Literary Recommendations From A Boorish Lout

In my previous post, I admitted that my dreams of writing the next great novel have vanished like a mist at break of day which fights with the sun then fades away.

It really should not come as a big surprise to me or anyone that I am no novelist. After all, I don't even particularly like to read novels. I'm more likely to pore over an encyclopedia, or a specialized dictionary, or a strange collection of facts, or some goofy blog like this one.

There are only a handful of novels that I've really enjoyed over the years. As such, I tend to just re-read those. I must have read my favorite novel, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest a dozen times. 

However, when it comes to some of the classics, I wish I had Googled years ago, "most difficult novels to read". I could have spared myself countless hours of struggling to get through something that I would eventually just give up on.

The books I've started but never finished include:

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
At 1,225 pages, Tolstoy's classic novel makes a dandy heavy-duty doorstop. Even a bank vault door is no match for this mighty tome. However, if your thing is reading an English translation in which everything was apparently lost, then give this a try. I can personally tell you that  "Whatsisnameov" "Whositsky" and "Somethingorotherova" all play a major part in the plot. 

This book is well-known for its soporific qualities. It can send a reader to Snoresville in less than ten minutes. I understand that plans are underway to have it sold as a sleep aid at your local pharmacy, under the brand name Snore In Peace. It will take its place alongside the various holistic remedies for those who do not wish to take an antihistamine.

Doctor Zhivago - Boris Pasternak
You may also find this book at the drug store as a Snore In Peace competitor, under the brand name Doctor Zzzzzhivago. I slogged through the first third of this classic on three separate occasions. I'm going to count that as having read the whole thing since it adds up to the same amount of pages, and had I read it in its entirety, I would have remembered none of it anyway. If you're a fan of the film version, you'll wonder how they made such a great movie from this book. I suspect that screenwriter Robert Bolt couldn't remember any of the book either, and made up a completely different story for the film. His screenplay, by the way, is a very good read.

Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
If you read this one, you may wonder what in the dickens the author is trying to say. Naturally, I had great expectations for this novel. At least it was written in somewhat understandable English. I wonder how a Russian would feel about a translated version. It could very well be available as a sleep aid at Russian pharmacies. I wouldn't necessarily recommend it for that, but pronouncing the names of some of the characters (Pirrip, Gargery, Pumblechook, Havisham, Wemmick, Orlick, Skiffins), with volume and force, could help loosen your chest congestion. So you may someday find this book in the cold and sinus section of your neighborhood drug store under the brand name Great Expectorations.

Canterbury Tales - Geoffrey Chaucer
The copy I have (still have it for some reason) is in modern English. Even so, it takes a while to get through even half of it. Think of it as the Can't-Be-Hurried Tales. In its original Middle English, it might just as well be the Cantonese Tales.

Moby Dick - Herman Melville
Early on, I found this novel to be somewhat entertaining and even funny. But the real mirth begins about a quarter of the way into the volume with the descriptions of whale anatomy and the many uses of whale products, and so on, and on, and on. I had seen the film long before reading the book. I wonder how the movie would have been received had it shown Richard Basehart as Ishmael, turning to the camera halfway through it and saying, "Now, for your viewing pleasure, we shall discuss whale anatomy for the next two and a half hours."

Don Quixote - Miguel de Cervantes
To tilt at windmills may be an exercise in futility, but it is nothing compared to the efforts of the average reader who tries to labor through this voluminous tale. To spare yourself the time it takes to read this one (1,077 pages), I will provide as an alternative, a photo of Picasso's sketch of Quixote and Sancho Panza, along with a link to the original Broadway recording of The Impossible Dream from Man of La Mancha. Just stare at the picture while listening to the song. You're welcome.

Don Quixote by Pablo Picasso

and

The Impossible Dream performed by Richard Kiley

I have somehow finished two works by Fyodor Dostoevsky; The Brothers Karamazov and Crime and Punishment.

All in all, I didn't find these books to be all that bad. I just used what is an apparently well-know strategy. In both cases, I used the War and Peace approach. I didn't bother remembering the Russian names and just glided over them without regard to who they necessarily were or how their names were pronounced. As a result, I'm not sure who did what, but I'm pretty certain there were brothers named Karamazov in the first novel, but the name of the criminal rascal in the other escapes me.

