Grab the Nearest Book...

[qerasija]

THOMAS:
Are you going to be so serious
About such a mean allowance of breath as life is?
We'll suppose ourselves to be caddis-flies
Who live one day. Do we waste the evening
Commiserating with each other about
The unhygienic condition of our worm-cases?
For God's sake, shall we laugh?

JENNET:
For what reason?

THOMAS:
For the reason of laughter, since laughter is surely
The surest touch of genius in creation.
Would you have thought of it, I ask you,
If you had been making man, stuffing him full
Of such hopping greeds and passions that he has
To blow himself to pieces as often as he
Conveniently can manage it... would it also
Have occurred to you to make him burst himself
With such a phenomenon as cachinnation?
That same laughter, madam, is an irrelevancy
Which almost amounts to a revelation.

JENNET:
I laughed
Earlier this evening, and where am I now?

THOMAS:
Between
The past and the future which is where you were
Before.

From The Lady's Not for Burning, Christopher Fry.

Plays are meant to be played, yes, but also they are meant to be lived. For fifty years or so, Fry's is funny and wise and touching.

 

[trysail]

A Sea Of Words, A Lexicon and Companion for Patrick O'Brian's Seafaring Tales


"Following the French conquest of the Dutch Republic in 1795, Britain began seizing Dutch shipping to prevent France from using Dutch resources against her. This policy bore fruit in Commodore Peter Rainier's seizure of the Dutch East India Company's settlements at Amboyna and the Banda Islands in the East Indies in 1796 and in Vice-Admiral Sir George Elphinstone's attack on Cape Town in the Dutch colony at the Cape of Good Hope in September 1797. On October 11, 1797, a Dutch squadron of 16 ships of the line and eight frigates under Vice-Admiral Jan de Winter left the island of Texel on the northern Dutch coast and sought an engagement with British Admiral Adam Duncan. Duncan defeated Winter off Camperdown on the Dutch North Sea coast."

-Dean King, with John B. Hattendorf and J. Worth Estes
A Sea Of Words, A Lexicon and Companion for Patrick O'Brian's Seafaring Tales
New York, 1995.


This is an invaluable resource for anyone digging into Patrick O'Brian's works. Ordinary dictionaries just don't have entries for nautical terms; one can, of course, slug it out with the OED- but King's "Lexicon and Companion" is a tad lighter and, thus, easier to manage whilst one lies abed. Beyond its utility for looking up words, the book will solve geographic mysteries that are likely to perplex the modern reader. Can't find Batavia or New Holland in your Times (of London) Atlas? This is the place to look.

 

[qerasija]

He speaks in your voice, American, and there's a shine in his eye that's halfway hopeful.

It's a school day, sure, but he's nowhere near the classroom. He wants to be here instead, standing in the shadow of this old rust-hulk of a structure, and it's hard to blame him -- this metropolis of steel and concrete and flaky paint and cropped grass and enormous Chesterfield packs aslant on the scoreboards, a couple of cigarettes jutting from each.

Longing on a large scale is what makes history. This is just a kid with a local yearning but he is part of an assembling crowd, anonymous thousands off the buses and trains, people in narrow columns tramping over the swing bridge above the river, and even if they are not a migration or a revolution, some vast shaking of the soul, they bring with them the body heat of a great city and their own small reveries and desperations, the unseen something that haunts the day -- men in fedoras and sailors on shore leave, the stray tumble of their thoughts, going to a game.

From Underworld, Don DeLillo.

The year begins on Opening Day.

 

[Maid of Marvels]

Green sky at night; hacker's delight.

I'm lurking in the shrubbery behind an industrial unit, armed with a clipboard, a pager, and a pair of bulbous night-vision goggles that drench the scenery in ghastly emerald tones. The bloody things make me look like a train-spotter with a gas-mask fetish, and wearing them is giving me a headache. It's humid and drizzling slightly, the kind of penetrating dampness that cuts right through waterproofs and gloves. I've been waiting out here in the bushes for three hours so far, waiting for the last workaholic to turn the lights out and go home so that I can climb in through a rear window. Why the hell did I ever say "yes" to Andy? State-sanctioned burglary is a lot less romantic than it sounds--especially on standard time-and-a-half pay.

