(no subject)

Sunday, September 7th, 2025 12:31 pm
oursin: Brush the Wandering Hedgehog by the fire (Default)
[personal profile] oursin
Happy birthday, [personal profile] valancy_jane!

what should [personal profile] wychwood read next?

Sunday, September 7th, 2025 11:15 am
wychwood: Joe Kennedy Sr demanding to know baby Ted's ambitions (gen - unambitious baby Ted)
[personal profile] wychwood
I have inventoried my to-read pile and am slightly horrified to find that it contains 98 books (39 non-fic and 59 fiction, which is interesting because I thought it was mostly non-fic! But in fact it's just that the average non-fic book is much larger so the fiction takes up less space). The fiction is about half SFF. I'm not going to make a poll of the whole lot, because I'd be here forever, but I have picked some categories:

Poll #33582 what should wychwood read next
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 1


Which loan book should I start next?

View Answers

Acts and Omissions - Catherine Fox
1 (100.0%)

Cavedweller - Dorothy Allison
0 (0.0%)

Data Structures and Algorithms - Alfred Aho, John Hopcroft, Jeffrey Ullman
0 (0.0%)

The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle - Stuart Turton
0 (0.0%)

Which detective story should I start next?

View Answers

Aunty Lee’s Chilled Revenge - Ovidia Yu
0 (0.0%)

In the Shadow of Agatha Christie - ed Leslie S Klinger
0 (0.0%)

Land of Shadows - Rachel Howzell Hall
0 (0.0%)

Murder in Williamstown - Kerry Greenwood
0 (0.0%)

Night Train to Memphis - Elizabeth Peters
0 (0.0%)

The Chemistry of Death - Simon Beckett
1 (100.0%)

Which non-fic book should I start next?

View Answers

Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat - Samin Nosrat
1 (100.0%)

Warrior Queens & Quiet Revolutionaries - Kate Mosse
0 (0.0%)

Black Tights: Women, Sport and Sexuality - Laura Robinson
0 (0.0%)

The Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense - Suzanne Haden Elgin
0 (0.0%)

The Augustinians from the French Revolution to Modern Times - J Gavigan
0 (0.0%)

Carrying the Fire - Michael Collins
0 (0.0%)



The bedside pile is down to four books, including the ongoing Oxford History of England project and the current SFRG book, so it is time to build it up again!

The Ring and Spoon

Sunday, September 7th, 2025 06:24 am
smokingboot: (Default)
[personal profile] smokingboot
6 am. Waking dream.


'Come and eat,' he said. It's been a very long time. He is not as I remember him, bright with that cold sunshine of early spring, a smiling face. Then his hair and his eyes were both light as glass, and his skin shone. He was nimble, a sapling youth, and his smile was clever too clever, mischievous. Long ago, he got me out of a trap, and only asked in return that I did not forget him. I never did, quite.

Now his hair is not close cropped or tied back as it was then, but loose. His narrow face is older, chiselled, unshaven, around his shoulders a thick cloak of fur. We are in some kind of cave, and a pot of something is bubbling. He dips a ladle into it, and poors stew into a bowl, handing it to me.

'You should eat,' he says.

I notice that movement is hard for me, look down to see what seems like stone or crystals around my waist.
'These must break,' he says, pointing at them. At the same time, I notice the Dagaz rune on the wall in red ochre. Dagaz, D equivalent in old norse, first letter of my name, associated with daylight by rune readers. But in real life, sitting at my PC, I don't think the sun has risen yet. God I am tired. That's the letrozole or age or both I think. It saves your life, but there's a price. Three more years of it they say, maybe more but who knows? He sits and waits for me, though he gestures towards a stick. Maybe I will need that in time to come, but it doesn't look like it's mine. It is ornately carved, a wizard's staff rather than a walking stick.

