Grab the Nearest Book...

[chris2c4u]

Daphne was usually an invisible, slumbering presence, but if Lucy stayed out too long Ian might hear a tentative cry from the children's room.

Anne Tyler
Saint Maybe.

 

[trysail]

... a German visitor described his trip to America as late as 1857, "Ten years in America are like a century elsewhere."

This view was echoed by a British parliamentary commission that visited the United States in the 1850s. The group was especially impressed with how American workers accepted progress instead of resisting it as they "hailed with satisfaction all mechanical improvements [ that were ] releasing them from the drudgery of unskilled labour, [ which ] they are enabled by education to understand and appreciate." Coming from a British group, this was an exceptionally high compliment. But the commission went on to emphasize the contrast with their own labour force, which stubbornly resisted "mechanical improvements" for fear of losing their jobs.​

-Peter L. Bernstein
Wedding of the Waters: The Erie Canal and the Making of a Great Nation
New York, New York 2005.



The profound importance of the Erie Canal to the development of the early U.S. economy has been completely forgotten. The audacity required to propose and construct a 363 mile-long canal across the forested wilderness of New York state largely by hand is nearly unbelievable and the story fascinating. It is perfectly understandable that people though DeWitt Clinton mad.

Peter Bernstein's earlier book Against The Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk was very popular amongst a certain segment of investors ( that segment being of the brighter variety ). I will wager that those who read, understood and enjoyed the book likely avoided most of the mines in the great mortgage-backed securities and collaterallized debt obligation fiasco.

 

[trysail]

On the day of Anne's miscarriage, Chapuys— not yet having heard of it, for he does not mention it in his dispatch, and was not to report it until February 10— was told by the King's cousin, Henry Courtenay, Marquess of Exeter, and the Marchioness, Gertrude Blount, how they had been "informed by one of the principal persons at court" that the King "said to someone in great confidence and, as it were, in confession, that he had made this marriage seduced and constrained by sortileges [ i.e., divination or sorcery ], and for this reason he considered it null, and that this was evident because God did not permit them to have any male issue, and that he believed he might take another wife, which he gave to understand that he had some wish to do."
​

-Alison Weir
The Lady in the Tower: The Fall of Anne Boleyn
New York, New York 2010.



I've ne'er had the pleasure of Alison Weir before as the majority of the biographies I've read about the Tudors has been the handiwork of Antonia Fraser.

The more I read about court life— be it Plantagenet, Habsburg, Capet, Saxe-Coburg Gotha, Bourbon, Ming or Romanov— the more I agree with Shakespeare: "Uneasy the head that wears a crown." It was every bit as unpleasant as the life of a U.S. Congressman. Humans in pursuit of money and power are downright nasty. If that's the life you seek, be certain to read and comprehend the original instruction manual of politics— that authored by Niccolò Machiavelli.

 

[Belinda35]

During the 1930-35 period, there was a vogue for streamlining that found its full flower in devices like the Chrysler Airflow, the Singer Airstream and the Fitzmaurice-bodied Ford V8.

 

[chris2c4u]

In a single sentence of idle chatter we preserve Latin, Anglo-Saxon, Norse; we carry a museum inside our heads, each day we commemorate peoples of whom we have never heard.

Penelope Lively

Moon Tiger.

 

[ListlessDM]

The same section says to halve the given weight for Small versions, and double it for Large versions.

Dungeon Master's Guide, 3.5 Edition D&D

 

[trysail]

This was one of the most memorable books of my childhood; time has neither dimmed its appeal nor its cleverness.

http://media.npr.org/assets/artslife/books/2010/09/the-odious-ogre/tollbooth_custom.jpg?t=1283548039&s=12​

The Phantom Tollbooth
By Norton Juster
N.Y., N.Y. 1961.

Chapter 1. Milo

There was once a boy named Milo who didn't know what to do with himself — not just sometimes, but always.

When he was in school he longed to be out, and when he was out he longed to be in. On the way he thought about coming home, and coming home he thought about going. Wherever he was he wished he were somewhere else, and when he got there he wondered why he'd bothered. Nothing really interested him — least of all the things that should have.

