#i hate oppenheimer more and more the longer i sit with it

[imreallyloveleee]

the best way I can find to describe the whiplash of watching Oppenheimer immediately after Barbie is that one minute I was watching Barbie make fun of mansplaining, and two hours later I was watching Oppenheimer's wife be introduced in a scene where she LITERALLY goes "tell me about these quantum physics, they sound hard"

Barbie is a silly movie that takes women seriously; Oppenheimer is a serious movie that barely even acknowledges them as an afterthought

[reflections-in-a-critical-eye]

The crazy thing is as our attention spans slowly get destroyed by social media, movies are getting longer and longer. No the actual crazy thing is that movies that should ideally be watched in 1 sitting are getting long while tv series that are structured for watching over a longer period of time are so short nowadays, people have started binging them. No the actual actual crazy thing is that I accidentally zoned out in the middle of Oppenheimer (but it was still a great movie) but I watched jury duty in one sitting

Well, movies aren't getting longer. I know there's this belief now that all of a sudden, a lot of productions are taking more than 2h 30 min, but it has always been a thing, ever since they discovered a way to do it. Abel Gance's Napoleon, made in 1927, was a 4h film. Which I have managed to watch in one sitting, mostly uninterrupted (apart from bathroom break). That was some more than 10 years ago. I don't think I would have that same patience now.

So, I would say that a film could have a runtime of 90 min, 120 or 200 and a lot of us would still pick up our phones simply because our short attention span, a consequence of the media on our phones. I don't need to open twitter while I'm watching 40 min of an episode. Especially when there's nothing urgent or interesting happening online. But I find myself doing it. And I hate it. It's a matter of controlling ourselves, but it can be difficult if we scroll through apps so many hours in a day. It is bound to have an influence on our viewing experience.

There's many factors involved too. For example, if I'm watching something in a movie theater, I'm not touching my phone. Perhaps I'm looking at the time, but I'm not taking it out to scroll or answer texts. For me, it would feel disrespectful for the other people around me. That way, I'm paying full attention. But a movie theater room also offers less distractions. The way it has been conceived (the almost full darkness, a big screen, the audio system) is all there for the viewers to immerse themselve into the story. Nowadays, we can use our phones at home because we can rewind back if we missed anything so who cares, right? We're looking up info about the film/show in real time while watching it. Our viewing experience is mediated through our phones.

It has also changed the very basic fabrics of cinema because the language has to evolve in a way. It either adapts or reacts to current ways of viewing. It has definitely changed some understandings in the context of reception studies, apparatus theory, etc. I mean, that happened the moment we could rewind a vhs tape, but I'd say our current ways of interacting with the medium has brought much bigger changes.

[preciousmetals0]

Washington’s Cash Injection; Fujifilm’s Big Rejection

Washington’s Cash Injection; Fujifilm’s Big Rejection:

Bye, Bye, Bull Market Ride

A long, long time ago … I can still remember how that bull market used to make me smile. And I knew if I had my way that I could make those winning trades, and maybe we’d be happy for a while.

But March made me shiver, with every issue of Great Stuff I’d deliver. Bad news on the doorstep. I couldn’t take one more step…

Dear readers, I do have some happy news, unlike the girl who sang the blues. But first, we need to talk about U.S. weekly jobless claims.

The U.S. Department of Labor reported this morning that initial claims for unemployment benefits jumped by 70,000 to reach 281,000 last week. It’s the highest such reading since September 2017, but it’s rather unremarkable otherwise.

The problem arises when we look at early jobless claims reports for next week. Reports from Ohio put claims at nearly 78,000 in the past three days. Connecticut has about 30,000, and Illinois is looking at more than 41,000 claims.

We’re already well beyond last week’s 70,000-strong bump, and that’s only with partial data from three states. Next week, those claims will be there all in one place, like a generation lost in space. But there’s still time to start again…

So, come on, Steven be nimble, Steven be quick. Steven Mnuchin, U.S. Treasury Secretary, wants Congress to hand out cash real slick. ’Cause cash is the public’s only friend — apparently.

The current plan ol’ Steven is pushing will send $1,000 checks to most adults, with an additional $500 for children to help blunt the coronavirus’ economic impact. And, if you’re worried about government debt, Steven says we’re covered. The U.S. government can just take advantage of low interest rates to refinance.

Now, where have I heard that one before…

The Takeaway: 

I went down to the Chinese store, where the virus started weeks before. But the people there said the virus wouldn’t spread.

(OK, that was a stretch.)

For the first time since this whole thing began, China reported that there were no new locally transmitted COVID-19 cases. If China can stop the coronavirus’ spread, so can the U.S.

No, dear reader, while your portfolio may be down — if you’re a Great Stuff regular, your portfolio shouldn’t be down as much — the U.S. is still headed for a reckoning with COVID-19, but today is not the day that we die!

No, sir! It ain’t over.

Nothing is over until we decide it is. Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no!

Germans?

Forget it, he’s rolling.

We’ll continue to seek out companies that outperform in this virus-strewn mess (I have a couple today that you need to check out below).

Like Steven Mnuchin said, “we are going to kill this virus” and get back to a “normal world.”

I, for one, welcome our new, normal world. (What is this “normal” you speak of, Mnuchin?)

If you, too, would rather look ahead to a rebuilt, stronger-than-ever America … Paul Mampilly is already there.

Yes, even in these dark times, Paul Mampilly is a source of bright, forward-thinking research.

