Sunday Morning Book Thread - 04-10-2022 ["Perfessor" Squirrel]

(HT: Bob ---> but not from the NSA)

Good morning, Horde! Welcome to the prestigious, internationally acclaimed, stately, and illustrious Sunday Morning Book Thread! The place where all readers are welcome, regardless of whatever guilty pleasure we feel like reading (one of the strangest books I've ever read, and that's saying something!). Here is where we can discuss, argue, bicker, quibble, consider, debate, confabulate, converse, and jaw about our latest fancy in reading material, even if it's nothing more than Sherlock's list of favorite pipe tobacco blends. As always, pants are required, unless you are wearing these pants...for when you need to sneak that accordion through security...

NOTE ON COMMENTS:

As a general rule on specialty threads (Book, Pet, Gun, Food, Gardening, etc.), please keep comments mostly relevant to the specialty of that thread. Comments that are simply about the events of the day don't really belong here. At the very least, a good rule of thumb is to obey the "100 comment" rule, where all comments should be relevant to the specialty subject until after 100 comments or so. Thank you.

Now on to the frosted strawberry goodness of the Sunday Morning Book Thread!

PIC NOTE

Today's most excellent library picture came to me courtesy of a moron in good standing (Bob ---> but not from the NSA)

There has been a discussion of Sherlock Holmes in some of the past Book Threads. I believe it was "JTB" that mentioned William Baring-Gould's The Annotated Sherlock Holmes. Just to show that once you go down the rabbit hole of collecting Sherlockian studies and memorabilia, there's all kinds of things to collect besides books. I have attached a photograph of my den. The three bookcases are filled with multiple editions of Doyle's stories, pastiches, writings-upon-the-writings, Victoriana, Sherlock Holmes themed games, stuffed animals, etc. I also have movie posters, pipes, DVDs, and magazines. It all started about 30 years ago when I bought a copy of The Annotated Sherlock Holmes!
One of the fun things about the Sherlockian community is that, since it is rather ... eccentric ... , you get to meet people from all walks of life. Since you see the same people at the various conventions, you end up having friends that you see once or twice a year.

IT PAYS TO INCREASE YOUR WORD POWER

Today's "Word Power" entry is going to be a little different. Among my acquaintances at work is an etymologist. You know, one of those people who studies word origins. I asked him for a couple of words that might have interesting stories behind them and he obliged.

macaroni - n. - A dandy or fop; specifically (in the second half of the 18th century) a member of a set of young men who had travelled in Europe and extravagantly imitated Continental tastes and fashions.

From what I can tell, well-to-do young men in the latter part of the 18th century would travel from England to continental Europe, often stopping off in Italy, where they developed a fondness for the local cuisine, among which was the macaroni pasta. At the time, "macaroni" was more or less a generic term for pasta, as it was used in a lot of Italian cooking. The young men brought it back to England and added it as part of their menu at a high-class social venue known as Almack's. These young men came to be known as Macaronies, a term which came to refer to their somewhat wild and outlandish fashion sense. So a Macaroni was a person "who exceeded the ordinary bounds of fashion; and is now justly used as a term of reproach to all ranks of people indifferently, who fall into this absurdity." (The Scots Magazine, 1772, Vol. 34, p. 616). They also tended to outrageous behavior, because they were the attention-seeking whores of their day (pre-Tik-Tok).

The internet is a wonderful resource. There are numerous images of "macaronis" available online, some of which are linked below. Definitely check them out. The macaronis went out of their way to be over-the-top in their fashion sense. Seriously, they make drag-queens look understated and tasteful. This is also probably what Dennis Reynolds and Mac are trying to emulate in this clip from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (The Gang Cracks the Liberty Bell).

Macaroni Image 1 - "How d'ye like me?"

Macaroni Image 2

Macaroni Image 3 - "Now Sir, You're a Compleat Macaroni"

Macaroni Image 4

Macaroni Image 5 - "Macaroni Dressing Room"

I love macaroni and cheese. That's why I submitted my recipe for it to The Deplorable Gourmet. But now I'll have these images dancing through my head the next time I make some...

Five pounds of hair they wear behind,
   The ladies to delight, O,
Their senses give into the wind
   To make themselves a fright, O,
This fashion who does e'en pursue
   I think a simple tony,
For he's a fool, say what you will,
   Who is a Macaroni

The poem above (April is National Poetry Month) comes from the macaroni article my etymologist friend sent me, but there was no clear attribution of who wrote it or where it was first published. An internet search was unsuccessful as well.

WHO DIS

CLUE 1 - A postage stamp in Nicaragua featured the main character they created to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Interpol.

CLUE 2 - Both men wrote using multiple pseudonyms.

CLUE 3 - They established an entire franchise of detective novels, stories, radio plays, television, films, and other media.

++++++++++

MORON RECOMMENDATIONS

I read The Marketing of Evil: How Radicals, Elitists, and Pseudo-Experts Sell Us Corruption Disguised as Freedom by David Kupelian. Kupelian shows how a corrupted media used powerful psychological tools of modern marketing and manipulation to change American attitudes toward the sexual revolution, the gay/trans agenda, abortion, etc. In doing so they have destroyed the family unit, infiltrated our education system and churches, and promoted more governmental interference in our lives. An interesting read.
Posted by: Zoltan at April 03, 2022 09:11 AM (UfrOl)

Comment: I haven't read this particular book, but I am familiar with another book by David Kupelian - How Evil Works: Understanding and Overcoming the Destructive Forces that are Transforming America (2010). It's a pretty grim read, but also enlightening. I'm not sure how we are really supposed to overcome evil, considering the tremendous array of forces against us. Maybe that's why the Moron Horde exists--to give each other comfort and strength in these dark times.

+++++

Reading my way through John Steinbeck's short novels. I've a few observations. He's never cynical or sneering-smarmy. Irony is absent (something his contemporary American marxist and Eton-Oxford writers hate). He doesn't indulge any single group or class of people. Steinbeck's sense of humor runs pretty deep; American, decent and incisive. Otherwise he'd never be able to write a book like Tortilla Flat.
As children we were force-fed Steinbeck throughout our school years, yet I never grew to hate him. I did forgot about him for a long time.
Posted by: 13times at April 03, 2022 10:44 AM (vN8dc)

Comment: I had to re-read Of Mice and Men for one of my classes in graduate school. I have to admit it was a pretty decent story. I enjoyed Steinbeck's use of descriptive language. The pacing was also quite good, as the story really just carried me along. I have not yet read any of his other works, though. Maybe someday...

+++++

I'm reading the fifth book in the 5 (so far) book series of military sci-fi series featuring lead character Abner Fortis, written by P.A. Piatt, called Diplomacy.
A young officer joins the Space Marines to pay off his student loans. The first book, Cherry Drop has 2nd Lt. Fortis on his very first mission inheriting command of a company in a very desperate and confusing situation. Each book he becomes progressively more experienced as he deals with more and more difficult situations.
Very well-written and I'm thoroughly enjoying this series. Nice studies in how a young officer learns to command. Highly recommended.
Posted by: Sharkman at April 03, 2022 11:26 AM (GGoJR)

Comment: Sounds like this series focuses on character development, taking its time to properly build up the main character from a novice into a professional. I sometimes enjoy a series like that, when you get to experience one character's development over several different adventures. Sure they make mistakes, but they learn and grow and become wiser, hopefully becoming a better person in the process.

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

That's about all I have for this week. Thank you for all of your kind words regarding my Sunday Morning Book Thread. I hope I am able to continue doing this for the foreseeable future. I do have some ideas for this space to help grow it and increase our active participation. Stay tuned!

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

PREVIOUS SUNDAY MORNING BOOK THREAD - 04-03-22 (hat tip: vmom stabby stabby stabamillion) (NOTE: Do NOT comment on old threads!)

(SPOILER: Slappy Squirrel "killed" Saddam Hussein with dynamite at the Baghdad Café. "Now that's comedy!")

Posted by: Open Blogger at 09:00 AM

Comments

(Jump to bottom of comments)

1 Still working on re-read of the W.B. Griffin Corps series. On book 7 now.

Posted by: Vic at April 10, 2022 09:01 AM (mZwKe)

2 DING!

Posted by: Biden's Dog at April 10, 2022 09:01 AM (9tNH9)

3 Tolle Lege.

Posted by: I am the Shadout Mapes, the Housekeeper at April 10, 2022 09:01 AM (PiwSw)

4 Tolle Lege

Posted by: Skip's Phone at April 10, 2022 09:02 AM (gJbiv)

5 The Who Dis? is a mystery to me...

Posted by: I am the Shadout Mapes, the Housekeeper at April 10, 2022 09:03 AM (PiwSw)

6 Morning, 'rons and 'ronettes.

A reminder that my new Theda Bara novel, The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of is now out:

https://tinyurl.com/7cdbsk48

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at April 10, 2022 09:03 AM (2JVJo)

7 Nice Lieberry!

Those pants......you can safely hide a few cats in there so the Red Chinese won't find them.

The Who Dis is Sal and Dominick of Buick LeSabre fame after learning their trunk ballots worked in Georgia in 2020.

Posted by: Hairyback Guy at April 10, 2022 09:05 AM (R/m4+)

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

Posted by: JTB at April 10, 2022 09:05 AM (7EjX1)

9 Good morning again.

We are skinnying down the stacks - for anyone that wants them, I have three books on the people, procedings and history of Lehigh County PA, from the Lehigh County Historical Society.

Two are from the very early 1900's and are about 500 pages apiece. You can have them - and I'll ship them.

It's a sin to throw out books, right?

Posted by: Tonypete at April 10, 2022 09:06 AM (Msys3)

10 I read Dear Reader: The Unauthorized Biography of Kim Jung Il by Michael Malice. Kim Jung Il is the father of the current North Korea leader, Kim Jung Un. Taken directly from books smuggled out of North Korea, this is a carefully reconstituted first-person account of Kim Jung Il's life. Malice did an excellent job of making the Dear Leader come alive and tell the history of North Korea from the Dear Leader's perspective. I enjoyed this book very much.

Posted by: Zoltan at April 10, 2022 09:07 AM (UfrOl)

11 The macaronis went out of their way to be over-the-top in their fashion sense.

Which is why the Regency-era fashion plate, Beau Brummell, was such a breath of fresh air with his insistence on simplicity and sober taste.

Someone once told Brummell about a man who was so well-dressed that people stopped in the street to look at him. "Really?" said Brummell, "Then he was not well-dressed."

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at April 10, 2022 09:07 AM (2JVJo)

12 Am re-reading Mitch Rapp and wondering, sans the radical Islam part, if I am reading today's news regarding the behavior of our govt Alphabet...

Posted by: Danimal28 at April 10, 2022 09:07 AM (UtHxr)

13 Barnes and Noble as a guess.

Posted by: AZ deplorable moron at April 10, 2022 09:10 AM (bYpX/)

14 I also read Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, which was recommended here several weeks ago. An interesting story, but I'm not sure that it's one of the greatest science fiction novels for me.

Posted by: Zoltan at April 10, 2022 09:10 AM (UfrOl)

15 Speaking of Steinbeck, he wrote an adaptation of Malory's King Arthur, The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights:

https://tinyurl.com/yzbeadvx

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at April 10, 2022 09:11 AM (2JVJo)

16 I don't usually get to comment because we leave for church before 9 and don't get home til 12:30. Headed to WI today with a friend who is getting medical care there, so I can comment. Yay. Been reading mostly devotionals, because, Lent. "Uncovering the Love of Jesus" by Asheritan Civciv is the one I'm working on right now. Very good. For fiction I just read "The Light Between Oceans" by M.L. Stedman. And then "No Time on My Hands", the true story of a woman from a pioneer family in Nebraska, starting in 1885, by Grace Snyder and Nellie Snyder Yost.

Posted by: TecumsehTea at April 10, 2022 09:11 AM (BjGT6)

17 12 Am re-reading Mitch Rapp and wondering, sans the radical Islam part, if I am reading today's news regarding the behavior of our govt Alphabet...
Posted by: Danimal28 at April 10, 2022 09:07 AM (UtHxr)

Mitch would not be happy about our current state of affairs.

At all

Posted by: weirdflunky at April 10, 2022 09:11 AM (cknjq)

18 It's a sin to throw out books, right?
Posted by: Tonypete at April 10, 2022 09:06 AM (Msys3)

Some, like Howard Zinn's execrable History, I would have to think hard about...

Posted by: I am the Shadout Mapes, the Housekeeper at April 10, 2022 09:11 AM (PiwSw)

19 I think the Who Dis are Frederic Dannay and Manfred Bennington Lee, the authors of the Ellery Queen stories.

Posted by: JTB at April 10, 2022 09:12 AM (7EjX1)

20 I think the Who Dis are Frederic Dannay and Manfred Bennington Lee, the authors of the Ellery Queen stories.
Posted by: JTB at April 10, 2022 09:12 AM (7EjX1)
----
DING DING DING!

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at April 10, 2022 09:13 AM (K5n5d)

21 Some, like Howard Zinn's execrable History, I would have to think hard about...
Posted by: I am the Shadout Mapes

Good point. I must admit, I pitched that immediately after my son's AP history class. (the 'book' was used as a farcical treatment of our history in that class.)

Posted by: Tonypete at April 10, 2022 09:13 AM (Msys3)

22 I wonder what Bob but not from the NSA thinks of the Holmes pastiches by June Thomson. I find her plotting very intricate, but her Watson irritates me. A little too much Nigel Bruce and not enough David Burke.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at April 10, 2022 09:13 AM (2JVJo)

23 Currently reading Agatha H. And The Airship City by Phil and Kaja Foglio. Really fun and imaginative, and I'm enjoying it so far.

Posted by: DIY Daddio at April 10, 2022 09:13 AM (RJscS)

24 Who Dis -- Mannay and Lee (Ellery Queen)?

(The squirrel photo suggests so.)

The Perry Mason docket is cleared, maybe for the year. This last one, "TCOT Worried Waitress," may be the only PM in which the charge is assault with intent to kill and not murder. Gardner specifies that under California law, the assailant has a year to pray that the victim survives, otherwise the charge upgrades to murder.