"It seems to me that almost everything is a waste of time," he remarked one day as he walked dejectedly home from school. "I can't see the point in learning to solve useless problems, or subtracting turnips from turnips, or knowing where Ethiopia is or how to spell February." And, since no one bothered to explain otherwise, he regarded the process of seeking knowledge as the greatest waste of time of all.

As he and his unhappy thoughts hurried along (for while he was never anxious to be where he was going, he liked to get there as quickly as possible) it seemed a great wonder that the world, which was so large, could sometimes feel so small and empty.

"And worst of all," he continued sadly, "there's nothing for me to do, nowhere I'd care to go, and hardly anything worth seeing." He punctuated this last thought with such a deep sigh that a house sparrow singing nearby stopped and rushed home to be with his family.

Without stopping or looking up, Milo dashed past the buildings and busy shops that lined the street and in a few minutes reached home — dashed through the lobby — hopped onto the elevator — two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, and off again — opened the apartment door — rushed into his room — flopped dejectedly into a chair, and grumbled softly, "Another long afternoon."

He looked glumly at all the things he owned. The books that were too much trouble to read, the tools he'd never learned to use, the small electric automobile he hadn't driven in months — or was it years? — and the hundreds of other games and toys, and bats and balls, and bits and pieces scattered around him. And then, to one side of the room, just next to the phonograph, he noticed something he had certainly never seen before.

Who could possibly have left such an enormous package and such a strange one? For, while it was not quite square, it was definitely not round, and for its size it was larger than almost any other big package of smaller dimension that he'd ever seen.

Attached to one side was a bright-blue envelope which said simple: "FOR MILO, WHO HAS PLENTY OF TIME."

Of course, if you've ever gotten a surprise package, you can imagine how puzzled and excited Milo was; and if you've never gotten one, pay close attention, because someday you might.

"I don't think it's my birthday," he puzzled, "and Christmas must be months away, and I haven't been outstandingly good, or even good at all." (He had to admit this even to himself.) "Most probably I won't like it anyway, but since I don't know where it came from, I can't possibly send it back." He thought about it for quite a while and then opened the envelope, but just to be polite.

"ONE GENUINE TURNPIKE TOLLBOOTH," it stated — and then it went on:

"EASILY ASSEMBLED AT HOME, AND FOR USE BY THOSE WHO HAVE NEVER TRAVELED IN LANDS BEYOND."

"Beyond what?" thought Milo as he continued to read.

"THIS PACKAGE CONTAINS THE FOLLOWING ITEMS:

"One (1) genuine turnpike tollbooth to be erected according to directions.

"Three (3) precautionary signs to be used in a precautionary fashion.

"Assorted coins for use in paying tolls.

"One (1) map, up to date and carefully drawn by master cartographers, depicting natural and man-made features.

"One (1) book of rules and traffic regulations, which may not be bent or broken."

And in smaller letters at the bottom it concluded:

"RESULTS ARE NOT GUARANTEED, BUT IF NOT PERFECTLY SATISFIED, YOUR WASTED TIME WILL BE REFUNDED."

Following the instructions, which told him to cute here, lift there, and fold back all around, he soon had the toll booth unpacked and set up on its stand. He fitted the windows in place and attached the roof, which extended out on both sides, and fastened on the coin box. It was very much like the tollbooths he'd seen many times on family trips, except of course it was much smaller and purple.

"What a strange present," he thought to himself. "The least they could have done was to send a highway with it, for it's terribly impractical without one." But since, at the time, there was nothing else he wanted to play with, he set up the three signs,

SLOW DOWN APPROACHING TOLLBOOTH

PLEASE HAVE YOUR FARE READY

HAVE YOUR DESTINATION IN MIND

and slowly unfolded the map.

As the announcement stated, it was a beautiful map, in many colors, showing principal roads, rivers and seas, towns and cities, mountains and valleys, intersections and detours, and sites of outstanding interest both beautiful and historic.

