Wolf DeVoon

1 hour ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Wolf,

You caught wrong.

That is not the idea.

Michael

Darn it. I must be going stupid. How is twisting and reshaping the facts not lying?

On 1/16/2018 at 3:26 PM, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Following the warped advice you generally find in O-Land about fiction writing is a surefire recipe for failure.

I missed this when it was posted mid-January. What warped advice is generally found in O-Land?

Hard to read what you said, because most of it was covered in a double ad about life insurance for body builders -- but I caught the idea of Rand lying.

I always suspected her of lying about why she tripped Frank on a movie set and married him.

Think of it. We The Living panned and the bookstore returns pulped. No one wanted The Fountainhead. No comparison of stature implied.

2 minutes ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

As to your marketing skills, both outwardly and networking-wise, you have none.

Fair statement. It's a division of labor thing. I'm still working on the literature, doing better I think. Dead soon. Then it'll be someone else's call what to do with it.

I don't take it seriously, don't care really. I would be gratified and satisfied to write something beautiful. Pretty funny, that my long-time buddy Tom suggested that my chapters should be illustrated with photos from the period. Yet he worries that the main character commits a felony. Sorry to bore you with this. I rarely speak of it, except at OL.

1 hour ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Nobody causes the amount of death and destruction [Soros] has, especially covertly, and stays as comfortable as he was without being a sociopath.

I guess I'm uninformed. Who did Soros kill and what has he destroyed?

35 minutes ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

I don't believe that, I never said anything close, and I will not be part of your martyr complex.

Okay. You brought up obscurity: "Authors who spend a lot of words (pretty or otherwise, with metaphors or just plain description) writing about a protagonist who wants to drink some milk walking up to a refrigerator, opening the door, getting the carton of milk out, pouring a glass, drinking it, putting the carton back and putting the glass in the sink don't tend to get wide audiences."

Facts are facts. Zero book sales, no movie deal. Nothing complex about it. I think it's a fair deal, honestly. I write what I can.

21 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Rather than looking down your nose at this technique

Uh. Not quite that. Characterization matters. For instance in The Maltese Falcon, Joel Cairo's line: "Our conversations in private have been such that I am not anxious to continue them," and Sam Spade confronting Brigid O'Shaughnessey: "Miles hadn't many brains, but, Christ! he had too many years' experience as a detective to be caught like that by the man he was shadowing. Up a blind alley with his gun tucked away on his hip and his overcoat buttoned. Not a chance... But he'd have gone up there with you, angel..."

I think I'm as well versed in macguffin as anyone else, a term coined by Alfred Hitchcock. Notably, Dashiell Hammett's last and best novel, The Thin Man, has none. My own work has evolved to the point where I am much more interested in human ambition, pain, resolve, and triumph, instead of trick situations (Rear Window) or bizarre phenomena (The Birds). You may be entirely correct, that the penalty for escaping King horror (Carrie, Cristine, Creepshow) and Coen barbarity (Fargo) is obscurity, unwanted in today's fantasy first-person shooter zeitgeist.

3 hours ago, anthony said:

For you the pilot, the reality is all lose-lose. End of your life  - or choose to continue a bare, solipsistic existence without values, a self-sacrifice. In recognizing that fact, your life must be reduced to minimal/zero value compared to human life surviving on Earth and what has to be your last rationally selfish chosen action to ram the meteor: value won - not a self- sacrifice. So much for mental emergency "scenarios" and sophistry.

Well, the whole thing is preposterous. Jts does not live on a spaceship, given a choice to save the world or let it be destroyed  -- which in itself is fanciful poppycock. Ramming an asteroid big enough to end life on earth with a one-man spaceship would have the same effect as an ant attempting to strangle an elephant. Try to frame another lifeboat scenario involving, for instance, risking your life to save a baby trapped in a house fire. Allow me to help. Premise One: We all have to die some day. Premise Two: It is an option to die at a moment of your own choosing, whether as a soldier defending freedom, or as an anarchist attacking a repressive regime, or a garden variety parent sacrificing one's liberty, pleasure, and dignity to feed and clothe imbecilic ingrates (teenage children). The operative concept is choice, exercised in daily life on earth, not in cockamamie lifeboat fantasies. All things noble are as difficult as they are rare. Dump the ingrates and live for your own sake.

10 hours ago, anthony said:

how acutely insightful is one at an early stage of getting to know the woman?

I certify that it is impossible to know a woman after five minutes, five years, or five decades. They have movable parts.

19 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Wolf,

I don't understand this, neither part: the bizarre nor the offended.

