richardderus's ninth 2022 thread

The Maytree, or hackberry, is the blossoming tree whose frothy white beauty announces Summer the way sakura bloomtime announces Spring. The trees are up to 50ft/16m tall, attract bees as pollinators:

The fruits are used by birds, as their astringency isn't delicious to lots of us humans.

Scandinavians, Russians, and Asian steppe-dwellers aren't as picky though. They make jam, dry the berries and make flour from them, and serve them in sweet treats.

When it's what you got....

For 2022, I state my goal of posting an average of 4 or 5 book reviews a week on my blog, for an annual total of 250. This year's total of ~200 (I need to do more to sync the data on my reads between my blog, Goodreads, and here this year for real) posts in 50 weeks of blogging shows it's doable. My *actual* blogged total for 2021 was 229.

I've long 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 gave up. I just didn't care about this goal, but I need to learn to because I *re*Pearl-Ruled five books after not remembering picking them up in the first place. What I've decided to do is have post >7 richardderus: be the Pearl-Rule Tracking post!

And now that I've gotten >6 richardderus: Burgoineing as a habit, I'm going to make a monthly blog-only post with my that-month's Burgoined books. It will appear the last Sunday of each month.



My Last Thread of 2009 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2010 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2011 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2012 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2013 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2014 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2015 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2016 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2017 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2018 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2019 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2020 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2021 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.

Reviews one through eight? Seek them thitherward.

Looking for nine through sixteen? Click that link!

Reviews seventeen up to twenty-six? You know what to do.

I know you think reviews twenty-seven to thirty-three are here...well, you're right, they are.

Seekest ye the reviews entitled thirty-four to thirty-eight? They anent just so.

I understand you're curious about thirty-nine to forty-seven. Go back there.

Longing to view reviews forty-eight to fifty-four? Advance towards the rear.

The reviews numberèd fifty-five through sixty-four are por detrás.

THIS THREAD'S REVIEW LINKS

065 The Ponder Heart delighted, post 88.

066 Hafez in Love thrilled, post 123.

067 Harry Haft: Survivor of Auschwitz, Challenger of Rocky Marciano battered, post 169.

I've decided to use BookRiot's 2022 Read Harder Challenge as a spice-me-up of meeting my reading goals. Since I'll post 225+ reviews (posts aren't the same as reviews posted, as some posts cover as many as four books!) on my blog this year *easily* I think I need to get a little more pushy. 225 reviews posted seems like a cheat as a goal since I'm on track for that now. I'm thinking 250...approximately 10% increase over this year's actual total.

This is the list:

1. Read a biography of an author you admire.


2. Read a book set in a bookstore.


3. Read any book from the Women’s Prize shortlist/longlist/winner list.


4. Read a book in any genre by a POC that’s about joy and not trauma.
   30 Things I Love About Myself FTW!


5. Read an anthology featuring diverse voices.


6. Read a nonfiction YA comic.
   The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks is illustrated and that'll have to do.


7. Read a romance where at least one of the protagonists is over 40.


8. Read a classic written by a POC.


9. Read the book that’s been on your TBR the longest.
   Central Station was awarded to me on NetGalley in 2016!


10. Read a political thriller by a marginalized author (BIPOC, or LGBTQIA+).


11. Read a book with an asexual and/or aromantic main character.


12. Read an entire poetry collection.


13. Read an adventure story by a BIPOC author.
    We Could Be Heroes did the business


14. Read a book whose movie or TV adaptation you’ve seen (but haven’t read the book).
    Against the Ice: The Classic Arctic Survival Story out on Netflix now...saved the book for me, no smallest doubt.


15. Read a new-to-you literary magazine (print or digital).


16. Read a book recommended by a friend with different reading tastes.


17. Read a memoir written by someone who is trans or nonbinary.
    High-Risk Homosexual! What a read.


18. Read a “Best _ Writing of the year” book for a topic and year of your choice.


19. Read a horror novel by a BIPOC author.


20. Read an award-winning book from the year you were born.


21. Read a queer retelling of a classic of the canon, fairytale, folklore, or myth.
    Briarley FTW! I can start 2022 with one task accomplished.


22. Read a history about a period you know little about.


23. Read a book by a disabled author.


24. Pick a challenge from any of the previous years’ challenges to repeat!
    I choose 2018: Read a mystery by a person of color who is also LGBTQ+
    

I liked all of them except the comic and I'm still looking for GNs that don't make me want to scream and barf, so it's a good challenge.

I'm wondering if, in lieu of setting a numerical goal for Burgoines (see >6 richardderus:), I could just agree with myself to use the technique on 3-stars-and-under reads about which I don't much care and count them as reviews here. I've decided that I'll post 'em & collate them in each thread's post #6. Then I'll just blog 'em in gangs, once a month on the last Sunday in the month...I dunno, but I read a lot of books I don't talk about because someone loved it & I loathed it or just didn't care much about it, or I simply have no useful response...it filled time, it failed to offend or delight me. Is that information useful to anyone? Would you care if I did that and gored your reading ox?

I suppose we shall find out.

2021's five-star or damn-near five-star reviews totaled 28, a marked decrease from last year's 46. Fewer authors saw their book launches rescheduled, but publishers still had to cancel many of their tours and events because COVID-19. The inflationary pressure that supply-chain issues are exerting causes a lot of economic drag on the market, though there is as of yet a lot less trouble than I expected getting tree-book copies of things.

My annual six-stars-of-five read is Cove (my book review), a perfect, spare, evocative story of the pain of existing when you genuinely can't process what is happening to you, around you, despite your best and most well-practiced efforts there is just no righting the boat. I cannot stress enough to you, this is the book you need to read in 2022. I can not forget this read. I refer to it in my head, I think about its stark, vividly limned images. I am so deeply glad Author Cynan wrote it. To quote myself from my review: "This is the book I wish The Old Man and the Sea had been, but was not."

In 2020, I posted over 215 reviews here. In 2022, my goals are:

to post 250 reviews on my blog

to post three-sentence Burgoines of books I don't either adore or despise

to complete at least 275 total reviews of all types

Most important to me again this year is to report on DRCs I don't care enough about to review at my usual level. I still don't want to keep just leaving them unacknowledged! There are publishers who want to see a solid, positive relationship between DRCs granted and reviews posted, and I do not blame them a bit.

Ask and ye shall receive! 'Nathan Burgoine's Twitter account hath taught me. See >6 richardderus: below. I just need to keep getting better about *applying* it!

TWENTY-ONE thru Sunday

I stole this from PC's thread in 2020. I like these prompts, so I've decided to re-do them every December!
***
1. Name any book you read at any time most recently that was published in the year you turned 18:
The Street Where I Live by Alan Jay Lerner (2010)
2. Name a book you have on in your TBR pile that is over 500 pages long:
American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird
3. What is the last book you read with a mostly blue cover?
St. Mary's and the Great Toilet Roll Crisis by Jodi Taylor
4. What is the last book you didn’t finish (and why didn’t you finish it?)
Kohinoor: The Story of the World’s Most Infamous Diamond by William Dalrymple & Anita Anand because I lost interest
5. What is the last book that scared the bejeebers out of you?
56 Days by Catherine Ryan Howard...how easy it is to fail, to do the wrong thing
6. Name the book that read either this year or last year that takes place geographically closest to where you live? How close would you estimate it was?
Horseman: A Tale of Sleepy Hollow by Christina Henry...Sleepy Hollow's about 100mi from here
7.What were the topics of the last two nonfiction books you read?
Queer people's history and the Quaker resistance to slavery
8. Name a recent book you read which could be considered a popular book?
56 Days by Catherine Ryan Howard which I managed to get several LTers and tweeple to pick up *buffs nails*
9. What was the last book you gave a rating of 5-stars to? And when did you read it?
Briarley by Aster Glenn Gray, a gay WWII-set retelling of Beauty and the Beast, that I finished this week (and reviewed!)
10. Name a book you read that led you to specifically to read another book (and what was the other book, and what was the connection)
Woman on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy was a #The1976Club read, and was so disappointing that I went on to read The Malacia Tapestry by Brian W. Aldiss to cleanse my reading palate
11. Name the author you have most recently become infatuated with.
Aster Glenn Gray
12. What is the setting of the first novel you read this year?
The Multiverse in Genevieve Cogman's Invisible Library series
13. What is the last book you read, fiction or nonfiction, that featured a war in some way (and what war was it)?
How to Catch a Vet; the Afghanistan War
14. What was the last book you acquired or borrowed based on an LTer’s review or casual recommendation? And who was the LTer, if you care to say.
There isn't enough space for all the book-bullets y'all careless, inconsiderate-of-my-poverty fiends pepper me with (bold added for emphasis)
15. What the last book you read that involved the future in some way?
The Toast of Time is part of The Chronicles of St Mary's by Jodi Taylor, so it involves the future, the past, and the Multiverse
16. Name the last book you read that featured a body of water, river, marsh, or significant rainfall?
Damnation Spring by Ash Davidson
17. What is last book you read by an author from the Southern Hemisphere?
Ife-Iyoku, Tale of Imadeyunuagbon by Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki
18. What is the last book you read that you thought had a terrible cover?
Your Honor, it is my intention to assert my Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination to any and all questions pursuing this subject
19. Who was the most recent dead author you read? And what year did they die?
Brian Aldiss, 2017
20. What was the last children’s book (not YA) you read?
good goddesses, I don't remember...Goodnight Moon to my daughter?— STET
21. What was the name of the detective or crime-solver in the most recent crime novel you read?
Officially it's part of the Jack Lennon series, though he barely even appears in it, so The Ghosts of Belfast via Stuart Neville gets the nod.
22. What was the shortest book of any kind you’ve read so far this year?
The World Well Lost, ~28pp
23. Name the last book that you struggled with (and what do you think was behind the struggle?)
see #4. I just...quit caring.
24. What is the most recent book you added to your library here on LT?
see #9
25. Name a book you read this year that had a visual component (i.e. illustrations, photos, art, comics)
Prophet Against Slavery: Benjamin Lay by Marcus Rediker, art by David Lester

I liked Sandy's Bonus Question for the meme above, so I adopted it:

26. What is the title and year of the oldest book you have reviewed on LT in 2021? (modification in itals)
The Sleeping Car Murders by Sébastien Japrisot, 1962.

Author 'Nathan Burgoine posted this simple, direct method of not getting paralyzed by the prospect of having to write reviews. The Three-Sentence Review is, as he notes, very helpful and also simple to achieve. I get completely unmanned at the idea of saying something trenchant about each book I read, when there often just isn't that much to say...now I can use this structure to say what I think is the most important idea of the read and not try to dig for more.

Think about using it yourselves!


APRIL 2022's BURGOINES

#30 Algorithms of Oppression *INFURIATED*, post 123.

#29 Moderan slammed, post 120.

#28 The Wonder semi-dazzled, post 100.

#27 Picabia delighted, post 72.

#26 Ride Around Shining: A Novel...happened, post 70.

#25 Wingwalkers: A Novel was fine, post 28.

#20 through 24 are backlinked in this post.

The first two for April are linked here.

MARCH 2022's BURGOINES

The last one for March is linked here.

The first 4 in March are back-linked here.

***

FEBRUARY 2022's BURGOINES (through #12) are here.

***
JANUARY 2022's BURGOINES are here.

This space is dedicated to Nancy Pearl's Rule of 50, or "the Pearl Rule" as I've always called it. I just didn't care about this goal as a separate goal, but I need to learn to because I *re*Pearl-Ruled five books this December just passed after not remembering picking them up in the first place. I realized how close my Half-heimer's is getting to the full-on article. Hence my decision to really track my Pearl Rules!

As she says:

People frequently ask me how many pages they should give a book before they give up on it. In response to that question, I came up with my “rule of fifty,” which is based on the shortness of time and the immensity of the world of books. If you’re fifty years of age or younger, give a book fifty pages before you decide to commit to reading it or give it up. If you’re over fifty, which is when time gets even shorter, subtract your age from 100—the result is the number of pages you should read before making your decision to stay with it or quit.

So this space will be each thread's listing of Pearl-Ruled books. Earlier Pearl-Rule posts will be linked below the current month's crop.

APRIL 2022's PEARL-RULES

Pearl Rule #9 City Parks: Public Places, Private Thoughts is here: post 75.

Pearl Rule #8 Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How it Changed the World is here: post 43.

The first one in April is linked here.

***

MARCH 2022's ONLY PEARL-RULE

It's linked in right here.

***

FEBRUARY 2022's PEARL-RULES are here.

***
JANUARY 2022's PEARL-RULES are here.

The coast is clear. Post away.

Happy new thread!

>9 bell7: Hiya Mary! Thank you for the kind wishes. Have a May Queen crown:

Happy new thread, Richard dear!

ETA What is wrong with LT today, every ten minutes I get "Temporary down" instead of "Talk".

Happy New Thread!

Happy new thread Richard.

>11 FAMeulstee: FWIW, I've been getting the same, plus some really really slow page loads.

The city of Lynchburg has its own government, completely separate from county government. So you can imagine the old boy network that is in place, the city governments willingness to completely suspend traffic downtown for years while they tear up streets and put in cobblestone streets, and just the heinous weirdness of some of their decisions. (On the plus side, when you call City Hall you speak with the one person who can help you with your matter, you don't get shunted around and there is no recorded voice telling you to press 17 if you want to hear the past 16 choices in Farsi.). One thing I really hate about the city is that the ebook selections are really few and far between. However, when you sign up for a library card you're automatically enrolled in the library system in the rest of the county and all surrounding counties. They have a really decent selection of hard copies, although you may have to drive 25 mi to get the book of your choice. And something else that really surprises me! Almost every book is all almost always available. Is it non-use of the library? I really don't know. When I was a kid growing up in the rural South, I mean two counties east of Podunk, everyone was a voracious reader. Or do I mean palm reader? No, I'm pretty sure I mean reader. Although God help you if you ask a neighbor how to get rid of snakes in your garden. Let's just say it almost always involved a bonfire and consigning the soul of one of God's creatures to the realm of strange gods. On the plus side it did generally seem to work!

But I digress. Fairfax and Arlington counties ebook selection? Second to none in the universe. Lynchburg City ebook selection? Do we even have an ebook selection? Drive to Big Island. They have a hard copy there.

Happy new one, dear fellow

Happy new thread, RDear. *smooches*

We have a May day tree in our front yard and I love it. The blossoms smell amazing. I also get great delight that while the leaves start out green, they turn to a deep purple after the blooms drop off.

Happy new one, Richard. At first glance I thought your first topper was a white lilac which of course, I had never heard of. Thanks for the enlightenment! Still waiting for spring up this way....

Love the May flowers. Here the flowering May (Hawthorn - I suspect a different plant) used* to be my main hayfever trigger in early summer, with cut grass following close on behind.

*said with fingers firmly crossed. Growing out of that has been one of the few good things about getting older.

Happy new thread.

>18 Helenliz: Hi Helen, thanks for the thread wishes.

Hawthorns are indeed mayflowers, or mays. They aren't like the maytrees at all! For one thing, thorns...ow...and for another, haws are semi-edible. Hackberries, the fruits of the maytree, are NOT. *hackhack* Such a tannic pound-of-tea-in-a-cup-of-water taste! Guh-ross.

>17 jessibud2: Well, soon come, Shelley. Those mayflowers...hawthorns...are budding out. Won't be more than two more weeks. Thanks for the thread wishes!

>16 MickyFine: *smooch* I love the leaves, too. That purple-leafed kind is the Asian maytree, I believe.

>15 PaulCranswick: Thank you, PC. Welcome to the new digs.

