ellauri014.html on line 1722: So, yeah (the blogger goes on), I know I am not an internationally renowned poetry critic, but it strikes me that this is an entirely different poem. There is a blossom in both poems, and a journey. But there isn’t much else that connects them. I don’t think I am being overly literal when I suggest that either Montgomery has misattributed the original poem, or that her version is a pretty radical interpretation.
ellauri042.html on line 220: The census in the PNAS paper isn’t perfect. Though remote sensing, satellites, and huge efforts to study the distribution of life in the ocean make it easier than ever to come up with estimates, the authors admit there’s still a lot of uncertainty. But we do need a baseline understanding of the distribution of life on Earth. Millions of acres of forests are still lost every year. Animals are going extinct 1,000 to 10,000 faster than you’d expect if no humans lived on Earth. Sixty percent of primate species, our closest relatives on the tree of life, are threatened with extinction.
ellauri067.html on line 461: He continued, “So Santa´s reindeer, which all sport antlers, are therefore all female, which means Rudolf has been misgendered.” Tyson’s message triggered swift criticism, which included accusations that Tyson was “ruining things that are supposed to be fun.” “Why ruin this magic for children with your reddit-tier haha i’m so smart bulls***, this isn’t funny, you aren’t clever, and nobody cares, let them have this magic in their lives, you sound like an adolescent,” another person said. “They’re magic reindeer a**hole. The normal rules don’t apply. Quit trying to s*** on Christmas,” one person replied.
ellauri078.html on line 97: Ballad Meter is a variant of Hymn Meter. Less formal and more conversational in tone than Common Meter, Ballad Meter isn’t as metrically strict, meaning that not all of its feet may be iambic. Also notice the rhyme scheme. Only the second & fourth line rhyme. Common Meter requires a strict ABAB rhyme scheme. The tone, the rhyme scheme, and the varied meter distinguish Ballad Meter from Common Meter.
ellauri094.html on line 749: It’s also what makes your fabulated god evil when he commands whole cities wiped out. I’m glad our country isn’t based on Christianity and trigger happy, self righteous exterminators like yourself.
ellauri097.html on line 453: The is-ought fallacy, first articulated, by David Hume is put simply as you can’t get an ‘ought’ from an ‘is.’ The more precise way of characterizing it is this; You cannot have a syllogism that has a moral term in the conclusion if there is no moral term in the premises. To be a valid argument, the conclusion has to follow from the premises. You can’t have anything in the conclusion that isn’t already set up in the premises. Hume identified this particular fallacy in arguments that were based on mere descriptive elements but had a conclusion with moral terms in it. That is the is-ought fallacy.
ellauri097.html on line 461: Let’s look at the teleological argument based on function. The teleological argument isn’t about just the way a thing works, but the way a thing is intended to work – purpose. My pen functions a certain way. It doesn’t just function that way by accident. It was intended by someone to function with a purpose. For those who are not familiar with this, teleology means ‘end.’ A telos is ‘end’ as in ‘goal.’ Something is intended for a purpose and it’s used for that purpose.
ellauri097.html on line 467: One way of arguing against homosexuality is to say that males were not intended to have sex with other males, and we can tell that by the way sexual organs appear to be intended to function. Because men were not intended to have sex with other males, and they do so, then they are violating their natural teleology, their natural function. But notice that in the nature of the argument we are making a moral claim implicitly up front. We’re saying, We ought to use things the way they were intended by their Maker to be used, consistent with their teleology. This isn’t that way, therefore it’s wrong. It’s not arguing merely on how bodies are naturally, but how they are intended to function naturally. The teleology is the moral term in the premises.
ellauri100.html on line 343: I suspect that I am not a racist. I don’t despise blacks as a group, nor do I believe that they should have fewer rights and privileges than whites. (Neither do I believe that they should have more rights and privileges than whites or persons of Asian or Ashkenazi Jewish descent — but they certainly do when it comes to college admissions and hiring.) It isn’t racist to understand that race isn’t a social construct and that there are general differences between races (see many of the posts listed here). That’s just a matter of facing facts, not ducking them, as leftists are wont to do.
ellauri101.html on line 67: The main character in the monomyth is the hero. The hero isn’t a person, but an archetype—a set of universal images combined with specific patterns of behavior. Think of a protagonist from your favorite film. He or she represents the hero. The storyline of the film enacted the hero’s journey. The Hero archetype resides in the psyche of every individual, which is one of the primary reasons we love hearing and watching stories.
ellauri106.html on line 458: Gross: "So there isn’t any part of you that wished you could believe?"

