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Category Archives: Reviews
And now, from SF Hall-of-Famer Adolf Hitler . . .
The Iron Dream by Norman Spinrad
For me, Norman Spinrad is most memorable as the author of the Star Trek episode, “The Doomsday Machine”, better known in my household as “Kirk Meets the Cosmic Blunt”. (We have alternate names for all the classic episodes. Three guesses as to the identity of “Captain Kirk, Space Queen”, or “Spock in Heat”. That’s my wife and I. So —
knockingonwood knockingonwood knockingonwood.)
Yup, “Kirk Meets the Cosmic Blunt”. Still saying, “Waaaaaah?” Here’s an unloaded blunt:
Now do you remember? No? Imagine William Shatner and William Windom fighting over who can chew the most scenery. That episode.
The Iron Dream and I only lasted one chapter together. By then, I had tired of the overly dense writing (me like dialog) and the core joke had grown old after ten pages.
Karen, masochist that she is, finished it, and penned the fine review which you shall soon read. She thinks she might have gone a little over the top in her conclusions, but what the hey.
I’ve taken a few editorial liberties. Karen says, “I don’t want to be judged over something you’ve written.” Okay: I’ll put any major interpolations by me in blue.
Norman Spinrad’s The Iron Dream (1972) caused a mild stir at the time of its publication. This satiric science fiction novel features an alternate history where Adolf Hitler emigrated to the United States in 1919 and became a comic book illustrator and science fiction writer. The Iron Dream (the actual title is Lord of the Swastika. I suspect Spinrad’s publisher chickened out and made him come up with a different title for the cover) is his supposed Hugo Award-winning novel of 1954, a story concerning the rise of Feric Jagger, a national hero who saves the nation of Held from the mutant hordes of inferior and corrupted humans.
Written in the bombastic tones of Mein Kampf, the novel is a distorted version of Hitler’s historic rise to power in Weimar Germany, and his subsequent actions in Europe and Africa. The story begins with Jagger returning from Borgravia (corresponding to Hitler’s youth in Austria). He arrives in Held, the last pocket of genetically pure humanity in a world still suffering from the devastating effects of an ancient nuclear war. Held is surrounded by radiation-contaminated land which has produced grotesque mutants who must be euthanized — for their own good, as well as for the sake of humanity.
Unfortunately for the blond, blue-eyed Heldons, these mutants are commanded by the sinister forces of the mind-controlling Zind, the analogue to the USSR. Ridiculously quickly, Feric gains leadership of a small political party, which he soon parlays into control of the entire country. How does author Hitler account for this? Feric’s amazingly powerful personal will and magnetism lead everyone to recognize his natural superiority. Under his magnificent leadership, the Heldon army finally confronts the vast armies of Zind in the book’s climactic battle.
Since Dream is written by alternate universe author Hitler, fascism is good, genocide justified, and everyone (everyone racially pure, that is) loves the good and wise hero who triumphs in the end. Spinrad’s difficulty, though, lies in maintaining a readable story that’s supposedly written by a psychopathic hack writer with no real insight into humanity. Thus, there is incredibly bad sentence structure and an obsession with the gory details of death and violence.
Desperately needed comic relief is supplied by the homoerotic descriptions of missiles, bullets, and the “Great Truncheon of Held,” Jagger’s semi-magical club that he wields as the true heir to the former Kings of Held:
Despite these attempts to shore up the narrative’s deficiencies, Spinrad lets the novel drag in many spots, particularly in the repetitious battle scenes. After reading 20 or so descriptions of Feric’s mighty blows decimating the mutant horde, I began to skip these passages.
