Mark A. Rayner's Blog: Mark A. Rayner's Goodreads Blog, page 111

Classics of Literature – The Catcher in the Rye

In 1950, J.D. Salinger was hired by the New York City Tourist Bureau to write a jazzy and young novel about the city that never sleeps, in hopes of increasing general awareness about the city, and why it was such a great travel destination. Boy, did they spend their money wisely.

Salinger's story centers around the character of Holden Caulfield, who is a adolescent Catcher in training. The Catchers all have their own unique super-powers, and they are dedicated to making the world a better, more livable place. They are all trained at the famed Pencey Prep. Because of his impressive Talent (a mix of adolescent angst and insightfulness), he is sent by his Headmaster to New York City, to help make the city more livable and kind.

Caulfield faces many challenges and mystical experiences, in which he discovers that he is neither an orphan, nor the bastard son of the Evil Governor. For most characters, this is the kiss of death. Having no evil father to fight or lack of parents to overcome generally means you can be a bit player, or at best, the sidekick of the hero. But Caulfield digs deep and discovers hidden reserves of sarcasm that enable him to remain the novel's protagonist, and not get molested by an old Master of Dark English.

Little known fact: The NYC Tourist Bureau paid Salinger $12 and "all the ether he could sniff" to write the book.

The erotic possibilities of zombie domination

"Now listen carefully Judy, as this lesson will someday save your life.

"You see this quadrant of the parietal lobe? This is the sweet spot when it comes to zombie domination. If you can deliver even a modest blow to this part of their brain, they will be rendered inert."

"But won't this be at the back of their heads?" Judy asked.

"Yes. If you can't take them out via the parietal lobe attack, you will have to destroy the entire brain, and –"

"Yes, Miss Leslie?"

"Judy, is your hand on my thigh?"

Alltop is a shovel kind of aggregator. Thanks to Foxtongue for the vintage pic. Originally published May 2009.

Classics of Literature — Books with Animals (#1)

Moby-Dick, or, The Whale

No finer book about the 19th century whaling industry has ever been written. There are exciting passages about the flensing of whales, gut-wrenching tales of the boiling of whale blubber, and don't even get me started on the whole chapter about the absurdities of mid-19th century financial regulations regarding the opening of new whaling markets to operators of unlicensed leviathan hunters.

Oh, and somewhere in there you'll find a few sentences about a psychopathic captain, rendered insane by the loss of his leg, cannibals, and moby-dicks. (The most dangerous and thrilling of dicks.)

Warning: this novel features an unreliable narrator. I mean, he won't even tell you his real name, instead, opening the book with the imperative: "Call me Ishmael."

Watership Down

This was one of my childhood faves, and all of my friends had read it as well. So, you'd think a bunch of 12-year-old boys would find this a laughable premise, a book about rabbits. Au contraire.

For some bizarre reason, the tale of a bunch of rabbits searching for a new home ignited in us a desire to emulate the events of the book. We would find a new abode, and create a masterpiece warren with all the comforts of home, and perhaps even fill it with lovely does. (Hey, we were 12-year-old boys, we had no idea how it worked, but we were interested. Oh, we were interested.)

Finding the site was less of an adventure than the book. Really all we needed was a nice secure spot, open enough to allow us to dig, but with a few nearby trees which we would use for lookout posts. We chose a section of the woods that was open, and half-pasture, but overgrown with grass and scrub bush. It was creating the warren that became the epic.

Digging the first three feet of the "large central room", which would be the hub of our new and magnificent clubhouse was easy. (Our goal was to dig the large room first — a 10′ x 15′ space — and then cover it with sod quickly, so the location of our hideout would remain secret.) In fact, none of our parents had occasion to ask why we were borrowing all the shovels it was going so quickly. It was just dirt we were digging.

Then we hit the clay. It took us a week to get down another six inches. And another week to make it to four feet. Somewhere in there my mother asked me what we were doing with the shovels, and I mumbled something about looking for buried treasure before collapsing into bed.