On Her Majesty's Occult Service - Charles Stross

 

[Maid of Marvels]

From her arrival at the docks to the appearance of Roger's letter, written on crisp Ministry paper and signed with his full name, on her maid's silver tray at breakfast, three months had passed. On that morning, her poached eggs steaming their silver bowl (gelatinous, gleaming), Miss Temple had not seen Roger Bascombe for seven days. He had been called to Brussels. Then to the country house of his infirm uncle, Lord Tarr. Then he had been required at all hours by the Minister, and then by the Deputy Minister, and finally by a pressing request from a cousin desperate for discreet advice about matters of property and law. But then she found herself in the same tea shop as that same cousin--the over-fed, over-wigged Pamela--exactly when Roger was said to be soothing her distress. It was quite clear that Pamela's only source of disquiet was a less than ready supply of buns. Miss Temple began to feel tremulous. A day went by with no word at all. On the eighth day, at breakfast, she received the letter from Roger regretfully severing their engagement, closing with the politely expressed desire that she take pains to never contact nor see him in any way for the complete remainder of her days. It contained no other explanation.

The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters - Gordon Dahlquist

 

[EternalSufferin]

The kid was a vision of upright character in his red-and-white-stripped apron and perfect hair, probably a university student..



Dead Witch Walking, Kim Harrison

 

[clan_destine]

"You'd think that if a nobleman dies without an heir, the estate would revert back to me, but every time there's a childless noble in Elenia, the churchmen flock around him like vultures trying to talk him into giving them the land."

David Eddings, Domes of Fire

 

[qerasija]

Interviewer:
How much re-writing do you do?

Hemingway:
It depends. I re-wrote the ending to Farewell to Arms, the last page of it, thirty-nine times before I was satisfied.

Interviewer:
Was there some technical problem there? What was it that had stumped you?

Hemingway:
Getting the words right.

Interviewer:
Where are some of the places you have found most advantageous to work? The Ambos Mundos hotel must have been one, judging from the number of books you did there. Or did the surroundings have little effect on the work?

Hemingway:
The Ambos Mundos in Havana was a very good place to work in. This Finca is a splendid place, or was. But I have worked well everywhere. I mean I have been able to work as well as I can under varied circumstances. The telephone and visitors are the work destroyers.

Interviewer:
Is emotional stability necessary to write well? You told me once that you could only write well when you were in love. Could you expound on that a bit more?

Hemingway:
What a question. But full marks for trying. You can write any time people will leave you alone and not interrupt you. Or rather you can if you will be ruthless enough about it. But the best writing is certainly when you are in love. If it is all the same to you I would rather not expound on that.

From the 'The Art of Fiction No. 21'
Paris Review, Issue 18, Spring 1958

George Plimpton interviews Ernest Hemingway.

 

[clan_destine]

The new crystal has too many irregularities to deal with in such a short time.

The Empty Chair - Diane Duane

 

[trysail]

Le Mot Juste, A Dictionary of Classical and Foreign Words and Phrases

Hemingway:
If it is all the same to you I would rather not expound on that.
From the 'The Art of Fiction No. 21'
Paris Review, Issue 18, Spring 1958
George Plimpton interviews Ernest Hemingway.

A telling quotation from Hemingway and a most interesting contribution by gerasija.
________________________________________________________________

"ignorantia legis neminem excusat (Lat) (ig-nor-AHN-ti-a LAY-gis NEM-in-em ex-COO-sat) ignorance of the law is not an excuse."