The only trouble was that Milo had never heard of any of the places it indicated, and even the names sounded most peculiar.

"I don't think there really is such a country," he concluded after studying it carefully. "Well, it doesn't matter anyway." And he closed his eyes and poked a finger at the map.

"Dictionopolis," read Milo slowly when he saw what his finger had chosen. "Oh, well, I might as well go there as anywhere."

He walked across the room and dusted the car off carefully. Then, taking the map and rule book with him, he hopped in and, for lack of anything better to do, drove slowly up to the tollbooth. As he deposited his coin and rolled past he remarked wistfully, "I do hope this is an interesting game, otherwise the afternoon will be so terribly dull."

 

[Frags]

"But it boasted green marble dadoes, Corinthian columns of cast iron painted gold, and garlands of gilded fruit on the walls; the pineapples particularly, thought Guy Francon, had stood the test of years very well."

- The Fountainhead; Ayn Rand

 

[Kat73]

Mine is a cooking catalog...A shorter blade for precision cutting and peeling.

 

[Maid of Marvels]

Helena Justina was waiting in the entrance hall, a tall, tart young woman in three shades of blue wool, with ear-rings that shouted not to annoy her. Hididng behind her, Albia was terrified of the soldiers. The acting centurion in charge of them was already inside, chatting up Helena Justina as if she were a wine-seller, while she glared at him stonily. Nux was hididng behind Albia, though when I came in the dog ran out and barked loudly, before scurrying into retreat again.

Head high and bursting for an altercation, Helena cried, "Marcus Didius! Welcome home."

Her tone was enough to make the boys of the First shuffle closer together nervously. Even the centurion stepped away slightly. He stopped short in wondering if he dared bully the householder and quickly adopted a respectful hangdog mode. How wise.

Saturnalia (A Marcus Didius Falco novel) - Lindsey Davis

These books and their dramatizations on BBC Radio (possibly elsewhere) are always great fun. This one is set in A.D. 76 during the reign of Vespasian - and the Roman holiday of Saturnalia has begun.

 

[Maid of Marvels]

The marriage wasn't going well and I decided to leave my husband. I went to the bank to get cash for the trip. This was on a Wednesday, a rainy afternoon in March. The streets were nearly empty and the bank had just a few customers, none of them familiar to me.

Time was when I knew everybody in Clarion, but then they opened the lipstick factory and strangers started moving in. I was glad. I have lived in this town all my life, thirty-five years, forever. I liked having new people around. I liked standing in that bank feeling anonymous, with some business-suited stranger ahead of me in line and someone behind me wearing a slithery-sounding, city-type nylon jacket. I didn't know the teller either. Though she might have been one of the Benedict girls, just grown up a little. She had that Benedict voice that turned off and on in the middle of words. "How would you like that, sir?" she asked the man ahead of me.

Earthly Possessions - Anne Tyler

I'm a lucky gal. This was in the parcel of books that came in the mail after my last hospital stay. A needed respite from the sameold/sameold.

What is the nearest book to you - or what are you reading? Tell me - it's one of the ways I find books to add to my list.

 

[ArdentAngel]

"'I have no other hope, I repeat it again, but in your friendship for me, and am persuaded that with the principles you have you will never abandon so near a relation, and one who is so sincerely attached to you, as is your most affectionate sister, Caroline M.' Thus, at the end of 1774, in a desperate moment, wrote Caroline Mathilde, Queen of Denmark, to her brother George III of Great Britain."

Stella Tillyard
A Royal Affair
George III and His Scandalous Siblings


Despite her appeals, it ended badly for poor Caroline M.

 

[trysail]

... More than a hundred Connecticut Rangers, some of the best soldiers in the army, had left on the mission before dawn, led by one of the best field officers in the army, a strapping Connecticut farmer and veteran of Bunker Hill, Colonel Thomas Knowlton. (It was Knowlton at Bunker Hill who, with Colonel John Stark, had famously held the rail fence in the face of the oncoming British lines, and Knowlton who, during the siege of Boston, had led the night attack on Charlestown that so upset the British officer's production of the Burgoyne farce The Blockade at Faneuil Hall.)...

