Ersatz TLS discussion
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What are we reading? 18/12/2023
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Wishing you all a very happy and healthy 2024. And lots of good reading too of course.
MK wrote: "Ruby wrote: "MK wrote: "Ruby wrote: "MK wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "Forthright is good, MK. You live in Wash right? Me, too, at the tippy top of Snohomish County."
Yep, I'm in Seattle's Magnolia..."
i'm a former New Yorker--my directness is off-putting to many. I lived on Capitol Hill for decades. Now Stanwood--I came to volunteer at a pig sanctuary in 2008 after I lost all my money while in Ecuador (working at a dog/cat animal place) and I'm stuck here. Could be way worse. Really could be way worse. No more autobiography--y'all know way too much.
Bill wrote: "I never feel inclined to weep when listening to music. Even when feeling down, I find “sad” music, such as that by John Dowland (“Sorrow, stay”, “Flow, my tears”) to be cathartic, even comforting.
Your mention of Mahler and tears reminds me of a conversation I overheard in a record store a number of years ago. A guy was holding forth to his companion about music, “Mahler was a crybaby. Look at Mozart, he had a much more tragic life than Mahler, but he wasn’t a crybaby.”
Happy New Year to all Ersatzers. TCM is showing movies with scenes set on New Year’s Eve, but I can’t come up with any literary examples except for Dickens’ “The Chimes”."
I do feel that way sometimes with music - and not necessarily sad music, it's more often something that feels especially beautiful. Thus Sprach Zarathustra, for example, though I admit my reaction to that piece has to do in part with how it's used in Kubrick's 2001.
Happy New Year to everyone. I'm staying in to catch up on some reading, maybe watch an old movie, most likely nothing too demanding in either case. My last completed book of 2023 was H.E. Bates's A Breath of French Air, the sequel to The Darling Buds of May. Perhaps I'll try the tv version soon, unless I decide to read the other two(?) books first, they're quite short and easy to get through quickly.
Mod
Happy New Year All!2024 reading will start with Michael Katers study of West Germany from 1945-90 After The Nazi's
Fiction will start with William Gerhardie's 1922 novel of revolutionary St Petersburg Futility. Gerhardie grew up in the city as part of a n ex-pat British family of German descent and i have been looking foward to this for a while.
St Petersburg has always fascinated me, this western looking model city on the Neva marshes that until the 1920s had been the capital of Tsarist Russia for maybe 200 years.
Other St Petersburg novels covering 1917-18 i recommend are:
The Secret Cityby Hugh Walpole, this wartime novel really impressed me again covering the 1917-18 period in the city
Petersburg by Andry Bely, a vast and strange work by the Russian master written in 1913.
The Conquered City by Victor Serge, haunting and the view from an insider, fictionalised
MK wrote: "Oh dear, memories of pre-menopausal days when I sometimes sat on the couch and just had a good cry. Nothing like a catharsis."Naturally, I didn't go through that method of having a crying jag, though the notion of catharsis is certainly one I understand, appreciate and have experienced! Since I assume (wrongly?) that you are now post-menopausal, my question remains: why the wish to cry? Are there no other methods available to you to achieve catharsis? If not - my recommendation of suitable music stands! Some films would have the same effect...
giveusaclue wrote: "I enjoyed Gorky Park but was disappointed with Polar Star then enjoyed Red Square again from what I can remember. Will have to try more."FWIW, I was especially impressed with Havana Bay and Wolves Eat Dogs
A year or two ago, I read The Siberian Dilemma and enjoyed it well enough, though IMO it's nowhere near as good as the other two mentioned.
So far, Three Stations is somewhere in between, but I haven't finished it yet.
Ruby wrote: "I am semi-addicted to animal rescue stories--St. Louis Rescue is an amazing!!! organization. Some of the rescues on Utube are horrific and I dont want to know what was done. I get so close to crying (when a dog knows that it has been adopted) but I cant jump whatever brain hurdle is in the way. Yet. I love crying."Interesting! I find it a bit embarrassing to do in company. Not infrequently, when I listen on headphones to some moving piece of music, I well up - but if that goes too far, madame (a world-class worrier) will ask "Is everything all right?". She tends to think the tears are a sign that I have had - and am concealing - some "bad news" about my health. In truth, I pretty much never cry out of worry or self-pity... it's always beauty, or grief at a death, that tip me over. I certainly don't "enjoy" crying, though!
