AdamSmith

MsGuy, you must keep up with these things. HB on that carefree afternoon at Obersalzberg...

And the opening of O'Connor's other novel, The Violent Bear It Away: Francis Marion Tarwater's uncle had been dead for only half a day when the boy got too drunk to finish digging his grave and a Negro named Buford Munson, who had come to get a jug filled, had to finish it and drag the body from the breakfast table where it was still sitting and bury it in a decent and Christian way, with the sign of its Savior at the head of the grave and enough dirt on top to keep the dogs from digging it up. (The jug, we shortly learn, is because the late uncle had been a moonshiner.)

Just as a parlor trick, here is the opening of Go Set a Watchman: Since Atlanta, she had looked out the dining-car window with a delight almost physical. Over her breakfast coffee, she watched the last of Georgia’s hills recede and the red earth appear, and with it tin-roofed houses set in the middle of swept yards, and in the yards the inevitable verbena grew, surrounded by whitewashed tires. She grinned when she saw her first TV antenna atop an unpainted Negro house; as they multiplied, her joy rose. Jean Louise Finch always made this journey by air, but she decided to go by train from New York to Maycomb Junction on her fifth annual trip home. For one thing, she had the life scared out of her the last time she was on a plane: the pilot elected to fly through a tornado. For another thing, flying home meant her father rising at three in the morning, driving a hundred miles to meet her in Mobile, and doing a full day’s work afterwards: he was seventy-two now and this was no longer fair. And then here, coincidentally likewise set on a train, is the opening of Wise Blood, Flannery O'Connor's first novel: Hazel Motes sat at a forward angle on the green plush train seat, looking one minute at the window as if he might want to jump out of it, and the next down the aisle at the other end of the car. The train was racing through tree tops that fell away at intervals and showed the sun standing, very red, on the farthest edge of the woods. Nearer, the plowed fields curved and faded and the few hogs nosing in the furrows looked like large spotted stones. Mrs. Wally Bee Hitchcock, who was facing Motes in the section, said that she thought the early evening like this was the prettiest time of day and she asked him if he didn't think so too. She was a fat woman with pink collars and cuffs and pear-shaped legs that slanted off the train seat and didn't reach the floor. Elsewhere in the same book O'Connor writes: Two doors flew open and he found himself moving down a long red foyer and then up a darker tunnel and then up a higher, still darker tunnel. In a few minutes he was up in a high part of the maw, feeling around, like Jonah, for a seat. And that's just someone entering a movie theater. There are writers, and then there are writers.

Pants? Queen Victoria's underwear sold for £12,000 at auction A pair of royal cotton knickers with a 45in (114cm) waist is sold for a record price to a private English collector, along with set of replica crown jewels http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jul/11/pants-queen-victorias-underwear-sold-for-12000-at-auction#img-1 http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jul/11/pants-queen-victorias-underwear-sold-for-12000-at-auction

I've fallen and I can't get it up!

Interesting! I didn't know that.

One of the benefits of creeping senescence.

How Do Court Reporters Keep Straight Faces? These are from a book called Disorder in the Courts and are things people actually said in court, word for word, taken down and published by court reporters that had the torment of staying calm while the exchanges were taking place. ATTORNEY: What was the first thing your husband said to you that morning? WITNESS: He said, 'Where am I, Cathy?' ATTORNEY: And why did that upset you? WITNESS: My name is Susan! _______________________________ ATTORNEY: What gear were you in at the moment of the impact? WITNESS: Gucci sweats and Reeboks. ____________________________________________ ATTORNEY: Are you sexually active? WITNESS: No, I just lie there. ____________________________________________ ATTORNEY: What is your date of birth? WITNESS: July 18th. ATTORNEY: What year? WITNESS: Every year. _____________________________________ ATTORNEY: How old is your son, the one living with you? WITNESS: Thirty-eight or thirty-five, I can't remember which. ATTORNEY: How long has he lived with you? WITNESS: Forty-five years. _________________________________ ATTORNEY: This myasthenia gravis, does it affect your memory at all? WITNESS: Yes. ATTORNEY: And in what ways does it affect your memory? WITNESS: I forget.. ATTORNEY: You forget? Can you give us an example of something you forgot? ___________________________________________ ATTORNEY: Now doctor, isn't it true that when a person dies in his sleep, he doesn't know about it until the next morning? WITNESS: Did you actually pass the bar exam? ____________________________________ ATTORNEY: The youngest son, the 20-year-old, how old is he? WITNESS: He's 20, much like your IQ. ___________________________________________ ATTORNEY: Were you present when your picture was taken? WITNESS: Are you shitting me? _________________________________________ ATTORNEY: So the date of conception (of the baby) was August 8th? WITNESS: Yes. ATTORNEY: And what were you doing at that time? WITNESS: Getting laid ____________________________________________ ATTORNEY: She had three children , right? WITNESS: Yes. ATTORNEY: How many were boys? WITNESS: None. ATTORNEY: Were there any girls? WITNESS: Your Honor, I think I need a different attorney. Can I get a new attorney? ____________________________________________ ATTORNEY: How was your first marriage terminated? WITNESS: By death.. ATTORNEY: And by whose death was it terminated? WITNESS: Take a guess. ___________________________________________ ATTORNEY: Can you describe the individual? WITNESS: He was about medium height and had a beard ATTORNEY: Was this a male or a female? WITNESS: Unless the Circus was in town I'm going with male. _____________________________________ ATTORNEY: Is your appearance here this morning pursuant to a deposition notice which I sent to your attorney? WITNESS: No, this is how I dress when I go to work. ______________________________________ ATTORNEY: Doctor , how many of your autopsies have you performed on dead people? WITNESS: All of them. The live ones put up too much of a fight. _________________________________________ ATTORNEY: ALL your responses MUST be oral, OK? What school did you go to? WITNESS: Oral... _________________________________________ ATTORNEY: Do you recall the time that you examined the body? WITNESS: The autopsy started around 8:30 PM ATTORNEY: And Mr. Denton was dead at the time? WITNESS: If not, he was by the time I finished. ____________________________________________ ATTORNEY: Are you qualified to give a urine sample? WITNESS: Are you qualified to ask that question? ______________________________________ And last: ATTORNEY: Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse? WITNESS: No. ATTORNEY: Did you check for blood pressure? WITNESS: No. ATTORNEY: Did you check for breathing? WITNESS: No.. ATTORNEY: So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy? WITNESS: No. ATTORNEY: How can you be so sure, Doctor? WITNESS: Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar. ATTORNEY: I see, but could the patient have still been alive, nevertheless? WITNESS: Yes, it is possible that he could have been alive and practicing law.