But there’s more to this book than just the smug feeling that we are too clever to fall for fascistic propaganda. (In fact, I found a neo-Nazi review on the internet which didn’t realize this was satire; supposedly, the American Nazi Party loves the book, too.) (That last link — to AryanUnity.com — is more interesting than you might think. According to Karen, the reviewer plagiarized the review from another she (Karen) had just read. Then he tacked on a few paragraphs at the end to the tune of “Great book! Warms the cockles of my pure Aryan heart!”) Spinrad includes an afterword by a fictitious literary critic who discusses the popularity of similar stories in both science fiction and fantasy. Furthermore, the back cover quotes praise the novel as comparable to J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and G.K. Chesterton.
For example: recall, from LOTR, the slaughter of the mutant orcs and the short, debased men from the south by the racially superior elves and the tall and noble Aragorn. I have read a good deal of science fiction and fantasy and I have no doubt that a tinge of fascism, racism, and sexism seeped into a great many of the so-called classics of the Golden Age. In their defense, these stories were written decades ago and one shouldn’t necessarily apply today’s standards. However, their undeniable influence on today’s literature unconsciously leads some of us to separate different ethnic and religious groups into the ‘debased’ versus the ‘noble’, and the ‘fanatically homicidal’ versus the ‘protectors of humanity’. That, in conjunction with the ubiquitous scenes of slaughter and battle in the science fiction and fantasy genres, may lead the desensitized reader to support warfare and death in the real world.
Thanks, Karen. Folks, her next book review will be: “Charlotte’s Web: Beloved Children’s Classic, or Vegan Propaganda?”
D.
Start at the fifth book in the series? Why the hell not!
Wolves Eat Dogs by Martin Cruz Smith
Arkady Renko and I go way back. Gorky Park came out in ’82, and, poor student that I was, I bought it as a paperback in ’84.
1984: First year of medical school. My mind was ripe for dermestid beetles munching flesh off human skulls. At that age, I hadn’t read much hard-boiled fiction, and the moody, angst-ridden Renko came as a breath of fresh arctic air compared to the science fiction characters I knew from childhood. (True, Neuromancer came out that year. That, too, was a kick in the head.) And the interlude sequence, two-thirds of the way through — when, suddenly, we are brought face to face with Renko’s nemesis, Pribluda — changed forever how I looked at fiction, both as a reader, and as a wannabe writer.
1989: the year of Gorky Park’s first sequel, Polar Star. I was still in medical school (don’t ask). Polar Star proved to me that a sequel could be every bit as good as the first novel. Having read at least one sequel to Dune (gotta be vague, here — I’ve struck those books from memory), I’d had my doubts. Gross-o-meter high point in Polar Star: the slime eels. Yum.
Red Square (1993) : This one almost put me off Smith indefinitely. Then my wife bought Rose (2000: not a Renko novel, but still a keeper). By now I was a grown-up. I’d done a bit of writing, enough that I could recognize Smith as a master technician. So I went back to the Renko series with book four, Havana Bay, and found our Investigator lower than ever. Near the beginning of the story, Renko is assaulted in his apartment. The usual rough stuff, right? No: there’s a twist (no spoilers here) which hooked me in to the rest of the book.
In Wolves Eat Dogs, Renko’s investigation of an apparent suicide leads him to the ruins of Chernobyl. What do you do with a burnout like Renko? Surround him with other burnouts! (I wonder if Smith ever worried whether his readers would say, “Enough already.”) The outskirts of Chernobyl is populated with soldiers, scientists, and folks too old to care about a little radiation. There’s a strong, unspoken feeling that Death stands just behind everyone’s shoulder.
The investigation begins in Moscow, where billionaire Pasha Ivanov, president of NoviRus, has jumped ten stories from the window of his luxury suite. There’s a bottle of salt in Ivanov’s hand, more salt on the windowsill, and a pile of it in the closet. NoviRus Senior Vice President Lev Timofeyev has a bloody nose . . . and before long, he shows up dead in a cemetery near Chernobyl. Unexpectedly dead, that is.
Perennial pain-in-the-ass Renko doesn’t think Ivanov jumped voluntarily. When Timofeyev’s body is found, Renko’s boss ships him down south to the Ukraine for a bit of hot time. In graduate school, we had to wear those little radiation badges so that we’d know when we’d been poisoned. Renko gets a Geiger counter and a bit of advice — don’t eat the locally grown food.