Lest you get the idea that I am some sort of uncultured boorish lout, I should point out that I really do read a lot and that I enjoy great writing; like in the aforementioned Cuckoo's Nest. Often I will read a sentence or passage and think, "Geez, I wish I had written that." The opening lines to Clive Barker's Weaveworld, or, (believe it or not) the first few paragraphs from Hopalong Cassidy by Clarence E. Mulford, are a couple of examples.

On the other hand, we have this from To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf:

She had known happiness, exquisite happiness, intense happiness, and it silvered the rough waves a little more brightly, as daylight faded, and the blue went out of the sea and it rolled in waves of pure lemon which curved and swelled and broke upon the beach and the ecstasy burst in her eyes and waves of pure delight raced over the floor of her mind and she felt, It is enough! It is enough!

Well Virginia, may I respond, "It is too much! It is too much!" Sheeesh! Talk about overkill! I can imagine her describing a bag of garbage; It was a mélange of bittersweet orange rinds and earthy potato peels, attempting to blend harmoniously with once-desired red meat and yellowish-white egg shells. The aroma gently wafted in undulations toward unwilling yet receptive nostrils, like shimmering heat waves from ebony asphalt on an airless midsummer's afternoon.

Similarly, we have this winner of the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest for bad writing in 2021:

A lecherous sunrise flaunted itself over a flatulent sea, ripping the obsidian bodice of night asunder with its rapacious fingers of gold, thus exposing her dusky bosom to the dawn’s ogling stare.

I honestly prefer that to the cited howlings from Virginia Woolf.

Here is another good one from the Bulwer-Lytton contest:

The horizon coughed up the morning sun much as if Atlas had lowered the world from his mighty shoulders and given it the Heimlich maneuver.

The contest is named after Edward Bulwer-Lytton, an English writer and politician who famously (or infamously) wrote the opening line  “It was a dark and stormy night.” for his 1830 novel Paul Clifford .

Bulwer-Lytton is also noted for coining the phrase "the pen is mightier than the sword."

Poor Mr. Bulwer-Lytton. He probably wasn't such a bad writer, but his name is now associated with a bad writing contest. I'm almost certain his writing was better than the majority of today's authors.

Finally I will leave you with this; the winner of the 1986 Bulwer-Lytton Contest:

The bone-chilling scream split the warm summer night in two, the first half being before the scream when it was fairly balmy and calm and pleasant, the second half still balmy and quite pleasant for those who hadn't heard the scream at all, but not calm or balmy or even very nice for those who did hear the scream, discounting the little period of time during the actual scream itself when your ears might have been hearing it but your brain wasn't reacting yet to let you know.

That's what I call good bad writing; suitable for a boorish lout like me.

I Wonder How Many Seven Wonders There Are

A fellow blogger once asked me, "Why don't you have a book out yet?"  I responded, "Actually, I do have a book out. The library has been hounding me for years to return it."

I have had dreams of writing the next great classic novel — something so great in scope and ambition as to have the critics absolutely screaming for me to win the Nobel Prize in literature. 

The novel I had in mind was of a man on a journey to see all of the Seven Wonders of the World. At each site, he would describe what he has seen and make different philosophical musings about how he was feeling, corresponding to a particular wonder; nature at the Temple of Artemis, mystery at the Pyramid, death at the Mausoleum, and so on.

However, anyone who has lived as long as I have should finally come to terms with their limitations and abilities. No creator of great literature am I, but I are a pretty good blogger! And so with that in mind, I've decided to scale back my scope and ambition considerably; no prologue, no epilogue, and very little dialogue. Just blog, blog, blog.

So here for you pleasurable perusal, rather than a book, is a blog post. Consider this as my pocket-sized rendering of the next great novel.

You know, it always bugs me when someone lists the Seven Wonders of the World and feels the need to qualify them as the "Seven Wonders of the Ancient World". I understand however why they do so. It's because of the overabundance of those lousy lists. But it is those other lists that require qualifiers, not the original. 

