What did you just finish reading and what are you reading now?

then why are you here?

Is that any way to treat a new member Norc? Granted its an interesting choice of first post to make but hey, Free Spirits remember- logically must include those so free they dont even like to read! They could just be a fan of the films which is why they came here (Eru save their soul). But each to their own.

I think it was the upcoming movie that started this whole forum, not the books.

Anyway, as long as the princess has reinvigorated this thread, I'm mainly reading "Island of Vice" which documents Theodore Roosevelt's attempt in his pre-president days to clean up Manhattan. He was an unbelievable prude, but most Victorians were in public (while doing the most wonderfully scandalous things in private to balance it out). It was estimated that around 1890, 1 in 6 Manhattan men visited a prostitute every night of the week. This was arrived at by multiplying the number of prostitutes by the number of clients they appeared to have each night.

Anyway, the attempt to shut this all down along with drinking on Sundays (the only day off in those days) was of course doomed to fail, and the story of how people inventively evaded the crackdown is massively entertaining. I can't resist one story.

One law that passed regarding drinking on sunday had a loophole for hotels: drinks could be served to hotel guests during meals. Suddenly every bar closet and attic was subdivided with cots thrown in and people registered as guests upon crossing the threshold, at bargain basement prices of course. Then they all had to buy a sandwich to justify the letter of the law. These sandwiches were typically handed to the customer and soon handed back untouched to be reused by the next customer. Here's a quote from a barman:

"Ladies and Gentlemen [one perk of the law was that ladies who were formerly banished from saloons could be hotel guests with their 'husbands'] - I gots to apologize, we have to stop serving drinks for a few minutes because some damn fool ate the sandwich and there's not another one in the whole block that ain't in use."

And every now and then I read a few more pages of an environmental energy policy book just so I feel I'm improving myself.

Love that quote.

oh the 1890's what a wonderful time to be alive, La Belle Epoque. The clothes, the trains, the artists, the poets, the music. How i would have loved to see Paris, New York, and London then.

Yeah Workhouses, Asylums, mass poverty, rickets, disease, the North of England a smog of Industrial Revolution pollutents and brutal work practices, children in mines and up chimneys and down sewers and the Thames so polluted and stinking they had to close Parliament because the smell was so atrocious. Ah yes, good old 1890's! Ooh, I see, you meant just the really rich people.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:Is that any way to treat a new member Norc? Granted its an interesting choice of first post to make but hey, Free Spirits remember- logically must include those so free they dont even like to read! They could just be a fan of the films which is why they came here (Eru save their soul). But each to their own.

yeah, but you actually have to read to be on this forum. this forum doesn't exist as an audio-book.

Well.....yes, I concede that it literally true. Not sure thats what she meant though.

yes obviously the rich people, if I went back to the 1890's I would be an elegant member of the demi monde, supplying my eel wrangling services to the crowned heads of Europe, what did you think I meant the sans culottes, oh heavens no. I would hob knob with Oscar and Aubrey and Sarah, and I would get in quick, they all kicked the bucket in the 1900's.

If you hung about witth that lot you'd be lucky to make it to the 1900's yourself.
"Would Madam like some laundenum and arsenic?"

Oh Mrs Figg - you look just as I imagined you.

I've had absinthe, does that count?

Norc wrote:yeah, but you actually have to read to be on this forum. this forum doesn't exist as an audio-book.

Welcome to the forum, Princessbee!

yeah, sorry, WELCOME PRINCESSBEE!

Halfwise, be wary in your rendervousez here with Mrs Figg...

Oh yeah, welcome Princessbee...


{{{I'm watching you Halfwise! }}}

hem! yes Halfwise dear, the Green Fairy is perfectly acceptable pon' lounging in insalubrious Parisian houses of ill repute, whilst Toulouse frolicks amongst the petticoats of buxom apple cheeked country wenches turned high kicking dancing girls from the Moulin Rouge. oh those were the days, I remember them well. mais oui.

Mrs Figg, I find it frustrating how you promote all the best things of Culture and Civilization, while Petty idealizes his home town in all it's squalorous depravity. Please keep seeking out what is good in the World. Continue offering hope! (I'll try to ignore Petty's excesses, henceforth! )

Just off to the side of that picture there is an ancestor of mine, Marcel LeTyrant, who was waiter there, pissing in their wine barrell.

Gosh I say Henrietta old girl is that a Scotschappie peeing in that bucket down there?
yes Charles dont look, its winking at me.
oooh I feel queet queet faint
Me too, whats he doing now? oooo he's giving it a shake, yuck how frightful.

Frightful! They should be bloomin' impressed they can see it from up there.

How uncouth...

Mrs Figg wrote:Gosh I say Henrietta old girl is that a Scotschappie peeing in that bucket down there?
yes Charles dont look, its winking at me.
oooh I feel queet queet faint
Me too, whats he doing now? oooo he's giving it a shake, yuck how frightful.

Mrs Figg, by now you will no doubt be more than well aware that I've tumultuously fallen out of love with you --- but... I ABSOLUTELY love that! Utter gold!

{{{Nonetheless, I HAVE fallen out of love with you! You can only blame yourself! }}}

Myabe uncouth, still impressive though...

I've been reading Yasunari Kawabata's The Sound of the Mountain. It's a lovely book, and he writes in such a way that it almost borders on poetry at times. Anyone else read it?

I just finished reading Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina and have started reading L.J.Smith's The Secret Circle.