Public Address | Cafe | Stories: Life in Books

Riddley Walker

Thu, 26 Apr 2007 22:50:11 +1200

eeeek

Rob Stowell

Thu, 26 Apr 2007 22:30:45 +1200

And there's something ghostly about that lost little red x.... a fallen-on-its-side cross.

Rob Stowell

Thu, 26 Apr 2007 22:28:59 +1200

Spooky- merc has lost his gravatar at 666!

Riddley Walker

Thu, 26 Apr 2007 22:20:09 +1200

m....?
you haven't ascended have you?

Deborah

Thu, 26 Apr 2007 20:07:08 +1200

An intriguing piece about the Vonnegut family, which I came across through Arts and Letters Daily.

Riddley Walker

Thu, 26 Apr 2007 16:03:52 +1200

or if Carl Orff is more fitting of the occassion.

hamishm

Thu, 26 Apr 2007 15:42:38 +1200

Jeff Buckley sings Hallelujah hang in there merc.

Riddley Walker

Thu, 26 Apr 2007 15:40:22 +1200

If I could
be more
I wouldn’t.

that's a great line, it's haunted me since i saw it.

Happy Birthday My Liege.

merc

Thu, 26 Apr 2007 15:33:04 +1200

666
Nowhere.

Your other lives
intrude
you are here.

No one mentioned
nothing comes
unintended.

I always find myself
waiting for you
alone.

Without a breath
save only
your own.

If I could
be more
I wouldn’t.

Riddley Walker

Thu, 26 Apr 2007 15:24:38 +1200

damn, that's meant to be:

*it doesn't hurt when it begins

Riddley Walker

Thu, 26 Apr 2007 15:17:44 +1200

the sword of time is long and thin,
it doesn't hurt when it beings,
but as it works its way on in,
the pain gets stronger, watch it grin...

Nobody Important

Thu, 26 Apr 2007 14:53:02 +1200

only 5 post left now ...

merc

Thu, 26 Apr 2007 14:45:17 +1200

Don't push me 'cause I'm close to the edge, I'm tryin' not to lose my head, it's like a jungle sometimes it makes me wonder how I keep from going under. ?.
Eternal Life is now on my trail, Jeff Buckley, (though I can swim).
Yes NI, now 4 to…

Nobody Important

Thu, 26 Apr 2007 14:36:54 +1200

but I have only 6 post left to me

yeah, right ...

Riddley Walker

Thu, 26 Apr 2007 14:30:12 +1200

hang in there Kimosave, break on through to the Other Side. you will see clearly when the rain has gone.
you have life eternal.

merc

Thu, 26 Apr 2007 14:25:58 +1200

Sorry it always happens to me when I read dark backgrounds with white type, but I have only 6 post left to me, am fading fast, think the atomization of the individual, own theories, hyper-noid phase has kicked in, Smiths Dream is on Maori TV, partner had never heard of…

Riddley Walker

Thu, 26 Apr 2007 14:09:29 +1200

lordy. that'll take a bit of decoding m.

merc

Thu, 26 Apr 2007 13:41:29 +1200

OK I scanned it, it has mixed up the market vs. the political model and could only have come from a confused academic. The market is not about producing products and taking them to market any more (for China yes, USA no). The market is to create money through mortgages…

merc

Thu, 26 Apr 2007 13:28:00 +1200

I'm going to read that, but first,
1. advertising used to be the only way you could pay and be sure you got your message across, think about it, this is far reaching and would need a face to face explanation (and include pamphleteering, sic).
2. advertising is very regulated,…

Riddley Walker

Thu, 26 Apr 2007 12:48:46 +1200

m, thouht you might like this on advertising and the apocolypse. i always liked this guy's stuff:
http://www.sutjhally.com/articles/advertisingattheed/

Ben Austin

Wed, 25 Apr 2007 14:34:22 +1200

Oh, and damm I wish i'd used the preview button. WTB Edit feature

Ben Austin

Wed, 25 Apr 2007 14:33:15 +1200

Oh and back to a previous topic I just read Bank's The Algerbriast, which I liked, but wow, the back cover writeup bears little relationship with the actualy story.

Ben Austin

Wed, 25 Apr 2007 14:31:43 +1200

For every well designed marketing campaign I'm sure there are a dozen rushed, riddled with compromise, badly thought out campaigns. So at least my brief (one year) experience goes anyway.

Riddley Walker

Wed, 25 Apr 2007 14:12:13 +1200

i'd add to the history list PT Barnum, Vanderbilt and Ivy Lee.
there's plenty of political influence coming out of ad and PR agencies i would have thought. you only have to look at the extent to which the vast majority of the general populations' regular source of political information…

81stcolumn

Wed, 25 Apr 2007 13:37:19 +1200

I took a hiatus from my PhD in the 90's and went to work for a small media company doing IT and design. Mostly we did the odd website and front ends for CD's. Every once in a while when the big kids ran out of ideas they'd come and…

81stcolumn

Wed, 25 Apr 2007 13:22:11 +1200

F**k I had completely forgotten about that book

The whole thing makes me kind of sad, when I left my Alma Mater they still applied Skinner in the departmental nursery (shakes uncontrollably).

Would you trust this man with your kids ?

merc

Wed, 25 Apr 2007 13:12:22 +1200

Eugenics were practised here, in Dunedin in the mental health system, sterilisation for the mentally impaired, I got that from An Angel At My Table, Janet Frame.
Advertising you can blame on the Copyists (bloody monks), hence the term Copywriter, hence newspaper copy. Around 1900 in America some bright spark…

Riddley Walker

Wed, 25 Apr 2007 12:31:23 +1200

fair points 81st.
of course you're right that behaviourism doesn't offer a complete understanding, my point was more that it does have some useful contributions that are often dismissed out of ignorance and numberiphobia (though obviously not in your case).

in terms of the political extrapolations of behaviourism i would…

merc

Wed, 25 Apr 2007 08:39:08 +1200

The add men probably owe more to Bandura and Milgram than they do to Watson and Skinner.

Yes very true. I was more into Bill Bernbach at the time though in deep Faust denial. Advertising is dead, for me anyway. When I went to bandacamp, I mean University as an…

Nobody Important

Wed, 25 Apr 2007 07:34:35 +1200

It all seems so trite and mannered, with such overtones of the Übermensch, that I can't even imagine what it must have been like to be that 16 year old who loved it so dearly.

