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Post by Cornflake on Apr 7, 2024 7:13:56 GMT -5
Good morning. We'll have 40s-70s and sunshine. Not much to report. I'll attend the early church service at 8:00 and then I have to go back for a meeting at 11:15. I'm a little dubious about today's Wordle.
Have a good day.
Wordle 1,023 5/6*
⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜ ⬜🟨⬜⬜🟨 ⬜🟩⬜🟨🟨 ⬜🟩🟨⬜🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
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Post by millring on Apr 7, 2024 7:55:55 GMT -5
good game day. Waffled with 5 to spare, solved connections and strands, wordled in 3. That's a way above average day for me. Strange what makes a good day for me anymore. Off to Amazon.
Came across this fun article this morning:
Bob Greene CNN contributor, 2013:
"...consider the case of Chuck Ross – the protagonist of the most instructive, the most damning, and the most hilarious true story about publishing there ever has been.
I interviewed him and reported on his story almost 35 years ago. Ross, in the 1970s, was a young would-be author who was trying with no success to get his first novel published. He was receiving nothing but rejection slips.
He wondered whether his writing really was that unappealing, or if publishers were simply turning him down because he was an unknown. So he decided upon a clever, if highly unconventional, way to find out.
In those pre-personal-computer days, he sat down at a typewriter and copied every single word of the novel “Steps,” by Jerzy Kosinski. “Steps” had won the National Book Award for Fiction in 1969, had received superlative reviews and was a big best-seller.
Once Ross had finished typing up the manuscript, he made sure not to put a title on it. He did put a byline on it: his own. He made copies, and he mailed them off. The recipients were 14 major publishing houses. Four of those houses had published books by Kosinski. One of them had published “Steps.”
The manuscript was turned down by all 14 houses.
None realized that it was rejecting “Steps.”
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, which had published Kosinski’s “Being There,” wrote to Ross:
“While your prose style is very lucid, the content of the book didn’t inspire the level of enthusiasm here that a publisher should have for any book on their list in order to do well by it.”
Houghton Mifflin, which had published three of Kosinski’s books, wrote Ross to say that it did not wish to publish what Ross had sent. Not that the editors thought he was a bad writer – they said they admired his style: “Jerzy Kosinski comes to mind as a point of comparison when reading the stark, chilly, episodic incidents you have set down.” But, they said in their rejection letter, what Ross had sent them “doesn’t add up to a satisfactory whole. It has some very impressive moments, but gives the impression of sketchiness and incompleteness.” They wrote that they would be happy to consider future efforts by him, but that this one just didn’t work.
Random House, which had published “Steps,” sent a form letter rejecting the retyped “Steps.”
Ross thought that maybe the problem was that he was submitting his novel – that is, Kosinski’s novel – without the assistance of a literary agent. So he sent the manuscript to 13 top agents, asking if they would represent it.
Not one of them was interested.
Some excerpts from the agents’ rejection letters:
“I’m afraid the novel’s episodic nature and the lack of strong characterization would not allow this book to compete in a very tough fiction market.”
And:
“From the section I read of your untitled novel, it seems too fragmented and dreamlike to be a good commercial bet.”
And:
“Thanks for having sent me your untitled novel. You write clearly and well, but I felt that the novel jumped around so much that it did not hold interest, and I would not be the right agent for it.”
When Ross went public with what he had done, he expected the publishers and agents to be a little embarrassed that they had turned down a National Book Award-winning novel.
But, he told me when I interviewed him at the time, “I guess not. I went to the American Booksellers Association convention to talk to the publishers about what I did. They all thought that it was very amusing or silly. They agreed that it probably could happen again tomorrow. But the attitude was, ‘So what?’” "
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Post by Marty on Apr 7, 2024 7:59:40 GMT -5
Good morning.
40F-47F rain.
