Hmm. According to the spam filter, my eBay account has just been suspended for the sixth time this week, and it's only Tuesday. (Last week it was suspended four times in one day.)
I might be worried about this level of criminality on my part, had I ever had an eBay account in the first place. (Note to Washington Mutual: I'm closing my account with you guys too. Send me all my money plus interest right now, or I will order Mrs. Sani Abacha to sit in your offices and sing the entire score of Mamma Mia!)
On the subject of Special Presentation Copies:
There's a famous edition of Fahrenheit 451 printed on fire-resistant material and bound in aluminum, the idea being to present it as a fireproof book. Obviously, what is glacé for the goose is flambé for her significant other:
A flash paper edition would be nearly impossible to ship, and Semtex boards would attract attention from many wrong people. Water-soluble paper is printable, however. For the boards, I'd suggest compressed sodium bicarb in a sealant . . . or maybe just plain sodium. Burning Atlanta indeed.
(And I recall that Bill Gibson published a digitally self-destructing chapbook awhile back; Whitmore doubtless has the details.)
. . .and if we reply 'sounds interesting, send us (synopsis + 3, first 50pp, whatever)' then it isn't an unsolicited ms any more, is it?
Generally, it is.
It's extremely hard to tell from a query whether the book will be any good. There are many signs that indicate the contrary, but unless the description is completely out of court -- if it's nonfiction, or uses trademarked characters without permission, or has impossible conditions attached ("I want a certfied check for $100,000 before I send you the ms."), then one generally says "Yes, send the partial." (And yeah, I've seen all the cases described.)
This is not a solicitation. A solicitation is a specific request for a piece of work, and it usually includes a specific offer to buy. This takes place almost entirely in magazine writing, where the editor will contact someone with credentials to, say, write 2000 words on "Rommel at Waterloo."
Not everybody reads slush, for a variety of reasons. "No unsolicited mss." means that this particular market doesn't want to see anything that they didn't go to the author and ask to see. The best you can hope for is to get the partial back in its Manila of Despair. They're also entirely within their rights to simply trash it.
Lots of people assume that "Yes, we'll look at the partial" is a solicitation, and write SOLICITED MANUSCRIPT in big colorful letters on the envelope, along with elaborate reminders in the cover letter that this is, indeed and truly, from the land of Solicitations. (It's probably part of the folk belief that there are Double Secret Passwords that can be used to bypass all selection criteria.) The best that can be said of this practice is that the slush readers sigh, chuckle, or make more coffee at the sight, as fits their temperaments, and read it anyway.
The classic memory game is Concentration (or Pelmanism) -- deal out a deck of cards face down, turn them up in pairs, and when you get two cards of the same rank and color (say, both red Queens), remove the pair. Obviously, you can play with a partial deck, and you've probably already got the equipment. There's a computer variant, using mahjongg tiles, that's on the "Buncha Mahjongg Variants Cheap On One Disk" I've got, and there are probably versions on other many-cheap-games collections.
I'm not sure if the inductive-logic games like Mastermind or Black Box would help, but they have the advantage that another person is playing, but in a non-competitive mode (that is, one person sets up the puzzle, and provides answers as the other player tries to solve it -- Concentration can be played with lots of people, but a person with memory loss would lose a lot.
I'm sure the bulk of this politically hotwired crowd knows this, but just in case (perhaps for our foreign correspondents who look upon Red White and Blue Fang Going Dingo with be-adverbal-infixing-musement): the main reason for such legal infarcts as reclassifying Evil Drugs as terrorist implements is to suck money from the taps opened wide for the War on Terror and the Allied Arts to apply it to plain ol' local policing, which in most places is suffering from a financial crisis caused by . . . oh, you know that part already.
It's interesting that the Partnership for a Freedom-Free America has quit hustling the idea that all terrorist income came from a cut (you'll pardon the term) of Smack 'n' Blow. Which some does, but certain other sources are countries that concentrate on terrorizing their own citizens, which is swell with Our Lads at the Top, and some of it is oil money, which would make for some very awkward commercials.
After one of the Goofus and Gallant, Having Reached Late Middle Age and Moderate Affluence, Conduct a Dialogue on the Economic Foundations of Purchasing Semtex adverts, I really wanted to see an editorial reply from "Bubba X" of the American Federation of Independent Hemp Producers, arguing that not a goldurn dime of their profit went for anything stronger than corn squeezin's.
