It’s Furious Balancing

I was surfing the Innernets this morning, reading the news and minding my own business, when an article in Slate started an avalanche in my Wee Little Brain.  I don’t think I’m capable of crafting an honest-to-God blog post out of this yet, but I thought I could amuse someone out there with my notes on my train of thought.  My utterly derailed Train of Thought.

I did go back over this inchoate list of notes to make it look somewhat formatted, and I added in my links.  It’s not all off the cuff.  Hopefully, there is a gram of sense in it.  Somewhere.  All I know is that I need to go back to my World War II/German history books and do a lot of re-reading.

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Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
– George Santayana

William L. Shirer made these words the epigraph for his Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (1959).

Note that I should finish Rise and Fall, former bedtime reading, having only made it up to the Anschluss.  I would read two pages before falling asleep, worry of breaking nose from hardcover book.

Don’t Ignore the Tea Party’s Toxic Take on History, Slate article by Ron Rosenbaum.

Tea Party movement = Ignorance of History.  Ignorance of meaning of the words socialism, Nazism, Communism, etc.

Rosenbaum is the author of Explaining Hitler, which is not a Hitler apologia apologist (determine noun, an historical apologist writes what?  Apologies, certainly, but there must be a better word, based on root apolog-.) My reading of that and of personal narratives of German citizens during the Hitler years has been met with unspoken condescension — usually from people unable to cope with anything that actually requires them to think about what they read.

These books are not a glorification or a rationalization of Hitler or of Nazi Germany, but stem from a need to understand; and I read them due to my own German descent and my interest in the complicated nature of human evil and in the lack of black/white dichotomies.

My fascination with shades of gray in the human psyche, how easy it is to push someone from sanity/rationality over the edge.  Incremental and unnoticed for the most part.  Similar to ease of losing humanity under extreme duress [lack of food, example of Primo Levi (?) -- or was it Elie Weisel (?) --in Auschwitz listening to father's death rattle in hopes of getting his stuff.  Boots?  Blanket?]; or not [1950's or 1960's psychological research study at U.S. college of prisoners vs. wardens - find link The Stanford Prison Experiment, 1971].

If it is that simple — simple as in “not complicated,” not “easy” — to become inhuman to others, how simple is it to manipulate the narrative to merely plant the seeds of a social movement that takes us backwards towards intolerance, racism, xenophobia, and worse.  A spiral into madness.

Weimar Republic, social history.  Analogous to today?  Tea Party, by their inability to understand history, is becoming a tool to lead us into a repeat of that not-understood history.

Three times Randolph Carter dreamed of the marvellous city, and three times was he snatched away while still he paused on the high terrace above it. All golden and lovely it blazed in the sunset, with walls, temples, colonnades, and arched bridges of veined marble, silver-basined fountains of prismatic spray in broad squares and perfumed gardens, and wide streets marching between delicate trees and blossom-laden urns and ivory statues in gleaming rows; while on steep northward slopes climbed tiers of red roofs and old peaked gables harbouring little lanes of grassy cobbles.

It was a fever of the gods; a fanfare of supernal trumpets and a clash of immortal cymbals. Mystery hung about it as clouds about a fabulous unvisited mountain; and as Carter stood breathless and expectant on that balustraded parapet there swept up to him the poignancy and suspense of almost-vanished memory, the pain of lost things, and the maddening need to place again what once had an awesome and momentous place.

H.P. Lovecraft, The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath

When I find myself under stress, when I’m overwhelmed, there are several things that always help me feel better.  One of the tried and true methods involves sundry combinations of chocolate, sugar, and caffeine.  Another is immersive computer gaming, fantasy RPG being my preferred genre.  The last, oldest, and perhaps the most important for my mental health is reading.

That should be re-reading, actually.  I go back to my favorite books; they’re comforting and familiar.  It is, perhaps, my choice of books that may appear… unusual.

I’ve been going back to savor the stories of H.P. Lovecraft.  Curling up with Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath or The Case of Charles Dexter Ward has helped maintain my equilibrium for the past week or so.

It’s the delicious, dense, antiquarian prose that draws me in.  I love the sound and shape of words for their own sake, and Lovecraft’s words are what lead to my idea for this post.