Week four saw us to four feet and three inches. We were definitely slowing, and the chance that we would keep this monstrous hole secret for much longer was rapidly fading. In fact, there were whispers that we should give up. (Most 12-year-old boys would have given up weeks before and moved onto other adventures.) However, we were a stubborn group, and the clay would have to end soon.

But no. It just kept going. After another full week of digging, we were only down to four feet and seven inches. (Though the optimists among us thought it was four foot eight.) Some discussion of using the massive pile of clay that now surrounded our redoubt to make up the remaining one foot and four inches we needed to finish our planned hole. This idea was rejected as being too avant garde, and besides, the idea was that it would be a SECRET hideout, and even once the grass had finished regrowing, which would now take months, the lump would make our clubhouse too obvious.

The committee was convinced. And it was decided that we would finish the hole this week, in a frenzy of effort. We would spend twice as long digging each day. Three times! No TV! No touch football! It would be done. It's what Fiver would want! Fiver lives!

We returned to our warren, filled with enthusiasm, imagining how sweet it would be when the hole was covered with grass on top, the walls and floor were rendered habitable by shag rugs, and we had some does in there, only to find our magnificent hideout had been co-opted by some local teens.

The deep hole and surrounding wall of clay rendered any campfire perfectly safe and invisible to observers in the woods. (It even absorbed some of the sound teenage revelry.) The remains of a genius campfire lay in the center of the warren. Beer bottles and cigarette stubs decorated the well-trodden clay.

So instead of becoming a secret hideout, filled with sweet-eyed does and brilliant rabbit wannabes, it became the best-known place to partake of jungle juice; it became the Party Pit. In retrospect, it probably saw more action this way then our clubhouse ever would have, doe-wise.

Alltop loves the does. And the bucks.

Always check your sample size

On the other hand, if the research is correct, then it might make for a really fun workplace:

all the blood wine you can drink
rousing games of Kill the Kirk
not to mention how nice it will be to have a bat'leth for dealing with "problem" clients.

Alltop is more of a Romulan kind of website. Original cartoon by Rob Cottingham at Noise to Signal.

Alternate History Fridays: Remember, Remember the Fifth of November

Thomas Cadwell watched as the children danced around the bonfire, singing:

A penny loaf to feed the Pope.

A farthing o' cheese to choke him.

A pint of beer to rinse it down.

A fagot of sticks to burn him.

He marked the fifth of November — as all in England did — though it was a strange kind of celebration. But he was old enough to actually remember the events they all sang about. He'd been in London when it happened; he had been just a boy, no more than five or six, visiting relatives for the opening of the parliament, and the celebrations that would accompany the long-awaited event.

Burn him in a tub of tar.

Burn him like a blazing star.

Back then England had been partly Catholic, even if there were no rights for them. Not anymore.

Burn his body from his head.

Then we'll say ol' Pope is dead.

Hip hip hoorah!

Hip hip hoorah!

His family couldn't get very close to the Houses of Parliament, because of the crowds. It ended up saving Thomas's life. The explosion had been spectacular: When the gunpowder went off, the House of Lords was reduced to rubble, killing King James and many nobles instantly. Everyone within 100 yards of the building was killed — the crowds outside, the Commons, all of the Lords — and the stained glass in Westminster Abbey shattered like the uneasy peace between Catholics and Protestants.

But the carnage was not over.

It came to light that the catastrophe was a Catholic conspiracy; the plotters tried to set Princess Elizabeth, James's eldest daughter, on the throne. But England was having none of it. Catholics were rooted out and slaughtered, though some were allowed to convert to the Church of England.

Thomas had been one of those. In 1605 he'd only been six — younger even than the new King, Henry — and the mob that hunted down his Catholic family showed him mercy.

But not his father or mother, his brother or sisters.

Remember, remember the fifth of November,

The gunpowder, treason and plot,

I see of no reason why gunpowder treason

Should ever be forgot.

He knew the children dancing around the flames could not remember what happened, so he was not angry with them for starting to sing the song again, dancing now with even more fervor. Since that day, Parliament had never met again, and the King's power in Great Britain was absolute.

A tear ran down his face, and Thomas looked away, as the children continued dancing, and singing as the flames licked the darkening sky.

A papist plot of great extent,

Blew up the King and the Parliament.

Three score barrels of powder below,

Poor old England to overthrow:

By God's providence they were catch'd

The Catholic treason was o'ermatched.

Holloa boys, holloa boys, make the bells ring.

Holloa boys, holloa boys, God save the King!

Hip hip hoorah!

Inspired by: The Gunpowder Plot | Bonfire pic by Dan Taylor. Originally published in 2006.

Relationships: a visual helper

This chart to should be circulated to everyone in high school. This love-hate/sex-no sex chart would be extremely helpful, even if I'm dubious about its accuracy.

Alltop loves the Island of Awesome. Find more of this nonsense at Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal.

René Magritte: Meditations on the Nether Beast From Dimension X

Many have taken this iconic painting by the Belgian surrealist to be a commentary on the treacherous nature of the image — it makes you believe one thing, while hiding the reality of the image beneath.

The caption, "Ceci n'est pas une pipe" or "This is not a pipe" is factually accurate — it is, in fact, a painting of a pipe. Magritte himself once said, "of course it's not a pipe you cretin, just try to fill it with pipe-weed." (Magritte was an immense fan of the Tolkien oeuvre, which he read in its entirety, about a decade before it was written.)

Of course, Magritte was lying.

In his home dimension, it was quite possible to fill a painting of a pipe with "smokables" and enjoy a good puff while watching the Nether Beast destroy ancient civilizations, the concept of solitude, and a slice of cheesecake slathered in raspberry confit.

Check out more Famous Paintings with SF Titles here
Alltop has no idea what confit is, but it sounds tasty, as does Nether anything.

Classics of Literature — Dystopias & Post-Apocalyptic Hijinks (#1)

1984

I'm not sure why everyone is so freaked out about this pretty ordinary tale about a door-to-door salesman and his quest for meaning in a brutal work environment. The love affair between Winston and Julia is touching, though I'm not sure why it's so …more I'm not sure why everyone is so freaked out about this pretty ordinary tale about a door-to-door salesman and his quest for meaning in a brutal work environment. The love affair between Winston and Julia is touching, though I'm not sure why it's so important that she fetishes the vacuum attachments Winston is trying to sell her on their first meeting.

I was rather impressed by Orwell's ability to predict the invention of Creep-Vee, "The Television that Watches You!" (I'm not a big fan, though I know most of the kids really like it, especially the shows where they get to vote on who has to eat the raw goat's anus)

I was also impressed by Orwell's ability to predict the rise of Fox News.

The Road

You'd think an adventurous post-apocalyptic story would have more pitched sea battles and swordplay, so I was really disappointed with this book. There was only one boat, no pirates, and the violence wasn't very romantic.

There is some baby-eating, which I found disturbing. Disturbing enough that even this effort won't clear it from my consciousness:

I dares ya to buy it as a t-shirt.

Alltop likes its baby with carrots.

That's capitalism!

Where I work, the annual appraisal is called the Annual Performance Evaluation, or APE for short. This pleases me.

Alltop loves toiling. No, wait, soiling. Alltop loves soiling.

Classic miscommunication

He'd met her at a bar uptown, and she seemed like a classy dame, but there was something odd about her. When she'd said, "you know Lance, I'd really like to show you my sink, and you could play with the snake," he thought it was just a euphemism.

But no. Horribly, no.

Alltop thinks euphemism is a kind of coughing disease. Awesome pic via Twisted Vintage.