Tuesday: Hili dialogue

31 thoughts on “Tuesday: Hili dialogue”

1. that if you read the dreadful novel

   I dispute this description: dreadful, yes definitely, novel … no, that is just wrong in so many ways.

   As my friend described it: “Waste of a perfectly good tree”.

2. Not only does Kavanaugh like beer, he loves to lie. Latest one is telling the committee he did not know about Ramirez until it was reported in the New Yorker. However, prior to that he ask Karen Yarasavage to speak in his defense on the matter. I guess the FBI investigation is being done by the media.

3. “This of course took him out of action for a long time, but was kept hidden from the public. This would no longer be possible after the 25th Amendment to the Constitution mandated removal of an incapacitated President.”

   I’d amend that to “This would no longer be possible since the advent of television”.

   cr

   1. Don’t we have an incapacitated one now?

      1. I don’t think that kind of incapacity counts, sadly.

      2. Sadly, no. Apparently.

         (Yeah I know exactly what you mean)

         cr

4. You’ll know about that if you read the dreadful novel The Da Vinci Code.

   Renowned evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne staggered through Dan Brown’s dreadful novel?.

   1. Not by choice. I spent a week’s vacation at a rented cottage in Dorset, England, and that was the ONLY book in the house (I’d forgotten to bring a book). I was more or less constrained to read it.

      1. There must have been another house nearby, even in Dorset. I am sure they would have taken pity and loaned you something else. Also, there is always a Yellow Pages or even a BT phone book (admittedly, a little predictable but the exposition is way better than TDC and the twist ending makes it worth the read).

      2. Yeah, I read it under similar constraints myself — as, apparently, did Geoffrey Pullum, according to the Language Log piece I linked to above. Indeed, that site has an entire sub-genre dissecting just how godawful Dan Brown’s prose can be.

         I’ll give the devilish Dan Brown his due in one regard though: as painfully obvious as is his technique, he understands how to force the reader to make the jump to the next rotten chapter.

      3. It’s the most extreme case of a movie being better than the book I have ever encountered in my entire life.

         Not exactly a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, but at least a very decently serviceable wallet!!

         Tom Hanks is the perfect choice to play Robert Langdon, and Ron Howard is the right director for this sort of story. Audrey Tautou and Ian McKellan are also very well-chosen for their parts.

         Other notable movies better than the book include “The Bridges of Madison County” and “Psycho”, but I think the ratio of film quality to book quality is arguably the highest in DaVinci Code.

         1. Wasn’t my favorite performance by Tom Hanks, but, I gotta admit, like the werewolf Warren Zevon saw drinking a pina colada at Trader Vic’s, his hair was perfect. 🙂

      4. I hate that dilemma – bad book or not read …

   2. I haven’t read it. I have read Justice Peter Smith’s judgement in the unsuccessful lawsuit that Baigent and Leigh (authors of The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail) brought against Brown’s publishers. It was probably more fun.

      “It would be quite wrong if fictional writers were to have their writings pored over in the way ‘The Da Vinci Code’ has been pored over in this case by authors of pretend historical books to make an allegation of infringement of copyright.”

      *pretend* historical books – ouch!

      cr

   3. I didn’t even feel I needed to read the damn thing to have an opinion.

      It was bad enough just listening to people talk about it.

      1. Same here. I didn’t read it, or Fifty Shades of Gonorrhea. I did read Harry Potter as it was assigned in a college English course and I admit I thoroughly enjoyed reading it and the rest of the series to my then 6-year old son. Call me a snob but I have an innate avoidance response to anything that is so highly praised by the masses and if I do read something “everybody” is talking about, I usually realize that my gut instinct was correct. I cannot help but to wonder, however, what my response to Twain, Steinbeck, or Hemingway might have been had I been of an earlier age. Oh, who the hell am I kidding, no matter how many decades go by, Brown will NEVER be this generation’s Hemingway!

5. That optical illusion is just a variant on the rotating circles seen yesterday, though much less striking, I think, and easier to explain.

   The eye takes its cues from the highlighting on the image being looked at; the overall black shape of the three silhouettes changes in exactly the same way, therefore the brain assumes the other two figures are doin’ what the principal one is doin’.

   cr

6. Long ago while in exile in Jersey I had a physics grad student neigbor who had a big B/W cat named Dirac. Dirac liked his head scratched and I tried to keep my hands off on accounta allergies, so I tried scratching his head with a key. He liked that. It got to the point that I’d just take out the key and hold it pointed downward. Dirac would run up and but his head into it.

   1. Sounds like that the cat was more personable than the physicist. (Dirac, that is, not your neighbour.)

7. You’ll know about that if you read the dreadful novel The Da Vinci Code.

   Yes, it’s dreadful, but, on the other hand, I read it through in more or less one sitting. I can point to lots of things wrong with it, but that would be literary hypocrisy on my part – I found it very entertaining.

   I would dispute your assertion that you would know all about Opus Dei if you have read the novel. I don’t know anything about Opus Dei (unless they really do employ albino assassins) but if his characterisation of them is as accurate as his depiction of London and Paris and police procedure in both, then it is almost wholly fictional.

   1. I came upon a website devoted to picking apart all the things that were just plain wrong in DVC. Such as geographical inaccuracies (which suggested that Brown’s claimed exhaustive research was BS). Written by some nerd. (Just like me.)

      (It was not one of the anti-DVC sites inspired by the Catholic Church, who seem to have objections to DVC for some reason of their own about which I couldn’t give a toss).

      cr

      1. The only inaccuracy that really annoyed me was the idea that a Parisian police officer could or would travel to London and organise a man hunt. He’d just issue a European Arrest Warrant and let the British police deal with it.

         1. I assume that won’t work after Brexit?

            -Ryan

            1. That depends on the deal or lack thereof.

      2. I came upon a website devoted to picking apart all the things that were just plain wrong in DVC.

         I found two of his other books entertaining (Angels and Demons, Inferno) but the inaccuracies were really something to behold. Haven’t read any other books of his, though a friend likes all of them.

         -Ryan

   2. For all its defects, it has plot and suspense.

8. Already a year since Tom Petty died… “American Girl” is my favorite song of his as well, one I never get tired of listening to. I liked how Petty slightly changed his interpretation of his vocals to shade the meaning a bit. And this to a song he/they must have performed a thousand times…

9. Imagine what a reputation you’d get if caught holding a whole plate of those cookies.

   1. It reminded me of my older brother when we were both very young; he who would spit in his ice cream so I wouldn’t steal it. Gross, I know.

10. Where has Gus been? I miss our Canadian earless felid.

11. The white duck is indeed extremely cute!

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