The messages that flow towards me are inventions arising in my head. I am making a story, so no, do not make the story. Let advice or warnings or anything just come and go, see what happens. There's more painted on these walls. He smiles when he sees me take note of that, and he pats the stone beside him as if it were a chair. I think I was meant to go sit. Now, having stopped seeking the message I look around the cave. It is vast, lit by fires, though I do not see the faces. Soot is in the walls and the smoke curles out towards the entrance, which is much further up than we are. It is cold outside.

'Time to tear away,' he says, and gestures to the stew I am not eating. Confused, I have nothing to eat it with. He has this belt with - what is it called? a chateleine set? From it he unhooks and passes me a little metal spoon. I smile, start to say words of thanks but don't recognise the language coming out of my mouth, so I just bow my head to him instead. I use the spoon and eat the stew, which doesn't taste, so I am not as deeep in this as I might be. he's got a ring he wants to give me, I see him hold it in his hand even as I am working out how to wash the spoon after using it.

We are both waiting.

He shakes his hair, long and beautiful now, and he holds the ring.

Not saying anything til I have finished the stew, I am not hungry. But I do have water, a waterbottle, and I wash the spoon with it, nice and clean, then hold it in the flame tips just a minute, then he offers me some herbs and I crush them. Faint the smell but it's more distinct than the the taste of the stew. I rub the herbs along the spoon, a slight almost antiseptic smell, and then I wash the spoon again and hold it over the fire to dry it. When it is done, I hand it back to him.

I'm not hungry, I'm not thirsty, I don't need sleep.

'That's right,' he smiles, 'you don't need any of these things.'

And the vision is gone.

Peacock of Flourish

Saturday, September 6th, 2025 07:55 pm
[personal profile] ismo
The reason I feel so wretched lately could be that I have a cold. Or some sort of respiratory virus. My nemesis! I squandered another 8-dollar test to make sure it wasn't covid. It wasn't--not really a surprise, because I don't feel THAT bad. But it's good to be certain. So today I really haven't done ANYTHING. We still had leftovers, so no problem with dinner. The Sparrowhawk went to the store for the few things we needed. We are both in a mood where we don't really want to go out and face reality or see people. It's lurking time.

The temperature has dropped dramatically, and it is chilly at night, so I got out the down comforter again. The Sparrowhawk says he's sleeping very well with it. I'm still longing to get outside, but I just wasn't up for it. Strawberry Star texted me to say she forgot to tell me that the pow-wow was today, and asked if I wanted to go with her. Normally, I would have said yes, but not now. She understood because her husband also has a cold. I RSVP'd "no" to a baby shower tomorrow, then ordered them a gift. The Evite said 39 people were planning to go. I don't think I'll be missed!

It's far too early to think about Christmas, but I say that every year. And then, by the time it IS time to think about Christmas, I'm running around wailing "I'm not ready!" So I'm trying to change my ways. Even though it is only September, if I see anything that I think someone might like, I just order it. I'm hoping that by the time Christmas rolls around, I will have a small stash of potential gifts. Maybe not perfection, but at least something. Shopping online, perhaps unfortunately, is something that anyone can do, even with an unpleasant cold.

And there's this all-night garage and the 7-Eleven

Saturday, September 6th, 2025 07:48 pm
sovay: (Jonathan & Dr. Einstein)
[personal profile] sovay
For reasons as yet unknown to medical science, although I am doing my best to get medical science to find them out, I am in the acutely worst shape I have been in since the summer of 2023 and it is devouring all of my time. Have some links.

1. In music still in situ on my computer, I have had the Punters' "Jim Harris" (1997) since 2005 when I believe it to have been one of the fruits of a now-deceased music community on LJ. It is not a variant on Child 243; it was contemporarily written by Peter Leonard of Isle Valen about a local schooner fender-bender in 1934. I discovered last year that it's got a Roud number and I have never gotten over the way its last verse turns from traditionally recounted maritime mini-disaster to Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi:

It's all right when the wheel is going up, but when she turns for to go down
You all might meet with the same sad fate as Jim Harris in Paradise Sound


The folk tradition being what it is, this song is naturally the only thing I know abour its eponymous captain, which is rough.

