hate Trump, you'll only hate Trump more, if you're a Trump supporter, you'll continue to think that most Trump critics are lying scum. Full disclosure: I'm in the latter group.

A side effect of Trump's presidency is the large number of opportunities afforded to professional grifters to hone their grifting skills. Because grifters gotta grift.

Who Dis:

Last week's 'who dis' was author J.R.R. Tolkien and his wife, Edith.

RIP Mary Higgins Clark, 1927-2020

Actually, I did not know she was still alive:

NEW YORK (AP) — Mary Higgins Clark, the tireless and long-reigning “Queen of Suspense” whose tales of women beating the odds made her one of the world’s most popular writers, died Friday at age 92.

Any fans of MHC here? With sales past 100 million book copies, she sounds like the female version of Harold Robbins.

Who Dat?

Came across this New Yorker piece about a 40-year-old dust-up between Ursula K. LeGuin and another science fiction writer named Joanna Russ. Now I've always found the squabbles between feminists of various stripes to be boring beyond belief (and I wouldn't be surprised if many of them boil down to 'well, you're not very pretty, are you?') but I had to ask myself, who is Joanna Russ? I had never heard her name before. The author of the article says:

In her heyday, Russ was known as a raging man-hater. This reputation was not entirely unearned, though it was sometimes overstated.

So, in other words, she probably *was* a raging manhater, full stop.

The search for that reality led Russ and Le Guin in different directions, and, though the latter has become, in the years since, the face of women in speculative fiction, it would be a mistake to regard Russ as overshadowed.

The reason I'm bringing this up is because progressives (and feminists in particular) always seem to be promoting minor or marginal figures in whatever field they're interested in because they've discovered an ideological soulmate, and then trotting her out as A Very Important Figure. In this case, it was, aha, here's a radical lesbian feminist who writes science fiction. She's just like Ursula K. LeGuin, only better!

But is she really? I'm not the science fiction nerd that perhaps some of you are. I'm just curious if any of you have ever heard or read anything by Russ. Am I just ignorant, or she just the literary equivalent of #FakeNews pushed by progressives?

Russ' most famous novel is The Female Man, published in 1975:

Widely acknowledged as Joanna Russ’s masterpiece, The Female Man is the suspenseful, surprising, darkly witty, and boldly subversive chronicle of what happens when Jeannine, Janet, Joanna, and Jael—all living in parallel worlds—meet. Librarian Jeannine is waiting for marriage in a past where the Depression never ended, Janet lives on a utopian Earth with an all-female population, Joanna is a feminist in the 1970s, and Jael is a warrior with claws and teeth on an Earth where male and female societies are at war with each other. When the four women begin traveling to one another’s worlds, their preconceptions on gender and identity are forever challenged.

Oh yeah, this definitely does not sound at all like preachy, progressive agitprop. But, as Dennis Miller likes to say, I could be wrong.

They Don't Publish Books Like This Any More:

Wait, this book is intended for "the masses" and it was produced by a *committee*? So a bunch of commies wrote this book?

Moron Recommendations

OK, fine. In last week's exciting episode of the book thread, we read:

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)

At Swim, Two Boys: A Novel

Set during the year preceding the Easter Uprising of 1916—Ireland’s brave but fractured revolt against British rule—At Swim, Two Boys is a tender, tragic love story and a brilliant depiction of people caught in the tide of history...

Jim Mack is a naïve young scholar and the son of a foolish, aspiring shopkeeper. Doyler Doyle is the rough-diamond son—revolutionary and blasphemous—of Mr. Mack’s old army pal. Out at the Forty Foot, that great jut of rock where gentlemen bathe in the nude, the two boys make a pact: Doyler will teach Jim to swim, and in a year, on Easter of 1916, they will swim to the distant beacon of Muglins Rock and claim that island for themselves. All the while Mr. Mack, who has grand plans for a corner shop empire, remains unaware of the depth of the boys’ burgeoning friendship and of the changing landscape of a nation.

The Kindle version is a bit spendy at $14.99.

Books written in dialect can be a challenge. But one reviewer wrote "the efforts of many readers may be thwarted by O'Neill's challenging and lyrical prose, the Irish brogue and street slang, the invented Latin derivations and oh-so-clever puns. After 50 to 75 pages, though, the reader's patience is well rewarded. Once you accustom yourself to the pattern of the prose, the context provides clues to even the most unfamiliar words..."

I remember the first time I read A Clockwork Orange, when I was in high school. I discovered that it was full of slang I had never heard before, and in fac was invented by the author just for that novel. So I eventually made sense out of most of the words based on context, and then, after the last page, they had a glossary of all the slang words. I remember thinking why couldn't they have put this at the front? But I suppose trying to work out the meanings was intended to be part of the experience of reading the novel.

___________

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)

Toward the Gleam

Between the two world wars, on a hike in the English countryside, Professor John Hill takes refuge from a violent storm in a cave. There he nearly loses his life, but he also makes an astonishing discovery - an ancient manuscript housed in a cunningly crafted metal box. Though a philologist by profession, Hill cannot identify the language used in the manuscript and the time period in which it is was made, but he knows enough to make an educated guess - that the book and its case are the fruits of a long-lost, but advanced civilization.

The translation of the manuscript and the search for its origins become a life-long quest for Hill. As he uncovers an epic that both enchants and inspires him, he tracks down scholars from Oxford to Paris who can give him clues. Along the way, he meets several intriguing characters, including a man keenly interested in obtaining artifacts from a long-lost civilization that he believes was the creation of a superior race, and will help him fulfill his ambition to rule other men. Concluding that Hill must have found something that may help him in this quest, but knowing not what it is and where it is hidden, he has Hill, his friends at Oxford, and his family shadowed and threatened until finally he and Hill face off in a final, climatic confrontation.

Yeah, I can sort of maybe see both Tolkien (LotR) and C.S. Lewis (That Hideous Strength) here. It sounds like it might be interesting, and $9.99 for the Kindle edition is right up at the Vic Boundary. There's a sequel, too, The Lucifer Ego, for about half the price.

___________

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 Tolle Lege

Posted by: Skip at February 02, 2020 09:01 AM (ZCEU2)

2 mornin horde

Posted by: barrel otters at February 02, 2020 09:02 AM (5wOoy)

3 STOP RAPING YOUR CHARACTERS.

I have read ~150 pages of Stephen Baxter's Proxima. The book came out in 2015, but I found a copy in a thrift store for $1.09.

The plot so far is that (for stupid reasons) Earth is offloading some involuntary colonists on an interstellar Botany Bay ride, and only about eleven of them get to the site. There are flashbacks to an earlier, exploratory mission - mostly AI. The earlier mission was built for speed. The new mission has a 'Kernel Drive', assisted by magic beans harvested from Mercury.

Baxter does try to limit his exposition. As in other books, there are introductory briefings on the way to Space Australia, which is where exposition would normally get offloaded. His shackled non-nerds don't pay attention, so we don't get to read the briefings. Instead there's an AI on planetside who 'splains things at relevant points.

How humans possibly got down into Mercury's tiny gravity-sphere against the Sun's massive gravity-well, I don't know. Why we bothered when we have Venus to mine first I don't know either. It's called "maths", Steve [he's a Brit]. Do some.

'Proxima' is already amusingly out of date. Baxter did know that Proxima b is in the habitable-zone, and that the star is a flare star. And then in 2018 we all saw this from over four light years away : phys.org/news/2018-04-proxima-centauri-flare-powerful-visible.html

Oops! It sure looks, once we've rubbed our dazed eyes away, as if we are NOT opening our can of monkeys on the sunny side of this planet. Maybe we can consider O'Neill Cylinders in the comets, or habitats on Proxima c's moons...

I've already complained that this tool of an author is obsessed with global-warming to the extent he mentions it in almost every flashback - usually passive-aggressively, in terms of Australia being depopulated, and of Florida and Manhattan going underwater. I can think of several ecological and social catastrophes between now and 2150. Global-warming is not one of them.

As for my opening comment : Baxter rapes some woman around page 40. The author did the same in Stone Spring. Storm Constantine did this to a male character early in a third book I'm not going to finish. The effect is to shock the reader and to drive across the fragility of human society, thus introducing a theme of the rest of the book yadda yadda. I get it. The device is overused, especially from Bax ter da Wall; and it makes me want to read something else.

So quit with the raping already! Or save it for readers who like that sort of thing - you know, perverts.

Posted by: boulder t'hobo at February 02, 2020 09:02 AM (ykYG2)

4 Corgis dutifully called, and still nothing new for myself.
Peter Schweitzer's Profiles in Corruption looks interesting

Posted by: Skip at February 02, 2020 09:03 AM (ZCEU2)

5 How much wood could a wood cock wood?

Posted by: freakdd at February 02, 2020 09:03 AM (Tnijr)

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

Posted by: JTB at February 02, 2020 09:03 AM (7EjX1)

7 Nice, but the content screwed me over!

Posted by: Commissar Hrothgar at February 02, 2020 09:04 AM (BiNEL)

8 Those pants are fine.

Posted by: The Michelin Man at February 02, 2020 09:04 AM (Tnijr)

9 Who dis? Neil Peart.

Posted by: I am the Shadout Mapes - the Housekeeper at February 02, 2020 09:05 AM (IttZ7)

10 Who dis: Donald Sutherland?

Posted by: runner at February 02, 2020 09:05 AM (Idlcg)

11 Booken morgen horden!

Posted by: vmom 2020 at February 02, 2020 09:05 AM (G546f)

12 I'm skipped church because. Now I get to soak in the Book Thread.YAY

Posted by: grammie winger at February 02, 2020 09:05 AM (lwiT4)

13 I don't think Peart ever gave up cigarettes.

Posted by: InspiredHistoryMike at February 02, 2020 09:06 AM (x8Q/V)

14 No, how much wood would a woodcock cock if woodcock would cock wood?

Nah, that ain't it neither.

Posted by: WTP at February 02, 2020 09:06 AM (WQfDg)

15 Good morning book thugs!

I'm not a big fan of red, but the vermilion walls in that reading room are very nice.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at February 02, 2020 09:07 AM (Dc2NZ)

16 I stumbled across a free (dog-training) book on Amazon, so far a rather interesting read, if I finish it, I'll comment here and/or the Pet Thread!

BBL

Posted by: Commissar Hrothgar at February 02, 2020 09:07 AM (BiNEL)

17 Is this the meeting of the Thrilling Stories Committee?

That would be a heck of a name for the Book Thread habitués.

Posted by: hogmartin at February 02, 2020 09:07 AM (t+qrx)

18 I agree OM, Joanna Russ seems like fake nooz
Probably an academic with poor selling sf

Posted by: vmom 2020 at February 02, 2020 09:08 AM (G546f)

19 I've been working on the Conrad/Ford Madox Ford collaborations. I could not get into The Inheritors, so I turned to what essentially an attempt at a loooong suicide note The Nature of a Crime. As a short story it's interesting enough, but I am never convinced of the narrator's desperation. I think I'll abandon the project.

Posted by: barrel otters at February 02, 2020 09:09 AM (5wOoy)

20 Morning, all,

I'd heard of Joanna Russ back in my early SF-reading days. Apparently her criticism, book and otherwise, turned up in Vertex and other SF magazines of the time. I never read any of her work. The '70s had a lot of that New Wave stuff where the writers seemed to be actively trying to confuse the reader.

As for cocker spaniels, I supposed the name had to come from something like that. I mean, they couldn't have named the breed after Joe Cocker, could they?

The "Who Dis?" guy looks like one of the rock musicians of the '70s, maybe from Black Oak Arkansas. (I mention them because they're the only name that comes to mind.) I know it's not Jim Morrison.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at February 02, 2020 09:10 AM (DHNlU)

21 9 I am old enough to remember that look being the ultimate cool, but now, Peart just looks effete.

Posted by: barrel otters at February 02, 2020 09:13 AM (5wOoy)

22 So quit with the raping already! Or save it for readers who like that sort of thing - you know, perverts.
Posted by: boulder t'hobo at February 02, 2020 09:02 AM (ykYG2)
---

Stephen Donaldson had a yen for rape, and explaining away the rape as situational. Kind of icky.

Also, I love the phrase "opening our can of monkeys".

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at February 02, 2020 09:13 AM (Dc2NZ)

23 The "Who Dis?" guy looks like one of the rock musicians of the '70s, maybe from Black Oak Arkansas. (I mention them because they're the only name that comes to mind.) I know it's not Jim Morrison.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at February 02, 2020 09:10 AM (DHNlU)

I was thinking it was one of the characters on Spinal Tap!

Posted by: Tom Servo at February 02, 2020 09:13 AM (V2Yro)

24 Yay Book Thread! Thanks again, OM!

Lead singer for 3 Dog Night.

My reading: thanks to El Horde Excellente, I got that RE Howard all-for-$2.99. So i have been re-living my 29-year childhood by reading Conan.

Writing continues.

Posted by: goatexchange at February 02, 2020 09:13 AM (okfD+)

25 That would be a heck of a name for the Book Thread habitu�s.
Posted by: hogmartin

I'll see your aigu and raise you two graves and a circonflex.

Posted by: Miklos, keeping a cédille up his sleeve at February 02, 2020 09:14 AM (QzkSJ)

26 off otter sock

Posted by: CN at February 02, 2020 09:14 AM (5wOoy)

27 A few weeks ago, someone on the Book Thread mentioned the Jerusalem Chronicles, a set of three Biblical fiction books dealing with the Gospel narrative from three different perspectives. Kindle Unlimited had the set for free, so I dove in.

I enjoyed them very much, particularly Book One, "Jesus Wept". It describes the gospel events as seen through the eyes of Lazarus. It really drew me in, in spite of some loose liberties with Scripture. (For instance, making Mary of Magdala the same woman as Mary of Bethany, sister to Lazarus. I scratched my head at that one, then just ignored it.)

Even though I knew what happens, I couldn't wait to see what happens, if that makes sense. Anyway - thank you, Recommender Person.

Posted by: grammie winger at February 02, 2020 09:15 AM (lwiT4)

28 Anyway, I see why the Conrad/Ford collaboration ended

Posted by: CN at February 02, 2020 09:16 AM (5wOoy)

29 I borrowed the theme from a Charles Stross thread, "Canned Monkeys Don't Ship Well". Frank Landis wrote a full thread here -
antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2018/07/canned-monkeys-dont-ship-well-.html

Posted by: boulder t'hobo at February 02, 2020 09:16 AM (ykYG2)

30 Yeah, I guessed John Kay (Steppenwolf) only because it's someone from Back Then.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at February 02, 2020 09:16 AM (gd9RK)

31 Philip K. Dick wrote a searing anti-abortion story called The Pre-Persons. He described what happened afterward: "In this, the most recent of the stories in this collection, I incurred the absolute hate of Joanna Russ who wrote me the nastiest letter I've ever received; at one point she said she usually offered to beat up people (she didn't use the word "people") who expressed opinions such as this."

Posted by: Patrick Sullivan at February 02, 2020 09:17 AM (DvRkF)

32 I've read that Springers and Cockers used to come from the same litter. Smaller dogs were Cockers, larger were Springers. Then they separated the breeds.

Posted by: Notsothoreau at February 02, 2020 09:17 AM (Lqy/e)

33 I saw some reading cafes in Singapore, great concept. Almost as good as caning miscreants for punishment.

Posted by: Vashta Nerada at February 02, 2020 09:18 AM (9bXUn)

34 32: Interesting. I've never had a spaniel, but I'd choose a Springer or a Pont Audemars

Posted by: CN at February 02, 2020 09:19 AM (5wOoy)

35 I've read and enjoyed some of Joanna Russ's works, and I would say she was a person of note in feminist SF. More influential as an essayist probably.

Her "Alyx" series was good, but my favorite is the non-SF story "On Strike Against God" (the title is a quote of the judge who tried garment workers, I think). She had a very acid sense of humor.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at February 02, 2020 09:19 AM (Dc2NZ)

36 Has that reading room be checked for the Chicken Corn Pop virus yet?

Those pants are what Hilldog has been wearing all these years......who knew.

The who dis is Pat Simmons of the Doobie Brothers.

Posted by: Hairyback Guy at February 02, 2020 09:19 AM (Z+IKu)

37 Thanks for the shout out, OM. Oddly enough there were very few copies at the library which ran counter to their usual promotions of all things homo. Maybe it was too difficult for high profile mincemeats like Gaylord or Mayor Petey.

That it was so well written brings up a question I'd like to pose to the Horde of the Book Thread: have there been any significant Irish full length novelists since Joyce and Flann O'Brien? There's been good short story writers like Frank O'Connor and William Trevor, to name two that come to mind, and I'm probably forgetting others; but when's the last full length masterpiece from the Emerald Isle?

Posted by: Captain Hate at February 02, 2020 09:19 AM (y7DUB)

38 Read "The Librarian of Auschwitz" by Spanish author Antonio Iturbe. Based on the experience of real-life Auschwitz prisoner Dita Kraus and book by her husband, also Auschwitz prisoner, this is worst to read story. Highly recommend it.

Posted by: redmonkey at February 02, 2020 09:20 AM (KL1FG)

39 More word power. Woodcocks are called timberdoodles down Maine.

And it's down Maine because the prevailing winds are from the SW so Maine is downwind.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at February 02, 2020 09:20 AM (gd9RK)

40 Def Neil Peart. No other drummer on the planet even knows how to read.

Posted by: Captain Ned at February 02, 2020 09:20 AM (XIfux)

41 The "Who Dis?" guy looks like half the men of the 70's.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at February 02, 2020 09:21 AM (Dc2NZ)

42 41: An era not worth nostalgia

Posted by: CN at February 02, 2020 09:22 AM (5wOoy)

43 Good morning, fellow book threadists! Still working my way through Joanna Barnes "Pastora" ... yep, I can see the thinly-disguised characters based on real characters, and the real characters appearing a mile away, but yes - an interesting and nicely-written family epic. Once nice thing - the author doesn't go on-and-on tediously about the sad lot of women with an earning to live in the 19th century. The MC and her friends just get on with it, minimum whining.
Diverted with Rosemary Taylor's memoir "Chicken Every Sunday" which someone mentioned last week, and it sounded familiar - I found the copy of it that I bought at a library sale for practically nothing, thinking that it might be handy for research into the nuts and bolts of running a boarding house, and then never got around to reading it until now. It's a charming book, I can see how it would have been a best-seller when first published in the 1940ies. There's a strong resemblance to "The Egg and I" - another best-selling memoir and one better known.

