Sunday Morning Book Thread 12-20-2020

Skibo Castle Library, Dornoch, Scotland

Good morning to all you 'rons, 'ettes, lurkers, and lurkettes, wine moms, frat bros, crétins sans pantalon (who are technically breaking the rules). 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 Santa will give to boys and girls who have been very, very naughty.

Pic Note:

The castle at Skibo dates back to the 13th century, but Andrew Carnegie purchased it in 1898 and spent £2 million improving the place:

Skibo stayed with the Carnegie family until 1982. It was later purchased by businessman Peter de Savary and used as the foundation of a private members club, The Carnegie Club. Establishment of the club required restoration of the castle to recreate the luxury of an Edwardian sporting estate. Similar renovation was undertaken on the many lodges located amongst the castle grounds to provide additional accommodation for club members. De Savary sold the club to Ellis Short in 2003, for £23 million. Following the Shorts' purchase of the club, some £20 million has been invested in the refurbishment and restoration of the 8,000 acre estate. Aware of the historic significance of the category-A listed castle and its contents, the Club have undertaken a programme of conservation over the last decade with the aim of preserving as much as possible of the building whilst improving the existing facilities on the estate. This includes the redevelopment of the golf course, a sympathetic restoration of Carnegie's magnificent swimming pool, ongoing restoration of the Mackenzie and Moncur glasshouses and the refurbishment of all bedrooms in the castle and lodges.

It looks quite hoity-toity now. Perfectly appropriate for the book thread.

It Pays To Increase Your Word Power®

Kick out the jams?

"The FBI Nobody Knows"

Hat tip to Wolfus Aurelius for telling me about the 2000-2001 A&E Nero Wolfe series in a Morning Rant thread a few days ago. The episodes are available for free on YouTube, but the video quality is disappointingly low (360p and 480p), so I located better quality versions and Mrs. Muse and I are slowly working through the approximately 23 episodes and they're quite good. We just finished the one mentioned here a couple of weeks ago, "When the Doorbell Rang", which plot involved a rich lady being so enthralled with a book entitled The FBI Nobody Knows that she bought 10,000 copies and sent them to various prominent movers and shakers and has come to Wolfe because she thinks that a result of what she did, she's now being followed by FBI agents.

So, given the timely subject of FBI corruption and abuse of authority, I wondered if The FBI Nobody Knows was an invention for the purposes of the plot or an actual book. I poked around a bit on the internet, and sure enough, it turns out to be an actual book (published in 1964, but long OOP). Is it worth reading?

Well, perhaps. It was written by Fred J. Cook, whom I had never heard of, but I gathered from his wiki entry that he was one of those muck-raking investigative, "no enemies on the left" journalists like I.F. Stone. Now Stone was a well-known rat bastard commie, so I'm guessing Cook probably was, too. The Amazon blurb for The FBI Nobody Knows doesn't tell you much, other than the fact that used copies are quite expensive. But I found a copy on Abebooks that had a photo of a blurb, looks like from some review, pasted to the front cover:

In 1907, President Theodore Roosevelt told his Attorney General, Charles J. Bonaparte (a grandnephew of Napoleon I) to create a permanent detective force within the Department of Justice. There was an immediate outcry. "No general system of spying and espionage of the people, such as has prevailed Russia, in France under the Empire, and at one time in Ireland, should be allowed to grow up," said an Iowa congressman. Congress rejected Bonaparte's request, but, without any authority, he quietly founded his own Bureau of Investigation, which has grown into the powerful and famous F. B. I. of today.

In early years there was some corruption within the F. B. I. but once Edgar Hoover was appointed director in 1924 he began to build up the image of the glamorous and incorruptible G-man (government man). In those days they were concerned mostly with organized prostitution and gangsters, but in 1936, President Franklin D. Roosevelt invited the F. B. I. to look into the lives of suspected Fascists and Communists. Thus he gave the F. B. I. new scope and political power - power which the author considers dangerous to the freedom of American society.

In a controversial section of the book, the author suggests that Hoover's own political prejudice, the pressure of which is felt throughout the organization, has made him since the war exaggerate the Red Menace out of all proportion, whilst ignoring real problems such as the Civil Rights struggle. Mr. Cook is critical of the F. B. I. practice of using paid informants and suggests that the Hiss, Remington, and Rosenberg cases call in question the validity of informers' testimony. The Supreme Court's attempt in 1957 to open the files failed in the face of the outcry from right wing press and politicians.

Mr. Cook is in part making a case against what the F. B. I. has become; he presents Hoover as a man apparently exempt from small failings but also perhaps lacking in modesty or political balance. But in addition to this Cook has written an extremely diverting account of the whole history of the F. B. I., its most colorful cases, and the training and treatment of agents. The classic stories of American gangsters and spy rings make fascinating reading; an understanding of their significance is essential to any student of American social and political history.

So, is this book worth reading? I think it might be, just for the early history of the FBI section. I think it's interesting that it was created without any kind of authorization or approval, or, more accurately, in the face of explicit congressional *disapproval*. Evidently Cook was one of the True Believers™ who upheld the innocence of Hiss and the Rosenbergs for the rest of his life. In fact, Mr. Cook wrote his own book on Alger Hiss, The Unfinished Story of Alger Hiss, which is available on Kindle for $2.99. Unlike the book I discussed on the Hiss case last week, Perjury, where the author started out believing Hiss was innocent but then changed his mind, Cook went in the opposite direction:

Cook had written four articles for The Nation by the time then-editor Carey McWilliams asked Cook to write an article about the perjury case of Alger Hiss. Cook did not want to do the article, thinking Hiss was "guilty as hell." After two more requests by McWilliams for Cook to do the article, McWilliams said, "Look, I have a proposition to make you. I know how you feel about the case, but I've talked to a lot of people who I trust. They say if anybody looked hard at the evidence they'd have a different opinion..."

The September 21, 1957 issue of The Nation was dedicated entirely to Cook's investigation of the Hiss case, which was called, "Hiss: New Perspectives on the Strangest Case of our Time." In the article Cook...was ultimately of the opinion that Hiss was not guilty of the accusations made by Whittaker Chambers... Cook expanded the article into a book entitled, The Unfinished Story of Alger Hiss (Morrow, 1957) and to the end of his life continued to maintain that Hiss had been innocent.

Now, maybe Cook was right. It's perfectly possible that the FBI agents who investigated Hiss may have done things that were shady or outright illegal. But that doesn't mean that Hiss was innocent, just that the FBI wasn't a bunch of Boy Scouts.

OK, I'm kind of a long way from where I started out, so I'll just circle back around and leave you with this fun fact: there have been a number of adaptations of Nero Wolfe for the small screen, including an extremely short-lived series filmed back in 1959 with the part of Archie Goodwin played by, get this, William Shatner. Only 2 or 3 episodes were filmed and it's not clear that any of them were actually broadcast. Perhaps the first one was, but that's it. (h/t Donna&&&&&V who mentioned this in last week's book thread and even provided a YouTube link to the pilot episode.)

Who Dis:

(Last week's 'who dis' was Mrs. Frank Sinatra, Mia Farrow.

Moron Recommendations

Moron commenter 'DIY Daddio' recommends the political thriller Ecochondriacs: The No Quarter November Novel by Douglas Wilson:

It's election season--America's most lucrative sport--and there are no rules.

When climate scientist Dr. Helen Gardner accidentally reads an email from the International Task Force on Climate Change which proves that global warming is a lucrative scam, she's shocked and horrified. But that's nothing compared to how she feels the next day when her boss (the head of the Task Force) tries to have her killed. Helen goes into hiding with the help of her neighbor, a "fundy" Bible college professor named Cody, and an anti-eco-activist lumberjack-writer. But Helen's scandal isn't the only headline floating to the surface: the Democrat presidential candidate gets career-changing news; his running mate hits rock bottom after years of infidelity; the current Republican VP's past sins won't stay hidden forever. And Cody is about to uncover some dirt of his own.

The Kindle version is $8.99. Or, if you want to read it for free, Pastor Wilson is putting it up on his blog, one chapter at a time.

I am familiar enough with Wilson to know that he has zero patience with 'woke' garbage. He is also the author of Ride, Sally, Ride (Or Sex Rules) and I have no idea if it's any good or not, but from the plot description, it seems rather timely:

It's two decades in the future, and a Christian college student named Ace Hartwick has just destroyed his neighbor's so-called "wife"—actually a sexbot named Sally—in a trash compactor. Soon, Ace will be on trial for murder.

Unfortunately for Ace, everyone despises his kind of "radical" Christianity, and, in the fragile America of the future, all the juries are fixed.

[This is a]...satirical novel...about love, the crack-up of the U.S.A., and refusing to back down when the whole world calls you crazy.

I must say I like the opening line:

Asahel Hartwick did not really intend to be the reason for the crack-up of the United States.

You can read a 30-page chunk of it here.

___________

Take note all ye morons who are trying to find good YA novels:

On the Kindle, I read the excellent The Apprenticeship of Nigel Blackthorn by Frank Kelso. This is a coming of age story of a 13-year old boy who survives the slaughter of his family by the Comanche by hiding in a hollowed out tree. After two days of surviving on nothing but water, he is saved by two muleteers. They take him in and begin teaching him lessons to survive on the prairie and lessons for success in life. After a year on the trail, they leave him with a band of Cheyenne to live with them for six months. More lessons are learned and Nigel, known as Black Wolf, thrives and becomes a man. He also learns a new perspective, which is different from the white man.

This would be an excellent YA Book, especially for boys. The lessons Nigel learns are just as pertinent in today's world. The story continues with the second book in The Apprentice series, North in the Spring.

Posted by: Zoltan at December 13, 2020 09:11 AM (qb8uZ)

I was wondering why this book sounded familiar. Then I went to its Amazon page and was informed I had purchased it last year. So it's sitting on my device somewhere in my TBR stack. The Kindle version currently goes for $4.99. This is the first book of author Frank Kelso's Apprentice series. The second is North in the Spring, followed by South in the Fall.

___________

37 Halfway thru She Rides Shotgun by Jordan Harper. Pretty fast paced and crisp writing so far. See if that and the plot holds up for the whole book. So far, the dad is just out of prison and grabs his daughter before the hit man does. Lots of dead bodies so far and dad is far from a saint.

Posted by: Charlotte at December 13, 2020 09:22 AM (6Lsms)

She Rides Shotgun grabbed an Edgar award in 2018 for Best Debut Novel:

Eleven-year-old Polly McClusky is shy, too old for the teddy bear she carries with her everywhere, when she is unexpectedly reunited with her father, Nate, fresh out of jail and driving a stolen car. He takes her from the front of her school into a world of robbery, violence, and the constant threat of death. And he does it to save her life.

Nate made dangerous enemies in prison—a gang called Aryan Steel has put out a bounty on his head, counting on its members on the outside to finish him off. They’ve already murdered his ex-wife, Polly’s mother...Out on the lam, Polly is forced to grow up early: with barely any time to mourn her mother, she must learn how to take a punch and pull off a drug-house heist...Nate takes Polly to save her life, but in the end it may very well be Polly who saves him.

The Kindle version is $9.99, which is actually a bit more expensive than the hardcover edition.

They Don't Publish Books Like This Any More:

"Ha! Ha! Your puny ray gun has no effect on me, hugh-mahn!"

Books By Morons

Moron author 'RKF Adams' has just released the second novel in his 'Jess Archer Island Adventure' series, this one called Bobby's War:

When the desecrated body of a missing DEA agent is discovered in a marina on Chico Bayou, the local cops are ordered to fetch coffee while the feds play jurisdictional spin the bottle.

Two cartels vie for absolute power over the United States drug trade. It’s a trillion dollar business and nobody wants to share. They’ve come to the Hillbilly Riviera to negotiate a treaty because Mexico is too dangerous.

The grand prize is the life of a young girl whose parents were murdered for escaping one cartel. The other cartel will sacrifice the child to secure a cease fire.

Tired of waiting for justice, Sheriff's Deputy Bobby Ellis takes no prisoners to save the girl’s life.

Just $6.99 for the Kindle edition.

___________

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 Hey there, fellow librosexuals!

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Iron Fist in Velvet Glove in Iron Gauntlet Clutching an Iron Mace at December 20, 2020 09:01 AM (Dc2NZ)

2 Sinatra!

Posted by: CN at December 20, 2020 09:02 AM (ONvIw)

3 Merry Christmas all you book lovers. Still working on a re-read of the Harry Potter series. On the last book now. I don't know what I will go to next. It appears all my authors fear they'll catch wufooflu if they write a new book.

Posted by: Vic at December 20, 2020 09:02 AM (mpXpK)

4 hiya

Posted by: JT at December 20, 2020 09:04 AM (arJlL)

5 Tolle Lege
Still no new book but thinking again to get Jack Cashill's Unmasking Obama since it looks like we are not done with the likes of him.
Bought it once as a ebook but it didn't download so returned it

Posted by: Skip at December 20, 2020 09:04 AM (Cxk7w)

6 And Frankie!

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Iron Fist in Velvet Glove in Iron Gauntlet Clutching an Iron Mace at December 20, 2020 09:04 AM (Dc2NZ)

7 Good Morning! Whenever I see pictures of Skibo, I think of Madonna and her wedding to Guy Ritchie.

Posted by: Moonbeam at December 20, 2020 09:05 AM (qe5CM)

8 I'm guessing Eris does not have an iron deficiency.

Posted by: I am the Shadout Mapes, Doctor of Housekeeping at December 20, 2020 09:05 AM (PiwSw)

9 Slogging thru Stanger in a Strange Land

I am working thru Heinlein even if it kills me.

Posted by: rhennigantx at December 20, 2020 09:06 AM (5QBw6)

10 Scientifiction -- isn't that what Hugo Gernsback called SF?

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Iron Fist in Velvet Glove in Iron Gauntlet Clutching an Iron Mace at December 20, 2020 09:06 AM (Dc2NZ)

11 Damn COVID weight. These pants are tight.

Posted by: AlaBAMA at December 20, 2020 09:06 AM (i9ZF7)

12 I love the card catalog table in the lieberry. I want.

Posted by: I am the Shadout Mapes, Doctor of Housekeeping at December 20, 2020 09:07 AM (PiwSw)

13 The who dis is Frank Sinatra, reading "How to pick up chicks"

Posted by: JT at December 20, 2020 09:07 AM (arJlL)

14 8 I'm guessing Eris does not have an iron deficiency.
Posted by: I am the Shadout Mapes, Doctor of Housekeeping at December 20, 2020 09:05 AM (PiwSw)
---

Oddly, I now need more just to give me strength to heft all that wicked iron.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Iron Fist in Velvet Glove in Iron Gauntlet Clutching an Iron Mace at December 20, 2020 09:07 AM (Dc2NZ)

15 Yes Old Blue Eyes himself

Posted by: Skip at December 20, 2020 09:08 AM (Cxk7w)

16 Alger Hiss was in the Venona papers. Of course the lying assholes writing in The Nation wanted to make people believe the rat bastard was framed.

Posted by: Captain Hate at December 20, 2020 09:09 AM (y7DUB)

17 looks like Frank to me. The tip on Mrs. Frank Sinatra made my find a bit less fun. But I didn't know Farrow was married to Frank. I like to think I am pretty good at Jeopardy and Trivial Pursuit at least in the olden days. But for sure pop culture is my worst subject.

Posted by: Quint at December 20, 2020 09:09 AM (kfMBQ)

18 Do you ever go back and read books you enjoyed as a kid/teen?

I tried that and couldn't find the same magic in them I once did.

King's The Stand was a great example.

Posted by: AlaBAMA at December 20, 2020 09:09 AM (i9ZF7)

19 17 looks like Frank to me. The tip on Mrs. Frank Sinatra made my find a bit less fun. But I didn't know Farrow was married to Frank. I like to think I am pretty good at Jeopardy and Trivial Pursuit at least in the olden days. But for sure pop culture is my worst subject.
Posted by: Quint at December 20, 2020 09:09 AM (kfMBQ

Mia went after him, brought him a bouquet.

Posted by: CN at December 20, 2020 09:10 AM (ONvIw)

20 5 bought it again, let's see if it gets downloaded

Posted by: Skip at December 20, 2020 09:12 AM (Cxk7w)

21 great pulp sci fi cover! Also, Edmond Hamilton is one of my favorite pulp science fiction authors. He wrote some really interesting stories that make you think. Of course, he exhibited all of the traits of "toxic masculinity" in his stories, so he would be destroyed by SJWs today. However, scratch the surface of his stories and he actually deconstructs a lot of that "toxic masculinity" in surprising and pleasing ways. But you have to take the effort to actually understand his stories. That's beyond the SJW mindset.

Posted by: Lord Squirrel at December 20, 2020 09:12 AM (hQrcu)

22 Love the Skibo Library picture. I can almost smell the old wood and pipe smoke.

Posted by: Lady in Black at December 20, 2020 09:12 AM (O+I8R)

23 16 Alger Hiss was in the Venona papers. Of course the lying assholes writing in The Nation wanted to make people believe the rat bastard was framed.
Posted by: Captain Hate at December 20, 2020 09:09 AM (y7DUB)

Media loved the USSR and love the CCP now. In my Solzhenitsyn reading, even he was surprised by the media's attempt to make him appear ungrateful for his life there, and minimized the gulags.

Posted by: CN at December 20, 2020 09:12 AM (ONvIw)

24
g'mornin', book-ish 'rons

Posted by: AltonJackson at December 20, 2020 09:13 AM (aDhTC)

25 Nice Lieberry!

Those pants......I would use them.

The Who Dis is Frank Sinatra pretending to read to get a laugh out of his Mob guidos.

Laugh.....you betta laugh or the Chairman won't like it.

Posted by: Hairyback Guy at December 20, 2020 09:13 AM (R/m4+)

26 Do you ever go back and read books you enjoyed as a kid/teen?

I tried that and couldn't find the same magic in them I once did.

King's The Stand was a great example.

Posted by: AlaBAMA at December 20, 2020 09:09 AM (i9ZF7)

i never read it. I guess you say it doesn't hold up. The ones I remember from childhood were A Wrinkle in Time and Where the Red Fern Grows. The one that stands out to me as a teen was The Killer Angels. I read it long before it became hot, a friend's dad recommended it to me. I know it would still hold up as I have recommended the book to others.
The historical interpretations and character portrayals are lacking in many ways, but still it is a great novel. And if you are into these things, a real first edition is worth quite a bit of money. Maybe not so much during this cancel culture but they used to go for about $500 for a a legit copy.

Posted by: Quint at December 20, 2020 09:14 AM (kfMBQ)

27 Who did the picture of the child reading? It's lovely.

Posted by: CN at December 20, 2020 09:14 AM (ONvIw)

28 Read lots and lots of westerns as a kid, they might grab me but have moved on, but would and do advise the horde to get them for young boys.

Posted by: Skip at December 20, 2020 09:15 AM (Cxk7w)

29 The who dis is Frank Sinatra, reading "How to pick up chicks"

==

I think it's actually "How To Beat Chicks Off With A Stick." He's was quite the playboy and quite the sex symbol during his heyday. I personally never did quite see it. Especially his younger years when he sort of reminded me of Barney Fife. He got better with age.

Posted by: Lady in Black at December 20, 2020 09:15 AM (O+I8R)

30 I read War Lord by Bernard Cornwell. This is the thirteenth and final book in his Lost Kingdom series. Uhtred has reclaimed his rightful home of Babbanburg in Northumbria, but King Aethelstan has united the kingdoms of Wessex, Mercia, and East Anglia and wants Northumbria to establish a united England. King Constantine and other Scottish and Irish leaders seek to extend their borders south into Northumbria. The clash of these armies from the north and south occurs in the autumn of A D 937 at the Battle of Brunanburh. Uhtred must correctly choose which side to fight for if he is to keep his castle. I've really enjoyed this series over the years.

Posted by: Zoltan at December 20, 2020 09:15 AM (qb8uZ)

31 Oh yeah, books.

Okay, I knew there was cannibalism afoot in the Pacific during WWII, but I thought it was isolated to a few sadistic individuals and people suffering extreme starvation.

But my (admittedly shallow) perusal of "Fly Boys" suggests that it was maybe more widespread, and unofficially sanctioned. That famously vicious Japanese prison camp warden did it to toughen his troops against any qualms killing lesser peoples, and to shame-bond them into being part of the group. And of course eating an enemy's liver gave one his warrior spirit, or whatever.

But during the Rape of Nanjing one soldier raped and killed a woman, and as an afterthought carved her corpse up for meat for his fellow soldiers. This was no big deal, and they understood where the meat came from. They were, after all, told to supply themselves from the country they invaded.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Iron Fist in Velvet Glove in Iron Gauntlet Clutching an Iron Mace at December 20, 2020 09:15 AM (Dc2NZ)

32 King's The Stand was a great example.
Posted by: AlaBAMA at December 20, 2020 09:09 AM (i9ZF7)

Deaf people mad as Deaf guy in the Stand is played by an actor with hearing. Cant wait till we have real live people blown to bits for war movies.

Posted by: rhennigantx at December 20, 2020 09:15 AM (5QBw6)

33
Get smooth, flavorful Scientifaction from Scientifiction!

Posted by: naturalfake, Frustrated Ad Writer at December 20, 2020 09:16 AM (dWwl8)

34 5 It downloaded!

Posted by: Skip at December 20, 2020 09:16 AM (Cxk7w)

35 Posted by: Quint at December 20, 2020 09:09 AM (kfMBQ)

You must be <<<29..Frank/Mia was bigger news than anything NASA was doing in summer of '65.

Posted by: BignJames at December 20, 2020 09:16 AM (AwYPR)

36 In my Solzhenitsyn reading, even he was surprised by the media's attempt to make him appear ungrateful for his life there, and minimized the gulags.
Posted by: CN at December 20, 2020 09:12 AM (ONvIw)

Other than the 60 Million dead how was the sleepover camp Mr Solzhenitsyn?

Posted by: rhennigantx at December 20, 2020 09:17 AM (5QBw6)

37 I think Mia was with Frank during the filming of Rosemary's Baby. Her most waif-like years.

Posted by: Lady in Black at December 20, 2020 09:18 AM (O+I8R)

38 Just this morning read an article with a subhead declaring that Europe and Britain have just days to "thrash" out a trade deal.
The correct word is "thresh" but, in a highly educated and sophisticated technocratic information-based cosmopolitan society in which nobody knows where food comes from, I guess "thrash" will have to do.

Posted by: jbspry at December 20, 2020 09:19 AM (ATe9j)

39 Other than the 60 Million dead how was the sleepover camp Mr Solzhenitsyn?
Posted by: rhennigantx at December 20, 2020 09:17 AM (5QBw6)

He was astonished by the support held by the commies in the West and their idealized notions. I suspect that Solzhenitsyn's Christianity and focus on morality over legality was an issue for them too.

Posted by: CN at December 20, 2020 09:19 AM (ONvIw)

40 Greetings!

This week I re-read Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness," which of course was (badly) adapted into "Apocalypse Now."

So I watched that as well.
Further musings on the comparison below:
https://tinyurl.com/y7h6y3bb
Interestingly, I read "Heart of Darkness" while in high school - required reading for AP Literature. We then watched "Apocalypse Now" and compared notes on the quality of the adaptation.

I can't imagine that happening today!

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at December 20, 2020 09:19 AM (cfSRQ)

41 The who dis is Frank Sinatra, reading "How to pick up chicks"

==

I think it's actually "How To Beat Chicks Off With A Stick." He's was quite the playboy and quite the sex symbol during his heyday. I personally never did quite see it. Especially his younger years when he sort of reminded me of Barney Fife. He got better with age.
Posted by: Lady in Black

That was an example of my biting sarcasm.

Posted by: JT at December 20, 2020 09:19 AM (arJlL)

42 Read lots and lots of westerns as a kid, they might
grab me but have moved on, but would and do advise the horde to get them
for young boys.

Posted by: Skip at December 20, 2020 09:15 AM (Cxk7w)

the same friend's dad got me into Louis L'amour. Now that I think about it, I own that guy a lot. I lost track long ago and have no clue whether he is alive today. My parents ended up getting me the entire set in leatherette. It was funny, at some point after 80 books they had to call the dogs off. They kept coming up with l'amour book, magazine compendiums, and things he would have written if he were still alive.

Posted by: Quint at December 20, 2020 09:19 AM (kfMBQ)

43 Do not take Scientifiction if you are allergic to Scientifiction.

Posted by: Insomniac at December 20, 2020 09:20 AM (nakwk)

44 Me this week: "An Actor and His Times," (autobiography) by John Gielgud.

It's not quite as fascinating as I thought it might be. It's a Niagara Falls of names, some still famous, some not.

I think it may be difficult to WRITE about acting without being able to DEMONSTRATE your point, by showing snippets of actors performing roles the way you describe them.

I've never seen Gielgud in a film where he didn't either run away with it entirely (Chimes at Midnight), or stand out noticeably in a supporting role (as Cassius, in Julius Caesar, with Brando as Antony).

Gielgud lived to be 96, & was surely the last person alive who could reminisce about his first hand experiences with Sarah Bernhardt, Eleonora Duse, & Gielgud's own great aunt Ellen Terry, who was the most famous actress in England for decades.

He supported gay political & charitable causes, always anonymously, even though the whole world knew he was gay.

Posted by: mnw at December 20, 2020 09:20 AM (Cssks)

45 guten morgen horden

Posted by: vmom Trump Won! at December 20, 2020 09:21 AM (nUhF0)

46 Mia went after him, brought him a bouquet.
Posted by: CN

She stuffed in her blouse to make it look like she had bewbs.

Posted by: JT at December 20, 2020 09:21 AM (arJlL)

47 Greetings!

This week I re-read Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness," which of course was (badly) adapted into "Apocalypse Now."

So I watched that as well.
Further musings on the comparison below:
https://tinyurl.com/y7h6y3bb
Interestingly,
I read "Heart of Darkness" while in high school - required reading for
AP Literature. We then watched "Apocalypse Now" and compared notes on
the quality of the adaptation.

I can't imagine that happening today!

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at December 20, 2020 09:19 AM (cfSRQ)

Well, if you want the third "book"/film in the trilogy, check out Heart of Darkness, A Filmmaker's Apocalypse. It was a documentary about making the film. I believe Coppola's wife did it. It was really well done.

Posted by: Quint at December 20, 2020 09:22 AM (kfMBQ)

48 The web page for the Carnegie Club says that "From the welcome tot at the door when you arrive to the cuddly hottie placed in your bed during turn-down service". Cuddly hottie? Sounds like my kind of club.

Posted by: Mookie at December 20, 2020 09:22 AM (3vIkC)

49 guten morgen horden
Posted by: vmom Trump Won

Hiya Morgan !

Posted by: JT at December 20, 2020 09:23 AM (arJlL)

50 Thanks for the recommendation for post-Civil War western "News of the World" by Paulette Jiles. This slender volume was just masterfully written. I see some of her other novels tell the stories of other sideline characters in "News of the World".

A movie is coming out for Christmas starring Tom Hanks. He's always good, but I see a furiously mustached Sam Elliott as Captain Kyle.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Iron Fist in Velvet Glove in Iron Gauntlet Clutching an Iron Mace at December 20, 2020 09:23 AM (Dc2NZ)

51 Not to accuse the young lady reading the book of having done this, but that book does have a "chaotic evil" bookmark...

Posted by: I am the Shadout Mapes, Doctor of Housekeeping at December 20, 2020 09:23 AM (PiwSw)

52 Cuddly hottie? Sounds like my kind of club.

Posted by: Mookie at December 20, 2020 09:22 AM (3vIkC)

aka Cleveland Steamer

Posted by: BignJames at December 20, 2020 09:24 AM (AwYPR)

53 Hiya Eris !

Nice first !

Posted by: JT at December 20, 2020 09:24 AM (arJlL)

54 Posted by: Quint at December 20, 2020 09:09 AM (kfMBQ)

You must be <<<29..Frank/Mia was bigger news than anything NASA was doing in summer of '65.

Posted by: BignJames at December 20, 2020 09:16 AM (AwYPR)

I really suck at certain parts of pop culture. Who married whom is easily my worst subject. All I know about Frank is he helped to stop Nixon in WV and later supported Reagan.

Posted by: Quint at December 20, 2020 09:24 AM (kfMBQ)

55 I think it's actually "How To Beat Chicks Off With A
Stick." He's was quite the playboy and quite the sex symbol during his
heyday. I personally never did quite see it. Especially his younger
years when he sort of reminded me of Barney Fife. He got better with
age.

Posted by: Lady in Black at December 20, 2020 09:15 AM (O+I8R)

---
Sinatra had 2 things going for him.

1. The Voice. A guy who can sing love songs *just for you* has a huge advantage.

2. Competition. Science has proved that women are attracted to men that other women are attracted to. Hence the old trick of a guy with a pretty "just friends" girl acting like she's into him so other women will take notice. A friend of mine got divorced but kept wearing the ring for a while because it was like catnip.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at December 20, 2020 09:25 AM (cfSRQ)

56 May have recommended this before but War Lovers by Evan Thomas is a great non-fiction read that chronicles the early years of America, focusing on Roosevelt, Henry Cabot Lodge and Randolph Hearst.

Talks about the sinking of the Maine and the push for war against Cuba by certain parties in Congress. Really enjoyed it and reading about some of America's most colorful characters.

Posted by: AlaBAMA at December 20, 2020 09:25 AM (i9ZF7)

57 "He's was quite the playboy and quite the sex symbol during his heyday. I personally never did quite see it."

It was all about the voice when he was young. Records and radio, the girls could create their own image of him.

Posted by: lowandslow at December 20, 2020 09:26 AM (qH6FZ)

58 Good morning, all! And Merry Christmas! The Daughter Unit and I start making Christmas fudge for all the neighbors today.
Also - just now done with the final draft of the WWII novel, which still has no better name than "My Dear Cousin - A Novel in V-Mail Letters". Any suggestions? I've posted occasional excerpts on my blog and FB as I write them, and the hard-core fans are looking forward to it, but they haven't come up with any better suggestions. Can the Horde help?