Paul’s “Strong Hands” approach to investing is crucial for times like this. He believes America will emerge from the coronavirus stronger than ever … no matter how long it takes. And the mega trends that he follows (such as 5G and precision medicine) won’t die to market panic.

Click here to learn about Paul Mampilly’s vision for a new, rebuilt America 2.0.

Going: Shop Smart, Shop Walmart

All right, you frightened investors, listen up. See this? This is our boomstick!

Despite the coronavirus smacking Wall Street around like a wet noodle, Walmart Inc. (NYSE: WMT) is hitting new all-time highs. The world’s largest retailer received two upgrades in the past 24 hours, as analysts project growing sales figures.

Oppenheimer lifted WMT to outperform and set a $125 price target on the stock. “As we have written about previously, grocers have clearly benefited from consumer stock-up activities lately,” the ratings firm said.

Meanwhile, Credit Suisse boosted its price target to $127 from $115. “We see this unfortunate period accelerating structural changes in consumer shopping, possibly by five-plus years,” Credit Suisse said.

In layman’s terms, both say that Walmart should benefit from some sticky traffic following the COVID-19 shopping spree. Ideally, you’d want to wait for confirmation of this shopping trend.

That said, Walmart is holding up remarkably well despite the market’s downturn. This is another stock that should be on your short list for sustainable investments in these tought times.

Going: Holding Apron Strings

Blue Apron Holdings Inc. (NYSE: APRN) is nowhere near as stable as Walmart. But the company is expected to benefit considerably from the shelter-in-place mentality surrounding COVID-19.

Through yesterday’s close, APRN went on a 600% tear higher due to investor speculation. If you’re unfamiliar, Blue Apron delivers meal kits directly to your door. With nothing to shop for and all ingredients included in the kit, you can see Blue Apron’s allure.

Today, the stock is down sharply — you can’t expect early buyers to just sit on 600% gains in this market!

However, that doesn’t mean APRN isn’t worth putting on your short list of companies to watch right now. For confirmation, we’d like to see data confirming an uptick in Blue Apron’s business before diving into this one.

Gone: Your Drug Buddy

Yesterday, I said: “With new companies pushing toward potential vaccines every day, I have to wonder how many of these spiking stocks will hold their ground.”

We’ve learned that hard lesson in the biotech sector with Inovio Pharmaceuticals Inc. (Nasdaq: INO) and BioNTech SE (Nasdaq: BNTX) — both of which fell sharply from their recent vaccine-euphoria-induced highs.

Today, we have another lesson from a name we haven’t heard in a long time: Fujifilm Holdings Corp. (OTC: FUJIY).

Did you know that, in addition to making millions of rolls of 35 mm camera film in the ’80s and ’90s, Fujifilm also makes drugs? It was news to me, for sure.

In 2014, a Fujifilm holding called Fujifilm Toyama Chemical Co. Ltd. developed an antiviral drug called Avigan. The drug was all but shelved in Japan due to risks of fetal deaths and deformities … but that didn’t stop the Chinese from testing it on 200 COVID-19 patients. The drug worked surprisingly well, cutting recovery rates for sick patients by days.

China said it will move ahead with the drug, and the news sent FUJIY stock soaring.

Unfortunately, many investors missed a key bit of information in this story: Fujifilm no longer holds the patent for Avigan in China. We all know what that means — mass generic production in China.

That news is apparently making the rounds today, and FUJIY stock plunged as a result.

The lesson here is to be careful when investing in biotech — especially right now. It’s like dot-com-era speculation, only with vaccines and treatments out there.

It’s time for your favorite part of the week: Great Stuff’s Reader Feedback!

We asked you a lot of stimulating questions this week about the White House, the economy and the coronavirus … let’s see what you had to say:

Panic at the Retirement Home

Is panickin’ an OK game for the elderly? Though, we know we are going sometime, but not ready at this time! Lol

— Era P.

Era, there’s no reason to panic. You’re a strong person who will make it through this just fine.

This is not your time … and the fact that you’re “lol-ing” at this reassures me of that fact. Gotta love that sense of humor in the face of all this. Hang in there, wash your hands and keep Great Stuff updated. We’re pulling for you!

Viral Humor

Thank you for calming our nerves and spreading the viral humor. 

— Shirley M.

Flattery will get you everywhere, Shirley. I’m glad that Great Stuff can provide an outlet in this viral storm. Thank you for reading!

Put Selling for Profit

Thanks for some laughs in these dark times. Selling WAY out of the money puts on great companies like BRK(B) and buying puts on the IWM keeps me in the market, but I wonder how long the Fed believes it can throw money at this market?

In spite of the billions that it has already thrown at this market, the abyss keeps clamoring for more.

It’s a suckers bet that I wish the Fed had never started.

Hate to say it, but I am in the “shut it down” camp.

NO idea where the bottom is when many (most?) companies’ revenue is going to zero for possibly months.

— Gary W.

Put selling? In this market? You’re braver than I thought, Gary.

As for the Fed, it’s talking trillions now … not just billions. I guess you’ll drop your $1,000 check into your margin account to sell more puts, you mad lad, you. I’m glad that’s working out for you. Hang in there!

Have you written in yet? What’s stopping you? Drop me a line at GreatStuffToday@banyanhill.com and let me know how you’re doing out there in this crazy market.

That’s a wrap for today. But if you’re still craving more Great Stuff, you can check us out on social media: Facebook and Twitter.

Until next time, good trading!

