Afternoon everyone, it’ll be a brisk 111 today in Dallas. I’m doing some gaming, but getting ready to go run some errands soon (pick up a package at the PO, grab some lunch/coffee etc). What about you?
Ok, I finally got moving. Have done 4 loads of laundry, some bathroom caulking, and cleaning the house. Later, I will catch up on administrative work stuff, so this day isn’t a total waste.
@Barney@therealjrn Ice cream sounds good! I also picked up a jar of strawberry syrup from the church that does the local strawberry festival. I almost asked if their jam didn’t jell either because it looks just like mine except red. I’ll save them until all the local fresh fruit is out of season. Now I’m almost hoping the kid goes to school in South Carolina so I can buy more peaches. Except the visitor center had soooo much orange and purple. Gaaaa.
@sammydog01 My mom used to cut up and freeze peaches in some sugary juice which we loved. And as kids snuck into the big freezer with forks to pick corners off to eat (were in those wax cardboard milk cartons).
Here in the IE, we are expecting a dry mid-90s high.
Went to the farmer’s market this morning and the store.
Oh, and got Augies, coffee that is.
In between gaming and housework, going to make some apple fried pork chops and stir up some cooked apples, carrots and onions in some blood orange Nuvo olive oil and enjoy unsweetened ice tea and ice coffee all afternoon
@Cerridwyn Yeah. I make them once or twice a year. When the mood strikes. You mentioning them is definitely going to make them on my menu for next week.
I went out this morning and took some photos to go with a story I am working on for the local paper. Now I am home and supposed to be cleaning. I turned on the deebot and that counts, right? Currently I am playing on the PS4 and enjoying the a/c.
Slept in a bit. Took my teen to work (lifeguard @ outdoor pool: 102F). Had a fried egg for lunch. Mowed the grass (108F).
Doubt I can be further motivated to do anything that isn’t air-conditioned. I think the laundry is calling.
I went grocery shopping. That’s all. I have to spend about half of each workday in the heat. I’m not doing it on weekends too. It’s even hot in the mountains.
@sammydog01
For some reason I’m on a “golden age mysteries” kick.
Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers.
Light listening, but fun.
And I can pay attention to how the stories are constructed. And to the social and cultural and class attitudes expressed.
And to the common categories of stereotypical or archetypical characters of the time.
The spinster
The major
The ingenue
The politician
The aristocrat
The local busybody
The vicar
The serious young man
The person from the colonies
The Frenchman
The American
The doctor
The writer or artist
The explorer or big game hunter
And to the common categories of stereotypical or archetypical characters of the time.
The American
The doctor
The writer or artist
The explorer or big game hunter
Etc.
That could be loosely covered under “aristocrat” or “ingenue”. But you are right. I sold have listed or I suppose.
A few more:
The grande dame.
The scientist.
The engineer.
The local wealthy mysterious somewhat elderly resident with an unknown past and no known personal connections.
The gossip.
The “fav” types seem to be those who might resise in, get invited for dinner at, or be as houseguests at, the sort of country house that has at least a cook and maids, and perhaps a bulter or valet.
Contrary to the meme, the butler didn’t do it.
The “lower classes”, workers, shopkeepers, household staff, etc, can be victims. Or co-conspirators. Or witnesses.
But rarely the primary perps.
The primary guilty party is almost always the sort of person with whom the upper classes might commonly dine at a dinner party or house party.
I suppose if everyone is assumed to have education, either have money or socialize with people who do, and have an interesting life or career, it makes for more interesting possible secrets and motives, and a better and more creative novel, by the standards of the genre.
@f00l yeah but one reason why people read genre stuff is they want predictability. Or at least that is my mom’s defense with respect to romance novels (the thin paperback kind put out by “certain” publishers in bulk. She says then she knows in advance they end well.
@f00l@sammydog01 Yes, and the wealthy young gadabout frequently runs around with the Bright Young Thing.
Also worthy of mention:
the attractive young secretary with a secret making her way in the world
the veteran
the older veteran who probably fought the Boers, or at least claims to have done so
It is a given that at least one individual (possibly the deceased) will be quite wealthy.
Unfortunately, Gilligan is not always present as a character.
