Member: Porius

Oh I am not so small minded as all that. I ended up liking the Jungian storyline quite a bit and will probably be thinking about it for years to come.

posted by slickdpdx at 1:22 pm (EST) on Nov 18, 2009

Two small thoughts from a small mind: 1) Am I wrong to see a resemblance between Nettie and Anne of Green Gables and a corresponding Canadian in-joke? 2) I did not like the format of The Manticore - psychiatric stories are a hallmark of cheap television programming and a almost certain sign of a bad episode in your favorite shows. They probably mark the irreversible decline of the show too. After I overcame that prejudice I found the book readable and really thought-provoking. Besides, R.D. probably needed a different way to naturally have each of these stories being told and he couldn't very well have them all writing to the new headmaster, could he! Enjoying WoW so far.

posted by slickdpdx at 6:48 pm (EST) on Nov 17, 2009

I liked the Cooper! I liked the one you recently posted on a thread and meant to say something about it then. I only read the wikipedia entry on the psychic detective.

posted by slickdpdx at 7:10 pm (EST) on Nov 13, 2009

Quite enjoyed 5th Biz. Now onto The Manticore! I know the influence runs the other direction but, in the order I read them, I was reminded of Steven Millhauser, but more precise and more low key.

posted by slickdpdx at 8:33 pm (EST) on Nov 10, 2009

I know you know this backwards, but I couldn't resist sharing it with you.

Keats. what is there to say about him that will do justice?

I

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

II

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

III

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too, -
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

posted by tomcatMurr at 6:08 am (EST) on Nov 8, 2009

I haven't yet read the Greenan. I saw Ganeshaka's review back whenever. Then when I checked out the book I saw it 1) in the libraries of a lot of people here on LT that are knowledgeable and have reliable taste and 2) that list on the book's page where it shows the most common shared books of people that had the Greenan book was full of other good books, confirming #1. I was quite excited to get the Greenan books at the time, but other reads came up and here I am. I think Miserables will go fast, despite the length, so who knows, maybe I'll get to it before the end of the year!

posted by slickdpdx at 8:29 pm (EST) on Nov 5, 2009

Thanks P. Unfortunately, I snapped it in the wrong pixel size, so it doesn't expand. I guess I wasn't dotty enough - hahaha. The Ohio can be quite pretty when it stays within its banks.

posted by Ganeshaka at 5:11 pm (EST) on Nov 5, 2009

Many a time I've eyed your namesake, but I've not built up the muscles to carry it home.

posted by slickdpdx at 12:49 pm (EST) on Nov 5, 2009

Sorry. The punchbowl is 86'd!

Started Fifth Business today, it was either that or Wolf Solent and I'm not sure I could finish Wolf Solent before starting Miserables. I know I can finish the Davies, maybe even two of them, before December. Might be able to complete the trilogy before starting Miserables later in December.

posted by slickdpdx at 2:01 pm (EST) on Nov 4, 2009

I value yours, too, I'm just not a very good correspondant. thanks for the nudge.
GG

posted by Goldengrove at 4:35 pm (EST) on Oct 30, 2009

Well matey, I've joined the crew as requested. Ain't got much time on my hands at the moment, exams are in full force and they're sure takin' a swing at me. I'll be sure to make appearances, much obliged. Many thanks for the welcome, appreciate it immensely.
Take care now,
Leah

posted by redkit at 7:03 am (EST) on Oct 23, 2009

No problem!

posted by ablachly at 10:20 pm (EST) on Oct 19, 2009

Hi Poor-ious -- I've had the Priestley for a while but only just got round to cataloguing it. A bookmark suggests I once got about halfway through but I don't remember-- though its the sort of thing I would like.
I do have some Robert Nye because I feel I ought to but I haven't actually read any. Right now it's Hill of Dreams, Summerland (Chabon), Portobello (Rendell) and some Cabell. BTW I see it mentioned in Hall's Cabell bibliography that on pp 217-218 of JCP's Meaning of Culture JBC is referred to approvingly... -Bill

posted by Crypto-Willobie at 3:25 pm (EST) on Oct 17, 2009

Dear Poor-ious ( got it right now )

I ask it because i am wrestling with a review on the Magic Mountain where the writer of the comment
says that many words have lost their value because they have been used too much on too many false occassions. I liked that idea and when scanning your profile I found your lines on what I think is the same subject.

Mac

posted by Macumbeira at 3:18 am (EST) on Oct 17, 2009

Hi there Pourious,

Where can i find more about "this barbarism of reflection" you mention in your intro ?

posted by Macumbeira at 1:37 am (EST) on Oct 17, 2009

Hi P,

I'm following your lead, and, dropped by my local library to pick up a Muriel Spark (The Girls of Slender Means). I'm currently finishing Graham Greene's The Comedians. By the way, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, is a great summer read, if you haven't already. What? Is summer over? Doesn't seem like it here in WV. Once a week I check the Alaska weather report, grin with schadenfreude and wonder why it took me so long to head back south, over the lost horizon.

Peace,
G

posted by Ganeshaka at 7:24 pm (EST) on Sep 28, 2009

I'm assuming you did recognize who played Mr. Shadrack in BL? Also, the way Billy gets himself engaged to three women all at the same time has definite shades of Bertie Wooster, doesn't it?

R

posted by Rule42 at 7:49 pm (EST) on Sep 6, 2009

Alas, they give no more details. I wonder if the new JCP bio details that lecture tour?
Do you esteem Arthur Machen? Cabell's [Cream of the Jest] was somewhat influenced by his reading [Hill of Dreams]. Cabell sent Machen a copy of Cream and they began a brief correspondence as a result.

posted by Crypto-Willobie at 7:02 am (EST) on Sep 5, 2009

It's been many years since I read Line of Love so I can't generalize specifically from that...but I find him pretty consistently good.
By the way, I just finished MacDonald's biography of him and I find that JBC went to see JCP lecture at the Richmond Women's Club in Nov 1924...

posted by Crypto-Willobie at 1:17 am (EST) on Sep 5, 2009

If you covered him with garbage
George Sanders would still have style!

posted by Rule42 at 11:05 pm (EST) on Aug 17, 2009

Ooops, I forgot the obligatory video links in my previous post.

OK then, from way back when rock 'n' roll was all innocence and pfun ...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qX3gpQ_i7...

Definitely a much better version than the original IMO:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Q4C-Nqeg...

After that scorching hot winter version this next one feels like you are watching it on ludes:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpWxdFy1g...
(If it was possible to play videos at the wrong speed - like a 78 rpm record at 33 rpm - then that is what's probably going on with that last video. Whose that introvert out there? *snarfle*).

This one makes me want to go out to a greasy trucker bar, stand together with a bunch of fellow leather-clad psycle sluts, and putting my hands on my hips brush the floor with my hair ... :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LofMXCsSd...

And now the unplugged version ...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ohx8YSqk...
(I think that might now be my favorite one of the lot!)