I had a similar experience when I watched Purple Rain on DVD recently.

Nobody Important

Wed, 25 Apr 2007 07:28:28 +1200

I read (thru surreptitious means) my mothers paperback copy of The Happy Hooker waaaay back in the 70's when I was waaaay too young to be reading such things, it kinda f#cked me up.

Who knew a girl could get off by humping the armrest on an armchair? Thankyou very…

81stcolumn

Wed, 25 Apr 2007 02:46:05 +1200

what's good about behaviourism though, is its intolerance of unfalsifiable theory,

Funny, given that in its earliest incarnations it was really just a model without a viable explanation.

which gives it a ton more credibility than most of the alternatives. and it also acknowledges the intimate connection between the organism…

81stcolumn

Wed, 25 Apr 2007 01:47:03 +1200

My grandfather was a Welsh miner, quite proud of the fact that he could read at all, and doubly proud of the fact that he could teach said skill to me. My earliest days were spent with 365 bedtime stories and Reed’s wonder tales of Maori land (sent to me…

merc

Tue, 24 Apr 2007 22:38:36 +1200

Where words are, fear is not.
One day Mr Riddley I suspect you will have your own publishing adventure, if you so choose. Me, I couldn't write a novel to save myself (well I could fudge one), something about extending the line, but many have, many and worthy.
Post number…

Riddley Walker

Tue, 24 Apr 2007 22:20:55 +1200

and in the end the words come back.
i'm not sure if that's a blessing or a curse.

Riddley Walker

Tue, 24 Apr 2007 22:03:07 +1200

sometimes it's nice to run out of words.
ralphie says it all.

merc

Tue, 24 Apr 2007 21:41:31 +1200

Everyone's a winner! Ralphie. Now I've run out of words...

Riddley Walker

Tue, 24 Apr 2007 21:14:57 +1200

well that's some serious achievement. a mountain worth climbing. and if you can have fun too then i think that's called 'collect the set and win'.

merc

Tue, 24 Apr 2007 19:28:20 +1200

Well it's a Ghost Train ride for sure, every cliche that could happen, happened, but it was brilliant fun and I met some fantastic people, some of whom are now dead. Merc was published in 2001, I completely over identified with the archetype (Mercurius, the trickster, the coyote, the daemon).…

Riddley Walker

Tue, 24 Apr 2007 18:58:30 +1200

that's not shameless. from the brief descriptions they both look like great books insofar as they seem thoughtful and intimate. i guess now they'll need a readin'. i have some admiration for people brave enough to publish.

merc

Tue, 24 Apr 2007 16:26:25 +1200

Link broken is http://www.authors.org.nz/ under Bookshop, shameless I am.

merc

Tue, 24 Apr 2007 16:24:08 +1200

Oh and, because you asked and Imago is the better one.

merc

Tue, 24 Apr 2007 16:20:36 +1200

Two titles, Imago and lMercurius(of course). Now I am bare.
As for behaviourism, yes I worked in advertising, yes I have had that chip removed and I promised...not to use the powers for evil.

Riddley Walker

Tue, 24 Apr 2007 16:12:30 +1200

thanks m, will dig about. it looks very interesting. they are naughty tricks.
but funny.

rob, you're right there – they're called Variable Ratio schedules and were massively researched and exploited precisely for the gambling biz. the interesting thing about the schedules is how inexorable their control over the subject's…

Rob Stowell

Tue, 24 Apr 2007 15:08:27 +1200

Behaviourism has its insights... the stuff about intermittant positive reinforcement producing a behaviour that's very hard to extinguish (I'm mangling the terms for sure) just so simply sums up gambling- and can help explain a lot of other risk-taking behaviours.

merc

Tue, 24 Apr 2007 15:03:17 +1200

Freud thought that Jung was going to go all Oedipal on his ass and kill him, Jung kind of played up to that to the point that Freud actually fainted after Jung said... Also, Jung knew Freud was playing round with his sister in law, so when Jung analysed one…

Riddley Walker

Tue, 24 Apr 2007 14:17:29 +1200

what's good about behaviourism though, is its intolerance of unfalsifiable theory, which gives it a ton more credibility than most of the alternatives. and it also acknowledges the intimate connection between the organism and its environment (in extremis that the organism is the environment, which coupled with the assertion that…

Rob Stowell

Tue, 24 Apr 2007 14:01:04 +1200

Very sharp Mr Riddley. I like it a lot.

Riddley Walker

Tue, 24 Apr 2007 13:56:12 +1200

one behaviourist meets another in the street and says:
"you're fine, how am I?"

Russell Brown

Tue, 24 Apr 2007 13:52:25 +1200

But then I've got a lot out of the little behaviourism I've managed to understand too! :-)

I'd say "a little behaviourism is a dangerous thing", but I'm not sure if I'd know what I meant ...

Riddley Walker

Tue, 24 Apr 2007 13:32:37 +1200

ooh ooh, what tricks? do tell.

available from... ...?

merc

Tue, 24 Apr 2007 12:43:14 +1200

I used to think that too, however on closer reading (and an essay for psyche 101) Mr Freud really had it going on too, and the little tricks that Jung used to play on the poor Mr Freud were trully evil (causing poor Freud to pass out twice).
My second…

Riddley Walker

Tue, 24 Apr 2007 12:20:37 +1200

yeah Jung on archetypes is really interesting, and i think his identification and characterization of archetypes has informed a lot of great artists (not least of which our own miraculous Len Lye), designers and propagandists.
i think Jung's broader ontology is bit bit too complex to pass judgement on…

Rob Stowell

Tue, 24 Apr 2007 09:56:51 +1200

I wouldn't write Jung off too quickly. He certainly goes well into the wacky (like a lot of folks whose "intuition" is dominant- he spent time building stone walls to compensate) but a lot of his thinking is insightful and resonates. (50:50?)
Just saw Pan's Labyrinth, which very much got…

merc

Tue, 24 Apr 2007 08:51:49 +1200

If only for the theory of introversion and extroversion, and to totally peeve Behaviourists and their pidgeons.