But, wouldn’t you know it, before long the Geiger counter has been retired, Renko’s scarfing down the local produce, lovin’ the local women and scrappin’ with the local brutes. You gotta love him.
Smith does everything right: three-dimensional characterization, clearly written action sequences, crisp dialog, a deft plot, and plenty of poignant drama. Some folks read Elmore Leonard to hone their craft; I read Smith.
D.
P.S. I think I may have gone way beyond the boundaries of good taste tonight with Bare Rump’s Diary. Box me about the ears if you are offended.
Ancestor worship
Digging Up Donald by Steven Pirie
Keith Pirie (Steve to his publisher) is one of those fellas you know is going to make it big some day. Oprah big. (Her book club! Jeez.) I suck up to him every chance I get so that, when that day comes, I’ll be riding on his coattails. As in, “Hey, Doug. Here’s a used tissue I found in Oprah’s wastebasket. Think you can make something of it?”
So you may be wondering why it has taken me so long to review his book. I dunno, it may have something to do with the fact that we’re living down here in Crescent City and 95% of my books are in the money pit-cum-children’s tuition charity fund for my contractor, i.e., the house in Harbor. Out of sight, out of mind. And, to continue the trite saws, better late than never.
More to the point, I have a memory like a sieve. Not the kind of thing you want to hear from your doctor, right? To which I must say: That’s what the chart is for, bucko. I have over 2000 active patients. Do you really want me to trust my memory, especially as regards your history of anaphlyactic shock with penicillin? Hmm? Anyway, I have been known to reread books three or four times and be surprised by the ending each time. Sometimes the old Warner Brothers cartoons knock me for a loop.
What I’m trying to say is, I read Donald last October, and that’s a really long time in Doug years.
Without further ado, here’s the review I posted in Amazon, with additional commentary in green.
Digging Up Donald was on my stack with Bruce Sterling’s Distraction, China Mieville’s King Rat, Robert Rankin’s The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse, and Nathanael West’s A Cool Million, yet it was Donald I kept coming back to. The comparison to Terry Pratchett is most apt, not only in the style of humor, but also in the manner in which both authors build up a nice “what the hell is going on here?” tension.
Distraction: I never got past the first chapter. Boring.
King Rat: This is one I really wanted to like. Mieville has talent. Trouble was, one hundred pages into it I realized I didn’t give a damn about anyone, and there were other books I wanted to read more — like Donald.
Hollow Bunnies: Wonderful title, and the first chapter is a corker, but it fell down after that. I lost interest after about one hundred pages.
A Cool Million: I finished it after I finished Donald. If I can make one recommendation to all the writers here: if you haven’t read West, read him. Start with Miss Lonelyhearts, move on to The Day of the Locust. The Library of America collection is well worth the $.
Donald: I would have finished it even if Keith wasn’t a friend. Donald met my two most important criteria for a novel: I cared about the characters, and it was fun. (I shouldn’t be too strident about the ‘fun’ part. I’m a Le Carre fan, but I cannot think of his novels as fun.)
Back to my Amazon review:
This book has a host of fine points: domineering matriarchs; a sex-crazed reverend with, shall we say, unwholesome intentions for the world; young love; not-quite-so-young lust; a bar fight in the land of the dead; high tea in hell . . . I’d say more, but a large part of the fun lies in figuring out Pirie’s particular brand of mythology.
That’s for sure. Don’t expect the usual thinly veiled warp of Greek or Norse mythology. Keith’s universe is Keith’s and no one else’s.
My favorite part of the book was the well-developed relationship between young Robert and the Reverend’s daughter, Joan. These passages were surprisingly sensitive and insightful.
All in all, a fine read!
