Monthly Archives: January 2025

Mail Call

Posted on January 27, 2025 by JE

Looking forward to (re)reading the vintage paperbacks. The history book is more for figuring out how teaching will work in the future, now that everything old is new again. I already have a copy of Van Vogt’s The Book of … Continue reading →

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Don’t Myth Out

Posted on January 25, 2025 by JE

I’ve been looking forward to John Wiswell‘s Wearing the Lion since I heard about it, and even more so now that I’ve seen more work by the illustrator, Tyler Miles Lockett. Bold, colorful, imaginative stuff.

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Longish, Re Dilvish

Posted on January 23, 2025 by JE

Roger Zelazny was unquestionably one of the great American fantasists of the 20th century. That’s not to say he was perfect. His woman characters were often 2-dimensional, and he paired an unwillingness to work with an outline (“Trust your demon” … Continue reading →

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AI Without the I

Posted on January 15, 2025 by JE

Seen on Bluesky. I’m guessing that “until it gets a bit better at this AI thing” ≈ forever

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Horrible Old Music-Man

Posted on January 13, 2025 by JE

I’m not 100% crazy about Richard Strauss’ music, except for “Death and Transfiguration”, which I love. But I can never listen to it now without remembering the remark about Strauss attributed to  Hans Knappertsbusch: “I knew him very well. We … Continue reading →

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Horrible Old Men

Posted on January 13, 2025 by JE

I used to hold the unproven and unprovable belief that old age magnifies moral qualities, so that past a certain point you become more and more evil as you age, or the opposite. I’m not noticing any haloes when I … Continue reading →

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The Message

Posted on January 11, 2025 by JE

Remembered belatedly that I have a Medium account. I have to say, I’m making quite a splash over there. I may be more than Medium. Possibly Extra Large.

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Canticle or CANicle?

Posted on January 11, 2025 by JE

As a kid, I was very creeped out by this Bantam cover of Miller’s A Canticle for Leibowitz when I found it on my parents’ bookshelf. I was already reading sf, but somehow that didn’t seem to apply to this … Continue reading →

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More Like Un-ergy

Posted on January 11, 2025 by JE

“To assert dignity is to lose it.” Nero Wolfe in Stout’s The League of Frightened Men. One might say the same thing about “masculine energy”.

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Garum + Chili = ?

Posted on January 11, 2025 by JE

I was trying to figure out why you couldn’t say this in Latin, then thought, “Well, it could only improve garum”, and finally realized: oh, they mean cocina latina. Some of these keywords for Bluesky feeds are deeply ambiguous. (“Conan” … Continue reading →

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