Regards,

Joseph Hargett

Editor, Great Stuff

[goldira01]

Bye, Bye, Bull Market Ride

A long, long time ago … I can still remember how that bull market used to make me smile. And I knew if I had my way that I could make those winning trades, and maybe we’d be happy for a while.

But March made me shiver, with every issue of Great Stuff I’d deliver. Bad news on the doorstep. I couldn’t take one more step…

Dear readers, I do have some happy news, unlike the girl who sang the blues. But first, we need to talk about U.S. weekly jobless claims.

The U.S. Department of Labor reported this morning that initial claims for unemployment benefits jumped by 70,000 to reach 281,000 last week. It’s the highest such reading since September 2017, but it’s rather unremarkable otherwise.

The problem arises when we look at early jobless claims reports for next week. Reports from Ohio put claims at nearly 78,000 in the past three days. Connecticut has about 30,000, and Illinois is looking at more than 41,000 claims.

We’re already well beyond last week’s 70,000-strong bump, and that’s only with partial data from three states. Next week, those claims will be there all in one place, like a generation lost in space. But there’s still time to start again…

So, come on, Steven be nimble, Steven be quick. Steven Mnuchin, U.S. Treasury Secretary, wants Congress to hand out cash real slick. ’Cause cash is the public’s only friend — apparently.

The current plan ol’ Steven is pushing will send $1,000 checks to most adults, with an additional $500 for children to help blunt the coronavirus’ economic impact. And, if you’re worried about government debt, Steven says we’re covered. The U.S. government can just take advantage of low interest rates to refinance.

Now, where have I heard that one before…

The Takeaway: 

I went down to the Chinese store, where the virus started weeks before. But the people there said the virus wouldn’t spread.

(OK, that was a stretch.)

For the first time since this whole thing began, China reported that there were no new locally transmitted COVID-19 cases. If China can stop the coronavirus’ spread, so can the U.S.

No, dear reader, while your portfolio may be down — if you’re a Great Stuff regular, your portfolio shouldn’t be down as much — the U.S. is still headed for a reckoning with COVID-19, but today is not the day that we die!

No, sir! It ain’t over.

Nothing is over until we decide it is. Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no!

Germans?

Forget it, he’s rolling.

We’ll continue to seek out companies that outperform in this virus-strewn mess (I have a couple today that you need to check out below).

Like Steven Mnuchin said, “we are going to kill this virus” and get back to a “normal world.”

I, for one, welcome our new, normal world. (What is this “normal” you speak of, Mnuchin?)

If you, too, would rather look ahead to a rebuilt, stronger-than-ever America … Paul Mampilly is already there.

Yes, even in these dark times, Paul Mampilly is a source of bright, forward-thinking research.

Paul’s “Strong Hands” approach to investing is crucial for times like this. He believes America will emerge from the coronavirus stronger than ever … no matter how long it takes. And the mega trends that he follows (such as 5G and precision medicine) won’t die to market panic.

Click here to learn about Paul Mampilly’s vision for a new, rebuilt America 2.0.

Going: Shop Smart, Shop Walmart

All right, you frightened investors, listen up. See this? This is our boomstick!

Despite the coronavirus smacking Wall Street around like a wet noodle, Walmart Inc. (NYSE: WMT) is hitting new all-time highs. The world’s largest retailer received two upgrades in the past 24 hours, as analysts project growing sales figures.

Oppenheimer lifted WMT to outperform and set a $125 price target on the stock. “As we have written about previously, grocers have clearly benefited from consumer stock-up activities lately,” the ratings firm said.

Meanwhile, Credit Suisse boosted its price target to $127 from $115. “We see this unfortunate period accelerating structural changes in consumer shopping, possibly by five-plus years,” Credit Suisse said.

In layman’s terms, both say that Walmart should benefit from some sticky traffic following the COVID-19 shopping spree. Ideally, you’d want to wait for confirmation of this shopping trend.

That said, Walmart is holding up remarkably well despite the market’s downturn. This is another stock that should be on your short list for sustainable investments in these tought times.

Going: Holding Apron Strings

Blue Apron Holdings Inc. (NYSE: APRN) is nowhere near as stable as Walmart. But the company is expected to benefit considerably from the shelter-in-place mentality surrounding COVID-19.

Through yesterday’s close, APRN went on a 600% tear higher due to investor speculation. If you’re unfamiliar, Blue Apron delivers meal kits directly to your door. With nothing to shop for and all ingredients included in the kit, you can see Blue Apron’s allure.

Today, the stock is down sharply — you can’t expect early buyers to just sit on 600% gains in this market!

However, that doesn’t mean APRN isn’t worth putting on your short list of companies to watch right now. For confirmation, we’d like to see data confirming an uptick in Blue Apron’s business before diving into this one.

Gone: Your Drug Buddy

Yesterday, I said: “With new companies pushing toward potential vaccines every day, I have to wonder how many of these spiking stocks will hold their ground.”

We’ve learned that hard lesson in the biotech sector with Inovio Pharmaceuticals Inc. (Nasdaq: INO) and BioNTech SE (Nasdaq: BNTX) — both of which fell sharply from their recent vaccine-euphoria-induced highs.

Today, we have another lesson from a name we haven’t heard in a long time: Fujifilm Holdings Corp. (OTC: FUJIY).

Did you know that, in addition to making millions of rolls of 35 mm camera film in the ’80s and ’90s, Fujifilm also makes drugs? It was news to me, for sure.