2. I should not have read this article about the Instagram filter valley of the current rejuvenative craze for deep-plane face-lifts no matter what because one of the reasons I have trouble being read as younger than my age is that I have worked very hard to reach this one, but toward the end of the piece I hit an anonymously quoted surgeon, "When you look at someone else with an elite face-lift . . . all you should be thinking is, How did you age better than me? The goal is you want to look genetically dominant to other people," and at the notion that eugenics should be aspirationally mixed with ageism, I just wanted that surgeon to be operated upon by Dr. Einstein after an all-night open-bar horror marathon. I felt better after dialing up the grainily inimitable footage of Pamela Blair's "Dance: Ten; Looks: Three" (1975).

3. Thanks to listening to Arthur Askey, I became curious about the origins of the musical have-a-banana phrase which diffused decades ago from music hall into general pop culture and apparently the best guess is a Rocky Horror-style audience improvisation that has now endured as a meme for more than a century. Good for it.

I just want to sleep and read books and write about movies. Who's even asking for a small fortune?

I was bored

Saturday, September 6th, 2025 02:04 pm
james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll
So I rolled up a bunch of Icons characters. Mostly boring, but this one is at least mildly amusing.

Doctor* Shawinigan**

Read more... )

Inferno, by Gary Russell and John Ridgway

Saturday, September 6th, 2025 04:09 pm
[syndicated profile] fromtheheartofeurope_feed

Posted by fromtheheartofeurope

Second frame of third page:

This is a nice idea from Cutaway Comics: what happened in the parallel universe of Inferno? How did Britain get to a state where it was ruled as a military regime by a dictator who looks just like the founder of the BBC’s Visual Effects Department?

This short comic, which I picked up at Gallifrey One earlier this year, has the answers. It’s a somewhat complex plot – Churchill allies with Oswald Mosley, who betrays and assassinates him, and then rules first in alliance with Germany and then against, before being in turn betrayed by the new leader. Meanwhile over in China, a Professor Keller is doing something odd with a mind-bending machine… It’s a well put together romp, though in our timeline Oswald Mosley would have been addressed as “Sir Oswald”, not “Baronet” (obviously a point of divergence there). But a resource-hungry country needs the potential power unleashed by Professor Stalmann…

Good stuff and you can get Inferno here (along with a DVD of extras which I didn’t get at Gallifrey).

Straying thoughts

Saturday, September 6th, 2025 05:04 pm
oursin: Brush the Wandering Hedgehog by the fire (Default)
[personal profile] oursin

Kafka, thou shouldst be living at this hour? Non-smoker fined £433 for dropping cigarette butt in Manchester: Steve Jones was hundreds of miles away in Maidstone arranging family funeral at time of alleged offence:

He told the council it was a case of mistaken identity and he had not dropped any litter, but the prosecution went ahead regardless in his absence, and he received a collection order in the post for £433, which included a fine and costs. In July, he was sent a pack of evidence by Manchester city council, including a letter that said: “You have been charged with an offence of dropping litter”, and that a single justice procedure notice had been issued by the local authority in March.
....
Jones contacted the council to explain their error, and his email correspondence with council officers “went back and forth and back and forth for ages”, he said, “and then they had to go and find the guy’s camera evidence and that took a few days, and then eventually they realised that it wasn’t me”.... Jones said he initially struggled to get the council to provide a written apology, but had thought the matter was closed after he received an email apologising for the “administrative error”. However, Jones then received a further letter in the post, dated 28 August, saying he had been convicted and fined. “I just find it incredible that I’ve been convicted in my absence,” he said. ‘“I mean, that sounds really serious.”

***

Noted rather far down in this piece on new owners forcing a traditionally nudist resort to 'go textile' (infaaaamy) there is a mention of a homicide on the property.

Which evoked in me the question, has there ever been a murder mystery set in a nudist resort? I have read ones involving all sorts of weird cults, and the occasional health spa, but I don't think actual naturism has featured.

Which led to the further question, which fictional shamus would you pick to strip off and boldly go to investigate in such a circumstance?