>14 SomeGuyInVirginia: Can't you beg the Arlingtonians for an ebrary card? I'd sure as hell give it a whirl...but I literally can't use tree-books anymore, so I am totally able to sell my plight. (With photos on request!)

>13 ArlieS:, >11 FAMeulstee: Thank you, y'all. I've been wondering what the blinkin' halo-wearin' stodge was going on! I am delighted you're both here.

>12 mahsdad: Hey there, Jeff. Thank you for the new-thread wishes!

Happy new thread!

>21 Storeetllr: *smooch*

Happy new one! That is marvelous pie back up there.

>23 drneutron: Thanks, Rocketman, but while that pie *looks* pretty, the hackberries it's made from mean it'll taste like leather-tanning solution smells. The pie was made by a Siberian baker. It's totally understandable that they'd make a pie from these since not too many fruits grow there.

Here, however, I truly can't imagine anyone who's ever tasted a hackberry agreeing to make/eat such a pie!

I have grown up around Hackberry trees and seen stands of them all of my life and I have never seen one that blooms. They do have those berries on them, so I suppose that they must have some kind of blooms. I just have never seen those multi-flowered cones such as pictured. A person quickly learns not to park their car under these trees. Birds love those berries and the result is a bird bombed car! Nobody likes that.

In the US, what we call a "hackberry" is Celtis occidentalis...not the same genus or species as Prunus padus shown above. The only thing called a "hackberry" is the fruit...otherwise it's a maytree or mayday tree.

Yeah...those birdbombs ain't great for paint, particularly in the hot, wet South!

Yeah, but it’s marvelous looking pie. And I’d give it a go. With enough rum, it would be great!

Burgoine #25

Wingwalkers: A Novel by Taylor Brown

Read the author's article about the role of "aeroplanes" in William Faulkner's life!

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: A former WWI ace pilot and his wingwalker wife barnstorm across Depression-era America, performing acts of aerial daring.

“They were over Georgia somewhere, another nameless hamlet whose dusty streets lay flocked and trembling with the pink handbills they’d rained from the sky that morning, the ones that announced the coming of DELLA THE DARING DEVILETTE, who would DEFY THE HEAVENS, shining like a DAYTIME STAR, a WING-WALKING WONDER borne upon the wings of CAPTAIN ZENO MARIGOLD, a DOUBLE ACE of the GREAT WAR, who had ELEVEN AERIAL VICTORIES over the TRENCHES OF FRANCE.”

Wingwalkers is one-part epic adventure, one-part love story, and, as is the signature for critically-acclaimed author Taylor Brown, one large part American history. The novel braids the adventures of Della and Zeno Marigold, a vagabond couple that funds their journey to the west coast in the middle of the Great Depression by performing death-defying aerial stunts from town to town, together with the life of the author (and thwarted fighter pilot) William Faulkner, whom the couple ultimately inspires during a dramatic air show—with unexpected consequences for all.

Brown has taken a tantalizing tidbit from Faulkner’s real life—an evening's chance encounter with two daredevils in New Orleans—and set it aloft in this fabulous novel. With scintillating prose and an action-packed plot, he has captured the true essence of a bygone era and shed a new light on the heart and motivations of one of America's greatest authors.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: As fictional Della and Zeno Marigold make their way through this story, on the way to meeting up with Billy Falkner, I came to appreciate the readerly stance one of my sisters expressed to me: "Leave famous people out of it. Just makes things harder to buy into."

The story Author Brown (In the Season of Blood and Gold, Gods of Howl Mountain) tells here uses the Marigolds and their barnstorming to illuminate a facet of William Faulkner (fancied-up Billy) that isn't much discussed: His fascination with aviation. It's beautifully written, glacially slow of pace, and not quite up to the task of convincing me that these two stories belonged together. If your reading led you to love Last Dance on the Starlight Pier for Depression stories, or Cloud Cuckoo Land's multi-stranded take on intertwined fates told over time, then this book will get more stars from you than me. If you've grooved to Sea of Tranquility or Unlikely Animals for their gorgeously wrought images and smoothly set sentences, this book will give you happy hours.

Happy new thread, Richard

>27 drneutron: It's that lush, lovely purple, with such a pretty glossy look to it, in the golden crust...it's an aesthetic delight for sure!

Happy new one, Richard. That is a nice looking tree up top. I'm duly warned about today's Wordle. Let's see if I can pull this one off before I run out of tries.

Heh. Been waiting for your thread to turn over so I could pop in and say hello without the weight of all the earlier messages weighing me down. Since I can't help but read them all.

I'll be kind and not mention my last read in your thread. But I did enjoy it.

As always, you are an inspiration. I've actually managed some book reviews this year, but they just don't keep pace with my reading.

>32 justchris: Hi Chris! I spent several years being out-of-sync between reads and reviews. That's what the pleasure of finding the technique at >6 richardderus: is all about for me. I'm not rigorous applying it, but it does give me "permission" to write reviews hewing as close as each book needs me to in order to get some darn reviews done. Give it a try, it sure can't hurt.

Visit more often, the catch-up isn't so souring that way.

>31 Familyhistorian: Hi Meg! I'll wander by to see how you fared with it.

My reviews for Subtle Blood and How Goes the World? are posted on my blog today: Expendable Mudge Muses Aloud.

Happy new one, RD!

Wordle 305 5/6

🟨⬜🟨⬜⬜
⬜🟨🟨⬜⬜
🟨🟩⬜⬜🟩
⬜🟩🟨⬜🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Better than six or X!!

>36 richardderus: It also took me five, and I had to use guess 4 to eliminate some letters and help my brain out.

>37 bell7: It wasn't a race-to-the-swiftest day for me today, smoochling...I had four letters and only used three! Once I noticed that, I was all ready with the answer. NO X is plenty good enough for me on days like this where my spark plugs need to be cleaned and gapped but I forgot how to open the hood.

>35 katiekrug: Thank you, Katie! *smooch*

Coming out of my daze to a new RD thread. Good-O. Going to indulge in a first cuppa since Sunday. Just believe it or else. I may even read something book-like today.

>39 weird_O: Sir Weirdly! Be cautious, don't overstrain your consciousness muscles. Get fully caffeinated before attempting anything too bookish.

Read safe.

>36 richardderus: Wordle 305 4/6

⬛⬛🟨⬛⬛
🟩🟨⬛⬛⬛
🟩🟩🟩⬛⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

I got monday's in 2 somehow... yesterday was a nope.

The wifi situation is ridiculous. Hope you are connected again soon.

>41 mckait: Good work indeed! Yeah, some days aren't happenin' for the braining. I haz the dumb as the old GIF said.

Honestly? I care a lot less since Rob figured out how to make the LG's hotspot function stable. Why I want real wifi back now is so I can set up my Pixel 5a! Ain't riskin' it until I know I won't be stone-aged even if it takes me a day or so to figure out the ins and outs.

Pearl Rule #8 (7%)

Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How it Changed the World by Laura Spinney

Rating: 2* of five

The Publisher Says: With a death toll of between 50 and 100 million people and a global reach, the Spanish flu of 1918–1920 was the greatest human disaster, not only of the twentieth century, but possibly in all of recorded history. And yet, in our popular conception it exists largely as a footnote to World War I.

In Pale Rider, Laura Spinney recounts the story of an overlooked pandemic, tracing it from Alaska to Brazil, from Persia to Spain, and from South Africa to Odessa. She shows how the pandemic was shaped by the interaction of a virus and the humans it encountered; and how this devastating natural experiment put both the ingenuity and the vulnerability of humans to the test.

Laura Spinney writes that the Spanish flu was as significant—if not more so—as two world wars in shaping the modern world; in disrupting, and often permanently altering, global politics, race relations, family structures, and thinking across medicine, religion and the arts.

I spent $1.99 on Kindlesale. It makes me mad that I can't get it back.

My Review: I bought into the author's justification for not making the book one linear, beginning-middle-end story. The social parts and the science parts are very different and they interacted but were never remotely in sync, so trying to stay purely chronological sounds like a bad plan.

What I got instead was borderline incoherent, with paragraph-by-paragraph switches among authorial opinions, statements of fact unsupported by citations, and stodgy-wodgy bits of statistical stuff. This tiger of a topic was less ridden by the author than it rode the author. I felt frazzled by the time I realized I was not going to have a better experience later on...I flipped through some random spots and found that I was getting the same structure.

Not what I want, or what I will accept, from narrative non-fiction.

‘Morning, RDear, and happy new thread. Impressive. Number 9 in the hit parade.

>1 richardderus: Beautiful tree, thank you for the info. That pie does look delicious, although >24 richardderus: I won’t try it based on it’s tasting like ‘leather-tanning solution smells.’

>36 richardderus: I got it in 5 today, too.

>43 richardderus: Thanks for taking one for the team, even if you can’t get your $1.99 back. I have read Flu: The Story Of The Great Influenza Pandemic by Gina Kolata and remember thinking it adequate but not special, so won’t recommend it. I wonder if there’s a stunning book out there somewhere about the Spanish Flu.

*smooch* from your own Horrible

>44 karenmarie: Good morning, smoochling, I'm glad you're a fellow 5er.

They're just gorgeous trees, these Prunus beings...all of them flower so generously. Then of course the fruits...these are for the birds, literally, but that's okay too. I was deeply surprised that cherry-adjacent fruits could be so utterly devoid of flavor, just mouth-drying astringency. And they're *gorgeous* to look at, too...it simply doesn't scan.

But I have multivarious other options, so.

The Kolata book got me to the 60% mark before I had to return it to the library, but I completely forgot to recheck it. That's the reason I sprang the $1.99 for that book. It won't bankrupt me, but I still am unhappy that I got something so...slapdash...from PublicAffairs.

>43 richardderus: yep, having just finished it yesterday, I can definitely say it doesn't get better. The last hundred pages or so was very difficult, show reading for me. If it hadn't been for book club, I would've DNFed myself somewhere around the 33% mark, but unfortunately I have a very difficult time facilitating when I haven't finished the book.

I would be interested in seeing what else folks recommend about the Spanish flu though.

>46 bell7: I got lost in The Point magazine as I was on the way over to tell you I was posting the review! I'm glad to be a figleaf for your unimpressed response to the book.

I'm 20 years older than you are, so it doesn't take me as long to feel justified in setting something down. *smooch*
***
"My hunch is that Twitter compels an inductive understanding of utilitarianism—utilitarianism as a literary theorist understands it—that is, outside of the trolley problem and the Should-Batman-kill-the-Joker thought experiment. It’s asking you how you really feel about large-scale social technologies that shift consequence from intent to demonstrable impact. It is such a technology because it places the minimum amount of importance on the content of a tweet and the maximum amount of importance on the record of the tweet and the interaction order of reactions to it in real time. This is where its effects are under-theorized."

A really interesting conversation about how lit-crit actually works in the Age of Twitter at The Point magazine.

>43 richardderus: "the Spanish flu of 1918–1920 was the greatest human disaster, not only of the twentieth century, but possibly in all of recorded history"

I hate it when people make such grandiose claims that show no real understanding of the scope of history and the magnitude of all that has gone before. Sorry to hear it was such a horrible read.

>47 richardderus: The quoted excerpt compelled my attention: off to read...

>48 justchris: I agree, in principle; but it's not something the author had contact with, still less control over. She made the questionable decisions about the content, though, so it's all on her what drove me away from the read.

I really expect publishing people to be more well-rounded than civilians. The disappointment that comes from learning (and learning, and then learning some more) that they aren't is apparently a feature not a bug.

Enjoy the interview!

>43 richardderus: I started reading your review of Pale Rider and was all set to add it to my TBR list—the premise sounds very interesting. I LOLed, however, when I got to your review! Oh, well.

Happy midweek!

Karen O

>43 richardderus: I'd be interested in reading a (good) book about the Spanish Flu. My grandparents lived through it as 30-somethings, but I never heard one word about it from them. I can't help but think that, if I live long enough, I'll be recounting the current pandemic to my grands when they're old enough to care (since they're too young now to remember what it's like).

>45 richardderus: I'm another 5-er today. Can you believe I tried narco (having a, r & o) before the correct word? And that was after I had my cup of coffee. Ugh.

>51 Storeetllr: Weeelll, Mary, yes I can imagine your choice coming before the correct word. I was going to try that very word if the correct one hadn't worked. After all, we're from the Borderlands.

If I ever find a good book about That Flu I am gonna warble my fool lungs out about it. I really want to know what happened. Mama was born in 1920 after her mother lost a baby in late 1918. I found that out from her five-years-older brother. She insisted she was born in 1921!

>50 klobrien2: Well, Karen O., at least you don't need to wade through the weedy overgrowth yourself this way. Thank goodness, if I had to be out the purchase price anyway, it was so cheap.

>43 richardderus: People's tastes vary a lot. The title seemed familiar, so I checked. It turned out that I'd borrowed it from my local library in 2018, before I started writing mini-reviews, and gave it a 4 star rating.

>53 ArlieS: The planet is heaving with people who disagree with me, of course, and this book is one where I am very much the outlier. It has 6,800+ ratings averaging 3.92 on Goodreads, f/ex; the fact is it appeals to more folk than it doesn't.

I'm wishing I was in the majority, since I really find the subject engrossing. It was not to be, this time at least.

>51 Storeetllr: & >52 richardderus:
My real life book discussion group read Great Influenza back in 2019 and I rated it at 4 stars. I remember the book because it was longish and I hadn't completed reading it before we had the discussion. It was chronological and started with the establishment of Johns Hopkins Medical School in the 1880's. Why start with that? Well, it is because Johns Hopkins as the first medical school in the U. S. that recognized that many diseases were caused by little things called germs and that germs could be bacterial or viral. The school attracted some very talented doctors and researchers and they had started working on vaccinations soon after the school was started. They were working on a vaccination for pneumonia when they got wind of some new disease in Europe and then that disease showed up in the hinterlands of the U. S. The author choose to write about two cities, Boston and Philadelphia, and how the pandemic was handled in each of them.

This book took a long time to get going, but once it did the pieces fit together. There was tons of academic, medical, and scientific history in the book as well as the history of how decisions were made at the local, state, and national level. I can tell you that there was no arguing over who made the decisions in that pandemic - it was the Surgeon General of the United States, and he was also a general in the U. S. Army. If you don't like detail don't read this one. But if you want a thorough history of this event (the book doesn't end until in the 1920's) I would recommend it.

I also have problems with authors and publishers who use hyperbole in titles. This book is a case in point. The subtitle is the Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History. Really? How do we know? In 2020 I read Justinian's Flea about the first recorded appearance of Bubonic plague in Europe in 542 C.E. This book didn't use hyperbole in the title, but at the end of the book the author devotes a chapter to the consequences of that pandemic, and they were substantial. The estimates he uses show that about 10% of the population of the Byzantine Empire died. Emperor Justinian, his own self, got the plague but recovered. His wife, Theodosia didn't. Over time that high number of victims caused a depletion of manpower reserves so bad that towns in the interior of Turkey and Armenia were depopulated, thus destroying the tax base and agricultural output that provided a stable source of income for the empire. The depopulation, in turn created a manpower shortage a 100 years later so drastic that the Byzantine's were unable to field an army sizeable enough to stop the crusaders (Muslims) who came out of Arabia. The author believes that the pandemic of 542 C.E. is directly responsible for weakening the Byzantine Empire to the point that the foundations of the world as we know it today were created. That isn't hyperbole, to my way of thinking, because the author uses scientific research methods to create models, and these back up his claims.

>43 richardderus: Yikes! I feel safe in skipping that one.