In 2014, a Fujifilm holding called Fujifilm Toyama Chemical Co. Ltd. developed an antiviral drug called Avigan. The drug was all but shelved in Japan due to risks of fetal deaths and deformities … but that didn’t stop the Chinese from testing it on 200 COVID-19 patients. The drug worked surprisingly well, cutting recovery rates for sick patients by days.

China said it will move ahead with the drug, and the news sent FUJIY stock soaring.

Unfortunately, many investors missed a key bit of information in this story: Fujifilm no longer holds the patent for Avigan in China. We all know what that means — mass generic production in China.

That news is apparently making the rounds today, and FUJIY stock plunged as a result.

The lesson here is to be careful when investing in biotech — especially right now. It’s like dot-com-era speculation, only with vaccines and treatments out there.

It’s time for your favorite part of the week: Great Stuff’s Reader Feedback!

We asked you a lot of stimulating questions this week about the White House, the economy and the coronavirus … let’s see what you had to say:

Panic at the Retirement Home

Is panickin’ an OK game for the elderly? Though, we know we are going sometime, but not ready at this time! Lol

— Era P.

Era, there’s no reason to panic. You’re a strong person who will make it through this just fine.

This is not your time … and the fact that you’re “lol-ing” at this reassures me of that fact. Gotta love that sense of humor in the face of all this. Hang in there, wash your hands and keep Great Stuff updated. We’re pulling for you!

Viral Humor

Thank you for calming our nerves and spreading the viral humor. 

— Shirley M.

Flattery will get you everywhere, Shirley. I’m glad that Great Stuff can provide an outlet in this viral storm. Thank you for reading!

Put Selling for Profit

Thanks for some laughs in these dark times. Selling WAY out of the money puts on great companies like BRK(B) and buying puts on the IWM keeps me in the market, but I wonder how long the Fed believes it can throw money at this market?

In spite of the billions that it has already thrown at this market, the abyss keeps clamoring for more.

It’s a suckers bet that I wish the Fed had never started.

Hate to say it, but I am in the “shut it down” camp.

NO idea where the bottom is when many (most?) companies’ revenue is going to zero for possibly months.

— Gary W.

Put selling? In this market? You’re braver than I thought, Gary.

As for the Fed, it’s talking trillions now … not just billions. I guess you’ll drop your $1,000 check into your margin account to sell more puts, you mad lad, you. I’m glad that’s working out for you. Hang in there!

Have you written in yet? What’s stopping you? Drop me a line at GreatStuffToday@banyanhill.com and let me know how you’re doing out there in this crazy market.

That’s a wrap for today. But if you’re still craving more Great Stuff, you can check us out on social media: Facebook and Twitter.

Until next time, good trading!

Regards,

Joseph Hargett

Editor, Great Stuff

[originaldetectivesheep]

Year In Review - Books I Read in 2018

Last year, I thought I was at the limits by reading 300ish books, mostly old Gutenberg stuff.  This year...kind of left that for dead, with 689 books or book-like things scratched off.  This is not merely 'way', but 'way, way' too many, and may have contributed to stagnation as an author in the middle of the year: what we read inevitably ends up setting the context for what we write, and the amount of Edgar Wallace and E. P. Oppenheim I read this year can't have been good.

To try and make sense out of these way too many books, I'm not going to post review snippets for each of them, or even the 50ish (less than 15%) that I unreservedly liked; instead, I'm going to go through and find something to say about every author I read at least three books from this year.  This is still going to be huge, but hopefully, it'll be more coherent huge, and less bad-huge.

A. Hyatt Verrill was an immense chore to read, astonishingly racist almost everywhere and completely up his own ass about branches of science he knew literally nothing about, but fighting through it, I managed to get a lot of close description of the Caribbean as it was in the early 20th century.  This isn't a recommendation of, really, any of his work, but more of a warning about how to be sure you know what you know -- that, and maybe establishing a full-privilege-people shoveling bureau to help recover any diamonds from similar shitpiles of the past for general use.  :\

Alfred J. Church never, as far as I read this year, put out a good book -- he was fatally tripped up by, to some degree, the expectations of his time and markets, and in another way, by not really understanding what fiction is and how it works.  I didn't have to read his crap to find this out, but it was faster than doing another lit class and I could do it while waiting for airplanes, so again :\

I read the first 30 of Arthur Leo Zagat's Doc Turner stories this year; in addition to being critical two-fisted pulps, they're also an object lesson in self-examination: Turner's whole deal is being the protector of the downtrodden new-Americans of Morris Street, but at such an angle that you can't help but notice who gets to be human and worthy under their hokey dialect and who doesn't.  This series was trying to be woke and progressive in its day, and where and how it fails at that should be a critical pointer for people trying, also, to lead the moment and hopefully not look grimy and problematic in another fifteen years.

I'd obviously read some Arthur Machen before, but doing a deep dive over his whole corpus this year was still a revelation.  A lot of his stuff is kind of far-corner weird, and it was really interesting to come back later in life and see the threads of just how it ended up that weird.

Arthur Morrison put up a real mixed bag: a lot of good humor and some solid detective bits, but with real problems with dialect; this is something you kind of get with nineteenth-century humor, but that doesn't make it not suck.  There's always going to be a use, as a writer, to faithfully representing  non-classroom-standard pronunciation and usage, but reading stuff with major dialect should be a bucket of cold water to rethink about how you actually put that on paper.