And therefore, die to this lack, these types of novels are not always worthy of the title of literature, as they otherwise might be.
the veteran
the older veteran who probably fought the Boers, or at least claims to have done so
“The Major” is the generic here that I mentioned in my first list.
It could be a colonel or a caption or a general etc.
Active dealing with the Boers.
Or East Africa.
Or S American.
Or HK and nearby.
Or Burma.
Or many other places.
Or, most esp, India/Pakistan where the Great Game was played at its peak for centuries.
These retired or active military are sometimes quiet and dignified.
Sometimes they are lovable bores (Who Killed Roger Ackroyd).
Sometimes comic relief.
Sometimes they are persons with serious and dangerous secrets.
Sometimes they live by high honor.
Sometimes they have deep shame because they once did not or currently do not have high honor.
Usually their political/moral/psychological views are a bit simplistic.
Sometimes you get an ex-colonial who was not military, but who plays the same role as “The Major” in these stories.
The older, “retired from the Empire” ones often have moustaches.
Yes, also, the younger set of ex-military: Lord Peter, and others of the lost generation
Lots of these, as detectives, as characters.
1/4 to 1/2 of the young men killed in the war, with particularly high casualty rates along the upper classes.
So many of the rest thoroughly damaged or with devastating injuries.
JRRT had a terrible time in WWI. And by the time the war was over, all his close young male friends that he knew growing up, or that he knew before or during the war were dead.
None survived.
Also a generation of young females didn’t marry (shortages of males). Or did, after immigrating. Or similar.
The effects of WWI on the UK population not only fueled the devil-may-care jazz age, but also meant that when WWII loomed, everyone got married fast and young, and had as many kids as possible as quickly as possible. In case the young soldier was killed.
It again fueled the thoroughly cynical attitude of the young toward the older generation’s reverential and Victorian attitudes toward crown, country, and empire
Downton Abbey touches on some of this, of course.
I am no master of the Golden Age genre.
But one of my very favorite writers from this time is Josephine Tey. He books have a less caricatured, more realistic and modern feeling, without pushing the point.
You might like some of the modem pastiches if the genre:
Here is a short series that’s fun:
James Anderson The Affair of the Bloodstained Egg Cosy
And two following books.
Some of his books simply take the silliness of the genre to the max. Other books of his have emotional weight and tend to stick the reader but they’re all worth it.
@f00l@sammydog01 I either read The Moving Toyshop, or meant to, or had it all mixed up in my mind with Wells’ “The Magic Shop” and so never finished it. Also, I shelved a lot of Josephine Tey in my day but don’t think I read any? In any case, a trip to the library may be in order.
Crispin’s detective, Gervase Fen, is a part-timer detective, who is also a full-time Oxford don.
Some of the books use very brief fourth-wall breaks, where the detective briefly comments on or thinks about the writer of the story he is stuck in. These breaks are barely there, not overlabored, and used for generating a short “light moment”.
The Moving Toyshop is possibly the most famous book. It’s a “take-the-improbable-preposterousnes-of-the-genre-to-the-max-and-have-fun-with-it story”. And yet it’s still a viable mystery for all that.
Some of the other ones are far less meta-playful and more conventional, but more than one of them has “moral weight and resonance” that stays with me in a way that I will prob never get from a Christie mystery, or from a Sayers mystery.
For all that, I love Christie (she has a very clever talent for construction, and substantial skills of social observation and great wit).
And I love Sayers: for the view of the “between-the-wars aristocratic manners”, and the clever and wonderful conversational results of the boarding-school/Oxbridge education possessed by both Sayers and some if her characters. And for the insouciant, devil-may-care conversational and attitudinal customs.
(No wonder the UK had class struggles: when the best and brightest [and best educated and connected] of the UK youth generation so often responded to serious issues with high wit, refusal to be down-to-earth, and extreme deprecating humor that most of the the non-upper-class persons could neither participate in, nor pull off, nor emotionally afford…)
Joan Paton Walsh is continuing the Lord Peter series, with the permission of the estate. She has 4 books so far. They are quite good.
Someone had written a few new Hercule Poirot books with the permission of the estate. I understand they are decent but I have not read any.
Many good writers from that era I have not yet read.
Josephine Tey seems to read like a modem writer doing excellent period work; with few or no cliches, and great psychologically subtlety. And little or no high “look-at-me archness”.
