Re: The solitary thing I have retained from my reading of The Giant, O'Brien, roughly eleven years ago

1

I remember those! They shave your head and give you a metal cap on top unless you run away and hide in the mountains. And isn't it endearing to confuse Jean-Paul with Beanpole! And something about a fellow who made his own eyeglasses. The end.


Posted by: text | Link to this comment | 04-19-10 8:33 PM
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I know what you're on about, text. But is that what neb is talking about? So much confusion in such a little virtual box.


Posted by: ari | Link to this comment | 04-19-10 8:36 PM
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Whereas I have no idea what text is talking about.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 04-19-10 8:39 PM
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tripods. man, rtfp.


Posted by: text | Link to this comment | 04-19-10 8:43 PM
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I have no idea what anyone in this thread, or neb in the post, is talking about.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 04-19-10 8:45 PM
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2 gets it right.


Posted by: Beefo Meaty | Link to this comment | 04-19-10 8:45 PM
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I have no idea what anyone in this thread, or neb in the post, is talking about.

Punk rock is NOT weird: Agent Orange - Shaking All Over (P.C.B. FL 01/02/10)


Posted by: max | Link to this comment | 04-19-10 8:46 PM
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5: Turkey hunting. This is a turkey-hunting blog now.


Posted by: Stanley | Link to this comment | 04-19-10 8:46 PM
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9

yaaaaay gobbles


Posted by: fake accent | Link to this comment | 04-19-10 8:49 PM
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The key to hunting turkeys is that you've always got to wait until tomorrow. Like prom.


Posted by: text | Link to this comment | 04-19-10 8:51 PM
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8: Sweet!


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 04-19-10 8:51 PM
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I think the author of the books that text mentioned up in 1 is named Christopher. Yep, John Christopher (Samuel Youd), as it turns out. Those books freaked me out when I was in second or third grade.


Posted by: ari | Link to this comment | 04-19-10 8:57 PM
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8: Now?


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 04-19-10 8:58 PM
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13: It used to be a swimming blog, and before that it was about Jessica Biel's ass.


Posted by: Merganser | Link to this comment | 04-19-10 9:00 PM
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I once had this idea to raise two turkeys, one named Tur and the other…oh, never mind.


Posted by: Stanley | Link to this comment | 04-19-10 9:02 PM
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They didn't freak me out at all - it seemed obvious even as a pre-pubescent that the thing to do was to simply get yourself a metal cap and then go make sweet sweet love with the fair maiden, which was just how things were going before the protagonist had to go and have ideas.


Posted by: text | Link to this comment | 04-19-10 9:04 PM
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I don't think text actually mentioned any books in 1.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 04-19-10 9:06 PM
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Whereas the keen-eyed may have noticed that I did mention a book in the post title.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 04-19-10 9:07 PM
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I lived it, neb. A little before my time with Swissy.


Posted by: text | Link to this comment | 04-19-10 9:07 PM
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18: Turkeys can't read, neb.


Posted by: Stanley | Link to this comment | 04-19-10 9:08 PM
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17- he just forgot to specify that the mountains were white.

Oh, good, specify is a word. I was starting to get paranoid.


Posted by: persistently visible | Link to this comment | 04-19-10 9:16 PM
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And the pools are of fire.


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 04-19-10 9:17 PM
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There's a law against that.


Posted by: text | Link to this comment | 04-19-10 9:20 PM
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Band name: This Fleshy Appendage.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 04-19-10 9:22 PM
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17 -- they were on TV, too, you know. The Tripods.


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 04-19-10 9:23 PM
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25: Those guys couldn't stand on two legs.


Posted by: Stanley | Link to this comment | 04-19-10 9:24 PM
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This is presumably the book to which neb referred in the post title.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 04-19-10 9:25 PM
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"This Fleshy Appendage plays super fast, but the rhythm is a little off."

"I hear they use autotune."

"Yeah, This Fleshy Appendage is crooked."


Posted by: text | Link to this comment | 04-19-10 9:26 PM
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Getting back on topic, does anybody know how to get a permit to hunt turkey on the grounds of a Veteran's Administration hospital. I'm not a veteran, so that might hurt.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 04-19-10 9:29 PM
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I'm not a veteran, so that might hurt.

