A soldier on one of our patrols was shot at because he had a stammer and couldn’t get the password out in time.
— Storm of Steel, p. 66
Tag: irony
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Still reading Con/Artist, Tony Tetro’s entertaining memoir of his life as an art forger.
Here he describes an early attempt to set up his own “art factory.” (NOTE: San Bernardino County must be an interesting place!)
- I checked out a Chagall book from the library and set about studying subjects I could do in a limited black-and-white palette. I searched the phone book for a printer nearby who could help me figure out all the technical details. Almost randomly, I picked one in a rough, seedy part of Pomona. When I rang the bell, the printer appeared holding the half-open door in one hand and a baseball bat in the other. Despite the suspicious welcome, Ray Galpin and his brother Barry were the best blessing I ever had. They were expert printers from a previous era when master pressmen were talented artists who mixed their colors by hand and skillfully manipulated the complicated and mechanical processes needed to create first-rate art.
When self read the last phrase, about Tetro’s commitment to creating “first-rate art,” she couldn’t help smirking. The irony, oh the irony!
There’s no denying his level of commitment. Every paragraph has this subtext: If Michelangelo can stay on his back, painting the ceiling of the Sistine chapel, for so many years, Tetro too can devote hours and hours to his “art” — in fact, he even carries on painting while in jail (He was in minimum security, obv). He’s just your typical starving artist, except that he isn’t starving. He drives a Ferrari. If real artists had 1/20 of the guy’s commitment, they’d be churning out a book a year, or a painting a month, just sayin’.
One thing about Tetro, he drops names with such abandon. Self wonders what the consequences are for his accomplices, such as the brothers mentioned above. Did they get hauled in for investigation, and were they cleared? Wouldn’t exposing their illegal activities bring them more unwanted scrutiny?
Stay tuned.
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Because Krymov has not been charged, he cannot be put on trial. He exists in the limbo of Lubyanka Prison, serving out an indeterminate sentence.
Once a fellow prisoner advised him:
- “You should help them formulate a charge. How about this? Feeling a wild hatred for everything new, I groundlessly criticized works of art that had been awarded a Stalin Prize.”
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Quote of the Day, Last Monday of September 2021:
Dr. Yakunin administered medicines strictly in inverse proportion to their necessity. He kept chloroform from the dying and let them writhe in agony, whereas patients overcoming mild infections were given sedatives in high doses. Surprisingly, this absurd system worked because all his patients tried to show signs of recovery, to obtain prescriptions if nothing else. This spared Dr. Yakumin from having to deal with the usual charades of screams and groaning, and his clinic was consequently an oasis of tranquillity.
The Slaughterman’s Daughter, p. 258 -
Almost every man in Moscow has died but Mikhail.
The End of Men, p. 182And Mikhail, unfortunately, is a wife beater. Almost every day, his victimized wife goes to the Cathedral of Christ the Savior and prays for her husband’s imminent demise. But God does not hear her prayers.
Stay safe, dear blog readers. Stay safe.
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We are just a little past halfway, dear blog readers. So you will not be forever reading about WAR WAR WAR. Self’s next book is Rules of Estrangement, by Joshua Coleman, which is about “broken families.” The angst will be pure.
Without further ado:
- Their plan of attack was significantly different from previous operations, and reflected their growing confidence in their destructive abilities.
The RAF prepares for a fourth wave of bombing raids on Hamburg (at this point, seems like overkill). Once again, the Brits send out a tiny little Mosquito to do recon. The Mosquito takes off at 6:45 p.m. and returns three hours later. Report: Skies “looked relatively clear” but there was “a huge cumulo-nimbus to the southwest . . . moving briskly . . . “
Stay cool, dear blog readers. Stay cool.
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Apologies, dear blog readers, self’s veering between the Philippines in 1600 and Grimdark must be causing whiplash!
Anyhoo, here is the Sentence of the Day, from Blair & Robertson’s A History of the Philippine Islands, vol. 14:
Letter from Governor General Don Pedro de Acuña to the Viceroy of Nueva España:
- Since the Spaniards are a sensible and prudent people, we must therefore be grieved for having slain so many people, and repent thereof.
After reading which, self can only say, Hell’s Bells. The “so many people” slain — indios, right?
Stay safe, dear blog readers. Stay safe.
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Sometimes her eager imagination concealed things from her, but she never entertained those deliberate illusions produced by cowardice.
— Chapter Six, The Charterhouse of Parma
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- I returned home for the Long Vacation without plans and without money.
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p. 155:
That night I took the red-eye home to New York (The in-flight movie was Naked Gun 33 1/3, starring, among others, O. J. Simpson)
There is a rich vein of irony running through The Run of His Life: The People vs O. J. Simpson. Toobin mines this for all it’s worth.
This book: classic with a capital ‘C.’
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
Kanlaon 