Ms Taylor's mother was happily married, to a charming if slightly-improvident man who couldn't help getting into all kinds of investment ventures, most of which didn't really pay off well, if at all - so Mother kept a boarding house to keep the family on an even keel. This would have been pre-WWI, in Tucson. I'm about halfway through - it's an enjoyable read, about another woman who didn't whine, but apparently had the best of fun in running her boarding house.

Posted by: Sgt. Mom at February 02, 2020 09:22 AM (xnmPy)

44 The "Who Dis?" guy looks like half the men of the 70's.
Posted by: All Hail Eris

Got the 'stache.

Posted by: Miklos, in a John Bolton glasses and moustache disguise at February 02, 2020 09:23 AM (QzkSJ)

45 Though I've never read her, we have many Mary Higgins Clark books, maybe all. My wife is a big fan.

I have looked at Ursula K LeGuin, and wasn't impressed. But then, I'm not a sci-fi guy.

Still hitting various mysteries, and my impression is that most of the authors I've never read before, well, I didn't miss much. I'm trying to reread some of Scruton, but I'm still under the weather, so parts are tough. But much of Frauds, Fools, and Firebrands is fun. Tons of abuse of lefties.

Posted by: Eeyore at February 02, 2020 09:23 AM (ZbwAu)

46 Speaking of SF, I saw an announcement of the Army taking over Wuhan
The way the announcement was written was very - well I guess the ChiComs are used to it - over the top "great news"
I'll find the link if anyone is curious

Posted by: vmom 2020 at February 02, 2020 09:23 AM (G546f)

47 The "Who Dis?" guy looks like half the men of the 70's.

:sighs fondly:

Posted by: grammie winger at February 02, 2020 09:23 AM (lwiT4)

48 Why isn't the 70s worthy of nostalgia? People will be nostalgic about the man buns of this era.

Posted by: Notsothoreau at February 02, 2020 09:24 AM (Lqy/e)

49 I read "The Goldsboro Broken Arrow" by Joel Dobson. Broken Arrow is military speak for an accident involving a nuclear weapon with the potential for detonation. On January 23-24, 1961 a B52G from Seymour Johnson AFB in Goldsboro, N.C. with two 3.8 megaton B39 nuclear bombs was on a airborne alert as part of Operation Chrome Dome. About 10 hrs into their 24 hr mission during air-refueling a major fuel leak occurred. Fuel was pouring out the right wing and also had accumulated in the bomb bay and forward wheel bay. After several hours of dealing with multiple problems they were preparing to land at their base when the right wing broke off at the fuselage. Six of the eight crew made it out. The two B39 bombs also made it out.

The flaming wreckage landed near Faro, NC. Miraculously no one on the ground was injured. As for the two bombs one had it's parachute deploy and landed safely with minor damage and was later deactivated (this bomb went through most of it's firing sequence). The second bomb's chute did not deploy and hit the ground at 700 mph. Though heavily damaged most of it was recovered. The secondary part of the bomb which was designed to add a bigger boom was not recovered and is thought to be at 180 ft depth. The experts say it poses no threat.

There's a lot of neat stuff about SAC (Strategic Air Command), other Broken Arrow events, and the experience of 1Lt Adam Mattocks who was the third pilot on the B52.

Video of Mattocks and the mission.
https://youtu.be/Mq2M2cmAlvg

NukeMap - A fun time waster. Nuke some cities.
https://tinyurl.com/j6hsewr

Posted by: Jake Holenhead at February 02, 2020 09:24 AM (P1GvV)

50 I have a question for all you smarties: Does anyone like The Witcher (in any format- book, game, tv show)? Would you read a similar series?

I ask because I'm thinking of writing a bunch of short stories about a mercenary who rides around a pseudo-medieval world, slaying monsters and doing moderately heroic things as he goes. I'll probably write it regardless of how much interest there is, but I'm trying to gauge whether there's a market for something between The Witcher and The Once and Future King.

And by 'short stories', I mean about 20,000 words. For the non-writers of the group, a short novel is around 40 thousand, and most epic fantasy novels are around 100 thousand. But these stories are supposed to be fast, fun reads- the book equivalent to a half-hour tv show.

Posted by: right wing yankee at February 02, 2020 09:24 AM (zlzYb)

51 I'd like the link, VM

Posted by: CN at February 02, 2020 09:24 AM (5wOoy)

52 One of the pulpy old SF books I got on my Detroit book jaunt was Algis Budrys’s 1960 philosophical novella “Rogue Moon”. There’s an alien structure on the moon that is like a deadly funhouse labyrinth that kills anyone who enters. Scientists want to learn its secrets. So they devise a way to replicate a volunteer explorer, located in a lab on earth, as a duplicate on the moon. The copy is telepathically linked to the original, and any knowledge the duplicate gains is retained by the original on earth. Gradually, through experimentation, the duplicates manage to wind their way through for longer and longer periods. But the process of constantly dying is traumatic, and the test subject has to crawl over the damaged bodies of his previous attempts. Even some of the most gung ho volunteers go mad. The laboratory finally selects a Hemingway-esque thrill-seeker who has cheated death many times and is in it for the ultimate challenge.

The enigmatic structure on the lunar surface isn’t the real thrust of the story. There’s little action; the story is told mainly through intense discussions between the lead scientist, the angry daredevil volunteer, his femme fatale girlfriend, the slimy personnel headhunter, and other technicians.

It's an odd book, and people seem to either love it or hate it.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at February 02, 2020 09:25 AM (Dc2NZ)

53 Speaking of SF, I saw an announcement of the Army taking over Wuhan
The way the announcement was written was very - well I guess the ChiComs are used to it - over the top "great news"
I'll find the link if anyone is curious
Posted by: vmom

I am Curious (Yellow)

Posted by: Miklos, but not that curious at February 02, 2020 09:25 AM (QzkSJ)

54 who dis: Freddy Mercury
reading: Ghost Rider and State of Lies
author of State of Lies will be giving a talk at ANCC (Army Navy Country Club) later in Feb so I'm giving it a go.
So far it's a fun read but I'm not that far in. It's interesting how lightly she treats loss of a loved one, especially in comparison to Ghost Rider.

Posted by: watching premier league and reading at February 02, 2020 09:25 AM (KxVME)

55 Is that Graham Parson?

Posted by: Captain Hate at February 02, 2020 09:25 AM (y7DUB)

56 but now, Peart just looks effete.

Posted by: barrel otters

You are among a commentariat wherein a sudden entry of "You know that I carry around empty wine boxes in my pickup truck in case I suddenly have to shit" is considered daily-normal. And you have the unmitigated tiny nutz to call Neil Peart "effete" in a picture from over 40 years ago?

Well aren't you special.

Posted by: Way, Way Downriver at February 02, 2020 09:26 AM (oRpiG)

57 48 Why isn't the 70s worthy of nostalgia? People will be nostalgic about the man buns of this era.
Posted by: Notsothoreau at February 02, 2020 09:24 AM (Lqy/e)

I don't see period romances with man bun bros on the cover.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at February 02, 2020 09:27 AM (Dc2NZ)

58 OM, I love the writer's block. Brilliant! And the little Buckaroo is adorable. Could have been me in the 1950s when I was still cute. (No, the cute didn't last.)

Posted by: JTB at February 02, 2020 09:27 AM (7EjX1)

59 Seeing that Bookmobile reminds me that I was afraid of the one that came to my neighborhood when I was a child. The "child catcher" in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang was the scariest thing I'd ever seen in my short life, and the bookmobile sure felt like it could be a child catcher. I was afraid I was being lured in by Encyclopedia Brown books, but then the bookshelves would drop to reveal i was locked in a cage.

Posted by: Buck Throckmorton at February 02, 2020 09:28 AM (d9Cw3)

60
Rape. Cocks. Before long someone will talk pussy.
Sunday Morning Porn Thread?

Posted by: You Don't Know Me But I Identify As Ron Jeremy at February 02, 2020 09:28 AM (Uzdbm)

61 Graham Parsons? I swear I had it spelled correctly and autocucumber administered a fuck job.

Posted by: Captain Hate at February 02, 2020 09:28 AM (y7DUB)

62 I only know Ursula LeGuin from a perfectly charming New Yorker story about a goddess unnaming animals, "She Unnames Them".

http://bit.ly/2GK2Bde

Posted by: Bandersnatch at February 02, 2020 09:28 AM (gd9RK)

63 I don't see period romances with man bun bros on the cover.
Posted by: All Hail Eris

Bun rippers

No.

Posted by: Dame Barbara Miklos-Cartland at February 02, 2020 09:28 AM (QzkSJ)

64 Who Dis is the late great Neal Peart. I win a pair of drumsticks, right?

Posted by: BackwardsBoy. #DemocratsSuck at February 02, 2020 09:28 AM (HaL55)

65 I also read the latest "Lucas Davenport" by John Sandford - "Neon Prey". He brings out more of his sense of humor in this one, something he has usually reserved for his Virgil Flowers series. I liked this one. It's got a cannibal.

Posted by: grammie winger at February 02, 2020 09:29 AM (lwiT4)

66 48; The long hair look does not need a revival , the fashion sucked, and it was the genesis of the greenie movement along with being the period when socialist dogma and censorship infiltrated the universities (at least in MI). And disco.

Posted by: CN at February 02, 2020 09:30 AM (5wOoy)

67 Miklos a translation here

https://www.reddit.com/r/China_Flu/comments/exohja/comment/fgafcf6

Posted by: vmom 2020 at February 02, 2020 09:30 AM (G546f)

68 67 oh, the url is broken by new line after comments/

Posted by: vmom 2020 at February 02, 2020 09:31 AM (G546f)

69 The long hair look does not need a revival

OH I BEG YOUR PARDON, SIR

Posted by: grammie winger at February 02, 2020 09:31 AM (lwiT4)

70 'Mornin y'all.

Posted by: Weasel at February 02, 2020 09:31 AM (MVjcR)

71 Even if it's these pants, which apparently can be used as a flotation device

those look to be the latest in Murder Pants, from the Bill Class Death by Couture Collection.

Cuz those would hold you ass-up and face in the water.

That whole buoyancy dealio, doncha know.

Posted by: naturalfake at February 02, 2020 09:32 AM (z0XD8)

72 This week's 'these pants' example is a rare photo from the Michelin Man school of fashion. I think it was popular for about three minutes in 1974.

Posted by: JTB at February 02, 2020 09:32 AM (7EjX1)

73 Mornin' Weezil!

I like that Zappa-esque spelling.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at February 02, 2020 09:33 AM (Dc2NZ)

74 "I find television to be highly educational. Every time someone turns one on, I go in another room and read a book."

- Groucho Marx, who had some sick drumming skillz

Posted by: BackwardsBoy. #DemocratsSuck at February 02, 2020 09:33 AM (HaL55)

75 69: I'm an ette, and the picture of Peart just illustrates the sheer silliness of those long silly girly tresses on men

Posted by: CN at February 02, 2020 09:33 AM (5wOoy)

76 64 Who Dis is the late great Neal Peart. I win a pair of drumsticks, right?
Posted by: BackwardsBoy. #DemocratsSuck at February 02, 2020 09:28 AM (HaL55)

Correct, but the drumsticks have already been given away at #9.

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Austere Religious Scholar at February 02, 2020 09:34 AM (kqjO2)

77 76 64 Who Dis is the late great Neal Peart. I win a pair of drumsticks, right?
Posted by: BackwardsBoy. #DemocratsSuck at February 02, 2020 09:28 AM (HaL55)

Correct, but the drumsticks have already been given away at #9.
Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Austere Religious Scholar at February 02, 2020 09:34 AM (kqjO2)

At least give the man a hot wing.

Posted by: Insomniac - Ex Cineribus Resurgo at February 02, 2020 09:35 AM (NWiLs)

78 Mornin' Weezil!

I like that Zappa-esque spelling.
Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at February 02, 2020 09:33 AM (Dc2NZ)
-------
Howdy Eris! Why, that is rather catchy, isn't it.

Posted by: Weasel at February 02, 2020 09:35 AM (MVjcR)

79 Hello, fellow bookies!

Picking my way through "No Time for Sergeants." With so many other duties and entertainment options, it's slow going -- the sergeant just now appeared.

I would have loved to hear Andy Griffith read this.

Posted by: Weak Geek at February 02, 2020 09:35 AM (u/nim)

80 Rogue Moon worked as a novella but I thought that it suffered from being padded out to novel length. It's one of the classic BDO (Big Dumb Object) sf stories, wherein humanity encounters extraterrestrials indirectly via an alien artifact.

Alastair Reynolds' Diamond Dogs was heavily inspired by Rogue Moon.

Posted by: Patrick Sullivan at February 02, 2020 09:36 AM (DvRkF)

81 I am currently reading The Jungle is Neutral (1949), a war memoir by Spencer Chapman. Chapman was an English mountaineer and polar explorer who volunteered to stay behind and organize resistance in Malaya when the Japanese overran it. He fought behind enemy line for four years, was wounded twice, captured twice and escaped twice. The level of courage and heroism is simply unbelievable.

Halfway through, I ran into this:

"At this meal there was a meat dish about which there seemed to be some mystery. I found it very good, being less rank then monkey though not so good as jungle pig. After the meal I was told that I had been eating Jap. Though I would not knowingly have become a cannibal I was quite interested to have sampled human flesh."

Posted by: cool breeze at February 02, 2020 09:36 AM (UGKMd)

82 "Who Dis?"

Frank Zappa

Posted by: JT at February 02, 2020 09:36 AM (arJlL)

83 Who Dis is Yanni, right?

Posted by: Mr. Peebles at February 02, 2020 09:36 AM (oVJmc)

84 long silly girly tresses on men

I don't think they're girly. I gave a second glance to an old guy in tight jeans and long gray hair yesterday. Unfortunately, Rev has a buzz cut.

Posted by: grammie winger at February 02, 2020 09:36 AM (lwiT4)

85 hiya

Posted by: JT at February 02, 2020 09:36 AM (arJlL)

86 The long hair look does not need a revival , the fashion sucked, and it was the genesis of the greenie movement along with being the period when socialist dogma and censorship infiltrated the universities (at least in MI). And disco.
Posted by: CN at February 02, 2020 09:30 AM (5wOoy)

Watch some of the Paul Mazursky movies to see what a dogshit fashion nightmare the whole time period was with people looking like fucking idiots. Naturally attractive people like Natalie Wood and Robert Culp still looked good but everyone else smelled like ass.

Posted by: Captain Hate at February 02, 2020 09:36 AM (y7DUB)

87 And back to the land mivement. That guy with the long hair was more likely to have built his own house and worked on his own car.

Posted by: Notsothoreau at February 02, 2020 09:37 AM (Lqy/e)

88 I have only read one Joanna Russ book, and that was due to picking up an Ace Double with "James Tiptree Jr." as the main feature. Sadly, neither Houston, Houston, Do You Read (Tiptree) nor Souls (Russ) were particularly memorable. I usually enjoy Tiptree-written works much more.

Both were more feminist myth than science fiction, as I recall, so it may have been a theme pairing. I don't know if it was put together before or after it came out that James Tiptree was really a pseudonym for Alice Sheldon.

Pre-reveal Tiptree is often accompanied by inadvertently fascinating editorial content, notably Harlan Ellison's in Again, Dangerous Visions.

Posted by: Stephen Price Blair at February 02, 2020 09:37 AM (2lndx)

89 Posted by: vmom 2020

Thank you, but reddit no workee at present.

Posted by: Miklos, pantsful at February 02, 2020 09:37 AM (QzkSJ)

90 Read “Unknown Waters” by Alfred McClaren about the under-ice survey of the Siberian continental shelf by the USS Queenfish in 1970. I liked it, but can't recall much due to cold medicine.

Fun fact: you could buy narwhal tusks at the Thule BX, and the chow hall served seal, whale, guillemot (i.e., auk), and eels. All I know about Thule is what a Canadian army guy said, that it’s a great place to stock up on booze on your return flight.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at February 02, 2020 09:38 AM (Dc2NZ)

91 Would 'book' include any writing, like poetry? Do limericks count as poetry?

What if the poetry is more like lyrics?

* hauls out acoustic guitar, strikes a B♭maj chord *
♪
Doncha jus hate it
when the paper rips
and you get poo
on your finger tips
whoa-oh
on your finger tips
whoa-oh
♪

Is a book that's only electronic really a book?

Is the difference between a book and a blog comment in the volume of verbiage, or in the form of the printing and binding?

Which reminds me: Who remembers when fold-out Playmates had staples in their navels?

Posted by: Scatman Druthers at February 02, 2020 09:39 AM (tHAoL)

92 84: I have no longing to relive the 70s. Once was bad enough

Posted by: CN at February 02, 2020 09:39 AM (5wOoy)

93
Do they serve Singapore Slings at those Cafes of outrageous fortune....they do....

so it's a LIVE tinder hookup sort of thingy,with an aroma of olde books in the background?

Must be a PHRENOMEinally good.

Posted by: saf at February 02, 2020 09:40 AM (5IHGB)

94
I've Had It Up To Here! - a limerick

It's a fine Groundhog's Day, and yet still
In Punx'tawney it's met with a chill
Every year brings
The same old things
I think they've about had their Phil

Posted by: Muldoon at February 02, 2020 09:40 AM (m45I2)

95 I read one book by Russ, "We who are about to" when it was serialized in Galaxy Magazine. I seem to recall that it was about a group of people who crashed on an alien planet, and how they set about trying to survive. The main character, however, felt that they didn't deserve to survive so she went around killing them or sabotaging their efforts.

Very 70's "Nothing is worth it, man [toke], y'know?" And a pretty poor book as I recall.

Posted by: BeckoningChasm at February 02, 2020 09:40 AM (l9m7l)

96 82 "Who Dis?"
Frank Zappa

Posted by: JT at February 02, 2020 09:36 AM (arJlL)

83 Who Dis is Yanni, right?

Posted by: Mr. Peebles at February 02, 2020 09:36 AM (oVJmc)

Interesting guesses, but no, see #9 for the correct answer.

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Austere Religious Scholar at February 02, 2020 09:41 AM (kqjO2)

97 I saw some reading cafes in Singapore, great concept. Almost as good as caning miscreants for punishment.
Posted by: Vashta Nerada

Are alla books in Singaporese ?

Posted by: JT at February 02, 2020 09:41 AM (arJlL)

98 And back to the land mivement. That guy with the long hair was more
likely to have built his own house and worked on his own car.
=====

Styxhexenhammer. He does look ridiculously happy since he got married.