Notice that NOT one of the above versions gets the lyrics right. Not a single mention of Peyronie in any of them!

posted by Rule42 at 2:31 pm (EST) on Aug 17, 2009

Thanks Poor-ious. You were awesome in my absence. Please don't let my return make you think you need to step back. Hell no, Friend. You keep doing what you're doing whenever the hell you feel like doing it, because it's fun and entertaining and quite interesting and educational to boot.

Thank you thank you thank you ad infinitum

posted by EnriqueFreeque at 2:18 am (EST) on Aug 5, 2009

Hi poor-ious. Many thanks for the positive comment; I am not particularly stingy (well, sometimes), mostly the low scores are the fault of a bad translation of data from anobii to here. I have not read wormholes yet but will give it a go. Fowles, ach, someone one might have aspired to ape, only I turn away from the particular parody of the writer-personality he constantly toyed with. When he kept it on the outside of what he wrote, brilliant *stories* were the result. When it crept in between the book covers, ugh, disaster. Try his 'The Aristos'; a throwback to a former age, when people like Count Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi and Dmitri Mitrinovic were weaving new socio-politico-aesthetic dispensations for the mundane world, to save it from itself.

posted by OwnedLibrarian at 9:42 am (EST) on Aug 4, 2009

I am flattered that you took time to "explore" my book inventory. From the initial exposure to Korzybski's SCIENCE AND SANITY, in the late 1940, I have been prompted in the direction toward phenomenology and hermeneutics (thus to Husserl, Heidegger, the existentialists and Chomsky). I am presently "burrowing" my way through Irvin Yalom's literary output. particularly his "text book", Existential Psychotherapy.

From the land of faux Texans (e.g., GWB, his daddy and Dick Cheney)

Naren

posted by Naren559 at 5:20 pm (EST) on Jul 29, 2009

Well, that's very strange. Shakespeare's sonnets are a great favourite of mine. But the really strnge bit is that we were (re)watching the film of The History Boys yesterday, and the English teacher quotes "bare ruined choirs..." when they are at Fountains Abbey, which HVIII destroyed. I did an aside to explain it to my son and hubby. And today - there you are!

Potatoes and leeks, tomatoes if the sun comes out. And I'm hopeful of chillies, 'cos they appear to be flowering. Oh, and cabbage, if the butterflies don't get it all.

Just noticed your new Robertson Davies entries - so glad you like him. I've just been chatting wiht Wisewoman about him.

BW

GG

posted by Goldengrove at 11:49 am (EST) on Jul 29, 2009

hmmm... had to google that one.

'I have made a heap of all I could find.'

posted by Crypto-Willobie at 9:54 pm (EST) on Jul 19, 2009

Hi Poor-ious,

Curley Howard? Perhaps that's why my wife always calls me a stooge. What can I say? I'm a man of popular culture, but not necessarily culturally popular.

Say hello to Keith for me.

Cheers

posted by harryhaller3 at 9:05 am (EST) on Jul 14, 2009

Oh jolly well done SIr! The Great Cham of Literature! Fantastic!

posted by tomcatMurr at 7:59 pm (EST) on Jul 10, 2009

never mind; you've posted, no problem; I'll remind everyone to hold back their impatient thumbs

posted by EnriqueFreeque at 4:21 pm (EST) on Jul 8, 2009

oh good, poor-ious! If you see Anna's drop off, go ahead and post; otherwise I or someone in the salon I'm sure, will give you the go ahead.

posted by EnriqueFreeque at 4:20 pm (EST) on Jul 8, 2009

Certainly, I'll be glad to read a chapter. I am always interested in a good read. Is it printed or e-version? Also, could you please provide a summary of the concept or plot so I might know if I am getting into an historical novel, or a fantasy, SF, horror, spy, adventure, western, romance, etc.

If you wish to take this discussion off LibrayThing, contact me here: thomas AT thomasfortenberry.net

Cheers,

Thomas

posted by kurvanas at 3:19 pm (EST) on Jul 7, 2009

Oh, c'mon, Bill, you can do better than this. You'll be interviewing flying nuns next!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nu99GRUUN...

Personally, I think they are all chi-ting in this video.
"C'mon, Andrew, give it the old heave-ho. C'mon, Andrew, it doesn't look real."

posted by Rule42 at 1:27 am (EST) on Jul 6, 2009

Theres a place up in the sky
Where the sun is shining
Take me higher
(take me higher)
Theres a place I long to be
Where the birds are flying
Take me higher
(take me higher)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tW6pVFOpE...

This video snippet is sent to you not only gratis but also completely free of charge. There are no strings attached and no fees will be levi ... levi ... levitated.

OK, I'll give you another chance ... up on the table, arms out, fingers together, knees bent, head well forward ... now flap your arms ... go on, flap ... faster ... faster ... faster, faster, FASTER ... now JUMP .....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ie3Myg0c...

ROTTEN, ROTTEN ... you're no BLOODY use at all, you're an utter BLOODY wash-out!

posted by Rule42 at 1:03 am (EST) on Jul 6, 2009

Alas, poor Yoricks! I knew them all so well I could see right through their infinite jests of most excellent fancy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTOe7c0n-...

Ooops, gotta go ... my gorge is on the rise again.

posted by Rule42 at 12:39 am (EST) on Jul 6, 2009

Sheesh, and I thought that your Mr. Jingle-like borborygms was merely the sound of you melting plastic cups ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzXLkfF01...

Pekingeses are a terrific breed of dogs, but they don't hold a candle to Pyrokinesis !!

posted by Rule42 at 12:03 am (EST) on Jul 6, 2009

"I've been burning today as old Pater said we should burn."

Well, in that case you might enjoy the following ...

You fought hard and you saved and earned
But all of it's going to burn
And your mind, your tiny mind
You know you've really been so blind
Now's your time, burn your mind
You're falling far too far behind
Oh no, oh no, oh no, you're gonna burn

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCTaxGhRC...

The sky is red, I don't understand,
Past midnight I still see the land.
People are sayin' the woman is damned,
She makes you burn with a wave of her hand.
The city's ablaze, the town's on fire.
The woman's flames are reaching higher.
We were fools, we called her liar.
All I hear is burn!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sN8grtFUQ...

Burn, baby, burn
When you gonna learn?
It's time to put out the fire
So burn, baby, burn
When you gonna learn?
The Earth is getting drier
The flames are growing higher

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1Y8RLhVt...

You know that it would be untrue
You know that I would be a liar
If I was to say to you
Girl, we couldn't get much higher
Come on baby, light my fire
Come on baby, light my fire
Try to set the night on fire

The time to hesitate is through
No time to wallow in the mire
Try now we can only lose
And our love become a funeral pyre
Come on baby, light my fire
Come on baby, light my fire
Try to set the night on fire

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6O6x_m4zv...

We had to find another place
But swiss time was running out
It seemed that we would lose the race
Smoke on the water, fire in the sky

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jp3de50_...

I'm not sure what you're burning about ... or even what you mean by "burning"! But I'm guessing that that's what happens when you make pacts with Beelzebub, Dr. Faust-ious.

posted by Rule42 at 8:52 pm (EST) on Jun 28, 2009

LOL!!!!!