ellauri111.html on line 253: “These are difficult things to talk about, and I should emphasize that I never wanted anyone to be locked up, or beaten, or put to death for what they’d done. I’ve seen too much of what that means. Punishment isn’t the answer, but acknowledging your guilt is … the first step.”
ellauri111.html on line 281: “But our husband—how does this connect to him?” I asked. “I mean, surely he does acknowledge his guilt. The whole story is in a way his confession, isn’t it?”
ellauri111.html on line 289: “Yes, yes, yes—but why? Why is he doing this? Let me give you another example, a better known one, I think. You remember that in The Possessed (which, by the way, isn’t quite what my title means, though it’s quite good in its own way), I had Stavrogin go to Bishop Tikhon to confess how he’d raped a twelve-year old girl and then just waited in the next room while she hung herself?”
ellauri112.html on line 640: Marlo is a real mother, sister and wife who knows how to put on a polite, sweet face when required, but isn’t afraid to take it off to make a point—something she does with her son’s school principal to great effect.
ellauri112.html on line 654: Critics have been throwing words like “fearless” around when describing Theron’s performance in Tully, because of the extra 50 pounds she carries, the lack of makeup on her face and the unflattering portrait of motherhood she paints. But that’s a backhanded compliment, isn’t it? “Fearless.” They only say “fearless” when they mean “ugly,” and it’s honest because she’s ugly. Iike I’ve said three or four times now, it’s really really honest.
ellauri112.html on line 691: Theron is more than capable and proves she’s up to the challenge of the role and its physical demands, but this isn’t as Oscar worthy as some are crowing. How gutsy and brave her performance is! they’ll surely shout, all because she dons a partial fat suit (the actress also gained a very real 50 pounds for the role), doesn’t wear makeup, has unkempt hair and bags under her eyes. Interestingly enough, it seems to be those same critics who ripped Amy Schumer and her “I Feel Pretty” to shreds for ‘fat shaming’ or poking fun at the way women look. Candid and authentic simply because she doesn’t look like the gorgeous movie star that she is? I don’t think so.
ellauri112.html on line 717: Tully takes care of the baby with effortless technique, letting Marlo know she can also help with anything else around the house, even tips for re-starting Marlo and Drew’s sex life. She spouts hip, up to date trends and the kind of facts fresh college kids throw around. But it’s not a feel-good narrative. Through Tully Marlo is looking back at an earlier age, when life was simpler, breezier. We soon realize Tully isn’t teaching Marlo anything, she’s reminding her of the past. In one scene the two decide to sneak out to a bar, but the moment isn’t just fun, it’s also melancholic. Marlo warns Tully that your 20’s are great, but then “your 30’s come around the corner like a big dumpster truck.”
ellauri115.html on line 1170: A: The answer to this is very simple. Utilitarianism is concerned only with the volume of pleasure and pain, and Nietzsche says in so many words that as soon as you even enter into this kind of thinking, you are already deep into the territory of nihilism. It is passive; concerned with maintenance, not construction; aloof or indifferent to meaning, something to justify the effort in the first place, even when it is successful, let alone when it isn’t. It is the staid, kindly, sober—not to say, the British—version of the same imbecilic nihilism that was prevailing on the continent in the same era. Mill did not understand the difference between pleasure and (actual) happiness, between pain and suffering, between real (spiritual) slavery and freedom.