But she was of that time, and yet intellectually beyond it. Every book of hers is good.
One writer who notably stretched the genre was the Australian, Arthur Upfield. He wrote 30+ books, mostly set in the Outback, with an well-educated, but half-caste Aborigine police detective as his protagonist. He wrote extensively both between the wars and after WWII.
One of his books was notable for delimiting a “perfect murder”. Tho you have to be in a very harsh landscape with certain sorts of flora and fauna (such as in the Outback or the Khalahari), and you have to know your way around and be able to survive, to pull the method off.
The idea was so good that someone used it in an actual murder, after overhearing the writer discuss his work-in-progess privately.
However, the perp was an idiot, and was later “caught with the goods”, proven to have known of the method, and convicted, in part, based on Upfield’s court testimony.
The most important aspect of Upfield’s books - aside from the fact that they step far beyond the country house and the drawing room - was that Upfield made constant use of the local landscape, and the mix of European and Aboriginal local knowledge, attitudes, and culture to inform his stories.
And he thereby created great stories that give a map in the imagination to the ways and dangers of the Outback. Perhaps it is the Outback itself that is the central character in book after book.
During WWII, a former US reporter who had joined up was stationed in the Pacific. This reporter/soldier found and devoured the Upfield books during his time there.
And after he got home … His name was Tony Hillerman … He well remembered the Upfield stories, and, having moved to NM, and having become fascinated by Native American life and culture and worldviews, this writer decided to try his hand at fiction. And so he created the “Leaphorn and Chee”, or “Indian Country” series of mysteries, that rely on the mix of worldviews, in which the mystery itself is almost secondary to the timeless landscape and the people shaped by where they live.
Nowadays, the Native-American-type mystery novel introduced by Hillerman has become a thriving genre in itself. And it is all traceable back to Upfield’s stories in the trackless Outback.
Ended up working this am. Relaxing this afternoon after running a couple errands. Need to stop playing and clean house… maybe later. Chilly 76° after an afternoon storm here.
i went grocery shopping also. and went birthday shopping for my daughter.
when i got home i did the usual. pet my cat, drank water, and hunted flies in the house with a flyswatter.
i am an exciting person.
@LemonTheCat try fly paper. It is catching flour moths in my house and used to catch flies back when I had them. Does not catch cockroaches when you hang the fly paper from the ceiling (the cats on the other hand… 2 corpses so far today).
@Kidsandliz thanks for the advice! I have a couple up, and they have captured some. I still like to hunt for the tricky ones, though.
Have you ever gotten fly paper caught in your hair? If not, I’ll save you the curiousity and just tell you now, that it is extremely unfortunate
Had to get up and go to the office this morning because apparently a node on my cluster went down overnight and its vms did not shift to the other nodes as advertised. Coincidentally, I made a change last week that I just discovered would prevent alert emails about such problems from getting out from the cluster, so my first notice was given by users complaining that they couldn’t work.
Went in, got the vms up on the other nodes, got the crashed node up, and got vendor support into the system and they escalated to the engineers who are hit or miss on the weekend, so I fixed the email issue and worked on a project I hadn’t had time for the past couple of weeks.
It could have been worse, I could have been out in the heat doing the yard work I had planned for today instead (although I guess now that’s tomorrow’s plan).
Decided not to unpack the car in mid day heat. Got in late last night after an “epic” series of events spread over 1100+ miles and am really, really tired. Unloaded cats, cat things, and toothbrush. Forgot to bring the chocolate I bought at Trader Joe’s as a treat (non within hundreds of miles of me here). Now the bars are misshapen. Sigh. Although my favorite Orlando Italian twist bread, can’t get in any state around me, seems no worse for the wear. My other excuse is that I have picked up a bad cold which I hope I did not give to my mother.
OK finally unpacked the car. Sort of (stuff is now dumped in the living room). Made 2 trips to the grocery store. One to buy the food. The second to pick up the bag of eggs I left behind in the self checkout hanging bag thing.
@lseeber My sympathies. I find it takes me about 3 weeks to completely pack a house. And then when I am done I am covered in bruises. Maybe have a garage sale too?
@OldCatLady 6 rms, attic, full basement and a shop. Hubby saved everything he ever owned since 8th grade and I wasn’t allowed to touch. Now most of it burns.