Russell Brown

Tue, 24 Apr 2007 08:37:20 +1200

I've quite dramatically drifted away from all that over the years; I'm now a heartless atheist and materialist, and think that Jung is pretty silly. I went back to try and read it again a few years ago and ended up being sullenly disappointed. It all seems so trite and…

merc

Mon, 23 Apr 2007 16:19:56 +1200

A Jungian might say that for a period of time Jung carried the Father, Wise Mother or Wise Old Man archetype (I dunno) for you, and quite reasonably you grew up and found you're own way.
Jungians call it individuation, BTW, Jung said..."I'm glad I'm Jung and not a (insert…

Andre Alessi

Mon, 23 Apr 2007 15:09:50 +1200

I had the good fortune to get an after school job working in the local library when I was at high school, so I read everything I could get my hands on.

The one book that changed how I viewed books was Demian by Hermann Hesse when I was 16.…

Jackie Clark

Sat, 21 Apr 2007 07:28:30 +1200

Thanks Allen (wherever you are) .....

that would be dead
But seriously, aren't books wondrous things? That we can share in other's worlds. You have to love that. A lot.

Deborah

Fri, 20 Apr 2007 18:36:12 +1200

There's an interesting obituary of Kurt Vonnegut in The Economist.

Riddley Walker

Tue, 17 Apr 2007 17:35:59 +1200

we're talking about von Ludendorff's Total Warfare here i guess, like so many thing's made that much more effective with industrialization. it wasn't always quite thus (not that former forms were all that marvellous, but they were less directed at civillians).

Paul Rowe

Tue, 17 Apr 2007 16:00:40 +1200

civillians suffered much more than anyone in uniform ever did

George MacDonald Fraser makes the point in his autobiography that he was a civilian too, as were all of the men that he served with in Burma.

Riddley Walker

Tue, 17 Apr 2007 16:00:04 +1200

amazing stuff dyan, thanks.

Russell Brown

Tue, 17 Apr 2007 15:45:42 +1200

I was at my lowest losing my mind and someone passed me a book called 'Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway' by Susan Jeffers.

My Mum got a lot out of that book (and an associated seminar, IIRC) at a really difficult time for her. That made me take…

Richard Llewellyn

Tue, 17 Apr 2007 15:32:37 +1200

"I was at my lowest losing my mind and someone passed me a book called 'Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway' by Susan Jeffers."

Actually – speaking of self-help books, and apologies to Susan Jeffers, but that reminds me the book that hands-down saved me the most money, and…

Ben Austin

Tue, 17 Apr 2007 14:55:34 +1200

I just got rid of a huge amount of books, in anticipation of a move, and wow, it is hard to do. Although some how I'd managed to accumulate a rather large collection of pulp/junk fiction.

dyan campbell

Tue, 17 Apr 2007 14:43:04 +1200

John Ralston Saul's book Voltaire's Bastards devotes several chapters to the development of wars into their present form, including the point in history where those who gave the commands ceased to put themselves anywhere near any battleground.
He also pinpoints the time when the idea that a man could be…

Mal Zone

Tue, 17 Apr 2007 13:42:47 +1200

I was at my lowest losing my mind and someone passed me a book called 'Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway' by Susan Jeffers.

It changed my life and gave me back the strength I had somehow mislaid.

Whenever I feel a bit weak or low on confidence I…

Joe Wylie

Tue, 17 Apr 2007 11:05:10 +1200

a spooky classic that's quite appropriate for adults- is Neil Gaiman's Coraline

Thanks, haven't read that one, but as I've really enjoyed all of Gaiman that I've read so far I'll give it a go.

Most convincing portrayal of an artist's life for me is Patrick White's The Vivisector. Nothing…

merc

Tue, 17 Apr 2007 10:24:22 +1200

In the good old days they sent the poor, who had to provide their own weapons (ploughshares anyone), own food, own pay (you'll get your reward in heaven boys!) and face off against rich bastardos with horses, armour and longer stabby things – plus everyone knows the rich are closer…

Rob Stowell

Tue, 17 Apr 2007 10:14:36 +1200

In the same vein as Mariane Dreams- a spooky classic that's quite appropriate for adults- is Neil Gaiman's Coraline. In Jungian analysis, houses represent heads/brains/the seat of conciousness, with attics, drawing-rooms and dungeons- and this house is quite haunted: the girl's parents are replaced by eery doll-parents with button eyes,…

andrew llewellyn

Tue, 17 Apr 2007 10:08:27 +1200

Why do they always send the poor?

Because there's plenty more where they came from. And it does them good.

Actually, the UK did send Prince Andy to the Falklands.

hamishm

Tue, 17 Apr 2007 10:04:47 +1200

Why do they always send the poor?

merc

Tue, 17 Apr 2007 09:18:15 +1200

There was a Pope who did that, they get a taste for it. Most wars (the rich one's) these days are about dropping private ordinance on public civilians in another country around election time, pretty refined really. A big ticket circus that's hard to break into, though the photo ops,…

andrew llewellyn

Tue, 17 Apr 2007 09:11:04 +1200

the people that decide to wage them are never the ones that pay the big costs./quote>
I've idly wondered now & then whatever happened to the good old tradition of leaders actually leading their troops into battle?
Might make for a boom in diplomacy.

Riddley Walker

Mon, 16 Apr 2007 22:53:57 +1200

thanks for your thoughtful reply dyan, i worried afterward that it might be taken as a criticism of your father, which it certainly wasn't – so i'm relieved you didn't take it that way.
you know, i think the thing that makes wars invariably really evil is that the people…

Sarah Nathan

Mon, 16 Apr 2007 22:22:54 +1200

Golly JLM – thanks! But I have just found an array of paperbacks – and 1 hardback even – on Amazon, so I don't bust a boiler on my account. Am about to head overseas so will be incommunicado for a couple of weeks, so don't feel slighted if I…

JLM

Mon, 16 Apr 2007 21:50:45 +1200

Sarah, I saw a new paperback copy of Marianne Dreams in the Dunedin UBS a few days ago for a few bucks. Would you like it?

Sarah Nathan

Mon, 16 Apr 2007 21:34:32 +1200

Wow Dyan and Riddley. Thanks for war stories – amazing to read.

I am late to the 'books that changed your life' topic but here goes – despite now advertising to all and sundry my distinctly low-brow tastes...

