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Coleman Ridge @colemanridge.bsky.social · 14h

See, this is what they mean when they say money won't buy happiness. Oh, well, so long as there is flinging and wild shrieking, it is likely all the same to the teenagers.

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Coleman Ridge @colemanridge.bsky.social · 19h

I think I would build playgrounds for teenagers, but it would amount to the same thing, only with climbing structures and transparent tunnels. Gotta have a trebuchet that flings them onto a giant air bag somewhere in there too. And swings that really do go all the way around.

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Coleman Ridge @colemanridge.bsky.social · 21h

Also, Francis Dolarhyde singing Fountains of Wayne's "Red Dragon Tattoo" as he gets ready to go out for the night.

Coleman Ridge @colemanridge.bsky.social · 22h

The part where being a blithe, kindly spirit of nature works against you.

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Coleman Ridge @colemanridge.bsky.social · 1d

The Slip, by Lucas Schaefer. Funny, fantastical, set in and around a boxing gym in Austin, Texas. Everyone in it aspires, some to be professionals, some to be less wimpy, one to get cop affect, one to be Black, one to be seen as a girl. Somewhere in there, Schaefer sneaks in words to live by.

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Coleman Ridge @colemanridge.bsky.social · 1d

Literature can make the worst things that can possibly happen to you interesting to think about, though not necessarily to experience. Interest is not happiness, but it is not worthless.

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Coleman Ridge @colemanridge.bsky.social · 1d

Share a cartoon from the past that kids today have probably never heard of.

Mr. O'Malley holding forth to Barnaby: "If, and sometimes I doubt it, your parents actually do exist, I cannot but conclude they're avoiding me! Coincedence can only go so far . . . If I'm wrong, they can contact me at the club . . . I am leaving, m'boy!"

Coleman Ridge @colemanridge.bsky.social · 1d

I only know about apartment of buildings, the greatest of which is Chungking Mansions, Hong Kong: 5 linked 17-story blocks with 4000 mostly African inhabitants and innumerable businesses and guest houses.

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Coleman Ridge @colemanridge.bsky.social · 1d

I could never see why we are supposed to long to return to innocent, pre-Christian pagan sexuality. Early Christians were mostly women and slaves. They were reacting to Greek sexual mores when they said that sex is a form of suffering.

Coleman Ridge @colemanridge.bsky.social · 1d

Syrinx was beautiful, and Pan tried to rape her. She fled crying, and, overtaken, prayed to Artemis, who changed her to reeds which cried when wind blew through them. Liking the sound, Pan cut the reeds, her body, into lengths, fastened them together, and made his pipes, the syrinx.

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Coleman Ridge @colemanridge.bsky.social · 2d

Why unutterable, I wonder? Do they have too many consonants and not enough vowels? Are they tongue twisters? Do they contain phonemes English speakers can't hear? Are their names too long to remember?

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Coleman Ridge @colemanridge.bsky.social · 2d

and should be censored lest it give the young unwarranted hope.

Nabokov is not evil, but he is dangerous, which is much worse.

Ellison's Invisible Man is the best science fiction novel.

Stephen Daedalus eventually travels back in time and lives a long, happy life as Stephen Maturin.

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Coleman Ridge @colemanridge.bsky.social · 2d

Damn, it is stiff competition.

Dickens is the greatest master of character, precisely because he writes caricatures. We all become caricatures.

Fight scenes reveal character better than conversation does.

The haystack, lightning scene in Far from the Madding Crowd is the sexiest thing written,

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Coleman Ridge @colemanridge.bsky.social · 2d

Wait, where can I read about Catholic scary supernatural beliefs? I was raised by educated liberal Catholics, and may have missed out on something interesting.

Coleman Ridge @colemanridge.bsky.social · 2d

It is just your relatives in Heaven, your guardian angel, and maybe a saint or two trying to help you, and you praying for relatives in Purgatory. The only really scary part is the notion that there is a devil assigned to tempting you, and I don't know if that's even doctrine.

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Coleman Ridge @colemanridge.bsky.social · 2d

I think maybe what makes real good horror is Protestant takes on Catholicism. Protestants accuse Catholics of consorting with spirits, and they do, but it is really pretty boring.

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Coleman Ridge @colemanridge.bsky.social · 3d

What happened after was pretty bad, but arguably better than going on as they had been.

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Coleman Ridge @colemanridge.bsky.social · 3d

When the Manchu Empire fell apart, it just dissolved. There was one rebellion, and the provincial governors mostly said "OK, we're out."

The Soviet Union fell apart the same way.

This happened after sustained governmental failure. It happened without civil war. What has happened can happen.

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Coleman Ridge @colemanridge.bsky.social · 3d

Mold in the stacks.

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Coleman Ridge @colemanridge.bsky.social · 3d

Hegel, I want you to know
I'm gonna miss you so much if you go.
And Hegel, I tell you no lie
Something deep inside of me's going to die.

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Coleman Ridge @colemanridge.bsky.social · 3d

AuADHD turns out not to be gold ADHD, alas. I had hoped someone was giving out awards.

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Coleman Ridge @colemanridge.bsky.social · 3d

I am compelled to retell this:

Experienced duelist asks someone in a shop to move away because they stink. Upon being challenged, he replies "Monsieur, what would be the point? If you kill me, you will still stink. If I kill you, you will, if possible, stink even more."

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Coleman Ridge @colemanridge.bsky.social · 3d

Problem is, someone who has practiced fencing can defeat someone who has not with next to no chance of being touched. Sword dueling enables bullies.

Pistols, ten paces, .22 caliber jacketed bullets, vital areas armored, belly and legs unarmored, simultaneous firing at command.

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Coleman Ridge @colemanridge.bsky.social · 4d

Can't Buy Me Love, Beatles, 1964?

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Coleman Ridge @colemanridge.bsky.social · 4d

Wait till the last book comes out and read the Locked Tomb Tetralogy. If Muir can finish it, it will be a knockout.

Alan Garner's Red Shift is on the middle ground between his early, excellent standard fantasy and his later, odder writing. It is about the intersection of the timeless with time.

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