Pets banned by New York State in 2005:
• Monitors (big lizards), including these five types: water, black throat, white throat, crocodile and Nile.
• Venomous reptiles, including all venomous snakes and two lizards with poison bites.
• Crocodilians, including crocodiles, caimans, alligators and Indian gharial.
• Large constricting snakes.
• Primates, such as rhesus monkeys, and prosimians, such as lemurs.
• All members of the family Felidae, except domestic and feral cats. This includes lions, tigers and jaguars.
• All members of the family Canidae, including wolves. Exceptions: domestic dogs and fennec foxes.
• All bears.
“Nobody's brought off the Eastern novel recently, my view, Greene managed it, if you can take Greene, which I can’t—too much popery. Malraux, if you like philosophy, which I don't. Maugham you can have, and before that it's back to Conrad. Cheers. Mind me saying something? Go easy on the Hemingway stuff. All that grace under pressure, love with your balls shot off. They don't like it, my view. It's been said.”
from The Honourable Schoolboy
Book: Show us the latest book you bought, borrowed or received.
My birthday plus some book shopping while on vacation resulted in nine new (to me) books in the past week. I finished off Protector on the plane back to NYC (Niven's early hard sf remains a guilty pleasure for me) and am most of the way through The Iron Dragon's Daughter.
However, I am disappointed that my copy of Mechasm (aka The Reproductive System) does not have a cover as cool as the one above.
I recently finished The Disappointment Artist and very much enjoyed it. While trying to see what other people had thought of it I came across this review.
I want to start out by saying up front that this is not a collection of essays recommended for reading by teens or young adults, and therefore junior high and high school educators would not wish to incorporate this work into their curriculum. Its material would best be reserved for adults not so easily swayed by Lethem's waxing poetic for the American countercultures that embrace promiscuity, drugs, homosexuality, and bohemianism in general. Perhaps that is a bit prudish, but so be it. While these have made for a hefty trunk full of experiences for Lethem, they are not lifestyles I would encourage the youth of today to explore or embrace. Nor other adults, for that matter.
From the perspective of writing quality, save for the author's decision to incorporate a good deal of the offensive language which seems to pervade every pore of our society anymore, Lethem exhibits an insightful and personable style that will keep most readers engaged. Nonfiction essayists of this caliber are becoming fewer in number, or are seemingly not being published enough in lieu of the more trendy or trivialized subject matter. My only wish might be that authors today raise the bar on the standards by which they communicate their experiences and insights.
Geez, lady, chill out.
Who's your favorite movie villain?
I am wary of saying "favorite," but I love The Third Man and Harry Lime's speech on the ferris wheel may be the archetypical "villain explains his motivations" scene:
]]>Victims? Don't be melodramatic. Look down there... Would you feel any pity if one of those dots stopped moving forever? If I offered you £20,000 for every dot that stopped -- would you really, old man, tell me to keep my money? Or would you calculate how many dots you could afford to spare? Free of income tax, old man... free of income tax. It's the only way to save money nowadays.
What books are on your nightstand?
I just finished The Disappointment Artist and am halfway through a bunch more of these, but the book I've been reading the most lately is Soldier of Arete by Gene Wolfe.