In some of these stories, Mason lucks out; he uses some detective skills, but the reader doesn't get clues to everything. Is that a cheat? Depends on the reader.

I had planned to shift genres, but this volume has an Agatha Christie story, too, so I'll start it. I guess these stories were packaged as one because both involve blind women.

So wind up "The Clocks."

Posted by: Weak Geek at April 10, 2022 09:15 AM (Om/di)

25 It's a sin to throw out books, right?
Posted by: Tonypete at April 10, 2022 09:06 AM (Msys3)

Some, like Howard Zinn's execrable History, I would have to think hard about...
Posted by: I am the Shadout Mapes, the Housekeeper at April 10, 2022 09:11 AM (PiwSw)

Definitely not a sin to toss poorly written books. More like doing God's work...

Posted by: Captain Hate won't forget Michael Byrd Murdered Ashli Babbitt at April 10, 2022 09:15 AM (y7DUB)

26
g'mornin', book-ish 'rons

Posted by: AltonJackson at April 10, 2022 09:16 AM (DUIap)

27 Guess was *way* off... not surprised.

Posted by: AZ deplorable moron at April 10, 2022 09:16 AM (bYpX/)

28 Oh fer ...

Dannay, not Mannay.

Maybe I should drink coffee, so I could get more.

Posted by: Weak Geek at April 10, 2022 09:17 AM (Om/di)

29 It always struck me in the "Yankee Doodle" song, that macaroni was kind of an elite fashion that the British were insinuating backwater yokels thought they were emulating by sticking a feather in their cap. But, if even the Brits thought the macaroni were weird, I don't know.

Posted by: Cat Ass Trophy at April 10, 2022 09:18 AM (qnVBz)

30 Reading "Rigged" by Mollie Hemingway
"American Marxism" by Mark Levin
"Grant" by Ron Chernow
Finished "With The Old Breed" by E.B. Sledge

Recommend all.
Based on her Kavanaugh book and "Rigged", Mollie is an excellent writer who can digest complex corruptions and explain them successfully to the reader.

Posted by: National Review the shiny new Jen Rubin of Conservative Urinalism at April 10, 2022 09:18 AM (jV+aN)

31 Definitely not a sin to toss poorly written books. More like doing God's work...
Posted by: Captain Hate

Poorly written, I agree; but, Zinn's should be burned and the ashes strewn.

Posted by: AZ deplorable moron at April 10, 2022 09:18 AM (bYpX/)

32 It's a sin to throw out books, right?
Posted by: Tonypete at April 10, 2022 09:06 AM (Msys3)
--

Tear them up and use them for garden mulch.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at April 10, 2022 09:18 AM (Dc2NZ)

33 MP4, Just wondering if one venue for your new book (Kindle, paperback or hardcover) puts more coin in your pockets. I'll be buying it but want to make sure you get the most for it.

Posted by: JTB at April 10, 2022 09:18 AM (7EjX1)

34 Definitely not a sin to toss poorly written books. More like doing God's work...
Posted by: Captain Hate won't forget Michael Byrd Murdered Ashli Babbitt at April 10, 2022 09:15 AM (y7DUB)
----
Look at it this way. You throw out a book and it goes to the landfill. It decomposes because it's biodegradable. Sometime in the future, the landfill is covered over and then trees will grow. They will be harvested and made into paper for future books (better books). Thus the cycle of reading continues...

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at April 10, 2022 09:18 AM (K5n5d)

35 Thus the cycle of reading continues...
Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel

If you burn them and toss the ashes around they recycle more quickly!

Posted by: AZ deplorable moron at April 10, 2022 09:20 AM (bYpX/)

36 Nice library, "Bob" (if that is, in fact, your name!)

Is that a MAD cover from the 50's? From the Kurtzman era?

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at April 10, 2022 09:20 AM (Dc2NZ)

37 I'm trying to slog my way through "The Dying Citizen".

Posted by: Mean Tweets at April 10, 2022 09:20 AM (M+/cs)

38 I read Peter Schweizer's Profiles in Corruption: Abuse of Power by America's Progressive Elite this week. He does an excellent job of reporting the corruption among the Bidens, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Elizabeth Warren, Sherrod Brown, Bernie Sanders, Amy Klobuchar and Eric Garcetti. Crackhead Hunter and Ukraine are just the tip
of the iceberg.

Posted by: cool breeze at April 10, 2022 09:21 AM (UGKMd)

39 @23 --

Do you read the "Girl Genius" webcomic? I recommend it without reservation.

Posted by: Weak Geek at April 10, 2022 09:21 AM (Om/di)

40 Continuing with the 100 Days of Dante and LOTR. These last few Cantos in the Paradiso section have been difficult to interpret in that they deal with fine points of theology that don't always sit well with today's point of view. The YT videos from Baylor College have been a huge help.

Posted by: JTB at April 10, 2022 09:22 AM (7EjX1)

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

Posted by: JT at April 10, 2022 09:22 AM (arJlL)

42 On the homeward stretch of David Crawford's "Lights Out". A solid entry in the TEOTWAWKI genre.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at April 10, 2022 09:22 AM (Dc2NZ)

43 Hiya Bookies !

Posted by: JT at April 10, 2022 09:22 AM (arJlL)

44 The Perry Mason docket is cleared, maybe for the year.

Gardner also had a "Bertha Cool" series, using the pen name "A.A. Fair." She's the owner of a PI firm and employs a wisecracking, streetwise gumshoe named Donald Lam. I've only read one, Traps Need Fresh Bait, but I enjoyed it, even though it's not my line of country.

https://tinyurl.com/2p8rvmz8

A funny thing, IIRC, is that Gardner constantly intimates that Cool is an old, crusty, heavyset harridan, but she only appears to be in her early 40s and slightly plump.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at April 10, 2022 09:22 AM (2JVJo)

45 Do you read the "Girl Genius" webcomic? I recommend it without reservation.
Posted by: Weak Geek at April 10, 2022 09:21 AM (Om/di)
---

Seconded!

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at April 10, 2022 09:22 AM (Dc2NZ)

46 Still working on re-read of the W.B. Griffin Corps series. On book 7 now.
Posted by: Vic

On the last Badge of Honor book now.

Posted by: JT at April 10, 2022 09:23 AM (arJlL)

47 MP4, Just wondering if one venue for your new book (Kindle, paperback or hardcover) puts more coin in your pockets. I'll be buying it but want to make sure you get the most for it.
Posted by: JTB at April 10, 2022 09:18 AM (7EjX1)

Don't know, but I'd suspect paperback.

I'm having trouble with getting the cover for the hardback to load. It's something I'll be dealing with over the week; I'm too lazy to do it today.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at April 10, 2022 09:23 AM (2JVJo)

48 Somebody mentioned Leif Enger last week. I checked the library and he has a new(ish) novel out, "Virgil Wander". I'm only a few chapters in and I like it a lot. Virgil is the owner of a movie theater in a small, dying town in Minnesota. One ordinary day he is driving along when "apparently my heartbroken Pontiac breached a safety barrier and made a long, lovely, some might say cinematic arc into the churning lake." He is rescued and recovers, but has memory lapses and feels divorced from his surroundings. Since he is slightly askew from his past and present, he decides to reimagine his life.

Lots of droll observations of the town and its people. His doctor had "the heartening bulk of the aging athlete defeated by pastry".

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at April 10, 2022 09:24 AM (Dc2NZ)

49 Have to finish hobby stuff absolutely so no new book, do want to go to used book store this week.

Posted by: Skip at April 10, 2022 09:26 AM (2JoB8)

50 You put this ear worm in my head and now you will all have to suffer too.
Yankee Doodle went to town riding on a pony. Stuck a feather in his cap and called it macaroni.

I always thought that was a silly camp song. Learn something new every day.

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at April 10, 2022 09:27 AM (Y+l9t)

51 I've been reading some H.L. Mencken -- his "Prejudices" collection, which was sort of a "greatest hits" album.

Interesting guy. The Left sometimes claims him as one of its patron saints because he mocked Fundamentalists, boosterism, and the showier forms of patriotism. But in terms of policy he was a paleocon's paleocon, and had no patience at all for Progressive blather.

Contemporary reference: it's obvious that during WWI he was disgusted by the anti-German propaganda (which was pretty over-the-top at times). But that led him into the opposite error, of assuming it was all bogus, and of believing any claims made by the Germans.

It reminds me of the reaction some people right now are having about Ukraine and Russia. Somehow "Ukraine is using propaganda" equates to "Everything the Russians say is true."

Posted by: Trimegistus at April 10, 2022 09:29 AM (QZxDR)

52 @44 --

Gardner portrayed a lot of people in their 60s and 70s as old. Maybe they were, back then.

Same observation with houses. When I was a kid, a house that was 60 years old was ancient. My house was built in '58; it's sturdy.

Posted by: Weak Geek at April 10, 2022 09:30 AM (Om/di)

53 And speaking of fat reminds me of a funny moment in the Kolchak episode "The Ripper," when he mentions fellow reporter Jane Plumm - "Jane Plumm is fat. She talks a lot about water retention, big boned, but I have to believe the six or eight meals a day with snacks in between to keep up her strength has a lot to do with it."

You're expecting Trigglypuff, but when Plumm comes on the scene, she's barely what we'd call 'plump' today. Which goes to show how the Overton Window on avoirdupois has changed since 1974.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at April 10, 2022 09:30 AM (2JVJo)

54 "Fop" and "macaroni" are such great words. I also like:

Coxcomb
Peacock
Popinjay
Boulevardier
Jackadandy

In France they had Les Incroyables and Merveilleuses:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incroyables_and_merveilleuses

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at April 10, 2022 09:32 AM (Dc2NZ)

55 I finished Lord of Chaos, book 6 in the Wheel of Time series. Definitely a high point. Next month I start "the slog", aka books 7 - 11. Actually books 7 and 8 are OK, but I've only managed to read books 9-11 once before.

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at April 10, 2022 09:32 AM (K5n5d)

56 I've bben watching many of the Malcolm Guite videos on Youtube. He is a poet, Church of England minister, musician, and author. Also, bless him, a pipe smoker. The man looks like a cross between Captain Kangaroo and a hippie. But his insights and enthusiasm for his subjects is invigorating and enticing. He's the person behind some of the essay and poetry reading I comment on below.

Beware! He has caused me to increase the number of books I don't have space for and distracted me with wonderful reading I didn't know about. He's a delightful, dangerous man.

BTW, his biography, "Mariner", about Coleridge is looking really good.

Posted by: JTB at April 10, 2022 09:32 AM (7EjX1)

57 Palm Sunday and I have to work.

Posted by: Mr Aspirin Factory at April 10, 2022 09:33 AM (X0j02)

58 Just got Peterson Field Guide to Birds of Western North America

pretty good so far

Posted by: DB at April 10, 2022 09:33 AM (geLO8)

59 Would like to know which format does get a return by a author.
Not my major concern but might if I knew. Got JJ's in paperback as wanted to pass it along.

Posted by: Skip at April 10, 2022 09:33 AM (2JoB8)

60 You're expecting Trigglypuff, but when Plumm comes on the scene, she's barely what we'd call 'plump' today. Which goes to show how the Overton Window on avoirdupois has changed since 1974.
Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing

They say don't go
look in Overton's Window
if you're lookin' for a wife....

Posted by: JT at April 10, 2022 09:34 AM (arJlL)

61 Those pants are fine. I would were them to a barbeque in my back yard. I suppose it's all accordion to taste.

Posted by: A Fan Pants Fan at April 10, 2022 09:35 AM (vrz2I)

62 Palm Sunday and I have to work.
Posted by: Mr Aspirin Factory

Is that you, Will Smith ?

Posted by: JT at April 10, 2022 09:35 AM (arJlL)

63 47 ... MP4,
Thanks for the info. The order goes in today.

Posted by: JTB at April 10, 2022 09:35 AM (7EjX1)

64 Yankee Doodle = silly boy
Stuck a feather in his hat and called it macaroni = he was giving the finger to the British toffs

Posted by: Head puddi at April 10, 2022 09:35 AM (xMh1R)

65 I'm listening to the Audible version of part 1 in Shelby Foote book on the Civil War. It's fascinating in its detail.
One thing I don't understand is why George McClellan was forever convinced the Confederate Army he was facing had an overwhelming superiority in numbers.
Where did he get that from?

Posted by: N.L. Urker, the Phillips screwdriver of the gods at April 10, 2022 09:35 AM (eGTCV)

66 Were pants? There pants!

Posted by: A Fan Pants Fan at April 10, 2022 09:35 AM (vrz2I)

67 (HT: Bob ---> but not from the NSA)

Cannibal ?

Posted by: JT at April 10, 2022 09:35 AM (arJlL)

68 Happy Palm Sunday Horde!

Posted by: Jmel at April 10, 2022 09:36 AM (bVhJi)

69 From what little Mencken I have read, I don't get his appeal. Any fool can call people names. What about that makes it great writing?

Posted by: Weak Geek at April 10, 2022 09:36 AM (Om/di)

70 And am I mistaken in thinking the smaller shelf at the left in the picture is devoted to a set of The Great Books?

Posted by: Just Some Guy at April 10, 2022 09:37 AM (JzDjf)

71 I don't particularly care for Steinbeck. 'The Grapes of Wrath' just wore me out with his socialist crap.

Posted by: dantesed at April 10, 2022 09:37 AM (88xKn)

72 Posted by: JT at April 10, 2022 09:34 AM (arJlL)

Don't often get a Claude King shout-out around here.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at April 10, 2022 09:38 AM (2JVJo)

73 Backatcha Jmel !

Posted by: JT at April 10, 2022 09:38 AM (arJlL)

74 ... MP4,
Thanks for the info. The order goes in today.
Posted by: JTB at April 10, 2022 09:35 AM (7EjX1)

Many thanks! A review on Amazon would be appreciated.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at April 10, 2022 09:39 AM (2JVJo)

75 Just got the 4th book in the Mistborn Series, The Alloy of Law. Just started it so can't comment yet but fear I have become a Sanderson groupie.

