Bonnie > Recent Status Updates

Refreshing. Admin says as bad or worse almost daily. When was this written? Ah, 2009.

"Remember that senator who was forced to resign after he said China could afford to lose as many people as there are in the entire United States and still have over a billion left?"

"But even as the fear racks my body, it soothes me, comforts me. Soldiers who get washed away in a rush of adrenaline don’t survive. In war, fear is the woman your mother warned you about. You knew she was no good for you, but you couldn’t shake her. You had to find a way to get along, because she wasn’t going anywhere."

Reminds me of a story i read in GRR Martin's collection Nightflyers & Othet Stories last year. "Weekend in a War Zone" (1977)
Although maybe just bc i don't read a lot of the body armor mech military stuff

Chaptet 10 'Interventions' - Grim
"pulling students out of public school propels a vicious cycle that weakens already distressed schools. The long game, as predicted by the philosopher Kenneth Conklin: 'The easiest way to break apart a society long-term without using violence is to establish separate educational systems for the groups to be broken apart.' "

on to Book Three. OK, the plot has started now. From others though, a couple live and a couple online, i know the book is heavy on world and light on plot. so i will try to enjoy the ride, beautifully described.

on to Book Three. OK, the plot has started now. From others though, a couple live and a couple online, i know the book is heavy on world and light on plot. so i will try to enjoy the ride, beautifully described.

Ugh!

"There stand the miniature homes of the dead, tiled fantasies, like houses for children. Beneath them Olondrian bones are falling to dust. Somewhere, she is like that too. She must have died here, in Olondria, in the north. She was buried, then, not burned as is our custom in the islands.
She is one of the Rotted Dead."

This is a risible system of time travel.
"I don't remember Father Roche being there, except in the sick room, but if it's true, and Gawyn didn't meet him too far from the drop, maybe he knows where it is."

So good.
“For him it was not merely a business decision but a question of family name and honour. Besides, he was certain his good neighbours and the people of these settlements were not fickle, they would stay loyal to Kohlah’s Cola. He was prepared to put up a fair fight against the competition.
But, like bow ties and watch-chains, fair fights had gone out of style while Mr. Kohlah wasn’t looking.”

That's the Untouchables caste, fighting to improve their lot>>

"Then a brown moth arrived to keep its assignation with the light. Dukhi watched it try to beat its fragile wings through the lamp glass."

I think it's time -past time- to discuss what is happening in the world, not just observe that "the power is out." How about someone drive over to the dam???

"Evan thought of Nicole at home, trying to prepare herself for the skills they would need if the power was gone for good"

don't need every visual detail of the breakfast tho

~last spoonful of cereal into his mouth. He dropped the spoon and cupped his small brown hands under the bowl, lifting it to slurp up the last of the milk~ urged him to put his bowl in the sink and get dressed for school~cleared the rest of the table ~piled dirty dishes on the counter, plugged the sink, and turned on the hot water. As he squeezed yellow dish soap~

Oh yeah, this working nicely so soon after The Buffalo Hunter Hunter
Good thing it's Halloween season

"He began to cut swiftly and methodically on the inside of the hip, and the skin opened easily, exposing the white tendons and purple muscle beneath. Cutting through further, he pressed against the leg with his opposite shoulder, dislocating the hip joint."

"You see, it’s a girl’s life, too."

Minutes away from giving this book five stars

A character who's an eccentric said this:
" ' I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled. ' "

I looked it up; it's from a poem by T.S. Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock."
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poet...

This book is good!

"Look at me,” she said. I did. “Deep,” she said. I did.
And then something strange happened. She began to speak, and as she spoke, the air seemed to shimmer between us with a pearly iridescence. Her eyes had captured mine; I could not look away. “I’ve been called a monster,” the Lady said. “Been called worse than a monster. I saw my momma killed when I wasn’t much older than you." ...

"It seemed to me at an early age that all human communication — whether it’s TV, movies, or books — begins with somebody wanting to tell a story. That need to tell, to plug into a universal socket, is probably one of our grandest desires. And the need to hear stories, to live lives other than our own for even the briefest moment, is the key to the magic that was born in our bones."

"never mind if Lorelei Baker’s cake was upmost in my thoughts at the time"

Oh yes I am quite familiar with such a phenomenon

Savoring the little breadcrumbs of dread, like ~family in mourning bc they lost a daughter, ~he rose awkwardly on his artificial legs...

Part VI. Palimpsest. Section 6
"Wounding the autumnal city" and reading poetry from Kid's notebook at the party and whatnot...
I still don't like it. I certainly don't like that it's taking ~3 weeks of my reading time to get through. I may grant that my ⭐--one being where we are headed--will denote my not enjoying this doorstopper, not that it's objectively crap.

It's grad-school level, thesis level stuff.

Glass and Vinyl. Are these people, or things he is touching?
New characters. Need to go back, figure out who they are or how I missed them...
Does it matter? No. Keep going.

Section IV. In Time of Plague
Philosophical discussion w/ Lanya and Taf, about Ballona city.
Mr Newboy publishes book of Kid's poetry, BRASS ORCHIDS.
Kid loses time, robs store w/ Scorpions gang

?Confusing the Moon and George?
?Kid and Lanya acquire new chains?
?Why several people have red or coral eyes?

More characters: Nightmare, Copperhead, Denny.

"But I realized something. About art. And psychiatry. They’re both self-perpetuating systems. Like religion. All three of them promise you a sense of inner worth and meaning, and spend a lot of time telling you about the suffering you have to go through to achieve it. As soon as you get a problem in any one of them, the solution it gives is always to go deeper into the same system."

Part III - House of the Ax
Kidd manages to get a shower and a dirty bath.
The Richard's family moves up to a higher floor.
Kidd writes poetry in the notebook, and reads poems aloud.

Part II, The Ruins of Morning
Has he had a shower or bath since having sex with the woman in the cave, and then Tak, before having sex with Lanya? That is my biggest question.

Yeah. Prob not going to like this one much. Philip K. Dick/Harlan Ellison types wandering through an incomprehensible Jeff VanderMeer hellscape. Plus snazzy literary flourishes a la If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler.
Hard to pay attention since I have no idea what is going on.

...Second, there is the even more serious problem that Jesus could not have been invented as a dying-rising god because his earliest followers did not think he was God."

"There are two major problems with this view that Jesus was originally invented as a dying-rising god modeled on the dying and rising gods of the pagan world. First, there are serious doubts about whether there were in fact dying-rising gods in the pagan world, and if there were, whether they were anything like the dying-rising Jesus...

Took me a week to read one chapter, so many interruptions.

CHAPTER FOUR
Evidence for Jesus from Outside the Gospels
"As a result of our investigations so far, it should be clear that historians do not need to rely on only one source (say, the Gospel of Mark) for knowing whether or not the historical Jesus existed..."

Evidence for the Historical Jesus:
1 Introduction to the Mythical View of Jesus
2 Non-Christian Sources for the Life of Jesus
3 The Gospels as Historical Sources