Posted by: Sgt. Mom at December 20, 2020 09:26 AM (xnmPy)

59 Thanks JT.

Book Thread First! is the classiest First!.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Iron Fist in Velvet Glove in Iron Gauntlet Clutching an Iron Mace at December 20, 2020 09:26 AM (Dc2NZ)

60
From the Etomology of Frank Sinatra's Name:

Frank - a hot dog or weiner

Sin - a immoral act or transgression against divine law

At - toward

Ra - the Egyptian Sun God.

Thus, Frank Sinatra literally means -

A wiener sin against Ra.

Historians believe that "wiener sin" was that he bukkaked the Egyptian Sun God.

And now you know the rest of the story.

Posted by: naturalfake, Frustrated Paul Harvey Wannabe at December 20, 2020 09:26 AM (dWwl8)

61 All I know about Frank is he helped to stop Nixon in WV and later supported Reagan.
Posted by: Quint

How did he do that ?

By singing "I've Got Coal Under My Skin " ?

Posted by: JT at December 20, 2020 09:26 AM (arJlL)

62 Speaking about Rosenbergs and American left cooperation with Russian, read book by former head of NKVD assassinations and espionage department Pavel Sudoplatov "Special Tasks".
From Amazon:
According to KGB archives, Pavel Sudoplatov directed the secretive Administration for Special Tasks. This department was responsible for kidnapping, assassination, sabotage, and guerrilla warfare during World War II, it also set up illegal networks in the United States and Western Europe, and, most crucially, carried out atomic espionage in the United States, Great Britain, and Canada. Sudoplatov served the KGB for over fifty years, at one point controlling more than twenty thousand guerrillas, moles, and spies.

Posted by: redmonkey at December 20, 2020 09:26 AM (6lGQ+)

63 Solzhenitsyn's focus on morality over legality in his critique of the West's response to communism (at that time he meant the USSR) is interesting to me as it played out bigger with the CCP. While corporations were eager to profit from the USSR, there were roadblocks to that. There are far fewer roadblocks to selling out your country to China, and we allow the CCP to come here to study, work, and steal. I guess the old Soviets were less willing to grease the palms of the politicians.

Posted by: CN at December 20, 2020 09:27 AM (ONvIw)

64 I finally finished Simon Schama's Landscape and Memory; it was well written quirky history but you could tell some things interested him more than others: Lithuanian Jewish lumberjacks, whitebait fries, the guy carving Mount Rushmore and the woman who kept pestering him for Susan B Anthony to be included. The last quirky guy he talked about was Claude Francois Denecourt, a wounded soldier of Napoleon who was pretty aimless after the war and wandered a lot in the forest of Fountainbleu, eventually being hired to map out every bit of it and make note of trails for people to hike on. He was really enthusiastic about that and began not only doing that but enhancing things like caves along the way to make them more interesting. He was in the same section where the designers of Central Park and Thoreau were mentioned and comes off more interesting than the better known personalities. And that's how the whole book is, some things are more interesting than others. It's well written and extremely well illustrated and I'm glad I finally (it's been in my bookshelf since 1995) read it after starting it once and putting it aside for later.

Posted by: Captain Hate at December 20, 2020 09:27 AM (y7DUB)

65 10 Scientifiction -- isn't that what Hugo Gernsback called SF?

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Iron Fist in Velvet Glove in Iron Gauntlet Clutching an Iron Mace at December 20, 2020 09:06 AM (Dc2NZ)

You could be right. The only other place where I've seen that word is in essays of C.S. Lewis. I was all, like, "'scientifiction'? What is that word supposed to-- oh, he means science fiction."

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Social Distancing Professional at December 20, 2020 09:28 AM (y9Iop)

66 My husband and I are also working our way through the Nero Wolfe Mysteries series - maybe I read the same post from Wolfus Aurelius that you did! An interesting bit of trivia: the actor who plays Archie Goodwin, Timothy Hutton, is the son of Jim Hutton, who played Ellery Queen in the TV mystery series of the same name.

Posted by: Dr. Mabuse at December 20, 2020 09:29 AM (ZzfrF)

67 I am working thru Heinlein even if it kills me.
Posted by: rhennigantx

life's too short and SiaSL is overrated, imo

Posted by: vmom Trump Won! at December 20, 2020 09:29 AM (nUhF0)

68 Speaking of Solzhenitsyn, I sit here in Vermont (his exile home). We were hit with 40 inches of snow the other day. So I'm looking through my kindle TBR stuff and happily so!

Posted by: Huck Follywood, Hey! You can't do that here! at December 20, 2020 09:29 AM (Ipasj)

69 All I know about Frank is he helped to stop Nixon in WV and later supported Reagan.

Posted by: Quint

How did he do that ?

By singing "I've Got Coal Under My Skin " ?

Posted by: JT at December 20, 2020 09:26 AM (arJlL)
it was mentioned in a movie so it has to be true. He loved to be the political in guy and switched to the Repubs later.

Posted by: Quint at December 20, 2020 09:30 AM (kfMBQ)

70 I recognized Sinatra!
*pats self on bsck*

Posted by: vmom Trump Won! at December 20, 2020 09:30 AM (nUhF0)

71 "He's was quite the playboy and quite the sex symbol during his heyday. I personally never did quite see it."
---

Somebody asked Eva Gardner what she saw in the skinny 120-pound Frank.

“Well, there’s only 10 pounds of Frank but there’s 110 pounds of cock.”

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Iron Fist in Velvet Glove in Iron Gauntlet Clutching an Iron Mace at December 20, 2020 09:30 AM (Dc2NZ)

72 Competition. Science has proved that women are attracted to men that other women are attracted to. Hence the old trick of a guy with a pretty "just friends" girl acting like she's into him so other women will take notice. A friend of mine got divorced but kept wearing the ring for a while because it was like catnip.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at December 20, 2020 09:25 AM (cfSRQ)

Everybody's experienced those times when it seems like you can't get a girlfriend for love or money, but -

the minute you do get a girlfriend, the gals are all over you.

Weird science!

Posted by: naturalfake at December 20, 2020 09:31 AM (dWwl8)

73 Skibo Castle Library has a card catalogue! impressive

Posted by: vmom Trump Won! at December 20, 2020 09:31 AM (nUhF0)

74 RE: Solzhenitsyn:

At this historical remove, a lot of Russian critics, so I've read, regard Varlam Shalamov's "Kolyma Tales" as the best literature to come out of the Gulags. I read some of it. It's a very long book. I quit because it was too depressing. I would describe Kolyma Tales as a group of short stories-- several hundred of them-- more than a novel.

Posted by: mnw at December 20, 2020 09:31 AM (Cssks)

75 Greany's "Red Metal" - aren't there two sequals in the works? Titles and co-authors?

Posted by: Rage Stroked but getting the banned back together at December 20, 2020 09:31 AM (4Peok)

76 32- Deaf people mad as Deaf guy in the Stand is played by an actor with hearing. Cant wait till we have real live people blown to bits for war movies.
Posted by: rhennigantx at December 20, 2020 09:15 AM

Just wondering if Jamie Foxx will have to give back his Oscar for "Ray". Are these outrages retroactive or just future-forward?

Posted by: Moonbeam at December 20, 2020 09:32 AM (qe5CM)

77 Finally, a library I can mentally snuggle into and read. So many university libraries are pretty and I'd like to walk through, but I can't imagine reading an entire book at one sitting there. Since I regularly read that way, comfy chairs are required.

And I get to feel all awesome because I knew that was where the expression "pull out all the stops" came from. My grandmother played and taught organ, and I remember pulling on things like that while she was playing and asking her all sorts of childlike questions. Yes, she was quite the patient soul, why do you ask?

I'm reading The Latin Mass Explained by Msgr. George J. Moorman this week. So far, it's excellent, but I've been going slowly to make sure I understand it.

Posted by: Catherine at December 20, 2020 09:32 AM (KzgGT)

78 Well, if you want the third "book"/film in the
trilogy, check out Heart of Darkness, A Filmmaker's Apocalypse. It was a
documentary about making the film. I believe Coppola's wife did it. It
was really well done.

Posted by: Quint at December 20, 2020 09:22 AM (kfMBQ)

---
I've seen it. It's clear that Coppola went nuts during the filming, as did Sheen (whose freak-out was captured on film and used - that isn't fake blood when he hits the mirror).

Re-watching the film it's clear that Coppola wasn't sure if he was doing an adaptation or not. It starts well, uses a lot of the lines to emphasize the parallels, but then veers into War Movie Tropes which get downright stupid.

Specifically, the scene where Fishburne gets killed. We're supposed to believe that Philips is a hard-ass and seasoned veteran, but here he is, cruising into unknown territory like he's on a pleasure cruise with no one scanning the shore or even taking cover in a gun mount.

It reminds me of the asinine stupidity of "Saving Private Ryan" where the allegedly hardened veterans decided to take a siesta and listen to music rather than digging in and setting up defenses.

Unlike Private Ryan, Apocalypse does have a saving grace: Robert Duvall's Lt. Col. Kilgore. That whole sequence is terrific. Love the choppers rolling in with Ride of the Valkyries blaring. It basically saves the movie.

Private Ryan, by contrast is irredeemable schlock crap.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at December 20, 2020 09:32 AM (cfSRQ)

79 Read international bestseller by Sweden Fredric Backman "Anxious People". This book was just 5 votes away from best fiction book on Goodreads. Book is funny and serious at the same time.
From amazon:
a charming, poignant novel about a crime that never took place, a would-be bank robber who disappears into thin air, and eight extremely anxious strangers who find they have more in common than they ever imagined.

Posted by: redmonkey at December 20, 2020 09:32 AM (6lGQ+)

80 I think that little girl is reading the Bible. Maybe the Christmas narrative.

Posted by: grammie winger at December 20, 2020 09:33 AM (gm3d+)

81 Do you ever go back and read books you enjoyed as a kid/teen?

I tried that and couldn't find the same magic in them I once did.

King's The Stand was a great example.

Posted by: AlaBAMA at December 20, 2020 09:09 AM (i9ZF7)

Yeah, I went back and read some and discovered that Anne McCaffery's teenagers on Pern were incredibly whiny and angsty. Guess I didn't notice whining in Dragonsong et al. as a teenager for the same reason fish don't notice water.

On the other hand Andre Norton's books hold up really well. Even when the science part of the science fiction is now completely implausible, they're still good reads. I do occasionally find myself going "Wait... that only seems cliche because there's been mumble decades of other writers using that same idea and expanding on it. She wasn't trite and cliche when she wrote it..."
Jack Vance still makes me feel like I need to read with Tales of a Dying Earth in one hand, and a dictionary in the other.
As for Heinlein, at this point the English language and culture has drifted just enough from his base assumption that it's very difficult to get into the story and stay suspended in it... but on the other hand, it's interesting to go back and re-read his books, and realize that he had a lot more political intrigue and other plots snuck in the juveniles I never noticed as a kid reading for adventure.

Still prefer Clark to Podkayne, though. Poor Clark, stuck with his sister on an interplanetary adventure!

Posted by: Not From Around Here at December 20, 2020 09:33 AM (wrzAm)

82 All I know about Frank is he helped to stop Nixon in WV and later supported Reagan.
Posted by: Quint at December 20, 2020 09:24 AM (kfMBQ)

Wasn't Frank extremely dismissive of JFK's cooch obsession and called him Chickie Boy?

Posted by: Captain Hate at December 20, 2020 09:34 AM (y7DUB)

83 I read where they are making a Buck Rogers movie. I'm sure it will not be like the older ones. Even the last one, which I liked. Probably all woke, and will BR be a black gay guy?

Posted by: Colin at December 20, 2020 09:35 AM (44Osg)

84 it was mentioned in a movie so it has to be true. He loved to be the political in guy and switched to the Repubs later.
Posted by: Quint at December 20, 2020 09:30 AM (kfMBQ)

He supported JFK, but was angry when Kennedy stayed at Crosby's home instead of his, especially as Crosby was a Republican.

Posted by: CN at December 20, 2020 09:35 AM (ONvIw)

85 Somebody asked Eva Gardner what she saw in the skinny 120-pound Frank.

psst......its AVA

Posted by: JT at December 20, 2020 09:36 AM (arJlL)

86 83 I read where they are making a Buck Rogers movie. I'm sure it will not be like the older ones. Even the last one, which I liked. Probably all woke, and will BR be a black gay guy?
Posted by: Colin at December 20, 2020 09:35 AM (44Osg)
---

Isn't it all Mandingo-y to call a black Buck "Buck"?

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Iron Fist in Velvet Glove in Iron Gauntlet Clutching an Iron Mace at December 20, 2020 09:36 AM (Dc2NZ)

87 Ava! Sorry!

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Iron Fist in Velvet Glove in Iron Gauntlet Clutching an Iron Mace at December 20, 2020 09:36 AM (Dc2NZ)

88 Hiya Grammie !

Merry Christmas !

Posted by: JT at December 20, 2020 09:37 AM (arJlL)

89 Frank was packing heat.......

Posted by: Hairyback Guy at December 20, 2020 09:37 AM (R/m4+)

90 RIP John le Carre at 89. He was the best espionage novelist ever. Yes, he turned into a lefty douche after 9/11, and again after Brexit/Trump, but he wrote some amazing work before that and even two good books after.

Posted by: cool breeze at December 20, 2020 09:37 AM (UGKMd)

91 The who dis is Frank Sinatra, reading "How to pick up chicks"
Posted by: JT at December 20, 2020 09:07 AM (arJlL)

Umm... he's proof-reading -- I've always heard that the Chairman of the Board was a ladies man. The bookshelves in the background actually looks like a "reader's library" rather than a "decorator's library." Books laid out in a jumbled, but organized, mess instead of matching covers installed by the linear foot.

Posted by: Retired Buckeye Cop is now an engineer at December 20, 2020 09:37 AM (pJWtt)

92 18
Do you ever go back and read books you enjoyed as a kid/teen?

I tried that and couldn't find the same magic in them I once did.

King's The Stand was a great example.

Posted by: AlaBAMA at December 20, 2020 09:09 AM (i9ZF7)

---
Yes, but I never read YA books - I went from Dr. Suess to Churchill and Tolkien.

Both have held up nicely.

I did notice Tom Clancy's writing style is worse than I remembered and that The Hunt for Red October was saved by its relentless action. The writing in it is terrible.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at December 20, 2020 09:38 AM (cfSRQ)

93 Just wondering if Jamie Foxx will have to give back his Oscar for "Ray". Are these outrages retroactive or just future-forward?

Posted by: Moonbeam at December 20, 2020 09:32 AM (qe5CM)

See Lincoln HS renamed
See R E Lee statues removed

Hey just thinking should we burn down Beauvoir??

Posted by: rhennigantx at December 20, 2020 09:39 AM (5QBw6)

94 I've seen it. It's clear that Coppola went nuts during the filming, as did Sheen (whose freak-out was captured on film and used - that isn't fake blood when he hits the mirror).

Having Brando show up not having looked at the script didn't help either. Some of the pressers were hilarious. Coppola once mentioned that Brando was extremely sensitive about his weight only to be challenged by asking why he was eating a gallon of ice cream at a sitting.

Posted by: Captain Hate at December 20, 2020 09:39 AM (y7DUB)

95 He supported JFK, but was angry when Kennedy stayed at Crosby's home instead of his, especially as Crosby was a Republican.
Posted by: CN

Frank had made extensive renovations to his home in anticipation of JFK's visit.

Posted by: JT at December 20, 2020 09:39 AM (arJlL)

96
Frank had made extensive renovations to his home in anticipation of JFK's visit.
Posted by: JT at December 20, 2020 09:39 AM (arJlL)

Hot and Cold running interns

Posted by: rhennigantx at December 20, 2020 09:40 AM (5QBw6)

97 Can the Horde help?
Posted by: Sgt. Mom at December 20, 2020 09:26 AM (xnmPy)

use the word "Dispatches" somewhere in the title?

Posted by: vmom Trump Won! at December 20, 2020 09:41 AM (nUhF0)

98 My next history read will be E.R. Chamberlin's "The Bad Popes". I read it eons ago, and remember being disappointed that it wasn't salacious enough for my tastes. Perhaps I've matured since then.

Naaahhh...

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Iron Fist in Velvet Glove in Iron Gauntlet Clutching an Iron Mace at December 20, 2020 09:41 AM (Dc2NZ)

99 Frank had made extensive renovations to his home in anticipation of JFK's visit.
Posted by: JT at December 20, 2020 09:39 AM (arJlL)

Hot and Cold running interns
Posted by: rhennigantx

And Pissboys.

Posted by: JT at December 20, 2020 09:41 AM (arJlL)

100 Yeah, Pern for sure has not aged well. McCaffrey's thing for rape in particular is quite disturbing.

I saw a rec for a fanfic series called "Dragonchoice" that billed it as the definitive Pern fic. I thought that was surely overselling things a bit, but it was not. It's a trilogy and it's brilliant. Much better than most of McCaffrey's own books. You should be able to find the site to download the ebooks by searching the title.

Posted by: Mrs. Peel at December 20, 2020 09:42 AM (rWZ8Y)

101 Hey! I knew the background of "pulling out all the stops." It probably is due to never going to a church WITHOUT an organ, and having a MIL that teaches organ.

Posted by: pookysgirl, sing we the song of Emanuel at December 20, 2020 09:43 AM (9j3yZ)

102 I'm currently doing my first reread of LotR in a while. Tolkien is still brilliant, and I still love him. I can't imagine ever not loving The Hobbit and LotR.

Posted by: Mrs. Peel at December 20, 2020 09:44 AM (rWZ8Y)

103 RE: Solzhenitsyn:

At this historical remove, a lot of Russian critics, so I've read, regard Varlam Shalamov's "Kolyma Tales" as the best literature to come out of the Gulags. I read some of it. It's a very long book. I quit because it was too depressing. I would describe Kolyma Tales as a group of short stories-- several hundred of them-- more than a novel.
Posted by: mnw at December 20, 2020 09:31 AM (Cssks)

Shalamov's "Kolyma Tales" is a great book as is "Graphite".

I'm guessing critics like the fact that most of the "Kolyma Tales" are short, sharp, punches in the nose and easy bite-size chunks of Gulag horror.

Solzhenitsyn wants you to experience the life so to speak.

I think for that reason "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" is probably his best novel. Though the "The Cancer Ward" as well as the "The First Circle" are awfully good as well.

Posted by: naturalfake at December 20, 2020 09:45 AM (dWwl8)

104 At this historical remove, a lot of Russian critics, so I've read, regard Varlam Shalamov's "Kolyma Tales" as the best literature to come out of the Gulags. I read some of it. It's a very long book. I quit because it was too depressing. I would describe Kolyma Tales as a group of short stories-- several hundred of them-- more than a novel.
Posted by: mnw at December 20, 2020 09:31 AM (Cssks)

I've had that on my to read list for a while with the sheer length of it having kept me from getting to it.

Posted by: Captain Hate at December 20, 2020 09:46 AM (y7DUB)

105 Howdy Horde!I'm reading Razorfist's The Long Moonlight. It's a fantasy with a very noir vibe. The people/place names are pronounceable.

Posted by: Beatgirl at December 20, 2020 09:46 AM (a1s18)

106 Having Brando show up not having looked at the
script didn't help either. Some of the pressers were hilarious.
Coppola once mentioned that Brando was extremely sensitive about his
weight only to be challenged by asking why he was eating a gallon of ice
cream at a sitting.

Posted by: Captain Hate at December 20, 2020 09:39 AM (y7DUB)

---
Yes, and here again Coppola screwed up.

Instead of trying to make Brando thin, he could have conveyed the exact same effect by having him appear bloated - gorged on his conquests.

The key point was Kurtz was dying, visibly in decay.

I've long imagined a better ending for the film. In my version, only Lance dies, because he (like the helmsman) is unserious about the trip.

Then they arrive, and see Kurtz. In the book he comes back to the boat, but a PBR isn't big enough for a death scene, so Willard and Clean go ashore while the Chief and Chef take shifts manning the forward .50.

When Kurtz dies, Willard comes back and says nothing. Chief then asks Clean what happened and he answers: "Mistah Kurtz, he dead."

They motor away and B-52 obliterate the site.

Final scene: Willard explaining that Kurtz was perfectly sane and all the stories were untrue. He gets a call from Kurtz's wife who asks what his last words were and he lies and says "your name."

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at December 20, 2020 09:46 AM (cfSRQ)

107 Some of the books I read as a kid held up nicely. Others not so much. I am glad to see some of the authors making a bit of a comeback (Goudge, Nesbit), but I also liked the Swallows and Amazons books as a kid.

Posted by: CN at December 20, 2020 09:47 AM (ONvIw)

108 I'm looking for a series of books my 4th grade teacher read to us back in the 60s - Viking's Dawn, The Road to Miklagard, and Viking's Sunset, by Henry Treece. I vaguely remember they were about a boy who goes to sea with the Vikings in a ship called the Nameless. They'll be a good test of whether one can still enjoy books from one's youth. I still enjoy the Narnia books, though I haven't read them for some years.

Posted by: Dr. Mabuse at December 20, 2020 09:47 AM (ZzfrF)

109 Unlike Private Ryan, Apocalypse does have a saving
grace: Robert Duvall's Lt. Col. Kilgore. That whole sequence is
terrific. Love the choppers rolling in with Ride of the Valkyries
blaring. It basically saves the movie.

Private Ryan, by contrast is irredeemable schlock crap.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at December 20, 2020 09:32 AM (cfSRQ)

I ran into a bunch of those Air Cav guys at Gettysburg. They were having a convention and they all had their cavalry slouches. As my dad was a Vietnam vet, it was a bit melancholy how old these guys were.

I liked Apocalypse Now. I saw it as a piece of film art and nothing more. A reporters asked Coppola if the movie was really about Vietnam. He answered, that it "was Vietnam". Really that was the worst answer ever. In no way was that movie the embodiment of Vietnam. It was what it was, a story set during the war with some realities sprinkled in. Why claim something that is not true, particularly if you are Cali movie director? Still it was the right answer at the time if you are promoting a film. The people would believe anything at that point. If The Deer Hunter was Vietnam, then why not Apocalypse Now?
I am with you on Saving Private Ryan. I know many will get angry as it is a beloved movie. The first 20 minutes of that film were mesmerizing and saddening. It was important to show that really as WW2 had become so saccharine over the years. But I really hated what they did with the translator. It was unnecessary and took away from the point of the film. I am sure some say it represented x, y. or z, but really it was Hollyweird not allowing the movie to be about pure sacrifice. Sure some people were unable to deal with the horror, but the portrayal imo was over the top and detracted from the film.

I remember watching Platoon with my dad.. I was a kid and thought it was cool. We got into an argument after the film and I still remember it. I was this gung ho kid but he told me in no uncertain terms, "I was there". That stung as I was just a kid. But some wounds are deep. He new what he experienced and Hollywood did not do it right until at least We Were Soldiers. Hollywood to this day has way more power over historical memory than vets and real historians combined. At some point the BS became reality. And if you argue the point, you are the one out of step.

Posted by: Quint at December 20, 2020 09:47 AM (kfMBQ)

110 Oh, if you want the Nazi prison camp version of "Kolyma Tales".

Check out -

"This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen" by Tadeusz Borowski.

It's excellent as well.

Posted by: naturalfake at December 20, 2020 09:47 AM (dWwl8)

111 NYT Orginal story

The virus is spreading despite strict stay at home order in Cal

to this new headline

As California I.C.U.s fill up, the dead are counted by the hour.

Bring out your dead, by 0900 to be counted in the 1000 report.

Posted by: rhennigantx at December 20, 2020 09:48 AM (5QBw6)

112 Alger Hiss was in the Venona papers. Of course the lying assholes
writing in The Nation wanted to make people believe the rat bastard was
framed.

Posted by: Captain Hate at December 20, 2020 09:09 AM (y7DUB)

The left lies. They lie all the time. They lie like they breath. All the left does is lie.

Posted by: TheQuietMan at December 20, 2020 09:49 AM (DSbKx)

113 Someone mentioned a book about the NKVD under Stalin.

I read a really good little autobiography called "Deep Undercover," by Jack Barsky-- a real Soviet agent who worked undercover in the U.S. for about 10 years during the Regan.Bush 41 years.

Quite an interesting contrast to the cable series "The Americans." I gave Barsky's book to a friend who was a big fan of the series. It amused me to think of introducing him to a REAL 'American.'

Posted by: mnw at December 20, 2020 09:49 AM (Cssks)

114 I don't remember the Pern stories being rapey!

I had the paperbacks with the beautiful, complex illustrations by Elzabeth Malczynski.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Iron Fist in Velvet Glove in Iron Gauntlet Clutching an Iron Mace at December 20, 2020 09:50 AM (Dc2NZ)

115 I just finished the newest Jack Reacher novel, The Sentinel.
Timely subject matter.

Someone mentioned Heart of Darkness in the thread. I had to read it 3 times for class; once in an AP class in high school and twice as an undergrad.

But, I also got to read A Clockwork Orange in that same high school class. Looking back on it, I'm surprised that the teacher got away with assigning it in rural Virginia in the early 70s.

Posted by: ChupaMe at December 20, 2020 09:50 AM (pgTr8)

116 Unlike Private Ryan, Apocalypse does have a saving

grace: Robert Duvall's Lt. Col. Kilgore. That whole sequence is

terrific. Love the choppers rolling in with Ride of the Valkyries

blaring. It basically saves the movie.

Private Ryan, by contrast is irredeemable schlock crap.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at December 20, 2020 09:32 AM (cfSRQ)

my personal opinion is Duvall doesn't think that much about that role. Sure he was great at portraying an officer. "He was even better in The Great Santini. But Duvall had no control over what Kilgore said and did. He was an actor. Not saying Kilgore wasn't a great role. But my guess is Duvall would list many roles above it. That is just my opinion.

Posted by: Quint at December 20, 2020 09:50 AM (kfMBQ)

117 Solzhenitsyn wants you to experience the life so to speak.

I think for that reason "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" is probably his best novel. Though the "The Cancer Ward" as well as the "The First Circle" are awfully good as well.

Posted by: naturalfake at December 20, 2020 09:45 AM (dWwl

I'm a fan. I think he was rather shoved aside to make room for the nation's current fascination with communism.

Posted by: CN at December 20, 2020 09:51 AM (ONvIw)

118 it was mentioned in a movie so it has to be true. He loved to be the political in guy and switched to the Repubs later.

Posted by: Quint at December 20, 2020 09:30 AM (kfMBQ)

He supported JFK, but was angry when Kennedy stayed at Crosby's home instead of his, especially as Crosby was a Republican.

Posted by: CN at December 20, 2020 09:35 AM (ONvIw)

The Dems wanted his fund raisers and money but didn't want to really be associated with them. He became a Republican it's believed because Reagan, when he was governor, stuck up for him publicly. I think it was in 1970 and Frank slowly started to shift politically.

Posted by: TheQuietMan at December 20, 2020 09:52 AM (DSbKx)

119 Dean Martin?

Posted by: Eeyore at December 20, 2020 09:53 AM (7X3UV)

120 Huh, thanks for clarifying an obscure reference in an O. Henry story to "the Skibo golf links".

Only at the HQ !

(and not Mosselprom !)

Posted by: sock_rat_eez, we are being gaslighted 24/365 TRUMP WON! at December 20, 2020 09:54 AM (pmEbq)

121
The Dems wanted his fund raisers and money but didn't want to really be associated with them. He became a Republican it's believed because Reagan, when he was governor, stuck up for him publicly. I think it was in 1970 and Frank slowly started to shift politically.
Posted by: TheQuietMan at December 20, 2020 09:52 AM (DSbKx)

I remember Frank clapping his ass off during Reagan's speech during the 1980 convention.

Posted by: CN at December 20, 2020 09:54 AM (ONvIw)

122 Dean Martin > Frank Sinatra

Posted by: Beatgirl at December 20, 2020 09:54 AM (a1s18)

123 Dean Martin?
Posted by: Eeyore at December 20, 2020 09:53 AM (7X3UV)

Dean Martin was packing heat too......

Posted by: Hairyback Guy at December 20, 2020 09:55 AM (R/m4+)

124 Regarding actors' autobiographies, "Blessings in Disguise" by Alec Guinness is very good. In part he talks about his conversion to Catholicism after being an athiest for years. I remember when he showed up on "Late Night with David Letterman" to plug the book. He didn't quite seem to know what he was doing there - it was right after Dave threw a bowl of eggs into an industrial fan to see what would happen.

Posted by: Dr Alice at December 20, 2020 09:56 AM (g6mG9)

125 Private Ryan, by contrast is irredeemable schlock crap.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at December 20, 2020 09:32 AM (cfSRQ)

100% agree. The acting was especially bad.

Posted by: TheQuietMan at December 20, 2020 09:56 AM (DSbKx)

126 Your note about "pulling out all the stops" reminded me of the time that I served as stop puller for our church organist when he played a recital at Chicago's Holy Name Cathedral. The organ there is a Flentrop tracker: it's unevenly tempered, which is perfect for baroque music, and purely mechanical, with no assistance from pistons or other means of programming the pulling of stops. Given the size of the organ and the number of stops, many of which are not within reach of the organist, the organist needs an assistant to help pull stops. (At least the instrument has an electric compressor, rather than having a couple of kids pump the bellows!) Stop pulling was a difficult job because I had to read the score over the organist's shoulder, and pull out or push in exactly the right set of stops at exactly the right moment in each piece. It was an interesting experience, but that strikes me as taking low tech just a little too far.

Posted by: Nemo (formerly "Brown Line" but I don't live in Chicago any more) at December 20, 2020 09:56 AM (S6ArX)

127 Dean Martin was packing heat too......
Posted by: Hairyback Guy at December 20, 2020 09:55 AM (R/m4+)

On a cold cold night in Chile it got hot!

