| Reading list: October |
[Nov. 2nd, 2009|04:32 pm] |
Chesterton, G. K. The Innocence of Father Brown (1910-1911).
Harris, Joel Chandler. Uncle Remus: His Songs and Sayings (1880).
Kipling, Stevenson, Doyle, Weyman, and Hope. Great Adventure Stories (A Watermill Classic) (1878-1902 (coll. 1986)).
Wilson, Edmund. Patriotic Gore: Studies in the Literature of the American Civil War (1962).
Shiono, Nanami. The Fall of Constantinople (1972).
Zullo, Allan, and Mara Bovsun. The Dog Who Caught the Crook…and Other Incredible True Dog Tales (2004).
King, Stoddard. Grand Right and Left (1927).
Pynchon, Thomas. Inherent Vice (2009).
West, Nathanael. A Cool Million; or, The Dismantling of Lemuel Pitkin (1934).
var. A Book of Modern Verse (Zodiac Books) (coll. 1948).
West, Nathanael. The Dream Life of Balso Snell (1931).
Congreve, William. The Way of the World (1700).
Danielewski, Mark Z. House of Leaves (2000). |
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| Reading list: September |
[Oct. 2nd, 2009|10:54 am] |
Lamb, Harold. Alexander of Macedon: The Journey to the World’s End (1946).
Chambers, Robert W. The Maker of Moons (1896).
Harihareswara, Sumana, and Leonard Richardson, eds. Thoughtcrime Experiments: Nine Stories (2009).
Cartwright, Nancy. My Life as a 10-Year-Old Boy (2000).
McCarthy, Cormac. The Road (2006).
Orwell, George. My Country Right of Left: The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell, vol. 2, 1940–1943 (coll. 1968).
Matcha, Jack. The Brady Bunch in Adventure on the High Seas (1973).
Rabelais, François. Gargantua and Pantagruel (1532-1564).
Greene, Thomas M. Rabelais: A Study in Comic Courage (1970).
Sala, Richard. Cat Burglar Black (2009).
Sikoryak, R. Masterpiece Comics (coll. 2009 (1989-2009)).
Stanley, John, and Dan Gormley. Nancy vol. 1 (1957-58 (col. 2009)).
Stanley, John, and Irving Tripp. Little Lulu: The Bawlplayers and Other Stories (94-99 (coll. 2009)).
Pak, Greg, et al. Planet Hulk (2005-8).
Hernandez, Gilbert and Jaime. Love and Rockets: New Stories vol. 1 (2008).
Hernandez, Gilbert and Jaime. Love and Rockets: New Stories vol. 2 (2009).
Schulz, Charles. The Complete Peanuts 1973–1974 (coll. 2009).
Hornschemeier, Paul. All and Sundry: Uncollected Work 2004-2009 (coll. 2009)
Brown, Jeffrey. Sulk vol. 3 (2009).
Endou, Minari. Maria Holic vol. 1 (2007). |
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| Reading list: August |
[Sep. 2nd, 2009|11:02 am] |
Gaunt, Peter. Oliver Cromwell (2004).
Chérif, Mustapha. Islam and the West: A Conversation with Jacques Derrida (2006).
Twenge, Jean M., Ph.D., and W. Keith Campbell, Ph.D. The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in the Age of Entitlement (2009).
Hesse, Hermann. Steppenwolf (1927).
Pinkwater, Daniel. The Yggyssey: How Iggy Wondered What Happened to All the Ghosts, Found Out Where They Went, and Went There (2009).
Baring-Gould, Rev. S. Legends of the Patriarchs and Prophets and Other Old Testament Characters from Various Sources (1884?).
Goulart, Ron. Good Girl Art (2007).
Calvino, Italo. Why Read the Classics? (1991 (1954-1985)).
King, Stoddard. What the Queen Said and Other Facetious Fragments (1926?).
Alger, Horatio. Slow and Sure; or, From the Street to the Shop (1872).
Gottfired von Strassburg. Tristan (1210?).
Thomas of Britain. Tristran (c. 1160).
Da Fonseca, José and Pedro Carolino. English As She Is Spoke (1855 (coll. 1869, 2002).