@lseeber I am sorry your husband passed and sorry you are now needing to sort through so much stuff. Maybe your kids, if you have any, can help and then take home some of it? Maybe empty out the shop first, put all the junk too good to throw out in there and see if an estate sale person will buy it all from you?
@f00l@kidsandliz@OldCatLady Thanks y’all. It has been a heck of a yr. I do have help and I’m close to being done. Closing on the new house is in about 11 days. Fortunatey, I don’t have to have this one cleared by then. Buying then selling. I do plan on once I get what I want out of this one basically having an estate sale for what I’m not keeping. No yard sales here. Would have been nice but I am so rural, deep in the woods and drive is in a sharp curve, no good place to have one. But I gave a trailer load of stuff to a friend so they could do a yardsale and keep whatever they get just to get the stuff out of here. This too shall pass
@f00l@lseeber@OldCatLady That is how my mom moved into a retirement community. Took what she wanted and left behind the rest. Way easier for her than to deal with all of it at once. Plus then no rush. Then my sisters took what they wanted (they helped her move - I was teaching so had to wait until thanksgiving to get there). I was left seeing if there was anything left I wanted and disposing of the rest of it (mostly broken stuff, junk…) and cleaning up. Middle of winter in the snow belt so no garage sale. Took me all week working 14 hours a day to do so. Donating things left and right. Then the house went up for sale. Good luck with this entire process. I hope you feel your life has lightened up a bit once you are done, moved, disposed of the rest and have sold the old house.
Can’t tell you what I’m doing but I can tell you what I did. Went to a friends bbq where we talked about the people who weren’t there and played both What Do You Meme? and Joking Hazard. More importantly, I won the game of Joking Hazard, cementing my lore as most twisted.
Finished up my meh shirt entry while it is raining out. Next up, Xbox - PvsZ: Garden Warfare!
Ok, I finally got moving. Have done 4 loads of laundry, some bathroom caulking, and cleaning the house. Later, I will catch up on administrative work stuff, so this day isn’t a total waste.
We had a cool front come through. It will only be 94 here today. I’m a thinking about fixing up a batch of chili for din din. Yep, I’m nuts.
(@mfladd What’s rain?)
@Barney I know. It hasn’t rained here in a while. Not what I wanted. I was suppose to be working on the Subaru today. Excuses to be lazy: check.
@mfladd How are we supposed to track your progress and help with problems if there is no progress?
I’m gonna make freezer jam from the peaches I brought home from South Carolina. I hope it sets better than last week’s batch.
@sammydog01 And it’s peach syrup because it didn’t set properly. I can still think of something to use it for. Pancakes maybe?
@sammydog01 On ice cream!
@sammydog01 @therealjrn And cake. When should we come over?
@speediedelivery Let’s hope sammydog gives you the correct address, because I’m still looking for YOUR house.
@Barney But I’m right here!
I was wearing my K shirt today just in case you finally decided to come. I ate all the cherries while I was waiting.
@speediedelivery That’s okay about the cherries – I ate all of the potato salad and I only have two bottles of wine left.
I don’t know why I can’t find you, but I’ll keep looking. Maybe my little red wagon needs a new GPS system.
@sammydog01 Use it as a compote.
@sammydog01 Today is national vanilla ice cream day. Break out the peach syrup for everyone! Don’t forget to send some to @therealjrn.
@ThomasF What is a compote?
/giphy compote
@ThomasF So you meant feed it to my turtles? Will do.
@Barney @therealjrn Ice cream sounds good! I also picked up a jar of strawberry syrup from the church that does the local strawberry festival. I almost asked if their jam didn’t jell either because it looks just like mine except red. I’ll save them until all the local fresh fruit is out of season. Now I’m almost hoping the kid goes to school in South Carolina so I can buy more peaches. Except the visitor center had soooo much orange and purple. Gaaaa.
@sammydog01 Aw, I love purple.
@sammydog01 Fruit cooked in a sugar syrup.
@ThomasF Cool! What do I do with compote? This is actually uncooked- I thought it would taste fresher.
@sammydog01 My mom used to cut up and freeze peaches in some sugary juice which we loved. And as kids snuck into the big freezer with forks to pick corners off to eat (were in those wax cardboard milk cartons).
At the Jersey shore!
It’s going to rain all weekend. 