Posted by: rhennigantx at December 20, 2020 09:56 AM (5QBw6)

128 126 Your note about "pulling out all the stops" reminded me of the time that I served as stop puller for our church organist when he played a recital at Chicago's Holy Name Cathedral. The organ there is a Flentrop tracker: it's unevenly tempered, which is perfect for baroque music, and purely mechanical, with no assistance from pistons or other means of programming the pulling of stops. Given the size of the organ and the number of stops, many of which are not within reach of the organist, the organist needs an assistant to help pull stops. (At least the instrument has an electric compressor, rather than having a couple of kids pump the bellows!) Stop pulling was a difficult job because I had to read the score over the organist's shoulder, and pull out or push in exactly the right set of stops at exactly the right moment in each piece. It was an interesting experience, but that strikes me as taking low tech just a little too far.
Posted by: Nemo (formerly "Brown Line" but I don't live in Chicago any more) at December 20, 2020 09:56 AM (S6ArX)

Whats a stop puller?

25 bux same as downtown

Posted by: rhennigantx at December 20, 2020 09:57 AM (5QBw6)

129 "This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen" by Tadeusz Borowski.

It's excellent as well.
Posted by: naturalfake at December 20, 2020 09:47 AM (dWwl

Incredible book that I've read twice. I got it as part of a boxed set of four books from Penguin when their "Writers from the Other Europe" series came out (the others were by Kundera, Bruno Schulz, and Danilo Kis's A Tomb for Boris Davidovich, likewise gripping in a unique way). Czeslaw Milosz talks about Borowski in The Captive Mind, a very tragic life story.

Posted by: Captain Hate at December 20, 2020 09:57 AM (y7DUB)

130 having a MIL that teaches organ.

Go on......

Posted by: JT at December 20, 2020 09:57 AM (arJlL)

131 101 Hey! I knew the background of "pulling out all the stops." It probably is due to never going to a church WITHOUT an organ, and having a MIL that teaches organ.
Posted by: pookysgirl, sing we the song of Emanuel at December 20, 2020 09:43 AM (9j3yZ)

Any idea how to find a teacher these days? My priest can play beautifully, but doesn't think he could teach it. I have a boy who is thoroughly gifted at the piano, and genetics would indicate he might well be seriously gifted with the organ too, but I can't find a teacher in NW MO.

Posted by: Catherine at December 20, 2020 09:58 AM (KzgGT)

132 naturalfake

I read appx 25 of the Kolyma Tales. I believe that KT conveys the experience of life in the camps. I think as much as Ivan Denisovich, which I thought was easier reading.

Posted by: mnw at December 20, 2020 09:58 AM (Cssks)

133 Dean Martin?

Posted by: Eeyore at December 20, 2020 09:53 AM (7X3UV)

Perry Como.

Posted by: TheQuietMan at December 20, 2020 09:58 AM (DSbKx)

134 Dean Martin > Frank Sinatra

Posted by: Beatgirl at December 20, 2020 09:54 AM (a1s1

Dean was the epitome of cool. He was a better singer too.

Posted by: Quint at December 20, 2020 09:58 AM (kfMBQ)

135 I made a comment on a thread earlier, about the difference between now and then, regard Hoover's FBI. What you had then was Hoover's agency, first, last, and always. It was not really into the other parts of the government.

And that's a common pattern in government. Navy/Army conflicts are a lot more than just a football game, and have existed basically forever in other countries too. What is normal is, I think, a kind of informal separation of powers.

What is NOT nearly so normal is what we get today, "interagency consensus" as something strong and government-wide.

And I'm not crazy about that.

Posted by: Eeyore at December 20, 2020 09:58 AM (7X3UV)

136 I bought a few extra workbooks to help keep the grandsons busy during the (very welcome) break. They both love doing these things and they are better than the dreadful assignments given by the school.

Posted by: CN at December 20, 2020 09:58 AM (ONvIw)

137 Dean Martin?

Posted by: Eeyore at December 20, 2020 09:53 AM (7X3UV)

Perry Como.

Posted by: TheQuietMan at December 20, 2020 09:58 AM (DSbKx)

clean up on 133

Posted by: Quint at December 20, 2020 09:59 AM (kfMBQ)

138
Dean Martin?

Posted by: Eeyore at December 20, 2020 09:53 AM

Perry Como.

Posted by: TheQuietMan at December 20, 2020 09:58 AM

Paul Anka

Posted by: AltonJackson at December 20, 2020 09:59 AM (iJbiu)

139 just kidding my man

Posted by: Quint at December 20, 2020 10:00 AM (kfMBQ)

140 Sinatra was the best of the lot. I liked Martin, but could never stand Tony Bennett.

Posted by: CN at December 20, 2020 10:00 AM (ONvIw)

141 Speaking of Dean Martin...

I had a real memory rush from this song popping up on iTunes.

I remembered hearing it on the radio when I was but a wee tad.

From Dena Martin's country album, of all things-

"Houston"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_d6R_AQwNw

His weird, slurring, lazy vocalizing really works on this one.

Posted by: naturalfake at December 20, 2020 10:00 AM (dWwl8)

142 On the reading front:

1) The Imitation of Christ by Thomas a' Kempis (a 15th C. monk). Famous but rather disjointed series of Christian meditations. I read the entire work, but will probably get more out of it by a targeted re-reading of specific sections. This particular translation was contained in the Modern Library's anthology, The Consolation of Philosophy first published in 1943.

The dolt that found Who Moved the Stone? hard-going will really have difficulty with this version. The archaic spelling and words are kept (with occasional translation), so it was a bit of a difficult read even for me. One thing that perplexed me for a while was the use of the term "ij" -- I finally figured out that it was an archaic version of "ii" (i.e, 2).

2) Pictures From a Mediaeval Bible with commentary by James Strachan. The book reproduces the woodcuts from the two editions of the Cologne Bible (1478 and 1480). The production values are high: nice paper and the woodcuts are actually re-engraved for printing rather than photocopies. The commentary is brief but informative and the editor preferred to let the pictures do the talking. The original engraver had a bit of a sense of humor, such as the cat on the deck-railing of Noee's (Noah's) Arch looking at the birds perched on the roof and another cat chasing a rat. Highly recommended for a peek into how the 15th C. Church used/interpreted the Bible. Rating = 4.9/5 (my only complaint is that the book is a smallish octavo and I would have liked a bigger format)

Posted by: Retired Buckeye Cop is now an engineer at December 20, 2020 10:01 AM (pJWtt)

143 Dean was the epitome of cool. He was a better singer too.

Posted by: Quint

bit of trivia: Lou Costello paid for Dino's nose job

Posted by: Beatgirl at December 20, 2020 10:01 AM (a1s18)

144 Dean Martin > Frank Sinatra

Posted by: Beatgirl at December 20, 2020 09:54 AM (a1s1

Dean was the epitome of cool. He was a better singer too.
Posted by: Quint

Concur, Bigly !

Hiya Beatgirl !

Posted by: JT at December 20, 2020 10:02 AM (arJlL)

145 38 Just this morning read an article with a subhead declaring that Europe and Britain have just days to "thrash" out a trade deal.
The correct word is "thresh" but, in a highly educated and sophisticated technocratic information-based cosmopolitan society in which nobody knows where food comes from, I guess "thrash" will have to do.
Posted by: jbspry at December 20, 2020 09:19 AM (ATe9j)
__________

Just accept that they know much more than you do, and understand it better.

Posted by: Eeyore at December 20, 2020 10:03 AM (7X3UV)

146 Posted by: Catherine at December 20, 2020 09:58 AM (KzgGT)

There's a national competition every year....those folks got taught somewhere.

Posted by: BignJames at December 20, 2020 10:03 AM (AwYPR)

147 Howdy JT !

Posted by: Beatgirl at December 20, 2020 10:03 AM (a1s18)

148
Nice library !

*Grabs copy of Quentin Durward , drops self on plush divan, reads 3 pages, falls asleep...

Posted by: runner at December 20, 2020 10:04 AM (zr5Kq)

149
I made a comment on a thread earlier, about the difference between now
and then, regard Hoover's FBI. What you had then was Hoover's agency,
first, last, and always. It was not really into the other parts of the
government.

And that's a common pattern in government. Navy/Army conflicts are a
lot more than just a football game, and have existed basically forever
in other countries too. What is normal is, I think, a kind of informal
separation of powers.

What is NOT nearly so normal is what we get today, "interagency consensus" as something strong and government-wide.

And I'm not crazy about that.

Posted by: Eeyore at December 20, 2020 09:58 AM (7X3UV)

inter service rivalry used to be hot and for real. They used to meet half way between Bragg and Lejeune and fight it out. It was so bad in the 80s that they blamed if for some real tactical problems in Grenada. Now we have the joint this and that. It is a different time. I am sure there are still rivalries but not like it used to be.

Posted by: Quint at December 20, 2020 10:04 AM (kfMBQ)

150 my personal opinion is Duvall doesn't think that
much about that role. Sure he was great at portraying an officer. "He
was even better in The Great Santini. But Duvall had no control over
what Kilgore said and did. He was an actor. Not saying Kilgore wasn't a
great role. But my guess is Duvall would list many roles above it. That
is just my opinion.

Posted by: Quint at December 20, 2020 09:50 AM (kfMBQ)

---
Actors often treasure weird or quirky roles, that's true.

IIRC, Duvall met the real Santini while filming the movie, and Col. Conroy, USMC (ret) highly approved of his performance.

Years later when he was making his own funeral arrangements, he liked to tell people that this was old hat because he'd been buried once before.

This is in Pat Conroy's final book, The Death of Santini and it's very interesting.

It's clear to me that he embellished his books more than he admitted and I found his mothers take particularlly telling: She said she couldn't have serious conversations with her son any more because they'd end up in his next book.

He was kind of a shit weasel in that regards, which is why his sister (whose mental health issues he shamelessly exploited in his writing) hated him.His father, on the other hand, took it all in stride and despite being villified as a wife-beating bastard in a novel and movie, never stopped loving his son and even did joint book signings where he outdrew Pat.

He always signed the inscription "the lovable Great Santini," and when the extended family turned on Pat he wrote a letter mailed to all of them defending his son and telling them to pipe down because ITS A NOVEL.

If you like Conroy, read the book.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at December 20, 2020 10:04 AM (cfSRQ)

151 Dr. Alice

Altho not in the same league as Gielgud or Guinness, the autobios of Ernest Borgnine & Shelly Winters are both very entertaining. Winters actually wrote TWO autobios. One was not enuf.

Both books have lots of funny stories.

Posted by: mnw at December 20, 2020 10:05 AM (Cssks)

152 I think for that reason "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" is probably his best novel. Though the "The Cancer Ward" as well as the "The First Circle" are awfully good as well.

Posted by: naturalfake at December 20, 2020 09:45 AM (dWwl

Mrs. Muse can't stop raving about 'Cancer Ward'. Says it's the best book she's ever read.

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Social Distancing Professional at December 20, 2020 10:05 AM (y9Iop)

153 Sinatra was the best of the lot. I liked Martin, but could never stand Tony Bennett.
Posted by: CN

On an SNL skit, Alec Baldwin played Tony Bennett and Tony Bennett played an impersonator name Phony Bennett.

Posted by: JT at December 20, 2020 10:05 AM (arJlL)

154 I'm here.

Watched the first 3 episodes of His Dark Materials through a free promotion on Xfinity. Liked it a lot so decided to read the books. The first is The Golden Compass and the second is The Subtle Knife which I just finished. The video tracks the first book almost perfectly and the characters are very well cast.
It reads like a YA book and I am enjoying the escapism. Pullman creates an interesting parallel universe and one can "suspend disbelief" and enjoy it. Remember, YA book. The books are not stand alone as the second book picks up where the first left off and now waiting for the library to send me the third so I can find out what happens next.

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at December 20, 2020 10:06 AM (sd8p8)

155 " ...
I would describe Kolyma Tales as a group of short stories-- several hundred of them-- more than a novel.

Posted by: mnw at December 20, 2020 09:31 AM (Cssks) "

Several hundred ?

the book I have has only about 30-ish short stories ... did I get some kind of Best of Shalamov collection by mistake ?

Posted by: sock_rat_eez, we are being gaslighted 24/365 TRUMP WON! at December 20, 2020 10:06 AM (pmEbq)

156 Europe and Britain have just days to "thrash" out a trade deal.

The correct word is "thresh" but, in a highly educated and
sophisticated technocratic information-based cosmopolitan society in
which nobody knows where food comes from, I guess "thrash" will have to
do.

I've always said "thrash" because my Mom always said "thrash". And she grew up on an Alberta wheat farm, so she definitely knew the other term, but this is just what everyone says.

Posted by: Dr. Mabuse at December 20, 2020 10:07 AM (ZzfrF)

157 Writing about Pat Conroy reminds me that there's another book similar to The Death of Santini, which is Fathers and Sons: A literary autobiography of the Waugh family.

It's by Alexander Waugh, Evelyn's grandson and it looks back at the family. Well-written, and it points out that Evelyn's older brother Alec was their father's clear favorite and generally more successful than Evelyn in terms of sales and fame.

And yet now he's a footnote.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at December 20, 2020 10:07 AM (cfSRQ)

158 1) Lovely library, but I really want to explore the greenhouse. Golf does not interest me.

2) 144 comments, and nobody has mentioned sideboob in the EE card. Disappointing.
3) I read The Rise of Athens: The Story of the World's Greatest Civilization, by Anthony Everitt. My knowledge of the Greek world has always been spotty, and this excellent history filled in lots of the gaps. Recommended. It was available for cheap from Hamilton books.

Posted by: pep at December 20, 2020 10:08 AM (v16oJ)

159 Thank you for the content and suggestions. Now to read the comments.

I am reading Plum Island by Nelson DeMille. I am only about 50% through. It was a suggestion of people here, and I am really enjoying it-so thanks to those folks.

Very disappointed with the FBI, CIA, CDC, pretty much all of government.

Posted by: MikeM at December 20, 2020 10:08 AM (np8OD)

160 Gotta love the Brits terminology. This from the Carnegie Club Amenities.

"From the welcome tot at the door when you arrive to the cuddly hottie placed in your bed during turn-down service..."

Nice!!

Posted by: Cannibal Bob at December 20, 2020 10:09 AM (ol6cB)

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

I love that painting of the little girl reading the tattered old book. It's adorable and I can always use adorable.

Posted by: JTB at December 20, 2020 10:09 AM (7EjX1)

162 Still working through The Decline and Fall, it sure took a l9ng tie for the Roman's to go away. Closer to finishing Vanity Fair and my high opinion of it ha not changed. That' it for the Kindle. Started What's So Funny by Donald E. Westlake in real book form. It's a Dortmunder novel so you know it's good.

Posted by: Who knew at December 20, 2020 10:09 AM (SfO/T)

163 Any idea how to find a teacher these days? My priest can play beautifully, but doesn't think he could teach it. I have a boy who is thoroughly gifted at the piano, and genetics would indicate he might well be seriously gifted with the organ too, but I can't find a teacher in NW MO.

Posted by: Catherine at December 20, 2020 09:58 AM (KzgGT)

https://www.kcago.com/organ-teachers

Posted by: BignJames at December 20, 2020 10:09 AM (AwYPR)

164 The old sci-fi book cover looks like it should be titled "Thomas Jefferson and Jonathan Edwards vs. the Martian Robots" or something. Did the illustrator think that, in the future, capes would make a big comeback?

Posted by: PabloD isn't in a reconciliatory mood at December 20, 2020 10:09 AM (risNt)

165 The books are not stand alone as the second book
picks up where the first left off and now waiting for the library to
send me the third so I can find out what happens next.

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at December 20, 2020 10:06 AM (sd8p

Do come back and tell us what you think once you've finished the series! I also liked the first book, and I think the second book too. But the third one was such a stinker, I wrote a blog post entitled "And Then I Said,'Pullman, You Twathead'". It was such a letdown, I've successfully pushed almost all memory of the books out of my mind.

Posted by: Dr. Mabuse at December 20, 2020 10:09 AM (ZzfrF)

166 157 AHL

I read that. Bet you won't find many others.

Posted by: mnw at December 20, 2020 10:10 AM (Cssks)

167 (Last week's 'who dis' was Mrs. Frank Sinatra, Mia Farrow.

So now, Judge Chamberlain Haller is doing the "who dis" for the AOS ?

Posted by: REDACTED at December 20, 2020 10:11 AM (zZxh0)

168 Mrs. Muse can't stop raving about 'Cancer Ward'. Says it's the best book she's ever read.

Posted by: OregonMuse"

He's okay, I guess. No Toni Morrison or Robert Ludlum, though.

Posted by: pep at December 20, 2020 10:11 AM (v16oJ)

169 151 - Thanks, I will look for them.

Posted by: Dr Alice at December 20, 2020 10:11 AM (g6mG9)

170

Posted by: pep at December 20, 2020 10:11 AM (v16oJ)

171 Paul Anka

Posted by: AltonJackson at December 20, 2020 09:59 AM (iJbiu)

---
WHERE ARE THE SHIRTS??!

Posted by: Paul Anka at December 20, 2020 10:11 AM (cfSRQ)

172
My next history read will be E.R. Chamberlin's "The Bad Popes". I read it eons ago, and remember being disappointed that it wasn't salacious enough for my tastes. Perhaps I've matured since then.

Naaahhh...
Posted by: All Hail Eris, Iron Fist in Velvet Glove in Iron Gauntlet Clutching an Iron Mace at December 20, 2020 09:41 AM (Dc2NZ)

Looked it up. How can one not read about this virtuoso of revenge ?

"Pope Stephen VI (896-897), who had his predecessor Pope Formosus exhumed, tried, de-fingered, briefly reburied, and thrown in the Tiber."

Ima gonna look into this !

Posted by: runner at December 20, 2020 10:11 AM (zr5Kq)

173 Learn to pull stops was the Learn to Code of the olden times.

Posted by: Cat Ass Trophy at December 20, 2020 10:12 AM (asLIL)

174 "Hit him or don't come home!"

-- The Great Santini, a truly loving father

Posted by: occam's brassiere at December 20, 2020 10:13 AM (evxBY)

175 The Dems wanted his fund raisers and money but didn't want to really be associated with them. He became a Republican it's believed because Reagan, when he was governor, stuck up for him publicly. I think it was in 1970 and Frank slowly started to shift politically.

Posted by: TheQuietMan at December 20, 2020 09:52 AM (DSbKx)

Frank was also mobbed up af. Ahem. Allegedly.

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Social Distancing Professional at December 20, 2020 10:13 AM (y9Iop)

176 Did the illustrator think that, in the future, capes would make a big comeback?

Quite a lot of old sci fi illustration involves capes, it was the influence of the Buck Rogers/Flash Gordon serials and comics, I suspect.

And who knows, maybe they will?

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at December 20, 2020 10:14 AM (KZzsI)

177
"Pope Stephen VI (896-897), who had his predecessor Pope Formosus
exhumed, tried, de-fingered, briefly reburied, and thrown in the Tiber."

So....Stephen was a Chinese pope?

Posted by: pep at December 20, 2020 10:14 AM (v16oJ)

178 Mrs. Muse can't stop raving about 'Cancer Ward'. Says it's the best book she's ever read.
Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Social Distancing Professional at December 20, 2020 10:05 AM (y9Iop)

Solzhenitsyn was a great writer and a great man.

One of the very few writers who actually deserved the Nobel Prize.

Our Betters have been slowly inching him out of the picture since the 70s. Maybe earlier.

Because his writing shoves the Leftists' noses right into the big pile of tyrannical, anti-human shit that is communism/socialism, and says "See? This is where your dream system leads."

and they hate him for it.

Posted by: naturalfake at December 20, 2020 10:14 AM (dWwl8)

179 https://www.kcago.com/organ-teachers
Posted by: BignJames at December 20, 2020 10:09 AM (AwYPR)

Awesome. Thank you!!

Posted by: Catherine at December 20, 2020 10:14 AM (KzgGT)

180 Reading Nabokov's Speak, Memory I came to a chapter when he talks about his poetry. I'm very much not a fan of poetry; his or any fucking other body's. So I was set to slog my way through the chapter but he finds a way to write about it interestingly. First he talks about how a poet just grabs sensations that are going on around him simultaneously like soap bubbles in the air and connects them. But then he talks about how Rooskis were hampered by a set pattern of writing which had persisted since the early 18th century. And then he wrote "The frame impelled the picture; the husk shaped the pulp." You don't have to like the subject to appreciate how he writes about it.

Posted by: Captain Hate at December 20, 2020 10:14 AM (y7DUB)

181 I saw Apocalypse Now back in the day so when the remastered version came out was hot to see it. I was extremely disappointed. I could not figure out what the hell I saw in the movie except possibly the music. I decided I must have been stoned because it made no sense to me sober.

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at December 20, 2020 10:15 AM (sd8p8)

182 And who knows, maybe they will?
Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at December 20, 2020 10:14 AM (KZzsI)

No, they will not.

Posted by: Edna Mode at December 20, 2020 10:15 AM (PiwSw)

183 What is NOT nearly so normal is what we get today, "interagency consensus" as something strong and government-wide.

And I'm not crazy about that.
Posted by: Eeyore at December 20, 2020 09:58 AM (7X3UV)

interagency consensus sounds much prettier than fuck off taxpayer peasants.

Posted by: rhennigantx at December 20, 2020 10:16 AM (5QBw6)

184 175 OM

Sinatra comment on that, "I didn't get a chance to meet many Nobel Prize winners while I was singing in saloons."

I give him a pass on the mobbed up stuff.

Posted by: mnw at December 20, 2020 10:16 AM (Cssks)

185 174
"Hit him or don't come home!"

-- The Great Santini, a truly loving father

Posted by: occam's brassiere at December 20, 2020 10:13 AM (evxBY)

---
It was really interesting to read about Santini's retirement. He got a place near Pat, who would walk down every day and have breakfast. Dad would check the sports scores while Pat would blame him for everything that was wrong with his life.

When Pat finally ran out of breath, his dad would nod and thank him for coming over and say "see you tomorrow!"

He bought season tickets for his grandkids as Six Flags and doted on them. Pat admitted that his younger sibling never understood his vendetta against his dad, who do the day he died never held a grudge against his son.

Basically, The Great Santini now reads like a spoiled Boomer whining that daddy didn't give him enough hugs.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at December 20, 2020 10:18 AM (cfSRQ)

186 Any idea how to find a teacher these days? My priest can play
beautifully, but doesn't think he could teach it. I have a boy who is
thoroughly gifted at the piano, and genetics would indicate he might
well be seriously gifted with the organ too, but I can't find a teacher
in NW MO.

Apropos of nothing, my dear departed parents were introduced by my mother's gay organ teacher in Minneapolis. I guess he had the straight version of gaydar, because they were together the rest of their lives.

Posted by: pep at December 20, 2020 10:18 AM (v16oJ)

187 112 Alger Hiss was in the Venona papers. Of course the lying assholes
writing in The Nation wanted to make people believe the rat bastard was
framed.

Posted by: Captain Hate at December 20, 2020 09:09 AM (y7DUB)

The left lies. They lie all the time. They lie like they breath. All the left does is lie.
Posted by: TheQuietMan at December 20, 2020 09:49 AM (DSbKx)
________

Mostly true. There have been a very few truthful. Obviously, Orwell has the crown there. Hentoff was honest. But even today, Greenwald and Taibbi are not worthless.

Posted by: Eeyore at December 20, 2020 10:18 AM (7X3UV)

188 read Gulag Archipelago in bits and pieces as a kid

always made me feel better about being a poor orphan in a 3rd world country because at least I wasn't in a Siberian prison camp

I'd say it's a childhood read that holds up

Posted by: vmom Trump Won! at December 20, 2020 10:18 AM (nUhF0)

189 If you like Conroy, read the book.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at December 20, 2020 10:04 AM (cfSRQ)

That is some great insight A.H. Lloyd. I didn't even know about that book For sure I am going to check it out now. I did see the play Conraak and read the book Beach Music. It is doesn't sound cool but that is ok. My mom recommended it to me. It has some great descriptions of expats living in Rome.

i will check out the book you recco. I don't like doing the what about me thing. But I did know some people that new Santini. To be honest, they mostly did not like him. He was a character for real as far as I know. He was before my time so I can only go by what I heard. But this was not bar gossip, I promise you that. Anyway, it is cool to know the dad supported his son's success. I did not know that part of the story.

Posted by: Quint at December 20, 2020 10:18 AM (kfMBQ)

190 172 - I can see some elderly medieval peasant mumbling, "Boy, I tell you in my day, popes were POPES!"

Posted by: Dr Alice at December 20, 2020 10:18 AM (g6mG9)

191 Skibo Castle, meh.

No rifle range.

8,000 acres and not one thought spared for firearms?

Humph.

Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing at December 20, 2020 10:18 AM (WEBkv)

192 RE: Solzhenitsyn:

At this historical remove, a lot of Russian critics, so I've read, regard Varlam Shalamov's "Kolyma Tales" as the best literature to come out of the Gulags. I read some of it. It's a very long book. I quit because it was too depressing. I would describe Kolyma Tales as a group of short stories-- several hundred of them-- more than a novel.
Posted by: mnw at December 20, 2020 09:31 AM (Cssks)

Shalamov's "Kolyma Tales" is a great book as is "Graphite".

I'm guessing critics like the fact that most of the "Kolyma Tales" are short, sharp, punches in the nose and easy bite-size chunks of Gulag horror.

Solzhenitsyn wants you to experience the life so to speak.

I think for that reason "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" is probably his best novel. Though the "The Cancer Ward" as well as the "The First Circle" are awfully good as well.

Posted by: naturalfake at December 20, 2020 09:45 AM (dWwl

Yes it is a great book, written by an exceptional soul. I would recommend Shalamov any day over Solzhenitsyn when it comes to reality, the depth of gulag experience. And also hope, I think he came from a family of theologians. If I recall, Solzhenytsin spent a good amount of time in a gulag labs and research facilities, so nice and cozy, not in the depths of hell as Shalamov did.

Posted by: runner at December 20, 2020 10:19 AM (zr5Kq)

193 " ...

I'm a fan. I think he was rather shoved aside to make room for the nation's current fascination with communism.

Posted by: CN at December 20, 2020 09:51 AM (ONvIw)"

Absolutely right, even at the time he was minimized (in the same way the Soviets did, oddly enough) as an unfortunate man driven half-mad by his experiences, which were not typical.
His emphasis on religion and morality was further evidence of his deplorableness.

If any more evidence were needed of just how far back, and how deep, Soviet penetration of our culture and media was, there it is.

Hard to say what my favorite is, but Ivan Denisovich is high up on the list, with First Circle and Cancer Ward ... the Russians and Ukrainians I used to work with got a kick out of my reading it at lunchtime.

Posted by: sock_rat_eez, we are being gaslighted 24/365 TRUMP WON! at December 20, 2020 10:19 AM (pmEbq)

194 but I can't find a teacher in NW MO.

Posted by: Catherine at December 20, 2020 09:58 AM (KzgGT)

I'll talk to my MiL at our Christmas lunch today. She's the head of some Iowa music group that I can never remember the proper name for, but I'm sure she has contacts in Misery-er, Missouri.

Posted by: pookysgirl desires Jesu at December 20, 2020 10:20 AM (9j3yZ)

195 Sinatra was an Italian guy from New Jersey. Of course he was mobbed up. I think the "horse head in the bed" scene in "The Godfather" is based on Sinatra's Hollywood ambitions. "From Here To Eternity" specifically.

Posted by: occam's brassiere at December 20, 2020 10:20 AM (evxBY)

196 interesting that hiss's perfidy was proven by venona, yes chambers knowledge of the ware spy ring, was indicative but not conclusive, of course, the venona project was almost compromised by the beginning, by the father of the one in the link, a little like they said a certain associate of chalabi, aras habib. revealed the fact we had broken the iranian code,
this habib character is mentioned in the new row of sanctions in 2018 against revolutionary guard entitites,

Posted by: bolivar de gris at December 20, 2020 10:21 AM (hMlTh)

197 I decided I must have been stoned because it made no sense to me sober.
Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at December 20, 2020 10:15 AM (sd8p

It was a failed film. Full of disparate poetic and resonant parts.

Posted by: Ordinary American at December 20, 2020 10:22 AM (H8QX8)

198 Dr. Mabuse, I hope you're wrong but wouldn't be surprised. The TV series kind of set the stage so I could visualize things right off the bat and it is a quick read. But the main characters are preteens so you just do not get a lot of depth which is why the books are YA. In times like these, sometimes the simplicity is appealing.

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at December 20, 2020 10:23 AM (sd8p8)

199 The who dis is Frank Sinatra, reading "How to pick up chicks"

Sink or Swim: The Cement Overshoes Story

Posted by: deplorable unperson - refuse to accept the Mask of the Beast at December 20, 2020 10:24 AM (3P/5p)

200 She Rides Shotgun

-
Reminds me of True Grit. I watched the Coen Bros.' yesterday and quite enjoyed the dialogue.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at December 20, 2020 10:24 AM (+y/Ru)

201 As I continue reading my ancient hard cover copy of LOTR I'm noticing how time and use have affected it. The dust jackets are in tough shape but the binding is still decent. Perhaps a little looser than it was over 50 years ago. The fold out maps are still with us, much to my surprise. The colors on the covers and spines are fading a bit but less than I would have thought. And while the pages are still in good condition, they are just the tiniest bit softer from all the years of handling. I am amazed the slip cover has remained in such good shape.

These conditions make the books even more special and more personal. In an odd way the condition adds to my enjoyment of the words. I was thirteen years old when I bought the set brand new (my first hardcover book purchase) and it has aged along with me. It is like spending time with an old, old friend.

Nothing profound. Just something I became aware of this week while reading them.

BTW, I use a thick, acid free paper index card as a book mark.

