sweasel.com

Did you give his spheres a decent burial?

Why would you want to wear a dress? Talk about a chapped weasel – you’re gonna freeze.

‘Course I never understood the logic in a dress anyway – other than as a guy-teasing tool. A dress would make it easier to wee, I guess. And mooning would be especially effective.

Weasel, those folks just do not understand the outstandingly self-indulgent pleasures involved in having T-giving by onesself. Here is a list – to remind you:

1) There’s nothing on the table you don’t like to eat. I mean – why would there be?
2) Its ready when you are.
3) You can belch. And fart. And laugh at it, unashamedly.
4) You don’t have to eat ANY vegetables. (Don’t lie: NO ONE likes vegetables. You know you all just eat them because Mom insisted.)
5) You can eat with your fingers – and toes, and any other thing you like.
6) You can feed the cats off your plate – while you’re eating.
7) You can drink all the wine or whatever you want.
8) You can clean up when you want: like, Saturday.
9) You can eat the entire pumpkin pie (both of ’em), and no one will be thoroughly disgusted with you.
10) You can throw away all the dark meat.
11) You NEVER run out of whipped cream.

Oh, shit. I better go to the bookstore before it snows. I’m nearly out of fresh retina-fodder.

Weasel, what was that Kit Carson book you read a while back when you last traveled (I think)? Was it worth picking up? I think I saw it in Borders and wondered about it. Suggestions gratefully accepted.

Yes, I enjoyed it. But I forget what it’s called; it’s at Badger House. It had a minimum of anti-white-person snark (despite having a positive blurb from the NYT).

You know, that’s an interesting thing. I almost bought a book on the Mayflower when I was coming back, but there was a glowing review from the Times on the back and I thought, “hm. I bet it’s a bunch of anti-American crap” and bought something else.

I wonder how many (historians particularly) lose sales based on positive reviews?

You’re talkin’ to a person who looks at back-cover reviews just for that reason. If the NYT or LAT or Whatshername Kern Goodwin (or any other screaming liberal) liked it, I become cautious.

Well, I’m going to pick it (Kit Carson book) up in the next day or so. I’ll risk it. Its not like I’ve never bought a loser before.

I just finished “Last Days of Krypton” – which was “meh” and not at all what I hoped/expected, and Red Scorpion – which was quite acceptable, if a bit dated.

Coming through Boston the last couple of times, I was amazed at how few books were on sale in general — and almost no non-fiction. (I pretty much haven’t read fiction in years). Lots of political books — about five to one lefty. I don’t much enjoy political books anyhow. I bought the Kit Carson book because it was the only thing there that even half appealed.

I count on light history, light science and low-rent gory true crime to get me through air journeys, and they let me down lately.

Also, what’s with all the hardback books? Who the hell wants to take a hardback on an airplane?

You read my mind vis-a-vis airport hardbacks. They’re fucking bulky, and not throwaway. Not at $25-30 each.

The reason you may have become disenchanted with fiction is a common one, Weasel: You’ve read all the plots already – repeatedly. There are damned few original plots out there.

And….you’ve read enough that you’ve (perhaps unconsciously) gotten used to a high standard of writing. So much so that very little of what’s coming out simultaneously meets those standards AND entertains.

That’s why I can’t read Sci-Fi anymore (except for a rare instance. Scalzi isn’t bad.). They all read like something I’ve read before – and usually it was written better long ago.

They’re there (hardbacks) in case ya needs a gift shortly after deplaning (de-planing?), or because the place makes more money on hardbacks and you’re trapped.

Maybe?

Sounds plausible, Gnus. I can just see some dweeb with too many math courses under his belt doing area/space/volume vs cost/income/velocity studies to see if paperbacks or HBs make ’em more money. Its eminently study-able. The buttheads.

Did anybody catch this rather sweet video on Powerline of Joni Mitchell sitting around singing Night Ride Home? It was her birthday a few days ago, as they blogged, and I meant to mention it and didn’t.

As a chain-smoking, black-wearing, self-absorbed fifteen year old girl artiste, I was absolutely compelled to be a big Joni Mitchell fan growing up. They take away your membership card otherwise. I was a big fan, too.

Then she got all jazz in the late seventies. I fucking hate jazz. I like jazz’s crazy grandpa in the attic, ragtime, and disreputable big brother blues…but jazz gives me hives. Every time I checked an album of hers after that, it was way too jazz for my taste.

Then in ’91, she released Night Ride Home, which is like her old stuff but better. Every track on it is a winner.