Pet Day – a junior reader at primary. Loved it. Wanted pet…

merc

Mon, 16 Apr 2007 09:53:50 +1200

This is perhaps apt,
http://www.vonnegutweb.com/vonnegutia/interviews/int_heller.html

dyan campbell

Sun, 15 Apr 2007 17:35:02 +1200

Riddley Walker writes:

"my dad was in a german labour camp when the thousand bomber raids went over. he reckoned the buildings shook so much they were all afraid they'd collapse.
what happended in Dreseden was disgraceful. Curtis Lee May and Bomber Harris should have been tried as war criminals"…

Riddley Walker

Sun, 15 Apr 2007 16:24:19 +1200

my dad was in a german labour camp when the thousand bomber raids went over. he reckoned the buildings shook so much they were all afraid they'd collapse.
what happended in Dreseden was disgraceful. Curtis Lee May and Bomber Harris should have been tried as war criminals.

merc

Sun, 15 Apr 2007 01:16:51 +1200

Dyan, really, you can post as long as you like, it is genuinely interesting, the real life stuff, the real stories (surfers call it talking story), your style...I'd really like to see those photos and read your Father's recollections. My Grandfather was posted to Fiji with the Air Force, but…

dyan campbell

Sat, 14 Apr 2007 21:40:28 +1200

Thank you Merc, Joe.

I liked the way Kurt Vonnegut made it clear how young most of the people involved in the war actually were – both my parents were only 17 when they joined the RCAF and were 21 and 20 when the war ended.

My husband's Father (who…

Malcolm

Sat, 14 Apr 2007 19:04:25 +1200

You know, I thought for a while it would be great if we could get a summary of this thread as a kind of geek / intellectual reading list.

But then I found my secret life being steadily exposed by other people's reading choices. Heinlein, The Stainless Steel Rat, The…

Che Tibby

Sat, 14 Apr 2007 12:39:22 +1200

The Algebraist got just plain boring

i battled through the first 150 pages... and read it out of sheer determination.

as i reviewed it (briefly) on object dart, much of it was a waste of pages.

merc

Sat, 14 Apr 2007 11:38:58 +1200

Thanks Sam F, yep that's the stuff, my Dad's Uncle was shot down twice, the second time in flames (red eyed caterpillar badge, rare). Apparently the tail gunners were young and small because to exit the bubble when in trouble you had to pivot backwards on full extension and drop…

Sam F

Sat, 14 Apr 2007 11:20:48 +1200

Damn it for no post editing, but Merc, I've just read a pretty good book on NZers in Bomber Command by Max Hastings, called Night after Night. Just came out in paperback.

Some hair-raising stuff in there. One pilot was pinned in his seat by G-forces in a crashing, spiralling…

Sam F

Sat, 14 Apr 2007 11:11:58 +1200

I bought Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle at Hard to Find Books in Onehunga yesterday. Which by the way is entirely worth the drive from the city: it's the kind of glorious rabbit warren I could spend a day in just browsing.

Boing Boing has a festival of Vonnegut linkage up, but…

Felix Marwick

Fri, 13 Apr 2007 21:10:09 +1200

Well in the world of weird opening lines in novels Peter F Hamilton has surely made a stellar contribution.

"Suzi crapped the Frankenstein cockroach into the toilet bowl, then pushed the chrome handle halfway down for a short flush."
THE NANOFLOWER.

Out of the 600+ books I own none have…

Kim Wright

Fri, 13 Apr 2007 19:39:33 +1200

Ismail Kadare – I'm reading a couple of his works at present. He's Albanian (apparently they have 29 letters in their alphabet and the few that I know are excellent linguists...) and his writing is connected to the 'Kanun' – the Albanian blood vendetta that has captured the Northern Albanians…

Joe Wylie

Fri, 13 Apr 2007 18:48:54 +1200

I know from his interviews he wasn't that keen on being alive anyway, but I'm sad to see him go just the same.

Seems like he went when he was ready to go. We should all be so fortunate. Great post Dyan, thank you.

the best first line ever, in…

merc

Fri, 13 Apr 2007 18:30:02 +1200

Dyan, that is a brilliant post, you can write. I have always been fascinated by Lancasters, especially the tail gunner, (the whole 9 yards, their ammo clip was 9 yards long and if they came back with an empty clip, they'd gone the whole 9 yards...) or so I was…

dyan campbell

Fri, 13 Apr 2007 18:22:58 +1200

I always enjoyed Kurt Vonnegut's writing -Slaughter House Five was relevant to me as my Dad was a navigator on a Lancaster during the war, and had bombed Dresden.

It really is a small world – our next door neighbour – Mr Alpatoff – had been on the ground in…

Deborah

Fri, 13 Apr 2007 15:46:25 +1200

I've never enjoyed Iain M Banks all that much – the Culture leaves me cold, and The Algebraist got just plain boring – but I am hooked on Iain Banks, ever since I read what has to be the best first line ever, in The Crow Road.

"It was the…

hamishm

Fri, 13 Apr 2007 14:04:35 +1200

That sounds like Farmer and I vaguely remember something about Ralph the GS.
Farmer was very popular when I was at University but seems to have faded away. He may have died which can be limiting for a writer. What was his Cowboy story featuring Satan who had a 50%…

Joe Wylie

Fri, 13 Apr 2007 09:04:00 +1200

Have you read Venus on the Halfshell by Kilgore Trout himself (not sure who really wrote it, but it wasn't Vonnegut)?

Yes Sir! Later editions were credited to Philip José Farmer.
Remember the quadruple amputee who achieved more with his remaining appendage than most manage with a full set of…

andrew llewellyn

Fri, 13 Apr 2007 08:45:21 +1200

Gah! He's gone! So sad.

andrew llewellyn

Fri, 13 Apr 2007 08:29:38 +1200

The story from one of Trouts books

Hah. Yes. The brilliant Kilgore Trout. I remeber the farting & tap dancing alien.

Have you read Venus on the Halfshell by Kilgore Trout himself (not sure who really wrote it, but it wasn't Vonnegut)?

hamishm

Fri, 13 Apr 2007 02:20:57 +1200

There's a bit in Foreskins lament where Foreskin tells someone why the new blokes are different (might even be F's catechism) and he says "We've been Vonnegutted". It was true for me, I can never see the phrase "Breakfast of Champions" without smiling.
The story from one of Trouts books,…

merc

Thu, 12 Apr 2007 22:06:12 +1200

It's OK, I'm just using The Second Attention to Stop The World.

