It's Always More Complicated

My dearios will have heard me whinge about the massive point thahr misst of so much spam I get offering deals and collaborations with my entirely non-profit and very niche personal website -

- and that sometimes one can see that they've picked up on a word or even a phrase but have totally missed CONTEXT quite apart from the fact that I am Not In Trade, perish the thort, not to mention that they tend to miss what one might consider obvious links.

But, lo, I am boggling like a boggling thing over this:

[A] vertically integrated manufacturer based in China with over 14 years of experience specializing in high-efficiency equestrian gear and innovative pet products.
Our 22,000m² facility provides in-house manufacturing of a wide range of products including saddle pads, horse rugs, fly masks, halters, pet beds, leashes, harnesses, and other items. We are pleased to offer top-tier European and American brands known for their superior quality, cost-effectiveness, and prompt delivery.

I am boggled but in a different way by the spam from a mirror factory in Hangzhou city which informs me that ' it only takes more than ten minutes to drive from our company. I can show you our factory at any time and give you quick feedback to inform you of the production progress.' Pretty sure it does only take more than 10 mins....

Okay, I am pretty sure the woowoo on the tags of Yogi tea-bags well predates AI and there was probably some woowoo bollox generator involved: but, honestly: 'Have you hugged your soul today?'

And further in the realm of probably autobot generated bollox: incoming spam (this is second verse, same as the first, they are persistent):

I'm just getting in touch because recently I've been looking for sites that would be interested in linking to some great online resources for their audience.
Of course, we would be more than willing to compensate you for your time. We know you aren't a charity ;)

Also in the realm of, really I am not sure what these people are thinking, are the constant stream of people following me on academia.edu, some of whom do appear to be totally scammy enterprises but others who are maybe just people trying to be, you know, scholars/researchers without portfolio? I.e. most of them put themselves down as 'independent' rather than having any institutional affiliation. Except, I don't think going around following people on the basis of one interest when otherwise your fields are clearly widely different accomplishes anything? What is the point, really, what is the point?

Does my usual stylist at the hairdressers express surprise that I haven't seen The Iron Lady and have no plans to do so, believing that it is so my kind of thing?*

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Did a guy at the staff restaurant checkout say 'Your hair's green', as if, you know, it was an accident and I might not have noticed?

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Do A Certain Academic Publishing Enterprise finally bring out a paperback edition of the co-edited volume that costs an arm and a leg in hardback, and tell neither of the editors that this was happening, never mind send authorial comp copies.**

*'I think cinema prices these days are a lot of money for going in and throwing things at the screen.
**Strop thrown at the relevant editorial department.

But, really:

How do you celebrate Independence Day in your country?

UM.

I will do the person who posed this the favour of supposing that they mean 'your country's independence day' rather than 4th of July in particular (because, honestly, most other countries do not take to dancing in the streets and letting off fireworks to commemorate USA throwing off the tyrannical yoke of Mad King George).

Even so.

Being a citizen of the nation from which a large number of countries now celebrate their independence (right on!);

And recognising that there are quite a number of nations that never needed to gain their independence from foreign over-rule in the first place*;

Is this not a terribly naive question?

*And in a not insignificant number of cases at least among the nations of Europe, were the ones independence was being gained from.

O the weirdness:

Isabella Rossellini transforms into a migrating salmon with nothing more than goggles, a body-stocking and an elaborate paper hat, and waits for a worthy mate to notice her.

Welcome to the quirky world of Seduce Me, the latest series of disarming short films from the 58-year-old actress, model and ex-wife of Martin Scorsese best known for Blue Velvet, Fearless and Death Becomes Her. The films, produced by Robert Redford's Sundance Channel, are written and co-directed by Rossellini, who takes three minutes or less to portray the bizarre seduction rituals of animals around us, with help from paper puppets, foam film sets and often unflattering costumes that never fall short of heroic. The films are described as "the spawn of Green Porno" referring to Rossellini's Webby award-winning previous series of equally outlandish shorts exploring the sexual proclivities of bees, barnacles and other creatures.

Next week, seven of Rossellini's films go on show at the Natural History Museum, as part of a major exhibition called Sexual Nature. The museum decided to host the films because, amusement value aside, they are scientifically accurate: snails jab each other with painful darts before sex and female ducks have versatile vaginas.