Good heavens. Is that the best I could do? What a lame ass review. Anyway: young love does it for me every time. I remember how it feels — the intoxication, the madness of it. Clearly, Keith remembers, too. I was/am so taken with Robert and Joan that I will be tickled silly if Keith puts them center stage in the sequel; and, really, my main disappointment with Donald (almost a spoiler!) came towards the end, when I found myself wanting to see far more of both of them.
Are you listening, Keith? (Keith apparently hates blogs.) More Joan and Robert! And move that WONDERFUL animation you have on your Writers BBS homepage over to your website — now!
D.
June 4th to June 9th entries HERE
Thanks to the lovely and talented Robin at Blogger Support for resurrecting my blog. I wish there were a prettier way to merge the pre- and post-epocalypse blog, but hey, this is the best I can do. Cheers, y’all.
D.
PS: I’m not sure why I should save this, but Shatter2 (the sequel that flopped) contains the last six days’ of posts in their natural environment. Aside from posting a little note on Shatter2 to explain its existence, I won’t be adding to it after today.
Yeah, I really can’t think why I should save Shatter2, but I’m loathe to hit that delete button again any time soon.
By the way, if you feel the need to comment on this post, you’ll have to scroll way, way down, to just below the Oops! entry.
Hiccups (June 8, 2005)
The good folks at Blogger Support might bail my ass out yet. Here’s the response I got to my whiny plea:
Hi Doug, Thanks for writing in. We're sorry to hear about the frustration that you've been experiencing with the deletion of the incorrect blog. Please send me the URL of your old, accidently deleted blog, as well as the username and email address associated with this account, and I'll see what I can do about restoring it for you. Sincerely, Robin Blogger Support
And if that fails, Amanda has shown me how to find my cached files on Google. I wonder how long I should give Robin?
Speaking of ‘how long should I give’, I’m still strung out about Continuum Science Fiction. Bill Rupp, Continuum’s editor, accepted two of my stories earlier this year (“All Change” and “Heaven on Earth”). Continuum is a print magazine, so these would be my first stories to be published outside ezine-space. Unfortunately, no word from Mr. Rupp as to when my stories are going to run. No contract, either. After our initial exchange of letters — his acceptance, my “Yippee!” — I waited six weeks before writing again. I sent him an email and waited another four weeks. Nothing. I pinged him again on June 1, and still haven’t heard a thing.
I’m finding this a lot harder to take than rejections.
New purchase: Norman Spinrad’s 1972 novel, The Iron Dream. Premise: imagine an alternate universe in which Adolf Hitler came to New York in 1919, became a comic book illustrator, and later, a science fiction author. The Iron Dream is, in fact, a more palatable title than the book’s real title: LORD OF THE SWASTIKA, a science-fiction novel by Adolf Hitler. Yup! Spinrad has put himself into Hitler’s mindset and written about an ubermensch who must battle against genetic degenerates. Here’s how he introduces the main character, Feric Jaggar:
Finally, there emerged from the cabin of the steamer a figure of startling and unexpected nobility: a tall, powerfully built true human in the prime of manhood. His hair was yellow, his skin was fair, his eyes were blue and brilliant. His musculature, skeletal structure, and carriage were letter-perfect, and his trim blue tunic was clean and in good repair.
The first few pages are rippingly good satire (my wife would say, “Who cares? It’s an easy target.”) I’m 23 pages into it, and I am beginning to wonder if it’s a one-note joke. I’ll let you know.
And now I’m off to help Bare Rump with her diary. Lest you think this is all fun and games, I do have a bit of method behind all this. I have in mind a bona fide blogged novel with a beginning, middle, and end, but one that will also respond to the times. In other words, I don’t know what will happen when Ms. Rump finally meets W., since much will depend on what’s in the news at the time. Meanwhile, I’m having fun thinking up new jokes & making funky photos with Paint Shop Pro.