Riddley Walker

Thu, 12 Apr 2007 21:27:54 +1200

why that is very reassuring mssr merc.

merc

Thu, 12 Apr 2007 20:10:17 +1200

Think of me as a spider's web my friend and you are the fly.

Riddley Walker

Thu, 12 Apr 2007 19:36:02 +1200

always with the Nagual.

merc

Thu, 12 Apr 2007 18:47:05 +1200

Colonel Kilgore no less in Apocalypse Now. As for Carlos, who cares the real or no, he really made me think and when you study shamanism anthropologically, some of his stuff stacks up, but the metaphysical stuff (always dangerous territory) is kind of interesting, especially concerning The Nagual.

Danyl Mclauchlan

Thu, 12 Apr 2007 18:41:41 +1200

Did someone mention Carlos Castenada?

Islander

Thu, 12 Apr 2007 18:25:16 +1200

So it goes...
some of the books that made a big impression on me in my teens & 20s,very much by then an experienced scifict/fan reader, were works by Kurt Vonnegut including 'Cat's Cradle' . I still look for Kilgore Trout references (they turn up as a kind of hommage in…

merc

Thu, 12 Apr 2007 18:13:24 +1200

Not poor taste, but what's this cessation thing?

Ben Austin

Thu, 12 Apr 2007 16:42:39 +1200

Phew. Because once the new Copyright Act is passed all created works dissolve on the cessation of the author.

Was that poor taste?

Scott Common

Thu, 12 Apr 2007 16:27:15 +1200

Kurt Vonnegut just died!

I only just found that out now and came here to post the same thing. Pretty sad, have a fair collection of his books at home – may have to go back and reread some of them...

Not so after Robert Anton Wilson too :-(

merc

Thu, 12 Apr 2007 16:15:31 +1200

Ben, you know, it's OK man, you can read 'em now still.

Riddley Walker

Thu, 12 Apr 2007 16:10:12 +1200

it's ok Ben, he wouldn't have minded

Ben Austin

Thu, 12 Apr 2007 15:50:21 +1200

I feel kind of bad now that I've only read a couple of his books.

Stephen Judd

Thu, 12 Apr 2007 15:19:21 +1200

Kurt Vonnegut just died!

merc

Thu, 12 Apr 2007 12:51:31 +1200

Cheers Ben, I get that and I agree, do you think there's some Plato in there?

Ben Austin

Thu, 12 Apr 2007 12:31:45 +1200

In Bank’s Culture a person can change their sex or species on a though, without the need for any external agent, so physiological differences are pretty much non-existent, or just an affectation. The pleasure seeking, individualist society that is the Culture seems also to trump all others that it meets…

Richard Llewellyn

Thu, 12 Apr 2007 11:47:47 +1200

On Iain Banks – I had the privilege of meeting him in a cozy Edinburgh pub once, and while the subsquent hour or two shed no light (at least to me) on his views on the universal nature of humankind, I can attest to the fact that he can put…

Chris Bell

Thu, 12 Apr 2007 11:43:42 +1200

merc wrote:

Ben, could you please clarify your point there, because I think it's a good one.
WRT Blade Runner, is this universal nature of humankind thing questioned or affirmed? And I guess we need to define Universal Nature of Humankind in this context, no?

I agree. Ben, please clarify;…

merc

Thu, 12 Apr 2007 10:41:49 +1200

I re-watched Blade Runner last night (D cut), the book was Do Robots Dream of Electric Sheep, I think (so as to be on thread).
Ben, could you please clarify your point there, because I think it's a good one.
WRT Blade Runner, is this universal nature of humankind thing…

Ben Austin

Thu, 12 Apr 2007 10:20:24 +1200

It is possible his books are merely a propoganda piece for those that believe the nature of humankind is universal

merc

Thu, 12 Apr 2007 10:02:46 +1200

I really, really love Iain Banks, but his female characters all strike me as men with breasts.

Especially in The Wasp Factory.

Stephen Judd

Thu, 12 Apr 2007 08:37:18 +1200

I really, really love Iain Banks, but his female characters all strike me as men with breasts.

I would vote for Consider Phlebas and The Crow Road as my favourite M and non-M Banks books. The whisky book needed a good editing and had far too much "gosh I'm rich!…

Scott Common

Thu, 12 Apr 2007 08:22:40 +1200

I will freely admit I'm a bit of a sci-fi junkie (in case you couldn't guess from my list). I've read a fair bit of Iain Banks (the straight fiction) and cut my teeth on The Wasp Factory (that was a bit of an eye opener!). In particular though, I…

Ben Austin

Wed, 11 Apr 2007 17:49:26 +1200

I am only familar with Bank's scifi (culture) work, although I have been meaning to read his whisky book.

Oddly enough I was given several of those as a gift via Amazon – they never turned up, or so I thought. So after 2-3 months I got the giver to…

Chris Bell

Wed, 11 Apr 2007 17:14:38 +1200

As less of an "aside of an aside" to this thread, if I'm not mistaken Scott and Sam and anyone else who has so far commented on Iain Banks has been praising only the "Menzies variant" (i.e. the sci-fi chunk) of the novelist's body of work. It's worth adding, I…

Chris Bell

Wed, 11 Apr 2007 13:18:54 +1200

Simon Grigg wrote:

As an aside, the first (and easily the best IMO) Split Enz album, Mental Notes, opened with the line "stranger than fiction / larger than life / full of shades and echoes" lifted verbatim from the Penguin back cover of Gormengast. The album also had the track…

Simon Grigg

Wed, 11 Apr 2007 12:23:38 +1200

Gormengast is terrific

As an aside, the first (and easily the best IMO) Split Enz album, Mental Notes, opened with the line "stranger than fiction / larger than life / full of shades and echoes" lifted verbatim from the Penguin back cover of Gormengast. The album also had the track…

Ben Austin

Wed, 11 Apr 2007 11:11:53 +1200

Oh dear lord! another sven hassel reader! Although I'm impressed your high school had them, that is kind of crazy.