((Hugs)) and **smooches** for today, RD. Happy new thread!

>51 Storeetllr: Mary, you might try reading The great influenza : the epic story of the 1918 pandemic by John M. Barry. I thought it pretty good when I read it a few years ago.

ETA: I see Benita beat me to it in >55 benitastrnad:

>57 alcottacre:, >55 benitastrnad: That sounds a lot more like a book I'd enjoy reading, thank you Benita (and Stasia).

Absent the Justinianic Plague, probably abetted by the Krakatoa eruptions of 536 through 540, the Islamic wave most likely wouldn't have had the cakewalk over the Byzantines in the later 600s. And that disaster, which enfeebled the Empire so severely that it effectively wasn't ever able to recover, led to Manzikert in 1071-ish, and from there...well...it might've taken until 1453 for the Turks to take Istanbul but from Manzikert forward it was a foregone conclusion that it *would* happen.

>56 alcottacre: You are very safe indeed, Stasia me lurve. *smooch*

>58 richardderus:
If you can find Justinian's Flea I highly recommend it. It is an academic book and might be harder to find in public libraries - but there is ILL. The science in it, by itself, is very interesting. The author goes into great detail just how the flea/rat thing works and it was fascinating. The author ties the science of the disease (as much as can be known from the descriptions left to us) and the cultural, social, and political results together in such a way that the title is fairly accurate. It convinced me that most of the history I thought I knew about the Bubonic Plague's first appearance was in the 1300's was wrong. It was just happenstance that I read it during the Great Lockdown, or soon after, but I didn't find it scary, or morbid, at all to be reading about a pandemic in the distant past.

I also don't think you can go wrong with reading Great Influenza. It is also rather academic and it certainly doesn't read like a novel, but it is packed full of good solid information about that pandemic and in particular the metamorphosis of the disease from the extremely virulent form in which it first manifested to the form that we know it today. I think that my reading this book helped me weather the current pandemic, as in many ways this virus did some of the same things that the Influenza of 1918 did. With some of that knowledge, I was forewarned, and therefore forearmed. Knowledge is power.

Hello dear Richard, and happy new-ish thread! Lovely Mayberry tree.

>43 richardderus:, >46 bell7: I have had Pale Rider on my TBR for some time, though I don't own a copy. I will stop feeling bad about not getting to it!

>43 richardderus: I am pandemic weary, RD, so I am grateful to rely on your assessment of it and not bother seeking it out.

Happy Thursday, Richard dear!

Today we will go to the Floriade* 2022 in Almere for the first time. It opened a week ago, and closes in October. As the event is nearby this time, we hope to go ther often.

*an Horticultural Expo held once every 10 years in the Netherlands

‘Morning, RDear, and happy Thursday to you. My, my, the week’s flown by for me.

>45 richardderus: Boysenberry pie. Or Marie Callender’s Razzleberry pie. Sigh.

>49 richardderus: I really expect publishing people to be more well-rounded than civilians. The disappointment that comes from learning (and learning, and then learning some more) that they aren't is apparently a feature not a bug. Sad but true and getting more and more frequent. I just looked at PublicAffairs website – lofty goals indeed.

>52 richardderus: Mama was born in 1920 after her mother lost a baby in late 1918. I found that out from her five-years-older brother. She insisted she was born in 1921! My dad thought he was born in 1922 for years. I suspect he didn’t know he was born in 1921 until he needed his birth certificate just before WWII. Nebraska birth certificates at the time indicated if child was born in wedlock or not. My dad was born in wedlock. He could have been the milkman's child, however, since he didn't look at all like my grandfather. That sentence would have shocked my grandmother, the epitome of a Victorian-era woman.

*smooch*

>63 karenmarie: I really enjoy berry pies, but haven't had Razzleberry before. Boysenberry is my very favorite pancake syrup!

And, if you look at PublicAffairs' list, they've got a good track record of maintaining those goals. Them, BasicBooks, a few others, remarkably few duds over the years. This book was clearly made to be something popular, and the stated goal...pursuing thematic clusters, not chronology...was a good decision. Its execution was not up to standard.

Mama's home-birth certificate vanished in a fire at the Hidalgo County courthouse, and was never sent to the State of Texas. When she needed it in the 1960s, she had to get affadavits from relatives or others who "attended the birth." Her Aunts all agreed she was born on 30 May. No one could agree on the year. 1921 emerged as the compromise candidate.

>62 FAMeulstee: Oh, Anita, that looks like a wonderful event! I hope you and Frank can go several times and will take copious photos. Thanks for visiting! *smooch*

>61 PaulCranswick: It is genuinely not worth the effort, PC, rest assured.

>60 AMQS: Thank you, Anne! I'm glad to see you here. And your guilt, in this case, can morph into smug satisfaction that you didn't waste your eyeblinks on something that didn't meet the challenge it set for itself.

>59 benitastrnad: I had a copy of Justinian's Flea at some point. It's long gone, and sadly my library doesn't have the Kindlebook. Maybe it will go on sale. I'll be watching out for it, though, thanks to your energetic warbling!

Thank goodness for the community of booklovers. I don't know what I'd do without this watchful, vocal world of readers!

Wordle 306 4/6

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Words like this one occur to me all in a flash or never at all. I'm happy it was flash day not gaping-mouth-hole day.

I'll third the recommendation of The Great Influenza by John M Barry. I read it around 2004, when it was first published. I am sure it was updated just a few years ago.

>65 richardderus:
I think you would like Justinian's Flea, but I will forewarn - it tends towards the academic in style. I think you can handle that! :-)

>68 benitastrnad: Oh, well, if it's academic in style, I'll just push it off a cliff! :-P

>67 weird_O: Boy, I hope the Kindle edition goes on sale sometime soon. I think the support that book's received is better than almost anything I've read in years...certainly more than any non-fiction this year.

Burgoine #26

Ride Around Shining by Chris Leslie-Hynan

Soon to be a Netflix feature film.

The Publisher Says: A provocative debut novel about a young white chauffeur and his wealthy black employer, an NBA player—a twenty-first century inversion of what we’ve come to expect stories of race and class to look like, and a discomfiting portrait of envy and obsession.

Ride Around Shining concerns the idle preoccupations, and later machinations, of a transplanted Portlander named Jess—a nobody from nowhere with a Master’s degree and a gig delivering takeout. He parlays the latter, along with a few lies, into a job as a chauffeur for an up-and-coming Trail Blazer named Calyph West and his young wife, Antonia.

Calyph is black and Antonia is white and Jess becomes fascinated, innocuously at first, by all they are that he is not. In striving to make himself indispensable to them, he causes Calyph to have a season-ending knee injury, then brings about the couple’s estrangement, before positioning himself at last as their perverse savior.

In the tradition of The Talented Mr. Ripley, The Great Gatsby, and Harold Pinter’s The Servant—not to mention a certain Shakespeare play about a creepy white dude obsessed with a black dude—Ride Around Shining tries to say the unsayable about white fixation on black culture, particularly black athletic culture, something so common in everyday life it has gone all but unaddressed.

My Review: The problem with writing a novel from the PoV of a slacker is that it begins to resemble a conversation with a slacker: Not going anywhere fast, and wherever it is you thought you were going, you're going to end up there several times because focus isn't a slacker's strong point. The clearest image I retain of the read is of Portland, Oregon. The author is at his most lyrical, and most evocative, when Portland is the object he's observing.

The publisher's comparisons are vastly overstated as comparables. This isn't in the same league as those titles. There's no subtle (or unsubtle) kink in this story...Jess is tediously heterosexual and ineffectually infatuated with Antonia (the question I had was, "why ever are these men interested in her?!" *yawn*). I've always thought that Iago was into Othello; Tom Ripley's sexuality is "whatever gets me what I want; and Pinter's adaptation of Robin Maugham's novella is about using sex, not hopelessly bungling around with it. It's not bad, and it's a perfect story to film, but honestly finishing it felt good...because it was over.

>52 richardderus: My dad was born in '14, my mom in '17, so he at least was old enough to be effected what was happening in '18. Chicago, where they lived, wasn't hit as hard as other cities, but out of a population of 2.7 million:
"Between the start of Chicago’s epidemic on September 21 and the removal of restrictions on November 16, the Windy City experienced a staggering 38,000 cases of influenza and over 13,000 cases of pneumonia." So my grandparents certainly were effected.

>55 benitastrnad: >57 alcottacre: Thank you for the reccie! I'll look for Great Influenza. I read and *enjoyed* (not the right word exactly, but you know what I mean) Justinian's Flea, but the best book about an epidemic I've read (so far) is The Ghost Map.

Burgoine #27

Picabia by Alain Jouffroy

Rating: 5* of five

The Publisher Says: An iconoclastic poet and painter, open to everything that was "other" and different, responsive to any form of newness—not only in art but to such external realities as machines—Francis Picabia never needed to define himself as a "modern."

"Sur-modern" rather than modern, he, like his early comrade Marcel Duchamp, was several years in advance of Dada and Surrealism, abd other avant-garde movements. A follower of nothing and no one, he, with Duchamp, was the true pioneer of modern art.

A born innovator, he paid only a passing visit—and no artistic dues—to the avant-gardes of the day and anticipated all future forms of visual expression.

GIFT CARD PURCHASE...AWAITED FOR SIX YEARS!

My Review: Reading the copy above, it sounds...hyperbolic. And if one's never heard of him, looking at the artwork in the modestly sized and carefully scope-limited visually enhanced biographical sketch will feel familiar. "That's a lot like Matisse!" or "Huh...Abstact Expressionism through a French lens!" or "My god, that's a Man Ray image!"

They're all Picabia. And he made them first. The claim that he's a pioneer is valid.

It's also clear that Picabia was completely at home in his own skin. He never shrank back from experience, he allowed no consideration for convention (or, sometimes, even the bonds of friendship) to stand in the way of his lusty, loud progress through life. Women he wanted, he had; friends he grew away from, he abandoned; art, that is to say ART, was the product of his unceasing forward-aimed projection of himself through the world he wished to inhabit.

I first heard of this book in 2015. The friend who mentioned it to me was mildly disparaging about it, and about Picabia; she was not very well-informed about art and artists. I was intrigued immediately but, as happens so often, Life did things and I reacted. The book didn't end up on my shelves until Yule 2021.

Now that it's here it's staying. The printing is very high-quality; the design is sleek and simple, if uninspired. Or, to be less judgmental about it, I could remind myself that the design of a work about an artist is usually best if it's unobtrusive. The point isn't the design but the subject, after all. Picabia is well-served by this accessible, elegant introduction to his fascinating life and extraordinary breadth of creative output.

I'm pretty sure I read Barry's The Great Influenza.
Pandemic non-fiction was all the rage in the early aughts . I read a bunch of books on the black death and picked that up as a pallet cleanser. I can't be sure on the title, but I do remember the author made the claim that the Spanish flu had more in common with hemorrhagic fever than with straight up flu and they dug up the graves of some victims buried above the permafrost line.

I'm both phobic and obsessed with biohazard level 4 pathogens.

>73 SomeGuyInVirginia: Wasn't that the Kolata book, sweetiedarling? It sounds like her work.

And being obsessed with and terrified of these biohazards is quite sensible. It means you're paying respectful attention to them, and that is all to the good.

>71 Storeetllr: Oh gosh, The Ghost Map! That was a stunner of a read. I've always compared others to its grandeur, too.

*smooch*

Pearl Rule #9 @ 21%

City Parks: Public Places, Private Thoughts by Catie Marron

The Publisher Says: In City Parks, eighteen writers reflect on various parks that hold a special significance for them, sharing personal moments they associate with them. Andrew Sean Greer eloquently paints a portrait of first love in the Presidio; André Aciman muses on the passage of time and the changing face of New York as viewed from the High Line; Nicole Krauss describes the real citizens of Prospect Park-dogs!; Simon Winchester takes readers along on his adventures in the Maidan; and Bill Clinton describes his affection for Dumbarton Oaks.

Intensely personal, yet joined by overlapping themes of memory and the unstoppable passage of time, these essays create a warm portrait of parks around the world-from London to Brooklyn, Calcutta to Chicago, Paris to San Francisco-and offer a unique, thoughtful vision of their significance both to the individual and society itself. Beautifully illustrated with color and black-and-white images, City Parks is a literary anthology and collector's item that illuminates our personal histories and public experiences.

My Review: Snapshots illustrating different peoples' varyingly pedestrian to humdrum musings on their favorite public parks.

Bill Clinton's vapid maunderings about Dumbarton Oaks illustrated with very ordinary Kodachromes of trees was when I foundered. I slugged my way through to get to the ever-delightful Jan Morris's somewhat superficial ruminations on Trieste's Giardino Pubblico, though. I was hoping for a resurrection of fun...and at the end of it, there were five little candid snaps, one of a stroller being shoved by a whey-faced person, and another of two shirtless ping-pong players playing ping-pong with their long, skinny limbs gracelessly stiffened by a poorly framed black-and-white shot...the other three made even less of an impression. Not even Jan Morris's charming, if slight, essay could prevent my final submergence in the Sea of Mediocrity.

I can't imagine why this very, very good idea elicited such a bland, uninteresting execution.

>66 richardderus: We were nearly Wordle-twins today, Richard! I got the last letter in my first word, the second and fourth in my second word, 4/6 overall.

Karen O

>65 richardderus: Justinian's Flea is an interesting read and I still have it on my bookshelf for a reread in the future.
Flu: The Story Of The Great Influenza Pandemic was mediocre, I found myself still having hard questions not answered after reading it. The author got carried away dissing the researchers that were digging up frozen corpses in Norway making the book seem unprofessional and it seemed to have a bunch of filler to make it book length. It just was not very in depth. The author may have made an attempt to make it so non-textbook that it did not contain much as a result. That's just how it felt.

I'd be really interested to see what books 100 years from now will say about the Covid 19 pandemic. None of my relatives that lived through it ever talked about the Flu epidemic and they passed on years ago so no one will ever be able to ask them.

I'm a microbiologist so I read a fair amount of science and disease books, but I will fall asleep if it starts sounding too much like a textbook which I did reading The Ghost Map.

Spillover is a really good one, about animal pathogens that might make a jump into humans, if you are interested in the subject and not 'pandemic-ed' out. Mary Roach has several interesting books such as Stiff and Gulp that are engaging about oddball subjects and not too academic at all but you learn and laugh at the same time.
Rabid is also an interesting one about rabies.

Happy Reading!

>77 kaida46: Welcome, Deb! I'm glad to hear from someone with a solid professional grounding in science about good reading. But do I understand you to say that The Ghost Map struck you as textbook-y in its affect? That is so opposite to my experience that I wonder what I might be misunderstanding.

Mary Roach has written so many books that I've enjoyed, including Stiff and Gulp and Bonk. David Quammen, likewise, has written books I've found a lot of pleasure in reading though not Spillover just yet.

It would be fun to know what the folk of 2120 are learning about our friendly little plague. I won't be here then, but it does make for an amusing thought experiment.

Thank you for stopping by!

>76 klobrien2: Hi Karen O! We were darn near twins today, but I was just *struck* by the answer and exerted no conscious effort to reach the winner's circle. It was a nice gift from the goddesses.

>73 SomeGuyInVirginia:
I don't recall that any corpses were dug up in Great Influenza. It is much more of an academic history of the pandemic and ends in the 1920's with the abandonment of trying to find a vaccination for the virulent form of pneumonia that produced most of the deaths from the "flu." You are correct that the early forms of the Influenza were extremely virulent with hemorrhaging from bodily orifices' common. People died from it in hours. That Influenza was nothing like the Influenza of the later pandemic because the virus mutated. Just as did the COVID virus. Because I had read the Barry book when the COVID virus started mutating I was not shocked. Knowledge is a powerful thing.