Posted by: JTB at December 20, 2020 10:24 AM (7EjX1)

202 Hentoff was honest.

Hentoff regarded Gaylord as a huge threat to civil liberty. It didn't make him popular but he didn't back down.

Posted by: Captain Hate at December 20, 2020 10:25 AM (y7DUB)

203 Yes, the Pern books are definitely rapey. F'lar thinks to himself early in their relationship that Lessa will eventually respond to him, but "Unless Ramoth and Mnementh were involved, he might as well call it rape." The passage implies heavily that F'lar is raping Lessa every night and is convinced she'll eventually come around. And F'nor and Brekke's relationship starts like this: "He wanted to be gentle, but unaccountably, Brekke fought him. He was not gentle but he was thorough." And then there's the unfortunate implications of male-ridden brown and blue dragons flying also male-ridden greens. (McCaffrey, when asked about that, apparently aired her belief that penetration of a man's asshole turned him immediately and permanently gay.)

Solzhenitsyn was brilliant. I can still recite the last page of One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. It's a short and powerful book. "There were three thousand six hundred and fifty-three days like that in his stretch, from the first clang of the rail to the last clang of the rail. Three thousand six hundred and fifty-three days. The three extra days were for leap years."

The last book in His Dark Materials stunk. Of course, my opinion is colored by the fact that he was attacking my religious beliefs directly.

Posted by: Mrs. Peel at December 20, 2020 10:26 AM (rWZ8Y)

204 I think it's actually "How To Beat Chicks Off With A Stick." He's was
quite the playboy and quite the sex symbol during his heyday. I
personally never did quite see it.

"$ex $ymbol"

Posted by: deplorable unperson - refuse to accept the Mask of the Beast at December 20, 2020 10:27 AM (3P/5p)

205 I'm currently reading State of Fear by Michael Crichton.

Its very good; I read it a long time ago and forgotten most of it, but a little more than halfway thru, I remembered the ending.

I'm gonna finish it because the end is deliciously ironic.

Posted by: JT at December 20, 2020 10:28 AM (arJlL)

206 But I did know some people that new Santini. To be
honest, they mostly did not like him. He was a character for real as far
as I know. He was before my time so I can only go by what I heard. But
this was not bar gossip, I promise you that. Anyway, it is cool to know
the dad supported his son's success. I did not know that part of the
story.

Posted by: Quint at December 20, 2020 10:18 AM (kfMBQ)

---
Santini was a hard man from a time when hardness was essential. That means expecting him to be outwardly loving, caring, sensitive, etc. was stupid.

Both of my grandfathers were very reticent about showing public affection to their sons, because that was a sign of weakness.

With grandchildren, the rules were totally different and they doted on them, just like Santini did.

Conroy seems to have looked at other boys' fathers and wished his dad could be like that. He also seemed to use his books to settle scores (see also The Lords of Discipline).

All this became clear in The Death of Santini, which is essentially a confessional for the lapsed Catholic Conroy.

Also of note, Pat went through multiple failed marriages and these were also Dad's fault.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at December 20, 2020 10:29 AM (cfSRQ)

207 If I recall, Solzhenytsin spent a good amount of
time in a gulag labs and research facilities, so nice and cozy, not in
the depths of hell as Shalamov did.

Posted by: runner at December 20, 2020 10:19 AM (zr5Kq)

He did, but he also spent time in Lubyanka and hard labor camps. I think a criticism of him because his time wasn't as brutal as some is misplaced.

We had a family friend who spent many years in Siberia as a guest of the Russians. His crime? He was a Polish Jew. He said he did take one thing away from that time...he learned how to chop wood, because otherwise he would have died from the cold.

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at December 20, 2020 10:30 AM (xT2tT)

208 The thing about my youthful reading is that I simply have forgotten the ones that didn't stick, that is, the one's I'm not still high on.

There is one exception: Forrester's Hornblower. As a kid and a teen I loved them, and also his other works. But since then came Patrick O'Brian and Aubrey. I tried a few years ago to reread Beat to Quarters, and it just didn't work anymore. I know some will disagree.

On thing that stood out is how much Hornblower is described in terms of his neuroses, which all the cool kids believed in in those days, but which even then I thought was the worst part of the books.

Posted by: Eeyore at December 20, 2020 10:31 AM (7X3UV)

209 Sinatra comment on that, "I didn't get a chance to meet many Nobel Prize winners while I was singing in saloons."

I give him a pass on the mobbed up stuff.

Posted by: mnw at December 20, 2020 10:16 AM (Cssks)

Don Rickles used to razz him about this all the time. There are some funny clips on youtube that show this, also his propensity for violence, i.e. "make yourself at home, Frank. Hit somebody."

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Social Distancing Professional at December 20, 2020 10:31 AM (y9Iop)

210 Sharon - it's not that the book was too simple; it would have been better if it had been! It was that Pullman got ideas above his station, and decided he was going to give us an account of Life, The Universe And Everything. And he was also going to settle a bunch of scores with C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien and the Christian God, and show those snobs what was what! As I said, I've pretty successfully suppressed my memory of the books, so by now they're just a vague bad aftertaste.

Posted by: Dr. Mabuse at December 20, 2020 10:32 AM (ZzfrF)

211 But during the Rape of Nanjing
Posted by: All Hail Eris
I have always wondered about a very minor part of that story, with regard to an author, Iris Chang, she wrote a book entitled, the Rape of Nanking.
I do not question the veracity of the accounts of that massacre. Or her account. I have not read her book. I do not know the history. But people do. Then she committed suicide.
I always have wondered what happened with her, meaning was the pressure too much? Was she Epsteined? Was she starting to doubt herself?

Posted by: MikeM at December 20, 2020 10:32 AM (np8OD)

212 I think the "horse head in the bed" scene in "The Godfather" is based on Sinatra's Hollywood ambitions. "From Here To Eternity" specifically.

Posted by: occam's brassiere at December 20, 2020 10:20 AM (evxBY)

This is known.

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Social Distancing Professional at December 20, 2020 10:32 AM (y9Iop)

213 178
Trump holding up The Gulag Archipelago before a large crowd:

"This is where the Left's plans take you!"

Posted by: Don at December 20, 2020 10:32 AM (mwDnq)

214 Actors often treasure weird or quirky roles, that's true.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at December 20, 2020 10:04 AM (cfSRQ)

Duvall has always said his favorite and best role as Agustus McCrae. Of course he is right about that. But he went from a top fiver to me to the top of the list when I saw him do that in interviews over and over. You just don't see actors talking about long ago roles that way. The standard, and it is almost universal is to so the movie you are promoting is your favorite for this reason or the other.

But I get the quirky thing too. I believe Duvall also goes on and on about that movie about the Tango.

Posted by: Quint at December 20, 2020 10:33 AM (kfMBQ)

215 "Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies."

- Groucho Marx for president

Posted by: BackwardsBoy-Always believe what your TV says at December 20, 2020 10:34 AM (HaL55)

216 203
Solzhenitsyn was brilliant. I can still recite the last page of One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. It's a short and powerful book. "There were three thousand six hundred and fifty-three days like that in his stretch, from the first clang of the rail to the last clang of the rail. Three thousand six hundred and fifty-three days. The three extra days were for leap years."

The last book in His Dark Materials stunk. Of course, my opinion is colored by the fact that he was attacking my religious beliefs directly.
Posted by: Mrs. Peel at December 20, 2020 10:26 AM (rWZ8Y)
__________

Color me confused. What was Solzhenitzyn's Dark Materials?

Posted by: Eeyore at December 20, 2020 10:35 AM (7X3UV)

217 "Doom over Venus" - now with manboobs!

Posted by: FrodoB-
cause I am at December 20, 2020 10:36 AM (dQF3z)

218 Prince Valiant vs The Alien Robots?

Posted by: Count de Monet, President-Elect ISTJ at December 20, 2020 10:36 AM (4I/2K)

219 I'm gonna go read.

Until next week fellow bookies, Merry Christmas !

And merry Christmas to OM and the Missus, and thank you again for The Book Thread,

Posted by: JT at December 20, 2020 10:36 AM (arJlL)

220 Actors often treasure weird or quirky roles, that's true.

Well their perspective on the topic is different than ours. For them, a great part is one that is challenging, interesting, fun to play, or a role that gives them a chance to do something they've always wanted to do but never got a chance.

So a serious actor that gets to play a comedic part, for example. For them its about the job, rather than what we enjoy about the role.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at December 20, 2020 10:36 AM (KZzsI)

221 If I recall, Solzhenytsin spent a good amount of time in a gulag labs and research facilities, so nice and cozy, not in the depths of hell as Shalamov did.
Posted by: runner at December 20, 2020 10:19 AM (zr5Kq)

My father sponsored a Hungarian refugee who became a lifelong family friend. This man spent several years in the gulag system, partly in Siberia, in the true depths of hell. He was released after Stalin's death. He was returned to Hungary but instead of leaving as he was told, formed a resistance group and assassinated about a dozen Soviet occupiers. He barely escaped. He eventually became an intelligence operative for different US agencies but soured on the work for the corruption and incompetence of the Americans.

He wrote a book about it, "A Very Personal War," with well-known British journalist James Hamilton-Paterson. He didn't have much interest in Solzhenitsyn's musings.

Posted by: Ordinary American at December 20, 2020 10:36 AM (H8QX8)

222 "Pope Stephen VI (896-897), who had his predecessor Pope Formosus
exhumed, tried, de-fingered, briefly reburied, and thrown in the Tiber."

"Of the three popes, John the Twenty-third was the first victim: he fled and was brought back a prisoner: the most scandalous charges were suppressed; the vicar of Christ was only accused of piracy, murder, rape, sodomy and incest" --Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

Posted by: cool breeze at December 20, 2020 10:37 AM (UGKMd)

223 134 Dean Martin > Frank Sinatra

Posted by: Beatgirl at December 20, 2020 09:54 AM (a1s1

Dean was the epitome of cool. He was a better singer too.

Posted by: Quint at December 20, 2020 09:58 AM (kfMBQ)

I've been wondering exactly what happened between him and Jerry Lewis. It was overwhelmingly obvious from the "surprise" telethon appearance that there was deep, deep issues between them. Are there any books or anything that went into it in detail?

Posted by: Jeff Weimer at December 20, 2020 10:37 AM (fpng3)

224 I think the "horse head in the bed" scene in "The Godfather" is based on Sinatra's Hollywood ambitions. "From Here To Eternity" specifically.

There are a few theories, such as Vic Damone as well, but having read the novel, Sinatra is the most likely candidate.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at December 20, 2020 10:37 AM (KZzsI)

225 https://tinyurl.com/y7n6mrs7 please stop comparing everything to WW2....it's not only flimsy thinking but it insults the memory of the people that fought in WW2

Posted by: jeff at December 20, 2020 10:38 AM (J2JqR)

226 Well their perspective on the topic is different
than ours. For them, a great part is one that is challenging,
interesting, fun to play, or a role that gives them a chance to do
something they've always wanted to do but never got a chance.

So a serious actor that gets to play a comedic part, for example.
For them its about the job, rather than what we enjoy about the role.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at December 20, 2020 10:36 AM (KZzsI)

---
Burt Reynolds reportedly hated "Boogie Nights," even though it was his most acclaimed role.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at December 20, 2020 10:38 AM (cfSRQ)

227 Also of note, Pat went through multiple failed marriages and these were also Dad's fault.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at December 20, 2020 10:29 AM (cfSRQ)

yeah that is a bad trait. Too bad someone so talented felt the need to settle scores. I really could not imagine it though I have never been on his stage. I did have some similar experiences, really similar. But not with the angst.

and other fathers did do it better. Then again, who can say really? The easiest thing in the world is to find fault in others. You don't have to be writer to do that.

Posted by: Quint at December 20, 2020 10:38 AM (kfMBQ)

228 I think being immersed in a long standing evil, like that does take a toll on you, spoiler alert, most of the enablers of the Nanking events, they were all connected to the royal family,

Posted by: bolivar de gris at December 20, 2020 10:39 AM (hMlTh)

229 Bringing it back to books, often the favorite book of an author will be different than the favorite book for readers of that author. An author is fascinated by the challenges and enjoyment of writing a particular story rather than the joy and memorability of reading it.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at December 20, 2020 10:39 AM (KZzsI)

230 Eeyore - I was commenting on Pullman's Dark Materials. Too lazy to make separate comments for separate topics :-)

Posted by: Mrs. Peel at December 20, 2020 10:39 AM (rWZ8Y)

231 66 ... "My husband and I are also working our way through the Nero Wolfe Mysteries series - maybe I read the same post from Wolfus Aurelius that you did! An interesting bit of trivia: the actor who plays Archie Goodwin, Timothy Hutton, is the son of Jim Hutton, who played Ellery Queen in the TV mystery series of the same name."

I have enjoyed every Nero Wolfe book and I've read many of them. Just like some more than others. The Timothy Hutton series was great: excellent ensemble cast, high production values, and wonderful acting. If you get a chance to see his dad in the Ellery Queen series, do so. It was a fun, well made show. We have both series on DVD.

Posted by: JTB at December 20, 2020 10:40 AM (7EjX1)

232 Frank was also mobbed up af. Ahem. Allegedly.

-
Broken arms can come true
It can.happen to you
If you get in my way

Posted by: Ring a Ding Ding at December 20, 2020 10:43 AM (+y/Ru)

233 japanese royal family, albert krug, aka jan valtin was a labor activist in the 20s and 30s, that saw clearly stalins actions to topplle the social democrats which brought hitler to power, stalin also continued training german officers, up until the time of the purges,

Posted by: bolivar de gris at December 20, 2020 10:43 AM (hMlTh)

234 AHL

Reynolds said he hated the script so much. he almost fired his agent for talking him into doing the film. Reynolds thought Boogie Nights was going to BE a porn film.

I never realized what a gifted actor Reynolds was until that film.

Posted by: mnw at December 20, 2020 10:43 AM (Cssks)

235 I've been wondering exactly what happened between
him and Jerry Lewis. It was overwhelmingly obvious from the "surprise"
telethon appearance that there was deep, deep issues between them. Are
there any books or anything that went into it in detail?

Posted by: Jeff Weimer at December 20, 2020 10:37 AM (fpng3)

i am sure there are but I can't point you towards them. I know there have been interviews, articles, etc. I think a lot of it fell on Jerry, but that is easy to say as I am a Deano fan. Others can probably steer you to something concrete.

For me, I just liked the entire Dean Martin thing. He had a coolness about him and I don't use the term lightly. It can sound dumb and I get that. But to me, he had a personality that stood out. He could sing and even act. He got an award from an anti alcoholism charity for his portrayal in Rio Bravo. There was something about that guy that is rare. It is too bad he suffered so many life problems. I guess he had a very difficult life in the end, mostly because of problems with his family and kids.

Posted by: Quint at December 20, 2020 10:45 AM (kfMBQ)

236 He did, but he also spent time in Lubyanka and hard labor camps. I think a criticism of him because his time wasn't as brutal as some is misplaced.

We had a family friend who spent many years in Siberia as a guest of the Russians. His crime? He was a Polish Jew. He said he did take one thing away from that time...he learned how to chop wood, because otherwise he would have died from the cold.
Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at December 20, 2020 10:30 AM (xT2tT)

Did you read his "Two Hundred Years Together " ?

Posted by: runner at December 20, 2020 10:45 AM (zr5Kq)

237 Because his writing shoves the Leftists' noses right into the big pile of tyrannical, anti-human shit that is communism/socialism, and says "See? This is where your dream system leads."

and they hate him for it.
Posted by: naturalfake at December 20, 2020 10:14 AM (dWwl

They do. I think he deserves a renaissance and I've been pushing his work on the kids and their friends.

Posted by: CN at December 20, 2020 10:46 AM (ONvIw)

238 Who dis?

Don Rickles

Posted by: JAS - former commenter at December 20, 2020 10:46 AM (2BZBZ)

239 and other fathers did do it better. Then again, who
can say really? The easiest thing in the world is to find fault in
others. You don't have to be writer to do that.

Posted by: Quint at December 20, 2020 10:38 AM (kfMBQ)

---
Writers are uniquely positioned to settle scores, though. Waugh was 'sent down' by a master named Crutwell and he regularly included a characters using that name who was unsavory as part of his revenge.

The vendetta has now passed to the third generation and both Auberon and Alexander have described the term "Crutwellism" as doing unsavory things to helpless canines.
I'd have a better opinion of Conroy if he admitted (as Waugh did) that he was having fun, but Pat pretends that he's past all that.

Also, the fact that his own mother rebuked him for mining their personal conversations for book material was pretty damning. I give him credit for admitting it, though.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at December 20, 2020 10:47 AM (cfSRQ)

240 Posted by: Ordinary American at December 20, 2020 10:36 AM (H8QX

How interesting. Is he still alive ? Wonder what he thinks of today's events.

Posted by: runner at December 20, 2020 10:47 AM (zr5Kq)

241 I haven't read any of the Pern books for ages, and wonder how they would hold up. They were loads of fun for a teenager, but I suspect probably less so for an adult. The concepts were an interesting blend of fantasy and sci fi, but I liked the trilogy about the little dragonlings better than the huge main novels.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at December 20, 2020 10:47 AM (KZzsI)

242 Carnegie built a beautiful library in my town.
They've torn it down and replaced it with a
steel and glass institution.

Posted by: Braenyard at December 20, 2020 10:49 AM (CZm2G)

243 Sometimes steel and glass can be beautiful.

Posted by: runner at December 20, 2020 10:49 AM (zr5Kq)

244 and they hate him for it.
Posted by: naturalfake at December 20, 2020 10:14 AM (dWwl

He gave the commencement speech at Harvard in 78 (I think). I attended as I did all of them in those days because my father was a very faithful alum and dragged the kids to it. I heard that after the speech Harvard was very upset and vowed never to make that "mistake" again.

Posted by: Ordinary American at December 20, 2020 10:51 AM (H8QX8)

245 I never realized what a gifted actor Reynolds was until that film.

Posted by: mnw at December 20, 2020 10:43 AM (Cssks)

( *cough* )Deliverance( *cough* )

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Social Distancing Professional at December 20, 2020 10:51 AM (y9Iop)

246 I have a series of books in the back of my mind telling the story of how the humans in my gaming world overthrew a tyrannical elven empire to earn their freedom but I personally don't like reading huge thick multi-volume stories any more. So I doubt I would enjoy writing one.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at December 20, 2020 10:51 AM (KZzsI)

247 238
Who dis?

Don Rickles

Posted by: JAS - former commenter at December 20, 2020 10:46 AM (2BZBZ)

---
Rickles is interesting because he seems to be the opposite of most comics.

Most of them pretend to be nice, funny guys but in truth are pretty nasty pieces of work.

Rickles' schtick is to be a world-class jerk, but out of character he's quite pleasant.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at December 20, 2020 10:51 AM (cfSRQ)

248 They call it "author intrusion" when the reader can see the author speaking, rather than the characters. It's usually is not good. (Although sometimes it's fun, like when Agatha Christie uses that apple-eating lady to portray herself)

An author gets on a soapbox, or dwells lovingly for pages on some obscure topic, like how to make medieval mead.

Posted by: artemis at December 20, 2020 10:54 AM (AwPyG)

249 I'm not reading any great religious overtones in the series but just seeing it as typical fantasy going after the guy in charge. It is definitely not in a class with Tolkien or C.S? Lewis by any means. I enjoyed Harry Potter too but never thought it was great literature or tried to read a deeper meaning in it.

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at December 20, 2020 10:54 AM (sd8p8)

250 @131 --

Catherine, check local chapters of American Guild of Organists. (I think that's the name; I remember AGO.) An aunt of mine in KC was a professional concert organist. She played concerts around the country. Even went to Europe.

Posted by: Weak Geek just won't write short at December 20, 2020 10:54 AM (Tr9/0)

251 ( *cough* )Deliverance( *cough* )

Yeah I was thinking the same thing. He showed his cops early on, but I think he just wanted to have fun rather than do tough and challenging, actor roles. Lazy, in a way, just interested in hanging out and having a good time while getting paid for it although he did some tough roles as well as breezy comedy stuff.

A modern equivalent is Timothy Olyphant who is always so laid back because he doesn't take any of this stuff seriously. In an interview about Justified he admitted he doesn't really understand all of the story, he's just being the guy they pay him to.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at December 20, 2020 10:54 AM (KZzsI)

252 I'm currently reading State of Fear by Michael Crichton.

Its very good; I read it a long time ago and forgotten most of it, but a little more than halfway thru, I remembered the ending.

I'm gonna finish it because the end is deliciously ironic.
Posted by: JT at December 20, 2020 10:28 AM (arJlL)

I haven't read it. Is it pandemic-y?

Posted by: Pres. Elect LASue at December 20, 2020 10:55 AM (Ed8Zd)

253 Did you read his "Two Hundred Years Together " ?

Posted by: runner at December 20, 2020 10:45 AM (zr5Kq)

No, but I am familiar with the controversy.

His work showing the world the brutality of the Soviet state and communism in general is important. I freely admit that he wasn't perfect, but his later work shouldn't detract from his early and great work.

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at December 20, 2020 10:56 AM (xT2tT)

254 runner

Solzhenitsyn returned to Russia around 1990 & lived there until his death in 2008, at age 89.

He seems to have had a comfortable relationship with Putin, which is counterintuitive.

Posted by: mnw at December 20, 2020 10:56 AM (Cssks)

255 An author gets on a soapbox, or dwells lovingly for pages on some obscure topic, like how to make medieval mead.

That's something I am always afraid of. There are things i do want to get across in my books, but its too easy to get preachy or dull in the process. L'Amour got that way, he was preachy but it didn't interfere with the entertainment. He just clearly had a very specific vision of what a man should be and wanted to tell everyone about it.

Clancy gets that way in his books, he gets fascinated in something and goes off on a tangent until the book is 801391 pages long. This page count creep is a real problem for authors with too much success too soon. Every book gets longer and longer until its just padded and tedious.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at December 20, 2020 10:57 AM (KZzsI)

256 How interesting. Is he still alive ? Wonder what he thinks of today's events.
Posted by: runner at December 20, 2020 10:47 AM (zr5Kq)

Yes. He's in his early 90s now. He lives in a remote area I'm not supposed to mention. He reads avidly (in several languages), listens to classical music and shares time with a couple of Great Pyrenes. He is a character to be sure.

Posted by: Ordinary American at December 20, 2020 10:57 AM (H8QX8)

257 I've been reading Squadron Airborne by Elleston Trevor (how's that for a Limey name?), a.novel based upon his experiences in the RAF during the Battle of Britain. It's an OK book but some difficult in that the RAF slang from 80 years ago can be hard to follow.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at December 20, 2020 10:57 AM (+y/Ru)

258 I have to correct myself. It's obviously Sammy Davis, Jr.

Posted by: Eeyore at December 20, 2020 10:57 AM (7X3UV)

259 It's been awhile since a book really grabbed me in the first ten pages. "Who Moved The Stone" by Ross has done so.
Consider it a forensics breakdown of the arrest and trial of Jesus. It immediately answered two questions I've had for years about that period. Simple questions like why did they need Judas to identify Jesus when everyone knew who He was? Or why did they need Judas to find Him? He wasn't hiding.
It is fascinating!

Posted by: Diogenes at December 20, 2020 10:58 AM (axyOa)

260 I have a series of books in the back of my mind telling the story of how
the humans in my gaming world overthrew a tyrannical elven empire to
earn their freedom but I personally don't like reading huge thick
multi-volume stories any more. So I doubt I would enjoy writing one.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at December 20, 2020 10:51 AM (KZzsI)

----
Fantasy is a genre I've wanted to tackle for decades but I can never settle on a story. Instead I get sidetracked into world-building until I get bored and write about something else.

The irony of course is that I've written a novel about vampires and a Jane Austen-style romance - two things I'd never thought I would do - and yet fantasy remains untouched.

Maybe next year.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at December 20, 2020 10:59 AM (cfSRQ)

261 NYT Orginal story

The virus is spreading despite strict stay at home order in Cal

to this new headline

As California I.C.U.s fill up, the dead are counted by the hour.

Bring out your dead, by 0900 to be counted in the 1000 report.
Posted by: rhennigantx at December 20, 2020 09:48 AM (5Q

How many in. those California ICUs are illegals?

Posted by: Pres. Elect LASue at December 20, 2020 10:59 AM (Ed8Zd)

262 How do they expect to sell a scientifiction novel when there are no busty Venus wimmenz on the book cover?

Posted by: Cicero (@cicero43) at December 20, 2020 11:00 AM (fLVm1)

263 RE: Solzhenitsyn:

His son Ignatz is one of the finest classical pianists in the world. I saw him in concert a few years ago and he signed a copy of "The Gulag Archipelago" for me.

Posted by: josephistan at December 20, 2020 11:01 AM (Izzlo)

264 Clancy is famous for wanting the reader to know how smart he was. Do you know the schematics for a nuclear submarine? Well I do, so get ready for the next 10 pages.
A lot of people love the authenticity, though.

Posted by: artemis at December 20, 2020 11:01 AM (AwPyG)

265 I am on book 4 of the SPQR series. Its a series which I have read largely out of order from the local library because you get what you can check out rather than what you want in order from libraries.

Its great watching the character and the stories develop, its not that the mystery series is one long big story, but it follows Roman history to mine the mysteries from so its progressive. Watching Rome collapse from a republic to a tyranny so steadily and tragically is sad and quite familiar (it really happened rather quickly, even if the full impact of the change took decades to take hold).

But the best part of the series is that the main character Decius is so much a part of Roman culture. Roberts, who also wrote a ton of Conan books (the one I've read is terrific), doesn't try to inject a modern character into Rome. He's completely Roman and of his time. He assumes Rome is the center of the world and the greatest place on earth, even when he's contradictory about it. He's comfortable with slavery (at first, he starts to change his mind about that in time), he thinks all the gods are real and impact his life, etc.

A pet peeve of mine is the feeble-minded need of lesser authors to make historical characters think and act like modern people. The best authors write characters from and of their time, even if they stand out for being better people.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at December 20, 2020 11:02 AM (KZzsI)

266 255 An author gets on a soapbox, or dwells lovingly for pages on some obscure topic, like how to make medieval mead.

That's something I am always afraid of. There are things i do want to get across in my books, but its too easy to get preachy or dull in the process. L'Amour got that way, he was preachy but it didn't interfere with the entertainment. He just clearly had a very specific vision of what a man should be and wanted to tell everyone about it.

Clancy gets that way in his books, he gets fascinated in something and goes off on a tangent until the book is 801391 pages long. This page count creep is a real problem for authors with too much success too soon. Every book gets longer and longer until its just padded and tedious.
Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at December 20, 2020 10:57 AM (KZzsI)

I find that true of Neal Stephenson. His books run on too long for me.

Posted by: Northernlurker, still lurking after all these years at December 20, 2020 11:03 AM (lgiXo)

267 Reading?

I am diving again into my favorite book of Christian Apologetics, Death on a Friday Afternoon (Meditations on the Last Words of Jesus from the Cross), by the late Fr. Richard John Neuhaus.

He writes:

"If what Christians say about Good Friday is true, then it is, quite simply, the truth about everything."

I love this book.

Listening?

My favorite Christmas song will always be Amy Grant's Breath of Heaven:

https://tinyurl.com/Breath-of-Heaven-Amy-Grant

I cannot listen to it without crying.

Posted by: Sharkman at December 20, 2020 11:03 AM (1YlHz)

268
His son Ignatz is one of the finest classical pianists in the world. I saw him in concert a few years ago and he signed a copy of "The Gulag Archipelago" for me.
Posted by: josephistan at December 20, 2020 11:01 AM (Izzlo)

I think I'd try the same thing if I got to meet the man.

Posted by: CN at December 20, 2020 11:04 AM (ONvIw)

269 An author gets on a soapbox, or dwells lovingly for pages on some obscure topic, like how to make medieval mead.

That's something I am always afraid of. There are things i do want
to get across in my books, but its too easy to get preachy or dull in
the process. L'Amour got that way, he was preachy but it didn't
interfere with the entertainment. He just clearly had a very specific
vision of what a man should be and wanted to tell everyone about it.

Clancy gets that way in his books, he gets fascinated in something
and goes off on a tangent until the book is 801391 pages long. This
page count creep is a real problem for authors with too much success too
soon. Every book gets longer and longer until its just padded and
tedious.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at December 20, 2020 10:57 AM (KZzsI
so true about L'amour. He loved to tell you how a man should be. But when I think of going off on a tangent about some obscure thing, or something not related to the story, I think of McCarthy. I know bringing him up can set off a lot of opinions, but that is whom I think about when it comes to describing a rock someone walked by or something like that.

Posted by: Quint at December 20, 2020 11:04 AM (kfMBQ)

270 264
Clancy is famous for wanting the reader to know how smart he was. Do you
know the schematics for a nuclear submarine? Well I do, so get ready
for the next 10 pages.
A lot of people love the authenticity, though.

Posted by: artemis at December 20, 2020 11:01 AM (AwPyG)

---
I stopped following him after his first few books, but I believe he embraced the Mr. Know It All mentality and began churning out non-fiction explainers on military stuff.

Meanwhile he relentlessly turned Jack Ryan into Mary Sue.

BTW, anyone notice how this is happening more often? Mary Sue was a joke because no one would publish/film that kind of crap, and now it's ubiquitous.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at December 20, 2020 11:04 AM (cfSRQ)

271 Instead I get sidetracked into world-building until I get bored and write about something else.

I have the advantage of doing the world-building as a GM for decades, developing the maps, history, culture, etc through play and as need arose rather than doing it from scratch. So I can just write books about my game setting, pre-built and tested by conniving, tricksy players.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at December 20, 2020 11:04 AM (KZzsI)

272 There was one case in my early reading where I actually didn't fall into the trap of liking the whole series. Another of my childhood favorites was the Oz books. But even then, I only liked the first six. I saw that, after The Emerald City, there was something wrong, something missing. They seemed fake.