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at April 10, 2022 09:39 AM (Y+l9t)

76 The Grapes of Wrath is unreadable. I gave up around page 100.

Posted by: Head puddi at April 10, 2022 09:39 AM (xMh1R)

77 I am currently reading Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar. One thing that keeps hitting me is how inbred, metaphorically (likely literally in some cases), everyone was that were running things in the USSR. The current crop of shits running things here could easily have fit into that crowd. So far, our Uniparty shits here haven't devolved into mass murder, but they are getting closer all the time to adopting that aspect of running a proper totalitarian government. I am finding this to be a most interesting read, and surprisingly relevant to our current time and place.

Posted by: Lost In Space at April 10, 2022 09:40 AM (9I3i5)

78 Where did he get that from?

Posted by: N.L. Urker, the Phillips screwdriver of the gods at April 10, 2022 09:35 AM (eGTCV)

Gen. Magruder...constantly parading the same troops into earthworks within sight of union observers, convinced them he had a large army.

Posted by: BignJames at April 10, 2022 09:40 AM (AwYPR)

79 Haven't read Steinbeck in eons. THE GRAPES OF WRATH was a hard slog -- seemed quite a bit longer than it really needed to be. OF MICE & MEN was good, and I remember EAST OF EDEN being good, but I need to revisit them one of these days. Later ones like THE WINTER OF OUR DISCONTENT I've never gotten around to.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at April 10, 2022 09:41 AM (JzDjf)

80 Still having a hard time finding a book to completely get wrapped up in. Started Stalin's War by Sean McMeekin which I expected to be right in my wheelhouse for trashing the Georgian gimp; but it seems more like poorly narrated history that jumps from one thing to another to the point that I'm skeptical of spending any more time on it. Likewise the Raj Quartet which mostly strikes me as a bunch of clueless limey fops figuring out that maybe making India part of its empire was like a badly arranged marriage.

Maybe Proust and Harry Crews ruined me...

Posted by: Captain Hate won't forget Michael Byrd Murdered Ashli Babbitt at April 10, 2022 09:41 AM (y7DUB)

81 I don't particularly care for Steinbeck. 'The Grapes of Wrath' just wore me out with his socialist crap.
Posted by: dantesed

He doesn't hold a candle IMO to Upton Sinclair i.e.: The Jungle.
Assigned in HS, read it and threw it out, should have burned it.

Posted by: AZ deplorable moron at April 10, 2022 09:42 AM (CfbRL)

82 Northernlurker- McClellan was a person who everything was never perfect and wasn't moving until it was. There always is exaggerated numbers for opponents he he was sure they could be correct.

Posted by: Skip at April 10, 2022 09:43 AM (2JoB8)

83 I've been reading essays by Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc and enjoying them. They are vignettes, generally written with wit and humor (no laugh track needed) while bringing out an absurdity or oddity in a situation and how it affected the author. They are delightful. Interesting how pieces written for a specific time and audience still so deeply connect with people over a century later. Applicable and wonderful reading is a dangerous combination.

I suspect essays by Steele, Montaigne, and Guite are in my near future.

Posted by: JTB at April 10, 2022 09:43 AM (7EjX1)

84 65 I'm listening to the Audible version of part 1 in Shelby Foote book on the Civil War. It's fascinating in its detail.
One thing I don't understand is why George McClellan was forever convinced the Confederate Army he was facing had an overwhelming superiority in numbers.
Where did he get that from?
Posted by: N.L. Urker, the Phillips screwdriver of the gods at April 10, 2022 09:35 AM (eGTCV

Because there are some generals that will look for any excuse NOT to fight. General Clark in WWII is another example.

Posted by: Pork Chops & Bacons at April 10, 2022 09:43 AM (Qhnrt)

85 Scotty, in a TOS episode, says "popinjay".

Posted by: SFGoth at April 10, 2022 09:43 AM (KAi1n)

86 Nothing puts me in a better mood than reading people trashing Steinbeck.

Posted by: Captain Hate won't forget Michael Byrd Murdered Ashli Babbitt at April 10, 2022 09:44 AM (y7DUB)

87 Just finished looking at the macaroni pictures. How in the hell did those fellows don their hats?

I had read that a macaroni was an elegant plume, so Yankee Doodle thought his feather was the same thing.

As a kid, that verse confused me -- and thousands of others, I'll bet.

Posted by: Weak Geek at April 10, 2022 09:44 AM (Om/di)

88 I thought it was just me not liking Steinbeck.

Hated reading him for class.

Posted by: Mr Aspirin Factory at April 10, 2022 09:46 AM (X0j02)

89 Also, i learned the word "incroyable" after someone used that to describe a Regency outfit i designed (and commissioned the making of). Blue and buff is a common and repetitive theme.

Posted by: SFGoth at April 10, 2022 09:46 AM (KAi1n)

90 I could see a modern day macaroni with a guy walking behind it to carry it's hair.

Posted by: fd at April 10, 2022 09:46 AM (vrz2I)

91 Well, I think I'm going to call it a morning.

I plan to be offline now until Easter, so for the Christian morons, a devout Holy Week and happy Easter. For the MOT Hordelings, a blessed Passover.

And for those who are neither, I wish you the one thing I have always wished for myself - happiness.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at April 10, 2022 09:48 AM (2JVJo)

92 Just finished looking at the macaroni pictures. How in the hell did those fellows don their hats?

I had read that a macaroni was an elegant plume, so Yankee Doodle thought his feather was the same thing.

As a kid, that verse confused me -- and thousands of others, I'll bet.
Posted by: Weak Geek

What about "she'll be riding six white horses when she comes " ?

How wide was her ass ? She'd make Lizzo look like a swimsuit model.

Posted by: JT at April 10, 2022 09:48 AM (arJlL)

93 Brian Stetler should consider wearing a wig.

Posted by: Head puddi at April 10, 2022 09:48 AM (xMh1R)

94 My current read is The House of Doors by Brian Lumley. It's in the subgenre of humans being abducted by aliens for inscrutable experiments.

The titular House of Doors is a gateway to some sort of psychological torture chamber to evaluate if humans are "worthy" or not. Unbeknownst to them, one of aliens is a member of their group and wants them to fail for his own purposes. I'm sure there will be some twists and turns as the humans start revealing more about themselves and start turning on each other.

After that, I'll start the sequel, Maze of Worlds

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at April 10, 2022 09:48 AM (K5n5d)

95 the macaroni images are vaguely disturbing

Posted by: DB at April 10, 2022 09:49 AM (geLO8)

96 I think Scotty called Trellane (sp?) a popinjay. He's the prototype for the Q character in TNG.

Posted by: PabloD at April 10, 2022 09:49 AM (n8WRa)

97 Mencken did more than just name-calling. One of his most devastating works against Fundamentalists is simply his unadorned, eyewitness reporting from Dayton Tennessee during the Scopes trial.

Now, he certainly was cherry-picking there. The trial attracted every grifter and fanatic from half the continent, so he had lots of material to choose from. He just had to let them hang themselves.

Posted by: Trimegistus at April 10, 2022 09:49 AM (QZxDR)

98 Stay safe, MP4 !

Posted by: JT at April 10, 2022 09:49 AM (arJlL)

99 I mentioned cyberpunk classic Necromancer by William Gibson in a prior thread and Ian S. commented that he preferred Stephenson's Snow Crash. I didn't know anything about it so I looked it up and found . . .

Stephenson wrote about the Macintosh that "When the computer crashed and wrote gibberish into the bitmap, the result was something that looked vaguely like static on a broken television set-a 'snow crash'".

That's interesting because the famous first line of Necromancer is, "THE SKY ABOVE the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel."

Interesting that both chose a similar simile. Also interesting in that in his preface to a recent edition, Gibson writes that he now realizes that even when he wrote that line in 1984, his younger readers wouldn't get it as he intended to invoke the screens we who are 29 remember from the 60s and not the more polite screens of today.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, I am not a biologist at April 10, 2022 09:49 AM (FVME7)

100 My take is that Dolly Parton is a macaroni.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, I am not a biologist at April 10, 2022 09:51 AM (FVME7)

101 "What about "she'll be riding six white horses when she comes " ?"

That's pretty hot.

Posted by: zombie Catherine The Great at April 10, 2022 09:51 AM (vrz2I)

102 Do you read the "Girl Genius" webcomic? I recommend it without reservation.

Posted by: Weak Geek at April 10, 2022 09:21 AM (Om/di)

Another GG addict- er, connoisseur has spoken! I've never read the books, even though they appparently contain lots of background information. The only one I'd like to read is the book that has a journal entry from Barry as a prologue. It apparently covers the time period after Lucrezia (and presumably Agatha) have disappeared, and Barry is watching his brother Bill descend into (not Spark) madness. Kind of depressing, I know, but after 20 years of comics, it's one of the few clues we have about what happened to Bill and Barry.

Posted by: pookysgirl, not a Spark but married to one at April 10, 2022 09:51 AM (XKZwp)

103 He doesn't hold a candle IMO to Upton Sinclair i.e.: The Jungle.
Assigned in HS, read it and threw it out, should have burned it.
Posted by: AZ deplorable moron at April 10, 2022 09:42 AM (CfbRL)

Ugh, those muckraking books were the worst; except when that dumbass drunk kid was eaten by rats. It took a heart of stone not to laugh at that.

Posted by: Captain Hate won't forget Michael Byrd Murdered Ashli Babbitt at April 10, 2022 09:52 AM (y7DUB)

104 I think Stevenson was deliberately and explicitly evoking Gibson's famous first line.

Posted by: Trimegistus at April 10, 2022 09:52 AM (QZxDR)

105 Looking at a YT video on the Macaronis:

https://acecomments.mu.nu/?post=398514

Winklepickers! There's another vocabulary word.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at April 10, 2022 09:52 AM (Dc2NZ)

106 Dolly Parton has big hair to counter balance her big tits. Otherwise she would be unable to walk.

Posted by: Head puddi at April 10, 2022 09:52 AM (xMh1R)

107 A character in the "Wild Cards" shared universe is known as Popinjay. He's a private investigator who can teleport other people. That power comes in handy when he's menaced. Jay is his first name.

Posted by: Weak Geek at April 10, 2022 09:52 AM (Om/di)

108 And with television these days being a 24/7/365 thing, how many of the younger crowd would know what is meant by 'test pattern'?

Posted by: Just Some Guy at April 10, 2022 09:53 AM (JzDjf)

109 In Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte describes Heathcliff's son as a "puling chicken."

Posted by: I am the Shadout Mapes, the Housekeeper at April 10, 2022 09:54 AM (PiwSw)

110 MP4, see you after Easter, and enjoy your hiatus.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at April 10, 2022 09:54 AM (Dc2NZ)

111 What do they sell in the gift shop at DollyWorld?

Posted by: Ignoramus at April 10, 2022 09:55 AM (i0slg)

112 I think Scotty called Trellane (sp?) a popinjay. He's the prototype for the Q character in TNG.

Posted by: PabloD at April 10, 2022 09:49 AM (n8WRa)

No, it was Ambassador Fox in A Taste of Armageddon.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at April 10, 2022 09:56 AM (7bRMQ)

113 @111 --

Dolls?

Posted by: Weak Geek at April 10, 2022 09:56 AM (Om/di)

114 "What do they sell in the gift shop at DollyWorld?
Posted by: Ignoramus "

Probably jugs.

Posted by: zombie Catherine The Great at April 10, 2022 09:56 AM (vrz2I)

115 Another fallout from the Malcolm Guite videos is a stronger affinity for poetry. I've been dipping into poems by Thomas Gray, Chesterton, Masefield, and a few Shakespeare sonnets. Such varied styles and topics to enjoy and especially the imagery they invoke. So much more powerful and poignant than regular prose could convey.

Last week I mentioned how valuable I found reading poetry aloud. That continues on many fronts because that slows me down and allows me to notice more about the pacing and all the aspects that make the poem effective.

Posted by: JTB at April 10, 2022 09:56 AM (7EjX1)

116 YAY BOOKS!!!

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at April 10, 2022 09:56 AM (lCui1)

117 I.m nearing the end of Lunatics by Dave Barry and Alan Zweibel.

It stinks.

While there are some truly funny lines, the laughs are few and far between.

I bought it because I was thinking of Dave Barry's Big Trouble and Tricky Business.

I think Someone injected Dave with unfunny serum.

Posted by: JT at April 10, 2022 09:57 AM (arJlL)

118 Nice lieberry! I appreciate how the pc is showing the hq

Also, I kinda wonder of Bob is my neighbor ...

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at April 10, 2022 09:57 AM (lCui1)

119 OrangeEnt - I stand corrected. I saw the Trellane episode not too long ago and it was stuck in my head.

Posted by: PabloD at April 10, 2022 09:58 AM (n8WRa)

120 "What do they sell in the gift shop at DollyWorld?
Posted by: Ignoramus "

Boob shaped coffee mugs.

Posted by: JT at April 10, 2022 09:58 AM (arJlL)

121 108 And with television these days being a 24/7/365 thing, how many of the younger crowd would know what is meant by 'test pattern'?
Posted by: Just Some Guy at April 10, 2022 09:53 AM (JzDjf)

Once the test pattern came on, there was nothing to do but fuck.

Posted by: Pork Chops & Bacons at April 10, 2022 09:59 AM (Qhnrt)

122 @102 --

Addict. I have all the trade collections, and I begin M-W-F with the comic.

I listened to the first Agatha H. book, and it did add background, especially regarding Dr. Dim and Krosp.

Posted by: Weak Geek at April 10, 2022 10:00 AM (Om/di)

123 Reading nooz - I mentioned I am goung through the SPQR myateries by John Maddox Roberts, because of the many recs from the Horde over the years.
I finished book 5, Nobody Loves A Centurion, and it is really the best so far. Love this installment so much.

