The bookstore tweet really resonates with me since they opened up a new one in my town, I made the mistake of thinking it might be somewhat decent (my town is starved for new places), only to find that the grand majority of it was "BookTok" romance novels that were originally published on Wattpad by thirty-something AWFLs that never got beyond their "Thirty Shades of Gray" phase and pop culture tchotchkes like Funko Pops. It's like Hastings or Entertainmart but with an veneer of almost masturbatory faux-intellectualism, exclusively tailored to the tastes of people who have those Ruth Bader Ginsburg saint candles and still think having an encyclopedic knowledge of the Office is a substitute for a real personality.
You are triggering me because it wasn't like this when I was a kid. Bookstores were actually cool, believe it or not. 20-30 years ago, even something corporate like Barnes and Noble was a cool place to hang out if you lived in the burbs and didn't have a lot of options.
Oh, I know. My mom used to leave me at Barnes and Noble while she went shopping and I could entertain myself with books until she was done, and there were only books, even in the kid's section. There was even a Gamestop attached to the one I'd go to. I'm not sure if it's ironic or apropos that both of them are now hollowed out husks of their former selves that are basically Hot Topic-lite for Redditor manchildren. Last time I went into a B&N it was more like a toy store than anything. Legos, Funko Pops, and there were two shelves in the children's area that was filled with nothing but Harry Potter merchandise. There's some grander statement on the condition of the country in the fact that every specialty store that survived the death of the shopping mall has been watered down to be the exact same pop culture sloppa peddlers that caters to exclusively the lowest common denominator.
At risk of sounding like one of those front-seat bibliophiliacs, used book stores are probably a person's best bet at finding an interested book to just pick up off the shelf. My last visit I was able to find a book on the Soviet Gulag network in the history section- something unheard of in most bookstores or public libraries where I live. In addition to a myriad of fiction books that have been effectively banished from the public eye. All this at a discounted price makes used book stores still worth the trip.
That's a valid opinion. There was a chain of used book stores back where I used to live I would find the best out-of-print paperback sci-fi/fantasy schlock that, even at their worst, were more enjoyable from the cover art alone than any of the generic nonsense I saw at this new bookstore, and also the most off-the-wall schizo paranormal/new age stuff I've ever managed to find. Great place for the most part but I remember the large, flagship store got a whole section for "banned books" (which are so controversial that you can still buy them and are parts of every school curriculum in the state!), which I figure was basically a death-knell for the place being of any value.
@arthurpowell doesn't allow comments from non-paying subscribers, so I'll just point out here that accusing pre-modern Christians of "de-facing pagan art" is a major anachronistic fallacy. There was no such thing as mere "art" as in the modern conception. Pagan artifacts like statues were never mere objects celebrating platonic concepts of beauty or whatever (also, most idols were in fact very ugly). They were objects used in idolatrous ritual which dominated the communal lives of those subject to them, often for the worse. Pagans literally thought the idols were living and so defacing one took away its power (hence the missing noses on ancient Egyptian statues, for example). Defacing idols (not "art") is actually incredibly based and should be done more often.
The Spanish made it their mission to smash idols and end pagan practices among the Aztecs, who did practice human sacrifice and other nasty things. Yet, the Spanish colonization that Christianized the new world undoubtedly left it worse off than it had been before, during the time of idols.
The Spanish colonization period is part of the modern era which has seen the return of crypto Mammon idolatry after the precipitious decline of the centrality of the Christian Church in organizing society per Eugene McCarraher (The Enchantments of Mammon) ad David Graeber (Debt: the First 5000 Years). The crimes of the conquistadors (NOT overthrowing the Aztecs as such) aren't essentially Christian, but much more classically pagan in form (i.e. enslaving/dehumanizing conquered people for the sake of fortune-seeking). Ending the massive human sacrificial complex of the Aztecs was based. Enslaving the surviving indigenous poor population and treating them in abhorrent subhuman ways was not.
That's a fair point of view, although they did not just destroy statues but more conventional art as well - it remains fascinating to me the largest collection of these 'pagan idols' I've seen was at the Vatican whilst online you and others still lust about defacing idols in the same way a BLM believer lusts about removing Confederate statues. Perhaps you missed the deeper point here.
Again, no such thing as "conventional art" back then. Some things of the especially vile pagan past had to go or be forgotten, but Christian civilization was nothing like revolutionary woke leftists today in that they preserved and synthesized the classical past. It was monks transcribing the classical works we still read today for example and the greatest Christian works incorporate the Universal History. Medieval Christendom was the great synthesis for a reason!
I came across a new phenomenon of people getting their hands on dental veneer supplies and practicing on other people without a licence.
I'm not sure any of the 'practitioners' or customers have anything in common. But for some reason I thought the people here might have some insight or just get amusement it out of it.