You got me. No come back to that!

posted by thenaughtyhottie at 3:06 am (EST) on Jun 28, 2009

Thank you sir! I'm looking forward to reading your review as well!

I have just been watching some of your links on your profile page. Bream playing Bach: heavenly!

posted by tomcatMurr at 6:59 am (EST) on Jun 26, 2009

Essays of Michel De Montaigne Selected and Ilustrated by Salvador Dali

Can there really be such a book?! Published? I see there is! 1947. What a cool book.

posted by slickdpdx at 3:01 pm (EST) on Jun 24, 2009

Hello - I loved the snippit, thankyou very much, I will track that down.
Goldengrove is not from Jeremy Taylor, but a more modern English priest/poet. (a girl must retain some mystery)
Summer is being very kind to us, thankyou, it's even quite a sunny one, and my vegetables are coming along nicely.
How is it in Detroit?
Best wishes
GG

posted by Goldengrove at 1:29 pm (EST) on Jun 23, 2009

Hello - I loved the snippit, thankyou very much, I will track that down.
Goldengrove is not from Jeremy Taylor, but a more modern English priest/poet. (a girl must retain some mystery)
Summer is being very kind to us, thankyou, it's even quite a sunny one, and my vegetables are coming along nicely.
How is it in Detroit?
Best wishes
GG

posted by Goldengrove at 1:29 pm (EST) on Jun 23, 2009

I came over to ask if you/will you catalogue your music collection. But then I saw your collection of the brothers Powys, and was completely blown away. Awesome, in the proper sense of the word.

-Maki

posted by Makifat at 3:55 pm (EST) on Jun 20, 2009

Hello, Peter. Thanks for the reference. I don't know the Burton book. I've read a few novels based on Shakespeare and/or Marlowe, but most of them have been so-so. I cringe at the mention of anything by Robert Nye; Grace Tiffany is only a little better.

So nice to see someone else who lists Galway Kinnell as a favorite. And who seems to prefer Trollope to Dickens! Not to mention listing GEORGE HARRISON in well-deserved caps. I also spent most of my life in the Detroit metro area; I'm a triple U-M grad.

~Deborah

posted by Cariola at 3:45 pm (EST) on Jun 17, 2009

Nice Marc Bolan video - thanks. Not only Richard Starkey on drums, but also on video-camera too? Beneath the make up? And the ubiquitous Reginald Dwight too of course...

posted by Tid at 8:02 am (EST) on Jun 17, 2009

Some more BTF, including a better version of OLTF and a 'Parkie' interview ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIwqYc3-k...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3FCpnIVf...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5YW4qKOA...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUrhdIxTJ...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ty68LPKRQ...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yH6SbVk3...

posted by Rule42 at 2:13 am (EST) on Jun 12, 2009

Thanks, I really enjoyed that RAW stuff you sent me. Do you have any idea when that video was made? I thought I had heard all the light bulb jokes ever penned, but that was one of the better ones. :) I have to agree wholeheartedly with his comments about the purpose of the public school system. Cue Pink Floyd ...

Your lips move but I can't hear what you're sayin'.
When I was a child I caught a fleeting glimpse,
Out of the corner of my eye.
I turned to look but it was gone.
I cannot put my finger on it now.
The child is grown, the dream is gone.
I have become comfortably numb.

Like you, as much as I enjoyed my vacation I'm glad to be home again. Here are those M&W and PC video snippets I promised you awhile back.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lT6e58r3b...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puGwXolNj...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5IBR0I_C...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCZ1_qyu_...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJFAD7MGL...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzTmrVohI...

Do you enjoy the humor of Peter Cook and Dudley Moore? Peter Cook is another personal hero and inspiration of mine. IMO he almost single-handedly invented the British satirical national sense of humor of the 60s and 70s and beyond. I love the way he always kept on pushing back the limits and the way he could keep a straight face while all around him everybody is ROTFLTAO. Their (PC & DM) contributions to the Beyond the Fringe revue with Alan Bennett and Jonathan Miller are personal favorites of mine.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofUZNynYX...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eh9MJMOMu...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhS35f015...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVQrpok9K...

I never had the Latin for the judgin'! The people under the trees rather missed the point. The wonderful thing about being an author is you can put as many nude women in as you like. A scene unparalleled in mining history. I've got hold of the wrong load of trappings. I was pruning some Walnuts. I can put my hand on my heart and say I have never strated my work (a wonderful ad lib). She can break a swan's wing with a blow of her nose. God gave us these orifices to breathe through and who am I to condemn him. I'll take another example from real life ... there's too much Tuesday in my beetroot salad. A man who rejects the existence of metaphysics is simply a metaphysician with a rival theory of his own. We don't say, "why are you?" we say, "how are you?" don't we? Paraphilosophers are philosophers with their feet off the ground.

40+ years later I still find this stuff masterful. That philosophy sketch is a much earlier forerunner of Eric Idle's "Philosophy Song" and the "Greece versus Germany Football Match" which you have the link to on your profile.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eE7Fe1cGL...

Without BTF there would probably have never been any of the following shows:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/That_Was_Th...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At_Last_the...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I%27m_Sorry...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_Only......
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Pytho...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Goodies
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Burkiss...

Surely you've heard of the Rhubarb Tart of Omar Khayyam? :)

More later.

posted by Rule42 at 9:06 pm (EST) on Jun 11, 2009

that helps-- venus and the voters was one of my undecided ones. i confess to only having 'exits' and selected stories, but i was able to separate him from his doppelganger using wikipedia. but now im still unsure abt these which i suspect Are him not the poet:
-leaves in the wind
-wolf at dusk
-The sky of our lives: three novellas
are those by yr boy? no hurry...
tnx

posted by Crypto-Willobie at 4:47 pm (EST) on May 31, 2009

Hi poor-ious...
I was doing some author separation on the Gwyn Thomases. There are at least two-- the fiction writer [as played by Anthony Hopkins!] and the poet who writes in Welsh and who is also a scholar and translator of medieval Welsh lit. however, there are a few titles i'm not absolutely sure about and i see you have them. i suspect theyre the former-- can you take a look and fix em, or confirm for me and i will? tnx

posted by Crypto-Willobie at 9:12 am (EST) on May 31, 2009

You're too kind, Peter. But like too rich and too thin, that's not a problem. I attempted to do justice to A Few Selected Exits in my review, but may have been too brief. The urge is to quote Thomas abundantly, for his humor comes through best only after a build up of several paragraphs. And I'm not that good a typist. I'm still adjusting to the West Virginia climate which is like the tropics, after decades in Alaska. However, I'm not complaining, just swooning. Once I get the siesta thing figured out, I'll be fine.

posted by Ganeshaka at 10:16 am (EST) on May 27, 2009

I believe that Brit comedy actor's name is Allan Cuthbertson.

As promised, M&W with GJ ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFjgwr5Ef...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-J3h_lSXG...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TE0DIzwx7...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrYOslovi...