... Knowlton's encircling move [ at the Battle of Harlem Heights ] ran into trouble when some of his men opened fire too soon, attacking the enemy's flank, instead of getting behind and cutting off their retreat. The fighting grew fierce. Within minutes Knowlton and Major Leitch both fell, mortally wounded...
​

-David McCollough
1776
New York, New York 2005.



I never tire of periodically reading about the miracle of George Washington's ragtag amateur soldiers and their improbable triumph over the world's foremost military power. As many know, Flexner's "Indispensable Man" ( Washington ) had a checkered military record but he always managed ( sometimes narrowly ) to avoid a fatal military disaster and nevertheless kept the Continental Army together— in the end, merely outlasting the British was sufficient to determine the outcome.

McCullough is predictably wonderful. I've read every book he's ever written. With the research for this book already compiled in the course of writing John Adams, it was a comparatively simple ( for someone possessed of McCullough's talents ) matter to produce one more highly readable account of that pivotal year.

 

[trysail]

Part of George Washington's difficulty rose from his own origins and upbringing in a very special American place called the Northern Neck of Virginia. It was a huge tract of five million acres between the Potomac and the Rappahannock rivers, so large that it spanned three degrees of longitude from the Chesapeake Bay to the mountains of western Virginia. In 1649, the Northern Neck was created by England's Charles II as a reward to some of his most faithful royalist supporters. One of them, Thomas Lord Culpepper, bought out the rest and passed the land by inheritance to the Fairfax family, an interesting and eccentric clan who combined Cavalier manners with Roundhead principles in the English Civil War. After much litigation, a British court ruled in 1745 that the entire Northern Neck belonged to one man, Thomas Fairfax, sixth Baron Fairfax ( 1693-1781 ). He liked it so well that he moved there from England and built a rural retreat called Greenway Court in the Shenandoah country at the western end of his domain.

The family interests were managed by Lord Fairfax's cousin Colonel William Fairfax, who built a great house at Belvoir next to Mount Vernon. The gentry of the Northern Neck bacame agents of the Fairfaxes and great landholders in their own right. These families of Carters, Lees, Marshalls, Custises, Washingtons, and Fairfaxes intermarried, as George Washington's older stepbrother Lawrence married Colonel Fairfax's daughter Anne Fairfax Washington. They looked after one another, and when young George Washington lost his father, Lord Fairfax and Colonel Fairfax took a fostering interest in the young man. They became his mentors, and their houses were his schools. They were quick to recognize his promise and watched over his development, not always with an approving eye.

From these men George Washington learned the creed he followed all his life. It valued self-government, discipline, virtue, reason, and restraint. Historians have called it a stoic philosophy, but it was far removed from the ancient Stoicism of the slave Epictetus, who sought a renunciation of the world, or the emperor Marcus Aurelieus, who wished to be in the world but not of it. The philosophy that Washington learned among the ruling families of the Northern Neck was a modern idea. It was a philosophy of moral striving through virtuous action and right conduct, by powerful men who believed their duty was to lead others in a changing world. Most of all, it was a way of combining power with responsibility, and liberty with discipline.

Much of this creed was about honor; not "primal honor," not the honor of the duel, not a hair-trigger revenge against an insult, or a pride of aggressive masculinity. This was honor as an emblem of virtue. These gentlemen of the Northern Neck lived for honor in that sense. The only fear George Washington ever acknowledged in his life was a fear that his actions would "reflect eternal dishonour upon me."

A major part of this code of honor was an idea of courage. The men around young George Washington assumed that a gentleman would act with physical courage in the face of danger, pain, suffering, and death. They gave equal weight to moral courage in adversity, prosperity, trial, and temptation. For them, a vital part of leadership was the ability to persist in what one believed to be the right way. This form of courage was an idea of moral stamina, which Washington held all his life. Stamina in turn was about strength and endurance both as a moral and physical idea.