C. Dudley Lampen's shit-bad books, exactly enough to qualify, show how a sufficiently-motivated author, regardless of ability above a certain and very low minimum standard, can always find a publisher.  Lampen got there with Christianity; there are other paths for other bads, but taking them rather than taking your rejections will not get you where you actually want to be.

I had a bunch of D. W. O'Brien short stories this year that added up to about a qualifying extent; he's one of those writers who for the most part does make it up in volume, but there was a lot of breadth there this year, and more good material than before.  I can't understand why he isn't better known among general audiences, in the context of pulp writers before the end of the Second World War.

I notched 126 books or book-equivalents from E. Phillips Oppenheim this year, and nearly all of them were a dreadful waste of time.  Craft-wise, I liked seeing how he put together serial collections as dismembered novels, unlike Wallace's barely-attached piles of independent stories, and the way he, in mid-life, read one of his early books, threw it into the sea because it was so bad, and then got somewhat better is heartening, but that is a lot of material for very little result.  Oppenheim always wants to be literary and do well, but he never got any good at it, and "churn out a lot of barely-qualifying crap" is no longer a valid market strategy with so many other entertainment options.

I read all of E. W. Hornung, including all of the Raffles stuff, this year, mostly sitting in one place in London waiting for a plane to Jo'burg.  The cricket interplay was pretty good, and there was a lot more to think about, in a social-history dimension, than I thought there would be, but there also was a lot less material than I thought this guy had put up.

Earl Derr Biggers (including all the original Charlie Chan books) was a lot less racist than I was dreading going in, and a lot better at all kinds of stuff about place and human relationships than you really expect a detective writer to be.  Biggers is another one where you really see the contrasts between 'trying' and 'succeeding' at including marginalized people as truly human, and how you take that lesson forward is important.

This year accounted for 111 Edgar Wallace things, which were less of a waste of time than the Oppenheim if immensely more aggravating.  Wallace is a better and snappier technical writer, but he has dialect problems, he's intensely racist, he ran out so many failed experiments and slabbed together so many reprint collections, and his organization of anything novel-length is frequently a disaster.  It's more informative, maybe, to read Wallace writing about writing than it is to read his own stuff; he's thoroughly, professionally artless, but he has a distinct vision for what can sell where, and a grounded approach to writing as craft.  But for general audiences, god, no, stoppit.

Edward Lucas White had a minimum-qualifying extent this year, all read in Zambia, which was good in places and eh in others.  I liked his shorter stories better than his full-length novels, but they really go to show how a racist and orientalist fear of the unknown underlies a lot of that great early-20th-century boom in weird fiction -- as someone who likes reading and writing that sort of weird, it's another spur to re-examine what I'm doing and how I do it.

I covered all of Elizabeth McKintosh this year as well, and as much as I liked the Inspector Grant material, her non-Grant mysteries were maybe better.  It was also cool to get her full spread, and see her doing things other than mysteries; too often you see authors only through a lens of what stays in print, what the library buys, etc, and you miss these parts of their development or personality.

I finished up most of the Ernest Bramah I'd missed five years ago in Russia while I was in Zambia, and enjoyed the more Max Carrados stuff I hadn't found before.  I did not enjoy another volume of Kai Lung shittiness, but will keep it as a memento mori for doing characters so significantly outside oneself.  :\

This year also saw all of Ethel Lina White's thrillers, and while I was reading them, it was ceaselessly awesome.  If there's anything in this year that's going to qualify for re-reads in some distant future, these are going to be it.

I ground through all of Felix Dahn while I was in France, and hated about every single page of it.  The transition from late antiquity to the early Middle Ages is interesting, but maybe don't send a moustache-twirling kleindeutsch racist to tell the tales of Germans taking over from Rome.  :\

Intensely stupid and so significantly, broad-spectrum racist that I frequently wondered whether I was unexpectedly drunk rather than the book being just that bad, I somehow made it through most of Francis H. Atkins' material this year, and the most significant thing I gained out of it was never having to read those atrocious crap piles ever again.  There are a very few interesting or novel points in this guy's fiction, and none of them are worth putting up with the writing to dig out.

If you need a sleeping pill, you could do worse than Frederic W. Farrar -- unless you break out into uncontrollable laughter when confronted with mid-Victorian pietisms.  His school stories are picture-primer trash; his Romanica is ahistorical sermonizing trash.  Again, do not.

Georg Ebers can't draw characters, compose a plot, or hold reader interest, but he does a hell of a job re-writing research on Roman-era Alexandria over into thick piles of sequential words.  Dude sucks, but if you can skip around, he's done all of the work on this little corner of Egyptian history and it just remains for moderns to take that work and re-cast it.

George A. Henty made the minimum qualification, and I wish he hadn't -- his three bad to very bad novels made the worst of the flight out to Hong Kong, and should not be given the chance to spoil anyone else's time, ever again.

George Griffith had a fuck of an arc -- some of his early material was just blindingly awful, both stupid and poorly composed, but he recovered and improved in later books to put up some stuff that's borderline worth seeking out.  That this kind of metamorphosis is possible is a great encouragement to keep going: no matter how bad you are, you will not necessarily *stay that bad forever.

I've still got a couple left before I finish George J. Whyte-Melville, but from what I did read of him this year, it's pretty clear that sometimes authors have fields they're good at and fields they suck at.  His Victorian stuff is not that bad -- and his riding manual is an unintentional treasure -- but his sword-and-sandal stuff sucks major balls.  If you need to stay in your lane, that's something to learn as soon as possible.