There are so many so-called wonders, that it's no wonder someone has named something as mundane as a loaf of bread a "wonder".  

There are likely seven thousand so-called "seven wonders". Wikipedia lists a staggering number of them. They include:

USA Today's New Seven Wonders.

One of theirs is the Internet. It truly is a wonder that something which provides perhaps more disinformation than useful info, would be considered a wonder by anyone. It could just as easily be worthy of consideration in a seven "blunders" list.

Seven Wonders of the Underwater World.

I wonder if there is a Seven Wonders of the Underworld. I wonder if "cement shoes" should be on both of those lists.

Seven Wonders of the Industrial World   
Their list includes the London sewerage system. I wonder if some people think that this inclusion stinks.
Also included is the ship the SS Great Eastern. I wonder why they didn't go with Boaty McBoatface instead. 

Seven Wonders' Wonders of Romania.  
This one has thirteen entries. I wonder if they count differently in Romania. I wonder why Count Dracula isn't in there somewhere. I wonder what is meant by "Wonders' Wonders". 

CBC's Seven Wonders of Canada.
This list includes the canoe, the igloo, and the prairie sky. I wonder if the CBC is aware that other countries also have canoes, igloos, and skies.

Top seven as voted by Canada (as opposed to Canadians?) 
The Northern Lights is on this list.  Again, I wonder if Canada thinks it has a monopoly on the Aurora Borealis.

Canada's short list (I wonder why they call it that. It's actually pretty long) includes the Stanley Cup. I wonder if the listing of this "wonder" is temporarily shelved when an American team is the NHL champion. And if so, since no Canadian team has won the cup since 1993, I wonder if it will ever become a "wonder" again. Also on this list is the Vegreville egg, which is apparently the second largest pysanka in the world. I wonder what the heck a pysanka is. I wonder why this list didn't include the Wawa Goose or Sudbury's Big Nickel.

Two of the Seven Wonders of Northern Ontario?

AND, during a break from working on this post, I had to bring my car in for repair. While in the waiting area, there on the table next to my chair, so help me, was this:

 

Since it seems as if everyone has such a list, you may be wondering if there are seven wonders in our humble little village of Minikin.

Well, wonder no more!

Proudly presenting, THE SEVEN WONDERS OF MINIKIN!!! (Colossal fanfare here, please).

The Colossus of Rhodes

(perhaps not so colossal in every respect) 

The Colossus of Rhodes was a statue erected in the city of Rhodes, adjacent to an apparently very cold harbor, and was easily the most visible feature of the entire city (to be clear, we're talking about the whole statue here). The "Lost Us" of Roads on the other hand - our first Minikin wonder - is quite likely the most obscure road in the entire world. It is the unmarked western extension of East Horse Manure Road - which itself is an extremely vague route. A dusty back road at its most recognizable, The "Lost Us" of Roads - as it is known by locals and anyone who has had the misfortune of traveling it — whittles down to not more than a confusing footpath before emerging from a cornfield and continuing on as more or less a recognizable vehicular route. If you somehow reach its end, you're likely to be met with stupefied stares from locals who wonder how you made it that far. Incidentally, in Minikin, someone lost or discombobulated in speech or thought is said to have "gone west on East Horse Manure Road." 

The "Lost Us" of Roads, at its most passable

The original Temple of Artemis stood for nearly 200 years. By comparison, Minikin's Tempo of Art Amos has been running in fine form since 1984. I doubt that this fabulous Ford model will last as long as the famous Temple, but who knows? It's a wonder it's been on the road this long.

The Tempo of Art Amos

The oldest of the Seven Wonders, and the only one still standing is The Great Pyramid of Giza . It may leave sightseers awestruck, but Minikin's Great Beer Amid the Geezers has locals wondering how it is possible that this small group of old guys can chug down so much brew every day. It's not unusual to see a gargantuan pile of empties and a great many yet unopened libations at the feet of Cowboy, Wilson, Big Tom, and the Admiral.