ellauri141.html on line 352: So where am I going with all this? My purpose in quoting the various versions, isn’t to compare and reconcile them, but to give some sense of just how ubiquitous the translations are and to raise the question: Why has this poem endured?
ellauri145.html on line 545: The answer to this is very simple. Utilitarianism is concerned only with the volume of pleasure and pain, and Nietzsche says in so many words that as soon as you even enter into this kind of thinking, you are already deep into the territory of nihilism. It is passive; concerned with high maintenance, not constructivism; aloof or indifferent to meaning, something to justify the effort in the first place, even when it is successful, let alone when it isn’t. It is the staid, kindly, sober—not to say, the British—version of the same imbecilic nihilism that was prevailing on the continent in the same era. Mill did not understand the difference between pleasure and (counterfactual) happiness, between pain and suffering, between real (spiritual) slavery and freedom. Eli koska se oli säälittävä mursuwiixinen luuseri.
ellauri152.html on line 605: Or it would be fine if the movie didn’t play it for laughs. The movie puts Yentl in multiple awkward situations where she has to perform verbal and physical gymnastics to keep people from seeing her without clothes, that gross classic trope whereby trans characters are outed all the time in fiction. As always, the movie drags this scene out into a whole joke, that Yentl has to scramble to prevent Badass from finding out she’s a woman because Badass wants to have sex with her, a woman, isn’t that just soooooo funny? On multiple levels, I am unamused and unhappy.
ellauri156.html on line 740: Nathan tells David the story of a rich man and a poor man. God tells David through Nathan that all that he possesses (his riches) it is he, the boss, who has given them to him. God is like the rich man, and David the poor one with just the one. David's problem is that his possessions have come to own him. He is so stingy he won't even give his petlamb to Mr. Rich. He is so “possessed” with his lamb that he is unwilling to spend it when his boss has a party. He wants “more” and “more,” and so he begins to take what isn’t his to take, rather than to ask the divine Giver for all he has and more.
ellauri159.html on line 787: Strength, courage, mastery, and honor are virtues that obviously aren’t exclusive to men, and it’s not that there haven’t been women who have embodied these traits in every age (as we shall see next time, the idea of a soft, fragile femininity is a modern conception). It isn’t that women shouldn’t seek these attributes either. Rather, the tactical virtues comprise the defining traits of masculinity. If a woman isn’t strong or acts afraid in the face of danger, no one thinks of her as less womanly because of it. Yet such shortcomings will be seen as emasculating in a man, even today.
ellauri159.html on line 1035: You may become blocked if the assignment isn’t well defined. You want to limit your choices early and write toward a specific goal. Try picturing a specific person who exemplifies your audience, and write for that person.
ellauri159.html on line 1195: You prefer writing about personal topics. You may encounter difficulty if the topic isn’t meaningful to you. If so, try different angles until you find one that engages you. If you’re a technical writer, for example, you can take pride in knowing that when you write clear instructions, you help your customers perform their tasks quickly and effectively. This sense of meddling with people’s lives is important to writers.
ellauri159.html on line 1209: According to Dr. Phil, 90% of relationship problems can’t be solved. Why? Because it would require one person or the other to compromise their values. So the best a couple can do is to agree to disagree. INFJs don’t want people to compromise their values—yet that 90% statistic is bound to discourage INFJs like me. I suspect it isn’t the relationship problems themselves that lead to the INFJs’ dissatisfaction; it’s the fact that the problems can’t be solved. Perhaps the INFJs feel that if only they could be more creative, or their partner could be more flexible, the little annoyances that have existed since the first day of the relationship could be eliminated. Not so. No amount of skill or understanding will make naturally ingrained differences go away.
ellauri159.html on line 1219: You prefer writing about your own personal topics. You may lose your creative drive if the subject isn’t about you. If so, try taking an angle that allows you to write about your feelings on the topic, if not you yourself. If you’re a technical writer, look for ways to connect with readers by anticipating and meeting their needs. Or you can use your tech knowledge to write another Gravity´s Rainbow. But don´t expect your employer to like it.