Have to help them pack to sell the place. 
Staying at the in-laws nice place outside Stone Harbor!
Here in the IE, we are expecting a dry mid-90s high.
Went to the farmer’s market this morning and the store.
Oh, and got Augies, coffee that is.
In between gaming and housework, going to make some apple fried pork chops and stir up some cooked apples, carrots and onions in some blood orange Nuvo olive oil and enjoy unsweetened ice tea and ice coffee all afternoon
@Cerridwyn I wish i had read this before I went shopping. Apple pork chops sound really good.
@evilstan60
they are
i’ve also cooked a pork roast in apple juice
someone else i know says they cook turkey in it too.
but it was yummm
@Cerridwyn Yeah. I make them once or twice a year. When the mood strikes. You mentioning them is definitely going to make them on my menu for next week.
I went out this morning and took some photos to go with a story I am working on for the local paper. Now I am home and supposed to be cleaning. I turned on the deebot and that counts, right? Currently I am playing on the PS4 and enjoying the a/c.
It is raining here and I am at work
Sitting in the hospital with my Mom
@llangley my sympathy
@llangley hope everything turns out ok.
Hanging out around the house. I guess I could clean some.
Slept in a bit. Took my teen to work (lifeguard @ outdoor pool: 102F). Had a fried egg for lunch. Mowed the grass (108F).
Doubt I can be further motivated to do anything that isn’t air-conditioned. I think the laundry is calling.
/giphy Caturday
@narfcake you could make this
@Kidsandliz Too cute!
/image catloaf
/wootstalker https://shirt.woot.com/offers/loaf-love
Loaf Love
Price: $19.00
Condition: Probably New
/wootstalker https://shirt.woot.com/offers/pure-bread
Pure Bread
Price: $19.00
Condition: Probably New
/wootstalker https://shirt.woot.com/offers/loaf
Loaf
Price: $19.00
Condition: Probably New
@narfcake Calling @Narfcake https://shirt.woot.com/catalog?sort=most-recent&page=12&ref=cnt_ctlg_bnxt
@rtjhnstn Yep. They were the prints from derby
655 - Catastrophe.
I went grocery shopping. That’s all. I have to spend about half of each workday in the heat. I’m not doing it on weekends too. It’s even hot in the mountains.
109F
On the road to Houston.
Quick out of towner. Back tomorrow.
/image Houston
@f00l Listening to anything good on your trip?
@sammydog01
For some reason I’m on a “golden age mysteries” kick.
Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers.
Light listening, but fun.
And I can pay attention to how the stories are constructed. And to the social and cultural and class attitudes expressed.
And to the common categories of stereotypical or archetypical characters of the time.
The spinster
The major
The ingenue
The politician
The aristocrat
The local busybody
The vicar
The serious young man
The person from the colonies
The Frenchman
The American
The doctor
The writer or artist
The explorer or big game hunter
Etc.
@f00l
The f00l?
@Barney @f00l The fool in those books is usually the smartest, craftiest one there.
sammydog01 Not like real life, huh?
@f00l @sammydog01 I think you forgot the wealthy young gadabout?
@f00l @mossygreen The Archie McNally books are some of my favorites.
@Barney
These writers seem to have lacked true imagination and creativity, as neither I nor my caricature(s) seem to be present in these stores.
@f00l
/giphy wish upon a star
@mossygreen @sammydog01
That could be loosely covered under “aristocrat” or “ingenue”. But you are right. I sold have listed or I suppose.
A few more:
The grande dame.
The scientist.
The engineer.
The local wealthy mysterious somewhat elderly resident with an unknown past and no known personal connections.
The gossip.
The “fav” types seem to be those who might resise in, get invited for dinner at, or be as houseguests at, the sort of country house that has at least a cook and maids, and perhaps a bulter or valet.
Contrary to the meme, the butler didn’t do it.
The “lower classes”, workers, shopkeepers, household staff, etc, can be victims. Or co-conspirators. Or witnesses.
But rarely the primary perps.
The primary guilty party is almost always the sort of person with whom the upper classes might commonly dine at a dinner party or house party.
I suppose if everyone is assumed to have education, either have money or socialize with people who do, and have an interesting life or career, it makes for more interesting possible secrets and motives, and a better and more creative novel, by the standards of the genre.