I just could not get into The Ghost Map, it started out pretty interesting but then was dragging so much, repeating similar information, it just did not work for me and I usually devour books like that. While I admire the scientists' determination to the cause, I finally had to put the book down when I dreaded continuing on.
I would like to take a look at The Great Influenza in the future as it seems to be my kind of book.
The Violinist's Thumb, The Disappearing Spoon are also good ones on similar subjects.
Napoleon's Buttons is also good.

>80 kaida46: Thanks for clarifying for me, and for the reading list! I'll see how many I can get via the library. Napoleon's Buttons is such a great title!

>79 benitastrnad: It's the Gina Kolata book that has the upgediggin' shenanigans, Benita: Flu: The Story Of the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search for the Virus That Caused It.

>64 richardderus: I never knew before that our mothers shared a birthday, Richard. My mother was born May 30, 1939.

>70 richardderus: I think I am skipping that one too.

Happy new thread Richard! I'll have to come back later for a proper visit.

Has anyone tried Octordle today? (I'm assuming the effect is intentional and not a virus.)

Yeah, I must have read Kolata's book. Digging up victims buried above the permafrost line was a big part of it.

I'm about to lose my access to Arlington county's online offerings because I'm no longer a northern Virginia resident. This is especially unsettling because Arlington county is really tiny but they have an amazing selection of online materials. I know, I tried it. I don't know how many times I'm going to have to learn to get things in writing before I blow officials and mid-level managers*. I mean, you'd think I just like blowing guys and that's crazy talk!

*See my post on how I got into the college of my choice.

Wordle 307 4/6

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Another glad-to-see-it 4!

>84 SomeGuyInVirginia: *snicker* I was never pretty enough for the offer to be accepted, so I'm doubly jealous.

Well, dear...dig we must, so head (!) off to Arlington and get ready to pucker. Who knows what they'll give you if you ask.

>83 humouress: "Octordle"? I do not even want to know. Have a perfectly corking weekend, La Overkill.

>82 alcottacre: Yes indeed, skippity-skip-skip. And your maternal unit was a Gemini as well...you poor lassie. And almost exactly young enough to be her daughter! First marriage was contracted shortly after your mother was born.

Hi Richard. I am here to do a little brag. Pure fluke, of course, but who am I to look a gift horse in the mouth (or however that saying goes). I wordled in 2 today... :-)

065 The Ponder Heart by Eudora Welty

Rating: 5* of five

The Publisher Says: Daniel Ponder is the amiable heir to the wealthiest family in Clay County, Mississippi. To friends and strangers, he’s also the most generous, having given away heirlooms, a watch, and so far, at least one family business. His niece, Edna Earle, has a solution to save the Ponder fortune from Daniel’s mortifying philanthropy: As much as she loves Daniel, she’s decided to have him institutionalized.

Foolproof as the plan may seem, it comes with a kink—one that sets in motion a runaway scheme of mistaken identity, a hapless local widow, a reckless wedding, a dim-witted teenage bride, and a twist of dumb luck that lands this once-respectable Southern family in court to brave an embarrassing trial for murder. It’s become the talk of Clay County. And the loose-tongued Edna Earle will tell you all about it.

“The most revered figure in contemporary American letters,” said the New York Times of Eudora Welty, which also hailed The Ponder Heart—a winner of the William Dean Howells Medal which was adapted into both a 1956 Broadway play and a 2001 PBS Masterpiece series—as “Miss Welty at her comic, compassionate best.”



THIS IS MY ENTRY INTO THE 1954 CLUB...reviews of books published in 1954.

My Review: This magical moment of Southern history was first published in The New Yorker magazine, with the whimsically funny line drawings in my Kindle edition, in 1953. How I wish I had been there, that I'd seen it in that form...I was, obviously, unable to attend the 1956 Broadway performance of the play adapted from this book (being still as yet unborn) but I certainly saw the PBS Masterpiece Theater production with Peter MacNicol and JoBeth Williams as Uncle Daniel and Edna Earle Ponder. It was...fine. Not a patch on the read, but...fine. Like 2001 itself, it was no patch on 1953, or 1956.

The reason this novella marches on, I think, is that it is the perfect length and in the precise emotional register for Miss Eudora Welty's powers to come full bore on it. I am certain that its long-term popularity is down to Miss Edna Earle Ponder and her absolutely amazing narrative voice:

I used to dread he might get hold of one of these occasional travelers that wouldn’t come in unless they had to—the kind that would break in on a story with a set of questions, and wind it up with a list of what Uncle Daniel’s faults were: some Yankee.
–and–
Miss Teacake Magee lived here all her life. She sings in the choir of the Baptist Church every blessed Sunday; couldn’t get her out. And sings louder than all the rest put together, so loud it would make you lose your place.
–and–
The Peacocks are the kind of people keep the mirror outside on the front porch, and go out and pick railroad lilies to bring inside the house, and wave at trains till the day they die. The most they probably hoped for was that somebody’d come find oil in the front yard and fly in the house and tell them about it.

It's the voice that I sense in all Miss Eudora's very best writing, the voice of a certain woman whose presence in every Southern matriarchy is inevitable: The "excellent woman" of Barbara Pym's stories with a different accent and a slightly more acid tongue. In Miss Edna Earle, I do believe the type reached her apotheosis. She narrates the whole sorry saga of Grandpa Ponder's attempts to corral his son's bizarre, generous heart within the Institution of Marriage. After all, the mental institution couldn't even hold him a week. The problem is, you see, Uncle Daniel Ponder isn't crazy. Isn't, in fact, much of anything except smilingly delighted to be alive, and willing to do whatever it takes to give that same joy to others. And Miss Edna Earle, being a true-born Ponder and a lot sharper than Uncle Daniel, sees Grandpa's point...helps him as best she can...and, when the marriage "didn't hold out," she accepts Uncle Daniel's just going to need watching so he doesn't give away the whole of the Ponder fortune.

Nobody thought to worry about the dear soul finding another wife.

This time, though, as one might expect, Uncle Daniel finds the wrongest wife possible: A silly little girl of seventeen from a family of no-count nobodies. The shock of it! Why, Grandpa Ponder finally succumbs to this shock to "the Ponder heart" and now where is Miss Edna Earle going to get help dealing with Uncle Daniel? Especially now that his little child bride is all of a sudden dead....

What follows is an absolutely side-splittingly funny murder trial, a startling bunch of revelations about Uncle Daniel (not really) and a juicy trial for the gossips to chew over til Kingdom Come (that bit's true). There is, as always, The Welty Touch over every square inch of this magical little farce. There's the occasional nasty epithet, but never from Miss Edna Earle or Uncle Daniel; there's not one single sign of modernity in the story, in the structure or the tale of it. This is the way Southern women of a century ago told their stories to anyone who desired to listen.

I desired to listen.

>87 jessibud2: Shelley! How marvelous!! I love the way that kind of giftie from the goddesses feels...all green all in a row, and on turn #2...brava!

>88 richardderus: By some incomprehensible failure of devotion, I have not yet read The Ponder Heart. Whatevah is the mattah with me?

>90 laytonwoman3rd: You were, psychically speaking, saving it for your old age...a treat unrepeatable, so more treasured now than in younger years.

>91 richardderus: That's IT! Wait...what were those horrid words you said? "Old age"? You young whippersnapper.

Hiya, RDear!

>88 richardderus: A BB! Our Library has it, and I will be at the Library on Monday.

*smooch* from your own Horrible

>93 karenmarie: Yay! A more worthy book-bullet I've never fired!

*smooch*

>92 laytonwoman3rd: ...I didn't say you were reading it now...just that it was there, a small joy for your old age.

Heavens! As though I'd call a fine figure of a lady such as yourself "old".

Just dropping off pre-weekend smooches to prove that I do lurk around here. :)

Hey, I read that. Not even a year ago. >90 laytonwoman3rd: I acquired The Ponder Heart, Linda, at the Scranton library sale. I'm inspired to reread it. Thanks for the poke, RD.

>86 richardderus: I would not trade my mother for anything in the world. She is the only reason I survived childhood. My father, on the other hand. . .

>88 richardderus: I do not think I have ever read anything by Eudora Welty. I definitely need to remedy that!

Have a wonderful weekend, RD! ((Hugs)) and **smooches**

>97 alcottacre: " I do not think I have ever read anything by Eudora Welty." Oh, please do. You might start with her short "Why I Live at the PO". It slays me every time.

>98 laytonwoman3rd:, >97 alcottacre: Absolutely, Stasia! ASAP.

*smooch*

>96 weird_O: Another book-bulleting! Go me!

>95 MickyFine: Greetings from your southeast, Micky.

Burgoine #28

The Wonder by Emma Donoghue

Rating: 3.75* of five

The Publisher Says: The Irish Midlands, 1859. An English nurse, Lib Wright, is summoned to a tiny village to observe what some are claiming as a medical anomaly or a miracle - a girl said to have survived without food for months. Tourists have flocked to the cabin of eleven-year-old Anna O'Donnell, and a journalist has come down to cover the sensation. The Wonder is a tale of two strangers who transform each other's lives, a psychological thriller, and a story of love pitted against evil.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: First, read this:

A fast didn't go fast; it was the slowest thing there was. Fast meant a door shut fast, firmly. A fastness, a fortress. To fast was to hold fast to emptiness, to say no and no and no again.
–and–
How could the child bear not just the hunger, but the boredom? The rest of humankind used meals to divide the day, Lib realized—as reward, as entertainment, the chiming of an inner clock. For Anna, during this watch, each day had to pass like one endless moment.

I dislike Author Donoghue's prior success, Room, a lot. I found it cynical and manipulative. I got this book thinking I'd give it a good drubbing and forget this author existed afterward.

The more fool I. This is beautifully written...so was Room...but also acutely observed and compassionately told. It was too long, it was very slow for two-thirds of its length, and it had a very strong anti-religion bias (which I share). More than anything else, I read and read and read to get more of this:

An obsession, a mania, Lib supposed it could be called. A sickness of the mind. Hysteria, as that awful doctor had named it? Anna reminded Lib of a princess under a spell in a fairy tale. What could restore the girl to ordinary life? Not a prince. A magical herb from the world's end? Some shock to jolt a poisoned bite of apple out of her throat? No, something simple as a breath of air: reason. What if Lib shook the girl awake this very minute and said, Come to your senses!

But that was part of the definition of madness, Lib supposed, the refusal to accept that one was mad. Standish's wards were full of such people.

Besides, could children ever be considered quite of sound mind? Seven was counted the age of reason, but Lib's sense of seven-year-olds was that they still brimmed over with imagination. Children lived to play. Of course they could be put to work, but in spare moments they took their games as seriously as lunatics did their delusions. Like small gods, children formed their miniature worlds out of clay, or even just words. To them, the truth was never simple.

That insight alone was worth five stars! But it came swaddled, hidden, in much too much waffle for me to give even close to all five stars.

Hi Richard, a belated happy new thread dear friend.

Room was absorbing and horrible at the same time. I'm no longer friends with the person who would loan Chuck Palahnuik, Gillian Flynn and Emma Donoghue, all of which I devoured in horrified fascination. We did not stop being friends over books, but not liking Canticle for Liebowitz was a bigger red flag than the aforementioned roster of authors.

>102 AuntieClio: ...not...liking...
...
...oh myyy

>101 johnsimpson: Hi John! Thank you most kindly.

‘Morning, Rdear! Happiest of Saturdays to you.

>98 laytonwoman3rd: There’s a recording of Welty reading it on YouTube: Why I Live at the PO if you’re so inclined. I just listened to it again.

>100 richardderus: Nice Burgoine’d review. However, I’ll pass.

*smooch* from your own Horrible

Wordle 308 6/6

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*PHEW*

>104 karenmarie: Hi Horrible! I'm glad you liked the review, but fully understand your lack of celeritous uptake of its subject.

Happy Saturday! *smooch*

>105 richardderus: Got it in 5. Now I am wondering what your fifth word was, can not think of a word that matches...

Got me with Wingwalkers and The Ponder Heart. I've read hardly any Eudora Welty, except for "Why I Live at the P.O.," which was assigned reading for a survey of American Lit class back in my undergrad days. I ought to fix that.

>108 swynn: Hi Steve! I'm glad I winged you with Welty. I advise sticking to her stories because she was a *genius* at seeing the world in bits and bites.

>107 FAMeulstee: It was me being fancy again: I tried OGIVE, the curve, before OLIVE like a doofus.

>104 karenmarie: I've listened to that. I love Miss Eudora's speaking voice, but I'm afraid I don't care for the way she reads....a bit too fast for my taste, which is odd, because when she talks she has a lovely Southern pace.

Happy Saturday, Richard!

>105 richardderus: I got it in 4 today >109 richardderus: but admit that I'm unfamiliar with your 5th word choice. Learn something new every day!

>111 Copperskye: Thanks, Joanne, the same back at'cha...and four's a great result indeed. I'm always amazed at the information stored in my brain.

>110 laytonwoman3rd: She was acting the part, I think, the breathless rush that the character would've spoken in. To me that felt both natural and right for this story.

Happy weekend, Richard!

>105 richardderus: You just made it! It was a tricky one for me as well.

>112 richardderus: Could be...could be.

>88 richardderus: What a year in books 1954 was - debut novels from Kingsley Amis and Iris Murdoch, William Golding and James Baldwin. CS Lewis turning out another Chronicle of Narnia, Isaac Asimov and Richard Matheson; great thrillers from Hammond Innes and a new James Bond. Also the small matter of the first two books in a certain Middle Earth trilogy that you are on record in, erm, not liking so much.

Have a great weekend, RD.

>115 PaulCranswick: Many good things happened in 1954...bad ones, by definition, must occur as well, or else y'all's gawd couldn't make us suffer the way she so clearly loves to do. So into every literature a little Tolkien must...extrude.

>114 laytonwoman3rd: :-)

>113 figsfromthistle: And for no good reason, Anita! So very irritating.

Extruding Tolkien. Sounds painful. Have you had that looked at? 😀

>117 drneutron: Haven't even looked in that general direction since 1974.

The Ponder Heart look like something I could get into, Richard. It found its way onto my library hold list. I found today's Wordle easier than yesterday's. Got it in two.

Burgoine #29

Moderan by David R. Bunch

Rating: 5* of five

The Publisher Says: A collection of chilling and prescient stories about ecological apocalypse and the merging of human and machine.

Welcome to Moderan, world of the future. Here perpetual war is waged by furious masters fighting from Strongholds well stocked with “arsenals of fear” and everyone is enamored with hate. The devastated earth is coated by vast sheets of gray plastic, while humans vie to replace more and more of their own “soft parts” with steel. What need is there for nature when trees and flowers can be pushed up through holes in the plastic? Who requires human companionship when new-metal mistresses are waiting? But even a Stronghold master can doubt the catechism of Moderan. Wanderers, poets, and his own children pay visits, proving that another world is possible.

“As if Whitman and Nietzsche had collaborated,” wrote Brian Aldiss of David R. Bunch’s work. Originally published in science-fiction magazines in the 1960s and ’70s, these mordant stories, though passionately sought by collectors, have been unavailable in a single volume for close to half a century. Like Anthony Burgess in A Clockwork Orange, Bunch coined a mind-bending new vocabulary. He sought not to divert readers from the horror of modernity but to make us face it squarely.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: First, read this:

“WE’LL FIGHT! We’ll fight each other. We’ll make harsh monsters, set them loose and fight such monsters across all our space. We’ll move with engines and hard, programmed thoughts. We’ll make all manner of dragons for our involvement, and we’ll overcome them. For we’ll program the conquests a little more carefully than we’ll feed in the threats. But mostly we’ll just fight each other—each other and ourselves, the truly tireless enemies.”