Kozol, Jonathan. Amazing Grace: The Lives of Children and the Conscience of a Nation (1995).
"J.," Mr. The World’s Best Dirty Jokes (1976).
Taylor, Aaron D. Alone with a Jihadist: A Biblical Response to Holy War (2009).
Watts, Irene N., and Kathryn E. Shoemaker. Good-bye Marianne (2008).
Baker, Kyle. The Bakers: Babies and Kittens (2007).
Eisner, Will. City People Notebook (1989).
Segar. E. C. Popeye: "Let's You and Him Fight!" (1932-33 (coll. 2008)).
Starlin, Jim. The Death of Captain Marvel (1982).
Willard, Frank H. Moon Mullins, Series 3 (1928 (coll. 1929)).
VIP. New Faces on the Barroom Floor (1943-60 (coll. 1961)).
Thacker, Lee. One for Sorrow Book One: 'Secrets' (2006).
Willard, Frank H. Moon Mullins, Series 5 (1930 (coll. 1931)). |
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| Reading list: August |
[Aug. 3rd, 2009|11:56 am] |
Harsanyi, David. Nanny State: How Food Fascists, Teetotaling Do-Gooders, Priggish Moralists, and Other Boneheaded Bureaucrats Are Turning America into a Nation of Children (2007).
Ariosto, Ludovico. Cinque Canti (1519?).
Tolkien, J. R. R. The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun (1931? (publ. 2009)).
Baum, L. Frank. The Marvelous Land of Oz (1904).
Rennie, Bryan S. Reconstructing Eliade: Making Sense of Religion (1996).
Boettiger, Louis A., M.A. Armenian Legends and Festivals (1920).
Welch, Stuart Cary. A King’s Book of Kings: The Shah-Nameh of Shah Tahmasp (1972).
Javitch, Daniel. Proclaiming a Classic: The Canonization of Orlando Furioso (1991).
Woolf, Virginia. Orlando (1928).
Lear, Edward. A Book of Nonsense (1846).
West, Martin L., ed. Greek Epic Fragments (C7-C5 BC? (coll. 2003)).
Ballard, J.G. Hello, America (1981).
Fies, Brian. Whatever Happened to the World of Tomorrow? (2009).
Bagge, Peter. Everybody Is Stupid Except Me and Other Astute Observations (2001-2008 (2009)).
Lewis, Pat. The Claws Come Out (2007).
Beaton, Kate. Never Learn Anything from History (2006-9).
O’Malley, Brian Lee. Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together (2007).
O’Malley, Brian Lee. Scott Pilgrim vs. the Universe (2009).
Cammuso. Frank, Knights of the Lunch Table: The Dragon Players (2009).
Barba, Corey. Yam: Bite-Sized Chunks (2003-2008).
Cook, Darwyn. Parker: The Hunter (2009).
Shaw, Dash. The Mother’s Mouth (2006). |
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| Reading list: July |
[Jul. 1st, 2009|01:19 pm] |
Potter, Murray Anthony. Sohrab and Rustem: The Epic Theme of a Combat between Father and Son: A Study of Its Genesis and Use in Literature and Popular Tradition (1899 (publ. 1902)). 6/9
Callahan, Timothy. Teenagers from the Future: Essays on the Legion of Super-Heroes (2008).
Rich, Claudius James, Esq. Memoir on the Ruins of Babylon and Second Memoir on Babylon: Containing an Inquiry into the Correspondence between the Ancient Descriptions of Babylon and the Remains Still Visible on the Site (1818).
Zimmerman, Keith and Kent, et al. Mythbusters: The Explosive Truth behind 30 of the Most Perplexing Urban Legends of All Time (2005).
Church, Rev. Alfred J. Stories of the Magicians (1887).
anon. The Romaunce of the Sowdone of Babylone and of Ferumbras his Sone who Conquerede Rome (c. 1400).
Ariosto, Ludovico. Orlando Furioso (1532).
Lurie, Rose G. The Great March: Post Biblical Jewish Stories Book 1 (1931).
Twain, Mark. Life on the Mississippi (1883).
Burgess, Gelett. The Maxims of Methuselah (1903).