***

Talking of textiles, this is rather lovely: A secret garden’: National Theatre turns roof into riot of colour with dye plants. Textile artists are reshaping how the theatre makes its costumes with the aim of replacing harsh synthetic dyes

I'm slightly raising my eyebrows at the whole 'luvverly nachral dyes' thing though (as opposed to those narsty post-aniline synthetics that cause 'dyer's nose') is that I've read at least one murder mystery in which dying featured, though I think it might have been the mordants employed to set the colours rather than the actual dyes themselves which were dangerous.

[syndicated profile] fromtheheartofeurope_feed

Posted by fromtheheartofeurope

I recently enjoyed reading Michel Barnier’s My Secret Brexit Diary, and will review it here soon. The English translation by Robin Mackay is generally very fluent, but there is a bizarre glitch in one anecdote which is worth exploring in detail. (Apologies in advance – I am not immediately translating all of the original French and German texts below, but I am giving the gist, and the official English translation of Barnier’s book is part of the story.)

Barnier quotes the German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer’s supposed account of his first meeting with French leader General Charles de Gaulle (as relayed by a later French President, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing), with de Gaulle thinking that his German was better than it really was:

De Gaulle croyait qu’il parlait allemand. Je ne le connaissais pas, a raconté Adenauer, et la première fois, de Gaulle m’invite à venir le voir à Colombey-les-Deux-Églises. J’étais inquiet de son accueil et de ce premier contact. Une voiture vint me chercher à l’aéroport militaire le plus proche et nous nous rapprochions de Colombey. À un moment, nous avons aperçu une grande silhouette vêtue d’un grand manteau accompagnée d’un militaire. Le chauffeur me prévint que c’était de Gaulle, venant à notre rencontre sur la route. Et mes premiers mots pour le saluer furent en allemand : “ Wie gehen Sie ? ” Interloqué, il me répondit : “ Zu Fuss ! ” Et après cela, nous avons décidé de faire appel à un interprète.

Now, this anecdote is confused in Barnier’s telling, above, because “il” and “je” swap places at the end – for reasons that I will explain, Adenauer would certainly not have said “Wie gehen Sie?” to de Gaulle. If Adenauer is the narrator, the last three sentences should surely have been,

Et ses premiers mots pour me saluer furent en allemand : “ Wie gehen Sie ? ” Interloqué, je lui répondit : “ Zu Fuss ! ” Et après cela, nous avons décidé de faire appel à un interprète.

Der Spiegel reported the story that way round in 1979 (in German), also quoting Giscard d’Estaing (who was born in Koblenz and spoke German well, and must have told this story many times in both languages):

Als Konrad Adenauer im Jahre 1958 den französischen Ministerpräsidenten Charles de Gaulle in dessen lothringischem Wohnsitz-Dörfchen Colombey-les-deux-Èglises besuchte — es war die erste Begegnung der beiden -, begrüsste ihn der Gastgeber auf deutsch: »Wie gehen Sie?« Adenauer antwortete: »Zu Fuss.«

I will now explain the actual joke. Supposedly, de Gaulle translated the stock French phrase for “How are you?”, “Comment allez-vous?” directly into German, “Wie gehen Sie?” – literally, “How are you going?” – and Adenauer, having got out of his car, replied in puzzlement “On foot!!”

The correct formal German for “How are you” is “Wie geht es Ihnen?” – literally, “How is it going for you?” Given that this is one of the first phrases that a student learns in German, it’s a bit improbable that anyone would make that mistake, and it’s also improbable that Adenauer would have misunderstood de Gaulle’s meaning even if the mistake was made.

In any case, Adenauer spoke French fluently (there is plenty of video evidence of him and de Gaulle nattering away to each other in 1958 and at later meetings) and from the protocol point of view it’s usual for the visitor to be the one who makes the effort to speak in the host’s language, not the other way around.