When I read, I use a large Post-It note as a bookmark.  I use this to keep track of interesting words I encounter in whatever I’m reading at the time.  Words I want to look up since I’m not quite certain of the meaning.  Words that are complex and multifaceted.  Words that make me pause and think  “Oh, this looks really, really cool.  How delightful.”  These words eventually appear in one of my lists at Wordnik.com

I’ve filled up two Post-It notes and part of the back of an envelope with Lovecraft words.  They’ve been lurking on my nightstand.  When I saw them this morning, I thought — for the first time in a long while — that I had something worth sharing.

Without further ado, in no particular order, and in nowise comprehensive:

miasmal, cenotaph, niter, necrophagous, aegipans, lambent, interdicted, acidulous, eidolon, teratologically, squamous, vigintillion, ductile, ichor, palimpsest, quintile, foetor, cartouche, labyrinthine, cumbrous, illimitable, bas reliefs, terrene, pallid, spheroid, aggultinations, dadoes, cryptical, similitude, austral, Cyclopean, anent, bizarrerie, portent, preternatural, immensurable, trans-montane, ineluctable, nefandous, congeries

I’ve been chewing on two ideas for blog posts.

One post would be a righteously indignant screed concerning the utter stupidity of the public and the media in their interpretations of the latest recommendations on mammograms for women between the ages of 40 and 49.  Honestly, people; get a grip.

I threw that idea out because I really don’t have the energy for righteous indignation right now.

The other idea for a post was how I find myself thinking more and more about my own mortality.

I have to point out — here and now — that this has nothing to do with my chronic depression or chronic pain, nor is it anything suicidal.  I’m not getting all emo-gothy-weird — I don’t have the wardrobe for it.  I’ve just been thinking thinking, and I feel myself Running Out of Time.

I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker

There is so much I want to see and do and experience; it’s really not so much of a memento mori thing as it is a sic transit gloria mundi thing.

In any event, that’s where my head is — for what its’ worth — and I’ve just reminded myself that I really need to get around to reading the annotated The Waste Land that’s been sitting on my to-be-read bookshelf for the past twelve months.

Damn.

I better get up on that.

I’ve been on a Victorian literature kick lately.  It started with Drood, which led me to Wilkie Collins‘ The Woman in White and The Moonstone, which took me to Inside the Victorian Home: A Portrait of Domestic Life in Victorian England, which somehow took me into the village of Cranford.

It’s a slender volume that  “recounts the events and activities in the lives of a group of spinsters and widows who struggle in genteel poverty to maintain their standards of propriety, decency, and kindness.”  It’s much more entertaining than that sounds.

I had not heard of Elizabeth Gaskell until now, and I have to say I admire her writing style a great deal.  Here’s a bit I particularly enjoyed:

[E]very lady took the subject uppermost in her mind and talked about it to her own great contentment, but not much to the advancement of the subject they had met to discuss….I asked Miss Pole what was the very last thing they had ever heard about [Peter], and then she named the absurd report to which I have alluded, about his having been elected Great Lama of Thibet; and this was a signal for each lady to go off on her separate idea.

Mrs. Forrester’s start was made on the veiled prophet in Lalla Rookh – whether I thought he was meant for the Great Lama, though Peter was not so ugly, indeed rather handsome, if he had not been freckled…. [I]n a moment, the delusive lady was off upon Rowlands’ Kalydor, and the merits of cosmetics and hair oils in general, and holding forth so fluently that I turned to listen to Miss Pole, who (through the llamas, the beasts of burden) had got to Peruvian bonds, and the share market, and her poor opinion of joint-stock banks in general….

In vain I put in “When was it – in what year was it that you heard that Mr. Peter was the Great Lama?” They only joined issue to dispute whether llamas were carnivorous animals or not; in which dispute they were not quite on fair grounds, as Mrs. Forrester…acknowledged that she always confused carnivorous and graminivorous together, just as she did horizontal and perpendicular; but then she apologized for it very prettily, by saying that in her day the only use people made of four-syllabled words was to teach how they should be spelt.

I was never aware that llamas were carnivorous (and I had to look up graminivorous).  Perhaps the Monty Python troupe was correct.

So, do I read Cheney’s memoir when it comes out?  I’m certain it will have me frothing at the mouth, yelling obscenities, flinging it against the wall, and stomping on it until the pages fall out.  Then again, that would be the most exercise I’d have gotten for quite some time.  Aerobic Righteous Indignation.

Gold stars and special bonus points awarded to those of you who know the literary allusion from the title of this post without Google.

But anyway.