Posted by: mustbequantum at February 02, 2020 09:41 AM (MIKMs)

99 83 Who Dis is Yanni, right?

Posted by: Mr. Peebles at February 02, 2020 09:36 AM (oVJmc)

Zamfir, master of the Pan flute.

Posted by: Insomniac - Ex Cineribus Resurgo at February 02, 2020 09:41 AM (NWiLs)

100 92 84: I have no longing to relive the 70s. Once was bad enough

Posted by: CN at February 02, 2020 09:39 AM (5wOoy)

Hear, hear.

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Austere Religious Scholar at February 02, 2020 09:41 AM (kqjO2)

101 Joanna Russ was a good writer early in her career, before her politics hijacked her writing. I lost patience with her after The Female Man, which I never finished, but the collections The Adventures of Alyx, which includes her first novel, and The Zanzibar Cat are worth sampling if you run across the books in a used book store.

Posted by: Don at February 02, 2020 09:42 AM (tiZe/)

102 Do limericks count as poetry?

They're just doggerel with meter to show 'em
You can all the whimsies and throw 'em
In a fixed rhyming scheme
To play with your meme
No, a limerick is not a real poem.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at February 02, 2020 09:42 AM (gd9RK)

103

SHIT-ZUES were originally bred to stop persons defouling S.F Streets, sadly they died out from the stench.

Posted by: saf at February 02, 2020 09:42 AM (5IHGB)

104 that the book and its case are the fruits of a long-lost, but advanced civilization.

-
Graham Hancock used to be a semi-regular guest on Art Bell's Coast to Coast. One of his theories was the lost ancient advanced civilization promoted in such books as Fingerprints of the Gods.

(I liked it better when wackos and their wacko theories were confined to late night radio rather then dominating the mainstream media.)

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at February 02, 2020 09:43 AM (+y/Ru)

105 Hear, hear.

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor Austere Religious Scholar at February 02, 2020 09:41 AM (kqjO2)

I read that as Hair, hair.

Posted by: grammie winger at February 02, 2020 09:43 AM (lwiT4)

106

CORKER Spaniels were originally bred to alert men to a passing Hottie.

Posted by: saf at February 02, 2020 09:43 AM (5IHGB)

107 87: Nah, it was hipsters Long haired guys read Marx and wanted to spread vegetarian ideals and redistribution and smoke lots of pot. This is my recollection from MSU. I was glad to see that counter culture die.

Posted by: CN at February 02, 2020 09:44 AM (5wOoy)

108 68 67 oh, the url is broken by new line after comments/
Posted by: vmom 2020 at February 02, 2020 09:31 AM (G546f)

Fixed.

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Austere Religious Scholar at February 02, 2020 09:45 AM (kqjO2)

109 Started to read "Sweetness and Light: the Mysterious History of the Honeybee". So far it is a well written, casual explanation of bees in history going back thousands of years and their place today. Very interesting so far.

I've been interested in honeybees, not just honey, since I read about Sherlock Holmes retiring to the South Downs to raise and learn about them.

Posted by: JTB at February 02, 2020 09:45 AM (7EjX1)

110 Jungle is Neutral is a fantastic read.

Chapman was the inspiration for the Jack Hawkins character in Bridge on the River Kwai. With or without parachutes, indeed.

Posted by: Ignoramus at February 02, 2020 09:45 AM (jENyQ)

111 Mike Bloombergs daughter Emma has married for the second time, quietly tying the knot with Jeremiah Kittredge, the scandal-scarred former CEO of a group that advocated for charter schools, The Post has learned.

Rabbi Daniel Gropper of the Community Synagogue of Rye in Westchester County officiated at the ceremony, which was held in New York City, a source said.

fyi---That "synagogue" is maybe the leading JINO institution in NY. They will marry anyone Jewish or not, which I believe this Kittredge is not. Nor is mini bloomies daughter actually.

What a farce

Posted by: Nevergiveup at February 02, 2020 09:46 AM (pp2zP)

112 I've been interested in honeybees, not just honey, since I read about Sherlock Holmes retiring to the South Downs to raise and learn about them.

That was the premise of the movie Mr. Holmes.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at February 02, 2020 09:47 AM (gd9RK)

113
productivity, or the attempt thereof, is vastly over-rated

Posted by: AltonJackson
Bernie 2020
If not now, whom?
at February 02, 2020 09:48 AM (rB2O4)

114 >>Seeing that Bookmobile reminds me that I was afraid of the one that came to my neighborhood ...
...I was afraid I was being lured in by Encyclopedia Brown books, but then the bookshelves would drop to reveal i was locked in a cage.
Posted by: Buck Throckmorton at February 02, 2020 09:28 AM (d9Cw3)

I forgot all about Encyclopedia Brown! Loved those books. We also had a bookmobile come through in the summer only, i think, until we finally got a library.

Posted by: My life is insanity at February 02, 2020 09:48 AM (Z/jzm)

115 Def Neil Peart. No other drummer on the planet even knows how to read.

-
I know. Right? Nyuk nyuk nyuk!

Posted by: Don L'Mon at February 02, 2020 09:48 AM (+y/Ru)

116 I have no desire to relive the 70s. If you think the fashions then were bizarre, you haven't been paying attention to today's fashions.

(And while I hated disco, people dressed up for that).

Posted by: Notsothoreau at February 02, 2020 09:48 AM (Lqy/e)

117 Correct, but the drumsticks have already been given away at #9.

*sniff* That's OK, I don't need them. All I need is this ashtray. And this paddle game. The ash tray and this paddle game, that's all I need. And this remote control. The ash tray, the paddle game and this remote control. That's all I need.

And these matches.

And this lamp.

Posted by: BackwardsBoy. #DemocratsSuck at February 02, 2020 09:49 AM (HaL55)

118 Interesting guesses, but no, see #9 for the correct answer.
Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Austere Religious Scholar

Okay, but I usually only trudge backwards for Kallisto.

Posted by: JT at February 02, 2020 09:49 AM (arJlL)

119 Writers Block...

some irving,vonnegut and huxley and a few i probably need to read.

Posted by: krusty at February 02, 2020 09:49 AM (xLgNt)

120 "Hair today, gone tomorrow"

Posted by: Muldoon at February 02, 2020 09:50 AM (m45I2)

121 120
"Hair today, gone tomorrow"

Posted by: Muldoon at February 02, 2020 09:50 AM (m45I2)

Have I got an offer for you!

Posted by: Sy Sperling at February 02, 2020 09:52 AM (IttZ7)

122 hogmartin #17: Is this the meeting of the Thrilling Stories Committee?
That would be a heck of a name for the Book Thread habitués.

Hmmm. Has the idea been broached of a book thread equivalent of the Deplorable Gourmet? Short stories or whatever by Morons. Just thought of this so look out it's from the webworker house of bad ideas.

Now that I reflect upon it a moment, I realize how different it would be from the cookbook - stories by writers, including some pro, sort-of in competition with their own books even if it's for charity! As opposed to just a bunch of neighbors putting their recipes together. Oh, well.

* ponders deleting all this, hits Post anyway *

Posted by: mindful webworker - dances with dangling participles at February 02, 2020 09:52 AM (tHAoL)

123 Miklos, it says everyone needs to be on a mobile applet, they will stay in their homes, everything will be delivered to them and if they need a doctor they'll be picked up.
It also says the army is taking over medical supplies and 200 army medics are relieving the Wuhan medical staff.
Unverified.

I did also see a South China Post news article that said suspected Wuhan infected will be relocated to quarantine zones
https://preview.tinyurl.com/uy7syrg

Posted by: vmom 2020 at February 02, 2020 09:53 AM (G546f)

124 Writers' Block has two John Irvings.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at February 02, 2020 09:53 AM (gd9RK)

125 I made some headway in Thucydides but mother fucker it's hard to figure out which side he's talking about at times. The Athenians seemed to have screwed themselves by choosing poorly on who to side with in a spat between the Corcyrans and the Corinthians. They both made appeals and I thought the Corinthians made the stronger case by mentioning their past assistance against the Persians but were overruled by the Athenians desire for safe passageway to Sicily. So they enter into an alliance for only defensive purposes which quickly gets violated in the Battle of Sybota. So now the Corinthians are pissed off which only gets worse in Potidaea. What a clusterfuck in progress.

Posted by: Captain Hate at February 02, 2020 09:53 AM (y7DUB)

126 One of my favorite bands when I was young was Mountain. It's drummer was Corky Laing who cultivated an image as being the Cave Man of rock n roll.

Years later I saw a lengthy interview. Corky was going to be a HS English teacher in Montreal before he took a day different path. He was erudite. Go figure

Posted by: Ignoramus at February 02, 2020 09:53 AM (jENyQ)

127 book thread 02-02-2020..."

i read that this is a particularly rare palindromic date. it's a palindrome in american notation (month/day/year) as well as the european standard (day/month/year). this hasn't happened in something like 900 years.

Posted by: mjc at February 02, 2020 09:54 AM (Pg+x7)

128 116 Just ugly, not bizarre. And unworthy of revival.

Posted by: CN at February 02, 2020 09:54 AM (5wOoy)

129 Bander...correct

Posted by: krusty at February 02, 2020 09:54 AM (xLgNt)

130 @124 two Poes.

Posted by: Patrick Sullivan at February 02, 2020 09:54 AM (DvRkF)

131 I believe those Victorian/Edwardian novels for the masses were called Penny Dreadfuls. Similar in content to scandal sheets like the Police Gazette.

Posted by: Semi-engaged Scroller at February 02, 2020 09:54 AM (gYKMg)

132 I was looking around the web, and noted this bit of Global Warming news; this morning, all of northern Saudi Arabia has been covered by heavy snowfall, along with record low temperatures.

My first thought was "wow, so Hell really HAS frozen over!"

Posted by: Tom Servo at February 02, 2020 09:55 AM (V2Yro)

133
Woodcock? You mean this guy?

https://youtu.be/bxWrMczsNho

"I work for E. H. Harriman of the Union Pacific Railroad"

Did You Know (TM)?

The son of railroad baron E. H. Harriman, William Averell Harriman (November 15, 1891 to July 26, 1986), better known as Averell Harriman, was an American Democratic politician, businessman, and diplomat. He served as Secretary of Commerce under President Harry S. Truman and later as the 48th Governor of New York.

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars (TM) at February 02, 2020 09:56 AM (pNxlR)

134 "hair today, gone tomorrow..."

speaking of which, the line is back up to kc - 1.5.

my sold gold, lead pipe cinch, lock of the day:

sf

Posted by: mjc at February 02, 2020 09:56 AM (Pg+x7)

135 My first thought was "wow, so Hell really HAS frozen over!"

Posted by: Tom Servo at February 02, 2020 09:55 AM (V2Yro)

Did Al Gore happen to be in the area?

Posted by: I am the Shadout Mapes - the Housekeeper at February 02, 2020 09:56 AM (IttZ7)

136 Read 'Unknown Waters' by Alfred McClaren about the under-ice survey of the Siberian continental shelf by the USS Queenfish in 1970. I liked it, but can't recall much due to cold medicine.
Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at February 02, 2020 09:38 AM (Dc2NZ)

That's a good book. Probably a bit dry for most though. One of the crew that McLaren mentions as being instrumental for their success was Senior Chief Electronics Technician (nuc) Richard Dietz. He later retired as a Master Chief. I was fortunate to know Dick at a power company we worked at. He was a quiet professional, highly intelligent, and really funny.

Posted by: Jake Holenhead at February 02, 2020 09:57 AM (P1GvV)

137 Mike Bloombergs daughter Emma has married for the second time, quietly tying the knot

If it's a second time, that knot is the bunny ear knot used for shoelaces. Paolo knows how to loosen it

Posted by: boulder t'hobo at February 02, 2020 09:57 AM (ykYG2)

138 Back to books, I started Applebaum's Red Famine. A lot of it was familiar, but it's good to see it well documented.

Posted by: CN at February 02, 2020 09:57 AM (5wOoy)

139 I don't like to say bad things about authors since generally it is my own (admittedly poor) opinion, but I remember Johanna Russ mostly as that writer that was prominent in used book stores, and I tried reading one of her books, and was never impressed.
I can't even remember which book I read, but looking at her bibliography to try to jog my memory, she sure didn't write very many books, now, did she. Especially next to LeGuin.

(I also hold Views on LeGuin, but I do remember what books of hers I read. If I were to choose a prominent Oregon Writer, I would choose Beverly Cleary)

Posted by: Kindltot at February 02, 2020 09:57 AM (6rS3m)

140 125 I made some headway in Thucydides but mother fucker it's hard to figure out which side he's talking about at times."

Imagine it's 2000 years from now and you're a guy trying to read an account of this years Democrat Primary race.

Posted by: Tom Servo at February 02, 2020 09:57 AM (V2Yro)

141 The ALA has turned the Newbery medal awards into a shitshow of wokeness. To get from The Story of Mankind in 1922 to the current crop of winners, John Newbery has to be rolling over in his grave. I think I'm calling my collection complete.

Posted by: NCKate at February 02, 2020 09:57 AM (QLEJC)

142 "...Similar in content to scandal sheets like the Police Gazette."
---

The Pink 'Un. They loved stories with cathouse cat fights or serial killers.

Somehow, engravings made it seem classier.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at February 02, 2020 09:58 AM (Dc2NZ)

143 Test

Posted by: Mel Gibson at February 02, 2020 09:59 AM (QZCjk)

144 No, a limerick is not a real poem.
Posted by: Bandersnatch

********

Vile Disparagement - a limerick

Thou foul defiler Snatcherband
For that lie, satisfaction I demand
You fiend, damn your eyes
And your slanderous lies
This calumny shall not stand!

Posted by: Muldoon at February 02, 2020 09:59 AM (m45I2)

145 Buddy of mine in High School caught one Neil Peart's drumsticks when he tossed them after the concert in our junior year.

He was the biggest Rush fan I ever met so was about as happy you can be.

Posted by: Big V Caffeinated at February 02, 2020 09:59 AM (y/fJ4)

146 The main character, however, felt that they didn't deserve to survive so she went around killing them or sabotaging their efforts.

Posted by: BeckoningChasm at February 02, 2020 09:40 AM (l9m7l)

BC, I think you just described Leftism at its core.

Posted by: Emmie at February 02, 2020 09:59 AM (87gB3)

147 123 : I hope we are looking into our returning Chinese students

Posted by: CN at February 02, 2020 09:59 AM (5wOoy)

148 I thought the Newberry Medal winners were woke shite even as a kid who didn't know what "woke" was.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at February 02, 2020 10:00 AM (Dc2NZ)

149 Re Thucydides, read Kagan first and get some quality maps of Ancient Greece to aid you.

Posted by: Mel Gibson at February 02, 2020 10:00 AM (QZCjk)

150 I don't read many books anymore, mostly just technical and business articles, blog posts, news.

But I'm reading an actual book right now, about halfway through, and it gets my highest possible endorsement: "I Drink Therefore I Am," by Roger Scruton.

Part ruminations on philosophy (but clear and readable to anyone, even me), part sweetly nostalgic look backward on his days in university, this is the first Scruton book I've read, and it won't be the last.

He wrote the way he spoke: Softly, clearly, sonorously. He had a deep love of his fellow man, and a profound appreciation and gratitude for life and existence. Almost every page of this book is uplifting in some way.

About the only complaint I have: He uses some very big and obscure words, and French phrases, and I have to look them up occasionally, and he likes to tie things together later, so the reader really needs to know the meanings of these things rather than glossing over them or relying upon context. But it's worth the time.

Posted by: Pastafarian at February 02, 2020 10:01 AM (sgHEm)

151 I have a question for all you smarties: Does anyone like The Witcher (in any format- book, game, tv show)? Would you read a similar series?

Posted by: right wing yankee at February 02, 2020 09:24 AM (zlzYb)

I built a high end computer system last year. Although I am not a gamer, I wanted to get a cutting-edge game to test out the graphics card (a liquid-cooled 2080). I chose The Witcher 3. It is stunningly beautiful and immersive.

That led me to check out The Last Wish, the first book in The Witcher series. It is tedious pulp fantasy with nothing particular to recommend it. Credit should go to the game developers for creating such a beautiful game from such mediocre stories. It consistently bored me to sleep within a few pages and I finally abandoned it. Yet the series has sold over 33 million books.

So I think there is a lot of room for improvement on The Witcher books and there is certainly a huge market for them.

Posted by: cool breeze at February 02, 2020 10:02 AM (UGKMd)

152 I read a large portion of Our Oriental Heritage, the 1st volume of Will Durant's "Story of Civilization" series. The focus of the book was not so much the order of events but rather how various societies advanced the march of civilization. My copy was the revised edition of 1964 but it is obvious that Durant kept much of the text unchanged from when he first wrote the book in 1935. I found it interesting but disliked some of his dismissive remarks towards early Judaism; however, he makes the point that Judaism was the first religion to provide moral guidance. Rating = 4.0/5.0

Posted by: Retired Buckeye Cop is now an engineer at February 02, 2020 10:03 AM (00fXp)

153 two Poes.

Ah, I hadn't noticed the street names.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at February 02, 2020 10:03 AM (gd9RK)

154 Has anyone mentioned it's Palindrome Day 02022020?

My book group started reading Northanger Abbey, Jane Austin's first book which wasn't published until she subsequently became famous with her other works. Reading the first couple chapters makes it seem like a fun read. When I entered it into Goodreads I noticed that vmom and my older daughter had both read and liked it.

The next book scheduled is Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser. For some reason I've been resistant to reading this but maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised like I was with Thomas Hardy.

Posted by: Captain Hate at February 02, 2020 10:03 AM (y7DUB)

155 Eris, it's gotten way, way worse.

Posted by: NCKate at February 02, 2020 10:03 AM (QLEJC)

156 154: yes.

Posted by: mjc at February 02, 2020 10:04 AM (Pg+x7)

157
Janet lives on a utopian Earth with an all-female population,

Super Friends -- assemble in Hell!

Created by -- world-wide synchronization of women's periods!

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars (TM) at February 02, 2020 10:04 AM (pNxlR)

158 I continue to avoid modern political books. I've learned over time they have a very short half life. But that frees up time for pleasure reading like some of Tolkien's light hearted stories such as Farmer Giles, the various Tom Bombadil poems, and the Father Christmas Letters. They are playful, clever, and can be enjoyed by kids and adults. Hard to read them without smiling.

Posted by: JTB at February 02, 2020 10:04 AM (7EjX1)

159 ... my comment 134.

