Plugging for Pete’s Sake

SeattleTammy - What delightful sinning without actually having to be the sinner. Well, maybe he’s not actually doing any sinning…maybe… but remember this book is brought to us through Peter’s personal filter. As my buddy, the great artist COCOCheznaynay, says “What happens in Vagueness, stays in Vagueness.” Words to live by.

My family has something of a tradition–if you laugh audibly at a passage in a book, you must immediately read it aloud so the rest of the room can share in the amusement. On incredibly rare occasions, entire books are deemed too damned funny for the isolated passage treatment. Pratchett falls heavily into this category, with a few other scattered works from various authors.

Chalk one up for Mister Sagal. In fact, he gets a singular honor. After ripping through the book between various other activites over the course of a day, I’m actively looking for an audience to threaten with a recitation.

Ja sure, here are a couple of at my favoritt books, It is Pat. Knut Hamsun, “Under The Autumn Star”, Henrik Ibsen, “A Doll’s House”, und Sigrid Undset, “Kristin Lavransdatter”. You should want to read maybe the English translations. Norge can be a bitch.

It’s Pat! congrats on the youngests’ driver’s license! We’re still in the white knuckle stage. And, there’s a developing rut on the passengerside floorboards, from attempted parental braking.

My two all-purpose recommends are:
Leif Engle’s “Peace Like A River”
(I’ve had people make a special return trip to the shop just to thank me for this one!)
and John Connolly’s “Book of Lost Things” (just out in paperback this week.)

It appears I have a troll over at the bookreport so if anyone wants to go flame “Ben” have at! (glance through his profile so you can see what a blowhard he is!) Thanks!

Over at the Generals’ hedera, not Jackson St.

Idiot whose profile shows 6 ongoing blogs.

“very interesting stuff on the Supreme Court by the way”
Loves me some Dave von E!

Pat, if there were ever a screaming need for a beater, it is the new teen driver. At least he opened the garage door before backing out - that’s a bonus.

In NC it’s a law that, without an adult in the car, there can be only one other teen in the vehicle with a teen driver. The idea being less distractions and I think it’s helped cut down on accidents. Good luck with the newbie. BTW, preach “No cell phones while driving, dammit!” for the first 6 months or so. That’s how our son totaled our van - taking a call from his mother. Argggh! I hate cell phones.

Strange driving laws for strange times. It was possible at one time in North Carolina for a student with a driver’s license to drive the school bus. And in my youth in Florida, you could get your regular license at 16, and that was it. You were a licensed driver. And if you were a married woman, you did not have to be 16. You were legally an adult when you got married. Oh, yeah, my grandmother married my grandfather when she was 15 and he was in his early 20s. They raised 12 children, he was elected county judge, and they were married until he died of tb in his late 50s. She was a Hardshell Baptist preacher, which did not sit well with the establishment elders, but her congregation chose her anyway. Grandpa was a Presbyterian, but he believed she’d been called to preach and backed her. He had the first Model T in Stanton, Kentucky, which he turned over on a regular basis because he couldn’t keep it in the ruts.

yes, hedera I did look at them! That’s how I identified him as a certified, low-grade crack-pot troll! What a maroon! (”make time for terry”- oh so cute! Guido Sarducci he ain’t!) My sainted Mother-in-Law always advised me to say “cute” or “special” when I couldn’t say anything nice.

I hope you flamed his ass good!

gawd i hate prurience , pete ‘

In case you missed it: Peter was on Fresh Air with Terry Gross! about a week ago. Very enlightning and entertaining discusion. Download the podcast or stream it yourself.

Sorry, SeattleTammy, I’m constrained by my upbringing. I can’t just flame people; I have to make a reasoned response (which may be phrased with biting wit if I’m lucky) to the weird things they say. Truth was, I couldn’t bring myself to read enough of his stuff to respond to it.

Actually, it’s too bad he’s so weird, because the yokel can actually write - some of the pieces in the Ketchup in a Can blog (no, I’m not going to link it - you should be able to find that name, it’s on Blogger) approach some of the stuff that H.P. Lovecraft used to write, a sort of sly domestic horror that creeps up on you. But the blog he calls Suicide Food is just gross.

Scott Simon also interviewed Peter a week ago on Weekend Edition.
D’you s’pose he’ll be calling Click and Clack for automotive advice any time soon?

Seattle Tammy - Sorry I missed all the fun. Been outa the loop the past few days. Didn’t know it was troll hunting season again. Sigh.

And please, be nice to me all you Wolverine fans. I’m still recovering from last Saturday night.

Thanks, Ancillary IF. I suspect you’re right, but it woulda been sweeeeet to do it this year.

Sadly, the last time Illinois beat Michigan in Champaign was … wait for it … October 1983. Twenty-four years ago, and, as it turns out, about five months after I graduated undergrad. I happened to be back in town visiting friends that fateful day, and you’d have thought it was VE day or something. The place just shut down. Beer literally flowed in the streets. Well, on Green Street, to be precise. But, still.

Since then, we’ve beaten ‘em only twice (I think), and both of those were in Ann Arbor.

Sigh.

*reacquires time!*

Hm. Try Barry Hughart’s “Bridge of Birds,” provided you can find it. Every time I lose a copy, I spend a couple of months or so hunting another one down. It deals with a peasant and an absurdly ancient detective in neo-Confucian China attempting to save the lives of the children of a small village, and their adventures poking at the mythological.

I note we’ve had a few plays for entries. Just about anything by David Ives is worth a read, but I keep his collection “All In The Timing” at my desk at work, primarily for “Words, Words, Words.” Then again, anything that involves both Shakespeare and monkeys is going to keep my attention.

Christopher Moore is a little on the formulaic side, but I’m willing to forgive that–the formula’s like the walls of a room. They’re really just there so he can hang interesting linguistic presentations on them. “A Dirty Job,” I think, is the last of his books that I read. He has another one that I’ve forgotten the name of entirely, but it deals with Jesus’ best friend Biff, and his unwritten gospel.

Georgia. We lost to Georgia. Where is the hemlock?

Too many freshmen and inexperienced sophomores making the mistakes young players are going to make. Still, that game was in reach most of the way.

We do have FAU as the 12th add-on game. Thanks for the commiseration. Illinois v. Florida in a bowl game? The press would have all kinds of story lines.

I remember us narrowly beating Illinois, I just couldn’t remember in what game. I was thinking rematch when I suggested the Gators v. the Illini. Thanks for the sports trivia reminder, which is never useless when it involves one’s alma mater.

I love it, DvE. I’ve had a hard spot in my heart for Texas A&M (apologies to Watefowler) ever since they destroyed us in the something-or-other Bluebonnet Bowl. I try to let it go, but dammit…

Dee … it surely is a sickness; and I have no doubt that it is the early onset of dimentia, at least in my case.

But, it’s not like I root for Notre Dame or anything. So, I got that goin’ for me. Which is nice.

It is some sort of disorder, dee, but I still second Landis’s mantra.