@f00l yeah but one reason why people read genre stuff is they want predictability. Or at least that is my mom’s defense with respect to romance novels (the thin paperback kind put out by “certain” publishers in bulk. She says then she knows in advance they end well.
@f00l @sammydog01 Yes, and the wealthy young gadabout frequently runs around with the Bright Young Thing.
Also worthy of mention:
the attractive young secretary with a secret making her way in the world
the veteran
the older veteran who probably fought the Boers, or at least claims to have done so
@f00l @mossygreen @sammydog01
Y’all forgot the millionaire and his wife
@Barney @f00l @mossygreen @sammydog01
and Gilligan and the Skipper
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@Barney @mossygreen @sammydog01 @therealjrn
It is a given that at least one individual (possibly the deceased) will be quite wealthy.
Unfortunately, Gilligan is not always present as a character.
And therefore, die to this lack, these types of novels are not always worthy of the title of literature, as they otherwise might be.
/giphy gilligan
@mossygreen @sammydog01
“The Major” is the generic here that I mentioned in my first list.
It could be a colonel or a caption or a general etc.
Active dealing with the Boers.
Or East Africa.
Or S American.
Or HK and nearby.
Or Burma.
Or many other places.
Or, most esp, India/Pakistan where the Great Game was played at its peak for centuries.
These retired or active military are sometimes quiet and dignified.
Sometimes they are lovable bores (Who Killed Roger Ackroyd).
Sometimes comic relief.
Sometimes they are persons with serious and dangerous secrets.
Sometimes they live by high honor.
Sometimes they have deep shame because they once did not or currently do not have high honor.
Usually their political/moral/psychological views are a bit simplistic.
Sometimes you get an ex-colonial who was not military, but who plays the same role as “The Major” in these stories.
The older, “retired from the Empire” ones often have moustaches.
@f00l @sammydog01 OH MY GOD WHAT A ROOKIE READING MISTAKE. The Major is definitely my veteran
2. I’m sorry. He was right there on the list.
My veteran
2 is a younger man with lingering effects from WWII, either physical or emotional (in Sayers, Lord Peter himself, of course).
Now I will spend the morning on wikipedia reminding myself about The Great Game, so thank you.
@mossygreen @sammydog01
“The Great Game”
Kipling was a master teller of tales here.
Many others as well.
The Man Who Would Be King
Etc.
Yes, also, the younger set of ex-military: Lord Peter, and others of the lost generation
Lots of these, as detectives, as characters.
1/4 to 1/2 of the young men killed in the war, with particularly high casualty rates along the upper classes.
So many of the rest thoroughly damaged or with devastating injuries.
JRRT had a terrible time in WWI. And by the time the war was over, all his close young male friends that he knew growing up, or that he knew before or during the war were dead.
None survived.
Also a generation of young females didn’t marry (shortages of males). Or did, after immigrating. Or similar.
The effects of WWI on the UK population not only fueled the devil-may-care jazz age, but also meant that when WWII loomed, everyone got married fast and young, and had as many kids as possible as quickly as possible. In case the young soldier was killed.
It again fueled the thoroughly cynical attitude of the young toward the older generation’s reverential and Victorian attitudes toward crown, country, and empire
Downton Abbey touches on some of this, of course.
I am no master of the Golden Age genre.
But one of my very favorite writers from this time is Josephine Tey. He books have a less caricatured, more realistic and modern feeling, without pushing the point.
You might like some of the modem pastiches if the genre:
Here is a short series that’s fun:
James Anderson
The Affair of the Bloodstained Egg Cosy
And two following books.
https://www.amazon.com/Affair-Bloodstained-Egg-Cosy-Mysteries-ebook/dp/B006WB7JUU?keywords=egg+cosy&qid=1532363017&sr=1-1&ref=mp_s_a_1_1
@mossygreen @sammydog01
Also like Edmund Crispin a lot.
Some of his books simply take the silliness of the genre to the max. Other books of his have emotional weight and tend to stick the reader but they’re all worth it.
https://www.amazon.com/default/e/B001HD21JM/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1532363762&sr=1-2-ent&redirectedFromKindleDbs=true
@f00l @sammydog01 I either read The Moving Toyshop, or meant to, or had it all mixed up in my mind with Wells’ “The Magic Shop” and so never finished it. Also, I shelved a lot of Josephine Tey in my day but don’t think I read any? In any case, a trip to the library may be in order.