Fifty years ago, these stories...I really bridle at calling them stories, it feels to me more like loosely interconnected chapters of a single, too-big-to-fail novel...appeared. I wasn't aware of them. I was too young to "get" them. I am still too young to get them...they are brilliant tours-de-force of a man's vision of a future no one could possibly want, but they're likely to get anyway.

In a lot of ways, Author Bunch's world reminds me of the world that Sandy Hook took place in, and no one stopped it from happening again.

And then the flesh-man - oh, consider. CONSIDER him - the sick few that are left. Please do. Then perhaps you will see why we in our new-shining glory, flesh-strips few and played-down, pay homage to a massive stick of new-metal placed as our guide star when New Processes Land, our great Moderan, was new!

J.G. Ballard at his bleakest, John Brunner at his most sarcastic, Joanna Russ at her most misandric. SF futures don't usually age well...this one, more's the pity, has.

>119 Familyhistorian: Hi Meg! Happy to see you here...it was a startlingly simple word, yet I still managed to avoid knowing what it was until the last possible moment...*sigh*

I suspect The Ponder Heart has a good shot at charming you, and I hope it succeeds. Enjoy Sunday's reads.

Wordle 309 5/6

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You have to be #5 before #4 happens. Silly me.

Burgoine #30

Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism by Safiya Umoja Noble

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Run a Google search for "black girls" - what will you find? "Big Booty" and other sexually explicit terms are likely to come up as top search terms. But, if you type in "white girls," the results are radically different. The suggested porn sites and un-moderated discussions about "why black women are so sassy" or "why black women are so angry" presents a disturbing portrait of black womanhood in modern society.

In Algorithms of Oppression, Safiya Umoja Noble challenges the idea that search engines like Google offer an equal playing field for all forms of ideas, identities, and activities. Data discrimination is a real social problem; Noble argues that the combination of private interests in promoting certain sites, along with the monopoly status of a relatively small number of Internet search engines, leads to a biased set of search algorithms that privilege whiteness and discriminate against people of color, specifically women of color.

Through an analysis of textual and media searches as well as extensive research on paid online advertising, Noble exposes a culture of racism and sexism in the way discoverability is created online. As search engines and their related companies grow in importance - operating as a source for email, a major vehicle for primary and secondary school learning, and beyond - understanding and reversing these disquieting trends and discriminatory practices is of utmost importance.

An original, surprising and, at times, disturbing account of bias on the internet, Algorithms of Oppression contributes to our understanding of how racism is created, maintained, and disseminated in the 21st century.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: The world, as the Internet has shaped it, took a promise of information access and educational opportunity unparalleled in human history and screwed it up to the point it reinforces the evils and stupidities it could so easily have alleviated.

The problem, it transpires, is both blindness..."*I* am no racist, or a sexist! Why, some of my best friends..." is not new, nor is it uncommon in any society...and neither is hubristic malevolence (Cambridge Analytica, for example). We're two decades in to a giant, uncontrolled social experiment. Voices like Author Noble's are still notable for their infrequence of prominence in the rarefied world of Congressional hearings and the European Union's creation of the GDPR.

The issues that Author Noble raises in this book need your attention. You, the searcher, are the product that Google and the other search engines are selling to earn their absurd, unconscionable, inadequately taxed profits. Every time you log on to the internet, Google knows...use other search engines, never click on any links, and Google still knows you're there. That's the Orwellian nightmare of it...like East Germany's Stasi, they're everywhere, in every website you visit. Unlike the Stasi, they are possessed of the capacity to quantify and analyze all the information you generate, and sell it to anyone who can use it. For you or against you, as long as the check clears, Google and its brethren couldn't care less.

(There are links to information sources in the blogged version of this review at Expendable Mudge Muses Aloud.)

‘Morning, Rdear, and happy Sunday to you.

>116 richardderus: I don’t think I realized that we both dislike LOTR. ATA!

>120 richardderus: Yikes and double yikes. I dislike the quote, and even more this: Like Anthony Burgess in A Clockwork Orange, Bunch coined a mind-bending new vocabulary. I had to read A Clockwork Orange in my freshman or sophomore year English class and was so put off by the vocabulary that I wrote a scathing book report using it. I don’t think I got an A, but seem to remember a B+.

>122 richardderus: I got it in 4. All of a sudden the word came to me.

>123 richardderus: duckduckgo returns more respectful results for black girls, which confirms that I made a good search engine choice about 5 years ago.

*smooch*

>124 karenmarie: Hey Horrible! I'm glad we see eye-to-eye on Tolkien. I find it's better not to yak it up, though, as His Acolytes are thin-skinned and take umbrage to one not sharing their joy in being endlessly punished by boring repetitious racist falderol and their memory for trivia constantly tested and found wanting.

...there I go again...

Google, in response to this book's inescapable logic, fiddled their algorithm. The point, however, remains: the tech jerks are the ones who decide what gets privileged.

>122 richardderus: Wordle 309 5/6

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this one was a pisser

I also dislike Lord of the Rings. I reread it for my son about ten years ago, and yep. Still hated it. Hated The Hobbit slightly less.

>126 mckait: I read The Hobbit when I was nine, so I loveloveloved it! Then came the nasty shock of LotR...never got my pleasure in his stories back. Reading it in one's fifties? NAYNAYNAY!

It wasn't one I expected, I will say, but my streak is still going. *smooch*

>98 laytonwoman3rd: Thanks for the recommendation, Linda! I will see if I can find that one.

>100 richardderus: Already read that one, so I get to miss that BB. Or it missed me, whichever.

>120 richardderus: Didn't miss me with that one though.

>123 richardderus: Or that one.

((Hugs)) and **smooches** and wishes for a happy Sunday, RD!

>129 alcottacre: Well, Stasia, either I'm aiming better or you're bobbin' an' weavin' slower...but I take my wins where I find 'em.

*smooch*

>120 richardderus:. Afternoon kind sir. This one’s a BB for me

And today I got it in 3, only my third

Wordle 309 3/6

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>131 mahsdad: Oh yay, Jeff! As I was reading the stories, which I still don't think should be considered stories but chapters, I kept thinking "Jeff needs to read this." You and Steve Wynn are pretty much the perfect readers for Bunch's work. I wish I could lend/give my DRC because it seems so perfect for yinz.

>123 richardderus: Anyone who believes that any search engine offers an equal playing field hasn't been paying attention to their own search results. Google may know all about you, but they sure won't use that info to produce relevant search results; it's much easier to give you a mix of what the majority wants, and what their advertisers want given to everyone.

As a person typing on a device in the US, I'm desperate to lose weight, understand nothing but English, etc. etc. Even if I type search terms in French or German, they'll most likely be interpreted as typos for some none-too-similar English word.

I don't honestly know whether their results are more biased against oppressed minorities than their majority/model searcher wants. At a guess, it would depend on the specific minority, and on their advertisers.

There's also an art to getting useful rather than popular results. I'm not good at it, but I know folks who are. One of them has even convinced google that she happily reads just about any language used anywhere in Europe; no idea how she managed that, given that her ISP (and thus her IP address) is in the US.

I actually think the worse problem with search engines isn't any specific bias - it's that they are routinely unreliable, but people rely on them anyway for lack of any alternative.

And of course as well as being unreliable, they also aren't consistent. It's easy to be unable to find, today, the site they gave you yesterday, or last week. But younger people seem to use search engines in place of bookmarks. (And of course there's also no guarantee that the site you read yesterday has the same contents today.) Welcome to the new and updated edition of Orwell's 1984.

>133 ArlieS: ...the names have been changed to protect the guilty...

Waving a quick hello between dog walks
*smooch*

>133 ArlieS: I've found search engines give different results for different people, but they're certainly not tailored. A few years ago I was searching for images of octopi for a painting I wanted to do and nothing useful came up. I happened to borrow my son's laptop and did the same search - lo and behold, there was everything I had been looking for.

066 Hafez in Love by Iraj Pezeshkzad (tr. Patricia J. Higgins, Pouneh Shabani-Jadidi)

Rating: 4.75* of five

The Publisher Says: Shams al-Din Mohammad Hafez is in love. He is in love with a girl, with a city, and with Persian poetry. Despite his enmity with the new and dangerous city leader, the jealousy of his fellow court poets, and the competition for his beloved, Iran's favorite poet remains unbothered. When his wit and charm are not enough to keep him safe in Shiraz, his friends conspire to keep him out of trouble. But their schemes are unsuccessful. Nothing will chase Hafez from this city of wine and roses.

In Pezeshkzad's fictional account, Hafez's life in fourteenth-century Shiraz is a mix of peril and humor. Set in a city that is at once beautiful and cutthroat, the novel includes a cast of historical figures to illuminate this elusive poet of the Persian literary tradition. Shabani-Jadidi and Higgins's translation brings the beloved poetry of Hafez alive for an English audience and reacquaints readers with the comic wit and original storytelling of Pezeshkzad.

Iraj Pezeshkzad was born in Tehran in 1928 and educated in Iran and then France, where he received his law degree. He was a retired diplomat, journalist, and writer. He was the author of several plays, short stories, and novels, including My Uncle Napoleon. He died on 12 January 2022 in Los Angeles.

Pouneh Shabani-Jadidi is senior lecturer of Persian language and linguistics at the Institute of Islamic Studies, McGill University.

Patricia J. Higgins is a University Distinguished Professor of Anthropology, Emerita at the State University of New York, Plattsburgh.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: First, read this:

He agrees with everyone's opinion, from black to white. With his constant refrain, "We are all children of this land," he recognizes both sides: he who believes it is night, and he who believes it is day.
–and–
"O light of my eyes, don't forget that until a few months ago you and I were among the court favorites of the then-shah. If some of these 'many' {whom Hafez claims will hide him from pursuit} enjoyed our poetry, it was because the poetry pleased the shah. The power and honor of the shah was behind our poetry. Now our poetry is just poetry. And perhaps in the eyes of these 'many,' it is not even poetry. Perhaps some of the men who praised the poems of Shams al-Din Hafez without hearing them will come to agree with His Honor, the police chief, and consider them dirty."

This seems to me to represent the tone and tenor of the book's translation...I think it also gives a flavor of the world in which we're spending a few hours. The court of an insecure, unworthy ruler, whose jobs are done for him not by workers or even lackeys, but by henchmen, is a fertile place to set a love story. Especially when the lovers are unable to come together because the obstacle to them getting their love consummated is one of the aforementioned henchmen.

Our narrator, Mohammad Golandam, is Hafez's brother-in-law and long-time best friend. He's a sensible sort; we can not say the same for Shams al-Din...he who will become, in the fullness of time, Hafez; the two men are only twenty-three at the time of this story. It's easy to see why Golandam, as Hafez (let's use his famous, and short, handle from here on) addresses him, is anxious and on needles and pins. Hafez has made many a sarcastic, cutting remark in his poetry about the new power-wielder Mobarez al-Din Mohammad Mozaffar. This self-installed prince is a "...blood-shedding creature of God {who} understands neither literature nor poetry. He is one of those dull-hearted people who, in the words of Shams Qeis Razi, don't 'distinguish between the sound of music and the braying of an ass.' His source of pleasure and happiness is cutting off heads," entirely enough to strike poor Golandam with near-lethal agita given Hafez's indiscreet, but truthful and honest, characterizations of him:

To get his aversion to him off his chest, {Hafez} had used this phrase extremely carelessly in a lyric poem about repentance after a life of drinking and wenching:
The morality officer became a pious sheikh and forgot his debauchery.
It is my story that remained throughout the bazaar.

It's not too hard to imagine a thin-skinned leader whose response to verbal disrespect shown by those less powerful than he is being, um, disproportionate, is it. The problems are, of course, many in a world run by incompetent and malicious people. The story's not complete without wild schemes and convoluted plots and hilarious misinformation campaigns...there are no better stories, in my never-humble opinion, than the ones about True Love Thwarted!

And True Love it very much is. This poem is what Hafez writes for his morning glory Jahan while he was imprisoned by his oft-insulted rival for her affections, and while she was scheming to get him out by pretending to agree to marry his captor, and while Golandam and Hafez's honorary father schemed to get her out of the unwanted marriage and back into Hafez's arms:

I swear on the life of the belovèd that if I could reach my soul,
That would be the least of the gifts to her by her slave.
If my heart was not bound to a strand of her hair,
How would I have been at peace in this dark vessel made of dust?
Your face is like the sun in the sky, unique in the heavens;
If only your heart were a bit more kind.
You said to me, "What is the worth of the dust under her feet,
If the precious life were eternal?"
I wish you would emerge through my door like a beam of light,
That divine fate would shine on my eyes.
The cypress would acknowledge its lowliness compared to her stature
If it had ten tongues like the wild lily.
You wouldn't fall out of tune with Hafez's melody,
If you weren't the companion of the morning songbirds.

Okay, I don't understand one damn word of that, but I know yearning and longing and sheer miserable wretched being-in-loveness when it smacks me across six or seven centuries. There's plenty of this poetical stuff peppered around the story. There are many readers who will see that as a plus; I want, therefore, to be clear that you will be reading a lot of poetry when you read this novel. (And the clever-clogs blog readers will now be recalling my stance on poetry, and looking at this review's star rating, and drawing some brow-knitting conclusions.)

So why am I praising this book, this poetry-laden book about a poet in love with a woman? Because it's such a delight to read. Because Hafez, every time someone talks sense to him, says "mm hmm" and carries right on being In Love with Jahan and acting as if by sheer force of his will, backed by the spiritual power generated by the huge dynamo of his adoration for Jahan, Things Will Come Out Right.

But I won't tell you if they do or they don't because some things you need to find out for yourownself.

The book concludes with a Dramatis Personae, and a Glossary; both are very handy. The Dramatis Personae include markers for characters based on historical personages, meaning those not marked are invented; though the names and actions of historical people are used, they're probably all best seen as fictional. It's worth noting that, even though Hafez's love object in this story is Jahan, a woman, there's no way in Farsi or in Persian poetry's conventions for that to be certain. It's a feature of the language that pronouns aren't gendered. While Hafez is in love with a woman in twenty-first century Iran, there's absolutely no reason for that to be the case in fourteenth-century Shiraz. I merely note this fact, quite firmly stated by the translators, as a datum of some interest to some readers.

>136 humouress: That's tailoring for you...what they saw on your computer led to them showing you what some algorithm thought you wanted; what you *really* wanted doesn't matter.

>135 bell7: Hi Mary! I'd say "come sit a spell" but that's not on the schedule, is it. *whew* you're an energetic sort! *smooch*

‘Morning, RD, and happy Monday to you.

>137 richardderus: Beautiful review. I’m adding this to my wish list simply because of a character who … agrees with everyone's opinion, from black to white. With his constant refrain, "We are all children of this land," he recognizes both sides: he who believes it is night, and he who believes it is day. I don’t agree with every opinion, but on the continuum of prejudice I’d rather be closer to his philosophy than the polarized and one-dimensional black-and-white opinions prevalent here in the good ol’ US of A these days.

*smooch* from your own Horrible

>139 karenmarie: Thank you, Horrible, I'm so pleased you enjoyed the review...and, well, the character's characterization isn't kind, so you know.

Happy-Monday *smooch*

Wordle 310 3/6

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My first 3 in a while!