Having said all that, the English translation of Barnier’s memoir, by Robin Mackay, preserves Barnier’s mistake about who said what, but alters the German part of the exchange to make even less sense:

‘De Gaulle believed that he could speak German’, Adenauer recounted. ‘I didn’t know him, and for our first meeting de Gaulle invited me to come and see him at Colombey-les-Deux-Églises. I was worried about this first encounter with him and what kind of welcome I would get. A car came to pick me up at the nearest military airport and soon we were approaching Colombey. At a certain point we saw a tall figure in a big coat accompanied by a soldier. The driver warned me that it was de Gaulle, coming to meet us on the road. And my first words of greeting to him were in German: “Wie geht es Ihnen?” Somewhat flustered, he replied: “Zu Fuss!” After that, we decided to get an interpreter.’

This version has Adenauer greeting de Gaulle, entirely correctly from the linguistic point of view, with “Wie geht es Ihnen?” – literally “How is it going for you?” – changing the German from the original Barnier text (and from the 1989 account in Der Spiegel). De Gaulle allegedly replies to this entirely correctly framed question, incorrectly, with “Zu Fuss!” – “On foot!” Really, this response does not answer the question as reported here, whereas at least in Barnier’s original version it does.

And really really, if de Gaulle had ever studied any German at all, he would have learned the correct reply, “Sehr gut, danke!”, long before he learned “Zu Fuss!”

And really really really, a German leader would not speak in German to greet the head of the French government, in the latter’s French countryside home, the first time they met each other, so soon after a brutal war and occupation by the Nazis. Anyway etiquette would require de Gaulle, as host, to speak first and greet his visitor.

In fact the official video of the 1958 meeting (here at 42s) shows a perfectly comfortable and relaxed exchange, with de Gaulle, aged 67, striding from his front door to greet Adenauer as soon as the latter gets out of his car. I think you can literally see Adenauer, who was 82, making the mental shift to speak French.

Even the details of the story are fictional; de Gaulle was not wearing a big coat and not accompanied by a soldier, and the conversation took place right outside his house, not on the road. The only correct point, judging from the video of the meeting (which in fairness would not have been readily available to Giscard and his audience in 1979), is that de Gaulle was the first to speak – and Barnier’s version gets that wrong too. I think we can be pretty certain that when de Gaulle spoke to Adenauer, he spoke in French.

So my suspicion, for what it is worth, is that Giscard d’Estaing made the story up out of whole cloth, to impress upon his German hosts in 1979 that he could speak to them (and also, understand them) much better than his predecessor; and Barnier unintentionally garbled the anecdote in his book; and Barnier’s English translator, trying to correct Barnier’s German and not spotting Barnier’s real mistake about the order of the speakers, garbled it further.

Quotidian

Saturday, September 6th, 2025 09:11 am
mallorys_camera: (Default)
[personal profile] mallorys_camera
RTT got a terrific write-up in The Ithaca Voice.

And I have been scribbling, Remunerating, & avoiding Icky as much as I possibly can.

I'm isolated but not unhappy about it. It's as though the characters in my head are providing me with as much company as I could possibly need. I don't know whether that's creative inspiration or mental dysfunction. Maybe a little of both?

The Patrizia-torium is messy & disorganized, and I should probably do something about that because as Without, so Within.

Books Received, August 30 — September 5

Saturday, September 6th, 2025 08:44 am
james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll


Five books new to me, at least four of which are fantasy (not sure about the El-Mohtar) and three instalments in series.

Books Received, August 30 — September 5


Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 32


Books Received, August 30 — September 5

View Answers

Lies Weeping by Glen Cook (November 2025)
14 (43.8%)

Seasons of Glass and Iron: Stories by Amal El-Mohtar (March 2026)
19 (59.4%)

The River and the Star By Gabriela Romero Lacruz (October 2025)
4 (12.5%)

The Bookshop Below by Georgia Summers (November 2025)
12 (37.5%)

The Burning Queen by Aparna Verma (November 2025)
7 (21.9%)

Some other option (see comments)
0 (0.0%)

Cats!
22 (68.8%)

(no subject)