I’ve been completely lost for blog post topics. There have been a few ideas flitting around my head, but nothing that takes on actual substance. I’m chalking it all up to my Reverse Seasonal Affective Disorder. I’m looking at the months of June, July, and August as being similar to a prison sentence; there’s a part of me that wants to “x” out each day on the calendar with a black Sharpie. I’m about ready to dig out Apsley Cherry-Garrard’s The Worst Journey in the World, crank the air conditioning, and camp out on our sofa until the leaves start to turn and I feel like a normal human being. A relatively normal human being, that is.

You’re going to have to bear with me until I have the energy to think and compose coherent sentences. You may have to put up with a few memes and a LOLCat or two in the interim.

I’ll be back. Before September. I hope.

A few things have kept me from blogging, the primary one being Lack of Content. And boredom. And Screaming Sinus Headaches That Make Laiane Rail Against that Powers-That-Be about Why He/She/They Had to Create Pollen. Inefficient system, if you ask me, but I suppose I will let it slide because there are some parts of the Grand Design which are much more elegant, like Conservation of Energy and Matter and Thermodynamics and such. Oh, and cats. I approve of cats. Very graceful creatures.

In any event, there was some major excitement going down on Friday when the Yarn Harlot made her Ann Arbor appearance to promote her new book, Things I’ve Learned From Knitting (Whether I Wanted To or Not).

I’ve been a fan of the Harlot’s blog for many months, and she is just as witty in person as she is online and in her books. It’s hard to explain to a non-knitter that there truly is such a thing as “knitting humor,” but the Harlot had 150 knitters laughing uproariously with her vignettes on the Ridiculous Things Non-Knitters Say to Knitters. If you’re a knitter, you know. The “patience” line. The “time to knit” line. The “You know, you can buy socks in a store” line.

The Harlot is a class act. She took the time to stay and sign everyone’s books (all 300 some of us), and pose for pictures.

That’s my good friend and knitting buddy, HunterXan.

And here’s me:

Click the pictures for larger images. That blue amorphous mass the Harlot is holding is my current knitting project. It’s the Knitted Baby Thing for my Pregnant Co-Worker. Since it’s an Amorphous Blob, I’m pretty sure my friend won’t be able to identify it from this picture. It’s the Elizabeth Zimmerman Knitted Baby Thing that every knitter makes at some point, and the Harlot was able to name it from 10 feet away.

In any event, the Knitted Baby Thing is almost done. I hope to finish it today, so it’s time for coffee and yarn!

Every year for the past 8-10 years, I’ve given up buying books for Lent, and every Easter Sunday for the past 5-7 years, I’ve gotten up at dawn and logged onto amazon.com to break my fast.

This year’s selections are:

• The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream, by Barack Obama
• How to Cook a Wolf, M. F. K. Fisher
• Something from the Oven: Reinventing Dinner in 1950′s America, Laura Shapiro
• Moleskine City Notebook: Seattle

Every Easter morning after my book buying spree, I sit and write a check for an equivalent amount to a charitable organization. Lent isn’t just about self-denial — it’s about almsgiving. So what, Laiane, if you’ve not bought a book in 40 days; what have you done for other people?

This year, my donation was to Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres.

Welcome back, Jesus. Pass the Cadbury Creme Eggs.

It’s Furious Balancing is well-nigh tickled to death to be participating in the Kitty Knits Blog Tour.

I heard about Kitty Knits over at Ravelry on the Cat Knits Group and ordered my copy from Donna Druchunas right away. The description certainly piqued my interest:

Kitty Knits is the first knitting book entirely devoted to the funny, furry felines in our lives. Discover creative ways to knit up practical projects for kitties to love and cat-themed designs for owners to enjoy. Just like cat batting at a ball of yarn, it’s a perfect match. Over 20 projects feature items for cats, their people, and their homes — along with adorable photos of cats with their knitted treasures. Choose from toys, beds, mats, and more for cats, plus feline-inspired sweaters, hats, pillows, and bags for cat-loving knitters. Find projects in a variety of styles and skill levels, from felted designs to Fair Isle patterns.

Considering I’d already made three felted cat beds at this point in my knitting career, I knew this book would be a big hit at Laiane’s Cat House. Knitting and cats go together like Peanut Butter and Jelly. Abbot and Costello. Gin and Tonic. Sam and Frodo.

Well, you get the picture. I think Franklin described the Knitter/Cat Connection best:

Knitters, on the whole, enjoy the company of cats, some to the point of idolatry. Perhaps it’s the common bond of Yarn Fascination. I like the pretty string, you like the pretty string. Let’s be friends forever.

