elstaffe > Recent Status Updates

"'It became clear from that gathering that the Navajo knew just about everything about the virus and all we really added was a name,' [Ron] Voorhees told me. (122)

"'But the thing is, she isn't educated or cultured at all, and her interests are very superficial. I swear, if you talked to her for an hour you'd be bored to tears. Like I always say, give me a woman with large breasts and a big brain, and I'll be happy as a clam.'" (19)

"'I like you,' said Dreameye [the prairie dog].
... 'Will you be my companions?'
'That depends,' replied the Kids. 'Are your ancestors in the Zodiac?'
'No,' said Dreameye. 'I think,' he added, with some hesitation, 'most of them are in Snakes and Owls, and perhaps there are a few in Wolves and Foxes.'" (100-101)

"'Be what may,' was Blind Mole's
answer, 'I shall mole for myself.'
'Mole ahead, Old Stupid!', said Fawn, as she entered the wood and lay down in the shade." (76) I love this 1903 example of writers verbing nouns

"Stress is the physiological and neurological process that helps you deal with threats. Love is the physiological and neurological process that draws you to your tribe." (110) tell me you're a white woman of a certain age and social strata without telling me you're a white woman of a certain age and social strata

"But the hymen doesn't break and stay broken forever, like some kind of freshness seal. If a hymen tears or bruises, it heals." (27) the freshness seal imagery gives a whole new meaning to the mislaidenhead/wandering hymen in a certain romance novel era

"Visitors tend to stay away from the beach when the cold, wet wind comes roaring in from the Pacific Ocean." (146)
"His face was as wrinkled as a boiled handkerchief, he had no hair to speak of, and sometimes I wondered how he had the strength to ride that bike of his in the teeth of a nor'easter." (147) ah yes, those famous Pacific Ocean nor'easters

"The idea endures that country music is based on wholesome values, but studies are finding otherwise. Country and rap lyrics, once you peel away the cultural differences, have generally similar violent through-lines. (What's more, country music actually makes more references to drugs than any other major musical genre, while rap makes the fewest.)" (23) I wish these studies were in the endnotes for my own nerdiness

"That was when I learned from Lizzie that you don't comment on how many guns a person has. You don't ask how many guns they've bought. You don't ask how many guns they've sold. 'It's like asking how much money you make, or how many times a week you have sex with your wife,' Lizzie said. 'You just don't do it.'" (17)

"I brought up the idea that country music is just as bad as rap music in its characterization of violence. That it was just as bad as hip-hop in its depiction of women as objects, and to act as if that statement wasn't true was the sort of exercise in arrogance that black people weren't allowed." (22)

"With rough, careless movements, the woman picked up a wooden spoon and a couple of mugs and inspected them, then walked out of the shop." (236) hundred percent read this as the woman just walking off without paying and it took me till halfway through the next page to realize she was supposed to have put the stuff back down. C'mon translator.

"'I've never been. Is it really that good?'

'I'm fairly sure they use only proper butter, not margarine. My gosh, you can taste the difference!'" (117) shoutout to Butter

"The curved glass front of the hotel focused sunlight and burned the skin of hotel guests lounging by the pool.
Can we reasonably expect the architect of 20 Fenchurch Street to have known about a hotel out in Las Vegas? Well, the Vdara Hotel was also designed by Rafael Viñoly, so we could probably expect some information flow between the two projects." (280)

"There was an easy enough fix, though: a sunshade was attached to the building to block the sun's rays before they could focus on anyone else's lemon. And it's not as if this freak alignment of reflective surfaces could have been predicted in advance. It had never happened to a building before. At least, not since the same thing happened at the Vdara Hotel in Las Vegas in 2010." (280)

"The exterior of the building was designed by architect Rafael Viñoly to have a sweeping curve, but this meant that all the reflective glass windows accidentally became a massive concave mirror—a kind of giant lens in the sky able to focus sunlight on a tiny area." (281) whoops

"The building at 20 Fenchurch Street in London was nearing completion in 2013 when a major design flaw became apparent. It had nothing to do with the structural integrity of the building; it was completed in 2014 and is a perfectly functioning building to this day, ... By all measures, it's a successful building. Except, during the summer of 2013, it started setting things on fire." (281)

"Several stories in Humble Pi involve a computer system that counts backward, then crashes when it hits zero and 'rolls over.' There also are several math mistakes from the stories in the book that have been deliberately incorporated into the book itself. This is why the page numbers are in reverse order. Please don't take it back for a refund." (315)

"Dedicated to my relentlessly supportive wife, Lucie.
Yes, I appreciate that dedicating a book about mistakes to your wife is itself a bit of a mistake." (317)

"bioluminescence-The light produced and given off by living organisms, such as fireflies and jellyfish." (74) why is this in the glossary for this book? This is the only time it has come up (well, and in the index, which points to this page). I guess careless editor leaving in the glossary template from a previous book?

"Figuring that was enough bears, the department decided to bring the numbers down by encouraging more people to hunt bears for more days of the year. The plan of New Hampshire's bureaucrats was to stabilize the number at 5,100.
But the plan of New Hampshire's bears was slightly different: to make a
thousand more bears.
The bears prevailed. Between 2006 and 2013, their ranks increased by
another 1,140 animals." (142)

"The blood came up under Elliot's eyes." (155) the number of times that description had been used in this book makes me wonder if it's just describing flushed cheeks or if I'm missing something

"'You see, I'd been wondering: I-you know-I slept with Bentley last night, without—you know-using precautions.'
Even in that gloom, her face was pink. She gulped out the words.
'So that,' grated Andy, 'that was why he was so full of beans this morning.'
'Andy!' said Tess, shocked." (114) published 1940

"Soon after moving to town in 2008, Ploszaj (it's pronounced rarely) decided to hike a trail from Hardy Hill Road to the Pinnacle, a high peak that overlooks the valley in which Grafton is situated. Ploszaj (really, it's pronounced 'PLO-zhay')" (53) big talk from a man with the last name Hongoltz-Hetling

"Like many Free Towners, Babiarz implied that it was grossly unfair for people to judge the Free Town Project by the views expressed on the Free Town Project website." (38)

"But in fact, I was to learn, the town's longtime Graftonites, libertarian liberators, and bears of unusual enterprise were connected by far more than the dirt roads wending through its wild hills and valleys." (2) if that's not a Princess Bride reference...inconceivable

"I shake my head. No point making myself feel worse with imaginary scenarios—even though that seems to be what I do best." (89-90)

[poster: Vote Cobbs Or Your Corny]

"'He didn't even spell "you're" correctly.'

'What makes a football jock like Harry Cobbs think he's qualified to be president?'
'Doesn't matter. He's a shoe-in since" (53) wait and you dare make fun of a your/you're mixup, author?

"... in their 1986 book Die Krankheiten Ludwig van Beethovens (The Illnesses of Ludwig van Beethoven)." KRANKHEITEN

"Dr. Guevara would choose simply to curl the hairs that now were his inside a sterile petri dish, its lid held tight with a silver ribbon, which in turn he placed inside what he believed was his fireproof, bombproof, and theftproof office safe." (195) this sentence made me worried there would be a stinger later on in the book with fire, bombs, or theft. But no.

"A hundred and twenty Jews had failed in their desperate effort to reach exile in Sweden, and virtually all the townspeople of Gilleleje now ached with the belief that they horribly had let them down." (100) presumably all except the one who betrayed them to the Gestapo