ellauri161.html on line 553: Like: the way he delivers it makes it feel like a line he made up, but it has such poor timing it isn’t funny. Sadly, the entire performance feels that way.
ellauri161.html on line 585: For McKay, however, that rage seems incompatible with the comedies he nevertheless feels compelled to keep making. Misanthropy isn’t in itself a barrier to turning out great work!
ellauri161.html on line 590: Don’t Look Up wants to paint our inaction with regard to climate change as the result of denialism and being distracted by silly things like, say, a movie streaming on Netflix. But climate change isn’t a comet headed our way in less than a year — a lousy, faulty metaphor for where we’re at right now. Except that IT IS! It's probably too late already. Now get a big mouth fuck goddam Allison Willmore,
ellauri161.html on line 604: McKay the writer isn’t up to the task. With this star-studded cast, the classification of a “missed opportunity” doesn’t do it justice; it feels closer to a tragedy. 2 out of 4.
ellauri161.html on line 631: I’ve seen some people criticise Don’t Look Up for lacking subtlety. I’m not bothered by this. I don’t necessarily need or want the communications about climate change to be subtle. The issue itself certainly is not subtle. We are heading towards—and, again, already are in the midst of—unprecedented death and destruction. Our systems and rulers are not just woefully ill-equipped to deal with this or to prevent the worst of it, they are actively complicit in bringing it about. Those communities around the world that are the most vulnerable and that have had the least part to play in causing the crisis will be the ones to suffer the first and the worst. This isn’t subtle sh*t! This is horrifying, grotesque, psychologically debilitating stuff to ponder—if you even have the privilege to ponder in the first place! I don’t necessarily need subtlety here. Sometimes, to fight propaganda, you need to go loud and bold. But you still have to be effective. We are fighting an almightily powerful enemy. Competence is a necessary minimum. Regrettably, Don’t Look Up does not meet those standards. Its central metaphor doesn’t even make sense! Yes, capitalism is responding as dreadfully to climate change in real life as it does to the comet in the film—the key difference is that capitalism didn’t cause that comet to come hurtling out of the sky in the first place.
ellauri161.html on line 635: A Kike lady says it well: Granted, many will accuse Don’t Look Up of lacking the subtlety of McKay’s earlier movies, but there is something refreshingly honest about the film that undeniably lends itself to the silliness of its narrative. Furthermore, it is a film about the absurdity of the current times we live in and nobody can argue that is isn’t crazy to deny facts in favour of outlandish fabrications — or can they?
ellauri161.html on line 643: That’s not a point that hasn’t been made before, and it’s not like there are new notions here about what people might do with their last moments. But there’s something deceptively big and complicated about considering the human capacity to (not) address the largest challenges to their own survival as certain systems prevent action being taken — and people’s ability to recognize that a happy ending isn’t automatic but could be possible with thought and work. There’s such tragedy in the idea of, among many other things, being stuck in a loop of distraction at the expense of progress. Perpetual escapism that prevents escape, with what we’re looking away from and how continually being updated in the stories on the subject.
ellauri164.html on line 502: Another thing we see from Moses during his time spent in Midian is that, when God finally did call him into service, Moses was resistant. The man of action early in his life, Moses, now 80 years old, became overly timid. When called to speak for God, Moses said he was “slow of speech and tongue” (Exodus 4:10). Some commentators believe that Moses may have had a speech impediment. Perhaps, but then it would be odd for Stephen to say Moses was “mighty in words and deeds” (Acts 7:22). Perhaps Moses just didn’t want to go back into Egypt and fail again. This isn’t an uncommon feeling. How many of us have tried to do something (whether or not it was for God) and failed, and then been hesitant to try again? There are two things Moses seemed to have overlooked. One was the obvious change that had occurred in his own life in the intervening 40 years. The other, and more important, change was that God would be with him. Moses failed at first not so much because he acted impulsively, but because he acted without God. Therefore, the lesson to be learned here is that when you discern a clear call from God, step forward in faith, knowing that God goes with you! Do not be timid, but be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might (Ephesians 6:10).