Exhaustedly yours,
D.
posted by Douglas Hoffman at 9:23 PM 5 comments
Tuesday, June 07, 2005
An antediluvian tale
Michael Swanwick
Avon Books, 1992I first encountered Michael Swanwick not through his fiction, but through his website, Michael Swanwick Online, and in particular, his site's lovably churlish unca mike's advice column. If you're not familiar with unca mike, his modus operandi is to encourage questioners to do the worst thing possible for their writing careers, thereby winnowing his competition.Yeah, like he has tsuris competing with other writers.
Here's an exchange he recently shared with his readers:
Dear Gardner:
An rtf file of "The Word That Sings the Scythe" is attached, as
requested. I note that you've had my story for over an hour and you
haven't bought it yet. GET OFF THE POT, DOZOIS!
Cordially, Michael
That evening he wrote back:
Dear Michael,
I like "The Word That Sings the Scythe," and I'll take it.
Sorry for the delay, but I had to have dinner first.
--Gardner
For my non-SF audience, Swanwick is writing to Gardner Dozois, editor of Asimov's Science Fiction (one of the primo bitchin' markets) since 1985.
Okay. So we've established that Michael Swanwick either (A) has an ego the size of Uzbekistan, or (B) has a sadistic sense of humor. I'm leaning towards (B), given some of the other content on his unca mike column.
I bet you're thinking this is going to be a negative review. Not entirely.
Actually, it depresses the hell out of me that Stations of the Tide is out of print. It won a Nebula Award, for cryin' out loud. What do you have to do in this business to stay in print? Here I am thinking, "If only I can manage to get my book published, I'll have a steady flow of income to tide me over into my old age," and then I find out that even if you win a Nebula you STILL don't have it made.
Yes, that's my retirement plan. Write a bestseller and live off the residuals. I play Super Lotto, too.
On to the review.
***
The polar caps of the planet Miranda are about to melt, inundating nearly all land. (We never find out why this happens, or with what periodicity, since Swanwick is a show-don't-tell-if-it-kills-me kind of guy. But that's okay; I read SF, so I can take a lot on faith.) While Miranda's flora and fauna have evolved to cope with this regular deluge, the planet's human inhabitants must be evacuated. Self-styled magician Gregorian has another way out: for a price, he'll transform you into a creature capable of thriving post-deluge.
Our protagonist, the unnamed bureaucrat, comes to Miranda as the representative of a shadowy interplanetary governing body that, through the power of embargo, controls the technology level of individual planets. The bureaucrat's bosses suspect that Gregorian is using stolen, proscribed tech to deliver on his promises. The bureaucrat's job: find Gregorian (before the Jubilee Tides swallow all, naturally) and persuade him to give back the stolen technology.
We see numerous metamorphoses throughout the book; some are tricks, some are not. Early on, we're told (shown, actually -- excuse me!) that Gregorian could have such technology -- i.e., it really exists -- but he could easily be pulling a nasty con on these people, too. Dead marks tell no tales.
It's a given that in a story such as this, the protagonist is going to change. Otherwise, what's the point? Carping on that would be like bitching that a novel is formulaic because it has a plot, and, oh God, why do these novels always have to have plots? (Yes, yes, I know there are exceptions to that rule, too.) I'd like to mention one interesting counter-example: J. M. Coetzee's Waiting for the Barbarians, in which (spoilers!) the protagonist goes through hell and back, yet insists to himself that he has learned nothing at all.
So, yes, the bureaucrat is going to change. What matters, what really matters, is that we buy that change every step of the way. Is the transformation believable, and is it inevitable?