Eh. If you like that stuff, it’s just the sort of stuff you’ll like.

This post is priceless! I laughed so hard I spit my coffee all over the monitor. The idea of you in a DRESS is right up there with the idea of me in a dress, and it’s pretty freakin’ funny.
I so wish I could spend Fucking Thanksgiving (as it’s known around here) alone with a turkey and some mashed potatoes. Every blessed year we have the “Should we go to my brother’s house?” debate, and my answer is the same every year – um, Hell no. I’m not going this year either.
Have a safe trip, and be careful how you sit in that dress!

And I hate Jazz, too!

That’s three of us. I hate jazz, too. It’s nonsensical noise to me.

And Jessica – be envious! I will be spending my T-day alone (by choice – be assured), and will be cooking a big batch of Beef Stroganoff, because its easy and I love it, and (I am so ashamed) because I know I’ll get hit by well-meaning family and friends with about 5 lbs of turkey, mashed potatoes, and pie anyway. I am such a greedy self-centered bachelor pig SOB. And I do love it so.

My mom and her new (and eminently likable) husband are coming to Stately Paine Manor for Thanksgiving this year, and it should be fun.

I always make the turkey and dressing, while my wife makes all the other stuff; she and I have specialized in preparing only the stuff we like for years (although the welcome omission of candied yams (we have baked ones, with butter, instead; highly recommended) is a recent event). I hated candied yams even as a kid; it’s too much like eating soggy cardboard steeped in corn syrup and covered with marshmallows for me. My wife shares my disdain for candied yams, but it still took us 20 years to dump them from the T-Day menu. Traditions are hard to shake.

Oh, yeah? You think that’s funny, Jess? One year, she bought me a dress THAT WAS PINK. And KNIT. And it was nineteen-eighty-something, so it also had gigantic linebacker shoulder pads. I must’ve had a stricken look on my face when I came out wearing it, because my dad said, “what’s the matter — don’t you like pretty things?”

So I stabbed him.

Mmmmm…okay. This guy has written 5,471 sentences that are each 29 characters long, including the period. Why? I don’t know. How did I find him? I don’t know.

Happy Thanksgiving other-side-of-the-Atlantic cousins.
By the way, I really do like vegetables. Maybe there’s something wrong with me…I mean, something else.
Anywho, I thought initially I’d exhausted the works of the science fiction greats (Asimov, Heinlein, Sturgeon, Dick (hee), Haldeman, Disch, Clarke &c.) but I think the genre is alive and well – at least for the near future – in the form of Alastair Reynolds. I’m not just shilling for him because he’s British either. This is ‘hard’ sci-fi with real physics and near-light-speed travel, and big, fuck-off rail guns that fire planet-sized slugs near the speed of light and can only be used once, ‘hell-class’ weapons that can destroy planets and shit like that. Him, along with all of that Soviet science fiction (yeah, the Commies were good at something – who knew?) that hasn’t been translated yet (assuming the Strugatsky brothers are an acid test for the genre and no just the best it has to offer), specialised Sci-Fi like Gibson and Stephenson and the rest, provide a great deal of interesting literature still.
Hardbacks are a pain in the ass, especially if you’re like me and read primarily in your pit. They make your arms tired what with their mass and their inflexibility. Also, they’re more expensive.
I suspect hardbacks of for people who like to stack books on shelves to prove to guests that they’re not illiterate.
I want to like jazz, but find it difficult. I always thought it was because I’m so unsophisticated, and that jazz musicians were incredibly talanted and merely pretending to play like someone with autism, and that I just didn’t properly understand it.

Fucking leaky italics, they’ll be the death of me.

There. As a special Thanksgiving present to the Olde Worlde, I fixed your italics for you, Gibby.

Ummm…now I’ll read what you said.

Much obliged.

I’ll say just one word about Jazz.

Heroin.

Gibby, my aunt died of italics poisoning. Not a pretty way to go. Her butt fell off.

To me, jazz is the aural equivalent of abstract art.

And I have a similarly low opinion of abstract art.

Oh. As for hardbacks, the reason I buy them is that I read so damned much I run out of NEW stuff to read in paperback. Essentially all the new releases (that I’m interested in) are in hardback first. I can’t wait 6 months for them to hit paperback. I once tried to cut back so the paperbacks would “catch up” but I couldn’t stand it.

Badger – does that mean you like jazz? Or that it’s addictive? Or that all folks who play jazz are dopers?

According to Wikipedestria, Leaky Italic Syndrome (LIS) is often caused by the consumption of Nietzschean aphorisms fried in Olestra.