-Editorial Panel: John Buchanan-Brown, Jennifer Cang, John Crawley, Barbara Galushka, Brendan McCabe, Gilman Parsons, Carol Steiger, Kate Williams
Le Mot Juste, A Dictionary of Classical and Foreign Words and Phrases.
Third Vintage Books Edition, New York, 1991 (Originally published in Great Britain by Kogan Page Limited, London in 1980).


This is another extremely handy reference book. I occasionally find myself stumped by foreign phrases or an allusion to mythology. The OED can't help. This is the first place I go for help; its got entries based on phrases originating in Greek, Latin, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Hindu, Polynesian, and Yiddish (and others!). An entrepôt of useful terms.

 

[Maid of Marvels]

On those cloudy days, Robert Neville was never sure when sunset came, and sometimes they were in the streets before he could get back.

If he had been more analytical, he might have calculated the approximate time of their arrival; but he still used the lifetime habit of judging nightfall by the sky, and on cloudy days that method didn't work. That was why he chose to stay near the house on those days.

I Am Legend - Richard Matheson

 

[chris2c4u]

I wanted to drive the American roads at the century's end, to look at the country again, from border to border and beach to beach. My son, James, a touring musician who sees, from ground level, a great deal of America in the line of duty, says that when it isn't his turn to drive the van he likes to sit for long stretches, looking out of the window. "There's just so much to see," he says, and he's right.There's just so much to see.

Larry McMurtry, Roads.

 

[qerasija]

Every day you play with the light of the universe.
Subtle visitor, you arrive in the flower and the water.
You are more than this white head that I hold tightly
as a cluster of fruit, every day, between my hands.

You are like nobody since I love you.
Let me spread you out among yellow garlands.
Who writes your name in letters of smoke among the stars of the south?
Oh let me remember you as you were before you existed.

Suddenly the wind howls and bangs at my shut window.
The sky is a net crammed with shadowy fish.
Here all the winds let go sooner or later, all of them.
The rain takes off her clothes.

The birds go by, fleeing.
The wind. The wind.
I can contend only against the power of men.
The storm whirls dark leaves
and turns loose all the boats that were moored last night to the sky.

You are here. Oh, you do not run away.
You will answer me to the last cry.
Cling to me as though you were frightened.
Even so, at one time a strange shadow ran through your eyes.

Now, now too, little one, you bring me honeysuckle,
and even your breasts smell of it.
While the sad wind goes slaughtering butterflies
I love you, and my happiness bites the plum of your mouth.

How you must have suffered getting accustomed to me,
my savage, solitary soul, my name that sends them all running.
So many times we have seen the morning star burn, kissing our eyes,
and over our heads the gray light unwind in turning fans.

My words rained over you, stroking you.
A long time I have loved the sunned mother-of-pearl of your body.
I go so far as to think that you own the universe.
I will bring you happy flowers from the mountains, bluebells,
dark hazels, and rustic baskets of kisses.

I want
to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.


Poem XIV
from Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair
Pablo Neruda
(tr. W.S. Merwin)

 

[Maid of Marvels]

The story that follows is one I never intended to commit to paper. Recently, however, a shock of sorts has prompted me to look back over the most troubling episodes of my life and of the lives of the several people I loved best. This is the story of how as a girl of sixteen I went in search of my father and his past, and of how he went in search of his beloved mentor and his mentor's own history, and of how we all found ourselves on one of the darkest pathways into history. It is the story of who survived that search and who did not, and why. As a historian, I have learned that, in fact, not everyone who reaches back into history can survive it. And it is not only reaching back that endangers us; sometimes history itself reaches inexorably forward for us with its shadowy claw.

The Historian - Elizabeth Kostova

 

[MaiusImperium]

Dedication

They may be called the Palace Guard, the City Guard, or the Patrol. Whatever the name, their purpose in any work of heroic fantasy is indentical: it is, round about Chapter Three (or ten minutes into the film) to rush into the room, attack the hero one at a time, and be slaughtered. No-one ever asks them if they wanted to.