Sam F

Wed, 11 Apr 2007 10:49:16 +1200

In terms of favourite authors right now Banks, Nigel Cox, and Terry Pratchett would be right up near the top. But in terms of those special moments:

– Footrot Flats. Read these constantly as a little kid. Cue endless Murray Ball-ripoff title pages in primary school exercise books.

– Goosebumps…

Rob Stowell

Tue, 10 Apr 2007 17:05:27 +1200

Amen to the mention of Peake. Maybe it _is_ best left lingering in the back of the head, but Gormengast is terrific. Dense and macabre- and the final book a bit of a let down in some ways- but dark and powerful. And Peake's other writing includes some very whimsical…

Richard Llewellyn

Tue, 10 Apr 2007 14:05:39 +1200

Simon, I completely agree, its just that Wikipedia and Google are just so darn, well, handy ....

As a kid I soaked up some the more esoteric sources of information such as The Peoples Almanac, and the Book of Lists. Heck, even the Guinness Book of Records was devoured from…

Simon Grigg

Tue, 10 Apr 2007 13:20:29 +1200

the internet and short attention spans may – temporarily, at least – have killed it.

and the age of Encarta complete with it's brief, and often to the wrong point, articles, has gone along way towards killing the Encyclopedia sadly. When I was seven my parents bought me a ten…

Chris Bell

Tue, 10 Apr 2007 11:38:40 +1200

Simon Grigg wrote:

Mervin Peake....not only the Gormenghast trilogy but Mr Pye and his wonderful children's work. His flights of, sometimes, medieval merged with gothic fantasy enthralled me for years. I remember the three pages he took in Titus Groan to describe two steps taken on a staircase by Steerpike.…

Simon Grigg

Tue, 10 Apr 2007 11:20:42 +1200

Joyce Johnson's Minor Characters

That was quite a book for me too when I found it after a vaguely romanticizing Beat period...I read it several times and remember it as rather sad.

Mervin Peake....not only the Gormenghast trilogy but Mr Pye and his wonderful children's work. His flights of, sometimes,…

Scott Common

Tue, 10 Apr 2007 10:56:03 +1200

Another one that I haven't seen mentioned yet, but that I loved, Perfume, by Suskund.
Terrific book – I hear a movie version is coming, how do you visually represent the sense of smell in all its glory?

I lent that to my mother (who works as a high selling…

Scott Common

Tue, 10 Apr 2007 10:53:06 +1200

Well I'm coming to this discussion very late indeed – but it's good to see a number of my favorite authors and books mentioned already (comes as no surprised :-).

The Hobbit was the book that started me reading, my mother read it too me at age 5 and straight…

Richard Llewellyn

Mon, 09 Apr 2007 19:02:05 +1200

Another one that I haven't seen mentioned yet, but that I loved, Perfume, by Suskund.

Terrific book – I hear a movie version is coming, how do you visually represent the sense of smell in all its glory?

Paul Williams

Sat, 07 Apr 2007 19:23:52 +1200

...There is no poetry of the EMO kind, I will not let that meme stick...

Well said Merc.

A fantastic book, and one that tuned me into thinking about what an anarchic society might look like, and the extent to which we might replace external institutions of control with internal…

Felix Marwick

Sat, 07 Apr 2007 19:09:14 +1200

If you are into WW1 literature I'd recommend a novel called "Her Privates We". It's author was anonymous and only went by a serial number of his dog tags.

Very well written and quite chilling in places

merc

Sat, 07 Apr 2007 17:48:02 +1200

Oh goodness, I forgot Grave's, White Goddess, very hard read but rewarding, especially the Druidic tree alphabet and early Celtic poetry references, and The White Goddess herself in all her glory.

merc

Sat, 07 Apr 2007 17:40:16 +1200

Speaking of Graves, his autoboigraphy, Goodbye To All That, was an interesting account of WW1 trench warfare. Graves was also a poet, but not of the ilk of Wilfred Owen, a poet who died in the trences but beforehand wrote some amazing poetry.
How many amazing minds were lost to…

Felix Marwick

Sat, 07 Apr 2007 15:52:00 +1200

I wouldn't say these books are life changing but to me they'r a bit like old friends that I visit on regular occasions.
Julian – Gore Vidal
I Claudius & Claudius The God – Robert Graves.

And when I feel like something a little twisted there's always Colin Wilson's A Criminal…

Deborah

Sat, 07 Apr 2007 14:31:26 +1200

Late to the party but I'd add Le Guin's (mentioned earlier in the thread) The Dispossessed

A fantastic book, and one that tuned me into thinking about what an anarchic society might look like, and the extent to which we might replace external institutions of control with internal social mechanisms…

merc

Sat, 07 Apr 2007 12:42:33 +1200

There is no poetry of the EMO kind, I will not let that meme stick, I think poetry of that kind is a mood tinged poetry, described as poesy, or better still, duende.
Smiths Dream the movie, I enjoyed very much, perhaps it was when Smith started to feel, that…

Paul Williams

Sat, 07 Apr 2007 11:39:25 +1200

With a couple of friends I used to smoke with at the Wailing Bongo
The Wailing Bongo! OMG! Did you ever call it the Wailing Bong? I did.
OK, back to the books.

That'd be the Wailing Bong and Transcendental Meditation Centre thanks very much...

Late to the party but…

Richard Llewellyn

Thu, 05 Apr 2007 18:51:32 +1200

"Noel Holmes' Trek Out of Trouble, about the 1960 All Black tour to South Africa is the best sports book I've ever read."

Ooh, thanks for the recommendation – our Dad gathered the most amazing collection of NZ sports books (mainly rugby and cricket) from the 60's and 70's, all…

Riddley Walker

Thu, 05 Apr 2007 18:34:05 +1200

Ralphie's some thing in us it dont have no name...it aint us but yet its in us. Its looking out thru our eye hoals

merc

Thu, 05 Apr 2007 16:09:11 +1200

Look Stephen, we don't want a visit from Captain Riddley, now do we?
Ralphie is my favourite, "Everyone's a winner!"

Stephen Judd

Thu, 05 Apr 2007 16:06:11 +1200

Really? I mean, the very word Kiwiana is redolent of Kiwiana. What other word could you use?

/chants in Bart voice

Kiwiana! Kiwiana! Kiwiana! Kiwiana! Kiwiana!

merc

Thu, 05 Apr 2007 15:58:46 +1200

Kiwiana...shudders like Lisa Simpson, oh how I hate that world, nothing personal Stephen.