I’m back with another lesson for a young non-progressive on how to produce reasonably viable type and copy. (Conservatives cannot design. It follows they cannot typeset.)
You’ve reverted to forgetting vocative commas, which are straightforwardly mandatory (cf. “Come On, Eileen”). But now – more than once – you’ve begun to commit the cardinal error of typesetting: Blowing a word-initial apostrophe. No, New Right Poast, one cannot knock ‘em dead with one’s blistering rock ’n’ roll.
If you cannot typeset an apostrophe (easily done at full speed on Macintosh – play around with Option and Shift-Option plus brackets), then you need to buy a Mac.
Next, if anyone other than me on the face of God’s green earth were producing valid HTML, then some would know that all these list items you present to us must be marked up as LI, which can contain paragraphs, images, and, for that matter, entire other lists – thereby producing, as it were, master and slave lists. But Substack isn’t about to let you enter correct HTML, and you wouldn’t know what “correct” HTML is in this context anyway. We’ve established that you cannot even render an apostrophe.
So if you’re going to fake bullet points, use a real bullet (• [also readily typed on Macintosh]), or go a bit more recherché and use a paragraph mark or pilcrow (¶ [ditto]). A greater-than symbol is not a list marker, so-called greentexts notwithstanding. En space after a pilcrow would be a nice touch.
Improved type and copy are within your grasp. You need to give a shit, though. Quite the leap there, I expect.
Is this guy a Fed? I'm trying to figure out who else would take so much time out of their day to thoroughly insult a publication they subscribe to. And in such an autistic way.
Keep up the good work Dudley. Putting out two posts a week is no small task. It'd probably be impossible if you paid minute detail to pilcrows.
Sounds like Mac would pretty much fix all your problems though.
The bookstore tweet really resonates with me since they opened up a new one in my town, I made the mistake of thinking it might be somewhat decent (my town is starved for new places), only to find that the grand majority of it was "BookTok" romance novels that were originally published on Wattpad by thirty-something AWFLs that never got beyond their "Thirty Shades of Gray" phase and pop culture tchotchkes like Funko Pops. It's like Hastings or Entertainmart but with an veneer of almost masturbatory faux-intellectualism, exclusively tailored to the tastes of people who have those Ruth Bader Ginsburg saint candles and still think having an encyclopedic knowledge of the Office is a substitute for a real personality.
You are triggering me because it wasn't like this when I was a kid. Bookstores were actually cool, believe it or not. 20-30 years ago, even something corporate like Barnes and Noble was a cool place to hang out if you lived in the burbs and didn't have a lot of options.
Oh, I know. My mom used to leave me at Barnes and Noble while she went shopping and I could entertain myself with books until she was done, and there were only books, even in the kid's section. There was even a Gamestop attached to the one I'd go to. I'm not sure if it's ironic or apropos that both of them are now hollowed out husks of their former selves that are basically Hot Topic-lite for Redditor manchildren. Last time I went into a B&N it was more like a toy store than anything. Legos, Funko Pops, and there were two shelves in the children's area that was filled with nothing but Harry Potter merchandise. There's some grander statement on the condition of the country in the fact that every specialty store that survived the death of the shopping mall has been watered down to be the exact same pop culture sloppa peddlers that caters to exclusively the lowest common denominator.
At risk of sounding like one of those front-seat bibliophiliacs, used book stores are probably a person's best bet at finding an interested book to just pick up off the shelf. My last visit I was able to find a book on the Soviet Gulag network in the history section- something unheard of in most bookstores or public libraries where I live. In addition to a myriad of fiction books that have been effectively banished from the public eye. All this at a discounted price makes used book stores still worth the trip.
This is true, there are still used bookstores run by crusty old graybeards with a genuine love for literature and learning.
That's a valid opinion. There was a chain of used book stores back where I used to live I would find the best out-of-print paperback sci-fi/fantasy schlock that, even at their worst, were more enjoyable from the cover art alone than any of the generic nonsense I saw at this new bookstore, and also the most off-the-wall schizo paranormal/new age stuff I've ever managed to find. Great place for the most part but I remember the large, flagship store got a whole section for "banned books" (which are so controversial that you can still buy them and are parts of every school curriculum in the state!), which I figure was basically a death-knell for the place being of any value.
And I thought the only one who liked bears around here was James O’Keefe.
My sides!
@arthurpowell doesn't allow comments from non-paying subscribers, so I'll just point out here that accusing pre-modern Christians of "de-facing pagan art" is a major anachronistic fallacy. There was no such thing as mere "art" as in the modern conception. Pagan artifacts like statues were never mere objects celebrating platonic concepts of beauty or whatever (also, most idols were in fact very ugly). They were objects used in idolatrous ritual which dominated the communal lives of those subject to them, often for the worse. Pagans literally thought the idols were living and so defacing one took away its power (hence the missing noses on ancient Egyptian statues, for example). Defacing idols (not "art") is actually incredibly based and should be done more often.
