The most recent 20 comments posted to Making Light by Alex R:

If the work of these guys bears fruit, maybe you *can* have this for the entire internet one day.

Today's Newark Star-Ledger contains a front-page article about one of this website's "favorites", Barbara Bauer, and her legal activities. The article didn't say if this website was included among those she is suing....

A hearty congratulations!, from an occasional commenter.

Re CosmicDog @ 350, and Xopher @ 381: Here's an old thread at a predecessor of this fine blog on the subject of James Dobson's child-rearing philosophy and practice. Anyone who thinks that he has some "good ideas" about raising children should read the whole comment thread...

fidelio @ 85: I don't have a recipe for you, but your request brings back a memory that I can't resist sharing.

Back in the late 1980's, I was listening to a Bay Area radio food show (probably this one or a predecessor also hosted by Narsai David), with guest Alice Waters, the chef at Chez Panisse in Berkeley. Alice Waters is known for her emphasis on local, fresh cooking. Anyway, this show had a call-in segment, and one of the callers called in with your question: she had a large salmon in the freezer and wanted some recipe suggestions.

Well, Alice Waters was so flabbergasted by the thought of actually *freezing* a perfectly good salmon that she was unable to come up with a response. All she could do was ask why the caller had done such a thing -- she said, iirc, that she should have taken the fish to her local smokehouse (!) or something if she couldn't eat it all while it was fresh. The host, Narsai, finally bailed her out before the caller was completely humiliated by suggesting that she consider making gravlax or something similar.

I've always remembered this whenever I hear about chefs with fanatical devotion to certain ideas about food.

BTW, good luck with the fish -- I wish I had your problem...

science fiction with
latinos sells better as
"magic realism"

But seriously, for another example: I haven't read it for a long time, but didn't Lucius Shepard's Life During Wartime feature significant "local" characters in its Central American milieu?

One of the many side effects of this mess is that every single one of the remaining US Attorneys is going to be presumed a political hack. The evidence is now clear that the Bush administration reviewed every one of the US Attorneys for political compliance, and fired those who weren't hackish enough for them. Any Democratic (or even Republican) politician who might be indicted for anything over the next couple of years will instantly be able to brush off the indictment as purely political.

I live in the state of New Jersey, which is sadly known for the relaxed attitude it has toward political corruption. The last few years, though, have seen some movement toward reform -- helped in part by a US Attorney, Christopher Christie, who seemed as willing to go after Republicans as Democrats. (And despite the general dominance of politics in this state by Democrats, we don't seem to lack for corrupt Republicans...)

Now, I have to say, I personally see Mr. Christie's efforts in a different light, for the simple reason that for a Bush US Attorney, failure to be fired has to be seen as some kind of a black mark. I can't imagine that New Jersey is the only place where the authority of US Attorneys is going to be diminished.

For some reason this comment reminds me of the Ares/Athena distinction made in Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon. The author (or his apparent surrogates in the novel) uses Athena to represent, roughly, "intelligent" and somehow moral warfare, as contrasted with Ares who represents amoral, chaotic warfare.

Back when I read Cryptonomicon, I couldn't help but think that no matter how moral, intelligent, and "Athenian" warriors try to be, Ares always, always gets his due... I think this is related to what hilzoy is saying, and is also why I would not have supported this war even if it had been undertaken by a competent, moral administration.

Patrick, it seems to me that there is some difference -- at least of emphasis -- between what you are saying and what Teresa is saying.

There is a difference between saying "Most of our business is okaysellers, and that's okay, because okaysellers make money too" and saying "Most of our business is okaysellers, and that's okay, because you need to publish a lot of okaysellers to get the bestsellers you need to make money". (Gar Lipow's hypothetical about a known quantity okayseller author gets at the same point.) Your closing couple of sentences suggest that the second is more true than the first.

I think that this difference may be significant in choosing books to publish -- if you have to choose between a book with an audience which is small but nearly guaranteed and a possibly weaker book that has a chance of catching on with a very broad audience, you might make a different selection depending on how many sales you need to make your first dollar.

So I'm genuinely curious: Do you publish "okaysellers" because they make money on their own, or only because "you never know" which book might hit it big?

I've enjoyed reading this, as I haven't been to a con party in quite some time. Given that at most of the parties I've been to recently, half the attendees have been under six years old, my first thought on reading the "pizza rules" is that there is far too small a proportion of plain, unadorned, cheese and tomato sauce pizzas. If you expect (and welcome) many kids at your party, especially young ones, be prepared for tears if there aren't enough pizzas completely free of contaminants. (My son *will* eat pizza margherita if I carefully remove anything dark enough to resemble a basil leaf... At least he's now willing to eat the cheese.)

Comment statistics for Alex R on the Making Light blog

Total: 10 comments. View all these comments on a single page.