If you don't know who Rolf Harris is this next one will explain that last video as it contains the RH skit being paroded:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GS-itkO9i...

posted by Rule42 at 3:15 am (EST) on May 27, 2009

Thank you ! (Kinks video)

posted by Tid at 5:53 pm (EST) on May 26, 2009

"enthralled by D.R. sounds better, doesn't it?"

By, with or from ... whatever floats your boat, sunshine! :)

posted by Rule42 at 11:44 pm (EST) on May 25, 2009

Oh BTW, on the subject of old Reggie, before I went on vacation I had collated together a whole bunch of URLs to YouTube videos that either featured him (such as video segments of that most visually perfect of all movies, Barry Lyndon) or something related to him. I now have quite a burgeoning database of links to LR videos. I tried to find a video clip of him in "2001" to send to you but that is such a minor scene, relative to the rest of that Kubrick movie, that I don't think anybody has posted it up on the web yet.

Interestingly, I found many more segments from Barry Lyndon lovingly posted (from quite diverse sources) as short YouTube videos than I did scenes from "2001" - to the point that it might now be almost possible to watch the whole 3.5(?) hour long movie on your PC as a series of sequential 10 minute YouTube snippets! Unfortunately the main file containing all those video links is on my laptop PC (because I thought I would be sending some of them to you while on the road) while I do most of my LTMB text posting from my desktop PC. So, in order to make sure I send you the correct video snippets that I've already checked out (rather than spending inordinate amounts of time watching a number of variants of the same video material all over again in order to find the correct one I originally spent time selecting in the first place) I have to first email them over to myself on my desktop PC if I want to add some explanatory text to them - like what I'm doing here. :)

Anyways, now dipping into that LR URL DB, you might care to check out Reggie's nifty footwork in this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQsTcuqv3...

Some of my favorite exerts of his comedic work were done to shift vast quantities of pseudo-Italian booze:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PirMZGL-0...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGRow_phw...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ri5iDxfHa...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdxRabqHv...

How familiar are you with Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise? For most of my childhood and teenage years they were the top comedic act on British TV ... stuff such as "Monty Python", Fawlty Towers, and Douglas Adams' "Hitchhiker" radio and TV shows were all originally considered by the Beeb to be "fringe" or "alternative" comedic taste and were thus initially aired at off-peak viewing times (such as after 11 p.m. at night) on BBC2 - because the more mainstream The Morecambe and Wise Show (along with similar shows of the same ilk such as The Benny Hill Show) occupied prime viewing time slots on BBC1 or ITV. Morecambe and Wise represent quintessential British baby-boomer comedy at its very best.

I have never really understood why Benny Hill translated so well to the American market while M&W (a much superior pair of comedians IMO) never broke into the consciousness of the American public at all. It probably has a lot more to do with the financials of the TV business back in the 60s and 70s (e.g., we'll trade you "Monty Python" for M*A*S*H and Upstairs, Downstairs for Dallas) than to the actual tastes of the viewing public either side of the pond. PBS probably just got a good deal on "Benny Hill" while "The M&W Show" - as the BBC's top-rated prime time comedy show (M&W also transferred over to ITV at the top of their career) - would probably have carried a premium price/trade tag that no American network was willing to risk given its quintessential and quirky British humor. In similar vein, neither The Ed Sullivan Show nor The Johnny Carson Show were ever shown on British TV at that time.

The M&W comedy show was every bit as important to launching or enhancing the film and TV careers of thespians and entertainers such as Glenda Jackson, Vanessa Redgrave, Peter Cushing and even The Beatles as those two contemporaneous chat and variety shows were on this side of the pond. The American duo Penn & Teller, at their very best, remind me a little of some facets of M&W (but they are not in the same class IMO). OTOH, it may have been feared that Americans would have dismissed M&W as partially being a British derivative of their own beloved Abbott & Costello (which they were). Eric Morecambe (even when I was watching him as a teenager) has always reminded me of Phil Silvers. Plus I guess jokes such as, "What news of Carlisle?" "They won 3-1; the second goal was a real corker," would have completely flown over the heads of a typical 70s American audience.

Here are some more M&W exerts ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85mllo0oK...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpYbDKn3j...

I sent you 2 segments of the Fab Four because the shorter one is much better quality video, but the longer one shows the context from which it was taken. I wonder if any Americans back then would know who the Kay Sisters were. When Eric first walks on Ernie asks him if he knows who the three famous people standing next to him are (Ringo is still sitting on his elevated drum set). Eric replies, "Aha, it's the Kay Sisters!" The earlier LT clip gives you both the clue and the context.

The Kay Sisters were a British 3-person act highly derivative of The Andrews Sisters (in the same way that the M&W act is a modern British derivative of A&C's Vaudeville act) that only my parents' generation in Britain would probably now remember. When Eric goes over and says, "Hello Bongo," to Ringo, although that malapropism appears to be based on the fact that Ringo is a drummer and bongos are drums, IMO it really refers back to the fact that Danny Kaye sings "Bingo Bango Bongo" on the track Civilization which the Andrews Sisters had a late 40s U.S. hit with, thus reinforcing Eric's earlier Kay Sisters malopropism. I never would have understood that connection at the time though, although older people that had grown up with both the Kay and Andrews sister acts probably would have done. Here's the Andrews Sisters track and another couple of M&W skits that are both very derivative of the classic A&C Vaudeville skits "You are not here" (viz. the "Bank Manager" routine) and "Who's on First?" (viz. the "Mastermind" sketch, which uses a similar misunderstanding / manipulation of the words "pass" and "correct" as "Who" and "Watt" in the original A&C skit).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C60iYHFE2...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcDoi20le...

In the 70s the M&W show settled down into a formulaic format where each week they would have as a guest on the show a high profile celebrity who would perform a leading role in a play what Ernie had written especially for them. That whole bad grammar use of "what" joke was one of the many running Vaudeville gags that M&W always used, such as "get out of that" - which George Harrison steps forward and uses on Eric, who is normally the one that does it to Ernie - and "you can't see the join" - which is one of a whole plethora of running jokes taking the mickey out of Ernie's wig). I'll send you some classic Glenda Jackson and Peter Cushing snippets later, but for right now snippets of Diana Rigg will have to suffice as exhibits (simply because I still find her so friggin' sexy!) ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvykSqmhr...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNdgae5Ph...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTAzWhY9m...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lXeca_J3...

More later.

posted by Rule42 at 5:55 pm (EST) on May 25, 2009

Thanks for the links to the Burton / Tynan interview; that was very interesting. When it comes to the spoken word nothing can beat a Welshman. In fact, that probably applies to the sung word too - some amateur Welsh coal mining choirs are/were better than many professional choirs sponsored by rich arts endowment funds. Don't even get me going on the Goons and Harry Secombe. Actually that probably should now be Sir Neddie Seagoon, shouldn't it?

I never knew he was so touchy about being touched on stage ... my mind boggles at the thought at what went on the bedroom between him and Liz. It's a pity she destroyed all Burton's books so that the only legacy we now have left of the man are YouTube videos such as those. What? ... What? ... Why are you looking at me that way?

