richardderus's eleventh 2020 thread

first edition jacket, published 11 July 1960

To Kill A Mockingbird is justly famous and widely celebrated...if little studied (curiously enough) by Academia...for its searing scream of outrage at injustice perpetrated against the powerless by their oppressors. Schools all over the Anglophone world receive regular challenges to its inclusion in high-school curricula on grounds of racism, sexism, classism, vulgarity, profanity. They're all correct. And they need to STFU about it. High-school students are of an age and (if memory serves) temperament to need to confront hate, vulgarity, and sexual activity's darker consequences; no better way than through art. Parents are damn sure not gonna do the job, they never have that I can tell. Well, except the religious nuts whose "NO!!!" about sex, and "of course *they* are, well, Not Like Us" about race and hate is so absurdly unhelpful and counterproductive as to be risible. If the consequences weren't so dire.

Harper Lee was a private person in a world of nosy invasive entitled snoops. The mammoth success of To Kill A Mockingbird stunned her into silence for the rest of her life. The semi-posthumous publication of the decidedly inferior earlier novel Go Set A Watchman was proof she was correct to remain silent. Her wad was shot with this one crystalline, sharp, brilliant book. It should remain her epitaph.

In 2020, I wanted to post 10 book reviews a month on my blog. I already read a book every other day, as this year's total of 155 (a lot of individual stories don't have entries in the LT database so I didn't post them here; guess I should do more to sync the data this year) reads shows; so it was doable, and I've done better than that in the past. Regrettably, there's no way I'll even approach that goal now.

I've Pearl Ruled books I'm not enjoying, but making notes on Goodreads & LibraryThing about why I'm abandoning the read has been less successful. I give up. I just don't care about this goal, so out it goes.







My Last Thread of 2018 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.

My Last Thread of 2019 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.

Reviews 1 through 3 are thataway.

Reviews 4 through 8 reside thitherward.

Reviews 9 through 11 are back here.

Reviews 12 through 20 existen allá.

Reviews 21 through 24? Go here!.

Review 25 in all its lonely splendor is back yonder.

Reviews 26 through 40 are doin' it for themselves.

Reviews 41-46, plus a Pearl Rule can be seen elsewhere.

Reviews 47 through 68 are back there.

Reviews 69 through 76 present themselves for inspection behind.

THIS THREAD'S REVIEW LINKS

77 The Mercy Seat was stunning, post 20.

78 Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee was a decent read, but disappointed me, post 49.

79 The Old Guard is another comic book-turned-big-film, post 83.

80 Many a Little Makes explores the pains of growing away, post 87.

81 I Stand Here Ironing glitters harshly, demanding your full awareness, post 100.

82 All the Last Wars at Once won a Hugo in 1972, post 119.

83 Vaster than Empires, and More Slow is gorgeous, post 121.

84 Benjamin 2073 made its points well, post 129.

85 Colony is a surprisingly deep dive into colonialism, post 141.

86 The Fourth Profession set my squick-ticker off many times, post 163.

87 The Ghost Bride was a good but not great read, post 170.

88 Blacktop Wasteland might be my six-stars-of-five read of 2020, post 255.

89 The Paris Hours made my sentimental self very happy, post 255.

90 The Lending Library kept my eyes busy, post 255.

91 The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas still has the power to overwhelm me, post 265.

92 #TIL: Today I Learned: Hilarious, Entertaining, and Educational Trivia isn't particulalry nutritious brain food, post 280.

93 Defending Jacob gets a re-review because the adaptation just came out, post 297.

94 The Advocate is one I agented back in the Dark Ages of the 90s, post 302.

2019 was a *stellar* reading year! For the first time ever, I had two six-stars-of-five reads: Black Light: Stories, a debut story collection that gave me so much pleasure I read it twice (ever rarer occurrence that), and the wrenching, gutting agony of Heart Berries, a memoir of such honesty and such vulnerability that I was a wreck after I finished it. I went back and forth a dozen times, first Author Parsons was the sixer, then Author Mailhot; neither book could possibly "win" for long because I couldn't get either book out of my mind.

I handed out 34 5- or damn-near-5-star reviews out of 155 reviewed books; that's 22% and that is a LOT. Many, even most of these (10+) were for short stories, for end-of-beloved-series novels, or for story collections. But hold on to something heavy: TWO, yes that's t-w-o dos due deux zwei два were...POETRY COLLECTIONS. Sarah Tolmie's The Art of Dying and the late Frank Stanford's collected poems, What About This: Collected Poems of Frank Stanford. Both were peak reading experiences. Another was cultural monadnock George Takei's graphic memoir They Called Us Enemy, which could not be more important for young people today to absorb.

What a beautiful year it was, to bring so many delights to my door. I hope, greedy thing that I am, that 2020 will repeat this performance. For all of us, really...honest! I didn't just add that on the end of this summing-up to make it sound less solipsistic.

In 2020, I wanted to post 10 book reviews a month on my blog. As of 15 June, I haven't posted nearly enough to make the year-long goal! There are a few mitigating factors (a mild COVID-19 infection is one), but I don't think the deficit's recoverable. Even so, I still read a story every other day, as 2019's total of 155 (a lot of individual stories don't have entries in the LT database so I didn't post them here; guess I should do more to sync the data this year) reads shows; so it's doable, and I've done better than that in the past.

I have not done better at Pearl Ruling books I'm not enjoying with notes on Goodreads & LibraryThing about why I'm abandoning the read. I think I'm going to bag this one, as I am not interested in performing the task. I don't like a book, I close it and discard it. Enough.

...and that's me done. My reports will continue to be quarterly, the day after the end of the quarter.
2Q20. Forty-five books read this quarter; I started and finished with five-star reads, lucky me! Sharks in the Time of Saviors was a beautifully made Hawai'ian family Bildungsroman. (Can one have a group Bildungsroman? it's not a family saga but a map of the coming-to-consciousness of a family...well, debate as you will, Imma call it that.) A great way to start the new quarter, with a new author's first book that belted the ball out of the park.

The end-of-quarter delight is You Exist Too Much, the fumbling attempts of a queer Palestinian woman to fix the damage done by a borderline-personality-disordered mother and an ineffectual, uninterested father. Like I could relate much? So much of the story felt like me wandering destructively through my 20s and 30s that the next events felt foreseen, if not predictable.

This quarter also brought my dote, Murderbot, in its first-ever full novel appearance. Oh Murderbot *swoon* you're so dreamy

Anyway, Murderbot did not disappoint (as if!) and Author Martha Wells maintains her standing as my go-to AI-story spinner of webs.

Author Kai Ashante Wilson wrote The Devil in America six years ago, but I just got around to reading it. I loved the bitter tang of the story's search for escape from a curse. It's inevitable that the search ended in defeat because curse. I find the curse-breaking triumphalist fiction so very prevalent today savorless and silly and really quite dangerous. But anyway, Author Wilson (A Taste of Honey, The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps) earns my approbation by placing Black queerness at the heart of his fiction. His is a point of view we need to see more of to break free from the curse (!) of Othering in ficiton.

And a different five stars entirely for the coda of a series set in 19th-century London and Scotland, The Bequest: David and Murdo's Epilogue. It's a short piece that ties a neat little bow on the fanny (US sense) of three historical novels featuring lawyer David and aristocrat Murdo as they negotiate the pitfalls of queer love in their world. It's not a recommended-read-now five because it will make no sense whatever if one hasn't read the previous three books. Squeamish straight people should not attempt to summit this mountain, there is significant steamy sex and y'all pretty much lose y'all's shit when gay sex is presented at anything like the frequency or graphicness of straight sex.

Plenty of four-and-a-half star reads and four-star reads.

And the heinous ones. Oh my. The Fear Hunter was severely mistitled. Elise Sax wrote a forgettable and pretty pointless rom-com with a few gestures towards mystery. AWFUL. Penny Serenade barely lifted its dreary stringy mop of dirt-colored hair off that book's place on the basement floor because a film was made of it that was at least pretty to look at. The story was not good reading. I suspect I wasn't in the mood for The Code Book so I won't excoriate it for having AN ENTIRE PAGE OF NUMERALS in a comma-separated-value list. I was recovering from my mild dose of COVID-19 so I'll assume it was me being fussy not the author being a complete putz.

And that, my olds, is a very good quarter's reading.
1Q20. Twenty-six reads done, three posted on my blog, or 10% of the goal I set myself. Bad performance. Really bad.

I re-read the four Murderbot novellas by Martha Wells, and loved them just as much as when I first read them. Because Network Effect is coming in May, YAY!!, it felt like time at last to put down some thoughts about them on my poor, neglected blog. Murderbot is a delightfully antisocial being and I am honestly more impressed by Author Wells's beautiful and deft worldbuilding than I am by the lit'ry stylings of many a crowed-over Next Big Thing.

But this quarter's surprise and joy is reserved for a Smashwords COVID-19 sale find, a freebie I completely accidentally stumbled upon: A Justified State by Iain Kelly, a Scottish television editor about whom I had not heard a peep and from whom I expected not a lot.

He overdelivered on my expectations. This could be a six-stars-of-five read; I have a long way to go, so no decisions yet, but this medium-term futuristic dystopian thriller set in a nightmarish Soylent Green-ish Glasgow is $2.99 and cheap at twice the price. Do your distracted self a favor and get sucked in to Author Kelly's hellish world...ours seems paradisical!

I really hadn't considered doing this until recently...tracking my Pulitzer Prize in Fiction winners read, and Booker Prize winners read might actually prove useful to me in planning my reading.

1918 HIS FAMILY - Ernest Poole **
1919 THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS - Booth Tarkington *
1921 THE AGE OF INNOCENCE - Edith Wharton *
1922 ALICE ADAMS - Booth Tarkington **
1923 ONE OF OURS - Willa Cather **
1924 THE ABLE MCLAUGHLINS - Margaret Wilson
1925 SO BIG - Edna Ferber *
1926 ARROWSMITH - Sinclair Lewis (Declined) *
1927 EARLY AUTUMN - Louis Bromfield
1928 THE BRIDGE OF SAN LUIS REY - Thornton Wilder *
1929 SCARLET SISTER MARY - Julia Peterkin
1930 LAUGHING BOY - Oliver Lafarge
1931 YEARS OF GRACE - Margaret Ayer Barnes
1932 THE GOOD EARTH - Pearl Buck *
1933 THE STORE - Thomas Sigismund Stribling
1934 LAMB IN HIS BOSOM - Caroline Miller
1935 NOW IN NOVEMBER - Josephine Winslow Johnson
1936 HONEY IN THE HORN - Harold L Davis
1937 GONE WITH THE WIND - Margaret Mitchell *
1938 THE LATE GEORGE APLEY - John Phillips Marquand
1939 THE YEARLING - Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings *
1940 THE GRAPES OF WRATH - John Steinbeck *
1942 IN THIS OUR LIFE - Ellen Glasgow *
1943 DRAGON'S TEETH - Upton Sinclair
1944 JOURNEY IN THE DARK - Martin Flavin
1945 A BELL FOR ADANO - John Hersey *
1947 ALL THE KING'S MEN - Robert Penn Warren *
1948 TALES OF THE SOUTH PACIFIC - James Michener
1949 GUARD OF HONOR - James Gould Cozzens
1950 THE WAY WEST - A.B. Guthrie
1951 THE TOWN - Conrad Richter
1952 THE CAINE MUTINY - Herman Wouk
1953 THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA - Ernest Hemingway *
1955 A FABLE - William Faulkner *
1956 ANDERSONVILLE - McKinlay Kantor *
1958 A DEATH IN THE FAMILY - James Agee *
1959 THE TRAVELS OF JAIMIE McPHEETERS - Robert Lewis Taylor
1960 ADVISE AND CONSENT - Allen Drury *
1961 TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD - Harper Lee *
1962 THE EDGE OF SADNESS - Edwin O'Connor
1963 THE REIVERS - William Faulkner *
1965 THE KEEPERS OF THE HOUSE - Shirley Ann Grau
1966 THE COLLECTED STORIES OF KATHERINE ANNE PORTER - Katherine Anne Porter
1967 THE FIXER - Bernard Malamud
1968 THE CONFESSIONS OF NAT TURNER - William Styron *
1969 HOUSE MADE OF DAWN - N Scott Momaday
1970 THE COLLECTED STORIES OF JEAN STAFFORD - Jean Stafford
1972 ANGLE OF REPOSE - Wallace Stegner *
1973 THE OPTIMIST'S DAUGHTER - Eudora Welty *
1975 THE KILLER ANGELS - Jeff Shaara *
1976 HUMBOLDT'S GIFT - Saul Bellow *
1978 ELBOW ROOM - James Alan McPherson
1979 THE STORIES OF JOHN CHEEVER - John Cheever *
1980 THE EXECUTIONER'S SONG - Norman Mailer *
1981 A CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES - John Kennedy Toole *
1982 RABBIT IS RICH - John Updike *
1983 THE COLOR PURPLE - Alice Walker *
1984 IRONWEED - William Kennedy *
1985 FOREIGN AFFAIRS - Alison Lurie
1986 LONESOME DOVE - Larry McMurtry *
1987 A SUMMONS TO MEMPHIS - Peter Taylor
1988 BELOVED - Toni Morrison *
1989 BREATHING LESSONS - Anne Tyler
1990 THE MAMBO KINGS PLAY SONGS OF LOVE - Oscar Hijuelos *
1991 RABBIT AT REST - John Updike *
1992 A THOUSAND ACRES - Jane Smiley *
1993 A GOOD SCENT FROM A STRANGE MOUNTAIN - Robert Olen Butler *
1994 THE SHIPPING NEWS - E Annie Proulx *
1995 THE STONE DIARIES - Carol Shields
1996 INDEPENDENCE DAY - Richard Ford
1997 MARTIN DRESSLER - Steven Millhauser
1998 AMERICAN PASTORAL - Philip Roth
1999 THE HOURS - Michael Cunningham
2000 INTERPRETER OF MALADIES - Jumpha Lahiri
2001 THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF KAVALIER & CLAY - Michael Chabon
2002 EMPIRE FALLS - Richard Russo
2003 MIDDLESEX - Jeffrey Eugenides *
2004 THE KNOWN WORLD - Edward P. Jones
2005 GILEAD - Marilynne Robinson
2006 MARCH - Geraldine Brooks
2007 THE ROAD - Cormac McCarthy
2008 THE BRIEF WONDROUS LIFE OF OSCAR WAO - Junot Diaz *
2009 OLIVE KITTERIDGE - Elizabeth Strout
2010 TINKERS - Paul Harding
2011 A VISIT FROM THE GOOD SQUAD - Jennifer Egan
2013 ORPHAN MASTER'S SON - Adam Johnson
2014 THE GOLDFINCH - Donna Tartt
2015 ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE - Anthony Doerr **
2016 THE SYMPATHIZER - Viet Thanh Nguyen **
2017 THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD - Colson Whitehead **
2018 LESS - Andrew Sean Greer *
2019 THE OVERSTORY - Richard Powers *

Links are to my reviews
* Read, but not reviewed
** Owned, but not read

Every winner of the Booker Prize since its inception in 1969

1969: P. H. Newby, Something to Answer For
1970: Bernice Rubens, The Elected Member
1970: J. G. Farrell, Troubles ** (awarded in 2010 as the Lost Man Booker Prize) -
1971: V. S. Naipaul, In a Free State
1972: John Berger, G.
1973: J. G. Farrell, The Siege of Krishnapur
1974: Nadine Gordimer, The Conservationist ... and Stanley Middleton, Holiday
1975: Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Heat and Dust
1976: David Storey, Saville
1977: Paul Scott, Staying On
1978: Iris Murdoch, The Sea, The Sea *
1979: Penelope Fitzgerald, Offshore
1980: William Golding, Rites of Passage
1981: Salman Rushdie, Midnight's Children *
1982: Thomas Keneally, Schindler's Ark
1983: J. M. Coetzee, Life & Times of Michael K
1984: Anita Brookner, Hotel du Lac *
1985: Keri Hulme, The Bone People **
1986: Kingsley Amis, The Old Devils
1987: Penelope Lively, Moon Tiger *
1988: Peter Carey, Oscar and Lucinda *
1989: Kazuo Ishiguro, The Remains of the Day *
1990: A. S. Byatt, Possession: A Romance *
1991: Ben Okri, The Famished Road
1992: Michael Ondaatje, The English Patient * ... and Barry Unsworth, Sacred Hunger
1993: Roddy Doyle, Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha
1994: James Kelman, How late it was, how late
1995: Pat Barker, The Ghost Road *
1996: Graham Swift, Last Orders
1997: Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things
1998: Ian McEwan, Amsterdam
1999: J. M. Coetzee, Disgrace
2000: Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin *
2001: Peter Carey, True History of the Kelly Gang *
2002: Yann Martel, Life of Pi
2003: DBC Pierre, Vernon God Little **
2004: Alan Hollinghurst, The Line of Beauty *
2005: John Banville, The Sea
2006: Kiran Desai, The Inheritance of Loss
2007: Anne Enright, The Gathering
2008: Aravind Adiga, The White Tiger
2009: Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall
2010: Howard Jacobson, The Finkler Question *
2011: Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending **
2012: Hilary Mantel, Bring Up the Bodies
2013: Eleanor Catton, The Luminaries
2014: Richard Flanagan, The Narrow Road to the Deep North
2015: Marlon James, A Brief History of Seven Killings *
2016: Paul Beatty, The Sellout
2017: George Saunders, Lincoln in the Bardo *
2018: Anna Burns, Milkman
2019: Margaret Atwood, The Testaments, and Bernardine Evaristo, Girl, Woman, Other

