Category: Books and Movies
Borepatch, who met him, has a remembrance. My ex-Significant Sweetie, Charles Curley, also knew and spoke highly of him (and made a brief appearance in one of his books). I was never a fan of either Larry Niven or Jerry Pournelle as solo authors, but together they wrote classic SF. He was a brilliant man, much respected. R.I.P., Dr. Pournelle.
Terry Pratchett’s unfinished works have been crushed by a vintage steam roller. Though there’s always the “was that drive the one-and-only real deal” factor.
I happened to be exploring the wonderful world of one-man barbershop quartet singing the other day. Don’t ask me why; I have no idea.* But that led me (and it was a surprisingly short leap) to science-related a capella singing. I knew the latter existed. I didn’t know there was so much of it these days. One of my faves was this “Mr. Sandman” parody about gene editing, “CRISPR-Cas9.” It’s actually quite educational. With subtitles to help with unconfusication. Then I turned around and discovered that The Onion has done a funny on the very same subject. So I guess…
Three commercial announcements, actually (though the third isn’t strictly commercial because there’s no money involved). 1. David Hardy’s new book: a must-read Once in a long, long while you’ll hear about a book and realize instantly, based on subject and author alone, that such a book really, really needed writing. (If you’re a writer, you might even think to yourself, “Damn, why didn’t I get that idea first?”) In this case, attorney and noted gun-rights activist David Hardy got the sad-but-brilliant concept. He wrote I’m from the Government and I’m Here to Kill You, which is now available for pre-order…
Since I haven’t done any icons to show you lately, reader T.L. sent me these. Other than her shockingly poor trigger discipline, I might like these Marys: T.L. says the second one is from a movie called Deadly Code, which is about entire ethnic groups exiled by the Soviet Union, whose members were driven to become gangsters. I don’t know the film, but some of its lines are pretty intriguing. Grandfather Kuzya: [leading ceremony] By our ancestors, free hunters, and warriors, by the great Northern Forests, by the river Lena … we pray to you. Blessed Mary, Mother of God,…