Posted by: mjc at February 02, 2020 10:05 AM (Pg+x7)

160 ... oops, 134 was my line on the Super Bowl. 127 is my comment on palindrome day.

Posted by: mjc at February 02, 2020 10:06 AM (Pg+x7)

161 Re Thucydides, read Kagan first and get some quality maps of Ancient Greece to aid you.
Posted by: Mel Gibson at February 02, 2020 10:00 AM (QZCjk)

I've got the Landmark Thucydides, maybe I should've made that clear, so the embedded maps are great.

Posted by: Captain Hate at February 02, 2020 10:06 AM (y7DUB)

162
Almost as good as caning miscreants for punishment.

Posted by: Vashta Nerada

funny you should mention caning...

there's a big scandal at my son's school; a dozen or so juniors are in deep shit over "racist remarks" made on social media (I've read some samples, yes, they are racist & not the kind of language or attitudes one displays in polite society)

I told him the story of that snot nosed punk in Singapore what got caned for vandalizing cars(?); I opined that they should have an all-student assembly to watch these juniors get caned

he thought for a minute, then said "...that'd put an end to this kind of behavior right now"

Exactly

Posted by: AltonJackson
Bernie Sanders 2020
If not now, whom?
at February 02, 2020 10:09 AM (rB2O4)

163 Weird connectivity today

Posted by: Mel Gibson at February 02, 2020 10:12 AM (QZCjk)

164
The next book scheduled is Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser. For some reason I've been resistant to reading this but maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised like I was with Thomas Hardy.
Posted by: Captain Hate at February 02, 2020 10:03 AM (y7DUB)

I'm not sure whether I've read "Sister Carrie". I can, however, highly recommend Dreiser's "An American Tragedy". The movie, "A Place in the Sun", while quite similar to the novel, does not do it justice at all.

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars (TM) at February 02, 2020 10:13 AM (pNxlR)

165 So quit with the raping already! Or save it for readers who like that sort of thing - you know, perverts.

Posted by: boulder t'hobo at February 02, 2020 09:02 AM (ykYG2)

Well...then I guess-

"The Carefully Considered Rape of the World"

is right out.

Too bad.

Posted by: naturalfake at February 02, 2020 10:13 AM (z0XD8)

166 I found it interesting but disliked some of his dismissive remarks towards early Judaism; however, he makes the point that Judaism was the first religion to provide moral guidance. Rating = 4.0/5.0
Posted by: Retired Buckeye Cop is now an engineer at February 02, 2020 10:03 AM (00fXp)

There's a historical question as to which was first in that respect, Judaism or Zoroastrianism. It's almost impossible to pin down an exact date for the beginning of either one, so there's no way to ever know if one was influenced by the other, or if both independently developed somewhat similar ideas at about the same time. Both were clear breaks from the polytheistic official religions which ruled in their day.

Posted by: Tom Servo at February 02, 2020 10:13 AM (V2Yro)

167 Canonization of Kobe Bryant vs. canonization of Neal Peart.

Discuss.

Posted by: Muldoon at February 02, 2020 10:14 AM (m45I2)

168 If I recall, that American kid who was caned in Singapore for vandalism was part of a group of kids, Singapore Chinese, who did most of the graffiti. But they made hay with Michael Fay because foreigner.

Graffiti is (or was) prosecuted in Singapore mainly for reasons of political protest, not defacing property.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at February 02, 2020 10:15 AM (Dc2NZ)

169 Def Neil Peart. No other drummer on the planet even knows how to read.
-
I know. Right? Nyuk nyuk nyuk!
Posted by: Don L'Mon at February 02, 2020 09:48 AM (+y/Ru)

Hey now!.....

Posted by: Zombie Bob Crane at February 02, 2020 10:16 AM (Z+IKu)

170 88: "neither Houston, Houston, Do You Read (Tiptree) nor Souls (Russ) were particularly memorable."

The most memorable thing about "Houston, Houston, Do You Read" was its paranoid depiction of male personalities and its approving extermination of men.

You can use this story as a test of a stranger's moral compass: if they love this story then there is probably something deeply wrong with them, much as there is with somebody who loves the writings of Marx and Lenin.

Posted by: pst314 at February 02, 2020 10:17 AM (iRbDn)

171 Captain Hate, Northanger bbey might be my favorite Austen

haven't been on goodreads wasy too long

Posted by: vmom 2020 at February 02, 2020 10:17 AM (G546f)

172 I'm not sure why but I have a hankering to read "Wind In The Willows" again. But take more time (like I do with Tolkien) to enjoy the phrasing and the illustrations. Seems to me that would be time better spent than obsessing about the F'ing news every day.

Posted by: JTB at February 02, 2020 10:18 AM (7EjX1)

173 You can use this story as a test of a stranger's moral compass: if they love this story then there is probably something deeply wrong with them, much as there is with somebody who loves the writings of Marx and Lenin.
Posted by: pst314 at February 02, 2020 10:17 AM (iRbDn)
---------------

I would suggest anyone who loves the writings of Marx and Lenin hasn't actually read Marx and Lenin.

Morning all.

Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing
at February 02, 2020 10:19 AM (WEBkv)

174 as far as i know neal never forced hiself on another...

but sainthood.....for either.....no

Posted by: krusty at February 02, 2020 10:19 AM (xLgNt)

175 You can get caned in Singapore for chewing gum. Same deal with Disney World.

Posted by: Mel Gibson at February 02, 2020 10:19 AM (QZCjk)

176 Nice "Writers Block" comic.

Posted by: m at February 02, 2020 10:19 AM (55d/e)

177 Re Thucydides, read Kagan

-
Under My Robes?

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at February 02, 2020 10:21 AM (+y/Ru)

178 I'm not sure why but I have a hankering to read "Wind In The Willows" again. But take more time (like I do with Tolkien) to enjoy the phrasing and the illustrations.

I read that in the last year of so and was charmed. It had been quirky but baffling when I read it as a kid. My boat friends love the quote about nothing being as worthwhile as simply messing around in boats.

I talked here about the similarity of the animals to Hobbits.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at February 02, 2020 10:21 AM (gd9RK)

179
A palindromic birthday have I
The Oh 2 Oh 2 20 20 Guy
Makes me a Groundhog Cognoscenti
And illuminati Presidente
So, I won't bother with cake I'll have pi

Posted by: naturalfake at February 02, 2020 10:22 AM (z0XD8)

180 You can get caned in Singapore for chewing gum. Same deal with Disney World.
Posted by: Mel Gibson at February 02, 2020 10:19 AM (QZCjk)

It's technically not illegal to chew gum in Singapore (though littering is, so don't spit it on the sidewalk). Gum trafficking carries a fine and/or a prison sentence.

Posted by: hogmartin at February 02, 2020 10:23 AM (t+qrx)

181
Based on the evidence herein presented, I'd sooner read Tinsley Holt than Joanna Russ (of whom I'd not heard).

Russ' Wikipedia entry provides many confirmatory points why I'll not add her to my "must read" list anytime soon.

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars (TM) at February 02, 2020 10:23 AM (pNxlR)

182 Was Xerxes not an adherent of Zoroastrianism? Because he hilariously tried punishing Neptune for destroying his bridge when he was marching to Europe, in addition to beheading all the engineers.

Posted by: Captain Hate at February 02, 2020 10:23 AM (y7DUB)

183 [iThe son of railroad baron E. H. Harriman, William
Averell Harriman (November 15, 1891 to July 26, 1986), better known as
Averell Harriman, was an American Democratic politician, businessman,
and diplomat. He served as Secretary of Commerce under President Harry
S. Truman and later as the 48th Governor of New York.
Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars (TM) at February 02, 2020 09:56 AM (pNxlR)

Murray Rothbard's The Progressive Era (which I have not read but I have listened to his recorded lectures) discusses how post-Civil war national politics were a history of capture of the presidency by various economic interests, the Harrimans, Morgans, Rockefellers and Chase all had their politicians they sponsored who wound up president.

Posted by: Kindltot at February 02, 2020 10:24 AM (6rS3m)

184 Ok, CNN affiliate/DNC mouthpiece HLN just ran a truly bitter hitpiece about the state of Iowa, informing their wine mom audience that giving them the first caucus is a Very Bad Idea.

I take that to mean it's a lead-pipe cinch for Bernie. Given the other DNC grumbling about DMR polling and rules committees, I will predict now:

The old coot takes IA and NH. Then the other old coot takes SC. Then the DNC brings back the first round superdelegates, who publicly leak support for coot #2, knifing coot #1 yet again. Hilarity ensues.

Sorry... back to books...

Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at February 02, 2020 10:24 AM (EQRLd)

185 There's a historical question as to which was first in that respect, Judaism or Zoroastrianism. It's almost impossible to pin down an exact date for the beginning of either one, so there's no way to ever know if one was influenced by the other, or if both independently developed somewhat similar ideas at about the same time. Both were clear breaks from the polytheistic official religions which ruled in their day.
Posted by: Tom Servo at February 02, 2020 10:13 AM (V2Yro)

Good point; I had forgotten about Zoroastrianism: Durant had good things to say about that religion (and Judaism too, generally). Durant snarked on Judaism on the parts where the Old Testament seemingly shared similar stories from Sumeria, etc. My view is that those early parts of the Old Testament are allegories (or prehistoric events re-worked into allegory).

Posted by: Retired Buckeye Cop is now an engineer at February 02, 2020 10:24 AM (00fXp)

186 I have a hankering to read "Wind In The Willows" again.

-
There is a Brit named Tom Cotton who translates books into Latin and one he did was Aurae Inter Salices.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at February 02, 2020 10:24 AM (+y/Ru)

187
pi is 3.14 but the year is just wrong

pie is good tho

Posted by: krusty at February 02, 2020 10:25 AM (xLgNt)

188 So, I won't bother with cake I'll have pi
Posted by: naturalfake

********

Didn't We Do This Yesterday? - a limerick

It's Groundhog Day, for goodness' sake
Another birthday for naturalfake
If he pokes out his nose
And a silhouette shows
He gets six more pieces of cake

Posted by: Muldoon at February 02, 2020 10:25 AM (m45I2)

189 >>> 3 STOP RAPING YOUR CHARACTERS.

Pillars Of the Earth, same thing. I get it you like rape. A lot. Let's show the reader that things are brutal -> rape. Times was desperate -> rape. It's Tuesday -> rape. It does nothing to increase the tension in the novel, it only desensitizes rape after the 11nty or so occurrence in the same book.

Posted by: banana Dream at February 02, 2020 10:25 AM (l6b3d)

190 Xerxes had anger issues.

Posted by: Mel Gibson at February 02, 2020 10:26 AM (QZCjk)

191 Sorry... back to books...

Oh.

I thought ya said back to boobs.

Posted by: JT at February 02, 2020 10:26 AM (arJlL)

192 Posted by: JTB at February 02, 2020 10:18 AM (7EjX1)
---

I loved Wind in the Willows; the chapter on the Isle of Pan is simply gorgeous. I got the version illustrated by Michael Hague.

Author William Horwood continued the adventures of toad, Mole, and Ratty.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at February 02, 2020 10:26 AM (Dc2NZ)

193 186 I have a hankering to read "Wind In The Willows" again.

-
There is a Brit named Tom Cotton who translates books into Latin and one he did was Aurae Inter Salices.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at February 02, 2020 10:24 AM (+y/Ru)

Huh. And that Latin word for the willow tree is where we get "salicylic" acid, the main ingredient in aspirin, and which is also found in the bark of willow trees.

Posted by: Insomniac - Ex Cineribus Resurgo at February 02, 2020 10:27 AM (NWiLs)

194 It's a sunny, mild winter morning, I've got a fire burning and a pot of coffee dripped, the wife is making popovers -- happy Palindrome Day, everybody!

Posted by: Trimegistus at February 02, 2020 10:28 AM (A1psc)

195 Peart? Looks a lot like Frey.

Posted by: The Gipper Lives at February 02, 2020 10:29 AM (Ndje9)

196 So, I won't bother with cake I'll have pi
Posted by: naturalfake

********

Didn't We Do This Yesterday? - a limerick

It's Groundhog Day, for goodness' sake
Another birthday for naturalfake
If he pokes out his nose
And a silhouette shows
He gets six more pieces of cake
Posted by: Muldoon at February 02, 2020 10:25 AM (m45I2)

Lots o'palindrome comments tho'.

Just when I thought I was out of the b'day limerick business, they drug me back in!

Posted by: naturalfake at February 02, 2020 10:29 AM (z0XD8)

197 "Smokes" are an important feature of Canadianism. When I was in Canada a few times, it seemed that there were two kinds of Canadians, and both kinds smoked cigs. A lot.

Posted by: klaftern at February 02, 2020 10:29 AM (RuIsu)

198 Good pick of Neil back in the day.

http://https://tinyurl.com/u5wnenf

Posted by: jollyr at February 02, 2020 10:30 AM (JrT/F)

199 ...pic...

Posted by: jollyr at February 02, 2020 10:30 AM (JrT/F)

200 Aspirin is thought to have been the main ingredient in Soma.

Posted by: Mel Gibson at February 02, 2020 10:30 AM (QZCjk)

201 Okay, maybe canonization is too strong a word. Perhaps lionization is more like it.

Posted by: Muldoon at February 02, 2020 10:31 AM (m45I2)

202 Huh. And that Latin word for the willow tree is where we get "salicylic" acid, the main ingredient in aspirin, and which is also found in the bark of willow trees.
Posted by: Insomniac - Ex Cineribus Resurgo at February 02, 2020 10:27 AM (NWiLs)

Nice!

Related, I do love the etymology riffs Ace sometimes goes on.

Posted by: hogmartin at February 02, 2020 10:31 AM (t+qrx)

203 And by 'short stories', I mean about 20,000 words. For the non-writers of the group, a short novel is around 40 thousand, and most epic fantasy novels are around 100 thousand. But these stories are supposed to be fast, fun reads- the book equivalent to a half-hour tv show.
Posted by: right wing yankee at February 02, 2020 09:24 AM

Yes! Especially since the author's work is kind of a mess (and in talking to Polish fans, I heard it's not just a bad translation). The first book of short stories is pretty good but uneven.

Posted by: NaughtyPine at February 02, 2020 10:31 AM (/+bwe)

204 Xerxes had anger issues.
Posted by: Mel Gibson at February 02, 2020 10:26 AM (QZCjk)

So did I.

Posted by: Cambyses II at February 02, 2020 10:32 AM (00fXp)

205 the press makes kittehs into lions.

Posted by: krusty at February 02, 2020 10:32 AM (xLgNt)

206 Fixed link.https://tinyurl.com/u5wnenf

Posted by: jollyr at February 02, 2020 10:32 AM (JrT/F)

207 Was Xerxes not an adherent of Zoroastrianism?

If you want to call it that. What the Parsees practice now is the Parthian / Sasanian version, which is very different from the Achaemenid version.

The Achaemenids were proud Persians. The Magi of Parthia and the Sasanian confederation dragged in a Central Asian holy book, the "Avesta". The academy was still arguing about whether Darius had even heard of the Avesta [which did exist by then], last I looked ~2018.

Posted by: boulder t'hobo at February 02, 2020 10:34 AM (ykYG2)

208 Okay, maybe canonization is too strong a word. Perhaps lionization is more like it.
Posted by: Muldoon at February 02, 2020 10:31 AM (m45I2)

well, only Pert had that long, flowing mane.

Posted by: Kindltot at February 02, 2020 10:34 AM (6rS3m)

209 Peart pic seems to be 1979.

Posted by: klaftern at February 02, 2020 10:34 AM (RuIsu)

210 salicylic acid

I hathe that asthid.

Posted by: Biggus Dickus at February 02, 2020 10:35 AM (ykYG2)

211 Posted before done: It's frustrating to like a movie or show and find the source material blah. I warned my friends who liked Princess Bride that the novel is mediocre unless you skip all the narrator's storyline and focus on the "good parts," ironically.

Posted by: NaughtyPine at February 02, 2020 10:36 AM (/+bwe)

212 Okay, maybe canonization is too strong a word. Perhaps lionization is more like it.
Posted by: Muldoon at February 02, 2020 10:31 AM (m45I2)

Are we talking about Pelosi and Schiff?

Cuz cannonizing or lionizing either or both would be fine with me.

Posted by: naturalfake at February 02, 2020 10:36 AM (z0XD8)

213 I heard an interesting NPR thing about Zoroastrians recently.

They're a diaspora, there are a couple hundred thousand of them worldwide, and they encourage marriage within the religion to keep things alive.

So to keep the faith alive they have conventions where people come from all over the world which are about the faith but also find a spouse in five days.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at February 02, 2020 10:36 AM (gd9RK)

214 I once tried to put a palindrome into a limerick. Here's how it turned out:

Napoleonic Palindrome - a limerick

My melancholy surely is showing
Off to exile alas I am rowing
Able was I ere
I saw Elba, dear.
Now I don't know if I'm coming or going!

Posted by: Muldoon at February 02, 2020 10:37 AM (m45I2)

215 What's really hilarious is how Russ (who wrote an essay called "How to Suppress Women's Writing") has been pretty much airbrushed out of the history of fantasy and SF. Not by the Patriarchy, mind, but by current-year women writers and editors. It's so hard to be a stunning and brave pioneer when you're just rehashing what she said fifty years ago. So . . . bye-bye, Joanna.

Posted by: Trimegistus at February 02, 2020 10:37 AM (A1psc)

216 The Horde version would be "Able was I ere I saw elbows".

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at February 02, 2020 10:38 AM (Dc2NZ)

217 The old coot takes IA and NH. Then the other old coot takes SC. Then the DNC brings back the first round superdelegates, who publicly leak support for coot #2, knifing coot #1 yet again. Hilarity ensues.

-
Reputed actor John Cusack melted down and came very close to threatening violence against the DNC if they screw Burny again.

https://bit.ly/2vBfFzd

Hillzabub slams Burny.

https://bit.ly/392asit

Interesting times. Meanwhile . . .

CNN Politics@CNNPolitics
President Trump is not expected to apologize or admit any wrongdoing after his anticipated acquittal

-
That sumbitch!

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at February 02, 2020 10:38 AM (+y/Ru)

218 Canonization of Kobe Bryant vs. canonization of Neal Peart.

Discuss.
Posted by: Muldoon at February 02, 2020 10:14 AM (m45I2)

Well, I don't think Peart died of hubris, so there's that.