Links are to my reviews
* Read, but not reviewed
** Owned, but not read

Shamelessly stolen from Gail, who snagged it from Kimmers.
This is a sort of game/challenge from Pop Sugar. They claim the average reader will have read only 6 of these.
I’m about done with this iteration where they don't explain why the complete works of Shakespeare doesn't include Hamlet? And why please is the Chronicles of Narnia not inclusive of The Lion? So. I fixed it. There's no Shakespeare or Conan Doyle because I'm not typin' all those titles. Series books are done by title for the whole series. I took out "The Bible - The Torah" because they aren't the same thing, and what about the Koran, and what if some weirdo's read all three? Feel free to use theirs, or my improved one, as suits you.
My total is 110/120, plus two half-thumbs.
NEW AND REVISED

1. The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
👍

2. The Restaurant at the End of the Universe - Douglas Adams
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3. Life, the Universe and Everything - Douglas Adams
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4. So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish - Douglas Adams
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5. Mostly Harmless - Douglas Adams
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6. Watership Down - Richard Adams
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7. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom


8. Little Women - Louisa May Alcott
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9. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
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10. Emma - Jane Austen
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11. Persuasion - Jane Austen
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12. Pride and Prejudice- Jane Austen
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13. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
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14. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
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15. The Enchanted Wood - Enid Blyton


16. The Magic Faraway Tree - Enid Blyton
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17. The Folk of the Faraway Tree - Enid Blyton


18. Up the Faraway Tree - Enid Blyton


19. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
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20. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
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21. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
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22. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
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23. Possession - A.S. Byatt
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24. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
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25. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
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26. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
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27. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
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28. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
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29. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
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30. The Paradiso - Dante
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31. The Purgatorio - Dante
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32. The Inferno - Dante
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33. Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
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34. Bleak House - Charles Dickens
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35. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
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36. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
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37. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
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38. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens


39. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
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40. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
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41. The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
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42. The Three Musketeers - Aleandre Dumas
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43. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
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44. Middlemarch - George Eliot
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45. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulkner
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46. Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
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47. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
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48. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
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49. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel García Márquez
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50. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel García Márquez
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51. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
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52. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
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53. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
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54. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
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55. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime - Mark Haddon
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56. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy


57. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
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58. Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
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59. Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
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60. Dune - Frank Herbert
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61. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
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62. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
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63. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
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64. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
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65. Ulysses - James Joyce
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66. On The Road - Jack Kerouac
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67. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
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68. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - C.S. Lewis
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69. Prince Caspian - C.S. Lewis
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70. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader - C.S. Lewis
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71. The Silver Chair - C.S. Lewis
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72. The Horse and His Boy - C.S. Lewis
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73. The Magician's Nephew - C.S. Lewis
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74. The Last Battle - C.S. Lewis
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75. Atonement - Ian McEwan
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76. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
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77. Moby-Dick - Herman Melville
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78. Winnie the Pooh - A.A. Milne
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79. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
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80. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
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81. Anne of Green Gables - Lucy Maud Montgomery
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82. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
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83. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
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84. The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
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85. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
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86. Animal Farm - George Orwell
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87. The Golden Compass (His Dark Materials #1) - Philip Pullman
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88. The Subtle Knife (His Dark Materials #2) - Philip Pullman
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89. The Amber Spyglass (His Dark Materials #3) - Philip Pullman
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90. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome


91. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's/Philosopher's Stone - J.K. Rowling
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92. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets - J.K. Rowling
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93. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - J.K. Rowling
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94. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire - J.K. Rowling
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95. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - J.K. Rowling
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96. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - J.K. Rowling
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97. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - J.K. Rowling
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98. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafón
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99. Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
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100. The Little Prince - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
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101. Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
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102. Gaudy Night - Dorothy Sayers
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103. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
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104. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
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105. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute


106. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
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107. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
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108. Dracula - Bram Stoker
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109. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
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110. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
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111. The Hobbit - J.R.R. Tolkien
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112. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring - J.R.R. Tolkien
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113. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers - J.R.R. Tolkien
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114. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King - J.R.R. Tolkien
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115. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
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116. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
1/2👍

117. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
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118. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
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119. Charlotte's Web - E.B. White
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120. Germinal - Emile Zola
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Very well. You may speak.

Oh my. First?

Happy new thread, and I’m glad you got some sleep.

Happy new thread, Richard! Sorry to hear Rob had a particularly hard time recently - though I haven't dealt with a parent's death yet, from what I've seen of grief I know it can hit hard in unexpected ways at unexpected times.

Friday morning *smooch* and hope you have a lovely weekend.

Happy new thread, RD! I have my MiL’s book-club edition with that cover. It may even be a first edition. I didn’t read the book until I was 63 and gave it one of my very few 5*s. I tried watching the movie and absolutely couldn’t get through more than a fourth of it before bailing.

I hope you are able to have a luscious cup of coffee this morning.

*smooch*

>7 Matke: You are indeed first in, Gail!

I got *lots* of sleep, thanks, and it was lovely but expensive. A day lost to snoring is lost nonetheless. Oh well, it's not like I have pressing matters to attend to.

*smooch* happy to see you here!

Happy new one, Richard. I read TKAM back in high school, but reread it a year or 2 ago. I own the *sequel* but haven't read it yet.

>8 bell7: Hi Mary, thanks for the well-wishes. The grieving of a parent is complicated at the best of times and hellish at the worst, so it's just a bundle of joy all the way around.

>9 karenmarie: I'm almost done with the pot, Horrible, and I confess that after savoring a sip it's been "down the hole" for the rest. I don't want to waste another day in snoring practice when I'm already master of the art.

>11 jessibud2: Don't sprain anything getting it down from the shelf, Shelley, it's just not worth it at all. In fact it might be best if you left it as shelf decor. Reading it will have a deburnishing effect on your experience of its sibling.

Happy new one, RD!

Muggy and gross with lots of rain expected. Good reasons to stay in, so I'm happy :)

>13 katiekrug: ...and hung over, as it's Friday. Thanks for the new-thread wishes!

It's utterly vile out there. All that tropical-storm wind I was told to brace for hasn't materialized, though, so there's *some* good news.

Happy new thread! Glad the storm didn't hit.

Happy new thread, Richard!

I finally got to To Kill a Mockingbird last February. I liked it, but it would probably have had a greater impact if I had read it earlier in life.

>14 richardderus: - Not hungover so NYAH NYAH!

>15 drneutron: I am as well, Doc, though in some ways it would have been a blessing. Scrubbed-clean air is always lovely.

>16 FAMeulstee: Hi Anita! I am pretty sure that, in 2020, the story's no longer the ground-breaking, gob-smacking thing it once was; but youth is almost always the best time to experience identity-forming stories. For most of us, anyway.

>17 katiekrug: mmm hmm
::side-eye::
Happy hour canceled again, then?
***
Brad Watson, author of Last Days of the Dog-Men: Stories, has died at age 64. It is sad to know he won't grace us with more lovely sentences and moving stories.

>18 richardderus: - No, I just indulged in moderation. *pats self on back*

>19 katiekrug: Indeed!

***
77 The Mercy Seat by Elizabeth H. Winthrop

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: “One of the finest writers of her generation” (Brad Watson, RIP), and author of three previously acclaimed novels, Elizabeth H. Winthrop delivers a brave new book that will launch her distinguished career anew. An incisive, meticulously crafted portrait of race, racism, and injustice in the Jim Crow era South that is as intimate and tense as a stage drama, The Mercy Seat is a stunning account of one town’s foundering over a trauma in their midst.

On the eve of his execution, eighteen year old Willie Jones sits in his cell in New Iberia awaiting his end. Across the state, a truck driven by a convict and his keeper carries the executioner’s chair closer. On a nearby highway, Willie’s father Frank lugs a gravestone on the back of his fading, old mule. In his office the DA who prosecuted Willie reckons with his sentencing, while at their gas station at the crossroads outside of town, married couple Ora and Dale grapple with their grief and their secrets.

As various members of the township consider and reflect on what Willie’s execution means, an intricately layered and complex portrait of a Jim Crow era Southern community emerges. Moving from voice to voice, Winthrop elegantly brings to stark light the story of a town, its people, and its injustices. The Mercy Seat is a brutally incisive and tender novel from one of our most acute literary observers.

My Review: The beautiful writing! The moving story! The unbearable whiteness of the novel's voices, however, don't lead to celebration.

There are many third-person cinematic, or subjective, points of view. That gives us a kaleidoscope view of a day in the life of a bog-standard racist Louisiana burg in the waning days of Jim Crow. The entire story, the trial for rape of a Black young man, his conviction and sentencing to death, and remand into local custody the night before his judicial murder, takes place before we join the proceedings.

I read the story with great reluctance after a bookish-social-media friend damn near blew her brains out warbling its virtues. I can honestly say, Kickass Katie, you've never steered me less wrong than with this wonderful, tight, dense tale of a day in the life of a dead man and those who killed him. The factual inspirations for the work, detailed in the Afterword, are so grim as to make me want to bury myself in something soft so as to absorb the blows the mere idea of them give my already-battered psyche.

But in fiction's no-less-brutal embrace, the violation doesn't stop: As I read this book, I was bashed and struck and shoved into realizing this is a similar, though not identical, set-up to the also nonfictonally inspired 1981 novella Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel García Márquez. I'll assume that most people who read my blog are familiar with, at the least, the story of the incredibly wonderfully named Santiago (patron saint of Spain, country eternally "reconquering" itself from the Muslims) Nasar (as in Gamal Abdel Nasser, President of Egypt)'s murder at the hands of his ex-girlfriend and lover, Angela Vicario's, twin brothers. Both are stories of sex "crimes" that are, in fact, the crimes of women who love too freely for the comfort of the men around them. Who exactly asked them, I don't know; but they certainly receive a lot of cultural support for their rage and hate of the men who "defiled" the women in question. WHo were, let us note, both in love with the defilers....

Well, such was and is the lot of Woman in a world defined by and run by and for men. It revolts and disgusts me. It twists every act into something pointed and edged with noxious bigotry and unforgiving judgment. It demands lies to sustain itself, and the lies are to self and others in equally toxic and ruinous measure. Willie remembers his time with Grace as love; Grace, whose death was ruled a suicide, isn't there to tell us what she felt and no one, evidently, thought to ask. It is Grace's father who brings this nightmare into being. He, like the Vicario twins in García Márquez's story, decides that his daughter's sexual indiscretion must be punished, and raises the hue and cry against the "perpetrator" Willie. She must've been raped! No good white woman would open her legs to a Black man voluntarily!

Hogwash.

And Grace, poor lamb, pays the ultimate price for her "crime" as she dies of a gunshot wound to the head. We're given no information about that, it is announced as a fait accompli, and no investigation or even questioning of it occurs. I question it. I suspect Grace's father, faced with a daughter who would defile herself by offering her body to a Black man (yes, yes, the N-Word is used throughout the book, but I am not so constituted as to be able to use it myself), couldn't live with her and couldn't allow her to live. He is the epitome of the man I loathe and despise the most: The zealot. He resorts to the foulest, most evil-souled means to enforce his will for the world onto all others. Never mind what they think, feel, want. He Knows Best and you, scum, exist to obey him.

So here is Willie, doomed by the State to die. We spend some time with Willie on this, his last day of life. But he's not a memorable character. He's a kid, a boy in love for the first time (never stated but feels so implicit that I assume it's true), and barely aware of life before and after his flare-up of primal passion. Memories come to him, simple things like frost and a brother's love; but in the end, they are nothing compared to the fact that Grace, the reason he existed so hard if so briefly, is dead. He ponders what a normal boy does:

...the stuff in the Bible he doesn’t believe, though he’s tried—he’s read the Bible, he’s prayed, he’s gone through all the Christian motions, hoping to believe. Wanting to believe. He figures it would make this whole thing easier if he did, but he can find no comfort in religion, in the book his mother lives by.
–and–
...{Willie} stays where he is, watching his white breath curl away and slowly mingle with the world’s cold air, watching himself breathe for the first time.

Try as he might, this guff makes no headway against the rushing river of regret that Grace is dead, Grace is dead, he killed her, Grace is dead. And so he, the victim of appalling and malevolent men's rage, does nothing to fight the horror of his impending judicial murder:

And when these visions come, it is all Willie can do not to beat his head against the concrete walls of his cell, his soul aching with regret; he ran away. He’d have never let it happen if he’d stayed.

Willie is not the first man to be killed by his regrets.

And the state whose judgment will kill him at midnight, served by the local District Attorney? What does the state have to say for itself? Nothing, really; the DA's participation in the judicial murder of a boy whose only crime was falling in love was not easy or uncomplicated.

If he’s read it once, he’s read it a thousand times, the warrant he chased after, sentencing Willie Jones to a current of electricity of sufficient intensity to cause death, and the application and continuance of such current through the body of the said Willie Jones until said Willie Jones is dead.

He and his Massachusetts Yankee wife were set at odds by this execution's run-up, and on this day, they both are doing their best to be fully present with each other. They are not succeeding:

...he wonders which is worse, to be lynched or to be shocked to death in an electric chair. There was a time when he was sure there was difference, but now that he’s had a hand in it, he wonders if it really matters in the end what kind of justice it is—mob or legal—when the end result is death.
–and–
“I suppose I care for many things, but what I live for is my boy.” (spoken by the wife)

Each in their own way made a hell of this moment by living it again and again and each has left the other behind in search of meaning outside their pair bond. A wife and mother, a woman, thinks of her son as the center of her existence; her son's father demanded this boy be murdered by the state. The husband and father can't force himself to contemplate the reason he did this thing that so troubles himself and his wife. And they each remain unaware of the other's cause of turmoil, assigning it to things that make sense to them but, in all honesty, wouldn't to the other.

The ending is so wrenching, so extreme, so deeply fitting, that I can't bear to take away your unmediated reaction to it. Suffice to say that it, too, is based on fact. The parts invented to make the story work as fiction are pitch-perfect enhancements of the facts.

There are other stories told here, not at all lower in emotional resonance than the main one; but they are, of necessity, less urgent: A wife's long-brewing loathing of a once-loved husband; a man's reckoning with the universality of fatherhood; a father's wretchedness and loss and dignity; a religious man's struggles against demons his god has no way to defeat but whose reality is tragically evident; a gormless man-boy without his own place in the world whose effort to carve one has dire consequences. All weave a beautiful basket to carry the main story in; others could easily see them as the main story in and of themselves. I won't say they're wrong. I will say that, in light of the polyphonic choices made by the author, the many stories are well-chosen and work together to make a syncretic whole.

There has to be a bruise, or it's not an apple: What the hell is the DA's dying mother doing here? Nothing at all. She's used as somewhat mawkish window-dressing for a sentimental moment or two. The story's momentum and depth would not change were she to be cut entirely.

At long last, I'll get to the point: Go get this book, and I swear it won't be wasted time to read it.

>1 richardderus: Excellent, and may I say downright pithy observations on one of my favorite novels. And I read it first at exactly the right time in my life. I find it holds up to my periodic re-reads very well. I had to give GSAW a go, but now I don't remember much about it, for which I think I'm grateful.

Happy New Thread, Richard!

Happy new thread!

There is so little that can be done to help someone in such pain as Rob's, but having someone who understands and wants to help must surely be up there. Hope you are soon recovered from your disjointed times.

Lois McMaster Bujold just reviewed this very positively on Goodreads because, she said, it made her laugh so much.

Boyfriend Material
by Alexis Hall
Wanted: One (fake) boyfriend Practically perfect in every way Luc O'Donnell is tangentially--and reluctantly--famous. His rock star parents split when he was young, and the father he's never met spent the next twenty years cruising in and out of rehab. Now that his dad's making a comeback, Luc's back in the public eye, and one compromising photo is enough to ruin everything. To clean up his image, Luc has to find a nice, normal relationship...and Oliver Blackwood is as nice and normal as they …

>10 richardderus: Yay! A medal! Thank you.