>141 richardderus: well done, I scraped a 6.

>123 richardderus:. hmm. interesting.

>142 Helenliz: Hi Helen! I was chuffed with today's 3.

It's a very interesting book, and a topic I think needs addressing in public and often. This isn't a one-and-done kind of problem. I was quite pleased that both author and publisher retweeted my review-link post.

>130 richardderus: Well, I never was very fast on my feet concerning missing BBs. . .

>137 richardderus: Got me with that one!

Have a wonderful week, RD. ((Hugs)) and **smooches**

>144 alcottacre: Thanks, Stasia, to you too.

I'm pretty sure you'll enjoy the lyrical parts of Hafez in Love a good bit. It's a fascinating story, that of Shiraz: Persia's poetry capital. The history is genuinely fun to read by itself, but in this story it makes even better pleasure learning.

>141 richardderus: Got it in 4. It came down to 2 words for me. My new mantra for Wordle is, if you have a choice between a common one and a weird one, go for the weird one. I was going to go for SPEAK, or ASKEW based on my first 3, and I choice wisely. :)

>146 mahsdad: I've had the opposite problem! But hey, it's a skill-sharpening way to start our days.

>141 richardderus: took me six today, but my streak is alive.

>123 richardderus: Already in the Swamp and ... yeah.

>149 swynn: Oh good! (I'm guessing that you mean Moderan...?) Either one, actually, you're in the target market for both I reckon.

>148 bell7: The Streak is the thing to be guarded. Stats will shift around, like sandbars, but the Streak is Life!

>150 richardderus: I was on a streak of 83 and then forgot I hadn't finished it one day when we were on holiday, and so I lost it. Was not happy.

>151 SandDune: Oh, that is *hideous*, Rhian. I'm so sorry!

It's not like anyone will *die* but it's a serious reduction in quality of life.

>88 richardderus: You're inspiring me to bump The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty higher on my TBR list.

Just dropping off some smooches. : )

'Morning, RDear, and happy Tuesday to you.

Re Eudora Welty - I was looking for The Ponder Heart. Searching for it in my Library's catalog, I saw that it is in Eudora Welty's Complete Novels. I knew I was going to the Library yesterday to pick up a box of Treasurer stuff from my ersatz Treasurer and clicked on the Where is it? link because of 3 branches and discovered that it's at my Library, but in NonFiction, 813.52 WEL. I mentioned it to the Branch Librarian after we'd finished chatting, and she said that that's how that book is cataloged by the LoC. Strange, eh? I didn't actually pick it up, but will the next time I'm there. I can't imagine that it will be checked out...

*smooch* from your own Horrible

>155 karenmarie: Dewey categorizes all fiction in the 800s and 813 is American literature. Some libraries put their classics in those categories in the nonfiction collection, but I'm with you, I think it would be harder to find and mean they don't go out much. (This tidbit brought to you by a librarian nerd who started as a shelver for eight years and memorized pieces of the Dewey Decimal System as a result.)

Wednesday *smooches*, Richard. Did a little better in Wordling today and got it in four.

Wordle 311 5/6

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Crikey!

>156 bell7: Took me 5 because I did it before coffee. Foolish thing to do! Happy Tuesday *smooch*

>156 bell7:, >155 karenmarie: Aren't a lot of Library of America's anthologies in the 813s because of their frequent use in survey courses?

>155 karenmarie: Happy Tuesday, Horrible! *smooch*

>154 Berly: Thanks, Kimmers! Sending a *smooch* south-southwestward.

>153 justchris: Oh excellent, Chris! Drag that monster to the top of the pile. I hope for the sake of your fingers and wrists that it's a *virtual* pile.

>157 richardderus:
Wordle 311 3/6

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*preens*

I've not read any Welty before either. The library has none available.

Good morning, Richard. Just inquiring as to how you've been faring Wordle-wise and otherwise. Today was 5 for me. Yesterday was too. I did have a blessed 2 sometime in the past week.

I've never even heard of a hackberry tree, but it's stunning. Our dogwoods seem to be dying, to my great dismay. Those @*!^^!!! pear trees are briefly gorgeous, but the one in our neighbor's yard just fell over a few years ago.

I've never been attracted to Donoghue, but I love that last sentence of hers about childhood. I'm come back as I can to read more.

*smooch*

>160 LizzieD: Hi Peggy! It was a 5 day for me, too. I wasn't smart this morning. I tried to Wordle without finishing (or even starting) my coffee. Foolish, foolish error.

I wasn't a fan (to put it politely) of Room. I thought this book was outstanding, though!

Those bloody Callery pears...the ones that look like a child's drawing of a tree, a leafy lollipop? I really think whoever hybridized those things should be hanged, drawn, and quartered. They don't like their job, they do everything they can to get out of it...get pests, fall over, whatever it takes, they're all about wasting nutrients and giving nothing in return. *grumble*

*smooch*

>159 Helenliz: Outstanding work, Helen! I'm so pleased for you.

I don't guess y'all's libraries would necessarily think to have Welty on hand. Like we wouldn't have George Friel or Margiad Evans.

Thank you for stopping in! *smooch*

Happy Tuesday, RD!

((Hugs)) and **smooches** for today

>162 alcottacre: Thank you, Stasia! *smooch*

>156 bell7: I'm an academic librarian working in a university library that still uses Dewey. I hate Dewey for the 800s. It's such a mess. I think the first catalogers here used "F" for fiction--even classics. We still have some things in "F," but we're gradually working to incorporate them into our 800s (as space permits). The biggest problem with using "F" was that the works and the critical works about them were in two different wings of the library--too far apart on the shelves. I'm getting ready to work through the 800s, mainly to make sure contents notes and/or summaries are added to records, and I'm considering two alterations to cutter numbers to make them work a little better. A lot of our Dewey still uses the 13th edition (or whatever early one it was) where the big authors like Shakespeare and Hawthorne had their own numbers. I have not really felt a need to change it since they just don't use those old numbers now, and it works a little better than everything crowded in 813.54, 813.6, 823.914, and 823.92. I guess it is what it is.

>164 thornton37814: Shouldn't there be some sort of plan in place to use LCCs by this point in the 21st century in an academic library?

Glad to see you came by, Lori!

Dropping in to day hello :)

>137 richardderus: While dropping in I picked up a BB. Thank you!

>166 figsfromthistle: Hi Anita! I'm glad you got winged by that one, it's a good choice. Tomorrow, Holocaust story...less fun-loving.

Wordle 312 4/6

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I'm happy to have that 4.

067 HARRY HAFT: Survivor of Auschwitz, Challenger of Rocky Marciano by Alan Haft

HBO/HBO MAX film premieres tonight!

Rating: 3.75* of five

The Publisher Says: Alan Scott Haft provides the first-hand testimony of his father, Harry Haft, a holocaust victim with a singular story of endurance, desperation, and unrequited love. Harry Haft was a sixteen-year-old Polish Jew when he entered a concentration camp in 1944. Forced to fight other Jews in bare-knuckle bouts for the perverse entertainment of SS officers, Harry quickly learned that his own survival depended on his ability to fight and win. Haft details the inhumanity of the "sport" in which he must perform in brutal contests for the officers. Ultimately escaping the camp, Haft's experience left him an embittered and pugnacious young man.

Determined to find freedom, Haft traveled to America and began a career as a professional boxer, quickly finding success using his sharp instincts and fierce confidence. In a historic battle, Haft fights in a match with Rocky Marciano, the future undefeated heavyweight champion of the world. Haft's boxing career takes him into the world of such boxing legends as Rocky Graziano, Roland La Starza, and Artie Levine, and he reveals new details about the rampant corruption at all levels of the sport.

In sharp contrast to Elie Wiesel's scholarly, pious protagonist in Night, Harry Haft is an embattled survivor, challenging the reader's capacity to understand suffering and find compassion for an antihero whose will to survive threatens his own humanity. Haft's account, at once dispassionate and deeply absorbing, is an extraordinary story and an invaluable contribution to Holocaust literature.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: I'm not the first person to pick up a boxing story. The violence and brutality inherent in the "sport" (which was used by ancient Greeks as military training) are, honestly, repulsive to me. I'm not famous for my delight in Holocaust stories, either.

What's going on here?

Stories like Pollak's Arm and The Vanished Collection feature the Jewish élite's fates, the kind of people who knew people whose names get into history books. Statistically not all the Jews in the Holocaust, dead or alive, could be those people; Hertzka Haft was a street kid, a hard-luck story from before there was a Holocaust, and whose survival was down to the fact that he could—and would—knock the ever-livin' snot out of other people to amuse and entertain his jailers.

There was nothing easy about Hertzka...Harry, in later life...Haft's life. He was the eighth and final child his mother bore...but she was so used to it she thought she was having gas pains, and *pow* Harry hit the floor under the tub of washing she was doing. His father died when he was three; his oldest siblings blamed him for infecting their mother with typhoid fever. His rock-tough self, and her with such rugged health, barely knew they had it; poor ol' papa passed beyond the veil from it in about a week.

Things really didn't get a lot easier from there on.

What I expect will shock readers is how...clear...Author Alan Haft, son of Harry, is. He doesn't linger over Dad's hurts. He doesn't shy away from the abuse Harry endured at the hands of his oldest brother, at the hands of the "christian" establishment, at the hands of the German invaders, the New York boxing establishment. He survived it all and didn't do it by being sweet, or intellectually pondering and systematizing the awful, painful stuff he's forced to endure simply for the privilege of continuing to breathe.

He was angry and he was strong and Harry Haft used those things as rocket fuel to extract his price for the sufferings he endured. Nothing, and I mean not one thing, stood between Harry and what he knew was his due. He hit people, and I don't mean polite punching like you see in sanitized boxing movies. I mean Alan Haft, clearly a good listener, understood that Harry never hit anyone without being extremely clear that 1) he had no choice but they'd see it coming and b) he was going to make sure that he got what was coming to him.

Given my uninterest in this sort of violence...ego-driven, honor-bound, these aren't ways to earn my sympathy...why am I rating this book so close to four stars? Because I think Harry Haft was the kind of man you'd want to know, to get in good with. Harry Haft suffered fools not at all, and those men are special friends who never once let your b.s. stand in the way, who never once fail you in a pinch. The Harry Hafts of the world love hard...an entire boxing career so he could be famous...not for fun, or even money, but so his lost Leah would hear about Harry Haft, see his photo, know to come find him.

That man, that force of nature, is getting a biopic tonight, this Holocaust Remembrance Day, on HBO Max. If it's among your channels, go look for The Survivor. I question that title. Given the horrors of his life inside the camps, did he survive? His body lived on. But...how much damage can a being endure, death, cannibalism, the unfathomably cruel suffering of existing in the Land of Plenty when so many didn't make it out? Is that "survival" in any meaningful way?

Alan Haft asks that question, not out loud, by exploring his psychotically angry, guilt-stewed, violent father's world. Interviews conducted before Harry Haft's death fifteen years ago probably saved both of their lives. How Alan Haft put together an identity is little short of a miracle, and how he dug around his own PTSD and located enough grace to offer his father this generous, honest, and deeply loving send-off is the reason you should read it, watch it, listen to the audiobook. The world's never been short of Harry Haft-like souls. We've got more incoming from the new wars.

Learning what happened will help you be that much better at reaching for their broken, abused hands instead of staring coldly, vacantly past them. Truth to tell, your world will get bigger and be better for it, like theirs.

Morning, Richard. Happy Wednesday! Love the toppers up there. I am back and trying to get back in the swing of things. I was hoping for warmer temps on my return but it is currently 30F out there and may inch up to the mid-40s. WTH? It looks like a bit of a warm-up for the weekend. I hope you are doing well and thanks for keeping my dormant thread company.

>165 richardderus: We use LC for ebook classification. The biggest barrier we have is lack of space for a split collection in the interim--and staffing. Students don't want to work any more. It's very difficult to find enough work study students to staff at the minimal level. We'd never be able to find enough to work on a project. They've been allowed to "study" while working at the circulation desk so long that they get very offended if you ask them to work on something. That's probably going to change next year as we migrate to a new system. We are going to need their help with some clean-up projects.

>171 thornton37814: That's very odd...yes, of course study is part of "work/study" but that's not the only, or even the first, part.

The idea of that kind of existential switching gives me the heebie-jeebies.

>170 msf59: Hi Mark, and welcome back! I know it's a shock to your system, but really it's just a few more days and then things'll be steadily warmer. What's really to be concerned about is the avian flu...I'm sure you're complying with the guidance from the agriculture folks.

Enjoy the week ahead.

‘Morning, RDear! Happy Wednesday to you.

>156 bell7: Thanks for the info, Mary. So I think you’re saying that some Libraries don’t put them in nonfiction. I’ll have to ask Rita what the county or state policy is regarding what is clearly fiction being put in nonfiction.

>158 richardderus: Still doesn’t make sense to me at all to put fiction in nonfiction. Harrumph.

>160 LizzieD: and >161 richardderus: I started and hated Room, but then borrowed the audio book from a book club friend after our book club discussion of it in March of 2012. For some reason it worked for me. I have 3 others by Donoghue on my shelves, though, as yet unread.

>161 richardderus: Ah! Callery pears are what we call Bradford pears here and curse them every time we see one. They are invasive and fragile. I love it every time I see one down in our neighborhood, and one neighbor finally gave up and took the last couple out of a formerly long row several years ago.

>164 thornton37814: More interesting information about fiction in nonfiction! Thanks, Lori.

>168 richardderus: Congrats on your 4.

>171 thornton37814: Our Library is on the same campus as is the local community college, and they have quite a few Library Science students here and at the other community college campuses in our county. The Friends give two $500 scholarships a year. I can’t imagine our Branch Librarian allowing a work/study student to only study. She's tiny but tough.

>171 thornton37814:
We have the same problem with student employees. They simply don't want to work. They want to get paid to study. I think part of the problem is the program. Students are "awarded" work study. The same way they are "awarded" scholarships. The money they are "awarded" is given to them in a letter with a lump sum attached to it. The same way a scholarship would be. I find that few of our work/study students actually get all of the money that is "awarded" to them because it is impossible to work enough hours to get all of the money. (Work study students are limited to working 15 hours per week.) But that lump sum sure looks good on paper!

>169 richardderus:
That is a tremendous review! Wow - you are so good with putting those reviews together.

I will not be watching this movie. I don't have HBO, but I wouldn't watch it anyway. Some people might call me squeamish, but the fact is - I can't watch Holocaust stuff. I can't read it either. I simply can't go there. I don't watch war movies either, or read war novels. I simply can't put myself into that space without it effecting me physically and mentally, and the after effects stay with me for days and sometimes weeks. I am not a Holocaust denier, but I do try to avoid the topic because of my reaction to it. We need people to tell this story - over and over, if need be. Therefore, I appreciate the fact that there are good reviews of this kind of material, because it is so important that the world continue to hear about this atrocity and REMEMBER it - lest it be repeated. I know that events like the Holocaust have been repeated (Rwanda comes to mind) and it makes me wonder about the future of humanity.

Today was a five guess day for me on Wordle. I'm just glad that it didn't bust my 6-day streak.

>176 SomeGuyInVirginia: All hail the streak! Keep that puppy alive, sweetiedarling.

*smooch*

>175 benitastrnad: I really don't encourage people to do that much damage to their limits, Benita. You're clear about them, why they're there, and what challenging them would cost, so that's the end of it from my PoV.

This story in particular is one I'd strongly caution you against taking in, no matter what. Just not a Benita book (or film), so! On to the next one. You're very kind about my review's merits. I can't say I slaved over this one, it more just popped out and let me trim its edges.