Real good chance of rain for most of the day on the day we do go places. Little Oven and HyVee. Don't know about anyplace else yet, I will be told when I need to know. I did text Zaria to come over with two bags, one for all the trash in my truck and the other for all her stuff in my truck. Let that girl use it a few times so she could meet her work and school needs and she moved in. Wonder what her new/used Saturn will look like in a month.
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Post by John B on Apr 7, 2024 9:06:37 GMT -5
Eclipse day minus one. Today's best shot of the sun. Tomorrow I doubt I'll fiddle around with trees. Lots of work today, lots of work tomorrow. Big deadline Tuesday at 7:00PM. I am much happier not being in public accounting, as my busy season isn't 12-16 weeks long.
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Post by concertinagirl on Apr 7, 2024 9:25:53 GMT -5
Bonny and I have a show today. Nice way to spend a Sunday afternoon.
Have a lovely day, everyone.
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Post by kenlarsson on Apr 7, 2024 9:37:58 GMT -5
Good morning. Still no crane colts so I'll continue to check in on them every day. Going to be a nice weather day today, I've done my shopping, got some English football to watch and a bike ride later today. Tonight it's basketball. Have a great day.
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Post by howard lee on Apr 7, 2024 10:33:14 GMT -5
Good late morning. The Dutch Baby has been cooked and consumed. I've got that dish down to an equitable combination of art and science. The important aspect is that Her Grace loves it on a Sunday morning for breakfast.
The annual package arrived from our accountant yesterday. I am about to tear into it and experience shock and awe as I find out how much quarterly estimated tax I will have to pay this year to a government that continues to be a dysfunctional disappointment to me—and I am not referring just to the Biden Administration, Bruce, so don't even go there, please.
Next on the agenda will be to continue reading and copy editing an autobiography of my Israeli cousin, who just had it translated from Hebrew to English (but by another Israeli), so it needs some nipping and tucking here and there. My cousin is 80 years old this year, and he has had quite the interesting life, from problem student to cattle rancher to paratrooper in 1967 to CEO of an electronics firm that manufactures microchips to retiree enjoying his kids and grand kids to humanitarian aid volunteer.
And maybe some guitar playing after.
I am going to start keeping lists again; have sort of gotten away from that habit since the pandemic, but find that seeing to-do things on paper definitely helps keep activities organized.
Retirement: I have been sleeping a couple of hours longer lately, which I so desperately needed to do. An occasional afternoon nap this week has helped, too. Feeling the stress slowly drain from me. No more dreary morning commute. No more idiot middle managers. No more draconian upper management. No more performance reviews.
Wishing everyone a good day from Brooklyn, where the sun is shining, and anticipating watching the eclipse tomorrow.
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Post by TKennedy on Apr 7, 2024 11:10:45 GMT -5
Rainy, watched the last 50K of Paris Roubaix. Amazing 40k solo breakaway by Van der Poel.
We’ll watch the women’s final in a couple of hours.
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Post by Village Idiot on Apr 7, 2024 11:48:03 GMT -5
It's cold, wind, rainy and nasty out there. How's that for optimism?
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Post by drlj on Apr 7, 2024 12:07:31 GMT -5
Sitting around playing with Charlie Christian’s A Smooth One. Relatively easy & lots of improv room. Nice chord walk down in part A : Bdim7-Bb6-F6/A-F6. Anyway, it’s not easy holding a guitar with elevated leg in a wheelchair, but I can strap on an electric and manage it fairly well. Where there is a will, there is a way.
I don’t like much of Pearson’s improv but, still, there is a lot a person can do with it. Not crazy about some of Emmanuel’s improv, either, but the song has a nice structure.
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Post by Cosmic Wonder on Apr 7, 2024 12:07:43 GMT -5
The view from our balcony this morning. Mike
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Post by epaul on Apr 7, 2024 12:42:47 GMT -5
Choir had the day off, but today was the Bluegrass service with "The Woodpicks" (best area bluegrass band) as the program. So I went (I know the band pretty well). The church (a big church) was packed, close to 400, maybe. Band was sharp, sermon was short, all in all, a great gospel bluegrass service. Then it was to the basement reception area for barbecues, beans, and chips.