And that includes Baum, Sr's later efforts. Like Doyle, he had tried to kill it off, but unlike Doyle, when he changed his mind, there is no Silver Blaze among the sequels. At least, not that I saw. I didn't read them all.

Posted by: Eeyore at December 20, 2020 11:04 AM (7X3UV)

273 256

Who are you talking about?

Posted by: mnw at December 20, 2020 11:05 AM (Cssks)

274 I remember reading many years ago (perhaps in John Toland's The Rising Sun) that is an idiom or metaphor in Japanese to the effect of eating an enemy's liver or some such that numerous Japanese officers decided to make real to harden their men.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at December 20, 2020 11:05 AM (+y/Ru)

275 Reynolds said he hated the script so much. he almost fired his agent for talking him into doing the film. Reynolds thought Boogie Nights was going to BE a porn film.

I never realized what a gifted actor Reynolds was until that film.
Posted by: mnw at December 20, 2020 10:43 AM (Cssks)

When he was a young a young man, he was good as Quint in Gunsmoke.

Posted by: Pres. Elect LASue at December 20, 2020 11:06 AM (Ed8Zd)

276 Just before I head to church, a book recommendation: "The 36 Hour Day."

It's a book aimed at people who are dealing with family members who have dementia and or alzheimers. My initial read is that it's a good "roadmap" when it comes to what to expect and how to deal with the progression of these diseases.

Side note: I was surprised to find out there are treatable conditions who's symptom's sometimes mimic the onset of dementia/alzheimers.

Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing at December 20, 2020 11:06 AM (WEBkv)

277
A pet peeve of mine is the feeble-minded need of lesser authors to make historical characters think and act like modern people. The best authors write characters from and of their time, even if they stand out for being better people.
Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at December 20, 2020 11:02 AM (KZzsI)

I think the left has dragged this concept into all discourse by expecting historical figures to have modern and very leftist sentiments.

Posted by: CN at December 20, 2020 11:06 AM (ONvIw)

278 I like how the Stars and Stripes are flying over Skibo, rather than the Union Jack or the Scottish flag.

Posted by: Fox2! at December 20, 2020 11:07 AM (qyH+l)

279 I was reading a comedic mystery, and the protagonist traveled by car down a certain street in NY solely for the purpose of driving by Trump Tower and having the character (apropos of nothing) rant about orangemanbad.
Author intrusion. It ruins books.

Posted by: artemis at December 20, 2020 11:07 AM (AwPyG)

280 Frank was also mobbed up af. Ahem. Allegedly.

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor Social Distancing Professional at December 20, 2020 10:13 AM (y9Iop)

That was part of the Reagan story. ( I read that Sinatra book a long time ago) The press asked Reagan about Sinatra mentioning his mob connections and Reagan stuck up for him mentioning the money he raised for charity and Sinatra was impressed that Reagan stuck up for him publicly. I think he supported him for reelection for governor of California in 1970 and that began Sinatra's conversion to a Republican. (again that's how I remember the story from the Sinatra bio)

Posted by: TheQuietMan at December 20, 2020 11:07 AM (ZQ4sC)

281 I find that true of Neal Stephenson. His books run on too long for me.

Oddly, Piers Anthony never caught the huge book bug. His earlier books (Cthon, Macroscope) are bigger, especially Macroscope (which is one of his best) but he tended to write pretty short books like the 9120214 book Xanth series. The man was insanely prolific, although I strongly suspect most of the Xanth books were at least partly written by others.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at December 20, 2020 11:07 AM (KZzsI)

282 265 I am on book 4 of the SPQR series. Its a series which I have read largely out of order from the local library because you get what you can check out rather than what you want in order from libraries.

Its great watching the character and the stories develop, its not that the mystery series is one long big story, but it follows Roman history to mine the mysteries from so its progressive. Watching Rome collapse from a republic to a tyranny so steadily and tragically is sad and quite familiar (it really happened rather quickly, even if the full impact of the change took decades to take hold).

But the best part of the series is that the main character Decius is so much a part of Roman culture. Roberts, who also wrote a ton of Conan books (the one I've read is terrific), doesn't try to inject a modern character into Rome. He's completely Roman and of his time. He assumes Rome is the center of the world and the greatest place on earth, even when he's contradictory about it. He's comfortable with slavery (at first, he starts to change his mind about that in time), he thinks all the gods are real and impact his life, etc.

A pet peeve of mine is the feeble-minded need of lesser authors to make historical characters think and act like modern people. The best authors write characters from and of their time, even if they stand out for being better people.
Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at December 20, 2020 11:02 AM (KZzsI)
_________

Yes, absolutely. That's why I found Caedfal disappointing; he was just too modern. Personally, I didn't much care for the original SPQR, but really liked the sequels I've read. Maybe I'll give #1 a retry.

Posted by: Eeyore at December 20, 2020 11:08 AM (7X3UV)

283 Carnegie built a beautiful library in my town.
They've torn it down and replaced it with a
steel and glass institution.

Posted by: Braenyard at December 20, 2020 10:49 AM (CZm2G)

The original Carnegie Lieberry had a swimming pool/steam room, bowling alley, and I think a 700 seat auditorium. It was renovated at great cost, because the shitbags in charge of his foundation squandered all the money. They still use the auditorium and pool.

Posted by: Mr Aspirin Factory at December 20, 2020 11:09 AM (5c4Z0)

284 276 Just before I head to church, a book recommendation: "The 36 Hour Day."

It's a book aimed at people who are dealing with family members who have dementia and or alzheimers. My initial read is that it's a good "roadmap" when it comes to what to expect and how to deal with the progression of these diseases.

Side note: I was surprised to find out there are treatable conditions who's symptom's sometimes mimic the onset of dementia/alzheimers.
Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing at December 20, 2020 11:06 AM (WEBkv)44

Thanks fpr the recommend. I take care of my mom who has dementia, and lately she seems t be having more difficulties with it.

Posted by: josephistan at December 20, 2020 11:09 AM (Izzlo)

285 256
Who are you talking about?
Posted by: mnw at December 20, 2020 11:05 AM (Cssks)

https://tinyurl.com/yb33qguv

Posted by: Ordinary American at December 20, 2020 11:09 AM (H8QX8)

286 I was reading a comedic mystery, and the protagonist traveled by car down a certain street in NY solely for the purpose of driving by Trump Tower and having the character (apropos of nothing) rant about orangemanbad.

For while in the naughties many series suddenly slouched into BDS territory with their characters becoming tangled in all-powerful anti-terrorist organizations and the eeeevils of the Patriot Act and how it gave the FBI supreme power to do anything at all. The books were about the usual stuff then suddenly EVIL BAD GOVERNMENT MEN ABUSING POWER AND YOU CANNOT STOP THEM BECAUSE BUSH BAD!

It was "throw book across the room" time.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at December 20, 2020 11:10 AM (KZzsI)

287 Rickles' schtick is to be a world-class jerk, but out of character he's quite pleasant.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at December 20, 2020 10:51 AM (cfSRQ)

and he could break Frank's balls and get away with it. I am sure everyone has seen this.

https://tinyurl.com/yb25s94t

Posted by: Quint at December 20, 2020 11:10 AM (kfMBQ)

288 264 Clancy is famous for wanting the reader to know how smart he was. Do you know the schematics for a nuclear submarine? Well I do, so get ready for the next 10 pages.
A lot of people love the authenticity, though.

Posted by: artemis at December 20, 2020 11:01 AM (AwPyG)
_________

When I want that, I want the real thing, Norman Friedman. He is flat-out the greatest writer on warships, ever. But of course, it ain't fiction.

And it arose from a hobby.

Posted by: Eeyore at December 20, 2020 11:10 AM (7X3UV)

289 @277
This is a tricky problem, I think, because how earlier people felt about the treatment of animals or slavery or the role of women isn't going to play well for modern audiences, no matter how authentic.

Posted by: artemis at December 20, 2020 11:10 AM (AwPyG)

290 I never read much of L'Amour's work, other than a few short stories.

But I read a bio of him. He was EXTREMELY well-read, an autodidact.

He was also amazingly meticulous in researching the time & places he wrote about. He said his fans would leave him otherwise.

I was very impressed.

Posted by: mnw at December 20, 2020 11:11 AM (Cssks)

291 Perry Como.

Posted by: TheQuietMan at December 20, 2020 09:58 AM (DSbKx)

clean up on 133

Posted by: Quint at December 20, 2020 09:59 AM (kfMBQ)

Dean had jokes about Sinatra in his movies. I can't remember the name of the one but a girl puts on a Frank Sinatra record and says how much she loves his music and Dean says, Oh honey. I didn't know you're a Perry Como fan. In the first Matt Helm movie, Stella Stevens turns on the car radio. Strangers in the Night is playing. Dean says, Oh that's terrible. That guy can't sing. He switches the channel. It's him singing Everybody Loves Somebody. Dean says, Now that guy can sing.

Posted by: TheQuietMan at December 20, 2020 11:11 AM (ZQ4sC)

292 Since we're talking about Burt Reynolds (or at least some of us are), I will throw out there that his best role is as himself in a cameo appearance in Silent Movie. Just saying. And Smokey and the Bandit is worth watching (but that's mostly about Sally Fields in tight jeans).

Posted by: Who knew at December 20, 2020 11:11 AM (SfO/T)

293 Because his writing shoves the Leftists' noses right
into the big pile of tyrannical, anti-human shit that is
communism/socialism, and says "See? This is where your dream system
leads."

and they hate him for it.

Posted by: naturalfake at December 20, 2020 10:14 AM (dWwl

They do. I think he deserves a renaissance and I've been pushing his work on the kids and their friends.

Posted by: CN at December 20, 2020 10:46 AM (ONvIw)

Jordan Peterson has made mention of him enough in his lectures that a lot of guys are picking him up to see what the deal is.

Also, a friend who's a history teacher goes after it the other way "Your parents won't want you reading this, so I most certainly did not recommend The Gulag Archipelago. If you snuck a copy somehow, you might find out a lot of things nobody wants to tell you."

She can always tell who falls for that, usually by the way the get very quiet and kind of haunted. But she's also the kind of teacher who coordinates with the English teacher, so when they're reading Night by Elie Weisel, she rolls into the Holomodor.

Posted by: Not From Around Here at December 20, 2020 11:11 AM (wrzAm)

294 The Carnegie Club looks like a good spot for an outlet mall. Plenty of parking.

Posted by: klaftern at December 20, 2020 11:12 AM (RuIsu)

295 well not really, soltzhenitzyn admired competent russians like stolypin, who was harsh but fair, he suggests in the second volume of the red wheel, that the okrana as much as had him done in, since they were surveiling the assasin,

To his eye, the kakistocracy that arose out of the yeltsin years, driven by summers and sach's schemes, that created the oligarchs from the nomenklatura, is not what the russian people ever wanted, a successor book to volpi's in search of klingsor, season of ash,
https://www.amazon.com/Season-Ash-Jorge-Volpi/dp/1934824100
has a flavor of this,

Posted by: bolivar de gris at December 20, 2020 11:12 AM (hMlTh)

296 249
I'm not reading any great religious overtones in the series but just
seeing it as typical fantasy going after the guy in charge. It is
definitely not in a class with Tolkien or C.S? Lewis by any means. I
enjoyed Harry Potter too but never thought it was great literature or
tried to read a deeper meaning in it.

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at December 20, 2020 10:54 AM (sd8p

Oh, just wait. You've got a real white-knuckle ride ahead of you!

Posted by: Dr. Mabuse at December 20, 2020 11:12 AM (ZzfrF)

297 A pet peeve of mine is the feeble-minded need of lesser authors to make historical characters think and act like modern people.

-
Amen. Even worse when they have an medieval or some such Mary Sue doing so.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at December 20, 2020 11:13 AM (+y/Ru)

298 A pet peeve of mine is the feeble-minded need of lesser authors to make
historical characters think and act like modern people. The best authors
write characters from and of their time, even if they stand out for
being better people.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at December 20, 2020 11:02 AM (KZzsI)

the reason I could not get threw even the first ten minutes of Deadwood. Maybe I was being unfair. Maybe it was not the right time. But I love Westerns and always have loved them. I watched ten minutes of it and that was more than enough.

Posted by: Quint at December 20, 2020 11:13 AM (kfMBQ)

299 Yesterday I had a funny experience. Saw that John Grisham has a new book out called A Time For Mercy, which has Jake Brigance back as the protagonist. You may remember him as the protagonist of Grisham's first book, A Time To Kill.

I enjoyed A Time To Kill back when it first came out but have never read any of Grisham's other novels (though I have seen a few of the movies made from those tales). Imagine my surprise to discover that Grisham has written a total of 35 novels!

Likewise Lisa Scottoline, whose first book Everywhere That Mary Went I really enjoyed back when I was graduating from law school. Now I discover that Scottoline has written about 29 more books, and I have read NONE of them.

What did you people do with my entire life!?!?!?

Posted by: Sharkman at December 20, 2020 11:13 AM (1YlHz)

300 277
A pet peeve of mine is the feeble-minded need of lesser authors to make historical characters think and act like modern people. The best authors write characters from and of their time, even if they stand out for being better people.
Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at December 20, 2020 11:02 AM (KZzsI)

I think the left has dragged this concept into all discourse by expecting historical figures to have modern and very leftist sentiments.
Posted by: CN at December 20, 2020 11:06 AM (ONvIw)
________

I don't know about that. C S Lewis says that was the way everyone saw earlier times, until Sir Walter Scott changed things. After Scott, some do, some don't. But it's not necessarily the left's fault.

Posted by: Eeyore at December 20, 2020 11:13 AM (7X3UV)

301 "From the welcome tot at the door when you arrive to the cuddly hottie placed in your bed during turn-down service..."

Nice!!
Posted by: Cannibal Bob at December 20, 2020 10:09 AM (ol6cB)

Sounds like a visit to pedo island.

Posted by: Cuthbert the Witless at December 20, 2020 11:14 AM (9dzlp)

302 L'Amour was great about going where he wrote about and his life was amazing, what he went through and knew. And he was largely right about what a man should be. And he's a good writer, very entertaining. But he did wax a bit preachy at times in later books.

how earlier people felt about the treatment of animals or slavery or the role of women isn't going to play well for modern audiences, no matter how authentic.

Yeah, that is an issue. The SPQR books suddenly aren't in our public library any longer, and I suspect its because of his ancient Roman attitude. I never get the feeling that he's endorsing this stuff, only that he's just from his time.

But millennial and zoomer readers are squeeing little pajama boys who run to their safe space weeping openly when confronted with anything different than their bubble allows. Reading their reviews of older books is almost painful.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at December 20, 2020 11:14 AM (KZzsI)

303 Clancy would spend pages building a character with backstory, then never use him, or he would just end up selling jack a newspaper.

Posted by: Cat Ass Trophy at December 20, 2020 11:15 AM (asLIL)

304 Steven Saylor's mysteries set in ancient Rome were hard for me for the very reason I cited--he knows a lot about day to day life in ancient Rome, and he wants to dwell lovingly on the subject for pages and pages and pages.

Posted by: artemis at December 20, 2020 11:15 AM (AwPyG)

305 This is a tricky problem, I think, because how earlier people felt about the treatment of animals or slavery or the role of women isn't going to play well for modern audiences, no matter how authentic.

Posted by: artemis at December 20, 2020 11:10 AM (AwPyG)

No, it won't play well, but an accurate depiction of history is better than a sanitized one or one that is determined to erase the realities of life, no matter how hard.

Posted by: CN at December 20, 2020 11:15 AM (ONvIw)

306 I must throw this in here though it is not bookish in nature:

https://tinyurl.com/Escher-Doc

Trailer for a documentary on the life and works of M.C. Escher, he of the gloriously beautiful and mathematically precise woodcuts and prints.

I can't wait until this comes out.

Posted by: Sharkman at December 20, 2020 11:16 AM (1YlHz)

307 Since we're talking about Burt Reynolds (or at least
some of us are), I will throw out there that his best role is as
himself in a cameo appearance in Silent Movie. Just saying. And Smokey
and the Bandit is worth watching (but that's mostly about Sally Fields
in tight jeans).

Posted by: Who knew at December 20, 2020 11:11 AM (SfO/T)

I loved Gator for some reason. I haven't seen it in ages but I recall liking it. Also Hooper was a lot of fun. All those movies were seriously dated, none more than Smokey and the Bandit. Sure it was no Star Wars, but it was a big freaking deal when it came out. And that guy was a star.

Posted by: Quint at December 20, 2020 11:16 AM (kfMBQ)

308 State of Fear by Michael Crichton.
Posted by: JT
One of my favorites, read when it came out, will have to read again. The intro, or first few pages, where he explains the way the media amplify fear, very relevant to covid etc.

Posted by: MikeM at December 20, 2020 11:16 AM (np8OD)

309 I read all of Conroys books and I noticed a theme of rape that in each successive book happens closer to the main character.

Posted by: blaster at December 20, 2020 11:17 AM (ZfRYq)

310 morning everyone. starting off today with coffee and cold pizza.
Currently reading Natural Born Heroes by Chris McDougall (author of Born to Run).
Interesting book about natural fitness, natural heroism and rethinking exercise. It has a tendency to meander all over at times, but there are some intriguing concepts in it that will cause you to think about going and pumping out reps in the gym versus doing some kind of parkour like activity. So maybe worth reading if you're into this sort of genre.

Posted by: Secret Squirrel at December 20, 2020 11:17 AM (RN/ND)

311 the reason I could not get threw even the first ten minutes of Deadwood. Maybe I was being unfair

I thought I was the only one who didn't care for Deadwood.

I have tried unsuccessfully several times to read Ivanhoe, and each time I turn away because its slow and most recently because I detected it is so obviously a deconstructive attack on the very concepts of honor, chivalry, and knightly virtues. Not the way they were carried out in the world, but the actual principles they were supposed to live up to. I couldn't read it.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at December 20, 2020 11:17 AM (KZzsI)

312
I have the advantage of doing the world-building
as a GM for decades, developing the maps, history, culture, etc through
play and as need arose rather than doing it from scratch. So I can
just write books about my game setting, pre-built and tested by
conniving, tricksy players.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at December 20, 2020 11:04 AM (KZzsI)

---
Oh, I've done the same. Maps, gods, chronologies, bloodlines, etc.

My issue is that I want to write something interesting and - this is the funny part - I find fantasy to be kind of boring. Tolkien kind of ruined me, I guess.

When I write something, it has to have a point. Not just a point, but usually a rebuttal, a reaction against something else in the genre.

Battle Officer Wolf was a rebuke to Hollywood's shitty Beowulf movies.

Man of Destiny was rebuttal to the Star Wars prequels.

Three Weeks with the Coasties was a response to the local library featuring an Iraq War novel by one of those wonderful vets who do honorable service and then trash their comrades as bloodthirsty simps.

Vampires of Michigan was a reaction against all the angsty vampire stuff like Twilight and Vampire Diaries.

Even Long Live Death was motivated in part by all the leftist bullshit surrounding the Spanish Civil War.

(Scorpion's Pass started as a short story I wrote as a Valentine's present for my wife and she asked me to keep writing more. Altogether now: awwww.)

Game of Thrones briefly motivated me to think about fantasy, but it's self-destruction rendered further action by me unnecessary.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at December 20, 2020 11:18 AM (cfSRQ)

313 AE gained my ill-will forever for the cancellation of A Nero Wolfe Mystery. Besides being exceptional adaptations of the Stout material, comically full wigs -- played straight -- on perennially bald James Tolkan made it a genuine classic.

Posted by: FTL at December 20, 2020 11:18 AM (6U108)

314 But millennial and zoomer readers are squeeing
little pajama boys who run to their safe space weeping openly when
confronted with anything different than their bubble allows. Reading
their reviews of older books is almost painful.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at December 20, 2020 11:14 AM (KZzsI)

some are discovering 70s and 80s cinema. The ones that do well are open to the differences. Others drone on tsk tsking every single thing. Dumb, uninterested, and judgemental is no way to go through life.

Posted by: Quint at December 20, 2020 11:19 AM (kfMBQ)

315
A pet peeve of mine is the feeble-minded need of lesser authors to make historical characters think and act like modern people.

-

Amen. Even worse when they have an medieval or some such Mary Sue doing so.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at December 20, 2020 11:13 AM (+y/Ru)

100% agree. There was a Robin Hood spoof from 1984 with George Segal as Robin, Morgan Fairchild as Maid Marian and Tom Baker as Guy of Gisbourne. There's a scene where they are going to marry off Maid Marian and she goes off on a long rant about being a woman who will make her own decisions and will marry who she wants. Tom Baker leans towards her and says, "My dear. This is the 12th Century. Go find a white dress."

Posted by: TheQuietMan at December 20, 2020 11:19 AM (ZQ4sC)

316 I was reading a comedic mystery, and the protagonist traveled by car down a certain street in NY solely for the purpose of driving by Trump Tower and having the character (apropos of nothing) rant about orangemanbad.

-
I started to watch a Bill Murray comedy zombie movie, The Dead Don't Die, but one character wore a red Make America White Again cap then there was something else that offended me, maybe global warming propaganda, so I bailed out.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at December 20, 2020 11:19 AM (+y/Ru)

317 A good example of NOT modernizing a character set in the past is Stephen Maturin. There are many times when O'Brian could, and even looks as if he will, turn him into a voicepiece for modernity, but then he doesn't. He has Stephen bleed the whole crew.

While I think Jack even more interesting, Stephen is a very well drawn example of the kind of enthusiast for revolution who has had the scales fall from his eyes.

Posted by: Eeyore at December 20, 2020 11:20 AM (7X3UV)

318 It's been many years since I read The Gulag Archipelago but I seem to recall the books raising hackles.
I also remember Solzhenitsyn disturbing people with talk of the moral decadence of the West.
Like I see this many years ago.

Posted by: Northernlurker, still lurking after all these years at December 20, 2020 11:20 AM (lgiXo)

319 Cold pizza makes a great breakfast. Almost as good as leftover birthday cake.

Posted by: artemis at December 20, 2020 11:20 AM (AwPyG)

320 Steven Saylor's mysteries set in ancient Rome were hard for me for the very reason I cited

Yeah they never worked very well for me either, although I liked them okay.

I loved Gator for some reason

I haven't seen it for ages, but yeah I recall it being good. He did a run of movies like that which I enjoyed a lot back in the day. Gator is a sequel to White Lightning, and from what I understand was Reynolds' first directing job.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at December 20, 2020 11:20 AM (KZzsI)

321 Tried to read again "Night Action" by Charles Dickens' grandson.

It is his war stories of British MTBs in the English Channel against the Germans.

Unfortunately his very British writing style stopped me cold and I put it back on the shelf.

Posted by: Anna Puma at December 20, 2020 11:22 AM (YcI7I)

322 319 Cold pizza makes a great breakfast. Almost as good as leftover birthday cake.
Posted by: artemis at December 20, 2020 11:20 AM (AwPyG)

one of my fav, artemis. A delicious corned beef hash or chicken fried steak will do as well!

Posted by: Secret Squirrel at December 20, 2020 11:22 AM (RN/ND)

323 If one is going to write an historical novel, it better damn well BE historical.

"The Persian Boy," by Mary Renault, about Alexander the Great & his era, is very well done, I thought.

I realize Gore Vidal was a compleat azalea, but I liked "Lincoln" & "Julian the Apostate."

Posted by: mnw at December 20, 2020 11:22 AM (Cssks)

324 have an medieval or some such

-
"An medieval"? Apparently, I've gone full Dr. Jill.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at December 20, 2020 11:22 AM (+y/Ru)

325 Cold pizza makes a great breakfast. Almost as good as leftover birthday cake.
Posted by: artemis at December 20, 2020 11:20 AM (AwPyG)

Nothing is as good as left over birthday cake

Posted by: Nevergiveup at December 20, 2020 11:22 AM (85Gof)

326 I guess he had a very difficult life in the end, mostly because of problems with his family and kids.

His son, Dean Paul, was killed in an F-4 crash while flying with the California Air National Guard.

Posted by: Fox2! at December 20, 2020 11:22 AM (qyH+l)

327 I loved Gator for some reason. I haven't seen it in ages but I recall liking it. Also Hooper was a lot of fun. All those movies were seriously dated, none more than Smokey and the Bandit. Sure it was no Star Wars, but it was a big freaking deal when it came out. And that guy was a star.
Posted by: Quint at December 20, 2020 11:16 AM (kfMBQ)

Yup..."Gator" was a fun movie. I saw it at a drive-in back in the Golden Era.

I was rooting for Jerry Reed but Gator got him in the end.

Posted by: Hairyback Guy at December 20, 2020 11:23 AM (R/m4+)

328
Tom Clancy has a quaint belief in the omnicompetence of the US armed services and intelligence agencies.

Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at December 20, 2020 11:23 AM (mht8P)

329 I just got here so I'm sure the horse has been cut up for parts and sold to the glue factory by now, after its savage beating...

The book mentioned at the top? Is it worth reading? Why would anyone read THAT one, written by an idiot who think Hiss and the Rosenbergs were innocent, when there are plenty of other books out there to help understand the present day FBI.

Read it for the origin story? Why? This isn't a Marvelle movie, it's real life. FBI was run by a psychopath, agents got squeaky clean images, thanks to Hollowood telling lies, while doing their own dirty deeds, and being marginally effective as an investigative unit on "ordinary" crimes.

There, origin story done. Now... where are their crimes?

Just go looking, you'll find them.

Posted by: BurtTC at December 20, 2020 11:24 AM (hku12)

330 I can't walk under a ceiling fan and stop, look up and say I prayed for a mission, and for my sins they gave me one.

Apocalypse Now is pure art, no redeeming history out of it.

Posted by: Skip at December 20, 2020 11:24 AM (Cxk7w)

331 There are many times when O'Brian could, and even looks as if he will, turn him into a voicepiece for modernity, but then he doesn't

Yeah he nudges awfully close, but then reins Stephen in and keeps him of his time -- mostly. He's advanced in medical science, but philosophically is kind of tied into his time period. I did find Stephen a bit insufferably Marty Stu after a while though. The man was practically omnicompetent and was able to get along well with everyone except Bad People.

My issue is that I want to write something interesting and - this is the funny part - I find fantasy to be kind of boring.

I'll let you in on a little secret: I do, too. Its pretentious and dull most of the time and when its not its often childish. I tired rapidly of Yet Another Huge Tome books about gigantic sweeping epic sagas of history and Important Deeds involving the Maguffin Of Power.

I determined to not write anything of the sort.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at December 20, 2020 11:24 AM (KZzsI)

332 311 the reason I could not get threw even the first ten minutes of Deadwood. Maybe I was being unfair

I thought I was the only one who didn't care for Deadwood.

I have tried unsuccessfully several times to read Ivanhoe, and each time I turn away because its slow and most recently because I detected it is so obviously a deconstructive attack on the very concepts of honor, chivalry, and knightly virtues. Not the way they were carried out in the world, but the actual principles they were supposed to live up to. I couldn't read it.
Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at December 20, 2020 11:17 AM (KZzsI)
_________

That is fair, but not typical Scott. The Middle Ages were before his real era of interest, and for that he accepted the standard Whig-Saxon myth, already common in England.

And yes, he does slog. I had one professor who said Scott could make Evelyn Wood move her lips when she read him.

Posted by: Eeyore at December 20, 2020 11:24 AM (7X3UV)

333 303 Clancy would spend pages building a character with backstory, then never use him, or he would just end up selling jack a newspaper.
Posted by: Cat Ass Trophy at December 20, 2020 11:15 AM (asLIL)

I know right. Read another 900 pages waiting for the guy to turn back up and have a key to the plot....nope just sells newspapers

The character I get tired of is the strong woman character who is straight up a pushy selfish mental case that everyone just loves,hates,respects but let's face it she's unlikable except the author tells us we should like her cause...strong woman.....and then the author throws in the most bigoted redneck misogynist as a foil.... ugh.

Posted by: Cuthbert the Witless at December 20, 2020 11:24 AM (9dzlp)

334 One television series I don't like is the BBC Father Brown series. It rubs me the wrong way.

Posted by: Northernlurker, still lurking after all these years at December 20, 2020 11:24 AM (lgiXo)

335 I also remember Solzhenitsyn disturbing people with talk of the moral decadence of the West.

-
And he was right!

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at December 20, 2020 11:24 AM (+y/Ru)

336 the reason I could not get threw even the first ten minutes of Deadwood. Maybe I was being unfair

I thought I was the only one who didn't care for Deadwood.

Liked Deadwood in parts but less as a whole.

For instance, the 537 episodes about Al Swearengen trying to pass a kidney stone.

Yes, it was realistic and a kidney stone could kill you in those days. So, add in general grossness and it was right in Deadwood wheelhouse as The Only Realistic Western Evah!

But, compelling TV drama? Nope.

Posted by: naturalfake at December 20, 2020 11:24 AM (EERbD)

337 Tom Clancy has a quaint belief in the omnicompetence of the US armed services and intelligence agencies.
Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at December 20, 2020 11:23 AM (mht8P)

Had.....

Posted by: Zombie Tom Clancy at December 20, 2020 11:25 AM (R/m4+)

338 I never read much of L'Amour's work, other than a few short stories.

But I read a bio of him. He was EXTREMELY well-read, an autodidact.

He was also amazingly meticulous in researching the time
places he wrote about. He said his fans would leave him otherwise.

I was very impressed.

Posted by: mnw at December 20, 2020 11:11 AM (Cssks)

I heard in the 80s that if L'amour wrote about a specific stream it was there now. Some of that might have been hyperbole but he was very meticulous in his writing. He always included maps in the books so you get get the geography of the story. He was not making it up out of thin air.

Posted by: Quint at December 20, 2020 11:25 AM (kfMBQ)

339 Oddly, Piers Anthony never caught the huge book bug.
His earlier books (Cthon, Macroscope) are bigger, especially
Macroscope (which is one of his best) but he tended to write pretty
short books like the 9120214 book Xanth series. The man was insanely
prolific, although I strongly suspect most of the Xanth books were at
least partly written by others.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at December 20, 2020 11:07 AM (KZzsI)

---
What about Bio of a Space Tyrant?