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at April 10, 2022 10:01 AM (lCui1)

124 Last week I mentioned how valuable I found reading poetry aloud. That continues on many fronts because that slows me down and allows me to notice more about the pacing and all the aspects that make the poem effective.
Posted by: JTB

Yeah ? Here ya go.....

Roses are red
up there on the cliff
I can't zip my pants
cause my dick is too stiff

Posted by: JT at April 10, 2022 10:01 AM (arJlL)

125 And I believe it was Terry Pratchett who mocked Gibson a couple of decades later with a story beginning "The sky was the perfect untroubled blue of a television set turned to a dead channel."

Because of course Gibson's far future (from internal chronology Neuromancer has to take place around 2100) still has analog broadcast TV rather than digital cable.

Posted by: Trimegistus at April 10, 2022 10:01 AM (QZxDR)

126 Also just started on The Real Anthony Fauci by RFK Jr and the Didache Study Bible

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at April 10, 2022 10:02 AM (lCui1)

127 I note the desk in the Den of all things Sherlock faces the stairwell.

Obviously, the denizen of the den know which direction threats will most likely appear and planned accordingly.

Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing (5pTK/) at April 10, 2022 10:03 AM (5pTK/)

128 Some Moron recommended Paul Doherty's ancient Egypt murder mysteries so I got the first in the series, An Evil Spirit Out of the West. I'm about a quarter of the way into it and it is good. So far it is more a memoir of a child growing up in the house of his wealthy and influential but cruel aunt, his adventures in an elite school, and his initiation into combat.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, I am not a biologist at April 10, 2022 10:03 AM (FVME7)

129 What's sad about the Smith / Rock kerfuffle is that it took all the attention away from Will Smith doing a strong performance as King Richard and winning Oscar. He captures the often annoying persona of a dad on a mission impossible.

While he's no Forrest Whittaker channeling Idi Amin, it's a deserving winner for 2022. I expected Benedict to win for Power of the Dog ... ugh.

Posted by: Ignoramus at April 10, 2022 10:04 AM (i0slg)

130 Obviously, the denizen of the den know which direction threats will most likely appear and planned accordingly.

Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing (5pTK/) at April 10, 2022 10:03 AM (5pTK/)

Well, sure. You want to be able to click off the cheesecake pix when the wife enters the room.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at April 10, 2022 10:04 AM (7bRMQ)

131 the longer he works at the herald, the dumber he gets, carl hiassen, has been unpossible, about eugene weingarten,

it's like with sebastian's 1946, never had the impact of 1989, volpi didn't really impress me with his age of ash followup to klingsor, garcia vasquez got a bout of uribe derangement after costaguana,

Posted by: no 6 at April 10, 2022 10:05 AM (hMlTh)

132 121 - And might that explain part of the baby boom?

Posted by: Just Some Guy at April 10, 2022 10:05 AM (JzDjf)

133 I'm having trouble with getting the cover for the hardback to load. It's something I'll be dealing with over the week; I'm too lazy to do it today.
Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing

I was wondering where you got the art for the cover. It's really lovely.

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at April 10, 2022 10:06 AM (lCui1)

134 Oh man, I missed MP4 again

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at April 10, 2022 10:08 AM (lCui1)

135 Boob shaped coffee mugs.
Posted by: JT at April 10, 2022 09:58 AM (arJlL)
-------------

I'm not sure I need a quart sized mug.

Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing (5pTK/) at April 10, 2022 10:08 AM (5pTK/)

136 My dear departed father, who spent years studying civil war campaigns was of the opinion that McClellan was one of those commanders who Loved his Army too much - he could not bear to risk losing any part of it, so he would never attack unless he knew he had overwhelming force. When McClellan was forced to save his army by defense, he could suddenly become tactically brilliant, such as during the 7 Days battles, where Lee almost had him defeated, but McClellan outwitted Lee and inflicted heavy casualties as he tactically maneuvered his army out of danger.

McClellan was brilliant on defense, but utterly incapable of offense.

Posted by: Tom Servo at April 10, 2022 10:09 AM (q3gwH)

137 It's a sin to throw out books, right?
Posted by: Tonypete
---
Before I got started in libraries, I worked in a couple of bookstores. I was shocked the first time I was asked to "strip" mass market paperbacks. If they didn't sell, they weren't worth returning, so we were told to strip the covers, break the books in half and toss them. Once I got used to it, I found it an effective method of stress relief. (I also liberated a few for myself... I found a few now-favorite authors this way. Kate Ross, for example, who wrote 4 mysteries featuring fictional dandy and amateur detective Julian Kestrel, before her untimely death from cancer.)

In my first library job, I learned that you had to be careful not to allow any professors to see you taking withdrawn items out to the dumpster. This was not my job, but I heard stories.

Posted by: screaming in digital at April 10, 2022 10:10 AM (kTRt4)

138 McClellan was brilliant on defense, but utterly incapable of offense.
Posted by: Tom Servo

So, he didn't tell Lee that his mother smelled of elderberries.

Posted by: JT at April 10, 2022 10:11 AM (arJlL)

139 Hiya Screamie !

Posted by: JT at April 10, 2022 10:12 AM (arJlL)

140 I need to unearth my copy of Foote's Civil War trilogy and give it another go. I stopped about 2/3 of the way through vol. 1 years ago because I just wasn't in the right frame of mind to read that much on one subject.

Posted by: PabloD at April 10, 2022 10:13 AM (n8WRa)

141 What a great library! Fun knickknacks with the books, too.

I didn't do much reading for pleasure this week. I returned the last two Firebirds anthologies, which started as SciFi and fantasy mix and seemed to be more YA as it continued.

I am currently skipping through the Ursula LeGuin anthology "The Wind's Twelve Quarters," which I first read when my eldest brother took a humanities course in college. (It was a tradition starting when I was in elementary school that if he read an English textbook lying around, I attempted to read it.)

Posted by: NaughtyPine at April 10, 2022 10:13 AM (/+bwe)

142 McClellan was brilliant on defense, but utterly incapable of offense.
Posted by: Tom Servo at April 10, 2022 10:09 AM (q3gwH)
---------------

McClellan, unfortunately, not credited for the things he did right. He was also responsible for getting the army into great shape so it could fight. Prior to McClellan, the Union Army was lacking, in a lot of ways.

Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing (5pTK/) at April 10, 2022 10:13 AM (5pTK/)

143 Obviously, the denizen of the den know which direction threats will most likely appear and planned accordingly.

Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing (5pTK/) at April 10, 2022 10:03 AM (5pTK/)

It's why Hex has found two different spots to stare at the office door- it's where his arch nemesis appears and proceeds to USE HIS LITTERBOX. It's a crime that is never brought to justice and is even possibly condoned by the rulers of the Cat Castle. Such heinous behavior must be stopped by a vigilante in black! No, not Batman, but a heroic Bombay.

Posted by: pookysgirl, reporting from the alternate world of felines at April 10, 2022 10:14 AM (XKZwp)

144 I'm reading some books on grief. A Grief Observed, of course, and I have a few more recent ones that I just found searching on Amazon. But I'd appreciate any recommendations from the Horde.

In a few minutes I have to get ready for church (I've been avoiding church but I know I need to be there) but will check back later.

Posted by: screaming in digital at April 10, 2022 10:15 AM (kTRt4)

145 I've been having trouble reading very consistently recently. It took me months to finish Victor Klemperer's diaries of life during the Third Reich, then I read Christian Toto's book about Hollywood - 'Virtue Bombs', I think? Then I started 'The Fourth Turning' because I'd heard so much about it. I got halfway through, and then I... stopped. It was so horribly, horribly BORING. I knew I ought to read it because it was important, but I couldn't. All I could think was how much I wanted to read a novel instead, so finally I did.

I re-read 'They Knew Mr. Knight' by Dorothy Whipple, and read it in 3 days. Then I started another book of hers I hadn't read before, 'Greenbanks', and can't put it down. Maybe it's my age, but at 63 I'm starting to feel that my time may be limited, and I don't want to waste it anymore on books I can't focus on properly because I just don't enjoy them. I've got about 8 novels by Whipple and Norman Collins, both mid-century writers, and I'm going to read them and have fun for a change.

Posted by: Dr. Mabusette at April 10, 2022 10:15 AM (nD6G9)

146 McClellan, unfortunately, not credited for the things he did right. He was also responsible for getting the army into great shape so it could fight. Prior to McClellan, the Union Army was lacking, in a lot of ways.
Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing (5pTK/) at April 10, 2022 10:13 AM (5pTK/)

Foote makes that point.

Posted by: N.L. Urker, the Phillips screwdriver of the gods at April 10, 2022 10:15 AM (eGTCV)

147 Howdy JT!

Posted by: screaming in digital at April 10, 2022 10:18 AM (kTRt4)

148 I wonder if McClellan's reluctance to sacrifice his men was related to his political ambitions. No point in getting potential Little Mac voters killed.

Posted by: Trimegistus at April 10, 2022 10:18 AM (QZxDR)

149 I suspect that many books that have a reputation as great literature were really just touted to the public by the publishing houses and college faculties as such. Trendy new author! The Latest Greatest! Snobs had to have them on the bookshelf or night stand, but didn't really read them. just for signaling and to talk about at cocktail parties.

And that many of them, especially from the middle years of the 20th century really don't hold up over time. Saul Bellow, Truman Capote, Salinger, Steinbeck., Henry Miller, Hellman to name a few.

Hell, Portnoy's Complaint should have just been called The Gripes of Roth

Posted by: Muldoon at April 10, 2022 10:19 AM (m45I2)

150 Big Mac > Little Mac

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, I am not a biologist at April 10, 2022 10:19 AM (FVME7)

151 137 - Stripping paperbacks was one of the harder things to get used to when I was working the bookstore. There's a story, maybe true and maybe not but if it isn't it oughtta be, about someone interviewing for a bookshop or library job. He's handed a book and told to tear it up and throw it away, and he just can't do it. He doesn't get the job.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at April 10, 2022 10:20 AM (JzDjf)

152 Some years ago working at Villanova University library they were cleaning out books after digitized. Peeked at dumpster but seemed lots of same so guess more like old text books. Had no time to see if anything good was being tossed.

Posted by: Skip at April 10, 2022 10:21 AM (2JoB8)

153 One thing I don't understand is why George McClellan was forever convinced the Confederate Army he was facing had an overwhelming superiority in numbers.
Where did he get that from?
Posted by: N.L. Urker, the Phillips screwdriver of the gods at April 10, 2022 09:35 AM (eGTCV)

I don't know where it came from, but McClellan wasn't alone in that. Most Union generals overestimated the strength of their opponents; even Grant did from time to time. I don't know if it was erring on the side of caution, letting their imaginations get away from them, both, or neither.

Posted by: Dr. T at April 10, 2022 10:21 AM (tp+tP)

154 It's a sin to throw out books, right?
Posted by: Tonypete

Every time I see a copy of the DaVinci Code in a charity shop, I buy it. Money for the Christian charity and firestarter for me.

Posted by: NaughtyPine at April 10, 2022 10:24 AM (/+bwe)

155 My dear departed father, who spent years studying civil war campaigns was of the opinion that McClellan was one of those commanders who Loved his Army too much - he could not bear to risk losing any part of it, so he would never attack unless he knew he had overwhelming force. When McClellan was forced to save his army by defense, he could suddenly become tactically brilliant, such as during the 7 Days battles, where Lee almost had him defeated, but McClellan outwitted Lee and inflicted heavy casualties as he tactically maneuvered his army out of danger.

McClellan was brilliant on defense, but utterly incapable of offense.
Posted by: Tom Servo at April 10, 2022 10:09 AM (q3gwH)

Very similar to Joseph Johnston in that regard. Foote repeats an anecdote from Wade Hampton that when they went shooting together, though Johnston had a reputation as a great shot, he never actually fired his gun--the bird was too far or too high, or something. The few times Johnston did fight an all-out battle, it was usually on defense, and he did pretty good, but he did so even less often than McClellan.

Posted by: Dr. T at April 10, 2022 10:26 AM (tp+tP)

156 screaming in digital, I have not read this yet but seen good reviews:

The Grieving Brain by Mary-Frances O'Connor
reviews say it helped them understand what they are going through

Also, perhaps, and I am torn about recommending it because it might be too intense, is Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning

Hugs to you

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at April 10, 2022 10:27 AM (lCui1)

157 McClellan's intelligence chief was Allan Pinkerton who founded the famous Pinkerton detective agency.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, I am not a biologist at April 10, 2022 10:27 AM (FVME7)

158 Part of this overestimating opponents could be much military information actually came from the newspapers, and which reporter doesn't want to make his story more a bigger one?

Posted by: Skip at April 10, 2022 10:27 AM (2JoB8)

159 Steinbeck: I read "The Pearl" in eighth grade.

And "Travels with Charley in Search of America" when I was eighteen.

Both good. I started "East of Eden" and quit.

Posted by: Chatterbox Mouse at April 10, 2022 10:27 AM (JkeTM)

160 I wonder if McClellan's reluctance to sacrifice his men was related to his political ambitions. No point in getting potential Little Mac voters killed.
Posted by: Trimegistus at April 10, 2022 10:18 AM (QZxDR)
-----------------

Maybe that was the knock against McClellan? He let his political ambitions get in the way of his military responsibilities? Didn't McClellan openly defy and or denigrate Lincoln?

Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing (5pTK/) at April 10, 2022 10:28 AM (5pTK/)

161 I don't know where it came from, but McClellan wasn't alone in that. Most Union generals overestimated the strength of their opponents; even Grant did from time to time.

*****

They were heavily relying on CDC modeling data.

#TwoWeeksToFlattenTheSouth

Posted by: Muldoon at April 10, 2022 10:28 AM (m45I2)

162 Who was the Confederate general who kept on marching the same soldiers past a gap in the trees so the Union general was convinced he was facing many more soldiers than he was?

Posted by: N.L. Urker, the Phillips screwdriver of the gods at April 10, 2022 10:28 AM (eGTCV)

163 I worked at B. Dalton decades ago. When we stripped the mass market paperbacks of their covers we were forbidden to take the mutilated books home to read. You'd be fired if they caught you. I talked to somebody who worked at Walden books, he said, "We're allowed to take stripped books."