In any event, when I got my hot little hands on the book, I found several things I “just had to make.”

The first project was super-fast and yielded immediate gratification — the Felted Catnip Mice (who made their It’s Furious Balancing appearances here and here). I liked the mice because they gave me experience in a technique I hadn’t tried before – bobbles. It took me a while to get the hang of making bobbles, but I feel they’re a most excellent choice for felted mouse ears.

My next project, however, is going to take me longer to complete and will be my largest knitted object to date.. I fell in love with “The Cat” Afghan and knew I “just had to make it” as soon as I saw it. The center of the afghan is an easy lace pattern and the words for “the cat” in several languages are duplicate stitched around the borders.

Since I’m only 4 repeats into the lace pattern, I think Donna’s photograph gives you a better idea of the finished product. My afghan is currently bunched up on my 40” inch Lantern Moon Destiny needles and resembles ramen noodles more than anything else at the moment.

The afghan will give me experience in other new-to-me knitting techiniques: lace knitting, reading a chart, and duplicate stitch embroidery. Learning new knitting techniques makes my Inner Knitter jump up and down with happiness. I remember when I had a fear of double pointed needles, but I can’t do without them now.

But I digress.

I decided on Cascade 220 Superwash for the yarn. For the curious, the colors are Aran (817) for the body of the afghan and Gray (816) and Mocha (818) for the duplicate-stitched parts. My test swatch became even softer after a Eucalan bath and didn’t stretch out as much as other superwash wool I’ve worked with in the past.

When all is said and done and knitted and stitched, this will be a wonderful, cozy addition to my Knitting and Sitting Spot on the sofa. I’m sure I will get plenty of Cat Help breaking it in.

That’s my segue into the Cat Picture portion of today’s blog post. Since I’m sure there are a few first-time visitors here, bear with me while I introduce the four feline members of my household. If you’ve made it with me this far, you’re up for a few Cat Pictures.

The Grand Old Dame and Top Cat is Emma, a twelve-year old tuxedo cat with an attitude. The Husband and I call her She Who Must Be Obeyed. Yes, she almost always looks this disgruntled. She claims we don’t feed her enough.

Thomas, our marmalade tabby, is about 8 years old, a big cuddler, and perhaps the most photogenic of the bunch

Aaron and Christopher are the Recent Additions to Laiane’s Cat House. They came to us from The Ann Arbor Cat Clinic in December 2007. It’s been a while since I’ve had a kitten in the house, let alone two kittens – kittens who like to play Mouse Hockey in the upstairs hallway at 3:00 a.m. at that.

Here’s Aaron:

And here’s Kissy-Fur, er, Christopher:

My last word on Kitty Knits: The thing that impressed me the most was that Donna pointed out the dangers of cats eating string and gave clear warnings in the projects that called for eyelash yarn. Not “tucked away in the fine print” warnings, but separate text boxes saying that kitties can be seriously injured (and even die) from eating strings. It’s not a pleasant subject to think about as a cat owner, but an important one (especially for knitters).

Thank you, Donna. Our Cat Critics give Kitty Knits a rating of Four Thumbs Paws Up!

Tomorrow, March 4th, is my day in the spotlight for the Kitty Knits Book Blog Tour. I’ve been working on a long-ish post and hope to have it up for your reading enjoyment some time in the evening. Cats! Yarn! Cats and Yarn Together! Stay tuned!

I like lists. I don’t self-identify as an obsessive list-maker, but I can say that, in general, I like lists. I like crossing things off my “Things to Do” list. I like adding things to my “Things to Do” list after I have already done them for the sheer pleasure of crossing them off. I like going over to listography and reading other peoples’ lists; it’s like eavesdropping, in a way.

I read Crazy Aunt Purl‘s blog about her Big List of 100 Things to Do Before I Die. I’m not up to concocting my own list of 100 things – unless they could be along the lines of “Travel to 99 different locations” and “Re-read A la recherché de temps perdu.” I do feel, however, that I can name 12 things to do over the course of the next year. Twelve concrete, targeted, measurable things. Believe me when I tell you that this will be far more entertaining than my coming up with any New Year’s Resolutions.