>1 richardderus: I think high school is the perfect time to read the book and then watch the movie of TKAM. The more experienced reader will see all the flaws, but one hopes can still see the underlying goodness of the book.

Bless you for helping Rob. He so needs it.

>21 laytonwoman3rd: Thanks, Linda3rd. I think its status as a classic is merited, but I also understand that younger folks don't think it's Relevant. Or at least they didn't before 25 May 20. Now....

>22 ronincats: Thank you, Roni!
>24 ronincats: I've requested the DRC of it because it sounds too too too cute and I crave cute like a junkie his junk.

>23 quondame: It's funny you said that...in a quick before-work call, Rob said almost the same thing. "I dreaded facing my life before you held me up." I'm still misty.

>25 Matke: Hey Gail! Twice in a day! Yeah...there's a time and a place for this one, and for someone our age (or mine at least, since I'm still in double digits) isn't going to experience the AHA moments of Atticus risking it all for the sake Being Right. It looks like altruism, nobility, following justice; but to older folk, he's a priggish snot who is NOT going to be proved wrong.

Or to me, anyway, and I stress it's in no way a knock on the book!

I've been very behind but dropping off smooches and hugs for you.

>27 MickyFine: Hi Micky! Happy to see you here. Your recent move and the whole "there's-a-plague-going-on" thing are excellent reasons to fall a bit behind on the social stuff.

>28 richardderus: Yup, plus the whole medical professionals cutting into my body thing. ;) Wishing you a warm but not sticky weekend.

Happy new one, RD.

Nice tribute to a truly great novel up top.

>29 MickyFine: *squeam*squirm*squeak*

>30 PaulCranswick: Thanks, PC, it's a truly great novel and one I really hope to have survive long enough to tell future generations about us.

Happy new thread!!

You are a very good man for supporting Rob so much. I come from a similar situation as him, and I know that to have someone in your corner is a tremendous blessing.

>32 SilverWolf28: Thank you! And thank you so much. It is the role an older person usually takes to a younger, supporter and teacher; he's gracious enough to say he needs both those things from me and not another old guy.

Happy New Thread, Richard. Love the Lee topper. I hope you got some sleep last night.

Happy new one!

'Morning, RD! Happy Saturday to you. I hope it is uneventful and pleasant.

*smooch*

Happy new thread to you! Enjoy your Saturday.

>34 msf59: Thanks, Mark! So far so good on the thread, but no luck on the sleep. It was a chase-the-mouse night and the mouse won.

>35 figsfromthistle: Thank you, Anita!

>36 karenmarie: How do, Horrible, let's hope Saturday does right by all of us. I'd prefer "uneventful" but would be willing to live with "mouseless."

>37 thornton37814: Thank you, Lori, it's nice to see you here. I hope your Saturday goes well as well.

That's an awkward locution but now that I've typed it there's something weirdly entertaining about it.

Unpopular opinion time: Hamilton wasn't a pleasure for me to watch. I understand why those raised in the rap era like it. I don't.

The story was very well presented, staged, and performed, but since I can't understand but half what they're speedlining/mumbling I rely on what I know about history to get what's going on.

It is a joy to realize the story is connecting to young people and spreading a really good message.

Hi Richard. This is a great topper choice! Love the synchronicity ~ that you chose it just as I finally got to my hardcover gift book of (blush) some years ago.

My copy is a 50th anniversary edition. I've never read the book; did see the movie (Gregory Peck starred as Atticus). In fact, I didn't half understand the background to the movie. I've read about 40 pages and Harper Lee is *brilliant*. I agree with your comment: Harper Lee was a private person in a world of nosy invasive entitled snoops and was interested in the biography on Wikipedia, and wondered at all those lawsuits. How emotionally-sapping that must have been.

I better go back and catch up on your previous thread. I've been lightly skimming and not "absorbing" ~ your reading activity is awesome!

>40 SandyAMcPherson: Hi Sandy, glad you decided to do a visit. Lee was a sad case in that she is the likely reason for Truman Capote's success since she helped him so much and he's likely the reason for hers since he helped her so much. When they fell out, neither ever did anything again since her private nature prevented her from performing for the public and his wildly exaggerated sociability prevented him from doing the actual work of writing.

Last thread was a long one....

>39 richardderus: I would have been lost without the captions. But I absolutely loved seeing the founding fathers as a bunch of ambitious aggressive guys who came across to me as real revolutionaries who stood a chance of losing. It created a sense of the risk that 1776 just didn't.

>42 quondame: I can see that being a good solution. Indeed, the very real intermovement conflicts and definitely dire stakes were present in a way 1776 wouldn't have cared to do.

I salute you on a new thread, clearly off to a good start.

Happy new thread, RIchard!

>44 weird_O: Thanks, Bill, and a happy weekend to you.

>45 swynn: Thank you, Steve!

‘Morning, RD, happy Sunday to you.

>41 richardderus: I don’t remember if you’ve read this one or not – Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee by Casey Cep. I was fascinated by the portrayals of Lee and Capote.

Delurking to bring you happy new thread wishes Richard.

>47 karenmarie: Hiya Horrible! Happy Sunday back. I was on the library list for the book at one point pre-Plague but I suspect that was canceled at some point. I'll see if they have a Kindle version available. Thanks for reminding me. *smooch*

>48 humouress: Hi Nina, hope you're doing well in your supervillainy.
***
78 Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee by Casey Cep

Rating: 3.5* of five

I can't say this was all that wonderful of a read...I was expecting Harper Lee to be a real Force in this book, but she wasn't and didn't even appear until about two-thirds of the way through. I do understand that the basic story that caught her attention needed to be explicated to show us what and why she cared about it, but honestly felt this part of the book was (while interesting) not interesting enough to be a book.

Which, I gather, was Lee's problem as well.

Thomas Radney, the lawyer whose role in the entire proceedings was pivotal both for and against the central criminal, was interesting in a mild way. I'd say he was worth a journal article in an Alabama- or Southern-centered venue, with his involvement in the case here presented (not gonna talk the criminal up, suffice to say he was a good christian man and a reverend of the Baptist (I think) church) as its centerpiece. But really no more than that.

And Cep's discussion of Lee is more about Lee than about writing this book. Which, as previously noted, was never written. So permaybehaps there's more here for bigger fans than I am of Harper Lee; for me, it wasn't wasted time but it skated *perilously* close to it.

A belated Happy new thread Richard, i love the thread topper dear friend and we send love and hugs to you.

I hope your Saturday and Sunday went/continue to go as well as possible.

Greetings from the Steambath State.

>50 johnsimpson: Thank you much, John, it's good to see you here and to know you're well.

>51 Matke: Thanks, Gail! The Steambath State's getting a run for its money here, since the emergence of TS Fay. Sticky-icky-blech. But I'm in quarantine! I don't have to go out in it! And I can simply close the blinds when the sun goes down to keep the heat out.

Hiya, RDear, and happy Monday to you. I'm off to a slowish start, just a few sips into my first mug of coffee. Neese's Hot Sausage and toast will eventually entice me to brekkie, then some Friends stuff and a PO run to mail tax checks. Ugh.

*smooch* from your own Horrible

>53 karenmarie: Taxes are so much fun to pay to a regime you don't support, ain't they.

Caffeinate well.

Dropping by to say hello. Hope you are feeling better :)

>55 figsfromthistle: Thank you for stopping in, Anita, and for the good wishes. Heartily returned, of course!

What a great book to start off you new thread, RD!

Just stopping by to say a good morning and Tuesday to you, Richard.

>57 lkernagh: It's always going to be a favorite of mine, Lori, because I ain't rereadin' it ever again. We get too soon old, too late smart, don't we. Leave the good memories alone!

>58 Matke: *smooch* happy to see you, Gail!

Hi RDear! Happy Tuesday. Happy stay inside to avoid the heat/humidity.

>53 karenmarie: Remember the Cathy cartoons? There’s one from the 80s, can’t seem to find it online, where Cathy’s with her accountant and he tells her that her taxes were used to pay for the shrimp cocktail appetizers on a harbor cruise for senators in the middle of winter or something ridiculous like that. It made me think that I could only stay sane about taxes if I thought about a specific thing that I felt good about my tax money going towards. For many years it was my grandmother’s federally-subsidized housing. Now it’s almost always highways or National Parks. At the state level it’s public beaches and state roads.

*smooch*

Morning, RD!

Sunny here but a nice breeze and low humidity. Tomorrow's only going to by 82F for a high! I might just take the day off...

>60 karenmarie: I don't remember Cathy, no, but the cartoon sounds like something that would make me panther-screechingly furious so it's prolly a good thing.

Do not place a fingernail out in the 105° heatindexy day!

>61 katiekrug: This is one of those moments that happen during summer where it's hotter here than inland briefly. By evening it will be okay again, upper 70s...I'm eager for it.

Sorry to hear that storm Fay has made your area so dreadfully humid and hot. It looks like the whole Eastern seaboard was affected and certainly reached into southern Ontario.

I will not complain of cold and gusting wind here. It feels cold only because we've become used to drier weather and summer heat now.

>53 karenmarie: We feel the same "up" here about taxes.
The Canadian Federal give-away is so indiscriminate (tax dollars at work, buying votes).

All 'seniors' without regard to income, received $300 automatically deposited in their bank accounts. (The Canadian Revenue Agency has the banking information. George Orwell was so prescient, it is scary). And how do we even know whether seniors who are without banking facilities get their $$? Oh wait, it wouldn't be that a preconceived notion of who is on the voter's list is what counts ... nah. How could I think that?

>60 karenmarie:, Karen, I used to love reading Cathy (one of my fave strips was her and a friend turning up at a pool party in bathing suits and a cover up only to find everyone else in cocktail dresses. I forget what the fellows were wearing). So often I identified with the illustrator's scenario!

I'm reading The Ten Thousand Doors of January (Alix E. Harrow). Very intriguing and fanciful. Is it on your TBR?

>63 SandyAMcPherson: Hi Sandy! No one likes paying taxes, nor has anyone in the wide sweep of history felt that they were getting value for money when paying them.

As one of those people without a bank account (can't get one without ID and can't get ID without a credit card to pay for it no they won't accept cash, checks, other people's cards, or cash-gift cards) I got my check via mail and had the Devil of a time getting access to it.

If you're asking me about Alix Harrow's book, I've read and liked it. Northbound hugs!

Sorry to see that your needed dental appointment had to be cancelled, Richard. Will they do testing again to see if those who tested positive for Covid are now recovered or just assume you are recovered within a certain amount of time?

>63 SandyAMcPherson: I'm reading The Ten Thousand Doors of January right now too. It's keeping e entertained.

>65 Familyhistorian: The quarantine won't be lifted until after two consecutive negative tests are recorded, Meg, so they're going to test me once a week until that milestone is reached. I'm due a test in the next few days, my second since being quarantined; no one seems to know what the results of the first one were, which is a smidge disconcerting.

>64 richardderus: Sorry, Richard, we are always happy to pay our taxes. The more the better, more income taxes means we make more money. More local taxes means we have a more expensive house. Life in general isn't bad when you pay a lot of taxes ;-)

>67 FAMeulstee: I'm totally happy with that attitude. I never understood my mothers compulsion to avoid taxes which led her to unfortunate investments - since what prosperity she had was largely due to my dad's civil service job.

>67 FAMeulstee: I suspect that's an outlier's position even in the global North, Anita; but historically, the unrest over paying taxes has destabilized many many governments of all types.

>68 quondame: That seems especially obtuse to me, Susan, since...well, never mind, she's gone now and you already know.

>66 richardderus: Well, dang, Richard. They... don't know the results of the first one? Yeah, disconcerting is probably the mild word for it.

Hope you're getting some good books in this week.

>66 richardderus: "no one seems to know what the results of the first one were, which is a smidge disconcerting." I'll say...you could be dead, and you wouldn't know.

'Morning, RDear!

CV testing but no results, two negative tests required to clear you. Sounds like a Catch-22 to me.

In the meantime, I prescribe coffee and reading/watching stuff.

Happy New Thread, Richard.

I like Karen's prescription. If you don't mind, I'll follow it, too.

>70 bell7:, >71 laytonwoman3rd:, >72 karenmarie:, >73 jnwelch: I got swabbed again today, and will be again on Friday. They're hoping that, by Wednesday next, the quarantine can be lifted. Apparently, though this isn't confirmed, that second swab from last week was positive. This third one might be negative? How is one meant to interpret this stuff?

Books aren't working for me this week, but old episodes of Time Team and a post-apocalyptic TV series called Survivors from 1975 fill my story-void. I've tried writing a few reviews and can't make sense of the thoughts I'm having because it all comes down to "MEMEME" and that's not terribly interesting (even to me!).

I feel like Pavlov's Prisoner, sitting at the edge of my bed waiting for my food tray to arrive while listening to Tony Robinson wax euphoric over brown stains in black earthen pits.

Grumblegrousegripe

>64 richardderus: - Whoa.... isn't there any form of government issued ID that you can get that does not require you to pay for it? That does make things like cashing a cheque challenging!

I have my fingers crossed that you get two consecutive negative tests so you can leave quarantine... although, with weather like storm Fay, maybe quarantine is not a bad thing at the moment?

>75 lkernagh: No, Lori, there isn't; the *real* problem is that they want the money from specific sources, ie credit card companies. That's how they outsource the job of gatekeeping.

RD - not to be a butt-in-ski, but my late, unlamented father had ID issues in New York State. Please double-check, because my understanding is that you can get a non-driver ID card from the DMV and pay by cash, pre-paid card, or money order. Now, dealing with the DMV, of course, presents its own problems....

Smooch for a better day.

>77 katiekrug: Thanks, Katie, I don't think any helpful intent is btting in! I fear that it's not the DMV that's the insurmountable hurdle: I need a birth certificate because my old passport vanished in 2014. I can go to California to get a birth certificate in person (no, I can't, physiologically) if I can then jump through several hoops (not certain, but possible); but I can only pay for a mailed copy with a credit card issued in my name. (Fraud issues *galore*, apparently.) Getting a benefit card with my photo on it would cost a few hundred, doable, but require more of my body than I can ask of it in view of the limited uses of the said card.

I cannot even get a bank account, much less a credit card, for several unfixable-without-tens-of-thousands reasons, again tracing back to 2014. It's not like I get checks or anything, so it's just easier to use cash and gift cards.

So. *sigh*

Adding extra hopes that you can get out of quarantine soon - but more hopes that you stay safe.

>64 richardderus: So weird. And I suppose you can't get a credit card without a bank account?

I would say it's like Jasper chasing his tail, except that his tail is long enough to catch. Maybe more like Jasper catching his tail because then he has a good fight with it - and there can be no winners there.

Over here, the weather is good and rainy, my husband has the air-conditioning going full blast and the humidity never lets up.

Here's hoping you're covid free (soon/ already) but it sounds like you're more comfortable in quarantine.

Good morning, RDear!

Time Team is always a good diversion - we raced through it last year.

*smooch* from your own Horrible

>78 richardderus: - OIC. I always just assume it's the DMV that is the hurdle - even for things non-DMV related. Heh.

79 The Old Guard by Greg Rucka

Rating: 2.5* of five

So I've watched The Old Guard and was whelmed. Decent little boom-blam-bang too-long but pretty piece of stupidity. The vaunted gay representation is, to put it mildly, pale and weak-kneed, delivered by actors devoid of any discernible chemistry. This apparently big-deal scene goes like this: An actor I've never heard of delivers a sentimental speech *about*, not even to, another actor I've never heard of and they share a totally faked (or carefully digitally obscured) kiss for ~10sec before being forcibly separated by brutal assholes for absolutely no logical reason. They're RESTRAINED in the back of an armored vehicle! They can't touch each other! They're fucking immortal, so why is the Arab guy even worried about the Italian guy in the first place?!

Go, Hollywood. Way to do it. *snort*

The moral bankruptcy of the capitalist shitheel Dudley Dursley plays, evidenced from the first by the planned murder of some violent murderers, was as expected...the film's anti-capitalist message is very agreeable to me...but it also makes Chiwetel Ejiofor's character into irredeemable scum for participating in it. Arguably he enters into an atonement spiral by the end but the planned and thus sanctioned killing of a dozen (admittedly violent and murderous) men really negates any possession of high ground for this character to return to. Also, is this really the best moment to spread a doctors-are-all-Mengele-at-heart message? AND be anti-gene-manipulation since that's most likely the best way forward out of COVID Crisis-land?

Charlize Theron's part here is to be tough and repressedly furious. Job done.

The young Black actress is fine in her role, whatever it may be. I really couldn't tell you how she became a badass supersoldier since she started out as a regular ol' Marine...nothing was made of her previous specialness. At least she gets with the supersoldiery program in record time, apparently intuiting what her role in the team is and what exactly she should do in a given situation without more than a nod and a wink! Just amazing, that.