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at February 02, 2020 10:39 AM (LxWV7)

219 Huh. Zoroastrian Pon Farr.

Also I didn't know they still existed. I thought the Jews and Hindus were the only remaining ancient civilizations.

Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at February 02, 2020 10:39 AM (EQRLd)

220 Posted by: Muldoon at February 02, 2020 10:37 AM (m45I2)

Nice!

Posted by: naturalfake at February 02, 2020 10:39 AM (z0XD8)

221 Another book I read was March Violets by Philip Kerr. Published in 1989, it is a short novel set in 1936 Berlin in which the protagonist is a private detective hired to find a diamond necklace stolen during a double murder. Generally well written, it starts as a police procedural and main players are identified by the middle of the novel. There is a twist at the end that I did not expect. I'm not certain I will read the sequels because of the constant paranoia and brutality of living in Nazi Germany. Rating = 4.25/5.0

Posted by: Retired Buckeye Cop is now an engineer at February 02, 2020 10:39 AM (00fXp)

222 Nancy says Impeachment is forever. From hells depths I spit at thee.

A kickass second term is also forever

Looking forward to SOTU. How batshit crazy will Nancy be?

Posted by: Ignoramus at February 02, 2020 10:40 AM (jENyQ)

223 STOP RAPING YOUR CHARACTERS.

Pillars Of the Earth, same thing. I get it you like rape. A lot. Let's show the reader that things are brutal -> rape. Times was desperate -> rape. It's Tuesday -> rape. It does nothing to increase the tension in the novel, it only desensitizes rape after the 11nty or so occurrence in the same book.

Posted by: banana Dream at February 02, 2020 10:25 AM (l6b3d)

You sensitive types had better stay far away from non-fiction like Sword and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West or The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

Posted by: cool breeze at February 02, 2020 10:40 AM (UGKMd)

224 CNN Politics@CNNPolitics
President Trump is not expected to apologize or admit any wrongdoing after his anticipated acquittal

-
That sumbitch!
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at February 02, 2020 10:38 AM (+y/Ru)

how it works
-
-
-
-
-
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that

(artist's depiction)

Posted by: hogmartin at February 02, 2020 10:41 AM (t+qrx)

225 Yudhishthira's Dice

Some Iranians want to bring both Zoroastrian and the Shah in waiting back.

Posted by: NaCly Dog at February 02, 2020 10:41 AM (u82oZ)

226 #192 - Yes, the chapter "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn" in Wind in the Willows is beautiful - lyrical, even. I loved that book growing up, and that chapter was my favorite. Then when I decided to do a college course in Children's Lit - I wound up in a class with an a**hole instructor (and it was a course intended for those looking to be accredited as teachers!) who basically hated all the traditional children's books. Thought that the poetry in A Child's Garden of Verses was horrible doggerel, and that WitW was sentimental clap-trap and the Piper chapter was the worst.
That's when I decided never, ever, to be a school-teacher, if that was the standard... I had already encountered the first rancid odor of political correctness in that course.

Posted by: Sgt. Mom at February 02, 2020 10:42 AM (xnmPy)

227 Universal health care in action - top Party officials get N95 masks, doctors get crappy surgical ones

The Guardian:
Footage of government officials in Wuhan taking face masks intended for health workers battling the highly infectious coronavirus has fuelled a growing wave of anger over how Chinese authorities have handled the outbreak.

https://twitter.com/votermom/status/
1223994249634512896

Posted by: vmom 2020 at February 02, 2020 10:42 AM (G546f)

228 I now think Bolton is an egomaniac with less character than your average backstabbed but I don't necessarily think he is a shoot first ,negotiate later guy. I believe his philosophy is once you get fooled multiple times into negotiating , its best to stop negotiating and isolate the adversary. The next move is theirs and if they start something we would be prepared to finish it.

Posted by: Sebastian Melmoth at February 02, 2020 10:42 AM (2DOZq)

229 But I'm reading an actual book right now, about halfway through, and it gets my highest possible endorsement: "I Drink Therefore I Am," by Roger Scruton.
\Posted by: Pastafarian at February 02, 2020 10:01 AM (sgHEm)

His essay on how he became a conservative is marvelous.

Posted by: Dan Smoot's Apprentice at February 02, 2020 10:43 AM (H8QX8)

230 Some Iranians want to bring both Zoroastrian and the Shah in waiting back.

Kurds, too. Maybe without the shah unless they can strike a deal where they leave the Kurds to their cousins and sheep. Maybe Boris can strike the same deal with the Scots

Posted by: boulder t'hobo at February 02, 2020 10:43 AM (ykYG2)

231 Speaking of Polish lit, any one here ever read stuff by Henry Sienkiewicz (hope I spelled his name right)? His most famous work was the religious epic Quo Vadis (filmed in the early 50s) but he also wrote this epic trilogy about the 16th-17th century wars between Poland/Lithuania and Russia. My husband checked out those books and thinks they would merit republication in paperback form... and could appeal to the same crowd that gets into Tolkien, the Conan series, etc.

Posted by: Secret Square at February 02, 2020 10:43 AM (9WuX0)

232 (I also hold Views on LeGuin, but I do remember what books of hers I read. If I were to choose a prominent Oregon Writer, I would choose Beverly Cleary)
Posted by: Kindltot at February 02, 2020 09:57 AM (6rS3m)

Huh. Cleary lived here?

I did not know that.

And if you're looking for prominent Oregon writers, don't forget Ken Kesey.

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Austere Religious Scholar at February 02, 2020 10:43 AM (kqjO2)

233 nance the Louse wore white last SOTU.

tuesday ... over / under ... blue or funereal black?

Posted by: krusty at February 02, 2020 10:43 AM (xLgNt)

234 STOP RAPING YOUR CHARACTERS.

Pillars Of the Earth, same thing. I get it you like rape. A lot. Let's show the reader that things are brutal -> rape. Times was desperate -> rape. It's Tuesday -> rape. It does nothing to increase the tension in the novel, it only desensitizes rape after the 11nty or so occurrence in the same book.

Posted by: banana Dream at February 02, 2020 10:25 AM (l6b3d)

Don't be silly. Everyone knows Wednesdays are rapey.

Posted by: Insomniac - Ex Cineribus Resurgo at February 02, 2020 10:43 AM (NWiLs)

235 Or maybe Fridays?

Posted by: Insomniac - Ex Cineribus Resurgo at February 02, 2020 10:44 AM (NWiLs)

236 Bolton is just another grubby player. Washington truly is a whoredom. Trump must be like a cold mackerel in their collective face. They never imagined he was possible, and cannot absorb the fact he's real.

Posted by: Dan Smoot's Apprentice at February 02, 2020 10:45 AM (H8QX8)

237 Stopped reading A Drop Too Many by my hero John Frost. It got boring in the very part I was looking forward to -- his very underreported fight with his battalion in North Africa.

Picked up Mark Twain's Letters from the Earth. Just started it.

Posted by: NaCly Dog at February 02, 2020 10:45 AM (u82oZ)

238 Ah hell, make it every day of the week, just to be sure.

Posted by: Insomniac - Ex Cineribus Resurgo at February 02, 2020 10:45 AM (NWiLs)

239 Sgt. Mom, imagine living inside that instructor's head. What a sad, barren landscape it must be.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at February 02, 2020 10:47 AM (Dc2NZ)

240 boulder t'hobo

I have some thoughts on your Venus writing. Would a space-habitat locked in the shadow of Venus be better and bigger than a cloud-skimming habitat? The later sounds like something that bored people in the Singularity would try.

Posted by: NaCly Dog at February 02, 2020 10:47 AM (u82oZ)

241 21
9 I am old enough to remember that look being the ultimate cool, but now, Peart just looks effete.

Posted by: barrel otters

A book is the second gayest thing a guy can be photographed holding.
Just kidding, number two is a parasol, or an umbrella if Barack is trying to operate it.

Posted by: dirks strewn DA 1977 at February 02, 2020 10:47 AM (/Fmtj)

242 I wound up in a class with an a**hole instructor (and it was a course intended for those looking to be accredited as teachers!) who basically hated all the traditional children's books. Thought that the poetry in A Child's Garden of Verses was horrible doggerel, and that WitW was sentimental clap-trap and the Piper chapter was the worst.
Posted by: Sgt. Mom at February 02, 2020 10:42 AM (xnmPy)

Dare I ask which books he thought should replace them?

Education has been corrupted by PC progressivism for many decades.

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Austere Religious Scholar at February 02, 2020 10:48 AM (kqjO2)

243
84: I have no longing to relive the 70s. Once was bad enough

Posted by: CN at February 02, 2020 09:39 AM (5wOoy)

On one hand: late HS through graduate school, not so bad personally and I now know how I could have better spent my undergraduate years. On the other hand: Watergate, Jimmuh, oil embargoes, Iran hostages. Survey sez: NOPE.

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars (TM) at February 02, 2020 10:48 AM (pNxlR)

244 STOP RAPING YOUR CHARACTERS.

Pillars Of the Earth, same thing. I get it you like rape. A lot. Let's show the reader that things are brutal -> rape. Times was desperate -> rape. It's Tuesday -> rape. It does nothing to increase the tension in the novel, it only desensitizes rape after the 11nty or so occurrence in the same book.
Posted by: banana Dream at February 02, 2020 10:25 AM

Also to show the baddies are bad. Whereas the protagonist is good. Or perhaps the rape emphasizes the badness of males versus the female protagonist.

I can't remember the SF novel's name, but it has two storylines, one of which is migrating across an ocean-wide solar collector. Not only is the M/F sex grossly described, but suddenly a woman has sex with a girl. For no real reason.

Posted by: NaughtyPine at February 02, 2020 10:48 AM (/+bwe)

245 Late 70's better than late 60's and early 70's.

Posted by: Sebastian Melmoth at February 02, 2020 10:49 AM (2DOZq)

246 Too rainy to work on our taxes today.

Posted by: Weasel at February 02, 2020 10:50 AM (MVjcR)

247 Listening to NPR in the car. "Is the US public reaction to the coronavirus racist?"

People are making jokes about eating Chinese food. That's racist. People move away from asian's who sneeze and look sick. That's racist.

"Ask yourself, if the coronavirus came from a European country and not from Asia or say Africa would you think the same way?"

Yeah, fuck off.

Posted by: Groundhog at February 02, 2020 10:50 AM (VYwSh)

248 Would a space-habitat locked in the shadow of Venus be better and bigger than a cloud-skimming habitat?

There's only one orbital path which stays on the other side of Venus persistently: halo-orbit around the L2 libration-point. Over Venus that's a million kilometres above the cloud-layer. The "shadow" is more like a fat annular eclipse i.e. they're getting nuked, especially if the sun flares.

Another option would be a nuclear sub flying against the wind on the dark side of Venus - I guess. But why do that. Big waste of fuel.

Posted by: boulder t'hobo at February 02, 2020 10:50 AM (ykYG2)

249 STOP RAPING YOUR CHARACTERS.

-
Burny has his style!

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at February 02, 2020 10:51 AM (+y/Ru)

250 70s had great music and great movies

Posted by: Ignoramus at February 02, 2020 10:51 AM (jENyQ)

251 OM, the streets that Cleary wrote about are still in Portland.

And Kesey . . . holds the same place in my heart as LeGuin. It is cruel to say he should have stuck to dairy farming, but yogurt is a valuable product.

I would rather talk about John Varley, who used to live in Eugene.

Posted by: Kindltot at February 02, 2020 10:51 AM (6rS3m)

252 I once had this idea for a story that the whole thing was 'palindromic' of sorts - the words of the second half were the inversion of the words in the first half, portions that were mud in the first half became clear in the second and vice versa. Two characters were living their lives in opposite directions of time.

I didn't get very far past the idea stage.

I have lots of gimmicky ideas like this.

Usually, I remember to keep them to myself.

Posted by: mindful webworker - still here despite popular requests at February 02, 2020 10:51 AM (tHAoL)

253 Captain Hate, Northanger bbey might be my favorite Austen

haven't been on goodreads wasy too long
Posted by: vmom 2020 at February 02, 2020 10:17 AM (G546f)

Good to read that. I'll be flying out to visit my daughter's family for ten days on Tuesday so I'll discuss it with her since I'll only pack that and Nabokov's The Gift. She's fairly well read but not nearly as opinionated as her father; shocking I know.

Posted by: Captain Hate at February 02, 2020 10:51 AM (y7DUB)

254 Hide yo kids! Hide yo wife!

Posted by: Insomniac - Ex Cineribus Resurgo at February 02, 2020 10:52 AM (NWiLs)

255 Another option would be a nuclear sub flying against the wind on the dark side of Venus - I guess. But why do that. Big waste of fuel.
Posted by: boulder t'hobo at February 02, 2020 10:50 AM (ykYG2)

"A Nuclear Sub Flying Against the Wind on the Dark Side of Venus" works as an album name.

Posted by: hogmartin at February 02, 2020 10:52 AM (t+qrx)

256 boulder t'hobo

Thanks. I had wondered. Carry on.

Posted by: NaCly Dog at February 02, 2020 10:52 AM (u82oZ)

257 OM, at #242 - I do remember a YA book that he assigned for us, although I have mercifully blanked the title and author: it was about a homesteading family who went from (IIRC) Nantucket to join the Oklahoma Land Rush. It all ended depressingly with the father dying, the family returning to Nantucket ... but not before the adolescent hero/narrator got a hand-job from a girl who had been captured by the Indians, all lovingly recounted through dialog. It was an awful book. The a**hole professor loved it.

Posted by: Sgt. Mom at February 02, 2020 10:53 AM (xnmPy)

258 Sunday morning shows are humping for Mayor Pete

Posted by: Ignoramus at February 02, 2020 10:53 AM (jENyQ)

259 are there vids???

Posted by: don lemon at February 02, 2020 10:54 AM (xLgNt)

260 I now think Bolton is an egomaniac with less character than your average backstabbe[r] ...
Posted by: Sebastian Melmoth at February 02, 2020 10:42 AM (2DOZq)

Since he's pimping a forthcoming book, I guess it's apropos to talk about him. It certainly sounds like he got stymied by the Jan 23 letter from the NSC (prior to the leak to the NYT) that informed him that his manuscript contained material classified Top Secret. If he was being an honest fact-teller, it should have been easy for him to arrange a meeting in which he could review the appropriate Security Classification Guide(s) and learn what he inappropriately put in the manuscript. But instead, someone whispers "ZOMG!!! THIS will get that evil/stupid/tyrannical Trump!"

Posted by: Retired Buckeye Cop is now an engineer at February 02, 2020 10:54 AM (00fXp)

261 Two characters were living their lives in opposite directions of time.
Posted by: mindful webworker - still here despite popular requests at February 02, 2020 10:51 AM (tHAoL)

This reminds me a little of House of Leaves - not exactly the same way, but similar.

Was Not Impressed. Did Not Finish.

Posted by: hogmartin at February 02, 2020 10:54 AM (t+qrx)

262 190 Xerxes had anger issues.
Posted by: Mel Gibson at February 02, 2020 10:26 AM (QZCjk)

Well if "300" was accurate, his float won 1st prize in *all* of the Gay Pride Parades.

Posted by: Tom Servo at February 02, 2020 10:55 AM (V2Yro)

263 Two characters were living their lives in opposite directions of time.
Posted by: mindful webworker - still here despite popular requests at February 02, 2020 10:51 AM (tHAoL)

This reminds me a little of House of Leaves - not exactly the same way, but similar.

Was Not Impressed. Did Not Finish.
Posted by: hogmartin at February 02, 2020 10:54 AM (t+qrx)

Or a movie called Upside Down

Posted by: Sebastian Melmoth at February 02, 2020 10:56 AM (2DOZq)

264 >>> 247 Listening to NPR in the car. "Is the US public reaction to the coronavirus racist?"

People are making jokes about eating Chinese food. That's racist. People move away from asian's who sneeze and look sick. That's racist.

"Ask yourself, if the coronavirus came from a European country and not from Asia or say Africa would you think the same way?"

Yeah, fuck off.
Posted by: Groundhog at February 02, 2020 10:50 AM (VYwSh)

Stupid newsreaders. If it had originated in France we'd be making escargot and mime jokes.

Posted by: Helena Handbasket at February 02, 2020 10:58 AM (0ReGO)

265 I thought The Piper at the Gates of Dawn was Syd Barrett.

Posted by: Tom Servo at February 02, 2020 10:58 AM (V2Yro)

266 But my character wants to be raped. She loves it.

Posted by: Ayn Rand at February 02, 2020 10:58 AM (gd9RK)

267 197 "Smokes" are an important feature of Canadianism. When I was in Canada a few times, it seemed that there were two kinds of Canadians, and both kinds smoked cigs. A lot.
Posted by: klaftern at February 02, 2020 10:29 AM (RuIsu)

Apparently, there's not much else to do in Canada. So the canucks sit around all day, wearing their tuques, smoking, and saying to each other "Look, it's snowing again, eh?"

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Austere Religious Scholar at February 02, 2020 10:59 AM (kqjO2)

268 Aaaah! Covfefe! Got my cold pills washed down. I think when I finish this coffee, I will lay down for a "coffee nap" until the caffeine kicks in.

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at February 02, 2020 11:00 AM (LxWV7)

269 266 But my character wants to be raped. She loves it.
Posted by: Ayn Rand at February 02, 2020 10:58 AM (gd9RK)

You and John Norman should have spent more time together.

Posted by: Tom Servo at February 02, 2020 11:00 AM (V2Yro)

270 Uh oh. I sneezed.

Posted by: Weasel at February 02, 2020 11:00 AM (MVjcR)

271 Education has been corrupted by PC progressivism for many decades.
Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Austere Religious Scholar at February 02, 2020 10:48 AM (kqjO2)

Reading "A People's Tragedy" I'd always assumed that Lenin was behind all that socialist realism trash art from the USSR. Turns out it was either his underlings and/or Stalin who inflicted that garbage on the world because Lenin pretty much didn't give a rat's ass about art and considered most artists as irritating dabblers whose contributions to his goals were negligible if not counterproductive. It was education molding children into compliant robots that interested him most.

Posted by: Captain Hate at February 02, 2020 11:00 AM (y7DUB)

272
Not reading much right now, as winter chores and projects are getting their due. I am listening to lectures on YouTube as I work, however. There is a series called MentorPublicLibrary, which I gather from contextual clues is in Ohio, in which one guy speaks on an eclectic mixture of history topics from the late 1700s through post WWII topics -- revolutions, wars, Germany from 1871 through WWII, and so forth. As I usually am listening rather than watching, I am spared poor videography which occurs in about half his talks. He meanders through a topic, which I would not like as a live audience member confined to a seat, but he usually delivers his information interestingly enough, even if sometimes he mangles the facts.