Now you've got me in the mood to go watch some YouTube videos of a reading of Under Milk Wood. Do you know of any?

posted by Rule42 at 1:44 pm (EST) on May 23, 2009

Cool reference shelf you have there.

posted by slickdpdx at 1:54 pm (EST) on May 22, 2009

Thanks Peter! Those clips of Richard Burton were terrific. It's difficult to say which Richard Burton was more impressive - the 19th century explorer or the 20th century actor? But I think if my wife insists on us having a dog in our new home, I will insist that he be named Richard Burton - hoping, therefore, that he will either bark magnificently, or run far far away.

Peace,
G

posted by Ganeshaka at 9:11 am (EST) on May 19, 2009

Aww thanks for that, but it needs a Yahoo! login and mine doesn't seem to be working.

posted by Tid at 6:58 pm (EST) on May 13, 2009

Thanks for the humor Peter. You must be psychic. One of the books on tape we listened to on the trip was Joyce's Portrait of An Artist (as read by Gabriel Byrne). We arrive tomorrow. Words cannot describe the joy/relief I feel at accomplishing this move. But maybe the picture of the sailor kissing the girl in Times Square at the end of WWII would come close.

-G

posted by Ganeshaka at 8:36 pm (EST) on May 9, 2009

Thanks for that! Muswell Hillbillies is not an album I know too well so that was a treat.

posted by Tid at 9:39 am (EST) on May 9, 2009

Don't apologise - lovely passage from Porius, I must read it. Thanks. GG

posted by Goldengrove at 5:07 am (EST) on May 7, 2009

Returning back to your earlier quote: "well we've taken this thing as far as we can, we'll just have to wait and see."

I believe the particular manifestation this cop-out takes near the very end of Michael Baigent's 2006 solo effort The Jesus Papers is as follows:

"It should be clear now that history is malleable; we have our facts, but we never have enough of them to be able to put our hands on our hearts and say, in all honesty, that we know for certain what happened."

I know exactly what happened, Mr. Baigent. You and your publishers just suckered me for another friggin' $30!

Well, you're windy and wild
You got the blues in your shoes and your stockings
You're windy and wild, oh yeah
Well, you're built like a car
You got a hubcap diamond star halo
You're dirty, sweet and you're my girl

Get it on, bang a gong, get it on
Get it on, bang a gong, get it on

Marc de Vere, 15th Earl of Bolan

posted by Rule42 at 2:09 pm (EST) on Apr 30, 2009

Tickle, tickle, I've been trying to place a mention of Vico since I read your page. Got it! Randolph Henry Ash in AS Byatt's Possession had a copy!
I love it when I finally winkle these things out - jusr wish my brain worked a bit better!
GG

posted by Goldengrove at 6:26 am (EST) on Apr 29, 2009

Thanks - I really must do some concentrated Robert Frost reading.
GG

posted by Goldengrove at 6:18 am (EST) on Apr 29, 2009

Unfortunately, despite my Rye sense of humor, no I haven't. Benson (and when I think of him I also think of Lovecraft) are 2 authors on my radar that I have still yet to sample. I'll prolly get to Lovecraft first because LoA have a volume of his works in print. Meanwhile, I guess I'll have to just keep plugging away at the Willa Cather inspired novel I'm currently writing called Lesbian Death Comes to the Archbishop. :)

posted by Rule42 at 2:23 am (EST) on Apr 22, 2009

Thank you for your comment, poor-ious - we are obviously fellow rock fans !

posted by Tid at 1:18 pm (EST) on Apr 18, 2009

Thank you! Sorry to wait 4 months to reply, I haven't logged on lately. Eavesdrop anytime!

posted by English99 at 10:23 pm (EST) on Apr 7, 2009

Hi Peter,

Thanks for calling my attention to Gwyn Thomas. Of course, while Googling about, I went off the rails in Wales http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usOg34kG-...

Thanks again,
G

posted by Ganeshaka at 10:01 pm (EST) on Apr 3, 2009

Thanks - not a pest at all.
BTW - there is a connection to my user name!!
Best wishes
GG
Dates are so irrelevant - my father was 23 when TH died - not sure how that makes any diff. to you, but it always helps me to put things in perspective when I think of his long life (1905-2008)and the huge changes he saw. He didn't care for Hardy - too gloomy.

posted by Goldengrove at 6:49 am (EST) on Mar 24, 2009

Lovely!
I'm sure you know this - but yours reminded me:

The Darkling Thrush

I leant upon a coppice gate
When frost was spectre-grey,
And winter's dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
Had sought their household fires

The land's sharp features seemed to be
The century's corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
The wind his death lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
Seemed fervourless as I.

At once a voice arose among
The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
Of joy illimited;
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt and small,
In blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
Upon the growing gloom.

So little call for carollings
Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
And I was unaware.

Thomas Hardy 1900

posted by Goldengrove at 5:01 am (EST) on Mar 17, 2009

Thank you for suggesting that I read Gormenghast. You have been a very fly Flay.

posted by Ganeshaka at 10:29 am (EST) on Mar 10, 2009

Poor-ious:
It took me a while to figure out who Brennan, Grant, and Powys are! My time-travelling is usually more the Isaac Asimov kind, but I'm very interested in historical fiction - which is what I meant about Vidal. Of course his hist fict seems more to be about today than the time period he sets the story in, doesn't it?

BTW, Brennan I probably won't read, Grant I may get to, but Powys really interests me - thanks!

S.

posted by scootm at 10:28 am (EST) on Feb 23, 2009

Poor-ious:
Thanks for you comment on my review of Vidal’s Washington, D.C. I’m definitely one of the people that appreciates Mr. Vidal’s activism against the Cheney-Bush junta. My comment on the book came after “time-traveling” with the author and enjoying every minute of it. As I said, he just seemed to get too preachy. I liked the next one, The Golden Age, even less.

Happy 2009 to you!

posted by scootm at 1:05 pm (EST) on Feb 21, 2009

Hi Peter.

I really liked old Algernon. In a very philadelphic sense. I used to dabble in a little osteo-art myself. Mostly psychedelic pseudo Devil "rat" skulls fashioned from turkey neck vertebrae, and a crown or two made from crab claws (It can be a win-win proposition. You get good soup and maybe a conversation piece.) Locally, there's a dealer like Mahir Suleyman to whom I sometimes consign a collectible, after much bargaining and BS. Finally, I did grow up across the street from a cemetery which I dug (but not up). Now that my wife is retiring, I probably won't need to test out a teapot for conversation during the afternoon. But I admire how well that worked for Algernon.