I have to tread carefully to avoid spoilers. Yes, spoilers count, since I think you ought to read this book, if for no other reason than the sex is that good, and Swanwick's writing is, at times, beautiful. (I love the title, Stations of the Tide, merging as it does the stations of the cross with the idea of a natural cycle; and I love the first line, too: The bureaucrat fell from the sky.) I'm also interested in hearing from other readers on this point. (Hey. Pat. You out there?) But here's my gripe:
There comes a time rather late in the story when the bureaucrat must choose between love and duty. His choice will be a clear indication of the changes wrought by the novel's preceding 200 pages. If he chooses one, the story might grind to a halt. If he chooses the other, the plot is advanced. Trouble is, the believable, inevitable choice is the one that stops the plot dead in its tracks -- so, guess what: the bureaucrat does what he needs to do to advance the plot. Some 40 pages later, he's faced with another choice. At this point, his choice swings the other way. It's believable this time, it has the feeling of inevitability, and yet this critical moment is undercut by the fact that I, the reader, am saying, "HEY! WAIT A MINUTE! DIDN'T YOU JUST . . . ?"
It's difficult criticizing a book that promises to teach me things that will make my orgasms last longer. But, there you have it: Stations of the Tide falls short of classic status, in my opinion, because it fails the inevitability test. In a book about magic and illusion, I could see the puppeteer's strings.
Inevitability is on my mind a lot lately. As I wrap up my novel, I find myself fretting over whether I have frogwalked my characters to the finish line, or whether they've done what they really really truly would have done.
D.
PS: Have you been checking out Bare Rump's Diary? Give the ol' girl some feedback when you get the chance. She has read a great many romance novels, by the way, so if you need to ask her for advice on love, I'm sure she'll be all legs.
posted by Douglas Hoffman at 8:31 PM 4 comments
A link to some of the lost blog entries.
You'll find:
Because Maureen asked for really bad angst-ridden poetry
(Confessions of a Teenage Angstwolf)
Violet survived her squeezing
(Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory: where are they now?)
I think I can, I think I can
(My student dream; memories of Carmela)
If I can figure out how Amanda did it, I'll post more, and update the list here. Thank you, Amanda!
D.
posted by Douglas Hoffman at 6:30 PM 4 comments
Monday, June 06, 2005
An SF market you won't see listed on Ralan.com
In 1999, with the millenium approaching, Nature began running a weekly feature called Futures. Come 2001, Nature stopped publishing new stories, but they recently started up again. They're all one-page offerings, tasty bites from an assemblage of authors whose names read like the SF equivalent of Ultimate Baseball: Arthur C. Clarke, Bruce Sterling, Joe Haldeman, Norman Spinrad, Gregory Benford, Vonda McIntyre . . .
Hey, I never said it would be easy for me to get published in Nature.
Here are a few recent stories that you won't regret reading.
Last Man Standing by Xaviera Young (17 March 2005)
After the Y virus eliminates half of the world's population, we are left with "A planet with no more moonlight strolls, not really." Poignant contemplation of a world without men.
Heartwired by Joe Haldeman (24 March 2005)
Designer psychopharmaceuticals for the perfect 25th wedding anniversary. (Does anyone do the future of love as well as Haldeman?)
New Hope for the Dead by David Langford (26 May 2005)
Electronic afterlifes (afterlives?) aren't all they're cracked up to be. This one is funny as hell. Come to think of it, Langford has come up with a mighty interesting take on hell.
Meat by Paul McAuley (5 May 2005)
Disgruntled tissue culture biologists have become meatleggers in this creepily believable tale of the future perversions of fame. "These days, you aren't a hardcore tru-fan unless you've partaken of the flesh of your hero."
Ivory Tower by Bruce Sterling (7 April 2005)
Who needs college? Blogging self-educated physicists band together to form their own academy.
Now for the bad news:
1. If you're not a Nature subscriber, you'll have to become one to read Futures. (If you're fortunate, your local library subscribes to Nature.) It ain't cheap.
2. I've tried and failed to find submission guidelines for Futures. I suspect this gig is by invitation only.
#2 merely pushes the dream back one step. First, I need to become the kind of author who rubs shoulders with the likes of Haldeman or Sterling . . .
D.
PS: Only four more votes on BlogHop and I'll get listed with the big boys. If you haven't already experienced the pleasure of clicking (it helps if you let your finger circle ever so slowly on the mouse button a few hundred times before clicking -- and a little Astroglide helps, too), go over to the right margin and look for the colorful BlogHop icon. Click on the GREEN SMILEY-FACED BUTTON. I don't want to have to threaten you with my Virgin Mary matzoh square. You know I'll do it.