The way church ought to be. Bluegrass and barbecue!
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Post by dradtke on Apr 7, 2024 13:03:42 GMT -5
We have our daughter's dogs here for a few days while she travels south to look at the eclipse. This morning a flock of wild turkeys strolled through our front yard. The dogs noticed, explained to us what was going on, and commented vigorously.
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Post by millring on Apr 7, 2024 13:22:35 GMT -5
Apparently IceSha just took best of breed at a dog show in Dayton.
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Post by david on Apr 7, 2024 14:02:21 GMT -5
Yesterday I played three of my acoustics and one electric and I got one of the two "Mother's Day" 6' x 2' planter boxes assembled. A good day.
Eldest son is treating me to dinner tonight in thanks for helping him deal with a slimy car dealer. The dealer tried to add $500 to the advertised price of the car he was buying. Their pitch was, "we add a $500 anti-theft device to all our inventory. We can't remove the device, so you need to pay for it."
Wrong. It is illegal to add costs above the advertised price.
So, tonight it is linguine with chicken pesca from "Noodles" restaurant. It has "spicy marinara sauce with capers and Kalamata olives.
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Post by millring on Apr 7, 2024 15:42:48 GMT -5
amazing.
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Post by Rob Hanesworth on Apr 7, 2024 16:00:45 GMT -5
Good late morning. The Dutch Baby has been cooked and consumed. I've got that dish down to an equitable combination of art and science. The important aspect is that Her Grace loves it on a Sunday morning for breakfast.
The annual package arrived from our accountant yesterday. I am about to tear into it and experience shock and awe as I find out how much quarterly estimated tax I will have to pay this year to a government that continues to be a dysfunctional disappointment to me—and I am not referring just to the Biden Administration, Bruce, so don't even go there, please. Next on the agenda will be to continue reading and copy editing an autobiography of my Israeli cousin, who just had it translated from Hebrew to English (but by another Israeli), so it needs some nipping and tucking here and there. My cousin is 80 years old this year, and he has had quite the interesting life, from problem student to cattle rancher to paratrooper in 1967 to CEO of an electronics firm that manufactures microchips to retiree enjoying his kids and grand kids to humanitarian aid volunteer. And maybe some guitar playing after.
I am going to start keeping lists again; have sort of gotten away from that habit since the pandemic, but find that seeing to-do things on paper definitely helps keep activities organized. Retirement: I have been sleeping a couple of hours longer lately, which I so desperately needed to do. An occasional afternoon nap this week has helped, too. Feeling the stress slowly drain from me. No more dreary morning commute. No more idiot middle managers. No more draconian upper management. No more performance reviews.
Wishing everyone a good day from Brooklyn, where the sun is shining, and anticipating watching the eclipse tomorrow.
I've been retired for almost 10 years but I still get regular performance reviews. I'm married, ya know.
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Post by Rob Hanesworth on Apr 7, 2024 16:37:33 GMT -5
We have our daughter's dogs here for a few days while she travels south to look at the eclipse. This morning a flock of wild turkeys strolled through our front yard. The dogs noticed, explained to us what was going on, and commented vigorously. We are right in the path of totality for the eclipse. Getting lots of visitors to the area.
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Post by t-bob on Apr 7, 2024 16:58:03 GMT -5
“this is what makes music so singular — the way it bridges the cosmic and the human, the ephemeral and the eternal. It is at once the most abstract of the arts, made of mathematics, feeling, and time, and the most concrete in its inescapable embodiment — we sing because we have a body, this bittersweet reminder that we are mortal, and we sing to celebrate that we are alive.”
By Excerpt The Marginalian
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Post by millring on Apr 7, 2024 17:09:25 GMT -5
8 birdies in a row.
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