Peattie, Elia W. Edda and the Oak (1915). |
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| Reading list: May |
[Jun. 2nd, 2009|11:36 am] |
Moncrieff, A. R. Hope. Romance and Legend of Chivalry (1913).
Twenge, Joan M. Generation Me: Why Today's Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled—and More Miserable Than Ever Before (2006).
Kluger, Steve. My Most Excellent Year (2008).
Barth, John. The Floating Opera (1956).
Hayden, Naura. Isle of View (Say It Out Loud) (1980).
anon. The Saga of Thidrek of Bern (1230-1250).
Frankel, Charles. The End of the Dinosaurs: Chicxulub Crater and Mass Extinctions (1996).
Ballard, J. G. Terminal Beach (1960-64).
Wild, Doris. Holy Icons in the Religious Art of the Eastern Church (1961).
Eugenides, Jeffrey. Middlesex (2002).
anon. The Saga of the Volsungs (C13).
Ballard, J. G. Crash (1973).
Twain, Mark. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884).
Gatto, John Taylor. Weapons of Mass Instruction: A Schoolteacher's Journey through the Dark World of Compulsory Schooling (2009).
( Ranting ) |
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| Reading list: April |
[May. 1st, 2009|01:21 pm] |
Jenkins, Elijah, esq. (John Mottley). Joe Miller’s Jests or, the Wits Vade-Mecum. Being A Collection of the most Brilliant Jests ; the Politest Repartees ; the most Elegant Bons Mots, and the most pleasant short Stories in the English Language (1739).
Pinkwatwer, Manus. Wingman (1975).
Niven, Larry, and Jerry Pournelle. Escape from Hell (2009).
anon. The Saga of the Jómsvíkings (C12).
Rumi, Mevlana Jelaluddin. Unseen Rain: Quatrains of Rumi (Divan- Shamsi Tabriz) (C13).
Girvan, Ritchie. Beowulf and the Seventh Century (1935).
Sawyer, Robert J. Calculating God (2000).
Beaumont, Francis. The Knight of the Burning Pestle (1607).
Earl, James W. Thinking about Beowulf (1982-1994).
Gatto, John Taylor. A Different Kind of Teacher (1990-2001).
Irving, Washington. The Alhambra (1832).
Smith, William. Athelwold (1842).
Isherwood, Christopher. Prater Violet (1945).
Newman, Katherine S., et al. Rampage: The Social Roots of School Shootings (2004).
Brigg, Peter. J. G. Ballard (1985).
Ballard, J. G. Empire of the Sun (1984).
Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818).
Sheridan, Richard Brinsley. The School for Scandal (1777).
--
Brunetti, Ivan. Ho (2001-2009).
Shaw, Dash. Bottomless Belly Button (2008).
var. Harvey Comics Classics vol. 5: The Harvey Girls (1952-1962 (coll. 2009)).
Lasko-Gross, Miss. Mess (2009). A Mess of Everything (2009).
Vähämäki, Amanda. The Bun Field (2009). |
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| Old-time filth |
[Apr. 24th, 2009|11:34 am] |
Horatio Alger introduces in Struggling Upward (1890) a minor character named Fanny Pratt. If Fanny Pratt had appeared in a Thomas Pynchon novel, it would have been amusing, perhaps, but when Alger does it it’s hilarious, because Alger has no idea what he’s saying. In any event, it’s hilarious to me.
And so began my search for unintentionally filthy passages in old books, some of my favorites of which I have listed below. The last two employ the word “ejaculate,” which is so common in the old books that it is almost cheating to mention these.
1. The terrified wretch, falling on his knees, vocifierated, “My cock, —my cock,—my cock! oh! I am undone!”
Charles Robert Maturin, Melmoth the Wanderer (1820).
2. I am a virgin, and I have promised to remain so, always. Daily intercourse with a man would in no way be convenient.
William Beckford, The Episodes of Vathek (1783-87? (pub. 1912)).
3. Would that I could keep squeezing that sperm for ever!
Herman Melville, Moby Dick (1851).