H. Bedford-Jones is a weird one; not real good, but he takes on these gigantic imaginative ideas and does them almost correctly, almost completely.  I obviously want to avoid that sort of missed-it-by-that-much outcome, but to a certain degree you need to take on big challenges to even have a chance at that.

I read most of J. U. Giesy's work (with Junius Smith on Semi Dual) last year, and the minimum-qualifying stuff that slopped over into this year was mostly very bad, but there was a WWI novella in the bunch that was so good I wondered if it had been misattributed.  Again, what's good, what you like, and what will sell are all completely disconnected propositions.

James Hilton provided the requisite Mid-Century Popular Intentional Literature ration this year, some of which was good, some of which was confusingly-accumulated, and some of which ended up lapped by Richard Rhodes.  Hilton is another re-read candidate, but not all of his stuff; in bulk, this is a lesson about the advantages and disadvantages of throwing yourself so wholly into your works.

The John Buchan I had left for this year, after reading him in the main, much younger, was a picked-over bunch to be sure, and as usual to be grappled with rather than just taken up entire.  It's not something I'd go and recommend to others, but A Lodge In the Wilderness was maybe the most important and impactful book I read, personally, this whole year.

The one good thing I, or anyone else, can take from John W. Duffield's shitty corpus, is the expression "what is this Bomba-the-Jungle-Boy horseshit?", which means exactly what it looks like it means.  Duffield has some imaginative ideas, but has zero capacity to actually execute on them, ever, and put up some of the most virulently stupid racism I had to grind through this year.  Bad even among his contemporaries, the likes of Duffield are why informed people are reluctant to make major hay out of Lovecraft's racism -- not because he isn't still problematic, but because a lot of stuff in the contemporary popular press was that much even worse.

I technically had a qualifying amount of Ladbroke Black this year, but you blink at this dude -- who ghosted a lot of the high-speed, instantly-disposable Sexton Blake as well -- and his entire corpus is gone.  As much as I can remember, the stuff I read this year was similarly functional but not noteworthy, and fortunately not real influential.

I probably read enough Leroy Yerxa to qualify, between various short repacks; he's a middling pulp author, but going through, all of his stuff is still publishable, which is important.  He turned in acceptable work in the right trip lengths, over diverse subjects, to place out; there's a place for this kind of workmanship, even if it doesn't ever get to great heights.

I didn't expect I'd like the Lloyd C. Douglas stuff that I liked as much as I ended up liking it: there's bits of clunk through his whole corpus, but he almost never gets preachy, and where his stuff works, it hits just absolutely ceaselessly, and is very cool.  (But yes, some of it does suck, very important to note.)

M. P. Shiel was responsible for the book that I got maybe the maddest at this year, and definitely the one I wrote the longest negative review blurb for.  He had a couple good parts, but there was too much that was just over-ornamented where it didn't straight up suck.  Honestly, all of this material was back last January and a pain to think about even then.

For Golden-Age space-opera, it doesn't get much better than Malcolm Jameson, who I mostly cleaned up this year and who barely got over the qualifying line.  This took in a little more of his range than I had before, which was really good: he always comes up with neat outer angles on stuff, and almost always with correct science, at least of his time.

Max Brand is my current 'major' campaign, and reading the next hundred-ish things from him in the pile will take most of 2019.  I've already chewed a decently big chunk, though, and it's interesting to see more of his warts and weak points as a writer, where what I'd seen from him before lacked a lot of that.  I'm also seeing, for the first time, some of his non-cowboy fiction, and for the most part that's another 'stay in your lane' incentive; we'll see what of this changes next year.

I finally got around to reading most of Otis A. Kline's corpus, and it...was not really worth the wait.  Kline is another idea factory, and while he's generally more able to execute on them than Duffield and less racist in doing so, neither comes out perfect and he's substantially in the shadow of Abraham Merritt on Earth and E. Rice Burroughs when he's off on a planetary romance.  Functional and imaginative, yes, but you really really want that extra push to make it through to 'good'.

The one thing you really want to take out of S. S. Van Dine is his 20 rules for detective fiction; I got that this year, in amid the Philo Vance stuff, which takes a bit of an effort.  Van Dine's career arc is a hell of weird one, and it must have hurt, from the cleaned-up later books, to look at the over-artifacted mess of the first couple and regret not doing them better.  This sort of view is why I want to read less of these in the future -- I can't keep having my mental context dictated by works that are a hundred years and more out of date.

Sabine Baring-Gould is approached a lot better as an antiquarian and a writer of sourcebooks than of fiction.  His fictional works are okay, if you excuse some major structural problems, but for all of their unstoppable thickness, his collections of legends and historical tales are just mighty.  Maybe not an author to read, but definitely one to keep around.

I'm also kind of in the middle on Sapper, who's showing some okay range, but in many parts really exemplifying how perspective and market demands can put blinders on you.  His wartime stuff recalls Tim O'Brien or Joseph Heller in places -- mechanized warfare tends to have similar effects at whatever distance -- but there as in his thriller serials he's also the staunchest guy since Wallace, and he does a really poor job of not Drudge-siren hyperventilating about threats to the class system.  Again, we'll see next year how the rest of this goes.

I read all of Tacitus' Annals and Histories this year, and damned if I can remember a whole lot about them that deterministically wasn't in Suetonius or Julius Caesar last year.  Roman writers are definitely more primary-source than pleasure-reading at this point, but it does help to have that text as a reference for reading bads out of the Bibliotheca Romanica.