Stephen Judd

Thu, 05 Apr 2007 15:51:08 +1200

I'll tell you what else Noel Holmes wrote – "Just Cooking, Thanks". An anecdotal, idiosyncratic seafood cookbook with illustrations by Lonsdale. I read it in formative years, in fact I've nicked my Dad's copy, and while I rarely make anything out of it any more, it taught me an awful…

Chris Bell

Thu, 05 Apr 2007 15:30:38 +1200

I think it's pertinent that you cite Huckleberry Finn, Rob, since Riddley is often mentioned in the same breath.

I do intend to give Vernon God Little a try. But oh, for more time to read... I've just about finished Part One of Don Quixote and hope to conquer the…

Rob Stowell

Thu, 05 Apr 2007 15:02:19 +1200

Chris, I think in part Riddley Walker (the book!)'s initial opacity may have to do with the written word- your description of hearing a passage read makes me wonder if much of that initial alienation is just about spelling (never really liked clockwork orange, either- tho' I loved "How to…

Chris Bell

Thu, 05 Apr 2007 14:35:25 +1200

Stephen Judd wrote:

although I enjoyed Riddley Walker, I spent so much time trying to figure out all the allusions that I started treating it less as a story and more as a puzzle. I couldn't engage with it or suspend disbelief.

I can see how that might happen, Stephen.…

Russell Brown

Thu, 05 Apr 2007 11:15:45 +1200

And on the 'difficult to do well non-fiction' front, some of the best sports books I've read ....

Noel Holmes' Trek Out of Trouble, about the 1960 All Black tour to South Africa is the best sports book I've ever read.

When I interviewed Warwick Roger and Ron Palenski about…

Stephen Judd

Thu, 05 Apr 2007 10:28:37 +1200

As I wrote to another PA reader earlier in the week, although I enjoyed Riddley Walker, I spent so much time trying to figure out all the allusions that I started treating it less as a story and more as a puzzle. I couldn't engage with it or suspend disbelief.

Chris Bell

Thu, 05 Apr 2007 10:17:34 +1200

Rob Stowell wrote:

Chris- yeah, they are all good books Pilgermann, or Kleinzeit, or The Lion of Boaz-Jachin and Jachin-Boaz – and Riddley Walker is a classic... but not, for me, a loved one.

I agree of course, Rob, that it's a matter of taste. Also, that there seems to…

Ben Austin

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 11:14:36 +1200

Strangely enough Graeme it is the only Biggles book I've actually read, as it was the only one I could find in my father's library (growing up in the same house he did had benefits for books).

If I remember I'll have a look for it at their house when…

Graeme Edgeler

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 10:42:36 +1200

Ben:

If you lose all that then the story is really just Biggles Goes to School. Not that the latter isn't a fine story in it's own right.

Man, I've never been able to find Biggles Goes to School. I've Some rare ones (including some of the ones with racist…

Lyndon Hood

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 10:09:21 +1200

"My Tao – Tao Te ching of Lao Tse" – my mother gave me a copy, translated by Peter Land, and illustrated by Allan Gale. Closest I get to religion ('Candide' aside); no drugs invovled.

Riddley Walker

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 10:00:38 +1200

I keep wanting to say yes! Me too!

yes me too me too.

i have also enjoyed and been changed somehow by lots of

1. 'crap' books because they can still be quite illustrative – i mean Mills and Boon (1 or 2 should be enough)can actually be really interesting…

hamishm

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 09:56:05 +1200

Fever pitch is good, I love the bit with the marzipan mice that turn into a pre-match ritual.
Incidentally Salman Rushdie wrote a great essay about being a fan in a book called Crossing the Line, sadly it was of Tottenham but there you go.
Which reminds me that the…

Beatrix

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 09:52:15 +1200

Hmmm...

Carrie Fisher. I love Carrie Fisher. To the point that when I joined an all-women book group without realizing just what that meant, I told them all she was my favourite author. Cue: scorn. Postcards from the Edge is great.

Also: Anna Karenina, The Wasp Factory, Franny and Zooey...…

Rob Stowell

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 09:51:51 +1200

Books on drugs: The Whole Earth Catalogue: an invaluable resource. There's lots more in it, but not as interesting to a late 70s adolescent.

Richard Llewellyn

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 09:29:52 +1200

And on the 'difficult to do well non-fiction' front, some of the best sports books I've read ....

Mud in your Eye – Chris Laidlaw, written at a time when All Blacks spoke, if at all, in monosyllabic terms, here was a book that opened the lid on rugby in…

Robyn Gallagher

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 08:46:41 +1200

With a couple of friends I used to smoke with at the Wailing Bongo

The Wailing Bongo! OMG! Did you ever call it the Wailing Bong? I did.

OK, back to the books.

andrew llewellyn

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 08:43:41 +1200

Anything by Kurt Vonnegut, but I might state a preference for Mother Night, which is the serious version of the events recounted in Slaughterhouse 5 (minus the porn star & the aliens).

And if you kiwis haven't yet read William Brandt's The Book of the Film of the Story of my…

merc

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 08:11:10 +1200

And in that anthology Curnow and the Baxter and Tuwhare held up well against Tennyson and Browning...

Hell yeah. But for love, Pablo Neruda, 20 Poems Of Love,

I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her. My voice tried to find the wind to touch her…

Tony Kennedy

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 22:58:18 +1200

night night Don, its way past your bedtime so no bedtime stories for you ;-)

Don Christie

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 22:45:41 +1200

The image that popped into my mind was TK sandwiched between FS bosoms.

Oh, is that the time...

Tony Kennedy

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 22:32:50 +1200

Other than that revisionist Camus, I never "got" the existentialists, thank God

when it came to existentialism the Fat Slags were more my thing Don, god never had a look in.

Don Christie

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 22:20:13 +1200

Beano is Best, Tony.

The problem is, Deborah, a lot of books have carved a notch on the bedposts of my easily-led mind, and I keep wanting to say yes!

Yes. I think I spent far too long in the previously mentioned Adrian Mole phase of life. Lasted well into…

Tony Kennedy

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 21:58:53 +1200

We have had the novels and the poetry, I would like to raise a glass to the humble comic ...from "The Dandy" (Desperate Dan started me off on a life long love affair with the meat pie) to "Viz", from the "Tiger", where Roy Race of the Rovers proved definitively…

Danyl Mclauchlan

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 20:43:17 +1200

More books and drugs and books on drugs.