In the last issue we posted a thread from Kruptos that summarizes what you're saying here. Very fine people on both sides.
The Spanish made it their mission to smash idols and end pagan practices among the Aztecs, who did practice human sacrifice and other nasty things. Yet, the Spanish colonization that Christianized the new world undoubtedly left it worse off than it had been before, during the time of idols.
The Spanish colonization period is part of the modern era which has seen the return of crypto Mammon idolatry after the precipitious decline of the centrality of the Christian Church in organizing society per Eugene McCarraher (The Enchantments of Mammon) ad David Graeber (Debt: the First 5000 Years). The crimes of the conquistadors (NOT overthrowing the Aztecs as such) aren't essentially Christian, but much more classically pagan in form (i.e. enslaving/dehumanizing conquered people for the sake of fortune-seeking). Ending the massive human sacrificial complex of the Aztecs was based. Enslaving the surviving indigenous poor population and treating them in abhorrent subhuman ways was not.
That's a fair point of view, although they did not just destroy statues but more conventional art as well - it remains fascinating to me the largest collection of these 'pagan idols' I've seen was at the Vatican whilst online you and others still lust about defacing idols in the same way a BLM believer lusts about removing Confederate statues. Perhaps you missed the deeper point here.
Again, no such thing as "conventional art" back then. Some things of the especially vile pagan past had to go or be forgotten, but Christian civilization was nothing like revolutionary woke leftists today in that they preserved and synthesized the classical past. It was monks transcribing the classical works we still read today for example and the greatest Christian works incorporate the Universal History. Medieval Christendom was the great synthesis for a reason!
Bookstore slander doesn't apply to used book stores. Especially no the one in my town.
Hello Dudley and fellows,
I came across a new phenomenon of people getting their hands on dental veneer supplies and practicing on other people without a licence.
I'm not sure any of the 'practitioners' or customers have anything in common. But for some reason I thought the people here might have some insight or just get amusement it out of it.
https://youtu.be/dBOzm4hDNBQ?si=vKq9_FL-gUSJz3A0
(If this isn't the right place to share let me know!)
Not really our beat but this is a fascinating story!
Thanks for the shout-out!
I'm laughing at the mental image of a young Tree of Woe standing on a corner shouting out at passers-by about LaRouche. And Orcs.
Thanks for the Love, Dudley. Really enjoy these roundups and its always a huge honor to be highlighted.
I’m back with another lesson for a young non-progressive on how to produce reasonably viable type and copy. (Conservatives cannot design. It follows they cannot typeset.)
You’ve reverted to forgetting vocative commas, which are straightforwardly mandatory (cf. “Come On, Eileen”). But now – more than once – you’ve begun to commit the cardinal error of typesetting: Blowing a word-initial apostrophe. No, New Right Poast, one cannot knock ‘em dead with one’s blistering rock ’n’ roll.
If you cannot typeset an apostrophe (easily done at full speed on Macintosh – play around with Option and Shift-Option plus brackets), then you need to buy a Mac.
Next, if anyone other than me on the face of God’s green earth were producing valid HTML, then some would know that all these list items you present to us must be marked up as LI, which can contain paragraphs, images, and, for that matter, entire other lists – thereby producing, as it were, master and slave lists. But Substack isn’t about to let you enter correct HTML, and you wouldn’t know what “correct” HTML is in this context anyway. We’ve established that you cannot even render an apostrophe.
So if you’re going to fake bullet points, use a real bullet (• [also readily typed on Macintosh]), or go a bit more recherché and use a paragraph mark or pilcrow (¶ [ditto]). A greater-than symbol is not a list marker, so-called greentexts notwithstanding. En space after a pilcrow would be a nice touch.
Improved type and copy are within your grasp. You need to give a shit, though. Quite the leap there, I expect.
> be me
> some random gay pedant ranting in my comments about punctuation
> doesn't like my greentext-tribute bullets
> says "you need to give a shit"
> mfw i don't
> https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F654d93ec-92d2-45c1-9533-50536857f296_498x249.gif
Is this guy a Fed? I'm trying to figure out who else would take so much time out of their day to thoroughly insult a publication they subscribe to. And in such an autistic way.
Keep up the good work Dudley. Putting out two posts a week is no small task. It'd probably be impossible if you paid minute detail to pilcrows.
Sounds like Mac would pretty much fix all your problems though.
He's just a man who has seen too much apostrophe abuse and simply couldn't take anymore.
And lol, thanks much for the kind words. <3
your gay
If I hear the phrase “self care” uttered seriously and in uptalk ONE MORE TIME, I’m going on a killing rampage
Flowerbeds make rooms dusty.