Moderation

New Yorker recommendation. A young, maybe Gen Z? Displaced by the diaspora of the double aughts? As a content moderator online, what happens. Falls somewhere between current events, and speculative fiction.

It’s a love story, set against a backdrop of questions and privacy, what current technology knows, can show, and a dilemma of immigration.

Some many years distant, Apple Computer nicked an idea, probably the whole backend of software, from AOL, and there was a brief time when there was an Apple virtual village, roughly 1988/9? CompuServe and AOL were more established, and the rest is history. But the story is an updated version of that, only with updated versions of virtual reality, and what that might be able to do. Plus the questions of privacy.

Interesting tale as it plays fast with cultural beliefs, and the main character, well, she identifies as Virgo — attention to detail, analytical mindset. Bit of a stalker, maybe?

The ideas and questions of cultural diaspora and the ethics of the virtual worlds with no barriers?

Moderation

Sep. 21, 2025: Guiding Light Healing Arts

Eagles Nest
1235 Basse Rd
San Antonio, TX 78212
Store phone: 210-354-7343

11 AM – 4 PM

NB: Bill King’s Brake-O

astrofish.net/travel

Alien Abduction

I’m patient, but…

Current events commentary.

Revisit the List

Rather a novel approach, books I’ve bought, given away, and purchased again.

Can’t say I would repeat that process, though.

However, because it keeps popping under on my social feeds? Recommended books.

1. Snow Crash Snow Crash
2. Stranger in a Strange Land Stranger in a Strange Land
3. Practical Demon Keeping Practical Demon Keeping
4. Florida Road Kill Florida Road Kill
5. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
6. Lonesome Dove Lonesome Dove
7. The Haunted Mesa The Haunted Mesa
8. This is Shakespeare This is Shakespeare
9. Dreyer’s English Dreyer’s English

Not exhaustive, but a good start? Of note, just off the top my head, the last two, This is Shakespeare and Dreyer’s English — I have both hard copy and digital versions. Bought twice, use both of them often enough to warrant library and digital versions.

Revisit the List

Snow Crash will always top this list, I’ve reread it several times, marveled at its ingenuity, loved the ideas. There’s an urgency to the prose and style, missing in his latter works, but the writing is there. As good as any introduction to the author’s complete works.

Stranger in a Strange Land, according to myth, barely sold as a hardback when it was first released, early Sixties, but then, the paperback version developed a cult-like following amongst the hippies. As a piece of literature that stands between the old and the new, and the ideas encompassed, better yet, the premise itself?

Practical Demon Keeping, not the author’s first, but my first introduction to the canon that follows? Worth it. Very much worth it, and to this day, there are still scenes that stick with me, from that first time I read the book. Worth rereading.

Florida Road Kill, decades old reference, fits alongside the aforementioned Practical Demon Keeping, as there’s a sense of urgency about the prose, the narrative’s frantic pace, just good stuff. Alas, the author is no more, but at over two dozen books, this is the introduction.

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas deserves a special footnote in the canon of American literature. “New Journalism” and “New Wave” pop culture, the Beats, and everything in between is wrapped in this tiny novel. Part fever dream, part deconstruction of the American Dream, and part adventure into the seamy underbelly of post-Vietnam life, it’s all there. Sex. Drugs. Rock’n’Roll. I think it was a “a savage journey into the heart of the American dream.” I’ll periodically reread it.

Lonesome Dove was, to me, a fat paperback that opened my eyes to the McMurtry canon of work, and the first time I read about an accent that was properly captured on paper. Means the characters came alive. Later, in a more academic setting, I recall the Freudian analysis of the work, and that added layers to the tale. As an entry point, as a standalone, as part of the canon of great Western American literature, or even as a cornerstone for it?

I think I I’ve only read two or three Louis L’Amour books, Haunted Mesa at least twice. There’s imagery and thoughts, processes, and ideas that have stuck with me, as I’ve traipsed about the American Southwest, mostly the Phoenix area, Santa Fe and bits of Northern New Mexico, all of that. Gentle recollections. Fits with the way the lands and landscape embrace magical realism, where the spirits inhabit the land itself. Holy ground, so to speak.

The final two books, This is Shakespeare and Dreyer’s English are more reference books. As noted, I’ve purchased both book and e–book versions of each. In part, to keep a handy reference available when I’m working on just a tablet, but in part, as they are “Emotional Support” books. The Shakespeare text, This is Shakespeare offers insight into how to approach a problem, not just an analysis of the plays, but how to tackle issues.

Dreyer’s English is similar in that it is like a toolkit for writer. I won’t ever be a better writer, but I can hone the craft, and that’s where it helps. Plus, he’s an engaging author.

Revisit the List

This Sunday: Sep. 21, 2025 in San Antonio

Eagles Nest
1235 Basse Rd
San Antonio, TX 78212
Store phone: 210-354-7343
11 AM – 4 PM

This Sunday: Sep. 21, 2025 in San Antonio

NB: Bill King’s Brake-O

astrofish.net/travel

9-21-25 Planets etc.

Shakespeare was a Woman and Other Heresies

It was a hat tip from a Jodi Picoult book, By Any Other Name, not the first reference to this tome, but a strong secondary. Bought the book.

Conjecture, facts, academic sleuthing, and what I recall? One of the recent, great biographies about Shakespeare, pretty sure I read it, but the supposition. More fiction than fact.

“The Droeshout portrait and its accompanying texts stirred a feeling I have often had about the whole mess: that there is something uncannily Shakespearean about the Shakespeare authorship question.” Page 97.

The authorship question rages onward. I liked the Sweet Swan of Avon, as that posited a female as the leading character.

Shakespeare was a Woman and Other Heresies

In other terms? Sweet Swan of Avon.

Mississippi Blue 42

I do dislike the references like, “reads like Elmore Leonard,” or “compares to Carl Hiaasen,” and similar hyperbolic blurbs.

But who can’t enjoy the holiest of holy being skewered by an insider?

College Football.

Death to the infidels!

I was wondering if it was a little heavy-handed to use the name of “Sutpen” and “Compson,” most probably allusions to Faulkner’s great Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi fictional family. It’s an obvious literary reference to one of the South’s greatest novelist.

Recently, I just watched an act of the updated comedy, “King of the Hill” that included a cartoon visit to the home of the Dallas Cowboys, a pinnacle in modern football.

Part of the novel visits there, and my imagery was way more exciting. Brilliant novel.

Mississippi Blue 42