Fergus, Weaver of Autistic Webs > Recent Status Updates

This is that oddity, a slightly dark and difficult Christmastime Christian book. But, of course that’s life sometimes, though we’re often looking for a lift for our spirits - and find it in trite tales. Which this is not. It’s a grainy, gritty reportage of the inner lives of two lonely people trying to cut painfully through the levels of evasion and denial that separate them from real and committed lives.

Here’s a novel third-party marriage proposal!
“Both girls (the 6-yr-old twins) took deep breaths and then turned to Lily and recited: ‘Will you be our new mommy?’”
An offer neither Carson nor Lily can refuse, perhaps...

Carson is a diffident pastor courted by Cupid at Christmastime. Lily is the object of his affection - but Lily has vowed to keep his late wife’s battleground secret and balks at Carson’s devotion. Which matters most: sisterhood or love (a love which is reflected in her late friend’s affectionate six-yr-old daughters)?

This is my third Holiday Season with this wonderfully grownup Christmas tale. A widower - & pastor - meets up with his late wife’s best girlfriend, a chum she knew on her last (doomed) deployment overseas. Seeking more facts about that mission from her, he doesn’t see that both he & the chum are falling head over heels - which is A-OK by his twin momless 6-yr-olds!

The dénouement. A headlong rush by the good side to cripple the dark conspiratorial power that now threatens to plunge the Free World into mere anarchy. This edge-of-your seat YA entertainment has a moral: always look BENEATH the headlines to their hidden realities!

Senor Alfonsceca has said this is among his earlier - and, to his mind, more imperfect fantasies - but to me, that’s only modesty. It’s a FANTASTIC book - a great mix of Mystery and Science Fiction Genres!

With great clarity of vision and compelling logic, Spanish SF prizewinning author Manuel Alfonseca leads us swiftly through the earthly political intrigue threatening the success of a manned exploration of Venus. A wonderful YA read: Alfonseca deserves a wider readership!

Marche’s wonderfully outspoken candour on all things Shakespearean challenges our préconceptions of his Plays’ impact - irrevocably!

A wonderfully fast-paced SF thriller, reminding me somewhat of van Vogt without his rapid-fire scene changes. The author, a career scientist, deciphers the weather data of Venus into vividly real Infernal word-pictures!

Great first-hand account of Life with Asperger’s!

This one should keep you on the edge of your seats, kids! Put your cares away and cozy up with a rip-roaring YA yarn! I love it. Plus - as I respect and admire Manuel Alfonseca - this story can be taken on a deeper level than the apparent, gripping plot trajectory!

Father Ciszek’s ill-fated (and auspicious - seeing its fruits) foray into Communist Russia is only now beginning, at this turning point in his memoir.

The child whose self is suppressed early on will have later difficulties emoting: “The difficulties inherent in experiencing and developing one’s own emotions lead to mutual dependency, which prevents individuation... The parents have found in their child’s false self... a substitute for their own missing security....”

And on that cheek, and o’er that brow
So soft, so calm, yet so eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!
And as it was with Byron, so it was with Dante - as this pure noble vision paced by him gracefully through the fetid slough of ancient Florence.

So great to experience this again! Charlie Brown is so ME when a kid. I love every moment of it!

Tonight I was watching an Apple-produced Bill Murray production on AppleTV - On the Rocks, with Bill Murray playing an old-timer who’s a filthy rich skirt-chaser - and it suddenly hit me: “Hey! Daub’s right - our relaxed minds are always being SWAYED by the Silicon Valley ideals of LIBERTARIANISM and LOTS ‘o DOUGH!”

Prepare to be positively BLOWN AWAY if you should pick up this all-to-brief CHRISTMAS AUDIOBOOK with Dylan Thomas reading for yourself (yes - why not? - you’ve been nice to others all year!) this Holiday Season! Cause the Maestro packs so much of a lights-out punch into each of his endearingly oldtime Yuletide images, you’ll wish he had LIVED TO WRITE MUCH MORE!!!

Daub said back on page 10: “The ideas that tech calls thinking were developed and refined in the making of money.” It becomes obvious that Christian altruism is not part and parcel of What Tech Calls Thinking. Developing ways of making money - within the ‘ethical’ values of liberation taught at Esalen - doesn’t seem like a Ethos to teach your kids!

This should be quite a trip: a Stanford egghead reverse-engineers and questions the downright flimsy moral philosophy that goes into the software in our computers...

I’m taking up this monumental trilogy again after a space of two years, as I felt daunted by its length and human depth. Paul Craddock, wounded Boer War Hero, has just inherited a large English agricultural estate and is now conversing animatedly with his beautiful future wife, Claire. The remaining volumes take us through the 1930’s to the 50’s on the estate.

The great Christmas favourite is read by the modern British Bard himself, on this priceless Audible recording! To listen to it, as attentively as one must,
Is the auditory variety of sheer paradise.

This seems to be exactly what happened to me so long ago!

“Hokey Crokey! Is this guy drunk on newly-corked wine?”
“Nope. Like the boys in the Upper Room of a rented dive in Jerusalem two millennia ago, he’s just flipped out on the Spirit!”
And THIS is my first OD on Pastor Chan’s blunt enthusiasm...
Great stuff!

A wonderfully light, witty and urbane work about The Bard’s omnipresent influence on our daily and historical lives. This noted Canadian teacher and radio personality really delivers a top-notch entertainment package!

A popular book from a new GR friend - I’m gonna like this one!

“C.S.Lewis says, ‘We are like eggs... And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.’”

Father Horan is not about to shy away from the real, embarrassingly gritty realities that so many ministers and clerics prefer to smooth over in a smothering attitude of high-horse complacency.

A Gorgeous book.

This surely ranks among the Best of the nonfiction books I’ve read in 2020!

A warm, innocently engaging Christmas story - perfect for family reading with the little ones around the Tree on Christmas Eve!