
Vargen wrote:*My wingspan is about 5" longer than my height. Typically those two are about the same.
Hope you played some basketball in your youth. That's a huge advantage.
Also for climbing. They call it the “Ape Ratio” and you’d have a very large one. :-)
Didn't play much basketball. I went to a small school and didn't really get on well with most of the athletes. I probably would have run cross-country if that had been an option. Long legs to go with the long arms and all that. And I definitely put most of my physical points into Stamina.
I do get to do a fair bit of climbing with the Scouts these days. I'm mostly in charge of training and making sure things are safe rather than getting up on the rock myself. Eventually I hope to get into good enough shape to better enjoy the actual climbing.
Bouldering is the ideal combination of skill, workout, challenge and safety.
I was surprised when I read about that on Futility Closet some time ago. I could have sworn that I had heard a more recent reference to this, but couldn't find it after a quick search through the things I regularly follow.
HP Lovecraft and Charles Dickens were scummy people.
HP Lovecraft and Charles Dickens were scummy people.
One of my favorite trends in literature right now are POC authors repurposing Lovecraft stories to highlight racism and bigotry, and to feature strong and dynamic POC as protagonist. One, because the stories are incredible (Victor LaValle is a genius), but two, because it would REALLY infuriate Lovecraft.
Lovecraft, and probably Howard and Gernsback, would have loved the Sad Puppies.
MaxShrek wrote:HP Lovecraft and Charles Dickens were scummy people.
One of my favorite trends in literature right now are POC authors repurposing Lovecraft stories to highlight racism and bigotry, and to feature strong and dynamic POC as protagonist. One, because the stories are incredible (Victor LaValle is a genius), but two, because it would REALLY infuriate Lovecraft.
This is my take on it. If the author would genuinely hate that people he hated and marginalized are enjoying and using his works then I'm all for it.
Has something new came out about Dickens? I thought the record on him was more typical of a Victorian Englishman in most things and better than most in a few areas?
Yeah, I'll admit the same curiosity. Even amongst his peers, Lovecraft was a pretty reprehensible racist and xenophobe, and that's inextricably tied into his works, but I wasn't aware of anything singularly problematic with Dickens; on the plus side, he was a fantastically effective critic of the dehumanizing machinery of both capitalism, class structure, and the British educational system.
Nothing new on Dickens except for the accepted norms of the day. Lovecraft, on the other hand.
One note on Lovecraft - and I want to emphasize that I'm in no way offering an apology for the racism that poisons his work - is I've seen chatter in the last year or so about a letter he wrote shortly before dying that seemed to indicate a reconsideration. I'm not a scholar, and I can't really vet it, and honestly the fact that it's practically a deathbed turnaround seems way too convenient to not arouse suspicion, but here's how Curt Phillips, a Lovecraft fan whose tweet someone forwarded to me, summarized it:
"I was perusing the new volume of letters between H. P. Lovecraft and C. L. Moore, and came across the following in a long letter to Moore written about a month before his death in 1937. He's discussing politics and his support of Franklin Roosevelt, and says (italics indicated by *__*):
"All this from an antiquated mummy who was on the other side until 1931? Well -- I can the better understand the inert blindness and defiant ignorance of the reactionaries from having been one of them. I know how smugly ignorant *I* was -- wrapped up in the arts, the natural (not social) sciences, the *externals* of history and antiquarianism. the *abstract* academic phases of philosophy, & so on -- all the one-sided standard lore to which, according to the traditions of the dying order, a liberal education was limited. God! the things that were *left out* -- the inside facts of history, the rational interpretation of periodic social crises, the foundations of economics & sociology, the actual state of the world today...& above all the *habit* of applying disinterested reason to problems hitherto approached only with traditional genuflections, flag-waving, & callous shoulder-shrugs! All this comes up with humiliating force through an incident of a few days ago..."
Willis Conover asked Lovecraft if he could use a biographical letter written in 1924. Not recalling it, Lovecraft reread it, and says:
"I looked around for a 1924 photograph of myself to burn, spit on, or stick pins in! Holy Hades -- was *I* that much of a dub at 33...only 13 years ago? There was no getting out of it -- I really *had* thrown all that haughty, complacent, snobbish, self-centred, intolerant bull, & at a mature age when anybody but a perfect damned fool would have known better! That earlier illness had kept me in seclusion, limited my knowledge of the world, & given me something of the fatuous effusiveness of a belated adolescent when I finally *was* able to get about more around 1920, is hardly much of an excuse...The only consolation lay in the reflection that I *had* matured a bit since '24. it's hard to have done all one's growing up since 33 -- but that's a damn sight better than not growing up at all."