Saturday, September 6th, 2025 12:18 am
skygiants: Himari, from Mawaru Penguin Drum, with stars in her hair and a faintly startled expression (gonna be a star)
[personal profile] skygiants
[personal profile] genarti and I have been working our very slow but delighted way through We Are Lady Parts, the British sitcom about an all-Muslim punk rock band composed of opinionated women with beautiful and compelling faces. I'd been seeing a lot of gifsets of these faces before we watched the show and I am pleased to report that they are even more beautiful and compelling at full length. For those of you who have missed the gifsets, please enjoy Lady Parts performing "Villain Era":



The two most protagonist-y protagonists are Saira, the band's lead singer/guitarist, who is at all times extremely punk rock, and Amina, a stressed-out trad-Muslim scientist with terrible stage fright, who really has to work to access her inner punk rock. The cast is rounded out with Ayesha, the angry lesbian drummer; Bisma, who plays the role of maternal peacemaker until she starts to chafe at it; and Momtaz, the band's go-getter manager. The first season focuses mostly on the question of whether Amina can conquer her own inhibitions enough to contribute her excellent guitar skills and huge Disney eyes to the band after Saira press-gangs her into joining them. The second season brings the whole band up against the music industry more generally, and the various ways that the public pressure of moderate fame starts to push each of them into re-examining their self-image and relationships to their music and identity. It's a good show! I liked it very much!

Also, like everyone else in the world, we have recently watched KPop Demon Hunters. Also a very good time featuring banger music tracks -- I'd seen it described as 'a series of really good music videos' and broadly I agree with this assessment -- plus twenty pounds of fun kdrama tropes stuffed into a five-pound bag. Probably would not have felt compelled to write anything about it except for the fact that by an accident of timing, we ended up watching the season finale of Lady Parts the day after we watched KPop Demon Hunters which made for a very funny accidental wine pairing. Both funny and telling to go from high-level spoilers for both KPop Demon Hunters and Lady Parts )

DouglasFir of Flourish

Friday, September 5th, 2025 07:48 pm
[personal profile] ismo
Yesterday I slept better and felt pretty much okay when I woke up. I dreamed that the Sparrowhawk and I were apprentice magicians and had been given one of those bags that contain much more than the outside reveals. We came to a body of water that we wanted to cross, and I was perturbed because I hadn't put the magic car that could go under water into the bag. The Sparrowhawk pointed out that it was okay, because I had put the front porch into the bag, so all I had to do was take out the front porch, open the door, go inside, get the keys to the car, and drive it over here. I was pleased with his solution. However, then these two guys showed up who were jealous that we'd been apprenticed into a powerful fantasy. They wanted to take the bag of magic. I didn't know very many spells yet, so I put my hands in front of them and used the spell REPEL. That stopped them, and I was happy. But they said "We have a spell, too! It's called SHOOT FIRST." "Oh dear," I thought, "I'm going to have to do something serious about this." The next thing I knew, they were gone, but for some stains on the pavement that could have been blood. I wasn't quite sure what I had done. Ominous . . . .

I ran around the house getting ready for the arrival of Bird Baby, only to receive a text from poor frazzled Dr. Music to say that they had inadvertently left the carseat in the car that had already been driven to campus, so he couldn't bring her, and would it be possible for us to come to their house instead? The Sparrowhawk dropped me off and went to his PT appointment. I then spent a couple of hours building Lego towers, garages, and whatnot, reading picture books, looking at flash cards and having lunch with charming Bird Baby. It was fun, but I was tired by the time Dr. Music returned with the carseat and drove me home. I did little of any use for the rest of the day.

Today also I only did one good thing. I slept really badly and was miserable as soon as awake. I had started to make cookies the previous day and gave up, so I decided to finish them up. While they were baking, I cleaned up all the dishes, which we are now doing by hand because the dishwasher is still broken. I gave our Fearless Leader a bag of cookies when he brought the Sparrowhawk home from the coffee house where they had been discussing organizational matters. FL is doing a triathlon tomorrow, so he may need some sugar.

