the enemy magician

To: All Commanders and Chiefs of Staff

From: Headquarters, B.T.E. and M.E.F.

There exists a real danger that our friend Rommel is becoming a kind of magician or bogey-man to our troops, who are talking far too much about him. He is by no means a superman, although he is undoubtedly very energetic and able. Even if he were a superman, it would still be highly undesirable that our men should credit him with supernatural powers.

I wish you to dispel by all possible means the idea that Rommel represents something more than an ordinary German general. The important thing now is to see it that we do not always talk of Rommel when we mean the enemy in Libya. We must refer to “The Germans” or “The Axis powers” or “the enemy” and not always keep harping on Rommel.

Please ensure that this order is put into immediate effect, and impress upon all Commanders that, from a psychological point of view, it is a matter of the highest importance.

(signed)

C.J. Auchinleck

General,

Commander-in-Chief, MEF

The Call of Adventure

for, when it intrudes at all, more often than not its intrusion is sudden and unlooked for. Today we may seek it for romance and fail to find it; unsought, it lies in wait for us at most prosaic corners of life’s highway.

‘How strangely does the adventurous intrude upon the humdrum’

- excerpt from “The Mystery of Dr. Fu Manchu"
by Sax Rohmer
(aka Arthur Sarsfield Ward)

Flat & uncertain fidelity

We agreed that every president winds up a flat, movable portrait of debatable fidelity.

- excerpt from “The Clinton Tapes”
(Wrestling history in the white house)
by Taylor Branch
Simon & Schuste
isbn 978-1-84737-140-9

This isn't real?

Even with the rise of Dick’s reputation during the ‘80s, his work could be hard to find, even in California. “In my world,” recalls daughter Isa Dick Hackett, “they never had the books in the libraries. Never, ever had the books in the bookstores. Anytime I was anywhere, I’d go to the bookstore and see if they had any of my dad’s books. And never! Never! And I’d ask the clerks, hoping for some validation. ‘Dick? Who?’”

Going from blank stares from clerks and librarians to seeing her dad become one of the best-regarded writers of his day, admired by Hollywood and the literati, makes Hackett wonder what her father would make of it. The half a dozen or so film projects in the works include “Flow My Tears” and “Ubik,” perhaps his most philosophically realized novel. Dick’s early realist novels -- writer Jonathan Lethem describes then as living somewhere between Richard Yates and Charles Willeford -- are being published after nearly a quarter-century out of print. “Puttering About in a Small Land,” set in L.A. and Ojai, was just reissued by Tor.

“He would either be laughing hysterically or just saying, ‘This isn’t real,’” Hackett says. “’This is just a figment of my imagination.’ And he’d be totally paranoid about it: ‘Something is wrong here.’ I just shake my head and say, ‘Dad, this is so amazing. I wish you could have had a glimpse of this.’ He would love to hear that other creative minds were sparked by what he wrote.”

-- REPORTER - Scott Timberg,

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/herocomplex/2010/02/philip-k-dicks-legacy-in-the-maze-of-death.html

Ancient Advice

Apparent advice to Cicero

(I think from his brother)

& response:

Reflect on what city this is,

on the nature of your goal

and on who you are

I am a new man!

I want the consulship!

This is Rome!

-- (I am not sure where I got this quote)

A Man Alone

"the misanthrope, as an essentially solitary man, is not man at all: he must be a beast or god"

-- paraphrased Aristotle

Reading

"Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it is too dark to read."

-- Groucho Marx

Thoughts

Perhaps the most annoying aspect was that, even in a moment like this, part of her mind was dwelling on that problem, not giving itself over fully to the more pressing issue at hand. Volyova felt as if her brain consisted of a room full of precocious schoolchildren: individually bright, and - if only they would pool themselves - capable of shattering insight. But some of those schoolchildren were not paying attention; they were staring dreamily out of the window, ignoring her protestations to focus on the present, because they found their own obsessions more intellectually attractive than the dull curriculum she was intent on dispensing.

- excerpt from
“Revelation Space”
by Alastair Reynolds

Victor Gollancz
ISBN 0-57506-876-0

The scent of Spring

Hibernation may well be ending...