One of the many things I disliked about B. Dalton.

Posted by: JuJuBee at April 10, 2022 10:28 AM (mNhhD)

164 The few times Johnston did fight an all-out battle, it was usually on defense, and he did pretty good, but he did so even less often than McClellan.
Posted by: Dr. T

William Sherman said that there was nothing so dangerous as Joseph E. Johnston on the defensive.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, I am not a biologist at April 10, 2022 10:30 AM (FVME7)

165 They were heavily relying on CDC modeling data.

#TwoWeeksToFlattenTheSouth
Posted by: Muldoon at April 10, 2022 10:28 AM (m45I2)
-------------

I wish. Grant would have hung the heads of the CDC for such bad intelligence.

Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing (5pTK/) at April 10, 2022 10:30 AM (5pTK/)

166 Howdy JT!
Posted by: screaming in digital

Posted by: JT at April 10, 2022 10:30 AM (arJlL)

167 In John Wayne's The Alamo, Jim Bowie calls Col. Travis a 'jackanape.'

In the before times as a young Count, we had streetlights coming on to tell us it was time to get home. Later on, it was the test pattern (Hiya Chief!) to tell us it was time to go to bed (or end the date).

Posted by: Count de Monet at April 10, 2022 10:31 AM (4I/2K)

168 Who was the Confederate general who kept on marching the same soldiers past a gap in the trees so the Union general was convinced he was facing many more soldiers than he was?
Posted by: N.L. Urker, the Phillips screwdriver of the gods

Nathan Bedford Forrest pulled such a trick but we don't mention him because he was one of the founders of the Klan.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, I am not a biologist at April 10, 2022 10:32 AM (FVME7)

169 Not much reading got done this week, but I found out that an old used book store here in town that I thought was defunct, is actually still open. Stopped in and picked p a collection of George Booth cartoons called "Omnibooth", very funny stuff.

Posted by: who knew at April 10, 2022 10:32 AM (4I7VG)

170 Who was the Confederate general who kept on marching the same soldiers past a gap in the trees so the Union general was convinced he was facing many more soldiers than he was?

Posted by: N.L. Urker, the Phillips screwdriver of the gods at April 10, 2022 10:28 AM (eGTCV)

Magruder. see post 78

Posted by: BignJames at April 10, 2022 10:32 AM (AwYPR)

171 "How d'ye like me?"

I like my "Mac" with almonds. 1 fl. oz. of "mac"adamia nuts with 1 fl. oz. of almonds makes a tasty 200ish calorie snack with few carbs. Macadamias are fat pills. Almonds are fiber tablets. Yummm.

Posted by: Marooned at April 10, 2022 10:33 AM (w6hJ9)

172 Stripped paperbacks -- the covers went back to the publisher and the store was credited with the return of those copies, so the book itself was supposed to be destroyed. The publishers didn't want the whole books because they'd have to warehouse them and there was probably no money in maintaining stock.
For a while, there were shops filled with paperbacks without covers -- stripped books taken from bookstore discards. After a little while of that, stripping books meant not only taking off the cover but ripping the book in two down the spine.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at April 10, 2022 10:34 AM (JzDjf)

173 McClellan was a Democrat

Posted by: Skip at April 10, 2022 10:36 AM (2JoB8)

174 Didn't McClellan openly defy and or denigrate Lincoln?

-
Lincoln went to McClellan's house to discuss matters but McClellan was out so Lincoln waited. Eventually McClellan returned but still did not receive Lincoln. The butler informed him that McClellan had gone to bed. I used to think that height of arrogance but now if Biden came to see me I'd inform him that I'd seen this episode of Gilligan's Island only 30 times and could not be drawn away.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, I am not a biologist at April 10, 2022 10:38 AM (FVME7)

175 Nathan Bedford forest did not fund the Klan. He joined 2 years after the Klan was founded.

Posted by: Vic at April 10, 2022 10:39 AM (mZwKe)

176 Stripping paperbacks was one of the harder things to get used to when I was working the bookstore. There's a story, maybe true and maybe not but if it isn't it oughtta be, about someone interviewing for a bookshop or library job. He's handed a book and told to tear it up and throw it away, and he just can't do it. He doesn't get the job.
Posted by: Just Some Guy
---
Yeah, I found it horrifying at first too.

Later on I even ended up throwing out some of my own much loved favorites I'd had for years because they were in poor condition and wouldn't survive one more move. But I have a few old paperbacks I got from my grandmother (50s and 60s romance novels) that I hang onto no matter how tattered they get, because they're difficult or impossible to replace. And yeah, I still re-read them. Carefully.

When I tossed my tattered Little House books I knew I could replace them easily. However, I wonder sometimes whether they'll eventually be cancelled. The ALA (American Library Association) is doing its best to erase Wilder because she wasn't as enlightened as they are. A few years ago they renamed the Laura Ingalls Wilder award to something sanitized. I'm no longer an ALA member.

Posted by: screaming in digital at April 10, 2022 10:40 AM (kTRt4)

177 Who was the Confederate general who kept on marching the same soldiers past a gap in the trees so the Union general was convinced he was facing many more soldiers than he was?

******

I want to ssay that was the Grand Old Duke of York. He had 10,000 men.

Posted by: Muldoon at April 10, 2022 10:40 AM (m45I2)

178 vmom, thank you!

And now I really have to go...

Hugs to all and see y'all on the gun thread.

Posted by: screaming in digital at April 10, 2022 10:44 AM (kTRt4)

179 Nathan Forrest was also, if not the first, one of the first to noisily resign from the Klan, because "things had gotten out of hand." By the end of his life, he was practically a civil rights activist. But, that was then.

Posted by: Stringer Davis at April 10, 2022 10:44 AM (videA)

180 Banana Ball is a thing. I watched my first game on ESPN+ and player came to the plate with his bat on fire and everybody acted like this normal because it is in Banana Ball.

Posted by: Lost In Space at April 10, 2022 10:44 AM (9I3i5)

181 The best way to understand the intelligence operations of the first three years of the Civil War is to read "The Secret War for the Union" by Fishel.

Posted by: Captain Obvious, Laird o' the Sea at April 10, 2022 10:45 AM (YFU8M)

182 "They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist ..."
May 9, 1864

https://tinyurl.com/2p8wzesn

Posted by: General John Sedgwick, Union Army, Battle of Spotsylvania County at April 10, 2022 10:46 AM (4I/2K)

183 Was Sherlock Holmes the first crime solving detective in literature? I don't count Les Miserables / Javerts as a crime solving detective .

Posted by: Anti doesn't matter at April 10, 2022 10:46 AM (Gzbwp)

184 Good morning!

Let's smile & be happy & strike fear in the hearts of killjoy leftists everywhere.

Posted by: NaCly Dog (u82oZ) at April 10, 2022 10:47 AM (u82oZ)

185 Bailed on ALA a long time ago (my so-called career has been library, bookstore -- Kroch's & Brentano's in downtown Chicago -- computer geek, library, computer geek, and now retirement). It stopped seeming all that concerned about books and more concerned with things that seemed extraneous to libraries. Fun while it lasted, though.

I've still got some fairly old titles on my shelves, and I don't throw a book away unless the condition is so poor that it can't be passed to a second-hand shop.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at April 10, 2022 10:47 AM (JzDjf)

186 A reminder that my new Theda Bara novel, The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of is now out:

https://tinyurl.com/7cdbsk48

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at April 1
-----------------------------

You've sold at least one copy this morning. Looking forward to it. (I went with the paper version)

Posted by: Peter (My friends call me Pete) Zah at April 10, 2022 10:48 AM (a4vvV)

187 Was Sherlock Holmes the first crime solving detective in literature?
-------
Poe's Auguste Dupin.

Posted by: Captain Obvious, Laird o' the Sea at April 10, 2022 10:48 AM (YFU8M)

188 Was Sherlock Holmes the first crime solving detective in literature? I don't count Les Miserables / Javerts as a crime solving detective .
Posted by: Anti doesn't matter at April 10, 2022 10:46 AM (Gzbwp)
----------------

Edgar Allen Poe, "Murders in the Rue Morgue" I believe is credited with being the first of the genre.

Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing (5pTK/) at April 10, 2022 10:49 AM (5pTK/)

189 My Master says if you want to read a strange book, try this one.

Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbart

My Master was fully engorged while reading it, this I can tell you.

Posted by: Galactus'StiffenedCock at April 10, 2022 10:49 AM (zk4zS)

190 Was Sherlock Holmes the first crime solving detective in literature?

*******

I always heard that Poe's character August Dupin (Murders in the Rue Morgue) was the first literary crime-solving detective. I could be misremembering. He certainly predated Holmes.

Posted by: Muldoon at April 10, 2022 10:51 AM (m45I2)

191 The original Klan's purpose was to fight the Northern Reconstructionists. Keep in mind that at that time if you had been in the Confederate Army you were not allowed to vote. Almost 100% of the white Southernors had fought with the Confederates.

Posted by: Vic at April 10, 2022 10:51 AM (mZwKe)

192 Serious students of the Union side of the American Civil War only wear blue wool clothing and eat Hellfire stew.

Posted by: Lost In Space at April 10, 2022 10:52 AM (9I3i5)

193 Although I have heard rumors of a shrewd literary detective appearing in some mid 18th century stories about the Barbary Coast Poirots.

Posted by: Muldoon at April 10, 2022 10:54 AM (m45I2)

194 This week I finished reading Conan the Barbarian Omnibus Volume 7, collecting the comics from 1986 and 1987. For the first time in years, they sent Conan on a multi-part epic that dragged him across multiple kingdoms of the Hyperborean Age. It wasn't perfect, but it was glorious. Finally, a story big enough to be worthy of Conan! Sadly, the end of this volume saw the departure of artist John Buscema. But I can't blame him for leaving: he had been the regular artist since 1973. After that long, one can understand the need to move on....

...And that library picture: finally, a residential reading room that us plebs can aspire to matching!

Posted by: Castle Guy at April 10, 2022 10:54 AM (Lhaco)

195 A man was arrested on PA for putting a Biden I did that sticker on a gas pump.

There will be NO dissent allowed.

Posted by: Joe XiDen - I miss Delta Variant at April 10, 2022 10:56 AM (Bh76f)

196 Finished two books.

The second written Doc Savage story, The Land of Terror by Lester Dent as Kenneth Robeson was pulp bad. I accepted it at 12 and thought it was so cool. At 29 and a tad, not so much. Lots of plot holes that need fixing. And really, more realistic characters.

* cont*

Posted by: NaCly Dog (u82oZ) at April 10, 2022 10:56 AM (u82oZ)

197 Greetings:

My county library has stopped accepting used books as donations. Covidophobia probably the cause. Perhaps as reparations, it now opens from 10-5 on the Lord's Day.

So it still goes.

Posted by: 11B40 at April 10, 2022 10:56 AM (uuklp)

198 Lost in Space - You forgot never drink Chicory coffee

Posted by: Skip at April 10, 2022 10:56 AM (2JoB8)

199 193 Although I have heard rumors of a shrewd literary detective appearing in some mid 18th century stories about the Barbary Coast Poirots.
Posted by: Muldoon

Shrewdlock Holmes

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at April 10, 2022 10:56 AM (lCui1)

200 Thanks guys. I forgot all about Poe. Those short stories definitely qualify as the first.

Posted by: Anti doesn't matter at April 10, 2022 11:00 AM (Gzbwp)

201 95 A man was arrested on PA for putting a Biden I did that sticker on a gas pump.

There will be NO dissent allowed.
Posted by: Joe XiDen -

Link?

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at April 10, 2022 11:01 AM (lCui1)

202 121 - And might that explain part of the baby boom?
Posted by: Just Some Guy at April 10, 2022 10:05 AM (JzDjf)

I still think that a big part of the baby boom was the introduction of vaccines and antibiotics to the general population. There may well have been more babies born, but having nearly all of them *live* would naturally have a huge effect.

Posted by: Polliwog the 'Ette at April 10, 2022 11:02 AM (nC+QA)

203 Greetings:

RE: Macaronis

Back in the late '70s, I was living in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood. One Saturday morning as a came out of my apartment building, a young man came down the street with a multicolor, 8-inch spiked mohawk as his coiffure. Apparently, my length of gaze prompted him to ask the fundamental NY question, "Are you looking at me?". So, I replied in my almost fundamental NY way, "You came out of your house looking like that thinking you weren't going to get looked at ?"

Punks as residual macaronis ???

Posted by: 11B40 at April 10, 2022 11:03 AM (uuklp)

204 https://tinyurl.com/42nzjhmu

PA man

Posted by: Infidel at April 10, 2022 11:03 AM (AhBAQ)

205 A much better writer, Matthew Hughes, added a glittering story to his Archonate series. Think of a Canadian Jack Vance, but better written and more Canadian.

The book Template is a romp of identity, varying cultures, needful violence, all with a very satisfying ending. It is set in the far-future Archonate, and moves from a room in one building on one planet through some of the 10,0000 Worlds, to old Earth, and back out to the Back of Beyond. A polished book with great descriptive and mood setting writing, and fun.

I highly recommend the entire series, which started with Fools Errant in 1994.

Posted by: NaCly Dog (u82oZ) at April 10, 2022 11:03 AM (u82oZ)

206 201 nevermind, I see the stories

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at April 10, 2022 11:03 AM (lCui1)

207 Today's Actor is Justin Long

He was in Beyond All Boundaries with Kevin Bacon.

He was in Galaxy Quest with Missi Pyle, who was in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory with Christopher Lee.

He talks like a f*g and his shit's all retarded. /oblig

Posted by: BourbonChicken at April 10, 2022 11:06 AM (ybIRR)

208 Although I have heard rumors of a shrewd literary detective appearing in some mid 18th century stories about the Barbary Coast Poirots.
Posted by: Muldoon

Shrewdlock Holmes
Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at April 10, 2022 10:56 AM (lCui1)
-------------

Dreadlock Holmes: Tale of Thievery in Haiti.

Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing (5pTK/) at April 10, 2022 11:07 AM (5pTK/)

209 Punks as residual macaronis ???
Posted by: 11B40 at April 10, 2022 11:03 AM (uuklp)
---
I think there's always been subcultures of weirdos who like to dress in the most outlandish outfits to gain attention. The fashions may change but the desire for attention hasn't.

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at April 10, 2022 11:07 AM (K5n5d)

210 Posted by: screaming in digital at April 10, 2022 10:15 AM (kTRt4)

There is an, I think, four (short) book series meant to be read over time that I was given by my church when my first husband died. I think I gave them away or I'd send them to you. Unfortunately, It's been several years and I can't recall the titles or author at all.

Posted by: Polliwog the 'Ette at April 10, 2022 11:08 AM (nC+QA)

211 I still think that a big part of the baby boom was the introduction of vaccines and antibiotics to the general population. There may well have been more babies born, but having nearly all of them *live* would naturally have a huge effect.
Posted by: Polliwog the 'Ette at April 10, 2022 11:02 AM (nC+QA)
-----------

If I had been born prior to the advent of antibiotics, I most likely wouldn't have survived childhood.

Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing (5pTK/) at April 10, 2022 11:09 AM (5pTK/)

212 When I started watching Venture Bros I got the feeling that I was going to enjoy diving into the 30s through 60s pulps. That show alludes to the curiosity and joy of discovery, but doesn't capture it.

I did enjoy the first volume of Doc Savage.

Posted by: BourbonChicken at April 10, 2022 11:10 AM (ybIRR)

213 Matlock Holmes: Innocent your honor and I have to take my pills now.

Posted by: Mr Aspirin Factory at April 10, 2022 11:10 AM (X0j02)

214 211 - Same here, probably. And now I'm hoping that the advent of some of our newer vaccines won't keep me from surviving my second childhood...

Posted by: Just Some Guy at April 10, 2022 11:11 AM (JzDjf)

215 From what little Mencken I have read, I don't get his appeal. Any fool can call people names. What about that makes it great writing?

Posted by: Weak Geek at April 10, 2022 09:36 AM (Om/di

From what I have read, he was a pretty clean writer, well thought out and not fancy. He was an editor for his own magazine, but in a way he was more of a reporter in outlook than anything.

Posted by: Kindltot at April 10, 2022 11:11 AM (xhaym)

216 Padlock Holmes discovers the key to the case

Posted by: Muldoon at April 10, 2022 11:12 AM (m45I2)

217 As an extension of his Archonate universe, he explores many Jungian archetype in The Compleat Guth Bandar. It is stories about exploring the inner space of the common memes of humanity, like love, family, and much much more. A very different SF space to explore.

As usual, smooth and well written. Matthew Hughes and Sarah Hoyt are the only current writers in SF I like unreservedly. Ryk E.Spoor gets an honorable mention for his Arenaverse books.

Posted by: NaCly Dog (u82oZ) at April 10, 2022 11:12 AM (u82oZ)

218 201 95 A man was arrested on PA for putting a Biden I did that sticker on a gas pump.

There will be NO dissent allowed.
Posted by: Joe XiDen -

- - - - - - - -
the NY Post article ends with a link to the amazon page where you can buy them. ha ha ha ha

Posted by: Peter (My friends call me Pete) Zah at April 10, 2022 11:13 AM (a4vvV)

219 As a young reader, of course I read the Doc Savage, Hardy Boys, The Avenger, John Carter and Tarzan series.

Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing (5pTK/) at April 10, 2022 11:13 AM (5pTK/)

220 Flintlock Holmes specializes in gun crimes

Posted by: Muldoon at April 10, 2022 11:14 AM (m45I2)

221 Jasper Holmes recovered semi-precious gem stones.

Posted by: NaCly Dog (u82oZ) at April 10, 2022 11:16 AM (u82oZ)

222 Pissedoff Holmes. He carried a lot of anger.

Posted by: N.L. Urker, oops, I commented again. Sorry, eh. at April 10, 2022 11:16 AM (eGTCV)

223 Headlock Holmes, professional wrestler.

Posted by: Insomniac - Outlaw. Hoarder. Wrecker. Honker. at April 10, 2022 11:16 AM (II3Gr)

224 Just finished looking at the macaroni pictures. How in the hell did those fellows don their hats?

I had read that a macaroni was an elegant plume, so Yankee Doodle thought his feather was the same thing.

As a kid, that verse confused me -- and thousands of others, I'll bet.
Posted by: Weak Geek at April 10, 2022 09:44 AM (Om/di)

Sink me! One didn't don his own formal headgear in those days. That was done by a gentleman's "man" (valet). If one couldn't afford to employ a valet, one had no business wearing fragile, impractical couture.

Posted by: mrp at April 10, 2022 11:17 AM (6eRlp)

225 Potluck Holmes - seen mostly at Dinner Theatre

Posted by: Muldoon at April 10, 2022 11:18 AM (m45I2)

226 Today's Actor is Justin Long

He was in Beyond All Boundaries with Kevin Bacon.

He was in Galaxy Quest with Missi Pyle, who was in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory with Christopher Lee.

He talks like a f*g and his shit's all retarded. /oblig

Posted by: BourbonChicken at April 10, 2022 11:06 AM (ybIRR)

He was also in Live Free or Die Hard (2007) with Bruce Willis. And he played the Mac character to a Bill Gates clone PC character in ads for Mac.

Posted by: Count de Monet at April 10, 2022 11:18 AM (4I/2K)

227 210 Posted by: screaming in digital at April 10, 2022 10:15 AM (kTRt4)

There is an, I think, four (short) book series meant to be read over time that I was given by my church when my first husband died. I think I gave them away or I'd send them to you. Unfortunately, It's been several years and I can't recall the titles or author at all.
Posted by: Polliwog the 'Ette at April 10, 2022 11:08 AM (nC+QA)

The Journeying through Grief series, by Kenneth C. Haugk.

https://is.gd/QANFhv

Posted by: I am the Shadout Mapes, the Housekeeper at April 10, 2022 11:19 AM (PiwSw)

228 blake - semi lurker in marginal standing

I have all the Edgar Rice Burroughs books published. He was formative when I started reading him at 9 years old.

Tarzan, John Carter of Mars, and the Moon Men and more were very good stories before you turned 13. The Venus and Pellucidar stories were not as great an influence.

Posted by: NaCly Dog (u82oZ) at April 10, 2022 11:19 AM (u82oZ)

229 Don Juan Paolo Holmes - solved the mysteries of womens' hysteria.

Posted by: Count de Monet at April 10, 2022 11:20 AM (4I/2K)

230 Interesting that both chose a similar simile.

I suppose it could be coincidence or just an image too good to not notice, but since Gibson used it like eight years before Stephenson did, one (i.e. "I") might be forgiven for thinking of Stephenson and Snow Crash as being derivative and poorly imitative.

Also interesting in that in his preface to a recent edition, Gibson writes that he now realizes that even when he wrote that line in 1984, his younger readers wouldn't get it as he intended to invoke the screens we who are 29 remember from the 60s and not the more polite screens of today.

Yeah, a "dead channel" now is clear bright blue, exactly the opposite of Gibson's meaning. I find that amusing.

Posted by: Oddbob at April 10, 2022 11:20 AM (nfrXX)

231 I am saving the last two Nero Wolfe stories for now.

Currently reading Paul Kearney's 'A Different Kingdom', which is set in rural 60's Ireland. Kearney's a damn fine author who deserves more attention. He mostly works in fantasy and this one is no exception, drawing heavily on Irish folklore.

Posted by: Mark Andrew Edwards at April 10, 2022 11:20 AM (eeRB6)

232 Justin Long -- and let's not forget Dodgeball (which is worth repeat viewings just for Rip Torn).

Posted by: Just Some Guy at April 10, 2022 11:20 AM (JzDjf)

233 Well we finally did it. Selling the house to move into an apartment. Fortunately we have a nice long lead time. Unfortunately we have 30 years of.....stuff to go through.
I started with my books. In my basement I have five bookcases, all stuffed to the gills. Talked to my sister, she has helped many elderly people downsize, and here recommendation was "Make two piles, save and discard. then go through the save pile and cull that down."
I ended up with three: Discards old, torn, broken spines, etc. for the recycler. Library. and Keepers.

Proud to say I have the Keepers down to five small U-haul boxes.

I think we can get away with bringing two bookcases with us.

Posted by: TANSTAAFL at April 10, 2022 11:21 AM (fBtlL)

234 There may well have been more babies born, but having nearly all of them *live* would naturally have a huge effect.

Not just here, either. The population of Africa has quadrupled during my lifetime, and medical care by German catholic missionaries blunted a plague in China around the time of WWI that would have halved its population. Goshdarn new crops and "white man's medicine."

Posted by: Stringer Davis at April 10, 2022 11:21 AM (videA)

235 mrp

Good Scarlet Pimpernel reference there. Sink Me!

Posted by: NaCly Dog (u82oZ) at April 10, 2022 11:21 AM (u82oZ)

236 225 Potluck Holmes - seen mostly at Dinner Theatre
Posted by: Muldoon at April 10, 2022 11:18 AM (m45I2)

And devoted Lutheran.

Posted by: Insomniac - Outlaw. Hoarder. Wrecker. Honker. at April 10, 2022 11:21 AM (II3Gr)

237 Finally finished "The Allies Strike Back" by James Holland, which covers ETO and North Africa and the Atlantic in 1942 and 1943 up to the surrender in Tunisia. Accessible writing style, good general overview approach, he doesn't do an in-depth scholarly look.

Started on "What Stalin Knew" by David Murphy, with "Stalin's War" by Sean McMeekin next in the stack, and possibly interludes of Shirer's "The Collapse of the Third Republic", which I've been nibbling on for a while, tossed in.

Library still hasn't received their copy of "The Secret Horsepower Race" by Douglas Calum, about the aircraft engine competition between Germany and the Allies, and I'm first on the list to get it when they do.

Posted by: rhomboid at April 10, 2022 11:23 AM (OTzUX)

238 Did we get Cleopatra Holmes yet?

Posted by: klaftern at April 10, 2022 11:23 AM (taPSh)

239 Vaporlock Holmes
He never got started.

Posted by: N.L. Urker, oops, I commented again. Sorry, eh. at April 10, 2022 11:24 AM (eGTCV)

240 Time for chores.

Thank you for a another is a series of great book threads, "Perfessor" Squirrel.

Have a great day, everyone. May you not need Doc Savage or Tarzan to rescue you.

Posted by: NaCly Dog (u82oZ) at April 10, 2022 11:24 AM (u82oZ)

241 Time to head off to church.

Posted by: N.L. Urker, oops, I commented again. Sorry, eh. at April 10, 2022 11:25 AM (eGTCV)

242 My rule when moving - and I have moved a lot over the years - has this item been used in the past year? If the answer is no, to the dump it goes.

Posted by: Joe XiDen - I miss Delta Variant at April 10, 2022 11:26 AM (Bh76f)

243 Masterlock Holmes contaminates the crime scene.

Posted by: Mr Aspirin Factory at April 10, 2022 11:26 AM (X0j02)

244 Read MP4s sample. Seems like a great book.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at April 10, 2022 11:26 AM (7bRMQ)

245 Adam & Eve on a raft Holmes.

Posted by: klaftern at April 10, 2022 11:26 AM (taPSh)

246 I finished Three Body Problem this week.

It was some work to get through. There is a Chinese-ness to the story that is hard to wrap one's head around sometimes. For a Westerner anyway.

There is a pretty good payoff though. But you have to slog through about 80% of the book for it start to pick up. You have to get through 2/3 of it to even start being science fiction.

I can see why it won a Hugo, but surprised as it is decidedly unwoke.

Posted by: blaster at April 10, 2022 11:26 AM (9otr5)

247 As I got older, Shirer became more and more unreadable.

Posted by: mrp at April 10, 2022 11:26 AM (6eRlp)

248 Justin Long -- and let's not forget Dodgeball (which is worth repeat viewings just for Rip Torn).
Posted by: Just Some Guy at April 10, 2022 11:20 AM (JzDjf)
-------------

I like Ben Stiller's character in that movie. It's so ridiculously over the top it's hilarious.

Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing (5pTK/) at April 10, 2022 11:26 AM (5pTK/)

249 He's handed a book and told to tear it up and throw it away, and he just can't do it. He doesn't get the job.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at April 10, 2022 10:20 AM

and that little girl was me

Posted by: Kamala Harris at April 10, 2022 11:27 AM (DUIap)

250 I think we can get away with bringing two bookcases with us.
Posted by: TANSTAAFL at April 10, 2022 11:21 AM (fBtlL)

What a elephantine task, paring down like that. Good Luck and Happy Triage & Tossing.

Posted by: Count de Monet at April 10, 2022 11:27 AM (4I/2K)

251 My favorite story of 19th century contempt, expressed elegantly, came from the Confederate side, from the La. General P.G.T. Beauregard. Braxton Bragg was in overall command, and had put out orders for a major attack the next day which Beauregard strenuously disagreed with. To make his point, Bragg ordered Beauregard's troops to lead the planned charge at dawn. The next morning dawn came, and nothing. 8 o clock, nothing, then 9 - Bragg sent a staff officer to Beauregard's HQ to demand to know what he was doing. The officer found Beauregard and his staff seated at a 7 course breakfast, served on the silver and by the slaves that Beauregard had brought with him from his plantation. (a very wealthy man, of course)

When the officer demanded to know why the attack had not commenced, Beauregard looked at him with apparent shock and said (in his deep Louisiana accent) "Why sir, do you mean to tell me that the attack has not commenced? Please tell General Bragg that I am deeply saddened, DEEPLY saddened, to hear this!" He then sat back down to finish his 7 course breakfast.

Posted by: Tom Servo at April 10, 2022 11:28 AM (q3gwH)

252 Smokehouse Holmes - detecting great BBQ

Posted by: Count de Monet at April 10, 2022 11:29 AM (4I/2K)

253 I've been watching video clips of "The Death of Stalin" on YT. I did have a chance to watch the first 45 minutes of the film, but I think I would have enjoyed it more if I hadn't read the entire set of Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago.