 

The Great Beer Amid The Geezers: before and after

The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus built between 353 and 350 BC was an impressive elevated tomb. Almost as impressive is the Moss on Liam and Holly Carr's Backhouse. An amazing amount of this dense, flowerless vegetation sits atop the Carr's rickety, clapboard privy. Some have speculated that there isn't any substance to the roof other than the moss itself. Have a seat, but don't get too relaxed lest the roof collapses and you're caught with your pants down. It's a wonder that hasn't happened to anyone yet.

The Moss on Liam and Holly Carr's Backhouse 

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon comprised a number of tiered gardens adorning a palace in ancient Babylon (present day Iraq). Having no archeological evidence or documentation, the historic authenticity of the gardens is in question. The Hanging Gardens of Bob Allen on the other hand are Minikin's simplified yet bona fide version. Eight separate "gardens" sprout from large plastic buckets hanging from from a log frame. It's a wonder why Bob didn't go with some decorative baskets rather than the industrial-look containers. Even so, they're an improvement over the clay pots Bob once used. During high winds, they would frequently crash against each other leaving a pile of flower petals, dirt, stems, leaves and terracotta. They were known at that time as the Clanging Gardens of Bob Allen.

 

The Hanging Gardens of Bob Allen

The Lighthouse of Alexandria, constructed between 284 & 246 BC., was over 100 meters tall and was the tallest structure in the world at the time. The Light at the House of Alex and Andrea is not nearly as tall, but here is a local wonder that likely surpasses the original in at least one regard; it almost certainly is brighter than any lighthouse ever constructed.

Demonstrating the wisdom of a kumquat, the counselors for the municipality of which Minikin composes a small part, decided to replace the lamp of the hamlet's only streetlight with one of those new LED lights that make the midday July sun look like an energy-efficient nightlight. The lamp is located directly beside the house of long-time residents Alex and Andrea. Every night at bedtime, they and their neighbors toss and turn in their beds until the light shuts off at sunup. Then, and only then, are they able to get some shuteye. As Alex put it, "It's brighter than the sun on equatorial Mercury. Glancing at it for a millisecond could damage your retina."

Just an aside; many years ago when we were just kids, a friend of mine was trying to think of the word "retina". He asked, "What part of the eye is it that can get burned from looking at the sun? The uterus?" 

The Light at the House of Alex and Andrea
Warning: Staring at this picture for any length of time could damage your uterus.

 

Created by the famous sculptor Phideas, the Statue of Zeus was a 41 foot tall statue at the sanctuary of Olympia Greece erected in the Temple of Zeus. The Statue of Bruce is a 21 inch tall statue in my backyard. I don't know who "sculpted" it, but I wonder if it just wasn't from a mold in some Chinese garden statue factory. Regardless, it's a wonder that it is included on this list. Well, maybe not so much considering its six "wondrous" companions, and the fact that seven were needed to complete the series.

 

The wondrous Statue of Bruce

There it is; the whole ball of wax. No need to wonder if you've seen everything worth seeing in this world (unless someone should create a gigantic ball of wax worthy of mention in some seven "wonders" list)

From the pinnacle of the Pyramid to the pedestal of the Statue of Bruce, we've pretty much covered it all, right here at good ol' Snow Shoveling In Canada. I wonder how many times the word "wonder" appears in this blog post.

Could there be a Seven Wonders of the Blogging World? Could this blog be included in that list?

I wonder.

When Is Easter? It's A Moveable Feast, Sir

 ♫ "In your Easter bonnet... "♪

“Oh, yeah? Well, the same to you Mac!”

Easter is coming soon — I think. No one really knows when Easter will take place each year since it is a moveable feast and its date is supposedly set by some mind-dizzying formula that was named after an ancient Roman data processing machine. To illustrate how confusing this all is, the third day before Easter has been called Monday Thursday.

All that really matters is that this is the time of year that pretty well marks the end of the snow shoveling season in Southern Ontario. It is also the weekend of chocolate bunnies, multi-colored hard-boiled eggs, and hot cross buns.

Hot cross buns! Hot cross buns!
One a penny two a penny - hot cross buns
If you have no daughters, give them to your sons
One a penny two a penny - hot cross buns

Luckily, I never had any sisters.