Ruby wrote: ".Some years ago - ten years? - I read/listened to all of the Bernie Gunther books. He was a cop, not a spy; a cop in Weimar and later."Indeed he was, just like Renko. I'm less interested in spy stories in general - certainly since the 1960s or so - though I did enjoy David Downing's 'station' series where his protagonist, a Berlin-based journalist of US/British descent, is drawn into espionage and undercover anti-Nazi work. Mainly interesting for what feels like a realistic portrayal of Berlin and central Europe in the 1930s- early 50s.
Ruby wrote: "Happy 2024 everyone. Hope for lasting peace in Middle East.Dont know the transition monikers from TLS to Ersatz so the people who were so awful to me years back--dont know who they are now. All i..."
Indeed - Happy New Year to you and all!
(Should you be interested, hushpuppy posted a list of 'who was who' between the two sites not long after this group was created, and it may well still be available... though a healthier approach is no doubt to either forgive, or at least to ignore/grow a thick carapace to any personal attacks as opposed to legitimate disagreements about books or politics.)
Ruby wrote: "My next-door neighbor and friend cleans for catharsis. I only just recently realized it was therapeutic for her,.."Madame cleans the house top to bottom whenever she doesn't hear from a daughter who is 'in transit' by car or plane. (She doesn't fear trains...).
scarletnoir wrote: "MK wrote: "Oh dear, memories of pre-menopausal days when I sometimes sat on the couch and just had a good cry. Nothing like a catharsis."Naturally, I didn't go through that method of having a cry..."
Scarlet - It's been a while but I seem to remember a level of spontenaneity about it and that it felt good to do. I suppose it is also helpful to exercise tear ducts, too.
scarletnoir wrote: "Ruby wrote: "Happy 2024 everyone. Hope for lasting peace in Middle East.Dont know the transition monikers from TLS to Ersatz so the people who were so awful to me years back--dont know who they a..."
I have these:
Paul Webber ex-pat/Paultheexile
Karen Chronic Expat
Sandya llorentffy
Slawkenbergius Captain Flint
Reen Reenimus
Bill Swelter
CCCubbon Margaret
Carmen12 Carmen12 Call her Ruby
Alan Aldopaulista
Pete Fatbuddha1
Lola Margar
Lisa Jones LLJones
Allworthy Claire
Alana Alanaincanada
Miri Cardellina
Evan Leo Toadstool
Russell Vermont Logger
Shelflife Booklover
Anne Miss Carey
scarletnoir wrote: "Ruby wrote: "I am semi-addicted to animal rescue stories--St. Louis Rescue is an amazing!!! organization. Some of the rescues on Utube are horrific and I dont want to know what was done. I get so c..."I cry with beauty, grief, memories, set design--haha, music of course, cinematography, really anything that touches me. My dad cried and it wasn't until I was a teenager that I realized how special that was and how lucky I was to have a dad who cried. Both my husbands cried and I loved that about them. They were both really really funny guys and sometimes after something hilariously funny when I could breathe normally again I would cry from the sheer joy of laughing go hard.
Colleen McElroy died. She was my prof at UW--her class on the Harlem Renaissance was brilliant. Maybe 12-14 students in the class and each of us chose a figure from that era and prepared a talk. My person was Marcus Garvey and the Back-to-Africa movement. Thinking about that class and that time in my life I wish I could cry. I loved going to college so much. 14 years I went.
Mod
Dont know the transition monikers from TLS to Ersatz so the people who were so awful to me years back--dont know who they a...
"Should you be interested, hushpuppy posted a list of 'who was who' between the two sites not long after this group was created, and it may well still be available"
The lists scarlet refers to are in Photos, page 2.
However, the majority of these people don't post here and the same is true of giveusaclue's list. We're a small group now.