Posted by: mrp at April 10, 2022 11:31 AM (6eRlp)

254 When the officer demanded to know why the attack had not commenced, Beauregard looked at him with apparent shock and said (in his deep Louisiana accent) "Why sir, do you mean to tell me that the attack has not commenced? Please tell General Bragg that I am deeply saddened, DEEPLY saddened, to hear this!" He then sat back down to finish his 7 course breakfast.
Posted by: Tom Servo at April 10, 2022 11:28 AM (q3gwH)
-----------------

There was some Englishman, I want to say it was Wellington, who was snubbed at some sort of meeting and responded by making the person who snubbed him wait while Wellington peed against a fence.

Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing (5pTK/) at April 10, 2022 11:31 AM (5pTK/)

255 >>>Today's most excellent library picture came to me courtesy of a moron in good standing (Bob ---> but not from the NSA)

Nice digs, Bob!

Posted by: m at April 10, 2022 11:31 AM (rI4Wv)

256 There was some Englishman, I want to say it was Wellington, who was snubbed at some sort of meeting and responded by making the person who snubbed him wait while Wellington peed against a fence.
Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing (5pTK/) at April 10, 2022 11:31 AM (5pTK/)

He's an amateur!

Posted by: President L.B. Johnson at April 10, 2022 11:33 AM (4I/2K)

257 Listened to 12 Seconds of Silence (how a team of inventors, tinkerers and spies took down a Nazi super weapon) by Jamie Holmes. Fascinating. About the development of the Proximity Fuse to shoot down V2 rockets and Nazi fighter planes. A great look into weapons development of WWII.

Posted by: Cannibal Bob 'the whole kittenkaboodle are in cahoots' at April 10, 2022 11:33 AM (KItfg)

258 Another fine book thread, thank you Perfessor!

I haven't read the whole comment chain yet but scanning through I saw there was some talk of our mutual colleague, Mr. Holmes.

I therefore offer up The Sherlockian by Graham Moore.

Quoth the publisher: Hurtling from present day New York to Victorian London, The Sherlockian weaves the history of Sherlock Holmes and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle into an inspired and entertaining double mystery that proves to be anything but "elementary."

Plain language summary: a modern Sherlock Holmes appreciation club learns of the discovery of A.C. Doyle's missing diary and goes on a scavenger hunt using Holmesian source material and investigation techniques to recover the journal.

My take: breezy, fun and clever, a 4/5

Posted by: Blacksheep at April 10, 2022 11:33 AM (6mvRv)

259 {{{ screaming in digital}}}

Hope you are doing better. And that church is healing for you.

Posted by: NaCly Dog (u82oZ) at April 10, 2022 11:34 AM (u82oZ)

260 Was Sherlock Holmes the first crime solving detective in literature?
-------
Poe's Auguste Dupin.
Posted by: Captain Obvious, Laird o' the Sea at April 10, 2022 10:48 AM (YFU8M)

In English Poe was the first stories, and Wilkie's The Moon Stone was the first novel.

I had a friend who was a Chinese major and he pointed out the first real "detective novels" were the Song Dynasty Gong An stories, which apparently become the Judge Dee stories in the 17th (had to look that up so if I am wrong, blame Wiki) about a magistrate who was resolving mysteries or court cases. He also pointed out that those investigators were allowed to use torture to extract depositions, so there is that.

Posted by: Kindltot at April 10, 2022 11:35 AM (xhaym)

261 I made some dick movies.

Posted by: John Holmes at April 10, 2022 11:35 AM (vrz2I)

262 Yeah that Shirer book can be slow going. And it started to remind me of some otherwise good historians of Nazi Germany, who can't hide their dubious political convictions about certain things.

Posted by: rhomboid at April 10, 2022 11:37 AM (OTzUX)

263 Holmes really is derivative of Dupin though ... his reasoning methods, the trusty partner, the bumbling detective, and so on. Poe predated Doyle in the genre, but he didn't invent it either.

Posted by: Blacksheep at April 10, 2022 11:37 AM (6mvRv)

264 BTW the title 12 Seconds of Silence comes from the space of 12 seconds after the V2 rockets engine shut down over London and the blast when it hit the ground. Very unnerving as you can imagine.

Posted by: Cannibal Bob 'the whole kittenkaboodle are in cahoots' at April 10, 2022 11:39 AM (KItfg)

265 Boxcar Holmes was professional hobo.

Posted by: Dr. Bone at April 10, 2022 11:40 AM (Wnd0C)

266 I didn't see CN the First here; I hope that means what I think it means !

Posted by: JT at April 10, 2022 11:40 AM (arJlL)

267 Canibal Bob, ? Proximity fuse was developed at Dahlgren Navy arsenal by a team led by Deak Parsons (later weaponization chief at Los Alamos), and wasn't used against V-2s (there was no system to counter V-2s). It's about Dahlgren - and maybe you meant V-1s?

Posted by: rhomboid at April 10, 2022 11:41 AM (OTzUX)

268 BTW the title 12 Seconds of Silence comes from the space of 12 seconds after the V2 rockets engine shut down over London and the blast when it hit the ground. Very unnerving as you can imagine.
Posted by: Cannibal Bob 'the whole kittenkaboodle are in cahoots' at April 10, 2022 11:39 AM (KItfg)
------------

Gad, imagine how things would have turned out if Nazi German would have won the race to the atomic bomb and been able to top a V2 with atomic weapons.

Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing (5pTK/) at April 10, 2022 11:41 AM (5pTK/)

269 Today's most excellent library picture came to me courtesy of a moron in good standing (Bob ---> but not from the NSA)

Nice digs, Bob!
Posted by: m

Da Cannibal knows how to live !

Posted by: JT at April 10, 2022 11:42 AM (arJlL)

270 Cornpop Holmes was a bad dude....

Posted by: JT at April 10, 2022 11:43 AM (arJlL)

271 I just ran into Andy Ngo at a golf course in Augusta. I politely told him he was a garbage person. Then some MAGA type said, "Get off the green and leave Tiger Woods alone, you dipshit."

Posted by: Thor Benson at April 10, 2022 11:44 AM (Ya8lF)

272 Cornpop Holmes was a bad dude....
Posted by: JT at April 10, 2022 11:43 AM (arJlL)

To my enduring shame I LOL'd.

Posted by: Count de Monet at April 10, 2022 11:44 AM (4I/2K)

273 If ya click on the Perfesser's nic, NOTHING happens !

Veddy interesting !

Posted by: JT at April 10, 2022 11:44 AM (arJlL)

274 the 1960 Biographical movie on the Life of Werner von Braun was titled "I Aim at the Stars". It was immediately suggested that the subtitle should have been "But I keep hitting London."

Posted by: Tom Servo at April 10, 2022 11:45 AM (q3gwH)

275 Heh. Check out what's on the monitor.

G'morning, Horde.

Posted by: creeper at April 10, 2022 11:46 AM (cTCuP)

276 I hope Bob keeps a Webley in the desk. Anything else wouldn't be fitting in a den devoted to Sherlock.

Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing (5pTK/) at April 10, 2022 11:47 AM (5pTK/)

277 Posted by: Thor Benson at April 10, 2022 11:44 AM (Ya8lF)

*tips hat*

Posted by: BourbonChicken at April 10, 2022 11:48 AM (ybIRR)

278 Listened to 12 Seconds of Silence (how a team of inventors, tinkerers and spies took down a Nazi super weapon) by Jamie Holmes. Fascinating. About the development of the Proximity Fuse to shoot down V2 rockets and Nazi fighter planes. A great look into weapons development of WWII.

Posted by: Cannibal Bob 'the whole kittenkaboodle are in cahoots' at April 10, 2022 11:33 AM (KItfg)

George O Smith, the author of the Venus Equilateral series, worked on that program. It was designing and building a vacuum tube that could be screwed onto the fuze well of an AA shell that was the hard point.
He talks about it in his anthology The Worlds of George O Smith.

Posted by: Kindltot at April 10, 2022 11:48 AM (xhaym)

279 BTW the title 12 Seconds of Silence comes from the space of 12 seconds after the V2 rockets engine shut down over London and the blast when it hit the ground. Very unnerving as you can imagine.

Posted by: Cannibal Bob 'the whole kittenkaboodle are in cahoots' at April 10, 2022 11:39 AM (KItfg)

That would be the V-1.

The V-2 was hypersonic as it came in, first notice you would get was the boom.

Posted by: Kindltot at April 10, 2022 11:50 AM (xhaym)

280 276 Heh. Check out what's on the monitor.
Posted by: creeper at April 10, 2022 11:46 AM (cTCuP)

Ha!

Posted by: m at April 10, 2022 11:50 AM (rI4Wv)

281 Listened to 12 Seconds of Silence (how a team of inventors, tinkerers and spies took down a Nazi super weapon) by Jamie Holmes. Fascinating. About the development of the Proximity Fuse to shoot down V2 rockets and Nazi fighter planes. A great look into weapons development of WWII.
Posted by: Cannibal Bob 'the whole kittenkaboodle are in cahoots' at April 10, 2022 11:33 AM (KItfg)

I don't believe the proximity fuse would be of any use against incoming V2 rockets. They are essentially falling out of space at a near-vertical angle, and at supersonic speed. You'd have to fire the AA batteries before you even knew there was a target to fire upon.

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at April 10, 2022 11:51 AM (P3gRi)

282 "Gardner portrayed a lot of people in their 60s and 70s as old. Gardner portrayed a lot of people in their 60s and 70s as old. Maybe they were, back then."

Don't kid yourself. They're still old. More people make it into the seventies to nineties now, thanks to more medical intervention in our lives. They're just older.

Posted by: Brett at April 10, 2022 11:51 AM (Sm9Ko)

283 Yep, V-1, and as I noted no system to engage the V-2 existed. Proximity fuse (named Variable Timing or VT fuse to cloud the picture for security reasons) was not approved for use over land outside Allied countries until "emergency use authorization" was given, quickly, during the German Ardennes offensive in December 1944. Use over the ocean precluded any Axis recovery of the mechanism, so was considered "secure".

Posted by: rhomboid at April 10, 2022 11:53 AM (OTzUX)

284 Canibal Bob, ? Proximity fuse was developed at Dahlgren Navy arsenal by a team led by Deak Parsons (later weaponization chief at Los Alamos), and wasn't used against V-2s (there was no system to counter V-2s). It's about Dahlgren - and maybe you meant V-1s?

Posted by: rhomboid at April 10, 2022 11:41 AM (OTzUX)

Sure youre right about the V2's. Wasn't listening very well at the end of the book. According to the author there were many scientists involved in the development of the fuse and not just at Alamos. In fact, there was a lab disguised as an operational garage that took part in the development of various bits and pieces. Also, testing was done at a ranch of a friend of a scientist to bypass beaurocracy and then over the Potomac. Many scientists were called din according to various specialties. Worth a read.

Posted by: Cannibal Bob 'the whole kittenkaboodle are in cahoots' at April 10, 2022 11:54 AM (KItfg)

285 the 1960 Biographical movie on the Life of Werner von Braun was titled "I Aim at the Stars". It was immediately suggested that the subtitle should have been "But I keep hitting London."

Posted by: Tom Servo at April 10, 2022 11:45 AM (q3gwH)

Von Braun I think was picked up by the Gestapo because he was reported to have said that war rockets were all very good, but the real thing is to go to Mars. It was part of the SS' attempt to take over the rocketry program

A very good review of the German Rocketry program from VfR to White Sands is Willy Ley's Rockets, Missiles and Space Travel.
Willy Ley was a member of the VfR, went to the US and wound up doing a number of things including writing for Analog as a science writer

Posted by: Kindltot at April 10, 2022 11:55 AM (xhaym)

286 Fartlock Holmes and his trusty sidekick Dr Clamson

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at April 10, 2022 11:57 AM (lCui1)

287 I think it was a garage in Rockville MD where some of the early work on the fuse took place. I only encountered the VT fuse story tangentially, in the book about Deak Parsons (poorly titled "Target Hiroshima"), who I believe headed the effort at Dahlgren. Good book. The VT/Dahlgren story is quite distinct from Los Alamos and Manhattan Project, which came later.

Posted by: rhomboid at April 10, 2022 11:57 AM (OTzUX)

288 Feel Good Story of the day:

Israeli forces shoot Tel Aviv terrorists brother
Arab media outlets report that brother of Tel Aviv gunman shot while fleeing Israeli forces in Jenin

And they are looking to arrest his father who was a high ranking Officer in the PA Security Forces , in case anyone believes the bullshit of the PA condemning the attack in Tel Aviv

Posted by: Nevergiveup at April 10, 2022 11:58 AM (Irn0L)

289 Tom Lehrer's song about Werner von Braun remains a brilliant classic.

Posted by: rhomboid at April 10, 2022 11:58 AM (OTzUX)

290 Am now in my 70s, and have been told I don't look it. But, brother, I feel it. Every day of it. Used to be able to run at a pretty good clip -- if I ran full out for half a block now, they'd haul me away on a stretcher.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at April 10, 2022 11:58 AM (JzDjf)

291 34 -- I wouldn't be so certain about decomposing paper. Several years ago, the city of Omaha decided to develop a former handful next to an I-80 exit. Surprise! Surprise! All of Union Pacific's paperwork from the '40s and '50s came out perfectly preserved. U.P. was not happy.

Posted by: Captain Josepha Sabin -- bitterly clinging to the deplorable life '70s style! at April 10, 2022 12:00 PM (HVZDN)

292 Use over the ocean precluded any Axis recovery of the mechanism, so was considered "secure".

Posted by: rhomboid at April 10, 2022 11:53 AM (OTzUX)

Yes. It wasnt until scientists assured military leaders that it would take the Nazis a significant amount of time to reverse engineer it and then set up a manufacturing system that it was used on land. It was devastating then on Nazi troops and tank teams. They would wait till the tank teams settled down outside the tanks and use the weapon.