12 Things to Do in 2008 (in no particular order)

1. Floss. Complete the paperwork for the University of Tennessee’s Department of Forensic Anthropology so I may rest at The Body Farm after my death. For the squeamish, let’s just say that I plan on donating my body to science. For people who may want a tad more information, check out this article from Wired.
2. Read Shelby Foote’s The Civil War: A Narrative (three volumes, people!) and Winston Churchill’s The Second World War. Both of these have been on my to-be-read pile for far too long. I admit that my to-be-read pile is not so much a “pile” as a “bookcase.” See Item 7 below.
3. Keep a daily handwritten diary. I don’t mean a diary heavy on the emotional introspection, but rather one in which I keep daily observations, ideas to appear on this blog, quotes, resources, notes about patterns in my pain levels, u.s.w. I bought a Moleskine Pocket Weekly Planner for this particular purpose.
4. Box up the unwanted/unneeded household items and clothes in the basement and either (a) donate them to charity, or (b) have a garage sale. When The Husband and I moved in together, I put most of my kitchen stuff in the basement. I’ve dug out a cookie sheet or two; other than that, the kitchen stuff remains untouched. There are several other boxes down there that can be sorted and redirected. I’ve discovered that getting rid of “stuff” and “de-cluttering” is extremely liberating.
5. Finalize and sign my will. I have worked in an offshoot of the Death Care Industry as a probate and estate planning legal secretary for 15 years and I haven’t signed my will yet. This is embarrassing.
6. Pay down a minimum of $3,600 on my credit card debt. Paying $300.00 per month is more than do-able. I’ve been making monthly payments in the $400-$500 range for some time now, and I’ve stopped charging new purchases to the cards (unless I plan on paying the balance off in full each month). I’m going to get defensive here and loudly declare that I don’t have an unmanageable or onerous amount of personal debt – and I have a credit rating to die for – but I do want to get that debt paid down.
7. Complete my catalog of books on LibraryThing. To be honest, this catalog will never be complete in the true sense of the word. It will never be finished. I will never have every single one of my books entered and tagged. I am always smuggling new books into the house; some are cataloged right away, some go on the shelves right away, and some linger in ever-growing piles in my living room, bedroom, and study. I find these piles of book comforting, in some small way — but that’s another blog post.
8. Finish my Cats of Ulthar mod for Morrowind. I have three of the four cats finished, and I’ve been hung up on the last one because I can’t seem to come up with any ideas outside of a “retrieve an item from an NPC by combat” quest. Trite. Boring. An unfinished Morrowind mod isn’t much better, so I need must carry on.
9. Take a one-week vacation in a fabulous American city – one I haven’t been to before — and act like a complete and utter Tourist Dork. I keep telling myself that I need to get back to Paris, but I’ve been to Paris twice now. It’s time for something different. Right now, I’m thinking about Seattle or San Francisco.
10. Clean and remodel/redecorate one room in the house. We’ve been in our house for six or seven years now (tempus fugit), and while there are a lot of structural home improvements that need to be done, I would really like to do some painting and sprucing up. I don’t need my house to look like it came from the pages of Architectural Digest – I like the lived-in, shabby chic vibe – but I would like to have a house that doesn’t look like we moved in last week and haven’t had time to unpack. I need to have A Chat with The Husband about which room we’ll remodel, so that’s why it’s currently unspecified.
11. Knit Ice Queen. I have wanted to attempt lace knitting for some time, and this project might finally inspire me. It may be beyond my knitting skill level, but it’s just so stinkin’ gorgeous I have to give it the Old College Try. I have a few lacy scarfs on my Ravelry queue, but they can’t hold a candle to Ice Queen. I’ve never done lace and I have never knit with beads. This may just kill me, so I will need to complete Items 1 and 5 before this.
12. Watch three NetFlix movies a month – minimum. I pay for it every month, I may as well get my butt in gear and start watching the films and TV shows in my queue.

Whew! I think I’m done with my words — for the moment. Further bulletins as events warrant.

But this isn’t a LOLCat, technically speaking. No caption, you know. Just a cute, seasonal picture.

I’m still feeling rotten and ever so slightly overwhelmed at the office. Knitting and looking at cute animal pictures helps, almost as good as Wellbutrin, miniature Butterfingers, and reading Jane Austen (I’m done with Pride and Prejudice and have almost finished Emma; Mansfield Park or Sense and Sensibility is next).

I do promise to get pictures up soon of my finished Tempting sweater. I finished it last Friday evening, but have not had a chance for photographs yet. I need natural lighting and to be in reasonable health. I’m hoping these events will coincide this weekend. It does look like it will be one of those glorious autumn weekends — sunny and in the 50′s. It’s also the end of Daylight Savings Time, so there’s an extra hour of sleep in there, too. Thankyouthankyouthankyou.