This book is dedicated to those fine men.

Guards! Guards! - Terry Pratchett

 

[chris2c4u]

KING HENRY V, William Shakespeare.

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead.
In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility:
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage;
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;
Let pry through the portage of the head
Like the brass cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm it
As fearfully as doth a galled rock
O'erhang and jutty his confounded base,
Swill'd with the wild and wasteful ocean.
Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide,
Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit
To his full height. On, on, you noblest English.
Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof!
Fathers that, like so many Alexanders,
Have in these parts from morn till even fought
And sheathed their swords for lack of argument:
Dishonour not your mothers; now attest
That those whom you call'd fathers did beget you.
Be copy now to men of grosser blood,
And teach them how to war. And you, good yeoman,
Whose limbs were made in England, show us here
The mettle of your pasture; let us swear
That you are worth your breeding; which I doubt not;
For there is none of you so mean and base,
That hath not noble lustre in your eyes.
I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,
Straining upon the start. The game's afoot:
Follow your spirit, and upon this charge
Cry 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George!'

Happy St George's Day

 

[goddessofdarkness]

Moby Dick By: Herman Melville

Chapter 4: The Counterpane
Upon waking next morning about daylight, I found Queequeg's arm thrown over me in the most loving and affectionate manner. You had almost thought I had been his wife. The counterpane was of patchwork, full of odd little parti-colored squares and triangles; and this arm of his tattooed all over with an interminable Cretan labyrinth of a figure, no two parts of which were of one precise shade--owing I suppose to his keeping his arm at sea unmethodically in the sun and shade, his shirt sleeves irregularly rolled up at various times--this same arm of his, I say, looked for all the world like a strip of patchwork quilt. Indeed, partly lying on it as his arm did as I first awoke, I could hardly tell it from the quilt, they so blended their hues together; and it was only by the sence of weight and pressure that I could tell Queequeg was hugging me.

 

[Maid of Marvels]

And then, one Thursday, nearly two thousand years after one man had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change, a girl sitting on her own in a small café in Rickmansworth suddenly realized what it was that had been going wrong all this time, and she finally knew how the world could be made a good and happy place. This time it was right, it would work, and no one would have to get nailed to anything.

Sadly, however, before she could get to a phone to tell anyone about it, a terrible, stupid catastrophe occurred, and the idea was lost for ever.

This is not her story.

But it is the story of that terrible, stupid catastrophe and some of its consequences.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams

 

[Stella_Omega]

Apparently even citizens who could not afford them could not resist them.

Flora Gill Jacobs, A History Of Doll's Houses

 

[Maid of Marvels]

BBC Radio is celebrating the centenary of Daphne DuMaurier's birth during the month of May on both BBC7 and Radio 4.

"Rebecca" airs Sunday, 6 May on BBC7 and "Frenchman's Creek" starts on Wednesday. "The House on the Strand" begins on Thursday, 10 May - all on BBC7.

On Radio 4, you'll find "My Cousin Rachel" in Classic Serial on Sunday and Tuesday's Afternoon Play is "The Alibi".

Looks like great stuff ahead and, remember that you can "listen again" for up to seven days after if the scheduled times aren't convenient for you... Or if, like me, you're in a completely different time zone.

If you'd like help accessing, please don't hesitate to ask me or post here. Enjoy!!

 

[Maid of Marvels]

The Tuesday 22 May "Afternoon Play" on Radio 4 was a dramatization of one of my fave Ray Bradbury stories, "The Veldt" (from "The Illustrated Man"). If you get a chance to listen between now and next Tuesday, I do recommend it. Well done.

In the meantime, also on Radio 4, the "Afternoon Readings" starting Tuesday, 22 May, are stories inspired by Jack Kerouac's "On the Road" and the 50th year since its publication. I listened today and it was very enjoyable.

"White Sands" by Geoff Dyer - An English couple driving to El Paso pick up a hitchhiker on Highway 54 and soon come to regret their impulse.