>174 benitastrnad: et alii. It boggles my mind how these programs seem to have failure built into them from before the recipients so much as get into the Admissions queue.

>173 karenmarie: Hi Horrible! Callery/Bradford pear trees are a public menace and should be chopped down and incinerated wherever and whenever they are found. They smell like Satan's gym socks. They look like a bad childhood art project. They are Evil.

I'd encourage you to get The Wonder off the shelves soon. Such a delight. Not at all like the experience of reading Room.

*smooch*

I was a work/study student all 4 years of college. It was part of my financial aid package, and the money I earned was basically my spending money, IIRC. I don't know if the program has changed or what (this was the late 90s), but I worked hard throughout college - two years in dining services and a year and a half in the library. There wasn't an opportunity to slack off.

>178 katiekrug: I guess the institutions are different...? I don't have any experience with the subject at all so I don't know first-hand what's doin' these days.

>169 richardderus: This sounds like a really good book, but I don't think I have enough spare emotional resilience.

>171 thornton37814: Now that takes me back. I had a job at the university library as part of my financial aid package, but they pretty much always used us to staff the reserve desk. Given the habits of many of my fellow students, that was a snooze fest most of the year, except right before exams, when it was an unmitigated zoo.

I used to go out of my way to trade for shifts during important university athletic events - during a big game, there'd be more staff than non-staff students in the building. I also occassionally used my position to get my hands on a popular reserve book, though not at the expense of anyone in the queue for it. And I helped random computer students, when I was on shift at times when the terminal room assistants weren't there, even though that was no part of my official job. (It really was a terminal room, not a computer room; PCs didn't exist yet.)

>181 ArlieS: :-)

>180 ArlieS: It might be wise to pass on that read, in the absence of a robust resilient emotional state.

Your latest reads aren't calling to me, but that's okay, as I have plenty of other titles on the list (the spreadsheet is up to 2700, and it's incomplete).

Speaking of TBR lists, two magazines that should add to yours are on their way shortly. I have them packaged and hope to mail them Saturday or Monday depending on when I can get to the post office.

Happy Thursday, Richard dear!

'Morning, RD! Happy Thursday.

Off to a local winery this afternoon with two book club friends for wine tasting. The winery has only been here 12 years, but I've never been before.

*smooch*

Wordle 313 3/6

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And it certainly was!

>186 richardderus: - I also got it in 3.

*smooch*

>187 katiekrug: Did you! I think they thought the Z was going to trip us up as much as the initial-vowel does. I enjoyed this one for that reason.

>185 karenmarie: Heavens, it's been there twelve years and you agreed to go? What's the hurry? Wineries need decades to get to decent growth.

*smooch* Have fun!

>184 FAMeulstee: Thanks, Anita! *smooch*

>183 bell7: Heh...what, no morally-gray-survivor stories for you? Shocked, shocked I say.

I'd guess the cornucopia isn't showing signs of emptying out, at least not quickly. I got a DRC this morning for The Woman in the Library...murder in the Boston Public Library's reading room...and am looking forward to it.

A top-quality historical fiction read, The Firedrake, is $1.99 on Kindle today:
https://smile.amazon.com/Firedrake-Novel-Cecelia-Holland-ebook/dp/B00J84KX5G/
I read this in ~1970 and, for the first time ever, connected History with his story. The main character pisses over the side of the boat on the way from Normandy to England. "People...pissed...then...?"

A Before-and-After moment of great personal significance, and a formative read that held up to a 2001 re-read.

>188 richardderus: I figured I could taste two whites and two reds and get a bottle of white for Bill and see how the reds tasted – they’re my preference. Plus, I have decades but want to support them sooner than 20 years. *smile*

>190 karenmarie: Scouting locations for your 80th, I expect. Hope it passes muster.

>169 richardderus: Adding that one to the BlackHole. Thanks for the review, Richard!

((Hugs)) and **smooches**

'Morning, Rdear! Happy Friday to you.

>191 richardderus: Perhaps my 70th? It's only 7.5 miles away using the non-gravel road. FireClay Cellars, Siler City, NC. The tasting room is airy and pleasing. I loved seeing the grape vines as we drove up. Lots of outside tables, both on two decks and a grassy area. The wines were fun to try. I tried a Chardonnay and a Traminette. I preferred the Chardonnay and bought a bottle of it. Not cheap, but I wanted to support them. I also tried their Chambourcin and a Red Blend. Both were reasonable but not stunning. They also have a hard cider that Jacque tried - she liked it but not enough to buy.

*smooch*

>193 karenmarie: ...but...but your 70th was almost ten years ago, wasn't it? Have you got a time-travel belt and been holding out on me?!

Happy Friday! *smooch*

>192 alcottacre: I hope you'll...hm, "enjoy" is the wrong concept entirely...get the benefit from the story's merits, Stasia! *smooch*

I'll be 69 in June, so nope.

Wordle 314 3/6

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AEONS – SAMMY – TRASH because the S and A could only be in places 3 & 4; therefore TRASH was the most likely suspect.

>195 karenmarie: mmm hmmm

>196 richardderus: Congrats on the three-fer! I laughed at your second word, though!

Karen O

>198 klobrien2: Thanks, Karen O; I was fishing to see if that was a word in their 2,309 and lo and behold!
***
The first volume of Iris Murdoch's collected novels is on Kindlesale today:
https://smile.amazon.com/Novels-Iris-Murdoch-One-Philosophers-ebook/dp/B07CSMB9S...
Included are her queerest novel, Henry and Cato; The Italian Girl; and the truly unsettlingly weird The Philosopher's Pupil, which, if published today would be a category-horror book with seriously supernatural elements.

Why these ones are volume 1 I cannot fathom.

>196 richardderus: I went ATONE, WRATH, TRASH to get it in three.

Happy Friday *smooches*

>194 richardderus: "Appreciate" would be a better word, maybe?

BTW - Hafez in Love arrived today. Not sure when I will get to it, but the book is now in-house.

((Hugs)) and **smooches** and hopes for a fantastic Friday, RD!

A very nice 3/6 for you today. Happy almost weekend! *smooches*

>196 richardderus:
Wordle 314 2/6

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I started with beast. But then, today is our trash pick-up day, so I think I may have had an advantage.

>203 laytonwoman3rd: Ooohhh, a magical day indeed...two! I love the lightning strikes like that.

>202 MickyFine: Thank you, dearheart, and the same back at'cha.

>201 alcottacre: Well, it's there, so it's a lot closer than literally hundreds of thousands of others.

*smooch*

>200 bell7: ...now there's a trio for ya...

*smooch*

>199 richardderus: Oh excellent! I'll have to race right...out...and...

oh

>189 richardderus: I remember reading The Firedrake donkeys years ago and liking it.

Where the hell do you thing people peed in those days?

>205 magicians_nephew: I didn't think about it at all. It literally hadn't crossed my mind to consider the topic.

The best books open doors that can never be closed again. In this case, to the outhouse.

>206 richardderus: Ships of that era occasionally had the privy's in the stern of the ship and often just leading overboard.

Occasionally the ship would hit a wave and a plume of water would come up the hole and blast the buns of the person doing his business there. A Bosun's bidet, you might call it.

One of the Hornblower books has Lady Barbara and her maid going on a long voyage with Hornblower and his crew in a frigate class vessel. Of course Forester was too delicate to hint at how the ladies went to the can in those days.

>207 magicians_nephew: ...with great tentativeness...?

>196 richardderus: Wordle 314 2/6

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My cousin got it in one, today... she beat me

>209 mckait: Excellent! I'm vibrating with jealous loathing of Cousin-woman, though.

*smooch*

>210 richardderus: She starts with that word every day. Made me laugh when she posted...
xo

>211 mckait: Well, the day AEONS is the answer I'll finally have a got-it-in-one day.

In, hmm, oh let's guess 2027.

>196 richardderus: Nice wordling!

>213 figsfromthistle: Thank you, Anita!

...wonder where their grandsons are...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcit39oBECs

Happy Friday, Richard. Jack is over for the night, so we are taking turns cuddling and playing with him. Back up to normal temps, but a lot of rain coming.

Have a great weekend, my friend.

>216 msf59: Rain = good crops = fat, slow birds easy to watch, surely. Or, having added ~60 Lifers in AZ, is that no longer quite so alluring?

Have a happy Jack-filled time!

APRIL IN REVIEW

Yes yes yes, it's the 29th. I'm not going to finish either The Nightingale Won't Let You Sleep by Steven Heighton or Love, Hate & Clickbait by Liz Bowery, the ones I'm closest to completing, tomorrow. Too tired.

This month I reviewed, Burgoined, or Pearl-Ruled twenty-three titles. Young Mungo, second novel from Douglas Stuart, delighted me as a follow-up to Shuggie Bain. Probably the most important book I read was Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism, whose message effected change in Google's algorithmic searches basically the second it hit shelves in 2018. Its message is, depressingly, evergreen.

But the likeliest candidate for six-stars-of-five-dom was Hafez in Love for its paean to friendship, its epithalamium to yearning as a precondition to couplehood, and its sly takedown of authoritarians' misguided belief in their power over hearts and minds. I really encourage y'all to read it. It's an unruly thing, the human heart.

Harry Haft: Survivor of Auschwitz, Challenger of Rocky Marciano isn't very interesting as writing, but it is absolutely astounding considered as a father's story as told to his son, and as a son's effort to learn what his father meant in the world. The film, The Survivor, is worthy of your eyeblinks, too.

Happy May's reads, everyone.

Wordle 315 4/6

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Very twisty, Wordle!

I used two of my usual "burner words" in #2 and #3 slots to good effect! AEONS, MIRTH, CALLA, LARVA because CALLA showed me the double-A, I knew where the R had to go, and lucked into the L!

>219 richardderus: I needed a dictionary to find this one at guess 5!

>220 FAMeulstee: I'm amazed, as always, with your extensive expertise at English's complexity. You're at a level above most native speakers, Anita, and should glow with the warmth of merited pride whenever you head for a dictionary to learn a new word.
***
I ran across this newly-seventy man's bullet list of things he wishes he'd known earlier in life on Digg (remember Digg, oldsters? still around!):
https://kk.org/thetechnium/103-bits-of-advice-i-wish-i-had-known/?utm_source=dig...
I'm fondest of these examples:

Anything you say before the word “but” does not count.

When you forgive others, they may not notice, but you will heal. Forgiveness is not something we do for others; it is a gift to ourselves.

Your growth as a conscious being is measured by the number of uncomfortable conversations you are willing to have.

You’ll get 10x better results by elevating good behavior rather than punishing bad behavior, especially in children and animals.

Half the skill of being educated is learning what you can ignore.

A great way to understand yourself is to seriously reflect on everything you find irritating in others.

What you do on your bad days matters more than what you do on your good days.

>218 richardderus: There's been a lot of talk lately about how we ( or someone!) is/are programming our likes and dislikes (and prejudices) into search algorithms and other computer systems.

The problem is not in computerizing these functions the problem is getting the programming RIGHT!

When done properly, computer filtering and coarse selection can eliminate racial sexual or other hidden "Favoritism". But the programming has to be done right - not easy.

Someone said once "War is too important to be left to generals". I think similarly that programming computers is too important to be left to programmers.

>221 richardderus: liking the Digg list muchly.

The other day in reference to Musk's purchase of Twitter i rather snarkily suggested he would make a tender offer for MySpace next. MANY MANY people responded , in essence, "WTF"

I won't be around much the next couple of days, so I'm dropping off weekend smooches. xx

>223 katiekrug: Happy trivializing weekend! *smooch*

Have excellent success.

>222 magicians_nephew: The other day in reference to Musk's purchase of Twitter i rather snarkily suggested he would make a tender offer for MySpace next. MANY MANY people responded , in essence, "WTF"

Like Tumblr, it still exists but no one can explain to me "why"

It's nothing short of amazing how much has been done once people said, "um, y'know..." but this is not a winnable battle. The struggle against the least, the lowest, and the worst can literally never end.

>221 richardderus: - Thanks for this, Richard. These are very good. I do have a problem, however, with the concept of forgiveness. There are just some things in life that are not forgivable and I can't fathom how doing so would heal me in any way. And I can't apologize for that feeling. It is what it is and I will have to -- and can -- live with that.

>225 jessibud2: I'm glad the list gave you some smiles, Shelley!

I understand your feelings about unforgivable things...there are, I expect, some things that simply shouldn't be forgiven. The key for me is realizing that this list is, of necessity, personal and inarguable.

>226 richardderus: - True, for sure, and it's a good exercise, I think, for each of us to reflect and make it our own.

>227 jessibud2: Abso-root-rot.
***
Good gravy...this booster, #4, should've been a doddle, right? I feel crappy as hell! The getting-a-cold eye-yuckies, the back-of-the-throat ache, the vague wrongness of headache...so I know two good, important things: 1) it's working and b) I needed it.

Still. Eccchhh.

‘Morning, RD! Happy Saturday to you.

>219 richardderus: Took me 5, alas. Congrats.

>221 richardderus: Anything you say before the word “but” does not count. I learned that one a long time ago. I try to say AND instead of BUT. However, sometimes, I just leave off the second part. *smile*

>228 richardderus: Congrats on #4, sorry you're feeling crappy.

*smooch* from your own Horrible

>229 karenmarie: It's the skill of clamming up before the "but" comes out that can be the best skill of 'em all.

I'm glad to have the jab. I'm not the only one suffering...Old Stuff had a horrible night's sleep and is even skipping his weekly drunk because he feels so crummy. *sigh* I'm hearing the plot of his latest James Patterson read in real time.

help

>221 richardderus: Agree forgiving is a gift to ourselves, although some is hard to forgive; I know elevation of good behaviour works wonders in dogs, not much experience in children; it isn't easy to learn what to ignore.

>231 FAMeulstee: It's very hard to learn what to ignore...to allow something to pass one by, seeing it and absorbing it, but feeling no call to acknowledge it, is ignoring from one angle and not from another. Human interactions are supremely complex things. There will never be only one best answer!

One important thing I say to myself nowadays is "assume good will"...don't fall into the trap of thinking there is a dark, terrible motive, or simply unkindness, behind others' actions. I wish I'd been better at that all my life long. Yet some people are genuinely ill-intentioned. They will out themselves sooner or later.

>221 richardderus: I'm liking these RD.

Robert Heinlein always said "The proper punctuation for "It's none of my business, but - " is a period after the but.

Or possibly before the but.

>234 magicians_nephew: Awomen.

>233 Caroline_McElwee: Wonderful, no? So relatable, so simple, and self-evidently True.
***
“Old age arrives like the first days of fall. One afternoon you look up, or smell something in the air, and know instinctively things have changed.”
Jonathan Carroll

I am glad someone else felt it and described it for me. Something changed when the pandemic hit and here I am: Old. Just...inarguably old. Funny thing is it's not as bad as I thought it would be.

ETA
May Day! Time to thrill in the sunshine, the breeze, the ever-expanding TBR, and getting old.

You heard me: https://expendablemudge.blogspot.com/2022/04/anyone-else.html

>228 richardderus: Sorry the booster hit you again, Richard dear. I hope you feel better soon

>232 richardderus: I try to "assume good will", except for a few...

>235 richardderus: We all have ever-expanding TBRs here, and getting old is inevitable as long we stay alive ;-)

>236 FAMeulstee: It's hard, when someone has been routinely awful, not to think their every utterance will be as well. It's not always true, though.

We all have ever-expanding TBRs here, and getting old is inevitable as long we stay alive ;-)
And aren't we lucky?!