Re bizarre: Lots of mysteries and thrillers have these kinds of oddities with perfectly rational explanations given later. A cockroach in the milk could be in a comedy--I even remember one where a person put a cockroach in a yogurt container and the punch moment was side-splitting hilarious, blood could easily come out of a milk carton be in a medical mystery or horror story, and a milk carton could be a temporary hiding place for diamonds in a heist story during the going wrong phase...

Re pearl clutching: Why on earth would examples to illustrate the idea of the mind paying attention to things incongruent with the normal functioning of the background be potentially offensive?

Michael

 

This post was covered by an ad, but I was able to read it by hitting reply. I admit that I was influenced by Rand, RLS, Fitzgerald, Hammett and Chandler. No horror as such, no milk carton diamonds in a heist gone haywire. I would like to have pearls to clutch like J.K. Rowling, deep pocket promotion by Scholastic, but for better or worse, I try to tell stories that make sense without side-splittingly hilarious cockroaches.

19 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Wolf,

What browser do you use?

Firefox on a laptop. Your reply to Robert B. 17 hours ago now unreadable, big ad for a hotel in Marble Arch London.

8 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

 Let there be a cockroach in the milk, or let blood coming out of the carton, or diamonds

Too bizarre to be offended.

7 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

 

Michael, there are ads popping into your posts, can't read what you say, many lines blanked by (of all things) underwear ads.

[update] Now it's blockchain ads blotting out MY posts and 'Get Paid To Write' covering yours!

20 minutes ago, Wolf DeVoon said:

Objection, Your Honor, compound questions! Okay, one item at a time. Sexual attraction has nothing to do with money, philosophy, or steel alloys. Funnily enough, Al Ruddy said to me in his Century City office, regarding the sex spark between Dagny and Hank in the diesel electric engine compartment of the John Galt Line: "That's the whole story right there, Alphonse!" I hated it that he called me Alphonse, but we both spent a decade wooing Rand for the film rights while she was still alive. Ruddy produced The Godfather, had eight figures to gamble on Atlas in 1980, close friend Roger Moore lined up to star.

Next question: Why so hot for Galt? Broadly speaking, hot water seeks its own level. Rearden was older and spiritually constipated, however upright, manly, and industrious. Galt picked Dagny up in his arms when she gate crashed, refused to let Francisco have her because Galt wanted her, and she knew it. Why did Dagny run into a dark tunnel? Well, duh.

None of this had anything to do with a charming and cunning Canadian. Dramatic necessity spawns fictional action.

8 hours ago, Robert_Bumbalough said:

Ahh Gee Whiz. What was she thinking? Why did Rand make Dagny go and have a sex break with John Galt in the friggin train tunnel on burlap sand bags? In Part 3 chapter 5, Rand has Dagny get to the terminal pronto from the fancy dinner in the smoke filled back room with the Looter Bosses and brother James. The rail road comes to a halt because the interlocking signal system breaks down, and there's Dagny dressed in formal evening attire giving orders to send out the men with lanterns to be the signals. Then she sees Galt among the workers in his greasy overalls, so she takes off into an unused tunnel. Galt follows, they do it. Rand's graphic detail of their sex would be at home in a classy skin mag, but meanwhile Traggert Transcontinental is going to hell in a hand basket. Dagny would rather bang Galt than TCB even though Galt's CV is way weaker than Rearden's! ** So why did Rand make Dagny love Galt more than Rearden even though Galt was mouthing Hugh Aston instead of inventing his own philosophy and had walked away from 20th Century instead of commercializing his invention like Rearden did his metal and instead of how Dagny stayed with Taggert Transcontinental despite that it was de facto owned by the looters and controlled by her "viscious moocher" brother James?  Given directive 10-289, that state of affairs couldn't hardly be dissimilar to what happened at 20th Century Motors with Ivy Starnes and "The Plan". **  What was Rand getting at by making Dagny abandon her values to take Galt as her lover? Did this have anything to do with Rand's affair with Branden?

Objection, Your Honor, compound questions! Okay, one item at a time. Sexual attraction has nothing to do with money, philosophy, or steel alloys. Funnily enough, Al Ruddy said to me in his Century City office, regarding the sexual spark between Dagny and Hank in the diesel electric engine compartment of the John Galt Line: "That's the whole story right there, Alphonse!" I hated it that he called me Alphonse, but we both spent a decade wooing Rand for the film rights while she was still alive.

Next question: Why so hot for Galt? Broadly speaking, hot water seeks its own level. Good old Hank was older and spiritually constipated, however upright and industrious. Galt picked her up in his arms when she gate crashed, refused to let Francisco have Dagny because Galt wanted her, and she knew it. Why did she run into a dark tunnel? Well, duh.

None of this had anything to do with a charming and cunning Canadian. Dramatic necessity spawns action.