I recently read an article on how Easter has never evolved into a popular secular holiday like Christmas. Perhaps one reason is that no kids want to have their picture taken while sitting on the lap of a giant rodent-like creature. A furry, flea-ridden, buck-toothed lagomorph doesn't quite compare to the merry, rosy-cheeked, kindly old image of Santa Claus (even so, ol' Kris Kringle has elicited his own share of scares).

If you need proof, check out these images of little tykes having their photo taken with the Easter Bunny:

Yipes!

Easter bunnies from the mind of Stephen King!

"Here comes Peter Cottontail!!!"

An event that allegedly takes place on Easter is the Easter Parade. But in all my years I’ve never witnessed a parade on Easter anywhere I've lived. Nor have I come across any parades while flipping through the television channels on that particular day; although, someone did make a movie about this annual March/April march.

From a Wikipedia article about the Easter Parade and the fine apparel associated with it:

“An old Irish adage stated "For Christmas, food and drink; for Easter, new clothes," and a 15th-century proverb from Poor Robin's Almanack states that if on Easter Sunday some part of one's outfit is not new, one will not enjoy good luck during the year.

At Easter let your clothes be new,

Or else be sure you will it rue.”

At Easter let your clothes be new, Or else be sure you will it rue??? What kind of a terrible, strained rhyme is that? I'm sure someone could come up with a better verse than that. I'll have a crack at it (ha ha. get it? crack... eggs... you know... Easter eggs... forget it). Let's see if I can make an improvement on that addled adage:

At Easter time new clothes do get,
Or you damn sure will it regret.

That's much better. 

I recall as a kid in school we sang:

♪ On the Avenue, Fifth Avenue,
The photographers will snap us
And you'll find that you're in the rotogravure.♫ 

When it came to that last word, we may just as well have been asked to sing pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis. It was hilarious the way we stumbled over it. There may have even been a few curses uttered in lieu of the word, but the teacher never noticed. To this day I still don’t know what rotogravure means.

But I am thinking of starting the Easter Parade tradition here in our little village of Minikin. My wife and I will dress up in our Easter best, put a decorative collar on our pooch, and take a walk around the cul-de-sac. I can just see us strolling elegantly about the neighborhood. I'll be a veritable fashion plate in my new jacket, snazzy pants, spiffy hat, shiny shoes, and doggy poop bag.

♫ Oh, I could write a sonnet about your Easter bonnet…♪

 But I won't. I'll just wish you a Happy Easter; whenever that is.

Eh? Account? Absolutely Not!

A is for Absolutely Not!

The annual A to Z blogging challenge has started. I will NOT be participating again. I've done so only once. That was back in 2012 and I swear it blogged me out. Yes, I've posted a few times since, but I've really had to rack my brain to come up with anything blogworthy. 

I can still hardly believe that I posted twenty-six entries that April; almost a post each day. Well, I'm not falling for it this year. In fact I've decided to scale back my blogging to roughly one post per week. Here are the rules for my personal April blogging challenge: I might (no pressure here) post only four entries, and I can choose topics beginning with any damn letter I like.

But, because I'm amiable and it would be appropriate, I will start with A.

A is for Account.

Has anyone else ever wondered why we have to create an account for virtually every site that we visit on the Internet? 

You want news? Sports? Weather? Create an account. How about financial info? Create an account. How do I care for my pet? Create an account. Where can I find a good accountant? Create an account. Are we all headed toward a world war and planetary annihilation? Create an account. How can you become more accountable? Take a wild guess.

It's crazy! For all my various accounts, my "password book" has such a plethora of passwords listed in it that it now has more pages than your average pocket dictionary. I can just see it now, the Merriam-Webster Dictionary of Passwords. 

It seems that I'm a little too close to the truth with that last wisecrack. Doing a Google search for "dictionary of passwords" comes up with 27,200 hits. That number almost equals a count of total accounts and passwords I currently have in use. Soon enough, I'll need a dedicated server with a brontobyte of storage. Yeah, that sounds right. Something the size of a brontosaurus. Of course I'll have to create a blasted account and remember my accursed password to access it.  