I suppose this project is redeemed by the humorous touch she brings to it - it could so very easily become the higher codswallop - though given that she presents herself as someone who prides herself on her knowledge of nature in its infinite variety, I'm a bit beswozzled by the claim that drones know that they will die if they mate with the queen bee. Hmmmm.

In a link to a comment on a blog via ankaret:

[N]earing my seventh decade I don’t have decades to read every book that appears interesting. So I screen them by knowing the plot line before I read the first paragraph.*

My first thought on this was 'Hello, I'm already in my 7th decade, and I feel I have plenty of good reading time left, both for new stuff and rereads, and I haven't even retired yet.'

My second thought was, how is he counting, because we had a trick question in one of the papers in the archive diploma exam which turned on the distinction between 'third decade of' century and 'XX30s'.

My third thought was 'Does he check the ending of books in case he pops his clogs before he discovers whodunnit/who married who'?

And my fourth thought was, that is a really, really bizarre way of choosing what to read.

Which may, diff'rent strokes for diff'rent folks, just mean that's not how I'd pick what I'd prioritise for reading.

I've read enough books that have been recommended to me on the basis of plot &/or character elements you would think I would go for, that just did not work for me, and others where I might initially think, uh, not my kind of thing, or hack, cliche, done 1000s of times, not for me, which nonetheless work on the page and lead to turning it.

This led me to to try and articulate what it is that draws me in, and while plot and character are important, I sometimes think that what beguiles me is a certain voice, a certain approach to narrative, something to do with style.

And then I think of the vast range of things I do like and would happily reread or long for more works from the pen of the authors and I am not at all sure that there is a common thread.

No, really - (Frankie Howerd voice, 'Don't Mock') - srsly -

It's All More Complicated.

But, anyway, what is it that makes us pick up one book rather than another, and not put it down?

*I suppose this is perhaps a refreshing twist on the more usual cries of 'Don't Spoil Me' for plot developments?

Cross dressing male escorts northampton: search string which apparently reached my website. Boggled hedgehog is boggled.

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Today's ODNB Life of the Day:( Ida Freund )

Three words used in a sense that seems particular and cryptic*, because in context they don't make no sense to me:
the world's first feminist philosopher
This is the strapline to Julie Bindel's obituary of the late Mary Daly.

WHUT.

*Ties copy of Dale Spender's Women of Ideas round the cod's neck, first*

Maybe Bindel means the first woman to hold a formal academic post in philosophy and be a open feminist.

And even so I suspect that erases some significant predecessors.

*Or, of course, just plain wrong.

Virago reissues The Group by Mary McCarthy. The original critical responses ticked an awful lot of Russ boxes in their dismissal of women's writing. I am, yay, but totally boggled by this:

It was the women's submissiveness that most enraged Norman Mailer, who claimed that McCarthy's novel was fatally diminished by the fact that none of her characters has "the power or dedication to wish to force events", while conspicuously missing the point that it was precisely this enforced passivity that McCarthy wished to highlight.

And on another novel building up a picture out of things to an even greater extent than The Group this sounds tricksy but the reviewer thinks it works.

Nostalgia for the Hovis world that never was, by R McCrum: Most years produce an unexpected Christmas hit. Roy Mayall's rhapsody to the beleaguered postie could be the one for 2009. Up for a 4-something am start, out in all weathers, carrying a heavy sack... oh ye goode olde dayze.

McCrum is also less than golden-glowy about the good oldfashioned independent bookseller:

My memory of old-style bookselling is of dingy, cramped premises, redolent of boiled cabbage, unable to supply the book you actually wanted in less than a month. High-street book chains get a bad press, but the inconvenient truth is that they provide an excellent service for most of their customers.

A nice counter-nostalgic history of the development of railways worldwide.

Nice piece on friends by Kathryn Flett:

Maybe in the end the love you take really is equal to the love you make, and perhaps having such extraordinary friends isn't just some miraculous happy-lucky accident of fate. Maybe – sod it – you really do make your own luck just a little bit, in which case perhaps I actually deserve my awesome friends. In which case… how incredibly bloody lucky am I? And there's absolutely no need to answer that one, because I already know.

No, I just cannot see how you get from any volume I have on there to a sponsored link for asbestos training days.

I assume these to be about how to find out if you have lurking asbestos and what to do about it if so.

But... well... bogglety bogglety boggle.