These men of the Northern Neck believed that people were not born to these qualities but learned them by discipline and exercise. Washington himself was a sickly child, and he suffered much from illness. He was taught to strengthen himself by equestrian exercise and spent much of his life outdoors on the back of a horse. Whenever he had the time, he went hunting three times a week. Even in his last years, he walked several miles every night to keep fit. By exercise Washington acquired extraordinary stamina and strength. The painter Charles Willson Peale remembered a moment at Mount Vernon in 1772 when he and other men were pitching a heavy iron bar; a popular sport in the Chesapeake. Washington appeared and, "without taking off his coat, held out his hand for the missile, and hurled it into the air, striking the ground far, very far beyond out utmost efforts." Washington said, "When you beat my pitch, young gentlemen, I'll try again."

Even as commander-in-chief, Washington joined his men in games of strength and skill, always developing his stamina in a disciplined way. In times of great stress he could keep going when others failed. His brother officer John Armstrong wrote that he "maintains full possession of himself, is indefatigable by day and night."

This modern creed of the Fairfaxes and Washingtons was linked to an idea of liberty. Washington thought of liberty in the Stoic way, as independence from what he called "involuntary passion." He was a man of strong passions, which he struggled to keep in check. For him the worst slavery was to be in bondage to unbridled passion and not in "full possession of himself."

George Washington also thought of liberty as a condition of autonomy from external domination, but not as we do today. He believed that only a gentleman of independent means could be truly free. This way of thinking was widely shared by the gentry of the Northern Neck, and it made liberty into a system of stratification. Gentlemen of honor and independence such as the Fairfaxes and Washingtons had great liberty; small freeholders had not so much of it. Tenants had little liberty, servants less, and slaves none at all. This was a hierarchical world where liberty and slavery coexisted— to us a contradiction because we do not share the assumption of inequality upon which it rested...
​

-David Hackett Fischer
Washington's Crossing
New York, New York 2004.



Fischer's book recounts the dramatic tale of the Continental Army's desperate crossing of the Delaware River on the night of Christmas Eve, 1776 at a point when prospects for the five month old nation were at their lowest ebb. The Continental Army had been soundly thrashed by the British on Long Island and Manhattan before its headlong retreat across New Jersey and flight into Pennsylvania.

A betting man would have given odds that the Colonists would be satisfied to either lick their wounds or melt away. Instead, amidst miserable conditions ( two Americans would literally freeze to death during the march to Trenton ), in the dark of night, in the face of a horrible nor'easter, they re-crossed the river and shocked the world. To paraphrase Churchill's comment on The Battle of Britain, it wasn't the beginning of the end but it was the end of the beginning.

 

[Maid of Marvels]

"We're long past our sell-by date." Trevor switched his grip on his cane. He'd been clutching it hard for ages now and his hand ws clammy. What were the bastards up to, taking so long to get here?

"Bollocks," Harry said. "We've got a good couple of years in us yet. We've defied the odds so far. I'm looking forward to old age. Has its perks. You can spit on the floor and beat nosey children with your cane."

"But after a while," Trevor said, "you'll get tired of lying in a pile of your own shite."

"Or somebody else's."

"What're you saying? If anything, you'll lose control of your bowels before me."

"At least I can still get it up."

"Fuck you. Anyway, that's not what I mean. Just making a point," Trevor said. "We shouldn't be here. Not at our age."

"Fuck, we're not in our seventies yet. Don't write us off. I can see the day when we'll need special adult undergarments. I long for that day."

Trevor didn't move. He couldn't, not without his brother's help. The settee was too deep. A faded old two-seater, that's the best the fuckers could come up with. Stuffed out of the way in a room that was some kind of cleaning room. A hoover, mop in a bucket, stink of furniture polish. The bank manager had had to move a cardboard box full of rubber gloves and dusters before they'd been able to sit down. When he left, he'd locked the door behind him.

Where the fuck were the police?

Trevor said, "I once gave a blind man a blow job, you know."

"You did not."

"Did."

"Not."

"You were asleep."

"Shite."

"You were."

"I'd have woken up."

