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queenofbithynia.bsky.social @queenofbithynia.bsky.social · 1d

actually the lesson is that love will never come to you and no-one will comfort you with apples, or even with eggs

nothing in literature compares to this passage save for the crucifixion in the gospels & paul atreides putting his hand in the pain box. but DUNE is nothing, compared to SHIRLEY

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queenofbithynia.bsky.social @queenofbithynia.bsky.social · 1d

why you would grip an expected friendly egg, whether raw or poached, with such passionate violence, is left unstated. maybe you have to be a curate's daughter to understand. but the lesson is you can't make an omelet without crushing a few scorpions

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queenofbithynia.bsky.social @queenofbithynia.bsky.social · 1d

remember in SHIRLEY when charlotte bronte says Sometimes you ask for an egg and life gives you a scorpion
& then she has this little fugue about how when this happens you got to squeeze hell out of that scorpion & keep smiling as it stings you through & through, just as if it were the egg you wanted

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queenofbithynia.bsky.social @queenofbithynia.bsky.social · 2d

the author is on bluesky because of course he is, so if you ask me his name or the book's name publicly you will be ignored. ignored just like a poor meek silent sagging tragic invisible woman of a certain age. you know how it is. well, he knows how it is, just ask him

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queenofbithynia.bsky.social @queenofbithynia.bsky.social · 2d

(subject=49 yr old women)
he came by his wonderful ability to imagine in his late 30s what life might be like ten yrs hence via his Mother, Wife, & Female Friends. none of whom were available to explain to him that perimenopause doesn't mean you don't know what podcasts are. PODCASTS

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queenofbithynia.bsky.social @queenofbithynia.bsky.social · 2d

read the worst book ever published on god's green earth, it is or was on several lists of best horror novels because in a dying art all must win & all must have prizes
the author hedged it round with a both a fumbling foreword & smarmy afterword to justify his choice of subject matter. excessive

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queenofbithynia.bsky.social @queenofbithynia.bsky.social · 9d

it’s a goblin’s world, we just live in it

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queenofbithynia.bsky.social @queenofbithynia.bsky.social · 9d

pleased to discover a translation that has goblins & not elves
I don’t know the Italian term being translated but this must be more correct
such a typical goblin attitude

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queenofbithynia.bsky.social @queenofbithynia.bsky.social · 9d

"go, beloved daughter," "be great & unhappy," she says
nature is full of big talk until a Soul starts questioning her premises & then all of a sudden it's Go ask Fate, it's out of my hands
being miserable is a necessary consequence of being terrific & everybody knows it, she says

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queenofbithynia.bsky.social @queenofbithynia.bsky.social · 9d

hard to believe I never read leopardi's dialogues before now. harder still to admit it
each one is better than the last, I enjoy the one between the elf & the gnome very much
here is Nature explaining to a Soul why she is going to be miserable all her life

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queenofbithynia.bsky.social @queenofbithynia.bsky.social · 9d

she's just like me
although I do wear my glasses

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queenofbithynia.bsky.social @queenofbithynia.bsky.social · 9d

death is so crotchety & susceptible to reverse psychology, it's a wonder anybody ever does die

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queenofbithynia.bsky.social @queenofbithynia.bsky.social · 10d

but unfortunately for me & dashiell hammett, same thing happened this time as every other time (get three pages into The Glass Key & pitch a fit over each & every thing that is nothing like Miller's Crossing, lacking all the virtues of Miller's Crossing, in all ways inferior to Miller's Crossing)

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queenofbithynia.bsky.social @queenofbithynia.bsky.social · 10d

not so much through his commentary as by his exceptional choice of illustrative quotations. & I happen to have lots of DH in one of those omnibus e-books they sell for nothing because they were edited as part of a rehabilitative training program for incarcerated computers, robots, & robot computers-

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queenofbithynia.bsky.social @queenofbithynia.bsky.social · 10d

I had been saving The Getaway Car until I had read or reread all the novels but I changed my mind
despite westlake's several & perplexing biases, which is what I call opinions about popular fiction when I do not share them, he comes closer to selling me on dashiell hammett than anybody else ever has

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queenofbithynia.bsky.social @queenofbithynia.bsky.social · 15d

it is GONE I spent it on a ticket to see carnival of souls tomorrow night. at the place I haven't been to since I saw ALIEN there, sitting in front of two young people who'd never seen it & hoped john hurt would be all right
they say modern audiences ruin many classic film screenings. not always

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queenofbithynia.bsky.social @queenofbithynia.bsky.social · 15d

on a sunny october afternoon I love to receive a $15.39 settlement payment from a class action lawsuit I didn't know I was in
I forgot how to post without sounding like I am rolling my eyes but I assure you I really do love it

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queenofbithynia.bsky.social @queenofbithynia.bsky.social · 20d

what if this penalty doesn't fix people, what if they come back & not only do they keep going on about blah blah omelas, but they try to drag shirley jackson into it as well

well I am afraid for a second offense it must be death

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queenofbithynia.bsky.social @queenofbithynia.bsky.social · 20d

my judgment will be that they must go read a story that is actually relevant in some way to the subject at hand (slow public execution of a young woman for a violent crime of which she is guilty, supervised by her entire community, including her own family)

(margo lanagan's Singing My Sister Down)

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queenofbithynia.bsky.social @queenofbithynia.bsky.social · 20d

in my utopian future, everyone who reacts to a terrible thought experiment by trotting out their memories & recitations of the only other such story they ever read, which is always the same bit of lesser le guin, will be brought to me for judgment

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queenofbithynia.bsky.social @queenofbithynia.bsky.social · 25d

he voluntarily returns to the subject of this gaping hole in what I guess religious people call a soul, several times. no surprise, as narcissism dressed up as rueful self-awareness is every coward's faithful friend. self-awareness in general is not as rare as people think. or as useful

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queenofbithynia.bsky.social @queenofbithynia.bsky.social · 25d

the worst of the sunstein interview is he is actually well aware of what is wrong with him, he diagnoses it comprehensively in his answer to the very first question ("To say that there are these people and they have names and they are doing and saying awful things would be, for me, unpleasant.")

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queenofbithynia.bsky.social @queenofbithynia.bsky.social · 25d

personally, I would love to be interviewed by isaac chotiner. "none of my friends is a murderer," as peter o'toole says in the film. true when I say it
long experience has led me to value accurate transcription above many other journalistic virtues. plus I am terrific & I don't care who knows it

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queenofbithynia.bsky.social @queenofbithynia.bsky.social · 25d

predictable but still deeply off-putting how many people's habitual reaction to a good interview with a political monster is to giggle 'I would just go hide in the woods if mister chotiner wanted to talk to ME.' tee hee, et cetera. can't say it's cute. or funny. he has not got special powers

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queenofbithynia.bsky.social @queenofbithynia.bsky.social · 26d

why couldn't they try to cancel naproxen, america's sweetheart
I could work up some real passion there. some heroism

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