Thanks for the reading suggestion,
G

posted by Ganeshaka at 7:57 pm (EST) on Feb 12, 2009

I do apologise for the spelling in my last post - typing errors, I assure you!

posted by Goldengrove at 10:10 am (EST) on Feb 11, 2009

Thankyou for the apprecaition of my name! Do you mean Goldengrove or Penelope? I'm afraid I don't understand your reference to William Carlos Williams, although I'm sure I ought to. Goldengrove is from one of my favourite poems (but I haven't added the poetry yet...)
I do like the Vico ref. Have you by any chance read CS Lewis' [Studies in words]? He talks about the 'death of words' due to over - incorrect - use. The example that spring to min is esquire, which once meant a specific social rank but had degenerated into a form of politeness. Now, of course, 30 years or so further on from Lewis, it is barely in use at all because it no longer has any real meaning. Actually, that's not a good example, because social mores have changed, and the concept itself has become meaningless. The on that greives me at the moment is 'disintereted' which people will use when they mean 'uninterested' - a quite different idea! At least, they do in England, I don't know about the US. Anothe good book on the subject is Owen Barfield's [History in English words] All those who advocate so-called 'rational' spelling should be made to read both!
Glad to see you like Johm Donne - now there was a man who knew about words!

Best wishes,
G (or P)

posted by Goldengrove at 10:09 am (EST) on Feb 11, 2009

Poor-ious,
I confess to never having read John Updike. What do you recommend?
eronn

posted by eronn at 10:56 am (EST) on Feb 4, 2009

I'm a Bruin fan but only the hard-hearted wouldn't want to see the Leafs regain respectability.

And let us not forget: Baun scored his winning goal with a broken bone in his leg. Now THAT'S a man.

Have a great weekend, mon...

posted by CliffBurns at 7:16 pm (EST) on Jan 17, 2009

Another for my list. Thanks P!

Still waiting for Secret Life to arrive from "The Amazon". But I'm currently halfway through Greenan's It Happened in Boston, which happens to be excellent. Droll and wicked as if Dr. House retired and took up oils - or to get Joycean on you "Greenan slaps it on like housepaints!"

I'd like to return the favor, and suggest, if you've never read her, Barbara Comyns. Sisters By A River is a good place to begin (at the beginning). The offhand manner in which she, in the persona of a child, explains why it was not unusual to see one of the neighboring family's many, many children floating face down down river, after a spring flood, rivals the casual manner in which Greenan explains (I paraphrase here)"Whoops, I guess nux vomica was not an emetic after all...how misleading...so I guess that's why kitty spasmed, screamed, and died?"

posted by Ganeshaka at 11:12 am (EST) on Jan 16, 2009

I'm with Vico on the "corruption of language". Every time I pluck a bestseller off the rack and read a couple of paragraphs, I come to the conclusion that the barbarians aren't at the gates, they've broken through and are devouring our brains and what remains of our wits. Hang in there...

posted by CliffBurns at 11:26 pm (EST) on Jan 12, 2009

Thanks for the note. I've thought of it in those terms too, a nation of book lovers. As LT becomes more and more, it gets hard to describe what it is... :)

posted by timspalding at 1:51 pm (EST) on Jan 7, 2009

Thanks for the message, poor-ious.
Wodehouse has always been popular over here, I believe. The first translations appeared in the late twenties; several of the Jeeves books were dramatized for Norwegian radio in the seventies. I'll see if I can upload some covers in the near future.

posted by geitebukkeskjegg at 6:31 am (EST) on Jan 4, 2009

Thank you for the suggestion, Poor-ious. Russell Greenan seems like he might be just my cup of tea, blood, or arsenic - if the Wiki I just read was accurate. I shall proceed directly to Amazon.com and The Secret Life of Algernon Pendleton. Your timing was perfect. I find I have over-zealously boxed and sealed shut all my books - in preparation for a move in May to an island off the east coast of Ohio - and now I have but a tiny stack at hand to minister to my needs. The good news is, I am through being a renter, and can see the day when I will command a properly shelved library...and not a motley crew of bookcases.

May the year 2009 be a great year for you!

- Ganeshaka

posted by Ganeshaka at 1:42 pm (EST) on Dec 31, 2008

To poor-ious
From roisin600

Hello, thanks for the message! Your the first Robert Lynd reader I've heard from, I am such a fan and love his work, have you any more of his books?
I'm off now to look at your books, haven't had much time of late as have been away for Christmas, so Happy New Year and hope to hear from you soon
Roisin

posted by Roisin600 at 6:02 pm (EST) on Dec 26, 2008

poor-ious:

"Winston Churchill's evil twin" is actually Dr. Caligari [The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)]. It looks like your picture actually is of twins, though they don't look evil. The guy on the right looks familiar.
Best regards,
phomchick

posted by phomchick at 6:17 pm (EST) on Dec 23, 2008

Mr. Poorius,
Thanks for the tip on De Vere's Dragon Legacy. I will definitely check it out. It is one of those titles that I've been promising myself that I'd spend some time with, but just haven't taken the time to follow through....the Wilson recommendation is a little more problematic....I've always thought that he was a small amount of fact and a large amount of fiction....and intellectually not terribly honest. (Another of the definition of "is" is crowd!) If that is not your "take" on the matter, please let me know and I'll do some more checking. I appreciate you input.
Allan (SQB)

posted by Susieqbarker at 11:07 am (EST) on Dec 21, 2008

RE: Your new group: trollops for Trollope.

Thought you might also be interested in the group: Trollope lovers unite or fight, with 68 members, and lots of talk.

http://www.librarything.com/groups/troll...

posted by countrylife at 10:45 am (EST) on Dec 21, 2008

Mr. Poor-ius:

I am sorry that I had not gotten back to you sooner, but I was advised against it by would-be-handlers. A full-blown analysis of Yeats' semi-sacrilegious poem will not be forthcoming, but I will gladly address any specific questions you might have about it -even though there are many other topics in literature that are of greater interest such as, for instance...

De Vere and the Authorship Mystery (At least, I think that is what it is called): the new LibraryThing group started by our mutual friend, Biblioarchy. I joined just a few scant moments ago when I just happened to see it listed among New Groups. It is probably not my place to forward invites (particularly since I, myself, was not invited), but I am sure that your well-informed irreverence will be warmly welcomed there.

posted by LordNigelKnickKnack at 11:17 pm (EST) on Dec 17, 2008

ah, that explains it...

posted by Crypto-Willobie at 8:37 pm (EST) on Dec 16, 2008

Thank you for the recommendation. I'll check him out.

posted by pksteinberg at 9:38 am (EST) on Dec 16, 2008

I kissed the moral memory of language in my dreams this morning, but then she left me in the bed, horny and disconsolate.

posted by paradoxosalpha at 9:35 am (EST) on Dec 15, 2008

And so now I wonder "Out there, under the ice, do tulips lurk, or garlic?" And I reflect on that dim bulb of a cook who, in the time of the Tulip Mania, could not tell the difference, and sauteed his employer's fortune.

posted by Ganeshaka at 11:24 am (EST) on Dec 14, 2008

Yeah, that Knut Hamsun...I'm still forming an opinion of him. I'm hoping to read Growth of the Soil sometime soon.

Here's what I thought of

Hunger http://www.librarything.com/work/50889/r...
Pan http://www.librarything.com/work/113661/...
In Wonderland http://www.librarything.com/work/37904/r...

He has a certain crankiness that reminds me too much of myself for comfort. In turn, I become ambivalent in my feelings towards his writing. To hedge matters, I'm inclined to punish him for his sins so I can let myself go free. Call it frontier justice...I've lived in Alaska too long.

posted by Ganeshaka at 6:43 pm (EST) on Dec 13, 2008

And in return:

"As I Walked Out One Evening"

As I walked out one evening,
Walking down Bristol Street,
The crowds upon the pavement
Were fields of harvest wheat.