As I said before, I don't think the people who upset you, Ruby, are here.
Gpfr wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "Ruby wrote: "Dont know the transition monikers from TLS to Ersatz so the people who were so awful to me years back--dont know who they a...
"Should you be interested, hushpupp..."
thank you. it was several years ago and I only think of it now and then. At the time tho I was pretty devastated b/c I was invested and only realized how deeply when it happened. I like small groups.
The sixth Quirke book by John Banville called Holy Orders was the best yet, so beautifully written, the slow pace of mid century Dublin, the rain, Quirke struggling with himself as usual and drinking too much and over it all an air of menace.These are not the usual crime books, better by far.
Ruby wrote: "Gpfr wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "Ruby wrote: "Dont know the transition monikers from TLS to Ersatz so the people who were so awful to me years back--dont know who they a...
"Should you be interes..."
Affter the Ersatz TLS branched off when they ditched the original TLS(seems ages ago now), we had quite a group come with us, the site is still slow and clunky but it remains free of the woke moderators at the G and i post here about 3 times as much as on the G. Not sure why so many stopped posting here as the G is a shadow of what it was
Happy new year, everyone. I've just joined the distinguished list of all of you who are being modded for no discernible reason at The G!
Anne wrote: "Happy new year, everyone. I've just joined the distinguished list of all of you who are being modded for no discernible reason at The G!"Ridiculous isnt it, we are a progressive left leaning bunch of long time Guardian readers (31 yrs for me) and yet our own paper is censoring our comments!
AB76 wrote: "Ridiculous isnt it, we are a progressive left..."
It was a comment on a children's book! Happy new year to you.
It was a comment on a children's book! Happy new year to you.
AB76 wrote: "Anne wrote: "Happy new year, everyone. I've just joined the distinguished list of all of you who are being modded for no discernible reason at The G!"Ridiculous isnt it, we are a progressive left..."
It's appeared now Anne. You laced it with too many F bombs
I've begun 2024 in the proper manner - or you could say I am a sucker for a book sale. It all began with the University of Oklahoma's sale email where I ended up buying A Promise Kept: The Muscogee (Creek) Nation and McGirt V. Oklahoma. If you ask google for a map of the five civilized tribes of Oklahoma, you should see that at least 1/3 of the state is Indian Country. Then, of course, I got to thinking about the Boldt Decision (https://www.historylink.org/file/21084) which will be 50 years old in 2024 and is still reverberating in WA today. Recently, the Feds allocated $1B for culverts and salmon, something that has been a long-neglected highway issue here in WA.Since the UW Press also has a sale on, I ordered Treaty Justice: The Northwest Tribes, the Boldt Decision, and the Recognition of Fishing Rights.
Because neither of these books will arrive until later this month, I am going to have to prep by reading A Lawyer in Indian Country by Alvin J. Ziontz who argued the U.S. v. Washington which became the historic Boldt Decision.
I don't want to see too virtuous here as I will have a scruffy mystery to keep me company under the covers.
PS - I also waiting for Thrift to send me several Carlotta Carlyle PBs for future reading. Looks like I'm gong to be busy in 2o24.
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Ersatz TLS
Books mentioned in this topic
Treaty Justice: The Northwest Tribes, the Boldt Decision, and the Recognition of Fishing Rights (other topics)A Lawyer in Indian Country: A Memoir (other topics)
A Promise Kept: The Muscogee Creek Nation and Mcgirt V. Oklahoma (other topics)
The Siberian Dilemma (other topics)
Wolves Eat Dogs (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
Alvin J. Ziontz (other topics)Claire Gebben (other topics)
Richard J. Evans (other topics)
Heather Cox Richardson (other topics)
Linda Barnes (other topics)
I love the blurb provided - "The mightiest of all Asian zodiac signs, those born under the Dragon are ambitious, fearless and driven. They are passionate and enthusiastic in all they do. Dragons frequently help others, but will rarely ask for help, and despite their colorful personalities, deep down prefer to be on their own.
Are you Dragons ready to 'fess up?