He goes on to discuss the Roosevelt landslide that "surprised and delighted me. Late in October I attended a highly interesting New Deal rally, with the eminent Rabbi Wise of New York as principal speaker. He sized up the changes in the national mind with phenomenal penetration & wit -- so that I can well imagine the polite Nazis of Wall St. cursing him as a blasphemous non-Aryan intellectual!...It amuses me to see the woebegone state of the staid reactionary reliques with whom I am surrounded -- the Providence old-family clique away from whose past-drugged ideology it is impossible to pull my aunt. Around election time I came darned near to having a family feud on my hands! Poor old ostriches!"
-- H. P. Lovecraft, LETTERS TO C. L. MOORE AND OTHERS, Hippocampus Press, 2017
I like the idea of people changing their minds and reconsidering their positions, but honestly the evidence I've experienced goes the other way most of the time, so I hope some people more familiar with HPL history can verify this. But it's not like it undoes his work.
It seems when Lovecraft surrounded himself with- or was forced to interact or be around- people who were different from him, he started to accept them. Hating Jews, yet marrying one, is definitely something.
That volume of letters between Moore and Lovecraft exists, so it's strange to think someone might lie about it. See here for info (but not the letters themselves, I don't think).
It seems when Lovecraft surrounded himself with- or was forced to interact or be around- people who were different from him, he started to accept them. Hating Jews, yet marrying one, is definitely something.
If he really did come around, it would have had to have been after they split up. According to her, he trembled with rage at having to walk through the diverse crowds of New York City, and felt that she no longer belonged to those "mongrel" people because he married her.
It'd be nice if he actually did recant his racist and antisemetic ways, but I'm going to doubt it without a lot more evidence.
Jesus Christ could hit a curve ball.
Americans eat apple sauce as a food and not just a sauce. Mostly a kid's food I guess.
Speaking of Lovecraft:
I've heard that his correspondence with Robert E. Howard led Howard to recognize his own racism and start trying to change. Specifically, that at some point Howard read a letter from Lovecraft and thought "Hold on, is that what I sound like? I must be doing something wrong here."
It's a great story, but does anyone know whether it's actually true?
Americans eat apple sauce as a food and not just a sauce. Mostly a kid's food I guess.
If my nieces and nephews are anything to go by I think it is more of a really thick drink at this point. They just kind of suck it out of these weird little pouches:
Speaking of Lovecraft:
I've heard that his correspondence with Robert E. Howard led Howard to recognize his own racism and start trying to change. Specifically, that at some point Howard read a letter from Lovecraft and thought "Hold on, is that what I sound like? I must be doing something wrong here."It's a great story, but does anyone know whether it's actually true?
Wait. Does this have anything to do with Howard’s suicide?
The book discussed earlier (not sure if in this thread) of Lovecraft's letters to CL Moore and a few others arrived today. It's dense, but easy to ready and fascinating. Just flipping through it, Lovecraft was a strong, reasoned anti-Fascist and anti-Capitalist, but also recognized that Communism was not going anywhere good (I think). He was strongly for the New Deal, too, and argued for the benefits to the regular workers against the wealthy industrialists, using many of the same arguments I see here today.
It's almost shocking how well he writes and how much thought he put into these topics. I will let you know when I get to the racism stuff but it seems like it could be legit given the positions he has expressed in my random page turns.
Americans eat apple sauce as a food and not just a sauce. Mostly a kid's food I guess.
People use it as a sauce? To put on what?
Mermaidpirate wrote:Americans eat apple sauce as a food and not just a sauce. Mostly a kid's food I guess.
People use it as a sauce? To put on what?
Pork chops and latkes. Usually not in the same meal.
Pork chops and latkes. Usually not in the same meal.
Happily, you are mistaken here.
merphle wrote:Pork chops and latkes. Usually not in the same meal.
Happily, you are mistaken here. :-)
You're living the good life then, and I envy you!
Hmm. So I just googled “latkes” and got an answer, and then googled “are latkes good” but did not get back any applicable results.
Hmm. So I just googled “latkes” and got an answer, and then googled “are latkes good” but did not get back any applicable results.
Good latkes are amazing. Especially with applesauce or sour cream.
Absolutely. A wonderful treat for colder days.
Mermaidpirate wrote:Americans eat apple sauce as a food and not just a sauce. Mostly a kid's food I guess.
People use it as a sauce? To put on what?
Until I moved to the US, apple sauce had one use, as a condiment for roast pork.
Keithustus wrote:Mermaidpirate wrote:Americans eat apple sauce as a food and not just a sauce. Mostly a kid's food I guess.
People use it as a sauce? To put on what?
Until I moved to the US, apple sauce had one use, as a condiment for roast pork.
My kids eat a lot of it. I usually make my own and can it for the rest of the year. About 50 pounds of apples have been processed so far.
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