And she's set up to be The Boss after Charlize eventually dies (there's a story, don't sweat it since it's arbitrary and unexplained, as to her loss of immortality)...despite the two gay guys being A LITERAL THOUSAND YEARS more experienced than she is. Mm. Because the straight guy who's two hundred years more experienced than she is isn't leadership material? Mm.

If anyone ever wonders why I don't like comic books and/or their movies, this is the short version. I don't like the fascist Übermensch tones of superheroes; I don't care what color their skin is, what plumbing they sport, or the nature of their private sexual peccadilloes. It is inherent in the genre, this illiberal message, and it never won't bother me. I don't want to count the corpses that need burying/burning/exposure to the vultures; these are humans with families, mothers and fathers, and not every one of them can be unloved. Yes, yes, I know I'm not supposed to think about that. I do anyway, and it makes this sort of film/comic deeply distasteful to me.

And yes, the books built on similar lines as well as the damn near ubiquitous trope of women as rape objects and children as props to be harmed are off my plate as well these past several years. (I've always felt this way about animals.) I don't want to read this stuff; I don't want to watch this stuff. In my mind, this is part of the culture that makes #MeToo and #BlackLivesMatter as well as the endless, underreported violence against QUILTBAG people, normalized background noise.

I dissent; I decline to participate.

ETA This backstory-filling "featurette" (horrible word, up there with "novelette" ptui) explains some stuff. Knowing the French guy's history makes me feel more like the situation leading to the whole film shoulda been seen coming by people with such enormous experience of human nature.

I was thinking about giving it a look-see but I think not.

>79 BekkaJo: Thanks, Bekka. Another swab tomorrow to see if I'm closer to freedom, and I really hope I am!

>80 humouress: Exactly correct, Nina. Thanks for the plaguelessness wishes.

>81 karenmarie: It's a solid, reliable, go-to distraction for me, along with The Great British Bake Off. But now I've got Peacock to pluck! (I wanted to watch Brave New World so I signed up.)

>82 katiekrug: Heh. Since they're all demons-in-training for Satan's Bureaucracy, I totally understand.

ETA >84 katiekrug: I'm not sure you'd have all that good of a time, TBH.

First of all, >1 richardderus: They're all correct. And they need to STFU about it.
LOL
I see your point. We can learn about these things by seeing them in print and discussing them (calmly), right?

I feel I should reread it, then see the film version(s?), read some analysis of its significance and then I might have an opinion worth sharing. I was not really concentrating it when I read it.

Second of all: hi!

80 Many a Little Makes by Sarah Shun-lien Bynum

Rating: 4* of five

You probably had friends in school whose lives intertwined with yours to a greater degree than the rest of the herd. Such were Mari, Imogen, and Bree. Their young lives were welded at various spots. Their private-school years, their university years, their young womanhoods were spent in close emotional proximity.

But, and this too will be familiar to you, there was That Time That...{fill in blank}. One fell away, one said something, one wasn't honest with the other two. Whatever it was, that space opened and was never *quite* closed again. Yes, the friendship closed over it, around it, but the space? Always there.

And how that comes to matter as time works her cruel tricks on us. And what emotional baggage falls into that void, never to be found or fixed. And where Life sends the friends, the unit that defined an entire era of world history (1980s boarding-school Massachusetts), can be seen as clearly related to the void.

I've said before that no adult has the luxurious freedom of having an unmixed emotion. This story is about the moment when that salt point of life's estuary is found, and when the realization of the void's actual size and gravity comes home. A beautiful and sad and painful recollection of what was had, lost, and unforgotten.

>86 LovingLit: Hi Megan! I agree with your points about the best way to begin a fixing-up of civil discourse. I wish others were more interested in trying it out. I myownself am a bad choice for that debate, since I want to screech imprecations and pronounce anathemas with the verve and abandon of a Puritan preacher of 1610, demanding the most groveling of apologies from the yutzes for their audacious refusal to see sense and become atheist humanist socialists on the spot.

We have met the enemy and he is us.

Christopher Dickey, author of Our Man in Charleston and Securing the City, died of heart failure at his home in Paris. He was 68. His father was James Dickey, author of Deliverance as well as (apparently) some poetry; it was a lifelong struggle to move out of his father's shadow.

>88 richardderus: We have met the enemy and he is us.
Indeed.

Same old, same old,
some folks never evolved past crawling out of the likes of an Okefenokee Swamp...

Oh yes, and Hi. Always an amazing discussion going on in here.

I particularly love this phrase:"...I want to screech imprecations and pronounce anathemas with the verve and abandon of a Puritan preacher of 1610, demanding the most groveling of apologies from the yutzes for their audacious refusal to see sense and become atheist humanist socialists on the spot...." (@> 88)

Can I steal it? I don't know what I plan to do with it, however. I'd have to practice saying the salient phrases out loud several times if I were to, you know, greet the idiot politician campaigning for our fall provincial election in our riding.

>90 SandyAMcPherson: Good ol' Pogo, I enjoyed the strip as a kid.

>91 SandyAMcPherson: Hi! You're welcome to use it whenever and wherever you've a mind to, Milady.

Comic book I want to read: The Great Divine Bake Off for Purgatory-dwelling souls to determine which direction they go; Saint Honoré judging for Up and Moloch for Down, hosted by Christopher Hitchins.

Somebody should make this happen, no?

*smooch*

Happy Friday, Rdear. I hope you feel better.

>94 ronincats: *smooch* back, Roni

>95 Ameise1: Thanks, Barbara! I wish the same for you.

Good morning, RD! Wishing you a positive and kul-cha-filled day.

>87 richardderus: But, and this too will be familiar to you, there was That Time That...{fill in blank}. One fell away, one said something, one wasn't honest with the other two. Whatever it was, that space opened and was never *quite* closed again. Yes, the friendship closed over it, around it, but the space? Always there. Sigh. Oh yes. That damned space.

>97 karenmarie: Hey Horrible, glad you liked my review. That was a wonderful read. She put her finger right on the crux of the issue of what happens without anyone planning, or wanting, it...endings are so seldom really intentional.

>87 richardderus: I was distracted by post#88 and forgot to say how brilliant your commentary is for this book.

I don't know the book, I may not read it, but by golly, you've crystallised so succinctly the school-age drama that often plays out in our adult lives.

I'm also going to add a comment about the novel I just finished ~
The Ten Thousand Doors of January (Alix Harrow). It's my best read so far this year. I'm running around the threads to say so because she has such an amazing way with words.

I'm also grateful that you kindly don't object to my quoting that lovely phrase in #88 about civil discourse.

81 I Stand Here Ironing by Tillie Olson

Rating: all the stars there can ever be

If you have never read this extremely short story, only five or so pages, please click on the link above and do so. Tillie Olsen was a genius whose life was blighted by being unable to afford a room of her own, in Woolf's formulation; she was impoverished, a leftist in a conformist world, a woman with daughters to support, clothes to iron, a husband to...who the heck cares. This isn't about him in any way.

This is motherguilt. This is bone-deep regret and sadness and lacerating unhappiness. This is Tillie, the unnamed mother, the giver of life to Emily and the taker of happiness and self-worth from Emily, processing the hard truth that she failed. The best choices and the most strenuous desire to Do Right can only get you so far.

Brutally frankly, this oft-anthologized story that came into the world in 1961 but is about the 1930s, 1940s, and earliest 1950s should have sparked street riots and rebellions against the smug, assholish conformity, greed, and selfishness of the white American Dreamworld. There is absolutely nothing good to say about a world in which:

There was a boy she loved painfully through two school semesters. Months later she told me how she had taken pennies from my purse to buy him candy. “Licorice was his favorite and I brought him some every day, but he still liked Jennifer better’n me. Why, Mommy?” The kind of question for which there is no answer.

School was a worry to her. She was not glib or quick in a world where glibness and quickness were easily confused with ability to learn. To her overworked and exasperated teachers she was an overconscientious “slow learner” who kept trying to catch up and was absent entirely too often.

Emily, poor angel, can't ever quite be coped with and integrated anywhere, and that always begins at home. Tillie tells us why, the facts of why and the feelings of how, she came to fail her oldest daughter. And she can't even pretend to herself, in the silence inside her skull, that she didn't know even then that she was failing.

A monologue from a sad, defeated woman to an unseen interlocutor? REALLY? NOW?!

Really. Now. And again later, and (if you're like me, reading this gorgeous torture for the who-knows-th time) again after that. Remind yourself that you're on this Earth to lighten the burden of Tillie and her myriad of sisters because, by all those useless gods you keep talking about, You. Can.

>87 richardderus: Got me with that one, RD, I will hunt it down.

>100 richardderus: That is surely one I must dust off quickly too.

Wishing you a pain-less weekend, dear fellow.

>100 richardderus: Awesome review RD.
I clicked the link and read a couple pages and decided, wow. So I saved the story as a pdf.
I need to read it when I'm having morning energy. Thanks so much for the link. And what you said.

>100 richardderus: I think it might break me at the moment :(

*smoochies* for a lovely weekend.

May your books be excellent and your coffee potent this weekend *smooch*

I think I read "I Stand Here Ironing" in high school. It certainly sounds familiar...

Have a good Saturday!

'Morning, RD! Happy Saturday.

>100 richardderus: I will circle back around to this one. I've never heard of it before but this morning's not the right time.

*smooch* from your own Horrible

>100 richardderus: Raspberries; access blocked.

>100 richardderus: I read that one in Tell Me a Riddle earlier this year. It certainly scrapes the raw spots.

Sunday's not off to a great start. I typed individual responses to y'all and clicked post message; they promptly vanished and can not be recovered by any means I'm familiar with.

Alchemy, sorcery, prayer...all ineffective. Threats, imprecations, a good shaking...might as well have been talking to rocks.

Which is, in a weird way, what we do when we use computers. But I digress.

It's been a perfectly beastly few days of 90°/32C temps. Hot and close here in my room, though air conditioned. I keep the blinds shut from noon on, since the window faces west. It's still an uphill battle for the poor thing to keep up with the humid nasty outside.

Anyway, it's summer, it's not like it should be 68°/20C all year round *sob* yes it should it should it should

it's time for my nap

it's time for my nap

I like the way you think...

Darned computers and internet and even sometimes LT. We will take your individual posts as intended and hope you stay coolish and unescalated tooth painish today.

*smooch*

Have a good snooze, RD.

>109 richardderus: That is why I now answer no more than two posts in one post, if you know what I mean. Lost too many posts by including replies to four or five messages from friends in one post.

>110 drneutron: The vitals lady came to visit, so that was a short one.

>111 karenmarie:, >112 PaulCranswick: Yeah. *grumble*

>109 richardderus: I typed individual responses to y'all and clicked post message; they promptly vanished and can not be recovered by any means I'm familiar with.

May Monday be kinder to you, Richard, so the computer doesn't eat your words.

'Morning, RD! Happy Monday to you.

If I'm replying to more than 2 or 3 posts I open up a Word document, minimize it so that it's only like a banner across the page at the bottom, and scroll down through my messages and replying to each in the document. When I'm happy with my replies, I cut and paste. I've lost way too many posts over the years!

*smooch*

>114 LovingLit: Ain't that the gawds' honest.

>115 Familyhistorian: Thanks, Meg, the computer's appetite for frustrating me is manifest today with unstable wifi. Given that it's hot and humid, there's no surprise in that!

>116 karenmarie: Hey Horrible, it's not like me not to do that but, of course!, the time I forget to....

*smooch*

Happy Monday!

Hope the rest of the week is a great one.

82 All the Last Wars at Once by George Alec Effinger

Rating: a grudging three stars of five

This story closely resembles the world of COVID-19 reduced to its absurdest absurdist essence. George Alec Effinger isn't much remembered today, and if he is it's for Marîd Audran's adventures beginning with When Gravity Fails, though he wrote a number of comic books and other short fictions before his 2003 death. (In fact, this story is presented in comic-book format as the Fantastic Four title "All the World Wars at Once!" from issue #161, August 1975.)

If you had any fantasy that this iteration of the End of Days was unique, park 'em here. In fifteen pages (PDF), Effinger tells us of the agreement reached between a random pudgy white guy from Kansas and a dialect-spoutin' Negro man named Mary McCloud Bethune Washington to declare all-out, no-holds-barred race war. Later on, we see the "promiseless smile" of the president (Nixon in those days and a better description of the man's emptiness of soul I have never seen) and an elderly Black preacher, Rev. Dr. Roosevelt Wilson, whose affect is such that he's referred to by one and all as "the clean old n-word." They managed between them to interrupt the television and radio silence enveloping the anarchic world to broadcast an appeal to return to pre-race war ways; neither, it seems, has the authority he believed he had.

Women's libbers, laboring men, vets, "queers," all come in for their share of guilt in creating, or at least failing to oppose, the bitter and violent fragmentation of society. Effinger, writing in 1970 or 1971 (the collection was published in 1972), was steeped in the outbreak of race/civil war from the Watts Uprising in 1965 through 1970's sort-of ending with the Kent State Massacre. He was extrapolating the logical extremity of the trend unfolding around him. I don't disagree with the technique's use, or with his conclusions; only his timing was off.

Should we, then, take notice of this story? No, not really, it's not particularly well-written or trenchantly argued; it's not by a LONG chalk his best work nor up to much compared to the other works in this volume. It's clear, however, that today's George Floyd Revolution isn't unprecedented and that its roots are deep, if there's a story like this from a second-rank talent (and I think I'm being generous with that assessment) that's fifty years old, and wasn't groundbreaking when it was new (ever heard of it? other than The Best Science Fiction of the Year 1 have you run across it in your own casual reading?) despite winning the 1972 Locus Short Fiction and Hugo Short Story honors (see here for citations)?

It was a story that spoke to the concerns of the moment, and made sense in its era; it is newly relevant again; and none of that makes it a great read.

>118 figsfromthistle: Thank you most kindly, Canita! ("Can"adian An"ita"...we've got a few of y'all...) So far, so good. *smooch*

83 Vaster than Empires, and More Slow

Rating: 5* of five

This story, available in The Found and the Lost, is damned near perfect as a meditation on how hard it is to love The Other. This story was nominated for the 1972 Hugo for Best Short Story, though I (subjectively, unprovenly) think it's over the 7,500-word limit on the category; the committee didn't give a Novelette Award (last awarded in 1969) again until 1973, so I wonder if that's the reason it was included in the shorter category for 1972. I digress.

Part of Le Guin's Hainish Cycle of stories begun with 1966's Rocannon's World, this tale recounts the events experienced by the League of Worlds's ten-person team to map and study "World 4470" as part of the ongoing effort to re-establish the League's ancestral empire of Humanity. (How is that possible? Read up on panspermia.) There are only Humans in Le Guin's League (later referred to as "the Ekumen") because, well, there are only Humans. Lots of different kinds of them because evolution as well as gene modification, but we're it. That doesn't mean there isn't xenophobia, racism, interpersonal hostility because, again, Human. The team's split into five Terrans (us) and five others. The main actor in the story is the Terran empath, Osden, whose unpleasant personality evokes anger and dislike from everyone he meets. (Social distancing made easy, eh Osden?)

The weird title is from Andrew Marvell's poem "To His Coy Mistress"; it gives away the entire point of the story, so read it first before poking about in precincts poeticall. The burden of Otherness that we place on those not like us, or those we simply don't like, falls on Osden in so many unfair ways over the course of his life (he's rather squickily said to have developed his psi-power of empathy while being "treated" for autism). He's chosen to separate himself from the civilization he knows but doesn't love by joining this survey team. None of this crew will ever see anything like "home" again: they're traveling at near-relativistic speeds, elapsing time in hours, days, weeks for themselves but centuries for the planets they've left. No one who does this is a happy camper, eh? Osden's merely the most Othered of these misfits. And, in the end, he's the one best served by an entire lifetime of Othering, he's the one who contacts a truly alien intelligence, and he deserves giant dollops of praise and credit. To their credit, his team members agree.

While Effinger's title (reviewed below) won the 1972 Hugo, look at the publication history of this title and tell me which story struck the more lasting chord. I grant it five stars because it is gorgeous prose and profoundly interesting thinking. (Still not squick free, though.)

>117 richardderus: I have unstable wifi all the time, Richard, and quite often no internet at all so I have to go downstairs and disconnect the router and reconnect. One way to get my exercise, I suppose as the router is in the basement and my computer is now on the second floor.

Morning, Richard. I hope you are well. I thought I had dropped by during my WI excursions, but it looks like I failed to do so. Last vacay day for the bird dude and I am heading out to do some birding. Enjoy your day.

>122 Familyhistorian: I live in a building whose wifi is not under my own control, so there's no walking and resetting and the like. I get whatever happens and, well, that's that.

>123 msf59: Have a great day of birding, Mark! I'm sad that I can't see your photo because "privacy error" shows up when I open it in a new tab.

'Morning, RD!