12 hours ago, Robert_Bumbalough said:

Happy Memorial :) 

Thanks for the mention. Parenthetically, it's Decoration Day, national reconciliation and tribute to 600,000 war dead, both sides, in the Civil War.

1 hour ago, Brant Gaede said:

I can't figure out what happened to Billy Beck.

--Brant

He's on Facebook more or less daily, hasn't put any effort into blogging in years. Remember h.p.o.?

Billy is a much sought-after lighting designer/director for live shows, flies all over the world to do gigs, plays guitar in a really cool Utica band for fun.

I can't stand the guy, he's so cool, dammit.

7 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

I can disagree with folks like that any day of the week and still think I live in a wonderful world. I would be happy to have any of them as my neighbor.

Michael

I understand both about Brazil (or Chicago) and, uh, less fearsome "friendlies." My bright line on Objectivism is a very tight circle, Billy Beck dead center, Brandt Gaede looming large overhead, the late Petr Beckmann and Ron Merrill (and other scientists) in a commemorative tomb of personal honor. Andrea Millen Rich and Camille Paglia should be knighted. I catapulted Sciabarra and Machan as far away as I possibly could. Weepy, self-righteous dysfunctional O'ists are flies buzzing somewhere over the rainbow horizon, cheek by jowl with snake oil salesmen Tony Robbins and Barack Obama. Like I always said about Cousin Leonard, sundry O'ist celebs minus Rand = zero. I don't personally have that problem, because I'm an outcast. My work repeatedly contradicts hers.

On 3/28/2018 at 3:26 PM, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

 

At the very least, it's food for thought.

Michael

Pass.

Good thread to mention this. A writer cannot go wrong deleting a comma.

Maybe you should take up a hobby that doesn't involve writing.

12 hours ago, Robert_Bumbalough said:

Stop evading. Tell me the truth. Are we slaves because we use US Dollars? If so, to where can one escape?

There are three or four existing Gulches that I know of, not counting current and future Seasteading projects or Laissez Faire City disbanded in 2002 after a seven-year global operation involving thousands of participants, real estate and consulate in Costa Rica, encrypted trading in Dubai in multiple currencies including a fractionally gold-backed "rand." As a personal preference I use gold and silver bullion. Comes in handy when traveling, for instance, less conspicuous than a wad of Benjamins. The paper dollars in circulation are a very tiny fraction of US money, which is measured in M1, M2, (M3 no longer reported) and L (total liquidity). Moreover, the world likes and trades US paper of a different sort, principally Treasurys, so-called Tier One capital for banks: 30 year long bond, 10 year, 2 year, and various repo swaps by the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee and the FRNY Plunge Protection Team that has a vault full of gold or tungsten  in Manhattan. There are 12 so-called prime dealers that directly bid Treasury dutch auctions, which happen on a published schedule. The 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center was aimed at the biggest, Cantor Fitzgerald. America issues a lot of debt, and most of it is widely seen as "good collateral" to be traded, loaned and rehypothecated in a sort of ponzi pyramid involving the world's largest banks, brokerages, and hedge funds. The 2008-09 financial crisis concerned US agency debt. That's mortgage paper issued by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac guaranteed implicitly but vaguely by the Treasury and credit of the United States. The 50 states and roughly 85,000 municipalities, school districts, and special purpose entities like sewage and water issue bonds collectively known as muni's that are tax free, sold at a discount and pay a higher annual coupon (interest rate) because they're riskier than Treasurys. Some states and localities are better bets, pay a lower rate. S&P and others assess the risk. Treasurys are AAA.

Are you with me so far? -- paper money is almost invisibly small and no one in or out of government pays much attention to it, unless you write or deposit a check for more than $10,000, in which case you trip a DHS bank reporting requirement. It works its way up the food chain to an interagency task force called FINCEN. In Europe, it's called Egmont, a super-duper international regulator, sort of. My best guess is that Total Liquidity of all US "money" is roughly 500 trillion dollars, about two-thirds of the world's "cash" and "near cash."

As I said, I like gold and silver bullion and coins (Kangaroos, Maple Leafs, Eagles). Some people like the platinum metals group, or cargo contracts, casinos, oil wells, bordellos, drug trafficking, NYSE and NASD equity, mutual funds, life insurance policies, etc.

Benjamins and debit cards are handy at the grocery store, major credit cards for car rentals and airfares. Your mileage may vary.

11 hours ago, Robert_Bumbalough said:

Time to bug out to a secret valley

On a bicycle? -- and where do you imagine this secret valley is?

18 minutes ago, KorbenDallas said:

characterized by resentment, misanthropy, misogyny, white supremacy and endorsement of violence against sexually active women

Gosh. Sounds like a cross between Islam and Catholicism.