4. ‘Wipes,’ replied Master Bates; at the same time producing four pocket-handkerchiefs…
Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist (1838)
5. Meanwhile Brigitta stood gazing at the sausage with almost an expression of awe. She had hardly in her life seen such a monster sausage, much less owned one, and she could scarcely believe her eyes. She shook her head and said doubtfully, “I must ask Uncle what it is meant for.”
But Heidi answered without hesitation, “It is meant for eating, not for anything else.”
Johanna Spyri, Heidi (1881).
6. “I believe I’m very terrible, when I’m roused,” ejaculated Jos from the sofa, and made a grimace…
William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair (1847-48).
7. …and the sight of Fou-tan [the jungle girl] elicited a wealth of ejaculation…
Edgar Rice Burroughs, Jungle Girl (1931).
Anyone else have some to add? |
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| Reading list: March |
[Apr. 3rd, 2009|12:51 pm] |
OK, I had my April fun, and you caught me fair and square. Although the sad truth is I would probably read any one of those books. I have no shame.
The real list::
Sellar, W. C., and R. J. Yeatman. 1066 and All That (1931).
Stoppard, Tom. Arcadia (1992).
Reger, Rob, and Jessica Gruner. Emily the Strange: The Lost Days (2009).
Blish, James. Giants in the Earth (1952).
Young, G. M. Victorian England: Portrait of an Age (1936).
Chrétien de Troyes. Cligès (Raffel) (1176-7).
Irving, Washington. Mahomet and His Successors Vol. II (1882).
Ovason, David. The Secret Symbols of the Dollar Bill (2004).
Eliade, Mircea. Bengal Nights (1933).
anon. Beowulf (Heaney) (C8?).
Maturin, Charles Robert. Melmoth the Wanderer (1820).
Efrati, Carol. The Road of Danger, Guilt, and Shame: The Lonely Way of A.E. Housman (2002).
Silverberg, Robert. We, the Marauders (1958).
Nonnus of Panopolis. Dionysiaca vol. 2 (C5).
Horspool, David. Why Alfred Burned the Cakes (King Alfred: Burnt Cakes and Other Legends (2006).
Burkert, Nancy Ekholm. Valentine and Orson (1989).
Walker, Mort, and Jerry Dumas. Sam’s Strip (1961-3 (coll. 2009)).
Wolverton, Basil. The Wolverton Bible (1954-74 (coll. 2009)).
Taro, Chiaki. Puri Puri vol. 1 (2005).
Taro, Chiaki. Puri Puri vol. 2 (2005).
Obomsawin, Diane. Kaspar (2009).
Taro, Chiaki. Puri Puri vol. 3 (2005).
Gurewitch, Nicholas. The Perry Bible Fellowship Almanack (coll. 2009).
Regnaud, Jean, & Émile Bravo. My Mommy Is in America and She Met Buffalo Bill (2007).
Taro, Chiaki. Puri Puri vol. 4 (2006).
Bell, Gabrielle. Cecil and Jordan in New York Stories (2004-09)
Riley, Andy. D.I.Y. Dentistry and Other alarming Inventions (2009).
Lay, Carol. The Big Skinny: How I Changed My Fattitude (2008).
Thomas, W. Morgan, et al. Golden Age Sheena: The Best of the Queen of the Jungle (1941-50 (coll. 2009)). |
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| Finland: Where high crime rates are low crime rates |
[Jan. 24th, 2009|12:41 pm] |
I just now came across this article praising Finland's "liberal" criminal justice system (as a model for Canada's, etc.).
What I found remarkable is the degree of obfuscation employed in it to conceal one basic fact. In order to prove that Finland is safe, the article points out that "82 percent of Finns said they felt safe walking alone in their neighborhood after dark, the second highest national rating." To prove that Finnish prisons work, a chapter heading blares, "VIOLENCE IS RARE IN FINNISH PRISONS."
Only hidden near the end of the article is the concession that the crime rate in Finland did increase as their prison sentences lightened, and this fact is tempered with a whole barrel of weasels, climaxing in the dismissive assertion that "crime data usually cannot be compared internationally because each country uses different definitions and reporting standards." I think this is often true, especially if you’re comparing the crime rates in, say, Iceland and Myanmar, but for an article that was cavalier about comparing something as nebulous as feelings of safety internationally, it's a pretty high standard of rigor to demand.
