That's Fine; Enough Already

A pair of PhD authors demonstrates at every chapter opener and chapter conclusion, and before and after every A-head, that they can write a summary and transition paragraph-- or three or four of them.

Authors: Since you address the content in a logical manner, forget the filler and save 20 or 30 pages off the book.

Geez.

Yet Another Stop-the-Presses Moment

Porn typically follows the standard pornographic script.

Thanks, CMOS

Index Entry of the Day

Martin, Luther, 94

Damn Authors

Sometimes I just don't even know what to say.

I've About Had It with Excuses

1. I have a client that owes me about $2000. Invoice was sent in April with plenty of advance warning. After a month or so, the client asks if I've deposited the check -- which I'd never received. What happened? Here's the story I was told and have experienced. A regional energy company (not in the client's region) got a check made out to Bob Land, cashed it, and stonewalled my client for four months about a refund of the money. I contacted the energy company, which knew nothing about the situation but offered to follow up and to pay me or my client immediately. Once the client started getting calls and emails from the energy company to track down the check, all of a sudden the client says the situation has been resolved. Client is waiting for the check from the energy company. Client receives the check. I receive a check for half the amount invoiced. "It's all I can afford."

2. I am in a war with a national pest control company, which has agreed to refund me $1220 for useless services rendered. I received a check today . . . for $1020 -- which I will not cash, so as not to indicate acceptance of an offer. I am in touch again with corporate customer service.

3. I presently have no health insurance. We have COBRA through my wife's former job, but claims are being denied because the insurer canceled my wife's former employer's policy after a premium was misapplied -- so the employer says. It's taking weeks to remedy the insurer's error. So the employer says.

Some days (most days? all days?), I really do yearn for an escape from capitalism and a whole lot of other stuff.

Today in Literary News

[n.b.: Cribbed from an email to a former reader of this blog. Lo, the world has passed me by. Won't somebody get up and fix the rabbit ears?]

Well, with Dylan winning the Nobel and everything . . .

This band I'm playing with -- very local, very informal -- has a Facebook page I recently discovered. 250 likes, so you know we're not burning down the world.

You know whose name just showed up for liking it? Barbara Kingsolver. Our guitarist/songwriter/lead joker seems to know everyone within about a 50-mile radius. Actually, now that I think of it, it was at her restaurant that I first heard the band last year and told Tere, "I think I could play with them."

So, in case you want to throw in with Barbara Kingsolver,

https://www.facebook.com/SteelTrestle/

When, as an Indexer, Planning Ahead Helps

Thankfully, the press said up front to watch out for overlapping names:

***

John, Gospel of, 18

      chapter 21, 3, 6, 46, 55, 86–89, 100, 102, 129–34

      on Peter, 81–89

John II (the Beautiful; emperor), 268

John II (pope), 188

John II of Constantinople (patriarch), 185

John II of Kiev, 261–62

John III Vatatzes (emperor), 295, 299, 301

John IV (the Faster; patriarch), 190, 191, 194, 264

John IV (pope), 199

John IV Lascaris (emperor), 296n73, 301n102

John V (emperor), 318–21

John VI Cantacuzenos (emperor), 313, 318–20

John VII (the Grammarian; patriarch), 219

John VIII (emperor), 324–25

John VIII (pope), 229–30, 231

John X (pope), 233, 234

John X Kamateros (patriarch), 278–80, 284, 286

John XI (pope), 233, 235

John XI Bekkos (patriarch), 305–9

John XII (pope), 235–36

John XIX (pope), 242–43

John XXI (pope), 307

John XXII (pope), 310

John XXIII (pope), 12, 357n158, 369, 379–80, 383

John of Damascus, 120

John the Deacon, 210–11

John of Montenero, 333–34

John Paul I (pope), 406

John Paul II (pope), 13, 367n214, 369, 392, 406, 409–12

John Tzimisces (emperor), 236

Not Knowing at All

I'm sitting here negotiating the uphill slope of six consecutive indexes -- none of them short, none of them nonscholarly -- and thinking back on one of the many times I've submitted an index on a topic about which I had no clue.

After decades of doing mostly nothing but reading scholarly tomes, I've learned to identify minor concepts about which authors feel a particular warmth. When they see the term in the index, I imagine them getting that tingle up their leg.

So I'd plucked out some obscure term used once in the book and threw it in the index, because I knew the author enjoyed putting that bit of text in the book.

Author's response: "It's good to work with an indexer who understands the material."

Word of the Day

irredentism: a political principle or policy directed toward the incorporation of irredentas within the boundaries of their historically or ethnically related political unit.

Uhhh . . .

irredenta: a territory historically or ethnically related to one political unit but under the political control of another

I'm surprised I've never seen this word. My vocabulary ain't too good, but I'll remember a word if I've seen it, even if not the definition. And I certainly won't remember this one.

From a surprisingly easy-to-read (and -index, so far) monograph on the treatment of religious minorities in Pakistan -- not that I care a lick about the topic. But I am very happy for cutting and pasting subcontinent names. Any spelling errors, courtesy of the author

True Dat

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.: "Objective truth is a pure ideal that if everyone was as clever and educated as you they would agree with you and then the universe would be conquered. But even if we all agreed in everything, I don’t see the guaranty that this universe would agree with us.”