Greg S > Recent Status Updates

New city, New job story, eh?

Lol. Has she never been to a city before? Amazing! Electricity!

It doesn’t say but Louisa Clark must be in her early twenties. Who else could be this socially inept?

Giving this a go!

Today, I watched a stand-up comic, Gareth Reynolds, and it’s interesting to me how modern stand-up jokes have a similar technique to Dickens descriptive metaphors.

“…to conquer what was amiss in himself…”

I’m sorry, you have my attention. — “ …impression that it was too monotonous, gave his gold watch to his hair-dresser one summer evening and walked leisurely home to the Temple and hanged himself.”

“…he broke something—something necessary to his existence, therefore it couldn't have been his heart—and made an end of his career.”

“He is in a helpless condition as to his lower, and nearly so as to his upper, limbs, but his mind is unimpaired. It holds, as well as it ever held, the first four rules of arithmetic…”

That explanations Lupin gives are incomplete. Also, why is Ganimard not arresting him?

Fun watching Lupin fool these people. But it was obvious.

funny. — “He is almost,—you see how candid I am!—he is almost as clever as Sherlock Holmes..”

Interesting. So he's a pitiful thief?

And here I thought Monty Python had an original idea. — “He reminded us of the author who almost died in a fit of laughter provoked by his own play.”

These stories have lost their luster.

The Purple is Everything by Dorothy Davis: This is not a mystery. But it’s a decent story. There is no mystery because there is no anticipation, and there are no questions. We know everything. We’re merely watching a problem resolve itself.

St. Patrick’s Day in the Morning by Charlotte Armstrong: A clever little thing. Part one is meeting the woman. Part two is a second encounter and the danger he’s suddenly trapped in. It’s a little forced when Mr. Brown walks up to her, uninvited. He also doesn’t take the easy way out because of stubbornness, which was silly. Redeeming quality is the ludicrous reveal on the last paragraph.

The Summer People by Shirley Jackson: Cute story. Similar to Dorothy Sawyers. They are both about terror and ambiguous tension. Four or five people find it strange that the Allison’s are staying on. Suddenly, bad things start to happen. One of the last lines, “I suppose the phone wires were cut.”

I Can Find My Way Out by Ngaio Marsh: trouble was all tension died with the victim, halfway through the story too, so the second half was a slog. Also, we did not learn anything about the ten or so characters in this short story besides the bare minimum. We get to know them during the denouement which was too late. I also didn’t fully understand the HOW. Also the beginning sets up expectations that are abandoned

Ridiculous . — “The glass dropped from H.J.’s eye. “God!” he said”

The Man who knew how by Dorothy Sawyer: A funny bit. Nothing more than a nice little psychological thriller type. Is he imagining things or is the danger real? With a funny reveal right on the last paragraph. I’ll forget it as fast as I read it.

It’s all about impending disaster, isn’t it?

Very mysterious. — “Besides, how should I find you if I wanted you?” “You wouldn’t have to,” said Smith. “I should find you…”

I like it when old books have almost the exact same conversation I’ve had with casual friends.

With all the repetition, I’ll have the word ‘pince-nez’ memorized this week.

But I also liked that the short story was all tension and insinuation.

A Jury of Her Peers by Susan Glaspell: a very good story about nothing. It’s almost exactly the same as Lamb to the Slaughter by Roald Dahl. All which have the same tension structure as The Tell-Tale-Heart.

“…in a look of dawning comprehension, of growing horror…”

mysteries and mysteries. questions and questions.

Ha! That’s what I said! - “—it seems kind of sneaking; locking her up in town and coming out here to get her own house to turn against her!”