In light of the popularity (forget about usefulness) of accounts and their necessary passwords, the management here at Snow Shoveling In Canada has decided that it is high time — considering the staggering number of celebrated and big-money viewers who frequent this blog — that we require visitors to log in to a proper account. Needless to say, a password is a must.

Our security team has proposed that each password be thirty-one characters in length, using at least nine capital letters and four numbers. As well, eleven characters should be special (neither alphabetic nor numeric). You cannot use anything that resembles your name, spouse's name, email, social security number, address, or any combination of letters remotely resembling any word in the standard Merriam-Webster Dictionary.  

Also, your password must contain an image or pictograph. As well, at least one Chinese character and one Egyptian hieroglyph are required. 

For example:

yUnL%@VDJpx 4#!5 龙 &Wh ^%O𓃥olPL39?🌋

Whatever passwords you come up with, we'll likely reject your first seven or eight attempts just for the heck of it. In addition, once you've entered your password, you must figure out an annoying CAPTCHA to make sure you aren't a bot. Worse still, it will be one of those CAPTCHAs with pictures, such as "select all images with a bus." Of course, you'll think, "Do I click on that square that has a seemingly insignificant portion of a bus tire?" Robots, even with their AI, apparently can't figure those out. I thought they were supposed be smart. Then again, we humans can't figure them out either. 

Select all images with a bus. Better not make a mistake!

Once you guess the right images, and only then, will we let you know if you've entered a wrong password. If you make a mistake (and we trust you will), you'll have to go through the whole process again. But not to worry. You'll only have to do it three times before we lock you out of your account. Be prepared to spend a good week as persona non grata before you are allowed to read your favorite blog again. More likely than not, you will need to create a new account (and obviously, a new password). As well, you will be required to send us an explanation along with a notarized letter from a reliable CPA (Certified Password Accountant).

Just do your best. We don't really care. Getting you as frustrated as possible is our only concern.

Please do not get too upset when, once you're account is approved, we send you a gazillion promotions and specials with regard to this invaluable website. We're interested in you, not us. If you receive what you believe to be too many emails, just click on the "unsubscribe" button (we'll try to make that difficult as well) and we (the great and amazing people we are) just might, after a time, consider removing you (whoever the blazes you are) from our mailing list. 

On further thought and in typical magnanimous fashion, we've decided to simplify our password requirements somewhat. Here are our new proposed requirements:

• The first character of your very personal password needs to be a capitalized letter; any letter of the alphabet except letters between and including b and z.
• Your second secret character must be lower case and be the next letter in the alphabet immediately after your first chosen letter.
• Your third unique character, also lower case, must be any letter from a to c but it cannot be any of your previously used letters.
• The fourth through sixth "special to me" characters need to be a numerical sequence of numbers greater than 122 but not more than 124. 
• Finally, an exclusive special character must be used other than @#$%^&*()+?{}|\][~`></'";: or ,..

That simplifies things, doesn't it? If you should somehow forget your password, just copy and paste the following:  Abc123! 

Don't worry,  there are no unscrupulous S.O.B.s in this world and no one will use your particular password. HA HA HA!!! Oh, wouldn't it be nice to live in a world where there were no unscrupulous S.O.B.s and passwords were not needed? 

Creating an account with us has nothing to do with our considerable desire for monetary gain, but more to do with your own security and what seems to be a necessary evil in the spirit of today's online experience. 

To be honest, the more subscribers we have, the better the chance that we can attract sponsors, and in turn, big time moolah. Undoubtedly you will be seeing pop-up ads in the middle of the screen - as welcome as flowers that bloom in the spring (tra la).

For those who don't like pop-up ads (c'mon, who doesn't like 'em?), we are also considering a member upgrade to a premium account at a small cost (by our greedy standards) to allow for an ad free experience.

Also, as a token of our appreciation, premium members will receive a coffee mug, sweatshirt and badge.

Gifts of Great Account

And keep an eye peeled for the all new Snow Shoveling In Canada app; available wherever appetizers are sold.

OK. That's enough of that nonsense. Seriously, does anybody really need another account? Absolutely not! 

But there truly must be a need for some reliable Certified Password Accountants.