I just woke up half an hour ago and feel like I've been hit by a two-by-four. Coffee! First joy of the day.

I hope you're doing well so far today.

>119 richardderus: Later on, we see the "promiseless smile" of the president (Nixon in those days and a better description of the man's emptiness of soul I have never seen)... Accurate. In 1974 I would have used every pejorative I could think of. Now, compared to what's in the WH, I still see him as soulless and the person who stole my political innocence, but he did create the EPA and was at least competent.

>125 karenmarie: Hi Horrible! Happy post-coffee.

You know what I resent the most about Cheeto Benito? He's made ***NIXON*** a model of presidentiality, a competent if evil administrator, a person whose void-of-conscience was by comparison to narcissistic sociopathic traitorousness positively desirable.

Happy Tuesday, Richard!

>126 richardderus: That is a very sad and frightning thought :'(

>127 FAMeulstee: Thanks, Anita! And yes, it is, I couldn't agree more.

84 Benjamin 2073 by Rjurik Davidson

Rating: 4* of five

Back in the Rehab Department Office, I forced myself...to look at Grimley. You’d have thought with a name like that, he’d have stayed out of bureaucracy, but maybe the name had imprinted some deep unconscious drive within him. Bureaucrats. Once we called them politicians, but now politics has dissolved into everyone. Without corporations, we aren’t obsessed with growth rates and profit any longer. We all make the policies—“economic democracy,” it was called in the beginning. Now it’s just called “the policies,” usually accompanied by a yawn. We elect those people boring enough to do the admin for our views. They were deliberately and ironically called “bureaucrats,” to remind them of just what they were. It didn’t seem to make much difference. They still fucked up the work of anyone like me trying to actually fulfil a vision.

What should we do with people who don't fit? The ones who don't, can't, certainly won't, see the world in the hues most find so comforting? It's like the entire species has red/green/blue light sensors and the misfits have sixteen different ones like mantis shrimp. Ellie, the first-person narrator of this genius-gone-wild tale, sees thylacines in the wilds of Tasmania where most people see the beauties of renewed nature. (It's fiction, so in 2073, Humanity has killed corporations, smashed political systems that reward planetary-scale rapine, and begun to live in a low-impact way. I'll be dead, thank goodness, so I won't be there among the neoVictorian hellscape of Manchester II and New Pittsburgh as the .01% suck on fresh oxygen tanks as decent, worthwhile people die at 35.)

In this lovely fever dream, Ellie's been given resources to work on reintroducing the thylacine, extinct since 1936, into Tasmania's wilds. She's limited her world to the achievement of this goal. The miserable childhood stuck in an exoskeleton because her mother's adventure-seeking selfishness exposed her to a teratogenic substance. The loss of her innocence when a kindly motivated friend said of the boy who wouldn't be her boyfriend, "Look at him. Now look at you." The death of the grandmother whose life was over long before she died: “It’s just past my time. I’m all out of place.” All these pressure her to achieve...something...something far grander than a mere life restoring the raped Earth's clothes to some kind of order: Revive something our careless, heedless, really quite stupid actions fumblingly killed.

But the course of obsession is never easy. Her political boss, Bureaucrat Grimley, cuts her funding because who actually cares about this animal dead for 137 years? There are ripped seams to mend, scratched limbs to bathe and heal, all over Tasmania. Thien (at times the copyeditor went to sleep and let "Tien" appear, which irked me) is her henchrat, the gayboy who loves the crippled girl for her mind (there's a trope we could let die without losing much), finally tells Ellie some home truths: Get out. Go live your life. We're not going to succeed. Some battles can't be won.

Tell that to the spearing, smashing mantis shrimp, Thien. Ellie is a misfit and, beautifully, that means she gives not a single fuck what stands in her way. She will beat it or slice it, but she *will* move beyond that obstacle, the next, and the one after that.

The world, it turns out, needs that person as much in 2073 as in 1609 or 1905. This is a sentimental, sometimes inelegant, but readable and even occasionally persuasive story of what the world needs from its junk-drawer people, the ones whose shapes, sizes, or dubious utility don't earn them a proud, sculpturally fitted slot in the easy-to-reach places.

>126 richardderus: If there is such a thing as a low tide in American politics then this is surely it, RD.

Good thing is that surely his tenure has but 15 weeks to go.

Hope you are taking good care of yourself, dear fellow.

'Morning, RD! Another hot one down here in central NC - 97F with a heat index of 105F. Blech. I do have to change out the hummingbird food and birdbath but have no plans to be out other than that.

I hope you have a cool, indoors day.

*smooch*

>130 PaulCranswick: I *devoutly* hope you're correct in your prognostication, PC, and 45 will vacate the public housing unit he's squatted in as scheduled.

>131 karenmarie: Hi Horrible! As I said chez vous, I stayed up until 2.30 bingeing the Peacock Brave New World. I *must* be awake when breakfast arrives somewhere between 7.30 and 8.00 or the Machinery starts up and I get hourly checks (most annoying). So instead of a sleep-late day, it's a Sir Naps-a-lot day for me.

*smooch*

Howdy, Ricardo! Hoping you get a second negative test back soon. Woefully behind on LT, but smooches!!!

>133 Berly: Happy to see you here, Berly-boo! *smooch*

>132 richardderus: The Guardian today was quoting Chump as not committing himself to accepting the results of the election. The Republican Party should step in and nominate someone else instead of the jackass.

>135 PaulCranswick: I fear it wouldn't matter to 45, he'd still refuse to vacate...he knows there is exactly no chance his departure from his squat will not be followed by indictment and probably arrest for his crimes.

>136 richardderus: I can see that he is going to be escorted/manhandled from the Oval Office and it will make for great TV. I cannot see any circumstances whereby the forces of the state would aid him in such an obviously treasonable exercise.

Be great if Biden got to point at him and say "Your'e fired" - another failed Apprentice.

Good morning, RD!

My new lucky number - 864511320.

I hope you have a good day.

Morning, Richard. Sweet Thursday. Sorry, that the image didn't come up, up there. I will try to repost it. Lovely day in Chicagoland. The intense heat returns for the weekend. Sighs...

Hooray for 8645!!

>137 PaulCranswick: Oh, that would make such a great meme! Ha!

>138 karenmarie: I love that, it's perfect. *smooch* for a good day for you, as well.

>139 msf59: Oh barf! I hate that you're going back into the pressure cooker, especially since you're going to be out walking in it. Hiss boo.
***
Okay, so in contagion news: Old Stuff is out of quarantine; I am not. Blessèdly, that means he's not back in the room. Boo-hissèdly, that means I still need to be prepared to sit still until further notice. *sigh*

85 Colony by Philip K. Dick

Rating: 3.5* of five

In June 1953's Galaxy Science Fiction magazine, this story appears towards the end of the magazine; I wonder if that isn't the smartest thing Editor H.L. Gold did...this is a haunting, truly bizarre tale that uses sex, along with gender stereotypes, to sell a silly premise: An alien intelligence is able to form itself into any inorganic thing humans have made, and since the humans in question are sizing up the alien intelligence's home planet for colonization, it uses its ability to surprise-attack them.

...and how does it know what they're planning...? If it can read human minds, why can't it shape itself into the creatures thinking the thoughts?

*sprinkles Handwavium Flakes on the word salad*

So anyway, this alien shapeshifter thing works its wicked ways with an increasing number of the crew of colonists; a desperate Commander Stella Morrison (a real, live woman in command of a crew of mixed-gender military scientists! in 1953!) finally believes Major Larry Hall, her ex, isn't crazy for reporting that his microscope M*A*S*H'S Section 8 psych discharge) takes the decision to call in a rescue ship, and...well...it's part of the fun for you to read that bit yourselves. The title above is a link to a free PDF.

Then came the NBC radio drama X Minus 1. On 10 October 1956, it broadcast this story's dramatization by Ernest Kinoy as the 71st of 126 episodes made between 1955 and 1958. I can just barely imagine how it went over...a woman commanding men, and that ending!...but go over it did. I'd've loved to be there for the hilarity.

I can honestly say either means of consuming the story is very worthwhile. And the subtle, lovely foreshadowing of the ending that PKD does throughout the story is a really good reason to experience it in both media. Oh my goodness, the ending! I am still chortling.

Hi, Richard. Good reviews - the PKD particularly interests me.

Your comments on Old Guard were fun. We enjoyed watching it. At the beginning of Charlize Theron's career I never would've guessed she'd be one of our most entertaining action heroes. Debbi had the same question about the young black Marine - why her? They never gave us a reason why, or any personal history that would give a hint.

When you said, "vaunted gay representation", it took me a minute to realize what you were talking about. I guess that underscores your point that it was weak and without chemistry.

My BFF gave 'The Old Guard' a try and found it mediocre for much of it and then ended up hate-watching it. So I'm definitely giving it a pass!

Sorry about your quarantine status, but yay for no Old Stuff.

>142 jnwelch: Thank you, Joe, I'm glad my point was clear there...and the young Black Marine thing still leaves a nasty "token token who's part's the token?" taste in my mouth. Yes, there were a few "sneeze & you'll miss it" references to her dad serving in the Marines, but so what?

Anyway, there's gonna be a sequel and you wanna bet me there'll be even less about the gay guys?

>143 katiekrug: Heh...no loss to you, Katie.

I'm focusing on "yay" but it's taking some effort....
***
For some reason, "Yankee Doodle" ear-wormed me in today's nap, but with Trumped-up lyrics. The only lines I remember are "Trumpy's poodles went to town..." and "they stuck their heads right up his ass & called it MAGA-roni"!

Somebody get Randy Rainbow on this one PDQ!

>126 richardderus: 😱 Yikes!

>145 SandyAMcPherson: I know, right?!

I don't know if you have to register with Comic-Con to watch this, but if you do, it is 100% free (the registration).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRGOmWwYu0U&feature=youtu.be

Discover why horror cinema is (and always has been) queer with Sam Wineman (The Quiet Room), director of Shudder’s upcoming documentary on LGBTQ horror film history, and a panel of leading voices featured in the doc: Nay Bever (co-host, Attack of the Queerwolf podcast), Bryan Fuller (creator, Hannibal), Don Mancini (creator of the Child’s Play franchise), Lachlan Watson (actor, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina), and, serving as moderator, writer Jordan Crucchiola.

And here are all the panels that were recorded today:
https://www.comic-con.org/cciathome/2020/thursday

>147 ronincats: Oh wow, Roni! What a treasure trove. Thanks!

Boo hiss on continued quarantine, but bonus for no roommate. Also shuddering about your mouse-y problem. The biggest downside of owning my own house someday is going to be the setting and disposing of traps. Right now I'm a wimp and have my landlord to it (I've graduated to using a pair of work gloves to maneuver it into a bag in the dog poop move).

‘Morning, RDear!

>140 richardderus: I was going to ask about OS but then decided to let sleeping dogs lie. Glad he’s not in the room with you, sorry you’re still in quarantine.

July’s been a long year, hasn’t it?

*smooch*

>150 karenmarie: July’s been a long year, hasn’t it?.
Yup, got that right...

Not just me finding July interminable then...

Fingers crossed for clean swabs soon (and them finding somewhere else to permanently stow OS!).

Okay, more info. You do have to register but, as I noted, registration is free and gives you access to all the panels. This one is starting right now!

YouTube: https://youtu.be/RcX-OQG8joc

Howard Cruse, widely recognized as the "godfather of queer comics," passed away on November 28th, 2019. He left behind a remarkable legacy as the creator of Gay Comix, Wendel, and Stuck Rubber Baby (back in print from First Second Books in a 25th Anniversary Edition). Howard Cruse not only broke open doors with his prodigious talent, but he held them open for those who came after him. Join Prism Comics and moderators Justin Hall (No Straight Lines, professor, California College of the Arts), Jennifer Camper (Juicy Mother, Queers & Comics Conference organizer) and Karen Green (curator for Comics and Cartoons at Columbia University) for three panels discussing Cruse's life and work featuring creators who worked with or knew Howard - Trina Robbins, Denis Kitchen, Roberta Gregory, Robert Triptow, Diane DiMassa, Robert Kirby, Ivan Velez Jr., Rupert Kinnard, Ajuan Mance, Steve MacIsaac, Tara Madison Avery, William O. Tyler, and Andy Mangels.

For more about Howard Cruse please visit http://www.howardcruse.com
For a historical tribute to Howard Cruse written by Andy Mangels please download the Comic-Con 2020 Souvenir Book.

Panelist Links
Tara Madison Avery - stackeddeckpress.com
Jennifer Camper - jennifercamper.com
Diane DiMassa - Facebook: Diane DiMassa Artist
Roberta Gregory - http://www.robertagregory.com
Justin Hall - justinhallawesomecomics.com
Rupert Kinnard, cartoonist - Facebook: Rupert Kinnard
Rob Kirby - robkirbycomics.com
Denis Kitchen - http://www.deniskitchen.com
Steve MacIsaac - stevemacisaac.com
Ajuan Mance - 8-rock.com
Andy Mangels - http://www.andymangels.com
Robert Triptow - https://roberttriptow.com
William O. Tyler - https://www.williamotyler.com
Ivan Velez Jr. - planetbronx.com
Prism Comics - https://www.prismcomics.org

Thanks, Mary, Horrible, Sandy, and Bekka!

I'm sure it's almost time for us to re-elect President Warren...that'll happen when I'm out of solitary, won't it? I sure hope she chooses Ocasio-Cortez for Veep this time!

What? It's *got* to be 2028 by now....

>153 ronincats: Wow, Roni, thank you for keeping me in the loop. I appreciate knowing about Howard Cruse's panel.

Dropping in to say hello. It's been a busy week for me, but next week will be busier. Hoping I can relax the week after that.

>154 richardderus: Made me smile despite there being an element of tragi-comedy there, RD.

Suspended animation would be an excellent innovation for these days. I must say I am not so excited about the prospect of sleepy Joe being President but now clearly needs must. Warren was originally my choice but somehow her campaign simply refused to take off and I think that if Bernie wasn't in the field she may have garnered more public enthusiasm. I do think that America needs to heal itself and have a term of competent administration. I would have thought Klobuchar ideal for that but again it seems that others thought that Biden was the one best placed to beat Chump. Unimaginative but hopefully he will get the job done of beating the Ginger Whinger.

Have a good weekend, dear fellow.

Roomie still not invading your space?

>156 thornton37814: Hello there, Lori, welcome to a brief respite from the demands of life. I hope you'll get that real-life pause as soon as possible.

>157 PaulCranswick: I guess I'm in the "laugh-or-scream" phase of...what year is this again?...ans until someone arrives with my soma, just grit what be be gritted, clench what can be clenched, and power through.

Warren's campaign made some initial plain ol' goofs. The *real* problems, though, were the media outlets knowing she wasn't popular among the donor class and the legacy of a different woman's "failed" bid for election. How anyone can call winning the popular vote "failing" is beyond my comprehension. Losing, yes; failing? Not a bit of it.

Happy Saturday, RD! I hope you continue to be OS-less although the reason isn’t good, of course.

Keep clenching and gritting and powering through!

*smooch*

>159 karenmarie: I confess I'm enjoying my time without Old Stuff. I would strongly prefer not to share my space ever, but reality must be bowed to. I'm almost glad that it's been so vile outside as the temptation to break quarantine is non-existent when it's 90s/mid-30s outside, and humid with it.

*smooch*

Just delurking for one moment.

Because honestly, I got nothin’.

>161 Matke: *sings* I got plenty o' nothin'
and nothin's plenty for meeee

Happy to see you, Gail!

86 The Fourth Profession by Larry Niven

Rating: 3.5* of five

Ugh, Larry Niven's not my jam at the best of times and this story's pretty close to the best of times that he gets up to. I don't like his racism or sexism...women are only there in relation to men, "dark women" are cleaning ladies who need to be told their jobs, the lone woman with a speaking part having a new profession as a housewife so Her Man sneaks an amnesia pill into her coffee so she, but not he, will forget her special knowledge (which is pretty creepy but she chose it!)*retch*...so permaybehaps the woke among us should go elsewhere in search of our wish fulfillment.

What wish, you wonder, could such a creepy old man fulfill?

Knowledge. Pure learning delivered by RNA manipulation. Go on, get it out, yuk it up, I got time. After all that is precisely how I responded when I first saw the trope on the page. RNA pills that, when consumed, deliver specialist knowledge to the consumer whole and entire. Want to know how to kill an armed, intelligent worm? There's a pill for that–only it's usable, actionable, solely for other intelligent worms. I mean, you'll know how to do it, and your memory will include the physical sensations, the muscle memory, of how to accomplish it; but your bipedal ape-body doesn't have those muscles.

So there are limits to the gifts of knowledge. Mm hmm, yeup, I'm still gonna mug the guy with the pills and start shovelin' 'em down and don't front, you are too. Which is why I stayed the course, kept the scroll button hot, and rode Niven's rockette through to the contrived-but-ambiguously-amusing ending.