And down by the brimming river
I heard a lover sing
Under an arch of the railway:
'Love has no ending.

'I'll love you, dear, I'll love you
Till China and Africa meet,
And the river jumps over the mountain
And the salmon sing in the street,

'I'll love you till the ocean
Is folded and hung up to dry
And the seven stars go squawking
Like geese about the sky.

'The years shall run like rabbits,
For in my arms I hold
The Flower of the Ages,
And the first love of the world.'

But all the clocks in the city
Began to whirr and chime:
'O let not Time deceive you,
You cannot conquer Time.

'In the burrows of the Nightmare
Where Justice naked is,
Time watches from the shadow
And coughs when you would kiss.

'In headaches and in worry
Vaguely life leaks away,
And Time will have his fancy
To-morrow or to-day.

'Into many a green valley
Drifts the appalling snow;
Time breaks the threaded dances
And the diver's brilliant bow.

'O plunge your hands in water,
Plunge them in up to the wrist;
Stare, stare in the basin
And wonder what you've missed.

'The glacier knocks in the cupboard,
The desert sighs in the bed,
And the crack in the tea-cup opens
A lane to the land of the dead.

'Where the beggars raffle the banknotes
And the Giant is enchanting to Jack,
And the Lily-white Boy is a Roarer,
And Jill goes down on her back.

'O look, look in the mirror?
O look in your distress:
Life remains a blessing
Although you cannot bless.

'O stand, stand at the window
As the tears scald and start;
You shall love your crooked neighbour
With your crooked heart.'

It was late, late in the evening,
The lovers they were gone;
The clocks had ceased their chiming,
And the deep river ran on.

posted by iamwrappedupinbooks at 2:25 am (EST) on Dec 12, 2008

Thanks poor-ious,

I send you one in return:

The Master (with Epigoni)

Trying yet again to tackle
one of the current bunch
(invidious etc. to name names)

I found myself thinking
Why am I reading THIS
when I could be reading James?

OLIVER REYNOLDS

sourhash

posted by sourhash at 11:50 pm (EST) on Dec 10, 2008

Llyfrau o'r Gorffennol / Books from the Past.

http://tinyurl.com/57tpd8

posted by slickdpdx at 4:43 pm (EST) on Dec 7, 2008

Howdy Peter:

Re: Our Elusive Willy - I have been going to Monhegan Island, Maine, for two weeks in October for the last dozen years. It's a very small island about 10-12 miles out to sea, with rugged beauty and equally rugged inhabitants. At its small island library, there are at least two books by Ida Sedgwick Proper; one a small gem of a history about the island, itself, and the other is the Slick Willie one (oh, wait, that's Clinton) ... Elusive Willy. I fell in love with that book when I first opened it (I'm a sucker for off-the-tracks writing of any kind).

Ida was also an Impressionist artist of some renown (trained by William Merritt Chase, among others, in NYC). You can see some of her works here.

Her books, though, are very well researched ... it's just that she occasionally makes these wonderful leaps of speculation that keep you turning pages. A fun review of Willy is here; it really captures what makes the book so enduring.

About two years ago, I was in the Book Barn in Niantic, CT, when I almost fell over after seeing the book on one of their shelves for just a few dollars. Just this last summer, I subsequently found her Monhegan book, too. My only hunch is that there is a nearby art school/museum (the Lyman Allyn) that, over the last century or so, has had several resident painters with ties to Monhegan Island (MI is an artist's paradise) and these copies must have been brought to the SE CT area by one of them some time ago.

For the longest time, I seemed to have the only copy of Willy (but that might have been just that we each have used different versions of the title - I just combined our three copies). All is right with the World, now that there are actually (at least) three of us, now!

Thanks for finding my library interesting enough to add it to your list. I haven't had a look at your library yet, but I'm going to add yours just on the basis of your having this one book!

Douglas

"In the end, only kindness matters."

posted by doogiewray at 1:41 pm (EST) on Nov 29, 2008

Mr. Poor-ious:

Thank you for the signal honor bestowed by your "interest" in my library. I am reciprocating in kind. Please forgive my not responding sooner. I've a bit much on my plate of late. I only had an opportunity to see your library just a few minutes ago and I was hastened to address your subsequent query by the sure knowledge that I was dealing with a man of means with no mean intellect...as opposed to some bookless, brainless adolescent who'd be trying to coax someone into doing his homework for him.

First off, I am a bit curious how you came by this particular poem and why you might think that I would have some distinctive take on it. It is not among Yeats' most popular works and is never anthologized as far as I know. Perhaps your interest was aroused by Bono's recently recorded recitation. Maybe you somehow guessed that I myself am to some degree Irish or Catholic or of a certain age so that I might discourse with some authority on this. I know that I haven't told anyone that I have a double-major in English and Art History. You can explain yourself after I by my best lights have explained the poem. I don't consider it an especially mysterious piece. It could very well turn out that your own take on it is more interesting than my own.

It is now rather late and tomorrow, really later today, I expect to have an even fuller plate as I celebrate Thanksgiving like the good and righteous American that I aspire to be. You should expect my explication late Thursday night or, at worst, Friday night.

posted by LordNigelKnickKnack at 1:46 am (EST) on Nov 27, 2008

Not a comment re your library but rather about your favourite musicians !
I saw Stephen Stills in Vicar St last month , awesome, older but better ...almost!
John

posted by N11284 at 10:25 am (EST) on Nov 21, 2008

Yes Ponsonby is rather butler-ish, now I think of it. It was not intended to be; I took it from Queen Victoria's private secretary Henry Ponsonby. I suppose it seemed to have a certain gravitas. The books we share are nearly all Trollope. I think there is a Trollope for every mood, and he is a great comfort at times of disturbance. T

posted by ponsonby at 3:34 pm (EST) on Nov 20, 2008

I do, poor-ious, but only on the rarest of occasions.

posted by iamwrappedupinbooks at 6:27 pm (EST) on Nov 19, 2008

Hi Peter:

I see you suffer from one of the same advantages as myself, you are a really good speller. It is my top attribute. I am a brilliant speller too. Like you though, I do not spell the same way others do……..

posted by Novak at 9:51 am (EST) on Nov 18, 2008

Thanks for joining up with San Diego Bibliophiles!

I do hope you enjoy the group and post aplenty.

Daniel

posted by bardsfingertips at 4:33 am (EST) on Nov 10, 2008

No offence taken

posted by bercilak at 4:04 am (EST) on Nov 9, 2008

Hi Poor-ious. I enjoyed your observations on criticism. I've always looked at "reviewing" as an opportunity to jump in lyrically, like in jazz, with an author and riff accordingly, sometimes in harmony, some times dissonantly, and sometimes just off on a whimsical tangent. It's more about the feeling, than the notes.