*Hmm. Hard to call leaving Texas an epiphany.
posted by Douglas Hoffman at 7:53 PM 2 comments
Sunday, June 05, 2005
September 13, 1975
Anyway, he didn't want just any Battlebots tapes. Season Two, it had to be Season Two. Naturally, the Season Two tapes were at the bottom of the bottom-most box labeled Jake's Toys (at least the labeling was correct!) Meanwhile, I snuffled around in the dust until I found my old diaries, all six volumes of them. I'm going to reprint the first page of the first volume here, because it's funny, in the hopeless pathetic way anything written by a thirteen-year-0ld boy is funny. Here goes.
***
DATA: BOUGHT SATURDAY, SEP. 13, 1975 52 cents
VOLUME I First Quarter, First Semester, 9th Grade
Sept. 13:
I bought this notebook with the grand hope of keeping a day-by-day account of my high school years, and perhaps college as well. (That day-by-day thing got dumped mighty quick. The next two entries are from September 16 and September 19. Good God, what kept me busy back then? Nowadays, I work a full time job as a doc, and I still manage to blog daily. What was I doing back then?) I admit that I have future fame in mind which will make these 'diaries' valuable, but the reason that I prefer is that I can show this to my kid(s). (Even then I had the grace to feel at least a little bit sheepish about my lust for fame. Thank heavens I'm not screwed up like that anymore -- so egocentric, so, so hungry for power and adulation. By the way, it has come to my attention that some of you have not yet voted on my blog. All you need to do is click on the green smiley-faced cube at the far left of the bloghop.com icon. That's over in the right margin -- see it? Yesssss. Remember, this blog is essential to my plans for world domination. Click on the green smiley-face. Click now. Get your friends to click, too -- tell them how much fun it is to click. Goooood.)
But first, a brief autobiography. (When and where I was born, what schools I attended, who my favorite teachers were, yatta yatta yatta.) I won't give any crap about my family because I don't think I'll forget that too fast. (Ain't that the truth. Okay . . . more stuff about school . . . then:)
That, I hope, will be the only line of crap in this whole bit. Why do I say that? Because I feel that such an oration is insincere, and thus is crap.
(But hey, I just edited out all the crap, so all that comes through is the sincere stuff. And a thirteen-year-old boy is nothing if not sincere. Especially when he's jerking off.)
***
Oh, that's right. That's what I was doing in my spare time.
D.
posted by Douglas Hoffman at 11:25 AM 8 comments
Saturday, June 04, 2005
Hope the ol' gal is worth it.
posted by Douglas Hoffman at 11:43 PM 5 comments
Guess it could have been worse.
Here's how it happened. (I will always share my stupidity with you, my loyal readers, because I have no pride. Or is it, I have no shame? I always get those two mixed up.) I wanted to start a second blog. Never mind what; you'll find that out soon enough. I set it up on the same account as this one, and discovered too late that my pic & 'about me' info gets carried over to every new blog I create. Well, I didn't want that. My new blog would represent a whole new identity. New pic, new 'about me'. I mean, that was the whole point. So I decided to delete the new blog, hop over to a different internet account profile, and start a new blog from there.
The problem came at the 'delete the new blog' step. I had the wrong blog selected.
Don't try this at home.
This looks permanent. If any of you know this to be otherwise, please let me know. For now, I'll content myself with thinking about the massive volume of written material -- PUBLISHED written material -- which disappears every day. Books go out of print; old pages turn to dust. It was a blog, Hoffman, not the Library of Alexandria.
I'm still here. I ain't going anywhere. Drop me a note so I can start building up my blog links again.
D.
posted by Douglas Hoffman at 9:00 PM 6 comments
Oops.
posted by Douglas Hoffman at 8:50 PM 0 comments