Honestly...not one I'd say is super-dooper-ground-breaking-wowzers-good. Like all Niven, it sets off squicks for me. It's got enough old-school appeal that I won't *discourage* you from following the link above....

Amen.

>164 richardderus: - Yes!

>165 katiekrug: And how I wish we could.

>163 richardderus: I rather like Larry himself, who really is almost as privileged a white guy as they come, but his wanting to write, and SF at that, did cause is so-rich family a qualm or two. He's been very helpful to aspiring writers some of whom got their name recognition because he collaborated with them. But, yeah, the women in his stories have even less dimension than the men.

>167 quondame: I don't think he knows any actual women. And perish forbid a character should be *shudder* queer.

I lost the goodwill I had for his magic-is-oil logical use of those silliest-imaginable violations of physics when he advised the Department of Homeland Security.

>163 richardderus: Well, I think I'll safely skip that one.

87 The Ghost Bride by Yangsze Choo

Rating: 4* of five

The Starless One's four-star review of this book prompted me to realize I'd never written a review of this book!

I really enjoyed this strange, off-kilter magical realist tale of the role of women in traditional cultures: Necessary, but might as well be dead for all the respect they're paid. Until they're necessary. Then, once the problem is solved, status quo ante. Unless you're Li Lan....

Big plus for the gloriously weird Chinese afterlife painted by Choo's ghost bride, Li Lan. Her, well, matter-of-factness in the face of goins-on that'd make me feel I was insane was pitch-perfect and the sheer gonzo "right, this is what I'm doing and this is where we are so just deal with it suckas" prose...modulated madness...is heaven to read. All those traps of OTT verbiage that frequently sink books presenting "exotic" cultures to non-native audiences are simply ignored.

One thing I'm not too big on is the patness of the ending. The Big Reveal was curiously flat for me, lacking as it did a sense of organic development from Li Lan's adventures. But it's clearly not a deal breaker, look at those four shiny stars.

Thank you to the publisher for providing me a review copy.

>169 bell7: I strongly support this decision, Mary, I think the spoiler-tagged bit would really cause you distress...it's callous and cruel.

>168 richardderus: Well, he is Þe Olde Straight Guy, but he knows me, a bit, and based the Patchwork Girl on a friend of mine. His mother was something else, a force to be sure, and I'd heard that daughters were favored in his family. He's co-authored with Brenda Cooper. I attended one of those old Regan era President's advisory council meetings, doing food prep in the kitchen with the wimmen. Once was more than enough listening to a bunch of blowhards who came to believe they won the cold war.
Strange that the villain in his books was so often a police state. But he is a real fanboy of scientists and to be included with them on a President's advisory, well, it is just not resistible.
Doesn't make his writing tolerable to you, and I've been flat out bored with most of his recent efforts, but I know the people and he's decent for the vintage and privilege level.

>172 quondame: The thing I'd *like* to focus on is his scientist-fanboy bit, but I can't get past the politics. Ringworld is one of those old-fashioned stories where wimmins is wimmins and the menfolk take on the sciency stuff. F/ex, Prill can't seem to figure out the source of this civilization's demise and her ship's disaster as being causally linked but Louis sees it instantly (as good as, what?) *and* leaps to the unsupported conclusion about the superconductor thing.

But hey, he's 82 and was born with sterling-silver gnashers.

The bumper stickers are getting better and better. In addition to "864511320", I've just seen this:

>173 richardderus: Hetero guys of his age and the next 20 years really, came into a sexual revolution where there were many young women who strangely believed that if they could have sex without pregnancy, having as much as they could was as good for them as it was for guys. Then herpes, then AIDS. But so many of us women had drunk that koolaid that there was no push backs on the guys, well not much, until well after Anita Hill called one of them on it.
Still, the entire huge Ringworld full of intelligent beings hadn't figured out a thing, so Prill's failure is hardly a matter of gender, and if there's no puzzle there's hardly any plot. Larry's men are pretty much puppets too.

>174 laytonwoman3rd: Heh, that's a good way to say it, I agree. *chuckle*

>175 quondame: Fair point.

I don't feel like reviewing it, but I do feel like y'all should read At the Fall by Alec Nevala-Lee. (Link is to free read.)

As always, it's to James W. Harris's blog Classics of Science Fiction that I owe my awareness of the best SF short fiction around.

P.S. A picture from 1984 WorldCon. I'm on the far right, Larry's on the left. I made his shirt. Two other women are in the photo - the Puppeteer and the Thrint. The puppeteer was the master class costumer Kat Bushman, who made the aliens.

>178 quondame: Very, very Worldcon-worthy!

>171 richardderus: Yeah, I had already decided I was going to read it so peeked under the spoiler tag and I have to say you're right. It's quite alright, my library stack has already glared at me a couple of times this week for not reading it fast enough and *still* looking at shiny new book titles.

Good morning, RDear!

>163 richardderus: Clickbait. I clickbaited. And enjoyed the story. Not being a serious or even semi-serious SF fan a lot of what’s in the story are new ideas to me.

Where you didn’t like “Her Man sneaks an amnesia pill into her coffee so she, but not he, will forget her special knowledge (which is pretty creepy but she chose it!)”, I thought he respected her by taking away the need to serve Her Man, and would wait to see if the feelings she had under the influence of the pill translated into real feelings. In other words, I thought he gave her back her ability to choose. Of course, it would have been despicable if she’d had the same power as his Jesus-like power and he took that away.

>180 bell7: Oh, those cranky old shelf-sitters! *sigh* Such a bunch of whiners.

>181 karenmarie: Well then, it worked! Heh. Re: spoiler, well, you're more generous of spirit than I am. I don't tend to give a lot of wiggle-room to people, do I.

>164 richardderus: I LOVE this!

Happy Sunday, Richard. I hope you are enjoying the weekend. I am laying low in the Man Cave today. I have been reading and now watching the Cubs beat up on the Brewers. My current reads, Parakeet & American Heiress have been excellent. The latest Gauld has been diverting as well.

>183 msf59: Me too. I think it's funny, but I also feel the same way.

I'd be completely shocked and appalled if you *didn't* enjoy the latest Gauld! But I'm pleased it's been a good read for you.

>164 richardderus: I love it too, has some modern relevance too!

>183 msf59: Any truth in the Cubs changing their name because it has been deemed ageist against bears?!

>184 richardderus: Ya think? An evergreen, really, and with a modest shift of symbols widely applicable.

>185 PaulCranswick: *snerk* That'd be a ball (!) to watch wend its way through Chicago's press. I almost hope someone tries it.

Hi, Richard! Hope you had a lovely weekend!

>163 richardderus: I read a few of the Ringworld novels and also Lucifer's Hammer back in the, I don't know, late 70s/early 80s, and enjoyed them then, but the idea of reading SF from that era now is yeah, no.

>164 richardderus: Heh, I feel much the same.

>170 richardderus: Glad to see you enjoyed Ghost Bride. I did too. I also found her almost nonchalant acceptance of the ghost world creepy but, as you pointed out, so pitch-perfect matter-of-fact. I don't remember the end, just that I enjoyed the novel a lot.

>174 laytonwoman3rd: Love it. I've got an 864511320 bumper sticker which I need to get on my car's bumper and then drive around town so people can see it. I haven't been in the car for over a week. I used to drive almost every day. Life sure has gotten weird.

>188 Storeetllr: Hi Mary! I'm glad you visited. The Nivens I've read, like Ringworld, were memorable. I am still in awestruck love with the mere notion of Ringworld...what a stunning idea. Imagine slappin' one o' them things around a red dwarf. *shiver*

I do so enjoy stories like The Ghost Bride which present really fully realized alternate worlds right here in our own.

Life got weird and keeps getting weirder. My quarantine has been lifted at last! But that comes with the inevitable fact of Old Stuff returning. Ick. Today's nasty weather comes with air-quality warnings, so I still won't be venturing out. But I *can* at last!

Congratulations on being out of the big Q! Wishing you some more reasonable weather tout suite so you can get out and about again.

With your quarantine lifted, can you get to the dentist?

Stay cool!

Wednesday, 29 July 2020 The four horse-manuremen of the datapocalypse will testify before Congress about their insane, untrammeled greed and its deleterious effect on Society. (I am presupposing the end result of the hearing here because I am under no obligation to hide my own opinion of these nauseating monopolists.)

The antitrust issues about which the scum are to speak are detailed on Bloomberg, Yahoo Finance, and of course C-SPAN will carry the hearing live at 12 noon EDT.

>190 MickyFine: Thanks, Micky! I'm not entirely unhappy at needing to be quarantined when it was so awful out, I confess. Rob is delighted that he can come get a little canoodle-time again, which lack he's mentioned more than once feels like a major deprivation to him. Of course it would be lifted as he's going into eight straight days of wildly busy schedule! Gawd loves her little jokes.

>191 katiekrug: I can safely make the appointment, and have already left Dr. Weiskopf a message asking for same. YAY!!

I shall not tiptoe near the out-of-doors until after the air-quality alert is lifted later tonight.

'Morning, RichardDear!

>182 richardderus: well, you're more generous of spirit than I am. I don't tend to give a lot of wiggle-room to people, do I. We've had to ATD on many a book because of my immediate and visceral dislike, so I'm only generous of spirit sometimes.

*smooch* from your own Horrible

>164 richardderus: This one cracks me up every time I see it. That's a sane reaction.

Gay guys in Old Guard (have you read the GN? I've asked for it at the lib): our daughter LOVED them in what she saw on Youtube and, I guess, Twitter. She got upset with me that I didn't appreciate more what they did in the movie. The catch: the movie isn't her cuppa, and she never saw it. I suspect that if she'd seen the movie, she'd be more in line with what you and I thought.

>195 jnwelch: I read volume one of the GN series. (Apparently I didn't make that clear enough in the review; I've had comments about how this is a place for *books* etcetc blahblahblah so I am not going back to revise it out of spitefulness.) It's not like the film spent anything like the time setting up the men that the GN did, so the lame-ass chitty-chat in the back of an armored transport that had no grounding in the film wasn't remotely the same thing in the GN.

I made it 17:05 into Netflix's new show, Cursed, before the appearance of wax candles on a wrought iron grate jump cut into a semi-ruined castle with a man in a cassock closed with gold-colored buttons sitting on a mock-medieval Gothickal Throne while wearing a gold circlet-style crown did me in.

Buzzcut skinhead Merlin flashed a little flesh, but there just isn't any coming back from this level of nonsense.

>198 richardderus: Yup, that's unapologetically me.

>199 bell7: I think most of us are the bootroverts in our worlds.

>200 richardderus: As much as I love my purple boots, I wouldn't go so far as to call myself a bootrovert.

Starless Susan the Bootrovert. Oh my, yes.

>186 PaulCranswick: On the same subject the San Francisco NFL have come under fire from the Dyscalculia Society who are insisting upon a name change. This has been pho-phod by the Dyslexia Society who have stated that it wouldn't make any difference to them "wun whey ore anuver"

Good morning, RDear!

>197 richardderus: Another Arthur thingie? Gads. Thanks for warning me.

Heard back from the dentist yet?

>203 PaulCranswick: *chuckle* Well played.

>204 karenmarie: Hi Horrible, you're on the cheery side today, aren't you? No word from the dentist yet, given the hours he keeps in an effort to work around the new virus guidelines. I'll be patient a few more days.

Really, it's *my* issue around historical fantasy that makes me so unable to cope with out-and-out nonsense like brass buttons in buttonholes holding closed a form-fitting cassock made of Prussian blue *gabardine*...I mean...eleventh century, thirteenth century, fifteenth century, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries...

*fantods*

Pretty far removed from fifth-century Britannia, no?

>198 richardderus: Love it!

Happy Tuesday, Richard. I hope the week is off to a good start. Was there mention of Old Guard, the Netflix film, somewhere up there? I want to see that one.

>206 msf59: Hi Mark, you damn-near-retired Birddude you. Yes, there was The Old Guard talk...but maybe don't plunge too deep in that pool since you want to see the film. I'm not a fan.

Spend it well, if not wisely.

>206 msf59:, >207 richardderus: Watched it with mrsdrneutron the other day - thought it was ok, but nothing to write home about.

>208 drneutron: It's being sold to QUILTBAG people as "finally some real representation!" in the comic-book/superhero movie genre. I was underwhelmed at first, appalled as I thought about it, that such arrant nonsense could be perpetrated with this film. Rucka, creator/writer, is alleged to have made an absolute condition of sale out of the much-discussed "his kiss thrills me" speech which ends in a "kiss" (faked or carefully digitally obscured).

Having seen it twice and read the first comic, I can honestly say that the pallid, weak-kneed thing that is this speech is more a last-ditch struggle against Asian homophobia's stranglehold on Hollywood than some noble and principled stand that Rucka won.

It might not make a difference to most, including me, but to tasteless young unformed-palate queer kids this sends the message that you're still Other and therefore lesser. I was huffed at in another venue that this was Real Progress because a woman leads the troop and now another woman is set to take over! Plus she's Black!

...promoted over the queer guys with a literal millennium of experience on her...

No winning this argument. Never will be.

>209 richardderus: Hadn't heard much about how it was being sold. I was underwhelmed with the scene at the time and thought it played as a gimmick, which is one of the reasons I wasn't impressed. Also, a few plot holes didn't help, like the one you mention.

>205 richardderus: The nominal setting may be post-Roman Britain, but King Arthur has long been high medieval. It has always been fantasy/propaganda rather than historical. Not that I don't have the exact same complaints when 11th-12th Robin Hood is dolled up in 13th-14th cent drag. Of course I like a punk/heavy metal Merlin, why not?

>210 drneutron: It's all too, too depressing, if you look at it closely.

>211 quondame: Okay. Well, not really, but I'll go with the high medieval farrago...so what about Prussian-blue gabardine buttonholed cassocks?

*ducking the movie conversation since the last one I watched was Frozen 2*
*smooch*

>212 richardderus: As long as it's fantasy, which King Arthur is, it gets latitude. If they trot out Richard I, he'd better be wearing 12th century to avoid criticism.
Since we flat out do not make worsted wool as was before the 14th century when carded wool woolens rather than worsted made inroads, getting fabric right is mostly impossible.
If they don't use knits and zippers, they've made progress. Of course I will snipe at modern efforts which mangle historic clothing into costume, but if the garb isn't helping to tell the story then it's not good either.

>213 bell7: So! Mary! When you Netflix-n-chill next...
...
...Mary...?

>214 quondame: Okay, point taken re: fabrics, but honestly for me they might as well have put the guy in a leisure suit.

>215 richardderus: Lancelot in a leisure suit, giggle, chort, chort.

>164 richardderus: yup, uh huh, yessirreeee.

And, even just the *words* leisure suit are hilarious. Especially if pronounced "Lee-zhure"...

>216 quondame: I couldn't agree more!

>217 LovingLit: Leezhure suits are inherently funny, agreed, but not anywhere near as funny as saying "leh-zhr" suit is.

Just saying hello.

‘Morning, RD! Happiest of Wednesdays to you in these Very Strange Times.

>205 richardderus: I’m almost always cheery, and quite frequently snarky. The Arthurian legend bores me mightily, always has, always will, except for the Disney The Sword in the Stone. I know you’re staring in disbelief right now, but yes, I admit that I like it bunches.

And anachronisms almost always make me twitch. A Knight’s Tale is an exception to this, for some strange reason. I hasten to add that I loved AKT prior to my recent fascination with Queen and Freddie Mercury. There might be a few other anachronistic things I like, but I can’t think of them offhand, books or movies.

>219 Matke: Hi Gail. Happy to see you here.

>220 karenmarie: Wednesday orisons, Horrible. I think what the two projects you cite have in common is that they're gonzo OTT celebrations of factlessness, not historical fiction. They *exist* to anachronize, not to evoke the atmosphere of temps perdus.

That, in my mind anyway, makes the entire exercise completely different.

An example of what I'm talking about is the movie Troy. It's not meant to be factually faithful to The Iliad; it's meant to evoke the spirit of the Trojan War. And Pitt and Bloom have, in the first five minutes, a *sword fight* in *ruined*Classical*temples*.

Ruined? Also Classical temples?!

I know what let's do: Let's make a movie about the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, only we'll set it in St. Patrick's Cathedral! What's that you say? The Massacre took place in Chicago and St. Patrick's is in New York? It was a long time ago, no one's around to care. Wait, machine guns in a cathedral aren't believable? But it's about Saint Valentine, and he was a martyred soldier, so it fits!

If you're not making a wildly unfactual story but purporting to tell a story about days gone by, get at the very least the big stuff right.

