Category Archives: READING MATTER

Books I read & recommend

...and other stuff, ART, BULLSHIT, FREE ADVICE, LIVES, POETIC NONSENSE, READING MATTER, UNIVERSES

AN IDIOT IN THE 33rd DEGREE

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twain2

In November of 1905, an enraged Mark Twain sent the following superb letter to J. H. Todd, a salesman who had just attempted to sell bogus medicine to the author by way of a letter and leaflet delivered to his home. According to the literature Twain received, the “medicine” in question — called “The Elixir of Life” — could cure such ailments as meningitis (which had previously killed Twain’s daughter in 1896) and diphtheria (which killed his 19-month-old son). Twain, himself of ill-health at the time and very recently widowed after his wife suffered heart failure, was understandably furious and dictated this reply to his secretary, which he then signed.   

twain1

Transcript follows:

Nov. 20. 1905

J. H. Todd  
1212 Webster St.
San Francisco, Cal.

Dear Sir,

Your letter is an insoluble puzzle to me. The handwriting is good and exhibits considerable character, and there are even traces of intelligence in what you say, yet the letter and the accompanying advertisements profess to be the work of the same hand. The person who wrote the advertisements is without doubt the most ignorant person now alive on the planet; also without doubt he is an idiot, an idiot of the 33rd degree, and scion of an ancestral procession of idiots stretching back to the Missing Link. It puzzles me to make out how the same hand could have constructed your letter and your advertisements. Puzzles fret me, puzzles annoy me, puzzles exasperate me; and always, for a moment, they arouse in me an unkind state of mind toward the person who has puzzled me. A few moments from now my resentment will have faded and passed and I shall probably even be praying for you; but while there is yet time I hasten to wish that you may take a dose of your own poison by mistake, and enter swiftly into the damnation which you and all other patent medicine assassins have so remorselessly earned and do so richly deserve.

Adieu, adieu, adieu!

Mark Twain

_________________________

REPOSTED FROM:    http://www.lettersofnote.com/2010/01/youre-idiot-of-33rd-degree.html

...and other stuff, ART, FREE ADVICE, LIVES, POETIC NONSENSE, READING MATTER, UNIVERSES

SHARE WATER

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SHARE WATER

Stranger in a Strange Land is a 1961 satirical science fiction novel by American author Robert A. Heinlein. It tells the story of Valentine Michael Smith, a human who comes to Earth in early adulthood after being born on the planet Mars and raised by Martians. The novel explores his interaction with—and eventual transformation of—terrestrial culture. The title is an allusion to the phrase in Exodus 2:22. According to Heinlein, the novel’s working title was The Heretic. Several later editions of the book have promoted it as “The most famous Science Fiction Novel ever written”.  Heinlein got the idea for the novel when he and his wife had some brainstorming one evening in 1948, and she suggested a new version of Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book, where a human child is raised by Martians instead of wolves. He decided to go further with the idea, and worked on the story on and off for more than a decade before it was complete.  In 1962, this version received the Hugo Award for Best Novel.  The book was a success from the start. Eventually Stranger in a Strange Land became a cult classic.

...and other stuff, BULLSHIT, FREE ADVICE, LOUD ZOO, MORTALITY MECHANIC'S MANUAL, POETIC NONSENSE, READING MATTER, UNIVERSES

CATS AND MICE AND GODLESS PARASITES

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ichneumonidae__phrudinae“I own that I cannot see as plainly as others do, and as I should wish to do, evidence of design and beneficence on all sides of us. There seems to me too much misery in the world. I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidae with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of Caterpillars, or that a cat should play with mice.”

~  Charles Darwin, letter to Asa Gray, May 22, 1860

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Female_Ichneumon_xanthoriusIchneumonidae is a family of parasitic wasps, and one of my particular research interests.  If you’ve never heard of a parasitic wasp before, think chest-burster from Alien, but for insects. A more scientific definition is that parasitoid wasps lay their eggs inside or on top of other insects; those eggs then grow and develop by feeding on their host’s tissue, resulting in the eventual death of the host.  Estimates of the total species range from 60,000 to over 100,000.

...and other stuff, ART, FREE ADVICE, LIVES, PICTURE POEMS, READING MATTER, UNIVERSES

READ THESE BOOKS! (unless you’re an Illiterate Chickenshit)

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DANGEROUS BOOKS

 il·lit·er·ate  (-ltr-t)

adj.

1.

a. Unable to read and write.
b. Having little or no formal education.
2.

a. Marked by inferiority to an expected standard of familiarity with language and literature.
b. Violating prescribed standards of speech or writing.
3. Ignorant of the fundamentals of a given art or branch of knowledge: musically illiterate.

chick·en·shit  (chkn-sht) Vulgar Slang

n.

1. Contemptibly petty, insignificant nonsense.
2. A coward.
adj.

1. Contemptibly unimportant; petty.
2. Cowardly; afraid.
(Note:  This post is a unabashed, unapologetic self-promotion of books I have written and/or edited.  I have learned that writers have to spend a lot of time promoting and marketing the books they write or no one reads them.  I would rather WRITE books than spend my time on marketing.  If you would rather READ BOOKS instead of advertisements ABOUT books, please buy my books.  Thank you!  )