What is completely left out of the article, obviated by that one "cannot," is the fact that Finland has the highest crime rate in Europe. You'd think you'd want to mention that at least once in this, or in fact any article about crime in Finland.
It may, of course, be that Finns are just more honest than other Europeans, or more assiduous in reporting crime. But to conceal this statistic and obscure its importance is simply dishonest. What kind of joker could publish an article written in such palpable bad faith?
Incidentally, Finland also has the highest suicide rate in Europe. Sorry, Elias Lönnrot. |
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| Reading aloud |
[Nov. 14th, 2008|11:17 am] |
Borges, in “On the Cult of Books,” quotes Augustine as the first to record someone reading silently: “When Ambrose [Bishop of Milan] read, his eyes moved over the pages, and his soul penetrated the meaning, without his uttering a word or moving his tongue” (Confessions VI).
We can recall that Polybius, half a millennium earlier, listed reading as one of the ways of gathering information “by the ear” (as opposed to seeing for one’s self, which is information “by the eye”) (XII.27). By the fourth century, in contrast, it was possible to read silently, perhaps; but still Ambrose is clearly a freak.
Granted the Middle Ages are not the most literate of eras (in Beroul’s Tristan, the noble lovers need to employ clergyman in order to write each other love letters, or read them once received). But two very different sources post Augustine indicate that medieval readers still habitually read out loud.
In The Alphabet of Ben Sira, written mostly in Hebrew some time between the eighth and tenth centuries, we find the statement: “They were never found sitting in silence, but they were always occupied in study” (VIII); hardly, for an audience of silent readers, a contradiction worth drawing.
And in the twelfth century, Abelard warns Heloise that nuns at night should meditate rather than read, “lest the reading of some disturb the sleep of others” (letter 7, by at least some numberings).
In both cases the presupposition is that a reading person is a noisy person. Even after eight hundred years, Ambrose remained an aberration. |
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| Oh, those salesmen |
[Oct. 20th, 2008|12:05 pm] |
So I'm at a meeting with a salesman who's trying to sell us a new computer application etc. He's demonstrating features on a big computer screen.
At a certain point the salesman has to google subject x. So he
1. goes to the google toolbar, and types "google.com," which brings up a google results page, and of course the top result is google; then he
2. clicks the top result, bringing up the google homepage, into which he
3. types x to search for it.
Would you by a computer program from this man? |
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| Making fun of Piers Anthony, followed by other comments on books I read last month |
[Oct. 2nd, 2008|12:29 pm] |
Piers Anthony's But What of Earth? is an astonishing book, a novel he had originally written in the '70s and which was subsequently rewritten at the publisher's insistence but apparently without Anthony's permission. This got Anthony's dander up, and now, 13 years later, he has his revenge. In this book he lashes out at not only his publisher and his unwitting co-writer, but also, and most especially, at the bevy or copy editors who scrawled on his manuscript. Somehow he got his hands on their marks, and he quotes them at length, in order to hold them up to for ridicule, in the lengthy endnotes that make up a good third of the book. I am not making this up. Here he calls them "conniving bitches" (p230); suggests that one missed a nuance because "she was in the Lady's Room at the moment" (p235); hypothesizes that one of them is "surely unmarried" (p257); exclaims to one, "May God preserve the man who tries to hold your hand" (p268); and objects when they call his text sexist (passim). His comments on their notes set a new high water mark for creepy and bitter. Addressing one of the copyeditors, who had wondered how a character missed the obvious, he says, "The obvious can be the hardest thing to recognize -- which is why women disrobe in lighted apartments with uncurtained windows, providing the men of the neighborhood with nightly entertainment. Ever do that yourself?" (p237). Is...is that a threat?
In any event, it's vintage Piers Anthony. At one point, after a character calls another one a bastard, he appends a helpful note patiently explaining: "Actually, 'bastard' is not the ideal word; technically it means a person born when his parents weren't married..." etc. (p249). At another, again addressing a copy editor, he whines straightfaced, "Don't you have better uses for your time than this?" (p235).