>213 bell7: Hahahaha, right there with you, Mary. (Last film I saw was Trolls.) (I only watch films now with the baby. Over and over and over again.) (She's gone through binge-watching Moana - which I love - then Frozen 2 - which I don't hate - and now Trolls - which, somehow, I kind of enjoy. At least I enjoy watching HER enjoy it.)

Hi, Richard! Totally with you on anachronisms in films and books, even fantasy, unless some reason to deviate is provided. If you're going to set something in a specific historical period, try to get the details right - at least the big ones. Except for dialogue. I'm okay with modern slang when I'm reading an historical mystery set in, say, ancient Rome. Because accurately depicted ancient Roman speech would be beyond boring, verging on incomprehensible. Just don't give the ancient Romans buttons on their cotton drawers.

>223 Storeetllr: Hi Mary! I'm so glad you stopped in. And yes, dialogue gets a pass from me as well because I'm not eager to replicate the experience of reading The Canterbury Tales ever, ever again. It was not "just like English" and "simple to understand" it was weird archaic spellings of should-be-familiar words that are strung together funny. Sorta like British with its Frenchified "theatre" and "honour," and "Chiswick" and "Gloucester" being said "chizzik" and "gloster"...but "Cirencester" is "sirensester" like it looks (more or less).

>223 Storeetllr: Bahahaha, Trolls. Yeah, Mia (my niece) went through a phase of loving Trolls and watching it almost daily. She and her brother have watched Moana and both Frozen movies, too. I watched Frozen 2 all by myself though lol.

>215 richardderus: *snort* I watch nothing at all or I binge an entirely TV season, there's basically no in-between.

>223 Storeetllr: Don't let her see Rock-A-Doodle! My daughter spent months on that one.

Happy Wednesday, Richard. Thanks for your thoughts on Old Guard. I will probably still give it a shot. I enjoy some mayhem now and then. The Raw Shark Texts is off to a trippy and entertaining start.

>178 quondame:, I'm waaaay behind, so will just say this image was a lark.
But those alien costumes! Omg they must have been suffocatingly hot.

BTW, @ 170, I loved this The Starless One's four-star review. I have The Ghost Bride was on my WL based on Susan's recommendation after I reviewed her previous rec. Ten Thousand Doors....

I am so way behind on plowing through my library cascade. We had curbside pick up *finally* open. I was very surprised how many old requests of mine came through.

Just stopping in to say hello.
Hello!

>225 bell7: Heh. Not like I'm familiar with that behavior at all.

>226 quondame: :-)

>227 msf59: I hope you'll enjoy it, Mark.

>228 SandyAMcPherson: Hi Sandy! I've canceled all holds and will not get going on the library again until I am sure the second wave has peaked. Until then, the ebooks will do me fine.

>229 ChelleBearss: Hello there, Chelle! Happy you dropped in.

My number came up for Too Much and Never Enough this morning, so I'm 21% in...it's 1963 and Freddy's on his way out of the family...and curiously I feel much better about the world. I understand the MAGAts at last: He really is them, abused and denigrated and desperate to exert control any way he can.

Mind you, I despise them and hold them in contempt as much as ever. I just hadn't known the appalling extent of the mental-health disaster that is end-stage capitalism.

I suppose I should put this one on Overdrive reserve - though hopefully by the time it gets around to me it won't matter any more as he'll be gone.

>233 drneutron: That was what I thought, Jim, look at me now!

>224 richardderus: Right?!? Reading Shakespeare is about as authentic as I care to get, and not even The Bard does authentic dialogue from earlier time periods.

>225 bell7: Hahaha. I haven't watched Frozen 2 by myself, but I did watch Moana by myself - after I watched it numerous times with the baby.

>226 quondame: Oh, gods above and below! Thanks for the warning! *scurries off to google it*

Friday *smooches* Richard, and hope you're doing well. After work today, I should have a fairly quiet weekend after being out and about the last two Saturdays. I'm looking forward to some downtime and reading.

>235 Storeetllr: I need a concordance for Shakey-speary too, Mary..."fardles?" But anyway, we have our unimpeachable source for refusing to read archaisms...the Man Himself.

>236 bell7: Quiet, lovely weekend plans. Yes, that's a great way to spend the first of August, and I hope you'll enjoy it all.

Happy grey Friday!

Happy Friday RD. I thought I posted yesterday, but I guess it's NC summer brain rot.

I hope you're still appreciating and learning from Mary T's book - enjoy isn't the right word for sure.

*smooch* from your own Horrible

>238 katiekrug: Grey = cooler, so bring it sez I. Enjoy recovery day!

>239 karenmarie: *smooch*

Dr. T's book is a definite learning experience. I see why it boomed like a match to gas, and why 45's people were so extremely determined to stop it. If they'd meant to stop people from buying it, they did the 180°-opposite by fussing over it so much. What I wonder is, did they actually use the kerfuffle to distract from that disastrous Homeland-Security overreach....

No happy hour last night, no recovery needed :D

No? Oh rats. I'm sorry, those beats of normalcy are sorely needed in the world-gone-mad we're inhabiting.

We've moved to every other week, so it's more of a treat now. And we have more to bitch complain talk about...

Oooohhhh, that makes sense. It's a treat, not an obligation, when it's less frequent.

Happy Friday, Richard dear! I hope it's not too hot and humid there and that lots of good reading is coming your way.

Hallo Miz Roni! It's extremely humid, though less hot, and I'm immersed in Dr. Trump's book which is very good reading indeed. I'm already wondering how to frame my review of it.

Spend a luscious weekend! *smooch*

Lapham's Quarterly ran this lovely illustrated timeline about the milestones leading us to the present moment where books are astoundingly cheap.
https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/roundtable/how-books-became-cheap

>247 richardderus: Interesting choices for milestones. As if paper technology was a given and Chinese and European moveable type were interchangeable and the metallurgy required was, once again, a given.

I think that, absent paper, the idea of printing is simply inconceivable. I don't know of any research that shows papyrus would react poorly to the printing process, though.

>249 richardderus: It is much harder to make than paper, though. And not available or durable in northern Europe. Very little of it has lasted even in Egypt, so the library of Alexandria would all have to have been copied on to velum to last - and there weren't trained men and materials enough for a fraction of that for centuries.

>250 quondame: I wonder how a more-efficient papyrus-making technology would look...and if scrolls would be easier to print than folios....

>251 richardderus: Like paper making. Each papyrus sheet was two layers, at right angles, and one side was much better for writing. Almost as much a luxury product as velum.

>231 richardderus: The library cascade for me these days is indeed a pile of e-books.
I could be laissez-faire about physical books if I hadn't finished them because the system can't snatch them back. But e-books close out the access automatically.

I've become quite a fan of e-books since March. It's kind of the one positive thing from having no physical book access (although our holds on physical books just came active again last week). I was "forced" into e-book library loans and have discovered that I love this for reading at night. Easy to lounge in bed and so effortless to page over.

As well, I discovered how handy that highlight feature for notes became. No more paper tags hanging out of my books and fluttering to the floor!

I noted the papyrus conversation starting @ 247. Very interesting and I hadn't ever thought about how papyrus was made. Which is silly of me, because I had to learn a great deal about the Kraft process in paper-making (and delved into some historical methods), so I should have known more about papyrus.

I love LT talk for the arcane topics that come up. It's great fun
Cheers, I hope the weekend stays cooler and not muggy out there by the sea.

>252 quondame: I wonder if another method could be used, as that one sounds pretty inefficient given the two-sided-ness of the result.

>253 SandyAMcPherson: It's one of the many pleasures of hanging out with readers, I've observed, to get conversations that just don't happen with civilians.

LIGHTNING ROUND

As all are aware, I maintain a book blog. What I don't do it fully review books I've purchased with my own United States dollars because then why would publishers give me free books? So here are a few titles I've read and enjoyed.

88 Blacktop Wasteland by S.A. Cosby

Rating: the full five stars, and a possible place as the annual six-stars-of-five read

“Listen, when you’re a black man in America you live with the weight of people’s low expectations on your back every day. They can crush you right down to the goddamn ground. Think about it like it’s a race. Everybody else has a head start and you dragging those low expectations behind you. Choices give you freedom from those expectations. Allows you to cut ’em loose. Because that’s what freedom is. Being able to let things go. And nothing is more important than freedom. Nothing. You hear me, boy?” Beauregard said.

Javon nodded his head.

I don't know what else to say if the truth of that, and of its antihero main character's clear-as-moonshine voice, don't make you want to dash right out and get the damn thing.

Me? The reason I pre-ordered this book is in this Twitter thread:
https://twitter.com/blacklionking73/status/1258802343337918465
I agree with and admire Author Cosby. He calls out racism wherever he finds it.
***
89 The Paris Hours by Alex George

Rating: 4* of five

I RECEIVED THIS BOOK VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.
A polyphonous choral piece, not an extended solo. We are not left in one narrator's head for long; all of them speak to us on this one ordinary day in Paris. Yet what is most perfectly described is, oddly enough, not Paris; it is the interior landscape of the four souls whom Alex George has plucked from his imagination as a former résident étranger from boarding school years. His life there clearly made a deep impression on him. His evocation of fellow-foreigner and city-garden puppeteer Souren's life in hiding behind the small stage he puts his shows on is almost the most heartbreaking thing in the book. Then, when contrasted with the way the lone and lonely man sets his day up, Author George slips the shiv into your ribs:

This man's music has become part of Souren's mornings, as essential as the sun rising over the rooftops of the city. The familiar melody offers him a moment of quiet grace, and this gives him strength for the day ahead. The pianist knows nothing of this, of course. He plays only for himself. Souren wonders how the arc of the man's own days is changed by creating such beauty each morning. He watches as the pianist makes his lonely way down the street. The man looks tired, defeated. He does not play for joy, thinks Souren. He plays for survival.

Souren, and Author George, are not really empathizing with the defeated creator of beauty so much as inhabiting his worn shoes as he slumps into another day.

Lovely no-longer-young mother Camille's place is really the most attention-grabbing one, though, as she was once femme de ménage, growing into confidante, of the divine auteur Proust. It is fascinating to follow her through her memories, trace her regrets, but in the end, I felt the least personal connection to her...it was flat and expected, the way she dealt with the great author; no fresh angle was adduced, but the events are certainly involving and make for good reading.

I hate it when reviewers go all coy about endings. I know why they do, of course, and I'm about to do it to you. The ending of the book is truly what makes the work a polyphony, not a dirge or an aria or even a chorale. The music to your own inner ear will necessarily be different from mine. I don't think it's wise or fair to enable you to dismiss or demand a book based on what my response to the ending might be. In this book's case, I do not think it's wise to say more than "you will be moved to a greater or a lesser degree depending on factors including your belief in human lovingkindness as a guiding star."

But the beating heart of the story is:

Some things you cannot leave behind. Your history will pursue you doggedly across frontiers and over oceans. It will slip past the unsmiling border guards, fold itself invisibly into the pages of your passport, a silent, treacherous stowaway.

Resistance is futile; escape is impossible; grace, nonetheless, finds us wherever we are.
***
90 The Lending Library by Aliza Fogelson

Rating: 3* of five

I RECEIVED THIS BOOK VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.
SO, in this #BlackLivesMatter and #MeToo moment, why on *EARTH* pick up a privileged white lady's story of how Becoming A Mother and fulfilling the needs of her wacky New England neighbors for light reading and doing it all by herself dammit!!?

Because it was deeply silly and mostly fun and, while *extremely* not in step with the moment, I needed it right now. No, I don't have a lot of patience for Motherhood Completed Me stories. And she named her victim, I mean adoptee, TERABITHIA for fucksake, which is as cruel a piece of child abuse as anything I've ever heard! But Dodie's the kind of silly little child in a woman's body that would, in fact, feel that way.

That said, Dodie's actually kind of a cipher, not a fully-rounded character, simply moving the pieces of the plot from A to B then D after that L and screw all those other letters, they're probably Not Our Kind. It's set in 2008, which made Dodie the biblioholic's ignorance of ebooks puzzling. I think, though, that it was more ignoring not ignorance, so I got as far past that as I could. And her nesting instinct, her deep and ongoing self-criticism that she can not manage a busy life, wifehood, motherhood, the library, etc etc as effortlessly as she thinks she should be able to? Well, she's never a wife and no one made you a mother and let's face it, Muffin, no gold stars for Doing Your Best in this our life. Still, she feels these negative things about herself for no very good reason (abandonment issues can be overcome, Do, and it's not like someone in your place can't access the resources.)

Dodie's past as an "artist" in New York City was risible. As described, her art (based on her supposed friends' responses to it) wouldn't get her a Brookly café's wall-space, still less a reviewed show in a gallery. I don't think giving Dodie's sister a Black husband was all that relevant to the story; like giving Dodie herself a lesbian BFF, a soul-sibling whose death in the first part of the book leaves little apparent mark on her life. Just more window dressing, more piece of plot to make into plotsicles.

Oh, desserts! Yes, let's not forget one of today's most popular light-fiction tropes: Lots and lots and lots of sugary stuff described in lingering, sensual detail. This was, I admit without shame or blushes (he blushed shamefacedly), a big reason I kept going with the read. Well, that and the fact that I wanted Shep-the-love-interest's big secret to be he was a big ol' 'mo like all Dodie's buds back in Brooklyn were. The sort-of-stupid references to the male gaze that Dodie craves and invites in terms of desserts is less charming, though...and I am guilty of telling my Young Gentleman Caller that he's sweeter than condensed milk. (In his defense he mimes vomiting every time I do.)

Why would I recommend you read it? I would honestly say that it's an undemanding read that will, without meaning to or even wanting to, cause the least reflective among us to question our assumptions and the more Woke to examine our privilege, looking at how very, very deep it is from the outsider's vantage of an unchallenging-for-privileged-white-folks, like me, of an afternoon's read.

Oh! Blacktop Wasteland sounds good. Thanks for the reccie.

>256 Storeetllr: I expect that you will love the read, Mary.

Fly wherever your imagination wants to take you.

Very late in the evening Saturday greetings, RDear. Interesting lightning round books. None of them are screaming out to me, even though the first is a potential 6* read for you.

*smooch* from your own mustard killer Horrible

:::sigh::: Well, that's two book bullets for me: Blacktop Wasteland and The Paris Hours both.

>258 richardderus: Oooh, what a lovely image!

Happy weekend *smooches*

>255 richardderus: Would they (the publishers? the publicists?) really stop sending books if you reviewed ones they hadn't sent? A friend who reviewed books for a zine with a tiny circulation used to get scads of books sent to her and purchased almost as many, filling 80%-90% of the bi-montly pages with a paragraph a book. I can see that, were they checking, they might not send you a copy of a book you'd already reviewed, but then they'd actually have peruse your blog regularly, and I can't imagine that level of dedication as a regular thing even for such a delightful blog as yours is.

>259 karenmarie: *smooch* for my mustard-killing pal the Horrible One.

>260 bell7: *happy dance*

I know, right?! I swooned when I saw it. *smooch* Happy weekend reads.

>261 quondame: I notice a distinct drop in request approvals when I don't review Edelweiss/NetGalley stuff on my blog. The lightning-rounders will go up as genre posts, not main-blog review posts.

You'd be *amazed* what those interns are made to do.

Hi Richard. I love that vintage cover for To Kill a Mockingbird, still one of my all-time favorite novels.

The Paris Hours sounds like one for the wish list. (Fake sigh)

Skimming through, enjoying the conversation(s) but nothing to add. You know how I feel about things (including my relative ignorance of SF).

I have the bumper sticker "864511320" on my car. For all the good it will do.

*smooches* to you, my friend

>263 EBT1002: Heh...yep, it is a good read indeed, is The Paris Hours, and well worth your fake sighs.

Happy 364th pre-retirement day! Your visits are always welcome as the tulips in May.

91 The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas by Ursula K. Le Guin

Rating: 5* of five

Re-reading this story (free at link) for, good goddesses I don't even know how many times it's been, as a *cough*ty-year-old about to add a "1" onto my new decade is a revelation. The "terrible boredom of pain" line leapt out at me this reading. It certainly would given my circumstances. Pain steals so much from us...happiness, pleasure, relationships unformed or misshapen...and gives fuck-all in return. Thank you, UKL, for leaving that gem for me, among the many others in the read.

I know I once focused on the uberquotable "happiness...stupid" line that rightly gets so much attention among reviewers. A trenchant comment, an inarguable point, an acute observation indeed. But I myownself think, at this point in my life, that "...to praise
despair is to condemn delight, to embrace violence is to lose hold of everything else. We have
almost lost hold; we can no longer describe a happy man, nor make any celebration of joy" is the beating heart of UKL's message.