Thinking of a review as music automatically finds a correct balance between the humility needed to "hear" a work, and the ego needed to create a response to it. Of course, the best authors humble and inspire. And the amazing thing about the creative act - even if the act is only the writing of a review - is how (a nod to John Lennon) it truly, seems to come from somewhere "within" and yet "without you". Like a dream. And, Dickens, man, that cat had some very huge dreams.

posted by Ganeshaka at 1:24 pm (EST) on Oct 24, 2008

Thanks for adding my library to your interesting libraries list. I find it "interesting" that the first book on the list of those we share is one of my personal favorites, All Passion Spent, a life-affirming story of a woman who upsets her families expectations.

Jim

posted by jwhenderson at 10:09 pm (EST) on Oct 20, 2008

i'm new at this so i don't really know what this means? maybe we're both a little tetched in the head?

Maybe.

But it's one of the advertised attractions of LibraryThing: on the front page, it notes that you can find people with "scarily similar libraries" (or words to that effect). And it works.

I have a lot of books, so my library tend to show up as a good match for lots of people's libraries.

- Bob

posted by AsYouKnow_Bob at 11:57 pm (EST) on Oct 18, 2008

Hello pgt - feel free to bombard me: nobody cares about Welsh writing where I teach so I've wisdom to spare…
OK, 20 great Welsh writers:
Kate Roberts, not much available in translation but she wrote about the bone-hard lives of Welsh-speaking Protestant North Welsh women - mostly. Not a spare word anywhere, but some very dry humour.
Gwyn Thomas - quite the opposite. Hated Welsh-speakers because they (including his parents and 6 of his 10 siblings) denied it to his generation. Satirical, overblown, talkative, bitter, funny.
Lewis Jones: Communist councillor, lover, jailed for sedition, wrote two novels, died of a heart attack after addressing 6 street meetings in aid of Spain in one morning.
Emyr Humphreys - huge range of subjects, specially good on characterisation and aging.
R S Thomas - nobel nominee, stunning poet. An Anglican priest who agonised over the loss of faith and the Welsh language - but also much funnier than that sounds. Spectacularly rude - as I discovered personally.
Christopher Meredith - currently around. Great on experimental structures, and how to reconstruct male dentity after the failure of mass heavy industry.
Caradoc Evans - bitter sniping at Welsh culture from the sidelines - good stuff.
Malcolm Pryce - hilarous comedy noir thrillers set in an alternative Wales which had its own Vietnam (Patagonia) and a Mafia known - inevitably - as the Taffia.
Catherine (? can't see the book right now) Merriman - beautiful, slightly disturbing short stories. Honno is a really good press for Welsh women's writing.
Owen Sheers - good poetry, pretty good debut novel (Resistance).
Rhys Davies - good South Wales interwar sagas with a vein of suppressed homosexuality, which nobody talked about until recently.
Wiliam Owen Roberts - really bright spark of current Welsh-language writing. Some available in translation
Menna Gallie - wonderful short stories.
Raymond Williams. Not just one of the best theorists and political thinkers of the twentieth century, but a totally under-rated novelist - just coming back into the light.
Dorothy Edwards. Wrote one novel and a set of short stories before killing herself in the early 1930s. Very slight, deceptively action-less modernist tales.
Saunders Lewis - far too rightwing for my tastes but a brilliantly talented historical author and thinker who founded the Welsh Nationalist Party, Plaid Cymru. He'd have hated its turn to spirit of 1968 leftwing nationalism!
Sarah Waters - doesn't do much that's Wales-connected, but writes hugely successful lesbian historical fiction and gets adapted for TV surprisingly tastefully.
Cheating slightly because he writes for TV: Russell T Davies, the man who resurrected Dr Who.
Dafydd ap Gwilym - amazingly beautiful love poetry. Don't know if there's anything in translation at the moment.
Niall Griffiths - currently dirty realist interested in the border regions and links between Wales and Liverpool (which is part Welsh, part-Irish and wholly separate from the rest of England).
Dylan Thomas, obviously.
The Cowper-Powys brothers. John wrote sprawling semi-mystical novels, T F wrote quietly religious shorter novels.
Alun Lewis - good short stories, really becoming quite good but died young in 1944.
Hope that's enough to be getting on with!
A

posted by aidanbyrne at 11:44 am (EST) on Oct 18, 2008

Oh, hi - thanks for the "Interesting Libraries" linkage. (I'm another Vidal enthusiast....)

- Bob

posted by AsYouKnow_Bob at 7:20 pm (EST) on Oct 16, 2008

yes, it took me a moment but i connected yr LT eke-name with a comment on powys on yr page. cobbled? depends on what you mean... he had co-writers in at least 10 plays, and was quite reliant on other works for material [north's plutarch, holinshed, old plays, etc]. and i'd have to say that ogburn was indeed a slouch; depends on how one defines 'evidence' i suppose. see the website put up by a fellow LTer (dkathman): www.shakespeareauthorship.com...

posted by Crypto-Willobie at 1:28 pm (EST) on Oct 16, 2008

if its the book im thinking of then i read it about 40 years ago but dont have it. i looked at yr WS books and its odd we have one only one in common [for the moment- i havent got over to those shelves yet], but yr scaring me with that ogburn and greenwood stuff. on the other hand i have a book by ogburn and one by greenwood and im respectable [!]
i have a few books by jcp but confess i have not [yet] gotten round to actually reading them...

posted by Crypto-Willobie at 4:37 am (EST) on Oct 16, 2008

Hello, and thanks for the "interesting libraries" nod. I hope you'll drop by for a chat sometime.

posted by Makifat at 2:22 am (EST) on Oct 16, 2008

Hello and thanks for your comment. It depends on which of the Krisdottir books you're referring to. 'John Cowper Powys & the Magical Quest,' I've always considered an acute commentary on JCP's 'mythology' in both his novels and philosophy. With regard to 'Descents of Memory,' I'm afraid that I haven't got round to reading it yet, although as I recall reading in reviews that it painted Powys as a rather difficult individual, I might have an idea what you're referring to. If that's the case, Krisdottir's assessment certainly wouldn't surprise me. For instance, I've always regarded 'Wolf Solent' as a psychologically autobiographical piece and Wolf is an utter bastard at points in that novel. Generally, I have to say that I find Powys a thoroughly infuriating writer, capable of achieving heights of the sublime and depths of banality, sometimes within the same sentence. I admire him enormously, but he's certainly a flawed genius. However, as those flaws are the inevitable product of such a brave and determined vision, they're integral to his triumphs.

posted by imbolcfire at 4:42 pm (EST) on Oct 14, 2008

I read Ulysses when I was 16 to look intelligent in my high school classes and did not understand anything until I looked it up (via Internets) later and I hardly remember anything now just gotta respect the influence until I read it again and and and and and the end.

Personal opinions.

posted by RSHabroptilus at 3:24 am (EST) on Oct 13, 2008

Hi Peter, thanks for your note on my page. I really rate GT, though the later books get a little too sentimental. The Dark Philosophers has recently been republished, so perhaps there's a revival in the wind.
Aidan

posted by aidanbyrne at 9:01 am (EST) on Oct 10, 2008