Doesn't six volumes count as big???

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at December 20, 2020 11:25 AM (cfSRQ)

340 does the cunt romney ever shut his aHole

Posted by: Nevergiveup at December 20, 2020 11:25 AM (85Gof)

341 Clancy would spend pages building a character with backstory, then never use him, or he would just end up selling jack a newspaper.

Yeah I haven't read his last couple books because I got tired of them having 900 side plots that had next to nothing to do with the actual story, and tons of hugely fleshed out characters that were meaningless. It was padded to a painful extent, and a good editor would have pared the books down to half their length.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at December 20, 2020 11:26 AM (KZzsI)

342 And yes, he does slog. I had one professor who said Scott could make Evelyn Wood move her lips when she read him.

Posted by: Eeyore at December 20, 2020 11:24 AM (7X3UV)

---
Not much of a prof. Evelyn was quite male.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at December 20, 2020 11:27 AM (cfSRQ)

343 And a fun example of an author who turned the "high concept sweeping epic fantasy" idea upside down is Richard Adams, who wrote Watership Down, where the battling characters were rabbits.

Posted by: artemis at December 20, 2020 11:27 AM (AwPyG)

344 340 does the cunt romney ever shut his aHole
Posted by: Nevergiveup at December 20, 2020 11:25 AM (85Gof)

No. He must protect the family fortune.

Posted by: CN at December 20, 2020 11:27 AM (ONvIw)

345 339 Oddly, Piers Anthony never caught the huge book bug.
His earlier books (Cthon, Macroscope) are bigger, especially
Macroscope (which is one of his best) but he tended to write pretty
short books like the 9120214 book Xanth series. The man was insanely
prolific, although I strongly suspect most of the Xanth books were at
least partly written by others.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at December 20, 2020 11:07 AM (KZzsI)

---
What about Bio of a Space Tyrant?

Doesn't six volumes count as big???
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at December 20, 2020 11:25 AM (cfSRQ)

man you just caused me to remember the first Piers Anthony book I read in middle school back..well, way back. Split Infinity. My first foray into fantasy/sci fi. The fantasy books never caught on, but i kept up on the sci fi. Good trilogy of books.

Posted by: Secret Squirrel at December 20, 2020 11:28 AM (RN/ND)

346 One television series I don't like is the BBC Father Brown series. It rubs me the wrong way.

Whoever wrote that series clearly never read a single one of the stories. They just heard Father Brown was a chubby, unassuming priest who solved mysteries and went to town on it. Awful stuff. Chesterton would have dragged the producers out and kicked their ass.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at December 20, 2020 11:28 AM (KZzsI)

347 I can't imagine any editor would dare tell Clancy what to do, and that was probably the problem

Posted by: artemis at December 20, 2020 11:28 AM (AwPyG)

348 328
Tom Clancy has a quaint belief in the omnicompetence of the US armed services and intelligence agencies.
Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at December 20, 2020 11:23 AM (mht8P)

This! In some of all fears the "Conservative" president needed to be manipulated by Jack Ryan's superior I was intelligence to save the world. AGAIN. Nothing in the fib cai indicate superior intelligence.

Posted by: Cuthbert the Witless at December 20, 2020 11:29 AM (9dzlp)

349 329 I just got here so I'm sure the horse has been cut up for parts and sold to the glue factory by now, after its savage beating...

The book mentioned at the top? Is it worth reading? Why would anyone read THAT one, written by an idiot who think Hiss and the Rosenbergs were innocent, when there are plenty of other books out there to help understand the present day FBI.

Read it for the origin story? Why? This isn't a Marvelle movie, it's real life. FBI was run by a psychopath, agents got squeaky clean images, thanks to Hollowood telling lies, while doing their own dirty deeds, and being marginally effective as an investigative unit on "ordinary" crimes.

There, origin story done. Now... where are their crimes?

Just go looking, you'll find them.
Posted by: BurtTC at December 20, 2020 11:24 AM (hku12)
________

Sometimes a writer is worthless on some points, and valuable on others. It happens. N A M Rodger, who likes to put comments in his bibliographies, will cite books for just that sort of thing. (And he often gets snarky.)

Posted by: Eeyore at December 20, 2020 11:29 AM (7X3UV)

350 Doesn't six volumes count as big???

Oh he could write a big book (although I was referring to the size of each book, not the length of the series) but most of his stuff was nicely pocket sized and moved along.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at December 20, 2020 11:29 AM (KZzsI)

351 335 I also remember Solzhenitsyn disturbing people with talk of the moral decadence of the West.

-
And he was right!
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at December 20, 2020 11:24 AM (+y/Ru)

And some of the talk were speeches that probably did not sit altogether well with the audience.

Posted by: CN at December 20, 2020 11:29 AM (ONvIw)

352 348 328
Tom Clancy has a quaint belief in the omnicompetence of the US armed services and intelligence agencies.
Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at December 20, 2020 11:23 AM (mht8P)

This! In some of all fears the "Conservative" president needed to be manipulated by Jack Ryan's superior I was intelligence to save the world. AGAIN. Nothing in the fib cai indicate superior intelligence.
Posted by: Cuthbert the Witless at December 20, 2020 11:29 AM (9dzlp)

clancy needed an editor like George RRRRRR Martin does. But one thing about Clancy- loved the military and the US. Martin I can't say the same for.

Posted by: Secret Squirrel at December 20, 2020 11:30 AM (RN/ND)

353 340 does the cunt romney ever shut his aHole
Posted by: Nevergiveup at December 20, 2020 11:25 AM (85Gof)

If he did, he wouldn't be Romney. What an ego trip for him. Whatever trifling, forgettable, stupid or screwed up opinion he has, he gets a platform to say it and an eager media to repeat it.

Posted by: Ordinary American at December 20, 2020 11:30 AM (H8QX8)

354 257 I've been reading Squadron Airborne by Elleston Trevor (how's that for a Limey name?), a.novel based upon his experiences in the RAF during the Battle of Britain. It's an OK book but some difficult in that the RAF slang from 80 years ago can be hard to follow.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at December 20, 2020 10:57 AM (+y/Ru)

"Top hole. Bally Jerry pranged his kite right in the how's your father. Hairy blighter, dicky-birdied, feathered back on his Sammy, took a waspy, flipped over on his Betty Harper's and caught his can in the Bertie."

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Social Distancing Professional at December 20, 2020 11:30 AM (y9Iop)

355 One television series I don't like is the BBC Father Brown series. It rubs me the wrong way.
Posted by: Northernlurker, still lurking after all these years at December 20, 2020 11:24 AM (lgiXo)

Oh come on. That's just because Bunty doesn't show any cleavage.

Posted by: Diogenes at December 20, 2020 11:30 AM (axyOa)

356 And lest I forget, Alan Tudyk has a new series about an extraterrestrial hiding in the boondocks coming out in 2021:

https://tinyurl.com/Resident-Alien-Tr

Looks fun.

Posted by: Sharkman at December 20, 2020 11:31 AM (1YlHz)

357 334 One television series I don't like is the BBC Father Brown series. It rubs me the wrong way.
Posted by: Northernlurker, still lurking after all these years at December 20, 2020 11:24 AM (lgiXo)
_________

The odds of anyone, in his time or ours, getting GKC right, approach 0. Chesterton is sui generis. Even Belloc is starkly different.

Posted by: Eeyore at December 20, 2020 11:31 AM (7X3UV)

358 I can't imagine any editor would dare tell Clancy what to do, and that was probably the problem

It is. He was too successful too soon, and you can tell. It almost always happens to authors who break it too big on their first book. They can ignore editors and publishers are so eager to get that cash from the next book that they don't lean on the author to tighten up. So the books get bigger and bigger and need editing more and more.

Harry Potter is a perfect example. 57 chapters of three kids hanging out in the forest in a tent listening to the radio was... not good reading.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at December 20, 2020 11:31 AM (KZzsI)

359 If he did, he wouldn't be Romney. What an ego trip for him. Whatever trifling, forgettable, stupid or screwed up opinion he has, he gets a platform to say it and an eager media to repeat it.

Posted by: Ordinary American at December 20, 2020 11:30 AM (H8QX

So you're saying Romney is the GOP version of Stacey Abrams?

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Social Distancing Professional at December 20, 2020 11:32 AM (y9Iop)

360 I hate posting from a tiny phone keyboard

Posted by: Cuthbert the Witless at December 20, 2020 11:32 AM (9dzlp)

361 man you just caused me to remember the first Piers
Anthony book I read in middle school back..well, way back. Split
Infinity. My first foray into fantasy/sci fi. The fantasy books never
caught on, but i kept up on the sci fi. Good trilogy of books.

Posted by: Secret Squirrel at December 20, 2020 11:28 AM (RN/ND)

---
Our local lieberry is adjacent to the high school, so growing up I'd stop in and peruse the sci-fi racks. Read a lot of Piers Anthony back in the day, including Bio of a Space Tyrant.

The Xanth books were okay, but the endless puns wore on me and I got bored pretty quickly.

I don't by any means consider myself well-read in sci-fi. I read a lot of military history and only dabbled in the other genres. I read the two big David Eddings series and found them kind of blah. Witty but nothing worth owning.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at December 20, 2020 11:32 AM (cfSRQ)

362 Not much of a prof. Evelyn was quite male.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at December 20, 2020 11:27 AM (cfSRQ)

Evelyn Wood of Reading Dynamics fame was a woman. Not Waugh.

Posted by: Pres. Elect LASue at December 20, 2020 11:32 AM (Ed8Zd)

363 Whoever wrote that series clearly never read a single one of the stories. They just heard Father Brown was a chubby, unassuming priest who solved mysteries and went to town on it. Awful stuff. Chesterton would have dragged the producers out and kicked their ass.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at December 20, 2020 11:28 AM (KZzsI)

I can't stand any of that PBS stuff...must be real inexpensive...do they have a ban on US productions? Do they think that Brit stuff so superior?

Posted by: BignJames at December 20, 2020 11:32 AM (AwYPR)

364 I started to watch a Bill Murray comedy zombie movie, The Dead Don't Die, but one character wore a red Make America White Again cap then there was something else that offended me, maybe global warming propaganda, so I bailed out.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at December 20, 2020 11:19 AM (+y/Ru)

You didn't miss much. The interesting characters that were presented (which were few) had basically nothing to do in the film.

Murray ad libs the whole time, and Adam Driver stands around looking like he's ready to kill Bill Murray for all the shitty ad libbing he's doing.

Posted by: BurtTC at December 20, 2020 11:33 AM (hku12)

365 Watership Down is genius. One of the best things about it is that Adams's rabbits are not furry humans - they are *rabbits*, with a different culture and different outlook. Most people who write about animals who talk are really writing about furry humans (e.g., Redwall. I mean, I like the Redwall books, don't get me wrong, but giving different animals different "hats" (a la the planet of hats trope) does not mean you have captured animals).

Circling back to WWII, Adams supposedly based the rabbits on his war buddies. When you look at Hazel and Bigwig through that lens, it makes a lot of sense.

Posted by: Mrs. Peel at December 20, 2020 11:33 AM (rWZ8Y)

366 342 And yes, he does slog. I had one professor who said Scott could make Evelyn Wood move her lips when she read him.

Posted by: Eeyore at December 20, 2020 11:24 AM (7X3UV)

---
Not much of a prof. Evelyn was quite male.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at December 20, 2020 11:27 AM (cfSRQ)
________

Wood, not Waugh.

In fact, he also taught Waugh.

Posted by: Eeyore at December 20, 2020 11:33 AM (7X3UV)

367 clancy needed an editor like George RRRRRR Martin does.

Martin is a puzzler to me. He earned his chops, he wrote for decades before suddenly becoming big with the inexplicably popular Game of Thrones books. He wrote tight, well-plotted books. He should know better.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at December 20, 2020 11:33 AM (KZzsI)

368 take patriot games, the ira cell, despite being surveilled by satellites, escaped to attack the ryan compound, take clear and present danger, yes the spec ops group in colombia is very competent, (btw a similar operation worked against escobar, with the pepes, some years later,) but cutter and ritter, are deep state weasels, even in red october, it is ryan and his contract analyst, that spot the sub and it's purpose, the institutional brass are skeptical of the find,

Posted by: bolivar de gris at December 20, 2020 11:33 AM (hMlTh)

369 242 Carnegie built a beautiful library in my town.
They've torn it down and replaced it with a
steel and glass institution.

Posted by: Braenyard

sad!

my town still has the original Carnegie library. They added onto it but mantained the original building.
It has an old grandfather clock that the librarian winds by hand

Posted by: vmom Trump Won! at December 20, 2020 11:34 AM (nUhF0)

370 "Top hole. Bally Jerry pranged his kite right in the how's your father. Hairy blighter, dicky-birdied, feathered back on his Sammy, took a waspy, flipped over on his Betty Harper's and caught his can in the Bertie."
Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Social Distancing Professional at December 20, 2020 11:30 AM (y9Iop)

LOL- OM, I first came across the use of "pranged" in Clavell's novel, Noble House. I always liked it- think we should incorporate it here. I know some Limey words have made it into the current lexicon- for example, the Brit military uses the word "kit" to describe any equipment. That has made its way into the military and police jargon now. Kit was unheard of when i was on active duty back at the start of the new millennium. We always said, "gear" or "TA-50." Now its everywhere.

Posted by: Secret Squirrel at December 20, 2020 11:34 AM (RN/ND)

371 "Top hole. Bally Jerry pranged his kite right in the
how's your father. Hairy blighter, dicky-birdied, feathered back on his
Sammy, took a waspy, flipped over on his Betty Harper's and caught his
can in the Bertie."

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor Social Distancing Professional at December 20, 2020 11:30 AM (y9Iop)

No, I'm just not understanding banter at all well today. Give us it slower.

Posted by: TheQuietMan at December 20, 2020 11:34 AM (ZQ4sC)

372 Oh come on. That's just because Bunty doesn't show any cleavage.

Posted by: Diogenes at December 20, 2020 11:30 AM (axyOa)

You rang?https://tinyurl.com/y7xxbd6j

This is the best I could do on short search notice.

Posted by: President-Elect anchorbabe fashion cop at December 20, 2020 11:34 AM (ufFY8)

373 Posted by: BurtTC at December 20, 2020 11:24 AM (hku12)
________

Sometimes a writer is worthless on some points, and valuable on others. It happens. N A M Rodger, who likes to put comments in his bibliographies, will cite books for just that sort of thing. (And he often gets snarky.)
Posted by: Eeyore at December 20, 2020 11:29 AM (7X3UV)

I don't have time for that. I'm a slow reader, and I have lots of other things to do.

Posted by: BurtTC at December 20, 2020 11:35 AM (hku12)

374 So you're saying Romney is the GOP version of Stacey Abrams?
Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Social Distancing Professional at December 20, 2020 11:32 AM (y9Iop)

Without the spine.

Posted by: Ordinary American at December 20, 2020 11:35 AM (H8QX8)

375 NGU I blaim Utah for it, deplatforming him would be best by him having no public employment.

Posted by: Skip at December 20, 2020 11:35 AM (Cxk7w)

376 Evelyn Wood of Reading Dynamics fame was a woman. Not Waugh.

Posted by: Pres. Elect LASue at December 20, 2020 11:32 AM (Ed8Zd)

---
Piss off!

Posted by: Field Marshal Sir Henry Evelyn Woo at December 20, 2020 11:35 AM (cfSRQ)

377 I don't think it's that weird that Solzhenitsyn would be ok with Putin... It's not is if he was a fan of Western democracy or anything. Big time Russian patriot, though, and so is Putin. Though, Putin's KGB past must have been a bitter pill.

Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at December 20, 2020 11:35 AM (Zm/Ey)

378 You have to love how Trump said "Romney couldn't be voted dog catcher now."

Posted by: artemis at December 20, 2020 11:36 AM (AwPyG)

379 The wags used to call Waugh & his wife "He-Evelyn and She-Evelyn."

Posted by: mnw at December 20, 2020 11:36 AM (Cssks)

380 And bugger this keyboard!

Posted by: Field Marshal Sir Henry Evelyn Wood at December 20, 2020 11:36 AM (cfSRQ)

381 RE: Solzhenitsyn:

His son Ignatz is one of the finest classical pianists in the world. I saw him in concert a few years ago and he signed a copy of "The Gulag Archipelago" for me.

Posted by: josephistan

Nice interview of Ignatz S by Eric Metaxas earlier this year:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlMRuaCKLTQ

Posted by: Sharkman at December 20, 2020 11:36 AM (1YlHz)

382 Before this pre-Christmas book thread expires...

I don't have a book. I do have a website.
My muse may be retired, or on vacation.
No new Christmas webworks for 2020.
Here's some from the past
____

Santa, Dear Friends
Text with ill., 1996 Dec 24
For those who may have come to doubt the old elf
http://bit.ly/uPbosF
____

Let Your Aim Be...
...to do your Christmas shopping early.
Filler ad for 1912 Nov 21
http://mindfulwebworks.com/radical/let-your-aim-be
Ill. - 2014 Jul 15
____

Preview of my Christmas Webworkshop
(not safe for Santa-believing tykes)
Video (0:32) - Dec 19, 2016
https://youtu.be/w30RkH1hajA
Also included in Webworkshop #16
____

The Terrible Christmas Song
Video (0:40) - 2015 Dec 24
http://bit.ly/terrible-christmas-song
Also included in Webworkshop #16
____

Mindful Webworkshop Episode #16 - Christmas
A politically incorrect and culturally inappropriate Christmas show - pop song parodies and original tunes sure to put coal in my stocking.
Video (11:02) - 2016 Dec 25
http://bit.ly/webworkshop-016
____

Journey to Bethlehem
A simple trip to pay the taxes becomes a life-or-death nightmare for a new family
A cartoon-illustrated take on the Nativity story
http://mindfulwebworks.com/urantiana/
ubcomix/journey-to-bethlehem/journey-to-bethlehem-large
____

Barry the Two-Faced Tyrant
http://acecomments.mu.nu/?post=345867#c21558916
Text, song parody, AoS comment Dec 20, 2013
____

That's all I've got. Merry Happy, y'all.

Posted by: mindful webworker
Christmas Pleasants
at December 20, 2020 11:36 AM (xdNUT)

383 Whoever wrote that series clearly never read a single one of the stories. They just heard Father Brown was a chubby, unassuming priest who solved mysteries and went to town on it. Awful stuff. Chesterton would have dragged the producers out and kicked their ass.
Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at December 20, 2020 11:28 AM (KZzsI)

Now that's a series where modern sensibilities intrude mightily on the original story. The brits have done this to plenty of authors and have created lines of "based on" TV series. Most people who watch have never read Agatha Christie, much less Chesterton, and are unaware of the changes. The producers are there to make money and sell fluff, I don't see this as the same as rewriting history to make it palatable. I don't watch Father Brown.

Posted by: CN at December 20, 2020 11:36 AM (ONvIw)

384 Whoever wrote that series clearly never read a single one of the
stories. They just heard Father Brown was a chubby, unassuming priest
who solved mysteries and went to town on it. Awful stuff. Chesterton
would have dragged the producers out and kicked their ass.

Yeah, it's hopeless. I watched the first one, which changed the murder victim into a sympathetic homo, and I was done. Chesterton would have taken his swordstick to these dopey "reimaginers".

Posted by: Dr. Mabuse at December 20, 2020 11:36 AM (ZzfrF)

385 I think being immersed in a long standing evil, like that does take a toll on you
Posted by: bolivar de gris
Just reading an update on Iris Chang, and they came to your same conclusion.

Posted by: MikeM at December 20, 2020 11:36 AM (np8OD)

386 358 I can't imagine any editor would dare tell Clancy what to do, and that was probably the problem

It is. He was too successful too soon, and you can tell. It almost always happens to authors who break it too big on their first book. They can ignore editors and publishers are so eager to get that cash from the next book that they don't lean on the author to tighten up. So the books get bigger and bigger and need editing more and more.

Harry Potter is a perfect example. 57 chapters of three kids hanging out in the forest in a tent listening to the radio was... not good reading.
Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at December 20, 2020 11:31 AM (KZzsI)
_________

I've noticed that people often give Rowling credit for characterization when it really came from Maggie Smith or Alan Rickman, etc. The only character consistently drawn in the books, IIRC, was Hagrid.

Posted by: Eeyore at December 20, 2020 11:37 AM (7X3UV)

387 It seems pretty clear there have been voting shenanigans for a while, which would explain why all the traditionally-conservative western states seem to be run by charlatans.

Posted by: artemis at December 20, 2020 11:37 AM (AwPyG)

388 Top hole. Bally Jerry pranged his kite right in the how's your father. Hairy blighter, dicky-birdied, feathered back on his Sammy, took a waspy, flipped over on his Betty Harper's and caught his can in the Bertie.

I experimented with slang a bit in Old Habits, then in a bit I'm still writing I went a bit deeper, trying to make a character have an odd accent. I adore slangy jargon like this, its so fun to use and work with but as you point out, it can become so opaque that its unreadable, or nearly so (A Clockwork Orange)

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at December 20, 2020 11:37 AM (KZzsI)

389 334 One television series I don't like is the BBC Father Brown series. It rubs me the wrong way.

Posted by: Northernlurker, still lurking after all these years at December 20, 2020 11:24 AM (lgiXo)

"Oh, look, Mrs. Muse, there's a new Father Brown adaption, let's watch and see if it's any good."

"Oh, look, they're introducing a gay character."

Click.

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Social Distancing Professional at December 20, 2020 11:37 AM (y9Iop)

390 378 You have to love how Trump said "Romney couldn't be voted dog catcher now."
Posted by: artemis at December 20, 2020 11:36 AM (AwPyG)

Oh really?

Posted by: Dominion Systems at December 20, 2020 11:37 AM (Izzlo)

391 So you're saying Romney is the GOP version of Stacey Abrams?

-
Stacy Abrams would make two Mitt Romneys!

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at December 20, 2020 11:37 AM (+y/Ru)

392 379
The wags used to call Waugh his wife "He-Evelyn and She-Evelyn."

Posted by: mnw at December 20, 2020 11:36 AM (Cssks)
---
First wife. Marriage was annulled and he subsequently married Lady Laura Herbert, from whence much of his affection for noble Catholic recusant families came from.

Interesting that "Dominica" in Sword of Honour is a dead ringer for her.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at December 20, 2020 11:38 AM (cfSRQ)

393 I first came across the use of "pranged" in Clavell's novel, Noble House.

I heard it first in 'Chicken Run', where old Fowler says that something got 'a fearful prang'.

Posted by: Dr. Mabuse at December 20, 2020 11:39 AM (ZzfrF)

394 The only character consistently drawn in the books, IIRC, was Hagrid.

Yeah she was all over the place on most of her characters. The bad guys were pretty consistently effective but the heroes... I mean I get that Hermione was her stand-in author as character superhero but she started out so interesting then was heavily watered down to be just always right.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at December 20, 2020 11:40 AM (KZzsI)

395 @383
The Brits are hopelessly woke, and it ruins their programs.
They did Christie's "And Then There Were None," set in 1930s England between world wars, and all of the male characters are panicked because they discover one of the other male characters owns a gun.

Posted by: artemis at December 20, 2020 11:40 AM (AwPyG)

396 "Top hole. Bally Jerry pranged his kite right in the how's your father. Hairy blighter, dicky-birdied, feathered back on his Sammy, took a waspy, flipped over on his Betty Harper's and caught his can in the Bertie."
Posted by: OregonMuse,
-----------

I was ok up until 'dicky-birded'...

*note to self: look up 'Betty Harpers'*

Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc. at December 20, 2020 11:40 AM (L47aO)

397 I've always said "thrash" because my Mom always said "thrash". And she grew up on an Alberta wheat farm, so she definitely knew the other term, but this is just what everyone says.
Posted by: Dr. Mabuse at December 20, 2020 10:07 AM (ZzfrF)

It might be spelled "threshing machine", but it's a thrashing machine.

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at December 20, 2020 11:40 AM (mzC78)

398 I experimented with slang a bit in Old Habits, then in a bit I'm still writing I went a bit deeper, trying to make a character have an odd accent. I adore slangy jargon like this, its so fun to use and work with but as you point out, it can become so opaque that its unreadable, or nearly so (A Clockwork Orange)
Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at December 20, 2020 11:37 AM (KZz

I cut and pasted that jargon from the Monty Python sketch, if you didn't know. Probably you did.

And you can puzzle out the Clockwork Orange Russian-based slang if you pay attention to what you're reading. I read Clockwork in HS and didn't discover the glossary at the end of the book until, well, the end of the book. I was proud that I had gotten most of it right.

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Social Distancing Professional at December 20, 2020 11:41 AM (y9Iop)

399 I believe that the male version of Evelyn was pronounced differently than the female, and was a fairly popular Brit name for men. Like EEVlyn for men and EVAH-lyn for women.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at December 20, 2020 11:41 AM (KZzsI)

400 I can't imagine any editor would dare tell Clancy what to do, and that was probably the problem

Posted by: artemis at December 20, 2020 11:28 AM (AwPyG)

His first four books were his best four books, and then as you point out, he became too big to edit, which is too bad, because he had some fun ideas.

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at December 20, 2020 11:41 AM (xT2tT)

401 Bills fans celebrating in the streets. Helpfully it will be deemed a riot so they won't get in any trouble.

Posted by: Desultory joe at December 20, 2020 11:42 AM (L9P9s)

402
Now that's a series where modern sensibilities
intrude mightily on the original story. The brits have done this to
plenty of authors and have created lines of "based on" TV series. Most
people who watch have never read Agatha Christie, much less Chesterton,
and are unaware of the changes. The producers are there to make money
and sell fluff, I don't see this as the same as rewriting history to
make it palatable. I don't watch Father Brown.

Posted by: CN at December 20, 2020 11:36 AM (ONvIw)

---
They're not trying to make it "palatable," they're subverting the source material deliberately.

That's who they are and what they do.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at December 20, 2020 11:42 AM (cfSRQ)

403 You rang?https://tinyurl.com/y7xxbd6j

This is the best I could do on short search notice.

Posted by: President-Elect anchorbabe fashion cop at December 20, 2020 11:34 AM (ufFY

Hmmm. Would be fun to be a fly on the wall in one of her confessions!

Posted by: Diogenes at December 20, 2020 11:43 AM (axyOa)

404 It's like "Marion" which used to be mainly a man's name.

Or "Kimberley"

Posted by: artemis at December 20, 2020 11:43 AM (AwPyG)

405 "Top hole. Bally Jerry pranged his kite right in the how's your father. Hairy blighter, dicky-birdied, feathered back on his Sammy, took a waspy, flipped over on his Betty Harper's and caught his can in the Bertie."
Posted by: OregonMuse,
_________

Dad was bilingual in flight-talk, having been trained by Brits in the RCAF, until he switched to the USN after Pearl Harbor. He could be funny.

Posted by: Eeyore at December 20, 2020 11:43 AM (7X3UV)

406 From personal experience I can say that it is a battle to not become personally offended or defensive when an editor suggests changes in your book. HOW DARE YOU, SIR!

But a good editor will help you make an even better book.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at December 20, 2020 11:43 AM (KZzsI)

407 The old sci-fi book cover looks like it should be titled "Thomas Jefferson and Jonathan Edwards vs. the Martian Robots" or something. Did the illustrator think that, in the future, capes would make a big comeback?
Posted by: PabloD isn't in a reconciliatory mood at December 20, 2020 10:09 AM (risNt)

Capes are surprisingly prevalent on old ScFi book covers. I think it's an easy way to imply dramatic action.

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at December 20, 2020 11:43 AM (mzC78)

408 351 335 I also remember Solzhenitsyn disturbing people with talk of the moral decadence of the West.

-
And he was right!
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks

I remember a cartoon in MAD magazine from the early 70's beating on the same theme. The cartoon showed the Chinese just coming over and pushing us over with one finger.

Not to equate MAD and Solzhenitsyn but same message, different audience.

Posted by: Tonypete at December 20, 2020 11:44 AM (Rvt88)

409 The reason I could not get threw even the first ten minutes of Deadwood. Maybe I was being unfair

I thought I was the only one who didn't care for Deadwood.

I have tried unsuccessfully several times to read Ivanhoe, and each time I turn away because its slow and most recently because I detected it is so obviously a deconstructive attack on the very concepts of honor, chivalry, and knightly virtues. Not the way they were carried out in the world, but the actual principles they were supposed to live up to. I couldn't read it.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor

The thing about Deadwood was that it was three seasons of mundane character development but nothing really HAPPENED. Just people living in a filthy western town and yelling c*nt and c*cks*cker at each other every five seconds.

It was boring.

I did like Mr. Wu, though.

Posted by: Sharkman at December 20, 2020 11:44 AM (1YlHz)

410 Dice

In Russia, after he went back, Solzhenitsyn advocated for parliamentary democracy. He had a TV talk show, believe it or not.

But he got along well with Putin, from what I read. However, Solzh died before Putin did some of his more controversial stuff-- such as annexation of the Crimea & setting up pro-Russian rump states in Eastern Ukraine.

Putin treated Solzh well, & it may have just been a convenient accommodation for Solzh to return the favor.

Posted by: mnw at December 20, 2020 11:44 AM (Cssks)

411 Bally Jerry pranged his kite

-
In the book, the new pilot manages to fall off his bike as he is reporting to the smart ass squadron commander. He says that the pilot reported not with a whimper but with va prange.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at December 20, 2020 11:44 AM (+y/Ru)

412 One television series I don't like is the BBC Father Brown series. It rubs me the wrong way.

Posted by: Northernlurker, still lurking after all these years at December 20, 2020 11:24 AM (lgiXo)

"Oh, look, Mrs. Muse, there's a new Father Brown adaption, let's watch and see if it's any good."