Then I tried to take a nap, but was foiled because that always seems to be the time when my phone starts blowing up. It wasn't good news. My friend Cabernet, from my women's group, whose birthday we planned to celebrate on Tuesday, will not be there because she'll be getting her chemo port installed for treatment of liver cancer. Another friend, in her 40s with four children, has been diagnosed with breast cancer and is awaiting a treatment plan that will include the usual surgery, chemo, and radiation. And the Nipper let the family know that after our beloved Raptor, who has autism, had been accepted to his new high school, went through orientation, bought the uniform, etc., the school called the Nipper in to say that, after all, they'd decided they couldn't meet his needs so could he please go elsewhere. What perfidy. It's just soul-crushing. It confirms my thought from a couple of weeks ago that "nice" people can often be particularly nasty. I want to go there and punch somebody in the throat, but I suppose that wouldn't really be helpful.

Well, after that, sleep fled shrieking, and I got up and spent another few hours in a useless but wakeful state. The wind was phenomenal, and the clouds were scudding past, and the waves on the lake were up to 14 feet high. I longed to go and see it, but I was too tired. The horses of time have ripped the chariot reins from my fingers and are just careering across the continuum with no regard for my feelings.

SNW: Terrarium

Friday, September 5th, 2025 08:22 pm
[syndicated profile] fromtheheartofeurope_feed

Posted by fromtheheartofeurope

Second paragraph of third chapter:

In mid-November of 1903, notice came from Warden Addison Johnson, of Sing Sing, that I was to report there for a scheduled execution. I informed my wife that I was going, and she raised no objection. She thought, as I did, that my role as Davis’ assistant would be little more than that of an observer.

The autobiography of the state executioner of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Vermont, and Massachusetts, who killed 387 people by judicially mandated electrocution between 1926 and 1939. Before I get into the substance, a bit of local interest: his father, who emigrated to America in 1844, was a devout Methodist from County Cavan, and unsuccessfully encouraged the young Robert to get ordained to the ministry. He died when his son was seven.

Elliott gives details of how he got involved, what the job practically entailed, and public reaction (which he clearly found incomprehensible). The most famous of Elliott’s cases were the anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti, and Bruno Hauptmann who was convicted of kidnapping and murdering the infant son of aviator Charles Lindbergh. Elliott makes it pretty clear that he was personally unconvinced by the evidence in those cases, but “I did not permit my views to have any effect on the performance of my duty.” His house was bombed a few months after the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti, though he is hesitant to draw a straight line between the two events.

Most notoriously, his execution of a woman in 1928 was surreptitiously photographed by a reporter who had smuggled a hidden camera into the front row. Elliot reflects:

The ethics of taking or printing a photograph of this sort is not for me to discuss. However, I am inclined to believe that if more such pictures were published with the permission of the authorities, the homicide rate might decrease. Public opinion might also be aroused to the extent that capital punishment would be abolished. In either event, I think their publication would be fully justified.

Alas, I think what would happen in today’s media and social media climate would be the growth of execution porn, and indeed even in his own time, Elliott mentions the unhealthy interest of a lot of people in watching or being more closely involved in the process, an “orgy of sensationalism”.

The two strongest chapters are first, a listing of a number of cases where Elliott was very much inclined to think that the person he executed was innocent; and second, the last chapter, in which he sets out his own opposition to the death penalty.

There are several reasons why the ancient law of “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” should be wiped from the statute books. First, man should not be permitted to destroy the one thing which cannot be restored–life. Furthermore, I believe that capital punishment serves no useful purpose, and is a form of revenge.

A wrong, no matter how serious, is not righted by ending a life. And if, as has happened, the condemned should not be guilty, then the tragedy is complete. These instances, of course, are very rare; but the judgment of juries is not infallible. There is always the possibility that an innocent person will pay the extreme penalty.

That’s certainly my own feeling on the subject too; and I think any of us would have to admit that Elliott, who died very soon after this book was published in 1939, had thought about it a lot more than most people.

You can get Agent of Death here.