@mossygreen @sammydog01
Crispin’s detective, Gervase Fen, is a part-timer detective, who is also a full-time Oxford don.
Some of the books use very brief fourth-wall breaks, where the detective briefly comments on or thinks about the writer of the story he is stuck in. These breaks are barely there, not overlabored, and used for generating a short “light moment”.
The Moving Toyshop is possibly the most famous book. It’s a “take-the-improbable-preposterousnes-of-the-genre-to-the-max-and-have-fun-with-it story”. And yet it’s still a viable mystery for all that.
Some of the other ones are far less meta-playful and more conventional, but more than one of them has “moral weight and resonance” that stays with me in a way that I will prob never get from a Christie mystery, or from a Sayers mystery.
For all that, I love Christie (she has a very clever talent for construction, and substantial skills of social observation and great wit).
And I love Sayers: for the view of the “between-the-wars aristocratic manners”, and the clever and wonderful conversational results of the boarding-school/Oxbridge education possessed by both Sayers and some if her characters. And for the insouciant, devil-may-care conversational and attitudinal customs.
(No wonder the UK had class struggles: when the best and brightest [and best educated and connected] of the UK youth generation so often responded to serious issues with high wit, refusal to be down-to-earth, and extreme deprecating humor that most of the the non-upper-class persons could neither participate in, nor pull off, nor emotionally afford…)
Joan Paton Walsh is continuing the Lord Peter series, with the permission of the estate. She has 4 books so far. They are quite good.
Someone had written a few new Hercule Poirot books with the permission of the estate. I understand they are decent but I have not read any.
Many good writers from that era I have not yet read.
Josephine Tey seems to read like a modem writer doing excellent period work; with few or no cliches, and great psychologically subtlety. And little or no high “look-at-me archness”.
But she was of that time, and yet intellectually beyond it. Every book of hers is good.
One writer who notably stretched the genre was the Australian, Arthur Upfield. He wrote 30+ books, mostly set in the Outback, with an well-educated, but half-caste Aborigine police detective as his protagonist. He wrote extensively both between the wars and after WWII.
One of his books was notable for delimiting a “perfect murder”. Tho you have to be in a very harsh landscape with certain sorts of flora and fauna (such as in the Outback or the Khalahari), and you have to know your way around and be able to survive, to pull the method off.
The idea was so good that someone used it in an actual murder, after overhearing the writer discuss his work-in-progess privately.
However, the perp was an idiot, and was later “caught with the goods”, proven to have known of the method, and convicted, in part, based on Upfield’s court testimony.
The most important aspect of Upfield’s books - aside from the fact that they step far beyond the country house and the drawing room - was that Upfield made constant use of the local landscape, and the mix of European and Aboriginal local knowledge, attitudes, and culture to inform his stories.
And he thereby created great stories that give a map in the imagination to the ways and dangers of the Outback. Perhaps it is the Outback itself that is the central character in book after book.
During WWII, a former US reporter who had joined up was stationed in the Pacific. This reporter/soldier found and devoured the Upfield books during his time there.
And after he got home … His name was Tony Hillerman … He well remembered the Upfield stories, and, having moved to NM, and having become fascinated by Native American life and culture and worldviews, this writer decided to try his hand at fiction. And so he created the “Leaphorn and Chee”, or “Indian Country” series of mysteries, that rely on the mix of worldviews, in which the mystery itself is almost secondary to the timeless landscape and the people shaped by where they live.
Nowadays, the Native-American-type mystery novel introduced by Hillerman has become a thriving genre in itself. And it is all traceable back to Upfield’s stories in the trackless Outback.
Made potato salad and deviled eggs. Visiting some relatives. Went in the pool for a bit, hoping I’m not sunburnt.
Ended up working this am. Relaxing this afternoon after running a couple errands. Need to stop playing and clean house… maybe later. Chilly 76° after an afternoon storm here.
i went grocery shopping also. and went birthday shopping for my daughter.
when i got home i did the usual. pet my cat, drank water, and hunted flies in the house with a flyswatter.
i am an exciting person.
@LemonTheCat try fly paper. It is catching flour moths in my house and used to catch flies back when I had them. Does not catch cockroaches when you hang the fly paper from the ceiling (the cats on the other hand… 2 corpses so far today).
