Re-reading Sandman… just cause.
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I keep meaning to. I just keep thinking I saving it for when I can really enjoy it. But, at the rate I’m going…
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This is TL;DR, so you better bloody well read it, lol - I did! And I will again.
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You might want to do sooner rather than later, considering it’s being turned into a netflix series soon. I’m guessing probably not till 2021, but still.
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Finished
Invisible Man Ellison. Surreal. Didn’t quite answer my questions about transcendentalism,… Oh well. Still enjoyable.
Slow Horses– ready for the next in the series.
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I am going through a huge collection of short stories by PG Wodehouse. I was surprised to read a number of nice romances in the mix, though I prefer the funny ones with assorted gentlemen of leisure lacking brain power. Though my eyes generally glaze over at the ones based on cricket. Being a Yank and all.
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How now in the contemplative evening of his days, the pious Bildad reconciled these things in the reminiscence, I do not know; but it did not seem to concern him much, and very probably he had long since come to the sage and sensible conclusion that a man’s religion is one thing, and this practical world quite another. This world pays dividends.
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surprised?
Somewhat formulaic, though perhaps he should be credited with coming up with some of the formulas.
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I’m just so lacking in knowledge of literature. And it seems like even my sf friends know more about sf than I do. One of them sleeps on his couch because his place is so full of books.
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Just finished a book I picked up based on the title alone. The back cover blurb about it being a comedic steampunk sequel to The War Of The Worlds sealed it.
Goofy pulpy fun about a sideshow assistant who gets to be a rather reluctant chosen one and his misadventures along the way to saving the world.
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“Oh, thou’lt like him well enough; no fear, no fear. He’s a grand, ungodly, god-like man, Captain Ahab; doesn’t speak much; but, when he does speak, then you may well listen. Mark ye, be forewarned; Ahab’s above the common; Ahab’s been in colleges, as well as ’mong the cannibals; been used to deeper wonders than the waves; fixed his fiery lance in mightier, stranger foes than whales. His lance! aye, the keenest and the surest that, out of all our isle!”
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“I, I, I’d just like, I’d just like to say that I admire this Ahab character.”
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“I know Captain Ahab well; I’ve sailed with him as mate years ago; I know what he is —a good man—not a pious, good man, like Bildad, but a swearing good man—something like me—only there’s a good deal more of him. Aye, aye, I know that he was never very jolly; and I know that on the passage home, he was a little out of his mind for a spell; but it was the sharp shooting pains in his bleeding stump that brought that about, as any one might see. I know, too, that ever since he lost his leg last voyage by that accursed whale, he’s been a kind of moody—desperate moody, and savage sometimes; but that will all pass off. And once for all, let me tell thee and assure thee, young man, it’s better to sail with a moody good captain than a laughing bad one.”
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”I’ve read this damn book 22 times, Charlie, and I still don’t understand the damn thing.”
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Because The Structure of Scientific Revolution is an academically repectable book, it has an Introduction.
But because it’s that kind of academically respectable book, the introduction begins:
Great books are rare. This is one. Read it and you will see. Skip this introduction. Come back to it if you want to know how the book came into being half a century ago, what its impact was, and the disputes that raged around its theses. Come back if you want one experienced opinion of the status of the book today.
But because it’s a kindle sample, the reader who follows that advice is left with two pages of Kuhn’s Preface, and an exhortation to buy the rest of the book.
It’s probably at the library anyway.
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The port would fain give succor; the port is pitiful; in the port is safety, comfort, hearthstone, supper, warm blankets, friends, all that’s kind to our mortalities. But in that gale, the port, the land, is that ship’s direst jeopardy; she must fly all hospitality; one touch of land, though it but graze the keel, would make her shudder through and through. With all her might she crowds all sail off shore; in so doing, fights ’gainst the very winds that fain would blow her homeward; seeks all the lashed sea’s landlessness again; for refuge’s sake forlornly rushing into peril; her only friend her bitterest foe!
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I think it’s rather good. Her constant digressions amuse me.
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I say this continual smoking must have been one cause, at least, of his peculiar disposition; for every one knows that this earthly air, whether ashore or afloat, is terribly infected with the nameless miseries of the numberless mortals who have died exhaling it; and as in time of the cholera, some people go about with a camphorated handkerchief to their mouths; so, likewise, against all mortal tribulations, Stubb’s tobacco smoke might have operated as a sort of disinfecting agent.
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The huge square head of a sperm whale surfaced alongside them, barely twenty feet off. Ishmael tore his gaze from Queequeg long enough to glimpse a curious obsidian eye as it slid past like a rolling, Shipyard Gray hillock. The other crewmen, too enraptured—or perhaps confounded—by his performance failed to notice. But he couldn’t stop now. He was almost to the best part…
Hatchet you are holding
Shirt gone, tats are showing
Pipe lit, tobacco blowing…
I’m no threat oh please don’t kill me!
Hey, I just met you, I’m here to hunt whale
That’s quite a harpoon! So, call me—
“Ishmael!” Queequeg shouted, while pointing his harpoon at something over Ishmael’s shoulder. But Ishmael had finally found his courage and he wasn’t about to stop now.
Hey we should sleep now, it’s awkward as hell
Your arm’s around me—it’s nice, I won’t tell
It’s hard to look right at you and not quail—
“Lad, get yer ass down off the bloody gunwale!” The abnormal tinge of fear in Stubb’s voice made Ishmael turn, just in time to see a huge tail-fluke arcing up out of the water. It swept him into the sky with the ease of a badminton racket bopping a shuttlecock, and hurtled him high over the heads of Queequeg and the crew in the other boat.
I’m so in love , he thought, feeling as light as a Montgolfier balloon. I’m so in love that I’ve taken flight.
When he reached apogee, his eyes met Queequeg’s far below. The harpooneer had never looked so dashing, so brave…so distressed. But he mouthed something—Ishmael saw it, unmistakable, just before he belly-flopped into the water and lost consciousness.
It was: I love you.
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