ellauri184.html on line 702: Jesus had some unnamed sisters and it isn’t unusual for a mother to give her name to a daughter. Still, beyond the passage from Philip, there is no record of Jesus having a sister named Mary who was always with him.
ellauri189.html on line 787: Some Pashtuns think that because Pashto is not a Semetic language it means Pashtuns are not Semetic, but it isn’t a strong enough evidence to contradict what we said above. To contradict what we said one has to explain how this tradition originated, and it is impossible.
ellauri214.html on line 90: The Casual Vacancy, which one bookseller breathlessly predicted would be the biggest novel of the year, isn’t dreadful. It’s just dull. … The small-town characters are all deluded in their own way with their own tales to tell. The problem is, not one of them is interesting or even particularly likeable. Collectively, it’s all too easy to turn the page on them. The fanbase may find it a bit sour, as it lacks the Harry Potter books’ warmth and charm; all the characters are fairly horrible or suicidally miserable, or dead.
ellauri222.html on line 155: Bellow must have been tickled to death. The inventive feature of “Herzog” is a series of letters that the protagonist, in his misery, composes not only to Madeleine and Gersbach but to famous people (like President Eisenhower) and philosophers (like Heidegger and Nietzsche). These long letters, unfinished and unmailed, are sendups of an intellectual’s effort to understand human behavior by means of the conceptual apparatus of Mortimer Adler’s Great Books. Herzog is a comic figure, a holy fool, a schlimazel with a Ph.D. The whole point of his story is that when you are completely screwed the best you can hope for is a little sex and sympathy. The Western canon isn’t going to be much help.
ellauri222.html on line 803: British critics tend to regard the American predilection for Big Novels as a vulgar neurosis — like the American predilection for big cars or big hamburgers. Oh God, we think: here comes another sweating, free-dreaming maniac with another thousand-pager; here comes another Big Mac. First, Dos Passos produced the Great American Novel; now they all want one. Yet in a sense every ambitious American novelist is genuinely trying to write a novel called USA. Perhaps this isn’t just a foible; perhaps it is an inescapable response to America – twentieth-century America, racially mixed and mobile, twenty-four hour, endless, extreme, superabundantly various. American novels are big all right, but partly because America is big too. You need plenty of nerve, ink and energy to do justice to the place, and no one has made greater efforts than Saul Bellow. In 1976 Bellow was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, praised by the Swedes ‘for human understanding and subtle analysis of contemporary culture’. Many times in Bellow’s novels we are reminded that ‘being human’ isn’t the automatic condition of every human being. Like freedom or sanity, it is not a given but a gift, a talent, an accomplishment, an objective. The busiest sections of the Chicago bookstores, I noticed, were those marked ‘Personal Growth’.
ellauri236.html on line 95: “If our president isn’t elected, everyone goes to Brasília,” said Rogério Ramos, 40, owner of an automotive electronics shop, referring to the nation’s capital. “We shut down Congress, just like in ’64.” In 1964, a military coup led to a violent, 21-year dictatorship in Brazil.
ellauri270.html on line 387: Nancy Hutchinson is called forward next, and her school friends watch anxiously. Bill Jr. is called, and he slips clumsily, nearly knocking over the box. Tessie gazes around angrily before snatching a slip of paper from the box. Bill selects the final slip. The crowd is silent, except for a girl who is overheard whispering that she hopes it’s not Nancy. Then Old Man Warner says that the lottery isn’t the way it used to be, and that people have changed.
ellauri270.html on line 393: The inhumanity of the villagers, which has been developed by repeated exposure to the lottery and the power of adhering to tradition, still has some arbitrary limits—they are at least relieved that a young child isn’t the one chosen. They show no remorse for Tessie, however, no matter how well-liked she might be. Even Tessie’s own children are happy to have been spared, and relieved despite their mother’s fate. Jackson builds the sense of looming horror as the story approaches its close. WTF, Tessie is clearly the odd one out, so the outcome of the lottery was fortunate!
