Coleman Ridge

It is a blessing that many people have no notion of what "fallout" literally means, though.

Perhaps they could be built to be silent, or more nearly silent.

We want zoos to keep people fond of animals, but even the best of them are cruel and destroy animals' knowledge of how to live in the wild. I can't think of any better compromise.

If you can mince words, then you can flounce words.

I wonder if you could have a zoo that was a large nature reserve, camera drones following the animals around, and really good screens. Most animals don't like being watched, but they mightn't mind the drones.

Theodore Sturgeon, Pruzy's Pot, read aloud by the author here. Gross, funny, perverse. Environmentally sound, though.

www.sffaudio.com/spider-on-th...

I support nations killing other nation's aged, demented, tyrannical leaders, particularly if that leader killed theirs first.

Oh, FFS. You are one of the most pleasant and entertaining people here.

They should put little Fitbits on free-range eggs that show how much ranging they have done.

I want there to be a children's show about Acedia the Spiritual Sloth.

It's because the distance between the most brilliant and the corniest fantasy is not very great. Part of the pleasure of reading the Iliad is the same as the pleasure of reading Conan the Barbarian. Romances and romantasy live right next to each other. Fantasy is a slum with artists living in it.

Come to find out that Mumtaz Mahal, who is buried in the Taj Mahal, died in childbirth after bearing fourteen children in nineteen years. Possibly her husband could have found some other, more timely way of showing his affection. He did have other wives.

I am afraid that this would require absorbing other people's babies into your body, and would excite comment.

One new thing the city did about this second snowstorm was to keep overdose prevention centers open all night, because homeless junkies would want a little extra help to sleep in the cold, and some would over-do it. Somebody at the top of a bureaucracy listened to someone at the bottom.

I get "pops" sometimes. I kind of like "pops."

The other soft animals like eating other animals alive and killing babies to bring their mother back into heat, so it's probably OK. You should ask politely first just to be sure, though.

If you will not pay for public restrooms, and you will not permit halfway houses for demented people in your neighborhood, then you will have demented homeless people peeing on the subway sometimes. If I can live with selfish right-wingers who can't connect cause and effect, they can live with that.

(Watching the city burn from my apartment window: ooh, shiny.)

Sitting wondering why I am reasonably happy when the country is falling apart about me, it occurs to me that I can't actually remember even bad things in my own life till they are actually occurring. I am not placid or unduly fortunate, only addled. OK, then. I'll take it.

But why is this bad? Disney's cartooning was never very good, and, besides, it is still there for those who want it. The movies make small children happy.

You can feel sad if it makes you happy, but why about this?

As soon as she said that, the onion broke. And the woman fell into the lake and she is burning there to this day. So the angel wept and went away.

-- Fyodor Dosteyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

6/6

He had just pulled her right out, when the other sinners in the lake, seeing how she was being drawn out, began catching hold of her so as to be pulled out with her. But she was a very wicked woman and she began kicking them. ‘I’m to be pulled out, not you. It’s my onion, not yours.’ 5/

The angel ran to the woman and held out the onion to her. ‘Come,’ said he, ‘catch hold and I’ll pull you out.’ And he began cautiously pulling her out. 4/

And God answered: ‘You take that onion then, hold it out to her in the lake, and let her take hold and be pulled out. And if you can pull her out of the lake, let her come to Paradise, but if the onion breaks, then the woman must stay where she is.’ 3/

So her guardian angel stood and wondered what good deed of hers he could remember to tell to God; ‘She once pulled up an onion in her garden,’ said he, ‘and gave it to a beggar woman.’ 2/

Grushenka's Fable

Once upon a time there was a peasant woman and a very wicked woman she was. And she died and did not leave a single good deed behind. The devils caught her and plunged her into the lake of fire. 1/

It is irritating as fuck, but it kind of makes sense. You can take little vacations from reality if it's easy to find your way back. The problem is with the ones who don't have to or want to come back.

It is not very hard for me, because it's not qualitatively very different than talking with most people. There is almost always a gap, an estrangement. It is always work.

Evidently this is one of the things people like me are for.

Visiting my mother in her memory care home, I chatter about things that might interest her without any assurance that she understands, and listen attentively to her responses, guessing at what she might be trying to mean, and attempting to respond appropriately. Evidently some people find this hard.

I love good lyrics, but sing incoherent cries of passion with enough passion and the right rhythm, and they get good. There is an old Stones song, "Going Home," that is mostly Jagger reviewing his noise repertoire. It is good.

What does trouble me is the idea of books going unused or underused because of bad classification. Inadequate classification in a research library is worse than losing a needle in a haystack. It is losing a particular piece of hay in a haystack.