"You were drunk. Paralytic."

"Then you must have been too."

"You can't hold your drink. Anyway, it's true. Back at Aggie's--"

"I don't want to hear about it."

"Well, I'm telling you."

"I'm not listening." Harry started singing. But he couldn't drown out Trevor's voice. Especially after Trevor started shouting. Harry gave in, asked, "What happened?"

******​

"The Killer Beside Me" by Allan Guthrie in Damn Near Dead: Old, Bold, Uncontrolled (An Anthology of Geezer Noir) - edited by Duane Swierczynski

Gotta love a geezer - and geezer noir??? To die for. Literally.

I know that chris2c4u already did this book, but since passing it on to me I'm simply unable to resist another offering.

Great fun

 

[TheGrind]

"Must be a highly energetic gentleman," said Grinyevich after Levin had gone.

- Anna Karenina; Leo Tolstoy

 

[trysail]

On 19 November 2004 a new Internet domain, realclimate.org, was registered by Betsy Ensley, an employee of Environmental Media Services (EMS), a PR firm based in Washington, DC... EMS was run by David Fenton, a powerful PR executive, as part of his lobbying organisation, Fenton Communications. Fenton has been called "one of the most influential PR people of the 20th century" a claim that was based in part on the leading role he played in promoting the notorious Alar scare in the 1980s, when apple growers across the USA were ruined by an unsubstantiated claim that a pesticide they used caused cancer.

​

-Andrew W. Montford
The Hockey Stick Illusion
London, United Kingdom 2010.



I honestly didn't know what to expect— a vitriolic polemic or junk science or a well-written, well-documented recital of events that culminate in scientific scandal. Happily, it turned out to be the latter. It is more than a sad fact that not a single library in my state owned the book. My library system was only able to borrow a copy through an interlibrary loan from Clark University's ( Worcester, Massachusetts ) library. The story of Steve McIntyre and Ross McKitrick's tireless and dogged effort to force Michael Mann et al to produce the data and computer code that purported to underlie the widely-used "Hockey Stick" graph of recent temperature is disturbing. You may never look at climatology the same way again. It'll be many years before I do.

 

[chris2c4u]

After, they turn on the television. Columbus has the remote and he's flipping up and down the channels, looking for a movie.

Thomas Trofimuk, Waiting for Columbus.

 

[OnHarry]

The Protestantwork ethic and the challenge of developing and utilizing a continental treasure-house of natural resources provided both the purpose and the method of their undertaking.

The Canadian Northern Railway- Pioneer Road of the Northern Prairies !895-1918

Author; T.D. Regehr

 

[Maid of Marvels]

Poets, with their subversive temperament and low tolerance for the mundane, don't believe questions need answers. Answers are uncertain absolutes, shaky verbs demanding to be nouns. The Inquisitors have stuck their fingers into the Poet Oracles' afterlife pie. Many pointers, the old printer's friend, were lost searching for good-boy plums, many fresh cherries popped scalding those nearby. Poet Oracles say what they mean to say with the words like breadcrumbs they left behind. Insatiably we set out to devour, to leave no morsel or way back (carb-free=zero guilt).

Twittering the Dead: Advice From Oracles - Oracles et Inquisitors

 

[trysail]

"This is why Rocket's moment in history is unique. That soot-blackened locomotive sits squarely at the deflection point where a line describing human productivity (and therefore human welfare) that had been as flat as Kansas for a hundred centuries made a turn like the business end of a hockey stick. Rocket is when humanity finally learned to run twice as fast.

It's still running today. If you examined the years since 1800 in twenty year-increments, and charted every way that human welfare can be expressed in numbers— not just annual per capita GDP, which climbed to more than $6,000 by 2000, but mortality at birth (in fact, mortality at any age); calories consumed; prevalence of disease; average height of adults; percentage of lifetime spent disabled; percentage of population enrolled in primary, secondary, and postsecondary education; illiteracy; and annual hours of leisure time— the chart will show every measure better at the end of the period than it was at the beginning. And the phenomenon isn't restricted to Europe and North America; the same improvements have occurred in every region of the world. A baby born in France in 1800 could expect to live thirty years— twenty-five years less than a baby born in the Republic of the Congo in 2000. The nineteenth century French infant would be at a significant risk of starvation, infectious disease, and violence, and even if he or she were to survive into adulthood, would be far less likely to learn how to read..."
​

-William Rosen
The Most Powerful Idea in the World: A Story of Steam, Industry, and Invention
New York, New York 2010.