"Oh, look, they're introducing a gay character."

Click.
Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Social Distancing Professional at December 20, 2020 11:37 AM (y9Iop)

They basically already did that, with Grantchester.

I don't know how similar the stories are, because I haven't considered Father Brown since I was a teenager. Grantchester however, is a strapping and tall, sometimes preaching vicar who solves murders with the local DCI cop.

The first season or so, the mysteries were good enough to overlook the modernizing, with the main character being a heavy drinker and something of a lady's man. And then there's his gay assistant vicar.

Not long into it, the whole thing was so strident, scolding the 1950s, using 21st century woke, that it basically forgot to tell murder mysteries.

Posted by: BurtTC at December 20, 2020 11:44 AM (hku12)

413 unlike many thriller of the 70s, take ludlum for instance, he did see everyone in the institutions as evil, but he usually had rogue operatives who were more aware than the bureaucracy of consular operations, the villains were often american military officer, retired german officers,

Posted by: bolivar de gris at December 20, 2020 11:44 AM (hMlTh)

414 The Brits are hopelessly woke, and it ruins their programs.
They
did Christie's "And Then There Were None," set in 1930s England between
world wars, and all of the male characters are panicked because they
discover one of the other male characters owns a gun.

Posted by: artemis at December 20, 2020 11:40 AM (AwPyG)

It's a recent thing, though; they USED to be able to adapt classic works of literature without running it through the SJW chompers. I've just given myself an arbitrary cutoff date of 2000 for British TV adaptations. Before that, you'd have the perfect 'Pride and Prejudice' with Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle. After that - 'The Moonstone' with a black Gabriel Betteridge.

Posted by: Dr. Mabuse at December 20, 2020 11:45 AM (ZzfrF)

415
*note to self: look up 'Betty Harpers'*
Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc.
----------

No luck, but I did find 'Bobby Dazzler'.

Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc. at December 20, 2020 11:46 AM (WD9ZA)

416 But a good editor will help you make an even better book.
Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at December 20, 2020 11:43 AM (KZzsI)

Movies, too. The only reason Star Wars is any good is because someone took the absolute crap George Lucas wrote and fixed it.

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Social Distancing Professional at December 20, 2020 11:46 AM (y9Iop)

417 Some other reading material i recently picked up- our chaplin gave out small books called "Our Daily Bread." Small vignettes people have written that have scriptures tied in.

These days, I am trying to get a little more grounded spiritually and to help deflect some of the constant negativity.

Posted by: Secret Squirrel at December 20, 2020 11:46 AM (RN/ND)

418 LOL- OM, I first came across the use of "pranged" in
Clavell's novel, Noble House. I always liked it- think we should
incorporate it here. I know some Limey words have made it into the
current lexicon- for example, the Brit military uses the word "kit" to
describe any equipment. That has made its way into the military and
police jargon now. Kit was unheard of when i was on active duty back at
the start of the new millennium. We always said, "gear" or "TA-50."
Now its everywhere.

Posted by: Secret Squirrel at December 20, 2020 11:34 AM (RN/ND)

We were using pranged up in Alaska when I left, in aviation - "So-and-so pranged his supercub" was, if uncommon usage, not exactly rare or unknown.

Then again, Alaska gets all sorts from all over, and terminology to match. One of the gents who taught me to fly IFR was as American as a summer day is long, but as I was chasing the needles and mucking up an ILS approach, he opened his mouth and a pure Aussie accent came out. "Small smooth movements, not large late ones!"

Once we'd gone around, I asked about the accent, and he allowed as how he'd learned IFR from an Aussie when they were both flying the African bush. And some phrases that get pounded in stick.

Posted by: Not From Around Here at December 20, 2020 11:46 AM (wrzAm)

419 the tv show Frasier was the gayest thing that ever hit the mainstream. Gay people would admit that, at least they used to. Many of the writers were gay. At least two of the main actors were gay, David Hyde Pierce and the guy who played Bulldog. There are rumors that some people claim to be fact about two other main characters. But if they don't proclaim it themselves, It is not for I or anyone else to say.

There were so many episodes that included gay characters and themes, you can barely count them. But still no one who watched the show sans an agenda would say it was gay in anyway. It did not promote a gay lifestyle, really it promoted no lifestyle other than that of the main characters. They were straight and that was the story.

My only point here is it doesn't matter who you are. You can make a great show or write a good book. When people have an agenda, it is obvious. And in many circumstances, that agenda ruins the point of the story as everyone gets immediately what you are on about.

Posted by: Quint at December 20, 2020 11:47 AM (kfMBQ)

420 I think so too, after around 2000 all creativity was covered by a smothering blanket of political correctness

Posted by: artemis at December 20, 2020 11:47 AM (AwPyG)

421 I liked the first couple of Tom Clancy books. Gave him up after I read Debt of Honor. He's got three or four story lines going and then seems to realize he's reached page 550 and his books are all 600 page long. So he drops a couple of them and throws together an ending so he doesn't overstep his limit.

Posted by: Who knew at December 20, 2020 11:47 AM (SfO/T)

422 402
Now that's a series where modern sensibilities
intrude mightily on the original story. The brits have done this to
plenty of authors and have created lines of "based on" TV series. Most
people who watch have never read Agatha Christie, much less Chesterton,
and are unaware of the changes. The producers are there to make money
and sell fluff, I don't see this as the same as rewriting history to
make it palatable. I don't watch Father Brown.

Posted by: CN at December 20, 2020 11:36 AM (ONvIw)

---
They're not trying to make it "palatable," they're subverting the source material deliberately.

That's who they are and what they do.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at December 20, 2020 11:42 AM (cfSRQ)
________

Maybe, maybe not, so far conscious subversion goes. I don't think they are imaginatively capable of entering into a different mindset. That is just closed off to them.

So they create a picture which is one they can take in, even if it has nothing to do with what they are reading. You can see this in their attacks on us, which are grotesque caricatures. And how surprised they are when - rarely - they notice something that doesn't fit.

Even Orwell had a problem with this, but at least he saw there was a problem.

Posted by: Eeyore at December 20, 2020 11:47 AM (7X3UV)

423 These days, I am trying to get a little more grounded spiritually and to help deflect some of the constant negativity.

Yeah I've been reading the Bible and listening to sermons by preachers such as Alistair Begg and James Boice a lot lately. I find it soothes and heals my soul, torn into jagged bits by the awful world around us.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at December 20, 2020 11:48 AM (KZzsI)

424 Oh boy! Books!

I finally finished The Peloponnesian War and for all the decades of horsing around the end came pretty suddenly, and Alcibiades seems to have been a fuckup of the first order, but perhaps that is just what Kagan thought.

I've been listening to "Phreaks" which is one of the free audio books from Audible. I'm thinking of reviewing it for Audible under the headline "Four stories, poorly written." It kind of qualifies for the book thread because it's a story, but it's done up more as an audio play than a book. The episodes consist of a series of loosely-connected vignettes rather than a single coherent narrative.

I got it because the phone phreaks was a group I was just too young to have much to do with, but they were a lot like the microcomputer hackers of my era, and I think the part where Emma figures the basics of how to do it is the best part of the book. I think the overzealous phone cop is just ridiculous and that the man discovering his gay side parts and the atomic energy commission is evil parts could make pretty good stories, if not stories I would be particularly anxious to read.

It's all kind of tied together, but I really wish the writer had picked which story he really wanted to tell and had told that one instead of trying to tell all of them at once.

Posted by: Cybersmythe at December 20, 2020 11:48 AM (qDSku)

425 I don't really see any contradiction in Frank being a JFK supporter and being a Reagan supporter. Seems like the parties moved but Frank stayed where he was.

Posted by: Trimegistus at December 20, 2020 11:48 AM (QZxDR)

426 406 From personal experience I can say that it is a battle to not become personally offended or defensive when an editor suggests changes in your book. HOW DARE YOU, SIR!

But a good editor will help you make an even better book.
Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at December 20, 2020 11:43 AM (KZzsI)
________

If T S Eliot could take it, you can take it.

Posted by: Eeyore at December 20, 2020 11:48 AM (7X3UV)

427 The thing about Deadwood was that it was three seasons of mundane character development but nothing really HAPPENED. Just people living in a filthy western town and yelling c*nt and c*cks*cker at each other every five seconds.

It was boring.

I did like Mr. Wu, though.
Posted by: Sharkman at December 20, 2020 11:44 AM (1YlHz)

That's the one where Raylan Givens butts heads with the dude who is the bad guy (used to be a good guy) from John Wick?

Everyone says f**k a lot?

Meh. Pass.

Posted by: BurtTC at December 20, 2020 11:48 AM (hku12)

428
Movies, too. The only reason Star Wars is any good is because someone took the absolute crap George Lucas wrote and fixed it.

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor Social Distancing Professional at December 20, 2020 11:46 AM (y9Iop)

---
And when he became famous enough, he put the deleted scenes back in and you could understand why they were taken out in the first place.

The only "director's cut" I liked was Last of the Mohicans because the director actually cut more than he added, and what he added did in fact enhance the story and made the film better.

BTW, cannot imagine a movie that showed Indians being complex and morally ambiguous being made today.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at December 20, 2020 11:49 AM (cfSRQ)

429 It's been many years since I read The Gulag Archipelago but I seem to recall the books raising hackles.

I also remember Solzhenitsyn disturbing people with talk of the moral decadence of the West.

Like I see this many years ago.

Posted by: Northernlurker, still lurking after all these years

The Gulag Archipelago couldn't be published in the Soviet Union because it tore down the regime. The West greeted A.S. with open arms because he lifted the lid on Communism's boiling cauldron and tended to see him as validating the West's lifestyle/methods, which he was not. He went after the West as hard as he did the USSR and that raised a lot of hackles.

Posted by: Sharkman at December 20, 2020 11:49 AM (1YlHz)

430 @420
I'll expand about the smothering; remember I mentioned that romanic suspense is far and away the best selling subgenre, and that the readers can't seem to get enough?

When's the last time Hollywood put out a romantic suspense movie, like Romancing the Stone, or The Mummy?

Posted by: artemis at December 20, 2020 11:49 AM (AwPyG)

431 *note to self: look up 'Betty Harpers'*
Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc.
----------

No luck, but I did find 'Bobby Dazzler'.
Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc. at December 20, 2020 11:46 AM (WD9ZA)

I'd always wondered about how much of that Python 'banter' sketch was actual banter and how much of it was just silly stuff they made up.

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Social Distancing Professional at December 20, 2020 11:50 AM (y9Iop)

432 'Pranged wing': London cabby-speak for a dented fender.

Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc. at December 20, 2020 11:50 AM (WD9ZA)

433 Maybe, maybe not, so far conscious subversion goes. I don't think they are imaginatively capable of entering into a different mindset. That is just closed off to them.

I think that is 99% it. To deliberately subvert stuff you have to understand it and know it, and I think modern people writing TV shows and movies are simply unaware of, frightened by, and incapable of comprehending anything except their sealed-off worldview. So that's all you get.

Remember, people working in these places are actually 29, not fake 29. These are people who suffer not just from being young and ignorant, but cloistered and mind controlled their whole lives.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at December 20, 2020 11:50 AM (KZzsI)

434 406 From personal experience I can say that it is a
battle to not become personally offended or defensive when an editor
suggests changes in your book. HOW DARE YOU, SIR!

But a good editor will help you make an even better book.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at December 20, 2020 11:43 AM (KZzsI)

________

If T S Eliot could take it, you can take it.

Posted by: Eeyore at December 20, 2020 11:48 AM (7X3UV)

i remember Republicans who could not stand JFK. To have that luxury now would be nice. For the gulf between the parties and political views to have seemed so wide then, seems like a luxury now.

Posted by: Quint at December 20, 2020 11:50 AM (kfMBQ)

435 My only point here is it doesn't matter who you are. You can make a great show or write a good book. When people have an agenda, it is obvious. And in many circumstances, that agenda ruins the point of the story as everyone gets immediately what you are on about.
Posted by: Quint at December 20, 2020 11:47 AM (kfMBQ)

Preach!

Posted by: Will and Grace at December 20, 2020 11:51 AM (5c4Z0)

436 Enjoyed the early Tom Clancy books, read maybe 5.

Posted by: Skip at December 20, 2020 11:52 AM (Cxk7w)

437 Well, if we're talking about TV -

Here's two series to check out -

"Sweet Home" - like a zombie film but with people turning into monsters of various types.

Lots of fun. Good action. Entertaining, Korean, so no SJW crap, at least so far.

On Netflix.

"Inuyashiki Last Hero" on Prime

58 year old man is not respected by his family and learns he will die of stomach cancer in 3 weeks.

Go goes walking in the evening. Sees a teenager near him, when suddenly they're both hit and killed by an off-course UFO.

The aliens rebuild the old man and teenager using robotic weaponry.

Their lives change drastically as they each take different paths that set them on the road to conflict.

Series with humor, horror, and a heart. Takes some unexpected twists. Not finished yet but so far excellent.

Posted by: naturalfake at December 20, 2020 11:52 AM (EERbD)

438 "Top hole. Bally Jerry pranged his kite right in the how's your father. Hairy blighter, dicky-birdied, feathered back on his Sammy, took a waspy, flipped over on his Betty Harper's and caught his can in the Bertie."

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Social Distancing Professional

Classic.

Posted by: Sharkman at December 20, 2020 11:52 AM (1YlHz)

439 Maybe, maybe not, so far conscious subversion goes. I
don't think they are imaginatively capable of entering into a different
mindset. That is just closed off to them.

So they create a picture which is one they can take in, even if it
has nothing to do with what they are reading. You can see this in their
attacks on us, which are grotesque caricatures. And how surprised they
are when - rarely - they notice something that doesn't fit.

Even Orwell had a problem with this, but at least he saw there was a problem.

Posted by: Eeyore at December 20, 2020 11:47 AM (7X3UV)

---
It's plainly deliberate. They see themselves as "fixing" wrongthink oldbad stuff.

If you believe - as they do - that now is the most moral and pure time in humanity, than it is their duty to correct their mistakes of everyone who lived before them.

Secular missionaries for the woke religion.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at December 20, 2020 11:53 AM (cfSRQ)

440 I'd always wondered about how much of that Python 'banter' sketch was actual banter and how much of it was just silly stuff they made up.

Betty Harpers is almost certainly made up but most of it is real slang. Most of British slang was from the old cockney rhyming slang used to baffle police and conceal meaning. You'd find a word that rhymed with what you really meant to say, and used that instead. After a while, that became the actual word for the thing used in slang.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at December 20, 2020 11:53 AM (KZzsI)

441 414 The Brits are hopelessly woke, and it ruins their programs.
They
did Christie's "And Then There Were None," set in 1930s England between
world wars, and all of the male characters are panicked because they
discover one of the other male characters owns a gun.

Posted by: artemis at December 20, 2020 11:40 AM (AwPyG)

It's a recent thing, though; they USED to be able to adapt classic works of literature without running it through the SJW chompers. I've just given myself an arbitrary cutoff date of 2000 for British TV adaptations. Before that, you'd have the perfect 'Pride and Prejudice' with Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle. After that - 'The Moonstone' with a black Gabriel Betteridge.
Posted by: Dr. Mabuse at December 20, 2020 11:45 AM (ZzfrF)
__________

Granted, that P&P was perfect. But it wasn't necessarily the norm then, either. Don't overlook Benjamin Whitrow's performance, which nailed Mr Bennett, but contrasts with the earlier versions I've seen, which tended to make him into Capt Bligh. And the Olivier version sucks, too, unfortunately.

Another bad Olivier: That Hamilton Woman.

I'm not knocking him as an actor; he could be great. It was the writers' and directors' fault. But it's long been a problem.

Posted by: Eeyore at December 20, 2020 11:53 AM (7X3UV)

442 on this topic of inserting the wokeness into a series. Wife and I really enjoyed Downton Abbey and during season 1 when Thomas was revealed to be light in the loafers, i gave it a pass, because, eh, whatever. been around long time.

but then fast forward to the downton abbey movie and they went full SJW woke and had Thomas not only have a gay hookup with a member of the royal family entourage, but then meet in an underground gay speakeasy. and i thought, FFS come one, no way. And Earl Grantham would have "sacked" that "sod" the minute he found out he was a "bugger."
Little more English slang for you all!

Posted by: Secret Squirrel at December 20, 2020 11:54 AM (RN/ND)

443
I'd always wondered about how much of that Python 'banter' sketch was actual banter and how much of it was just silly stuff they made up.
Posted by: OregonMuse
-----------

I'm not certain that such equivalent banter could be created using American English, but perhaps that would be because we, ourselves, simply would not recognize it as such.

It certainly seems that the Python crew worked hard at exaggerating the eccentricities of their language, or at least of regionalisms.

Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc. at December 20, 2020 11:54 AM (L47aO)

444 Here's that Monty Python RAF Banter sketch:

https://tinyurl.com/MPFS-RAF-Banter

Posted by: Sharkman at December 20, 2020 11:55 AM (1YlHz)

445 My only point here is it doesn't matter who you are. You can make a great show or write a good book. When people have an agenda, it is obvious. And in many circumstances, that agenda ruins the point of the story as everyone gets immediately what you are on about.

Excellent illustration. Frasier was even better than Cheers because the actors and writing were better, smarter, and more fun. It didn't matter what the sexual preference of the actors were because they were playing a role. I know that Ian McKellen cannot actually move metal objects with his mind just because he played Magneto, or cannot cast spells and ride an 8-legged stallion just because he played Gandalf. He's playing a damned role.

Stick to that, and you'll be fine, Hollywood.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at December 20, 2020 11:56 AM (KZzsI)

446 Once Solzh came to the U.S., my recollection is that the general public lost interest in him. That was probably one reason he returned to post-Soviet Russia.

He would've never gotten his own talk show here.

And we don't tolerate lectures from foreigners very well. Probably no nation does.

Posted by: mnw at December 20, 2020 11:56 AM (Cssks)

447 Remember, people working in these places are actually 29, not fake 29.
These are people who suffer not just from being young and ignorant, but
cloistered and mind controlled their whole lives.

And many of them have inherited their positions - they're 3rd generation media brats, who got a helping hand into their jobs because of dad's connections. So they've been hopelessly marinated in an anaerobic environment that hasn't allowed any fresh input from outside for their entire lives. This is what you see in a decaying organization. They don't realize it, but they're taking their last gasps of air before they collapse permanently.

Posted by: Dr. Mabuse at December 20, 2020 11:56 AM (ZzfrF)

448 Everyone says f**k a lot?

Meh. Pass.
Posted by: BurtTC at December 20, 2020 11:48 AM (hku12)

I think I must be turning into a prude. Bad language in movies never used to bother me so much, but now, I've actually discontinued watching stuff (i.e. The Wire) because I grew tired of the constant cussing. And I didn't last 10 minutes with Deadwood before switching it off.

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Social Distancing Professional at December 20, 2020 11:56 AM (y9Iop)

449 They're not trying to make it "palatable," they're subverting the source material deliberately.

That's who they are and what they do.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at December 20, 2020 11:42 AM (cfSRQ)

They want money, hence an endless stream of new characters and new situations to keep the series alive and producing revenue. The networks buy an idea a few characters and run off in any direction they believe will sell. The Christie books were deliberately changed, or subverted (but I think that's too strong a word for changing the identity of a murderer or plugging Marple into a story that was not written about her) , but I don't think the endless "based on" series are always in that league. Even Midsomer Murders started with a few books, but then it went off in all sorts of directions. I guess some people love it no matter how preposterous it is. I don't think the goal was to destroy the principles of the author as much as to make money.

Posted by: CN at December 20, 2020 11:57 AM (ONvIw)

450 Posted by: Quint at December 20, 2020 11:47 AM (kfMBQ)
-------------------

Well said.

Posted by: Braenyard at December 20, 2020 11:57 AM (CZm2G)

451 And we don't tolerate lectures from foreigners very well.

Well that used to be true, but lately it seems like late night TV cannot get enough of it

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at December 20, 2020 11:57 AM (KZzsI)

452 @447
Completely agreed. The publishing industry is as nepotistic as Hollywood--its just not as obvious.
I think it's the usual conflict, people can't be blamed for wanting to give their children a leg up, but then it's no longer a meritocracy, and it suffers.

Posted by: artemis at December 20, 2020 11:58 AM (AwPyG)

453 It's a recent thing, though; they USED to be able to adapt classic works of literature without running it through the SJW chompers. I've just given myself an arbitrary cutoff date of 2000 for British TV adaptations. Before that, you'd have the perfect 'Pride and Prejudice' with Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle. After that - 'The Moonstone' with a black Gabriel Betteridge.
Posted by: Dr. Mabuse at December 20, 2020 11:45 AM (ZzfrF)

They started doing the Morse prequels (called Endeavor) not too long ago, I think they are 6 or 7 "seasons" in now, but I don't know how long it takes them to produce a season, so...

The firsts few seasons are marvelous, superbly produced and tightly written 4 episode stories. Highly entertaining, especially if one is a fan of Morse, as they are trying to tell us how he became who he became.

Then... woke set in. It always seems to. Like there's some force that pushes these shows relentless in that direction.

It's a royal shame.

Posted by: BurtTC at December 20, 2020 11:58 AM (hku12)

454 I'd always wondered about how much of that Python
'banter' sketch was actual banter and how much of it was just silly
stuff they made up.

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor Social Distancing Professional at December 20, 2020 11:50 AM (y9Iop)

it really doesn't matter how smart you are. If you watch a show from anther country, there are things you are going to miss. I listed to a podcast about the tv show Frasier. The guys that do it are from Birmingham England. They freaking love Frasier and have watched the show countless times. Hell, they are big on the net, they lead groups that dissect the show.

I only mention this because almost every podcast there is something that bothers them or they can't understand. They go on and on about it and they really have not clue what they are talking about. One of many examples was when the Catholic priest subbed for the sports guy and only wanted to talk about Notre Dame football. The podcasters had no clue why that was funny or even what that meant. It is like they didn't even know what the University of Notre Dame was. Crap, that was a joke from MASH originally.

Anyway, my point is if something is foreign, even English, there are things we are going to miss to even if were are Anglohphiles. Did I mention on of the podcast guys is studying for his PHD in classic Americana?
I recall once trying the London Times Crossword with someone who was really good at Crosswords. We had no chance. I thought I knew a lot about the UK but certainly not enough to to their crossword. Hell, I didn't even get what the questions meant.

Posted by: Quint at December 20, 2020 11:59 AM (kfMBQ)

455 Then... woke set in. It always seems to. Like there's some force that pushes these shows relentless in that direction.

Sherlock couldn't even make it through a single season without moving that way. The screaming little homo Moriarty at the end of the 4th episode just made me sigh in disappointment. It had started out so promising.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at December 20, 2020 11:59 AM (KZzsI)

456 I think that is 99% it. To deliberately subvert stuff you have to understand it and know it, and I think modern people writing TV shows and movies are simply unaware of, frightened by, and incapable of comprehending anything except their sealed-off worldview. So that's all you get.

Remember, people working in these places are actually 29, not fake 29. These are people who suffer not just from being young and ignorant, but cloistered and mind controlled their whole lives.
Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at December 20, 2020 11:50 AM (KZzsI)

This is why I've never been able to stomach Law and Order, or its spinoffs. The few times I've watched it, there will usually be a point where I think "wow, you could take off on an angle here, have the suspect be innocent, be framed by the cops or something." But now, the detectives are always infallible and boring as hell. No depth, no imagination, it might as well be an old style melodrama with nothing but Good Guys and Villains who never challenge the narrative.

Posted by: Tom Servo at December 20, 2020 11:59 AM (V2Yro)

457 And the Olivier version sucks, too, unfortunately.

My excuse for the Olivier Pride and Prejudice is that it was American, made by an American studio. They had all sorts of rules that interfered with really telling the story. They had to change Mr. Collins into Lady Catherine's *librarian*, because the handbook ruled out movies that made fun of clergymen!

Posted by: Dr. Mabuse at December 20, 2020 11:59 AM (ZzfrF)

458 @448
The cops I know all say The Wire is the most authentic of the police shows.

Posted by: artemis at December 20, 2020 12:00 PM (AwPyG)

459 The Father Brown episode that made me quit involved a Hindu mystic who was running some kind of temple in the village, causing an uproar in the village.
BBC Brown proved he was just a victim of prejudice.
Aagh

Posted by: Brother Northernlurker just another guy at December 20, 2020 12:00 PM (lgiXo)

460 439 Maybe, maybe not, so far conscious subversion goes. I
don't think they are imaginatively capable of entering into a different
mindset. That is just closed off to them.

So they create a picture which is one they can take in, even if it
has nothing to do with what they are reading. You can see this in their
attacks on us, which are grotesque caricatures. And how surprised they
are when - rarely - they notice something that doesn't fit.

Even Orwell had a problem with this, but at least he saw there was a problem.

Posted by: Eeyore at December 20, 2020 11:47 AM (7X3UV)

---
It's plainly deliberate. They see themselves as "fixing" wrongthink oldbad stuff.

If you believe - as they do - that now is the most moral and pure time in humanity, than it is their duty to correct their mistakes of everyone who lived before them.

Secular missionaries for the woke religion.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at December 20, 2020 11:53 AM (cfSRQ)
__________

If that were true, and they were that clear-sighted, then they could fake it. And they can't. Ever read about those "political Turing tests"? Libs always fail.

When was the last time a lefty caricatured one of us well, as Lewis does to H G Wells in THS?

I am convinced that they cannot see it at all. Read Orwell on Brideshead for another example; even he couldn't quite get it. And he was the best they ever produced.

Posted by: Eeyore at December 20, 2020 12:00 PM (7X3UV)

461 I'm not certain that such equivalent banter could be created using American English, but perhaps that would be because we, ourselves, simply would not recognize it as such.

It certainly seems that the Python crew worked hard at exaggerating the eccentricities of their language, or at least of regionalisms.
Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc. at December 20, 2020 11:54 AM (L47aO)

Every group or profession or hobby has its own lingo. For some reason, I really enjoy listening to musicians talk to each other when they're getting set up to play something. They're speaking English, I know what all of the words mean individually, but danged if I know what they're talking about.

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Social Distancing Professional at December 20, 2020 12:00 PM (y9Iop)

462 I remember Republicans who could not stand JFK. To have that luxury now would be nice. For the gulf between the parties and political views to have seemed so wide then, seems like a luxury now.
Posted by: Quint
----------

I've mentioned a couple of times here that had Kennedy participated in the last round of Democrat 'debates', he would have been booed off of the stage for uttering, 'Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.'

I was not a fan of Kennedy but he was, at least, an American.

Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc. at December 20, 2020 12:01 PM (WZ5i4)

463 CRT

I wouldn't know. I haven't watch a late night TV show since Jack Parr quit.

Posted by: mnw at December 20, 2020 12:01 PM (Cssks)

464 Secular missionaries for the woke religion.
=====

Bowdler forever.

Posted by: mustbequantum at December 20, 2020 12:01 PM (MIKMs)

465 WE HAZ A NOOD

Posted by: Skip, the guy who says NOOD at December 20, 2020 12:02 PM (Cxk7w)

466 Everyone says f**k a lot?

Meh. Pass.
Posted by: BurtTC at December 20, 2020 11:48 AM (hku12)

I think I must be turning into a prude. Bad language in movies never used to bother me so much, but now, I've actually discontinued watching stuff (i.e. The Wire) because I grew tired of the constant cussing. And I didn't last 10 minutes with Deadwood before switching it off.
Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Social Distancing Professional at December 20, 2020 11:56 AM (y9Iop)

Yup. I certainly don't mind violence in movies/teevee, but the rest of it? There better be a dang good reason for it.

And for me that includes drinking and sex. If your character is drunk, fine. It's part of the story then. But every main character drinking like a fish? I can't stand it. Banging down the drinks, then banging down the broads.

Sorry folks, hedonists just aren't that productive otherwise.

Posted by: BurtTC at December 20, 2020 12:02 PM (hku12)

467
They want money, hence an endless stream of new
characters and new situations to keep the series alive and producing
revenue.

Posted by: CN at December 20, 2020 11:57 AM (ONvIw)

---
How did Woke Doctor Who work out? If they're truly mercenaries, than a basic glance at the spreadsheet would indicate that the crowd they are supposedly catering to actually like the source material as it is, thank you very much.

Really the issue is whether they have any clue as to what they are doing. I think they do, and I also think that because they are third-general nepotistic hires, they don't know where the money actually comes from.

That's why they're always shocked when (for example) Woke ESPN has to reduce staff, or Woke Sportsblogs go bankrupt.

They assume money just happens. They have yet to see the link between trashing the core audience and financial ruin.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at December 20, 2020 12:03 PM (cfSRQ)

468 Every group or profession or hobby has its own lingo. For some reason, I really enjoy listening to musicians talk to each other when they're getting set up to play something. They're speaking English, I know what all of the words mean individually, but danged if I know what they're talking about.
Posted by: OregonMuse
-------------

In the case of lawyers, I refer to it as 'argot'.

Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc. at December 20, 2020 12:03 PM (bPH26)

469 The Wire is really good but its so bleak and yeah so profane its difficult for me to watch. Again, I blame David Mamet, who wrote "authentic" characters by having them swear almost continuously in every situation and context.

And it was prophetic because after a while, people just started to do that all the time, everywhere. When I was young, people did not swear so much or at all in public. You'd never hear someone just casually dropping f-Bombs and saying foul things about their mother just in a conversation. Profanity was reserved for really horrible situations or extreme emotion, unless you were a US Marine.

Now its just everywhere, all the time and I have to fight it myself. And I think its because that's what media just showed everyone doing, portrayed it as normal and cool, and it just became mainstreamed.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at December 20, 2020 12:03 PM (KZzsI)

470 I'm not certain that such equivalent banter could be created using American English, but perhaps that would be because we, ourselves, simply would not recognize it as such.

