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...the treasures of Aladdin
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Images
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Well, no, but a couple of the more interesting finds from the last few weeks. The first, an old "commemorative" newspaper from Nelson, Circa 1961.
the second I spotted on a walk about the store, odd, I know, I usually don't walk around the shop so once in a blue moon there's a surprise.
This was it. An erotic carving of two naked women embracing, one, by the helmet some sort of Spartan, the other? Well, curious, and it's out of an old cow's shinbone.
Which makes it doubly curious. Currently priced at $20.00 in the silent auction, I might just have to bid...
...because, really, how have I lived this long without one?
The Master and Margarita - Mikhail Bulgakov
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Books
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Reading Vasily Aksyonov's "The Burn" - which places it's comic heroes in a dystopian society (early 70's Russia), - a relentless drunken stream-of-consciousness tirade that pits the narrator - and his American friend "Patrick Thunderjet" - against the State, the World, and recalls me to reread "The Master and Margarita".
I will come back to "The Burn" in another review, I promise.
Now this is a book that I actively proselytize, along with "Confederacy of Dunces", "Lolita", and "The Discovery of New Spain", Herodotus, a few dozen others, that I place joyfully in another's hands to have them read and discuss, only to discover the book again not a day later in a thrift shop or curbside library.
So goes literacy.
In any event, while looking for it online I came across this translation:
Online Translation: https://www.weblitera.com/book/?id=205&lng=1
Which I took a few hours to reread. I'm not certain this is a translation by either Mira Ginsberg or Michael Glenny, but - aside from typos, this was not so bad. And yet again I found myself - after the Ball - both laughing and crying on the same page, the circumstance, characters, the details - forgotten, or perhaps never in the editions I recalled.
Anyways, a joy once again.
The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Books
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n. a wistful omen of the first sign of autumn—a subtle coolness in the shadows, a rustling of dead leaves abandoned on the sidewalk, or a long skein of geese sweeping over your head like the second hand of a clock.
n. a friendship that can lie dormant for years only to pick right back up instantly, as if no time had passed since you last saw each other.
Zuni Fetishes - Frank Hamilton Cushing
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Books
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Another first person anthropology, basically confirming everything I read in Bruhl-Levy. Not a bad read, short, more noteworthy for the author than the book, though.
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