Think of it this way, at least you aren't a turkey.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 04-19-10 9:30 PM
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Or the person who has to remove all of the goose shit. Lots of birds out there.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 04-19-10 9:32 PM
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18: Speaking of books, your mention a while back (a new edition coming out I think?) of Life: A User's Manual prompted me to go back and restart the damn thing (I got about halfway through a few years back) and then a fucking cold I've had since Friday gave me the time to finish it (as did a reduced compulsion to closely read all of the lists and visual descriptions). So, hmm, what to say? Glad to have read it, glad to be done. I grew weary for a while of the repetitive nature of the continuing onslaught of stories of wealthy eccentricity (Blunt Stanley and Ingeborg summoning Mephistopheles was the low point for me) but in the end I think he pulled it off pretty well.


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 04-19-10 9:44 PM
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Annoyingly, a new translation.

I tried tracing out the knight's tour when I read it using the map in the back, but, annoyingly, the cellar level is drawn in a way that doesn't actually align with the rest of the grid. Something hopefully remedied in the new translation, unless that diagram was taken from the French original.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 04-19-10 9:47 PM
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33.1: Ah, I thought just a cleaned up one by the same guy. This one: We are now proud to announce a newly revised twentieth anniversary edition of Life. Carefully prepared, with many corrections, this edition of Life A User's Manual will be the preferred reference edition for the future.

Yes, I noticed that about the cellars, but then again no one completes their full plans.


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 04-19-10 10:08 PM
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Oh, maybe I'm wrong about its being a new translation. Hm. I don't know what to think anymore.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 04-19-10 10:11 PM
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34: True. I even saw my mouse's plan gang aft agley.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 04-19-10 10:13 PM
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37

I fucking love Hilary Mantel, but couldn't get into The Giant, O'Brien. Anyway, her new book rocks hard.


Posted by: Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 04-19-10 10:30 PM
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38

Unlike Weebles, the Tripods, upon wobbling, occasionally DO fall down.

Is there another YA SF trilogy with more explicitly homoerotic content? If so, why was it not also serialized in "Boys' Life"?


Posted by: Natilo Paennim | Link to this comment | 04-19-10 10:42 PM
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38: Even as a pre-pubescent I found the Tripods lascivious interest in young boys implausible.


Posted by: Walt Someguy | Link to this comment | 04-19-10 11:36 PM
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But is that what neb is talking about?

You can find an explanation in the comments of this post, if you look hard enough.


Posted by: beamish | Link to this comment | 04-20-10 3:12 AM
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36: Perec succinctly pwned. So I guess he needn't have bothered.


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 04-20-10 8:48 PM
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I fucking love Hilary Mantel, but couldn't get into The Giant, O'Brien.

My sentiments exactly.


Posted by: Mary Catherine | Link to this comment | 04-20-10 8:52 PM
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does anybody know how to get a permit to hunt turkey on the grounds of a Veteran's Administration hospital

Link the turkey to al Qaeda.


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 04-20-10 8:54 PM
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33: but, annoyingly, the cellar level is drawn in a way that doesn't actually align with the rest of the grid.

Came up with a way to parcel the bottom two floors up that "works" save for one bad move (one over, one down) going to the 2nd level. (Did a brief scan to see if the "bad move" is telegraphed in the text but did not see it, who knows?)

Anyway:
On the very bottom: 2 cellar rooms on the left are each a room (the very left one is the unvisited square in my "solution"), "boiler room" is 2 rooms, next 2 narrow cellars are one room, "lift machinery" is 2 rooms, group the 6 narrow cellars on the right into 3 rooms.
Next level: Service entrance is 1, Marcia antiques is 3 rooms although drawn as 2 (and consistent with 3 chapters and descriptions of the shop), concierge office-1, entrance hall-2, Marcia flat-3.


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 04-20-10 9:14 PM
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45

38.b: Seriously.


Posted by: Bave Dee | Link to this comment | 04-20-10 9:22 PM
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45: After mapping it myself, I searched and found this solution which matches mine (it also has an explanation from Perec on how the 6 sections were broken out). More interesting though, is that the page includes a correct solution that hits all 100 squares with legal moves and which requires only a very slight modification to the one Perec follows (basically hits the bottom left room instead of the "illegal" move and then joins back up with Perec's), so certainly an intentionally flawed solution.


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 04-20-10 9:28 PM
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45 s/b 44 lest it appear that I am talking to anyone but myself and the absent neb.


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 04-20-10 9:30 PM
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48

There's a great bit in "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" in which Mr Hyde points out that there aren't any three-legged animals in nature. "Why might that be, do you think?" he asks, and tears off a tripod's leg, bringing it down.


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 04-22-10 9:00 AM
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The bad move is presumably necessary, because in fact there is supposed to be an omitted room.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 04-22-10 9:10 AM
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