Posted by: Cannibal Bob 'the whole kittenkaboodle are in cahoots' at April 10, 2022 12:00 PM (KItfg)

293 And hat tip to our own Mike Hammer, through whom I heard of the Deak Parsons book.

Kinda sorta related, recommend "War's End", the memoir of the commander of the Nagasaki mission, Charles Sweeney, for the insight into what a trainwreck that mission was, and interesting stuff on the 509th.

Posted by: rhomboid at April 10, 2022 12:01 PM (OTzUX)

294 WE HAZ NOOD

Posted by: Skip advising you of your Nood threads at April 10, 2022 12:02 PM (2JoB8)

295 Great thread, Perfessor.

Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing (5pTK/) at April 10, 2022 12:02 PM (5pTK/)

296 Thank you all for your knowledge about the fuse and development. And military strategies. I will be reading much more about WWII in general a big hole in my reading. I am listening to a book about D Day now. Unfortunately my brain seems to let names slip away quickly these days. Very frustrating.

Posted by: Cannibal Bob 'the whole kittenkaboodle are in cahoots' at April 10, 2022 12:06 PM (KItfg)

297 Reading "The Real Anthony Fauci". If even half of this is true, yeah, he deserves prison.

What is, without a doubt true: patients were sent home from hospitals with Covid to wait and see if they got sicker, then come back. Fauci and company did not issue any guidance on the use of therapeutic drugs that are always recommended in a viral outbreak.

Posted by: JM in Florida at April 10, 2022 12:07 PM (L7jyl)

298 Bob's library is very tidy and inviting. Very nice.

Posted by: Pug Mahon, Gen X Ne'er-Do-Well at April 10, 2022 12:09 PM (x8Wzq)

299 I will be reading much more about WWII in general a big hole in my reading.

I'm afraid I am the opposite. Over the years, I have read everything I could get my grubby paws on re. both world wars and our own civil war. I'm afraid it's been a bit of overkill, as at this point I find very few informational tidbits that are totally new to me. It's the same with our space program, particularly Mercury, Gemini and Apollo. I guess I need to diversify a bit more. Heh.

Posted by: Notorious BFD at April 10, 2022 12:13 PM (Xrfse)

300 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09XLM4LGT
I've been covering the leftist destruction of civilization for years, collecting my essays on the subject in books. My latest one came out a couple days ago if you want to give me money. The book covers the Freedom Convoy, whatever's going on with Russia/Ukraine and whatever else comes to mind.

This site is one of my sources so I might as well promote it here.

Posted by: ChrisW at April 10, 2022 12:23 PM (zFMsi)

301 "136 My dear departed father, who spent years studying civil war campaigns was of the opinion that McClellan was one of those commanders who Loved his Army too much - he could not bear to risk losing any part of it, so he would never attack unless he knew he had overwhelming force. When McClellan was forced to save his army by defense, he could suddenly become tactically brilliant, such as during the 7 Days battles, where Lee almost had him defeated, but McClellan outwitted Lee and inflicted heavy casualties as he tactically maneuvered his army out of danger.

"McClellan was brilliant on defense, but utterly incapable of offense.
Posted by: Tom Servo at April 10, 2022 10:09 AM (q3gwH)"

Fletcher Pratt had pretty much the same opinion in his book "Ordeal By Fire." IMHO, an extremely well-written and readable general history of the American Civil War. Pratt had decided opinions, and wasn't afraid to express them. The book is full of little vignettes about the generals, politicians and others that make the story come alive.

Posted by: Pope John the 20th at April 10, 2022 12:29 PM (xi3bI)

302 [ACW cont]

One of Pratt's stories, apparently taken from Grant's memoirs, was about the Confederate General Braxton Bragg, and his service on the frontier before the war.

Bragg was serving as a company commander at a frontier post where he also served as quartermaster. As company commander he submitted a requisition for supplies for his company, then as quartermaster declined to fill it. As company commander, he resubmitted the requisition, giving additional reasons for his requirements, but as the quartermaster he denied the request again. Realizing that he was at an impasse, he referred the matter to the post commandant, who exclaimed, "My God, Mr. Bragg, you have quarreled with every officer in the army, and now you are quarreling with yourself!"

Posted by: Pope John the 20th at April 10, 2022 12:33 PM (xi3bI)

303 My God, Mr. Bragg, you have quarreled with every officer in the army, and now you are quarreling with yourself!"

Bragg sounds like a very sill man who should never have had a fort named after him

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at April 10, 2022 12:46 PM (KZzsI)

304 Bob sure is neat. Pretty extensive collection as well.

Posted by: Javems at April 10, 2022 12:46 PM (AmoqO)

305 With apologies to Grendel Briarton, Sheerluck Holmes who solves mysteries through fortunate circumstances.

Posted by: Pope John the 20th at April 10, 2022 12:51 PM (xi3bI)

306 I will be reading much more about WWII in general a big hole in my reading. I am listening to a book about D Day now. Unfortunately my brain seems to let names slip away quickly these days. Very frustrating.
Posted by: Cannibal Bob 'the whole kittenkaboodle are in cahoots'

++++

I recommend Victor Davis Hanson. He has a couple EXCELLENT books on WW II.

Posted by: TANSTAAFL at April 10, 2022 12:54 PM (fBtlL)

307 A post about a book I just read, on which I worked VERY hard, just got blocked, because "it looks like spam." So the hell with it AND the book thread.

This has happened to me several times here lately. The posts which have been blocked aren't that lengthy. I guess it's the fact that it takes me a goodly while to TYPE them that's the problem.

I had one post, referencing Tucker Carlson's advertisers, blocked as spam-- I'm guessing because it included some brand names!

Posted by: mnw at April 10, 2022 01:23 PM (NLIak)

308 I would like to add my recommendation to those above (beginning at #23, #45, #103 and #122) of the brilliant webcomic "Girl Genius" and the Agatha H. novels. The novels (4 of them to date) add some interesting detail and background.

Posted by: John F. MacMichael at April 10, 2022 01:56 PM (pmRJM)

309 A post about a book I just read, on which I worked VERY hard, just got blocked, because "it looks like spam."

Yeah I had that happen today, I had to break the post into two parts and each part posted fine. Some new tweak on the HQ, for some reason.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at April 10, 2022 01:56 PM (KZzsI)

310 As to the question of why Gen. George McClellan persistently overestimated the number of the Confederate forces facing him, I have read that one reason for this was a flaw in his intelligence apparatus. As mentioned above (@157) Allan Pinkerton ran McClellan's spies. Pinkerton was apparently quite good at the counter-intelligence part of his job (catching Confederate spies). However, Pinkerton made a default assumption that every Confederate unit his spies and scouts identified was at full strength. Thus Rebel regiments that would have been lucky to muster 100 men fit for duty were credited with 10 times that number of soldiers. This seriously exaggerated Confederate strength and I think that reinforced McClellan's innate reluctance to risk attacks.

Posted by: John F. MacMichael at April 10, 2022 02:08 PM (pmRJM)

311 I read Peter Schweizer's Profiles in Corruption: Abuse of Power by America's Progressive Elite this week. He does an excellent job of reporting the corruption among the Bidens, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Elizabeth Warren, Sherrod Brown, Bernie Sanders, Amy Klobuchar and Eric Garcetti. Crackhead Hunter and Ukraine are just the tip
of the iceberg.
Posted by: cool breeze at April 10, 2022 09:21 AM (UGKMd)
---------
I read that when it first came out. It was one of the hardest books that I've ever read; I had to push myself to finish it. Not because it was difficult to understand, mind you. No, it was the total and utter corruption detailed in those pages. Horrifying.

I read the book on my Kindle and kept slogging through it. When I got to the point where I had read 55% of the book, I was surprised to see I had actually finished it. The other 45% was the footnotes. Incredibly well-researched, and must have been depressing as hell to write because it was depressing as hell to read.

Posted by: bluebell - NoVaMoMe 2022! at April 10, 2022 02:10 PM (wyw4S)

312 I typically have three books going at once: Fiction, non-fiction, and spiritual/philosophical. Current fiction is "Eight Hours from England" by Anthony Quayle. While marketed as fiction it's based on Quayle's experiences as an SOE officer in WWII Albania. Non-fiction is Churchill's History of the Second World War...I'm on Vol 1 now. I'm enjoying it and can already see parallels to current conditions, but there's a lot of inside ball regarding UK political give and take. Rereading the Catholic Catechism for my spiritual box. I'm in my 60s now...there are some gems there that I've missed before.

Posted by: pilsnerfan at April 10, 2022 02:12 PM (fpxX5)

313 "When I tossed my tattered Little House books I knew I could replace them easily. However, I wonder sometimes whether they'll eventually be cancelled."

Until then, the Little House books are available in two volumes from the Library of America. They are solid books which will last a long time.

Posted by: Brett at April 10, 2022 02:15 PM (Sm9Ko)

314 Meme I saw this week.

Text: We have your son.

Reply: What are your demands?

Text: Are you out of your mind?! The daycare's closing soon, come and get him now!

Posted by: gekkobear at April 10, 2022 02:20 PM (I388C)

315 As far as I can tell, the spam notice triggers on posts that have at least one of these:

Bullet points
Several book titles in a row
Comic book references
Exclamation points
Row of asterisks (to break up disparate elements)

Very annoying -- how can you review a book and not say you liked or disliked it?

Posted by: Weak Geek at April 10, 2022 02:20 PM (Om/di)

316 Kindltot: Nice mention of George O. Smith; an often overlooked SF author of (mostly) the 1940s through the 1960s. IIRC he anticipated some of the Galaxy Quest plot with his book "Troubled Star." His career was upended a bit when he stole away John W. Campbell's first wife, Dona.

Posted by: Pope John the 20th at April 10, 2022 02:32 PM (xi3bI)

317 I stopped reading conservative polemics against the left. It's gotten redundant, and frankly no level of depravity in the ruling class would surprise me.

I'm interested in solutions, and basically comes down to finding people with courage and national leadership chops.

The only exception was Codevilla who (IMHO) had no peer. I can't think of anyone who had such a grasp of the state of the world governments and could correlate it to history going back two thousand years. He was similar to Victor Davis Hanson, except his twenty year tenure as a naval officer gave him deeper personal insight into how particular regimes differ. Big loss.

Posted by: Levin at April 10, 2022 02:46 PM (9u4i0)

318 Posted by: I am the Shadout Mapes, the Housekeeper at April 10, 2022 11:19 AM (PiwSw)

That's it! Thank you. I remember finding them at least generally helpful.

Posted by: Polliwog the 'Ette at April 10, 2022 02:57 PM (nC+QA)

319 Thereafter however, Campbell either got over his dislike for Smith, or good product trumped personal conflicts, as Smith returned as a contributor to Astounding/Analog (name change in the early 1960s) in the late 1950s.

BTW you may be confusing Astounding/Analog and Galaxy Science Fiction magazines. Willy Ley may have written science articles for Astounding/Analog (I don't recall and none of the period issues I have immediately to hand contain any), but his regular column, "For Your Information," ran in Galaxy Magazine from 1952 to his death in 1969.

Posted by: Pope John the 20th at April 10, 2022 03:02 PM (xi3bI)

320 The End of Science by John Horgan. He doesn't mean science is finished - only the really Big Discoveries. As a student of english literature he got annoyed by the never ending debate over the ironics of Joyce's Ulysses etc. He entered science journalism and was struck by the parallels between ironic literature and criticism and ironic scientism. That kinda sums the book. The link below is a critique of critics attacking Tolkien for his un-ironic anti-modernist writing style (most high profile tolkien haters are marxoids).

archive.org/details/critical-approaches

Posted by: 13times at April 10, 2022 03:12 PM (4osVM)

321 Hmm, "macaroni" reminds me of Yankee Doodle

Posted by: bigG at April 10, 2022 03:50 PM (dhVjM)

322 Unfortunately my brain seems to let names slip away quickly these days. Very frustrating.
---

That's the kuru talking, Cannibal Bob

Posted by: All Hail Eris at April 10, 2022 04:00 PM (/MCrq)

323

"The Tin Drum"
--Gunther Grass

Amazing book, every scene, line,
character so believably Existing.

Subject is timely, ethnic divisions,
Dictator rising, while ordinary people
must use every ruse to survive.

Posted by: zigzag at April 10, 2022 04:51 PM (PQRC+)

324 Sorry for the late replies, but Mrs. Cop and have been running errands all day since after Mass this morning. (Preparing for a yuge family gathering next week)

In answer to "Eris" - yes that is a poster based on a Kurtzman MAD magazine cover.

MPPP asked my thoughts about the June Thompson pastiches: it's been 20ish years since I read them -- I didn't hate them at the time, but I don't remember anything about the stories now.

Posted by: Retired Buckeye Cop is now an engineer at April 10, 2022 06:43 PM (pJWtt)

325 Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at April 10, 2022 09:03 AM (2JVJo)

Great news! Really enjoyed the first book.

Posted by: waelse1 at April 10, 2022 09:59 PM (7YTAg)

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Posted by: Dominique at April 11, 2022 02:42 AM (ORS5M)

327 Thanks for the thread. I read more often than I post, but I came here to say that I appreciate y'all have kept Oregon Muse's work going. OM was a good man and I miss him greatly. D.GOOCH

Posted by: Don at April 11, 2022 03:48 AM (9rtfn)

328 I am also a huge Sherlock Holmes fan, and I have William Baring-Gould's 'The Annotated Sherlock Holmes' which I have treasured. But as an American transplant to the UK, I have realized WB-G didn't really understand Britain and its geography, and made some serious errors in interpretation. For example he confused the 'Fens' and the 'Broads', something no Brit would ever do; and in his analysis of 'The Hound of the Baskervilles' he has Watson arriving at Dartmoor by train from the West rather than from the direction of London (East). Serious SH fans need to be careful when using WB-G as a reference.

Posted by: John Y at April 11, 2022 05:22 AM (1O1gJ)

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Posted by: ask me bet at May 10, 2022 03:05 PM (iErOv)

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