Tag: MTV

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Wright Is Wrong

I started reading John C. Wright’s “Last Guardian of Everness” but got stuck in the middle because of the cursed conventions of the degenerate genre that Wright chose to try his hand out in, and “MTV style” narration that jumps from a character to character (there must be an official name for that, but I don’t know it). 

The degenerate genre is Fantasy, of course, and the conventions are:  magic, characters that are “chosen” (and “last guardians” in general), unicorns and other mythological critters, cities with names that sound like allergy medicine names (Celebradon? give me a break).  Passing by much abused elves and gnomes in favor of lesser know dudes like selkie and Koschey The Deathless is ok, but still short of coming up with original types. 

Wright is much better than an average Fantasy writer, but his storytelling is somewhat sloppier than necessary for me to swallow Fantasy.  Unfortunately, it looks like he is becoming much more boring, sloppy and he is yet to produce something better than “Guest Law” and other of his short stories.  The Phoenix Trilogy was good (even if too long and not polished enough to be a true masterpiece).  He has a beautiful world created in “Guest Law”, and the best part of  the Phoenix Trilogy for me was that it was kind of related to that world. But he squanders all of that to write slightly above mediocre Fantasy.

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What I have seen on a half hour lunch break in NYC

New York Yacht Club building at 37 West 44th Street. I’ve never seen it before. It has these really cool bay windows. Here is what it looks like outside and here it is inside.

It’s located right next to the Harvard Club, where ‘s previous employer liked to give office parties before his company went bust.

Believe it or not, I can’t find a good outside picture. For having such a cool clubhouse they have a pretty crappy website. I guess I’ll have to take some pictures myself.

I don’t have a yacht (I have to ask how much it cost, so according to J. P. Morgan, I can’t afford it) and I have not gone to Harvard. And there is no Brooklyn College club. Or is there? I like the idea of a club. Clubs are cool. Be like a real gentelman. Have some steak. Read a book. Smoke a sigar. Have some scotch. Well, I do those things at home, but it must be much cooler in a club.

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In Times Square, inside MTV studios, some show was shot live. I could see the host and the audience through the window.

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Saw a middle aged cop with a citation bar for Medal For Valor. It’s kind of like Purple Heart.

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Bought some lunch from and interesting street vendor, who apparently used to work as a chef in now closed Russian Tea Room. His name is M.D. Rahman. A few places wrote about him.

Well, the times are tough, but at least he is not Rahman, M.D.