She saw the need to celebrate joy, did the author. She felt her story would perpetuate a conversation we seem (to my eyes, at least, with the Savonarola-esque excesses of Cancel Culture marking the extremity of the past abuses being canceled) unable to begin or, if begun, to further instead of curtail. This is a deep disservice to the entirety of the polis. No one should, or should be allowed, to deny the magnitude (still less the existence) of the abuses our end-stage capitalist society engendered, perpetuated, even arguably required. I do not argue for silence, for the aggrieved to stay shtumm. I argue for all y'all, wherever you stand politically, culturally, religiously, to read this short, 1973 Hugo-winning story of a Paradise, a Utopia, and fully process what the author actually says.

Anarchism isn't my jam, if you're wondering. I lack the faith in my fellow humans (63 million of whom voted for a stupid, traitorous failure of a reality-show host to occupy what was until then the highest office in the US) to believe anarchism would lead to anything except what we have now: kakistocracy. But the seductive dream, the beautiful if-only of it! All the adults happy, contented; all the children secure, joyous; all the world bright-towered and sea-breezed. And the arched-brow wry throwaway about spicing up Utopia with sex:

Let us not, however, have temples from which issue
beautiful nude priests and priestesses already half in ecstasy and ready to copulate with any man
or woman, lover or stranger who desires union with the deep godhead of the blood, although that
was my first idea. But really it would be better not to have any temples in Omelas – at least, not
manned temples. Religion yes, clergy no. Surely the beautiful nudes can just wander about,
offering themselves like divine souffles to the hunger of the needy and the rapture of the flesh.

I've never read UKL's thoughts on pornography, but I feel sure they're worth learning.

Read this story. Think about it. Don't skimp on understanding your own maturity and perspective...challenge them. Accept what you find the way you find it.

Or change.

Good plug for Blacktop Wasteland which, as you well know as the tipper, I the tippee likewise esteemed.

>258 richardderus: *love*

Good review of The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas. I couldn't make the link work, but I'll look for it.

>266 jnwelch: Try the link now, Joe. I think it should work.

Always glad to know that a book I really, really want people to read has made the grade!

Happy Humiday!

Blech.

xx

>268 katiekrug: Yeah, it's *awful* out there. Be safe, stay inside.

*smooch*

Sometimes I get antsy for the autumn weather by the dog-days-of-August. Even here it can be miserably hot and so many storms with tornado warnings.

And then I realise: wow, real summer is like 60 days here, what am I thinking?!!

>270 SandyAMcPherson: Really, sixty days isn't much but it can feel like six hundred years when it's miserable. Like 2020 feels like it's been thirty years long at this point.

>271 richardderus: 2020 feels like it's been thirty years long at this point.

You have nailed it, exactly! I know from *only* an intellectual p.o.v. that when I look back a few years later (if I get the chance, that is), I'll wonder why I struggled. Unlike some of my journaling-crazy-keen friends, I am not keeping notes or blogging. Well, perhaps LibraryThing thread Talk is sort of a blog, but more of a communal effort.

You take care now, ya hear? This SARS CoV microbe is one mean piece of nastiness.

>267 richardderus: It may be my PC, but I still can't get that darn link to work (I get a Google (?) message that it can't connect because it's "malformed". No worries. I found The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas elsewhere and have it teed up for reading.

'Morning, RD! It's storming here and TS Isaias hasn't even arrived yet. Good reading weather, right?

I hope you have a good Monday.

*smooch* from your own Horrible

>272 SandyAMcPherson: Heh, it's a looonnng fifty-two weeks, this one.

I'm watching myself for symptoms very carefully, never you fear, and intend to report even the mildest of owwies to The Authorities. No one knows what this virus will bring in the future and so one can't be too careful.

>273 jnwelch: I'm glad you sourced it! I can click and go, so I don't know what the issue is. Unless, of course, you're using a half-bit fruit company device. That'll screw the Googlepooch every time.

>274 karenmarie: We're expecting the rains to start tomorrow, and I for one welcome our stormy weathermaker. ANYthing to break this wretched dome of humid nastiness.

Happy reading day, Horrible! *smooch*

Hi RD, and happy Tuesday to you. We've got beautiful blue skies with the occasional cloud floating by. 73F but humid as hell. Isaias was a non-event for us and I'm happy about that.

*smooch*

>276 karenmarie: Well, it rained here. It's back to humid but we're still under the clouds. Ecchh this summer, it's been really really unpleasant.

*smooch*

>255 richardderus: Ooh, you got me with Blacktop Wasteland. A BB straight to the heart. Definitely sounds like my cuppa and as a double whammy, Joe also loved it. This has sure been shaping up to be a terrific new release year. Just what the bookish doctor ordered.

>278 msf59: Yay!! Two book-bullets in one...I'm the one that hit Joe!

92 #TIL: Today I Learned: Hilarious, Entertaining, and Educational Trivia by Stephen J. Spignesi

Rating: 3-ish stars of five

Consider:
There are approximately 100 million acts of sexual intercourse around the world each day.
Then:
Three billion pizzas are sold in America every year. Americans eat 350 slices of pizza a second.
And these represent the damnedest, weirdest, least likely statistics I've ever imagined someone collecting. I mean, *everyone* lies about sex, so who asked whom and then decided to trust the answer given? I'd respond to someone's nosy sex-questions with some tart observations on the need for some people to get themselves a less intrusive hobby; but how many would resist the chance to fuck with the poor grad student or bureaucrat and hand 'em a line of nonsense? And the pizza one, well, again we run across the "...according to whom?" issue. The pizza companies no doubt collect statistics. Then, depending on whether the puritanical fear-your-food idiots, the meddlesome make-healthier-choices crumb-bums, or the investors' earnings committee is asking, they can slice and dice the data to present the desired picture to make them go away.

So I'm a cynical, skeptical old fart. Big shock, right? Yes, stats are the best lens we have for viewing the world and its multivarious multitudes on a macro level. We need them to model data to help predict and (if they're given to actual decent human beings with souls) prevent things like pandemics. They're also famously fungible. Mark Twain said of them, "Figures often beguile me, particularly when I have the arranging of them myself; in which case the remark attributed to Disraeli would often apply with justice and force: 'There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.'"

But the bizarre statistics in this book, many of them so extremely strange that I want sources that Stephen Spignesi doesn't give, are leavening for my reading pleasure. The bread that's rising is trivia, the weird-but-true little flour particles ground so fine from the cereal grains of the world's astounding supply of facts and yeasted with those damned statistics. For instance:

The name of the zipper was created by the B.F. Goodrich company in 1923 when they started using the fastener in their rubber boots. They wanted something catchy or their promotional material, so they created a name based on the sound the clasp made when it was opened and closed: Zip!
–and–
Stay Puft Marshmallows have 100 mg. of caffeine in each marshmallow.

First: Oh my gawd that makes total sense, followed by "...and what'd they call 'em before 1923?" They were apparently first marketed as "hookless fasteners" starting in 1891 (see Wikipedia) but a more bloodless name I've never heard. Good on y'all, BF Goodrich, for giving the world an *excellent* new word.
Then: WHY IS THERE CAFFEINE IN MARSHMALLOWS?!
What's it doing there? How'd it get there? Why do they leave it in/put it there? Is there really, not just ing Ghostbusters, a Stay-Puft Marshmallow Company? (As a matter of fact...)

Things we never knew (or cared to know) about famous people are the evergreens of the trivia world. No one who's ever played Trivial Pursuit can escape the realization that we're a nosy bunch when it comes to what others do/think/feel.

U.S. President James Garfield could simultaneously write Greek with one hand and Latin with the other.
–and–
One of Abraham Lincoln’s most memorable quotes on slavery was, “Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to have it tried on him personally.”

What a tragedy that Garfield was assassinated so early in his term! And Lincoln, well, he was an amazing person. Spignesi has a little tendresse for Presidential trivia, you see, so we get a lot of it. I'm not mad. They're always interesting people, presidents, even if not always for positive reasons. Although the positive reasons certainly exist:

So far, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who served twice as long as any other president, has been the only United States president who did not lose a single staff member or member of his administration due to a scandal or an indictment.

How perfectly astonishing. Especially given the virulence with which FDR was *loathed* by the right-wing reactionary segment of the US population! And the business community! Well, she who laughs last, laughs best, I suppose, and now we're existing in the opposite end of the pendulum's swing. While Spignesi doesn't make the claim that this is a political, let alone presidential, piece of trivia, I offer it here in the spirit of spite and unkind laughter that this moment in political history elicits in me:

In the pre-politically correct era of the late nineteenth, early twentieth century, the bottom three categories for IQ measurement were “Idiot” (under 70 IQ); “Imbecile” (70-80 IQ); and “Moron” (80-90 IQ).

I will leave the butt of my joke unnamed. I hope it's crystal clear.

'Morning, RDear. Happy Wed-nes-day to you.

I've got some errands to run today, grumble grumble. Any day not purely dedicated to What I Want To Do is irritating.

>281 karenmarie: Hiya Horrible. Totally got with that program about self-directing my days a while ago. I think going back to "work" (not that much different than what I do now, sitting in my own space staring at a computer, these days) would be a terrible blow.

Well, not likely, since there are so very many without work who are more capable of navigating today's world than I.

Spend it wisely, since it can't be spent well.

>280 richardderus: Sounds fun. Coincidentally, I have a proposal for a label to rank beneath "Idiot" ... a joke whose target may coincide with yours.

>283 swynn: Heh...I'm morally certain that I know the target's identity...and that's the only certainty of morality ever to attach to the individual in question.

Zooming in to say hello before I have to cast my beady eye on the thread lists for your latest.

LeGuin story is a great one.

>280 richardderus: Well as to sex acts, I'd actually ask about condom use - how often to they use them, how often does a partner use them, then I'd look at condom sales and adjust. I do agree that every one will lie, but that a general number will emerge. People lie about food almost as much, and buy much more lettuce than they eat. Actually the only interesting statistic about sex is how much I'm getting.

Caffeine in marshmallows!?! Is that what's keeping me awake?

Wouldn't it be worse if there were real intelligence associated with the malevolence?

>285 Matke: Hi Gail! *smooch*

>286 quondame: Hmm. The sex statistic *I* am most interested in is how much is *Rob* getting.

It turns out that Sta Puft puts caffeine in their marshmallows specifically to give them an "edge" or some such marketing mishegas.

Surprisingly, I don't think so...*most* intelligent people aren't malevolent, in my observation; it's the sociopaths that worry me.

Happy Thursday to you, RDear.

Did I miss it? Have you been able to get an appointment with your dentist yet?

>288 karenmarie: Hi Horrible! No, on both counts; he's away this week and the office won't reopen until he's back. *sigh* Next week...I hope....

>289 richardderus: Ouch Richard. I had my visit to the dentist the other week. Ouch and double ouch

Thanks for reminding me about the LeGuin. A theatrical director I worked with once said "Good art will always surprise you".

Ursula Le Guin always surprises me

Hi Richard!

Hopefully, the dentist will re open soon and you can get rid of the pain.

>290 magicians_nephew: Yes indeed, Jim, OUCH!

Yay for rediscovering a favorite Le Guin story, and boy do I ever agree that reading her work will always surprise one.

>291 figsfromthistle: Your keyboard to the goddesses' inbox, Anita.

Does anyone remember The Yellow Birds? I really liked that novel, and it won several prestigious prizes in its debut year...Guardian First Novel, Le Monde foreign novel, Sue Kaufman Award...and then nothing. Until someone made a film....

The 2017 film stars Alden Ehrenreich as Bartle, gets a solid 4 stars of five from me, and is available free to Amazon Prime members. Alden Ehrenreich, from that Star Wars movie that got so much hate, is Bartle; and Toni Collette plays his mom; and Jennifer Aniston plays Mrs. Murphy, the mother who entrusts her son to Bartle. All three, as well as the other actors, give very creditable performances in a script that was of decidedly less exalted quality than the novel was. Not bad, not great, better than average by a hair or two; that is not high praise. The story itself makes the experience of watching the film satisfying.

>293 richardderus: Hmmm....I have a copy of that around here. Haven't read it so far.

>294 laytonwoman3rd: - Ditto....

Well that looks pretty interesting. But of course, have to read the book first. :)

ETA - Lo and behold, it was already on the WL.

93 Defending Jacob by William Landay

Rob read the book I gave him, and said he wanted to watch the series together. So that's what we did.

Rating: 3.25* of five

The Publisher Says: Andy Barber has been an assistant district attorney in his suburban Massachusetts county for more than twenty years. He is respected in his community, tenacious in the courtroom, and happy at home with his wife, Laurie, and son, Jacob. But when a shocking crime shatters their New England town, Andy is blindsided by what happens next: His fourteen-year-old son is charged with the murder of a fellow student.

Every parental instinct Andy has rallies to protect his boy. Jacob insists that he is innocent, and Andy believes him. Andy must. He’s his father. But as damning facts and shocking revelations surface, as a marriage threatens to crumble and the trial intensifies, as the crisis reveals how little a father knows about his son, Andy will face a trial of his own—between loyalty and justice, between truth and allegation, between a past he’s tried to bury and a future he cannot conceive.

Award-winning author William Landay has written the consummate novel of an embattled family in crisis—a suspenseful, character-driven mystery that is also a spellbinding tale of guilt, betrayal, and the terrifying speed at which our lives can spin out of control.

My Review: Courtroom legal thriller. Nothing new there.

Redeemed from two-star basement by two things: The ending, which I am surprised to say I didn't see coming. It was a gut-punch.

And also two quotes, things I closed the book and nodded sagely after reading, things that were So Well Said I had to take a pause for absorption:

It was as if there was a place called After, and if I could just push my family across to that shore, then everything would be all right. There would be time for all these "soft" problems in the land of After.

Yes, yes, anyone who has ever lived through A Tragedy knows this feeling intimately, knows how this sentence encapsulates the aching need to be normal and better and fixed...that never comes....

And this:

At some point as adults we we cease to be our parents' children and we become our children's parents instead.

Anyone who has read some of my more dyspeptic posts on Facebook will realize how little I think of the adolescent exceptionalism that pervades our adult culture. You don't have a *right* to own a gun, unless you're in a "well-regulated militia," you have a stupid-ass paranoid fear that results from imaging They are out to get you. It's a symptom of a brand of stupid arrogant vanity, a sense of self as Uniquely Valuable, that is ridiculous and borderline mentally ill.

No one is so damned important that They are Out To Get You. And that sentence, that piece of Landay's wisdom, explains why it should be okay to say "Oh just STFU and grow up!" to more people more often.

Anyway. Up from a rocklike two all the way to three and a quarter stars. An enjoyable read redeemed by surprise and wisdom...helluva job, Landay!

2020 UPDATE FOUR TV-SERIES STARS Chris Evans plays Andy Barber with a complexity and focus that made me invest even more heavily in the AppleTV+ adaptation than I had in the book (as the ending approached). I like Mr. Evans's style of acting in general, but he sets the knobs to 11 and then wraps every-damn-thing in lead shielding as Andy's universe shreds...and then there's the slightly altered ending, which was pretty big stuff for Evans to play.

Still, eight episodes was two too many in my estimation, leading Michelle Dockery's performance as Laurie Barber to wear thin. It's hard to watch her reach deeper and deeper into herself and come back with much the same intensity...nonetheless, anything mildly critical I say shouldn't keep you from signing up for the free trial, binging the series, then canceling. Whatever you do, don't give those sleazebags any more of your money than is impossible to avoid.

This review can also be seen at Shelf Inflicted!

I found Defending Jacob to be solidly entertaining for what it was. And yes, that gut punch of an ending -- OOF.

I don't have AppleTV or else I'd watch the adaptation.

>294 laytonwoman3rd:, >295 katiekrug:, >296 mahsdad: Heya Linda3rd. Kickass Katie. How y'all doin? Writhing in wretchedness from knowing y'all missin' out on some cherce lit'ry chops from not gettin' round to The Yellow Birds? And now there's a good movie to tempt you...free, too....

I even own a copy of The Yellow Birds, so maybe this month...?

‘Morning RD, and happy Saturday to you. Bummer about your dentist not being available.

>297 richardderus: I read this book in 2013 and rated it 4*. I remember bits and pieces and think I remember the ending.

94 The Advocate by Bill Mesce Jr.

Rating: 4* of five

I was Bill's agent for this three-book deal with Bantam Books back in the 1990s. The manuscript arrived via a contest, run out of Orlando of all places, to get unknown authors' works in front of agents. I was a judge.

The first scene of the manuscript was on fire...literally...it was the firebombing of Coventry! It was so gripping, so propulsive, so inventively seen that I'd've sworn Author Mesce was there (he wasn't, he was negative thirteen that year). I told my then-partner "this is as good as Slaughterhouse-Five, we've got to rep it!" We did; it sold; Life happened and I left the agenting world.

The scene that grabbed me so hard? Had to be cut. I wept bitter tears (not as many as Bill did) over it. But it had to go, and that was that. The book remains one of the best World War Two mysteries I've ever read, which is saying something.

Spend the 99¢ already!

Oh hey! New thread is up. Forgot to let y'all know.