The whole endeavor is similarly unintentionally hilarious. "Forgive me if I'm getting paranoid, but somehow I perceive something other than helpful literary criticism operating here," Anthony writes about the copyediting (p237). And he is correct, if these were copy editors who had marked up his text, they would be overstepping their bounds. But it is pretty clear that the publisher deemed Anthony's submitted manuscript unpublishable, and passed it around in a desperate attempt to get some advice from several hands, before having the whole thing rewritten. Perhaps to preserve what was left of Anthony's dignity, he passed the substantive editing off as copyediting, and Anthony bought it. But how many copy editors does he think his work merits? Why would a science fiction novel have five copy editors, all poring over the same copy? Why were all five making suggestions for a rewrite they clearly knew was coming? Bear in mind that Anthony regards all copyediting "as make-work so there won't be too many unemployed girls tramping the streets of Parnassus" (p209).
Is it even necessary to mention that Anthony sought to prove objectively that his version of this book (published here for the first time!) is superior to the co-written/rewritten version by having a neutral third party judge them both. No. No, of course he would do that.
The novel itself is an interesting idea executed in a pedestrian fashion but with splashes of typical Anthony ridiculousness. The notes, however, are a laugh riot, and I cannot recommend them highly enough to anyone interested in seeing the depths to which we can sink.
You'll note that whoever copyedited the current text was too cowed to change Ladie's Room to ladies' room.
( Briefer comments on other books. ) |
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| Reading list: September |
[Oct. 2nd, 2008|12:22 pm] |
Appleton, Victor. Tom Swift & His Airship; or, The Stirring Cruise of the Red Cloud (1910).
Wood, James. How Fiction Works (2008).
Burnstein, Stanley M., ed. The Hellenistic Age from the Battle of Ipsos to the Death of Kleopatra VII (300-30 BC (coll. 1985)).
Dionysius of Halicarnassus. On Thucydides (C1 BC).
Stone, Michael E., & Theodore A. Bergren, eds. Biblical Figures Outside the Bible (1998).
Green, Peter. The Hellenistic Age: A Short History (2007).
Alexander, Lloyd. The Illyrian Adventure (1986).
anon. The Book of Enoch (C2 BC?).
Duin, Steve, & Mike Richardson. Comics Between the Panels (1998).
Mellon, H. Keith, & Craig Piligan, with Duane Swierczynski. The Spy's Guide: Office Espionage (2003).
McGovern, Ann, ed. Summer Daze (1961).
Anthony, Piers. But What of Earth? (1976,1989).
Bowerstock. G.W. Roman Arabia (1983).
Philostratos. Life of Apollonius of Tyana (c. 220).
Irving, Washington. Life of Mahomet (1849).
Stipcevic, Aleksandar. The Art of the Illyrians (1963).
Buchan, John. Prester John (1910).
Carver, Raymond. A New Path to the Waterfall (1968-1988 (coll. 1989)).
McEvedy, Colin. The Penguin Atlas of African History (1980).
Winders, Gertrude Hecker. Ethan Allen: Green Mountain Boy (1954).
Rushby, Kevin. Children of Kali: Through India in Search of Bandits, the Thug Cult, and the British Raj (2002). |
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| Complaint about the current state of sexuality, with minor spoilers from The Other Boleyn Girl |
[Sep. 10th, 2008|02:05 pm] |
I watched The Other Boleyn Girl (2008) the other day, and it was pretty bad, but that's not the point. At a certain point, you will recall, Anne Boleyn for various reasons tries to get her brother George secretly to father an heir on her, but he can't bring himself to go through with it.
In the film it's never stated openly, but there are perhaps intimations, as a tip of the hat to the historical record, that George Boleyn is gay. For one imdb trivia contributor this fact "explains why he [George Boleyn] was so afraid of sleeping with Anne, besides the fact of treachery and incest."
Incest is mentioned last. The true explanation [sic] is homosexuality.
I don't know if the rest of you find this as hilarious as I do; I also find it somewhat terrifying. These are the words of someone to whom every act of sexual distinction is a complete mystery, and orientation the only conceivable answer. Any moment I spend not sleeping with a girl, I am merely proving I am gay, even if that girl is my sister.
Enjoy your future, America. You chose it for yourself. |
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