Monday, January 26, 2009

Son-Of-A-Who-Cut-Your-Naval-String!

Loads of random shit (literally) and colons (but not the shitty kind):

The former wife, my daughter and I took their pug for a walk today. You wouldn't believe how much poo can be kept inside of a dog that small. It was like Christmas day with a new Play-Doh Fun Factory.



Today io9 has this headline:
You'll Never Guess Which Mutant Plays A Key Role In Wolverine!
I'm going to say . . . um . . . Wolverine?

I took the daughter to the library today and grabbed A Clockwork Orange for myself. Saw the movie when I was a teen, but never read the book. I just read a few pages into it at the library. I'd often heard about the language thing, but didn't realize it was so thick. This might require a second read. Here's something embarrassing: When I read William Golding's The Inheritors, large chunks of it went right over my head even though the language is quite simple. It's told from the point of view of one of the slowest of a small group of Neanderthals as they encounter their first Cro-Magnons. It's a hell of a time to figure out what the protagonist is seeing as he describes technology beyond his ken using his limited vocabulary. He sees boats as trees and oars as leaves and so on. That's a second-reader to be sure, but I haven't yet jumped into its second reading.

Just a reminder: This is the last chance you'll have to read this sentence for the first time. See. Told you. Next time you'll listen to me.

Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book won the Newbery Award today. Son-of-a-who-cut-your-naval-string! (That's a Trinidadian expression, of course. You people need to get out more.) Congrats to him!

Truth in advertising: The Hanes Beefy-T should really be called the Hanes Fatty-T. And by the way, if it really was the Beefy-T, these would not be the models for it. I mean, one guy is actually dressed like Gilligan. Nobody thinks, "Look at that Gilligan. God, but he's beefy!"

And I'm spent.

7 comments:

Church said...

One of the few pix that I have of myself as a wee one is from Christmas many moons ago. I'm standing next to my mom in the snow holding a Play-Dough Fun Factory(tm) and looking like the cat that ate the canary.

BTW, the "Beefy-T" refers to the thickness of the material. (They come in all sizes.)

Matthew Sanborn Smith said...

My kiddie Christmas pic involved Rock'em Sock'em Robots.

That explains the Beefy-T. Mine was enormous, (because I am), so I assumed the all were. Like the Husky pants of my childhood.

Diane Severson said...

Does your edition of Clockwork Orange have the appendix with the dictionary? You might consider it cheating but it would render the second reading unnecessary, although it's worth a 2nd read nonetheless. If you don't have the appendix, and want it, I can email it to you if you like. Let me know.

Matthew Sanborn Smith said...

Thanks, Diane, but I'm at chapter three and figuring things out okay for myself by context. It's much more fun this way. It's one of the things I like about science fiction.

Church said...

More important: does your book have the 21st chapter (left out of most US editions?)

Matthew Sanborn Smith said...

Yes, it does. They reissued it in 1986 with the magical missing chapter.

Diane Severson said...

You are, as always, my liege, so right. I could not resist the temptation that was the appendix with the translations, so thought I might tempt some others towards brains of mush.