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars (TM) at February 02, 2020 11:01 AM (pNxlR)

273 265 I thought The Piper at the Gates of Dawn was Syd Barrett.
Posted by: Tom Servo at February 02, 2020 10:58 AM (V2Yro)

That's where I first heard that title, too. And then I read WitW and realized what books Syd must've read as a child.

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Austere Religious Scholar at February 02, 2020 11:01 AM (kqjO2)

274 Ayn Rand

Did you ever write a believable sex scene? They all seemed so stilted, joyless and sterile.

You needed to consult with our Bandersnatch. Or indeed, many others in the Moron Horde who could have helped you.

Posted by: NaCly Dog at February 02, 2020 11:01 AM (u82oZ)

275 Stupid newsreaders. If it had originated in France we'd be making escargot and mime jokes.
Posted by: Helena Handbasket at February 02, 2020 10:58 AM (0ReGO)

Lutefisk jokes. The horror! Luckily we are too sophisticated here for that...

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at February 02, 2020 11:01 AM (LxWV7)

276 Bolton is just another grubby player. Washington
truly is a whoredom. Trump must be like a cold mackerel in their
collective face. They never imagined he was possible, and cannot absorb
the fact he's real.
Posted by: Dan Smoot's Apprentice at February 02, 2020 10:45 AM (H8QX

I think he is stuck in the realpolitik version of international diplomacy: deal with the devil if you need to defeat the enemy. In this case I think he was bringing in all sorts of Ukraine specialists like Lt Col Bearclaw and his twin brother, not caring if they were dirty, just that they were connected.
Whether or not he was in on the attempted coup is secondary, since his judgement is not the best in choosing allies.

This has been an issue with the realpolitik paradigm. It makes us get in bed with, and complicit with, lots of nasty corrupt people. And makes a lot of people who might otherwise not be tempted figure that, if there is money to be shoved in pockets, they might as well get their own share now.

I would point out that Bolton is being judged on a rumor of a leak of a manuscript that was pumped up to be a bombshell to disrupt a political dispute. Once he is burned at the stake, he is burned for good, so I am willing to wait.

Posted by: Kindltot at February 02, 2020 11:01 AM (6rS3m)

277 The old coot takes IA and NH. Then the other old coot takes SC. Then the DNC brings back the first round superdelegates, who publicly leak support for coot #2, knifing coot #1 yet again. Hilarity ensues.

Sorry... back to books...
Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at February 02, 2020 10:24 AM (EQRLd)

And then they vote for Hilz in the first round.

Posted by: Fox2! at February 02, 2020 11:04 AM (qyH+l)

278 When I wrote my book ' it takes a village' I often fantasized about having children with that sexy, sexy man Harvey Weinstein .

Posted by: Mrs Bill Clinton at February 02, 2020 11:04 AM (Pgcou)

279 My device "needs to restart to install updates."

Not now! The book thread in on!!

Posted by: BurtTC at February 02, 2020 11:04 AM (hku12)

280 @195

You got there before me but I thought ''who dis?''looked like Glenn Frey too.

Posted by: Tuna at February 02, 2020 11:05 AM (RueoN)

281 Posted by: Notsothoreau at February 02, 2020 09:24 AM

I would suggest because we all lived through it and there is nothing worth nostalgia about it.

Posted by: Skip at February 02, 2020 11:05 AM (ZCEU2)

282 263 Two characters were living their lives in opposite directions of time.
Posted by: mindful webworker - still here despite popular requests at February 02, 2020 10:51 AM (tHAoL)

This reminds me a little of House of Leaves - not exactly the same way, but similar.

Was Not Impressed. Did Not Finish.
Posted by: hogmartin at February 02, 2020 10:54 AM (t+qrx)

Or a movie called Upside Down
Posted by: Sebastian Melmoth at February 02, 2020 10:56 AM (2DOZq)

Or "The Time Traveler's Wife".

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at February 02, 2020 11:06 AM (Dc2NZ)

283 278 Mrs Bill Clinton

That is so nasty.

Maybe I'll do more chores. Need some brain bleach after that.

Posted by: NaCly Dog at February 02, 2020 11:06 AM (u82oZ)

284 I have never heard of Russ.

Now Leigh Brackett yeah.

Posted by: Anna Puma at February 02, 2020 11:07 AM (SIAYM)

285 You know, we live in the age of twatter. If you write a book, and you expect what you have to say is going to reveal some bombshells, it won't. People aren't going to wait that long.

I don't think it will be long before society as a whole sees it that way. You want to write a book? Great! Make your insight interesting, and take the long view of something. You want to break a story? Get your twatter account fired up.

Or I suppose, go on cable nooz... but I think we're not far from that being considered the National Enquirer of the age.

Posted by: BurtTC at February 02, 2020 11:07 AM (hku12)

286 Did I hear right that Bolton brought in the Vedman twins? How is that not highly suspicious. What was Bolton's play?

Did I hear right that one twin was in charge of vetting Bolton's book? Could be the leaker?

The other twin could have been the Whistleblowers source. Bad Ludlum, no?

Posted by: Ignoramus at February 02, 2020 11:07 AM (jENyQ)

287 PSO: It's National Hedgehog Day

https://twitter.com/hashtag/NationalHedgehogDay?src=hashtag_click

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at February 02, 2020 11:09 AM (Dc2NZ)

288 I now think Bolton is an egomaniac with less character than your average backstabbe[r] ...

Posted by: Sebastian Melmoth at February 02, 2020 10:42 AM (2DOZq)

Since he's pimping a forthcoming book, I guess it's apropos to talk
about him. It certainly sounds like he got stymied by the Jan 23 letter
from the NSC (prior to the leak to the NYT) that informed him that his
manuscript contained material classified Top Secret. If he was being an
honest fact-teller, it should have been easy for him to arrange a
meeting in which he could review the appropriate Security Classification
Guide(s) and learn what he inappropriately put in the manuscript. But
instead, someone whispers "ZOMG!!! THIS will get that evil/stupid/tyrannical Trump!"

Posted by: Retired Buckeye Cop is now an engineer at February 02, 2020 10:54 AM

---

bolton knows the rules on what he can or can't put in his book. I got a gut feeling this was prearranged with the dnc, the nyt and bolton. Leak wild accusations about a book that hasn't been published yet and can't be made available to anyone outside the NSC.

No one can prove or disprove what is actually in the book except bolton himself and he refused to confirm or deny the bombshell.

Another perfect Kavanaughesque ploy by the dems in their desperate bid to get witnesses in the Senate for the impeachment.

He is still pi$$ed that Trump fired him and claims he quit and did not get fired.

Posted by: Mr. Scott (Formerly GWS) at February 02, 2020 11:10 AM (JUOKG)

289 PSO: It's National Hedgehog Day

'bout damn time.

Posted by: Ron Jeremny at February 02, 2020 11:10 AM (gd9RK)

290 Because of last weeks recommendation I bought Neil Peart's book Ghost Rider. 2 copies actually, the wife has one too. Its really good so far.

Posted by: Berserker-Dragonheads Division at February 02, 2020 11:11 AM (9Om/r)

291 I would point out that Bolton is being judged on a rumor of a leak of a manuscript that was pumped up to be a bombshell to disrupt a political dispute. Once he is burned at the stake, he is burned for good, so I am willing to wait.

Posted by: Kindltot at February 02, 2020 11:01 AM (6rS3m)

Same here. The hair on fire directed at him has been pretty severe based on very incomplete knowledge and what could be part and parcel of a derp state sting. So I'm still withholding judgement.

Posted by: Captain Hate at February 02, 2020 11:11 AM (y7DUB)

292 Canonization of Kobe Bryant vs. canonization of Neal Peart.

Discuss.
Posted by: Muldoon at February 02, 2020 10:14 AM (m45I2)

Private life vs. Public life:

It would be nice if we could acknowledge that we don't really know these people, but we can't do that.

Acts of good works vs. That thing you might or might not have done:

One can never cancel out the other, and maybe... just maybe, this means we ought to get out of the judging business.

Posted by: BurtTC at February 02, 2020 11:12 AM (hku12)

293 Or a movie called Upside Down
Posted by: Sebastian Melmoth at February 02, 2020 10:56 AM (2DOZq)

Or "The Time Traveler's Wife".
Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at February 02, 2020 11:06 AM (Dc2NZ)

Hadn't heard of those.

"His sporadic time traveling is further complicated by the fact that he arrives at his destinations completely naked."

AHAHAHA thank you wikipedia. That's my new "someone just walked into the room in the middle of a conversation" phrase.

Posted by: hogmartin at February 02, 2020 11:13 AM (t+qrx)

294 I wonder if it has dawned on Eric Ciaramella that he's a loose end for Hillary and Obama and is about to not kill himself?

Posted by: x at February 02, 2020 11:13 AM (nFwvY)

295 Thucydides: have to re-read him at some point. My main take-away from his History is that the nature of human folly hasn't changed much in 2500 years.

Durant: it is disappointing to learn that Will and Ariel had a sneaking admiration fir whiny little grifter Jean-Jacques Rousseau. O'Brien has Stephen Maturin give a pretty scorching summation of old J. J. in one of his novels, which made me smile.

Posted by: Captain Obvious at February 02, 2020 11:13 AM (jW9oF)

296 Oh, cool! Limerick wars!

Posted by: creeper at February 02, 2020 11:13 AM (XxJt1)

297 When I discussed a bio of Sir Francis Drake I read, a moron here jumped in to tell me that Drake raped nuns-- some idiot who knew nothing.

I just finished a bio of Octavian/Augustus, so... someone can jump in here & tell me he ate babies too.

By the standards of the times, Augustus was considerably less cruel than most of his contemporaries, as was Drake-- but the standards were brutal in both cases.

Neither Anthony nor Augustus had much military experience prior to Caesar's assassination, & neither demonstrated any particular aptitude for command, imo. Augustus was smart enough to find Agrippa, a talented commander indeed, & rely on him.

Posted by: mnw at February 02, 2020 11:14 AM (Cssks)

298 One can never cancel out the other, and maybe... just maybe, this means we ought to get out of the judging business.
Posted by: BurtTC at February 02, 2020 11:12 AM (hku12)

Burn the witch!

Posted by: weirdflunky at February 02, 2020 11:14 AM (cknjq)

299 Did I hear right that Bolton brought in the Vedman twins? How is that not highly suspicious. What was Bolton's play?

Did I hear right that one twin was in charge of vetting Bolton's book? Could be the leaker?

The other twin could have been the Whistleblowers source. Bad Ludlum, no?
Posted by: Ignoramus at February 02, 2020 11:07 AM (jENyQ)

Sure looks like it.

It amazes me, that all this is out there, but it can't be talked about, because the only people who MIGHT talk about it aren't given wide enough audience, and the people WITH wide enough audience are going to pretend it's not out there.

We live in truly amazing times. And by "amazing" I mean, Lord of the Flies kind of amazing. Age of Caligula amazing.

Posted by: BurtTC at February 02, 2020 11:15 AM (hku12)

300 Springer was the name of a German WWII demolition vehicle based off the Kettenkrad. It could be driven remotely for up to 2Km using wires before being detonated. Entered service in 1944 and only fifty built.

Posted by: Anna Puma at February 02, 2020 11:15 AM (SIAYM)

301 300 Springer was the name of a German WWII demolition vehicle based off the Kettenkrad. It could be driven remotely for up to 2Km using wires before being detonated. Entered service in 1944 and only fifty built.
Posted by: Anna Puma at February 02, 2020 11:15 AM (SIAYM)

So it was a Jerry Springer.

Posted by: Insomniac - Ex Cineribus Resurgo at February 02, 2020 11:17 AM (NWiLs)

302 I would point out that Bolton is being judged on a rumor of a leak of a manuscript that was pumped up to be a bombshell to disrupt a political dispute. Once he is burned at the stake, he is burned for good, so I am willing to wait.

Posted by: Kindltot at February 02, 2020 11:01 AM (6rS3m)

Same here. The hair on fire directed at him has been pretty severe based on very incomplete knowledge and what could be part and parcel of a derp state sting. So I'm still withholding judgement.
Posted by: Captain Hate at February 02, 2020 11:11 AM (y7DUB)

He's had a week to make a public statement.

Has he made any public statements?

If not, he's playing the game too.

Posted by: BurtTC at February 02, 2020 11:17 AM (hku12)

303 296 Oh, cool! Limerick wars!
Posted by: creeper at February 02, 2020 11:13 AM (XxJt1)

Sunday morning AoSHQ: come for the book talk, stay for the limerick duels.

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Austere Religious Scholar at February 02, 2020 11:17 AM (kqjO2)

304 DJT should threaten an EO to defund NPR. 100%. Won't happen. Fun Gummint Fiction.
Better yet, get my money back from them/it.

Posted by: klaftern at February 02, 2020 11:18 AM (RuIsu)

305 Defense wins championships. Just ask that retard Eli Manning.

Posted by: Regular joe at February 02, 2020 11:18 AM (6/uwW)

306 Canonization of Kobe Bryant vs. canonization of Neal Peart.

Discuss.

Posted by: Muldoon at February 02, 2020 10:14 AM (m45I2)

I would blowtorch an entire planet of kobes to save one Neal Peart.

Posted by: Berserker-Dragonheads Division at February 02, 2020 11:18 AM (9Om/r)

307 He's had a week to make a public statement.
Has he made any public statements?

If not, he's playing the game too.
Posted by: BurtTC at February 02, 2020 11:17 AM (hku12)

I think he's following the old adage "Never interrupt an enemy while he's juicing the sales of your book."

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Austere Religious Scholar at February 02, 2020 11:19 AM (kqjO2)

308 What the hell kinda pants are those???

Posted by: Diogenes at February 02, 2020 11:20 AM (axyOa)

309
Smokes were among the items given a presents in the Mackinzie Brothers' version of "The Twelve Days of Christmas".

So ya, eh?

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars (TM) at February 02, 2020 11:21 AM (pNxlR)

310 306 Canonization of Kobe Bryant vs. canonization of Neal Peart.

Discuss.

Posted by: Muldoon at February 02, 2020 10:14 AM (m45I2)

I would blowtorch an entire planet of kobes to save one Neal Peart.
Posted by: Berserker-Dragonheads Division at February 02, 2020 11:18 AM (9Om/r)

Word. Peart contributed immensely to the world of music, and thus to the uplifting of humanity. Kobe played a game with a ball.

Posted by: Insomniac - Ex Cineribus Resurgo at February 02, 2020 11:21 AM (NWiLs)

311 My dad loved palindromes, was crazy about the Super Bowl, and died on Groundhog Day! What a day.

Posted by: ... at February 02, 2020 11:21 AM (uEbPt)

312 Better yet, get my money back from them/it.

Posted by: klaftern at February 02, 2020 11:18 AM (RuIsu)

State PBS does some in-house shows of "local interest". Last week they showed a MLK day celebration that was a Dem campaign commercial.

Posted by: BignJames at February 02, 2020 11:22 AM (X/Pw5)

313 Oh come on, no love for the "Jerry Springer" joke? Humorless prats...

Posted by: Insomniac - Ex Cineribus Resurgo at February 02, 2020 11:23 AM (NWiLs)

314 A warning to all who read the Landmark series of histories. The many, many maps included are like a gateway drug. They lure you in and are so satisfying. Next thing you are reading all the footnotes and intro material. Then the text and you are lost. Then you start looking for hardcover editions. Before you know it you're looking for an especially nice bookmark.

It's a trap, I tell ya!

Posted by: JTB at February 02, 2020 11:23 AM (7EjX1)

315 Sheesh, I left out a word which affects meaning and more importantly throws off the meter. There's a guy around here who's good with the AABBA rhyme scheme but doesn't always fuss about the meter.

They're just doggerel with meter to show 'em
You can take all the whimsies and throw 'em
In a fixed rhyming scheme
To play with your meme
No, a limerick is not a real poem.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at February 02, 2020 11:23 AM (gd9RK)

316 62 I only know Ursula LeGuin from a perfectly charming New Yorker story about a goddess unnaming animals, "She Unnames Them".

http://bit.ly/2GK2Bde
Posted by: Bandersnatch at February 02, 2020 09:28 AM (gd9RK)

Golly. That's quite something.
I didn't see, in the story, that she's a goddess. How do we know that she is?

Posted by: m at February 02, 2020 11:24 AM (55d/e)

317 Kobe appears to have become a good guy. Not a great guy, but adequate

He was once a selfish prick. That girl invited a sexual encounter, but hadn't signed up for surprise anal and a Dirty Sanchez. Kobe pushed out Shaq because he wanted all the LA limelight. Etc

But somewhere along the way he became a serious Catholic and family man and patriotic member of the US Olympic team

Posted by: Ignoramus at February 02, 2020 11:24 AM (jENyQ)

318 So a Jerry Springer Spaniel just constantly yaps all the time?

Posted by: Captain Obvious at February 02, 2020 11:24 AM (jW9oF)

319 Oh come on, no love for the "Jerry Springer" joke?

It was good. Couldn't you hear me quietly snorfling to myself?

Posted by: Bandersnatch at February 02, 2020 11:25 AM (gd9RK)

320 318 So a Jerry Springer Spaniel just constantly yaps all the time?
Posted by: Captain Obvious at February 02, 2020 11:24 AM (jW9oF)

He's either at your throat or at your feet. And then he blows up.

Posted by: Insomniac - Ex Cineribus Resurgo at February 02, 2020 11:25 AM (NWiLs)

321
So, Punxsutawney Phil: did he wear a MAGA hat or not? Four more years of Trump if he did!

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars (TM) at February 02, 2020 11:25 AM (pNxlR)

322 I didn't see, in the story, that she's a goddess. How do we know that she is?

I said that from memory, then I re-read it. In the first half she's in the third person so I assumed goddess. In the second half we learn that she is Eve.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at February 02, 2020 11:26 AM (gd9RK)

323 274. I know you mean well Salty, but...no. This board is the last place I'd use to research believable sex scenes.

Posted by: kallisto at February 02, 2020 11:27 AM (tyrWm)

324 He's had a week to make a public statement.
Has he made any public statements?

If not, he's playing the game too.
Posted by: BurtTC at February 02, 2020 11:17 AM (hku12)

I think he's following the old adage "Never interrupt an enemy while he's juicing the sales of your book."
Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Austere Religious Scholar at February 02, 2020 11:19 AM (kqjO2)

That's what it looks like.