Arrr. Ye topic be driftin' into ye shoal bitstream. Tell ye oarsmen, 56k, dead slow. Arrr.
Fortunately, the gigantic hardcover Lab Safety catalog just arrived (it is not quite an 800-pound gorilla, but a Mexican Death cage match between the two of them would be interesting).
They have loads of OTCs, brand name and cheapo, usually in boxes of one-dose packs for your employees, even if those employees are purely hypothetical. They're a good bit more expensive than drugstores, but an industrial supply house would be less likely to look funny when you ordered ten thousand of them. And just imagine the street value of fifty keys of bismuth subsalicylate.*
DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME, KIDS. WE'RE PROFESSIONAL IRONISTS.
I don't need to tell Teresa about the sometimes interesting times those of us who can't survive (in an entirely non-figurative sense) without Controlled Substances sometimes have in legitimately acquiring same from lawful sources. They're like any other war stories; you get the joke if you live through it.
*Generic for Pepto-Bismol. Just in case you ever wondered why it had such an ugly name (with apologies to Matter-Eater Lad's homeworld).
Because I have come so late to the party I can't remember what the dress code was:
Of all the ham shacks in the world
Where this here boy could get re-girled,
And soil his sheets and slip his anchor,
It hadda be in Casablanca.
I do not like it occupied,
Nor sober, never mind when fried,
I do not like the whole backstory,
And should I mention Peter Lorre?
I do not like it in a fez,
Or Uber-alled or Marsellaised,
Not smoky jazzed or hotsy-totsy
And I can't stand it with a Nazi.
I don't like it this far from home,
Don't like it at an aerodrome,
And though I'm just a bit embarrassed,
I'm starting to turn sour on Paris.
Don't like it with a former flame,
Or with the suspects I could name:
I'll play the sap, but not the ham;
So hit the ivories, Sam-I-Am.
My devalued dime's worth on the ...for Imbeciles books: Some time back I got a (legitimate) upgrade to my word processor, but no manual. There was one feature, pair kerning, I couldn't find on the new version, and being unwilling to pay whatever for a book to answer one question, I went to the library and hunted up the relevant Dummy Guide.
What I found was not just a mention that pair kerning had been removed from the product, but a long paragraph celebrating the fact that the author's delicate sensibilities were no longer afflicted by seeing a command that he didn't understand the meaning or use of, and how wonderful it was that the manufacturer had made the software friendlier to the skill-impaired.
It's not that unusual that reading a product manual puts one off using the product -- used to be the norm with printers, still is with unassembled bicycles -- but, as Paul Veyne might put it, this was like stickering the package with NEW! IMPROVED! LESS GOOD!!
Issey Miyake had a klein bottle evening gown about 10 years ago, though they didn't call it that.
Oh dear, now we have to accessorize.
Jewelry by Arisia, obviously, with a heavy ceramic bangle from Firsk in native yellow. (We're thinking golds and blacks here.)
Second Foundation garments from the Earle Bergey Collection.
Hermes scarf. The god, not the other guys.
To cover up, a hooded leather cape by Isaac Mizrahi, for a touch of the mundane.
Lorgnette by Weissenbroch & Söhne.
Something from Isher; probably an energy derringer with pavé diamond optics in a garter holster. (This isn't> streetwear, darlings.) Because the right to buy weapons is the right to shop.
And a Snakeskin temporal displacement bag from Judith & Fritz Leiber; if you forget something, you can always go back and put it in.
The shoes are an interesting problem. Probably a pair of Instrumentality heels in 18k from Smith Cordovan, though I'm not actually sure one wears shoes with this outfit; holographic nail treatments might be better.
Yes, you're right, I can't be trusted with any arrangement of words.
It's like remembering to call Britain Britain.
"I'm sorry, sir, but Mr. Finsbury has recently departed for the United Kingdom."
"Oh! Is it too late to send flowers?"
For what it's worth, Sol Yurick's novel "The Warriors" has very little to do with Walter Hill's movie, beyond the idea of "NYC gang gets stuck deep in hostile territory and has to make its way home." It's a character story rather than an Urban Action Movie. (The gang in the book isn't even named "The Warriors;" they're the Coney Island Dominators. They start out in the Bronx, which will be significant to students of NYC geography.) Yurick did use the Anabasis as a source, but not in a scene-by-scene fashion.