Wonder if he would have cottoned any quicker if you had suggested a window display after the style of Boss's Hitler Youth uniforms?

Let me try: We know Flannery O'Connor's deadly crack about To Kill a Mockingbird -- "It's interesting that all the people that are buying it don't know they are buying a children's book." If this first chapter of Go Set a Watchman is representative of the rest, it might be that O'Connor simultaneously, rather miraculously, identified the thing that raises Mockingbird at least partway toward the plane of art. Without reading all of the new (old) book obviously I can't form a fair judgment. But the writing in this excerpt is not so encouraging. I went back and looked at some of Mockingbird again and liked just the prose and voice a good bit more than in this sample from Watchman. I will read the whole thing when it comes out.

I used a MacBook Pro 2008-2012. True that MS Office for Mac tended to lag behind the Windows version in release history. BUT Office for Mac has always tended to be a good bit more stable and reliable than the Windows version. My moles inside Microsoft tell me that the Office for Mac developer team takes a contrarian pride in doing a better job than their internal competitors on the Office for Windows team. And are proud to see themselves as aligned with Apple in general that way -- in doing a better job for the end user than Microsoft has typically ever done.

ROFLMAO How did he react?

Read the first chapter: http://www.theguardian.com/books/ng-interactive/2015/jul/10/go-set-a-watchman-read-the-first-chapter

How the Greeks must feel along about now...

Chance! Thank you. I love it. Your link doesn't work for me but I found your plant by name in Wikipedia. ...Nepenthes hemsleyana appears to rely on different prey trapping strategies as compared to N. rafflesiana. Unlike the latter, the upper pitchers of N. hemsleyana have an expanded waxy zone and watery, less viscoelastic pitcher fluid.[2][15] They also appear to lack UV patterns and produce less nectar and odour attractants.[2][15] Hardwicke's woolly bats (Kerivoula hardwickii) commonly roost in the upper pitchers of N. hemsleyana.[2][16][17][18] This relationship appears to be mutualistic, with the plant providing shelter for the bats and in return receiving additional nitrogen input in the form of faeces. It has been estimated that the plant derives 33.8% of its total foliar nitrogen from the animals' droppings. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nepenthes_hemsleyana P.S. Aren't you glad there aren't any of these in the Great Smoky Mountains? Hope IP is keeping you out of trouble.

Just what I was thinking about the jock in their ad.

I was unclear. Speer's title (after being promoted from Chief Architect) was Reich Minister of Armaments and War Production. The Obergruppenführers were apparatchiks a level beneath him who, in guarding their own turf, mainly frustrated his efforts.

I first came across the word 'Obergruppenführer' in Speer's grimly (and occasionally comically) fascinating memoir Inside the Third Reich. Various holders of the title were among the many figures throughout the Reich government who alternately thwarted and aided Speer's efforts to save the Nazi war-production program from misorganization in general and Hitler's increasingly counterproductive interventions in particular. Wikipedia enlightens: Obergruppenführer was a Nazi Party paramilitary rank that was first created in 1932 as a rank of the SA, and adopted by the Schutzstaffel one year later. Until 1942, it was the highest commissioned SS rank, inferior only to Reichsführer-SS (Heinrich Himmler). Translated as "senior group leader",[1] the rank of Obergruppenführer was considered senior to Gruppenführer.[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obergruppenf%C3%BChrer Gottlob Berger, commander of the SS-Hauptamt, wearing the rank insignia of an SS-Obergruppenführer and a superimposed Knight's Cross of the War Merit Cross

Exactly. What I always think of is that tutoring franchise for kids who are not quite bright. http://www.sylvanlearning.com/

I agree. These discrepancies smell very bad.

If I were in NYC right now, I think I would risk the $50 to find out. (Limiting the risk by using a prepaid card with only fifty bucks on it.) Curious to watch if anybody gives them a whirl.

Here’s Why Your Poop Habits Get All Messed Up When You Travel Pooping? No way! You’re on vacation, and so is your butt. http://www.buzzfeed.com/carolynkylstra/vacation-poop

Where you been hiding? Always glad to see you here. Don't be a stranger.

Greenwald: What Portugal Can Teach Us About Decriminalizing Drugs http://www.newsweek.com/greenwald-what-portugal-can-teach-us-about-decriminalizing-drugs-349992

Delightful! Lawrence Ferlinghetti: 'Most of the poets were on something, but somebody had to mind the shop' The publisher of the Beats talks about Ginsberg the showman, the Albert hall happening and how one of his own poets emptied the City Lights till http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jul/04/lawrence-ferlinghetti-interview-poets