[I told you I would find a topic that would set me off, didn't I?]

I’ve heard that opinions are like assholes anuses. Everyone has one, but that doesn’t mean I need yours shoved in my face.

I’m about to go off on one of my screeds. If you don’t care for my asshole anus opinion, I’m giving you the opportunity to stop reading now. I suggest you go visit this web site and overdose on the extreme unctuousness of pwecious widdle bunny wabbits (with accompanying nauseatingly cute commentary).

Still with me?

Today’s diatribe is brought to you by Mason Dixon Knitting: The Curious Knitters’ Guide.

Now, I won’t say that this is a completely useless book. It is just about the right thickness to prop underneath the leg of a wobbly restaurant table (but is, alas, too lightweight to make an effective doorstop).

In terms of actual knitting patterns, it is a 90% useless book. Out of the 25-30 so-called patterns, there are only 3 that I would consider making. The vast majority of the other patterns fall into what I deem “Mommy Knitting.”

Yes, if you consider making a garter stitch rag rug on size 35 needles out of potholder loops the epitome of The Craft, this is the book for you. Don’t believe me? It’s on page 95.

People, I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried.

We’ve got garter stitch baby sweaters (pg. 23) and garter stitch barf burp cloths and bibs (pgs. 132 and 133). We’ve got the Fugliest Blankets Known to Mankind (pgs. 84 and 108, the Flying Geese Blanket and Mitered Square Blanket respectively). I’m inserting a small photograph of the Mitered Square below. Click for large, but I must advise you that it’s small on this page for a very good reason. I suggest wearing sunglasses.

I attempted to find a photograph of the Flying Geese Blanket, but all the photos I saw on Flickr were “all rights reserved,” which means I can’t use them here on my blog. This is probably for the best; they were seriously ugly.

There are a Few Things that Pretend to Be Lace, such as the Bubbly Curtain (pg. 46) and the Decayed Tutu Scarf (pg. 115). “Decayed Tutu Scarf” is really its name, not one of my sarcastic, made-up ones. The name is apt, sadly so.

Unless you count shawls — which I don’t — there are exactly two, count ‘em, TWO adult garments: The Mason-Dixon After-Dark Robe and The Mason-Dixon After-Dark Nightie (pgs 50 through 53). I suppose we should count ourselves lucky that they stooped to make these out of Louet Sales Euroflax instead of dishcloth cotton.

The copy on the inside flap of the dust jacket says that “Mason Dixon Knitting is a collection of unbelievable patterns.”

They got that right. The only thing this smarmy piece of faux homespun goodness lacks is a crochet pattern for a cover for the spare roll of toilet paper shaped like a hoop-skirted Southern Belle.

Well, that and a recipe for Tater Tot Casserole made with cream of mushroom soup and Cheese Wiz, but we have the Innernets for that.

I like to think that I have wide-ranging, eclectic tastes — computer gaming, knitting, an appreciation of Twinkies and aerosol cheese (not concomitantly), and least not of all, good books. Yet, I find it disconcerting when I go to a gaming blog to find an article about the works of Jane Austen.

The original article appears here and the gist of it is that a writer in England took some chapters from a few of Austen’s books, changed the names, and submitted them to 18 different literary agents and publishing houses. Not only were the chapters rejected – if he got a response at all – only one of the responders was able to identify the work as Austen’s.

Now, I realize that not everyone has read Pride and Prejudice, but we’re talking about BOOK PEOPLE in ENGLAND for God’s sake, not stereotypical male gamers who are quick to label any book and/or movie as “boring” if it doesn’t contain car chases, tits, explosions, lasers, computer-generated special effects, tits, aliens, mutant vampires, tits, Klingons, psychotic Vietnam vets toting flamethrowers, tits, or Jean-Claude Van Damme. The director who makes a movie with mutant Klingon vampires carrying flamethrowers who may or may not be the PTSD-induced hallucinations of Jean-Claude Van Damme can nail this demographic and laugh his or her butt off all the way to the bank, but only if there are plenty of boudacious ta-tas involved.

But I digress.

This isn’t the first time I’ve had my old fart response of “What is the world coming to?” Far from it. But how often does one have the opportunity to mention Jane Austen, tits, and Klingons together in the same blog post?