One thing that bugs me are books about drugs that contain dramatic descriptions of their effects ('take your best orgasm and multiply it by a million . . .') that prompt me to protest 'but it's nothing like that!'

A lot of…

Stephen Judd

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 20:38:18 +1200

And on the poetry front: when I was in my second year at university, on impulse I bought an anthology of poetry in English that had been remaindered from some course the year before. With a couple of friends I used to smoke with at the Wailing Bongo we formed…

Stephen Judd

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 20:34:48 +1200

The problem is, Deborah, a lot of books have carved a notch on the bedposts of my easily-led mind, and I keep wanting to say yes! Me too! Uncle and the Moomins! Hoban! and so on. And a whole lot of "me too" would be too much.

But returning to…

Che Tibby

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 19:17:56 +1200

Books and drugs ...

well, if you're going to do that.

Jean Paul Satre, Nausea. Blew my mind.

the aforementioned Zen and the Art of Motorcyle Maintenance. Made me realise that the pursuit of knowledge is like, a never-ending journey, man.

A Thousand Plateus. I could only read small glimpses…

Russell Brown

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 19:09:52 +1200

Books and drugs ...

Aldous Huxley's The Doors of Perception, for obvious reasons.

D.T. Suzuki's Introduction to Zen Buddhism: For a while, I always had it in my ex-army gasmask bag when I was tripping in London. I never got past the first few pages, but it felt nice having…

Deborah

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 19:08:29 +1200

It's supposed to be about you, Stephen.

Did you read a special book at a special time?

See?

Stephen Judd

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 18:50:29 +1200

Oh boy. I want to keep wading in but then it would be all about me. I admire your collective taste, folks.

Robyn Gallagher

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 18:49:49 +1200

Speaking of Lolita:

Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.

This is, I reckon, the most pleasurable opening paragraph…

Neil Morrison

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 18:35:20 +1200

After Robyn's post, just treat the following as somehow being, well, ironic.

Virginia Woolf is one of those superstars of literature that leaves me cold.

She's not someone I'd read again but To the Lighthouse has nostalgia value.

Similarly with Simone de Beauvoir although I achieved a long standing personal…

Che Tibby

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 18:33:14 +1200

joining this conversation realllllly late, but it's good to see most of my old favourites while skimming posts.

i think the book that really adjusted my mindset was james lovelock's ages of gaia(?). someone knicked my copy a few years ago, but it fundamentally changed the way i related to…

Robyn Gallagher

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 18:22:02 +1200

You know, there are really two books that have defined my life.

When I was five, my favourite book was "The Outsider" by Albert Camus. My mum used to read it to me before bed.

Once I was staying with my gran and she had to ring mum to find…

Robyn Gallagher

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 18:10:47 +1200

Before anyone finalises judgment on Allanis Morisette

Hating on Alanis is sooo '90s, anyway.

Joe Wylie

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 18:08:10 +1200

"I got a 59 Chevy with a 387 and a Hirst on the floor..." (Bruce Springsteen)

Hirst?
Hurst.
http://www.hurst-shifters.com/

Memorable kidlit: Anything Tove Jansson.
Moomins. Hattifatteners. Hemulins. The Mymble. The Groke. Salome the Little Creep. The meerschaum tram.
Wonderful stuff.

Neil Morrison

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 17:59:28 +1200

Who would have thought. But it does figure, don't ya think?

Lyndon Hood

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 17:36:32 +1200

Before anyone finalises judgment on Allanis Morisette, why not watch the video of her cover of "My Humps"?

Seriously.

Rob Stowell

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 17:28:51 +1200

Chris- yeah, they are all good books Pilgermann, or Kleinzeit, or The Lion of Boaz-Jachin and Jachin-Boaz – and Riddley Walker is a classic... but not, for me, a loved one. (My wife and her mum would both disagree.)
It is a matter of taste of course :-)
I'd also…

andrew llewellyn

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 17:08:36 +1200

"Ah redeemed by Dog."

Merc, I really want to ask "What if Dog was one of us"

But I want us to remain friends.

andrew llewellyn

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 16:36:45 +1200

"Hey, that was the name of my first dog too! :)"

Utterly fantastic coincidence! I suppose your sister had a horse called Byron at some stage too?

Chris Bell

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 16:18:27 +1200

Rob Stowell wrote:

[Hoban's] children's books are near perfect. The Francis books and "How Tom beat Captain Najork and his Hired Sportsmen" are classics.

Of course I agree, in light of which am almost inclined to let the following slide:

I'm not such a fan of Russell Hoban's adult novels…

merc

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 16:11:53 +1200

Dude, it's all about the car..."I got a 59 Chevy with a 387 and a Hirst on the floor..." (Bruce Springsteen). Now I must away,
Enough or Too Much!
William Blake (The Master)

Riddley Walker

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 16:06:24 +1200

yeah but this is true.
liike most young poets i lost interest i guess, i think i liked the Valiant better. we were only 5. nothing a good THRASHING wouldnt fix though i'm sure

merc

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 16:02:49 +1200

Master Riddley you are a poet, hint, everyone knew a girl up the road called (insert girl name here) and a father with a (insert muscle car here).
Anyhow, like any brave young poet would, what did you do about it?

Riddley Walker

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 15:58:29 +1200

i knew a girl up the road called Shelley when i was in primary school, her dad drove a really cool bronze Valiant

Russell Brown

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 15:58:06 +1200

Stranger in a Strange Land certainly had an impact on me: as I explained in the post last year about my grandfather, he gave the book, and it was a real trip.

But I probably got more out of The Moon is a Harsh Mistress --- TANSTAAFL was a pretty…

merc

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 15:56:56 +1200

Spooky man,
I put my monkey on the log
in order that he do the dog
he wagged his tail and shook his head
and did the cat instead
he's a weird monkey
wants my money, calls me honey.
Bob Dylan, All This And WW3
I'm not a big Bob…

Richard Llewellyn

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 15:54:17 +1200

Hey, that was the name of my first dog too! :)

merc

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 15:52:43 +1200

Ah redeemed by Dog.