What I want to know is, from Bolton's perspective, who is the enemy?

Posted by: BurtTC at February 02, 2020 11:28 AM (hku12)

325 . I know you mean well Salty, but...no. This board is the last place I'd use to research believable sex scenes.
Posted by: kallisto at February 02, 2020 11:27 AM (tyrWm)
----
Aw, man. You're no fun.

Posted by: Otters at February 02, 2020 11:29 AM (jW9oF)

326 No one can prove or disprove what is actually in the book except bolton himself and he refused to confirm or deny the bombshell.
Posted by: Mr. Scott (Formerly GWS) at February 02, 2020 11:10 AM

And when it comes out and there's no bombshell, the scuttlebutt will be that it wasn't merely edited; it was CENSORED.

Orange Man is the worst.

Posted by: NaughtyPine at February 02, 2020 11:29 AM (/+bwe)

327 my bro in law used to have a cocker spaniel - dumbest dog I ever saw. He would stand in the rain and bark at the raindrops; literally was too dumb to come in out of the rain. His name was Chester, and when anyone sat down the first thing he would do is hump their leg. You know what we all called him.

Posted by: Tom Servo at February 02, 2020 11:30 AM (V2Yro)

328 All Hail Eris #282: Or "The Time Traveler's Wife".

Thought that was a really good time travel work. I like good time travel (see short comic in nic). 'TT's Wife' defines its rules and sticks to them and doesn't worry about technique - so somewhat fantasy in that (as with Jack Finney's Time and Again), there's no 'time machine,' it just happens.

But no one will ever beat making a time machine out of a DeLorean.

And if I could time-travel back to the early 1970s, and warn myself of what I'm about to do wrong that will repercuss for decades... I'd be too stupid to listen to myself. But if I did listen to myself, and made different decisions, I wouldn't learn what I learned from those bad decisions and the repercussions, and then I wouldn't need to go back in time to warn myself, so then I would go ahead and make those original bad decisions and *head explodes*

Posted by: mindful webworker - click for short and tall tales at February 02, 2020 11:30 AM (tHAoL)

329
English Cocker Spaniel in that picture. American CS have snubber muzzles. The English is considered one Breed while the American is three varieties: Black, Parti-colored and ASCOB.

Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at February 02, 2020 11:33 AM (7rVsF)

330 No one can prove or disprove what is actually in the book except bolton himself and he refused to confirm or deny the bombshell.
Posted by: Mr. Scott (Formerly GWS) at February 02, 2020 11:10 AM

Has he? Has Bolton actually said he's not going to confirm or deny?

Posted by: BurtTC at February 02, 2020 11:37 AM (hku12)

331
So did the groundhog predict six more weeks of impeachment?

Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at February 02, 2020 11:38 AM (7rVsF)

332 Posted by: Tom Servo at February 02, 2020 11:30 AM (V2Yro)

Can't believe anything is dumber than an Irish Setter.

Posted by: BignJames at February 02, 2020 11:39 AM (X/Pw5)

333 So did the groundhog predict six more weeks of impeachment?

Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at February 02, 2020 11:38 AM (7rVsF)

4 more years of Trump.

Posted by: BignJames at February 02, 2020 11:40 AM (X/Pw5)

334
You know what we all called him.
Posted by: Tom Servo at February 02, 2020 11:30 AM (V2Yro)

Chesters the Investor? Chester the Divester?

What? What? Out with it!

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars (TM) at February 02, 2020 11:40 AM (pNxlR)

335 And if I could time-travel back to the early 1970s,
and warn myself of what I'm about to do wrong that will repercuss for
decades... I'd be too stupid to listen to myself. But if I did
listen to myself, and made different decisions, I wouldn't learn what I
learned from those bad decisions and the repercussions, and then I
wouldn't need to go back in time to warn myself, so then I would go
ahead and make those original bad decisions and *head explodes*

Posted by: mindful webworker - click for short and tall tales at February 02, 2020 11:30 AM (tHAoL)

Pretty much the shit I think about, although in my case the reprocussions could range from buying the wrong car all the way up to international incident. lol

Posted by: Berserker-Dragonheads Division at February 02, 2020 11:40 AM (9Om/r)

336 313 Oh come on, no love for the "Jerry Springer" joke? Humorless prats...
Posted by: Insomniac - Ex Cineribus Resurgo at February 02, 2020 11:23 AM (NWiLs)
---
I was going to give it a decorous, gloved golf clap but thought that was pandering.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at February 02, 2020 11:40 AM (Dc2NZ)

337 This week I'm reading Vertical Run, by Joseph Garber. I thought he was author of the book from which Die Hard was adapted. But no.

However, you would be hard pressed to prove it if you didn't have a search engine at your fingertips. The protagonist is a John McClane clone in skill set and personality. He often talks to himself and uses "pal" a lot.

It begins with our hero beginning his workday as usual, except that his boss tries to kill him. Then shadowy operatives take over when the boss fails. His wife and son have bought in to the story that the media is circulating and everyone wants him dead. Meanwhile, he tries to prove his innocence while taking out the ex Special Forces assigned to his demise.

It started out as "can't put down," then got a tad uneven and convoluted, but I'm going to finish it anyway.

Posted by: SandyCheeks at February 02, 2020 11:41 AM (u1+n/)

338 I spelled repercussions all wrong. I need coffee.

Posted by: Berserker-Dragonheads Division at February 02, 2020 11:41 AM (9Om/r)

339 Posted by: Tom Servo at February 02, 2020 11:30 AM (V2Yro)

Can't believe anything is dumber than an Irish Setter.
Posted by: BignJames at February 02, 2020 11:39 AM (X/Pw5)

Hold my litter encrusted cat turd.....

Posted by: Zombie Beagle at February 02, 2020 11:42 AM (hku12)

340
no, Hans Garber was the villain in Die Hard

Posted by: AltonJackson
Bernie Sanders 2020
If not now, whom?
at February 02, 2020 11:42 AM (rB2O4)

341 Re Bolton - if he hoovers $30 out of lib pockets only for them to find they've been had, is it a win?

Finishing Crane Brinton's The Anatomy Of Revolution, in a painfully-small-print paperback, and Toni Natalie's The Program about NXIVM

Posted by: JEM at February 02, 2020 11:43 AM (8erNz)

342 I listened to the audio book verson of Bulldog Drummond. It was a libra vox recording which means multiple people read different chapters, mostly non-Brits which was difficult to get used to.

I wanted to read the book because it was enormously popular and one of the best of the "gentleman adventurer" genre featuring some gentleman or noble from early 1900s England who got into various interesting adventures.

Bulldog is an ex WWI officer of large size and strength who like Batman has had more training and experience than his years can have plausibly contained. He's bored with peace and comfort so he puts out an ad offering his services for anyone who has an adventure or exciting thing for him to solve, even crime if its not too criminal.

From this, he becomes involved in a strange international scheme led by a villain who probably influenced Ian Fleming's Bond villains. Drummond is very capable, but has serious flaws which get him into trouble. He's very clever but blunt. He's unsubtle and tends to charge into things which usually serves him well but also gets him into serious problems.

Overall its more clever and entertaining than I expected, although its filled with now-tired tropes, early 20th century Britishism like "old bean," and a bit too much luck on Drummond's part to make up for his less-than-wise choices.

He's a likable character though, and some of the sequences (especially between Drummond and his ex army pals he taps to help out) are hilarious, in that subtle, understated British way.

Overall a pretty fun and well-told book if a bit implausible and fantastical.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at February 02, 2020 11:43 AM (KZzsI)

343 You know what we all called him.
Posted by: Tom Servo at February 02, 2020 11:30 AM (V2Yro)

Chesters the Investor? Chester the Divester?

What? What? Out with it!
Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars (TM) at February 02, 2020 11:40 AM (pNxlR)

I was gonna guess Englebert Humperleg.

Posted by: BurtTC at February 02, 2020 11:43 AM (hku12)

344 Oh I should mention that Bulldog (and the author "Sapper" - a psuedonym) realllly hate Germans. He never misses a chance to bash on "The Bosch" and while clearly there's admiration, spite and disgust drips off the page.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at February 02, 2020 11:44 AM (KZzsI)

345 repercussions - isnt that when the drum pounds you?

Posted by: JEM at February 02, 2020 11:44 AM (8erNz)

346 Bosch

Boche, s'il vous plait.

Posted by: JEM at February 02, 2020 11:45 AM (8erNz)

347 327 my bro in law used to have a cocker spaniel - dumbest dog I ever saw. He would stand in the rain and bark at the raindrops; literally was too dumb to come in out of the rain. His name was Chester, and when anyone sat down the first thing he would do is hump their leg. You know what we all called him.
Posted by: Tom Servo at February 02, 2020 11:30 AM (V2Yro)

Bill Clinton?

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Austere Religious Scholar at February 02, 2020 11:46 AM (kqjO2)

348
repercussions - isnt that when the drum pounds you?

Posted by: JEM at February 02, 2020 11:44 AM (8erNz)

No, thats called tinnitus. lol

Posted by: Berserker-Dragonheads Division at February 02, 2020 11:46 AM (9Om/r)

349 I had no idea there were sequels to Wind in the Wollows. The Amazon reviews for the William Horwood books are pretty good. I'll need to investigate more. Thanks for the heads up.

I never read WitW as a child. Discovering it in my 60s made it possibly more charming.

Posted by: JTB at February 02, 2020 11:49 AM (7EjX1)

350 Re Bolton - if he hoovers $30 out of lib pockets only for them to find they've been had, is it a win?

Finishing Crane Brinton's The Anatomy Of Revolution, in a painfully-small-print paperback, and Toni Natalie's The Program about NXIVM
Posted by: JEM at February 02, 2020 11:43 AM (8erNz)

Except I doubt that's how it works. Seems to me, if the book comes out, and the first person to read it actually finds the passage, that either confirms or denies the "bombshell," that person can put it on twatter.

Then nobody else has to buy the book.

I mean, what, do people REALLY care what he has to say about his past 40 years in "public service?"

Wouldn't it be ironic, if the last line of the book was something like "all I've ever done, was in the service of my love for my country, and I did my duty all the way up to the end."

Yeah, no you didn't.

Posted by: BurtTC at February 02, 2020 11:49 AM (hku12)

351 However he spells it, its obvious that Herman Cyril McNeile has not gotten over the war, nor had most of England at that point judging by how popular his stories were.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at February 02, 2020 11:49 AM (KZzsI)

352 Oh I should mention that Bulldog (and the author
"Sapper" - a psuedonym) realllly hate Germans. He never misses a chance
to bash on "The Bosch" and while clearly there's admiration, spite and
disgust drips off the page.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at February 02, 2020 11:44 AM (KZzsI)

Bosch made a killer jig saw.

Posted by: Berserker-Dragonheads Division at February 02, 2020 11:49 AM (9Om/r)

353 337 This week I'm reading Vertical Run, by Joseph Garber. I thought he was author of the book from which Die Hard was adapted. But no.
Posted by: SandyCheeks at February 02, 2020 11:41 AM (u1+n/)

Nothing Lasts Forever by Roderick Thorpe is the novel that Die Hard was adapted from. One of the few instances where the movie is better than the book, in my opinion.

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Austere Religious Scholar at February 02, 2020 11:50 AM (kqjO2)

354 Peart looks like he's taking a break from his 2112 photo shoot sans satin kimono. The pic I'm thinking of was forever made hilarious by my friend's mother's momcomment of "They look like a bunch of fags fresh off a Roman Holiday."

Posted by: Sans Kimono at February 02, 2020 11:51 AM (JmtNq)

355 I mean, what, do people REALLY care what he has to say about his past 40 years in "public service?"

I don't think books like that sell for readers, I think they sell for people who want to claim they have the book, show it off, and to give money to those they want to support. I know the left likes to pretend they are all literate and well-read but from what I've seen, they really don't seem to be.

These are the people who decorate their houses with the books spine-back in the shelf so they are "neutral" instead of all those different book cover colors and designs.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at February 02, 2020 11:51 AM (KZzsI)

356 I thought Who Dis? guy was 3 Dog Night front man. I like long hair on a guy, except for Willie Nelson.

Posted by: kallisto at February 02, 2020 11:51 AM (tyrWm)

357 Can't believe anything is dumber than an Irish Setter.

Posted by: BignJames at February 02, 2020 11:39 AM (X/Pw5)

You've never met my older sister.

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at February 02, 2020 11:52 AM (dLLD6)

358 Thursday should be Shiffty the hog day, if he sticks his head out and calls 6 months more of impeachment investigating.

Posted by: Skip at February 02, 2020 11:54 AM (ZCEU2)

359 That Bolton is writing a tell all book at this point in time tells me all I need to know about his character.

Posted by: Sebastian Melmoth at February 02, 2020 11:55 AM (2DOZq)

360 Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at February 02, 2020 11:44 AM (KZzsI)

Bosch made a killer jig saw.
Posted by: Berserker-Dragonheads Division at February 02, 2020 11:49 AM (9Om/r)

Which killer? The one who murdered his mom?

Posted by: BurtTC at February 02, 2020 11:55 AM (hku12)

361 Nothing Lasts Forever by Roderick Thorpe is the novel that Die Hard was adapted from. One of the few instances where the movie is better than the book, in my opinion.

I've heard that from everyone, but I still want to read it. Same with Princess Bride, and some other books. It makes me curious what was changed and why, to make the book work better.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at February 02, 2020 11:55 AM (KZzsI)

362 I like long hair on a guy, except for Willie Nelson.

"how you doin?"
--Sam Elliot

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at February 02, 2020 11:57 AM (KZzsI)

363 When I was stationed in Britain I espied a little hedgehog one early morn, and cried "Dimsdale!"

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at February 02, 2020 11:57 AM (Dc2NZ)

364 there is a cute but unfriendly little cocker spaniel next door

she barks at doggeh angrily and he barks back

I think doggeh is in love with her

he leaves little poop gifts right at the bohntdary closest to their property

Posted by: vmom 2020 at February 02, 2020 11:57 AM (G546f)

365 I've heard that from everyone, but I still want to read it. Same with Princess Bride, and some other books. It makes me curious what was changed and why, to make the book work better.
Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at February 02, 2020 11:55 AM

The framing narrative in Princess Bride stinks, but the parenthetical expressions in the story of Princess Buttercup are great.

Posted by: NaughtyPine at February 02, 2020 11:58 AM (/+bwe)

366 Christopher, Princess Bride is an AWFUL book

Posted by: vmom 2020 at February 02, 2020 11:58 AM (G546f)

367 I mean, what, do people REALLY care what he has to say about his past 40 years in "public service?"
---------------------------------
I don't think books like that sell for readers, I think they sell for people who want to claim they have the book, show it off, and to give money to those they want to support. I know the left likes to pretend they are all literate and well-read but from what I've seen, they really don't seem to be.

These are the people who decorate their houses with the books spine-back in the shelf so they are "neutral" instead of all those different book cover colors and designs.
Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at February 02, 2020 11:51 AM (KZzsI)

I think some of these guys fancy themselves to be today's Henry Kissinger.

When Kissinger wrote a book, people actually read it, because they wanted to know how he saw it all, from his own perspective.

Now, I don't know Henry Kissinger, and he ain't no friend of mine, but I don't believe John Bolton is no Henry Kissinger.

Posted by: BurtTC at February 02, 2020 11:59 AM (hku12)

368 Bolton has been defending Masha and the Vindman bros, That makes him appear to be a vengeful ass. If he put Top Secret info in his book in order to transmit it to Yevgeny, then he's even worse.

Posted by: CN at February 02, 2020 11:59 AM (ONvIw)

369 357 Can't believe anything is dumber than an Irish Setter.

Posted by: BignJames at February 02, 2020 11:39 AM (X/Pw5)

You've never met my older sister.

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at February 02, 2020 11:52 AM (dLLD6)

Ok, glad I came in for this. Morning all. Still on War and Peace but in smaller chunks. Got my interest back. Got a coupla political books. Trumps JR.s and Profiles in Corruption but had enough crap during the week so can't get started on them. Dean Koontz books are my palette cleanser. Love them.

Posted by: Cannibal Blob at February 02, 2020 12:00 PM (hmgiv)

370 Chester the Pester ?

Posted by: JT at February 02, 2020 12:00 PM (arJlL)

371 I've heard that from everyone, but I still want to read it. Same with Princess Bride, and some other books. It makes me curious what was changed and why, to make the book work better.
Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at February 02, 2020 11:55 AM (KZzsI)

The changes Die Hard made were interesting. I won't spoil it for you, but let's just say that different people are alive at the end of the novel than are at the end of the movie. I'd be curious if you read it and then say which one you think works better.

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Austere Religious Scholar at February 02, 2020 12:00 PM (kqjO2)

372 Chester the Romantic Investor ?

Posted by: JT at February 02, 2020 12:01 PM (arJlL)

373 363 When I was stationed in Britain I espied a little hedgehog one early morn, and cried "Dimsdale!"
Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at February 02, 2020 11:57 AM (Dc2NZ)

( *insert coffee table nailed to your head joke here* )

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Austere Religious Scholar at February 02, 2020 12:02 PM (kqjO2)

374 Chester nailed Dimsdale's head to the coffee Table ?

Posted by: JT at February 02, 2020 12:03 PM (arJlL)

375 Was that picture taken after Singapore got word of the Wahun coronavirus?

As to cockers, the American breed agencies have ruined them by insisting on a strict conformation. They don't look as good as they once did (and aren't as good a dog, either).

(Disclosure: I grew up around cocker spaniels; Dad bred them on occasion. Smart, trainable field dogs. Only real problem was a tendency to dig under fences.)

Posted by: GWB at February 02, 2020 12:06 PM (rqLai)

376 Haircut achieved. Looks good too.

Posted by: Insomniac - Ex Cineribus Resurgo at February 02, 2020 12:08 PM (eMICq)

377 "Janet lives on a utopian Earth with an all-female population"

Not for long, she doesn't. *eyeroll*

Posted by: GWB at February 02, 2020 12:09 PM (rqLai)

378 Haircut achieved. Looks good too.
Posted by: Insomniac - Ex Cineribus Resurgo

On a Sunday ?

Posted by: JT at February 02, 2020 12:10 PM (arJlL)

379 I remember the first time I read A Clockwork Orange, when I was in high school. I discovered that it was full of slang I had never heard before, and in fac was invented by the author just for that novel.