The Talbot Mundy I had on the stack this year was very much for cleanup, and doesn't change last year's impressions: a still-problematic dude who is less racist, less colonialist, and less bad than a lot of people are willing to extend him credit.  If a book has Chullunder Ghose in it, it's probably worth reading, even if I still would like to see a South Asian writer pick up and grapple with the character.

Thomas C. Bridges did probably the best boys'-own adventures I read this year, which is kind of like "least stinky garbage dump" or "best-tasting light beer".  He does good stuff and some absolute horseshit, but his pacing and action flow is just magic, even when his characters are being intolerable racist fucks; another one to scrape the gunk off maybe.

I got to see Valentine Williams turn, over the course of a lot of books this year, from a John Buchan disciple so close to almost be clone into an independent if not always original thrillerist; in 2018, we'd read the Clubfoot series out for ableism -- von Grundt is kind of defined in his villainy and power by his grotesque body -- but Clubfoot himself is one of the classic spy villains and an absolute monster of a character.  There are ways to get to that level without punching down, but this is the mark, right here.

Wilkie Collins was mostly accounted for in 2017, but the three books finished this year -- The Moonstone, The Queen of Hearts, and The Woman In White -- would be a sufficient reading for a whole year for a lot of people.  Every single one of these is plain and pure magic, and if you haven't read them, there's your '19 project.

Somehow, I made it through all of William H. Ainsworth's wild and degenerate gothicisms; I'm just not always sure how, or completely why.  Ainsworth is another author to be handled with the fireplace tongs, not because he's bad or problematic, but because he's just so weird and relentlessly extra, and I'm not really sure you want to get that on you.

* * * What stands out in the above, or what should, is how unbalanced it is: I read a couple other women authors this year who fell below the threshold, and McKintosh and White put up some of the best total results of anyone I read this year, but the volume problem is exactly as bad as it looks.  This is something I really need to make a point of fixing, but it's something that ought to also come naturally in making the other change I'm targeting for 2019.

That other change, of course, is to read more contemporary material.  There's stuff to be gleaned from the past, sure, but what I got from chewing through that much Oppenheim is of seriously debatable value.  To some extent, pulping Gutenbooks is what I do because I can do it easily at work or on the road, but I really need to set aside time to read newer, better, smarter, more diverse material if I actually want to improve as an author -- and it'll probably be less teeth-grinding, too.