******​

I first met Dean not long after my wife and I split up. I had just gotten over a serious illness that I won't bother to talk about, except that it had something to do with the miserably weary split-up and my feeling that everything was dead. With the coming of Dean Moriarty began the part of my life you could call my life on the road. Before that I'd often dreamed of going West to see the country, always vaguely planning and never taking off. Dean is the perfect guy for the road because he actually was born on the road, when his parents were passing through Salt Lake City in 1926, in a jalopy, on their way to Los Angeles. First reports of him came to me through Chad King, who'd shown me a few letters from him written in a New Mexico reform school. I was tremendously interested in the letters because they so naively and sweetly asked Chad things that Chad knew. At one point Carlo and I talked about the letters and wondered if we could ever meet the strange Dean Moriarty. This is all far back, when Dean was not the way he is today, when he was a young jailkid shrouded in mystery. Then news came that Dean was out of reform school and was coming to New York for the first time; also there was talk that he had just married a girl called Marylou.

On the Road - Jack Kerouac

 

[trysail]

Mellon


"This was the morose world of Andrew Mellon's boyhood, but unlike his surviving siblings, he would continue to inhabit it as an ever more solitary son until he was in his mid-forties. Sarah Jane Mellon was the presiding matriarch, and although Thomas Mellon wrote little about her in his autobiography, she was clearly a redoubtable woman for her time. She was not only rich but tough, having survived eight pregnancies between 1844 and 1860. More conventionally religious than her husband, she was responsible for getting the family to East Liberty Presbyterian Church on Sundays."

-David Cannadine
Mellon
New York, 2006.


I'm almost finished this interesting biography that, necessarily, includes a history of the family, the story of such iconic American enterprises as Alcoa, Gulf Oil, and Carborundum, Pittsburgh, and the tangential fellow Pittsburgh titans Carnegie and Frick. Unlike John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie, Andrew Mellon was born rich- and got a lot richer. It's also the story of the conception and prime benefactor of the National Portrait Gallery.

 

[Douglas Lee]

But more soldiers were killed by camp illnesses than by battle wounds.

Civil War by Dorling Kindersley

Yay, that was cool. Can we do more than one? Lots of obscure books I have.

"I'm going up yonder yo have a look over the country before it gets dark.

----Lonely on the Mountain by Louis L'Amour

Everything had been worked out carefully to this point, but from now on his actions depended much upon the actions of Pogue and Reynolds.
-The Rider of Ruby Hills by Louis L'Amour

(Page 28 had only seven, I'll do the third on Page 29)
He couldn't interfere with the Council's admonishment, however.
-Star Wars: Jedi Apprentice: The Captive Temple by Jude Watson

(28 had only four so . . . Sixth on 29 lol again basically)
"In 1930 . . . it remained an unknown quantity . . . "
-Helicopters and Autogiros by Charles Gablehouse

(28 is blank, so 29)
that teaches by example.
-On the Night Before School Starts by Elspeth Campbell Murphy

"I don't sleep well anymore," Anakin admitted.
-Attack of the Clones by Patricia C. Wrede

They could all clearly see her starved, shaking body.
-Sheepdog in the Snow by Ben M. Baglio

Several dozen meters tall, the vehicle towered above the ground on multiple treads that were talle rthan a tall man.
-The Star Wars Trilogy by George Lucas

She looked up at his lopsided, cheerful grin.
-Kittens in the Kitchen by Ben M. Baglio

Enough variety for you guys?

 

[clan_destine]

An Excerpt...

Imagine, if you will, Our Hero entering the first of the five shops of sticks. A tinkling bell announced my arrival - further oddness, on account of there was no actual door for the bell to tinkle on. I turned around and saw what was probably the shopkeeper's teenage son, a gawky kid with a face so broken out it looked like a Hayden Planetarium sky show in Technicolor. He was crouched beside the entrance with a little bell and a little hammer. Hey, what the hell, he was learning the trade, and you got to start someplace, I guess.