A lot of it is just pidgin Russian. Droog = freind, moloko = milk, etc. The other stuff you can usually figure out in context (ultraviolence) but some is just obscure and confusing. I like it when someone creates a bit of slang for a book (that was some of the fun of The Dark Knight by Frank Miller) but writers to take it too far are just deliberately confusing.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at February 02, 2020 12:11 PM (KZzsI)

380 I have only read one Joanna Russ book, and that was due to picking up an Ace Double with "James Tiptree Jr." as the main feature. Sadly, neither Houston, Houston, Do You Read (Tiptree) nor Souls (Russ) were particularly memorable. I usually enjoy Tiptree-written works much more.
Posted by: Stephen Price Blair at February 02, 2020 09:37 AM (2lndx)

Thanks, I was trying to remember the one Joanna Russ story that I'd read. Don't remember a thing about it, though.

Posted by: sinalco at February 02, 2020 12:12 PM (yODqO)

381 NaCly Dog - I did some math. L2 gets only an eighth, more likely a tenth, of the usual Venus radiation. It should have a Vesta-like blackbody temperature at 150 K.

L2 is a good place to store ice.

You may have saved the colony.

Posted by: boulder t'hobo at February 02, 2020 12:12 PM (ykYG2)

382 377 "Janet lives on a utopian Earth with an all-female population"

Not for long, she doesn't. *eyeroll*
Posted by: GWB at February 02, 2020 12:09 PM (rqLai)
Besides that, women are every bit as competetive as men, and catty too

Posted by: CN at February 02, 2020 12:12 PM (ONvIw)

383 "The Piranha Brothers":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9k6__UFF18

"'I hear you been a naughty boy, Clement.' So 'e slits me nostrils open, saws me leg off, an' pulls me liver out. An' I says 'Me name's not Clement!' and he nails me 'ead to the floor.'"

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

384 Haircut achieved. Looks good too.
Posted by: Insomniac - Ex Cineribus Resurgo

On a Sunday ?
Posted by: JT at February 02, 2020 12:10 PM (arJlL)

Most haircuts either look good or bad, no matter what day of the week it is.

Posted by: BurtTC at February 02, 2020 12:12 PM (hku12)

385
Boom.

Vanessa looked like shit after her brain surgery yesterday morning - vomiting, brachycardia, etc. Docs were concerned about neurological cause, but granted it could be pain related.

They gave her a hit of morphine, and mid-afternoon she started rallying like she was Trump. Color came back, she took food normally, heart stabilized.

This morning, the lead doctor checked her out, and said "she's looking fantastic. Put her back on her bottles and as long as she goes back to normal feeding we'll spring her later this week!"

We were expecting yet another month in here.

Fuck yeah!

I'ma go buy a bassinet and sleep in my own bed for once.

Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at February 02, 2020 12:12 PM (EQRLd)

386 Still working my way through The Two Towers and Brooke's The Saxon and Norman Kings of England.

Posted by: sinalco at February 02, 2020 12:13 PM (yODqO)

387 I know it's not but I'm thinking the dude looks like Inego Montoya.
Sans sword.

Posted by: Diogenes at February 02, 2020 12:14 PM (axyOa)

388 Wonderful news, YD!

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at February 02, 2020 12:14 PM (Dc2NZ)

389 378 Haircut achieved. Looks good too.
Posted by: Insomniac - Ex Cineribus Resurgo

On a Sunday ?
Posted by: JT at February 02, 2020 12:10 PM (arJlL)

Sunday morning is the perfect time to get a haircut.

Posted by: Insomniac - Ex Cineribus Resurgo at February 02, 2020 12:14 PM (NWiLs)

390 388 Wonderful news, YD!
Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at February 02, 2020 12:14 PM (Dc2NZ)

Keep fighting, Vanessa!

Posted by: CN at February 02, 2020 12:15 PM (ONvIw)

391 Jeesh, I remember Joanna Russ, wow.
Read maybe half of one story in, I dunno, Analog or F&SF, or ... and said "wow, really hate men, huh ... and that's all you can write about". Which would be the last time I wasted brain cycles on her. Apparently the rest of the community felt the same, huh ?

Posted by: sock_rat_eez, we are being gaslighted 24/365 at February 02, 2020 12:15 PM (zlgJP)

392 He's a likable character though, and some of the sequences (especially between Drummond and his ex army pals he taps to help out) are hilarious, in that subtle, understated British way.

Overall a pretty fun and well-told book if a bit implausible and fantastical.
Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at February 02, 2020 11:43 AM (KZzsI)

Was the villain character named Lakington? I think I own that book, in printed form. There was a series of them. The Richard Hannay novels by John Buchan are similar, but perhaps better written. If you liked Bulldog Drummond, you should read Buchan.

And Bulldog Drummond got made into movies, too, I think. He stayed in the public eye for a long time. The Lieber and Stoller song, "Searchin'" recorded by the Coasters in the mid 1950's calls out Bulldog Drummond in the lyrics.

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at February 02, 2020 12:15 PM (LxWV7)

393 Sunday morning is the perfect time to get a haircut.

"I'll take "Things I never knew" for a thousand, Alex"

Posted by: JT at February 02, 2020 12:16 PM (arJlL)

394 Wow, yay, thanks for the update, YD !

Prayers continue !

Posted by: sock_rat_eez, we are being gaslighted 24/365 at February 02, 2020 12:17 PM (zlgJP)

395 I just finished The Pale-Faced Lie by David Crow. It's the true story of David growing up with a mentally unbalanced mother and a really horrible father. It sounds depressing but I couldn't stop reading it even though there were many "that guy needs a bullet" moments. Made me REALLY appreciate my parents!

Posted by: Bean Counteress of Rohan at February 02, 2020 12:17 PM (2+j2N)

396 391: Prototypical angry radical feminist.

Posted by: CN at February 02, 2020 12:18 PM (ONvIw)

397 Can't believe anything is dumber than an Irish Setter.

Posted by: BignJames at February 02, 2020 11:39 AM (X/Pw5)

You've never met my older sister.
Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at February 02, 2020

****

Had a 2Lt sign into our unit once. He was the classic doofus.
Gawd. I shiver at the memory.

Posted by: Diogenes at February 02, 2020 12:18 PM (axyOa)

398 Prayers continue YD.

Posted by: Diogenes at February 02, 2020 12:19 PM (axyOa)

399 Besides that, women are every bit as competetive as men, and catty too

Posted by: CN at February 02, 2020 12:12 PM (ONvIw)

I didn't say which part would disappear first.

Posted by: GWB at February 02, 2020 12:19 PM (rqLai)

400 This morning, the lead doctor checked her out, and said "she's looking fantastic. Put her back on her bottles and as long as she goes back to normal feeding we'll spring her later this week!"

That sounds like wonderful news. Babies heal astoundingly well and swiftly. That's how we are all supposed to be but things go wrong as we age.

Was the villain character named Lakington? I think I own that book, in printed form. There was a series of them. The Richard Hannay novels by John Buchan are similar, but perhaps better written. If you liked Bulldog Drummond, you should read Buchan.

That's the one yeah. The first of the series. Buchan is definitely a better author with more complex and interesting plots, Sapper is more pulpy.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at February 02, 2020 12:19 PM (KZzsI)

401 nood

Posted by: zeera BMGG - Books Make Great Gifts! at February 02, 2020 12:20 PM (CAJL/)

402 I'ma go buy a bassinet and sleep in my own bed for once.
Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at February 02, 2020 12:12 PM (EQRLd)

yay!

make it a big bassinet so you fit...

prayers continue

Posted by: vmom 2020 at February 02, 2020 12:20 PM (G546f)

403 Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at February 02, 2020 12:12 PM (EQRLd)

That is AWESOME!

Posted by: Insomniac - Ex Cineribus Resurgo at February 02, 2020 12:20 PM (NWiLs)

404 We were expecting yet another month in here.

Fuck yeah!

I'ma go buy a bassinet and sleep in my own bed for once.
Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at February 02, 2020 12:12 PM

Great! She's had a tough life so far; glad she's hanging inthere.

Posted by: NaughtyPine at February 02, 2020 12:21 PM (/+bwe)

405 Today would be a perfect day for President Trump to do a music video of him as Jim McMahon

"We're so bad we know we're good,
Blowing your mind like we knew we would.

You know we're just strutting for fun,
strutting our stuff just for everyone.

We're not here to start no trouble,
we're just doing the super Bowl Shuffle.

https://tinyurl.com/t2jclw3

Posted by: MachiasPrivateer at February 02, 2020 12:21 PM (EMi53)

406 Re the 70s. I've been watching The Rockford Files and I state that James Garner is adorable in any decade.

Posted by: Bean Counteress of Rohan at February 02, 2020 12:24 PM (2+j2N)

407 EMi53)

406 Re the 70s. I've been watching The Rockford Files and I state that James Garner is adorable in any decade.
Posted by: Bean Counteress of Rohan at February 02, 2020 12:24 PM (2+j2N)

I concur.

Posted by: NaughtyPine at February 02, 2020 12:27 PM (/+bwe)

408 [1]Bolton knows the rules on what he can or can't put in his book. I got a gut feeling this was prearranged with the dnc, the nyt and bolton. ...

He is still pi$$ed that Trump fired him and claims he quit and did not get fired.
Posted by: Mr. Scott (Formerly GWS) at February 02, 2020 11:10 AM (JUOKG)

It is looking like he tried to assist the coup attempt. If he did, ironically President Trump has tried to be somewhat conciliatory towards Bolton in the weeks prior to the "bombshell(tm)" leak: Trump has said that them leaving on bad terms was due to him rather than Bolton and Trump hadn't really been working on trashing Bolton's reputation until AFTER the leak. I think Bolton forgot that his job was to enact policy rather than promulgate "official" policy since that is within the purview of the President. Bolton's ego got bruised and hubris spawns nemesis.

Posted by: Retired Buckeye Cop is now an engineer at February 02, 2020 12:27 PM (00fXp)

409 322 I didn't see, in the story, that she's a goddess. How do we know that she is?

I said that from memory, then I re-read it. In the first half she's in the third person so I assumed goddess. In the second half we learn that she is Eve.
Posted by: Bandersnatch at February 02, 2020 11:26 AM (gd9RK)

Thanks!

Posted by: m at February 02, 2020 12:28 PM (UZ8BZ)

410 Northanger Abbey is my third favorite Austen (after P&P and Persuasion and before Mansfield Park. I don't actually care for Sense and Sensibility or Emma that much, in the former case because Edward Ferrars has absolutely nothing to recommend himself and in the latter case because Emma is a petty bitch). It is HILARIOUS. It helps if you are familiar with the Gothic novels Austen is lampooning*. The one Catherine enjoys so much, The Mysteries of Udolpho, is available on Project Gutenberg if you want to read it.

*one of my favorite bits is when another character says about a particular novel that there is nothing in it except an old man playing at chess, and the narrator says something like "The justice of this critique was unfortunately lost upon Catherine."

Posted by: Mrs. Peel at February 02, 2020 12:32 PM (dpNi3)

411 Whether one considers the 1970's worthy of nostalgia or
not depends on your age. I was 8 in 1970 and 18 in 1980 so my memories of that benighted decade are warm and fuzzy. Despite Reagan, I just didn't care for the '80's.
Too much coke and too many assholes.

Posted by: JoeF. at February 02, 2020 12:33 PM (CqE5x)

412 Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at February 02, 2020 12:12 PM (EQRLd)

What wonderful Vanessa news. Sleep well.

Posted by: m at February 02, 2020 12:34 PM (UZ8BZ)

413 This week I'm reading Vertical Run, by Joseph Garber. I thought he was author of the book from which Die Hard was adapted. But no....
It started out as "can't put down," then got a tad uneven and convoluted, but I'm going to finish it anyway.

Posted by: SandyCheeks at February 02, 2020 11:41 AM (u1+n/)

I agree; novel starts out really great and then gets convoluted in the last third. However, make sure you read the "memo" sort of hidden at the last page AFTER the epilogue. It puts a neat spin on the story.

Posted by: Retired Buckeye Cop is now an engineer at February 02, 2020 12:35 PM (00fXp)

414 On the other hand, it's hard to be nostalgic for the '70's because the music of that decade never went away.

Tune into any classic rock station and it's forever 1976--The Steve Miler Band, "Hotel California" and Boston's debut album all reign supreme......

Posted by: JoeF. at February 02, 2020 12:37 PM (CqE5x)

415 Loved the 80s! If I ever get dementia I'm going to make my world in either the 80s or Middle Earth.

Posted by: Bean Counteress of Rohan at February 02, 2020 12:37 PM (2+j2N)

416 "Too Much Coke and Too Many Assholes" would be a great title for an autobiography. Not mine, mind you, but somebody's.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at February 02, 2020 12:38 PM (Dc2NZ)

417 One thing I like about the 80s is that nobody from that time period has felt the need to make endless tedious movies about how wonderful it was like Forest Gump and American Graffiti. Just love your childhood without feeling the need to force it one everyone else through a vaseline-smeared lens and framed with lace.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at February 02, 2020 12:42 PM (KZzsI)

418 If I ever get dementia I'm going to make my world in either the 80s or Middle Earth.
---
Why not both? Tom Bombadil in parachute pants, Galadriel with crimped hair and neon t-shirt dress.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at February 02, 2020 12:42 PM (Dc2NZ)

419 I loved the '80s as well. It was certainly the most action packed decade of my life, especially after graduating HS in'84. And I never knew of anyone in my circle of friends who did coke. Plenty of booze, but no coke.

Posted by: Pug Mahon, of the Butte Mahons at February 02, 2020 12:42 PM (x8Wzq)

420 nood impeachment for a while, now

Posted by: m at February 02, 2020 12:48 PM (UZ8BZ)

421 One thing I like about the 80s is that nobody from that time period has felt the need to make endless tedious movies about how wonderful it was like Forest Gump and American Graffiti

Well hello there!

Posted by: The Wedding Singer at February 02, 2020 12:48 PM (ykYG2)

422 One thing I like about the 80s is that nobody from that time period has felt the need to make endless tedious movies about how wonderful it was like Forest Gump and American Graffiti. Just love your childhood without feeling the need to force it one everyone else through a vaseline-smeared lens and framed with lace.
Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at February 02, 2020 12:42 PM (KZzsI)

Well, for one thing movies about the '80's were coming out in real time, during the '80's. See John Hughes and The Brat Pack.

Second, Hollywood can't really make movies about how warm and fuzzy the '80's were because that old devil Reagan was president so by definition , the '80's have to be a "dark" period.

Posted by: JoeF. at February 02, 2020 12:50 PM (CqE5x)

423 "Too Much Coke and Too Many Assholes" would be a great title for an autobiography. Not mine, mind you, but somebody's.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at February 02, 2020 12:38 PM (Dc2NZ)

Too Much Coke and Too Many Asshole: The Barack Obama Story

Posted by: JoeF. at February 02, 2020 12:53 PM (CqE5x)

424 I've been working my way through Herbert Asbury's _The French Quarter_. It's from the 1930s, by the same man who wrote _Gangs of New York_. He basically covers the history of crime in New Orleans from the city's founding to the First World War -- cutting off around the time people might sue and/or murder him for writing about them. Lots of fun stuff about duels, pirates, smugglers, con men, riverboat gamblers, flatboat brawlers, prostitutes, crooked politicians, and drunks.

The takeaway: New Orleans hasn't changed a bit.

Posted by: Trimegistus at February 02, 2020 12:53 PM (A1psc)

425 Still reading John Cleese's autobiography, "So, Anyway." It includes a lot more on his childhood and early adulthood than I expected and some interesting stories (and future skit fodder) from teaching when he was 18 and 19.

Posted by: roamingfirehydrant at February 02, 2020 12:54 PM (THS4q)

426 So, Lady Louise is smuggling French Letters, concealed in her petticoat, to the masses?

Posted by: Headless Body of Agnew at February 02, 2020 01:08 PM (e1mEI)

427 I remember the first time I read A Clockwork Orange,
when I was in high school. I discovered that it was full of slang I had
never heard before, and in fac was invented by the author just for that
novel. So I eventually made sense out of most of the words based on
context, and then, after the last page, they had a glossary of all the
slang words. I remember thinking why couldn't they have put this at the
front? But I suppose trying to work out the meanings was intended to be
part of the experience of reading the novel.
I had the same experience. How many of those words have you remembered? One of my favorite phrases was "great bolshy yarblockos." Which Harvey W is rumored to literally lack, and Trump has in figurative spades.

Posted by: Miley, the Duchess at February 02, 2020 02:40 PM (rCwaK)

428 Though I come to this thread rather late, I will say that I agree with Don @101 "Joanna Russ was a good writer early in her career, before her politics hijacked her writing." I enjoyed her first novel "Picnic on Paradise" (which is included in the collection "The Adventures of Alyx").

An amusing trivia note: in one of Russ's "Alyx" short stories Alyx reminisces about a brief, passionate affair with a character recognizable as Fritz Leiber's "Fafhrd" from his "Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser" sword and sorcery series. This amused Leiber and he incorporated Alyx (as "Alyx the picklock") in a couple of later Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser short stories ("The Two Best Thieves in Lankhmar" and "Under the Thumbs of the Gods").

Posted by: John F. MacMichael at February 02, 2020 05:15 PM (9AOND)

429 I had the same experience. How many of those words have you remembered? One of my favorite phrases was "great bolshy yarblockos." Which Harvey W is rumored to literally lack, and Trump has in figurative spades.
Posted by: Miley, the Duchess at February 02, 2020 02:40 PM (rCwaK)

"Horror show", meaning 'good' which derives from the Russian word 'horosho' which means the same thing. As Chris Taylor pointed out, a lot of the Clockwork slang was derived from Russian, which I suppose meant that thee USSR would have a lot more influence in the west in the near future.

Yeah, the author kind of whiffed on that one.

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Austere Religious Scholar at February 02, 2020 05:17 PM (Ykc++)

430 405 Today would be a perfect day for President Trump to do a music video of him as Jim McMahon
Posted by: MachiasPrivateer at February 02, 2020 12:21 PM (EMi53)

No, please no.

I have heard that McMahon has serious brain damage from his football career, and is in no condition to be seen in public. Which is why he is never seen in public. For Trump to do this would bring out the accusations that he's making fun of an injured football player, so this would not be a good idea.

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Austere Religious Scholar at February 02, 2020 05:23 PM (Ykc++)

431 I guess Hot Tub Time Machine was kind of an 80s nostalgia flick.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at February 02, 2020 07:48 PM (KZzsI)

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