The prolific sci-fi author of such greats as Stranger in a Strange Land, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Have Space Suit, Will Travel, and many other classics also had a form letter. -Ed Scripsi
Phoned in Phriday. Robert A. Heinlein’s bizarre form fan response letter
Craig Johnson in the bathtub
Norm’s probably right about the reading devices, but in mentioning bathtubs he failed to touch on the $400 problem you will run into if you take your Kindle or iPhone for a good read while you’re having a good soak and drop your reading device into the steamy suds. It was bad enough dropping a $12.95 paperback, but your phone! With its directory! And all that music!
But who has a good soak anymore? Someone should drive out to McMason to count just how often those spa tubs in the luxomasterbaths ever actually get used, with or without the floating votives shown in the sales brochures. The truth is that the huge tubs get filled for a trial soak or possibly the exercise of conjugal rights once in the first week of ownership and then it’s back to the shower for everyone.
Currently on the Nemokindle: the latest Craig Johnson, Another Man’s Mocassins. I’ve read all the Johnson shelf and like it a lot. I’m not sure why. It’s about a Wyoming sheriff in a vast, nearly empty county and couldn’t possibly be less like life in emptying but still pretty busy Hamilton County, O. I am a big admirer of Henry, Sheriff Walt Longmire’s lifelong Cheyenne pal. Johnson sails awfully close to the P.C. wind, but never capsizes the way Robert B. Parker invariably does within minutes. I suppose it’s boomer escape, but I say it’s high-class boomer escape, and I recommend it.
-Nemo Wolfe
More fun with (online) Short Stories
For anybody whose short story peregrinations have included surfing the net, StorySouth.com has a nice portal for online short stories, not to mention publications. Sometimes it’s better to just print stuff out. -Ed Scripsi
Animal Farm
VS 
What Norm forgot to tell you was that there are two nice new Orwell books on the non-fiction shelf here. Not new to Orwell, of course, but to the collection. Awful as things seem to be what with the industrial world collapsing into itself, you have to be a little encouraged if publishers are reprinting George Orwell in nice editions.
Now about those Orwell eggs. Norm’s embedded eggs in the previous post are not exactly what George would have brought back from the henhouse. They’ve been buffed and shined. I know a bit about this because I was for several years a buffer and shiner of eggs at a poultry farm. Please. No squawks from the PETA people. This was a farm where the chickens – each one stupider than the next – were free to walk about and peck each other in order, which they did. They also freely crapped on their eggs, which is why it was necessary to employ high-school lads to feed the nasty streaky poultry farm product into an egg washing gizmo and, occasionally, to take a bit of sandpaper to the persistent spots. Sometime I’ll tell you about shipping off the less productive hens to Campbells.
-Nemo Wolfe
George Orwell’s Eggs
Exactly 70 years ago last week, George Orwell was very, very concerned about how many eggs his hens were laying (scroll down to see the entries from last week). And for good reason. That’s less then an omelet a day.
Seriously, though, if anyone out there is planning on becoming famous, future generations will find you much more interesting if you keep your egg diary separate from your regular diary.
I do think the concept behind the Orwell Diaries- publishing George Orwell’s diaries on the internet 70 years to the day after he wrote them- is great, and I’ll keep checking in periodically. I’m just looking forward to the day when George comes to terms with the fact that his chickens are lazy.
-Norm De Plume
From three-peat to dynasty
Congratulations to the main branch of the Public Library of Cincinnati & Hamilton County, which was recently found to be the busiest library in the country for the fourth consecutive year.
As a former page/shelver there, I do remember it getting pretty hectic sometimes, especially whenever Scripsi and I tried to wage one of our epic chess dust ups in the stacks.
-Norm De Plume
The Hall Collection at the Carnegie
The Non-Blogger and I went over to Covington yesterday to see the Mercantile Library’s piece of the “The Art of the Word” exhibit before it closed, which, by the time you read this, it probably will have since it was to run through the 26th. The Carnegie had borrowed one of our favorite pieces, a turn of the twentieth century bookcase with glass doors and a bit of Art Nouveau decoration, and curator Bill Seitz had set up twenty or so of the Library’s Hall Collection books so that you could see the full front through the glass doors. Crikey, they were great. There are, frankly, no bad Hall Collection covers. They’re all wonderful, although some are even more wonderful than others. But all, and I mean absolutely all of them are way way better than any of the color drenched, embossed, overwrought covers we strip from our new arrivals and turn into Library art. Virginius Hall, who gave the collection to the Library, has to avert his eyes when he goes past our new arrival display with its collection of maimed dust jackets, but maiming is too good for most of them. The old ways are always the best ways.
-Nemo Wolfe
“A valuable substitute for vegetables”
It’s Friday. Here’s a truly fantastic article to read while you enjoy a post-work week beer or two.
-Norm De Plume
Vanderbilt Strikes Again
Ambiguous headline of the day:IF DETROIT FALLS, FOREIGN MAKERS COULD BE BUFFER. Buffer than Ahnauld? Tom Vanderbilt, author of Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (And What it Says about Us) In this week’s NY Times Review of Books reviews another interesting book on the subject (wait, isn’t his review of a competitor’s book potentially a conflict of interest? I’m just saying.): Autophobia: Love and Hate in the Automotive Age by Brian Ladd (University of Chicago Press). Kurt Vonnegut once described gasoline as more addictive than cigarettes, and he wasn’t talking about global economics–a steering wheel in the hands of a sixteen year old is like heroin. Having only recently gotten my driver’s license, I can relate. -Ed Scripsi
Joel Levinson: Professional Contest Winner
I had a mild case of blogger’s block today, so I’ve decided to post a non-book related link to a New York Times article about my friend Joel, who is really making a name for himself in his chosen field: contestant. Please read and discuss.
A year or two ago he entered a contest put on by a major smoothie concern, and was traveling the country dressed as a giant smoothie (which, oddly, was part of the prize for winning). He made a very brief stop in the Cincinnati area, so I drove out past 275 to say hello. I just missed him, but the day wasn’t a total wash because I got to have the following conversation with a smoothie franchise employee:
Norm: Say, did you see a guy walking around here dressed like a giant smoothie?
Employee: (shrugs) I don’t know.
I’m still not sure whether he didn’t know if he’d seen a guy walking around dressed like a giant smoothie, or whether he didn’t know if the guy he’d seen walking around was dressed like a smoothie or maybe some other giant chilled drink, like, say, a milkshake.
-Norm De Plume