ellauri270.html on line 401: The children pick up stones, and Davy Hutchinson is handed a few sharp pebbles in a paper cone. Tessie Hutchinson holds out her arms desperately, saying, “it isn’t fair,” as the crowd advances toward her. A flying stone hits her on the side of her head. Old Man Warner urges everyone forward, and Steve Adams and Mrs. Graves are at the front of the crowd. “It isn’t fair, it isn’t right,” Tessie screams, and then the villagers overwhelm her.
ellauri311.html on line 76: How to exude feminine energy the new way is to let "her" take the lead. What I mean by that is get in touch with her and make sure “her” needs are being met. Going “all the way” isn’t absolutely necessary unless of course "she" feels like it.
ellauri316.html on line 206: Aviv. Wolfson is one of a handful of figures, including Edmund of Abingdon, Saint Peter, Catherine of Alexandria, Mary Magdalene, Mary, mother of Jesus, God and Jesus, to have both Cambridge and Oxford colleges named after them. Ei ihme että kuoppaleukainen daavidhahmo Nooah nimettiin sen perästä. Lopetin sarjan kazomisen 3. jaxosta. Siinä oli pelkästään epämiellyttäviä tyyppejä. Sarjaa tuottavat belgit, britit ja israelit, kaikki erittäin syvältä anuxesta. Haaretz writes that the series is a "gem" that comes "from the heart.' Are there lilac trees / in the heart of town? This is somewhat embarrassing, isn’t it?
ellauri336.html on line 507: Why did Kimchis have seven sons who were kohen gadol? Or, why is popa 20 blatt behind. In any event, it isn’t because she covered her hair, as the gemara says ???? ??? ?? ??? ???? ????. Yes, but as those of us 20 behind in the daf know, and as was pointed out in that thread, the 2nd and 3rd became kohen gadol when the first was tamei.
ellauri378.html on line 217: FACT: Ukraine isn’t a member of NATO or any Western alliance or organisation like the EU, for example.
xxx/ellauri059.html on line 368: He approaches Shylock and even while asking for help he is unforgivingly insulting to him. He tells him that his ships will be in the port in three days and then he will be able to pay. Shylock agrees to lend him the money. He says, just as a little gambling game, more or less as a little joke, if he isn’t repaid in three months Antonio should give him a pound of his flesh. Antonio agrees to that.
xxx/ellauri085.html on line 373: There is no “trickle down economics”. That isn’t something that exists. It’s a made up term to slander people left-wing socialists don’t like.
xxx/ellauri103.html on line 193: But what does this have to do with writing fiction? The moral of the sombrero scandals is clear: you’re not supposed to try on other people’s hats. Yet that’s what we’re paid to do, isn’t it? Step into other people’s shoes, and try on their hats. Try their underwear for size. Make fun of them when they don't say Calvin Klein, or have skidmarks on them.
xxx/ellauri103.html on line 281: I reviewed a novel recently that I had regretfully to give a thumbs-down, though it was terribly well intended; its heart was in the right place. But in relating the Chinese immigrant experience in America, the author put forward characters that were mostly Chinese. That is, that’s sort of all they were: Chinese. Which isn’t enough. They ought to be specifically American Chinese immigrants, believers in the American Dream. That would have fattened them out.
xxx/ellauri122.html on line 1023: A tiny miniature woman will stand in front of your little bro, also only about six inches tall standing up. Her long blonde hair accents her sparkling blue eyes and huge white smile. Her long plastic legs bend only slightly and her pointy breasts perk out of her hot pink tank top. She doesn’t look like anything a five year old would play with, but Barbie is obviously her favorite. How does a five year old relate to Barbie? She isn’t comforting to…show more content…
xxx/ellauri124.html on line 364: if their mental health isn’t in great shape, Huntley says that it can be helpful
xxx/ellauri134.html on line 198: Saying: Power isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.