Wow! I don't know where William Rosen has been hiding all these years (the dust jacket blurb says Rosen is: "the author of the award-winning history Justinian's Flea: Plague, Empire, and the Birth of Europe, was an editor and publisher at Macmillan, Simon & Schuster, and the Free Press for nearly twenty-five years" ) but this book is a riveting, tour-de-force recounting of the Industrial Revolution that is beautifully written and thoroughly researched. Rosen is very clearly a bit of a polymath; he moves easily from the chemistry of iron and combustion to the geology of England's Midlands to the physics of Newcomen's steam engine to the inventions of John Smeaton.


I do not recall why I became aware of this book but in one of those incidents of pure serendipity, I espied it on the shelf of my library. I'm luckier for it. Libraries and bookstores have an awful effect on me; after fifteen minutes in one, I inevitably end up feeling stupid. This is a book that ought to be read by every person who purports to be educated.


This book has made me all too well aware of my near total ignorance of the events and persons responsible for the miracle of the Industrial Revolution. Silly me! I thought I knew something about it.

 

[DeathsKnight]

"I've never known you to be deceitful with anyone, Odd."

Forever Odd
Dean Koontz

 

[Luna_Wolf72]

A piece of paper glimmered like silver and floated in the air, drifting with unearthly languor toward the ground.

FROM~ Vanished by Kat Richardson

 

[DeathsKnight]

'Yes,' replied the boy.

Talon of the Silver Hawk
Raymond E Feist

 

[trysail]

He was now undeniably miserable. "It feels like my insides are digesting themselves," he wrote to his wife in mid-September. The source of his unhappiness was, as usual, other people. The other people who bothered him the most were his own investors. When he opened his fund, in 2000, he released only his quarterly returns, and told his investors that he planned to tell them next to nothing about what he was up to. Now they were demanding monthly and even fortnightly reports, and pestered him constantly about the wisdom of his pessimism. "I almost think the better the idea, and the more iconoclastic the investor, the more likely you will get screamed at by investors," he said. He didn't worry about how screwed-up the market for some security became because he knew that eventually it would be disciplined by logic: Businesses either thrived or failed. Loans either were paid off or were defaulted upon. But those people whose money he ran were incapable of keeping their emotional distance from the market. They were now responding to the same surface stimuli as the entire screwed-up subprime mortgage market, and trying to force him to conform to its madness. "I do my best to have patience," he wrote to one investor. "But I can only be as patient as my investors." To another griping investor he wrote, "The definition of an intelligent manager... is someone who has the right idea, and sees his investors abandon him just before the idea pays off." When he was making them huge sums of money, he had barely heard from them; the moment he started actually to lose a little, they peppered him with their doubts and suspicions...
​

-Michael Lewis
The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine
New York, N.Y. 2010.



It's Michael Lewis— and another classic tale of the fate of individuals doing battle against the mob. When humanity sees others making what appears to be "easy money," mob psychology is triggered. No matter how illogical or illusory the idea, a significant portion of people succumb to the notion that it'll go on forever. Bureaucrats and people in governments and large organizations are swept up in the rush and woe unto the individual who has the temerity to observe that "the Emperor has no clothes."

A handful of people ( mostly outsiders ) saw this particular train wreck coming and were able to get very, very rich by capitalizing on the most recent episode of human folly. Unfortunately— from the perspective of society— it was one of the largest follies in history following in the footsteps of the Tulip Bulb Bubble, the South Seas Bubble, the Mississippi Bubble, the Nifty Fifty Bubble, numerous previous real estate Bubbles and the Dot Com Bubble.