Vaguely beset by nigglesomeness

Friday, September 5th, 2025 04:29 pm
oursin: a hedgehog lying in the middle of cacti (hedgehog and cactus)
[personal profile] oursin

Including being gaslit by the Royal Mail, like, I know they sent me a text yesterday and a text this am saying they were delivering A Parcel, but when I went to look as the window was drawing to a close, could not find, while online tracking said something entirely different (parcel still in transit to local sorting office).

In fact, Parcel has just turned up, several hours after indicated.

***

Phone doing Weird Stuff - well, part of this is not phone per se, it was O2, as in, when I was out and about in the world the other day my web data allowance ran out and they send this message about texting 'WEBDAILY' to get a top-up, so I did, and did it? not until yesterday, which was totally pointless.

Plus, in relation to niggle this morning about Downstairs Flat having an electricity thing doing which involved turning off the Main Meter deep in the cellar which affects both flats, was trying to use phone as a hotspot with my laptop and it wanted some network authorisation code? With old phone this used to come up on the actual phone? Though I was also having issues with bluetooth and this may be down to ageing laptop....

***

So there was also that thing of morning routine being disrupted by electricity being turned off. (Though now this thing has been done maybe we too can get a Smart Meter set up, because as I recall having to get at that was the issue.)

***

Have actually, this week, started on outstanding overdue essay review, as well as putting it some more effort on keynote presentation for end of month (this is still a goer and is actually up on their site that I am speaking).

Moderate yay me?

Have just been contacted by A Young Scholar who I feel has imprinted on me like a gosling about an article of theirs currently going through the submission process....

***

GP has requested to make appointment re routine medication review, which I have done, but am a bit anxious about (but perhaps I can get them put sumatriptan back on the routine medications list????).

***

However, in better news, the grocery delivery came early enough that I have been able to get a sardegnera on the go for supper!

In Which Black Chicken Becomes Boss Chicken!!!!

Friday, September 5th, 2025 10:22 am
mallorys_camera: (Default)
[personal profile] mallorys_camera
Awakened again in the middle of the night. What's up with that?

###

Went downstairs to make coffee and discovered Icky (freshly arrived) had acquired four new chickens! Two half-grown chickens and two half-grown chicks.

He'd put the half-grown chickens in the coop with Black Chicken. We wandered out to check in on them. Black Chicken seems ecstatic! She will be Boss Chicken! And no, that's not entirely anthropomorphism: Chickens actually have very complex emotional & social lives.

Icky took this opportunity to interrogate me about the peach tree from which nearly all the peaches had fallen.

"Yeah, I baked a pie with them," I said. "Pity they don't stay on the tree to ripen more—"

Icky scowled. "What are you talking about? They're ripe! That's why they fall off the tree."

"You think? They taste good when they fall off the tree, but they're so small & pale. At the pick-your-own places, they stay on the tree till they're larger & more golden—"

"So, you have made up this complex theory to disguise the fact that you're just wrong—"

I stared at him, incredulous. "Iggy, I don't give a fuck. I am just talking to be polite and pleasant. My ego is not invested in this conversation. Believe whatever you want to believe. I truly do not care."

That shut him up.

###

The two half-grown chicks are currently hopping around downstairs as they are too young to be introduced into the coop. Black Chicken would lead her newly assembled merry band to peck them to death.

I personally would not want half-grown chicks, however adorable, running around through my house. Half-grown chicks shit, & chicken shit is icky. But Iggy is Icky, as we all know, so maybe it's a matter of kindred substances finding each other.

The kiskas are confined to quarters until the chicks find housing elsewhere.

####

Other than that, yesterday was kind of a wash.

The sentences aren't quite condensing.

Meaning I can kind of hear their rhythmn and intuit their layout on the printed page, but the individual words aren't coming.

I tell myself that this will all get resolved in the second draft, but I'm not entirely convinced.

Still. I've got to stick with the schedule I've developed for myself. Next week, I start tax classes, & that means I'll be juggling three balls in the air. Three balls is a lot.

Profile

flemmings: (Default)
flemmings

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags