Shel’s Comments (group member since Mar 05, 2009)

Shel’s comments from the fiction files redux group.

That was me. My mom made me read it when I was 9 because she was taking a class in Chinese economics... I can remember her telling me that economics ran the world and then trying to explain macro vs. micro economics to me... it's family lore at this point.

I have heard the criticism of Buck (simplistic, outsider views of Chinese culture), but I dunno, but I still think she's worth considering. When I re-read it in college it seemed like a fable to me, almost a King Lear kind of thing at the end, rather than an explanation of a culture far too complex to "sum up" in one novel.

My only issue with it now is that it was in Oprah's book club. That always upsets me even though it shouldn't.

Wow. All this discipline.

I read 12 books at a time, so I'm lucky to finish any of them... I start one, and it's really good, then I find another or it gets recommended by the group, and I'm off on that one and it's really good too... and then I have a discussion group thing so I work on that (recently Dostoevsky, now Chekhov and Ibsen, and then Henry V the following week)...

Guided by the four winds, I guess.

What I've found is that when you click on the little red word "new", you go to directly to the new posts.

Definitely a usability issue, though I have seen it on other sites... at least the real estate to the right and left isn't cluttered with animated gifs of dancing people, or chucky dolls, or icky teeth.

As long as the wine tastes like diabetic yak piss, count me in.

Jennifer wrote: "what an impressive assortment - i didn't know many of these! i'm about to order some tom waits.

Oh no you don't! He's mine! ALL MINE!!!

Michael said... I was surprised. There was a collaborative wa which was happening there, maybe because of the pictures, that just didn’t happen on USENET (ur-networking kids, don’t even ask) back in the day.

Ah, USENET. I remember USENET!

Here are some other words for ya: PINE. Mosaic. MUD!

I'm going to echo something Kerry said somewhere else. I just laughed so loud that even the regulars at my favorite coffee place in Chicago looked at me like I was just a wee bit crazy.

And green tea almost shot right out of my nose onto my screen!

Ben wrote: "tom waits is pretty much one long bukowski quote, right?"

Never thought about it that way. But that may be why I harbor a crush on him. That and his voice.

Hey, I just bopped around my kitchen singing a freshly downloaded Joey and realized that I now sing in Johnette Napolitano's register. (I think she goes down to the F below middle C in that song, which technically makes me a Tenor 1?)

All those cigarettes in college must have done the trick.

I do so love Concrete Blonde...!

Oh, Mark Knopfler. Romeo and Juliet. One of my all-time favorite love songs.

There goes 9 dollars and 99 more cents to Apple...

I loved Love in the Time of Cholera. It makes me cry. For the film I needed Kleenex.

Hey there, hot tamale... and here I racked my brains for a suitable moderator title... I should let other people decide!

So Kerry has you into NMH too? She should be paid for promoting them...!

OK. Hm. Well, the obvious rock and roll artists would be Dylan and Cohen. Maybe Joan Baez? But let me stretch a bit more. For now one immediately jumps to mind...

Concrete Blonde - inspired by Anne Rice's Interview with a Vampire, the song Bloodletting (they do a nice cover of the Cohen song Everybody Knows)

The other stuff that comes to mind immediately are operas and ballets. Tristan und Isolde... Salome (both of which I saw recently)... Romeo & Juliet... I'm about to see Abduction from the Seraglio on Friday - but it looks like that's not based on any story I know of...

In ballet, Martha Graham's Clytemnestra comes to mind.

If Michael is too busy with his plans for world domination, I will do my best to lead with insightful questions, at least.

It does seem people want to wait. In the poll I suggested May 1, just to give people a break from reading groups, etc. and to give Dan a chance to finish Infinite Jest, Ben a chance to finish Drood, and all that...

Maureen wrote: "Martyn wrote: "I don't like the layout of Goodreads for groups.

Have a nice day!

"

what don't you like about it? more info would be helpful. :)"

I'm thinking we can't really alter the layout of groups... but I don't know for sure. I have to imagine it's not a matter of just monkeying around, like I can with Wordpress's layouts.

It just takes getting used to reading posts without little boxes around them.

There's nothing a designer loves more than to hear "I don't like it" and nothing a developer loves to hear more than "It doesn't work."

And thank you for all of the thank you's! I am happy to finally get going on something I talked about doing at the Dork last year...!

Yay, JCO and Baldwin!

I love me some Joyce Carol Oates.

(Last week, in my writing group, I almost did the dance of joy when someone said my stuff reminded them of hers!)

My guess is, members can only delete their own posts...

Ben wrote: "i don't want to be a moderator. it makes me very nervous. but i don't want to relinquish my moderator status, for fear of what others might to do me."

But destiny claims you, Ben. It points at you with its waggling finger and dictates that you, Ben, shall be our Moderator.

It's like the Pu-6 explosive space modulator.

Deleting posts

I just discovered, by deleting a short post of Michael's when I meant to delete my own, that if you want to delete a post...

The reply|edit|delete|flag links that appear just over the grey bar are for the post directly preceding.

So if you want to delete your post, or edit it... bottom right, just above the grey bar that divides the post you wish to edit from the post directly below it.

There is no Ctrl + Z on that action, either.

Brian, I'll create it. And if for some reason you run out of MBs, we can use my MobileMe.

I will have to scan and send you my DFW story from the Mar 9 New Yorker if you don't have it already.