Comparing either the book or film to "Gangs of New York" makes about as much sense as comparing it to the "Our Gang" comedies, or "Till all the seas gang dry," for that matter.
I'm not going to try and make the translation rhyme:
"Scratch your head at the lovely pleasure of others' misfortune,
In the sanctuary of the weblog;
Post in peace, with the understanding
You didn't get caught in the swindle."
["Schlag" is a highly idiomatic word; it does mean to strike a blow, but anschlagen is to nail up a poster or bill, and it also means "whipped cream," as in the Schlagobers that tops a Viennese coffee. I'm not sure it is actually the common German term for "post to the Net," my schooling and my dictionary being both too old, but it seemed like an acceptable usage.]
Found this stuck in the spam filter:
[Cut 'n' pasted Washington Mutual logo]
Dear Wamu user,
As stated in the User Agreement, Section 41.1, we may send you this email.
After the multiple frauds registered lately, our company has initiated a study regarding this problem. In this study the company has reached the conclusion that most of the frauds were possible because of the low email service security level .
For a best deployment of our further activities (the frauds prevention) our company has decided to check your identity for fraud protection .
Hoping you have understood that we are doing all these for your own safety and for the good deployment of the relations between our company and its parteners we suggest you to acces the following form to verify your Wamu account:
[URL deleted for obvious reasons]
Thank you for your patience in this matter.
Regards, Wamu security (Security Department)
Washington Mutal, Inc. Web site
Thank you for using Washington Mutual!
I especially like the "Washington Mutal" part, and extra points for the creative use of the word "deployment."
Do I need to point out that I've never been a customer of the real company?
I need some serious soul-searching to figure out why I can't let go of it.
Kraue, schóner Schadenfreude,
In der Weblog Heiligtum;
Schlag in Ruhe, mit Verständnis
Das Sie nicht im Schwindel kam.
Hairy men eat pottage. Smooth men sell it to them at a reasonable markup.
Jesus taught the moneychangers to do what?
As has often been said around here, some of the alternativoidal publishing operations are run by people who perceive the system as being broken, and decide in something at least like sincerity to fix it. The model is the Perpetual Motion Machine; there are guys like John Keely who were straightforwardly out to scam the investors, but there were also those who were positive that the Science People had to be wrong, and all the prototype needed was a little tweaking. (Norman Dean of the eponymous spacedrive* was probably in the second category, though he was sufficiently a crank's crank that it's hard to tell.)
*Not to be confused with the Hieronymous Machine, though it would have made a swell control system for a Dean-Drive space roadster.
To reassure Magenta, I am on the third floor of a pre-war brick building, so there is no swaying, though there was quite a lot of noise this morning (none now). The big threat to this place is its foundation (see also Particle, Why Buildings Faw Down Go Boom); this patch of ground used to be a pond, which was drained, in a limited sense of the word, by developers in the early part of the 20th Century. The water table is, as one might suppose, quite high, and about every four years there is a downpour that floods the basement to eye level. The electrics are mounted high, and we have never lost power due to such a flood (though it sometimes happens due to external damage).
There is a basement apartment. It is frequently rented out. We now return you to tonight's holiday special, Oo-er, There's an Almond in My Puddin', with Clive Owen as Captain Vimes.
I mean, how would he brake?
Goats don't brake. Elves . . . maybe if there's something in it for them.
Hm, giving a gift to the guy who got the almond in his porridge sounds a lot like they stole the idea from Willy Wonka hiding invitations in his candy bars.
Burying something in holiday food, with a reward for whoever chokes on . . . I mean, finds it, covers a lot of territory. The best-known would be the silver thruppeny bit in the Christmas pudding (see also Smith of Wootton Major), but the baby in the New Orleans King Cake also comes to mind. I've heard that some King Cake bakers have stopped embedding the baby on product liability grounds. I think they put it in the package, and you can enfantify the cake yourself, though this is Not At All the Right Thing. Of course, this may all be an urban legend about Those Bad People Who Won't Let Us Have Fun.
The almond, at least, is a Scandahoovianly practical solution.
And besides, your place ought to have an elf. He'll like the interior angles.
The wind here, irrelevantly, is doing the 40-50 MPH thing. I am on the top floor. For the moment.
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