It certainly seems that the Python crew worked hard at exaggerating the eccentricities of their language, or at least of regionalisms.
Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc. at December 20, 2020 11:54 AM (L47aO)

Try having a casual conversation with a couple of Scots.

Posted by: Justsayin' at December 20, 2020 12:03 PM (Fs5vw)

471 439
It's plainly deliberate. They see themselves as "fixing" wrongthink oldbad stuff.

If you believe - as they do - that now is the most moral and pure time in humanity, than it is their duty to correct their mistakes of everyone who lived before them.

Secular missionaries for the woke religion.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at December 20, 2020 11:53 AM (cfSRQ)
__________

I ran into this a little while back, on a Thomist board. A lib was arguing that it was all but self-evident that we are morally superior to the 13th C. When I replied that every one of his examples (womyn, gayz, etc) were blatantly question-begging; cherry pricked examples of where our age makes assumptions they did not, he was genuinely shocked. He flat-out said he thought all those points were truths universally acknowledged.*

The really don't know there really ARE other points of view. Or even that there CAN be. And therefore, they cannot see them.

*Jane's words, not his. I used them back at him.

Posted by: Eeyore at December 20, 2020 12:05 PM (7X3UV)

472 well, time to go be productive. you all have a great rest of your day!

Posted by: Secret Squirrel at December 20, 2020 12:05 PM (RN/ND)

473 I'd always wondered about how much of that Python 'banter' sketch was
actual banter and how much of it was just silly stuff they made up.

Posted by: OregonMuse

IIRC, the first Emma Peel episode of the Avengers, The Town of No Return. A pub owner was a WWII pilot and he and Steed do a bit of the old banter.

Posted by: TheQuietMan at December 20, 2020 12:06 PM (yISI5)

474 That's the one where Raylan Givens butts heads with the dude who is the bad guy (used to be a good guy) from John Wick?

Everyone says f**k a lot?

Meh. Pass.

Posted by: BurtTC

Yes, but it's pre-Justified, so Timothy Olyphant is mostly fists and crazy eyes. He hasn't honed his trademark disinterested sarcastic banter modus operandi yet.

Posted by: Sharkman at December 20, 2020 12:06 PM (1YlHz)

475
Try having a casual conversation with a couple of Scots.
Posted by: Justsayin'
------
Ha. One lives across the street. Between his language, my poor hearing, and a couple of glasses of single-malt, it's as if we are just making noises at each other.

Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc. at December 20, 2020 12:06 PM (bPH26)

476 That's why they're always shocked when (for example) Woke ESPN has to reduce staff, or Woke Sportsblogs go bankrupt.

They assume money just happens. They have yet to see the link between trashing the core audience and financial ruin.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at December 20, 2020 12:03 PM (cfSRQ)

I don't agree with turning everything into "woke" pieces, but I think a lot of it can be explained by a desire for profit and the assumption that they can capture a new market either without destroying the core market or building an adequate replacement audience. And yes, they assume if they get the casting "right", the money will flow. I haven't bothered with Woke Doctor Who, but then I haven't watched it at all in over 30 years.

Posted by: CN at December 20, 2020 12:07 PM (ONvIw)

477 They really don't know there really ARE other points of view. Or even that there CAN be. And therefore, they cannot see them.

I think that is what shocks them about old books and movies. Its not so much that they find this stuff morally repellent, but that they find it shocking and frightening to be confronted with something so unexpected and unknown. Its like the cave dwellers in Socrates' example, stumbling out into the world.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at December 20, 2020 12:07 PM (KZzsI)

478 e mentioned a couple of times here that had Kennedy
participated in the last round of Democrat 'debates', he would have been
booed off of the stage for uttering, 'Ask not what your country can do
for you, but what you can do for your country.'

I was not a fan of Kennedy but he was, at least, an American.

Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc. at December 20, 2020 12:01 PM (WZ5i4)
no hyperbole here. Clinton in 92 would have been booed off the stage. Even Obama when he first ran in 2008 would have no chance of even getting in a Demo debate today. It gets worse and worse really.

Posted by: Quint at December 20, 2020 12:07 PM (kfMBQ)

479
If that were true, and they were that
clear-sighted, then they could fake it. And they can't. Ever read about
those "political Turing tests"? Libs always fail.

Posted by: Eeyore at December 20, 2020 12:00 PM (7X3UV)

---
Let me clarify. They are deliberately changing it because they think it is WRONG. They don't know how or why. They entirely miss the point of the thing, which is why they often change the most pointless and superficial elements.

They think a gender swap or adding someone gay is "transgressive" and can't understand how casting a black man as a cardinal in Saxon England would be jarring.

It's like a kid who starts rearranging the parts in an engine because they look lopsided. He has no idea why they are where they are, but his whole life he's been told he is So Smart and also Stunning and Brave so he knows what he's doing is totally right.

And when the car won't run, it's inexplicable to him, but also not his fault.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at December 20, 2020 12:07 PM (cfSRQ)

480 This is why I've never been able to stomach Law and Order, or its spinoffs. The few times I've watched it, there will usually be a point where I think "wow, you could take off on an angle here, have the suspect be innocent, be framed by the cops or something." But now, the detectives are always infallible and boring as hell. No depth, no imagination, it might as well be an old style melodrama with nothing but Good Guys and Villains who never challenge the narrative.

Posted by: Tom Servo at December 20, 2020 11:59 AM (V2Yro)

The classic L&O stereotype, noted by many commentators over the years, is this: a prostitute turns up dead. Who killed her? These are the suspects:

(a) her pimp
(b) a deranged homicidal maniac with an actual murder in his record(
(c) a conservative businessman who is a Christian.

And the answer is always (c).

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Social Distancing Professional at December 20, 2020 12:09 PM (y9Iop)

481 It's plainly deliberate. They see themselves as "fixing" wrongthink oldbad stuff.

If you believe - as they do - that now is the most moral and pure time in humanity, than it is their duty to correct their mistakes of everyone who lived before them.

Secular missionaries for the woke religion.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at December 20, 2020 11:53 AM (cfSRQ)
_________

"The Wrong Shape"? Haven't seen that one, but then, I saw about 1/2 of one episode, and gave up. But that's what it sounds like.

Posted by: Eeyore at December 20, 2020 12:10 PM (7X3UV)

482 It's like a kid who starts rearranging the parts in an engine because they look lopsided. He has no idea why they are where they are, but his whole life he's been told he is So Smart and also Stunning and Brave so he knows what he's doing is totally right.

Excellent analogy, and well said. This is a generation that combines stunning ignorance with absolute arrogance and certainty. I mean, there were Christians in the past who would do this, but there were always men like Luther and Lewis and Aquinas who would show there was more and better in the world.

Modern wokester religion is impervious to reason, thought, logic, and education because it relies on the ignorance to even exist. You CANNOT allow anything outside or reasonable in, because it destabilizes the entire thing.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at December 20, 2020 12:10 PM (KZzsI)

483 I don't agree with turning everything into "woke"
pieces, but I think a lot of it can be explained by a desire for profit
and the assumption that they can capture a new market either without
destroying the core market or building an adequate replacement audience.
And yes, they assume if they get the casting "right", the money will
flow. I haven't bothered with Woke Doctor Who, but then I haven't
watched it at all in over 30 years.

Posted by: CN at December 20, 2020 12:07 PM (ONvIw)

---
As Ace likes to put it, they find the current audience to be repellent and imagine they will make more money with a newer, cooler audience if they just make everything Woke.

But the money is always, *always* a secondary concern to their absolute moral duty to fix Wrongthink.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at December 20, 2020 12:10 PM (cfSRQ)

484 They think a gender swap or adding someone gay is "transgressive" and can't understand how casting a black man as a cardinal in Saxon England would be jarring.

It's like a kid who starts rearranging the parts in an engine because they look lopsided. He has no idea why they are where they are, but his whole life he's been told he is So Smart and also Stunning and Brave so he knows what he's doing is totally right.

And when the car won't run, it's inexplicable to him, but also not his fault.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at December 20, 2020 12:07 PM (cfSRQ)

Heh. You've just described a cargo cult.

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Social Distancing Professional at December 20, 2020 12:11 PM (y9Iop)

485 And the answer is always (c).

It is sad because it didn't start that way. The first season was good TV, compelling and an interesting twist on the concept. I mean obviously time constraints meant that both the investigation and trial were given short shrift, but it was still interesting and the acting was solid.

Then about halfway through season 2 it went bad, and spiraled down ever since.

But for some reason has been on TV forever with several spinoffs. Go figure.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at December 20, 2020 12:12 PM (KZzsI)

486 Modern wokester religion is impervious to reason,
thought, logic, and education because it relies on the ignorance to even
exist. You CANNOT allow anything outside or reasonable in, because it
destabilizes the entire thing.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at December 20, 2020 12:10 PM (KZzsI)

---
Yes, and regarding money, remember that *none* of these people have ever known true privation. If they miss a meal they are now "starving."

It's like the Shatner cover of "Common People," if they call their dad, he can stop it all.

They have no skin in the game, and they figure their parents will cover for them because that's how they got where they are.

What is fascinating is that the CEOs are also like this, riding their ships right into the iceberg field all ahead full.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at December 20, 2020 12:14 PM (cfSRQ)

487 I've mentioned a couple of times here that had Kennedy participated in the last round of Democrat 'debates', he would have been booed off of the stage for uttering, 'Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.'

I was not a fan of Kennedy but he was, at least, an American.
Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc. at December 20, 2020 12:01 PM (WZ5i4)

I say the modern figure whose policies most closely resembled JFK's is George W. Bush. Fight me.

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Social Distancing Professional at December 20, 2020 12:16 PM (y9Iop)

488 If only they can educate (brainwash) the audience to be more woke, then their woke shows will earn money.

Therefore when the start losing money, the solution is to work harder to re-educate the audience by producing even woker shows

Posted by: vmom Trump Won! at December 20, 2020 12:16 PM (nUhF0)

489 477 They really don't know there really ARE other points of view. Or even that there CAN be. And therefore, they cannot see them.

I think that is what shocks them about old books and movies. Its not so much that they find this stuff morally repellent, but that they find it shocking and frightening to be confronted with something so unexpected and unknown. Its like the cave dwellers in Socrates' example, stumbling out into the world.
Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at December 20, 2020 12:07 PM (KZzsI)
_________

That. It even shows up in way that are not directly moral or political. A friend of my wife told here about the trouble the friend's daughter, and apparently the entire class (including the teacher) had with Pride and Prejudice. "Why didn't they just get jobs" was a typical question.

They simply couldn't conceive of a world they didn't know. And that seems to coexist with the popularity of sci fi, fantasy, and historical novels.

What a world, what a world!

Posted by: Eeyore at December 20, 2020 12:16 PM (7X3UV)

490 They think a gender swap or adding someone gay is "transgressive" and
can't understand how casting a black man as a cardinal in Saxon England
would be jarring.

It's like a kid who starts rearranging the parts in an engine
because they look lopsided. He has no idea why they are where they are,
but his whole life he's been told he is So Smart and also Stunning and
Brave so he knows what he's doing is totally right.

And when the car won't run, it's inexplicable to him, but also not his fault.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at December 20, 2020 12:07 PM (cfSRQ)

A couple of years ago a local theater company did Henry V. Henry was played by a black woman. Talk about holding their manhood cheap.

Posted by: TheQuietMan at December 20, 2020 12:16 PM (yISI5)

491
But the money is always, *always* a secondary concern to their absolute moral duty to fix Wrongthink.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at December 20, 2020 12:10 PM (cfSRQ)

Maybe, but sometimes I think it's just trying to be current. And very occasionally it is tolerable enough and even unobtrusive. If the screenwriters have created a new story, set in modern times, color blind casting doesn't really bother me. If you try this with another period, it will be jarring. In Inspector Lewis, it works as well as anything else and they've even tossed in a few murderers of African descent in order to showcase a current talent. A few other adaptation series accomplish this without being too "woke".

Posted by: CN at December 20, 2020 12:18 PM (ONvIw)

492 Yes, and regarding money, remember that *none* of these people have ever known true privation. If they miss a meal they are now "starving."

Yeah their description of food shortages etc, makes my brain hurt. If you have missed one meal in a week or 4 in a month, you're some kind of starving African kid with a huge belly and bones sticking out all over, holding out a bowl for some rice.

I've been poor my whole life, and not "gosh I wish I could afford a second car" poor. Destitute and nearly homeless several times. Going without meals is kind of a fact of life. You get hungry and go on.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at December 20, 2020 12:18 PM (KZzsI)

493
Therefore when the start losing money, the solution is to work harder to re-educate the audience by producing even woker shows

Posted by: vmom Trump Won! at December 20, 2020 12:16 PM (nUhF0)

---
They also seek to shut down all alternative versions. That's why "deplatforming" is a thing, and why old movies are increasingly verboten.

To put it another way: if you 'memory hole' the Colin Firth "Pride and Prejudice" you woke one has less competition.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at December 20, 2020 12:20 PM (cfSRQ)

494
A couple of years ago a local theater company did Henry V. Henry was played by a black woman. Talk about holding their manhood cheap.

Posted by: TheQuietMan at December 20, 2020 12:16 PM (yISI5)

This is silly and makes fun of the play, IMO. I don't think Glenda Jackson should have accepted the role of King Lear and was wiser when she turned down playing Hamlet.

Posted by: CN at December 20, 2020 12:20 PM (ONvIw)

495 In the case of lawyers, I refer to it as 'argot'.
Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc. at December 20, 2020 12:03 PM (bPH26)

Comes from eating spoiled wry.

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at December 20, 2020 12:21 PM (mzC78)

496 I am ok with color blind casting generally as well
from my pov if the actor is good they can make it work

Posted by: vmom Trump Won! at December 20, 2020 12:22 PM (nUhF0)

497 A couple of years ago a local theater company did Henry V. Henry was played by a black woman. Talk about holding their manhood cheap.

Posted by: TheQuietMan at December 20, 2020 12:16 PM (yISI5)

A couple of years ago, the BBC broadcast an historical drama about Elizabeth I wherein Lord Randolph was played by a black actor and one of Elizabeth's ladies-in-waiting was Chinese. It was so painfully 'woke' that even liberal reviewers on imdb were laughing at it.

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Social Distancing Professional at December 20, 2020 12:22 PM (y9Iop)

498 A couple of years ago a local theater company did
Henry V. Henry was played by a black woman. Talk about holding their
manhood cheap.

Posted by: TheQuietMan at December 20, 2020 12:16 PM (yISI5)

---
They probably gave themselves and award for being Stunning and also Brave.

Yet if someone wanted to produce To Kill A Mockingbird they'd wet their pants.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at December 20, 2020 12:24 PM (cfSRQ)

499 A couple of years ago, the BBC broadcast an historical drama about Elizabeth I wherein Lord Randolph was played by a black actor and one of Elizabeth's ladies-in-waiting was Chinese. It was so painfully 'woke' that even liberal reviewers on imdb were laughing at it.
Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Social Distancing Professional at December 20, 2020 12:22 PM (y9Iop)

These decisions qualify as "jarring", but to cast an Asian actress as the alcoholic wine critic with an English name in a Midsomer Murders episode is not.

Posted by: CN at December 20, 2020 12:24 PM (ONvIw)

500 I strenuously oppose injecting women and actors of color into historical roles of white men, because its never about the job or performance to make George Washington into a black female slave. Its about smearing history and laughing at you while you react. I don't like making Heimdall into a black guy because holy crap don't you think maybe the Vikings might have noticed that and mentioned it????

But I don't give a damn if someone redoes Miami Vice and makes Sonny Crockett a Mexican.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at December 20, 2020 12:24 PM (KZzsI)

501 But I don't give a damn if someone redoes Miami Vice and makes Sonny Crockett a Mexican.
Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at December 20, 2020 12:24 PM (KZzsI)

Exactly.

Posted by: CN at December 20, 2020 12:26 PM (ONvIw)

502

A ton of investment firms are falling over themselves to have ESG (environmental, social, governance) aka Woke investments. They think that millennials will want to invest woke and so they are all jumping on board. Morningstar is now giving all equity funds an ESG score. A couple of years ago a sales guy for a big firm asked me do you have much call for these investments? I said no, not really. He said, Neither do we but they keep telling me this is the new thing and to keep pushing it.

Posted by: TheQuietMan at December 20, 2020 12:26 PM (yISI5)

503 The only "director's cut" I liked was Last of the
Mohicans because the director actually cut more than he added, and what
he added did in fact enhance the story and made the film better.

BTW, cannot imagine a movie that showed Indians being complex and morally ambiguous being made today.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at December 20, 2020 11:49 AM (cfSRQ)

I haven't seen that. Sounds interesting.

Posted by: Quint at December 20, 2020 12:27 PM (kfMBQ)

504 "Ha. One lives across the street. Between his language, my poor hearing, and a couple of glasses of single-malt, it's as if we are just making noises at each other."

You had me at "single malt".

Posted by: Tuna at December 20, 2020 12:28 PM (gLRfa)

505 These decisions qualify as "jarring", but to cast an
Asian actress as the alcoholic wine critic with an English name in a
Midsomer Murders episode is not.

Posted by: CN at December 20, 2020 12:24 PM (ONvIw)

---
If the casting decision is plausible, people are fine with it. Contemporary drama can go lots of different ways.

I'm also fine with bending genders/races all over Shakespeare, though if you are going to do it, you should also use a contemporary setting.

But doing period pieces like that doesn't work, just like it would be strange for Julius Caesar to pull a cell phone out of his toga.

It's called the "willing suspension of disbelief" also known as getting absorbed in the story. These people don't really care about that, they just want to win kudos for being So Stunning, So Brave.

They do this, I believe, because it is much easier than making good art.

See, if you do a straight reboot of "Ghostbusters" and it bombs, you look like an idiot, but if Lady Ghostbusters tanks, it's not your fault because Society Is Sexist.

Really, a lot of this can be explained by people who are convinced that they are always guiltless no matter what happens because reasons.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at December 20, 2020 12:30 PM (cfSRQ)

506 i am waiting for a remake of Pride & Prejudice where Lez Bennet marries Darcy's sister, and the third Bennet sister, that weirdo Mary, decides she is a boy, changes her name to Marty, and inherits the vicarage.

Posted by: vmom Trump Won! at December 20, 2020 12:30 PM (nUhF0)

507
I haven't seen that. Sounds interesting.

Posted by: Quint at December 20, 2020 12:27 PM (kfMBQ)

---
Arguably the best movie of the 90s.

I now ration my watching it because it is so good. Held up really well.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at December 20, 2020 12:31 PM (cfSRQ)

508 Native Americans must always be portrayed in a positive, even glowing saintly light of the oppressed hero. Homosexuals can never be bad guys, always the smartest, hippest, and best-dressed handsome/beautiful person in the production.

Blacks can still be dumb gang bangers, though, for some reason.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at December 20, 2020 12:33 PM (KZzsI)

509 Female Mark Antony in Julius Caesar:

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears. Did you see those shoes Brutus was wearing? Did not go with his toga at all! And that hairdo? Do not even get me started!

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at December 20, 2020 12:35 PM (+y/Ru)

510 These decisions qualify as "jarring", but to cast an

Asian actress as the alcoholic wine critic with an English name in a

Midsomer Murders episode is not.

Posted by: CN at December 20, 2020 12:24 PM (ONvIw)

SCTV did a remake of On The Waterfront with Bobby Bittman in the Brando role and a Chinese guy who couldn't speak English that well as his brother. They were asked about that casting and the Chinese guy said, You think you do better job round eye? Back then it was a joke for bad casting like that. Now it's all the rage.

Posted by: TheQuietMan at December 20, 2020 12:36 PM (yISI5)

511 I haven't seen that. Sounds interesting.

Posted by: Quint at December 20, 2020 12:27 PM (kfMBQ)

---
Arguably the best movie of the 90s.

I now ration my watching it because it is so good. Held up really well.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at December 20, 2020 12:31 PM (cfSRQ)

i meant the director's cut. My bad there as I was not clear. I love the movie though I still wonder how many know what is was about and what war was going on. Maybe I am too negative but I bet less than half could tell you the war if you asked them about the movie.

that aside. i meant the director's cut. I assume that is only on dvd right?

Posted by: Quint at December 20, 2020 12:39 PM (kfMBQ)

512 496
I am ok with color blind casting generally as well

from my pov if the actor is good they can make it work

It can work, and I used to tolerate it much better in the past, when I didn't suspect that the filmmaker was deliberately having a go at me. Yesterday someone mentioned Kenneth Branagh's 'Much Ado About Nothing', with Denzel Washington as Don Pedro. That worked, and I didn't find myself saying, "Hang on, why's that guy black?". Now, though, I *always* think the against-the-grain casting is done to make a statement.

Posted by: Dr. Mabuse at December 20, 2020 12:40 PM (ZzfrF)

513 Brazilians President Claims COVID Vaccine Will Turn You Into A Crocodile

-
Dude, we're alligators in this country.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at December 20, 2020 12:42 PM (+y/Ru)

514 Yesterday someone mentioned Kenneth Branagh's 'Much Ado About Nothing', with Denzel Washington as Don Pedro. That worked

It worked largely because Much Ado is a spoof to begin with, so the casting can be zany and still work. But do that with Hamlet and we have a problem.

I blame Hamilton and its Black Panther-level praise. Its not really that great, its just SEE BLACK PEOPLE IN WHITE PEOPLE ROLES UP YOURS HONKY

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at December 20, 2020 12:43 PM (KZzsI)

515 506 i am waiting for a remake of Pride & Prejudice where Lez Bennet marries Darcy's sister, and the third Bennet sister, that weirdo Mary, decides she is a boy, changes her name to Marty, and inherits the vicarage.

Posted by: vmom Trump Won! at December 20, 2020 12:30 PM (nUhF0)

The Bollywood adaptation, "Bride and Prejudice", is fun. All of the drama, plus show-stopping dance numbers!

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Social Distancing Professional at December 20, 2020 12:44 PM (y9Iop)

516 The Bollywood adaptation, "Bride and Prejudice", is fun. All of the drama, plus show-stopping dance numbers!
Posted by: OregonMuse

I love Bride & Prejudice

Posted by: vmom Trump Won! at December 20, 2020 12:46 PM (nUhF0)

517 Funny thread on a Muslim's observations of his first Christmas.

https://bit.ly/3mzKIjN

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at December 20, 2020 12:48 PM (+y/Ru)

518 506
i am waiting for a remake of Pride Prejudice where Lez Bennet
marries Darcy's sister, and the third Bennet sister, that weirdo Mary,
decides she is a boy, changes her name to Marty, and inherits the
vicarage.

I was really surprised that this year's 'Emma' didn't make Harriet Smith a black orphan. Of course she'd make a perfect match for a Church of England clergyman back in the early 1800s!

Posted by: Dr. Mabuse at December 20, 2020 12:49 PM (ZzfrF)

519 5 Can hardly put it down

Posted by: Skip at December 20, 2020 12:50 PM (Cxk7w)

520 https://bit.ly/3mzKIjN
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks

the twitter thread is hilarious

twitchy is annoying though - their commentary is so plebian

Posted by: vmom Trump Won! at December 20, 2020 12:57 PM (nUhF0)

521
"It immediately answered two questions I've had for years about that period. Simple questions like why did they need Judas to identify Jesus when everyone knew who He was? Or why did they need Judas to find Him? He wasn't hiding."

=====

OK, this convinced me to get it. And when I did, found the Kindle edition (at the moment, at least) was 99 cents. Thank you!

Posted by: empire 1 at December 20, 2020 12:57 PM (vluYu)

522 I was really surprised that this year's 'Emma' didn't make Harriet Smith a black orphan. Of course she'd make a perfect match for a Church of England clergyman back in the early 1800s!
Posted by: Dr. Mabuse at December 20, 2020 12:49 PM (ZzfrF)

hah!

I enjoyed that Emma though
it felt true to the spirit of Austen's mood in writing it
slightly manic

The Gwyneth Paltrow one was forgettable

Posted by: vmom Trump Won! at December 20, 2020 01:01 PM (nUhF0)

523 "Whats a stop puller?"

If you look at the photo of the organ, you'll see two panels of knobs, one on either side of the keyboards. Each knob is attached to a rod that slides in and out; this is called a "stop". Each stop controls a rank of pipes within the organ; each rank of pipes has a particular sound (resembling a trumpet, say, or a flute, or a cello). Pulling out the rod out engages the stop, which directs air into that particular rank of pipes; pushing in on the rod disengages the stop, which silences its rank of pipes. A "stop puller" is the person who pulls the stops out or pushes them in, depending on the particular mix of sounds the organist wants for a given passage of music. A modern organ has devices called "pistons" which are operated by a footpedal, and which an organist can program to engage a particular set of stops; with these organs, no stop puller is needed. However, in recent years, it's been the fashion to build organs the old-fashioned way, eschewing pistons and instead requiring that stops be pulled by hand.

Posted by: Nemo (formerly "Brown Line") at December 20, 2020 01:04 PM (S6ArX)

524 Thanks fpr the recommend. I take care of my mom who has dementia, and lately she seems t be having more difficulties with it.
Posted by: josephistan

God bless ya. J-Stan !

Posted by: JT at December 20, 2020 01:06 PM (arJlL)

525 What did you people do with my entire life!?!?!?
Posted by: Sharkman

We've been shitting in Biden's pants !

(but don't tell him !)

Posted by: JT at December 20, 2020 01:11 PM (arJlL)

526 Generally speaking productions of Shakespeare are state-subsidized. Like opera. This is ALWAYS true in Europe, & largely true here. Even in England, Shakespeare is heavily subsidized.

That is one reason that a producer can cast a black woman as Henry V. It's going to lose money anyway.

That said, I saw black actors in the BBC series "The Hollow Crown," which is R-II; H-IV, I & 2; and H-V. (first season; haven't seen Season 2)

The black actors were in supporting roles. Not a problem for me. Shakespeare used men in women's roles-- he probably wouldn't have objected to black actors himself. Ahistorical? Sure.

How 'historical' are Shakespeare's history plays themselves? Just barely. He never intended to produce staged documentaries.

He has to liven up the history, or people would go down the street & watch animals being tortured (bear pits), instead of paying to see Macbeth.

Posted by: mnw at December 20, 2020 01:16 PM (Cssks)

527 I forgot to mention this earlier: I gave up reading Jack Cashill's TWA 800: The Crash, the Coverup, and the Conspiracy mainly because his need to tell the detail of every person he interviewed, all of whom said mainly the same thing, just wore me out. Too bad because I like him and I'm sure there was a very good story embedded in all that data just waiting for an editor to help cobble together a compelling narration.

Posted by: Captain Hate at December 20, 2020 01:20 PM (y7DUB)

528 I've always though that Shakespeare would be astonished to learn that, 400 years later, HIS portrayals of historical figures would gradually come to define those historical figures in the popular mind-- not history books.

For example, everything most folks know today about Richard III is taken from the character Shakespeare created. The same is true for other historical characters.

Posted by: mnw at December 20, 2020 01:25 PM (Cssks)

529 502 just wait....ESG will underperform...badly

Posted by: Don at December 20, 2020 01:37 PM (mwDnq)

530 529 502 just wait....ESG will underperform...badly
Posted by: Don

of course
most "green" companies are run by either woke idiots or corrupt criminals
*coughsolyndracough*

Posted by: vmom Trump Won! at December 20, 2020 01:47 PM (nUhF0)

531 The movie "Clueless" was a modern reenactment of Emma, and really well done, believe it our not.

Posted by: artemis at December 20, 2020 01:57 PM (AwPyG)

532 172
My next history read will be E.R. Chamberlin's "The Bad Popes". I read it eons ago, and remember being disappointed that it wasn't salacious enough for my tastes. Perhaps I've matured since then.

Naaahhh...
Posted by: All Hail Eris, Iron Fist in Velvet Glove in Iron Gauntlet Clutching an Iron Mace at December 20, 2020 09:41 AM (Dc2NZ)

Looked it up. How can one not read about this virtuoso of revenge ?

"Pope Stephen VI (896-897), who had his predecessor Pope Formosus exhumed, tried, de-fingered, briefly reburied, and thrown in the Tiber."

Ima gonna look into this !
Posted by: runner at December 20, 2020 10:11 AM (zr5Kq)

I read another Moron's recommendation of this book earlier in the week, so I bought it and started reading it. It's fantastic.

Written in 1969, I believe, and it reads as modern as any book written today. I thought the Borgia popes were the worst, but believe me, that had some stiff competition (pardon the pun; it's definitely applicable in this case).

There are also a couple of women that I learned about that deserve books of their own, for sure.

Highly recommended.

Posted by: Darrell Harris at December 20, 2020 02:05 PM (QRw/X)

533 >>> 495 In the case of lawyers, I refer to it as 'argot'.
>>>Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc. at December 20, >>>2020 12:03 PM (bPH26)

>>>Comes from eating spoiled wry.

this should get some kind of award

Posted by: yara at December 20, 2020 02:06 PM (oPRky)

534 The Gwyneth Paltrow one was forgettable
Posted by: vmom Trump Won! at December 20, 2020 01:01 PM (nUhF0)

I preferred Romola Garai

Posted by: CN at December 20, 2020 02:24 PM (ONvIw)

535 470 I'm not certain that such equivalent banter could be created using American English, but perhaps that would be because we, ourselves, simply would not recognize it as such.

It certainly seems that the Python crew worked hard at exaggerating the eccentricities of their language, or at least of regionalisms.
Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc. at December 20, 2020 11:54 AM (L47aO)

Try having a casual conversation with a couple of Scots.
Posted by: Justsayin' at December 20, 2020 12:03 PM (Fs5vw)

Someplace, I have seen "Geordies in Space". Or maybe it was Glaswegians ... hmmm. Imagine Star Trek done with a Geordie accent. Or Glaswegian.

Posted by: Fox2! at December 20, 2020 07:08 PM (qyH+l)

536 A half, it's actually "Taysiders in Space".

Posted by: Fox2! at December 20, 2020 07:22 PM (qyH+l)

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