The doctor took one look at her and said, “She’s dead. Her corpse is right there and there’s no butts about it.”

My uncle was behind himself with grief.

We now refer to her as, “Auntie End.”

Gahh! There are PEAS in your GRAVY and on your TURKEY! You can’t eat that now!
Thanksgiving is RUINED! And it’s ALL YOUR FAULT!

*runs away sobbing*

/pupsterfamilygettogether

I’ve always said family is waaaaaaaayyyyy overrated. The hubby and I will celebrate in Beantown with……not family! Friends! You know, the people you actually get to choose to let into your life. Friends! Hubby (the chef…really, a chef) will cook, I’ll pour the wine and drink quite a bit also, the friends will bless us with their company (while they thank heavens they aren’t having to share the holiday with their families) and we’ll all be happier for it. I love Thanksgiving….without the family.

Peas are the cockroaches of the vegetable world. If you find one, you can bet there are hundreds more. They scurry about your plate, tracking gawd-knows-what-kind of pea stuff all over otherwise-perfectly edible food. Luckily, the bootheel that deals so effectively and permanently with cockroaches is equally effective when administered con brio to peas found on your plate.

I eats MY peas with honey;
I’ve done it all my life.
Sure, it makes the peas taste funny,
but it keeps them on my knife.

Peas, found on my plate
Brusquely squished – no second chance.
They are green vermin.

Oh, god. I just noticed that there are those li’l miniature onions in there with the peas. Two of ’em. You know – like a mating pair, recently escaped from a martini somewhere.

So not only are there peas contaminating the meal, those damned onions are gonna be flavoring everything in sight.

Phillistines, all of you. Jazz is the only true American art form.

Keith Jarrett – Koln Concert

I love baby english peas myself – with a bit of butter tossed in. Birdseye came out with a garlic/mushroom steam in the microwave bag that is absolutely delicious. We’re gonna have green bean casserole instead this time around though.

Peas are the cockroaches of the vegetable world.

Peas are like boogers. Wiped on your plate from someone who doesn’t like you. I bet boogers taste better than peas.

Oh, god. I just noticed that there are those li’l miniature onions in there with the peas. Two of ‘em. You know – like a mating pair, recently escaped from a martini somewhere.

Kinda reminds me of insect egg sacs.

“Jazz is the only true American art form.” -Farmer Joe-

I thought the only true ‘merican art form was the snack?

Lokki – you do realize Weasel won’t be back ’til Saturday? The site’s running on autopilot. And its a short week. Hmmm…

Mom always liked LeSeur(?) brand baby peas, Enas. The ones in the silver can.

I want a little catapult with a itty bitty ammo cup thingy that’s just the right size for a pea to sit in. Aww. It’d be so cute. It could just snuggle in there real warm and comfortable-like. And then I could fire it and it would splat into complete liquid oblivion on the wall across the room.

Typical Sweasel post/comments … I came here frowning, and am now smiling.

1. I love nearly all vegetables (even peas).
2. I hate dresses.
3. I looooove Thanksgiving.
4. I love jazz (and ragtime), but only the old kind – swing, dixieland and various small-group stuff (Goodman’s small groups & Fats Waller’s Rhythm, particularly). “Modern” jazz (bebop and such) gives me hives.
5. Stoaty and I have a lot in common – I think we may be related.

Happy Thanksgiving, y’all!

A link to things old & obscure:

http://xroads.virginia.edu/~MA02/easton/vaudeville/vaudevillemain.html

Get a dress that shows plenty of cleavage. I don’t know what message it will send, but it is sure to shock them. I am a flip flops and Chucks kinda girl, but when I get all dressed up I like to wear the highest stilletos I can find. It confuses people, especially at dressy church functions. Thursday will be my fifth Thanksgiving dinner. We have allready gone to four. You can never eat too much turkey.
Oh and guess what ya’ll, my teacher curved my grade to a 75! Woo Hoo! Happy Thanksgiving.
Hey Gibby. I just bought Chasm City at Amazon based on your recommendation. Sounds good.

And then I could fire it and it would splat into complete liquid oblivion on the wall across the room.

Or on an annoying relatives forehead.

Hey weasel, this may be your last Thanksgiving ever in the U.S., but will you continue the tradition in the olde world. You know, sorta like a rub their face in it kind of celebration?

You’ve given me a reason to accept a T-day invitation, PnB, rather than stay home!

I can pea-shoot the host!

I can’t believe no one commented on jaunty balls. Seems more fit for Christmas than Thanksgiving, I suppose.