Well, based on your story, I ordered one (and it's marvelous). And based on my ordering one, my friends are ordering them. (One of my friends has gone completely salwar-crazy; I think she has three and is stalking eBay for several more...)
One of the most valuable parts of my childbirth training class was the last thing our teacher taught us. She had us practice wide smiles and repeat the phrase "Thank you so much for your advice! I'll take that under consideration." Works like a charm, especially because the delivery can be modulated to fit the circumstances.
That said, I think a drive-by is a different animal from busting out the Voice of Authority on misbehaving kids with inattentive or uncaring parents. The drive-by has a distinct overtone of malice, and usually involves criticism about something that is a debatable point anyway (breast vs. bottle, working vs. staying home, number of kids you have, whether you're planning to have them at all, etc.); the Voice of Authority is usually a response to something happening right then and there.
(I used the VoA myself on a kid last week -- he was roughhousing and slamming my two-year-old daughter's hand in a playhouse door, and his mother was not doing a thing about it. So I did. I don't think he'd ever heard anything quite like that before.)
Somewhere up there, Julia did Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress."
This is fun, though I'm quickly realizing that I haven't read enough hard-boiled mysteries!
Well, I'd been putting off buying a "nutbar conspiracy theorist" tote, but now I guess I'll have to get one. I was hoping not to need it.
I'll use it as my bookbag for the library.
And I won't stop fighting.
Teresa, I wish I'd had your proposed posters when I was in the corporate workforce. *sigh*
Parlor games!
There is only one success: to be able to live your life in your own way. -- Paul Gaugin
The distance between a person’s dreams and their accomplishments can only be measured by their desire. -- Casanova
Trust your instinct to the end, though you can render no reason -- obviously, G. W. Bush
Welcome the chores that make you go beyond yourself. -- Cinderella's stepmother
When a team makes a commitment to act as one, the sky’s the limit. -- Tower of Babel construction team
Together we are winners. -- pick a failed merger. So many to choose from!
Mris,
Another friend of mine, newly divorced and casting about for gainful employment, had the same idea, except hers was "I'll write books!" I had to sort of gently dissuade her and point out the financial realities, e.g., production rate, submission process, financial return on time invested, need for groceries and car payments NOW rather than later. Not a fun conversation.
Xeger,
Oh, yes. I watched that dance in the corporate office where I used to work. "Another company bought us? But why won't they listen to OUR NEEDS?" everyone howled. No one seemed to understand that we weren't the head office any more, and they made little to no effort to make themselves useful for OtherCompany. And many of them made the situation so untenable that the Big Cheese of OtherCompany got frustrated with dealing with our office, and closed it down and laid everyone off.
I don't detect the same sense of burning entitlement from the people I spoke with. (Although I'm quite sure there are people who feel just that entitled about it, based on earlier comments about UAV.) Mostly, the people I spoke with just never thought about publishing as a business, because to them, books are fun.
True tales about regular, everyday people's ideas about publishing:
1. When I finished NaNoWriMo in 2002, I went off to the family Thanksgiving event pleased as punch and told family members that I was happy because I'd finished writing the first draft of a book. Certain family members asked me when they could find it in the stores. "Next month?"
2. One night when some friends were hanging out and talking about what we wanted to do when we grew up, I mentioned writing and wanting to get published. One friend said, "Oh, that's easy. There's a place online that'll do it only for $100."
3. My mother, on hearing that my novel had been rejected (not right for their line): "But the letter says she liked it. Why didn't she publish it if she likes it?"
In all cases, I had to explain that publishing -- real publishing -- Doesn't Work Like That. They had no idea. And even after explanation, it still doesn't make sense to them. I wrote a book, therefore it should be on sale in stores, right?
(My mother, of course, might be forgiven for her bias in assuming that I ought to be published.)
Given these examples, though, it's easy to see why people fall for the scams. They have no concept of the business behind the bookshelves, but what's more, they thoroughly believe that publication is just something that happens when you write a book. (Which is why the vanity scammers get a lot of business. *sigh*)
*delurks*
Xeger,
This article from the St. Petersburg Times is about places to give help, either through donations or volunteering. I'm sure that the major newspapers of affected cities throughout the storm's path will have similar lists.
(Since my hometown was pretty much wrecked by Charley, I thoroughly appreciate each and every one of them for what they've done. Volunteers from a variety of groups helped to clear away the debris from all the trees that fell around my parents' house, and have helped my grandparents as well.)
Delurking. At long last.
PiscusFische and others, IIRC Little Women was originally published as two books, -- Little Women and Good Wives. So you may not have got your hands on an abridgement, but on a version that maintained that separation.
Chance, my brother has your name. But that's not why I'm posting -- I'm posting because I actually own one of these Malvina Vogel-edited atrocities. I once owned a lot of them -- my parents bought them for me when I was a kid, lo these many years ago. When I read the Salon article, I thought "that sounds familiar" -- yep, it was the same small paperback "Illustrated Classic Editions" I'd read in the 1970s. The one I still have is The Last of the Mohicans, adapted by Eliza Gatewood Warren, edited by Malvina Vogel, copyright 1979. It's smaller than a normal paperback, the type is bigger, and every page spread has a terrible cartoony drawing.
When I read them initially, I didn't even know what "abridging" was, but I learned when I found the "real" books in the library. However, to this day there are still some classics I've only experienced Vogelized.
(To my parents' credit, they didn't know -- and they also provided me with lots of non-Vogelized classic literature.)
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