xxx/ellauri134.html on line 352: Goal: to overturn what isn’t working
xxx/ellauri165.html on line 579: There’s a tonne of therapy and sexual issues wrapped up here isn’t it? Who in their right mind would want a perpetually healing hymen? Or was this just a one time deal - just when conceiving via holy spirit? I should add why was her virginity so important anyway? Seems a throw back to a time which virginity may have been prized. I’d image venereal diseases were considered a curse for those fornicating, a moral judgement. But it still seems over blown.
xxx/ellauri168.html on line 274: The obvious way around the combination problem is to posit that, although consciousness is indeed fundamental in nature, it isn’t fragmented like matter. The idea is to extend consciousness to the entire fabric of spacetime, as opposed to limiting it to the boundaries of individual subatomic particles. This view—called “cosmopsychism” in modern philosophy, although our preferred formulation of it boils down to what has classically been called “idealism”—is that there is only one, universal, consciousness. The physical universe as a whole is the extrinsic appearance of universal inner life, just as a living brain and body are the extrinsic appearance of a person’s inner life.
xxx/ellauri178.html on line 159: This isn’t Nabokov’s ice-blue disdain for the academic ninnyhammers who went snorting after his truffles. Roth, instead, worries himself, as though a sick tooth needed tonguing. He is looking over his shoulder because somebody—probably Irving Howe—might be gaining on him: “This me who is me being me and no other!” as Tarnopol explained at the end of My Life as a Man.
xxx/ellauri225.html on line 48: The gay content in The Telling is rather subtle and subdued, but it isn’t an afterthought. Sutty’s lesbianism is an important aspect of her character, and when she starts meeting mazis, the keepers of the Telling, many of them are gay couples as well. There is a quiet romanticization of gay monogamy throughout The Telling that moved me when I first read it, and although not every aspect of the novel has aged as well, I’m still very endeared of it for that reason. If you enjoy classic science fiction, where the point is less a thrilling story and more the discovery of a brand new world, The Telling is by far my favorite of the bunch.
xxx/ellauri230.html on line 262: Based on a webcomic of an anthropomorphic dog sitting in a burning house saying “This is fine,” this is fine is a meme used as a reaction image in which someone ironically says a situation is OK … and it very clearly isn’t.
xxx/ellauri250.html on line 435: It’s a tale of the endearing Russian bear, which rings discordantly when that bear has its claws out for its neighbors. Russians can't be nice! It is all russki propaganda! It depicts a woman’s quick forgiveness of a sexual predator with whom she’s forced to associate. (What the fuck, some sexual predator indeed, won't even give to her when she asks.) It’s about the fecklessness of the intellectual class and the blank emptiness of the Western (and Westernized) bourgeoisie—the screenplay deliberately leaves F.F. blank, even unto her name. Ljoha isn’t quite as blank, because in his unguarded drunkenness, he blurts out a few of his prejudices and acts out his impulses.
xxx/ellauri304.html on line 640: Theme isn’t something you paste on after you write the first draft. Now, potboilers in general don’t have much thematic content because they doesn’t need to go far beyond: Bang Bang and the good guys in the white hats win. Theme is a more ever-present feeling that permeates the book you’re working on. Do you think when Ayn Rand wrote The Fountainhead or Atlas Shrugged, she first wrote the stories and then asked herself, “Now whatever could this be about? Selfishness?” But then, she was more political than most and, as I said, many books don’t have any discernible theme, except, buy it please and make me rich. That's my theme anyway.
xxx/ellauri304.html on line 645: Did you ever hear of a guy with plumber’s block? Electrician’s block? Did a mechanic ever have mechanic’s block? No, no, and no. The reason is that none of them get paid if they don’t show up to work, so block isn’t really a viable option like flu. However for writers, it often is, but then, they don't get paid. Read Trollope’s autobiography. He worked according to schedule and if he finished a novel, but still had fifteen minutes left in his usual writing day, he would take a fresh piece of paper, write “Chapter One” and get started immediately. Time’s a-wasting, children, said Trollope and went out to fornicate some neighborhood trollops. It pays to be mediocre.
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