@Kidsandliz thanks for the advice! I have a couple up, and they have captured some. I still like to hunt for the tricky ones, though.
Have you ever gotten fly paper caught in your hair? If not, I’ll save you the curiousity and just tell you now, that it is extremely unfortunate
@LemonTheCat I have gotten it on the stove hood, against my arm…Goo Gone works wonders.
Had to get up and go to the office this morning because apparently a node on my cluster went down overnight and its vms did not shift to the other nodes as advertised. Coincidentally, I made a change last week that I just discovered would prevent alert emails about such problems from getting out from the cluster, so my first notice was given by users complaining that they couldn’t work.
Went in, got the vms up on the other nodes, got the crashed node up, and got vendor support into the system and they escalated to the engineers who are hit or miss on the weekend, so I fixed the email issue and worked on a project I hadn’t had time for the past couple of weeks.
It could have been worse, I could have been out in the heat doing the yard work I had planned for today instead (although I guess now that’s tomorrow’s plan).
@djslack O.M.G. A true cluster fuck!
Decided not to unpack the car in mid day heat. Got in late last night after an “epic” series of events spread over 1100+ miles and am really, really tired. Unloaded cats, cat things, and toothbrush. Forgot to bring the chocolate I bought at Trader Joe’s as a treat (non within hundreds of miles of me here). Now the bars are misshapen. Sigh. Although my favorite Orlando Italian twist bread, can’t get in any state around me, seems no worse for the wear. My other excuse is that I have picked up a bad cold which I hope I did not give to my mother.
OK finally unpacked the car. Sort of (stuff is now dumped in the living room). Made 2 trips to the grocery store. One to buy the food. The second to pick up the bag of eggs I left behind in the self checkout hanging bag thing.
Packing up 40 yrs worth of crap to move.
@lseeber My sympathies. I find it takes me about 3 weeks to completely pack a house. And then when I am done I am covered in bruises. Maybe have a garage sale too?
@lseeber Yuck. How many rooms?
@Kidsandliz More than that in this house. My husband recently passed and he was a hoarder.
@OldCatLady 6 rms, attic, full basement and a shop. Hubby saved everything he ever owned since 8th grade and I wasn’t allowed to touch. Now most of it burns.
@lseeber I am sorry your husband passed and sorry you are now needing to sort through so much stuff. Maybe your kids, if you have any, can help and then take home some of it? Maybe empty out the shop first, put all the junk too good to throw out in there and see if an estate sale person will buy it all from you?
@lseeber
Thoughts are with you. You’ve had and are having a difficult year.
This is a tough job. I hope you have - or hire - some help.
What about an estate sale company?
@f00l @kidsandliz @OldCatLady Thanks y’all. It has been a heck of a yr. I do have help and I’m close to being done. Closing on the new house is in about 11 days. Fortunatey, I don’t have to have this one cleared by then. Buying then selling. I do plan on once I get what I want out of this one basically having an estate sale for what I’m not keeping. No yard sales here. Would have been nice but I am so rural, deep in the woods and drive is in a sharp curve, no good place to have one. But I gave a trailer load of stuff to a friend so they could do a yardsale and keep whatever they get just to get the stuff out of here. This too shall pass
@f00l @lseeber @OldCatLady That is how my mom moved into a retirement community. Took what she wanted and left behind the rest. Way easier for her than to deal with all of it at once. Plus then no rush. Then my sisters took what they wanted (they helped her move - I was teaching so had to wait until thanksgiving to get there). I was left seeing if there was anything left I wanted and disposing of the rest of it (mostly broken stuff, junk…) and cleaning up. Middle of winter in the snow belt so no garage sale. Took me all week working 14 hours a day to do so. Donating things left and right. Then the house went up for sale. Good luck with this entire process. I hope you feel your life has lightened up a bit once you are done, moved, disposed of the rest and have sold the old house.
Can’t tell you what I’m doing but I can tell you what I did. Went to a friends bbq where we talked about the people who weren’t there and played both What Do You Meme? and Joking Hazard. More importantly, I won the game of Joking Hazard, cementing my lore as most twisted.
@cinoclav We’re so proud of you!
@OldCatLady Like it was a surprise…