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Expert: “We cannot allow the Israeli Government to treat Palestinian lives as inferior to their own, which is what they consistently do,” David Steel tells the House of Lords. I’d like to share with you the speech by Steel (aka Lord Steel of Aikwood) in a recent House of Lords debate, the motion being ‘That this House takes note of the situation in the Palestinian Territories’. Steel himself opened proceedings with as good a summing-up of the appalling situation as I have heard anywhere. Here it is word for word from Hansard: My Lords, I put in for the ballot for today’s debate just after the terrible slaughter of 62 Palestinians inside the Gaza fence, which included eight children. I should at the outset ​declare a former interest. I served for seven years as president of the charity Medical Aid for Palestinians — and I am delighted to see that the current president, the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Bolton, is to speak in this debate. During that time I visited Israel, the West Bank and Gaza several times, once touring Gaza just after the Cast Lead operation, when I saw for myself the wanton destruction of hospitals, schools and factories in what was described by David Cameron as one vast prison camp. Before anyone accuses me of being one-sided, let me also say that I spent an afternoon with the local Israeli MP in the Ashkelon area in the south of that country and fully understand the intolerable life of citizens there threatened by rockets fired by Hamas from inside Gaza. In fact, long before I got involved with MAP, back in 1981, I first met Yasser Arafat, leader of the PLO, at a time when our Government would not speak to him on the grounds that the PLO was a terrorist organisation refusing to recognise Israel, a mistake that we have repeated with Hamas. As I got to know Arafat over the years, I recognised that he was a brilliant liberation leader but a disappointing failure as head of the Palestinian Administration. Indeed, it was the incompetence and even corruption of that Administration which led to the success of Hamas in the election in Gaza. But those of us who pride ourselves in democracy cannot just give them the cold shoulder because we did not like the result, and yet that is what happened. The lesson of the successful peace process in Northern Ireland should surely have taught us that the only route to peace has to be through dialogue with those we may not like, rather than confrontation. That brings me to the policy of the current Israeli Government, backed by the United States of America and, sadly, by our own Government. Israel’s great tragedy was the assassination of Prime Minister Rabin, who had been relentless in his pursuit of an agreement with the Palestinians. The current Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is very different. I met him once at a breakfast meeting in Tel Aviv. I admired his obvious ability and indeed swagger. He could, had he so wished, have gone down in history by heading an Administration to pursue a legitimate settlement with the Palestinians based on the 2002 Arab peace initiative, when every member state of the Arab League had offered to recognise Israel and host her embassies in their countries in return for the establishment of a proper Palestinian state. Instead, he has allied himself to the most reactionary forces in the Knesset and come close to destroying any hopes of such an outcome with the growing illegal Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian land, the construction of the wall, routed in places condemned even by the Israeli courts, and the encouragement of Donald Trump’s opening of the American embassy in Jerusalem. It was that last event that provoked the mass demonstration at the Gaza fence, dealt with not by water cannon but with live ammunition from the Israel Defense Forces. That resulted not only in the deaths that I mentioned but in over 3,600 people being injured. One Israeli soldier was wounded. According ​to the World Health Organization, 245 health personnel were injured and 40 ambulances were hit. Last week, Razan al-Najjar, a 21 year-old female volunteer first responder, was killed while carrying out her work with the Palestinian Medical Relief Society. She was clearly wearing first-responder clothing at the time. In the meantime, the Israeli Defense Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, one of the reactionaries to whom I referred a moment ago, has declared that there are “no innocent people” in Gaza, while an UNRWA report declares that the blockade situation is so bad that Gaza is becoming unliveable in. I do not know whether the Israeli Government know or care about how low they have sunk in world esteem. When I was a student in the 1950s, many of my friends, not just Jewish ones, spent their vacations doing voluntary work in a kibbutz, such was the idealism surrounding the birth of the Israeli state, but that is no longer the case. The reason I joined the Liberal Democrat Friends of Israel group was that I got fed up with being blamed, as Liberal leader, for the then Government’s Balfour Declaration encouraging the establishment of that state, people forgetting that the famous letter included the words, “it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine”. The conduct of its present Government is a clear betrayal of the basis on which the Lloyd George Government welcomed a state of Israel. I spent some years active in the Anti-Apartheid Movement. Only much later did I realise one noted fact about those who had led the white population’s opposition to apartheid—my dear friend Helen Suzman, Zach de Beer, Harry Oppenheimer, Hilda Bernstein, Ronnie Kasrils, Helen Joseph, Joe Slovo and so many others were predominantly Jewish—which was that they knew where doctrines of racial superiority ultimately and tragically led. I rather hope that the recent slaughter in Gaza will awaken the international conscience to resolute action in the same way that the Sharpeville massacre led to the ultimately successful campaign by anti-apartheid forces worldwide. The Israeli Government hate that comparison, pointing to the Palestinians who hold Israeli citizenship or sit in the Knesset, but on visits to that beautiful and successful country one cannot help noticing not just the wall but the roads in the West Bank which are usable only by Israelis, just as facilities in the old South Africa were reserved for whites only. Recently some of us met a couple of Israeli professors in one of our committee rooms. They stressed to us the urgency of staying with UN Security Council Resolution 2334, passed as recently as December 2016, which roundly condemns all the illegal activities of the current Administration. It is worth reminding the House of just three of its 13 clauses, beginning with this one: “Condemning all measures aimed at altering the demographic composition, character and status of the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, including, inter alia, the construction and expansion of settlements, transfer of ​Israeli settlers, confiscation of land, demolition of homes and displacement of Palestinian civilians, in violation of international humanitarian law”. A second clause reads: “Underlines that it will not recognize any changes to the 4 June 1967 lines, including with regard to Jerusalem, other than those agreed by the parties through negotiations”. A third reads: “Stresses that the cessation of all Israeli settlement activities is essential for salvaging the two-State solution, and calls for affirmative steps to be taken immediately to reverse the negative trends on the grounds that they are imperilling the two-State solution”. Those are not my words: they are taken from the UN Security Council. My mind went back to 1967 when, as a young MP, I was present when our then UK representative at the United Nations, Lord Caradon, led the drafting of Resolution 242 which was supposed to be the building block for peace after the Arab/Israeli war. My complaint is that the international community, including successive British Governments, have paid only lip service to that and allowed Israel to defy the United Nations and trample on the rights of the Palestinians. But there are signs of hope. The noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, knows how high he is held in the opinion of the House and we cannot expect him as the Minister of State to change United Kingdom policy, but when the Statement on Gaza was made in the other place, two senior and respected Conservative ex-Ministers gave strong voice objecting to our current stance. Sir Nicholas Soames hoped that our Foreign Office would “indulge in a little less limp response to the wholly unacceptable and excessive use of force”, while Sir Hugo Swire said that “one reason it is a festering hellhole and a breeding ground for terrorists is that each and every time there has been an attempt to improve the livelihoods of the Gazans, by doing something about their water … or about their quality of life, Israel has blockaded it”. We are entitled to ask the Minister to convey to the Prime Minister that she needs to be more forceful, honest and frank when she next meets Mr Netanyahu. Yesterday’s Downing Street briefing said she had “been concerned about the loss of Palestinian lives”, which surely falls into the description of a continuing limp response. We cannot allow the Israeli Government to treat Palestinian lives as inferior to their own, which is what they consistently do. That is why our Government should not only support the two-state solution, but register our determination and disapproval of their conduct by accepting the decisions of both Houses of our Parliament and indeed the European Parliament and recognise the state of Palestine without further delay. David Steel, son of a Church of Scotland minister, was elected to the House of Commons as MP for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles in 1965 and, being only 23, was dubbed  the “Baby of the House”. He wasted no time making his mark and introduced, as a Private Member’s Bill, the Abortion Act 1967. Following the Jeremy Thorpe scandal he became Liberal Party leader until the merger with Labour renegades that formed the Liberal Democrats. He was elevated to the House of Lords in 2004 as Baron Steel of Aikwood. As Steel mentions in his speech, he served for 7 years as president of the charity Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP), a remarkable organisation that “works for the health and dignity of Palestinians living under occupation and as refugees”. He lives in Aikwood Tower, a Borders fortified house built in 1535 which he painstakingly restored and modernised in the 1990s. Aikwood Tower or Oakwood Tower (MacGibbon and Ross) Courtesy of Castles of Scotland   http://clubof.info/