The guy behind the counter goes, "Welcome to Scrupulously Honest and Fair Fred's Armor Emporium. May I help you?"

"Are you Scrupulously Honest and Fair Fred?"

"No, he's sick today. I'm his brother, Aethelraed, but never fear, dear lady, I am also scrupulously honest and fair. Pretty much."

"Uh huh," I go, "and don't call me 'dear lady'."

"May I show you our wares? We just got in a very nice tarnhelm, nearly mint condition. Its previous owner came to a sorry end guarding a hoard."

"Bummer," I go. "So like it didn't do that owner a hell of a lot of good. Not a terrific recommendation for the tarnhelm. Still, let me take a look. How much are you asking for it?"

The merchant smiled broadly. "Just three thousand pieces of gold. A wonderful deal. Shall I wrap it for you, or will you wear it?"

Well, Bitsy, I had a twenty-dollar bill stuffed in my right bra cup, and a one-dollar bill stuffed in the left. Of course, for emergencies I had a charge card tucked in my G-string. I thought three thousand pieces of gold sounded kind of steep for a tarnhelm - it's magic , Bitsy, it turns you into whatever shape you want. I see 'em all the time - and I didn't know if this gonif could relate to Daddy's AmEx plastic. Sure, no matter where I go in the Known Universe, they speak English - isn't that neat? - but sometimes the medium of exchange is edible roots and not dollars."

- Maureen Birnbaum in the MUD - George Alec Effinger

 

[trysail]

The Last Mughal, The Fall of a Dynasty: Delhi, 1857


"It was this intriguing and unexpected period which dominated the book I wrote about Delhi fifteen years ago, entitled City of Djinns, and which later ignited the tinder that led to my last book, White Mughals, about the many British who embraced Indian culture at the end of the eighteenth century. The Last Mughal is therefore my third book inspired by the capital. At the centre of it lies the question of how and why the relatively easy relationship of Indian and Briton, so evident during the time of Fraser, gave way to the hatreds and racism of the high-nineteenth-century Raj. The Uprising, it is clear, was the result of that change, not its cause.

Two things in particular seem to have put paid to this easy coexistence. One was the rise of British power: in a few years the British had defeated not only the French but also all their Indian rivals; in a manner not unlike the Americans after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the changed balance of power quickly led to an attitude of undisguised imperial arrogance.

The other was the ascendancy of Evangelical Christianity, and the profound change in attitudes that this brought about. The wills written by Company servants show that the practice of marrying or cohabiting with Indian wives, or bibis, all but disappeared. Memoirs of prominent eighteenth-century British Indian worthies which mentioned their Indian wives or Anglo-Indian children were re-edited so that the consorts were removed from later editions. No longer were Indians seen as inheritors of a body of sublime and ancient wisdom as eighteenth-century luminaries such as Sir William Jones and Warren Hastings had once believed; they were instead merely 'poor benighted heathen,' or even 'licentious pagans,' who, it was hoped, were eagerly awaiting conversion."

-William Dalrymple
The Last Mughal, The Fall of a Dynasty: Delhi, 1857
New York, 2007.


HOT DAMN! I'm on to a good read. Though I only made it through Dramatis Personae and the first nineteen pages of the introduction last night, I can tell this is going to be a thoroughly pleasant journey. It's going to be a literate, thoroughly researched relation of an obscure part of history. The only depressing aspect is that, once again (for what seems the thousandth time), it's going to be a tale of human genocide (go ask Iris Chang about it). Unfortunately, reading history really can be depressing. I keep a list of human horrors; it now has about thirty entries including (but not limited to): the Holocaust, the African/American slave trade, the Somme, Stalingrad, the settlement of Australia, the native Americans, Kampuchea, Armenia, Guadalcanal, Ireland, Rwanda, Manchuria, ........

We humans are apparently predisposed to kill one another.