*smooch*

>230 richardderus: Patterson?! The horror…

>238 drneutron: It is for me...what a load of nonsense these plots are (though, to be fair, aren't most when stripped of their pretty words?) and the sheer frustration of listening to the same one again and again and again and again.

Alcoholic dementia ain't no fun.

>230 richardderus: Oh, yuck. Patterson? ANYthing but Patterson.

Hope you recover quickly from the booster whammy.

Happy May Day!

>232 richardderus: Yeah. Assume good will can be very helpful.

>235 richardderus: Yeah, somehow I've also become "old", though probably with less excuse.

>221 richardderus: YES! Also a Yes! to >232 richardderus:.

Thank you, Richard. I'm off to bed and guaranteed to sleep better because of these wise insights.

*smooch*

...getting old is inevitable as long we stay alive
I recently sent a friend a card with the caption "Growing old is inevitable, growing up is optional". Picture was a couple of elderly ladies playing hopscotch. It appealed to me.

I think there is an old mindset that is not necessarily related to physical age. I feel sure that our host exemplifies that. My recent "ending-in-0" birthday rather messed with my head for a bit. But the day after normality (or what passes for it around here) reasserted itself. >:-)

Long weekend here, so happy day, whatever it actually is.

Morning, BigDaddy!

>221 richardderus: LOVE this. Also what you said so well in >232 richardderus:.

I have missed you muchly. Making a note to get to The Ponder Heart soon as I loved your thoughts on it and Welty in your review. I listened to her reading her Why I Live at the P. O. earlier this year, and it was perfection.

Hoping today is kind to you. *smooch*

Wordle 316 5/6

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AEONS; MIRTH; PORKY; WORLD; FORGO. It felt very touch-and-go today since I got so few letters. But the pattern asserted itself.

Hope you are feeling much improved today, Richard.

It took me 5 today, as well. Better than my bomb of yesterday, so no complaints.

>246 jessibud2: Well yes indeed, Shelley, it's always better to get it. 5 > 6 > X.

>244 Crazymamie: gaspclunk ...M...M...Mamie! Here you are! Well, I swaNEE, this beats all. I'm so glad you're here.

I'm pleased that I'm not miserable again today. And inspired! I watched 60 Minutes Australia's profile of Zelenskiy and was much heartened. Those aphorisms? aperçus? sayings, whatever they are, are very, very trenchant. I'm happy to have seen them.

Oh, The Ponder Heart will conquer you, I feel sure. It's such a sneaky story, and Edna Earle is...well, brilliant is the only word I've got. I think I'm overusing it but it's just the truth, this is a brilliant work. *smooch*

>243 Helenliz: Oh, long weekend? What's up? We're all as old as we feel, so I'm aiming for 45 again.

Hoping you're disfruiting the extra time away (though from what, come to think of it, fellow retiree) well.

>242 LizzieD: Ain't they grand, Peggy? I hope the insights gave you some home to build a dream on.

>241 ArlieS: "Old" isn't the problem so much as being unwilling to set the burden down and stretch. That's the skill I'm cultivating.

>240 Storeetllr: ...it isn't Brad Thor anymore...small mercies. His brother kept sending him Brad Thor books and that was rough. Got him a library card and, compared to Thor, Patterson is a zephyr of literary excellence.

‘Morning, RDear! I hope you’re feeling better after your newest dose of vaccine. Sorry you were subjected to hearing the plot of the latest James Patterson book. I recently read that Dolly Parton, of all people, had teamed up with him. Nooooo…….

>232 richardderus: I’m not sure I can ascribe good will to many of the folks who have been elected to Congress. Bad cess to them.

>235 richardderus: My goal is to age gracefully and not whine too much.

>245 richardderus: Took me 6, but I was happy to avoid being skunked.

Wordle 316 4/6

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*smooch*

This YouTube video on how our companions experience the world was fascinating: https://digg.com/video/what-does-the-world-sound-like-to-your-dog-heres-what-the...
Especially the bit on birdsong as birds hear it!
***
>250 ronincats: Oohhh, well done Roni! Glad to see you! *smooch*

>249 karenmarie: Oh heavens, Horrible, it's not the latest, or even the first time I've heard about this one. Remember the old Tom Lehrer song, "Pollution"? I sing "dementia, dementia/his brain's all smog and sewage and mud" to myself a lot.

I'm vaccine-ally much, much improved, thank goodness, as expected. It takes a day, but it saves me from the awful misery of the plague so it's a small price.

Members of Congress are, prima facie, bad people. Don't get yourself twisted over that!

*smooch*

>247 richardderus: Thanks for mentioning the Australian President Zelensky interview RD. I watched the UK one a couple of weeks ago. It seems we should take the nod to look for comedians rather than clowns when looking for leadership. Or Dancers. Zelensky won the Ukrainian Dance with the stars.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywdrLaTmE3U

A fully rounded individual who has humility, humour, emotional intelligence. Is savvy and honourable, from what we can see.

I like that although he speaks fluent English, and briefly does for interviews, he reverts to his own language, so his people can hear what he is telling the world.

>252 Caroline_McElwee: I like that although he speaks fluent English, and briefly does for interviews, he reverts to his own language, so his people can hear what he is telling the world.

Exactly! I responded to that warmly as well but couldn't think why it gave me a glow: I'm the foreigner, he's speaking to his people first and me second.

I think I got all the way behind him when he said to the US offer to evacuate him to safety, "I don't need a ride, I need ammunition." Well, yes. If this is all a performance, as I've heard some critically sneer, it's remarkably consistent and superbly seamless.

>235 richardderus: this quote pretty much summed up how I've been feeling of late. Just old ... worn out and tired. Only ten more years or so to retirement. It is going to be a long bumpy ride.

>251 richardderus: That vid about how various other living things perceive sound, sight, and time was really interesting!

Glad you've recovered from the booster blues. I'm due to get mine mid-May. So looking forward to it. No, seriously, I am. If I get some side-effects, well, better that than, you know, hospitalization, intubation, possible death, probable long-term effects.

>245 richardderus: I went ATONE, HOURS, LORDY, BORIC (yeah, I know... weird word), FORGO Wasn't sure I was going to get it either, but I'd eliminated all the other vowels, so pretty much the only other option was another O somewhere.

>256 bell7: Your guess #4 is one I said "naaahhh they won't have that" and lo and behold it's there!

>255 Storeetllr: Absolutely, Mary, the uccchhhy day versus two-plus weeks of nasty when I got it? I'll have that uccchhh please.

I'm so glad you enjoyed the video as much as I did! It was very interesting, and whoever that guy was made me feel all warm and fuzzy because he loved the animals so much. His duck's name was Greg, for cryin out loud!

>254 AuntieClio: That is so not-fair, isn't it? Ten bloody years!! Worn out, washed up, and frayed at the edges is the way it's a-goin'.

PSA for MLB peeps: Peacock, the free-with-ads NBC streamer, has Sunday games this year!!

>244 Crazymamie: A Mamie sighting!

>245 richardderus: I agree, RD, that that one was designed to defeat us and I almost succumbed myownself but managed a 5 after spending about 20 minutes looking at possible combinations.

>257 richardderus: Guy's name is Benn Jordan. He's a musician, but he sounds like a scientist. His YouTube bio indicates he's a sound scientist, among other things, including musician. Love it! (I'm now following him on Instagram.)

>260 Storeetllr: He does sound like a scientist...he even says about some research he mentions during the video that he "hasn't written the paper yet" so I just assumed he was. Interesting!

>259 PaulCranswick: Even when it was the only answer I thought it had to be wrong because it was misspelled!

>261 richardderus: I know! That is why it took me so long too, I just couldn't see any other alternative with the way the other letters were positioned. British/American spellings again, but no, different meanings apparently. https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/usage-of-forego-vs-forgo

Happy week's ahead reading, Richard. Your thread delivered a few BBs including Algorithms of Oppression.

>245 richardderus: yes. "FORGO"
Pulling the "F" out of your ass like that is the essence of Wordle-ing

Just caught up with the US "Sixty Minutes" interview on Zelenskyy. Seems to be the right man in the right place at the right time. I wish him well.

'Morning, RD! Happy Monday to you.

>258 richardderus: I wish my husband enjoyed watching MLB since he is now officially complaining that he's in sports hell. But it's complicated - his father was part of the Cardinals farm system in the early 1950s until he got hurt while pitching, and the pressure on Bill as a youngster to play baseball no doubt has contributed to his disdain.

*smooch* from your own Horrible

Wordle 317 5/6

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AEONS, SPOOL, SCOUT, STORK, STORY I wasn't sure if I'd need all 6.

>265 karenmarie: Hiya Horrible! Yeah...was that pressure from Dad or inside Bill? Either way, the effect's the same. Isn't there some NCAA sport you can bait him with? Something like, oh, LaCrosse or Field Hockey or some such thing? Google is your friend!

*smooch*

>264 magicians_nephew: Oh, there's a US one too! Good.

I wish more surprises like Zelenskiy would occur in US politics.

>263 Familyhistorian: Oh good, Meg! You'll get a lot out of Algorithms of Oppression, I expect. Fascinating subject and well-presented argument.

>262 PaulCranswick: It was still frustrating to have this word be the answer, though I do confess that knowing it's not distinction without difference was an emollient to my outraged sensibilities.

Wordled in 4 this morning. As is traditional, the weather on the bank holiday leaves something to be desired... ho hum. Shopping, ironing (with something interesting and educational on the TV, I like watching art or history docs from BBC4 when ironing) and general mooching about is the order of the day. The alarm clock tomorrow morning's likely to hurt - office day so it's an hour earlier than a wfh day.

I can't help but compare Zelensky to our current leadership. I'd not follow very many of them across the road, we'd all end up under a bus.

>268 Helenliz: It sounds perfectly lovely, Helen, although the sting in the tail is sooo not-fun that one wonders if there's ever again in life going to be an unmixed pleasure.

I watched a Waldemar Januszczak (sic?) marathon on The Dark Ages: An Era of Light last night. I so enjoy his verve! Artists and art styles I look at, think "meh", and ignore, I can suddenly appreciate if not enjoy.

I used to love Sister Wendy's shows for that sort of reason. I felt so utterly vindicated when she showed an Agnes Martin painting and cooed over it! I've always contended that her work was much more involving and emotionally satisfying than most people I know think it is.

>266 richardderus: I got it in three and was very pleased with myself: ATONE, STOMP, STORY. Brings my streak up to an even 70.

>266 richardderus: >270 bell7: I got it in two (2) today. TWO!!!! *preens* *preens some more*

It helps that the word is one of my starting words. I ALMOST used it first but didn't, and if you don't think that burned me, "you don't know Murderbot." Er, I mean, you don't know me.

Also, my sister (curse her) got me started on Quordle. As if one time sink isn't enough. I mean...

>271 Storeetllr: Hi Mary.

That's it. That's the post. Anything else I type is likely to devolve into invective, contumely, and/or abuse.

two TWO she got it in TWO insupportable intolerable unfair iniquitous

>270 bell7: Hi Mary.

See above. (Substitute "three")

>272 richardderus: *snerk*

>272 richardderus: What >273 Storeetllr: said
*smooch*

>269 richardderus: Big fan of Waldemar Januszczak's programs RD.

Loved Sister Wendy too.

What, read 92 new posts? You must be mad! Mad, I say!

I've broken down and I'm not happy about it, but I've ordered pizza for lunch and I'm sitting here on the couch waiting for the delivery guy. I always tip in cash upon delivery, and I always worry about the delivery person thinking that I was shorting them and spitting on my food. But that's me, I'm a people person. I will however let you know if there is a suggestion of saliva. And, I have to say, that if I were 18 I would probably have been into it.

>276 SomeGuyInVirginia: Well, come by more often, you lazy thing.

Spitting = no. Nyet. Nix. Nein. Nuh uh. Never ever not once.

>275 Caroline_McElwee: She was a goddess-send, wasn't she? So keenly observant, so unfussily admiring and eloquently expressive.

>273 Storeetllr:, >272 richardderus: *grumble*

>218 richardderus: Happy May's reads to you as well, RD!

>258 richardderus: Oo, nice. If I did not already have an MLB subscription, I would hop on that like white on bread.

Have a wonderful week! Read lots of books - good books! ((Hugs)) and **smooches**

>278 alcottacre: *smooch* I'll do my best to read only good books.

HI Richard, over here for a snoop!
Ive been Pearl ruling a bunch of books too.

>280 mdoris: Greetings, Mary, welcome and come back any time.

Morning, Richard. Waking up to rain today. I have my Rehab Center duties today, after taking off 2 weeks. I will also start Cloud Cuckoo Land this afternoon. I know you had issues with it, so we will see how I land on it. I really enjoyed The Sand County Almanac. All I can think about, is how he would feel about the state of affairs in the world today, on the environmental conditions.

There's a man named Paul Glenshaw who gives talks on the Smithsonian Associates streaming platform. They're what he called "Art + History" and they are quite fascinating. Last night we heard him talk for an hour and a half about Picasso's "Gurnica" how it came to be, a a mini history of the Spanish Civil War, and a short bio of the artist. If you're not aware of the Smithsonian Associates offerings, they are worth a look.

Wordle 318 3/6

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AEONS, MIRTH, HAIRY
It was obvious after the second guess.

>284 richardderus: Wordle 318 3/6

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I'm pleased with this :)

good morning to you !

Took me four as I had PAIRS as my third guess, not having eliminated the S with my first two.

Edited to clean up my grammar

>286 bell7: Still a good result, Mary!

>285 mckait: Hey Kath, happy to see you here! *smooch* for getting your Wordle on so celeritously.

>283 magicians_nephew: I'm awestruck by Guernica every time I encounter it. People look at me like I've lost my mind when I cite it as my favorite Picasso, and as his most effective use of color. "What color?! Grey? Have you actually seen it?"

Yes, and yes. So much intensity in those greys, in their subtleties, in the way it flattens your emotional reality onto that plane and keeps it there.

>282 msf59: I think Aldo Leopold would be blowing a gasket at the way the world's being run. But that was kinda his shtik always, no?

Have a good shift today, and enjoy the rest of the reading week! (In spite of how you're using it, silly man.)

>287 richardderus: Oh yeah, I was pleased enough. Four is my most common result, followed by three, and I'm happy with that.

>287 richardderus: Didn't know before last night that the painting was done for the Spanish Pavilion for a World Fair of Arts and Technology in Modern Life in Paris in 1937. The thing is 11 feet by 25 feet and Picasso did it in 35 days - an astounding feat. We have a lot of photos documenting the process of painting this and its fascinating to see how the painting changed - and didn't change - from first draft to final work.

People speculate that the reason it was done without "color" was the tight time frame - me, I think the Maestro knew what he was doing and he chose blacks and grays as the only appropriate palate for this scene of desolation and grim horror.

Could be taken in response to almost any photo of the carnage in Ukraine, sez me. And the war rages on.

>289 magicians_nephew: ...as it has for the past ~7000 years...

I fully agree that Picasso knew what the color palette would do for this image. And, as well as the technology of paint, there's the technology of reproduction to consider. This palette would reproduce the image, as the image, in newspapers and magazines of the time.

>288 bell7: :-)

There is a new thread!

You can stop being annoyed with me, RD. Today I got Wordle in 5.

>284 richardderus: "Obvious." My turn to be annoyed with you. *wink*

>292 Storeetllr: ...oh no she didn't

DEATH TO THE W-BOMBERS!

>293 richardderus: Damn. I can't do anything right. Deepest apologies.

>294 Storeetllr: *smooch*